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The National Security Council says that Russia is attempting a "false flag operation" to "justify any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea and to then blame them on Ukraine."
The declaration comes days after Russia backed out of a deal that helped move grain from Ukrainian ports, threatening global food supply.
NSC spokesperson John Kirby told reporters in a briefing Thursday afternoon that Russia may try to expand its targets in the Black Sea to attacks on civilian ships that are transporting grain and food.
"Russia has already announced publicly that all ships proceeding to Ukrainian ports in Black Sea waters will be considered potential carriers of military cargo, even though they are simply trying to pick up grain and food to be able to feed people around the world," Kirby said.
Kirby said Russia is falsely trying to blame Ukraine for sea mines that Russia itself planted, releasing a video of a detonation it claimed was from a Ukrainian mine.
Kirby said the U.S. found it important to declassify and publicly share the information to warn that the Black Sea waters "are now more dangerous than they were before for civilian shipping and that's because of one party and one party only: and that's Russia."
Earlier Thursday, the U.S. also announced additional sanctions against Russia to further limit its military capabilities.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2023-07-20T20:15:52+00:00 | iowapublicradio.org | https://www.iowapublicradio.org/news-from-npr/2023-07-20/u-s-says-russia-is-laying-the-groundwork-to-attack-civilian-ships-and-blame-ukraine |
Review: A showcase for William Prince’s noble baritone
“Stand in the Joy,” William Prince (Six Shooter Records)
Singer-songwriter William Prince played a couple of songs at a recent solo set in Nashville, Tennessee. Looking out at an admiring audience, he allowed himself a slight smile.
“I’m not going to lie,” he said. “This is going about as well as I hoped.”
Career momentum is building for Prince, a Canadian fluent in Americana. He has gone from performing in Manitoba coffee shops to making his debut in February at the Grand Ole Opry. Now comes a fine new album, “Stand in the Joy,” which showcases his noble baritone and balladry.
Built like a logger, Prince has a disarmingly warm, gentle delivery so commanding he need not raise his voice and rarely does. He and ace producer Dave Cobb keep tempos modest and accompaniment uncluttered, with acoustic guitar the instrumental anchor.
Prince, raised on a Peguis First Nation reservation, draws on his roots for material. He sings about the rumbling reaper, fending off heartbreak with drinks and a six-string, and loneliness that “tears you apart and then some.” There are also tunes contemplating new love, the rewards of compromise, and simple goodness.
“Can’t believe I woke up again,” Prince marvels on “Take a Look Around,” his voice coming from the chest, where the heart is.
___
https://apnews.com/hub/music-reviews
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | 2023-04-13T20:23:56+00:00 | kob.com | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/review-a-showcase-for-william-princes-noble-baritone/ |
Patrons in gay club shooting hit gunman with his own weapon
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — As bullets tore through a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five people and wounding many more, one patron who’d been partying moments before rushed into action, grabbing a handgun from the suspect, hitting him with it and pinning him down until police arrived just minutes later. He was one of at least two customers who police and city officials credit with stopping the gunman and limiting the bloodshed in Saturday night’s shooting at Club Q. The violence pierced the cozy confines of an entertainment venue that has long been a cherished safe spot for the LGBTQ community in the conservative-leaning city. The club called it a “hate attack” but investigators are still determining a motive.
Cold and dark: Kyiv readies for 'worst winter of our lives'
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The lack of electricity turned Anastasia Pyrozhenko’s apartment into a deathtrap. Without electricity, there’s no water and no way to cook food, and the woman and her husband won’t even have time to run to the shelter from their 21st floor in the event of missile strikes, because the elevator isn’t working. “Russian strikes are plunging Ukraine into the stone age,” 25-year-old Pyrozhenko said. The situation in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and other major cities has deteriorated drastically after the largest missile attack on the country’s power grid on Tuesday. Ukrainian state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo reported that 40% of Ukrainians were experiencing difficulties, due to damage to at least 15 major energy hubs across the country.
Disney announces ex-CEO Bob Iger to return for 2 years
BURBANK, Calif. (AP) — The Walt Disney Company has announced that former CEO Bob Iger will return to head the company for two years in a move late Sunday that stunned the entertainment industry. Disney said in a statement that Bob Chapek, who succeeded Iger in 2020, had stepped down from the position. Disney board chair Susan Arnold thanked Chapek for his leadership during “the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic.” She said directors believed Iger was “uniquely situated” to guide the entertainment behemoth during “an increasingly complex period of industry transformation.” Iger, 71, led Disney for 15 years as it absorbed Pixar, Lucasfilm, Marvel and Fox’s entertainment businesses, then launched its Disney+ streaming service.
European World Cup teams to defy FIFA in armband standoff
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — FIFA has tried to end a standoff with European teams about wearing unauthorized captain armbands for an anti-discrimination campaign that draws attention to World Cup host Qatar. It didn’t work. FIFA wants seven European soccer federations to back down from allowing their captains to wear “One Love” armbands in games. It's a heart-shaped multi-colored logo that draws attention to Qatar’s record on human rights. FIFA failed to persuade the Europeans with its counter-proposal of armbands with socially aware slogans. German scocer federation president Bernd Neuendorf says “we will stay with the European position.”
GOP's lackluster fundraising spurs post-election infighting
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are engaged in a round of finger-pointing as both parties sift through the results of Democrats’ stronger-than-expected showing in the midterm elections. But the recriminations obscure a much deeper dilemma for the party. Many of their nominees failed to raise the money needed to mount competitive campaigns. That forced party leaders, particularly in the Senate, to triage resources to races where they thought they had the best chance at winning. The lackluster fundraising allowed Democrats to get their message out to voters early and unchallenged, while GOP contenders lacked the resources to do the same.
Lawmakers urge action after report of other high court leak
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman is among those urging action in response to a report that a former anti-abortion leader knew in advance the outcome of a 2014 Supreme Court case involving health care coverage of contraception. The report Saturday in The New York Times follows the stunning leak earlier this year of a draft opinion in the case in which the high court ended constitutional protections for abortion. That decision was written by Justice Samuel Alito, who is also the author of the majority opinion in the 2014 case at the center of the new report. In a statement, Alito denies that he disclosed the outcome of the contraception case.
Red Cross: Afghans will struggle for their lives this winter
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A senior official with the International Committee of the Red Cross says that Afghans will struggle for their lives as the country braces for its second winter under Taliban rule and faces plummeting humanitarian conditions. Red Cross operations director Martin Schuepp says an already dire economic situation in Afghanistan is set to become worse as the Taliban face international isolation and sanctions. Speaking with. He told The Associated Press late Sunday, that the Red Cross has stepped in with “stop-gap measures” like paying the salaries of 10,500 medical staff every month. The Taliban’s return to power in August 2021 fundamentally transformed Afghanistan, driving millions into poverty as foreign aid stopped almost overnight.
EXPLAINER: How will UN climate deal on loss and damage work?
SHARM el-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — The establishment of a fund to help poor nations getting hit hard by extreme weather events was one of the most significant decisions to come out of U.N. climate talks the last 30 years. It affirmed that poor countries, with limited resources, are being most impacted by extreme weather events like floods, heat waves and storms, and that industrialized nations that have done the most to contribute to climate change have a responsibility to help. While government leaders, environmentalists and activists celebrated plans for such a fund, there are many outstanding questions, ranging from how it will work to long-term repercussions. Here is a look at the development of the idea of “loss and damage,” the term it’s given in climate negotiations, and what we know about the fund.
South China city locks down district in 'zero-COVID' fight
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou has locked down its largest district as it tries to tamp down a major COVID-19 outbreak, suspending public transit and requiring residents to present a negative test if they want to leave their homes. The outbreak is testing China’s attempt to bring a more “targeted” approach to its zero-COVID policies while facing multiple outbreaks. China is the only major country in the world still trying to curb virus transmissions through strict lockdown measures and mass testing. Meanwhile in Beijing, the capital reported two more COVID-19-related deaths. On Sunday, the city reported its first COVID-19 death in over six months.
AP Top 25: USC moves into top 5 for 1st time in 5 years
Southern California moved into the top five of The Associated Press college football poll for the first time in five years. Georgia received 62 of the 63 first-place votes in the AP Top 25 as the top four teams held their places after playing varying degrees of close games Saturday. No. 2 Ohio State received the other first-place vote. Michigan was No. 3 again, followed by TCU. The Trojans edged up two spots after a thrilling victory against rival UCLA. The last time USC was ranked in the top five was September of 2017, when it started at No. 4 but spent most of the season ranked in the teens before finishing at 12th. | 2022-11-21T07:57:22+00:00 | wcfcourier.com | https://wcfcourier.com/news/national/ap-news-summary-at-2-23-a-m-est/article_521fdf11-4efc-5119-b799-42bc283a8a32.html |
Democrats on the chief tax-writing committee in the House could vote on Tuesday to release tax return information on Donald Trump after winning a prolonged legal battle against the former president in the final weeks of Democratic control of the lower chamber.
The Ways and Means Committee announced a meeting for Tuesday afternoon on “documents protected under Internal Revenue Code section 6103,” the rule under which Democrats were able to obtain Trump’s tax records from the Treasury for years 2015 to 2020.
A vote at that meeting to issue a report to the wider Congress involving Trump’s tax information could open a new chapter in the saga of Trump’s tax returns, which were a source of great frustration for Democrats during Trump’s presidency after he broke with decades of presidential precedent by not sharing them upon entering office. It could also help to close the book on the matter once and for all.
Congressional experts say the contents of such a report to Congress could vary.
“Does that report have all the information that the Ways and Means Committee obtained? Does it have part of the information, perhaps in summary form?” Steve Rosenthal, an analyst with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said in an interview. “Or perhaps [it just has] a conclusion saying the Ways and Means Committee reviewed these tax returns and there’s nothing to worry about. It could be a very short report including summary documents.”
But a veritable canon of investigative reporting on Trump’s personal finances going back years has set high expectations for a big reveal.
In 2020, the New York Times reported that Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and that he’d paid “no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years – largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.”
In 2016, the paper reported that Trump incurred a $916 million loss on his 1995 tax return, theoretically allowing him to avoid income tax for nearly 20 years.
“To generate the $916 million of losses, Trump used other people’s money without ever repaying his borrowings or reversing his tax deductions, as the law requires. And the IRS apparently never challenged,” Rosenthal wrote online on Monday.
There’s doubt about whether the documents provided to House Democrats go back far enough to be able to give a full picture of Trump’s financial history and corroborate so much bombshell reporting.
“It could be a case of too little too late,” Rosenthal said. “I expect very little, without a fuller probe.”
Political strategists say Democrats should be seizing the opportunity to focus on transparency issues around Trump’s business dealings, especially after one of Trump’s main businesses was convicted of tax fraud earlier in December and as the high-profile Jan. 6 Committee considers its own set of criminal referrals against the former president.
“This is not old news. Donald Trump is once again a candidate for president in 2024 in the Republican primary. So this is news you can use, not old news to lose,” Democratic strategist Antjuan Seawright said in an interview.
“This should spark conversations and is going to spark conversations and should give some people some real cause to think, especially depending upon what’s in [the report],” he added.
Republicans said over the weekend that releasing Trump’s tax returns would set a new and damaging precedent.
“Ways and Means Democrats are unleashing a dangerous new political weapon that reaches far beyond President Trump, and jeopardizes the privacy of every American,” Ways and Means Republican leader Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said in a statement on Saturday.
“Going forward, partisans in Congress have nearly unlimited power to target political enemies by obtaining and making public their private tax returns to embarrass and destroy them. This is not limited to public officials, but can target private citizens, business and labor leaders, and Supreme Court justices,” he said.
But after the midterm elections, which saw many of Trump’s chosen candidates lose and his clout within the Republican party come into question, the disclosure of the former president’s tax returns may not represent the huge threat to Republicans that it did in years past.
Rather, Republicans’ vociferous disapproval may be paving the way for their own set of investigations that could result in their own preferred tax disclosures once they take over the House in January.
“If you step back, maybe Trump doesn’t even run for office again. So why would the Republicans care?” Steve Rosenthal said. “Ways and Means Republicans could come out and say, ‘You guys started it. This is both-sides-ism.’ And so they’re going to ask for the tax return information on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and whoever else they want to embarrass.”
Accusations of political retaliation through U.S. tax administration are nothing new.
Recently, the specialized audits of two top former FBI officials who became political foes of Trump over the investigation into his ties with Russia set off alarm bells for Democrats before the Treasury Inspector General cleared the IRS of wrongdoing.
Likewise, Republicans accused the IRS of targeting the tax-exempt status of conservative political groups during the Obama administration.
Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee could also decide not to release anything substantive in their potential report to Congress.
In that case, the Finance Committee in the Senate, which will stay under Democratic control come January, may take up the investigation.
Senate Finance Committee chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) expressed interest in continuing the investigation after the Department of Justice sided with the Ways and Means Committee in 2021, arguing the committee had a right to see Trump’s tax returns.
“The Justice Department confirms that Secretary Mnuchin acted outside the law in refusing to respond to a congressional request for Donald Trump’s tax returns,” Wyden said in a 2021 statement, referring to Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. “In light of this decision, I will consult with the Ways and Means Committee and consider the Finance Committee’s next steps.”
Ways and Means Democrats have been seeking Trump’s tax returns since winning the House in 2018, saying they needed them from the IRS to perform oversight of the federal presidential audit program.
“The IRS has a policy of auditing the tax returns of all sitting presidents and vice presidents,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) said in 2019. “We must obtain President Trump’s tax returns and review whether the IRS is carrying out its responsibilities.”
Whatever the scale of the disclosures on Trump’s personal tax returns, experts say his case is indicative of a broader set of problems with the U.S. tax system and how its complexities allow it to be exploited in bad faith.
“For our voluntary tax system to remain stable, we count on taxpayers not to play ‘hide-the-ball,’ or as Trump fashions it, to treat taxes as a sport. Trump once said that’s the way he looks at it,” Steve Rosenthal said. “The system will collapse if taxpayers game it and are successful.” | 2022-12-20T13:49:17+00:00 | wdtn.com | https://www.wdtn.com/hill-politics/after-years-of-fighting-for-them-democrats-may-release-trump-tax-return-information/ |
Father charged with murder in 11-month-old child’s death, deputies say
MIDLAND COUNTY, Texas (KOSA/Gray News) – A father in Texas has been charged with capital murder for the death of his 11-month-old child, officials said.
Dylan McKay Oneal, 29, was arrested Tuesday and booked into the Midland County Jail. He is being held without bond, jail records show.
Deputies with the Midland County Sheriff’s Office said the investigation began Monday evening when they were called to Midland Memorial Hospital in reference to an unresponsive child.
When deputies arrived at the hospital, they were told the 11-month-old had died.
Investigators determined the baby had been in the custody of the biological father, identified as Oneal. Officials said Oneal also had two other children in his custody at the time of the baby’s death.
Oneal and the other two children were found in Midland County, where Oneal was taken into custody.
Officials didn’t say what evidence led to Oneal’s murder charge or provide any details on how the 11-month-old died, as the investigation is ongoing.
In addition, two other men were also arrested for hindering apprehension related to this crime, the sheriff’s office said. Those men were identified as Paul Anthony Hernandez, 55, and Zachery Tyler Oneal, 25.
Copyright 2022 KOSA via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | 2022-12-07T19:05:11+00:00 | kwch.com | https://www.kwch.com/2022/12/07/father-charged-with-murder-11-month-old-childs-death-deputies-say/ |
(The Hill) – Former Vice President Mike Pence’s attorney advised him on Jan. 5, 2021, that if he blocked the certification of electoral votes the following day as then-President Trump was urging him to do, he would likely face a loss in court or a “standoff” with Congress, according to a memo released for the first time on Saturday.
In the memo, which was obtained by Politico, Pence lawyer Greg Jacob evaluated a proposal from Trump legal adviser John Eastman on how Pence could refuse to count electoral votes from “any state for which an alternate but uncertified slate of electors has been submitted.”
“If the Vice President implemented Professor Eastman’s proposal, he would likely lose in court,” Jacob concluded. “In a best-case scenario in which the courts refused to get involved, the Vice President would likely find himself in an isolated standoff against both houses of Congress, as well as most or all of the applicable State legislatures, with no neutral arbiter available to break the impasse.”
Pence’s ultimate decision to go against Trump and continue as normal with the certification of votes led to tension between the two and made the then-vice president a target amid the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, where many Trump supporters expressed anger toward Pence over his refusal to overturn the election results.
Pence has since reiterated that he did not have the authority to do so. “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election,” the former vice president said earlier this year. “The presidency belongs to the American people, and the American people alone. Frankly, there is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person could choose the American president.”
The release of Jacob’s memo to Pence comes days after the first of a series of public hearings held by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
In Thursday’s prime-time hearing, the committee laid out the framework of its case asserting that Trump was at the center of an effort to remain in power that directly led to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Jacob, who met with the House panel in February, is expected to testify in an upcoming hearing.
In the memo to Pence, Jacob noted that Eastman himself acknowledged his proposal would violate the 1887 Electoral Count Act and laid out multiple provisions of that law Pence would be breaking if he held up the certification as Eastman urged.
Jacob also said that Eastman’s advice was contradicted by the Electoral Commission of 1877 decision authored by a Supreme Court justice.
In that decision, Republican Supreme Court Justice Joseph Bradley wrote of the vice president: “He is not invested with any authority for making any investigation outside of the joint meeting of the two Houses.”
Jacob further noted that the proposal was “strongly in tension” with a federal district court ruling issued the previous day.
During the Capitol attack, Jacob emailed Eastman.
“And thanks to your b——-, we are under siege,” he wrote. | 2022-06-12T15:50:09+00:00 | cbs4indy.com | https://cbs4indy.com/news/national-world/pences-lawyer-told-him-blocking-vote-certification-would-likely-lead-to-court-loss-standoff-with-congress/ |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s new government announced on Thursday it plans to prevent development of a coal mine due to the potential impact on the nearby Great Barrier Reef.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said she intends to deny approval for the Central Queensland Coal Project to be excavated northwest of the Queensland state town of Rockhampton.
The minority Greens party has been pressing the center-left Labor Party government, which was elected in May, to refuse approvals of coal or gas projects, to help reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“Based on the information available to me at this stage, I believe that the project would be likely to have unacceptable impacts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and the values of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and National Heritage Place,” Plibersek said in a statement.
The marine park manages the network of more than 2,500 reefs that cover 348,000 square kilometers (134,000 square miles) of seabed off the northeast Australian coast. The World Heritage Area, designated by the United Nations and Australia’s National Heritage List, includes natural, historic and Indigenous places of outstanding significance to the nation.
UNESCO, the U.N. cultural organization, is considering downgrading the Great Barrier Reef’s World Heritage status mainly because rising ocean temperatures are killing coral.
The mine’s proponents have 10 business days to respond to the proposed refusal before the minister makes her final decision.
The Greens welcomed the news and urged the minister to reject another 26 planned coal mines.
“Now we need an across-the-board moratorium on all new coal and gas projects,” Greens leader Adam Bandt said in a statement.
The proposed decision was announced after the House of Representatives passed a bill that would enshrine in law the government’s ambition to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade. The bill was passed 89 votes to 55.
The previous government’s target had been a reduction of between 26%-28%, set at the Paris climate conference in 2015.
A proposed Greens’ amendment that would have acknowledged no new coal, oil or gas projects could be started if Australia were to achieve its net-zero emissions target by 2050 was defeated on Thursday.
The government is confident that the bill will be passed by the Senate next month with support from all 12 Greens senators, who would prefer a 2030 target of a 75% reduction.
The apparently doomed mine would have been an open-cut operation that extracted up to 10 million metric tons (11 million U.S. tons) of coal a year. | 2022-08-04T21:32:26+00:00 | kxnet.com | https://www.kxnet.com/ap-science/australia-to-protect-barrier-reef-by-banning-coal-mine/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Up to 40,000 Army National Guard soldiers across the country — or about 13% of the force — have not yet gotten the mandated COVID-19 vaccine, and as the deadline for shots looms, at least 14,000 of them have flatly refused and could be forced out of the service.
Guard soldiers have until Thursday to get the vaccine. According to data obtained by The Associated Press, between 20% to 30% of the Guard soldiers in six states are not vaccinated, and more than 10% in 43 other states still need shots.
Guard leaders say states are doing all they can to encourage soldiers to get vaccinated by the time limit. And they said they will work with the roughly 7,000 who have sought exemptions, which are almost all for religious reasons.
“We’re going to give every soldier every opportunity to get vaccinated and continue their military career. Every soldier that is pending an exemption, we will continue to support them through their process,” said Lt. Gen. Jon Jensen, director of the Army National Guard, in an Associated Press interview. “We’re not giving up on anybody until the separation paperwork is signed and completed. There’s still time.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last year ordered all service members — active-duty, National Guard and Reserves — to get the vaccine, saying it is critical to maintaining the health and readiness of the force. The military services had varying deadlines for their forces, and the Army National Guard was given the longest amount of time to get the shots, mainly because it’s a large force of about 330,000 soldiers who are widely scattered around the country, many in remote locations.
The Army Guard’s vaccine percentage is the lowest among the U.S. military — with all the active-duty Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps at 97% or greater and the Air Guard at about 94%. The Army reported Friday that 90% of Army Reserve forces were partially or completely vaccinated.
The Pentagon has said that after June 30, Guard members won’t be paid by the federal government when they are activated on federal status, which includes their monthly drill weekends and their two-week annual training period. Guard troops mobilized on federal status and assigned to the southern border or on COVID-19 missions in various states also would have to be vaccinated or they would not be allowed to participate or be paid.
To make it more complicated, however, Guard soldiers on state activate duty may not have to be vaccinated — based on the requirements in their states. As long as they remain in state duty status, they can be paid by the state and used for state missions.
At least seven governors formally asked Austin to reconsider or not enforce the vaccine mandate for National Guard members, and some filed or signed on to lawsuits. In letters to the governors, Austin declined, and said that the coronavirus “takes our service members out of the fight, temporarily or permanently, and jeopardizes our ability to meet mission requirements.” He said Guard troops must either get the vaccine or lose their Guard status.
Jensen and Maj. Gen. Jill Faris, director of the Guard’s office of the Joint Surgeon General, said they are working with states adjutants general to get progress updates, including on the nearly 20,000 troops who are not flat refusals and haven’t submitted any type of exemption request. Some, they said, may just be a lag in self-reporting, while others may still be undecided.
“Part of those undefined are our soldiers who say, well, I have until 30 June and so I’ll take till 30 June,” said Jensen.
Others may have promised to bring in vaccine paperwork, and haven’t done it yet. Still others are on the books, but haven’t yet reported to basic training, so don’t have to be vaccinated until they get there. It’s not clear how many are in each category.
Jensen acknowledged that if the current numbers hold, there are concerns about possible impact on Guard readiness in the states, including whether it will affect any Guard units preparing to deploy.
“When you’re looking at, 40,000 soldiers that potentially are in that unvaccinated category, absolutely there’s readiness implications on that and concerns associated with that,” said Jensen. “That’s a significant chunk.”
Overall, according to the data obtained by the AP, about 85% of all Army Guard soldiers are fully vaccinated. Officials said that if those with one shot are counted, 87% are at least partially vaccinated.
Across the country, in all but one case, Guard soldiers are vaccinated at a higher rate that the general population in their state. Only in New Jersey is the percentage of vaccinated Guard solders very slightly lower than the state’s overall population, as of earlier this month when the data was collected.
The three U.S. territories — Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico — and the District of Columbia, all have more than 90% of their soldiers fully vaccinated. The highest percentage is in Hawaii, with nearly 97%, while the lowest is Oklahoma, at just under 70%.
Guard leaders in the states have run special shot programs, and provided as much information as possible to their forces in order to keep them on the job.
In Tennessee, they set up small teams in the east, west and central regions and did monthly events providing vaccines to troops who wanted them. And every Wednesday, Guard members could make appointments for shots in the middle Tennessee region, in Smyrna. In addition, in early June they called in all soldiers who have so far refused the vaccine.
“We held a big, mass event,” said Army Guard Col. Keith Evans. “We had all of our medical providers here. So if there were any questions to clear up, any misconceptions, any misinformation, we had all of our our data and were able to provide them all the information.”
Evans, who is commander of his Army Guard’s medical readiness command, said they also had recruiting and other leaders there who could explain what would happen if soldiers chose to not get the shot and ended up leaving the Guard.
“We wanted to let them know what benefits they had earned because these are soldiers that had had done their time, served their country,” said Evans.
Officials say they believe the information campaign has been working. Jensen said that about 1,500 soldiers a week around the country are moving into the vaccinated category. “We expect, as we approach the deadline, that we’ll see some some larger growth.” | 2022-06-25T12:38:43+00:00 | valleycentral.com | https://www.valleycentral.com/green-living/top-story/ap-top-headlines/army-guard-troops-risk-dismissal-as-vaccine-deadline-looms-2/ |
Biden faces building political pressure as classified document probe takes shape
Some things were trending in the right direction for President Joe Biden as he opened the year.
His approval ratings were ticking up. Inflation was slowing. And as Democrats united behind his likely reelection campaign, Republicans were at war with themselves after a disappointing midterm season.
But on Thursday, Biden's political standing took a huge hit after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the Democratic president's handling of classified documents.
Democrats publicly and privately conceded that the stunning development was, at best, an unwelcome distraction at an inopportune time that muddies the case against Donald Trump. The Republican former president is facing a special counsel of his own and is under federal criminal investigation for his handling of classified documents and other potential transgressions.
From the public, though, Biden, who called Trump "irresponsible," for his handling of classified documents, is facing charges of hypocrisy and lacking transparency.
Nonetheless, Thursday's appointment of a special counsel thrusts legal uncertainty over the sitting president and could revive debate among Democrats about the wisdom of him seeking a second term.
“No one’s going to say this is helpful,” veteran Democratic strategist James Carville said. “It’s pretty evident that’s not the case.”
As Democrats recoiled into a defensive posture, Trump's would-be Republican rivals in 2024 acknowledged that the contours of the upcoming race had shifted.
Trump “is the luckiest man in American politics,” said John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump and is considering a Republican White House bid. “This ought to be disqualifying to both of them."
Thus begins a messy election season in which the current and former presidents of the United States are both under investigation by special counsels as they gear up for a potential rematch in 2024. Many voters in both parties were already calling for a new generation of leadership to emerge in the nascent presidential contest. Such calls are now growing louder.
“On many political fronts, Biden’s touted 2024 campaign is potentially vulnerable,” said Norman Soloman, a progressive Democrat who leads the so-called Don't Run Joe campaign, which is already running television ads against Biden in key states. “Democrats and the country as a whole would be much better off this year and next if he’s not running for president.”
The 80-year-old president has already indicated he plans to seek a second term, but he has yet to make a final decision. His allies believe he is likely to make a formal announcement after the end of March.
So far, at least, no high-profile Democrats appear willing to challenge Biden in a prospective presidential primary contest. Privately, however, some Democratic officials believe the new federal probe may help motivate an insurgent candidate.
One of Biden's potential challengers, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, recently told The Associated Press that he would make a decision about his 2024 intentions “at the appropriate time.” Nina Turner, who chaired Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, said after Thursday's announcement that she hopes a “freedom-fighting progressive” mounts a primary challenge against Biden in 2024.
“The American people certainly deserve better choices — Republicans and Democrats,” Turner said, applauding the government’s decision to review Biden’s handling of classified documents in the same way it's investigating Trump. “We shouldn't have these men shoved down our throats.”
Garland's appointment of a special counsel followed Biden’s acknowledgement Thursday morning that documents with classified markings from his time as President Barack Obama's vice president were found in the garage of his Delaware home and in his personal library, in addition to documents already discovered in a locked closet at an office he used after leaving the White House.
Garland said Biden’s lawyers informed the Justice Department on Thursday morning of the discovery of a classified document at Biden’s home, after FBI agents first retrieved other documents from the garage in December.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Biden said he was cooperating “fully and completely with the Justice Department’s review.”
“People know I take classified documents and classified material seriously,” Biden said. He added: “My Corvette’s in a locked garage.”
There are differences between Trump's and Biden's cases, including the volume of documents discovered and the gravity of the ongoing grand jury investigation into the matter at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Palm Beach, Florida, home.
Roughly 300 records with classification markings were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, a private club that hosts constant events. The search of Trump’s property was the culmination of months of back-and-forth between the government and Trump’s representatives, who repeatedly resisted efforts to return the missing documents. And the Justice Department says classified documents were “likely concealed and removed” from a storage room as part of what they allege was an effort to obstruct the federal investigation.
A warrant for the search showed the FBI was investigating crimes, including the willful retention of national defense information and efforts to obstruct the federal probe.
Trump has seized on the latest development, potentially seeking to use it to undermine the investigation into his actions.
“It’s over,“ Trump said in an interview with conservative talk radio host Mark Levin on Thursday evening. ”When all of these documents started coming out and Biden had them, it really changed the complexion and the intensity that they were showing to me because, you know, what they did is – I don’t say far worse, I did nothing wrong — what they did is not good. What they did is bad.”
Ignoring the ethical questions surrounding the case and focusing solely on the political ramifications, some Democrats were hopeful, but not certain, that voters might distinguish between Biden's cooperative approach involving a smaller trove of documents he allegedly possessed by mistake and what federal prosecutors described as Trump's willful obstruction of hundreds of government secrets.
“It’s all the difference in the world between having something you don’t know you have and having something you know you have and aren’t supposed to have,” Carville said. “Is that going to get lost among a third of the country? Probably so.”
Bolton, a fierce Trump critic, predicted that the significant legal differences between the two cases would "get lost in the fog.” Now, he finds it hard to believe that Trump can be prosecuted for the Mar-a-Lago documents, regardless of the circumstances.
“I don’t see how a criminal case goes forward at this point,” Bolton said. “I just think it’s such a cloud over the prosecution.”
While the ground may have shifted, Trump’s legal challenges aren’t going to disappear.
Two months ago, Garland appointed former Justice Department public corruption prosecutor Jack Smith to lead investigations into the classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.
Federal prosecutors have been especially focused on a scheme by Trump allies to elevate fake electors in key battleground states won by Biden as a way to subvert the vote. They issued subpoenas to multiple state Republican Party chairmen.
Democratic strategist Josh Schwerin described the latest development as “certainly not ideal.”
“I think everyone would wish this hadn’t happened, including the president,” he said. “But it’s important to keep all of this in context: Everyone views President Biden as a far more responsible figure than Donald Trump. And that cannot be forgotten.” | 2023-01-13T19:46:57+00:00 | wisn.com | https://www.wisn.com/article/biden-building-pressure-document-probe-takes-shape/42487196 |
Musk says Twitter deal could move ahead with ‘bot’ info
(AP) - Elon Musk said Saturday his planned $44 billion takeover of Twitter should move forward if the company can confirm some details about how it measures whether user accounts are ‘spam bots’ or real people.
The billionaire and Tesla CEO has been trying to back out of his April agreement to buy the social media company, leading Twitter to sue him last month to complete the acquisition. Musk countersued, accusing Twitter of misleading his team about the true size of its user base and other problems he said amounted to fraud and breach of contract.
Both sides are headed toward an October trial in a Delaware court.
“If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,” Musk tweeted early Saturday. “However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.”
Twitter declined to comment Saturday. The company has repeatedly disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission an estimate that fewer than 5% of user accounts are fake or spam, with a disclaimer that it could be higher. Musk waived his right to further due diligence when he signed the April merger agreement.
Twitter has argued in court that Musk is deliberately trying to tank the deal because market conditions have deteriorated and the acquisition no longer serves his interests. A court filing Thursday describes his counterclaims as an imagined story “contradicted by the evidence and common sense.”
“Musk invents representations Twitter never made and then tries to wield, selectively, the extensive confidential data Twitter provided him to conjure a breach of those purported representations,” company attorneys wrote.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-08-06T18:31:35+00:00 | wfsb.com | https://www.wfsb.com/2022/08/06/musk-says-twitter-deal-could-move-ahead-with-bot-info/ |
Where Three Roads Meet, the new novel from British psychologist and fiction writer Sally Vickers, is set in the spring of 1923, and features an invented encounter between the ailing Sigmund Freud and the blind, ancient soothsayer Tiresias.
Freud encounters the Greek seer around the time that he first notices the growth in his jaw that will eventually lead to his death by cancer. Invisible to all but the great ailing doctor, the visitor seems to have come seeking treatment. Is Freud hallucinating?
Tiresias tells Freud the story of his own troubled childhood and engages the doctor in a dialogue about Oedipus, the king of ancient Thebes, whose story weighs on Western civilization like a great psychic anchor; Freud has made this myth — the monumental story of murder, incest and recognition — the foundation of all his analytical work.
Incident by incident, scene by scene, the two men parse out the Oedipus tale, with each speaker adding his own particular wisdom to the story: Tiresias offers his eyewitness account; Freud, his deep understanding of the power of the repressed injury suffered by the king.
Counterpoised to this is the story of Freud's long illness, which lasted 16 years until his death; his movement from Vienna to London; and the Nazi ravage of Europe and murder of Freud's family.
