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APRIL 2015

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Pinay testifies in UAE murder trial | Pinoy Abroad. A Filipina was among six witnesses who testified in the murder case against an Emirati woman accused of fatally stabbing an American kindergarten teacher in a mall in the United Arab Emirates last December. The witnesses who testified Monday before the Federal Supreme Court also included an Egyptian-American doctor whose house was allegedly the target of a homemade bomb, Gulf News reported Tuesday. Emirati woman Ala’a Al Hashemi had been charged with stabbing Ibolya Ryan, a kindergarten teacher and mother of three, in the women’s bathroom of Reem Island Boutik Mall. Al Hashemi was also the suspect in the planting of a homemade bomb outside the home of an Egyptian-American family in Khalidiya. Presiding judge Falah Al Hajeri postponed the session until May 18 to hear a medical team’s report on the defendant’s mental condition. The medical team had decided not to admit the accused to a hospital but to periodically check on her while she is in prison.

Mall killing Homemade bomb Dr. Arrest. Justice Ginsburg Eviscerates The Case Against Marriage Equality In Just Five ... By Ian Millhiser Posted on Share this: "Justice Ginsburg Eviscerates The Case Against Marriage Equality In Just Five Sentences" Share: CREDIT: AP Photo/Jessica Hill During Tuesday’s marriage equality arguments in the Supreme Court, several of the Court’s conservative members suggested that same-sex couples should not be given equal marriage rights because these couples have not enjoyed those rights for most of the past.

Not long after her conservative colleagues raised this argument, however, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg explained exactly why marriage was long understood to be incompatible with homosexuality in just five sentences: [Same-sex couples] wouldn’t be asking for this relief if the law of marriage was what it was a millennium ago. Justice Ginsburg’s point was that, until surprisingly recently, the legal institution of marriage was defined in terms of gender roles. But marriage is no longer bound to antiquated gender roles. To Get A Sense of Exactly How Cuckoo Texas Has Become, Read This. As Riots Follow Freddie Gray's Death in Baltimore, Calls for Calm Ring Hollow. Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore—an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain. Gray did not die mysteriously in some back alley but in the custody of the city's publicly appointed guardians of order.

And yet the mayor of that city and the commissioner of that city's police still have no idea what happened. I suspect this is not because the mayor and police commissioner are bad people, but because the state of Maryland prioritizes the protection of police officers charged with abuse over the citizens who fall under its purview. The citizens who live in West Baltimore, where the rioting began, intuitively understand this. I grew up across the street from Mondawmin Mall, where today's riots began.

My mother was raised in the same housing project, Gilmor Homes, where Freddie Gray was killed. Everyone I knew who lived in that world regarded the police not with admiration and respect but with fear and caution. Poverty Denialism in a Culture of Cruelty: Bashing the Poor as Right-Wing Amusement. In 1981, Texas Senator Phil Gramm lamented: “We're the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat.” It was, to Gramm, clear evidence of how exaggerated the problem of economic hardship in America was, and how horrible the nation’s welfare state had become. Apparently, poor people aren’t really suffering or deserving of much sympathy until their ribcages are showing and their eye-sockets have all but swallowed their eyes.

If the poor are fat, it’s not because so many of the cheapest and most readily available foods in poor communities are high in empty calories, sugar and non-nutritional ingredients---or because, in general, the U.S. food supply is overly-processed and unhealthy---but rather, it must be because poor people have it too good and are able to do a lot of fancy eating at public expense. America's culture of cruelty has long been fed by this kind of thinking: namely, the belief that the poor and unemployed really aren’t suffering that badly. Hunter Ian Gibson Trampled To Death By Elephant He Was Tracking To Kill For Ivory. A professional game hunter has been trampled to death by an elephant while leading a hunt with an American client in Zimbabwe. Ian Gibson, 55, was tracking animals in Chewore North in the lower Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe, when the young bull elephant “began a full charge.” Paul Smith, the managing director of Chifuti Safaris which employed Gibson, told The Telegraph: "We don't yet know the full details of how 'Gibbo' as we called him, died, as the American client and the trackers are still too traumatised to give us full details.

