The General News/Current Affairs Thread

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Alec Baldwin Fired Prop Gun That Killed Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, Injured Director

Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on a set in New Mexico on Thursday, accidentally killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza.

The incident occurred on the set of “Rust,” an independent feature that was filming at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, a popular production location south of Santa Fe.

Hutchins, 42, was transported by helicopter to University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, where she died. Souza, 48, was taken by ambulance to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, where he is undergoing treatment for his injuries, according to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office.

The Sheriff’s office said in a statement that Hutchins and Souza “were shot when a prop firearm was discharged by Alec Baldwin, 68, producer and actor.”

No one was arrested in the incident, and no charges have been filed, the office said. Detectives were interviewing witnesses, and the incident remains under an “open and active” investigation, according to the Sheriff’s office.

Baldwin’s reps did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hutchins’ death was confirmed by the Sheriff’s office and by the International Cinematographers Guild, Local 600.

“We received the devastating news this evening, that one of our members, Halyna Hutchins, the Director of Photography on a production called ‘Rust’ in New Mexico died from injuries sustained on the set,” said John Lindley, the president of the guild, and Rebecca Rhine, the executive director, in a statement. “The details are unclear at this moment, but we are working to learn more, and we support a full investigation into this tragic event. This is a terrible loss, and we mourn the passing of a member of our Guild’s family.”

The Sheriff’s office received a 911 call reporting the incident at 1:50 p.m. Mountain Time.

“The Santa Fe County sheriff’s office confirms that two individuals were shot during filming of a scene on the set of the movie western ‘Rust’,” the office said in its initial statement. “According to investigators it appears that the scene being filmed involved the use of a prop firearm when it was discharged. Detectives are investigating how and what type of projectile was discharged.”

Hutchins graduated from the American Film Institute in 2015, and had worked on several short films before shooting “Archenemy,” a 2020 feature starring Joe Manganiello. She was named a “rising star” by American Cinematographer in 2019.

“She’s a wonderful, positive, creative person that was so excited to be breaking through and making movies,” said Michael Pessah, a cinematographer who was a friend of Hutchins’. “She was really on the upswing.”

Souza is writing and directing the Western, which also stars Frances Fisher, Jensen Ackles, Brady Noon and Travis Fimmel. Albuquerque station KOB4’s news helicopter photographed the incident, showing an old church set blocked off, and reported that set security confirmed it is on lockdown.




Baldwin is a co-producer on the film and plays infamous outlaw Rust, whose 13-year-old grandson is convicted of an accidental murder. Ackles plays a U.S. Marshal and Fimmel plays a bounty hunter who are on the pair’s tail as Rust tries to break his grandson out of prison. An unexpected bond forms between the outlaw and his estranged grandson as they go on the run.

CAA Media Finance and Highland Film Group were launching sales on the film at last year’s Cannes virtual film market, with Baldwin producing through his El Dorado Pictures banner alongside Anjul Nigam and executive producer Matthew Helderman. Baldwin and Nigam produced Souza’s previous feature, 2019’s “Crown Vic.” Anna Granucci is also producing with Elizabeth L. Barbatelli as an executive producer.

New Mexico is a busy film location, and the Bonanza Creek Ranch has hosted productions including “Hostiles,” “Cowboys & Aliens,” “3:10 to Yuma,” “Appaloosa” and “Longmire.”

Source: Variety

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I feel bad for Baldwin, and for the woman and her family too, of course. It's a fucked up situation.

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Woman Allegedly Breastfeeds Cat on Delta Airlines Flight

A woman on a recent Delta Airlines flight allegedly began to breastfeed her pet cat mid-flight and refused to stop after getting caught.

The incident allegedly happened during a recent trip onboard Delta Flight 1360, a route that travels between Syracuse, New York and Atlanta, Georgia. An image posted to social media suggests that the purported cat breastfeeding happened while the plane was headed towards Atlanta, although it is not clear exactly when the incident happened.

