🇨🇦 **Van strikes pedestrians in Toronto, killing 9 and injuring 16**
<http://archive.fo/mE1JR>

A van struck and killed nine pedestrians Monday afternoon in north Toronto and the driver fled the scene, Canadian police said. Sixteen others were injured in the incident. Authorities said the van has been found and the driver was in custody. Police said they did not yet know the cause or any possible motive.

CBS News sources identified the suspect as **Alek Minassian**, 25, and obtained a photo of him from social media Monday evening. U.S. law enforcement sources told CBS News that the incident appears to be a deliberate act. Witnesses said the driver was moving fast and appeared to be acting deliberately.

Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale said that it was too soon to say whether the crash was a case of international terrorism and that the government had not raised its terrorism alert.

The incident occurred as Cabinet ministers from the major industrial countries were gathered in Canada to discuss a range of international issues in the run-up to the G7 meeting near Quebec City in June. The driver was heading south on busy Yonge Street around 1:30 p.m. and the streets were crowded with people enjoying an unseasonably warm day when the van jumped onto the sidewalk.
-----------------

👶 **Penn State Forbids Outing Club from Going Outside Because It’s Too Dangerous**
<https://bit.ly/2vEF4Yv>

In the past, members of the Outing Club would participate in activities such as hiking, canoeing, kayaking, and camping, however, the university’s offices of Student Affairs and Risk Management have since decided that these things are just too treacherous for college students, according to an article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

An official announcement said the decision was due to “an assessment of risk management by the university that determined that the types of activities in which PSOC engages are above the university’s threshold of acceptable risk for recognized student organizations.”

Banning outdoor activities for this club is treating these adult students like children, which may have a lot of harmful effects on their lives in the future. For one thing, this means that future students are going to miss out on what could have been an opportunity to gain an interest in outdoor activities, activities that are good for both the body and the mind.

For another thing, it may mean that these young adults will get used to being viewed as children. It may mean that, when they exit the university, they’ll expect very little to be expected of them. They’ll be used to being expected to be so helpless that they couldn’t possibly survive for a few hours in an area without a cellphone; they won’t feel that they’re expected to be autonomous. It’s obviously important to keep students safe at school, but infantilizing them isn’t going to help them in the long run — it’s just going to keep them from growing up.
-----------------

<:pepesad:281042039104077824> **School House Rock writer and performer dead at 94**
http://archive.is/yKgYZ

Bob Dorough, a musician who wrote songs like "Conjunction Junction" and performed for "Schoolhouse Rock," has died. The artist's songs helped educate children on the long-running ABC cartoon series.
His son, Chris, says the 94-year-old Dorough died of natural causes Monday at his home in Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania.

=================================

🇺🇸 **Federal judge: Trump administration must accept new DACA applications**
<https://archive.fo/pSQTQ>

A D.C. federal judge has delivered the toughest blow yet to Trump administration efforts to end deportation protections for young undocumented immigrants, ordering the government to continue the Obama-era program and — for the first time since announcing it would end — reopen it to new applicants.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Tuesday called the government’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program “virtually unexplained” and therefore “unlawful.” However, he stayed his ruling for 90 days to give the Department of Homeland Security a chance to provide more solid reasoning for ending the program.

Bates is the third judge to rule against Trump administration attempts to rescind DACA, which provides two-year, renewable work permits and deportation protections for about 690,000 “dreamers,” undocumented immigrants brought to this country as children.
-----------------

<:pepesmug:281041251749462016> **Ex-Cop Arrested in Golden State Killer Case: ‘We Found the Needle in the Haystack’**
http://archive.is/4EKNb

The authorities confirmed on Wednesday that they had made an arrest in the unsolved case of a serial killer and rapist who terrorized communities in California in the 1970s and 1980s.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested on a warrant from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and booked early Wednesday on two counts of murder, according to Sacramento County jail records. A person familiar with the matter confirmed that Mr. DeAngelo had been arrested in connection with the case.
=======================================

<:whatthefucknigger:411341483564859392> **Pig brains are kept alive OUTSIDE their bodies for the first time in a radical experiment that could allow humans to become immortal**
http://archive.is/QQ7WW

Pig brains have been kept alive outside their bodies for the first time as part of a controversial new experiment.
The brains of hundreds of pigs survived for up to 36 hours after the animals had been decapitated, researchers revealed.
The radical experiments could pave the way for brain transplants and may one day allow humans to become immortal by hooking up our minds to artificial systems after our natural bodies have perished.
========================================

🇮🇷 **Iran's Khamenei urges Muslim nations to unite against U.S**
<https://archive.fo/m6IaP>

Iran's supreme leader called on Muslim nations to unite against the United States, saying Tehran would never yield to "bullying," state television reported on Thursday.

