TYB
New Jersey Democratic Lieutenant Governor Dies Suddenly at Age 71 – Was Previously Rushed to Hospital for “Undisclosed Medical Issue”
Aug. 1, 2023 12:17 pm
New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver suddenly passed away Tuesday at the age of 71.
As ABC News reported, the news comes just one day after she was rushed to the hospital for an undisclosed medical issue. The cause of death at this time is unknown.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s office previously announced that Oliver had been admitted to Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston on Monday.
Oliver had been serving as the acting governor this week because Murphy decided to abscond to Italy for a family vacation.
Oliver became lieutenant governor of the Garden State in 2018 and also served as the head of the Department of Community Affairs.
Dr. McCullough on New Studies: “The COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign Has Generated a Tidal Wave of New Patients”
Before becoming lieutenant governor, Oliver was best known for being the first black woman to serve as speaker of the state assembly. She rose to the post of Assembly speaker in 2010 before losing the seat to Vincent Pietro in 2013 as the New York Post notes.
The Oliver family released the following statement:
“It is with incredible sadness and a heavy heart that we announce the passing of the Honorable Sheila Y. Oliver, Lieutenant Governor of the State of New Jersey. She was not only a distinguished public servant but also our cherished daughter, sister, aunt, friend, and hero.”
Governor Murphy also mourned Oliver’s loss and called selecting her as his running mate the best decision he ever made.
When I selected her to be my running mate in 2017, Lieutenant Governor Oliver was already a trailblazer in every sense of the word. She had already made history as the first Black woman to serve as Speaker of the General Assembly and just the second Black woman in the nation’s history to lead a house of a state legislature.
I knew then that her decades of public service made her the ideal partner for me to lead the State of New Jersey. It was the best decision I ever made.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/just-new-jersey-democratic-lieutenant-governor-dies-suddenly/
EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Matt Gaetz Introduces Legislation To Abolish USAID
August 01, 2023 10:29 AM ET
Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced legislation Tuesday that would abolish the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for reportedly pushing issues such as abortion, gender equity programs and climate alarmism abroad.
The Daily Caller first obtained a copy of the legislation, which is related to a May 10, 2022 Heritage Foundation report that found USAID was using U.S. taxpayer dollars to push far-left ideology. The legislation would eliminate federal funds for USAID to further carry out any of the functions, duties or responsibilities assigned or delegated to the agency.
The bill would also rescind the funds that are not obligated to be made available for the agency and transfer all other assets or liabilities to the Secretary of State.
“American taxpayer dollars are being wasted to fund radical leftist propaganda in foreign countries. The American people will not tolerate government-funded degeneracy at home, and we certainly will not accept its force-feeding abroad under Old Glory,” Gaetz told the Caller before introducing the bill.
“USAID does not serve a meaningful purpose. It is used as a slush fund for international wokeism. Therefore, serious lawmakers in Congress should support its complete abolition,” he added.
The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Anna Paulina Luna.
https://truthsocial.com/@RepMattGaetz/posts/110815461629876718
https://dailycaller.com/2023/08/01/matt-gaetz-legislation-abolish-united-states-agency-international-development-usaid/
US trucking giant Yellow shutting down operations amid standoff with Teamsters union
July 30, 2023 9:47pm EDT
The company sent notices to customers and employers, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.
The end of the road comes after the company earlier this month averted a strike by some 22,000 Teamsters-represented workers, saying the company will pay the more than $50 million it owed in worker benefits and pension accruals.
Then on Thursday, the company said it was exploring opportunities to divest its third-party logistics company Yellow Logistics Inc, and was engaged with multiple interested parties.
Formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., Yellow was one of the nation's largest less-than-truckload carriers with some 30,000 employees across the country.
The shutdown comes after more than a decade of financial struggles and seeing customers leave in droves.
FreightWaves reported last week that employees were told to expect the filing Monday. Yellow laid off an unknown number of employees Friday, the outlet later reported, citing a memo that stated the company was "shutting down its regular operations."
According to Satish Jindel, president of transportation and logistics firm SJ Consulting, Yellow handled an average of 49,000 shipments per day in 2022. Last, that number was down to between 10,000 and 15,000 daily shipments.
As of late March, Yellow had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.
In 2020, under the Trump administration, the Treasury Department granted the company a $700 million pandemic-era loan on national security grounds. Last month, a congressional probe concluded that the Treasury and Defense Departments "made missteps" in this decision — and noted that Yellow's "precarious financial position at the time of the loan, and continued struggles, expose taxpayers to a significant risk of loss."
