- NewsPA Media: UK News
Social media seen by teenager too extreme even for adults, coroner told
Instagram posts viewed by Molly Russell before her death are too disturbing even for lawyers and police to look at for too long, a pre-inquest heard.
- NewsCBC
22-year-old student from India identified as man who died cliff diving at Mactaquac
Milly Squires is still trying to figure out how her athletic and healthy 22-year-old boyfriend died after jumping off the cliffs at the Mactaquac Headpond on Wednesday afternoon. Aranyam Bora, who usually went by Ary, was a competitive bodybuilder and martial artist and was in incredible physical condition, said Squires, a McAdam native and third-year St. Thomas University student. Squires said Bora told her he was going cliff diving at the headpond, about 20 kilometres west of Fredericton, with a friend on Wednesday.She said he was a bit of daredevil and had previously talked about jumping off bridges. She said she didn't worry about him until he didn't text her "good night" at the end of the day. Several text messages to him went unanswered and, by Thursday morning, she started to panic. She contacted the friend who was with him at Mactaquac the day before and heard what happened. His body was found by RCMP divers just before noon on Thursday. Bora was a fourth-year St. Thomas University student, majoring in political science and international relations. He was from India and came to New Brunswick to study. Squires said she and Bora were opposites — she the introvert, and he "just the absolute opposite." She recalls sitting with him under a bridge this past summer and him trying to flag down boaters to try to make new friends. "He was wonderful … kind, caring, so compassionate. He loved life. He loved his family so much. He loved India and he loved just making people smile."Squires said he was the life of the party. "He brought a smile to everyone's face who knew him. His energy was just contagious as soon as you walked into any room with him." She has spoken with the friend who was with Bora. She said the woman used his phone to film his cliff diving for his Instagram account. Squires hopes the footage will help determine what happened to him. The RCMP, although they haven't named him, said Bora initially surfaced but soon started to appear in distress. They say a witness jumped in to try to help but was unsuccessful and he went under and didn't resurface. Squires was told that Bora appeared to be fine after the jump, but soon started flailing his arms. The friend tried to help, but "he just kept pushing her under." She managed to get back to shore, but he didn't. Squires hopes the cellphone footage will help give some answers. RCMP Const. Hans Ouellette said an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. No other details were available, he said. Squires said she had never been to the cliffs at the Mactaquac Headpond and doesn't think Bora had ever been there either. Sarah Kohut, the president of the St. Thomas University Students' Union, wasn't familiar with the cliffs either and said she wasn't sure how well-known they were to students. But locals say the spot has been popular with young people for decades. Larry Jewett, who owns the Mactaquac Marina, has lived in the area his whole life and people have been jumping off the cliffs for as long as he can remember. He said people continued to frequent the site even after NB Power, which owns the land, erected a fence and signs a few years ago. The cliffs are located between the dam and the Riverside Resort. A dirt road leads from the main road, but there's a gate across it. "People were still getting around," said Jewett. Mactaquac fire Chief Murray Crouse is also familiar with the area. He said the fencing, even with signs, "doesn't seem to deter them." He said it's about a six or seven-metre drop to the surface of the headpond and about 15 metres (50 feet) of water below. "There's lots of water there, so I'm not sure what happened," Crouse said on Friday. The water on Thursday morning was still about 19 C, he said. When asked about whether young people should dive at the site, he said, "They probably shouldn't, but I don't know how you would stop it." One of the signs, posted at the gate says, "Danger. Keep out. Access beyond this point may result in drowning."Since the measures were put in place in 2015, the gate has been wrecked, barbed wire at the top of the fence has been cut, and a hole was made through the fence. Despite repeated attempts by CBC News, a spokesperson for NB Power did not not respond to a request for an interview. The impact of Bora's death, meanwhile, has "resonated" across STU's small campus, where "everyone knows everyone," said Kohut. She encourages anyone who may be struggling to reach out. She said the university is providing a number of resources, including drop-in sessions in the student lounge in Sir James Dunn Hall on Saturday and Monday from noon to 4 p.m. For those off-campus, an online Zoom session has been organized for Saturday at noon.
