June 9, 2022

GOP Rep Lauren Boebert 'covered up' off-roading accident that could have sunk her political career

GOP Rep Lauren Boebert 'covered up' off-roading accident that could have sunk her political career after she lost control of Jeep ATV and left her son, dog, and sister-in-law to smash into a rock face two weeks before key 2020 primary



GOP Rep Lauren Boebert 'bailed' from the driver's seat of a Jeep ATV leaving her son and dog in the back seat and her former sister-in-law struggling to right the vehicle as it careened down a ravine and smashed into a rock face in Moab, Utah, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

According to a family insider Boebert, 35, was off-roading on Mother's Day 2020 – just two weeks before she was to win a Republican primary – when she lost control and 'bailed,' leaving her family members to their fate.

Tori Hooper, 28, who was married to Boebert's younger brother, Benjamin Bentz, at the time, sustained serious injuries to her face and chest that led to further health complications months later.

Yet DailyMail.com has learned that no 911 call was ever placed.

Instead, the source said, the then-congressional hopeful, Boebert, 'begged' Hooper not to tell anyone about the accident which could have dominated the headlines leading up to the primary.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10900825/Lauren-Boebert-accused-ditching-family-roading-accident-losing-control-vehicle.html

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: 'It was pretty crazy. She [Boebert] got out of the driver's seat and left Tori screaming and freaking out, and her son and dog in the back seat.

'Tori couldn't get out of her seatbelt, so she grabbed the steering wheel. She's steering into a cliff. They hit a rock wall; it struck her whole face. It was bad.'

June 8, 2022

Did fed-up California voters really rebuke the left on election day? Not exactly

Boudin was recalled by a wide margin, and Caruso advanced to a mayoral runoff, finishing ahead of Rep. Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles).

Both results underscore how much the issues of crime and homelessness — as well as housing affordability — have become major concerns in both deep-blue cities, with voters demanding change. A UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, asked what two issues were most important in deciding whom to support for L.A. mayor. Among likely voters, these were the results: homelessness 49%; crime and public safety 40%; housing affordability 25%.

But the election results were far from a sweeping shift to the center. Leading Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta had strong showings. And L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, whose politics have made a strong shift to the right, was struggling.

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Caruso massively outspent Bass, using his own fortune and hammering a message of solving the homeless crisis and cracking down on crime. While a poll Sunday showed Bass slightly ahead of Caruso, the primary election results were different. Caruso holds the lead, 42% to 37% as of Wednesday morning. They will face a runoff in November.

Four members of the Los Angeles City Council were leading in their contests for reelection, while a fifth was looking at a Nov. 8 runoff, according to partial returns. In the closely watched controller’s race, progressive activist Kenneth Mejia was the top voter and will face Paul Koretz in the November runoff.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-08/did-california-voters-really-rebuke-the-left-on-election-day

June 8, 2022

small town of Uvalde has had 2 mass murder plots from the same school class within 4 years

UVALDE, Texas — Even as they scheduled graduation parties and made plans to move for college or start new jobs, seniors at Uvalde High School sometimes found themselves thinking back to 2018, when two of their eighth-grade classmates had been charged with plotting a mass shooting.

The two boys planned an attack on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, the police said, researching how to make explosive devices and creating a list of students they wanted to kill. They had originally planned their attack for 2022, in the spring of their senior year, but the plot was foiled and the two boys, 13 and 14, were arrested.

Then, four years later, the unimaginable happened: Another student from the same class charged into an elementary school with an AR-15-style rifle, killing 19 children and two teachers in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

How a town of barely 15,000 people could have had two mass shooting plots in four years — both emerging out of the Uvalde High School class of 2022 — is a question many here are struggling to understand as the overwhelming grief of 21 funerals starts to give way to a search for what could have gone so wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/08/us/uvalde-shooting-plot-salvador-ramos.html

Several students at the school said they never heard what happened to the two boys arrested after the plot in eighth grade; the boys disappeared from school, they said, and because they were not tried as adults, the outcome of the charges against them was never publicly disclosed.

June 8, 2022

American tourist banned for life from Rome Heritage Spanish steps featured in film "Roman Holiday"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/us-tourist-scooter-damage-rome-spanish-steps



US tourist throws scooter down Rome’s Spanish Steps, causing €25,000 damage
Incident at world heritage site comes fortnight after another tourist drove a Maserati down the steps



American woman, 28, is banned from Rome's 18th-century Spanish Steps for life after she and friend caused $26,000 worth of damage by driving their e-scooters on the heritage site

The 18th century steps have recently undergone a $1.5million restoration
Cops said Tuesday the damage sustained to the famous marble stairway will cost at least $26,000 to repair--

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Cops eventually caught up with the 28-year-old, as well as an also unidentified male companion, who is seen in the footage recklessly wheeling his own scooter down the storied stairs, featured in the Aubrey Hepburn-led 1953 classic Roman Holiday.

