An ongoing fight in Utah to ban pride flags in schools entered new territory Thursday after Rep. Trevor Lee proposed new legislation to ban the flags not just in public schools, but in any government building or on any government property. The bill, HB0077, originally applied only to schools. But an update to the bill released ahead of Thursday’s House Education Committee hearing expands the ban to all government buildings or property.
Approved flags for display in government buildings and schools would include the Utah state and U.S. flags, military flags, flags for other countries, flags for Native American tribes and official flags for colleges and universities. The bill also allows for the flying of a “historic version of a flag … that is temporarily displayed for educational purposes,” which Lee, R-Layton, said would include the Confederate and Nazi flags.
Read the full article. In his floor speech, Lee said, “You may have a Nazi flag. You may have a Confederate flag, and so you are allowed to display those flags as part of the curriculum, and that is okay.” An attempt to ban Pride flags failed in 9-20 Utah Senate vote last year. As you’ll see in the video report below, Lee has a history. His X feed is mostly retweets of prominent cultists and extremists. He’s also attacking the “dumb” report linked above.
A new bill would allow for Nazi and Confederate flags to be displayed in Utah schools and government buildings, but pride flags would be banned. https://t.co/Itdt9Ldocl
The earliest evidence that humans inhabited rainforests has been found in Africa, a surprising find which pushes human settlement in these habitats much further back than previously thought.
Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved about 300,000 years ago in Africa. The ecological and environmental circumstances in which our species evolved are still not well understood.
It is likely that our ape-like ancestors millions of years ago did live in dense rainforests. But the retreat of Africa’s forests and the spread of savannah and grasslands as Earth’s climate dried is usually linked to the evolution of bipedalism in early human ancestors as far back as 7 million years ago.
As a result, rainforests have often been overlooked as important habitats in the evolution of early modern humans.
New research published in Nature has put a dent in this assumption.
The evidence comes from a site which dates to 150,000 years ago in present-day Côte d’Ivoire on the southern coast of West Africa.
“Before our study, the oldest secure evidence for inhabitation in African rainforests was around 18,000 years ago and the oldest evidence of rainforest inhabitation anywhere came from southeast Asia at about 70,000 years ago,” says lead author Eslem Ben Arous, from Spain’s National Centre for Human Evolution Research (CENIEH) and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany.
The site was first investigated in the 1980s when ancient stone tools were discovered. But the age of the tools and the ancient ecology couldn’t be determined with the technology of the day.
The trench initially excavated by Professor Guédé’s team was overgrown when researchers returned for the current study. Credit: Jimbob Blinkhorn, MPG.
“Several recent climate models suggested the area could have been a rainforest refuge in the past as well, even during dry periods of forest fragmentation,” says senior author Eleanor Scerri, from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. “We knew the site presented the best possible chance for us to find out how far back rainforest inhabitation extended.”
The anthropologists used several dating techniques including optically stimulated luminescence and electron-spin resonance to determine the stone tools were 150,000 years old.
Stone tools like this one, excavated at the Anyama site, reveal that humans were present at the rainforested site roughly 150,000 years ago. Credit: Jimbob Blinkhorn, MPG.
Sediment samples also showed the region was heavily wooded, with pollen and leaf waxes typically found in humid West African rainforests. Low levels of grass pollen show it wasn’t a narrow strip of forest either, but in a dense woodland.
This evidence suggests that some early modern humans lived in rainforests while others stuck to their grassland and savannah homes.
“Convergent evidence shows beyond doubt that ecological diversity sits at the heart of our species,” says Scerri. “This reflects a complex history of population subdivision, in which different populations lived in different regions and habitat types.
“We now need to ask how these early human niche expansions impacted the plants and animals that shared the same niche-space with humans. In other words, how far back does human alteration of pristine natural habitats go?”
“This exciting discovery is the first of a long list as there are other Ivorian sites waiting to be investigated to study the human presence associated with rainforest,” says Guédé.
The site which yielded these stone tools has since been destroyed by mining.
