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Russian porn star added to Ukrainian ‘kill list’

A notorious Ukrainian government-linked website that tracks purported enemies of the state has added Russian-born porn star Eva Elfie to its “hit list.” According to the Mirotvorets database, the adult film actress is guilty of “legitimizing the occupation of Crimea.”

Mirotvorets publishes profiles of public figures and private citizens whom it considers to be enemies of Ukraine, marking those have died by any causes as “eliminated.” It is also known to dox its targets whenever it obtains their personal data. Some of the people blacklisted by Mirotvorets have been murdered.

The website took issue with Elfie, whose real name is Yulia Romanova, traveling to Crimea for a photo shoot 2018, just as her adult entertainment career was taking off. The Siberian-born actress’s popularity was given a boost in 2021, when she received the ‘Best New Foreign Starlet’ accolade at the adult movie industry’s prestigious AVN Awards.

According to an anonymous Mirotvorets editor, Elfie was blacklisted after she became “the number one porn actress in the world.”

A screenshot posted by Elfie in November of her Pornhub profile showed that she was ranked first on the adult website, with over 870 million views and 1.9 million subscribers. In April, she received a Pornhub award for ‘Most Popular Female Performer Chosen by Women’.

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Smartphones With Popular Qualcomm Chip Secretly Share Private Information With US Chip-Maker

During our security research we found that smart phones with Qualcomm chip secretly send personal data to Qualcomm. This data is sent without user consent, unencrypted, and even when using a Google-free Android distribution. This is possible because of proprietary Qualcomm software which provides hardware support also sends the data. Affected smart phones are Sony Xperia XA2 and likely the Fairphone and many more Android phones which use popular Qualcomm chips.

The smartphone is a device we entrust with practically all of our secrets. After all, this is the most ubiquitous device we carry with us 24 hours per day. Both Apple and Android with their App Store and Google Play Store are spying on its paying customers. As a private alternative some tech-savy people install a Google-free version of Android on their ordinary smartphone. As an example we analyzed such setup with a Sony Xperia XA2 and found that this may not protect sufficiently because proprietary vendor software, different from the (open source) operating system, sends private information to the chip maker Qualcomm. This finding also applies to other smartphone with a Qualcomm chip such as the Fairphone.

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INSIDE THE PENTAGON’S NEW “PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT” OFFICE TO COUNTER DISINFORMATION

NOT LONG AFTER the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration launched what it called the Office of Strategic Influence, which would seek to “counter the enemy’s perception management” in the so-called war on terror. But it quickly became clear that the office, operating under Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, would be managing those perceptions with its own disinformation.

As the New York Times reported at the time, its work was to “provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion.” In the nascent Internet age, observers worried the propaganda could boomerang back on Americans.

“The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad,” the Times reported in 2004. “But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets.”

Now, two decades later, “perception management” is once again becoming a central focus for the national security state. On March 1, 2022, the Pentagon established a new office with similar goals to the one once deemed too controversial to remain open. Very little has been made public about the effort, which The Intercept learned about through a review of budget documents and an internal memo we obtained. This iteration is called the Influence and Perception Management Office, or IPMO, according to the memo, which was produced by the office for an academic institution, and its responsibilities include overseeing and coordinating the various counter-disinformation efforts being conducted by the military, which can include the U.S.’s own propaganda abroad.

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New York Town Declares State Of Emergency Banning Hotels, Facilities From Housing Immigrants

Riverhead in Suffolk County, New York, declared a state of emergency on May 16 in an effort to prevent an influx of illegal immigrants from being sent to the small town following the expiration of Title 42.

Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar signed the emergency declaration after reports emerged that officials from New York City were arranging to transport immigrants to a number of hotels and motels in the town.

According to a statement from Aguiar’s office, the order was signed “based on information received and in response to reports that the New York City Department of Homeless Services has, or will be arranging for the transportation and relocation of undocumented migrants and/or asylum seekers to hotels or motels within the Town of Riverhead.”

Aguiar told News 12 Long Island that New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, had recently sent out an advisory to all housing facilities in Suffolk County stating that the city would pay for the housing of immigrants for 12 months if the facilities agreed to accommodate them.

The advisory reportedly stated that the city would sign a contract with the facilities that agreed to house the immigrants.

Aguiar told the publication that three facilities in the small town of roughly 33,539 people had agreed to house immigrants and offered to sign the contract.

