update
Odessa news station evacuated mid-broadcast due to shooting
Odessa, Texas, CNN affiliate KOSA-TV was forced to evacuate their studio in the middle of a live broadcast due to their proximity to the shooting that left at least five people dead.Source: CNN
update Hero cop shot multiple times in Texas rampage
One of the three law enforcement heroes injured in Saturday’s mass shooting in Texas was identified late Saturday on GoFundMe — Midland Police Officer Zack Owens.
Shooter killed in West Texas after 5 people died, at least 21 injured, police say
CNN
By Ed Lavandera and Ralph Ellis
August 31, 2019
(CNN)A gunman in West Texas who killed five people while firing from his vehicle and then from a hijacked mail truck was fatally shot by police in a gun battle in a movie theater parking lot, authorities said Saturday.
At least 21 people were injured, including some who were wounded by the shooter, Odessa Police Chief Michael Gerke said at a news conference. Gerke said three law enforcement officers were injured: one from the Department of Public Safety, one officer from the Midland Police Department and one officer from Odessa Police Department.
Gerke said the shooter was identified as a white male in his 30's. His name and a motive were not given.
Midland Mayor Jerry Morales told CNN the chain of events began when a Department of Public Safety officer pulled over a vehicle on an interstate highway Saturday.
"That's when he shot the officer and then took off and started shooting randomly," Morales said. "Everything happened after that."
At one point, the shooter ditched his vehicle and hijacked a US Postal Service truck, authorities said.
Law enforcement officers "trapped him in the parking lot of the Cinergy theater, and that's when they were able to engage him," Morales said.
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Mitch McConnell is the head of the Senate and has blocked anything that the people of this country have been begging for! When he took over the Senate, he gleefully stated that the "number one priority was to make Obama a one term president, even if that meant everything else could go to hell.
While McConnell did not achieve that goal, he saw gains with the Republican takeover of the House in 2010. Two years later, despite the Democrats’ push for gun control legislation after the December 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, McConnell voted against a 2013 bill that would have expanded background checks for gun purchases.
So who is Mitch McConnell working for?
Hundreds give wounded veteran hero's welcome in North Idaho
KREM 2 News
Author: Megan Carroll
August 30, 2019
Army Sgt. 1st Class Brian Sharp and his fellow Green Berets were ambushed during a mission in Afghanistan. Sharp was shot multiple times and almost died.
KOOTENAI COUNTY, Idaho — Dozens of community members are lined up to give a hero's welcome on Friday to a veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan this year.
Deputies with the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office provided an escort for Army Sgt. 1st Class Brian Sharp from Stateline to Highway 95, then north to Lancaster Road at 11 a.m. on Friday.
The sheriff's office has also reached out to Idaho State Police and other law enforcement agencies that may want to help.
Sharp is the cousin-in-law of KCSO Sgt. Erik Hedlund, who says Sharp is coming to visit family in North Idaho now that he has recovered enough to travel.
Sgt. Sharp and his fellow Green Berets were on a mission in Afghanistan earlier this year when they were ambushed by their own Afghan support team, Hedlund said.
Two soldiers were killed in the battle. Sharp was shot multiple times in the pelvis and abdomen, and almost died in the field. He was awarded a Purple Heart for his sacrifices.
After Sharp was stabilized, he returned to the United States and has been recovering in the hospital, just recently regaining the ability to walk, Hedlund said. At the same time, his one-year-old daughter, Audrey, was also learning to walk for the first time.
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Too many hurricanes for us in Central Florida...we won't have to worry about them after we move to New Hampshire!
Hurricane Dorian shifts toward Carolinas, with Florida forecast to avoid direct hit
NBC News
By Max Burman and Linda Givetash
Aug. 31, 2019
"There's been a notable change overnight to the forecast of Dorian after Tuesday," the National Hurricane Center said on Twitter.
Hurricane Dorian strengthened and shifted slightly early Saturday, setting it on course to potentially miss a direct hit with Florida and make landfall in the Carolinas.
"There's been a notable change overnight to the forecast of Dorian after Tuesday," the National Hurricane Center said on Twitter Saturday morning, stressing that this shift does not rule out the possibility of the storm making landfall on the Florida coast.
