🇺🇸 **At Vice, Cutting-Edge Media and Allegations of Old-School Sexual Harassment**

<http://archive.is/k7Z27>


One woman said she was riding a Ferris wheel at Coney Island after a company event when a co-worker suddenly took her hand and put it on his crotch. Another said she felt pressured into a sexual relationship with an executive and was fired after she rejected him.

A third said that a co-worker grabbed her face and tried to kiss her, and she used her umbrella to fend him off.

These women did not work among older men at a hidebound company. They worked at Vice, an insurgent force in news and entertainment known for edgy content that aims for millennial audiences on HBO and its own TV network.

10-10
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🇺🇸 **Storm clouds gathering over Korean peninsula, Mattis tells US troops**

<http://archive.is/LV9sL>


WASHINGTON - Storm clouds are gathering over the Korean Peninsula, Defence Secretary James Mattis has told soldiers and airmen of the elite 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

"My fine young soldiers, the only way our diplomats can speak with authority and be believed is if you're ready to go," Mr Mattis told several dozen soldiers and airmen during a two-day tour of US bases, the military journal Stars And Stripes reported on Friday (Dec 22).

During his visit to another US base, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, he told the troops "you all have to be ready to go" if diplomacy fails.

10-10
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **White House denies Trump made controversial comments on Haiti and AIDS**
<http://archive.is/DNg8x>

The White House says two controversial quotes about immigrants attributed to President Trump were never uttered by the nation's chief executive.

In a report released by the New York Times today, two unnamed officials said Trump suggested during a June meeting that all immigrants from Haiti have AIDS.

The Times also quoted Trump as saying that immigrants from Nigeria would never "go back to their huts."

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called report "sad," and said it is filled with lies from anonymous sources.

The New York Times said one of the sources was at the meeting, while the other was briefed about the conversation.
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🇻🇦 **Pope pleads for migrants at Christmas mass**
<http://archive.is/baSf3>

Pope Francis in his Christmas eve mass Sunday urged the world's 1.3 billion Catholics not to ignore the plight of migrants who are "driven from their land" because of leaders willing to shed "innocent blood".

"So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary," the Argentine pontiff, himself the grandson of Italian migrants, told worshippers in Saint Peter's Basilica

"We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away but, driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones."

Many engulfed in the ongoing migration crisis were forced to flee from leaders "who, to impose their power and increase their wealth, see no problem in shedding innocent blood", said the 81-year-old, who will give his traditional "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas address on Monday.
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<:perfect:348458410783539211> **Guatemala says it is moving embassy in Israel to Jerusalem**
<http://archive.is/0meFt>

Guatemala’s president announced on Christmas Eve that the Central American country will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, becoming the first nation to follow the lead of U.S. President Donald Trump in ordering the change.

Guatemala was one of nine nations that voted with the United States and Israel on Thursday when the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a non-binding resolution denouncing Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Trump didn’t set any timetable for moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and neither did Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales.

In a post on his official Facebook account Sunday, Morales said that after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he decided to instruct Guatemala’s foreign ministry to move the embassy.

Guatemala and Israel have long had close ties, especially in security matters and Israeli arms sales to Guatemala.

No other country has their embassy for Israel in Jerusalem, though the Czech Republic has said it is considering such a move.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Nikki Haley negotiates $285M cut in ‘bloated’ UN budget**
<http://archive.is/c3d7w>

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced Sunday that the United States negotiated a $285 million cut in the United Nations’ “bloated” budget for next year.

**“The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,”** Haley said in a statement from the US Mission. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked.”

Haley added that the “historic reduction” in spending is a step in the right direction and that the US would make many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable UN.

“In addition to these significant cost savings, we reduced the UN’s bloated management and support functions, bolstered support for key US priorities throughout the world and instilled more discipline and accountability throughout the UN system,” the statement said.

The new deal for the 2018-2019 fiscal year is $285 million less than the world body’s staggering $5.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2016-2017.

