New data shows that America's rent debt now totals more than $19 billion

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/national/new-data-shows-that-americas-rent-debt-now-totals-more-than-19-billion

People have fallen behind on their rent during the pandemic.

In addition to the $19 billion rent debt, new data from PolicyLink shows that nearly 6 million households are behind on rent. The data stems from a partnership that aims to not only eliminate that debt but to spark change.

San Diego resident Genea Wall joined forces with tenants' rights advocates who fight eviction. ACCE, or The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, shared their protest video with us. They're working to protect people like Genea, who they believe are falling victim to loopholes in rent relief laws.

“Then, to be given a 60 day to get out, retaliation, because I asked someone to do what was right by law what the law requires a landlord to do.”

Genea tells us, she's been through a lot. Her medical complications are just one more stress on top of joblessness and a pandemic.

“The cycle that you go through trying to process what to do next you can barely do your day-to-day function when you’re trying to worry about am I going to have a roof is someone going to lock me out is all my stuff going to be on the street.”

There are so many others like Genea. Now, organizations like PolicyLink and the Tableau Foundation are trying to shine a light on the economic and racial inequities of rent debt.

“What we provide are indicators of equity around income inequality, housing affordability and we provide those indicators deeply broken down by race, by ethnicity, by gender so that we are empowering community leaders and policymakers with data to design effective policies,” said Sarah Treuhaft, Vice President of Research at PolicyLink.

Their data now spans across most of the country and Treuhaft says rent debt is a pressing and urgent issue.

“There’s a huge risk of a massive amount of eviction and that would be a humanitarian crisis and an economic disaster for our communities, and it would be a public health disaster as well.” As for Genea, she's doing okay. For now. She's applied for assistance, and she's made her voice loud on purpose.

She says, “Fight. Fight to be heard. Fight to get your issues in front of the right people. fight. Organize. Don’t just go for the okie doke, oh we can’t do this, don’t take no for answer fight until you get your resolve.”

She wants others to know they're not alone in their fight.

“This is the new pandemic, called homelessness.”

White House denies allowing more reporters to cover outdoor Biden speech on relaxed CDC guidance

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-reporters-outdoor-biden-speech-relaxed-cdc-guidance

President Biden is deliving an address on the White House's North Lawn Tuesday in which he will discuss the relaxing of outdoor mask recommendations as a result of coronavirus vaccines, but the White House is still refusing to increase the number of reporters permitted to cover the speech.

Fox and other networks had sought permission for more correspondents to be present for Biden's address, but the White House denied their requests, despite the CDC issuing the new guidance.

The CDC now says that people who have been vaccinated can safely assemble with others in small gatherings outdoors without masks, and that those who have not been vaccinated can do so with masks. Large gatherings are also now recommended with masks for those who have been vaccinated.

Earlier Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra defended the use of masks outdoors for vaccinated people. CBS anchor Gayle King had asked why masks are necessary for those who have received their shots.

"If you're vaccinated, do you have to wear a mask outside or you don't have to wear a mask outside?" she first asked.

"Well we weren't born with masks, but we want to be safe and we want to protect our loved ones," Becerra said. "So that's why we wear masks, right? We put on our seat belt, we don't expect that we're going to crash our car, but we want to be safe."

King then pressed him on the issue of why masks are needed for those who have had their shots.

"Why do we have to do that if we're vaccinated?" she said. "That's why I'm so confused."

Becerra's response: "You never know, and what you're trying to do is encourage others."

>>13525293

Fully agree, fren.

CFPB issues interim rule applicable to FDCPA debt collectors seeking to evict tenants for non-payment of rent - https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/cfpb-issues-interim-rule-applicable-to-8210542/

‘Ghost’ Candidate Ran In Race With Gaetz Buddy Until Indictments Started Dropping

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/ghost-candidate-ran-in-race-with-gaetz-buddy-until-indictments-started-dropping

As a golf course employee, Day declared an income of $20,000 in 2019 with a net worth of $15,000. A state court case, first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, shows a collection firm suing Day for $1,353 in credit card debt. A judge garnished Day’s wages from a separate job at the South Florida YWCA.

A number left for Day on his candidate registration forms led to a Google voice account. Nobody returned repeated calls from TPM left at that number.

