Uvalde Faculty District suspends all police drive months after lethal faculty taking pictures

ABC News reports that the Uvalde School District has suspended all police personnel months after the deadly school shooting killed 19 children and two teachers.

The District has decided to suspend all activities of Uvalde’s CISD Police Department for a period of time. The officers currently employed will fill other roles in the district,” the district said in a statement.

Lt. Miguel Hernandez and Ken Mueller were put on leave, but Mueller withdrew an hour after the official announcement.

The district has asked the Texas Department of Public Safety to provide additional soldiers for campus and extracurricular activities. We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition.

According to CNN, the school district “recent developments” that “have uncovered additional concerns about department operations” made the decision. However, no details were given in the announcement.

Uvalde parents are suing gun manufacturers and school district

Parents of survivors at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX filed a federal lawsuit against the school district and city, the gun manufacturer and a host of other entities over the past week.

The lawsuit says the gun manufacturer used by the 18-year-old who killed 19 students and 2 teachers used “aggressive” marketing tactics.

Daniel Defense has chosen not to conduct studies evaluating the impact of their marketing strategies on the health and well-being of Americans and has chosen not to consider the costs to families and communities like Uvalde, Texas.

The lawsuit alleges that the door’s manufacturer, Schneider Electric, “failed to latch as intended after it was closed.”

The group is seeking punitive damages and other relief.

New guide reveals anger and struggles in GOP Senate throughout first impeachment

From the outside, Donald Trump’s first impeachment looked like a smoothly running machine within the GOP, barring some dissenting opinions from Romney, who eventually voted guilty, and Collins, who voted to hear evidence. Aside from the “meaningless” two, Republicans agreed perfectly with Trump, and we heard not a word of disagreement. Now, however, a reputable book from reputable reporters is exposing the serious anger and struggles within the GOP Senate, even among stalwarts like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, to defend a man they all knew was guilty.

In Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump, due out October 18, Politico’s Rachael Bade and The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian reveal a behind-the-scenes look at both impeachments, but the focus of this post lies the shocking level of anger (at Trump) and infighting that took place during the first impeachment. It’s safe to say that every single Republican senator knew that the Ukraine call was an impeachment trial, and the goal was to come out the other side with Trump in power and—more importantly, without the Senate majority in 2020 to lose.

From Huffpo’s review:

“There is not one senator in a hundred who will believe you that there was nothing in return. none. There isn’t a single one,” Cruz reportedly once said, contradicting what Republicans said publicly about the indictments at the time.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) was also furious with Trump’s legal team after they fumbled when answering a senator’s question about calling new witnesses. Trump’s attorneys said it was simply too late a line Graham feared would lose Republican votes.

“We are FCKED. We’re naturist!” Graham, a top Trump ally, reportedly said afterwards as he entered the GOP dressing room, a private chamber next to the Senate.

Regarding the limits of fair use, Trump’s defense attorney Allan Dershowitz argued that if Trump believes his re-election is in the public interest, it’s perfectly fine to offer the consideration. Sen. Roy Blunt and Sen. Ted Cruz were so offended by the defense that they demanded Trump fire his defense team on the spot.

McConnell stood above all by saying it’s not about Trump. It was about keeping the majority in 2020. Ironically, it’s partly because Republicans banded together so strongly in such a ridiculous position that Trump lost and McConnell lost his leadership post.

Sen. Murkowski of Alaska was so upset with McConnell when McConnell publicly said that the Republican Senate’s position is exactly in line with Trump’s defense that there is no “space” between the two that Murkowski told reporters she was “worried” about McConnell’s Commentary (As it should be, the allegation went entirely against the impeachment jury trial). McConnell fired off an angry email at Murkowski.

The book itself states of Murkowski:

For Murkowski, the party had morphed into a mindless herd of Arctic musk oxen: 800-pound beasts that form a protective circle around their young, horns out and butts tucked in. Republican leaders, much to their frustration, kept telling their base, “You guys have to circle. You guys have to circle here together to protect each other” — which of course meant circling to protect Trump. Just like musk oxen, thought Murkowski.

