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IT'S the most wonderful time of the year where you have to rack your brains and decide what kind of Christmas gift you should get for your mate the football fan.
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IT'S the most wonderful time of the year and you probably had to rack your brains and decide what kind of Christmas gift you should get for your mate the football fan.
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What should you get for your mate the football fan this Christmas?
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If your friend or relative is a Sunderland supporter then you really need to get a stunning present considering how poor the Black Cats' season has been.
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Chelsea fans are ecstatic as they are back on top but you shouldn't let your Antonio-Conte-sympathising friend down with a cheesy Christmas gift.
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A list by GambleGeek.com ranks the worst gifts from each Premier League side so you don't get any awkward stares around the family table.
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The company will match donations dollar-for-dollar, up to a $5,000 corporate cap.
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Three Shoe Station stores in Montgomery, Prattville and Opelika will match donations for a Wetumpka tornado relief fund this weekend.
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The stores will collect donations for the Central Alabama Community Foundation's Wetumpka Tornado Relief Fund on Jan. 26. The company will match donations dollar-for-dollar, up to a $5,000 cap.
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Wetumpka was rocked last week by an EF-2 tornado, which decimated neighborhoods, churches and the city police department on the west side of the town.
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CACF funds will be used to support immediate as well as long-term needs of citizens in Elmore County, a news release from ShoStation states.
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To make a donation to the Wetumpka Tornado Relief Fund, visit participating Shoe Station locations on Jan. 26 or go to www.cacfinfo.org and click on GIVE TODAY or mail a check payable to CACF, 114 Church St., Montgomery, AL 36104, and reference Wetumpka Tornado Relief.
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“Central Alabama Community Foundation will serve as a collection point for financial donations from individuals who are willing to help our citizens. We will continue to work with nonprofits and faith based organizations who are providing both immediate and long-term services to the people who have lost so much,” said Community Foundation President Burton Crenshaw.
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The optimism marks a shift from early September, when officials were contemplating the possibility of losing both chambers of Congress.
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WASHINGTON — Days after Senate Republicans installed Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, President Trump and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell huddled at the White House to review private polling that showed a Republican surge triggered by the polarizing nomination.
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Trump wondered aloud at the Oct. 9 meeting: How do we keep this going? McConnell, R-Ky., replied that there was only one person who could do it: the president himself.
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Since that conversation, which was confirmed by three people with knowledge of the session, Trump has held a series of rallies in Senate battleground states – with plans for at least 10 in the final six days of the campaign up and down the ballot – and Republicans have grown increasingly confident about their prospects in the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
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McConnell has been telling associates that Republicans are in a strong position to hold the Senate and could pad their narrow 51-to-49 advantage by a couple of seats, according to people familiar with the talks, though the Kentuckian avoids precise predictions.
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The optimism marks a shift from early September, when officials were fretting over struggling candidates and contemplating the possibility of losing both chambers of Congress.
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Although Republicans still feel like underdogs to hold the House amid anger with Trump, especially in the suburbs, they believe they have energized enough voters in Trump-friendly regions to keep the Senate, thanks to an uptick in the president’s popularity and Republican outrage with Democratic efforts to prevent the confirmation of Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual misconduct.
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“It looked pretty bad a few weeks ago, but I think it’s looking better for us,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.
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Republicans say they are well positioned to pick up a seat in North Dakota and are closing in on another one in Missouri, where polls show a close race. Republican strategists also think they have gained the advantage in Texas and Tennessee. But struggles in the Upper Midwest and fresh worries about Florida have raised questions about how many more states they can add.
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If Independence City Manager Robert Heacock has learned one aspect of events centers, he said, it’s that a one-size-fits-all model hardly exists.
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“They seem to be very specific to the locality of where they are operating,” Heacock said of events centers’ different funding streams and management approaches. Earlier this week, Heacock elaborated on the City Council’s approval of a nonprofit organization to manage the Independence Events Center.
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“It was really more of a financial move to try to keep as much as money as possible with the facility instead of paying corporate income tax,” Heacock said.
