Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalI am coming down with some kind of crud
Dry cough, chills, headache. Covid test negative but I will do another tomorrow. Just not feeling happy at all. I took a hot shower to try to steam it out of me but it didn't. Wrapping up in a blanket and going to watch junk TV now.
11 states consider 'right to repair' for farming equipment
On Colorado’s northeastern plains, where the pencil-straight horizon divides golden fields and blue sky, a farmer named Danny Wood scrambles to plant and harvest proso millet, dryland corn and winter wheat in short, seasonal windows. That is until his high-tech Steiger 370 tractor conks out.
The tractor’s manufacturer doesn’t allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code for $950.
“That’s where they have us over the barrel, it’s more like we are renting it than buying it,” said Wood, who spent $300,000 on the used tractor.
Wood’s plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — thereby avoiding steep labor costs and delays that imperil profits.
https://apnews.com/article/agriculture-colorado-business-d5ea466725328d965a85a62130503d49?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_08
New Mexico State Cancels Men's Basketball Season Amid Sexual Abuse Allegations
The New Mexico State University men’s basketball season has been canceled after months-long sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by and against the team’s players became public. The police report, filed Friday, accuses three players of false imprisonment, harassment, and two counts of criminal sexual contact against their teammate.
The names of the players—both victim and alleged perpetrators—are redacted in the report, which was obtained by multiple news outlets. Coach Greg Heiar and the entire coaching staff are on paid leave, according to local media. (Read the entire report here, thanks to NBC affiliate KTSM.)
On Friday, a player on the team walked into the police station with an unknown person (their name is redacted on the report), wanting to make a report about a “possible assault,” but wasn’t interested in pursuing criminal charges. The player, a black man, told police he wants to remain anonymous. The player called it “hazing,” but even the short narrative provided in the police report makes “hazing” seem like a tame word for what was happening in the basketball locker room. The latest incident allegedly occurred on Feb. 6, 2023, but the player described it as an ongoing issue in the teams’s home and away locker rooms dating back to July or August 2022.
Let me pull out the two critical details of the man’s report, detailing the alleged sexual assault:
“Three of the previously named players held him down with him facing down, removed his clothing exposing his buttocks and began to ‘slap his ass.’ He also went on to state that they also touched his scrotum.”
https://jezebel.com/new-mexico-state-suspends-mens-basketball-season-amid-s-1850108596
It gets worse. If I were his parents, I would be suing the hell out of the school, the coach, the AD and the players.
A reporter's dismissal exposes political pressures on West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Late last fall, West Virginia Public Broadcasting's Amelia Ferrell Knisely reported one story after another about allegations that people with disabilities were abused in facilities run by the state.
The state agency Knisely was covering demanded that one of her key stories be fully retracted. While her coverage remains on West Virginia Public Broadcasting's website, Knisely is gone. She says she was told the decision came from the station's chief executive.
Interviews with 20 people with direct knowledge of events at West Virginia Public Broadcasting indicate Knisely's involuntary departure from her position as a part-time reporter was not an aberration but part of a years-long pattern of mounting pressure on the station from Gov. Jim Justice's administration and some state legislators.
"We all knew that our jobs could go at any moment if politicians fought that hard enough," says former West Virginia Public Broadcasting reporter and producer Roxy Todd. "Gov. Justice's presence was always looming over us."
Since 2017, politicians have sought to eliminate state funding. The governor appointed partisans hostile to public broadcasting to key oversight positions. And the station's chief executive has intervened repeatedly in journalistic decisions.
https://www.npr.org/2023/02/13/1153590012/west-virginia-public-journalist-dismissed-wvpb-political-interference
Steve Bannon Ran Up Huge Legal Bills and Stiffed His Lawyers
Steve Bannon—the nativist American media personality who’s backed by a Chinese billionaire—hasn’t paid the lawyers who spent years defending him against an onslaught of criminal charges, according to three sources who spoke exclusively to The Daily Beast.
With massive legal bills still outstanding, Bannon is now scrambling to find new attorneys, as he faces a looming trial over the way he scammed the MAGA crowd with a dubious plan to build a privately funded U.S.-Mexico border wall.
Bannon’s refusal to fully pay his bills has stunned some of his close advisers who’ve stuck around for years.
“I don’t have any reason to believe he doesn’t have money,” one associate said.
After all, Bannon is a former Goldman Sachs investment banker, co-founded the right-wing news website Breitbart, made tens of millions off the iconic sitcom Seinfeld, and hangs out with Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui. In fact, he was relaxing, reading a book on Wengui’s yacht just off the coast of Westbrook, Connecticut when he was arrested by FBI special agents in August 2020.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/steve-bannon-ran-up-huge-legal-bills-and-stiffed-his-lawyers?ref=home
Quelle surprise!
As pythons try to hide, they face a new enemy: Possums with GPS collars
Wildlife researchers studying mammals in Key Largo have discovered a potentially groundbreaking — if not heartbreaking — way to locate and kill invasive Burmese pythons, especially the big ones.
