News FirstCircle • 2 weeks ago • 100%

>Merritt eventually told police that his father, David, took Benway camping and zip-tied her to a pole inside a tent while he stood outside and chose not to seek help. Merritt told police he participated in order to earn a black rose tattoo, a tattoo for a “brotherhood” of those who have killed people.

News FirstCircle • 1 month ago • 99%

www.seattletimes.com

>Companies offering the drug risk reputation and legal repercussions, according to an Aug. 2 letter sent to CEOs at the two retail giants, as well as Kroger, Albertsons and medical distribution company McKesson Corp. The group said 6,000 Costco customers have signed a petition saying they will cancel their membership if the retailer starts selling the pills. >The religious coalition behind the petition owns about $172 million in shares of the five companies. The coalition was led by Boise, Idaho-based Inspire Investing, which manages $3 billion of assets, and includes the investment arm of the Southern Baptist churches and the American Family Association, a Christian fundamentalist group.

News FirstCircle • 1 month ago • 100%

www.seattletimes.com

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!

www.hcn.org

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/37488122 > > If Donald Trump is re-elected president in November, a coalition of more than 50 right-wing organizations known as Project 2025 will be ready with a plug-and-play plan for him to follow, starting with a database of potential administration appointees carefully vetted by coalition members; an online “Presidential Administration Academy” run by coalition members to school new appointees; and a 920-page policy platform called Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.

News FirstCircle • 3 months ago • 97%

>A new book ban goes into effect in Idaho on July 1. >House Bill 710, a key political win for the Idaho Family Policy Center (IFPC), is targeted at books with Black, feminist or LGBTQ+ themes. It allows any person affiliated with a student at a public or private school to sue its library for carrying a book with “obscene materials.” >The policy defines obscene materials as any literature containing nudity or homosexuality. >While the Bible contains each of these concepts in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, it does not seem that Christian and Jewish texts were the intended target of the ban, but rather books written by queer or Black authors. >IFPC voiced its opposition to The Handmaid’s Tale, the popular dystopian novel criticizing fascism and misogyny, on June 7 after it was removed from the Idaho Fine Arts Academy school library. >Governor Brad Little [R] signed the policy in April, saying that the bill would keep children from reading harmful materials. >The Idaho Library Association is against the bill and says it is harmful to young people, librarians and LGBTQ+ people. >Idaho’s education system ranked 47th in a January analysis of state education levels conducted by Scholaroo.

>Tractor Supply Company, which bills itself as the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the U.S., will eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) roles, withdraw its carbon emissions goals and stop sponsoring Pride events in response to criticism from conservative activists. >The Fortune 500 company has been nationally recognized as an inclusive and diverse workplace, including last year in Bloomberg’s Gender Equality Index and Newsweek’s inaugural list of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity. >But it recently became the target of conservative ire for that very reason, as the latest in a growing series of retailers to face backlash over — and ultimately walk back — its DEI initiatives. >Robby Starbuck, a music video director and Republican who ran unsuccessfully to represent Tennessee's 5th Congressional District in 2022, launched the campaign against Tractor Supply on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this month. >He wrote on June 6 that it was “time to expose Tractor Supply,” which he said was one of conservatives’ most beloved brands but was at odds with their values. He pointed to its DEI hiring practices, in-office Pride Month decorations, climate change activism and “funding sex changes,” among other complaints.

Vermont FirstCircle • 3 months ago • 96%

www.vermontpublic.org

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/17366624 > >It all started, Greg Bombard said, with a broken coffee maker. That’s what prompted him to get into his car and head to Dunkin’ on a winter day in 2018. > > >It ended this month when the state of Vermont paid Bombard $175,000 to settle the lawsuit that ultimately resulted from that short drive. > > >The settlement covers Bombard’s arrest that day by a state trooper who said the St. Albans Town man flipped him the middle finger — and a second, related citation nearly six years later, on Christmas Day.

www.vermontpublic.org

>It all started, Greg Bombard said, with a broken coffee maker. That’s what prompted him to get into his car and head to Dunkin’ on a winter day in 2018. >It ended this month when the state of Vermont paid Bombard $175,000 to settle the lawsuit that ultimately resulted from that short drive. >The settlement covers Bombard’s arrest that day by a state trooper who said the St. Albans Town man flipped him the middle finger — and a second, related citation nearly six years later, on Christmas Day.

