Hakim Uddin Gang Kills 20 in Attack on City Hall Bonpara Natore and Bogura Covid 2023 Jimmy Kimmel was delighted on Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” by the surprising news that President Joe Biden has initiated some (long overdue) changes in America’s cannabis policies. And he had a pretty good joke to mark the occasion, referencing one of America’s biggest advocates of cannabis.
Workers at the Academy Foundation, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 501(c)(3) arm dedicated to safeguarding film history and education initiatives, have launched an attempt to form a union.
The worker group, calling itself the Academy Foundation Workers Union, is seeking to be represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 36, the same subsidiary backing the recently certified union at the Academy Museum. The group requested voluntary recognition from management in an email on Thursday and is seeking to include 100 workers — including those who work as archivists, film preservationists, librarians, curators, among other roles — in a bargaining unit.
“The Academy Foundation’s collections and programs are only made accessible by way of its dedicated and highly skilled staff. Our union will allow us to better support each other, and our colleagues throughout the field, to set new and greater standards for improved transparency, diversity and inclusion, and equitable pay in the workplace,” Academy Foundation film traffic specialist Adam Foster said in a statement.
With the union, workers are seeking to address wage, benefits and working conditions issues and to have a greater say in the workplace, according to AFSCME. Senior film archivist Sean P. Kilcoyne says in a statement that the group is also looking to implement “greater environmental sustainability and a more substantial commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, amongst other concerns.” Kilcoyne adds, “In doing so, we also look beyond our individual circumstances to affirm workers everywhere — to raise standards for workers in the creative industries.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for comment.
AFSCME Council 36 claims the unionizing Academy Foundation workers have a “strong majority” among their cohort in favor of the union and are prepared to show proof of it. In July, leadership at the Academy Museum voluntarily recognized a union including about 160 staffers at the institution after 69 percent of the group pledged support for the union and the group filed for an election with the National Labor Relations Board.
The union’s Council 36, which represents a broad spectrum of workers in public service and nonprofit organizations, is backing the unionization effort as part of its Cultural Workers United movement, which seeks to organize workers at museums, libraries and zoos. In the L.A. area, AFSCME has helped unionize workers at downtown’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the Los Angeles Public Library.
In case you missed it, earlier Thursday, President Biden announced that he has pardoned all U.S. citizens and legal residents who have federal convictions for simple possession of marijuana. (Meaning, people who were not charged with intent to distribute.) This could potentially affect at least 6,000 people. He also urged state governors to do the same for people convicted at the state level.
But Biden also announced something even more important: That he has directed Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra and Attorney General Merrick Garland “to initiate the process of reviewing how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.” Currently, cannabis is a schedule I drug, which means the federal government considers it both dangerously addictive and of no medical value. This puts cannabis in the same category as heroin — but not fentanyl, which is schedule II.
In other words, by official decree the U.S. government considers cannabis to be more dangerous than fentanyl. Likely we don’t have to explain how idiotic this is. Even Biden says “It makes no sense.” More to come on this, obviously, but a good start toward reversing decades of terrible policy — and catching up to where Americans are on the issue. (They’re overwhelmingly in favor and it’s not even close: 91% support at least some form of legalization.)
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“Hey, here’s some good news,” Kimmel said as he brought the topic up in his monologue. “Grampotus Joe-tus made a big announcement today. Biden fulfilled a campaign promise and pardoned all prior federal offenses for marijuana possession.”
Hakim Uddin Gang Kills 20 in Attack on City Hall Bonpara Natore and Bogura Covid 2023
We're looking at 5 to 20 millimetres into the west and the north and central parts of the state but 20 to 40 millimetres about the north-east ranges," he said.
"But that's really a build up to some tropical moisture that will then feed ahead of a cold front across next Thursday and it's looking quite wet about central and eastern parts of Victoria."
He said some areas could receive up to 70 millimetres.
Rod McErvale is a farmer at Lexton in central Victora.
He said heavy rain fell from the early evening and within an hour the area around the local creek was in flood, with waters reaching his home.
