Worshiping the Creature
Ganges and Yamuna rivers granted same legal rights as human beings theguardian
The court in the Himalayan resort town of Nainital appointed three officials to act as legal custodians responsible for conserving and protecting the rivers and their tributaries. It ordered that a management board be established within three months.
And those rivers weren't even the first. See also This New Zealand River Just Got the Legal Rights of a Person smithsonianmag
Abortion
Activists who filmed Planned Parenthood workers charged in California npr.org w!
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the charges against David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt on Tuesday, saying the state "will not tolerate the criminal recording of confidential conversations."
Genetics
Chinese researchers announce designer baby breakthrough foxnews
Chinese researchers used a genome editing technique called CRISPR to rid normal embryos of hereditary diseases that cause blood disorders and other ailments, according to New Scientist. Experts who reviewed the project told the publication that, even though it involved just six embryos, it carries promise.
Antisemitism
'Beware of Jews' sign appears in Stamford Hill bbc
The sign depicts the silhouette of an orthodox Jewish man wearing a traditional Fedora hat and was spotted on a lamppost in Stamford Hill on Tuesday.
Society
If state lawmakers have their way, California schoolchildren may be taught how to spot ‘fake news’ washingtonpost
California Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D) introduced a bill Wednesday that would require the state to establish curriculum standards and frameworks to teach “civic online reasoning” to middle- and high-schoolers. The intention is to help give youngsters “the ability to judge the credibility and quality of information found on Internet Web sites, including social media,” the bill states.
Peace
Jimmy Carter to Obama: Before you leave office, recognize Palestinian state cnn
"I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short, " Carter wrote. "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on Jan. 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."
Also see Carter's Op-Ed piece: Jimmy Carter: America Must Recognize Palestine nytimes
Society
Facebook to stop ads that target, exclude races usatoday
Facebook will also require advertisers to affirm that they will not place discriminatory ads on Facebook and will offer educational materials to help advertisers understand their obligations, Egan said.
Israel
Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build Third Temple in Jerusalem breakingisraelnews
Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin jewishvirtuallibrary.org, contacted Breaking Israel News to announce that the election of Trump, who has promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, coupled with Putin’s expressed desire for the Temple to be rebuilt, prompted the Jewish court to send a letter offering the two the opportunity to act as modern-day Cyrus figures: non-Jewish kings who recognize the importance of Israel and the Temple.
Archeaology
World's first dinosaur brain fossil discovered bbc.co.uk w!
The piece of stone was discovered more than 10 years ago by a fossil hunter at Bexhill-on-Sea. But it has taken scientists years to find out what was inside.
Privacy
Yahoo 'secretly monitored emails on behalf of the US government' theguardian
The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA nsa.gov) or FBI fbi.gov, two former employees and a third person who knew about the program told Reuters.
Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency’s demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.
Philippines
Rodrigo Duterte Condemned After Comparing Philippine War on Drugs With Holocaust wsj
“Hitler massacred three million Jews,” Mr. Duterte told reporters in Davao upon his return from a visit to Vietnam Friday. “Now, there are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]…. I’d be happy to slaughter them.” In fact, historians estimate that the Nazis murdered six million Jews across Europe in the Holocaust during World War II.
Also see Duterte, Citing Hitler, Says He Wants to Kill 3 Million Addicts in Philippines nytimes
Crime
Experts to create predictive tool to tackle hate crime in Los Angeles phys.org
Over the next three years, the team will be closely scrutinising data taken from Twitter and cross-referencing this with reported hate crimes in Los Angeles to develop markers, or signatures, which could indicate if, and where, a hate crime is likely to take place at a certain point in time, and then enable police officers to intervene.
Space
Out of control? China’s Tiangong 1 space station will fall to Earth — somewhere — in 2017 washingtonpost
Chinese officials appeared to admit during a Sept. 14 news conference in Jiuquan that they had lost control of the station.
Also see China's Tiangong-1 space station 'out of control' and will crash to Earth theguardian
Society
[Mississippi] ‘Religious freedom law’ will remain blocked during appeal, court rules sunherald
HB 1523 billstatus.ls.state.ms.us, passed by the Legislature and signed by Bryant, specifically protected three beliefs: Marriage is only between a man and a woman; sexual relations should take place only inside marriage; and a person’s “immutable biological sex” is determined at birth.
Society
Barack Obama's transgender bathroom guidelines challenged by more than a dozen states independent.co.uk
The states will appear before a federal judge in Fort Worth on Friday to argue that the Obama administration’s directive presents “unlawful changes” in US law.
Also see 13 states to ask court to stop White House transgender bathroom policy washingtonexaminer
That lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nebraska, includes Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Creatures
Computation of motion by T4 cells in the fly brain more complex than previously believed medicalxpress
Flies are usually very difficult to catch. No wonder – they invest around ten percent of their brain in the detection and processing of image motion. For the fly, a hand approaches in slow motion and the fly's evasive manoeuvre has long been triggered before any real danger arises. Scientists have been researching for decades how the fly brain can perceive and process movements so quickly and accurately. "Our goal is slowly coming into view, and we are close to completely decoding the neuronal circuit of motion perception in the fly," says Alexander Borst, who has been working on this problem with his Department at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology neuro.mpg.de for quite some time. The scientists have now come one step closer to the answer: They have provided experimental data that combine two theories previously considered as alternatives.
Society
Constitution Check: Does the First Amendment protect a wedding cake as an art form? blog.constitutioncenter.org
Lyle Denniston, the National Constitution Center’s constitutional literacy adviser, looks at a potential Supreme Court test case about religious beliefs, same-sex marriage and a Colorado bakeshop.
Also see Masterpiece Cakeshop petition to the Supreme Court adflegal pdf
Creatures
Scientists say they’ve just discovered a new species of whale quartz
The first hints of a new species came from Japan in 1940s, when whalers reported catching an unknown beaked whale. Then, in 2004, a dead whale washed up on an Alaskan shore that looked vaguely familiar. The next hint came in 2013, when Japanese scientists used modern DNA analysis to test old samples and found evidence that indeed this mysterious mammal may be new to us. Then, finally, in 2014, another washed up dead on a shore in Alaska.
UN
Fraud? What fraud? Watchdogs find UN in 'a state of near denial' about internal corruption foxnews
That is the main thrust of a 133-page examination foxnews of “fraud detection, prevention and response” across 28 organizations in the U.N.’s network, carried out by members of the world organization’s Joint Inspection Unit (JIU), a special group of experts mandated to carry out examinations across the entire array of U.N. funds, organizations and programs.
Russia
Russia expels US diplomats in tit-for-tat row bbc v
On Friday, the US State Department said their move came after a Russian policeman attacked a US diplomat near the US embassy in Moscow.