The pair were reportedly then fined $430 by police who viewed further security footage of the incident, which saw the woman inexplicably launch the rented vehicle down the steps. Police said the man was also an American, aged 29.

The Spanish Steps serve as one of the most guarded tourist sites in the Italian capital, with police prohibiting people from sitting on them back in 2018.

Cops said Tuesday the damage sustained to the famous marble stairway as a result of the woman's actions will cost at least $26,000 to repair.

Authorities said the scooter cracked the monument’s 16th and 29th steps, while also chipping other sections of the storied staircase.




https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10897099/American-tourist-causes-25-000-damage-throwing-electric-scooter-Romes-Spanish-Steps.html

June 8, 2022

A Pizzagate in Every City - fueled by Republicans and driving far-right anti-LGBTQ violence.

A Pizzagate in Every City
These conspiracy theories were once fringe. Now they’re being fueled by Republicans and driving far-right anti-LGBTQ violence.

After threats made against Pride events by far-right actors in Idaho and Arizona over the past few weeks, a group whose leader calls herself a “Christian fascist” and others with ties to white nationalist groups targeted a Pride event in Dallas on Saturday.

“I wonder if the mama bear instinct is gonna come out in three years when the mainstream Democrat[ic] party platform is to rape their kids,” John Doyle, an influential figure in the white nationalist American Populist Union, taunted the families with kids lining up to get into the event, a family-friendly drag show at the queer club Mr. Misster in the Dallas gay neighborhood of Cedar Springs.

Two children stood in line a few feet away from the approaching Doyle, plugging their ears with their fingers as he continued to yell at those in line through his megaphone. A crowd surrounded the club and chanted, “Groomer! Groomer!” One person waved a Christian flag. “The fist of Christ will come down on you—very soon,” screamed one man, with a rosary clenched between his fingers.


From the idea that children inside this venue were being abused, and that such abuse was part of plot by Democrats, to the call to internet provocateurs to record their own evidence, as well as the false claims of child rescues made by those promulgating these conspiracy theories, the attack on Mr. Misster called to mind the same fears—if not the same threat of gun violence—as the assault on Comet Ping Pong in Washington, D.C. In 2016, a man motivated by the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory arrived at the restaurant with a rifle to “rescue” children from a nonexistent sex trafficking ring supposedly orchestrated by prominent Democrats.

https://newrepublic.com/article/166712/pizzagate-comet-ping-pong-pride-lgbtq-republicans

Now, a little more than five years later, 25 percent of Republicans identify as believers of the Pizzagate successor QAnon, and the far right’s capacity for street violence has grown. At the same time, where once most elected Republican officials would at least nominally distance themselves from Pizzagate-pushers out on the fringe, that wall has largely eroded. Across the country, GOP lawmakers have waged a legislative crusade targeting queer and trans kids, smearing opponents as “groomers,” language that rhymes with the “pedophile” claims that inspired the attack on Comet Ping Pong. And where once the targets of these conspiracy theories were largely confined to a select group of Democratic lawmakers and their allies, the fearmongering—amplified by Fox News and prominent conservative social media accounts—is now targeted at all LGBTQ people, from national figures to members of your local community. The stage is set for a Pizzagate in any city.

June 8, 2022

LGBTQ identification by race/ethnicity: White 6.2% Black 6.6% Latino 11%

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The growth in the U.S. LGBT population that Gallup reported earlier this year is reflected across the nation's largest U.S. racial and ethnic groups. Non-Hispanic Black, Non-Hispanic White, and Hispanic adults in the U.S. are all more likely today to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual than they were in 2012, when Gallup began measuring LGBT identification.

The growth has been greater among Hispanic adults than among White or Black adults, with Hispanic LGBT identification surpassing 8% in 2020 and reaching double digits in 2021. By contrast, just over 6% of White and Black adults identify as LGBT in the latest estimates.

The driving factor in increasing U.S. LGBT identification is the greater tendency for younger adults -- millennials and, particularly, adult members of Generation Z -- to identify as something other than heterosexual. Roughly one in five adults in Generation Z (those born between 1997 and 2003) and one in 10 millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) identify as LGBT, compared with fewer than one in 20 in older generations.

Greater LGBT identification among Hispanic adults appears to be primarily a function of the younger overall age of the Hispanic population compared with the Black and especially the White populations in the U.S. Hispanic adults are much more likely to be members of Generation Z or the millennial generation than White or Black adults are.

An analysis of combined 2020 and 2021 data underscores that racial and ethnic differences in LGBT identification are primarily related to age rather than race or ethnicity. Specifically, Gallup finds younger White Americans (15.5%) are just as likely as younger Hispanic Americans (15.5%) to identify as LGBT, with younger Black Americans slightly lower (12.1%).

https://news.gallup.com/poll/393464/growing-lgbt-seen-across-major-racial-ethnic-groups.aspx

June 8, 2022

Jim Seals, of soft-rock duo Seals and Crofts, dead at 80

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/08/entertainment/jim-seals-dead-intl-scli/index.html





Jim Seals, of soft-rock duo Seals and Crofts, dead at 80



(CNN)Jim Seals, one half of 1970s soft-rock duo Seals and Crofts, has died at the age of 80, according to his family.

