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January 4, 2023

McCarthy’s bid for speaker to continue, Trump urges support

For the Bills' Damar Hamlin, this NFL season was an opportunity to 'cherish'

For the Bills' Damar Hamlin, this NFL season was an opportunity to 'cherish'

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans plan to open the second day of the new Congress much like the first — with leader Kevin McCarthy trying to become House speaker despite losing in multiple rounds of voting that threw the new GOP majority into chaos.


It was the first time in 100 years that a nominee for House speaker could not take the gavel on the first vote, but McCarthy appeared undeterred. Instead, he vowed to fight to the finish, encouraged, he said, by former President Donald Trump to end the disarray and pull the Republican Party together.


Early Wednesday, Trump publicly urged Republicans to vote for McCarthy: “CLOSE THE DEAL, TAKE THE VICTORY,” he wrote on his social media site. He added: “REPUBLICANS, DO NOT TURN A GREAT TRIUMPH INTO A GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT.”


Entire Article

For the Bills' Damar Hamlin, this NFL season was an opportunity to 'cherish'

For the Bills' Damar Hamlin, this NFL season was an opportunity to 'cherish'

For the Bills' Damar Hamlin, this NFL season was an opportunity to 'cherish'

Damar Hamlin had dreamed so long of playing in the NFL that when he was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in 2021, he said he'd still be happy even if his only contribution was as a water boy.


The scouting report on the star defensive back from the University of Pittsburgh said he had great instincts and a nose for the ball, but that he was undersized and perhaps a bit slow.


As a result, Hamlin had fallen all the way to the sixth round, where the Bills picked him up as the 212th overall pick.


Hamlin didn't mind.


"I'm willing to do whatever just to be a contributor on the team, man. I don't care if it's I gotta pass out water at halftime," he said to reporters after the draft. "No matter what it is, I'm willing to do it. I don't got no pride."


Entire Article

Think AI was impressive last year? Wait until you see what’s coming.

For the Bills' Damar Hamlin, this NFL season was an opportunity to 'cherish'

Think AI was impressive last year? Wait until you see what’s coming.

A few years ago, I’d sometimes find myself needing to answer the question, “Why does Future Perfect, which is supposed to be focused on the world’s most crucial problems, write so much about AI?”

After 2022, though, I don’t often have to answer that one anymore. This was the year AI went from a niche subject to a mainstream one.


In 2022, powerful image generators like Stable Diffusion made it clear that the design and art industry was at risk of mass automation, leading artists to demand answers — which meant that the details of how modern machine learning systems learn and are trained became mainstream questions.


Meta pushed releases of both Blenderbot (which was a flop) and the world-conquering, duplicitous Diplomacy-playing agent Cicero (which wasn’t).

OpenAI ended the year with a bang with the release of ChatGPT, the first AI language model to get widespread uptake with millions of users — and one that could herald the end of the college essay, among other potential implications.

And more is coming — a lot more. On December 31, OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman tweeted the following: “Prediction: 2023 will make 2022 look like a sleepy year for AI advancement & adoption.”


AI moves from hype to reality

One of the defining features of AI progress over the past few years is that it has happened very, very fast. Machine learning researchers often rely on benchmarks to compare models to one another and define the state of the art on a specific task. But often in AI today, a benchmark will barely be created before a model is released that obviates it.


Entire Article

Hannibal: Clashes with Rome!

Amazing TRUE story!

black, brown and red

Harris in late-night TV gig pushes voting, laments no emojis

Ron Herrera resigns as L.A. Labor Federation head amid furor over leaked recording, sources say

Ron Herrera resigns as L.A. Labor Federation head amid furor over leaked recording, sources say

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris used her first late-night network TV appearance since becoming vice president to reflect on how her life has changed since she got the job — including a shortage of emojis — and to talk up the need to vote in the midterm elections.


Harris, appearing early Tuesday on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” in a taped appearance, promoted Biden administration efforts to fight climate change, restore abortion rights and pardon people with federal convictions for marijuana possession as she urged people to “speak with your vote” in the midterms.


“Nobody should have to go to jail for smoking weed, right?” she said, adding that governors and states should follow the president’s lead in offering pardons for state convictions.