Day has appeared elsewhere as tied to Greenberg. In December 2017, Greenberg backed an effort to change the county’s political structure. The Sentinel reported that when asked about the effort, Greenberg referred the paper to Daniel Day.

Other sham candidates in Florida who ran in 2020 have attracted attention in part because of a criminal case that ensnared one. Miami prosecutors allege that Frank Artiles, a former state senator, paid a man with the same last name as a Democratic incumbent $44,000 to run.

In both that contest and the race that Gaetz reportedly discussed, mailers with the names of two political committees – The Truth and Our Florida – were sent out to advertise the candidates who otherwise had no substantial campaigns, first reported by Local 10 News.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed through those committees from a source that has yet to be uncovered.

Scientist: Extent of DDT dumping in Pacific is ‘staggering’

https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/article250961874.html

Marine scientists say they have found what they believe to be more than 25,000 barrels that possibly contain DDT dumped off the Southern California coast near Catalina Island, where a massive underwater toxic waste site dating back to World War II has long been suspected.

The 27,345 “barrel-like" objects were captured in high-resolution images as part of a study by researchers at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They mapped more than 56 square miles (145 square kilometers) of seafloor between Santa Catalina Island and the Los Angeles coast in a region previously found to contain high levels of the toxic chemical in sediments and in the ecosystem.

Historical shipping logs show that industrial companies in Southern California used the basin as a dumping ground until 1972, when the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act, also known as the Ocean Dumping Act, was enacted.

Disposing of industrial, military, nuclear and other hazardous waste was a pervasive global practice in the 20th century, according to researchers.

Resting deep in the ocean, the exact location and extent of the dumping was not known until now.

The territory covered was “staggering,” said Eric Terrill, chief scientist of the expedition and director of the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Underwater drones using sonar technology captured the images of barrels resting 3,000 feet (900 meters) below the surface all along the steep seafloor that was surveyed.

“It really was a surprise to everybody who's worked with the data and who sailed at sea,” Terrill told reporters Monday.

The survey provides “a wide-area map” of where the barrels are resting, though it will be up to others to confirm through sediment sampling that the containers hold DDT, Terrill said. It's estimated between 350 and 700 tons of DDT were dumped in the area, 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Los Angeles, and 8 miles (12 kilometers) from Catalina Island.

The long-term impact on marine life and humans is still unknown, said Scripps chemical oceanographer and professor of geosciences Lihini Aluwihare, who in 2015 co-authored a study that found high amounts of DDT and other man-made chemicals in the blubber of bottlenose dolphins that died of natural causes.

Scripps researchers say they hope their survey will support clean-up efforts.

The expedition on the Sally Ride research vessel included a team of 31 scientists, engineers, and crew conducting 24-hour operations and two autonomous underwater vehicles.

Ex-Obama White House aide arrested, accused of stealing from charter schools

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/550468-ex-obama-white-house-aide-arrested-for-stealing-from-charter-schools

Andrew, who was arrested in New York, served as a senior adviser in the White House Office of Educational Technology during the Obama administration. The complaint against him was unsealed Tuesday and he is slated to appear before a magistrate judge on Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors allege Andrew stole $218,005 from the charter school network Democracy Prep Public Schools in 2019 — two years after severing ties with the institution — and then used the funds to qualify for a more favorable mortgage interest rate. He allegedly withdrew funds from the school network's escrow accounts, which he initially set up.

A spokesperson for Democracy Prep told The Hill that the network is not entirely sure how Andrew was allegedly able to access the accounts in question.

Andrew, who helped create the charter school network in New York in 2005, had left the company in 2013 to assume a post at the Department of Education before joining the White House. He left the administration in November 2016, according to prosecutors.

“As alleged, Seth Andrew abused his position as a founder of a charter school network to steal from the very same schools he helped create," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.

4-Star Generals Want China, Russia Intel Declassified

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/intelligence-military-adversaries-abuses/2021/04/27/id/1019189/

Top U.S. military commanders are pressing Biden administration intelligence leaders to expose the depth of China and Russia's "pernicious conduct," calling for a declassification of intelligence.

