Q: IS THE ABORTION PILL (AKA RU-486, CHEMICAL ABORTION, PLAN C, MEDICATION ABORTION, OR THE MISSED PERIOD PILL) THE SAME THING AS PLAN B? A: The short answer: no.   PLAN B Plan B and RU-486 are made of different medications. Plan B is levonorgestrel 1.5 mg (a synthetic form of the pregnancy hormone progestin) […]

Despite President Joe Biden being in office for over 9 months, the validity of the 2020 presidential election results is still being questioned.

Some Republican lawmakers have fueled this lie with their statements. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been vocal about her false belief that the election was stolen from former President Trump. She has voiced her support for the Stop the Steal movement alongside Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones at a political rally and wore a “Trump Won” mask on the U.S. House floor.

Former President Trump has also been vocal about the fraudulent election. After the 2020 election results, Trump was adamant that voter fraud kept him from reelection. Recently, he has advertised on his political campaign emails that over 15 million U.S. ballots were unaccounted for in the 2020 presidential election.

The most blatant consequence of this misinformation was the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol earlier this year. The storming of the capitol by people wishing to overturn the 2020 election results caused $30 million worth of damages from people graffitiing the building, breaking windows and stealing objects.

Several people died during this attack on the Capitol: both perpetrator and defender. This attack has potentially sparked an era of violent political uprisings in our country, and federal law enforcement has prepared for such. Metal fencing surrounded the capital for months following the insurrection and only recently came down.

Another consequence was the creation of the “Stop the Steal” movement by Trump supporters, which supports extremist and far-right policies. The Proud Boys, a group of white supremacists who engaged in violence in the 2016 Charlottesville protests, are heavily involved in this movement. Many of them were arrested at the insurrection.

The Proud Boys chapter in Utah is known to spread hateful messages laced with misogyny, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. They have also involved themselves in local politics by speaking against teaching critical race theory in Granite school district schools.

Despite the chaos and unrest that the election fraud narrative has caused, Republican legislators are still continuing to question the validity of the election, even though these claims have been disputed many times. Recently, Republican lawmakers have been trying to prove that Arizona did not vote blue, but evidence has suggested the contrary. Frighteningly enough, 53% of Republicans in the U.S. believe that the election rightfully belongs to former President Trump.

This untrue rhetoric that some Republicans are trying to spread that Biden “stole” the election is harmful and must be stopped. If Republicans don’t hold each other accountable for this misinformation, more conflict could arise.

Due to the lack of accountability for the spread of this misinformation, we’ve seen this harmful rhetoric continue to spread in our state. During the 2021 legislative session, Rep. Joel Briscoe attempted to pass a resolution acknowledging the success of the mail-in voting process in Utah for the 2020 election process. Rep. Norm Thurston and Rep. Phil Lyman, who are both Republican legislators, refused to support the resolution unless there was a re-write that removed “divisive themes.” The resolution was then edited to remove language recognizing the success of the 2020 presidential election in Utah.

Utah has been conducting successful mail-in voting since 2012, which leads me to believe that Rep. Thurston and Rep. Lyman don’t have issues with Utah mail-in voting, but rather are against admitting that the 2020 presidential election was legitimate.

Such blatant displays of ignorance by our legislators have only kindled distrust in the election among Utah Republicans. 41% of Utah Republicans believe that the election had widespread voter fraud.

Republican lawmakers need to do what’s right and denounce the falsities that some of their peers are making. They should support fair election results at every opportunity.

The GOP shouldn’t lie about election fraud so that they can gain political power. If what Rep. Adam Kizinger says is true about most Republican lawmakers privately disavowing Trump’s claims of election fraud, then they need to stop privately disagreeing and start publicly disagreeing.

Republicans are setting a dangerous precedent by lying about the validity of the election to maintain their political presence. For a party that claims they value honesty and integrity, they sure aren’t showing it with their current acceptance of election conspiracy theorists within their party.

k.forth@dailyutahchronicle.com

@Kateforth_

The post Forth: This Shouldn’t Be Controversial, but Biden Won appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

The No. 12 Gopher volleyball team hosted Northwestern Wednesday night after a long road trip to close out its season series against the Wildcats. Minnesota left victorious in a quicker match than the first time around winning in three sets.

“The one thing you learn from the last time is you gotta respect this team, not that we didn’t last time… We’re good at home, Northwestern is good at home, I was just really proud we were able to find a way to win that night and obviously build off that performance today,” said head coach Hugh McCutcheon.

