TYB
Belleville declares state of emergency after city saw 14 overdoses in an hour earlier this week
February 08, 2024
An Ontario city is declaring a state of emergency following an incident that saw more than a dozen overdoses reported in an hour in the city's downtown core. On Thursday morning, Belleville city officials said they had recorded 23 overdoses since 2 p.m. on Tuesday.
Speaking to CTV News, Mayor Neil Ellis said the city's declaration of an emergency is an effort to release more funding from federal and provincial coffers.
"We can't afford to fix it ourselves," the mayor told CTV. "It's a medical crisis and a health crisis. And resources from the province and the feds have got to go toward trying to solve this."
Rebel News' Tamara Ugolini, while examining the harmful effects of Canada's 'safer supply' drug programs, noted how the problem isn't new. Earlier in February, the city of 55,000 saw a handful of overdose reports during a four-hour period.
On Tuesday, police shut down part of the downtown core during the "overdose emergency." Thankfully, no fatalities were reported.
"It's too early for this particular event to know exactly what might be in the drug supply, what would it be having these particular effects, but this is part of an overall trend that is severely affecting the community," said Dr. Ethan Toumishey, medical officer of health for the region, as reported by CBC.
Mayor Ellis, a Liberal MP from 2015 to 2021, told the state broadcaster the city lacked "any capital or any facilities" to address the issue. A spokesperson for Ontario's government told CBC that Belleville receives $35 million in funding for local mental health and addiction organizations, in addition to $2 million for linking health workers and police on distress calls.
"The best case is housing first and wraparound services," Ellis told CTV. "It's not going to cure everybody but that's the gold standard."
https://www.rebelnews.com/belleville_declares_state_of_emergency_after_city_saw_14_overdoses_earlier_this_week
Unanimous vote makes AI-generated voice calls ILLEGAL in US - and FCC says ruling 'takes effect immediately'
UPDATED: 13:46 EST, 8 February 2024
Scam and spam robocalls featuring lifelike AI-generated human voices are now officially illegal, in a unanimous ruling by the Federal Communications Commission.
The phenomenon gained attention last month when a robocall impersonation of US President Joe Biden urged people to not cast ballots in the New Hampshire primary
The new ruling, issued Thursday, promised to give 'State Attorneys General across the country new tools to go after bad actors behind these nefarious robocalls.'
'Bad actors are using AI-generated voices in unsolicited robocalls to extort vulnerable family members, imitate celebrities, and misinform voters,' FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a press release.
'We're putting the fraudsters behind these robocalls on notice.'
'State Attorneys General will now have new tools to crack down on these scams and ensure the public is protected from fraud and misinformation,' Rosenworcel said.
The FCC ruling will expand what activities prosecutors can pursue under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which is currently the primary law allowing the authorities to help limit junk calls.
But the FCC also said that it is pursuing its own use cases for AI, employing pattern recognition software in an effort to recognize illegal robocalls 'before they ever reach consumers on the phone.'
The FCC has been investigation the issue since last November, when it launched a Notice of Inquiry to investigation the extent to which sophisticated AI tools are being deployed in illegal robocalls and what new policies could help stem the tide.
Following today's ruling, the federal agency noted that these types of phone scams have been on the rise over the past few years.
'This technology now has the potential,' the FCC said in a statement, 'to confuse consumers with misinformation by imitating the voices of celebrities, political candidates, and close family members.'
Prior to today's ruling, US State Attorneys General had only been empowered to retroactively pursue the less digital or less virtual crimes — such as extortion or voter suppression — after these schemes had progressed beyond the robocall itself.
Now the FCC has made the very act of employing AI to generate the voices used in these robocalls illegal on its own.
The commission's ruling today will also expand the legal avenues available to other state law enforcement agencies, as well as to the general public and the commission itself via civil court cases.
Under this new ruling, the FCC said that it has civil enforcement authority to fine AI-generated robocallers, as well as to block telephone carriers and other telecommunications firms from activities that help facilitate these illegal robocalls.
This 'Declaratory Ruling' expanding the meaning and reach of the TCPA to include AI-generated robocalls will also allow individual consumers and organizations to bring a lawsuit against offending robocallers.
'It seems like something from the far-off future, but this threat is already here,' FCC chair Rosenworcel told the Associated Press, when asked about the timing of today's ruling.
'All of us could be on the receiving end of these faked calls, so that's why we felt the time to act was now.'
The Attorney General for New Hampshire on Tuesday said the deepfake robocall of Biden was traced to a Texas company that shares ownership with companies that provide robocalls to politicians.
The official estimated that between 5,000 and 25,000 calls were made using Biden's impersonated voice.
