It will be legal and encouraged to hunt & kill any unhoused person in at least 13 states by the end of the year at this rate.

In a major case on homelessness, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared to side with an Oregon city's crackdown on sleeping in public. The decision could have sweeping implications for the record number of people living in tents and cars, and the cities and states struggling to manage them.

The Supreme Court had declined to hear a similar case out of Boise, Idaho, in 2019. But since then rates of homelessness have spiked. An annual federal count found more than 250,000 people living in parks, on streets, and in their vehicles. Sprawling street encampments have grown larger and expanded to new places, igniting intense backlash from residents and businesses.

The current case centers on the small city of Grants Pass, Ore., which has a population just under 40,000 and is a symbol of just how widespread the homelessness problem has become. A slew of other cities and states — led by Democrats and Republicans alike — urged the justices to take up this issue. Cities say the courts have hamstrung efforts to address homelessness

In both the Boise and Grants Pass cases, lower courts said that under the Eighth Amendment it's cruel and unusual to fine or jail someone for sleeping on public land if there's no adequate shelter available. But Grants Pass and many other cities across the West say those rulings have tied their hands as they try to keep their public spaces open and safe for everyone.

Grants Pass has no public shelter. But its local law essentially banned people from sleeping with a blanket or pillow on any public land, at any time.

During Monday's arguments, the Supreme Court's more liberal justices suggested this amounts to unlawfully targeting people simply because they're homeless. "You don't arrest babies who have blankets over them. You don't arrest people who are sleeping on the beach," said Justice Sotomayor.

Justice Kagan said sleeping is not a criminal act. "Sleeping is a biological necessity. It's sort of like breathing. ... But I wouldn't expect you to criminalize breathing in public."

But the court's conservative justices said it can be hard to draw the line between someone's conduct — which can be legally punished — and a status they are unable to change — which cannot be punished. "How about if there are no public bathroom facilities?" Justice Gorsuch asked. "Do people have an Eighth Amendment right to defecate and urinate? Is that conduct or is that status?"

Over and over, conservative justices also said homelessness is a complex policy problem and questioned whether courts like theirs should "micromanage" it.

"Why would you think that these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?" Chief Justice Roberts asked.

He doesn't know that I don't think any Supreme Court Justice is the best person to judge or weigh any policy judgements...

Whatever the decision, this case won't solve the homelessness problem

States and cities across the U.S. have struggled to manage record rates of homelessness. Some in the West have found ways to limit encampments and even clear them out without running afoul of the 9th Circuit rulings. Elsewhere, several states have taken a more sweeping approach with camping bans. Florida's governor recently signed a law that seeks to move unhoused people off public property altogether and into government-run encampments.

In America, you are forced to work full-time for poverty wages and when you are made homeless due to an uncontrolled and unregulated housing market, they will send you to live and work in a government camp...

Some worry that a decision in favor of Grants Pass will lead to more such moves or even a worst-case scenario of a "banishment race" if communities seek to push people out of their jurisdiction. Justice Sotomayor raised that concern during the arguments.

"Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion?" she said.

Grants Pass and other cities argue that the 9th Circuit's ruling has fueled the expansion of homeless encampments. But whichever way the case is decided, it's not likely to dramatically bring down the enormous number of people living outside in tents and vehicles. Many places simply don't have enough shelter beds for everyone. And more importantly, they don't have nearly enough permanent, affordable housing. The city of Grants Pass is short by 4,000 housing units; nationally, the deficit is in the millions.

If you simply criminalize being unhoused and funnel even more money into the local police department's yearly budget for surplus military gear, you don't have to invest in building 4,000 affordable housing units so long-time members of your community aren't living on public land in tents and you get some free prison slave labor for maintaining public infrastructure

That shortage has pushed rents to levels many cannot afford, which advocates say is a main driver of rising homelessness. Even where places are investing heavily to create more affordable housing, it will take a while to catch up. This Supreme Court case won't solve any of that, but it could dramatically shape the lives of those forced to live on streets, parks and back alleys for years to come.

