https://wreg.com/news/investigations/two-former-memphis-police-officers-indicted-after-deadly-wreck-during-pursuit/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/montana-man-68-begs-moratorium-100200538.html

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Bethan Moorcraft

Sat, May 11, 2024, 5:02 AM CDT

 

 

A senior from Montana has delivered a viral speech about the sorry state of property taxes in the Treasure State.

“I’m on Social Security, I’m 68-years-old and working just to pay my taxes,” says Kurt, in a clip shared on TikTok by Ryan Busse, who is running to be the next governor of Montana.

Kurt claims that over the last couple of years, his annual property taxes have soared from $895 to almost $8,000 — an increase of around 790% — which he says is like paying almost “$700 a month rent to the state to live in our own house.” The state has an Elderly Homeowner/Renter Tax Credit, and the maximum credit is $1,150.

“There needs to be a moratorium on what we have to pay,” he says, adding that he’s had to continue working into what should be his retirement golden years to cover his mounting property costs. “I’m stubborn enough [that] I don’t want to dig into my bank account to pay them.”

Kurt is one of thousands of Montana homeowners suffering sticker shock over recent property tax hikes. He says: “We just can’t take this anymore. This was a great place and it still is, but the people that made it great can’t afford to live here anymore.”

Here’s what’s going on in the Treasure State.

Soaring property values

There are many reasons why property taxes may increase over time. First and foremost, property tax is typically based on a percentage of a home’s assessed value — so if your value goes up, it’s likely that your tax bill will too.

In Kurt’s case, he claims to have bought his property in 1995. In the 29 years since then, the family home (he does not share where in Montana the property is located) has undoubtedly increased in value.

According to FRED Economic Data’s house price index for Billings, MT (the state’s most populous city), the average house price at the end of 1995 was around $103,860 and by the end of 2023 it had soared around 272% to more than $387,000.

Looking at the data since 1985, the steepest jump in value in Billings and elsewhere in the state occurred between 2021 and 2023 — during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was a surge of migration to the state and housing demand quickly outpaced supply. This corresponds with Kurt’s complaint that his property taxes have soared “over the last couple of years,” which likely occurred because his property value increased.

Instead of working deep into what should be his retirement years, Kurt could sell the family home, collect his capital gains and move somewhere smaller (and with a more manageable tax bill) — but the house holds too much sentimental value for him to consider that.

“My children were raised [there]. They want to get married there, and I plan on being there until the very end,” he says — even if that means taking winter and summer shifts.

Other homeowners in Montana, who aren’t quite so attached to their properties, may see selling and moving as their only viable option. According to a Montana Free Press (MTFP) analysis of revenue department data for the 956,000 properties on the state’s property tax rolls in both 2022 and 2023, the median Montana residential property owner saw a 21% hike on their property taxes this year, with typical increases ranging between 11% and 35%. That translates into residential tax bills that will be $98 to $660 a year more.

Where do the taxes go?

Property taxes make up almost 97% of local tax revenue here, considerably more than the 71% share for local governments in all U.S. states together, according to a state legislature brief. Property taxes account for 9.9% of the tax revenue of the Montana state government, as opposed to 1.7% for all the state governments.

Montana's great reliance on property taxes is possibly due to the comparitively lower tax revenue from sales and excise taxes. Montana has no state or local sales tax.

Property taxes are calculated by multiplying the property’s market value by its tax rate (1.35% for residential properties) and its mill levies (one mill generates $1 for each $1,000 in taxable value). For example, for a property worth $400,000 with a tax rate of 1.35% and a mill rate of 650, the property tax would be $3,510.

Almost all property taxes in Montana go towards county and city government services like K-12 schools, law enforcement and fire departments. This money does not typically go towards state services, like universities and prisons, which are funded by state income tax.

As inflation has increased nationwide, this has not only driven up the cost of living, but it also inflated the costs of providing public services. As a result, some local governments have had to compensate by raising property tax rates.

There’s no easy fix to Montanans’ property tax nightmares. The state department of revenue has promised property tax rebates for the 2022 and 2023 tax years of up to $675 for eligible homeowners, using $350 million from the state’s budget surplus.

While that may help some cash-strapped Montana homeowners, the “moratorium” on taxes that Chuck so desperately wants remains highly unlikely.

 

https://dailymontanan.com/2024/03/26/billings-man-pleads-guilty-to-illegal-gun-possession-inside-school-zone/

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Billings man pleads guilty to illegal gun possession inside school zone

 

By: Blair Miller - March 26, 2024

 

A Billings man who carried a gun in his yard and on the sidewalk across the street from Broadwater Elementary School last year who frightened children, their parents, and school staffers agreed Monday to plead guilty to unlawfully carrying a firearm in a school zone.

In addition to the plea deal, the case also includes an original opinion about how Montana’s gun laws interact with federal gun laws, as the court held that Montana’s individual licensure law is not an exception to federal law identifying who can possess a weapon on school grounds or in a 1,000-foot zone surrounding a school. That means, the judge wrote, that the federal law in Montana can be violated when a person steps off their private property with a gun within a school zone.

Gabriel Metcalf, 49, agreed to plead guilty to one federal count of unlawful possession of a firearm in a school zone.

Metcalf was charged and arrested late last August after he earlier in the month, on multiple occasions, was seen pacing his front yard and walking down the street with a .20-gauge shotgun, sometimes staring into traffic or at Broadwater Elementary School, which is across the street from the home he shares with his mother, according to court documents.

When Billings police talked to him after numerous complaints were made, he told them that his next-door neighbor and others were stalking him and that he believed the neighbor was working to place bombs in his yard.

Metcalf previously was given an “officer caution” notice for Billings police officers to exercise caution around him, dating back to a 2013 incident in which he got agitated with officers while carrying a loaded .22-caliber rifle.

Metcalf said he was conducting patrols to protect his mother, whom he said had a restraining order against the neighbor. Court documents show the neighbor has a pending case for violating a protection order.

When Billings police on Aug. 17 told Metcalf that he was in possession of a gun inside the 1,000-foot school zone that surrounds Broadwater Elementary, he called the FBI to say police were harassing him. He said that he had no mental health issues but declared the Gun-Free School Zones Act to be unconstitutional before the conversation became “unmanageable,” federal prosecutors wrote in an indictment and criminal complaint.

Prosecutors charged Metcalf on Aug. 21, and he was arrested a day later. Federal agents seized Metcalf’s shotgun and six rounds of ammunition.

 

Attorney argues Second Amendment protects Metcalf’s actions

 

In October, Metcalf’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that his actions were both protected by the Second Amendment and fall within the exceptions to the federal school zone law, which include possessing a firearm on his own property.

His attorney cited the 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen Supreme Court decision to say that Metcalf’s right to own a firearm extended to areas outside the home, arguing the government could not regulate guns within a school zone because the government did not historically apply that regulation to firearms dating back hundreds of years.

The attorney also argued that since Montana law grants every person in Montana who is not a convicted felon or otherwise prohibited from possessing a gun under the constitution a license under “individual licensure” exempting them from the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act, that Metcalf was allowed to carry a gun in the school zone while not on his property.

“If Mr. Metcalf stepped from his property onto the public sidewalks while carrying a firearm as the government alleges, he was licensed to do so by the State of Montana at the time,” Metcalf’s attorney wrote. “…And the indictment must be dismissed.”

 

Judge says Montana’s law does not meet exception requirements

 

But at the end of January, U.S. District Court Judge Susan P. Watters denied the motion to dismiss, saying that the federal law Metcalf was charged under does not violate the Second Amendment and that Montana’s “individual licensure” law cannot be an exception because a law enforcement officer did not verify that he was qualified to carry a firearm before issuing the license.

