Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalMost veterinarians are white. A new program plans to train Black vets.
When Kaila Tyree-Castro was 13, her pet geckos got sick. The closest vet was an hour away from her Bowie, Maryland, home and didn't have an appointment available for two weeks.
Tyree-Castro, now 19, felt helpless as she watched her lizards get sicker and then pass away.
That episode left her wanting to become a veterinarian herself ‒ and now, as a first-generation college student at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, hoping to join the inaugural class at her university's planned new veterinary school.
Last month, UMES received state approval to create a school of veterinary medicine that will become just the second among the nation's more than 100 historically Black colleges and universities. Tuskegee University in Alabama has the only other veterinary school in the country's historically Black universities and there are fewer than three dozen veterinary programs in the entire U.S.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2024/02/19/umes-black-vet-school/71968850007/
I knew about Tuskeegee from watching "Critter Fixers" and "The Vet Life" but I didn't know it was the only one. I also didn't know there was such a dearth of vet programs. No wonder you can't get an appointment!
I just met a distant cousin who lives near me
Well, I haven't officially met him yet. He popped up on Nextdoor, and his last name is the same as that of my first ancestor who settled 45 minutes from here. So I asked him about it, and we've been having an very interesting email conversation since. It appears that we're descended from the same son of the original ancestor, but from there our lines, of course, diverge, But what are the odds? A number of years ago, in a different space online, I met another distant cousin who is descended from a different son of the same ancestor. She lives in Portsmouth, VA. Isn't genealogy fascinating?
Joel Osteen preaches about living without fear in first Sunday service at Lakewood Church since shooting
Joel Osteen preached about living without fear in the first Sunday service at his Lakewood Church since a shooting last week that left a child in critical condition and a man injured.
The alleged shooter, identified as 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno, walked into the church accompanied by her 7-year-old son on Feb. 11 and started shooting, according to officials. Her son was struck in the head during the incident and was in critical condition. A 47-year-old man was injured and has since been released from the hospital. Police previously said he was 57.
Osteen took to the stage during the church’s 8:30 a.m. service to greet an auditorium full of people. He started off with a prayer.
“Lord, we think of your faithfulness, especially this week, Lord, what you brought us through,” Osteen said. “We don’t take it for granted. Your angels were watching over each one of us.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/joel-osteen-preaches-living-fear-first-sunday-service-lakewood-church-rcna139381
Tone deaf much?
Measles infections pose far more risks than most realize, including a fatal neurological complication
Erica Finkelstein-Parker planned her daughter’s 8th birthday party with love.
Because Emmalee adored airplanes, Finkelstein-Parker chose the theme “Flying High with Emmalee.” Finkelstein-Parker filled nearly two dozen brightly colored goody bags for Emmalee’s friends — one for every child in her class, so no one would feel left out.
Months later, the treat bags remained unopened in Finkelstein-Parker’s bedroom, reminders of a birthday party that was never held.
Emmalee, who developed a rare complication of measles that can strike years after infection, spent her 8th birthday in hospice care at her family’s home. Her parents adopted Emmalee from an orphanage in India when she was 2 ½ years old. The orphanage staff didn’t tell them she had been infected with measles.
“There are some things that a parent should never have to do,” said Finkelstein-Parker, of Littlestown, Pennsylvania. “I had to call the birthday venue and explain that we were canceling the party because our daughter was dying.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/measles-infection-symptoms-longterm-risks-rcna138583
I tell people this all the time. Do they listen? Well.....
House investigators want to speak with Gaetz's ex
The House Ethics Committee has issued a subpoena for the testimony of a former girlfriend of Rep. Matt Gaetz as part of the panel's ongoing investigation into the Florida Republican.
The committee is demanding Gaetz's ex-girlfriend appear before the committee over a Zoom call on Feb. 29, according to a letter sent to the woman's lawyer.
The woman, who ABC News is not identifying, had previously been contacted by the committee about voluntarily sitting for an interview and had informed the committee that she had planned to "plead the fifth" on any questions related to the congressman, a source familiar told ABC News.
