Pit Bulldogs are wonderful when trained properly, and dangerous when not.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A one-year-old boy was mauled to death by his babysitter's pit bulls, who used the toddler in a 'tug of war' battle while a 13-year-old girl desperately tried to save him.
Jiryiah Johnson was in the care of 36-year-old Heather Rodriguez at her home in Converse, Texas, before she left the baby alone with her teenage daughter.
After the vicious attack, which lasted several minutes across different rooms in the home, Johnson was hospitalized in critical condition with bite wounds to his face, head and neck.
He suffered severe throat injuries and he was unable to breathe on his own, before he tragically passed away on Monday night.
Babysitter Rodriguez was arrested on a first-felony charge of injury to a child with serious bodily injury by omission - and she may face further charges for the injuries to her daughter, police said.
It's understood that Rodriguez had left to go to work - and put her daughter in charge of the baby in her absence.
Baby Jiryiah and the teenage girl were secured inside a bedroom with the doors shut, away from Rodriguez's three pit bulls, said Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County Sheriff's Office in a news briefing.
The door to the bedroom had previously been damaged by the dogs and was broken down again before they began a gruesome attack on the baby.
According to Salazar, the teen tried to keep control of the baby but described the fight for the child like a 'tug of war' that lasted several minutes.
She then locked herself and the baby into a bathroom, where the dogs forced their way in again - further attacking the baby as well as the 13-year-old.
The girl then left the baby with the dogs in order to grab her phone and call for help, before taking the child into another room and barricading the door with her body.
Johnson's mother, Erika Castro, said she had not had time to process what had happened to her only child.
Sheriff Salazar described the baby's condition as 'heartbreaking' and said the teen was a 'hero' for her efforts against the dogs, which he described as 'XL pits'.
He said that the baby had been left in Rodriguez's care in the home before and the parents knew that Rodriguez had dogs but didn't know they were problematic.
'In a house full of vicious dogs, what did this lady, the suspect, think was going to happen,' he added.
Castro added: 'I thank that girl because... she did her best.'
Rodriguez had received a citation for having unleashed dogs earlier this year when they wouldn't let a man out of his car, and Salazar said they had responded to calls about the dogs in the past.
Kalb reported that it was unknown where Rodriguez went or how long she was away from the home, and added she was not being cooperative with their investigation.
Salazar added that Rodriguez seemed more concerned about the dogs than the baby, she refused to give a statement to Bexar County Sheriff's Office.
The dogs were turned over to Animal Care Services and Child Protective Services is also investigating. Rodriguez is in Bexar County Jail with bonds totaling $100,000.
#7
When I was a kid the Cleveland Zoo had an attraction called monkey island. It was a concrete island surrounded by a water moat and wall. There was like 200 monkeys and several goats living on the island. This woman must have considered that her happy place.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/09/2024 19:24 Comments ||
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#4
Would it be a good idea to have ships near the shoreline with a powerful storm coming in? Though I suppose they’d be fine in the days before the storm was coming in…
[NYPOST] Ginormous Hurricane Milton is churning toward Florida's Gulf Coast, where it's expected to have a devastating impact when it makes landfall Wednesday.
Meteorologists are warning the monster storm could be one of the biggest hurricanes in history.
It's ''nearing the mathematical limit of what Earth's atmosphere over this ocean water can produce,'' one Sunshine State meteorologist said late Monday.
Early Tuesday, Milton was downgraded to a Category 4 with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour — after topping 200 mph as a Category 5 on Monday. But Milton is expected to gain strength as it surges toward Tampa, Fort Meyers and other areas of the gulf coast.
[Regnum] Hurricane Milton, approaching the American state of Florida, may strengthen to an officially non-existent category six. This was reported on October 8 by the American magazine Newsweek, citing a study by climatologists.
According to experts, it is necessary to add an additional category to the hurricane scale according to the level of danger. Presumably, there are about 6 million people in the zone where the elements may hit.