Watters said the case involved “an issue of first impression” — a case that presents an issue never decided in that jurisdiction.

She interpreted the Gun-Free School Zones Act as saying that a state “require(s) some kind of process for law enforcement to determine whether a person is qualified to own a firearm before issuing a license.”

She said Montana does not meet the requirement for the exception because it automatically considers everyone in Montana to be licensed, but “claws back” licensure for those who are felons or otherwise prohibited under the constitution. She wrote that the Legislature had effectively declared that “individual licensure” would comply with the exemption requirements on its own.

“But a state legislature cannot work around federal law by simply proclaiming that a state statute meets the federal requirement. Proclamation of compliance does not override non-compliance on the face of the text,” Watters wrote in the order denying the motion to dismiss.

Watters said this is the first time a party has argued that Montana law does not qualify for such an exemption and said the Department of Justice “is responding to novel challenges to the Act and evolving conceptions of gun control in light of intervening law, namely Bruen.”

“The court finds that, while Metcalf was licensed under Montana law to carry a gun, his license does not exempt him from the requirements of the Gun-Free School Zones Act because Montana’s individual licensure does not comply with federal law,” Watters wrote.

Responding to Metcalf’s attorney’s contention that the Gun-Free School Zones Act is unconstitutional because it extends gun-free zones beyond the physical campus of a school, Watters said the prevalence of school shootings over the past 50 years constitutes an “unprecedented societal concern” that means there is likely not a direct historical analogue because there were only two documented school shootings during the colonial period up through the mid-1850s.

“It is thus highly unlikely that the Founders could have anticipated the prevalence of gun violence today, and a more nuanced analysis of the historical regulations is warranted,” Watters wrote in the order denying the motion to dismiss.

Since the government had only presented examples of gun restrictions on school campuses, Watters said she needed to do her own analysis to find examples where guns were not allowed in a “sensitive place,” which is one of the standards for gun regulations, dating back to a 2008 case, District of Columbia v. Heller.

Watters used polling places as the historical “sensitive place” that schools could be compared to since they historically have had buffer zones where guns are prohibited, dating back to the 1776 Delaware Constitution and continuing on to the years that followed the Civil War.

“The Colonial and post-Reconstruction laws that formed a buffer zone around the location of elections further persuades the court that this nation has a history and tradition of banning firearms within a certain proximity of ‘sensitive places’ in order to hold safe and fair elections. Like voting, the Founders considered education essential for a responsible citizenry,” Watters wrote. “The court’s conclusion under the Bruen analysis ensures that the law protects children from deadly gun violence that threatens to subvert their first duty as citizens—to become educated.”

She said the Founding fathers “did not – and could not” foresee the gun violence happening in schools today and thus couldn’t have anticipated the Second Amendment covering guns near schools, but said keeping guns out of “sensitive places” was not a violation of the amendment historically.

She concluded by saying she felt it was “important to reiterate” that Metcalf did not violate the Gun-Free School Zones Act when he had the gun in his home or yard, but only when he stepped onto the public sidewalk within 1,000 feet of the school.

The two sides had been preparing for a trial in the case through mid-March, when on Monday, Metcalf agreed to change his plea and to plead guilty. As part of the plea agreement, the government will recommend Metcalf get points for accepting responsibility when the judge considers his sentence.

The two sides also agreed to seek probation in the case, according to the agreement. Metcalf would also agree to forfeit his .20-gauge shotgun and the six rounds of ammunition previously confiscated by federal agents.

Metcalf is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 2 and faces up to five years in prison and up to a $100,000 fine under the standard sentencing guidelines.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/feds-plan-ask-seize-former-201400687.html

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Feds plan to ask to seize former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s Gulf Coast condo at her sentencing

 

Madeleine O'Neill, The Baltimore Sun

May 3

 

BALTIMORE — Federal prosecutors filed notice Friday that they will ask to seize former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s Florida vacation condo on the same day as her sentencing on perjury and mortgage fraud charges.

The government indicated early on in the case that it would seek forfeiture. Friday’s filing formalizes prosecutors’ request and sets up the possibility of a legal fight over the condo at Mosby’s May 23 sentencing.

The government intends to sell the condo, according to the motion, which Mosby bought in February 2021 for $476,000. If there are profits from the sale, Mosby would get back her $47,600 down payment, prosecutors wrote.

 

The condominium known as “The Tree House” sits along Florida’s Gulf Coast in Longboat Key. It is one of two Florida vacation properties that Mosby bought during the coronavirus pandemic using money withdrawn from her city retirement account.

Mosby used that money, about $80,000, to put down payments on the two properties. Prosecutors said she lied about suffering a pandemic-related financial setback in order to make the early withdrawals under the CARES Act, federal legislation that offered emergency economic relief during the health crisis.

A federal jury agreed, convicting Mosby of two counts of perjury in November. At her second trial in January, the government alleged that Mosby lied repeatedly when she applied for mortgages on the two properties, which were worth almost $1 million combined.

Jurors convicted Mosby of one count of mortgage fraud at that trial, finding that Mosby submitted a false gift letter claiming that her then-husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, would send her $5,000 to close on the Longboat Key Condo. In fact, Mosby sent her husband the money herself before he wired it to an escrow agent.

Mosby faces up to 40 years in prison at her sentencing, though maximum sentences are rare. She has taken the unusual step of publicly asking for a presidential pardon ahead of her sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby has scheduled a forfeiture hearing to take place on the same day as Mosby’s sentencing in Greenbelt.

In cases involving forfeiture, it’s not unusual for the defense and prosecution to come to an agreement, said Steven Levin, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in Mosby’s case. It’s possible that Mosby could agree to pay a judgment instead.

“This way, to the extent she wants to, Mosby can conceivably hold on to the property,” Levin said. “And the government doesn’t have to deal with the headache of seizing the property, maintaining it and preparing it for resale, all of which carry significant costs.”

Mosby previously sold the other Florida vacation property, an eight-bedroom house in Kissimmee, near Disney World, for $696,000. She paid $545,000 for the home in September 2020.

Prosecutors would not have been able to seize that property anyway, Levin said, because Mosby was not convicted of the count of mortgage fraud related to that home.

The condo, however, is forfeitable “in its entirety,” prosecutors wrote, because Mosby could not have bought it without committing mortgage fraud. That includes any profits made from the sale of the condo.

“It would undermine the very purpose of forfeiture to allow Ms. Mosby to profit from the Vacation Condo’s appreciation,” prosecutors wrote in the motion.

Mosby’s lawyer, Federal Public Defender James Wyda, declined to comment. The defense will have a chance to respond in court.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore also declined to comment.

 

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2024/02/u-va-alumna-settles-first-amendment-lawsuit-against-the-university-after-her-expulsion-in-abeyance

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U.Va. alumna settles First Amendment lawsuit against the University after her expulsion in abeyance

 

By Jackie Bond

February 28, 2024

 

Morgan Bettinger, Class of 2021 College alumna, settled a lawsuit against the University after being sanctioned by the University Judiciary Committee for a 2020 comment concerning Black Lives Matter protestors blocking traffic in downtown Charlottesville. The lawsuit alleged that President Jim Ryan, the University Board of Visitors and former Dean of Students Allen Groves violated her free speech and due process rights by permitting and assisting in her sanctions. 

While the details of the settlement have not yet been publicized, according to an email from University Communications Deputy Spokesperson Bethanie Glover, the lawsuit “was resolved by a mutual and amicable agreement and dismissed following a joint motion by both parties.”

