https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/lebron-james-florida-ex-felons-vote_n_5f1b2a0bc5b6296fbf42703f
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/23/us/seattle-protests-feds.html
>https://twitter.com/Jerusalem_Post/status/1287175667038199810
>all it takes is one shake
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494560
WE charity scandal - A simple guide to the new crisis for Trudeau
Mr Trudeau is facing the third ethics investigation of his five years in office over the government's decision to award a contract worth up to $43.5m to WE Charity Canada.
The programme was designed to connect post-secondary students to paid volunteer opportunities to make up for summer job prospects that had disappeared during the pandemic.
It later emerged that Mr Trudeau's mother and brother had been paid for speaking at various WE events over the years.
Margaret Trudeau was paid C$250,000 for speaking at 28 WE events over four years, and brother Alexander was paid C$32,000 for speaking at eight between 2017-2018.
Mr Trudeau has also made regular appearances himself - including its first ever event in 2007, according to news site iPolitics - and his wife, Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, hosted a wellness podcast for the charity.
The prime minister didn't recuse himself from discussions related to the decision to grant WE the contract. He has apologised for that.
The federal ethics watchdog has confirmed his office is looking into the matter.
Trudeau admits 'mistake' amid third ethics inquiry
"This country is governed by a fairly small circle of elites and there's a cult of the insider that buttresses this, that produces these kinds of scandals fairly routinely," says Canadian political theorist David Moscrop.
"That's the structural problem - that Canada ends up being a small country governed by a small handful of people."
>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494560
His finance minister under pressure
Like Mr Trudeau, federal finance minister Bill Morneau's family had ties to WE Charity. Two of his daughters are associated with the organisation, one of them as an employee.
Mr Morneau testified earlier this week before a House of Commons finance committee looking into the matter that his family had taken two humanitarian trips, to Kenya and Ecuador, to see WE Charity's overseas work.
He said he recently realised he had not paid C$41,000 in related travel expenses for those visits and has since cut a cheque.
WE said in a statement that, while the trips were complimentary, the minister has reimbursed the organisation for the amount they would have been charged if they had paid at the time.
The charity said it regularly holds tours for "well-known philanthropists" like Mr Morneau and his wife, who both come from wealthy Canadian families.
Opposition parties are now calling for him to resign or be fired for the trips, which they argue breached ethics rules.
Mr Moscrop suggests while the WE trip funds could easily have been oversight "rather than malice" it can create "cynicism, anger and frustration, and all that at the time of a pandemic is doubly troublesome".
The finance minister is currently being looked for possible ethics violations for failing to recuse himself from related discussions - for which he apologised.
>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494560
WE is under the microscope
WE Charity was founded 25 years ago by brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger in their parents' home in Ontario when Craig was 12 years old.
Formerly known as Free the Children, the charity focused on ending child exploitation and quickly drew international recognition.
Its co-founders became local celebrities, and have appeared on television programmes such as the Oprah Winfrey Show and 60 Minutes.
The charity's WE Day motivational conferences have become rites of passage for many Canadian youths, who are drawn to its message they can change the world and to its roster of celebrity speakers and performers.
It is now a wide-ranging organisations with operations in the UK, Canada, and the US.
WE withdrew from the federal programme early this month because it had been "enmeshed in controversy from the moment of its announcement", the organisation said.
But the scrutiny over the contract has extended to the charity itself, raising questions about its sprawling organisational structure, ties between its social enterprise branch and its charitable entities, and its internal culture.
On Friday, the Globe and Mail reported that some partners and sponsors, including the Queen's Commonwealth Trust and Virgin Atlantic Airways, are reviewing their relationships.
In mid-July, the charity said it has decided to make both governance and structural changes and to refocus its original mandate of international development, and would hire outside consulting firms for a review.
>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494560
Students are left in limbo
Rahul Singh, executive director Global Medic, a Toronto-based charity that provides emergency humanitarian aid, said he was initially excited by the volunteerism programme, this week telling Canadian parliamentarians it seemed like a "perfect and a natural fit" for his organisation.
Despite the controversy, the programme did receive over 35,000 applications and had 83 not-for-profit partners.
It's now in an apparent holding pattern following WE's withdrawal.
Mr Singh has numerous student volunteers enrolled in the programme and says he was told the federal government would step in after the WE partnership fell apart. He said he had yet to hear back.
"Now I'm very concerned that the students will not get a bursary," he told the House committee, later adding: "I'm very worried about people falling through the cracks because of poor policy decisions."
>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53494560
It's beginning to harm his support
The federal Liberals still hold a slight lead over their conservative rivals, but opinion surveys suggest the controversy is taking its toll.
National Liberal support has slipped since the revelations came to light, as have Mr Trudeau's approval ratings, according to a 20 July poll by Abacus Data.
Reactions to how the government handled the matter trend negative across the country, including among some 40% of people who voted for the Liberals in last year's election, the poll indicates.