The image circulating online describes the supposed event in what appears to be a screen capture of message sent using the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which pilots use to transmit short text-based messages to the ground.

The message reports that a passenger is seat 13A "is breastfeeding a cat and will not put cat back in carrier" in response to a request from a flight attendant. The message asks that the situation be addressed by the airline's "Red Coat" team upon landing. Delta describes members of the team as "elite airport customer service experts" who are "specially trained to handle on-the-stop customer issues."



Beyond the purported ACARS message, which Newsweek has not independently verified, little other information about the supposed incident was available as of Friday.

However, a TikTok account from flight attendant Ainsley Elizabeth appears to refer to the incident, with a video posted on November 2 claiming that "security met the flight because a woman was breastfeeding her cat."

"This woman had one of those, like, hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby," Ainsley Elizabeth said in a follow-up video posted on November 13. "Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn't put the cat back in the carrier. And the cat was screaming for its life."

"What does she do at home if she's doing that in public?" she asked. "And then security met the flight just to tell her that she couldn't do that again, cause it was weird and gross."

Newsweek reached out to Delta Airlines for comment.

There are no laws that prohibit mothers from breastfeeding their human babies during flight. Delta policy also allows breastfeeding during flights, although it seems unlikely that the policy would apply to the breastfeeding of non-human animals such as cats.

"Delta fully supports a woman's right to breastfeed on board Delta and Delta Connection aircraft and in Delta facilities," the airline's policy states. "Breast pumps are allowed on board. At the airport and if you prefer, many airports do offer private lactation rooms or spaces. Ask a Delta associate if you need assistance locating one at an airport."

Although Delta policy also allows pets including cats to travel on flights, animals are required to "remain inside the kennel (with door secured) while in a Delta boarding area (during boarding and deplaning), a Delta airport lounge and while on board the aircraft."

Most airlines around the world have also recently tightened policies on "emotional support animals" flying after a series of incidents involving passengers demanding that creatures like peacocks, ferrets, horses, ducks and snakes be allowed to accompany them.

Delta no longer allows emotional support animals to fly, following a new rule from the Department of Transportation that states the animals do not qualify as service animals, a category that includes only trained dogs.

Source: Newsfeed

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The funny thing is he went to fashion designing school before Twitter but he looks like he's homeless every time I've seen him.

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Bomb squad called to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital after man gets WWII mortar stuck up his bottom


Unfortunate trip sees man at centre of bomb drama

The bomb squad was called to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital on Thursday (December 2), after a patient was admitted with a mortar shell stuck in his rectum.

Troops from 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Regiment rushed to the Gloucester hospital after being notified by police "that a patient had presented with amunition in his rectum."

The man was a military enthusiast who found the shell while clearing out, but somehow "tripped" and fell onto the 57mm piece of army ordnance that landed him in hospital, according to The Sun.

The 57mm mortar round was used by the Royal Artillery in the Second World War as anti-tank rounds, though it would later also be used by British tanks in North Africa.

These rounds measure at 57mm in diameter and an eye-watering 170mm in length.

A source told The Sun: "The guy said he found the shell when he was having a clear out of his stuff.

"He said he put it on the floor then he slipped and fell on it — and it went up his arse."

The MoD said: “We can confirm an Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team was called out to Gloucestershire at the request of local police.”

A spokesperson for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said: "We can confirm that the police and Explosive Ordnance Disposal team (EOD) attended Gloucestershire Royal Hospital yesterday.

"As with any incident involving munitions, the relevant safety protocols were followed to ensure that there was no risk to patients, staff or visitors at any time."

The unsteady patient was released from hospital and is expected to make a full recovery, so long as he does not trip and fall onto any more artillery shells.

Source: Gloucestershire Live

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He'll have a hard time convincing them he fell on it, isnt it amazing how many pants fall off when people fall over

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Bay Area horse molester sentenced to jail

A man who sexually molested horses at an equestrian center in the Marin Headlands was sentenced to 210 days in jail on Tuesday.

