[THEPOSTMILLENNIAL] A $9 million lawsuit has been filed against Portland ...a formerly lovely city in Oregon, governed by an unholy alliance of communists, anarchists, and incompetents. In 2017 the city was named as the fifth most business-friendly in the nation. It took only three years for the city to degenerate to the point where it became a national embarrassment, with antifa and Black Lives Matter bullying taxpayers and occasionally shooting one as an example to the others... Public Schools after a then-third-grade female student was allegedly raped by two male students in a school bathroom.
The suit, filed in March in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleged that the school as well as a non-profit after-school program had failed to protect the girl, who was 9 years old at the time, after a series of sexual assault incidents, according to KATU 2.
In the 2021-22 school year, the girl attended Scott Elementary School in NE Portland as well as a Schools Uniting Neighborhoods after-school program run by the Latino Network.
The lawsuit claimed that the girl had been the victim of multiple incidents of nonconsensual sexual touching by male students both at school and at the after-school program. One of these incidents reportedly involved a boy touching her genital area over her clothing while a teacher was present.
A second male student touched the girl in March 2022, with the female student reportedly trying to protect herself by punching him in the face.
The lawsuit stated that staff at Scott Elementary were made aware of the incident and both the girl and the male student were suspended. The girl’s father was reportedly told that they would make a "safety plan" for her.
The lawsuit said that in April 2022, two male classmates in the after-school program threatened the female student and told her to tell staff members she needed to use the restroom.
She complied and went to the restroom, with the lawsuit alleging that the two male students followed her, locked her in a stall, removed her clothing, and took turns raping her. She attempted to escape and told the male students to stop, but they blocked the door to stop her from leaving while "smiling."
"After the incident, Plaintiff rinsed her mouth with water to wash the germs from the unwanted kissing out of her mouth," the lawsuit stated.
Portland Public Schools and Schools Uniting Neighborhoods allegedly failed to notify law enforcement of the incident after they were notified, instead launching an "internal investigation" which included interviewing the girl without alerting police or her guardians about the attack.
The victim’s father became aware of the attack in the days following and was allegedly told that the male students would remain in the school under a "safety plan," as they had a different lunch period than the victim.
The father unenrolled his daughter from Scott Elementary, while the students received a one-day suspension and were allowed to remain. She was eventually enrolled in another school.
The student has suffered "emotional trauma, pain, suffering, emotional distress, shame, embarrassment, social anxiety, difficulty with concentration, academic setbacks, diminished self-esteem and sense of security, mistrust in the intentions of others, and post-traumatic stress disorder," the lawsuit stated.
The girl’s father reportedly took her to a children’s hospital as well as a child abuse program after the attack, and staff there confirmed that there was both physical and mental evidence of physical and sexual abuse.
The lawsuit claimed that the defendants were "negligent," failing to teach children about "appropriate sexual boundaries," failing to train Portland Public Schools employees to recognize and prevent child sexual abuse, failing to monitor the behavior of students, and "causing the Plaintiff to feel that if she protected herself from unwanted sexual contact, she would be punished by way of reprimand and/or school suspension," among other allegations.
Sydney Kelly, a Portland Public Schools spokesperson, told the outlet, "The district learned of these new allegations last week when we received the lawsuit, and we are investigating. We are mandatory news hounds, meaning we must report any instance of possible child abuse and neglect. We take our responsibilities as mandatory news hounds seriously and follow the law around reporting."
Latino Network wrote, "We take the allegations very seriously and are working with our legal representation to provide counsel to our organization. We want to affirm that the allegations of sexual assault are not directed towards any current or former Latino Network staff member."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2024 10:13 ||
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#5
Child predators are consistently assessed as highly recidivist by most reputable mental health clinicians. The best solution to child predators remains housing in the general population of incarcerated felons, especially those with large Aryan Nation sections.
[REDSTATE] A Boston, Massachusetts, hospital announced on Tuesday that after finding black mothers were more likely to be reported to authorities for child abuse and neglect if a toxicology report came back positive, it would take steps to reevaluate its process to avoid perpetuating "structural racism."
It’s the nonprofit Mass General Brigham.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
I should think white mothers more likely to be similarly reported with positive toxicology reports. But 'equity' trumps babies...
