[The Hill] A Kentucky state representative accused of molesting a teenage girl has killed himself, according to WDRB.com in Louisville.
Rep. Dan Johnson, a Republican, reportedly shot and killed himself on a bridge in Mt. Washington, Ky. The gun was recovered by police, according to WDRB.
The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting published an expose on Monday detailing allegations that Johnson forced himself on a 17-year-old friend of his daughter after a New Year's Eve Party in 2012.
Johnson denied the allegations on Tuesday, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. He said the accuser was a member of his church, and that the claims were, in part, politically motivated.
"This is an assault on all real people, there's no perfect people and you get into office and all of sudden political hacks come against you and start accusing you after you're in office," he said, according to the Courier-Journal.
Johnson also acknowledged that he messaged the woman on Facebook in January 2013, saying that he did not remember what happened the night of the alleged encounter and that he had been "drugged" at a local bar.
He said later on that he did remember what happened that night, and denied ever entering the room where the girls were sleeping.
#2
Strange story, and the kind of thing we can expect as the tragic result of false accusations - or the acceptable result of true ones. We supposedly have a 'justice' system to minimize the former but it has been subverted by a media witch trial system (hold him underwater: if he doesn't drown he's a s@x offender.)
#3
Highly unusual for these people to shoot themselves. Guys like Harvey Weinstein assume they are entitled to do what they do and feel no guilt. I think this guy Dan Johnson was feeling some guilt. Maybe that's because he's not a Democrat.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/14/2017 14:51 Comments ||
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[PRESSTV] The United States on Wednesday said it was "troubled and saddened" by festivities in Æthiopia that local reports said has left at least 18 people dead.
The violence was reported to be most intense in the eastern town of Chelenko, near the volatile border between the Somali and Oromia regions, home to two of the country's largest ethnic groups.
There have been a string of recent festivities over the border between the two ethnically demarcated federal regions.
The cause of the latest violence is not clear, nor if they are linked, but they have raised concerns of growing ethnic divisions in Africa's second most-populous country.
"We are troubled and saddened by reports of violence that has resulted in deaths and injuries in the town of Chelenko and at several universities over the past two days," the US embassy in Æthiopia said in a statement.
Security forces reportedly killed 15 people on Sunday after protesters accused the police of killing a man, Oromia regional front man Addisu Arega said.
Two students were also reported killed on Sunday in separate festivities at the Wollega University campus in Oromia, while another person was reported killed at Adigrat University in Æthiopia's north.
"We encourage the people of Æthiopia to uphold their admirable and longstanding tradition of respect for their country's ethnic diversity and its tradition of peaceful co-existence," the embassy added. It did not give a corpse count or provide further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
I wonder if being "troubled and saddened" warrants condemnation? Not for minor violence at a University, nor for police quelling a protest.
[DAWN] A Moslemholy man accused of issuing a fatwa banning women from working on farms has been incarcerated I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! in Bangladesh, police said on Wednesday.
The imam and five mosque officials face charges after their announcement prompted locals in the western town of Kumarkhali to try and prevent women from going to work in the fields.
"They took the decision after prayers on Friday, banning women from going out of their homes," local police chief Abdul Khaleque told AFP.
"They used the mosque's loudspeakers that evening to spread the news."
Moslem-majority Bangladesh is officially secular, but Moslemholy mans are hugely influential, particularly in the more socially conservative rural areas of the country.
Fatwas were banned in 2001, but the nation's highest court in 2011 ruled that they could be issued on personal and religious matters if they did not impose physical punishment.
Rights groups have criticised that ruling, saying villages far from Bangladesh's secular courts use fatwas to issue sentences that go against the nation's laws.
Women were once largely confined to the home in rural Bangladesh, but a labour shortage has meant millions now work in the fields during harvest or crop-sowing season.
Women also account for some 80 per cent of four million workers in the country's 4,500 textile plants, the mainstay of the impoverished nation's economy.
Police said the six arrested would face charges under the 1974 Special Powers Act, a controversial military-era law.