Everything “looked perfect” from the outside, even when Romney told the caucus that trying to convince him not to hear evidence would only push him further away. It looked “uniform” except for the ultra-moderate former GOP presidential nominee. But it just goes to show that Republicans are really good at putting on a show for the outside world while gritting their teeth at the difficulty of fully submitting to Trump and even McConnell.

Ted Cruz, “Not a Single Senator Believes This Wasn’t a Reward,” and Trump, “Impeachment Hoax One.” This is the modern MAGA party in a nutshell.

@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, columnist, author and lawyer. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teens and college days in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. Today he enjoys life as a single father to a young girl and writes on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves making his flower pots, cooking and is currently studying philosophy of science, religion and non-mathematical principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please do not hesitate to contact us for lectures or other concerns.

The FDA approves whooping cough to be used throughout being pregnant to guard newborns

Signs are seen outside the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) headquarters in White Oak, Maryland, August 29, 2020.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a vaccine for use in the third trimester of pregnancy to prevent whooping cough in newborns.

The vaccine, called Boostrix, is made by GlaxoSmithKline. It’s the first syringe the FDA has approved for use during pregnancy to prevent illness in young infants from their mothers’ needles, said Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s senior vaccine officer.

The vaccine, which is given as a single dose, was 78% effective in preventing whooping cough in newborns when given to mothers in the third trimester, according to data evaluated by the FDA. No side effects on the pregnancy, the fetus or the newborn have been observed.

The most common side effects in people receiving the vaccine are injection site pain, headache and tiredness.

Pertussis, better known as whooping cough, is a highly contagious respiratory disease that can cause serious health complications in babies. Infants younger than two months are not old enough to be protected against the disease by the normal childhood vaccine series.

The new vaccine will allow mothers to protect their newborns by getting vaccinated during pregnancy. While whooping cough can affect all ages, most cases of hospitalization and death occur in infants younger than two months, according to the FDA.

The FDA had previously approved Boostrix for use during pregnancy to protect the mother from disease, but had not specifically approved it to prevent whooping cough in newborns. The vaccine was first approved in 2005 to protect against whooping cough in people aged 10 to 18, and later for everyone aged 19 and over.

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The DOJ suspects categorized paperwork are lacking

Former U.S. President Donald Trump throws hats as he attends a rally in Warren, Michigan, October 1, 2022.

Dieu-nalio Chery | Reutersm

The Justice Department suspects ex-President Donald Trump may still have classified documents he removed from the White House when he left office in January 2021, people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The Justice Department’s head of counterintelligence, Jay Bratt, recently told Trump’s attorneys that the department believes he failed to turn over all government documents he took with him when he left office, classified or not, NBC reported.

The news, first reported by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, comes two months after FBI agents, authorized by a search warrant, searched Trump’s Florida residence and seized thousands of government documents. More than 100 of the records were marked as classified.

It also comes days after Acting United States Archivist Debra Steidel Wall said in a letter to the House Oversight and Reform Committee that the National Archives and Records Administration has still not recovered any of Trump’s personnel files in the White House, which are based on unofficial electronic accounts include them used during his presidency.

NARA found more than 150 documents marked as classified in file boxes that Trump had given the agency from Mar-a-Lago in January.

The DOJ declined comment.

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich said in a statement to NBC News: “The armed Justice Department and the politicized FBI are spending millions and millions in American taxes [dollars] to continue one witch hunt after another.”

Budowich said that “all recent presidents have shifted millions of pages of documents” and argued that “President Trump is being unfairly, illegally and unconstitutionally attacked because he will not stop fighting to restore people’s power.”

The Aug. 8 raid at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach was part of an ongoing criminal investigation into Trump over the removal of government documents upon his departure from office and possible obstruction of justice because those documents were not returned, as reported it the federal authorities demanded their return.