The Gophers got off to a quick start in the first set behind a strong performance from sophomore Jenna Wenaas. After the Wildcats took a 2-1 lead, Wenaas and the Gophers went on a 8-1 run to jump out to a 9-3 lead.

Northwestern continued to battle and managed to cut the damage in half with a 6-3 run of its own. The Wildcats managed to stay within striking distance after that, but could never quite stop the Gophers.

Redshirt senior Airi Miyabe played a big role for Minnesota in the first set as well, matching Wenaas with five kills. Miyabe finished the first set with a .625 hit percentage while Wenaas was at .444. The Gophers took the first set 25-20.

“I think we got started off strong and we set the pace and we kept to it, which I think also really important that we were able to just keep it going,” Wenaas said on the first set setting the tone for the night.

The Wildcats got off to an early 4-2 lead in the second set, but it would stand as their only lead of the set. Minnesota would go on to take control of the second set behind a 13-2 run including the second successful challenge by McCutcheon.

It was a team effort in the second set to give the Gophers a 2-0 lead. Minnesota picked up three more service aces, but only needed 11 kills in this set to pick up the win. The Gophers picked up a 25-10 win behind redshirt senior Stephanie Samedy who led the way with three kills.

The Gophers had no interest in going to five sets again with the Wildcats and got off to a quick lead. Northwestern didn’t have a lead the whole set as Minnesota jumped out to a 7-3 lead to force a Wildcats’ timeout.

Minnesota wasn’t done there, and continued to extend its lead. The Gophers had some help from the Wildcats making errors but nonetheless earned a three-set sweep. Northwestern gave the Gophers a total of 13 points in the final set between attack and service errors.

“There was good defensive discipline, the team was in good spots, but also we were able to keep it on them. I think there’s a tendency, when you feel like you’re in control, to maybe get a little loose, but the team didn’t, they stayed locked in,” McCutcheon said.

The final set came out 25-14 in favor of Minnesota. Miyabe led the way with 11 kills total while Samedy was right behind with 10 of her own.

The Gophers are back in action Sunday as Indiana comes to town for the first matchup of the season.

“It was really good to be home, it’s always fun playing in the Pav when it’s full, and even when it’s not full it’s super loud. It’s just awesome, we love playing at home,” Wenaas said.

Correction: a previous version of this story misspelled Jenna Wenaas’ last name. 

There are only 24 hours in a day. No one person gets more or less than the same amount of time the next person gets. Time is of the essence here, so what do you do with your 24 hours? 

For Victoria Van Loan, her day is packed with heading to work, packing lunches, studying for classes, writing discussion posts, going to counseling appointments, listening to lectures while cleaning or cooking, helping with her kid’s homework, and more. 

She spends her 24 hours being an online student at the Armstrong campus studying Psychology, but she also just so happens to be a mom of three. 

Initially, she went to a community college after high school in New York, but stopped right before her last semester. She later went on to finish her Associates degree, but it wasn’t until now, in her 40’s, that she really felt the need to get her Bachelor’s degree. 

“I feel like as my kids are getting older, they’re watching and it’s important for me to be something more than just the substitute teacher, or the waitress, or the bartender,” she admitted. “I want to be something for them, so I kind of came to this decision during the pandemic that it was time to go back.”

After moving to Florida, getting married, and moving back to New York, they thought of moving to Georgia which is how she started studying at Georgia Southern. Then they came to the final decision of moving back to Florida, which was always the plan. So on top of being a student and a mother, they are packing up their life and moving down the coast this month. 

Van Loan knew she wanted to do online classes to maintain her and her children’s routine, so Georgia Southern’s program was perfect for her. So far, she has completed two minimesters and is now working through the full, fall semester. 

She appreciatively said that all of her professors, academic advisors, and supporting advisors have been extremely understanding of her situation as a student. For example, if one of her kids is sick, her professor may give her the needed extension on an assignment.  

Van Loan and her wife made the life changing decision, eight years ago, to start fostering. “I always thought that it was really neat that, you know, they could provide a home,” she said. “So when we talked about it, that was our initial thing, to go in to adopt children.”

An emergency situation happened when they initially got their three kids that were siblings. She exclaimed, “We went from zero to three kids in like 20 hours and it was insane.” The first nine months were the hardest, but things got easier after developing a routine.

For a while, the kids were still doing visitations with their birth parents, which was very mentally draining for them. Their judge eventually stopped these visits, and then there was a series of lawyers, courts, bad phone calls with the birth parents, and many setbacks. 

After five years of fighting, they hired a lawyer themselves, and the mother and one of the fathers decided they were done since the county was going to terminate their rights. Three more, strenuous years went by of fighting the other father until they were finally able to adopt. 

