WARD

11/12/2023

FTA: Emergency responders are on the scene of a partial building collapse in the Bronx.

It happened around 3:40 p.m. at a six-story building on West Burnside Avenue in Phelan Place.

It happened around 3:40 p.m. at a six-story building on West Burnside Avenue in Phelan Place.

11/12/2023

To some, it was unfathomable it could come to this: A woman seeking a lifesaving abortion--healthcare--would be denied that care, even after a court had decided her medical providers could go ahead with her treatment plan. To others, it was inevitable once Roe was repealed.
––PHF

FTA: A pregnant woman at the center of a legal fight in Texas over whether she could have an abortion under a medical exception to the state’s strict bans has decided to leave the state for the procedure, an abortion rights group representing her said on Monday.

The decision by the woman, Kate Cox, who is more than 20 weeks pregnant, came as the Texas Supreme Court was considering an appeal of a lower court order that would have allowed her to have an abortion in Texas despite the state’s overlapping bans.

Ms. Cox asked the lower court for approval after she learned that her fetus had a fatal condition, and after several trips to the emergency room.

The legal authorization she obtained from the lower court was put on hold when Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, appealed to the Texas Supreme Court. It was not clear what effect her decision to leave the state would now have on the legal case.

A group representing Kate Cox, whose fetus received a fatal diagnosis, said she was leaving Texas for an abortion rather than wait for a ruling from the Texas Supreme Court.

11/12/2023

FTA: The US Air Force has disciplined 15 people connected to the intelligence leaks from Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, the service said Monday, after an investigation found that individuals “intentionally failed” to report documented concerns about Teixeira’s behavior preceding the leaks.

According to an Air Force release on Monday, 15 individuals from the ranks of staff sergeant to colonel received punishments ranging from being relieved from their positions to non-judicial punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The commander of Teixeira’s unit, Col. Sean Riley of the the 102nd Intelligence Wing, was relieved of command, the Air Force said. Commanders of the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron who had been suspended were “permanently removed.”

(CNN) — The US Air Force has disciplined 15 people connected to the intelligence leaks from Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, the service said Monday, after an

11/12/2023

FTA: Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has been removed from the penal colony where he had been imprisoned since the middle of last year and his current whereabouts are unknown, his allies said on Monday.

Navalny aides have been preparing for his expected transfer to a "special regime" colony, the harshest grade in Russia's prison system, after he was sentenced in August to an additional 19 years in prison on top of 11-1/2 years he was already serving.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been expected to be transferred to a "special regime" colony, the harshest in Russia's prison system after he was sentenced to an additional 19 years last year.

10/12/2023

FTA: Special counsel Jack Smith on Saturday sharply rejected former President Donald Trump’s contention that foreign governments may have changed votes in the 2020 election, laying bare new details about his team’s extensive probe of the matter and its access to a vast array of senior intelligence officials in Trump’s administration.

In a 45-page filing, Smith’s team describes interviewing more than a dozen of the top intelligence officials in Trump’s administration — from his director of national intelligence to the administrator of the NSA to Trump’s personal intelligence briefer — about any evidence that foreign governments had penetrated systems that counted votes in 2020.

“The answer from every single official was no,” senior assistant special counsel Thomas Windom writes in the filing.

In a new filing, his team described interviewing more than a dozen of the top intelligence officials in Trump’s administration.

08/12/2023

FTA: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a powerful treatment for sickle cell disease, a devastating illness that affects more than 100,000 Americans, the majority of whom are Black.

The therapy, called Casgevy, from Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, is the first medicine to be approved in the United States that uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR, which won its inventors the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2020.

The groundbreaking approval has been eagerly anticipated by patients and doctors alike. The treatment is expected to be extremely expensive.

06/12/2023

FTA: The children hid. They dropped to the floor, crouching under desks and countertops, far from the windows. They lined up against the walls, avoiding the elementary school doors that separated them from a mass shooter about a decade older than them. Some held up the blunted scissors that they often used to cut shapes as they prepared to fight. A few grabbed bloodied phones and dialed 911. And as students across the country have been instructed for years, they remained quiet, impossibly quiet. At times, they hushed classmates who screamed in agony from the bullets that tore through their small bodies.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that day in May 2022. They, too, waited. They waited for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do. They waited for the right keys and specialized equipment to open doors. They waited out of fear that the lack of ballistic shields and flash-bangs would leave them vulnerable against the power of an AR-15-style rifle. Most astonishingly, they waited for the children’s cries to confirm that people were still alive inside the classrooms.

