Georgia lawmaker comes out as nonmonogamous: 'I'm in love with two wonderful people'

Jo Yurcaba - Yesterday 6:01 a.m.


When Atlanta City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari won the 5th District seat last November, it represented two major firsts: Bakhtiari was the first queer Muslim person elected in the state of Georgia and the first nonbinary councilmember of a major U.S. city.

But Bakhtiari, who uses they and she pronouns, wasn’t entirely out of the closet at the time. While they had been with their partner, Kris Brown, for 10 years, the duo kept quiet about what they’ve both described as one of the best parts of their lives: They are nonmonogamous, and are in a relationship with a third person, Sarah Al-Khayyal.


Kris Brown, Liliana Bakhtiari , and Sarah Al-Khayyal 

(Courtesy Kris Brown)© Provided by NBC News

Now, a year after Bakhtiari’s election and two years into their relationship with Brown and Al-Khayyal, the three of them have decided to come out in an exclusive interview with NBC News as they plan to build a family.

Bakhtiari said that too often stories like theirs will come out “in a scandal.”

“But we’re openly showing it and proud of it,” Bakhtiari, 34, said during a video interview, as Brown and Al-Khayyal sat on either side. “It should be destigmatized. It’s a very valid familial structure that people should embrace.”
'We can have this fluidity'

Bakhtiari said they’ve known for a long time that monogamy isn’t for them. Prior to meeting Brown, Bakhtiari was doing international crisis relief work that required a lot of travel, saying it was easier to have short connections that turned into friendships.

Bakhtiari met Brown in Atlanta in 2012 the old fashioned way — at a gay bar. When the two started dating, Bakhtiari said they were upfront with Brown that they are nonmonogamous, meaning they prefer to date and form relationships with more than one person.

“I was like, ‘That’s cool with me,’” said Brown, 33, who was a professional dancer at the time and now works in political campaign management and fundraising. “It was the first time that I had been with anyone who didn’t want to be monogamous. For me, it was kind of a relief as well to be like, ‘OK, I don’t have to be this person’s everything all the time. I can be as much of their life as works for us, and we can have this fluidity,’ and I really liked the feeling of that.”


Image: Liliana Bakhtiari. (Michael A. Schwarz)© Michael A. Schwarz

Bakhtiari said their relationship with Brown was the first serious relationship they had, and they were coming into it at a difficult time in their life.

“I grew up in an overbearing household that didn’t allow for a lot of independence to happen,” Bakhtiari said, adding that they left home at 18. But they didn’t have “adult skills,” so they experienced homelessness on and off for the next five years, living on friends’ couches and out of their car.

“I was assaulted a lot during that time,” Bakhtiari said. “I was mugged during that time. I was very rough. So I met Kris, and there was a lot of trauma, and this was the first person that I ever felt safe with.”

Their friends and community members saw how positively the relationship affected Bakhtiari, they said, and it became publicly romanticized. But, Bakhtiari said, that meant “when people would find out that we were open or nonmonogamous, it was like someone destroyed a fairytale for them.”

As a result, Bakhtiari said, they carried a lot of shame about being nonmonogamous and feeling “that I was a terrible partner, that Kris was only doing this for me, that I was keeping them home while I went out to have my cake and eat it, too — all of these things that were very untrue,” they said.
'We want to claim it upfront'

In the fall of 2020, Bakhtiari met Al-Khayyal through a virtual nonmonogamy support group. Al-Khayyal is a policy manager at a nonprofit and is on the Atlanta mayor’s LGBTQ advisory board.

Al-Khayyal started practicing nonmonogamy about five years ago when she began to explore her queerness, though she said she doesn’t want to conflate being queer and being nonmonogamous, because straight people can be nonmonogamous.

“For me, practicing nonmonogamy is a part of this greater unlearning and deprogramming of societal conditioning,” she said. “Nonmonogamy for me doesn’t have to be having multiple partners. It’s also breaking down the platonic-romantic binary and being able to have these relationships that kind of exist in that gray area.”

Shortly after meeting, the two went on a roller skating date and they have been dating ever since, Bakhtiari said.

About a month later, Al-Khayyal met Brown, and the three began dating. Around the same time, Bakhtiari started their second run for a nonpartisan seat on the City Council after they ran unsuccessfully in 2017.

For the sake of their professional future, Al-Khayyal said they all decided to only share the relationship with close friends and family.

“There’s absolutely some sacrifices you have to make being with someone who’s in politics,” Al-Khayyal said. “But they were clear that there would be a day where we could be out, and that was also important for me. I didn’t want to be in a relationship where I was always going to have to be essentially in the closet.”