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12/14/2017 00:00 ||
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[FoxNews] ...I have no doubt that this is NOT true, and I get that the families are hurt and definitely don't want to hear that budget cuts and lousy policy decisions caused a systems failure that killed their people. But all this is going to do is make things even more painful.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/14/2017 07:59 ||
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[News.co.au] Did Kim Jong-un order execution of General Hwang Pyong-so, once called the second most powerful man in North Korea?
A MAN described as the “second most powerful in North Korea” has vanished after being expelled for “taking bribes” with fears that he has been executed.
#7
So what was it this time? Tied to the warhead of the missile, tied to the latest nuke test? fed to a wood chipper? fed to fat boy's private collection of sharks?
The turks would tie people to the mouth of a cannon and light it with a long fuse.
[WSJ] WASHINGTON‐The Federal Reserve showed continued optimism about the U.S. economy in voting Wednesday to raise short-term interest rates for the third time this year, and signaling it would stay on a similar path next year amid a leadership transition.
Officials nudged their economic-growth estimates higher for the next few years on expectations that congressional Republicans will pass tax cuts. But the Fed policy makers’ new projections suggest the boost wouldn’t be so large that they would have to speed up the pace of rate increases to guard against too much inflation.
"At the moment the U.S. economy is performing well," Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said at a press conference after the central bank’s two-day policy meeting ended Wednesday.
"The growth that we’re seeing, it’s not based on, for example, an unsustainable buildup of debt," she added. "The global economy is doing well. We’re in a synchronized expansion. This is the first time in many years we’ve seen this."
The Fed said it would increase its benchmark federal-funds rate Thursday by a quarter percentage point to a range between 1.25% and 1.5%, the fifth such increase in the past two years. Officials penciled in three quarter-point rate increases for next year, as they had in September, and two such increases each in 2019 and 2020.
#1
If the economy is doing well shouldn't Keynesian Econ say we should be reducing the Federal debt? We are not, and don't even seem to be reducing its rate of increase.
WASHINGTON (AP) ‐ True to form, former "Apprentice" star Omarosa is ending her time at the White House with a dose of drama.
Omarosa Manigault Newman, one of President Donald Trump's most prominent African-American supporters, was escorted off the White House grounds after resigning her post as a presidential adviser, according to two White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that Manigault Newman's resignation is effective Jan. 20, one year after Trump's inauguration. "We wish her the best in future endeavors and are grateful for her service," Sanders said.
"Tuesday was Manigault-Newman’s last official day, but Jan. 20 will be her official exit date.
In an interview with ABC News on Thursday morning, Manigault-Newman repeatedly denied any allegations of confronting Kelly at a White House Christmas Party, nor did she break into the White House residence to ask Trump about her dismissal. It’s all “fake news.”
She also confirmed that only part of her pass into the White House was deactivated, she still has access to parts of the White House.
The truth behind all these fake new reports is that Manigault-Newman unsuccessfully negotiated a new contract.
There are likely to be more White House officials resignations to come in the new year. It’s a normal part of business in the executive branch — contracts are reviewed, negotiated, and some people choose to pursue new opportunities in their careers."
"When the news about Manigault’s ousting broke yesterday, Ryan was among the first to report on the subject, and she indicated that there was a lot of ugliness that surrounded the White House departure. Manigault reacted to all of this in an interview today, saying that the reported messiness was “100% false,” and that Ryan is advancing false narratives as part of a “personal vendetta to bring me down.”
#4
April Ryan Doubles Down After Omarosa Slams Her Firing Report: ‘I’m Doing My Job’
Yes Ryan is doing her job, what's left out is that her job include fabricating "facts" and making people look as bad as she can. Truth has nothing to do with this,
Note there is no corroborating stories to back her story up, which is a key indicator that she lied and made the whole thing up.
[DAWN] Police on Wednesday recovered 13 bonded individuals who had allegedly been kept in illegal confinement for five years in a private jail in the village of Ramji Kohli near Nagarparkar.