Antiwork FirstCircle • 3 months ago • 100%

www.lni.wa.gov

>A Wenatchee fruit grower is facing $353,000 in fines for safety violations that led to a worker being buried alive in a trench collapse last fall in Othello. >Photographs obtained by the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) show multiple workers of Stemilt Ag Services LLC digging in a trench more than five feet deep and about 25-30 feet long without any type of cave-in protection such as sloping, shielding or shoring. >A crew of 10 workers was repairing an irrigation pipe when a portion of the trench caved in on one of the workers, knocking him down and burying him. His co-workers were able to uncover his face after a couple of minutes to allow him to breathe while they dug for another 10 minutes to get him out of the trench. He was taken to the hospital with multiple crush injuries to his head, face, and body. >“This could have easily ended in death, all because the employer chose to ignore rules to protect workers,” said Craig Blackwood, assistant director for L&I’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health. >L&I cited Stemilt in March with five willful serious violations in connection with the cave-in. There was no protective system inside the trench to prevent a collapse, and no ladder or way for the workers to get out of the trench within 25 feet of where they were working. The piles of dirt dug from the trench were not set back at least two feet away from the edge. Dirt piles too close to the trench can cause the walls to collapse. >Also, there was no one onsite with the knowledge needed to inspect the trench before workers went into it, and no training program for trenching and excavation work. The company was also cited for changing the scene by filling in the trench after the cave-in before L&I inspectors arrived. >Willful violations are among the most serious and mean the employer knew or should have known the safety requirements, but chose to ignore them. The company is appealing the new citation. >It’s not the first time Stemilt has been cited for trenching issues. The company was cited and fined nearly $17,000 in Quincy in 2021 for violating the same trenching safety rules. >“We hope the latest fines will be the wake-up call that motivates Stemilt to keep their workers safe, before someone is killed,” said Blackwood. >The company is now is now considered a severe violator and is subject to follow-up inspections to determine if the conditions still exist.

>An ordained minister accused of drugging and raping a woman and molesting a child was arrested in Spokane Friday. >Russell Anders, 55, was arrested Friday morning at his home on the 1800 block of West Gardener Avenue in Spokane by a United States Marshals’ task force on an outstanding federal warrant. >Anders is charged with second-degree rape and first-degree voyeurism in Spokane. >On multiple occasions, a woman woke up after having drinks with Anders feeling off, according to court documents. She eventually was able to access his laptop and found videos of Anders having sex with her while she was unconscious after putting sleeping pills in her drinks, according to court records. >She also found sexually explicit videos of children on the laptop, she told police. >Anders was indicted last year in federal court in Seattle on one count of producing child pornography, along with possessing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. >He also has pending Seattle cases, including charges of child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor, among other similar crimes.

Spokane FirstCircle • 3 months ago • 92%

Which church/religion was he ordained by? Name and Shame. >An ordained minister accused of drugging and raping a woman and molesting a child was arrested in Spokane Friday. >Russell Anders, 55, was arrested Friday morning at his home on the 1800 block of West Gardener Avenue in Spokane by a United States Marshals’ task force on an outstanding federal warrant. >Anders is charged with second-degree rape and first-degree voyeurism in Spokane. >On multiple occasions, a woman woke up after having drinks with Anders feeling off, according to court documents. She eventually was able to access his laptop and found videos of Anders having sex with her while she was unconscious after putting sleeping pills in her drinks, according to court records. >She also found sexually explicit videos of children on the laptop, she told police. >Anders was indicted last year in federal court in Seattle on one count of producing child pornography, along with possessing depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. >He also has pending Seattle cases, including charges of child molestation and sexual exploitation of a minor, among other similar crimes.

