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Fri, 05 Nov 2021
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Pistol

Father of NBA champion killed in drive-by shooting

NBA player Richard Jefferson
© JASON MILLER / AFP
Richard Jefferson Sr., the father of NBA champion Richard Jefferson, was killed on Wednesday in a drive-by shooting in California.

The 65-year-old was outside a liquor store in a residential area when an unknown person opened fire from an approaching car, TMZ reported.

Jefferson Sr. was pronounced dead at a local hospital where he was taken following the fatal incident.

Attention

Duke Energy dam fails in NC: Coal ash leaking into Cape Fear River

Duke Energy

Image from Duke Energy web-site
Hurricane Florence floodwaters have breached the dam at a retired Duke Energy coal power plant near Wilmington, North Carolina, likely causing a spill of coal ash into Cape Fear River.

Floodwaters topped the earthen dike at the northern side of Sutton Lake on Friday. Water from the south end of the lake is flowing back into the river, Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan told AP.

Water has also crested over the steel retaining wall of a coal ash dump on the lake shore, Sheehan said. Duke "can't rule out" that ash might have spilled into the river.

Folder

Wisconsin: State government must cover surgeries for transgender employees

gavel
© Getty Images
In a ruling filed Tuesday, a federal judge in Wisconsin ordered that the state and its insurers must cover transition procedures for transgender state employees.

U.S. District Court Judge William Conley found that there was no legal basis for a specific exclusion in the Uniform Benefits adopted by the state's Group Insurance Board that rules out coverage for "procedures, services and supplies related to surgery and sex hormones associated with gender reassignment."

The exclusion, which has existed in some form since 1994, was found to violate Title VII, the Affordable Care Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The board voted unanimously to remove the exclusion in July, 2016. However, in December of that year, it voted to reinstate the exclusion, which went back into effect Feb. 1, 2017.

Conley stated in his opinion that "the exclusion on its face treats transgender individuals differently on the basis of sex."

Star of David

Ultra-Orthodox Israeli radio station fined $280k for not allowing women on its airwaves

radio station
© Kol Barama / Facebook
An ultra-Orthodox radio station in Israel has been ordered to pay out $280,000 in damages, for refusing to put women on the air, in the first class-action lawsuit on civil rights in the Jewish State.

An Israeli court ruled on Thursday that Kol Barama radio station must dole out one million shekels (US$280,000) in damages as part of a lawsuit that was filed by Orthodox feminists on behalf of ultra-Orthodox women who were prevented from hearing female voices on the station.

The suit, which was filed in 2012 in the Jerusalem District Court, is the first class-action lawsuit to challenge civil rights in Israel. Although the court ruled in 2014 that Kol Barama had operated in a discriminatory manner, the station appealed the decision in the Supreme Court. Its appeal was rejected a year later, and several hearings have since been held to determine the amount of damages to be paid.

Pistol

5 injured in shooting at family wake in Syracuse, New York

police line
© Brendan Smialowski / AFP
Five people, including an eight-year-old girl, have been wounded in a shooting in Syracuse, New York, authorities said, noting that all are in stable condition.

Several calls were made to 911 dispatcher at around 9:00pm local time, notifying the emergency services of shots fired in the 1300 block of Midland Avenue, not far from Kirk Park.

When emergency services arrived at the scene they discovered five people with gunshot wounds, including an eight-year-old girl, Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowle told reporters, calling the incident a "very tragic event."

All of the victims were immediately rushed to a hospital in stable condition. The names of the wounded have not yet been released but police say their age ranges from between 8 and 35 years old.

Pumpkin 2

Radical anti-Putin stars, once beloved by the West, now face prison in Europe

Russian opposition activists
Russian opposition stars were once hailed by the Western media and beloved by Europe - but not so much now that they live there! The countries they fled to are now investigating them for criminal activities.

Oleg Vorotnikov - founder of the controversial Voina (War) art band, and wanted in Russia for assaulting police officers in 2011 at an unsanctioned rally - has now been charged with illegal weapons possession and trafficking in Austria, the group itself reported. There has so far been no independent confirmation that the artist is facing arrest.

Vorotnikov, also nicknamed 'Vor' (the Russian word for 'thief'), rose to prominence along with his wife, fellow 'actionist' Natalia Sokol.

The couple engaged in a series of bizarre stunts, including drawing a giant penis outside the security service building in St. Petersburg, and gatecrashing a biology museum to perform group sex in public.

