Truth and Hammer

Author: Truth & Hammer

  • Shooter’s Resignation Letter

    Shooter’s Resignation Letter

    Virginia Beach officials released the resignation letter of the city employee who killed 12 co-workers at a municipal building on Friday.As CBN News reported, in a press conference Sunday morning, City Manager Dave Hansen said the suspect was in the process of resigning from his position and confirmed a resignation letter had been sent via email. The suspect had not been terminated and was in good standing with his department, Hansen said.Now the letter has been released to the public. It reads simply:”It has been a pleasure to serve the City, but due to personal reasons I must relieve my position.”The letter gives no clue why he decided to attack his co-workers in that deadly mass shooting Friday afternoon. The shooter did confirm that Friday would be his last day at work.City officials say he was not facing any disciplinary action.Today, the city is reopening all municipal buildings, except for Building 2 where investigators are still at work gathering evidence.

    According to the city news release, Building 2 will remain closed until further notice.  On Monday, the city held a service for city workers,
    giving them the opportunity to share their emotions and receive counseling.  Drew Lankford, who works in Building 2, was out of the office when the attack happened. “My daughter who is in Building 1 next door, she called me and is sobbing, she’s on the floor under her desk and she says are you OK? And I’m saying yeah, I’m starting to panic, why? She says there’s an active shooter in Building 2.” This Thursday, the city will host a memorial service for employees and citizens at Rock Church in Virginia Beach. The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. A post by Rock Church states, “Praying for the overwhelming peace of God to flood the hearts and lives of everyone affected by this tragedy. Join us on Thursday for prayers and remembrance.”

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  • Boston among most bed bug-infested cities, study finds

    Boston among most bed bug-infested cities, study finds

    BOSTON (WHDH) – One of the largest pest control companies in the world is urging the public to be aware of bed bugs after releasing its 2019 rankings of the 50 most bed bug-infested cities in the United States.

    Terminix looked at the number of services the company rendered in each city over the past year and found that Boston had the 10th worst bed bug problem.

    The most bed bug infestations were found in Philadelphia, followed by New York, Dallas-Fort Worth, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

    Boston was the only Massachusetts city to make the list.

    Matthew Stevenson, president of Terminix Residential says the pests “continue to pose concerns for public health.”

    As summer travel approaches, Terminix experts warn that bed bugs aren’t only found in bedding and mattresses but also travel from place to place on personal belongings.

    Terminix asks anyone staying at a hotel to check headboards, mattresses and box springs for live bed bugs, their exoskeletons and dark blood spots.

    Those who suspect they have bed bugs should have their home inspected by a trained professional, as Terminix says bed bug infestations are extremely unlikely to be controlled by over-the-counter treatments.

    (Copyright (c) 2019 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

    This content was originally published here.

  • Horrifying moment passengers topple off a tourist river boat

    Horrifying moment passengers topple off a tourist river boat

    This is the terrifying moment passengers fall from a tourist boat after it was struck by a towering cruise ship on a busy canal in Venice – injuring four tourists.   The collision, which saw the luxury MSC Opera cruise liner crash into the small River Countess and the San Basilio dock, took place at about 8.30am Sunday on the Giudecca Canal – one of the major canals in the ancient city.  Horrifying images showed the hulking cruise ship sounding its horn as petrified tourists attempted to move out of its way. Passengers can be seen leaping from the river boat which was smashed in the head-on collision – leaving it severely damaged Medical authorities say four female tourists – an American, a New Zealander and two Australians between the ages of 67 and 72 – were injured falling or trying to run away when the cruise ship rammed into the tourist boat.  MSC Cruises said the 2,679-passengers onboard the 177-ft high and 902-ft long long liner, which dwarfed the Venice skyline, were approaching the terminal when the ship hit the dock after a technical problem.   The collision comes days after seven people were killed and 21 remain missing after the Mermaid, a sightseeing boat, capsized on the River Danube in Budapest, Hungary.

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  • Nearly 9-in-10 Illegal Aliens Recently Released into U.S. Not Showing Up to Court Hearings

    Nearly 9-in-10 Illegal Aliens Recently Released into U.S. Not Showing Up to Court Hearings

    Nearly 9-in-10 illegal aliens who have been recently released into the interior of the United States while they await their asylum hearings are not showing up to their court dates, according to a federal pilot program.

