The Washington Post published a series of short pieces the other day by different people on things they felt needed to be got rid of. In the Comments section, people posted their own lists. Here's mine as of that day:

Private health insurance. That absolutely needs to go. Single payer for all, no exceptions. And congress and public officials should be on the same insurance the rest of us are.
Permitless carry, concealed or open. That's a travesty and IMNSHO, not at all what the founders had in mind. Anyone wanting any kind of weaponry should be screened and background checked, should have to take a gun safety course, and should have a license and carry insurance. No exceptions. Stiff fines for a first offense, prison for a second.
Men making decisions about women's bodies. Especially if they are politicians or preachers. That should be self-explanatory.
The Republican Party as currently constituted.

Let's see yours.

Former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway gave the clearest indication yet she and husband, attorney and avowed Donald Trump critic George Conway, are having serious problems in their marriage.

During an interview with CBS Mornings on Tuesday to promote her new book, “Here’s The Deal: A Memoir,” Conway refused to say whether the marriage has survived their political differences.

But Conway did drop clues (and a little bit of shade) after Gayle King noted a passage in the book where she wrote that “the man you thought had your back ended up stabbing you in the back.”

“Isn’t that unfortunate,” Conway said. “I think women can relate to that, but this was next level. And I’ll say this. George Conway’s vows are not to Donald Trump. He doesn’t owe loyalty or fealty to a political party or a certain president. That was to me and to honor and cherish.”

“George changed his mind about President Trump,” she added. “He’s welcome to do that, but it was very unlike George to be so publicly bombastic.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kellyanne-conway-george-conway-no-wedding-ring_n_62963265e4b0cda85dc3cd11
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Betcha Claudia goes with dad

Workers at a Sonic location in Georgia fled the restaurant earlier this month when they found something unexpected behind the deep fryer ― and it wasn’t the remains of some old tots.

The Brunswick Daily News reported that the entire staff was spooked by a snake. They abandoned shop and called the cops, describing what they thought was a rattler, which are among the venomous snakes known to call Georgia home.

Lt. Matthew Wilson of the Brunswick Police Department told the newspaper it was actually a 3.5-foot-long ball python, a nonvenomous constrictor snake.

“I ended up catching it with a broom handle,” Wilson told the Daily News. “I just got it where I could secure its head. Then I put him in a paper bag and carried him out.”

Wilson said he suspects the restaurant left its back door open and the snake slithered in for the same reason as the customers: It was hungry and thirsty.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sonic-snake_n_6295a660e4b05cfc269e2615
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I don't think you can microchip a snake!

Transgender athlete Lia Thomas pushed back at her critics during her first sit down interview following her historic NCAA swimming championship win this spring, reiterating that “trans women are not a threat to women’s sports.”

“I intend to keep swimming,” she said in an interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America after making history in March as the first openly transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I national championship in any sport.

Thomas graduated from the University of Pennsylvania this month after competing for three years on the men’s swim team and then on the women’s team this past season after transitioning. In that final season, after completing a year of hormone replacement therapy as required by the NCAA to change gender categories, she won the women’s 500-yard freestyle event with a season-best time of 4 minutes, 33.24 seconds. She said she now plans to attend law school with a goal of competing in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.

“It’s been a goal of mine to swim at Olympic trials for a very long time, and I would love to see that through,” she said.

But her NCAA win was met with controversy with critics saying that she had an unfair, physical advantage against her female cisgender competitors. Some members on her own swim team said they support her as a trans woman but said she posed a threat to women’s sports and shouldn’t compete against cisgender women like them.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lia-thomas-swimming-responds-to-critics_n_62961b37e4b0933e73784dce
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There is a great variation even among cis women athletes. Brittney Griner or Breanna Stewart =/= Suni Lee or Allyson Felix.

Rain lashed the windows. A violent sea pounded the steel hull of the ship and the wind roared with primeval power. It was the middle of the night in the summer of 2010. The Kota Kado, a 230m-long container ship, had run aground outside the port of Hong Kong. Her crew had evacuated but standing on the bridge in his life jacket, prepared for the worst, was salvage master Captain Nick Sloane. He beheld the force of the typhoon that now, in the darkness, raged over the stricken vessel.

Sloane was holed up with just five other members of the salvage team. Days earlier, they had arrived to the South China Sea with the aim of saving the Kota Kado. When typhoons were forecast to batter the grounded ship, Sloane made the decision to stay on board overnight with a skeleton crew. He wanted to feel how the vessel flexed in the storm, to understand where it hit her hardest, knowing that this would inform whatever measures they took next. But it was a very close call.

"We nearly lost her that night," he says.

The world's cargo ships, which transport around 90% of global trade, do not always make it to their destination without incident. According to the Safety and Shipping Review by insurance company Allianz, 27 cargo vessels were lost in major incidents during 2021, and 357 during the past decade. They catch fire. They hit rocks, reefs and sand bars. They malfunction. But they don't always sink. Whenever there's a chance to rescue a large ship, their owners almost always take it because these vessels can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The people that shipping firms call on in such situations are called salvors. And they have seen some extraordinary things at sea. Salvors came to the aid of the huge Ever Given container ship after she ran aground, blocked the Suez Canal, and triggered global supply chain issues last year, for example. But when a ship weighing tens or hundreds of thousands of tonnes gets stuck somewhere, how do you free it?