A group of 4-star generals made the request to expose our top adversaries publicly, particularly as our allies are allegedly being fed disinformation by our top rivals and the U.S. is falling behind in a veritable public relations world war, Politico reported.

"Our inability to speak publicly about the real threats coming from China and Russia means many Americans don't truly know everything we're up against," Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., told Politico in a statement. "It makes it easier to argue to cut the defense budget when we can't have an honest discussion about these threats.

"I know this frustrates many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle — and we need to get better at fighting in this space. Our adversaries like to operate in the shadows, and the best way to combat them is to call out their lies."

The memo from 9 regional commanders — a document now dubbed the "36-star memo" — calls for "waging the truth in the public domain against America's 21st century challengers," according to the report.

"We request this help to better enable the U.S., and by extension its allies and partners, to win without fighting, to fight now in so-called gray zones, and to supply ammunition in the ongoing war of narratives," the commanders wrote to then-acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire in January 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Unfortunately, we continue to miss opportunities to clarify truth, counter distortions, puncture false narratives, and influence events in time to make a difference."

The only 4-star generals to not sign the memo were the leaders of U.S. Central Command and Cyber Command, Politico reported.

Adm. Phil Davidson organized the letter from 9 of the 11 U.S. commanders, only 1 of which is no longer active.

"The Russians and the Chinese, in particular, have weaponized information," former undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security Kari Bingen, who received the memo, told Politico. "This is a significant concern that is being raised by military commanders and intelligence professionals."

She added: "The combatant commands are out at the edge. Their forces are interacting with our allies and partners, and seeing what our adversaries are doing, on a daily basis. They need timely and relevant information to expose bad activity and to counter what they're seeing."

The behaviors the commanders want exposed include military buildups by Russia in Ukraine and incursions into Western airspace, and China's increasingly brazen acts in the South China Sea, including islands claimed by the Philippines, according to the report.

Also, the commanders warned that Russia and China are spreading disinformation about the global coronavirus pandemic, pushing anti-American conspiracy theories like the U.S. being responsible for the virus' release as a bioweapon or U.S. troops being responsible for its spread.

"I think there's meaningful movement," Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, told Politico. "I can't say that it's been a change yet, because this is still evolving."

Additional link: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/26/spy-chiefs-information-war-russia-china-484723

One of the signatories was Gen. Jay Raymond, who at the time was commander of U.S. Space Command but is now head of the Space Force and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.(pictured)

https://law.georgia.gov/press-releases/2021-04-27/carr-human-trafficking-prosecution-unit-indicts-two-human-trafficking

Carr: Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit Indicts Two on Human Trafficking Charges

ATLANTA, GA – Attorney General Chris Carr today announced that the office’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit has indicted Steven Ray Stone (3 counts) and Undra Henderson (1 count) for Trafficking a Person for Sexual Servitude. A Fulton County Grand Jury returned the indictment on April 8, 2021. The defendants were apprehended on April, 26, 2021 and April 27, 2021 respectively.

“This office continues to attack the scourge of Human Trafficking, and we will work to put anyone abusing children behind bars,” said Attorney General Chris Carr. “We are grateful to have rescued this reported victim, and we hope our efforts will help rid Georgia of this evil industry. Combatting human trafficking requires an all-in approach, and we want to thank the U.S. Marshals Service, Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and the College Park Police Department for assisting our office in apprehending these individuals.”

This case arose out of Operation Not Forgotten, a statewide, two-week operation to rescue endangered missing children. The U.S. Marshals Service Missing Child Unit, in conjunction with the agency’s Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and Georgia state and local agencies coordinated Operation Not Forgotten. The Office of the Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit was embedded throughout the operation.

Charges:

Defendant Stone – Trafficking a Person for Sexual Servitude – for harboring the Victim for the purpose of sexual servitude

Defendant Stone – Trafficking a Person for Sexual Servitude – for transporting the Victim for the purpose of sexual servitude

Defendant Stone – Trafficking a Person for Sexual Servitude – for benefitting financially from the sexual servitude of the Victim

Defendant Henderson – Trafficking a Person for Sexual Servitude – for soliciting the Victim for the purpose of sexual servitude

If convicted, each count enumerated above carries a sentence of 25 years imprisonment to life.

>>13525276 (pb/lb)?

