Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall has joined Colin Kaepernick (as well as Eric Reid and Jeremy Lane) in his courageous protest against racism and police brutality, kneeling during the national anthem while his teammates stood. After the game, he told reporters, “I’m not against the military, I’m not against the police or America. I’m just against social injustice.” He plans to continue refusing to stand for the foreseeable future, and like Kaepernick, will disclose money to charities that help veterans.

Given the hysterical response to Kaepernick’s relatively benign form of protest, Marshall will surely face a firestorm of criticism from ignorant fanatics. Thankfully, other NFL athletes plan to join the protest, and members of Jeremy Lane’s team, the Seattle Seahawks, are reportedly planning to make a unified statement on Sunday’s game with the Miami Dolphins. Linebacker Bobby Wagner: “Anything that we want to do, it’s not going to be individual. It’s going to be a team thing because that’s what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals.”

The game will take place on September 11th. Hopefully they go through with it. The U.S., and the world by consequence, has descended even further into madness since that day. 9/11 convinced Americans that the threat to freedom comes from the outside. It doesn’t. America has enough problems of its own. It’s past time they were brought to light.

USA! USA!

A sad day for hackers and their admirers: Two North Carolina men who allegedly were involved in the leak of contact information for 20,000 FBI employees were arrested yesterday: Andrew Otto Boggs, 22, and Justin Gray Liverman, 24, better known a Incursio and D3f4ult.

… their involvement with “Crackas with Attitude” means they could be facing some very serious charges. Crackas with Attitude (CWA) is the name of a hacking group that hacked the CIA director’s personal emails as well as those of FBI Deputy Director Mark Giuliano. CWA’s most recently highly publicized hack of the Department of Justice (DOJ) led to the exposure of as many as 9,000 employees at the Department of Homeland Security and 20,000 at the FBI.

Another alleged hacker, Deric Lostutter, is facing up to 16 years in prison, but pled not guilty to four felony counts of hacking on Wednesday. Lostutter helped expose the gang rape of a teenage girl in Steubenville, Ohio. His ordeal is truly Kafkaesque:

Lostutter and his defense team accused the judge of seeking to make an example of the white hat activist. He hacked the high school’s football sports fan site Roll Red Roll and found evidence of the 2012 rape and subsequent boasting by the perpetrators who shared footage with friends.

“You get 16 years for forcibly entering your way into a computer, but you get one year for forcibly entering your way into a woman,” Lostutter said. “I think that’s the precedent the government is setting here.”

The self-proclaimed “rape crew” dragged the unconscious victim from party to party and later shared videos and photographs of the assaults.

Thankfully, Americans have their priorities straight, so here’s a look at the U.S.’s new stealth killing machine, the USS Zumwalt. It may look like it has been designed by a child, but this warship is so advanced it shows up on enemy radar as a fishing boat. It has hidden guns, is designed to attack its enemies at a range of more than 60 miles, and is reported to have cost US taxpayers £3.3 billion.

    

Philippines President Rodrigo Dutertue is fast becoming the most entertaining world leader due to his frank and candid assessments of foreign leaders, institutions, and their lack of anything worthy of respect or even politeness. After calling Barack Obama a son of a whore, Duterte has backtracked slightly, after the two spoke briefly and shook hands on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit on Wednesday:

… after the row over the insult subsided somewhat, Duterte switched to the UN secretary-general, calling him a “fool.” The two were scheduled to meet last week at the ASEAN summit in Laos, before Duterte launched into Obama. Duterte said on Friday, “I was ready [for Obama]. I was waiting for Obama to respond. Lawyer to lawyer, we are both lawyers anyway… I said I never made the statement. Check it out.” He added that “…I said that, but not in relation to Obama… I’m not fighting with America.”

Responding to comments directed at human rights violations allegedly committed during his drug crackdown, Duterte noted that: “Even Ban Ki-moon weighed in… [He] also gave a statement before, several weeks ago, about the human rights violation. Sabi ko, isa ka pang tarantado (you are another fool).”

Earlier he had said: “I do not want to quarrel with him [Obama]. He’s the most powerful president of any country on the planet,”. Instead he was angry at members of the US state department who “keep on mouthing” statements about human rights.