>Jackson, 78, was just 21 years old when he joined the Birmingham A's as one of a few Black players on the minor league team and at the height of violent racial strife in the American South. >“Fortunately, I had a manager and I had players on the team that helped me get through it, but I wouldn't wish it on anybody,” Jackson said on the Fox Sports panel for the Negro Leagues tribute game on Thursday. >When Jackson arrived in Alabama in the 1960s, the city of Birmingham was making headlines for its open abuse of Black Americans. >Led by Bull Connor, the notorious city commissioner of Birmingham, racial tensions were at a fever pitch, marking a peak with the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church, which claimed the lives of four young Black girls. >“I walked into restaurants and they would point at me and say 'the n***** can't eat here.' I would go to a hotel and they said, 'the n***** can't stay here,' ” Jackson said. >“We went to Charlie Finley's country club for a welcome home dinner, and they pointed me out with the N-word. ‘He can't come in here.’ Finley marched the whole team out,” Jackson recalled, referencing the Alabama native and Major League Baseball franchisee Charles Finley.

Privacy FirstCircle • 3 months ago • 97%

www.notus.org

>Televisions that can stream platforms like Hulu or Max usually come loaded with technology that collects information on what viewers are watching, and buyers consent to have their viewing tracked when they open their new TV and click through terms of service agreements. Sometimes, data firms can connect those viewing habits to a voter’s phone or laptop via their IP address, promising a trove of information about an individual and the ability to track them across screens. >Other times, firms focus on dividing households into groups based on what they’re watching, how they use their TVs and how many campaign ads they’re seeing, which is a boon to political campaigns eager to target specific groups of voters. Connecting this data to voter files is increasingly a focus — a move that adds individual voting habits into the mix.

>Another Boeing whistleblower has stepped forward, a Senate office announced hours before the company’s CEO is set to testify Tuesday in Washington for the first time since the door plug of a 737 Max 9 blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. >Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) office identified the whistleblower as Sam Mohawk, a quality assurance inspector for the planemaker in Renton, Wash. Mohawk alleges Boeing improperly tracked and stored faulty parts, and that those parts were likely installed on airplanes including the 737 Max, which is manufactured at the Renton facility. >“Mohawk has also alleged that he has been told by his supervisors to conceal evidence from the FAA, and that he is being retaliated against as result,” according to a statement from the Senate Homeland Security’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

>For most of his career at Spirit AeroSystems, Santiago Paredes worked at the end of the line. It was his job to catch production errors before the fuselage left the factory in Wichita, and Paredes caught a lot of them. >“It’s poor quality. Poor quality of work, just plain and simple,” he says, flipping through photos on his phone of the serious mistakes that he flagged during his dozen years as a quality inspector at Spirit. >Boeing is trying to rebuild its battered reputation for quality after a door plug blowout on a 737 Max in midair last January. The troubled plane-maker is in talks to buy Spirit AeroSystems, a key supplier that makes the fuselage for Boeing in Wichita, Kan. >“They say the correct things like they've always said,” said whistleblower Santiago Paredes. “But I know how they really are.” A clash with management >Paredes says he brought his concerns to his managers repeatedly. But they were more worried about getting fuselages out of the factory faster to keep up with Boeing’s backlog. >“They were upset for me finding defects,” Paredes said. “It was never the people that created the defects fault. It was my fault for finding it.” >It got to the point, Paredes says, that a manager ordered him in writing to essentially undercount the number of mistakes. >“They wanted me to basically falsify the documentation on the amount of defects that were being found,” Paredes said. “They were telling me to lie.”

News FirstCircle • 3 months ago • 98%

>Less than an hour after taking off from Phoenix on May 25th, the plane experienced an uncontrolled side-to-side yawing motion known as a Dutch roll while cruising at 32,000 feet. The pilots of Southwest flight 746 were able to regain control and the plane landed safely in Oakland, according to a preliminary report from the FAA. >“A Dutch roll is definitely not something that we like to see,” said Shem Malmquist, a commercial pilot who flies the Boeing 777 and an instructor at Florida Tech. >The Boeing 737 Max 8 jet involved in the Dutch roll incident is less than two years old. According to the FAA, a post-flight inspection revealed damage to a backup power control unit, known as a PCU. That system controls rudder movements on the plane's tail.