"Of course we will comply with the subpoena and we will appear before the committee," the woman's lawyer, Tim Jansen, told ABC News.
"I can confirm I received a subpoena on behalf of my client. We will certainly appear before the committee as required. However, we have informed the Staff that my client will be invoking her Fifth Amendment right before the Committee,"
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-ethic-committee-issues-subpoena-testimony-matt-gaetzs/story?id=107305490
Pleading or drinking?
Boy injured in Osteen church shooting lost 'portion of his frontal lobe'
A boy who was shot in the head at celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s Houston megachurch on 11 February has lost “a portion of his frontal lobe” while recovering at the hospital, according to his grandmother.
In a Facebook post three days after the shooting, Walli Carranza said her seven-year-old grandson – Samuel Moreno-Carranza – “has lost a major part of what makes us who we are” after “half of his right skull [had] to be surgically removed during two surgeries done in less than 24 hours”. Samuel had endured “cardiac arrest multiple times, and no one can determine whether he has significant brain activity because his scalp tissue is too friable” to let doctors attach electroencephalogram wires to him, Carranza added in a post that doubled as a criticism of the US’s lack of meaningful gun control.
“Samuel had no protection of his God-given right to life,” Carranza’s post also said. “Because the very same legislators who claim to be ‘pro-life’ [in the public debate about abortion] believe that unbridled gun rights matter and the right to life does not! Insanity!”
Carranza’s update on Facebook came as authorities continued trying to determine why Samuel’s mother, Genesse Moreno, stormed into Lakewood church and began firing a rifle styled after an AR-15.
The attack ended when a Houston police officer and an agent with the Texas alcoholic beverage commission shot Moreno to death. Samuel – whose mother brought him to the church – was struck in the head during the exchange of gunfire that killed Moreno. A 57-year-old man was also hit in the hip.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/17/boy-injured-in-osteen-church-shooting-lost-portion-of-his-frontal-lobe
This child will never be right again...IF he lives. I blame the guns--and the cops.
'The most popular Palestinian leader alive': Releasing Marwan Barghouti could transform territories' politics
At times of great upheaval in Palestine, people start to talk about Marwan Barghouti. The 64-year-old political leader serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for murder represents the prospect of a genuine shake-up to the status quo. Palestinian towns – and the Israeli-built concrete walls that cut them up – are covered in graffitied images of Barghouti, his handcuffed hands held high above his head.
Virtually every opinion poll since his imprisonment two decades ago shows Barghouti to be the favourite presidential candidate for the Palestinian people, were they able to hold free elections. A December survey showed him 40 points ahead of the deeply unpopular current leader Mahmoud Abbas but also beating Hamas candidates, including the Islamist militant group’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
With Palestinian factions deeply divided, Barghouti operates in a middle ground – respected by secular nationalists but also Islamists, many of whom he formed close relationships with in jail. Even Hamas, which despises the western-friendly circles that he is part of, has called for his release as part of a proposed Gaza ceasefire deal.
One of seven children born to a poor farming family in the tiny West Bank village of Kobar, as a teenager Barghouti led student movements for Fatah, the political party founded by Yasser Arafat of which Palestinian president Abbas is now chairman.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/17/the-most-popular-palestinian-leader-alive-releasing-marwan-barghouti-could-transform-territories-politics
Paramore Slams Tennessee GOP for 'Blatant Racism'
Paramore has declined a Tennessee resolution celebrating the band for their recent Grammy wins after the state’s GOP-led House of Representatives snubbed fellow winner Allison Russell.
Earlier this week, Tennessee’s House of Representatives considered ceremonial resolutions to honor Paramore, an all-white band who won Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album and Best Alternative Music Performance, and Russell, a Black country singer who won her first Grammy for Best American Roots Performance. Only the resolution honoring Paramore went through, with House Republican Jeremy Faison leading the effort to nix the one honoring Russell.