- LifestyleCBC
Edmonton snowbirds chart new course during pandemic
For 16 years, Edmonton retiree Jack McGuire and his wife wintered in Mexico. But like countless other snowbirds, the pandemic has interrupted their usual migration south.Instead, McGuire is planning a 10-day canoe trip in B.C. while he polishes up his snowblower. He'll see snow for the first time in eight years."I'm really disappointed," McGuire told CBC News. "Winter is not real healthy here for a lot of people because the streets are slippery. Older people have to be a little more cautious and we get a lot more exercise down in Mexico than we do here."I'm going to look for a pair of winter boots. I've got some cross-country skis that I never sold in the last garage sale."Although Mexican resorts have reopened, McGuire remains cautious."I don't have any underlying health problems, but you still don't want to end up in a hospital in a foreign country," he said.Quarantining 'real deterrent'According to the Canadian Snowbird Association, McGuire is one of roughly 350,000 Canadians who travel south annually, now faced with an abrupt change in retirement plans.Some, like McGuire, are travelling in Canada, according to Lesley Paull, owner of Paull Travel in Edmonton. But international travel is slow."These next three or four months, people are just kind of hanging on," Paull said."A lot of people really want to travel, but the thought of going for a week or two or three somewhere — and coming back and quarantining for two weeks — is a real deterrent." At the Leduc Lions Campground, manager Tamara Carmichael and her husband are trying to figure out what to do.The couple, like many full time RV dwellers, prepaid last year for their usual spot in Yuma, Ariz."So it leaves us in a position here where you're basically paying your rent twice," Carmichael said. "And honestly, a lot of snowbirds go south in the winter because it's cheaper. So now we're looking at paying twice and paying more money if we have to go in somewhere here. And financially, we're not in that tax bracket."As RV parks in B.C. that offer winter camping fill up, some are choosing another option.Terry Shoemaker is storing the motorhome he usually takes down to Arizona and settling into a hotel suite in Edmonton where he's determined to make the most of it."I might buy myself a heat lamp and a bag of sand and a little kiddie pool, put it in the suite and that'll be my summer place," Shoemaker joked.
- SportsPeople
Naomi Osaka Wears Yellow Bikini in 'Sunny' Snap Taken by Boyfriend as She Sits Out of French Open
"Unfortunately I won't be able to play the French Open this year," Osaka said in a previous statement, citing a sore hamstring
- NewsThe Daily Beast
Kremlin’s World War III Propaganda Meltdown Shows Putin Is Cornered
MOSCOW—Russia these days may look frightening to Americans, who hear often of election meddling and poisoning among other ill deeds. But consider for a moment the view from the other side of the divide, or at least the view presented to Russians by their television sets.The looming potential for World War III has become a regular topic on Russian state propaganda shows. Night after night, Vladimir Soloviev, who is often described as the Kremlin’s top propagandist, condemns the West’s “economically suffocating” strategy of imposing sanctions and suggest war is the logical outcome.The conclusion reached by Soloviev and his like-minded panel of guests is that the country’s politicians and titans of business should break all ties with the West, including communicating with their relatives. A long history of grievances spills out; Soloviev says the conflict between Russia and the West started in the 13th century: “They believe we are barbarians and they are civilized, so they have a right to point out to us how we should live and behave.”Trump Followed Russian Media’s Lead on SCOTUS PredictionThe show, which is broadcast nightly on state channel 1, heats up quickly. This week, Sergei Kurginyan, a pro-Kremlin political expert close to the secret services, accused the West of tearing Russia apart by creating a fifth column in the Far East, where thousands of Russians have been marching in anti-Putin rallies for two months. Putin’s nemesis Alexei Navalny was out East bolstering the opposition rallies when he was poisoned with a deadly nerve agent.Kurginyan has been consistently criticizing the Russian elite for pursuing naïve dreams about becoming part of European society: “Our elites have grown together with Europe through family connections, children, grandchildren. But in the current situation they will have to tear these connections apart. That will be terribly painful but you will have to do that,” he said.A popular newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda announced in plain language on Friday that: “The world is under a threat of the Third World War over the Russian COVID-19 vaccine.” The paper claimed the European Union and the U.S. were furious about Russia selling millions of doses of its vaccines to Brazil and Africa.The Russian nationalist publication Tsargrad also carried an overheated headline on Friday, claiming an invented military victory: “NATO Exercises Failed: Russian Ships Scared Americans and Ukrainians Away.”What has caused this latest storm of anti-Western propaganda?This week, the U.S. imposed new commercial restrictions on Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the oligarch known as “Putin’s chef.” The companies operated by Prigozhin, one of Putin’s most trusted lieutenants, are linked to the Wagner mercenary army and troll farms responsible for U.S. election interference. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also suggested this week that the order to poison Navalny came from senior Russian officials, the pressure grows on Putin to explain the poisoning or face yet more sanctions. Both the European Union and Britain are also preparing sanctions against Putin’s partner in Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, after a violent crackdown on the opposition and a fraudulent election. The age-old theme of a “conflict of civilizations” between East and West has been resurfacing on state media outlets. This undercurrent is at the core of the West’s issues with Russia, the propaganda outlets insist.If the West continues to punish Vladimir Putin’s allies with economic sanctions and block Russian movement around the world, they say, Moscow will come up with a new strategy building on alliances with other Western antagonists. “We have not sent forces to Ukraine, to Kyiv only for the sake of our relations with Europe. By the new strategy we would deploy the forces and surely our allies in Turkey and China would respect us for such a strong decision,” prominent Kremlin-aligned political analyst Sergey Markov tells The Daily Beast.Russian