May 5, 2018

Thief steals from elderly women in church parking lots, leaves one injured

Heartbreaking video of the theft shows the man, who has been named by police as 48-year-old Gilbert D. Ostring, Jr., pull up alongside the unsuspecting woman at Lebanon Church of Christ at midday on Tuesday.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5694271/Callous-thief-steals-70-year-old-womans-handbag-church-parking-lot-drives-off.html








Nashville Police say Ostring then asked the woman if she knew the location of any shelters nearby.

As she spoke with him, he reached his hand out and grabbed the small purse slung around her wrist.

The woman tried to put up a fight but as Ostring tugged at the bag, he drew her closer towards the car.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5694271/Callous-thief-steals-70-year-old-womans-handbag-church-parking-lot-drives-off.html#ixzz5EffXcuFe

May 5, 2018

the "Working Age Employment Rate"

Thankfully, there is a much better measure of slack, which analysts like Nick Bunker of the Center for Equitable Growth and Adam Ozimek of Moody’s Analytics have been advocating for years: The prime age employment to population ratio—which, as I said above, is what I’ve dubbed the working-age employment rate, because it just tells you the percentage of Americans between the ages of 25 to 54 who have a job. In other words, it tells you what share of Americans you’d expect to be working are actually gainfully employed.


Take one quick glance at the the working-age employment rate, and I’m sure you’ll notice the obvious: The labor market is still only about four-fifths recovered from the recession. The employment rate is steadily improving. But there are still a lot of Americans who could use a job right now.

https://slate.com/business/2018/05/the-unemployment-rate-is-historically-low-and-meaningless.html

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May 5, 2018

McCain is organizing his funeral. Trump will not be invited

Sen. John McCain loathes President Trump so much that he plans to diss him from beyond the grave.

The ailing Arizona Republican, who has brain cancer, is organizing his funeral – and close associates have told the White House that Trump will not be invited.

Instead, Vice President Mike Pence, who served with McCain in Congress, will be asked to attend the service, the New York Times reported Saturday. The ceremony will be held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

A stream of politicians, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, have been visiting McCain at his Arizona ranch and a nearby hospital in recent weeks.

https://nypost.com/2018/05/05/mccain-doesnt-want-trump-at-his-funeral/

May 5, 2018

award winning movie director killed by Gerald the giraffe he was photographing up close

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5694067/Award-winning-movie-director-killed-freak-accident-skull-crushed-GIRAFFE.html



Drikus Van Der Merwe was part of the filming crew and said he was stood next to Carlos when he was attacked.

'He started chasing the boom swinger who joined our unit,' he added. 'The giraffe followed him but we didn’t feel threatened because he just seemed to be inquisitive.

'We started shooting close ups of its body and its feet. Then while Carlos was looking through the camera eyepiece Gerald swung his neck and hit him against his head.



Gerald the Giraffe (pictured) crushed the camera man's skull while he was filming in Broederstroom, South Africa

'It came out of nowhere and Carlos didn’t even see it coming. He wasn’t aware of the danger.'

The tragedy happened at the popular 1,500-acre Glen Afric Country Lodge in Hartbeespoort which is 50 miles north the hospital he was flown to on Wednesday night.

Van Der Merwe said Carlos’s body lay lifeless on the ground until the on-set paramedic arrived.

'I could see he was unconscious,' he said. 'There was blood coming out of his eyes and ears so I knew he had a severe head trauma. But I never thought he would die.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5694067/Award-winning-movie-director-killed-freak-accident-skull-crushed-GIRAFFE.html#ixzz5Eei1Kgen

May 5, 2018

Man who went on wild racist rant against two black women identified as E. Ruggiero, denies it's him

LIRR rider recalls rattling racist rant spewed at her on train, plans to press charges: 'He made me feel disgusting'

http://longisland.news12.com/clip/14323694/lirrrantmov
......

"He needs to pay for what he's done to me...This cannot continue to happen. It's 2018."

Orelien spoke out a day after cellphone footage of the man's foul mouth onslaught burned up social media.

The black Baruch College senior was riding the train on April 19 when the white man started lobbing vile verbal rockets at her because he thought she was talking too loudly into her phone.

"You're a loudmouth monkey motherf----r," spewed the man who had sat down directly in front of Orelien.

"I can't listen to your black ass no more."

Several sources identified the hate-filled hothead as Edward Ruggiero, a Manhattan stagehand who lives in Long Beach, L.I.

Reached outside his home, Ruggiero denied that he was the man in the video despite looking and sounding exactly like him.

"It ain't me," Ruggiero said.

"I've seen the video, yeah. A hundred guys at work have showed it to me, saying 'Oh my god! It looks like you!"

Orelien had no doubt Ruggiero was her harasser after seeing a photo taken by a Daily News photographer outside his house.

"That's definitely him," she said.

"Of course he's denying it. He's embarrassed by it. The whole world saw your face. You cannot hide it."


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/lirr-rider-recalls-rattling-racist-rant-spewed-train-article-1.3971684

http://bronx.news12.com/story/38113658/lirr-commuter-caught-on-video-going-on-racist-rant

May 5, 2018

California is now the world's fifth-largest economy, 2.7 trillion, 40 million people

California is now the world's fifth-largest economy, surpassing United Kingdom

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-california-economy-gdp-20180504-story.html

California's economy has surpassed that of the United Kingdom to become the world's fifth largest, according to new federal data made public Friday.