"The Iranian nation has successfully resisted bullying attempts by America and other arrogant powers and we will continue to resist... All Muslim nations should stand united against America and other enemies," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

Iran's top authority criticized Trump for saying on Tuesday some countries in the Middle East "wouldn't last a week" without U.S. protection.

"Such remarks are humiliation for Muslims ... Unfortunately there is war in our region between Muslim countries. The backward governments of some Muslim countries are fighting with other countries," Khamenei said.
-----------------

🇰🇷 **The absolute fatman just crossed the DMZ**
https://twitter.com/cnni/status/989666306147352577

-----------------

🇺🇸 **Mattis On Russian Mercenaries In Syria: I Ordered Them 'To Be Annihilated'**
<https://archive.fo/3g6j5>

On Thursday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he ordered Russian mercenaries in Syria to be annihilated once he found out that they were not part of the Russian military.

Mattis revealed that the military used a deconfliction line with Russia to make sure that forces with which they were engaged in conflict were not part of the Russian military. Once the military received confirmation from Russia, Mattis ordered U.S. military forces to destroy the Russian mercenaries, The Washington Free Beacon reported.

"The Russian high command in Syria assured us it was not their people, and my direction to the chairman was for the force, then, to be annihilated," Mattis said. "And it was."

Mattis added that at this point he couldn't attribute responsibility for who was behind the Russian mercenaries to the Russian government, noting that there are multiple forces involved in the operations in Syria.

"I cannot target the responsibility to the Russians right now," he said. "It is a crowded battlefield; it’s also got Iranians there and, of course, the regime forces as well."
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Bill Cosby found guilty of drugging and molesting a woman**
<https://archive.li/CVIoM>

US comedian Bill Cosby has been convicted of drugging and molesting a woman. A jury outside Philadelphia convicted the Cosby Show star of three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The guilty verdict came less than a year after another jury was deadlocked on the charges.

Cosby, 80, was charged with assaulting Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. His lawyer called Ms Constand a "con artist" who levelled false accusations against Cosby so she could sue him. Cosby could get up to 10 years in prison on each of the counts.

Dozens of women have come forward in recent years to say he drugged and assaulted them. Five of the other accusers testified against him at the retrial.

The panel of seven men and five women reached a verdict after deliberating for 14 hours over two days, vindicating prosecutors' decision to retry the 80-year-old after his first trial ended with a hung jury less than a year ago.

Ms Constand, 45, a former Temple women's basketball administrator, told jurors that Cosby knocked her out with three blue pills he called "your friends" before attacking her. It was the only criminal case to arise from a barrage of allegations from more than 60 women who said the former TV star drugged and molested them over a span of five decades.
-----------------

🇰🇵 **New era, no more war: Two Koreas agree on complete denuclearization** 🇰🇷
<https://archive.li/nqg10>

A new era of peace is beginning, according to a declaration signed by the leaders of North and South Korea after their first meeting in over a decade. Both nations are aiming to completely denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

*"South and North Korea affirmed their shared objective of achieving a nuclear-free Korean peninsula through complete denuclearization,"* reads the declaration signed by the leaders of the two countries, as cited by Yonhap. *“There will be no more war on the Korean peninsula, and a new age of peace has opened,"* the document adds.

The two sides also agreed to hold multi-party talks, involving the US and China, in their push for a full-scale truce. Pyongyang and Seoul are also to have high-level military talks in May.

In an ambitious statement after the signing ceremony, Kim said he hopes that the two Koreas will reunite. The states separated after the WWII and have remained hostile since the Korean War ended with an armistice, rather than a peace treaty, in 1953.

