The Daily Populous

Tuesday December 10th, 2019 day edition

image for Australia’s democracy has been downgraded from ‘open’ to ‘narrowed’

An annual report on the civil rights of countries worldwide has downgraded Australia’s democracy from “open” to “narrowed”.

The CIVICUS Monitor is a collaboration between human rights organisations around the world, to assess the democratic freedoms of 196 countries.

This was due to recent police raids on media outlets, the growing trend of prosecuting whistleblowers like Witness K - and the increasing crackdown on peaceful protest.

The CIVICUS Monitor combines several different sources of data looking at things like the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and ‘expression’.

Australia is one of three countries that were downgraded in the Asia Pacific region in 2019, with India and Brunei going from obstructed to repressed.

The report also found that the percentage of the world’s population living in a ‘repressed’ democracy doubled in the last 12 months, to 40 per cent.

Dominican Republic and Moldova were both updated in terms of civic freedom from ‘obstructed’ to ‘narrowed’. »

Runner who slapped TV reporter’s behind is banned from future races

Authored by nypost.com

The pervy jogger who slapped a TV reporter’s behind during a 10K in Georgia has been identified by officials — and banned from future races.

“Yesterday afternoon we identified him and shared his information with the reporter and her station,” the Savannah Sports Council tweeted, without revealing his name publicly.

The reporter has yet to comment on the creep’s identity — and has not said whether she plans to press charges. »

Recreational marijuana sales in Michigan exceed $1.6 million in first week

Authored by eu.freep.com

Recreational marijuana sales in Michigan exceed $1.6 million in first 8 days.

In the first eight days of legal weed sales, $1.6 million of recreational marijuana was sold at the five retail shops open around the state.

The state House Fiscal Agency has estimated that when the recreational market for marijuana is fully established after 2020, annual sales will approach $949 million, bringing in $94.9 million from the 10% excise tax and $57 million from the 6% sales tax. »

In a Split Second, Clothes Make the Man More Competent in the Eyes of Others

Authored by wws.princeton.edu

Participants were then presented with half of the faces wearing “richer” upper-body clothing, and the other half with “poorer” clothing.

Regardless of these changes, the results remained consistent: Faces were judged as significantly more competent when the clothing was perceived as “richer.”

The paper, “Economic status cues from clothes affect perceived competence from faces,” first appeared online Dec. 9 in Nature Human Behaviour. »