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Year: 2018

Border Patrol agent had arsenal in home, attempted “suicide by cop,” officials say

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Webb County, TX (TT) – A South Texas U.S. Border Patrol agent accused of killing four people appeared to be preparing for a shoot-out with law enforcement after a would-be victim broke free and alerted police, authorities said Monday. Border Patrol officer Juan David Ortiz, accused of murdering four people and abducting a fifth. – Webb Co. Sheriff’s Office Juan David Ortiz, 35, was arrested early Saturday after the woman escaped from his vehicle, encountered Department of Public Safety troopers and told them Ortiz had brandished a weapon. During a press…

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Arrested for fact-checking: Kazakh court fines Ukrainian journalist after police break up media workshop

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(GV) – A media fact-checking workshop in northwestern Kazakhstan came to an abrupt conclusion on September 15 when police barged in, broke up the event and arrested one of the workshop leaders, Aleksandr Gorokhovsky. The workshop’s organiser, Lukpan Akhmedyarov, is the editor of independent regional newspaper Uralskaya Nedelya, that has long been the target of state harassment. A respected journalist and media trainer from Kyiv, Gorokhovsky was slapped with a fine of roughly USD $110 after a Kazakh court found him guilty of violating Kazakhstan’s migration legislation. The public prosecutor…

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Can Productive Discomfort Exist in a Polarised World: Free Speech on Campus

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(Conversation) – Our previous article “The predicament of diversity: re-boot for diversity 3.0” explored the multiple definitions of diversity and the factors shifting its focus from social and racial inequality to the diversity of identity … and the distractions that this creates. Diversity and race keep getting confused, amalgamated and co-opted for different political gains and purposes. At the same time, we seem to be experiencing a crescendo effect in terms of the number reported incidents involving minorities. Spike Lee’s new film BlacKkKlansman, based on Ron Stallworth’s true story of infiltrating…

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Death Count Debates Overshadow the Real Story: Hurricane Maria Was Partly a Human-Made Disaster

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United States (Conversation) – Last September, President Donald Trump told Puerto Ricans they should be grateful Hurricane Maria had not caused a “real catastrophe like Katrina.” However, mounting evidence now reveals the death toll for Maria far surpasses initial estimates. New research puts the number close to 3,000, adjusted up from just a few dozen when the president made his now infamous remark. This is an estimate, but it is virtually certain that the number is in the thousands. The president has denied these numbers, but without offering any evidence…

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Volunteers Needed – Report From Hurricane Florence Relief Efforts

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North Carolina (TFC) – A slow and weakening hurricane that made landfall early Friday morning near Wrightsville Beach, NC has devastated the area with heavy rainfall and massive flooding. TFC Sources from the ground there reported having “to rescue firefighters” being bogged down by the immense flooding. If you are on the fence about traveling to help out any way you might be able? Now’s the time to pull the trigger and jump in, as the volunteers and first responders there could definitely use supplies and help.  An imgur post…

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How Social Networks Can Save Lives When Disasters Strike

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World Wide (Conversation) – Soon after my family moved to New Orleans in the summer of 2005, we heard Mayor Ray Nagin’s first warnings about Hurricane Katrina. With two young children, a job I hadn’t started yet, and little in the way of savings, my wife and I couldn’t wrap our heads around leaving our freshly furnished home to spend money on a hotel in some distant city. So we ignored the call for evacuation. As our neighbors began to pack up and head out, we figured they were overreacting….

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The National Prison Strike Is Over. Now Is the Time Prisoners Are Most In Danger

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United States (Conversation) – Over the last few weeks men and women across the United States – and even as far away as Nova Scotia, Canada – have protested to demand humane treatment for the incarcerated. In 2016, when prisoners engaged in similar hunger strikes, sit-ins, and work stoppages, their actions barely registered with the national media. As someone who regularly writes about the history of prisoner protests and prison conditions today, this lack of interest was striking. This time around, though, prisoner demands to improve the conditions of confinement…

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If You Shelter In Place During a Disaster, Be Ready for Challenges After the Storm

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United States (Conversation) – Many people will likely decide to stay put despite evacuation orders ahead of Hurricane Florence. And if history is any guide, they may not be fully thinking through the problems they’ll face in the aftermath. I conducted a research survey in Harris County, Texas, which contains much of metro Houston, after the city was flooded by Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, and found a common thread. Few respondents who stayed in place during the storm planned in advance for coping with extended service interruptions, such as…

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‘Optimist’ US State Department Predicts Arms Deal Surge – As Casualties Mount

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Washington, DC (Sputnik) “I would anticipate — I am an optimist and a realist — that next year’s numbers will be higher than this year’s numbers,” Andrea Thompson, who oversees arms control at the State Department, told Defense News last week. Lockheed Hellfire missile. Thompson was referring to total weapons sales approved by the diplomatic corps in 2019. That’s saying a lot, considering that in the first half of fiscal year 2018, the US had already smashed its weapons sales total from the previous year, the State Department’s arms exporting agency said in July. According to the official, a new policy on conventional arms transfer…

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EXCLUSIVE: BARRETT BROWN ALLEGES ARYAN BROTHERHOOD LINK TO DPD OFFICER AMBER GUYGER

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Dallas, Tx. (PT) – Barrett Brown, the renowned journalist, essayist, satirist, founder of Project PM, and guiding force behind the recently launched Pursuance Project, has waded into the controversial case of Amber Guyger, the Dallas police officer who allegedly shot and killed a man in an apartment unit she says she believed was her own. In a series of social media statements, posted on his Twitter handle and elsewhere on social media, Brown has stated categorically that he believes that another individual posing in a widely circulated photograph of Guyger…

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