Asked by Meyers how life had changed for her since she became vice president, Harris referenced “high-class problems” like security restrictions that alter day-to-day dynamics. She said taking a walk with her husband, Doug Emhoff, is no longer a one-on-one affair and that family chats via group text are “no longer a thing.”


As for her digital conversations, Harris said: “I have not received directly an emoji in a year and a half.”

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Ron Herrera resigns as L.A. Labor Federation head amid furor over leaked recording, sources say

Ron Herrera resigns as L.A. Labor Federation head amid furor over leaked recording, sources say

Ron Herrera resigns as L.A. Labor Federation head amid furor over leaked recording, sources say

Facing outrage over a controversial leaked audio recording with top L.A. city officials, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera offered his resignation at a Monday night meeting with the federation’s executive board, which accepted, according to two sources close to the situation.


Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, head of the California Labor Federation and former head of the AFL-CIO’s San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, confirmed to The Times that Herrera offered his resignation to the board. “We are focused on rebuilding solidarity and trust in the worker movement,” she said.


A spokeswoman for the county federation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The sources requested anonymity to describe sensitive internal matters. One source said that the organization would make a formal statement Tuesday.


Earlier in the day, reports circulated that Herrera had reportedly been “placed on administrative leave, pending an LA Federation of Labor Executive Board meeting to be held this evening,” the California Labor Federation said in a Monday email to state labor leaders obtained by The Times.


Herrera — along with Los Angeles City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo — participated in an October 2021 closed-door conversation where Martinez said a white councilmember handled his young Black son as though he were an “accessory” and described Councilmember Mike Bonin’s son as “Parece changuito,” or “like a monkey.”

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Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes

Ron Herrera resigns as L.A. Labor Federation head amid furor over leaked recording, sources say

Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Moscow’s barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.


Russian nationalist commentators and state media war correspondents lauded Monday’s attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive and a weekend attack on the bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.


Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday’s strikes to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming a hostage of his allies’ views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold.


“Putin’s initiative is weakening, and he is becoming more dependent on circumstances and those who are forging the ‘victory’ (in Ukraine) for him,” Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of the independent R.Politik think tank, wrote in an online commentary Monday.

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The real source of Puerto Rico’s woes

Adnan Syed is free — and it only took years of criminal justice reform

Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes

After a disaster strikes, once the dead have been counted and the immediate damage stops, recovery is almost always the first question. How do we build things back to the way they were or even better?


For Puerto Rico — where over 3 million people were left without electricity and 760,000 without clean water after Hurricane Fiona flooded the archipelago last month — talking about solutions yet again can feel like déjà vu.


It’s no wonder. Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico in mid-September, right before the fifth anniversary of Hurricane María, the Category 4 storm that led to the death of thousands of people in 2017 and knocked out the power grid for many islanders for nearly a year. In the immediate aftermath of María, politicians, NGOs, and economists rushed to craft potential solutions to make Puerto Rico more resilient against future climate events, ranging from privatizing the electrical grid to Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding approximately $28 billion for construction and economic revitalization projects. 


Yet despite the damage and the death toll, only $5 billion of that money was actually disbursed and spent. And four-fifths of that went not to broader resiliency for future disasters but to emergency relief, according to the New York Times. That pattern holds true for other federal funds, such as the Housing and Urban Development department (HUD), too.

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‘Not fair’: Ghana slams West over low funding for climate change

Adnan Syed is free — and it only took years of criminal justice reform

Adnan Syed is free — and it only took years of criminal justice reform

Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo has criticised Western nations for their low financial commitment to addressing issues caused by climate change on the continent.

“$55m for 54 countries – this is not fair,” Akufo-Addo was quoted as saying by French state broadcaster RFI on Monday.


Akufo-Addo who is on a six-day visit to France where he is expected to meet President Emmanuel Macron, was referring to commitments made during a climate summit in Rotterdam last September – $23m from the United Kingdom, $15m from Norway, $10m from France and $7m from Denmark.


“The adaptation summit had the mission of mobilising $25bn by 2025 … ridiculously, while the G20 countries are responsible for 80 percent of emissions, Africa left Rotterdam with pledges of up to $55m,” the Ghanaian leader said.