Six months after the three began dating Al-Khayyal moved in, but only after the three had attended couples therapy to plan and talk about boundaries.

Brown said the three of them see nonmonogamy as an umbrella term, and under it there are a variety of relationship styles that can be romantic and/or sexual. One of the more well-known styles is polyamory, which means having more than one romantic partner, they explained.

Brown said the three of them prefer the label nonmonogamy over polyamory. “There are many more ways to be nonmonogamous than there are ways to be polyamorous, and we invite and enjoy the fluidity of the term nonmonogamy,” Brown said.

In their situation, the three of them are in a relationship together and see each other as life partners, they said, though they did not specify further.

Over the last two years, they’ve been enjoying and planning their lives together. They traveled to Mexico last year and went to Utah earlier this year. They are converting a school bus into a living and working space, and they plan to buy land at some point as part of their dream of starting a “queer commune.”

Bakhtiari said it’s been difficult to hide the relationship from the world, in part because they and Brown live a very public life. People will ask where “the other half” is if Brown doesn’t attend an event with Bakhtiari, they said. But they wanted to come out on their terms.

“This is the sort of thing that a political opponent or someone who has some ax to grind might pick up on and twist around and turn into something negative, and we want to claim it upfront, and say this is the best thing about our life,” Brown said.

Bakhtiari said that when they tell people about their relationship, people often respond in two ways: with support and/or curiosity. Older adults have more often asked questions like, “Who do you love more? Do you all sleep together? What happens? What are the rules? Don’t you have to choose?” Bakhtiari said, laughing.

Their families have also been supportive, Bakhtiari said. For example, the three of them visited with Brown’s family for the holidays in 2020. Though they had only been dating a few months, Brown and Bakhtiari wanted to make sure Al-Khayyal felt supported and included, especially since her father died that November, just a year after her mother died, in 2019.

Traditionally, Brown’s Grandma Teri will knit a custom stocking for every family member with their name on it. “We wanted to make sure that Sarah had the perfect Christmas, and we didn’t have to say anything to grandma,” Bakhtiari said. “On Christmas Day, there was a custom stocking with Sarah’s name on it hanging on the fireplace, stuffed with presents.”

'Offending people from the sidelines'

In addition to allowing them to live openly and address stigma, Brown said that they hope coming out will allow them to raise awareness of barriers that nontraditional families still face.

For example, Brown was in the hospital this year, and only one person was allowed in the hospital room with them.

“There’s an opportunity for us to kind of shed light on that, and be like, ‘Hey, there are nontraditional families out there,’” Brown said. “We’re going to grow our family, and we want those kids to also be able to navigate the world how they want to navigate the world.”

Bakhtiari is likely the first elected official in the U.S. to come out as being in a nonmonogamous relationship, according to the Victory Institute, which researches LGBTQ political representation and trains queer candidates running for office.

Bakhtiari’s term doesn’t end until January 2026, but they said they’re prepared for their relationship to potentially affect their re-election if they run again.

They focused their platform on addressing the need for affordable housing and Atlanta’s backlog of infrastructure projects. Last month, after Georgia’s ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect, they introduced a resolution to allocate $300,000 to a nonprofit that helps people access reproductive health care. The mayor signed the legislation after the City Council passed it unanimously.

“If people don’t want to re-elect me because I’m in love with two wonderful people and in a happy and healthy relationship that is possibly the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me, then I’m good,” they said.

Ultimately, their goal is to continue doing international crisis relief work, which they said they don’t have to do from an elected position.

“I’ll just keep offending people from the sidelines,” Bakhtiari said, sarcastically.

In the meantime, the three of them joked that they’re “very boring” when they aren’t attending political events or traveling. For example, they recently picked out paint colors for an accent wall, and they can typically be found hanging out with their eight pets.

Bakhtiari and Brown had three cats and one dog, and when Al-Khayyal joined the family she brought her two cats. Then, when Al-Khayyal’s parents died, they adopted their two cats.

“For the record, I want more dogs,” Bakhtiari said. “And I never intended on having seven cats.”

“None of us did,” Al-Khayyal said, laughing. Brown chimed in “Yeah, here we are though.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Republican Herschel Walker invokes Jesus to dismiss holding a gun to his wife’s head

Raw Story - Yesterday 
By Sarah K. Burris


President Donald Trump is greeted by NFL Hall of Famer Herschel Walker during an event for black supporters at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta on Sept. 25, 2020.

 - BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/AFP/TNS

Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker is still facing questions about domestic violence as the election nears.

One of the first stories to come out about Walker's past was that he abused his former wife and at one point held a gun to her head threatening to shoot. Walker also admitted that he would play Russian roulette. In fact, he told ESPN's Highly Questionable that he'd played it "more than once." He loved the competition of it, he said.

The violence and abuse continue to be a topic from those speaking to Walker, but the Heisman trophy winner continues to dismiss it as unimportant.

Related video: Watch Herschel Walker's unusual response when asked about debate

Duration 0:54
View on Watch


Speaking to Atlanta based "Rolling Out," an entertainment site, Walker explained it wasn't anything more than a sin.

IN OTHER NEWS: Founders of Occupy Democrats accused of funneling political donations into their own pockets

“You know, he without sin cast the first stone," Walker said, quoting Jesus in John 8:7. Walker went on to attack his opponent, Rev. Raphael Warnock for being critical of his "sins" from 15 years ago.

Typically, one's past comes into focus when one runs for political office as a sign of judgment and leadership, and attempted murder is not generally brushed aside in political campaigns as nothing more than an everyday "sin."

Walker has also spent the past week employing the strategy of not being that intelligent, which is being called a racist dog whistle by trying "to galvanize white conservatives by leaning into antiquated and bigoted ideas," Slate explained.

See the video below or at this link.

COVID-19 pandemic may have altered natural course of personality changes

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF - Yesterday 

Potentially contradicting the belief that personality traits are resistant to environmental conditions, a new study found that the COVID-19 pandemic may have changed the course of personality development in the United States, especially among young adults.


Neurons in the brain© (photo credit: PIXABAY)

In the peer-reviewed study, published in PLOS ONE journal by researchers from the Florida State University College of Medicine, researchers analyzed assessments of personality from 7,109 people, comparing the personality traits neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

While the researchers found few changes between pre-pandemic personality traits and personality traits in 2020, with just a minimal decrease in neuroticism, they found significant declines in extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness from the pre-pandemic period to 2021 and 2022.

The personality changes measured about one-tenth of a standard deviation, equivalent to about 10 years of normal personality change.
Differences between younger and older adults


SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus behind COVID-19 (Illustrative). 

credit: fusion medical animation/unsplash

The researchers found that younger adults' maturity was disrupted, leading to increased neuroticism and decreased agreeableness and conscientiousness, while the oldest group of adults showed no significant change in personality.

“There was limited personality change early in the pandemic but striking changes starting in 2021,”Study

The study authors noted that if such changes in personality continue, it would indicate that large-scale stressful events can change the trajectory of personality changes, especially in young adults.

“There was limited personality change early in the pandemic but striking changes starting in 2021,” the study read. “Of most note, the personality of young adults changed the most, with marked increases in neuroticism and declines in agreeableness and conscientiousness. That is, younger adults became moodier and more prone to stress, less cooperative and trusting, and less restrained and responsible.”

Artificial islands surrounding British Isles were used for ancient parties, archaeologists find

Kristina Killgrove - Tuesday


Just as waterfront mansions are status symbols for today's rich and famous, ancient artificial islands in the British Isles known as crannogs may have been used by elites to display their power and wealth through elaborate parties, a new study finds.


The Fair Head crannog in Northern Ireland

© Brown, A.G. et al (2022); Antiquity Publications Ltd

A crannog is "an artificial island within a lake, wetland, or estuary," Antony Brown of UiT Arctic University of Norway and colleagues wrote in a study published online Wednesday (Sept. 28) in the journal Antiquity. Hundreds of crannogs were created in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, between 4,000 B.C. and the 16th century A.D., by building up a shallow reef or an elevated portion of a lakebed with any available natural material — such as stone, timber or peat — to a diameter of nearly 100 feet (30 meters). A lot of trade and communication occurred along the lakes and estuaries where crannogs were built. Used as farmsteads during the Iron Age (eighth century B.C. to the first century A.D.), crannogs evolved into elite gathering places in the medieval period (fifth to the 16th centuries A.D.), according to evidence of feasting and plentiful artifacts, such as pottery, uncovered there.

Wetland sites are much more difficult to study than those on land, so the archaeology of crannogs is a relatively new undertaking. Brown and colleagues investigated one site in Scotland (500 B.C. to A.D. 10) and two in Ireland (A.D. 650 to 1300) to better understand the purpose of these crannogs. They did it by sampling each site's halo, or the spread of archaeological material from the center of the site.