*“Terminating the current state of the truce and establishing a firm peace regime is a historic task that [the two Koreas] can no longer delay,"* the leaders pointed out.
-----------------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwvFD_A5QeQ

-----------------------

🇺🇸 **‘No collusion’: Redacted US House report on Russia released, officially clears Trump**
<http://archive.fo/XjEtx>

The US House Intelligence Committee has released a redacted declassified version of a report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, which officially clears President Trump of any collusion.

“While the Committee found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government, the investigation did find poor judgment and ill-considered actions by the Trump and Clinton campaigns,” it said.

The 253-page document was produced based on a year-long investigation into the alleged Russian meddling. Representative Mike Conaway said the heavy redactions of the text were made on the insistence of the US intelligence community.

The committee announced key finding of their work in March. They accused Russia of attacking western democracies and using cyberespionage to interfere with the 2016 election, but failed to provide any evidence of a collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Moscow. The lack of a smoking gun disappointed many critics of the US president.
-----------------

http://archive.fo/N4OMZ

Do you know what an incel is? I do. Think that man who stares at you on the escalator with cold, empty eyes, his hand on his crotch through his hoodie, eyes on your breasts like you are meat to be ripped apart. He hates you, he hates your freedom, your sexuality, your disgust for him, the fact you are loved, wanted…normal. He wants you, he wants to own you, destroy you, inhabit your fears and your worst nightmares. You aren’t a person to him, you are prey. He’s the guy who is thinking about pulling up your skirt and raping you. But he won’t. Because, like any other silent threat, he lurks, doing nothing that would get him caught.
And where can you not get caught?

The Internet
ˈɪntənɛt/
noun

a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.
Where are you faceless, where are you nameless, where can you make your hate and venom run hot and fast across every beautiful woman’s page, every message getting her attention when she’d never be interested in you in any other situation. To make her think about sex in your self-hating presence.It’s desperate, it’s angry, it’s aggressive. There’s a violence to it, a violent dehumanisation of their victims. Young, pretty women. A serial killer’s dream. Only these victims aren’t preyed on to kill (yet), only for that rich satisfying fear and power.
So what do these men send me? Well, sometimes they imagine what my vagina looks like, to dehumanise me as ‘wasted, used promiscuous slut’. They use this term ‘roastie’; the idea that a woman’s genitals look like torn meat once she is not a virgin. That’s what they call women. Torn meat.

Then other times, it’s more toxic, more frightening. They dehumanise me down to being so deeply inherrently deviant and ashamed that I cannot exist with any social power when I am not a virgin.

The deep, intense misreading of my disgust as simply a product of my inferiority, my status as genitalia to be raped and fucked, a set of ‘holes’ as opposed to a person, a human being, someone who exists beyond their wants and needs and deep, terrorist hatred.
You can call them trolls. I call them terrorists.

They aim to frighten me, to terrorise me into silence, into making me feel intimidated and scared for my very humanity, my very existence. They aim to make a thing, something to be fucked. They aim to remove anything from me that makes me a human in their discussion. To normalise their hatred as a joke, as something funny. This is hate speech. They aren’t disagreeing with me over ‘feminist views’ or making clever satire, they are terrorising and humiliating me on account of my biology. This is a hate crime.
A hate crime against women is as serious as a hate crime against any race, orientation or religious/ethnic group.
So I’ll ask you this, lawmakers, legislators, politicians:
What are you going to do to protect us?





Feminism

--------------------------------

🇺🇸 **University of Texas to Treat Masculinity as a 'Mental Health' Issue**
<http://archive.fo/vsqlI>

The program is predicated on a critique of so-called “restrictive masculinity.” Men, the program argues, suffer when they are told to “act like a man” or when they are encouraged to fulfill traditional gender roles, such as being “successful” or “the breadwinner.”

Though you might enjoy “taking care of people” or being “active,” MasculinUT warns that many of these attributes are actually dangerous, claiming that “traditional ideas of masculinity place men into rigid (or restrictive) boxes [which]... prevent them from developing their emotional maturity.”

“If you are a male student at UT reading this right now, we hope that learning about this helps you not to feel guilty about having participated in these definitions of masculinity, and instead feel empowered to break the cycle!” the program offers.

The program is currently without leadership, but not for long. The school is in the process of hiring a “healthy masculinities coordinator” to run the program, and a school official tells PJ Media that some hopeful hirees are interviewing for the position later this week.

