Personal Safety

ALERT rescues four Edmonton teens from human traffickers

By Shawna / December 1, 2023 /

The ALERT (Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team) Human Trafficking unit has successfully rescued four teenagers from the clutches of exploitation, uncovering a disturbing network of underage victims.

Three individuals, including two men and a 17-year-old, now face a combined total of 48 charges in connection with the case.

The investigation, spanning several months, revealed the victims, recruited and groomed into the sex trade, were subjected to sexual exploitation at a local hotel.

One of the survivors, a 13-year-old girl, had been previously reported missing, initiating collaboration between ALERT and the Edmonton Police Service. This joint effort not only led to the safe recovery of the missing girl but also exposed the plight of other youth victims ensnared in the exploitative web.

“These youths met their perpetrators over social media and were lured and groomed into working in the sex industry. As is often the case, there are a bunch of false promises of money, relationships, gifts, but those never seem to materialize and these survivors endure tremendous hardship,” said Staff Sgt. Chris Hayes, of ALERT Human Trafficking unit.

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Police: Indiana Man Had Pistol Hidden in Rectum During Traffic Stop

By Valerie / November 30, 2023 /

A man with a long criminal history was carrying a handgun in his rectum Monday during a traffic stop in Evansville, Indiana, police say.

Officers made the 2:00 a.m. traffic stop for an obstructed license plate on a vehicle in which 32-year-old Christopher Boyd was a passenger, The Smoking Gun reported.

The outlet noted the car’s driver and another passenger were later released after the Evansville officers searched them.

The outlet continued:

A pat down of Boyd, however, turned up “a small bag with multiple pills” in his right sock. Boyd reportedly said he got the narcotics from his “Aunt Trish” and believed the pills to be Percocet. He used the painkiller, Boyd said, “because he has a bullet lodged in his spine.”

Before being placed in a cruiser, Boyd (seen at right) was searched, though he claimed to be unable to spread his legs very far due to his spine injury. “While searching in Boyd’s groin area, Boyd tensed up,” a cop noted, adding that he asked the suspect if he had “anything stuffed in his groin or buttocks.

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Kibbutz Kissufim, Israel (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP) Proving evil Hyperscepticism about appalling crimes dishonours the dead

By Valerie / November 29, 2023 /

Iwatched the Bearing Witness screening on Thursday, 23 November.

I have been unsure whether to write about it, partly because I was there simply to bear witness and partly because it was not easy to know what to say.

We were a small audience. Some of us introduced ourselves to each other, out of a kind of nervousness I think. We needed the human connection and support before a screening which we knew would contain death, murder and cruelty. I recognised Owen Jones there, but we didn’t speak on the night.

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Gigi Hadid backtracks on claims Israel is ‘raping and torturing’ Palestinians as she ADMITS she failed to ‘fact check’ inflammatory post – amid mounting pressure on modeling agency to cut ties

By Valerie / November 29, 2023 /

Gigi Hadid has backtracked after sharing claims on Instagram that Israel is ‘the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war’ – a post she illustrated with a boy who, as a 13-year-old, went on a stabbing rampage in Jerusalem.

Hadid’s post accused Israel of the ‘abduction, rape, humiliation, torture, murder of Palestinians’.

On Tuesday, after a backlash against her post, the model – whose father is Palestinian, and last month likened Israelis

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Winnipeg police identify victims in shooting that left four dead, suspect still at large

By Valerie / November 27, 2023 /

An early Sunday morning shooting in Winnipeg, Man. left four people dead and one person severely injured in a residence on the 100 block of Langside Street.

Winnipeg police responded to the report of multiple injured people at approximately 4:05 a.m. according to a press release.

An adult male and an adult female were pronounced dead at the scene, and three additional victims, two males and a female, were rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

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Food banks across Canada facing unprecedented demand, “close to a breaking point”

By Valerie / November 22, 2023 /

Food banks across Canada are facing a crisis. More people than ever, from people working two jobs to students, are turning to food banks for the first time ever.

This increase is pushing these vital services to their limits. One-third of this year’s visitors at Hamilton’s central food bank supplier were first-time users, reflecting a troubling national trend of rising food bank dependency.

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Female boxer withdraws from championship over transgender opponent

By Valerie / November 22, 2023 /

Katia Bissonnette stated, ‘There was no information, not even specifying that it was someone who was born male. It’s like everything was normalized.’

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Thinking About Poverty Part 3: Helping the Poor — A Critical Analysis of Poverty Policy in Canada

By Valerie / November 21, 2023 /

This paper is a critical analysis of formal policies and programs designed to help people who live in poverty. It is really important for readers to understand that this paper does not propose alternatives (that comes in the final essay in this series) nor does it endorse any existing policies. It is simply evaluative. The focus of this essay is on government policies and programs and specifically those that intentionally target the poor. The question we repeatedly ask here is whether government help is really helping. While redistributive programs no doubt bump some households up over the poverty line, which will reduce measured poverty, is that the solution to poverty? Or do we want the same thing for the poor that we want for ourselves? Namely, a strong, independent life and the personal satisfaction that we are contributing, participating members of our community—on both the production and consumption side of the economic equation.

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Female boxer steps down from Quebec championship fight after being told opponent is a man

By Valerie / November 21, 2023 /

VICTORIAVILLE, Quebec (LifeSiteNews) – A female boxer withdrew from a Quebec championship fight after learning that her competitor was a man claiming to be a woman.

On November 15, Dr. Katia Bissonnette revealed why she stepped down from the 2023 Provincial Golden Glove Championship in Victoriaville, Quebec upon discovering that her opponent, “Mya” Walmsley, is a biological male just hours before she was set to fight him. Bissonnette had been set to face him during the October 27 and 29 competitions.
“In the group studied, the weakest man remains physically superior to the strongest woman,” Bissonnette added.

She explained that if men are allowed to compete against women in combat sports, women will soon leave the sport rather than fight against men.

“Women shouldn’t have to bear the physical and psychological risks brought by a man’s decisions regarding his personal life and identity,” Bissonnette continued. “There should be two categories: biological male and female.”

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Cricket chiefs BAN transgender players born as men from international women’s cricket to ‘protect the safety’ of female players

By Valerie / November 21, 2023 /

The ICC has banned transgender players born as men from playing international women’s cricket.

In a statement released on Tuesday morning, the governing body concluded that they had made the decision following a nine-month consultation process to protect the safety of female players.

The statement read: ‘The new policy is based on the following principles (in order of priority), protection of the integrity of the women’s game, safety, fairness and inclusion, and this means any Male to Female participants who have been through any form of male puberty will not be eligible to participate in the international women’s game regardless of any surgery or gender reassignment treatment they may have undertaken.

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