Bettinger’s legal team filed a lawsuit against the University in July on the grounds that the University failed to protect her first amendment right to freedom of speech by permitting her expulsion by the UJC. The lawsuit also contended that the University further violated Bettinger’s due process rights by failing to retry Bettinger’s expulsion case after a later inquiry by the Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights found Bettinger not guilty of the charges she was convicted for. 

“The Defendant University of Virginia and its most senior leaders — leaders who owed Morgan a duty to protect her ‘best interests’ — would, without any legal or evidentiary basis, join in, augment, amplify, and then take the lead in a racially motivated campaign to ruin Morgan Bettinger,” the lawsuit said. 

The incident for which the University expelled Bettinger occurred when Bettinger was driving in downtown Charlottesville July 17, 2020, when she was stopped by a dump truck blocking the road. Bettinger exited her car to ask the truck driver what was going on, to which the driver responded that he was protecting Black Women Matter protestors from oncoming traffic. 

According to Bettinger, she jokingly said to the driver “It’s a good thing you’re here, because otherwise these people would have been speed bumps.” Zyahna Bryant, Charlottesville-area activist and Class of 2023 alumna, was part of the protesting group. She claimed she heard Bettinger say a different statement — that the protestors “would make good speed bumps.” She then posted Bettinger's alleged statements on Twitter, and the post quickly went viral. 

The social media campaign criticizing Bettinger’s alleged statements, spearheaded in large part by Bryant, led to Bettinger being reported to the UJC. The Committee heard a trial on the case and Bettinger was found guilty of “threatening the health and safety” of University students and expelled in abeyance, meaning that she could remain at the University but received a demerit on her academic record. 

Bettinger was also sanctioned to 50 hours of community service, to meet with Bryan Williams, professor at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, to learn about the history of police-community relations and to write an apology letter to Bryant. 

According to the Daily Progress, the U.Va. Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights later found Bettinger not guilty of the charges the UJC expelled her for, citing a lack of sufficient evidence, but the demerit remained on her record. Following these findings, both Bettinger and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which has the mission of defending free speech on college and university campuses through advocacy and legal defense, sent letters to President Ryan requesting the UJC sanctions be expunged. Ryan refused to do so, stating that Bettinger’s conviction was legitimate. 

“Ms. Bettinger received a fair hearing and review by both the UJC and the Judicial Review Board ('JRB'),” Ryan said in a letter to FIRE. “I have no basis to find that the investigative or adjudicative process was infected with significant procedural errors that would warrant expungement.”

The UJC also declined to comment on the settlement.

 

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/paterson-press/2024/04/10/paterson-nj-bill-to-restrict-free-food-poor-pulled/73276690007/

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Paterson pulls ordinance to restrict food distribution to the poor, but it could return

 

April 10

 

PATERSON — The Rev. Sarah Anthony and congregants from Grace Gospel Church can be seen near the city’s train station in the afternoons handing out food and sanitary supplies.

This effort, which began last year, is designed to help Paterson’s homeless population, people struggling with the rising cost of housing and inflation, and those still battling the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It’s not all drugs,” Anthony said about the backstories of the people she encounters on outreach. “Some had really good jobs that they lost; others lost a family member and had to leave the only place they had to live.”

Anthony joined about 30 other community members Tuesday evening in front of City Hall to protest a proposed ordinance that seeks to crack down on those distributing food and other items to people in need.

Their complaints seemed to be heard. Hours after the protest, the City Council backed away from the ordinance, which was removed from the agenda at Tuesday’s City Council meeting.

The proposed ordinance had been revised during the past week, including a change that eliminated a requirement that charity groups set up indoor areas where people could wait for food, clothing and other items. Critics had said the provision seemed like an attempt by City Hall to hide Paterson’s poverty problem.

Despite the changes, nonprofit groups and activists still have issues with the plan, which may yet come up for a vote later this spring. It requires individuals and nonprofit groups to get permits for open-air food distributions.

“It says once you reach five people, you’re breaking the law,” said Councilwoman Ruby Cotton, who pushed for the ordinance to be removed, arguing that it was unclear and overly harsh, and would burden the police force.

The 4th Ward councilwoman said she also helps distribute goods for local food pantries from the back of her vehicle.

Violators could face 90 days in jail, $2,000 fine

The ordinance also mentions that a failure to comply could cost violators up to $2,000 or even 90 days in jail. The fine is not just steep, it’s among the steepest on the books, said David Gilmore, the city’s director of community improvements, who spoke against the proposal Tuesday night.

Gilmore pointed out a double standard when it comes to the enforcement of street vendors, arguing that Mayor Andre Sayegh tolerates the open-air flea markets along the city’s downtown sidewalks, but draws a line at feeding the homeless.

“Why are you going after the people serving the least affluent in the community — the hungry, the homeless, the penniless?” he said. “These are poor Black and brown people, for the most part, and the other folks are something else.”

Sayegh told Paterson Press last week that the spirit of the ordinance was to ensure the safety of the public, giving the Health Department a way to trace food back to the source in the case of food-borne illnesses. “While these groups are undoubtedly well-intentioned, some inadvertently contribute to the littering, adversely affecting the quality of life in the areas they serve,” Sayegh said.

Should be held to same standard as food pantries

The proposed ordinance is not without its supporters. Councilman Luis Velez said outreach workers should be held to the same standard as food pantries. “Every church that has a food pantry or serves the community, they have to go to the Board of Health and get the permits,” Velez said. “And they get inspected, too, to make sure that what they’re distributing out there won’t harm any residents.”

Corey Fleming, director of the Danforth Library on Broadway, where many charities host their outdoor food giveaways, said a few bad actors have spoiled it for the rest. “What’s left behind is the trash,” Fleming said. “Oftentimes after a food giveaway, my maintenance team will have to clean up around the library — that’s not their role.”

However, Anthony denied that the debris is left behind by the charitable organizations, instead blaming the trash on a longstanding problem with garbage collection that recently led the city to opt for a new contractor. “Many clean the area before setting up,” Anthony said. “Let’s recognize that this has been a problem within the city and not target those who are less fortunate than we are.”

No issue with food contamination

Akbar McEntyre, founder of Humble Beginnings — one of the first charities to distribute food along Broadway — said he has never had an issue with food contamination in the nine years he’s been operating on Broadway, a corridor known as the epicenter of the city’s drug and homelessness crisis. 

McEntyre said his organization teams up with churches and restaurants, such as Clifton’s Carla Mia Pizzeria, who donate their salads and sandwiches. In the summer, their offerings include fresh produce from the Northside Community Garden.

“Most of the time we distribute food, it goes from the oven straight to the mouths of the people,” said the Humble Beginnings founder.

Zellie Thomas, organizer at Black Lives Matter Paterson, said that hidden behind the language of the ordinance lurks a discriminatory “war on poor people.”

“This is not about food handling,” Thomas said. “If it was, the ordinance would just talk about the distribution of food, but this ordinance regulates all tangible items, which includes clothes, socks, ponchos, hand warmers or even naloxone that’s used to reverse overdoses.”

Thomas said the ordinance is part of a broader effort to make this neighborhood more attractive to real estate developers by sweeping the poor under the rug. “The mayor wanted to hire a PR firm as part of a plan to rebrand Paterson as a place for developers to invest in,” Thomas said. “But we need to stop investing in buildings and start investing in the people who live here.”

Both Thomas and McEntyre said they would defy the ordinance if it eventually passed.

“The irony of potentially going to jail for supporting people who may have been recently released from jail,” Thomas said.