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Dominic O'Brien, 66, from London, appeared on This Morning today to share the handy tips he used to win the World Memory Championships a record eight times.
So spectacular is Dominic's memory that he was entered into the Guinness Book of Records in 2002 for memorising 54 packs of cards after peering at each card just once.
Speaking to hosts Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary, the mnemonist - a person with the ability to remember and recall unusually long lists of data - advised people to ward off dementia by playing digital games, instruments and committing to regular exercise.
He also explained how he keeps his memory 'sharp' in his sixties: 'I play games every day. I do Sudoku, I do WordAll, I do connections - you know the grid with a four by four on TV.
'I also do spelling bees, crosswords... I try and do them as quickly as possible. Occasionally I'll try to memorise a deck of cards if it's possible. It's to keep the wheels turning sort of thing.
'Physical exercise as well. I do a lot of walking and playing physical instruments. The piano is very good for memory and so are brass instruments.
'For executive functions and general skills - it's more singing and woodwind instruments. It's better if you start early with an instrument but never too late to start'.
The former memory champion added that when competing he trained his mind for three hours a day. However he claimed that regular citizens needed just '10 to 15 minutes' of practice per day.
Dominic, who has also authored various memory-related books, warned viewers to do these activities in order to fend off dementia, which he labelled as the 'biggest killer now in the UK'.
He said: 'There's research coming out of York university - they talk about playing digital games and you know exercising your memory.
'Keeping the wheels turning here [in the mind] and playing digital games is very good for senior citizens as well'... keep an active mind. Use it or lose it'.
Dominic also shared that he began training his memory at age 30 after becoming interested in classic card game Bridge.
Coming from a long line of Bridge players, he developed his interest into memorising whole packs of cards.
He would later go on to acquire a place in the Guinness Book of Records for memorising a random sequence of 2808 playing cards (54 packs).
[FoxNews] East Coast residents felt the earth move Friday morning as a minor earthquake hit New Jersey and was felt in surrounding areas, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
The earthquake measured at least 4.8 magnitude and struck near Lebanon, New Jersey, at 10:23 a.m., about 45 miles west of New York City and 50 miles north of Philadelphia, according to the USGS. An estimate indicates the quake might have been felt by more than 42 million people in 14 states from Maine to North Carolina. More than 152,000 Americans reported feeling shaking to the USGS.
"Our region just experienced an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.7, with an epicenter near Readington in Hunterdon County," New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. "We have activated our State Emergency Operations Center. Please do not call 911 unless you have an actual emergency."
AFTERSHOCKS ABOUND
Around 6 Friday evening, folks in New Jersey, New York City's five boroughs and Connecticut felt a 4.0 magnitude aftershock that was recorded four miles southwest of Gladstone, New Jersey, according to the USGS.
So far, the USGS said 11 aftershocks have been recorded since Friday morning's initial 4.8 rattler.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/06/2024 12:31 Comments ||
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#5
Is something biblical happening, God telling us He has had enough?
1. "(New York Post) – […] Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey was at the epicenter of the 4.8-magnitude that rattled the New York City area on Friday."
2. The Statue of Liberty is hit by V=shaped bolt of lightening:
3. For the first time in 221 years, two broods of cicadas (not locusts) that spend the vast majority of their lives underground will emerge, invading backyards in 17 states.Jan 20, 2024
[All Africa] In his first speech to the nation since his election as president of Senegal ... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... , Bassirou Diomaye Faye said one of his first policy moves would be to audit the country's oil, gas and mining sectors to root out corruption.
"The exploitation of our natural resources, which according to the constitution belong to the people, will receive particular attention from my government," said Faye in the president's traditional speech given the day before the country's independence day.
"I will proceed with the disclosure of the effective ownership of extractive companies [and] with an audit of the mining, oil, and gas sector."
Senegal's first offshore oil development is due to start production in the middle in this year.
The Sangomar oil and gas project, operated by the Australian Woodside Energy is expected to produce about 100,000 barrels per day.
Faye, a former tax inspector who defeated the ruling coalition's candidate by a landslide in last month's presidential election, also sought to reassure investors, who he said are "welcome in Senegal".
"Investor rights will always be protected, as well as the interests of the state and the people," he said.
