All Posts Tagged as 'Neglect'

Wearing a mask is important. For you and those around you. For elected officials? Not so much.

Actually, all the COVID rules are for us, not them. COVID-19, and the accompanying lockdowns, have made it painfully clear: We plebes have to follow the rules; the elites do not.

Start with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last week groveled for forgiveness after being caught attending a large birthday dinner at The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley. When pictures from the event surfaced, the hypocrisy was glaring: The governor was seen with his wife at a large table full of maskless lobbyists, all sitting in close proximity.

But, hey: You’re not the governor — so if you want to celebrate Thanksgiving in his state, remember: “No more than three households, including your own,” at the gathering, and keep your distance.

Newsom isn’t the only one to live it up while everyone suffers. Gov. Cuomo, for example, is rarely seen in a mask, yet his Twitter feed never stops harassing you to “mask up.” (And, by the way, he’s just thrilled with himself over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, even though it resulted in more deaths than any other state and, according to The New York Times, seeded the virus throughout the country.)

In Greensboro, N.C., the violence has gotten so extreme that a shootout erupted in front of the county courthouse the other day, across the street from the sheriff’s office, leaving a 20-year-old man dead. Greensboro set a city record with 45 homicides last year, and, as of Friday, already had 54 this year.

“We’ve always had a level of gang activity,” Greensboro Police Chief Brian James said in an interview, “but it’s more prolific now. I’m not sure what’s changed, but the offenders are more bold than they’ve ever been.”

Some police commanders say the twin impacts of the coronavirus and civil uprisings against police violence caused them to redirect their officers away from proactive anti-crime programs, whether due to virus-related budget cuts or strategic redeployment of forces to handle the unrest. Other officials point to job loss and other stresses of the pandemic as fueling tension and leading to violence. And with many schools shuttered, police say, many areas have seen a rise in violence involving juveniles.

“We haven’t seen numbers like this since the ’90s,” said PERF Executive Director Chuck Wexler. “We’ve had 20 years of steady declines in crime. Is this just an aberration, or does this portend something for the future? This has been under the radar because of the pandemic, but something’s happening across the country in the most serious crimes. The next administration, they’re going to have to pay serious attention to this.”

Just sitting idle, and like my grandmother used to say, ‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.’ We’re seeing people dying of silliness, for no reason. A year ago, we weren’t seeing that.”

A few weeks ago, I was supposed to take my sons to an outdoor activity that ended up getting canceled due to weather. We found out about the cancellation when we were halfway there. Before I turned around, I texted my husband that we would be heading home and never got a text back. This wasn’t unusual, as he usually puts his phone on “do not disturb” while he’s working. When we got home, I opened the door to find my husband and his best friend, “Ryan,” completely naked, and having fairly rough sex on our dining room table. They had music blaring, so they didn’t hear us come in, and my sons and I were all in shock and just stood there for a good 30 to 60 seconds before I was able to shut the music off, and they realized what was going on and could cover up. Obviously, this is a bit of a chaotic situation.

Ryan is like an uncle to my kids, has dinner at our house several times a week, has occasionally lived with us, and he and my husband actually work together. My husband and I are planning on staying together and are still trying to figure a lot of things out. Here’s the problem: My younger son (6) is pretty oblivious and thought Uncle Ryan was wrestling with his dad. My middle son (9) is very confused about the mechanics of what we saw (we’ve had the sex talk with him, but in hindsight, we made the mistake of only talking about heterosexual sex). My older son (12) is having a very difficult time. My middle son has a lot of questions that I’m not really sure how to answer, and I’m not sure how much detail I should be going into, and who should be leading this conversation (me? my husband? a doctor?). I’ve been getting phone calls home from my older son’s school. Ever since the incident, he has apparently been making derogatory remarks about gay people, using slurs, and is also refusing to speak to his father (they were previously pretty close). The school is threatening to expel him. We’re on the waitlist for individual and family therapy, but I was wondering if you guys had any advice about what to do with my two older sons?

—What Now?

Even if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to zero, global temperatures may continue to rise for centuries afterward, according to a scientific study published Thursday.

"The world is already past a point of no return for global warming," the study authors report in the British journal Scientific Reports. The only way to stop the warming, they say, is that "enormous amounts of carbon dioxide have to be extracted from the atmosphere."

The burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to increase and sea levels to rise.

The scientists modeled the effect of greenhouse gas emission reductions on changes in the Earth's climate from 1850 to 2500 and created projections of global temperature and sea level rises.

LGBTQ acceptance is eroding even among young people. What are we going to do about it?

By Adam Zivo

There is some very bad news that not nearly enough people are talking about. Acceptance of the LGBTQ community is significantly declining in the United States and has been for several years now. Almost two years ago, a national annual survey by GLAAD found that, since 2016, Americans have become much more uncomfortable with LGBTQ folks. Though the report has since become slightly dated, little research has been done on the issue since. Other statistics, such as consistent increases in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, suggest that the problem has not abated and may even be getting worse.

Despite the seriousness of this issue, there appears to be little awareness within the LGBTQ community that its public support is eroding. This ignorance within the wider community is mirrored by a lack of serious analysis by queer leaders and researchers. That needs to change.

And let’s not fool ourselves that this is a US-only problem. While it’s unclear how much this backlash is mirrored in Canada and Western Europe (which share similar historical trajectories on LGBTQ rights), both of these regions have also seen notable increases in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes – so there is good reason to be pessimistic. However, only real research focused on social attitudes will give us clarity. For whatever reason, this research isn’t being done in earnest.

A company that supplied a federal school lunch program sold juice with high levels of arsenic and used rotten fruit in their product, the FDA charged in a new lawsuit, according to a report.