"The lakes are shallow around the crannog; material is quickly deposited there and never washed away," Brown told Live Science in an email.

The researchers analyzed the site halo using multiple methods, including sedimentary ancient DNA analysis (sedaDNA) — an emerging technique that enables scientists to identify all the plants and animals that contributed to the ancient environment of a site. SedaDNA analysis showed that people were cultivating cereal plants on the artificial islands, but it also revealed unusual plants like bracken (Pteridium), a type of toxic fern that was likely brought to the crannog sites to be used as bedding or roofing material, the researchers said.

SedaDNA also uncovered evidence of mammals at the sites, including domesticated cows, sheep, pigs and goats. Combining the new sedaDNA work with previous studies of pollen and animal bones, Brown and colleagues suggested they could quickly and inexpensively identify a range of activities that occurred in the past, such as animal keeping, slaughter, feasting and ceremonies.

The new study helps shed light on crannogs and their use. "Given how little we still really know about crannogs and the human activities surrounding them, the methods and results described here are very interesting," said Simon Hammann, a food chemist at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) in Germany who was not involved in the study. Last month, Hammann and colleagues published a study in the journal Nature Communications on the presence of wheat in pottery residue at Neolithic crannogs in Scotland. Soil conditions do not support bone preservation at the sites Hammann works at in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland, so he found the work of Brown and colleagues very compelling.

"Inferring specific activities such as feasting is always difficult," Hammann told Live Science in an email, but "in combination these methods seem to draw quite a conclusive picture."

The pollen sedaDNA data are also important because they "offer new approaches to the study of human-plant interactions that are not possible using traditional pollen techniques," according to Don O'Meara, science advisor at Historic England, a British historical preservation agency. In an email to Live Science, O'Meara, who was not involved with the new research, pointed out that the sedaDNA technique provides information only on the plants growing locally, while traditional pollen analysis may not be able to distinguish local plants from those transported by wind or water from many miles away.

Factors like glacial melting and coastline destruction can threaten archaeological sites, and extensive excavation at these sites is often impossible. The sedaDNA approach "has the potential to be adapted to other archaeological wetland sites," Ayushi Nayak, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Germany, pointed out in an email to Live Science, meaning scientists could glean information that would otherwise be inaccessible from vulnerable sites.

The reason for the abandonment of the three sites that Brown and colleagues studied is still unknown. One tantalizing bit of evidence comes from Lough Yoan South in Ireland, where the team found two whipworm parasite eggs on the floor of the crannog there. Brown confirmed by email that these eggs are what remains of human excrement, deposited around the time the crannog was abandoned.

No other human DNA or remains — such as bog bodies — have been found at crannog sites, though.

Crannogs "were very much places for the living," Brown said.

Originally published on Live Science.

‘I Think the Women Are Winning’

Kelli María Korducki - Yesterday 
The Atlantic

“No one can predict how a revolution starts,” the Iranian American poet and author Roya Hakakian writes this week in The Atlantic. And make no mistake, she told me in an interview yesterday: The wave of protests now sweeping Iran is a revolution. After 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody following her arrest for improperly wearing the hijab earlier this month, Iranian men and women have filled the streets and set fire to the head coverings that have, for many, come to represent a collective loss of freedom since they were made mandatory following the 1979 revolution. I spoke with Hakakian about Iran’s “Ukrainian moment”—and about what comes next.

“We Are All Mahsa Amini”

Kelli María Korducki: You were a young teen when Iran’s mandatory dress code went into effect in 1981, three years before you left the country for good. Do you see any echoes of that transition period in the current moment?

Roya Hakakian: This revolution in Iran is 43 years old. On March 8, 1979, which was barely even a month after the Iranian Revolution had succeeded, women took to the streets to protest the hijab and the ayatollah’s reinstatement of a mandatory dress code.

I was 13. But this confrontation between the women of the country and the regime is the oldest, most enduring standoff in Iran. And I think the women are winning.

Korducki: You write in your essay, “Today I feel what so many Iranian women feel: We are all Mahsa Amini.” What do you mean by that?

Hakakian: What happened to Mahsa Amini happened to every single one of us. We’ve all been stopped [by Iran’s religious police], and some of us have been detained. I was stopped many, many times. When you think back to all the conversations that you have had with the people who have stopped you, you realize that a slight shift in tone or something very, very small could have gone wrong to get the person who had stopped you to deliver a blow to your head. All of us, the women who’ve lived under this regime, we all know what it’s like and that we could be a victim like Mahsa Amini.