As Freud's own demise draws near, the back and forth between him and his mythical visitor elevates, and Vickers' imagery soars toward the sublime.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-08-29T14:33:24+00:00 | kgou.org | https://www.kgou.org/arts-and-entertainment/2008-10-20/freud-and-oedipus-converge-in-three-roads |
RIPLEY • My Choices Pregnancy Help Clinic's annual Run For Life 5K race is on the horizon. This Saturday, April 1, hundreds of participants will gather at My Choices Clinic in Ripley to raise funds for the ministry of My Choices.
The race will begin at My Choices Clinic on Bails Road at 8 a.m. before heading south toward downtown Ripley. The route will go as far south as Third Street before heading north on Commerce Street and looping back around to My Choices Clinic.
As of last week, the race had around 100 people signed up to participate. That number is expected to grow as the race nears.
"We have a lot that will sign up the day of, usually between 200-300 depending on the weather," Co-director and director of development at My Choices Terri Stanford said. "We have had as many as 400 in the past."
There will be awards for the top male and female finishers in overall, masters and grandmasters. Additionally, the top three in each age group will also receive awards. The age groups for the race begin at children aged one to nine, then are split into intervals five years up until 75 and above.
"We have medals for the top three in each age category with each age group being five years," Stanford said. "Top three winners overall, male and female, will receive medals and yeti-like cups."
According to My Choices, "The funds raised will go to the ministry of My Choices to help sustain its mission of offering compassionate support, accurate information and positive alternatives to anyone facing an unplanned pregnancy."
The first 5k race hosted by My Choices was held in 2006 and has taken place annually every year except 2020 which was canceled due to COVID.
"We are expecting to have lots of fun," Stanford said. "We are hoping the weather will be good because that will determine the size of the crowd. We will have lots of homemade treats as well as items from the store such as fruit, Gatorade, water and other treats."
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...FROST ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 1 AM TO 9 AM CDT
WEDNESDAY...
* WHAT...Temperatures as low as 33 will result in frost
formation.
* WHERE...Portions of East Arkansas, North Mississippi,
Southeast Missouri and West Tennessee.
* WHEN...From 1 AM to 9 AM CDT Wednesday.
* IMPACTS...Frost could kill sensitive outdoor vegetation if
left uncovered.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
Take steps now to protect tender plants from the cold.
&& | 2023-03-29T07:53:46+00:00 | djournal.com | https://www.djournal.com/sentinel/news/run-for-life-5k-race-aims-to-raise-funds-for-my-choices-pregnancy-help-clinic/article_60614705-a135-56ab-90a4-5ce366ccd991.html |
BANGKOK (AP) — Yeti Airlines flight 691 crashed Sunday just before landing in Nepal's tourist city of Pokhara, the gateway to a popular hiking area in the Himalayas, after a 27-minute trip from Kathmandu.
At least 69 of the 72 people aboard have been confirmed dead.
Pilots say Nepal can be a challenging place to fly, but conditions at the time of the crash were good, with low wind, clear skies and temperatures well above freezing. So what might have caused the crash of the ATR 72 aircraft?
DID THE PLANE STALL?
A dramatic video shot on a smartphone from the ground shows the last moments before the plane crashed in a gorge about 1.6 kilometers (a mile) from newly opened Pokhara International Airport. The aircraft's nose is noticeably high before the left wing suddenly drops and the plane falls out of sight of the video, indicating a likely stall, said Amit Singh, an experienced pilot and founder of India's Safety Matters Foundation.
“If you see the trajectory of the aircraft, the aircraft's nose goes up, and the nose up would be associated with a reduction in speed,” he told The Associated Press. “When they have stalls, typically one wing goes down and wings are basically generating the lift. So as the air flow reduces, the lift generated is not enough to sustain the aircraft in flight and the wing drops and the aircraft nosedives.”
Professor Ron Bartsch, an aviation safety expert and founder of Australia's Avlaw Aviation Consulting, told Sydney's Channel 9 that he also thought the plane appears to have gone into a stall. Its proximity to the ground possibly made it look to the pilots like their speed was greater than it was, he said.
“I'd suggest that the aircraft has entered into an aerodynamic stall,” he said after reviewing the video just before the crash. “Possibly pilot error.”
Yeti Airlines spokesman Pemba Sherpa said the cause of the crash was under investigation.
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE AIRCRAFT
The ATR-72 was introduced in the late 1980s as a French and Italian joint venture and even though it has been involved in several deadly accidents over the years, several due to icing issues, it generally has a “very good track record,” Bartsch said.
Searchers recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder on Monday from the scene of the crash, but it will not be until they are analyzed carefully that investigators know for sure what happened.
“Human factors will be an element that the investigators will have a look at to see whether or not there's been proper training," Bartsch said. "But normally aircraft don't just fall out of the sky, particularly modern aircraft.”
It is possible that some sort of technical failure with the aircraft's instruments gave bad data to the pilots, but even then it is possible to recover from a stall, Singh said.
“The pilots should be trained to handle technical failures,” he said.
Singh noted that Nepal's aviation industry has a poor track record for safety and training despite its “challenging airports and conditions.” Even though it has been improving, he noted its planes are banned from flying into European airspace.
A pilot who routinely flies an ATR-72-500 plane from India to Nepal said the region’s topography, with its mountain peaks and narrow valleys, raises the risk of accidents and sometimes requires pilots to fly by sight rather than relying on instruments.
The pilot, who works for a private Indian airline and didn’t want to be identified due to company policy, called ATR-72-500 an “unforgiving aircraft” if the pilot isn’t highly skilled and familiar with the region’s terrain and wind speed.
ATR said Sunday on Twitter that its specialists were “fully engaged to support both the investigation and the customer” and that its “first thoughts are with all the individuals affected by this.”
The company did not immediately respond to requests for further comment.
CONCERNS ABOUT THE NEW AIRPORT
Home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, Nepal has a history of air crashes. According to the Safety Matters Foundation's data, there have been 42 fatal plane crashes in Nepal since 1946.
The country’s “hostile topography” and “diverse weather patterns” were the major challenges, according to a 2019 safety report from Nepal’s Civil Aviation Authority, also resulting in a “number of accidents” to small aircraft. The report said such accidents happened at airports that had short strips of runway for takeoff and landing and most were due to pilot error.
The airport in Pokhara, a popular tourist destination as the gateway to the Annapurna mountain range, sits at an elevation of some 820 meters (2,700 feet).
Ahead of the airport's opening two weeks ago, some had expressed concern that the number of birds in the area — due to the habitat provided by two rivers as well as a landfill near the airport — could make it additionally hazardous.
At the airport's official opening, the city's mayor said work to mitigate the effect of the landfill had been completed, according to local media reports, but it was not clear specifically what measures were undertaken.
If the aircraft had suffered a bird strike as it was coming in to land, it is possible this would have prompted the pilots to discontinue their approach and go around again, which also could have led to a stall, Singh said.
“A high thrust setting can lead to a stall,” he said. “Go-arounds are most often mishandled by crew ... so again the issue is, how did the pilot cope with the failure?"
_____
Associated Press writer Sheikh Saaliq in New Delhi contributed to this report.
Credit: Yunish Gurung
Credit: Yunish Gurung | 2023-01-16T12:17:31+00:00 | springfieldnewssun.com | https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/nation-world/explainer-why-did-nepal-plane-crash-in-fair-weather/ACJ6M3ODKZADJH35XB5OS73FP4/ |
Migrants near US border face cold wait for key asylum ruling
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Hairdresser Grisel Garcés survived a harrowing, four-month journey from her native Venezuela through tropical jungles, migrant detention centers in southern Mexico and then jolting railcar rides north toward the U.S. border.
Now on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande across from El Paso, Texas, she’s anxiously awaiting a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on asylum restrictions expected to affect her and thousands of other migrants at crossings along some 1,900 miles (3,100 kilometers) of border from Texas to California. And she’s doing so while living outside as winter temperatures plunge over much of the U.S. and across the border.
She told of fleeing economic hardship only to find more hardship, such as now having to shiver through temperatures colder than any she’s ever experienced.
“Riding the train was bad. Here the situation is even worse. You just turn yourself over to God’s mercy,” said Garcés, who left a school-aged daughter behind, hoping to reach the U.S. with her husband.
Their savings exhausted, some days they don’t eat. And on Thursday, Garcés waited and watched as hundreds of migrants formed a line to gradually pass through a gate in the border fence for processing by U.S. immigration officials. She fears immediate deportation under current asylum restrictions and doesn’t dare cross the shallow waters of the Rio Grande within view.
Dozens of migrants have been spending their nights on the concrete banks of the river, awaiting word of possible changes to the asylum restrictions put in place in March 2020. In El Paso, sidewalks are serving as living quarters outside a bus station and a church for some migrants who can’t find space immediately at an expanding network of shelters underwritten by the city and religious groups.
That Trump administration-era ban on asylum — Title 42 — was granted a brief extension by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday. It’s not clear when the Supreme Court’s definitive decision will come. The Biden administration asked the court to lift the restrictions, but not before Christmas.
Under Title 42, authorities have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times, and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border, on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Title 42 applies to all nationalities but has most affected people from countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and, more recently, Venezuela.
Immigration advocates have sued to end the use of Title 42. They say the policy goes against American and international obligations to people fleeing persecution and is outdated now that coronavirus treatments have improved.
Conservative-leaning states appealed to the Supreme Court, warning an increase in migration would take a toll on public services and cause an “unprecedented calamity” with which they fear the federal government has no plan to deal.
In El Paso, Texas National Guard members have taken up positions at the behest of the state, while volunteers and law enforcement officers worried some migrants could succumb to the cold. Nighttime temperatures have been in the 30s (below 3.8 degrees Celsius) and will be even colder in coming days.
Elsewhere, hundreds of migrants fashioned a makeshift encampment — with black plastic bags for crude tents — in a park in Matamoros, Mexico, near Brownsville, Texas.
Shivering in the cold after his recent expulsion from the U.S., a former Venezuelan navy military policeman, Carlos Hernandez, spoke about how he, his wife and their 3-year-old daughter recently struggled through the cold river, only to be turned back after reaching the other side.
Hernandez said he had a falling out with superiors in Venezuela for refusing orders to take action against government opponents in the navy. He said he hoped to cross again and eventually reach Canada.
“It was very cold,” he said of the river crossing.
In Tijuana, Mexico, across from San Diego, an estimated 5,000 migrants were staying in more than 30 shelters and many more renting rooms and apartments. Razor-topped walls rising 30 feet (9 meters) along the border with San Diego make illegal crossing daunting.
Francisco Palacios waited hours with his wife and 3-year-old daughter at a Tijuana-area border crossing at midweek before going to a hotel to nap. He said the family from the western Mexican city of Morelia awaits the court decision on whether and when to lift the pandemic-era restrictions that have prevented many from seeking asylum.
“We don’t have a choice,” Palacios said Wednesday, explaining his family arrived in Tijuana two weeks earlier to escape violence and gangs that for years extorted a chunk of their income selling fruit from a street cart.
___
Spagat reported from Tijuana, Mexico. Associated Press writer Fabiola Sanchez contributed to this report from Matamoros, Mexico.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-12-23T08:53:18+00:00 | kalb.com | https://www.kalb.com/2022/12/23/migrants-near-us-border-face-cold-wait-key-asylum-ruling/ |
Say goodbye to that rusty piece of metal. California drivers will now be able to get digital license plates under a new law.
The Golden State had previously been piloting alternatives to traditional license plates, but a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom late last month extends the option to all drivers.
The license plate-sized screens display a driver's license plate number and allow motorists to renew their registration automatically. Users can even change between light and dark modes and customize the plates with personalized banners.
California Assemblymember Lori Wilson, who sponsored the legislation, said it will make life easier for drivers.
"It is a product of convenience and I'm all about giving people choice here in the state of California," Wilson said, according to ABC30 Fresno.
Reviver, the company that provides digital license plates in California, said the technology is also legal in Arizona and Michigan as well as in Texas for commercial fleet vehicles. Ten other states are also considering adopting digital license plates, the California-based firm said.
The plates' tracking capabilities have raised privacy concerns
The company's so-called RPlate can be equipped with GPS and allows users, including employers, to track a vehicle's location and mileage.
That capability has raised eyebrows among privacy advocates, but Reviver has said that it doesn't share data with the California Department of Motor Vehicles or law enforcement.
The RPlate can also flash a message if a vehicle is reported stolen or if there's an Amber Alert, features that Wilson believes will be a boon to public safety.
"Looking at the back of a vehicle, if I'm driving behind a vehicle and I see this, it will give me a cause for concern and I will be on alert for what I can potentially see," Wilson said. She told the Los Angeles Times that drivers with privacy concerns could disable the GPS function on their own vehicles.
The company reported that about 10,000 California drivers bought the RPlate during the pilot program, a number that's expected to grow now that the digital license plates are available to all 36 million vehicles registered in the state.
A 2019 report from the California DMV found that — aside from a few traffic stops by police who believed the digital license plates were illegal — there were no significant concerns about the new technology from officials or drivers.
"The department believes that the Digital License Plate is a viable license plate alternative and recommends it to become a permanent option for Californians," the agency said.
Reviver offers a battery-powered version of the RPlate that costs $19.95 per month as well as a hard-wired option for commercial vehicles priced at $24.95 per month.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-10-15T16:20:00+00:00 | nepm.org | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2022-10-15/california-drivers-can-now-sport-digital-license-plates-on-their-cars |
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Israel’s U.N. ambassador accused the Palestinians on Wednesday of stabbing a knife into any chance for reconciliation by seeking an advisory opinion from the U.N.’s highest court on Israel’s decades-old occupation — and the Palestinian U.N. envoy accused Israel’s new government of seeking to crush its people.
The always contentious monthly U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was even more vitriolic and threatening this week, and U.N. Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland warned that “a dangerous cycle of violence persists on the ground, amidst increased political tension and a stalled peace process.”
“Israelis and Palestinians remain on a collision course amid escalating political and inflammatory rhetoric as well as heightened violence in the West Bank — both with potentially grave consequences,” he said. “Absent a concerted and collective effort by all, with strong support from the international community, spoilers and extremists will continue to pour more fuel on the fire and we will move still further from a peaceful resolution of the conflict.”
Underlying the ongoing violence is the Palestinians’ decades-long quest for an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, territories seized by Israel in the 1967 war. Israel considers the West Bank to be disputed territory and has built dozens of settlements that are now home to roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers.
In the latest confrontation, the Palestinians and their supporters won U.N. General Assembly approval on Dec. 30 of a resolution asking the International Court of Justice or ICJ to intervene in one of the world’s longest-running and thorniest disputes and render an advisory opinion on the legality of Israeli policies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
While the court’s rulings are not binding, they do influence international opinion.
Israel’s new hardline government responded on Jan. 6 by approving steps to penalize the Palestinians in retaliation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were aimed at what he called “an extreme anti-Israel” step at the United Nations.
The measures include withholding $39 million from the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority and transferring the funds instead to a compensation program for the families of Israeli victims of Palestinian militant attacks, deducting an amount equal to the sum the authority paid last year to families of Palestinian prisoners and those killed in the conflict including militants implicated in attacks against Israelis, and ending VIP travel privileges for leading Palestinians.
The Palestinians responded by getting more than 90 countries to sign a statement expressing “deep concern” at penalizing the Palestinians for going to the court, and urging Israel to reverse the punitive measures. Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen rejected the statement.
At Wednesday’s Security Council meeting, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan accused the Palestinians of drafting “a poisonous and destructive resolution” referring Israel to the ICJ “with the sole purpose of destroying Israel as the Jewish state.”
He claimed this has been a Palestinian goal since before Israel’s founding in 1948, and said one weapon they use “is the manipulation and abuse of international bodies” to force Israel to agree to their demands, which he called “multilateral terror.”
Erdan pointed to anti-Israel activities spurred by the Palestinians at the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court, and said that with the adoption of the General Assembly resolution on the ICJ, “the Palestinians stabbed a knife in the heart of any chances for dialogue or reconciliation.”
He also accused the Palestinians and the U.N. of exaggerating Palestinian casualties and under-reporting and discriminating against Israeli victims. While 2022 “may have been the deadliest year for Palestinian terrorists,” he said, “it was also the year with the most terror attacks committed against Israelis in a decade.”
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told the council the new Netanyahu-led government has said openly its program is to increase settlements, “annexation, systemic discrimination and oppression.”
“It does not recognize our rights anywhere, and proclaims a right for its settlers everywhere,” Mansour said.
The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements to be illegal. Israel’s annexation of east Jerusalem, home to the city’s most sensitive holy sites, also is not internationally recognized.
Mansour said “peace is still possible,” but only if the Security Council and the international community “stand up to the supremacists” and take action to end Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability for its annexation of Jerusalem, recognize the state of Palestine, and reject Israeli settlers in occupied territory.
“We face the absurd situation where impunity is enjoyed by those who violate the law and collective punishment is endured by those entitled to its protection,” Mansour told the council. | 2023-01-19T19:42:12+00:00 | cbs4indy.com | https://cbs4indy.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-israel-and-palestinians-clash-at-un-meeting-as-tensions-rise/ |
To entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky, the founder of Kind snacks, kindness means more than just being nice.
“If somebody is nice, they’re not going to bully. But if they’re kind, they’re going to stand up to the bully,” he said. “Kindness requires the strength of action.”
It’s a lesson Lubetzky learned from his father, a Latvian Jew who survived the Holocaust. Lubetzky’s father was deeply touched by small acts of kindness, like the German soldier who snuck him a potato or the care shown by the Japanese-American soldiers who liberated him.
Lubetzky, who was born in Mexico and is fluent in Spanish, French, Hebrew and English, also has a passion for bridging cultures. One of his first ventures, PeaceWorks, sold products made jointly by Israelis and Palestinians; this year, he helped fund scholarships for Ukrainian students to study in the U.S.
Lubetzky launched Kind in 2004, honoring his father with the name. The health-conscious brand helped transform the snack category; Lubetzky sold it to Mars in 2020 for an estimated $5 billion.
Lubetzky has invested that into new food brands like Somos Foods, which aims to bring authentic Mexican products to U.S. groceries. He’s also launched charitable foundations and nonprofits like Starts with Us, which tries to overcome political and cultural division.
Lubetzky discussed his career, and what motivates him, with The Associated Press. His comments have been edited for length.
Q. How do you describe yourself?
A. I think of myself as a serial social entrepreneur, meaning someone that loves noticing opportunities for how to create stuff in society that doesn’t already exist that will be both economically sustainable and socially impactful. I think that tends to be one common thread in a lot of the ventures that I do: ventures that use business as a force for having a social impact and doing it in a way that the products can defend themselves and win on the merits of that. First and foremost, this is a business. But there’s an added reason for being. It’s not just to make money. It’s also to try to have a positive impact in society, however small that may be.
Q. What makes a successful entrepreneur? Is it a certain personality type?
A. You have to have the creative vision to identify a problem that has not been solved and come up with a creative idea for how to solve it. That’s No. 1. And then the execution, wherewithal, guts and chutzpah to just go out and do it. And that’s a very hard combination. If you have the first but not the second, you can be an inventor. Inventors are great at coming up with ideas, but they don’t execute on them as well. If you have the second, to execute but not the creativity to invent, you could be a good business manager. If you have both, you can be an entrepreneur.
Q. You tend to tackle really intractable issues, like the U.S. culture wars or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why?
A. The way we’re educated, we’re taught to process and to become factory line workers and to become professionals. But we’re not encouraged to dream about what’s possible and to recognize our power to do things that people thought were not possible. We’re not taught enough about Gandhi, about bring the change you want to see in the world. We’re not smart enough about all these approaches that are essential in society. What’s happening in our country today affects every single person, and it’s going to require every single one of us to be part of the solution.
Q. You’ve worked with a lot of entrepreneurs through your incubator, Equilibra, and elsewhere. What is your advice to them?
A. I do recommend they think about how they see the world from their vantage point, what’s missing, whether it’s a social element that they want to fix if they’re social entrepreneurs or whether there’s a business opportunity or product or service. What doesn’t satisfy them? What’s missing? What’s not being done well enough? And that’s only the beginning of the journey. If you identify what’s not working, then you need to look at the underlying reason why that’s not working. And then you need to target that and say, “Can I do it better?” It’s an incredible ride, but it’s a roller coaster ride. The highs are higher, the lows are lower, and you need to be comfortable with that. You need to have a temperament where you’re not going to easily give up. | 2022-11-07T15:36:24+00:00 | expressnews.com | https://www.expressnews.com/business/article/Insider-Q-A-Kind-Founder-Lubetzky-on-17564050.php |
Silicon Valley Bank seized by regulators
The U.S rushed to seize the assets of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday after a run on the bank, the largest failure of a financial institution since Washington Mutual during the height of the financial crisis more than a decade ago.
SVB, the nation's 16th largest bank, failed after depositors — mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies — hurried to withdraw their money this week as anxiety over the bank's situation spread.
Silicon Valley was heavily exposed to tech industry and there is little chance of contagion in the banking sector similar to the chaos in the months leading up to the Great Recession more than a decade ago.
READ MORE: Powell signals increased interest rate hikes if economy stays strong
In 2007, the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression rippled across the globe after mortgage-backed securities tied to ill-advised housing loans rippled from the U.S. to Asia and Europe. The panic on Wall Street led to the collapse of the storied Lehman Brothers, founded in 1847. Because major banks had major exposure to one another, it created a cascading disruption of the global financial system.
Major banks today have sufficient capital to avoid a similar situation, though the sector has been under pressure all week.
Silicon Valley Bank logo seen displayed on a smartphone screen (Photo Illustration by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Silicon Valley Bank's failure came with incredible speed, with some industry analysts on Friday suggesting it was a good company and still likely a wise investment. Silicon Valley Bank executives were looking to raise capital early Friday or find additional investors. But trading in its shares was halted before the opening bell due to extreme volatility.
READ MORE: Car debt piles up as more Americans struggle to make payments
Shortly before noon eastern time, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation moved to shutter the bank. Notably, the FDIC did not wait until the close of business to seize the bank, as is typical in an orderly wind down of a financial institution. The FDIC could not immediately find a buyer for the bank's assets, signaling how fast depositors had cashed out. The bank's deposits will now be locked up in receivership.
The bank had $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in deposits as the time of failure, the FDIC said in a statement. It was unclear how much of deposits was above the $250,000 insurance limit at the moment, but previous regulatory reports showed that much of Silicon Valley Bank's deposits were above that limit.
The FDIC said deposits below the $250,000 limit would be available Monday morning.
Silicon Valley Bank on Thursday announced plans to raise up to $1.75 billion in order to strengthen its capital position amid concerns about higher interest rates and the economy. Shares plunged 60% Thursday, and rocketed lower again Friday before the open of the Nasdaq where it is traded.
Silicon Valley is not small, holding $210 billion in assets. It acts as a major financial conduit for venture capital-backed companies, which have been hit hard in the past 18 months as the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates and made riskier tech assets less attractive to investors.
Venture capital-backed companies were reportedly being advised to pull at least two months' worth of "burn" cash out of Silicon Valley Bank to cover their expenses. Typically VC-backed companies are not profitable and how quickly they use the cash they need to run their businesses — their so-called "burn rate" — is a typically important metric for investors. | 2023-03-10T22:38:18+00:00 | fox35orlando.com | https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/silicon-valley-bank-shut-down-by-regulators |
(The Hill) – The pandemic may be winding down, but the work-from-home revolution marches on.
Nearly 30 percent of all work happened at home in January, six times the rate in 2019, according to WFH Research, a data-collection project. In Washington and other large urban centers, the share of remote work is closer to half. In the nation’s biggest cities, entire office buildings sit empty.
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the American workplace. The share of all work performed at home rose from 4.7 percent in January 2019 to 61 percent in May 2020. Some economists consider the remote-work boom the greatest change to the labor market since World War II.
“It’s affected so many things,” said Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University economist and WFH researcher. “It’s affected city structure. It’s affecting days of the week that people play sport: golf, tennis. It’s affecting retail. It’s completely skewed, mostly in a positive way, the American economy.”
In 2021 and 2022, employers gradually summoned American workers back to the office. Last spring, the back-to-the-office movement hit a wall, and the work-from-home population stabilized around 30 percent.
Workplace experts say remote work is here to stay. Workers love it. Employers have learned to live with it.
“There’s sufficient and growing evidence that people do work well when they’re working from home,” said Barbara Larson, executive professor of management at Northeastern University’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business. “It’s not like everybody was working hard when they were in the office.”
The average worker saves 70 minutes of daily commuting time by working from home — and spends almost half of that extra time doing work: a win-win.
A slim majority of Americans are back in the office for good. Many never left. That group includes the restaurant and retail sectors, factory and warehouse workers, bartenders and farmers.
“Fifty-five percent of Americans can’t work from home,” Bloom said. “They all would like to work from home. They can’t.”
A much smaller group, around 13 percent, work entirely from home. They include many IT and payroll workers, contractors and people who pick up the phone when you call customer service.
The remaining 30 percent of U.S. employees populate a vast “hybrid” workforce. They are the bulk of suburban, white-collar America, mostly college graduates, comparatively well-paid.
“About one-third of Americans can work hybrid,” Bloom said. “Managers, professionals. My students,” future Stanford graduates, “they’re all going into hybrid jobs.”
Much of corporate America has settled on a weekly formula of three days in the office and two at home for the hybrid worker. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are popular choices for trudging into the office. On Fridays, city centers can look like depopulated ghost towns.
The work-from-home movement has reshaped the largest cities. Only last month, for the first time since the pandemic began, did the occupancy rate in urban office buildings reach 50 percent in the 10 largest cities.
As of last week, 49 percent of desks sat empty in Chicago, 53 percent in D.C., 51 percent in New York and Los Angeles. The figures come from Kastle Systems, a company that manages office-access security.
Other researchers have identified about a dozen large urban centers where one-quarter or more of employees work entirely from home. The top five telework cities: D.C., San Francisco, Austin, San Jose and Seattle.
For some mayors, tax collectors and downtown businesses, the remote-work boom has seeded fiscal disaster. New York, alone, “is going to see about $12 billion less in expenditures in downtown Manhattan” because of remote work, Bloom said.
Working from home “means less consumer spending, and it means less transit use,” in big cities, said Adam Ozimek, chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group, a public-policy nonprofit.
Long-term office leases have softened the tax blow. Many companies are stuck with unused space in empty buildings, rented on five- or 10-year terms. But they will eventually leave. When they do, Ozimek said, cities will have to repurpose vacant offices as residential dwellings.
“It’s not the end of cities,” Ozimek said. But “if cities aren’t flexible and smart about how they change their fiscal policies and tax policies, you could end up in a bad situation.”
Not everyone wants to work from home. Two-fifths of workers aged 50 and above prefer fulltime remote work. Three-quarters of 20-somethings, by contrast, want to spend time in the office.
Young people “are more likely to want to work in person and benefit from working in person,” said Ben Zweig, CEO of Revelio Labs, a workforce intelligence company. “But also, for young people, it’s much more important to be in a city, especially if they’re single and dating.”
Employers want less telework. Employees want more. The remote work “gap” amounts to roughly one day. The average worker would like to go in to the office two days a week. The average employer prefers three days.
That dilemma begets another: Which three days should workers spend in the office? If a company allows employees to choose, then conflicting schedules can defeat the purpose of calling everyone in.
“You end up with meetings where some people are in person and some are remote, and that’s the worst of both worlds,” Zweig said. “People go to the office and spend their days on Zoom calls. They end up thinking, Why the hell did I come in?”
An easy fix is to send everyone home on Fridays and Mondays. On a recent Friday, occupancy rates in downtown office buildings dipped to 32 percent, according to data from Kastle Systems.
Some high-profile companies, including Disney and Starbucks, have made headlines by pushing back against remote work. Yet, the number of CEOs lobbying for a return to fulltime office work “is dwindling to basically zero,” Bloom said.
“If you’re a for-profit business, you don’t do things that massively piss off your employees and that don’t improve performance.”
For elite job-seekers, remote work has emerged as the ultimate bargaining chip. Employers know this. The share of hybrid job listings has risen steadily since 2020, Bloom said. Employees will trade thousands in annual salary for the right not to schlep to the office.
“If you withdraw remote work and your competitors are still offering remote work, you’re going to lose your top talent,” Larson said.
At the same time, employers seem to be advertising fewer jobs that are entirely remote. As the labor market softens, companies may feel they no longer need to dangle a “work-from-anywhere” offer to lure applicants.
“I actually think the all-remote model doesn’t exist,” said Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor at Harvard Business School. “There’s no company in the world that never asks its employees to meet occasionally.”
The work-from-home movement shifts a company’s center of gravity from a physical office to a technology platform. “And your office becomes an ancillary tool,” Larson said.
Some forward-thinking companies take the work-from-anywhere concept to its logical conclusion, operating with no office at all.
“There are companies that are meeting in ranches,” Choudhury said. “There are teams that are meeting in railway stations or airports.”
Corporate leaders can choose to frame the remote-work movement “as an opportunity or a threat,” he said. “And if I were a CEO, I would frame this as an opportunity.” | 2023-02-20T20:26:53+00:00 | wwlp.com | https://www.wwlp.com/news/national/nearly-30-percent-of-work-remains-remote-as-workers-dig-in/ |
City of Gallup works to recover after major water main break
GALLUP, N.M. – It may have only taken crews 30 minutes to get a major water main break under control, but nearly a week later, the City of Gallup is still suffering the consequences.
In that time, the city lost three million gallons or an entire day’s supply of water. City officials told KOB 4 crews finished repairing the main over the weekend, but it could take days to weeks to replenish what was lost.
In the meantime, residents said their bath, toilet and sink water is brown.
“We do have discolored water issues now,” said Adrian Marrufo, the acting director of the city’s Water/Wastewater Department. “That’s because we’re moving water throughout the city, back and forth.”
Maruffo added that the discolored water has been tested and is not harmful.
“There’s no impact to the public health with that,” he said. “It’s just the minerals in the pipes.”
City officials said they hope everything returns to normal in the next couple of weeks, but emergency water use restrictions— barring residents from doing any outdoor watering and limiting their indoor water use—could be lifted sooner.
“I can say this for sure, we will still ask people to conserve voluntarily because the more that they do, the faster that we get our system back to normal,” City Manager Maryann Ustick said. “We do understand that people who have gardens and people that have issues like that do need some relief. So, we’ll discuss that, but we can’t tell you that right now. We’ll know probably, in the next day or so.”
The city said it will not cite or fine anyone for not following the restrictions.
“Hoping that we got an honor system-type thing going on, or they do help us out and pay attention to what we put out,” Marrufo said.
“We’ll simply provide education and let people know, and we’ve been doing that, but it’s more of a voluntary education,” Ustick added.
City officials said residents have been cooperating, and they noticed a big drop in water demand the day after they posted the restrictions. They want to thank everyone for listening and jumping into action to help, while they replenish the city’s water tanks. | 2023-06-13T03:00:40+00:00 | kob.com | https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/city-of-gallup-works-to-recover-after-major-water-main-break/ |
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A landslide triggered by record rainfall significantly damaged three homes, prompted the evacuation of about a dozen residents and caused power outages in downtown Juneau, Alaska’s capital city.
Geological assessment teams determined Tuesday that favorable weather has returned the threat level to pre-slide levels. The city's public works department was preparing to begin removing debris, city spokesperson Meredith Thatcher said.
Of the three homes, one was completely destroyed as it came down the mountain and slammed into a second home, which was significantly damaged but remains standing, she said. The extent of damage to the third home was not yet known.
Residents will be allowed to return to their homes at their own discretion. “If you feel comfortable going home, you can go home,” Thatcher said.
The local power company was expected to restore service after the debris has been removed to the point where crews need to work.
Damage from the Monday evening landslide was confined to the one residential street above the downtown business district in the southeast Alaska mountain community of about 32,000 residents. There were no reported injuries, city officials said.
Evan Hartung was eating dinner in his home when he heard a rumbling sound over the TV, he told the Juneau Empire. He just managed to escape the house before the evergreen tree came swooshing down onto the stairs along the outside of his home, damaging them. It then knocked his pickup on its side before coming to rest, partially on top of the vehicle.
“My truck is squished,” he said.
Sarah Wallace and her partner live next door to Hartung. They also heard the noise and looked out their window to see Hartung “running outside without any shoes,” she told the Empire. That prompted them to also quickly exit their home.
About a dozen people — either those whose homes were damaged or others who decided to self-evacuate — stayed at a shelter that was set up by the American Red Cross at a downtown fire station, Thatcher told The Associated Press.
Residents in Juneau, located in the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest, are accustomed to a persistent light rain falling, but not deluges like they experienced Monday.
“We are a rain forest, so we’re supposed to get rain,,” said National Weather Service forecaster Kimberly Vaughan in Juneau. “These were record rainfall amounts and some of them broke the previous records by nearly 2 inches.”
Lena Point, located about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of downtown Juneau, recorded 3.04 inches (7.72 centimeters) of rain, the highest daily amount in about 30 years of record keeping there. The previous record for precipitation in a 24-hour period was 1.14 inches (2.90 centimeters) in 2017.
Other daily rainfall records were recorded at the Juneau weather forecast office, with 2.59 inches (6.58 centimeters) beating the previous record of 1.12 inches (2.84 centimeters) in 2009, and 2.22 inches (5.64 centimeters) at the airport, surpassing the record of 2.02 inches (5.13 centimeters) set in 1936.
