FirstCircle

Idaho legislators introduced the “abortion trafficking” legislation in February. The law added a new section to Idaho code that made it illegal for an adult to help a minor procure an abortion “with the intent to conceal” the abortion from the minor’s parents or guardian. Gov. Brad Little signed the law on April 6, and an emergency enactment provision meant it went into effect in early May, about two weeks before the Swainstons traveled to Bend with Kadyn’s underage girlfriend.

The law had abortion access advocates on high alert, and it was challenged in court by an Idaho attorney, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and Indigenous Idaho Alliance in July. By then, an investigation into the Swainstons was already underway.

“I think that case and others like it is just an example of the reality that post-Roe America is forcing everyone to evaluate,” said Kelly O’Neill, an Idaho attorney for Legal Voice, in an interview with the Statesman. Legal Voice, a nonprofit advocacy group for gender equity is part of a cohort that sued the state in July over the abortion travel law.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed federal abortion protections in June 2022 with the repeal of Roe v. Wade, Idaho has instated some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. They include a complete ban on abortions except when the life of the pregnant person is at risk or in cases of rape or incest that have been reported to police.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/8715846

Much more in the linked article (NPR), worth a read if the topic concerns you.

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McIntire is 69, part of the baby boomer generation that is entering older age amid a historic affordable housing shortage and rising wealth inequality in the U.S.

She wishes she'd known earlier how difficult things could get.

"I think that's the main thing people need to know," she says, "that they need to be prepared beforehand for what's coming down the road."

A newly released report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies sounds a loud warning about what's ahead as the country ages rapidly, and how unprepared the U.S. is as boomers start to turn 80 within the next decade.

Nearly a third of households headed by seniors are considered cost burdened, which means they pay more than 30% of their income for housing. Half of that group pays more than 50%. And as the boomers have aged, households in this group reached an all-time high of 11.2 million in 2021.

That's likely to grow further as the number of households headed by someone aged 80 and over doubles by 2040.

"Their purchasing power is going down, at a time when rents are rising and other costs are rising, food and health care and all of that," says Jennifer Molinsky, project director of Harvard's Housing and Aging Society program.

Even for many moderate income seniors, Molinsky says the dual burden of housing costs and caregiving needs will be too much.

Much more in the linked article (NPR), worth a read if the topic concerns you.

McIntire is 69, part of the baby boomer generation that is entering older age amid a historic affordable housing shortage and rising wealth inequality in the U.S.

She wishes she'd known earlier how difficult things could get.

"I think that's the main thing people need to know," she says, "that they need to be prepared beforehand for what's coming down the road."

A newly released report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies sounds a loud warning about what's ahead as the country ages rapidly, and how unprepared the U.S. is as boomers start to turn 80 within the next decade.

Nearly a third of households headed by seniors are considered cost burdened, which means they pay more than 30% of their income for housing. Half of that group pays more than 50%. And as the boomers have aged, households in this group reached an all-time high of 11.2 million in 2021.

That's likely to grow further as the number of households headed by someone aged 80 and over doubles by 2040.

"Their purchasing power is going down, at a time when rents are rising and other costs are rising, food and health care and all of that," says Jennifer Molinsky, project director of Harvard's Housing and Aging Society program.

Even for many moderate income seniors, Molinsky says the dual burden of housing costs and caregiving needs will be too much.

At first the negative feedback was fairly standard – Gloninger came to Iowa with more than 15 years of experience in TV meteorology and had launched a weekly series on climate change which ran in Boston and won a regional Emmy.

“It was, stuff like ‘I don’t need to hear your liberal conspiracy theories on our air. Take the politics out of your forecast,’” Gloninger recalled. “‘You’re politicizing the weather, you’re a puppet to the left.’”

But in summer 2022, Gloninger started receiving a steady flow of harassing emails.

In one, the sender asked for his address and said, “We conservative Iowans would like to give you an Iowan welcome you will never forget.”

That message referenced an incident that targeted U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanuagh, where police arrested a man carrying a gun, a knife and zipties near Kavanaugh’s house.

On Saturday, Awartani, 20, was one of three men of Palestinian descent shot while visiting family in Burlington, Vermont. According to Price, her son was severely injured.

"The doctors are currently saying it's unlikely he'll be able to use his legs again," Price tells NPR by phone from her home in Ramallah. "He's confronting a life of disability, a potentially irreversible change to his life and what it means for his future."

Awartani is studying mathematics and archaeology at Brown. He's a graduate of the Ramallah Friends School, a Quaker-run K-12 school in the West Bank.

"I think it's important for these boys to be seen as fully fledged people," Price says. "They are the brightest of the brightest."

"The three were walking on Prospect Street when they were confronted by a white male with a handgun," Murad [BPD chief] wrote. "Without speaking, he discharged at least four rounds from the pistol and is believed to have fled on foot. All three victims were struck, two in their torsos and one in the lower extremities."

