onthedarkside

An exchange of off-topic trolling and flaming posts has been removed.

Police and crime commissioner ‘disappointed’ as child sexual abuse inquiry ‘fails to identify individual accountability’ A long £6m investigation into multiple police failings during the Rotherham grooming scandal “lets down victims and survivors” by failing to identify any individual accountability, a police and crime commissioner has said. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) on Wednesday published what it described as its overarching report from Operation Linden, the name given to a series of investigations it carried out into how South Yorkshire police responded to allegations of child sexual abuse and exploitation between 1997 and 2013. It is estimated that more than 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham across the 16-year time span.... Not one officer lost their job as a result of the process and the most severe sanction was a written warning. (more) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/22/costly-report-into-rotherham-police-failings-lets-down-grooming-survivors

A California jury has found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion in 1975 when she was a teenager. Huth, now 64, was awarded $500,000 after four bizarre days of deliberations. Although Cosby's been accused of sexual misconduct by 60 women, this was the first civil case to reach trial. Cosby, who denies a sexual encounter occurred, did not attend the trial in Santa Monica. According to Tuesday's verdict, jurors believe Cosby intentionally caused harmful sexual contact, that he reasonably believed Huth was under 18, and that the actor was driven by unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor, according to the Associated Press. It's a big setback for the once beloved comedian, who was freed from prison last year. However, his spokesperson calls the verdict a "huge victory." (more) https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bill-cosby-sexual-assault-judy-huth-civil-trial-231454131.html

(CNN) Donald Trump is growing increasingly irritated with the House panel investigating the January 6, 2021, riot as it lifts the curtain on some of its findings with public hearings that have garnered gavel-to-gavel cable coverage -- much to the annoyance of the TV-obsessed former President. Tucked away at his Bedminster golf club, Trump has spent the past week venting his frustrations to nearly anyone who will listen. He has also taken his complaints about the committee on the road, lashing out at the congressional panel during a speech to conservatives in Nashville last Friday. "I don't understand why Kevin didn't put anyone on the committee," Trump has recently griped to those around him, according to a GOP source with direct knowledge of the comments -- a reference to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's decision to boycott the select committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected two Republican members he originally chose to sit on the panel. (more) https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/21/politics/trump-kevin-mccarthy-mike-pence/index.html

The findings go on to say leaving the EU has pushed up the cost of living, seen investment fall and the UK lose market share in key areas Brexit has damaged Britain's competitiveness, will reduce productivity and leave the average worker poorer than they otherwise would have been, according to a new study. The Resolution Foundation said leaving the EU has reduced how open and competitive Britain's economy is. And it goes further to say it has also led to an increase in cost of living and the level of business investment falling. The report, in collaboration with the London School of Economics, said this was all as a result of a "depreciation-driven inflation spike" following Brexit. (more) https://news.sky.com/story/brexit-will-leave-workers-poorer-than-they-would-have-been-and-has-damaged-britains-competitiveness-new-study-says-12638190

The numbers of lives lost and dollars spent would have been significantly lower if coverage had been extended to everyone, a new study says Americans spend more on health care than people in any other nation. Yet in any given year, the piecemeal nature of the American medical insurance system causes many preventable deaths and unnecessary costs. Not surprisingly, COVID-19 only exacerbated this already dire public health issue, as evidenced by the U.S.’s elevated mortality, compared with that of other high-income countries. A new study quantifies the severity of the impact of the pandemic on Americans who did not have access to health insurance. According to findings published on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, from the pandemic’s beginning until mid-March 2022, universal health care could have saved more than 338,000 lives from COVID-19 alone. The U.S. also could have saved $105.6 billion in health care costs associated with hospitalizations from the disease—on top of the estimated $438 billion that could be saved in a nonpandemic year. (more) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/universal-health-care-could-have-saved-more-than-330-000-u-s-lives-during-covid/# Source study: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/yale-study-more-than-335000-lives-could-have-been-saved-during-pandemic-if-us-had-universal-health-care/

