Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's Journal'Birthing while Black' is a national crisis for the US. Here's what Black lawmakers want to do about
‘Birthing while Black’ is a national crisis for the US. Here’s what Black lawmakers want to do about itWhen Alma Adams’s daughter complained of abdominal pain during a difficult pregnancy, her doctor overlooked her cries for help. The North Carolina congresswoman’s daughter had to undergo a last-minute caesarean section. She and her baby daughter, now 16, survived.
“It could have gone another way. I could have been a mother who was grieving her daughter and granddaughter,” Adams told the Guardian, following a week in which the White House highlighted the crisis of pregnancy-related deaths among Black women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Black women die at three times the rate of white women.
For Adams and other Black women in Congress, who formed the Black Maternal Health Caucus, the issue hits close to home. Last week, during Black Maternal Health Week, they talked about how their experiences and the work of advocates had propelled legislation, known as the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, to fight a healthcare crisis that disproportionately affects Black women regardless of income.
The US has the highest maternal mortality rate among industrialized countries. Since 2000, the maternal mortality rate has risen nearly 60%, making it worse now than it was decades earlier. More than half of these deaths are preventable.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/19/black-mothers-birth-maternal-mortality
Why young women earn more than men in some US cities
West Virginia is a US state commonly cited for its coal mines and country roads – not for its place in the pay-gap conversation. But according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of US Census data, the metropolitan area of Morgantown – the state’s third largest city, home to West Virginia University – is one of only a few places in the nation where women out-earn their male counterparts.
In this area, the median salary of full-time female workers younger than 30 is 14% more than the median salary of men in the same group. In fact, the Appalachian city is second – just behind Wenatchee, in the state of Washington – on a top-10 list of metro areas where women younger than 30 come out on top comparatively.
Nationally, the gender wage gap persists; on average, US women earn 82 cents for every dollar their male peers are paid. But in 22 of the 250 metros examined in the analysis, women’s salaries are on par or better. Why do women out-earn men in highly specific areas of the US – and do promising figures in certain areas mean the wage gap could be slowly closing?
There are some patterns that help explain these findings, says Richard Fry, senior researcher with Pew, who authored the report.
First, education is a factor. The places where women have parity or out-earn men – mostly cities along the country’s east and west coasts – have a higher percentage of young women with degrees, explains Fry. “In metros where young women have a bigger advantage educationally, the pay gap tends to be smaller,” he says. “Completion of bachelor’s degrees tends to boost earnings, and the pay gap tends to narrow down.”
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20220415-why-young-women-earn-more-than-men-in-some-us-cities
Hollywood missing the drama in climate change, group says
Hollywood’s response to climate change includes donations, protests and other activism. but it’s apparently missing out on an approach close to home.
Only a sliver of screen fiction, 2.8%, refers to climate change-related words, according to a new study of 37,453 film and TV scripts from 2016-20. A blueprint for ways to turn that around was released Tuesday.
“Good Energy: A Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change” was created with feedback from more than 100 film and TV writers, said Anna Jane Joyner, editor-in-chief of the playbook and founder of Good Energy, a nonprofit consultancy.
“A big hurdle that we encountered was that writers were associating climate stories with apocalypse stories,” she said in an interview. “The main purpose of the playbook is to expand that menu of possibilities....to a larger array of how it would be showing up in our real life.”
https://apnews.com/article/climate-science-arts-and-entertainment-environment-los-angeles-58d41fbccbb55330ec533c6c09c10d08
Company that received COVID-19 relief money for closed hospital says DOJ is investigating
The troubled hospital company that received $121,000 in federal COVID-19 relief money for a closed hospital said last week the Department of Justice inquired about the money.
The Jamestown Regional Medical Center closed in June 2019 but received $121,722 in provider relief funds in 2020, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to its annual financial filing last week, Rennova Health said the Justice Department sent it questions about the provider relief money — and additional funding it received through PPP loans — in the form of a civil investigation inquiry.
"There is no allegation of wrongdoing and no indication that any liability will materialize," the company's filing said. "The company is confident that all PPP notes and HHS Provider Relief funds monies were appropriately utilized and accounted for and believes that provision of the details and records will provide satisfactory answers to the inquiry."
Following 10News reporting on the funds for the closed hospital in 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services said it would "force repayment," but provided no details on how it would do so.
https://www.wbir.com/article/news/investigations/rennova-health-covid-19-relief-money-closed-hospital-doj-investigating/51-35233a61-ea91-4183-9d2e-ca13a4d1a83d
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Rennova's CEO, Seamus Lagan, is crookeder than six corkscrews. His company buys rural hospitals, runs them into the ground, and closes them. He pockets the $$ and stashes it offshore.
The end of the suit: has Covid finished off the menswear staple?
Simon Cundey’s family have been tailor-making men’s suits for seven generations, taking 37 measurements from every customer through the Great Depression and two world wars. The tailor’s arsenal of chalk, scissors and thread were put to work every weekday since the company was founded in 1806, until March 2020 when the government ordered almost everyone to work from home.
“If there’s one thing you can’t do at home, it’s measure people for suits,” says Cundey, who has worked for his family firm, Henry Poole & Co, tailors on Savile Row in London since his early 20s. “The pandemic is, by far, the worst crisis the business has ever faced. It is far worse than the Great Depression or the wars ever were.
“In wartime, the allied forces were here so we made uniforms for Americans and Canadians, and we could still see customers face-to-face,” he says, as we chat on leather sofas in front of a roaring log fire in the shop, surrounded by 48 framed warrants from the royal family and other world leaders.
