1. Runner who slapped reporter’s butt on live TV identified as youth minister
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2847820121971495
Location: Georgia, USA
2. UP Woman Shot In Face When She Stopped Dancing, Shows Chilling Video
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2840832422670265
Location: Uttar Pradesh, India
3. Conservative Activist Candace Owens Criticized By Fans for Anti-Atheist Tweet
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2842161362537371
Location: USA
4. Sikh job hunter who was denied work at Claridge's because of 'no beards' policy has won £7,000 in compensation
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2845903675496473
Location: United Kingdom
5. Man, woman fall unconscious in public floggings in Aceh
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2846477305439110
Location: Aceh, Indonesia.
6. India braces for protests over citizenship bill excluding Muslims
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2845575635529277
Location: North-east India
7. Atheism is not a religion, court finds in denying group charitable status
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2838167152936792
Location: Ottawa, Canada
8. Ohio: Catholic School Introduces Drug Testing For Students
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2841654365921404
Location: Ohio, USA
9. France anti-Semitism: Jewish graves defaced with Nazi swastikas
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2838465249573649
Location: France
10. Atheist nurse wins fight to end mandatory 12-step addiction treatment for health staff in Vancouver
https://www.facebook.com/130148817071986/posts/2850677925019048
Location: Vancouver, Canada
1. Tommy Callaway, a youth group leader and Boy Scout leader, slapped WSAV-TV anchor Alex Bozarjian's butt during a running race. He is banned from future races. Bozarjian said that Callaway did try to make contact with her saying that he did not intend to hurt her. She said he has hurt her and felt violated. She filed a police report and it is now up to the officers.
2. A woman was shot in the face when she stopped dancing at a wedding in Uttar Pradesh. The incident was caught in a video. Two of the main accused have been arrested.
3. Candace Owens, a conservative commentator known for her criticisms of the Black Lives Matter movement and Democratic Party, posted a tweet that condemned not just “leftism” but also “atheism.” She is criticized from what appears to be primarily conservative atheists on Saturday when she said that “leftism, atheism, and narcissism are a packaged deal.” She typically sticks to right-wing political arguments, and it appears she unknowingly gathered a substantial secular following. The comments in response to Owens’ tweets are almost all negative, including those from her most ardent supporters and those with the most reactions at the top. The first reply I saw was, “Totally missed the mark on this one Candace” followed by “Not at all true” and “Why would she even write this?”
4. Raman Sethi, a Sikh job hunter, was denied work at Claridge's because of a strict "no beards" policy. He has won £7,000 in compensation. Bosses at Elements Personnel Services Ltd refused to offer work to Raman Sethi, who has a beard, due to “grooming” standards from its five-star clients, an employment tribunal heard. An email from Elements to Mr Sethi said that there “wouldn’t be enough shifts to give you” as hotel managers “won’t allow having facial hair due to health and safety/hygiene reasons”. The email added: "I know it's part of your religion, and we have tried to accommodate to allow you to get started with us, but unfortunately no facial hair is a part of the five-star standards." A spokesperson for Claridge’s, The Connaught and The Berkeley said they were equal opportunity employers: "We have a number of full time and agency staff with facial hair – both for religious and personal reasons.
5. In two separate cases, a woman and a man in Aceh passed out after being publicly caned as a punishment for violating the province’s Qanun Jinayat (Islamic criminal code). In East Aceh regency, a 22-year-old man found guilty of extramarital sex was beaten unconscious after a sharia officer punished him with 100 strokes in a flogging. The authorities continued with the flogging – even after he had fainted before later awakening – and he was rushed to the hospital for medical treatment after the punishment finished, AFP reported. A woman was punished after she was allegedly caught being too close to a man.
6. Protesters in north-east India have set fire to tyres and cut down trees to block roads in a shutdown across the region hours after lawmakers approved the government’s new citizenship bill. The legislation will fast-track citizenship claims from refugees from three neighbouring countries - but not if they are Muslim. Islamic groups, the opposition, rights groups and others have said this fits into the Hindu nationalist agenda of the prime minister, Narendra Modi. They say he wants to marginalise India’s 200 million Muslims, something he denies. People in north-east India object for different reasons, fearing that large numbers of Hindu migrants from Bangladesh, who they say are intruders, will be given citizenship. The law would make it much easier for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsees and Christians fleeing Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan to be given Indian citizenship. Modi’s government says Muslims are excluded because they do not face persecution in these three countries.
7. A federal court has ruled that the so-called Church of Atheism is not a church at all, and can’t be treated like one for tax purposes. The Federal Court of Appeal has upheld the minister of national revenue’s refusal to register the Church of Atheism of Central Canada as a charity, saying the not-for-profit corporation fails to meet a set of common-law guidelines for what constitutes a religion. “It did not demonstrate that its belief system is based on a particular and comprehensive system of doctrine and observances,” Justice Marianne Rivoalen said in the decision.
8. A Catholic high school said it will begin with random drug testing students in January 2020. Administrators at Stephen T. Badin High School in Hamilton, 30 miles north of Cincinnati, sent a letter home to parents informing them of the “aggressive” initiative, aimed at shielding students who may feel “pressured into experimenting with drugs.” According to the new policy, students will be subject to random testing at least once a year but there is no maximum number of times a student may be tested. If some students are positive on drugs, he will be punished for the first time with a five-day suspension and family notification and if someone’s test is positive three times, that student will be expelled.
9. More than 100 graves at a Jewish cemetery in France have been defaced with Nazi swastikas in the latest in a wave of anti-Semitic attacks. Vandals spray-painted the gravestones in the eastern town of Westhoffen, near Strasbourg, days after another incident in a nearby village. In response, President Emmanuel Macron said France would fight anti-Semitism "until our dead can sleep in peace". France is home to a Jewish community of about 550,000 - the biggest in Europe.
10. Health-care professionals who work in Vancouver-area hospitals and medical clinics will no longer be required to attend 12-step programs if they want to keep their jobs after being diagnosed with addiction. The change comes as a result of a settlement between public health authority Vancouver Coastal Health and former nurse Byron Wood, who filed a human rights complaint alleging he was discriminated against as an atheist when he was fired for quitting Alcoholics Anonymous. Wood told CBC the agreement was reached after a month of negotiations.
