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Fresh Air Fitness returns to downtown Rochester
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Outdoor fitness classes are returning to downtown Rochester, and will feature more class types and sessions this year.
Presented by the Rochester Downtown Alliance and Winona State University, Rochester Campus Activity Board will have sessions in May and June 2022 for Fresh Air Fitness.
The sessions are free and will run from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday in Central Park and will rotate between yoga, dance, and senior classes. On Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., Zumba classes will be hosted in Peace Plaza.
All classes will be taught by 125 Live instructors.
“These outdoor classes were a great way to celebrate spring and reconnect with the community in 2021,” said Holly Masek, RDA executive director. “We’re excited to expand the program to three days a week with a new partnership with 125 Live.”
Registration is required to attend. Find class types and reservation links here.
Copyright 2022 KTTC. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/fresh-air-fitness-returns-downtown-rochester/ | 2022-04-12T14:45:17 | 0 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/fresh-air-fitness-returns-downtown-rochester/ |
LIVE: At least 5 people shot at New York subway station
NEW YORK (AP) — At least five people were shot and injured Tuesday at a New York City subway station during a morning rush hour attack that left wounded commuters bleeding on a train platform and police searching for the shooter.
Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke at the 36th Street station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood at around 8:30 a.m. found at least 13 people were hurt, but — aside from the five shot — there were no details on what those injuries entailed.
According to multiple law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation, preliminary information indicated that the suspect who fled was a man wearing a construction vest and a gas mask.
Photos and video from the scene showed people tending to bloodied passengers lying on the floor of the station and the air filled with smoke. Fire and police officials were investigating reports that there had been an explosion, but the police department tweeted that there were “no active explosive devices at this time.” Multiple smoke devices were found on the scene, said mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy, who confirmed the initial shooting injury count.
At least 11 people were being treated at two local hospitals.
“My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and people screaming,” eyewitness Sam Carcamo told radio station 1010 WINS, saying he saw a gigantic billow of smoke pouring out of the N train once the door opened.
A bystander video shows people lying on the subway platform amid what appeared to be small puddles of blood, as a loudspeaker announcement told everyone on the smoke-hazy platform to get on a train. Inside a subway car, a person lay on the floor, encircled by others. Outside the station, a police officer yelled, “Let’s go! Get out of the way!”
Trains servicing that station were delayed during the morning rush hour.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office did not immediately have more details. Adams was at the mayor’s residence Tuesday morning and was being briefed.
The incident happened on a subway line that runs through south Brooklyn in a neighborhood about a 15-minute train ride to Manhattan. Local schools, including Sunset Park High School across the street, were locked down.
Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had just dropped his son off at school when he saw a crush of passengers, included multiple wounded, running up the subway stairway at the 25th Street station in panic. At least two had visible leg injuries, he said.
“It was insane,” he told The Associated Press. “No one knew exactly what was going on.”
Allan Lee was running his business, Cafe Nube, when a half-dozen police cars and fire vehicles suddenly converged on the block.
“Then they started ushering people that were on the block to the adjacent block and then closed off the subway entrance” near the cafe’s door, he told the AP. When he noticed bomb squad officers and dogs, he was certain it was no everyday subway problem.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement she had been briefed on the situation and said her office would work with the transit authority and police department as the investigation continued. President Joe Biden had also been briefed on the latest developments and White House senior staff were in touch with Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell.
Police officers were canvassing 4th Avenue, the station’s cross-street, asking witnesses whether they were on the train. A sea of emergency lights was visible from at least a dozen blocks away, where a police cordon was set up.
The shootings come as New York City has faced a spate a shootings and high-profile incidents in recent months, including on the city’s subways. One of the most shocking was in January when a woman was pushed to her death in front of a train by a stranger.
Adams, a Democrat a little over 100 days into his term, has made cracking down on crime — especially on the subways — a focus of his early administration, pledging to send more police officers into stations and platforms for regular patrols. It wasn’t immediately clear whether officers had already been inside the station when the shootings occurred.
___
Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michelle L. Price, Jennifer Peltz and Jim Mustian in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/multiple-people-shot-new-york-city-subway-station/ | 2022-04-12T14:45:24 | 1 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/multiple-people-shot-new-york-city-subway-station/ |
Oklahoma governor signs bill to make abortion illegal
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.
The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Abortion rights advocates say the bill signed by the GOP governor is likely to face a legal challenge.
Its passage comes as the conservative U.S. Supreme Court considers ratcheting back abortion rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years.
Under the bill, anyone convicted of performing an abortion would face up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. It does not authorize criminal charges against a woman for receiving an abortion.
Sen. Nathan Dahm, a Broken Arrow Republican now running for Congress who wrote the bill, called it the “strongest pro-life legislation in the country right now, which effectively eliminates abortion in Oklahoma.”
Abortion rights advocates say the bill is clearly unconstitutional.
“It has never been more obvious that politicians are using tricks and games to pass these harmful laws,” Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Texas and Oklahoma and a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement. “Oklahoma legislators are trying to ban abortion from all sides and merely seeing which of these dangerous, shameful bills they can get their governor to sign.”
Similar anti-abortion bills approved by the Oklahoma Legislature and in other conservative states in recent years have been stopped by the courts as unconstitutional, but anti-abortion lawmakers have been buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow new Texas abortion restrictions to remain in place.
The new Texas law, the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the U.S. in decades, leaves enforcement up to private citizens, who are entitled to collect what critics call a “bounty” of $10,000 if they bring a successful lawsuit against a provider or anyone who helps a patient obtain an abortion.
Several states, including Oklahoma, are pursuing similar legislation this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-make-abortion-illegal/ | 2022-04-12T14:45:30 | 1 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-make-abortion-illegal/ |
Severe weather possible tonight; wintry weather returns later this week
Large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes possible this evening
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – A large storm system is moving into the region from the west today, bringing mild, but unsettled weather to the area for our Tuesday. Expect increasing cloud cover with a chance of isolated showers and a few thunderstorms in the midday and afternoon hours. Strong, gusty southeast winds will work to pull in warmer air, but they’ll also add an extra chill to the air, reaching 35 miles per hour at times. High temperatures will be around 60 degrees, which is several degrees warmer than the seasonal average.
A line of strong to severe thunderstorms will develop to our west and then rumble into the area after 8:00 this evening. At this point, large hail, damaging wind gusts, and tornadoes will all be possible across the area, but the area of highest tornado risk will be south of Interstate 90 and on the Iowa side of the border. Downpours of rain in some of those storms may yield a quick half-inch to one-inch of rainfall. The primary local severe weather risk tonight will run from 8:00 to 2:00 AM. Temperatures will drop slowly to the mid and upper 40s with a gusty southwest breeze.
A few isolated showers will be possible Wednesday behind the departing storm system. Expect occasional sunshine and brisk west winds and afternoon high temperatures will be in the upper 40s to low 50s.
Light snow showers and sprinkles will be possible on Thursday as some of that activity will rotate into the area on the backside of the storm system. Strong west winds will gust to 40 or 50 miles per hour throughout the day and high temperatures will be in the upper 30s to around 40 degrees.
After a couple of bright, but chilly days Friday and Saturday, another storm system will graze the area to the south, bringing a chance for light snow showers and perhaps a little light rain for Easter Sunday, and high temperatures will be in the low 40s.
Copyright 2022 KTTC. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/severe-weather-possible-tonight-wintry-weather-returns-later-this-week/ | 2022-04-12T14:45:37 | 0 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/severe-weather-possible-tonight-wintry-weather-returns-later-this-week/ |
Target announces dates for its car seat trade-in recycling program
(Gray News) - Target has announced when people can trade in their old, expired or damaged car seats for a discount on new items.
The retailer announced its next car seat trade-in promotion will take place from April 18-30.
People can bring the car seats to a Target location, and in return, they can claim a 20% discount online or on the Target app toward a car seat, stroller or other baby items.
The coupon is valid through May 14.
The materials from the car seats traded in are recycled, and Target has received 1.7 million of them since 2016.
Target works with Waste Management to recycle the items. The retail giant said it has recycled 25.4 million pounds of car seat materials since the promotion began.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/target-announces-dates-its-car-seat-trade-in-recycling-program/ | 2022-04-12T14:45:44 | 1 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/12/target-announces-dates-its-car-seat-trade-in-recycling-program/ |
'If I can make it, you can make it': Volusia Pines fifth-grade teacher connects with students
For 61-year-old Deborah Swanson, becoming a teacher was her childhood dream.
But it wasn't until 2008, less than 13 years ago, that her dream became a reality.
"If I can make it, you can make it," Swanson said, tears forming in her eyes, in her fifth-grade classroom at Volusia Pines Elementary School.
She said her teachers helped save her during a difficult childhood, and that's why she always wanted to become a teacher herself.
"My teachers were my rock," she said. "My teachers probably saved me from being suicidal or being abducted or anything in that category."
As a result, she's made her classroom a safe space for her students – a place where they can open up to her, talk about what they are going through at home, and speak up when they don't understand the lesson.
"I think because of the hard life I had as a child, you kind of take that with you and you're a little more compassionate and a little more understanding," Swanson said. "So you've got to unpack a little bit of that and let them relax and be in an environment that they feel safe in and can't wait to come to school every day."
To recognize Swanson's success, The News-Journal named her its Amazing Teacher for February.
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During a recent day on campus, two of her students talked about how Swanson was friends with their parents and how they go over to her house and play with her dogs.
"A lot of these guys are my neighbors," Swanson said, explaining that her children attended Volusia Pines Elementary. "I think coming here, it's made that connection of 'I'm just like you are.'"
Her husband, Dean Swanson, nominated her for the Amazing Teacher series.
"She never turns down a chance to do summer school, tutor or just take a moment to help the kids," he said in his nomination. "It is truly a gift she has."
Last week, during a math lesson converting liters to milliliters, one student spoke up after almost every question and hands shot up in the air during each step asking for clarification.
Swanson reviewed each math problem more than once until each student was on the same page.
At the end of the group lesson, students who were still struggling gathered around her table for additional instruction, while those who were comfortable with the concepts moved on to individual lessons on their laptops.
Julie Cusack-Gordan, principal of Volusia Pines Elementary, said having Swanson on campus is a "blessing."
"She's a fabulous person to work with; hardworking, dedicated, goes above and beyond," Cusack-Gordan said. "She's definitely a team player and just a well-rounded person who wants to see the best in all students."
A difficult childhood
At just 14 years old, Swanson was on her own.
"I came from a very rough home," Swanson said. "My parents were divorced, it was rough. From incest to molestation to abuse to neglect. It was safer for me to be on the street than it was for me to be in the home."
She was in foster care for a short time, but she said things were just as bad. She went from Illinois where she lived with her father to California with her mother and then back to Illinois.
"(My teachers) they knew the abuse that was going on and would keep me at school, put me in a club or mentor me," Swanson said.
In 1978, at just 16, she hitchhiked with her cousin to Deltona, where she met her husband, Dean.
At the time, she was working during the day as an electrician's apprentice and taking night classes toward her diploma. But she couldn't keep up with the bills. So she gave up school to continue working.
"I didn't see the big picture for me at the time," Swanson said. "I just wanted a place. I just wanted a home."
Two years later when she and Dean turned 18, they got married. Not long after, when she was 20, Swanson gave birth to their daughter.
Before she became a teacher, Swanson, a stay-at-home mom, ran a daycare out of her home and volunteered at her children's schools in Volusia County for 17 years, including Volusia Pines Elementary.
"I always made money; some way to contribute," Swanson said.
In 1999, when she was 38, Swanson was diagnosed with breast cancer. For six months she underwent chemotherapy and ultimately had a double mastectomy. In 2001 she found out she was in remission.
"I'm here to say you know that I've made it through it and hopefully I'm a mentor for those that are survivors," Swanson said. "It was just really surviving and just having that wake-up call of, you know, life's short and you need to live every day to the fullest because you never know."
It was then that she decided to go back to school, get her high school diploma and earn a teaching degree from the University of Central Florida. She graduated from college in 2008.
CTE programs:Volusia Schools help prepare students for college or the workforce
In the classroom
Swanson said walking into a classroom as a teacher for the first time was the "most amazing thing."
She started her career teaching second grade at a charter school. The following year she transitioned to Forest Lake Elementary where she stayed for more than 11 years. She taught second grade for nine years and third grade for two years before becoming a fifth-grade teacher.
When school went virtual in 2020, Swanson enrolled in college classes at UCF to better learn how to teach her students through a screen.
It was just last year that she transitioned to Volusia Pines Elementary, where she was hired for math and science intervention. But the teacher for her current class left during the first month of school so she stepped up.
"I'm not here for the pay, I'm here because I love it," she said. "This is my passion. My dream. I live it, breathe it."
Every year she teaches summer school throughout the county. She and her husband built weather stations on campus so students could learn how to get the temperature.
She also provides a free Lego club for students who can't pay for other clubs. The only requirement for entry: to write a letter explaining why they want to be a part of the club.
"If I charge money what students do I get? Those that can go out and buy the same things," she said. "I want students that are A students, good students that don't have that opportunity."
One of her goals as a teacher is to ensure her students know fundamental skills they can apply in daily life. Since schedules were chaotic during the pandemic, Swanson does "throwback Thursdays" to cover lessons some students may have missed.
"I want them to take ownership, to know where their weaknesses are, where their strengths are," Swanson said. "It's so important because they aren't going to have another teacher like me, they are about to go to middle school where it's completely different."
For example, they learned how to make bread, grow plants and track the weather.
"We did bread-making with rolls and cinnamon buns. Bread is unbelievable, but it's cheap and it's affordable," Swanson said. "It fed my students over the holidays because they went back home and they made bread for their families in these hard times."
She also wants her students to learn how to stay healthy.
"I tried to instill with these guys about health, about taking care of themselves because they need to be strong now to prepare themselves because they don't know what that's going (to happen to) them in the future," she said.
Swanson said she plans to teach until they "kick her out."
"When you have no hope and life is just down, I realize it in their eyes, I want them to know I'm here," Swanson said. "It's a blessing just to say I got a second chance at life."
About this series
As part of an effort to honor the work of teachers in Volusia and Flagler counties, The News-Journal and All Aboard Storage are sharing stories of educators who have made an impact on students’ lives with a different story each month.
Visit news-journalonline.com to see more stories about inspiring teachers.
To nominate a teacher, visit news-journalonline.com.
Nikki Ross covers K-12 education, health and COVID-19 for the Daytona Beach News-Journal. She can be reached at nikki.ross@news-jrnl.com or follow her on Twitter @nikkiinreallife. | https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/education/2022/04/11/volusia-pines-5th-grade-teacher-deborah-swanson-connects-students/7234959001/ | 2022-04-12T14:52:43 | 0 | https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/education/2022/04/11/volusia-pines-5th-grade-teacher-deborah-swanson-connects-students/7234959001/ |
'A passion': Daytona's Minority Racing Association teaches kids about cars, racing
DAYTONA BEACH — At the age of 11, Wesley Brown developed a love for cars.
“I’ve always had a passion for racing,” said Brown, now 56. “My older brothers introduced me to racing when I was 8-years-old.”
Now Brown, a Palm Coast resident, has turned that passion into a nonprofit dedicated to teaching kids in the community a love for racing and all things automobile.
Brown founded Minority Racing Association in 2014, working with kids of all ages, from elementary to high school, teaching an array of automobile-related skills at no cost.
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'Something for everyone'
“A lot of the kids don't want to drive,” said Brown. “But there's something special for all of them. When I did my first summer program, one of the kids didn't want to work on the car. So I asked a manager at one of the O'Reilly's (Auto Parts store) to come in. He taught the kids how to research and order auto parts. There's more than just racing when it comes to cars. There’s mechanics, computer engineers, technicians, marketing management, logo design. There’s a place for every kid.”
Brown pays out of pocket for most of the expenses needed to keep the wheels rolling.
"Due to COVID we really haven't done anything for the last year and a half," said Brown. “I’m planning on having a summer program teaching them about simulators. I got a guy from Orlando that’s going to teach SIM racing. And we actually have SIM competitions. Kids are always on video games. This will be more productive.”
Brown said the immediate need for his kids is nailing down a permanent garage location. The team utilized the garage space at both Advantage Motorsports and Dave Moore's Auto Repair in Daytona Beach.
'Hands on experience'
Brandon Hammond, a DeLand resident, said he’s learned a lot since signing up with Brown two years ago.
“The organization generally educates you about the power train construction, maintenance and modification of vehicles to make them safer,” said Hammond, 18. “What we’ve learned can apply to really any vehicle that someone may own.”
Hammond said he's sold on the organization.
“I would highly recommend this to anyone that wants to learn about cars, racing, or just wants to learn some new tools of the trade,” he said. “The training ranges from changing a tire on the car to pulling the motor out of the vehicle and rebuilding it. My brother and I received a tool kit after completing a portion of the program.”
But the Minority Racing Association isn’t just a boys club.
“I remember working on cars with my dad when I was younger,” said 22-year-old Jasmine Fisher. “I’ve learned things like changing brakes, how to change the gear fluid on the differential and how to change a tire. I also like hanging out with my friends.”
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'Rev those engines'
Brown’s nonprofit participated in the 10th Annual Champ Car Endurance Series, a 14 hour race held at Daytona Beach International Speedway on April 2. The team placed 6th in class and 47th overall out of 125 cars.
Kamari Odom, David Dalton Jr, Noah Blake and Francis Brown were members of the driving team who took turns shifting gears in a 2005 Mustang GT.
Dalton, a Charlotte, North Carolina resident, said he connected with Brown on social media.
“We connected through Facebook,” said Dalton, 23. “He was looking for drivers. I said yes to the opportunity as it seemed like an awesome one. For as long as I can remember I've been into cars, racing and the design of them. I've raced Formula 4 and F1600.”
The endurance race at the Speedway kicked off on April 1 with everyone lined up to get their cars inspected.
“Even though this is somewhat of a budget racing series there are regulations to go by,” said Dalton.
“I’ve been racing for about four years,” said the 23-year-old Odom. “Everyone will get a chance to drive. So we'll do what's called 'stints.' It's like a tag team sort of thing where it's different drivers at different points. And then depending on how much fuel, strategy and that sort of thing, it could be up to 45 minutes to an hour or two hours depending on track conditions.”
Much like Brown, Odom said he developed a love for racing at a young age.
“Brown reached out to me on Facebook about this opportunity,” he said. “I was excited and couldn’t wait to get on the track. Since I was 4-years-old I've loved racing. NASCAR actually got me into it. So my ultimate goal is IndyCar, Formula One. I’d love to race all over the world.”
'Built from scratch'
Francis Brown, worked with his father, Wesley, on building the 2005 Mustang GT.
“It technically started as nothing,” said Francis Brown, 27. “We basically tore out all the unnecessary parts. We had to rebuild parts of the engine. Then we got everybody to help put this masterpiece together honestly. Now it’s quite a beauty if I say so myself.”
Brown said he was introduced to racing by his father when he was 12.
“We started going out to see races at the New Smyrna Speedway,” he said. “We've ventured out to other racing events. We just got back from Atlanta. That was pretty fun. My favorite part about all of this is working with my dad. The group of guys we have are amazing and I love the learning experience.”
For information on the program or to donate please visit Minority Racing Association at https://mra-fl.org/
Erica Van Buren covers general assignment and Ormond Beach government for The Daytona Beach News-Journal and USA TODAY Network. Connect with her at EVanBuren@News-Jrnl.com or on Twitter: @EricaVanBuren32 | https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2022/04/11/daytona-beach-nonprofit-dedicated-teaching-kids-racing-competes-at-daytona-international-speedway/7193851001/ | 2022-04-12T14:52:49 | 1 | https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2022/04/11/daytona-beach-nonprofit-dedicated-teaching-kids-racing-competes-at-daytona-international-speedway/7193851001/ |
NASCAR Q&A: "Mild Matt" Kenseth, "Cousin Carl" Edwards on new Hall of Fame ballot
Is the NASCAR Hall of Fame ready for Matt Kenseth?
Ready or not, Mild Matt is probably on the way!
NASCAR released its new list of Hall nominees last week, and of the drivers nominated, Kenseth is the lone Cup Series champ. There’s also his 39 career wins, which is also tops among the nominated former drivers — the others are Neil Bonnett, Jeff Burton, Harry Gant, Ricky Rudd and … what’s this? Cousin Carl!
That’s right, Carl Edwards, a surprise retiree after the 2016 season, seems like a lock for the Hall, eventually if not this coming year. No Cup championships, but 28 career wins, which compares favorably with some other Hall of Famers.
ALso, mix this in there: In six full-time Xfinity seasons, he won 38 races, one championship, and was never worse than third in the standings. Of 10 modern-era nominees, two will make the Hall.
Four-time champion crew chief Kirk Shelmderdine seems past due and might be the guy who keeps Cousin Carl waiting another year.
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And A.J. Foyt? An Indy-car legend in the NASCAR Hall?
I don’t see it happening, but his name adds some flair to the Pioneer Ballot — five nominees, one eventual Hall of Famer.
Foyt is joined on this year’s Pioneer menu by Banjo Matthews, Sam Ard, Herschel McGriff and Ralph Moody. Foyt won seven NASCAR races in 45 starts between 1964-72, including the ’72 Daytona 500 and back-to-back Firecracker 400s (1964-65).
Banjo should be a lock from this list — his career took off when he quit driving and began building race cars for others. Look up his record as a builder, and you’ll wonder why it’s taking so long to put his bust in the Hall. | https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/sports/motorsports/2022/04/12/matt-kenseth-make-nascar-hall-a-j-foyt-not-so-sure/9529539002/ | 2022-04-12T14:53:01 | 1 | https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/sports/motorsports/2022/04/12/matt-kenseth-make-nascar-hall-a-j-foyt-not-so-sure/9529539002/ |
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LIVE: At least 5 people shot at New York subway station
NEW YORK (AP) — At least five people were shot and injured Tuesday at a New York City subway station during a morning rush hour attack that left wounded commuters bleeding on a train platform and police searching for the shooter.
Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke at the 36th Street station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood at around 8:30 a.m. found at least 13 people were hurt, but — aside from the five shot — there were no details on what those injuries entailed.
According to multiple law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation, preliminary information indicated that the suspect who fled was a man wearing a construction vest and a gas mask.
