>Dough
Born with wings of light and a sword of faith, this heavenly incarnation embodies both fury and purity.
https://twitter.com/FannKfann/status/1427296984428212230
Confirming audit companies are preparing the draft report to present to the senate team . Senate team will then review for accuracy and clarity for final report which will be released publicly
Where's Biden?
https://apnews.com/article/business-health-opioids-c80801f8e19e688ea95a09a2face2ff0
Heir: Sacklers won’t settle unless freed from opioid suits
Members of the family that owns OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma won’t contribute billions of dollars to a legal settlement unless they get off the hook for all current and future lawsuits over the company’s activities, one of them told a court Tuesday in a rare public appearance.
David Sackler, grandson of one of the brothers who nearly 70 years ago bought the company that later became Purdue, testified at a hearing in federal bankruptcy court in White Plains, New York, that unless the settlement is approved with those protections included, as they currently are, “I believe we would litigate the claims to their final outcomes.”
“We need a release that’s sufficient to get our goals accomplished,” Sackler said in response to questions from a lawyer for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee. “If the release fails to do that, we will not support it.”
That’s the heart of argument over the settlement plans of the family and the company, based in Stamford, Connecticut.
The U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee, nine states and the District of Columbia are objecting to the company’s settlement plan largely because it would grant legal protection to members of the wealthy Sackler family even though none of them are declaring bankruptcy themselves.
The concept has sparked protests, as well as federal legislation known as the SACKLER Act that would bar these deals, known as third-party releases. They are granted by bankruptcy courts in some parts of the U.S., but not all. The bill has sputtered in Congress.
Suits against the company and the Sacklers, including from several states, have been paused since Purdue filed for bankruptcy nearly two years ago. If the reorganization is approved as it is, it would freeze those forever. Sackler family members are also seeking protections from future lawsuits over opioids and any actions involving Purdue, even those that had nothing to do with the drugs.
The deal would not protect Sackler family members from any criminal charges. None have been announced against family members.
The Purdue reorganization plan does have costs for Sackler family members. They would be required to give up ownership of the company, with future profits going to abate the opioid crisis. They would also have to contribute a total of $4.5 billion in cash and a charitable fund over time. That money is also slated to go to efforts to battle the crisis, with a share of it going to victims and their families.
But a report commissioned by a group of state attorneys general said that because most of the payments come years from now, family members could use investment returns and interest to build even greater wealth while they make the payments. The assumptions in that report came under attack from a Sackler lawyer in Tuesday’s testimony.
The family’s collective wealth is estimated at nearly $11 billion, with much of that built on sales from OxyContin.
In the hearing Tuesday, David Sackler, who served on the company’s board from 2012 until 2018, was asked whether the family would emerge with more money in a decade when its share would be paid off, than it has now.
“I don’t think anyone can say that with certainty,” he said.
The plan is that sales of other companies, mostly international drug companies owned by the family, would fund their payments in the settlement, he said.
Sackler, who also testified before a congressional committee late last year, stopped short both then and Tuesday of an apology for the family or company’s role in the opioid crisis, which has been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. alone since 2000.
Because the company marketed an opioid, Sackler said, “we bear moral responsibility to try to help, and that’s what this settlement is designed to do.”
He was later asked if the company has legal responsibility for the toll of opioids. “We don’t believe our conduct was illegal in any way,” he said. “We want to help.”
Family members have long taken a low profile in the business world but a public role in philanthropy. Amid protests over its role in the opioid business, it has seen its name removed in recent years from wings and galleries at institutions including the Louvre in Paris. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is reviewing the matter.
During questioning from Maryland Assistant Attorney General Brian Edmunds, Sackler said that when he first joined the board of his family’s company nearly a decade ago, he hoped that selling more OxyContin would help fix the burgeoning addiction and overdose crisis.
The company had just introduced a reformulated version of the powerful painkiller that was harder to tamper with to give users a faster high.
“It had been successful in reducing the incidence of nasal ingestion and abuse,” Sackler said. “The idea of increasing sales was to take market share from non-abuse-deterrent products, thereby reducing abuse of the category and a whole and reducing opioid overdoses.”
Instead, Purdue’s market share declined. And opioid overdoses, increasingly from heroin and later illicitly produced synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, continued to increase.
Fatal opioid overdoses in the U.S. reached a record of over 70,000 last year.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee was the only office of the U.S. Department of Justice to object to the settlement, instead of two Justice Department offices objecting.
https://apnews.com/article/pete-buttigieg-parents-1a93c661af16a7814cef75fca650eab1
Transportation Sec. Buttigieg says he, husband are parents
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has announced that he and husband Chasten have become parents.
Buttigieg, the first openly gay Cabinet secretary confirmed by the Senate, posted the news Tuesday on his personal Twitter account.
“For some time, Chasten and I have wanted to grow our family,” he said. “We’re overjoyed to share that we’ve become parents! The process isn’t done yet and we’re thankful for the love, support, and respect for our privacy that has been offered to us.
“We can’t wait to share more soon,” he added.
Buttigieg, 39, has talked publicly about his desire to become a father since his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
Earlier this year, he told The Associated Press “we’re still working at that,” before adding with a smile, “Stay tuned.”
Buttigieg and Chasten, 32, got married in June 2018, and Buttigieg’s own father died six months later.
https://apnews.com/article/adoption-503ce61eb05a09782da966c03bccc55f
U.S. families mid-adoption trying to get Afghan children out
After five frustrating years mired in bureaucratic delays, Bahaudin Mujtaba and wife Lisa had hoped to finally bring the 10-year-old Afghan boy they’re adopting to their home in Florida this year for a chance at a different future.
