LA VOCE DI MARIA (Roberta Torresi e Paolo Bisonni) / La Voz de María

"Insegnare alle donne a odiare il proprio corpo perche' e' l'origine delle tentazioni" Cosi' gli Evangelici. Ecco perche' quel deficiente ha ammazzato otto persone ad Atlanta

Sexual Anguish of Atlanta Suspect Is Familiar Thorn for Evangelicals (New York Times)



When Brad Onishi heard that the man accused of a rampage at three Atlanta-area spas told detectives that he had carried out the attacks as a way to eliminate his own temptations, the claim sounded painfully familiar.

Dr. Onishi, who grew up in a strict evangelical community in Southern California that emphasized sexual purity, had spent his teenage years tearing out any advertisements in surfing magazines that featured women in bikinis. He had traded his online passwords with friends to hold himself accountable. “We had a militant vigilance: Don’t let anything in the house that will tempt you sexually,” Dr. Onishi, now an associate professor of religious studies at Skidmore College, recalled.

The evangelical culture he was raised in, he said, “teaches women to hate their bodies, as the source of temptation, and it teaches men to hate their minds, which lead them into lust and sexual immorality.”

Robert Aaron Long, the suspect in the massacres that left eight people dead, told the police this week that he had a “sexual addiction,” and he had been a customer at two of the spas that he targeted. He was so intent on avoiding pornography that he blocked several websites on his computer and had sought help at a Christian rehab clinic. A former roommate said that Mr. Long agonized over the possibility of “falling out of God’s grace.”

When Mr. Long, 21, was arrested on Tuesday on his way to Florida, the police said, he told officers he had planned to carry out another attack on a business connected to the pornography industry.

Many people criticized Mr. Long’s explanation for the attacks, saying that violence resulting in the deaths of six women of Asian descent could not be separated from misogyny and racism.

But for observers of evangelicalism, and some evangelicals themselves, Mr. Long’s characterization of his motivations was also very recognizable. He seemed to have had a fixation on sexual temptation, one that can lead to despair among people who believe they are failing to follow the ideal of refraining from sex and even lust outside heterosexual marriage.

Combating pornography and improper sexual desire is an enduring theme within contemporary conservative evangelicalism. In churches, men partner in “accountability groups” to hold each other responsible for avoiding sexual temptation and other moral dangers. Others use “accountability software” like Covenant Eyes, which monitors screen activity and sends reports about pornography usage to a designated “ally.” Countless books promise spiritual and practical strategies for breaking free of the habit.

Historically, some evangelical leaders have also drawn a direct line between pornography and violence. James Dobson, the influential founder of Focus on the Family, recorded a video interview with Ted Bundy the day before the serial killer’s execution in 1989. Mr. Bundy’s message was that an “addiction” to pornography fueled his crimes.

“What a tragedy!” Mr. Dobson wrote later, referring to Mr. Bundy’s violence. “There is a possibility, at least, that it would not have occurred if that 13-year-old boy had never stumbled onto pornographic magazines in a garbage dump.”

In recent decades, many conservative evangelical leaders and their churches have begun to speak more frankly about sex. “It’s very openly talked about that God created sexuality, it’s something not to be ashamed of, and that God made it for his purposes,” said Anson McMahon, a pastor in Buford, Ga., who was a guest speaker at several summer trips for young people in the early 2000s at the Baptist church later attended by Mr. Long.

But if conversations around sexual issues have become more frank, the message that sex is reserved for straight married couples has remained unchanged.

Many Christians trace their condemnation of pornography back to Jesus. “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” he is quoted saying in the Gospel of Matthew.

For Protestants in particular, whose faith prioritizes correct internal beliefs and spiritual attitudes, that passage has contributed to a worldview in which inappropriate sexual thoughts are just as sinful as wrong actions.

The problem with pornography, in this view, is how it affects the person’s mind and heart.

“Masturbation in and of itself, the act is a biological act,” said Heath Lambert, the lead pastor of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., and author of a book for evangelical men struggling with pornography use. “What’s wrong is lust. What’s wrong is what happens in my heart.”

The attacks at the spas violated all church teachings, Dr. Lambert said, and he thought the obvious root of the violence was the pornography that the accused gunman “was using and trying to get away from.”

White evangelicals do not use pornography more than other demographics, said Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma who has researched the role of pornography in the lives of conservative Protestants. In fact, white evangelicals who regularly attend church look at pornography less than the general population.