Seals, together with musical partner Darrell "Dash" Crofts, was best known for hits such as "Summer Breeze," "Diamond Girl" and "Get Closer."
Announcing his death on social media, Seals' relative Brady Seals -- himself a singer-songwriter -- wrote: "I just learned that James 'Jimmy' Seals has passed. My heart just breaks for his wife Ruby and their children. Please keep them in your prayers. What an incredible legacy he leaves behind."
The musical duo -- who met in their native Texas in their teens -- got together in the late 1960s, according to the UK's PA Media news agency. They ranked among a wave of soft-rock groups of the era, including Hall & Oates, America and Bread, as well as England Dan & John Ford Coley.

June 8, 2022

The Highest-Paid Lifeguard in L.A. Makes Over $500,000

The Highest-Paid Lifeguard in L.A. Makes Over $500,000
Watching the beach while occasionally saving lives is a surprisingly lucrative industry in Los Angeles

Top-earning lifeguard Daniel Douglas was the top paid and earned $510,283—a healthy increase from his 2020 salary of $442,712. His title a a “lifeguard captain” has him earning more than your average lifeguard—and yes, L.A. lifeguards get benefits and OT.

The second highest paid, lifeguard chief Fernando Boiteux, made $463,517—an increase from $393,137 in 2020.

The auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found:

-98 L.A. lifeguards earned at least $200,000 including benefits last year,
-20 L.A. lifeguards made between $300,000 and $510,283 (but only two were women).
-37 lifeguards made between $50,000 and $247,000 in overtime alone.
Also, working at the beach pays way more than working at the pool, with a pool lifeguard earning a little over $45,000.

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/the-highest-paid-lifeguard-in-l-a-makes-over-500000/

A nonprofit watchdog site Open The Books put "Baywatch on pay watch" (their words, not ours) by filing a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain data that listed Los Angeles County's highest-paid lifeguards. In the site's report, the county's lifeguard captain made $510,283 in 2021, the highest paid in the area, with nearly $250,000 coming from overtime pay.


The second highest-paid, the county's lifeguard chief, made $463,517 in 2021, Open the Books reports. Of the $463,517 in total earnings, the lifeguard chief made $0 in overtime but made more than $142,000 in benefits and more than $78,000 in other pay, the report reads.

The lifeguard chief made $391,971 in 2019 back when he was the county's acting chief lifeguard, which made him the highest-paid lifeguard in LA County at the time. The lifeguard captain earned $368,668 in 2019, which was the second highest-paid salary in the county at the time.

The report also reveals more than 90 lifeguards in LA County earned at least $200,000 and 20 lifeguards made between $300,000 and $510,283. The report also adds that 37 lifeguards made between $50,000 and $247,000 in just overtime

https://www.ktvu.com/news/la-lifeguards-500000-salary-2021

June 8, 2022

Kyle Rittenhouse can't keep his lies straight. Claims of enrollment at 3rd college is false (Blinn)

yle Rittenhouse's story about his college plans keeps changing. First, he claimed to be enrolled in Arizona State University. Then he planned to attend Texas A&M University. Now he says he's going to Blinn College.

But the school told one outlet that he hasn't enrolled in classes yet.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/not-enrolled-at-blinn-college-for-a-current-or-upcoming-term-kyle-rittenhouse-can-t-get-his-college-story-straight/ar-AAYbIzC

June 8, 2022

Kentucky man fatally shoots deputy during interrogation smoke break

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/kentucky-man-fatally-shoots-deputy-during-interrogation-smoke-break/ar-AAYc2mR



Kentucky man who was being questioned by authorities at a sheriff’s office fatally shot one of the deputies interviewing him during a cigarette break, police said.

Calloway County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Jody Cash died May 16 after Gary Rowland, 30, shot him with a concealed handgun, Kentucky State Police said in a news release Friday.


Rowland was fatally shot by a second deputy who had also been questioning him, the release said.

Rowland had earlier been arrested on outstanding warrants for drug, firearm and other crimes. After being taken to the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office in western Kentucky, Cash and the second deputy — who were serving on a DEA task force — began interviewing him for an investigation unrelated to the warrants, according to the news release.

When Rowland asked for a cigarette break, the deputies escorted him outside. While standing in front of the sheriff’s office, Rowland fired at Cash, striking him, the release says.

Officials did not say where Rowland had hidden the weapon or how he'd kept it after being arrested.

Two other deputies returned fire, hitting Rowland, the statement says. Cash and Rowland were pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Cash had served 22 years in law enforcement, including with the Kentucky State Police and the Calloway County Sheriff’s Office.