The African Development Bank pledged an additional $12.5bn to support the cause.


The Rotterdam summit was set up to discuss climate change financing for Africa and took place ahead of the 27th annual summit of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) to be held this November in Egypt.


It also came on the heels of a warning from the UN climate science panel that extreme weather and rising seas are hitting faster than expected, prompting calls for more money and political will to help people adapt.


The Rotterdam meeting – attended by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa and International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva – heard from representatives of African nations, small island developing states and other climate-vulnerable countries.

Full Article

Adnan Syed is free — and it only took years of criminal justice reform

Adnan Syed is free — and it only took years of criminal justice reform

Adnan Syed is free — and it only took years of criminal justice reform

Editor’s note, October 11, 10:50 am: Baltimore prosecutors have dropped all charges against Adnan Syed. This original story, published on September 20, is below.


In a shocking new twist to one of the most notable true crime cases of the modern era, a Baltimore judge has vacated the conviction and ordered the immediate release of Adnan Syed, 41, from prison. Syed has maintained his innocence while serving 23 years of a life sentence for the 1999 murder of 18-year-old Hae Min Lee — the case that turned the 2014 podcast Serial into a podcasting phenomenon.


The decision comes as part of a new investigation spearheaded by the state as part of ongoing citywide and statewide efforts to create significant criminal justice reform — a reform arguably galvanized by a cultural wave of interest in true crime that began because of Serial itself.

The investigation revealed serious errors in Syed’s original court case, including multiple Brady violations, meaning that the prosecution refused to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense prior to Syed’s trial.


In light of this new evidence, brought forth not by the defense but by the prosecution in an extremely rare moment of self-reflection, Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn overturned the verdict and gave the state 30 days in which to drop the existing charges against Syed or schedule a retrial.


At the time of Lee’s murder, Syed, then 17, was considered a beloved and upstanding member of his Baltimore Muslim community. Following the murder of Lee, his high school ex-girlfriend, Syed was put through a trial — thoroughly excavated by journalist Sarah Koenig in Serial, as well as by advocates like Rabia Chaudry — that relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, shaky testimony from Syed’s drug dealer, and now-infamous cellphone tower records whose accuracy has been hotly debated. 


Syed’s defense was further hampered by what was generally believed to have been an inadequate defense counsel who failed to investigate at least one potential alibi witness on his behalf, and who was later disbarred.

Full Article

black, brown and red

For the first time in 230 years, Congress has full U.S. Indigenous representation

For the first time in 230 years, Congress has full U.S. Indigenous representation

For the first time in 230 years, Congress has full U.S. Indigenous representation

Rep. Mary Peltola's election to the U.S. House of Representatives made history in several ways.


With her recent swearing-in, it became official for the first time in more than 230 years: A Native American, a Native Alaskan and a Native Hawaiian are all members of the House — fully representing the United States' Indigenous people for the first time, according to Rep. Kaiali'i Kahele of Hawaii. Now, there are six Indigenous Americans who are representatives in the House.


Kahele shared this history-making moment on social media this week with a photograph of him, Peltola, and Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas (a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation).


Peltola, the first Native Alaskan and woman elected to the House for Alaska, is taking over for Rep. Don Young, who died in March.

"It's a historic moment," Lani Teves, an associate professor at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa said.

Full Article

Fiona wallops Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico still stunned

For the first time in 230 years, Congress has full U.S. Indigenous representation

For the first time in 230 years, Congress has full U.S. Indigenous representation

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Fiona blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday as a Category 3 storm after devastating Puerto Rico, where most people remained without electricity or running water and rescuers used heavy equipment to lift survivors to safety.


The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Storm surge could raise water levels there by as much as 5 to 8 feet above normal, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.


Late Tuesday morning, the storm was centered about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north-northwest of that island, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 30 miles (45 kilometers) from the center.

“Storms are unpredictable,” Premier Washington Misick said in a statement from London, where he was attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. “You must therefore take every precaution to ensure your safety.”


Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 9 mph (15 kph), according to the Hurricane Center, which said the storm is likely to strengthen further into a Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda on Friday.

