the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Never gets old

[MEDIA=youtube]6IYWy1ivRDQ[/MEDIA]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/mcdonalds-ceo-warns-california-minimum-wage-hike-will-hurt-franchisees[/URL]

Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a minimum wage hike for fast food workers at restaurants with at least 60 locations nationwide – although the law contains an exception for restaurants that sell their own bread. It increases the minimum wage for covered fast food workers to $20 per hour effective on April 1, 2024.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-jersey-gov-phil-murphy-used-12k-taxpayer-funds-party-taylor-swift-concert-stadium-events[/URL]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/mcdonalds-ceo-warns-california-minimum-wage-hike-will-hurt-franchisees[/URL]

Last month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a minimum wage hike for fast food workers at restaurants with at least 60 locations nationwide – although the law contains an exception for restaurants that sell their own bread. It increases the minimum wage for covered fast food workers to $20 per hour effective on April 1, 2024.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-wray-warns-terror-threat-americans-whole-other-level-after-hamas-israel-attack[/URL]

Well, it's happening.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-senators-bash-bidens-policies-trip-border-increased-threat-terrorist-attack[/URL]

Following the border trip last Thursday and Friday, Ricketts added that the country is "opening ourselves up for a terrorist attack."

[GOP Sens.]('https://www.foxnews.com/category/politics/senate') John Barrasso, John Cornyn, Ted Cruz and Pete Ricketts railed against the Biden administration's border policies as migrants continue to enter the U.S. illegally.

"We have just returned from our southern border, and it is painfully clear that with Joe Biden's open border policy, our country is really at an increased threat for a terrorist attack," said Barrasso, the Senate Republican Conference chairman, during a press conference Tuesday.

[SIZE=4]Border Patrol agents seized immigrants carrying with them explosive devices "tailored for terrorism," he said. [/SIZE]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ero-new-york-city-arrests-unlawfully-present-noncitizen-convicted-rapist[/URL]

NEW YORK — On Oct. 27, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) New York City arrested Neftali Caal-Chocoj, a 50-year-old citizen of Guatemala, who was convicted of rape in the second degree: sexual intercourse with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled.

The unlawfully present noncitizen was convicted of the Class D felony and sentenced to time served — six months — and 10 years of probation on Oct. 25.

[SIZE=4]ERO New York City’s Newburgh suboffice lodged a detainer against Caal-Chocoj’s after he was initially arrested on those same criminal charges on Sept. 14, 2022. However, due to local laws, ERO officers were precluded from assuming custody of Caal-Chocoj safely within the secure perimeter of the Putnam County Jail. Instead, jail officials released the convicted felon directly to the street.[/SIZE]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ero-new-york-city-arrests-unlawfully-present-noncitizen-convicted-rapist[/URL]

NEW YORK — On Oct. 27, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) New York City arrested Neftali Caal-Chocoj, a 50-year-old citizen of Guatemala, who was convicted of rape in the second degree: sexual intercourse with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled.

The unlawfully present noncitizen was convicted of the Class D felony and sentenced to time served — six months — and 10 years of probation on Oct. 25.

ERO New York City’s Newburgh suboffice lodged a detainer against Caal-Chocoj’s after he was initially arrested on those same criminal charges on Sept. 14, 2022. However, due to local laws, ERO officers were precluded from assuming custody of Caal-Chocoj safely within the secure perimeter of the Putnam County Jail. Instead, jail officials released the convicted felon directly to the street.

FJB

So, a post is permissible, but not emphasis of specific lines? I try to include information from the article before leading into the key part of the article. Should I not do that now?

yeah stops

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ero-new-york-city-arrests-unlawfully-present-noncitizen-convicted-rapist[/URL]

NEW YORK — On Oct. 27, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) New York City arrested Neftali Caal-Chocoj, a 50-year-old citizen of Guatemala, who was convicted of rape in the second degree: sexual intercourse with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled.

The unlawfully present noncitizen was convicted of the Class D felony and sentenced to time served — six months — and 10 years of probation on Oct. 25.

