culture
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Man Shoots and Robs Woman He Met on Online Dating Site
Georgia police are searching for an assailant said to target his victims via online dating after he allegedly robbed and shot a woman on Christmas Eve, WXIA reports. College Park, Ga., police released photos of the suspect from the dating website Badoo, where he is known as “King Lucciano.” He told the 34-year-old woman, whom…
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Many Cities to Welcome New Year With Protests
As millions across the country gather to bid adieu to 2014, several activist groups nationwide continue with their mission to end police brutality and are urging demonstrators to gather for peaceful protests on New Year’s Eve. Marked by a year of unarmed black men, women and children being beaten or killed by white police officers…
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NYPD Strategy: Be Strict on Small Crimes to Deter Major Ones; Critics Say Policy Targets Blacks
New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is defending his department’s use of the “broken windows” strategy, which, as Al-Jazeera reports, is “the practice of cracking down on minor offenses” because if they go unchecked, the argument goes, “they create visible signs of public disorder that encourage more serious crimes.” Bratton co-authored a 4,500-word essay for…
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Iran’s Head of State Tweets Support for #BlackLivesMatter
If Iran’s head of state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is truly operating the Twitter account @khamenei_ir, as is widely reported, then he’s an ardent supporter of the #BlackLivesMatter protests that have denounced the recent police killings of unarmed black people. On Sunday a series of tweets from the account made clear references to the ongoing movement in…
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Texas Teen Arrested in Tweet of Photo Showing Pellet Gun Pointed at Police Car
One Fort Worth, Texas, teen has found himself in a lot of trouble after he allegedly posted to Twitter a photo of an airsoft pellet gun being pointed at a police car with the caption, “Should I do it? They don’t care for a black male anyways!” CBS News reports. Montrae Toliver, 17, was arrested…
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LAPD Cops Shot Ezell Ford in the Back, Autopsy Finds
An autopsy released by the Los Angeles Police Department details that Ezell Ford, the mentally ill 25-year-old who was killed by police Aug. 11, was shot three times, including once in the back, KABC reports. Two days after Michael Brown’s shooting death, Los Angeles police officers were attempting to restrain Ford, who family members said…
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Watch: How Ellen DeGeneres’ Dance Dare Got a Black Man Thrown to the Ground by an NYPD Officer
An Ellen DeGeneres dance challenge, which centers around people doing fun dances behind unsuspecting strangers, took a brutal turn as a fan attempted to dance behind a New York City police officer who didn’t take kindly to his moves. Like a bad scene out of Footloose, the Free Thought Project notes, YouTube personality Alexander BOK…
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Obama’s Golf Game Forces Military Couple to Relocate Hawaii Wedding
President Barack Obama might be trying to enjoy himself during his Hawaii Christmas vacation, but his fun time cut into a military couple’s wedding, and they had to forsake their original choice of scenery because of the president’s golf game, Yahoo News reports. According to the report, two Army captains, Natalie Heimel and her fiance,…
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Gunman Opens Fire on 2 Los Angeles Officers Sitting in Patrol Car
On Sunday night, a man used a rifle to open fire on two Los Angeles police officers who were sitting in a patrol car, Al-Jazeera reports. The police officers immediately returned fire, “but no one was injured” during the incident, the report explained. The Los Angeles shooting was reminiscent of the shooting Dec. 20 in New…
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The Winners of 2014
For some, 2014 was made of win. Success was found both through hard work and happy accident. These beings shone the brightest. They stood out the most. They were highly tweeted on the Twitter. They lived up to the hype—or at least benefited from it. Here, the winningest people and things of 2014. Ferguson Protesters…