UK - The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has called for compulsory ‘gender diversity’ training for sixth form college and further education (FE) teachers, warning staff who refer to ‘non-binary’ persons using ‘incorrect’ pronouns could face legal action. ATL Wales president Leslie Tipping said mandatory training on gender identity issues is long overdue, lamenting that staff were confused over pronouns.
UK - King’s College London is to swap portraits of some of its founding fathers with a “wall of diversity” amid pressure from students, a dean says. The plans to move portraits of former faculty staff from the main entrance wall and replace them with more BME scholars are being implemented by the world famous Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, following concern among academics that the current classroom environment is too “intimidating” for ethnic minorities. The proposals were unveiled by Professor Patrick Leman, the Institute’s dean of education, who said that the faculty should not just be filled with “busts of 1920s bearded men” but rather more modern, diverse scholars so that the Institute feels less “alienating”.
USA - Of all the cartons of organic eggs sold in the United States, more than 1 in 10 originates from a complex here that houses more than 1.6 million hens. They're sold under the Eggland's Best label. "The entire process is organic," Greg Herbruck, president of Herbruck's Poultry Ranch says in a promotional video.
CANADA - Governments and schools should be teaching kids to have fewer children in order to reduce climate change. That’s according to a study published in Environmental Research Letters, in which University of British Columbia grad student Seth Wynes and Sweden’s Lund University professor Kimberley Nicholas calculate how individual actions cut greenhouse gas emissions. They claim having one fewer child is a “high impact action” far eclipsing any other in effectiveness. The study has received widespread attention, reported uncritically in the mainstream media, such as the left-leaning UK Guardian... but Steven Mosher, president of the Virginia-based Population Research Institute, blasted the suggestion as “ridiculous” and “dangerous,” and the study as “climate extremism masquerading as science.”
RUSSIA - A powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka region may trigger tsunami waves within a 300km radius, the US Pacific tsunami warning center said. According to the US Geological Survey, the quake hit at a 11.7km depth in the Pacific some 200km from Nikolskoe, a village located on the Bering Island off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The quake comes shortly after a powerful spewing of ash from the Klyuchevskoy volcano in Kamchatka. The ash plume rose to a height of 6 kilometers above sea level, prompting an advisory for planes flying in the region, local media reported.
USA - The global dollar-based monetary system is in serious jeopardy, according to former Texas Congressman Ron Paul. And contrary to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s assurances that there won’t be another major crisis in our lifetime, the next economy-cratering fiat-currency crash could happen as soon as next month, Paul said during an interview with Josh Sigurdson of World Alternative media.
EUROPE - Vile ISIS jihadis have called on their brainwashed followers to abduct children, arguing they will then "own them". The twisted terrorists issued the orders to their supporters in Europe in an online propaganda magazine.
USA - Disneyland is known as a place “where dreams come true” and where every story always has a happy ending. But there is going to be no happy ending for the US economy. Wishful thinking has resulted in one of the greatest stock market rallies in history in recent months, but like all childhood fantasies, it won’t last. The real economy continues to deteriorate, and we can see this even right outside of the gates of Disneyland.
USA - Colorado wildlife managers and homeowners have killed at least 34 bears so far this summer, reflecting the bears’ growing reliance on human-derived food amid a seasonal shortage of forage in some areas. This surge in what the managers call “lethal removals” builds on a pattern in Colorado, where people kill more than 1,000 bears a year. Nobody is comfortable with what’s happening with bears, the largest surviving carnivores in the West. Some wildlife managers point to recent dry conditions and shortages of natural food that may be driving bears into cities. But there is evidence that some bears facing urbanization of their habitat are growing accustomed to eating human food in trash cans, campsites, cars and homes.
USA - Academics and scholars must be mindful about using research done by only straight, white men, according to two scientists who argued that it oppresses diverse voices and bolsters the status of already privileged and established white male scholars. Geographers Carrie Mott and Daniel Cockayne argued in a recent paper that doing so also perpetuates what they call “white heteromasculinism,” which they defined as a “system of oppression” that benefits only those who are “white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.” (Cisgendered describes people whose gender identity matches their birth sex.)
USA - Alliance Defending Freedom is demanding a retraction and apology from ABC News after reporters smeared one of the nation’s most respected religious liberty law firms as a ‘hate group.’ ABC News reporters Pete Madden and Erin Galloway wrote a scathing report on a speech Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered behind closed doors at the Summit on Religious Liberty at the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point, California.
ISRAEL - The Muslim fixation and clamor on Jerusalem is actually a very recent historical development, a product of political conflict, not historical truth. Jerusalem rates not a single mention in the Quran and Muslims face Mecca in prayer.
USA - In a peculiar, rambling essay, papal adviser Father Antonio Spadaro SJ has caricatured white southern evangelicals as well as conservative American Catholics as ignorant, theocratic, Manichean, war-mongering fanatics anxiously awaiting the apocalypse.
ISRAEL - Major Arab state groups and Jordan each separately condemned Israel for temporarily closing the Temple Mount on Friday, but failed to mention the deadly Palestinian terrorist attack at the Mount that prompted Israel to enforce the closure for national security reasons. The statement from Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit complained that the Jewish state’s “banning Palestinians from praying” will only work to “inflame extremism and escalate tension” in the Middle East.
UK - History suggests that stock markets always rally strongly before a crash. While that is easy to recognise, other contributing factors can be harder to identify. Last month, Fed chair Janet Yellen said she believed we will not see another major financial crisis “in our lifetime” because banks are stronger. But not everyone is in agreement.