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Day: December 17, 2017

Keep Calm and Send Nudes: A Sedgwick County Jail Story

Bridge Agents

Wichita, KS (KE) – Women are propositioned by strange men asking for nude photos everyday. But what do you do if the man asking for your nudes has just booked you into jail and has your home address, phone number and workplace information? Sedgwick County Sheriff Deputy Austin Martens pulled over a then 20 year-old woman and arrested her for possession of marijuana paraphernalia, booked her into the Sedgwick County Detention Facility, and then, inexplicably Facebook messaged the young woman asking her to send him nude photographs of herself, according to the…

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Joan of Arc, our one true superhero

Bridge Agents

(Conversation) – One need not be a parent of a young child, as I am, to be conscious of the full-blown resurgence of the superhero in contemporary popular culture. Beyond the dizzying proliferation of fetishised merchandise to do with Marvel and DC protagonists and the frankly obscene sights of middle-aged folk squeezed into uncomplaining lycra and leotards at Comic-Con gatherings, one may sense the spectral presence of the hero, that crucial cultural figure which has beguiled humanity since the epics of Homer and the demigods of ancient mythology. Yet there…

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The Fall of Chinese Internet Czar Lu Wei

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Lu Wei, the former gatekeeper of the Chinese Internet, attended attend a signing ceremony in Seattle, the United States, on Sept. 23, 2015. Chinese state owned Xinhua photo. (GVO) – According to an announcement released on November 21, 2017 and posted on the website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Lu Wei, the former head of the Chinese Internet regulator, has been placed under corruption investigation. Lu Wei was the director of the Administration of Cyberspace between April 2013 and June 2016. With his iron fist control over the Internet,…

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Muslim Man Set on Fire and Murdered Amid Rising Islamophobia-Fueled Killings in India

Bridge Agents

The alleged perpetrator has been identified as Shambunath Raigar (38), whose speech filled with Hindu fanaticism in a number of YouTube videos. Screenshot from a video uploaded by Vir Bhoomi. (GV) – India’s rising instances of attacks on minorities by Hindu supremacists hit an alarming crescendo in the first week of December, when a migrant Muslim worker was hacked and then burnt alive in Rajsamand, Rajasthan by a Hindu known to speak in fanatical terms online about his hatred against Muslims. The victim, 50-year-old, Mohammed Afrajul, hailed from West Bengal, a state in…

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