California's gross domestic product rose by $127 billion from 2016 to 2017, surpassing $2.7 trillion, the data said. Meanwhile, the U.K.'s economic output slightly shrank over that time when measured in U.S. dollars, due in part to exchange rate fluctuations.

The data demonstrate the sheer immensity of California's economy, home to nearly 40 million people, a thriving technology sector in Silicon Valley, the world's entertainment capital in Hollywood and the nation's salad bowl in the Central Valley agricultural heartland. It also reflects a substantial turnaround since the Great Recession.

All economic sectors except agriculture contributed to California's higher GDP, said Irena Asmundson, chief economist at the California Department of Finance. Financial services and real estate led the pack at $26 billion in growth, followed by the information sector, which includes many technology companies, at $20 billion. Manufacturing was up $10 billion.

May 4, 2018

Pruitt reimbursed himself $65,000 from Oklahoma attorney general campaign & did other shady stuff

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/03/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-campaign-reimbursements/index.html

Pruitt reimbursed himself $65,000 from Oklahoma attorney general campaign


(CNN)A CNN analysis has found that embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt paid himself nearly $65,000 in reimbursements from his two campaigns for Oklahoma attorney general, a move at least one election watchdog has sharply criticized as being recorded so vaguely that there was no way to tell if such payments were lawful.

The reimbursement method, which Pruitt used in his 2010 and 2014 campaigns, effectively scuttled two key pillars of campaign finance: transparency about how campaign funds are spent and ensuring campaign funds are not used for personal purchases, according to a former top elections attorney and a CNN review of the documents.

Some of the reporting may also violate Oklahoma campaign finance rules, according to research done by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group.

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During his attorney general bids, records show Pruitt made purchases and then received reimbursement from his campaign -- sometimes thousands of dollars apiece -- rather than having the campaign pay directly for expenses like renting a vehicle or purchasing a meal. When purchases are made directly, the campaign filings would show more details about who received the payments.

more shady stuff at the link like how he moved ag office into building of his campaign office at expense of taxpayer

May 4, 2018

Trump set to end protected status for another group tomorrow: Hondurans

This toxic mix of violence and impunity has forced hundreds of thousands of Hondurans to abandon home in recent years. Some of them have found refuge in the US under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) visa, which allows them to live and work legally in the country.

But this Friday, the Trump administration will announce whether it will extend TPS for Hondurans – or cancel the programme, as it already has for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Liberia and Nepal.

TPS was created in 1990 to protect migrants from 10 nations from deportation while their homelands recover from armed conflict or natural disaster. This includes 57,000 Hondurans who sought refuge after Central America was devastated in 1998 by Hurricane Mitch which killed at least 11,000 and left thousands more without homes, crops or jobs.

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Jonny Rivas, a spokesman for the Agrarian Platform, told the Guardian: “Cancelling TPS and forcing people back to a repressive country where there are no jobs, no land and no future would condemn them to total misery.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/03/trump-temporary-protected-status-hondurans

May 4, 2018

Economists are mystified by the economic purpose of Gov. Walker's election year bribe

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is sending 671,000 families an election-year check. Democrats call it bribery.

Starting May 15, parents in Wisconsin can log on to a state-run website, answer a few questions and sign up to get checks worth $100 per child.

To Gov. Scott Walker (R), who drove the one-time tax payout into law, it's a chance to turn a state budget surplus into a bonus for parents who could use extra cash. To his critics, who note that Walker is a few months away from a tough reelection bid, it looks like campaign-year bribery of the up to 671,000 families who could receive checks.

And to independent economists, it's a mystifying piece of tax policy that has no clear long-term economic purpose and few, if any, recent comparable examples, given that tax breaks are traditionally incorporated for tax filing season — not in the months before an election.

“This is really weird. I have never heard of anything like this,” said Richard Auxier, who tracks state tax policy for the Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

Scott Drenkard, a tax expert at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, was also puzzled.

“This is definitely odd and unique. I haven’t seen anything like it before," he said. "It’s political catnip, but it’s hard to see how it improves economic outcomes.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/03/wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-is-sending-every-family-an-election-year-check-democrats-call-it-bribery/?utm_term=.6b548bc7997c

May 3, 2018

neighbor he's never met comes to his door with small plate, asks for food

They said: 'Around 7 pm today, I heard some knocking on my door. I opened it and it was my next door pregnant neighbor (she was, I think, in her 7th or 8th month). She was holding a small plate in her hand.

'In a very shy voice, she asked me if I can give her some of what ever I was cooking because she liked the smell. I think pregnant women sometimes have strong cravings and they can not resist it.'

While some may have turned her away, he dutifully loaded up her plate with food.

He continued: 'I Watched her walking home like a cute little penguin who’s happy with her successful little hunting. I felt really happy too for some reason.'

The post has since gone viral, with dozens of Reddit users praising him for the kind gesture.

One said: 'It can be completely overwhelming when you get those pregnancy cravings. Nothing in that moment is as important as what is needed. It was very sweet of you to share.'

'I was in a bitter, sour, drunk mood till I saw this post. Now I'm happy, thank you friend,' another posted.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-5687541/Kind-stranger-Reddit-feeds-pregnant-neighbour-satisfy-cravings.html#ixzz5ETbaOfZ2