🪓DELETION UPDATE—More than 1,000 pages are now deleted from websites of CDC, National Institutes of Health, and other sites of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a new WSJ analysis—including many **vaccine recommendation** scientific pages! https://t.co/nA23A8qDQIpic.twitter.com/u5bHXUVRHE
NEW: Elon Musk's friends have infiltrated the GSA and they're looking for ways to use White House credentials to access agency tech, potentially allowing them to remote into laptops, read emails, and more, sources say.w/ @zoeschiffer.bsky.social http://www.wired.com/story/elon-m…
It’s also the latest example of Trump trying to blame the Biden administration and Democrats on issues that arise during his term. Trump’s memo alleges that Biden’s administration “egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all agencies to implement dangerous ‘diversity equity and inclusion’ tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with ‘severe intellectual’ disabilities in the FAA.”
This videos are hard to watch, I had to fast forward over the part showing the man harassing these people and acting like a deranged gang thug, which maga is. It is going to get worse as more of these vigilantes think they have a right to be enforcers of their own opinions. We need to make sure that every event is punished and made public to stop these people from acting this way. Hugs
A south Carolina man is in jail for illegally detaining people he thought were “illegals”
Canceling any non white male centric holiday in the name of DEI? Sounds about Project 2025 of them.
Wanting lower grocery prices is good; believing a liar is not.
Deporting his supporters: They got your vote, they don’t need you anymore.
Looks like DOGE is coming for the Department of Labor next.
An amendment from Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat, to modify the bill’s language so best interests of a child in foster or adoptive care remained the top priority at DCF was rejected by the House. She said the amendment was necessary because the bill was drafted in a way that could force a subsection of children in Kansas to endure more trauma.
“You have to remember why children come into the system in the first place,” Ruiz said. “They come into the system because of abuse and neglect, and it comes in so many forms.”
Ruiz told House colleagues that Kansas youth were physically beaten and emotionally traumatized by parents and church leaders who wanted children to adhere to a certain sexual orientation or gender identity. Some kids were expected to “pray away the gay,” she said.
Others were compelled to undergo so-called conversion therapy, she said. It has little basis in science, but proposes to erase a person’s gender identity or sexuality — usually to conform to ideals of other people.
“This bill opens up the door to one of the most horrible forms of therapy that any human being can be exposed to,” Ruiz said. (Snip-MORE)
TOPEKA (KSNT) – Kansas’ attorney general and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) have signed a deal to assist federal immigration forces in the Sunflower State.
Danedri Herbert with the Kansas Office of the Attorney General said in a press release on Monday, Feb. 17 that Attorney General Kris Kobach and the KBI have signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This will allow KBI agents to work alongside Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove immigrants who are residing in Kansas illegally.
A limited number of KBI agents will receive ICE training that authorizes the agents to arrest immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, serve and execute warrants for some immigration violations and issue immigration detainers, according to the press release. Herbert said a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes states and political subdivisions of a state to enter into agreements like this. (snip-MORE)
I got up because I couldn’t sleep. But YouTube in their wisdom of algorithms had this in my feed. I watched it. At one point the man Glen talks of how it stays with you. It does. Always. Now I will try to work. Hugs
Ripped from their families at a young age, two survivors reveal the harrowing truth of Canada’s residential school system.
As young children, Lyna and Glen were taken from their homes and placed in church-run boarding schools. The trauma of this experience was made worse by years of untold physical, sexual and emotional abuse, the effects of which persist in their adult lives.In this emotional film, the profound impact of the Canadian government’s residential school system is conveyed unflinchingly through the eyes of two children who were forced to face hardships beyond their years. We Were Children gives voice to a national tragedy and demonstrates the incredible resilience of the human spirit.
Directed by Tim Wolochatiuk and written by Jason Sherman, We Were Children is produced by Kyle Irving for Eagle Vision Inc. and David Christensen for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Warning: this film contains disturbing content and is recommended for audiences 16 years of age and older. Parental discretion, and/or watching this film within a group setting, is strongly advised. If you need counselling support, please contact Health Canada.
Scottie's Playtime 