Jennifer Koslow

Florida Statute 1014 reads: "The Legislature finds that it is a fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children." If HB 1421 and SB 254 pass into law, the state needs to update its language to say: "The Legislature finds that it is a fundamental right of some parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their minor children."

Sound familiar? Do you remember reading George Orwell's satirical novella "Animal Farm"? I do. I vividly recollect that the pigs on Manor Farm transformed the original tenet "All Animals are Equal" into "But Some Animals are More Equal than Others." What I never imagined, however, is that my family might be the subject of a similar dystopian nightmare.

I am the parent of a transgender child. I should have the fundamental right to determine what is in the best interests of my child's health and education. These legislations that would ban gender-affirming medical care for minors and put conditions on medical care for adults – and bills that would expand legislation related to educational institutions and instruction requirements – will all have the same impact. They undermine my parental authority.

My family and no family I know has ever made a medical decision regarding their transgender child without consulting a team of physicians. Having gender dysphoria is not being "confused." It is a condition where a person's feelings about their body are out of alignment with the physical traits of their body. For some (but not all), gender dysphoria creates extreme distress.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2023/03/22/florida-ban-trans-healthcare-undermines-parental-rights/11516854002/

Exactly. WHOSE parental rights are we talking about here? Where are the legislators' medical degrees?

First female police officer in rural Michigan town says fellow cops relentlessly harassed and assaulted her

Teresa Williams thought she had landed her dream job in Iron Mountain, Michigan, becoming the first female officer in the history of the rural town's police department.

But she was relentlessly harassed and assaulted during her 4½ years there and ultimately resigned, according to a federal lawsuit she filed last month against three Iron Mountain officers.

Within weeks of being hired in October 2017, she was forced to make out with her direct supervisor at a bar, according to the suit. The supervisor and Williams’ former patrol partner also bet on who could have sex with her first, the suit says.

“I want to see somebody step in and take action — like hold these people accountable,” she said Thursday. “Just because you wear a badge and you’re a cop, it doesn’t mean you’re above the law. It doesn’t mean you get to treat people however you want and break the law and do whatever you want.”

Williams, 35, also spoke about Iron Mountain, a tight-knit community of about 7,500 residents in the Upper Peninsula that borders Wisconsin.

“I want, especially the community of Iron Mountain, to know that I’m doing this because they have the right to know … what and who it is they have that is supposed to be protecting and serving them,” she said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/michigan-departments-first-female-cop-alleges-relentless-harassment-rcna76194

I put this in General Discussion rather than in the Michigan section because it's become typical of cops everywhere.

Proud grandfather Ezequiel "Zeke" Jaquez Jr. will be tuning into the NCAA tournaments on Thursday and throughout the weekend from his home in Camarillo, California, to cheer not one, but two of his grandchildren.

Senior forward Jaime Jaquez Jr. will be leading the No. 2 seeded UCLA men’s team against their closest opponent, Gonzaga, No.3 seed, on Thursday in Las Vegas. His sister Gabriela, a freshman forward with the women’s team, will face a tough challenge up against No. 1 overall seed South Carolina this Saturday. If both teams win, they will head to NCAA’s Elite Eight round.

Jaime Jaquez Jr., who has just been declared Pac-12 player of the year, and Gabriela are the first brother and sister duo to make it to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament for the same school in the same season.

This is Gabriela’s first tournament, and Jaime’s last after a college experience filled with wins.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/ucla-brother-sister-make-march-madness-proud-family-moment-rcna76403

Makena is the only drug approved specifically to prevent premature birth, a major health issue facing children and families, in the US. In the 12 years since it was fast-tracked by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), hundreds of thousands of patients in America have received injections of Makena, which is about 5,200% more expensive than generic versions of the same medication.

There was just one problem: there’s no evidence Makena actually works.

After years of crossfire with the FDA, the Swiss drugmaker Covis announced earlier this month that Makena would be pulled from the market, since a major study focused on the drug indicated it had no benefit.

