Kaepernick would reportedly sign with any NFL team — even the Redskins
Free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick reportedly would play for the Washington Redskins, or any team, should he get offered a job with three weeks left in the regular season.
Kaepernick, who last played for the San Francisco 49ers, would play for Washington despite the controversy over the team’s logo and name and team owner Dan Snyder’s criticism about players kneeling during the national anthem, sources told Yahoo Sports on Sunday.
“He’s a professional Super Bowl-caliber quarterback and in the best shape of his life and he would play if given the opportunity on any NFL team,” a source told Yahoo Sports.
Kaepernick, who sparked controversy around the league when he decided to kneel during the national anthem in protest of perceived racial injustice across the U.S., has reportedly been working out and staying prepped in ready should an NFL team call his phone.
Redskins coach Jay Gruden said last week the team has “discussed” signing Kaepernick internally, but chose to go with Josh Johnson instead to back up March Sanchez. Sanchez hadn’t thrown a pass since 2016 and Johnson since 2011 before both players signed with Washington. Sources told Yahoo Sports the organization never reached out to Kaepernick.
“No call for a job, no call for a tryout, no calls period – nothing,” a source told Yahoo Sports.
The Redskins are 6-7 after Sunday’s loss to the New York Giants. The team is tied for second in the NFC East.
Article via FOXnews
Spiritual ‘healer’ featured on Oprah accused of sexual abuse
RIO DE JANEIRO — Ten women in Brazil have accused a self-styled spiritual healer of sexually abusing them at a clinic in the central-western state of Goias.
The accusations against Joao Teixeira de Faria, known as John of God, were made Saturday night on the Globo TV network.
It was not immediately clear if Farias was being investigated by prosecutors.
In a statement to the G1 news portal, Faria’s press office said: “John of God vehemently denies having committed any inappropriate behavior during his treatments.”
Faria’s faith-based healing skills drew the attention of TV host Oprah Winfrey, who said on her website that she interviewed him at his clinic in 2013 and saw him performing psychic surgeries.
Faria’s website says he has treated former President Bill Clinton and Brazil’s ex-President Luiz Inacio da Silva.
Article via NYPost
China slams Canada’s ‘inhumane’ treatment of Huawei CFO
China says Canada has violated her human rights by not allowing Meng proper medical care while in detainment.
China has criticised Canada over its treatment of Huawei Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Canada last week.
The Chinese government said Canada has not allowed Meng proper medical care while in detainment and has called for her immediate release on medical grounds.
“We believe this is inhumane and violates her human rights,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kan said ahead of Monday’s bail hearing for Meng.
Meng has argued that she should be released on bail while awaiting an extradition hearing, citing fears for her health while jailed in Canada, claiming she is not a flight risk because she has several family members in Canada.
The senior Huawei executive said she was taken to a hospital for treatment for hypertension after being arrested. She cited hypertension as a factor in a bail application seeking her release pending an extradition hearing.
She also said she has long-standing ties to Vancouver dating back at least 15 years, as well as significant property holdings in the city.
US-China trade war
The 46-year-old faces US accusations that she misled multinational banks about Huawei’s control of a company operating in Iran.
This deception put the banks at risk of violating Washington’s sanctions and incurring severe penalties, the court documents said.
The arrest has infuriated Beijing, which demanded Meng’s immediate release, and stoked tensions during the trade war truce between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies.
On Sunday, Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad a day after he called in Canadian envoy John McCallum to voice China’s displeasure.
“Le Yucheng pointed out that the US side has seriously violated the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens, and the nature of the violation is extremely bad,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“The Chinese side firmly opposes this and strongly urges the United States to attach great importance to China’s solemn and just position,” it said.
US sanctions
Companies are barred from using the US financial system to funnel goods and services to sanctioned entities such as Iran and North Korea.
In Canadian court documents released on Sunday, Huawei said its Iran operations were “in strict compliance with applicable laws, regulations and sanctions” of the United Nations, US and the European Union.
In a company presentation from 2013 that was released with the Canadian court documents, Huawei said it communicated with the US government agencies on a “day-to-day” basis to obtain what it called “professional guidance” on trade compliance.