The rains also caused the Mendenhall River to rise in Juneau, prompting some flooding advisories.
In Skagway, about 100 miles (160.93 kilometers) north of Juneau, there’s a flood warning in effect for the Taiya River. The river was at 16.85 feet (5.14 meters) early Tuesday, just above flooding stage but was expected to drop throughout the day.
Persistent rain has caused some flooding and led officials to close a campground. There also have been ongoing landslides since one closed the cruise ship dock last summer.
A large slide over the weekend dropped several thousand cubic yards of debris adjacent to that dock, city manager Brad Ryan said.
However, there’s been no reports of homes damaged or people injured.
“I think we’re feeling like we’ve weathered it pretty good,” he said.
Landslides are common in Alaska. Last May, a slide brought down dozens of full-grown evergreen trees and debris, temporarily closing a road in the coastal community of Seward.
In 2020, two people were killed in the southeast Alaska community of Haines when a slide as wide as two football fields slammed into a neighborhood. The only route through Denali National Park and Preserve is closed and expected to remain so through 2024 after the Pretty Rocks landslide covered 100 yards (91 meters) of the road. Officials are proposing construction of a 400-foot (121.9-meter) bridge spanning the landslide area. | 2022-09-27T23:32:39+00:00 | seattlepi.com | https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Alaska-landslide-damages-3-homes-squishes-17471164.php |
LAIE, Hawaii (AP) — Kamaka Hepa had 13 points and 12 rebounds to guide Hawaii to a 79-55 victory over Hawaii Pacific on Saturday night.
Noel Coleman scored 13 and added five assists for the Rainbow Warriors (3-1). Harry Rouhliadeff shot 4 of 5 from the field to finish with 10 points.
Trey Chapman led the way for the Sharks (0-1) with 10 points. Melo Sanchez added nine points, while Jalen Chandler scored eight.
NEXT UP
Hawaii hosts Sacramento State in its next matchup on Friday.
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. | 2022-11-20T02:01:19+00:00 | lmtonline.com | https://www.lmtonline.com/sports/article/Hepa-s-double-double-leads-Hawaii-over-Hawaii-17598122.php |
The 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic Odds & Preview: Hideki Matsuyama
The field for the 2023 Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, Michigan at Detroit Golf Club includes Hideki Matsuyama. The event is from June 29 - July 2.
Looking to place a wager on Matsuyama at the Rocket Mortgage Classic this week? Keep reading for the betting odds and stats you need to know before you make your picks.
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Hideki Matsuyama Insights
- Matsuyama has finished below par on 11 occasions, completed his day bogey-free four times and finished 14 rounds with a better-than-average score over his last 20 rounds played.
- He has carded the best score of the day once while finishing in the top-five twice and with a top-10 score in five of his last 20 rounds played.
- Over his last 20 rounds, Matsuyama has finished within three strokes of the best score of the round four times, and within five strokes of the top score of the day on 11 occasions.
- In his past five appearances, Matsuyama has finished in the top 20 twice.
- Matsuyama has finished with a score better than the tournament average in four of his past five tournaments.
- Matsuyama will attempt to prolong his streak of made cuts to nine by qualifying for the weekend again.
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Over the last year
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Rocket Mortgage Classic Insights and Stats
- In Matsuyama's previous three appearances at this tournament, he has finished in the top 20 once. His average finish has been 17th.
- In his past three appearances at this event, he made it to the weekend twice.
- The par-72 course measures 7,370 yards this week, 346 yards longer than the average Tour stop during the past 12 months.
- Players have posted 69.25 strokes per round and an average score of -5 in the past year on Tour. Events hosted on this course have a lower scoring average of -11.
- The courses that Matsuyama has played in the past year have had an average distance of 7,361 yards, while Detroit Golf Club will be 7,370 yards this week.
- The tournaments he has played in the past year have seen an average score of -3. That's higher than this course's recent scoring average of -11.
Matsuyama's Last Time Out
- Matsuyama finished in the 64th percentile on the 16 par-3 holes at the Travelers Championship, with an average of 2.88 strokes.
- He finished in the 88th percentile on par 4s at the Travelers Championship, averaging 3.77 strokes on those 48 holes.
- On the eight par-5 holes at the Travelers Championship, Matsuyama was better than 41% of the competitors (averaging 4.63 strokes).
- Matsuyama shot equal to the field average on par-3 holes in the last time out, carding a birdie or better on two of 16 par-3s at the Travelers Championship.
- On the 16 par-3s at the Travelers Championship, Matsuyama did not record a bogey or worse (the tournament average was 1.7).
- Matsuyama's 14 birdies or better on par-4s at the Travelers Championship were more than the tournament average of 7.6.
- At that most recent outing, Matsuyama's showing on the 48 par-4s included a bogey or worse four times (the field's average was worse, at 4.8).
- Matsuyama ended the Travelers Championship with a birdie or better on three par-5 holes, while the field averaged 2.9 on the eight par-5s.
- The field at the Travelers Championship averaged 0.6 bogeys or worse on the eight par-5s, but Matsuyama finished without one.
Rocket Mortgage Classic Time and Date Info
- Date: June 29 - July 2, 2023
- Course: Detroit Golf Club
- Location: Detroit, Michigan
- Par: 72 / 7,370 yards
- Matsuyama Odds to Win: +1800 (Bet now with BetMGM!)
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | 2023-06-28T00:30:15+00:00 | wafb.com | https://www.wafb.com/sports/betting/2023/07/01/hideki-matsuyama-rocket-mortgage-classic-pga-odds/ |
HOUSTON (AP) — Abraham Toro pinch-hit for injured All-Star Julio Rodriguez and delivered a two-run single with two outs in the ninth inning as the Seattle Mariners rallied past the AL-West leading Houston Astros 5-4 on Saturday night.
Rodriguez was hit on the back of the hand as he swung at a pitch in the top of the eighth inning. He struck out, but played in the field in the bottom half of the inning before being lifted in the ninth.
Seattle manager Scott Servais said Rodriguez would get X-rays later Saturday.
“He did not feel comfortable with a bat in his hand,” Servais said. “So, we’ll pray that it is not broke.”
The 21-year-old Rodriguez, who was 0 for 4 with three strikeouts, has 18 homers and 57 RBIs and is batting .274 in his rookie season.
The Mariners beat Houston for the first time since June 8, snapping a five-game losing streak to the Astros.
Ryan Pressly (3-3) entered the ninth inning having converted 21 of his 24 save opportunities this season. Pressly gave up two runs on two hits, walked one and struck out two in the loss in his first blown save since June 23, which came against the New York Yankees.
“He’s somebody that is generally aggressive, so I know he likes to attack the zone,” Toro, who played parts of three seasons with Houston, said of Pressly. “I was already swinging from the get-go.”
Astros manager Dusty Baker added: “He has been a thorn in our side since we traded him over there. It was a big hit that he got tonight.”
Erik Swanson (2-0) pitched a scoreless eighth inning and earned the win, and Paul Sewald recorded his 13th save in 16 attempts.
“We’ve had some crazy come-from-behind wins, crazy games since I’ve been here,” Servais said. “This one may be near the top of the list with all the stuff that happened and where we’re at.”
Seattle starter Chris Flexen set down eight straight batters at one point, but didn’t figure in the decision. Flexen allowed two runs on three hits with four walks and a strikeout in 5 1/3 innings. It was his third no-decision in his last eight starts.
Aledmys Diaz led off the fifth with a solo homer to left field. Diaz has hit three home runs in the last two games and nine for the season. Diaz finished 3 for 3 with two RBIs.
Trailing 3-2 in the seventh, Houston rallied with back-to-back doubles by Martín Maldonado and Jose Altuve and a single from Yuli Gurriel for a 4-3 lead.
Seattle pushed across three runs on singles from Eugenio Suárez and Adam Frazier, and a fielder’s choice by J.P. Crawford in the first as Valdez hit two batters in the frame.
Valdez settled in after the first and allowed three runs on five hits, walking one and striking out seven in seven innings. It marks his majors-leading 18th quality start and his 17th straight, the second-longest streak in Astros history.
“It was big for me being able to bounce back from something like that,” Valdez said. “Just showing the intensity and the focus that I can have after having a rough inning being able to pitch the rest of the game.”
HELMET HURT
Seattle’s Sam Haggerty was hit in the forehead by his thrown helmet after he failed to bunt in the ninth inning and tossed his gear in frustration. The helmet bounced back up and hit him in the head.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Mariners: LHP Tommy Milone was placed on the 15-day injured list on Saturday with a cervical muscle strain. As a result, LHP Brennan Bernardino was selected from Triple-A Tacoma and OF Marcus Wilson was designated for assignment. … OF Dylan Moore left Saturday’s game with back spasms.
UP NEXT
Mariners: George Kirby (2-3, 3.50 ERA) is set to make his first start against the Astros on Sunday to close out the four-game series. Last time out, Kirby got a no-decision against Texas, giving up no runs on two hits and striking out four in five innings.
Astros: Jake Odorizzi (4-3, 4.25 ERA) is slated to start Sunday, looking to get back on the winning side. Odorizzi’s last win came on July 10, at Oakland. Last time out, Odorizzi was tagged for six runs on seven hits in a loss to the Athletics.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2022-07-31T13:12:17+00:00 | pahomepage.com | https://www.pahomepage.com/sports/toro-pinch-hits-for-hurt-j-rod-leads-mariners-past-astros/ |
How Time Flies is a daily feature looking back at Pantagraph archives to revisit what was happening in our community and region.
100 years ago
April 17, 1923: Pat Cusack of Chicago has been engaged as the professional at the Highland Park golf links. He has been employed at Ridgewood Country Club for four years as instructor and course manager. The temporary course will be in good condition when opened. The permanent course will not be opened until July 4. This course covers 3,185 yards.
75 years ago
April 17, 1948: Bloomington sewer and water users will find their rates reduced. For many residents the charge will drop about 31 cents. The ordinance provides relief to businesses whose water consumption is not returned to the sewers.
50 years ago
April 17, 1973: Illinois Senate Republicans have included the North-South Expressway, which would pass through McLean County, in a package of bills designed to overcome Gov. Daniel Walker's freeway construction freeze. Also included: The Peoria to Lincoln freeway and the Central Illinois Expressway.
25 years ago
April 17, 1998: A committee to examine shared governance at Illinois State University has been established at the request of university President David Strand. The committee has until February 1999 to study shared governance models and systems at other institutions and submit a report. Many professors have been angry since February, when the board of trustees approved a constitution that vests all final decision-making power in the president and board.
101 years ago: See vintage Pantagraph ads from 1922
Gerthart's
Union Gas and Electric Co.
Hoover
Dr. J.A. Moore Dentists
Moberly & Klenner
W.P. Garretson
W.H. Roland
Pease's Candy
Thor 32 Electric Washing Machine
The Kaiser's Story of the War
Ike Livingston & Sons
Gossard Corsets
Cat'n Fiddle
'Stolen Moments'
Case Model X
The Johnson Transfer & Fuel Co.
The Pantagraph want ads
Franklin Motor Car Co.
'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'
Calumet Baking Powder
Mayer Livingston & Co. Newsmarket
'The Emperor Jones'
'California Fig Syrup'
Compiled by Pantagraph staff | 2023-04-17T11:32:05+00:00 | pantagraph.com | https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/25-years-ago-illinois-state-university-to-study-shared-governance/article_f5fa2a68-dbac-11ed-8579-e703e5f53468.html |
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Three men were given life sentences on Thursday for the 2018 killing of star rapper XXXTentacion, who was shot outside a South Florida motorcycle shop while being robbed of $50,000.
Michael Boatwright, 28, Dedrick Williams, 26, and Trayvon Newsome, 24, were each convicted last month of first-degree murder and armed robbery by a jury following eight days of deliberations.
Prosecutors had not sought the death penalty, so life in prison was the only sentence that Broward County Circuit Judge Michael Usan could impose for the first-degree murder convictions.
The defendants, two dressed in suits and one in a button-down shirt, showed little emotion as they stood one by one to be handcuffed by a bailiff. There was no audible reaction from family members or other observers in the courtroom.
Before the verdicts were read, Usan warned that anyone who caused any kind of disruption would be held in contempt of court.
During the month-long trial, prosecutors linked Boatwright, Williams and Newsome to the June 18, 2018, shooting outside Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale through extensive surveillance video taken inside and outside the store, plus cellphone videos the men took showing themselves flashing fistfuls of $100 bills hours after the slaying.
Prosecutors also had the testimony of a fourth man, Robert Allen, a former friend of the defendants who said he participated in the robbery. He pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder. He has not been sentenced, pending the conclusion of this trial.
Allen's sentence could be as little as time served — meaning he could soon be released — or as long as life, depending partly on how much weight prosecutors give to his assistance.
Defense attorneys accused Allen of being a liar who was motivated by his desire to avoid a life sentence. They also said prosecutors and detectives did a poor job on the investigation and didn’t look at other possible suspects, including the Canadian rap star Drake, who had fued with XXXTentacion online.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports with a friend when an SUV swerved in front of him and blocked his BMW.
Surveillance video showed two masked gunmen emerging and confronting the 20-year-old singer at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing cash that XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank, got back into the SUV and sped away. The rapper's friend was not harmed.
Boatwright was identified as the primary shooter and Newsome was accused of being the other gunman. Williams was accused of driving the SUV and Allen of being inside the vehicle. | 2023-04-06T23:06:22+00:00 | wsls.com | https://www.wsls.com/entertainment/2023/04/06/3-men-get-life-for-fatal-shooting-of-rapper-xxxtentacion/ |
SAN DIEGO, April 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- FIT4MOM, a national prenatal and postnatal fitness company, has designed its programs not only for their workouts—but for the mental well-being of moms and the cognitive development of children. Since 2001, FIT4MOM has found that although their clients come for a kid-friendly workout, they stay for the community and connections. FIT4MOM has created communities that create friendships, provide support, and foster connections FIT4MOM defines as "Mom-to-Self," "Mom-to-Baby," and "Mom-to-Mom."
"As a new mom myself, it was my goal to create an exercise program for moms, with the idea that they would benefit from working together to restore their well-being, build friendships, and get support for the highs and lows of motherhood," explains FIT4MOM founder, Lisa Druxman.
Their Mom-to-Mom connection is created through activities, exercise, and events such as partner workouts, playgroups, and Mom's Night Out events, allowing clients to connect, get support, and build friendships needed for motherhood. The Mom-to-Self connection promotes maternal mental health, allowing clients to prioritize self-care and reap the mental benefits of physical activity. This is done through cueing, exercises, and meditation, and allowing clients to be fully present with themselves through instructor/child interactions using bubbles, singing, music, and more. The Mom-to-Baby connection and Fun-for-Baby were designed to create parent/child bonding time and support cognitive development and socialization in children. Studies have shown that music can speed up speech and language development, so instructors and clients sing, recite the alphabet, and count to the children during exercises. Instructors also incorporate bubbles, colorful scarves, and musical instruments for sensory development and motor skills. Additionally, clients model wellness and kindness to their children, creating a positive association between fitness and socialization at an early age.
FIT4MOM was founded with the primary mission to support women at all stages of motherhood and it's their goal to provide this to all moms across the nation. To learn more, try a free class, or start a franchise, visit fit4mom.com.
ABOUT FIT4MOM
Founded in 2001, FIT4MOM is the nation's largest wellness company designed for moms, providing fitness, health, and wellness programs for every stage of motherhood. With nearly 2,000 locations nationwide, 130,000 clients, 1,700 instructors, and 250 franchise owners, FIT4MOM has built a village that nurtures the total wellness of mothers. For press inquiries, please contact Lanette Gardiner at lanette@fit4momhq.com.
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SOURCE FIT4MOM | 2023-04-20T20:47:04+00:00 | wbrc.com | https://www.wbrc.com/prnewswire/2023/04/20/fit4mom-designs-fitness-programs-promote-early-childhood-development-maternal-mental-health/ |
Top Grizzlies vs. Lakers Players to Watch - NBA Playoffs Game 1
The Memphis Grizzlies (51-31) and the Los Angeles Lakers (43-39) are scheduled to match up on Sunday at FedExForum, with a tip-off time of 3:00 PM ET. When these two teams hit the hardwood, Jaren Jackson Jr. is one of the players to watch.
In the article below, we'll give you all the info you need to know about who to keep your eye on in this matchup, which you can watch on ABC with a seven-day free trial to Fubo!
How to Watch Grizzlies vs. Lakers
- Game Day: Sunday, April 16
- Game Time: 3:00 PM ET
- Arena: FedExForum
- Location: Memphis, Tennessee
- Live Stream: Watch on Fubo!
Watch Ja Morant, Anthony Davis and tons of other NBA stars in action with a free trial to Fubo.
Grizzlies' Last Game
On Sunday, in their most recent game, the Grizzlies lost to the Thunder 115-100. With 42 points, Kenneth Lofton Jr. was their top scorer.
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Lakers' Last Game
The Lakers won their most recent game against the Timberwolves, 108-102 in OT, on Tuesday. LeBron James was their high scorer with 30 points.
Grizzlies Players to Watch
- Morant is tops on his squad in both points (26.2) and assists (8.1) per contest, and also puts up 5.9 rebounds. Defensively, he averages 1.1 steals and 0.3 blocked shots.
- Jackson averages a team-high 6.7 rebounds per contest. He is also averaging 18.6 points and 1.0 assists, shooting 50.6% from the floor and 35.5% from beyond the arc with 1.6 made 3-pointers per game.
- Desmond Bane puts up 21.5 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.4 assists per contest. At the other end, he averages 1.0 steal and 0.4 blocked shots.
- Tyus Jones posts 10.3 points, 2.5 rebounds and 5.2 assists per contest. At the other end, he averages 1.0 steal and 0.1 blocked shots.
- Dillon Brooks posts 14.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. At the other end, he averages 0.9 steals and 0.2 blocked shots.
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Lakers Players to Watch
- Davis is averaging 25.9 points, 12.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game, making 56.3% of his shots from the floor.
- The Lakers receive 28.9 points, 8.3 rebounds and 6.8 assists per game from James.
- Jarred Vanderbilt leads the Lakers in rebounding (7.4 per game), and produces 7.9 points and 2.4 assists. He also averages 1.1 steals and 0.3 blocked shots.
- Malik Beasley is putting up 12.7 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists per contest, making 39.5% of his shots from the field and 35.7% from beyond the arc, with 2.9 treys per game.
Top Performers (Last 10 Games)
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | 2023-04-16T13:24:59+00:00 | wsfa.com | https://www.wsfa.com/sports/betting/2023/04/16/grizzlies-vs-lakers-players-to-watch-nba-playoffs/ |
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Nigel Pack scored 21 points and grabbed four steals in his home state to lead No. 14 Miami over Notre Dame 76-65 on Friday.
A junior from Indianapolis, Pack made 5-of-8 3-pointers. The Kansas State transfer poured in 13 points in the game’s opening 10 minutes to help stake the Hurricanes to a 25-16 lead.
“Nigel was really terrific all game long,” Canes coach Jim Larrañaga said of Pack’s first collegiate appearance in Indiana. “ … He’s doing a fantastic job (in multiple facets) and I expect his scoring will continue to be there because he’s such an outstanding shooter.”
Norchad Omier added 18 points, went 8 of 11 from the field and blocked three shots as Miami (13-1, 4-0 Atlantic Coast Conference) won its ninth straight game. Isaiah Wong chipped in 15 points and Jordan Miller 12.
Trey Wertz scored 15 points, Dane Goodwin 14 and Marcus Hammond 12 for the Fighting Irish (8-6, 0-3), who lost for the fourth time in their last five games.
“We’re struggling confidence-wise, no question about it,” Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said. “In our losses, we’ve really turned the ball over and it’s just killing us.”
The Irish had a season-high 17 turnovers, including five by Wertz and four by Goodwin. The Canes committed just nine, and outscored Notre Dame 25-7 on points off turnovers.
“The second half we really picked it up at both ends of the court,” said Larrañaga, whose team trailed 34-33 at halftime. “We played better defense, we rebounded better, we attacked the basket more.”
Miami led most of the way, but a Hammond four-point play pulled Notre Dame to as close as 51-49 at 12:12 to go. But Miami responded with a 9-0 run to largely seize control and later led by as many as 14. The Irish got no closer than eight, that coming at 2:30 left in the game.
BIG PICTURE
Miami: The Canes’ schedule is tough from here and their only league road wins are over a pair of teams that are winless in ACC play, but 4-0 in the conference is a good start. Miami will still have to face No. 17 Duke twice, plus visit No. 25 North Carolina, Clemson, NC State, Pittsburgh and Virginia Tech.
Notre Dame: The sinking Irish have a steep hill to climb to reach the NCAA tournament, considering they have a trio of double-digit nonconference losses to unranked clubs. Notre Dame visits both No. 13 Virginia and No. 17 Duke in February, and has a pair of meetings with No. 25 North Carolina.
BOWLED OVER
As dejected as Brey was over his own team’s loss, he was quick to ask “what’s the football score?” in reference to Notre Dame’s Gator Bowl contest against South Carolina that started about 90 minutes after the basketball game began.
Friday marked the first time in six occasions that the men’s basketball team has lost on a day that the football team is in a bowl game. In contrast, the football team entered the day 1-4 on those occasions.
UP NEXT
Miami: Visits Georgia Tech on Wednesday.
Notre Dame: Plays three of its next four on the road, beginning Tuesday at Boston College.
___
More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 | 2022-12-31T12:02:38+00:00 | kfor.com | https://kfor.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-no-14-miami-wins-9th-straight-topping-notre-dame-76-65/ |
BRUSSELS (AP) — Expecting that Russian President Vladimir Putin will cut off vast natural gas supplies to the European Union, the bloc’s head office is set to propose energy cuts and savings Wednesday that might make for a much colder winter, but one without massive disruptions.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU has approved bans on Russian coal and most oil to take effect later this year but did not include natural gas because the 27-nation bloc depends on it to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes. Now, it fears that Putin will cut off gas anyway to try to wreak economic and political havoc in Europe this winter.
“We are working on the worst possible scenario,” said Eric Mamer, spokesman for the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm. “And that scenario — an assumption, therefore — is that Gazprom would no longer deliver any gas — any gas — to Europe.”
Experts were still plotting how to spread the pain of cuts equally among member states under the plan. Up to the last hours, EU officials were putting final touches on how the proposals would look, including how far guidance would go and where mandatory rules would have to kick in.
Early leaks said the plan for call for EU nations to limit gas consumption by as much as 15%, but changes could still come at the last moment.
The aim is to ensure essential industries and services like hospitals could keep functioning, while others would have to cut back. That could include lowering heat in public buildings and enticing families to use less energy at home.
EU nations and the Commission have gone on a buying spree to diversify its natural gas sources away from Russia, but they are still expected to fall far short of providing businesses and homes with enough energy in the cold months.
Just Monday, the leaders of Italy, France and the 27-nation EU sealed energy deals with their counterparts in Algeria, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates.
Even if the EU has enough gas to keep the lights on and factories running right now, it does so at painfully high prices that have fueled runaway inflation and caused public uproar.
Russia has cut off or reduced gas to some EU countries, and there are fears that the energy crisis will get worse if Moscow does not restart a key pipeline to Germany after scheduled maintenance ends Thursday.
“We already have 12 countries or in certain cases, companies within countries that, from one day to the next, have experienced disruptions, either full or partial flow from gas from Gazprom,” Mamer said. “It is impossible for us to predict how Gazprom is going to act.”
Reliance on Russian gas varies greatly among member states, with Germany heavily affected by any possible cutoff.
Germany’s biggest importer of Russian gas, Uniper, said it had received a letter from Russia’s Gazprom claiming “force majeure” — events beyond its control — as the reason for past and current shortfalls in gas deliveries, a claim that the Uniper rejected.
Analysts say the impact of the move on future gas deliveries is uncertain.
Gazprom reduced gas deliveries through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany by 60% last month. The Russian state-owned gas company cited alleged technical problems involving equipment that partner Siemens Energy sent to Canada for overhaul and couldn’t be returned because of sanctions.
German and other European leaders reject that reasoning, saying the reductions were political. | 2022-07-19T22:33:55+00:00 | kxnet.com | https://www.kxnet.com/news/international/ap-international/eu-expects-russian-gas-cutoff-to-release-winter-energy-plan/ |
BROOKLINE, Mass. (AP) — Luke Gannon is playing in his first U.S. Open and had one of those moments that made him realize this was a stage unlike any other the Kansan has played. It was a bit awkward, too.
He looked down 131 yards to the 11th green to find a tiny target on the shortest hole at The Country Club. Off to the left of the green waiting on him to hit was a player wearing white shorts, a black shirt, remnants of a beard, no hat and someone in no hurry.
Phil Mickelson was carrying only a wedge and a putter and waved him through.
The Sunday before U.S. Open week is rarely more peaceful with only a few dozen players getting a look at the course, some caddies arriving ahead of their players to walk the course and check the yardages.
The peace won’t last long, and this time isn’t all about the U.S. Open and its reputation as the toughest test in golf.
Mickelson had arrived from London where he was among a dozen players at the U.S. Open who took part in the Saudi-funded debut of the LIV Golf Invitational. Half of those players were PGA Tour members a few weeks ago. Mickelson still is, choosing not to resign his membership.
The first official day of practice on Monday includes Mickelson in the first press conference of the week, where it’s likely he’ll face more questions about the lucrative LIV Golf renegade circuit than his bid to finally ended 30 years of frustration at the only major he hasn’t won.
Mickelson didn’t want to share any of those thoughts until Monday. He went about his work, placing four hole-sized placards around the green to practice.
The topic is unavoidable and threatens to overshadow the second-oldest championship in golf held at Brookline, one of the five founding golf clubs when the USGA was formed in 1894.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan only stoked the passion of the debate when he offered his first public thoughts since he announced he was suspending all PGA Tour members who joined. For how long? Monahan wasn’t prepared to say.
But he made pointed remarks during his 12-minute appearance on CBS during the Canadian Open. He referred to LIV Golf as nothing more than a series of exhibition matches. He said true, pure competition was found at the PGA Tour, and it was that stage that created the profiles and presences of players now cashing in on Saudi riches.
As for the blowback for players taking money provided by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia, a country known for its abysmal record on human rights?
“I would ask any player that has left, or any player that would ever consider leaving, ‘Have you ever had to apologize for being a member of the PGA Tour?’” Monahan said.
He was asked why players like Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and even the lesser-known players like Talor Gooch couldn’t play both tours. He answered with a question of his own.
“Why do they need us so badly?” Monahan said. “Those players have chosen to sign multiyear, lucrative contracts to play in a series of exhibition matches against the same players over and over again. You look at that versus what we see here today.”
The Canadian Open featured a final group of Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Tony Finau and wasn’t settled until the end. McIlroy birdied his last two holes for a 62 to win by one over Finau (62), while Thomas bogeyed the last two holes for a 64.
One day after LIV Golf finished its 54-hole event with Charl Schwartzel winning $4.75 million ($4 million for his score, $750,000 as part of the winning team), the Canadian Open had enormous crowds with thousands surrounding the 18th green.
“It’s true and pure competition that creates the profiles and presences of the world’s greatest players,” Monahan said. “And that’s why they need us. That’s what we do.”
McIlroy got into the act. It was the first time he had defended a title on the PGA Tour — he had to wait two years when the Canadian was canceled in 2020 and 2021 by the pandemic — and his TV interview included a dig at Norman.
McIlroy has said such a “super league” was a bad idea even before Norman got involved. Norman told the Washington Post that McIlroy had been “brainwashed” by the tour.
The victory was the 21st on the PGA Tour for McIlroy.
“One more than somebody else,” McIlroy said.
Norman has 20.
McIlroy already has four majors, twice as many as Norman, and he will hope to add to that total and get away from questions on why he has gone eight years without one.
With so much chatter on whether this Saudi-backed league is good for golf, a force for golf or simply a money grab for a majority of players on the back end of their careers, McIlroy probably won’t get pestered about when he’ll win his next major.
Maybe that will change on Thursday.
___
More AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2022-06-14T03:20:40+00:00 | valleycentral.com | https://www.valleycentral.com/sports/mickelson-arrives-at-brookline-and-wild-us-open-week-awaits/ |
Conference Call to be Webcast Live at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET
SEATTLE, April 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) today announced that its first-quarter 2023 financial results will be released after market close on Wednesday, May 3, 2023. The company will host a conference call and webcast to discuss its results that afternoon at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET.
Information about Zillow Group's financial results, including a link to the live webcast and recorded replay, will be made available on the company's Investor Relations website at: https://investors.zillowgroup.com/investors/financials/quarterly-results/default.aspx
Please register in advance at
https://www.netroadshow.com/events/login?show=20ec80c1&confId=45370 to receive emailed instructions to access the live conference call. This pre-registration process is designed to reduce delays due to operator congestion when accessing the live call.
For more information about Zillow Group, please visit https://investors.zillowgroup.com.
About Zillow Group
Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in the United States, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease.
Zillow Group's affiliates and brands include Zillow®; Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans℠; Zillow Closing Services℠; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+SM, which includes ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, dotloop®, and Listing Media Services. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org).
(ZFIN)
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SOURCE Zillow Group | 2023-04-11T03:02:41+00:00 | wbrc.com | https://www.wbrc.com/prnewswire/2023/04/10/zillow-group-announce-first-quarter-2023-results-may-3/ |
Louisville bank shooting body cam video released by police
Body cam footage from a mass shooting at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky, was released on Tuesday, just one day after the incident.
The footage, which was shown during a news conference, showed different perspectives from several officers and a bystander near the scene.
According to a timeline that was shown before the initial body cam footage, Louisville Metro police officers arrived at the bank at 8:41 a.m. local time.
Upon arrival, the gunman began to shoot at officers.
Just five minutes after officers initially arrived at the scene, the gunman was taken down by Officer Corey Galloway, according to the department’s timeline.
Galloway’s body camera shows him perched behind a stairway outside the building after rookie Officer Nickolas Wilt was wounded. He waits and as other officers arrive, more gunshots are heard and Galloway fires then shouts that he thinks the shooter is down.
Editor's note: Warning, video may contain graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.
Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said it was crucial to release the 9-minute video because "transparency is important — even more so in a time of crisis."
Earlier on Tuesday, Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Jacquelyn Gwinn-Villaroel said Wilt, who was shot in the head while responding to the mass shooting, remained in critical but stable condition Tuesday morning.
"It's looking hopeful," Gwinn-Villaroel told WDRB-TV about Wilt, who had graduated from training just 10 days earlier.
She said Wilt and other officers "unflinchingly" engaged the shooter, 25-year-old Connor Sturgeon, at Old National Bank and stopped him from killing more people.
The body cam video release comes one day after Sturgeon, who worked at the Old National Bank, opened fire on employees on April 10.
FILE - Police cars and cordon tape block Main Street near the Old National Bank after a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky. (Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Armed with a rifle, Sturgeon killed five people — including a close friend of Kentucky’s governor — while livestreaming the attack on Instagram, authorities said. Another eight people were wounded.
Sturgeon bought the AR-15 rifle legally on April 4 and targeted certain people in the attack, according to officials.
Four of the injured remained hospitalized Tuesday — one in critical condition and three in stable but fair condition, University of Louisville Hospital said in a statement.
RELATED: Louisville bank shooting: What we know about the victims
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he lost one of his closest friends in the shooting.
"Tommy Elliott helped me build my law career, helped me become governor, gave me advice on being a good dad," said Beshear, his voice shaking with emotion. "He's one of the people I talked to most in the world, and very rarely were we talking about my job. He was an incredible friend."
Also killed in the shooting were Josh Barrick, Jim Tutt, Juliana Farmer and Deana Eckert, police said.
FILE - Bouquets of flowers lay at the entrance of the Old National Bank for the victims of the mass shooting on April 11, 2023 in Louisville, Kentucky. (Michael Swensen/Getty Images)
"There are no words to adequately describe the sadness and devastation that our Old National family is experiencing as we grieve the tragic loss of our team members and pray for the recovery of all those who were injured," Old National Bank CEO Jim Ryan said in a statement.
Greenberg told WDRB-TV that his focus moving forward would be on trying to unify residents in the city.
"We can't let the targeted acts of evil violence that we saw yesterday in our city deter us from continuing on the path to make our city the vibrant, safe, strong healthy city that we all know it can be and all want it to be," he said.
The shooting, the 15th mass killing in the country this year, comes just two weeks after a former student killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, about 160 miles to the south. That state's governor and his wife also had friends killed in that shooting.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This story was reported from Los Angeles. | 2023-04-11T23:09:14+00:00 | fox6now.com | https://www.fox6now.com/news/louisville-bank-mass-shooting-police-body-cam-video-released |
NEW YORK (AP) — Five people died of Legionnaires’ disease over the summer at a New York City nursing home that had been cited repeatedly for improper maintenance of the cooling towers where the Legionella bacteria can spread, The New York Times reported.
The outbreak at Amsterdam Nursing Home, a 409-bed facility in upper Manhattan, was the city’s worst since 2015 when a cooling tower in the Bronx was blamed for an infection that caused 16 deaths.
The home has restricted water use since the outbreak that ended in September, spokesperson Jeff Jacomowitz said. “All further tests have been coming back negative, and the facility has provided bottled water for drinking and for all sanitary uses.”