“I’m watching that door. No screams. No nothing. No nothing. You know. Things you would think you would hear if there had been kids in there,” Cpl. Gregory Villa, who had been with the Uvalde Police Department for 11 years, told an investigator days after the attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Across the country, states require more training to prepare students and teachers for mass shootings than for those expected to protect them. The differences were clear in Uvalde, where children and officers waited on opposite sides of the door.

06/12/2023

FTA: Norman Lear, the television writer and producer who introduced political and social commentary into situation comedy with “All in the Family” and other shows, proving that it was possible to be topical as well as funny while attracting millions of viewers, died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 101.

His death was confirmed by Lara Bergthold, a spokeswoman for the family.

As the producer of “All in the Family” and many other shows, Mr. Lear showed that it was possible to be topical, funny and immensely popular.

04/12/2023

FTA: A former career American diplomat was charged Monday with serving as a secret agent for communist Cuba going back decades in what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most brazen and long-running betrayals in the history of the U.S. foreign service.

Court papers alleged that Manuel Rocha engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf since at least 1981, including by meeting with Cuban intelligence operatives and providing false information to U.S. government officials about his travels and contacts.

The complaint, filed in federal court in Miami, charges Rocha with crimes including acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and provides a vivid case study of what American officials say are long-standing efforts by Cuba and its notoriously sophisticated intelligence services to target government officials who can be flipped.

Newly unsealed court papers allege that Manuel Rocha, a former U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, engaged in “clandestine activity” on Cuba’s behalf for decades.

03/12/2023

FTA: New York City's Hart Island -- the burial site of more than 1 million people who were unclaimed, unidentified or unable to be buried elsewhere -- is opening to visitors after decades of being shrouded in mystery and stigma.

For Elsie Soto, whose father died of AIDS complications in the '90s, the public tours being held on the island signal a step in the right direction toward shedding light on the stories of marginalized groups in New York City.

New York City's Hart Island, the largest potter's field in the U.S., is opening to the public. It is believed to be the largest single AIDS burial site in the U.S.

02/12/2023

FTA: A powerful earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 struck Saturday night off the coast of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao and Philippine authorities issued a tsunami warning.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.6 has struck off the coast of the southern Philippines island of Mindanao. A tsunami warning was issued.

01/12/2023

FTA: Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the United States Supreme Court, a rancher’s daughter who wielded great power over American law from her seat at the center of the court’s ideological spectrum, died on Friday in Phoenix. She was 93.

The Supreme Court announced her death in a statement, saying the cause was complications of dementia. She grew up in Arizona and lived there most of her life.

In a public letter she released in October 2018, when she was 88, the former justice, who had not been seen in public for some time, announced that she had been diagnosed with the beginning stages of dementia, “probably Alzheimer’s disease,” and consequently was withdrawing from public life.

Although William H. Rehnquist, her Stanford Law School classmate, served as chief justice during much of her tenure, the Supreme Court during that crucial period was often called the O’Connor court, and Justice O’Connor was referred to, accurately, as the most powerful woman in America.

During a crucial period in American law — when abortion, affirmative action, s*x discrimination and voting rights were on the docket — she was the most powerful woman in the country.

01/12/2023

No longer desperate for his vote, the House GOP allows the expulsion of conman and self-aggrandizing fabulist George Santos to proceed.

From The Washington Post:

“The resolution to expel Santos passed in a 311-114 vote, with numerous Republican lawmakers turning against Santos in what was the third effort to expel the New York congressman this year. Two Democrats voted present, and eight lawmakers did not vote. The strong Republican vote to oust him came despite some leading members of GOP leadership voicing concerns about setting a precedent of ousting a lawmaker who had not been convicted of a crime.�
The vote followed the release two weeks ago of a 56-page Ethics Committee report that accused Santos of an array of misconduct — including stealing money from his campaign, deceiving donors about how contributions would be used, creating fictitious loans and engaging in fraudulent business dealings. Santos, the report alleges, spent hefty sums on personal enrichment, including visits to spas and casinos, shopping trips to high-end stores and payments to a subscription site that contains adult content.”

The vote followed the release two weeks ago of a scathing 56-page Ethics Committee report. The freshman lawmaker has resisted calls to resign.

