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Federal prosecutors in Arkansas have indicted 54 members of a white supremacy gang for allegedly committing acts of violence and drug dealing.

The indictment names 54 people with ties to the New Aryan Empire, a white supremacist group which is known for Nazi swastikas and Heil Hitler salutes.

The charges, including murder, conspiracy, and drug trafficking, are part of Operation To The Dirt.

Prosecutors say the gang first formed in an Arkansas jail in 1990.

In a news conference on Tuesday, Deputy Assistant Attorney General David Rybicki said the group is also known to intimidate witnesses and in one case burned an informant's face with a hot knife.

The New Aryan Empire (NAE) "has moved from our prisons to our neighbourhoods," Mr Rybicki said, adding that they count roughly 5,000 people as members.

As part of the operation - named for a gang code that refers to being a member for life - authorities seized 69 guns, 25lbs (11kg) of methamphetamine and over $70,000 in drug money.

US Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Cody Hiland said he plans to prosecute the case under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, otherwise known as the RICO Act.

The act, which has been used to prosecute other organised criminal groups, allows prosecutors to target leaders who order other people to commit crimes on their behalf.

Bran Castle (Romanian: Castelul Bran; German: Törzburg; Hungarian: Törcsvár), situated near Bran and in the immediate vicinity of Brașov, is a national monument and landmark in Romania. The fortress is situated on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia, on DN73.

Where do they have Dracula's castle? Moldova?

The CEO of Rappler, a news website critical of the government in the Philippines, has been arrested at its headquarters in Manila.

Maria Ressa said the accusation of "cyber-libel" is an attempt by Rodrigo Duterte's government to silence the publication.

It is the latest in a string of different allegations against her.

The president, who calls the site "fake news", has previously denied charges against her are politically motivated.

Rappler journalists live-streamed the arrest on Facebook and Twitter.

Footage streamed on Facebook showed plain-clothes party officials speaking with Maria Ressa, while several of the site's journalists live-tweeted what was happening.

Officers from the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) reportedly ordered them to stop filming and taking photos.

Miriam Grace Go, Rappler's news editor, tweeted that NBI agents had led Ms Ressa out of Rappler's offices.

Whatever happens, keep American soldiers out of it.

California police have said a 20-year-old black man who was shot and killed in his car by six officers last week had reached for a gun first.

But Willie McCoy's family has pushed back, saying the aspiring rapper was not a threat to the officers as he was just waking up.

Vallejo police had been called for a wellness check when a driver was spotted slumped over in his vehicle.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene on 9 February.

"Any loss of life is a tragedy," police chief Andrew Bidou said in an updated report of the incident on Tuesday.

The police report does not name Mr McCoy as the driver, citing the ongoing investigation, but local media identified him after speaking with family members.

Vallejo is a city near San Francisco that has been the site of several alleged cases of police brutality against black residents.

According to the police department, officers received a call from employees at a Taco Bell fast food restaurant on Saturday night, requesting a check-up on a driver in the parking lot.

When they arrived on scene, they saw Mr McCoy unresponsive in his vehicle with a semi-automatic handgun on his lap. More officers were called while Mr McCoy slept.

Police had planned on opening the car door and retrieving the weapon before engaging Mr McCoy, but were unable to do so as the doors were locked.

Mr McCoy then woke up and looked at the officers, who commanded him to keep his hands visible. Police then say he did not comply and "quickly moved his hands downward for the firearm".

"Fearing for their safety, six officers fired their duty weapons at the driver," the news release stated. Multiple rounds were fired in a span of four seconds.

"Officers continued to yell commands at the driver and ultimately reached through the broken glass of the driver's window to unlock the vehicle."

Police attempted medical assistance but the driver died at the scene. An official post-mortem examination is still under way.

The officers have not been named and have been placed on administrative leave for the duration of the investigation.

Mr McCoy's family has disputed this police account.

During a vigil on Sunday, Mr McCoy's older brother Mark said police had surprised Mr McCoy and fired too quickly.

"My little brother was just shot for no reason," he said, according to CBS News.

"If I wake you up… if I knock on your front door and, 'Bang bang bang!' you're going to jump off the bed," he said. "Why wouldn't you be safe while you wake him up and then [say] 'Driver, exit the car'?"

David Harrison, Mr McCoy's cousin, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday that Mr McCoy was raised by relatives after his parents passed away when he was a child.

He said his cousin had finished up a session in a recording studio before he drove to the Taco Bell.

In an emotional Facebook video, Mr Harrison pleaded with other young people to listen to their parents and keep away from cops.

"I want no other parents, no other kid's parents, to go through this ever again," Mr Harrison said. "They can't just keep killing us in the street like this. My little cousin was asleep in the car."

Mr McCoy's family has hired civil rights attorney John Burris - who recently took on a case where a homeless man sleeping in Oakland was killed by police - to represent them, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Veneauela might be the one situation you'd ever see in which some sort of a US regime-change op might make sense but we'd be fighting the whole world trying to do that at this point and for good reason. Best as you say is to stay out of it.

54 members of a white supremacy gang

The Treasury Department released a report Tuesday evening confirming that the national debt had hit a record $22 trillion — nearly four years after then-candidate Donald Trump promised his supporters he would reduce the national debt from $18 trillion, if elected president.

According to a 2018 study by the American Journal of Public Health, combating the problem has been made even more difficult by Russian trolls spreading disinformation on the subject. As ThinkProgress has previously documented, Kremlin-backed disinformation agents have specifically focused on wedge issues designed to divide Americans — like Black Lives Matter and immigration issues. Anti-vaccination, it seems, has also fallen into that category.

“Whereas bots that spread malware and unsolicited content disseminated antivaccine messages, Russian trolls promoted discord,” the study’s conclusion read. “Accounts masquerading as legitimate users create false equivalency, eroding public consensus on vaccination.” According to the paper, which analyzed a sample of 1.7 million tweets between July 2014 and September 2017, Russian trolls tweet about vaccines at a rate 22 times higher than the average user.

Has anyone heard ANY right wing politician or RW media entity complain about this expansion of the debt?

'The Rules' Don’t Apply To Democrats

A blackface picture would have, and has recently, quickly driven a Republican from office, but Northam and Herring just shrugged it off and refused to countenance the thought of resignation.

To no one’s surprise there has been no sustained media campaign to drive them from office, no baying crowds outside the Governor’s residence or the Virginia Capitol in Richmond, even as Northam continued to pile-up the racially insensitive comments as he tried to dig himself out of the political hole his behavior created.

Since her election last November, Rep. Ilan Omar (MN-5), one of two female Muslim Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, hit a trifecta of anti-Semitic tropes and statements, from claiming Jews “hypnotized the world” to claiming Jews have bought Congress, to claiming that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is the vehicle through which the corruption of Congress is accomplished.

Any Republican guilty of such blatant anti-Semitism would likely have been driven from office immediately, or at a minimum been disavowed by the Republican leadership and removed from his or her committee assignments as evidence of the Party’s rejection of anti-Semitism in all its forms.

Rep. Ilan Omar? She issued a pro-forma blame the victim type apology and remains on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is ironically, chaired by Rep. Eliot Engle, a member of the Bipartisan Task Force for Combatting Anti-Semitism.