People can get Legionnaires’ disease when they breathe in water vapor containing the Legionella bacteria, which grows in wet environments including hot tubs, fountains and cooling towers. Deaths attributed to Legionnaires’ are rare, but the risk is higher for older populations such as nursing home residents.
Following the 2015 outbreak in the Bronx, New York City passed strict rules for maintaining cooling towers that include requiring building managers to register the towers with the city and submit to regular testing.
A review by the Times found that Amsterdam Nursing Home was cited seven times in the past six years for rules violations ranging from not conducting routine maintenance to using inadequate start-up procedures for the towers. One infraction resulted in a $500 fine related to record keeping for water sample analysis, while the other six were dismissed after hearings.
Dozens of other nursing home in the city have also been cited for violating cooling tower regulations. The Times found that 43 nursing homes have been fined a total of $164,000 since 2015 and they have paid about $120,000 of that amount.
Jacomowitz said Amsterdam Nursing Home’s cooling tower was cleaned prior to start-up in the spring and tested according to the city’s rules. He said the facility “continues to work closely with the Department of Health on anything having to do with the water supply and with anything at all to clear up this matter.”
Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesperson for the state Department of Health, said the restrictions on water use at Amsterdam Nursing Home are recommended as a precautionary measure even though no additional Legionnaires’ cases have been identified since September.
“The water restrictions will remain in place until additional water culture testing for Legionella has been completed and no additional cases are identified,” he said.
The exact source of the outbreak at the facility has not been determined, Jacomowitz said. | 2022-11-14T18:53:55+00:00 | seattletimes.com | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/5-deaths-at-nyc-nursing-home-blamed-on-legionnaires-disease/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_nation-world |
Parents among 3 arrested after teen boy’s abandoned body found wrapped in blanket
KINGMAN, Ariz. (KPHO/Gray News) - Two parents were arrested along with another man on Thursday in Arizona after police said a 16-year-old boy was found dead.
According to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, the teen’s parents, Amber-Leah Valentine and Jon Imes, called deputies on Feb. 25 and told them their son had run away from home and that they had seen him the day before.
Several days later, deputies were called out to an area near Anson Smith and Indian Canyon Road in Kingman for the report of a teenage boy’s body found wrapped in a blanket behind a stone wall.
When deputies arrived at the scene, they said they didn’t know the remains belonged to the missing-16-year-old.
Officials told KPHO that the road sees a lot of traffic, so it would be strange to leave a body near it.
The sheriff’s office said they were called by Valentine last Thursday to report that she had just freed her 14-year-old daughter from captivity by her roommates 34-year-old Richard Pounds and 39-year-old Shioban Gujda.
Investigators said Valentine and her daughter were taken to a hospital where the mother confessed that she and Imes had disposed of their son’s body behind the wall. Officers said she knew he was dead when the couple reported him missing.
Imes and Valentine were later arrested on various charges which included abandonment and concealing a dead body.
When investigators spoke with the 14-year-old daughter, she reportedly told them that Pounds had shot her in the eye with a BB gun. Deputies said she reported additional abuse that had happened to her while living in the house.
“Any call that we get that involves a child of any age is extremely disturbing,” Anita Mortensen, with the Mohave Sheriff’s Office, said. “Our deputies, our detectives, they are fathers, they’re mothers. They have their own kids and going to calls like this is always extremely disturbing that someone could do something or be in the same home as something like this that is happening to their own children.”
Pounds was arrested and booked for felony child abuse and aggravated assault. Gujda was questioned and released. An autopsy was conducted on the 16-year-old’s body, with the results pending.
Copyright 2023 KPHO/KTRK via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | 2023-03-07T19:49:37+00:00 | wafb.com | https://www.wafb.com/2023/03/07/parents-among-3-arrested-after-teen-boys-abandoned-body-found-wrapped-blanket/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Bucks vs. Heat NBA Playoffs Game 2 on April 19, 2023
Player prop betting options for Giannis Antetokounmpo, Bam Adebayo and others are available in the Milwaukee Bucks-Miami Heat matchup at Fiserv Forum on Wednesday (starting at 9:00 PM ET).
Bet on this matchup or its props with BetMGM, the King of Sportsbooks!
Bucks vs. Heat Game Info
- Date: Wednesday, April 19, 2023
- Time: 9:00 PM ET
- How to Watch on TV: NBA TV, BSWI, and BSSUN
- Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- Venue: Fiserv Forum
NBA Props Today: Milwaukee Bucks
Giannis Antetokounmpo Props
- The 28.5 points prop total set for Antetokounmpo on Wednesday is 2.6 fewer points than his season scoring average (31.1).
- Antetokounmpo's per-game rebound average of 11.8 is 0.3 more than his prop bet over/under in Wednesday's game (11.5).
- Antetokounmpo has averaged 5.7 assists per game, 0.2 more than Wednesday's assist over/under (5.5).
- Antetokounmpo's 0.7 made three-pointers per game is 0.2 more than his over/under in Wednesday's game (0.5).
Check out the latest odds and place your bets on player props with BetMGM Sportsbook.
Jrue Holiday Props
- Jrue Holiday's 19.3-point scoring average is 1.2 less than Wednesday's over/under.
- He grabs 5.1 rebounds per game, 0.4 less than his prop bet on Wednesday.
- Holiday's assists average -- 7.4 -- is 1.1 lower than Wednesday's over/under.
- He 2.4 made three-pointers average is 0.1 lower than his prop bet on Wednesday.
Brook Lopez Props
- The 15.5-point over/under for Brook Lopez on Wednesday is 0.4 lower than his scoring average.
- Lopez has collected 6.7 boards per game, 0.2 more than his over/under for Wednesday's game.
- Lopez has dished out 1.3 assists per game, which is 0.2 less than Wednesday's over/under.
- Lopez's 1.7 three-pointers made per game is 0.2 more than his over/under on Wednesday.
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NBA Props Today: Miami Heat
Bam Adebayo Props
- Adebayo's 20.4 points per game are 0.1 fewer than Wednesday's over/under.
- Adebayo averages 0.3 fewer rebounds than his over/under on Wednesday (which is 9.5).
- Adebayo has dished out 3.2 assists per game, which is 0.3 less than Wednesday's over/under.
Put your picks to the test and bet on Bucks vs. Heat player props with BetMGM Sportsbook.
Jimmy Butler Props
- The 22.9 points Jimmy Butler has scored per game this season is 5.6 fewer than his prop total set for Wednesday (28.5).
- Butler's per-game rebound average of 5.9 is 0.4 more than his prop bet over/under in Wednesday's game (5.5).
- Butler has averaged 5.3 assists per game, 0.2 fewer than Wednesday's assist over/under (5.5).
- Butler has averaged 0.6 made three-pointers per game, 0.1 more than his over/under in Wednesday's game (0.5).
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | 2023-04-19T14:06:27+00:00 | mysuncoast.com | https://www.mysuncoast.com/sports/betting/2023/04/19/bucks-vs-heat-nba-playoffs-game-2-player-prop-bets/ |
OREM, Utah (AP) — Trey Woodbury had 22 points in Utah Valley's 73-69 win against Northern Arizona on Saturday night.
Woodbury added six assists for the Wolverines (2-1). Aziz Bandaogo scored 13 points and added 12 rebounds and four blocks. Le'Tre Darthard recorded 13 points and was 5 of 8 shooting (3 for 6 from distance).
Jack Wistrcill led the way for the Lumberjacks (0-3) with 14 points and six rebounds. Liam Lloyd added 14 points and two steals for Northern Arizona. Oakland Fort also had 12 points and four assists.
___
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. | 2022-11-13T02:47:11+00:00 | seattlepi.com | https://www.seattlepi.com/sports/article/Utah-Valley-earns-73-69-win-against-Northern-17580440.php |
I read with great sadness about the passing of Russell Tershy, cofounder of the Center for Employment Training. Russ’ deeply held conviction that everyone can succeed and his commitment to overcoming poverty one student at a time evolved into one of the most successful career training programs in the country. Russ gave me my first job in California in the ’70s as an instructor for farmworker youth. The principles and practices I learned at CET profoundly influenced me as a young teacher and are reflected in career training programs I later developed for our county’s at-risk youth. At a time of social turbulence when many people talked about change, Russ turned talk into action, resulting in directly improving the lives of many thousands of people. His lasting legacy includes these people and their families and the staff he so impacted, myself included.
— Carol Polhamus, Santa Cruz
The Sentinel welcomes your letters to the editor. Letters should be short, no more than 150 words. We do not accept anonymous letters. Letter-writers should include their full name as well as a street address and telephone number. We don’t publish those details in the newspaper, but need the information for verification purposes. Occasionally, we reject letters simply because we’ve had so many on the same subject. Submit your letters online at www.santacruzsentinel.com/submit-letters. | 2022-07-21T14:10:11+00:00 | santacruzsentinel.com | https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2022/07/21/letter-training-russell-tershy-has-left-a-lasting-legacy/ |
CLEVELAND, Aug. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Hourly by AMS, the next generation technology that optimizes the engagement and hiring of hourly workers, has been named the winner of both a Gold and Bronze 2022 Stevie® Award in two categories. Hourly by AMS won the Gold Talent Management Solution award and was also honored with the Bronze HR Technology Solution Provider of the Year award in the seventh annual Stevie Awards for Great Employers.
Hourly by AMS harnesses the power of conversational AI, automation and live data to enable organizations to meet their high-volume hiring needs simply, quickly and intelligently. The mobile first technology is specifically designed to ease the frustration felt by both the employer and job seeker when it comes to hiring high volumes of hourly workers efficiently. Hourly by AMS reduces the administrative burden on recruiters while at the same time dramatically accelerating the hiring process – candidates go from apply to scheduled interview in under 3 minutes. The Stevie Awards judges acknowledged Hourly by AMS as an invaluable talent acquisition technology for organizations with an hourly recruiting requirement in a candidate short environment.
The Stevie Awards for Great Employers recognize the world's best employers and the human resources professionals, teams, achievements and HR-related products and suppliers who help to create and drive great places to work.
More than 950 nominations from organizations of all sizes in 26 nations were submitted this year for consideration in a wide range of HR-related categories, including, Employer of the Year, Chief Human Resources Officer of the Year, Human Resources Team of the Year, HR Technology Solution Provider of the Year, Talent Management Solution, among others. Hourly by AMS's two nominations "Conversational hiring experience to drastically simplify recruiting hourly workers" won in two categories.
Jeanette Leeds, Managing Director, Hourly by AMS commented on the news: "We are thrilled and honored to be recognized for our achievements in technology innovation and we have our fantastic customers and passionate Hourly team to thank. This award reinforces the value of Hourly by AMS's efforts which have focused on designing technology specifically for both the hourly candidate and hourly hiring managers unique recruiting persona and process. It's inspiring seeing the combination of automation, conversational AI and real-time analytics enable our customers to hire hourly talent in 1.8 days, convert, 200% more candidates while saving 80% recruiting marketing spend – all during a time of unprecedented upheaval."
More than 100 professionals worldwide participated in the judging process to select this year's Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners. The judging panels in Hourly by AMS's two categories included professionals from KPMG, Google, IBM, Unilever, AWS, Morgan Stanley, and more.
One of the judges commented: "Hourly by AMS is a great example of a solution businesses need right now!" Another judge noted "Very impressed with the impact and efficiency Hourly has brought to the recruiting process. Processing of 40% more candidates with 50% fewer recruiting resources; Candidates going from beginning their application to a scheduled interview in less than 3 minutes; Hires in 1.8 days vs weeks - this is very impressive." Hourly by AMS's focus on the candidate experience was also called out by a judge: "In this age of flexibility, lack of workforce, and employment choices...the Hourly by AMS solution targets the present and the always connected generation with their phones."
"We congratulate all of the winners in the seventh edition of the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, and we look forward to celebrating them in Las Vegas on September 17, our first awards banquet since 2019," said Stevies president Maggie Miller.
Winners of the awards, named the Stevies from the Greek word meaning "crowned," will be recognized during a gala awards dinner on Saturday, September 17 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
Details about the Stevie Awards for Great Employers and the list of 2022 Stevie winners are available at www.StevieAwards.com/HR.
AMS is a global total workforce solutions firm founded in 1996. We enable organizations to thrive in an age of constant change by building, reshaping and optimizing workforces. We do this through talent acquisition and contingent workforce management, internal mobility and skills development, and talent and technology advisory services and products. Our solutions are delivered by our c.10,000+ experts who live our passionate, bold, and authentic values. The ultimate aim is to help clients around the world, including 100+ blue-chip companies, create workforces that are fluid, resilient, diverse, and differentiated. We call this true workforce dexterity – and we're here to help you achieve it. http://www.weareams.com and http://www.hourlybyams.com
Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.
Media contact: Karen Pressman, ClearEdge Marketing, kpressman@clearedgemarketing.com
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SOURCE AMS | 2022-08-24T10:41:13+00:00 | kalb.com | https://www.kalb.com/prnewswire/2022/08/24/recruiting-technology-hourly-by-ams-honored-gold-amp-bronze-stevie-award-winner/ |
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The families of nine American women and children killed in 2019 by members of a drug trafficking organization in Mexico will struggle to collect a $4.6 billion judgment a U.S. judge recently assessed on it, a security expert says.
That’s because the group – the Juarez cartel – is unlikely to volunteer to pay and has fractured to a shadow of the once-powerful organized crime alliance that dominated much of the illegal narcotics trade in Mexico in the 1990s.
“It’s going to be hard to find assets belonging to the Juarez cartel, seize them and provide the proceeds to the families. That’s just how it is, and it’s unfortunate,” said Scott Stewart, vice president of TorchStone Global, a U.S.-based security firm. “But at the same time, it is a symbolic victory for the family to have a U.S. court find the Juarez cartel/La Linea culpable in this wrongful death suit.”
U.S. Magistrate Judge Clare Hochhalter recently awarded a combined $4.6 billion judgment under the Anti-Terrorism Act to the families of Christina Langford, Rhonita Miller, Dawna Ray and six children who were either shot or burned to death on Nov. 4, 2019, at a cartel highway checkpoint in Sonora, Mexico.
Court documents show La Linea the previous night had staged a raid on Sinaloa cartel rivals in Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas, Arizona. La Linea withdrew to an area near the Sonora-Chihuahua border and set up a 9-mile defensive perimeter.
Three vehicles driven by the women passed through the checkpoints and were attacked. At least two of the women tried to exit the vehicles so there was little chance they were mistaken for rival drug traffickers; the third woman and her children were set on fire after the gunmen realized they were still alive inside their vehicle, court documents show.
The judge sided with the relatives of the victims in characterizing the killings as a deliberate act of terror against civilians on the part of the cartel to assert their control over the area and its population.
Border Report reached out to two relatives of the victims for comment and is awaiting a response.
Where the Juarez cartel stands today
Stewart has written extensively about the fracturing or “Balkanization” of the Mexican drug cartels. When a cartel leader is “taken out” or killed, his successor may not be able to hold the organization together and the organization fractures into smaller groups.
In the case of the Juarez cartel, the 1997 death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, a.k.a. “The Lord of the Skies,” resulted in a loss of influence and size for the organization. The drug lord’s nickname refers to his use of a fleet of Boeing aircraft to bring in drugs from South America. Being on the losing side of an all-out war with the Sinaloa cartel in the mid-2000s further reduced the Juarez cartel’s influence.
“The way we have seen the splintering of the Juarez cartel, it’s not what it was when the ‘Lord of the Skies’ was running things,” Stewart said. “It is no longer a very cohesive organization. You have these smaller cells and even street gangs like Los Aztecas acting under the umbrella name (Juarez cartel). It’s a bunch of groups working together or even just individuals working together.”
The influence of La Linea, the strongest group, is mostly confined to the state of Chihuahua. Even there it’s engaged in a battle for territory with Sinaloa cartel cells in the mountains of Western Chihuahua. Their other battlefront is in the Chihuahua-Sonora border for control of a drug corridor to Southeast Arizona. That is the conflict that led to the massacre of the nine Americans.
Stewart said individuals associated with the Juarez cartel umbrella likely have at least some assets in the United States including bank accounts for money laundering. However, the plaintiffs or the U.S. government would have to find those accounts and prove the individuals who control those accounts were linked to the massacre of the Americans. “I don’t see any names (in the lawsuit), all I see is the Juarez cartel,” he said.
Court documents state the gunmen who killed the women and children were led by two individuals identified as “Gil” and “El Tolteca.” The Mexican government has identified “El Tolteca” as Freddy Calles Romero; he remains jailed in Mexico on murder and organized crime charges. It’s not clear who “Gil” is.
Victor M. Manjarrez Jr., head of the Center for Law and Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso, said the trend among drug trafficking organizations in Mexico is away from a pyramidal structure and more compartmentalized.
“It’s a little more splintered,” Manjarrez said. In the past, “there’s a kingpin and the lieutenants and the whole bits. And as arrests have been made and killings have taken place, it’s splintered, it’s become more horizontal, almost subunits of a bigger company.” | 2022-07-15T21:41:59+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/border-report/judgment-against-juarez-cartel-mostly-symbolic-expert-says/ |
Eight more women are joining a lawsuit against the state of Texas, saying the state's abortion bans put their health or lives at risk while facing pregnancy-related medical emergencies.
The new plaintiffs have added their names to a lawsuit originally filed in March by five women and two doctors who say that pregnant patients are being denied abortions under Texas law despite facing serious medical complications. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the women, is now asking for a temporary injunction to block Texas abortion bans in the event of pregnancy complications.
"What happened to these women is indefensible and is happening to countless pregnant people across the state," Molly Duane, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.
The new group of women brings the total number of plaintiffs to 15. The lawsuit, filed in state court in Austin, asks a judge to clarify the meaning of medical exceptions in the state's anti-abortion statutes.
The Texas "trigger law," passed in 2021 in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade last year, makes performing an abortion a felony, with exceptions for a "life-threatening physical condition" or "a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function."
Another Texas law, known as S.B. 8, prohibits nearly all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. That ban, with a novel enforcement mechanism that relies on private citizens filing civil lawsuits against anyone believed to be involved in providing prohibited abortions, took effect in September 2021 after the Supreme Court turned back a challenge from a Texas abortion provider.
In an interview with NPR in April, Jonathan Mitchell, a lawyer who assisted Texas lawmakers in crafting the language behind S.B. 8, said he believed the medical exceptions in the law should not have prohibited emergency abortions.
"It concerns me, yeah, because the statute was never intended to restrict access to medically-necessary abortions," Mitchell said. "The statute was written to draw a clear distinction between abortions that are medically necessary and abortions that are purely elective. Only the purely elective abortions are unlawful under S.B. 8."
But many doctors in Texas and other states with similar laws that have taken effect since last year's Supreme Court decision say they feel unsafe providing abortions while facing the threat of substantial fines, the loss of their medical licenses, or prison time.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2023-05-22T14:49:44+00:00 | iowapublicradio.org | https://www.iowapublicradio.org/news-from-npr/2023-05-22/more-women-sue-texas-saying-the-states-anti-abortion-laws-harmed-them |
The forewoman of a Georgia grand jury assembled to review Donald Trump’s interference following the 2020 election suggested the former president and multiple allies could face a variety of charges as a result of the probe.
In interviews with both The New York Times and The Associated Press on Tuesday, forewoman Emily Kohrs offered limited insight into the grand jury’s report, which was only partially released last week.
“It is not a short list,” Kohrs told the Times of the people and crimes referenced in the report.
The known targets in Georgia include former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and 16 Republicans who held a meeting to carry out a fake elector plot by voting to certify the election for Trump, who lost the contest.
But Kohrs demurred when asked about charges for Trump specifically.
“You’re not going to be shocked. It’s not rocket science,” she told the Times.
A Georgia judge allowed the release of just three sections from the grand jury’s report, which was expected to include charging recommendations. The public saw limited sections of the 8-page document.
Kohrs told reporters that the report also includes eight pages of legal code appended to its recommendations.
“I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” she said.
“You probably have a fair idea of what may be on there. I’m trying very hard to say that delicately.”
The investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is seen as one of the most promising pathways for an eventual prosecution of Trump, who in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) asked him to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”
The grand jury never heard from Trump directly.
“Trump was not a battle we picked to fight,” Kohrs told The Associated Press.
But Kohrs made clear the call was an important starting point in the investigation.
“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized,” she said.
The few pages of the report shared publicly showed the grand jury determined that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 contest and encouraged the prosecution of witnesses who may have lied to the panel.
“We find by unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election,” the grand jury wrote.
“A majority of the witnesses believes that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it. The Grand Jury recommends that the District Attorney seeks appropriate indictments for such crimes where the evidence is compelling,” the report states.
Willis has said charging decisions for “multiple” future defendants are “imminent.” | 2023-02-22T00:40:28+00:00 | myfox8.com | https://myfox8.com/news/politics/hill-politics/georgia-grand-jury-on-trump-interference-recommended-multiple-indictments-reports/ |
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer won reelection in Michigan, and a ballot proposal that adds the right to abortion and contraceptive use to the state constitution also passed.
Here & Now‘s Scott Tong speaks with Matt Grossmann, a political scientist at Michigan State University, about the midterm results in Michigan.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-11-10T20:48:11+00:00 | kgou.org | https://www.kgou.org/2022-11-10/democratic-gov-gretchen-whitmer-reelected-in-michigan |
Wisconsin Legislature Increases Reckless Driving Penalties
Senate vote sends proposal to governor's desk. Democrats blast GOP inaction.
Fines and jail time for reckless driving offenses would increase under a bill approved by lawmakers in the Wisconsin state Senate Wednesday.
The body gaveled in and out in less than an hour. Before the session, Democratic lawmakers criticized the day’s business as illustrative of an inactive GOP-led Legislature.
Senators approved a bill by a bipartisan vote of 30-2 that would increase the range of fines imposed on people charged with reckless driving offenses. The legislation had previously been approved by the Wisconsin state Assembly.
It will now go to Gov. Tony Evers‘ desk. Evers previously signed into law a provision to allow municipalities to impound vehicles used in reckless driving offenses, and has signaled that this issue is a priority of his.
Under the legislation approved Wednesday, a first reckless driving offense would incur a fine of between $50 and $400, up from $25 to $200. Subsequent offenses would increase from a range of $100 to $1,000, up from $50 to $500. The bill waives a statute of limitations for incurring a “repeat offender” penalty. Repeat offenders could also be sentenced to jail time.
The maximum prison sentence for reckless drivers who cause “great bodily harm” would also increase, from three-and-a-half years to six years.
An Evers spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Democrats denounce speed of business in the Capitol
Speaking to reporters before the session, Democratic leaders denounced what they described as a slow pace of business in the Capitol in general.
Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, D-Madison, called the day’s calendar “anemic and skeletal.” She called on Republican lawmakers to move forward legislation about public schools, child care, health care and prescription drug access.
“Our colleagues in this building are running scared. Their platform is wildly unpopular by the majority of Wisconsinites,” Agard said of GOP lawmakers. “And with accountability knocking on the door, the Republicans are choosing to do nothing rather than putting forward their typically offensive and unwelcome legislation.”
A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, used this weekend’s Earth Day — a holiday born in Wisconsin — to argue that Wisconsin is being outpaced by its neighbors when it comes to passing legislation.
“Our neighbors to the east and the west — Michigan Senate and Minnesota House — passed more bills this January than the past six January is combined,” she said. “In Wisconsin, it is the strangest thing. It’s like we’re in the upside down, a world that moves so slowly. We cannot even do simple things like declare official days official until that day is in the past. We’re going to be recognizing Earth Day after Mother’s Day in this next month.”
Democratic leaders also denounced the slow pace of confirming Evers’ nominations to public offices.
“We would like to also point out that there are a number of appointments that are outstanding yet, and that we need to continue working in a bipartisan way to make sure in the name of good governance that we are fulfilling one of the most important responsibilities of the state Senate,” Agard said.
Senators approved 28 nominations on Wednesday, including of Peter Barca as Secretary of Revenue, and Randy Romanski as Secretary of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection.
Romanski was first confirmed to that position in 2020, 15 months after he’d originally taken the post. He replaced Brad Pfaff, a prior Evers nominee who Senate Republicans voted not to confirm — effectively firing — in 2019. Senate Republicans declined to confirm nearly 180 of Evers’ appointments in his first term.
The nominations Wednesday received unanimous approval.
The vote on the reckless driving bill also received overwhelming bipartisan support, including yes votes from all but two of the body’s 11 Democrats. The two no votes came from Hesselbein and Chris Larson, of Milwaukee.
Listen to the WPR report here.
Wisconsin Senate approves increased penalties for reckless drivers was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio. | 2023-04-20T18:03:01+00:00 | urbanmilwaukee.com | https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2023/04/20/wisconsin-legislature-increases-reckless-driving-penalties/ |
Calera PD: Dog dies after being left in crate outside
CALERA, Ala. (WBRC) - Authorities with the Calera Police Department say a dog has died after being left in the crate outside.
Authorities say they received a call of an animal in distress, and when the officer arrived on the scene, they found a pitbull mix in a small crate in the yard outside. Authorities say the crate was in the sun with a temperature of 91 degrees, and that the dog had no water. Police believe the dog died of heat stroke.
Police say they plan to obtain warrants in the case, and refer it for prosecution. Authorities say they’re allowed to do this because an officer personally observed the dog’s conditions.
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Copyright 2022 WBRC. All rights reserved. | 2022-06-17T16:12:38+00:00 | wbrc.com | https://www.wbrc.com/2022/06/17/calera-pd-dog-dies-after-being-left-crate-outside/ |
NEW YORK, July 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Jakubowitz Law announces that a securities fraud class action lawsuit has commenced on behalf of shareholders of Yext, Inc. (NYSE: YEXT).
To receive updates on the lawsuit, fill out the form:
https://claimyourloss.com/securities/yext-lawsuit-submission-form/?id=30347&from=4
The lawsuit seeks to recover losses for shareholders who purchased Yext between March 4, 2021 and March 8, 2022.
Shareholders interested in acting as a lead plaintiff representing the class of wronged shareholders have until August 16, 2022 to petition the court. Your ability to share in any recovery doesn't require that you serve as a lead plaintiff.
According to a filed complaint, Yext, Inc. issued materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Yext's revenue and earnings were significantly deteriorating because of, among other things, poor sales execution and performance, as well as COVID-19 related disruptions; (ii) accordingly, Yext was unlikely to meet consensus estimates for its full year fiscal 2022 financial results and fiscal 2023 outlook; and (iii) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.
Jakubowitz Law is vigorous in pursuit of justice for shareholders who have been the victim of securities fraud. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT:
JAKUBOWITZ LAW
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SOURCE Jakubowitz Law | 2022-07-29T10:43:52+00:00 | live5news.com | https://www.live5news.com/prnewswire/2022/07/29/yext-shareholder-alert-jakubowitz-law-reminds-yext-shareholders-lead-plaintiff-deadline-august-16-2022/ |
It took almost 60 years, but Otis Taylor was finally able to take the stage.
Who is he? The 74-year-old acclaimed blues musician and multi-instrumentalist has had made a career of crooning, strumming and rebelling against the status quo.
What's the big deal? Well, that haircut rule isn't required any longer. Taylor was finally able to receive his diploma in May, and walked the stage in a ceremony held by the Denver public school district.
What's he saying? Taylor spoke with NPR about the experience.
On his decision to refuse the haircut and follow his dream:
People have asked, "Would you do it if you had the chance to do it over again?" Hell yes I'd do it over again. You know, when you want to play music, you want to play music.
And his feelings at the graduation ceremony:
I was embarrassed, because there was other people graduating, but they focused on me.
They did a proclamation. So each person on the school board with the robes came up and read two paragraphs about who I was. It was kind of embarrassing. I just felt silly, because there's other people in there.
And I think there was a woman graduating with a year-and-a-half-year-old little boy in her arms. To me, she must have had to work really hard to get there. I don't know if I can explain how I felt.
Want more on famous musicians? Listen to Consider This reflect on the life of Rock n Roll icon, Tina Turner.
On his feelings all these years later:
You can't dwell on all the bad things that happened to you, especially as a Black person. You know, you just have those moments and I had a choice.
On his advice to young people who want to challenge norms:
It doesn't matter if you conform or don't conform. But I think people, you need to learn how to do something. It doesn't matter how you get the education. Just learn how to do something, whether you're a car mechanic or a computer person, or artist. You have to find a way to learn, whatever that takes.
So, what now?
Learn more:
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2023-06-01T10:40:32+00:00 | lakeshorepublicmedia.org | https://www.lakeshorepublicmedia.org/2023-05-31/he-was-expelled-after-he-refused-to-cut-his-afro-57-years-later-he-got-his-degree |
LAS VEGAS, July 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ahern Rentals, Inc. ("Ahern" or the "Company") today announced the extension of the 7.375% Second Priority Senior Secured Note exchange offer expiration time from 11:59 p.m. ET on July 28, 2022 to 11:59 p.m. ET on August 31, 2022.
Documents relating to the exchange offer will be distributed only to holders of existing notes who complete and return an eligibility form confirming that they are either a "qualified institutional buyer" under Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), or not a "U.S. person" under Regulation S under the Securities Act (such holders, "Eligible Holders"). Noteholders who desire to complete an eligibility form should request instructions by sending an e-mail to ahern@dfking.com, or call D.F. King & Co., the information agent for the exchange offer, at (800) 669- 5550 (toll-free) or (212) 269-5550 (for banks and brokers).
The new notes will not be registered under the Securities Act or any other applicable securities laws and, unless so registered, the new notes may not be offered, sold, pledged or otherwise transferred within the United States to or for the account of any U.S. person, except pursuant to an exemption from registration requirements. Accordingly, the new notes are being offered and will be issued only to Eligible Holders who are not beneficial owners in or resident of Canada or authorized representatives acting on behalf of beneficial owners in or resident of Canada. Beneficial owners in or resident of Canada or such authorized representatives should contact the information agent for the exchange offer listed in the preceding paragraph.
The complete terms and conditions of the exchange offer are set forth in the informational documents relating to the exchange offer. This press release is for informational purposes only and is neither an offer to purchase nor a solicitation of an offer to sell the new notes. The exchange offer and consent solicitation is only being made pursuant to the Confidential Offering Memorandum and Consent Solicitation Statement and the related letter of transmittal. The exchange offer is not being made to holders of existing notes in any jurisdiction in which the making or acceptance thereof would not be in compliance with the securities, blue sky or other laws of such jurisdiction.
Ahern is the largest independently owned equipment rental company in the United States. With $906 million in fiscal year 2021 revenue, the company is ranked as the eighth largest U.S. equipment rental company by Rental Equipment Register ("RER"). Founded in 1953 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Ahern has expanded through organic growth to develop a national platform with 112 branch locations in 31 states as of March 31, 2022. Ahern focuses on the aerial market segment of the $50 billion equipment rental industry with an extensive fleet of "high reach" equipment, which is supplemented by a fleet of ground engaging, general rental, and specialty equipment to provide customers with a "one-stop" solution for their equipment needs. Serving a large and diverse customer base comprised of commercial and residential construction companies, specialty contractors, industrial companies, utility companies, governmental entities, and homeowners, Ahern provides a comprehensive range of equipment and solutions, including renting and selling used/new equipment, parts, supplies, and related merchandise, as well as providing maintenance, repair, and other services that supplement rental and sales activities.
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SOURCE Ahern Rentals | 2022-07-29T13:20:33+00:00 | kxii.com | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/07/29/ahern-rentals-announces-extension-exchange-offer-7375-second-priority-senior-secured-notes/ |
BOSTON (SHNS) – Boston’s effort to build a new bridge to Long Island got a lift Monday with a favorable high court ruling.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled that a state Department of Environmental Protection order supersedes the Quincy Conservation Commission’s application denial related to the bridge construction because the commission “did not rest its determination on more stringent local provisions.”
“The commission does not explain in its brief, and did not explain in its decisions denying Boston’s application, how its own analysis differs from the analysis that the DEP was authorized to perform,” the court ruled.
In 2014, Boston closed the bridge connecting Quincy to Long Island, which is under Boston’s jurisdiction, for safety reasons. The bridge was removed in 2015, but its piers remain. In 2018, Boston initiated a bridge rebuild effort, which would rely on the existing piers, so the city could restore access to rehabilitation facilities on the island, including opioid addiction treatment services. Before the bridge closed, Long Island housed a multi-bed homeless shelter, drug treatment programs and transitional housing programs.
Because the project would have an impact on wetlands in Quincy, Boston petitioned the Quincy commission for permission to build the bridge. After the commission denied Boston’s application, Boston applied to MassDEP for a superseding order of conditions and DEP allowed the project to proceed.
In Monday’s ruling, Justice David Lowy cited the 2007 case Oyster Creek Preservation Inc. v. Conservation Commission of Harwich, writing that “a conservation commission’s decision regarding wetlands may stand, despite a superseding order by the DEP, if the conservation commission relied on provisions in a local ordinance that are more stringent than the provisions in the act.”
“The commission claims it relied on the local ordinance’s reference to ‘cumulatively adverse effect[s] upon wetland values,’ and that this language is more stringent than the language in the act,” Monday’s ruling said. “However, we conclude that the DEP order supersedes that of the commission because the commission did not rest its determination on more stringent local provisions.”