Thankfully, despite Duterte’s backtracking, Obama’s name will live on as an infectious parasitic flatworm in Malaysia, which is as good a description as any:

A new species of parasitic flatworm infecting turtles in Malaysia was named after outgoing US President Barack Obama. The scientist who discovered the worm says he has already named a number of species after people he “admires.” The worm is so unusual that the research team proposed giving it not only its own species, but also a new genus, which is the first time it has been proposed for this group of turtle parasites in 21 years. President Obama has seven other species named after him, including another parasite, a trapdoor spider, an extinct insect-eating lizard and a fish.

More news from Freedomland:

North Korea has a blast

After a 5.3 magnitude earthquake recorded in North Korea, Pyongyang has confirmed their fifth nuclear test and announced that they are capable of mounting their warheads on ballistic rockets:

“The standardization of the nuclear warhead will enable the DPRK [North Korea] to produce at will and as many as it wants a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power,” a statement from Pyongyang, posted on the website of the Korean Central News Agency, reads. … A video released by North Korea appeared to show a tremor taking place near the test site.

South Korea’s reaction was to be expected: President Park Geun-hye denounced Kim Jong-un’s “maniacal recklessness”, despite sanctions and Nonproliferation Treaty violations, and ran to Big Brother USA for moral support. Beijing and Japan began radiological and air sampling, Beijing saying the explosion was 10 kilotons. Pyongyang assures the world there was no radioactive leakage.

Moscow had their own response:

“We insist that North Korea stop its dangerous adventurism, abide by all resolutions of the UN Security Council, cease its nuclear missile programs and re-join the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

…

China’s foreign ministry later said in a statement that it is opposed to the North’s most recent nuclear test, while strongly urging Pyongyang to avoid taking any further action that could worsen the situation. … US President Barack Obama said that any provocative actions by North Korea will have “serious consequences.”

Funny, we never hear such condemnations of Israel’s illegal nuclear weapons problem. If there’s any country that deserves the descriptor of “maniacally reckless”, it’s Israel. If you haven’t heard, Grant Smith of IRmep has launched a lawsuit against U.S. officials for illegally giving the nuclear rogue state Israel billions of dollars. Like North Korea, Israel refuses to sign on to NPT.

Not funny – clown sightings freaking people out in the U.S.

In case you missed it, your childhood fears may have just come true, with strange and ominous clown sightings in Greensboro, High Point, Winston-Salem and Rural Hall. Stephen King, whose novel ‘It’ features a freaky clown with an even freakier origin story, comments on the recent scare:

“I chose Pennywise the Clown as the face which the monster originally shows the kiddies because kids love clowns, but they also fear them,” King wrote. “Clowns with their white faces and red lips are so different and so grotesque compared to ‘normal’ people. Take a little kid to the circus and show him a clown, he’s more apt to scream with fear than laugh.”

King said he suspects these real-life clown scares are partly fueled by a collective “low-level hysteria.” People are sensitized to freak out about clowns, and pranksters are pushing that button for a laugh. “The clown furor will pass, as these things do, but it will come back, because under the right circumstances, clowns really can be terrifying,” King said.

So far, no explanation for the clown encounters… But King is right about the hysteria. It’s rampant, and it’s only been getting worse since 9/11. Unfortunately, along with other indicators (like upward and downward social adjustment, hedonism, corporate media lies, etc.), it’s not a good sign: the U.S. is disintegrating from within. Read Political Ponerology for all the details.

Syria and beyond

Syrian War Report – September 9, 2016: Iranian Fighters Arrive Aleppo City:

Kerry and Lavrov in Geneva: After initial U.S. reticence yesterday to confirm talks would take place between Kerry and Lavrov in Geneva, John Kirby-bot confirmed last night that the talks would take place today, for discussions focusing “on reducing violence, expanding humanitarian assistance for the Syrian people, and moving towards a political solution needed to end the civil war”:

The statement came after Russian state media reported the planned talks and just hours after another State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, told reporters that Washington did not believe it is “worth [Kerry’s] while to go have a meeting” with Lavrov.

Talks began today (no details as of yet). As of now, negotiations have been ongoing for over eight hours, with several breaks and no official statements as of yet:

Any exits from the closed doors cause a stir among journalists who are eager to get the scoop. Though the record of 16 hour marathon negotiations in Minsk on the Ukraine crisis is far from being broken, some of the journalists fell asleep right in the lobby.

