March 11, 2018

Oregon day-care worker gets 21 years for drugging children so she could go tanning, do CrossFit

January Neatherlin told parents they couldn't pick up their children from Little Giggles day-care center between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. That three-hour period, she said, was nap time.

It was also CrossFit time and tan time for Neatherlin, the owner of the illegal day-care operation, according to court records obtained by the Oregonian. In one instance, police investigators say, it was also drop-her-own-kids-off-at-school-time.


To avoid the risk that the seven infants and toddlers in her care would wake up, trudge around and possibly hurt themselves while she ran errands, Neatherlin drugged them with melatonin.

Neatherlin, 32, was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison last week after she pleaded guilty to 11 counts of first-degree criminal mistreatment and one count of third degree assault in connection with Little Giggles, according to the Oregonian.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-oregon-daycare-drugging-20180311-story.html

March 11, 2018

Latin-Americas worst-ever refugee crisis: Venezuelans. 1.10million on the move

This human outflow, which the United Nations says amounts to more than 1.1 million people, is the largest displacement of people in Latin American history. But Venezuela’s refugees are attracting far less attention or international aid than those fleeing Burma or Syria. That needs to change.

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The reason for the exodus is simple: Once proud citizens of the richest nation in Latin America, Venezuelans now are starving. A social survey released this week showed that more than 90 percent say they do not have the means to buy sufficient food, and 61 percent say they go to bed hungry. Though it controls the world’s largest oil reserves, the regime founded by Hugo Chávez has wrecked not just oil production but the economy as a whole, leaving stores empty of food and hospitals deprived even of common medicines. Inflation is skyrocketing above the 2017 rate of 2,600 percent, and rampant homicide has made Caracas one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

Compounding the crisis is the refusal of the Chavista government, now headed by Nicolás Maduro, to accept humanitarian aid, which it describes as a means for foreign invasion. Rather than take basic steps to feed people or stabilize the economy, Mr. Maduro, steered by Cuban advisers, is preparing to stage a rigged election for every office in the country in April, which would allow for the elimination of all formal political opposition. The regime already put down a pro-democracy uprising last year with mass repression that led to more than 120 deaths.

Latin American nations that for years avoided addressing the collapse of democracy in Venezuela now are reaping the consequences in a very human form. Foremost is Colombia, which for years pandered to the Chavista regime and now finds its border cities overrun with desperate refugees, some of whom are reduced to sleeping in parks and begging on the streets. In an effort to stem the tide, Mr. Santos suspended border passes for 1.5 million Venezuelans and deployed 2,000 troops to block informal entry routes into the country. That may slow the refu­gee arrivals but at the cost of denying relief to hungry people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-collapse-in-venezuela-is-creating-a-refugee-crisis/2018/02/23/68b85c7e-1807-11e8-8b08-027a6ccb38eb_story.html?utm_term=.81c96b9b3a08

Collapse of the Food Supply

An overwhelming majority of Venezuelans already lack easy access to food and daily necessities. Surveys report that nearly nine in ten Venezuelans have difficulty purchasing food; relatedly, three out of four Venezuelans have lost weight, an average of nineteen pounds just in 2017.

Years of intervention, nationalization, and expropriation have decimated local agriculture. The vast majority of food now comes from abroad, and distribution is firmly in the hands of the Maduro-aligned military. In addition to providing the food sold in price-controlled supermarkets and restaurants, the military directly distributes basic products to nearly six million families, roughly 70 percent of the population, through local provision and production committees (CLAPs). According to news reports, a good amount of this official food supply is sold on the black market. This control gives military officers—and their families—access to food as well as significant power and enrichment opportunities. Already there have been reports of uneven access to the military-distributed food packages through CLAPs. If the prevalence of food diminishes, whether at government-controlled prices or on the black market, desperate Venezuelans would flee in larger numbers.

The government increasingly needs to choose between using its hard currency to pay external debt obligations and feeding its population. In 2017, it chose to reduce food and other essential imports by nearly 30 percent in order to meet debt payments of $10 billion. The government owes another $10 billion in 2018 and $14 billion in 2019. U.S. financial sanctions have made it virtually impossible to roll over or raise new money in international markets, and Russian and Chinese loans have not covered the shortfalls. If the government chooses to continue servicing its obligations, food insecurity could worsen to an extent that drives mass emigration.


https://www.cfr.org/report/venezuelan-refugee-crisis

March 11, 2018

Here's how Trump's approval ratings in each US state have changed after a year in office

https://www.sfgate.com/local/media/LATEST-SFGATE-VIDEOS-993294.php




Polling firm Morning Consult releases monthly approval ratings for Trump from each state. In January 2017, the month Trump was sworn in to office, he was broadly popular across a wide geographic area. Trump had a negative net approval rating — the difference in the share of the population approving of his performance minus the percentage disapproving — in only six states and Washington, DC.

https://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Trump-just-received-the-lowest-approval-rating-in-10907312.php#photo-15194510

March 11, 2018

gumball machine theft goes badly

https://www.sfgate.com/local/media/LATEST-SFGATE-VIDEOS-993294.php

March 11, 2018

Donald Trump unveils new slogan for 2020 re-election campaign

Donald Trump is "almost positive" he will run for re-election as US President in 2020 and unveiled his new campaign slogan.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters, Trump said he cannot use 'Make America Great Again' because "I already did that".


Instead, Trump said he will run on the slogan "Keep America Great exclamation mark", making the punctuation clear.

