Monday, October 11 top stories
Hello, it is Monday, October 11. Hope your weekend was good. I went camping and it was nice to see the fall colors. Ready for today’s news?
Southwest Airlines cancelled over 2,000 flights from Friday to Sunday. Many passengers found themselves stranded in airports during a holiday weekend.
Southwest said the cancellations were due to air traffic control problems, limited staffing in Florida, and bad weather. But other airlines were not as severely impacted as Southwest over the weekend.
Some people suspected the cancellations resulted from pilots and staff who purportedly “walked out” to protest Southwest’s vaccine mandate. But the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, a union, said their pilots are not participating in any kind of “job actions.”
Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said they are sincerely sorry.
On Thursday, a 25-year-old woman was sentenced to four days in jail for approaching a grizzly bear mother and its cubs at Yellowstone National Park. A video shows that in August, the woman, Samantha Dehring, was standing off a road to film a group of bears on a field. The mother bear charged at her, stopped a few feet away, and then turned sideways to run into the woods. Dehring then turned around and quickly walked away.
Yellowstone Park officials said Dehring chose to remain standing near the bears to take pictures while her group slowly moved away from the bears and got into their vehicles. It is a crime to willfully remain, approach, and photograph wildlife within 100 yards. Dehring pleaded guilty to this charge. In addition to her four-day jail sentence, she was fined over $1,000 and is banned for one year from Yellowstone National Park.
A federal prosecutor said it is pure luck that Dehring is a criminal defendant instead of being a mauled tourist.
The volcano in La Palma, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, has been erupting lava for the past three weeks. AP News said the lava streams have destroyed over 1,100 buildings and there is no sign of the eruption ceasing. There are over 6,000 people who are evacuated from their homes, but those who live outside of danger zones are okay. The lava is flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and hardening. So far almost 84 new acres of surface has been formed. Despite the lava flows, La Palma is still considered safe for tourists.
A 26-year-old police officer in Alamo, Georgia was shot and killed on Friday night during his first shift with the Alamo Police Department. His name was Dylan Harrison. He leaves behind a wife and a 6-month-old son. CBS News explained that prior to the shooting, Harrison observed a traffic violation at a gas station store that happened to be across the street from the police department. Harrison approached the driver and asked for his identification, but the driver refused to identify himself and pushed Harrison, who then Tased him, arrested him, and took him to jail. Several hours later an associate of the driver who was arrested ambushed the police officer, shot him, and then fled. There was a manhunt with a SWAT team and U.S. Marshals that ended with the arrest of the suspected gunman, Damien Ferguson, at his home on Sunday afternoon. He is now charged with murder.
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There is newly released body camera footage that shows a Dayton, Ohio police officer violently arresting Clifford Owensby, a Black man with paraplegia, on September 30.
Police said they pulled over Owensby on suspicion of drug possession and asked him to exit the vehicle. The video shows Owensby saying, “I can’t step outside of the car, sir. I’m a paraplegic.” After officers and Owensby talk back and forth for a while, an officer is seen grabbing at him and pulling him out by his hair. Owensby is then handcuffed on the street and dragged into a police car.
The Dayton Police Department’s Professional Standards Bureau is investigating the arrest. There is a lot of criticism on social media towards the police department.
The Dayton NAACP chapter said they are working with Owensby to file a complaint against the police department.
This is the same city and police department that wrongfully arrested a deaf man with cerebral palsy, Jack Runser, in 2020. Runser has sued the police department with the help of the NAACP. “The Daily Moth” did an interview with Runser in May -- the link to the interview is in the transcript.
On Friday a federal appeals court reinstated Texas’ ban on abortions after six weeks. On Wednesday a federal judge in Austin found the ban to be unconstitutional, but now it’s back in place after Texas requested the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to intervene. Axios explained that the abortion ban will now remain in effect while the lawsuit from the Biden Department of Justice against the state of Texas is pending in court. This means any citizen can sue medical professionals if they assist in performing an abortion after six weeks.
That is all the top stories for today. See you tomorrow and stay with the light.
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/news/211007.htm
https://apnews.com/article/africa-canary-islands-europe-spain-palma-704c38c4c084d6150f04bd7b77edf6e1
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/10/La_Palma_lava_flows_into_the_sea
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dylan-harrison-georgia-police-officer-shot-dead-first-shift/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/10/business/southwest-cancellations/index.html