The ambassador went on to say that she hopes to help make even more reductions in the UN’s budget in the years to come.
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🇺🇸 **Amazon, Microsoft staff busted buying sex workers trapped in trafficking industry**
<https://archive.is/JN0EJ>

Scooped-up electronic communications between pimps and tech-sector employees at reputable Seattle-based companies such as Microsoft and Amazon is another hit for the tech industry, already reeling from sexism charges.

A cache of tech-sector emails sent to brothels and pimps, obtained by Newsweek via a public records request to the King County Prosecutor’s Office, reveal that “67 emails were sent from Microsoft employee email accounts, 63 from Amazon accounts and dozens more from companies like Boeing, T-Mobile, Oracle and local Seattle tech firms.”

Authorities have been collecting email messages from sex-traffickers’ computers over the last few years. In 2015, a sting operation against prostitution rings ensnared high-level Amazon and Microsoft directors. Those caught up in the sting operation to buy trafficked Asian women were discovered because pimps frequently request that clients prove they are not police by forwarding employee identification.
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🇫🇷 **French magazine causes uproar after putting Israel next to N. Korea as ‘not a real country’**
<https://archive.is/pB8Nr>

French magazine Youpi had to withdraw its January issue for making the “mistake” of putting Israel next to North Korea as examples of not “real countries.” The magazine, which is aimed at children aged from five to eight, includes trivia card games. On one of the cards, Israel is put on a par with North Korea, both of which are apparently not “real countries.”

“197: We call these 197 countries states, like France, Germany or Algeria. There are others, too, but not all the world’s countries agree that all of them are real countries (for example the State of Israel or North Korea),” reads the card, which has sparked a fierce backlash.

“Shocked by this lie taught to children. Such rhetoric can only encourage anti-Zionism, inseparable from anti-Semitism,” Aliza Bin Noun, the ambassador of Israel to France, said on Twitter, while tagging French President Emmanuel Macron. Francis Kalifat, the president of CRIF (the Federation of Jewish Communities and Organizations of France) condemned the cards, calling them a “factual lie and a flagrant one at that.”

Following the backlash, the magazine was removed from kiosk sales in France and Belgium.
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🇸🇾 **Putin: Syria has been liberated - time for refugees to return**
<https://archive.is/NI5hF>

Russian President Vladimir Putin says that Syria has been liberated from terrorists and that Syrian refugees now should return to help restore the country.

“The situation in this country [Syria] is gradually changing. The Syrian armed forces, supported by the Russian military, have liberated from terrorists almost the whole territory of the country, including historic Christian regions,” Putin said on Monday at a meeting with the heads of Orthodox Christian congregations, RT reports.

Russia’s president reiterated the importance of a working group created by the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. The workgroup’s goal is to list the destroyed temples in Syria in preparation for their reconstruction. The return of the Christian population, as well as of the refugees of other faiths, might play the crucial role in restoration of peaceful life in the war-torn country, Putin stressed.

But Syrian migrants who have received both money and housing in the West, are not likely just going to pack up and leave the honeypot, and so far no country has suggested forced returns either. It's like our leaders have a hard time getting these news.
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🇺🇸 **Embattled FBI admits it can’t verify dossier claims of Russia, Trump campaign collusion**
<https://archive.is/TnYuN>

The FBI is declining to repudiate the Russia dossier on which it partially relied to start an investigation into the Trump campaign, but it concedes the document’s major core charges of election collusion remain unsubstantiated.

