Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalMass. Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who tangled with Trump, won't seek re-election
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who had resisted his party's pull toward Donald Trump, announced Wednesday that he won't see re-election to a third term.
The decision was first reported by The Boston Globe.
In a statement, Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito cited the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as a factor in not running again in 2022.
"We have a great deal of work to do to put the pandemic behind us, keep our kids in school, and keep our communities and economy moving forward," Baker and Polito wrote. "That work cannot and should not be about politics and the next election. If we were to run, it would be a distraction that would potentially get in the way of many of the things we should be working on for everyone in Massachusetts. We want to focus on recovery, not on the grudge matches political campaigns can devolve into."
Baker was among a crop of moderate Republican governors from Northeastern states — including Larry Hogan in Maryland, Phil Scott in Vermont and Chris Sununu in New Hampshire — who emerged as critics of Trump's presidency.Baker, for example, said he “blanked” his 2020 ballot rather than vote for the then-president’s bid for a second term. Trump has endorsed Geoff Diehl, a co-chair of his Massachusetts campaign in 2016 and the losing Senate candidate against Democratic incumbent Elizabeth Warren in 2018, in the 2022 GOP primary for governor.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/mass-gov-charlie-baker-republican-who-tangled-trump-won-t-n1285155
"They Took Us Away From Each Other": Lost Inside America's Shadow Foster System
When a staph infection killed Molly Cordell’s mother just before Halloween in 2015, Molly felt, almost immediately, as if she were being shoved out of her own life. At 15, she and her sister, Heaven, who was a year younger, had no idea where they would go. Their dad had been in and out of their lives for most of their childhood. His grief, as their mother lay dying, sent him spinning. It seemed to the girls that he was on too much meth, and whenever he used, he got mean and crazy. Once, he made Heaven watch him set their mom’s Chevy truck on fire. Their older brother, Isaiah, left their home in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains when their mom was still alive, and the teenage girls depended on each other. Molly was deaf in her left ear, and her sister always asked others to speak loudly for her. They shared the same group of friends, the same tanks and capri pants. Although Molly had her own bedroom, she slept on the couch in Heaven’s.
The girls moved in with their grandmother, up the road from their wood-paneled house in Cherokee County, North Carolina, a poor, sprawling region at the southwesternmost edge of the state. Their dad lived in a camper in the yard. Their grandmother, too, was trapped in an angry stage of mourning, looking for someone to blame for her daughter’s death. She kept telling Molly and Heaven that it was their fault — if only they’d taken better care of their mom, she might be alive. Molly was starting to believe it.
In January 2016, Heaven found Molly on the bathroom floor after downing 27 tabs of Zoloft in an attempt to take her life. The hospital where Molly was admitted alerted the child-protective unit of the county’s Department of Social Services, and days later, two caseworkers showed up at their grandmother’s house to investigate neglect. The girls knew they needed help. Recently, their dad, who had never been physical with them, pushed Molly facedown on a dirt path. The sisters told the caseworkers that they couldn’t handle their grandmother’s rage any longer. Molly said that if they left her, she would try to kill herself again. “We thought that maybe they’d place us together or put us in a foster home,” Molly told me. “And the only thing they did was they took us away from each other.”
Their mom had always said that if anything were to happen, the girls would live with their great-aunt Sonja, who had worked at a domestic-violence shelter, but no one from the department called her. Nor did the caseworkers file a petition in court to take the girls into foster care. Instead, they dropped Heaven off with her friend’s parents, Angie and Scott Haney. Molly kept asking, “Can I stay here?” But because Molly had admitted to having suicidal thoughts, caseworkers obtained an involuntary-commitment order to place her in a local hospital, where doctors noted her history of depression and anxiety and transferred her to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Ten days later, as Molly remembers it, a short woman with a loud voice and big teeth showed up. Her name was Tamyra White. Molly knew her daughter through friends, but she barely knew the mother. White said she had spoken with the department, and Molly was coming to live with her.
https://www.propublica.org/article/they-took-us-away-from-each-other-lost-inside-americas-shadow-foster-system
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Long, but worth the read. A country is judged by the way it cares for its young and its elderly. We fail.
