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Your Blend of Morning News and Coffee.
Thursday, March 25, 2021
News Thread.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Open Daily Thread. Post any stories you like.
Yes you have to use disqus but if there is a story you would like to post or submitted just put the URL in the comment section in disqus.
Friday, December 25, 2020
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Donald Trump Pardons Former K-9 Officer Who Set Police Dog on Homeless Suspect Who'd Surrendered
President Donald Trump issued pardons to more than two dozen people this week, and among them was a former K-9 police officer who served a decade in prison after she released her police dog on a homeless suspect after he surrendered, resulting in a leg wound that required stitches.
Stephanie Mohr, a canine handler for the Prince George’s County Police Department in Maryland, received a full pardon on Wednesday from Trump, 25 years after her crime.
“She served 10 years in prison for releasing her K-9 partner on a burglary suspect in 1995, resulting in a bite wound requiring ten stitches,” the White House said in a statement. “Officer Mohr was a highly commended member of the police force prior to her prosecution. Today’s action recognizes that service and the lengthy term that Ms. Mohr served in prison.”
Mohr was convicted by a federal jury in 2001 of violating the man’s civil rights, as she set her dog on him after he surrendered, according to the Associated Press and the Washington Post.
The conviction came as the Prince George’s County Police Department faced an investigation by the Justice Department, as well as multiple lawsuits alleging police brutality, the Post reported.
Rural community reflects Black American unease, challenges with COVID-19 vaccines
"If [the vaccine] came out today, I would not take it," said Lonzo Bullie, a retired school principal who has called Tuskegee, Alabama, home for 26 years. "I'm still reluctant … because I do not have enough information on it."
The two FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines are more than 95% effective at preventing symptomatic illness, and side effects reported are minor. The trials -- which included more than 30,000 volunteers each -- demonstrated that the vaccines work equally well among people of all races and ethnicities.
But Bullie, who's also president of the Tuskegee-Macon County branch of the NAACP, said that skepticism about the vaccine within the African American community stems from "the history of the United States government experimenting on Black people" and years of "mistreatment."
Tuskegee, where Bullie resides, is ground zero for the infamous 1930s syphilis study. The U.S. Public Health study at the Tuskegee Institute, which recruited 600 Black men, was meant to record the natural progression of syphilis infection, but the researchers did not inform the participants nor did they ask for their consent. The study lasted 40 years and left an indelible mark on the Black community.
Santa’s ‘grandchildren’ spread joy in Italian nursing homes
ALZANO LOMBARDO, Italy (AP) — Emotions are running high this holiday season at the Martino Zanchi Foundation nursing home in northern Italy near Bergamo after months of near-total isolation for its residents.
Long-time resident Celestina Comotti was disbelieving as a staff member read aloud a Christmas greeting from a family peering at her expectantly over a video call.
“Damn!” Comotti exclaimed when nursing home staff confirmed that her well-wishers - 9-year-old Simon, his sister Marta and mother Alessia - were people she had never met before. The 81-year-old woman dissolved into tears.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
California desperately searches for more nurses and doctors
A cardiac intensive care nurse from Washington, D.C., with expertise in heart rhythm, airway and pain management, her skills are in great demand as infections and hospitalizations skyrocket nationwide. Houze is among more than 500 nurses, doctors and other medical staff California has brought in and deployed to hospitals that are running out of capacity to treat the most severe COVID-19 cases.
Her six-week assignment started Monday in San Bernardino, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, and she anticipates working 14-hour shifts with a higher-than-usual caseload. San Bernardino County has 1,545 people in hospitals and more than 125 are in makeshift “surge" beds, which are being used because regular hospital space isn't available.
“I expect patients to die. That’s been my experience: they die, I put them in body bags, the room gets cleaned and then another patient comes,” Houze said.
Monday, December 21, 2020
Vatican: OK to get virus vaccines using abortion cell lines
VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican on Monday declared that it is “morally acceptable” for Roman Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines based on research that used fetal tissue from abortions.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's watchdog office for doctrinal orthodoxy, said it addressed the question after receiving several requests for “guidance” during recent months. The doctrine office noted that bishops, Catholic groups and experts have offered “diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements” on the matter.