Sources familiar with House and Senate investigations say this is the FBI’s dossier talking point 17 months after agents were first briefed in July 2016 as Donald Trump battled Hillary Clinton for the White House. The most recent FBI witness was Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who spent nearly eight hours last week in a closed session before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“This is really problematic for the FBI and DOJ right now,” said the source familiar with the congressional investigations. “They realize stonewalling is not going to work anymore, but they haven’t decided on a new strategy to manage the deluge of information spilling out about top officials’ conflicts of interest, their use of the Steele dossier and their own connections to Fusion GPS.”
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🇺🇸 **Minnesota police remove ‘disgusting’ memorial to woman shot by Somali cop**
<https://archive.is/lhkHp>

Police in Minneapolis have removed a candlelit memorial for Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian woman who was fatally shot by a Minneapolis officer, after discovering the shrine was placed by ethno-nationalists. On Friday, members of Identity Evropa took credit for placing 12 candles, several roses, and a sign that read “United We Stand” outside the Minneapolis Police Department's 5th Fifth Precinct to honor Damond.

The group said they erected the shrine at the precinct because it was where Minneapolis Police Officer Mohamed Noor, who allegedly shot Damond, was assigned. "One family will be having an incomplete Christmas this year," the group posted on Twitter.

Identity Evropa, which promotes “European identity among people of European heritage,” is listed as a white nationalist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is labeled as a white supremacist group by the Anti-Defamation League.
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🇮🇱 **Israel will name a new train station near Jerusalem's Western Wall after TRUMP for his 'historic and brave decision' to recognize it as the capital**
<https://archive.is/9RAvY>

Israel's transportation minister is pushing ahead with a plan to extend Jerusalem's soon-to-open high speed rail line to the Western Wall, where he wants to name a future station after President Donald Trump.

'The Western Wall is the holiest place for the Jewish people, and I decided to name the train station that leads to it after president Trump – following his historic and brave decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel,' Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz told the Jerusalem Post.

Despite the likely opposition to the project, Ovadia said he expects the plans to be approved in the coming year, barring major complications. The Tel Aviv-Jerusalem high-speed line is expected to open next spring. 'There's no reason why this train won't be built,' he said. 'We already know how to deal with no less difficult opposition.'

Katz has previously proposed other ambitious infrastructure projects, including an artificial island off the coast of the Gaza Strip that would serve as an air and seaport for the Palestinian territory, and a railway connecting Israel with Saudi Arabia.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **TWO HANDS????**

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🇺🇸 **Senate probe expanded to anyone ‘of Russian descent or nationality’ – email**
<https://archive.is/xiV23>

The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence probe into allegations of collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia includes anyone believed to be “of Russian descent or nationality,” according to a new report.

April Doss, the senior counsel to the Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) defined the scope of the investigation as anyone a subject “knows or has reason to believe [is] of Russian nationality or descent,” according to The Young Turks (TYT).

The definition of the investigation’s scope comes in response to a request for clarification by conservative blogger Charles C. Johnson. In July, Johnson received a letter from Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) and Warner requesting a “closed interview” and that he hand over materials “relevant” to the investigation including “all documents, emails, text messages, direct messages, calendar appointments, memoranda, notes or other documents related to any communications with Russian persons.”
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🇨🇳 **Social network profile to become official ID in China**
<https://archive.is/U8YpF>

China’s largest social media network, WeChat, is set to become an official electronic personal identification system in the country, with a WeChat ID pilot program launched in Guangzhou’s Nansha District.

On Monday, the authorities in the southern province of Guangzhou announced that its citizens will soon be able to identify themselves through WeChat (‘Weixin’ in China), Xinhua reported. The virtual ID card will be as valid as a paper identification issued by the Chinese state, it added.

It will provide access to online and offline government services, hotel registration, delivery services, ticketing and other services that require authentication. The move is aimed at preventing online identity theft, thanks to facial recognition technology used to verify applicants before providing them with online IDs.

Over 30,000 people have applied for WeChat ID cards in the 24 hours following the launch of the trial. According to Xinhua, the program will swiftly cover the whole of Guangzhou, before being expanded to other regions of the country starting from January 2018.
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🇺🇸 **Trump Sends Fewer Mexicans Home Despite Deportation Talk**
<https://archive.is/T4zFH>

President Donald Trump sent 26 percent fewer Mexicans back home this year through November than Barack Obama did in the same period in 2016, despite vows to crack down on illegal immigration, Mexican government data show.

