Iowa Guv Used COVID Money To Pay Her Own Staff, Audit Reveals | Talking Points Memo

Iowa’s governor used federal COVID relief funds to pay her own staff’s salaries and cover a pre-existing budget shortfall, the state’s auditor said in a report released Monday.

The report accused Gov. Kim Reynolds’ (R) office of using nearly $450,000 from the federal Coronavirus Relief Fund — part of the CARES Act meant to help local governments deal with COVID — to pay the salaries and benefits of 21 staffers from mid-March through June 2020.

Though the money was used to pay staff in the governor’s office, it was taken from the Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management’s COVID response funds — even though the staffers paid with the money didn’t qualify for the COVID money, state auditor Rob Sand found. The blog Bleeding Heartland first reported the payments in September.

A spokesperson for Reynolds told auditors that during the time period in question, the governor’s office was focused on COVID response — but, “Documentation to support this conclusion was never provided,” the report noted. Reynolds’ office also has not provided documentation describing how the money was allocated, nor anything describing the time each staffer spent on COVID, the report said…

Source: Iowa Guv Used COVID Money To Pay Her Own Staff, Audit Reveals | Talking Points Memo

Satellites discover huge amounts of undeclared methane emissions | Space (Me…  Oops!)

Plumes of methane leaking from a landfill in Spain detected by Canadian company GHGSat.

Plumes of methane leaking from a landfill in Spain detected by Canadian company GHGSat. (Image credit: ESA/GHGSat) Huge amounts of uncounted emissions of highly warming greenhouse gas methane are being released by “super-emitters” all over the world, satellite observations reveal.

 

Scientists have only recently worked out how to detect methane emissions from space, but what they have seen since has taken them by surprise. The greenhouse gas, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, is leaking from gas pipelines, oil wells, fossil fuel processing plants and landfills all over the world. It is frequently released through negligence and improper operations; the emissions, in many cases, are not accounted for in mandatory greenhouse gas inventories.

“We see quite a lot of those super-emitters,” Ilse Aben, senior scientist at the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) told Space.com. These are large emissions, and we see a lot of them on the global scale — much more than we had expected.”

Source: Satellites discover huge amounts of undeclared methane emissions | Space

US bishops’ advisory group says communion should not be partisan | RNZ News

Some 55 percent of US Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 59 percent of the general population, according to a Pew Research survey conducted in April.

Sadd told bishops that some members of the advisory council expressed doubt that the document would serve to heal existing rifts in the church.

Nearly 20 percent of Catholics have left the church in the past two decades, according to a Gallup poll in March, as sexual abuse scandals involving predatory priests have emerged and members disagreed on social issues.

Source: US bishops’ advisory group says communion should not be partisan | RNZ News

Wet’suwet’en Enforce Mandatory Evacuation

LANDBACK Friends

You never know what might happen when you join a struggle for justice. One day in January 2020, I saw this video, “Coastal Gaslink Evicted from Unist’ot’en Territory”. I was amazed! I had been working for years on the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline resistance. But had not known about the Wet’suwet’en peoples in British Columbia and their efforts to protect the water and their beautiful lands from construction of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline.

I was especially interested because of the issues of Indigenous rights and began to closely follow these stories. https://landbackfriends.com/?s=wetsuweten

Not surprisingly there was little written about this in the mainstream media. Then, as now, the Wet’suwet’en asked supporters to share their stories on social media, which I did. My Quaker meeting wrote a statement about this and sent a letter to British Columbia Premier John Horgan, January 26, 2020. (below)

On February 7, 2020, several…

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estante vazia

[De repente solteira]

algumas prateleiras da estante que estava nos planos – a que ficaria no escritório – ficarão vazias. nosso livros – os seus e os meus – não completará a biblioteca que sonhamos. foi difícil encaixotar seus livros que ainda estavam comigo. admirei cada um com os mesmos olhos que te admiravam. queria escrever um bilhete e escondê-lo entre as páginas. não escrevi, ingenuidade minha imaginar que você leria. guardar os livros na caixa me fez chorar. sensação de que estávamos nos separando mais uma vez. nós desfeitos. dói. sem coragem para te entregar – te ver de perto – pedi que deixassem a caixa na sua casa. quis evitar escutar o seu sorriso. sei que meus livros que ainda estão com você, também serão devolvidos. agora sou eu que receberei uma caixa. meus livros, que viram seus olhos pela última vez.

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New Jersey Man Sentenced to One Year and One Day in Prison for Conspiring with White Supremacists to Vandalize Synagogues Across the Country | OPA | Department of Justice

“The defendant conspired with a white supremacist hate group to vandalize and destroy property owned by Jewish and Black Americans, intending to instill fear into those communities across the country,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This sentence makes clear that targeting persons owning and using property simply based on their race or religion will not be tolerated. The Department of Justice will continue to prosecute civil rights conspiracies and vindicate the rights of victims of bias motivated crimes.”

“Richard Tobin encouraged hateful acts of violence against individuals and their houses of worship, based on their religion or the color of their skin,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Rachael A. Honig of the District of New Jersey. “Justice demanded that he be held accountable for these racist and anti-Semitic actions, and we are proud to have joined with our colleagues in the Civil Rights Division and the Joint Terrorism Task Force in doing so in this case. Our commitment to protecting the civil rights of all in New Jersey is steadfast.”

“Richard Tobin’s white supremacist beliefs are abhorrent, but his beliefs aren’t why he’s going to prison,” said Special Agent in Charge Jacqueline Maguire of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division. “He actively conspired with others to commit a crime of violence, to victimize innocent people because of who they are or how they worship. That’s what crossed a line and made it the FBI’s business. We’re always going to pursue individuals inciting violent, hateful acts meant to intimidate and isolate members of our community.”..

Source: New Jersey Man Sentenced to One Year and One Day in Prison for Conspiring with White Supremacists to Vandalize Synagogues Across the Country | OPA | Department of Justice

Armadillos Advance Northward As Temperatures Rise – Yale E360

A nine-banded armadillo.

A nine-banded armadillo. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

In the United States, armadillos were historically confined to Texas and the Deep South, but in recent years the hard-shelled mammals have been pushing north. Scientists believe that climate change has expanded their range by producing milder winters, allowing them to comfortably inhabit new areas, including parts of the Blue Ridge Mountains, The Guardian reported.

“We just don’t have those really cold winters any more, and I’m sure that’s helped them,” Colleen Olfenbuttel, a biologist at the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, told The Guardian. “It’s only a matter of time before we see range expansions into other states.”

Source: Armadillos Advance Northward As Temperatures Rise – Yale E360