3 San Francisco Mayor London Breed is locked in a standoff with labor unions representing the city’s 37,000 employees over $250 million in pay raises scheduled to kick in over the next two years. For weeks, negotiations over the raises have played out against the backdrop of the city’s $1.5 billion budget deficit, the result of the ruinous economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. As city officials race to close that gap — a balanced budget proposal is due to the Board of Supervisors by Saturday — Breed has asked the leaders of the city’s 35 unions to postpone raises for their workers for two years in an effort to stave off service cuts, or layoffs, which Breed’s administration says will happen without deferrals. “I do not believe it will be possible to both achieve our shared goals of preventing service and employment impacts and fund the promised wage increases for fiscal years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022,” Breed said in a letter last month to …
TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat executives to testify at Senate hearing on kids’ safety
Executives from YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat will be in the hot seat next week at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing about the impact of social media on children, lawmakers announced Tuesday. The Senate Commerce Consumer Protection subcommittee hearing with the tech executives is part of a series of hearings the top members of the panel have scheduled on the topic of kids’ safety, following two meetings earlier this month that put Facebook in the spotlight. “Recent revelations about harm to kids online show that Big Tech is facing its Big Tobacco moment—a moment of reckoning,” subcommittee chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in a statement. “We need to understand the impact of popular platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube on children and what companies can do better to keep them safe." ADVERTISEMENT Ranking Member Marsha Blackburn Marsha Blackburn Buttigieg hits back after parental leave criticism: 'Really strange' Senate approves short-term …
Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to 17 counts of murder in 2018 Parkland school shooting
Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty Wednesday to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder, more than three years after gunning down 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer noted that the murder counts Cruz pleaded guilty to carry a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison with no parole. Cruz, 23, and his lawyers last week surprised Scherer and prosecutors when they announced he planned to plead guilty to all 34 counts. Also during last week's hearing, Cruz pleaded guilty to four charges that he faced after he attacked a Broward County Jail guard nine months after the shooting. The shooting trial has been delayed by the pandemic and arguments over witnesses and evidence. The pleas will come with no conditions and prosecutors still plan to seek the death penalty. Sentencing for the first-degree murder charges will be decided by a jury. Scherer has said she …
Parkland Shooting Suspect Pleads Guilty
The former student who waged a deadly attack against his classmates and teachers in Parkland, Fla. , in 2018 pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the premeditated murder of 17 people and the attempted murder of 17 others, leaving his fate — either spending his life in prison or facing execution — in the hands of a jury. The 34 guilty pleas were enumerated in a somber courtroom filled with the families of those who were killed and injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. The community had braced for perhaps a monthslong trial but now soon faces what could be a grisly penalty phase as the state seeks to put the former student, Nikolas Cruz, to death. Mr. Cruz, wearing a blue shirt under a black sweater vest, pleaded guilty after the judge read a lengthy list of questions about whether he understood the gravity of his plea and that it could lead to his death. He responded with “guilty” 34 times as Judge Elizabeth Scherer read each charge — including each victim’s …
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Colorado Killer James Holmes’s Notes: Detailed Plans vs. ‘a Whole Lot of Crazy’
DENVER — The spiral notebook is a road map to murder, filled with plans, diagrams and to-do lists that James E. Holmes laid out in scrupulous detail before carrying out a shooting rampage in a Colorado movie theater. In his own handwriting, he plans a “mass murder spree” and considers theaters and times to attack for “maximum casualties.” He also plots his own psyche with pages of self-diagnosis of what he calls his “broken mind.” As his murder trial enters its second month, this notebook has become a Rorschach test of the thoughts of Mr. Holmes, the neuroscience graduate student who killed 12 people in one of the country’s worst mass shootings in recent years. Prosecutors say that he was sane and methodical, planning his actions with murderous intent. Defense lawyers, who have entered his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, say his writing brims with “a whole lot of crazy” — delusions about death, human worth and “negative infinity” that were the product of a profoundly …
The role of godmen
Resignation to the fact that godmen are here to stay until social consciousness undergoes a qualitative change is evident in the three articles (‘‘Left, Right, Centre’ – “Will India get over its obsession with god men?” October 13). It is an error to tar all godmen with the same brush. A majority of them impact society in a positive way. Some of them render better service to society than what even an elected government does. They mobilise resources and help the needy. Humans want an outlet to identify with their ‘isms’ and passions. In India, godmen fit the bill in a way. Most do not engage themselves in dark deals and are levellers between the haves and have-nots. It may not be an exaggeration to say that wishing them away will come at a high social cost. Sivamani Vasudevan, Chennai India will never get over its obsession with godmen as our culture has mingled with spirituality for thousands of years. Godmen will always be here to stay. Godmen are surrounded by those who …
Meghan McCain: People Think I’m ‘Spoiled, Entitled Queen of Nepotism’
Click here to read the full article. Meghan McCain is no stranger to controversy, tough questions, and being put on the spot. And so while we’ve been best friends for years, I’ve rarely come to her defense publicly because, frankly, she doesn’t need me to. But in advance of the release of her new Audible memoir “Bad Republican,” I knew I could ask her some blunt questions, even uncomfortable ones, about her time at The View , the public’s perception of her, her marriage to a provocative right-wing media personality, motherhood, and even her love of fast-casual food chains. So why did you leave The View? I was unhappy for a while. These haven’t been easy times, since basically President Trump got elected. And then my dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer, which has a survival rate median of 14 months. Best bet, you’ll probably get nine. It’s a very dangerous and deadly brain cancer, and he didn’t actually die quickly, but he sort of lost his ability to function …
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