About 152,000 Mexican nationals were repatriated from the U.S. between January and November, according to data from Mexico’s Interior Ministry that were first reported by Milenio newspaper. That compares with just under 205,000 in the first 11 months of 2016.

An ICE report of data through early October showed that removals of Mexican nationals were down, but administrative arrests of all immigrants were up 30 percent in fiscal year 2017. It concludes that the decrease in removal numbers overall compared to fiscal year 2016 was primarily due to about 17 percent fewer migrants apprehended at the border.
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🇺🇸 **Professors claim farmers’ markets cultivate racism: ‘Habits of white people are normalized’**
<https://archive.is/Tssa6>

Two professors from San Diego State University claim in a new book that farmers’ markets in urban areas are weed-like “white spaces” responsible for oppression. Pascale Joassart-Marcelli and Fernando J Bosco are part of an anthology released this month titled “Just Green Enough.” The work, published by Routledge, claims there is a correlation between the “whiteness of farmers’ markets” and gentrification.

“Farmers’ markets are often white spaces where the food consumption habits of white people are normalized,” the SDSU professors write, the education watchdog Campus Reform reported Wednesday. The geology professors claim that 44 percent of San Diego’s farmers’ markets cater to “households from higher socio-economic backgrounds,” which raises property values and “[displaces] low-income residents and people of color.”

“The most insidious part of this gentrification process is that alternative food initiatives work against the community activists and residents who first mobilized to fight environmental injustices and provide these amenities but have significantly less political and economic clout than developers and real estate professionals,” the academics write.
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<:shiiiiit:348458410217308170> **At least 12 dead in New York City apartment fire**
<http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/12/28/at-least-12-dead-in-new-york-city-apartment-fire.html> (Updating)

At least 12 people were killed and others injured after a massive fire broke out in a New York City apartment building, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Thursday night.

"Tonight here in the Bronx, families have been torn apart," de Blasio told reporters. The mayor called the event the "worst fire tragedy we have seen in this city."

More than 160 firefighters were on the scene of the four-alarm fire, located at a five-story walk-up apartment house in the Bronx, just a block from the borough's famed zoo.

Officials said that one baby died in the fire, which FDNY Commissioner Daniel Niger called "historic in its magnitude." Four people are critically injured and others are also seriously injured. The victims range from 1 to 50 years old.

The building had no elevator, The Associated Press reported, citing city records. Fire escapes were visible on the facade of the building.

The fire started on the first floor of the building before it spread, officials said. The fire department responded to emergency calls within three minutes.

The commissioner added it's too early to determine what sparked the fire.
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🇺🇸 **Oregon Court Upholds $135K Fine Against Christian Bakers Who Refused To Make Gay Wedding Cake**
<https://archive.is/qoymq>

On Thursday, while the nation awaited the outcome in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which is to be decided by the Supreme Court, the Oregon Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld a $135,000 fine against two Christian bakers who would not create a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

In January 2013, Aaron and Melissa Klein, owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa bakery, refused to create a wedding cake for Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer. The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries subsequently decided that the Kleins violated a 2007 state law that prohibited a place of public accommodation from denying “full and equal” service to a person on account of their sexual orientation. The Kleins were forced to pay the Bowman-Cryers for emotional distress.

The Kleins appealed the decision in March 2017, but on Thursday the Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the fine against the Kleins, writing, “The final order does not impermissibly burden the Kleins’ right to the free exercise of their religion because it simply requires their compliance with a neutral law of general applicability, and the Kleins have made no showing that the state targeted them for enforcement because of their religious beliefs.”
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<:perfect:348458410783539211> ***President Golfs 87 times *** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKkeTDZyYFw

🇺🇸 **Argument Over a Call of Duty Wager Match Leads to a Deadly Swatting Incident After False Address Posted**
<http://archive.is/TtjHK>

An argument between two competitive Call of Duty players has lead to a man being killed by police in Kansas after authorities were incorrectly informed he was holding someone hostage.