In denying Boston’s application, the Quincy Conservation Commission concluded that Boston had not provided sufficient information about how Boston would mitigate the environmental impacts of repairing and replacing the piers, and repairing a road that would provide access to the bridge.
The court said the State Wetlands Protection Act addresses the commission’s concerns around how work on the piers would affect fisheries, wildlife habitat, pollution, land under the ocean, and land containing shellfish.
In May, the Boston Herald reported that U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins informed Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch in a May 12 letter that her office is “initiating an investigation” into Quincy based on the Americans With Disabilities Act, which includes language forbidding discrimination against people with substance-abuse issues. The Herald reported that Rollins’ civil rights unit was seeking information about Quincy’s opposition to the project. | 2022-07-25T17:26:57+00:00 | wwlp.com | https://www.wwlp.com/news/massachusetts/sjc-rules-for-boston-in-long-island-bridge-rebuild/ |
SAVOY — In the world of horror films, the trope of the “final girl” refers to the character who outlasts the rest of the unlucky teens who find themselves in the wrong place at the critically wrong time.
After dealing with a trauma of his own, including an abusive relationship, John Isberg latched onto the idea of “final girl” characters long before he decided he would make a feature-length horror movie of his own.
“I started to see this ‘final girl’ as this ultimate sign of strength and resiliency of being a survivor,” the Urbana resident said.
In his feature-length film debut, Isberg didn’t want to relay that trauma in a two-dimensional way that he sees in many movies. So when writing “Final Summer” — which will have its hometown premiere at 7 p.m. Friday at the Savoy 16, with additional showings over the next three days — the former Unit 4 teacher took care to craft textured characters in his slasher film set at a summer camp that he sees as an homage to ’80s horror classics like “Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween.”
“A lot of horror films now deal with trauma, but sometimes the way they show it is just depressing,” he said. “I wanted to show that the survivor can have some nuance to them and overcome these things and still have a ways to go with the healing.
“I wanted to take some of the experiences I had, like gaslighting and manipulation and triangulation and all of those things to kind of show this more human villain, that they’re not this unstoppable (force), that there is something under there. I think that’s scarier, in a way.”
While Isberg credits his life experiences for giving him the wisdom to direct a movie, his love for filmmaking goes back long before his formative years of early adulthood, which included time in the Army National Guard, playing in a touring band, and a four-year stint as a teacher of middle school students with emotional disabilities.
He shot his first films shortly after he moved to the small town of Elburn, which sits on the outskirts of Chicago’s western suburbs, where he had one friend who shared his love of movies and another whose parents owned a VHS camcorder. His first audience, he remembers, were classmates who watched his history project, a movie titled “Mike and John’s Excellent History Video,” a takeoff on “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” the 1989 film in which two high school burnouts travel through history in order to complete a class project.
“We were not popular,” Isberg said. “We were big dorks. So it was fun for us to feel a sense of” connection.
Isberg enrolled in film school but dropped out, and didn’t find his way back to his passion until 2014, when the film “Consumed” was shooting in Champaign-Urbana. Isberg, who was now well into adulthood, interned in the grip department, the team in charge of working with camera and lighting rigs.
The movie, starring Zoe Lister-Jones, Danny Glover, Anthony Edwards and several other well-known actors such as, gave Isberg a taste of the career he wanted to pursue. He became involved in the local film community, including the Pens to Lens competition, which pairs local youth with adult filmmakers, and Champaign Movie Makers. He attended a workshop through Shatterglass Studios. He watched “Master Class” courses and spent hours on YouTube, steadily building up a collection of expensive equipment as he went.
Soon, he began crafting an idea for a script, writing ideas for plot points down on hundreds of notecards, an idea he picked up from a story he’d read about director Spike Lee. In 2019, he began gathering his cast and crew and reached out to University of Illinois Professor Aaron Munoz, who teaches acting, to inquire about students who might be interested in participating. He also cast Thom Mathews, who starred in one of the original “Friday the 13th” movies, to play the local sheriff.
After inquiring about multiple locations for the camp, he settled on Camp Drake, a wooded Boy Scout campsite in Vermilion County less than 10 miles west of Danville. With some of his cast and crew in tow, he put together a “sizzle reel,” meant to represent what the film would look and feel like.
The reel attracted one big-money investor, Isberg said, who offered to contribute a large sum. Upon receiving the contract four days before production was set to begin, Isberg found out the investors expected him to relinquish the copyright to his film, an option he couldn’t fathom.
“We had an emergency meeting with the cast and the crew,” he said, “and we were like, ‘Can we make this film? Can we afford to? Because if we can, let’s just continue, but if we can’t, let’s just decide right now not to make it.’ So the crew decided, ‘Let’s just do it anyway.’”
So after cobbling together a budget that included $16,236 from a Kickstarter campaign along with other investors and his own bank account, Isberg moved forward with planning the two-week shoot, which was set to begin in the summer of 2020. After COVID-19 shut down productions across the country, Isberg was forced to put the movie on hold and was finally able to shoot it in August 2021.
So far, the movie has played at multiple horror festivals, including this weekend’s ScareFest in Lexington, Ky., and had another showing in the area Oct. 13 at Gibson City’s Harvest Moon Drive-in. Isberg said taking the film on the horror circuit has allowed him to fine-tune it and tighten certain parts after seeing audience reactions and reviews. Cast and crew will be on hand for Friday’s 7 p.m. screening at the Savoy 16, as well as the one set for 9 p.m. Monday — Halloween.
“Horror is a great entry point into film for new filmmakers,” he said. “The horror fan base is rabid, and they’ll go see a movie. They might not like it, but they’re passionate about it.”
Isberg is hoping to find a streaming service to distribute the movie, and if he finds success, he’d like to make a sequel, which the plot leaves as a possibility.
“Filmmaking is all about problem-solving and learning from your mistakes,” Isberg said. “I just want to take the lessons I learned on this film … and go and make another one with the lessons I learned.” | 2022-10-23T14:16:20+00:00 | news-gazette.com | https://www.news-gazette.com/arts-entertainment/film-television/urbana-filmmaker-set-for-hometown-premiere-of-slasher-movie-final-summer-at-savoy-16/article_9791e577-49c1-515d-96e8-9c67f085a9c6.html |
North Dakota AG: Fargo abortion clinic must close July 28
FARGO, N.D. (AP) - North Dakota’s attorney general said Tuesday that the state’s sole abortion clinic will be forced to shut down at the end of July, at which time patients will likely head across the Red River to neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley told The Associated Press that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week that gives each state the right on whether to allow abortions means that the procedure will be outlawed in the state on July 28. He said he dropped off his certification letter at the secretary of state’s office Tuesday morning.
RELATED: Roe v. Wade overturned: Here's what will happen to Minnesota abortion rights
Wrigley said "there’s not any ambiguity" in the high court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion and the Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling that weakened Roe but said women still had the right to choose to have an abortion before viability.
Tammi Kromenaker, owner and operator of the Red River Women’s Clinic, plans to move the clinic from Fargo to Moorhead. A GoFundMe page started by a pro-choice group last week meant to help with the move had raised more than $760,000 as of Tuesday morning.
Asked Tuesday about whether the clinic would be open in Moorhead by July 28, Kromenaker said, "Until I speak with my attorneys, I cannot confirm anything." On Monday, she said that the fundraising effort is "breaking down so many barriers" that will allow the transition to Moorhead become a reality.
RELATED: SD gov: Bar abortion pills, but don't punish women for them
"It’s humbling. We’re grateful," Kromenaker said. "I think people feel powerless right now. Along with the GoFundMe we’ve had an inundation of people who want to escort and have offered all kinds of other resources. It has been an ongoing outpouring of tremendous support."
Planned Parenthood has said it would offer abortion services at its clinic in Moorhead if the Red River Women’s Clinic has not relocated by the time North Dakota’s ban takes effect.
The North Dakota Legislature passed a so-called trigger law in 2007 that makes abortion illegal in the state. It passed 68-24 in the House and 29-16 in the Senate and was signed into law by Republican Gov. John Hoeven. The list of 21 Democrats who approved it included a congressional candidate, two gubernatorial candidates, two lieutenant governor candidates, a state treasurer candidate and others who achieved leadership positions. | 2022-06-28T18:12:22+00:00 | fox9.com | https://www.fox9.com/news/north-dakota-ag-fargo-abortion-clinic-must-close-july-28 |
Listen to Code.org Executive Jackie Smalls on
Let's Talk STEM With Dr. Calvin Mackie
NEW ORLEANS, April 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- On the new episode of the Let's Talk STEM with Dr. Calvin Mackie podcast, Jackie Smalls, Chief Programs Officer at Code.org, talks about the racial divide in STEM education and technology. She says the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the gap between STEM learning in White communities versus more limited opportunities in many predominantly Black & Brown schools across the country.
"In terms of the gaps, we knew gaps existed, but I think the pandemic just really exposed how big those gaps were and who actually has access," Smalls tells host Dr. Calvin Mackie. "And it's a shame. We shouldn't have to park a bus in a neighborhood to make sure that all students have access to WIFI. It baffles me how we think that this is not something that should be free and accessible to everyone."
Calling out technology companies, Smalls says if they want to make a difference in our society, they should be providing Wi-Fi everywhere.
In a conversation with Dr. Mackie, the topics include what it takes to overcome roadblocks to excelling in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields; why it's critical for Black & Brown students to have access to STEM learning; and the important role that mentors play in encouraging STEM careers.
"I always mention that I went to a HBCU (Historically Black College & University), and actually that's the first time I saw a Black woman lead a biology department," Smalls recalls, noting that the professor convinced her to engage in STEM. "I always thought about teaching, but I didn't necessarily think about STEM. I was at South Carolina State on an ROTC scholarship and they came to me and also said, 'If you change your major to engineering or science, we'll actually give you more money. We'll cover your room and board.' "
With the expanded scholarship, Smalls shifted to pre-med biology as her major. After graduating, she was an environmental scientist in the U.S. Army. Today, she says, people must understand their opportunities: a software development bootcamp can launch a $90,000 a year career. "It's a matter of the education of our community, knowing those opportunities."
But racial barriers are real. "I had a student tell me that she walked into a college computer science class, a Black girl…The professor, came to her and said, 'Are you in the right class?' "
At Code.org, "we are trying to make sure computer science is accessible for all students," says Smalls, noting the nonprofit expands computer science education, participation by young women and in under-resourced communities.
"You're teaching a society," lauds Dr. Mackie. "I believe you have a voice that every mother and every father need to hear because it's credible, it's transparent and it's authentic."
Enjoy their enlightening conversation HERE
Contact:
Michael K. Frisby
Mike@frisbyassociates.com/202-625-4328
View original content:
SOURCE SGA | 2022-04-27T16:48:32+00:00 | live5news.com | https://www.live5news.com/prnewswire/2022/04/27/racial-divide-technology-stem-education-exposed-by-covid-pandemic/ |
Texas faces Washington in the Alamo Bowl on Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022 (12/29/22) at Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.
WATCH COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMES WITH A SUBSCRIPTION TO FUBOTV HERE
Fans can watch the Washington vs. Texas game for free via a trial of fuboTV or DirecTV Stream. The game, which starts at 9 p.m., can be seen on ESPN.
Here’s what you need to know:
What: NCAA Football, Alamo Bowl
Who: Washington vs. Texas
When: Thursday, Dec. 29, 2022
Where: Alamodome
Time: 9 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN
Channel finder: Verizon Fios, AT&T U-verse, Comcast Xfinity, Spectrum/Charter, Optimum/Altice,Cox,DIRECTV, Dish, Hulu, fuboTV, Sling.
Live stream: fuboTV (free trial), DirecTV Stream (free trial), Sling TV
***
Here’s a recent college football column, via the AP:
Alabama is going to get one last look from the College Football Playoff selection committee.
Whether the Crimson Tide deserves it is debatable, at best, but after both TCU (12-1) and Southern California (11-2) lost the committee has to at least talk about making Alabama (10-2) the first team with two losses to make the playoff.
Tide coach Nick Saban, without a game to play, spent his Saturday making a media tour and lobbying for his team.
“If we played any of those teams that are on the edge of getting in, would we be the underdogs or the favorite?” Saban said on Fox at halftime of the Big Ten championship.
The field of four will be announced Sunday.
Defending champion Georgia (13-0) will be No. 1 after the Bulldogs won the Southeastern Conference — emphatically. No debate about that.
TCU coach Sonny Dykes said he was concerned about the Horned Frogs’ playoff status, but that he had faith in the committee.
“I think we’re certainly deserving,” Dykes said.
He is right, but the top four didn’t fall gently into place on championship weekend.
No. 4 USC’s loss to Friday to No. 12 Utah in the Pac-12 championship pretty much ended the Trojans’ playoff hopes.
That was huge news for No. 5 Ohio State and coach Ryan Day.
“You’re welcome, Coach Day,” Utah’s Kyle Whittingham said.
A week after the Buckeyes (11-1) were thumped at home by No. 2 Michigan, fans in Columbus were glued to the events in Las Vegas and got the result they needed — and maybe a rematch with the Wolverines in their future.
Michigan (13-0) stomped Purdue on Saturday night on the way to a second consecutive Big Ten championship.
Championship Saturday started with the third-ranked Horned Frogs falling to No. 13 Kansas State in the Big 12 title game. As has been the case all year, it was a wild ride for the Hypnotoads. They erased an 11-point deficit in the fourth-quarter behind a heroic effort by Max Duggan before losing in overtime.
The Frogs headed to the clubhouse having beat every team they have played, with plenty of close calls and comebacks, but no conference championship.
There is precedent for unbeaten teams losing their conference title games and remaining in the top four. Georgia was No. 1 when it happened last year against Alabama and fell to No. 3.
In 2020, Notre Dame lost a rematch with Clemson in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game and went from No. 2 to No. 4.
There is no previous case to support Alabama making the playoff under these circumstances, but this system has been around for only nine years. Don’t get too hung up on previous results predicting future performance by the committee.
The Tide have their supporters.
“I am no expert but no one can convince me that @AlabamaFTBL isn’t better than these teams I have been watching despite 2 heartbreaking L’s. if rule is BEST 4 for playoffs BAMA should be in,” ESPN college basketball analyst Dick Vitale tweeted.
So ‘Bama has that going for it.
The 13-person selection committee already made one questionable call that went Alabama’s way when it ranked the Tide sixth last week and Tennessee, which beat Alabama in October, seventh.
The committee chairman cited Alabama’s close losses compared with the Volunteers (10-2) being beat soundly in the two games they have dropped.
Alabama twice lost on the last play of the game, by three at Tennessee and by one at No. 11 LSU (9-4). The LSU result doesn’t look quite so impressive after Georgia hung a 50-30 loss on the Tigers, just because it could.
Also of note: Tennessee beat LSU 40-13.
Alabama has its share of great escapes, too. Games against Texas and Texas A&M came down to the last play. Alabama’s best victories? Probably against Mississippi State, Mississippi and Texas, all 8-4.
TCU’s resume is built mostly on the foundation of the Big 12 being a conference with no easy outs. Oddly, the Frogs’ best victory got better Saturday when they lost a rematch to Kansas State, which already was in the committee’s top 10.
The best argument for Alabama is made by advanced metrics. Coming into this weekend, ESPN’s SP+ had the Tide fourth and its FPI had Alabama second. FEI, used by Football Outsiders, had Alabama fifth.
A composite of popular computer formula rankings had Alabama third and TCU eighth. Those are the type of forward-looking metrics used by oddsmakers.
Saban is right. Put the Tide and Frogs on a neutral field and, yes, Alabama is favored by at least a touchdown.
But Alabama was favored against both Tennessee (7 1/2 points, according to FanDuel Sportsbook ) and LSU (12 1/2).
The recruiting rankings also give Alabama an edge. The Tide has the second-most talented roster in college football behind Georgia if you count up the stars. TCU’s is 32nd.
But results of games have to matter or why even make Alabama play?
“How are they playing at present?” Saban said to ESPN, citing the Tide’s 3-0 finish to the season with a healthy quarterback Bryce Young.
As it is the Tide, and Ohio State for that matter, essentially benefited from failing to win their divisions and not playing at present while USC and TCU had to prove themselves one more time.
“I don’t think we should be punished for coming to the Big 12 championship game,” Dykes said.
A playoff bid should be a reward for the season. What has Alabama done on the field to earn it?
WHAT ABOUT THE HEISMAN?
The Heisman Trophy appeared to be USC quarterback Caleb Williams’ to lose heading into the weekend.
The Trojans lost, but Williams was as impressive as ever, hobbling through most of the Pac-12 championship game after straining his hamstring. He passed for 363 yards, facing heavy pressure and without his usual mobility.
Still, the door was open at least a crack for Duggan, and, boy, did he bust through.
Battered and bruised, Duggan had 251 yards passing and 110 rushing. For some reason on two tries at the end zone from the 1 in OT, Dykes didn’t call Duggan’s number either time.
Williams finished the regular season with 37 touchdown passes, four interceptions, 9.1 yards per pass and 10 rushing touchdowns.
Duggan heads into the postseason with 30 touchdown passes, four picks, 9.0 yards per pass and six rushing touchdowns.
Heisman finalists will be announced Monday, but both Williams and Duggan should be booking trips for New York City for the handout next Saturday.
Right after some time in the cold tub.
SELECTION SUNDAY
Here’s how the College Football Playoff and New Year’s Six bowl selections should shake out:
Peach Bowl — No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 4 Ohio State
Fiesta Bowl — No. 2 Michigan vs. No. 3 TCU
Rose Bowl — Utah vs. Penn State
Sugar Bowl — Kansas State vs. Alabama
Orange Bowl — Clemson vs. Tennessee
Cotton Bowl — USC vs. Tulane.
Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust.
Ryan Novozinsky may be reached at rnovozinsky@njadvancemedia.com. | 2022-12-29T21:53:54+00:00 | nj.com | https://www.nj.com/sports/2022/12/what-channel-is-the-texas-football-game-on-today-vs-washington-free-live-stream-time-tv-channel-for-alamo-bowl.html |
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Aaron Jones made sure the Green Bay Packers’ promise to get him the ball more often paid off.
Jones rushed for 132 yards and a touchdown and caught a scoring pass from Aaron Rodgers, who continued his domination of the Chicago Bears by leading Green Bay to a 27-10 victory on Sunday night.
Jones had five carries for 49 yards and three catches for 27 yards in a season-opening 23-7 loss at Minnesota, and the Packers (1-1) vowed he’d have a bigger role.
“That just naturally put a smile on my face,” Jones said. “I knew I had to show up when my number was called. That just pushes me that much harder.”
Jones came through, gaining 8.8 yards per rush and leading the Packers’ 203-yard ground attack. He had 15 carries as well as three catches for 38 yards.
Green Bay beat the Bears (1-1) for a seventh straight time, matching its second-longest win streak in the 205-game history of the NFL’s oldest rivalry. The Packers won 10 straight over the Bears from 1994-98. They have two other seven-game win streaks in this series, from 1928-30 and 2000-03.
The Packers built a 24-7 halftime lead by dominating the second period, then made a goal-line stand in the fourth quarter to thwart a Bears comeback attempt.
“Coming out with a disappointing loss like this, it hurts,” Bears quarterback Justin Fields said. “We’ve just got to respond.”
A week after he struggled to connect with his new crop of receivers, Rodgers was characteristically efficient, going 19 of 25 for 234 yards and two touchdowns. The Packers are 24-5 against the Bears in games Rodgers has started.
“Tonight was really about 28 (A.J. Dillon) and 33 (Jones), getting them the football,” Rodgers said. “I didn’t play great. I feel like the stats look a little better than the game. … I missed some throws that I should never miss. There were some opportunities for more points out there.”
Chicago’s David Montgomery rushed for 122 yards on 15 carries. Fields had a touchdown run and was 7 of 11 for 70 yards with an interception.
The Packers outscored the Bears 21-0 in the second quarter. Jones scored twice, both times catching pitches from Rodgers in the backfield and reaching the end zone.
The first was a backward pass that got ruled as a 15-yard carry. On the second touchdown, Jones went in motion, caught a flip pass in the backfield and scored from 8 yards out. Jones benefited from the return of right tackle Elgton Jenkins, playing for the first time since tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament last Nov. 12.
“If he’s not in the lineup, we don’t win that game,” Packers coach Matt LaFleur said of Jenkins. “It transcends his level of play, what he’s able to bring to us. For his first night out, I thought he did a great job.”
Even though the Packers had talked all week about getting the ball to Jones more often, the Bears couldn’t slow him down.
“It says a lot about our offense,” Jones said. “You know what’s coming, but you have to stop it. That’s not easy to do. I just say kudos to our whole offensive unit and our whole team for responding and bouncing back from last week.”
Jones’ second score was Rodgers’ 450th career touchdown pass. The only other players to reach that mark are Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre.
Rodgers added No. 451 in the final minute of the first half with a 5-yard completion to Allen Lazard, who sat out the Vikings game with an ankle injury.
Rodgers completed passes to eight receivers. None had more than three receptions, but Sammy Watkins turned his trio of catches into 93 yards.
The Bears made the game competitive in the second half by capitalizing on Green Bay’s mistakes.
Cairo Santos’ 44-yard field goal cut Green Bay’s lead to 24-10 after a fumbled exchange between Rodgers and Dillon gave the Bears the ball at their own 31.
The Packers’ next series got foiled when a snap from Josh Myers hit receiver Christian Watson, who was in motion, and got past Rodgers. Dillon recovered the fumble, but it put the Packers in a third-and-22 situation and led to a punt.
Chicago drove toward Green Bay’s end zone and had an apparent 6-yard touchdown run by Fields overturned when replays determined he was down before stretching his arm across the goal line. On the next play, Fields ran again on fourth-and-goal from inside the 1, and officials ruled that Preston Smith and Jarran Reed stopped him just short of the end zone with a little over eight minutes left in the game.
“Who knows? If they get a touchdown there, the game could completely flip,” Packers linebacker De’Vondre Campbell said. “So I think we did a good job of winning situational football.”
INJURIES
Bears DB Dane Cruikshank hurt his hamstring in the first half.
UP NEXT
Bears: Host Houston on Sunday.
Packers: At Tampa Bay on Sunday.
___
More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | 2022-09-19T16:34:20+00:00 | kdvr.com | https://kdvr.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-rodgers-packers-lean-on-jones-take-care-of-bears-27-10/ |
UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) — Officials in a Maryland county near the nation's capital that has had its deadliest month in decades say they will strictly enforce a curfew aimed at keeping teens off the streets at night.
WTOP-FM reports that Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks made the announcement Monday during a Labor Day weekend in which at least four people were killed by gun violence in the county, including a 15-year-old from Washington, D.C., killed during a shooting at a convenience store Saturday night. Another 15-year-old who was wounded in the same shooting is in critical condition, and a baby girl who was shot in an apartment in Glenn Dale remains hospitalized.
County police investigated 24 killings in the month of August alone.
Alsobrooks said strict enforcement of the curfew will take effect starting next weekend and last for at least the next 30 days. The curfew requires teens under 17 to be off the streets between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. Sunday through Thursday, and between 11:59 p.m. and 5 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The curfew is allowed under existing Maryland law.
During a news conference, Alsobrooks pointed to an “eye-popping” 430 arrests of juveniles this year — nearly double the number last year.
“At this point, these kids don’t just need a hug, they need to be held accountable,” Alsobrooks said. “I know it’s not a popular thing to say, but it’s a fair question: Where are their parents? Where are the aunties, where are the uncles and other family members who are responsible for them?”
The last time the youth curfew was strongly enforced was in 1995, but Alsobrooks said current circumstances warrant bringing it back.
Even with the spike in killings in August, homicides in the county are down 15% compared to last year, according to county data.
“But the truth of the matter is, we are still seeing concerning levels of crime” including a spike in carjackings often carried out by what she called “armed and dangerous children.”
Of the 84 juveniles arrested for carjacking offenses this year, 55 had prior arrests and 34 had prior arrests for a previous violent crime or a gun offense, according to Prince George’s County Police Chief Malik Aziz. He called the number of juveniles who are being repeatedly arrested “deeply troubling.” | 2022-09-05T22:23:39+00:00 | expressnews.com | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Youth-curfew-to-be-enforced-by-Maryland-county-17420819.php |
NEW YORK (AP) — Depositors withdrew savings and investors broadly sold off bank shares Monday as the federal government raced to reassure Americans that the banking system was secure after two bank failures fed fears that more financial institutions could fall.
President Joe Biden insisted that the system was safe after the second- and third-largest bank failures in the nation’s history happened in the span of 48 hours. In response to the crisis, regulators guaranteed all deposits at the two banks and created a program that effectively thew a lifeline to other banks to shield them from a run on deposits.
“Your deposits will be there when you need them,” Biden told the public, seeking to project calm. He also said the banking executives responsible for the failures would be held accountable.
In other developments, the Federal Reserve announced that it would review its supervision of Silicon Valley Bank.
“We need to have humility and conduct a careful and thorough review of how we supervised and regulated this firm, and what we should learn from this experience,” said Michael Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, who will lead the effort.
Regulators closed the bank Friday after depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. The only larger failure in U.S. banking history was the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual. New York-based Signature Bank also collapsed in the third-largest failure in the U.S.
In both cases, the government agreed to cover deposits, even those that exceeded the federally insured limit of $250,000.
Despite the message from the White House, investors broadly dumped shares in bank stocks. Shares of First Republic Bank plunged more than 70% even after the bank said it was taking emergency funding from the Federal Reserve and additional money from JPMorgan Chase.
First Republic wasn’t alone. Shares of well-known franchises like Charles Schwab, Fifth Third Bank, Truist, Comercia and Ally Financial all fell sharply.
The selloff happened in part because the country woke up to a new banking system and investors had to find the winners and losers, banking experts said.
There was no guarantee that the anxiety would not spread. Customers at other banks with deposits over the $250,000 limit remained at risk of losing access to their money for a time.
Just because the government covered for Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank “doesn’t mean they are going to cover for these smaller banks,” said Chris Caulfield, a senior partner at West Monroe.
But the government’s actions suggested it would stand behind all deposits if doing so prevents damage to the broader economy.
“Everything is now covered. That’s a fact. No matter how specialized or isolated your bank is, if there’s a risk of contagion, regulators have made it clear that they are going to intervene,” said Norbert Michel, a banking policy expert at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.
Amid the selloff of midsize banks, investors kept relatively calm over the health of the nation’s biggest banking bulwarks, such as JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Investors apparently concluded that the only place to be safe in banking was with the nation’s most strictly regulated institutions.
Regional banks were seen as the riskiest, since they do not have the scale to compete against larger competitors. Large account balances — once seen as a positive sign that a bank’s clients are well off — were a liability since they could be withdrawn at the first sign of trouble.
“I wouldn’t want to be running a regional bank right now where my services are no different from my competition,” Caulfield said.
International regulators also had to step in to ease fears. The Bank of England and U.K. Treasury said they facilitated the sale of a Silicon Valley Bank subsidiary in London to HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank. The deal protected 6.7 billion pounds ($8.1 billion) of deposits.
Under the plan announced by U.S. regulators, depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were able to access their money. A new Fed program will allow banks to post those securities as collateral and borrow from the emergency facility.
The Treasury has set aside $25 billion to offset any losses. However, Fed officials said they do not expect to have to use that money, given that the securities posted as collateral have a very low risk of default.
New York bank regulators took possession of Signature Bank on Sunday, ousting its leaders and handing day-to-day control over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the decision by the state Department of Financial Services was aimed at holding off a bigger crisis involving more banks.
“Our view was to make sure that the entire banking community here in New York was stable, that we can project calm,” Hochul said Monday at a news conference.
She said a high volume of withdrawals that began last week continued with online transactions through the weekend. The bank was open Monday under the name of Signature Bridge Bank.
Signature, which was founded more than two decades ago, has about 40 offices across the country and says it focuses on banking for privately owned businesses, their owners and senior managers.
Though Sunday’s steps marked the most extensive government intervention in the banking system since the 2008 financial crisis, the actions were relatively limited compared with 15 years ago.
The two failed banks themselves have not been rescued, and taxpayer money has not been provided to them.
Some prominent Silicon Valley Bank executives feared that if Washington did not rescue their bank, customers would make runs on other financial institutions. Stock prices plunged at other banks that cater to technology companies, including First Republic and PacWest Bank.
Among the bank’s customers are a range of companies, including many California wineries that rely on Silicon Valley Bank for loans and technology startups devoted to combating climate change.
Michele Barry, a teacher who was at Silicon Valley Bank on Monday, said members of the FDIC and bank employees were available to answer questions.
Barry, who also runs an after-school program for children, wanted to make sure that her four employees would be paid. She was told that all checks from Friday would be honored, along with her automatic payments.
Barry left enough in her account to cover the payments, but she transferred the bulk of her money over to another bank. She said Biden’s reassurance was helpful.
“I’m from South Africa. Chances are if this happened in South Africa, nobody would insure your money,” she said.
___ Rugaber and Megerian reported from Washington. Sweet and Bussewitz reported from New York. Associated Press writers Hope Yen in Washington; Michelle Chapman in New York; Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report. | 2023-03-13T21:40:19+00:00 | wric.com | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/hsbc-will-buy-uk-subsidiary-of-collapsed-silicon-valley-bank/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has named Tom Perez, a former labor secretary and Democratic National Committee chairman, to be a senior adviser and his liaison to state and local governments as the White House turns its focus toward implementing Biden’s infrastructure and climate legislation.
Perez will lead the office of intergovernmental affairs, replacing Julie Rodriguez whom Biden tapped to be the manager for his reelection campaign. The White House emphasized that he brings experience working at the local, state and federal levels, which prepares him to meet the needs of officials across government. He will also advise Biden on immigration and labor issues, and work on other projects as assigned.
Perez’s selection reflects the administration’s view that the successful implementation of massive infrastructure, technology and climate legislation passed in Biden’s first two years in office — and with it Biden’s own legacy — will rise and fall on the actions of figures across all levels of government.
“The success is very dependent on the capacity of federal, state and local authorities and business leaders and nonprofit leaders to come together to maximize the moment,” Perez told the AP. “I’ve prided myself on always trying to make government work, and the most effective accomplishments are accomplishments that are done in partnership, and I want to make sure that our state and local partners know that they have a really strong partner in the Biden administration and that’s a big part of what we’re going to do.”
Perez acknowledged that it’s unlikely many bills will be approved by Congress for the remainder of Biden’s first term, with Republicans leading the House and Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House. So now, he said, “this is all about implementation and making sure people know about these opportunities” in legislation that has already been signed into law.
“There’s a seemingly limitless amount of opportunity right now,” Perez added. “The next phase of the world we live in is implementation, implementation, implementation. And that’s what the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs is all about.”
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said in a statement that “there is no one like Tom when it comes to charting the way forward, bringing people along, and getting things done.”
“He has the deep respect and trust of President Biden and Vice President Harris and we can’t wait to have him as a member of the President’s senior team at the White House,” Zients said.
Perez first got to know Biden when working as an aide to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy while the president was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They worked closely together when Perez was later labor secretary in the Obama administration, with Perez describing Biden as “my go to guy when I needed help.”
Biden, in a statement, touted Perez’s decades of government experience.
“His perspective and relationships as a former county councilman, a top civil rights attorney, and secretary of labor will be invaluable as we implement our Invest in America agenda and continue to make our government work for the people and for communities across the country.”
News of Perez’s appointment was first reported by The Washington Post. | 2023-06-13T17:35:29+00:00 | kron4.com | https://www.kron4.com/news/politics/ap-politics/biden-bringing-on-ex-labor-secretary-and-dnc-chair-tom-perez-to-help-with-implementation-push/ |
Nate Thayer, a fearless reporter who survived several brushes with death over decades covering conflict in Southeast Asia and was the last western journalist to interview Pol Pot, the leader of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, has died.
Thayer was found dead at his Falmouth, Massachusetts home on Tuesday by a friend, his brother, Rob Thayer, said Thursday. He was 62.
He had been suffering with multiple ailments for several months, and the cause of death was listed as natural causes, Rob Thayer said, adding that he had last spent time with his brother on Sunday.
Thayer at various times worked for The Associated Press, Jane’s Defence Weekly, the Phnom Penh Post, The Washington Post, Agence France Presse and Soldier of Fortune Magazine, but it was while working as a correspondent for the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review that he scored the Pol Pot interview published in October 1997. It was the reclusive leader’s first interview in nearly 20 years.
By then, the movement had turned on him.
“After a series of furtive rendezvous, using coded messages over mobile phones, I slipped into one of the most impenetrable, malarial-ridden and landmine-strewn jungles of the world: Khmer Rouge-controlled northern Cambodia,” Thayer wrote.
Pol Pot, “an anguished old man, frail and struggling to maintain his dignity, was watching his life vision crumble in utter, final defeat,” he wrote.
The leader of the Communist Khmer Rouge, under whose regime some 2 million Cambodians died, shocked the world by saying said his “conscience is clear.” He blamed piles of human skulls in the nation’s “killing fields” on his country’s historic enemy Vietnam, and asked for international sympathy for this own poor health and personal suffering.
Thayer “had spent years developing contacts within the Khmer Rouge, Thai intelligence, and elsewhere to gain this access, and seized an opening when the movement turned in upon itself,” his editor at the Review, Andrew Sherry wrote in 2005. “By no means a Khmer Rouge apologist, he presented a straight, unvarnished picture of the past and present, and confronted Pol Pot with the evidence that he was a mass murderer.”