But with the collapse of the Afghan government, the couple is desperately trying to get the boy, Noman, on a flight out of Kabul going anywhere before the chance to leave disappears.
In the chaos following the Taliban takeover, Noman and another family tried to get to the airport Tuesday through clogged streets, checkpoints and gunfire but were forced to turn back.
Mujtaba, who spoke to the boy and the family early Tuesday, said they hope to try again to get to the airport Wednesday.
“I have tears in my eyes this morning and my wife has tears in her eyes,” he said. “I couldn’t really say much else other than ‘Go for it’ and ‘Be careful.’”
The Taliban’s dramatic takeover of Afghanistan has reverberated worldwide, and for families like the Mujtabas, the fallout has been swift, deeply personal and potentially life-altering. Knowing the militant group is almost certain not to uphold the adoption agreements from the collapsed Afghan government, the American couple’s best hope is to get the boy out, fast.
“Once they get to the airport, it’s just a matter of waiting time. But it’s a matter of waiting a few hours or a few days,” Bahaudin Mujtaba said. Noman is currently in the custody of another family trying to leave.
Maybe they can get the boy to a nearby country. Maybe Pakistan. Wherever they go, he’s willing to fly there and meet him.
“But the first goal is to get him out of Afghanistan safely,” Mujtaba said.
It’s unclear how many among the throngs of people trying to flee Afghanistan include potential adoptive children. One other U.S. family, based in Indiana, is working with the same adoption agency as Mujtaba and is trying to get a 2-year-old boy out of the country.
Mary King, executive director of Frank Adoption Center in Wake Forest, North Carolina, is working with the families and said they had full permission from Afghan courts to bring the children to the U.S. and finalize the adoptions. They were awaiting U.S. visas, but everything changed in the past few days.
“This all came about much faster than any of us anticipated, so we don’t know,” she said. “We have put them on every list. We’ve filled out every form we’ve been told about. Their names are everywhere we can get them, as far as with the appropriate U.S. authorities. And so now we are waiting to hear what may happen next.”
U.S. adoptions from Afghanistan are relatively rare compared with adoptions from other countries, according to State Department data. From 1999 through 2019, 41 Afghan children were adopted by U.S. families. That’s far fewer than other countries in the region, including 148 children from Iran and 667 from Pakistan. Other countries, like China, Ukraine and Colombia, have seen thousands of children adopted by U.S. families over the past two decades.
The process in Afghanistan required working through the Afghan Family Court, which limited the guardianship process to Muslim parents. Families that receive permission from the court can then bring a child to the U.S. to finalize an adoption, according to the State Department.
But under Taliban rule, it’s all but certain not to be permitted now, Mujtaba said, especially from a family based in the U.S.
Mujtaba and his adoption agency have reached out to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s office for help. Mujtaba has even offered to go to Afghanistan with the U.S. military, offering his familiarity with the language and culture in return for a chance to bring the boy home.
Rubio’s office confirmed it is working with Mujtaba and the adoption agency but did not offer more details about what options the senator’s staff was pursuing.
Mujtaba and his wife agreed to adopt Noman, a distant relative, after Mujtaba met him during a visit to Kabul five years ago.
“I just basically fell in love with this little boy. And based on hearing everything, then we knew we had the means and the motivation to help him,” he said.
The child’s mother died of cancer, leaving the boy with his adult brothers and elderly father who is unable to care for him. Mujtaba described Noman as “a little boy who has big dreams.” He loves music, gets top grades in school and wants to become an engineer or a doctor – a profession Mujtaba said the boy may be drawn to because he’s had to meet with so many doctors.
Noman appears to have diabetes and other medical issues, possibly stemming from nutrition problems, but Mujtaba said it’s not totally clear if the doctors in Afghanistan gave him the right diagnosis or the treatments.
“That’s the environment, unfortunately, that you’re in, in Afghanistan,” he said. “We’re not really sure exactly what the problems might be, once we get here. He’s fine for a period of time and then, unfortunately, he’s not.”
Mujtaba is an U.S. citizen who emigrated from Afghanistan 40 years ago. After the Taliban was displaced two decades ago, he returned in 2005 to the country of his birth for the first time in 20 years. He’s visited Noman 10 times over the past years, staying three to five weeks at a time.
His wife, who is American, has never been to Afghanistan or met the boy in person because it seemed too dangerous to bring her, Mujtaba said.
King, whose agency primarily handles international adoptions, said her agency processed another adoption from Afghanistan in 2017, but they’ve never had to deal with a collapsed government. She said her team are working with the families to get the children out, hoping to secure emergency visas amid a situation she described as “very, very scary.”
“I’m watching this as their social worker. I cannot fathom what they themselves are feeling and what these little boys are feeling,” she said.
Mujtaba, a professor at Nova Southeastern University, said that though the adoption process had felt drawn out, they were hopeful that they were close until about a week ago.
But now, he’s not sure when or if they will be able to bring the boy to his new home in Fort Lauderdale.
“I think that that’s in jeopardy now,” he said.
are you happy to see me or is that a .. what size ammo is that anyway
crimes against children
>Carthage maneuver
>And 1.8 million have the name "Anonymous"
>The White House has lifted the lid issued earlier today and is calling the press pool back for the president to return to the White House at 8:40 p.m. from Camp David.