While many schools now have similar programs, this appears to be the first run directly out of a Counseling and Mental Health Center. Though the school seems to justify this by claiming that masculinity can cause men to lash out at other people and themselves, the school did not respond to a request for comment to clarify.

There is no evidence that masculinity itself contributes to violence. Universities that run similar programs, such as UNC-Chapel Hill and Northwestern, have admitted that their programming isn’t supported by any evidence.
-----------------

🇨🇦 Joke about 'Indian with STDs' at Broncos tribute concert stings Indigenous attendees
http://archive.fo/mpzFa

"Indian boy, shake it for me, boy, shake it for me, boy, shake it for meeeeee," sang Williams. "Shake it from the river, shake it from the trees, shake it for the Indian with STDs."
The last line provoked a loud reaction from the audience.
"What?" Ree then responded in apparent mock outrage.

"If we shook up some people and got them talking about issues affecting local minorities, then that is the definition of raising awareness. We certainly do not want one joke or comment to colour this event and all of the healing and incredible giving spirit it evoked."

Country Thunder Music Festivals, which organized the concert, said it had not received complaints about the joke.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Illinois - Unarmed Social Workers To Replace Security Guards At Schools**
<http://archive.is/ZLwXx>

Lawmakers in Illinois voted to pass a plan to replace armed security officers with unarmed social workers. The Illinois House voted to pass the new legislation with some changes that put schools in jeopardy. The new legislation seeks to provide additional funding to schools that replace armed security officers with unarmed social workers and behavior therapists to keep order in the hallways.

The irresponsible changes dangle funding as an incentive to put children's lives at risk. Doing so invites more gun violence since kids will know there are no guns to defend the students. When another school shooting takes place at one of these schools that prioritized funding over student and faculty safety Democrats will be calling for more gun control.

The plan was proposed by Democrat Rep. Emanuel "Chris" Welch after hearing from advocates who argue that investing in mental health resources is the best way of treating the epidemic of violent attacks. This approach certainly carries some merit but not at the expense of the safety of student's lives. Welch's plan was backed by 16 other House Democrats and would allow schools to apply for an optional grant if they promise to reallocate funding for school law enforcement to mental health services.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Students walk out of classrooms nationwide to show support for Second Amendment **
http://archive.is/EDxja

Hundreds of students on Wednesday walked out their classrooms in support of the Second Amendment as a direct response to a recent walkout organized by the survivors of a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., which inspired thousands to stand together in protest of gun violence.

More than 300 schools in 40 different states registered for "Stand for the Second" — a 16-minute student walkout organized by New Mexico 18-year-old Will Riley.

Students from California High School in San Ramon and those from Grand Ledge High School in Michigan walked out of class in droves around 10 a.m. while other protesters at schools like Waukee High School only had a handful of like-minded teens join in the demonstration.
------------------

🇺🇸 **US ‘freezes funding’ for White Helmets as group’s Douma chem attack claim falls apart **
<http://archive.fo/T5nz7>

As the reputation of the controversial militant-linked White Helmets continues to crumble, even the US State Department seems to be having second thoughts about supporting the group, reportedly placing a freeze on its funding.

The State Department’s support for the White Helmets is “under active review,”according to a CBS News report. The group reportedly hasn’t received funding in weeks, but neither has it received formal confirmation that Washington’s financial assistance has come to a complete halt. This would mean a significant blow for the group, as the money accounts for about one-third of the White Helmets’ overall funding.

An internal State Department document cited by CBS said that its Near East Bureau needed confirmation from President Donald Trump’s administration by April 15 in order to approve funding for the White Helmets. If that wasn't received, the department would initiate “shut-down procedures on a rolling basis.”

The report comes amid major controversy surrounding the White Helmets, after residents of Douma, Syria, testified in The Hague at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The hearing centered on the alleged chemical attack that was used as a justification for the April 14 strikes by the US, Britain, and France.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **NSA triples collection of U.S. phone records: official report**
<http://archive.fo/RP2cA>

The U.S. National Security Agency collected 534 million records of phone calls and text messages of Americans last year, more than triple gathered in 2016, a U.S. intelligence agency report released on Friday said. The sharp increase from 151 million occurred during the second full year of a new surveillance system established at the spy agency after U.S. lawmakers passed a law in 2015 that sought to limit its ability to collect such records in bulk.