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Earlier this month, the Independence City Council approved the transition from the Independence Events Center LLC to the nonprofit Independence Events Center Management Corp. The decision for a permanent management replacement came nearly six months after the city and Global Entertainment Corp. mutually ended Global’s management and operations at the Events Center.
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Heacock maintains that little, if anything, has changed operations-wise at the facility since Global left. The Events Center and its adjoining Centerpoint Medical Center Community Ice Facility have 20 full-time employees and up to 300 part-time employees. The employees are receiving the same pay as when Global Entertainment managed the facility, said Mike Young, who has served as the Events Center’s general manager since January 2009 and who is considered the nonprofit organization’s executive director.
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Those who work at the Events Center are not considered city employees. Instead, Young said, they work for the management corporation.
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The city continues to own the Events Center, though the nonprofit organization is distinct and is separate from the city in its finances, Heacock said.
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The newly formed nonprofit organization does not have the authority to issue bonds for additional financial assistance, Heacock said. Significant policy decisions involving the Events Center, such as whether to charge for parking, would go before the City Council instead of the nonprofit’s board of directors.
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The board would consider other minor operational decisions, such as how much should be charged for concession stand items or whether to book a particular act, Heacock said.
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The capital expenses of the Events Center are funded through its community improvement district half-percent sales tax. Payroll funds come from income generated by events booked and from programming at the Centerpoint Medical Center Community Ice Facility.
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Independence and the city of Allen, Texas, are nearly identical in their events center situation. Like Independence, the city of Allen owns its events center, which includes Central Hockey League and Indoor Football League tenants. The two cities opened their facilities just three days apart in November 2009. Allen and Global ended their agreement several months before Independence.
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When the city of Allen and Global Entertainment parted ways in summer 2010, the city took over management on a transitional basis, said Allen, Texas, City Manager Peter Vargas, while staff researched the area and which companies were in the marketplace to provide management services.
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“Every management company would require an annual $150,000 to $200,000 as a management fee and that they would not guarantee operations, meaning if their was a deficit at the end of the year, the city would still be responsible for it,” Vargas said.
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So, on Oct. 1, the city of Allen’s Parks and Recreation Department took over management of the Allen Event Center. A majority – but not all – of the center’s employees were kept on staff, Vargas said.
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The move was a positive one, Vargas said, adding the local management model has increased the level of activity at the arena. The previous lack of foot traffic was the main concern under Global’s leadership, Vargas said, and the Parks and Recreation Department’s management also has reduced the redundancy that a separate management company had created.
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Dublin medical devices player Mainstay Medical has secured two US patents for defeating back pain.
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Dublin-headquartered med tech company Mainstay Medical has filed two patents that will be central to new products that will help tackle debilitating back pain.
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Mainstay – which is listed on the Dublin and Paris stock exchanges – is a medtech player that is focused on the commercialisation of novel neurostimulation therapies for people suffering from chronic lower back pain (CLBP).
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Mainstay moved its head office and executive leadership team from Minnesota to Dublin in 2012.
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The company’s ReActiv8 unique approach is to use electrical stimulation to elicit repetitive contractions of the key stabilising muscles of the lumbar spine to reactivate the body’s control over these muscles, allowing recovery from CLBP.
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“Our approach to the treatment of CLBP in this challenging population is unique,” said CEO Peter Crosby.
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Clinical trials with ReActiv8 are ongoing in Europe and Australia, and the company recently announced FDA approval to start a clinical trial of ReActiv8 in the US under an Investigational Device Exception (IDE).
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BRONX, N.Y. - Police are investigating a deadly accident involving multiple cars on the Cross Bronx Expressway.
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One person was killed when several cars collided on the westbound side of the highway near Webster Avenue in Claremont.
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It happened shortly after 1 a.m.
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Two other people were taken to the hospital, one of them in critical condition.
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Southbound lanes of the Cross Bronx Expressway were closed during the investigation but have since reopened to traffic.
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Meanwhile, two men are facing DWI and reckless driving charges after a multi-car crash Sunday night in the Bronx.