Full Article

How Ethnic-Minority Britons Are Remembering Queen Elizabeth II

For the first time in 230 years, Congress has full U.S. Indigenous representation

How Ethnic-Minority Britons Are Remembering Queen Elizabeth II

Nearly one million people descended on London on Monday to bid a final farewell to Queen Elizabeth II, among them heads of state and representatives from nearly 200 governments as well as visitors from across Britain and around the world. The international nature of the gathering was a testament to the Queen’s immense global soft power, the likes of which is unlikely to be rivaled by any of her successors. 


But it’s also fitting of the country over which she reigned. The Britain that Queen Elizabeth II leaves behind is considerably more ethnically and religiously diverse than the one that she inherited 70 years ago.


Over the course of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, Britain’s population grew by nearly a third from roughly 50 million in 1950 to 67 million today—an increase spurred, at least in part, by increased immigration. As of last year, people born outside of the country made up 14.5% of the population, compared to just 8% in 2004.

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Black, Brown and Red

Gold and the goddess

Uvalde students go back to school for 1st time since attack

Uvalde students go back to school for 1st time since attack

Ilesha, Nigeria - In his early twenties, Simeon Abolarinwa did the grown-up thing of making a curriculum vitae for the first time. At the bottom of the document, he listed his hobbies: hunting, hiking and fishing. Unlike many of his peers doing the same to fill space or boost their profiles, these were actually his hobbies.


Growing up in his native Osun state in southwest Nigeria, he regularly snuck out of the family house to make hooks out of binding wire and go fishing with friends in nearby streams.


These days, the 41 year old lives in Osogbo, the state capital, working as a network administrator with a university. His favourite place to fish is a spot on the Osun river, less than a kilometre (half a mile) from his apartment and a few kilometres from the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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Uvalde students go back to school for 1st time since attack

Uvalde students go back to school for 1st time since attack

Uvalde students go back to school for 1st time since attack

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Students in Uvalde went back to school Tuesday for the first time since a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in a classroom attack that shocked the country and helped fuel passage of a landmark national law on gun violence.


Children began arriving at Uvalde Elementary before dawn, walking through newly installed 8-foot (2.4-meter) metal fencing that surrounds the campus and past a state trooper standing guard outside an entrance.


Colorful flags hung inside the hallways, and teachers wore turquoise shirts that read “Together We Rise & Together We Are Better” on the back. State troopers were parked on every corner outside the school.


The district announced in late June that the scene of the assault, Robb Elementary, would be permanently closed and eventually torn down, though a timeline has not been set. Fundraising is underway for the construction of a new elementary campus.

Full Article

East Med especially at risk as world heats up, report warns

Uvalde students go back to school for 1st time since attack

East Med especially at risk as world heats up, report warns

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) —

The eastern Mediterranean and Middle East are warming almost twice as fast as the global average, with temperatures projected to rise up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century if no action is taken to reverse the trend, a new report says.


The region will experience “unprecedented” heat waves, more severe and longer-lasting droughts and dust storms and rainfall shortages that will “compromise water and food security” for the region’s 400 million people, according to a summary of the report released Tuesday.


The eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East are more susceptible to warming trends because of their unique natural characteristics, like large desert expanses and lower water levels, the study said.


The report was prepared by an international group of scientists overseen by The Cyprus Institute’s Climate and Atmosphere Research Center and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. Originally published in June in the journal Reviews of Geophysics, it aims to underscore the impact of climate change in the region ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Egypt this November.

Full Article

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Georgia official escorting Trump operatives into election offices in 2020.

Black, Brown and Red

Watering while Black: anatomy of a pastor’s Alabama arrest

From Pakistan to Texas, big rains after extreme heat deliver double punch

Election victory in Alaska boosts US Democrats before midterms

CHILDERSBURG, Ala. (AP) — Michael Jennings wasn’t breaking any laws or doing anything that was obviously suspicious; the Black minister was simply watering the flowers of a neighbor who was out of town.


Yet there was a problem: Around the corner, Amber Roberson, who is white, thought she was helping that same neighbor when she saw a vehicle she didn’t recognize at the house and called police.