Dorian became a potentially devastating Category 4 storm Friday evening as it continued to churn in the Atlantic Ocean on its course to the southeastern United States early next week.
"It’s important to stress that this doesn’t paint Florida as out of the woods yet," said Kathryn Prociv, a meteorologist for NBC News.
"Florida is still very much in the red zone," she added.
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Multiple suspicious deaths at West Virginia VA raise concerns over criminal activity
Military Times
By: Leo Shane III
August 27, 2019
“These crimes shock the conscience and I’m still appalled they were not only committed but that our veterans, who have sacrificed so much for our country, were the victims,” he said. “These families and loved ones deserve answers as soon as possible and I will make sure they get them.”
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement this week that he has been briefed on at least 11 suspicious deaths at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in West Virginia. (Courtesy of VA)
Federal investigators are probing a series of suspicious deaths at a Veterans Affairs hospital in West Virginia, a situation that congressional lawmakers have labeled “incredibly disturbing.”
The potential crimes came to light after the family of one of the victims filed a wrongful death suit against VA alleging that their loved one’s death came as the result of an unneeded, fatal insulin dose while at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg.
The lawsuit alleges that VA officials did not take appropriate precautions and provide appropriate oversight to prevent harm to retired Army Sgt. Felix Kirk McDermott, 82, who died in April 2018. A copy of an Armed Forces Medical Examiner report provided by the West Virginia law firm Tiano O’Dell (which is representing McDermott’s family) ruled the death a homicide. McDermott’s health care plan did not include any insulin injections, and he was described “demonstrating clinical improvement” prior to his death.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. and a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement this week that he has been briefed on at least 11 suspicious deaths at the facility around the same time frame.
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Review: Exhibition Explores Vietnam Veteran’s Healing Journey
Third Coast Review
BY TOM WAWZENEK
AUGUST 28, 2019
Perhaps Costello’s most ambitious work is his Autobiography series, in which the viewer sees five different faces of the artist from different periods in his life. We see an evolution take place not only through his physical features, but also on a deeper, emotional level.
Maurice Costello, a Crossroads, 2017. Acrylic paint on hardboard and digital print. Photo courtesy of the National Veterans Art Museum.
The latest exhibition at the National Veterans Art Museum — Maurice Costello: Back to “The Nam” — tells the story of Maurice Costello’s experience while serving in the Vietnam War and his difficult transition as a civilian. This exhibition includes 21 works that are set in chronological order — starting with 1967 when Costello was drafted into the army until the present time.
One of Costello’s artistic strengths is his use of colors — from vibrant to muted — as a way to emphasize various emotions. A number of his works aren’t framed as rectangles or squares, but instead form various shapes, some looking like cutouts, that add an immediacy to his art. His creative process often involves constructing his work on the computer and digitally manipulating personal photographs and images.
Costello explores a range of emotions, many of them dark and painful, that allows us to peek into his psyche. In the First Time Ever, we see a close up of a terror-stricken face that has a sickly green hue. In this particular work, Costello tells the story of his first day in Vietnam when he finds a Vietnamese man in the jungle who has been shot by American GIs and is dying before him. Costello further examines his feelings about his war experience in the Crossroads — a deathly image of a skull being consumed by flames from within. This work does not only speak about Costello’s personal views about the horrors of war, but it’s also a reflection of his own painful emotions such as when he encountered the scattered remains of a young Vietnamese man who had been killed the night before.
Another powerful image is pre-Facetime which is a view of a ’60s-style television that shows the graphic for the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite in the foreground while in the background there are American GIs in the Vietnam jungle. Adding to the tension of this work is a reflection of the artist’s mother on the TV screen. This work is a grim reminder that Costello’s mother like millions of other Americans were dependent on these news programs to get as much information as possible about the Vietnam War.
Costello also explores the difficult adjustment he had to make once he became a civilian again. After being discharged from the service, Costello was divorced, fired from a job, and abusing a variety of legal and illegal drugs. This painful transition is best illustrated in a Blue Period that shows an army discharge paper that is covered with a bright red target with a hypodermic needle hitting the bullseye like a dart. This image has an out-of-focus quality that is a reflection of the artist’s own life that lacked a sense of clarity and direction.
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