Korducki: You write that Amini’s death has sparked an unusual degree of outrage and solidarity across Iran. What’s different about this particular incident, and why is it uniting so many people from such varied walks of life?

Hakakian: I think it’s in part because all previous hopes for change have been lost. In 2009, there were a lot of young people—university students, especially—who really had placed their hope in the 2009 presidential elections and were rooting for [the reformist presidential candidate, Mir Hossein] Mousavi. When Mousavi lost—the votes disappeared—millions of people took to the streets asking, Where is my vote?

Since then, there have been other demonstrations over simple, tangible, legitimate issues that people generally take to their governments. And because none of those things was ever resolved, I think the natural conclusion that people have come to is that the system is rotten and incapable of responding to our needs. So now nobody’s saying, Where’s my vote? They’re simply saying, This cast of characters has to go.

Korducki: You describe the protests as Iran’s “Ukrainian moment,” and call for the U.S. to act accordingly. What do you mean by that?

Hakakian: I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, and subsequently had several meetings with various senators. The moment you mentioned Iran, all of these senators started thinking about Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria—that’s their context. And, in fact, that’s the wrong context.

The people in Iran aren’t asking for any foreign powers to invade the country, to come and do the job. They have done the work. They’re not demanding anything from the international community other than the sort of support that the international community, the Western world, must give to those who are vying for democratic values in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. The context to me seems far more similar to the Ukrainian context.

We support Ukrainians in their war against invading Russian forces. Iranians are, in a way, also essentially at war with a very, very powerful and highly armed government, and they need our support now. The regime’s riot police have been throwing women demonstrators against the cement curbs, and there are videos being circulated online that show police opening fire on protesters. Yet the U.S.—which has been investing in democracy promotion in Iran for at least the past two decades—is still sitting at the table and holding nuclear negotiations with these very people. To me, it seems very reasonable to demand that negotiations be stopped until the riot police stop exercising violence.

Like in every other revolution that has ever taken place, if it isn’t supported by governments that believe in the prodemocratic values that the demonstrators are demanding, these protesters will fail.


Related video: Iran's Raisi condemns 'chaos' of protests after Mahsa Amini's death, backs security forces Duration 5:12  View on Watch

'Say her name' chants at protest for Mahsa Amini in New York, USA

StringersHub

Related:

The bonfire of the headscarves

Iran’s knucklehead assassination strategy

Indian Supreme Court upholds abortion for unmarried women and in case of marital rape

Daniel Stewart - News 360


India's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, which was amended in 2021 to allow termination of pregnancy on several grounds up to 24 weeks, for unmarried women and those who have suffered spousal rape.



The court, which has made a landmark decision, has thus indicated that it considers unconstitutional the distinction between a single woman and a house when it comes to requesting to undergo this practice. "The benefits of this law should be extended to both," said Justices DY Chandrachud, AS Bopanna and JP Bardiwala, according to the judgment, which has been accessed by the NDTV channel.

Thus, the definition of rape in the law should include marital rape, which paves the way for bringing such cases to justice. "Married women can also be among the survivors of sexual abuse and rape. The definition of rape implies having sexual intercourse without the consent of the other person or against their will regardless of whether this occurs within or outside marriage," they clarified.

Related video: SC Hearing On Abortion | Remarkable And Progressive: Advocate Amit Mishra | English News | News 18   Duration 4:37  View on Watch


In this sense, they have emphasized that the marital status of the woman cannot "encourage her to be deprived of the right to abortion, so that even unmarried women have the right to access it in those first 24 weeks". The sentence indicates that the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy "for the body and mind of the woman cannot be underestimated".

"The decision to carry the pregnancy to term is part of the woman's autonomy," they stressed before stating that if these women are forced to give birth, the State "would be stripping them of their determination and their ability to decide about their own future."

The decision followed an appeal filed by a 25-year-old unmarried woman after a lower court ruled that she was ineligible for the abortion law because she was not married and had consensual relations.

However, the woman has claimed that she was 23 weeks pregnant and that her partner in question had refused to marry her. In addition, she said that she was the eldest of five siblings from a poor family, so she lacked the resources to raise her child.

Last July, the court allowed the woman to have an abortion after receiving the approval of several doctors. Now, the regulations state that women who have been raped, have a disability, are minors or are at risk of physical or psychological harm if they go through with the pregnancy can have an abortion.