www.seattletimes.com

>For senior Boeing engineer and whistleblower Martin Bickeböller, a 37-year career at the jet maker is coming to a frustrating end. >For a decade, in complaints filed internally at Boeing as well as with the Federal Aviation Administration and Congress, Bickeböller documented significant shortfalls in Boeing’s quality control management at suppliers that build major sections of the 787 Dreamliner. >The FAA substantiated his claims in complaints in 2014 and 2021 and required Boeing to take corrective action. His latest complaint, submitted in January, alleges Boeing has not properly implemented the fixes it committed to after those earlier complaints. Bickeböller doesn’t point to a single safety issue but rather to a systemically flawed oversight process. >He asserts that Boeing lacks control of the manufacturing processes at its suppliers to the extent that it cannot ensure — as safety regulations require — that every plane delivered meets design specifications. >Separately in January, Bickeböller filed an aviation whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Labor Department alleging that Boeing has retaliated against him. >He claims Boeing sidelined him from his central work and penalized him with lowered performance reviews. >Bickeböller, 66, earned his doctorate in theoretical nuclear physics at UW. He joined Boeing in 1987 and rose to become a technical fellow, designating him a top company engineer. >His expertise at Boeing and his central concern is what’s called “configuration control” — which means guaranteeing that any jet delivered to an airline is built exactly as designed with all parts installed correctly.

>Annabelle Jenkins walked onto the stage during her graduation ceremony from the Idaho Fine Arts Academy in the West Ada School District with a book tucked into her sleeve. >When she stood before West Ada Superintendent Derek Bub, she slipped out the book — the graphic novel of “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and Renee Nault — faced the audience and smiled, and handed it toward Bub. It was one of 10 books the West Ada School District had removed from libraries earlier in the school year. >Bub did not take the book. Jenkins dropped it at his feet and walked off the stage without shaking his hand. >A TikTok video she posted of the incident that night garnered over 24 million views and more than 15,000 comments.

Privacy FirstCircle • 4 months ago • 97%

>As the week draws to a close, clients of Cencora and The Lash Group have been submitting breach notifications to state attorneys general. >The Lash Group partners with pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies, and healthcare providers to facilitate access to therapies through drug distribution, patient support and services, business analytics and technology, and other services. Their substitute notice explains that based on their investigation, personal information including personal health information was affected, “**including potentially first name, last name, date of birth, health diagnosis, and/or medications and prescriptions.**” >With only partial numbers from some clients available, there are already 542,062 patients affected. When full numbers are revealed, the grand total for this incident will likely be significantly higher. (See UPDATE below) >Update 1: Added Johnson & Johnson entries and Abbott entry, bringing current partial total affected to 717,723 for 18 clients. >Update 2: Added Amgen, but no numbers available, so partial total remains at 717,723 but for 19 incidents.

Vermont FirstCircle • 4 months ago • 100%

vtdigger.org

>According to video of the March 2019 encounter leading to the decertification, Amy Connelly was in custody in a holding cell at the St. Albans police station with her hands cuffed behind her back. >At one point in the video, Connelly can be seen standing up, appearing to raise a leg toward Lawton. The video shows Lawton pushing her onto a cell bench, grabbing her shirt near her neck, and punching her in the face. >Lawton and two other officers then push her face-first to the ground and cuff her ankles. >“In reviewing the incident,” Vermont Criminal Justice Council records stated, “the internal investigation found that (Lawton’s) actions were excessive, unnecessary, and a disproportionate use of force under the totality of the circumstances.”

politics FirstCircle • 4 months ago • 97%

theintercept.com

>Trump is a fascist. But the mainstream political press doesn’t want to say it. They want to act like 2024 is just another election year. >With their obsession with horse-race coverage, political reporters tend to judge what Trump says or does by whether his words and actions will help him politically. By doing so, the press is saying that Trump’s racism, corruption, criminality, and insane abuses of power matter only so far as his electability. >There are exceptions: major news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, have done some important stories about Trump’s dictatorial plans for a second term. But those investigative stories are drowned out by the chorus of horse-race stories — sometimes published on the same days and by the same news organizations behind more substantial coverage. >The media is sleepwalking. >I’ve often wondered how the press, both in Germany and around the world, failed to see Hitler for the monster that he was before he gained power. After Trump, I think I understand.