Experts fear a deluge of deepfake disinformation in the 2024 White House race as well as in key elections around the globe this year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13062223/Unanimous-vote-makes-AI-generated-voice-calls-ILLEGAL-FCC-says-ruling-takes-effect-immediately.htm
https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/09/meet-the-republican-senators-who-lied-about-prioritizing-border-security-over-ukraine-funding/
Meet The Republican Senators Who Lied About Prioritizing Border Security Over Ukraine Funding
FEBRUARY 09, 2024
In a 67-32 vote on Thursday, 17 Republican senators voted alongside their Democrat colleagues to advance a $95 billion “emergency security spending bill” that included $60 billion in aid to Ukraine and, according to The Washington Post, billions of dollars to “Indo-Pacific allies and $10 billion in humanitarian aid for Gaza.”
This bill was introduced in response to the failure of its so-called bipartisan predecessor, championed by Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and his Oklahoma-lackey Sen. James Lankford. The previous legislation that supposedly bundled border and foreign aid would have codified the ongoing southern border invasion into law by largely preventing meaningful action from being taken unless there was, as Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi noted, a “rolling average of 5,000 border encounters per day for a week, or 8,500 encounters in a single day.”
Subsequently, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer opted to advance the “emergency security spending” legislation, which prioritized foreign assistance without any funding for border security. The Hill reported Schumer as saying, “First Republicans said they would only do Ukraine and Israel, humanitarian aid with border. Then they said they would not do it with [the] border. Well, we’re going to give them both options. We’ll take either one. We just hope they can come to ‘yes’ on something.”
Democrats view the border invasion with optimism. The multinational horde of fighting-age men serves their agenda. Obviously, they’re fine playing politics with this existential threat. Republicans have no excuse; border security is supposed to be a make-or-break issue for them.
So, in light of recent events, it’s worth revisiting comments from 13 of these defective Republicans who vowed to prioritize securing the southern border but have decided that Zelensky’s rainy-day fund is more important than American sovereignty.
Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia
Previously viewing solidifying the border as an issue of “national security,” Capito highlighted the national government’s inability to verify who the millions of illegal migrants were or where they were coming from.
She said in December, “With 2.4 million (migrants) coming across the border last year and with the highest October ever, and the highest month ever in September — I mean these numbers are just exceedingly way, way over what could have ever been predicting coming across the southern border,” adding, “We don’t know who they are. We know some of them are on the terror watch list. We know some of them are from countries that have terrorists.”
Having previously called for a “four-prong approach” providing aid to “Israel, the border, Ukraine and Tawain,” Capito appears content leaving Americans to fend for themselves.
She said in December, “With 2.4 million (migrants) coming across the border last year and with the highest October ever, and the highest month ever in September — I mean these numbers are just exceedingly way, way over what could have ever been predicting coming across the southern border,” adding, “We don’t know who they are. We know some of them are on the terror watch list. We know some of them are from countries that have terrorists.”
Having previously called for a “four-prong approach” providing aid to “Israel, the border, Ukraine and Tawain,” Capito appears content leaving Americans to fend for themselves.
Bill Cassidy, Louisiana
Despite previously saying, “We got to support our allies, but we got to secure our own border first,” Cassidy opted to forsake his promise to end the “chaos” he adamantly claimed “[t]he American people rightfully so want” to see end.
Cassidy’s Thursday vote, however, calls into question why he is more aligned with the Biden administration’s foreign priorities than ensuring the rights of Americans “to feel safe in their own country.”
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Susan Collins, Maine
Although never a reliable conservative, Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, previously told The Washington Post that border security is an “absolutely essential part” of a bill to send more money to Ukraine.
John Cornyn, Texas
“They want tens of billions of dollars to help our friends and allies overseas, but they’re not willing to do what’s necessary to prevent a potential crisis at the border,” Cornyn previously lamented, adding, “The Biden administration just does not seem to care.”
Cornyn has also now prioritized funding America’s proxy war with Russia over fighting for border funding that could save countless lives and prevent further lawlessness in his home state.
Joni Ernst, Iowa
Noting that Ukraine should not be America’s priority over ensuring our own sovereignty, Ernst previously called on lawmakers to prioritize “national security.”
“The issue is not Ukraine, and it’s not President Zelensky. It’s our own national security at our southern border,” Ernst said in December.
Yet despite there being no significant change in the status of the Ukraine-Russia war, Ernst decided it was more important to send billions abroad instead of fighting to shore up the southern border.
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
“We have to have the same consideration about our own border,” Grassley previously said, calling for domestic action to be taken before any further commitments were made to “the border of Israel and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine.”
John Kennedy, Louisiana
“We’re as serious as four heart attacks and a stroke,” Kennedy previously claimed when calling for border security to be prioritized over foreign assistance.
He said, “Now, the president sent us a national security bill and we said, OK, we’re going to do national security, but we’re not going to pass your bill until you close the border. And the president said, surely you’re not serious. And the Republicans in the Senate said, don’t call me Shirley and we are serious.”
Clearly, Republicans are in no way, shape, or form serious people. If they were, Kennedy and his ilk wouldn’t have lied to the public about how important they consider the border to be.