Pol Pot died in April 1998.
Thayer was also involved in a public feud with ABC’s “Nightline” and Ted Koppel over a Pol Pot story, which ended with him rejecting a prestigious Peabody Award.
Thayer sold the story to ABC understanding it would be a one-week exclusive with North American television rights only. But he said ABC distributed the story worldwide put photos on its website, scooping Thayer’s own print account for the Far Eastern Economic Review.
“Ted Koppel and ‘Nightline’ literally stole my work, took credit for it, trivialized it, refused to pay me and then attempted to bully and extort me when I complained,” he wrote in a letter rejecting the Peabody.
ABC said the pre-broadcast publicity is common practice for such an exclusive story and Koppel praised Thayer. The sides later settled.
Thayer dug out stories from Asia where most western journalists feared to go, and almost paid with his life.
In an online blog he maintained, he described the terrifying moment in October 1989 when the truck he was riding in with several Cambodian guerillas drove over two anti-tank mines. Many of the guerillas died.
“My eardrums were blown out,” he wrote. “The concussion of the explosion was so great my brain shut down. I remember the liquid in my body became so heated I could feel it simmering near boiling. I could hear my blood boiling, gurgling from what seemed like heat. I felt my brain being tossed around like a rag doll bouncing off the insides of the wall of my boned skull.”
He had shrapnel in his head, torso, and legs, several broken bones, and a dislocated kidney.
The 2 1/2-ton truck, he wrote, “looked like a shredded child’s toy Tonka truck.”
Later in his career, he reported from Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Cuba, Albania, North Korea, and Mongolia.
He had also been working on a memoir, tentatively titled “Sympathy for the Devil,” when he died.
Thayer, the scion of a prominent Boston family and the son of a diplomat, practically grew up in Asia, as his father was posted to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Beijing and Singapore, Rob Thayer said.
He attended the University of Massachusetts Boston but did not graduate.
“He had dreamed of being a journalist and in 1984 he went to the Thai-Cambodia border and began to freelance, and started to make a name for himself,” his brother said.
He spent his last years on Cape Cod, writing against U.S. far right activists and white nationalists and sharing stories of his adventures with his beloved dog, Lamont.
In addition to his brother, Nate Thayer is survived by his mother, Joan Leclerc, and his sisters Marian Vito and Meg Thayer. He did not have children.
Arrangements are pending. | 2023-01-05T22:25:26+00:00 | myfox8.com | https://myfox8.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-nate-thayer-reporter-who-interviewed-pol-pot-dies/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden decried his predecessor for failing to try and stop last year’s deadly mob attack on the Capitol, saying Monday that “ Donald Trump lacked the courage to act” as hours of “medieval hell” unfolded.
“Every day we rely on law enforcement to save lives. Then, on Jan. 6, we relied on law enforcement to save our democracy,” Biden said in a prerecorded speech to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives’ annual conference in Orlando, Florida.
Biden, who remains in isolation in the family quarters of the White House after testing positive for COVID-19 last week, has previously slammed Trump for helping to incite the mob on Jan. 6, 2021, with a “web of lies” about the 2020 presidential election being marred by widespread voter fraud that never actually occurred.
But his comments to the conference were the clearest link Biden has made between Trump and the insurrection since a House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol began holding hearings in June as part of its work to get to the bottom of all that occurred.
“You saw what happened. The Capitol police, the D.C Metropolitan police, other law enforcement agencies were attacked and assaulted before our very eyes. Speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized,” said Biden, whose voice is still raspy and deeper than usual as he recovers from the effects of the coronavirus. “Lives were lost. And for three hours, the defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office.”
He added that while Trump was “doing that, brave law enforcement officers are subject to the medieval hell for three hours.”
That referenced Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump administration White House aide, testifying before the House Jan. 6 committee about Trump’s temper as he sat in his dining room and watched TV as his plans to overturn the election fell apart.
Biden didn’t mention the committee’s work specifically during the taped address and has previously largely avoided the topic. He said after its opening hearing that the work was about allowing “no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy,” but also noted then that he’d not had time to watch the first installment.
The committee held its final summer hearing last week, which focused on Trump’s failing to help disperse attackers overrunning the Capitol — even as top aides and members of his family implored him to call for an end to the violence.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had suggested previously that, while Biden had been able to tune in occasionally to the committee’s work, he hadn’t been able to focus much on the proceedings as he concentrated on doing his job as president. Whether Biden has had more time to watch as he recovers from COVID-19 is unclear.
Trump plans to be in Washington on Tuesday to address the America First Agenda Summit, the first time he’s returned to the nation’s capital since leaving office. Jean-Pierre offered no comment about that speech on Monday, saying, “I don’t know what he’s coming to talk about.”
In his pre-taped comments, Biden noted that law enforcement officers during the insurrection were “dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage, face-to-face with a crazed mob that believed the lies of the defeated president.”
“The police were heroes that day. Donald Trump lacked the courage to act,” the president said. “The brave women and men in blue all across this nation should never forget that. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.” | 2022-07-26T01:57:45+00:00 | kdvr.com | https://kdvr.com/news/politics/ap-politics/biden-says-trump-lacked-courage-to-act-during-jan-6-riot/ |
While filming in South Africa, Tom Cruise thanked his fans for making Top Gun: Maverick a box office hit as he jumped out of an aircraft. He is shooting the new Mission Impossible movie.
Copyright 2022 NPR
While filming in South Africa, Tom Cruise thanked his fans for making Top Gun: Maverick a box office hit as he jumped out of an aircraft. He is shooting the new Mission Impossible movie.
Copyright 2022 NPR | 2022-12-20T11:56:28+00:00 | wlrn.org | https://www.wlrn.org/2022-12-20/it-seems-like-there-is-no-mission-too-impossible-for-tom-cruise |
Judge orders Phoenix to clean up large homeless encampment
PHOENIX (AP) — A judge has ordered Phoenix to clean up a homeless encampment that spans nearly 10 blocks in the city’s downtown area.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Scott Blaney ruled Monday that Phoenix is maintaining a “public nuisance” and city officials must show evidence at a July 10 hearing that they’re cleaning the area.
Blaney sided with downtown Phoenix business owners who sued the city over the homeless camp known as “The Zone,” where about 700 people have lived in recent months.
The business owners cite an increase in crime, drug usage in public, biohazards and break-ins.
According to the lawsuit, the city should have no tents within public property and biohazards that include drugs, trash and human waste should be picked up.
Attorneys for the business owners said Phoenix has allowed homeless people to set up permanent tent encampments on public sidewalks and decreased enforcement of loitering, drunken and disorderly conduct and drug use among other things.
Kristin Couturier, a city spokesperson, said officials were reviewing the court ruling.
“We remain committed to address the needs of all residents and property owners,” Couturier said in a statement Monday. “We continue to work with local and regional partners to address the complex issues surrounding those experiencing homelessness and to connect people in need with safe, indoor spaces and resources to help end their homelessness.” | 2023-03-29T05:07:07+00:00 | mynorthwest.com | https://mynorthwest.com/3866021/judge-orders-phoenix-to-clean-up-large-homeless-encampment/ |
GENEVA (AP) — Western countries are leading a rare two-pronged push at the U.N.’s main human rights body to better scrutinize the human rights records of two big world powers: China, over allegations of abuses during an anti-extremism campaign in western Xinjiang, and Russia, over its government’s crackdown on dissent and protest against the war in Ukraine.
Going after two such influential U.N. members — two of the five permanent members of the Security Council no less — at the same time will be no small political task, diplomats and rights advocates say. It testifies to a growing rift between democracies and more autocratic countries, and is shaping up as a gamble of geopolitical clout, the outcome of which will resonate beyond the Geneva conference room where the Human Rights Council meets.
Some Western diplomats insist it’s now or never, and say it just so happens the two issues need separate attention.
Britain, Canada, the U.S. and the five Nordic countries are leading a call for council members to agree a debate at its next session in March on alleged abuses against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang. They aim to build momentum on an Aug. 31 report by the U.N. human rights chief that raised concerns about possible crimes against humanity during Beijing’s anti-extremism drive in the region.
On Tuesday, 26 European Union countries — all of them except Hungary — floated a proposal for the council to appoint a “special rapporteur” on Russia, citing a string of concerns about mass arrests and detentions; harassment of journalists, opposition politicians, activists and rights defenders; and crackdowns — at times violent — on protesters against President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Both issues will come up for a vote near the end of the council’s current session on Oct. 7.
Intense backroom diplomacy is already underway. Developing countries in Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East make up the majority of the 47 current members of the council. Stalwart allies of China and Russia, including Cuba, Eritrea and Venezuela, are members, as is China itself. Western and European countries have 13 seats.
Some European diplomats have expressed concern that the cultural, political and economic ties — even dependence — that many developing countries have with both Russia and China could torpedo the Western initiatives.
Alexander Pchelyakov, press secretary of the Russian diplomatic mission in Geneva, rejected the “politicized” Western proposal on Russia, insisting its “main goals are to punish Russia for pursuing an independent foreign policy course” and to divert attention away from the West’s own problems when it comes to human rights, economics and energy.
The proposal on China is for a simple debate, with no consistent monitoring of the rights situation, and is just about the least intrusive form of scrutiny that the council could seek. The call stops short of creating a team of investigators to look into possible crimes in Xinjiang, or appoint a special rapporteur — a proposal that is on the table with Russia.
John Fisher, global advocacy deputy director at Human Rights Watch, said recently that action on China and Russia are its top two priorities, and they amount to “no small challenge.”
“There was a time when states like China and Russia felt to be almost untouchable,” he said. “But it now feels that states of principle are finally saying ‘enough’ and standing up to those who would seek to disrupt the international rules-based order.”
“Even the fact that these initiatives are under active consideration — and quite likely both to move forward — is itself a signal of the relevance and engagement of the Human Rights Council,” Fisher added.
Western diplomats appear to feel more confident about success with the Russia measure. The council has little power to force countries to act, and there’s little certainty that Moscow would even allow an outside U.N.-backed monitor into Russia as part of the post — if the council seeks to create it.
The Xinjiang debate proposal is shaping up as the bigger ask, diplomats say. The situation is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a less pressing one than in Russia, where a crackdown is continuing. China, ever-protective of its reputation as its global profile and power rise, has said it has largely shuttered what it called training centers in Xinjiang — and what critics derided as detention centers.
One Western diplomat whose country backs the debate on Xinjiang, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, insisted the proposal was a “measured” response. Some supporters of China fret that the plan for a springtime debate is secretly just a foot in the door — a quiet effort that will aim to ramp up pressure on Beijing later on.
A key test will be with Africa, whose countries hold 13 council seats. Some have populations that are predominantly Muslim.
Nicolas Agostini of DefendDefenders, an NGO that promotes human rights in East Africa, told reporters recently that it estimates most African countries will abstain in the Russia vote, but maybe one or two — “we identified Malawi and the Gambia as the two most progressive African states that are members of the council right now” — will vote yes.
“Regarding China, it’s much more complex,” he said, alluding to “extreme Chinese pressure on African states, including members of the OIC — the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — that are African states.”
One African diplomat, also speaking on condition of anonymity because his country is still calibrating its response, said it has a “principled and objective approach” on the China resolution.
“We will have to consider our bilateral relations with the Chinese,” the diplomacy said coyly. “We’re not just going to jump in there (in support of the draft decision).” | 2022-10-03T21:02:09+00:00 | wwlp.com | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-western-push-on-china-russia-at-un-rights-body-faces-test/ |
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary’s governing party said Thursday it wants to poll the country’s citizens on whether they support European Union sanctions imposed against Russia over its war in Ukraine.
Fidesz plans to call for a “national consultation” on energy sanctions which he said had been decided on by the EU’s “Brussels elite,” the party’s caucus leader, Mate Kocsis, said at a news conference Thursday following a closed-door meeting.
“The sanctions are causing harm. They are destroying Europe’s economy,” Kocsis said. “We have to convince European decision-makers, the members of the elite, that they shouldn’t maintain the energy sanctions because big problems will come out if it.”
The poll, which the government calls a “national consultation,” is an informal survey available to every adult in Hungary which can be returned by mail or filled out online.
Such surveys, issued several times by the governments of nationalist-populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban since he came to power in 2010, have been criticized by pollsters and opposition parties for containing biased and leading questions, and for having no binding legal relevance.
In the news conference, Kocsis acknowledged that the consultation is a “political tool” which the government can use in its debates with the EU over whether to extend or impose further sanctions against Russia. He said the government would decide on the timing of the survey.
Hungary’s government has vocally opposed EU sanctions against Moscow, arguing they were doing more damage to European economies than to Russia. Budapest has also refused to supply neighboring Ukraine with weapons, or to allow their transfer across its border with the embattled country.
Pro-government newspaper Magyar Nemzet on Wednesday reported that Orban — who has for years nurtured a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin — had told the Fidesz conference that sanctions against Russia should be scrapped, and that doing so would curb inflation and cut gas prices in half.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | 2022-09-23T04:38:42+00:00 | ksn.com | https://www.ksn.com/news/business/ap-business/ap-hungary-to-poll-public-on-support-for-eu-sanctions-on-russia/ |
The partnership will set a higher standard for how crypto-based rewards are safeguarded in the travel industry
POMONA, Calif., June 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- FlyCoin, Inc., a cryptocurrency-based travel rewards technology company, announces today their partnership with BitGo, the industry's gold standard for custody and security solutions. FlyCoin will hold a significant portion of the company's minted cryptocurrency token, FLY in BitGo's US Qualified Custody Solution. The announcement comes on the heels of Flycoin's $33M seed funding earlier this year.
"As we continue to grow Flycoin's ecosystem of partners and end-users, it is critical that we properly safeguard these digital assets. BitGo's reputation and credibility as a global leader in digital asset cryptocurrency are unmatched, and a key factor in our decision to partner with them in this capacity," stated Lenny Moon, Flycoin's CEO.
Custodians of crypto assets play an essential role in storing and securing digital assets, while also interacting directly with brokers and exchanges to facilitate transactions for institutional and individual stakeholders. BitGo's global reach , and other platform services in addition to providing qualified custody, align well with Flycoin's focus on scaling its rewards platform offerings globally.
"I am very pleased to work closely with the FlyCoin team and for BitGo to be a trusted partner in their journey to revolutionize the travel rewards industry through the use of blockchain technology" said Kai Kono, Managing Director, Global Head of Digital Asset Sales, BitGo.
Flycoin's partnership with BitGo will go a long way toward further enhancing their portfolio of partners. Last month, the company announced major crypto heavyweights Lisa Nector and Rena Shah as strategic members of their advisory team. Other Flycoin partners include ThanksAgain, Foley Wines, and Ravn Alaska Airlines.
About BitGo
BitGo is the leader in digital asset financial services, providing institutional investors with custody, liquidity, and security solutions. Active in both centralized and decentralized finance, BitGo offers market leading trading, lending, and borrowing services through its prime brokerage services and acts as the custodian for WBTC, the leading global stablecoin for Bitcoin. In 2020, BitGo launched BitGo Portfolio and Tax, providing clients with a full-stack solution for digital assets. In 2018, it launched BitGo Trust Company, the first qualified custodian purpose-built for storing digital assets. BitGo processes approximately 20% of all global Bitcoin transactions, and supports over 500 coins and tokens. BitGo's customer base includes the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges and institutional investors and spans more than 50 countries. BitGo is backed by Goldman Sachs, Craft Ventures, Digital Currency Group, DRW, Galaxy Digital Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners.
About FlyCoin, Inc.
FlyCoin represents the evolution of loyalty programs. FlyCoin's revolutionary technology infrastructure provides companies in the consumer loyalty space - including travel and hospitality, insurance and benefits, financial services, and more, with a powerful, turnkey solution to incentivize users in a more customer-centric way. Users can earn FlyCoin's newly minted token, FLY, reward doesn't expire, is easily transferable, and has an abundance of redemption options.
For more information, please visit www.flycoin.org.
View original content:
SOURCE FlyCoin, Inc. | 2022-06-08T13:32:46+00:00 | kwtx.com | https://www.kwtx.com/prnewswire/2022/06/08/flycoin-announces-strategic-partnership-with-bitgo/ |
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Iranian president’s comment that “there are some signs” that the Holocaust happened but that the issue required more research sparked an outcry on Monday from Israeli officials, who denounced the remarks as antisemitic Holocaust denial.
Hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi made the comment during an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” on the eve of his visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly. When asked whether he believed the Holocaust happened, Raisi said there “are some signs that it happened.”
He added: “If so, they should allow it to be investigated and researched.”
Soon after the interview aired, outrage spread in Israel, a country home to tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors. The chairman of Israel’s official Holocaust memorial center, Yad Vashem, rebuked Raisi as a “despicable anti-Semite.”
“Even casting doubts on the occurrence of the Holocaust is one of the most abhorrent forms of anti-Semitism,” said Dani Dayan.
Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid, whose late father survived the Holocaust, posted a series of graphic photographs from the genocide on Twitter with the caption: “Some signs.”
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan also decried Raisi’s comments as “shocking,” calling on U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to deny him “a world stage to spread antisemitism and hatred.”
Raisi will be speaking at the 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly later this week, his first appearance at the annual gathering of world leaders.
Raisi, an ultraconservative cleric known for his hostility to the West, became president last year.
Israel considers Iran its greatest enemy and threat. Iran has long backed armed groups committed to Israel’s destruction. Its leaders have called for Israel to be wiped off the map and previously made statements that distort the history of the genocide that killed 6 million Jews or deny its existence. | 2022-09-19T22:52:45+00:00 | ourquadcities.com | https://www.ourquadcities.com/news/international/ap-iranian-presidents-holocaust-remarks-spark-outcry-in-israel/ |
“Survivor 43″ will air its 12th episode on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. The series will be hosted, as always, by Jeff Probst, and will feature 18 ‘castaways’ battling it out for $18 million.
The cast of the season will feature Cody Assenmacher, Justine Brennan, Geo Bustamante, Lindsay Carmine, Cassidy Clark, Karla Cruz Godoy, Nneka Ejere, Mike Gabler, James Jones, Owen Knight, Noelle Lambert, Sami Layadi, Jesse Lopez, Ryan Medrano, Dwight Moore, Elisabeth “Elie” Scott, Morriah Young, and Jeanine Zheng.
Here’s the information you’ll need to watch a free live stream of “Survivor 43″ online without cable.
How to watch ‘Survivor 43′ without cable
If you’re a cord-cutter or don’t have cable, you can live stream “Survivor 43″ on any one of the following streaming platforms:
When is ‘Survivor 43′ on?
“Survivor” starts its 43rd season on Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. on CBS. It will air directly before a new episode of “The Amazing Race” at 10 p.m.
What channel is CBS?
You can use the channel finder on your provider’s website to locate it: Verizon Fios, AT&T U-verse, Comcast Xfinity, Spectrum/Charter, Optimum/Altice, DIRECTV, Dish.
How to watch ‘Survivor 43′ online on-demand
If you missed an episode of “Survivor 43″ or want to the entirety of the series online as it becomes available, look for the show on DIRECTV Stream (free trial) or Paramount Plus (free trial).
What is ‘Survivor 43′ about?
According to the official CBS website: SURVIVOR launches a new chapter when the Emmy Award-winning series returns on Wednesdays. Stranded in the beautiful islands of Fiji, these 18 determined new castaways will be divided into three tribes of six and forced to form a new society as they adapt to their physical and social surroundings. The mental and physical challenges force players to choose between personal risk and reward, while still navigating the complex social game and attempting to forge alliances to last another day. The individuals competing are from diverse backgrounds with the same ultimate goal: to outwit, outplay and outlast and ultimately be crowned Sole Survivor. The show is hosted and executive produced by Emmy Award winner Jeff Probst.
Here’s a look at “Survivor 43,” courtesy of the show’s official YouTube channel:
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Joseph Rejent covers TV, writing about live television, streaming services and cord-cutting. He can be reached at jrejent@njadvancemedia.com. | 2022-12-07T21:20:31+00:00 | nj.com | https://www.nj.com/tv/2022/12/survivor-43-episode-12-free-live-stream-how-to-watch-online-without-cable.html |
CHESTERFIELD, Mo., Aug. 31, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- iCover, a Missouri-based Insurtech that provides an algorithmic underwriting and QUI™ based eApp Service for life insurance companies, raised $5 million in Pre-Series A funding.
Lead investor for the round is Kesan Parasuraman, a private investor who also led iCover's Seed round in August 2021. The company intends to use the funds raised to increase technical staff, expand sales and marketing, and bolster R&D efforts related to their AI underwriting framework and private Blockchain network.
iCover is currently working with six (6) insurance companies and launching an array of products that include, Income Protection, Final Expense, Term and Whole Life. Insurance companies will use iCover's proprietary AI / algorithmic underwriting platform with the patent-pending QUI™ eApp technology to deliver a 5-minute point-of-sale buying journey for consumers.
iCover's omnichannel capabilities will help insurance partners launch products and sell through agency, direct to consumer and embedded channels.
"In terms of traction and momentum, 2022 has been a great year so far. Fast and accurate Point-of-Sale underwriting has become more relevant than ever before. With this capital infusion, we can fuel our sales and marketing efforts through 2023 and expand iCover's Intellectual Property with increased R&D in the areas of AI and Blockchain," said Hari Srinivasan, Founder & CEO for iCover.
iCover is the first "plug and play" algorithmic underwriting platform in the InsurTech space. iCover's proprietary underwriting framework comes with pre-configured guidelines and algorithms to score and price life insurance applications based on medical and non-medical data. By leveraging patent pending QUI™ technology and algorithmic underwriting, iCover can quote, underwrite, and deliver life insurance at the point-of-sale in under 5 minutes. iCover was built by industry insiders Hari Srinivasan and Nicole Mwesigwa who applied their 30+ years of InsurTech experience and intimate knowledge of automated underwriting technologies. To learn more about iCover, visit www.icoverinsure.com.
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SOURCE iCover | 2022-08-31T16:31:39+00:00 | wlox.com | https://www.wlox.com/prnewswire/2022/08/31/icover-raises-5-million-pre-series-funding/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was sentenced Friday to serve four months behind bars after defying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols allowed Bannon to stay free pending appeal, a potentially lengthy process, and also imposed a fine of $6,500 as part of the sentence. Bannon was convicted in July of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition and the other for refusing to provide documents.
Nichols handed down the sentence after saying the law was clear that contempt of Congress is subject to a mandatory minimum sentence of at least one month behind bars. Bannon’s lawyers had argued the judge could’ve sentenced him to probation instead. Prosecutors had asked for Bannon to be sent to jail for six months.
“In my view, Mr. Bannon has not taken responsibility for his actions,” Nichols said before he imposed the sentence. “Others must be deterred from committing similar crimes.”
The House panel had sought Bannon’s testimony over his involvement in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Bannon has yet to testify or provide any documents to the committee.
Prosecutors argued Bannon, 68, deserved the longer sentence because he had pursued a “bad faith strategy” and his public statements disparaging the committee itself made it clear he wanted to undermine their effort to get to the bottom of the violent attack and keep anything like it from happening again.
“He chose to hide behind fabricated claims of executive privilege and advice of counsel to thumb his nose at Congress,” said prosecutor J.P. Cooney.
“Your honor, the defendant is not above the law and that is exactly what makes this case important,” Cooney said. “It must be made clear to the public, to the citizens, that no one is above the law.”
The defense, meanwhile, said he wasn’t acting in bad faith, but trying to avoid running afoul of executive privilege objections Trump had raised when Bannon was first served with a committee subpoena last year. The onetime presidential adviser said he wanted to have a Trump lawyer in the room, but the committee wouldn’t allow it.
In imposing the sentence, the judge noted that Bannon did have a lawyer, and while his advice might have been “overly aggressive” he did appear to be following it.
“Mr. Bannon did not completely ignore the fact he had received the subpoena nor did he fail to engage with the committee at all,” Nichols said.
Many other former White House aides have testified with only their own counsel. Bannon had been fired from the White House in 2017 and was a private citizen when he was consulting with the then-president before the riot.
Before the judge handed down the sentence, Bannon’s lawyer, David Schoen, gave an impassioned argument railing against the committee and saying Bannon had simply done was his lawyer told him to do under Trump’s executive privilege objections.
“Quite frankly, Mr. Bannon should make no apology. No American should make any apology for the manner in which Mr. Bannon proceeded in this case,” he said.
Schoen also defended Bannon’s public remarks about the committee: “Telling the truth about this committee or speaking one’s mind about this committee, it’s not only acceptable in this country, it’s an obligation if one believes it to be true,” Schoen said.
As he walked into court on Friday, Bannon told reporters, “This illegitimate regime, their judgment day is on 8 November when the Biden administration ends.” Bannon did not speak during the hearing, saying only, “My lawyers have spoken for me, your honor.”
Leaving the courthouse after the sentencing, Bannon said he believed Attorney General Merrick Garland would be impeached.
When President Joe Biden, for his part, was asked about the sentence as he left the White House he said: “I never have a reaction to Steve Bannon.”
Prosecutors had pushed for the maximum fine, saying Bannon refused to answer routine questions about his income and insisted he could pay whatever the judge imposed. The judge, though, found the short answers were an effort to spare court staff a lengthy effort of tracing Bannon’s finances and imposed a smaller fine.
Bannon has also argued that he had offered to testify after Trump waived executive privilege. But that was after the contempt charges were filed, and prosecutors say he would only agree to give the deposition if the case was dropped.
Bannon is also facing separate money laundering, fraud and conspiracy charges in New York related to the “We Build the Wall” campaign. Bannon has pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors say Bannon falsely promised donors that all money would go to constructing a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, but instead was involved with transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to third-party entities and using them to funnel payments to two other people involved in the scheme.
___
Associated Press journalist Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report. | 2022-10-21T22:50:04+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/politics/ap-trump-ally-steve-bannon-faces-sentencing-for-contempt/ |
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) — Authorities plan to offer updates Monday on the shooting of a Virginia elementary school teacher by a 6-year-old student, and the community will later hold a candlelight vigil.
The Newport News police department said that the police chief, mayor and school superintendent will hold a news conference at 4 p.m. to discuss the shooting that happened on Friday. A vigil is planned at 6:30 p.m. for the wounded teacher, Abby Zwerner.
Police Chief Steve Drew has said the boy shot and wounded Zwerner with a handgun in a first-grade classroom on Friday. Shortly after the shooting, police said Zwerner had life-threatening injuries, but she has improved and was listed in stable condition at a local hospital.
The boy was later taken into police custody. Drew said the shooting was not accidental and was part of an altercation. No students were injured.
Police have declined to describe what led to the altercation or any other details about what happened in the classroom, citing the ongoing investigation. They have also declined to say how the boy got access to the gun or who owns the weapon.
Virginia law does not allow 6-year-olds to be tried as adults. In addition, a 6-year-old is too young to be committed to the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice if found guilty. Authorities have not specified where the boy was being held.
___ Lavoie reported from Richmond. | 2023-01-09T18:46:00+00:00 | wishtv.com | https://www.wishtv.com/news/national/vigil-planned-for-teacher-who-police-say-was-shot-by-student/ |
The New York prosecutor who is pursuing criminal charges against former President Trump says a Republican-led congressional committee is trying to interfere with his case. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges "an unconstitutional attempt to undermine" his investigation.
The House Judiciary Committee and Bragg have been sparring since it became clear that Trump would be indicted. Last week, the committee subpoenaed a former attorney in the DA's office, Mark Pomerantz, who wrote a book that was critical of Bragg's legal judgments.
Bragg is hitting back at the committee, suing to block Pomerantz from testifying. He says Congress has no power to investigate local prosecutors, and that the subpoena violates state sovereignty, and is politically motivated.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan responded in a tweet, saying Trump was indicted "for no crime" and that Bragg is trying to block congressional oversight.
Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee is planning to hold a "field hearing" on Monday at 9 a.m. just a short distance from both Bragg's office and the courthouse where Trump was arraigned.
This story will be updated.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2023-04-11T20:32:31+00:00 | klcc.org | https://www.klcc.org/npr-politics/npr-politics/2023-04-11/da-bragg-sues-jim-jordan-claiming-an-unconstitutional-attempt-to-undermine-the-case |
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi protested in a meeting Sunday with his Chinese counterpart the detention of a Japanese national in Beijing and raised “strong concern” about China’s escalating military activity near Taiwan and around Japan.
Hayashi is on a two-day visit to China, becoming Japan’s first diplomat to make the trip in more than three years as frictions grow between the countries. He also met Chinese Premier Li Qiang and top diplomat Wang Yi later Sunday.
During his talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Hayashi demanded an early release of an employee of the Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma, who was detained in Beijing last month over what the Chinese Foreign Ministry described as spying allegations. Neither side has offered further details about the man nor the allegations against him.
Hayashi told reporters he raised “serious concern” about China’s increasingly assertive activity in the East and South China seas, and stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
He said he also expressed grave concern about Beijing’s increased joint military activity with Russia around Japan while Moscow wages war against Ukraine, and urged China to act responsibly for global peace.
Hayashi said he told Qin while there is a possibility of improving cooperation in economic, cultural and people exchanges, the two countries also face “many problems and serious concerns” and that “Japan-China relations are currently at an extremely important phase.”
The two ministers agreed to work together in achieving “a constructive and stable relationship” as agreed between their leaders in November, Hayashi said.
The sides agreed to improve communication in regional security, and welcomed the establishment of a defense hotline last week and the resumption of defense talks, Hayashi said.
Hayashi said that he and Premier Li shared the importance of their bilateral economic ties, and that it was crucial that Japanese nationals and companies feel safe to operate in China.
That was the concern raised by representatives of Japanese companies during their meeting Saturday with Hayashi. They also sought transparent, predictable and fair business environment in China, said Yukiko Okano, deputy press secretary for the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
Separately, Hayashi told Wang that China’s assertive activity in the East China Sea and the recent detention are “a stumbling block for promoting economic and people-to-people exchanges.”
Despite close economic and business ties between the two Asian powers, Tokyo and Beijing have been increasingly at odds in recent years as Japan considers China’s growing influence in the region a threat to its security and economy.
Qin meanwhile warned against Japanese involvement in issues related to Taiwan, the self-ruled island that China claims as its own, saying Tokyo should not interfere and “undermine China’s sovereignty in any way,” according to a statement from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Using strong language, Qin said “the Taiwan issue is at the core of China’s core interests and concerns the political foundation of China-Japan relations.”
Japan does not formally recognize Taiwan, but has strong unofficial ties with the island. It has been making statements of concern about regional stability in the Taiwan Strait and sent several prominent parliamentary delegations to Taipei.
Japan is increasingly worried about a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan because of its proximity to southwestern Japanese islands as well as disputed East China Sea islands, which are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing, and has bolstered its defenses recent years.
The Japan coast guard said in a statement over the weekend that three Chinese coast guard ships had entered the Japanese-controlled waters around Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu. A Japanese patrol ship repeatedly demanded they leave while protecting two Japanese fishing boats, the coast guard said.
Qin criticized Japan over its new export controls of semi-conductor manufacturing equipment that require companies to get government permission. The U.S. has imposed similar measures and Japan had acknowledged consulting with Washington on its own regulation.
“The U.S. once used bullying tactics to brutally suppress Japan’s semiconductor industry, and now it is repeating the same old tricks against China,” Qin said, urging Japan not to be America’s pawn. “One should not do unto others what one would not have done unto oneself.”
Hayashi said the measure is not targeting any specific country. But it was seen as part of a U.S.-led agreement to make sure advanced semi-conductor manufacturing stays out of the reach of the Chinese industry.
The last Japanese foreign minister to visit China was Hayashi’s predecessor, Toshimitsu Motegi, in 2019, just before China imposed rigorous pandemic border controls and other measures.
___
Wu reported from Taipei, Taiwan.
___
Find more of AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific | 2023-04-02T16:03:17+00:00 | wivb.com | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/japan-protests-chinas-detention-of-citizen-maritime-action/ |
Which whisk is best?
As an essential part of any kitchen utensil lineup, the whisk blends, mixes and aerates ingredients, allowing you to easily make batter, creams and sauces.
While a whisk may seem like a simple device — a handle attached to wired loops — materials and design influence its effectiveness and quality. When some recipes call for whisking at length, the right one can determine how quickly and comfortably the process goes.
With a proper whisk like this top pick from OXO, cooking and baking become much easier. Learn more about whisks, so you can find the right one for your kitchen.
What to know before you buy a whisk
Types
- Balloon: These are the most popular and versatile. With wide loops, they’re best for whipping and blending batter, creams and soups — they’re the go-to whisk.
- French: Similar to balloon options, French whisks are a bit narrower and thinner. These offer more precision and an ability to be used in smaller bowls.
- Ball: With straight wires featuring balls at their ends, ball whisks are useful for adding air to mixtures, particularly any that are dry and thin.
- Flat: This design features one layer of wire loops with a bit of a curve at the end. Use them in shallow bowls or pans, particularly for gravy or sauce.
- Spiral: With spiral whisks, a wire loop is at the end of a handle, with a second piece of wire attached to that loop in a series of spirals. These are useful for mixing sauces, gravies and dressings.