 

https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/paterson-press/2024/04/04/paterson-nj-food-to-the-poor-charity-mayor-andre-sayegh/73201898007/

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Joe Malinconico

Paterson Press

April 4

 

PATERSON, NEW JERSEY — Pretty much every day somewhere in Paterson people who are hungry, unhoused, or simply in need wait in lines to get free food, clothing, toiletries, and other necessities.

The queues form on city sidewalks outside long-established social service agencies as well as in random locations in impoverished neighborhoods where do-gooders set up impromptu charity centers.

City officials — including Mayor Andre Sayegh — say the philanthropic efforts have caused problems and a proposed municipal law is looking to regulate those activities.

“As a direct result of these aforementioned sites, there is an accumulation of unwanted trash and debris which litter the vicinity and large queues of individual crowding and overflowing the public sidewalks,” says the pending ordinance.

“The operation of these distribution outdoor locations cause health and safety hazards to the members of the community,” says the ordinance, asserting there needs to be regulation of the “emergency food and resource distribution, so as to ensure public safety and guard against nuisance.”

The ordinance popped on the City Council’s agenda for Tuesday night’s workshop meeting, catching by surprise leaders of Paterson social service agencies, who said they were not consulted about the plan.

“I’m all for clean streets, but this seems like it punishes people who are doing the right thing,” said Inge Spungen, executive director of a coalition of local nonprofit and community groups called the Paterson Alliance, an organization that Sayegh had led more than a dozen years ago.

Spungen noted that plenty of people who are not engaged in charitable efforts leave trash on Paterson’s sidewalks, but don’t seem to be the target of any crackdowns.

The proposed ordinance says anyone who wants to conduct “an outdoor, open-air resource distribution” must get a permit by filing an application with the city, including an “adequate crowd and noise management plan detailing number of expected served, location of queue, number of staff, volunteers and security.”

The ordinance also regulates which city streets can be used for such charitable efforts.

Groups that use buildings to distribute food and other items must “have a designated indoor space large enough for members of the public to queue.”

'Well-intentioned' volunteers add to quality-of-life problems

In a written statement, Sayegh called people who distribute food and other necessities in Paterson “well-intentioned,” but said they inadvertently contribute to the city’s quality of life problems.

“The permit requirement is essential for ensuring the safe handling and distribution of food in our city, particularly to protect vulnerable residents, including those experiencing displacement and homelessness,” said the mayor’s statement. “Just as every public event mandates permits for food vendors, volunteer groups dedicated to feeding individuals on city streets must adhere to this regulation.”

Sayegh said the permits would allow the city’s health division to “swiftly track food sources in case of illness outbreaks.”

Paterson Black Lives Matter is one of the groups that conducts outreach efforts, distributing various items to people in need in impoverished areas of the city. The group’s leader, Zellie Thomas, said the plan essentially was an attack on efforts to help “poor and working class individuals,” asserting that people in the private sector have filled the void as local government has failed to meet the growing need in the city.

Thomas was particularly critical of the proposed law’s requirement that queues of people waiting for items be kept indoors. “He’s trying to hide the fact that poverty exists in the city,” Thomas said of the mayor.

Thomas noted that, in contrast to the food distribution ordinance, the Sayegh administration seems to have done little regarding Paterson businesses that put furniture and appliances out on the curb as part of their sales efforts.

Luis Velez, vice president of the City Council, said the proposed law likely will come up for the first of two votes next week. Velez said church groups and other people from outside Paterson have created problems with their unorganized charity efforts.

One person, Velez said, brought tents for homeless squatters, making it easier for them to set up camp where the Route 19 ramp empties onto Ward Street. Velez said another outsider was simply leaving boxes of food in Roberto Clemente Park near Market Street without cleaning up or taking away meals that went unclaimed.

Velez suggested that the meal giveaways don’t address the needs of Paterson’s poor residents.

“Food is good, but they just give it to them to eat and they continue living the same way,” said the councilman.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/solar-capacity-grows-some-americas-most-productive-farmland-is-risk-2024-04-27/

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By P.j. Huffstutter and Christopher Walljasper

April 27, 20245:24 AM CDT

 

JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA, April 27 (Reuters) - Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen.

 

About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.

 

On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said, his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is dust from your farm inside my truck? Inside my house? Who should I call to clean it up?

 

According to Duttlinger's solar lease, reviewed by Reuters, Dunns Bridge said it would use "commercially reasonable efforts to minimize any damage to and disturbance of growing crops and crop land caused by its construction activities" outside the project site and "not remove topsoil" from the property itself. Still, sub-contractors graded Duttlinger's fields to assist the building of roads and installation of posts and panels, he said, despite his warnings that it could make the land more vulnerable to erosion.

 

Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across large stretches of rich topsoil, Duttlinger said. When Reuters visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no plants grew.

 

"I'll never be able to grow anything on that field again," the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm – where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for cattle – has been leased.

 

The Dunns Bridge Solar project is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, the world's largest generator of renewable energy from wind and solar. Duttlinger said when he approached NextEra about the damage to his land, the company said it would review any remedial work needed at the end of its contract in 2073, as per the terms of the agreement.

 

NextEra declined to comment on the matter or on what future commitments it made to Duttlinger, and Reuters could not independently confirm them. Project developer Orion Renewable Energy Group LLC directed questions to NextEra.

 

The solar industry is pushing into the U.S. Midwest, drawn by cheaper land rents, access to electric transmission, and a wealth of federal and state incentives. The region also has what solar needs: wide-open fields.

 

A renewable energy boom risks damaging some of America's richest soils in key farming states like Indiana, according to a Reuters analysis of federal, state and local data; hundreds of pages of court records; and interviews with more than 100 energy and soil scientists, agricultural economists, farmers and farmland owners, and local, state and federal lawmakers.

 

Some of Duttlinger's farm, including parts now covered in solar panels, is on land classified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as the most productive for growing crops, according to a Reuters analysis.

 

For landowners like Duttlinger, the promise of profits is appealing. Solar leases in Indiana and surrounding states can offer $900 to $1,500 an acre per year in land rents, with annual rate increases, according to a Reuters review of solar leases and interviews with four solar project developers. In comparison, farmland rent in top corn and soybean producers Indiana, Illinois and Iowa averaged about $251 per acre in 2023, USDA data shows.

 

Farmland Partners Inc, a publicly traded farmland real estate investment trust (REIT) has leased about 9,000 acres nationwide to solar firms. Much of that ground is highly productive, said Executive Chairman Paul Pittman.

 

"Do I think it's the best use of that land? Probably not. But our investors would kill us if we didn't pursue this," he said.

 

Some renewable energy developers said not all leases become solar projects. Some are designing their sites to make it possible to grow crops between panels, while others, like Doral Renewables LLC, said they use livestock to graze around the panels as part of their land management. Developers also argue that in the Midwest, where more than one-third of the U.S. corn crop is used for ethanol production, solar energy is key for powering future electric vehicles.

 

Some agricultural economists and agronomists counter that taking even small amounts of the best cropland out of production for solar development and damaging valuable topsoil impacts future crop potential in the United States.

 

Common solar farm construction practices, including clearing and grading large sections of land, also can lead to significant erosion and major runoff of sediment into waterways without proper remediation, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department.

 

Solar development comes amid increasing competition for land: In 2023, there were 76.2 million - or nearly 8% - fewer acres in farms than in 1997, USDA data shows, as farmland is converted for residential, commercial and industrial use.

 

In response to Reuters' findings, USDA said that urban sprawl and development are currently bigger contributors to farmland loss than solar, citing reports from the Department of Energy and agency-funded research.