Article via AlJazeera
Guy Who Told Kids Santa Isn’t Real Arrested
A Texas man telling kids Santa Claus isn’t real got his comeuppance Saturday when he got arrested. Aaron Urbanski, 31, and two other men were protesting outside St. Mark United Methodist Church of Cleburne during a Breakfast With Santa event; they were asked “multiple times” to leave church property, law enforcement authorities say. Two of them did, but Urbanski allegedly refused. One attendee tells NBC DFW the men asked her, “Do you let your kids believe in a fake Santa or do they know who Jesus is?” and when she confronted them about not ruining Christmas, “They started to shout out that Santa was not real and that I was wrong for teaching them that.”
The men “were upset that the folks there were lying to the children about Santa,” an officer says, per Dallas News. “Don’t Mess With Santa!” wrote the Cleburne mayor in a Facebook post. “While I understand folks right to protest, Cleburne loves Santa and those protestors who were naughty and broke the law when they trespassed were arrested promptly. Guess they wanted coal in their stockings to go with a court appearance.” Urbanski was charged with criminal trespass.
via: http://www.newser.com/story/268335/guy-who-told-kids-santa-isnt-real-arrested.html
Elfen’ s EXTRA! EXTRA! Hip Hop Music Video Tobe Nwigwe RAKIM & Z RO TRIBUTE FREESTYLE
I just added this this brown skined Brother to my Neosoul hip hop collection!! He’s got a quick flow to his rhymes.
Shakira to be ‘formally accused by prosecutors of defrauding Spanish taxman out of nearly 15MILLION euros’
Pop star Shakira will formally be accused by Spanish state prosecutors of a multi-million pound tax fraud in the next few days.
The Colombian, 41, will have to defend herself against claims she defrauded the Spanish taxman out of nearly 15million euros over three years, respected daily El Pais reported.
State prosecutors have spent the past year probing Shakira and have now concluded 14.5million euros is the amount they believe she defrauded between 2012 and 2014.
The publication said the formal criminal complaint against the mother-of-two – accusing her of three counts of tax fraud for each of the three tax years – would be lodged with a judge in the next few days.
Lawyers acting for the singer are expected to seek the closure of the criminal case before deciding whether to try to reach a pre-trial settlement if the request is rejected.
Shakira, previously tax resident in the Bahamas, only registered as a full tax resident in Spain in 2015.
Prosecutors are said to have reached the conclusion that the performer pretended to live in the Bahamas as part of a plan to deliberately avoid meeting her tax obligations after starting a relationship with Barcelona star Gerard Pique in 2011 and moving to the Catalan capital.
Official residents in Spain pay Spanish taxes on their worldwide income, while people who spent more than 183 days in a given calendar year in the country are considered Spanish residents for tax purposes.
Tax inspectors spent more than a year checking up on Shakira, even visiting her favourite hairdressers in Barcelona and checking her social media to try to show she spent most of the three years in dispute in Spain.
Spanish media said the report prosecutors would submit along with their criminal complaint offered no proof Shakira had spent enough time in the country to be considered a tax resident.
But it said the rest of the time she spent out of Spain were ‘sporadic absences’ resulting from work commitments, an argument the singer’s defence lawyers disagree with and are set to fight.
A spokesman for the singer said she did not owe the Spanish taxman any money and insisted she had followed the advice of her financial advisors.
He insisted she was ready to co-operate to ‘resolve the differences in criteria.’
Shakira was named in the recent Paradise Papers scandal after it was revealed late last year she transferred £30million in musical rights to an offshore firm in Malta.
Her lawyer Ezequiel Camerini told Spanish news website El Confidencial the singer lived in Barcelona – but quoted him as justifying her links to a tax haven on the basis that ‘as an international artist, she had lived in several places in the course of her professional life, acting in total accordance with the laws of all the jurisdictions she resides in.’
Shakira, full name Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, separated from former Argentinian president’s son Antonio de la Rua in August 2010 before starting a relationship with Gerard Pique in 2011.
They have two children Milan, five, and Sasha, four.
Article via DailyMail
Princeton group cuts ‘The Little Mermaid’ song over ‘toxic masculinity’
PRINCETON, N.J. — An all-male a cappella group at Princeton University has pulled a Disney movie song from its act after a student newspaper column that suggested the lyrics helped promote “toxic masculinity.”
The Princeton Tigertones have performed “Kiss the Girl,” a song from “The Little Mermaid,” for years.