Post lockdown, Cundey and his team of cutters, undercutters, trouser-, jacket- and waistcoat-makers are back at work at 15 Savile Row – the street known the world over as the home of the finest bespoke menswear – and customers are coming back through the doors. But there are not as many as before the pandemic, and fewer than before the 2008 financial crisis. It’s a story repeated up and down “the row”, and at other tailors across the country, as well as high street retailers from Marks & Spencer to Reiss, and online companies from Mr Porter to Asos.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2022/apr/18/the-end-of-the-suit-has-covid-finished-off-the-menswear-staple
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This old lady thinks suits are dumb. But you know what's even dumber? TIES!
Images appear to show sinking Russian warship
Dramatic pictures - and a credible video - allegedly showing the Russian warship Moskva before it sank last week have appeared online.
The video and images match the shape and design of the missile cruiser.
Russia says a fire onboard caused ammunitions to explode and the vessel sank as it was being towed in a storm. Ukraine says it hit it with missiles.
The new images do not immediately back the claims of either side - but there is no sign of a storm at the time.
The images were allegedly taken on 14 April, a day after Ukraine claimed to have struck the warship.
The three-second video clip - likely taken from a rescue boat - shows the Moskva in the distance listing heavily on her port side.
A tug, likely a Russian Shakhter, is on its right.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61141118
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This is no "fire", people, and the seas were FLAT. Tell us another one, Vlad.
Queer student targeted in political ad speaks out
She helped him with his costume. Her classmates did, too. Stitch by stitch, the senior at Magic City Acceptance Academy helped her history teacher become a Mardi Gras queen.
The occasion was a drag show fundraiser to help the school’s history quiz bowl team attend a competition in Washington, D.C. The fundraiser was a student idea, the school’s principal said, and was successful. The quiz bowl team will head to D.C. next week.
“It was a fun thing,” the senior at MCAA said, although it’s hard for her to remember it that way now.
Because now, in the shadow of an Alabama election, she said that the fun event has been “weaponized” in a television advertisement by Tim James, a Republican candidate for governor. The advertisement, which incorrectly labels MCAA as “the first transgender public school in the South,” includes images of the fundraiser the senior had worked to make a success. The images showed staff and students, including the senior, their faces visible.
https://www.wate.com/news/student-mother-object-to-her-photo-appearing-in-alabama-political-ad/
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Tim James is using pictures of minor students in his ads without their permission? Um, I believe that's against the law...even Alabama law.
Queer student targeted in political ad speaks out
She helped him with his costume. Her classmates did, too. Stitch by stitch, the senior at Magic City Acceptance Academy helped her history teacher become a Mardi Gras queen.
The occasion was a drag show fundraiser to help the school’s history quiz bowl team attend a competition in Washington, D.C. The fundraiser was a student idea, the school’s principal said, and was successful. The quiz bowl team will head to D.C. next week.
“It was a fun thing,” the senior at MCAA said, although it’s hard for her to remember it that way now.
Because now, in the shadow of an Alabama election, she said that the fun event has been “weaponized” in a television advertisement by Tim James, a Republican candidate for governor. The advertisement, which incorrectly labels MCAA as “the first transgender public school in the South,” includes images of the fundraiser the senior had worked to make a success. The images showed staff and students, including the senior, their faces visible.
https://www.wate.com/news/student-mother-object-to-her-photo-appearing-in-alabama-political-ad/
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Tim James is using pictures of minor students in his ads without their permission? Um, I believe that's against the law...even Alabama law.
Mosque in Henrico vandalized during Ramadan
The Henrico County Police Department is investigating vandalism that occurred in Glen Allen at the West End Islamic Center — in the middle of Ramadan.
Ramadan is a month of fasting, prayer, community and reflection for the Muslim faithful. The West End Islamic Center said, “it is with great sadness that in just six months, the West End Islamic Center has experienced two incidents of vandalism.”
“We feel compelled to speak out against these expressions of hatred,” WEIC said in a Facebook post. “An attack on any house of worship certainly feels like an assault on the community.”
According to police, officers were called to the mosque at around 4:45 p.m. Saturday afternoon. When they arrived, officers spoke to a representative who said they believe a group of people entered the building between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. Saturday.
https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/henrico-county/mosque-in-henrico-vandalized-during-ramadan-islamic-faithful-speak-out-against-expressions-of-hatred/
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File under "People are shitty" department
Follow up: Woman who said deputy coerced her into baptism found dead
The woman suing Hamilton County sheriff’s deputies over an alleged coerced baptism is dead.
Shandle Marie Riley, 42, was found dead at a home in Soddy-Daisy Wednesday.
Riley made headlines in 2019 after claiming deputies baptized her in Soddy Lake after a traffic stop.
“I think the history of it in the media will show that a baptism by a police officer in the line of duty, in exchange for leniency in a criminal case is beyond the pale,” said Robin Flores, Riley’s attorney.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Riley was found dead at a residence in Soddy-Daisy.
“All I can tell you is that I learned late last night, or late yesterday afternoon, that she had apparently been found deceased,” Flores said.
Riley is one of several people suing Hamilton County Deputy Daniel Wilkey.
She claimed he stripped down to his underwear and baptized her in Soddy Lake after a traffic stop, offering a citation instead of an arrest if she agreed.
https://www.wvlt.tv/2022/04/18/woman-who-said-deputy-coerced-her-into-baptism-found-dead/
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