Senate negotiators on Tuesday reached a long-awaited deal on a bipartisan gun safety bill to take firearms away from dangerous people and provide billions of dollars in new mental health funding. The legislation represents a rare moment of bipartisan agreement on the charged issues of gun violence and gun control, breaking nearly 30 years of stalemate on those issues. The bill does not ban assault-style rifles or high-capacity magazines or significantly expand background-check requirements for gun purchases, reforms that were top Democratic priorities a decade ago. ... Senators and staff worked through the weekend and said Tuesday afternoon they had resolved all their outstanding disagreements, giving Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) a good chance of passing a bill before the July 4 recess. (more) https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3531715-senate-negotiators-finalize-gun-safety-bill/

June 21 (Reuters) - The elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where a teenage gunman killed 19 children and two teachers last month will be demolished, the city's mayor said on Tuesday. The mayor's announcement came several hours after a senior Texas official said the law enforcement response to the shooting at Robb Elementary School was "an abject failure" in which a commander put the lives of officers over those of the children. Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin did not give a timeline for when the school would be demolished, but said at a council meeting: "You can never ask a child to go back or teacher to go back in that school ever." (more) https://www.reuters.com/world/us/law-enforcement-response-uvalde-shooting-was-abject-failure-official-says-2022-06-21/

(Bloomberg) -- At least 1,000 people have been killed and hundreds more injured after a powerful earthquake hit southeastern Afghanistan overnight, setting off a new humanitarian crisis in a country already facing a crumbling economy and hunger. The eastern Paktika province was the worst hit, Sharafuddin Muslim, the deputy state minister for Disaster Management said. The state-run Bakhtar News agency said at least a 1,000 people had died and another 1,500 injured and the death toll could rise. ... The quake was the worst calamity to hit the nation since a landslide in 2014 killed 2,000 people in the northeastern Badakhshan province. (more) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/worst-natural-disaster-in-eight-years-kills-1-000-in-afghanistan/ar-AAYJuc2

Officials believe there has been some spread between closely linked individuals in northeast London - probably extended family members Traces of the polio virus have been found during a routine sewage inspection in London, leading the UK Health Security Agency to declare a national incident. Health officials are now concerned about the community spread of the virus after samples were collected from the Beckton Sewage Treatment Works in London, but have stressed the risk to the public is extremely low. Several closely-related polio viruses were found in sewage samples taken between February and May. It has continued to evolve and has now been classified as a 'vaccine-derived' poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2). ... This is the first time the same virus has been detected a few months apart since the last case in 1984.... The virus presents a risk to anyone who has not been vaccinated, especially children and young adults. (more) https://news.sky.com/story/traces-of-polio-virus-found-in-london-sewage-as-health-officials-declare-national-incident-12638443

[Note: article below includes adult content references.] An Austrian man who had sex abroad caught a new strain of "super gonorrhea" that is resistant to most antibiotics commonly used to treat the infection, scientists have said. This is the second time a "super gonorrhea" strain has been detected. Another was found in 2018 in multiple countries. The term "super gonorrhea" refers to a bug that has a high level of resistance to recommended treatments, according to the World Health Organization. If multidrug-resistant strains of gonorrhea keep spreading, many cases of the STD might become untreatable, according to the authors of a case report published on Thursday in the medical journal Eurosurveillance, which is published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. ... The unidentified man in his 50s had condomless sex with a female sex worker in Cambodia in April, according to the case report. Five days later, he experienced pain while peeing and had discharge coming out of his penis, it said. (more) https://www.insider.com/man-catches-new-super-gonorrhea-sex-abroad-std-antibiotic-resistant-2022-6

A series of trolling posts have been removed.

