Despite federal ruling, Jacksonville college campuses won’t have early voting this year
By Andrew Pantazi
Posted Jul 27, 2018 at 2:46 PM

Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan closed the door on the possibility of opening early voting sites on college campuses for the 2018 elections.

This week, a federal judge ruled that the state could not bar elections supervisors from hosting early voting on college campuses. Already, supervisors in other counties have said they plan to open early voting sites in time for November.

Alachua and Hillsborough county’s elections supervisors have already said they intend to host early voting at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida, and Leon County’s supervisor said he wasn’t ruling the possibility out at Tallahassee’s colleges.

But Hogan said there are no plans to open up early voting at the University of North Florida or Florida State College at Jacksonville.

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/20180727/despite-federal-ruling-jacksonville-college-campuses-wont-have-early-voting-this-year

Trans Women Say the State Department Is Retroactively Revoking Their Passports
By Mary Emily O'Hara
July 27, 2018

Since she transitioned in 1998, at the age of 16, all of Danni Askini’s identity documents have read “female.” But last month, when Askini went to renew her passport, her request was denied. Askini says the U.S. Passport Office told her she had “failed to disclose” that she was transgender and needed to provide proof of gender transition — after 20 years of having a passport that says she’s female.

“Make no mistake, this was an intentional action by the State Department to withhold recognizing my gender,” says Askini, who was eventually granted a temporary two-year passport that allowed her to travel from her Seattle home to Sweden. The activist and executive director of Gender Justice League needed to leave Seattle, she says, after a series of death threats posted on the anti-trans website Kiwi Farms, as well as threats from local alt-right groups in the Pacific Northwest. She’d had her most recent passport for 10 years, but it was up for renewal.

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Askini bhttps://www.democraticunderground.com/122858544elieves the only reason she was eventually granted a temporary passport is because Seattle-based congresswoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s office put direct pressure on the passport agency on the well-known activist’s behalf.

“I believe that the Trump Administration or someone in the Seattle Passport Office has targeted me politically and politicized the process for obtaining passports,” says Askini. “Their actions and statements are NOT consistent with the actual letter of the code related to trans people.”

Morehttps://www.them.us/story/trans-women-state-department-passports

Here's Why This Mama Merganser Has More Than 50 Ducklings
By Jillian Mock
July 13, 2018

Update July 17: According to the photographer of the first image, the mother merganser has since been spotted with another two dozen ducklings, bringing her total up to 76 .

Choppy waves bounced Brent Cizek’s small plastic boat as he headed for the shore of Lake Bemidji in Minnesota, hoping to beat a fast approaching summer storm. An amateur wildlife photographer, Cizek had decided to brave the late-afternoon winds to scope out the lakeshore for future shoots. He’d only brought one lens, thinking he might get a shot of a mallard he’d seen the day before, but wasn’t expecting to photograph anything special.

Then, as he motored toward the boat slip, Cizek saw something remarkable: a female Common Merganser surrounded by more than 50 little ducklings. While Cizek watched, the little mergansers formed a long, orderly line behind their mom and began swimming away. The scene was too good to pass up.

“I probably shot 50 pictures, and I was just praying that one was going to turn out sharp because the waves were so strong it was nearly impossible to even keep them in the frame,” Cizek says. To further complicate things, he had to alternate between maneuvering his little trolling motor and quickly snapping pictures. “Luckily enough, just one picture turned out.”

https://www.audubon.org/news/heres-why-mama-merganser-has-more-50-ducklings

White House Eliminates Cybersecurity Coordinator Role

By Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger
May 15, 2018

The White House eliminated the position of cybersecurity coordinator on the National Security Council on Tuesday, doing away with a post central to developing policy to defend against increasingly sophisticated digital attacks and the use of offensive cyber weapons.

A memorandum circulated by an aide to the new national security adviser, John R. Bolton, said the post was no longer considered necessary because lower-level officials had already made cybersecurity issues a “core function” of the president’s national security team.

Cybersecurity experts and members of Congress said they were mystified by the move, though some suggested Mr. Bolton did not want any competitive power centers emerging inside the national security apparatus.

The decision was criticized by Mark R. Warner, a senator from Virginia and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I don’t see how getting rid of the top cyber official in the White House does anything to make our country safer from cyber threats,” he wrote on Twitter.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/15/technology/white-house-cybersecurity.html

A Newly Excavated Settlement Highlights Florida’s History as a Haven for Escaped Slaves
Called one of the most significant historical sites in Florida and perhaps the U.S. by Florida historian Canter Brown Jr., Angola is a story of struggle, tragedy and, ultimately, survival in the quest for freedom.

By Isaac Eger 6/27/2018 at 4:35pm Published in the July 2018 issue of Sarasota Magazine

Buried under three feet and two centuries of earth near the banks of the Manatee River, a cylinder of white clay no bigger than a cigarette butt was found in 2009 during an archaeological dig at Manatee Mineral Spring in east Bradenton. Nearly mistaken for debris and tossed by a volunteer, this fragment—the stem of a British clay pipe—revealed the shadow of Angola, a community of up to 750 escaped slaves who briefly made this region a haven of freedom before being destroyed in 1821.

Called one of the most significant historical sites in Florida and perhaps the U.S. by Florida historian Canter Brown Jr., Angola is a story of struggle, tragedy and ultimately, survival in the quest for freedom. Angola also reveals Florida’s important role as a sanctuary for escaped slaves who established settlements, farmed, traded and traveled.

This month, descendants of these escaped slaves—many of whom live in the Bahamas where their ancestors found refuge—are returning to the Manatee Mineral Spring site for the first Back to Angola Festival. In September, the National Park Service is meeting to determine if Angola qualifies as part of the Underground Railroad Network of Freedom. “From what I know now, this is one of the largest Florida settlements of resisters to enslavement,” says Sheri Jackson, southeast regional manager of the program.

Today it’s difficult to imagine that an important part of American history occurred on these shores. There’s no museum dedicated to the site’s history, no illustrated exhibits or descriptions on big signs. The freshwater spring called Manatee Mineral Spring is sealed and covered with a slab of cement. The field is patchy mowed crab grass. The Manatee River peeks through the pines to the north, and old Florida homes with children’s toys scattered across front yards surround the perimeter. A solitary plaque mentions Angola and the people who lived there.

More: https://www.sarasotamagazine.com/articles/2018/6/27/a-newly-excavated-settlement-highlights-florida-s-history-as-a-haven-for-escaped-slaves