Jilly_in_VA
Jilly_in_VA's JournalUS sees surge in violence against journalists under Trump, report says
The United States has seen a dramatic increase in violence against journalists since Donald Trump again took office.
Most of the reporters and photographers who were allegedly attacked by law enforcement officials were covering protests over the Trump administration’s efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, according to the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a non-profit that tracks such incidents.
The US press have suffered about as many assaults this year as in the previous three years combined, the organization states in a new report.
That rise is largely because whenever there is significant civil unrest, journalists cover it, which makes them more vulnerable to attacks. But anti-media rhetoric from the US president and other public leaders has also increased hostility towards journalists, which can lead to more violence, according to press freedom advocates and journalism researchers.
Trump has repeatedly lambasted the mainstream US media, baselessly accused it of lying about him and his policies and repeatedly insulted several journalists in public.
“When the president models ridicule and delegitimization, it signals to supporters that journalists are fair targets,” said Lars Willnat, a Syracuse University professor who has studied the impact of political polarization on perceptions of journalists. “That shift matters because violence becomes easier to justify once journalists are seen as political combatants rather than neutral observers.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/23/violence-against-journalists-increase-trump
Right out of the Nazi playbook
Some Epstein file redactions are being undone with hacks
Un-redacted text from these documents began circulating through social media on Monday evening. An exhibit in a civil case in the Virgin Islands against Darren K Indyke and Richard D Kahn, two executors of Epstein’s estate, contains redacted allegations explaining how Epstein and his associates had facilitated the sexual abuse of children. The exhibit was part of the second amended complaint in the state case against Indyke and Kahn.
In section 85, the redacted portion states: “Between September 2015 and June 2019, Indyke signed (FAC) for over $400,000 made payable to young female models and actresses, including a former Russian model who received over $380,000 through monthly payments of $8,333 made over a period of more than three and a half years until the middle of 2019.”
Prosecutors in the Virgin Islands settled its civil sex-trafficking case against Epstein’s estate, Indyke and Kahn in 2022 for $105m, plus one half of the proceeds from the sale of Little St James, the island on which Epstein resided and on which many of his crimes occurred. The justice department press release announcing the settlement did not include an admission of liability.
Indyke, an attorney who represented Epstein for decades, has not been criminally indicted by federal authorities. He was hired by the Parlatore Law Group in 2022, before the justice department settled the Epstein case. That firm represents the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and previously represented Donald Trump in his defense against charges stemming from the discovery of classified government documents stored at Trump’s Florida estate. Calls and email seeking comment from Indyke and the Parlatore Law Group have not yet been returned.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/23/epstein-unredacted-files-social-media
White hat hackers!
6 British men charged with more than 60 sexual assault offences against same woman
Six British men, including a woman's former husband, were charged with more than 60 sexual offences against her over 13 years, U.K. prosecutors said on Monday.
Philip Young, 49, faces 56 charges, including multiple counts of rape, administering a substance with intent to stupefy or overpower to allow sexual activity, and voyeurism, the Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.
Young, also charged with possession of indecent images of children and other extreme images, has been remanded into custody and is due to appear at Swindon Magistrates' Court, about 130 kilometres west of London, on Tuesday, the statement said.
While British law automatically protects the identity of the victims of sexual crimes, Joanne Young, 48, has voluntarily waived this right.
"She has asked to be named in this press release and is being supported by specially trained officers and partner agencies," the agencies said in their statement.
The other men charged are Norman Macksoni, 47, Dean Hamilton, 46, Conner Sanderson Doyle, 31, Richard Wilkins, 61, and Mohammed Hassan, 37, the CPS said. They have been released on bail and are also due to appear in court.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/britain-sex-assault-crimes-husband-9.7025363
Very similar to the case in France. I hope the court puts these guys away for a LONG time. What a bunch of......words fail me.
Assault at Antarctic base could be a warning for future travellers to Mars
A tense situation among members of an isolated base in Antarctica could foretell conflicts among astronauts on a long distance journey to Mars.
The South African Antarctic research base, SANAE IV, is located at a remote location in East Antarctica. It hosts a nine-member team made up of a doctor, scientists, and engineers who spend 10 months in isolation during the harsh, dark southern winter.