Please God, deliver a hammer to the head of every American Supreme Court Justice or lawmaker in Grants Pass, Oregon

https://web.archive.org/web/20240210204325/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67411188

WASHINGTON — Just five minutes into a meeting with President Joe Biden, a Palestinian American doctor who has treated gravely injured patients in Gaza couldn’t bear to stay, so he left.

Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who specializes in emergency medicine, recalled getting emotional when talking about the many Palestinians he cared for, describing the scale of death in the six months since the war began.

“The decision to leave was a personal one,” he told NBC News in a phone interview, explaining he wanted to show the White House that “it was important to recognize the pain and the mourning that my community was in.”

Ahmad stressed that he wanted “to let the administration feel the way that we felt this past six months and kind of get up and walk away from them.”

He was one of only six Muslim American community leaders who attended a small meeting on Tuesday with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and senior administration officials at the White House.

Many others who had been invited to attend declined, according to multiple sources familiar with the outreach, underscoring the deepening tensions between the administration and the Muslim and Arab American communities over the president’s support of Israel in its bombardment of Gaza. More than 30,000 people have died, according to health officials, since Hamas’ terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 and the group is still holding more than 100 hostages captive.

Another doctor who attended was taken aback when she showed Biden prints of photos of malnourished children and women in Gaza — to which Biden responded that he had seen those images before. The problem, the doctor said, was that she had printed the photos from her own iPhone.

"This speaks volumes to the dismissive nature of the administration when it comes to strong-willed action towards a permanent cease-fire or, at a bare minimum, a red line on the invasion of Rafah," Dr. Nahreen H. Ahmed told NBC News.

Before leaving the meeting early, Ahmad handed a letter to the president from an 8-year-old orphan in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

“There is an incredible amount of urgency around this,” Ahmad said, expressing deep skepticism that Israel’s military campaign can be done “in a sophisticated or tactical way” that doesn’t put innocent civilians at risk.

During the 90-minute meeting, which took place behind closed doors, Biden told attendees that he will not call for a permanent cease-fire between Israel and Hamas until all the remaining hostages are released, according to two people familiar with his comments.

The president “listened respectfully,” a third source briefed on the meeting said, and pledged to continue working to “significantly increase” humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Throughout the discussion, other doctors who have spent time in Gaza spoke about their harrowing experiences, including the danger they experienced in trying to help others, a Muslim rights activist who attended the meeting said. They also showed Biden and Harris photos of injured patients, including children, the activist said.

Biden thanked the Muslim American community leaders for attending the meeting and acknowledged that many people had expressed concern about attending an event at the White House while so many Palestinians are suffering, these people said.

Salima Suswell, founder and chief executive of the Black Muslim Leadership Council, who attended the meeting at the White House, said she felt like Biden and Harris both listened closely to the attendees and understood their perspectives.

“I thought that it was important to accept the invitation to meet with the president, the vice president and their senior administration officials today, because I have been consistent regarding the importance of engagement,” Suswell said. “It was important for me to let the president know that Black Americans and Black Muslim Americans are deeply hurting about what is happening in Gaza.”

Harris also delivered remarks that reiterated Biden’s stance and seemed designed to soften criticism of Biden’s position on the war, namely that he values the U.S. relationship with Israel more than Palestinians. She said Biden was “sincere” in his concerns, according to an attendee. She told the group she sees how much the war and the civilian death toll are “weighing on” the president and insisted he is “doing absolutely everything that he can to put an end to this war.”

Biden said, according to one of the attendees, that if Israel tries to obstruct the ability to bring aid into Gaza, the U.S. will push back and advocate for more resources to be brought into the region.

Last Thursday, the United Nations’ highest court ordered Israel to open more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into Gaza after reports that the Israeli government was blocking lifesaving supplies from reaching the devastated enclave. Israeli officials have repeatedly denied obstructing aid from entering Gaza, and instead blame the U.N. for acute shortages of lifesaving supplies in the strip — particularly the north.

The president did not specify what the U.S. would do to ensure aid can be safely delivered, the attendee said.