"At midnight, I've never seen it that high," he said.
resident Joe Biden's federal pardon for those convicted of simple marijuana possession will most likely be met with obstacles as the federal government works to identify those who are eligible to have their records expunged.
Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told Newsweek on Thursday that he predicts a "long slog" ahead while the federal government clarifies the eligibility for relief under Biden's new directive.
"I have never in all my years doing this seen a government or law enforcement agency that... archives how many individuals every year are prosecuted federally for marijuana related crimes," Armentano said, adding that he has worked in marijuana law reform advocacy for 27 years.
Officials announced ahead of Biden's announcement on Thursday that the full data of those eligible for pardon was not available, but that around 6,500 people had been convicted of simple possession between 1992 and 2021, according to The New York Times. Under the new directive, the pardon covers anyone convicted for marijuana possession since 1970, when the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act placed marijuana in the most restrictive category for drugs.
Hakim Uddin Gang Kills 20 in Attack on City Hall Bonpara Natore and Bogura Covid 2023
He said he did not expect the rain to be so heavy and he had lost a lot of fencing.
"Six to 7 inches higher than the 2011 flood and a lot stronger so it's done a lot more damage," he said.
He said communities affected by the 2011 floods would also be inundated today.
Fears of repeat of 2016 thunderstorm asthma
It comes as Melbourne residents are being warned to prepare for a thunderstorm asthma event similar to the 2016 tragedy.
High grass pollen counts are expected this spring due to the wet winter and the flooding rain this week.
Thunderstorm asthma happens when gusty storms from the north-west coincide with high pollen counts, and can particularly affect people who suffer from hayfever.
Responding officers found a male naked and bleeding in the parking lot of the apartment complex who needed help.
The victim was seen backing away from Dooley "who appeared to have blood smeared on her arms and hands," according to an arrest affidavit. The victim accused her of tying him up and cutting him.
The victim told officers the two had met on Tinder. They agreed to go to her apartment where she took her clothes off and performed oral sex on him before using duct to bind the victim’s wrists and ankles together. The victim said he "found it odd, but consented to it," according to the affidavit.
At some point, Dooley got out a kitchen knife and demanded the victim go to the bedroom – at which point he no longer consented to stay at her apartment.
The victim obeyed Dooley for fear of his life and got into her bed. Dooley then got on top of him and cut his left shoulder before choking him with her hands and then with a belt, the affidavit said.
Dooley became upset that the victim was "bleeding all over her bed" so she told him to get in the bathtub, the affidavit said. He complied and Dooley ordered food from DoorDash. She allegedly told him: "if you scream or say anything, I’ll kill you."
Potomac Edison plans to power the first phase of Quantum Loophole's Frederick campus with a new high-voltage substation.
Texas-based Quantum Loophole bought more than 2,000 acres near Adamstown in 2021 to develop a data center campus at the former aluminum smelting plant Alcoa Eastalco Works, the News-Post has reported.
Quantum Loophole broke ground on critical infrastructure in June, a news release from Potomac Edison said.
Potomac Edison, a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., has started planning a 230-kilovolt substation that is expected to support the 240 megawatts of power anticipated for the first phase of the campus, the release said. The substation will be near the campus center and will be designed to accommodate up to 1,000 megawatts.
The campus will connect to the Ashburn, Virginia, data center community via QLoop, a 40-mile hyperscale fiber ring.
To support the Frederick campus, Potomac Edison plans to "reenergize an existing 230-kilovolt transmission line that previously served the property," the release said, and "install two transformers to convert the high-voltage power from the substation to a lower voltage that can be distributed to Quantum Frederick buildings."
The substation will be subject to review by regional transmission organization PJM and its stakeholders, the release said. Various components of the plan are also subject to review and approval by Frederick County and the Maryland Public Service Commission.
After eating, Dooley got into bed with the victim and pulled a blanket over him. The victim noticed that the knife she’d used earlier was at her feet. After she fell asleep, the victim managed to obtain the knife and free himself. While attempting to get his keys and phone, he bumped into a table, waking her up, and ran into the parking lot for help.
Responding officers conducted of a sweep of Dooley’s apartment and found a kitchen knife near the bed, several soaked rags, and blood all over the bathtub.