" In a note on the website of Safari Classics, the company explained Gibson had been searching for a target for five hours when they stopped for a rest. "It is with deep sadness to announce the passing of Chifuti Safaris professional hunter Ian Gibson," the note said. Ian Gibson was killed by a charging African bull elephant "Ian was tragically killed by an elephant bull earlier today while guiding an elephant hunt in Chewore North. " Nepal Earthquake: Unatti Foundation Girls Cook for Survivors in Kathmandu. By Erin Hill @erinhillny Amid the devastation and destruction in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal, a group of 20 young girls are handing out first aid kits and cooking rice and lentils for the thousands of displaced earthquake survivors in their community. These brave young women are part of the Unatti Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing food, shelter and education for orphaned and underprivileged children of Nepal.

Despite being in the center of where the massive 7.9-magnitude earthquake hit on Saturday, everyone that is a part of the Unatti Foundation, which includes five employees and 20 girls (ages 4-20), is safe. "Everyone is accounted for," Stephanie Waisler-Rubin, a Los Angeles-based commercial photographer who founded the Unatti Foundation in 2002, tells PEOPLE. "About four hours after the earthquake hit, I was able to get contact on cell phones to assure that everyone was safe," she says. "Our focus is making sure our girls are safe," she adds. Cancer patient with a week to live flees Kansas for-profit Medicaid for life-saving surgery in Memphis. A high school senior who was rejected by Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s (R) reformed for-profit state Medicaid system said that he was just days away from dying when he fled the state and found treatment at a hospital in Tennessee.

Just last week, 18-year-old Levi Ross told KMBC that it had been a month since doctor’s discovered that he had a type of spinal cancer called epitheliod sarcoma and already the tumor had doubled in size. Ross’ doctors advised him to get treatment out of state, but after not responding for weeks, his insurance provider rejected the advice. After taking office, Gov. Brownback reformed the state’s Medicaid system by enrolling low-income and disabled patients in a for-profit system called KanCare. Three health insurance companies now coordinate the care for about 400,000 Medicaid patients in Kansas. “They are ultimately the payer, but they also certainly don’t want any bad outcome to come from a patient not receiving the necessary services,” Belfry insisted. It Will Catch Up with Him. At the end of last week we ran several stories on this fundraising dinner Ted Cruz in Manhattan (yes, he was there looking for money) hosted by two prominent gay hoteliers and his effort - like other Republican presidential candidates - to lash out at the "radical gay marriage agenda" as "illegitimate" on the campaign trail while blithely treating the whole issue as an issue best left to states when trying to get money from gay men in New York.

But something else happened at the end of last week that got less attention. One of the main reasons why soon-to-be Attorney General Loretta Lynch's nomination was held up for an unprecedented period of time was that Senator Cruz made it yet another on his list of life or death points of principle for the Conservative movement. And yet, when the whole tangle got solved and she finally got her vote, Cruz didn't even show up to vote. He was off raising money. It's true that his vote would not have changed the outcome. Tactical Urbanism – Cities Built By People For People. Picnickers urbane in Mexico City reclaim a freeway median. Photo by Ben Welle. Tactical urbanism, or “D.I.Y. urbanism” is the small scale- and usually low cost- implementation of urban improvements in the public space.

Mike Lyndon, one of the co-authors of Tactical Urbanism, elucidated the so called “pop-up” urban revitilization projects yesterday as part of an EPA sponsored lecture series on smart growth. These citizen based construction projects use relatively low cost tools and materials to transform underused spaces. Projects run from simply resurfacing an underused street with gravel to turning a parking spot into a parklet, but the goal is unified across forms: reclaiming land from cars for people. The tactics of D.I.Y. urbanism are similarly diverse. Though guerrilla infrastructure projects are perfect examples of interactive, “results oriented” urbanism, examples of responsive civic services exist happily in tandem with DIY urban revitilization. Connect: Authored by: ‘Clinton Cash’ Author Crashes and Burns When Pressed for Evidence of Clinton ...

