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Carrie Kahn is NPR's International Correspondent based in Mexico City, Mexico. She covers Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America. Kahn's reports can be heard on NPR's award-winning news programs including All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition, and on NPR.org. | 2022-12-15T22:13:21+00:00 | wbfo.org | https://www.wbfo.org/2022-12-15/brazilian-singer-anitta-has-her-sights-set-on-global-stardom |
After Typhoon Mawar battered Guam, ‘what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks’
HAGATNA, Guam (AP) - Guam residents and officials emerged from homes and shelters Thursday to survey the damage done to the U.S. Pacific territory after a long night of hunkering down as Typhoon Mawar’s howling winds shredded trees, flipped vehicles and knocked out utilities.
There were no immediate reports of deaths and injuries but the central and northern parts of the island received more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of rain as the eyewall passed. The island’s international airport flooded and the swirling typhoon churned up a storm surge and waves that crashed through coastal reefs.
“We are waking up to a rather disturbing scene out there across Guam. We’re looking out our door and what used to be a jungle looks like toothpicks — it looks like a scene from the movie ‘Twister,’ with trees just thrashed apart,” said Landon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“Most of Guam is dealing with a major mess that’s gonna take weeks to clean up,” he added.
The strongest typhoon to hit the territory of roughly 150,000 people since 2002, Mawar briefly made landfall around 9 p.m. Wednesday as a Category 4 storm at Andersen Air Force Base on the northern tip of the island, weather service officials said.
The scope of the damage was difficult to ascertain early on, with power and internet failures making communication on the far-flung island difficult. Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said in a video message late Thursday morning that roads were passable, but residents should avoid driving and stay home due to ongoing strong winds.
“We have weathered the storm,” Leon Guerrero said, adding that “the worst has gone by.”
As the typhoon crept slowly over the island, it sent solar panels flying and crumbled part of a hotel’s exterior wall to the ground, according to videos posted on social media. At what felt like its peak intensity, the winds screeched and howled like jets, and water swamped some homes.
Leah del Mundo spent the night with her family in their concrete home in Chalan Pago, in central Guam. She told The Associated Press they tried to sleep but were awakened “by violent shaking of the typhoon shutters and the whistling strong winds.”
“It’s not our first rodeo,” she said via text message. “We’ve been through worse. But we brace ourselves for the cleanup, repairs, restoration afterwards.”
Winds peeled back the roof of Enrique Baza’s mother’s house in Yona, allowing water to damage everything inside.
“My mom’s house didn’t escape,” he said, adding that his mother stayed with him in his concrete home during the storm.
He drove around in a pickup truck looking for supplies to repair his mother’s roof, but most stores were without power and only accepting cash. Many wooden or tin homes he passed were badly beaten or collapsed.
“It’s kind of a shock,” he said.
In Tumon, on Guam’s northeastern shore, winds tore a granite countertop from a hotel’s outdoor bar and tossed it into the air. Guests scrambled to stack chairs to brace the doors, and windows buckled and creaked.
“It was like a freight train going on outside,” said Thomas Wooley, who recounted how wind and rain pushed through the aluminum shutters of his family’s concrete home overlooking Tumon Bay. When day broke, he found their outdoor china cabinet toppled and its contents shattered on the ground. A chainsaw-wielding relative helped clear downed branches.
“We’ve got tons of work to do,” Wooley said. “It’s going to take a few days to clean it up.”
Guam’s weather service office in Tiyan said it would shut down operations in the morning for workers to get home to families and assess damage at their homes. Counterparts in the Honolulu office took over their duties.
In a sign of how much help Guam might need, the Navy ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group to head to the island to assist in the recovery effort, according to a U.S. official. The Nimitz, along with the USS Bunker Hill, a cruiser, and the USS Wayne E. Meyer, a destroyer, were south of Japan and expected to arrive in Guam in three or four days, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ship movements not yet made public.
Guam is about 3,800 miles (6,115 kilometers) west of Hawaii and 1,600 miles (1,575 kilometers) east of the Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
By early Thursday, Mawar was centered 75 miles (121 kilometers) northwest of Guam and 85 miles (137 kilometers) west of Rota, Guam’s neighbor to the north, moving west-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph).
Power was also knocked out for all of Rota, the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. said late Wednesday. The island has about 2,500 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The storm strengthened to 150 mph (241 kph) winds Thursday to regain its status as a super typhoon, according to the weather service. Mawar, a Malaysian word that means “rose,” was forecast to intensify further.
After moving away from Guam, the storm is expected to track generally northwest over a large, empty of expanse of ocean for days, and it could threaten Taiwan next week.
Guam is a crucial hub for U.S. forces in the Pacific, with about 6,800 service members assigned to the island, according to the Pentagon. Military officials evacuated personnel, dependents and employees, sent ships out to sea and moved aircraft off the island or secured them in protective hangars.
___
Kelleher reported from Honolulu. AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland, and Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor and Sarah Brumfield in Washington, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles, and Ed Komenda in Seattle contributed.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2023-05-25T04:48:30+00:00 | atlantanewsfirst.com | https://www.atlantanewsfirst.com/2023/05/25/after-typhoon-mawar-battered-guam-what-used-be-jungle-looks-like-toothpicks/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — During a recent performance at the Fonda Theater in Los Angeles, indie musician Caroline Rose disappeared from the stage and emerged moments later atop a table in the back of the room.
“We’re going to do a trust fall,” they told the audience, encouraging concertgoers to gather around before plunging backward into the sea of people and letting it carry her back to the stage.
The stunt was emblematic of her latest album — admittedly, their most unguarded yet — about a breakup and its aftermath. One to always hide behind humor, Rose said this level of vulnerability was new for her and that she is still processing whether it was even the right choice.
“When I’m writing the material, it feels really cathartic. And I’m like, ‘Wow, I made something beautiful from this really dark time.’ But performing the songs has been totally different,” they said of having to recount those dark memories over and over.
But despite having some “huge moments of regret,” the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist tends to think it was ultimately worth it. “Because I’m fine. And, you know, hopefully, my ex is fine,” they grinned sheepishly.
The thoroughgoing melancholy sound of “The Art of Forgetting,” Rose’s third studio album, is complemented by lyrics of grief and frustration, such as her allusion to arguments with her mom in the song, “Miami.”
“Your father and I are in the last stage of our lives, so for God’s sake, no more talk of how you imagine dying,” she sings of her mother’s grievances and counsel to be stronger.
But the breakup and her ways of dealing with it were not the only intimate aspects of the album. Woven between songs are voicemails from her grandmother, who died shortly after the album was finished and would often call in the months before her passing, sometimes forgetting she was on the phone.
“There were like these different motifs that came up throughout the album. One of them was this theme of memory,” they said. “She’s losing her memory and all she wants to do is like, remember everything. And I’m just like, ‘I want to forget my life ever happened.’”
Rose has always known they wanted their personal life to inform her art, though they initially struggled with how best to balance the two.
After graduating from Wellesley College with a degree in architecture, they formally began their music career in Americana, a combination of country, bluegrass and folk music. But they eventually left after struggling with how to be frank about their sexuality within the genre.
“It was really confusing too, because I was dating a guy and I’ve known I was gay since I was, like, three,” they recalled of how much more difficult it was to come out just a decade ago. “I would have been very alone in that world.”
But Rose’s departure from any genre would have perhaps been inevitable, given their rejection of what they refer to as the “McDonald’s hamburger mentality.”
“You develop a brand and then you sell that brand. I never really do that. All my records sound different,” she said. “So long as people are cool with that and just let me kind of do my thing and express myself in whatever way comes naturally in that moment, that’s really all I want. It’s just freedom.”
In keeping with her early days in music as a self-described itinerant street busker, Rose maintains they are motivated more by a love for art and self-expression than by money and fame. “I’m not really out there looking to fill stadiums,” they said.
That ethos frees her from a lot of what many consider to be part and parcel of the job nowadays, such as maintaining a strong social media presence or making songs that go viral on TikTok.
But their aversion to social media is not necessarily a reflection of Luddite tendencies. As both a producer and savvy instrumentalist, she knows music has and always will evolve with technology.
“Musicians are already kind of cyborgs,” she said when asked if they object to recording artists using artificial intelligence in production. “Everybody tunes their vocals. There’s machines all over music and there has been for decades now.”
Although ostensibly not utilizing their degree – Rose said if they could do it over, they would skip college and go straight into making music – she relied heavily on her knowledge of architecture and her days as a “theater nerd” to design the set for this tour.
The set design is just one aspect of the “experimental theater” experience Rose tries to create in their performances. And although she has enjoyed the high-level production of this album’s show compared to the DIY ethos of her last one, she is looking forward to this tour ending and to being “as far away” as possible from the memories she keeps reliving.
“I’ve always been a person with very unbridled emotions,” they said of the growing pains this album has laid bare. “I’ve learned so much in the process of the last few years of how to handle stuff better, difficult things and letting them go.” | 2023-06-09T17:41:27+00:00 | wivb.com | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/indie-artist-caroline-rose-is-proud-of-new-albums-vulnerability-despite-moments-of-regret/ |
MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s military acknowledged that a bomb accidentally dropped by one of its warplanes caused a powerful blast in a Russian city not far from Ukraine’s border, injuring two and scaring local residents.
Belgorod, a city of 340,000 located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the Russia-Ukraine border, has faced regular drone attacks during Russia’s current military operation in Ukraine. Russian authorities blamed the earlier strikes on the Ukrainian military, which refrained from directly claiming responsibility for the attacks.
The explosion late Thursday was far more powerful than anything Belgorod residents had experienced before. Witnesses reported a low hissing sound followed by a blast that made nearby apartment buildings tremble and shattered their windows.
It left a 20-meter (66-foot) -wide crater in the middle of a tree-lined avenue flanked by apartment blocks, damaged several cars and threw one vehicle onto a store roof. Two people were injured, and a third person was later hospitalized with hypertension, authorities said.
Immediately after the explosion, Russian commentators and military bloggers were abuzz with theories about what weapon Ukraine had used for the attack. Many of them called for strong retribution.
But about an hour later, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged that a weapon accidentally released by one of its own Su-34 bombers caused the blast. The ministry did not provide any further details, but military experts said the weapon likely was a powerful 500-kilogram (1,100-pound) bomb.
Military experts charged that the weapon appeared to have been set to explode with a small delay after impact that would allow it to hit underground facilities.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said local authorities decided to temporarily resettle residents of a nine-story apartment building while it was inspected to make sure it hadn’t suffered structural damage that rendered it unsafe to live in.
In an editorial gaffe, an anchor on Russian state television followed the news about the local authorities dealing with the explosion’s aftermath by declaring that “modern weapons allow Russian units to eliminate extremists in the area of the special military operation from a minimal distance.” The anchor looked visibly puzzled by the text that he had just read.
Russian commentators questioned why the warplane flew over Belgorod and urged the military to avoid such risky overflights in the future.
Some alleged that the bomb that was accidentally dropped on Belgorod could be one of a batch of modified munitions equipped with wings and GPS-guided targeting system that allows them to glide to targets dozens of kilometers (miles) away. The Russian air force has started using such gliding bombs only recently, and some experts say that they could be prone to glitches.
In October, a Russian warplane crashed next to a residential building in the port city of Yeysk on the Sea of Azov, killing 15 people. Yeysk hosts a big Russian air base with warplanes that fly missions over Ukraine.
Military experts have noted that as the number of Russian military flights have increased sharply during the fighting, so have crashes and misfires.
In another deadly incident in the Belgorod region, two volunteer soldiers fired at Russian troops at a military firing range, killing 11 and wounding 15 others before being shot dead. | 2023-04-21T23:53:11+00:00 | ksn.com | https://www.ksn.com/news/national-world/ap-international/russias-air-force-accidentally-bombs-its-own-city/ |
IoT Industry Veteran Poised to Drive Channel Growth Strategy
MCLEAN, Va., May 11, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Kajeet®, a leading provider of managed IoT solutions, announced the hiring of Esteban Ibarra as the company's vice president of channel sales. With more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry, Ibarra has held sales leadership positions with both startups and established global corporations, including Ingenu, Siemens, and Johnson Controls. Prior to joining Kajeet, Ibarra served as the senior vice president of IoT solution sales at KORE.
Throughout his career, Ibarra has specialized in solution design and complex sales environments, filling key roles in product development, channel management, and business strategy. With a focus on value-add enterprise solutions, Ibarra has developed a talent for consultative sales, product development and commercial operations. His comprehensive experience includes expertise in IoT, cloud, and network deployment, positioning him as an ideal candidate to lead Kajeet's channel efforts.
"We are pleased to have Esteban join Kajeet," said Ben Weintraub, chief executive officer at Kajeet. "His extensive experience in solution design, complex sales environments, and business strategy will be invaluable as we continue to grow our channel partnerships."
Ibarra is a dynamic result-driven sales strategist with proven success as a revenue growth driver while providing strong sales leadership in highly competitive markets. With extensive years of experience in direct and indirect channel sales and business development, Ibarra has a solid track record of securing key customers and increasing distribution and delivery to grow market share.
"I am honored to join the team at Kajeet," said Ibarra. "With a strong channel reputation already, I am eager to build on that growth and work with a dynamic group of dedicated team members to drive our strategy forward."
For more information on Kajeet's Channel business, please visit Kajeet Channel Partners.
About Kajeet:
Kajeet provides optimized IoT connectivity, software and hardware solutions that deliver safe, reliable, and controlled internet connectivity to nearly 3,000 businesses, schools and districts, state, and local governments, and IoT solution providers. Kajeet's private network solutions simplify private wireless to allow customers to design, install and manage their own private wireless networks. Kajeet is the only managed IoT connectivity services provider in the industry to offer Sentinel®, a scalable IoT management platform that includes visibility into real-time data usage, policy control management, custom content filters for added security, and multi-network flexibility. To learn more, visit kajeet.com.
Media Contact: Linda Jennings, Director of Corporate Communications
Phone: 248-521-3606
Email: ljennings@kajeet.com
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SOURCE Kajeet | 2023-05-11T20:38:41+00:00 | mysuncoast.com | https://www.mysuncoast.com/prnewswire/2023/05/11/kajeet-appoints-esteban-ibarra-vice-president-channel-sales/ |
Five Guys,Taco Bell receive honorable mentions for their commitment to food safety
CHARLOTTE, N.C., May 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Steritech, an industry leader in food safety and operational assessments, hosted the Excellence in Food Safety awards on Sunday. The awards, which were part of the Fast Casual "Movers and Shakers" ceremony held in Chicago, honored Wingstop as this year's winner of food safety excellence. Five Guys and Taco Bell were also recognized at the event, both receiving honorable mention awards.
Fast casual restaurants nationwide submitted nominations for the award, which were chosen and interviewed by a third-party research and assessment firm. The criteria included exhibiting foundational food safety behaviors, such as senior leadership commitment and engagement, food safety communications, defined standards and procedures, training, key performance indicators and scorecards, oversight programs and positive recognition.
"Food safety is a non-negotiable in the restaurant industry," said Doug Sutton, President of Steritech. "This award recognizes those brands that take their food safety measures beyond the minimal requirements, investing in their people, in order to build a culture of food safety excellence."
Winner of 2022 Excellence in Food Safety Award - Wingstop
Founded in 1994, Wingstop has quickly become one of the fastest growing fast casual wing destinations. With nearly 1,900 locations, Wingstop continues to expand its footprint, fueled by a mission to "serve the world flavor." Through a multi-tiered approach requiring participation from every Wingstop team member, including senior leadership and vendors, Wingstop has created the winning recipe, earning top honors in the 2022 Excellence in Food Safety awards.
"It is clear that Wingstop has worked to ensure food safety is incorporated into the foundation of their brand," said Sutton. "The youngest of the three finalists, Wingstop's growth and success is a true testament to the benefits of establishing a food safety culture that can grow and expand with the brand."
Honorable Mention - Five Guys
A veteran of achieving food safety excellence, Five Guys earned its third Excellence in Food Safety award in four years. With a targeted approach to food safety, Five Guys franchisees have the ability to develop custom food safety and operational checklists based on the restaurant's unique needs. Five Guys uses communication, training and technology to advance the company's food safety commitment, building a food safety culture worthy of a finalist spot in the 2022 Excellence in Food Safety awards.
Honorable Mention - Taco Bell
With more than 7,000 locations, Taco Bell is well-established in the fast casual restaurant industry. Led by a dedicated food safety team and supported by senior leadership, Taco Bell's commitment to food safety is highlighted through annual food safety calendars, weekly field reviews and a designated intranet service providing digital access to every food safety resource. This strong culture of continuous improvement earned Taco Bell an honorable mention.
Click here, to download the full 2022 Excellence in Food Safety report. For information and resources on food safety please visit, https://www.steritech.com/.
About Steritech
For more than 35 years, Steritech has been an industry leader and pioneer in providing best-in-class assessments and consulting services to companies to mitigate risks, drive operational consistency and help multi-location businesses accelerate growth.
With the experience gained as a pioneer in the food safety arena, Steritech strategically partners with multi-location businesses on delivering their ideal brand experience every time, everywhere. Through on-site coaching paired with robust data insights and reporting, Steritech helps close performance-impacting gaps to create customer experiences that drive growth, promote loyalty and trust, protect people and reduce risk.
Steritech employs more than 430 full-time Specialists across the United States and Canada. These experts are trained to understand and assess a brand's specific standards to provide insights to help close performance gaps and drive growth. Steritech is part of Rentokil North America, a leading business services company, operating across the United States and Canada.
For more information on Steritech, please visit www.steritech.com, call 800.868.0089 and connect on LinkedIn and Facebook.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Hannah Bernhard
Hannah.Bernhard@Rentokil.com
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SOURCE Steritech | 2022-05-24T17:49:01+00:00 | kwtx.com | https://www.kwtx.com/prnewswire/2022/05/24/steritech-presents-wingstop-with-excellence-food-safety-award/ |
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man found dead on a street in downtown Indianapolis early Tuesday had been stabbed, police said.
At around 1 a.m., police and medics received a report of a deceased person at 200 S. Illinois St. That’s at the intersection of Illinois and Georgia Streets, just south of Circle Centre Mall and directly east of the Indiana Convention Center.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers arrived and found the man, who had at least one stab wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene, IMPD says.
The man’s death is being investigated as a homicide. Police have not shared any information about the victim or any possible suspects.
Anyone with information was asked to contact Detective Christoper Winter by calling the IMPD Homicide Office at 317-327-3475 or by email at Christopher.Winter@indy.gov. Anonymous tips can be left with Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-TIPS. | 2023-01-24T12:44:12+00:00 | wishtv.com | https://www.wishtv.com/news/impd-man-found-dead-in-downtown-indianapolis-had-been-stabbed/ |
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Atlanta Braves right-hander Michael Soroka tossed six innings in his long-awaited return to the majors Monday night, pitching for the first time since twice tearing his right Achilles tendon.
He was called up from Triple-A Gwinnett to start against the Oakland Athletics on Memorial Day — a whopping 1,030 days between outings for the Braves’ 2020 opening-day starter. Soroka allowed four runs on five hits, struck out three and walked two. He left trailing 4-1.
The 25-year-old pitcher received cheers from Braves fans as he ran out to the mound for the bottom of the first to make his first big league appearance since Aug. 3, 2020, then calmly retired the side in order on 13 pitches. Left fielder Eddie Rosario made a leaping catch at the wall to start the second, robbing Aledmys Díaz of a home run as Soroka watched in delight.
“Let’s go, Michael!” one fan yelled.
Soroka didn’t allow a hit until Jonah Bride’s one-out single in the third but quickly loaded the bases with another single and a hit batter. He emerged unscathed after inducing Seth Brown’s inning-ending double play.
But then Soroka plunked Shea Langeliers with a pitch to begin the fifth and gave up an RBI single to Esteury Ruiz before Ryan Noda’s three-run homer put Oakland up 4-1.
Sean Murphy had staked Soroka to a 1-0 lead with an RBI single in the first against his former team.
Soroka went 13-4 with a 2.68 ERA in 2019 to finish second in NL Rookie of the Year voting and sixth for the Cy Young Award. He first tore his Achilles on Aug. 3, 2020, and then had more hard luck. A setback led to a follow-up surgery, then he tore the same Achilles again while rehabbing midway through the 2021 season.
This spring, Soroka had another complication in his comeback because of a hamstring injury.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2023-05-30T03:42:47+00:00 | localsyr.com | https://www.localsyr.com/sports-news/ap-braves-pitcher-michael-soroka-goes-6-innings-against-as-in-long-awaited-return-to-mound/ |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Delta jet went off an icy taxiway after landing in a snowstorm in Minneapolis but no passengers were injured, the airline said.
The Airbus A320 landed safely Tuesday night on a flight from Los Cabos, Mexico, Delta said in a statement. But the nose gear of the plane “exited the taxiway while turning toward the gate due to icy conditions,” it said.
It happened around 6:40 p.m. It took about an hour to get the 147 passengers off the plane and bused to the terminal, Jeff Lea, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, told the Star Tribune. The plane was stuck in the snow until sometime between 9 and 10 p.m., when crews removed it from the taxiway, close to the north end of the runway, Lea said.
The incident did not disrupt airport operations, he said. But unrelated to the stuck plane, the airport issued a “ground stop” at around 7:30 p.m., putting a temporary halt on planes operating on the airfield, because of the icy conditions. One runway reopened at around 9:15 p.m., Lea said.
The airport had received 10 inches (25 centimeters) of snow as of 6 a.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service said. Another 3 to 5 inches (7 to 12 centimeters) was possible. | 2023-01-04T15:46:30+00:00 | ourmidland.com | https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/Delta-airliner-goes-off-icy-taxiway-in-17693934.php |
WAC champion Aggies soccer team accustomed to winning close games
LAS CRUCES - Winning soccer games 1-0 is hard, but the New Mexico State women's soccer team has made it look easy this season.
Six of the Aggies' 13 wins this season have been 1-0 results, including three straight during last weekend's run to the Western Athletic Conference Tournament championship.
"We played Texas A&M straight up, Oregon straight up and they didn't go our way in the beginning, but if we played them again, I think it would be a different story," said Baarts, whose team has 11 shutout wins on the season. "We have a no fear mentality that has put us in position to do this. We have literally grinded wins. It makes you start to believe. We know we can defend teams to a place that we are tough to beat."
New Mexico State women's soccer wins first WAC title; NCAA first-round game on Friday
The Aggies hope to play another tight game in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday at No. 7 Mississippi State on ESPN+.
"Every single team that makes the NCAA Tournament comes there to win so every game is going to be a close game," said Aggies senior goalkeeper and WAC Tournament MVP Makenna Gottschalk. "I think showing that we can hold off with a 1-0 win with so many minutes left is the hardest thing to do. I think showing that we can do that in our own conference we can bring that to the NCAA Tournament."
Baarts said he had this year's team targeted as an Aggies team that could make a run to the NCAA Tournament in his fifth season as head coach.
Baarts is under contract through next season after signing an extension in January. He received $7,500 for the Aggies run to their first conference title and NCAA appearance.
"We knew that we had the right recipe for success from the back line to the keeper to the midfield," Baarts said. "We can sub and not drop. It's been a full team effort, which is what you circle. It's been an amazing run.
"When I took the position in the first place, the facilities and the administration and everything felt supported so there is no reason why we couldn't accomplish this."
The Aggies have a good mixture of veterans and younger players, but Gottschalk's development in her third season in Las Cruces has sparked the Aggies run.
"We have been solid in goal, but now we are extra special in goal," Baarts said. "I think what she brings is if I mess up, she is going to save us. It doesn't put that pressure on you that you have to be perfect. That mentality that she gives the back line, the back line gives to the midfield and the forwards."
Gottschalk has been in Las Cruces for three seasons, finally breaking through with a WAC Tournament run.
"Ever since I've been here, Rob and the coaching staff have developed this team and kind of gotten closer and closer," she said. "The girls that were already here and the recruits he brought in were all so ready for it."
Jason Groves can be reached at 575-541-5459 or jgroves@lcsun-news.com. Follow him on Twitter @jpgroves. | 2022-11-10T18:35:33+00:00 | lcsun-news.com | https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/sports/2022/11/10/wac-champion-aggies-soccer-team-accustomed-to-winning-close-games/69636928007/ |
Russia fires rockets at Ukraine, renews ‘dirty bomb’ claims
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia targeted more than 40 villages around Ukraine over the past day, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday, killing at least two people and sustaining the terror that forces people into air raid shelters each night.
Russian forces launched five rockets, 30 air strikes and more than 100 multiple-launch rocket system attacks on Ukrainian targets, the Ukrainian armed forces general staff said.
The attacks come as fears are growing that Russia, facing setbacks on the battlefield, might try to detonate a so called “dirty bomb,” a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste in an effort to sow terror or could go as far as tapping its nuclear arsenal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday monitored drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces that involved multiple practice launches of ballistic and cruise missiles in a show of force.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that the exercise was intended to simulate a “massive nuclear strike” launched in retaliation for a nuclear attack on Russia. The Biden administration said it received advance notice of the annual drills. NATO is also carrying out its own long-planned annual nuclear exercises in northwestern Europe.
Shoigu on Wednesday also called his counterparts from India and China to share Moscow’s concern about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb,’” according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Shoigu first made that allegation in calls with British, French, Turkish and U.S. officials. Britain, France and the United States rejected his claim as “transparently false.” Ukrainian authorities warned that Moscow might be preparing to use such a device in a false flag attack.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday called Russia’s unsubstantiated statements “absurd.”
“Allies reject this blatantly false accusation, and Russia must not use false pretexts to escalate the war further,” Stoltenberg told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
He underlined that the 30-nation military organization “will not be intimidated or deterred from supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense for as long as it takes.”
Despite the Western dismissals of the Russian claims, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Moscow had information about “an ongoing preparation in Ukraine for such a terror attack.”
“We will continue to energetically inform the global community about what we know to persuade it to take action to prevent such irresponsible action by the regime in Kyiv,” Peskov told reporters.
More conventional forms of warfare continued Wednesday in Ukraine.
A Ukrainian official reported that a Russian strike hit a gas station in the city of Dnipro, killing two people, including a pregnant woman. The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said four people wounded were hospitalized.
Mykolaiv, a southern port city near the war’s front line, is among the places where residents have lined up to receive rations of bread and canned food as increases in food prices and losses of income add to the wartime burdens of low-income households in Ukraine.
Missiles struck several buildings and neighborhoods in Mykolaiv on Tuesday, though it remained unclear if there were any casualties, according to local authorities. More strikes were reported early Wednesday.
The sole food distribution point in Mykolaiv allows each person to receive free bread once every three days. Many must walk long distances to collect the essential food items for their family.
“Bread and canned food is all I eat. It’s almost winter already, and it’s terrifying,” Anna Bilousova, 70, said.
For 74-year-old Olena Motuzko, getting the food is an ordeal because she has a disabled husband she must leave alone for hours at a time.
Others are trying to survive by going underground at night.
A 73-year-old woman spends her days in her home, cooking and washing, and every evening around 6 p.m. heads underground to a small makeshift sleeping area in a basement with several members of her family. She has been doing that every night since the war began in late February.
Valentyna, who asked that her last name not be used for security reasons, leaves her home unwillingly but heads into the shelter out of fear of the strikes that hit almost evening night, describing the sound of incoming attacks as “very scary.”
“My nervous system can’t cope with it,” she said, sitting in her makeshift bedroom.
In the shelter, she and her family members count the blasts they hear and then check their phones to learn where they hit.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-10-26T16:31:56+00:00 | newschannel6now.com | https://www.newschannel6now.com/2022/10/26/russia-fires-rockets-ukraine-renews-dirty-bomb-claims/ |
No matter the level, volleyball is a sport that brings out fun, competitive play, team building and athleticism. What you wear to the court counts. A simple pair of tennis shoes or running shoes does the trick for a casual game. However, if you’re looking to upgrade your game or if you play on an amateur or professional team, tennis shoes don’t cut it. Your best bet is a pair of volleyball shoes designed for the type of movement and force that the sport demands.
Shop this article: Adidas Ligra 7 Volleyball Shoes, Nike Zoom HyperAce 2 Volleyball Shoes and ASICS Gel-Rocket 10 Volleyball Shoes
What kind of shoes are volleyball shoes?
What sets volleyball shoes apart from other athletic footwear is their design, which focuses on lateral motion. Unlike running shoes, which prioritize cushioning and shock absorption, or basketball shoes, which can handle swift forward motion, volleyball shoes have a different aim. They’re made to support the rapid lateral movements you make during the game. These sideways motions are taxing on your feet, and good volleyball shoes support your legs while also helping you go in for a spike.
Sections of the sole
A volleyball shoe’s sole has three sections: an upper section, midsole and rubber sole.
- Upper section: Made out of a nylon mesh material, this front section is breathable enough to keep your foot cool. The material should be wicking and reduce the moisture caused by sweating.
- Midsole: The midsole is thick in comparison to most shoes. Volleyball players stay on the balls of their feet for most of the game, so midsole support helps take some weight off the front of your foot. Additionally, it helps you make quick movements and jumps.
- Rubber sole: A hard gum rubber sole gives good traction, helping you move seamlessly on the court. This sole support also helps lower your risk of ankle injuries. However, because it’s made of a special material, it wears down over time and should never be worn off the gym floor.
Material
The soles of volleyball shoes consist of a special type of gum. It’s non-marking, solid enough to give good ground gripping, and supportive enough to help protect your ankles. A mix of foam cushion and mesh materials make up the other two parts of the shoe.
Top brands
Notable brands for volleyball shoes include Adidas, ASICS and Nike. Be sure to consider consumer reviews for each shoe you consider. Not all volleyball shoes are created equal.
FAQ
Is it OK to wear basketball shoes in place of volleyball shoes?
A. Basketball shoes are better stand-in shoes for volleyball than tennis or running shoes. The demands of basketball and volleyball are similar. The movements of volleyball may be close to that of basketball, but the lateral motion may be more intense depending on how you play. Additionally, the give of the sole of the shoe is different as well.
Do volleyball shoes offer ankle support?
A. There is some degree of ankle support in most volleyball shoes. However, for those with previous ankle injuries or weak ankles, consider ankle braces to supplement your shoes.
How long does a quality pair of volleyball shoes last?
A. The life span of your athletic shoes depends on how often you play in them. As a general rule, if you wear one pair of shoes exclusively and play four to five times a week in them, a good pair of volleyball shoes should last at least a full season before wearing out. You can tell your shoes are wearing down when they start to lose traction in the soles; that’s a sign you need to have them resoled or replaced. If you’re more of a casual player and only play once a week, your shoes can last for years.
