State Republicans are filing a lawsuit in an effort to get Democrat Terry McAuliffe off the ballot in November.

The Republican Party of Virginia filed legal action against the state Board of Elections and the Virginia Department of Elections.

They argue McAuliffe should be disqualified in the race for governor because he filed for candidacy without his required signature on the document - per Virginia code.

“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, and Terry McAuliffe’s clear violation of the law severely jeopardizes the integrity of our elections in Virginia,” said Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Rich Anderson.

https://www.whsv.com/2021/08/26/republican-party-virginia-sues-get-mcauliffe-off-ballot/
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They're desperate; they'll try any dirty trick

He has a football scholarship at a D2 school and was very excited to go, but last week he rolled his ankle and it hurts. He's not used to coaches (whose pay is geared to performance) yelling at him and he's a little fish again and he told his mom football wasn't fun any more. I know he'll feel better in a few days, but it's no fun when you're away from home and you're not feeling good. He's a kid who keeps his feelings inside and he says he's not homesick but he's very connected to family and she and I both know he is. She of course wishes she could magically fix everything and knows she can't. I told her it's growing pains and she understands, but he's her firstborn. He called last night while she and I were texting and he was at the local Walmart complaining about the price of laundry supplies, so she figured he was feeling better. I told her a happy soldier complains....learned that from my son.

Meanwhile I'm fixing a care package for him with snacks so I asked what he likes besides his favorite homemade cookies. (This batch will be oatmeal) She laughed and said he eats like an old man....beef jerky, peanut butter crackers, and (of all things) sardines in hot sauce. I always like getting care packages so I hope he does.

I am, for one. I like it better than the "other" Olympics for a lot of reasons....it's less commercial and the athletes seem so much more authentic, that's just a couple of them.

Last night I watched wheelchair basketball, which is one of my favorites; US vs Germany. It was a nailbiter right down to the last minutes of the 4th quarter when the US pulled it out. Literally thrills and spills! Swimming was fun too. One class I didn't quite get as all the women looked quite physically able, but it appeared it must be a class for intellectually disabled as the winner (by many meters!) appeared to have Down syndrome. She was just like any other 17 year old though, very excited to have won her heat and looking forward to the final. The table tennis match was hard to figure out for a minute or three too, until I saw one of the players walk to pick up the ball and realized, oh, he has CP and so does the other guy. It's really inspiring to watch all the athletes. I was a Special Olympics mom for years and this is even better.

Earlier this month, Mississippi ICU nurse Nichole Atherton resigned, worn down by the stress, young patients and preventable deaths that have overwhelmed the state's hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"It looks heroic," Atherton, of Singing River Ocean Springs Hospital, told CNN. "But that's not what it is. It's sweaty and hard and chaotic and bloody. And it's hard to live in this every day and then go home and live a normal life."
Mississippi now has at least 2,000 fewer nurses than it did at the beginning of the year, according to the Mississippi Hospital Association's Center for Quality & Workforce. The staff shortages add to the growing strain on the state's hospital system -- both due, in large part, to the Covid-19 pandemic.
When asked if the health care system is reaching a breaking point, Singing River Nursing Manager for Personal Care Buddy Gager said, "I think we already broke."

State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said Tuesday that Mississippi set a new record of Covid-19 related deaths. And of the 875 staffed ICU beds across the state, more than 93% are in use and more than 63% of those beds are occupied by Covid-19 patients, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The head of the Singing River Hospital System, Lee Bond, is urging the state to use some of its $1.8 billion in Covid relief for retention bonuses in hopes of keeping some of the nurses who are turning to leave.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/us/mississippi-covid-nurse-strain/index.html
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Later in the article, it's revealed that Atherton put her resignation on hold and just cut back her hours, but.......

On 20 April, millions held their breath as they waited for a judge to read the verdict that the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had been found guilty of the murder of George Floyd. About 20 minutes before the verdict, Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old foster child, was fatally shot by a police officer a few hundred miles away in Columbus, Ohio.

According to early reports, the altercation that prompted a call to police involved Bryant and two women in their early 20s, and had escalated outside the foster home of Angela Moore, where Ma’Khia and her younger sister, Ja’Niah, were placed. Body-cam footage would reveal that Bryant was clutching a knife, making her the only person visibly armed until Nicholas Reardon, a 23-year-old officer who only joined the force just a year and a half earlier, arrived at the scene and within seconds fired four shots in quick succession – all of which found their target, Bryant.

“She’s just a fucking kid, man!” exclaimed a man, later established as Ma’Khia’s biological father who had gathered with other bystanders including Jeanene Hammonds, the girls’ grandmother, in the driveway. Ma’Khia was taken to Mt Carmel East hospital in critical condition and pronounced dead soon after.