Earlier today, “Clinton Cash” author Peter Schweizer was exposed as a conservative fraud when This Week’s George Stephanopoulos, pressed him to provide his evidence to support his allegations that the Clintons had committed a crime — and he was forced admit that he had not even a shred of evidence, only conspiracies. Over and over again, Stephanopoulos pressed him for a “smoking gun”, but the paid Republican shill was left rambling about unrelated things and trying to change the subject. Here is the transcript(Video below): STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any evidence that a crime may have been committed?

SCHWEIZER: Well, I think it’s — if you look at a couple of recent examples. For example, Governor McConnell down in Virginia, or you look at Senator Menendez, in these cases, you didn’t have evidence of a quid pro quo. Certainly, I think it warrants investigation. STEPHANOPOULOS: But a criminal investigation? SCHWEIZER: Well, we’ll see. STEPHANOPOULOS: But the… SCHWEIZER: Well… No smoking gun. Obama And Luther His Anger Translator Shred Fox News At White House Correspon... President Obama brought down the house at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner by bringing out Luther, his anger translator who took a big shot right off the bat at Fox News. Video: Obama said, “Because, despite our differences, we count on the press to shed light on the most important issues of the day.”

Luther’s translation was, “And we can count on Fox News to terrify old white people with some nonsense. Sharia Law is coming to Cleveland. Run for the damn hills. That was ridiculous.” Obama continued, “We won’t always see eye to eye.” Luther continued, “Oh, and CNN, thank you so much for the wall to wall Ebola coverage. One of the best segments of Obama’s appearances at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner concluded with Obama getting angry and going off on Republican climate change deniers in Congress and Luther telling the President that he needs counseling before walking off of the stage. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is the toughest room that any comedian will work in.

Sheriff Arpaio's attorney quits during contempt hearing, former staff turn on the sheriff. UPDATE! Tuesday in Phoenix, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's civil contempt hearing began, and the first day was a doozie. US District Judge Murray Snow ordered Sheriff Arpaio to appear at the hearing because the bigoted blowhard had arrogantly defied the judge's orders following Melendres v. Arpaio. In that 2007 incident, argued by the ACLU, the court found that the sheriff's office did indeed use race as a determining factor in traffic stops and other detainments, the very definition of racial profiling. Following the Melendres verdict in 2011, which was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court a year later, in 2013 Judge Snow ordered three major reforms: Arpaio must end his infamous immigration roundups (neighborhood "sweeps"), turn over video evidence from traffic stops, and install a court-appointed monitor to oversee compliance.

The hearing's first day was explosive, and not in a good way for the sheriff. Sgt. UPDATE: Wow! Welcome to Forbes. How Nestlé is using a Native American tribe's land to get away with draining California dry. You might be most familiar with Nestlé as the company behind some of the world's tastiest cavity-inducing chocolate treats. You know, like these brands. But did you know that they're also the company behind seven (yes, seven) different brands of bottled water in the U.S.?

Count 'em: Ice Mountain, Poland Spring, Deer Park, Zephyrhills, Ozarka, Arrowhead, and good ol' Nestlé PureLife. The number of brands alone seems a bit excessive, but hey, that's just me. And while I could get into a long-winded rant about the evils of bottled water, complete with pictures of garbage island, I'm here to tell a different story. See, California is going through a bit of a drought — and I mean "a bit" in the sense that my beloved Chicago Cubs' 107-year World Series drought is "a bit" of a losing streak.

