National, Regional and Local News

[ponchi101]

Interesting how some Maine legislator NOW has changed his position on gun control (he is a dem). NOW he can see there is a problem. NOW he wants to do something. NOW legislation is needed.
Pathetic assholes, all of them (the ones opposing doing something.)

[Owendonovan]

Nothing will be done. Nothing changed after 20 6/7 year old kids were killed. Pathetic assholes is generous. (I know we can't always use the words we'd like) How easily the lives of all these people killed by these weapons is accepted for a political donation is beyond the pale, it's just so egregious and debased. Embarrassing. At least the shooter is dead.

[ti-amie]

Maine gunman who killed 18 was found in third search of recycling center
Mental health was a ‘nexus’ to shooting, but police have no evidence 40-year-old Robert Card was forcibly committed to treatment.
By Justine McDaniel, Arelis R. Hernández and Perry Stein
Updated October 28, 2023 at 3:34 p.m. EDT|Published October 28, 2023 at 12:08 p.m. EDT

LEWISTON, Maine — Maine police had twice searched and cleared a recycling center before they found the body of the 40-year-old gunman who killed 18 people and triggered an intensive police manhunt that forced thousands of people to shelter in place.

The body was discovered only after the center’s owner called local police to say that Army reservist Robert Card was familiar with the property, urging investigators to check the trailers in an overflow parking lot across the street from the main facility. Just before 8 p.m. Friday, a state police tactical team discovered the body near the sliding door of an unlocked trailer full of scrap plastic and metal. Card had died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Law enforcement separately found a letter addressed to a loved one with the passcode to Card’s phone and bank account numbers. Maine Department of Public Safety Commissioner Mike Sauschuck said the note’s “tone and tenor is that the individual is not going to be around,” but it wasn’t an “explicit suicide note.”

The shooter also left behind a legally purchased long gun in a vehicle abandoned near a boat ramp near the Androscoggin River. Police said the ramp is connected to a walking trail along the waterway that leads to the parking lot where Card’s body was found along with two other firearms, also legally obtained. The commissioner rebuffed a question about whether the police should have searched that area sooner, saying they did not know it was connected to the recycling center.

The Maine Recycling Corporation told the Bangor Daily News in a statement that Card had worked as a commercial driver for the company but left the job voluntarily last spring.

Authorities said that Card had had mental health problems and paranoia, and that they had not yet found evidence of a specific motive. They had found no records of Card having been forcibly committed for mental health treatment and were seeking to confirm whether he received any voluntary treatment.

“When you talk about, is there a motive here? I think clearly there’s a mental health component to this,” Sauschuck said during a news conference Saturday morning.

“There’s paranoia, there’s some conspiracy theorist piece,” Sauschuck said. “The individual felt like people were talking about him. It may even appear that there were some voices in play here.”

The Washington Post reported earlier that over the summer, Card’s military reserve commanders became so concerned by statements he made targeting his own unit that he was sent to a hospital. Card received about two weeks of inpatient psychiatric treatment, according to a person familiar with the investigation. It is not clear whether any other consequences followed.

Investigators continued to look into hundreds of leads and serve at least a dozen warrants to piece together the days and hours before Card opened fire on bowling alley and bar patrons, Sauschuck said. The commissioner emphasized that the gunman’s family had been very cooperative. He also said that although there was a strong mental health “nexus” to the shootings, “The vast, vast, vast majority of people with a mental health diagnosis will never hurt anybody.”

With the manhunt over, the Lewiston community and surrounding towns are emerging from the terror of a mass killing, reaching for something like normal as a sign that it is once again safe to live their lives. On community Facebook groups, neighbors are trying to figure out what businesses are reopening and when, whether Halloween events will go forward, and when pharmacies will reopen.

On the road to the Schemengees bar and grill, which remained blocked by police, stood a poster of the four deaf victims surrounded by five pots of chrysanthemums and bouquets of flowers.

“The time to heal begins now,” Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline said in a social media post.

State and city officials have opened a family assistance center at the Lewiston armory for people who were present at either of the two shooting scenes — the bar and Just-in-Time Recreation bowling alley — to obtain help from various agencies. Mental health services will be provided to the wider public at a local hotel.


An aerial view of the site where the body of Robert Card was found in Lisbon, Maine, on Friday. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

“The entire city is a scene, people that are traumatized,” Sauschuck said. “Now this will slowly evolve over to a wellness and a resilience conversation for the community.”

In Kennedy Park in downtown Lewiston, Wilder Barreto was among those enjoying the freedom to leave their houses again, gathering multicolored fall leaves in his arms and posing for his camera mounted on a tripod as he shot content to post on Instagram.