The spike in collection of call records coincided with an increase reported on Friday across other surveillance methods, raising questions from some privacy advocates who are concerned about potential government overreach and intrusion into the lives of U.S. citizens. The 2017 call records tally remained far less than an estimated billions of records collected per day under the NSA’s old bulk surveillance system, which was exposed by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden in 2013.

The records collected by the NSA include the numbers and time of a call or text message, but not their content. Overall increases in surveillance hauls were both mystifying and alarming coming years after Snowden’s leaks, privacy advocates said.

The government “has not altered the manner in which it uses its authority to obtain call detail records,” Timothy Barrett, a spokesman at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which released the annual report, said in a statement. “We expect this number to fluctuate from year to year,” he said.
-----------------

🇺🇸 ❗ **New Bipartisan Bill Could Give Any President the Power to Imprison U.S. Citizens in Military Detention Forever**
<https://archive.fo/pPPEj>

A bipartisan group of six lawmakers, led by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., is proposing a new bill that would greatly expand who the president can place in indefinite military detention, *all in the name of restricting presidential power*. If the Corker-Kaine bill becomes law as currently written, any president, including Donald Trump, could plausibly claim extraordinarily broad power to order the military to imprison any U.S. citizen, captured in America or not, and hold them without charges essentially forever.

Kaine himself has explained that they authored the bill because “for too long, Congress has given presidents a blank check. We’ve let the 9/11 and Iraq War authorizations get stretched. … Our proposal finally repeals those authorizations and makes Congress do its job by weighing in on where, when, and with who we are at war.”

But thanks to a combination of sloppy drafting and clear reluctance to take the executive branch head-on, Corker and Kaine’s proposed AUMF could do the opposite, handing genuinely tyrannical powers over to the president. Christopher Anders of the ACLU characterizes the bill as “a legislative dumpster fire.” This matters because the Corker-Kaine AUMF allows the president to decide that he has the power to use force against any “organization, person, or force” essentially at will, by designating them as associated with previously named enemy groups.

As the ACLU’s Anders points out, there’s nothing in the Corker-Kaine AUMF that prevents a president from naming an American organization or individual to the list. And where the executive branch has the power to use force, three presidents have now either proclaimed, or at least refused to disavow, that they also have the power to use the military to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without charges.

So that’s the extraordinary peril that Americans would face under the Corker-Kaine AUMF. It was bad enough with the 2001 AUMF, when U.S. citizens could be imprisoned forever if they had some connection to 9/11. The NDAA made it worse by expanding this to any connection to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and “associated forces.” But the Corker-Kaine AUMF would give the president the power to seize anyone on earth, including Americans, just by sending a piece of paper to Congress asserting that a person or organization is associated with an already-named terrorist group. And like the 2001 AUMF and the NDAA before it, the Corker-Kaine AUMF does not prohibit the executive branch from using the military to apprehend and detain Americans in the U.S. itself.

Worst of all, the Corker-Kaine AUMF, like the one passed in 2001, has no sunset clause. If passed, repealing it would likely require supermajorities in both houses of Congress, so it could outlive all of us. The executive branch would potentially be able to hold prisoners without charge forever.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **How Buzzfeed’s ‘Data-Monster’ Leveraged User Data To Fuel Super PACs, Target Voters**
<https://archive.fo/JB3DP>

BuzzFeed partnered closely with multiple Democratic and anti-Trump super PACs in 2016 to target its own users with dozens of political advertisements that were not in accordance with its own policies, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

Former BuzzFeed Vice President Rena (((Shapiro))), who led the website’s native political advertising team during the 2016 election, described candidly in a pair of unearthed interviews how she partnered closely with political groups to create ads that harnessed the data BuzzFeed collects on its audience of over 650 million people to solve their “ultimate need, which is to get elected, to get their message out there, or to canvas people together to create impact around a cause.”

“This is a data monster that we’re working with here at BuzzFeed, and it’s awesome to harness that power to everyone’s advantage in the political space,” (((Shapiro))) said in December 2016 on “Digital Politics with Karen Jagoda.” Shortly after being hired to lead BuzzFeed’s politics and advocacy division, (((Shapiro))) stated publicly that her job at the viral news and entertainment site was to help political candidates win.

