Abortion Videos Blocked, Dressing Like Crap
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Vol. 4, No. 213
Nation: A federal judge in San Francisco has agreed to block an anti-abortion group from releasing more sting videos purporting to show employees of Planned Parenthood discussing the illegal sale of aborted fetal tissue. The Center for Medical Progress had infiltrated its agents into private meetings to videotape discussions. The National Abortion federation, which represents abortion providers, says the CMP videos are an invasion of privacy and were edited to be misleading and make Planned Parenthood look bad. Partly as a result of the videos, congressional Republicans have been moving to take federal funding away from Planned Parenthood.
World: Negotiations for the big Pacific trade deal that President Obama hopes will be one of the landmarks of his presidency have stalled after a flare-up over auto trade between Japan and North America. New Zealand also got its back up over dairy trade.
Ministers say the deal isn’t dead, just difficult. The agreement would involve 12 Pacific countries and cover 40 percent of the world economy.
>Family members of the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were among the four people killed in the crash of a private jet outside London in southern England. The pilot and three others died when the jet crashed on landing at the end of the runway. The bin Laden family, which disowned Osama, owns a major construction company.
The Fire This Time: California Gov. Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency as his dry state burns through the summer with sprouting wildfires. The state has eight active major fires covering more than 25,000 acres.
The body of a US Forest Service firefighter was found on the line in northeastern California yesterday. The cause of his death hasn’t been given.
The Roundup: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced via Facebook that he and his wife Priscilla Chan are having a baby. And in the style of his generation, but not necessarily his personal style, he revealed the normally personal and private information that his wife had gone through three miscarriages.
>Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and husband Bill disclosed eight years of tax returns, revealing that they have made $141 million since 2007 and paid $44 million in federal taxes. They gave $15 million to charity.
>The Coast Guard has called off its weeklong search for two Florida teenagers who went fishing offshore in a 19-foot boat and never returned. The boat was found capsized, but there’s been no trace of Perry Cohen and Austin Stephanos, both 14.
The Obit Page: Dr. Howard Jones, a surgeon who developed in vitro fertilization, has died at age 104. A common practice today, joining a human egg and sperm in a Petrie dish before implanting in the mother was once known as creating a “test tube baby.” Jones and his physician wife Georgeanna conceived their own first child in vitro and as many as 5 million have been born since.
>Country singer Lynn Anderson, who was best known for her 1971 hit (I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden, has died, at age 67 after a heart attack in Nashville.
Broadway Hit: New York Post critic Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote a column this week panning, not a Broadway show, but the patrons, some of whom wear Crocs rubber shoes to the theater. Her piece titled “For the Love of God, Stop Dressing Like Crap” pointed out that, “at a recent performance of ‘Penn & Teller on Broadway,’ many women looked as if they had stepped out of a jazzercise class, while men ambled around in hideous cargo shorts.” She said, “No wonder everybody from Patti LuPone on down is complaining that nobody knows how to behave anymore: If you dress like a child, chances are you’re going to act like one.”
-30-
Leave a Reply