Rail passengers in Wales are dealing with the biggest strike in 30 years. Fewer than 10% of normal services were running, Network Rail confirmed, on the first of three days of industrial action across the UK. Last-minute talks between unions and rail bosses failed to broker a deal in a row over pay and proposed job losses. ... Transport for Wales is not involved in the dispute, that includes guards, catering staff, signallers and track maintenance workers, but cannot run all its services as Network Rail maintains most track in Wales. (more) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61867135

Hong Kong's jumbo floating restaurant sinks at sea (CNN) — An iconic Hong Kong floating restaurant has sunk, just days after it was towed out to sea en route to an unspecified destination. Jumbo Kingdom, a three-story vessel, the exterior of which was styled after a Chinese imperial palace, was towed away by tugboats last Tuesday after nearly half a century moored in the city's southwest waters. The restaurant's main boat was traveling to an undisclosed shipyard when it capsized on Saturday after meeting "adverse conditions" near the Paracel Islands (also known as the Xisha Islands) in the South China Sea, Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises Limited said in a statement Monday. (more) https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hong-kong-jumbo-restaurant-sink-intl-hnk/index.html

Estonia has accused Russia of violating its airspace for the first time by helicopter, in a highly provocative move ahead of a major NATO summit. The Baltic state, a member of the NATO alliance, also said ongoing Russian military exercises are simulating missile strikes against its country daily. "This is the picture of the threat. How we see the Russian threat… It has never been as serious as it is now," said Kusti Salm, the top civil servant at the Estonian defence ministry, speaking to journalists on Tuesday. The hostile activity emerged as Russia is locked in a heated exchange with Lithuania, another Baltic state and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin's regime, over a decision by Vilnius to block the transit by rail of certain sanctioned goods to the Russian territory of Kaliningrad. (more) https://news.sky.com/story/estonia-says-russia-has-violated-its-airspace-for-first-time-by-helicopter-in-highly-provocative-move-12638006

Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie Ethics adviser who quit in fury thinks allegation ‘could be a matter for his successor’ Boris Johnson’s former ethics adviser Lord Geidt is said to believe that claims the PM tried to appoint his future wife Carrie to a top government job could be “ripe” for investigation. A report published in the first edition of The Times on Saturday alleged that Mr Johnson had attempted to install his then-girlfriend in a £100,000-a-year job in the Foreign Office in 2018. The story was pulled from later editions after No 10 intervened, and Ms Johnson’s spokesperson described it as “totally untrue”, but Downing Street has so far refused to comment on the claim. And No 10 did not deny a further report in the Daily Mirror today that Mr Johnson had discussed with aides the possibility of appointing Carrie as an ambassador in the run-up to last year’s COP26 global climate summit or as communications director for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s Earthshot Prize. (more) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-carrie-job-lord-geidt-b2105770.html

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Republican Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol reconvened Tuesday for the next in a series of public hearings this month. This hearing is set to focus on former President Donald Trump's efforts to pressure officials in Arizona and Georgia to overturn the 2020 election results. Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson said in his opening statement that "pressuring public servants to betray their oaths was a fundamental part" of Trump's "playbook." Thompson said Trump's pressuring of these election officials was based on the "big lie." "The lie hasn't gone away. It's corrupting our democratic institutions," Thompson added, specifically noting that a New Mexico county official refused to certify the recent primary results. ... Three Republicans, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling, chief operating officer for the secretary of state's office, and Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, testified first. (more) https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/january-6-house-committee-hearing-schedule-day-4-trump-pressure-state-officials-2022-06-21/

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the state of Maine cannot exclude private Christian schools from a taxpayer-funded school voucher programme that helps students attend private schools. The 6-3 decision from the high court’s conservative majority in the case of Carson v Makin could have wider implications for impacts to public schools and whether the government is obligated to support religious institutions on the same level as private ones. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the Supreme Court “continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state that the Framers fought to build.” (more) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/church-state-supreme-court-public-schools-b2106105.html