Photos and video from the scene showed people tending to bloodied passengers lying on the floor of the station and the air filled with smoke. Fire and police officials were investigating reports that there had been an explosion, but the police department tweeted that there were “no active explosive devices at this time.” Multiple smoke devices were found on the scene, said mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy, who confirmed the initial shooting injury count.
At least 11 people were being treated at two local hospitals.
“My subway door opened into calamity. It was smoke and blood and people screaming,” eyewitness Sam Carcamo told radio station 1010 WINS, saying he saw a gigantic billow of smoke pouring out of the N train once the door opened.
A bystander video shows people lying on the subway platform amid what appeared to be small puddles of blood, as a loudspeaker announcement told everyone on the smoke-hazy platform to get on a train. Inside a subway car, a person lay on the floor, encircled by others. Outside the station, a police officer yelled, “Let’s go! Get out of the way!”
Trains servicing that station were delayed during the morning rush hour.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office did not immediately have more details. Adams was at the mayor’s residence Tuesday morning and was being briefed.
The incident happened on a subway line that runs through south Brooklyn in a neighborhood about a 15-minute train ride to Manhattan. Local schools, including Sunset Park High School across the street, were locked down.
Danny Mastrogiorgio of Brooklyn had just dropped his son off at school when he saw a crush of passengers, included multiple wounded, running up the subway stairway at the 25th Street station in panic. At least two had visible leg injuries, he said.
“It was insane,” he told The Associated Press. “No one knew exactly what was going on.”
Allan Lee was running his business, Cafe Nube, when a half-dozen police cars and fire vehicles suddenly converged on the block.
“Then they started ushering people that were on the block to the adjacent block and then closed off the subway entrance” near the cafe’s door, he told the AP. When he noticed bomb squad officers and dogs, he was certain it was no everyday subway problem.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement she had been briefed on the situation and said her office would work with the transit authority and police department as the investigation continued. President Joe Biden had also been briefed on the latest developments and White House senior staff were in touch with Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell.
Police officers were canvassing 4th Avenue, the station’s cross-street, asking witnesses whether they were on the train. A sea of emergency lights was visible from at least a dozen blocks away, where a police cordon was set up.
The shootings come as New York City has faced a spate a shootings and high-profile incidents in recent months, including on the city’s subways. One of the most shocking was in January when a woman was pushed to her death in front of a train by a stranger.
Adams, a Democrat a little over 100 days into his term, has made cracking down on crime — especially on the subways — a focus of his early administration, pledging to send more police officers into stations and platforms for regular patrols. It wasn’t immediately clear whether officers had already been inside the station when the shootings occurred.
___
Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michelle L. Price, Jennifer Peltz and Jim Mustian in New York contributed to this report.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/multiple-people-shot-new-york-city-subway-station/ | 2022-04-12T15:04:13 | 0 | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/multiple-people-shot-new-york-city-subway-station/ |
Oklahoma governor signs bill to make abortion illegal
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.
The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Abortion rights advocates say the bill signed by the GOP governor is likely to face a legal challenge.
Its passage comes as the conservative U.S. Supreme Court considers ratcheting back abortion rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years.
Under the bill, anyone convicted of performing an abortion would face up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. It does not authorize criminal charges against a woman for receiving an abortion.
Sen. Nathan Dahm, a Broken Arrow Republican now running for Congress who wrote the bill, called it the “strongest pro-life legislation in the country right now, which effectively eliminates abortion in Oklahoma.”
Abortion rights advocates say the bill is clearly unconstitutional.
“It has never been more obvious that politicians are using tricks and games to pass these harmful laws,” Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Texas and Oklahoma and a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement. “Oklahoma legislators are trying to ban abortion from all sides and merely seeing which of these dangerous, shameful bills they can get their governor to sign.”
Similar anti-abortion bills approved by the Oklahoma Legislature and in other conservative states in recent years have been stopped by the courts as unconstitutional, but anti-abortion lawmakers have been buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow new Texas abortion restrictions to remain in place.
The new Texas law, the most restrictive anti-abortion law in the U.S. in decades, leaves enforcement up to private citizens, who are entitled to collect what critics call a “bounty” of $10,000 if they bring a successful lawsuit against a provider or anyone who helps a patient obtain an abortion.
Several states, including Oklahoma, are pursuing similar legislation this year.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-make-abortion-illegal/ | 2022-04-12T15:04:19 | 1 | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-make-abortion-illegal/ |
Target announces dates for its car seat trade-in recycling program
(Gray News) - Target has announced when people can trade in their old, expired or damaged car seats for a discount on new items.
The retailer announced its next car seat trade-in promotion will take place from April 18-30.
People can bring the car seats to a Target location, and in return, they can claim a 20% discount online or on the Target app toward a car seat, stroller or other baby items.
The coupon is valid through May 14.
The materials from the car seats traded in are recycled, and Target has received 1.7 million of them since 2016.
Target works with Waste Management to recycle the items. The retail giant said it has recycled 25.4 million pounds of car seat materials since the promotion began.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/target-announces-dates-its-car-seat-trade-in-recycling-program/ | 2022-04-12T15:04:26 | 0 | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/target-announces-dates-its-car-seat-trade-in-recycling-program/ |
Umpire recovering after being punched in the face at kids’ softball game
LAUREL, Miss. (WLBT/Gray News) – An umpire in Mississippi is recovering after being punched in the face following a softball game for 12-year-old children.
According to WLBT, Kristie Moore was filling in for an umpire who got sick. She has been calling games for 10 years.
During the game, the coach asked one of the athlete’s mothers to leave the game for excessive cursing. Instead of going home, the woman is accused of waiting to confront Moore after the game, punching her and then running away.
The mother, Kiara Thomas, was arrested and charged with simple assault.
Moore said some parents are out of control and make it harder and harder for umpires to do their jobs.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “The verbal abuse. And even now, the physical abuse now, at this point, and enough is enough.”
Moore, who finds umpires for tournaments in Mississippi, said it is difficult to find people willing to officiate the games.
“No one wants to listen to the verbal abuse and run the risk of what happened to me happening to them,” Moore explained.
Moore said most umpires do the job because they love the game and the kids, not for the money as they get paid $40 a game at most.
A bill was introduced in the legislature earlier this year that would make assaulting a referee or umpire a felony as aggravated assault. That bill, however, died on the calendar.
Moore said she hopes that, after this, lawmakers will take a second look.
Copyright 2022 WLBT via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/umpire-recovering-after-being-punched-face-kids-softball-game/ | 2022-04-12T15:04:33 | 1 | https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/12/umpire-recovering-after-being-punched-face-kids-softball-game/ |
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Scottie Scheffler can play in the Masters forever now. That’s a perk that comes with winning at Augusta National.
Cameron Champ knows he can play at Augusta National in 2023. For him, that was a win as well.
Champ finished tied for 10th at the Masters, and that means he’ll be invited back next season. Augusta National has plenty of ways for players to qualify — wins, world ranking, performance in other majors — plus rewards those who do especially well at the Masters. Anyone in the top 12 one year can come back the following year, so Champ knows that invitation will be in the mail as next spring looms.
“It’s huge,” said Champ, whose Masters invite this year came by winning the 3M Open last July. “This year has been just a whirlwind really for me, with my injury to trying to play through the first four, five events to now feeling pretty decent the last few months. My game is going in the right direction.”
Champ shut down his season last fall while dealing with a left wrist injury. He came into this week ranked No. 133 in the world. He hadn’t had so much as a top-40 finish in 2022. A Masters return, barring a victory somewhere in the next 12 months, wasn’t exactly a certainty.
“Everything I’m dealing with off the course is finally going right, so first and foremost, that’s the most important,” Champ said. “It’s just life, man. I’m learning as I go. Right now, I’m just in a great spot.”
MONEY MATTERS
Rory McIlroy earned $1.62 million for finishing second, and that pushed his Masters career earnings to just about $4.2 million.
He is the seventh player in Masters history to eclipse the $4 million mark, joining Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson.
THIRD TRY
Scottie Scheffler won his first Masters in his third attempt. Only eight players did it in the first or second try, most recently Danny Willett in 2016.
The context only adds to Scheffler’s accomplishment.
Tiger Woods’ first Masters win came on his third visit to Augusta National. Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Seve Ballesteros needed four tries. Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player needed five.
TIGER WATCH
Tiger Woods said Sunday that he will go to St. Andrews in mid-July and play the British Open.
It’s unclear if he’ll play anything before then — including the PGA Championship at Southern Hills in May and the U.S. Open at Brookline in June.
“I am looking forward to St. Andrews,” Woods said in his post-Masters interview with Sky Sports. “That is something that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve won two Opens there. It’s the home of golf. It’s my favorite golf course in the world. So, I will be there for that one. But anything in between that, I don’t know. I will try. There’s no doubt.”
Woods won British Opens at St. Andrews in 2000 and 2005. He played when the Open was last there in 2015 but missed the cut by eight strokes.
VARNER’S DAY
Harold Varner III saved his best for last in his first Masters: a 3-under round of 69 on Sunday. He finished 3 over for the week.
He was within six shots of the lead after 36 holes, then shot an 80 on Saturday. But he bounced back on Sunday, chalking it all up as part of his Masters education.
“I wouldn’t say a springboard. I just think it’s a part of the process,” Varner said. “It’s a part of having a chance to win. Yesterday was tough, obviously, what I shot, but just how can I grow from that and learn from that? The cool part about today is I think the pins will be in similar spots next year when I’m here, and I’ll know kind of what to do, get a good feel for what I need to do to score.”
BUSY WEEKEND
It might be an ideal weekend for sports fans: see a Premier League soccer match one day, attend the Masters the next.
Harry Kane did it one better.
Kane played in Tottenham’s 4-0 win over Aston Villa on Saturday — and he was at the Masters as a patron on Sunday.
It was hardly the only golf-soccer crossover moment at Augusta National on Sunday. Seamus Power revealed that he was asking for scores — during his round. Given that nobody has phones on the course, scores weren’t exactly easy to come by.
DIVOTS
Masters champion Scottie Scheffler picked up $2.7 million for the victory, pushing his career total at Augusta National to just over $3 million in three appearances. That’s good for 13th in Masters history. … Rory McIlroy’s 64 on Sunday matched the best final round in Masters history, done on seven previous occasions. The others were Maurice Bembridge (1974), Hale Irwin (1975), Gary Player (1978), Greg Norman (1988), David Toms (1998), Bo Van Pelt (2012) and Jordan Spieth (2018). … The next Masters takes place April 6-9, 2023. … There was no silver cup presented to the low amateur this year, because none of the six who were in the field to start the week made the cut.
___
More AP Masters coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/the-masters | https://www.cenlanow.com/sports/masters-report/masters-notebook-for-champ-10th-place-means-a-2023-invite/ | 2022-04-12T15:06:32 | 0 | https://www.cenlanow.com/sports/masters-report/masters-notebook-for-champ-10th-place-means-a-2023-invite/ |
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — The Masters patrons filled in every nook and cranny around the 18th green, awaiting the appearance of the man in red.
A scene that’s been so familiar to Tiger Woods on so many Sundays at Augusta National, but this one was different.
It wasn’t even 3 o’clock on the warm, sunny afternoon in east Georgia. Over on the adjacent first hole, leader Scottie Scheffler and closest pursuer Cameron Smith had just teed off in the final group.
Hunched over and limping noticeably, Woods climbed the deceptively steep hill leading up to the green as the fans slowly rose to their feet, the roar building as they saluted a remarkable comeback if not a fairy tale of a weekend.
“Way to hang in there, Tiger!” a man standing back in the crowd belted out.
From a strictly golfing viewpoint, this was hardly the Woods that so many remembered. The guy who’s won five green jackets, the last of them just three years ago. The guy who’ll go down as one of the greatest to ever play the game, even if he never strikes another shot. (Don’t worry, he’s not done.)
This Woods, the one hobbling on a rebuilt right leg that he could’ve lost in that horrific car crash 14 months ago, closed with back-to-back 78s that were the worst scores of his Masters career.
He even had to take a left-handed swing at the 13th after knocking his ball onto the pine straw behind the green, right up next to an azalea.
His battered body simply ran out of steam after an electrifying 71 on Thursday, when Woods made his return to competitive golf for the first time in more than 500 days.
He grinded out a 74 on Friday, ensuring he would make the Masters cut for the 22nd time in a row.
There was nothing left in the tank for the weekend.
Still, it was a gratifying experience, one that Woods clearly didn’t regret putting himself through even if he didn’t come close to winning a record-tying sixth green jacket.
“This tournament has meant so much to me and my family,” Woods said. “This is where all the great champions have ever played. They have walked these grounds.”
That Woods was able to walk the course again — for four days, no less — was a feat in itself.
After his wreck in February 2021, doctors told Wood that his shattered right leg might have to be amputated. They managed to save it, but he was confined to a hospital bed for three months. He’s still got screws and rods holding the bones in place.
Woods walked Augusta National with a limp that got more and more noticeable, sometimes using a club as a walking stick to help him get around.
Most telling, he couldn’t bend all the way over to read putts on Augusta’s tricky greens, which may explain why his stellar touch with the short stick seemed to abandon him on the weekend.
But excluding all the tournaments he’s won — especially those 15 major championships — this felt like his greatest achievement in golf.
“For not winning an event, yes. Yes, without a doubt,’ Woods said. ”I don’t think people really understand. The people who are close to me understand. They’ve seen it. Some of the players who are close to me have seen it and have seen some of the pictures and the things that I have had to endure. They appreciate it probably more than anyone else because they know what it takes to do this out here at this level.”
Everyone realizes how much Woods still means to the game, even if he is surely in the twilight of his career at age 46.
“You just pull so hard for him,” said Harold Varner III, who joined Woods and Cameron Champ to make this the first Masters with three Black players. “Obviously, he’s great for the sport. If he’s around, we’re going to make a lot of money.”
Woods told Sky Sports that he plans to play the British Open at St. Andrews in July. He isn’t sure about the next two majors: the PGA Championship, set for May 19-22 at Southern Hills, or the U.S. Open at Brookline in June.
“It’ll be just the big events,” Woods told Sky. “But I am looking forward to St. Andrews. That is something that is near and dear to my heart. I’ve won two Opens there, it’s the home of golf. It’s my favorite golf course in the world, so I will be there for that one.”
“See you down the road,” his caddie, Joe LaCava, shouted to media members gathered outside the clubhouse, waiting to speak to his boss.
Wherever that is, Woods plans to step up his rehab so his body has a better chance of holding up over four grueling days.
“We’re excited about the prospects of the future, about training, about getting into that gym and doing some other stuff to get my leg stronger, which we haven’t been able to do because it needed more time to heal,” he said. ”I think it needs a couple more days to heal after this, but we’ll get back after it.”
While Woods spoke, a roar went up that sounded like it came from way down in Amen Corner.
Woods loves those roars. He hadn’t heard them since his victory in 2019. The following year, the tournament was played in November with no fans because of the pandemic. Last year, of course, playing a golf tournament was the furthest thing from Woods’ mind.
“It’s exciting. It’s inspiring,” he said. “It’s fun to hear the roars.”
Woods hopes to create a few more of them before he’s done.
On this Sunday, he had to be content with the cheers that erupted one last time after he tapped in a short putt at the 18th hole for a 13-over 301 — his worst Masters performance as a professional by eight strokes.
Woods finished a whopping 23 shots behind Scheffler, who claimed his first major title. That matched the largest margin between the winner and Woods in any major championship, which previously occurred at the 2014 British Open, when he was blown away by Rory McIlroy.
He eclipsed his biggest blowout at the Masters, which was 19 strokes behind Dustin Johnson two years ago, when Woods was the defending champion.
As Woods doffed his cap and headed off to the clubhouse, the crowd around 18 began to disperse.
It was time to go watch the players who actually had a chance to capture the green jacket.
___
Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at https://twitter.com/pnewberry1963
___
More AP Masters: https://apnews.com/hub/the-masters | https://www.cenlanow.com/sports/masters-report/tigers-masters-no-fairytale-ending-but-still-inspiring/ | 2022-04-12T15:06:40 | 0 | https://www.cenlanow.com/sports/masters-report/tigers-masters-no-fairytale-ending-but-still-inspiring/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday took fresh aim at ghost guns, the privately made firearms without serial numbers that are increasingly cropping up in violent crimes, as he struggles to break past gun-control opposition to address firearm deaths.
Speaking at the White House, Biden highlighted the Justice Department’s work to finalize new regulations to crack down on ghost guns, and announced the nomination of Steve Dettelbach, who served as a U.S. attorney in Ohio from 2009 to 2016, to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“Law enforcement is sounding the alarm,” Biden said of ghost guns, briefly holding one up for cameras to see in the Rose Garden. “Our communities are paying the price.”
He promised the new regulations would save lives.
Still, the announcement on guns highlights the limits of Biden’s influence to push a sweeping congressional overhaul of the nation’s firearm laws in response to both a recent surge in violent crime and continued mass shootings. Congress has deadlocked on legislative proposals to reform gun laws for a decade, and executive actions have faced stiff headwinds in federal courts — even as the Democratic base has grown more vocal in calling on Biden to take more consequential action.
Dettelbach’s confirmation, too, is likely to be an uphill battle. Biden had to withdraw the nomination of his first ATF nominee, gun-control advocate David Chipman, after it stalled for months because of opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have failed to get nominees for the ATF position through the politically fraught process since the director’s position was made confirmable in 2006. Since then, only one nominee, former U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones, has been confirmed. Jones made it through the Senate in 2013 but only after a six-month struggle. Jones was acting director when President Barack Obama nominated him in January 2013.
The Biden administration’s plan on guns was first reported by Politico.
For nearly a year, the ghost gun rule has been making its way through the federal regulation process. Gun safety groups and Democrats in Congress have been pushing for the Justice Department to finish the rule for months. It will probably be met with heavy resistance from gun groups and draw litigation in the coming weeks.
Gun Owners of America vowed that it would immediately fight the rule.
“Just as we opposed the Trump Administration’s arbitrary ban on bump stocks, GOA will also sue Biden’s ATF to halt the implementation of this rule,” Aidan Johnston, the group’s director of federal affairs said in a statement. The group believes the rule violates the U.S. Constitution and several federal laws.
But gun safety advocacy groups, like Everytown for Gun Safety, which pushed the federal government for years to take action on ghost guns, applauded Biden’s moves and insisted that both Dettelbach’s appointment and the finalized rule will help combat gun violence.
“Ghost guns look like a gun, they shoot like a gun, and they kill like a gun, but up until now they haven’t been regulated like a gun,” said John Feinblatt, Everytown’s president.
Christian Heyne, the vice president of policy at Brady, another gun control group, said Dettelbach was “an unimpeachable public servant who has spent a career using the levers of government to hold negligent or nefarious actors accountable.”
Justice Department statistics show that nearly 24,000 ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes and reported to the government from 2016 to 2020. It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don’t contact the government about the guns because they can’t be traced.
The new rule changes the current definition of a firearm under federal law to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun. It says those parts must be licensed and include serial numbers. Manufacturers must also run background checks before a sale — as they do with other commercially made firearms. The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits, or by 3D-printers.
Federally licensed firearms dealers must retain key records until they shut down their business or licensed activity and then transfer the records to ATF as they are currently required to do at the end of licensed activity. Previously, these dealers were permitted to destroy most records after 20 years, making it harder for law enforcement to trace firearms found at crime scenes.
“A year ago this week standing here with many of you, I instructed the attorney general to write a regulation that would rein in the proliferation of ghost guns because I was having trouble getting anything passed in the Congress,” Biden said.
The rule goes into effect 120 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register.
For years, federal officials have been sounding the alarm about an increasing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. As well as turning up more frequently at crime scenes, ghost guns have been increasingly encountered when federal agents buy guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.
Some states, like California, have enacted laws in recent years to require serial numbers to be stamped on ghost guns.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, who was attending Monday’s event at the White House, applauded the move and pointed to a serious uptick in ghost guns being found by police. Police in Philadelphia have seen nearly a 500% increase in the number of ghost guns recovered in the past two years, Shapiro said. And just last week, a police officer there was shot by a ghost gun-wielding 18-year-old, who police said had also shot three others.
“This loophole has caused our nation countless lives,” Shapiro said in an interview. “Today is a critically important step to close that loophole.”
He said the move is likely to help drive down violence and aid both police and prosecutors in bringing their cases. The rule is also likely to help bring down the number of people who shouldn’t be purchasing firearms before a gun lands in their hand, he said.
“There are two challenges: One, criminals can easily buy them without going through a background check. And two, they are unserialized and untraceable.”
The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver, a part typically made of metal or polymer. An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80-percent receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required.
Police across the country have been reporting spikes in ghost guns being recovered by officers. The New York Police Department, for example, said officers found 131 firearms without serial numbers since January.
A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 had been prohibited from owning firearms, but he built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.
—
AP writer Will Weissert contributed. | https://www.cenlanow.com/washington-dc/biden-to-nominate-new-atf-director-release-ghost-gun-rule/ | 2022-04-12T15:06:47 | 1 | https://www.cenlanow.com/washington-dc/biden-to-nominate-new-atf-director-release-ghost-gun-rule/ |
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Chief investigative reporter Jonathan Dienst on crime, corruption and terrorism. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ny-lieutenant-governor-brian-benjamin-arrested/3641923/ | 2022-04-12T15:07:33 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/ny-lieutenant-governor-brian-benjamin-arrested/3641923/ |
At least five people have been shot and 13 people hurt at a Brooklyn subway station during the height of morning rush hour.
Police say the shooter, a man in a gas mask and orange construction mask, opened fire at the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue subway station around 8:30 a.m. on April 12.
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NBC New York
Police and first responders swarm the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park in New York, after multiple people were shot or hurt at the height of morning rush hour, April 12, 2022.
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Derek French
Injured subway riders seen on the platform of the 36th Street station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood in New York, April 12, 2022. At least five people have been shot by a man in a gas mask and orange construction vest, according to the NYPD.
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NBC New York
Police and first responders swarm the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park in New York, after multiple people were shot or hurt at the height of morning rush hour, April 12, 2022.
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NBC New York
Police and first responders swarm the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park in New York, after multiple people were shot or hurt at the height of morning rush hour, April 12, 2022.
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NBC New York
Police and first responders swarm the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park in New York, after multiple people were shot or hurt at the height of morning rush hour, April 12, 2022.