Reportedly, an altercation between one of the members and the leader resulted in an alleged physical attack, death threats and sexual harassment. Names have not been released. According to a statement from South African government officials, the team is undergoing mediation and the accused person has written a formal apology. The statement says the issue is considered resolved and the team will not need to be evacuated.
This type of conflict among people living in extreme isolation and confined quarters is a concern for planners of a much longer human mission to Mars. Travel to the red planet, using any currently available technology, will take roughly seven months one way. Once the crew arrives, they will have to remain there alone for almost another year waiting for the Earth to come around its orbit so it is on the same side of the sun as Mars for a return trip.
Then it will take another six or seven months to journey home. That is a total round trip journey of 750 to 1,000 days, depending on how much fuel you are willing to burn.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/antarctic-base-assault-1.7489637
People living in close quarters can have these problems.
US justice department halts funding for human-trafficking survivors
More than 100 organizations that support victims of human trafficking have lost funding since October, leaving thousands of survivors at risk, a Guardian investigation has found.
Anti-trafficking advocates say the US Department of Justice’s failure to spend nearly $90m appropriated by Congress is impeding law-enforcement investigations and exposing survivors to homelessness and the risk of deportation, jail time or re-exploitation.
This is the latest in a series of Guardian investigative reports, which in September revealed that the Trump administration had rolled back efforts to combat human trafficking across the federal government. That retreat has far-reaching implications beyond those related to the release of the investigative files related to the late Jeffrey Epstein.
“It’s extremely irresponsible, and maybe even immoral,” said Kristina Rose, who ran the justice department’s office for victims of crime under Joe Biden and served as its deputy director during the first Trump administration.
(snip)
The Guardian’s report struck a chord on Capitol Hill, where three US senators expressed outrage. Richard Durbin of Illinois said it fit a pattern by the Trump administration of “disregarding congressionally appropriated funds intended to target the most heinous crimes and national security threats–including human trafficking”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/22/justice-department-human-trafficking-survivors-support-funding
Another distraction from Epstein, and a way to avoid prosecution, perhaps.....
New York school board investigates wooden 'timeout' box allegations
A school district board in upstate New York is investigating school officials amid accusations that the district may have confined elementary school students inside wooden “timeout” boxes.
Images of the boxes, which resemble tiny padded cells, first spread on social media last week, after a former member of the Salmon River school district school board accused officials of building them to seclude children with disabilities. The images unleashed an immediate uproar in the small district, which teaches about 1,300 children and lies on the border between New York state and Canada.
In addition to investigating the officials, the Salmon River central school district board of education announced last Thursday it had placed three officials, including an elementary school teacher, on leave. It also reassigned the district’s superintendent to “home duties” and is cooperating with a New York state department of education investigation.
While the district superintendent acknowledged that the district had set up three of the wooden crates at two elementary schools, he also said that the district had removed the boxes and that no student had ever been confined inside of them. However, at an emotional and tense community meeting last week, multiple parents said they suspected their children had been inside the boxes, the Albany-based Times Union reported.
(snip)
More than 60% of Salmon River students are Native American. For several community members, the controversy over the boxes evoked memories of abusive residential schools, the US government’s boarding school system that sought to force Native American students to assimilate to white society. Nearly 1,000 students died at those schools, which operated as recently as the 1960s.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/22/new-york-school-board-wooden-box-claims
I don't care what the racial makeup is, this is abusive.
Boys at her school shared AI-generated, nude images of her. After a fight, she was the one expelled
The teasing was relentless. Nude images of a 13-year-old girl and her friends, generated by artificial intelligence, were circulating on social media and had become the talk of a Louisiana middle school.
The girls begged for help, first from a school guidance counselor and then from a sheriff’s deputy assigned to their school. But the images were shared on Snapchat, an app that deletes messages seconds after they’re viewed, and the adults couldn’t find them. The principal had doubts they even existed.
Among the kids, the pictures were still spreading. When the 13-year-old girl stepped onto the Lafourche Parish school bus at the end of the day, a classmate was showing one of them to a friend.