Can I wear my volleyball shoes off the court?
A. Don’t wear your volleyball shoes when you’re not playing. The gym floor is the only place they belong. Walking around on other surfaces, especially rough pavement, rubs off the important gum sole, aging your shoes prematurely. Be sure to bring a change of shoes for before and after your volleyball training sessions and games.
Can I wear volleyball shoes to play beach volleyball?
A. You can, but it’s much easier not to wear any shoes at all for beach volleyball.
The best volleyball shoes
Adidas Ligra 7 Volleyball Shoes
This well-balanced indoor volleyball shoe offers versatility and all-around support. The sole is resistant to abrasion and offers a solid grip while not being too heavy.
Sold by Amazon
Nike Zoom HyperAce 2 Volleyball Shoes
With patented Lightweight Zoom Wear cushioning to help you bounce higher combined with steady traction to keep you balanced, this pair of shoes offers the best of both worlds.
Sold by Amazon
ASICS Gel-Rocket 10 Volleyball Shoes
The cushion, foam and mesh on these shoes all prioritize comfort above all else, helping keep you refreshed no matter how long you play. They’re available in eight color combinations.
Sold by Amazon
Adidas Crazyflight Volleyball Shoes
Don’t let this shoe’s sleek, minimalist design fool you. It’s got ample midsole support for the ball of your foot while also offering breathable mesh to keep your feet cool.
Sold by Amazon
Under Armour Women’s HOVR Highlight Ace Volleyball Shoes
The extended ankle collar provides built-in ankle support for those who need it. Its sole is abrasion-resistant, and the sock liner molds to your foot to prevent slipping around in your shoe.
Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | 2023-07-09T05:24:35+00:00 | upmatters.com | https://www.upmatters.com/reviews/br/sports-fitness-br/footwear-br/the-best-volleyball-shoes-to-step-up-your-game/ |
NEW YORK — A host-less, pre-taped and muted MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday became the first big awards show to air during the screenwriters' strike, offering a commercial-heavy broadcast featuring lots of past recycled live clips.
“Scream VI” won the trophy for best movie, holding back competition from “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Elvis,” “Nope,” “Smile” and “Top Gun: Maverick.” In a pre-taped response, the killer Ghostface was humble: “To all the fans that voted, you finally answered my question: What’s your favorite scary movie?”
“The Last of Us” was crowned best TV show, beating the likes of “Stranger Things,” “The White Lotus,” “Wednesday” and “Yellowjackets.” Pedro Pascal accepted the award and said he and the cast and creators were standing in solidarity with the striking writers.
Tom Cruise took home the best performance in a movie for “Top Gun: Maverick,” beating Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Michael B. Jordan and Keke Palmer. In a pre-taped response, Cruise was seen piloting a jet and thanking the fans, while also plugging his next “Mission: Impossible” film.
Jenna Ortega won best performance in a TV show for “Wednesday," beating Aubrey Plaza, Christina Ricci, Riley Keough, Sadie Sink and Selena Gomez. “Stranger Things” won for best kick-ass cast.
“The Kardashians” won best docu-reality show, the best breakthrough performance went to Joseph Quinn of “Stranger Things,” and Pascal won for best hero for “The Last Of Us.” Pascal also won half the best duo prize with co-star Bella Ramsey.
Best comedic performance went to Adam Sandler, for “Murder Mystery 2,” and “Scream VI” won for best fight, with Ghostface again thanking the voters: “It's about time someone finally appreciated my work.”
Host Drew Barrymore had dropped out in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America — later winning best host — and the show’s red carpet was rolled up. Faced with a picket from the guild, MTV scrapped the live event entirely.
While Barrymore wasn’t there, she left plenty of sponsored bits, one with Cheetos popcorn and another pretending to play younger sister Skipper in the upcoming movie “Barbie.” She was also in a commercial for Pluto TV and a spoof of “Wednesday.” She kicked off the show reprising her role as Josie Grossie from “Never Been Kissed," trying to smooch several nominees in carefully edited comedic moments.
Jennifer Coolidge received the Comedic Genius Award on tape and gave a shoutout to striking writers, saying almost all great comedy starts with great writers.
“I stand here before you tonight side by side with my sisters and brothers from the WGA,” she said. Coolidge also later won for best frightened performance for “The White Lotus.”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” won for best competition series, and the recipients urged protection for drag acts, while the best kiss award went to Madison Bailey and Rudy Pankow from “Outer Banks." Many awards produced no winner's response.
MTV filled the show with dozens of old clips, like an all-star 2001 performance of “Lady Marmalade," Lizzo belting out her hit “Juice” in 2019 or Rihanna in 2002 singing “Umbrella,” as well as other genius award speeches from previous winners like Melissa McCarthy, Kevin Hart and Jack Black. There was also a sneak peek from an upcoming episode of “Yellowjackets” and a clip from “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.” It was sometimes hard to determine what was new and what was old.
“Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me” was named best music documentary, “Come Back Home” in “Purple Hearts” was voted best musical moment, and Taylor Swift's “Carolina” won best song. Elizabeth Olsen in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was named best villain. | 2023-05-08T08:01:28+00:00 | king5.com | https://www.king5.com/article/news/nation-world/mtv-movie-tv-awards-ditches-live-event-loses-host-drew-barrymore/507-7a307224-24c1-406a-9522-1d62a36f8550 |
High interest rates are making a tough housing market even tougher.
Seattle-area homebuyers, especially those looking for their first house, are feeling the pressure of soaring interest rates on top of already-high prices.
Despite a slight dip, the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hovered at nearly 6.7% this week, about twice the rate at the start of the year. And while the housing market is cooling off, buyers say home prices haven’t fallen enough to feel like they can afford the interest rates.
The result: “We are just kind of holding off,” said Danielle Crawford, who is looking to buy a home in Puyallup. Crawford hopes that prices will drop a bit more or that the interest rate will come down.
“I don’t know that either one of those things is going to be happening any time soon,” Crawford said.
High mortgage rates are sidelining buyers like Crawford and decreasing the heated competition that fueled the local housing market for the last two years. That has led to a cooldown: fewer people are buying houses and prices in King County dropped 12.4% since this spring.
Yet, affording a home is still a challenge.
The median single-family home in King County sold for $875,000 in September, up 6% from a year ago, according to new data released Thursday by the Northwest Multiple Listing Service.
Median prices were $538,000 in Pierce County, $735,000 in Snohomish County and $539,997 in Kitsap County.
Prices in all four counties ticked down 2-3% from August and were up 6-9% from last year. At this time last year, prices were up between 10% and 19% year over year. This April, King County prices were up nearly 20% from a year earlier.
In the Puget Sound region, twice as many homes were sitting on the market at the end of September as at the same time last year.
Still, the market is not balanced by industry standards. It would take about two months to sell all the single-family homes for sale in King County at the current demand, according to a measure known as months of inventory. The listing service considers four to six months a balanced market, a level the market hasn’t seen in at least six years.
Crawford and her husband struggled to compete in the frenzied market of the last few years, so they waited to buy, she said. But once they began their search, interest rates were chipping away at their buying power.
The family is hoping to find a three-bedroom home with room in the yard for a swingset for their twin boys, and they don’t want to exceed a monthly payment of $2,600. That put their budget at around $375,000. Finding homes at that price point has been “incredibly difficult,” Crawford said.
The median home price in the Puyallup area last month was $539,500, up 5.7% from last year.
“Although the interest rate has gone up significantly, the home prices have only come down a little bit, so that changes everything for us,” Crawford said.
The family can stretch its budget, she said, but “we still have to buy food. We still have to pay for day care.”
Buyers all over the country are facing similar obstacles. Nationally, the typical monthly mortgage payment on a new home was up 83% in August from the same time in 2019, according to Zillow. If rates hit 7%, the monthly payment would be $4,035 on a typical home in the Seattle area, which includes King, Piece and Snohomish counties in Zillow’s analysis.
First-time buyers are hardest hit by the rate hikes, said Keller Williams agent Bobby Brown.
“They don’t have a great deal of savings or a lot of flexibility to be able to go from wanting to buy a $500,000 house to a $600,000 house,” Brown said.
A percentage point increase can reduce a home shopper’s buying power by around 10%. “That’s significant to all of those people who were a month ago on the edge,” Brown said.
While shopping for a home in Rainier Beach, John Flodin watched the loan amount he qualified for drop from $500,000 to $425,000 over the course of a few weeks as interest rates climbed. That made an already difficult search for a starter home even harder.
Hoping to buy a single-family home in order to build equity for retirement, Flodin has run into a slim supply of listings in his price range.
He is now looking farther out, in Kitsap County, SeaTac, Burien and Des Moines.
Median home prices were up 6.9% in September from a year ago in Southwest King County, including areas such as Federal Way, Burien and Des Moines. Prices were up 5.9% in Seattle and 3% on the Eastside.
“Last year, I was really kind of thinking this was my opportunity. And now I’m really feeling somewhat hopeless,” Flodin said.
Flodin thought about tapping into his 401(k), but that fund is already suffering from the stock market downturn. With a good salary, decent credit and about a 5% down payment, Flodin knows others are squeezed even more.
“If this is the kind of experience somebody like myself is having, there are a lot of other people in this city, in this region that are going to be unable to make this work, ever,” Flodin said.
For buyers wondering whether rates might decline, allowing them to agree to a higher rate now and refinance, Brown urges caution. “You have to be able to weather the storm,” he said, warning that lower rates might not be on the horizon soon.
In a news release from the listing service, Windermere Chief Economist Matthew Gardner predicts home prices will remain up year over year until the spring, when they will “start to trend negative” for “a short period of correction.”
Some buyers are finding the upside of the current market.
A seller recently accepted Air Force veteran Kevin Colewell’s offer on a house near Spanaway and agreed to pay closing costs, he said. “The tables have turned and now it’s beneficial for people who qualify for a VA loan to get out there and look for a house they want,” Colewell said.
Sellers are adjusting their prices and negotiating with buyers. Others are putting off listing their homes for sale, brokers say.
If more sellers decide to hold off, it could exacerbate the region’s tight housing inventory, said Wendy Carrington, a John L. Scott agent in Seattle.
“We just have such a scarcity of supply overall,” Carrington said, “and we already had that issue before these other factors.” | 2022-10-07T03:16:22+00:00 | seattletimes.com | https://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/soaring-interest-rates-make-buying-a-home-in-seattle-even-harder/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_seattle-news |
FORESTHILL, Calif. (AP) — A huge Northern California wildfire was still growing and threatening thousands of mountain homes across two counties, but firefighters were making some progress against the flames thanks to cooler weather, authorities said Sunday.
The Mosquito Fire in foothills east of Sacramento spread to nearly 65 square miles (168 square kilometers), with 10% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
“Cooler temperatures and higher humidity assisted with moderating some fire activity,” but higher winds allowed the flames to push to the north and northeast, according to a Cal Fire incident report Sunday.
More than 5,800 structures in Placer and El Dorado counties were under threat and some 11,000 residents of communities including Foresthill and Georgetown were under evacuation orders.
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In Southern California, cooler temperatures and rain brought respite to firefighters battling the massive Fairview Fire about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles after sweltering heat last week.
The 44-square-mile (114-square-kilometer) blaze was 45% contained Sunday. The fire has destroyed at least 30 homes and other structures in Riverside County. Two people died while fleeing flames last Monday.
The southern part of the state welcomed the cooler weekend weather as a tropical storm veered off the Pacific Coast and faded, helping put an end to blistering temperatures that nearly overwhelmed the state’s electrical grid.
Thunderstorms could linger in mountainous areas of greater Los Angeles on Sunday. But after Hurricane Kay made landfall in Mexico last week it quickly was downgraded and weakened further until it largely disappeared, forecasters said.
The Mosquito Fire has covered a large portion of the Northern Sierra region with smoke. California health officials urged people in affected areas to stay indoors where possible. Organizers of the Tour de Tahoe canceled the annual 72-mile (115-km) bicycle ride scheduled Sunday around Lake Tahoe because of the heavy smoke from the blaze — more than 50 miles (80 km) away. Last year’s ride was canceled because of smoke from another big fire south of Tahoe.
The Mosquito Fire’s cause remained under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric said unspecified “electrical activity” occurred close in time to the report of the fire on Tuesday.
Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in state history.
And the rest of the West hasn’t been immune. As of Saturday, there were 18 large fires burning in Oregon and Washington, leading to evacuations and targeted power outages near Portland as the challenge of dry and windy conditions continued in the region. According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, there are nearly 406 square miles (1,051 square kilometers) of active, uncontained fires and nearly 5,000 people on the ground fighting them in the two states. | 2022-09-11T18:43:52+00:00 | wcfcourier.com | https://wcfcourier.com/news/national/homes-still-threatened-progress-reported-on-california-fire/article_041e2071-b9b3-5ad6-bc8e-bd6fe7f3805d.html |
James Cameron says he figured days ago that the Titan submersible imploded, but hoped he was wrong
By Aya Elamroussi, CNN
(CNN) — Filmmaker and deep-sea explorer James Cameron says he figured soon after learning a Titanic-bound submersible was missing it had imploded and its occupants were dead – days before officials announced that very outcome.
After hearing on Monday the “Titan” craft had disappeared, Cameron connected with people he knows in the deep-sea diving community and was told the submersible had lost communication and tracking simultaneously, he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday evening.
“The only scenario that I could come up with in my mind that could account for that was an implosion – a shock wave event so powerful that it actually took out a secondary system that has its own pressure vessel and its own battery power supply, which is the transponder that the (mother) ship uses to track where the sub is,” Cameron said on “Anderson Cooper 360.”
Cameron, who directed the hit 1997 film “Titanic” and has made 33 dives to the Titanic wreckage, said he then talked with other people and “got confirmation that there was some kind of loud noise that was consistent with an implosion event.”
“That seemed to me enough confirmation that I let all of my inner circle of people know that we had lost our comrades, and I encouraged all of them to raise a glass in their honor on Monday,” Cameron said.
The submersible was carrying five people when it dove Sunday toward the Titanic wreckage in the North Atlantic. It lost contact with its mother ship an hour and 45 minutes into the journey, sparking a dayslong search.
On Thursday, US authorities announced searchers found the Titan’s debris on the seabed, indicating the vessel had imploded and the five aboard had perished.
The US Navy had detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion on Sunday in the general area where the vessel was diving, a senior Navy official told CNN on Thursday.
However, the sound of the implosion was determined to be “not definitive,” the official said, and search efforts continued. The Wall Street Journal was first to report about the acoustic signature picked up by the Navy.
Cameron was “hoping against hope” his conclusion was wrong, “knowing in my bones that I wasn’t (wrong),” he said Thursday.
“I couldn’t think of any other scenario in which a sub would be lost where it lost comms and navigation at the same time, and stayed out of touch, and did not surface,” Cameron said.
Responding to Cameron’s comments, OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Sohnlein urged people not to speculate about the cause of the accident.
“[Cameron] himself has pushed the limits of technology and operations in pursuit of his expeditions so it kind of comes with the territory and I kind of again wish we would hold off judgment and just see exactly what the data comes back with,” Sohnlein told “CNN This Morning” Friday.
“The deep ocean exploration community is a small community. We generally all know each other and in general we respect each other,” Sohnlein added. “Jim’s obviously a very experienced ocean explorer and also well regarded but as he knows, and we all know, working underwater in these conditions is a very risky operation.”
Cameron – who also directed the 1989 thriller “The Abyss” – is an experienced deep sea explorer who in 2012 dove to the Mariana Trench, considered one of the deepest spots in the Earth’s oceans at almost 7 miles below the surface, in a 24-foot submersible vehicle he designed called the Deepsea Challenger.
All five people who were abroad the Titan – Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet – were killed in the implosion, officials said Thursday.
Cameron said he hopes the tragedy doesn’t discourage tourists from exploring the ocean.
“I’m not worried about exploration, because explorers will go,” Cameron said. “I’m worried that it has a negative impact on, let’s say, citizen explorers, tourists. … These are serious people with serious curiosity willing to put serious money down to go to these interesting places – and I don’t want to discourage that.”
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CNN’s Rob Frehse, Sabrina Souza and Oren Liebermann contributed to this report. | 2023-06-23T14:19:38+00:00 | krdo.com | https://krdo.com/news/2023/06/23/james-cameron-says-he-figured-days-ago-that-the-titan-submersible-imploded-but-hoped-he-was-wrong/ |
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — An infant was found dead upon arriving to a Greek island on a boat carrying 34 other migrants, authorities announced Saturday.
The coast guard said in a statement that a patrol vessel found the boat early Friday on a rocky shore near the town of Plomari on the island of Lesbos, close to the Turkish coast.
An ambulance arrived on the scene soon after, but a doctor merely confirmed the infant’s death.
Authorities were investigating, and an autopsy was pending. The coast guard did not say where the migrants were from.
Migrants make boat voyages year-round from Turkey to Greece and even as far as Italy. | 2022-12-17T23:57:11+00:00 | wdtn.com | https://www.wdtn.com/news/u-s-world/ap-international/ap-migrant-infant-found-dead-on-arrival-to-greek-island/ |
A Pennsylvania candy-maker ignored warnings of a natural gas leak at its chocolate factory and bears responsibility for a subsequent explosion that killed seven workers and injured several others, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
The family of Judith “Judy” Lopez-Moran, a 55-year-old mother of three, filed what their lawyers called the first wrongful-death suit against R.M. Palmer Co. after the March 24 blast in West Reading.
Workers smelled natural gas that day and notified Palmer, but the 75-year-old, family-owned company “did nothing,” the lawsuit said.
“The gas leak at the factory and the horrific explosion it caused was foreseeable, predictable, and preventable,” the suit said. “Tragically, Judith Lopez-Moran’s death and suffering were preventable.”
The lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, also names gas utility UGI, which declined comment. A message was sent to Palmer seeking comment.
Authorities are still investigating the cause of the explosion, which leveled a building in the factory complex and damaged several other buildings in West Reading, a small town 60 miles (96 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia.
Federal safety officials previously confirmed they were studying the role of a natural gas pipeline in the blast. The National Transportation Safety Board has called what happened a natural gas explosion and fire, citing preliminary information from local authorities and the utility about the pipeline.
Palmer officials should have evacuated immediately after being told of the natural gas odor but instead “made a representation to the factory workers, including Judith Lopez-Moran, that the factory was safe and that there was no gas leak,” the suit said.
Palmer, according to the suit, “intended to mislead the factory workers … so that the factory workers would continue working and so that factory downtime would be minimized.”
Patricia Borges, who survived the blast and was a friend and co-worker of Lopez-Moran, previously recounted how her arm caught fire as flames engulfed the building. She then fell through the floor into a vat of liquid chocolate. Borges told The Associated Press how she and others had complained about a natural gas odor about 30 minutes before the factory blew up.
Palmer has offered condolences but has otherwise said little since the explosion.
The law firm representing Lopez-Moran’s family, Saltz Mongeluzzi Bendesky, said it represents more than a dozen victims of the explosion.
The firm’s investigation, in part, will seek to determine whether UGI’s meters had signaled a leak in the pipeline and whether soil around the pipeline was discolored, indicative of a gas leak, said the family’s attorney, Andrew Duffy.
“We hope to use the lawsuit to find out exactly what our family wants us to find out, which is what happened, who should be held accountable, and most important to them, how to prevent this from happening to any other family ever again,” Duffy said in an interview. | 2023-04-12T14:53:42+00:00 | mytwintiers.com | https://www.mytwintiers.com/news-cat/national/suit-chocolate-factory-ignored-warning-before-deadly-blast/ |
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A wolf pack in northeastern Washington state has killed another calf, forcing the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine whether to cull the pack, officials said.
The Togo pack of wolves has attacked three calves over the past 30 days, surpassing the threshold of livestock kills for the department to consider killing one or two wolves to curb the livestock killing, The Capital Press reported.
The other killings of livestock were confirmed on May 17 and May 18. The latest calf killed belonged to a different rancher than the first two that were attacked, officials said.
The Togo pack territory in Ferry County is the only one that Fish and Wildlife classifies as a “chronic-conflict zone” because of the frequency of livestock attacks.
Fish and Wildlife Director Kelly Susewind has authorized culling the pack five times since 2018 and killed one wolf in the five attempts.
Fish and Wildlife officials met Thursday to discuss a recommendation for Susewind.
Susewind authorized culling the pack last summer. The department didn’t kill a wolf, but said the ground search for the pack may have discouraged it from attacking more cattle.
The pack has been attacking in private pastures patrolled by ranchers and state-funded range riders, which the department says is the best non-lethal way to prevent wolf-livestock conflicts.
If the department decides on lethal control, it typically tries to kill one or two wolves and then suspends action to determine whether livestock attacks stop.
The department counted seven wolves in the Togo pack at the end of 2021. | 2022-06-09T23:52:18+00:00 | expressnews.com | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Wolf-pack-kills-calf-forcing-decision-on-lethal-17231670.php |
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Abortion clinics in Louisiana can continue operating until a lawsuit challenging the state’s near total ban on abortions is resolved, a state judge ruled Thursday.
The order from state district judge Donald Johnson in Baton Rouge is the latest development amid a flurry of court challenges to state “trigger” laws that were crafted in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established abortion rights, which it did on June 24.
For weeks, access to abortion has been flickering in Louisiana where there are three clinics. A statewide abortion ban has taken effect twice and been blocked twice since the Supreme Court’s ruling in June. Johnson had entered a temporary hold on enforcement July 11, pending arguments in the case that were heard Monday.
Johnson's new ruling allows clinics to continue providing abortion procedures while a lawsuit filed by a north Louisiana abortion clinic and others continues.
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The plaintiffs in the lawsuit don’t deny that the state can now ban abortion as a result of the Supreme Court ruling. Instead, they contend that Louisiana now has multiple, conflicting trigger mechanisms in the law. They also argue that state law is unclear on whether it bans an abortion prior to a fertilized egg implanting in the uterus.
And while the law provides an exception for “medically futile” pregnancies in cases of fetuses with fatal abnormalities, the plaintiffs noted it gives no definition of the term and that state health officials have not yet provided a list of conditions that would qualify as medically futile.
In Louisiana, there is little question that an abortion ban will eventually be in effect in the state where the Legislature has long been dominated by abortion opponents. But the court case has resulted in more time for the state's three abortion clinics — in Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans — to stay open.
State Attorney General Jeff Landry said Monday, prior to the ruling, that he anticipates the case will ultimately end up before the Louisiana Supreme Court. | 2022-07-21T16:01:21+00:00 | wcfcourier.com | https://wcfcourier.com/news/national/louisiana-abortion-ban-again-blocked-by-judge/article_b8ec49e3-2d5e-571c-9e38-45cc3f3f3251.html |
NPR's Juana Summers speaks with Erica Suter, lawyer for Serial subject Adnan Syed, about the overturning of Syed's conviction in the murder of Hae Min Lee.
Juana Summers is a political correspondent for NPR covering race, justice and politics. She has covered politics since 2010 for publications including Politico, CNN and The Associated Press. She got her start in public radio at KBIA in Columbia, Mo., and also previously covered Congress for NPR. | 2022-09-20T22:47:37+00:00 | nepm.org | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/national-world-news/2022-09-20/adnan-syeds-lawyer-reacts-to-overturned-conviction |
Daughter donates liver to save her mother’s life
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (WRAL) – A woman in North Carolina gave her mom the gift of a lifetime for Mother’s Day this year.
Meredith Stiehl suffered from non-alcoholic sorosis of the liver for more than eight years.
Doctors told her things were getting serious and she may have a limited time to live and to find a donor.
Eventually, she was offered the option to do a living donor transplant, the first of its kind at University of North Carolina hospitals in 20 years.
Her daughter, Kenan Stiehl, took matters into her own hands and used a kit from Amazon to verify she was a match for her mother.
“I did it for all the future moments – like my wedding and having kids,” Kenan Stiehl explained, adding she also said she did it for little things like shopping trips.
While they can’t get time back from her mother’s sickness, they’re focused on her new quality of life and a stronger bond moving forward.
Both women said they are recovering well from the transplant procedure.
Copyright 2023 WRAL via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | 2023-05-15T16:47:37+00:00 | uppermichiganssource.com | https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2023/05/15/daughter-donates-liver-save-her-mothers-life/ |
The world is an exciting place filled with unique experiences and important lessons. Still, children see the world differently and may have fears that seem irrational to adults. Nonetheless, taking these fears seriously and helping your child manage them is essential.
Being afraid of the dark is one of the most common fears among children. Luckily, numerous devices can help your child feel more comfortable at night. We interviewed our tech expert, Jaime Vazquez, to better understand which tech products are best for illuminating dark rooms.
In this article: Kasa Smart Light Bulbs, Echo Dot Kid’s Edition and The Clapper.
Everything you need to know about helping your child with their fear of the dark
What causes a fear of darkness?
Some studies suggest that a fear of darkness is associated with the inability to see what is around you. Since most children have active imaginations, this can lead to scary ideas about what is in the room. Although causes may vary, many psychologists agree that exposure therapy is a valid treatment. Still, it’s best to leave these types of treatments to professionals.
For many children, being afraid of the dark is a normal part of their development. Giving them easy methods for turning the light on is an excellent way to help them feel comfortable in your home.
Smart bulbs
Most smart bulbs can be controlled with smartphone apps and some with voice commands. These devices offer a straightforward way for your kid to turn the light on when the switch isn’t immediately accessible.
“I would recommend a full-color spectrum bulb because kids can choose their brightness, hue and color,” said Vazquez. “You can set their lowest light to a dark blue instead of lights out, and they can be a valuable parenting tool. You can set them to turn a specific color when it’s time for bed or set them up to make different patterns, which can be super fun.”
You’ll often need a smart speaker to control these bulbs with voice commands. However, you can control smart bulbs with your smartphone if you don’t have a virtual assistant.
Virtual assistant devices
You can pair these with other smart devices to enable voice controls or routines. For example, you can pair your virtual assistant with a smart bulb to create a routine that gradually dims your child’s lights around bedtime. Additionally, many virtual assistant devices can be used as nightlights.
According to Vazquez, “I love the ones they make for kids because they have built-in safeguards, and you can set them up to not function past bedtime.”
Smart plugs
Smart plugs are affordable devices that make it easier for you to turn lights on and off for your kids. Per Vazquez, it is best if smart plugs are controlled by parents instead of children. Still, these let you turn lamps on and off from anywhere in your home, making them an excellent choice for busy parents.
Other devices to help with your child’s fear of the dark
- Light-up stuffed animals: Although these aren’t likely to illuminate the entire room, they can be an excellent source of comfort for your kids. Most light-up stuffed animals are battery-powered, so you won’t have to worry about impacting your electric bill.
- The Clapper: Although this may seem like a relic of the past, The Clapper is still available for purchase. This handy device lets your kids turn lamps on and off by clapping their hands.
- Motion sensors: These devices automate smart lights in your home, turning lights on when your child enters a dark room. Many motion sensors can be used outside for home security purposes.
Light-producing electronics our tech expert recommends
These are compatible with Alexa and Google Home. They have dimmable features, making them an ideal choice for building nighttime routines. They can be set to a wide range of colors. These bulbs let you monitor their energy usage throughout the day.
Sold by Amazon
Sylvania Wi-Fi LED Smart Light Bulbs
These don’t require a smart home hub. They have numerous color and brightness settings. They are compatible with Alexa and Google Home. These lights are backed by a two-year warranty. Many said they were impressed by how easy they are to set up.
Sold by Amazon
Echo Dot Kid’s Edition (5th Generation)
This easy-to-use smart speaker is compatible with most smart bulbs. It is available with a fun owl or dragon design. You can set up parental controls to limit usage throughout the day. It comes with a free one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+.
Sold by Amazon
This is compatible with most smart devices and includes a one-year subscription to Amazon Kids+. The parental controls are easy to set up. Your child can use this to turn on lights, watch TV or listen to audiobooks.
Sold by Amazon
These compact smart plugs can be used with various appliances, such as lamps. According to Vazquez, “they are great for switched devices that turn on and off. A device with firmware shouldn’t be plugged into a smart plug.”
Sold by Amazon
Ontel Stuffed Animal Night Light
There is a wide range of animals to choose from, including unicorns, puppies and sharks. These stuffed animals project stars onto your child’s ceiling in six colors. They are powered by AAA batteries.
Sold by Amazon
This can be used to control two appliances; one can be turned on with two claps and the other with three. It has an away setting that turns lights on in response to any noise. It doesn’t require a smart home hub or smartphone app.
Sold by Amazon
This sensor is compatible with Alexa and Apple HomeKit. It can be used to control lights, switches, outlets and more. It is compact and easy to install. You can use it outside your home for added security.
Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | 2022-10-23T13:01:02+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/smart-home-br/expert-recommended-tech-to-help-your-child-with-their-fear-of-the-dark/ |
Transplant patients with an ultra-rare cancer, EBV+ PTLD, may soon have their first FDA-approved treatment
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Transplant patients who develop an ultra-rare form of lymphoma will need timely access to a forthcoming treatment, physicians explain in a new white paper from the Alliance for Patient Access. As "Treatment Options & Access for EBV+ PTLD" notes, the drug, called tabelecleucel, will be the first treatment approved by the FDA specifically for EBV+ PTLD, or Epstein-Barr virus positive post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder.
The new treatment offers hope to many patients and families, the paper's physician authors explain. They caution against onerous insurance prior authorization and prohibitive cost-sharing practices that could make access to the life-saving treatment difficult.
"These patients have already gone through the harrowing experience of failure of an organ, then the joy of getting an organ transplant, followed by the shock of knowing they now have a cancer," Vikas Dharnidharka, MD, MPH, emphasizes in the paper.
The rare cancer affects patients who have received a solid organ transplant or a hematopoietic cell transplant. Potentially deadly and fast-moving, EBV+ PTLD has devastating survival rates for patients who do not respond to treatment, which has previously included off-label use of drugs developed for other conditions.
Only a few hundred cases of EBV+ PTLD are diagnosed in the United States each year. In a situation that's already life-or-death, patients often face down challenges rooted in undereducation, delayed diagnosis and health plan coverage logistics.
The Alliance for Patient Access is a network of policy-minded health care providers who advocate for patient-centered care. Clinician members of AfPA's Rare Diseases Working Group authored this paper.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Alliance for Patient Access | 2022-10-26T14:13:21+00:00 | kxii.com | https://www.kxii.com/prnewswire/2022/10/26/access-is-critical-upcoming-rare-cancer-treatment-physicians-paper-explains/ |
The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings that the Minneapolis Police Department routinely used excessive force and unlawfully discriminated against Black and Native American people is “appalling” but not surprising, the Congressional Black Caucus said Friday.