The 44-year-old pan-Africanist has become the youngest leader ever in charge of Senegal, and the youngest currently in power in Africa.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A huge bridge said to be big enough for a column of tanks to cross is set to spring up in Panama in one of the most dangerous migrant crossing points in the world.
According to reports, the structure is being built in Yaviza which sits on the Rio Chuconaco - the separation point between Central and South America and one of the most southerly points reachable by roads from North America.
Until now, the Pan-American highway - which weaves through central America towards South America - has ended in Yaviza, which sits on the edge of the 100-mile Darien Gap - a dense, lawless jungle between Panama and Colombia.
Millions of migrants brave the Darien Gap every year but are forced to mostly undertake the journey on foot, facing perilous river crossings, wild animals and even violent criminal gangs that extort, kidnap and abuse them.
According to a report by the US-based Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), that could be about to change with the construction of the new bridge across the Rio Chuconaco that could see the highway extended further south.
This would undoubtedly make the crossing safer for the millions of migrants who travel up from South America with the ultimate goal of reaching the United States.
However, news of the bridge's construction has raised a puzzling question: Who is funding the construction of the bridge, and what do they stand to gain?
According to Michael Yon, an American writer and photographer, one possible benefactor is China.
According to figures released in February this year, over seven million migrants have crossed America's southern border under the Joe Biden administration.
The total does not include an estimated 1.8 million known 'gotaways' who managed to evade law enforcement, either.
The issue of migration has long been a divisive topic in the US, and a divided America is of great benefit to the powers Beijing, with China being the US's main economic rival and key rival global superpower.
It is easy to see, therefore, why China could have an interest in aiding the passage of migrants from South American to America's southern border.
Another reason, however, could be Chinese migrants themselves.
Although the majority of migrants making the treacherous journey north from South America tend to be from countries such as Haiti and Venezuela hoping for a new life in the United States, the numbers of Chinese migrants has soared in recent years.
Figures show that authorities in Panama counted 15,000 Chinese migrants in 2023, almost eight times as many than in the same period in 2022, and more than 40 times the number seen in 2021, according to the Daily Star.
What's more, between January and September 2023, US border officials detained more than 22,000 Chinese nationals attempting to enter from Mexico.
With its Belt and Road initiative, the Chinese government is also known to be funding infrastructure projects across the globe.
Panama is among the initiative's 150 member countries, while Colombia is understood to be considering joining Belt and Road.
Speaking on a podcast hosted by American screenwriter and television producer Shawn Ryan, Michael Yon said: 'Nobody says who's putting the money in it.'
This, he said, 'indicates to me it's China – because China has a way of doing this.
'But I keep asking government people who's actually paying for this, and nobody seems to know,' he said.
According to CBN correspondent Chuck Holton who visited the construction site, the initial plan for the bridge and the new road is to connect villages in the region.
He spoke to Lead Bridge Engineer Manuel Pinilla, who told the American network: 'This area is rich in fertile soil, predominantly used for farming activities like raising livestock and growing tubers, among other crops.
Transportation is solely by boat along the river, often requiring four to five hours of travel upstream or downstream. However, with this project, they'll have a more accessible link, potentially leading to significant development.'
However, Holton told CBN that from the size of the construction project 'it looks like the builders may have other plans in the future' to continue the road.
'And if that's the case, that could change everything from an economic standpoint, a political standpoint, and from the standpoint of migration here in the Western Hemisphere,' he said.
News of the bridge's construction came as Human Rights Watch on Wednesday accused Colombia and Panama of failing to do enough to protect the hundreds of thousands of US-bound migrants crossing the Darien Gap.
'Whatever the reason for their journey, migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Darien Gap are entitled to basic safety and respect for their human rights along the way,' HRW's Americas director Juanita Goebertus said in a statement.
'Colombian and Panamanian authorities can and should do more to ensure the rights of migrants and asylum seekers crossing their countries, as well as of local communities that have experienced years of neglect,' she added.
Despite the dangers, the Darien Gap has become a key corridor for migrants hoping to reach the United States.
In 2023, a record 520,000 people crossed the jungle, according to the Panamanian government.
In its 110-page report, HRW said Colombia 'lacks a clear strategy' to protect those crossing the gap, with limited government presence leaving them exposed to the Gulf Clan, a drug trafficking cartel and major player in the migrant business.
