First came the good news. After taking classes at a community college, Ricki Korba was admitted to California State University, Bakersfield, as a transfer student. But when she logged on to her student account, she got a gut punch: Most of her previous classes wouldn’t count.

The university rejected most of her science classes, she was told, because they were deemed less rigorous than those at Bakersfield — even though some used the same textbooks. Several other courses were rejected because Korba exceeded a cap on how many credits can be transferred.

Now Korba, a chemistry and music major, is retaking classes she already passed once. It will add a year to her studies, plus at least $20,000 in tuition and fees.

“It just feels like a waste of time,” said Korba, 23, of Sonora, California. “I thought I was supposed to be going to a CSU and starting hard classes and doing a bunch of cool labs.”

https://apnews.com/article/bachelor-degree-community-college-transfer-credits-cec0154f260c130fbbfcb593de77e4da?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01

This is absolute bullshit. Community colleges and state colleges are supposed to have reciprocity.

Rachel Simner, the mom of a 13-year-old child in Illinois, said she took her child to a local emergency room last September at the urging of her child's school officials, who had done a suicide risk assessment.

Simner, a mom of two, told "Good Morning America" that when her child was discharged from the emergency room several hours later, her only guidance was a list of pediatric mental health providers that were said to specialize in autism, a condition with which her child has been diagnosed.

"It turns out a lot of them weren't pediatric or they didn't deal with autism or they had waitlists, so it took a while to find anybody and this is a kid who was suicidal, so it was urgent," Simner said. "Four or five days later I went to the mental health hospital itself instead of the ER to try to get them admitted directly, and we were turned away again."

Simner said her child, who also uses they/them pronouns, has for the past several months relied on a patchwork of providers and an at-home tutor provided by the school district while she and her husband continue to search for a more permanent treatment plan.

"We get bad information. The providers aren't adequately trained. There's such a shortage of space and beds for inpatient treatment," Simner said. "In the meantime, my child is falling through the cracks and not getting the help that they need."

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Wellness/new-data-shows-kids-mental-health-crisis-parents/story?id=98868863

This is a disgrace. "Best healthcare in the world", my sainted Aunt Matilda!

Multiple people are dead and dozens injured after a massive pileup Monday in Illinois caused by a sudden dust storm, officials said.

Illinois State Police Maj. Ryan Starrick said during an afternoon press conference he did not have an official death toll, but said more than 30 people were transported to the hospital.

The crash took place at about 11 a.m. local time on Interstate 55 in Montgomery County, officials said.

Forty to 60 passenger vehicles and at least 20 commercial vehicles were involved in the crash, including two semi-trucks that caught fire, police said.

The cause of the crash was excessive winds blowing dirt from farm fields across the highway, Starrick said.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/multiple-people-killed-dozens-injured-dust-storm-causes/story?id=98994412

A resident of the Texas home where a man opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle says his family called police five times over a span of more than 10 minutes before the rampage began that left five people dead and fueled an intensive manhunt for the killer.

Wilson Garcia says he asked his neighbor, who was shooting a gun in his yard late Friday night, to shoot farther away from Garcia's home because Garcia's 1-month old son was sleeping. Garcia said he called police when the man refused. The family made four more calls in almost 20 minutes before the shooter ran toward Garcia's house, according to the Associated Press.

“I told my wife, ‘Get inside. This man has loaded his weapon,” Garcia said. “My wife told me to go inside because ‘he won’t fire at me, I’m a woman.’”

Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, was the first person shot. Garcia's 9-year-old son also was killed. Garcia said more than a dozen people were in his home at the time, and that two women died protecting his infant and 2-year-old daughter, neither of whom was injured.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers explained the delayed police response in the town of Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Houston, saying he had only three officers covering 700 square miles.

The suspect, Francisco Oropeza, 38, remained at large Monday despite a search involving hundreds of law enforcement personnel from multiple jurisdictions.

Authorities said Oropeza is from Mexico and the victims from Honduras. Gov. Greg Abbott said all were in the country illegally.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/05/01/5-dead-in-texas-shooting-family-called-police-5-times-before-killings/70168758007/

They're all HIspanic, and if that's not the kicker, the last sentence is, I'm betting.

With her insurance about to run out and Republicans in her home state of Missouri ramping up rhetoric against gender-affirming health care, Erin Stille nervously visited a foreign pharmaceutical site as a “last resort” to ensure she could continue getting the hormones she needs.

Stille, 26, sent a $300 bank transfer to a Taiwan-based supplier for a 6-month supply of estrogen patches and androgen-blocking pills. For three weeks she feared she’d been scammed but breathed a sigh of relief when a large package arrived at her home in St. Peters.

“It’s definitely a little scary,” Stille said. “Taking a chance like this, I could have my money stolen and there’s not much I can do about it. But I figured, at this point, that the benefits outweigh the risks.”

Stille, and others nationwide, are scrambling to form contingency plans as Republican politicians rapidly erode access to the gender-affirming treatments many credit as life-saving.

Stille, and others nationwide, are scrambling to form contingency plans as Republican politicians rapidly erode access to the gender-affirming treatments many credit as life-saving.

https://apnews.com/article/transgender-health-missouri-hormone-stockpile-4376cac68eecd22df9d3ad86825c18d3?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_06

When Kyle Freels got off work Tuesday, he and his wife, Rene, drove from their home in Missouri across the Mississippi River to look at neighborhoods in Illinois. They also picked up three months’ worth of estrogen for their daughter, Chelsea, who is transgender.

