May 4, 2019

Florida GOP moves to reign in voting rights for former felons

By some estimates, Amendment 4 could enfranchise as many as 1.4 million former felons. Even if only some of them register to vote — and turn out — they could prove pivotal in a state used to razor-thin elections. | Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images

Florida GOP moves to rein in felon voting rights
By GARY FINEOUT 05/02/2019 09:59 PM EDT
TALLAHASSEE — Republicans in the country’s largest swing state, ahead of what promises to be a heated 2020 battle, on Thursday moved to rein in the number of former felons allowed to cast ballots in next year’s presidential election.

The GOP-controlled state Senate voted 22-17 along party lines to pass an election reform bill, adding the felon provision at the 11th hour over the objections of Democrats. The Florida House is expected to pass the measure Friday and send it to Gov. Ron DeSantis, an ally of President Donald Trump.

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/05/02/florida-gop-moves-to-rein-in-felon-voting-rights-1005333

May 4, 2019

Pets dead on flight that slid into water

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1100509001

At least four pets were checked in the luggage department located in the bottom of the plane that left Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to northern Florida.

Each is still on the aircraft and presumed dead, Kaylee LaRocque, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy in Jacksonville, confirmed to USA TODAY on Saturday.

Although the Boeing 737 plane is not completely submerged in the St. Johns River, the bottom portion, where the pets were positioned, is under water.

May 4, 2019

After surviving ISIS and a civil war, these Syrian women built a female-only village

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/05/04/middleeast/jinwar-syria-female-only-village-trnd/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F


After surviving ISIS and a civil war, these Syrian women built a female-only village

By Loumay Alesali and Christina Zdanowicz, CNN

Posted at 12:25 AM ET, Sat May 4, 2019

(CNN) — Fatma Emin's life changed forever when her husband died in the Syrian war, killed by ISIS in a land mine attack.

It triggered a series of events that would bring her to Jinwar, a village built and inhabited by women -- a refuge for Syrian women and their children fleeing a rigid family structure, domestic abuse and the horrors of civil war.

Jinwar means "women's land" in the Kurdish language. The village welcomes Syrian women and children, regardless of religion, ethnicity and political views. It is a mosaic of diverse women who want to experience freedom, democracy and a new form of life.

"Jinwar is a response to every person who thinks of violating a woman's freedom, or sees the woman as the weaker sex in the society, or that she can't manage her life or manage her children," Emin told CNN by phone in Arabic. "On the contrary, a woman can build her house. Here we are -- we built a village not only for Kurdish women, but we have Arab, we have Yazidi and some of our foreign friends are also living with us."

Fatma Emin is a working single mother who didn't receive support or acceptance from her in-laws.

After Emin's husband died in August 2015, the stigma of being a widow weighed heavily on her.

The 35-year-old had to fight to keep her six children -- her husband's family repeatedly took them away from her, she said. They didn't want her to work, and demanded she give up a job she loved in Kobani's local government to raise her daughters under the family's supervision. She says they viewed her and her children as weak, with no man left to protect them.

"The people that I was mixing with didn't value this and didn't accept me as a strong or a working woman, or raising my kids after my husband's death," Emin said. "I worked at the (Kurdish) administration and I was good and excelling at my work."

When she managed to get her children back with the help of a Kurdish women's movement group, she moved to Jinwar -- a village in northeast Syria built from the ground up by Kurdish women two years ago.

A refuge from war

All women in Jinwar take part in building and maintaining their village.

Brown, rectangular houses constructed of handmade bricks sit on land that looks dry and parched. But on the inside, the homes are painted and decorated, showing the touches of the families who live in them. Today, Jinwar is home to 16 women and 32 children.

Men are allowed to visit during the day as long as they behave respectfully toward the women, but they can't stay overnight. Working in shifts, the women keep track of who comes and goes from Jinwar. They only carry a weapon during night shifts for security.

May 3, 2019

Wild raccoon moves in with zoo raccoons. Allowed to stay.by law

ld raccoon has moved into Heidelberg Zoo in Germany and keepers can't kick him out.

German daily Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung reported Friday that zoo staff recently discovered the uninvited guest inside the raccoon enclosure, where he seemed to be getting along fine with the seven original residents.


The newspaper reported that the interloper — nicknamed Fred — can expect free board and lodgings for life, because European Union rules forbid him from being released back into the wild.

Under a 2015 EU directive, raccoons are considered an invasive alien species that might pose a threat to European plants and animals.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-a-wild-raccoon-german-zoo-20190503-story.html
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May 2, 2019

Sanders and Conway are so far down the path of deceit in the service of Trump that one can't imagine

Sanders and Conway are so far down the path of deceit in the service of Trump that one can't imagine them turning around, copping to what they have done and choosing another straighter path.

But Barr had the option to take a different route. Other men at the end of their careers, like former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and former Chief of Staff John Kelly saw what was at stake and, with their resignations, walked away. Barr didn't heed their example -- and instead followed the President.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/01/opinions/william-barr-donald-trump-playbook-dantonio/index.html

May 1, 2019

This two-legged dog is teaching a two-legged puppy how to stand.

https://twitter.com/Texas_Dexter/status/1123414766318436352

May 1, 2019

CNN headline: William Barr is in deep trouble

William Barr is in deep trouble

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/30/politics/william-barr-robert-mueller-mueller-report/index.html

Attorney General William Barr did two strange things between the time he received special counsel Robert Muelller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and when he released it to Congress and the public.

The first came on March 24 when, two days after receiving the Mueller report, Barr released a four-page summary letter in which he made clear his conclusion that the report found no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians and that Mueller hadn't made any recommendation as to whether President Donald Trump should be charged with obstructing justice.

The second came on the morning of April 18 when Barr, with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein by his side, held a press conference to reiterate those findings -- in remarkably Trumpian language -- 90 minutes before actually making a redcated version of the report public

On Tuesday night, those two moves came into far sharper -- and more troubling -- focus when it was revealed that Mueller sent a letter to Barr on March 27 expressing concern about the ways in which Barr's summary document described the evidence surrounding obstructive behavior. Mueller did not make issue with any of the factual statements in Barr's four-page letter but rather the lack of nuance on obstruction -- and the resultant media coverage, according to CNN's Laura Jarrett's reporting.