“It came to a point where they were our children, and it was our family, and after that long of having them, they didn’t know anyone but us,” Van Loan said. Through the hardships and sacrifices they made, a loving family of five became their light at the end of the tunnel. 

Their son is the youngest of the three at eight-years-old. He has high functioning autism, so he requires a lot more attention then her other children. The middle child, who is 10-years-old, has some comprehension issues from being an alcohol fetal baby. 

Van Loan’s oldest is 13, and had a tough go at it with her birth parents before they got custody. She developed some learning disabilities and PTSD. When she started school a year after they started the adoption process, she had a lot of aggression and communication problems. 

It was hard for Van Loan to really understand what they were going through, so she would stay up all night reading and digging into their mental issues, as well as taking training classes on topics like play therapy. 

All three children require a lot of attention and work through their studies, so to be more involved with her children’s education, she started substitute teaching at their school. Beyond helping her own children, she became a rock and shoulder to lean on for the whole school. 

They noticed her empathy skills with making other, struggling kids comfortable, and would call her in to walk the halls with students that needed help feeling safe and heard. 

Her oldest also had some counselors that were extremely impactful on her family by further teaching her about their issues. “That’s really when I began to know that this is what I wanted to do, and I felt like I was good at it,” Van Loan stated. 

On top of all the draining tasks Van Loan does, and as if she has more than just 24 hours in a day, they also foster children. Whether they would have one child or more for a couple days or months at a time, she was always a phone call away for others in need.

Their foster kids, adopted children, and others at the school that have gone through hardships and developed mental disabilities collectively drove her to know that helping was her calling, and that she wanted to further study psychology.  

Through some of her courses, she has narrowed down her focus to developmental psychology and how someone develops socially and mentally affects the brain. 

She went on to say, “I think we forget that there’s day to day things that happen with kids, just like adults, and they need that mental stability and power, strength to deal with it.” 

Van Loan has a few more semesters to complete her bachelor’s degree, and she then plans on getting her Master’s in Psychology. Her goal is to get a license to do family counseling and child psychology. 

No matter what stage of life you are in, just know that your goals are achievable, and everyone deserves the opportunity to do what they love. Van Loan made this change, despite all of the reasons she “couldn’t” have, despite the adversity her and her family has gone through. 

Education has no age, no limits other than what some may think there are. It is never too late to stop learning or to stop growing. So remember to open up the books every once in a while. “Having no time” is not an excuse anymore if Victoria Van Loan can throughout her very busy days. 

The post Education Has No Age appeared first on The George-Anne Media Group.

Former Dean of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work Marilyn Louise Flynn and Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas were indicted on federal bribery charges that alleged Ridley-Thomas accepted bribes from Flynn “in the form of direct and indirect financial benefits” according to court documents released from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Wednesday. 

The federal charges come after a 2018 United States Attorney’s Office investigation into a large “donation” made between Ridley-Thomas and Flynn. 

In a 20-count indictment filed Wednesday, Ridley-Thomas and Flynn are accused of defrauding through wire communication and honest services. The documents allege the activity occurred between 2017 and 2018.

The activities between Flynn and Ridley-Thomas, who has a doctorate from USC in social ethics, were connected with Ridley-Thomas’ son, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. According to the indictment, Ridley-Thomas conspired with Flynn to allow Sebastian to attend USC on a full-tuition scholarship. In January 2018, Sebastian enrolled to obtain his master’s degree from the school and served as a Professor of Practice of Policy and Social Work a month later.

The documents revealed that Sebastian received a full-tuition scholarship totaling $26,000 and a $50,000 salary from the Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the School of Public Policy during his time as a professor. The indictment also alleges Flynn set up an online curriculum that “had never existed” to accommodate Sebastian.

A $100,000 donation from Ridley-Thomas’ campaign committee was also allocated to the School of Social Work in Spring 2018. Flynn later transferred those funds to a think tank associated with United Ways of California, a non-profit organization run by Sebastian.

Court documents allege that the defendants took “steps to disguise, conceal, and cover up the bribes, kickbacks” including the $100,000 payment in which Ridley-Thomas penned a letter to the School of Social Work that provided false information to University officials about the funds’ purpose.

In exchange for bribes and kickbacks, Ridley-Thomas used his position on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to present motions and agenda items that benefited the University, such as approving a motion to establish a partnership between the County and the School of Social Work.

Ridley-Thomas also supported contracts between the School of Social Work and various departments, including the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services, to bring revenue into the school system.

According to a report from the Los Angeles Times, a USC staff member reported the transaction activity to the University Office of Compliance in June. Following the report, the University placed Flynn on leave and fired Sebastian from his faculty position.