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NBC New York
Police and first responders swarm the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park in New York, after multiple people were shot or hurt at the height of morning rush hour, April 12, 2022. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/pictures-multiple-people-hurt-in-brooklyn-subway-shooting/3641961/ | 2022-04-12T15:07:49 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/pictures-multiple-people-hurt-in-brooklyn-subway-shooting/3641961/ |
A manhunt for the man who opened fire on a Brooklyn subway car, wounding five people and sending dozens running in terror, was still underway hours after the train pulled into a Sunset Park station.
The gunman's identity has not been confirmed, but investigators are combing through videos and speaking to witnesses to piece together clues to help track him down. Police described the suspected shooter as a man about 5 feet 5 inches tall and 180 pounds.
NYPD officials and senior law enforcement officials say he wore a gas mask and orange construction vest when he opened fire at the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue station in Sunset Park around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Experts say at this early stage that the shooting appears to have been an orchestrated attack, though they caution that much could change rapidly as details develop.
Cops believe he acted alone. A motive is under investigation, though right now the all-out manhunt for the gunman is investigators' top priority.
Police were combing through subway tunnels, based on some witness reports he may have jumped to the tracks, but the gunman remained on the loose as of 10:55 a.m.
Two of the five shooting victims were said to have been seriously wounded. The extent of the other victims' injuries wasn't clear but cops said at least 13 were taken to hospitals. It's not clear if all had been shot.
Local
The FDNY says it responded to a call for smoke at the station and found multiple gunshot victims. No details were immediately available on the undetonated devices.
Photos posted to social media showed people bloodied on the platform, and Citizen app footage showed a heavy law enforcement presence at the scene.
Some of the wounded jumped on another train to flee to the next station, sources said.
The NYPD warned New Yorkers to avoid the area and to expect emergency vehicles and delays. Power was shut off on the N/R Line from 59 Street to Atlantic Avenue and major delays were reported on the B, D, F, N, Q and R lines. W service is suspended.
Local schools were placed under a shelter in place order, a Department of Education spokesperson said. It's not clear how many were affected. No other information was immediately available.
The NYPD is leading the investigation. Federal investigators with ATF and HSI are also on the scene.
Sign up for our Breaking newsletter to get the most urgent news stories in your inbox. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/suspect-description-brooklyn-subway-gunman-wore-orange-construction-vest/3642022/ | 2022-04-12T15:07:56 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/suspect-description-brooklyn-subway-gunman-wore-orange-construction-vest/3642022/ |
Charlee Disney, one of the heirs of The Walt Disney Co., came out publicly as transgender and condemned anti-LGBTQ bills in a recent interview.
Disney, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, told the L.A. Times they come out privately as trans four years ago, and that even though they have a lot of support and privilege, their journey has been difficult.
The 30-year-old high school biology and environmental science teacher told the Times that they don't have much experience with public speaking or advocacy, and lamented that they haven't done much to help or take action.
They condemned anti-LGBTQ bills, and noted that LGBTQ kids already deal with higher rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and bullying.
“Then to put something like this law on top of that? They can’t learn about their community and their history at school, or play sports or use the bathroom they want to use?” they told the L.A. Times.
Read the full story on NBCNews.com. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/disney-heir-comes-out-publicly-as-transgender-condemns-anti-lgbtq-bills/3641989/ | 2022-04-12T15:08:02 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/disney-heir-comes-out-publicly-as-transgender-condemns-anti-lgbtq-bills/3641989/ |
Teen years can be tough enough socially without a noticeable stigma like acne. Dealing with acne is a burden, but treating acne shouldn’t be. Find out more about the first topical treatment specifically studied and proven to treat both facial and truncal acne, which can be on the chest, shoulders and back. Visit AKLIEF.com for more information.
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The emcee for the Harlem Globetrotters, Tony Parker, shares why he’s eager for the Spread Game Tour to return to his hometown of Tampa in April.
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Ukraine investigated a claim that a poisonous substance was dropped on besieged Mariupol, as Western officials warned Tuesday that any use of chemical weapons by Russia would be a serious escalation of the already devastating war.
Thwarted in his apparent ambition to overrun the Ukrainian capital, Russian President Vladimir Putin is now building up forces for a new offensive in the eastern Donbas region, and insisted Tuesday that his campaign would continue until it achieves its goals. He said Russia “had no other choice” but to launch what he calls a “special military operation," saying it was to protect civilians in the predominantly Russian-speaking Donbas.
As Ukrainian forces brace for a new attack, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said it was possible phosphorus munitions — which cause horrendous burns but are not classed as chemical weapons — had been used in Mariupol. That city lies in the Donbas and has been razed in six weeks of pummeling by Russian troops that the mayor said has left more than 10,000 civilians dead, their corpses “carpeted through the streets.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday night that Russian forces could use chemical weapons in the city, echoing similar, repeated warnings by Western officials. And leaders inside and outside of the country said they were urgently investigating the unconfirmed claim by a Ukrainian regiment that a poisonous substance was dropped on fighters in Mariupol.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said use of chemical weapons “would be a callous escalation in this conflict,” while Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said it would be a “wholesale breach of international law.”
In the face of stiff resistance by Ukrainian forces bolstered by Western weapons, Russian forces have increasingly relied on bombarding cities, flattening many urban areas and leaving thousands of people dead. In other areas, they have pulled back to regroup.
Their retreat from cities and towns around the capital, Kyiv, led to the discovery of large numbers of apparently massacred civilians, prompting widespread condemnation and accusations that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
U.S. & World
The war has also driven more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes — including nearly two-thirds of all children.
Still, there are fears of even wider carnage to come, amid signs the Russian military is gearing up for a major offensive in the Donbas. A senior U.S. defense official on Monday described a long Russian convoy rolling toward the eastern city of Izyum with artillery, aviation and infantry support.
Putin insisted during a visit to Russia's Far East that the military operation would prevail, and that foreign powers wouldn’t succeed in isolating Russia.
He said that Russia’s economy and financial system withstood the blow from what he called the Western sanctions “blitz” and claimed they would backfire by driving up prices for essentials such as fertilizer, leading to food shortages and increase migration flows to the West.
The Donbas has been torn by fighting between Russian-allied separatists and Ukrainian forces since 2014, and Russia has recognized the separatists’ claims of independence. Military strategists say Russian leaders appear to hope local support, logistics and terrain in the region favor Russia’s larger and better-armed military, potentially allowing its troops to finally turn the tide decisively in their favor.
Describing a battle happening around a steel mill in Mariupol, a Russia-allied separatist official appeared to urge the use of chemical weapons Monday, telling Russian state TV that separatist forces should seize the plant from Ukrainian forces by first blocking all the exits. “And then we’ll use chemical troops to smoke them out of there,” he said.
But Eduard Basurin was quoted by the Interfax news agency on Tuesday as saying that the separatist forces “haven’t used any chemical weapons in Mariupol.”
It was the Ukrainian regiment defending the plant that claimed a drone had dropped a poisonous substance on the city. It indicated there were no serious injuries. The assertion by the Azov Regiment, a far-right group now part of the Ukrainian military, could not be independently verified.
Truss said the U.K. was “working urgently” to investigate the report, while Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that the U.S. could not confirm the drone report out of Mariupol.
But Kirby noted the administration’s persistent concerns “about Russia’s potential to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, in Ukraine.” Britain, meanwhile, has warned that Russia may use phosphorus bombs — whose use in civilian areas is banned under international law — in Mariupol.
That city has already seen some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information about what's happening inside the city.
Speaking by phone Monday with The Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to conceal the carnage. Boychenko said the death toll in Mariupol alone could surpass 20,000.
He said, about 120,000 civilians in the city are in dire need of food, water, warmth and communications.
Boychenko also gave new detailsof allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the corpses of victims of the siege.
Boychenko spoke from Ukrainian-controlled territory outside Mariupol. The mayor said he had several sources for his description of the alleged methodical burning of bodies by Russian forces in the city, but did not detail the sources.
While building up forces in the east, Russia continued to strike targets across Ukraine in a bid to wear down the country’s defenses. Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday that it used used air- and sea-launched missiles to destroy an ammunition depot and airplane hangar at Starokostiantyniv in the western Khmelnytskyi region and an ammunition depot near Kyiv.
___
Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington, and AP journalists around the world contributed to this report. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/ukraine-probes-claim-poisonous-substance-dropped-in-mariupol/3642150/ | 2022-04-12T15:08:16 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/ukraine-probes-claim-poisonous-substance-dropped-in-mariupol/3642150/ |
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As seen on News 4 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/multiple-people-shot-in-nyc-subway/3642116/ | 2022-04-12T15:08:22 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/multiple-people-shot-in-nyc-subway/3642116/ |
(NBC News Channel) — The body of a 4-year-old boy who went missing in Georgia this week has been located.
Police said Kyuss Williams wandered away from his home in Stone Mountain on Monday evening.
The child’s family was visiting other family members who had just moved to the DeKalb County area when they noticed he was missing.
Authorities received information that the child was near a pond, so that’s where they focused their search efforts.
They searched for hours before finding the child’s body in the pond, just a few feet away from the home they were staying in.
Authorities say they do not suspect foul play at this time. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/body-of-missing-4-year-old-found-in-georgia-pond/ | 2022-04-12T15:08:25 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/body-of-missing-4-year-old-found-in-georgia-pond/ |
SARASOTA, Fla. (WFLA) — A Sarasota man was arrested after deputies said he shot and killed another man during an unannounced visit to his ex-wife’s house to see his 14-year-old son.
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office said on Saturday at 11:41 a.m. they got a call from a woman who said her son’s father shot her friend.
When deputies arrived, they said they found the male victim on the ground inside the house with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was pronounced dead shortly after the deputies’ arrival.
According to deputies, the suspect was immediately identified as 41-year-old Saladine Monroe, who was the ex-husband of the caller. He was not at the scene when deputies arrived.
The woman told deputies Monroe showed up unannounced to see their 14-year-old son. According to deputies, the woman asked Monroe to wait in the car until she got their son from a neighbor’s home.
Deputies said once the woman got back to her house, Monroe forced his way into the home, refused to leave and started looking around. The woman told deputies Monroe saw the victim as he walked out of a spare bedroom he was staying in.
Monroe accused the man of having a relationship with the woman. The woman said he was a friend visiting from out-of-state.
Deputies said the woman saw a gun in Monroe’s waistband, so she grabbed her son and hid in a closet where they remained until deputies arrived. That’s where she heard the single gunshot.
Deputies arrested Monroe on Monday and took him to the Sarasota County Jail on charges of homicide and possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
Monroe was previously convicted of drugs charges in Camden, New Jersey in 2002. | https://www.wfla.com/news/sarasota-county/sarasota-man-killed-victim-during-unannounced-visit-to-see-son-deputies-say/ | 2022-04-12T15:08:31 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/sarasota-county/sarasota-man-killed-victim-during-unannounced-visit-to-see-son-deputies-say/ |
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As seen on News 4 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/man-opens-fire-on-commuters-during-morning-rush-in-brooklyn/3642106/ | 2022-04-12T15:11:50 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/man-opens-fire-on-commuters-during-morning-rush-in-brooklyn/3642106/ |
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) – After months of debate, the Richmond Public School board has finally come to an agreement with Mayor Levar Stoney over the construction of a new George Wythe High School.
The school board voted to agree with Stoney’s proposal for an 1,800-seat George Wythe High School last night.
The 1,800-seat school capacity is between the 2,000-seat school the city initially supported and the 1,600-seat school the school board originally supported.
Several parents spoke at the school board meeting last night, explaining to board members that the population growth is there and a new George Wythe High needs to be built to avoid overcrowding, similar to what is happening at River City Middle School.
School board member Kenya Gibson suggested going back with the design for a 1,600-seat school, but later retracted the amendment.
School board member Mariah White was fed up at the meeting last night. “This has been going on too long. This is starting to be a bunch of foolishness here. So don’t make a note on why we should be changing from 16 to 18-hundred,” she said.
Before taking a vote, board members discussed topics surrounding what building a new George Wythe High would look like and current issues the school and its students face.
School board member Stephanie Rizzi said transportation is definitely a concern she has.
“There are some students at Wythe currently who are waiting upwards of an hour for buses to take them home after school,” she explained at the board meeting. “Over the winter that meant that a lot of students were still sitting outside in the freezing cold or at nighttime.”
City council will vote on Stoney’s proposal on April 25. If approved, the city will transfer $7.3 million to begin the school’s construction. | https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/richmond/after-months-of-debate-school-board-agrees-on-george-wythe-proposal/ | 2022-04-12T15:16:48 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/richmond/after-months-of-debate-school-board-agrees-on-george-wythe-proposal/ |
SUNSET PARK, Brooklyn (PIX11) — Multiple people were found shot in a subway station in Brooklyn Tuesday morning, officials said.
FDNY said a call came in at around 8:27 a.m. for smoke coming in the 36th Street subway station in Sunset Park. Upon arrival, responders found the victims and several undetonated devices at the same location.
First responders told PIX11 News likely more than five were shot. FDNY told PIX11 News that 13 injured individuals have been taken to area hospitals. At least 10 had gunshot wounds.
Three patients are being treated at Methodist Hospital, according to PIX11’s Anthony DiLorenzo. A woman sustained a gunshot wound to the back and the other two sustained a leg and head injury, respectively.
Officials said the suspect was seen leaving wearing an MTA vest and a gas mask. Police described the suspect as weighing 160 to 200 pounds and 5 feet, 5 inches tall.
City officials advise everyone to stay away from the area. Students attending schools near the scene have been placed on a shelter-in-place order.
Police said there are currently no active explosive devices. The scene continues to be active. MTA said police are sweeping all of South Brooklyn.
Image from the scene following a shooting at a subway station in Brooklyn (PIX11) Image from the scene following a shooting at a subway station in Brooklyn (PIX11) First responders are in Sunset Park, Brooklyn where multiple people were found shot and injured. (PIX11)
This is a developing story; check back for updates.
Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/multiple-shot-in-brooklyn-subway-station-officials-say/ | 2022-04-12T15:16:54 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/multiple-shot-in-brooklyn-subway-station-officials-say/ |
4-year-old found dead in pond after wandering off from apartments, police say
Published: Apr. 12, 2022 at 11:02 AM EDT|Updated: 17 minutes ago
STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (WGCL/Gray News) - A frantic search for a 4-year-old Georgia boy ended early Tuesday morning after his body was recovered from a pond, police confirm.
The DeKalb County Police Department said Kyuss Williams wandered away from an apartment complex and was reported missing Monday evening. A search led investigators to discover the young boy’s body in a pond just behind the residence around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Police say they do not suspect foul play at this time and believe Kyuss may have drowned.
The investigation remains ongoing.
Copyright 2022 WGCL via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/4-year-old-found-dead-pond-after-wandering-off-apartments-police-say/ | 2022-04-12T15:19:35 | 1 | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/4-year-old-found-dead-pond-after-wandering-off-apartments-police-say/ |
Flint City Council votes to remove president from role
Published: Apr. 12, 2022 at 11:07 AM EDT|Updated: 10 minutes ago
FLINT, Mich. (WNEM) - The Flint City Council voted to remove its president following a lengthy meeting.
Eric Mays was removed as city council president with six members voting yes and one abstaining. The city council also moved to censure Mays.
Councilmember Allie Herkenroder, who serves as the city council’s vice president, was nominated as the president, but the vote failed with four members voting yes and three others abstaining.
With the absence of the president, the vice president will step in until the next president can be determined.
In November, Mays was voted in as president and Herkenroder was named the vice president.
Copyright 2022 WNEM. All rights reserved. | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/flint-city-council-votes-remove-president-role/ | 2022-04-12T15:19:43 | 1 | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/flint-city-council-votes-remove-president-role/ |
Oklahoma governor signs bill to make abortion illegal
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a bill into law on Tuesday that makes it a felony to perform an abortion, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, as part of an aggressive push in Republican-led states across the country to scale back abortion rights.
The bill, which takes effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns next month, makes an exception only for an abortion performed to save the life of the mother. Abortion rights advocates say the bill signed by the GOP governor is certain to face a legal challenge.
Its passage comes as the conservative U.S. Supreme Court considers ratcheting back abortion rights that have been in place for nearly 50 years.
“We want to outlaw abortion in the state of Oklahoma,” Stitt said during a signing ceremony for the bill, flanked by anti-abortion lawmakers, clergy and students. “I promised Oklahomans that I would sign every pro-life bill that hits my desk, and that’s what we’re doing here today.”
Under the bill, anyone convicted of performing an abortion would face up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. It does not authorize criminal charges against a woman for receiving an abortion.
Sen. Nathan Dahm, a Broken Arrow Republican now running for Congress who wrote the bill, called it the “strongest pro-life legislation in the country right now, which effectively eliminates abortion in Oklahoma.”
Abortion rights advocates say the bill is clearly unconstitutional, and similar laws approved recently in Arkansas and Alabama have been blocked by federal courts.
“Oklahoma legislators are trying to ban abortion from all sides and merely seeing which of these dangerous, shameful bills they can get their governor to sign,” Dr. Ghazaleh Moayedi, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Texas and Oklahoma and a board member at Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement.
Although similar anti-abortion bills approved by the Oklahoma Legislature in recent years have been stopped as unconstitutional, anti-abortion lawmakers have been buoyed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to allow new Texas abortion restrictions to remain in place.
The new Texas law, the most restrictive anti-abortion law to take effect in the U.S. in decades, leaves enforcement up to private citizens, who are entitled to collect what critics call a “bounty” of $10,000 if they bring a successful lawsuit against a provider or anyone who helps a patient obtain an abortion.
“The U.S. Supreme Court’s failure to stop Texas from nullifying the constitutional right to abortion has emboldened other states to do the same,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “We’ve sued the state of Oklahoma ten times in the last decade to protect abortion access and we will challenge this law as well to stop this travesty from ever taking effect.”
Several states, including Oklahoma, are pursuing legislation similar to the Texas law this year.
The Texas law bans abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy and makes no exceptions in cases of rape or incest. Abortions in Texas have plummeted by about 50% since the law took effect, while the number of Texans going to clinics out of state and requesting abortion pills online has gone up.
One of the Texas-style Oklahoma bills that is one vote away from the governor’s desk would ban abortions from the moment of conception and would take effect immediately upon the governor’s signature.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-make-abortion-illegal/ | 2022-04-12T15:19:49 | 1 | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/oklahoma-governor-signs-bill-make-abortion-illegal/ |
Target announces dates for its car seat trade-in recycling program
(Gray News) - Target has announced when people can trade in their old, expired or damaged car seats for a discount on new items.
The retailer announced its next car seat trade-in promotion will take place from April 18-30.
People can bring the car seats to a Target location, and in return, they can claim a 20% discount online or on the Target app toward a car seat, stroller or other baby items.
The coupon is valid through May 14.
The materials from the car seats traded in are recycled, and Target has received 1.7 million of them since 2016.
Target works with Waste Management to recycle the items. The retail giant said it has recycled 25.4 million pounds of car seat materials since the promotion began.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/target-announces-dates-its-car-seat-trade-in-recycling-program/ | 2022-04-12T15:19:55 | 0 | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/target-announces-dates-its-car-seat-trade-in-recycling-program/ |
Umpire recovering after being punched in the face at kids’ softball game
LAUREL, Miss. (WLBT/Gray News) – An umpire in Mississippi is recovering after being punched in the face following a softball game for 12-year-old children.
According to WLBT, Kristie Moore was filling in for an umpire who got sick. She has been calling games for 10 years.
During the game, the coach asked one of the athlete’s mothers to leave the game for excessive cursing. Instead of going home, the woman is accused of waiting to confront Moore after the game, punching her and then running away.
The mother, Kiara Thomas, was arrested and charged with simple assault.
Moore said some parents are out of control and make it harder and harder for umpires to do their jobs.
“It’s ridiculous,” she said. “The verbal abuse. And even now, the physical abuse now, at this point, and enough is enough.”
Moore, who finds umpires for tournaments in Mississippi, said it is difficult to find people willing to officiate the games.
“No one wants to listen to the verbal abuse and run the risk of what happened to me happening to them,” Moore explained.
Moore said most umpires do the job because they love the game and the kids, not for the money as they get paid $40 a game at most.
A bill was introduced in the legislature earlier this year that would make assaulting a referee or umpire a felony as aggravated assault. That bill, however, died on the calendar.
Moore said she hopes that, after this, lawmakers will take a second look.
Copyright 2022 WLBT via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/umpire-recovering-after-being-punched-face-kids-softball-game/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:01 | 1 | https://www.wnem.com/2022/04/12/umpire-recovering-after-being-punched-face-kids-softball-game/ |
On the Menu: Bloomington area restaurants offer Easter and springtime specials
April not only brings showers to the Bloomington area but this year it's when a lot of new restaurants are popping up and established restaurants are hosting special dinners and events for Easter and other upcoming celebrations.
Cardinal Spirits will have an Easter special of rabbit cacciatore with housemade pasta available April 15-17 and again April 22-24. The dish was a beloved staple at Finch's, where Cardinal Spirit's chef Abel Garcia worked as a sous chef. Reservations are recommended; go online to cardinalspirits.com. The special is for dine-in patrons only.
Previous On the Menu:FARM raises $2K for Ukraine children; bad forecast delays Food Truck Friday
Cardinal Spirits, at 922 S. Morton St., also announced its spring menu of dishes and cocktails. The featured dishes include handmade, gluten-free spinach gnocchi with pickled tomatoes, mojo pesto sauce, oven-roasted cauliflower and smoked bourbon pepitas; Valencia wings, an appetizer of two chicken drums braised in duck fat with honey heirloom cornbread and Valencia Triple Sec chili sauce; and a dairy- and gluten-free dessert of sweet-tea panna cotta with blood orange, Valencia orange and Valencia Triple Sec pearls.
Spring cocktails include Wild Tonic, a botanical drink with Bramble Black Raspberry Vodka infused with Makrut lime, lemongrass, ginger, housemade tonic syrup, lime, orange blossom and soda water; and Avant Gardener, a peppery cocktail with snap pea-infused Terra Botanical Gin, honey, black pepper, lemon, lime, Thai basil and green chili bitters.
At Irish Lion Restaurant and Pub, while the regular brunch and dinner menus will be available, on Sunday the restaurant will be highlighting its leg of lamb, lamb chops and rack of lamb dishes. Irish Lion is at 212 W. Kirkwood Ave.
