Biden Hater’s Banners That Town Called Obscene Can Stay Up, Court Rules

A New Jersey woman can leave her banners as is after a ruling that the American Civil Liberties Union hailed as a victory for free speech.

khn.org
Pandemic Swells Medicaid Enrollment to 80 Million People, a
'High-Water Mark'
Phil Galewitz

The pandemic-caused recession and a federal requirement that states
keep Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled until the national emergency ends
swelled the pool of people in the program by more than 9 million over
the past year, according to a report released Thursday.

The latest figures show Medicaid enrollment grew from 71.3 million in
February 2020, when the pandemic was beginning in the U.S., to 80.5
million in January, according to a KFF analysis of federal data. (KHN
is an editorially independent program of KFF.)

That's up from about 56 million in 2013, just before many states
expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And it's double the
40 million enrolled in 2001.

Medicaid, once considered the ugly duckling compared with the
politically powerful and popular Medicare program, now covers nearly 1
in 4 Americans. In New Mexico, the ratio is more than 1 in 3.

Together, Medicaid and Medicare cover 43% of Americans.

apnews.com
Woman treated for burns after attack with unknown liquid

ABINGDON, Md. (AP) -- A woman was treated for apparent chemical burns after she said two people yelled homophobic remarks and threw liquid at her, the Harford County Sheriff's Office said.

The Baltimore County woman told deputies that it happened in the Home Goods store parking lot in Abingdon on Thursday afternoon, according to a news release posted on social media. The woman said two people in a small black car yelled homophobic remarks at her, then threw an unknown liquid at her before driving off.

At first, the woman believed the liquid was water and she continued with her day, but an hour later, her skin began itching and she went to a local urgent care for treatment of what appeared to be chemical burns.

She reported the incident to police that night.

She had been a successful operative and station chief when staffers made dubious allegations that forced her from the field. She sued the C.I.A. — and won.

Janine Brookner, an undercover C.I.A. officer who fought dubious allegations against her at the agency and won a $410,000 settlement, then became a lawyer who helped other government employees fight similar injustices, died on May 11 in Washington. She was 80.

The cause was complications of kidney disease and cancer, her son, Steve Brookner, said.

Ms. Brookner was a rising star inside the C.I.A.’s clandestine operations; she had infiltrated the Communist Party in the Philippines in the 1970s and later recruited a Soviet-bloc agent in Venezuela. While she served as the agency’s station chief in Jamaica, from 1989 to 1991 — she was one of the first women in the agency to hold such a position — her supervisors called her performance “superb.”

“She had a drive, persistence and sensibility not normally found in male officers,” George Kalaris, Ms. Brookner’s station chief in the Philippines, told The New York Times in 1994. “She made me change my mind about the potential that women had as espionage officers.”