The Court documents also note the timeline of events between Ridley-Thomas and Flynn that began in May 2017 when Ridley-Thomas informed Flynn of his son’s interest in obtaining a postgraduate degree. Their communication ended in July 2018 when Ridley-Thomas used his government position to approve a telehealth agreement between the University and the County.

The telehealth agreement occurred a few months after Flynn told a University official she would need to complete a “favor” to place the school in the Telehealth contract. This incident occurred in April 2018 when Flynn funneled University funds into Sebastian’s non-profit organization. 

In a statement to the Daily Trojan, the University said it has cooperated with the investigation and reiterated that Flynn no longer works at the School of Social Work.  

“When the university learned in the summer of 2018 about the $100,000 payment referenced in the indictment, the university disclosed the issue to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and has fully cooperated ever since,” the statement read. “Marilyn Flynn has not been employed by the University since September 2018.”

In a statement to the Daily Trojan, Flynn’s lawyer Vicki Podberesky denied the federal charges.

“Marilyn Flynn has devoted her entire professional life to the field of social work. She has spent over 45 years in academia and has worked tirelessly for the improvement and betterment of the social welfare network in Los Angeles and around the country,” Podberesky wrote. “Ms. Flynn has not committed any crime and we believe that the evidence in this case will ultimately support this conclusion.”

Emmett Fuchs contributed to this report.

The post Councilman and former USC dean indicted on federal bribery charges appeared first on Daily Trojan.

The Fort Collins City Council held their third work session on Tuesday to discuss the 2022 recommended budget and to review the quarterly update for light and power utilities.  The budget discussion focused on specific requests and questions from council members from previous work sessions. The first reading for the 2022 recommended budget will take […]

Cal cross country looks ahead to Tallahassee tussle

Phillip Downey /Senior Staff

It’s been more than a month since Cal cross country took to Golden Gate Park for its season opener, but the Bears’ season will not have truly started until the gun goes off at Pre-Nationals in Tallahassee on Friday.

The blue and gold have two races — the USF Invite and Sac State Invite — under their belts in this fall 2021 season, but the approach to those meets was more laid-back and reserved than it will be at Pre-Nats.

“Pre-Nats will be a real race,” said sophomore Cole Sawires Yager. “I know that the course will be a lot faster than what the other ones have been, and we’ll have some great competition there. We’ve had great competition at the other meets as well, but this is definitely more of a nationwide field. So we’ll definitely be giving it all we have.”

Sawires Yager is right about the level of competition that Cal will be facing: Five of the country’s top eight teams will be competing in the men’s race, including last season’s national champion, Northern Arizona University. The women’s team will face a similar challenge, as it will be up against six of the top 16 teams in the USTFCCCA NCAA Division I Coaches’ Poll.

While the Bears aren’t expected to knock off these ranked foes, it will be fascinating to see what they can do on a fast course at full tilt with a couple of college-distance races in the rearview mirror for their underclassmen. All but one man who ran at both the USF and Sac State invites posted a quicker time at the latter, more recent race. All four women who raced at both meets were faster at Sac State as well. The blue and gold will look to maintain that upward trajectory.

Sawires Yager, for whom the USF and Sac State invites were his first races ever at the 8K distance, attributed the young Cal men’s team’s improvement to its increasing familiarity with the new distance — up from 5k in high school.

“A big part of it is that a lot of us hadn’t raced 8Ks before,” Sawires Yager said. “You definitely feel that extra 3K. The pacing of the 8K is different from the 5K. It’s less about how fast you can get out and more about running smart through that first 4K. And then from there, that’s when the real race starts.”

But Sawires Yager didn’t pin the lion’s share of the team’s improvement on its acclimation to a new distance. Rather, he pointed to the squad’s healthy group dynamic as the primary factor in the Bears’ development.

“We definitely have been training really, really well as a team,” Sawires Yager said. “The energy right now is super good; our team dynamic is flowing really well. At Sacramento, we were able to get a solid pack going up through 4 or 5K. From there, we just gave it everything we had. If there is something reflected in our faster times, to me, it’s mostly how well we’ve been training together.”

The group’s budding chemistry will keep it strong Friday in the face of some of the nation’s toughest competition. And, given the youth of Cal’s cross country program, that chemistry will likely pay dividends further down the road. At the Sac State Invite, all four of the men’s top four finishers and two of the women’s top four were underclassmen.

But, for now, the Bears are locked in on Pre-Nats. Cal has been at it all summer and into fall, logging miles and even taking on a couple of meets. This Friday is when the season truly begins.