It is likely it will remain in the headlines for a while.
Mr Trudeau has a minority government, giving opposition parties more control of the agenda and the tools to "drag it out as long as possible", says Mr Moscrop.
The prime minister, as requested by the opposition Conservatives, and the Kielburgers will also be making appearances before the House committee in the coming days.
>Craig and Marc Kielburger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Kielburger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Kielburger
bad trigger discipline
>https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17036843/united-states-v-steinbart/
>latest
https://twitter.com/Comey/status/1286669106175934464
https://apnews.com/355ac4e0f2b6bd8109f766de6ec0dfb8
The death of 12-year-old ″Poltergeist″ actress Heather O’Rourke was ″distinctly unusual″ because she lacked prior symptoms of the bowel defect that reportedly killed her, gastrointestinal doctors say.
″I would have expected a lot of (digestive) difficulties throughout her life and not just to have developed a problem all of a sudden,″ said Dr. Daniel Hollander, head of gastroenterology at University of California, Irvine, Medical Center.
Other specialists, also unconnected with the case, said Wednesday it was possible she died as the resulted of a birth defect, but added that the circumstances of her death were extremely unusual.
A private funeral was scheduled for Friday at Westwood Village Mortuary in Los Angeles for the blond youngster, whose character encountered ghosts and warned ″They’re heeeere 3/8″ in ″Poltergeist″ and ″They’re baaaack 3/8″ in the sequel. Filming was completed on a third ″Poltergeist″ movie last June.
Terry Merryman, spokeswoman for Children’s Hospital of San Diego, said Heather died Monday of septic shock due to congenital stenosis of the lower intestine, or bowel. That means she died of shock caused by infection in the blood, which in turn was caused by a birth defect that made a section of her intestine abnormally narrow.
Such narrowing typically reduces bowel diameter to one-eighth inch instead of the normal half inch, impeding movement of food and fluid through the bowel. The defect usually is apparent at birth because it causes severe abdominal pain, vomiting and nausea, Hollander said, adding that it is very rare for the disorder to kill an older child who lacked prior symptoms.
Mike Meyer, the actress’ manager and lawyer, said Heather didn’t suffer chronic digestive problems, and the bowel narrowing wasn’t discovered until she underwent surgery and died on the operating table after suffering cardiac arrest en route to the hospital.
Hollander speculated that Heather’s bowel narrowing might not have been congenital but could have developed suddenly due to inflammation.
However, congenital bowel narrowing could cause sudden death after years without symptoms if infection caused the bowel to rupture or become perforated, said Dr. Frank Sinatra, head of gastroenterology at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles.
Meyer said a section of Heather’s intestine burst after ballooning to 4 inches in diameter. She contracted an intestinal parasite last winter, probably from well water at her former home in Big Bear, and her doctors assumed the parasite inflamed the intestine, he said.
Moderate bowel narrowing at birth might not cause symptoms, but a lack of symptoms before age 12 ″would be distinctly unusual,″ said Dr. Paul Hyman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology at Harbor-University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center.
However, as the intestinal muscle upstream of the narrowing is strained by trying to push material through the narrowing, ″there may be more and more widening of the bowel tissue″ so it becomes infested with bacteria and eventually perforates or bursts, Hyman said.
When intestinal narrowing is obvious, the defect is corrected by surgically removing the narrow section and connecting the normal sections on both sides, the experts said.
Hyman said congenital narrowing of the small intestine occurs in roughly one of every 50,000 live births, while such narrowing of the large intestine is about 10 times more rare.
″I cannot understand what precipitated the death because it’s usually clear when they’re born they have an important disease,″ said Dr. Carlo Di Lorenzo, a University of Southern California pediatrician.
″It just doesn’t seem to quite make sense,″ said Dr. Hartley Cohen, a USC gastroenterologist.
″It’s weird,″ Meyer said. ″She was completely healthy Saturday, they thought she had the flu on Sunday and she was dead on Monday.″
https://www.timesofisrael.com/california-man-accused-of-smuggling-ancient-mosaic-from-syria
California man accused of smuggling ancient mosaic from Syria
LOS ANGELES, California — A Southern California man has been charged with smuggling an ancient mosaic that authorities believe was looted from war-torn Syria and falsely underestimating its value to avoid import duties.
Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi, 53, claimed in paperwork the 18-foot-long mosaic was part of a shipment worth only about $2,200, according to a federal indictment announced Friday.
However, an expert retained by the government believes the artwork was worth more than that.
The mosaic, seized by FBI investigators at his Palmdale house in 2016, depicts Hercules and dates back to the Roman Empire. Experts believe the mosaic was similar to others found in and around the city of Idlib, Syria.
Alcharihi has been locked in a legal dispute with federal authorities to reclaim the seized mosaic.
An email message to his attorneys in the forfeiture case has not been returned.