Barreto, 31, had been “very nervous” living in downtown Lewiston since the shooting and said he stayed home Thursday and Friday. “No one knew what could happen,” he said.

Then relief came on Saturday.

“This morning we saw the news,” Barreto told The Washington Post in Spanish. “We said, ‘Wow.’”

Lewiston is home to fewer than 40,000 people; the population of the entire state of Maine is just 1.3 million. It has not been uncommon for people to realize they had connections to more than one of the victims.

The 18 who were killed included a 14-year-old boy and his father out for a night of bowling; four people from the area’s deaf community who had gathered at the bar to play cornhole; a married couple in their 70s; and two men who witnesses said confronted the shooter at the start of the rampage. Of the 13 people injured, three remain in critical condition at the hospital, police said.

When Alicia Phelps and her husband got the emergency alert on Friday night announcing Card’s death, they turned on the news and went outside “to breathe a sigh of relief and know that we’re safe in our neighborhood.”

“It’s feeling really surreal,” the 30-year-old mother said as she pushed her son on a park swing. “It’s a beautiful day, but there’s this emotional weight of ‘18 people are dead.’”

She and her family live in neighboring Auburn, where they stayed home with the doors locked. The couple had intended to stay in the community until their son finished elementary school, but they now wonder whether they will stick to that plan.

“This has definitely brought up a conversation in our house of if we feel this is a safe community to stay in and to raise our kids in,” Phelps said. “And that really extends beyond the shooter; it’s what is the response from our political representatives when it comes to gun control.”


A sign in Lewiston, Maine, i support of the city after the mass killing on Wednesday. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) has opposed aggressive gun-control measures despite members of her party pushing for tougher rules in a state with relatively loose gun laws such as permitless carry. The state does not have a red-flag law, which would allow family members or friends to ask a court to take firearms away from a person thought to be at risk of self-harm or to pose a danger to others. Such laws would also require law enforcement to seek a mental health evaluation for an individual before getting a court order to seize firearms.

Four years ago, Maine passed a “yellow flag” law intended to empower law enforcement to temporarily confiscate firearms and detain individuals they deem pose a threat. The measure emerged as a compromise between gun rights groups and activists. But the law, which went into effect in 2020, was not triggered in Card’s case, police said.

“I know that because I read every single one of those reports and am involved in that process on a regular basis,” said Sauschuck, adding the weapons restriction order had been used 82 times since its adoption. “It has been effective to this point and it’s certainly something that we’re always looking at.”

The governor’s spokesman has since signaled Mills’s willingness to reopen the conversation about gun restrictions.

President Biden on Saturday praised law enforcement and public officials for their handling of the search and reiterated his call for more gun-control measures.

“This was a tragic two days for the families in Maine who have been devastated by gun violence,” Biden said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “Americans should not have to live like this. I call on Republicans in Congress to fulfill their obligation to keep Americans safe.”

While shooting attacks have become a grimly consistent part of American life, they often end with assailants dead or in custody. A search of this length after an attack with so many victims is rare, said Peter J. Forcelli, a former deputy assistant director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Those in Lewiston are hoping to be able to heal after the ordeal. Shantel Fournier, 29, said she hoped the community could grow closer and healthier as a result of the trauma. Had Card been killed by authorities, that might have provided more closure, she said.

“He inflicted so much pain,” Fournier said. “The only thing that would’ve been better is if they killed him. But now I’m just happy that we can grieve in peace.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... -lewiston/

Hernández reported from San Antonio and Stein from Washington. Robert Klemko in Lewiston and Andrew Jeong in Seoul contributed to this report.

[ti-amie]

It's interesting reading articles like this because you can almost hear the unspoken words "this isn't supposed to happen here" behind every comment by locals. Nothing is a problem until it happens to them and then they want to run some place else where it's safer. SMH

[Owendonovan]

These" _________ Strong" slogans annoy me to no end, as useful as thoughts and prayer.

[MJ2004]

The first time it was used (afaik) was the Boston Marathon bombings (Boston Strong).. I agree with you.

[Owendonovan]

I've seen them described as "Toxic Positivity", a nuanced gaslighting.

[ti-amie]

Young people allege abuse at center run by Arkansas man pardoned by Trump
Former residents of Lord’s Ranch, run by Ted Suhl, convicted of bribery in 2016, say abuse was ‘systematic and widespread’
Associated Press
Tue 7 Nov 2023 22.12 GMT


Ted Suhl at federal court in 2016. Photograph: Brian Chilson/Arkansas Times

Eight former residents of a youth treatment center that was run by an Arkansas man whose bribery conviction was commuted by Donald Trump have filed a lawsuit claiming they were victims of “systematic and widespread” abuse at the now-shuttered facility.