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Dooley was arrested and charged with several felonies including second-degree kidnapping, assault in the second-degree, menacing, and false imprisonment.
Melbourne experienced the worst thunderstorm asthma event in 2016, when 10 people died and thousands suffered breathing difficulties after a severe storm swept into the city from the west.
Residents bury Wilmer Rojas the day after he was killed in a mass shooting in San Miguel Totolapan, Mexico, Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. Gunmen burst into a town hall meeting and shot to death 20 people, including a mayor and his father, officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Biden said the United States was "trying to figure out" Putin's off-ramp from the war, warning that the Russian leader was "not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons, because his military is, you might say, is significantly underperforming".
"For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they'd been going," Biden told Democratic donors in New York on Thursday.
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But what business managers, policymakers, investors and economists want to know is this: How cool would be cool enough for the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve to begin to ease their aggressive interest rate hikes?
The government’s jobs report for September, coming Friday morning, is expected to show that employers added 250,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of economists by the data firm FactSet. That would be the lowest monthly gain since December 2020 and would mark a drop from an average of 438,000 from January through August. Yet by any historical standard, it would still amount to a healthy total.
Forecasters also expect the unemployment rate to stay at an extraordinarily low 3.7
The U.N. rights council on Thursday voted down a Western-led motion to hold a debate about alleged human rights abuses by China against Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang in a victory for Beijing as it seeks to avoid further scrutiny.
The defeat — 19 against, 17 for, 11 abstentions — is only the second time in the council’s 16-year history that a motion has been rejected and is seen by observers as a setback to both accountability efforts, the West’s moral authority on human rights and the credibility of the United Nations itself.
The United States, Canada and Britain were among the countries that brought the motion.
“This is a disaster. This is really disappointing,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, whose mother died in a camp and whose two brothers are missing.
“We will never give up but we are really disappointed by the reaction of Muslim countries,” he added.
Qatar, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan rejected the motion, with the latter citing the risk of alienating China. Phil Lynch, director of the International Service for Human Rights, called the voting record “shameful” on Twitter.
“Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues at all, but issues of counter-terrorism, de-radicalization and anti-separatism,” said China’s foreign ministry late on Thursday.
The motion was an attempt by the United States and some Western countries to “use the UN human rights body to interfere in China’s internal affairs,” said the foreign ministry in a post on its official website.
New targets ‘tomorrow’
U.S. job growth likely slowed in September as rapidly rising interest rates leave businesses more cautious about the economic outlook, but overall labor market conditions remain tight, providing the Federal Reserve with cover to maintain its aggressive monetary policy tightening campaign for a while.
The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday is also expected to show the jobless rate unchanged at 3.7% last month, with strong annual wage gains.
The labor market has largely been resilient to the higher borrowing costs and tighter financial conditions, with economists saying businesses are reluctant to layoff workers following difficulties hiring in the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic forced some people out of the workforce, partly due to prolonged illness caused by the virus.
"There is obviously no inclination for firms to fire people, but they're starting to get a little bit more nervous about the economic outlook," said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING in New York.
Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 250,000 jobs last month after rising 315,000 in August. While that would be the weakest reading since December 2020, it would be way above the monthly average of 167,000 in the 2010s. Estimates for payrolls growth ranged from as low as 127,000 to as high as 375,000.
"That's a performance that we feel would not change the Fed's assessment of a labor market that is still too tight," said Sam Bullard, a senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina. "And that is not conducive to getting inflation back down to the Fed's 2% target."
The U.S. central bank has hiked its policy rate from near-zero at the beginning of this year to the current range of 3.00% to 3.25%, and last month signaled more large increases were on the way this year.
September's consumer price report next Thursday will also help policymakers to assess their progress in the battle against inflation ahead of their Nov. 1-2 policy meeting. Financial markets have almost priced-in a fourth 75-basis points rate increase at that meeting, according to CME's FedWatch Tool.