[SIZE=4]ERO New York City’s Newburgh suboffice lodged a detainer against Caal-Chocoj’s after he was initially arrested on those same criminal charges on Sept. 14, 2022. However, due to local laws, ERO officers were precluded from assuming custody of Caal-Chocoj safely within the secure perimeter of the Putnam County Jail. Instead, jail officials released the convicted felon directly to the street.[/SIZE]

[IMG width="653px"]https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_lossy/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F71472b2a-0b60-4de6-a8a4-c41563d1b697_400x225.gif[/IMG]

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Massachusetts group seeks to clear all accused, convicted or executed for witchcraft[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The state is working to fully atone for its witch trial legacy nearly 400 years after the first person was executed there for witchcraft.

BOSTON — In 1648, Margaret Jones, a midwife, became the first person in Massachusetts – the second in New England – to be executed for witchcraft, decades before the infamous Salem witch trials.

Nearly four centuries later, the state and region are still working to come to grips with the scope of its witch trial legacy.

The latest effort comes from a group dedicated to clearing the names of all those accused, arrested or indicted for witchcraft in Massachusetts, whether or not the accusations ended in hanging.

The Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project, made up of history buffs and descendants, is hoping to persuade the state to take a fuller reckoning of its early history, according to Josh Hutchinson, the group’s leader.

Hundreds of individuals were accused of witchcraft in what would become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts between 1638 and 1693. Most escaped execution.

While much attention has focused on clearing the names of those put to death in Salem, most of those caught up in witch trials throughout the 1600s have largely been ignored, including five women hanged for witchcraft in Boston between 1648 and 1688.

“It’s important that we correct the injustices of the past,” said Hutchinson, who noted he counts both accusers and victims among his ancestors. “We’d like an apology for all of the accused or indicted or arrested.”

For now, the group has been collecting signatures for a petition but hopes to take their case to the Statehouse.

Among those accused of witchcraft in Boston was Ann Hibbins, sister-in-law to Massachusetts Gov. Richard Bellingham, who was executed in 1656. A character based on Hibbins would later appear in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter,” published in 1850.

Another accused Boston witch, known as Goodwife Ann Glover or Goody Glover, was hanged in the city in 1688. A plaque dedicated to her is located on the front of a Catholic church in the city’s North End neighborhood, describing her as “the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts.” It’s one of the few physical reminders of the city’s witch trial history.

The witch justice group helped successfully spearhead a similar effort in Connecticut, home of the first person executed for witchcraft in the American colonies in 1647 — Alse Young. The last witchcraft trial in Connecticut happened in 1697 and ended with the charges being dismissed.

Connecticut state senators in May voted by 34-1 to absolve 12 women and men convicted of witchcraft – 11 of whom were executed – more than 370 years ago and apologize for the “miscarriage of justice” that occurred over a dark 15-year-period of the state’s colonial history.

The resolution, which lists the nine women and two men who were executed and the one woman who was convicted and given a reprieve, passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 121-30. Because it’s a resolution, it doesn’t require the governor’s signature.

For many, the distant events in Boston, Salem and beyond are both fascinating and personal. That includes David Allen Lambert, chief genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Lambert counts his 10th great grandmother – Mary Perkins Bradbury – among the accused who was supposed to be hanged in 1692 in Salem but escaped execution.

“We can’t change history but maybe we can send the accused an apology,” he said. “It kind of closes the chapter in a way.”

Massachusetts has already made efforts to come to terms with its history of witch trials – proceedings that allowed “spectral evidence” in which victims could testify that the accused harmed them in a dream or vision.

That effort began almost immediately when Samuel Sewall, a judge in the 1692-1693 Salem witch trials, issued a public confession in a Boston church five years later, taking “the blame and shame of” the trials and asking for forgiveness.

In 1711, colonial leaders passed a bill clearing the names of some convicted in Salem.

In 1957, the state Legislature issued a kind of apology for Ann Pudeator and others who “were indicted, tried, found guilty, sentenced to death and executed” in 1692 for witchcraft. The resolution declared the Salem trials “shocking, and the result of a wave of popular hysterical fear of the Devil in the community.”

In 2001, acting Gov. Jane Swift signed a bill exonerating [five women executed during the witch trials]('https://www.middletownpress.com/news/article/Massachusetts-governor-Swift-signs-bill-11919415.php') in Salem.

In 2017, Salem unveiled a memorial for the victims. The ceremony came 325 years to the day when Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Wildes were hanged at a site in Salem known as Proctor’s Ledge. Nineteen were hanged during the Salem witch trials while a 20th victim was pressed to death.

