COLUMBUS (WCMH) -- Police say a woman was shot in the upper chest at a store at Easton Town Center.
The victim, identified as Daneshia Elmore was taken to an area hospital in stable condition.
According to Columbus police, Elmore and the shooter, identified as Anikqua Williams knew each other. They met by chance at the PINK store and began arguing. During the fight, Williams pulled out a gun and shot Elmore, police said.
Police officers were on the scene within two minutes and arrested Williams. Easton Town Center’s management released the following statement about security at the mall. Graphic from archive, but you knew that.
Atlanta (CNN) Three people were arrested Friday in connection with a huge fire that caused part of an elevated interstate running through Atlanta to collapse, the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said.
Fire department spokesman Cortez Stafford said two men and one woman were arrested. Vagrancy laws, who needs them ?
The three are thought to be homeless, Georgia Deputy Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner Jay Florence said. Florence identified one suspect as Basil Eleby who was arrested on suspicion of first-degree criminal damage to property. Investigators think he started the fire intentionally, Florence said. Eleby is still in jail after being taken into custody. If convicted, he faces one to 10 years in prison.
Sophia Bruner and Barry Thomas face criminal trespassing charges, Florence said.
The mysterious fire, which started in a storage lot underneath the highway, caused the collapse of part of Interstate 85 northbound Thursday evening -- injuring no one -- and also damaged the southbound portion, forcing the closure of all five lanes in each direction for the foreseeable future.
#3
Why would there be a storage lot underneath a major highway? Can no one foresee that something like this might happen? Perhaps I'm too old and/or naive.
#4
Couple of folks elsewhere noted that there seemed to be a lot of PVC underground 'duct' (used for fiber optics) stored on spools under the overpass.
Checked Google's street-view timelines and the materials first showed up in April 2012. November 2011 shows the space empty.
The same spools and quantities remained in the most recent 'view' (November 2016). Doesn't look like any inventory changes occurred at the space over the last 5 years.
No real security, only a chain-link 'vehicle gate'. Anyone could step over the roadway bumper guards and gain access to the storage area.
If anyone is interested, check out 2123 Piedmont Rd NE, Atlanta, Ga. or Google Street View
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/01/2017 19:33 Comments ||
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HOUSTON (AP) -- The driver of a pickup truck that collided with a church minibus in rural Texas, killing 13 people, apologized after the crash and acknowledged he had been texting while driving, a witness said Friday.
Jody Kuchler told The Associated Press he was driving behind the truck and had seen it moving erratically prior to the Wednesday collision on a two-lane road about 75 miles west (120 km) of San Antonio, near the town of Concan. Kuchler said the truck had crossed the center line several times while he followed it.
Kuchler said he called the sheriff’s offices for both Uvalde and Real counties while he followed the truck and told them "they needed to get him off the road before he hit somebody."
Kuchler said he witnessed the crash and afterward, he checked on both the bus and the truck and was able to speak with the driver, who has been identified by the Texas Department of Public Safety as 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, of Leakey, Texas.
"He said, `I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was texting.’ I said, "Son, do you know what you just did? He said, `I’m sorry I’m sorry,"’ Kuchler quoted the pickup driver as saying.
Department of Public Safety Sgt. Conrad Hein declined to comment on Friday on the cause of the crash or if texting might have played a role. But officials have said the truck driver appeared to have crossed the center line.
[WSJ] KABUL-- John Allen’s war officially ended in 2002, only months after it began, when an enemy grenade blast sent the young Green Beret hurtling through a windshield.
Fifteen years later, he’s still in Afghanistan, holed up in a friend’s attic with a whiskey bottle and a piano for company. Mr. Allen is hoping to ride out the latest controversy surrounding his private security firm, which flared up when Afghan militiamen he was advising cut off the heads of four enemy fighters and put them on display.