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Christopher Coates, 31, and Jahmeik White, 23, were arrested at the scene.
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Sources tell NY1 two BMWs were racing on the New England Thruway when one of them slammed into a Kia near exit 11.
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Another car was also hit.
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A man inside the Kia was critically hurt, seven others were also hurt.
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Illustration of pot blondies with marijuana leaves surrounding the tray of edibles.
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Roughly 100 miles – the distance between Phoenix and Prescott – meant the difference between a felony arrest and freedom to use medical marijuana for Adam Hight.
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In Phoenix, specifically Maricopa County, Hight would not have been charged with a felony for possessing marijuana extracts, he wouldn’t owe the state as much as $3,000, and he wouldn’t have had to give the state a sample of his DNA.
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But that’s the price he paid for having a thimble-sized amount of marijuana wax in Yavapai County, where County Attorney Sheila Polk has fought in court to deem any byproducts of the plant outlawed even for card-carrying medical marijuana users.
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The county has won in the courtroom so far, but as of mid-March, has stopped prosecuting cardholders for possessing or using extracts as the Arizona Supreme Court considers their legality.
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The byproducts, which come in many forms such as wax, gummy bears, cookies, vapes and hashish, are often the preferred method for ingesting medical marijuana.
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Hight said the entire ordeal was confusing for him as a cardholder.
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“It was very hard to accept that I pay money to the state [for my card] and now the state is telling me I’m going to be a felon for something that was sold to me [legally],” he said.
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A police report shows Hight’s ordeal began Aug. 6, 2018. He was driving back to Prescott from a dispensary in Glendale when a Prescott Valley police officer stopped him for speeding on State Route 69. The traffic stop did not go how Hight expected.
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Hight has been a cardholder for two years as a result of ligament damage to his knee.
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Medical marijuana has been legal in Arizona since voters approved Proposition 203, known as the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act, or AMMA, in 2010. The AMMA protects the use of marijuana, and allows medical marijuana patients to have up to 2.5 ounces, but whether it protects the use alternate forms of marijuana is being debated at the Arizona Supreme Court and state Legislature.
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Hight told the officer he had just come back from a dispensary in Phoenix, where marijuana is much cheaper than the Prescott area shops. When they asked to see his marijuana, he handed it over.
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“I have nothing to hide,” he said as the cop peered inside his car.
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But Hight hesitated when they asked about the bag of marijuana wax on the floor of his car. He had heard marijuana extracts, edibles and other derivatives may be considered illegal by some police departments and prosecutors even though they are readily available at every state licensed dispensary in Arizona.
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Unfortunately for him, Polk, a marijuana prohibitionist who was a staunch opponent of the 2016 effort to legalize recreational use, is one of the few – possibly the only – prosecutor in the state who would take his case to court.
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After conferring with Polk’s office, police put him in handcuffs, and hauled him off to jail.
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The Arizona Supreme Court from left are Robert Brutinel, John Lopez, John Pelander, Scott Bales, Andrew Gould, Clint Bolick, Ann Scott Timmer.
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The state’s highest court heard oral arguments March 19 on whether extracts, tinctures or anything else made from the cannabis plant is legal.
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The case, State of Arizona v. Rodney Christopher Jones, stems from a 2013 arrest in which Rodney Jones, a cardholder, possessed .05 ounces of hashish, which is about the size of a standard memory card. Jones, 27, served 30 months in jail, and depending on what the Supreme Court decides, that may have been unnecessary.
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The Yavapai Superior Court and the Court of Appeals agreed that AMMA does not protect cannabis products.
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Lawmakers tried to take up the issue before the court’s decision.
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Rep. Tony Rivero, R-Peoria introduced HB 2149, which would take the definition of cannabis from Arizona’s criminal code and move it under the definition of marijuana, ensuring all marijuana products would be protected under AMMA. That bill, however, was stymied by lawmakers who preferred to let the court decide.
