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https://www.essence.com/news/virginia-pastor-attacked-white-mob/
Leon McCray Sr., a Black Virginia pastor who pulled a gun on five alleged attackers, will no longer face charges for brandishing the weapon. Meanwhile, although no one else was arrested at the time of the incident on June 1, the attackers are now facing varying hate crime charges, WHSV reports.
According to the news station, McCray, 61, called the police on June 1 to report an attack by a group of people at an apartment building he owns in Edingurgh.
The incident started when he saw two individuals dragging an old fridge to the dumpsters at his property. McCray asked the people to leave, which they did after getting angry. However, they later came back with three other individuals and began threatening McCray and “using all types of racial slurs,” according to the pastor at Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International.
“Racial epithets, and the N word, and your Black life, your M-F Black life don’t make, it doesn’t make a difference in this county, it doesn’t make a difference to me, and we will kill you,” McCray told WHSV.
The group surrounded him, and one man started head-butting him, leaving McCray no choice to defend himself by drawing his gun and calling 911.
“It got to the point where this is really getting really, really bad,” McCray said. “I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t do anything, and with the threats, I felt to save my life, I had to draw my gun.”
However, when deputies arrived, only one deputy spoke to McCray, and even then didn’t ask him what happened. Instead, officers apparently spoke to the individuals who attacked him, before taking McCray’s weapon and arresting him in front of his attackers, who were all white.
“How humiliating,” he told NVDaily. “How dehumanizing … to look at this mob of individuals cheering on the sidelines waving as I was carted off to go to jail.”
The community in Shenandoah County stood by the pastor, demanding justice in the case, according to WHSV. And even then McCray had to demand justice for himself.
“I met with the sheriff, I wrote, you know after I was arrested, the next day I wrote a letter and asked him for an opportunity to tell my story, which I really had not told,” McCray said.
The Sheriff met with McCray on June 3 at which point he determined that the charges against the pastor “was certainly not appropriate.”
“Actually, as I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing,” Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter said in a video address to the public.
Then, on Thursday night, the sheriff obtained warrants to arrest the five people involved in the alleged attack on various hate crime charges.
According to the report, Donny Salyers, 43; Dennis Salyers, 26; Farrah Salyers, 42 and Christopher Sharp, 57 are all facing charges of felony abduction, assault by mob and assault – hate crime.
Amanda Salyers, 26, is facing charges of assault by mob and assault – hate crime.
In addition to those charges, Dennis and Donny Salyers are already facing charges of assault and battery, while Amanda Salyers and Christopher Sharp were already charged with trespassing.
The five are all being held without bond as the investigation is still ongoing.
According to WHSV, two of the sheriff’s staff supervisors have been placed on administrative leave pending an administrative review of the initial incident.
The sheriff has also personally apologized to McCray.
“I want the people of Shenandoah County to know I and the Sheriff’s Office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our Black community, in Shenandoah County,” Sheriff Carter said. “Also, I continue to support and recognize the importance of your Constitutional rights, especially your 2nd Amendment right to protect yourself and your family.”
The post 5 Charged With Hate Crime In Attack Of Black Pastor In Virginia appeared first on Essence.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has just announced that its ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) has identified a long-suspected “green glow” around Mars. The green glow is due to the interaction of sunlight with atoms and molecules in Mars’ atmosphere. To date, we’ve only observed the phenomenon around one other planet: Earth. Now, the scientists who’ve discovered the Red Planet’s green glow say it could help us better understand the planet’s atmosphere. And how to land safely on its surface.
An artist’s illustration of the green glow around Mars. ESA
Futurism reported on the finding, which was outlined in a paper recently published in the journal, Nature. According to the paper, this discovery marks the first time scientists have observed the “day glow” and “night glow” that generate the “green line” around Earth around Mars. Or any other planet. The discovery also stands as long sought-after confirmatory evidence of predictions regarding the Martian atmosphere, which date back 40 years.