A team observing racoon and possum behavior along urban and wilderness fringe of Crocodile National Wildlife Refuge fitted dozens of the mammals with GPS collars, and tracked their locations for months.
In September, about five months into the study, one of the possum collars sent out a mortality signal, triggered by lack of movement — maybe it was hit by a car, maybe a local dog killed it. But then, a few hours later, the collar started moving again.
The researchers had a hunch that the possum suffered a brutal fate.
“That’s the signature signal that they got eaten by a snake,” said Michael Cove, curator of mammals at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, one of the partners on the study. He and his research partners from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Southern Illinois University suspected the snake sat around and digested the possum, and then started moving again.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pythons-try-hide-face-enemy-120000445.html
Bless you, little possum!
Miyares condemns Richmond FBI's 'anti-Catholic' memo
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares sent a letter to the FBI and U.S. Attorney General this week after a now-public internal FBI memo targeted Catholics and labeled them as “violent extremists.”
On Friday, Feb. 10 Miyares sent a letter joined to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. regarding an internal memo created by the Richmond FBI field office. According to a statement from Miyares, the memo targeted some Catholics as a potential threat due to their religious beliefs.
The memo became public on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2023.
In the memo, the FBI suggests that there are Catholics who are “radical-traditionalists” and could be “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.” The memo further says that “violent extremists” include Catholics who prefer a Latin Mass. Latin Masses differ from other types of Catholic Mass because they are not only performed in Latin, these services also follow a different calendar and use different prayers.
https://www.wric.com/news/virginia-news/attorney-general-miyares-condemns-richmond-fbis-anti-catholic-memo/
I'm not fond of the Catholic right either, but I wouldn't go that far. Sounds like some "violent evangelical" agents to me.
Black Army Vet Says Same Memphis Cops Beat Him Days Before Killing Tyre Nichols
On the evening of Jan 4, a Black army veteran named Monterrious Harris says he was in his car outside an apartment complex in Memphis, Tennessee waiting for his cousin, when a group of armed men in ski masks and black clothes “suddenly swarmed his vehicle” and threatened to shoot him if he didn’t exit the car.
These men were not carjackers, as Harris initially believed, but officers from Memphis’ police department—allegedly the very same officers who, only days later, would be seen on body camera brutally beating Tyre Nichols, leading to his death.
A new federal lawsuit alleges that the now-fired officers from the department’s now-disbanded “Scorpion Unit” “hurled racial epithets” at Harris, while demanding he exit the car “or be shot.”
Because Harris, who was medically discharged from the U.S. army after serving several years, thought he was being robbed, he says he initially panicked and tried to reverse, striking an object behind him. Then he got out with his hands above his head, hoping the men would just take his vehicle and leave him be. After he got out of the car, according to the lawsuit, the officers “exacted a swift, violent, and continuous physical assault on Mr. Harris that included punching, stomping, and dragging him across concrete.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k8geb/memphis-cops-beating-black-army-vet-tyre-nichols
How many more?
Ex-MPD officer wrote false reports of Tyre Nichols traffic stop
Ex-Memphis police officer Preston Hemphill lied about seeing reckless driving and that Tyre Nichols put up a fight during the traffic stop that eventually led to him being beaten, newly obtained documents show.
Hemphill also had two sets of "personally owned" handcuffs the night he and other officers from the Memphis Police Department pulled Nichols from his car. Department policy requires its officers to have department-issued handcuffs.
The documents, obtained through a public records request, were sent to the Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST) by Memphis police in an attempt to have Hemphill decertified. MPD also sent a request to POST to decertify five other officers implicated in Nichols' death.
The documents include the statement of charges for Memphis police's internal investigation and subsequent hearing. Hemphill was fired Feb. 3. He has not been criminally charged.
https://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/2023/02/09/ex-memphis-police-officer-wrote-false-reports-had-personal-handcuffs-tyre-nichols-traffic-stop/69889952007/
White boy.
S. Africa rugby player killed by Hawaii police had acute CTE
A Black former professional rugby player from South Africa shot by police months after moving to Hawaii suffered from a degenerative brain disease often found in American football players and other athletes subjected to repeated head trauma, autopsy results show.
The finding could help explain Lindani Myeni’s bizarre behavior before the deadly 2021 confrontation with Honolulu officers. It also offers another layer of detail about a shooting that gained international attention during heightened calls for police reform following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
An addendum to Myeni’s autopsy report obtained by The Associated Press shows his brain tissue was sent to the Boston University CTE Center, which found the 29-year-old father of two suffered from stage three chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Commonly known as CTE, the disease can only be diagnosed posthumously.
Stage four is the most severe level and experts say it’s alarming for someone as young as Myeni to have such a critical case of CTE.
Lindsay Myeni, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging police shot her husband because he was Black, said she was shocked to learn of the CTE diagnosis.
https://apnews.com/article/death-of-george-floyd-new-england-patriots-sports-law-enforcement-south-africa-b49e4b0b76f29b2ddd9cb975bb8e6235
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 07:34 PM
Number of posts: 9,971