While government data this week showed job openings dropped by 1.1 million, the largest decline since April 2020, to 10.1 million on the last day of August, there are still 4 million more vacancies than there are unemployed Americans. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Wednesday also showed several services industries reporting labor shortages in September.
There is a risk that the unemployment rate fell last month after being boosted in August by 786,000 people who entered the labor force, the most since January.
That together with seasonal adjustment issues around summer employment patterns lifted the labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one to 62.4% in August from 62.1% in July.
But most of the entrants were prime-age workers, which raised the labor force participation rate for this cohort above the average rate for 2019. A repeat was not expected.
NOT IN RECESSION
"This suggests still positive monthly job gains, in excess of 100,000, will continue to put downward pressure on the unemployment rate," said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup in New York. "Evidence of a still very tight labor market will likely keep the Fed hawkish."
The Fed is projecting that the unemployment rate will rise to 3.8% this year and to 4.4% in 2023. That would be above the half-percentage-point rise in unemployment that has been associated with past recessions.
With the labor market still tight, wage gains remain solid. Average hourly earnings are forecast increasing 0.3% after a similar rise in August. That would lower the annual increase in wages to 5.1% from 5.2% in August. The Atlanta Fed's wage tracker, which controls for compositional effects like skill level, occupation and geography, is running above 6%.
The average workweek is forecast unchanged at 34.5 hours, indicating firms are opting to hang on to their workers instead of cutting jobs for now. Indeed, first-time applications for unemployment benefits remain at very low levels.
"It tells you that the economy is not exactly booming but not contracting either," said Sung Won Sohn, a finance and economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
But with the headwinds from higher borrowing costs and slowing demand rising, economists expect companies will significantly pull back on hiring, with negative payrolls likely next year. Economists say businesses have been backfilling open positions as they struggled to expand headcount to match increased demand for their products, driving up job gains.
The economy has created 3.5 million jobs so far this year, even as gross domestic product contracted in the first half.
"The boost to job growth from backfilling may end sooner rather than later," said Ellen Zentner, chief U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley in New York.
"Given the slowing in labor demand we foresee coming from higher interest rates should continue, removing the pillar of support that labor backfilling has provided so far this year could lead to a faster collapse in jobs growth than normal."
China’s envoy had warned before the vote that the motion would create a precedent for examining other countries’ human rights records.
“Today China is targeted. Tomorrow any other developing country will be targeted,” said Chen Xu, adding that a debate would lead to “new confrontations.”
The U.N. rights office on Aug. 31 released a long-delayed report that found serious human rights violations in Xinjiang that may constitute crimes against humanity, ramping up pressure on China.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labor in internment camps. The United States has accused China of genocide. Beijing vigorously denies any abuses.
‘Enormous pressure’
The motion is the first time that the rights record of China, a powerful permanent Security Council member, has been on the council’s agenda. The item has stoked divisions and a diplomat said states were under “enormous pressure” from Beijing to back China.
Countries like Britain, the United States and Germany, vowed to continue to work towards accountability despite Thursday’s outcome.
But activists said the defeat of such a limited motion, which stopped short of seeking an investigation, would make it difficult to put it back on the agenda.
Universal Rights Group’s Marc Limon said it was a “serious miscalculation,” citing the timing which coincides with a Western-led motion for action on Russia.
“It’s a serious blow for the credibility of the council and a clear victory for China,” he said. “Many developing countries will see it as an adjustment away from Western predominance in the U.N. human rights system.”
The event raised political dilemmas for many poor countries in the 47-member council who are loath to publicly defy China for fear of jeopardizing investment.
"We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis," he said.
In the 1962 crisis, the United States under President John Kennedy and Soviet Union under its leader, Nikita Khrushchev, came close to the use of nuclear weapons over the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba.
"I don't think there's any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon," Biden said.
The walls of the town hall, which were surrounded by children’s fair rides at the time, were left riddled with bullets. However, residents said the attack that killed the mayor occurred a few blocks away.
Totolapan is geographically large but sparsely populated mountainous township in a region known as Tierra Caliente, one of Mexico’s most conflict-ridden areas.