Koshaun Dion Baker, 23, was also ordered to register as a sex offender for life and stay at least 100 yards from the crime scene, the Presidio Riding Club, as well as other stables and barns.

“The brutality of this defendant’s act is reprehensible,” said Marin County District Attorney Lori Frugoli. “Whether the victim is a human being or animal, there is no place in our society for this kind of cruelty.”

Park rangers discovered the crimes at about 5 a.m. Sept. 21 after receiving a report of horses running loose at the club. Rangers learned that someone had broken into the building, vandalized it and released about 10 horses, according to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Video surveillance footage showed a man committing those crimes has well as standing on a stool and sexually assaulting a horse, the probation department said in a sentencing report.

Rangers found a vehicle crashed in a ditch near the riding club and arrested Baker about 200 yards away.

“During the interview with the defendant, he admitted to crashing his vehicle, breaking into the buildings to get tools to get his vehicle out, and sexually assaulting the horses,” the probation report said. “He further stated he wasunder the influence of mushrooms while the events occurred.”

A veterinarian examined the horses and found that four mares had signs of “physical trauma” in their genital areas, the report said.

The Marin County District Attorney’s Office filed charges of burglary, vandalism, animal cruelty and sexual contact with an animal. Baker accepted a plea agreement and admitted to the animal cruelty and bestiality counts.


Judge Paul Haakenson held the sentencing by teleconference on Tuesday afternoon. Two of the horse owners spoke about their distress over the crimes.

“I was in tears for two weeks straight,” said Jenny Seyranian, a Corte Madera resident. “This guy was the epitome of a predator. This selfish, disgusting act affected all of us.”

“I hope he gets locked up,” she said. “I will never forgive him.”

Baker made no statement during the hearing. His public defender, Kimberly Fitzgerald, noted that Baker had a “very troubled and terrible upbringing” that included sexual abuse.

Haakenson sentenced Baker in accordance with the plea agreement, even though the jail time initially struck him as “light.” But he said the maximum sentence would have been three years and six months, which Baker would served at half time under state law, and then been released with no supervision or treatment.

Haakenson’s sentence includes two years of supervised probation and therapy.

With credit for time served and half-time credits, Baker should be released from the Marin County Jail in about a month. But Baker, a native of Louisiana, also is wanted by authorities in the New Orleans area, where he is suspected of “unnatural sex acts” with two horses at a group of stables late last year, according to a police bulletin.

Baker also has an outstanding warrant from August in connection with a theft case in Waco, Texas, according to the probation report.

Source: Marin Independent Journal


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Congratulations to Elon Musk and his Kim Jong Un haircut.

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Desperate Kim Jong Un Pleads With Citizens to Make More Poop

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North Korean authorities have embarked on a nationwide manure publicity campaign in light of a dire fertilizer shortage across the country.

SEOUL—North Korea is placing as much emphasis on producing manure as it is on firing missiles, and it doesn’t matter whether it comes from people or animals.

While test-firing two missiles in less than a week, North Korea has been waging “the battle for manure,” which is far more vital for average North Koreans than the splash of another test-shot into the sea off the east coast.

The quest has reached crisis level over the past two years as fertilizer almost stopped coming in from China after North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un closed borders at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. And then, last March, the North refused donations from South Korea while demanding an end to U.S. and UN sanctions.

The urgency of the quest “doesn’t sound like ‘BS’ to me,” Victor Cha, who is in charge of North Korea issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told The Daily Beast. “It’s an interesting commentary that ‘smells’ of how serious the crop situation is without the annual fertilizer shoveled out by South Korea.”

And it’s all happening, said Cha, while “we are constantly digging ourselves out of the crap created by the latest North Korean missile launches,” most recently on Tuesday.

Just to make sure everyone gets the need to produce enough excrement in a hurry, according to Daily NK, which monitors North Korea from inside the country, entry into markets is closed to those who fail to fulfill their quotas.