The former Green Beret was helping mobilize the militia to target and kill commanders from the terrorist group Islamic State. At the time of the beheadings, in late 2015, a U.S. Special Forces team based in Nangarhar province was assisting Mr. Allen in his efforts. Islamic State had begun to lay roots there, sparking fears that Afghanistan would become another haven for the terrorist group like Syria, Iraq and Libya had.
After the ghastly display, Mr. Allen was told to drop his project. "You’re f---ing done," Mr. Allen said a U.S. Special Forces captain told him.
Afghanistan is full of U.S. veterans who served here in the early years of the war and returned to work as contractors, part of an industry worth billions of dollars. The U.S. Defense Department alone employs more than 9,000 U.S. contractors in Afghanistan to handle logistics, help train local forces and provide security.
Early on, there was little oversight over guns for hire before a series of scandals led then-President Hamid Karzai in 2010 to issue strict regulations that dramatically reduced the number of providers and scaled back their freedom to operate. The U.S. embassy and the command of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces here say the Wild West days are gone for good. Mr. Allen’s misadventures in Nangarhar show that the slow withdrawal from America’s longest-running war sometimes leaves loose ends--including soldiers who have spent so long at war that they don’t know how to go home.
The vets are prized in some military circles for their institutional knowledge--a counterweight to the short tours of duty for troops and diplomats who rotate in and out and barely get to know the country. They are free of the many restrictions that bind the military and U.S. embassy. The danger, of course, is what happens if they go rogue.
If anyone could navigate Afghanistan’s complex conflict it was Mr. Allen. The son of a military pilot, Mr. Allen arrived in Afghanistan as a Green Beret after the Sept. 11 terror attacks to fight the Taliban. In 2002, a grenade blast left him so badly injured that he spent over 18 months in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
Doctors warned he might never walk again. But Mr. Allen recovered enough to return to Afghanistan to set up a private military company, Four Horsemen International, or FHI, which provided wartime services for clients ranging from the Afghan government to the Central Intelligence Agency.
#1
Early on, there was little oversight over guns for hire before a series of scandals led then-President Hamid Karzai in 2010 to issue strict regulations that dramatically reduced the number of providers and scaled back their freedom to operate. The U.S. embassy and the command of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces here say the Wild West days are gone for good.
Note that this coincided with territorial losses to the Taliban. Bush chose Karzai. Nuff said.
Protesters stormed and set fire to Paraguay's Congress on Friday after the Senate secretly voted for a constitutional amendment that would allow President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election. The country's constitution has prohibited re-election since it was passed in 1992 after a brutal dictatorship fell in 1989.
"A coup has been carried out. We will resist and we invite the people to resist with us," said Senator Desiree Masi from the opposition Progressive Democratic Party.
Firefighters managed to control the flames after protesters left the Congress building late on Friday night. But protests and riots continued in other parts of Asuncion and elsewhere in the country well into the night, media reported.
Earlier, television images showed protesters breaking windows of the Congress and clashing with police, burning tires and removing parts of fences around the building. Police in riot gear fired tear gas and rubber bullets.
Several politicians and journalists were injured, media reported, and Interior Minister Tadeo Rojas said several police were hurt. One member of the lower house of Congress, who had been participating in protests that afternoon, underwent surgery after being hit by rubber bullets.
The number of casualties was unknown.
Cartes called for calm and a rejection of violence in a statement released on Twitter.
"Democracy is not conquered or defended with violence and you can be sure this government will continue to put its best effort into maintaining order in the republic," he said. "We must not allow a few barbarians to destroy the peace, tranquility and general well-being of the Paraguayan people."
How about the barbarians in the Senate who voted to undermine the people?
The people have a point here: in a land and continent where "banana republic" was frequently a reality, and where caudillos managed to repress and brutalize their people, the people put in place limits to power to ensure that, having finally gained a democratic republic, such things couldn't happen again. The people are a tad suspicious and a little wary.
The unrest coincides with a rare high-level international event in the landlocked South American country. Thousands of businessmen and government officials descended on Asuncion this week for the Inter-American Development Bank's annual board of governors meeting.