harpers.org

The bodies of four Israeli hostages were recovered from Gaza. The Israeli government intensified its attacks in the northern and southern parts of the strip, five Israeli soldiers were killed and seven more were injured by friendly fire in Jabalia, and an estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled Rafah. The Rafah crossing remained closed, and Egypt blamed Israel for blocking aid from entering Gaza. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers looted aid trucks, destroyed food packages, and torched vehicles that they mistakenly believed were delivering aid to Palestinians, injuring drivers, two Israeli officers, and a soldier. “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” the U.S. State Department said in a report, which concluded both that Israel likely violated international law using American weapons and that there was no hard evidence that Israel violated international law. The first shipment of aid arrived through a U.S.-made floating pier off the coast of Gaza, which cost about $320 million to build. “One cabinet sends humanitarian aid convoys and the other burns them,” the Israel opposition leader Yair Lapid posted on X, criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.14 Seventeen American doctors were evacuated from a Rafah hospital, but at least three refused to leave, and another U.S. government official resigned over Biden’s response to the war. “Encourage the voluntary departure of Gaza’s residents … It is ethical! It is rational! It is right! It is the truth!” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said at a rally attended by thousands, including several other ministers. After pausing a single shipment of bombs, the United States government announced another $1 billion in military aid to Israel. The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders. At a bar in Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken performed “Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young a day before announcing $2 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine. “The United States is with you, so much of the world is with you. And they’re fighting, not just for Ukraine but for the free world,” he said from the stage. “What the United States performs for the free world is not rock ’n’ roll, but some other music similar to Russian chanson,” said a Ukrainian lawmaker and former diplomat. Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, and its foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, died in a helicopter crash, and Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, was hospitalized after being shot multiple times. France declared a state of emergency in New Caledonia after a clash between voting-reform protesters and security forces in which four people were killed and more than 300 were injured. At New York University, pro-Palestine student protesters were required to complete a 49-page disciplinary workbook that included a section inspired by an episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa cheats on a test. “What, if anything, could Lisa have done or thought about to make better decisions?” the workbook asked. Columbia University faculty members passed a no-confidence vote against President Nemat Shafik over her response to student protests, and Sonoma State University’s president, Mike Lee, announced his early retirement after being placed on leave for publicizing an agreement with protesters via email. At their graduation ceremonies, Morehouse College students turned their backs on Biden, and Duke University students walked out on Jerry Seinfeld. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez blamed his wife for bribery charges at his corruption trial, and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito blamed his wife for displaying an upside-down American flag, a symbol associated with the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement and the January 6 insurrection, at their home in Virginia days before Biden’s inauguration. “Her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother,” said the Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker of his wife at a commencement speech at Benedictine College before encouraging young women to give up on having careers. Sixteen women accused the magician David Copperfield of sexual assault, and Brett Kavanaugh beat other justices in a three-mile race in Washington, D.C. Buckingham Palace unveiled King Charles III’s first official portrait since his coronation. “It was a bit of a shock—all that red, dripped here and there and scrubbed on and scrubbed off,” one artist said of the painting, adding, “Is it the blood that has been shed as a result of British colonialism for centuries?” “Yes, you’ve got him,” was Queen Camilla’s response to the work. In Taiwan, MPs brawled after spending more than 10 hours debating legislative reforms; they pulled, shoved, punched, and tackled each other, and one ran off with the bill. Snakes bit a West Virginia politician, delayed a train in Tokyo, crashed a wedding in Arizona, and invaded an Indy 500 track, and an Australian woman chose to share her car with a red-bellied black snake after several removal attempts failed. In Germany, the world’s oldest sloth turned 54. A dog named Luna was awarded a New York City Council citation for killing more than 200 rats, and a cat named Max received a doctorate in “Litter-ature” from Vermont State University. Seven hundred and six Kyles in Kyle, Texas, failed a second attempt to break the world record for the largest same-name gathering, and more than 3,000 people in dinosaur costumes in Drumheller, Alberta, didn’t receive a Guinness World Record; organizers “weren’t entirely prepared for that many people to come.” The New York–Dublin Portal was shut down after an OnlyFans model flashed it. “I thought the people of Dublin deserved to see my two New York, homegrown potatoes,” she said in an Instagram video. In Texas, 50,000 pounds of potatoes were given away after an anonymous donation.