But they report significantly more anguish around the practice. Almost 30 percent of white evangelicals say they feel depressed after using pornography, compared with 8.6 percent of white liberal Protestants and 19 percent of white Catholics, according to a survey Dr. Perry co-conducted in February as part of the Public Discourse and Ethics Survey. White evangelicals are also significantly more likely to report that they are “addicted” to pornography.

Dr. Perry described a phenomenon in some parts of evangelical culture that he called “sexual exceptionalism,” in which sexual sins are implied to be more serious than other categories.

“So many men boil down how they’re doing spiritually to how often they have looked at porn recently,” Dr. Perry said, reflecting on his research in evangelical settings. “Not whether they’d grown in their love toward others, given generously of their time, or spent time connecting with God, but if they masturbated.”

For some with experience in evangelical youth culture, Mr. Long’s fixation on sexual temptation was a reminder of a damaging approach to teaching young people how to address sexuality.

“It presents a very demeaning view of manhood,” said Rachael Denhollander, an evangelical advocate for sexual abuse victims. “Every time you teach a woman in the presence of a young man that it’s her responsibility to keep a man from lusting and that she has the power to keep him from sexual perversion by what she wears and what she does, what he hears is that it’s her fault.”

Jeff Chu, a writer in Michigan, attended an evangelical junior high and high school that, like many similar schools, enforced strict rules for the lengths of girls’ skirts with the goal of encouraging modesty. “It was so rarely about the men controlling their own desires, and so often about women not being temptresses,” Mr. Chu recalled. “So many of us who haven’t fit within the norms of that culture, whether it’s women or queer people, we’re always seen as the problem.”

And while the police said that Mr. Long claimed he was not racially motivated, some saw a connection between strict sexual beliefs and violence against Asian women in particular.

“Purity culture teaches young men to view young women who do not try to maintain modesty as sinister forces,” Dr. Onishi said. “It’s hard not to think about the fact that Asian women have been sexualized and set up to be viewed through the lens of an exotic other who is sexually desirable.”

Despite evangelicalism’s preoccupations with individual sexual morality, its leaders’ failures are so numerous as to have become cliché. In the most recent high-profile example, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries announced last month that its eponymous founder had a pattern of groping and exposing himself to massage therapists, among other sexual misconduct. Mr. Zacharias, who died in 2020, owned two day spas in the Atlanta area.

Mr. Long sought treatment for what he described to the police as a “sex addiction” at HopeQuest, an evangelical treatment center in Acworth, Ga., the city where one of the attacks took place. The center advertises its treatment of “sex addiction” and “pornography addiction” in addition to drugs, alcohol and gambling. The center lists indications for sex addiction including “‘crossing lines’ of personal beliefs or values in his/her behaviors, which results in extreme emotional distress and feelings of guilt and shame.”

The language of addiction is used often in evangelical circles to describe someone who uses pornography or engages in other sexual behaviors that violate their own values, but does not necessarily rise to the level of clinical addiction, Dr. Perry said.

“Sex addiction” is not an established psychiatric diagnosis, and there is a debate in the mental health community about how to define and treat compulsive sexual behavior.

“There’s no evidence-based treatment for sex addiction,” said Joshua Grubbs, an assistant professor of psychology at Bowling Green State University and a clinical psychologist. Evangelical sex addiction treatment tends to emphasize total abstinence from any sexual behavior outside heterosexual marriage. “They don’t take into account that humans are creatures with a drive for sex,” Dr. Grubbs said.

Mr. Long and his family were active members at Crabapple First Baptist Church in Milton, Ga., which is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. In the church’s youth group for high school students, Mr. Long was “one of those core young men involved in everything we did,” said Brett Cottrell, a former youth and missions pastor at the church.

In November, an associate pastor at the church, Luke Folsom, preached a sermon on the “battle” against sin. He quoted a verse from the Gospel of Matthew, in which Jesus tells his followers that it may be worth gouging out an eye if it causes them to sin.

He continued, addressing the use of pornography directly. “Cut it out by getting rid of your smartphone, getting rid of internet connection, anything and everything that would allow you to do it,” he said. “Your soul is at stake.”

Lust, he added, is “a heart problem, not just an eye problem.”

The church, which declined a request for an interview with its leaders, issued a statement on Friday that condemned the violence at the Atlanta-area spas, as well as the suspect’s “stated reasons for carrying out this wicked plan.”