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220530-how-to-rescue-the-worlds-biggest-cargo-ships

Canada should introduce a total ban on the buying and selling of all handguns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said.

His government is proposing a new law that would freeze private ownership of all short-barrelled firearms.

The legislation would not ban the ownership of handguns outright - but would make it illegal to buy them.

Mr Trudeau's proposal comes days after a deadly shooting at a Texas primary school, in the neighbouring US, killed 21 people.

The bill, which was presented to Canada's parliament on Monday, makes it impossible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in the country.

"Other than using firearms for sport shooting and hunting, there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives," Mr Trudeau told reporters.

"As we see gun violence continue to rise, it is our duty to keep taking action," he said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61641543

Ronan Kotiya leans over his father, fingers wrapped around a plastic tube he’s about to slide from a tracheostomy hole in dad’s neck.

“3, 2, 1, go,” the 11-year-old says as he removes the tube. His mom slips a padded neck brace on her husband and lifts him into a sitting position on their bed.

Ronan’s 9-year-old brother, Keaton, waits nearby, ready to connect their dad, Rupesh Kotiya, to a portable ventilator.

“Ronan, do you want to suction daddy’s mouth and then get ready to go?” Siobhan Pandya asks after her son steers dad’s power wheelchair into the living room of the family’s Plano, Texas, home.

So begins another weekend for the brothers — two Harry Potter fans with mouths full of braces, a knack for building with Legos and some heavy caregiving responsibilities.

Their 46-year-old father has Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal illness that has taken his ability to speak and walk. A ventilator helps him breathe. He uses eye-tracking software to communicate through a tablet.

As many as 10 million children in the U.S. may provide some form of care at home, according to researcher Melinda Kavanaugh. Some kids are the only caregivers patients have, while others fill in when visiting nurses or other help is not available.

https://www.channel3000.com/i/young-caregivers-exist-in-the-shadows-offer-crucial-help-2/

Ronan Kotiya leans over his father, fingers wrapped around a plastic tube he’s about to slide from a tracheostomy hole in dad’s neck.

“3, 2, 1, go,” the 11-year-old says as he removes the tube. His mom slips a padded neck brace on her husband and lifts him into a sitting position on their bed.

Ronan’s 9-year-old brother, Keaton, waits nearby, ready to connect their dad, Rupesh Kotiya, to a portable ventilator.

“Ronan, do you want to suction daddy’s mouth and then get ready to go?” Siobhan Pandya asks after her son steers dad’s power wheelchair into the living room of the family’s Plano, Texas, home.

So begins another weekend for the brothers — two Harry Potter fans with mouths full of braces, a knack for building with Legos and some heavy caregiving responsibilities.

Their 46-year-old father has Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal illness that has taken his ability to speak and walk. A ventilator helps him breathe. He uses eye-tracking software to communicate through a tablet.

As many as 10 million children in the U.S. may provide some form of care at home, according to researcher Melinda Kavanaugh. Some kids are the only caregivers patients have, while others fill in when visiting nurses or other help is not available.

https://www.channel3000.com/i/young-caregivers-exist-in-the-shadows-offer-crucial-help-2/

The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to prevent Texas state legislators from answering questions in a lawsuit over the state’s plan for drawing new congressional and legislative district boundaries.

Without explanation, as is its usual practice, the court turned away an emergency appeal from the state, which sought an order blocking a federal judge from forcing three GOP members of the Texas House to appear for depositions. Their testimony is sought in a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department and civil rights groups who say the Voting Rights Act requires the state to create more districts where a majority of voters are racial minorities.

Texas said that requiring three Republican members of the Texas House of Representatives — Reps. Ryan Guillen, Brooks Landgraf and John Lujan — to answer questions in a deposition would violate the immunity and privilege long accorded to legislators. Deposing them would “probe the very inner workings of the legislative process, examining the legislators’ thoughts, impressions, and motivations for their legislative acts,” the state argued.

But the Justice Department said it routinely seeks testimony from state legislators who represent challenged districts. The legal privilege against having to testify about legislative decisions is a qualified one, the federal government said, so the state House members should be required to appear for their depositions and can assert the privilege in response to specific questions.

One of the three, Lujan, wasn’t even a member of the Legislature when the new district map was drawn, so his claim of a privilege is even weaker, the government lawyers said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-wont-shield-texas-legislators-testifying-redistricting-l-rcna30197

The fact that the gunman responsible for this week’s massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was able to buy two AR-15s days after his 18th birthday highlights how much easier it is for Americans to purchase rifles than handguns.

Under federal law, Americans buying handguns from licensed dealers must be at least 21, which would have precluded Salvador Ramos from buying that type of weapon. That trumps Texas law, which only requires buyers of any type of firearm to be 18 or older.

Following Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School, which killed 19 children and two adults, a growing number of lawmakers in Texas and beyond are calling for the minimum age to purchase assault rifles to be raised to 21 from 18. Doing so would require undoing nearly two centuries of more permissive regulations on so-called long guns.

“It’s something that could happen at either the state or federal level, but I don’t see movement on either front,” said Sandra Guerra Thompson, a criminal law professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

Only six states — Florida, Washington, Vermont, California, Illinois and Hawaii — have increased the minimum purchase age for long guns to 21, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The majority did so following the 2018 massacre in Parkland, Florida, where a then-19-year-old assailant killed 17 people at a high school.

https://www.propublica.org/article/why-18-year-olds-in-texas-can-buy-ar-15s-but-not-handguns