In the suit, which was filed in federal court in Washington state against the company Valley Processing, food safety inspectors said they found high levels of arsenic in 17 batches of apple juice and two batches of pear juice during a 2019 inspection, The New York Times reported.

Investigators also found high levels of a toxin produced by rotting or moldy apples and pears in the company’s juice, according to the report.

An education watchdog in the U.K. found that some children have regressed due to COVID-19-related school closures and restrictions. A report from Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills, says some kids have fallen back in basic skills – and some who were greatly impacted have even forgotten how to use a fork and knife.

One is the "hardest hit" group of young kids. This group has suffered from time out of school and has gone backwards on words and numbers. This group has also reverted to diapers after being potty-trained or lost "basic skills" such as using a knife and fork.

The majority of children are in the middle group and "have slipped back in their learning to varying degrees since schools were closed to most children and movement restricted." According to Spielman, the "lost learning is unarguable, but it is hard to assess."

The Ofsted inspectors said older children have lost their "stamina" for reading. The watchdog also warned that older kids might show loss of concentration when returning to school, noting that fights on social media started during the lockdown are now "being played out in the classroom."

"I was no longer able to work in the toxic environment that was created on American Housewife. I made the decision to leave to protect myself from that type of discrimination," Hughes said in a statement. "As a black woman in entertainment, I feel the responsibility to stand up for what I deserve, what we all deserve — to be treated equally. I wish the show well, and I am excited for a new chapter and to be able to pursue the opportunities ahead."

Morgan Wallen is among the country singers who say they're ready to start booking concerts again — spurred by the sight of election celebrations that took place across America this weekend.

"The hypocrisy is unreal," Wallen wrote on Instagram on Sunday, after sharing footage of the crowd gathered at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C.

"Time to start booking shows...If you don't agree with me, fine. We can still be friends. But I have a family, band, and crew that need to be provided for and taken care of. If it's OK for us to party in the streets with no 'social distancing' then we can book shows right now."

It's Kendall's 25th birthday (barf) this week, plus, of course, Halloween (double barf.) So she decided to celebrate with a party on a rooftop bar in Hollywood, despite the fact that we’re currently living through a zombie apocalypse.

There were reportedly 100 people in attendance, who all had to do a rapid test on site before going to the party.

...Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith, who appeared to be wearing an oxygen mask.

"The President wants to send stimulus checks to workers because he knows they need direct relief," Benjamin Williamson, White House senior communications adviser, told Newsweek. "It's telling that the Speaker is openly admitting she's holding financial support for Americans as a leverage play."

"The president needs this legislation. He wants that check to go into people's pockets. He doesn't care about any of the rest of it in terms of what it does for working families," Pelosi said. "So that's our leverage, you know, that he wants that, and that's how we're going to try to get the rest of it."

Pelosi told The Joe Madison Show that Democrats also want the "purchasing power" to be in Americans' pockets. But her party can't "abandon" the necessary funding for education, health, and state and local government aid just for a $1,200 stimulus check, "as important as that is," she added.

Teens are dying by suicide at an alarming rate. Public health officials call it a crisis. Researchers have identified several clusters nationwide. The survivors in this Arizona community are fighting back

Chicago is the six-time holder of a title that no city wants.

For the sixth year in a row, Chicago is the country's "rattiest city."

The Windy City has topped the list of the rattiest cities in the United States for the sixth year in a row.

Orkin, an Atlanta-based pest control service, ranks US cities based on the number of new rodent treatments from September 1 to August 31 of each year. The result is a list of 50 cities, with most changing spots each time the list is updated. Chicago, however, is still No. 1.

"Rodents are experts at sniffing out food and shelter, and they're resilient in their ways to obtain both," Ben Hottel, an Orkin entomologist, said in the company's press release. "Residential properties offer the ideal habitat for rodents, and once they've settled in, they're capable of reproducing rapidly and in large quantities."

Efforts to tame the city's rat population have been going on for years. Chicago's "war on rats" escalated with the introduction of a new rat task force back in 2016. Residents had even begun adopting cats to squash their numbers.

In a matter of months, the foster care system found itself drowning in hundreds of new cases. By 2017, the state needed space for 6,000 additional foster children – an influx equivalent to the size of the entire foster population of the state of New Jersey.

But lawmakers, child welfare leaders and Scott did not hire more caseworkers or increase the money paid to foster families to make more homes available. And they failed to tackle the root problems driving most of the removals: lack of access to drug treatment, mental health care and domestic violence services for parents.

Instead, they stood by as foster care agencies packed children into overcrowded homes and sent nearly 200 boys and girls to foster parents previously accused of abusing or neglecting the children in their care, a USA TODAY investigation found.

The vast majority of Latinos living in the U.S. (around 60.6 million) are not undocumented, but 15.7% lived in poverty in 2019, a number that had been falling, but is still more than double their white counterparts, according to Census data.

Latinos also make up a large portion of the labor force in service sectors that were considered essential after the COVID-19 pandemic started (some 65%) -- like some construction, health care and food service workers -- leaving them at higher risk of being exposed to the disease without the protections typically afforded first responders and other traditional essential workers.

"Why are Latinos dying at a higher rate? Because we have no choice," said Frankie Miranda, the president of the Hispanic Federation, which supports Latino-led non-profits around the country. "We have to go to work, stock the shelves, deliver the food, be the sanitation workers, and of course we don't have the protective gear or any kind of information that can help us really navigate this. We know this for sure because our member agencies -- that were already underfunded and under-resourced -- were the ones that needed to step in and be the first responders for our communities."

When asked why he believes the Mexican community has not jumped into action and demanded racial equality following the Black Lives Matter protests, Alvarez suggested: "We are too afraid. Even if you want to do a peaceful protest, you don't want to be arrested because you can get deported."

Alvarez's case points to another situation that many Latinos say is affecting the community: lack of unity.