The lengthy speech at the Pittsburgh International Airport was supposed to be in support of fellow republican Rick Saccone who is in a tight race for a congressional seat.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/donald-trump-unveils-new-slogan-12166535

March 11, 2018

GOP says white house not male dominated because they have wives and daughters

GOP: Actually, There Are Lots Of Women In The White House, Like Our Wives

In honor of Women’s History Month, the Republican National Committee’s Instagram account is setting the record straight about the number of women in the Trump administration. 

How could we possibly be one of the most male-dominated administrations in recent history? the GOP seemed to ask in its Friday post. After all, just look at all our wives and daughters.


The RNC was already called out for a similar remark earlier this week, when it tweeted that President Donald Trump “has appointed more women to senior-level positions than previous administrations.”

That tweet was quickly debunked thanks to a Brookings Institute report from last May, which found that, while Trump is roughly on par with the George W. Bush administration as far as women in high-level positions are concerned, he remains significantly behind both the Clinton and Obama administrations. 



m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5aa42a5ee4b086698a9e3446

March 10, 2018

30 year Disney employee can only afford cheese and crackers for dinner

The report suggested that two-thirds of Disneyland Resort workers are food insecure, meaning they lack a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food.

They include Glynndana Shevlin, a food and beverage concierge at one of the resort hotels, meaning she serves wine and appetizers to suite guests. She has worked for Disney for 30 years.

“Food-wise I try to spend under $60 a week, but that only gives me about one meal a day,” she said. She can’t touch the fancy appetizers she takes up to the suites – mushroom ratatouille, teriyaki beef kabobs – and she can’t afford the employee cafeteria.



Her full-time, hourly wages have gone up only $1.60, to $15.70 since 2008, and she struggles to pay for healthcare and cholesterol medication, a storage unit, the phone bill, and car insurance. She doesn’t have enough money to pay rent for March.


“For the last couple of weeks, I bought a packet of little individual cheese packets and crackers. And that’s what I’ll have for dinner when I get home.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/01/disneyland-california-employees-poverty-homelessness-study

March 10, 2018

Once-homeless pup may become Washington state's first-ever deaf K-9

https://twitter.com/amcny/status/971763236210167808/photo/1

A once-homeless pup could make history as Washington state’s first deaf K-9.

Ghost, a white Pitbull mix with doe-like brown eyes, was once deemed by Florida animal control officials as “unadoptable” because he had “an abundance of energy and occasional indifference to people,” KIRO7 reported. There was also a concern that Ghost’s deafness would present communication issues.

As a result, Ghost was slated to be euthanized, WDBJ7 reported.


But that all changed when Ghost was moved to a shelter in Port Angeles, Washington, called Olympic Peninsula Humane Society.

There, Ghost was introduced to long-time dog trainer Barb Davenport, who also serves as the K-9 Program Manager for the Department of Corrections in Washington state.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/10/once-homeless-pup-may-become-washington-states-first-ever-deaf-k-9.html

March 10, 2018

Report: Ivanka Trump complained Jared Kushner was being embarrassed by John Kelly

The rumored feud between Chief of Staff John Kelly and First Daughter Ivanka Trump continues, as one of the President’s most trusted advisers reportedly complained that Kelly is embarrassing her husband Jared Kushner.

In a report by Vanity Fair, Ivanka complained to a friend about Kelly, saying, “Why do you have to embarrass Jared like that?” Kelly was the one who downgraded Kushner’s security clearance, which according to CNN gives the White House calligrapher more access than he does.

A former White House official told Newsweek that since his downgrade, Kushner has been quote, “looking at everything he can do that doesn’t require a clearance,” with another source saying, “The White House is trying to fluff him up again."

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/03/10/report-ivanka-trump-complained-jared-kushner-was-being-embarrassed-by-john-kelly/23382282/

March 10, 2018

Inspired by the Obama portraits living wall? Not so fast.

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In recent years, another type of vegetative art has emerged, called living walls or green walls, and which relies on pockets to hold the roots. Under the guiding hand of a bold designer, they can take a repertoire of fairly ordinary plants and turn them into a tapestry of stunning effect. The best are extremely photogenic and have thus infiltrated social media. This makes them coveted by folks who have little idea, I suspect, of how expensive and demanding they can be.

The curtain of vegetation veils its workings: Custom armature, a hive of planting cells, a computerized irrigation system and supplemental lighting. Many skip the soil — the plants grow in synthetic felt or the like and are watered and fed hydroponically.

If you want a sense of the challenges and rewards of the vertical garden, consider the Green Wall at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pa. It was the largest living wall in the United States when it was built in 2010 and is used to decorate a curving corridor of individual restrooms. The garden consists of two walls — they face each other — and each is 13 feet high and 360 feet long.

Originally planted in coconut fiber, which proved too acidic over time, it was replanted in inert rock wool with fresh plants. Most are tender ferns, but the palette includes spider plants, philodendrons, spathiphyllums and the fluffy asparagus fern. The wall is a beguiling composition of 33,000 plants in contrasting textures and shades of greens. By using mostly ferns, flowering is kept to a bare minimum. It’s designed as a break from the floral extravaganza in the East Conservatory. “It’s the sorbet in a great meal,” said its gardener, Lauren Jenkins. “This space is a respite.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/home/inspired-by-the-obama-portraits-living-wall-not-so-fast/2018/03/05/5a42b876-1cb5-11e8-ae5a-16e60e4605f3_story.html?utm_term=.fececa2551ff