“While the findings are appalling, they are wholly unsurprising given the public outcry from residents and organizers in the City of Minneapolis and the many events that have transpired in the public view in the years leading up to, during, and since the tragic murder of George Floyd,” the Caucus, chaired by Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), said in a statement.
The DOJ’s findings, released Friday, come after a two-year investigation following the murder of George Floyd. Floyd, 49, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes. Other officers stood in the vicinity but did not intervene, and they stopped bystanders from intervening even as Floyd repeatedly said he could not breathe.
Floyd’s murder sparked global protests against police brutality.
The DOJ’s investigation found that officers would use excessive force even when no force was necessary, disregarded the safety of people in their custody and failed to intervene when fellow officers used unreasonable force.
The report also found numerous cases in which officers dismissed claims from people in custody that they could not breathe.
Black people were stopped by police at more than six times the rate of white people in Minneapolis, the DOJ’s report estimated.
In March, the Minneapolis City Council approved an agreement with the state to revamp its policing system, including changes to the use of force; to stops, searches and arrests; using body-worn and dashboard cameras; officer training and wellness; and responding to mental health and behavioral calls.
That same month, the CBC announced it sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding data on the status of President Biden’s 2022 executive order on police accountability. That executive order called for establishing a national law enforcement accountability database to track officer misconduct, as well as creating guidance and practices to address mental health crises and improve safety conditions in prisons and jails.
“The Congressional Black Caucus has worked closely with the White House and the DOJ on ensuring implementation of President Biden’s executive order on policing and we applaud Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Vanita Gupta, and Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for concluding this investigation with an enforceable consent decree with the City of Minneapolis,” the CBC said Friday. “The CBC will continue to push for public safety reform in Congress because we cannot rest until we ensure that all communities are safe from discriminatory and oppressive policing.” | 2023-06-16T20:33:40+00:00 | myfox8.com | https://myfox8.com/news/politics/hill-politics/report-of-discriminatory-policing-in-minneapolis-unsurprising-says-congressional-black-caucus/ |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Details of how tech executive Bob Lee came to be fatally stabbed in downtown San Francisco early Tuesday were scarce as friends and family continued to mourn the man they called brilliant, kind and unlike others in the industry.
San Francisco police found Lee, 43, on the sidewalk in front of a condominium building with stab wounds shortly after 2:35 a.m. Tuesday. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. He leaves behind two children.
The neighborhood where the stabbing occurred is near the Embarcadero waterfront and full of tech offices, towering condominium buildings and not much else late at night.
Lee is known for creating the widely used mobile payment service Cash App while working as chief technology officer of the payment company Square, now known as Block. He was the chief product officer for the cryptocurrency firm MobileCoin at the time of his death.
Lee was back in San Francisco for a visit after moving to Miami in October, his father, Rick Lee, said on social media. The two had been living in the San Francisco suburb of Mill Valley.
“Bob would give you the shirt off his back,” Rick Lee wrote. “He would never look down on anyone and adhered to a strict no-judgment philosophy. Bobby worked harder than anyone and was the smartest person I have ever known.”
San Francisco Police Sgt. Adam Lobsinger said in a video message Thursday that the investigation is still early and the department would not comment on evidence or speculate on circumstances.
Lee defied the arrogant and self-centered “tech bro” stereotype affixed to certain men in the San Francisco Bay Area tech scene, and instead exuded an “innate kindness,” said longtime friend Tommy Sowers.
Sowers and Lee first met at a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., where Sowers, a former Green Beret and Iraq war veteran, was running for Congress. Lee, newly hired at Square, was touting an app that could help his campaign fundraising. Both men were from Missouri.
Lee’s two children joined the men on hikes and dinners. It was not unusual for Lee to be out late, said Sowers, and he loved San Francisco.
“I’d want to go to bed at like 9. He talked me into going someplace till midnight, and then he’d be like, ‘Well, there’s another one,’ and you’d go to that. And he’s like, ‘There’s another one.’ He just had real boundless energy.”
Part of those late-night sessions involved talking about technology, including San Francisco’s unique role far away from the political power in Washington and the big money in New York.
“San Francisco is all about the idea, and you’re as good as your current or next idea,” said Sowers, who, with Lee’s counsel, went on to start his own real estate technology company and now works for a North Carolina-based private jet company.
Sowers said he doesn’t know the origins of the “Crazy Bob” handle Lee used on Twitter.
“But it fit. Not in a way of being reckless, but, he was kind of up for anything.”
Lee was also generous with his time coaching and championing fellow engineers and entrepreneurs, said Wesley Chan, co-founder of FPV Ventures. The two met more than a decade ago when they both worked at Google, where Lee helped to build the Android smartphone operating system before its 2008 release.
Lee’s death has further enflamed debate over public safety in San Francisco and its moribund downtown, which has not yet bounced back from the pandemic. Twitter’s owner Elon Musk took to the social media site to post that “violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately.” Musk tagged the city’s district attorney in the post.
San Francisco suffers from property crime more than violent crime such as murder, rape, robbery and assault. In a statement, San Francisco Mayor London Breed called the homicide “a horrible tragedy” and said that the city is prioritizing public safety.
Sowers said it’s hard to picture what led to Lee’s violent death.
“I can’t imagine a situation where he would instigate a conflict,” he said. “That’s the tragedy of it.”
___
O’Brien contributed from Providence, Rhode Island. | 2023-04-07T05:58:25+00:00 | wate.com | https://www.wate.com/news/business/ap-business/few-details-in-sf-stabbing-death-of-cash-app-founder-bob-lee/ |
Democrats retained control of the Senate after Catherine Cortez Masto won re-election in an exceptionally close race. The senator reflects on the lessons from her race for her party.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Democrats retained control of the Senate after Catherine Cortez Masto won re-election in an exceptionally close race. The senator reflects on the lessons from her race for her party.
Copyright 2022 NPR | 2022-11-14T17:55:10+00:00 | nepm.org | https://www.nepm.org/2022-11-14/sen-catherine-cortez-masto-reflects-on-her-pivotal-reelection-in-nevada |
DURHAM, N.C. — Jon Scheyer and the Duke Blue Devils got huge news on Monday when rising senior Jeremy Roach announced he will return to Durham in an Instagram post.
Roach is now the fourth starter to return for the Blue Devils, joining sophomores Kyle Filipowski, Tyrese Proctor, and Mark Mitchell. Duke also adds the second ranked recruiting class in the country, per 247Sports, with four five-star players joining the club including guard Jared McCain and forward Sean Stewart.
However, despite a roster filled with continuity and elite young talent, Locked on College Basketball host Isaac Schade isn't quite ready to crown the Blue Devils the preseason No. 1 team.
"I'm not ready to put them No. 1 overall...I'm not ready to go there yet," Schade said. "When I look at what Marquette is bringing back, looking at Kansas, we are waiting to find out what all UConn will have back. What about Purdue? I want to wait for the dust to settle a little bit, but I'll say Duke's a top five preseason team, right now."
The main question for Duke is how they will fill a hole in the frontcourt from the departure of one-and-done freshman Dereck Lively, who only played 20 minutes per game but blocked an outstanding 2.4 shots per night while scoring 5.2 points and grabbing 5.4 rebounds.
Will Duke shift Filipowski into a center role and start top 20 freshman Sean Stewart? Is a transfer portal addition, like Utah Valley's Aziz Bandaogo, an option to add rim protection? And if there is not an addition, does this team have enough strength on the interior to make a title run?
Scheyer also has a lot of mouths to feed on this roster, and keeping everyone happy and engaged is going to be a tough task for the second year coach.
Still, the pieces are all there for the Blue Devils to make an Elite 8 or Final 4 run in 2023-24, proving they can get by just fine in the post-Coach K era. | 2023-05-16T18:36:42+00:00 | wfmynews2.com | https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/sports/locked-on/lo-national/college-basketball-show/jeremy-roach-back-duke-national-championship-contender-locked-on-college-basketball/535-4a6450fd-c9f0-439a-a5f7-e6b6c2cddc49 |
New "C-Suite Intelligence" podcast episode from @TheMilesGroup features Stephen Miles and Taylor Griffin on the ever-evolving, expanding role of the C-Suite Leader – from running the company to defending its very right to operate
NEW YORK, July 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "The CEO's role has shifted from the 'traditional diplomatic leader' to somebody who can align multiple constituencies, and constantly absorb new information and context about the world around us," says Stephen Miles, Founder and CEO of The Miles Group and host of the popular C-Suite Intelligence business leadership podcast.
In today's new episode, "The Leader of the Future – And You Thought COVID-19 Was Hard," Miles joins Taylor Griffin, COO of The Miles Group, to discuss an ever-evolving list of responsibilities for the 'Top Jobs' and what it will take for C-suite leaders of the future to succeed.
Reflecting on the challenges of COVID-19, the episode delves into how leaders quickly mobilized to combat a "singular health issue" with tact, immediacy, and shrewd resolve. "Now we've got a multivariate problem that not everybody's experiencing in the same way. CEOs and executives have to flex some different muscles now to mobilize their leadership teams, show flexibility, share insights, and absorb," explains Miles. "There is a thrive opportunity here."
"Amidst instability in geopolitics and shocks to the global economy, we have to figure out a way to use the flow of goods throughout the world to come together in some way," Miles posits. But there's no simple solution. In fact, the strategies leaders set out today have multi-year time horizons. "We're used to having very easy, near-term solutions and working at amazing efficiency. We're not in that period anymore," says Griffin.
Future-ready leaders "need a world-class team around them to respond to so many different threats," asserts Griffin. "The severity and volume of issues facing senior leaders today is just unprecedented."
As CEO coaches, Miles and Griffin explain how some of their clients are focusing on cultivating more specialized, high-performing leadership teams to deal with the increasing complexity of stakeholder management. Griffin observes, "You're seeing new C-suite roles that we've never seen before: Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Health Officer…," depending on the business, its mission, or its goals. Miles adds, "We need specialization – people who are gold medalists in terms of the content in their lane… then you can prioritize and sequence to achieve alignment across the company, making you better, faster, smarter, and more flexible."
To hear more from top executive coaches at The Miles Group about how CEOs and leaders are bracing themselves for new challenges, listen to "The Leader of the Future – And You Thought COVID-19 Was Hard," released today on the C-Suite Intelligence podcast, available everywhere, including Apple, Google, and Spotify.
For more information, please contact Davia Temin or Trang Mar of Temin and Company at 212.588.8788 or news@teminandco.com.
About the C-Suite Intelligence podcast
CEOs running the world's top companies don't start out that way – they pull ahead of their peers with behaviors and practices that make them the "best of the best." Stephen Miles and the team at TMG coach some of the world's most successful executives, helping them continuously up their game even as business conditions grow more complex every day. Learn the secrets of the highest performers and use this intelligence to power your career. New episodes are released bi-weekly on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
About The Miles Group/TMG
TMG develops talent strategies for organizations, teams, and individuals – focusing on high-performance, world-class leadership. Through assessments and development, coaching, leadership transition planning, and organizational design, TMG helps clients cultivate exceptional talent from the C-suite to the next generation of leaders throughout the organization. Clients include many of the Fortune 100 as well as VC portfolio companies, firms in transition, and organizations around the globe and across industries. TMG has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune, C-Suite, Entrepreneur, and Chief Executive. The firm is headquartered in New York City and operates globally. For more information, visit https://miles-group.com. Follow TMG on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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SOURCE The Miles Group/TMG | 2022-07-26T14:52:05+00:00 | kmvt.com | https://www.kmvt.com/prnewswire/2022/07/26/leader-future-you-thought-covid-19-was-hard/ |
TAMPA, Fla. (AP)Melvion Flanagan scored 16 points off of the bench to help lead Wichita State over South Florida 70-66 on Sunday.
Flanagan was 5 of 9 shooting (4 for 6 from distance) for the Shockers (8-8, 1-3 American Athletic Conference). Kenny Pohto scored 14 points and added 10 rebounds and five assists. James Rojas shot 4 of 8 from the field and 3 for 4 from the line to finish with 11 points, while adding eight rebounds.
Russel Tchewa finished with 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls (7-9, 0-3). South Florida also got 16 points and four assists from Tyler Harris. Sam Hines Jr. also had 11 points and 10 rebounds.
Pohto scored six points in the first half and Wichita State went into the break trailing 34-28. Wichita State trailed by 12 points in the second half but went on a 7-0 run to narrow the gap to 54-49 with 7:47 remaining in the half before finishing off the victory
NEXT UP
Wichita State’s next game is Saturday against Tulsa at home, and South Florida visits Houston on Wednesday.
—
The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar. | 2023-01-09T01:06:59+00:00 | siouxlandproud.com | https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/ncaa-basketball/flanagan-scores-16-wichita-state-tops-south-florida-70-66/ |
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with writer Annie Proulx about her latest book: Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with writer Annie Proulx about her latest book: Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.
Copyright 2022 NPR | 2022-10-11T11:19:48+00:00 | iowapublicradio.org | https://www.iowapublicradio.org/2022-10-11/annie-proulxs-newest-book-is-a-non-fiction-exploration-of-disappearing-ecosystems |
Bucks clinch No. 1 seed in Eastern Conference
Milwaukee beats Chicago 105-92
Milwaukee beats Chicago 105-92
The Milwaukee Bucks have clinched the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference. They will have home court advantage throughout their entire playoff run.
The Bucks beat the Bulls 105-92.
Bobby Portis had 27 points and 13 rebounds, starting in place of the injured Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Antetokounmpo was ruled out before the game because of right knee soreness. He had 28 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists against Washington on Tuesday night.
Brook Lopez had 26 points, point guard Jrue Holiday added 20 points, 15 assists and eight rebounds and Jevon Carter had 16 points in a starting role. Khris Middleton started for the Bucks, but played just eight minutes before exiting with right knee soreness. He was 0 for 3 from the floor.
Milwaukee improved to 58-22, fighting back from a 10-point, third-quarter deficit. The Bucks lead fellow Eastern Conference foe Boston by three games with two games remaining.
Jae Crowder and Wes Matthews combined to harass Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan throughout the game, with DeRozan finishing with eight points on 3-of-12 shooting.
Nikola Vucevic led the Bulls with 21 points and 11 rebounds. Coby White added 14 points, and Zach LaVine had 13.
The Bulls built a 61-51 lead early in the third quarter, but the Bucks responded with a 15-0 run, paced by six points from Portis and four from Lopez.
The Bulls started the night in 10th place in the East and already having clinched a play-in berth. | 2023-04-06T02:36:22+00:00 | wisn.com | https://www.wisn.com/article/bucks-clinch-no-1-seed-in-eastern-conference/43524402 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40 billion infusion of military and economic aid for Ukraine and its allies on Thursday as both parties rallied behind America’s latest, and quite possibly not last, financial salvo against Russia’s invasion.
The 86-11 vote gave final congressional approval to the package, three weeks after President Joe Biden requested a smaller $33 billion version and after a lone Republican opponent delayed Senate passage for a week. Every Democrat and all but 11 Republicans — many of them supporters of former President Donald Trump’s isolationist agenda — backed the measure.
Biden’s quick signature was certain as Russia’s attack, which has mauled Ukraine’s forces and cities, slogs into a fourth month with no obvious end ahead. That means more casualties and destruction in Ukraine, which has relied heavily on U.S. and Western assistance for its survival, especially advanced arms, with requests for more aid potentially looming.
“Help is on the way, really significant help. Help that could make sure that the Ukrainians are victorious,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., underscoring a goal by Ukraine and its allies that seemed nearly unthinkable when Russia launched its brutal assault three months ago.
The vote was a glaring exception to the partisan divisions that have hindered work on other issues under Biden and that promise to become only less bridgeable as November’s elections for control of Congress draw closer. That includes Republicans blocking Democrats from including billions to combat the relentless pandemic in the measure, leaving their efforts to battle COVID-19 in limbo.
Last week the House approved the Ukraine bill 368-57, with all of those opposed Republicans. Though support in both chambers was unmistakably bipartisan, the GOP defections were noteworthy after Trump, still a potent force in the party, complained that such sums should first be targeted at domestic problems.
Schumer called it “beyond troubling” that Republicans were opposing the Ukraine assistance. “It appears more and more that MAGA Republicans are on the same soft-on-Putin playbook that we saw used by former President Trump,” said Schumer, using the Make America Great Again acronym Democrats have been using to cast those Republicans as extremists.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a strong backer of the measure, addressed concerns by his GOP colleagues. He said Ukraine’s defeat would jeopardize America’s European trading partners, increase U.S. security costs there and embolden autocrats in China and elsewhere to grab territory in their regions.
“The most expensive and painful thing America could possibly do in the long run would be to stop investing in sovereignty, stability and deterrence before it’s too late,” McConnell said.
On Wednesday, Schumer said he was not confident this would be the final measure to help Ukraine. “They’re doing the fighting, they’re the ones getting killed, they’re the ones struggling and suffering. The least we can do is give them the weaponry they need,” he said.
The legislation contains around $24 billion for weapons, equipment and military financing for Ukraine, restoring Pentagon stocks of arms sent to the region and paying for U.S. reinforcements sent there. The rest includes economic aid to keep Zelenskyy’s government functioning, food programs for countries that rely on Ukraine’s diminished crop production, refugee assistance and funds for Kyiv to investigate Russian war crimes.
Congress approved an initial $13.6 billion measure in March. The combined price tag of nearly $54 billion exceeds what the U.S. spent on all its foreign and military aid in 2019, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who’s long had non-interventionist views, used procedural tactics last week to thwart Schumer and McConnell from moving the measure through the Senate then, citing Ukraine’s urgent need for the assistance.
In a personal criticism seen seldom on the Senate floor, Schumer on Wednesday called Paul’s move “repugnant” and said the delay, with passage inevitable, would “strengthen Putin’s hand.” McConnell, who last Saturday met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a surprise visit to Kyiv, did not speak up in his fellow Kentucky Republican’s defense.
In a brief interview, Paul responded that it would be “repugnant” to disparage “the democratic process” as embodied in Senate rules that he was using.
That spending concerned some Trump-friendly Republicans in Congress on Wednesday.
“It’s, you know, the world’s going to end if you don’t do anything here,” Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., who said he would oppose the Ukraine measure. “I’m more worried about the trust fund going broke” that finances Medicare and another that pays for Social Security.
Braun said he’s long pushed for bills that pay for themselves. Asked why saving $40 billion in this instance outweighed stopping Russia, he said, “Number one, it’s going to pass.”
Another conservative, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that as costly as the measure is, the aid will protect U.S. national security and said, “If Putin wins, the consequences for America and American taxpayers will be hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a moderate who has clashed with Trump, said in an interview that helping Ukraine defend itself ”is about as smart an investment as we could possibly make.” He added, “What does America First mean? It means that we should first be concerned about the interests of America. I totally agree.” | 2022-05-19T18:31:10+00:00 | upmatters.com | https://www.upmatters.com/news/national/senate-approves-40b-ukraine-aid-sends-bill-to-biden/ |
Which kerosene heater is best?
There are many options for heating small spaces, from electric heaters to propane and gas-powered equipment. Kerosene heaters are another heating source, generally safer and more economical than gas heaters. And they start easily.
Kerosene heaters are perfect for garages, workshops, barns, campers or work sites. They also are excellent emergency heaters should your main source of power go out. They come with different levels of power, features and safety options. For its long run time and easy transportation, the best kerosene heater is the Mr. Heater 125,000-Btu Forced Air Kerosene Heater.
What to know before you buy a kerosene heater
What are the types of kerosene?
Kerosene is labeled as K-1 or K-2:
- K-1 is the purest form of kerosene because it has a low sulfur content, burning cleaner and therefore not requiring an exhaust flue. It is the kerosene most commonly used in space heaters.
- K-2 has a higher sulfur content and requires a flue to remove the exhaust to the outside.
Even though K-1 has a lighter color than K-2, always check the label to ensure you are getting the right kind before purchasing.
What is the heating output?
Kerosene heaters measure heating output in British thermal units, which are more commonly known as Btu. The more Btu generated, the larger the area that can be heated. Heaters with higher Btu output also consume more fuel. Look for a heater that meets both your space requirements and your fuel budget.
How large is the fuel tank?
The size of your fuel tank, along with the Btu output, determines how long your heater will run without a refill. Most kerosene heaters will run for 8 to 14 hours. Make sure you know your heater’s run time before purchasing. Many kerosene heaters come with a fuel gauge to alert you when it’s time for a refill. You should only refill the heater outdoors when it has cooled down.
Keep in mind that kerosene expands as it heats up. To allow for that expansion, only fill your fuel tank to 90% of capacity.
What to look for in a quality kerosene heater
Material
Rust-resistant steel is the best material for the heater housing. It stands up to the elements and the inevitable wear and tear heaters take in being moved around to different project sites. Steel heaters can be heavy and difficult to move, but they are extremely durable. A steel safety cage on larger heaters protects children and pets from reaching the heating element.
Adjustable thermostat
Some kerosene heaters have a built-in thermostat that can be adjusted to your preferred temperature. This can save fuel, and its costs, in the long run. It also can make sure that a confined space doesn’t become too hot or cold.
Safety switches
Safety features are important with kerosene heaters. An overheat switch disengages the motor when the heater becomes too hot. A tip-over switch also stops the motor if the heater is knocked over.
Wheels
Kerosene heaters vary in weight from 30 to over 100 pounds. Heavier heaters can be difficult to transport. Look for models with wheels that allow for easy moving. Extra-wide tires make transportation even easier and can be found with heavier heaters.
How much you can expect to spend on a kerosene heater
Kerosene heaters are priced between $100-$600, with most $200-$300. The higher-end ones have higher Btu output, wheels and temperature control.
Kerosene heater FAQ
Can gasoline be used in a kerosene heater?
A. You should never use gasoline in a kerosene heater because it will explode. Gasoline and kerosene are both flammable fuels that should be used carefully, but kerosene will not explode.
Use only kerosene or other designated fuels, such as diesel or jet fuel, in your kerosene heater. Review the manufacturer’s guidelines for further instructions.
Should I purchase a carbon monoxide monitor?
A. Although kerosene heaters are efficient at burning fuel to generate heat, they can produce and emit low levels of carbon monoxide. If you plan to use your kerosene heater frequently or indoors, a carbon monoxide detector can provide extra protection if carbon monoxide levels reach dangerous levels.
What’s the best kerosene heater to buy?
Top kerosene heater
Mr. Heater 125,000-Btu Forced-Air Kerosene Heater
What you need to know: This heater is easily transported on oversized tires and quickly heats up to 3,000 square feet.
What you’ll love: With 125,000 Btu of power, it will generate heat for up to 15 hours on an 8.5-gallon fuel tank. It comes with an adjustable thermostat, automatic shutoff and a one-year limited warranty.
What you should consider: It’s noisy and requires electricity.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Top kerosene heater for the money
Heatfast Forced Air Kerosene Space Heater
What you need to know: This affordable heater runs on three fuel types and has a digital readout.
What you’ll love: It heats up to 1,850 square feet and runs up to 10 hours on a full fuel tank. It’s factory tested to operate in sub-zero temperatures and is easily assembled in five minutes.
What you should consider: A few users reported that it didn’t heat large spaces as anticipated.
Where to buy: Sold by Home Depot
Worth checking out
What you need to know: With 75,000 Btu of power, this heater is ideal for home or commercial projects up to 1,750 square feet.
What you’ll love: It runs up to 11 hours on a 6-gallon fuel tank. It has a built-in thermostat for monitoring the temperature and is factory tested for working in freezing temperatures outside.
What you should consider: Some users found it noisy.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | 2022-12-24T14:06:33+00:00 | kdvr.com | https://kdvr.com/reviews/br/home-br/heating-cooling-air-quality-br/best-kerosene-heater/ |
(The Hill) — A Florida teacher quit days before the beginning of the school year after staff removed posters of Black leaders, sharing an account of the situation that conflicts with that of the school.
Michael James, a teacher at an Escambia County public school, said that the employee who removed the posters was exhibiting racist behavior when she said that the billboard he had designed was “age inappropriate,” the Pensacola News Journal reports.
James was using images of figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriett Tubman and former President Obama.
“I’ve been teaching special education for 15 years, and it just really floored me when she did that,” said James of the incident.
The former Florida teacher, from Daphne, Ala., sent a letter of complaint to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday and resigned from his position at O.J. Semmes Elementary School the following morning.
“Our office was made aware of this employee’s resignation and his stated reasons for resigning very early this morning, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022,” read a statement from the school according to the Journal. “Around the same time, we were copied on an email written by this individual and released to the Governor’s Office and various media outlets before we had any opportunity to investigate…If these allegations are deemed factual, we will certainly take corrective action, as it is our aim that all of our teachers feel valued and supported.”
The school district said on Thursday that there were “inaccuracies” in James’s story and that the African-American figures had been removed because the bulletin board was required for “state-required curricular materials” he was required to teach his students, who have special educational needs.
“To be clear, due to the nature of this specific population of students, it is critical the instructional materials be within their line of sight during instruction, for the purposes of student focus and retention,” the school district wrote.
It continued: “The Behavior Analyst observed his bulletin board was ‘Awesome,’ because of the history tied to it, but the language and reading levels on the posters were too complex for this particular group of students.” | 2022-08-12T14:37:38+00:00 | texomashomepage.com | https://www.texomashomepage.com/news/national-news/florida-teacher-quits-after-staff-removed-posters-of-black-leaders/ |
On a recent evening, Ryan Hampton stood in front of a crowd of people in Spokane, Wash., urging them to see drugs and addiction as a key issue in the midterm elections.
"We see these overdose numbers hitting new historic highs," Hampton said, referring to the 107,622 Americans who died after using illicit drugs last year.
"How many in this room are voters? If you're a voter, raise your hand," he said, drawing cheers and applause. "Alright, good, good, good."
Hampton is an activist who was himself addicted to opioids for years, surviving repeated overdoses. He's traveled the country in a big bus, holding rallies like that one, trying to put the drug crisis back in the political spotlight.
Studies show tens of millions of Americans live with addiction and roughly 22 million people in this country are now in recovery. Hampton believes those people could make up a key voting bloc.
But in an interview with NPR, he voiced concern that the debate over drug policy has tilted in a dangerous new direction, with increasingly partisan attack ads focusing on the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.
Many Republicans are talking about opioids not as a public health problem, but as symptom of what they describe as a crime and border crisis. That worries some drug policy experts.
"Some of the rhetoric that we're hearing is not helpful," Hampton said. "It actually endangers us."
Republicans frame fentanyl in partisan attacks
Drug deaths have surged dramatically in recent years, and public health experts say these fatal overdoses have been fueled by the rapid spread of fentanyl and by social disruptions caused by the COVID pandemic.
Fentanyl has emerged as one of the top killers of young Americans, hitting Black and Native Americans especially hard.
Until recently, the public response to the opioid crisis has been remarkably bipartisan, de-emphasizing drug war-era strategies like police and prisons and focusing more on treatment and housing.
But through the late summer and fall, Republicans in close campaigns began hitting Democrats hard on the drug issue, linking fentanyl deaths with rising crime and fears about border security.
"John Fetterman supports decriminalizing dangerous drugs like fentanyl and heroin," declares one of Republican Mehmet Oz's attack ads in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race. "Fetterman's ideas are radical, deadly and wrong."
Some of the attacks reflect real policy differences. Oz has blasted Fetterman for the Democrat's support for creating supervised drug injection sites, an idea Oz opposes.
Fetterman, by contrast, has called in the past for drug decriminalization, though he's backed away from that proposal during this campaign. He's also supported more medical services for people who actively use street drugs, arguing it could help reduce fatal overdoses.
"I think it's important that we as a society have all the options on the table," Fetterman said in a 2018 interview, "including needle exchanges ... and even safe injection sites that are being considered like, say, in Philadelphia."
This idea remains controversial in the U.S., but has been endorsed by a wide range of mainstream health care experts, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Conspiracy theories and culture war jabs
Other Republican attacks are completely divorced from the facts.
In Ohio, Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance echoed a right-wing conspiracy theory that Democrats are deliberately allowing Mexican drug cartels to smuggle fentanyl into the U.S.
"If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl ... and it does look intentional," Vance said in an April interview with the right-wing media outlet Gateway Pundit.
In fact, efforts to target the drug cartels inside Mexico collapsed in 2020 during the final months of the Trump administration. Over the last two years the Biden administration has scrambled — without much success, according to most experts — to reduce the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
In one of the Ohio Senate debates this fall, Democrat Tim Ryan counter-punched Vance on the drug issue, arguing that by embracing a conspiracy theory, the Republican had aligned himself with an "extremist movement."
"Who says that the president of the United States is intentionally trying to kill people with fentanyl?" Ryan asked.
Still, Democrats clearly worry about looking soft on this issue. In a later Senate debate, Ryan echoed GOP ideas about stopping fentanyl traffickers with tougher border security.
"A stronger border, more border patrol, I disagree with President Biden when he's talking about relaxing some of the regulations down on the border," Ryan said.
Some Democrats have also embraced a Republican proposal that fentanyl be officially designated a weapon of mass destruction, an idea the Biden administration has rejected.
A Republican advantage and a fentanyl crackdown
Jessica Taylor, who analyzes Senate races for the Cook Political Report, thinks public fear over fentanyl may give the GOP an advantage.
She noted that polls seem to have shifted toward Republican candidates after the GOP began focusing on drugs, crime and the border.
"It's certainly a rising issue and I think it's one Republicans believe they have an advantage on and that may well bear out," said Taylor, who added that fears about security and drugs could eclipse voter concerns about more Democrat-friendly issues like abortion.
"I think this is really aimed at sort of getting back wayward suburban voters the [Republican] party saw eroding, particularly women," she said.
Hampton, the addiction activist who's been traveling the country, worries the GOP's reframing of the drug debate will continue beyond the midterms.
He said some state legislatures are already moving to toughen fentanyl laws, an approach that means more focus on police, arrests and lengthy prison sentences.
"When we start to weaponize one particular drug such as fentanyl, we also weaponize the response and militarize the response," he said.
Hampton predicted a return to drug war-era policies would lead to more stigma for people living with opioid addiction, with less focus and money for treatment, housing and health care.
"We have seen this playbook before with crack cocaine and we saw the devastating results of that," he said.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-10-27T10:21:17+00:00 | upr.org | https://www.upr.org/2022-10-27/in-close-races-republicans-attack-democrats-over-fentanyl-and-the-overdose-crisis |
NPR's Mary Louse Kelly talks with Kim Hyun-woo, who — until 2014 — held a senior post in North Korea's Ministry of State Security in his first interview.
