CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. (WHAM) — Two people convicted in the torture and murder of Sam Nordquist received the maximum sentence Tuesday, coming face to face with his family before being sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Precious Arzuaga and Jennifer Quijano are the first defendants to be sentenced in the killing of Nordquist, 24, a transgender man from Oakdale, Minnesota, who traveled to the Finger Lakes region in September 2024 and stayed at Patty's Lodge in Hopewell.

Authorities said Nordquist was tortured from Jan. 1 to Feb. 2, 2025, before his body was found in a Yates County field Feb. 13, 2025.

from the the-censorship-police-are-getting-bolder dept

Another senior Trump administration official [Adam Candeub] is gleefully showing off his true colors: The current general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published an opinion column with the Heritage Foundation’s news outlet The Daily Signal calling for stronger obscenity regulation.

[...] Candeub proposes a supposed moral restoration of obscenity laws such that anything viewed through the lens of non-traditional sexual expression could be fair game for legislatures to heavily restrict or outright ban.

[...] Candeub works for the FCC and is backing a legal strategy that’s been used, historically, to aggressively prosecute women, LGBTQ+ individuals, entire communities of color, consensual sex workers, and pornographic and non-pornographic publishers for their speech.

This is the FCC presenting itself as the morality speech police.

Mystery surrounding Senator Mitch McConnell’s health is deepening as the US Congress prepares to return from recess next week.

McConnell, 84, has not been seen in public since he was admitted to hospital in the Washington area on 14 June. Nearly a month later, the Kentucky Republican’s office has released only sparse updates, saying he is “continuing to improve” and remains engaged with Senate business, while refusing to disclose the nature of his illness or explain why he remains hospitalised.

• Video of EMS
• Audio of 911 call

To quote the man himself, "Hello Youtubes!"

By dying, on August 21 Dr. James Dobson, evangelical thought leader, anti-gay activist, and staunch defender of child abuse, did the only good thing he ever did with his life.

[...]

His most famous work, 1970’s Dare To Discipline, stands as both his entry into the  public consciousness and as an early salvo of his views. It endorses hitting toddlers as young as two and three years old (pg. 40 & 41, et al)*. It praises trauma bonding–which is classified as a form of abuse by many actual practicing psychologists, for the record–as a genuine expression of parental love (ch.1 p.2,  pg. 23), bemoans the lack of stick-beatings in the classroom (ch. 3, pg.81) and spends a good deal of a book on raising children decrying the ACLU (pg. 87), the  agency of women (pg. 39 & 40, et al), birth control (pg. 146), and most if not all  expressions of human sexuality (ch. 5). 

A follow-up, 1978’s The Strong Willed Child, begins by recounting a time he beat the shit out of his dog (p. 11-14)  and goes on to extol the virtues of doing the same to children.

Health departments around the country have noticed there's something strange happening with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: It's not showing up on schedule and there's been no communication about why.

The federal public health agency doles out most of the money it receives from Congress to state and local health departments, which then contract with local organizations. That's how public health work gets funded in the U.S.

According to two CDC staff members with knowledge of the agency's budget, the CDC has yet to receive its full funding for the 2025 fiscal year. NPR agreed not to name the staff members because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

[...]

"If they can delay until the end of September, then that's it," the staffer adds. "Those projects are not going to happen. That money goes straight back to Treasury."

That's why both CDC staffers who spoke with NPR say this amounts to impounding the agency's funding.

The number of homicides is falling dramatically nationwide.

In 2024, murders fell by at least 14% across the U.S., according to analyses by the data firm AH Datalytics and the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank. Official data from the FBI goes only through 2023 but shows similar drops. Early analyses from AH Datalytics suggest the drop will be even bigger in 2025.

Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit in a South Florida federal court on Friday over the immigration detention center under construction in the Everglades that has been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”

They later filed a motion for expedited relief, seeking entry of a temporary restraining order by July 1.

The environmental groups complain the plan has not gone through any environmental review as required under federal law, and that the public has not had an opportunity to comment.

“The site is more than 96% wetlands, surrounded by the Big Cypress National Preserve, and is habitat for the endangered Florida Panther and other iconic species,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. “The scheme is not only cruel, it threatens the Everglades ecosystem that state and federal taxpayers have spent billions to protect.”

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/planetary-defense/2025/04/02/nasa-update-on-the-size-estimate-and-lunar-impact-probability-of-asteroid-2024-yr4/

Tuesday’s decision temporarily stops the bill from moving forward.

The Florida Senate Committee on Criminal Justice has struck down a proposal to allow guns on college campuses.

The bill (SB 914) sponsored by Brevard Republican Senator Randy Fine, failed to get enough “yes” votes on Tuesday after one Republican rejected the idea.

Florida lawmakers rolled back some of the state’s child labor protections last year. Now, a proposal is advancing in Tallahassee that would strip them completely for those 16 and older.

The rollback would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to work full-time, including late nights and days longer than eight-hour even on school nights without required breaks. The proposal would also waive those same protections for 14- and 15-year-olds who are enrolled in home school, virtual education, or those who have already graduated and received a high school diploma.