crooksandliars.com

>Did you hear? Eleventy bazillion people showed up to hear Donald Vonshitzinpants drone on for hours about himself in Wildwood, New Jersey. Welp, Lisa Fagan, spokesperson for the city of Wildwood, is the one who guestimated that between 80,000 and 100,000 attendees were there, "based on her own observations on the scene Saturday, having seen 'dozens' of other events in the same space." This really needs a 'Sure, Jan" gif. Trumpers ran with that number, but Fagan and I'm going to guess that she's a Trump supporter, who knows, was way off. >The story has changed. Wildwood officials now say the 80K to 100K number was not the number on the beach at the rally but the total number of people "in our town," including restaurants, bars, and other places. Imagine that.

politics FirstCircle • 4 months ago • 95%

>Two years ago, some incumbent Republicans lost primary elections to challengers to their right, marking the growth of hard-line conservatives in Idaho politics. >Those legislative victories bolstered a far-right voting bloc at the Statehouse and strengthened the Idaho Freedom Caucus, whose membership and influence have fought with and sometimes swayed the state’s red majority. Far-right lawmakers have endorsed fringe views and proposed passing a range of bills, like ones to outlaw COVID-19 vaccines, limit same sex marriage or pursue the phantom of growing cannibalism. >Now, a set of legislative candidates with extreme views on abortion, COVID-19, the 2020 election and gender-affirming medicine who would be new to the Capitol are running in the May 21 Republican primary. >As Republicans clash in competitive primaries, these challengers in Treasure Valley races have expressed hard-line views, shared misinformation or perpetuated conspiracy theories prominent in far-right circles.

www.invw.org

>The recording, which we are not posting at the request of our source, is an unfiltered look into a fracture among key far-right figures in Idaho politics, in a state where many races turn on contests of conservative purity. >It’s a portrait of the tangled relationship between a power broker and a politician. It includes Nate insulting other legislators and accusing Scott of joining the establishment. It shows Scott questioning both whether God wants women in leadership and whether she wants to remain in Idaho at all. >Heather Scott and Maria Nate have each established their own perch in Idaho politics. >Scott, from her district near the top of the Idaho Panhandle, has made plenty of headlines. During her first week in office, lawmakers accused her of cutting down a piece of the fire suppression system because she believed it was a “listening device” — a claim she denies. >She’d explained that the Confederate flag she’d been photographed waving was merely signifying her support for “free speech.” She’d been removed from a committee after she was overheard saying that female House members “spread their legs” to get leadership positions — the same month that Moyle married a fellow legislator. >But despite all that — or, perhaps, because of all that — she’s cultivated an army of die-hard supporters from the North Idaho grassroots. >“Heather, do you just not trust me because I’m a woman?” Nate asked. “I do wonder, because you’d said to me a lot of times that women need to follow men.” >Scott insisted she trusted Nate but acknowledged that she does “think men are stronger leaders.” >“I just think that’s how God designed us,” Scott said. “Obviously, we’re in a time of attack and crisis. And I think that God has put a lot of women in leadership positions because we’re in judgment. That’s why we’re always — it’s not natural, I don’t think.”

vtdigger.org

>“Probably the biggest misunderstanding is they’re all homeless,” she said. “Instead, 76% are low-income elderly who worked their whole lives, are living on Social Security and are struggling.” >The newly named soup kitchen opened on St. Patrick’s Day 1982. It soon was serving an average of two dozen people, >“We thought this was a temporary fix — we never thought it would last,” Pieciak said. “Things were not good then, but they’re horrible today.” >The local influx of older patrons mirrors the situation statewide. According to “The State of Senior Hunger in America” report by the national hunger relief organization Feeding America, an estimated 8% of Vermont elders are considered “food insecure.” >“We know that inflation and the increase in food prices have hit people on fixed incomes hard,” said John Sayles, CEO of the Vermont Foodbank.