In response, Aguiar—who previously worked as a detective sergeant for the NYPD Counter Terrorism Division—declared a state of emergency to stave off what she anticipates would be thousands of immigrants heading to the small town, leaving it overburdened.

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‘THIS IS HOW EASY IT IS FOR SOMEONE TO BE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED’

Uriah Courtney was sentenced to life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. In 2004, a teenage girl was sexually assaulted by a stranger on the streets of Lemon Grove, a city in San Diego County. Prior to being assaulted, the victim noticed a man staring at her from an old, light-colored truck with a fake wooden camper. When the victim spoke with police, she told them she assumed the man from the truck had attacked her, and that her attacker was a white male in his 20s. 

Police put out an alert for a vehicle matching that description. Eventually, someone saw a light-colored truck with a fake wooden camper in that area and called the police. The truck belonged to Courtney’s stepfather. He used the truck for the business where he and Courtney worked and allowed his employees to use the truck as well. Courtney’s coworker had the truck parked in his driveway in Lemon Grove when someone called it in. Both the coworker and Courtney’s stepfather were too old to match the victim’s description, but Courtney wasn’t.

Police presented a photo of Courtney to the victim in a photo lineup. She picked out Courtney, saying she was, “Not sure, but the most similar is number 4,” according to the California Innocence Project, a nonprofit organization that helps free innocent people and overturn wrongful convictions.

An eyewitness also identified Courtney. Based on this, Courtney was arrested for kidnapping and rape. In 2005, a jury found him guilty and a judge sentenced him to life in prison. 

Years later, the California Innocence Project took on Courtney’s case and got the San Diego District Attorney’s office to submit the victim’s clothing for DNA testing. The DNA on the victim’s clothing did not match Courtney. But it did match a man who lived three miles from the crime scene, looked like Courtney, and had been convicted of a sex crime. 

Courtney’s conviction was vacated in 2013. He spent eight years in prison. We spoke with Courtney about his experience and what he wants people to know about wrongful convictions. 

“I could have been in prison for the rest of my life if there wasn’t DNA evidence,” Courtney said. “Sitting in prison all those years. I just felt hopeless. I wished I could die.  When I hear about other people behind bars still awaiting their day back in court, or someone who was just released due to DNA evidence, it hits me from time to time. I try not to think about it.”

The California Innocence Project recently launched a true-crime podcast that highlights cases of wrongful convictions and features interviews with exonerees. The interview below has been condensed for clarity and length. 

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Activists Demand Reparations for Latinos for Land Under Dodger Stadium

Activists are demanding reparations for land in the Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles that currently sits under Dodger Stadium, part of a broader movement across California that has focused thus far on African Americans.

The New York Times reported Wednesday on “the growing call for reparations from descendants of the people who lived where Dodger Stadium was built.” It cited reporting earlier this month by Jesus Jiménez, who wrote:

[I]n the early 1950s, the city of Los Angeles began displacing the residents of Palo Verde, La Loma and Bishop, through voluntary purchases and eminent domain, with plans to build a housing project in the area.

It was never built, and eventually, after the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, the team acquired the deed to the land. A condition was that the team build a stadium with capacity for at least 50,000 people.

…

The last of the families were forcefully evicted by sheriff’s deputies in May 1959. One woman, Aurora Vargas, who was known as Lola, was infamously photographed being carried out of her home by deputies. An article in The Los Angeles Times on May 9, 1959, described the scene as a “long skirmish.” Vargas was kicking and screaming and children were “wailing hysterically,” the newspaper reported.

The activists formed an organization in 2018 called Buried Under the Blue. They drew encouragement from the successful effort to obtain restitution for the original black owners of Bruce’s Beach. As Breitbart News noted:

The owners, Willa and Charles Bruce, purchased the land in 1912 and created a beach resort catering to black clients before the city used eminent domain to seize the property.

The land was dormant for decades until the city built a park in 1960 and later renamed it Bruce’s Beach. Descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce sued, claiming the eminent domain program was racially motivated.

The website for Buried Under the Blue states that the group’s mission is “to preserve our history of our three destroyed communities” and “[t]o empower and educate all people to create healthier communities, sustainable communities, and maintain historical documents for self-determination.” While the Times describes the group as “Latino,” the website refers to the former inhabitants of the area under Dodger Stadium as “indigenous.”