The Tudor Room inside the Indiana Memorial Union on the IU campus is sold out for its two seatings on Easter Sunday. However, there are some tables available for Mother's Day on May 8. Make reservations by calling 812-855-1620 or https://bit.ly/3LUktll.
Hilltop Restaurant in Spencer will host an Easter meal from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. There will be a limited, all-inclusive menu with choice of entree, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, corn, salad, rolls, dessert and drink. Price is $22.99 for adults and $11.99 for kids ages 5-10, with kids age 4 and younger sharing for free. Reservations are required; call 812-829-3891. Hilltop Restaurant is at 2434 N. U.S. 231.
On the Monday after Easter, Lennie's will celebrate Dyngus Day with a special menu available 4-9 p.m. April 18 or while supplies last. Appetizers will include a Polish salmon spread served with toasted rye bread and Polish meatballs covered in a sour cream and mushroom gravy. Special entrees include Bigos, a stew with kielbasa, bacon, pork shoulder, mushrooms, sauerkraut and cabbage; goulash of beef braised in red wine with mushrooms and sour cream; and cheese- and potato-filled pierogis cooked in lightly browned butter. All entrees will be served with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Special dessert is Szarlotka, which is housemade apple cake with vanilla ice cream. Lennie's is at 514 E. Kirkwood Ave.
Parlor Doughnuts opens on Kirkwood; more restaurants coming soon
Parlor Doughnuts opened last week in the former Laughing Planet location at 322 E. Kirkwood Ave. The craft doughnut and coffee shop chain is co-owned by Darrick Hayden, his son Noah and Josh Tudela, a former Indiana University soccer player who was part of the team when IU won NCAA championships in 2003 and 2004.
Parlor Doughnuts has 20 types of layered doughnuts, mini doughnut called cronies as well as breakfast items including sausage biscuit with egg, breakfast tacos and avocado toast. Coffee, roasted in Evansville by Proper Coffee Roasters, and specialty and seasonal lattes and tea are also available.
Hours at Parlor Doughnuts are 6:30 a.m.-6:30 p.m. daily.
Read all about it:Parlor Doughnuts opens shop on Bloomington's Kirkwood Avenue
More restaurants will be opening later this spring and summer along East Kirkwood Avenue, including Dave's Hot Chicken in the former Pourhouse Cafe spot, Raising Cane's where the WhichWich sandwich shop had been and Chubbies Diner, specializing in burritos, in the former Bloomington Sandwich Shop. Stay tuned to future columns for more details.
Hive now open for dinner, too
The Hive restaurant opened for dinner last week. The dinner menu includes smashburgers (Hive, fried egg, deluxe and bacon); bowls (yoga, cuban breakfast, baja and braised pork); chicken pot pie, chicken frites and quarter chicken; sandwiches including Banh Mi, Reuben and heady veggies; chicken velvet and black bean soup as well as Lennie's voodoo chili; sides; snacks; and desserts.
Alcoholic beverages include Bloomington Brewing Co. draft beer, Friendly Beasts cider and wine. Kids' entrees include scrambled eggs, chicken leg and grilled cheese, along with sides.
Hive is now open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 3-9 p.m. Saturday. Hive is at 2608 E. 10th St. and offers its own delivery service, available at hivebloomington.com and 812-287-7405.
Spring wine tasting at Truffles
Five cabernet sauvignons and five rose wines will be featured in a wine tasting on Thursday at Truffles restaurant. The event is $10 per person. Reservations are for 30-minute time slots and will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Call 812-330-1111.
Chocolate Moose at the Gables
The new Chocolate Moose at the Gables, at 114 S. Indiana Ave. next to BuffaLouie's, opened in late March. The shop is now selling muffins and coffee cake from Taylor's Bakery in Indianapolis as well as cinnamon rolls. Muffins include banana nut, chocolate chocolate chip, berry blast, French toast, cran-apple, blueberry crumb, cappuccino, birthday cake and chocolate cheesecake.
Hours at the shop are 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday, noon to 11 p.m. Saturday and 2-9 p.m. Sunday.
Contact Carol Kugler at ckugler@heraldt.com, 812-331-4359 or @ckugler on Twitter. | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/lifestyle/food/2022/04/12/bloomington-restaurants-parlor-doughnuts-hive-chocolate-moose-news/7272340001/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:17 | 0 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/lifestyle/food/2022/04/12/bloomington-restaurants-parlor-doughnuts-hive-chocolate-moose-news/7272340001/ |
A Bloomington bank robbery suspect was killed by police after a California heist
A Spencer man charged in November with robbing a Bloomington bank was shot and killed by police in Southern California Thursday after he reportedly robbed a bank there.
Travis Shane Tarrants, 45, was declared dead after being shot by a police officer in Fontana, a city of 200,000 in San Bernardino County, 50 miles east of LA.
According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, Tarrants apparently fled to a Wendy's restaurant after robbing a Bank of America branch in Fontana.
According to a Fontana police spokeswoman, several people called 911 to report that a man with a gun was robbing the bank. When officers arrived, witnesses said the robber had fled into the nearby restaurant.
Tarrants was reportedly shot when he exited the Wendy's and encountered officers. Further details about the shooting weren't available from police Monday.
Old National Bank robbery in Bloomington
Tarrants was arrested in Monroe County last November, charged with a Nov. 15 robbery at the Old National Bank branch on West Third Street in Bloomington. The day after the robbery, police saw the truck identified in the bank robbery driving on Ind. 446.
Previous story:Man charged with robbing Bloomington bank served prison time for bizarre stalking case
Detectives confronted Tarrants in the parking lot of the Fishin' Shedd. They said that as they were handcuffing him, Tarrants resisted and tried to get away, at one point grabbing an officer's handgun and trying to remove it from its holster
Police searched the truck and reported finding camouflage clothing that matched what the bank robber had been wearing and a black BB pistol that resembled the weapon shown during the robbery.
Tarrants was charged with armed robbery, attempted disarming of a law enforcement officer and resisting law enforcement resulting in injury. His bond was set at $15,000 surety and $1,500 cash.
During a Jan. 12 court hearing, Monroe Circuit Judge Darcie Fawcett released Tarrants from jail on his own recognizance, over objections made by the prosecutor in the case. According to court records, Tarrants was "to go directly to the Wheeler Mission to participate in the Foundations Residential Program."
Tarrants did not show up for a required Feb. 15 pre-trial hearing, according to the case docket. The probation department notified the court on Feb. 28 that Tarrants had violated terms of his pre-trial release, and Fawcett issued a warrant that day for his arrest. The arrest warrant was still was pending Monday.
A hearing in the case was scheduled for 9 a.m. April 14.
More:Monroe County government buildings evacuated Friday after phone calls threatening violence
Former French Lick West Baden Museum faced bizarre accusations
Tarrants, a former director at the French Lick West Baden Museum, was released from state prison in September 2021 after serving a five-year sentence. He had pleaded to two counts of felony stalking in connection with a bizarre 2016 case in Jackson County in which he sent dead animals through the mail.
He had applied in the spring of 2016 for a fourth-grade teaching position and basketball coaching job in the Springs Valley School Corp. in Orange County. Tarrants didn't get the job and retaliated by accusing the man who was hired of having sex with students.
Tarrants also threatened to kill the man's fiancee and baby if he didn't resign, police said, and mailed dead skunks and a raccoon to school officials and the hired teacher.
A July 2017 plea agreement in that case dismissed two felony counts of intimidation for the threats and also two misdemeanor counts of criminal mischief that accused Tarrants of using spray paint to put threatening messages on the two victims' cars.
Contact reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com, 812-331-4362 or 812-318-5967. | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/crime/2022/04/12/spencer-man-dies-california-police-shooting-after-bank-robbery/7275552001/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:29 | 0 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/news/crime/2022/04/12/spencer-man-dies-california-police-shooting-after-bank-robbery/7275552001/ |
Column: Faculty members voice support for IU grad student workers unionizing
In response to the IU administration’s position on graduate worker unionization, we would like to clarify the following issues:
- Indiana University’s own policies recognize the right of employees to unionize. The refusal of the administration to consider the request to unionize is thus against its own rules. In that regard, The Herald Times opinion piece of April 9th, 2022, doesn’t represent the institution as it claims, by using a vague and expansive “we.” It represents the view of individuals occupying positions of authority. Although she is not mentioned, it is hard to imagine the aforementioned piece went out without being vetted by the IU president.
Dean's column: Indiana University dean makes case against graduate students unionizing
- The faculty of Indiana University have a variety of positions on unionization and whether it interferes with the mission of graduate education. Some of us consider unionization to be an opportunity for learning important professional skills, like negotiating with your employer and knowing how to communicate clearly with a variety of audiences. Experiential learning is something we are proud of. Therefore, in stating that, “[i]njecting a union into these relationships would create the antithesis of why students pursue their graduate degrees,” the op-ed speaks for the author and not the hundreds of faculty who have already pledged to support the union. “We” are also IU, but “we” do not agree with the author.
- If the administration is concerned about the ways in which graduate students could be harmed by this conflict, we hope they will reconsider the threat to terminate SAA contracts for those who are going on strike. That would be real harm and is not a required step in addressing the problems raised by the graduate workers. We hope they will consider the request for a grievance process that is independent of the administration’s own interests. We hope they will consider the need to bring stipends up to a level that allows graduate workers to live above the minimum standard of living considered adequate for Monroe County. The 5% raise promised by the administration doesn’t even cover the 7.9% inflation rate we are experiencing. It just means that students will not fall as far behind the rise in prices. But that is inadequate and doesn’t show sufficient care for not harming graduate workers.
More:Indiana University graduate student workers vote to strike Wednesday
- Academic freedom includes the right of instructors to speak freely and work to improve our conditions of employment. The university administration’s expressed concern for academic freedom rings hollow in view of their threat to fire graduate employees who dare to exercise their right to strike.
- The statement that tuition waivers would also be eliminated because of unionization is likewise a veiled threat that the administration will terminate those waivers, not a necessary outcome of unionization. The administration can choose to continue the waivers, if it cares about not bringing harm to graduate students.
- Despite the claim of the dean of the Graduate School that IU is not anti-union, he is using the identical argument against graduate workers that has been used against all workers seeking to unionize: that their interests would be better served by depending on the supposed good will of their “superiors” rather than relying on their own collective strength.
We are a research university with high rankings and impressive success in winning federal grants because our graduate students, many of them graduate workers, are an integral part of the ways in which research and teaching are delivered on our campus. If the administration cares about these rankings and about our reputation, we urge them to reconsider their stance on the union and engage in open dialogue with the graduate workers.
Maria Bucur, John V. Hill professor of history and gender studies
Stephanie Kane, professor of international studies
Michael Martin, professor of cinema and media studies, founder and editor-in-chief of Black Camera
Amrita Myers, Ruth N. Halls associate professor of history and gender studies
Benjamin Robinson, associate professor and chair of Germanic studies
Carl Weinberg, senior lecturer in history, the political and civic Engagement Program, and the Liberal Arts and Management Program
Cynthia Wu, professor and director of graduate studies in gender studies, director of race, migration and indigeneity | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/04/12/iu-faculty-members-voice-support-grad-student-workers-unionizing/7276021001/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:35 | 1 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/columns/2022/04/12/iu-faculty-members-voice-support-grad-student-workers-unionizing/7276021001/ |
Golarz: Democracy and the role of teachers
A teacher’s first job is to do his or her part in the formation of citizens who can then become viable members of a democracy. This obligation supersedes the task of teaching content areas such as mathematics, language arts or science designed to prepare our children for the world of work.
In 1991 the U.S. Department of Labor, feeling the pressure of being accused of redirecting the long standing recognized purpose of schools, published the SCANS report, which strongly asserted, “We do not want to be misinterpreted. We are not calling for a narrow ‘Work Focused’ education. Our Nation’s future demands more.”
More:Golarz: I miss the gypsy caravans and the freedom they represented
In that preparation for citizenship, teachers must always be free to focus upon the truth, wherever that truth leads, or however painful exposure to it might be. Each classroom and school in America should have written at the top of each chalkboard and school entranceway these words:
“The truth shall set you free.”
A partial listing of essential truths is as follows:
They must be taught of World War II. They must be told how tens of thousands of Americans fought and died to preserve democracy. They must be made aware of Omaha beach, and of Iwo Jima. They must be taught about the concentration camps and about the deaths of 6 million Jews. They must be made aware of the anti-Semitism that brought this about.
They must be made aware of our vicious destruction of Native Americans and of those who moved westward to make a life for themselves and their children. They need to be taught about the Civil War. They must be made aware of how the viability of the Southern economy rested upon the backs of black Americans as slaves. They need to understand the criminality of slavery.
They need to study and understand the American Constitution and the amendments adopted to improve that contract. They need to see how court decisions have attempted to support the dream of that Constitution, as the Supreme Court did with the passage of Brown v. the Board of Education. They must be taught the vision of Martin Luther King. They must be informed as to the fights to secure freedom. They need to know Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez. They must be told of the lynchings that occurred in this country until very recently. They must be informed of ongoing racism.
They must be taught about the women of America who are fighting still today for their basic rights. They must know of Elizabeth Casey Stanton and of Susan B. Anthony They must be taught of the wars women still fight over the control over their own bodies, over respect, and over equal pay. LGBTQ cannot remain a random and unknown set of letters. Students must understand who these lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning Americans are and what they are fighting for.
They need to be taught of the magnificent contributions made to this country by the American immigrants. They must be taught that immigration is still a struggle that the conscience of America wrestles with. They must understand that America’s history is both despicable and glorious.
This country is still a work in progress and our posterity must understand that the vision of our Founders has not yet been achieved. They must complete their education with the understanding that their education will always be incomplete.
Finally, they must understand that the dream will soon be placed in their hands — this sacred dream of generations of Americans.
So, teach on young colleague teachers. With pride, understand that your work is the cement that binds this fragile democracy together. | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2022/04/12/golarz-democracy-and-role-teachers/9485376002/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:41 | 1 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2022/04/12/golarz-democracy-and-role-teachers/9485376002/ |
Letter: Mask mandate on city buses questioned
Indiana has finally ended its "emergency" order regarding COVID-19. State government abolished the mask mandate last summer, and county government dropped its mask mandate in early March. But masks are still required on Bloomington Transit buses.
Furthermore, as COVID-19 has become more contagious, cloth masks are little more than a decoration at this point.
This mandate remains in place because the federal government exceeded its constitutional authority and mandated masking on a city bus system. The federal government is not granted this power in our constitution, and the Tenth Amendment restricts these powers to the states.
It is time for city government to discipline the federal government's overreach by refusing to comply with the mask mandate. President JoeBiden's rebellion against the rule of law must be opposed by lesser magistrates in order to restore our constitutional balance of power.
If the city council believes in the mask mandate, then they should pass an ordinance mandating masks on city buses and enforce it as a city ordinance. Let the council and Mayor John Hamilton take responsibility for this policy themselves.
Scott Tibbs, Bloomington | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/letters/2022/04/12/letter-mask-mandate-city-buses-questioned/7231122001/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:47 | 1 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/letters/2022/04/12/letter-mask-mandate-city-buses-questioned/7231122001/ |
Letter: Union only solution left for IU grad workers
Let me begin by disclosing that I am both a supporter of labor unions and a graduate student at Indiana University.
Throughout the history of this country, labor unions have been the collective voice of the worker who is too insignificant to make a change to better their working conditions by themselves. The right to reasonable working conditions for graduate students is no different than the carpenter, the electrician, or the factory worker. These students perform essential research for the university and teach around a third of the undergraduate classes. Meanwhile, while these students are paid just enough money to stay above the Indiana poverty line, their professors who perform similar roles make almost five times the pay.
I fail to see how any excuse the university can muster justifies the large disparity between these two groups of employees who perform analogous roles. The university’s continued failure to provide these valuable employees with reasonable wages has led many of these students to turn to other sources of income, such as government assistance or taking on more debt.
The only solution left for these workers to better their condition is to organize, because clearly the university won’t consider their voices individually.
Mason Hiatt, Bloomington | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/letters/2022/04/12/letter-union-only-solution-left-iu-grad-workers/7273008001/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:53 | 1 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/opinion/letters/2022/04/12/letter-union-only-solution-left-iu-grad-workers/7273008001/ |
Big shoes to fill: Mallory Shelton follows in big brother CJ's footsteps at Eastern Greene
When his parents told him he was going to have a sister, CJ Shelton wasn’t exactly enthused. Eight or nine years old at the time, he was hoping for the thing a lot of boys hope for when they know they have a sibling on the way — a brother.
It wasn’t to be though and along came that sister, Mallory.
In the decade-plus since then, whatever disappointment CJ might have had has long disappeared. The siblings have become incredibly close, and their interests reflect that.
CJ played baseball, Mallory took up softball. CJ played catcher, Mallory strapped on the gear too. CJ was a slugger, Mallory swung for the fences. CJ wore 25 during his high school career at Eastern Greene and Mallory wears 25 as well.
The similarities don't stop there. Mallory has become a key player for the Thunderbirds, just as her older brother was.
“It means a lot. She idolized me, and I really appreciate that because that helped me out, especially in high school,” CJ said. “I’m glad that she took the reins on catching because it’s not an easy job. We’ve worked on a lot of stuff.
“She’s kind of like a girl (version of) me. She hits for power, she catches and she’s a leader.”
CJ sets an example
Growing up, the Sheltons were at the ballpark a lot. One of the kids was always playing, and that typically meant the other one was watching.
While CJ was on the diamond, Mallory would spend time running around the ballpark with whatever assortment of younger siblings, cousins and others who were also in attendance, but the time she sat down to watch was more than enough for her to learn some lessons.
The thing that stuck out to her the most was CJ’s demeanor on the field, which is something she tries to emulate,but is still working on.
“I learned that I need to be calm,” Mallory said. “He was always a calm presence. He would mess up and not even care, but I don’t do that. I’ve tried to get that from him.”'
More:Bloomington-area high school softball games you won't want to miss this season
When it was Mallory’s turn to get out on the field, CJ would be there watching, cheering and occasionally coaching. Game after game they would pose for a photo afterwards with whatever ball (or balls) Mallory had hit out of the park that day.
The elder Shelton’s support would extend beyond that though as he’d also take to social media with frequency to share how proud he was of his little sister.
“It means so much. It’s good to have someone who’s always in your corner,” Mallory said. “He’s always supporting me, he’s always pushing me, he teaches me things every day and he’s made me a better person and player.
“At times he’s pulled me out, calmed me down, and then I’ll get back in there and hit a double next time.”
Diagnosis brings Shelton siblings closer
Although CJ and Mallory have always been close, their relationship was strengthened even more so almost a decade ago. When Mallory was eight years old, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. Suddenly, her life changed dramatically.
The entire family’s lives changed, actually, and CJ had to step up to the plate. He was tasked with helping take care of his sister, which meant he had a lot to learn and a short amount of time to do it.
“At the beginning, we had to give her shots, we didn’t have the technology we do now,” CJ said. “It was definitely a struggle at the beginning. We didn’t really know what to do.”
They eventually got things figured out, but the joint effort the pair put in to battle Mallory’s condition pulled them closer together.
“That brought us closer because he really had to be my caretaker over the summer,” Mallory said. “We’ve always been close, but after I was diagnosed, it just really tied us together. I don’t even think we’ve ever gotten in a fight or anything. He’s just always cared for me and I always care for him.”
Little sister has big sophomore season
After years of waiting, Mallory was all set to go for her freshman season in 2020. Then, it didn’t happen. The season was wiped out by the pandemic, and she had to wait even longer to play varsity softball.
When she finally did get into varsity action last season, she took advantage.
As a sophomore, she hit .371 with a 1.035 on-base plus slugging, both top-three marks on the team, but more impressively, she finished the season with a team-high 20 runs batted in and four home runs. That quarter of dingers represented exactly half of Eastern Greene’s long balls and Mallory was the only Thunderbird with more than one.
Flashback:Shelton named second-team all-area by Herald-Times
Tack on that she stole 13 bases, tied for second on the team, without getting caught a single time and that she committed just eight errors in 110 total chances in the field and it’s safe to say that her debut season was impressive.
She was just happy to be out there at all.
“It felt really good (to perform like that), but I was just appreciative that we got to play after losing my freshman season,” Mallory said. “That hurt because I’d been looking forward to that since middle school, but once we got back, I really didn’t care how well I did, I’m just glad we got to play.”
That sort of production is itself a product of the work Mallory put in, whether she was in practice or on her own. That, and her experience playing travel ball, allowed her to step right in and become a pivotal player for the Thunderbirds.
“She’s got an incredible work ethic, whether it’s physical fitness or for the game of softball. She works really, really hard. She’s shown that she has great character and is a quiet leader for our team,” Eastern Greene coach Tommy Bell said. “You can see that all of it is starting to come together for her as a junior, and I know she’ll be a strong Division I player.”
Improved leadership the next frontier
The next step for Mallory as a softball player is to not only go out and produce, but lead the dugout while doing it, and she’s already making strides in that area. Ahead of her junior season, Mallory was voted as a team captain, giving her one more similarity to her older brother, who was a two-time captain of the Eastern Greene baseball team.
High school Softball:A look ahead at what to expect for Bloomington area teams
It was an honor she was pleased to receive and it was bestowed on her for simple reasons — she works hard and she supports her teammates.
“She just does the same thing day in and day out. She stays consistent,” Bell said. “She knows how to pick people up, she knows how to pat her teammates on the back and uplift them and be there for them all the time so that’s what makes her really different. She’s just really good people, and we’re very excited to have her, it’s been fun to watch her growth.”
Continuing to grow as a leader will be paramount for Mallory if she hopes to reach her goals. She’s already receiving interest from college programs and has her eyes set on getting a crack at Division I softball.
Her captaincy is a step in the right direction, even if it was a bit of a surprise to some.
“It surprised me because she’s a lot different on the softball field," CJ said. "Usually she’s kind of an introvert. I think working out, getting better and playing travel ball with the (Indiana) Gators have opened up her personality a lot more. I’m proud of her for breaking out of her shell because she needed to do that. She can’t be shy going into college (softball).
“I’m definitely proud of how she’s opened up more and taken that captain role pretty seriously.”