Earlier on Friday, German FM Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin that the two sides have a real chance to agree on a ceasefire during these talks, adding that there is already an “existing document concerning the truce” that lasts many days. He also lifted the veil by saying that the differences between Russia and the US were reduced to just two or three issues.

During one of the breaks, Kerry addressed the journalists and asked how they are “surviving” while Sergey Lavrov said that he, unfortunately, has no information to cheer them up during another break, RT’s Egor Piskunov reports from the scene.

We can only imagine what is being said. How many ways can Kerry try to get Russia not to shoot at ISIS terrorists? And how many ways can Lavrov try to convince Kerry to give up his beloved jihadis? We’ll find out soon enough!

Also yesterday, Erdogan and Putin spoke on the phone: “The president’s focused on the situation in Syria. They agreed to continue active contacts at various levels aimed at coordination of efforts to facilitate the settlement of the Syrian conflict,” the Kremlin press service said in a statement.

Syrian Kurds slam Turkey’s wall: Turkey is taking a page out of Israel and Trump’s book, building a wall along their border with Syria. But the Kurdish Kobani canton’s deputy head Enver Müslim says they’re building it on the Syrian side of the border:

“If the Turks were building this wall on their side of the border, it wouldn’t concern us, but they are trying to build it here in Kobani. Our people will never let this happen. Turkey is against the federative system we have here, that’s why it is helping the Free Syrian Army and other radical groups,” Enver Müslim said.

…

At the end of August, the Turkish authorities started building a new segment of a barrier wall along its southern border with Kobani canton in northern Syria. The local residents protesting against the construction of the barrier, have been living in tents on the border territory for more than two weeks now in order to block the construction work. The standoff has sparked numerous clashes with Turkish police. Two Kobani residents died and 90 were injured during one such clash last week.

Dozens of so-called “Syrian aid groups”, including the U.S./UK-backed White Helmets, have announced they are refusing to work with the UN, accusing some UN agencies and partners of having been “manipulated” by the Syrian regime. In other words, some UN agencies and partners seemingly actually have a good idea of what’s really going on in Syria, which the “Syrian aid groups” simply can’t abide. They rely on Western ignorance and propaganda to reinforce the delusion that al-Qaeda aren’t terrorists, and since Assad fights al-Qaeda, he is actually fighting non-terrorists. The 73 groups in total demanded an investigation of this horrible outbreak of objectivity in a letter to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. From the letter:

“The Syrian government has interfered with the delivery of humanitarian assistance in multiple instances, including the blocking of aid to besieged areas, the removal of medical aid from inter-agency convoys, the disregard for needs assessments and information coming from humanitarian actors in Syria, and the marginalisation of other humanitarian actors in the critical planning phases of crisis response,” the joint letter by the aid groups said, as quoted by The Guardian.

Would you trust foreign-backed, terrorist-linked “aid” groups like White Helmets in your country? Meanwhile, Russian Military Delivers Three Tonnes of Food to Aleppo, i.e., to citizens in besieged east Aleppo:

“Canned meat, fish, cereals. We would like to note that people trust in our help and they continue to leave through the humanitarian corridors,” [spokesman for the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation] Amir Demlikamov told journalists. … Local residents expressed their gratitude to Russia for its humanitarian and military support, Demlikamov said. Last week, the Russian military handed out 6 tons of humanitarian aid to help orphaned children in Aleppo.

Prisoner terrorists for Russian soldiers’ bodies: The Syrian government also negotiated the release of the five bodies of Russian soldiers who were killed when their helicopter was shot down on August 1. The militants who hold the bodies will exchange them in return for the release of 169 prisoners.

“On Tuesday, 50 inmates including seven women were set free from Adra prison and 84 others from Hama prison,” Michel Chammas, who represents many of them, told reporters by phone from Germany, Ahram Online reported. “Another 31 inmates at Homs prison were also informed that they are going to be let go but they still haven’t been released. Four others held elsewhere should also be released,” he said.

That math seems about right to us.

Battlefield updates: All eyes have been on Aleppo recently, as the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah, Iranian troops, and Syrian volunteers have been working to combat the al-Qaeda-led offensive and re-encircle terrorist-held east Aleppo. But fighting continues all over the country. In Latakia, the SAA were successful in pushing back the al-Qaeda-linked “Army of Conquest” militants towards the city of Idlib with the help of heavy artillery fire.