“Previous observations hadn’t captured any kind of green glow at Mars, so we decided to reorient the UVIS [aboard the TGO] to point at the ‘edge’ of Mars, similar to the perspective you see in images of Earth taken from the ISS,” co-author of the study, Ann Carine Vandaele of the Institut Royal d’Aéronomie Spatiale de Belgique in Belgium, said in an ESA press release. The UVIS is the “ultraviolet and visible spectrometer”. It serves as one observational tool aboard the TGO’s “NOMAD” suite of instruments.
The green glow around Earth. NASA
The green glow the TGO observed is the result of two different processes occurring in Mars’ atmosphere. The day glow occurs when sunlight directly excites atoms and breaks apart molecules in Mars’ thin atmosphere. The break-up of CO2 is most likely a big reason for this glow. The night glow, on the other hand, occurs when disintegrated molecules recombine. (Light energy is released in both the disintegration and reformation processes, much of which is in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, at the wavelength we perceive as green.)
The data show this oxygen green 'dayglow' at #Mars is brightest at an altitude of 80 km, reaching a second peak around 120 km and dissipating above 150 km. Studying this glow can provide a wealth of information about the composition and dynamics of the martian atmosphere #ExoMars pic.twitter.com/ux8I8mY2cV
— ExoMars orbiter (@ESA_TGO) June 15, 2020
Moving forward, scientists will look to use measurements of this green glow as a way to glean more information about the composition and dynamics of the Martian atmosphere. The ESA says that these measurements of the atmosphere will, in turn, be “key to [operating] the missions we send to the Red Planet” because of, for example, the way parachuting probes will experience drag. And anybody who’s interested in the potential for life beyond Earth most definitely wants those probes to land safely.
What do you think about the ESA’s discovery of a green glow around Mars? Do you think we’ll find some exoplanets with the same kind of luminous ring in the near future? Light up the comments with your thoughts, people!
Feature image: European Space Agency
The post Mars Exhibits ‘Green Glow’ in Atmosphere, Just Like Earth appeared first on Nerdist.
Let's get to it! Welcome to the latest episode of Afronerd Radio's The Grindhouse airing this Sunday at 6pm eastern at our new broadcasting home-BTalk 100. Your AFROnerdist hosts are "b(l)ack by popular demand" and will be discussing the following issues: still more "goings-on" relating to the global protests except now the Black Lives Matter movement is international and multi-racial; and is the current movement equally about police brutality and anti-blackness?; And while we're on the topic of anti-blackness, some in the Indian acting community are simultaneously being applauded (for their stance on BLM) and critiqued for promoting skin bleaching products; New Orleans Saints quarterback, Drew Brees formally apologizes for his perceived insensitivity toward African-Americans regarding his views about how kneeling equates to disrespecting the American flag; I guess this was always an obvious leap-if AI (artificial intelligence) will be driving cars in the near future, why not airplanes? A piece from TheDrive.com highlights a planned test pitting a manned fighter jet against an autonomous drone; ; Fox News apologizes for using a graph to depict how stock performance spikes after the high profile killings of (or violent acts levied against) black men; And in lighter blerd-pop culture news: infamous (or is it problematic) director, Josh Trank opens up about his fight with studio execs when he pitched a black Sue Storm for his version of the Fantastic Four; the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) may be eyeing their interpretation of the Greek god, Hercules for the silver screen treatment; noted actor, John Boyega speaks out against police malfeasance (with concerns of career suicide) and gets public support from black directors insuring that he will be able to work after all; And lastly, if time permits we'll try to round up the black NYC surfing community that recently paid homage to George Floyd; and where there's surfers there's also black equestrians in Houston, Texas honoring Mr. Floyd; will activist/athlete, Colin Kaepernick get hired in the wake of all this pro BLM news? Call the show LIVE at 508-645-0100.
OH...and P.S. Thoughts about TV mogul, Oprah Winfrey's OWN special, "Where Do We Go From Here?" Are there too many Progressive thought leaders in tow or should the black politically alternative voices develop there own platform?
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