Panama, meanwhile, focuses more on restricting movement and rushing migrants through to Costa Rica, rather than 'addressing their needs or ensuring that they can exercise their right to seek asylum.'
The NGO reported that on both sides of the border, authorities were not doing enough to investigate and punish violations such as pervasive sexual abuse or look for missing people.
Since 2021, there have been more than 1,500 reports of sexual violence in the Darien Gap, but the real number is likely to be higher, HRW said.
Dozens, possibly hundreds, of people have lost their lives trying to cross or are missing in the region, it said.
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#6
If I was gonna invade the US, I'd want to land forces a whole lot closer than Panama.
Actually, I think Columbia is the one who should be worried here. Bridges lead both ways.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/06/2024 9:54 Comments ||
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#7
Wow DM. Wide enough for a whole column. Outstanding work.
[FoxNews] German software developer Andres Freund was running some detailed performance tests last month when he noticed odd behavior in a little known program. What he found when he investigated has sent shudders across the software world and drawn attention from tech executives and government officials.
Freund, who works for Microsoft out of San Francisco, discovered that the latest version of the open source software program XZ Utils had been deliberately sabotaged by one of its developers, a move that could have carved out a secret door to millions of servers across the internet.
Security experts say it’s only because Freund spotted the change before the latest version of XZ had been widely deployed that the world was spared a digital security crisis.
"We really dodged a bullet," said Satnam Narang, a security researcher with Tenable who has been tracking the fallout from the find. "It is one of those moments where we have to wipe our brow and say, ‘We were really lucky with this one.’"
The near-miss has refocused attention on the safety of open source software – free, often volunteer-maintained programs whose transparency and flexibility mean they serve as the foundation for the internet economy.
Many such projects depend on a tiny circle of unpaid volunteers fighting to get out from under a pile of demands for fixes and upgrades.
XZ, a suite of file compression tools packaged into distributions of the Linux operating system, was long maintained by a single author, Lasse Collin.
In recent years, he appeared to be under strain.
In a message posted to a public mailing list in June 2022, Collin said he was dealing with "longterm mental health issues" and hinted that he working privately with a new developer named Jia Tan and that "perhaps he will have a bigger role in the future."
Update logs available through the open source software site Github show that Tan’s role quickly expanded. By 2023 the logs show Tan was merging his code into XZ, a sign that he had won a trusted role in the project. But cybersecurity experts who’ve scoured the logs say that Tan was masquerading as a helpful volunteer. Over the next few months, they say, Tan introduced a nearly invisible backdoor into XZ.
Oh dear.
Collin didn’t return messages seeking comment and said on his website that he would not respond to reporters until he understood the situation well enough to do so.
Tan did not return messages sent to his Gmail account. Reuters has been unable to ascertain who Tan is, where he is, or who he was working for, but many of those who've examined his updates believe Tan is a pseudonym for an expert hacker or group of hackers -- likely one working on behalf of a powerful intelligence service.
Is it the Russians? Or perhaps China? Jia Tan doesn’t sound like a Russian name…
"This is not kindergarten stuff," said Omkhar Arasaratnam, the general manager of the Open Source Security Foundation, which works to defend projects like XZ. "This is incredibly sophisticated."
Tan could easily have gotten away with it had it not been for Freund, the Microsoft developer, whose curiosity was piqued when he noticed the latest version of XZ intermittently using an unexpected amount of processing power on the system he was testing.
Microsoft declined to make Freund available for an interview, but in publicly-available emails and posts to social media, Freund said a series of easy-to-miss clues prompted him to discover the backdoor. The find "really required a lot of coincidences," Freund said on the social network Mastodon.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella congratulated Freund over the weekend, saying in a post to the social network X that he loved seeing how the developer, "with his curiosity and craftsmanship, was able to help us all."
In the open source community, the discovery has been sobering. The volunteers who maintain the software that underpins the internet aren't strangers to the idea of little pay or recognition, but the realization that they were now being hunted by well-resourced spies pretending to be Good Samaritans was "incredibly intimidating," said Arasaratnam, of the Open Source Security Foundation.