One in 10 babies are born early in the United States, and preemies may experience lifelong health and development issues, in addition to the economic and emotional costs of premature birth. There are also dramatic disparities among those born too soon. While 9.2% of white infants are born early, 14.2% of Black infants and 11.6% of American Indian and Alaska Natives infants are born before 37 weeks of gestation in the US, according to 2021 data from the March of Dimes.

To address this pressing issue, the FDA granted accelerated approval for Makena in 2011, allowing patients to access the medication while the injection was studied for effectiveness. An estimated 350,000 people in the US with singleton pregnancies and a history of preterm birth have since received the shots.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/23/makena-premature-birth-drug-pulled-us-reaction

Reminding you that the last unproven drug for preterm births (DES) continued in use for years, despite evidence that it didn't work, and not only caused problems for the women it was given to, but abnormalities in their children, especially daughters (ever heard the term "DES daughters"?) but also sons, and now problems are cropping up in the the grandchildren, including boys.

Dr. Leah Rethy was pregnant during the first year of her internal medicine residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She gave birth during her second year. She worked through her 40th week of pregnancy so she could save her time off and spend more time with her newborn.

Now she's back at work and needs child care. A lot of child care. Medical residents often work long and irregular hours, sometimes as many as 80 hours a week. And child care is one of the main issues motivating Rethy to push for a union at her hospital.

In February, most residents at two major Penn Medicine hospitals decided to form a union, and the National Labor Relations Board will conduct their election in early May. They join a wave of other residents unionizing at programs around the country, most recently at Montefiore hospital in New York, George Washington University in Washington, DC, and Mass General Brigham in Boston.

If successful, these residents would join the Committee of Interns and Residents, the union for medical residents. According to the union's figures, the number of campaigns spiked from two in 2021, to eight in 2022, an unprecedented increase.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/23/1165539846/80-hour-weeks-and-roaches-near-your-cot-more-medical-residents-unionize

"It's always been that way", "I had to do it, so you should too", and "You knew what you signed up for" are not valid arguments. Treating people humanely is.

It was just before 5 a.m. local time when two pickup trucks allegedly carrying mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group pulled up in front of Zaza and five other men, who were patrolling the areas near the Chimbolo gold mine in the Central African Republic.

The vigilantes—who are among hundreds of men drawn from the Chimbolo village to prevent hoodlums and robbers from attacking the buildings and electrical installations in the high-crime area—were on the street leading to the gold mine near the eastern town of Bambari on Sunday. They described the men in the pickup trucks as “white soldiers” who were dressed in the same military regalia often worn by the Russian mercenary group.

“One white soldier in one of the vehicles came down from the car and ordered us to leave the area,” Zaza, the leader of the vigilante unit who prefers to be identified by his nickname, told The Daily Beast. “He said he and his colleagues were going to be responsible for securing the area.”

About 10 minutes later, the vigilantes said they heard a loud explosion at the Chimbolo gold mine, manned by Chinese workers after opening last week. They said the explosion was followed by gunshot sounds that lasted for more than an hour. “We could even hear the sounds of people screaming at the gold mine,” said Zaza. “It sounded as if they were crying for help.”

At past 6 a.m., according to the vigilantes, the same vehicles that transported the Russians to the gold mine were allegedly seen leaving the premises, driving out on the same street they had driven in on to get to the mine, the witnesses told The Daily Beast. “In the cars were the same people we saw earlier,” said Zaza.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/witnesses-accuse-russias-wagner-group-of-killing-9-chinese-miners-in-central-african-republic?ref=home

Does Vlad really think Xi will give him a pass on this?

Russia appears to be deploying 75 year old tanks to Ukraine.

According to Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an open source intelligence group based in the country of Georgia, the Kremlin has started pulling T-54 and T-55 tanks from a storage base in the far east of Russia. The T-54 and T-55 tanks were built starting in the late 1940s and the Soviet Union built a lot of them. The USSR manufactured more than 100,000 of the tanks in the decade after the war, making it the most widely produced tank in the world.

CIT found photos on VK, a Russian social media site, from people near the base that showed the tanks had been pulled from storage. They also found photographs of the tanks being placed on trains for shipment. After CIT published its investigation, footage of the T-54s moving by train appeared online.