Contact sports reporter Auston Matricardi via e-mail at amatricardi@tmnews.com or on Twitter at @amatricardiTM. | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/sports/2022/04/12/eastern-greene-softball-star-mallory-shelton-continues-family-legacy/7272081001/ | 2022-04-12T15:20:59 | 0 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/sports/2022/04/12/eastern-greene-softball-star-mallory-shelton-continues-family-legacy/7272081001/ |
Top performers weathered the storms for the week of April 4-9
Rain, sleet, hail, sunshine.
Through it all, these athletes delivered last week. Here are the top performers for April 4-9:
BASEBALL
Carson Druckrey, Edgewood
Went 2-for-3 and drove in a run in the Mustangs loss at Bloomington South. Also had a highlight defensive play at third base in the seventh inning.
Caden McCoy, Bloomington North
Threw five innings of no-hit ball with four strikeouts and four walks as the Cougars and Conference Indiana foe Columbus North played to a 1-1 tie halted after seven innings due to darkness.
Blaise Oeding, Bloomington South
Had a walk-off base hit with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to cap a 3-2 win over No. 5 Jasper to get his week started. Went 2-for-4 against Center Grove and then picked up the pitching win on Thursday, going 5 1/3 innings against Edgewood.
More:Oeding, Bloomington South deliver baseball thriller vs. No. 5 Jasper
Logan Wright, Bloomington South
Had a solid week on the mound, posting 5 2/3 innings of scoreless relief with no walks. Went four innings, giving up a hit and striking out one to put South in position to beat Jasper. On Thursday, went 1 2/3 innings, giving up one hit with one strikeout to earn the save in a 6-2 win over Edgewood.
More:Zaleski stays hot as Bloomington South baseball faces Edgewood in Monroe County matchup
Justin Zaleski, Bloomington South
He's been key near the top of the order for the Panthers all season and had a double and three RBI to lead the Panthers to a 6-2 win over Edgewood. Had an RBI in the loss to No. 4 Center Grove and was 2-for-4 in the upset of No. 5 Jasper.
SOFTBALL
Marin Jacobs, Bloomington South
Pitched a complete game against Edgewood, allowing just one run on four hits and one walk with six strikeouts. Went 2 for 3 at the plate in the same game, including a two-run homer.
Caitlyn Boteler, Bloomington North
The Purdue commit hit two home runs in North's extra-innings win over Jennings County. Both were go-ahead home runs — one in the seventh inning (that Jennings County then answered in the bottom half of the frame), and one in the ninth. She added a double to finish 3 for 5, and she pitched all nine innings as well.
Natalie Burns, Bloomington North
Hit three total home runs last week, including two against Eastern Greene. She's up to six home runs on the season with 19 RBIs.
BOYS' GOLF
Nick Bellush, Bloomington South
Fired a even par 72 in tough conditions at Otis Park to lead No. 7 Panthers to a 301-335 victory over Bedford North Lawrence.
Connor Byon, Bloomington South
Stepped up as Panthers No. 2 man in 301-335 win at Bedford North Lawrence, touring Otis Park with a two-over 74 on a cold, rainy, windy evening.
More:Big time shots abound when Bedford North Lawrence hosts No. 4 Bloomington South
Luke Garrett, Edgewood
Opened the season with an 87 at Forest Park to lead the Mustangs to seventh place at the Northview Invitational on Saturday.
GIRLS' TENNIS
Katie Stephens and Makena Stikeleather, Edgewood
Mustangs finally got their season opener in and the senior duo pulled out a 6-3, 3-6, (10-6) win over Adalyn Wiseman and Adalyn Figg in a 4-1 win over Bloomfield.
Hailey Vandeventer, Bloomington South
Senior stepped into the No. 2 singles spot after an injury to Taylor O'Neil, and rolled to a 6-0, 6-1 win in the Panthers' 5-0 sweep of Brown County.
BOYS' TRACK
D'Andre Black and Ivin Tait, Bloomington South
Panthers hurdles duo was on it in a meet vs. Columbus North going 1-2 in the 110s and 300s. Black won in 15.03 and 41.47, while Tait followed un 16.6 and 42.65.
Reece Lozano, Bloomington North
Picked up wins in the 200 (23.10) and 400 (52.09) and anchored 1,600 relay to another win in 3:32.29.
Zane Meyer, Edgewood
Freshman had a strong outing to help the Mustangs top Martinsville and Brown County, taking second in the 1,600 (4:54.69) and 3,200 (10:39.09).
Broc Murphy, Bloomington North
Swept the hurdles while cruising to a 15.29 in the 110s and a 40.33 in the 300s. Was also on the winning 1,600 relay in a meet against Bedford North Lawrence and Brown County.
Zander West and Jack Gildea, Bloomington South
Worked together in a tough 1,600 race against some of Columbus North's top distance runners, going 4:31.60 and 4:31.90 for a 4-5 finish.
Marcus Wynalda, Bloomington North
Had another strong night in the throws, going 162-3 in the discus and 49-6 in shot put in a meet against Bedford North Lawrence and Brown County.
GIRLS' TRACK
Emma Callahan, Bloomington South
Finished second in the 1,600 in a meet at Columbus North, posting a 5:24.60.
Emma Bitner, Edgewood
Ran a 2:29.85 to win the 800 in a meet against Martinsville and Brown County.
Madeline Esslinger, Lighthouse Christian Academy
Finished second for the Lions in the 100 (13.45) and 200 (27.9) in a meet with Linton, Shakamak and North Knox.
Ella Francis, Bloomington North
Another busy night for the senior, who won the 300 hurdles (49.25) and went 16.49 for second in the 100s. She also helped the 400 relay to win in 51.67 and led off the 1,600 relay to a win in 4:14.63.
Trista Helms, Edgewood
Senior posted a sweep in the throws in a meet against Martinsville and Brown Coutny, going 3-48 in the shot and 101-6 in discus.
Kyla Kante, Bloomington North
Put together a four-event sweep, taking the 100 hurdles (15.84) and the 200 dash (27.15) while anchoring the 400 relay (51.67) and 1,600 relay (4:14.63) to victories in a meet against Bedford North Lawrence and Brown County.
Hadley Lucas, Bloomington North
Absolute monster night for sophomore, who came up short of school records in both discus (154-3) and shot put (46-9½) in a meet against Bedford North Lawrence and Brown County.
Claire Lutz, Bloomington South
Took the title in pole vault with an 8-0 in a meet against Columbus North.
Contact Jim Gordillo at jgordillo@heraldt.com and follow on Twitter @JimGordillo. | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/sports/2022/04/12/last-weeks-top-performers-weathered-storms/9492631002/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:05 | 0 | https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/story/sports/2022/04/12/last-weeks-top-performers-weathered-storms/9492631002/ |
RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Stony Point Fashion Center, the outdoor mall near the intersection of Huguenot Road and Chippenham Parkway in Richmond, has been sold to a Florida-based real estate firm.
The firm, Second Horizon Capital, made the announcement that they had purchased the mall Monday, April 4. The firm also announced that JLL, a Chicago-headquartered real estate management firm that operates in 80 countries, will be managing the property.
The 84,000 square-foot mall first opened in September 2003 and the area is currently valued at $27 million
Dick’s Sporting Goods, one of the mall’s major tenants and original anchor stores, left after 15 years in 2018. In January, a service technician working at the mall fell to his death while working on an escalator. | https://www.wric.com/business/stony-point-fashion-park-sold-to-florida-real-estate-firm/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:09 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/business/stony-point-fashion-park-sold-to-florida-real-estate-firm/ |
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Posted: Apr 12, 2022 / 10:13 AM EDT
Updated: Apr 12, 2022 / 10:13 AM EDT | https://www.wric.com/community/showcase-richmond/lakewood-at-home-6/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:15 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/community/showcase-richmond/lakewood-at-home-6/ |
What do we know about “stealth omicron” so far?
It’s an extra-contagious version of the omicron variant, but it doesn’t seem to cause more severe disease.
Since it was first identified in November, BA.2 has been spreading around the globe, driving new surges in parts of Asia and Europe. It’s now the dominant coronavirus version in the U.S. and more than five dozen other countries.
It was given the “stealth” nickname because it looks like the earlier delta variant on certain PCR tests, says Kristen Coleman at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. The original omicron, by contrast, is easy to differentiate from delta because of a genetic quirk.
In rare cases, early research indicates BA.2 can infect people even if they’ve already had an omicron infection. COVID-19 vaccines appear just as effective against both kinds of omicron, offering strong protection against severe illness and death.
Health officials also are tracking other variants including XE — a combination of BA.2 and BA.1, the original omicron — that was first identified in January in the United Kingdom. The World Health Organization is keeping tabs on XE but has not yet deemed it a variant of concern or interest. | https://www.wric.com/health/coronavirus/stealth-omicron-what-we-know-so-far/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:21 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/health/coronavirus/stealth-omicron-what-we-know-so-far/ |
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Marketing changes by major COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers have people asking: What is Spikevax? What is Comirnaty?
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Spikevax is simply a new name for a product the public is already familiar with — the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Comirnaty is also just a new name for a familiar product — the Pfizer-BoiNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
“The vaccine has been known as the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, and will now be marketed as Spikevax, for the prevention of COVID-19 in individuals 18 years of age and older,” an online FDA publication said. “The vaccine that has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine will now be marketed as Comirnaty, for the prevention of COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older.
The change is the result of the full approval of the vaccines by the FDA, which has previously only allowed their use on an emergency basis.
On March 29, the FDA authorized a second booster dose of the two vaccines for older and immunocompromised individuals. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has set up a website, Vaccines.gov, to help individuals find COVID-19 vaccines and boosters in their area. | https://www.wric.com/health/coronavirus/what-are-spikevax-and-comirnaty/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:27 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/health/coronavirus/what-are-spikevax-and-comirnaty/ |
BONN, Germany (StudyFinds.org) — Apparently, one plus one equals tu-na. A new study reveals that fish are capable of doing simple math problems, just like people!
Researchers in Germany have found that cichlids and stingrays are both able to recognize and calculate small quantities without really having to count them — just like a person looking at their change on a table.
“We trained the animals to perform simple additions and subtractions,” explains Dr. Vera Schluessel from the Institute of Zoology at the University of Bonn in a release. “In doing so, they had to increase or decrease an initial value by one.”
Although some call fish the “dunces of the animal kingdom” because of their memory span — which can last just three seconds — the new study revealed their capacity for complex sums, adding and subtracting from one to five.
Their numerical skills were on a par with other invertebrate and vertebrate species and experts are beginning to suspect they are as intelligent as birds and mammals.
“Successful fish showed abilities far above chance level, specifically in the stingrays. Again, this raises the question of what abilities fish may be capable of if being asked the ‘right’ question,” the researchers write in the journal Scientific Reports.
Color-coded math problems
In experiments, the team trained the animals to recognize the colors blue and yellow as symbols for adding or subtracting by a factor of one. Eight of the fish were freshwater stingrays and the others were a species of cichlid known as zebra mbuna. During the experiments, blue meant “add one” and yellow meant “subtract one.”
Study authors showed each fish cards with shapes displaying either color in their tank and then presented them with two gates. They contained signs with different numbers of shapes — one of which was the correct mathematical answer. For example, if a fish saw three blue shapes, they would add one to three and swim through a gate displaying four shapes — gaining a food reward for answering correctly.
Six zebra mbuna and three stingrays learned to consistently associate blue with addition and yellow with subtraction. On average, it took the zebra mbuna 28 sessions to figure out the math problems and 68 sessions for the stingrays. In general, they performed well although addition was easier to learn.
Overall, success among the zebra mbuna varied, with the fish correctly answering 296 out of 381 (78%) tests. Meanwhile, stingrays answered 169 out of 180 (94%). For the subtraction test, zebra mbuna answered 264 out of 381 (69%) correctly, while stingrays got 161 out of 180 (89%) right.
“Overall, it seems likely that fish, independent of whether there is a direct biological need or not, can solve complex numerical tasks,” the researchers write.
So, what do fish need math for anyway?
The team notes their findings were surprising, since math skills don’t have an obvious benefit for either species.
“Both are opportunistic feeders not hunters, that show no mating- or reproduction related behaviors relying on numbers (e.g. counting stripes or eggs),” study authors continue. “Neither species nests nor is there any information available about preferences for particular sized social groups.”
However, there may be important ecological advantages for fish who are good at math that scientists haven’t discovered yet.
“Arithmetic abilities could be one of many cognitive byproducts that may be useful to enhance individual recognition (e.g. by using phenotypic characteristics) or help detect changing environmental or socials conditions,” the team explains. “As both species live in complex habitats (rocky lake and coral reef environments), a certain degree of behavioral flexibility is essential for survival.”
“To possess an enhanced cognitive skill might be advantageous under some environmental circumstances but not possessing it might not necessarily present a disadvantage either.”
South West News Service writer Mark Waghorn contributed to this report. | https://www.wric.com/news/fish-can-do-math-scientists-show-they-can-be-trained-to-add-subtract/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:33 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/fish-can-do-math-scientists-show-they-can-be-trained-to-add-subtract/ |
(The Hill) — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting sanctions imposed on Moscow are contributing to surging global prices that Americans are feeling throughout the economy, particularly at the grocery store and the gas pump.
Russia’s status as a major exporter of raw materials, especially oil and natural gas, along with Ukraine’s position as a key agricultural supplier to regions including Africa and the Middle East, make the conflict between the two countries a flashpoint for commodity prices, which were already on the rise due to the pandemic.
“These countries export a lot of raw materials,” William Reinsch, a former undersecretary of Commerce who now serves as international business analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an interview. “They tend to have a world price. And so when supply is constricted, the consequence for Americans is that the price goes up because it goes up everywhere.”
New consumer price index (CPI) data to be released Tuesday by the Labor Department is likely to show another sharp jump in both monthly and annual inflation. Consumer prices rose by 7.9 percent in the year ending in February, and signs of high inflation in March are mounting.
On Friday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations recorded a 12.6 percent increase in its benchmark food price index from February to March, an uptick it described as a “giant leap.” The March numbers represent all-time highs for cereal grains, vegetable oils and meats, while the sugar and dairy sectors also saw major gains.
The FAO cereal price index in particular saw a 17.1 percent increase from February to March, marking its highest level since 1990. The increase was “largely driven by conflict-related export disruptions from Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, the Russian Federation,” according to an FAO assessment.
The global numbers are consistent with the situation in the United States, where food prices spiked 7.9 percent in February compared to the previous year, the largest 12-month increase since July 1981, according to consumer data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The February food-at-home index, which looks at prices relating to domestic food preparation, was up nearly 9 percent in the same period, while wholesale prices for goods jumped 2.4 percent in February, the largest advance since data was first calculated in 2009.
The war in Ukraine also accelerated a steady rise in oil prices driven largely by the recovery from the pandemic. Fuel oil prices rose 6.7 percent and gas prices rose 6.6 percent in February alone, according to the CPI as crude oil prices rose toward $100 per barrel.
The price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude peaked near $130 on March 8 before falling to roughly $94 on Monday, but gasoline prices have not fallen nearly as fast. A gallon of regular unleaded gas costs roughly $4.10, according to the AAA national average, down just 20 cents from a month ago.
While inflation-adjusted gas prices are still below the peaks seen in the wake of the Great Recession, higher energy costs can hit consumers harder than inflation in other sectors. Higher gas prices are not only difficult to avoid for drivers but can also increase transportation costs for store-bought goods.
Beyond the cumulative effects of rising commodity prices, which can ripple through the economy and become magnified as they work their way up global production pipelines, Russia does produce certain goods that U.S. companies, and by extension the nation’s consumers, use directly.
“Palladium, vanadium and titanium are three such goods,” said Reinsch.
Palladium is a component in catalytic converters, which convert toxic gasses produced by internal combustion engines into less toxic pollutants. Vanadium is added to steel to make it stronger, and titanium has numerous applications including aircraft shells.
“There are others who produce these products,” Reinsch said. “But again, it’s supply chain interruptions, and we have to scramble around to find them from other places.”
Blame game
As more Americans feel the sting of inflation, the upswing in prices has emerged as a major campaign issue ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, with Republicans and Democrats taking turns placing blame for the upward trend in costs.
Republicans have blamed rising inflation on Democratic-backed policies, including the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that President Biden signed into law in March 2021, about a year after former President Trump signed a bipartisan $2 trillion coronavirus relief package.
A number of Democrats have, in turn, placed blame on corporations and market concentration, accusing larger companies of taking advantage of economic conditions to increase costs.
By contrast, experts have pointed to a combination of factors that have contributed to the higher price stickers.
“Part of it is supply chain disruptions because of the pandemic. We can’t get the goods that we got before, for instance, like computer chips, and so on,” Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill.
“But it was also the case that budget policy was too loose, and monetary policy was too loose. So we had all three things pushing in the same direction,” he said.
Ben Page, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, also told The Hill that stimulative fiscal policy contributed to inflation but added he wouldn’t call it the “root cause for most of the inflation.”
“I think the way that you can see that it’s not purely driven by U.S. policy is that it’s not just a U.S. phenomenon,” Page said. “The increased inflation is something that we’ve seen across the world, or certainly across the developed world.”
In recent weeks, countries such as China, Egypt and France have seen rising inflation rates, a trend experts said is exacerbated by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Sanctions impact
The U.S. has joined allies in unleashing a spate of sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told The Hill many of the sanctions have been aimed at raising costs for Russia and restricting how its government accesses the global financial system.
“So, limiting their bank’s ability to the government’s ability to use global banks,” Ziemba continued. “And the sanctions program was set up in a way that tried to use the areas of asymmetry that would hurt Russia more than it would hurt the U.S. and Europe.”
On the flip side, Ziemba said some of the impacts the U.S. has seen as a result of the sanctions have been “sort of indirect,” while Russia has faced more payment challenges.
“The other issue, of course, the Biden administration is trying to do what they can to alleviate some of these costs. The challenges are we’re in a tight market … and I do think one of the challenges is going to be that a number of the producers of particularly oil and gas don’t make decisions quickly to change their production,” Ziemba said.
“I think that’s where the debates with sort of countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE [United Arab Emirates] have been reluctant to deviate from their go-slow additional supply policy have been disappointing to the administration,” she added. | https://www.wric.com/news/heres-how-the-russia-ukraine-war-is-driving-up-prices/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:39 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/news/heres-how-the-russia-ukraine-war-is-driving-up-prices/ |
(NerdWallet) — Inflation is crushing almost all aspects of Americans’ budgets — including their vacations. Prices rose on average 7.9% for the past 12 months ending in February 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. And one major travel expense rose way more than that: Rental car prices skyrocketed 24% year over year.
The Consumer Price Index, which measures prices on items like travel, groceries, clothes and cars, in February 2022 saw the highest inflation reading since 1982.
Annual inflation rates are a common way to understand economic changes. But when comparing 2022 inflation data to 2021, it’s important to acknowledge how unique last year was. In 2021, many people’s work schedules were adjusted or reduced, and daily activities came to a standstill due to ongoing closures at bars, restaurants and gyms. Travel — especially of the international kind — was difficult. But, given such low demand, travel was also generally pretty cheap.
It’s almost certain you’ll pay more for the same trip in 2022 than you did in 2021. But how much more should you expect to pay this year versus past years, when vacations were a bit more normal?
Don’t let the averages guide your travel budget
Several organizations put a tremendous amount of effort into understanding how much people spend on travel.
For instance, according to Expedia’s 2022 Traveler Value Index, which surveyed 5,500 adults worldwide in November 2021, Americans plan to spend, on average, $2,353 on their next trip. Separately, market research firm Destination Analysts’ November 2021 survey of more than 1,200 Americans determined that the average American’s leisure travel budget for 2022 is $3,797.
Even NerdWallet tries to peg a dollar figure to vacation spending. Americans intended to spend $1,814, on average, for travel during the 2021 holiday season, according to a September 2021 survey of 2,000 U.S. adults conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of NerdWallet.
But when it comes to vacation budgeting, using the average can be tricky, as your personal travel preferences often dictate your overall spending.
- Do you often fly first class to another continent or are you taking short-haul flights on budget carriers?
- Do you typically stay in luxury accommodations, like overwater bungalows in the Maldives, or do most trips find you at your grandma’s where you’re staying for free?
- Do you dine primarily at Michelin-star restaurants or are you the type to load up on free hotel breakfast?
Travel styles are highly variable, and you can’t always base your personal budget on a nebulous average sourced from travelers with wide-ranging preferences.
Rather than comparing your spending to averages from surveys, it can make more sense to use your travel budget from past trips and adjust according to today’s inflation rates.
How inflation is shaping travel costs
Especially if you’re building your next vacation budget based on a 2021 trip, expect to pay far more now. But compared to pre-pandemic travel, some expenses might be increasing at roughly similar rates — and one major travel expense will likely cost less.
NerdWallet looked at the costs of common travel expenses over the past 10 years using CPI data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Analyzing February’s inflation readings — and pairing those numbers with August data from the same year to account for seasonality — we were able to see which pieces of vacation budgets rose and which ones dropped.
Here’s how those numbers shook out for airfare, travel lodging, rental cars, dining out and entertainment (like movies and concerts).
Airfares are still lower than pre-pandemic prices
One bright shiny light for your travel budget: Airfares haven’t fully recovered.
The average cost of airfares in February 2022 — $222 — is even lower than the 10-year average of $269.72 in February and $263.20 in August. While the February 2022 price is higher than the $197 average from February 2021, it’s still far lower than the $265 average of February 2020, which was the last month before COVID-19-related lockdowns in the U.S.
Even leading up to 2020, airfares had been trending downward. The 10-year high was back in 2013, the only year when average airfare costs surpassed $300 in both February and August.
This is good news considering that airfare and lodging tend to be the biggest chunks of any vacation budget (and there isn’t as much hope for low-cost lodging this year).
Lodging prices are volatile
Hotel pricing is consistently higher in August compared to February, likely due to seasonal travel demand.
The price for lodging away from home, including hotels and motels, saw one of the biggest swings of any price category throughout the duration of the pandemic.
In December 2020, average hotel prices dropped as low as $263.25, kissing their 10-year low of $261.72, which was from way back in December 2012. Yet it didn’t take long for prices to hit all-time highs. By July 2021, lodging rates hit all-time highs, averaging $387.23.
Fast forward to now, and hotel prices have slightly recovered from all-time highs. Even so, February 2022 still recorded an all-time high for just the month of February. Given how much seasonality plays into hotel prices, we can expect that August 2022 might also notch a new record high.