The church also emphasized that the gunman alone was to blame for his actions. “The women that he solicited for sexual acts are not responsible for his perverse sexual desires nor do they bear any blame in these murders,” the church stated. “These actions are the result of a sinful heart and depraved mind.”ich declined a request for an interview with its leaders, issued a statement on Friday that condemned the violence at the Atlanta-area spas, as well as the suspect’s “stated reasons for carrying out this wicked plan.”

The church also emphasized that the gunman alone was to blame for his actions. “The women that he solicited for sexual acts are not responsible for his perverse sexual desires nor do they bear any blame in these murders,” the church stated. “These actions are the result of a sinful heart and depraved mind.”

La risposta dell’Europa alle strategie commerciali di USA e Cina

Politica dei dazi: la risposta dell’Europa alle strategie di Usa e Cina

Articolo di Romano Prodi su Il Messaggero del 21 marzo 2021

Mentre siamo giustamente concentrati sui problemi della pandemia, il mondo cambia e non ce ne accorgiamo. Vado subito al sodo. A dispetto di tutte le tensioni fra democratici e repubblicani, il Senato americano ha approvato all’unanimità (il che vuol dire 98 a 0) la nomina della signora Katherine Tai nell’importantissimo ruolo di United States Trade Representative, cioè di responsabile della politica commerciale degli Stati Uniti d’America.

Il voto è avvenuto dopo che la signora Tai si era espressa in modo nettamente contrario rispetto alla tradizionale e condivisa dottrina in favore del “free trade”.

Nel dibattito del Senato americano è stata perfino sepolta la tesi, dominante negli ultimi quarant’anni, fatta eccezione per la parentesi di Trump, che i buoni rapporti commerciali erano anche in grado di ammorbidire le tensioni politiche esistenti tra i diversi paesi e, soprattutto, fra Cina e Stati Uniti. Il mondo politico americano oggi non si dedica in modo prevalente a mettere in luce i problemi politici che stanno aumentando la distanza dalla Cina, come la crescita del suo autoritarismo, gli abusi nei confronti delle minoranze o l’aumento delle spese militari.

Il sentimento che oggi fa più presa nel cuore del popolo americano è che il libero commercio abbia colpito i lavoratori americani in modo sproporzionato e che l’abbassamento dei dazi commerciali abbia fallito nel perseguimento del tanto decantato obiettivo di accrescere il benessere collettivo. Il cittadino medio, dopo essersi innamorato dei bassi prezzi di Walmart e dei nuovi sistemi distributivi, oggi li accusa di uccidere i posti di lavoro.

Questi cambiamenti si sono già tradotti in programma di governo dal momento che lo stesso Segretario di Stato Blinken ha parlato del “free trade” come di un fatto del passato, al quale si credeva perché non se ne erano compresi a sufficienza gli effetti negativi.

Come conseguenza, la priorità del governo americano non è oggi il primato dei consumatori e degli esportatori, ma la protezione dei diritti e degli interessi dei lavoratori americani. A tutto ciò si accompagna una serie di nuove ricerche accademiche dedicate a mettere in luce la quantità dei posti di lavoro perduti in conseguenza della concorrenza cinese.

Si mette completamente in un angolo la tesi, tradizionalmente condivisa dalla quasi totalità dell’opinione pubblica americana, che l’aumento di reddito conseguente all’aumento del commercio internazionale, si sarebbe automaticamente tradotto in un vantaggio per tutti.

Questi orientamenti sembrano rendere sistematiche, e proiettate verso un indefinito futuro, le scelte protezionistiche che erano da molti ritenute un’estemporanea decisione del presidente Trump. Una rivoluzione che, se sarà messa in atto in modo generalizzato, avrà conseguenze non solo sul commercio internazionale, ma sul funzionamento di tutti i sistemi economici.

Prima di tutto tale scelta obbligherà a una profonda riorganizzazione della catena del valore delle imprese, riducendo la dipendenza reciproca che ora esiste fra i produttori sparsi in tutto il mondo, nessuno dei quali controlla l’intero ciclo produttivo. Le imprese dovranno quindi progressivamente operare in modo da avere a disposizione componenti e materiali con la sicurezza che, in questo nuovo quadro, è garantita solo dall’appartenenza alla stessa area commerciale.

Tutto questo implica, in secondo luogo, un massiccio intervento pubblico dedicato a raggiungere, nel più breve tempo possibile, l’obiettivo dell’autosufficienza non solo nei settori tecnologicamente più avanzati (come i componenti elettronici, i nuovi strumenti di comunicazione o i nuovi materiali), ma anche nei prodotti più semplici che fanno parte integrante di una catena produttiva.