30/11/2023

FTA: Shane MacGowan, the lead singer and songwriter of trailblazing Celtic punk band the Pogues and one of the all-time great bandleaders, has died aged 65 following a long period of ill health. A family statement said he died at 3.30am on 30 November, and was described as “our most beautiful, darling and dearly beloved”.

One of the all-time great bandleaders and writer of Christmas classic Fairytale of New York, MacGowan invigorated rock with the power of Irish folk music

30/11/2023

FTA: Henry A. Kissinger, the scholar-turned-diplomat who engineered the United States’ opening to China, negotiated its exit from Vietnam, and used cunning, ambition and intellect to remake American power relationships with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, sometimes trampling on democratic values to do so, died on Wednesday, according to a statement that was posted to his official website. He was 100.

He died at his home in Connecticut.

Few diplomats have been both celebrated and reviled with such passion as Mr. Kissinger. Considered the most powerful secretary of state in the post-World War II era, he was by turns hailed as an ultrarealist who reshaped diplomacy to reflect American interests and denounced as having abandoned American values, particularly in the arena of human rights, if he thought it served the nation’s purposes.

The most powerful secretary of state of the postwar era, he was both celebrated and reviled. His complicated legacy still resonates in relations with China, Russia and the Middle East.

29/11/2023

FTA: Elon Musk on Wednesday told advertisers who’ve abandoned X over his antisemitic and conspiratorial posts to “Go f**k yourself,” throwing a normally calm media summit off the rails during its closing session.

While appearing at The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, Musk accused major companies like Disney and The Washington Post of wanting to “blackmail me with advertising,” denouncing them for abandoning his platform and speculating they will “fail” for their decision.

Suffice to say the mercurial billionaire’s interview at a NYTimes conference on Wednesday immediately went sideways.

29/11/2023

FTA: One of former president Donald Trump's current attorneys told special counsel Jack Smith's team that, within days of the Justice Department issuing a subpoena last year for all classified documents at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, she "very clearly" warned Trump that if he failed to fully comply -- but then swore he did -- "it's going to be a crime," according to sources familiar with the matter.

A lawyer for Donald Trump told investigators she warned Trump that not complying with a subpoena to return all classified documents is "going to be a crime," sources say.

26/11/2023

FTA: downplaying and ignoring reports of campus s*xual assaults, Liberty University has continued to employ a man accused for more than a decade of repeatedly harassing his subordinates, including student workers.

Piecing together details from a leaked version of the U.S. Department of Education’s investigative report and those from a lawsuit filed by survivors, along with accounts of former students and employees, USA TODAY has identified the man as Keith Anderson, who oversees student health at the Christian college.

Liberty faces a potential multimillion dollar fine from the Education Department for its treatment of students, including allegations that it failed to warn them of potential dangers. Investigators said there was no indication it alerted the Virginia campus after Anderson, identified in its report as Employee A, “engaged in a pattern of disturbing behaviors” from 2012 to 2014, when he was dean of students.

His “inappropriate s*xual behavior,” the May report said, likely posed a “serious threat.”

Keith Anderson, a Liberty university administrator who oversees student health, kept his job for years despite s*xual misconduct allegations.

26/11/2023

FTA: In a joint statement issued by the families through the Institute for Middle East Understanding, the families said they "are devastated by the horrific news that our children were targeted and shot in Burlington, VT."

"At this time, our primary concern is their full recovery and that they receive the critical medical support they need to survive," the statement read. "We are extremely concerned about the safety and well-being of our children."

The families said the victims are "dedicated students who deserve to be able to focus on their studies and building their futures."

Follow NBC News' coverage for live updates about the shooting of three Palestinian men in Burlington, Vermont.

22/11/2023

FTA: The Rainbow Bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada at Niagara Falls, New York, has been closed after a vehicle explosion, according to the FBI and local authorities.

There are believed to be fatalities from the incident, multiple officials confirmed to ABC News.

The Rainbow Bridge connecting the U.S. and Canada at Niagara Falls, New York, has been closed after a vehicle explosion, according to the FBI and local authorities.

22/11/2023

Israel and Hamas have negotiated a 4-day pause during which a prisoner exchange will take place.

From The New York Times:

“Here’s what to know

• A Middle Eastern diplomat familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, gave further details of what the potential deal could look like: For every one hostage Hamas releases, the Israelis would release three Palestinian prisoners, according to the diplomat, as well as another person familiar with the deal who was not authorized to discuss it. Hamas has said it would release civilians, not Israeli soldiers.