Government officials are also weighing the implications of the near-miss, which has underlined concerns about how to protect open source software. Assistant National Cyber Director Anajana Rajan told Politico that "there’s a lot of conversations that we need to have about what we do next" to protect open source code."
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says it has been leaning on U.S. companies that use open source software to plow resources back into the communities that build and maintain it. CISA adviser Jack Cable told Reuters the burden was on tech companies not just to vet open software but to "contribute back and help build the sustainable open source ecosystem that we get so much value from."
It’s not clear that software companies are properly incentivized to do so. Online open source mailing lists are teeming with complaints about tech giants demanding that volunteers troubleshoot issues with open source software those companies use to make billions of dollars.
Whatever the solution, almost everyone agrees the XZ episode shows something has to change.
"We got unreasonably lucky here," said Freund in another Mastodon post. "We can't just bank on that going forward."
#1
The USA alphabet agencies would never consider using the name Jia Tan to throw shade on the origin of a fresh back door /s. I’m getting pretty cynical these days …
[BLS.gov] Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 303,000 in March, and the unemployment rate little at 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, government, and construction.
In March, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 12 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $34.69 [just about keeping up with inflation].
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for January was revised up by 27,000, from +229,000 to +256,000, and the change for February was revised down by 5,000, from +275,000 to +270,000.
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/06/2024 00:00 ||
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"Behind Today's Stellar Jobs Print: It Was Literally ALL Part-Time Jobs (And Illegals)"
[BBC via Gateway] A federal appeals court blocked one of Joe Biden’s student loan bailout programs.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday blocked Biden’s plan to cancel loans for borrowers who claim they were victims of ’misleading information’ by colleges.
A three-judge panel — one Reagan appointee and two Trump appointees — said Biden’s program was ’almost certainly unlawful.’
ABC News reported:
A Biden administration plan to provide student debt relief for people who say they were victims of misleading information by trade schools or colleges is "almost certainly unlawful" a federal appeals court said in a ruling blocking enforcement of the policy against a group of privately owned Texas institutions.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ruling, dated Thursday, came in a court challenge filed by Career Colleges and Schools of Texas. The panel sent the case back to a lower court, saying the judge should issue an injunction against enforcement while the appeal continues.
At issue are rules that broadened existing policy, affecting students who borrowed money to attend colleges and universities that are determined to have misled them on matters such as whether their courses would actually prepare them for employment in their field or the likely salary they would earn upon obtaining a degree. According to the opinion, if a federal student loan is discharged under the policy, the government can seek reimbursement from the school accused of the misleading practices.
Biden has used a series of workarounds to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down his student loan bailout program.
Last year the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against Joe Biden’s student loan relief program so the Department of Education rolled out a workaround forbearance program to cancel $39 billion in student loans by counting non-payments as payments for a period of time.
Only it isn’t your typical forbearance program. Borrowers won’t have to pay back ’missed’ payments or make up the difference of ’reduced’ payments. No interest will accrue on any of the missed payments.
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That's whole game of graft. We convince the hicks that we'll sock it to the rich, then turn around and write these loopholes so the rich will give us money for reelection to protect their money. "Fair Share" is never defined just a term to use to fuel envy and hatred and to scare the plutocrats to bribe us.
You don't need as much taxes if you don't have as much government.
#5
Get spending under control (yeah, I know) and the tax problem solves itself.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/06/2024 10:53 Comments ||
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#6
Hey! DC Swamp.
Want to do something for the TAXPAYERS?
You're kidding, right?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/06/2024 12:05 Comments ||
Top||
#7
irish+rage+boy last year I paid 25% of my salary in federal income tax. I paid fuel tax, property tax, sales tax. There is also a portion of what I pay for telephone and internet that goes to the feds. I had to pay tax on my social security last year and this year even though that money had already been taxed.
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.
...a formerly lovely city in Oregon, governed by an unholy alliance of communists, anarchists, and incompetents. In 2017 the city was named as the fifth most business-friendly in the nation. It took only three years for the city to degenerate to the point where it became a national embarrassment, with antifa and Black Lives Matter bullying taxpayers and occasionally shooting one as an example to the others...
[FoxNews] German software developer Andres Freund was running some detailed performance tests last month when he noticed odd behavior in a little known program. What he found when he investigated has sent shudders across the software world and drawn attention from tech executives and government officials.