While Paraguay long suffered from political uncertainty, the soy- and beef-exporting nation has been attracting investment in agriculture and manufacturing sectors in recent years as Cartes offered tax breaks to foreign investors.
Instability in the country of 6.8 million is a concern for its much larger neighbors Brazil and Argentina.
And for the people of Paraguay...
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it was monitoring the events.
"I call on political leaders to avoid inciting violence and seek dialogue," the commission's regional representative for South America, Amerigo Incalcaterra, said in a statement.
Wrong call. Call instead for the Senate and the President to stop sneaking around.
The Senate voted earlier on Friday during a special session in a closed office rather than on the Senate floor. Twenty-five lawmakers voted for the measure, two more than the 23 required for passage in the 45-member upper chamber.
Opponents of the measure, who claim it would weaken Paraguay's democratic institutions, said the vote was illegal.
The proposal will also require approval by the House, where it appeared to have strong support. A vote which had been expected early on Saturday was called off until the situation calmed down, said the chamber's president, Hugo Velazquez.
Several Latin American countries, including Paraguay, Peru and Chile, prevent presidents from running for consecutive terms in a region where memories of dictatorships remain ripe.
Understandably...
Others, including Colombia and Venezuela, have changed their constitutions to give sitting presidents a chance at re-election.
For which you got Nick the Mad...
Paraguay's measure would apply to future presidents and Cartes, a soft-drink and tobacco mogul elected to a five-year term in 2013. His strongest backers want him to be allowed to run for another term, but critics have said a constitutional change aimed at benefiting a sitting president would be unfair.
The change would also apply to former President Fernando Lugo, whose supporters want to be allowed to run for another term. Congress ousted Lugo in 2012, saying he had failed in his duty to maintain social order following a bloody land eviction. The rapid impeachment drew strong criticism in Latin America, especially from fellow leftist governments.
A similar re-election proposal had been rejected in August and Congress this week voted to change the rules that required lawmakers to wait a year before voting again.
"Everything was done legally," said Senator Carlos Filizzola of the leftist Guasu Front coalition, which supports the constitutional amendment as a way of allowing Lugo to return as Paraguay's leader.
There's a fine statement that would have been sounded equally valid if enunciated in German in 1934...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/01/2017 10:05 ||
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[Free Beacon] White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer asked members of the White House press corps why they were "rushing to defend" a former Obama administration official during Friday's press briefing.
Spicer's comment came during an exchange with National Public Radio correspondent Tamara Keith, who asked about the relevance of recent comments made by Evelyn Farkas, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia until 2015.
Farkas said earlier this month that she urged Obama administration and Capitol Hill officials to gather information on Russian hacking before Trump took office to preserve intelligence.
Spicer responded to Keith by asking if she had asked Farkas about her comments.
"The question I would have to you is exactly, why is it? She says in her things I'm urging my colleagues, I'm urging it to get the Hill, but it's odd that the presumption seems to be why is it interesting? Have you asked her?" Spicer said to Keith.
Keith told Spicer she had not asked Farkas about the relevance of her comments.
After a brief exchange over the fact that Farkas was a "former" official, Spicer continued his line of questioning directed to a separate reporter.
#1
I think more to the point would be to ask why, after admitting she disseminated classified information and why she had access to it, is she now claiming she knows nothing. Someone told her she is in deep doodoo and she is trying to backpedal.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/01/2017 9:23 Comments ||
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[Right Scoop] 'The Hill' reports - Vice President Mike Pence returned to the Senate Thursday afternoon -- the second time in one day -- to cast a tie-breaking vote on legislation to undo an Obama-era regulation on funding for abortion providers.
Pence cast the deciding 51st vote in favor of nixing the rule, after the legislation stalled in a 50-50 tie.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) sided with Democrats to vote against repealing the Obama-era rule, prompting the need for the vice president to break the tie.
The vote marks the third time Pence has had to break a tie since becoming vice president.