>>13525649

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/karen-rebels-step-up-attacks-myanmar-army-struggles-rule-2021-04-27/

The Karen National Union (KNU), Myanmar's oldest rebel group

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_National_Liberation_Army

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_people

Leave Afghanistan ASAP: US to citizens wishing to do so

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/leave-afghanistan-asap-us-to-citizens-wishing-to-do-so/2222628

The US State Department issued a new travel advisory for Afghanistan on Tuesday that urged all Americans who wish to depart the country to do so immediately.

The agency raised the travel advisory to Level 4 Do Not Travel citing coronavirus, crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.

"U.S. citizens wishing to depart Afghanistan should leave as soon as possible on available commercial flights," said the department.

It also ordered government employees to depart the US Embassy Kabul "whose functions can be performed elsewhere."

It said travel to all areas of Afghanistan is unsafe because of critical levels of kidnappings, hostage-taking, suicide bombings, widespread military combat operations, landmines, and terrorist and insurgent attacks.

Here Come The Cicadas

https://www.npr.org/2021/04/27/991168811/here-come-the-cicadas

The last time periodical cicadas of Brood X emerged, blanketing sidewalks and lawns with their large shiny bodies and creating a deafening chorus, John Kerry was running for president, Barack Obama was an obscure state senator, and Donald Trump was praising Democrats on CNN.

Now, underfoot, billions of cicada nymphs are once again preparing to emerge from the earth and take to the treetops of 15 states across the East Coast and Midwest. The world has changed a lot since the last time these periodical cicadas emerged — and the cicadas themselves may be changing too, driven by climate change.

The periodical cicadas that will emerge this year are Brood X (pronounced 10) — one of the largest groups of periodical cicadas in the world.

Exactly when the creatures will crawl out of to ground and head for the treetops to mate depends on the weather and the ground temperature — the ground needs to be about 64 degrees, and a little rainfall can help trigger the emergence. Cicadas have already begun digging exit tunnels, preparing to climb out when the time is right.

"I'm actually a little anxious about it, like, when are they coming?" asks Ploi Swatdisuk. She was a senior in high school in Northern Virginia, the last time the periodical cicadas emerged, and does not have fond memories.

"It's just so gross," she says, recalling the squashed bodies of the large insects on her way to school. "I'm not really looking forward to it, and I don't know who could be except like maybe a wildlife biologist."

Indeed, people who study bugs are excited. "This is our Super Bowl, absolutely, for entomologists, we've been looking forward to this," says Michael Raupp, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, also known as "the bug guy." It will be, he says, a "spectacular event."

The insects have been quietly waiting for 2021 to roll around for almost two decades.

"Remember, these are just teenagers and they've been underground for 17 years," Raupp says. "It's been a dismal existence. They want to come up and party."

Periodical cicadas are not to be confused with annual cicadas — the noisy creatures that create the late summer soundtrack in much of the country every year. Periodical cicadas live most of their lives underground, sucking sap from tree roots. Then, they emerge en masse. There are more than a dozen different cicada broods scattered across the eastern half of the U.S., all on different 17 or 13 year schedules.

To understand periodical cicadas' periodicity, and the strangely specific number of years they stay underground, Raupp says you have to consider cicadas' survival strategy. It's something called predator satiation.

"In other words, they're going to emerge synchronously in such massive numbers, they fill the bellies of every predator that wants to eat them," Raupp explains.

Even after predators' bellies are full, there are still many, many cicadas left to reproduce. But for this satiation strategy to work, the brood has to all emerge the same year — in overwhelming numbers. If just a few cicadas come out, on an off year, Raupp says, "They are eaten into oblivion."

As for the 17 years underground, Raupp explains that cicadas favor prime numbers. Emerging in prime number intervals helps different broods on different schedules avoid each other. Interbreeding could mess with those precisely timed schedules, leading to smaller numbers of cicadas emerging more often, making the satiation strategy ineffective.

Lately cicadas' schedules seem to be changing.

John Cooley has been studying cicadas since grad school in the '90s. He's now a professor at the University of Connecticut. Years ago he started a project mapping cicada broods. Whenever a brood starts emerging, Cooley and his colleagues spend weeks driving around with the windows down.