Just this week, seven aid workers with disaster relief charity World Central Kitchen were killed by an Israeli airstrike, adding to the 200 who have already died since the war started in October. The aid group said its convoy was hit as it was leaving a warehouse in the Deir al-Balah area of central Gaza, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid that the charity had brought to Gaza by sea earlier in the day.

In the meeting, one attendee said it appeared Biden and Harris were careful not to discuss what is taking place behind the scenes to negotiate a possible six-week cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the attendee said.

After it concluded, the Muslim American community leaders departed and a small group of Muslim staffers participated in a scaled-back iftar dinner with Biden, Harris and other senior administration officials.

In years past, the White House hosted larger receptions related to Ramadan, including several Eid celebrations that attracted hundreds of guests and included public remarks from the president.

Several Arab American and Muslim American leaders rejected invitations in recent weeks, specifically citing their discomfort with participating in a celebration when so many in Gaza are facing starvation, two people who received invitations told NBC News.

“President Biden and Vice President Harris know this a deeply painful moment for many in the Muslim and Arab communities,” a White House official said. “President Biden made clear that he mourns the loss of every innocent life in this conflict.”

Senior White House officials and Biden campaign aides have attempted to meet with key members of Muslim and Arab American communities in recent months but have often received icy receptions.

“The president and vice president will continue to engage with Muslim and Arab American communities and listen to the voices of all impacted by this conflict,” the White House official said.

Ahmad, the doctor who left the meeting, said he plans to go back to Gaza soon and is “legitimately concerned that I may be killed in the process.”

If that happened, he said, “it’s hard to think” it could happen from a “2,000-pound bomb that the U.S. gave to Israel.”

“That my government would have had a hand in that, I just hate that,” he said. “That’s kind of the thoughts that are crossing my mind.”

Posting this because I'd think it'd be funny if Hexbear occasionally went down whenever it was cloudy outside but also because the magazine/site is cool.

lol @ the crisis message. i will continue making inflammatory comments thank you

(for context I said that in response to some dumbass thread on a /r/todayilearned post that essentially boiled down to some neckbeard arguing with me with 10 comments that "communism killed 200 bazillion people!!!")

It's been 8 years since I bought it and it still runs like a champ but ideally I'd like to actually utilize the 4k portion of my monitors.

Ideally I'd like to hit at least 16GB of VRAM since I'm of the opinion that if I'm gonna spend more than $500 on a graphics card, it better at least last the next decade of new releases gaming wise. My motherboard can probably stand an upgrade too since I have a bunch of unused USB-C ports due to the fact that the B550-F doesn't have any 3.1 headers.

Don't really have a budget but I'm posting this in the hopes someone will tell me "don't buy the 4080 super you idiot" and inform me of a better, cheaper, alternative

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obviously YES I will be running windows, linuxheads please remain calm

in my opinion the world should turn the whole island into glass mankind has suffered the british for far too long

In an investigation into mysterious illnesses in dairy cows in Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico, tests on unpasteurized milk and nasal swabs have revealed highly pathogenic avian flu in Kansas and Texas, according to a statement today from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).

The cow's symptoms included decreased milk production, low appetite, and other symptoms. APHIS said the infections were primarily seen in older dairy cows. The new development comes less than a week after Minnesota veterinary officials detected H5N1 avian flu in baby goats at a farm where the virus had been detected in a backyard poultry flock.

The Texas Department of Agriculture said today that the disease has been working its way through the Texas panhandle, puzzling the agriculture industry. It said the cows had flulike symptoms, including fever and thick and discolored milk.

Sporadic outbreaks continue to be reported in US poultry flocks, along with numerous H5N1 detections in a variety of wild birds across many states. Along with the unidentified illnesses, the farms had also reported dead wild birds on the properties. The virus was found in milk samples from sick cows at two dairy farms in Kansas and Texas and in an oropharyngeal sample from another dairy in Texas.

"Based on findings from Texas, the detections appear to have been introduced by wild birds," APHIS said, adding that initial testing by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, have found no changes that would make the virus more transmissible in humans.

they were right it was interesting

that's right i'm still on the glass kick. anglo-saxon glass shortages between the 7th and 9th centuries?? 9 ton glass slabs from the early islamic period??