Copyright 2023 NPR
NPR's Mary Louse Kelly talks with Kim Hyun-woo, who — until 2014 — held a senior post in North Korea's Ministry of State Security in his first interview.
Copyright 2023 NPR | 2023-06-07T22:59:23+00:00 | wboi.org | https://www.wboi.org/2023-06-07/former-north-korean-agent-gives-his-first-interview-since-defecting-in-2014 |
SAN ANTONIO – A Texas man has been indicted after he kidnapped a San Antonio girl at gunpoint earlier this month and drove her to Los Angeles, where she escaped by writing “help me” on a piece of paper, according to federal authorities.
Steven Robert Sablan, 61, of Cleburne, was formally charged Thursday with one count of kidnapping and one count of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California said in a news release.
Authorities said on July 6, Sablan approached the 13-year-old girl in his Nissan Sentra as she was walking down the street. He raised a handgun and told her to get in the car or else he would hurt her, court documents state.
The girl entered the car and over the next two days, Sablan drove her to California, the release states. He sexually assaulted her multiple times, authorities said.
On the morning of July 9, Sablan parked his car in a lot in Long Beach and he took their clothes to a laundromat.
While Sablan was at the laundromat, the girl stayed in the car and wrote “Help me!” on a piece of paper to get someone’s attention, the news release states.
A witness called the police, who arrived to find the girl mouthing the word “help” as Sablan stood outside the car, the release adds.
Authorities found a “help me” sign, a pair of handcuffs and a BB gun inside the vehicle.
Sablan is scheduled to be arraigned on July 31 in a U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles. If convicted of both charges, he may face up to life in prison.
Read also: | 2023-07-21T13:13:08+00:00 | ksat.com | https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2023/07/21/man-indicted-for-kidnapping-san-antonio-girl-driving-her-to-california-feds-say-girl-escaped-with-help-me-sign/ |
Spain: Transport officials resign over train design blunder
MADRID (AP) — A major blunder in designs of new trains for two northern Spanish regions has led to the resignations of two top transport officials, bringing to four the number of people who have lost their jobs because of the controversy this month. A total of 31 narrow-gauge local trains were ordered in 2020 for Asturias and Cantabria regions but it emerged just weeks ago that under the original designs the trains would not have fitted in tunnels in the regions. The trains will be redesigned to fit the tunnels, but this will lead to substantial delays in their delivery. The revelations angered both regions and led to demands for resignations. The two transport officials resigned Monday. | 2023-02-20T18:45:26+00:00 | krdo.com | https://krdo.com/news/ap-national-news/2023/02/20/spain-transport-officials-resign-over-train-design-blunder/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Cotton No. 2 Futures on the IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) Thursday:
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Coleman resident and parent Shawn MacPhee encourages voters to vote YES on... | 2023-04-27T20:52:45+00:00 | ourmidland.com | https://www.ourmidland.com/business/article/open-high-low-settle-chg-17923315.php |
SAN ANTONIO – Texans don’t take kindly to people trashing the state but did you know you can actually report litterers online?
More than 35 years after the Don’t Mess With Texas campaign started, people are still tossing cigarette butts, fast-food wrappers and all manner of trash out their windows.
Letting litter fly out of a truck bed is also considered littering.
Just because something is small, doesn’t mean it isn’t trash.
“When you see litter thrown or flying out of a vehicle, intentionally or accidentally, take down the following information—license plate number, make and color of vehicle, date and time, location, who tossed the litter, and what was tossed,” DontMessWithTexas.org states.
Then fill out this form to report the litterer.
What happens to the perpetrator?
Texas Department of Transportation sends the litterbug a Don’t Mess With Texas litterbag and a letter reminding them to keep their trash off Texas roads.
Don’t forget to bookmark this article so you’ll always have it for quick reference. | 2022-11-08T14:26:49+00:00 | ksat.com | https://www.ksat.com/news/2022/11/08/texas-snitch-line-how-to-report-people-who-litter/ |
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s political troubles don’t stop at the Washington Beltway.
In his Central California hometown of Bakersfield — where oil derricks blanket hillsides and country music fans flock to Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace hall — some voters are asking if what has become an embarrassing bid to succeed Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi came at the expense of the twin engines of the local economy — oil production and agriculture.
McCarthy hails from a conservative, inland region of California far from the liberal strongholds of San Francisco and Los Angeles that doesn’t figure in the California Dream myth of fast fame and easy living. Farming and oil pumping shape the economy — on a recent rainy morning in Bakersfield, fields of oil tanks, warehouses and the leaping flames from a refinery’s gas flare stood out against a coal-colored sky.
Outside Ethel’s Old Corral café in the city’s Oildale neighborhood, oil field worker Zane Denio said he wasn’t following McCarthy’s day-to-day travails on Capitol Hill as he attempts to take Pelosi’s gavel. For a third consecutive day Thursday, McCarthy failed to win enough Republican votes to claim the job, leaving his future prospects uncertain.
The registered Republican has voted for McCarthy in the past, but next time? That “depends on who is running against him,” Denio said. “I think he’s just another politician. That’s the bottom line.”
Denio said he cares about the oil industry and its good-paying jobs, but he sees them under constant attack from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democratic-dominated Legislature pushing the state toward a green energy future.
Wearing a broad-brimmed cowboy hat, boots and sunglasses as the sun broke through a stormy sky, Denio questioned why McCarthy hasn’t been more outspoken in defense of the industry. The availability of water in a drought-parched state also remains a constant challenge for agriculture, another foundation block in the regional economy.
“He could do more for the folks living in Kern County,” north of Los Angeles where Bakersfield is the county seat. McCarthy’s “salary comes from these fields,” Denio said, waving his hand toward nearby hillsides covered with oil rigs.
McCarthy’s sporadic appearances in the district also are a concern for Andrew Willingham, a manager at the bustling Pyrenees Café in downtown Bakersfield, which is popular with oil field workers and dependent on their patronage.
McCarthy “definitely spends a lot more time in Washington than he does here,” said Willingham, a registered independent who calls McCarthy “a good person” who has left generous tips at the café.
But he worries the state is losing oil workers to Oklahoma and Texas and wants McCarthy to be more vocal in support of those jobs. While he would like to see McCarthy preside over the House “he might be able to focus more energy on Kern County is he wasn’t speaker,” Willingham said.
McCarthy has said the U.S. should boost domestic production to help keep pump prices in check.
While the region retains a Republican tilt — McCarthy easily won reelection last year — it has been changing like much of California, gradually becoming more diverse and Democratic. Former President Donald Trump carried Kern County by double digits in the 2020 presidential election.
To Mark Martinez, the political science department chair at California State University, Bakersfield, the turbulent congressional sessions leaving the House without a speaker expose weaknesses in McCarthy’s leadership that have damaged his reputation.
Republicans took the House in November under McCarthy’s leadership, but only by a fragile margin after a predicted “red wave” failed to materialize. McCarthy appeared to misread support among GOP House members, leaving him thus far unable to assemble enough votes to gain the speaker’s post.
McCarthy’s trustworthiness has been questioned by colleagues, while public support from Trump has proven unable to move votes in his favor. Meanwhile, Denio and other constituents in his district don’t see him delivering for the region.
With Bakersfield in a rare, national spotlight, “this is really embarrassing,” Martinez said. Whether McCarthy gains the speaker’s seat or not, “Kevin is going to come out of this looking very, very weak.”
That could embolden challengers eager to take his seat. “It’s a bat to the head for Kevin,” Martinez said.
Still, local supporters hope McCarthy endures and mounts a comeback; he’s known for surprising his doubters.
Christy Ferguson, who owns Zingo’s Café and an adjacent cocktail bar in Bakersfield, recalled McCarthy’s assistance helping her gain $25,000 in pandemic financial aid that she invested in her businesses.
Ferguson, a Republican, puzzled over McCarthy’s political struggles in Washington. “I think he should be speaker,” she said, predicting even greater future success.
“He’ll be our next president,” she said. | 2023-01-06T20:00:20+00:00 | wate.com | https://www.wate.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-as-speaker-bid-falters-mixed-views-of-mccarthy-in-hometown/ |
This is a sponsored segment by Family Care Center.
Family Care Center has big plans for the new year. They adding new locations in Colorado, Texas, and Tennessee!
Dr. Charles Weber, Founder and Chief Medical Officer, stopped by GDC. Family Care Center is America’s Premier Behavioral Health provider with high quality outpatient care.
Family Care Center tailors their care plans to fit each person’s unique needs. Their clinicians include psychiatrists, psychologists, and licensed therapists who are ready to support you. | 2023-01-30T20:40:45+00:00 | kdvr.com | https://kdvr.com/great-day-colorado/sponsored-gdc/family-care-center-adding-new-locations/ |
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — Three teenagers are under arrest after Springfield Police said they tried to flee a traffic stop over the weekend. As they fled from police, officials added, they tried to discard two guns.
Officials said officers with the Street Crimes Unit made contact around 1 a.m. on Sunday with a vehicle in the area of Cass and 11th Streets. The occupants of that vehicle were identified as 19-year-old Xavier Young of Springfield, 18-year-old John Jenkins of Decatur and 19-year-old Antione Bryson of Decatur.
While speaking with the teens, officials said the officers observed an open bottle of alcohol and could smell marijuana. Officials added that the three then fled from officers on 11th Street, but stopped a mile away on East Washington Street, where they were arrested. Tracing the route the three had traveled on, officials said officers found two Glock pistols the three had discarded.
All three of the teens were transported to the Sangamon County Jail pending formal charges from the Sangamon County States Attorney’s Office. Officials reported the following preliminary charges:
- Young: Armed violence, aggravated assault, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and aggravated fleeing and eluding
- Jenkins: Armed violence, possession of methamphetamine, aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a firearm without a FOID card
- Bryson: Aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a firearm without a FOID card
Anyone with information concerning this incident is asked to call the Springfield Police Department at 217-788-8311 and/or Sangamon and Menard County Crime Stoppers at 217-788-8427. | 2023-05-30T23:49:11+00:00 | wcia.com | https://www.wcia.com/news/police-recover-2-guns-arrest-3-teens-after-springfield-traffic-stop/ |
5-year-old missing since September found dead in river, police say
Published: Jan. 3, 2023 at 11:28 AM EST|Updated: 51 minutes ago
YAKIMA, Wash. (Gray News) – A 5-year-old boy who was last seen at a park in September has been found dead, according to police.
Lucian Munguia was last seen on Sept. 10 on a playground at Sarg Hubbard Park in Yakima, Washington, with his father and young siblings. Officials have been looking for him since.
Yakima police said authorities were called Dec. 29 for a report of human remains being found in the Yakima River.
Investigators said the body was identified as Lucian.
An autopsy revealed “no indication of criminal acts,” police said.
Further information was not available.
If you have any information, you can contact the Yakima Police Department at 509-575-6200.
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | 2023-01-03T17:20:50+00:00 | uppermichiganssource.com | https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2023/01/03/5-year-old-missing-since-september-found-dead-river-police-say/ |
Central Louisiana Christian Homeschool Association to have annual Kick Off July 29
The Central Louisiana Christian Home School Association is hosting its annual kickoff July 29th for current and prospective homeschool families, the event helps prepare students and families for the upcoming school season.
Mason Quartemont and Haley Hasic are two Central Louisiana students belonging to the CCHSA. Haley says CCHSA caters to learning at a pace tailor fit for her.
“The fact that I can do my school at my own pace, whether that means I’m pushing ahead or lagging behind kind of whatever I need to do, my, my education is tailor made to fit my needs.”
Quartemont says in his experience being homeschooled not only comes with efficient teaching but special time with his family
“I like the one-on-one time I have because my parents don’t actually homeschool me. My grandparents do, and they were both public school teachers for like 20 plus years. So, I get that one-on-one education, which is really special.”
The CCHSA annual Kick off provides opportunity for students and families like Hasic and Quartemont to participate in curriculum sales and more says Vice President Erin Guidry.
“It’s one of the largest homeschool events that we have in central Louisiana. Part of the kickoff is we have a used curriculum book sale.”
BROLL BRIDGE
“Homeschooling itself can be expensive because we don’t have any outside resources, so everything is internal.”
Quartemont says from his experience the CCHSA kick off has multiple benefits of attending.
“it’s good to explore like the different options because if one curriculum doesn’t work for you, you can find a different one that would work better for your child. Gets a chance to meet a bunch of homeschool families, interact with them. I met a bunch of homeschoolers there, which I haven’t seen before. I made some new friends and it’s just really a great experience.”
The Kick off offers not only the curriculum sale but also has workshops that helps answer questions for those interested in joining the CCHSA says Guidrey.
“One of the things that people ask is, am I doing this legally? And we can explain the legal parameters about homeschooling in the state of Louisiana.”
The CCHSA even offers extracurricular activities for students to participate in. Quartemont plays volleyball, which in most Parishes isn’t allowed for homeschoolers. Quartemont and Hasic have even shared a stage for drama productions by the CCHSA, which Hasic attributes to her growth as an extrovert.
“Whenever I got involved with that, I saw myself grow. In many ways like it challenged me to be more extroverted, to get a little bit more out there.”
The CCHSA Kick off will begin July 29th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Granberry at Louisiana Christian University’s campus.
For more information on the CCHSA visit https://www.homeschool-life.com/la/cchsa/ | 2023-07-21T22:07:24+00:00 | klax-tv.com | http://klax-tv.com/central-louisiana-christian-homeschool-association-to-have-annual-kick-off-july-29/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=central-louisiana-christian-homeschool-association-to-have-annual-kick-off-july-29 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Liam Robbins scored 24 points and grabbed eight rebounds, Ezra Manjon added 15 points and Vanderbilt beat South Carolina 75-64 on Tuesday night for its fourth straight conference victory.
Tyrin Lawrence had 11 points and Myles Stute scored 10 for Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt held South Carolina to just 12 points through the opening 14 minutes and led 25-12. The Commodores also struggled shooting in the first half at 35% but controlled the glass 30-15 for a 40-28 advantage in field-goal attempts.
Vanderbilt led by as many as 22 points in the second half and South Carolina only got it within single digits once after halftime with 38 seconds left.
Meechie Johnson scored all 19 of his points in the second half for South Carolina (9-17, 2-11), which has lost nine of 10 games. Chico Carter Jr. had 15 points, Hayden Brown added 11 points and Josh Gray grabbed 12 rebounds. Freshman Gregory Jackson II, averaging a team-high 15.7 points per game, came off the bench again to score just two points on 1-of-7 shooting.
Both teams play again on Saturday. Vanderbilt hosts Auburn and South Carolina plays at LSU.
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AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 | 2023-02-15T02:20:48+00:00 | washingtonpost.com | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/vanderbilt-wins-4th-straight-sec-game-75-64-over-gamecocks/2023/02/14/dedd2bde-acd4-11ed-b0ba-9f4244c6e5da_story.html |
When former Lackawanna Mayor Geoffrey M. Szymanski wanted a new job, Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz, a fellow Lackawanna native, offered him one.
But Szymanski only lasted 1½ years in his county government post as executive director of the Erie County Workforce Investment Board.
He submitted his resignation on Aug. 4. His last day of work was Aug. 12.
Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz has appointed Geoffrey M. Szymanski, the former Lackawanna mayor, as county director of workforce development. Szymanski became Lackawanna mayor in 2012 and his tenure ended Tuesday due to term limits. He was a city councilman for six years before becoming mayor. He will receive a salary of approximately $87,000 in his new position,
Szymanski did not return a call and a text seeking comment regarding his departure. Peter Anderson, spokesman for the county executive, said Szymanski resigned "citing burnout from the pandemic and a desire to seek other employment."
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Szymanski became executive director of the Workforce Investment Board last year after he was forced to step down as mayor of Lackawanna due to term limits. He previously served as a city councilman.
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He was hired at $84,558 when he first started in January 2020 and was described as a "tremendous asset" by Poloncarz when he was first appointed. Since his hiring last year, Szymanski's pay rose to $110,781. Anderson said Symanski received no special pay increases, only what he would normally be entitled to based on his level of seniority and contractual cost-of-living adjustments.
The Buffalo and Erie County Workforce Investment Board is responsible for developing, coordinating and overseeing publicly funded workforce development/training initiatives, according to its website. Erie County pays for the executive director position.
Szymanski's departure is the latest in a series of recent departures among the county executive's appointed administrative team.
David J. Shenk has abruptly resigned his position, surprising county employees who had no prior indication that Shenk had any plans to leave his post.
Former County Attorney Michael Siragusa left county government last month to serve as judge with the State Court of Claims. Former Personnel Commissioner Timothy Hogues also left the administration in April to become the head of the State Civil Service Commission. His former chief of staff, Jennifer Hibit, left to take a job as the director of human resources with the Erie County Water Authority.
In November, David J. Shenk, the county's former commissioner of the Senior Services Department, abruptly resigned his position without explanation. | 2022-08-22T21:20:34+00:00 | buffalonews.com | https://buffalonews.com/news/local/former-lackawanna-mayor-resigns-from-erie-county-post-after-a-year/article_fd4f4d04-2241-11ed-baec-5742d9f6251d.html |
A last chance for Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Kylian Mbappé back on the biggest stage of all. Brazil bidding for a record-extending sixth title.
One of the most eagerly anticipated World Cups in memory — as much for off-the-field reasons as those on it — is just around the corner in Qatar.
Thirty-two teams, 64 matches, 29 days. The first World Cup in the Middle East.
The tournament starts on Nov. 20 and the final is set for Dec. 18.
Here’s a few things to watch when the tournament gets going in the smallest country ever to host a World Cup, where some fans will be staying in floating hotels when they head over to take in the games:
TOP TEAMS
Brazil (No. 1 in FIFA ranking). Neymar, Vinícius Júnior and the rest of the flair-filled Selecao are peaking at the right time. Is a first World Cup title since 2002 on the horizon?
Belgium (No. 2). The “Golden Generation” is gradually breaking up but there’s still Kevin De Bruyne leading the Belgian charge.
Argentina (No. 3). No World Cup title since the days of the great Diego Maradona. This will be the first World Cup since his death in November 2020 and Argentina is improving, with Messi still at its core.
France (No. 4). The defending champions. Still the country with the most depth to its squad, despite a growing injury list. Now with Mbappé AND Karim Benzema leading the attack. No team has retained its World Cup title since Brazil in 1962.
England (No. 5). The team has hit a bad patch of form — winless in six games — but has a strong track record in recent major tournaments. England was a semifinalist at the World Cup in 2018 and a finalist at the European Championship in 2021.
Read up on all 32 teams who will be playing in the World Cup.
BIG STARS
Lionel Messi, Argentina. The seven-time world player of the year might have been saving his 35-year-old legs for one last push at a World Cup winner’s medal that, to many, would solidify him as soccer’s greatest player. He is in stellar form for Paris Saint-Germain at the moment.
Cristiano Ronaldo, Portugal. He has won the European Championship but the leading scorer in men’s international soccer hasn’t played in a World Cup final, let alone won one. He’s 37 years old now and no longer first choice at Manchester United — so make the most of him while you can.
Kylian Mbappé, France. The star of the last World Cup at the age of 19 and he is only getting better. The speedy striker could match Brazil great Pelé in being a champion at his first two World Cups.
Kevin De Bruyne, Belgium. Widely regarded as the world’s best midfielder, his driving runs are among the best sights in soccer. Belgium just has to hope he arrives healthy.
Neymar, Brazil. Often overshadowed by Mbappé and Messi at Paris Saint-Germain, still the main man for Brazil. Watch out for tricks and flicks, and some histrionics, too.
HOW IT WORKS
Get ready for a feast of soccer. There are eight groups of four teams, with the top two advancing to the 16-team knockout stage.
There will be four games back-to-back per day — yes, four! — for most of the first two sets of group games, then simultaneous kickoffs for the last two games in each group.
There’ll be no break for the knockout stage, which begins the day after the group stage ends. The first day without soccer comes on Dec. 7 — the 17th day of competition.
MUST-SEE GAMES
Qatar vs. Ecuador, Nov. 20. The first match of the tournament and always a date to save on the calendar.
Argentina vs. Mexico, Nov. 26. The first of the big continental rivalries in the group stage, with Messi potentially sealing his and Argentina’s spot in the last 16.
Spain vs. Germany, Nov. 27. Surely there can’t have been many bigger group-stage matches than this at a World Cup? Two recent champions, two giants of European and world soccer.
Iran vs. United States, Nov. 29. It has been labeled as “The Mother of All Games Part II.” Just like at the World Cup in 1998, the two countries will meet in the group stage in a politically charged matchup. Diplomatic relations have yet to be restored between the nations since being severed in 1980.
Ghana vs. Uruguay, Dec. 2. Anyone remember the night of July 2, 2010? In the last minute of extra time in a World Cup quarterfinal match between Uruguay and Ghana, Luis Suarez deliberately stopped the ball with his hand on the goalline, got sent off, only for Ghana to miss the penalty and lose in a shootout as Suarez celebrated on the sideline. Revenge would be sweet for Ghana.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2022-10-29T07:58:05+00:00 | ksn.com | https://www.ksn.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-viewers-guide-for-the-world-cup-in-qatar/ |
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy will be allowed to stand until a hearing before the state Supreme Court.
The court said late Monday it will hear the case, which has been part of a legal fight since the law took effect last July.
The law prohibits abortions after 15 weeks, with exceptions if the procedure is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life, prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. It does not allow exemptions in cases of rape, incest or human trafficking.
Violators could face up to five years in prison. Physicians and other medical professionals could lose their licenses and face administrative fines of $10,000 for each violation. | 2023-01-25T11:40:01+00:00 | mytwintiers.com | https://www.mytwintiers.com/news-cat/national/ap-15-week-abortion-ban-set-to-go-before-florida-supreme-court/ |
CHICAGO, Oct. 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL) is pleased to announce the real estate sale of Gastroenterology Health Partners, totaling approximately 20,544 rentable square feet in New Albany, Indiana, to Flagship Healthcare Properties. BGL's Healthcare Real Estate team served as consultants to the seller in the transaction.
Gastroenterology Health Partners, a division of OneGI, is the largest independent gastroenterology group in the region with 18 physicians, 12 advanced practice providers, and four locations spread across Louisville, Lexington, and Southern Indiana. The New Albany location is its home base, with 13 providers offering in-office pathology, research, infusion, and motility services. In addition to services provided in the office, the group offers a wide array of additional procedures such as upper and lower endoscopy, ERCP, percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy tubes, endoscopic mucosal resection, endoscopic ultrasound, and ablation procedures at various surgical centers and hospitals in the surrounding area.
BGL's Healthcare Real Estate Investment team is a leading advisor to private and institutional healthcare organizations, offering capital market strategies and solutions including sale/leaseback transactions, asset disposition, debt/equity recapitalization, private placement, and tax deferred UPREIT structures. With our investment banking and brokerage professionals working together seamlessly to ensure fluid transactions, we help our clients maximize their healthcare real estate investment and valuation.
About Brown Gibbons Lang & Company
Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL) is a leading independent investment bank and financial advisory firm focused on the global middle market. The firm advises private and public corporations and private equity groups on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructurings, business valuations and opinions, and other strategic matters. BGL has investment banking offices in Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and New York, and real estate offices in Chicago, Cleveland, and San Antonio. The firm is also a founding member of Global M&A Partners, enabling BGL to service clients in more than 30 countries around the world. Securities transactions are conducted through Brown, Gibbons, Lang & Company Securities, LLC, an affiliate of Brown Gibbons Lang & Company LLC and a registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. For more information, please visit www.bglco.com.
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SOURCE Brown Gibbons Lang & Company | 2022-10-17T20:22:09+00:00 | kwtx.com | https://www.kwtx.com/prnewswire/2022/10/17/bgl-announces-real-estate-sale-gastroenterology-health-partners/ |
Updated August 26, 2022 at 2:09 PM ET
The affidavit that the FBI used to get a warrant for searching former President Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago is now public. A redacted version of the document was released by a federal court this afternoon.
Of the 32 pages in the affidavit from an FBI special agent with expertise in counterintelligence and espionage investigations, nearly half were covered in thick black lines masking information that had demonstrated to a federal judge the need to search Trump's Florida property. Eight pages of exhibits and supplementary information were also released, which were not redacted.
"Probable cause exists to believe that evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed" was being improperly stored in various places at Mar-a-Lago, the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, 184 classified documents, including 25 marked "Top Secret," were found among 15 boxes that the National Archives had obtained from Mar-a-Lago earlier in the year, as well as others denoted with labels indicating they contained national security information, such as "FISA." Some of those documents were intermixed with other files, loose and unlabeled, which prompted the Archives to refer the case to the Justice Department.
As the department worked with Trump and his attorneys, it became concerned about the nature of other records at the property, and that they were no adequately protected or stored. The Justice Department also grew concerned about misleading public statements from Trump and a former administration official about the materials that the Archives had recovered, the affidavit shows.
Shortly after the affidavit was released on Friday, Trump made an emotional statement on his Truth Social media account, referring to the search as "the Break-In of my home."
He also said federal law enforcement was carrying out "a total public relations subterfuge," without providing explanation, and declared "WE GAVE THEM MUCH" when he described his voluntary turning over of some of the materials improperly kept at Mar-a-Lago.
Since the search was executed on Aug. 8, threats of violence toward the FBI have increased. Anticipating the potential for violence from Trump supporters, the agent in the affidavit asked for it to be sealed.
"I believe that sealing this document is necessary because the items and information to be seized are relevant to an ongoing investigation and the FBI has not yet identified all potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation," the unidentified agent wrote in the affidavit. "Premature disclosure of the contents of this affidavit and related documents may have a significant and negative impact on the continuing investigation and may severely jeopardize its effectiveness by allowing criminal parties an opportunity to flee, destroy evidence (stored electronically and otherwise), change patterns of behavior, and notify criminal confederates."
The country's main court filing system, known as PACER, was unable to handle the downloading demand for the document, which pushed the release until after the court-mandated deadline of noon.
Media organizations went to court to demand that the public be able see the affidavit laying out the reasons and research for the unprecedented search. The Justice Department then countered that it contains information that could compromise ongoing investigations as well as the safety of federal employees.
Judge Bruce Reinhart last week ordered the department to provide him with a redacted version to consider for release. On Thursday he said the government had made its case that disclosing all of the affidavit would reveal witnesses, the investigation's strategy, its scope and grand jury information and there was reason to keep much of it under wraps for now. But he said that the government's proposed redactions were tailored narrowly enough to protect the integrity of the investigation and provided "the least onerous alternative" to keeping the entire document sealed.
The affidavit also explains the work of a "Privilege Review Team" to identify and segregate documents that may be shielded by attorney-client privilege. Still, Trump has asked a different judge to halt the FBI review of the Mar-a-Lago documents and appoint a neutral special master. That judge has given him a deadline, also on Friday, to resubmit his request outlining and clarifying jurisdiction and legal points made in his first request.
At the request of Trump's lawyers, the FBI attached a letter where the lawyers stated that Trump "readily and voluntarily" agreed to give the Archives documents it had requested, and made the argument that the criminal statute on classified materials does not apply to presidents or former presidents, essentially saying that Trump could not break the law. They also restate Trump's point of view that a president has absolute authority to declassify documents.
This story will be updated.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2022-08-26T18:43:18+00:00 | delawarepublic.org | https://www.delawarepublic.org/npr-headlines/npr-headlines/2022-08-26/affidavit-says-over-180-classified-docs-removed-by-national-archives-from-mar-a-lago |
WACO, TX (FOX 44) — On Thursday, Baylor senior pitcher Tyler Thomas was named a finalist for the Senior Class Award.
To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior or graduate student and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition.
Thomas was on his way to a stellar season, compiling a 2.45 ERA with 51 strikeouts, before it was cut short by a season ending injury that requires Tommy John surgery. | 2022-05-06T06:01:54+00:00 | fox44news.com | https://www.fox44news.com/sports/baylor/tyler-thomas-named-senior-class-award-finalist/ |
ELMAU, Germany (AP) — G-7 countries end summit promising to inflict 'severe and immediate economic costs' on Russia.
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MOST POPULAR | 2022-06-28T10:57:30+00:00 | lmtonline.com | https://www.lmtonline.com/news/article/Alert-G-7-countries-end-summit-promising-to-17270785.php |
HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday ahead of the 25th anniversary of the British handover and after a two-year transformation bringing the city more tightly under Communist Party control. It is Xi’s first trip outside of mainland China in nearly 2 ½ years.
Supporters waving Chinese and Hong Kong flags chanted “Welcome, welcome! Warm welcome!” as Xi’s train pulled into the train station.
Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, were welcomed by city leader Carrie Lam as they alighted the train. Xi waved at supporters who welcomed him on the platform, and later greeted John Lee, the city’s incoming leader, and Leung Chun-ying, a former chief executive of the city, along with other officials.
“I’m very happy to be in Hong Kong,” Xi said in a speech at the Hong Kong West Kowloon train station. “It’s been five years since I last visited, and in the past five years I’ve been paying attention to and thinking about Hong Kong.”
Under Xi’s leadership, China has reshaped Hong Kong in the past two years, cracking down on protest and freedom of speech and introducing a more patriotic curriculum in schools. The changes have all but eliminated opposition voices and driven many to leave.
Hong Kong and nearby Macao are special administrative regions that are governed separately from the rest of China, known as the Chinese mainland.
Xi has not left China since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold. China has maintained a strict “zero-COVID” policy that aims to keep the virus out. Xi’s last overseas trip was to Myanmar in January 2020.
At the train station, Xi said Hong Kong has overcome many challenges over the years and had been “reborn from the ashes” with “vigorous vitality.”
“As long as we stick to the ‘one country, two systems’ framework, Hong Kong will certainly have a brighter future and will make new and bigger contributions to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people,” he said.
Later Thursday, Xi is expected to visit the Hong Kong Science Park before meeting with pro-Beijing politicians and tycoons, and then attend a closed-door banquet hosted by Lam, the outgoing chief executive, according to local newspaper South China Morning Post.
Both Xi and Peng are likely to spend Thursday night in the Chinese city of Shenzhen — 15 minutes away from Hong Kong by high-speed train — and return to the city on Friday morning to attend the July 1 events.
On Friday, Xi will attend a ceremony marking Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule on July 1, 1997 and officiate an inauguration ceremony for the new government led by incoming leader Lee.
Ahead of his arrival in Hong Kong, thousands of guests — including top officials, lawmakers and diplomats — checked in to quarantine hotels earlier this week and have been taking daily nucleic acid tests as part of coronavirus precautions.
Police have also ramped up security, designating security zones and road closures as well as a no-fly zone for Friday.