News FirstCircle • 4 months ago • 95%

www.commondreams.org

>A medic who worked at Sde Teiman's field hospital said that Palestinian detainees there are stripped "of anything that resembles human beings" and that the harassment and torture are done not to "gather intelligence" but **"out of revenge"** for the October 7 attacks. >Israel has detained thousands of Gaza residents since October, with many of them held under a recently amended law that empowers Israeli authorities to imprison people indefinitely without charge or due process. Human rights organizations have documented Israeli forces' brutal and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees, including women and children. >"A 19-year-old detainee told an Al Mezan lawyer that he was tortured from the moment he was arrested," the group said. "He described how three of his fingernails were removed with pliers during interrogation. He also stated that investigators unleashed a dog on him and subjected him to shabeh—a form of torture which involves detainees being handcuffed and bound in stress positions for long periods—three times over three days of interrogation. He was then placed in a cell for 70 days, where he experienced starvation and extreme fatigue."

>Service charges; resort fees; "surcharge" add-ons: If you've been startled by unexpected fees when you pay your check at a restaurant — or book a hotel room or buy a ticket to a game, you're far from alone. But if you live in California, change is coming. A new state law requiring price transparency is set to take effect in July. >"The law is simple: the price you see is the price you pay," Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Wednesday, as his office issued long-awaited guidance about a law that applies to thousands of businesses in a wide range of sectors. >Restaurant owners like Laurie Thomas, who heads the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, say the changes will bring higher prices and sticker shock, which could then raise a psychological hurdle in customers' dining habits. That, in turn, will hurt restaurants and their workers, she warns. >"If it's in the core price of the menu, there will be a pullback" in patrons' spending, she told NPR shortly before the attorney general released the guidelines. "There are some people, I think, that are hoping that the restaurants will just absorb that cost, because we've seen people say, 'Oh, it's too expensive with the service charge.' " Restaurant Association head thinks it's perfectly OK to mislead customers into thinking that prices are lower than they actually are, and gouge them after they've consumed/used the product. Because having knowledge of true prices would cause some customers to make informed decisions that might hurt sales. What other product information could be withheld to boost sales? What product misinformation could be provided to get those customers to "yes"?

www.seattletimes.com

>The FAA has opened an investigation into Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner after the company disclosed that employees in South Carolina falsified inspection records on work done where the wings are joined to the fuselage body. >Boeing informed the Federal Aviation Administration in April that, despite records indicating completion of required inspections, workers had not performed some of those inspections to confirm adequate bonding and electrical grounding at the 787 wing-to-body join. >“The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records,” the federal safety agency said via email. >Boeing said its engineers have established that this newly discovered lapse does not create “an immediate safety of flight issue.”

Spokane FirstCircle • 5 months ago • 85%

www.inlander.com

>While the Gender and Sexuality Alliance is a student group, Serrott says it's become a safe community space for all queer folks at the college, not just the students — which is why it was especially painful for the club's sole annual event to be canceled. >To Serrott, the cancellation is indicative of the larger anti-queer rhetoric that's growing in North Idaho. It's become more common, especially online, to baselessly accuse LGBTQ+ people of being "groomers" or pedophiles. >"We have allowed a certain political group, or certain political ideologies, to define what it means to be queer in a way that is not true," Serrott says. "I see us bowing to these political pressures as giving fire to those definitions. We're not groomers. We are not obscene. It's almost unfathomable to me to think otherwise." >Serrott says that just underscores the importance of the event for NIC's queer community. >"For some students and faculty, it's their first time ever getting to experience or play with ... not only drag, but gender expression, too," he explains. "It's really a space for creativity, expression and belonging."