With manure, not missiles, ranking as “the first struggle” for the new year, said Daily NK, authorities were “essentially pressuring people” to qualify for a “manure pass” just as South Korean citizens need “quarantine passes” certifying they are vaccinated against COVID-19.

Quotas for producing manure range from 200 kilograms for each household t0 500 kilograms for everyone working in state factories, Daily NK reported, but people did get one break. Markets this month began opening an hour later in the afternoon, from 3 to 5 rather than 2 to five, to give “an extra hour to produce manure.”

How people are to contribute so much manure in a country where animals are in short supply is not clear, but the term “homemade” comes up frequently in reports in the North Korean media heaping praise on efforts to spread enough manure ever since sanctions and COVID-19 began seriously cutting off supplies from China and South Korea in 2020.

“Homemade” by definition covers manure made from excrement of any kind, human or animal, together with weeds, garbage and even ash rich in chemicals. Presumably oxen, on which farms typically rely rather than machinery to till the fields, are also a major source.

In one district in Pyongyang, according to the English-language Pyongyang Times, a cooperative farm spread “hundreds of tons of homemade manure per hectare of vegetables.” Another district produced 1.2 times as much “homemade manure” for potato farming as the year before.

The North Korean propaganda machine does not frame the struggle in terms of incentives or punishment but reports on the manure campaign with an enthusiasm usually reserved for missile launches.

People in Jagang Province, up by the Chinese border, “carried tens of thousands of tons of manure to co-op farms in three days through this year's first campaign,” said one breathless report carried by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency. “Officials of the provincial institutions took the lead in the campaign, guiding the transport of manure to farm fields.”

Down in South Hwanghae Province, on the Yellow Sea southwest of Pyongyang, North Korea’s Premier Kim Tok Hun, visiting a fertilizer factory earlier this month, called for “carpeting” farmland “with good-quality manure” for “decisively increasing the fertility of the soil.”

Urine is also in demand, according to Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-funded website that often reports from contacts inside North Korea. The rural management commission in one province bordering China “instructed the farmers to donate their urine to be mixed into the compost,” RFA reported in May.

RFA quoted one source as saying workers were “forced to bring two liters of urine per person per day to mix into the compost pile until the production goal is achieved” and had to “keep track of their donated urine in a record book.”

Such reports seemed intended to increase rivalry among regions as well as officials and individuals for the honor of producing the most manure.

“The authorities are apparently generating an atmosphere of competition,” said Daily NK, reporting that directors and officials were “focused on fulfilling their quotas, afraid that units that fall behind will face ‘thorough review’—a euphemism obviously for severe punishment.” Low-level officials “are protecting themselves,” said the report, by imposing fines on those who failed to meet quotas.

Kim Jong Un in meetings with leaders of the ruling Workers’ Party, of which he is general secretary, has repeatedly placed top emphasis on agriculture. In his final speech to party members at the end of the year, according to KCNA, he said the country faced “a great life-and-death struggle" requiring “radical progress in solving the food, clothing and housing problem”—language that would seem to make clear he’s more interested in feeding his people than firing missiles.

Kim didn’t get into specifics in his speech, but KCNA quoted him in 2014 advising agricultural leaders to “use all sources of manure such as domestic animal excrement, night soil [human excrement], compost and ditch-bed soil.”

Source: Daily Beast

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The Queen pretty much kicked Prince Andrew out of the royal family.


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Adult who, at 17, sexually assaulted child is sentenced to juvenile facility

A 26-year-old transgender woman who, at age 17, sexually assaulted a child will serve a two-year sentence in a juvenile facility rather than a jail for adults, a judge ruled Thursday.

The case of Hannah Tubbs, who has admitted sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl in 2014 in the bathroom of a Denny’s restaurant in Palmdale, has thrown a spotlight on Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s refusal to seek the transfer of juvenile defendants to adult court. Gascón has argued that the brains of juveniles aren’t fully developed and that the proper setting to rehabilitate people who commit crimes while underage is a juvenile treatment facility.