Media Is Rooting for Civil War in America: ‘The Worse, the Better’The propaganda outlets portray Putin and his allies withdrawing from the world, as if in a besieged castle, to isolate and defend themselves.Russia’s ability to respond in kind with sanctions is limited. A few weeks ago, the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov imposed sanctions against Pompeo after the U.S. State Department sanctioned members of his family. But this was widely seen as little more than a joke since Pompeo has no property or bank accounts in Chechnya. Still, the story made the Russian-speaking news. Olga Skobeyeva, a host of one of the more popular political talk shows, 60 Minutes, praised Kadyrov’s “cool” sanctions.Germany and France are demanding that the Kremlin investigate last month’s poisoning of Navalny with the Soviet-era chemical weapon Novichok. But the last two decades of Russian history show how strongly Putin resists any demand imposed by the West. Instead, they are ramping up the propaganda. “They say, ‘Oh, you once again want to tear us apart, here is our answer to you.’ And Putin comes out with a speech about the most powerful hypersonic weapon,” a commentator on independent Rain TV, Pavel Lobkov, told The Daily Beast.Last weekend, on Russia’s Day of the Gunsmith—an obscure holiday which is usually ignored—Putin went on television to discuss Russia’s latest nuclear weapons. They can reach anywhere in the world, he said. The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles can wipe out a territory the size of Texas or France, viewers were told. Putin blamed the U.S. for the withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic-Missile treaty back in 2002. “We had to create these weapons in response to the U.S. deploying a strategic missile defense system, which in the future would be able to actually neutralize, nullify our entire nuclear potential,” Putin said.On Friday, Putin asked the White House for a truce on the “information war,” which is laughable since Western intelligence agencies say the Kremlin has already been targeting the 2020 presidential election. Nonetheless, Markov explains that Moscow is expecting incoming rhetorical fire during the height of the American election season: “Russian intelligence has informed Vladimir Putin earlier this year of rough attacks on him personally coming up,” he said. “That might happen during the U.S. elections, the conflict might enter a hot phase, so it is time to buy canned food.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
- PoliticsGlobal News
Video Coronavirus: Trudeau ‘disappointed’ at RCMP mask policy requiring shaving of beards
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday said he was “disappointed” to hear of an RCMP policy that calls for all officers to shave their beards and wear medical-grade face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic as a safety measure. It is being criticized as discriminatory against Sikh and Muslim officers whom keep facial hair for religious reasons.
- NewsThe Daily Beast
CNN’s Brianna Keilar Fires Back at Tucker Carlson and Kayleigh McEnany
CNN’s Brianna Keilar spent more than 10 minutes of her broadcast on Friday dismantling the smears she has received from both Fox News and the Trump White House this week.“Yesterday, White House Press Secretary implied that I am responsible for two police officers being shot in Louisville,” the anchor began. “She is lying to Americans again, and I’ll address that in a moment. But first, I’m not the Brianna that the White House should be focused on right now. Breonna Taylor is.”After recapping for viewers the devastating details of that police shooting, which left the 26-year-old EMT from Kentucky dead without any of the three officers being held responsible, Keilar said, “The White House wants us talking about racism and the justice system because they use it as a springboard to scare Americans about looting, aided by Fox News running episodes of violence on an incessant loop, that their hearts and minds won’t be able to look past the fear to see injustice.”> “I’m not the Brianna that the White House should be focused on right now. Breonna Taylor is.” > @brikeilarCNN responds to Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany’s remarks about her. pic.twitter.com/dR40GxR4u7> > — CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) September 25, 2020This brought her back to the lies that McEnany told about her from the White House press room on Thursday. The press secretary attacked Keilar for calling into question the Kentucky attorney general’s assertion that “mob justice is not justice.” But as the CNN anchor explained, she was highlighting in her comments his “purposeful use of that Trump talking point” equating Joe Biden supporters with the so-called “mob” of protesters.“That's an appalling statement from Brianna Keilar at CNN,” McEnany said. “Hours later, after this comment was made on CNN, two police officers were shot. This is not justice.”Kayleigh McEnany Grilled on Trump’s Sudden Embrace of Mail-In VotingKeilar proceeded to connect the dots between Tucker Carlson, who she said first took her words “out of context” on his Fox News show earlier in the week, and McEnany who brought them into her official White House press conference.“Tucker Carlson, whose own company argues that his show is so full of it that viewers shouldn’t be expected to believe what he tells them,” Keilar said, referring to the recent defamation lawsuit that Fox News won by arguing that “given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrives with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.”“Any reasonable viewer,” she repeated. “But not Kayleigh McEnany. The press secretary left no doubt that Fox News primetime shows are just a propaganda arm for this administration.”Tucker Carlson Argues That Breonna Taylor and George Floyd Had It ComingResponding directly to McEnany’s claims, Keilar said, “At no time did I suggest that violence is justice, and I can’t believe I even have to explain that. But the alternative is letting someone like Kayleigh McEnany misquote and manipulate what you say. McEnany, who repeatedly lies to the American people.”After playing a series of clips in which the press secretary delivered obvious lies about President Donald Trump and the coronavirus to reporters and the public, Keilar cut to video footage of the president “repeatedly encouraging violence” against journalists and others.“That is not real leadership,” she said. “Real leadership is calm. Real leadership is steady in moments of crisis. It is not hysterical. It is not exploitive. It is not dishonest.”CNN’s Brianna Keilar Comes at Trump Campaign’s Mercedes Schlapp for Falsely Smearing Her Military HusbandRead more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