During performances at the Ivy League school, a female audience member would be brought onstage to decide whether or not a man from the crowd could kiss her.
Noa Wollstein, who wrote the column, claimed the song’s message is misogynistic and that too many women have been pulled on stage for unwanted encounters.
“I have seen a queer student brought on stage have to uncomfortably push away her forced male companion,” Wollstein, a sophomore from New York, wrote in her column.
“I have heard of unwilling girls being subjected to their first kisses. I have watched mothers, who have come to see their child’s performance, be pulled up to the stage only to have tension generated between them and the kid they came to support.”
In a response published in the newspaper, Tigertones’ President Wesley Brown apologized to anyone made uncomfortable by the tradition.
He said the group won’t perform the song until it can find a way to do so without offending any audience members.
Brown, a senior at Princeton, wrote the group has taken steps to try to make audience participation voluntary and consensual, but did not provide specific examples.
He said the group had tried to bring a lighthearted, youthful energy to its performance of the song but failed to ensure comfort for audience members brought on stage.
“Performances of this song have made participants uncomfortable and offended audience members, an outcome which is antithetical to our group’s mission and one that we deeply regret,” he wrote.
In “The Little Mermaid,” the song’s lyrics are sung by Sebastian the crab as he encourages Prince Eric to kiss Ariel, who can’t talk because she traded her voice in order to become human for him.
“My oh my/ Look like the boy too shy/ Ain’t gonna kiss the girl,” the crab sings with help from other sea creatures. “Ain’t that sad?/ It’s such a shame/ Too bad/ You’re gonna miss the girl.”
Other lyrics include, “Don’t be scared/ You better be prepared/ Go on and kiss the girl.”
Wollstein also criticized “The Little Mermaid” song for “unambiguously encourage men to make physical advances on women without obtaining their clear consent.”
“Removed from its cushioning context of mermaids, magic, and PG ratings, the message comes across as even more jarring,” Wollstein wrote.
Article via KDVR
Neo-Nazi group calls for assassination of ‘race-traitor’ Prince Harry over Meghan Markle marriage
Counter-terrorism police are investigating the British offshoot of a violent American neo-Nazi group which called for Prince Harry‘s assassination and claimed he is a “race traitor” for marrying Meghan Markle.
The group, known as Sonnenkrieg Division, posted a picture of the prince with a gun to his head featuring a swastika and the caption: “See ya later, race traitor!”
A BBC investigation obtained hundreds of messages sent by extremists on an online gaming server over several months, including messages sent by senior members of the Atomwaffen Division, an American neo-Nazi group linked to five murders.
A spokesperson for the North East Counter Terrorism Unit said: “We are aware of the BBC coverage last night around Sonnenkreig Division and enquiries are ongoing.”
Atomwaffen, which means “atomic weapons” in German, celebrates Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson while promoting a dystopian ideology called the “universal order”.
It has called for the overthrow of the US government through the use of terrorism and guerilla warfare in order to establish a national socialist state.
The group is also known to have trained in firearms and hand-to-hand combat.
It is estimated to have between 24 and 80 members.
Messages from the gaming server discuss the creation of the Sonnenkrieg Division, with one user describing it as “full on Universal Order” and “atomwaffen with less guns”.
In another exchange, he said “kill all police officers” and suggested they should be “raped to death”.
Article via Independent
13-Year-Old Student With Autism Dies After Being Restrained at School in NorCal
A 13-year-old autistic student has died after he was restrained by staff during an incident at his school in El Dorado Hills, authorities said Thursday.
The incident occurred Nov. 28 at Guiding Hands School, about 30 miles east of Sacramento. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said the boy turned violent and had to be restrained by school staff to prevent other students and staff members from getting hurt.
While he was restrained, the student became unresponsive, the Sheriff’s Office said. A teacher administered CPR until emergency responders arrived. He was taken to Mercy Hospital of Folsom and later to UC Davis Medical Center.
Two days later, the Sheriff’s Office learned that the boy, who was 6 feet tall and 280 pounds, had died. It’s unclear when the death occurred or what caused it.
The Sheriff’s Office said there appears to be no evidence of foul play or criminal intent.
The Sacramento Bee reported that the California Department of Education had launched an investigation and suspended the private school’s certification.
via: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-el-dorado-student-death-20181206-story.html