Republicans are using the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to roll back some Obama-era regulations with a simple majority vote.
[FOX] FORT LAUDERDALE – The US Coast Guard can barely offload the cocaine it intercepts at sea before drug runners load up their go-fast boats and head toward U.S. shores.
This Tuesday, the crew of the Coast Guard’s newest Cutter, James, offloaded a record 16 tons of narcotic in Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades. Just two days later, the agency announced another cocaine bust, this time almost two tons near Puerto Rico.
“We’re averaging about 12 of these per month,” said Coast Guard Capt. Kevin Gavin. “As I like to say, unfortunately business is very good for us and I wish it wasn’t.”
[DAWN] KARACHI: A sessions court sentenced on Friday a man to death for killing his father.
Sharafat Ali was found guilty of stabbing his father Abdul Hameed after an exchange of hot words as the convict misbehaved with his mother in their house in an Orangi Town locality in January 2010.
The additional district and sessions judge (west), Ilimuddin Janwari, also imposed a fine of Rs200,000 and in case of default the convict would undergo six-month imprisonment.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2017 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat ...where rioting seems to be a traditional passtime... on Friday increased the punishment for cow slaughter from seven years to life imprisonment as Hindu hardliners push for tougher protections for the holy animal.
Under the stiffened penalties passed by Gujarat’s state assembly, anyone caught transporting cows for slaughter could also face up to 10 years in jail.
Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, and their slaughter is illegal in most states.
"A cow is not an animal. It is symbol of universal life," Gujarat law minister Pradipsinh Jadeja told the state’s assembly. "Anybody who does not spare the cow, the government will not spare him."
The amendment still needs the approval of the state governor, a formality all but assured, before becoming law.
Millions from India’s huge minority populations, including Moslems, Christians and lower-caste Hindus, eat beef, although it is not widely available.
But Modi’s ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, which recently won India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh in a landslide, has long campaigned for the protection of cows.
The BJP’s new chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, has launched a crackdown on abattoirs since taking office in March that has ground the state’s meat industry to a halt.
Hindu activists have long accused the Moslem-dominated meat industry of covering up the slaughter of cows and passing off the meat as buffalo, which are not revered as holy.
Cow slaughter is a hot-button issue in India, where even rumours of cows being transported can spark murderous reprisals and religious riots.
Squads of "cow protection" vigilantes are known to roam highways inspecting livestock trucks for any trace of the animal.
In 2015 a 50-year-old Moslem man accused of eating beef was dragged from his home in 2015 and beaten to death by a mob. Police later said it was mutton.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat on Friday increased the punishment for cow slaughter from seven years to life imprisonment as Hindu hardliners push for tougher protections for the holy animal.
Sounds like the Man-Made Climate Change proponents on the "Deniers"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2017 10:43 Comments ||
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[DAWN] A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket recovered at sea from its maiden flight last year blasted off again from Florida on Thursday in the first successful launch of a recycled orbital-class booster, then capped the feat with another return landing on an ocean platform.
The unprecedented twin achievements of re-launching a used rocket and salvaging the vehicle yet again were hailed by billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk as a revolutionary step in his quest to slash launch costs and shorten intervals between space shots.
"This is a huge day," Musk told news hounds after the launch. "My mind's blown." It took Space Exploration Technologies Corp, as the Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,-based company is formally known, 15 years to demonstrate that a rocket typically discarded in the ocean after a single flight could be recovered and reused.
The SpaceX chief executive said his next goal is to turn the booster around for relaunch in 24 hours, a milestone he said could be accomplished before the end of the year.
The potential is there for an over 100-fold reduction in the cost of access to space. If we can achieve that, it means humanity can become a space-faring civilization and be out there among the stars. This is what we want for the future, he said.
The Falcon 9 booster, which previously flew in April 2016, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 2227 GMT to put a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based SES SA.
The boosters main section then separated from the rest of the rocket and flew itself back to a landing pad in the Atlantic, where it successfully touched down for its second at-sea return.