A police team headed by Station House Officer (SHO) Nagarpakar Abdul Razak Umrani, in a court-ordered raid in the village on the suspected private jail of Rahim Ali Khoso, recovered the labourers, including four women and five children.
Dharmoon Kohli had petitioned the court seeking liberation of his family members. He told journalists that his family members had allegedly been kept in confinement and forced to work without any share in their agricultural yield.
The recovered individuals alleged that the women among them had been victims of sexual harassment by the landowner and his relatives.
The SHO said that they would be produced in the Sindh High Court on Thursday as per the court's orders.
Pakistain is among the countries with the highest number of bonded labourers in the world.
In a 2015 Dawn report, Green Rural Development Organisation's Dr Ghulam Haider had said that over 2.3 million people are facing bonded labour, with over 80 per cent of them being Hindus.
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12/14/2017 00:00 ||
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the highest number of bonded labourers in the world
[DAWN] Enraged lawyers in Multan stormed the new judicial complex on Mattital Road, smashing windows and doors and mirrors with sticks, in protest over the shifting of the courts for a second consecutive day.
The lawyers are incensed that the new judicial complex, which began functioning on Nov 14, does not house their chambers.
The protests, which began on Tuesday, continued today as lawyers entered the sessions court after a scuffle with the police.
A large number of female lawyers also participated in the demonstrations today.
Television footage showed police trying to contain the protesting lawyers in front of the complex. At one point, however, the lawyers managed to break past the police and surround them and were seen aggressively clapping their hands above their heads.
The lawyers then broke into the complex building and began smashing windows and doors inside a sessions court with sticks.
The lawyers maintain that although four or five months had lapsed, their demands had not been fulfilled and the new judicial complex does not house their chambers.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Now these guys should have been shot for rioting.
Where's the Embassy spokespuppet?
[DAWN] The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday expressed dismay over the absence of idols in the Sri Ram and Hanuman temples in the Katas Raj temple complex in Chakwal, and sought an explanation from the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) in this regard.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar also ordered the closure of tubewells used by the Bestway Cement factory, which is believed to be one of the industrial units responsible for the drying up of the Katas Raj pond.
According to Hindu mythology, Katas Raj is the second-most sacred Hindu site and dates back to 600 AD. The temple complex is built around the pond, which finds it origin from Katak Shah, which is Sanskrit for ’raining eyes’. The pond is believed to have been formed from the tears of Shiva after the loss of his wife, Sati.
The SC bench is conducting a suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... hearing based on media reports that the Katas Raj pond is drying out due to water consumption by nearby cement factories, which are sucking water through a number of drill bores that have reduced the subsoil water level and the use of subsoil water by domestic users.
The court was perturbed to learn that two adjacent temples within the premises of the Katas Raj, called Hanuman temple and Sri Ram Mandir, were without any idols, and Hindu pilgrims who visited the holy site had to bring their own idols to perform their rituals.
Justice Umar Ata Bandial was at a loss to understand why the authorities could not protect idols inside the temples.
Advocate Mohammad Ikram Chaudhry, who represents ETPB, assured the court that he would submit an updated report on Wednesday when the court will resume hearing the case.
The court was also unhappy with the state of affairs at the department, and regretted that it had become something to accommodate party loyalists instead of appointing professional individuals. The court was told that Asif Hashmi, the former chairman of the board who had allegedly indulged in the appropriation of funds, was still on the lam.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2017 00:00 ||
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the Katas Raj pond is drying out due to water consumption
[IsraelTimes] Minorities increasingly registering their children at schools where they learn core curriculum, to boost their prospects later in life.
A new study by Shoresh Institution indicates that Haredi parents as well as Arab Israelis may be choosing to register their children in non-Haredi religious and secular schools to ensure they study core curriculum subjects, to safeguard their children’s economic independence and ability to work in a competitive economy.
First graders in 2009 are children born in 2003, right after the massive cuts in welfare that induced many Israelis to enter the labor market for the first time in their lives, he explained. "It is quite possible that the shock of their ill-preparedness led more than a few parents to ensure that their children have a better start when they grow up."