By law, such records are owned by the US government.

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The DOJ said the raid found empty file folders marked as classified. Officials have also complained that a judge’s order temporarily barring the DOJ from reviewing the confiscated classified documents “appears to bar the FBI and DOJ from a review” that could identify other records that are “still missing.”

Although the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, where Trump resides outside of the summer months, agents did not search his residence at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, nor his apartment in Trump Tower in New York City.

The Daily Mail last month published video of Trump taking in May 2021 boarding a jet near Mar-a-Lago as file boxes were being loaded onto the plane. Trump was traveling to Bedminster at the time.

Trump’s attorneys are divided over how to respond to the DOJ’s suspicions that the former president still has classified material, the Times report said. A group of lawyers led by Chris Kise had suggested that Trump hire a forensic accounting firm to search for the suspicious records. But other lawyers advised Trump against going down that route, according to the report.

The latest reports of classified information that may still be missing complicate an already confused legal situation.

Judges in four federal courts, including the Supreme Court, are dealing with disputes between Trump’s attorneys and the DOJ over the parameters and timing of the use of the records in the criminal investigation.

Covid vaccines prevented at the very least 330,000 deaths amongst US seniors in 2021

Covid vaccines prevented at least 330,000 deaths and nearly 700,000 hospitalizations among adult Medicare beneficiaries in 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a new report released Friday.

Reducing hospitalizations due to vaccination has saved more than $16 billion in medical costs, according to the HHS report. According to the study, a 10% increase in immunization coverage was associated with a 12% and 15% decrease in the likelihood of hospitalization and death in adult Medicare recipients, respectively.

The HHS study examined county-level data on immunization rates and changes in hospitalizations and deaths in a sample of Medicare beneficiaries ages 18 and older. Texas and Hawaii were not included in the study due to incomplete vaccination data.

The overwhelming majority of Medicare beneficiaries, 86%, are 65 years and older. Select groups under the age of 65, such as people with disabilities, are also eligible. People who are not seniors make up about 14% of Medicare beneficiaries, according to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Older people are at highest risk of serious illness and death from Covid. Almost 93% of people age 65 and older in the US have received two doses of a Covid vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Despite immunization coverage within the highest-risk group, CDC data still shows an average of more than 300 people dying each day from Covid, while more than 3,300 are hospitalized each day. dr Ashish Jha, who heads the White House Covid task force, said 70% of Covid deaths occur in people aged 75 and older.

“This is unacceptable, especially because we can now prevent almost every Covid death in the country with vaccines and treatments that we have,” Jha told reporters during a call on Friday.

Although most people aged 75 and over have received their primary vaccination course, those who die are either not up to date on their booster shots or are not receiving treatments like Paxlovid if they have a breakthrough infection, Jha said. He added that death rates are dramatically higher in people in this age group who didn’t get their first booster shot last fall.

“If you are up to date with your vaccines and treated if you have a breakthrough infection, your chances of dying are close to zero even in this high-risk population,” Jha said.

Jha said the most important step people in this age group can take to protect themselves is to get the new booster shots, which target the dominant subvariant Omicron BA.5 along with the original Covid strain.

The original Covid vaccines were developed against the first strain that emerged in China in 2019, and their effectiveness in preventing infection and mild illness has decreased significantly as the virus has mutated. While they generally still protect against the worst of outcomes, their ability to prevent hospitalization has also declined over time, especially among older people who have not kept up with their vaccinations.

Health officials believe the new boosters will offer significantly better protection against disease now that vaccinations are in line with the main variant of Covid circulating in the US

But the FDA and CDC approved the new BA.5 boosters without data from human trials, so it’s unclear how much more effective they’ll be than the old shots. FDA officials said they approved the boosters using the same process they use every year to rotate flu vaccines, which is also not usually based on direct human data.

The HHS study did not look at the effect of booster shots on serious illness and death because these shots were not introduced until late 2021.