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Serbians Turned Over 13,500 Guns to Government. Now Their President is Threatening ‘Repressive Measures’.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has threatened “repressive measures” to bring gun owners to heel amidst a so-called amnesty which has already seen around 13,500 weapons turned over to the state.

Vucic, who vowed to see through an “almost complete disarming” of the Serbian public after consecutive mass shootings killed 17 people at a school and a trio of villages on May 3rd and May 4th, warned of a crackdown once the amnesty ends in early June.

“After June 8th, the state will respond with repressive measures and punishments will be very strict,” the Serbian Progressive Party leader said.

“What does anyone need an automatic weapon for? Or all these guns?”

Gun ownership rates are high in Serbia – at least by European standards – given the Balkan country’s long history of partisan activity and ethnic and religious conflict. Many weapons are held “illegally,” since the country’s constitution enshrines no rights to bear arms like the United States.

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WHO report calling children ‘sexual’ beings continues to fuel debate worldwide

A recently resurfaced European report originally published in 2010 by the World Health Organization (WHO) is adding to continued debate in the United States over sexual education for children.

Co-authored by the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the German Federal Centre for Health Education, the 68-page publication advocates for policymakers, educators and national health departments to begin formal sexual education as early as possible. The report suggests “a child is understood to be a sexual being from the beginning.”

The WHO report continues by saying “the benefit of this approach is the normalization of the topic of sexuality.” Towards the end of document, a matrix highlights what sexual topics WHO deems is age appropriate. For ages 0-4, the document advocates for this group to have “the right to explore nakedness and the body, to be curious”.

TheDailyMail.com recently reported about an over-decade-old movement throughout Europe to have the WHO withdraw their report. South Wales politician Laura Anne Jones has lead much of the European debate against the WHO’s sexual advocacy. Jones tells the Telegraph that the WHO needs to “rescind the advice immediately”.

As the 2024 elections draw near, conversations about sexual education for children are becoming a hot topic among parents and presidential hopefuls alike.

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Parents hit out at Waldorf school’s explicit sex ed curriculum featuring graphic pictures: ‘Nauseous’

Parents at the progressive Waldorf School of Garden City, Long Island, are angry and some are threatening to pull their kids out school because of new mandatory sex education for fifth graders that teaches, among other things, oral and anal sex and masturbation — with illustrations.

Part of the new sex ed curriculum, which originated with the Unitarian Universalist Church and is called Our Whole Lives (OWL), was just formally announced to Waldorf parents in March by the school.

It includes a controversial book called “It’s Perfectly Normal” that has been around since the early aughts but which parents say was originally meant for older kids but contains material too graphic for fifth graders.

“It made me physically nauseous,” one mother told The Post.

“There’s a whole page on contraception and vaginal and anal sex and more about how it’s perfectly normal. This is clearly agenda-pushing and it’s so outrageous.”

The Waldorf schools are based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner, the 19th century Austrian philosopher and teacher, who believed more in experiential and gentle teachings rather than disciplined pedagogy.

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Cops say they’re being poisoned by fentanyl. Experts say the risk is ‘extremely low’

Last December, Officer Courtney Bannick was on the job for the Tavares, Fla., police department when she came into contact with a powder she believed was street fentanyl.

The footage from another officer’s body camera shows Bannick appearing to lose consciousness before being lowered to the ground by other cops.

“I was light-headed a little bit,” Bannick later told WKMG, a local television station. “I was choking, I couldn’t breathe.”

Other officers can be heard on the tape describing Bannick’s medical condition as an overdose. They administered Narcan, a medication that reverses opioid poisoning.

“She’s breathing,” a cop says. “Stay with me!”

The Tavares police department blamed the incident on fentanyl. Local officials declined NPR’s requests for an interview, as did Bannick. Speaking with WKMG, a television station in Orlando, she said she felt lucky to be alive.

“If I didn’t have backup there, I wouldn’t be here today,” she said soon after the incident.

Reports of police suffering severe medical symptoms after touching or inhaling powdered fentanyl are common, occurring “every few weeks” around the U.S. according to experts interviewed by NPR.

But many experts say these officers aren’t experiencing fentanyl or opioid overdoses.

“This has never happened,” said Dr. Ryan Marino, a toxicologist and emergency room physician who studies addiction at Case Western Reserve University. “There has never been an overdose through skin contact or accidentally inhaling fentanyl.”

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