It is being reported across the competitive CoD community that a $2 wager match on the evening of Thursday December 28th descended into two team mates arguing with each other after losing the match, and threatening each other to be swatted.

The two CoD players reportedly got into an argument over a small money loss on UMG’s wager platform online (view match) and threatened to swat each other, with one of the players sending the other incorrect details of an address nearby to a known swatter, who was reportedly responsible for the CWL Dallas bomb hoax evacuations.

A local news website in Kansas has reported that the Wichita police were responding to a homicide and hostage situation, and when a 28 year old man answered the door, the officer in attendance discharged his weapon. The man was taken to hospital but later pronounced dead.
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<:overjoyed:384631744571244544> **Former White House intern poses with 'white power' hand gesture in photo with Trump: Report**
<http://archive.is/dwiJU>

A former White House intern appeared to display a "white power" hand gesture in a photograph with President Trump, according to a report.

Jack Breuer, an Emory University graduate who interned with White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, used his right hand to form the sign in a picture with Trump and the rest of his intern class in November, per the Daily Mail, in contrast with the "thumbs up" pose Trump had asked the interns to make.

Three outstretched fingers while the thumb and the index finger form a circle creates the "OK" sign, but the gesture has also become popular among white nationalists and supremacists such as Richard Spencer to symbolize the letters "W" and "P" for "white power."

Breuer nor the White House responded to the Daily Mail's request for comment on the image.

"Context is everything," one fellow intern told the publication. "Jack is pictured with President Trump, one of the most controversial leaders we've had."

But "Jack's a good kid and is probably doing it as a joke," the intern added. "Some people do consider it a joke because it is the OK sign."

Despite members of the alt-right adopting the gesture, the Anti-Defamation League has deemed the sign to not represent a hate symbol.

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🇬🇧 **Healthier fry-ups on table as scientific breakthrough cuts cancer risk from bacon**
<https://archive.is/zW4xq>

Britain’s fry-ups are to become healthier following a scientific breakthrough which has cut the cancer risk of bacon. For the first time food scientists have managed to produced bacon that does not include nitrites from vegetables or curing agents.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) currently warns that bacon cured with nitrites is as dangerous as asbestos and smoking, because the chemicals produce carcinogenic nitrosamines when ingested. They have estimated that around 34,000 bowel and colon cancer deaths each year are directly attributable to diets which are high in processed meat.

The WHO has also calculated that eating two rashers of nitrite-cured bacon per day increases the risk of contracting bowel cancer by 18 per cent. But now British meat manufacturers Finnebrogue have worked with Spanish chemists to produce the first nitrate-free bacon, called Naked Bacon, which will be available in supermarkets from January.

Neil Parish MP, the chairman of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee, said: "Making bacon without nitrites - and reducing the risk in the famous full English breakfast - is a remarkable feat of food technology and a brilliant British success story.
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<:trump:284711336934375425> **Target pulls Jewish-themed Cards Against Humanity pack after complaint**
<http://archive.is/QWs0l>

US mega-retailer Target has apologized and pulled a Cards Against Humanity game pack off its shelves after complaints that the set is anti-Semitic.

The “Chosen People expansion pack” of Cards Against Humanity, a game known for using edgy, off-color humor, includes cards that make light of the Holocaust and reference “torturing Jews.”

One of the question cards reads: “Can’t you see? The Jews are behind everything — the banks, the media, even_______.” Players must fill in the blank with other cards from the deck. The options include one card reading: “The part of Anne Frank’s diary where she talks about her vagina.”

The pack and a similar “Jew Pack,” which were released over a year ago, were still available online at other retailers, including the Cards Against Humanity website.

Cards Against Humanity did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On the company’s website it claims that (((“100% of the Cards Against Humanity writers are Jewish.”)))