Attorneys for the former residents of the Lord’s Ranch said the lawsuit was the first of several to be filed in the coming weeks alleging abuse at the facility that closed in 2016 after owner Ted Suhl was convicted in a federal bribery scheme. Suhl’s conviction was commuted by Trump in 2019.

“Men and women who owned, operated, and staffed the facility preyed on and abused the children housed on the remote facility in Warm Springs, Arkansas, routinely and systematically,” the lawsuit filed on Monday in federal court said.

The lawsuit against Suhl and others claims the unnamed residents were victims of repeated sexual abuse and rape by an employee of the facility, describing the abuse in graphic detail. The employee, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, had not been charged by police with abuse. An attorney who represented Suhl in his bribery case did not immediately respond to a message on Tuesday.

“Children at the Lord’s lived in constant fear, knowing that they were alone in a remote, unfamiliar environment far from home and at the complete mercy of a sadistic staff,” the lawsuit said. “For many children, survival meant compliance with the physical and sexual abuse.”

The ranch – later named Trinity Behavioral Health – opened in 1976 and was licensed in 1987 by the state as a residential childcare facility.

The lawsuit claims Suhl and others at the ranch made an “intentional, fully conscious decision” to allow the abuse to occur and threatened victims who spoke up.

A federal jury in 2016 found Suhl guilty of charges related to paying up to $20,000 in cash bribes over four years to a state health official in hopes of receiving inside information to benefit his businesses. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released after Trump commuted his sentence to time served.

The White House in 2019 called Suhl “a pillar of his community before his prosecution and a generous contributor to several charities” in its statement announcing Trump’s commutation. Suhl’s clemency request had been supported by Mike Huckabee, the former governor.

Attorneys for the residents said they represent at least 30 who have also claimed abuse at the facility. The attorneys said they were filing additional lawsuits, citing a January 2024 deadline under a recent Arkansas law that extended the statute of limitation on child sex abuse cases.

“Each story is worse than the next,” attorney Martin Gould told reporters in a Zoom call on Tuesday with attorney Josh Gillispie.

The call included audio recordings from two of the plaintiffs discussing the impact the abuse had on them. One of the plaintiffs said the years he spent at the ranch were “the worst, most horrific experiences I can remember”.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... h-ted-suhl

[Owendonovan]

Any youth "treatment" center with "Ranch" in it's name makes me think of abuse.

[ti-amie]

Louisiana’s Governor-Elect Wants To Withhold Funds For New Orleans’ Decaying Water Infrastructure Until Women Who Seek Abortions Are Prosecuted
IN A HORRIFYING INTERSECTION OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE, JEFF LANDRY HAS URGED THE STATE TO WITHHOLD FUNDS BECAUSE OF HIS PERSONAL FEELINGS ABOUT REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

BY GABRIELLE A. PERRY · UPDATED NOVEMBER 13, 2023
In September, the city of New Orleans and some surrounding parishes in south Louisiana began to prepare for at least three months of saltwater intrusion in the local water supply. President Joe Biden then declared the crisis a federal emergency and authorized funding for FEMA and other state agencies to mitigate the burgeoning crisis.

While months of extreme, record-high heat and lack of rainfall in and around the Crescent City are responsible for the crisis, some are pointing at current Louisiana Attorney General and Louisiana governor-elect Jeff Landry as partially responsible for the city’s ability to address the now circumvented crisis, as well as the decayed state of the city’s entire water infrastructure. Landry personally solicited the Louisiana State Bond Commission last year to withhold millions in funding from the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board due to the city government’s refusal to arrest and prosecute women in the wake of Louisiana’s total ban on abortion. The New Orleans Sewage and Water Board remains in desperate need of funding to tackle necessary repairs to its four water intake structures—one of which that has been inoperable for 34 years.

Despite a race against time to keep saltwater from encroaching from the Gulf of Mexico, there has been no concerted efforts by the state to improve its most populated city’s water infrastructure. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and New Orleans Homeland Security spent weeks unloading daily shipments of 36 million gallons of fresh water into the Mississippi in an attempt to dilute the river enough to prevent any further progression of the saltwater or the growing concern of the intrusion of lead into the city’s water supply. Both Jefferson Parish and Orleans Parish are in the process of building two respective pipelines to avoid both saltwater and lead contamination in their drinking water.