The field commander told Sputnik that the SAA pushed the militants out using heavy artillery and warplanes. The Army of Conquest tried to break through to the town of Kinsabba that was liberated in July. The town has since turned into a government stronghold that the SAA has used to launch counterterrorism operations meant to free Idlib. “We destroyed more than four vehicles outfitted with machineguns. All terrorists were killed. They were trying to fight their way into Kinsabba to open a new front near the town in a bid to prevent the Syrian Army from advancing in [Latakia and Hama],” he explained.

Meanwhile in Aleppo, the Army has retaken the key district of Ramousah, which was overrun by a sever case of Nusra rebel infestation in August as they attempted to link of with their besieged brethren in east Aleppo. With the help of Russian airstrikes, the Syrians had cut off the rebels’ supply routes into the district. Daesh and al-Qaeda (i.e. Jabhat al-Sham), shelled inhabited areas in Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa and Hama. Unfortunately for Jabhat al-Fake, their top military commander was reportedly killed in an airstrike targeting a meeting of the group’s leadership.

The Fateh al-Sham Front, formerly known as the Al-Nusra Front, announced on Twitter that commander Abu Omar Saraqeb was “martyred” in the countryside of Aleppo, where the group has been playing an instrumental role in ongoing battles against the Syrian Army and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias.

According to RT, several other commanders are said to have been killed in the airstrike, but there is no official data on who was behind the attack. “Unconfirmed reports” cited by Al-Masdar News suggest it was a U.S. strike, but the Pentagon says, “We don’t have any info on this strike”. So it doesn’t look like they’ll try to take the credit, like they did when a Russian strike killed Daesh spokesman al-Adnani at the end of August.

If it was the Americans, why not say it? Are they trying to convince the Russians they are now serious about fighting al-Qaeda? Unwilling to admit to their jihadi boyfriends in Syria that they’re now fair game for U.S. airstrikes? Or maybe it wasn’t the Americans, and the Russians or Syrians just haven’t gotten around to taking responsibility.

Other news from the Middle East:

  • Battle for Iraq’s Mosul to Start Soon, US General Reveals: …preparations for the retaking of Mosul are on full display. US forces have set up a logistics center south of the city and the United Nations is bracing for a complicated humanitarian mission. Newly-appointed commander of the US-led anti-Daesh campaign, Gen. Stephen Townsend, told the Wall Street Journal that the offensive against Daesh could begin as early as October. … Air Force Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, refused to confirm the dateline at a Department of Defense briefing … He adds that retaking Mosul will be difficult to achieve quickly. “We’re preparing for a hard fight, a long, difficult fight” Townsend said on Wednesday. “Really, it’s a siege I’m talking about here.”
  • Two Blasts in Baghdad Kill Three, Wound 13: “An explosion went off at a traditional market in the Sab’ Albour area in northern Baghdad, killing one and wounding eight others,” said the [police] source, Rudaw reported. In a second report, the source said that another simultaneous explosion in the Furat neighborhood of the capital “killed two people and wounded five others.”
  • 90,000 More Iraqis Displaced by War since June Alone: Over 90,000 more Iraqis were displaced by war since mid-June, adding to the estimated 3.3 million who have fled their homes since 2014, when ISIL forces stormed across Iraq, a UN report said. … “The humanitarian community is unable to provide sufficient shelters for the overwhelming numbers of displaced Iraqis, with more than 545,000 living in critical shelter arrangements,” the report said. “These populations are particularly vulnerable, as they seek to find shelter in informal settlements, unfinished and abandoned buildings, religious buildings and schools,” it added.
  • RT exposes ISIS’ evil tactics in Libya: Suicide bombings, targeting civilian infrastructure, hospitals, ambulance bombs