Ethan Moutes covers cross country. Contact him at emoutes@dailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Jiselle Santos/The Cougar

At the fall semester’s Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute Town Hall meeting, attendees were able to learn more about the institute’s facilities, projects and the upcoming plans for this school year.

Taking place virtually this year due to COVID-19, director of the HPE Data Science Institute Claudia Neuhauser recapped their most recent achievements. Some of these achievements include a new data visualization lab and a micro-credential program.

The data visualization lab is intended to be flexible, which allows for students to change the layout to best fit their needs. The lab includes a podium, many rolling chairs and multiple displays across the walls.

“We have a mix of displays there and the furniture is very movable, and it was designed to be used for workshops, for research, so looking into the future, we want to get this room utilized,” said Associate Director of HPE Data Science Institute Martin Huarte-Espinosa.

The micro-credential program is free to current UH students, faculty and staff. Upon completion of the four data science courses, all users will receive a virtual badge that can be displayed on their LinkedIn profiles and other websites. 

Since “Principles of Data Management” was introduced three semesters ago, no one has yet to earn the complete micro-credential badge, but Huarte-Espinosa predicts that will change by the end of the spring semester.

Home to over a hundred research groups, the HPE Data Science Institute now hosts a webinar every week after slowly beginning to implement them a year and a half ago. Receiving a new supercomputer approximately every four years, the newest was covered in last year’s town hall meeting.

“The idea is to keep our members and our users and anyone in the University who is interested up to date, but really more the objective is to get feedback from them,” Espinosa said. “That’s why we call it the town hall because we expect people to come in and express their opinions.”

news@thedailycougar.com

—
“HPE Data Science Institute launches new course, lab” was originally posted on The Cougar

Hannah Allen is journaling at Sweetheart Circle on October 13. “I felt like it was a nice day to reflect on myself,” says Allen.

The post Daily Photo (10.13.2021) appeared first on The George-Anne Media Group.

Jameson Champion

On Nov. 5, Marvel is set to release Eternals, the next installment of the popular Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film will be the seventh major installment in the MCU this year and now has some people raising the question: is there too much Marvel?

In 2021 fans have received six major installments of the MCU so far, all belonging to what Marvel refers to as ‘Phase Four.’ Three of these have been streaming series’ that have impacted the overarching story of the MCU, one is a spin-off series and the remaining two installments are films.

Marvel has progressed its larger cinematic universe through several phases which have been divided by the release of a larger ‘Avengers’ crossover film. Marvel is currently at its fourth phase of content, with ‘Phase Three’ having been wrapped up by ‘Avengers Endgame’ in 2019.

Eternals marks the third Marvel film that will be released this year and with the release of a Hawkeye series later in November, a new Spider-Man in December and a potential Mrs. Marvel series in December, this means fans will have had 10 pieces of Marvel content by the end of this year. To contrast with previous years; Marvel’s phases one and two had just 12 films between them and stretched from 2008 to 2015. Marvel’s ‘Phase Three’ had 11 films, released over the course of three years.

The new series have been released in such a fashion this year that fans have not had to wait long for new content. 2021 began with the release of “Wandavision”  in January, which ended in March two weeks prior to the release of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” would end in April and it would not be until June when “Loki” was released. July saw the release of “Black Widow,” August contained Marvel’s ‘What If…?’ and  “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” was released in September. May is the only month this year which has seen no MCU content.

This massive amount of content that Marvel has released in just this year alone raises a question, can you have too much Marvel?

“They’ve done a really great job with story lines and adding depth to characters to make each one interesting in their own way,’’ senior Anna Lyons said. “I feel like they’ve made them unique enough to capture their audiences well.”

Critics of Marvel can point to how with every show or movie having an impact on the greater MCU, missing anything can quickly result in a fan ending up lost. Further, there may be a superhero genre fatigue as more and more content gets pushed out. Even in The Southern, a reader can expect Marvel to make the entertainment section regularly, with four of the last seven issues having a Marvel article or brief.

“I will say that the Loki show was disappointing and didn’t have the plot that I was hoping for,” Lyons said. “I felt like they could have done a lot with his character that they didn’t do.”

Fans of Marvel meanwhile are now spoiled for choice on what they want to watch because many of these productions have taken on multiple different genres. “WandaVision” was a combination of sitcom and thriller, “Black Widow” was a spy thriller, and ‘What If…?’ being an anthology series.

“I feel like from what I’ve seen all of the content that they’ve put out so far is pretty amazing,” Lyons said.

The post Marvel ‘Eternals’ film release draws closer appeared first on The Southern Newspaper.