But as it turns out, only some in the political space were given the opportunity to partner with BuzzFeed’s viral marketing team to create custom political ads that, according to (((Shapiro))), are “based off of mounds and piles and troves of data and information that we have as far as how people are interacting and engaging with content.”

BuzzFeed raised eyebrows in June 2016 when it announced it had canceled a $1.3 million advertising agreement with the Republican National Committee due to disagreements with then-candidate Donald Trump’s “offensive statements.” Doing business with any group that supports Trump, BuzzFeed founder (((Jonah Peretti))) said after canceling the RNC ad buy, would be “hazardous to our health.”

“We don’t run cigarette ads because they are hazardous to our health, and we won’t accept Trump ads for the exact same reason,” Peretti said. And (((Shapiro))) made clear that BuzzFeed’s work with the super PACs meant the website had skin in the game trying to defeat Trump at the ballot box.

As the business side of BuzzFeed worked with anti-Trump super PACs in a bid to help elect Democrats, BuzzFeed News covered Trump in an aggressive manner. In late 2015, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief (((Ben Smith))) gave the go-ahead to his political reporters to call Trump a racist in news reports. “It is, for instance, entirely fair to call him a mendacious racist, as the politics team and others have reported clearly and aggressively: he’s out there saying things that are false, and running an overtly anti-Muslim campaign,” Smith told BuzzFeed News reporters.

“BuzzFeed News’s reporting is rooted in facts, not opinion; these are facts,” Smith said.
-----------------

🇷🇺 **Vladimir Putin sworn in for a fourth term as Russian president**
<https://archive.fo/iwkKG>

Vladimir Putin took the oath of office for his fourth term as Russian president on Monday, promising to pursue an economic agenda that would boost living standards across the country. In a ceremony in an ornate Kremlin hall in Moscow, Putin said improving Russia’s economy following a recession partly linked to international sanctions would be a primary goal of his next six-year term.

“Now, we must use all existing possibilities, first of all for resolving internal urgent tasks of development, for economic and technological breakthroughs, for raising competitiveness in those spheres that determine the future,” he told thousands of guests standing in the elaborate Andreevsky Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace and two adjacent halls. “A new quality of life, well-being, security and people’s health – that’s what’s primary today,” he said.

Although Putin has restored Russia’s prominence on the world stage through military actions, he has been criticized for inadequate efforts to diversify Russia’s economy away from its dependence on oil and gas exports and to develop the country’s manufacturing sector. “Russia should be modern and dynamic, it should be ready to accept the call of the times,” he said.
-----------------

🇦🇺 **Doctors raise alarm about ancient virus: 'Prevalence is off the charts' in Australia**
<https://archive.fo/gbs3h>

An ancient virus infecting residents across Australia's Northern Territory is leaving death and despair in its path, and doctors are now calling for greater efforts to stop the spread of infections. The rates of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1, or HTLV-1, infection are exceeding 40% among adults in remote regions of central Australia, with indigenous communities being the hardest hit, especially in the town of Alice Springs.

"The prevalence is off the charts" in Australia, said Dr. Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, whose laboratory was the first to detect HTLV-1 in 1979 and publish the finding in 1980. Yet "nobody that I know of in the world has done anything about trying to treat this disease before," said Gallo, who is also co-founder and scientific director of the Global Virus Network and chairs the network's HTLV-1 Task Force. "There's little to almost no vaccine efforts, outside of some Japanese research," he said. "So prevention by vaccine is wide open for research."

HTLV-1 -- an ancient virus whose DNA can be found in 1,500-year-old Andean mummies -- can spread from mother to child, particularly through breastfeeding; between sexual partners, through unprotected sex; and by blood contact, such as through transfusions. Because it can be transmitted through sex, it's considered a sexually transmitted infection, or STI. The virus is associated with myriad serious health problems, such as diseases of the nervous system and a lung-damaging condition called bronchiectasis, and it weakens the immune system. HTLV-1 is sometimes called the cousin of the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV.
-----------------

🇺🇸 **Spotify Removes R. Kelly Music From Its Playlists As Part of New Hate Content & Hateful Conduct Policy**
<https://archive.fo/69gmE>

Beginning today (May 10), Spotify users will no longer be able to find R. Kelly's music on any of the streaming service's editorial or algorithmic playlists. Under the terms of a new public hate content and hateful conduct policy Spotify is putting into effect, the company will no longer promote the R&B singer's music in any way, removing his songs from flagship playlists like RapCaviar, Discover Weekly or New Music Friday, for example, as well as its other genre- or mood-based playlists.

