deconstruct

A former congressional staffer has filed a lawsuit against Texas Republican U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, claiming he was forced to quit his position due to a “hostile work environment.”

Alex Chadwell, who is gay and began working for Nehls in January 2021, accused the representative, his chief of staff, and special adviser of regularly making homophobic comments such as “gays go to hell” or “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." He said that the chief of staff even once told him “not to engage with gay constituents."

Chadwell claimed that Nehls's special adviser kept an anti-LGBTQ+ poster in his office specifically to mock him and would often point at it in his presence, saying things like “We don’t need to let gays into military" or “We don’t need to support the queers."

A die-hard Trumper in Florida says he was discriminated against by a right-wing political advocacy group, claiming he was called a “slave” during his 12 days with the organization before it fired him for complaining.

Carl Baxter, who is Black, is suing Americans for Prosperity, the nonprofit “grassroots” conservative operation established by Charles and David Koch, the billionaire siblings and hard-line climate change deniers.

Baxter serves as president of the Republican Club of North & East Fort Myers, and is not at all shy about his outsized affection for Donald Trump. He can be seen on social media at Trump appearances, waving a MAGA flag at a “Trump Truck Parade,” at charity galas giving the camera a Trumpian “thumbs-up,” and donning a red MAGA hat and posing with, among others, a county tax collector who has come out as a vociferous opponent of critical race theory.

Police in eastern Pakistan have smashed an illegal organ harvesting ring, arresting eight people for surgically removing kidneys from hundreds of patients for wealthy people needing a transplant, authorities said Monday.

The alleged gang leader, identified as “Dr Fawad,” is accused of conducting 328 operations on people to remove their kidney and selling them to clients for up to 10 million Pakistani rupees ($34,000) each, said Mohsin Naqvi, the chief minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Fawad was allegedly assisted in the operations by an unnamed car mechanic who administered the anesthesia, Naqvi said.

The chief minister said the gang lured patients from hospitals and performed the operations privately in the region of Taxila, the city of Lahore and in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

An 11-year-old Wisconsin boy accused of murdering his mother has been ordered to stand trial.

The boy is charged with first-degree intentional homicide. The district attorney's office is seeking to try him as an adult. The court has ordered that the boy's name not be revealed because he may still be tried as a child.

In July, the court found the boy competent, according to court records.

Milwaukee Detective Timothy Keller testified in court on Tuesday about speaking with the boy about his mother's death.

The detective said he questioned the boy the next day and the then 10-year-old boy admitted shooting her but called it an accident, according to WISN.

"[The boy] stated that he took up a shooting stance and was pointing the gun at her as she was walking towards him and asking him to put it down. And that's when he indicated that he fired the gun with his intent to scare her by shooting the wall behind her," Keller testified.

"He had made a purchase on his mother's Amazon account for some virtual reality goggles the morning after this homicide occurred. And [family] were concerned because he had had an argument with her about whether he could have these prior to the homicide," Keller said.