Texas Public Safety director says police response to Uvalde school shooting was ‘abject failure’ The director of the Texas Department of Public Safety on Tuesday slammed the law enforcement response to last month’s mass shooting in Uvalde as an “abject failure” and harshly criticized the decisions of Uvalde school district police chief Pedro “Pete” Arredondo. “There is compelling evidence that the law enforcement response to the attack at Robb Elementary was an abject failure and antithetical to everything we’ve learned over the last two decades since the Columbine massacre,” Col. Steven McCraw told the Texas Senate Special Committee to Protect All Texans. “Three minutes after the subject entered the West building, there was a sufficient number of armed officers wearing body armor to isolate, distract and neutralize the subject,” he continued. “The only thing stopping the hallway of dedicated officers from entering rooms 111 and 112 was the on-scene commander, who decided to place the lives of officers before the lives of children.” (more) https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/21/us/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-footage-police-response/index.html

The latest information seems to indicate officers had more than enough firepower and protection to take down the gunman long before they finally did and will be perceived by many as a failure of law enforcement to stop the attack Multiple police officers armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield were on site at the Texas school shooting within 19 minutes - but they didn't breach the classroom and stop the gunman for another hour, new reports suggest. According to documents reviewed by the Austin American-Statesman newspaper and local KVUE-TV, officers with heavier firepower and tactical equipment were at the Robb Elementary School much earlier than first reported. It marks the latest embarrassing revelation in what many perceive as a failure of law enforcement to stop the attack. Nineteen children and two teachers were killed on 24 May when high school dropout Salvador Ramos went on a murderous rampage at the Uvalde school with an assault rifle. (more) https://news.sky.com/story/uvalde-shooting-officers-had-rifles-and-a-ballistic-shield-on-site-in-minutes-but-still-waited-an-hour-to-enter-classroom-says-new-report-12637670

Musk says 3 issues -- fake accounts, debt financing & shareholder approval -- must be resolved before his Twitter buyout can proceed Elon Musk says there are three main hurdles to overcome before he can complete his purchase of Twitter. Musk is seeking to buy Twitter for $44 billion, a mega acquisition with huge implications for the social media world — not least given the Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s contentious stance on content moderation and freedom of speech. But the fate of the deal has become more uncertain in recent weeks after Musk threatened to walk away, citing concerns over the number of fake accounts on the platform. The billionaire could face a $1 billion breakup fee and possibly even lawsuits if he were to abandon the deal. (more) https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/21/elon-musk-says-3-issues-need-to-be-resolved-before-twitter-deal-closes.html

Elon Musk's transgender daughter has filed a request in the Los Angeles County Superior Court to have her name legally changed. In documents shared online, the 18-year-old says she wants to change her name in accordance with her gender identity and because she no longer wants to be related to her biological father. ... Legal documents published online show she has formally asked the court to change her gender from male to female and to register her new name (which was redacted in the version of the documents shared online). (more) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-21/elon-musks-teenager-files-for-name-change-distance-from-father/101170658

Howitzers arrive in Ukraine, first in pledged weapons package from Germany KYIV, June 21 (Reuters) - German self-propelled howitzers have arrived in Ukraine in the first delivery of heavy weapons promised by Berlin, Ukraine's defence minister said on Tuesday. Ukraine has pleaded with the West to send more and better artillery as the country runs out of ammunition for its existing Soviet-era arsenal, which is dwarfed by Russia's. ... Other countries that have supplied Ukraine with self-propelled and towed howitzers include the United States, Britain, France, Norway and Poland. (more) https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/howitzers-arrive-ukraine-first-pledged-weapons-package-germany-2022-06-21/

Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian vessel in the Black Sea in the first successful attack using western-donated Harpoon anti-ship missiles, British intelligence confirmed today. Spasatel Vasiliy Bekh, a Russian naval tugboat, was delivering weapons and personnel to Snake Island when it was struck last Friday. The vessel had a Tor-M2MK anti-aircraft missile system on board but it was not clear if it was being transported to the Russian-controlled island or whether it was acting as an air defence for the tug. (more) https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-sinks-russian-ship-with-western-weapons-zr8bzmbgw

A series of off-topic, diversion posts on the history of U.S. presidential elections in past decades has been removed. If you don't intend to discuss -- Nearly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump should be charged for Jan. 6 riot--poll -- then this isn't the thread to be posting in. The same is true for federal budget deficit discussions.