Within minutes, Jennings was in handcuffs, Roberson was apologizing for calling 911 and three officers were talking among themselves about how everything might have been different.

Harry Daniels, an attorney representing Jennings, said he plans to submit a claim to the city of Childersburg seeking damages and then file a lawsuit. “This should be a learned lesson and a training tool for law enforcement about what not to do,” he said.


A 20-minute video of the episode recorded on one of the officers’ body cameras shows how quickly an uneventful evening on a quiet residential street devolved into yet another potentially explosive situation involving a Black man and white law enforcement authorities.

Full Article

Election victory in Alaska boosts US Democrats before midterms

From Pakistan to Texas, big rains after extreme heat deliver double punch

Election victory in Alaska boosts US Democrats before midterms

An upset victory for US Democrats in conservative-leaning Alaska has refuelled the party’s hope of retaining its slim majorities in Congress in the upcoming midterm elections against historical trends.


In a special congressional election on Tuesday, Mary Peltola became the latest Democrat to score an surprise win against Republicans, defeating former vice presidential candidate, ex-Alaska governor and Donald Trump ally Sarah Palin.


Peltola, a former state legislator, is now the first Alaska Native to represent the remote northwestern state in Congress. The special election was to replace Republican Congressman Don Young, who held Alaska’s sole seat in the US House of Representatives for nearly half a century until his death earlier this year.

Pelota will serve in Congress until the end of the year and face reelection in November. Alaska employed its ranked voting system for the first time on Tuesday.


Palota bested Palin and Republican candidate Nick Begich, coming on top in the first round of voting with nearly 40 percent of the vote. After third-placed Begich votes were distributed between her and Palin based on ranked choice, she beat the former governor 51.5 to 48.5 percent.

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From Pakistan to Texas, big rains after extreme heat deliver double punch

From Pakistan to Texas, big rains after extreme heat deliver double punch

From Pakistan to Texas, big rains after extreme heat deliver double punch

LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - While Pakistanis count the cost of one of the country's worst recorded floods, heavy rain is hitting southwestern China as the Texas city of Dallas recovers from a 10-inch deluge in a single day last month.


Each of these rain-fuelled disasters followed a heatwave, suggesting the regions have been swinging wildly between two contradictory extremes. But extreme heat and extreme rainfall are closely related - and being gassed-up by climate change, scientists say.


Sweltering spring temperatures in South Asia, topping 50 degrees Celsius, are likely to have warmed the Indian Ocean. That warm water would then have fuelled what the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this week called "a monsoon on steroids" over Pakistan – dumping more than three times as much rain as the 30-year average for August and inundating a third of the country.


More than 1,100 people have been killed, crops are ruined, and homes destroyed, prompting urgent pleas for aid.

Full Article

A Great video by Ari Melber

Oh man, this is a GREAT Video by Ari ...Poetry by  J-Zee about the hypocrisy of this country based on Race - and ONLY Race.

black, Brown and Red

4 winners and 2 losers from the New York and Florida primaries

4 winners and 2 losers from the New York and Florida primaries

4 winners and 2 losers from the New York and Florida primaries

Tuesday night’s primary elections featured 2022’s last truly competitive intraparty state races: the Florida and New York primaries.


Because of redistricting quirks and incumbent advantages, only a handful of congressional seats were contested, but those that were saw fierce campaigning.


After New York state’s redistricting process went awry and the state’s top court ordered new districts to be drawn, Democratic incumbents were pitted against each other in some districts, while others became free-for-alls. Florida also saw a slate of competitive races, including the race to replace Rep. Val Demings and a slew of far-right challenges to Republican incumbents.

And finally, in Oklahoma, a run-off election between two Republicans vying to replace retiring Sen. James Inhofe resulted in victory for Rep. Markwayne Mullin.


Here are four winners and two losers from the day’s races.

Full Article

For clean energy, financial growth, Africa looks to UN talks

4 winners and 2 losers from the New York and Florida primaries

4 winners and 2 losers from the New York and Florida primaries

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — In Kenya’s semi-arid Makueni County, 50-year-old Purity Kinyili used to spend most of her time traveling for water and firewood to sustain her family and farmland.