BUILDING ON PRIME CROPLAND

No one knows how much cropland nationwide is currently under solar panels or leased for possible future development. Land deals are typically private transactions. Scientists at the United States Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been compiling a database of existing solar facilities across the country. While that project is incomplete and ongoing, Reuters found that around 0.02% of all cropland in the continental U.S. intersected in some way with large-scale, ground-based solar panel sites they had identified as of 2021.

 

The total power capacity of the solar operations tracked in the data set represents over 60 gigawatts of electric power capacity. In the following two years, solar capacity has nearly tripled, according to a Dec. 2023 report from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Wood Mackenzie.

 

To better understand future land-use patterns, Reuters analyzed federal government data to identify cropland that USDA classified as prime, unique, or of local or statewide importance. Reuters also reviewed more than 2,000 pages of solar-related documents filed at local county recorders' offices in a small sample of four Midwestern counties – Pulaski, Starke and Jasper counties in Indiana, and Columbia County in Wisconsin.

 

The counties, representing an area of land slightly bigger than the state of Delaware, are where some of the nation's largest projects are being developed or built. The sample is not necessarily representative of the broader United States but gives an idea of the potential impact of solar projects in farm-heavy counties.

 

Reuters found the percentage of these counties' most productive cropland secured by solar and energy companies as of end of 2022 was as follows: 12% in Pulaski, 9% in Starke, 4% in Jasper and 5% in Columbia.

Jerry Hatfield, former director of USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, said Reuters' findings in the four counties are "concerning."

 

"It's not the number of acres converting to solar," he said. "It's the quality of the land coming out of production, and what that means for local economies, state economies and the country's future abilities for crop production."

 

More than a dozen agronomists, as well as renewable energy researchers and other experts consulted by Reuters, said the approach to measuring solar's impact was fair. The news agency also shared its findings with six solar developers and energy firms working in these counties. Three said Reuters' sample size was too small, and the range of findings too wide, to be a fair portrayal of industry siting and construction practices.

 

By 2050, to meet the Biden Administration's decarbonization targets, the U.S. will need up to 1,570 gigawatts of electric energy capacity from solar.

 

While the land needed for ground-based solar development to achieve this goal won't be even by state, it is not expected to exceed 5% of any state's land area, except the smallest state of Rhode Island, where it could reach 6.5%, by 2050, according to the Energy Department's Solar Futures Study, published in 2021.

 

Researchers at American Farmland Trust, a non-profit farmland protection organization which champions what it calls Smart Solar, forecast last year that 83% of new solar energy development in the U.S. will be on farm and ranchland, unless current government policies changed. Nearly half would be on the nation's best land for producing food, fiber, and other crops, they warned.

FUEL DEBATE

Five renewable developers and solar energy firms interviewed by Reuters counter that the industry's use of farmland is too small to impact domestic food production overall and should be balanced with the need to decarbonize the U.S. energy market in the face of climate change.

 

Doral Renewables, the developer behind the $1.5 billion Mammoth Solar project in Pulaski and Starke counties, does not consider corn or soybean yields in its siting decisions.

Instead, the company looks at the land's topography, zoning and closeness to an electrical grid or substation – and tries to avoid wooded areas, ditches and environmentally sensitive areas, said Nick Cohen, Doral's president and CEO.

 

Shifting corn acres for solar? "I don't see it as replacing something that is vital to our society," Cohen said. Solar can make farmland "more productive from an economic perspective," he added.

 

Indiana farmer Norm Welker says he got a better deal leasing 60% of his farmland to Mammoth than he would have growing corn, with prices dipping to three-year lows this year.

 

"We've got mounds of corn, we're below the cost of production, and right now, if you're renting land to grow corn – you're losing money," Welker said. "This way, my economic circumstances are very good."

Get weekly news and analysis on the U.S. elections and how it matters to the world with the newsletter On the Campaign Trail. Sign up here.

Reporting by P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago, Columbia County, Wisconsin, and Jasper, Starke and Pulaski Counties, Indiana. Reporting by Christopher Walljasper in Chicago; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Claudia Parsons

 

https://wwmt.com/news/local/kalamazoo-central-high-school-gun-student-arrested-juvenile-home-weapon-charges-trade-stolen-mother-arraignment-december-police-crime-investigation-west-michigan

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by Katie Sergent and Carter Landis | News Channel 3

Tue, April 23rd 2024 at 4:59 PM

Updated Wed, April 24th 2024

 

KALAMAZOO, Mich. — A 16-year-old Kalamazoo Central student who brought a stolen gun to school was allegedly looking to trade it for a different gun, according to the police report read during the student's arraignment.

Tuesday, the student was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a weapon in a weapon free school zone and disturbing the peace.

They were also charged in an earlier incident where they allegedly stole a handgun from their mother in December 2023.

Monday, officers from the Township of Kalamazoo Police Department were called to Kalamazoo Central High School around 2 p.m. after staff noticed the student had the gun inside the school's weight room.

Once police were called, the 16-year-old cooperated and handed the gun to a staff member, who unloaded the ammunition and turned the gun over to officers, according to information revealed in court.

The student was then arrested in the lower level of the school.

Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting said everyone involved is fortunate that no one was hurt.

“Relief doesn’t really even get close to how you feel when you know that something that could have been so horrible was right there," Getting said. "I don’t know how you ever get to a place where you aren’t going to just say ‘thank God.'"

The 16-year-old remains inside the Kalamazoo County Juvenile Home, according to police.

They are due back in court for a pretrial May 17 at 11:30 a.m.

In between Tuesday and that pretrial, prosecutors plan to take advantage of the time to determine potential consequences if the student remains detained.

“When we’re dealing with juveniles, the idea is to have a rehabilitative process so that we don’t continue to have contact with this kid later on in the adult system," Getting said.

 

https://www.al.com/opinion/2024/04/roy-s-johnson-misplaced-outrage-over-caitlins-clarks-wnba-contract-should-spark-change.html

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April 18

This is an opinion column.

 

America’s gender pay gap is real, extremely real.

 

Women with full-time wages and salaries earned 83.6 percent of what men in made 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The 21.8% gap is lower than in 2022 (22.9) yet, notes the Economic Policy Institute, it’s essentially the same as it was three decades ago (23.2% in 1994).

 

The gap is unacceptable and must continue to be addressed—though the pervasive attack on DEI makes it that more difficult. (Bet the bullies didn’t think that one through. Or maybe they did. Sorry, I digress.)

Now, the world is losing its ever-loving mind over WNBA No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark’s rookie contract: four years totaling $338,056—about $84,500 annually.

 

 

That’s more than what half of single Americans earn, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s sofa change relative to the four-year rookie contract signed by 2023 NBA No. 1 draft pick Victor “Wemby” Wembanyama: $55.2 million--$12.2 million in season 1, escalating to $16.9 million in 2026-27, the fourth year of the deal.

 

 

That math ain’t mathin’. Hence, the outrage that torched social media following Monday’s WNBA draft. After the former Iowa star was selected by the Indiana Fever, America’s temperature soared.

 

 

“Shameful,” MSN host Joy Reid shared on Instagram. “Pay women athletes, ALL of them, a fair wage!!!”

Even President Biden weighed in: “… [R]ight now we’re seeing that even if you’re the best, women are not paid their fair share,” he tweeted, or X’d.

 

 

 

 

Hold on, Mr. Prez and er’body else. Breathe. This is a false comparison, though an easy one to make.