While Ma’Khia’s case received national attention, she’s actually one of several children who have died at the hands of police in Ohio’s capital city between 2016 and 2021 alone. In that period, five other juveniles have been killed in similar altercations with police use of deadly force: 13-year-old Tyre King in 2016; 16-year-olds Julius Ervin Tate Jr and Joseph Edward Haynes in 2018; and 15-year-old Abdirahman Salad and 17-year-old Joseph C Jewell III in 2020. Haynes, who was white, was the only non-Black victim. Data from the research collaborative Mapping Police Violence indicates that since 2013, among all police departments across the US, officers in Columbus have killed their city’s youth at a higher rate than most other police forces in the country.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/26/ma-khia-bryant-columbus-ohio-police
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Read the whole article for some background on Ma'Khia. It is tragic what this poor child endured. She was pushed to the breaking point, and that is quite aside from the police part of the story, but it tells you how things got to where they were.

Inmates at a north-west Arkansas jail have been prescribed a medicine for treating coronavirus that is normally used to deworm livestock, despite federal health warnings to the public in exasperated tones.

Washington county’s sheriff confirmed this week that the jail’s health provider had been prescribing the drug.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the federal drugs regulator, issued a warning via Twitter last weekend.

“You are not a horse,” it said. “You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”

Sheriff Tim Helder did not say how many inmates at the 710-bed facility had been given ivermectin and defended the health provider that has been prescribing the medication.

“Whatever a doctor prescribes, that is not in my bailiwick,” Helder told members of the Washington county quorum court, the county’s governing body.
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IMNSHO, the state medical licensing board needs to step in here and charge these guys with malpractice.

A new program through the Department of Veterans Affairs aims to connect service dogs in training with veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The effort was years in the making and became a reality on Wednesday when President Biden signed the Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers (PAWS) for Veterans Therapy Act into law during a ceremony attended by a bipartisan group of lawmakers.

“We know service dogs are a proven life-changing and life-saving form of therapy for our veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress,” said Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., in a statement.

“With this new law, we are addressing the high-cost barrier that prevents many from accessing these incredible dogs,” Sherrill, a Navy veteran, added.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/26/1031285993/veterans-can-train-and-adopt-service-dogs-under-a-new-law-signed-by-biden

Video released by a team of federal investigators shows more evidence of extensive corrosion and overcrowded concrete reinforcement in a Miami-area condominium that collapsed in June, killing 98 people.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology also announced Wednesday it will conduct a five-pronged investigation into the Champlain Towers South collapse, which will be led by Judith Mitrani-Reiser. She is a Cuban-born engineer who grew up in Miami.

"We are going into this with an open mind and will examine all hypotheses that might explain what caused this collapse," Mitrani-Reiser said. "Having a team with experience across a variety of disciplines, including structural and geotechnical engineering, materials, evidence collection, modeling and more, will ensure a thorough investigation."

The video shows densely packed steel reinforcement in various sections of the building, along with extensive corrosion where one column met the building's foundation.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/26/1031245430/surfside-condo-collapse-corrosion

For Evan Cooper, who grew up playing football in Miami, becoming a star defensive back who never missed a game at a major college such as the University of Michigan was “a dream come true.”

But during his time on campus in the early 1980s, he became one of the hundreds of U of M survivors who have accused late athletic doctor Robert Anderson of sexual assault and misconduct.

Cooper, 59, who sued the university along with dozens of anonymous male athletes last August, said he wasn’t fully aware at the time that he was being abused, and he didn’t want to come forward and jeopardize his spot on the football team.

Decades later, he said, the abuse has taken a toll on his marriage and caused him to avoid doctors almost entirely.

Cooper’s story is part of several high-profile cases of sexual misconduct by authority figures on college campuses, and a new survey found the abuse may be particularly common among student athletes.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/26/college-athlete-report-sexual-assault-common-survey/8253766002/
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Another reason to get rid of Gym Jordan

Seven officers from the United States Capitol Police are suing former President Donald Trump, his longtime adviser Roger Stone and members of far-right extremist groups, alleging they conspired to use violence Jan. 6 to attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday morning, alleges that Trump and the other defendants conspired with one other through the use of force, threats and intimidation that culminated in the attack on the Capitol.

Officer Jason DeRoche, an 18-year veteran of the Capitol Police and a Navy veteran, said the civil lawsuit isn't about winning a financial settlement. Rather, he said, the lawsuit aims to set the record straight about what happened Jan. 6 and make sure history doesn't repeat itself.

"We don't want something like this happening ever again," DeRoche said.

He said he wants Trump and the other defendants to be held accountable for what they did, so that "if they were to do this ever again, there would be consequences."

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/08/26/capitol-police-sue-donald-trump-roger-stone-far-right-extremists/5593486001/
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About damn time, IMNSHO