Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalWhat happened when a tiny school district refused to 'bend the knee' to Trump and ICE
On an April morning at Winooski high school, the day started with a writing prompt: Do you feel safe in school? Why or why not?
The students – whose families hail from across the globe and speak Arabic, Nepali, Spanish, Somali and more – wrote their responses before reading them aloud.
“I feel safe in school because I saw the school doors are locked every time,” one student said.
“ICE can’t come in,” said another.
The sense of security students feel in this multilingual learner class at the Vermont high school is hard-won. Since the start of the second Trump administration, the federal government has investigated schools for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, rescinded a policy protecting students on school grounds from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests and threatened school districts with the loss of federal funding. Administration officials have also encouraged states to challenge a decades-old supreme court decision guaranteeing undocumented students’ right to public schooling.
While many districts have chosen to go quiet or self-censor, the Winooski school system and its superintendent, Wilmer Chavarria, have taken the opposite approach.
Last year, this small district of about 800 students was the first in Vermont to pass a sanctuary policy aimed at protecting students from immigration enforcement while at school. Chavarria also refused to sign a document from the Trump administration saying it was complying with the federal ban on DEI efforts in schools.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/03/vermont-school-district-trump-ice
Let's hear it for Winooski!
Three Lebanese hospitals hit by Israeli forces in under a week
Three hospitals in southern Lebanon have been attacked by Israel in under a week, wounding more than 150 people and killing nine, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health.
Israel carried out an attack in the immediate vicinity of the public hospital in Tebnine on Wednesday, just days after strikes next to the Hiram and Jabal Amel hospitals in Tyre. The attack next to Jabal Amel on Monday killed four people and injured 127 – most of whom were medical staff.
“It was an ordinary day at the hospital and then suddenly for no reason, they targeted the hospital. It was a catastrophe,” said Wael Mroueh, the director of Jabal Amel. The strike hit the building directly in front of the hospital, levelling it.
The force of the blast knocked out the hospital’s electricity, destroyed much of the first floor and forced medical staff to evacuate patients who were hooked up to machines in the intensive care unit, which was also damaged.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/03/lebanese-hospitals-hit-by-israeli-forces
And Bibi's f*cking no-count point is? Stuff like this makes me, a retired RN, more anti-Israel than ever---and I used to be a Zionist!
Trump confirms calling Netanyahu 'crazy' over constant fights with Lebanon
President Trump confirmed he called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “f—king crazy” during a heated phone conversation earlier this week, citing frustrations with Israel’s military operations in Lebanon that are complicating efforts to secure a peace agreement with Iran.
“I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” Trump said in an interview released Wednesday with the New York Post’s “Pod Force One,” confirming earlier reporting by Axios about the profane conversation.
Israel’s attacks against Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon have stalled negotiations between Washington and Tehran to bring an end to the more than three-month war in Iran. The regime has insisted Israel stop its military campaign against Hezbollah before a deal can be reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or reform Iran’s nuclear program.
The president added that he and Netanyahu have nevertheless “worked very well together.”
“I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him,” Trump told host Miranda Devine. “I’m a wartime president. He’s a wartime prime minister.”
https://thehill.com/policy/international/5907746-donald-trump-benjamin-netanyahu-criticism-israel-hezbollah-lebanon-iran/
Might I add, wars of their own making
Does Texas not have term limits?
How long has Hot Wheels been governor? It seems like forever, and he's running again. Am I mistaken, or is the term longer than 4 years, or do they not have term limits like any sensnsible state?
What daily life looks like in collapsing Cuba
Yunia Figueredo, an independent journalist in Havana, sent me a voice message recently from her daughter's phone because her own had no data connection.
Earlier that morning, she had tried to boil eggs for her youngest daughter's breakfast during one of Cuba's brief bursts of electricity.
“The electricity came on for one minute, then three minutes later they cut it,” Figueredo said. “The egg is still there in the pot.”
Her daughter has health conditions that prevent her from eating staples like rice or beans. With charcoal nearly impossible to find, almost everything in her kitchen depends on electricity that may last only minutes at a time.
"This is not life," Figueredo said. "We are dying here."
Cuba is in the grip of its worst crisis in decades. Blackouts last most of the day. Pharmacies are empty. A liter of gasoline now costs more than a Cuban worker’s monthly salary.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/05/29/cuba-electricity-blackouts-food-us-intervention/90259853007/?tbref=hp
And WE are largely responsible. This is the Holodomor all over again (f you don't know what that was, look it up. Shitler is the modern-day Stalin, only stupider.)
A botched DUI arrest reveals a 'dirty little secret' about policing
What should have been one of the happiest times in Brianna Longoria’s life has spiraled into a yearslong nightmare.
The day after Longoria got married in December 2024, she was pulled over by a police officer in Phoenix. She figured the ordeal would be over when she passed a breathalyzer test, but she was shocked to learn she was being arrested for driving under the influence of drugs.