 

 

Let me help. Let’s start with this: The NBA and WNBA are two wholly separate operations—like two distinct companies under the same corporate parent. The NBA is almost 80 years old, formed in June 1946. The WNBA was born in 1996. Call it, with all respect, the NBA’s well-loved grandchild.

 

Salaries in professional sports are generally collectively bargained by the league and the players’ union. In the NBA and WNBA, the unions—which, remember, represent current players—agreed to a rookie wage scale, assuring new players prove their worth as professionals before reaching free agency.

 

 

Additionally, salaries are driven by each league’s overall annual revenue—which is largely determined by three primary sources: television rights fees, sponsorships, ticket sales, and merchandise sales—and the percentage of that revenue that is negotiated to flow to players in salary and other benefits.

 

 

“The common sports fan sees a discrepancy between WNBA and NBA player salaries and immediately goes to the amount of dollars a specific athlete or group of athletes might be getting,” says Jim Cavale, my friend, sports entrepreneur, and an expert on the financial intricacies of college and professional sports. “The reality is it’s more of a discrepancy of the pool—the overall amount generated by the leagues. What athletes get from the pool is determined by what is negotiated between the players’ union and the league as a percentage of gross revenues.”

 

 

So, here we go: The NBA generated $10.58 billion in revenue in 2022-23. The WNBA? Between $180 million and $200 million for its 2023 season.

 

 

Distinctly different pools.

 

 

Why the vast difference? Start here:

 

 

Television rights fees

 

 

Disney (ABC/ESPN) and Warner Bros., Discovery Sports (TNT) pay the NBA $2.6 billion each season to broadcast 165 nationally televised games. The 10-year agreement ($24 billion overall) was signed in 2014, thus it expires after the 2024-25 season. NBA officials are salivating, looking for between $60 billion and $72 billion overall in the next agreement, per reports.

 

 

The WNBA receives $60 million annually for media rights, a deal that also expires in ‘25. League officials hope to double that amount.

 

 

Television ratings

 

 

BA games last season averaged just under 1.6 million viewers per game. On ABC, the WNBA averaged 627,000 viewers.

 

 

Attendance

 

 

The NBA, which has an 82-game schedule, set an all-time attendance record this regular season: 22,58,518. Last season, WNBA attendance, in its 36-game season, was 1,587,488, its highest in 13 years.

There’s more that contributes to the discrepancy in the size of the NBA and WNBA pools, but this is key: the percentage of revenues received by the players, as negotiated by the respective players’ unions.

 

 

NBA players collectively bargained a guaranteed minimum of 53 percent of the league’s gross revenues. WNBA players have no such guarantee, and currently receive between 10 percent and 20 percent of the league’s revenues. (WNBA players do receive 50 percent of what is CBA-defined as “incremental” revenue—the amount generated above specified targets.)

 

 

Thus, WNBA players have agreed to a much smaller percentage of a vastly smaller pool.

 

 

Moreover, the players from both leagues agreed to a rookie wage scale, assuring that new players prove their worth before entering free agency. So, the size of the No. 1 pick’s first contract is pre-determined, whether it be Caitlin Clark or Clark Kent.

 

 

Every major sport has a gender pay gap, according to a 2023 study conducted by Adelphi University.

 

 

In 1973, tennis’ U.S Open became the first of the four grand slams to offer equal prize money to men and women. That was seismic. The year prior, men’s singles champion Ilie Nastase received $25,000, while women’s champion Billie Jean King was handed a $10,000 check. It wasn’t until 2007 that Wimbledon became the final grand slam to offer equal prize money to men and women.

 

 

Last summer the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) approved a plan to reach pay equity at all events featuring men and women by 2033.

 

 

Yeah, 2033. Women athletes have been in this battle since King whipped Bobby Riggs in three straight sets in the famed Battle of the Sexes in the Houston Astrodome in 1973.

 

 

Now, don’t fret over Caitlin Clark’s bag. Women’s basketball is on fire, and she’s the match. The NCAA women’s final, with Clark and Iowa losing to undefeated and indomitable South Carolina, outdrew the men’s final for the first time. UConn’s victory over Purdue was watched by 14.82 million viewers, well short of the 18.87 million who watched the women’s final.

Moreover, 2.45 million people watched Monday’s WNBA draft, a stunning 307% jump from last summer’s draft.

That heat will boost the league and all its players. But only if…

 

 

If outrage over the pay gap is transferred to television ratings, attendance, and WNBA merchandise revenue, all things that will increase the league’s gross revenues—the size of the pool.

Also, know this: the WNBA’s CBA has an out clause, exercisable by either the league or the player in 2025.

 

 

I’m calling it now: WNBA players will opt out and negotiate a new deal, just as they did in 2018. Among other things, they’ll likely seek a guaranteed percentage of gross revenue. Maybe not 53 percent like NBA players receive, but something.

 

 

Something that will ensure the pay gap will be smaller for the young girls now being inspired by Clark, Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso, Angel Reese, Dawn Staley, Kim Mulkey, and the plethora of women who’ve set women’s basketball on fire.

 

https://www.thefire.org/news/third-stanford-students-say-using-violence-silence-speech-can-be-acceptable

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April 18

 

• A year after Judge Kyle Duncan was shouted down at Stanford University, a new FIRE report lays out just how dim the free speech climate at the school really was before and after the incident.
• Three-fourths of Stanford students say shouting down a speaker is either “rarely,” “sometimes,” or “always” an acceptable form of protest, and more than a third say the same about physical violence.
• FIRE used polling data before and after the judge’s visit to map out how a high-profile heckler’s veto changed Stanford’s free speech climate.

PALO ALTO, April 18, 2024 — In March 2023, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan attempted to speak at an event held by the Stanford Law School Federalist Society—and was instead shouted down by dozens of demonstrators. 

Under the pretense of quieting the crowd, Stanford’s then-Associate Dean Tirien Steinbach took the podium and delivered prepared remarks scolding Duncan for having “caused harm” and questioning whether his appearance was worth the trouble, asking, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” The heckling and disruption persisted, leading to Duncan’s premature departure under escort by federal marshals. 

Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression released “The Judge Duncan Shoutdown: What Stanford Students Think,” a retrospective survey detailing how Stanford students felt about the school’s handling of the incident and laying bare the endemic anti-free speech attitudes that led to the disruption.

As the Judge Duncan shoutdown was happening, FIRE and College Pulse were in the process of surveying more than 55,000 college students nationwide, including 284 students at Stanford, as part of the 2023 College Free Speech Rankings. FIRE was therefore able to compare the responses of Stanford students from before the incident to those of students after the incident to track the real-time effect of a high-profile heckler’s veto on the campus speech climate. FIRE also took the opportunity to poll an additional 531 Stanford students and ask specific questions about the shoutdown.

FIRE’s polling shows that while conservative students reported more comfort discussing the Stanford shoutdown after the fact than did liberal and moderate students, they also felt more uncomfortable discussing “controversial political topics” and reported self-censoring more often. In the starkest finding, close to half of conservative students said they felt comfortable publicly disagreeing with their professor on a controversial topic before the visit (45%), but that percentage plummeted to merely 6% after the visit.

“After the Judge Duncan shoutdown, our polls show conservative speech on Stanford’s campus wasn’t just chilled. It was frozen solid,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “An act of censorship doesn’t just silence one speaker. It silences thousands of others who take notice and choose to keep quiet for fear of receiving the same treatment.”

Stanford students had complicated and seemingly contradictory feelings about the judge’s visit itself:

• 74% of students agreed that the school failed to uphold its commitment to free speech during Judge Duncan’s visit.
• But more than half (54%) said the school should have canceled the speech. 
• 60% of Stanford students said the administration was correct to suspend Dean Steinbach.
• But about two-thirds (65%) said the school should not have apologized to Judge Duncan.