    For almost half a year, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ramped up its catch and release of border crossers and illegal aliens, specifically those arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border with children.

    Since December 21, 2018, DHS has released at least 190,500 border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the United States. Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan told Congress this month that those foreign nationals are eventually given work permits that allow them to take U.S. jobs while awaiting their asylum hearings.

    In testimony before Congress this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said that the agency had recently conducted a pilot program with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to test how many recent illegal aliens would show up to their asylum hearings after being released into the U.S.

    The results, an ICE official told Congress, were that about 87 percent of illegal aliens, or almost 9-in-10, recently released by DHS into the U.S. did not show up to their asylum hearings. With illegal aliens not showing up to their scheduled hearings, the ICE official said, the agency is then forced to grapple with attempting to locate and deport each illegal alien, an almost impossible task that strains federal resources.

    “That particular population, as we continue to release into the interior hundreds if not thousands of family units into the interior every week, is of grave concern as it relates to these individuals not appearing before immigration judges and now being fugitives,” the ICE official said.

    In the same hearing, another federal immigration official said that only about 12 percent of border crossers and illegal aliens who complete their asylum processes actually end up qualifying for asylum — a statistic that underscores the enormous fraud and abuse in the country’s immigration system.

    At current rates of illegal immigration, border apprehensions for the calendar year 2019 are expected to outpace every fiscal year of former President Obama. Meanwhile, DHS officials have said only about 42 miles of mostly replacement border wall barriers have been constructed since President Trump’s inauguration.

    Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, Americans are vastly opposed to releasing border crossers and illegal aliens into the interior of the country, and GOP voters have said building a border wall and reducing all illegal and legal immigration is their top priority.

    About 2-in-3 American voters told Harvard-Harris pollsters last month that they are opposed to catching and then releasing border crossers and illegal aliens into the U.S. while they await their asylum hearings. Likewise, GOP voters, conservatives, and Trump supporters have ranked building a border wall and reducing all immigration as their top priorities.

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  • Is Vermin Infestation Making People Sick At Downtown LAPD Station?

    Is Vermin Infestation Making People Sick At Downtown LAPD Station?

    An infestation of vermin at a building in Downtown Los Angeles is allegedly making people sick.  CBS2’KCAL9’s Sara Donchey reports that the people getting sick are work at one of LAPD’s stations. LAPD’s Central Division is in the heart of Skid Row.  It appears the troubled areas problems are, in this case, stemming from inside the building. The LAPD says an employee at that station contracted salmonella typhi, which typically comes from infected food or water. A second employee is believed to have now contracted the same thing. CBS2/KCAL9 has obtained an OSHA report citing the LAPD for an unclean work area. The report cited, among other things, “the presence of rats/rodents, fleas, roaches, flies gnats, mosquitoes and grasshoppers” at the LAPD Central Community Police Station. This isn’t the first time rats have infested a city building. Earlier this year, a city attorney contracted typhus at LA City Hall. The LA Police Protective League issued a statement Wednesday evening. It read in part, “Officers worry enough about being shot or injured policing the streets of Los Angeles. They shouldn’t also have to worry about being infected with diseases they can take home to their families simply by showing up to work.” The strong statement also called for the immediate clean-up of these buildings.

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  • Great food, drinks and a Movie! What is not to like?

    Great food, drinks and a Movie! What is not to like?

    Nothing pairs better with a cold rainy Sunday and a warm baby Loxodonta quite like a Rockaway Nitro Black Gold Stout. About one-third of the way through Tim Burton’s Dumbo, I ordered a second, and as it was delivered to me in the dark, I was struck by the scene where V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton)–evil, conniving moneybags and Dreamland amusement park owner–explains to the scrappy, DIY road circus owner Max Medici (Danny DeVito) that of course he should bring his entire operation, airborne pachyderm included, into his opulent fold. Why? Because the future of entertainment is bringing the people to you, not the other way around.

    In the age of streaming and on-demand and bit-torrenting and hyper-speed release cycles and home theaters and even apparently, 1%-ers getting Endgame delivered right to their in-home Imaxes or whatever, there’s a school of thought that where you see a movie doesn’t matter. “I don’t disagree that going to the theater to see a movie is a great experience,” Netflix chief creative officer Ted Sarandos told the press last December. “I don’t think emotionally it’s a different experience than seeing a movie on Netflix. It is a different physical experience for sure.”