Seattle FirstCircle • 5 months ago • 75%

www.theguardian.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/11456897 > > Congressman Adam Smith says ‘totalitarian’ protesters are ‘trying to silence anyone who dares to disagree with them’ > > > >Protesters calling for Israel to cease fire in its war with Hamas who have disrupted US public events and infrastructure are practicing “leftwing fascism” or “leftwing totalitarianism”, a senior US House Democrat said, adding that such protesters are “challenging representative democracy” and should be arrested. > > > >“Intimidation is the tactic,” said Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the House armed services committee. “Intimidation and an effort to silence opposition … I don’t know if there’s such a thing as leftwing fascism. If you want to just call it leftwing totalitarianism, then that’s what it is. It is a direct challenge to representative democracy now.”

www.seattletimes.com

>A resolution called for ending the ability to vote for U.S. senators. Instead, senators would get appointed by state legislatures, as it generally worked 110 years ago prior to the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913. >“We are devolving into a democracy, because congressmen and senators are elected by the same pool,” was how one GOP delegate put it to the convention. “We do not want to be a democracy.”

Spokane FirstCircle • 5 months ago • 100%

>Jeff Noble, who owns Noble Consulting and Expert Witness Services, was hired by Spokane police to evaluate Hilton’s actions. When investigating fellow law enforcement officers, it’s not uncommon to outside use of force experts. >Deputies are trained on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Graham v. Connor, that requires officers to balance the intrusion into an individual’s right with the government interests at stake, Noble wrote. They must consider the severity of the crime, whether the suspect poses a threat to officers or others and whether the suspect is actively resisting or trying to flee. >Hilton mistakenly believed that being in a Spokane Valley park after dark was a misdemeanor when in reality it was a civil infraction that does not warrant an arrest. Regardless, Noble found that Hilton’s “uses of force were objectively unreasonable and inconsistent with generally accepted police practices.” >The sergeant did not engage in de-escalation tactics, including slowing down the interaction, the report said. >“Here, the violation was very minor, did not involve weapons or violence, and there was no need for haste,” Noble wrote. “Sergeant Hilton radioed for back-up deputies and while Mr. Hinton did not cooperate with Sergeant Hilton’s demand for identification, he did not present any imminent threat. Any reasonable officer would have attempted to engage in de-escalation techniques to slow the situation.” >Instead, Noble wrote, Hilton made comments to escalate the situation, such as telling Hinton he would probably end up in jail and that he was going to get hurt. >The sergeant said he used force on Hinton because he was scared the man was reaching for a weapon. Noble noted that Hinton never appears to reach for any kind of weapon in the video and did not make any verbal threats to the sergeant. >Hilton continued to punch Hinton after forcibly removing him from his vehicle. >“There is no evidence that at the moment Sergeant Hilton delivered those strikes that Mr. Hinton presented anything more than a low level of active resistance by not giving Sergeant Hilton his hands,” Noble wrote. >Hilton had no standing to make any arrest, Noble found, and therefore any force used would be excessive. >“Even if Sergeant Hilton was making a lawful custodial arrest, I am of the opinion that his uses of force against Mr. Hilton were excessive, objectively unreasonable and inconsistent with generally accepted police practices,” Noble wrote.

Spokane FirstCircle • 5 months ago • 96%

www.inlander.com

>In February this year, Spokane police investigators concluded there was probable cause to charge Sgt. Hilton with second-degree assault. The charges were referred to the Yakima County Prosecutor's office, which is still investigating. >The chat logs — which were obtained through a public records request and viewed by the Inlander this week — shed additional light on Sgt. Hilton's demeanor immediately after the violent arrest. >Joshua Maurer, an attorney representing Hinton, says the tone of the chat messages is "pretty sickening." >It's concerning that any officer — especially a sergeant — would make fun of and laugh about a citizen they had just assaulted and arrested, Maurer says. >"Sgt. Hilton was proud of his actions," Maurer says. "He told the dispatcher to look at the booking photo because that was evidence of the 'lesson' Sgt. Hilton taught Mr. Hinton." >Maurer says it's also troubling that Sgt. Hilton saw Hinton's perceived status as a "No Person" as justification for assaulting him to the point of breaking his ribs and puncturing a lung. >Despite knowing the communications would be recorded, Sgt. Hilton "shows no remorse, or even concern over being disciplined," Maurer says. "Instead, he is laughing and bragging about what he had done."