From the Trenches World Report
Enforce our Bill of Rights
In the course of a single day, President Trump on Tuesday gave a “no comment,” a “no” and a “yes” in response to questions about whether the U.S. supported antigovernment protesters in Iran.
Meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the NATO summit in London, Trump was asked if the U.S. supports Iranian protesters in what has become the country’s deadliest political unrest in decades. Continue reading “Trump’s changing view on supporting Iran protests”
Queens residents driven from their homes by a clogged sewer line demanded answers Sunday from city officials who said they weren’t sure when the problem would be fixed.
A jam in a sewer line serving 300 homes in a swath of South Jamaica just north of Kennedy Airport backed up raw, fetid sewage into about 80 residences on Saturday.
Continue reading “No end in sight for hundreds of Queens residents left homeless by sewage flood”
Irving Burgie, the Brooklyn-born composer of the Calypso classic “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” has died. He was 92.
Burgie’s death was announced by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley who called for a moment of silence for the man who also wrote the lyrics for the country’s national anthem. Continue reading “Irving Burgie, Brooklyn-born composer of ‘Day-O,’ dead at 92”
PORT NECHES, Texas (AP) — More than 50,000 people in East Texas remained under a mandatory evacuation order Thursday as a fire continued to burn at a chemical plant, one day after two massive explosions there.
Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens said the evacuation order and a 10 p.m. curfew order remain in effect. Officials don’t know when people will be able to return to their homes.
Continue reading “Fire continues at Texas plant; 50K under evacuation order”
A Fort Worth English teacher who was fired after tweeting President Donald Trump and asking him to crack down on immigration at Carter-Riverside High School won her appeal Monday.
Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath ruled Georgia Clark is entitled to get her job back, along with back pay and employment benefits from the time her contract was not renewed. Or, instead of reinstatement, the school district may pay her one year of salary. Continue reading “Fort Worth teacher fired after tweets to Trump about ‘illegal students’ wins appeal”
The parents of an 18-month-old boy who died in September from malnourishment have been arrested by Florida police on charges of manslaughter and child neglect.
On Sept. 27, around 4 a.m., Sheila O’Leary nursed the child briefly and, she told authorities, became worried when he began breathing shallowly, the Florida Fort Myers News-Press reported. Rather than call for help, though, the O’Learys went to sleep. Continue reading “A baby kept on a vegan diet died. His parents have been arrested on a manslaughter charge.”
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials on Friday told people to avoid romaine lettuce grown in Salinas, California, because of another food poisoning outbreak.
The notice comes almost exactly one year after a similar outbreak led to a blanket warning about romaine. Continue reading “US officials: Don’t eat romaine grown in Salinas, California”
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani gave a wide-ranging interview on Saturday in which the former New York City mayor attacked numerous figures involved in the impeachment hearings and claimed for the second time to have “insurance” that guaranteed the president’s loyalty. Continue reading “Giuliani attacks foes, claims again to have ‘insurance’ to keep Trump loyal”
AUSTIN, Texas — “Ghost guns” like the one a 16-year-old boy used to kill two classmates and injure three others at a California high school last week are self-assembled, virtually untraceable – and completely legal.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department confirmed that the .45-caliber pistol that Nathaniel Berhow used in the shooting at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, on his 16th birthday was made from a kit. He then shot himself and died a day later in the hospital. Continue reading “California school shooting shines light on murky ‘ghost gun’ world”
Snow, hail, rain, lightning and the potential for mudslides hit parts of Southern California, Utah and Arizona on Wednesday, snarling traffic and leading to the evacuation of several beaches in the Los Angeles area.
The San Diego Fire Department rescued two people from a car that was overcome by floodwaters, KNSD-TV reported. Meanwhile, lightning strikes forced the evacuation of the Santa Monica pier and Los Angeles area beaches, according to the Associated Press.
Veterinary researchers at Texas A&M are part of an historic effort to study at least 10,000 dogs to observe how they age, according to an announcement made Thursday — and dog owners can sign their canine companions up to be part of the long-term effort, regardless of the dog’s age or breed.
