Friday, December 27

IN OTHER NEWS

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IN OTHER NEWS

‘Multiple’ injuries in gas explosion at Florida shopping center

At least 15 people injured as the blast sent large pieces of debris about 91 metres across the street. A powerful explosion from a suspected gas leak ripped through a shopping mall in Florida, injuring at least 15 people. Two of those were in serious condition after the blast in the town of Plantation in south Florida on Saturday. Between 15 and 20 people were injured, deputy fire chief Joel Gordon told reporters. Photos on US news outlets showed a large field of debris outside the Fountains Plaza shopping centre. The photos showed an LA Fitness gym heavily damaged, with its windows blown out. The blast sent large pieces of debris about 91 metres across the street. The fire department called it a gas explosion with "multiple patients". The Sun-Sentinel, a...
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IN OTHER NEWS

Charges dropped against pregnant woman shot in stomach

Marshae Jones was arrested for manslaughter after her foetus died when she was shot during a fight with another woman. This photo provided by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office shows Marshae Jones, the woman at the centre of the case [Handout/Jefferson County Sheriff''s Office/AP Photo] An Alabama prosecutor dismissed charges on Wednesday against a woman in the United States who was charged by state authorities over the death of her foetus, having miscarried after being shot five times. Marshae Jones, 27, was shot in the abdomen in December during a fight with another woman, resulting in the death of her five-month-old foetus. She was arrested last week for manslaughter, as authorities said she was responsible for the fight escalating. Her lawyer filed a mo...
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IN OTHER NEWS

How This Database Is Tracking and Exposing Officers’ Bigoted Facebook Posts

It’s found more than 5,000 racist, sexist, and Islamophobic Facebook posts and comments by law enforcement. It’s a good day for a chokehold. This was the Facebook post of a Phoenix police officer. In a different post, a Philadelphia police lieutenant recounted a courthouse scene in which a defendant and his family walk off an elevator: “… indignant about the fact that those of us actually working are going the other way. I fucking hate them.” Another lieutenant commented: “I fucking hate the [sic] too.” An online database called the Plain View Project has collected more than 5,000 bigoted, racist, sexist, Islamophobic Facebook postings and comments like these by former and current law enforcement officers in jurisdictions across the country. The database was started tw...
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IN OTHER NEWS

US court tosses black man’s murder conviction over racial bias

Supreme Court tosses out Curtis Flowers's conviction in sixth trial of 1996 murders, citing racial bias. Curtis Giovanni Flowers, left, listens to testimony in his third capital murder trial [Winona Times/Dale Gerstenslager/AP Photo] The United States Supreme Court on Friday threw out the murder conviction and death sentence for a black man in Mississippi because of a prosecutor's efforts to keep African Americans off the jury. The defendant already has been tried six times and now could face a seventh trial. The removal of black prospective jurors deprived inmate Curtis Flowers of a fair trial, the court said in a 7-2 decision written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The long record of Flowers's trials stretching back more than 20 years shows District Attorney...
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IN OTHER NEWS

Police Are Still Killing Unarmed Black People

The Hands Up Act could do something about it. Since the police killings of Botham Jean in Dallas and Emantic “E.J.” Bradford in Birmingham, Alabama, two months apart last fall, ongoing news coverage of unarmed Black people killed by police has mostly waned. The street protests ended more than a year ago, but the horrific, traumatic occurrences have not. I can’t count the number of posts I’ve scrolled past to avoid the image of an officer sitting on top of a Black child, tightly holding a plastic bag over the 12-year-old’s head. Or the number of posts screaming outrage about the officers who irresponsibly shot at a fleeing vehicle, injuring three small children. And the countless other posts of news stories about or videos of police officers harassing, assaulting, abus...
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IN OTHER NEWS

One dead in Manhattan helicopter crash: NY fire dept

Officials say it appears the helicopter attempted a forced emergency landing during rainy weather. At least one person is dead after a helicopter crashed onto the roof of a building in Midtown Manhattan on Monday, the New York City Fire Department said. The department said on Twitter that firefighters were on the scene of the crash landing, which took place in rainy weather. Dozens of emergency vehicles swarmed the area around Seventh Avenue between 51st and 52nd streets, a few blocks north of Times Square. Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was at the scene soon after the crash, told reporters that it appeared a helicopter attempted a forced emergency landing on the roof. Cuomo added that there was no indication of "terrorism", US media reported. SOURCE: News agenc...
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IN OTHER NEWS

Housing in Chicago: Pushing out the poor?

Geoff Smith: Low-income areas are losing affordable housing due to decades of economic disinvestment and discrimination. Newly sworn-in Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot ran on a campaign that promised change for every day Chicagoans. Pursuing office as an outsider without decades of connection to the Chicago political machine, Lightfoot pledged to address Chicago's growing housing affordability gap. Now in her first days as mayor, Lightfoot has appointed Marisa Novara to head Chicago's Department of Housing. The department will operate as a standalone government entity for the first time in 11 years, a decision that was made during the final months of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration. Novara comes from the Metropolitan Planning Council, where she he...
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IN OTHER NEWS

Black transgender woman who was attacked in April fatally shot

Muhlaysia Booker found dead in Texas on Saturday, about a month after she was assaulted in an attack caught on video. Muhlaysia Booker is the fourth black transgender woman to be killed in the US this year, rights groups say [File: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post/Getty Images] A 23-year-old transgender woman seen on a widely circulated video being beaten in front of a crowd of people has been found dead in Dallas, Texas. Police say the body of Muhlaysia Booker, who was shot dead, was found in a street on Saturday and that no suspect has been identified. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators say there's no apparent link to the April 12 beating Booker suffered after she was involved in a minor traffic accident. A mobile phone recording d...
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CYBERCRIME, IN OTHER NEWS

Feds take down dark web index and news site Deep Dot Web

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has seized the dark web index and news site Deep Dot Web, according to a warning notice posted on the site. The site’s dark web site has also been taken down and replaced with a similar notice. The agency, according to the notice, seized the website with a warrant, working with computer crime investigators and European law enforcement. Two people in Israel were arrested in connection with the bust, according to local Israeli media, and authorities have also reportedly taken people in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Brazil into custody. The Times of Israel reports that the people are accused of taking commissions to send visitors to businesses offering illegal goods. Deep Dot Web provided links to dark web marketplaces, as well as news on the subjec...
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IN OTHER NEWS

Sandra Bland’s own video of 2015 Texas traffic stop surfaces

Bland, a black woman, was found hanging in her jail cell three days after her 2015 arrest for a minor traffic violation. A demonstrator holds a Sandra Bland sign during a vigil on July 28, 2015 [File: Christian K Lee/AP Photo] Mobile phone video recorded by Sandra Bland, a black woman found dead in a Texas jail following a confrontational 2015 traffic stop, shows for the first time her perspective as a white state trooper draws his stun gun and points it at close range while ordering her out of her car. The 39-second clip revealed by the Investigative Network, a nonprofit news organization in Texas, aired Monday night on Dallas television station WFAA. Her death and dashcam video showing Trooper Brian Encinia trying to pull the 28-year-old Chicago-area wom...
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