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Man who threatened to shoot family over Black Lives Matter shirts slapped with 60-day jail sentence
August 02, 2022
A San Francisco man has been handed a jail sentence for threatening a family wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, KTVU reports.
Steven L. Cibotti, 56, was charged with a hate crime over the incident, where he was eating at a restaurant in June of 2020 alongside a family that had just attended a BLM march. The family of five included three children aged seven, five and two who were wearing BLM T-shirts.
Cibotti, who was allegedly intoxicated, approached the table and yelled, "blue lives matter" and pushed their table.
When the family's father told to Cibotti to calm down, he replied, "F*** you, if I had a gun, I would shoot all of you."
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"I'm upset that the kids were exposed to that, I'm upset at the effect it's going to have on them. After this, Arlo didn't want to leave the house today because he thinks the guy's going to come back and bring his gun," mother Ciara Doherty told ABC7 News Bay AreaABC7 News Bay Area in 2020.
Cibotti pleaded no contest to a felony hate crime by means of felony threats and was given a suspended sentence of two years' supervised probation, 60 days in jail with one day credit for time served, and 120 hours of public service.
He must also abstain from alcohol and any other controlled substances. He's also barred from having in his possession any weapons or ammunition, and he's been given a no contact order with the victims.
EXCLUSIVE: Bay Area family threatened while wearing 'Black Lives Matter' shirts www.youtube.com
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'Playing with fire,' says China after Pelosi lands in Taiwan
August 02, 2022
Chinese warplanes took to the skies and U.S. warships were on the move Tuesday as U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ignored warnings from Beijing, the Biden administration, and peace activists by becoming the highest-ranking American official in 25 years to visit Taiwan.
"Are you here to support Taiwan or to provoke a war? What the hell are you doing here, Pelosi?"
Pelosi (D-Calif.) issued a statement insisting the congressional delegation's trip to the island that most of the international community including the United States considers part of China "in no way contradicts" U.S. adherence to the "One China" policy, but rather "honors America’s unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan's vibrant democracy."
"Our visit is part of our broader trip to the Indo-Pacific—including Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan—focused on mutual security, economic partnership, and democratic governance," the speaker explained.
She added: "Our discussions with Taiwan leadership will focus on reaffirming our support for our partner and on promoting our shared interests, including advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region. America's solidarity with the 23 million people of Taiwan is more important today than ever, as the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy."
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs decried Pelosi's visit, accusing the United States of "playing with fire" and warning that "those who play by fire will perish by it."
In a statement, the ministry said:
China and the United States are two major countries. The right way for them to deal with each other lies only in mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, no-confrontation, and win-win cooperation. The Taiwan question is purely an internal affair of China, and no other country is entitled to act as a judge on the Taiwan question.
China strongly urges the United States to stop playing the "Taiwan card" and using Taiwan to contain China. It should stop meddling on Taiwan and interfering in China's internal affairs. It should stop supporting and conniving at "Taiwan independence" separatist forces in any form. It should stop its acts of saying one thing but doing the opposite on the Taiwan question. It should stop distorting, obscuring and hollowing out the One China principle. It must take credible actions to observe strictly the One China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiqués, deliver on the "five noes" commitment made by the U.S. leadership (i.e. not seek a "new Cold War"; not seek to change China's system; the revitalization of its alliances is not against China; not support "Taiwan independence"; not look for conflict with China), and not go further down the wrong and dangerous path.
Anti-war voices also condemned the speaker's trip.
"Pelosi's Taiwan visit is unnecessary, dangerous, and utterly reckless at a time when the war in Ukraine continues," Stop the War U.K. tweeted. "The U.S. is already in a proxy war with Russia and Pelosi's visit could result in military retaliation and a dangerous cycle of escalation."
Former Taiwanese foreign policy planning chief Dale Jieh Wen-chieh derided the notion that Pelosi was coming to the island to support the Taiwanese people.
"Support your ass," he said during a Taiwanese television interview, adding with a reference to the Chinese People's Liberation Army: "You want to support us to fight against the PLA?"
"You Yankees... want us to buy weapons from you," Jieh added. "Are you here to support Taiwan or to provoke a war? What the hell are you doing here, Pelosi? The relationship between the mainland and Taiwan is already very tense. Supporting Taiwan? We don't need your support!"
On Monday night, Taipei 101, the Taiwanese capital's tallest building and iconic landmark, displayed illuminated messages welcoming Pelosi and thanking her for visiting.
The speaker's visit prompted protests from her hometown of San Francisco to the streets of Taipei.
Julie Tang, a retired San Francisco Superior Court judge, accused Pelosi of supporting the military-industrial complex and "raising the temperature for war."
"We have donated to her, we've supported her throughout these years, but we are so disappointed that what she's doing is totally against the welfare and the well-being of the community—in particular Chinese Americans," Tang told The San Francisco Standard.
"She does not listen to us," Tang added. "She's going with the flow, going with pushing U.S. hegemony to contain China. For what? We don't get anything out of it."
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The James Webb Space Telescope has peered through time and huge amounts of dust to capture a new image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing the spinning ring of color in unprecedented clarity, NASA and the European Space Agency said Tuesday.
Located around 500 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Sculptor, the Cartwheel gained its shape during a spectacular head-on collision between two galaxies.
The impact sent two rings expanding from the galaxy's centre, "like ripples in a pond after a stone is tossed into it", NASA and the ESA said in a joint statement.
A smaller white ring remains closer to the galaxy's centre, while the outer ring, with its spokes of color, has been expanding into the universe for around 440 million years, the statement added.
As the outer ring expands it runs into gas, sparking the formation of new stars.
The Hubble telescope had previously captured images of the rare ring galaxy, which is believed to have been a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way before it was hit by a smaller intruder galaxy.
But the Webb telescope, which launched in December 2021 and revealed its first images to global fanfare last month, has a far greater reach.
Webb's ability to detect infrared light allowed it to see through the "tremendous amount of hot dust" obscuring the view of the Cartwheel Galaxy, NASA and the ESA said.
This revealed new details about star formation in the galaxy, as well as the behavior of the supermassive black hole at its heart, they said.
It was also able to detect regions rich in hydrocarbons and other chemicals, as well as dust that is similar to dust on Earth.
Behind the Cartwheel, two smaller galaxies shine brightly, while even more galaxies can be seen behind them.
The observations show that the Cartwheel Galaxy is still in "very transitory stage", the space agencies said.
"While Webb gives us a snapshot of the current state of the Cartwheel, it also provides insight into what happened to this galaxy in the past and how it will evolve in the future."
© 2022 AFP
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