MISOGYNISTIC BARBARISM
At Least 2 More Underage Rape Victims, 2 Pregnant Cancer Patients Denied Abortions in Ohio

Kylie Cheung - Yesterday 

All eyes were on Ohio in July when news broke that a 10-year-old rape victim had been forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion due to Ohio’s six-week abortion ban. Now a new affidavit filed to challenge Ohio’s ban (currently paused until Oct. 12) shows the child wasn’t alone: There are at least two other cases of minors who were impregnated by rape being denied abortion care, according to abortion providers in the state, as well as two documented cases of pregnant cancer patients who couldn’t get abortions and thus couldn’t receive chemotherapy.


Photo: Getty© Photo: Getty

According to the affidavit, three different Ohio women with unwanted pregnancies who were denied abortion care threatened to die by suicide. There were at least three cases of pregnant people with fetal abnormalities, rendering their pregnancies nonviable being forced to remain pregnant, and a case of someone whose pregnancy had made them so sick she couldn’t get off the clinic floor.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed the current abortion ban in 2019, but it only took effect shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. The law notably doesn’t have exceptions for rape, allowing abortions only when the pregnant person’s life is in imminent danger—which is highly medically risky, dangerously arbitrary, and clearly didn’t help the aforementioned cancer patients.

For months now, we’ve witnessed the horrifying ripple effects inflicted by the fall of Roe on the health system, between a New York woman being denied medication that could cause birth defects for her chronic, debilitating pain because she was of “childbearing age,” and a Louisiana woman forced to carry a skull-less, nonviable fetus. The Kansas City Public Health System at one point stopped giving plan B to rape victims. But for many people, the case of the 10-year-old rape victim from Columbus, Ohio, stood out as particularly jarring—and it turns out this was merely the tip of the iceberg in the state.

In the affidavit, Dr. Adarsh E. Krishen, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, recounted that one minor who had been impregnated by raped had to travel to Michigan for an abortion. “This patient experienced immense trauma from the assault itself and then endured further trauma from a forensic interview alongside a physical exam to collect evidence for the ongoing police investigation,” Krishen wrote. “This trauma was further exacerbated by needing to wait over three weeks for her appointment.”

Aeran Trick, operations manager of Women’s Med Center of Dayton, wrote that “a 16-year-old girl living in Southwestern Ohio who had become pregnant after being sexually assaulted by a family member,” like the 10-year-old, was also forced to travel to Indiana for abortion. “The local Ohio law enforcement agency—which was already involved at the time the clinic was contacted about the patient—had to drive to our Indianapolis clinic to retrieve the tissue for crime lab testing related to the sexual assault investigation,” Trick added.

Dr. Sharon Liner, medical director of Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio in Cincinnati, wrote in her affidavit that a cancer patient whose chemotherapy had been paused due to her pregnancy sought and was denied abortion care, despite the Ohio law’s supposed exception for threats to the pregnant person’s life. Trick also recounted trying to help a pregnant person suffering from stage III melanoma, who sought abortion care because her pregnancy had paused her cancer treatment. Both of these women were ultimately forced to travel out of the state for care.

“If that patient couldn’t get her chemotherapy because she’s forced to continue her pregnancy, she’s not going to die in that moment, but she probably will die much sooner. Maybe significantly sooner, decades sooner,” Georgia-based abortion provider Nisha Verma told Jezebel in July, discussing one of her patients who had been diagnosed with cancer and needed an abortion so she could start chemotherapy.

According to Liner, after SB23 took effect, her clinic “had to cancel over 600 [abortion] appointments.” She continued, “We have had at least three patients threaten to commit suicide. Another patient said she would attempt to terminate her pregnancy by drinking bleach. Another asked how much vitamin C she would need to take to terminate her pregnancy.”

However heartbreaking these stories may be, I don’t expect them to move Gov. DeWine or his ilk. After the 10-year-old rape victim’s case drew national attention, DeWine and other top Republicans attempted to cast doubt on the veracity of the story, and even threatened legal action against the Indiana doctor who provided the child with care. Other anti-abortion activists suggested there was nothing wrong with what had happened to the child, and argued we should normalize literal children impregnated by rape becoming parents.

These reactions should dispel with the myth that any amount of suffering from abortion bans will ever be “bad” enough to persuade anti-abortion politicians, who refuse to recognize pregnant people as human beings.

Hundreds of ancient artifacts seized from home in northern Israel

About 270 ancient artifacts were found in the search, including coins from different periods and figurines of Medusa.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Published: SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 

Ancient artifacts seized from an antiquities dealer in northern Israel, September 2022
(photo credit: YULI SCHWARTZ/IAA)

Hundreds of ancient decorated toga pins, earrings, rings and figurines of animals and idols were found in the home of a man who used to be an antiquities dealer in northern Israel, the Antiquities Authority announced on Thursday.