• At least 12 people were killed in the bombing of the Indonesian Hospital, and dozens were injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which said it would work with the Red Cross to evacuate those stranded there. The Israel Defense Forces said militants opened fire on its troops from within the hospital. It said the troops retaliated but that no shells were fired toward the facility. The Washington Post could not independently verify either side’s claims.

• More than 11,100 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry, which said on Nov. 10 that it could no longer provide an updated count because of the intensity of fighting in the enclave and repeated communication breakdowns. At least 1,200 people were killed in Israel in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.”

At least 50 women and children hostages will be released over four days, the Israeli government said, during which there will be a pause in fighting.

20/11/2023

FTA: Ten Republican members of Congress attended a Dec. 21 White House meeting focused on efforts to pressure former Vice President Mike Pence to help overturn the 2020 election, according to the Jan. 6 committee.

Several of the members later sought pardons, according to the committee.

20/11/2023

FTA: Javier Milei has won Argentina’s presidential elections in provisional results, wrenching his country to the right with a bombastic anti-establishment campaign against the backdrop of one of the world’s highest inflation rates.

His rival Sergio Massa conceded the run-off vote on Sunday evening in a brief speech even before official results were announced.

“Milei is the president elected for the next 4 years,” said Massa, adding that he had already called Milei to congratulate him.

Javier Milei has won Argentina’s presidential elections in provisional results, wrenching his country to the right with a bombastic anti-establishment campaign against the backdrop of one of the world’s highest inflation rates.

19/11/2023

FTA: Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route on Sunday, officials said, taking over two dozen crew members hostage and raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and took the crew as hostages. The group warned that it would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel’s campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican and Ukrainian, but that no Israelis had been on board.

Israel says Yemen’s Houthi rebels have seized an Israeli-linked ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route and taken the 25-member crew hostage.

19/11/2023

FTA: Rosalynn Carter, the Georgia-bred former first lady and humanitarian who championed mental health care, provided constant political counsel to her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, and modeled graceful longevity for the nation, died Sunday at her home in Plains, Georgia, according to the Carter Center.

She was 96.

She was widely regarded for her political shrewdness, drawing particular praise for her keen electoral instincts, down-to-earth appeal, and work on behalf of the White House, including serving as an envoy to Latin America.

Carter devoted herself to several social causes in the course of her public life, including programs that supported health care resources, human rights, social justice and the needs of elderly people.

19/11/2023

160 years ago today, Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. We think it merits a reading. In fact, read it aloud—it practically sings.
-PHF

FTA:… President Lincoln was asked to deliver a message at the dedication of the Gettysburg Civil War Cemetery on November 19, 1863. The featured speaker for the occasion was Edward Everett, a former dean of Harvard University, and one of the most famous orators of his day. He spoke for two hours. Then Lincoln delivered his message; it took two minutes.

In the wake of the United States Civil War's deadliest battle, President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. Now praised, this speech was not always seen this way.

19/11/2023

Gift article.
FTA: Israel, the United States and Hamas have agreed to a tentative deal that would free dozens of women and children held hostage in Gaza, in exchange for a five-day pause in fighting.

The release, which could begin within the next several days — barring last-minute hitches — could lead to the first sustained pause in conflict in Gaza, according to people familiar with its provisions.

Israel, the United States and Hamas are close to an agreement to free dozens of women and children held hostage in Gaza, in exchange for the first sustained pause in conflict in Gaza, according to people familiar with its provisions.

17/11/2023

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has entered hospice care at home, nine months after her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, entered hospice.

16/11/2023

FTA: AS A FAMOUS tweet noted of the terrorist group ISIS, “You do not, under any circumstances, ‘gotta hand it to them.'” Yet amid the continuing horrors of the war between Israel and Hamas militants, as people struggle to make sense of the violence and escalating rhetoric, more than a few people are willing to give al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden credit for his 2002 polemic against the United States, published as an explanation of the ideology that led him to orchestrate the attacks of 9/11.

Osama bin Laden's 'Letter to America,' published a year after 9/11, found a new fandom on TikTok and got removed from The Guardian's website.

16/11/2023

FTA: A jury has found David DePape guilty on two counts in the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, last year in the couple’s San Francisco home.