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🇺🇸 **Classified Huma Abedin Emails Found On Anthony Weiner's Laptop Discussing Hamas, Israel And Palestinian Authority**
<https://archive.is/eL9O6>

While the Hillary campaign attempted to dismiss the emails as just another 'nothing burger', the Daily Mail reports that an initial review of the 2,800 documents dumped by the State Department reveal at least 5 emails classified at the 'confidential level,' the third most sensitive level the U.S. government uses.

The classified emails date from 2010-2012, and concern discussions with Middle East leaders, including those from the United Arab Emirates, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Hamas - which was declared a terrorist organization by the European Court of Justice in July. Large portions of the 2,800 page release were redacted prior to release by the State Department.

In a statement issued Friday, Judicial watch called the release a "major victory," adding "After years of hard work in federal court, Judicial Watch has forced the State Department to finally allow Americans to see these public documents. It will be in keeping with our past experience that Abedin’s emails on Weiner’s laptop will include classified and other sensitive materials. That these government docs were on Anthony Weiner’s laptop dramatically illustrates the need for the Justice Department to finally do a serious investigation of Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s obvious violations of law."

Not surprisingly, Abedin was spotted heading into the Hillary Clinton offices in midtown Manhattan earlier today just a few hours before the release of the 2,800 emails. Seems you're never too old to be called into the Principal's office...
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🇮🇷 **Price protests turn political in Iran as rallies spread**

<http://archive.is/R9Kzr>
 
DUBAI (Reuters) - Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, Iranian news agencies and social media reports said, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.

Police dispersed anti-government demonstrators in the western city of Kermanshah as protests spread to Tehran and several other cities a day after rallies in the northeast, the semi-official news agency Fars said.

The outbreak of unrest reflects growing discontent over rising prices and alleged corruption, as well as concern about the Islamic Republic’s costly involvement in regional conflicts such as those in Syria and Iraq.

10-10
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🇸🇪 **Swedish police find ‘no direct links’ after Malmo's 4th gang rape in 2 months**
<https://archive.is/bZOVk>

Yet another woman has been assaulted in the Swedish city of Malmo in another case of suspected gang rape, the fourth in just two months. The attacks come as activists started nightly street patrols to reassure the community. Police said they do not yet see any apparent link between the appalling attacks, amid the ongoing investigations.

The latest attack comes as Malmo grapples with a spate of similar incidents in which three women were raped by several assailants in different districts of the city, notorious for its thriving gang culture and crime. Earlier in December, a 17-year-old teenage girl was gang raped in a children’s playground in Hasselgatan.

The other two cases occurred in November and saw women being sexually assaulted by a number of men as well. And while police said they recovered traces of DNA from some of the crime scenes, no charges have been brought in either so far. The spike in violence against women even forced police to warn against venturing alone after dark. Faced with backlash, they later retracted the warning calling it “unfortunate.”

Meanwhile, Malmo police believe it’s unlikely the series of crimes are somehow connected. Referring to the two December attacks which appear to share the same pattern, Malmo police spokesman Nils Norling said “you cannot immediately say that they are linked to each other but you cannot rule it out either.”
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🇺🇸 **Florida man booby-traps door to electrocute pregnant wife**
<https://archive.is/wQ29c>

Police say that ***a Palm Coast man updated his Facebook status to “widowed” before jerry-rigging the front door*** of his estranged wife’s house to a car battery charger, in a failed plan to electrocute her.

Michael Wilson, 32, was arrested after police found an elaborate system of wires and electrical devices had been set up on the inside of his wife’s front door “in an attempt to cause great bodily harm” to her, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post Friday.

“This is one of the most bizarre domestic violence cases I have seen in my career,” Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staley said in the Facebook post. “Not only did this man plan to electrocute his wife, but he could have injured a deputy or any person attempting to enter this residence.”