Drawing on Vatican pronouncements in past years about developing vaccines prepared from cells derived from aborted fetuses, the watchdog office issued a statement it said Pope Francis had examined last week and ordered to be made public.
The Catholic Church’s teaching says that abortion is a grave sin.
The Vatican concluded that “it is morally acceptable to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have used cell lines from aborted fetuses” in the research and production process when “ethically irreproachable” vaccines aren’t available to the public. But it stressed that the “licit” uses of such vaccines “does not and should not in any way imply that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses."
Sunday, December 20, 2020
Lawmakers reach COVID-19 relief deal
Top congressional lawmakers announced a roughly $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill on Sunday, just hours ahead of a government shutdown deadline -- a deal nearly nine months in the making.
"Moments ago, the four leaders of the Senate and the House finalized an agreement. It will be another major rescue package for the American people," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor Sunday night. "For the information of all Senators and more importantly for the American people, we can finally report what our nation has needed to hear for a very long time: more help is on the way."
"As our citizens continue battling this coronavirus this holiday season, they will not be fighting alone," McConnell said. "Now we need to promptly finalize the text, avoid any last-minute obstacles and cooperate to move this legislation through both chambers."
House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer informed the caucus that they will vote on a one-day stopgap funding bill Sunday night in order to avert a government shutdown, per Democratic aides.
A final vote on the spending bill and COVID-19 relief bill will be on Monday in the House, before it heads to the Senate.
Saturday, December 19, 2020
McDonald's China releasing Oreo, Spam burger for limited time
Here’s a mash-up nobody asked for.
McDonald’s will be releasing a Spam burger topped with Oreos in China next week.
The fast food chain announced the limited-time menu item on Chinese social media platform Weibo earlier this week.
On Friday, video game analyst Daniel Ahmad tweeted pictures of the "Oreo x Spam" burger, which shows a layer of crumbled Oreos on top of two slices of Spam.
Friday, December 18, 2020
Trump has discussed rebooting 'The Apprentice' as he prepares to leave the White House, according to a report
President Trump has told aides that he is open to reviving 'The Apprentice,' according to a report.
Trump has privately floated the idea of rebooting the reality TV show, The Daily Beast report, in the latest indication hat he has accepted his defeat to Joe Biden more than he has publicly acknowledged.
He reportedly asked aides questions like "How would you like to see The Apprentice come back?" and "Remember The Apprentice?"
The outgoing president continues to claim without evidence that widespread voter fraud cost him the November election.
Trump's move to his Florida estate challenged by neighbor
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- President Donald Trump's expected move to his Mar-a-Lago club after he leaves office next month is being challenged by a lawyer who says a 1990s agreement allowing Trump to convert the Florida property into a business prohibits anyone from living there, including him.
Attorney Reginald Stambaugh sent a letter this week to the Town of Palm Beach saying he represents a neighbor who doesn't want the president to take up residence at the 17-acre property because it would decrease the area's property values. He also asserts that a microwave security barrier operated by the Secret Service is harming his client, who he says is exhibiting symptoms of microwave exposure. He did not give the client's name.
The president and first lady Melania Trump changed their legal residence from New York City to Palm Beach last year. Stambaugh says that violates the 1993 agreement between Trump and the town that allowed him to turn Mar-a-Lago from a private home into a club that has 10 guest rooms for rent.
Monday, December 14, 2020
Venezuela wields a powerful “hate” law to silence Maduro’s remaining foes
SAN JOSÉ DE GUANIPA, Venezuela–Francisco Belisario, a Venezuelan mayor, retired general and member of the ruling Socialist party, had enough. His loudest local critic had accused him of bungling the response to the coronavirus outbreak and other big problems.
In August, he wrote a state prosecutor and requested an “exhaustive investigation” of his nemesis, Giovanni Urbaneja, a former lawmaker who had become a gadfly to the mayor and other Socialist officeholders. Urbaneja, Belisario wrote in a letter reviewed by Reuters, was conducting a “ferocious smear campaign” on Facebook and elsewhere.
Urbaneja not only defamed him and President Nicolás Maduro, the mayor wrote. He violated Venezuela’s Law Against Hate. The law, passed in 2017 but rarely used before this year, criminalizes actions that “incite hatred” against a person or group. Charge Urbaneja with hate crimes, the mayor implored the prosecutor.
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