Haredi birth rates began falling in 2003,
Golly — just as the massive welfare cuts happened.
though they still remained far above those of other religious Jews and of course higher than birth rates among secular Jews.
A similar pattern appears to have been developing among Moslem Arabs who have increasingly entered the middle class and desire a better education for their children than is currently given in Moslem schools, he added. "As a result, many have begun to register their children in Arab Christian schools ‐ which are substantially better ‐ and in Jewish schools in the mixed cities."
Even so, the report said, the populations in Israel that are growing the fastest ‐ the Haredi and the Moslems ‐ are also those that are still receiving the worst education, and roughly half of Israel’s children are receiving a Third World education.
Hackers likely working for a nation-state recently invaded the safety system of a critical infrastructure facility in a watershed attack that halted plant operations, according to cyber investigators and the firm whose software was targeted.
Schneider confirmed that the incident had occurred and that it had issued a security alert to users of Triconex, which cyber experts said is widely used in the energy industry, including at nuclear facilities, and oil and gas plants.
FireEye and Schneider declined to identify the victim, industry or location of the attack. Cyber-security company Dragos said the hackers targeted an organization in the Middle East, while a second firm, CyberX, said it believe the victim was in Saudi Arabia.
It marks the first report of a safety system breach at an industrial plant by hackers, who have in recent years placed increasing attention on breaking into utilities, factories and other types of critical infrastructure, cyber experts said.
Compromising a safety system could let hackers shut them down in advance of attacking other parts of an industrial plant, potentially preventing operators from identifying and halting destructive attacks, they said.
Safety systems "could be fooled to indicate that everything is okay," even as hackers damage a plant, said Galina Antova, co-founder of cyber-security firm Claroty.
"This is a watershed," said Sergio Caltagirone, head of threat intelligence with Dragos. "Others will eventually catch up and try to copy this kind of attack."
In the incident, hackers used sophisticated malware to take remote control of a workstation running a Schneider Electric Triconex safety shutdown system, then sought to reprogram controllers used to identify safety issues. Some controllers entered a fail safe mode, which caused related processes to shut down and caused the plant to identify the attack, FireEye said.
FireEye believes the attacker’s actions inadvertently caused the shutdown while probing the system to learn how it worked, said Dan Scali, who led FireEye’s investigation.
The attackers were likely conducting reconnaissance to learn how they could modify safety systems so they would not operate in the event that the hackers intended to launch an attack that disrupted or damaged the plant, he said.
PUBLIC WARNINGS
The U.S. government and private cyber-security firms have issued public warnings over the past few years about attempts by hackers from nations including Iran, North Korea and Russia and others to attack companies that run critical infrastructure plants in what they say are primarily reconnaissance operations.
CyberX Vice President Phil Neray said his firm found evidence that the malware was deployed in Saudi Arabia, which could suggest that Iran may be behind the attack.
Security researchers widely believe that Iran was responsible for a series of attacks on Saudi Arabian networks in 2012 and 2017 using a virus known as Shamoon.
Schneider provided Reuters with a customer security alert, dated Wednesday, which said it was working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate the attack.
"While evidence suggests this was an isolated incident and not due to a vulnerability in the Triconex system or its program code, we continue to investigate whether there are additional attack vectors," the alert said.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Scott McConnell said the agency was looking into the matter "to assess the potential impact on critical infrastructure."
The malware, which FireEye has dubbed Triton, is only the third type of computer virus discovered to date that is capable of disrupting industrial processes.
The first, Stuxnet, was discovered in 2010 and is widely believed by security researchers to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Iran’s nuclear program.
The second, known as Crash Override or Industroyer, was discovered last year by researchers who said it was likely used in a December 2016 attack that cut power in Ukraine.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/14/2017 17:30 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[The Hill] A Kentucky state representative accused of molesting a teenage girl has killed himself, according to WDRB.com in Louisville. 
