Manhunt Underway For Female Terror Suspect In France

Manhunt Underway For Female Terror Suspect In France, A new, massive hunt was launched Friday for the only surviving suspect from the two hostage situations in France, who may have escaped, police union spokesman Pascal Disant said.

That suspect is Hayat Boumeddiene, a 26-year-old woman who allegedly was the accomplice of Amedy Coulibaly, 32, in the standoff at a kosher grocery store in eastern Paris.

Four people were killed in the standoff, which ended Friday afternoon when police stormed the market, French President François Hollande said Friday. Coulibaly was killed in the operation. It was not clear from Hollande’s remarks whether Coulibaly was included in the number of dead.

Indonesia: Pings Detected In Search For AirAsia Jet’s Black Box

Indonesia: Pings Detected In Search For AirAsia Jet’s Black Box, Indonesian search and rescue teams hunting for the wreck of an AirAsia passenger jet detected pings they believed were from the plane’s black box flight recorders on Friday, 12 days after it went missing with 162 people on board.

Indonesia AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished from radar screens on Dec. 28, less than half way into a two-hour flight from Indonesia’s second-biggest city of Surabaya to Singapore. There were no survivors.

Forty-eight bodies, including at least two still strapped to their seats, have been found in waters off Borneo, but strong winds and high waves have hampered efforts to reach larger pieces of suspected wreckage detected by sonar on the sea floor.

The Airbus A320-200 carries the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, key to the investigation into why the airliner crashed, near the tail of the plane.

However, officials said it looked increasingly likely that they had become separated during the disaster.

“We detected signals about 1 km away from the location of the tail,” search and rescue agency coordinator Supriyadi told reporters in Pangkalan Bun, the southern Borneo town closest to the crash site.

“Reports from the field confirm that pings are from the black box, because once the search team were out of a 500 m range, they could no longer hear it,” he added.

“Tomorrow we will continue searching by air. We will add ships to the search. We will deploy divers to investigate more objects that have been detected but not yet identified.”

Shooting, Explosions at French Gunmen Siege

Shooting, Explosions at French Gunmen Siege, Several rounds of automatic gunfire rang out, accompanied by loud explosions, at a print works north of Paris where security forces had encircled the two suspects in the Charlie Hebdo killings and a hostage, a Reuters reporter said.

Smoke came from the building in an industrial zone near the town of Dammartin-en-Goele. Earlier, at least four armed security force members were seen on its roof.

Russia institutes driving ban for transgender people: Russia Bans Transgender Drivers

Russia institutes driving ban for transgender people: Russia Bans Transgender Drivers, Transgender people will be banned from driving cars in Russia, after the country’s government announced they would no longer be able to qualify for driving licences.

The Russian Government characterised people who change their gender as having a “disorder” and styled the ban as part of a crackdown on people with mental health issues.

People with sexual fetishes, including exhibitionism and voyeurism, have also been included on the driving ban list, BBC News reports.

They have been listed alongside gambling addicts and compulsive thieves, who are also banned from getting behind the wheel.

The Association of Russian Lawyers for Human Rights said the new law was “discriminatory” and unconstitutional.

The change would “cause the serious violations of human rights, the decision demonstrates the prejudice against the groups of citizens” a statement on the rights group’s website said.

Don’t date coworkers: American Apparel Managers

Don’t date coworkers: American Apparel Managers, Less than a month after firing its controversial chief executive, American Apparel unveiled a revamped code of ethics on Tuesday, packed with policies to combat sexual harassment and prevent relationships between supervisors and subordinates.

The 6,200-word document is more than four times as long as the prior code, according to Bloomberg News. It details policies to curb discrimination and abuse in the workplace, including the banning of discriminatory slurs and jokes.

“No management-level employee may make sexual advances, welcome or unwelcome, toward any subordinate, regardless of whether the subordinate reports to the management employee, either directly or indirectly,” the revised code of conduct states. Any form of “abusive conduct” will not be tolerated, it says.

Sexual harassment has been a delicate issue for American Apparel in recent months, weighing on the retailer’s reputation.

In December, the company fired chief executive and founder Dov Charney, following a six-month battle between the spurned executive and the board of directors. In a termination letter, the board accused him of sexual harassment and misusing corporate funds — allegations that Charney and his lawyers have denied. Charney has faced a string of sexual harassment lawsuits since founding the company 25 years ago.

The sexual harassment and romantic relationships sections of American Apparel’s overhauled code of ethics are common at most companies, according to Holly Culhane, president and CEO of California-based human resources consulting firm PAS Associates. After reviewing those sections of the document, Culhane told The Huffington Post that the measures are “quite prudent,” and their comprehensiveness is appropriate for an organization as large as American Apparel.

But a document can only do so much, said Culhane. In the end, mitigating workplace harassment comes down to the company’s culture and its employees. It all starts with senior management, she said.

“All culture begins at the top,” said Culhane. “If there are changes happening, it can start there and certainly work its way to all levels of the organization.”

Following Charney’s ouster, veteran retail executive Paula Schneider was named American Apparel’s first female CEO. She said in a statement in December: “My goal is to make American Apparel a better company, while staying true to its core values of quality and creativity and preserving its sweatshop-free, Made in USA manufacturing philosophy.”

American Apparel announced its intent to revise its code of ethics in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December. At the time, the company said the changes were meant to “clarify, update or enhance the description of the standards of conduct that are expected of all directors, officers and employees of the Company and its subsidiaries.”

American Apparel declined to provide additional comment.

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