June 2, 2016

Crossing the 'abortion desert': Women increasingly travel out of their states for the procedure

Source: La times

The National Abortion Federation hotline referred 209 Texas patients to New Mexico last year, compared with 21 in 2013, said Vicki Saporta, the group’s president and chief executive. The number of Texas patients at one Albuquerque clinic alone more than tripled, jumping from 19 to 67 last year, she said.

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Because of the new laws, a clinic in Dallas started encouraging West Texas women to make appointments at its facility in Albuquerque, which had shorter waits and restrictions – but was still about 300 miles away. Since the law passed, the number of women traveling to New Mexico for abortions has more than doubled. In Kansas, the number of women arriving from Oklahoma and Texas soared from 38 to 243. The trend is similar at clinics in Louisiana.

New Mexico clinics can treat more patients because the state has not passed many of the laws Texas has, including a 20-week abortion ban passed by a dozen other states.

“The need has really exploded,” said Joan Lamunyon Sanford, executive director of the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

She says many women cannot afford to fly, so they take buses instead, some traveling for days from California and the East Coast.

“Nobody should have to go across two or three states to get healthcare,” said Sanford, whose volunteers provide women with transportation, childcare and housing during clinic visits.

Doctors are also on the move to handle the shifting waves of patients, flying to New Mexico and Kansas to help staff clinics.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-adv-abortion-traveler-20160530-snap-story.html

June 2, 2016

University offers scholarships to Chewbacca mom's family

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) — A Florida university has offered scholarships to a woman who made the viral Facebook video showing her laughing hysterically as she tries on a Chewbacca mask.

Southeastern University announced Monday that its president presented Candace Payne and her entire family with full tuition scholarships.
President Dr. Kent Ingle says Payne, from Texas, inspired the university with the joy she expressed on her video. He says the school wanted her family to experience some of that joy in return.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article/University-offers-scholarships-to-Chewbacca-mom-s-7957308.php
Payne has also been presented with various other gifts, including Star Wars toys from Kohl's, where she bought her mask. She also met Chewbacca at Disney World during her visit to Florida earlier this week.
The video has become an internet sensation, garnering millions of views and landing Payne as a guest on several talk and news shows.

June 2, 2016

Trump's Hunger to Be President Is All About Gaining Power to Settle Petty Personal Scores

Trump Wants Revenge: His Hunger to Be President Is All About Gaining Power to Settle Petty Personal Scores
Trump's entire political career can be traced back to his personal grievances, making him a very real danger.

Farah Stockman and Keith Bradsher of the New York Times published a piece Monday detailing a major grudge that Trump holds against a group of Chinese investors that helped save him from a financial crisis in the ’90s. He made a lucrative deal with this group of Hong Kong billionaires to sell them the Bank of America building on Avenue of the Americas, allowing him 30% of the profits and paying him feeds to develop the building. In 2005, they sold the building for $1.76 billion.

“Although it was believed to be the largest residential real estate transaction in the city’s history,” Stockman and Bradsher write, “Mr. Trump was furious, and contends to this day that his partners did not consult him first.”

Trump claims he was mad because he thinks he could have gotten a better deal, a claim that’s even those completely ignorant of real estate economics can see is self-serving nonsense. Still, he sued the men who had saved him from financial ruin, making wild accusations and tying them up in court for years.

He lost the lawsuit, but now runs around telling audiences he won it, portraying the portion of the building he owns, which was what he settled for after his loss, as if he “got from China in a war.”

He mentions this deal, pretending he won when he lost, during his many campaign tirades portraying China as some kind of economic predator that will stop at nothing to destroy the American economy, saying, “we are being ripped so badly by China” and that they are out to “rape our country” and that our trade deficit is “the greatest theft in the history of the world”.

It’s a bizarre obsession, but this New York Times story suggests that his paranoia could be the direct result of his personal vendetta against a group of Hong Kong billionaires that he sued because he wasn’t asked to sit in on their sales meetings.