More than 10 journalists from local and international media outlets had their applications to cover the July 1 events rejected earlier this week on “security grounds,” with the government saying it was “striking a balance between the need of media work and security requirements.”
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AP cross-formats news assistant Caroline Chen in Beijing contributed to this report. | 2022-06-30T12:12:12+00:00 | valleycentral.com | https://www.valleycentral.com/news/international/ap-international/hong-kong-gears-up-to-welcome-xi-for-handover-anniversary/ |
Request unsuccessful. Incapsula incident ID: 262000950066712253-48244684753344448 | 2023-02-10T19:16:59+00:00 | bizjournals.com | https://www.bizjournals.com/tampabay/news/2023/02/10/florida-property-insurance-market-tough-year.html |
A day before Big Ten football Media Days starts in Indianapolis on Tuesday, cleveland.com compiled results of its 12th annual Big Ten poll.
And beat writers who cover the league aren't thinking too fondly of what Illinois can accomplish in its second season under Bret Bielema.
The Illini are picked to finish sixth in the Big Ten West, only ahead of Northwestern. Illinois received 65 points, with Northwestern checking in at seventh with 61 points.
Wisconsin is the favorite to win the Big Ten West, with the Badgers receiving 246 points and 31 first-place votes. Writers pegged Iowa in second place with 198 points, followed by Minnesota in third with 162 points, Purdue in fourth with 153 points and Nebraska in fifth with 123 points.
Ohio State is the unanimous choice to win the Big Ten East and the Big Ten championship game, with Ryan Day's Buckeyes receiving all 36 first-place votes and 252 points. Michigan (203 points), Penn State (169 points), Michigan State (162 points), Maryland (104 points), Rutgers (60 points) and Indiana (58 points) rounded out the Big Ten East projections.
Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud is the writers' pick for Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, with Iowa linebacker Jack Campbell the preseason Defensive Player of the Year.
No Illini players received any votes for those two individual honors.
Illinois finished 5-7 last season, including 4-5 in the Big Ten as the Illini wound up fifth in the Big Ten West.
The Illini kick off training camp on Saturday in Champaign and open the season at 3 p.m. on Aug. 27 against Wyoming at Memorial Stadium in Champaign. | 2022-07-25T16:07:58+00:00 | news-gazette.com | https://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-picked-to-finish-sixth-in-big-ten-west/article_3970bf7f-8fcc-59a6-84ce-73c436d3c7cd.html |
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — A high-level U.N. conference on Wednesday raised less than $1 billion of the more than $5 billion organizers were hoping for to help over 30 million people in the Horn of Africa cope with a major climate crisis and mass displacement after years of conflict, a major disappointment to aid agencies.
The U.N. appealed for $7 billion this year to provide food and other humanitarian assistance for the three Horn of Africa countries – Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and had only received $1.6 billion. After pledges were tallied, the U.N. humanitarian office said the total funding for 2023 now stands at $2.4 billion.
That means only $800 million in new funding was announced Wednesday – over 60% from the United States which made an additional donation of $524 million . That brought its total to more than $1.4 billion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged would-be donors at the start of the pledging conference to make an immediate and major injection of funding to prevent the crisis caused by the longest drought on record, massive displacement and skyrocketing food prices “from turning into catastrophe.”
“People in the Horn of Africa are paying an unconscionable price for a climate crisis they did nothing to cause,” he said. “Without an immediate and major injection of funding, emergency operations will grind to a halt, and people will die.”
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who visited the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in September, said humanitarian needs in the Horn of Africa are now greater than ever, “with over 23.5 million persons facing acute food insecurity” which is why the U.S. has pledged additional funds.
“Right now, the global community is simply not meeting the moment,” she told the conference, warning that “the threat of famine looms.”
“In a world abundant with food, entire communities should never, never starve to death,” Thomas-Greenfield stressed.
But the results of the pledging conference co-hosted by the U.S., UK, Italy and Qatar were anything but bold.
According to the U.N. humanitarian office, there were 25 countries that made announcements along with the European Commission, Islamic Relief and the U.N.’s emergency humanitarian fund. But it said some pledges included funds for 2024 and beyond.
Germany’s U.N. Ambassador Antje Leendertse told the conference the 210 million euros ($226 million) in humanitarian aid for the three countries in 2023 and 2024 doesn’t include substantial funding “for development and stabilization” in the Horn of Africa.
UK Minister for Development and Africa Andrew Mitchell said the country pledged $119 million for the three Horn of Africa countries. In addition, he said, the UK pledged $27 million for Sudan, $23 million for South Sudan and $9 million for Uganda, taking its total new funding up to $178 million.
Alison Huggins, deputy director for Africa for the relief organization Mercy Corps which has worked in the Horn of Africa since 2004, said it takes the results of the conference “with a grain of salt because many of these pledges were just confirmations of existing financing commitments and remain insufficient in light of the region’s urgent and expanding needs and the many lives still hanging in the balance.”
She said people in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya contribute less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, but they are “suffering the consequences of human-induced climate change.”
The humanitarian agency CARE said the region is facing the worst food crisis in 40 years, pointing to drought, two locust invasions, conflict and rising commodity prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over 31 million people need emergency aid, more than 2.5 million have left their homes, and on, due to the extreme weather more than 13.2 million livestock — a key money earner — have perished.
According to the U.N. humanitarian office known as OCHA, the Horn of Africa is the epicenter of one of the world’s worst climate emergencies.
Last year, an estimated 43,000 people died in Somalia, most likely due to drought – and half of the victims may have been children under the age of five, OCHA said.
While improved rains are starting to ease the impact of drought, they are also causing flooding and damage which has affected at least 900,000 people — and more flooding is expected later this year, OCHA said. And regardless of the rains, it will take years to recover from the historic drought.
In Somalia, where more than 6 million people are going hungry, a famine has yet to be declared, but some humanitarian and climate officials have warned that current trends are worse than in the 2011 famine, in which 250,000 people died.
Somalia is also grappling with insecurity due to the al-Shabab extremist group, which has ties to al-Qaida and has fought the Somali federal government in Mogadishu for years. The group intensified attacks on military bases in recent months after losing territory in rural areas to government forces.
In Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, nearly all the 6 million people rely on food aid after two years of civil war. Government-imposed restrictions on humanitarian relief had pushed parts of the region to the brink of famine until aid deliveries resumed after the war stopped with a cease-fire in November.
But the U.N. and USAID, the U.S. aid agency, announced earlier this month that they were suspending all food assistance to investigate the theft of humanitarian supplies.
___
Associated Press writer Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Kenya, contributed to this report. | 2023-05-25T13:38:17+00:00 | wwlp.com | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-un-conference-raises-less-than-1-billion-for-climate-wracked-horn-of-africa-in-major-disappointment/ |
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Zach Gibson threw for 174 yards and Georgia Tech scored 21 unanswered points for a 21-17 road win against No. 13 North Carolina on Saturday.
Georgia Tech (5-6, 4-4 Atlantic Coast Conference) trailed 17-0 late in the first half, but started to methodically move the ball. All three of its scoring drives were for 68-plus yards and culminated with rushing touchdowns.
A 6-yard score on the ground by Hassan Hall with just over 11 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter proved to be the ticket for the Yellow Jackets, who kept their bowl hopes alive and improved to 4-3 under interim coach Brent Key.
“I don’t think there was anyone in the locker room that could tell you that it was 17-0,” Key said. “That is who this team is. Regardless of the score, adversity and what takes place in a game, they take it one play at a time.”
North Carolina (9-2, 6-1 ACC) was riding a six-game winning streak and clinched the ACC’s Coastal Division last week. The Tar Heels had a chance to regain the lead late in the fourth quarter, but Josh Downs dropped a 4th-and-11 pass from quarterback Drake Maye in the end zone with just over four minutes remaining.
Maye, who had emerged as a possible Heisman contender as a redshirt freshman, failed to score a touchdown for the first time this season and had a season-low 202 yards passing. He was also sacked a season-high six times by Georgia Tech, three of which came via Keion White.
After UNC went ahead 17-0 with a little more than three minutes left in the first half, Georgia Tech held the Heels to 97 yards of offense on their final 33 plays.
“I thought we were mature enough to play in what would be called a trap game,” UNC coach Mack Brown said. “I thought we were beyond that after Virginia, but we obviously weren’t. I thought we did a poor job of preparing them and didn’t play well enough to win.”
DUAL QB SYSTEM
With previous starters Jeff Sims and Zach Pryon sidelined because of injuries, the Yellow Jackets split quarterbacking responsibilities between Gibson and Clemson transfer Taisun Phommachanh. Gibson took more snaps and was responsible for the bulk of the passing yards, and Phommachanh ran for a score and helped Georgia Tech milk the clock late in the fourth.
THE TAKEAWAY
Georgia Tech: For the second time this season, the Yellow Jackets looked unfazed on the road against a ranked opponent. Georgia Tech’s balanced effort on offense (187 passing yards and 186 rushing yards) stymied UNC, and the Yellow Jacket defense did something few have done against UNC’s offense this year: limit the big plays and defend well in the red zone.
“If a team can get all the way down there and come out with three points, we’re satisfied with that,” said Georgia Tech safety LaMiles Brooks, who picked off Maye in the second half. “No points at all, that’s even better.”
UNC: The Tar Heels looked flat on offense for much of the night. After running back Elijah Green’s 80-yard rushing score on their first play from scrimmage, they amassed only 285 yards the rest of the night and scored just 10 points on five red-zone visits.
POLL IMPLICATIONS
The Tar Heels are likely to see a considerable drop after falling to a Georgia Tech team that had lost three of its last four. The loss also effectively ends any outside shot the Tar Heels had at eyeing the College Football Playoffs.
UP NEXT
Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets head to rival Georgia, the top-ranked team in the nation, on Saturday.
UNC: The Tar Heels host rival North Carolina State on Friday.
___
AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25. Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://bit.ly/3pqZVaF | 2022-11-20T14:33:00+00:00 | pahomepage.com | https://www.pahomepage.com/sports/ap-ga-tech-erases-17-point-deficit-beats-no-13-north-carolina/ |
(The Conversation) – In an airplane hangar in Miami, engineers are recreating some of the most powerful hurricane winds to ever strike land. These Category 5 winds can shatter a test building in the blink of an eye.
Yet they aren’t powerful enough to keep up with nature.
When engineers built the Wall of Wind test facility 10 years ago at Florida International University, it was inspired by Hurricane Andrew, a monster of a storm that devastated South Florida in 1992.
The facility was designed to test structures’ ability to withstand winds up to 160 miles per hour (257 kilometers per hour). Now, we’re seeing the likes of Hurricane Dorian, which shredded neighborhoods in the Bahamas with 184 mph (296 km/h) winds in 2019, and Hurricane Patricia, with winds clocked at 215 mph (346 km/h) off the coast of Mexico in 2015.
Studies show tropical storms are ramping up in intensity as the climate changes and ocean and air temperatures rise. Designing homes and infrastructure to withstand future storms like Dorian will require new test facilities that go well beyond today’s capabilities – for what we believe should be called Category 6 storms.
The Wall of Wind
There is currently only one life-size test facility at a U.S. university capable of generating Category 5 winds, currently the most powerful level of hurricane. That’s the Wall of Wind.
At one end of the facility is a curved wall of 12 giant fans, each as tall as an average person. Working together, they can simulate a 160 mph hurricane. Water jets simulate wind-driven rain. At the other end, the building opens up to a large field where engineers can see how and where structures fail and the debris flies.
The powerful tempests that we create here allow us and other engineers to probe for weaknesses in construction and design, track failures cascading through a building and test innovative solutions in close to real-world storm conditions. Cameras and sensors capture every millisecond as buildings, roofing materials and other items come apart – or, just as important, don’t fail.
Ten years of research here have helped builders and designers reduce the risk of damage. That’s helpful when forecasters warn, as they do for 2022, of a busy hurricane season with several major hurricanes.
Lessons from hurricane testing
We’ve found in destructive testing that a structure will often rip apart in less than a second. All it takes is the wind penetrating the weakest point.
When Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas, many less-well-constructed homes turned into shrapnel, creating another problem. Once a building fails, even nearby homes built to withstand higher winds are in trouble because of the flying debris. Our testing has shown how debris from one building, under continuous winds of 130-140 mph or more, can take out the next building, and then that takes out the next building.
Roofs are often that weakest link. A roof is subjected to uplift force during a storm, so wind hitting the surface of the building needs to be able to escape. When wind runs into objects in that path, it can cause damage.
New designs are improving how buildings stand up to extreme winds. For example, storms can create powerful vortices – winds that swirl almost like a corkscrew at a building’s edge – that can strip away roofing material and eventually lift the roof itself. One innovation uses a horizontal wind turbine along the edge of a roof to diffuse the wind and generate power at the same time, a double benefit.
The shape of buildings can also either create weaknesses or help deflect wind. You’ll notice that most modern high-rises avoid sharp corners. Testing shows that more trapezoidal or rounded edges can reduce wind pressures on buildings.
And better safety doesn’t have to be costly. One experiment showed how just US$250 in upgrades was the difference between a small, shed-size building standing up to a Category 3 storm – or not. Hurricane straps attach a roof truss to the perimeter of the house. Ring shank nails, which have threads around the shank to grasp the wood, can resist wind forces better than smooth nails. Hurricane shutters also block entry points where the wind can penetrate and trigger catastrophic failure.
Installation also matters, and helps explain why roofs that appear to meet building code requirements can still fail and go flying in hurricanes.
Experiments we conducted have shown how an edge system – the metal elements between walls and the roof – that is installed just half an inch too high or low can prematurely fail at low winds, even though the system was designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. Roofers installing asphalt shingles and roofing tiles may need to go beyond the current code when sealing edges to keep them from failing in a storm.
Expanding testing: 200 mph winds + storm surge
While engineers have been gaining knowledge through testing, the nature of storms is changing as the planet warms.
Warmer temperatures – fueled by increasing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities – enable the air to hold more moisture, and warmer oceans provide more energy to fuel hurricanes. Research shows that bigger and more intense storms that are heavier with water and moving more slowly are going to hammer the areas they hit with more wind, storm surge, flooding and debris.
One study estimated that if Hurricane Ike, which devastated Galveston, Texas, in 2008, were to hit in the warmer climate expected in the late 21st century, its winds would be 13% stronger and it would move 17% slower and be 34% wetter.
Storms like these are why we’re working with eight other universities to design a new facility to test construction against 200 mph winds (322 km/h), with a water basin to test the impact of storm surge up to 20 feet (6 meters) high plus waves.
Computers can model the results, but their models still need to be verified by physical experiments. By combining wind, storm surge, and wave action, we’ll be able to see the entire hurricane and how all those components interact to affect people and the built environment.
Disaster testing is finding ways to make homes safer, but it’s up to homeowners to make sure they know their structures’ weaknesses. After all, for most people, their home is their most valuable asset. | 2022-06-04T20:21:40+00:00 | wnct.com | https://www.wnct.com/news/national/the-wall-of-wind-can-blow-away-buildings-at-category-5-hurricane-strength-to-help-engineers-design-safer-homes-but-even-that-isnt-powerful-enough/ |
A Russian court upheld U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich's detention on Tuesday, ordering him to stay in jail after he appeared in a Moscow court for an appeal hearing, the Wall Street Journal said.
The WSJ journalist was arrested in Russia on March 29, and has remained in prison there since.
While in court, Gershkovich could be seen standing inside a glass box, pacing occasionally. He was accompanied by Lynne Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Russia, who was in the courtroom.
Gershkovich's lawyers, Tatyana Nozhkina and Maria Korchagina of the ZKS law firm, challenged his detention for allegations of spying, which he, the Journal and the U.S. government have strongly denied, WSJ said.
While Gershkovich's detention was upheld, a few scenarios could have come from his appeal. Rather than being forced to stay in the isolating Lefortovo prison, where he will remain, he could've been ordered to continue his detention in a new prison, allowed on house arrest or granted bail.
The 31-year-old's pretrial detention period ends on May 29, though that could be extended.
Tracy was the first to visit Gershkovich since his arrest last month.
"He is in good health and remains strong. We reiterate our call for his immediate release," Tracy said, according to the Journal.
The U.S. declared Gershkovich wrongfully detained last week, accelerating efforts to free him.
WSJ and the U.S. government have been demanding his release. WSJ, the journalism community and others have also come together on social media to call for the reporter's freedom. | 2023-04-18T16:37:48+00:00 | wrtv.com | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/russian-court-orders-detained-us-reporter-to-stay-in-jail |
Twitter said Tuesday it will add a gray “official” label to some high-profile accounts to indicate that they are authentic, the latest twist in new owner Elon Musk’s chaotic overhaul of the platform’s verification system.
The site’s current system of using what are known as “blue checks” confirming an account’s authenticity will soon go away for those who don’t pay a monthly fee. The checkmarks will be available at a yet-to-be-announced date for anyone willing to pay a $7.99-a-month subscription, which will also include some bonus features, such as fewer ads and the ability to have tweets given greater visibility than those coming from non-subscribers.
The platform’s current verification system has been in place since 2009 and was created to ensure high-profile and public-facing accounts are who they say they are.
Experts have expressed concern that making the checkmark available to anyone for a fee could lead to impersonations and the spreading of misinformation and scams. The gray label — a color that tends to blend into the background whether you use light or dark mode to scroll Twitter — is an apparent compromise. But it might lead to more confusion, as Twitter users accustomed to the blue check as a mark of authenticity will now have to look for the less obvious “official” designation.
Esther Crawford, a Twitter employee who has been working on the verification overhaul, said Tuesday on Twitter that the “official” label will be added to “select accounts” when the new system launches.
“Not all previously verified accounts will get the ‘Official’ label and the label is not available for purchase,” said Crawford, who recently was the subject of a viral photo showing her sleeping on the floor of a Twitter office while working to meet Musk’s deadlines.
Crawford said those receiving the label include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures.
There are about 423,000 verified accounts under the outgoing system. Many of those belong to celebrities, businesses and politicians, as well as media outlets.
But a large chunk of verified accounts belong to individual journalists, some with tiny followings at local newspapers and news sites around the world. The idea was to verify reporters so their identities couldn’t be used to push false information on Twitter.
Musk had previously floated designating official accounts in a way other than the blue check. | 2022-11-09T06:48:00+00:00 | sun-sentinel.com | https://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/ct-biz-twitter-20221109-z7izf3tnabblhfkrh6wob4gvpa-story.html |
Towns and farmlands inundated by floods, homes and roads buried by landslides, crops withering under scorching heat, hazmat-suited Covid workers collapsing from heatstroke.
Since summer began, scenes of devastation and misery have been playing out across China as the world's most populous nation grapples with an unrelenting torrent of extreme weather emergencies.
Scientists have been warning for years that the climate crisis would amplify extreme weather, making it deadlier and more frequent. Now, like much of the world, China is reeling from its impact.
Since the country's rainy season started in May, heavy rainstorms have brought severe flooding and landslides to large swathes of southern China, killing dozens of people, displacing millions and causing economic losses running into billions of yuan.
In June, extreme rainfall broke "historical records" in coastal Fujian province, as well as parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. At the same time, a sweltering heat wave began to envelop northern China, pushing temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
That heat wave has now engulfed half the country, affecting more than 900 million people -- or about 64% of the population. All but two northeastern provinces in China have issued high-temperature warnings, with 84 cities issuing their highest-level red alerts last Wednesday.
In recent weeks, a total of 71 national weather stations across China have logged temperatures that smashed historical records. Four cities -- three in the central province of Hebei and one in Yunnan in the southwest -- saw temperatures reaching 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit), according to the National Climate Center.
The stifling heat has coincided with a surge in Covid cases, making government mandated mass testing all the more excruciating for residents -- including the elderly -- who must wait in long lines under the sun. It has also become a dangerous task for health workers who, as part of the government's 'zero-Covid' policy, are required to spend long hours outdoors covered head to toe in airtight PPE equipment as they administer the tests.
Several videos of Covid workers collapsing on the ground from heatstroke have gone viral on social media.
The heat wave has also caused power shortages in some regions and hit the country's crop production, threatening to further push up food prices.
And the worst might be still to come, according to Yao Wenguang, a Ministry of Water Resources official overseeing flood and drought prevention.
"It is predicted that from July to August, there will be more extreme weather events in China, and regional flood conditions and drought conditions will be heavier than usual," Yao told Xinhua News Agency last month.
Counting the costs
China is a "sensitive area" that has been significantly affected by global climate change, with temperatures rising faster than the global average, according to the country's latest Blue Book on Climate Change, published by the China Meteorological Administration last August.
Between 1951 and 2020, China's annual average surface temperature was rising at a pace of 0.26 degrees Celsius per decade, the report said. Sea levels around China's coastlines rose faster than the global average from 1980 to 2020, according to the report.
The changing climate can make extreme weather events -- such as summer floods, which China has grappled with for centuries -- more frequent and intense, said Johnny Chan, an emeritus professor of atmospheric science at the City University of Hong Kong.
A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, which can lead to heavier rainstorms, while global warming can alter atmospheric circulation, which can contribute to extreme weather such as heat waves, Chan said.
"We should be really concerned, because these extreme weather events actually affect the most underprivileged, disadvantaged and vulnerable parts of the population -- those in the rural areas, or those who don't have air conditioning or live in very crowded conditions," Chan said.
For China, the sheer size of its population and economy means the scale of damage caused by extreme weather events is often massive.
Tropical cyclones, floods and droughts are estimated to cost China about $238 billion annually -- the highest in the Asia Pacific region and nearly three times the estimated loss suffered by India or Japan, according to a report released last year by the World Meteorological Organization.
Heat wave-related mortality in China rose by a factor of four from 1990 to 2019, reaching 26,800 deaths in 2019, according to a Lancet study published in 2020.
New reality
Meanwhile, many Chinese are only just beginning to realize that climate change will affect them personally.
In 2019, researchers found that compared to other countries, public concerns over global warming and climate change in China were "relatively low."
The Chinese government has promised to bring greenhouse gases to a peak before 2030 and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060.
For many Chinese, the dangers of extreme weather fueled by climate change hit home last summer, when devastating floods killed 380 people in the central city of Zhengzhou, the provincial capital of Henan province.
Last July, the city of 12 million was pelted with what its water station called a "once in a thousand years" downpour, but local authorities were ill-prepared and failed to heed the five consecutive red alerts for torrential rain -- which should have prompted authorities to halt gatherings and suspend classes and businesses. Flood water gushed into the tunnels of the city's subway system, trapping hundreds of passengers and killing 12 of them in a tragedy that gripped the nation.
Liu Junyan, climate and energy project leader for Greenpeace East Asia, said the Zhengzhou flooding was a wake-up call for the Chinese government and public.
"The central government and local governments started to be aware that climate change is such a enormous threat to society and its sustainable development," she said, adding that she has noticed more discussions about climate change and extreme weather in China's traditional and social media.
Since last summer, many Chinese cities have improved their emergency response systems for extreme rainfall. In May, authorities in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou suspended schools, advised residents to work from home, closed construction sites and suspended public transportation in parts of the city following alerts for torrential rains.
This June, the Chinese government released a new policy document to improve its response to climate change, which it said was not only creating long-term challenges but also made the country more vulnerable to "sudden and extreme" events.
"Climate change has already brought serious adverse impacts to China's natural ecological system, and has continued to spread and penetrate into economy and society," the government said in its national climate change adaptation strategy.
It vowed to make China a "climate-resilient society" by 2035, by building a nationwide system to monitor and assess climate risks, and by boosting early warning capabilities.
Liu said the policy document is a "very big and ambitious" piece of guidance for local governments, but it lacks details on implementation.
"The impact of climate change can be very localized and its threat to vulnerable communities can be very different from place to place," she said. "Local governments still need to develop more detailed and tangible plans to implement this grand strategy."
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Looking for the most up-to-date mortgage rates to empower your purchasing or refinancing decisions? We’ve got you covered.
Here, you can view today’s mortgage interest rates, updated daily according to data from Bankrate, so you can have the most current data when purchasing or refinancing your home.
30-year fixed rate mortgages
The average mortgage interest rate for a standard 30-year fixed mortgage is 6.11%, an increase of 0.13 percentage points from last week’s 5.98%.
Thirty-year fixed mortgages are the most commonly sought out loan term. A 30-year fixed rate mortgage has a lower monthly payment than a 15-year one, but usually has a higher interest rate.
15-year fixed rate mortgages
The average mortgage interest rate for a standard 15-year fixed mortgage is 5.32%, an increase of 0.12 percentage points from last week’s 5.20%.
Fifteen-year fixed rate mortgages come with a higher monthly payment compared to its 30-year counterpart. However, usually interest rates are lower and you will pay less total interest because you are paying off your loan at a faster rate.
5/1 adjustable rate mortgages
The average rate on a 5/1 adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) is 4.52%, an increase of 0.10 percentage points from last week’s 4.42%. With an ARM, you will most often get a lower interest rate than a fixed mortgage for say, the first five years.
But you could end up paying more or less after that time depending on your loan terms and how that rate follows the market.
What is the best term for a loan?
When picking a mortgage, it is important to pick out a loan term or payment schedule. Usually you will be offered a 15 or 30-year loan term, but it is not uncommon to see 10, 20, or 40-year mortgages, according to CNET.
Mortgages can be fixed-rate or adjustable-rate. Interest rates in fixed-rate mortgages are set in stone for the duration of the loan.
Adjustable-rate mortgages only have interest rates set for a certain period of time before the rate adjusts annually based on the market.
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Katherine Rodriguez can be reached at krodriguez@njadvancemedia.com. Have a tip? Tell us at nj.com/tips. | 2022-09-07T13:04:01+00:00 | nj.com | https://www.nj.com/business/2022/09/todays-mortgage-rates-for-september-7-2022.html |
Woodland Park Magnet School attended the Tangipahoa Parish Fair in Amite on Sept. 28. Students enjoyed the different educational exhibits and said they cannot wait to attend the fair again.
Woodland Park Magnet School students have a fair time
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Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commission | 2022-11-02T08:14:39+00:00 | theadvocate.com | https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/livingston_tangipahoa/article_1158ea50-4a45-11ed-a721-7bae42fd1125.html |
Traveler told TSA he had 'no idea' a sword was concealed in his cane
Someone isn't getting through security.
Transportation Security Administration officers at Boston's Logan International Airport discovered a long blade inside a traveler's cane on Tuesday.
The man said he "had no idea the blade was in there," TSA spokesperson Dan Velez said in a tweet. After being questioned by Massachusetts State Police, the man surrendered the cane and was cleared to continue his travels.
It's not uncommon for blades to be concealed in seemingly ordinary objects.
On Thursday, a passenger attempted to make it through airport security with a dagger concealed in a hairbrush handle at the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport, according to a tweet from TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein.
"Some carry-on items may be prohibited even if they appear not to be, like a cane with a hidden sword," the TSA says on its website. | 2022-04-11T13:20:26+00:00 | wisn.com | https://www.wisn.com/article/traveler-told-tsa-he-had-no-idea-sword-concealed-in-his-cane/39683713 |
The lack of nursing home beds means that U.S. hospitals are caring for patients who don't need to be hospitalized but have nowhere else to go.
Copyright 2022 Vermont Public
The lack of nursing home beds means that U.S. hospitals are caring for patients who don't need to be hospitalized but have nowhere else to go.
Copyright 2022 Vermont Public | 2022-12-07T11:56:54+00:00 | wlrn.org | https://www.wlrn.org/2022-12-07/limited-nursing-home-beds-force-hospitals-to-keep-patients-longer |
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In a sport where players and fans alike obsess over statistics, more than 12,000 people witnessed live the rarest and most prized accomplishment Wednesday night in Oakland, Calif.
New York Yankees pitcher Domingo Germán threw a perfect game Wednesday, just the fourth in team history and 24th overall in Major League Baseball history. Germán recorded the feat on 99 pitches thrown over nine innings, allowing no hits and no walks in an 11-0 victory against the Oakland Athletics.
The 30-year-old Germán became the oldest player to throw a perfect game since the late Roy Halladay did so at the age of 33 in 2010 with Philadelphia, according to ESPN Stats and Information Research.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | 2023-06-29T06:06:21+00:00 | nprillinois.org | https://www.nprillinois.org/2023-06-29/a-yankees-pitcher-throws-a-perfect-game-wednesday-just-the-24th-in-mlb-history |
Two Bettendorf filmmakers were at Cinemark, Davenport, on Saturday night, when they talked about “65” with theater goers.
Nearly five years after Bettendorf natives Scott Beck and Bryan Woods conquered Hollywood with the horror hit, “A Quiet Place,” the filmmakers are back with the big-budget science-fiction thriller “65,” starring Adam Driver.
The 38-year-old filmmakers wrote and directed the movie about an astronaut who discovers he is stranded on an Earth he doesn’t recognize. He and another survivor, a little girl, must make their way to safety despite ever-present dangers.
The movie is showing Quad Cities theaters and theaters throughout the United States. | 2023-03-12T05:55:10+00:00 | ourquadcities.com | https://www.ourquadcities.com/entertainment-news/movies/beck-woods-greet-65-audiences-at-cinemark-davenport/ |
1 in 5 United Methodist congregations in US left denomination over LGBTQ conflicts
(AP) - More than 6,000 United Methodist congregations — a fifth of the U.S. total — have now received permission to leave the denomination amid a schism over theology and the role of LGBTQ people in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.
Those figures emerge following the close of regular meetings in June for the denomination’s regional bodies, known as annual conferences. The departures began with a trickle in 2019 — when the church created a four-year window of opportunity for U.S. congregations to depart over LGBTQ-related issues — and cascaded to its highest level this year.
Church law forbids the marriage or ordination of “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals,” but many conservatives have chosen to leave amid a growing defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches and conferences.
Many of the departing congregations are joining the Global Methodist Church, a denomination created last year by conservatives breaking from the UMC, while others are going independent or joining different denominations.
Some 6,182 congregations have received approval to disaffiliate since 2019, according to an unofficial tally by United Methodist News Service, which has been tracking votes by annual conferences. That figure is 4,172 for this year alone, it reported.
Some annual conferences may approve more departures at special sessions later this year, according to the Rev. Jay Therrell, president of the Wesleyan Covenant Association, a conservative caucus that has advocated for the exiting churches. While most UMC congregations are remaining, many of the departing congregations are large, and denominational officials are bracing for significant budget cuts in 2024.
The numbers of exiting churches are higher than conservatives originally estimated, Therrell said.
Legal wrangles have largely been resolved over how much compensation the departing congregations must be paid for their property and other financial obligations.