They trusted a coach with their girls and Ivy League ambitions. Now he's accused of sex abuse.
The rowing season had already ended by the time the seven girls began drafting a letter that they hoped would get their coach fired.
They’d spent years competing for the crew team affiliated with Walt Whitman High, one of the Washington region’s highest-achieving public schools. In an affluent Maryland suburb fixated on success, their team was a juggernaut, regularly winning medals at Philadelphia’s prestigious Stotesbury Cup Regatta — the world’s largest high school racing competition — and sending its rowers on to Brown, MIT, Yale and other top colleges.
Many credited the team’s accomplishments to its longtime head coach: a Whitman High social studies teacher named Kirk Shipley. At 47, he was a three-time All-Met Coach of the Year who’d led the parent-funded club program for nearly two decades. He’d cultivated a loyal following, becoming drinking buddies with rival coaches and accepting invitations from rowers’ parents to dine at their Bethesda, Md., homes. They trusted him with their daughters — and their Ivy League ambitions.
Now, three days after their graduation from Whitman, the seven rowers decided to send a missive to the parent board, a group of mothers and fathers who volunteered to oversee the program. In just a few weeks, one girl was headed to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; at least three others had earned scholarships to row in college. None of them wanted other students to have the same experiences they’d had with Shipley.
The coach, the seven warned in the letter they sent June 15, “has taken advantage of his role on the team and used his position to create a toxic, competitive atmosphere that fosters negativity and tension among the athletes. ... He very clearly plays favorites, and when athletes spoke up or criticized his actions, their boat placement was often affected. This could be seen all three years we were on the varsity team.”
https://wapo.st/3G4Yl4F
Community responds to heartbroken, homeless mother of three
Central Virginians responded immediately after learning of Nicole Thweatt’s story. The mother of three was abruptly removed from temporary housing and lost all of her belongings shortly after being hospitalized for an emergency caesarean section.
While her newborn is in the NICU and her other two children were staying with friends, 8News spoke to Thweatt Monday night outside of the car she has been sleeping in.
Messages on social media for the single mother read, “we would love to help the young lady and her family,” “I’d like to help Nicole…,” “Thank you for sharing so that others can lend a hand,” “praying for your family and God’s on your side.”
Monday night, Thweatt described returning to the Days Inn Hotel on Midlothian Turnpike last Friday after the emergency c-section at the hospital. When she approached the room’s front door–where her 11 and 7-year-old children were also living through a temporary housing program with Commonwealth Catholic Charities–a shocking discovery: another family had moved in, and her belongings were “disposed of” according to the non-profit.
https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/richmond/community-responds-to-heartbroken-homeless-mother-of-three-after-exclusive-8news-report/
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How many more Nicoles are out there? Greatest country in the world, my sainted Aunt Matilda!
What's good on Hulu?
We just got a deal on it for the next 12 months. And I am NOT INTERESTED in "The Handmaid's Tale", TYVM.
Death of UNLV student ruled a homicide, investigation launched into boxing match
The death of a Las Vegas college student who died after participating in a fraternity boxing match has been ruled a homicide, the coroner's office said.
Nathan Valencia, 20, a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, died on Nov. 23, four days after he took part in Kappa Sigma's "Fight Night" event.
The Clark County Coroner said Valencia's cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and was classified as a homicide. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
The boxing match was held on Nov. 19 and raised money for Center Ring Boxing, a youth boxing club, Kappa Sigma said in an Instagram post. The fraternity said Valencia's match was the "main event."
The boxing match was held off-campus, said university president Keith E. Whitfield.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/death-unlv-student-ruled-homicide-investigation-launched-boxing-match-rcna7114
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The article says the fight was "school sanctioned". Really, UNLV?