    But the “old-fashioned” way of paying money to sit in a windowless room with a bunch of strangers hasn’t diminished at all. In fact, it’s flourishing and the options are growing. The major players like AMC, Regal, and Cinemark dominate, but this new breed of theater is increasingly seen as an opportunity for growth. Last fall, Marcus, the number-four player, acquired the New Orleans-based Movie Tavern chain for $126 million. Dallas’s Studio Movie Grill and Alamo, which is headquartered in Austin, both cracked 2019’s Giants of Exhibition list published by industry analyst Boxoffice, ranking number 13 and 17 respectively. “These types of theaters came up with solutions to problems that for most of the life of cinema, moviegoers didn’t know they had,” says Stephanie Zacharek, film reviewer for Time and a 2015 Pulitzer finalist for criticism while at the Village Voice. “There’s a lot of talk about television and movies morphing into a great blob of entertainment, that there is no difference, and it drives me crazy.” As we saw late last year with the Netflix controversies around whether and how Roma would receive a theatrical release, serious filmmakers want a theatrical release because they want to share their art on a large-screen canvas. And if you can do it in a seat that’s both comfortable and reservable, and where the truffle popcorn can be paired with something quaffable, like say an $85 bottle of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne (as you can at iPic), all the better. “Overall, the movie business is healthy,” says Daniel Loria, editorial director of Box office, which has covered movie theaters since 1920. “What is dying is the standard suburban, cookie-cutter multiplex model, with the tacky carpet and uniform concessions.”

    As someone who has probably averaged two theatrical movies a month for 40-odd years, I wholeheartedly agree. As should already be evident, the current wave of full-services movie houses isn’t solely a New York or Los Angeles phenomenon. It’s happening in underserved markets all across the country at independent single screens and small regional chains, such as Flix Brewhouse, across the Midwest and Southwest where beer is made onsite.

    So how is the theatrical landscape being completely upended by the growth of these places? To find out where we are and where we’re headed in this future of full-service moviegoing, I immersed myself in Gotham’s new cinematic universe–well, within a short jaunt at least–while also exploring a city with a longstanding brew-and-view culture and then going back to where it all began for me, the place central to my filmic evolution–a town starting from scratch.

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  • The Stars you See are Really Satellites

    The Stars you See are Really Satellites

    Last month, SpaceX successfully launched 60 500-pound satellites into space. Soon amateur skywatchers started sharing images of those satellites in night skies, igniting an uproar among astronomers who fear that the planned orbiting cluster will wreak havoc on scientific research and trash our view of the cosmos. The main issue is that those 60 satellites are merely a drop in the bucket. SpaceX anticipates launching thousands of satellites — creating a mega-constellation of false stars collectively called Starlink that will connect the entire planet to the internet, and introduce a new line of business for the private spaceflight company.  While astronomers agree that global internet service is a worthy goal, the satellites are bright — too bright.  “This has the potential to change what a natural sky looks like,” said Tyler Nordgren, an astronomer who is now working full-time to promote night skies. And SpaceX is not alone. Other companies, such as Amazon, Telesat and OneWeb, want to get into the space internet business. Their ambitions to make satellites nearly as plentiful as cellphone towers highlight conflicting debates as old as the space age about the proper use of the final frontier.  While private companies see major business opportunities in low-Earth orbit and beyond, many skygazers fear that space will no longer be “the province of all mankind,” as stated in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

    The Starlink launch was one of SpaceX’s most ambitious missions to orbit. Each of the satellites carries a solar panel that not only gathers sunlight but also reflects it back to Earth. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, has offered assurances that the satellites will only be visible in the hours after sunset and before sunrise, and then just barely. But the early images led many scientists to question his assertions. The first captured images, for example, revealed a train of spacecraft as bright as Polaris, the North Star. And while a press officer at SpaceX said the satellites will grow fainter as they move to higher orbits, some astronomers estimate that they will be visible to the naked eye throughout summer nights. The satellites can even “flare,” briefly boosting their brightness to rival that of Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, when their solar panels are oriented just right. Astronomers fear that these reflections will threaten stargazing and their research.