L’intervento pubblico non viene richiamato in gioco come fatto eccezionale per porre rimedio ai recenti danni del virus, ma come strumento permanente per affrettare il salto scientifico-tecnologico necessario per arrivare al grado di autonomia richiesto dai cambiamenti della politica internazionale.

Non si tratta di un quadro riassicurante né sotto l’aspetto politico né sotto l’aspetto economico perché, se portato all’estremo, restringerà la collaborazione fra le due potenze mondiali unicamente al settore dell’ambiente che, tuttavia, per potere progredire, richiede proprio quell’incremento delle collaborazioni scientifiche e produttive che sono messe a rischio dalle politiche illustrate in precedenza.

Le conseguenze maggiori di questo cambiamento di prospettiva riguardano soprattutto l’Europa che si fonda, più degli Stati Uniti, su una strategia di apertura commerciale che coinvolge tutti i settori e che, soprattutto, si indirizza verso tutti i paesi del mondo.

Di fronte alla prospettiva di questo diverso contesto dei flussi commerciali, di una nuova politica degli incentivi pubblici e del cambiamento di indirizzo della ricerca, noi europei abbiamo l’obbligo di preparare una strategia a livello continentale che ci permetta di fare fronte alle sfide che gli Stati Uniti e la Cina stanno apprestando. Anche la politica del NextGenerationUE deve essere adattata al nuovo quadro internazionale nel quale siamo chiamati ad agire. Ed è indispensabile che l’Italia, ancora secondo paese industriale europeo, si faccia parte diligente per spingere Bruxelles a prendere le necessarie decisioni e prepari, con assoluta urgenza, le proposte che riteniamo per noi opportune.

Non sarà forse possibile mostrare lo stesso grado di compattezza manifestata dal Senato americano, ma una strategia italiana largamente condivisa è ora possibile. Cerchiamo almeno di cominciare a prepararla.

La Mercedes fa melina in Bahrain.

We're Not Buying Mercedes''Sky is Falling' Claims Following Unimpressive Bahrain Test
Mack Hogan 21 mins ago

Following preseason Formula 1 testing at Bahrain International Circuit, Mercedes F1 Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin has a surprising revelation: The new Mercedes F1 car is—really we mean it this time guys—slower than its rival.© Clive Mason/Getty Images We may look dumb when the racing starts, but Mercedes has a habit of underselling its performance.

According to Motorsport.com, the team's data clearly shows that they're running behind Red Bull. Throw out the scripts for 2021, Red Bull must be the clear favorite for the title.


Color me skeptical. Mercedes has long subscribed to the"speak softly and carry a big stick" mantra, often emphasizing its own weaknesses and downplaying advantages. The team never acts as though its lead is secure, a mindset that no doubt keeps it ahead of the pack. Like in Singapore in 2017, Mercedes is good at listing reasons why the other cars should win and then winning anyway. So when they're already talking up the strength of their competition after the first test, it's hard to believe that there's much to worry about.

"We've made a bit of progress with the balance on higher fuel and the car was more predictable but we can see from the data we've collected over the last few days that on race pace, we're not as quick as Red Bull," Shovlin said.

During the test, that was true. But the implication here is that Mercedes is now the underdog and has to catch up to Red Bull. And that reads as a painfully obvious lie. Disregard the actual timing for a second, secure in the knowledge that testing times are rarely indicative of actual performance. Focus on what we know to be true. Last year's W11 was more consistent, easier to drive, faster, and more reliable than Red Bull's RB16. It secured a seventh consecutive Constructors' World Championship for Mercedes and a seventh Drivers' Championship for Lewis Hamilton.

Of course, the success of the last car does not guarantee a winning car for 2021. Yet in this year more than most, there's reason to be hesitant about expecting any big shake-ups. After pushing back the major rule change from 2021 to 2022, the FIA enacted a series of restrictions on 2021 development to curb spending. Each team gets two development tokens that can be spent improving one or two aspects of the car, but the rest of the car remains largely intact. Aero improvements can be made without spending tokens, but with such limited overall development, it's unlikely that you'll see Haas fighting for podiums or Mercedes falling into the midfield.