Murad noted in the press release that all three victims are 20-year-old men of Palestinian descent.

"Two are US citizens and one is a legal resident. Two were wearing keffiyehs at the time of the assault," Murad wrote, in reference to the traditional Palestinian scarf.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/8210190

In March, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled a student drag show organized by several campus student clubs including members of the Secular Student Alliance.

In an email to all students, faculty, and staff, President Wendler cited his personal religious beliefs and evoked God and Creator multiple times in his justification for canceling the student event. He also falsely likened drag to blackface, claiming that the art form is misogynistic, divisive, and void of human dignity.

President Wendler’s personal religious beliefs and biblical references have no place in justifying the cancellation of the event. West Texas A&M University is a public institution and the wall of the separation of state and church remains standing.

Last week, Andrew Seidel, a constitutional lawyer and vice president of strategic communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, visited West Texas A&M University to give an address to support the students suing President Wendler, demonstrate that drag is not threatening, and detail the dangers of Christian Nationalism.

Andrew explained that drag shouldn’t be a concern for anyone: “Drag is art. Drag is human. Drag is beautiful.” However for religious conservatives, anything that calls into question the gender binary or the conservative Christian idea of what men ought to look like is perceived as a threat – solely because of their religious beliefs.

In March, West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler canceled a student drag show organized by several campus student clubs including members of the Secular Student Alliance.

In an email to all students, faculty, and staff, President Wendler cited his personal religious beliefs and evoked God and Creator multiple times in his justification for canceling the student event. He also falsely likened drag to blackface, claiming that the art form is misogynistic, divisive, and void of human dignity.

President Wendler’s personal religious beliefs and biblical references have no place in justifying the cancellation of the event. West Texas A&M University is a public institution and the wall of the separation of state and church remains standing.

Last week, Andrew Seidel, a constitutional lawyer and vice president of strategic communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, visited West Texas A&M University to give an address to support the students suing President Wendler, demonstrate that drag is not threatening, and detail the dangers of Christian Nationalism.

Andrew explained that drag shouldn’t be a concern for anyone: “Drag is art. Drag is human. Drag is beautiful.” However for religious conservatives, anything that calls into question the gender binary or the conservative Christian idea of what men ought to look like is perceived as a threat – solely because of their religious beliefs.

“Kids and adults alike are constantly flushing the darndest of objects down their toilet bowls,” the blog says. “Although the figures may appear cute and harmless, appearances are deceiving.”

Each of the about 18 items in collection caused “mischief,” according to the plant and are an “unsettling reminder of all that can go wrong with a misplaced plastic smile, or a toothy grin.”

After The New York Times called Donald Trump 'vague' on abortion rights, the Biden campaign posted a Trump ad and a video of Trump's own statements that say otherwise.

In 2016, then-candidate Trump claimed to be pro-life and opined there should be "some form of punishment" for getting an abortion, suggesting that a ban should go forward even if it means that people have to "go to illegal places" to get them.

"I am pro-life. The answer is, you go back to a position like they had where people will perhaps go to illegal places, but you have to ban it. ... The answer is... that there has to be some form of punishment."

The Biden campaign also posted an ad produced by Trump's campaign in which a narrator praises Trump for placing conservative judges on the Supreme Court and overturning Roe before the viewer hears Trump himself utter the following words: "I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message."

Excerpts:

It was revealed that the Canadian government had spent nearly $670,000 on consultants to advise them on how to save money on consultants. A town in Saskatchewan debated whether it should change its slogan from “Land of Rape and Honey.”

A factory robot crushed a man to death after mistaking him for a box of vegetables. It was reported that in India, a surgeon left the operating theater before completing his work because he was angry that he had not been served tea. “It’s been a hell of a year,” said a man who is suing doctors he accused of failing to find his appendix and removing part of his colon instead.

Much more in TFA.

A school district in the conservative town of Sherman, Texas, made national headlines last week when it put a stop to a high school production of the musical “Oklahoma!” after a transgender student was cast in a lead role.

The district’s administrators decided, and communicated to parents, that the school would cast only students “born as females in female roles and students born as males in male roles.” Not only did several transgender and nonbinary students lose their parts, but so, too, did cisgender girls cast in male roles. Publicly, the district said the problem was the profane and sexual content of the 1943 musical.

At one point, the theater teacher, who objected to the decision, was escorted out of the school by the principal. The set, a sturdy mock-up of a settler’s house that took students two months to build, was demolished.

But then something even more unusual happened in Sherman, a rural college town that has been rapidly drawn into the expanding orbit of Dallas to its south. The school district reversed course. In a late-night vote on Monday, the school board voted unanimously to restore the original casting.

After the vote, the school board announced a special meeting for Friday to open an investigation and to consider taking action against the district superintendent, Tyson Bennett, who oversaw the district’s handling of “Oklahoma!,” including “possible administrative leave.”