But then the government set up an initiative to install solar energy in rural towns, so she got hold of the easy-to-install panels, set them up and sunk a solar-powered borehole. Now her once dry land has turned a lush green, and she’s even got enough power left over for electricity in her home.


Access to more and cleaner energy while continuing to grow economically will be a top priority for African nations in the upcoming United Nations climate conference in November, top officials and climate experts on the continent said.

As part of Africa’s goal for what’s called a “just transition” — ensuring that the buildout of clean energy is fair and inclusive — the African Union wants to boost access to electricity and clean cooking resources to hundreds of millions of people. It’s estimated that 600 million people out of 1.4 billion living on the continent don’t have electricity, with 900 million lacking access to cleaner cooking fuels.

Full Article

Uvalde school board to consider firing district police chief

One Native veteran's new mission: Fill in the gaps of VA care on his reservation

One Native veteran's new mission: Fill in the gaps of VA care on his reservation

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Uvalde’s embattled school police chief on Wednesday could become the first officer to lose his job over the hesitant response by hundreds of heavily armed law enforcement personnel during the May massacre at Robb Elementary School.


The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District was set to make a decision on Pete Arredondo’s future, three months to the day after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers in one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history.


The meeting comes less than two weeks before the new school year begins in Uvalde.


Arredondo, who has been on administrative leave since June, has come under the most scrutiny for his actions during the May 24 tragedy. State police and a damning investigative report in July have criticized the police chief of the roughly 4,000-student school district for failing to take charge of the scene, not breaching the classroom sooner and wasting time by looking for a key to a likely unlocked door.

Full Article

One Native veteran's new mission: Fill in the gaps of VA care on his reservation

One Native veteran's new mission: Fill in the gaps of VA care on his reservation

One Native veteran's new mission: Fill in the gaps of VA care on his reservation

POPLAR, Mont. — When Jestin Dupree got out of the Army in 2014 after 17 years, he was tired.


"I ended up doing five tours of duty overseas. I went to Bosnia in 2001, Afghanistan in 2003, Iraq in 2005, Iraq in 2007. And then [Iraq] again in 2010," he says, "My body was ... the 'check engine' light came on."


He moved home to the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana, but things didn't calm down for him right away. He got on the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribal Council there, and even went to Washington, D.C., to testify before the Senate about VA care for Native vets. He was invited to serve as one of 15 vets on the first-ever VA Secretary's Advisory Committee on Tribal and Indian Affairs. That was around the time he realized that he'd been trying to help his people without taking the time to help himself.


"I guess I've been so busy ... getting out of the military diagnosed with PTSD myself, I haven't been able to seek care," he recalls.

And when he tried to get the care, he says, it wasn't easy.

Full Article

Black, Brown and Red

Cassidy Hutchinson, Trump White House aide, now in spotlight

Pentagon says Supreme Court's Roe ruling won't affect abortions on military facilities

Think polarization is bad now? Wait till the post-Roe abortion wars get started.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two years after completing a White House summer internship, Cassidy Hutchinson was in the room where the president’s top aides debated how they could overturn his election loss.  Hutchinson, 25, who served as a top aide to Mark Meadows, chief of staff to President Donald Trump, is scheduled to testify Tuesday at a surprise hearing of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.


Check it out:

Article

Think polarization is bad now? Wait till the post-Roe abortion wars get started.

Pentagon says Supreme Court's Roe ruling won't affect abortions on military facilities

Think polarization is bad now? Wait till the post-Roe abortion wars get started.

In his decision overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Samuel Alito argues that the rulings that had protected abortion rights were not only poorly reasoned but actively harmful to American democracy.


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Article

Pentagon says Supreme Court's Roe ruling won't affect abortions on military facilities

Pentagon says Supreme Court's Roe ruling won't affect abortions on military facilities

Pentagon says Supreme Court's Roe ruling won't affect abortions on military facilities

The Pentagon on Tuesday said that last week's Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade won't impact service members, spouses and dependents who use military treatment facilities.  The memo, sent by Gil Cisneros, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, came in response to Friday's Supreme Court ruling that overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that had guaranteed abortion rights under the Constitution.  Cisneros said that facilities on military bases are federal facilities and they won't change how they operate. The military will continue providing abortions in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk. Federal law prohibits the Pentagon from performing or paying for other types of abortions, the memo states.