"We are removing R. Kelly’s music from all Spotify owned and operated playlists and algorithmic recommendations such as Discover Weekly," Spotify told Billboard in a statement. "His music will still be available on the service, but Spotify will not actively promote it. We don’t censor content because of an artist’s or creator’s behavior, but we want our editorial decisions -- what we choose to program -- to reflect our values. When an artist or creator does something that is especially harmful or hateful, it may affect the ways we work with or support that artist or creator."

Kelly is the only artist that Spotify specifically acknowledged would fall under this new public policy, though others may also be affected. Later on Thursday, Billboard was able to confirm that controversial rapper XXXTentacion had also been removed from playlists, namely the highly influential RapCaviar.
-----------------

🇸🇾 **28 Israeli jets fired about 60 rockets in overnight strikes on Syria – Russian MoD **
<https://archive.fo/g62PC>

Some 28 Israeli aircraft fired around 60 air-to-surface rockets in a massive overnight strike in Syria, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. Syrian air-defense systems managed to intercept more than half of the missiles. A total of 70 projectiles, including 60 air-to-surface rockets and more than 10 surface-to-surface missiles, hit Iranian military targets and Syrian air-defense systems near Damascus and in the south of the country on Thursday morning, the Russian military said in a statement.

“28 Israeli F-15 and F-16 planes were involved in the attack,” the ministry said. “Syrian air-defense systems shot down more than half of the rockets as they repelled the Israeli attack.” Israeli forces bombed the Syrian territory for two hours between 1:45am and 3:45am local time on Thursday. The attack was carried out under the pretext of allegations that Iranian forces had earlier hit Israeli targets in the Golan Heights. The damage inflicted on Iranian military and Syrian civilian infrastructure by the airstrikes is being evaluated.

Earlier, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said that all its aircraft had safely returned after one of its most extensive attacks in years. Tel-Aviv claims that it was carried out in retaliation to 20 rockets launched at Israeli targets in the Golan Heights by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s Quds Force.

“Four of them were intercepted by the Iron Dome and the rest landed on Syrian territory,” the IDF said, according to Ynet, adding that the incident had resulted in no damage or casualties. The allegations were denied by a member of the Iranian parliament's commission, Abolfazl Hassan Beigi, who accused Israel of “lying,” as Iran has “no military presence” or bases in Syria, Sputnik reports.
-----------------

🇻🇦 **The devil is a big loser, but he still manages to trick people, pope says**
<https://archive.fo/Zg627>

The devil is “a loser,” but he still tricks people into giving him power, Pope Francis said. The devil “seduces us; he knows how to appeal to our vanity and curiosity and we buy it all,” the pope said May 8 during his homily at Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae where he lives.

The day’s Gospel passage from St. John ends with Jesus telling His disciples “the ruler of this world has been condemned.” The phrase refers to the devil, Pope Francis said. With the resurrection of Jesus, the devil has been defeated, but he still pretends to have power and still tries to influence people.

“He has this ability to seduce,” the pope said. “That makes it hard to understand that he is a loser because he presents himself with great power, promises you many things, brings you gifts — beautiful, all wrapped up,” he said. “He knows how to seduce us with the package without letting us see what’s inside. He knows how to present his proposals to appeal to our vanity, our curiosity.”

Unfortunately, he said, too often “we like being seduced.” “We must be aware of the devil,” he said, and Jesus taught His disciples that the only way to do that was to watch, pray and fast.

And, Pope Francis said, it’s especially important that Christians don’t think they can approach the devil, see what he’s like and then just walk away unscathed. As one of the fathers of the Church wrote, the devil is like an angry, rabid dog that is chained up, he said.

People know when they are playing with fire, the pope said. They know when they are approaching that angry dog. “Please, don’t,” he said, before imagining a dialogue in which someone cries about having been bitten, but it turns out the dog was chained up and he had approached it, basically provoking the injury.
-----------------