Russia’s tanks have been having a bad time in Ukraine. It already deployed Cold War era T-62s, upgraded with reactive armor and modern optics, only to lose most of them. According to Oryx, an open source intelligence group that’s tracking Russian losses in Ukraine, the Kremlin has lost almost 2,000 tanks in Ukraine.

Sending in ancient T-54 retrofitted with modern equipment would certainly bolster the numbers, but it’s hard to imagine them fairing better than T-62s. It’s also impossible to know how many of the 75 year old tanks still work and what’s required to make them run again.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxjq7q/russia-appears-to-be-deploying-75-year-old-tanks-to-ukraine

No wonder they're so easy to tow with your John Deere!

The first interstellar object ever discovered in our solar system, known as ‘Oumuamua, has attracted immense interest and controversy since it was spotted in October 2017. Though this weird object is long gone, having since sped back into the interstellar wilds, a raucous debate over its origin has persisted here on Earth, driven in part by speculation among some scientists that the object could have been an alien artifact instead of a natural entity.

Now, a pair of scientists have presented a robust natural explanation that accounts for ‘Oumuamua’s strangest behaviors, including its puzzling speed boost as it hurtled through the solar system. The new research suggests that the object’s many years in interstellar space left it with an abundance of molecular hydrogen, which was transformed into gas in the presence of the Sun.

This specific mechanism could finally thread the needle between the acceleration of ‘Oumuamua and the lack of hallmark signs of so-called “outgassing” events that are associated with similar speed bursts observed in solar system objects. To that end, the “mechanism can explain many of ‘Oumuamua’s peculiar properties without fine-tuning” and “provides further support that ‘Oumuamua originated as a planetesimal relic broadly similar to Solar System comets,” according to a study published on Wednesday in Nature.

“Given the information that we have, I think that this is our best hope of explaining ‘Oumuamua without having to resort to more sensational ideas, or, as we might say in the science community, ‘fine-tuned’ ideas,” said Jennfer Bergner, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Berkeley who led the study, in a call with Motherboard. “We're excited about this idea because it seems very generic, and a natural explanation for a process that should be happening anyways.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3akzjk/oumuamua-aliens-mystery-solved

"You say yes, I say no...."

The bill to allow 18-year-olds to open carry handguns without a permit passed a big potential roadblock in the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday, which has killed a lot of bills this year.

“It’s for self-defense. That’s not a right we’re given. It’s a right we have,” Sen. John Stevens (R-Huntingdon) said. “We’re given it by God alone.”

Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis) pushed back on the bill, citing the maturity levels of 18-year-olds.

“18-year-olds like myself were still in high school or are – I was 18 half my high school year, I turned 18 in December,” she said. “I just don’t think any high-schooler is responsible enough to have a deadly weapon.”

Many Republicans have talked about rising juvenile crime rates this year. In turn, Lamar questioned if it was wise to open up gun access to younger people.

“Every day we see bodies dropping because juveniles are having more access to guns,” Lamar said. “There are people taking guns. Guns are ravaging our community.”

https://www.wate.com/news/tennessee/tennessee-aims-for-open-permitless-carry-for-18-year-olds-either-through-bill-or-attorney-generals-office/

They can't legally drink, but you want them to carry guns without a permit? Yeah, no.

A North Carolina mother was shocked at the selfie her son sent from school showing his mouth taped shut.

She says her 11-year-old son Brady Webster can be talkative and a class clown, but she is distraught about the way a Smithfield Middle School teacher allegedly handled his behavior.

“So, I asked, ‘What is that? Who did that?’ And he didn’t respond,” Catherine Webster said.

The text she got from her son on Feb. 14 from inside the school showed painter’s tape stuck across the sixth grader’s face.

“Just layer after layer, there were some pieces that went right up to his lower eyelid,” Webster said.

The boy says his English and language arts teacher put the tape there.

“So, I showed the principal the photo, and she took us into her office,” Webster said.

https://www.whsv.com/2023/03/23/11-year-old-north-carolina-boy-claims-teacher-taped-his-mouth-shut/

It gets worse and involves several more kids. Read on.