It may sound like a stretch to say that a man would attack an entire country of people because he felt like a handful of businessmen snubbed him, but this is hardly the first story that has come out linking Trump’s bizarre political conspiracy theories to personal grudges he holds.


http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trumps-campaign-based-revenge

June 2, 2016

Unsettling political climate galvanizes Muslims to vote

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/us/unsettling-political-climate-galvanizes-muslims-to-vote.html?mabReward=A6&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=Recommendation&src=rechp&WT.nav=RecEngine

OAKLAND, Calif. — After Friday Prayer at the Oakland Islamic Center, Mamoun Kund, a 51-year-old Sudanese-American, sat at a table and did something he had not done in the 11 years he has been a citizen: He registered to vote. Until recently, he had no interest, he said, but now “I hear talk about Muslims, Hispanics and women.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” he added. “Americans aren’t like that.”

Upstairs in the area for women, Dina Agag, who wore a bright red head scarf, picked up voter registration forms for herself and five members of her family. As she did, a friend whispered, “This is the most important vote in our life.”

These are unsettling times for many American Muslims. “People are losing their sleep,” said Naeem Baig, the president of the Islamic Circle of North America. “The political environment is creating a divide in America” by race, language, gender and religion.

But it has also had an unintended consequence: galvanizing Muslims to vote.

June 2, 2016

Christopher Kimball is leaving cooks country

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/dining/americas-test-kitchen-christopher-kimball.html?hpw&rref=food&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0

June 2, 2016

Donald Trump in 1994: 'Putting a Wife to Work Is a Very Dangerous Thing'

“I love creating stars. And to a certain extent, I've done that with Ivana. To a certain extent, I've done that with Marla. And I like that," Trump told "Primetime Live" correspondent Nancy Collins in an interview that aired on March 10, 1994.

“Unfortunately, after they're a star, the fun is over for me," he continued. "It's like a creation process, it's almost like creating a building. It's pretty sad.”

Trump also shared his views about the women in his life having careers, saying he had mixed feelings on the idea of then-wife Marla Maples working.

“I have days where I think it's great. And then I have days where, if I come home -- and I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist -- but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof," he said.

Trump also said his marriage to former wife Ivana fell apart primarily because he hired her in a management role at Trump Castle Casino in Atlantic City.

“I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing,” Trump said. “If you're in business for yourself, I really think it's a bad idea to put your wife working for you. I think it's a really bad idea. I think that was the single greatest cause of what happened to my marriage with Ivana.”



http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-1994-putting-wife-work-dangerous-thing/story?id=39537935

June 2, 2016

Owner abandons pet cat on NY curb with litterbox & other belongings

Owner abandons pet cat on curb, leaves litterbox









He was just a baby, only a year old, abandoned by a Brooklyn street curb like a piece of unwanted furniture. A witness said he was crying.

At least the heartless person who left him there included some of his personal belongings — a pillow, some supplies and his litter box.

A passer-by snapped his photo, but when a street sweeper noisily rolled by on Nostrand Avenue, he bolted away, vanishing with out a trace.

Someone shared a photo of the black and white male shorthair cat, now dubbed Nostrand, on the Flatbush Area Team for Cats (FAT Cats) Facebook page.

The neighborhood mobilized. FAT Cats members and other concerned animal lovers went on the hunt for Nostrand. But there was no sign of the feline.
ieter.
But after four days, searchers had turned up no sign of the cat. Then, on Sunday, he appeared in — of all places — the backyard of a Brooklyn resident and former cat rescuer named Karen Oh. Did Nostrand somehow know that a friend lived there?