DePape was convicted in federal court of one count of assault on the immediate family member of a federal official, and a second count of attempted kidnapping of a federal official. He faces a maximum sentence of 30 years and 20 years, respectively.

A jury has found David DePape guilty on two counts in the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, last year in the couple’s San Francisco home.

16/11/2023

FTA: The House Ethics Committee released its highly anticipated report on Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on Thursday, referring its findings of “potential violations of federal criminal law” to the Department of Justice.

In a statement accompanying the report, the chairman and ranking member of the panel said there is “substantial evidence” to show that Santos “knowingly caused his campaign committee to file false or incomplete reports with the Federal Election Commission; used campaign funds for personal purposes; engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with RedStone Strategies LLC; and engaged in knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act as it relates to his Financial Disclosure (FD) Statements filed with the House.”

The final product is sure to exacerbate the controversy surrounding Santos, who is facing 23 federal criminal counts and has already endured two expulsion efforts — with a third likely on the horizon.

The House Ethics Committee released its highly anticipated report on Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on Thursday, referring its findings of “potential violations of federal criminal law” to the Departm…

15/11/2023

As a developed nation, the US wrestles with a high maternal morbidly rate and laws like these—passed by people who claim to value life—do nothing to address that. Moreover, these laws make access to healthcare difficult.
—PHF

FTA: Cristina Nuñez's doctors had always advised her not to get pregnant. She has diabetes, end-stage renal disease and other health conditions, and when she unexpectedly did become pregnant, it made her extremely sick. Now she is suing her home state of Texas, arguing that the abortion laws in the state delayed her care and endangered her life.

Nuñez and six other women joined an ongoing lawsuit over Texas's abortion laws. The plaintiffs allege the exception for when a patient's life is in danger is too narrow and vague, and endangered them during complicated pregnancies.

7 women who were denied reproductive health care in Texas have joined an ongoing lawsuit.

12/11/2023

*Gift article*

A month after the surprise attack on Israel, the question remains: Why would Hamas choose to orchestrate a devastating slaughter on Israeli civilians when the response was certain to be devastating to Palestinians. What would be the benefit to Hamas?

New evidence suggests Hamas had a second attack in mind in furtherance of a plan to not just sow chaos and fear in Israel, but to ignite a war and to derail completely recent efforts to normalize relations between Israel and neighboring Arab countries.

From The Washington Post:

“Secret planning, high-level deception�The planning for the historic assault against Israel was underway for well more than a year before the events of Oct. 7, intelligence officials say. Hamas officials took pains to conceal the preparations, even as senior leaders dropped occasional hints about their intentions.
�Throughout the Gaza Strip — the densely populated, heavily surveilled seaside enclave roughly the size of Philadelphia — Hamas conducted above- and below-ground military exercises. They trained with imported AK-47 rifles, handguns, rocket-propelled gr***de launchers and thermobaric projectiles that generate powerful pressure waves and intense fires with temperatures exceeding 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit.
�As they trained, they carefully scrutinized population centers and military bases to create a matrix of potential targets, Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said.
�To obtain detailed intelligence, Hamas deployed cheap surveillance drones to generate maps of the Israeli towns and military installations within few miles of the $1 billion barrier system that Israel built to wall off Gaza. They elicited additional information, intelligence officials said, from Gazan day laborers who were permitted to enter Israel for work, often in the same farming communities that were in Hamas’s crosshairs. They even monitored Israeli websites, studying real estate photographs and social-media postings depicting life inside kibbutzim and the layouts of buildings and houses.
�The intelligence gathering was not particularly sophisticated, but it was methodical, said Ali Soufan, a former FBI counterterrorism official and founder the Soufan Group, a private New York security consultancy that works closely with Middle Eastern governments.��“If you’re in prison, you study the prison security system. That is what Hamas has been doing for 16 years,” Soufan said. “Their on-the-ground intelligence was way better than anything the Iranians could have given them.”
�The precise plans for how and where the Hamas shock troops would attack were restricted to a tiny circle of elite military planners, amid what Western officials described as professional-grade operational security. The most crucial details appear to have been withheld even from Hamas’s political leadership and the group’s chief backers, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militant group, as officials from both organizations have publicly acknowledged.”

Evidence gleaned since Oct. 7 shows Hamas terrorists prepared for a “second wave” of assaults amid hopes of inspiring violence in the West Bank and beyond.