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Records obtained by Arizona Capitol Times show Hight was in the same boat as Jones. He had his valid card available, and possessed roughly an ounce of marijuana flower plus .17 ounces of concentrated “wax,” which Polk’s office considers a Class 4 felony, punishable by up to three years in prison. The wax had a value of about $75.
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On the roadside, police called Polk’s office to ask whether to arrest Hight.
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Despite the legal limbo of marijuana products and their widespread availability in marijuana dispensaries, Polk’s office told the police to arrest him and refer his case for prosecution.
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Based on the Arizona Department of Health Services annual reports, non-marijuana flower products are selling much better than in years prior. From 2016 to 2018, non-flower has increased from roughly 4,000 pounds in 2016 to more than 10,000 pounds in 2018.
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According to Cody Sides, the general manager of Nirvana Center, a dispensary in Prescott Valley, about 40 percent of the market is made up of non-marijuana flower.
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“Being in our location, which is more of a retirement community, it’s really about 30 percent of our market,” Sides said.
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The flower still makes for a majority of the profit, but “there’s just certain things for a lot of our patients that the flower cannot do,” he said. Sides said he has noticed a lot more concentrate users now compared to previous years, but most of those users still use a mix between flower and other products.
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The rising popularity in concentrates has not stopped Yavapai County Attorney’s Office from going after medical marijuana patients who use them.
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Hight agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for drug paraphernalia, and the felony for possession of narcotics, though the felony sentence was deferred.
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A judge gave him three years probation, which could be reduced to half for good behavior. He cannot consume any alcohol or drugs for the entirety of the probationary period, and he cannot leave the state until it’s completed.
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Hight also spent two days in jail and had to submit to a DNA test, the results of which will be uploaded to a national database for law enforcement identification purposes. All told, he could end up paying between $1,500 and $3,000 for drug tests and drug counseling classes depending how long the probation lasts. Hight said his Toyota was also impounded resulting in an additional $200 charge.
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When the police let him go, they gave him his marijuana flower back.
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The probation entails he enroll in a drug offender treatment program and comply with a drug test, though he is he still allowed to smoke medical marijuana.
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“They said it’s fine to have THC in my system,” Hight said.
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Under Polk’s command, The Yavapai County Attorney’s Office has been notoriously against marijuana of any kind. For years, her office has gone after small time medical marijuana patients, arresting them for cannabis products legally purchased at marijuana dispensaries.
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The court, which has yet to rule, did not seem to buy the county’s arguments, although the justices gave no indication of how they will rule.
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Yavapai County prosecutor Benjamin Kreutzberg said in the March 19 oral arguments the language in AMMA permits patients to use marijuana flower and leaves of the plant, but anything else would be illegal. Robert Mandel, representing Jones, told the justices the whole purpose of AMMA was to give marijuana patients – adults and children – medicine.
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“Nobody anticipated that two or three-year-old minors were going to be rolling joints and smoking them, because that’s absurd,” Mandel said.
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Bill Hughes, the chief criminal deputy in the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office told Capitol Times in a March 26 email the office would hold off on filing charges in cannabis cases with a few exceptions until the Supreme Court rules.
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Hughes said he would not comment further when asked why Polk’s office decided to hold filing charges until recently, as opposed to when the Supreme Court opted to hear the case in January.
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Hughes’ statement however, came with quite a few caveats. For new and pending cases where a person was also arrested on other unrelated felony charges, Yavapai County Attorney’s Office will also file the possession of cannabis charge if there is a reasonable likelihood of conviction, Hughes said. For pending cannabis-only cases that have already been filed, the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office will allow the defense to continue their case until after the Supreme Court rules in Jones, he said.
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Jared Keenan, a criminal justice staff attorney with the ACLU of Arizona, had some ideas on why Polk’s office had a sudden change of heart.
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“[Oral arguments] didn’t seem to go well for Yavapai County,” Keenan said, adding it now seems safer for Polk to wait to continue prosecuting until the Supreme Court makes its final decision.
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Another factor that didn’t help Polk in the Jones case, is that once things started to heat up, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich pulled out before the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments. Brnovich withdrew his argument that extracts are not covered under AMMA.
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