“For the most part, bishops and other annual conference leaders have been very gracious, and I deeply appreciate that,” Therrell said. “There have been some small exceptions to that, and those are unfortunate, but we’re grateful that cooler and calmer heads have prevailed.”
Bishop Thomas Bickerton, president of the UMC’s Council of Bishops, said the departures were disappointing.
“I don’t think any of us want to see any of our churches leave,” he said. “We’re called to be the body of Christ, we’re called to be unified. There’s never been a time when the church has not been without conflict, but there’s been a way we’ve worked through that.”
But for those who want “to go and live out their Christian faith in a new expression, we wish God’s blessings on them,” he said.
The split has been long in the making, mirroring controversies that have led to splits in other mainline Protestant denominations. United Methodist legislative bodies, known as general conferences, have repeatedly reinforced bans on LGBTQ marriage and ordination, on the strength of coalitions of conservatives in U.S. and overseas churches.
But amid increased defiance of those bans in many U.S. churches, many conservatives decided to launch the separate Global Methodist Church, saying they believed the sexuality issues reflected deeper theological differences.
The departures have been particularly large in the South and Midwest, with states such as Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and Ohio each losing hundreds of congregations.
In some areas, United Methodists have designated “lighthouse” or similarly named congregations, with a mission for receiving members who wanted to stay United Methodists but whose churches were leaving. The GMC has begun planting new churches, including in areas where United Methodist congregations have remained in that denomination.
With these departures, progressives are expected to propose changing church law at the next General Conference in 2024 to allow for same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people.
The United Methodist Church has about 6.5 million members in the United States and at least that many abroad, according to its website. The U.S. membership has been in steady decline, while the overseas membership has grown, particularly in Africa.
Therrell said there will be efforts at the 2024 General Conference to provide overseas churches a legal way to disaffiliate, similar to what U.S. congregations have had.
The GMC says about 3,000 churches so far have affiliated with the new denomination, with more expected.
Bickerton said it’s time for United Methodists remaining in the denomination to refocus their work.
“Quite often, when you’re pressed, you begin to exhibit creativity,” he said. “We’re pivoting away from what we were into what our next expression is going to be.” Budgets will be smaller, but “this is our opportunity to refashion the church for relevance in the 21st century and really focus on evangelism.”
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2023-07-06T13:43:26+00:00 | mysuncoast.com | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2023/07/06/1-5-united-methodist-congregations-us-left-denomination-over-lgbtq-conflicts/ |
With summer in full steam, Central Oregon offers plenty of pristine lakes and waters for you to explore a little deeper.
In this edition of Get Outside, Meghan Glova checks out Central Oregon Diving, your one stop for all your diving needs. | 2022-08-15T22:58:49+00:00 | centraloregondaily.com | https://centraloregondaily.com/%E2%96%B6%EF%B8%8F-get-outside-central-oregon-diving/ |
Friday’s implosion of Silicon Valley Bank could blow a hole in the most innovative corner of the U.S. economy, interrupt tech workers’ paychecks and push other regional banks into similar distress. But one thing it doesn’t seem likely to do — at least for now — is trigger a wider financial meltdown, banking experts said.
Unlike the giant banks that ignited a global crisis in 2008, SVB was heavily dependent upon a single risky sector of the economy for both its depositors and its customers. That concentrated bet proved to be very bad news for the ambitious start-ups that dominate the high-technology world. But it means that the tech-friendly bank lacked the sophisticated financial entanglements with other institutions that can turn one bank’s losses into a threat to the entire industry.
In the wake of SVB’s stunning collapse, the first bank failure since 2020, customers, investors and financial analysts were tallying the episode’s toll.
Start-ups that had funds frozen in the doomed bank worried about coming up with enough cash to make payroll next week. Regulators scrambled to figure out what they had missed. Businesses such as Roku, California vineyards and philanthropic efforts backed by venture capitalists — including clinical trials for promising medical treatments — all faced a sudden loss of funding.
“It’s extremely painful. It could have very adverse consequences: microeconomic harm, social welfare harm. People all of sudden could be up the creek. But that’s not systemic,” said Karen Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics, a Washington consultancy. “I don’t think we’re at risk of a crisis.”
For the Federal Reserve, the bank’s death marks both a sobering and salutary moment. The central bank has sharply increased interest rates over the past year, hoping that higher borrowing costs would slow the economy and take the steam out of high inflation. Higher credit costs inevitably would hurt the most speculative parts of the economy hardest. So it’s no surprise that a bank catering to risky tech companies might be among the first casualties of higher rates.
“This is what the Fed wants to see,” said Steven Kelly, a senior researcher at the Yale Program on Financial Stability. “They want to see tightening financial conditions, though this probably makes them more nervous about where they are in the tightening cycle.”
With $209 billion in assets, the bank was just one-eighteenth the size of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest. Still, Wall Street was rattled by SVB’s abrupt end, the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history, after Washington Mutual in 2008.
Share prices of the industry’s five largest players — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs — fell heavily in SVB’s final days. BofA was down nearly 12 percent in the past five trading sessions.
Despite the share price plummet, the large banks are likely to weather SVB’s demise. Wall Street titans can draw on more diversified funding sources than specialized regional institutions. Where SVB relied upon tech-focused venture capitalists for much of their funding, larger banks have millions of depositors, access to wholesale funding markets and interbank channels, Petrou said.
Regulations that were tightened in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis also have left the banks better armored against potential dangers. The Dodd-Frank Act required banks to hold more capital in reserve, as a buffer against unanticipated losses. At the end of September, JPMorgan Chase reported holding $236 billion in Tier 1 capital reserves.
“A run on JPMorgan of this scale, in my opinion, is unimaginable,” she said.
The banks that served the riskiest parts of the economy — like SVB or Silvergate Capital, a San Diego-based bank that catered to cryptocurrency users — are the ones getting into trouble. Silvergate announced on Wednesday that it would voluntarily wind down its operations, after crypto market plunge sparked a depositor exodus.
“It’s a run on the business model of this bank. Not a run on the business model of banking in general,” Kelly said, referring to SVB.
Investors are starting to shy away from some similar institutions. Signature Bank, a New York-based commercial bank with heavy exposure to the crypto industry, saw its shares lose 23 percent of their value after trading was halted earlier in the day.
SVB’s plight represents one of the early signs of financial stress caused by the Federal Reserve’s year-long campaign to raise interest rates.
The higher-rate era is reshaping financial calculations throughout the economy. Home buyers have seen the average 30-year mortgage rate more than double since the end of 2021 to 6.7 percent. The federal government’s interest payments on the national debt in 2025 are expected to be almost $300 billion higher than they were in 2022. And banks like SVB that boomed along with their risk-taking customers when rates were near zero found themselves on unfamiliar terrain.
After more than a decade of free or near-free credit, the abrupt change has been akin to moving from summer to winter in the blink of an eye. Investments that looked like sure winners when rates were low have turned into big losers in this new environment.
As depositors’ money flowed into SVB in 2021, the bank invested much of it in long-term government bonds. Rising rates starting in March made those government securities worth less than newly issued bonds, leaving banks like SVB with billions of dollars in unrealized losses on their books.
The higher rates also hurt the tech companies that were SVB’s biggest customers. To cover their withdrawals, the bank began selling its battered government bonds at a loss.
Daniel Beck, the bank’s chief financial officer, told investors last month that SVB would benefit from an end to the Fed’s rate-hike campaign. “To the extent that the Fed starts to move, and you start to see a reduction in rates, I think that is going to be helpful for us,” he said.
But the bank could not outlast the Fed. Little more than three weeks later, it failed.
On Wednesday, SVB reported a $1.8 billion loss from the sale of U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Even as executives announced plans to raise additional capital, depositors pulled $42 billion in deposits on Thursday “causing a run on the bank,” according to California state regulators.
That left the once highflying SVB with a negative cash balance of $958 million at the close of business on Thursday. “The precipitous deposit withdrawal has caused the bank to be incapable of paying its obligations as they come due, and the bank is now insolvent,” Clothilde Hewlett, California’s commissioner of financial protection and innovation, wrote in an order on Friday.
The state took possession of the bank and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as receiver to wind it down. On Friday, federal officials said that amid the ruins of SVB, they had established a new bank — the Deposit Insurance National Bank of Santa Clara. All insured deposits from the old bank would be transferred to the new institution and would be available to depositors on Monday morning, the FDIC said.
The majority of the bank’s deposits, however, appear to be uninsured, which means those funds could be lost. Some tech voices already are calling for a federal bailout.
“Stop this crisis NOW. Announce that all depositors will be safe. Place SVB with a Top 4 bank. Do this before Monday open or there will be contagion and the crisis will spread,” David Sacks, a prominent venture capitalist, wrote on Twitter.
“The circumstances of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse are unique enough that it probably won’t trigger a widespread financial contagion. Nevertheless, it is a timely reminder that when the Fed is singularly focused on squeezing inflation by jacking up interest rates — it often ends up breaking things,” economists at Capital Economics wrote in a client note Friday.
More things may be about to break. With inflation still uncomfortably high, the Fed is expected to continue raising rates. Investors now anticipate the central bank’s benchmark rate may rise to near 6 percent from a current target range of 4.5 percent to 4.75 percent.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome H. Powell says higher rates are needed to cool off an overheated economy and ease price pressures. But as rates go higher, additional financial losses are likely to emerge at other institutions.
“If the Fed keeps jacking up rates, it’s going to exacerbate the situation,” said Bert Ely, a veteran banking industry consultant. “I have a feeling [SVB] is not the only one out there.”
The Fed also plays a major role in monitoring banks. As a state-chartered institution, SVB also would have been subject to examinations by California regulators. A spokesman for the Fed declined to comment.
But some are already asking how obvious risks were allowed to reach this point.
“The common theme here is regulators are not paying attention to banks related to crypto and private equity,” said Jerry Comizio, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. “The question is: Why didn’t the regulators step in?” | 2023-03-11T01:23:19+00:00 | washingtonpost.com | https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/03/10/silicon-valley-bank-failure-financial-industry/ |
SALTILLO – Saltillo’s first standalone fire station will be named in honor of Delbert Hosemann, who as Lt. Governor helped secure $1 million from the state legislature for construction.
Saltillo Mayor Copey Grantham made the announcement Thursday as city, county, regional and state officials gathered to formally break ground on the two-story, 4,000-square-foot, $1.6 million facility.
“I thought you had to be dead to get something named after you,” Hosemann said jokingly. “I can’t wait to call my wife. With a name like ‘Hose-Man,’ I am a natural supporter of firemen.”
Grantham said the project was an example of what happens when city, county and state officials work together. The state ponied up $1 million. The county donated a 1.25-acre parcel of land. The city will pay the remainder.
“This will enhance the quality of life for our first responders,” Grantham said. “They will live and sleep there. They will eat breakfast, lunch and dinner there. When they clock in, it’s for a 24-hour shift. They deserve a facility designed and built for them.”
The Saltillo Fire Department is currently part of the Saltillo municipal complex housed in 58,000-square-foot former furniture factory that is more than 50 years old. Grantham said construction of the new station will begin in the summer of 2024.
The current downtown location is not ideal for the fire department. It takes precious time for the fire engines to navigate the small streets to respond to calls. The new location is more centralized, near the industrial park and the intersections of highways 45 and 145. It should cut response times.
Lee County Supervisor Mike Smith said Grantham approached him roughly eight months ago about donating some land on the north end of the Turner Industrial Park. Thinking 1 acre was too small, the board of supervisors threw in another quarter-acre to allow for parking, he said.
The Lee County delegation of Representative Jerry Turner and Senator Chad McMahan said the effort to secure legislative funding took two years.
“We don’t look at this as spending money,” Turner said. “This is an investment in the state.”
Hosemann, who was a special guest at the ground-breaking, agreed with Turner, saying for every dollar invested in Northeast Mississippi, the state gets back about $5 in people moving to the area and new jobs. And the Lt. Governor pledged to continue supporting smaller towns.
“Mississippi culture is in small cities. As those towns prosper and grow, so does Mississippi,” Hosemann said. “We are running the Mississippi government like a business, cutting the budget, paying off the debt. That means we can give teacher pay raises and do things like this — things that improve the quality of life.”
The fire station project is still in the early stages, and aldermen have finalized a design. That could give Saltillo more time to secure additional funding from the federal government, further cutting the cost to Saltillo taxpayers.
The mayor plans to travel to Washington, D.C. later this year to ask Sen. Roger Wicker for another $500,000 in federal funding. If the money is unavailable for the building, Grantham plans to ask for the money to be put toward a ladder truck.
When the state fire ratings bureau visited in February, they said the department had exceeded its capacity and needed ladder truck, which will not fit in the current station.
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Error! There was an error processing your request. | 2023-07-13T22:24:03+00:00 | djournal.com | https://www.djournal.com/news/crime-law-enforcement/saltillo-breaks-ground-on-new-fire-station-construction-to-begin-summer-2024/article_4faab3a6-21bd-11ee-9b26-6776ceb3e915.html |
Normally, a circuit judge’s retention campaign in downstate Illinois is a snooze.
This was not the case when Judge Robert Adrian announced plans to remain on the bench of the Eighth Circuit Court at a raucous news conference in July. Chanting protesters and applauding supporters jockeyed, and sometimes elbowed, for position. It didn’t come to fisticuffs, but it did turn ugly.
Adrian made international news when he reversed his conviction of Drew Clinton on felony sexual assault charges involving a 16-year-old high school student.
Both had attended a graduation party in which drinking was involved. Cammy Vaughan, who publicly came forward after the sentencing reversal, says she was intoxicated and fell asleep on a couch only to be awakened with a pillow over her face and 18-year-old Clinton assaulting her.
At the sentencing hearing in January, Adrian changed his verdict to circumvent the state’s mandatory minimum sentence of 4 years.
“Mr. Clinton has served almost 5 months in the county jail, 148 days. For what happened in this case, that is plenty of punishment,” said Adrian, according to court transcripts.
Outrage was immediate. News media including The New York Times and Britain’s Daily Mail reported the story. TV personalities such as Dr. Phil and Nancy Grace debated the decision. A grassroots group, Stand With Cammy, launched a change.org petition to oust Adrian. Protests were held in Quincy, the county seat of Adams County.
“The amount of press attention this case has gotten was huge. The groundswell of grassroots activism is very substantial for a case in a small rural community,” said Carrie Ward, CEO of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
Downstate Illinois hasn’t received this much attention since the Great Flood of 1993.
The judge has not been immune to criticism. When he discovered Joshua Jones, lead trial attorney for the Adams County state’s attorney’s office, had “liked” a social media post Adrian felt was critical of him, the judge kicked him out of his courtroom. “I can’t be fair with you. Get out,” Adrian said.
That action and the reversed verdict got the attention of the legal community and higher courts. Adrian was reassigned to civil matters and removed from criminal cases.
Citing double jeopardy protections, the Illinois Supreme Court rejected a petition in March to resentence Clinton, “even where an acquittal is ‘based upon an egregiously erroneous foundation.’”
Currently, the Illinois Courts Commission is reviewing a complaint filed by the Judicial Inquiry Board. It charges Adrian with prejudicial conduct, bringing the judicial office into disrepute and lying under oath before the board. Disciplinary action could involve removal from office, suspension with or without pay, censor or reprimand. A status hearing is scheduled for Oct. 13, according to Shelley Bethune, executive director and general counsel for the Illinois Courts Commission.
Adrian trucks in disinformation: He denies the facts, revises history, blames the news media and cites personal grievances.
He falsely claims that the Illinois Supreme Court found him “innocent,” the media’s reportage was “bought and paid for” and protesters were hired to heckle him.
Clinton is “innocent,” “the left” is behind the sullying of his reputation and lies were told to try to “cancel me,” Adrian has said.
Sporting a “Let’s Go Brandon” T-shirt and a MAGA cap, Clinton’s defense attorney, Andrew Schnack, clapped for the judge during the 10-minute news conference. Then Adrian and his supporters regrouped to the parking lot of Schnack’s law office, seemingly to escape the courthouse protesters.
Consider the optics: Does Adrian’s movement to the property of Clinton’s attorney suggest judicial impartiality or a chummy relationship?
Adrian is not totally unrepentant — he apologized to attorney Jones. “I called Mr. Jones a couple of days after it happened and apologized to him for my actions. … My only excuse for my action is that God created us all human, even judges,” he said in a letter to a Quincy news outlet.
First elected in 2010 and retained in 2016, Adrian needs 60% of votes Nov. 8. The question on the ballot is: Should Judge Robert Adrian be retained?
While it is rare that a judge loses in uncontested elections — a process that obviously favors incumbents — Adrian has brought notoriety to his office and to downstate Illinois.
The judge, who is paid more than $200,000 a year, rebuked the law and is being investigated for judicial misconduct. Since Adrian’s moral bookkeeping is completely out of whack, voters in the Eighth Circuit District must hold him accountable.
In the end, his bombastic rhetoric neglects the true victim in this case, Cammy Vaughn, who watched tearfully on the sidelines among Stand With Cammy supporters. Now 17 and working as a nurse assistant at an area hospital, she cautioned, “If he let one rapist free, what else will he let slide?”
“I hope everybody votes no,” Vaughn said. “He does not understand what justice is.”
Christine Ledbetter, a former arts editor at The Washington Post, is a journalist now living in downstate Illinois.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com. | 2022-09-09T18:04:20+00:00 | chicagotribune.com | https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-judge-robert-adrian-retention-drew-clinton-rape-case-20220911-kyd3yzcds5ej7jrla5sxa6rp4e-story.html |
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday he’s aiming for “the most full assault on child poverty” to ever happen in Maryland during his first legislative session, touching on a wide variety of topics in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
The governor, a Democrat, spoke about concerns in the banking industry after the second and third largest bank failures in U.S. history, his support for President Joe Biden, his thoughts on reparations for slavery, expanding the use of electric vehicles and police reform during the interview, among other topics.
Two months into his tenure, Moore, who is Maryland’s first Black chief executive and the third Black governor ever elected in the nation, noted the historical nature of his landslide November victory. He said his portrait will look “a little bit different” than the ones of white governors on the walls inside Maryland’s Capitol.
“I received more individual votes for governor than anyone else on these walls,” Moore, a Democrat, said. “But I also know that Marylanders didn’t vote for me because they wanted me to make history. They voted for me because they believed in our vision.”
His proposal to extend and expand tax credits for low-income residents is moving forward in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. His push for accelerating a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour also is advancing but so far without a provision he proposed to create automatic increases in future years to adjust for inflation.
Here’s what the governor had to say some key issues facing the nation and the state he is governing:
BANKING
In the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Moore, who is a former investment banker, said Maryland has not had any significant impacts. He said a big reason for that partially was the swift movements of the federal government to be able to ensure that the depositors were not hurt and were covered.
“You have to make sure that you have supports for your small regional banks,” Moore said. “The second thing, though, is we want to make sure that the depositors are not the ones being hurt by all this.”
PRESIDENT BIDEN
Moore said he’s excited about the partnership that the state of Maryland has right now with the White House and Biden.
“I want that partnership to continue,” Moore said. “And I’m not only supporting President Biden’s reelection; I plan on helping however I can.”
REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY
As the city of San Francisco considers how to address the thorny question of how to atone for centuries of slavery and systemic racism, Moore said he understands why people continue to debate the issue “because the consequences that we saw from the transatlantic slave trade still continue to be real in people’s lives now.”
“I also know that we have to move now to be able to address the issues of housing insecurity and food insecurity, the racial wealth gap, the educational disparities — the things that we know right now we can get done,” Moore said. “We have an obligation to move with a sense of urgency, so we don’t continue watching how families who have often times historically have been disadvantaged continue to be disadvantaged by policies that we still continue to put in place.”
ABORTION
Moore has stood in full support with Democrats in the legislature to enshrine abortion rights in the Maryland Constitution and other measures to protect abortion rights in the state.
“As long as I’m governor, Maryland will be a safe haven for abortion rights,” Moore said.
ELECTRIC CARS
The governor announced this week that Maryland will move forward with requiring all new vehicles sold in the state to be electric by 2035, as California has decided.
“Is it going to be hard? Yes. Is it bold? Yes. Will Maryland get it done? Absolutely, we will,” Moore said. “And it means we are going to focus on things like the electrification of the grid, so we actually have the infrastructure in place to be able to manage it.”
POLICE REFORM
Moore said he supports an expansion of police reform laws approved two years ago in Maryland. Part of those reforms requires the Maryland attorney general to investigate police-involved deaths but leaves local prosecutors with the decision to prosecute. Legislation advancing in Maryland would give the attorney general the authority to independently prosecute officers.
CHILD SEX ABUSE
The governor said he supports legislation advancing in the state Senate to end the statute of limitations on bringing a civil lawsuit against a public or private entity for child sex abuse.
“I support the bill, because I believe that in order for us to actually truly be able to work towards making it right for that individual and for that victim, that we have to make sure that there are laws that are responsive to the fact that that pain still continues to endure,” Moore said.
FBI HEADQUARTERS
Moore, who met with the General Services Administration last week on Maryland’s intense competition with Virginia to be the location for a new FBI headquarters, said he’s confident the administration will listen to concerns raised by him and members of the state’s congressional delegation that the evaluation process has been unfair to Maryland. Maryland officials contend the Virginia location is more costly and will take longer than either of two Maryland sites under consideration.
REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
Moore emphasized that he has already appointed the most diverse Cabinet of secretaries to ever lead state agencies in Maryland.
“I think Maryland is on America’s mind right now, because I think what we’re able to do inside of the state of Maryland and show that democracy can be not just participatory, but inclusive,” Moore said. “And that’s what makes it strong.” | 2023-03-17T00:35:21+00:00 | wwlp.com | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/the-ap-interview-gov-wes-moore-reflects-on-first-2-months/ |
In an expected move, Boston University goalie Drew Commesso will forgo his senior season and has signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Chicago Blackhawks, the organization announced Tuesday. Commesso will report to the Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League on a professional tryout contract.
In three seasons with the Terriers, Commesso went 43-22-4 with a 2.57 goals against average and a .914 save percentage.
This past season, he posted a 24-8-0 record with a 2.46 GAA and .912 save percentage to lead BU to its first Frozen Four appearance since 2015. The Norwell native was named the Most Outstanding Player in the Manchester Regional after he stopped 37 of the 39 shots he faced over two games.
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The Terriers received some good news when First Team All-American Lane Hutson announced on Instagram that he would return for his sophomore season.
The native of North Barrington, Ill., was chosen as Hockey East Rookie of the Year after becoming the highest-scoring freshman defenseman in league history with 15 goals and 33 assists, surpassing Brian Leetch, who posted 47 for Boston College in 1986-87.
Hutson also became the first freshman since Leetch to win the Walter Brown Award, given to the best American-born Division 1 men’s player in New England. He led all defensemen nationally in goals and points (48).
He was named MVP of the Hockey East tournament after scoring a pair of goals, including the game-winner in overtime, to give the Terriers their first title since 2018.
Follow Andrew Mahoney on Twitter @GlobeMahoney. | 2023-04-11T20:13:54+00:00 | bostonglobe.com | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/04/11/sports/boston-university-goalie-drew-commesso-signs-with-blackhawks-lane-hutson-returning-sophomore-season/ |
A video showing a gunman shooting at houses while driving down a neighborhood street has gone viral, racking up millions of views.
In the video, a hand can be seen holding a gun out of a car window. Shots are then fired at houses as the car drives down the street.
The video was posted online by the “Get Your Kids Nola” Instagram account, but has since been deleted. NOLA is a common abbreviation for New Orleans, Louisiana. The video was also shared on Reddit and Twitter, with claims it shows a gunman shooting at houses in New Orleans.
THE QUESTION
Does this video show a gunman shooting at houses in New Orleans?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
The viral video does not show a gunman shooting at houses in New Orleans. The video is real, but it is from Fort Worth, Texas.
WHAT WE FOUND
This viral video is real but it wasn’t recorded in New Orleans, as the posts claim. It was actually taken in Fort Worth, Texas, in the Fossil Park neighborhood.
We confirmed the location using Google Maps. The same house, same trash can and same tree-lined street seen in the video match the Texas neighborhood.
In an email to VERIFY, Fort Worth Police Public Information Officer Buddy Calzada confirmed the location of the video is in Fort Worth, but he said they have not received any official police reports of a drive-by shooting or shots fired at that location.
“It is quite possible this incident was not reported to police,” Calzada said.
He said the video was forwarded to detectives just in case someone does see the video and wants to come forward to file a report.
So how did this video get to the Instagram page of an account that posts content about New Orleans?
An administrator for the “Get Your Kids NOLA” account told VERIFY partner station 4WWL in New Orleans that it was sent directly to them and they posted it.
The video has since been deleted from the “Get Your Kids NOLA” Instagram page. | 2023-06-08T22:51:25+00:00 | wthr.com | https://www.wthr.com/article/news/verify/crime-verify/viral-posts-falsely-claim-video-shows-gunman-shooting-at-new-orleans-houses/536-952fd467-9691-44ad-9dbc-f7300a95654b |
NEW YORK, June 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- SMX (Security Matters) plc (NASDAQ:SMX; SMXWW) is pleased to announce that it is in the process of creating a new subsidiary, trueSilver, and has entered into a 120 day exclusive agreement with Sunshine Minting Inc., to create a path to full transparency and traceability for silver products from mine site to final products and recycling and the creation of an industry standard.
This announcement follows the successful filing of patents pertaining to gold, aluminum, steel and cobalt in 2023.
With silver rarely being found in its pure form (native silver) and at least 80% of the world's silver being produced as a by-product of mining for other metals such as gold, copper, lead and zinc, this progression is considered by SMX to be the natural next step.
Metals Focus and The Silver Institute forecasted in the "World Silver Survey 2022", the total supply (mine production, recycling, net hedging supply and net official sector sales) to be 1,030.0 million ounces in 2022 (up from 997.2 million ounces in 2021), with the 2022 total demand equaling 1,101.8 million ounces (up from 1,049.0 million ounces in 2021).
SMX's trueSilver technology invisibly 'marks' the silver with a durable marker, that will allow the physical silver to have a complete and transparent memory of its journey from mine-to-marketplace, to recycle and reuse. Enabling an ethical silver supply chain assurance, to tangibly authenticate and provide irrefutable proof of the origination of silver for credible ESG reporting in real time.
From Sunshine Minting: "As we see the demand for transparency in the pursuit of ethically sourced materials escalating, along with the requirements for ESG compliance, we are very excited to work with the team at SMX to help develop trueSilver as an industry wide solution."
From SMX: "we are extremely honored and looking forward to the new relationship with Sunshine Minting, with this cooperation, we look forward to trueSilver becoming the leading player in the silver industry on ESG IMPACT and provinces standards, including proving recycled silver content."
About SMX
As global businesses face new and complex challenges relating to carbon neutrality and meeting new governmental and regional regulations and standards, SMX is able to offer players along the value chain access to its marking, tracking, measuring and digital platform technology to transition more successfully to a low-carbon economy.
About SMI
Sunshine Minting Inc., (SMI) is a leading domestic and global supplier of precious metal mint products with manufacturing facilities in Nevada, Idaho, as well as a joint venture in Shanghai, China. SMI's primary customers are sovereign governments, financial institutions, corporations, major marketing companies, other businesses, and private groups. In addition to supplying world class products globally, SMI is heavily invested in providing solutions to industry challenges such are our MintMark SI Anti counterfeit feature and recently our Nan-O-DT anti tarnish solution for silver products.
Forward-Looking Statements
The information in this press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions, or strategies regarding the future. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "believe," "contemplate," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intends," "may," "will," "might," "plan," "possible," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "would" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, for example: successful launch and implementation of SMX's joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of silver, steel, rubber and other materials; changes in SMX's strategy, future operations, financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects and plans; SMX's ability to develop and launch new products and services; SMX's ability to successfully and efficiently integrate future expansion plans and opportunities; SMX's ability to grow its business in a cost-effective manner; SMX's product development timeline and estimated research and development costs; the implementation, market acceptance and success of SMX's business model; developments and projections relating to SMX's competitors and industry; and SMX's approach and goals with respect to technology. These forward-looking statements are based on information available as of the date of this press release, and current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing views as of any subsequent date, and no obligation is undertaken to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. As a result of a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, actual results or performance may be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the ability to maintain the listing of the Company's shares on Nasdaq; changes in applicable laws or regulations; the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMX's business; the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities; the risk of downturns and the possibility of rapid change in the highly competitive industry in which SMX operates; the risk that SMX and its current and future collaborators are unable to successfully develop and commercialize SMX's products or services, or experience significant delays in doing so; the risk that the Company may never achieve or sustain profitability; the risk that the Company will need to raise additional capital to execute its business plan, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all; the risk that the Company experiences difficulties in managing its growth and expanding operations; the risk that third-party suppliers and manufacturers are not able to fully and timely meet their obligations; the risk that SMX is unable to secure or protect its intellectual property; the possibility that SMX may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and other risks and uncertainties described in SMX's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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SOURCE SMX | 2023-06-07T13:08:50+00:00 | live5news.com | https://www.live5news.com/prnewswire/2023/06/07/smx-extending-metals-business-with-truesilver-aiming-both-fashion-luxury-bullion-products/ |
State and defense attorneys gave closing statements Thursday morning in the murder trial of Anthony Jackson, and jury deliberations have begun.
Judge Bud Turner read to the jury their instructions and sent them into deliberation just after 10 a.m.
Jackson, currently 64, was charged in the death of Ronald Lynn Young, 37, of Anniston, in 2015. Young was pronounced dead outside the 50 Cent Bar on the 3100 block of West 12th Street at 3:45 a.m. on Jan. 24. Young was found stabbed to death, with 135-150 stab wounds.
Just after 11 a.m. the jury came back with a question for the judge, and once that matter was addressed, Turner sent jurors to lunch until 1 p.m. At the lunch hour it was unclear whether a verdict would be reached today. | 2022-05-19T19:12:36+00:00 | annistonstar.com | https://www.annistonstar.com/news/murder-trial-jury-in-deliberation/article_b1d46e22-d796-11ec-9e22-f34467f657dc.html |
Company plans for growth in Kansas City, Denver and Beyond
KANSAS CITY, Kan., June 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Repairs Unlimited, Inc. (RUI), which manages fire and water restoration and reconstruction services, has recently partnered with Kansas City-based private equity firm Great Range Capital (GRC). With headquarters in Kansas City and a branch in Denver, the new partnership will allow RUI to focus on expansion in new and existing markets.