- Dough: These whisks are meant to tackle tougher, thicker tasks.
Size
Most whisks are 10-12 inches in length. However, you may find some as small as 6 inches or as large as 14. The size of the bowl you’re using should influence the size of whisk you use.
What to look for in a quality whisk
Material
Stainless steel whisks are among the most durable. Stainless steel provides strong and simple operation; it’s easy to clean and dishwasher-safe. Be careful with certain pots and pans, particularly nonstick options, as stainless steel utensils can scratch and damage them.
Silicone is a smart choice because it won’t scratch nonstick pans. It’s both flexible and durable and typically less expensive than stainless steel options.
Plastic whisks are the least expensive option and also the least durable. They can’t withstand high temperatures but can help out if you’re in a pinch.
Handle
When you’re whisking for a long period of time, you want a handle that’s light and comfortable in your hand. Molded silicone is preferred, since it prevents fatigue but also allows for a strong grip. You may find some handles ergonomically designed for maximum support. Make sure the handle is sealed — this prevents food or liquid from getting inside and setting.
How much you can expect to spend on a whisk
Quality whisks, particularly those made of stainless steel and silicone, cost $10-$20. Large-size options or sets of whisks can run up to and over $30.
Whisk FAQ
What type of whisk is most useful?
A. If you can only choose one whisk, the balloon design should cover common tasks like whipping and mixing. If you need two, then a flat whisk is also useful, providing a complementary design that can tend to the jobs the balloon whisk struggles with.
How should I clean a whisk?
A. A dishwasher-safe whisk offers convenient cleaning. If it requires hand washing, however, soak the whisk in a bowl of warm water and soap. Move it around to shake free food and residue, then rinse under hot water. It’s best to wash the whisk as soon as possible after use to avoid food setting.
What’s the best whisk to buy?
Top whisk
OXO Good Grips Silicone Balloon Whisk
What you need to know: This high-quality silicone whisk from a trusted kitchen brand offers both power and comfort.
What you’ll love: This versatile balloon whisk can be used safely on nonstick pans. It provides more power than most silicone options, and it features a comfy grip. It’s dishwasher-safe.
What you should consider: This style is not as firm as stainless steel.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top whisk for the money
OXO Good Grips Better Balloon Whisk
What you should know: This is a stainless steel whisk that’s useful for smaller spaces and comes at a solid price.
What you’ll love: It’s a durable whisk that’s easy to use and comfortable to hold. It’s powerful enough for large tasks but fits in smaller spaces. It’s dishwasher-safe.
What you should consider: Cleaning can be tedious if it isn’t rinsed immediately.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
KitchenAid Classic Utility Whisk
What you should know: This is an effective whisk from a trusted brand that boasts comfort and efficiency.
What you’ll love: The plastic ergonomic handle is lightweight. The stainless steel head provides power and longevity. It’s dishwasher-safe.
What you should consider: The plastic can be flimsy and delicate.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | 2023-02-18T21:52:09+00:00 | localsyr.com | https://www.localsyr.com/reviews/br-reviews/kitchen-br/bakeware-baking-tools-br/best-whisk/ |
In Jeff German's newsroom, his Las Vegas Review-Journal colleagues have set up an impromptu memorial in his cubicle. On his desk are flowers, a reporter's notepad and a toy football — he loved fantasy football. Also, one of his front page stories, framed.
The story is the first one he wrote with colleague Art Kane about lavish spending and misuse of tax dollars at the at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The stories led to felony charges for the Authority's executive director in 2019, and it's alleged that they led to German's death.
A city in shock
The developments of the past week have left Las Vegas shocked. German was found stabbed to death outside his home last Saturday. On Wednesday evening, police announced they had arrested an elected official, Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, on suspicion of killing German.
Telles is being held without bail. At his first court appearance on Thursday, prosecutors laid out the evidence that he had "cased" German's home before the crime, and then stabbed him seven times.
Prosecutors allege Telles killed German for writing negative stories about his office, and that he believed he lost the recent Democratic primary "as a direct result of the articles highlighting misfunctioning of office and an illicit relationship."
The reality is difficult for his former colleagues. But they want people to know about German, about his journalism and what he stood for.
A dogged reporter
Art Kane recalls German as an old-school veteran who knew everybody. "Phone to the ear, getting secret sources, meeting them in bars," he says.
And once German was on a story, he wouldn't let go — such as with that convention bureau series.
"At some point I moved on to other things," Kane says. "But Jeff — Jeff, like a bulldog, just bit into it and followed it to the end. He probably wrote 100 stories by the time everything was over."
Politicians reflected on the loss, too.
"I miss him already," says Tom Letizia, a political consultant who's known German for about forty years. He says sometimes German wrote articles or columns that irritated him — or went after his political clients — but there was no doubting German's importance.
"I know there are a lot of public figures that were afraid when Jeff German would call them. Because this is a guy who was going to ask the tough questions," he says. "And they either ran from him — didn't take the call — or took the call and dealt with the circumstances that prevailed afterwards."
City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman says she never feared German's calls — because she said she trusted him to be fair — if tough. But as soon as she heard he'd been killed, she figured it was about his work.
"I really suspected that it was some kind of hit, just due to the nature of him really being aggressive and making sure he gets stories out and the facts," she says. "It's been shocking for everyone in Las Vegas."
Free speech under threat?
It's worried people outside of Las Vegas, too. When news broke, free speech groups took notice. Nadine Farid Johnson is managing director of PEN-America Washington. She calls the possibility that a public official killed a reporter "deeply disturbing," in part because of what she regards as the recent increase of abuse of journalists online.
"Now this has come into the physical realm, and resulted in someone's murder, it really undermines the work of the free press, and it's creating a risk factor for many journalists, and that's quite worrisome," Johnson says.
The Review-Journal's Art Kane says he and German were accustomed to some people's anger over their reporting — at one point, he says German was punched by a professional boxer in a bar. But they didn't seriously consider the possibility of being killed.
"I think until now we just figured that nobody would be that stupid and brazen," Kane says. "But it's in the back of your mind, right?"
Kane is not inclined to see the death of his friend as part of a broader anti-journalism trend in America. He sees this as an isolated incident.
"From talking to Jeff, from reading his stories, and from understanding this guy's [Telles'] background, he was just a bully that didn't like being challenged," Kane says. "And he would always push back in completely inappropriate ways."
Kane's reporting partner is now gone. And the subject of their work is in jail. Telles is expected to formally be charged with murder next week.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-09-10T16:14:24+00:00 | mainepublic.org | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/npr-news/2022-09-10/a-slain-las-vegas-reporter-is-remembered-as-a-fair-but-dogged-journalist |
HIGH SCHOOL
Complete command: Mt. Vernon dominates Mt. Carmel in convincing showing
Indy Star Sports
Indianapolis Star
Mt. Vernon's competitive spirit was fine-tuned while punishing Mt. Carmel 14-7 at Mt. Vernon High on March 27 in Indiana softball action.
You're reading a news brief powered by ScoreStream, the world leader in fan-driven sports results and conversation. To see more game results from your favorite team, download the ScoreStream app and join over 10 million users nationwide who share the scores of their favorite teams with one another in real-time. | 2023-03-28T04:09:45+00:00 | indystar.com | https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/high-school/2023/03/27/complete-command-mt-vernon-dominates-mt-carmel-in-convincing-showing/70054575007/ |
SIOUX CITY, IOWA (KCAU) – The Dakota Valley Panthers were defeated by Tea Area in the SDHSBA Class B semifinals by a score of 3-2.
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Subscribe Now | 2023-05-31T04:07:25+00:00 | siouxlandproud.com | https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/dakota-valley-panthers-baseball-team-defeated-in-extra-innings-at-sdhsba-class-b-semifinals/ |
Each month beginning in March the retailer will gift one lucky bride their dream wedding gown valued at $1,000.
CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., March 1, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- David's Bridal, the nation's leading bridal and special occasion authority, kicked off its national wedding dress sweepstakes today, March 1, in which it will give away a FREE bridal gown each month for the remainder of the year. With new chances to win each month, this is the sweeps every bride needs to know about and encourage her besties to enter too. To sweeten the deal, customers can enter multiple times and even have friends and family enter to increase their chances of winning that dream wedding dress.
With the largest network of brides and couples, the retailer is constantly listening to their customers' needs and concerns. In fact, according to the February Pearl Report, which tracks sentiment and data from real couples planning their wedding, only 36% of brides feel financially confident. Amid economic inflation and financial uncertainty, many couples experience stress around wedding expenses. Gifting a FREE bridal gown coupled with its robust planning toolkit furnished by their newest innovation, Pearl, a comprehensive planning app plus dresses and gowns for all events, David's Bridal is the go-to destination to alleviate that stress and make wedding planning a breeze.
The retailer proudly offers the widest collection of dresses for all of life's magical moments – from weddings gowns to homecoming and prom dresses, graduation looks, date night or simply for those who want to make the world their runway. While many retailers face challenges amid pent-up demand and ongoing supply chain disruptions, David's Bridal has remained steadfast in its vast assortment of on-hand inventory with over 300,000 dresses in the US and ready to ship. With hundreds of styles ranging in sizes 0-30W, the retailer guarantees a dress by the customer's event date. This monthly sweepstakes to win a dream wedding look is just another way David's is winking back at its customers and walking alongside them throughout every step of the planning journey.
Customers can enter the sweeps online at davidsbridal.com starting today, March 1. Winners will be notified and each month and can celebrate by redeeming their dream wedding gown in store at their local David's Bridal during which they'll have a one-on-one appointment paired with an expert stylist who will help find THE one.
About David's Bridal
With 70 years of experience dressing customers for all of life's special occasions, David's Bridal is built on the idea everyone deserves to have the attire of their dreams regardless of style preference, shape, size, or budget. We believe in: CELEBRATING all life's magical moments, INNOVATING so we are always serving her, PERSONALIZING everything so it's all done her way, DESIGNING the most luxurious dresses, and finally, KINDNESS - so she doesn't have to worry about anything. It is our mission to help anyone and everyone find the look that will allow them to be the best, most genuine version of themselves on their wedding day or any special occasion. David's Bridal is dedicated to helping each customer, with the assistance of online planning tools and resources powered by Pearl by David's, Blueprint Registry, Rustic Wedding Chic, Anomalie, and Forever Bride, knowledgeable stylists, and expert alteration artisans who will guide them through the entire purchasing journey. With more than 300 stores located across the US, Canada, UK, and franchise locations in Mexico, we offer the convenience of one-stop shopping for every magical event in her life including weddings, Quinceañera, graduations, prom, communions, or simply making the world her runway and beyond. Additionally, David's recently launched #frontlinefierce Philanthropy Program dedicated to amplifying the heroism, fearlessness, and bravery of those who serve others in their community. To learn more about David's Bridal, visit www.DavidsBridal.com, download the Planning App, and connect on social media through Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn.
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SOURCE David's Bridal, Inc. | 2023-03-01T22:00:42+00:00 | kmvt.com | https://www.kmvt.com/prnewswire/2023/03/01/davids-bridal-announces-nationwide-monthly-wedding-dress-sweepstakes/ |
ATLANTA (AP) — Police on Wednesday arrested three Atlanta organizers who have been aiding protesters against the city’s proposed police and fire training center, striking at the structure that supports the fight against what opponents derisively call “Cop City.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced its agents and Atlanta police had arrested three leaders of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has bailed out protesters and helped them find lawyers.
Charged with money laundering and charity fraud are Marlon Scott Kautz, 39, of Atlanta; Savannah D. Patterson, 30, of Savannah; and Adele MacLean, 42, of Atlanta.
State investigators said they found evidence linking all three to financial crimes. Police executed warrants Wednesday morning at a house owned by Kautz and MacLean that is emblazoned with anti-police graffiti in an otherwise gentrified neighborhood east of downtown Atlanta.
Attorney Don Samuel, who is representing the three activists, said Wednesday afternoon that he had not yet seen the arrest warrants and was trying to determine the basis for the charges.
“I know what the crimes are that are alleged, but I don’t know exactly what the state’s alleging that these three people did or how they supposedly engaged in charity fraud,” he said.
Prosecutors said the three would likely make their initial appearances before a judge on Thursday.
MacLean, Kautz and Patterson are respectively the CEO, chief financial officer and secretary of the Network for Strong Communities, which was incorporated in 2020 and runs the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.
Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, called the arrests an “extreme provocation” in a statement.
“Bailing out protestors who exercise their constitutionally protected rights is simply not a crime,” Regan said. “In fact, it is a historically grounded tradition in the very same social and political movements that the city of Atlanta prides itself on. Someone had to bail out civil rights activists in the 60’s — I think we can all agree that community support isn’t a crime,”
More than 40 people have been charged with domestic terrorism in connection with protests over the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, a cause that has garnered international attention since authorities clearing the protesters’ camp in South River Forest fatally shot an environmental activist in January. Officials say the officers fired in self-defense after the protester shot a trooper. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating.
Kautz himself predicted in a February statement that investigators were trying to build a criminal case against protesters using Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.
That law allows prosecutors to bring charges against multiple people accused of committing separate crimes while working toward a common goal. RICO is a felony charge that carries stiff penalties: A prison term of five to 20 years; a fine of $25,000 or three times the amount of money gained from the criminal activity, whichever is greater; or both.
“This is targeting of organizers and movements by the police and the state,” Kamau Franklin of Community Movement Builders said in a statement “Bail funds have been a part of organizing the Civil Rights movement and labor movement. We will continue to fight back against cop city and the political arrest of our friends and comrades.”
In a statement issued after the arrests, Gov. Brian Kemp said the state would “track down every member of a criminal organization, from violent foot soldiers to their uncaring leaders.”
“These criminals facilitated and encouraged domestic terrorism with no regard for others, watching as communities faced the destructive consequences of their actions.” the Republican said. “Here in Georgia, we do not allow that to happen.”
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, also a Republican, pledged to “not rest until we have held accountable every person who has funded, organized, or participated in this violence and intimidation.”
Activists nationwide have joined the protest movement, arguing that the 85-acre (34-hectare) center would train officers to become more militarized and quell dissent, all while hundreds of trees are cut down, worsening flooding and climate change.
The Atlanta City Council approved the training center in 2021, saying a state-of-the-art campus would replace substandard offerings and boost police morale, which is beset by hiring and retention struggles in the wake of violent nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice in the summer of 2020.
The city is tasking the private Atlanta Police Foundation with building the complex, promising to pay $67 million over time. The remainder of the $90 million complex would come from private funds. Foundation work is ongoing, with the complex projected to be completed in 2024. ___
An earlier version of this story was corrected to show the spelling of one arrestee’s last name is Adele MacLean, not Maclean. | 2023-06-01T03:34:15+00:00 | localsyr.com | https://www.localsyr.com/news/national/police-in-atlanta-arrest-3-behind-bail-fund-supporting-protests-against-police-training-complex/ |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal trial over Oregon’s voter-approved gun control measure is set to open Monday in Portland, marking a critical next step for one of the toughest gun control laws in the nation after months of being tied up in the courts.
The trial, which will be held before a judge and not a jury, will determine whether the law violates the U.S. Constitution.
The protracted legal battle over the law could well last beyond the trial. Whatever the judge decides, the ruling is likely to be appealed, potentially moving all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Oregon voters in November narrowly passed Measure 114, which requires residents to undergo safety training and a background check to obtain a permit to buy a gun.
The legislation also bans the sale, transfer or import of gun magazines with more than 10 rounds unless they are owned by law enforcement or a military member or were owned before the measure’s passage. Those who already own high-capacity magazines can only possess them at home or use them at a firing range, in shooting competitions or for hunting as allowed by state law after the measure takes effect.
The Oregon Firearms Federation and a county sheriff filed the federal lawsuit in November, contending it violated the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Democratic Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and former Democratic Gov. Kate Brown are named as defendants.
It was one of several lawsuits filed over the measure.
In a separate lawsuit, filed in state court in rural and sparsely populated Harney County in southeastern Oregon, Gun Owners of America Inc., the Gun Owners Foundation and several individual gun owners claimed the law violates the Oregon Constitution.
The judge presiding over that case, Harney County Judge Robert S. Raschio, in December ordered the law to be put on hold. Because the lawsuit challenged Measure 114 under the state constitution and not the U.S. Constitution, it held precedence in the state, legal experts said. A trial is scheduled for September.
Supporters of the law say it would reduce mass shootings and other forms of guns violence as well as suicides, which the Oregon Health Authority said accounts for 82% of gun deaths in the state.
The measure’s fate is being carefully watched as one of the first new gun restrictions since the U.S. Supreme Court last June struck down a New York law that limited carrying guns outside the home. The high court has allowed the law to remain in force while a lawsuit plays out. | 2023-06-05T05:00:06+00:00 | seattletimes.com | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/federal-trial-set-to-begin-over-oregons-tough-gun-control-measure-approved-by-voters/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Oklahomans should brace for a big construction project set to begin Monday. Drivers can expect lane closures and lower speed limits.
Construction crews will start the process of widening a six mile stretch of I-40 from Town Center Drive in Midwest City to I-240. The construction will also combine rebuilding the interchange at I-40 and Douglas.
The construction is expected to last two years. | 2023-04-07T21:27:18+00:00 | kfor.com | https://kfor.com/news/local/construction-set-to-begin-monday-on-i-40-through-i-240/ |
Splash pads in metro Detroit: Where to find water fun this summer
Families in metro Detroit have a wide range of options when it comes to splash pads, making them the perfect destination to beat the summer heat. The aquatic playgrounds offer an array of features and are specifically designed to cater to the needs of young children.
Many offer water cannons that propel gallons of water into the air, ground sprays shooting up jets of water, massive dump buckets drenching you with cascades of water, and water slides for endless fun.
Most splash pads in the area are open Memorial Day through Labor Day, and are generally free of charge. Some splash pads may have age requirements in place for safety purposes.
Below is a list of splash pads available in metro Detroit for the summer of 2023. If you know of a public splash pad that is not included in this list, please email bhightower@freepress.com to request its addition.
Wayne
Belleville: Lower Huron Metropark - Turtle Cove Aquatic Center, 17845 Savage Rd.
Canton: Heritage Park - Splash Playground, 1150 S. Canton Center Rd.
Canton: Summer on the Park’s Aquatic Center, 46000 Summit Pkwy.
Dearborn: Crowley Park splash pad, 2600 Westwood St.
Dearborn: Hemlock Park splash pad, 13335 Hemlock Ave.
Dearborn: Whitmore Bolles Park splash pad, 21700 Notre Dame St.
Detroit: Mt. Elliott Park – Gilbert Family Schooner Splash Pad, 110 Mt. Elliott St.
Detroit: Riverside Park Splash Pad, 3085 W. Jefferson Ave.
Detroit: Splash Park at Palmer Park, 910 Merrill Plaisance St.
Detroit: Jayne-Lasky Park splash pad, 13280 Conant St.
Detroit: Wayne County Family Aquatic Center – Splish-Splash Land, 12600 Chandler Park Dr.
Detroit: Clark Park splash pad, 4301 W. Vernor Hwy.
Livonia: Clements Circle Splash Park, 9999 Harrison St.
Livonia: Livonia Recreation Center, indoor splash pad, 15100 Hubbard St.
Plymouth: Township Park Sprayscape, 46640 Ann Arbor Tr.
Redford: Handy Park splash pad, 26650 Capital St.
River Rouge: Memorial Park splash park, 11051 W. Jefferson Ave.
Riverview: Memorial Park splash pad, Colvin Avenue
Romulus: Romulus Aquatic Center: splash pools, 35765 Northline Rd.
Taylor: Heritage Park Lamarand Splash Field, 12111 Pardee Rd.
Trenton: Kennedy Aquatic Center, 3101 West Rd.
Westland: H20 Zone Spray Park, 36300 Warren Rd.
Woodhaven: Civic Center Park splash pad, 23977 Hall Rd.
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Oakland
Auburn Hills: Riverside Park Splash Pad, 3311 Squirrel Ct.
Berkley: Oxford Park – Splash Pad, 2100 Bacon Ave.
Clarkston: Cintonwood Park Renee Przybylski Memorial Spray Park, 6000 Clarkston Rd.
Farmington Hills: Heritage Park splash pad, 24915 Farmington Rd.
Madison Heights: Red Oaks Waterpark Splash Town, 1455 Thirteen Mile Rd.
Milford: Kensington Metropark Splash ‘n’ Blast, 4570 Huron River Pkwy.
Oxford: Seymour Lake Park, KLR Splashpad, 2795 Seymour Lake Rd.
Rochester Hills: Brooklands Plaza splash pad, 1585 E. Auburn Rd.
Royal Oak: Normandy Oaks Park splash pad, 4234 Delemere Blvd.
Troy: Troy Family Aquatic Center, 3425 Civic Center Dr.
Waterford: Waterford Oaks Waterpark: Big Bucket, 1702 Scott Lake Rd.
West Bloomfield: Lily Pad Springs, 6200 Farmington Rd.
White Lake: Indian Springs Metropark, Spray ‘n’ Play, 5200 Indian Tr.
Whitmore Lake: Blue Heron Bay Spray Park, 3200 Jennings Rd.
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Macomb
Chesterfield: Brandenburg Park splash pad, 50050 Jefferson Ave.
Harrison Township: Lake St. Clair Metropark Squirt Zone Playground, 31300 Metro Pkwy.
Macomb Township: Macomb Township Recreation Center indoor SCS play structure and floor geysers, 20699 Macomb St.
Shelby Township: Chief Gene Shepherd splash pad, 2452 23 Mile Rd.
Rochester Hills: Brooklands Plaza splash pad, 1585 E. Auburn
Shelby Township: Chief Gene Shepherd splash pad, 2452 23 Mile
Sterling Heights: Dodge Park Splash Pad, 40620 Utica Rd.
Warren: The Fountain at Warren City Square, One City Square
Warren: Warren Community Center Indoor Water Park: Play Structure, 5460 Arden Ave.
Washtenaw
Ann Arbor: Veterans Memorial Pool, Tot Splash, 2150 Jackson Ave.
Whitmore Lake: Blue Heron Bay Spray Park, 3200 Jennings Rd.
Ypsilanti: Rolling Hills Water Park, 7660 Stony Creek Ln.
Brendel Hightower is an assistant editor at the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at bhightower@freepress.com. Support local journalism: Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press. | 2023-07-17T18:24:25+00:00 | freep.com | https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2023/07/17/splash-pads-metro-detroit-water-parks-wayne-oakland-macomb-washtenaw/70392888007/ |
KOKOMO, Ind. — Kokomo police are asking for the public’s help in finding a suspect who used bolt cutters to try and take money from an air freshener dispenser.
Kokomo police were called on Monday to Josh’s Washes, located at 400 E. Morgan Street, for an attempted burglary. KPD said that business surveillance cameras in the area captured a “younger white male” using bolt cutters to try and steal money from inside an air freshener dispenser.
The suspect, KPD said, also was captured breaking the locking mechanism on an office door. He was seen wearing camouflage pants, a black shirt and a blue jean jacket. Photos of the suspect, provided by KPD, can be seen below.
Anyone with information on the suspect’s identity or the attempted burglary is being asked to call Kokomo police at (765) 456-7017. | 2023-04-03T21:07:19+00:00 | cbs4indy.com | https://cbs4indy.com/news/indycrime/kokomo-police-searching-for-attempted-burglary-suspect/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP)Prime Video is turning to an experienced host for its coverage of ”Thursday Night Football”.
Amazon announced Tuesday that Charissa Thompson will host the pregame, halftime and postgame coverage for its first season as the exclusive home of the primetime package.
Thompson will also continue to host Sunday’s Fox ”NFL Kickoff,” which she has done for the past three seasons.
”Charissa’s infectious enthusiasm, quick wit, and strong NFL credentials make her perfectly suited for this role. We look forward to seeing her elevate conversations and connecting with viewers every Thursday night,” said Jared Stacy, Prime Video’s director of Global Live Sports Production.
Thompson worked with Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez the past three years at Fox. Prime Video has also hired recently retired quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman as studio analysts. Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit will be the game announcers.
Prime Video will carry a preseason game when San Francisco faces Houston on Aug. 25. Its first Thursday night regular-season game comes on Sept. 15 when Kansas City hosts the Los Angeles Chargers.
—
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://apnews.com/hub/pro-32 and https://twitter.com/AP-NFL | 2022-06-29T13:44:32+00:00 | siouxlandproud.com | https://www.siouxlandproud.com/nfl/charissa-thompson-to-host-amazon-prime-video-tnf-coverage/ |
The PGA Tour is closing in on $500 million in prize money for next season, with eight tournaments offering $15 million or more and limited spots available for the postseason.
It will be the final time for a wraparound season that has nine tournaments starting on Sept. 15, has a six-week break around the holidays and resumes in Hawaii in January before the season ends in August.
Only the top 70 players — down from 125 — will qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs, with players whittled down to 50 players for the second postseason event and 30 reaching the Tour Championship and competing for the FedEx Cup.
Starting in the fall of 2023, players outside the top 70 will have six tournaments to try to earn full status for a calendar-year schedule that will start the following January.
The prize money for the 43 tournaments run by the PGA Tour is $428.6 million, which includes four opposite-field events. The four majors had combined prize money of $61.5 million last year. Still to be determined is whether purses will be increased for 2023.
The PGA Championship returns to Oak Hill outside Rochester, New York, in May — it already was scheduled for upstate New York when the PGA moved from August to May in 2019. The U.S. Open goes to Los Angeles Country Club for the first time, while the British Open returns to Royal Liverpool for the first time since 2014.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan previously disclosed that the elevated events with tournament hosts at Riviera (Tiger Woods), Bay Hill (Arnold Palmer) and Memorial (Jack Nicklaus) will have $20 million purses. The lone World Golf Championship — Match Play in Austin, Texas — and two postseason events also will have $20 million purses.
That includes the BMW Championship, for now the only postseason event that moves to different courses. Next year it will be at Olympia Fields in the south suburbs of Chicago.
The Players Championship purse is $25 million, while the Sentry Tournament of Champions to start the new year at Kapalua nearly doubles to $15 million.
All but five tournaments in the core of the 2023 season are at $8 million or more.
The dates are roughly the same as this season, except for an extra week between the U.S. Open and British Open. That allowed the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit to move from the last weekend in July to the last weekend in June — two weeks after the U.S. Open and three weeks before the British Open.
As for the bonus pools, an additional $145 million is being offered — $75 million for the FedEx Cup, $20 million for the Comcast Business Tour 10 that pays out the top 10 players in the regular reason and $50 million for the popularity contest known as the Player Impact Program.
Still to be announced are the three international events late in 2023 that will feature big purses and limited fields, starting with the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings.
Monahan discussed several of the changes and prize increases in June, minus specific dates and scheduling. The tour released its new schedule one week after the Saudi-funded LIV Golf announced a 14-tournament schedule with $405 million in prize money, all guaranteed because the 48-man fields have no cut in the 54-hole events.
___
More AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2022-08-01T19:04:51+00:00 | springfieldnewssun.com | https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/nation-world/pga-tour-nearing-500-million-in-prize-money-next-season/HRLUYOXGINDY5O6GEZTU3VR5TU/ |
'Extremely dangerous': Florida deputies arrest 9 people in street racing bust in Orange County
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - The Orange County Sheriff's Office is continuing to crack down and arrest people for illegally street racing.
Nine people were arrested Saturday for allegedly doing burnouts and donuts in the parking lot of a shopping plaza off Orange Blossom Trail, leaving behind tire marks from burnouts and donuts.
"Not only is it illegal, but it’s extremely dangerous and reckless," said Orange County Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Sergio Uribe.
He said Saturday night the parking lot was filled with dozens of people and cars when deputies arrived to put an end to the parking lot parking. Deputies were monitoring from the air and the ground, he said.
In total, nine people were arrested in the Aldi parking lot, near Orange Blossom Trail and Wetherbee Road, and several vehicles were impounded, OCSO said. Some were booked into jail under suspicion of reckless driving or street racing. One person was booked on a drug charge.
"We’re hoping that the individuals will be held accountable and we hope that these fines and fees that are associated with this kind of activity has an impact," said Uribe. "Don’t do this in Orange County because we’re going to catch you."
FOX35 has been looking into reports about street racing for months. People living in Orlando tell us that they are seeing and hearing things like this far too often.
"They race here all the time. It’s like an ongoing thing every weekend," said Curtis Turner. | 2023-04-18T22:48:07+00:00 | fox35orlando.com | https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/extremely-dangerous-florida-deputies-arrest-9-people-in-street-racing-bust-in-orange-county |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — Halie Kutscher and her family moved to Morgantown, West Virginia, from Bridgeport on May 21.
As the moving trucks were being loaded, the family’s cat, Oliver, who originally came from the Humane Society of Harrison County, accidentally got outside and started playing with the family’s dog in the front yard.
“Last time I saw Oliver, Sasha had chased him up into a tree. We were just kind of finalizing the U-Haul, getting it filled up, and then we closed it,” Kutscher said. “That was the last time I saw Oliver.”
That would be the last time the family saw Oliver for several weeks. However, the family didn’t lose hope of finding him.
“We still had ownership of the house. We listed it vacant, so until it was under contract, we would continually go back and check up every week. My husband kept food out for the first week, would constantly go out and call for him. He was always pretty good about responding to being called,” Kutscher said.
After the house was sold in July, the family let the new owners know of the situation in case Oliver had shown up, and they agreed to help them.
“We were still kind of hopeful that maybe he would turn up,” Kutscher said.
Well, Oliver did turn up on Sunday, but not in Bridgeport.
“My husband looks over the railing. In our neighbor’s yard, there’s little steps that kind of go up, and there’s an orange cat sitting on it. He said, ‘oh my god, that looks like Oliver,'” Kutscher said. “I run in the house, run to the basement, run out the back door, down into the grass. He sees me coming, and he starts running to me. We’re running to each other like a slow-motion-movie scene, and he lets me scoop him right up.”
That means Oliver made the trek from Bridgeport to Morgantown; a span of nearly 40 miles.
“It was him. He was wearing the same flea collar I put on him, and I remember cutting it at an angle, and that same angle cut was on that flea collar,” Kutscher recalled.
Kutscher plans to take the cat to the vet on Thursday to get checked out and verify the microchip to confirm that it is Oliver. Until then, the family is happy to be back together. | 2022-07-28T12:23:38+00:00 | krqe.com | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/lost-cat-makes-40-mile-journey-alone-to-new-owners-home/ |
Recent back-to-school coverage relating to the 2023-2024 school year in the media player above.
Don't let this midsummer's night dream distract you from preparing your household for the new school year.
Even if you don't have children, below are some dates to keep in mind as the surrounding communities start hustling and bustling once again:
Monday, July 17
Thursday, July 20
Friday, July 21
Tuesday, July 25
Tuesday, Aug. 1
Wednesday, Aug. 2
- Douglas Unified School District
- Sierra Vista Unified School District
- Sunnyside Unified School District
Thursday, Aug. 3
- Altar Valley School District
- Amphitheater Public Schools
- Flowing Wells Unified School District
- Tanque Verde Unified School District
- Tucson Unified School District
Monday, Aug. 7
- Ajo Unified School District
- Catalina Foothills School District
- Continental Elementary School District
- Marana Unified School District
- Sahuarita Unified School District
- Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District
Wednesday, Aug. 9
Monday, Aug. 14
Wednesday, Aug. 16
——-
Caleb Fernández is a digital content producer for KGUN 9. After earning his bachelor's degree from Penn State in Advertising/Public Relations, Caleb went to New York where he learned production assistance, photography and art direction. Share your story ideas and important issues with Caleb by emailing caleb.fernandez@kgun9.com or by connecting on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. | 2023-07-16T02:10:43+00:00 | kgun9.com | https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/list-southern-arizona-2023-back-to-school-dates |
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Without a goal all playoffs, Shea Theodore found the net just when the Vegas Golden Knights needed it.
With Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final tied at 1 midway through the second period, Theodore took a pass at one side of the blue line, skated to the other side, circled back to dangle Florida Panthers forward Anthony Duclair and move into the slot before firing a wrist shot past Sergei Bobrovsky.
It was vintage Theodore. And it came at a critical juncture.
Theodore’s goal ignited the crowd and, more importantly, his team. He also had an assist in Vegas’ series-opening 5-2 victory Saturday night, which was something of a show of redemption for the 27-year-old defenseman.
“He’s one of our best players,” Vegas teammate Jonathan Marchessault said. “You need 20 guys every night to win at that time of the year and tonight was a good team effort and Shea took over today. He’s one of those guys that stepped up tonight and definitely happy to see him on the board.”
Theodore snapped a 27-game scoring drought dating to March 7, coincidentally also against Florida. He has 15 career playoff goals.
“I feel good about it, but right now it’s all about the next game and getting that next one,” Theodore said. “I feel like a lot of us felt more comfortable tonight. It kind of showed in our game the way we attacked and the way we stayed out of scrums and I guess the score sheet as well.”
For Theodore, though, it was a coming-out party at the right time, as he didn’t necessarily look like himself through the first three rounds. If anything, he’d looked like what he was describing all week when speaking about Vegas when it lost in the 2018 Stanley Cup Final, saying the Knights appeared overwhelmed in what was a magical run in their inaugural season.
Coming into the Cup Final, he had seven assists and was averaging just one shot every 12 shifts.