In a statement shared with The Tennessean on Friday, Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams wrote, “For those that don’t know, Allison Russell is an incredibly talented musician and songwriter. Her music spans genres with strong ties to the Folk/Americana scenes. You might have seen her on the Grammy stage performing with the great Joni Mitchell.”
“Oh, she is also Black. She’s a brilliant Black woman,” Williams continued. “The blatant racism of our state leadership if embarrassing and cruel.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/paramore-slams-tennessee-gop-after-allison-russell-grammy-controversy
Jeremy Faison is an embarrassment to all of Tennessee, not just east Tennessee.
CBP's top doctor tried to order fentanyl lollipops for helicopter mission in N.Y., whistleblowers say
The chief medical officer for Customs and Border Protection pressured his staff to order fentanyl lollipops for him to take to the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York in September, according to a whistleblower report sent to Congress on Friday.
The whistleblowers said Dr. Alexander Eastman’s staff raised questions about why he would need to order fentanyl lollipops to take with him, and he answered that it was part of his duties to make sure that any injured CBP operators were cared for, making the argument that the lollipops would be necessary for pain management should an emergency occur.
“Eastman spent copious hours of his and Office of the Chief Medical Officer staff time directing the OCMO staff to urgently help him procure fentanyl lollipops, a Schedule II narcotic, so that he could bring them on the CBP Air and Marine Operations helicopter on which he would be a passenger in New York City,” the whistleblowers said in the report. “Dr. Eastman claims that his possession of fentanyl lollipops was necessary in case a CBP operator might be injured, or in case the CBP Air and Marine Operations team encountered a patient in need.”
Customs and Border Protection is the chief agency responsible for detecting and stopping the illegal flow of fentanyl into the U.S. across international borders.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/cbp-doctor-tried-order-fentanyl-lollipops-helicopter-mission-new-york-rcna139116
Dude was already under investigation regarding ordering narcotics for a pilot friend.....
Caitlin Clark: the supernova driving women's basketball to new heights
Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa basketball star, became the NCAA women’s career scoring leader on Thursday night in classic Caitlin Clark fashion: pulling up from parallel to the logo at center court and launching a three-pointer that went straight through the rim. She did it barely two minutes into the game, and fittingly, her basket made the scoreline Clark 8, Michigan 6.
Eventually, Clark’s teammates scored a few baskets, too. Because Clark is a completist, she only kept scoring after that. She finished with a career-high 49 points, 46% of Iowa’s total, in a 106-89 home victory over Michigan. It was the most points any Iowa player has ever scored in a game, breaking a record Clark set earlier this season.
Clark’s 3,569 career points (and counting) are the new gold standard, putting her ahead of former Washington guard Kelsey Plum, who scored 3,527. (Pete Maravich’s five-decade-old men’s Division I record of 3,667 points is not that far off.) Women’s college basketball has had so many brilliant talents down the years that the 22-year-old Clark is not universally accepted as the greatest player ever, not that sports fans ever agree on such things anyway. There are cases to be made for Connecticut’s Breanna Stewart and Southern California’s Cheryl Miller, among others. But in terms of pure offensive electricity, neither women’s nor men’s college hoops has ever seen a player quite like Clark. She is a scoring threat from virtually anywhere on the hardwood, her ability to set up her teammates with outlandish passes is almost as strong as her scoring talent, and she has been stunningly consistent over her four seasons in Iowa City.
A native of Des Moines, the state capital, Clark was a gift to the Hawkeyes when she committed to join the program in 2020. A year before her college career began, Iowa graduated the National Player of the Year in forward Megan Gustafson. Somehow, Clark has had an even more prolific career, winning the same honor last year and looking like a shoo-in to repeat this season. Clark was always a prolific scorer since averaging 27 points as a freshman in 2020-21, good enough to make the All-America team in her first year.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/feb/16/caitlin-clark-scoring-record-iowa-hawkeyes-basketball
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