Founded in 1986, RUI provides restoration services to insurance adjusters, home owners, and government and commercial customers. RUI's unique approach, in which account representatives oversee every project from estimation to completion, provides unparalleled accountability and customer satisfaction. Accordingly, RUI has ranked near the top of Qualified Remodeler's annual ranking of the nation's largest firms every year since 1996.
"We're thrilled to be partnering with Great Range Capital," said Todd Wertz, who will remain President of RUI—a position he's held for over 15 years. "We look forward to growing the company through new customers and markets while continuing to provide what we're known for: exceptional service and construction."
"RUI is an impressive business that has demonstrated consistent growth for many years," said Ryan Sprott, GRC Managing Partner. "We're incredibly excited to support Todd and the RUI team in the company's next stage of expansion."
RUI will remain headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas.
Repairs Unlimited is a provider of fire and water restoration and reconstruction services for residential and commercial properties. Learn more at repairs-unlimited.com
Great Range Capital, a private equity firm based in greater Kansas City, primarily targets equity investments in Midwestern companies with revenues ranging from $20 to $150 million. Learn more at greatrangecapital.com.
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SOURCE Great Range Capital | 2022-06-29T12:04:06+00:00 | wagmtv.com | https://www.wagmtv.com/prnewswire/2022/06/29/repairs-unlimited-partners-with-great-range-capital/ |
Prosecution rests in Trump Organization’s tax fraud case
NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors in the Trump Organization’s criminal tax fraud trial rested their case Monday earlier than expected, pinning hopes for convicting Donald Trump’s company largely on the word of two top executives who cut deals before testifying they schemed to avoid taxes on company-paid perks.
Allen Weisselberg, the company’s longtime finance chief, and Jeffrey McConney, a senior vice president and controller, testified for the bulk of the prosecution’s eight-day case, bringing the drama of their own admitted wrongdoing to a trial heavy on numbers, spreadsheets, tax returns and payroll records.
Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty in August to dodging taxes on $1.7 million in extras, was required to testify as a prosecution witness as part of a plea deal in exchange for a promised sentence of five months in jail. McConney was granted immunity to testify.
The Trump Organization’s lawyers are expected to start calling witnesses Monday afternoon, likely beginning with an accountant who handled years of tax returns and other financial matters for Trump, the Trump Organization and hundreds of Trump entities.
Prosecutors had considered calling the accountant, Mazars USA LLP partner Donald Bender, but decided not to. The defense indicated it would call him instead.
Prosecutors called just three other witnesses: the Trump Organization’s accounts payable supervisor, a forensic accountant for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and a state tax auditor, on the witness stand Monday, who investigated Weisselberg’s taxes.
Weisselberg, now a senior adviser at the company, testified last week that he conspired with McConney, his subordinate, to hide more than a decade’s worth of extras from his taxable income, but that neither Trump nor the family were involved.
McConney testified that Weisselberg and another executive, Michael Calamari Sr., leaned on him over the years to fudge payroll records to hide extras such as Manhattan apartments and Mercedes-Benz cars from their taxable income, in part by reducing their salaries by the cost of those perks and issuing falsified W-2 forms.
Manhattan prosecutors allege that the Trump Organization helped top executives avoid paying taxes on company-paid perks and that it is liable for Weisselberg’s wrongdoing because he was a “high managerial agent” acting on its behalf.
The tax fraud case is the only trial to arise from the Manhattan district attorney’s three-year investigation of Trump and his business practices. If convicted, the company could be fined more than $1 million and face difficulty making deals.
Trump blamed Bender and Mazars for the company’s troubles, writing on his Truth Social platform last week: “The highly paid accounting firm should have routinely picked these things up - we relied on them. VERY UNFAIR!”
Mazars cut ties with Trump in February and said annual financial statements it prepared for him “should no longer be relied upon” after New York Attorney General Letitia James said they regularly misstated the value of assets.
James filed a lawsuit in September accusing Trump and his company of padding his net worth by billions of dollars and habitually misleading banks and others about the value of assets such as golf courses, hotels and his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Trump’s financial statements are not a part of the criminal case.
___
Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | 2022-11-21T19:26:39+00:00 | wfsb.com | https://www.wfsb.com/2022/11/21/prosecution-rests-trump-organizations-tax-fraud-case/ |
Acquisition Expands Position in Las Vegas Hospitality Market
LAS VEGAS, Nov. 17, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- PureStar (the "Company"), North America's foremost provider of laundry services and linen management to the hospitality industry backed by private equity firm Cornell Capital, today announced that it has acquired certain assets of Apex Linen ("Apex"), a leading provider of high-volume, commercial laundry and dry cleaning services to the hospitality and restaurant industries in the greater Las Vegas area.
Apex operates an approximately 90,000-square-foot facility, strategically located near Las Vegas's core lodging and entertainment hubs, with an extensive base of laundry equipment that enables the Company to offer superior service capabilities and response times. The acquisition of the Apex assets will provide PureStar with additional resources to support the Company's production capacity and expand its customer base.
"Las Vegas is one of the largest and fastest-growing hospitality markets in the U.S. and is a core strategic focus for PureStar," said Brian Herington, Chief Executive Officer of PureStar. "Acquiring the Apex assets provides PureStar with additional scale that will enable us to increase productivity and service levels to capitalize on the demand in the hospitality, food and beverage, and uniform markets. We look forward to working with the Apex team to further increase plant capacity and operating efficiencies."
Moelis & Company LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor to Apex Linen.
About PureStar
PureStar is North America's premiere provider of laundry services and linen management to the hospitality industry. With locations across the United States, Mexico and the Bahamas, PureStar's expansive operations consistently enhance guest comfort for the thousands of client partners they serve. For more information visit PureStar.com.
About Cornell Capital
Cornell Capital LLC is a U.S.-based private investment firm with ~$6 billion of AUM and offices in New York and Hong Kong. Leveraging decades of global investment experience, the firm takes a disciplined approach to investing across the consumer, financial services, and industrials/business services sectors, often in companies that can benefit from the firm's Asia presence and cross-border expertise. Founded in 2013 by Senior Partner Henry Cornell, the former Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs' Merchant Banking Division, the firm is led by a highly seasoned team with significant shared investment experience. For more information, visit www.cornellcapllc.com.
For Media Inquiries:
Cornell Capital
Jon Keehner / Kate Thompson / Woomi Yun
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
212-355-4449
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SOURCE PureStar Group | 2022-11-17T20:01:57+00:00 | wagmtv.com | https://www.wagmtv.com/prnewswire/2022/11/17/purestar-acquires-certain-assets-apex-linen/ |
The acquisition of Emmersion's state-of-the-art testing platform broadens IXL Learning's language and literacy offerings
SAN MATEO, Calif. and LEHI, Utah, Sept. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- IXL Learning, developer of personalized learning products used by millions of people worldwide, announced it has acquired Emmersion, the Utah-based leader in certifying language ability through artificial intelligence. Emmersion's platform has conducted millions of automated assessments for corporate and educational institutions, including The World Bank, Randstad, Columbia University, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, providing valuable data insights into language proficiency scores.
The acquisition of Emmersion deepens IXL Learning's line of language and literacy products, which include the world-renowned Rosetta Stone, IXL English Language Arts, Vocabulary.com, SpanishDict, inglés.com and Fluencia. Emmersion's cofounders, Brigham Tomco and Dr. Jacob Burdis, will remain with the company.
Emmersion's adaptive assessments evaluate and certify speaking, writing and reading abilities, which shorten an organization's time-to-hire and improve customer satisfaction scores.
Its AI-powered Speaking and Writing Assessments conduct reliable, pre-employment language screenings in 15 minutes so that companies can hire the perfect candidates for the right roles. The verbal exam is the world's first fully automated speaking assessment and covers nine languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin, Portuguese and Tagalog.
The Speaking and Writing Assessments are scored using Emmersion's proprietary 100-point scale, TrueNorth, which gives organizations unparalleled insights into test-takers' language skills. Additionally, each assessment uses AI to deliver accurate, bias-free scores that are mapped to global language standards, such as CEFR, ACTFL and TOEFL.
Educational institutions use WebCAPE, Emmersion's adaptive placement exam, to measure learners' reading, grammar and listening skills. The multiple-choice test takes only 15-30 minutes to complete and can assess learners' abilities in seven languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Mandarin and Russian.
"Emmersion's adaptive technology and automated exams are unrivaled," said Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL Learning. "The Emmersion team will be a valuable addition to our family and we expect to make more investments in the company as we expand to additional languages and capabilities."
"Emmersion has striven to close the global communication gap through exceptional services that assess employees, check academic knowledge and certify language abilities. Joining IXL Learning is an incredible opportunity to continue advancing our mission and perfecting our products," said Brigham Tomco, CEO of Emmersion. "Our companies share the same ambitious vision for helping people build and evaluate their language skills, and we can't wait to contribute our expertise to this new venture."
Founded in 2015, Emmersion is a rapidly growing technology company located in Lehi, Utah. With a mission to close the global communication gap, the company focuses on helping organizations be smarter with their global language strategy. It has developed AI-driven, fully automated language assessments that provide accurate and immediate reports in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian and Tagalog. With over 700 customers around the world, Emmersion's cloud-based, AI technology automates assessment processes and provides the most accurate results. Learn more at www.emmersion.ai.
IXL Learning has revolutionized educational technology since its founding in 1998. Today, the company leads the world of education through innovation and provides a diverse set of products and services that help learners develop skills in math, literacy, language and more. IXL Learning's eight brands—IXL, Rosetta Stone, Curiosity Media, Emmersion, Wyzant, Vocabulary.com, ABCya and Education.com—empower all students with engaging, personalized learning experiences. Our teams create breakthrough solutions to education's most pressing challenges and inspire students to become life-long learners.
Eric Bates
IXL Learning
press@ixl.com
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SOURCE IXL Learning | 2022-09-09T02:29:23+00:00 | wcjb.com | https://www.wcjb.com/prnewswire/2022/09/09/ixl-learning-acquires-emmersion-developer-ai-powered-language-assessments/ |
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GRAB EARLY PRIME DAY DEALS ON GAMES AND GAMING GEAR
Prime Day falls on July 11 and 12 this year, and it marks the perfect opportunity to stock up on games and gaming gear. Whether you’re a keen gamer yourself or you’re hoping to pick up a bargain for a gamer in your life, you’ll find some excellent deals.
There are early Prime Day deals galore on everything from games and consoles to gaming laptops and gaming chairs, so whatever you’re in the market for, you’re bound to find it. You can even pick up free digital games as part of Prime Gaming.
The deals below were last updated on July 3, 2023, at 10 a.m. EST.
Shop this article: Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop, Logitech G335 Wired Gaming Headset and Official Luna Wireless Controller
HOW TO GET FREE GAMES ON AND AROUND PRIME DAY
You might expect discounts around Prime Day, but how about getting something for nothing? Prime Gaming is one of the offerings you get with Amazon Prime membership (which you’ll need in order to take advantage of many Prime Day deals).
On Prime Day and in the lead-up to the event, you’ll find some extra games for free. Titles vary across the sale period and new ones are likely to be added on Prime Day itself. But at present, you can get several free full games with Prime Gaming, including Prey and Baldur’s Gate II.
WHAT GAMING DEALS ARE AVAILABLE ON PRIME DAY?
If you’re still wondering what gaming deals you might find this Prime Day — and early deals leading up to the event — be prepared for a range of options. You’ll find many games at a discount for PC and all popular consoles. As for consoles themselves, there are usually discounts on the Nintendo Switch on Prime Day. Now that their stock levels are reliable, you may also find reductions on the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X and Series S.
Then there are all kinds of gaming peripherals, including gaming mice and keyboards, gaming chairs and gaming desks. Basically, if it has anything to do with gaming, you’ll probably find a discount on or before Prime Day.
BEST EARLY PRIME DAY GAMING DEALS
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom 17% OFF
Link is back for a new adventure, this time with the ability to soar the skies above Hyrule, as well as having the freedom to explore the depths below the surface. You can combine and fuse objects to create new weapons, vehicles and more, so let your imagination run wild.
Sold by Amazon
“Star Wars” Jedi: Survivor UP TO 21% OFF
This stunning game from the “Star Wars” universe is available at a discounted price for both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. You play as a Jedi Knight called Cal, exploring the galaxy and fighting on the side of the light. The graphics are stunning, and it’s a must for “Star Wars” fans who love gaming.
Sold by Amazon
Acer Predator Helios 300 Gaming Laptop 22% OFF
If you’re looking for a powerful gaming laptop, this one has a super-fast six-core processor and an impressive graphics card with 6 gigabytes of dedicated video RAM. This means it can keep up with even the most power-hungry games without noticeable blur or lag.
Sold by Amazon
Logitech G335 Wired Gaming Headset 35% OFF
Although you have to deal with wires, you get much more for your money with this wired gaming headset than you would with a wireless equivalent. It offers crisp, clear sound to help you immerse yourself in the gaming world, plus a handy flip-to-mute mic. It’s light and comfortable to wear.
Sold by Amazon
Logitech G Cloud Handheld Portable Gaming Console 14% OFF
This handheld cloud gaming console lets you take your favorite titles on the road. It’s compatible with a number of cloud gaming services, including Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now. You can also download and play Android games from the Google Play Store.
Sold by Amazon
Official Luna Wireless Controller 43% OFF
If you use Luna, Amazon’s cloud gaming service, you might be interested in the official Luna controller. It’s designed to give you the best possible gaming experience on Luna and also integrates Alexa to let you open games hands-free. It connects via Bluetooth and is compatible with any Bluetooth device, including Windows laptops, MacBooks, Android phones, iPhones and Fire TV.
Sold by Amazon
Logitech G703 Lightspeed Wireless Gaming Mouse 37% OFF
When you use a standard mouse for gaming, you can be plagued by latency and responsiveness issues. This super-fast gaming mouse solves that problem. You can also buy it with a wireless charging system so it doesn’t run out of battery while you play.
Sold by Amazon
SteelSeries Apex 3 RGB Gaming Keyboard 50% OFF
With its whisper-quiet keys, it’s the ideal keyboard for anyone who gets annoyed with keyboard clicking or wants to be considerate of household members during late-night gaming sessions. It also has backlit keys and a wrist rest for ergonomic support to minimize the risk of repetitive strain injury.
Sold by Amazon
Dowinx Gaming Chair 6% OFF and $20 COUPON
If you’re sick to death of back pain or other discomfort from gaming, you might need to invest in a gaming chair. This chair features moveable lumbar support and a headrest to customize your experience and keep you comfortable. The mesh fabric is breathable, so you won’t feel sticky on hot days.
Sold by Amazon
Homall L-Shaped Gaming Desk $15 COUPON
Anyone serious about PC gaming knows the importance of a quality gaming desk. Thanks to its L-shaped design, this one gives you plenty of room for both work and play. The large surface means there’s room for a desktop computer, multiple monitors and even consoles if you want to create a single gaming zone.
Sold by Amazon
PRODUCTS TO WATCH THIS PRIME DAY
- Razer BlackShark V2 Pro Wireless Gaming Headset
- Nintendo Switch with Neon Blue and Neon Red Joy‑Con
- Xbox Series X
- PlayStation 5 Console
- Dead Island 2: Day 1 Edition
- Final Fantasy XVI
- God of War Ragnarok
Check out Prime Day deals here and be sure to bookmark this page to shop smart and stay in the loop on the best gaming discounts of the Prime Day sale. Visit our Prime Day sale hub for more deals.
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Lauren Corona writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money. | 2023-07-05T02:35:56+00:00 | fox44news.com | https://www.fox44news.com/news/national-world-news/best-early-gaming-deals-of-prime-day/ |
(NewsNation) — Once limited to cities along the southern border, the influence of Mexican drug cartels has spread to smaller American towns across the country, including several in the state of Montana.
Jami Rak has lived in Billings, Montana her entire life. The largest city in Big Sky Country sits northeast of the iconic Yellowstone National Park known for its stunning natural beauty. Now, she said, it’s become unrecognizable.
“It’s not safe here anywhere anymore,” Rak said.
The lifelong resident said it’s been sad to see her hometown state struggle — a sentiment that’s backed up by crime trends that concern authorities.
Robberies, aggravated assaults and rape have risen statewide, per state-reported crime data.
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said the state has never seen anything like this before. He thinks the rise in crime can be traced back to one place: Mexican drug cartels.
“We have specific intelligence that primarily two drug cartels based out of Mexico are operating here in Montana on a very large scale,” Knudsen said.
Law enforcement concerns about the cartel’s increasing presence became a reality in December, when an undercover investigation exposed a multimillion-dollar drug trafficking network in Butte.
Authorities arrested 22 people, three of whom were associates of the Sinaloa Cartel — the violent group once run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Some authorities point to the incident as evidence of the drug cartels’ expansion to smaller American cities.
“We’re 1,800 miles away from Sinaloa and 1,200 miles from the Mexican border, so it’s pretty shocking,” said Sheriff Ed Lester with Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement.
Lester said the massive cartel bust was a first for his community of fewer than 40,000 people. But he fears it won’t be the last.
“When you take that group of people down, you’re probably likely to see another group step up,” he said.
For drug kingpins, the profit margins can be massive.
Traffickers along the southern border purchase fentanyl tablets for as little as $1 each but those same tablets can be sold for upwards of $70 a piece, Knudsen said.
In the first three quarters of 2022, authorities in Montana seized twice as much fentanyl than they did in the previous four years combined.
“It’s an invasion,” said Sgt. Jay Nelson, a trooper with Montana Highway Patrol, who pointed to the “skyrocketing” fentanyl seizures.
The cartels are notorious for smuggling their drugs and weapons via American highways, putting Nelson and other highway troopers on the frontlines of the fight.
It all starts at the U.S.-Mexico border, often at main entry points such as Tecate and Tijuana, where drug mules smuggle narcotics into the country. Once across the border, the drugs end up in stash houses across Southern California. From there, traffickers load them onto vehicles or in packages sent through the postal service.
Some make it 1,100 miles north to Butte, where local dealers move the drugs to nearby cities including Missoula, Helena, Great Falls, Bozeman and Billings for street-level distribution.
Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte believes the problem will only get worse unless the southern border is secured.
“It’s ripping families apart, it’s making our communities unsafe,” Gianforte said. “There isn’t a single community in the state of Montana that’s not impacted by our porous border.”
Rak agrees. Just last year, her 21-year-old son Keaton came within an inch of death after accidentally overdosing on fentanyl. Now, she wont even walk the streets of Billings alone.
“You can’t trust anyone, you can’t go anywhere freely,” she said. | 2023-02-07T22:12:32+00:00 | wnct.com | https://www.wnct.com/news/national/mexican-drug-cartels-operating-on-a-very-large-scale-in-big-sky-country/ |
Fifty-nine percent of public schools are using tailored accelerated instructional strategies to support their students' learning recovery
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Public school leaders estimated that about half—49 percent—of their students began the 2022-23 year behind grade level in at least one academic subject, according to data released today by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the statistical center within the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES). Almost all public schools with students behind grade level in at least one academic subject reported that at least some students were behind grade level in English or mathematics.
"Many students were behind grade level at the start of the current academic year, including in core academic subjects like English and mathematics," said NCES Commissioner Peggy G. Carr. "Both this school year and last school year, public school leaders estimated that about half of their students began the school year behind grade level in at least one academic subject. These data suggest that academic recovery will take time. Additional data show that public schools are employing a combination of learning recovery strategies to help students get back on track."
Public schools have implemented a wide variety of learning recovery strategies as of December 2022, when the data were collected. Most public schools have relied on diagnostic (88 percent) and formative (85 percent) assessment data to identify individual students' academic needs, and 81 percent of public schools have used remedial instruction techniques (i.e., using content from prior years to teach concepts or skills). Over half (59 percent) of public schools have used tailored accelerated instruction (i.e., teacher-led individualized learning using new, grade-level content to teach prior-grade concepts or skills).
In addition to the strategies mentioned above, most public schools provide some type of tutoring to their students (83 percent). Thirty-seven percent of public schools offer high-dosage tutoring (HDT). Among these schools, 42 percent report that more of their students are receiving HDT this year than did during the previous school year. In addition to HDT, schools are offering other types of tutoring, including standard tutoring (59 percent) and self-paced tutoring (22 percent).
"The School Pulse Panel is an innovative and valuable tool in understanding how the pandemic has affected the condition of education," said IES Director Mark Schneider. "NCES and IES are committed to collecting high quality data to inform education policy and improve practices in support of learning recovery."
The findings released today are from the School Pulse Panel. The School Pulse Panel is part of NCES's innovative approach to delivering timely information regarding the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on public K–12 schools in the U.S. on topics such as learning recovery, tutoring offerings, learning mode offerings, and quarantine prevalence, as reported by school staff in U.S. public schools. Data from this round were collected from 1,026 participating public schools between December 8 and December 22, 2022.
This is the latest experimental data product from the School Pulse Panel. Experimental data products are innovative statistical products created using new data sources or methodologies. Experimental data may not meet all NCES quality standards but are of sufficient benefit to data users in the absence of other relevant products to justify release. NCES clearly identifies experimental data products upon their release.
The data released today can be found on the School Pulse Panel dashboard at https://ies.ed.gov/schoolsurvey/.
Key Findings
Supporting Learning Recovery
- Entering the 2022-23 school year, public schools estimated that, on average, 49 percent of their students began the year behind grade level in at least one academic subject.
- As of December 2022, public schools have enacted a wide variety of strategies to support their students' learning recovery.
Tutoring
In addition to strategies mentioned above, most public schools provide some type of tutoring to their students (83 percent).
- Thirty-seven percent of public schools offer high-dosage tutoring (HDT), which is defined as tutoring that takes place for at least 30 minutes per session, one-on-one or in small group instruction, offered three or more times per week, is provided by educators or well-trained tutors, and aligns with an evidence-based core curriculum or program. It is also referred to as evidence-based or high-quality tutoring.
- Fifty-nine percent of public schools offer standard tutoring (SDT), which is defined as a less intensive method of tutoring that may take place in one-on-one, small group, or large group settings, is offered less than three times per week, and is provided by educators who may or may not have received specific training in tutoring practices.
- Twenty-two percent of public schools offer self-paced tutoring (SPT), which is defined as a method of tutoring in which students work on their own, typically online, where they are provided guided instruction that allows them to move on to new material after displaying mastery of content.
Learning Modes and Quarantine Prevalence
- In December 2022, 99 percent of public schools offered in-person learning, 14 percent offered full-time remote learning, and 5 percent offered hybrid learning.
- In December 2022, 36 percent of public schools reported having to quarantine students (an increase from 30 percent in November 2022), and 27 percent reported having to quarantine staff members (an increase from 18 percent in November 2022).
The National Center for Education Statistics, a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, is the statistical center of the U.S. Department of Education and the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations. NCES fulfills a congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze, and report complete statistics on the condition and progress of American education; conduct and publish reports; and review and report on education activities internationally.
Follow NCES on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube and subscribe to the NCES Newsflash to receive email notifications when new data is released.
The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) is the independent and nonpartisan statistics, research, and evaluation arm of the U.S. Department of Education. Its mission is to provide scientific evidence on which to ground education practice and policy and to share this information in formats that are useful and accessible to educators, parents, policymakers, researchers, and the public.
CONTACT:
Josh Delarosa, National Center for Education Statistics, Aris.nces@ed.gov
James Elias, Hager Sharp, jelias@hagersharp.com
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SOURCE National Center for Education Statistics | 2023-02-09T05:55:27+00:00 | kcbd.com | https://www.kcbd.com/prnewswire/2023/02/09/administrators-report-roughly-half-public-school-students-began-2022-23-school-year-behind-grade-level-least-one-academic-subject/ |
NEW YORK, Jan. 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Gross Law Firm issues the following notice to shareholders of Affirm Holdings, Inc..
Shareholders who purchased shares of AFRM during the class period listed are encouraged to contact the firm regarding possible lead plaintiff appointment. Appointment as lead plaintiff is not required to partake in any recovery.
CONTACT US HERE:
https://securitiesclasslaw.com/securities/affirm-holdings-lawsuit-submission-form/?id=35686&from=4
CLASS PERIOD: February 12, 2021 to December 15, 2021
ALLEGATIONS: The complaint alleges that during the class period, Defendants issued materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Affirm's "buy-now, pay-later" service facilitated excessive consumer debt, regulatory arbitrage, and data harvesting; (ii) the foregoing subjected Affirm to a heightened risk of regulatory scrutiny and enforcement action; and (iii) as a result, the Company's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.
DEADLINE: February 6, 2023 Shareholders should not delay in registering for this class action. Register your information here: https://securitiesclasslaw.com/securities/affirm-holdings-lawsuit-submission-form/?id=35686&from=4
NEXT STEPS FOR SHAREHOLDERS: Once you register as a shareholder who purchased shares of AFRM during the timeframe listed above, you will be enrolled in a portfolio monitoring software to provide you with status updates throughout the lifecycle of the case. The deadline to seek to be a lead plaintiff is February 6, 2023. There is no cost or obligation to you to participate in this case.
WHY GROSS LAW FIRM? The Gross Law Firm is nationally recognized class action law firm, and our mission is to protect the rights of all investors who have suffered as a result of deceit, fraud, and illegal business practices. The Gross Law Firm is committed to ensuring that companies adhere to responsible business practices and engage in good corporate citizenship. The firm seeks recovery on behalf of investors who incurred losses when false and/or misleading statements or the omission of material information by a company lead to artificial inflation of the company's stock. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
CONTACT:
The Gross Law Firm
15 West 38th Street, 12th floor
New York, NY, 10018
Email: dg@securitiesclasslaw.com
Phone: (646) 453-8903
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SOURCE The Gross Law Firm | 2023-01-18T12:23:31+00:00 | waff.com | https://www.waff.com/prnewswire/2023/01/18/shareholder-alert-gross-law-firm-notifies-shareholders-affirm-holdings-inc-class-action-lawsuit-lead-plaintiff-deadline-february-6-2023-nasdaq-afrm/ |
ALBANY, N.Y. (WTEN) — More GOP leaders are calling on Republican, George Santos to step down from his position as newly elected Congressman after he lied about his heritage, education, and career. All of this was revealed after he won New York’s third Congressional District which covers parts of Long Island, Nassau County and Queens.
Santos claimed to have a Jewish heritage, made landmark deals on Wall Street and attended a college where he earned a finance degree. Santos told the New York Post that he admitted to embellishing certain parts of his life and job experience.
On Wednesday, Nassau County, Republican Chairman Joseph Cairo released a statement asking for Santos to resign saying in part: “George Santos has disgraced the House of Representatives and the Republican Party with a veritable profusion of lies, dishonesty, misstatements and hurtful false claims… the people of the 3rd Congressional District deserve a Congressional Representative who is honest and forthright. George Santos is not such a person.”
Cairo went on to say that Santos’ fabrications about his family members fleeing Nazi persecutors went too far, saying it opened “painful wounds for numerous Jewish families whose lives have been irreparably scarred by the evil events that comprised the holocaust.” While some Republicans are calling on Santos to step down from his position, not everyone is following suit, including Speaker Kevin McCarthy, “Voters of his district have elected him, he is seated, he is part of the Republican conference.” McCarthy said that an ethics investigation would be the next best step, “If anything is found to be … wrong he will be held accountable exactly as anyone else in this body will be.”
Rockland County GOP Chair, Lawrence Garvey said the jig is up and Santos has got to go. “It’s become an embarrassment to the party and to the nation and to the Congress, there’s such a thing as resumé padding, I think that people have done in the past and gotten away with it but this is more than just resumé padding, this is blatant lies,” said Garvey. If Santos does resign, a special election for district three will ensue. | 2023-01-12T23:36:06+00:00 | mytwintiers.com | https://www.mytwintiers.com/news-cat/ny-capitol-news/more-gop-leaders-call-on-santos-to-resign/ |
LOS ANGELES — The former president of the Los Angeles City Council resigned from public office Wednesday, three days after a recording surfaced of her making racist remarks in a meeting that is now the subject of a state investigation.
Nury Martinez, the first Latina to hold the top post on the council, announced her decision in a press release following a groundswell of outrage and calls for the resignations of her and two other council members involved in the conversation recorded last year.
Martinez made racist remarks about the Black son of a white councilman and other crude comments.
Her resignation statement did not address those comments, though in words directed at her daughter she said: “I know I have fallen short recently of the expectations we have for our family. I vow to you that I will strive to be a better woman to make you proud.”
"This is the right move," said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement. "Again, these comments have no place in our state, or in our politics, and we must all model better behavior to live the values that so many of us fight every day to protect."
The announcement was made several hours after Attorney General Rob Bonta said he would investigate Los Angeles’ redistricting process that the three council members discussed with a labor leader in which they schemed to protect Latino political strength in council districts.
Martinez had stepped down as council president on Monday while still holding onto her council seat. Her decision to give up her seat came as President Joe Biden was due to arrive in Los Angeles a day after he condemned the remarks and called on all three council members — Martinez, Kevin de Leon and Gil Cedillo — to resign.
Bonta, a Democrat like the three council members, said his investigation could lead to civil liability or criminal charges, depending on what is found.
“It’s clear an investigation is sorely needed to help restore confidence in the redistricting process for the people of LA,” he said.
Bonta spoke in Los Angeles while the council tried unsuccessfully to conduct business nearby amid the uproar triggered by the recording of crude, racist comments that also provided an unvarnished look into City Hall’s racial rivalries. Those involved in the leaked conversation were all Latinos, while Bonta is the first Filipino American to hold the top law enforcement job in the nation’s most populous state.
The council reconvened Wednesday, possibly to censure the three members, but it was unable to do business because a crowd of about 50 protesters drowned out the acting president chanting slogans such as, “No meeting without resignation.”
A minimum of 10 out of 15 members necessary for a quorum had assembled, but the meeting was adjourned when one left. None of the three embattled council members showed up.
“Who shut you down? We shut you down!” the raucous crowd cheered as the lights were being turned down.
Acting Council President Mitch O’Farrell said that with no sign of anger subsiding, he didn't think the council could resume its work until all three are gone, which he said is inevitable.
“For Los Angeles to heal, and for its City Council to govern, there must be accountability," he said in a statement. "I repeat my call on Councilmembers de Leon and Cedillo to also resign. There is no other way forward.”
The council cannot expel members — it can only suspend a member when criminal charges are pending. A censure does not result in suspension or removal from office.
Martinez said in the recorded conversation that white council member Mike Bonin handled his young Black son as if he were an “accessory” and said of his son “Parece changuito,” or “he’s like a monkey,” the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. She also referred to Bonin as a “little bitch.”
At another point on the hourlong recording, Martinez called indigenous immigrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca ugly, and made crass remarks about Jews and Armenians.