In 2022, lawmakers exonerated Elizabeth Johnson Jr., clearing her name 329 years after she was convicted of witchcraft in 1693 and sentenced to death at the height of the Salem witch trials. Johnson is believed to be the last accused Salem witch to have her conviction set aside.

Other states have worked to confront similar histories.

In Pownal, Vermont, a town that borders Massachusetts and New York, a dedication ceremony was held last month for a historical marker recognizing the survivor of Vermont’s only recorded witch trial. Widow Krieger was said to have escaped drowning in the Hoosic River when tried as a witch in 1785, according to the Legends and Lore marker.

Accusers believed witches floated but Krieger sank and was saved, the marker states.

The Sept. 16 dedication ceremony included a witches’ walk, in which people dressed as witches walked across a bridge to the marker site along the Hoosic River.

“I am sure Widow Krieger would have been quite happy to join our witches’ walk today in defiance of those who feel they have the right to accuse someone they feel looks different, acts different or has a personality that they might find odd, of being a witch,” said Joyce Held, a member of the Pownal Historical Society, which worked with the Bennington Museum to get the marker.

So, a post is permissible, but not emphasis of specific lines? I try to include information from the article before leading into the key part of the article. Should I not do that now?

yeah stops

Thank you for the clarification.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://pagesix.com/2023/11/01/style/lil-nas-x-transforms-into-tampon-for-bloody-ridiculous-halloween-costume/?_gl=11vcopkc_gaMTkwODk0NTQzMy4xNjg0NDE0ODM5_ga_0DZ7LHF5PZ*MTY5ODg1MTI4NS40MjkuMS4xNjk4ODUxNzkwLjAuMC4w&_ga=2.51931361.930644648.1698755236-1908945433.1684414839[/URL]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://pagesix.com/2023/11/01/style/lil-nas-x-transforms-into-tampon-for-bloody-ridiculous-halloween-costume/?_gl=11vcopkc_gaMTkwODk0NTQzMy4xNjg0NDE0ODM5_ga_0DZ7LHF5PZ*MTY5ODg1MTI4NS40MjkuMS4xNjk4ODUxNzkwLjAuMC4w&_ga=2.51931361.930644648.1698755236-1908945433.1684414839[/URL]

I was way ahead of Lil Nax X!! During the Toxic Shock Episode of 1980 I attended a Halloween party dressed as a Tampon, no ketchup nor other red colors, with the words "P&G Factory Team" emblazed on my white hazmat suit, along with a rope dangling from my waist.

At that party, I met my wife. When folks ask her WTH?, the response is usually something like, "Yeah, I had a feeling there was something not quite right about him the first time we met"...

SMH, I still call "Long Tail Ducks" Old Squaws and will never change. I seriously doubt few people know the history of folks like Audubon beyond, "He's the bird guy". Seems to be a huge effort with little benefit, and begs the question if any birds named or other honors regarding slave-owning Founding Fathers, the majority of them, will be changed?

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Dozens of bird names honoring enslavers and racists will be changed[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The American Ornithological Society says it will alter all human names of North American birds, starting with up to 80 species.

After two years of discussion and debate, the nation’s premier birding organization has decided that birds should not have human names.

The American Ornithological Society announced Wednesday that it will remove names given to North American birds in honor of people and replace them with monikers that better describe their plumage and other characteristics. The group said it will prioritize birds whose names trace to enslavers, white supremacists and robbers of Indigenous graves. Among them is one of the most famous birders in U.S. history, John James Audubon.

“There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today,” the society’s president, Colleen Handel, said in a statement. “We need a much more inclusive and engaging scientific process that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves.”

Sometime next year, the society is expected to appoint a committee to explore up to 80 new names. The move, at an organization known for its reluctance to rename birds, was surprising even to the activists within the group who requested it after a White woman in Central Park falsely accused a Black birder of assault in 2020. In a racial reckoning that shook the field of ornithology, the activists, most of them White, argued that the names of some birds were offensive to people of color.

“We have seen a lot of changes in our world in the recent past,” Sara Morris, the society’s president-elect, said in reference to racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer and the Central Park incident involving birder Christian Cooper.

Racial insensitivity in the overwhelmingly White field of ornithology and birding should be rejected, Morris said. Recent reports projected that North America has lost 3 billion birds in the last 50 years, and “we need to engage as many people as we can in the enjoyment, study and conservation of birds as we can,” said Morris. “We need to break down as many barriers to participation as we can.”

