This is dreadful — may they all have found peace, at least, afterward.
[FoxNews] Long Nguyen, Christina Kohler, Maria Vasquez and William Bozeman were found dead by apparent suicide
Four current and former deputies from the same sheriff's office in Texas have died by apparent suicide over a six-week period, according to officials.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office deputies were all found dead between Feb. 6 and March 19.
In the first incident, retired Deputy Long Nguyen died by apparent suicide on Feb. 6, ABC 13 reported, citing officials.
Deputy Christina Kohler, who had been missing for more than a week, was found dead by apparent suicide on March 13.
Three days later, former Deputy Maria Vasquez's body was discovered. The Houston Medical Examiner ruled that Vasquez, who retired from the agency in December, died by apparent suicide.
On March 19, retired Deputy William Bozeman also died by apparent suicide after 24 years at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez mourned the reported suicides of his deputies.
The sheriff's office has launched mental health initiatives to address the recent trend. Lopez said he has also been helping his fellow deputies process the grief.
#2
Suicide clusters are common, Grom. It’s as if each one gives permission to those around him to do the same — a kind of hysteria. It’s worse when it’s teens in a single school or community, but it’s always heartbreaking.
[Fox4News KDFW] The National Medal of Honor Museum is set to open Tuesday in Arlington, just west of Dallas. It highlights the lives and service of Medal of Honor recipients from the Civil War to the global war on terrorism.
One of the more expansive exhibits in the museum is the "More Than a Medal" exhibit. Inside, visitors will find memorabilia and personal effects that let visitors put faces to the nation's most prestigious military award.
"That's what this place is," museum President and CEO Chris Cassidy said. "It's a place for the stories of those Medal of Honor recipients."
Another exhibit lets visitors speak with Medal of Honor recipients and ask them questions. There are over 60 recipients who are still living.
"We sit down recipients and we ask them hundreds of questions, over the course of several days with lots of cameras trained on them," Waters said. "We use AI to match the question with the most appropriate answer. We don’t use AI to put words in their mouths. So all of the answers are the words the recipients actually said." A Holocaust museum that opened in Dallas a couple of years ago did similar interviews with survivors. I believe the generated responses to questions were to include a recorded image of the survivor, 'speaking' to the audience.
[Stripes] The trial of a 20-year-old American woman charged in the fatal stabbing of a man at the Kaiserslautern train station last summer began today.
The woman is charged with bodily harm resulting in death after a June 29, 2024, altercation in which she stabbed a 64-year-old man who grabbed her buttocks, according to investigators.
One imagines he learnt his lesson...
The incident was captured on security cameras.
The woman, who was born in Germany and is an American citizen, is not affiliated with the U.S. military, according to officials.
The case is being heard in Kaiserslautern Regional Court.
[FoxNews] Thousands of potential COVID-era unemployment fraud cases have yet to be prosecuted, lawmaker says
Federal law enforcement's hands are tied now that the statute of limitations for prosecuting fraud in COVID-era unemployment programs has expired.
While Congress extended the statute of limitations for pandemic-era business relief fraud in 2022, the window to prosecute fraud in individual relief programs closed Thursday.
"There's huge amounts of fraud that law enforcement officials are still trying to track down," said Andrew Moylan, a public finance policy expert at private philanthropy group Arnold Ventures.
"Every day that goes by from today, we lose the ability to prosecute fraud day by day. That's a huge problem, and this should be something that's an easy fix for Congress."
Despite opposition from 127 House Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the House passed a bipartisan bill earlier this month to extend the statute of limitations for pandemic unemployment fraud from five to 10 years. The move mirrored what lawmakers did for the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury and Disaster Loans program in 2022.
However, the Senate has yet to take up a companion bill needed to cement the extension,
…I assume they’re concentrating on the big, beautiful budget bill the president wants, and their hearings…
leading House lawmakers to call on their colleagues on Capitol Hill to make it a priority.
"We can’t afford to let these fraudsters get away with the largest heist of tax dollars in American history," Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, said Wednesday. "Not only do we have an obligation to taxpayers to recover as much of this money as possible — up to $135 billion — we also need to send a message that we will never falter in going after criminals who take advantage of our support for those in need. … There is no time to waste."
According to estimates from the Government Accountability Office, as much as $135 billion in pandemic unemployment insurance programs was lost to fraud during the pandemic. So far, only $5 billion, or less than 4%, has been recovered.
Between the Department of Justice and the Department of Labor, there are more than 2,500 uncharged criminal matters or ongoing field investigations related to COVID-era criminal unemployment fraud, according to a fact sheet released by Smith.
Unless the statute of limitations is extended by Congress, federal law enforcement will be unable to prosecute these cases.
Moylan noted the majority of unemployment fraud during COVID stemmed from "loopholes" so big "you could drive a truck through" them in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program.
It was deliberate. The idea was to get money out there fast, to keep the economy from collapsing by any means necessary.
"They didn't have strict enough paperwork requirements, and, so, basically anybody could apply for it and just attest that they were engaged in self-employed activity … and claim significant amounts of unemployment benefits in the process," Moylan said. He also pointed out how people were applying for financial assistance under the names of dead people or prison inmates.
"In California, about a billion dollars worth of fraud was facilitated by making claims on behalf of prisoners in prisons in California," he said.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] On the evening of March 28, a new flare of the highest X-point was registered on the Sun. This was reported by the press service of the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy.
The exact measured level of the flare is X1.1. The maximum radiation was recorded at 18:20 Moscow time. The laboratory noted that events of this class on the Sun have not been observed for more than a month; the last time a flare of the highest level was recorded was on February 23.
"According to observations, the explosion occurred on the eastern edge of the Sun. The event does not initially pose a danger to the Earth, but the location of the flash will be in close proximity to the Sun-Earth line in a few days. If the event is a harbinger of a new series of activity, then direct strikes on the Earth will be possible from the middle of next week," the report says.
The laboratory added that some of the energy was most likely shielded by the solar disk, and the actual magnitude of the flare could be higher.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on February 23, astronomers recorded a super-powerful flare on the Sun. It was noted that it was the result of a rapid increase in solar activity, which began a day before the flare and continued at the time of the flare. In the middle of the same day, astronomers recorded three flares of medium level M.
On January 23, astronomers captured a black jet of light from the surface of the Sun, a rare phenomenon. The effect occurs because the large mass of neutral hydrogen gas almost completely absorbs short-wavelength radiation falling on it from behind, making it appear black.
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.
One of the more expansive exhibits in the museum is the "More Than a Medal" exhibit. Inside, visitors will find memorabilia and personal effects that let visitors put faces to the nation's most prestigious military award.