Martinez made history in 2019 when she became the first Latina elected to the council presidency and described herself as “a glass-ceiling shattering leader who brings profound life experience as the proud daughter of working-class immigrants” on her website. She is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley.
The discussion — which also included a powerful Latino labor leader, who has since resigned — centered on protecting Latino political power during the redrawing of council district boundaries, known as redistricting. The once-a-decade process can pit one group against another to gain political advantage in elections.
Bonin was among those who had said the three council members should resign. Other members also called for the trio to step down.
Black and Latino constituents often build alliances in politics. But tensions and rivalries among groups separated by race, geography, partisanship or religion have a long history in Los Angeles and, indeed, the country. The friction can cross into housing, education and jobs — even prisons — as well as the spoils of political power.
Bonta had condemned the members’ remarks without adding to the calls for them to resign. He said Wednesday that his investigation was just beginning.
“It could lead to criminality if that’s where the facts and the law dictate," he said. "There’s certainly the potential for civil liability based on civil rights and voting rights laws here in the state of California.”
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has called for creating an independent commission to draw redistricting maps.
The Los Angeles Times reported that the recording was posted on the social medial site Reddit by a now-suspended user. It is unclear who recorded the audio, who uploaded it to Reddit and whether anyone else was present at the meeting.
OTHER STORIES: 'Oldies but Goodies': Longtime radio DJ Art Laboe dies at 97 | 2022-10-13T00:16:54+00:00 | wgrz.com | https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/nation-world/los-angeles-city-council-president-racist-remarks/507-65a0856f-9fce-45f9-8678-cbe4e9fa2875 |
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The Orlando amusement park where a teenager fell from a ride and died earlier this year has paused a new sniper-like laser shooting game amid criticism following a recent spate of mass shootings.
The Bullseye Blast game let riders of the 400-foot (122-meter) Wheel at ICON Park pay an extra $5.95 to shoot laser blasters at 50 targets strategically placed along rooftops throughout the park.
In a statement issued Saturday, park officials said that while the ride had been “well-received” by customers, some had questioned whether it was appropriate following mass shootings at a July 4 parade in a Chicago suburb, an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
“Some non-guests and community members expressed that they considered the toy shooting device used to be insensitive,” the statement said.
“The attractions industry has many similar games which use similar shooting devices, so that is what we were limited to when exploring the game. However, we believe that a device can and should be designed which does not offend anyone in the community.”
Park officials said they “look forward to leading this new innovation.”
While the park has removed the game from its website, earlier this week it offered the following description of Bullseye Blaster: “To get the highest score possible, players need to hit as many of these as possible with their laser blaster during the 18-minute ride.”
The promos featured photos of riders pointing laser guns from the ride, FOX-35 reported.
Critics and supporters of the ride weighed in on social media over the past few days.
“This is in poor taste!” Florida state Sen. Linda Stewart, a Democrat from Orlando, said in a tweet responding to a news story about the ride. Others on social media scoffed at the park for pausing the game.
Controversy has surrounded the park, which is located along Orlando’s International Drive, since 14-year-old Tyre Sampson of Missouri fell from the Free Fall tower and died earlier this year.
An investigation later found the teen was nearly 100 pounds over the ride’s weight limit. His family has filed a lawsuit.
The park announced the Bullseye Blast in a news release on Thursday.
“The Wheel at ICON Park is the only observation wheel in the world to provide this amazing, new infrared technology, and effectively gamify and reinvigorate the experience to an entirely new audience of gamers,” the release said,
The blasters featured a scope and infrared beams that help players aim at targets on roofs.
Dennis Speigel, who is founder and CEO of International Theme Park Services Inc., told the Orlando Sentinel on Friday that he was surprised ICON Park executives, the creators of the blaster game — Amusements LLC and Steradian Technologies — didn’t consider the negative.
“Seeing these simulated guns pointed down at you from these heights, from all these cars, just doesn’t seem like the right decision,” Speigel told the Sentinel. “It’s a little bizarre.” | 2022-07-17T17:16:31+00:00 | everythinglubbock.com | https://www.everythinglubbock.com/news/latest/florida-amusement-park-pauses-new-sniper-like-laser-game/ |
By Indea Brimage
Where I’m from, it’s not uncommon to have trouble making ends meet. The hard reality is that a lot of folks in my community have two or three jobs and all-too-often struggle between paying rent on time or getting groceries for the week.
Luckily, I’m part of a labor union, so I get paid more than the minimum wage, which means my kids and I don’t have to choose to eat dinner tonight or make sure we can pay for gas tomorrow morning.
With a minimum wage set at $7.25 an hour, though, it’s no surprise that so many people in Pittsburgh and across the commonwealth are struggling. And this November 8th, I am voting for a higher minimum wage, a thriving future for my children and to keep my union strong. This is our chance to rise up against those politicians who think so little of us.
I’ve been a union member for four years now, and being part of a union changed my life. I have three beautiful children, and I am so fortunate to be able to say that my kids don’t want for anything and that I am able to provide for my family. It wouldn’t be that way without Service Employees International Union (SEIU) (Local 32B), though.
Through my union, I have been able to provide for my kids, make sure that we can live on a quiet and safe street, put food on the table, and keep my family healthy. I still struggle from time to time, and because COVID-19 is still affecting my job and the amount of hours I’m able to work, I may need to get a second job in order to keep up with the rising costs of gas and groceries. But because I’m part of a labor union, I have job security and I don’t have the added stress of being fired unexpectedly.
Unfortunately, self-serving politician Doug Mastriano, who is running as the republican candidate for governor, is trying to strip our rights away from us and make all of Pennsylvania a “right-to-work” state, which would undermine workers’ bargaining power and weaken our union rights immediately.
Doug Mastriano has openly suggested that he opposes all minimum wage laws and was one of only seven lawmakers to vote against raising Pennsylvania’s minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9.50 an hour. He doesn’t think that hard-working Pennsylvanians deserve to be paid $9.50 an hour.
If Doug Mastriano were to get elected, not only could I potentially lose my job, but I could lose the securities that my union offers me that keep my kids and I safe and secure.
That’s why I’m voting for Josh Shapiro to be my next Governor of Pennsylvania this November and why I urge everyone in my community to vote for him as well. Not only will he protect union and worker rights, but he will expand our rights as well. He wants to make sure that every single person in Pennsylvania makes a living wage, and can afford to take care of themselves and their family.
As Attorney General, Josh has always been a pro-worker champion, and we have the receipts to prove it. He has defended working people and held companies accountable when they rip off their workers. Last year, he prosecuted the largest prevailing wage case in American history: winning more than $20 million in restitution for Pennsylvania workers.
Throughout the pandemic, Josh held bad employers accountable, like nursing homes administrators who faced indictment for allegedly falsifying staffing records and leaving staff and residents in unsafe conditions.
Josh doesn’t just want to protect unions, he wants to expand them and give every single Pennsylvania worker the right to join a union. He fights for what is right and I know that as governor of my home state, he’ll continue to fight for what is right and just.
Our ancestors fought so hard to make sure that we could vote today, and they went through hell and back to protect our rights. It’s time that as a community, we come together, we vote together, and we win together. Make a plan to vote this year on November 8. Our rights are on the line and we cannot let extremist candidates win. Let’s make sure that we show up and that Josh Shapiro wins the race for Governor of Pennsylvania.
Aurore Gomez (she/her) is Regional Communicator, SEIU | 2022-10-27T14:26:31+00:00 | pennlive.com | https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2022/10/our-ancestors-went-through-hell-and-back-to-vote-we-need-to-show-up-opinion.html |
Regarding Charles Lane’s June 15 Thursday Opinion column, “The misguided assault on Fort Liberty”:
When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) supports naming military bases for enslavers, he discredits one of the most important Christian moral movements in history. The antislavery movement started with the evangelical William Wilberforce in England and the Quakers in America. Those Christians who fought against slavery were not “woke.” They were moral heroes who made this country a more perfect nation. Their antislavery beliefs were rooted in the biblical belief that all people are created in the image of God. Conservative Eric Metaxas’s “Amazing Grace” is a biography about the heroism of Wilberforce.
Some conservatives have claimed that today’s antiabortion movement is morally similar to the antislavery movement of the 1800s. That comparison loses its power when former president Donald Trump and Mr. DeSantis promote enslavers as heroes rather than the Christians of the antislavery movement. | 2023-06-21T20:49:23+00:00 | washingtonpost.com | https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/21/ron-desantis-fort-bragg-confederacy-names/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is expected Wednesday to announce its largest interest rate hike since 1994 — a bigger increase than it had previously signaled and a sign that the central bank is struggling to restrain stubbornly high inflation.
The central bank is considered likely to raise its benchmark short-term rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, far larger than the typical quarter-point increase, to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. It will also likely forecast additional large rate hikes through the end of the year.
A series of sizeable increases would heighten borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, likely leading to an economic slowdown and raising the risk of a recession. The Fed's previous rate hikes have already had the effect of raising mortgage rates roughly 2 percentage points since the year began and have slowed home sales.
Other central banks around the world are also acting swiftly to try to quell surging inflation, even with their nations at greater risk of recession than the U.S. The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates by a quarter-point in July, its first increase in 11 years. It could announce a larger hike in September if record-high levels of inflation persist.
The global efforts to tighten credit are escalating the risk of a severe downturn in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Last week, the World Bank warned of the threat of “stagflation” — slow growth accompanied by high inflation — around the world.
By the end of 2022, the Fed will have raised its key rate as high as a range of 3.25% to 3.5%, some economists estimate, higher than what was forecast just a few weeks ago. At that level, the rate would likely be well above “neutral,” meaning at a level that would be intended to slow growth. In March, the Fed had forecast that it would raise rates only to a range of 1.75% to 2% by year's end.
After the Fed's last meeting in May, when it raised its benchmark rate by a half-point, Chair Jerome Powell said that similar increases were “on the table” for the central bank's June and July meetings, should the economy “evolve in line with expectations.”
But on Friday, the government reported that year-over-year inflation accelerated unexpectedly in May to 8.6%, the highest such level in four decades. Inflation has spread to nearly every corner of the economy, with costs rising for rents, gas, clothing, medical care, airline fares and clothing.
Also on Friday, a consumer sentiment survey by the University of Michigan found that Americans’ expectations for future inflation are rising. That is a worrisome sign for the Fed, because expectations can become self-fulfilling: If people expect higher inflation in the future, they often change their behavior in ways that increase prices. For example, they may accelerate large purchases before they become more expensive. Doing so can intensify demand and further fuel inflation.
The accelerated series of rate hikes now expected from the Fed will increase the likelihood of a recession in the next year or so.
“I think we’re sort of past the point where a ‘soft landing’ is plausible,” said Aneta Markowska, chief economist at the investment bank Jeffries, referring to the Fed's effort to raise rates enough to slow growth but not so much as to cause a recession. “I think they’re going to have to cause a contraction.”
A key reason why a recession is now likelier is that economists increasingly believe that for the Fed to slow inflation to its 2% target, it will need to sharply reduce consumer spending, wage gains and economic growth. Ultimately, the unemployment rate will almost certainly have to rise — something the Fed hasn't yet forecast but could in updated economic projections it will issue Wednesday.
“When you’re on the highway going 90 miles an hour and you miss your exit, slowing down is not going to help you," Markowska said. "You have to do a U-turn and go back.”
Other central banks are also looking at jumbo rate hikes to combat inflation. In addition to the ECB, the Bank of England has raised rates four times since December to a 13-year high, despite predictions that economic growth will be unchanged in the second quarter. The BOE will hold an interest rate meeting on Thursday.
The 19 European Union countries that use the euro currency endured record inflation of 8.1% last month. The United Kingdom notched a 40-year high of 9% in April. Though debt service costs remain contained for now, rising borrowing costs for indebted governments threatened the eurozone with a breakup in the early part of the last decade.
The exception among major central banks is Japan, whose central bank has kept its ultra-low rates amid inflation that’s weaker than in the U.S. and Europe. That is causing the value of the yen to drop as investors shift money to countries with higher interest rates. | 2022-06-14T21:56:23+00:00 | seattlepi.com | https://www.seattlepi.com/business/article/Biggest-rate-hike-in-years-expected-as-Fed-17241506.php |
Industry-First 5nm Baseband Processors Enable Best-in-Class Performance and Energy Efficiency for Integrated and Virtualized RAN
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 23, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL), a leader in data infrastructure semiconductor solutions, today launched its next generation OCTEON® 10 Fusion family of baseband processors for 5G base stations—the industry's first in 5nm process technology. Built on the Marvell® OCTEON® 10 platform, this new family of wireless processors offers enhanced 5G feature support, energy efficiency and performance, including twice the system capacity as the previous generation. The OCTEON Fusion processors power networks that connect more than half of the world's mobile subscribers. This innovative platform, adopted by major OEMs, also includes comprehensive inline Layer 1 hardware accelerators that bring Marvell's proven performance of established 5G networks into open, virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRAN).
The OCTEON 10 Fusion processors are optimized for both high-performance and energy efficiency to address the growing demands of 5G applications. The product family features industry-leading Arm® Neoverse™ N2 CPU cores, a series of programmable DSP cores, and a wide range of hardware accelerators for 5G baseband, networking and security. One of the new hardware accelerators is an integrated inline AI/ML engine that enables efficient edge inferencing for RAN applications such as AI-enhanced massive MIMO beamforming.
"Samsung and Marvell have been working closely to deliver multiple generations of advanced radio access networks for leading operators worldwide," said June Moon, Executive Vice President and Head of R&D, Networks Business at Samsung Electronics. "The companies' commitment to expanding the vRAN ecosystem helps accelerate network transformation. In collaboration with Marvell, we are providing operators with outstanding 5G performance and power efficiency for both existing and open vRAN architectures."
"Marvell's innovative 5nm OCTEON 10 Fusion processors extend the performance and features of the Dell 5G Open RAN accelerator card to enable carrier-grade RAN virtualization at cloud scale," said Andrew Vaz, Vice President, Product Management, Dell Technologies Telecom Systems Business. "We look forward to our continued work with Marvell to deliver advanced 5G capabilities to operators and cloud service providers on Dell PowerEdge or any other x86 server."
"As carriers deploy more complex radio features to enhance 5G coverage and capacity, optimized silicon with comprehensive hardware acceleration and 5nm technology are critical to scale system performance, power, and cost efficiency beyond the capabilities of existing solutions based on general-purpose CPU or FPGA technologies," said Raghib Hussain, President of Products and Technologies at Marvell. "OCTEON 10 Fusion is uniquely designed to enable open and scalable vRAN with feature, performance, and power parity as compared to traditional 5G networks."
"Mobile operators need to scale their networks to meet consumer demand for more bandwidth and emerging opportunities like fixed wireless access. At the same time, they must remain within tight cost and energy envelopes," said Prakash Sangam, Founder of Tantra Analyst. "Processors optimized for specific 5G functions like Marvell's OCTEON 10 Fusion, provide the performance and headroom needed for today and future networks. As an open platform, Fusion also lets operators take advantage of software from a wide ecosystem of developers."
Marvell is working with the leading cloud orchestration and management software providers to validate and pre-integrate these platforms for vRAN systems powered by OCTEON 10 Fusion processors. This will simplify the deployment and management of 5G networks for Marvell's customers and accelerate time-to-market for carriers.
"Red Hat and Marvell share a common vision that delivering a more consistent, flexible foundation for accelerated 5G RAN deployments relies on transforming compute architecture based on open source innovation," said Honoré LaBourdette, Vice President, Telco, Media, Entertainment & Edge Ecosystem, Red Hat. "The validation of Red Hat OpenShift on Marvell's new OCTEON 10 Fusion Open RAN accelerator enables best-in-class 5G RAN virtualization for cloud orchestration and management software allowing service providers to scale into the future."
"Operators are looking towards a cloud-native future and searching for flexible and cost-effective solutions to reduce deployment complexities and ongoing maintenance and grow new services for future networks," said Avijit Sinha, Chief Product Officer, Wind River. "Wind River Studio delivers mature production-ready technology that is live in deployment with operators globally. Our collaboration will further help operators deploy and simplify the introduction of new services and efficiently manage a physically distributed, cloud native vRAN infrastructure with performance that matches existing 5G networks based on Marvell's inline acceleration technology."
"Mobile network operators face a challenge in the transition from traditional to Cloud RAN that requires proven carrier-grade performance in an open and virtualized architecture," said Lakshmi Mandyam, Vice President of service provider product management and partner ecosystem at VMware. "Our work with Marvell brings together Marvell's history of baseband leadership and their latest OCTEON 10 Fusion innovations with VMware Telco Cloud Platform RAN. This combination provides CSPs a common foundation for deploying 5G and traditional services in a multi-cloud environment and scalability that optimizes the revenue and efficiency of each RAN site."
To deliver sustainability without compromise, the OCTEON 10 Fusion design combines these innovations with advanced power management for best-in-class RAN performance per watt across a wide range of demanding 5G use cases:
- Distributed Unit (DU) and Radio Unit (RU) applications
- Wide bandwidth Massive MIMO beamforming to 64T64R and beyond
- Conventional and virtualized RAN (vRAN) architectures
- Open RAN with support for all L1 split options
Availability
The OCTEON 10 Fusion family of 5G baseband processors are currently in production. Additional resources can be found on the media kit page.
Visit us at Mobile World Congress 2023 in Barcelona at booth 2F34 in Hall 2.
About Marvell
To deliver the data infrastructure technology that connects the world, we're building solutions on the most powerful foundation: our partnerships with our customers. Trusted by the world's leading technology companies for over 25 years, we move, store, process and secure the world's data with semiconductor solutions designed for our customers' current needs and future ambitions. Through a process of deep collaboration and transparency, we're ultimately changing the way tomorrow's enterprise, cloud, automotive, and carrier architectures transform—for the better.
Marvell and the M logo are trademarks of Marvell or its affiliates. Please visit www.marvell.com for a complete list of Marvell trademarks. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners..
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws that involve risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, any statement that may predict, forecast, indicate or imply future events or achievements. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contemplated in this press release. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and no person assumes any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
For further information, contact:
Kim Markle
pr@marvell.com
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SOURCE Marvell | 2023-02-24T01:16:03+00:00 | kcrg.com | https://www.kcrg.com/prnewswire/2023/02/23/marvell-unveils-octeon-10-fusion-processor-family-advance-5g-networks/ |
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — A spate of wildfires is scorching parts of Europe, with firefighters battling blazes in Portugal, Spain, Croatia and southern France on Wednesday amid an unusual heat wave that authorities are linking to climate change.
In Portugal, Civil Protection commander André Fernandes said multiple fires have caused the evacuation of more than 600 people. About 120 people needed medical treatment, with two people — one civilian and one firefighter — suffering serious injuries, Fernandes said.
Water-dumping planes helped 1,300 firefighters combat the worst of the blazes in the nation’s central area, while another 1,000 worked to bring other fires under control.
The European heat wave is also sparking flames in Spain and France — and in Turkey at the other end of the Mediterranean.
More than 800 firefighters battled two wildfires in the region outside Bordeaux in southwest France, according to the regional emergency service. The fires began Tuesday near the towns of Landiras and La Teste-de-Buch, and firefighters hadn’t been able to contain them by Wednesday morning.
About 6,500 people have been evacuated from campgrounds and villages in the forested area. The number of injuries is unclear. The two fires have destroyed more than 1,800 hectares (4,400 acres) of terrain. Images from firefighters showed flames racing through thickets of trees and grassland, fanned by strong winds, and smoke blackening the horizon.
The regional administration banned activity in forested areas at risk. Several regions in southern France are on fire alert because of hot, dry weather and high winds. Wildfires swept through the Gard region in southeast France last week.
Portugal has long experienced fatal forest fires. In 2017, wildfires killed more than 100 people. No one has died from a wildfire since then as Portugal improved its forest management and firefighting strategies.
Last year, Portugal recorded its lowest number of wildfires since 2011. But a mass of hot and dry air blown in by African winds are driving temperatures in the Iberian Peninsula beyond their usual highs.
The Atlantic country, which has been on alert of wildfires since last week, is sweltering under a spike in temperatures that is forecast to send thermometers in the central Alentejo region to 46 C (115 F) on Wednesday and Thursday. Authorities said that 96% of the country was classified at the end of June as being in either “extreme” or “severe” drought.
More than 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) had been consumed alone in the district of Leiria, just north of Lisbon, Mayor Goncalo Lopes told Portuguese state broadcaster RTP.
Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, who canceled a trip abroad to deal with the emergency, said that better care of woodlands and abandoned farmland was key to protecting them.
“In 2017, the country realized that having enough firefighters is essential, but it is not enough,” Costa said. “We have to get to the root of the problem … The abandonment of property and its non-management is one of the biggest risk factors for forest fires.”
Neighboring Spain hit highs of 43 C (109.4 F) in several southern cities on Tuesday. Over 400 people were evacuated Tuesday because of a wildfire that has consumed 3,500 hectares (8,600 acres) in western Spain.
Fuelled by strong winds, fires raged along Croatia’s Adriatic Sea coast as well, with the most dramatic situation reported near the town of Sibenik, where water-dropping planes and dozens of firefighters struggled to contain the flames that briefly engulfed some cars and a church tower. Regional N1 television reported that some residents evacuated the area in rubber boats. Fires were also reported near the coastal town of Zadar.
Firefighter Boris Dukić told state HRT television that “it’s hell, we don’t know where to go first.”
European Union officials issued a warning last week that climate change is behind the extremely dry and hot summer so far on the continent, urging local authorities to brace for wildfires.
Cayetano Torres, spokesman for Spain’s national weather forecaster, said that the “unusual” heat wave and lack of rainfall in recent months has created ideal circumstances for fires.
“These are perfect conditions for the propagation of fires, which when you add to that some wind, you have have guaranteed propagation,” he said.
In southwestern Turkey, a blaze erupted close to the village of Mesudiye, near the Aegean Sea resort of Datca, and was moving toward homes in the area, according to the provincial governor’s office. It said at least nine water-dropping helicopters and five planes were deployed to battle the fire.
Last summer, blazes that were fed by strong winds and scorching temperatures tore through forests in Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean regions. The wildfires, which killed at least eight people and countless animals, were described as the worst in Turkey’s history.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government came under sharp criticism for its inadequate response and preparedness to fight large-scale wildfires, including a lack of modern firefighting planes.
___
Joseph Wilson reported from Barcelona, Spain. Angela Charlton in Paris, Renata Brito in Barcelona, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey and Jovana Gec in Belgrade contributed to this report.
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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate | 2022-07-14T00:55:52+00:00 | fox59.com | https://fox59.com/news/national-world/ap-international/firefighters-battle-wildfires-from-portugal-to-france/ |
WASHINGTON, July 10, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- On Monday, July 17th, No Labels will launch its Common Sense agenda at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. The program from 5:30-6:30pm ET will feature two national guests and No Labels leadership discussing the issues that matter most to most Americans.
*All media planning to attend should register HERE.*
Who: No Labels Leadership and two guest speakers
What: Common Sense Agenda Book Launch
When: Monday, July 17th, 2023, 5:30 – 6:30pm
*Media check in and set up at 4:00pm*
Where: New Hampshire Institute of Politics
Saint Anselm College
100 Saint Anselm Road - s.b, DRIVE
Manchester, NH 03102
Background:
For 13 years, No Labels has worked to give voice to America's commonsense majority. On Capitol Hill, and across America, we have tried to bridge our political divides and create the space for our leaders to deliver bipartisan solutions to our country's biggest problems.
For much of the last two years, we have been working on our 2024 presidential insurance project to potentially offer our ballot line to an independent Unity ticket if the public demands it. No Labels will only offer our ballot line to a Unity ticket if it has a viable path to outright Electoral College victory.
With the 2024 election fast approaching, No Labels is proud to present Common Sense, which includes 30 big ideas to tackle America's greatest challenges, including proposals on our budget, energy, immigration, inflation, education, America's place in the world and so much more. It points a way toward addressing even the most contentious issues – like guns, gender and abortion – with civility and respect.
This booklet is the culmination of No Labels' longstanding work to bridge the political divide in America. It is influenced by No Labels surveys of, and conversations with, tens of thousands of Americans to understand their concerns, aspirations and priorities for America. No Labels' Common Sense provides a clear road map for where Americans want our great nation to go, and a call to action to the elected officials and candidates who aspire to lead us.
No Labels' Common Sense takes its name and inspiration from the original Common Sense, published in 1776 by Thomas Paine, and it reflects both America's enduring principles and the new and unique circumstances we face in the 21st century. At a moment when candidates in both parties too often speak only to the small sliver of voters who show up in their primaries, Common Sense speaks to, and for, everyone else. Even if No Labels never offers our ballot line to a presidential ticket, we hope and believe Common Sense can shape the debate in 2024 and force candidates on both sides to respond to the concerns of the commonsense majority.
About No Labels
No Labels has spent 13 years working to give voice to America's common-sense majority. We are now getting ballot access in states across the country to ensure Americans have the choice to vote for a 2024 presidential Unity ticket that features strong, effective, and honest leaders who will commit to working closely with both parties to find commonsense solutions to America's biggest problems. www.nolabels.org.
About The New Hampshire Institute of Politics
Founded in 2001, the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College provides a nonpartisan forum for discussion and debate. It seeks to develop programming, and to foster scholarship and dialogue, encompassing a diverse range of political topics, opinions and issues. The Institute serves as a resource for students, scholars, politicians, and the general public. For more information, please visit: www.anselm.edu/nhiop
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SOURCE No Labels | 2023-07-11T01:22:41+00:00 | kswo.com | https://www.kswo.com/prnewswire/2023/07/10/no-labels-launch-common-sense-agenda-new-hampshire-with-national-guest-speakers/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Leave it to Rickie Fowler to find that brilliant combination of hydration, product placement and doing what the kids like.
One of golf’s fan favorites has been walking around the U.S. Open this week with his reusable water bottle in hand.
It is, in keeping with the preteen and teen trends, covered with stickers. One has a bearded skull that is the logo of a coffee company. There’s one of a lightbulb that is the logo of a beer company. Another sticker is a space alien, and there’s one with the name of a company that sells what it calls “recovery and movement enhancement technology.”
“Friends of friends or connections in one way,” Fowler said when asked to explain why he chose certain stickers. “The real reason is, I drink more water and electrolytes when I carry it.”
Most players would stick the bottle in the bag, but Fowler says he lugs it as a way of reminding himself to keep drinking during a four-hour walk over the hilly golf course.
“It’s also heavy when it’s full, so I don’t want to necessarily throw that on Rick, my caddie, to tote that thing around,” he said.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | 2023-06-19T14:22:22+00:00 | wric.com | https://www.wric.com/sports/sports-headlines/stickers-adorn-rickie-fowlers-ever-present-water-bottle-at-us-open/ |
NEW YORK — (AP) — The Banc of California has agreed to buy PacWest Bancorp in an all-stock transaction, bringing an end to months of speculation about whether PacWest could survive on its own after the failures of three other regional banks this spring.
The deal announced Tuesday got help from Warburg Pincus and Centerbridge Partners, two large private equity firms, which are investing $400 million to help shore up and restructure the balance sheet of the combined bank. Centerbridge Partners has a long history as an investor in distressed companies,
The deal is a bit of good news for PacWest, the parent of Pacific Western Bank, and its shareholders. The company's stock has fallen by nearly two-thirds this year on fear that PacWest could be the next bank to fail after the earlier failures of Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic and Signature Bank.
Based on Tuesday's closing prices, PacWest shareholders will receive Banc of California shares valued at $9.60. A year ago the shares traded around $27.
California-based PacWest has a very similar business model to First Republic Bank: serving rich customers and giving clients favorable loans in exchange for those deposits. PacWest also had an investment banking division that served the tech community as well.
To shore up investor confidence and to keep bank regulators from closing it, PacWest has been selling off assets and businesses for last several months. But the stock still fell nearly 30% on Tuesday ahead of speculation that the company would be bought in a fire sale.
The $1 billion deal would make the combined Banc of Californa-PacWest an entity with $36 billion in assets with 70 branches throughout California. Warburg Pincus and Centerbridge will have a 19% stake in the merged company.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | 2023-07-25T21:14:34+00:00 | whio.com | https://www.whio.com/news/banc-california-buy/ALMJATZNJGF637HBO7YK7GI3OI/ |
Jan. 6 panel eyes recommending criminal charges for former President Donald Trump
Video above: Jan. 6 panel votes unanimously to subpoena Trump
The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol is considering recommending the Justice Department pursue an unprecedented criminal charge of insurrection and two other counts against former President Donald Trump
Besides insurrection, an uprising aiming to overthrow the government, the panel is also considering recommending prosecutors pursue charges for obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The committee’s deliberations were continuing late Friday, and no decisions were formalized on which specific charges the committee would refer to the Justice Department.
The panel is to meet publicly Monday afternoon when any recommendation will be made public.
The deliberations were confirmed to the AP by a person familiar with the matter who could not discuss the matter publicly by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. A second person familiar with the deliberations confirmed the committee was considering three charges.
The decision to issue referrals is not unexpected. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair of the committee, has for months been hinting at sending the Justice Department criminal referrals based on the extensive evidence the nine-member panel has gathered since it was formed in July 2021.
"You may not send an armed mob to the Capitol; you may not sit for 187 minutes and refuse to stop the attack while it’s underway. You may not send out a tweet that incites further violence,” Cheney said about Trump on NBC's ‘Meet the Press' in October. “So we’ve been very clear about a number of different criminal offenses that are likely at issue here.”
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., detailed possible referrals last week as falling into a series of categories that include criminal and ethics violations, legal misconduct and campaign finance violations.
It would then fall to federal prosecutors to decide whether to pursue any referrals for prosecution. While it doesn't carry any legal weight, recommendations by the committee would add to the political pressure on the Justice Department as it investigates Trump’s actions.
“The gravest offense in constitutional terms is the attempt to overthrow a presidential election and bypass the constitutional order,” committee member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told reporters last week. “Subsidiary to all of that are a whole host of statutory offenses, which support the gravity and magnitude of that violent assault on America.”
Raskin, along with Cheney and Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Zoe Lofgren, both of California, comprised the subcommittee that drafted the referral recommendations and presented them to the larger group for consideration.
Over the course of its investigation, the committee has made recommendations that several members of Trump’s inner circle should be prosecuted for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas. One, for Steve Bannon, has resulted in a conviction. | 2022-12-17T01:16:21+00:00 | wyff4.com | https://www.wyff4.com/article/jan-6-panel-eyes-criminal-charges-for-trump/42270678 |
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