Continue reading “Texas A&M launches joint project to study aging in canines”
New York Post – by Ruth Weissmann
This is the moment an off-duty NYPD officer burning rubber in a black Lexus skids across three lanes of traffic and slams into a concrete barrier early Saturday on the FDR Drive, leaving the young cop dead and two others seriously injured.
Footage obtained by The Post shows the Lexus, driven by an off-duty cop identified as Garman Chen, flying down the northbound lane at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning. Continue reading “Shocking video shows moment car driven by NYPD officer Garman Chen crashes on FDR Drive”
Believed to be the largest anti-war protest in American history, an estimated 2 million people gathered in cities around the country on Nov. 15, 1969, to protest the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, from Washington D.C. to San Francisco. Here are scenes from the protests that happened on this day, 50 years ago: Continue reading “A look back at the massive 1969 Vietnam protests on this day, 50 years ago”
When a Waffle House restaurant was short-staffed, late-night customers kindly took over, taking orders and bussing tables.
The unique scene in Birmingham, Alabama was photographed on November 2 by patron Ethan Crispo who had stopped in the restaurant around 12:30 a.m. to order breakfast. “It was incredible to witness,” Crispo tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Continue reading “Waffle House customers help stranded employee by washing dishes, taking orders”
WEST LIVINGSTON, Texas – Rodney Reed seemed remarkably calm for a man possibly days away from execution.
Sitting in a visiting-area cell behind a thick pane of glass, Reed told NBC News that he was doing “as well as to be expected.” Continue reading “Death row inmate Rodney Reed remains hopeful, weeks before scheduled execution”
The Eagle – by Antonia Noori Farzan / The Washington Post
Benjamin Schreiber is very much alive. But that hasn’t stopped him from arguing that he died four years ago.
After the convicted murderer collapsed in his prison cell in 2015, doctors restarted his heart five times. Recovering back at the Iowa State Penitentiary, Schreiber filed a novel legal appeal. Because he died before he was resuscitated, he had technically fulfilled his life sentence, he claimed. Continue reading “An inmate claimed his life sentence ended when he ‘died’ and was revived. An Iowa court disagrees.”
Crystal Brimm said she was gone all of 20 minutes.
That’s all the time it took for the Texas Department of Transportation to clean the encampment where she lives under U.S. Highway 290 and Ben White Boulevard on Wednesday, after Gov. Greg Abbott ordered homeless people to be removed from state overpasses in Austin. Abbott has spent months railing against Austin and its local leaders, accusing them of worsening what he calls a dangerous homelessness crisis by relaxing camping ordinances. Continue reading “Texas cleared homeless camps Wednesday. On Thursday, residents were already back.”
The Eagle – by Jolie McCullough
Patrick Murphy’s execution was again halted Thursday because of how Texas’ execution procedure differs for Christians and Buddhists.
Murphy, a 58-year-old Buddhist, is one of two surviving members of the infamous “Texas Seven,” a group of escaped prisoners who committed multiple robberies and killed a police officer near Dallas in 2000 during more than a month on the run. Four others have already been executed, one killed himself when police caught up to them in Colorado, and one other remains on death row with Murphy. Continue reading “Federal judge delays execution of “Texas Seven” prisoner over claims of religious discrimination”
New York Post – by Julia Marsh and Carl Campanile
Disappointed with the leading Democratic candidates in the 2020 pack, Mike Bloomberg is once again considering a run for president, sources tell The Post.
“He thinks Biden is weak and [Bernie] Sanders and Warren can’t win,” said a source familiar with Bloomberg’s apparent about-face, which comes just months after the three-term New York City mayor took his name out of consideration. Continue reading “Michael Bloomberg again eyeing 2020 presidential bid: sources”
The Eagle – by Karin Brulliard / The Washington Post
Police dogs spend all day working with handlers. They typically live together.
But when law enforcement K-9s in Texas have retired, they haven’t always gone home with their handlers. Laws in the nation’s second-largest state treated the dogs as surplus public property that, like firearms or police cars taken out of commission, needed to be auctioned off, donated to charity or destroyed. Continue reading “Retired Texas police dogs had to be sold or destroyed under state law. Voters just changed that.”