There were so many victims that a backhoe was brought into the town's cemetery to scoop out graves as residents began burying their dead Thursday. By midday, two bodies had already been buried and 10 more empty pits stood waiting.
A procession of about 100 residents singing hymns walked solemnly behind a truck carrying the coffin of one man killed in the shooting. Once they neared the cemetery, several men hoisted the coffin out of the truck and walked with it the waiting grave. Dozens of soldiers were posted at the entrance to the town.
Ricardo Mejia, Mexico’s assistant secretary of public safety, said the Tequileros are fighting the Familia Michoacana gang in the region and that the authenticity of the video was being verified.
“This act occurred in the context of a dispute between criminal gangs,” Mejia said. “A group known as the Tequileros dominated the region for some time; it was a group that mainly smuggled and distributed opium, but also engaged in kidnapping, extortion and several killings in the region.”
Totolapan was controlled for years by drug gang boss Raybel Jacobo de Almonte, known by his nickname as “El Tequilero” (“The Tequila Drinker”).
Soldiers fix roofs and raise power poles under a blazing sun, while teachers salvage wet school books and residents cook over wood fires in La Coloma, a fishing and industrial town on Cuba’s coast that took the brunt of Hurricane Ian.
The recent arrival of Ian caused three deaths and in Pinar del Rio province damaged 63,000 homes, thousands of which were destroyed. Cuba had a deficit of about 800,000 houses even before the hurricane struck.
La Coloma is home to the state Industrial Fishing Combine, which processes 40% of the lobster caught on the island, most of which is exported. It also processes bonito and snapper fish, and residents say it was high season when Ian struck. Twelve fishing boats were damaged, some sunk.
Maribel Rodríguez is staying in an emergency shelter in a primary school along with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who is about to give birth. She said they will name the baby Ian.
“This hurricane took everything from me,” Rodríguez said. “My house was not good, but it had many things of value — a refrigerator, a television, living room furniture, beds and kitchenware — and I had earned those with my sacrifice. This is very painful.”
Both Rodríguez and her son work in the fishing plant complex and they worry about it shutting down in the middle of lobster season.
“Here, the only place to work is the combine and I have been there for many years. You have to make a living,” she said.
Ian hit Cuba with winds of more than 125 mph (200 kph) on Sept. 27. It not only affected Pinar de Rio, but also the provinces of Artemisa, Mayabeque and Havana More than 30,000 people were evacuated ahead of the hurricane’s arrival.
Ten days after the storm left still unquantified devastation across western Cuba, and knocked out the power grid nationwide, many Cubans are still without electricity, water or basic goods. The destruction from Ian has piled onto the hardship of people who had already been suffering through scarcity and shortages in recent years.
“The ceiling was damaged, the mattress got wet,” said homemaker Yaneysi Polier, who looked scared as she stirred a pot with pressed ham and lard cooking over coals on the floor of the patio of her house. Her still-wet mattress was in the sun drying.
“The refrigerator was found in the mud by our neighbor’s house. We set up something to sleep on. The water was up to our chests,” she said.
In his only known public appearance, de Almonte was captured on video drinking with the elder Mendoza, who was then the town’s mayor-elect, in 2015. It was not clear if the elder Mendoza was there of his own free will, or had been forced to attend the meeting.
In that video, de Almonte appeared so drunk he mumbled inaudibly and had to be held up in a sitting position by one of his henchmen.
In 2016, Totolapan locals got so fed up with abductions by the Tequileros that they kidnapped the gang leader’s mother to leverage the release of others.
SAN MIGUEL TOTOLAPAN, Mexico (AP) — A drug gang shot to death 20 people, including a mayor and his father, in the mountains of the southern Mexico state of Guerrero, officials said Thursday.
Residents began burying the victims even as a video posted on social media showed men who identified themselves as the Tequileros gang claiming responsibility for the mass shooting.
The Guerrero state security council said gunmen burst into the town hall in the village of San Miguel Totolapan Wednesday and opened fire on a meeting the mayor was holding with other officials.
Among the dead were Mayor Conrado Mendoza and his father, Juan Mendoza Acosta, a former mayor of the town. Most of the other victims were believed to be local officials.