They listen for cicadas, and map what they hear. In recent years they've been hearing something unexpected — cicadas emerging years early, off schedule.

And, he says, it could be because of climate change.

"It is an absolutely intriguing possibility that as global climate change, it's throwing the cicadas off the cycle that they're supposed to be on and causing them to make mistakes," Cooley says.

Judge tosses sexual abuse case against Michael Jackson

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/judge-tosses-sexual-abuse-case-against-michael-jackson

Another judge previously dismissed the lawsuits by Robson and Safechuck in 2017 because the statute of limitations had expired, but an appeals court revived the legal actions in 2019 under a new California law giving those who allege childhood sexual abuse a larger window to file lawsuits.

Jackson, known as the "King of Pop" for hits such as "Thriller" and "Beat It," was accused of sexual abuse by other children. The 1993 allegations against him were settled out of court. Another set of allegations went to court in 2005, and Jackson was found not guilty on all 14 counts. He died from cardiac arrest after a propofol overdose administered by his doctor in 2009.

Rose McGowan tells Democrats they are in a cult, and their whining, defensive responses prove her right

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/522291-rose-mcgowan-fox-news-cult/

McGowan shocked many on Monday evening when she appeared on Fox News, which in and of itself could be viewed as the sort of political declaration that ends careers.

The ‘Charmed’ actress and early MeToo activist shared her experience of growing up in a cult and how that experience made her realize the divisive rhetoric she was supporting when she’d labeled herself a Democrat.

“I grew up in a cult. It was a very famous cult called ‘Children of God’, and it gave me a superpower,” she said. “It gave me the ability to see the control and the propaganda machine, especially in the US, for what it is, and how it harms people. And how the left can harm people just as much as the right, if they go very, very deep into it and ignore all the other aspects of reality.”

Democrats, especially, are in a “deep cult” that they’re unaware of, the actress added, and they’re “pretty much against all the same things” and “masquerade as the helpers” while initiating little to no change.

The treatment of McGowan comes down to the fact that she makes Democrats uncomfortable. As a woman and a MeToo activist, she is expected to act and behave in a certain way. She’s not supposed to attack the ‘good guys’ or speak to the ‘bad guys’ or call out ‘allies’ and hypocrites on the left, such as Alyssa Milano. A woman who is a trailblazer and has shared her painful experiences at the hands of predators seems like the sort of person Democrats would celebrate today, and they do – when it’s convenient and said person believes the right things. It’s why a 62-year-old white man preaching to a woman about why she’s wrong about everything and he’s right would typically be chalked up to white privilege, or sexism, but when Olbermann does it, he’s simply reminding McGowan of the consequences of her beliefs and trying to keep her in line.

People like McGowan break the symbols Democrats have conjured up to describe their political enemies. It’s why racist attacks on people such as Candace Owens and others are dismissed by them. Instead of choosing to listen, they feel their tribe is being threatened, so they unleash what they think is righteous anger. Lots of cultists probably feel righteous, too, when they’re defending a belief system that controls how they think.

Maybe it was down to her childhood in the cult or her experience of seemingly having lost support on the left as she continued to speak up and refused to be silenced after sharing her MeToo experiences, but McGowan is right: the system’s not working.

Deadline for Real ID for air travel pushed back due to pandemic

https://www.today.com/money/deadline-real-id-air-travel-pushed-back-due-pandemic-t216604

The deadline was supposed to be Oct. 1, but it's now being postponed until May 3, 2023.

The Department of Homeland Security will delay the requirement for air travelers to have a Real ID-compliant form of identification, pushing it back 19 months, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday.

The deadline was supposed to be Oct. 1, but it's now being postponed until May 3, 2023. Similar delays in the past have been the result of a lack of full state compliance with the requirements for issuing the more secure driver’s licenses. But this time, it’s due to the pandemic, these officials say, which made it harder for people to get into state motor vehicle departments and get the new IDs.

*we've seen that star worn before in history

>>13525880

Change your lens in the way you view reality.

Go within.

Pray for clarity.

Stay comfy.

God Won, but it takes time to save as many in helping them truly 'wake up'.

Secret History of the Scythians and Lost Tribes - ROBERT SEPEHR