Wilson was arrested Thursday in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was charged with two counts of attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant person and one count of grand theft of a firearm. He is currently being held on a $150,000 bond and will be extradited to Florida to face charges.
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🇩🇪 **Germany To Have ‘Safe Zone’ For Women After Migrant Assaults In Past New Year’s Eve Celebrations**
<https://archive.is/LTwaT>

Following the horrifying events that took place in Germany during 2015 New Year’s Eve Celebrations, in which over a thousand women were sexually assaulted by migrants, planners of this year’s celebrations are setting up “safe zones” for women.

Security is expected to be strict for this year’s New Year’s Eve celebrations which will take place at Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate. Authorities have said that “large bags, such as rucksacks, and alcoholic drinks will be banned” at the event which will feature fireworks, various performers, and a safety zone for women.

Event Spokesperson Anja Marx told a German national broadcaster that the safe zone workers are trained to spot signs of women who are victims. “There will be three to four (German Red Cross) helpers who are specially trained and can look after women who feel harassed or threatened,” Marx said.
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🇺🇸 **U.S. military to accept transgender recruits on Monday: Pentagon**
<http://archive.is/O8y5m>

Transgender people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday, after President Donald Trump’s administration decided not to appeal rulings that blocked his transgender ban.

Two federal appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1.

A Justice Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings.

“The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
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🇮🇷 **Iranian protests: World is watching response, US warns**
<http://archive.is/LQH4e>

The US says "the world is watching" how Iranian authorities respond to anti-government protests that have broken out in several cities.

Thousands of people have joined the protests, with scores arrested.

A White House statement said Iranians were fed up with "the regime's corruption and its squandering of the nation's wealth to fund terrorism".

Meanwhile, authorities urged supporters to turn out for nationwide demonstrations on Saturday.

"The Iranian government should respect their people's rights, including their right to express themselves. The world is watching," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Twitter.

The US State Department urged all nations "to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption".

**Note:** *Regime change in Iran sooner or later, IRGC+Mullahs are losing grasp, hope for Ceausescu treatment for Khameini*

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🇸🇪 **Swedish church pushes for neutral gender reference to Jesus**
<https://archive.is/vltg4>

A church in a Swedish city has defended its choice of gender-neutral pronoun ‘hen’ in reference to Jesus in an advertisement. The church insists the word gives “new perspective.”

In November, the largest religious institution in the country, the Church of Sweden, advised its clergy to avoid terms like ‘Lord’ and ‘He’ in worship services in order to not highlight that God is male, in the new version of a handbook on how to conduct services. The move has triggered a backlash, with critics saying the change undermines the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity and politicizes faith.

While Bishop Mikael Mogren does not deny that Jesus was male, he applauds the fact that the advertisement has sparked debate. He noted, however, that some commenters insult trans people during the discussions and stressed that they are, like everyone else, “created by God.”

Despite attempts to calm the public, the church’s statements triggered heated discussion among social media users. One person (Maria Svanerud) commented on the church’s Facebook post that the ‘hen’ reference is a mockery, while another (Christian Himmelstrand) was “upset” at “messing with the most elementary fundamentals of faith.”
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🇫🇷 **France Sets Up Tax Dept. to Investigate Jews**
<https://archive.is/x2UM3>

Sources inform "Globes" that over the past year, the tax authority in the Fifth Republic founded a special department for dealing with French Jews. The department currently has 20 Hebrew-speaking employees, and is in the process of hiring five more. This extraordinary department is one of a kind.

The French department was established to handle French Jewish tax evaders, and hired employees with professional experience and a profound understanding of Israeli law in order to examine whether Jews were using these laws to evade tax in France. The aim of the department is to catch French tax evaders using Israel as a tax shelter.

The French embassy in Israel said in response, "In the framework of the campaign against tax evasion, the authorities in France conduct investigations concerning individual cases, in accordance with the international agreements. The authorities in France deny the existence of a special department. It is extremely important to state that the things that were written are false.

"Taxes in France are calculated according to risk considerations. There is therefore no connection whatsoever to the national affiliation or ethnic origin of taxpayers. Next year, automatic exchanges of information are scheduled between OECD member countries."
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