Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say

The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.

Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on “fake news,” as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem.

Trump and the white power problem

I’ve written a lot of pretty rough things about Donald Trump over the last 18 months. I’ve called him an entertainer and an emotional extremist, a guy with a black hole at his center. I’ve likened him to P.T. Barnum and a dime-store psychic.

Not once, though, have I suggested that Trump is, personally, a racist or an anti-Semite, which are labels people throw around too often these days. He’s always struck me as an opportunist more than anything else — an act in search of an audience, which he just happened to find in some of the darkest corners of the American psyche.

I figured that if a loud chunk of conservative voters had been anxiously agitating for someone to champion, say, antipoverty programs instead of a wall, Trump would have jumped on that horse just as quickly. Whatever his flaws, I didn’t take him for a devoted bigot.

It’s only now, after another staggering week in our fast unraveling society, that I find myself asking a question I really never imagined asking.

Does the president-elect of the United States feel some genuine kinship with the white nationalists he’s managed to embolden? Or does he just think it’s not a big deal if a bunch of crazy guys go around saluting him like Nazis?

Embattled Syrians from east and west Aleppo play football match amongst the devastation in 'bid for reconciliation'

A friendly football match has been held between the eastern and western neighbourhoods of the divided Syrian city of Aleppo, it has been reported.

The match was said to have been organised by the government in a bid towards reconciliation after rebel forces in the besieged east turned down an invitation to participate.

Ex-residents of opposition-controlled territories who now live in the western side of town formed the "east" team - with no one leaving besieged areas to take part, The Independent reported.

Robbers attack football icon, Luis Figo's house, make away with €500,000 worth of jewellery's

Former Barcelona and Real Madrid player Luis Figo's Madrid mansion was attacked on Wednesday night while the footballer wasn't around and the robbers made away with jewellery worth €500,000 according to reports in the Spanish media. According to top Spanish magazine, AS, who reported the story;

BREAKING NEWS: Masked intruder armed with a knife and sawn-off-shotgun cuts the throat of elderly woman and kills a man as he holds 70 monks and nuns hostage at retirement home near Montpellier in France

Two people are dead and more than 70 monks were being held hostage by a masked man with a knife and sawn-off shotgun in in Montpellier, France.

Local residents claim the armed man stormed the retirement home at around 9.45pm but they are unsure of his motives as anti-terror police surround the building.

At least 70 monks and nuns, who have served as missionaries in Africa, reside in the home in Montferrier-sur-Lez, north of the city. 

Those killed are thought to be an elderly female supervisor who was stabbed several times and a man who was working with her.

Masked gunman stormed retirement home (pictured) in Montepellier, France, and is now on the run

Pictures from the scene tweeted by Henry A Pinto: Emergency services including armed police at the scene tonight as hunt for gunman continues 

BREAKING: Nigeria Presidential Aircraft Crashes Source

One of the presidential jets belonging to the Nigerian Air Force, has crashed at the Nigerian Air Force base in Makurdi.

The Agusta AW 101, which is a medium-lift helicopter specially designed for military operations, was one of the jets recently handed to the Air Force by the federal government.

According to a report by TheNewGuru, the plane reportedly crashed due to poor training of crew members who manned its operation.

But the Director of Information of the Nigeria Air Force, Group Captain Dele Famuyiwa, has denied the report that one of the aircraft crashed.

“It was not a crash. I wouldn’t call it a crash because it just fell on the ground in Makurdi.”
Source: https://thewhistler.ng/story/breaking-nigeria-presidential-aircraft-crashes

'Sindr' is the Catholic Church's Tinder for confessions

Do you want to confess your sins but don’t know where the closest confessional is? You are...probably a lapsed Catholic. But perhaps you could benefit from a new app the Catholic Church is introducing next year that lets users search for confessionals and Holy Mass.

The Catholic app is being nicknamed “Sindr” by some, though that makes it sound more like you get to swipe right to commit sins—which is already what Tinder is for. But Catholics are hoping this gets younger members of the faith more involved, what with having to balance their faith in a "frenetic world," or so the app demo says.