The Freels are preparing to potentially leave St. Louis, where they moved 17 years ago just before Chelsea was born, due to the state’s repeated efforts to restrict the rights of trans people.

“I never thought we’d have to be refugees in the United States, but now we’re being forced out,” Kyle Freels said.

So far this year, Missouri lawmakers have introduced 48 bills targeting LGBTQ rights — the second highest number in the nation behind Texas — with nearly half of those restricting trans rights, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/raising-trans-kid-missouri-become-dystopian-nightmare-families-rcna75768

Sucks when you're unwelcome in your own country.

A new unit aimed at solving cold cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people will be established in Washington state, a result of the latest law to address a decades-long crisis.

House Bill 1177 was recommended by a state task force, passed unanimously in the Legislature and was signed last week by Gov. Jay Inslee.

The unit will operate within the state Attorney General’s Office and will assist federal, local and tribal law enforcement agencies in investigating unsolved cases involving Indigenous people, who are disproportionately targeted by violence. The unit will prioritize help for jurisdictions with limited resources, The Seattle Times reported.

“Victims are not alone. The cries of their loved ones are no longer unheard,” said bill sponsor Rep. Debra Lekanoff, D-Bow, who was born in Alaska and is part Tlingit and part Aleut.

The unit will have investigators and a person to maintain communication with the families of victims and serve as a go-between for families and law enforcement.

https://apnews.com/article/indigenous-people-cold-case-unit-washington-96a1bab5f5e124c3d8b183c688733983

Way overdue, but yay! Hope some other states follow suit.

Earlier this week, far-right podcaster Steven Crowder announced on his show that he’d been in the midst of “what has increasingly been a horrendous divorce” since 2021, claimed his ex-wife Hilary is the one who left him, and implied that he opposes the no-fault divorce laws that allowed her to do so. And now, new reporting has rendered all of this exponentially more complicated.

In addition to his divorce announcement, Crowder also accused fellow right-wing provocateur Candace Owens of extortion this week, claiming she was privately threatening to leak private information about his divorce. He cited a January episode of Owens’ show in which she alludes to trouble in Crowder’s personal life. And this ruckus was all conveniently timed to a series of allegations from his ex-wife’s family, who say that Crowder emotionally abused Hilary throughout their marriage—it sure seems like he wants to blame this on Owens!

“The truth is that Hilary spent years hiding Steven’s mentally and emotionally abusive behavior from her friends and family while she attempted to save their marriage. She was the one who was asking to work on their relationship to keep the marriage intact for their unborn children,” Hilary’s family told journalist Yashar Ali in a statement, which included video footage that he shared on Twitter on Wednesday. The family further accused Crowder of being the one to instigate the divorce, claiming he wasn’t present for the birth of their children, moved out of their home, cut Hilary off financially, and hired a divorce lawyer.

The disturbing video footage shows an argument between Crowder and a very pregnant Hilary, in which Crowder refuses to let her take the car and leave the house, claiming she failed “to do wifely things.”

“The only way out of this is discipline and respect,” he tells her at one point in the video.

https://jezebel.com/steven-crowder-s-ex-s-family-shares-video-of-him-berati-1850386262

Propriety forbids me from suggesting what this dude really needs.

Who's Carolyn Bryant, you ask? She's the woman who accused Emmett Till of "wolf whistling" at her, or some equally false nonsense, and set up his lynching at the hands of her husband and his buddies. They all got off, of course, with an all-white jury in Mississhitty in the 1950s, and died free men. She issued a nopology a few years back which amounted to nothing, and died at the ripe old age of 88. Emmett Till was 14 years old when her words killed him.

She should rot in hell for eternity.

The family of 47-year-old Holly Barlow-Austin, who died after being denied medical care in a for-profit Texas jail, received $7 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit.

It is the largest known jail death settlement in Texas history and among the largest nationwide, Erik Heipt, the lead attorney who represented Barlow-Austin’s family, said on Thursday in a statement announcing the settlement.

“We hope that this result sends a powerful message to every single jail and prison in America that this type of blatant disregard for human life will not be tolerated,” Heipt wrote. “In particular, this outcome should serve as a wake-up call to all private jail and prison operators—not just in Texas, but everywhere: If you’re going to cut corners and put profits over people’s lives, there will be a steep price to pay.”

Barlow-Austin died in June 2019 after being held at the Bi-State Justice Center, a jail on the Texas-Arkansas border run by LaSalle Corrections. The following year, her family sued jail staffers, Bowie County and LaSalle — a company that has been “neglecting and abusing inmates, disregarding their fundamental constitutional rights, and engaging in other cruel and inhumane acts and practices,” according to the lawsuit.

The settlement came after two and a half years of litigation. Although the $7 million payment is public, the specific amount paid by each defendant remains confidential. LaSalle did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and it was not clear if it had admitted fault as part of the settlement.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/holly-barlow-austin-family-record-settlement_n_644981d1e4b011a819c5515d

Abolish private prisons NOW! Were these Reagan creations?