A team searching the basement of a Mississippi courthouse for evidence about the lynching of Black teenager Emmett Till has found the unserved warrant charging a white woman in his 1955 kidnapping, and relatives of the victim who initiated the hunt want authorities to finally arrest her nearly 70 years later.

A warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham – identified as “Mrs Roy Bryant” on the document – was discovered last week inside a file folder that had been placed in a box, the Leflore county circuit clerk, Elmus Stockstill, told the Associated Press (AP) on Wednesday.

Documents are kept inside boxes by decade, he said, but there was nothing else to indicate where the warrant, dated 29 August 1955, might have been.

“They narrowed it down between the 50s and 60s and got lucky,” said Stockstill, who certified the warrant as genuine.

The search was started by the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and included two members of Till’s family: cousin Deborah Watts, head of the Foundation, and her daughter, Teri Watts. They want authorities to use the warrant to arrest Donham, who at the time of the slaying was married to one of two white men tried and acquitted just weeks after Till was abducted from a relative’s home, killed and dumped into a river.

“Serve it and charge her,” Teri Watts told the AP in an interview.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/29/emmett-till-warrant-carolyn-bryant-donham-family-arrest

She lied and Emmett Till died.

As a Black woman playing fingerstyle guitar, Yasmin Williams has been hailed as a "hero for a new generation." She says she often felt like an anomaly- until she discovered a YouTube video of Elizabeth Cotten.

"I knew about Sister Rosetta Tharpe and other kind of more rock and roll or electric players and singers and I loved them too, but just seeing an acoustic guitarist was amazing." But when Williams tried to learn more about Cotten she discovered that most accounts of her life skipped over the hardships she overcame, focusing only on her late-career success.

Cotten was born in Chapel Hill, N.C. around 1893. Her father worked in the mines. Her mother cleaned houses. When Cotten's brother was off at work, Sis Nevills, as she was called then, snuck into his room and took his guitar off the wall. Since she was left-handed, she turned it so the bass strings were at the bottom, therefore "backwards." She used her thumb to play the melody and her fingers for the low notes.

When Cotten's brother discovered her playing, he tried to offer advice, "'You got it upside down, turn it around or change the strings." She tried but liked the sound better the other way, so she kept with it, practicing for hours on end. After the third grade, Cotten left school to work. Making 75 cents a month cleaning houses and cooking, she saved up to buy her guitar. Cotten picked up new songs after hearing them only once or twice, and wrote her songs, including "Freight Train."

Cotten was married in her mid-teens and had a daughter. A pastor discouraged her from playing "wordly" songs. But by the mid-1940s she had left the church and her marriage and she was living with family in Washington, D.C. when she applied for a job at a local department store, where she was hired to sell dolls. When a girl wandered away, Cotten saved the day by reuniting her with her mother. She didn't know it, but that woman was composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, wife of ethnomusicologist Charles Seeger, and mother to budding folk musicians Mike and Peggy, and stepson Pete- who was well on his way to stardom as a member of the Weavers.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1107090873/how-elizabeth-cottens-music-fueled-the-folk-revival

Livid parents and students in Texas have accused their school district of implementing an “asinine” dress code for the upcoming year that bans hoodies, skirts, and dresses.

Forney Independent School District held a special board meeting Monday at which members could discuss the new dress code adopted the previous week. The new code bars students above the fourth grade from wearing dresses, skirts, or skorts. All students, no matter their grade, are barred from wearing a long list of items including sleeveless shirts, T-shirts, anything with visible designs, spandex and nylon, anything made of denim, and any jackets or sweatshirts with hoods. “Extreme” hair designs are also off the table.

According to San Antonio local radio station Q101.9, district officials said the change was needed to boost the confidence of students, especially those coming from more disadvantaged financial backgrounds.

“The use of a school dress code is established to improve student self-esteem, bridge socio-economic differences among students, and promote positive behavior, thereby enhancing school safety and improving the learning environment,” the dress code reads.

However, students and parents said the district’s reasoning was BS and the code was just an archaic way to control how students socially expressed themselves.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/parents-unload-on-texas-forney-independent-school-district-for-banning-hoodies-and-dresses?ref=home

And boys can't wear kilts either!

Three men have been arrested in connection with the horrific human-smuggling tragedy in Texas that killed 51 people and sparked fears of cascading death and misery at the Mexico border this summer.

According to a report by the San Antonio Express-News, among them was a driver believed to have abandoned the ill-fated truck, which was found in a field near the Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. “He was very high on meth when he was arrested nearby and had to be taken to the hospital,” the outlet reported, citing a law-enforcement source.

Police also arrested two other men—Mexican nationals identified as Francisco D’Luna-Bilbao and Juan Claudio D’Luna-Mendez—at an address linked to the truck and have charged them with possessing weapons while residing illegally in the U.S.

Authorities arrested the men after conducting surveillance at a home listed as the semi-truck’s registered address. There, San Antonio police recovered a four handguns, a rifle and a shotgun, according to criminal complaints for the men obtained by The Daily Beast.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/san-antonio-texas-human-smuggling-tragedy-sees-three-arrests?ref=home

How about 51 counts of (at least) second degree murder?

A dog died while being tethered in the backyard of a Knoxville home, unable to reach food or water, according to a police report obtained by WVLT News.