Saturday he averaged at least one shot every eight shifts. He was among the best Vegas players in shot attempts for, compared to those given up to the Panthers.
“Shea’s a huge part of our group,” Vegas forward Jack Eichel said. “It was good to see him get rewarded there, but he’s been doing so many other things for us and the way that he transports the puck up the ice, he can be a one-man breakout at times. He does so much for our team.
“He’s been on a little drought and I’m sure it feels good to find one, hopefully, it boosts his game the next few.”
___
AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2023-06-05T04:32:23+00:00 | texomashomepage.com | https://www.texomashomepage.com/sports/golden-knights-shea-theodore-finds-rhythm-at-right-time-to-start-stanley-cup-final/ |
New Alliances expands U.S. Orthopaedic Partners footprint into a third state, Louisiana.
ALPHARETTA, Ga., July 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, U.S. Orthopaedic Partners ("USOP"), the rapidly-expanding network for private orthopaedic practices in the Southeastern United States, announces the acquisition of two leading practices: Orthopaedic Associates of New Orleans ("OANO") and Mid State Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Center ("Mid State"). This marks the 11th acquisition for USOP and adds eight locations to the network of over 270 orthopaedic providers.
"It is with great anticipation, and honor that Orthopaedic Associates of New Orleans announces their partnership with USOP. The coming decade is an exciting time of rapid innovation and changing practice management landscape affecting the future and viability of medical and surgical care in Louisiana," said Lance Estrada, MD, OANO. "OANA welcomes the opportunity to chart a new and prosperous course of delivering the best orthopaedic care to our patients, retaining autonomy of practice self-governance, expanding clinical research in orthopaedics and embracing a course of broad practice outreach and expansion in Louisiana through a mutually beneficial partnership with USOP."
"We are proud to be their affiliate and grow this premier regional alliance," said Michael Leddy, MD, Mid State. "We are committed to delivering the highest quality care in the most cost-effective manner possible, and that aligns directly with USOP. This network allows us to transform the way orthopaedic care is delivered, make care delivery more efficient, expand our participation and impact in clinical trials, and grow our presence within the markets we serve while positively impacting the lives of more patients."
Orthopaedic Associates of New Orleans uses cutting-edge technology including robotic-arm technology that assists their surgeons in precise knee replacement surgeries. OANO has performed more robotic arm assisted joint replacements than any other practice in New Orleans.
Mid State Orthopaedic & Sports Medicine Center, based in Alexandria, Louisiana has eight highly skilled and dedicated physicians specializing in general orthopaedics, sports medicine, ortho trauma, joint replacement, hand and upper extremity, physiatry and pain management. Mid State is proud to be at the forefront of medical advancements, utilizing cutting-edge technologies and evidence-based practices to ensure the best outcomes for patients.
"We are excited to be partner with USOP and the nearly 300 orthopaedic providers across the region. We think there is an immediate opportunity to partner with payors and employers across Louisiana to continue providing the highest quality of care for our patients in a cost-effective setting," said Scott Coleman, CEO, Mid State.
For more information, visit www.us-orthopartners.com.
About U.S. Orthopaedic Partners
U.S. Orthopaedic Partners is a full-service, integrated orthopedic care platform that provides the full continuum of musculoskeletal treatment to patients in the Southeastern U.S. Supported by the groups diversified orthopedic sub-specialties, ultramodern ambulatory surgery center(s), fellowship training programs and comprehensive suite of ancillary services – advanced imaging, rehabilitation, pain management, urgent care, pharmacy and sports medicine – USOP is a comprehensive provider for patients seeking high quality, value-based care.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE U.S. ORTHOPAEDIC PARTNERS | 2023-07-24T13:52:43+00:00 | wbrc.com | https://www.wbrc.com/prnewswire/2023/07/24/us-orthopaedic-partners-grows-network-with-orthopaedic-associates-new-orleans-mid-state-orthopaedic-amp-sports-medicine-center/ |
PHOENIX – The way Rep. Rachel Jones sees it, once you’ve paid off your house you shouldn’t have to worry about property taxes.
But the first-term Republican lawmaker from Tucson acknowledged there are a bunch of practical questions with her legislation, including who would – or should – get a tax break. And she said her plan is probably going to need some major amendments to get any traction.
Jones, however, said she decided to swing for the fences and start out asking for everything, figuring that gives her lots of negotiating room.
“You go big,’’ she told Capitol Media Services.
Some of it, Jones said, is philosophical.
“It’s awful that you’re charged taxes on something you own,’’ she said. Jones said that would be like buying a couch, paying the sales taxes and then having to pay some sort of fee for possessing it.
But she said her focus actually is narrower.
“My main heart issue behind it are those, especially elderly folks who are on a fixed income, who lose their homes,’’ Jones said.
“I just talked with a constituent whose uncle lost his home last year because of this very issue,’’ she continued. “That’s just unacceptable.’’
Only thing is, her HB 2315 does not have any sort of “means testing.’’ And she acknowledged that means anyone who pays off a mortgage at any age – or even has the resources to buy a house for cash – would be entitled to escape all property taxes if her measure were to become law as written.
“That is one thing I don’t like about it, especially with all the Californians moving in,’’ Jones said, people with money who can buy a house outright, with no mortgage. “That’s not ultimately my ‘mission accomplished’ at all.’’
And there’s a related issue.
Some elderly will take out a “reverse mortgage,’’ using the equity in their paid-off homes to be able to stay there and pay other bills. And as HB 2315 is crafted, those people would go from paying no property taxes at all to once again having an annual bill.
Jones also said she wants to be careful not to harm local governments which, unlike the state, are heavily dependent on property taxes. And schools depend on locally raised taxes for budget overrides and paying off the bonds to build new schools.
“I understand how much property taxes go to police, education, all those things,’’ she said.
Actually speaking, there might not be any net loss of revenues.
Most levels of government figure out how much they need to raise. Then they divide it into the total assessed valuation of the community.
The result is a tax rate.
If some property is removed from the tax rolls, that reduces the total assessed valuation. So the calculation divides the amount of money to be raised into that smaller base.
And that, in turn, raises the tax rate that is imposed on everyone else who is not exempt from paying taxes – meaning the taxes not being paid by those with paid-off homes is shifted to them.
Jones said House research staff is crunching some numbers to figure out what that shift might be.
“I’m hoping to have a full, big compilation of all of that this week,’’ she said.
Jones said, though that she sees another side of that.
“There are a lot of renters in Tucson currently,’’ she said.
“It’s becoming a big rental market,’’ Jones continued. “I don’t particularly like that people that are renting homes aren’t contributing to their community, either.’’
She said altering that could “kind of take some of the pressure off’’ of homeowners.
Jones acknowledged, though, that renters may not be getting an entirely free ride.
That is because the landlords – the people who own the homes and apartments – are themselves paying property taxes. And that is something they can pass on to tenants.
There is another unanswered question in HB 2315.
As crafted, it would exempt those without mortgages from paying any property taxes at all. That includes not just the basic levies to operate government but also the taxes that people voted to impose on themselves, such as overrides, bond debt and even special districts for everything from fire protection to street lights.
And what that would mean is people who are exempt from taxes being able to approve new levies that affect everyone else.
“That’s a really good question,’’ Jones said, saying she’s going to have to think about that issue as her bill goes through the legislative process. And the senator said she is a big fan of voter approval of taxes “because that’s the best way to get people’s opinion on something.’’
How much Arizona homeowners might save if Jones’ bill were to become law depends on both the value of the home and where they live.
It starts with the full cash value, a figure roughly equal to about 80% of its market value. And owner-occupied homes are assessed for tax purposes at 10% of that value.
So a home valued by assessors at $350,000 has its property taxes computed based on $35,000. And assuming a tax rate of $9 per $100 of assessed valuation, that computes out to about $3,150 a year.
But the tax rate can vary, with the state Department of Revenue pegging the figure at anywhere from $3.39 in Greenlee County, which has the benefit of a copper mine to bolster its revenues despite a low tax rate, to $13.81 in Pima County.
And these figures also vary within counties depending on taxes imposed by cities, schools and other special districts.
No date has been set for a hearing on her measure. | 2023-01-18T14:25:47+00:00 | yumasun.com | https://www.yumasun.com/news/arizona-bill-would-eliminate-tax-on-mortgage-free-homes/article_2d98d306-96c1-11ed-89a6-ababb6cc588c.html |
The Miami Dolphins have lost four consecutive. The New England Patriots have lost four of five. So, someone comes out of Sunday feeling like the new year is actually a new year and the other will need a therapy session.
Here are five ways for the Dolphins to come out on top:
1. Win on the big play. We’ll get to balance and complementary football in a bit. The winning starts by letting Teddy Bridgewater take his shots downfield against a depleted New England secondary. Some people hated to hear before games how Tua Tagovailoa was going against lesser Chicago (due to trades) or Los Angeles Chargers defense (injuries), as if it would somehow undervalue his talent (I guess). But Bridgewater faces a Patriots secondary that might have just one of its top four cornerbacks. Jack Jones (knee) and Marcus Jones (concussion) are out. Jonathan Jones (chest) and Jalen Mills (groin) are questionable. That leaves backups and practices-squad players moving into positions where Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle run. They’re the two players who make this offense dynamic and they should have a chance to show why again Sunday. Bill Belichick can bracket one of them and take him away. He can play two-deep safeties like most teams against Hill and Waddle. He might even play six defensive backs and lure the Dolphins into over-passing (in which case see No. 3). But Hill and Waddle will have their chances.
2. Don’t let the Patriots offense up. The Patriots offense isn’t any better than the first week when the Dolphins defense held it to 271 yards and had three turnovers, including a strip-sack of Mac Jones that lead to a 2-yard Melvin Ingram return for the season’s first touchdown. Of all the units to decide Sunday, the Patriots offense is the worst. Mac Jones looked like a capable quarterback for a rookie last year. The good way to say what happened his second year is to understand the coaching and systemic mess Tagovailoa had to navigate last season. The Patriots rank last in converting touchdowns in the red zone at 38.5 percent — a more than five percent separation from the 31st-ranked Indianapolis Colts (43.9). The Dolphins defense has given up 32 points on the road this year compared to half that at home. That average will come down Sunday.
3. Play some complementary football. For all the big-play shots the Dolphins should have Sunday, the flip-side is to not be dumb about it. Don’t draw up the game plan of San Francisco or Los Angeles where you put it all on the passing game. That didn’t just stop the offense when the passing game wasn’t working. It put a big burden on offensive line to protect and the defense as the time of possession got out of whack. That’s the kind of game Belichick would love, the one he wants to give his team a chance. So, yes, the Dolphins have to run the ball. They’ve run it effectively the past two games, especially in Buffalo when they had a balanced attack. Buffalo plays five defensive backs in its base defense that allows that. We’ll see how New England plays it, but an effective running game would also …
4. Protect Bridgewater. He hasn’t played much this year and not since the Minnesota game 10 weeks ago. The Patriots rank third in the league with 50 sacks. Their 27 sacks at Gillette Stadium rank first in the league in home games. Matthew Judon ranks second in the league with 15.5 sacks. Josh Uche, a second-round draft pick in 2020, has 11.5 sacks. You get the picture? The Patriots can wreck an offense with their pass rush. The Dolphins rank 20th in sacks allowed (32), in good part because they only gave up two sacks in four November games. The other side: San Francisco’s Nick Bosa had three sacks, including a strip-sack. Dolphins tackle Terron Armstead didn’t practice again this past week with his regularly listed toe, pectoral, knee and hip issues. He’s listed as questionable but will play. They’ll need him — and everyone against the Patriots’ rush.
5. Shake off December. It’s Jan. 1 on Sunday. Not just a new month but a new year. Maybe that helps with the idea of leaving December in the past. Four consecutive losses have put this season up for grabs. But the Dolphins played well for the most part in Buffalo and did until Tagovailoa’s three, concussion-aided interceptions changed the Green Bay game. New England, too, is in a big slide, having lost four of five games.
()
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New Blue Bunny Scoopables and Sandwiches Will Be Available in a Variety of Iconic Flavors
Inspired by Stuffed Puffs® Filled Marshmallow Treats
CHICAGO, April 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Blue Bunny announced their exciting collaboration with Stuffed Puffs® Filled Marshmallows, to develop a new frozen snacking obsession. The first product to launch from the lineup in April 2023 will be Blue Bunny Stuffed Puffs scoopables (SRP: $4.48, available exclusively at Walmart), which combine Blue Bunny's signature frozen dairy dessert with Stuffed Puffs®' Filled Marshmallow experiences in three deliciously fun flavors, including S'mores, Cookies 'N Creme and Birthday Cake. The collaboration will also extend to sandwiches (SRP: starting at $4.98) in May 2023 – available at Walmart and in grocery stores – delivering a first-ever frozen experience that tastes like nights around the campfire with flavors like Classic S'mores and Salted Caramel S'mores.
"We are thrilled to be partnering with Stuffed Puffs® Filled Marshmallows and believe that the playful indulgence of our frozen treats combined with their mission to promote more fun-filled lives is a match made in confectionery heaven," said Jeremy Hrynewycz, Brand Marketing Director, Blue Bunny. "These disruptive innovations are the first of their kind by delivering a filled marshmallow experience in multiple frozen forms. We're excited for shoppers to be surprised and delighted with each bite!"
Stuffed Puffs® Filled Marshmallows was created to flip the traditional marshmallow on its head and fill it with real milk chocolate that melts from the inside out for s'mores. Since its founding, the company has expanded its portfolio to include a variety of snackable marshmallow filled treats in some of your favorite flavors to ensure everyone can find something they enjoy.
"We are delighted to collaborate with Blue Bunny to bring the essence of Stuffed Puffs treats to the freezer aisle," said Mike Tierney, Founder & CEO of Stuffed Puffs®. "As a massive ice cream fan, the new innovations will bring all the fun of our original fluffy marshmallow candy to everyone's favorite frozen treats that the whole family can enjoy together."
You can find these exciting new products at grocery and Walmart locations nationwide. To learn more about Blue Bunny's newest products, visit www.BlueBunny.com.
About Blue Bunny
For more than 80 years, Blue Bunny has been crafting delicious dairy desserts made with fun, fresh ingredients. Today, Blue Bunny offers over 75 varieties of frozen treats. Blue Bunny continues to innovate, bringing playfully indulgent frozen treats to freezers across the country, most recently with their perfectly indulgent Mini Bars and new take on soft serve – Twist Cones® and Soft scoopables. You can find fan favorites, like the Mini Swirls cones, their signature Bunny Tracks® scoopables, and their award-winning Load'd Sundaes® packed with tons of mix-ins, on shelves or being served near you! For more information, visit BlueBunny.com.
About Wells Enterprises
Wells Enterprises, Inc. is the largest privately held ice cream manufacturer in the United States. Founded in 1913 by Fred H. Wells and run by the Wells family for generations, the company is an independent operating company of the Ferrero Group, one of the global leaders in sweet packaged foods.
Wells produces more than 200 million gallons of ice cream per year and distributes products in all 50 states. Wells manufactures its signature brand Blue Bunny®, lower-calorie Halo Top®, the iconic Bomb Pop®, and Blue Ribbon Classics®.
Wells employs nearly 4,000 ice cream aficionados across the country. The company is headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa, where Wells has made Le Mars the "Ice Cream Capital of the World" as the largest manufacturer of ice cream in one location. Wells operates two manufacturing plants in Le Mars, Iowa, a manufacturing plant in Dunkirk, New York, and a manufacturing facility in Henderson, Nevada. Learn more at www.wellsenterprisesinc.com.
About Stuffed Puffs®
Stuffed Puffs® has redefined the marshmallow category as one of the only innovative brands to ever fill marshmallows with real milk chocolate. Founded in 2019 by Michael Tierney, Stuffed Puffs® believes that Life Is More Fun Filled™ and that is meant quite literally. Their Classic Stuffed Puffs® melt from the inside out for the perfect S'more or S'mores Indoors™. They also can be used as a staple ingredient in baking, cooking, hot cocoa, or devoured straight out of the bag. BIG bites™ are available in delicious flavors like S'mores, Cookies `n Crème, and Birthday Cake. Look for all flavors at Walmart locations nationwide. For more information, visit stuffedpuffs.com or Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
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SOURCE Blue Bunny | 2023-04-19T15:14:17+00:00 | kfyrtv.com | https://www.kfyrtv.com/prnewswire/2023/04/19/blue-bunny-teams-up-with-stuffed-puffs-filled-marshmallows-launch-new-line-frozen-treats/ |
The vice mayor of Pompano Beach apologized Tuesday after she was caught on camera cursing at a Fort Lauderdale officer during a traffic stop.
Vice Mayor Beverly Perkins offered her apology at a heated city commission meeting that saw one man get escorted out by deputies and a shouting match outside.
"If any exchange on my part in the conversation with the police officer is perceived as being disrespectful then I do apologize. Thank you," Perkins said.
The traffic stop involving Perkins happened in April but went viral after it was recently shared on social media.
Stay informed about local news and weather during the hurricane season. Get the NBC 6 South Florida app for iOS or Android and pick your alerts.
"I am Vice Mayor Beverly Perkins from the city of Pompano Beach, y’all need to find something better to f-----g do," Perkins tells the officer in the video before driving off.
The officer had issued Perkins a warning for speeding after she was clocked going 60 miles an hour in a 40-mile-an-hour zone.
Her behavior struck a nerve with many officers, and several attended Tuesday's meeting where the attorney for Fort Lauderdale's police union vented their frustrations.
Local
"As an elected official who believes that they are above the law, you do not deserve to be in office or hold the title of vice mayor," attorney Beverly Stern said.
Residents of Pompano Beach also chimed in during the meeting.
"What was going on behind her? She could’ve had a problem at home or something, we all say things that we don’t mean, and like she did, she is woman enough to apologize," one woman said.
"I understand that you apologized just a few moments ago, saying if it was perceived as being disrespectful, vice mayor, it was disrespectful," another woman said.
Sign up for our Breaking newsletter to get the most urgent news stories in your inbox. | 2022-07-12T22:34:13+00:00 | nbcmiami.com | https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/pompano-beach-vice-mayor-who-cursed-at-officer-offers-apology-at-heated-meeting/2803790/ |
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – As Hurricane Ian destroyed a cross-section of Florida, a Miami Beach hotel group announced that they are taking in hurricane evacuees for a discounted rate on Tuesday.
As a result of the devastation of the catastrophic storm, South Beach Group Hotels is making rooms for hurricane travelers available for $50 a night now through October 6th.
South Beach Group Hotels in Miami is extending an offer of a $50 nightly rate for travel now through October 6, 2022, for Hurricane Ian. We are pet friendly, no additional cost. Please be safe.
— South Beach Group (@SouthBeachGroup) September 27, 2022
For more information, please call 1-877-762-3477 or visit https://t.co/InCH04LDy9
It comes after many residents in Miami Beach and other surrounding areas are fearful of not being able to communicate with their families that live cross-state.
As it was reported, nearly 2.7 million people lost power from the effects of Hurricane Ian.
Miami Beach resident Leticia Gunn told Local 10 news that she was worried throughout the entire storm because she has family in Ft. Myers.
“I was talking to them and trying to keep them calm,”said Gunn “Shaking again just thinking about it — I was curled up on the sofa mad, crazy.”
Gunn told Local 10 that her family is okay and that she is able to communicate with them.
Sadly, many are unable to reach their family after homes are gone, streets unrecognizable and lives were taken.
“We all got together as a company and said we have to help our neighbors and we got together and said what can we do, said Chris Rollins of South Beach Group.
The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau announced that they are giving discounted hotel rates that run through the beginning of October.
Other South beach groups are participating with over a dozen of their hotels.
“It’s horrible--this could happen to us, said Rollins. We know we are vulnerable and I’m sure they would extend the same courtesy to us if we were in an evacuation mode.” | 2022-09-30T07:35:37+00:00 | local10.com | https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/09/29/floridians-forced-to-evacuate-because-of-hurricane-ian-are-being-welcomed-in-south-florida-hotels/ |
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Kenosha County supervisors have voted to oppose new gun restrictions and lift a ban on firearms in county buildings.
The vote comes a day after the Highland Park parade shooting that left seven dead and dozens injured in neighboring Illinois and a July Fourth shooting in Kenosha that killed one person and injured four others.
Supervisor Terry Rose was one of the board members opposed to loosening restrictions on firearms, citing the poor timing of the vote.
“We didn’t expect to have a shooting in Highland Park yesterday or shooting here in Kenosha on the Fourth of July. But it does demonstrate to you that guns are a problem in the community. And I don’t think that we’d contribute to the security of this county by allowing guns in county buildings,” Rose said during discussion of the resolution Tuesday.
The resolution lifts a 2011 ban on possession of firearms on county property except for law enforcement officers. The new policy excludes the county courthouse, jail and other law enforcement-related buildings, Wisconsin Public Radio reported.
The board also voted to declare Kenosha County a Second Amendment sanctuary. The resolution said the board opposes any legislation that would “infringe upon the Right of the People to keep and bear arms” and would consider those laws “unconstitutional and beyond lawful legislative authority.” | 2022-07-07T12:59:09+00:00 | seattlepi.com | https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Board-lifts-ban-on-guns-in-Kenosha-County-owned-17289695.php |
Follow the latest updates from our preps sports coverage team.
AT A GLANCE
Division: 1-1A
2021 record: 11-3, 7-0 (reached North final)
Head coach: Brad Kimerblin (1st year)
3 Players to Watch
Brewer Bailey
SS, Jr.
• Recorded 127 tackles, 10 TFL.
Gabe Malone
LB, Jr.
• Racked up 75 tackles, 11 TFL, 1 INT.
Carter Smith
LB/TE, Sr.
• Made 56 tackles, 3 sacks.
COACHING ‘EM UP
New head coach Brad Kimberlin has assembled his staff: Rolandus Cox (defensive coordinator), Andrew Herrington (offensive line), Walter Woodrick (defensive backs) and holdover Grant Smallwood (receivers). Kimberlin will run the offense.
OFFENSE
The departure of Kimberlin’s predecessor, Shaune Holiday, led to several key players transferring out, including 1,000-yard rusher Emmanuel Randle. But the Eagles picked up their own transfer in quarterback Mason Woodrick (Sr.), who previously played at Grace Christian Academy in Franklin, Tennessee.
Filling the hole at running back will be Jenkins Wells (Sr.) and Wyatt Wheeler (Jr.). Brewer Bailey (Jr.) will also get carries.
Veteran Carter Smith (Sr.) returns at receiver, and Hartfield Academy transfer Conner Elliott (Jr.) will play the slot.
The offensive line isn’t as deep as last season but still solid. It’s anchored by tackle Russ Blankenship (Jr.) and guard Jamie Tallant (Sr.).
DEFENSE
Bailey, who led TCPS in tackles last season, leads the defense from his strong safety position. Jackson Connor (Jr.) will hold down one of the cornerback spots.
Gabe Malone (Jr.) returns at inside linebacker and can cover a lot of field.
Blankenship and Tallant will be part of a four-man front.
SPECIAL TEAMS
Stuart Long (Jr.) is the area’s top returning kicker. Last season he made 4 of 7 field goals and recorded 20 touchbacks. He will also punt.
Kimberlin feels he has four or five players who can handle returns.
X-FACTOR
With so many key pieces gone from last year, team unity will be of utmost importance for TCPS.
COACH SPEAK
“I know our guys’ hearts are in it. They’re committed to it, they understand the circumstances, and they’re willing to work hard.” – Brad Kimberlin
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Error! There was an error processing your request. | 2022-08-20T05:59:30+00:00 | djournal.com | https://www.djournal.com/sports/high-school/tcps-football-high-school-preview-2022/article_ffe9201c-dee8-5bae-9ba5-8a958f7f4cbf.html |
Indonesia recovers bodies of 4 troops killed in Papua clash
By ALFIAN KARTONO and NINIEK KARMINI
Associated Press
JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) — Indonesian security forces have recovered the bodies of four government soldiers who were killed in a separatist attack while searching for a New Zealand pilot taken hostage by the rebels in Indonesia’s restive Papua region. The four elite army troops were killed on Saturday after attackers from the West Papua Liberation Army, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, ambushed 36 government soldiers in Nduga district in the mountainous Papua Highlands province. Papua military spokesman said Thursday that security forces found their bodies on Wednesday, including a body of a soldier who fell into a 49-foot-deep ravine, and were evacuated to a hospital in Timika, a mining city in neighboring Central Papua province. | 2023-04-20T07:07:03+00:00 | krdo.com | https://krdo.com/news/2023/04/19/indonesia-recovers-bodies-of-4-troops-killed-in-papua-clash/ |
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan became an honorary member of the Carolina Cowboys Tuesday.
During The PBR (Professional Bull Riders) Team Series Combine: The Future of Bull Riding 2023 event at the Davis Rodeo Ranch in Archdale, North Carolina The Carolina Cowboys named a bull for Mayor Vaughan; the bull's name is Mayor Greensboro.
The Carolina’s first professional bull riding team, the Carolina Cowboys, welcomed Mayor Vaughan during pre-event ceremonies for the team’s 2023-sanctioned combine.
"I definitely am looking forward to my first event. There has been no bull riding but maybe a little bull talking yeah but no bull riding. This will be a lot of fun," Mayor Vaughan said.
Carolina Cowboys owner, Richard Childress is looking forward to the number of franchise teams planning to come out.
"Had a great run in Winston last year. Just need a little bit more room and we're going to Greensboro this year. We're really excited it’s going to be eight franchise teams riding. You will have two teams riding against each other and see who comes out as the winner then, you play up for the win, so it going to be an exciting time," Childress said.
Mayor Vaughan is being recognized ahead of the second season of the PBR Team Series. The Carolina Cowboys will hold its second Cowboys Days homestand on September 22-24, 2023 at the Greensboro Coliseum. Tickets are on sale now and available through Ticketmaster.
More about the Carolina Cowboys
The PBR Team Series Combine: The Future of Bull Riding is a three-day event featuring the area’s top up-and-coming bull riders. The combine is designed to meet the league’s long-term objective of rider development while allowing new riders and unrestricted free agents the opportunity to showcase their skills to team coaches and general managers.
The Carolina Cowboys’ homestand will be the eighth event of the 10-event 2023 PBR Team Series regular season. The Cowboys are coached by PBR co-founder Jerome Davis. Under the leadership of General Manager Austin Dillon, the 2018 Daytona 500 Champion, the team is owned by Richard Childress and Jeff Broin.
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Amazon Fire TV: Search for WFMY to find the free app to add to your account. You can also add the app directly to your Fire TV through your Amazon account. | 2023-03-14T23:40:52+00:00 | wfmynews2.com | https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/news/local/greensboro-mayor-nancy-vaughan-becomes-carolina-cowboy/83-fd1996a8-783e-4f56-a16f-f53a4f473721 |
Top Heat vs. Knicks Players to Watch - Eastern Conference Semifinals Game 4
Bam Adebayo is one of the players to watch on Monday at 7:30 PM ET, when the Miami Heat (44-38) go head to head with the New York Knicks (47-35) at FTX Arena.
In the article below, we'll give you all the info you need to know about who to keep your eye on in this matchup on TNT.
How to Watch Heat vs. Knicks
- Game Day: Monday, May 8
- Game Time: 7:30 PM ET
- Arena: FTX Arena
- Location: Miami, Florida
Watch Adebayo, Julius Randle and tons of other NBA stars in action with a free trial to Fubo.
Heat's Last Game
The Knicks were beaten by the Heat on Saturday, 105-86. Jalen Brunson scored 20 in a losing effort, while Jimmy Butler led the winning squad with 28 points.
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Knicks' Last Game
Heat vs Knicks Additional Info
Heat Players to Watch
- Adebayo leads the Heat with 20.4 points per game and 9.2 rebounds, while also averaging 3.2 assists.
- Butler is tops on the Heat at 5.3 assists per game, while also putting up 5.9 rebounds and 22.9 points.
- Max Strus is averaging 11.5 points, 2.1 assists and 3.2 rebounds per contest.
- Caleb Martin averages 9.6 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game. At the other end, he averages 1 steal and 0.4 blocked shots.
- Kyle Lowry puts up 11.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists per contest, shooting 40.4% from the floor and 34.5% from downtown with 1.9 made 3-pointers per contest.
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Knicks Players to Watch
- Randle is averaging team highs in points (25.1 per game) and rebounds (10). And he is contributing 4.1 assists, making 46% of his shots from the field and 34.3% from 3-point range, with 2.8 triples per contest.
- Brunson is the Knicks' top assist man (6.2 per game), and he produces 24 points and 3.5 rebounds.
- Immanuel Quickley is averaging 14.9 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game, making 44.7% of his shots from the field and 36.9% from 3-point range, with 2.1 treys per contest.
- RJ Barrett gives the Knicks 19.6 points, 5 rebounds and 2.8 assists per contest. He also averages 0.4 steals and 0.2 blocked shots.
- Josh Hart gets the Knicks 9.8 points, 7.8 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game. He also averages 1.2 steals and 0.3 blocked shots.
Top Performers (Last 10 Games)
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | 2023-05-08T19:51:08+00:00 | wsfa.com | https://www.wsfa.com/sports/betting/2023/05/08/heat-vs-knicks-players-to-watch-eastern-conference-semifinals/ |
NEW YORK, June 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --
WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of common stock of Beyond Meat, Inc. (NASDAQ: BYND) between May 5, 2020 and October 13, 2022, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important July 10, 2023 lead plaintiff deadline.
SO WHAT: If you purchased Beyond Meat common stock during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.
WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Beyond Meat class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=16090 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than July 10, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.
WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.
DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, throughout the Class Period, defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Beyond Meat was unable to manufacture its meat substitutes at scale to the specifications of its business partners; (2) Beyond Meat suffered from widespread scaling issues, particularly misalignment and delayed decision-making, which led to corresponding production delays; (3) such issues were exacerbated by Beyond Meat's disjoined production lines; and (4) these problems led some business partners to balk at the high price of Beyond Meat's products and express doubts about the Company's ability to produce them at commercial scale. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.
To join the Beyond Meat class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=16090 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.
No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.
Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/.
Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Contact Information:
Laurence Rosen, Esq.
Phillip Kim, Esq.
The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.
275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tel: (212) 686-1060
Toll Free: (866) 767-3653
Fax: (212) 202-3827
lrosen@rosenlegal.com
pkim@rosenlegal.com
cases@rosenlegal.com
www.rosenlegal.com
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SOURCE Rosen Law Firm, P.A. | 2023-06-20T21:33:27+00:00 | newschannel10.com | https://www.newschannel10.com/prnewswire/2023/06/20/rosen-top-ranked-investor-counsel-encourages-beyond-meat-inc-investors-secure-counsel-before-important-deadline-securities-class-action-bynd/ |
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Facial hair on females can be a result of hormonal changes or it can be caused by genetics. Luckily, there are several options to remedy this annoyance, such as shaving, tweezing, waxing or laser hair removal. However, each comes with its own set of cons, with pain topping most lists. Depilatory creams offer a pain-free alternative but are full of chemicals, putting you at a higher risk for a reaction.
If you’re bothered by facial hair, there’s a pain-free facial hair remover that works by microscopically erasing hair through a spinning head that never actually touches the skin. It retails for only $19.95 — where it has more than 82,000 5-star ratings.
Currently rated as the No. 1 Best Seller in Body Hair Groomers on Amazon, the Finishing Touch Flawless Women’s Painless Hair Remover is battery-powered and portable for painless facial hair removal anytime, any place! Safe to use daily and right before applying makeup, this 18K gold plated device comes in a pretty rose gold finish, making it discreet. It looks like a tube of lipstick.
The Finishing Touch Flawless Women’s Painless Hair Remover is designed to be gentle enough to use daily, so you never need to worry about regrowth sneaking up on you. Dermatologist recommended and hypoallergenic, this facial hair remover is safe to use on sensitive skin and is said to be painless to use. Most people mentioned they could barely feel the hair removal, though the company claims it’s normal for the head of the device to warm up with use.
To remove hair, simply slide the switch on the side of the unit to the “on” position. You’ll see a light pop on when it’s been activated. Gently press the head of the unit flat against your skin and make small circular motions where you want to remove hair. It’s important not to angle the device. For superior results, the company recommends using it on hair that’s 1/4 inches in length or less.
People have used this facial hair remover for a wide variety of things, from shaving sideburns to upper lip peach fuzz to trimming unibrows to their entire face. Most users found it to be quicker and less painful than waxing. (It’s also more cost-effective than keeping regular salon appointments.)
Reviewer Anaka liked using it instead of manually shaving her face, which she’d been doing for a while.
“It’s super easy to use, absolutely painless, and does a great job!” she wrote. “Only thing is I do find I have to go over the same spot a few times on occasion when it doesn’t get all the hair in that area. But would still definitely recommend.”
While user Michelle wished she’d found this device sooner because it gives her a “baby smooth face” as opposed to the red and scraped aftereffects she dealt with using a different eyebrow trimmer.
Do you struggle with facial hair? Does a painless solution sound right for you?
This story originally appeared on Don't Waste Your Money. Checkout Don't Waste Your Money for product reviews and other great ideas to save and make money. | 2022-09-19T20:20:22+00:00 | tmj4.com | https://www.tmj4.com/facial-hair-remover-has-over-82000-5-star-ratings |
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