Not every birder in the 2,700-member society is expected to welcome the news. Some who’ve memorized names established for more than a century are likely to push back. “Are we expecting that people won’t agree with this decision – sure,” Morris said. “But we’re proud of this decision. As we talked to people, many of them changed their minds.”

Jordan Rutter, a birder who organized the petition with her fiancé, Gabriel Foley, said the society’s action left her speechless. “That’s everything we asked,” said Rutter, who co-founded the group Bird Names for Birds, which listed about a dozen men honored with bird names and described their racist pasts. “I never thought this would be happening. . . . What an incredible moment for the birding community.”

For the time being, birders of color who spot the Townsend’s warbler and the Townsend’s solitaire might be startled by the history of their namesake, John Kirk Townsend. His journals describe his collection of skulls, stolen from the graves of Native people in the 1800s, to promote his theory that they were racially inferior.

In North America, where Indigenous tribes in what are now the United States and Canada encountered and named wild birds centuries before the arrival of European settlers, “White people are credited for discovering [the birds]. White people were the ones to name the birds after other White people. And White people are still the folks that are perpetuating these names,” Rutter said in a 2021 interview with The Washington Post.

At least two chapters of the National Audubon Society voted to change their names and distance themselves from the enslaver who detested abolitionists and, by his own account, once guided a family of escapees back to their enslaver. The Audubon’s shearwater and Audubon’s oriole were named to honor him.

Black birders who trace the Bachman’s sparrow and Bachman’s warbler to the man they immortalized, John Bachman, might find this passage in one of his speeches: “That the Negro will remain as he is, unless his form is changed by an amalgamation, which . . . is revolting to us. That his intellect . . . is greatly inferior to that of the Caucasian, and that he is, therefore . . . incapable of self-government. That he is thrown to our protection. That our defense of slavery is contained within the Holy scriptures.”

Two members of Bird Names for Birds, Jess McLaughlin and Alex Holt, confirmed this history in library archives and helped bring it to the ornithological society’s attention, Rutter said. “It wasn’t, ‘Take our word for it.’ The evidence was right there.”

The society and its predecessor, the American Ornithologists’ Union, have managed a list of English-language bird names in North America since 1886. They are used by schools, government, conservationists, birders and other groups, the statement said.

Erica Nol, co-chair of the society’s Ad Hoc Committee on English Bird Names, said members took the issue seriously from the day the committee was formed more than a year ago. Meeting every two weeks via Zoom, they came up with a priority list of names to consider changing.

At first, the diverse White, Black and Latino members failed to arrive at a consensus. In addition to North American birds, they mulled changing the names of South American birds but eventually decided that it was not their place.

Months later, the members came to the realization that all eponymous names were problematic. “They imply possession of a species,” Nol said. “They are overwhelmingly from a particular time and social fabric, they are almost all White men, few women, and women were almost all first names. Our main goal was to increase the birdwatching public.”

The committee startled the society’s leadership with its recommendation to change all English bird names and at least two cultural names of birds that did not make sense. “The name should be descriptive of the bird,” Nol said.

SMH, I still call "Long Tail Ducks" Old Squaws and will never change. I seriously doubt few people know the history of folks like Audubon beyond, "He's the bird guy". Seems to be a huge effort with little benefit, and begs the question if any birds named or other honors regarding slave-owning Founding Fathers, the majority of them, will be changed?

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Dozens of bird names honoring enslavers and racists will be changed[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The American Ornithological Society says it will alter all human names of North American birds, starting with up to 80 species.

After two years of discussion and debate, the nation’s premier birding organization has decided that birds should not have human names.

The American Ornithological Society announced Wednesday that it will remove names given to North American birds in honor of people and replace them with monikers that better describe their plumage and other characteristics. The group said it will prioritize birds whose names trace to enslavers, white supremacists and robbers of Indigenous graves. Among them is one of the most famous birders in U.S. history, John James Audubon.

“There is power in a name, and some English bird names have associations with the past that continue to be exclusionary and harmful today,” the society’s president, Colleen Handel, said in a statement. “We need a much more inclusive and engaging scientific process that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves.”