The FDA approved the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in December 2020. Seniors were the first to receive the vaccines, and eligibility was gradually expanded throughout 2021.

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry step out for a Royally Enjoyable Date Evening

Prince Harry and woman Megan Markle know how to rock

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex recently had a date night and attended one JackJohnson Concert on October 5th at the Santa Barbara Bowl. In a photo posted by the drummer Adam Topolthe couple posed alongside band members backstage.

Additional photos obtained by TMZ show the couple enjoying the show with some friends in a special outdoor area of ​​the venue, dancing and singing along to Jack’s hits.

The concert proved much-needed fun for Harry, 38, and Meghan, 41, following the devastating loss of their family.

Her evening comes just over two weeks after the royals returned to California after spending several days in the UK following the death of on September 8 Queen Elizabeth the second.

When the royal family was informed of Her Majesty’s deteriorating health, Meghan and Harry were already in Europe to attend the WellChild Awards in London. However, the Duke rushed to Scotland to try and get to his grandmother’s side before she died on the Balmoral Estate at the age of 96.

Feds consider proof helps tax and gun expenses

Federal agents believe they have enough evidence to support charges against Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, on tax crimes and false testimony in connection with the purchase of a gun, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

It is now up to US Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, an agent for former President Donald Trump, to decide whether Hunter will be prosecuted on those charges, noted the Post, citing people familiar with the investigation.

The newspaper reported that federal agents “determined months ago that they had put together a viable criminal case against the younger Biden.”

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In a statement to NBC News, Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said: “It is a federal crime for a federal agent to disclose information about a grand jury investigation such as this one. Apparently every agent you cite as a source in your article has committed such a crime. We trust that the Department of Justice will carefully investigate and prosecute such bad actors.

“As is reasonable and required by law, we believe that prosecutors in this case will carefully and thoroughly consider not only the evidence presented by the agents, but also all other witnesses in this case, including defense witnesses,” Clark said. “That’s the job of prosecutors. They should not be pressured, rushed or criticized for doing their job.”

Hunter announced in late 2020 that Weiss was conducting a criminal investigation into his tax affairs.

The Post noted in its report that the potential gun-related charges stemmed from Hunter’s October 2018 purchase of a handgun, which required him to fill out a federal form asking if he was a narcotics user or addict. According to a book he later wrote, Hunter answered “no” to that question, even though he was using crack cocaine at the time.

Read the full Washington Post article here.

VPN utilization is skyrocketing in Iran as residents navigate web censorship

Iranians are protesting to demand justice, highlighting the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by morality police and subsequently died under suspicious circumstances in Tehran hospital.

Mike Kemp | In pictures via Getty Images

Iranians are turning to virtual private networks to circumvent widespread internet disruptions as the government tries to cover up its crackdown on mass protests.

Outages in Iran’s telecom networks first began on September 19 and have been going on for two and a half weeks, according to data from internet surveillance companies Cloudflare and NetBlocks.

Internet surveillance groups and digital rights activists say they’re seeing lockdown-style network disruptions every day, with access throttled from around 4 p.m. local time until well into the night.

Tehran blocked access to WhatsApp and Instagram, two of Iran’s last uncensored social media services. Twitter, FacebookYouTube and several other platforms have been banned for years.

As a result, Iranians are flocking to VPNs, services that encrypt and redirect their traffic to a remote server somewhere else in the world, to hide their online activities. This allowed them to reestablish connections to restricted websites and apps.

On September 22, a day after WhatsApp and Instagram were banned, demand for VPN services increased by 2,164% compared to the previous 28 days, according to figures from Top10VPN, a VPN review and research site.

By September 26, demand peaked at 3,082% above average and has since remained high at 1,991% above normal levels, according to Top10VPN.

“Social media plays a crucial role in protests around the world,” Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN, told CNBC. “It allows protesters to organize and ensure that authorities cannot control the narrative and suppress evidence of human rights abuses.”