Still, that doesn't mean this season is a lock for Mercedes. It can't spend millions on upgrading every part, the dual-axis steering system from the W11 is banned for 2021, and McLaren is now using its power unit. Plus, I mean, have you seen the Red Bull car? It's clearly, definitely, for sure faster. For real this time.
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Napoletani: estote parati ! Long-dormant Iceland volcano erupts for first time in 6,000 years

Iceland volcano erupts after weeks of seismic activity

A volcanic eruption began in southwestern Iceland near the capital Reykjavik on March 19 following thousands of small earthquakes in the area in recent weeks. (Reuters)
By
Miriam Berger

The volcano in the Fagradals Mountains, 20 miles southwest of Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik, had lain dormant for some 6,000 years.

That was until about 8:45 p.m. Friday in Iceland, when fountains of fiery lava began oozing out.

A volcano in Iceland's Fagradals Mountains erupts. (Icelandic Coast Guard/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)

The eruption was the Reykjanes Peninsula’s first in 781 years, according to the Associated Press. But the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement that it was “considered small” and there was no need to evacuate residents of the closest town, about six miles away.

“We ask people to keep away from the immediate area and stay safe.” tweeted Iceland’s prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir.

Authorities additionally closed down roads in the vicinity and warned residents that “gas pollution” might affect the area. Icelandic authorities said air traffic could continue as normal and flights remained on schedule.

After monitoring the volcano throughout the night, geophysicist Pall Einarsson told the Associated Press on Saturday that the eruption was continuing to die down.

The Icelandic Meteorological Office said here was no need to evacuate residents of the closest town, about six miles away. (AP)

Hours after bursting through, lava had traveled about six-tenths of a mile down the mountain and covered an area around one-third of a mile wide, according to the meteorological department’s website.

The department began recording a rise in daily earthquakes and other seismic activity on the peninsula on Feb. 24. By early March, it reported that a small-scale volcanic eruption was likely to occur. Still, there was no certainty around timing: The eruption itself took scientists by surprise, the AP reported, as seismic activity had decreased slightly right before it.

Iceland experienced a far more disruptive volcanic eruption in an area called Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. That volcano spewed so much molten ash it grounded flights from Europe and impacted travel worldwide for weeks.

This time around, there was more awe than shock at what nature could do.

“YESSS !!, eruption !!" Icelandic singer Björk posted on Instagram, along with a photo from a 2015 music video shoot at the volcano site. “we in iceland are sooo excited !!! we still got it !!! sense of relief when nature expresses herself !!!”

Robot doctors take over hospital to reduce COVID spread - MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering Giovanni Traverso

(THE NEW YORK POST)

By Asia Grace

Robo-Doctors welcome in hospital rooms amid COVID-19 concerns

The digi-doctor is in.

Dr. Spot, a dog-like mobile robot programmed to triage hospital patients, is the newest front-line health-care worker to join the fight against COVID-19.

And while at first glance this four-legged creature might look like something out of your worst nightmare, people are actually doggone happy about it.

“People are very positive and accepting of robotic systems in health-care settings, particularly during the pandemic,” MIT assistant professor of mechanical engineering Giovanni Traverso told The Post.

In a new study out this month, Traverso and colleagues Peter Chai and Henwei Huang found that patients are widely receptive to receiving medical attention from robots designed to evaluate symptoms in a contact-free way.

They’re even willing to let robo-docs like Spot — made of aluminum, plastic and circuit boards — perform minor procedures on them, such as assessing their vital signs, taking a nasal swab or placing an intravenous catheter.

“Early on in the pandemic we wanted to help protect the health-care workforce from the virus by limiting their exposure to potentially COVID-infected patients,” Traverso said.

“We wondered if we could do that by incorporating robotic systems in health-care environments, and if patients would be willing to engage with robots during their evaluations,” he said.


Dr. Spot, a four-legged mobile robot, helps reduce the spread of COVID-19 by providing health-care services to sick patients in hospitals.

To test their theory, researchers first conducted a nationwide survey of 1,000 people to analyze their thoughts on receiving medical services from robots.

“We found that folks across the nation were willing to engage with robots, particularly systems that facilitate telehealth and systems that facilitate measuring vital signs like heart rate, respiratory rate and oxygen levels,” Traverso said.

The researchers then teamed up with engineering and robotics design firm Boston Dynamics to create Dr. Spot.

“It takes a few months to build a robot,” Marco da Silva, principal roboticist, told The Post.

The company’s offerings start around $74,500, with the option of additional customizations that can cost over $20,000 each, according to its Web site.

“It took another six weeks to make the payload for Dr. Spot,” da Silva said of the specialized software and modifications needed to give the bot the abilities to perform health-care assessments on patients.