Stanford students’ views on the shoutdown differed depending on their politics. Conservatives were more likely than liberals to defend Judge Duncan and liberals were more likely than conservatives to defend the disruption. In the largest partisan gap, 88% of conservatives believed the students who disrupted the event should have been punished, whereas only 35% of liberals believed the same.

Stanford students were also significantly more likely than students at other colleges polled for the College Free Speech Rankings to support illiberal and violent methods for shutting down campus speech. Three-fourths of Stanford students said shouting down speakers is either “rarely,” “sometimes,” or “always” acceptable, and more than a third (36%) said the same about using physical violence.

“That some of these students say violence is ‘rarely’ acceptable should be no comfort when there’s only one correct answer to this question: violence is never an acceptable response to speech,” said Stevens. “Every bully and mob comforts themself with the notion that they have identified the rare instance where violence is required to defeat an idea. It never is, and schools need to punish and prevent violence.”

When asked about which specific controversial beliefs should not be allowed on campus, Stanford students were more accepting of liberal-coded political opinions than they were of conservative-coded ones. Overwhelming majorities said Stanford should allow a speaker who believes transgender women should compete in women’s sports (82%) or that the federal government should confiscate all guns (71%).

But only 59% said Stanford should allow a speaker on campus who believes that biological differences explain gender differences, including less than half of liberal students (49%). Only 40% said that a speaker who believes that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional should be allowed (Duncan argued in support of same-sex marriage bans as an attorney). And only 31% would allow a speaker who supports the prosecution of women who obtain abortions.

“It doesn’t matter if the speaker is on the left or the right, a freshman or a federal judge. Incidents like the Judge Duncan shoutdown aren’t isolated affairs, but symptoms of a larger problem with campus free speech culture,” said Stevens.

“FIRE is heartened by some of the moves Stanford has made in the past year to instruct its students about the value of free speech. We’re standing by to help any schools that want to recommit to creating an environment where contentious views are met with debate and dialogue, not shoutdowns and censorship.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.

College Pulse is a survey research and analytics company dedicated to understanding the attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of today’s college students. College Pulse delivers custom data-driven marketing and research solutions, utilizing its unique American College Student Panel™ that includes over 750,000 college students and recent alumni from more than 1,500 two- and four-year colleges and universities in all 50 states. For more information, visit collegepulse.com or @CollegeInsights on Twitter.

The sample for the Judge Duncan survey consists of 413 undergraduate students, 90 graduate students, and 28 students of unknown status — for a total of 531 students. Data were collected from April 26 to July 26, 2023. The overall margin of error was +/- 4%. 

The report also includes an analysis of responses from 284 Stanford students separately surveyed for FIRE’s 2024 College Free Speech Rankings. This included 78 Stanford students surveyed before Judge Duncan’s visit to campus and 206 surveyed after Judge Duncan’s visit. The margin of error for the whole sample of 284 Stanford students is +/- 6%.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/world/leave-this-is-my-house-wife-of-berkeley-dean-tells-pro-palestine-protesters-at-graduation-dinner/ar-BB1lrPSj

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April 11

 

Pro-Palestine students interrupted a private dinner in California to protest against the “Zionist” professor who had invited them.

Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of Berkeley Law School and his wife, professor Catherine Fisk, were hosting their annual spring celebration for around 60 graduating students at their home when the protest began.

“While guests were eating, a woman stood up with a microphone, stood on the top step in the yard, and began a speech, including about the plight of the Palestinians,” said Prof Chemerinsky, who is Jewish.

“My wife and I immediately approached her and asked her to stop and leave. When she continued, there was an attempt to take away her microphone. Repeatedly, we said to her that you are a guest in our home, please stop and leave. About 10 students were clearly with her and ultimately left as a group.”

Video footage showed a Berkeley law student identified as Malak Afaneh being challenged by the couple as she spoke into a microphone on steps at their home, near the university in Berkeley.

“Leave,” said Prof Fisk. “This is not your house, this is my house.”

“Please leave our house,” added Prof Chemerinsky. “You are guests in our house.”

‘Anti-Semitic blood libel trope’

Ms Afaneh is co-president of Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine, a student group that had in advance called for a boycott of Prof Chemerinsky’s dinner by publishing a disturbing cartoon of the dean holding a fork and knife covered in blood.

“No dinner with Zionist Chem while Gaza starves,” read the accompanying caption on a social media post. “This dinner is the prime example of a normalisation PR event that hopes to distract students from Dean Chem’s complicity and support for the genocide of the Palestinian peoples.”

n a statement, Mr Chemerinsky condemned the use of imagery as an example of anti-Semitism.

“I never thought I would see such blatant anti-Semitism, with an image that invokes the horrible anti-Semitic trope of blood libel and that attacks me for no apparent reason other than I am Jewish,” he said.

Referencing the protest, he added: “On April 9, about 60 students came to our home for the dinner. All had registered in advance. All came into our backyard and were seated at tables for dinner.

“The dinner, which was meant to celebrate graduating students, was obviously disrupted and disturbed. I am enormously sad that we have students who are so rude as to come into my home, in my backyard, and use this social occasion for their political agenda.”

 

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/salman-rushdie-describes-moment-stabbed-162133489.html

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Salman Rushdie describes moment he was stabbed onstage: ‘So it’s you. Here you are’

 

Salman Rushdie has for the first time opened up about the 2022 knife attack that nearly claimed his life.

The author, 76, was repeatedly stabbed while preparing to deliver a lecture on free speech at the Chautauqua Institution in New York two years ago.

The attack took place after a fatwa - assassination order - was placed on the author’s head in 1989 for what was considered in parts of the Islamic world as blasphemous content in his novel, The Satanic Verses.

 

While this fatwa was removed, the threats against the author’s life persisted, and he has now revealed how he felt when he met his would-be assassin.

“So it’s you. Here you are,” the author recalled thinking. “It felt like something coming out of the distant past and trying to drag me back in time, if you like, back into that distant past, in order to kill me.”

Rushdie offended parts of the Islamic world with his 1988 novel, which included derogatory depictions of the Prophet Muhammed.

He was ultimately forced into hiding as a result, but eventually stepped back into the public eye again, believing that any serious threats against his life were in the past.

Hadi Matar, then 24, is accused of attacking Rushdie and has been held without bail since the August 2022 attack.

While he has pled not guilty to the charges against him, he has admitted to disliking the author because of his treatment of Islam.

He said: “I don’t like the person. I don’t think he’s a very good person.

“He’s someone who attacked Islam, he attacked their beliefs, the belief systems.”

Rushdie’s interview comes ahead of the release of his new memoir about the attack, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.

Reading from the new memoir, the Booker Prize winner said: “In the corner of my right eye – the last thing my right eye would ever see – I saw the man in black running toward me down the right-hand side of the seating area. Black clothes, black face mask. He was coming in hard and low. A squat missile.

“I confess, I had sometimes imagined my assassin rising up in some public forum or other, and coming for me in just this way. So my first thought when I saw this murderous shape rushing towards me was, ‘So it’s you. Here you are.’”

After the attack, Rushdie remained in hospital for six weeks. “One of the surgeons who had saved my life said to me, ‘First you were really unlucky and then you were really lucky’. I said, ‘What’s the lucky part?’ and he said ‘Well, the lucky part is that the man who attacked you had no idea how to kill a man with a knife’,” Rushdie told Anderson Cooper on CBS’s 60 Minutes in his first television interview since the attack.

Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder is being released on 16 April.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORQa_ZlJdis

https://www.al.com/news/montgomery/2024/04/she-forgave-her-daughters-killer-alabamas-parole-chair-couldnt-believe-it.html

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Updated: Apr. 11, 2024, 8:02 p.m.

 

Robert George didn’t mean to kill Mary Dale.

 

No one argues that fact.

 

He was drunk that day in 1993, arguing with family members at a big gathering in Monroe County when he shot at the ground to scare someone. But the bullet didn’t stop, and struck 11-year-old Mary.

 

She died a few days later.

 

And George was sent to prison for life.

 

Now 85 and in failing health, George faced an unusually long, contentious parole hearing Wednesday morning, showing just how hard it is to win the support of Alabama’s parole board.

George wasn’t present at the hearing, as Alabama inmates aren’t permitted to attend. But he said in a pre-recorded video played at the hearing, “That was something I didn’t mean to do, because I ain’t never hurt nobody or anything like that. It just was an accident and not something I meant to do.”

 

 

The vast majority of eligible prisoners in Alabama do not get parole. The parole rate dropped to just 8 percent last year, despite overcrowding in Alabama prisons.

 

 

George told the three-member parole board how sorry he was about Mary’s death. He asked her mother for forgiveness and said, “At the age I am, all I can do now is pray … if I leave here I can have a good resting place.”

 

 

Mary Dale’s mother, Joyce Dale, opposed George’s parole at his last hearing in 2022. But after learning that George hadn’t had a drink since the day he accidentally shot her daughter 31 years ago, and his positive impact in prison, she changed her mind.

 

 

While Joyce Dale wasn’t present at Wednesday’s hearing, she sent a recorded video that was played on a screen.

 

 

“I know I said the last time that I want him to stay in prison. But God has brought me through…I forgive him because I’m a child of God and I would like to just let him out of prison just to let him see some daylight,” said Joyce Dale. ”I’m asking you all please, please release the man. In Jesus’ name, thank y’all.”

 

 

Normally, parole hearings last a few minutes. But George’s ran two and a half hours, much of it consumed by board Chair Leigh Gwathney’s questioning.

 

 

Gwathney, who votes no more often than her colleagues, repeatedly grilled George’s attorneys about the victim’s mother and that decision to forgive.

 

 

Robert George

 

 

After pleading guilty to manslaughter in the spring of 1994, George was sentenced to life in prison. He got the harsh sentence under the state’s old Habitual Felony Act Offender Laws because he had two priors stemming from a theft from an unoccupied building.

 

 

A representative from the Alabama Attorney General’s Office spoke in opposition to George’s release on Wednesday, citing his priors and other crimes he was arrested for, but not convicted of.

 

In his three decades behind bars, court records show, George has only had three disciplinaries: One for refusing to work in 1998 and two for violating rules in 2005 and 2007.

 

In a court filing seeking resentencing, which a Monroe County judge denied in February, George’s lawyers included copies of certificates he’s earned over the years for small engine repair and auto mechanics training, along with eight-years’ worth of “peer trainer” certificates from a community college.

 

 

According to George, he was addicted to alcohol at the time of the shooting. He’s been sober since that day.

 

 

Seven officers at the south Alabama prison where George has spent most of the last 30 years wrote letters to that court asking for him to be released, calling him a “model inmate” and a “positive example of a successfully rehabilitated man.”

 

 

A Birmingham-area physician wrote a letter to the parole board, saying that George’s health should be considered for “compassionate release.” According to court records, George has extensive medical issues, including COPD and diabetes. He runs out of breath making his bed, said Cobb.

 

 

“His continued incarceration not only exacerbates his health issues but also represents an unnecessary and disproportionate punishment,” wrote Dr. Jimmie Harvey, an oncologist.

But the AG’s representative said she thought the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office believed Joyce Dale was being pressured to support George. She presented no correspondence from the DA’s Office, or anyone involved, to support that statement.

 

 

Joyce Dale

 

 

Gwathney spent the majority of the hearing questioning George’s lawyers, Lauren Faraino and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, about why the victim’s mother came to her decision.

 

 

“Who had the very first contact with Ms. Dale?” Gwathney asked Cobb.

 

 

“Who participated in this affidavit she purportedly signed?”

 

 

Cobb now runs a nonprofit legal group that focuses on getting parole for sick inmates, and Faraino owns her own law firm, along with leading the Woods Foundation. The two teamed up on the case.

 

 

Faraino said she visited Joyce Dale at her south Alabama home last year to ask her feelings on George’s release and then formed a relationship with the grieving mother over several months. Eventually, Joyce Dale met with Faraino and signed an affidavit supporting George’s parole.

 

 

Cobb answered the chairperson’s questions, saying Joyce Dale had chosen to forgive George – the Dale family and George are distantly related – and wanted her feelings known at this hearing. She didn’t come because she couldn’t handle being interrogated for her decision, Cobb said.

 

 

“I would like to just let him out of prison just to let him see some daylight.”

Joyce Dale, victim's mother

 

 

Many of Gwathney’s questions related to the interactions that Cobb’s group, Redemption Earned, and Faraino had with the mother, so Gwathney asked Faraino to come to the podium.

 

 

She asked about the initial meeting at Joyce Dale’s home.

“What did you tell her about who you were?” questioned Gwathney. “Did you tell her you were representing Mr. George to get him out of prison?”

 

 

Faraino answered yes, and said Joyce Dale continued to speak with her even after knowing she was an attorney for George.

 

 

“What kind of home did she live in?”

 

 

“Have you done any kindnesses for her the past year?”

 

 

“How many times did you initiate conversation? What percentage?”

 

 

“Who was there when she signed the affidavit?”

 

 

She questioned at which UPS store the notary signed that form, how Joyce Dale was transported there and by whom. She asked about Joyce Dale’s own attorney and who was paying his legal bills (he’s working the case pro bono, said Faraino).

 

 

Following the questioning of Faraino, Gwathney turned to Cobb once again.

She asked if it was Redemption Earned’s “standard practice” to show up to victims’ homes, and if the former justice considered a driveway a public space.

Darryl Littleton and Gabrelle Simmons, the other two board members, sat quietly throughout Gwathney’s lengthy questioning.

 

 

Littleton followed up when they finished. “Judge Cobb,” he said, “Is (Joyce Dale) just trying to have her voice heard today?”

 

 

Yes, Cobb answered.

 

 

Simmons asked no questions of Cobb, Faraino, or a nurse who spoke about George’s rapidly deteriorating health.

 

 

Littleton also remarked on the video of Joyce Dale that was played at the hearing. “In my observation, it did not look like a hostage video in wartime.”

 

 

In the end, the board split, voting 2-1 to parole George. Gwathney voted no, saying she would vote to set him off for another five years, the maximum amount of time before he could have another parole hearing. He would be 90.

What’s next?

 

 

When asked following the hearing, the board members declined to comment for this story.

 

 

George’s stepdaughter, who lives in Florida, plans to care for George when he’s released, to give him “all the love and affection he can stand,” she wrote in a letter to a Monroe County judge.

 

“Dad was a great dad to me and my brother- much more than I can say about my actual dad. He was absent, but my dad George was there for us… and I am overwhelmed with the fact that he might finally be going to come home.”

George’s wife died in 2019, but her kids still need him.

“There’s nothing in the world I want more than to see Dad’s face again,” his stepdaughter wrote.

Since Alabama is dragging its feet on passing a combo of a lottery and casino bill, they should just pass a lottery for now. Use the lottery revenue to expand Medicaid.