By the morning of October 8, the hurricane's speed had dropped to 250 km/h, while the day before it had reached 290 km/h. Meteorologists do not rule out further strengthening of the wind before hitting Florida. The approach of the storm is designated as life-threatening.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, on October 6, the press service of the US National Hurricane Center predicted that in the coming days, tropical storm Milton, which formed over the Gulf of Mexico, will reach the west coast of the US. The weather phenomenon may hit Florida on October 8-9. Heavy rains may lead to flooding in populated areas and rural areas, and to the overflow of some rivers.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 35 counties in the state ahead of the storm, many of which are still reeling from Hurricane Helene.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/09/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
at 800am EDT, the hurricane weakened slightly from the 500am status
continued weakening is expected until landfall because of upper winds sheeting the vertical uplift field
however it will likely be at Cat 3 or 4 at landfall
as of now the eye is very small and hurricane winds only extend about 30 miles from the center of the storm
however, as the storm weakens, the hurricane force wind field is expected to expand
the eye of the storm may make landfall south of Tampa Bay but, if this happens, it will still result in 5+ feet of storm surge in Tampa Bay and of course the worst will be just to the south of the eyewall's landfall
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2024 9:44 Comments ||
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#2
at 1100am EDT the hurricane has weakened a bit more although still a category 4 storm
forecasts confident of continued weakening but landfall will likely be at least a category 2 storm
forecasts becoming confident that landfall will occur south of Tampa Bay; Bradenton or Sarasota FL may get the eyewall passing over it.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2024 12:35 Comments ||
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#3
at 2pm the Hurricane is down to just 1 mph above category 3
Since 5am the central pressure has gone up b about 40mb and the peak wind speed has gone down by about 30mph
Still a dangerous storm and the weakening of the central pressure vortex has, as expected, resulted in an expansion of the wind field
Central vortex landfall is likely to be after dark this evening and is still expected to be south of Tampa Bay
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2024 14:11 Comments ||
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#6
At 5pm EDT hurricane down to category 3. Hurricane winds still a small area but tropical storm force winds have expanded especially to the north. Still about 6 hours to landfall
Posted by: Lord garth ||
10/09/2024 18:22 Comments ||
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#7
At 800pm EDT, the eye of the storm is just about to come ashore (faster than I thought it would). The center of the vortex will come ashore in the vicinity of Sarasota.
It is enough south that the damage to Tampa will be less than expected. Of course Sarasota and especially the barrier islands on the coast will be hit very hard.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2024 20:03 Comments ||
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#8
at 930 pm EDT, the entire eye of the hurricane is onshore
I haven't seen any reports of sustained wind speeds over 75 mph yet but that doesn't mean there aren't any. Also I've seen no reports yet of 8' + storm surge partly because it is dark and the webcams aren't going to be able to show it.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2024 21:34 Comments ||
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#9
at 1100pm EDT. Hurricane moving across central FL at about 17 mph which will take it to the Atlantic Ocean by about sunrise local time. It is, based on radar, now a category 2 storm but continuing to weaken and will likely be a category 1 storm when it moves offshore into the Atlantic.
Some ferocious precipitation rates have been recorded with 3, 4 and even 5" of rain in an hour. The highest wind I saw reported was 86 mph but no doubt other reports have yet to come in. Again I have not seen reports of severe storm surge but as it is night we will have to wait for morning to ascertain what happened on that issue.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
10/09/2024 23:05 Comments ||
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#10
Thank you, Lord Garth. I was able to be knowledgeably comforting at dinner tonight, based on your reports here, so you have done a mitzvah.
In his decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes said that he authorised the "immediate return" of X's activities in the country after it paid hefty fines and blocked accounts accused of spreading misinformation.
According to a statement, the site has paid fines totalling 28 million reais ($5.1m; £3.8m) and agreed to appoint a local representative, as required by Brazilian law.
Moraes had blocked access to the platform, owned by Elon Musk, after it had refused to ban several profiles deemed by the government to be spreading misinformation about the 2022 Brazilian Presidential election.
Anatel, Brazil's telecoms watchdog, has been instructed to ensure service has resumed for more than 20 million users in the country within 24 hours.
After months of defying the court’s orders, Musk fired the company’s Brazilian staff in late August and closed X's office in Brazil.
Many users switched to alternative sites such as Bluesky, and demand for VPNs (Virtual Proxy Networks) in Brazil soared.
But in September, the platform began to comply with the court's orders in an apparent U-turn.
On Tuesday, X said that it was "proud to return to Brazil".
"Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process," its government affairs team wrote in a statement.
It appears that X has now complied with all of the judge’s demands in order to have the ban lifted.
Brazil is one of the biggest markets for the platform across the globe, as well as its largest in Latin America, with an estimated 22 million users.
#1
X didn't win. It had to block the accounts the gov wanted blocked, pay $5.1m in fines, and give the name of a local attorney they can arrest if the gov gets mad at them again.
That's not a win. They did what they they were told.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/09/2024 8:47 Comments ||
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[WIRED] THE MORNING AFTER Hurricane Helene pummeled the eastern seaboard of the US, Thomas Witherspoon inspected the damage to his western North Carolina home. The night before, he listened to the wind whip down trees and snap power lines along the two-mile access road connecting his family to their few neighbors in Buncombe County.
Like the tens of thousands of other North Carolina residents, the power to Witherspoon’s neighborhood was completely out. It was impossible to communicate with the house down the road, let alone anyone several miles away. Unable to send text messages or make phone calls, radio became the one form of communication left in rural North Carolina. After fixing what he could on his own property, Witherspoon, a lifelong amateur radio enthusiast, began distributing handheld radios to his neighbors.
"Amateur radio is one of those things you get into because of your love of radio communications and the technical aspects of it or the community and the challenges that you can overcome," Witherspoon says. "It's a lot of fun, but underlying all of that is this prime directive with amateur radio that it’s always there as emergency communications when all else fails."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
