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Murder of Transgender Woman Raises Tensions in Philippines Over US Military Presence

A US Marine accused of killing a 26-year-old transgender Filipina woman was turned over to Philippine authorities by the US military on Wednesday in a case that has brought long-simmering tensions between the two countries to a boil.

Pfc. Joseph Scott Pemberton is accused of murdering Jennifer Laude, formerly known as Jeffrey, by drowning her in a motel bathroom toilet on October 11 after a bilateral training session near a former US naval base at Subic Bay, about 50 miles northwest of Manila.

The gruesome killing comes at a delicate moment for US-Philippine relations. There is political pressure in the Philippines for the former US colony to deny the US access to military bases.

Atheists Are Banned From Holding Public Office In Seven US States

If you’re an atheist and interested in becoming a city council member or a juror in Maryland, well you can forget it: the East Coast state is one of seven in the US, which thanks to long-standing provisions in their state constitution, prohibits those who don’t believe in God from holding public office.

Atheists are up in arms about the old-fashioned restriction, which also affects non-believers in Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, and are trying to get rid of the bans.

Rob Boston, director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told VICE News that these laws are “outdated provisions from a more bigoted time” but that they send a worrying message to atheists and non-believers.

The Marijuana ‘Green Rush’ Is Worsening California’s Water Wars

California has been under a state of emergency since January because of dangerous drought conditions that currently affect over 99 per cent of the population and more than 37 million people.

Despite the fact that California has long been vulnerable to forest fires and water shortages, some suggest that a steady increase in cannabis grows since medical marijuana was legalized in the state in 1996 has had a significant impact on conditions. This has led to environmental crimes including water theft.

Scott Bauer of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife examined aerial photographs of four watersheds in northern California’s so-called Emerald Triangle, which contains the counties of Mendocino, Humboldt, and Trinity. He found that marijuana growing areas doubled between 2009 and 2012.

Video Emerges of Ukraine Military and Separatists Clashing at Donetsk Airport

Ukrainian military forces and separatist fighters exchanged fire at Donetsk Airport on Wednesday, as the fragile ceasefire between the Kiev government and breakaway factions in eastern Ukraine frayed further.

The video released by pro-Russia news organization Novorossiya TV shows separatist fighters trading fire with an armored vehicle near the airport. Four minutes into the clip an explosion ignites close to the cameraman, following several minutes of the fighters shooting at the distant vehicles.

How the Ku Klux Klan Helped Republicans Win Voters in the US South

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had a lasting impact on the number of US Republican voters, even half a century after the white supremacist movement’s popularity and political impact peaked, according to a new study from academics at Yale, Brandeis, and Notre Dame universities.

Professors David Cunningham, Rory McVeigh, and Justin Farrell cite data from five presidential votes between 1960 and 2000 in the paper, published in the December issue of the American Sociological Review. Brandeis reported that it shows that KKK activity “played a significant role in shifting voters’ political party allegiance in the South in the 1960s — from Democratic to Republican — and it continued to influence voters’ activities 40 years later.”

The paper argues that supporters of radical social movements, such as the KKK, are more likely to vote or agree with the political agendas of mainstream parties that appear to share some — but not all — of the extremist views.

Facebook Tells the DEA That Fake Accounts and Covert Ops Are Not Welcome

Undercover police operations run the gamut from Miami Vice-style raids to phone tapping á la The Wire, but last week Facebook told law enforcement agencies that the social media site will not be an option for officers looking to carry out covert operations.

The company reprimanded the Drug Enforcement Administration for creating a fake profile using a real person’s information and personal photos to assist in an “undercover” sting investigation, saying that they found the activity “deeply troubling.”

Facebook’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, sent a letter to the agency on October 17 informing them that “the DEA’s deceptive actions violate the terms and policies that govern the use of the Facebook service and undermine the trust in the Facebook community.”

Video Shows Al Nusra Tanks Pushing North Towards ‘Another Kobane’

A video showing a large armed convoy of the Jabhat al Nusra militant group entering Khan al-Sabeel, a city on the Homs-Aleppo highway, emerged online on Tuesday.

The high-quality footage, uploaded by a group associated with al Nusra,shows a parade of vehicles and heavy weaponry travelling through the town heading north and suggests that the fighters are making their way, as Kurdish PKK military leader Cemil Bayik has warned, to a Kurdish enclave of Afrin within the Aleppo Governorate.

Blackmailers Are Threatening the Czech Republic with Ebola for Bitcoin Payment

Anonymous blackmailers are threatening to spread Ebola in the Czech Republic if the country’s government does not pay them a million euros, in Bitcoin.

An email allegedly from the blackmailers, published on Monday by the country’s top commercial TV station TV Nova, claimed they had “biological material” from an infected patient in Liberia.

“An unknown perpetrator or perpetrators are blackmailing this state, threatening to spread the Ebola virus,” Zdenek Laube, the country’s deputy police chief, told reporters, according to AFP.

Kurdish Boys from Kobane Detail Awful Abuses at the Hands of the Islamic State

Kurdish boys from the Syrian town of Kobane were repeatedly beaten with an electric cable and a hose while in the custody of Islamic State militants and forced to watch videos of the terror group’s beheadings and attacks, Human Rights Watch reported on Tuesday.

The taking of 153 of these children hostage and the accompanying physical abuse amount to war crimes under international law, contributing to the astonishing assortment of offenses against humanity that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS/ISIL) is believed to have committed — including summary mass executions and the selling of sex slaves.