Separatists Retreat, Office of Sexual Assault

Ukraine: The army has pushed Pro-Russian separatists out of the eastern city of Slovyansk, which they have held since April. It’s too early to know how much of a blow this is to the separatist movement.

Rebel leaders said that facing artillery, mortars, and air assault, they left the city to protect civilians. Among the retreating separatists is believed to be their leader Igor Girkin, who goes by the nom de guerre Col. Igor Strelkov, which means “shooter.”

Schnitzel: The German government has called the US ambassador on the carpet to answer questions about whether an employee of German intelligence was passing secrets to America. A 31-year-old man who worked for BND, the German CIA, was arrested on suspicion of trying to give information to Russia. But according to some reports the man admitted he also worked for American intelligence. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was mightily irked when she learned that her own cellphone had been hacked by the US, has been informed of the situation.

World: An Arab boy snatched from an East Jerusalem street and killed this week was burned alive, according to a post on the prosecutor’s website. The autopsy revealed smoke in the windpipe and lungs. Police have had no breakthroughs in the investigation. The killing is believed to be in revenge for the murder of three Israeli teenage boys.

Stormy Weather: Hurricane Arthur, now diminished to cyclone status, flailed Nantucket Island, the Massachusetts coast, and Maine in the last 24 hours. It’s now centered off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Flunked Out: Corinthian Colleges, which is one of the largest operators of for-profit colleges and trade schools in the country, announced this week that it’s pretty much getting out of the business and selling off 100 schools. They have 74,000 students, but they’ve lost $94 million so far this year.

Corinthian operates Heald, Everest, and WyoTech, colleges, some of which are located in shopping malls.

The state of California sued Corinthian, saying the company lied about job placement of graduates and the US education department threatened to cut off eligibility for student loans. For-profit colleges are pretty much loan mills that couldn’t operate without federal education loans for their students.

It’s a Wrap: A Georgia grand jury this week indicted three producers of the movie “Midnight Rider” for criminal trespass and involuntary manslaughter in the death of a camera assistant who was killed by a train on a railroad bridge. It’s a warning shot to movie productions that sometimes take big risks.

Twenty-seven year old Sarah Jones was on a bridge Feb. 20th where the production did not have permission to work. Jones was the only crewmember unable to get out of the way of the train.

The film about blues rocker Gregg Allman stopped shooting. But the production was actually setting up that day to shoot a dream sequence in which the actor William Hurt was to lie on a bed on the tracks in the middle of the bridge. The producers thought the last train of the day had passed.

Sports Page: Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic won her second Wimbledon title today, beating Canadian Eugenie Bouchard, 6-3, 6-0. With the win, Kvitova becomes 4th ranked in the world in women’s tennis.

>Brazil’s star forward Neymar was knocked out of the World Cup competition yesterday with a fractured vertebra suffered during his team’s 2-1 win over Colombia. Neymar was kneed in the back by Colombia’s Juan Zuniga and taken from the field on a stretcher in evident agony.

C Minus: In response to accusations that it’s done a poor job handling complaints of rape and sexual assault on campus, Harvard has established The Office for Sexual and Gender-Based Dispute Resolution (ODR). OK, so there’s a problem, but is the solution an agency with a name like a Cold War intelligence agency? CIA, KGB, MI6, SOE, GRU ….. ODR. May I have your student ID and condom, please.

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