Pussy Riot, which gained notoriety in 2012 after bursting into Moscow's main cathedral during mass and performing a profanity-laden punk song, are a splinter group from Vorotnikov's movement.

Star of David

Why is it everyone notices when a single Israeli settler is killed, but not when hundreds of Palestinians are murdered?

Ari Fuld
© Ari Fuld / Facebook
Ari Fuld
On Sunday, the Israeli settler Ari Fuld was stabbed by a Palestinian child of 17, Khalil Jabarin, at the entrance to a mall near the West Bank's Gush Etzion Junction. Fuld was armed with a pistol, ran after Jabarin, and managed to shoot him. Jabarin was reportedly shot by others as well yet survived. Fuld succumbed to his wounds shortly after.

Fuld was a prominent right-wing pundit (here he is on Israeli News Talk Radio, hailing the detention at Ben Gurion airport of Peter Beinart and advocating that all leftists should be detained), and his American background helped him in reaching out to many Americans and other English speakers.

This piece could have been about so many other deaths in Palestine or Israel. It could have been about the six Palestinians who were murdered by Israeli forces a couple of days later, which PLO Executive Committee official Dr. Hana Ashrawi strongly condemned:

Arrow Down

Swedish professor of neuroscience may lose job for transgressing on transgender ideology

Germund Hesslow

Germund Hesslow, is a professor in the Department of Experimental Medical Science
Neuroscience Section, at Lund University
A university professor in Sweden is under investigation for "anti-feminism" and "transphobia" after he said that there are fundamental differences between men and women which are "biologically founded" and that genders cannot be regarded as "social constructs alone," reports Academic Rights Watch.

For his transgression, Germund Hesslow - a professor of neuroscience at Lund University - who holds dual PhDs in philosophy and neurophysiology, may lose his job - telling RT that a "full investigation" has been ordered, and that there "have been discussions about trying to stop the lecture or get rid of me, or have someone else give the lecture or not give the lecture at all."

"If you answer such a question you are under severe time pressure, you have to be extremely brief - and I used wording which I think was completely innocuous, and that apparently the student didn't," Hesslow said.

Hesslow was ordered to attend a meeting by Christer Larsson, chairman of the program board for medical education, after a female student complained that Hesslow had a "personal anti-feminist agenda." He was asked to distance himself from two specific comments; that gay women have a "male sexual orientation" and that the sexual orientation of transsexuals is "a matter of definition."

Comment: Anyone who dares to challenge transgender ideology (even with scientifically accurate facts), risks being subjected to a virulent backlash from trans-activist mobs.


Heart - Black

US Olympic women's volleyball star indicted for first-degree murder, child abuse in Puerto Rico

Kim Willoughby
© PEDRO UGARTE / AFP
Former US Olympic volleyball player Kim Willoughby has been indicted for first-degree murder and child abuse as part of an investigation into the death of a toddler in Puerto Rico, according to reports.

Willoughby, who was part of the US team that won silver at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, was indicted over the 2016 death of a three-year-old girl whom she was reportedly seeking to adopt.

The former athlete, 37, had previously argued that the toddler had died in her care after slipping and hitting her head in the shower, according to Fox News.

However, prosecutors presented new evidence in the case which is said to suggest that the girl's injuries were not consistent with the former athlete's account of events.

Airplane

Former Southwest Airline employee sues company over 'whites only' break room & home-made 'noose'

Southwest Airlines
© Jason Redmond / Reuters
Southwest Airlines is being sued over racial discrimination claims, with a former employee stating that there was a 'whites only' staff break room at Houston's airport, and that black staff once found a noose made of bungee cords.

In the federal lawsuit, plaintiff Jamel Parker claims that his co-workers established a 'whites only' break room at William P. Hobby Airport, and that the segregation persisted for years.

He says he became aware of the "WB" -short for "white break room"- after joining the airline in 2013. His supervisor was allegedly aware of the situation but did nothing about it, and the break room was only removed due to renovations which converted it into an office in 2016 or 2017.

According to the lawsuit, in another sign of racial intimidation black employees found a noose made of bungee cords at a gate controlled by Southwest in 2017. "Nooses are an obvious reference to the history of lynching blacks and are hung for the purpose of intimidation and discrimination," reads the lawsuit, which was published online by the Houston Chronicle.