FBI investigated him before
His full name was Omar Mir Seddique Mateen and he was born in New York. His parents are originally from Afghanistan, a U.S. official said.
The FBI interviewed Mateen in 2013 and 2014, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ronald Hopper told reporters Sunday.
"Those interviews turned out to be inconclusive, so there was nothing to keep the investigation going," Hopper said.
Mateen was not under investigation at the time of Sunday's shooting or under surveillance, Hopper said.
"The FBI first became aware of Mateen in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties," Hopper said.
The investigation was closed, Hopper said, after investigators "were unable to verify the substance of his comments."
In 2014, the FBI interviewed Mateen again over possible connections with an American suicide bomber.
"We determined that contact was minimal and did not constitute a substantive relationship or threat at that time," Hopper said.
Officials earlier said Mateen was one of hundreds of people on the agency's radar suspected of being ISIS sympathizers. There was no indication he was plotting to carry out an attack, the officials said.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-shooter-omar-mateen/index.html

http://tribunist.com/news/9-things-we-know-about-the-terrorist-who-killed-50-in-orlando-fl/?utm_source=GNF



1. The suspected terrorist has been identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida. He is said to be twenty nine years old and was born in New York in the United States.

5. Mateen was a licensed concealed carrier and a licensed security guard in the state of Florida.

7. According to reports that indicate at least 50 people dead, that makes Mateen the deadlist mass shooter in US history and the deadliest terrorist since the 9/11 attacks.

8. Mateen’s father said that his son was angered by images of two men kissing.

9. An account associated with ISIS has tweeted a photo of Mateen while other accounts associated with Islamic extremism have tweeted support for the attack along with anti-gay rhetoric.

A British bar whose liquid nitrogen cocktail caused a teenager to literally lose her stomach while celebrating her birthday has been fined approximately $156,000.

The Lancaster wine bar accepted blame for the near fatal 2012 concoction which left 18-year-old Gaby Scanlon "smoking from her nose and mouth," The Telegraph reported.

"Straight away I knew something was not right," Scanlo, now 20, said while recalling looking to the bar's staff for help and guidance after downing the complimentary drink.

She said a bartender at Oscar's Wine Bar and Bistro had encouraged her to "drink it while it's still smoking."

It was later revealed that that the staff had been instructed to have consumers wait 10 seconds, until the liquid nitrogen had boiled off.

Having gulped the smoky beverage as it continued to fizz, she said she felt "an explosion" inside of her, as the chemical ate away at her stomach lining and internal tissue.

She was rushed to a hospital where doctors had to remove her stomach and her small bowel connected to her esophagus. Today, nearly three years later, she still suffers from extreme pain, she said.

The bar pleaded guilty to one count of failing in the duty of an employer to ensure the safety of persons not in its employment, the BBC reported.

The family-run bar's barrister also apologized to Scanlon and her family, saying they had been left "mortified" by what happened.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/liquid-nitrogen-drink-exploded-british-teen-stomach-article-1.2364891

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/10/health/artificial-heart-555-days-transplant/index.html

While waiting for a human heart transplant, Stan Larkin lived 555 days without the organ at all.

To passers-by, the 25-year-old Ypsilanti, Michigan, resident appeared to be a typical young adult. He enjoyed taking his three toddlers to the park and hanging out with his younger brother, Dominique.

What wasn't obvious was that a gray backpack Larkin carried was what kept him alive. Inside that bag was the power source for an artificial heart pumping in his chest.
Larkin's real heart was removed from his body in November 2014. It was replaced with a device that allowed Larkin to stay home instead of in a hospital while waiting to receive a transplant.

It finally arrived this year, in May. Now, Larkin is recovering from his procedure at the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center. He is scheduled to return home as early as next week.
"Most people would be scared to go so long with [an artificial heart], but I just want to tell them that you have to go through the fear, because it helps you," Larkin said. "I'm going home so fast after the transplant because it helped me stay healthy before the transplant."

show how race and privilege affect sentences

Video and images at link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-brock-turner-cory-batey-show-race-affects-sentencing-article-1.2664945

When Cory Batey was a 19-year-old standout football player at Vanderbilt, he raped an unconscious woman. The ample evidence, including security cameras showing the unconscious woman being carried into a dorm room and cellphone photos and videos of the sexual assault, was clear — Cory Batey sexually assaulted the woman. In April, a jury found Batey guilty of three felony counts including aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.

He was immediately remanded into custody and must serve a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 to 25 years in prison.

What Batey did was reprehensible. The judge and jury treated his crime as such.

That's what makes the case of Brock Turner, a 19-year-old standout swimmer at Stanford who raped an unconscious woman, all the more infuriating. As was the case with Batey, ample evidence existed that Turner was guilty. Eyewitnesses actually caught him in the act as he sexually assaulted an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. A jury agreed and Turner was found guilty of multiple felony rape charges. Turner, though, was given a six-month jail sentence and told he could be released on good behavior in as little as three months. He won't even go to an actual prison, but will remain in the local jail during that time.

One man will spend the entire prime of his life in prison for his crime — the other will be out of jail before the summer heat disappears.

http://blog.debtcollective.org/whos-afraid-of-occupy-hbos-john-oliver-erases-debt-resistance/

Eight months ago, Charles Wilson, a researcher from John Oliver's HBO show, Last Week Tonight, contacted us to ask about our project of buying and cancelling debt. We kicked off the Rolling Jubilee in 2012 with a widely publicized telethon (featuring comedians David Rees, Lizz Winstead, and Hari Kondabolu and members or TV On the Radio, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, among others). The project went viral and has been regularly covered in the press over the years, including the New York Times, the Guardian and NPR.