Tiger Woods says he will 'never' play golf again full time
Tiger Woods said Tuesday he’s “lucky to be alive” following a serious car crash earlier this year that will prevent him from ever playing the game full-time again.
In his first press conference since suffering severe injuries from the Southern California wreck in February, Woods also revealed that he nearly lost a leg and that amputation "was on the table.”
“I’m lucky to be alive, but also to still have the limb," Woods told reporters ahead of his charity tournament, the Hero World Challenge.
"Those are two crucial things. I’m very, very grateful that someone upstairs was taking care of me, that I’m able to not only to be here but to walk without a prosthesis."
In an interview published Monday in Golf Digest, Woods said he'll "never" be a full-time player on the PGA tour again but still hopes to “click off a tournament here or there."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/tiger-woods-says-will-never-play-golf-full-time-rcna7016
Multiple people injured in shooting at Oxford High School in Michigan, officials say
Source: NBC News
Multiple people were injured in a shooting Tuesday at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit, authorities said.
A suspected shooter is in custody, according to Michael McCabe, undersheriff with the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office. A handgun was also located, he said.
The shooting happened just before 1 p.m. McCabe said between four to six people have been injured and there are no confirmed fatalities at this time.
The conditions of those who were injured are not known.
Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/multiple-people-injured-shooting-oxford-high-school-michigan-officials-rcna7128
FFS. Here we go again.
Male survivors unite to expose sexual abuse at college football's biggest rivals
Fans of famed rivals Ohio State University and the University of Michigan often boast of how little they have in common. But two of America’s biggest college sports programs are bonded by one issue: a history of sexual abuse perpetuated by team doctors.
On Saturday OSU and Michigan battled in front of 110,000 fans on the football field – an occasion so momentous it’s known simply as The Game. But elsewhere on the Michigan campus former athletes from both universities gathered in front of Michigan president Mark Schlissel’s house to shine a light on the sexual abuse they endured during their time at the colleges. The protest was spearheaded by Jon Vaughn, a former running back for Michigan, who went on to play four years in the NFL. Now, despite the longstanding rivalry between the universities, the men have formed a survivor solidarity group.
“Toxic masculinity is an overused term, but I’m putting my name on this, because some other man is out there struggling with their own trauma and the stigma attached,” said Tom Lisy, a wrestler at OSU in the late 1980s. He was abused by an OSU team doctor, Richard Strauss, and had driven from Cleveland to attend the protest. “If sexual assault can happen to the men on the field – these athletes – then it can happen to anyone. I’m out here raising awareness of that,” said Lisy.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/30/ohio-state-michigan-doctors-sexual-abuse-college-football
Hundreds of People Queued Up to Be Injected With an Illegal 'Homemade' Vaccine
Four men are under investigation for violating German medical laws after dozens of people were injected with an illegal homemade COVID vaccine in the northern German city of Lübeck, police said.
Police said they arrived at the underground vaccination drive, being held at Lübeck airport on Saturday afternoon, following a tipoff. Once there, they found 150 people waiting to be vaccinated in the airport’s check-in hall, and about 80 others gathered in front of the terminal.
Authorities believe that about 50 people had already been vaccinated before they shut down the unauthorised immunisation drive, gathering vaccine samples and a list of patients who had been injected with the bootleg vaccine as evidence.
In a joint statement on Monday, Lübeck police and public prosecutors said that four men, aged 81, 80, 74 and 61, were being investigated on suspicion of violating Section 96 of the Medicines Act, which relates to the manufacture and use of unapproved drugs.
While police would not reveal the identities of the men under investigation to VICE World News, German media reported that the man who developed the vaccine was Winfried Stöcker, a Lübeck-based doctor and entrepreneur who has publicly claimed to have developed his own COVID vaccine, and who owns the city’s airport.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyppyy/hundreds-of-people-queue-lubeck-airport-to-receive-unauthorised-winfried-stocker-vaccine
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