This ordeal unfolding during the Louisiana gubernatorial election coupled with the ascent of two Louisiana conservative GOP extremists to the highest offices in the land has sparked conversations and frustration about the fate of a city caught in the crosshairs. With reproductive justice and environmental justice acutely intersecting, Black families are especially vulnerable.

In an email to Matt McBride, a reporter from the Louisiana Illuminator, that was later published, a spokesperson for the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board, Grace Birch, said “We are at a critical point with nearly a billion dollars in capital improvement projects slated for the next five years that are 93% unfunded,” Birch said. “We have scoured every source of City, State and Federal funding, but our customers must know that these are one-time sources that are not sustainable, and we are looking at long-term plans for capital projects, especially as it relates to water treatment and distribution.” As of October 2023, the state of Louisiana has a surplus budget of $330 million.

Throughout the ordeal, residents took to social media to express frustration at the now slow-moving but omnipresent water crisis itself as many fear the implications upon daily life– like possible school closures, food accessibility, and the ability to maintain tourism levels, a major economic driver of the city of New Orleans, ahead of the Mardi Gras season.

Some mentioned facing derision from local residents in neighboring parishes as they flock to the shelves to stock up on drinking water. Last month’s governor’s race highlighted the almost exclusive anti-abortion political arena that is complicit in the burgeoning crisis.

Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the union, and 61.4% of babies born in the state in 2020 were born under the Louisiana’s Medicaid plan. Lack of reproductive care access has sent women who can afford other options as close as Illinois–geographically the closest sanctuary state for abortion access– and as far away as New York to have their choice respected.

Since the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization U.S. Supreme Court decision struck down the constitutionally protected right for women to obtain abortion care, multiple abortion bans have been triggered in the Louisiana legislature. Senate Bill 342, authored by Democratic representative Katrina Jackson, is one of the strictest in the nation. It mandates one to 10 years of prison time and a fine of $10,000 up to $100,000 for anyone who has had an abortion in the state of Louisiana.

The most recent legislative session saw every proposed amendment– including those that would have allowed exceptions for victims of incest and rape– struck down in bipartisan opposition. Now in Louisiana—which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States, and where homicide is the leading cause of death for pregnant women—women are being forced to carry fetuses without skulls to term.

However, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, and Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson have all vowed to not seek arrest nor prosecution for pregnant persons seeking reproductive care. As a result, Landry– who suggested that anyone who does not like their reproductive care being stripped can simply “move“– has used his massive campaign backing and platform to wage a political war on the majority female state.

Throughout his campaign to be the next governor of Louisiana, Landry stood firmly opposed to any access to substantive abortion care for birthing people in Louisiana. Last fall, Landry personally urged the state treasurer to deny funding to any and all state-funded projects in the city of New Orleans until they enforced the abortion ban. A month later, Landry attended a public meeting through the Louisiana State Bond Commission to purposely delay funding to multiple city improvement projects–including $35 million to the New Orleans Sewage and Water Board–as he claimed the city had “thumbed its nose at the law” too many times. Per local news, that funding was specifically intended “for construction of an electrical substation to replace outdated, unreliable turbines that power the city’s drinking water, drainage and sewage systems.”

The New Orleans Sewage and Water Board has since made headlines for its crumbing infrastructure. The spewing and leaking of oil from its 24/7 turbines and drainage pumps (built in the 1960s) caused major damage to residents’ property in March 2023; a replacement is not expected to be in operation until the end of 2024. Now, the New Orleans water crisis highlights yet another real-world consequence of political posturing as a city of approximately 400,000 braces itself for an unknown many cannot afford to prepare for.

With Landry’s easy victory in the October 2023 Louisiana governor’s race, it can be assumed that his gubernatorial powers will be used to ensure the city of New Orleans is forced to comply with state law and enforce the prosecution of women seeking abortion care. Per the National Governor’s Association, “Governors develop and submit annual or biennial budgets for review and approval by the legislature. In a number of states, commonwealths, and territories, Governors also have ‘reduction’—most often referred to as ‘line-item’—veto power that can be used for the removal of appropriations to which they object.”

The state of Louisiana is no stranger to line-item veto powers being used by its governor. In that event, the governor’s veto can only be overridden by two-thirds majority vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Yet, with the state of Louisiana containing a Republican supermajority, impactful dissent to Landry’s political will is not expected. Now governor-elect, Landry has already publicly vowed to reverse the impact of his Democratic predecessor as much as possible upon taking office.

