news

The first three paragraphs

A woman who was selected to serve on the jury in former President Donald Trump's criminal trial in New York was excused Thursday after she expressed concerns about being identified publicly and questioned her ability to remain impartial.

The juror, a young woman who was chosen to serve on Tuesday, said she "definitely has concerns now" after friends and family asked her if she was a juror, based on reports in the media about those who have been selected.

"Aspects of my identity have already been out there in public. Yesterday alone, I had friends and family push things to me," she told the court on Thursday. "I don't think at this point that I can be fair and unbiased."

---

Edit

2 jurors dismissed from Trump hush money trial as prosecutors seek to hold ex-president in contempt | AP News

Black Curriculum of Communism

It’s almost a miracle she survived,” said the Hudsonville family’s attorney, Tom Worsfold.

After her team’s softball practice, the 11-year-old girl went to the restaurant on Port Sheldon Street and ordered a hamburger, chicken nuggets and french fries. A few days later, her family says she had abdominal cramps, diarrhea and blood in her stool. She was hospitalized with an E. coli infection, which later turned into hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), attacking her kidneys. She was admitted to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital and things only got worse.

“The infection continued to progress and attacked her pancreas and her brain,” Worsfold said. “She had significant brain swelling suffering seizures while in the hospital, she had left-sided paralysis.”

Aspen was on constant dialysis for her kidney issues. She was unconscious at times and hallucinated, Worsfold said.

“Her parents took a video of her crying out in the hospital asking, ‘Why am I so sick?'” the family attorney said. “It’s just so bad. That terror for an 11-year-old girl needs to be compensated.”

She was hospitalized at DeVos for three weeks before rehabbing at Mary Free Bed for a week. Aspen finally went home more than a month after her initial hospitalization.

“Her family is so thankful that they have her, that she didn’t pass from this, because it was so close,” Worsfold said.

Worsfold said Aspen is still struggling with high blood pressure, weakness on the left side of her body, diabetes and brain damage, which has affected her ability to learn.

“The spring before she got sick, she placed as a fifth grader in sixth-grade level of reading,” Worsfold said. “One year later, after she got sick, as a sixth grader she was now reading at a fourth-grade level.”

Aspen tested in the 70th percentile for math on the Michigan Student Test of Educational Progress before the incident. One year after getting sick, she was in the 9th percentile, Worsfold said.

The family is suing Meritage Hospitality Group, the company that owns more than 380 Wendy’s, Taco John’s, Morning Belle and Stan’s Tacos locations across 16 states. The family is asking for $20 million in damages, including past and future economic losses. Worsfold said they are accounting for an expected loss of lifetime earning potential because of her brain injury and cognitive impairments.

The governor of Kansas vetoed an anti-LGBTQ+ bill while simultaneously letting a law pass requiring ID to view "acts of homosexuality."

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly issued vetoes Friday against a ban on gender-affirming care for minors as well as two anti-abortion measures. She also let pass without her signature a law requiring age-verification to view content "harmful to minors."

Under Kansas criminal law, material "harmful to minors" includes nudity and "sexual content," which is defined in part as "acts of masturbation, homosexuality, or sexual intercourse."

The law, which will go into effect on July 1, requires users to share their government-issued identification in order to view adult content. Websites can be fined up to $10,000 for each instance a minor accesses their content, and parents are allowed to sue for damages of at least $50,000.

This could theoretically apply to family-friendly media with queer characters, LGBTQ+ charities and community resources, or even medical websites that include information on gender and sexuality. Such websites could soon be forced to block access to young users — cutting off their access to vital resources and information — or face hefty fines.

Kelly did not comment on the age-verification bill, but gave justification for each of her vetoes. She said that a ban on gender-affirming care for minors “tramples parental rights” and targets “a small group.” She vetoed a similar bill last year, and the legislature did not have the votes to override it.

“If the Legislature paid this much attention to the other 99.8% of students, we’d have the best schools on earth,” she wrote.

Lawmakers were able to override Kelly's veto on an anti-transgender school sports bill last year. Her veto of a bill ending the state’s legal recognition of changes in gender identity was also overridden, meaning that transgender people can no longer change their sex on their driver’s licenses or birth certificates in the state.

The minority leader of the Kansas Senate, Democrat Dinah Sykes of Topeka, told The Advocate earlier this month that she's concerned Republicans will have the votes to override Kelly's vetoes this time around. She said that the laws are "just filled with hate and really just an ignorance toward what this community goes through."

“It makes these children feel so different and feel like outcasts, and that’s just so cruel," Sykes said. “I worry that these kids and their parents won’t feel safe in Kansas and that they will move to other states, and it's a loss for our state. Unfortunately, we're going to lose some wonderful Kansans because of this bill.”

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2313940

Lmao... all because of a legal technicality, the squatters actually have the right to kick anyone intruding out on the property, including the landlords...

That being said, the ones squatting over there are the camden art cafe is there

Bonus: if you want a laugh, watch this normie chud {Ali Koca} 's take on it and watch him seethe...

" youtube.com "

• add " /shorts/vfWGo-cld3A "

I'm sure the racists over at r/space discussed this as well...

Edit - Much better summary of the whole thing here.

Here's the statement:

I am writing this statement as unfortunately Novara Media have left me little choice. In light of the organization’s refusal to address the actions of one of its senior employees that led to the persecution of three young women of color and their ultimate conviction under the UK’s racist and Islamophobic counterterrorism laws, I have asked that my interviews be removed from their platforms.

Amidst an ongoing genocide, and at a time in which Palestinian political expression is under attack, this staff member chose to collaborate with the British police and the right wing media in their campaign of persecution, incitement, and hate-mongering. This has caused serious legal and social repercussions and psychological harm to the individuals involved.

I have been the target of countless smear campaigns which I have usually disregarded as background noise. However, I chose to speak out in this instance, even though it did not directly affect me, because the silence of Novara, an organization self-described as “always politically committed,” represents a complete failure in upholding the principles of accountability, solidarity, and anti-racism, and should concern us all.

One might argue that Aaron Bastani’s actions fall within the realm of free speech, however, exploiting an atmosphere that is already hostile to Palestinians and collaborating with the British establishment to smear, police, and punish us and our allies sounds less like free speech and more like harassment and incitement. Where does Novara, an institution that purports itself to be a voice on the side of justice, stand when one of its staff members causes such harm? Bastani’s actions—and his colleagues’ silence—must not be separated from this context. Demanding accountability is not “sowing division,” what is divisive is putting a target on the most vulnerable among us, the most susceptible to state violence.

Novara’s above-average reporting on Palestine is not a gift they are bestowing upon us, it is as simple as journalists doing their job. It does not give them a special license to police our movement. (There is a joke to be made here about British institutions and colonial legacies.) If Novara wants to contribute to the larger anti-capitalist, anti-racist movement, it has a responsibility to hold itself accountable for violence that is produced within its own institution.

TLDR - There was a pro-Palestinian rally in London back in October. Photos of some protesters (the women in color mentioned above) went viral among right-wing circles because they had images of the Hamas paragliders on their jackets. Aaron Bastani joined in the denouncements. Apparently, the UK Police has since prosecuted these women and Novara Media, the organization Bastani co-founded has remained silent till now.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/apr/14/its-catastrophic-italian-restaurants-in-london-struggle-to-find-staff-post-brexit

People come to the restaurant for the Italian food and have commented that it’s strange to not have as many Italian staff as would be expected any more. This is catastrophic for the industry.

There it goes follks.