Meanwhile, many hotels are cutting back on amenities including daily housekeeping and room service. Hospitality companies blame factors including high demand, staffing shortages and supply chain issues.
Car rentals have one of the biggest price increases
The cost to rent a car jumped nearly 35% last year.
Rental cars have had one of the biggest price increases, and renters in summer 2021 got especially pummeled. Prices hit an all-time high in July 2021 at $236.80, and while they’ve slightly recovered, they’re still far above the average prices for the 10 years prior.
For the most recent data from February 2022, prices are up 24% since the same month in 2021, and they’re up 38.6% since February 2020. At this rate, be prepared for price increases aligned with summer travel demand. You might want to opt out of the rental car altogether this year.
Restaurant spending consistently rises
The charts show nothing too out of the ordinary when it comes to setting your travel food budget in 2022.
Food prices consistently rise every year, including in the COVID-19 era. In February 2022, the cost of food away from home is up nearly 7% versus February 2021 and nearly 11% versus February 2020.
To that end, foodies on a budget may consider turning to street vendors or fast-casual stops for cheaper meals than sit-down restaurants for their 2022 vacation. Those who have access to a kitchen (say, in a vacation home rental or a hotel suite) might consider stopping by local markets or grocery stores for not just the adventure, but also for the chance to buy ingredients to put together at home.
Entertainment expenditures see price increases, too
There have been some slightly larger-than-average jumps for travel-related leisure expenses.
Like restaurants, entertainment prices see fairly consistent increases — save for a small dip in 2020. Luckily for consumers, price increases here haven’t been as drastic as those for dining out.
In February 2022, the average price for movie, theater and concert tickets is up nearly 5% compared to February 2021 and about 6% compared to February 2020.
Travelers may opt for lower-cost activities rather than paid ones for their 2022 vacation, such as going hiking, checking out free days at museums, aquariums or zoos, playing board games at a brewery or wandering farmers markets.
2022 travel costs vs. pre-pandemic travel costs
On the whole, prices are certainly rising, with rental cars as one of the expenses most likely to give you some newfound sticker shock.
Here’s how average prices have changed since pre-pandemic times:
On the bright side, one major expense — airfares — continues to trend cheaper. February 2022 airfares are down 16% from February 2020. What’s more, today’s prices are around 30% less than their 10-year high, which was in May 2013 when they averaged $326.50.
To account for inflation in your 2022 vacation budget and get a better idea of how much you should expect to spend, you could multiply your trip expenses from past years with this year’s percent changes. So if you spent $100 on a rental car in February 2020, you could multiply that by 38.6% and expect to spend about $140 on the same type of rental this year. If you spent $100 on concert tickets in February 2020, multiply that by 5.7%, and expect to pay about $106 for the same show this year.
And if you don’t have exact numbers from your past trip expenses, realize that expenses like hotels, entertainment and food will likely take a bigger chunk of your travel budget than before the pandemic. Rental cars will likely cost significantly more, and opting out of this expense altogether could be a smart money move. And there’s a good chance that airfares will cost less.
Planning can minimize inflation’s toll on your vacation budget
With airfares still low and rental car prices soaring, perhaps you skip the road trip this year. Fly into a public transit-friendly city like San Francisco, New York City or Boston. If you prefer small-town vibes, ferry to a mostly car-free island like Catalina Island, California, or Mackinac Island, Michigan.
Even though airfares cost more on average today than in the pandemic’s early days, you can take some solace in the fact that you’re more than likely saving on airfare this year than you were pre-pandemic. | https://www.wric.com/news/how-to-account-for-inflation-in-your-travel-budget/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:46 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/how-to-account-for-inflation-in-your-travel-budget/ |
(The Hill) — Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) says he hasn’t decided whether to run for re-election in 2024. But he could be on the same ballot as Donald Trump if the former president seeks another bid for the White House.
Romney has cast several high-profile votes putting him at odds with the GOP base — including two votes to convict former Trump on impeachment charges. He became the first senator in history to convict a president of his own party in an impeachment trial in 2020.
Just last week, Romney was one of only three Republicans to vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
Trump is less popular among Republicans in Utah than in other states but still handily beat Biden there by 20 points, 58.1 percent to 37.6 percent, in 2020.
Romney told The Hill that he hasn’t given much thought to running for a second term.
“I’m going to cross that bridge down the road. I haven’t given a lot of attention yet,” he said following his vote for Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the court. The other two GOP “yes” votes came from Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska).
Romney, 75, hasn’t spent much energy on fundraising. His Senate campaign account reported $473,000 in cash on hand at the end of 2021 — only $215,000 more than what he reported after winning his Senate seat in 2018.
Romney could face a challenge from Republican state Attorney General Sean Reyes, who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) also may make a bid for Romney’s seat.
“I think that’s why he is giving this some pause. He will have a tough race with the Republican nomination process,” said Richard Davis, a professor emeritus of political science at Brigham Young University.
Davis said that Romney’s vote for Jackson, whom the senator praised as “a person of honor,” would likely be an issue in a future primary.
Romney is considered unlikely to win the Republican nomination at the state party convention, which is dominated by activists, so he would likely have to collect enough petition signatures to bypass the convention and advance to a primary.
Political experts and strategists say a primary election would provide more favorable ground to Romney than a convention, pointing to his performance in 2018.
Romney narrowly lost to state Rep. Mike Kennedy at the 2018 state convention but went on to handily win that year’s primary.
Davis said both Chaffetz and Reyes would be tough primary rivals for Romney.
“Either one of them would be a formidable opponent for Romney within the Republican Party because he has made himself persona non grata with many of the conservative Republicans,” Davis. “He’s actually more popular with Democrats and independents than he is with Republicans right now. So getting past the Republican primary would be a tough one.”
Davis said Romney could run and win as an independent or as a centrist candidate for the United Utah Party, which formed in 2017.
Romney’s uneasy relationship with Utah conservatives was underscored by his decision not to endorse fellow Republican Sen. Mike Lee, who is running for re-election this year.
“I don’t think endorsements make any difference in a race to speak of,” Romney told reporters. “People in the race are my friends. I usually try and avoid situations where they’ve been friends. I may endorse and I may not, but I really haven’t given it any thought at this point.”
Romney was personally recruited to the Senate by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2017, and has become an influential member after only three years in the chamber.
He helped negotiate last year’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment Act and this month hammered out a compromise $10 billion COVID relief bill with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
Few senators of either party have resumes as impressive as Romney’s. He amassed a fortune as the co-founder of Bain Capital before becoming elected governor of Massachusetts, where he enacted sweeping healthcare reform that later became the template for the Affordable Care Act.
He ran a credible campaign for president in 2008 and won the GOP nomination for president in 2012, though he lost to President Barack Obama by 4 percent of the popular vote and more than 100 electoral votes.
Romney is now winning plaudits for identifying Russia as “our number one geopolitical foe” in 2012 when he was the Republican nominee, an assessment that Obama scoffed at in 2020 but now looks prescient.
That could give Romney, a member of the Foreign Relations panel, a strong rationale to run for another term as the United States continues to figure out its role and relationship in the rapidly changing international political environment.
U.S. leadership of the North America Treaty Organization has become more important since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and U.S. relations with China, a rising global power, appear as unpredictable as ever.
“If he runs for re-election in a couple years, I got a good slogan for him: ‘He was right about Russia,’” said Vin Weber, a Republican strategist who served as an advisor to Romney’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.
Weber said he thinks Romney will run for another term given his deep commitment to public service, his interest in foreign affairs and the new challenges facing the nation in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
“Mitt Romney is incredibly dedicated to public service,” said Weber, who described it as a “very deep, multi-generational family commitment.”
“I guess I would be surprised if he would hang it up and just go back to private life,” Weber said.
A Deseret News/Hinkley Institute of Politics poll published last month showed that Romney enjoys a strong job approval rating in the state, with 51 percent of Republicans, 51 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of unaffiliated voters giving him a positive rating.
Weber said that while Trump’s critics in the GOP “are a little bit marginalized,” it doesn’t pose an insurmountable obstacle to Romney winning a second term.
“I think that’s an overstated phenomenon,” he said, of the view that Trump’s critics don’t have a promising future in Republican politics.
Davis, the BYU political science professor emeritus, said Romney’s three years in Washington have been “enormously impactful.”
“He has become sort of the undesirable conscience of the Republican Party. They don’t want this conscience but he is it. To vote twice to convict the president of his own party is just something nobody else in Senate history has done,” he said. It’s highly unusual.”
James Curry, a professor of political science at the University of Utah, noted that Trump isn’t as popular with Republicans in Utah as he is in other states.
In the 2016 election, Trump failed to win more than 50 percent of the state’s vote in the general election. Evan McMullin, the independent candidate that year, won 21 percent of the vote, while Hillary Clinton won 27 percent, holding Trump to 45 percent.
“I think he actually has a better chance of re-election than the conventional wisdom has been,” he said. “Utah Republicans on the whole are less favorable towards Trump.
“Moderate LDS voters who register Republicans, who are pretty loyal Republicans, are pretty uncomfortable with Trump’s brand of Republican politics, with the perceived moral character of the candidate,” he said, referring to the Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “LDS Republicans tend to be pretty pro-immigrant, pro-refugee, and you have a candidate in Trump who made [his] signature issues to be on the opposite side of that.” | https://www.wric.com/news/politics/romney-now-a-gop-maverick-undecided-on-future-in-politics/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:52 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/politics/romney-now-a-gop-maverick-undecided-on-future-in-politics/ |
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Target is holding its biannual car seat trade-in event next week for families to bring an old, expired or damaged car seat to be recycled for a coupon.
Car seats can be traded in from April 18 through April 30 at any Target store. Drop-off boxes will be located near guest services.
Those trading in will receive a 20% off coupon on their Target app or Target Circle account, which can be redeemed through May 14. The coupon applies to new car seats, strollers, and select baby gear.
According to The Bump, those using a car seat for a child can tell if it is expired by looking for a small, white sticker somewhere on the seat with the date the seat expires. The website said other brands have information imprinted somewhere on the plastic shell of the seat. The Bump also offers information on where to find the date, listed by brand.
Materials from old car seats will be recycled by Waste Management.
Target hosts its car seat trade-in twice a year. A total of 1.7 million car seats have been recycled through Target since 2016, amounting to 25.4 million pounds of materials.
More information can be found on the company’s website. | https://www.wric.com/news/targets-car-seat-trade-in-returns-how-to-get-your-free-coupon/ | 2022-04-12T15:21:58 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/targets-car-seat-trade-in-returns-how-to-get-your-free-coupon/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is visiting corn-rich Iowa on Tuesday to announce he’ll suspend a federal rule preventing the sale of higher ethanol blend gasoline this summer as his administration tries to tamp down prices at the pump that have spiked during Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Most gasoline sold in the U.S. is blended with 10% ethanol. The Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver to allow widespread sale of 15% ethanol blend that is usually prohibited between June 1 and Sept. 15 because of concerns that it adds to smog in high temperatures.
Senior Biden administration officials said the move will save drivers an average of 10 cents per gallon at 2,300 gas stations. Industry groups say most of those stations are in the Midwest and the South, including Texas.
Biden is to announce the move at a biofuel company in Menlo, west of Des Moines. Iowa is the country’s largest producer of corn, key to producing ethanol.
The waiver is another effort to help ease global energy markets that have been rocked since Russia invaded Ukraine. Last month, the president announced the U.S. will release 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve over the next six months. His administration said that has helped to slightly reduce gas prices lately, after they climbed to an average of about $4.23 a gallon by the end of March, compared with $2.87 at the same time a year ago, according to AAA.
Members of Congress from both parties, as well as industry groups, had urged Biden to grant the E15 waiver.
“Homegrown Iowa biofuels provide a quick and clean solution for lowering prices at the pump and bolstering production would help us become energy independent once again,″ said Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. He was among nine Republican and seven Democratic senators from Midwestern states who sent Biden a letter last month urging him to allow year-round E15 sales.
The trip will be Biden’s first as president to Iowa, where his 2020 presidential campaign limped to a fourth-place finish in the state’s technologically glitchy caucus.
After bouncing back to win the Democratic nomination, Biden returned for a rally at the Iowa state fairgrounds four days before Election Day 2020, only to see Donald Trump win the state by 8 percentage points.
Biden heads back to the state at a moment when he’s facing yet more political peril. He’s saddled with sagging approval ratings and inflation at a 40-year high while his party faces the prospect of big midterm election losses that could cost it control of Congress.
The president also planned to promote his economic plans to help rural families struggling with higher costs, while highlighting the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law enacted last fall. The law includes money to improve internet access, as well as for modernizing wastewater systems, reducing flooding threats and improving roads and bridges, drinking water and electric grids in sparsely populated areas.
“Part of it is showing up in communities of all sizes, regardless of the results of the last election,” said Jesse Harris, who was a senior adviser to Biden’s 2020 campaign in Iowa and directed get out the vote and early voting efforts for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008.
Harris said most presidents who visit Iowa typically go to the state’s largest cities. Hitting an area like Menlo, part of Guthrie County, which backed Trump over Biden by 35 percentage points in 2020, “does speak to the importance the administration places on infrastructure broadly but also infrastructure in rural and smaller communities.”
The Biden administration plans to spend the coming weeks pushing billions of dollars in funding for rural areas. Cabinet members and other senior officials will travel the country to help communities get access to money available as part of the infrastructure package.
“The president is not making this trip through a political prism,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said. “He’s making this trip because Iowa is a rural state in the country that would benefit greatly from the president’s policies.”
Still, administration officials have long suggested that Biden travel more to promote an economy that is rebounding from the setbacks of the coronavirus pandemic. The number of Americans collecting unemployment has fallen to the lowest levels since 1970, for example.
But much of the positive jobs news nationally has been overshadowed by surging gas, food and housing prices that have pushed consumer inflation to 7.9% over the past year ending in February. That’s the sharpest spike since 1982. Inflation figures for March, due out Tuesday, are likely to bring more bad news for the Biden administration.
“Maybe a trip back to Iowa will be just what Joe Biden needs to understand what his reckless spending, big government policies are doing to our country,” Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement.
After Iowa, Biden will visit Greensboro, North Carolina, on Thursday.
Psaki blamed Russia’s war in Ukraine for helping to drive up gas prices and said the administration expects the consumer price index for March to be “extremely elevated” in large part because of it.
The EPA has lifted seasonal restrictions on E15 in the past, including after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The Trump administration allowed for selling E15 in the summer months two years later but had the rule struck down by a federal appeals court. | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/biden-waiving-ethanol-rule-to-try-and-help-lower-gasoline-prices/ | 2022-04-12T15:22:04 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/biden-waiving-ethanol-rule-to-try-and-help-lower-gasoline-prices/ |
ALBANY, N.Y. (WTEN) — New York State Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin has been taken into custody on campaign finance charges. According to ABC News, a press conference at noon will unseal an indictment charging Benjamin with bribery and related offenses.
NEWS10 has obtained a copy of the federal indictment from the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. It alleges that Benjamin schemed to obtain campaign contributions from a real estate developer in exchange for a $50,000 state grant. He reportedly offered his official authority and influence in the New York State Senate to funnel the funds.
The indictment characterized it as “a bribery scheme using public funds for his own corrupt purposes.” Take a look at the document below:
Benjamin, whose seven months in the role were overshadowed by probes into a previous campaign, was arrested Tuesday in a federal corruption investigation. The U.S. Attorney’s office said Benjamin was arrested on charges of bribery, honest services wire fraud, and falsification of records.
Formerly a state senator from New York City’s Harlem, Benjamin joined the administration of Gov. Kathy Hochul in September, chosen by her to fill her former job a couple of weeks after she stepped into the governorship following the resignation of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over sexual harassment allegations. But just over two months later, a real estate developer who steered campaign contributions toward Benjamin’s failed bid for New York City comptroller was indicted.
Federal authorities accused Gerald Migdol of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft in illegally giving donations to Benjamin’s campaign. Prosecutors had previously not made any accusations against Benjamin, and his campaign said at the time of Migdol’s arrest that it had forfeited any improper donations as soon as they were discovered.
More recently, reports came out saying subpoenas had been issued to Benjamin regarding the financial issues even before Hochul picked him as lieutenant governor. Despite her saying she didn’t know of the subpoenas at the time, Hochul proclaimed her support for Benjamin, and he said he had told state police as they went through the process of vetting him.
“I have utmost confidence in my lieutenant governor,” Hochul said during a Thursday press conference. “This is an independent investigation related to other people and he’s fully cooperating. He is my running mate.”
Benjamin was the state’s second Black lieutenant governor. During his state Legislature career, the Democrat emphasized criminal justice reform and affordable housing. His district included most of central Harlem, where he was born and raised by Caribbean immigrant parents. He has a bachelor’s degree in public policy from Brown University and a master’s of business administration from Harvard Business School and worked as a developer of affordable housing.
According to the New York Times, Benjamin will be appearing in Manhattan federal court. He reportedly surrendered to authorities to face the charges in connection with a past campaign.
Requests for comment have not been returned by Benjamin’s office, Hochul’s office, or the office of State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. Stick with WTEN for more on this story as it develops.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/new-york-lt-gov-benjamin-arrested/ | 2022-04-12T15:22:10 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/new-york-lt-gov-benjamin-arrested/ |
(NewsNation) — There’s a little device appearing to cause big problems for some people. Apple AirTags are coin-sized gadgets that allow owners to track misplaced items. But as NewsNation has learned, some people are also using them to track other people.
An AirTag can be attached to most items. The small button-shaped device is simply placed on an item, then tracked through an app. The AirTag speaker and Bluetooth antenna will then ping the location of the missing item.
But hundreds of people have reported being unknowingly tracked by the tiny devices and there are fears the number could grow. Authorities say there are unsettling cases of stalkers and thieves planting AirTags and then following people’s movements.
A new report from VICE Media’s Motherboard by reporter Samantha Cole shared the results of 150 police reports involving AirTags. The report states that 50 cases were from women who called police when they received notifications their whereabouts were being tracked. Of those, half of the women reported knowing the person tracking them.
Cole combed through the police reports to document crimes associated with AirTags. She says many of the reports followed a similar pattern.
“What stood out to me was probably the consistency throughout the stories that did talk about someone who was stalking them. A lot of them followed a really similar pattern where someone had an abusive partner or an ex-partner or a man had become violent after they had broken up and then they’d taken out an Order of Protection against them or gone to the police once and then from there, they started seeing this man around town and wondering how he knew where she was at all times.
“And, you know, he would show up at work, he would show up at her house and kind of be watching her even though she had already taken the measures to kind of protect yourself against him. So yeah, that was the most kind of striking thing to me … the reports really followed this very specific pattern of a man escalating his stalking and harassment after she tried to cut ties with him,” Cole said Monday on NewsNation’s “Rush Hour.”
So, how are police suggesting that people protect themselves in similar situations?
“A lot of reports that I read, and I can just kind of speak to what was in the reports that we read, the police responded, saying, you know, you can take out another Order of Protection, you can call a domestic violence hotline, you can obviously take the AirTag off of your vehicle, or you know, turn it in for evidence and you kind of keep a paper trail that way,” Cole said.
“They’re all doing the right thing and kind of, you know, starting this reporting process and saying the behaviors escalated, I need someone to know about this. But beyond that, there was not a lot that police were going to saying to these women to protect themselves because there’s not a ton to be done … when you don’t you’re being tracked.”
While other tracking devices are out on the market, officials don’t yet know the scale of if products other than AirTags are reportedly being used by stalkers and thieves.
“This is the first time we’ve really seen the scale of the AirTags being abused in a way that we’ve … had this theoretical, or like you said, there have been … here and there cases where people have reported being stalked with them,” Cole said. “But you know, this is the first time we’ve seen where it’s actually happening in a really large scale.
“As far as other devices, we’re not totally sure yet. … They’re even harder to detect. Some of the experts that I talked to before this recording said the fact that people are going to the police are reporting that they found AirTags as evidence that they’re working that the notifications and the safety systems that Apple is putting in place that are actually, finally checking in and people are able to find their tags in the first place. And with these other devices … like Tile and others, there’s no such notification coming to your phone where you’re being followed by them. So there’s a lot to be done in this industry to protect people.”
Apple is aware its product is being used for stalking. The tech giant released a new personal safety user guide and issued the following statement: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms any malicious use of our products. Apple has been working closely with various safety groups and law enforcement agencies. Through our own evaluations and these discussions, we have identified even more ways we can update AirTag safety warnings and help guard against further unwanted tracking.” | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/reports-of-stalking-linked-to-airtags-often-follow-pattern/ | 2022-04-12T15:22:16 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/reports-of-stalking-linked-to-airtags-often-follow-pattern/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation soared over the past year at its fastest pace in more than 40 years, with costs for food, gasoline, housing and other necessities squeezing American consumers and wiping out the pay raises that many people have received.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that its consumer price index jumped 8.5% in March from 12 months earlier — the biggest year-over-year increase since December 1981. Prices have been driven up by bottlenecked supply chains, robust consumer demand and disruptions to global food and energy markets worsened by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The government’s report also showed that inflation rose 1.2% from February to March, up from a 0.8% increase from January to February.
The March inflation numbers were the first to capture the full surge in gasoline prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. Moscow’s brutal attacks have triggered far-reaching Western sanctions against the Russian economy and have disrupted global food and energy markets. According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of gasoline — $4.10 — is up 43% from a year ago, though it has fallen back in the past couple of weeks.
The escalation of energy prices has led to higher transportation costs for the shipment of goods and components across the economy, which, in turn, has contributed to higher prices for consumers.
The latest evidence of accelerating prices will solidify expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates aggressively in the coming months to try to slow borrowing and spending and tame inflation. The financial markets now foresee much steeper rate hikes this year than Fed officials had signaled as recently as last month.
Even before Russia’s war further spurred price increases, robust consumer spending, steady pay raises and chronic supply shortages had sent U.S. consumer inflation to its highest level in four decades. In addition, housing costs, which make up about a third of the consumer price index, have escalated, a trend that seems unlikely to reverse anytime soon.
Economists point out that as the economy has emerged from the depths of the pandemic, consumers have been gradually broadening their spending beyond goods to include more services. A result is that high inflation, which at first had reflected mainly a shortage of goods — from cars and furniture to electronics and sports equipment — has been emerging in services, too, like travel, health care and entertainment.