Although Tubbs committed the sexual assault in 2014, she was not arrested and charged with the crime until January 2021, when Gascón was in office. In the interim, she had been arrested for battery, drug possession and probation violations in Idaho and Washington and convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in Kern County, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials. She was also arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a minor but wasn’t prosecuted for the alleged offense, according to court records.

In November, Tubbs admitted sexually assaulting the 10-year-old girl, an attack that law enforcement officials said stopped only when someone else walked into the bathroom. Prosecutors, however, never filed a motion seeking to transfer her case to adult court, where she could have faced a longer sentence that would be served in a prison or jail that houses adults.

“I want to be clear,” Superior Court Judge Mario Barrera said at a hearing Thursday in a Lancaster courtroom. “The filing of a transfer motion is entirely within the discretion of the district attorney.”

Gascón previously told The Times that the victim, who has moved away from California and remains in therapy, did not want to testify at a trial. He also expressed concern that as a transgender woman, Tubbs could be victimized in a jail for adults. In a youth facility, he said, she could receive treatment and therapy.

Absent a request from the prosecution to transfer the case to adult court, Barrera said he was “extremely limited” in the sentence he could impose on Tubbs for the sexual assault. She was ordered in December to spend two years in a juvenile facility, which the judge called the “maximum time allowed pursuant to the law.” Tubbs has already been in custody for a year.

After the two-year sentence was imposed, lawyers for the Los Angeles County Probation Department, which administers the juvenile facilities, asked Barrera to order that Tubbs serve her term in a county jail, where she’d be held among adult offenders. That request was the focus of the hearing Thursday, where Barrera and the lawyers wrestled with how to interpret the language of a statute that governs how and where to house offenders who commit crimes while underage.

Tubbs did not appear in court for the hearing. Her lawyer, Maceo Lewis, asked Barrera to bar a television crew, radio journalist and photographer from the courtroom, saying that his client had been assaulted in custody because of the publicity surrounding her case and that additional media coverage would threaten her safety. The judge denied his request.

Justin Clark, a lawyer for the county, argued that the court had the discretion to grant the probation department’s request to place Tubbs in an adult lock-up. If Tubbs were kept in a youth facility, “the reality is that she will be housed in isolation,” for her safety and others, Clark said.

Barrera ultimately denied the request, saying the state Legislature had limited a judge’s authority to transfer someone who committed a crime as a juvenile to adult custody, even if the offender was no longer underage at the time of his or her detention.

Barrera ordered that the probation department take custody of Tubbs on Thursday and transport her to a youth facility, either Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar or the Dorothy Kirby Center in Commerce, where she will serve out the remainder of her two-year term. It’s unclear where Tubbs has been housed for the past year.

Tubbs’ lawyer declined to comment after the hearing.

Outside the courtroom, Deputy Dist. Atty. Shea Sanna, who had supported the probation department’s request to house Tubbs in a county jail, said he had wanted her placed in an adult facility so she would “not be around impressionable children.”

“You have a violent child sexual predator who’s been sentenced to two years in a juvenile facility,” he said. “As a prosecutor,” he added, “I’m not here to protect child molesters.”

Sanna said that because Tubbs was underage when she sexually assaulted the girl, she would not be required to register as a sex offender.

He declined to comment on the decision by the D.A.'s office not to seek a transfer of her case to an adult court.

Calling the resolution of Tubbs’ case “unsatisfactory,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes Palmdale, criticized the district attorney’s office for not seeking to try Tubbs in adult court — “where she rightly belongs,” Barger said in a statement. “Instead, we’re left with a 26-year-old individual sentenced to two years in a juvenile facility in isolation, separated by sight and sound from the other juveniles.”

Source: LA Times

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Canada is getting buck wild.

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I love Canada so much.

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