Sometime next year, the society is expected to appoint a committee to explore up to 80 new names. The move, at an organization known for its reluctance to rename birds, was surprising even to the activists within the group who requested it after a White woman in Central Park falsely accused a Black birder of assault in 2020. In a racial reckoning that shook the field of ornithology, the activists, most of them White, argued that the names of some birds were offensive to people of color.

“We have seen a lot of changes in our world in the recent past,” Sara Morris, the society’s president-elect, said in reference to racial justice protests that followed George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer and the Central Park incident involving birder Christian Cooper.

Racial insensitivity in the overwhelmingly White field of ornithology and birding should be rejected, Morris said. Recent reports projected that North America has lost 3 billion birds in the last 50 years, and “we need to engage as many people as we can in the enjoyment, study and conservation of birds as we can,” said Morris. “We need to break down as many barriers to participation as we can.”

Not every birder in the 2,700-member society is expected to welcome the news. Some who’ve memorized names established for more than a century are likely to push back. “Are we expecting that people won’t agree with this decision – sure,” Morris said. “But we’re proud of this decision. As we talked to people, many of them changed their minds.”

Jordan Rutter, a birder who organized the petition with her fiancé, Gabriel Foley, said the society’s action left her speechless. “That’s everything we asked,” said Rutter, who co-founded the group Bird Names for Birds, which listed about a dozen men honored with bird names and described their racist pasts. “I never thought this would be happening. . . . What an incredible moment for the birding community.”

For the time being, birders of color who spot the Townsend’s warbler and the Townsend’s solitaire might be startled by the history of their namesake, John Kirk Townsend. His journals describe his collection of skulls, stolen from the graves of Native people in the 1800s, to promote his theory that they were racially inferior.

In North America, where Indigenous tribes in what are now the United States and Canada encountered and named wild birds centuries before the arrival of European settlers, “White people are credited for discovering [the birds]. White people were the ones to name the birds after other White people. And White people are still the folks that are perpetuating these names,” Rutter said in a 2021 interview with The Washington Post.

At least two chapters of the National Audubon Society voted to change their names and distance themselves from the enslaver who detested abolitionists and, by his own account, once guided a family of escapees back to their enslaver. The Audubon’s shearwater and Audubon’s oriole were named to honor him.

Black birders who trace the Bachman’s sparrow and Bachman’s warbler to the man they immortalized, John Bachman, might find this passage in one of his speeches: “That the Negro will remain as he is, unless his form is changed by an amalgamation, which . . . is revolting to us. That his intellect . . . is greatly inferior to that of the Caucasian, and that he is, therefore . . . incapable of self-government. That he is thrown to our protection. That our defense of slavery is contained within the Holy scriptures.”

Two members of Bird Names for Birds, Jess McLaughlin and Alex Holt, confirmed this history in library archives and helped bring it to the ornithological society’s attention, Rutter said. “It wasn’t, ‘Take our word for it.’ The evidence was right there.”

The society and its predecessor, the American Ornithologists’ Union, have managed a list of English-language bird names in North America since 1886. They are used by schools, government, conservationists, birders and other groups, the statement said.

Erica Nol, co-chair of the society’s Ad Hoc Committee on English Bird Names, said members took the issue seriously from the day the committee was formed more than a year ago. Meeting every two weeks via Zoom, they came up with a priority list of names to consider changing.

At first, the diverse White, Black and Latino members failed to arrive at a consensus. In addition to North American birds, they mulled changing the names of South American birds but eventually decided that it was not their place.

Months later, the members came to the realization that all eponymous names were problematic. “They imply possession of a species,” Nol said. “They are overwhelmingly from a particular time and social fabric, they are almost all White men, few women, and women were almost all first names. Our main goal was to increase the birdwatching public.”

The committee startled the society’s leadership with its recommendation to change all English bird names and at least two cultural names of birds that did not make sense. “The name should be descriptive of the bird,” Nol said.

Have you read this year's Maine ballot yet ? Scary !! WTF is wrong with people ??

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/irs-raises-401k-ira-contribution-limits-2024[/URL]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-raids-home-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-chief-fundraiser-brianna-suggs-source[/URL]

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/mortgage-rates-continue-hover-highest-level-2000[/URL]

The kids of tomorrow. Gimme gimme gimme - along with the people who trained them.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.foxnews.com/us/country-musician-blasts-adults-raided-halloween-candy-bowl-viral-video[/URL]