The Robbery Prevention Unit of the Antiquities Authority had entered the home with a search warrant. The suspect, a 70-year-old man, used to be an antiquities dealer and is suspected of trading in antiquities without a license and smuggling antiquities abroad.

"The suspect knew the provisions of the law but chose to ignore them and act against the law in order to make money," said Amir Ganor, director of the Robbery Prevention Unit. "Hundreds of ancient finds reach the antiquities trade market as a result of illegal excavations at antiquities sites throughout the State of Israel. The time has come to act to ban the trade in antiquities in Israel, similar to all the countries of the Mediterranean Sea."

About 270 ancient artifacts were found in the search, including gold, silver and bronze coins from different periods, including coins placed inside modern jewelry.

Ancient artifacts seized from an antiquities dealer in northern Israel, September 2022 (credit: YULI SCHWARTZ/IAA)

The inspectors also found 2,000-year-old signet rings and bronze objects in the shape of Medusa, the mythical gorgon. The Antiquities Authority believes that the artifacts were stolen from tombs that had been sealed for thousands of years.

Antiquities Authority conducting large-scale operation to thwart illegal artifact trade

The Robbery Prevention Unit has conducted a large-scale operation in recent months to thwart the illegal trade of antiquities around the country, with 35 suspects arrested so far and over 60,000 ancient artifacts seized.

Bell: Smith loss 'almost impossible' — the last UCP member poll

Rick Bell - 6h ago


A week to go.


UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith speaks at a campaign rally in Chestermere on Tuesday, August 9, 2022.© Provided by Calgary Sun

It’s not impossible.

It’s “almost impossible.” It’s “extremely difficult” for anybody to catch UCP leadership frontrunner Danielle Smith.

So says Hamish Marshall of ONE Persuasion.

He headed up the latest nose-count of the race where the winner next week becomes UCP leader and premier.

It is the last poll of this kind, unless some candidate has numbers stuffed in their back pocket.

It is a nose-count commissioned by the camp of UCP leadership frontrunner Danielle Smith.

It is a survey of 1,603 souls from the actual UCP membership list and the results came out of the field Tuesday.

As your scribbler always says, you can take it or leave it.

It might be in the ballpark of reality Oct. 6.

Or there could be a big surprise and the so-called smart money will lose their shirts.

So let’s go.

First, a real big number everybody has wanted to see.

Of those polled, 84.6% have voted.

That’s more than four out of five.

Of those who have already voted, it’s Smith 45%. Travis Toews 28%. Brian Jean 11%. Rebecca Schulz 6%. Todd Loewen 5%, and Leela Aheer and Rajan Sawhney with lower percentages.

The first choice for all decided voters is almost the same. Smith 45%. Toews 27.5%. Jean 11.5%. Schulz 6.1%. Loewen 6%, with Aheer and Sawhney further behind.

Now some people have asked, so your scribbler asks.

Could there be some kind of surprise where someone overtakes Smith when leadership candidates drop out of the race and the second choices of their supporters are counted?

Marshall, who ran the leadership campaign of former federal Conservative boss Andrew Scheer, points out Smith’s first round support is so high the finish line is not far away.

Bell: Danielle Smith, can she beat Rachel Notley? More numbers

Bell: Shandro's Sovereignty Act Lite on Ottawa gun grab, say what?!

UCP leadership hopefuls show united front against Smith's Sovereignty Act

The poll does look at candidate second choices for leader.

Aheer and Sawhney numbers are low.

Related video: Who were the winners and losers of the final UCP leadership debate?


Who were the winners and losers of the final UCP leadership debate?

Aheer’s seconds go to Toews and Jean more than Smith.

Sawhney’s number twos go to Toews and Jean slightly more than Smith.

Half of Loewen’s second choices go to Smith.

Half of Schulz’s second choices go to Toews.

It’s not enough to derail Smith.

Marshall says if the frontrunner was at lower than 40% on the first ballot, maybe even lower than 35%, then it could be different story.

Marshall says by Round 5 of the balloting Smith will be at 51.2%, Toews at 34.1% and Jean at 14.7%.

Even if it was just Smith against Toews, Smith would still win. She just doesn’t need much to get 50% plus one.

As for the Sovereignty Act, 54% of UCP members polled back it and don’t want to give Ottawa an inch.