Though the saltwater intrusion threat has passed, access to clean, freshwater remains a critical and focal issue of daily life in New Orleans and much needs to be done by way of funding to protect residents safety and health. However, regardless of the outcome, residents in New Orleans will likely experience a more profound wave of retribution for its stance of protecting women once the Landry administration ascends to power in the new year.

https://www.essence.com/news/louisiana- ... ve-rights/

[ti-amie]

Ned Pyle
@NerdPyle
·

A mysterious illness is sickening dogs in several states. “I would strongly recommend that people avoid boarding facilities, doggy day care, anything that’s going to be a high volume of dogs in a space”. Free article for you, no paywall

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... uUGCaaIafY

[dryrunguy]

I was not aware of this, so perhaps you all are not aware of it, either. You know those firefighters who work for the U.S. Forest Service and go all over the U.S. to fight fires? Base pay starts at $16/hour, and 16-hour shifts are the norm. This is from today's NY Times newsletter, Thanksgiving edition.

::

On the fire line

It was a relatively quiet wildfire season in the U.S. But there is no summer vacation for the Tallac Hotshots, a federal firefighting crew based near Lake Tahoe in California.

The crew members spent early July in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days. From there they traveled to a thickly wooded evergreen forest in Oregon; then to the dense, steep terrain of Klamath National Forest in California; and then to remote wilderness in Northern California, where they arrived by helicopter and fought fires in near-freezing temperatures. Their current assignment has taken them to Tennessee, where they will likely spend Thanksgiving Day swinging hand tools to contain blazes fueled by extreme drought.

“It’s really physical, but it’s extremely mental, too,” said Kyle Betty, the superintendent of the Tallac Hotshots, who has been a federal firefighter for 22 years. “The things that you see, the things that you face — every day you have to get up and do it again.”

The “hotshot” moniker, which dates back to the 1940s, describes firefighters who travel to battle the hottest, most treacherous and most technically challenging wildfires. There are around 100 such crews in the U.S., most of which work for the U.S. Forest Service.

During their deployments, the crews often have no access to cellphone signals or showers. They sometimes sleep in the open air. A standard shift is 16 hours, and crews can work three weeks straight without a break.

Base pay for entry-level federal firefighters is $16 an hour — far less than the amount earned by California state fighters, who battle many of the same blazes.

“They are the premier firefighting force in the U.S.,” said Evan Pierce, who helped write a University of Washington report on firefighter salaries. “But they are working longer and in more dangerous conditions — for less pay.”

Instead of fire engines and hoses, hotshot crews use hoes, shovels and chain saws to carve out dirt tracks to choke the progress of a fire.

The Tallac Hotshots crew members hail from across the country. Elsa Gaule, pictured above, is one of the crew’s captains. She spent her earliest years in Alaska in a house without a toilet or running water.

She and the other crew members are drawn to the outdoors and the deep sense of camaraderie. “I’m not a very good sit-at-a-desk person,” Gaule said. “Until my knees and back give out, I’ll continue doing this.”

Read the full story on the Tallac Hotshots.

[ti-amie]

Two people dead after car crashed, exploded at border checkpoint in Niagara Falls, N.Y., law enforcement officials say

FBI agents rushed to respond Wednesday to a vehicle explosion that killed two and injured a third person on the Rainbow Bridge connecting Canada to Niagara Falls, N.Y., said two law enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a fast-moving investigation. Two people familiar with the investigation said there was no immediate evidence of any nexus to terrorism, but officials continue to investigate and their understanding could change. The explosion, which also injured a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer, occurred on one of the United States’s heaviest travel days. One eyewitness told local news station WGRZ that the car was speeding and swerving as it approached the border from the U.S. side, but shortly after it passed another car, it suddenly went careening toward the U.S. security checkpoint.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... rk-canada/


Video at the link.

[ti-amie]

A view of the Rainbow Bridge border crossing into the United States in Niagara Falls, Ontario, on Wednesday, after a car exploded at a checkpoint. (Peter Power/AFP/Getty Images)

Update on the incident at the US/Canada border from WaPo.

13 min ago

By Kyle Rempfer
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday evening that he was briefed a second time by the FBI on the incident at Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls.

“They have now confirmed that there is no reason at present to believe this was terrorism,” Schumer said on social media. “And they believe they have the identity of the driver.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Wednesday evening that “at this time, there is no indication of a threat related to this incident” on Rainbow Bridge.

“We will continue to update the public as information becomes available,” Mayorkas said on social media.

By Anumita Kaur
Staff writer, general assignment desk
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it is working closely with the FBI and other partners in response to the vehicle crash at Rainbow Bridge, which remains closed. Three other Buffalo border crossings that had been closed after the incident have since reopened, the agency stated on social media.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... rk-canada/

[ti-amie]

They was really in a hurry to get somewhere...

Interesting that the NYPD got involved.