(This is our year! But seriously, it's bad out there. This is a water basin. As luck would have it, Nestlé owns a few bottled water plants right in the state — and they know how to drill from the desert. Humbug! Mediterranean migrants reveal those who survived paid $1,000 extra to be on deck. Captain of capsized migrant ship steered like a 'madman', survivor claimsIbrahim, 20, lost two brothers when the boat got into difficulty on SundayHe describes the skipper and his accomplice as 'horrible and deranged'Another survivor paid extra for a place on the top deck which saved his life By Hannah Roberts In Sicily and Jenny Stanton For Mailonline Published: 12:42 GMT, 22 April 2015 | Updated: 13:15 GMT, 22 April 2015 A survivor of the capsized migrant ship which claimed the lives of about 900 people said the captain of the fishing boat steered like 'a madman' and laughed as people were beaten.

Ibrahim, an Eritrean, lost two brothers in the tragedy, when their boat got into difficulty and overturned off Libyan waters, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, shortly after midnight on Sunday. He said he couldn't save his siblings because he panicked. Scroll down for video 'They were horrible, deranged. The 20-year-old added: 'I am afraid of the sea now. 'I was very scared. Freddie Gray death: Arresting officers provide statements as protests grow in Baltimore. BALTIMORE — Five of the six officers suspended with pay after their parts in arresting Freddie Gray have provided statements to investigators, the Baltimore Police Department said Wednesday.

The department will not release personnel records or photos because doing so would violate the law, the police said in a statement. “They have completely cooperated with the investigation from Day 1,” Michael Davey, an attorney for the officers involved in Gray’s arrest, told reporters. Another person, who was inside the prisoner transport van carrying Gray, is a witness in a criminal investigation, so his name won’t be released, police said. “The investigation, as it stands, will be turned over to the State’s Attorney’s Office for review on May 1, 2015,” the statement said.

The department released the officers’ names Tuesday: Lt. After an “in-custody death,” it is standard procedure to release the names of officers involved, police Capt. Protests continue As protesters chanted, “No justice, no peace!” “What a horrible mother:” How a call from a “good samaritan” derailed these mothers’ lives. Buffett1984.pdf. Scott Walker is the absolute worst: Beneath his “Everyman” facade, a grossly incompetent administration. Roseanne Barr on Losing Her Sight, Smoking Weed, Rejecting Feminism, and Not Voting For Hillary.

More Migrant Boats Issue Distress Calls Amid Fears of ‘Massacre’ in Sinking Off Libya. Here's What Happened In Indiana As Soon As The Media Stopped Paying Attention. Fast Track to Lost Jobs and Lower Wages. All Work and No Pay. Deaton_kahneman_high_income_improves_evaluation_August2010. Anonymous #OpIsis: Hacktivists publish how-to guide for identifying Islamic S... Nestle Continues Stealing World's Water During Drought. Here Is the Secret Jargon Doctors Use to Talk Trash About You to Your Face. Nestlé is bottling water from the heart of California’s drought — and the Forest Service is finally going to look into it. Nestlé has been pumping water from a national forest with an expired permit for over 25 years. Toddler won’t nap? Daytime sleep might be keeping her from getting a full night’s rest. When 'Stranger Danger' Is Actually CPS And Your Nosy Neighbor.

R Street takes big leap forward as the Warehouse Artist Lofts create new cultural hub - The City. Fatal shootings by on-duty police officers: An analysis | The Washington Post. Painkiller Opana, new scourge of rural America. Left rallies to protect Obama on Iranian nuclear deal. Read the Memo on Jack Lew’s Meeting with Tom Steyer Treasury Tried to Keep Secret. Obama Calls for End to ‘Conversion’ Therapies for Gay and Transgender Youth. The rush to humiliate the poor. The Inside Story Of Matt Taibbi's Departure From First Look Media. Ted Cruz's Dad: Here's What The "Average Black" Doesn't Understand. Rollingstone. The Scandal That Could Blow Up Rand Paul's Machine. Papantonio: The Religious Right’s Home School Fraud. Nestle Continues Stealing World's Water During Drought.

Obama White House Blasts Mike Pence For Lying About Indiana Religious Freedom Law. Dependency culture debunked: Study finds welfare makes people more likely to want to work — not less.