Another 15.7% support the proposed new law for “Ottawa’s most egregious violations of the constitution.”

A little more than six out of 10 members polled agree with changing the province’s human rights law to prohibit discrimination of those choosing not to get a COVID shot or booster.

Just wait. There is a second poll by the same outfit, with 750 adult Albertans counted.

This is the general public.

It’s from mid-September.

The horse race. UCP 44.6%. NDP 39.8%. The rest are other parties.

On the Sovereignty Act, Albertans are less enthusiastic backers of the Smith brainwave than UCP members.

Fewer than half, 40.8%, support the Sovereignty Act in some circumstances.

Almost a third, that’s 31.7%, need to know more before deciding.

“Should Danielle Smith become premier she’s got an opportunity to sell the idea to Albertans,” says nose-counter Marshall.

On whether Alberta’s human rights law should be changed so it would be illegal to discriminate against the unvaccinated, 41.2% say Yes.

Again, different numbers than the UCP membership.

“It’s not a giant surprise UCP members are generally more libertarian than the public as a whole,” says the pollster.

Then, last but surely not least, the nose-counter decides to have the top three leadership candidates square off against NDP leader Rachel Notley.

One against one. A different question than the poll in the last column.

This number crunch finds Notley 50.9%. Jean 49.1%

Notley 53.2%. Toews 46.8%.

Notley 50.2%. Smith 49.8%.

Here’s what the collector of the political math sees.

“When push comes to shove, as what happens in an election, non-NDP voters are happy to consolidate around whoever the UCP leader is.”

Some would beg to differ. Some within the UCP. Some talking in coffee shops right now.

Jean is not waving the white flag.

He’s telling UCP members Notley is planning for her election win knowing Smith is the UCP leader less likely to defeat her.

Jean’s camp says Notley wants to take on Smith and the NDP know what buttons to push and won’t be as gentle on Smith as everyone in the UCP leadership race has been.

Well, in a few days, if Smith wins, we’ll all get a chance to see if that’s true.

rbell@postmedia.com

‘Companies would much rather you leave’: Ex-HR worker says companies will ‘manage you out’ instead of firing you, sparking debate

Natasha Dubash - Yesterday

In a TikTok video that has gone viral with over 527,000 views, Joanna Briggs (@whatmatterscic) details the practice of being “managed out” of your job.


woman speaking in front of light gray wall with hand in speaking gesture (l) woman speaking in front of light gray wall hand on chin caption© Provided by Daily Dot

Move over “quiet quitting,” there’s a new passive-aggressive behavior taking over the corporate workforce called "quiet firing." The Washington Post describes the phenomenon as being “nudged out by a manager who can’t fire you but is making your job increasingly unpleasant and unrewarding.” This is exactly what Joanna, the founder of youth career developmental organization What Matters CIC, warns followers of in her viral video.

The TikTok is a stitch that responds to user @jennahushka’s video in which Jenna asks people to elaborate on something that they were not prepared to encounter in the corporate world. “That instead of firing you, they will just manage you out,” Joanna says to the camera in her stitched video.

The ex-HR professional goes on to explain the practice. Many people believe that if they work hard at their job, they will simply reap the rewards that are due to them. Conversely, Joanna says, you might think that if you were bad at your job, “they will just sit you down, have a conversation and say, 'hey, this isn’t working.'"

But, the TikTok creator explains this is often not the case in large corporations. “Instead, your manager will talk to everyone else under the sun, apart from you,” she says, leading others at the company to also believe that you are bad at your job. This will “just make it difficult for you to stay.”

“Companies would much rather you leave…rather than them having to actually address the issues and train you properly or help support you become a better employee for their company,” Joanna says. But companies should be cautious about treating their employees as disposable assets as it leads to low morale and retaliatory behaviors like "quiet quitting."

A Time article from Sept. 10, 2022, suggests that employees who find themselves in this situation be vocal about their needs with their supervisors and co-workers and familiarize themselves with their company’s policies for promotions and raises. That way, when it comes time to have a conversation with their supervisor (or their supervisor’s supervisor), they can better present their accomplishments and progression at the company.

Ultimately, Joanna urges her followers to read the room and trust their intuition. “If you’re not getting those promotions, if you’re not getting those pay rises, and if something in you is telling you this isn’t right, trust me, your gut isn’t lying to you," she says.

The Daily Dot reached out to Joanna via email and Instagram direct message.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post ‘Companies would much rather you leave’: Ex-HR worker says companies will ‘manage you out’ instead of firing you, sparking debate appeared first on The Daily Dot.