“The Iranian authorities’ decision to block access to these platforms as protests erupted has skyrocketed demand for VPNs,” he added.

Demand is much higher than during the 2019 riots, which were sparked by rising fuel prices and led to a near-total 12-day internet blackout. According to Migliano, peak demand at the time was only around 164% higher than usual.

Nationwide protests against Iran’s strict Islamic dress code began on September 16 following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman. Amini died in suspicious circumstances after being arrested and allegedly beaten by Iran’s so-called “morality police” for wearing her hijab too loosely. Iranian authorities denied any wrongdoing, claiming that Amini died of a heart attack.

At least 154 people, including children, were killed in the protests, according to the non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights. The government has reported 41 deaths. Tehran has tried to prevent the sharing of images of its crackdown and obstruct communications aimed at organizing further demonstrations.

Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Why VPNs are popular in Iran

VPNs are a common way for people under strict internet control regimes to access blocked services. In China, for example, they are often used as a workaround for restrictions on Western platforms that have been blocked by Beijing, including Google, Facebook and Twitter. Homegrown platforms like Tencent’s WeChat are extremely limited in terms of what users can say.

Russia saw a similar spike in demand for VPNs in March after Moscow tightened internet restrictions after invading Ukraine.

Swiss startup Proton said it saw daily signups for its VPN service balloon up to 5,000% compared to average at the height of the Iran protests. Proton is best known as the developer of ProtonMail, a popular privacy-focused email service.

“Since the assassination of Mahsa Amini, we have seen a tremendous increase in demand for Proton VPN,” Andy Yen, CEO and founder of Proton, told CNBC. “But even before that, VPN usage is high in Iran due to censorship and fears of surveillance.”

“In the past, during times of unrest in Iran, we’ve seen crackdowns on the internet that have led to a spike in VPN usage.”

According to Top10VPN, the most popular VPN services during the Iran protests were Lantern, Mullvad, and Psiphon, with ExpressVPN also seeing big gains. Some VPNs are free to use while others require a monthly subscription.

No silver bullet

Using VPNs in highly restricted countries like Iran has not been without its challenges.

“It’s pretty easy for regimes to block VPN server IP addresses because they’re pretty easy to find,” said Deryck Mitchelson, field chief information security officer for EMEA at Check Point Software.

“Because of this, you will find that open VPNs are only available for a short time before they are identified and blocked.”

Intermittent internet outages in Iran have “continued daily in a lockdown style,” NetBlocks said in a blog post. The disruption “impacts connectivity at the network level,” NetBlocks said, meaning they can’t be resolved simply by using VPNs.

Mahsa Alimardani, a researcher with the Free Speech Group, Article 19, said a contact she communicated with in Iran showed that his network could not connect to Google even though he installed a VPN.

“This is a new sophisticated deep packet inspection technology that they developed to make the network extremely unreliable,” she said. This technology allows internet service providers and governments to monitor and block data on a network.

Authorities are much more aggressive when it comes to preventing new VPN connections, she added.

Yen said Proton has “anti-censorship technologies” built into its VPN software to “ensure connectivity even under difficult network conditions.”

VPNs aren’t the only techniques citizens can use to bypass internet censorship. Volunteers set up so-called Snowflake proxy servers, or “proxies,” in their browsers to allow Iranians to access Tor – software that routes traffic around the world through a “relay” network to obfuscate its activities .

“In addition to VPNs, Iranians have also downloaded Tor in significantly larger numbers than usual,” Yen said.

Meanwhile, encrypted messaging app Signal has put together a guide on how Iranians can use proxies to bypass censorship and access the Signal app, which was blocked in Iran last year. Proxies serve a similar purpose to Tor, tunneling traffic through a community of computers to help users maintain anonymity in countries where online access is restricted.

