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‘I want to be clear, though: we are not talking about restricting the rights of current lawabiding gun owners or citizens.’
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Do you know anyone who’s ever said (and meant it): “I have arrived” (?) I’m not talking about getting off the plane in the Caribbean for vacation, or teasingly showing up at the parent’s house for the holidays. I mean, I have personally never met anyone who legitimately thinks they’ve arrived IN LIFE.
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The future of school security is here, and it seems like science fiction. It was recently revealed that Uvalde was using an artificial intelligence system through the company Social Sentinel to monitor relevant social media accounts for posts that might be threatening to the schools. Brownfield ISD Superintendent Chris Smith told the Brownfield News that Brownfield ISD is doing the exact same thing with the same company, Social Sentinel. The system runs checks through social media accounts on a regional/geographical basis and it will send notifications to school officials to address the concerns. The system looks for certain keywords that indicate violence or self harm. For example, Brownfield ISD Superintendent Chris Smith was notified of a student posting that was captioned “take the shot money-man” ; the post was related to basketball, not a promotion of violence or self harm. However, the system flagged the phrase “take the shot” because it could have potentially referred to a gunshot. The system can also detect guns in photographs.
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The Fire Chief’s quarterly report is in, and the updates left some council members concerned at this week’s City Council meeting. Once Fire Chief Dennis Rowe finished his report, City Council member Michelle Cooper was concerned about staffing. She asked, “so on scheduling do we have two fully certified (firemen) on staff?” Chief Rowe responded, “we’d like to…but sometimes it doesn’t always work that way.” He then explained that the other night he was the only one on shift because “one guy was out with an injury and another guy was out because of a certification issue.” She asked, “so what happens in that situation? If you or anybody is on shift by themselves and we have an event, what happens?” He replied, “well hopefully the volunteers show up to help.” Then he added that he can guarantee two firemen at any time. He explained that Brownfield has always relied heavily on volunteers. “It kinda just is what it is, but with one on duty like me the other night, whatever event we have I’m gonna be there and hope that we have enough help to show up. Maybe some of the paid will come in and some of the volunteers will come in and we’ll get the job done,” said the fire chief. He concluded, “ yeah it’s a handicap, I’m not going to pretend it’s not, it is. Even with the two on duty it’s a handicap.” Staffing and certification issues continue to be an issue for Brownfield’s fire department, but Chief Rowe was accepting of the situation as is, and confident in his crew’s ability to handle situations, despite the “handicap.”
Read moreThe USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) recently made several policy updates for acreage reporting for cover crops, revising intended use, late-filed provisions, grazing allotments as well as updated the definitions of “idle” and “fallow.”
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