The police report also stated officers found another dog in the same yard, unable to get food and water, with a body temperature of 104.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The deceased dog’s temperature was recorded at 107.7 degrees Fahrenheit once arriving at Young Williams Animal Center.

Two residents of the home, identified as Darla Ailey, 32, and Jason Ailey, 36, were issued state citations for animal cruelty, one for each dog, according to the police report.

Co-founders Julia Roy and Kyle Lang of the Knoxville Animal Welfare Alliance told WVLT News they’re hoping the community will help strengthen laws against animal cruelty.

“We were deeply saddened, of course, to find that out but not surprised. This is the sixth dog that has died due to unsupervised tethering,” said Roy.

https://www.wvlt.tv/2022/06/28/graphic-tethered-dog-found-dead-knoxville-organization-calling-change/

How many of your communities DO NOT have laws against unsupervised tethering of animals?

By Paul Peterson, father of four former Bremerton High School students

I’m a very proud parent. Several of my children were in the marching band and my son played junior varsity football, so my wife and I spent many Friday nights listening to the band and cheering on the Bremerton High School Knights — our home team just across the Puget Sound from Seattle.

As proud as we are, I recognize those high school activities aren’t about me or the other adults, or even the teachers and coaches. The games are for the kids — the players on the field, the band and the students in the stands. And it’s those kids who have been largely left out of the conversation about the Supreme Court case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which has hung over our community for more than six years

I’m disappointed, though not terribly surprised, that the court found Monday that it was OK for the team’s former coach, Joseph Kennedy, to hold public prayers with student players on the 50-yard line after football games. In their 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the justices undermined the religious freedom of public school students in favor of those of their adult coach. I’m very concerned that public school teachers and coaches now won’t know where the line is between their private prayers and public religious displays that students will feel pressured to join.

I witnessed the team gatherings Kennedy led many times and assumed they were traditional postgame pep talks; the coach would stride to the school logo at center field and hold up a pair of helmets while the players would encircle him and take a knee. From the stands, I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I assumed he was celebrating a game well played or motivating the players to come back stronger for the next game.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coach-kennedy-wins-supreme-court-case-praying-football-games-students-rcna35478

Please read the whole thing before commenting. This is from a parent who was there.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, vowed over the weekend to grant clemency to anyone charged under the state’s 1849 law banning most abortions.

That law, enacted more than a century before Roe v. Wade, has remained on the books in the state and has technically retaken effect following the Supreme Court ruling on Friday overturning the landmark case.

Evers, Wisconsin Democratic attorney general Josh Kaul and several county district attorneys in the state have said they would refuse to enforce it, but it remains possible that other officials — such as other district attorneys and newly elected state lawmakers — could enforce it now or in the future. Evers and Kaul are both up for re-election this fall, and both are facing tough races.

But at a rally during Wisconsin’s state Democratic Party convention Saturday, Evers went even further, saying that in addition to taking steps to not enforce the law, he would grant clemency to doctors prosecuted under the law.

“The 1849 law says that anybody that provides an abortion is subject to a felony, one to six years,” Evers said. “Did you ever think about the word clemency? I will provide clemency to any physician that is charged under that law,” Evers said.

“I don’t think that a law that was written before the Civil War, or before women secured the right to vote, should be used to dictate these intimate decisions on reproductive health,” he added.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/wisconsin-gov-vows-grant-clemency-doctors-charged-state-abortion-ban-rcna35479

One of the good guys!

He’s one of the richest men in the world and the largest individual owner of farmland in the country. Now Bill Gates appears to have acquired a slice of their tiny city, and locals near Pembina, North Dakota, aren’t happy about it. The news is making waves across the state, as well.

“The public's kind of in an uproar,” said Doug Goehring, North Dakota’s agriculture commissioner. “It's a matter of… he has no tie to the land, he has no tie to agriculture, he's going around to different states and purchasing land.”

The deal, which closed last November but was recently reported by AgWeek, involved roughly 2,100 acres in Pembina and Walsh Counties, at a total price of approximately $13.5 million, the outlet said.

The sellers included members of North Dakota’s prominent Campbell family, who run an eponymous potato farming business in multiple states. One member of the family named on the deed transfer, Thomas Campbell, previously served in the North Dakota Senate and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/north-dakotans-freak-over-bill-gates-land-buying-mystery?ref=home

Cue the Gates haters and conspiracy theorists!

The Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization clears the way for states to reshape abortion law in the U.S., nearly 50 years after the court enshrined abortion rights at the federal level in the Roe v. Wade decision.

The Dobbs case came to the high court from Mississippi, where the Jackson Women's Health Organization has long been the only abortion provider. In 2018, the state enacted a law that bans abortion after 15 weeks, with few exceptions — and not for cases involving rape or incest.

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending right to abortion upheld for decades
REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN AMERICA
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, ending right to abortion upheld for decades
The Jackson clinic and one of its doctors sued Mississippi officials in federal court, saying the state's law was unconstitutional.

A federal district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the clinic, blocking Mississippi's law. But the state appealed to the Supreme Court, which put the case on its docket.

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1107440547/the-abortion-case-is-named-after-thomas-dobbs-who-says-he-has-nothing-to-do-with

How rude!