Oh took Nostrand to a veterinarian who had him checked out and his blood tested. The vet found no microchip, but declared Nostrand in good health.


http://www.sfgate.com/national/article/Owner-abandons-pet-cat-on-curb-leaves-litterbox-7957502.php#photo-10173553

June 1, 2016

UCLA students were reporting cops as "man with gun", leading to large response

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3620401/UCLA-campus-lockdown-reports-shooting.html

June 1, 2016

New York probing Trump's closing of Trump Tower atrium for campaign events

New York City is investigating Donald Trump's practice of closing down the public atrium in Trump Tower for presidential campaign events that are off limits to the public.

In order to add more floors than zoning rules would otherwise allow, Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, agreed to create a two-story public atrium on the ground and lower floors of the building, which opened in 1983 on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

But security staff wearing Trump badges spent several hours shooing away a growing crowd of New Yorkers and tourists from the doors on Tuesday morning after Trump decided to hold a news conference in the atrium to discuss his fundraising for veterans groups.

"Department of Building inspectors will be investigating the allegations that the (public atrium) was closed contrary to the building owner's agreement with the city," Joe Soldevere, a department spokesman, told Reuters on Tuesday.

There are scores of "privately owned public spaces," or POPS, throughout New York City, intended as a trade-off between developers who want to build taller and preserving space for the public in the city's densest neighborhoods.

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In the case of Trump Tower, the 6,000-square-foot public atrium, which is lined with pink marble, must be open to the public between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day, a fact advertised in large gold letters over the building's Fifth Avenue entrance.

As with other such spaces, it can be closed up to four times a year for a private event after permission from city officials.

Trump has held several events in the public areas of Trump Tower since launching his campaign in the atrium there last June.

Officials at the Department of City Planning, which grants permission to close a POPS for an event, and the Department of Buildings, which investigates violations, said they had no record of Trump ever seeking or being granted permission to shut out the public for a campaign event.


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-tower-idUSKCN0YM2O6

June 1, 2016

Former Tulsa reserve deputy who fatally shot an unarmed, restrained suspect gets 4 yrs

http://gawker.com/tulsa-reserve-deputy-gets-4-years-in-prison-for-inadve-1779733300

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Xpyv0tML--/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/mwhkkqyssxf3ljc7izpr.jpg

A former Tulsa reserve deputy who fatally shot an unarmed, restrained suspect after mistaking his gun for his Taser was sentenced to 4 years in prison on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.

Last month, 74-year-old Robert Bates was convicted of second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting Eric Harris, whom other officers had already pinned to the ground during a gun sales sting operation. In a video of the shooting later released to the public, Bates can be heard apologizing for firing his weapon while deputies ignore Harris’ pleas for help.


"Fuck Your Breath": Video of "Inadvertent" Police Shooting Released
On Friday, authorities released footage of the final moments of Eric Courtney Harris, the unarmed…

After the shooting, the Tulsa World discovered that Bates, a wealthy insurance executive, had donated thousands of dollars in equipment to the sheriff’s office. Bates later characterized accusations that he was allowed to “play cop” because of his contributions as “unbelievably unfair.”

“You must believe me. This can happen to anyone,” Bates told TODAY. “The laser light is the same on each weapon. I saw the light and I squeezed the trigger and then realized I dropped the gun.”

According to the AP, Bates’ lawyers called the killing an “excusable homicide” during the trial and argued that Harris died, in part, due to poor cardiac health and methamphetamine found in his blood. After convicting Harris, jurors recommended that Bates serve the maximum possible sentence for his crime.

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After a brief foot chase, the video shows an officer subduing Harris and Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, 73, can be heard shouting "Taser!" before a single shot rings out. "I shot him," Bates says afterward, "I'm sorry."

Pinned by multiple sheriff's deputies, a panicked Harris repeats "He shot me!" eight times before saying, "I'm losing my breath."

"Fuck your breath," an officer replies.

At a press conference on Friday, Tulsa County Sheriff’s Capt. Billy McKelvey told reporters that deputies were not aware Harris had been shot, having not heard the weapon discharge.


http://gawker.com/fuck-your-breath-video-of-inadvertent-police-shoot-1697315874