The expected fast pace of the Fed’s rate increases will make loans sharply more expensive for consumers and businesses. Mortgage rates, in particular, though not directly influenced by the Fed, have rocketed higher in recent weeks, making home-buying more expensive. Many economists say they worry that the Fed has waited too long to begin raising rates and might end up acting so aggressively as to trigger a recession.
For now, the economy as a whole remains solid, with unemployment near 50-year lows and job openings near record highs. Still, rocketing inflation, with its impact on Americans’ daily lives, is posing a political threat to President Joe Biden and his Democratic allies as they seek to keep control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
Economists generally express doubt that even the sharp rate hikes that are expected from the Fed will manage to reduce inflation anywhere near the central bank’s 2% annual target by the end of this year. Tilley, Wilmington Trust economist, said he expects year-over-year consumer inflation to still be 4.5% by the end of 2020. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he had forecast a much lower 3% rate.
Inflation, which had been largely under control for four decades, began to accelerate last spring as the U.S. and global economies rebounded with unexpected speed and strength from the brief but devastating coronavirus recession that began in the spring of 2020.
The recovery, fueled by huge infusions of government spending and super-low interest rates, caught businesses by surprise, forcing them to scramble to meet surging customer demand. Factories, ports and freight yards struggled to keep up, leading to chronic shipping delays and price spikes.
Critics also blame, in part, the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion March 2021 stimulus program, which included $1,400 relief checks for most households, for helping overheat an already sizzling economy.
Many Americans have been receiving pay increases, but the pace of inflation has more than wiped out those gains for most people. In February, after accounting for inflation, average hourly wages fell 2.5% from a year earlier. It was the 11th straight monthly drop in inflation-adjusted wages. | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/us-inflation-soars-to-40-year-high-jumping-8-5-in-past-year/ | 2022-04-12T15:22:22 | 1 | https://www.wric.com/news/u-s-world/us-inflation-soars-to-40-year-high-jumping-8-5-in-past-year/ |
(The Hill) — Last month’s domestic flight prices were 20 percent higher than pre-pandemic levels, according to data released Tuesday.
The analysis from Adobe Digital Insights reveals that travelers are already experiencing significant price hikes. In February, flight prices were only up 5 percent from the same period in 2019, while January prices were 3 percent lower than pre-pandemic levels.
The uptick is driven by a recent boom in bookings that coincided with low COVID-19 case counts. The analysis found that customers spent $8.8 billion on tickets online last month, a 28 percent increase from pre-pandemic levels and a 32 percent increase from February.
“The unleash of pent-up demand has been a major driving factor, as the desire for air travel is coming back more aggressively than anticipated,” Adobe Digital Insights lead analyst Vivek Pandya said in a statement.
Experts have advised travelers to book their flights soon, warning that prices will only rise further as demand outpaces supply. Major airlines already weren’t seating as many passengers as they were before the pandemic, and they’ve recently cut down on their schedules to account for higher fuel prices.
The cost of jet fuel in North America rose by 30 percent over the last month and is up 158 percent from one year ago, according to data from S&P Global. Prices spiked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and remained elevated in recent weeks, even as the price of crude oil dropped.
Another analysis from flight booking website Hopper released last week found that domestic flight prices have increased by 40 percent since the start of the year and are expected to rise another 10 percent next month. | https://www.wric.com/news/us-flight-prices-surged-in-march-analysis/ | 2022-04-12T15:22:28 | 0 | https://www.wric.com/news/us-flight-prices-surged-in-march-analysis/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears, less than five months after her conservatorship ended, confused some fans Monday when she posted on Instagram that she’s pregnant, and apparently married.
“I lost so much weight to go on my Maui trip only to gain it back,” the pop star wrote in part Monday, accompanied by a photo of flowers and a cup of coffee. “I thought ”Geez … what happened to my stomach???” My husband said “No you’re food pregnant silly!!!” So I got a pregnancy test … and uhhhhh well … I am having a baby. …”
Spears — with liberal use of various emojis — didn’t name partner Sam Asghari as the “husband” and added: “I obviously won’t be going out as much due to the paps getting their money shot of me like they unfortunately already have.”
While some, including Paris Hilton, congratulated Spears.
Monday evening, Asghari added an Instagram post of his ownaccompanied by a painting of a lion family with three members.
“Marriage and kids are a natural part of a strong relationship filled with love and respect. Fatherhood is something i have always looked forward to and i don’t take lightly. It is the most important job i will ever do,” he wrote.
Spears spoke of suffering from perinatal depression in the past, calling it “absolutely horrible” and saying she’s heartened that the condition is spoken of more freely among women now than at the time of her previous go arounds with her sons, ages 15 and 16. She shares the teens with ex Kevin Federline.
She said “some people considered it dangerous if a woman complained like that with a baby inside her … but now women talk about it everyday … thank Jesus we don’t have to keep that pain a reserved proper secret … This time I will be doing yoga every day !!! Spreading lots of joy and love!!!”
The 40-year-old Spears has said she longed for a baby with the 28-year-old Asghari, a personal trainer, but she has said the nearly 14-year-long conservatorship forced her to remain on birth control.
The two met on the set of her “Slumber Party” video in 2016.
Multiple email requests for confirmation from Spears’ representative were not immediately returned Monday. | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/britney-spears-confuses-some-with-instagram-pregnancy-news/ | 2022-04-12T15:29:44 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/britney-spears-confuses-some-with-instagram-pregnancy-news/ |
FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A jury was selected Monday to hear a long-anticipated libel lawsuit Johnny Depp filed against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard, whom he accuses of falsely portraying him as a domestic abuser.
Depp sued Heard over an op-ed piece she wrote in The Washington Post in 2018 in which Heard refers to herself as a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article doesn’t mention Depp by name, but he says it clearly refers to allegations Heard made in other forums that she suffered physical abuse at his hands. Depp denies the accusations.
The lawsuit brought a little bit of Hollywood to a courthouse that has a long history of dealing with high-profile crimes, just not those involving movie stars.
More than a dozen women, some waving signs saying “Justice for Johnny,” joined other fans who waved pirate flags in recognition of Depp’s signature role in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, waited outside the courthouse an hour before the hearing.
The courtroom in the city of Fairfax was closed to the public Monday, with limited closed-circuit access in an overflow courtroom. People lined up before 7 a.m. for the wristbands granting access. Both Depp and Heard were in attendance, but court personnel brought them in and out utilizing special access points that frustrated fans’ ability to see them.
The judge overseeing the trial, Penney Azcarate, has imposed a series of access rules to try to maintain decorum in the courthouse. Most significantly, neither Depp nor Heard are permitted to pose for photos or sign autographs in the courthouse or on the courthouse grounds.
Depp’s fans have been vocal in their support, saying he has been falsely accused. Raylyn Otey, a Depp fan from Bluefield, Virginia, drove five hours to see the movie star. She was disappointed when Depp did not greet fans personally, as sheriff’s deputies carefully limited fan access.
“I’m so disappointed. I came to give him flowers to show some support,” she said, bouquet in hand.
In a separate lawsuit Depp filed against a British newspaper, a judge dismissed the case, finding that Depp assaulted Heard on a dozen occasions and put her in fear for her life on multiple occasions.
Heard has filed a countersuit against Depp that accuses his lawyers of defaming her at his direction.
Heard’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to have the case moved to California, where the actors reside. A Fairfax judge ruled that Depp was within his rights to bring the case here because the Post’s online editions are published through servers located in Fairfax County. Depp’s lawyers have said they brought the case in Virginia in part because the laws here are more favorable to their case.
A jury of seven, plus four alternates, was selected by Monday afternoon. The smaller jury is typical for civil trials in Virginia.
Opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday morning. The trial is expected to last more than a month. A long list of witnesses includes actors James Franco and Paul Bettany, and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. Some witnesses are expected to appear in person, while others will testify via video link.
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Raylyn Otey’s last name. | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/johnny-depp-suit-against-amber-heard-starts-with-jury-picks/ | 2022-04-12T15:29:51 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/johnny-depp-suit-against-amber-heard-starts-with-jury-picks/ |
Holocaust survivor speaking at Kansas Wesleyan University
With the end of World War II happening in 1945, first-hand accounts from survivors of the Holocaust are becoming more difficult to hear, but people in Salina will have the opportunity to do just that on Wednesday at Kansas Wesleyan University.
The school welcomes Holocaust survivor Judy Jacobs, who was born in Budapest, Hungary as Judith Gondos in 1937 and was taken with her family to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when Germany invaded Hungary in early 1944. The family remained at the camp until December 1944, when they were taken to Switzerland.
Jacobs, who will be appearing via Zoom at 7 p.m. in Sams Chapel, said she will speak about what she experienced during that time.
"I was a young child during the Holocaust, but I was with my parents," Jacobs said. "Between my experiences and what I gleaned from my parents, I think I have a pretty good idea of what (it was like)."
The website for Bergen-Belsen said the concentration camp saw more than 52,000 people from various parts of Europe die, including sisters Anne and Margot Frank, from horrors such as starvation, disease and exposure to severe weather.
Additionally, thousands of others were taken to Bergen-Belsen as it served as an “exchange camp” for Jewish prisoners. More than 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust at concentration camps like Bergen-Belsen.
Jacobs didn't want to give too many details about how she and her family survived the experience, as she wanted to let people hear more clearly from her on Wednesday about her time at the camp.
Education cannot be taken away, even during the Holocaust
Even after surviving the evils of Bergen-Belsen, Jacob's father, who was educated as a physician was able to keep his knowledge and use it later in his life.
"After a little re-credentialing in this country, he was up and running in no time, and he did just fine," Jacobs said. "Had he been a businessman...he might have succeeded, but it may have been more difficult."
Jacobs said she is proud to have been raised with the idea that she needed to be educated.
"Jewish people often have this feeling that education is the most important thing you can do," Jacobs said. "It's the one thing that (people) can't take away from you. (We were) persecuted and chased out of (our) country and (education is) the thing that you can take with you."
She knew education was an important part of society, having family in the field.
"My grandfather in Hungary was a school principal, so there's a family history of that," Jacobs said.
Having always wanted to teach school, Jacobs got an education degree from the University of Michigan, but moved into the financial sector, eventually earning a masters in business administration.
"The love of education stayed with me," Jacobs said. "I wanted a Ph.D. and I went back to education."
The presentation, which is happening courtesy of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 13 at Sams Chapel in Pioneer Hall, 100 E Claflin Ave, Salina, KS 67401. The event is free and open to the public and a question-and-answer session will follow after the presentation. | https://www.salina.com/story/news/2022/04/12/kansas-wesleyan-university-hosts-holocaust-survivor-judy-jacobs/7275016001/ | 2022-04-12T15:29:57 | 0 | https://www.salina.com/story/news/2022/04/12/kansas-wesleyan-university-hosts-holocaust-survivor-judy-jacobs/7275016001/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is branching out from covering top stories to performing a theatrical reading.
“Today” show hosts Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb will be among the readers of “Murder in Studio One,” planned to be read before an audience on April 27 and released later on a podcast through Audible, Inc.
Al Roker, Craig Melvin and Jenna Bush Hager will also be among the dozen NBC News hosts performing, it was announced on Monday.
They’ll read the murder mystery on the afternoon of April 27 at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York. Ticket sales benefit the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, NBC said.
Audible has recorded other theatrical performances, starring actors like John Lithgow, Billy Crudup, Alan Cumming, Kate Mulgrew and Carey Mulligan. | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/nbc-today-show-stars-to-perform-live-theatrical-reading/ | 2022-04-12T15:29:58 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/nbc-today-show-stars-to-perform-live-theatrical-reading/ |
Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— Astonishingly, “Drive My Car” was not Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s only film last year. His acclaimed Haruki Murakami adaptation certainly got the most attention culminating in the International Feature Oscar win last month, but his three-part anthology film “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” deserves some more, too (it did win runner up at the Berlin Film Festival). The triptych follows three young women navigating romantic pursuits, ex loves and strange triangles. And it’ll be available to stream on the Criterion Channel starting Thursday. Don’t worry, this one clocks in at only two hours.
— Modern relationships, albeit French ones, are also at the heart of Jacques Audiard’s black and white “Paris, 13th District,” available on VOD on Friday from IFC Films. Adapted from Adrian Tomine’s graphic novels, the film follows various young Parisians living in the less-than-picturesque corner of the city of lights as they struggle to form real connections and relationships in a Tinder world. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” fans should be excited to know that filmmaker Céline Sciamma helped co-write the film and Noémie Merlant co-stars.
— Continuing on the international streak of new films to stream this week, Filipino director Brillante Mendoza was inspired by the true story of boxer Naozumi Tsuchiyama for his drama “Gensan Punch,” which comes to HBO Max on Friday. The Japanese athlete with a prosthetic leg went to the Philippines to pursue boxing after being denied the opportunity in his home country.
— AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr
MUSIC
— Jewel’s first new studio album in seven years “Freewheelin’ Woman” finds her leaning into a soulful and groove-heavy sound. The single “Living With Your Memory” has her kicking up a retro but timeless R&B vibe with a full, horn-heavy band. “I’m rollin’/ rollin’/ rollin’/ Back the time,” she sings. On “Long Way ‘Round,” her voice switches gears thrillingly, as comfortable as a pair of favorite jeans. Jewel is also a contender on NBC’s new music competition series “American Song Contest,” where she represents the state of Alaska among rising and established artists from across the country competing for best song
— Guess who else is on “American Song Contest”? Electronic music outfit The Crystal Method, who will release their seventh studio album, “The Trip Out,” on Friday. A few days before — on Monday — The Crystal Method will represent Nevada on the NBC contest and debut their song “Watch Me Now.” The dance icons recently joined forces with Iggy Pop for “Post Punk,” a menacing, futuristic jam with a relentless beat that sounds perfect for a rave on a mission to Mars.
— AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy
TELEVISION
— Hugh Laurie wears just about every hat for BritBox’s “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” Laurie directed, produced, wrote and acts in the three-episode mystery series based on Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel of the same title — the final words of a murder victim. Lady Frances and her friend Bobby (Lucy Boynton, Will Poulter), who found the dying man, turn amateur detectives to solve the case. Laurie plays a sanatorium’s clinical director, which should be a good fit for the former Dr. Gregory House. The limited series debuts Tuesday on the streaming service.
— America’s national parks are undeniable gems, but not a monopoly. “Our Great National Parks,” a five-part Netflix series, takes a global view of public lands and the wildlife that inhabits them. Episode one hopscotches across parks and countries, including Hawaii’s Hanauma Bay; Loango National Park, Gabon; Yakushima National Park, Japan, and Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica. Subsequent episodes focus on Chilean Patagonia; Tsavo, Kenya; California’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and Gunung Leuser in Indonesia. Former President Barack Obama produced and narrates the series debuting Wednesday.
— When “The Brothers Garcia” aired on Nickelodeon in the early 2000s, it was among the rare shows with a Latino cast and creators. Nearly two decades later, a reboot of the sitcom for HBO Max still represents a TV scarcity. “The Garcias” revolves around the San Antonio, Texas, family as they congregate for summer vacation at their beach house in Mexico. Actors reprising their roles from the original series include Jeffrey Licon, Bobby Gonzalez, Alvin Alvarez and Vaneza Pitynski as the Garcia siblings. Jeff Valdez, co-creator of the Nickelodeon show, created and is the showrunner for “The Garcias,” debuting Thursday on the streaming service.
— AP Television Writer Lynn Elber
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Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/apf-entertainment. | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/new-this-week-the-garcias-jewel-music-and-barack-obama/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:05 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/new-this-week-the-garcias-jewel-music-and-barack-obama/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow returned to the air Monday with some bad news for her fans: Starting next month, she will be doing her prime-time show only once a week.
After working her customary five nights a week for the rest of April, Maddow said, she will work on Monday nights only starting in May. The network said it will rotate guest hosts the other four weeknights on a show called “MSNBC Prime.”
“For big news events, for things like the leadup to the election, I will of course be here more than that, but that is the general plan,” Maddow said on her show Monday.
The cable news network’s most popular personality had been on hiatus for the past two months, working on a new podcast and a movie adaptation of her book “Bag Man.” She said the weekly schedule will give her “more time to work on some of this other stuff I’ve got cooking for MSNBC and NBC.”
She heaped praise on Ali Velshi, who had filled in frequently for her while she was away, calling him a “prince among men.”
Yet MSNBC’s ratings in her time slot tumbled in her absence, even with coverage of a gripping news event, the Ukraine war. MSNBC is not alone in questions about its 9 p.m. Eastern hour: CNN hasn’t named a full-time replacement for its former ratings leader, Chris Cuomo, since he was fired in December.
The plan leaves MSNBC executives in an awkward spot. While it has been reported that MSNBC signed a new contract with Maddow that gives her additional flexibility, executives have not publicly addressed that deal, or Maddow’s announcement Monday. It seems, at least for the time being, the network will be happy to get as much as it can from Maddow and leave the light on if she someday decides to do more.
Maddow said she had originally thought she might need another hiatus from her show this year but has determined that she won’t. | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/rachel-maddow-returns-to-msnbc-will-switch-to-once-a-week/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:11 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/entertainment-news/rachel-maddow-returns-to-msnbc-will-switch-to-once-a-week/ |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric, the nation’s largest utility, has agreed to pay more than $55 million to avoid criminal prosecution for two major wildfires sparked by its aging Northern California power lines and submit to five years of oversight in an attempt to prevent more deadly blazes.
The company didn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement announced Monday with prosecutors in six counties ravaged bylast year’s Dixie Fireand the 2019 Kincade Fire. The utility still faces criminal charges for a 2020 wildfire in Shasta County that killed four people.
The civil settlements are designed to accelerate payments to hundreds of people whose homes were destroyed so they can start rebuilding more quickly than those who suffered devastating losses in 2017 and 2018 blazes ignited by PG&E’s equipment. Those fires prompted the utility to negotiate settlements that included $13.5 billion earmarked for victims — money that still hasn’t been completely distributed.
The deal also thrusts the utility back into five years of independent oversight, similar to the supervision PG&E faced during itscriminal probation after it was convicted of misconduct that contributed to a natural gas explosion that killed eight people in 2010.
Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said that oversight was the biggest accomplishment to come from the settlement.
“We have limited tools and criminal law to deal with corporations and what we were able to do here was to get a five-year agreement that they will be overseen, that there will be an independent monitor, and that they will have to meet certain benchmarks,” she said Monday.
All told, PG&E has been blamed for more than 30 wildfires since 2017 that wiped out more than 23,000 homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people.
PG&E’s federal probation ended in late January, raising worries from the federal judge who tried to force the utility to reduce fire risks by requiring more maintenance and reporting. U.S. District Judge William Alsup warned that PG&E remained a “continuing menace to California” and urged state prosecutors to try to rein in the company that provides power to 16 million people.
In a joint statement covering five of the six counties that settled, prosecutors said PG&E will be “essentially on a five-year probation” to be overseen by Filsinger Energy Partners, which already acts as a safety monitor for California power regulators.
PG&E will have to underwrite the federal monitor’s costs, up to $15 million annually, in addition to the $55 million in other payments and penalties that the utility expects to incur in the settlement.
As part of their settlement, Sonoma County prosecutors agreed to drop 33 criminal charges filed last year that accused PG&E of inadvertently injuring six firefighters and endangering public health with smoke and ash from the Kincade Fire that began in October 2019.
Fire officials said a PG&E transmission line sparked the fire, which destroyed 374 buildings in wine country and caused nearly 200,000 people to flee as it burned through 120 square miles (311 square kilometers), the largest evacuation in county history.
Prosecutors in the other five counties were exploring criminal charges in last year’s Dixie Fire before cutting the deal that they said will result in far larger payouts than had they hauled PG&E into court. Because there were no deaths in the Dixie Fire, prosecutors said the utility would have paid a maximum penalty of about $330,000 if it had been found guilty in a criminal case.
Ravitch said state laws that limit punishment against a corporation to probation and fines helped motivate the settlement. She said if PG&E had been successfully prosecuted in the Sonoma County case it would have paid a fine of just $9.4 million, most of which would have gone to the state.
Instead, the county will now receive more than $20 million earmarked for nonprofits that help people affected by wildfires and for Santa Rosa Junior College so that it can expand fire safety and vegetation management programs. It will also reimburse the DA’s office for the costs of investigating and litigating the case, she said.
Even when PG&E pleadedguilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter f or the deaths in the 2018 Camp Fire, the company was fined just $3.5 million.
In a statement, PG&E CEO Patti Poppe said the utility welcomed the chance to be more transparent — and ultimately more accountable — for its operations.
“We are committed to doing our part, and we look forward to a long partnership with these communities to make it right and make it safe,” Poppe said.
The money that that PG&E will pay as part of the settlements will account for a just sliver of its anticipated liabilities in the Kincade, Zogg and Dixie fires. As of December 31, PG&E estimated it will likely be held responsible for at least $2.3 billion in losses stemming from those wildfires. Some of the estimated $1.15 billion in damages caused by the Dixie Fire may be paid by a state-backed insurance fund that California lawmakers created after PG&E filed for bankruptcy in 2019.
The Dixie Fire burned nearly 1 million acres (3,900 square kilometers) in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, and Tehama counties and destroyed more than 1,300 homes and other buildings. The blaze started on July 13, 2021 when a tree hit electrical distribution lines west of a dam in the Sierra Nevada, according to investigators with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The settlement for the Dixie Fire was made by district attorneys in Plumas, Lassen, Tehama, Shasta and Butte counties, which will receive nearly $30 million.
Although her office participated in the Dixie Fire settlement, Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett said she will continue to pursue a criminal case related to the Zogg Fire, which killed four.
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Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California. | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/california-utility-to-pay-55-million-for-massive-wildfires/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:17 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/california-utility-to-pay-55-million-for-massive-wildfires/ |
The effort to hold drug companies, pharmacies and distributors accountable for their role in the opioid crisis has led to a whirlwind of legal activity around the U.S. that can be difficult keep tabs on.
Three trials are underway now, in Florida, West Virginia and Washington state. New legal settlements are being reached practically every week to provide governments money to fight the crisis and in some cases funds for medicines to reverse overdoses or to help with treatment.