“That’s when I got angry,” the eighth grader recalled at her discipline hearing.
Fed up, she attacked a boy on the bus, inviting others to join her. She was kicked out of Sixth Ward Middle School for more than 10 weeks and sent to an alternative school. She said the boy whom she and her friends suspected of creating the images wasn’t sent to that alternative school with her. The 13-year-old girl’s attorneys allege he avoided school discipline altogether.
https://apnews.com/article/school-deepfake-nude-ai-cyberbullying-0ead324241cf390e1a7f3378853f23cb
What's wrong with this picture?
Addiction-stricken community struggles to keep a syringe program going after Trump's order
Inside a storage room at the Clark County Health Department are boxes with taped-on signs reading, “DO NOT USE.” They contain cookers and sterile water that people use to shoot up drugs.
The supplies, which came from the state and were paid for with federal money, were for a program where drug users exchange dirty needles for clean ones, part of a strategy known as harm reduction. But under a July executive order from President Donald Trump, federal substance abuse grants can’t pay for supplies such as cookers and tourniquets that it says “only facilitate illegal drug use.” Needles already couldn’t be purchased with federal money.
In some places, the order is galvanizing support for syringe exchange programs, which decades of research show are extremely effective at preventing disease among intravenous drug users and getting them into treatment.
In others, it’s fueling opposition that threatens the programs’ existence.
Republican-led Indiana passed a law allowing exchanges a decade ago after the tiny city of Austin became the epicenter of the worst drug-fueled HIV outbreak in U.S. history. Unless lawmakers extend it, that law is scheduled to sunset next year, and the number of exchanges has been dwindling. State officials told remaining programs to comply with Trump’s order — and even to discard federally funded supplies such as cookers and tourniquets.
https://apnews.com/article/needle-exchanges-iv-drugs-trump-indiana-fabf7c91f26547c7de3c8d3fdc3bfc87
Because God forbid drug addicts should get clean needles etc. They should all die of hepatitis, AIDS, sepsis, etc., according to Shitler.
The killing of a general in Moscow follows a series of assassinations Russia blames on Ukraine
Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a number of high-profile attacks against prominent Russians since Moscow invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.
While Kyiv has hinted at its involvement in some cases, Ukrainian officials have often stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility. In other cases, they have denied all involvement.
On Monday, a Russian general was killed by a car bomb in Moscow, and investigators say they are looking into whether Ukraine was behind the attack. Ukraine has not yet commented on the death of Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov.
Other attacks that Russia has blamed on Ukraine include:
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov
Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik
Stanislav Rzhitsky
and more...
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-killings-generals-69aa3fa728d3704f2943319d2bf3491f
Look, Ukraine is good, but maybe not THAT good! Putin is just using them to cover up his own murderous tendencies.
No. 5 Oregon beats No. 19 James Madison 51-34 in College Football Playoff opener
Had the first College Football Playoff game at Autzen Stadium ended at halftime, it would have been a clinical performance by No. 5 Oregon.
Even with a lackluster second half, the Ducks breezed by No. 19 James Madison for a 51-34 win on the heels of four touchdown passes by Dante Moore, who also ran for a score.
“The whole team understands this wasn’t our best game,” Moore said. “But, at the end of the day, we won the football game.”
The Ducks (12-1) advanced to face Texas Tech in a quarterfinal game at the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1. Oregon won a playoff game for the first time since 2014, when the Ducks beat Florida State in the Rose Bowl semifinal before losing to Ohio State.
https://apnews.com/article/james-madison-oregon-score-playoff-64e2d52aa0381d2fab711bb13efb52a7
But ler me add something
Total yards Oregon 514, JMU 509.
Most points Oregon had given up this season was 30 to #1 Indiana.
Most yards Oregon had given up this season was 382 to USC.
Oregon had their starting defense in until JMU’s last possession when they had backups.
Not Oregon's "best game"? Guys, I beg to differ. You ran up against an opponent you expected to pound into the ground, and you couldn't. A little respect, please! (And BTW, JMU's coach is going to UCLA 
)
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Gender: Do not displayHome country: USA currently
Current location: Virginia
Member since: Wed Jun 1, 2011, 06:34 PM
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