Until we stopped collecting donations last year, we used the $700 thousand we raised to erase over $30 million in predatory medical and tuition debt and more (stay tuned for more announcements), as well as helping to abolish over $800 million in a class action settlement. We canceled this debt (without any compensation) to get people to think critically about indebtedness: if creditors often value debts at a fraction of the amount they tell debtors they owe and if many of these debts were taken out to fund basic needs, are people really morally obligated repay them?

Wilson told us Last Week Tonight was interested in reproducing our feat. Because LWT has previously done a good job of highlighting the outrageousness and injustice of various issues, we were under the impression they were interested in highlighting the mechanisms of oppression used by the creditor class as well as our ongoing organizing work to challenge these unjust arrangements. We spent hours on the phone and email with them explaining how we did our work and connecting them to other experts and resources.

At the last minute Wilson told us LWT did not want to associate themselves with the work of the Rolling Jubilee due to its roots in Occupy Wall Street. Instead John Oliver framed the debt buy as his idea: a giveaway to compete with Oprah. The lead researcher who worked on this segment invoked the cover of journalism to justify distancing themselves from our project.

This line is ironic given that the show has expressly claimed not to be doing journalism. Indeed, LWT has often engaged in outright activism: encouraging his viewers to call their elected officials, raising money to pay for media campaigns, interviewing activists about their campaigns, etc. On this episode, John Oliver advocates for vague milquetoast “reform” of the industry while making sure to encourage everybody who “can” to repay their debts.

But apparently our activism--or our message--was beyond the pale. Apparently our position that NO ONE should have to go into debt to secure the basic necessities of life, and that any debt incurred to pay for health care or education is morally illegitimate is too radical for LWT.

Whether LWT obscured the work of the Rolling Jubilee because it disagrees with our politics or wants to avoid inconvenience of having to acknowledge influence, we are disappointed. While we are happy that attention is being focused on the destructive nature of the debt collection industry, we ultimately believe that the only solution is for debtors to join together to challenge the underlying economic system that puts people in debt in the first place. That is why we launched the Debt Collective, so that debtors can build power and fight back together.

http://aplus.com/a/christi-salcedo-breast-cancer-transgender-bathroom?

A 32-year-old breast cancer survivor bravely shared a photo of her chest on Facebook after having a double mastectomy and getting her lymph nodes removed. She posted her photo to show that "the great bathroom debate of 2016 has hurt more than just the transgender community."

Christi Salcedo is a Texas mom who was diagnosed with Stage 3 invasive ductal carcinoma. After she chose to forgo reconstruction surgery, she says she began noticing people staring at her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable while in shops and other public places. She speculated that they were wondering if her flat chest indicated that she was transgender, and if, by extension, she might possibly be legally obligated to use a different public restroom.

"I notice more eyes trying to figure me out," she wrote. "At the grocery store, restaurants... Walmart was the worst. I want to scream, 'YES! You are seeing it right! This is breast cancer... Please check yourself!' But instead I let my eyes meet theirs in an almost plea for a change in what has become our society."



North Carolina's House Bill 2, which limits people to using only the public bathrooms associated with the gender they are assigned at birth, has propelled a national debate about the rights of transgender people. While proponents of North Carolina's controversial bill say that they are trying to protect children from sexual harassment, LGBT advocates note that the law's negative impact on transgender people is significant.

Salcedo suggests that cancer survivors have been among the law's victims as well, and says she would like to close the book once and for all on the discussion.

"I am personally of the belief that no transgender person wants to cause trouble in a bathroom," she wrote. "People just want to use the restroom."

http://www.attn.com/stories/8813/president-obama-addresses-gun-control

During the question and answer session of a PBS Newshour town hall in Elkhart, Indiana, gun shop owner Doug Rhude accused Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton of wanting to take guns away from the "good guys."

"Knowing that we apply common sense to other issues in our society, specifically like holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions when they drink and drive and kill somebody, and we do that without restricting control of cars and cells phones to the rest of us, the good guys, why then do you and Hillary want to control and restrict and limit gun manufacturers, gun owners and responsible use of guns and ammunition to the rest of us, the good guys, instead of holding the bad guys accountable for their actions?" — Doug Rhude

Rhude then referenced gun violence in Chicago, a city Obama once represented as the U.S. Senator from Illinois. Rhude said that the "good people" of Chicago should have easier access to firearms to protect themselves against the "thugs" and "drug dealers."

"And Mr. President if I may, I would like to use Chicago your hometown, a city that has the strictest gun laws in the nation, a city that for decades and still is under Democratic control, a city that has an outrageous and even embarrassing murder rate, as my first example. Why can't we round up these thugs, these drug dealers, and gang members, and hold them accountable for their actions, or allow the good people in Chicago access to firearms to protect themselves?"

?w=595

Former Stanford University athlete Brock Allen Turner, 20, raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. Prosecutors wanted him put away for 6 years, but the judge, Aaron Persky, gave him 6 months to avoid being unnecessarily harsh on the boy. He'll be out in a few weeks.

After a jury convicted Turner of sexually penetrating an intoxicated and unconscious person with a foreign object, prosecutors asked a judge to sentence him to six years in California prison. Probation officials had recommended the significantly lighter penalty of six months in county jail, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The judge, Aaron Perksy, cited Turner’s age and lack of criminal history as factors in his decision, saying, “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him … I think he will not be a danger to others.”

This was described as a "brazen" attack: he was physically forced off of his victim, then chased down and detained by passers-by until police arrived. Yet this column, by Scott Herhold, was the sort of coverage he enjoyed in the press:
http://boingboing.net/2016/06/03/campus-rapist-given-lenient-se.html