    Whenever a satellite passes through a long-exposure picture of the sky, it causes a long bright streak — typically ruining the image and forcing astronomers to take another one. While telescope operators have dealt with these headaches for years, Starlink alone could triple the number of satellites currently in orbit, with the number growing larger if other companies get to space.

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  • ‘The algorithm is our boss’: Uber drivers face long hours, no benefits and sometimes danger

    ‘The algorithm is our boss’: Uber drivers face long hours, no benefits and sometimes danger

    AT 3 A.M., SONAM LAMA’S ALARM goes off. In his house in Queens, New York, while his wife and baby son sleep, he pulls on his clothes and makes coffee. Then he turns on his Uber app and waits.  On this morning, a warm but windy Tuesday in May, an hour passes without a passenger request. “You’re just thinking, ‘When is the ride going to come? When is the ride going to come?’” the 35-year-old Lama said.  A little after 5 a.m., one does. In a collared, white button-down shirt and khakis, he’s dressed more formally than usual. Later in the day, he’s taking a test for a job with the New York Police Department. He doesn’t want to drive for Uber anymore. “I’m not making a living,” Lama said. “Almost all drivers are looking for work elsewhere.”  The company labels its 3.9 million drivers as independent contractors instead of employees, a distinction that means it isn’t required to provide a minimum wage or paid time off, compensation for overtime or health insurance. And drivers are almost entirely on their own when it comes to the constant expenses of their cars, including insurance, repairs and gas.

    Uber says it offers people a way to work on their own schedule. And while it insists its drivers are not employees, it says it’s committed to providing a support system to them. The company points out that it recently introduced a rewards program, which gets drivers cash back on gas and discounts on car maintenance. Drivers can also sign up for an injury protection plan, in which they’d receive a monthly check should they become injured while working. Perks include tuition assistance at Arizona State University. CNBC spoke with the company’s drivers about how their financial lives are faring.

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  • Naomi Scott Says Her Christian Faith Is ‘Part of Who I Am’

    Naomi Scott Says Her Christian Faith Is ‘Part of Who I Am’

    Naomi Scott, who plays Princess Jasmine in the new live-action remake of the Disney classic “Aladdin,” said this month she doesn’t know how she would be able to navigate the ups and downs of life without her Christian faith.

    During an interview with Compassion, for which she serves as a U.K. ambassador, Scott said her faith has given her a “peace” that keeps her “incredibly grounded, incredibly focused.”

    “Quite honestly, I don’t see it as this separate thing, this add on thing,” she said, noting she was recently talking with her husband, English soccer player Jordan Spence, about their shared beliefs. “My faith is just a part of who I am and what I do.”

    Scott went on to say that, because of her faith in Jesus, she knows she’s not defined by other people’s opinions of her or her work.

    Faithwire: Iraqi Minister Says ‘Political Correctness’ Is Advancing Christian Persecution in Middle East

    “No matter what somebody says about me on Twitter, whatever the future holds, to know that that doesn’t define me is incredible, to know that doesn’t inform my identity in any way shape or form (although it’s easier said than done sometimes),” she explained. “That’s going to be the thing keeping me going. Keeping the main thing, the main thing throughout.”

    As for her role in “Aladdin,” Scott told Compassion she was excited to have the opportunity to play such a “strong” female character in the much-anticipated remake.

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  • Doctors Can Now Diagnose You With ‘Burnout’

    Doctors Can Now Diagnose You With ‘Burnout’

    Feeling tired and overwhelmed from work? The World Health Organization (WHO) has added an official new diagnosis for you – it’s called “burnout”. USA Today reports the professional health community can now diagnose burnout as an “occupational phenomenon.” Burnout is more than feeling stressed out. The WHO designation excludes those who have been diagnosed with anxiety, mood disorders, and other stress-related medical conditions. The WHO’s revision of the International Classification of Diseases defines burnout as a syndrome “resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

    The health guidelines characterize burnout as:

    1. Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
    2. Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job
    3. Reduced professional efficacy

    The Centers for Disease Control gives several suggestions to those dealing with chronic workplace stress. The CDC encourages people to find:

    1. Balance between work and family or personal life
    2. A support network of friends and coworkers
    3. A relaxed and positive outlook

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