US-China tensions might ‘cost’ China’s innovation: JPMorgan

A worker works on the semiconductor wafer production line at a Cuoda Group factory of Jiangsu Azure Corporation. China has increased investment in its chip industry to become self-sufficient in critical technology needed for electric vehicles, smartphones and more.

vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images

Tensions between the US and China have pushed Beijing to become more self-sufficient, and that could be a good thing for innovators in China, according to an investment specialist at JPMorgan Asset Management.

“One of the unintended consequences of this US-China back-and-forth is that it has just underscored this determination in China to become self-sufficient across a whole range of industries,” Alexander Treves told CNBC’s Street Signs Asia on Thursday .

In the mid-1990s, Chinese companies were mainly mass-market producers of “commodity goods,” he added.

“Now you have real technical innovators,” he said. “I think the geopolitical tensions you’re talking about will add to that — because China has to do these things on its own, and they’re going to keep making strides in that area.”

China has increased investment in its local chip industry to be self-sufficient when it comes to crucial technologies for various products – from electric vehicles to mobile phones. But it still relies heavily on foreign technology.

Treves said investors should look for companies that will thrive despite geopolitical tensions.

“Geopolitics is here to stay, so get used to it, just accept that,” he told CNBC.

JPMorgan is bullish on China tech

JPMorgan has invested in Chinese tech companies this year, the investment specialist said.

Some of the firms have “world-leading business models” and a huge addressable market, while valuations are better than they used to be, he added.

In addition, profitability has improved because companies are spending less and acting less aggressively against each other — in part because of the regulations, Treves said.

“For this very reason, we have ramped up Chinese internet companies this year,” he said.

Separately, in China’s electric vehicle space, Treves said JPMorgan is looking for companies with the greatest pricing power — typically battery makers rather than specific car brands.

“Then you don’t have to bet on which brand will be successful, whether someone will buy this brand or that brand,” he said.

Another fund manager, Edmund Harriss, head of Asia and emerging markets investments at Guinness Asset Management, is also bullish on China’s electric vehicle sector, CNBC Pro reported.

He named two stocks to capitalize on the EV boom, saying companies in electric vehicles, factory automation and sustainable energy are likely to outperform their global peers over the next five to 20 years.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

Quavo says in new verse that spouse had intercourse along with his boyfriend

As Quavo & Takeoff prepare to release their album Only Built For Infiniti Links, one song seems to have leaked, and it’s as MESSIC as the title suggests. In Quavo’s verse, the rapper can be heard saying an unnamed woman had sex with his boyfriend: He raps, “I said Caresha please because she’s too messy/ B***hf***ed my dawg.” behind my back but I’m not stressin’ / You wanted the gang, you should’ve said so / We should’ve blessed it.

As you know, Quavo was in a relationship with Saweetie, and many people speculate that he is talking about the Frosty Girl in the verse. If you remember, the former couples were goals until she quit last March. She tweeted that she was single. The rapper also said she’s endured “too much betrayal and hurt behind the scenes” and claims the love isn’t real because intimacy has been given to other women.

If you thought the drama was over, it doesn’t stop there. The leak also comes with rumors that Saweetie allegedly had sex with Offset. Check out what people are saying below!

Quavo cheated. Saweetie got revenge from fkn his cousin. offset. Saweetie made rule #2 for his best friend and made this ngga a YES MEN! 😭 pic.twitter.com/ntjPuqYgpo

— Domooo🧛🏾🎃🕸️ (@idimeology_) October 7,

The rumors about Offset & Saweetie have been going around all year and now that Quavo is calling Offset disloyal and saying Saweetie fucked his mate behind his back basically confirms it😭😭this is so messy. Not only are you cheating on your wife AGAIN, but this time with your cousin’s girlfriend

— Glamour🧚🏽‍♀️🥀 (@LilCuchiSquirt) October 6, 2022

The rumor has been circulating since last year, and even Akbar V recently claimed that Offset slept with Saweetie, along with previous cheating allegations. Phew, Chile, that’s a lot! Roommates, leave a comment and let us know what you think!