Dr. Spot is equipped with a number of sophisticated cameras and computer systems that can identify a person’s face even if they’re wearing a mask. It can also assess body temperature, breathing and pulse rates, and uses special lens filters to determine blood oxygen saturation.

Researchers then introduced the robot to 40 patients in the emergency department at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

For this study, the clinicians mounted an iPad to Spot’s base. The tablet displayed a real-time person-to-person video that allowed doctors and nurses to conduct telehealth interviews with patients while they operated the robot with a remote controller from a distance.

“Overall, patients in the emergency department responded very favorably to Dr. Spot, especially because it reduces the risk of person-to-person exposure to COVID,” Traverso said.

“Most people reported that interacting with a health-care provider via a robotic system was similar to in-person interaction with a physician.”

More than 90 percent of the patients reported that their interaction with the robot was satisfactory, and said they would be willing to interact with more robotic systems in the future, according to the study.

“Robotics, to some extent, are used in hospital settings already,” Traverso noted.

“But in the setting of COVID-19, we’re seeing that robotic systems really could play a significant role in health care based on people’s high acceptance.” (Drudge Report)

Texas man arrested outside vice president’s residence told police he was ‘looking for help’

(Peter Hermann/The Washington Post)
By
Peter Hermann and
Paul Duggan

A Texas man arrested outside the vice president’s residence on Wednesday told an officer “he was looking for help” and “wanted to talk to the president” before leading police to his vehicle, which contained a rifle and 113 rounds of ammunition, according to court documents.

Police had been searching for 31-year-old Paul Murray since Tuesday, when authorities in College Station, Tex., distributed an intelligence bulletin warning he thought he was being targeted by the government and had texted his mother that he was in the District “to take care of his problem.”

D.C. Superior Court Magistrate Judge Heide Herrmann on Thursday ordered Murray detained until his next court appearance April 17, agreeing with prosecutors that Murray is dangerous. She ordered him to undergo a mental competency evaluation.

Murray was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and possession of a large-capacity ammunition magazine. Police said they found five magazines that could each hold 30 rounds.

There is no indication Murray, from San Antonio, made any direct threats, but his arrest came amid heightened security alerts following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and recent attacks targeting Asian Americans. Vice President Harris is Black and Asian.

Murray’s defense attorney, Cheline Schroeder, said during Thursday’s hearing that there is no strong evidence Murray is dangerous, and she called for the charges to be dropped, saying that, if anything, possession of the firearm is a statutory violation, not a felony charge.

Schroeder noted that Murray’s vehicle, and firearm, were found in a garage in downtown Washington, three miles from where her client was arrested. She said he had no intent to use the weapon.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron Tepfer told the court Murray is “reportedly schizophrenic” and has been off his medication “for a period of years.”

Court documents say that on March 12, authorities in Brazos County, Tex., obtained a “mental health warrant” allowing for Murray’s “emergency detention.” The warrant states, according to the court documents, that Murray “thinks he is going to be murdered” by someone in the government.

The bulletin distributed by College Station police four days later says Murray told officers he had been attacked by a group called “3 Stones” while he was in the military overseas and that “he would hurt someone ‘if it was justified.’ ” It says Murray complained to police in Texas he was not getting enough support, had stopped taking his medication and had been drugged or poisoned on a recent trip to Japan.

Efforts to reach Murray’s family on Thursday were not successful.

A uniformed U.S. Secret Service agent first encountered Murray shortly after noon on Wednesday at Massachusetts Avenue and Observatory Circle in Northwest Washington and took him into custody.

The vice president traditionally lives on the grounds of the Naval Observatory, though it could not be determined whether Harris’s family was there on Wednesday. After the inauguration, they had been staying at Blair House near the White House while the permanent residence underwent renovations.

During his arrest, court documents say, Murray directed police to his vehicle, a black Chevrolet Impala with Texas license plates parked in a garage in the 600 block of Massachusetts Avenue NW, two blocks from the Gallery Place-Chinatown Metro station.

Inside, police said, they found a case containing a Smith & Wesson AR-15-style rifle and the ammunition. Authorities said Murray purchased the firearm in Texas in 2017.

The Texas police bulletin also advises that Murray told police he had been medically discharged from the Army, where he had worked as a remote drone operator at a base within the United States.

An Army spokesman said Murray had a rank of specialist and had been assigned as an unmanned aerial vehicle operator from March 2010 through April 2014. He had no deployments.

The spokesman declined to discuss the reason for his discharge.