>https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/ex-usa-gymnastics-coach-arrested-for-sex-crimes-with-a-minor/
https://www.lvmpd.com/en-us/Press%20Releases/PO%20151%2007-11-20.pdf
>https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/nyc-er-doctor-battled-covid-19-before-taking-her-own-life/
NYC ER doctor battled COVID-19 before taking her own life
A heroic New York City emergency room doctor was driven to suicide in the depths of the coronavirus crisis, her family says — and the relentless strain of modern medicine, which rewards perfection and disdains weakness, is to blame.
“If the culture had been different, that thought would have never even occurred to her, which is why I need to change the culture,” Jennifer Feist said of her sister, Dr. Lorna Breen.
“We need to change it. Like, as of today,” she told The New York Times.
Breen, 49, killed herself April 26, while medical director of the emergency department at NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in Upper Manhattan, located in a low-income community that was especially hard hit by COVID-19.
“She had something that was a little bit different, and that was this optimism that her persistent efforts will save lives,” colleague and friend Dr. Barbara Lock told The Times.
As coronavirus cases in New York began to multiply out of control this spring, leaving patients in her emergency room to be treated in hallways and bodies of victims to be stored in an X-ray room, Breen turned to her Bible study group for comfort.
“People I work with are so confused by all of the mixed messages and constantly changing instructions,” she wrote them on March 14.
A few days later Breen fell ill with the virus herself. She quarantined at home — but felt guilty for the fever and exhaustion that kept her away from her work.
When she returned, she wrote a friend, she felt “baffled and overwhelmed.”
“I’m drowning right now,” she texted her prayer group.
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/19-1118.OPINION.6-26-2020_1610306.pdf
The court found in a recent ruling that “the record contains substantial evidence supporting the appearance of improper influence” in Avalos’ hiring. While he argued HUD failed to demonstrate his firing would “promote the efficiency of the service”—a generic standard applied to all dismissals in the federal civil service—the court ruled reversing the impropriety of his hiring would itself meet that threshold.
>http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/19-1118.OPINION.6-26-2020_1610306.pdf
Agencies Can Fire Employees Who Improperly Burrow In, Court Rules
Agencies can fire political appointees who skirt civil service laws when converting their statuses into career employees in the run up to a presidential transition, a federal court has ruled.
The ever-controversial practice known as burrowing is legal, but must follow a strict set of procedures to ensure political appointees are qualified for the career jobs for which they are hired. In the fall of 2016, Edward Avalos, then the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for marketing and regulator programs, left his job for a GS-15 career position as the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Albuquerque field office director. Avalos was hired by Tammye Treviño, an appointee at HUD who formerly served with Avalos as a USDA appointee.
The first posting for the field office vacancy yielded one certificate eligible candidate, a preference-eligible veteran. Instead of asking the Office of Personnel Management for a waiver to pass over that candidate, Treviño revised the vacancy announcement and Avalos reapplied. On second effort, Avalos was the only applicant to be deemed eligible. HUD did not ask OPM permission for Avalos’ hiring, as is required in cases of burrowing in. When OPM flagged the improper hiring in 2017, HUD reviewed it and deemed it could not certify it “met merit and fitness requirements” due to Treviño’s involvement.
HUD fired Avalos, who then appealed the decision to the Merit Systems Protection Board and again to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.