Mitch McConnell, Kentucky
It’s to be expected that McConnell will always ruin everything. But even he once appeared adamant that there would be no further “supplemental legislation” passing the upper chamber until the border crisis was addressed.
“As my colleagues and I on this side of the aisle have made abundantly clear, national security begins with border security. And any serious supplemental legislation with a shot of passing the Senate in the coming weeks will have to take meaningful steps toward fixing the Biden Administration’s border crisis,” the Senate minority leader said last November.
McConnell’s consistent role as controlled opposition and inability to deliver results has led to several of his colleagues demanding he resign from his role in Senate leadership.
Mitt Romney, Utah
“We’ve got to secure the border,” Romney once demanded. “Any effort that doesn’t do that will be rejected Republicans.”
But much like McConnell, Romney exists to spike the football at the one-yard line. He’s never been serious about advancing a conservative agenda and appears to be similarly uncommitted to protecting America’s borders.
Mike Rounds, South Dakota
“Any bill with aid for Israel and Ukraine must include policy changes at our Southern border,” Rounds proclaimed in November.
Well, so much for that.
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John Thune, South Dakota
Noting many congressional Republicans’ commitment to meddling in foreign conflicts that in no identifiable way benefit Americans, Thune said in December, “A lot of us Republicans are very eager to get Ukraine the aid it needs. But we cannot — we cannot — tend to our national security interests abroad while ignoring the national security crisis on our own doorstep.”
But because of Republicans like Thune, the crisis on our doorstep will continue to be ignored, and American lives will be needlessly lost.
Roger Wicker, Mississippi
“We needed to demonstrate that Republicans are not going to pass a supplemental appropriation bill unless it takes care of very important restrictions on the southern border,” Wicker said just a few months ago.
Todd Young, Indiana
“I don’t believe we should take this off the table. … Let’s get something consequential done for the American people,” Young recently said, referring to the importance of fighting for causes like border security that actually benefit Americans.
But he, just like the other Republican defects, is nothing more than a sellout.
What Now?
In the coming days, the Senate will hold further votes to solidify foreign aid packages before the legislation gets sent to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson and House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers claim anything without sufficient border guarantees is dead on arrival.
In that time, it’s likely more Republicans will move to support sending billions of dollars abroad before anything close to resembling a serious border policy comes to the floor. Senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina are requesting amendments be added to the legislation that, according to The New York Times, would “cap the number of migrants that could be paroled into the United States at 10,000 annually.”
This legislation requires 60 votes to move forward. Republicans can gain control of the situation and force the national focus to fully be on the southern border, as it should be. Elected Republicans and conservative voters need to remind the defectors that they were elected to protect America, not Ukraine.
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2 people dead after small plane attempts emergency landing on southwest Florida interstate
Feb 9, 2024 / 06:46 PM EST
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Two people have died after a small plane attempted to make an emergency landing on Interstate 75 in southwest Florida on Friday afternoon, colliding with a vehicle and bringing traffic to a halt as a massive plume of black smoke rose into the air.
The crash landing happened near the Pine Ridge Road exit in Collier County, just north of where the interstate heads east toward Fort Lauderdale along what is known as Alligator Alley.
Brianna Walker saw the wing of the plane drag the car in front of hers and slam into the wall.
“It’s seconds that separated us from the car in front of us,” she said. “The wing pulverized this one car.”
Walker and her friend spotted the plane moments before it hit the highway, allowing her friend to pull over before the crash.
“The plane was over our heads by inches,” she said. “It took a hard right and skid across the highway.”
Walker said an explosion of flames then burst from the plane with a loud boom. Pieces of the plane littered the highway.
“It feels unreal, like a movie,” she said. “It was seconds between us dying.”
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the aircraft as a Bombardier Challenger 600 jet and said five people were aboard when the crash happened around 3:15 pm.
The plane had taken off from an airport at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, at about 1 p.m. and was scheduled to land in Naples around the time of the crash, Naples Airport Authority spokesperson Robin King said. A pilot had contacted the tower requesting an emergency landing, saying they had lost both engines. The tower lost contact, and then airport workers saw the smoke from the interstate just a few miles away.
King said they sent fire trucks with special foam to the scene, and three of the five people on board were taken from the wreckage alive.
Collier County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Adam Fisher confirmed two deaths, but said he didn’t immediately know whether the victims had been passengers on the plane or were on the ground.
According to the FlightAware aircraft tracker, the plane was operated by Hop-a-Jet Worldwide Charter based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The aircraft had been scheduled to fly back to Fort Lauderdale Friday afternoon. Hop-a-Jet did not immediately respond to an email and phone message seeking comment.
A spokesperson for Ohio State University said the aircraft is not affiliated with the university, and they had no further information about it.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, with the NTSB leading the investigation.
The Florida Highway Patrol said in a news release that the southbound lanes of the interstate were closed and advised motorists to seek alternate routes.
https://www.wivb.com/news/ap-2-people-dead-after-small-plane-attempts-emergency-landing-on-southwest-florida-interstate/
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