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Article

black, brown and red

Police inaction moves to center of Uvalde shooting probe

Oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield honored at funeral service

Ex-Proud Boys leader to stay jailed until Capitol riot trial

The actions — or more notably, the inaction — of a school district police chief and other law enforcement officers have become the center of the investigation into this week’s shocking school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.


Damn...


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Article

Ex-Proud Boys leader to stay jailed until Capitol riot trial

Oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield honored at funeral service

Ex-Proud Boys leader to stay jailed until Capitol riot trial

The former top leader of the Proud Boys will remain jailed while awaiting trial on charges that he conspired with other members of the far-right extremist group to attack the U.S. Capitol and stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory, a federal judge has ruled.


Now, I bet - he’s pissed because most white folks who were there too got out.   So I bet this “MF" just realized that he championed a white-false cause and still at the end of the day  - is Black  anyway and still locked up.


Just what he deserves.


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Article

Oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield honored at funeral service

Oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield honored at funeral service

Oldest Buffalo massacre victim Ruth Whitfield honored at funeral service

The family and friends of 86-year-old Ruth E. Whitfield held visitation and funeral services at a Buffalo church two weeks after police say a White supremacist killed Whitfield and nine other people. Authorities say the gunman targeted the Tops Friendly Markets store because it was in a predominately Black neighborhood.


Damn shame.


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Article

Black, Brown and Red

Police: Buffalo gunman aimed to keep killing if he got away

Exclusive: Former top Republican lawmaker in Colorado received leak of voting data

Exclusive: Former top Republican lawmaker in Colorado received leak of voting data

The social media that this evil person got his news from, and FOX is the reason that this will probably get even worse.


These are our people that are  being slaughtered and the white perpetrators, in the right wing media...are basically celebrating.


Including candidates running for office, like JD Vance.  Damn shame.


Check it out: 

Article

Exclusive: Former top Republican lawmaker in Colorado received leak of voting data

Exclusive: Former top Republican lawmaker in Colorado received leak of voting data

Exclusive: Former top Republican lawmaker in Colorado received leak of voting data

The revelation indicates the breach of ballot data in Elbert County was wider than previously understood. The case, now being investigated by the Colorado secretary of state, is one of at least nine unauthorized attempts to access voting-system data around the United States, at least eight of which involved Republican officials or activists seeking evidence to delegitimize Democratic President Joe Biden's election victory.  



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Police boss journal cites early angst in Ronald Greene death

Exclusive: Former top Republican lawmaker in Colorado received leak of voting data

Police boss journal cites early angst in Ronald Greene death

Within days of the deadly 2019 arrest of Ronald Greene, when body-camera video captured white troopers stunning, beating and dragging the Black motorist, the head of the Louisiana State Police wrote a stark note about the case in his journal: “Realize there is a problem — must address immediately.”



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Black, Red, and Brown

Puerto Rico Faces Staggering Covid Case Explosion

A Grim, Long-Hidden Truth Emerges in Art: Native American Enslavement

A Grim, Long-Hidden Truth Emerges in Art: Native American Enslavement

The island had a 4,600 percent increase in cases in recent weeks after mounting one of the nation’s most successful vaccination campaigns.

Article

A Grim, Long-Hidden Truth Emerges in Art: Native American Enslavement

A Grim, Long-Hidden Truth Emerges in Art: Native American Enslavement

A Grim, Long-Hidden Truth Emerges in Art: Native American Enslavement

Two exhibitions highlight stories of Indigenous bondage in southern Colorado, in an effort to grapple with the lasting trauma.

Article

The Racist Legacy Of January 6th

A Grim, Long-Hidden Truth Emerges in Art: Native American Enslavement

The Racist Legacy Of January 6th

Customers have questions, you have answers. Display the most frequently asked questions, so everybody benefits.

Article

Black, Red and Brown

The Black Ballot

Race and leadership in the news media 2021: evidence from five markets

Race and leadership in the news media 2021: evidence from five markets

A series of articles about the voting experiences and the effort needed to save our rights.