The government loan is due in September 2024. As of March, Yellow had made $54.8 million in interest payments and repaid just $230 million of the principal owed, according to government documents.
Meanwhile, a series of heated exchanges had been building up between the Teamsters and Yellow, who sued the union in June after alleging it was "unjustifiably blocking" restructuring plans needed for the company's survival.
The Teamsters called the litigation "baseless" – with general president Sean O'Brien pointing to Yellow's "decades of gross mismanagement," which included exhausting the $700 million federal loan.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/us-trucking-giant-yellow-shutting-down-operations-amid-standoff-teamsters-union
The forgotten story of the real first Barbie to fly into space (on a still-secret mission)
July 31, 2023
— As it turns out, the two Barbie dolls that recently went on display at the Smithsonian are not the first to have flown into space, contrary to how they are described in the exhibit.
The pair of "Space Discovery" dolls that debuted July 18 at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia were indeed launched into orbit in 2022, and were the first Barbie dolls that Mattel — the toy company behind the iconic fashion figure brand — arranged to fly. But another Barbie made the trip 32 years earlier aboard a still-classified space shuttle mission and today it sits in the home of its original owner.
"It was on a DOD [Department of Defense] flight, and that's why you might not have seen much on it," said Steve Denison in an interview with collectSPACE.
Denison was on assignment by Rockwell (today, part of the Boeing Company) as a space shuttle payload training engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston when in 1989 he received what would become the first Barbie doll to fly into space as part of a "white elephant" holiday gift exchange. Subsequently, Denison and his fellow astronaut instructors got the idea to hide the Barbie as they set up the shuttle simulator ahead of each training run.
"We would take the Barbie and put her into a cabinet or whatever — just to have fun," he said.
The crew Denison was helping to train at the time — STS-38 commander Dick Covey, pilot Frank Culbertson and mission specialists Carl Meade, Bob Springer and Sam Gemar — spent hours at a time in the simulator, so finding Barbie offered a small break, as well as a source of levity. In fact, the crew took such a liking to the doll, that "when it came time to fly," said Denison, "they said 'Hey, we want to take her up as our mascot.'"
First, though, Barbie had to be dressed for the part. Although Mattel released its first in a series of spacesuited Barbie dolls in 1965, the one that Denison was gifted was not an "Astronaut Barbie." Instead, the wife of one of Denison's fellow crew instructors sewed an orange jumpsuit and styled the doll's hair for the flight.
Launched on Nov. 15, 1990, aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, Barbie and the STS-38 crew spent nearly five days in space (4 days, 21 hours, 54 minutes and 31 seconds, to be exact) on a mission for the Department of Defense. As a classified flight, not much is officially known about what the astronauts did while in orbit, however the limited photos released by NASA do show that the crew had an IMAX large-format film camera with them.
"There's an IMAX movie with her in there," said Denison, "where Barbie was tucked in between the lower deck cabinets, her feet stuffed in there and she was hanging out."
The STS-38 crew also photographed Barbie floating in front of a window with the Earth below as her backdrop. Later, the astronauts inscribed and autographed one of the photos for Denison, writing in jest that Barbie was still needed for their next simulator run (Barbie and Denison left NASA within months of the mission ending.)
Mattel did not know about Barbie being aboard STS-38 at the time, but learned of the doll's mission a couple of years later, when the company highlighted the flight in a newsletter for its employees. "Another impressive coup for a Barbie doll," the 1992 issue of Mattel Matters read, "the only question now is, what's left?"
As it happened, the same person who sewed Barbie's custom spacesuit went on to work for the National Archives, where in 1999 she helped arrange for the doll to be temporarily displayed at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum in Kansas, in conjunction with an exhibit celebrating 40 years of Barbie.
Since then, the doll has remained at Denison's home, which may be why Mattel, NASA, the Smithsonian and just about everyone else forgot about Barbie's actual first spaceflight. Not that Denison has any hard feelings about the subject.
"There's no mal intent for anybody. I just thought people might enjoy finding out there's a different story," Denison told collectSPACE.
For its part, the Smithsonian is interested and plans to revise its current display, which labels the "Space Discovery" Barbie dolls as the "first two Barbie dolls to fly to space."
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-073123a-first-barbie-doll-flown-in-space.html