  • Taliban militants enter Afghanistan’s Uruzgan capital: “The Taliban have entered the city and are fighting to take over police and NDS (intelligence agency) headquarters, and we fear they will storm the prison to free captured insurgents”
  • Navy SEALs fail in 2 bids to rescue Taliban-held American and Australian hostages: The rescue attempt was reportedly the SEAL team’s second in two days. The night before, the unit had scrambled their aircraft and moved to the target – located in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad – even though their mission had not been authorized by the White House. The SEALs were reportedly ordered to return to base as the administration demanded more time to review the mission’s details and present them to President Obama. “They turned back that first night because they didn’t have authority. They could have gone without permission if they thought hostages’ lives were in imminent danger,” a US official said on condition of anonymity.
  • UN says Iran Adhering To Terms Of Nuclear Deal: But the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency released on September 8 also said Iran had begun manufacturing rotor tubes for centrifuges, machines used to enrich uranium. Iran is allowed to make such parts but there are limitations. The report said “related technical discussions” were continuing on the question of the rotor tubes.
  • Russia plans to finish expansion of Iran’s main nuclear plant by 2019: The completion of two Russian-built reactors for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, which will start on September 10, could take just three years, said nuclear energy expert Hassan Beheshtipour in an interview with Sputnik. … all the problems holding up construction of the second and the third nuclear reactors for the Bushehr-2 power plant have been solved. “This will be a turning point in the mutually-rewarding nuclear energy cooperation between our two countries, whose peaceful nature has been confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the expert said.
  • Airstrike kills 10 in area of suspected gas attack in Syria: An airstrike in the rebel-held part of Syria’s contested city of Aleppo killed 10 civilians on Wednesday, activists said, an attack that hit in the same neighborhood where a suspected chlorine gas attack happened the day before.
  • Claims of Syria’s chlorine-gas use to be investigated: Probe announcement by chemical-weapons watchdog comes as bombing kills at least 29 people in Tadif and al-Sukkari.
  • At least five killed in explosion in Syria’s Jarablus: Turkish security sources; At least five people were killed and 12 wounded in an Islamic State attack in the Syrian border town of Jarablus, Wounded people were taken to hospitals in Turkey’s southern province of Gaziantep
  • Turkish shelling kills six members of Kurdish force in Syria: Turkish army shelling killed six members of the Kurdish security forces in an area of northwestern Syria controlled by Kurdish groups overnight
  • Turkey-backed forces may go deeper into Syria, Deputy PM says: Speaking to reporters in Ankara after a cabinet meeting, Canikli also said that a total of 110 Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters have been killed since Turkey began its military campaign in Syria on Aug.24.
  • No transition process in Syria with al-Assad: Turkish FM: Speaking at a joint press conference with Saudi counterpart Adil Al-Jubeir, Çavusoglu said chaos in Syria would continue if al-Assad remained in power during the transition process
  • Iran says 12 ‘armed bandits killed,’ day after Kurdish fighters report clashes: Iran claimed it killed “12 armed bandits” in the predominantly Kurdish province of West Azerbaijan province on Wednesday, shortly after the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iran said at least two of its Peshmerga fighter
  • Coalition airstrikes near Anbar kills 7 ISIS members: “Today, the international coalition aircraft conducted a number of air strikes on ISIS headquarters and strongholds in al-Bakr neighborhood in Heet Island and al-Kusairat area in Haditha district, killing 7 ISIS members.”
  • Iraq militia fighters join battle for Syria’s Aleppo; An Iraqi Shi’ite militia said on Wednesday it had dispatched more than 1,000 fighters to the frontline in neighboring Syria, escalating foreign involvement in the battle for Aleppo
  • CIA chief doubts Syria and Iraq ‘can be put back together again’: “I question whether we will see, in my lifetime, the creation of a central government in both of those countries that’s going to have the ability to govern fairly,” he added.
  • Saudi-led coalition kills 9 Yemeni civilians, four of them children: Residents said the building was struck three times while an adjacent but empty school was hit twice.

Eurasia News

Russia surrounded by U.S. bioweapons facilities:

Concern in Russia is increasing over the growing number of hard-to-access, double-purpose medical laboratories, financed by the US Department of Defense, appearing alongside its borders; they are researching biological weapons, indicating that they are “not entirely peaceful”. “It is known that the US has a number of projects in the field of biological research, particularly some joint research programs with our neighboring countries,” Lavrov said.

Similar concerns were voiced back in 2015 by Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, who said that the military biological infrastructure overseen by Washington is being set up increasingly closer to Russian borders. “The number of laboratories which are being controlled and managed by the US has increased twentyfold, many of them have either functioned or currently function on the territories of the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries,” he said, adding that the US is pouring tens of millions of dollars into military-focused biological weapons.

