“The essence of the 21st century crime novel is not about murder, or deduction, or even justice. Instead at the core of the genre is the understanding that when things go wrong, when it all goes to hell, someone will stand up and fight for what is right.”
“The beauty and significance of this solar power project is that it shows in life how we have to move from protest and building awareness and into power,” LeBlanc says. “Power in the sense of standing in our spirituality and our values, but also generating power that is an alternative to fossil fuels.”
The number of suicides in the January to November period came to 19,101, up 426 from the same period a year before, according to the data released Thursday.
In November, 1,169 men and 629 women killed themselves.
By prefecture, the number of suicides recorded was highest in Tokyo, at 198, followed by Kanagawa, at 116, and Saitama, at 107.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato attributed the continued increase in suicides within the country to poverty, domestic violence and problems related to child-rearing that have become more serious amid the COVID-19 crisis.
“We’ll promote suicide prevention measures,” the top government spokesman said.
Federal law enforcement authorities say they are aware of a website that sprang up over the weekend and began doxxing federal and state government officials at odds with Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.
The site, which appears to have been created on Sunday, contains the home addresses, pictures of homes, personal emails, and photos of state and local officials who have pushed back on or questioned the president’s legal campaign.
“The following individuals have aided and abetted the fraudulent election against Trump,” the website, enemiesofthepeople.org, declared.
A Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson told The Daily Beast on Thursday that the FBI is “aware of the matter,” but declined to comment further.
The site was only online for a few days, and the identities of those responsible for it are not known. But archived versions of the site, and publicly available website registration data, show that the individual or individuals behind it used email addresses associated with a Russian email service provider and web hosting services based in the country. The possibility exists that the use of those addresses and hosting services were done to make it appear to be a Russian operation.
The website was created as brewing national tensions over the 2020 election boiled over into violent threats against officials whom the president’s supporters have deemed complicit in a vast, often nonsensical conspiracy to steal the election for President-elect Joe Biden. Those claims have been rejected in dozens of state and federal court cases, and by high-level officials of both parties.
Among the officials targeted—literally—by the enemiesofthepeople website were Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI), Brian Kemp (R-GA), Doug Ducey (R-AZ), multiple people affiliated with the company Dominion Voting Systems, and Christopher Krebs, the former top federal cybersecurity official who was fired last month for publicly debunking many of the conspiracy theories floated by Trump and his legal team.
“If blood is spilled, it is on the hands of the president,” Krebs’ attorneys wrote in a Wednesday statement regarding the website. The specific threats, they noted, “may be domestic or foreign actors trying to stoke the violence.”
As documented by Joe Slowik, a senior security researcher at the firm DomainTools, enemiesofthepeople.org and a sister website, enemiesofthepeople.us, were registered by individuals using the Russian email service Yandex, and the website’s IP servers are hosted in Russia.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois late last month, former dockworker Jamaal Watts accused trucking company Estes Express of showing “reckless disregard” for his personal safety when they required him to continue working at a facility where two coworkers had been infected with COVID-19.
Watts reportedly told his supervisor that he was uncomfortable with the health risks but was told that he would be fired if he left early.
Watts reported to work the next day and asked to work only 8 hours “to minimize risk from the first shift employees because of his exposure the day before to the infected employees.”
When Watts reported to work the day after that, he was terminated.
In his lawsuit, Watts claims that Estes failed to “refrain from intentional wrongful conduct that placed Watts in a position of imminent danger from contracting coronavirus.”
The suit also accuses Estes of failing to properly sanitize the areas that the infected coworkers had occupied.
Watts is seeking $75,000 plus court costs.
The Watts suit is just one of what is expected to be a rash of lawsuits against employers regarding COVID-19 exposure.
In September, the U.S Department of Labor Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a report that found a 30% increase between February to May 2020 as compared to the same period during 2019, with 39% of those whistleblower complaints related to COVID-19. Many of these complaints allege retaliation by employers against employees who pointed out social distancing concerns or other health risks.
Trooper Jacob Brown, 30, was involved in a use of force incident in May 2019, according to Lt. Nick Manale, State Police spokesperson. State Police launched an investigation after officials received notice of a civil lawsuit in October of this year that alleged excessive force by an unnamed trooper.
When investigators learned Brown was involved in the incident and had assisted the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office in the arrest, they started an administrative investigation, Manale said. However, during the internal affairs inquiry, officials suspended the administrative investigation and began a criminal investigation.
“Detectives learned that Brown engaged in excessive and unjustifiable actions during the incident and failed to report the use of force to his supervisors,” Manale said.
A warrant was issued and Brown was taken into custody without incident Thursday afternoon. He was booked into the Ouachita Correctional Center on one count each of aggravated second-degree battery and malfeasance in office, with his bond set at $35,000. He later was released, according to a corrections employee at the facility.
Brown is a trooper stationed at Troop F in Monroe and remains on administrative leave.
Calls made on Thursday to a public number listed for Brown were not immediately returned.
Manale would not give details of that May 2019 encounter, citing the ongoing criminal and civil proceedings and the pending administrative investigation.
Court records show the excessive force and police misconduct lawsuit referencing the May 30, 2019 incident was filed this September by Aaron Larry Bowman, a 45-year-old Black man. Bowman alleges he was “dragged to the ground and beaten senselessly by certain officers,” according to a press release from his attorney.
Officers with the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Special Crimes Apprehension Team (SCAT) assaulted Bowman outside his home during a drugs and weapons search of his vehicle, the lawsuit says. SCAT is comprised of officers from various area law enforcement agencies, including State Police.
Court records say the beating caused Bowman to suffer “multiple lacerations,” which include “a cut to the top of his head, a fractured arm, and broken ribs.” Officers were unable to find illegal drugs or weapons during the search, the lawsuit says.
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