Article

Race and leadership in the news media 2021: evidence from five markets

Race and leadership in the news media 2021: evidence from five markets

Race and leadership in the news media 2021: evidence from five markets

Key Findings ↑

In this Reuters Institute factsheet we analyse the percentage of non-white top editors in a strategic sample of 100 major online and offline news outlets in five different markets across four continents: Brazil, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US).

Article

Wounded Knee Massacre 131 Years Ago: We Remember Those Lost

Race and leadership in the news media 2021: evidence from five markets

Wounded Knee Massacre 131 Years Ago: We Remember Those Lost

Article originally appeared several years ago.  

Article

Harry Reid remembered as a fighter, skilled Senate

From Cornel West to Nikole Hannah-Jones, Black intellectuals take over MasterClass

Wounded Knee Massacre 131 Years Ago: We Remember Those Lost

Harry Reid was, in the senate,  a great man and he needs to be appreciated. 

Article

Poway synagogue shooter sentenced to second life sentence

From Cornel West to Nikole Hannah-Jones, Black intellectuals take over MasterClass

From Cornel West to Nikole Hannah-Jones, Black intellectuals take over MasterClass

This is a very disturbed individual, only because of his hate for people different in his idea of America.  

Article

From Cornel West to Nikole Hannah-Jones, Black intellectuals take over MasterClass

From Cornel West to Nikole Hannah-Jones, Black intellectuals take over MasterClass

From Cornel West to Nikole Hannah-Jones, Black intellectuals take over MasterClass

These are some great thinkers forming the MasterClass streaming platform.

Article

Contact for Services

USA Jobs Line

A great tool to start, or change your career:

National Website - Click Here

National Second-Chance Act

Everyone should be able to have a second chance at life, no matter what.

Second Chance Act

Getting a Green Job

A great tool to start, of change your  career.

Green Jobs

National Rental Housing

A good tool to  find rental housing nationally.

Rental Housing

National Tool to Find Housing

A great place to start looking for housing:

HUD

National Place to Find Day-Care

A great tool to find day-care for kids:

Childcare

Numbers or Sites to Report Problems

National Report Hate Line

National  Report Hate Phone  Number - 1-800-CALL-FBI  or you can  use tips.fbi.gov

Report Human Trafficking (Modern Slavery)

Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 to:

  • GET HELP and connect with a service provider in your area;
  • REPORT A TIP with information on potential human trafficking activity; or
  • LEARN MORE by requesting training, technical assistance, or resources.

National Number to Help With Your Immigration

For information about USCIS visit the USCIS website and select the state in which you live.


For more information, you may also call the USCIS National Customer Service Center (NCSC) at 1-800-375-5283.

Report Fraud/Whistleblowers and Workplace Mistreatment

DoD Hotline

FRAUD ALERT: Hotline telephone numbers at other Federal IG offices are being spoofed as a scam. Our phone number/organization does not appear on caller ID systems. To verify authenticity of the DoD Hotline staff, you may call the DoD Hotline at 800-424-9098 to verify the call was official.

Anyone may file a complaint with the DoD Hotline. Our online complaint forms (below) are the most efficient means to file a complaint.

Native American Help Line: Report Domestic and Sexual Violence

StrongHearts Native Helpline
1-844-7NATIVE (762-8483)
is a 24/7 safe, confidential and anonymous domestic, dating and sexual violence helpline for Native Americans and Alaska Natives, offering culturally-appropriate support and advocacy.

Report Directly to the News (CNN)

Email

Regular email is convenient but not secure. Do not use it if your information is sensitive or if you are concerned about someone knowing that you are a source.

For more sensitive tips, you can send email encrypted with Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). Be aware that while the content of PGP-encrypted emails is secure, metadata — such as information about the sender or recipient, time stamps and the subject — is not. Keep in mind that many email providers retain your messages unless you direct otherwise.

Several browser extensions, such as Mailvelope, Enigmail and FlowCrypt, make it easy to use PGP with existing email providers, such as Gmail. You can also use ProtonMail, an email provider that supports PGP.

For additional anonymity, set up a dedicated email address to communicate with us.

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