At the station, the officers processing her were captured in a candid moment that Longoria says reveals what was really happening.
One officer worried aloud that she would get kicked off the squad if she doesn’t “get a DUI.”
“But I’m like, I can’t just conjure one up. I have tried,” Anette Hannah can be heard saying in body camera footage.
“You can. You can,” Mary Metheny, the officer who initially stopped Longoria, replied.
The charges against Longoria were dropped, but she has filed a lawsuit that could take years to resolve.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/crime/2026/05/30/police-ticket-quotas/90179215007/
We knew this, didn't we?
Texas jury convicts Catholic priest of sexual assault after Guardian reporting
A jury in Texas has convicted a Roman Catholic priest charged with illegally exploiting his status as a clergyman to pursue sex with women to whom he was providing spiritual direction.
Eight women and four men found Anthony Odiong, 57, guilty as charged of one charge of sexual assault in the first degree and two such counts in the second degree involving two women, each of whom testified during a trial that began with jury selection on Tuesday in Waco.
He could face life imprisonment on the first-degree charge after a sentencing phase involving the same jury that is scheduled to begin Monday. The second-degree charges could carry from two to 20 years in prison.
The jury deliberated for about two hours before coming to the verdict.
Odiong, who pleaded not guilty, had initially been charged with first-degree sexual assault of a third woman. But prosecutors Ryan Calvert and Liz Buice dismissed that aspect of the case after the woman – said to be in an “extremely emotionally fragile” state – failed to show up to her expected appearance on the witness stand. The prosecution opted against essentially tracking her down and arresting her to ensure she appeared in court, citing her “extremely tenuous” emotional condition.
The case against Odiong came after a Guardian article in February 2024 reported on a group of women who had accused the priest of sexual coercion, unwanted touching and abusive financial control in his capacity as a Catholic clergyman, including in and around Waco as well as a later assignment in the New Orleans suburb of Luling, Louisiana.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/29/texas-trial-catholic-priest-sexual-assault
So a Baptist minister, Robert Morris, got 6 months, IIRC, bbut they're talking about life for this guy?
Possibly weird question
I have a deck garden (we're afflicted with black walnuts, so limited in what we can grow in the rund) and last year I had, as usual, sonm hanging baskets of calibrachoa (million bells). Since it's a microclima, these sometimes reseed and sprout new ones, as do petunias when I have those, but this year I got a surprise, In the basket where my million bells had been, I got not one, but several johnny jump-ups! What the heck? Are they related, or did these just blow in from somewhere? I transp;anted them, because I wanted the pot for more million bells, but good grief! If it had been one, that would have been one thing, but five of the darn things.....?!
How an actual doctor with a broken ankle created the Doc Martens boot
One of the more serious honorifics is the word "Doctor." In the marketing world, it's usually reserved for a brand named after a founder.
Back in 1945, Klaus Maertens was a 25-year-old German army doctor. He was recuperating after breaking his ankle in a skiing accident. The standard-issue boots he was given with their hard leather soles were not only uncomfortable, they hindered his recovery. He wondered why you could enjoy a smooth ride in a car with air-filled tires, but you couldn't enjoy the same principle with boots. So, he decided to design a boot with a softer sole.
Doctor Maertens cut up pieces of an automobile tire and slipped them into his shoes. While it lessened the impact on his ankle, it didn't lessen the pain.
He showed his prototype to a friend who was a mechanical engineer, who then suggested using two rubber insoles. One stitched to the leather, the other heat-sealed to the first – creating a soft air pocket. The pair filed a patent and went into business. Using old military supplies and tire rubber, they began producing comfortable, durable boots.
80 per cent of their sales were to German women over 40.
They advertised their boots in magazines, and one ad caught the attention of a shoe manufacturer in England. That company acquired the exclusive rights to manufacture the boot.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/there-s-a-real-doc-marten-and-he-wasn-t-a-shoe-designer-1.7143667
How many of of us wear Doc Martens? (I don't, but I've worn knockoffs)
SpaceX's Starship rockets are grounded pending investigation after test flight
SpaceX Starship launches are on hold pending an investigation into last week’s test flight.
The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday that the hourlong spaceflight resulted in a mishap based on the performance of the mega rocket’s first-stage booster.
Minutes after Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday, the booster separated as normal but engines conked out as it made its way back to Earth. Instead of a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the booster came in hard. There were no reports of injury or property damage, according to the FAA, which will oversee the company’s investigation.
The spacecraft continued around the world, releasing 20 mock satellites before ending the mission as planned with a fiery splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket is SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s biggest and most powerful Starship yet, designed to carry crews to Mars. NASA is looking for it to land astronauts on the moon as soon as 2028 and help build a lunar base.
https://apnews.com/article/spacex-starship-faa-investigation-7bc8ecccd1f32fa2b1d2ea204f2b785b
Not so fast, Eloon!
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Gender: Do not displayHome country: USA currently
Current location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 07:34 PM
Number of posts: 14,670