Surrounded by U.S. military bases, missiles, NATO troops, her borders routinely stalked by U.S. jets and ships, it’s no wonder Russia runs drills like this:

Russia Holds Military Exercises In Crimea: Russia has deployed cruise missiles, multiple rocket launchers, and its air-defense missile system in the Crimean Peninsula during the final stage of large-scale military exercises. … The Kavkaz-2016 drills began this week across southern Russia and Crimea, involving more than 120,000 troops.

Serbia to join with Russia in Military Exercises:

Serbia has agreed to take part, next year, in exercises of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). This was announced at a press conference in Moscow by the CSTO Secretary General, Nikolai Bordyuzha. “We are really very seriously cooperating with Serbia. It was the initiative of President Nikolic. Today, our relationships has moved into the plane of practicality. The last event was the invitation to the Serbian Armed Forces in the Collective Rapid Reaction Force exercises in Pskov, with peacekeeping forces in Belarus”, Bordyuzha said.

According to him, the CSTO’s close cooperation with Serbia has peaked only in the last few months, but will be deepened in next year. “The plans for the next year, part of Serb participation in the operations of a law enforcement nature, especially drug trafficking, and information security. We plan to invite them to the event of combat training of collective forces. I do not say that Serbia must necessarily join the CSTO, but it has a problem with security. If we help our Serbian friends even a little bit to solve these, it will be good”, Bordyuzha said.

Uzbek Interim President Rules Out Military Alliances: Uzbekistan’s new interim president, Shavkat Mirziyaev, says he is following the course of recently deceased president Karimov:

“The firm position of our country, as before, is nonmembership in all military-political alliances and not allowing other states’ military bases and facilities on the territory of Uzbekistan,” Mirziyaev said.

“No one should doubt that any attempt by internal and external forces to encroach on the sovereignty and independence of our country will be severely suppressed,” he added.

German trade slowdown raises cooling economy concerns:

Trade activity in the largest European economy significantly shrank in July, according to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office. Exports showed their biggest decrease in seven years, down by ten percent against the same period a year ago, while imports dropped 6.5 percent. Both exports and imports were much lower than expected. In the month, exports shrank by 2.6 percent to €97.1 billion against a projected growth of 0.4 percent. Imports fell by 0.7 percent to €77.7 billion with experts expecting a 0.5 percent increase.

“Even if industrial production data in the summer months is often subject to later revisions, the sharp drop will feed worries about a further cooling of the German economy,” said economist Carsten Brzeski at Dutch multinational banking and financial corporation ING. The decline in German industrial production is mainly caused by Britain’s vote to quit the EU, according to Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Hungarian TV: 300 Islamists Have Infiltrated the German Army



British Court To Hear Russian Case Over Kiev’s $3 Billion Loan Default:

Britain’s High Court in January will hear a case Moscow has filed against Ukraine for defaulting on a $3 billion eurobond, a deputy Russian finance minister has said. “The court hearing has been set for January 17-20. The hearing will last three days,” Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said on September 8.

Russia provided Ukraine with the $3 billion loan in late 2013 when Moscow-backed Viktor Yanukovych was president. But Yanukovych was ousted by a popular uprising two months later. After failing to reach a settlement on repaying the loan, Kyiv stopped making debt payments in December, arguing that Moscow lent Yanukovych the money as a kind of bribe.

At least 4 dead, dozens injured as train derails in northern Spain – authorities:

At least four people were killed and 47 injured when a passenger train derailed in the province of Galicia in northern Spain, local media reports, citing authorities. A Portuguese train driver and a ticket inspector were among the fatalities.

The accident took place when the train collided with a bridge near O Porriño municipality in the province of Galicia, La Voz de Galicia newspaper reported. According to the mayor of O Porriño, Eva García de la Torre, the crash took place in an area under construction.

And to round off our news for today, let’s return to 9/11, and this little piece of American culture:

As part of its “Twin Towers sale,” Miracle Mattress offered to sell any sized mattress for the price of a twin. A commercial showing Miracle Mattress manager Cherise Bonanno standing in front of two other employees in front of stacks of mattresses relies heavily on Twin Tower references. This marketing tactic blew up in the face of the store and forced them to issue an apology. The advertisement in question begins with Bonanno asking, “What better way to remember 9/11 than with a twin tower sale?”

The video may not be funny, but RT’s comment sure is: “While there may be better ways, the sale is actually a very good one for anyone looking to buy a mattress larger than a twin size.”