"We made a little bit of history today ... opened the door into a whole new era of spaceflight, said Martin Halliwell the chief technology officer for SES, who joined Musk at the news conference.
SpaceX landed an orbital rocket after launch for the first time in December 2015, a feat it has now repeated eight times. The Falcon 9 booster launched for the company's 33rd mission on Thursday was also the first to make a successful return landing in the ocean.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2017 00:00 ||
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[TheHill] A State Department employee pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday after being charged in an FBI investigation, the Department of Justice announced. Candace Claiborne,
...who accepted gifts from Chinese agents for five years...
who worked in the Caucasus Affairs office of the State Department, is being charged for two felony offenses.
Claiborne is being charged with "obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the FBI, both felony offenses, for allegedly concealing numerous contacts that she had over a period of years with foreign intelligence agents," a Justice Department release said.
Claiborne, who has a top-secret security clearance, failed to disclose her foreign contacts abroad despite being required to do so. Boodle list HERE. Continues.
This article starring:
Candace Claiborne
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
04/01/2017 00:00 ||
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from professor Donna Riley's bio page at Smith (where she currently works)
My scholarship currently focuses on applying liberative pedagogies in engineering education, leveraging best practices from women's studies and ethnic studies to engage students in creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices. In 2005 I received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation to support this work, which includes developing, implementing, and assessing curricular and pedagogical innovations based on liberative pedagogies and student input at Smith, and understanding how students at Smith conceptualize their identities as engineers. I seek as an engineering educator to be part of a paradigm shift that these pedagogies demand, repositioning concerns about diversity in science and engineering from superficial measures of equity as headcounts, to addressing justice and the genuine engagement of all students as core educational challenges. Apparently this is not a satire.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/01/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
"If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war."
Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983
#4
Raj :yep, that's some serious word salad right there.
So... can we assume that the Purdue engineering students won't be allowed to learn all of that ucky white patriarchy stuff like math, physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, statics, dynamics, electromagnetism, etc., etc., etc?
SpaceX recruiter: "Have you had much exposure to basic rocket engine design?"
Purdue grad: "How hard can it be? I'll just Google it."
#5
SpaceX recruiter: "Have you had much exposure to basic rocket engine design?"
Purdue Grad: Thats { racist | sexist | islamophobic | homophobic | moronophobic } !!!!! I'll sue because my feelings are hurt!
#7
...creating a democratic classroom that encourages all voices
YJCMTSU! The bio page at Smith College: Donna Riley, AssocProf. of Engineering..
Pseudo-Marxist drivel, assuming that dogma can reshape reality through the magic of reification.
Don't hire grads from SJW colleges. The angry parents who paid tens of thousands for an unemployable HR-nightmare will do your work for you in reforming academia. Also, don't forgive student loans for unemployable SJW degrees
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2017 18:05 Comments ||
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#10
I'm afraid it isn't drivel. It requires a little translation, but the meaning is quite clear: "Ya'll are screwed up. I'm here to teach you goodthink. When the miracles don't happen, that will just prove how much you need me."
Posted by: james ||
04/01/2017 19:05 Comments ||
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#11
''This can't be real, Mitch Daniels is still President, seriously, I can't believe this
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
COLUMBUS (WCMH) -- Police say a woman was shot in the upper chest at a store at Easton Town Center.
Atlanta (CNN) Three people were arrested Friday in connection with a huge fire that caused part of an elevated interstate running through Atlanta to collapse, the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said.
HOUSTON (AP) -- The driver of a pickup truck that collided with a church minibus in rural Texas, killing 13 people, apologized after the crash and acknowledged he had been texting while driving, a witness said Friday.
[Right Scoop] 'The Hill' reports - Vice President Mike Pence returned to the Senate Thursday afternoon -- the second time in one day -- to cast a tie-breaking vote on legislation to undo an Obama-era regulation on funding for abortion providers.
