Tag: apologizes

Florida Republican apologizes after calling transgender people ‘mutants’

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Named the “Safety in Private Spaces Act,” Republican leaders in Florida are moving on the legislation that would require people to use restrooms and changing facilities according to their sex assigned at birth at places like schools and restaurants.
After several speakers, some identifying as transgender, spoke out against the bill during public comment, Barnaby sounded off about the “evil, dysphoria, disfunction” he said is gripping society. His remarks embody the tense debate that has followed the culture war bills being pushed by Florida Republicans this year focused on how gender identity and sexual identity intersect with parental rights and education.
“The lord rebuke you, Satan, and all of your demons and all of your imps who come parade before us,” Barnaby said. “That’s right, I called you demons and imps, who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world.”
Barnaby, 63, who identifies as Christian, was originally born in Birmingham, England and moved to Florida in 1991. He was elected to the House in 2020.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the panel seemed taken aback by his comments, which came as they debated the bill ahead of advancing it to the House floor.
“I’m still a little bit thrown off from the last comments here,” state Rep. Kristen Arrington (D-Kissimmee) said after Barnaby’s address.
She then turned to opponents of the bill, saying: “[I] just really want to let you all know that there are many here who understand and support you.”
Some Republicans attempted to distance themselves from Barnaby’s remarks and thanked the audience for speaking.

“You’re not an evil being,” said state Rep. Chase Tramont (R-Port Orange), addressing speakers at the hearing. “I believe that you’re fearfully and wonderfully made, and I want you to live your life well.”
Minutes after Republicans advanced the bathroom bill, Barnaby apologized for his comments.
“I referred to trans people as demons,” Barnaby said. “I would like to apologize to the trans community for referring to you as demons.”
By advancing the proposal, FL H.B.1521 (23R), House Republicans put Florida on the cusp of joining state such as Iowa, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee in passing bills addressing bathroom use.
Florida’s legislation would open the door for any person 18 years or older to be charged with a second-degree misdemeanor if they enter a restroom or changing facility designated for a person that isn’t the sex they are assigned at birth and refuse to “immediately depart” when asked by someone else. It also requires local school districts to craft code of conduct rules to discipline students who do the same.
These policies would be enforced at educational institutions, hurricane shelters, substance abuse providers, health care facilities and public accommodations, which by law include lodgings, restaurants, gasoline stations entertainment spaces and more.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 11, 2023
Greek prime minister apologizes over country’s deadliest train crash

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Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Sunday apologized over the country’s deadliest train disaster and said he will ask Brussels for help to overhaul the country’s railway network as mass protests continued unabated.
“As prime minister, I owe everyone, but above all the relatives of the victims, a big SORRY,” Mitsotakis wrote on Facebook. “In the Greece of 2023, it is not possible for two trains to run on opposite sides of the same track without anyone noticing.”
Two trains traveling at high speed in opposite directions on the same line collided head-on in Tempe in northern Greece on February 28, killing at least 57 people and injuring 85. A train with at least 350 on board including many university students hit a cargo train.
“We can’t, won’t and shouldn’t hide behind human error,” added the prime minister. Mitsotakis previously said on March 1 that the disaster was “primarily down to a tragic human error.”
The stationmaster for the city of Larissa faces charges of negligent homicide and admitted to some responsibility in his first court appearance on Sunday, according to Greek broadcaster ERT.
But Greece’s aging 2,550-kilometer rail network has been in desperate need of modernizing and has faced criticism for alleged mismanagement, unfit equipment and poor maintenance.
The deadly crash has prompted massive protests across the country about the government’s responsibility in the disaster as the first funerals of the victims were taking place. Thousands of people gathered on Sunday in front of the parliament in Athens, including several children. “This crime will not be covered up. We will be the voice of all the dead,” protesters chanted as they released black balloons into the sky.
Clashes erupted between police and demonstrators during the protests in Athens, the country’s second-largest city of Thessaloniki and Larissa, the city where the accident took place, with police using tear gas and sound grenades.

Protests have been staged over the last five days across the country and more have been called for the coming week. National rail services were halted as workers have been on strike since the crash.
Mitsotakis, who is preparing for elections in the spring, has promised an independent expert committee will investigate the cause of the accident. He also said he will ask the European Commission and other EU capitals for help.
“I will immediately ask the European Commission and friendly countries for their contribution to know-how so that we can finally obtain modern trains,” said Mitsotakis. “And I will fight for additional community funding to quickly maintain and upgrade the existing network.”
In the meantime, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into a contract for the upgrade of the signaling system and remote control on the Greek railway.
“I can confirm that the EPPO has indeed an ongoing investigation, looking exclusively into possible damages to the financial interests in the EU,” an EPPO spokesperson told POLITICO, without providing any details regarding the “ongoing investigations in order not to endanger their outcome.”
The Greek government quickly announced the formation of an experts’ committee to investigate the deadly train collision, causing strong reactions from the opposition who said the move doesn’t have cross-party approval and aims to take over the judicial investigation.
“It is not possible for the person being audited to be an auditor at the same time,” main opposition party Syriza said in a statement.
One member of the experts’ committee already has resigned.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

March 2, 2023
Southwest apologizes to Congress for winter meltdown

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Watterson explained that while the airline had “precanceled” some flights ahead of the storm, conditions were bad enough that they couldn’t keep up with even the modified schedule, especially at the key airports of Denver and Chicago, their two biggest hubs through which 25 percent of their crew members move. After that, cancellations mounted and that required a volume of changes to crew schedules that their scheduling technology was “overwhelemd.”
He said the airline is prioritizing “enhancements” to its crew software but defended the soundness of its flight network and said it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in customer reimbursements so far.
But Casey Murray, president of the union for Southwest’s pilots, said the failures on display in December weren’t a fluke, but rather had been building for years.
He said “warning signs were ignored, poor performance was condoned, excuses were made, processes atrophied, core values were forgotten.” He said the organization had become a “stove-piped fiefdom that communicated vertically with little to no horizontal integration,” and called for “bold action immediately.”
Southwest has been under a microscope since December, when a winter storm sparked a cascade of internal failures that meant Southwest had to cancel a majority of its flights for nearly a week as it struggled to match crews to planes across its sprawling network.
Beyond congressional hearings like Thursday’s, the Transportation Department is also keeping a close watch on the airline to ensure it properly reimburses customers for the disruption. DOT has also announced it is separately investigating the airline for whether it scheduled flights that it knew it wouldn’t be able to staff.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called Southwest’s meltdown an “epic failure,” but spent most of his opening remarks taking aim at the DOT and Federal Aviation Administration. He accused the Biden administration of “egregious” regulatory overreach for its probe into the airline’s scheduling practices, saying “a world in which DOT can deem an entire airline schedule ‘unrealistic’ is a world with fewer flights to smaller airports” and “less flexibility and competition for airlines, and ultimately higher prices.”
He also suggested the FAA turn its spotlight back onto itself for its own system failure that canceled thousands of flights and forced the first nationwide airplane grounding since the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He also pointed a finger at DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg for not appearing at the hearing. (The committee plans a separate hearing on the FAA’s failures next week.)

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 9, 2023