In all, more than 3,000 lawsuits have been filed by state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions, hospitals and other entities in state and federal courts over the toll of opioids. Most allege the industry created a public nuisance in a crisis that has been linked to the deaths of 500,000 Americans over the past two decades.
Collectively, businesses already have faced settlements, judgements and civil and criminal penalties totaling more than $47 billion. The main entities targeted are the companies that manufactured and sold the pills; the businesses that distributed them; and the pharmacies that dispensed them.
Here’s an overview of the litigation and settlements involving the various companies:
PURDUE PHARMA
Purdue is the maker of OxyContin, an extended-release version of oxycodone that packed higher doses into pills. The drug, released in 1996, became a heavily marketed blockbuster drug — and is associated closely with the epidemic’s first wave.
Like other opioids, it was promoted not just for post-surgery and cancer pain but for chronic pain — an area where doctors previously were reluctant to prescribe such powerful drugs.
Faced with thousands of lawsuits, the company went into bankruptcy protection in 2019 to help reach a settlement.
A deal is now in place, but it’s not final.
It calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to give up their stakes, making way for it to become a new entity — to be known as Knoa Pharma — with profits funding the fight against the opioid crisis. Additionally, family members are to pay $5.5 billion to $6 billion over time, with a portion of the money going to victims.
Earlier this year, three members of the family attended an online hearing in which parents described losing children to addictions that started with OxyContin, and people recovering from addictions described their journeys.
As part of the exchange, Sackler family members would get protection from lawsuits over opioids.
For the settlement to be finalized, a higher court must overturn a judge’s ruling that threw out an earlier version of the deal. A hearing on that is scheduled for April 29 before the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.
In the meantime, activists and someU.S. senators are asking the Justice Department to consider charges against family members.
OTHER DRUGMAKERS
In a major court victory for drugmakers last year, a California judge ruledagainst some local governments in their case against pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson, Endo International and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
Some of those drugmakers — Johnson & Johnson, Allergan and Teva — are now on trialin West Virginia.
But companies have largely been settling suits.
Mallinckrodt, which was a leading producer of generic oxycodone, also used bankruptcy court to reach a settlement, agreeing to a $1.6 billion nationwide deal in 2020.
Johnson & Johnson has agreed to a $5 billion nationwide settlement. It was announced alongside a separate settlement involving the three biggest drug wholesalers. The company’s Janssen subsidiary stopped selling its fentanyl patches and pain pills in the U.S. in 2020. J&J was also the first drugmaker to be held liable for the opioid crisis in a trial, though the Oklahoma Supreme Court later overturnedthe ruling.
Endo made the opioid Opana, which was eventually removed from the market. The company has been reaching individual settlementswith states. Deals since last year with Florida, New York, Texas, West Virginia and some district attorneys in Tennessee have totaled well over $200 million.
Late last year, a New York juryfound Teva partly responsible for the state’s opioid crisis through its marketing of the fentanyl drugs Actiq and Fentora. Most of the other companies the state and two counties sued settled before or during a trial last year. A separate trial is to be held to determine damages.
Since the New York trial, Teva has reached settlements with Texas, Floridaand Rhode Island totaling more than $250 million. It will also provide drugs to reverse overdoses and treat addictions.
Allergan, now a subsidiary of AbbVie, has been settling suits involving the extended-release morphine pill Kadian. It reached one major settlement with New York last year. Since then, it has been part of the multi-company settlements in Florida and Rhode Island.
Executives from drugmaker Insys were convictedin 2019 of bribing doctors across the U.S. to prescribe their sublingual fentanyl spray Subsys. Company founder John Kapoor was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in federal prison.
The company also paid $225 million to resolve federal investigations into allegations that it paid kickbacks and used other illegal marketing tactics.
DISTRIBUTION COMPANIES
The three big national companies — AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson — finalized their settlement, worth a total of $21 billion over 18 years, in February.
The deal, combined with Johnson & Johnson’s, is expected to be the single biggest settlement between companies in the drug industry and governments.
The total amounts include separate settlements covering all federally recognized Native American tribes.
With settlement money starting to flow to state and local governments, officials are figuring out how to prioritize it. The funds are arriving at a precarious time: The number of U.S. overdose deaths from all drugs topped 100,000 in a 12-month period for the first time last year. The majority of those deaths are from opioids — and particularly illicit synthetic versionsincluding fentanyl.
Unlike the tobacco settlements of the 1990s, there are safeguards intended to steer most of the opioid settlement funds to addressing the crisis. Public health experts have ideasfor how to do that, but the decisions are up to government officials.
The distribution companies also went to trial last year in West Virginia. A judge has not yet ruled.
Closing arguments in Washington state’s trialagainst the distributors are expected this week.
PHARMACIES
Pharmacy chains have been sued less often than companies that make or distribute opioids. In one groundbreaking case, a federal jury in Ohio last year found CVS, Walgreens and Walmart recklessly distributed massive amounts of pain pills in Lake and Trumbull counties.
Late last month, CVS settled in Florida. That left Walgreensto go to trial Monday.
CONSULTING COMPANY
Global consulting firm McKinsey & Company also reached dealslast year with the states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories for advising businesses on how to sell more prescription opioids amid the overdose crisis. Those settlements totaled more than $600 million.
A group of U.S. senators is pushing for a federal investigation, saying there were conflicts when the company consulted on opioid-related issues both for companies and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/explainer-where-do-us-opioid-trials-settlements-stand/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:24 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/explainer-where-do-us-opioid-trials-settlements-stand/ |
April 12, 1947: The date fell on a Saturday during a 12-year period (1940-52) when The Star didn’t publish on that day of the week.
April 12, 1997, in The Star: Writing in his Saturday column, Star senior editor George Smith recalls the career of Jacksonville State University baseball coach Rudy Abbott, starting with the day the four-sport star at Walter Wellborn High School first approached Smith for a job a sportswriter. He was a natural from the beginning, Smith writes, and dedicated to his newspaper job, despite other responsibilities tugging at his time. “My guess is Rudy will reach 1,000 wins before his career is finished. My bet is Rudy Abbott will be in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame long before then. I can think of none more deserving,” Smith concluded. Also this date: While TV station ABC 33/40 refuses to allow the gay coming-out episode of the Ellen sitcom to air in the Birmingham market, two enterprising groups plan to make sure everyone gets to see the April 30 episode who wants to. Birmingham Pride Alabama and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation plan to arrange a satellite hook-up so the episode can be shown to an audience at the Alabama Theater. [The next day, however, the management of the Alabama Theater said it would not allow an event of that nature in its auditorium — “way too controversial,” said a spokesman.] | https://www.annistonstar.com/features/look-back-to-george-smith-s-praise-for-rudy-abbott-1997/article_bd631bee-ba31-11ec-b461-f71b3fd0e995.html | 2022-04-12T15:30:31 | 0 | https://www.annistonstar.com/features/look-back-to-george-smith-s-praise-for-rudy-abbott-1997/article_bd631bee-ba31-11ec-b461-f71b3fd0e995.html |
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey regulators gave a green light Monday to seven facilities that already sell medical marijuana to also sell recreational cannabis, although it’s not clear exactly when sales would begin.
Sales could start in a matter of weeks or longer, but a specific date wasn’t set at the New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s vote during a remotely held meeting. Three of the facilities, known as alternative treatment centers, are in the northern part of the state. Three are in the south, and one is in central New Jersey.
The timing of the start of sales is unclear in part because the facilities must still pass a regulatory inspection of their operations and be issued new licenses.
The New Jersey Cannabis Trade Association, a trade group that advocates for the alternative treatment centers, estimated that recreational retail sales could start as the soon as the end of April, according to spokesperson Pamela Dollak. But it could vary by location, as each center faces compliance and other considerations.
Retail sales for the general public would start in 13 dispensaries operated by the seven treatment centers across the state.
To get approval, the facilities have agreed that the coming influx of recreational buyers won’t interrupt access for patients who are currently using medical marijuana. The facilities said they would reserve parking spaces for patients as well as keep hours specifically for patients only.
There are about 130,000 medical marijuana patients in the state, with an estimated roughly 800,000 potential recreational consumers, and fewer than 800,000 estimated “tourism” consumers, according to the commission.
How much money the state will get in tax revenues from recreational marijuana isn’t clear. Murphy’s fiscal year 2023 budget, which is pending before the Democrat-led Legislature, estimates revenues of just $19 million in a nearly $49 billion budget. In 2019, as legalization of recreational marijuana was still just pending before voters, he had estimated about $60 million in revenue.
Legislation governing the recreational market calls for the 6.625% sales tax to apply, with 70% of the proceeds going to areas disproportionately affected by marijuana-related arrests. Black residents were likelier — up to three times as much — to face marijuana charges than white residents. Towns can also levy a tax of up to 2%.
“These approvals were given based on commitments from the ATCs that we would not see adverse effects with expansion,” commission chairperson Dianna Houenou said. “Expansion into the adult-use market — with a substantial advantageous start ahead of new applicants — is a privilege that must not be taken lightly.”
The vote comes about a year after the commission started operating, and a year and a half after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question to permit recreational marijuana for people 21 and older.
New Jersey’s Senate President Nicholas Scutari praised the development in a statement Monday, but said the state needs to “do better and in a timely way.”
He added that he plans to hold oversight hearings to get an understanding of the “delays, the uncertainties and any obstacles that hinder the full implementation of the cannabis law.”
New Jersey is one of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, that legalized recreational marijuana. There also are 37 states, including New Jersey, that have legalized medical marijuana. | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/nj-approves-7-facilities-for-recreational-cannabis-sales/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:32 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/nj-approves-7-facilities-for-recreational-cannabis-sales/ |
WARSAW (AP) — A disputed compound in the Polish capital of Warsaw administered by Russia’s diplomatic mission is being taken over by the city and will be made available to the Ukrainian community, the mayor said Monday.
Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski was at the site early Monday and said a bailiff had entered the two apparently empty, fenced buildings, nicknamed “Spyville” by Warsaw residents, to check on their condition and to mark them as seized by the city.
Trzaskowski said Warsaw was getting back the compound “unlawfully” occupied by Russia. Last month he said Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine added urgency to the decades-long procedure.
“It is very symbolic that we are closing this procedure of many years now, at the time of Russia’s aggression” against Ukraine, Trzaskowski said on Twitter.
Ukraine’s ambassador, Andrii Deshchytsia, told Poland’s state news agency PAP that Ukraine will file to lease the compound, which could be used for a school or a Ukrainian culture center.
One of Trzaskowski’s proposals for the 100-odd apartments there is to accommodate war refugees from Ukraine. More than 2.6 million of them have crossed into Poland since the Russian invasion began.
Photos from the inside the buildings were published later Monday by the Onet.pl news portal. They showed peeling paint, broken glass on the floor and torn-out flooring.
Russia’s Embassy, which had the tall apartment blocks built in the 1970s on land obtained from the city, has been refusing court orders to pay to lease the land or hand it over.
Once busy, the buildings became empty in the 1990s, after Poland shed its communist rule and Soviet Union’s dominance in 1989, and after the Soviet Union itself dissolved in 1991.
Ever since, Poland has been saying that the contract for the lease of the plot of land had expired and demanded that it be returned. But its gates remained closed and guarded.
Russia’s diplomatic and business missions have much more property in Poland than Poland has in Russia, which is in violation of reciprocity rules, according to Poland’s Foreign Ministry.
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Follow AP stories on developments in the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine. | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/warsaw-takes-over-russia-built-compound-to-give-to-ukraine/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:38 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/business/warsaw-takes-over-russia-built-compound-to-give-to-ukraine/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is unveiling a completed rule aimed at reining in the proliferation of ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers that have been turning up at crime scenes across the nation in increasing numbers.
The White House and the Justice Department argue that regulating the firearms parts and requiring dealers to stamp serial numbers on ghost guns will help drive down violent crime and aid investigators in solving crimes. Gun groups, however, argue that the government is overreaching and that its rule violates federal law.
Here’s a look at ghost guns and the debate brewing in the U.S.
WHAT ARE GHOST GUNS?
They are privately-made firearms without serial numbers.
Generally, firearms manufactured by licensed companies are required to have serial numbers – usually displayed on the frame of the gun – that allow officials to trace the gun back to the manufacturer, the firearms dealer and original purchaser.
Ghost guns, however, are made of parts and are then assembledtogether. The critical component in building an untraceable gun is what is known as the lower receiver. Some are sold in do-it-yourself kits and the receivers are typically made from metal or polymer.
An unfinished receiver — sometimes referred to as an “80-percent receiver” — can be legally bought online with no serial numbers or other markings on it, no license required. Under the current rules, the federal government does not consider unfinished lower receivers to be firearms.
WHAT DOES THE RULE DO?
It changes the definition of a firearm and will require federal firearms dealers to add serial numbers to ghost guns that come their way.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has, for years, said that unfinished lower receivers don’t meet the legal definition of a firearm. And there is nothing illegal about building your own firearm.
It’s legal to make your own firearm if it’s for your personal use and you don’t intend to sell it. But if you open a business selling guns, you need a federal firearms license.
Under the new rule, the definition of a firearm would change to include unfinished parts, like the frame of a handgun or the receiver of a long gun. The rule also would require those parts to be licensed and include serial numbers. Dealers would also need to run background checks before a sale — just like they do with other commercially made firearms.
The requirement applies regardless of how the firearm was made, meaning it includes ghost guns made from individual parts, kits, or by 3D-printers.
It also will compel federally licensed dealers and gunsmiths who take in firearms without serial numbers to add serial numbers. That means, for example, if someone sells a ghost gun to a pawn broker – or other licensed dealer – the dealer must put a serial number on it before selling the gun to someone else.
HOW PREVELANT ARE GHOST GUNS?
Ghost guns aren’t new. But they are becoming a growing problem for law enforcement agencies across the U.S.
Federal officials have been sounding the alarm about the growing black market for homemade, military-style semi-automatic rifles and handguns. And guns without serial numbers have been turning up more frequently at crime scenes. They have also been increasingly encountered when federal agents buy guns in undercover operations from gang members and other criminals.
Ghost guns really popped into the public consciousness in 2013 when a gunman, John Zawahri, opened fire on the campus of Santa Monica College in California. Six people were killed, including Zawahri’s father and brother. The suspect had assembled an AR-15 after failing a background check at a gun dealer.
A gunman who killed his wife and four others in Northern California in 2017 had been prohibited from owning firearms, but he built his own to skirt the court order before his rampage. And in 2019, a teenager used a homemade handgun to fatally shoot two classmates and wound three others at a school in suburban Los Angeles.
The sale of ghost guns has exploded since then. It is hard to say how many are circulating on the streets, in part because in many cases police departments don’t contact the government about the guns because they can’t be traced.
Justice Department statistics show that nearly 24,000 ghost guns were recovered by law enforcement at crime scenes and reported to the government from 2016 to 2020. The New York Police Department said officers found 131 firearms without serial numbers since January.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
The Justice Department said the rule goes into effect 120 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register. But it’s likely the rule will be be met with heavy resistance from gun groups and draw litigation in the coming weeks. Even reaching the point of introducing a rule has taken more than a year. Biden announced plansto impose tighter regulations on ghost guns in April 2021.
Gun Owners of America vowed that it would immediately fight the rule and that it would sue the ATF “to halt the implementation of this rule.” | https://www.wivb.com/news/explainer-what-are-ghost-guns-why-is-biden-taking-action/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:45 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/explainer-what-are-ghost-guns-why-is-biden-taking-action/ |
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Months of economic discontent in Pakistan were capped by days of tense drama. When the week ended, one of the country’s most charismatic prime ministers was ousted, and his replacement was a member of a prominent political dynasty.
And the turmoil may not be over yet, with implications for the whole region.
Veteran politician Shahbaz Sharif, the brother of a disgraced former premier, was sworn in Monday to head a coalition government of disparate parties spanning the political spectrum from the left to the radically religious. They also have a history of rivalry, and governing won’t be easy.
Sharif replaces Imran Khan, a beloved cricket star turned conservative Islamist politician who was toppled by a no-confidence vote, after a fight that went all the way to Pakistan’s Supreme Court.
A look at what happened and what may be ahead:
WHAT LED TO THE CHANGE?
On April 3, Khan sidestepped an initial no-confidence vote demanded by the opposition by dissolving parliament and calling early elections. The opposition, which accuses Khan of economic mismanagement, appealed to the Supreme Court. It ruled Khan’s move was illegal and the no-confidence vote went ahead early Sunday, removing him from power.
Khan has tapped into anti-American sentiment in Pakistan since 9/11, accusing Washington of conspiring with his opponents to topple him because of his independent foreign policy. The U.S. State Department denies any involvement.
Still, the change in government may be good news for the U.S., whose chaotic departure from neighboring Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover has left Washington in need of allies in the region.
WHO MAKES UP THE GOVERNMENT NOW?
The new government is a collection of disparate parties that have fought each other bitterly.
The largest are Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), led by the son and husband of Benazir Bhutto, the slain former prime minister. Both are family-run and family-dominated, allowing no leadership challenges.
The third biggest partner is the pro-Talban and radically religious Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan or Assembly of Clerics. Its religious schools are spread across the northwest, not far from the Afghan border, and have supplied soldiers to the Afghan Taliban and the homegrown Pakistani Taliban. The leaders of the JUI also are a family dynasty, led by Fazl-ur-Rahman.
The leadership of all three parties are tainted by allegations of corruption. That includes Sharif, who was to have been indicted Monday on money-laundering charges. They deny the charges as politically motivated.
They joined forces to oust Khan, but have little in common politically, other than an agenda to change election laws and realign constituencies to improve their chances in the next election, which must take place by summer 2023. They also are united against a return of Khan, who seeks to end Pakistan’s dynastic politics. There are no guarantees their shared agendas will keep them together.
Emboldened by nationwide rallies that brought out hundreds of thousands of his supporters Sunday, Khan also seems to want to force early elections through “street power.” That could lead to violence, because his base is made up mostly of a passionate younger generation.
Even though the opposition ousted him by citing economic mismanagement, it’s not clear if the new government has any easy solutions.
HOW WILL THE CHANGE AFFECT U.S. POLICY IN PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN?
When asked after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan if Pakistan would aid the U.S. with territorial rights, Khan said: “Absolutely not.” saying his country would only be a partner “in peace, but not in war.”
He was a strident critic of the U.S. war on terror after 9/11, a stand that resonates with many in Pakistan who feel they have been unjustly targeted and accused of “not doing enough” to stop the Taliban during Washington’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.
About 80,000 Pakistani civilians died in militant attacks as a result of the war, and nearly 5,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed, according to Khan, even though no Pakistani or Afghan was involved in 9/11 attacks by al Qaida. Its leader, Osama bin Laden, found a safe haven in Afghanistan to plot the attacks and was killed while hiding in Pakistan in 2011.
Khan has refused to give the U.S. any access to Pakistani territory or airspace for so-called “over- the-horizon” attacks on Islamic State targets in Afghanistan. That strategy allows the U.S. keep its forces out of Afghanistan by using air power to strike militant targets where they find them.
U.S. President Joe Biden did not have a phone call with Khan since his election, lending credence to the conspiracy theories of a rift between Islamabad and Washington. Khan says the U.S. wants a “subservient” Pakistan and opposes its warm relations with China and Russia.
Khan’s government pushed hard for the world to engage more with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and resisted U.S. attempts to punish them. Khan was deeply critical of Biden’s decision to earmark $3.5 billion in Afghanistan’s reserves held in the U.S. for the families of 9/11 victims.
While Pakistan resisted recognition of the Taliban under Khan, it led efforts to move the world in that direction. He justified some of the Taliban’s restrictive rules, such as stopping education for girls beyond the sixth grade, on tradition and culture. That raised the ire of many, even those in Afghanistan.
Washington is likely to find more willing and like-minded partners among the new government in dealing with Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
WHAT ECONOMIC TROUBLES LIE AHEAD?
The opposition said Khan had failed to properly manage the economy, with both inflation and energy prices soaring.
He tried last month to cut the price of gas at the pump by 10 Pakistani rupees (a few U.S. cents), but it’s almost certain his successors will have to raise them again. Pakistan also is a net importer of oil and gas from Russia, which is waging war in Ukraine.
The family of the new prime minister controls one of Pakistan’s biggest business houses, owning sugar and steel mills. Sharif’s win strengthened the Pakistani rupee from 86 to 82 to the dollar, and the troubled Karachi Stock Exchange made modest gains.
Khan’s government was praised internationally for managing the coronavirus pandemic with “smart lockdowns” that protected the important construction industry, which provides jobs to the poorest. His anti-corruption reputation encouraged Pakistanis abroad to send money home, returning $29.4 billion in 2020-21. That amount is expected to climb to $31 billion in 2021-22.
But the economic future still looks bleak: The Islamic Development Bank expects Pakistan’s gross domestic product to slow to 4% from 5.6% last year, and inflation is expected to rise from 8.9% in 2021 to about 11% this year.
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Follow Kathy Gannon on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Kathygannon | https://www.wivb.com/news/explainer-whats-ahead-for-politically-volatile-pakistan/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:52 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/explainer-whats-ahead-for-politically-volatile-pakistan/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — The 4-foot bronze Fearless Girl statue that was deposited in front of New York City’s Charging Bull in 2017 will remain in its current spot opposite the New York Stock Exchange at least until early next year while city officials wrestle with a permanent disposition for the popular symbol of female empowerment, a city board decided Monday.
Members of the Public Design Commission granted an 11-month permit extension and said they would spend the next six months exploring a way for New York City to take ownership of the statue, which is currently the subject of litigation between artist Kristen Visbal and State Street Global Advisors, the Boston-based asset-management firm that commissioned it.
“We today, the Public Design Commission, cannot make this a permanent piece of art,” commission president Signe Nielsen said. “We can urge that steps be taken to enable this work to be considered for the public collection.”
The statue of a spunky young girl was supposed to be a temporary installation when State Street commissioned it in 2017 to urge higher representation of women on corporate boards, but permits to keep it on display were extended several times once it became a major tourist attraction.
Fearless Girl was moved to its current location opposite the Stock Exchange in December 2018 and has continued to draw selfie-taking visitors there.
Visbal, meanwhile, began selling replicas of the statue around the world. State Street, which had an ownership contract with the artist, sued Visbal alleging the replica sales violated the agreement, and Visbal countersued, arguing that the company was infringing on her rights.
“The commission should be aware that State Street has sued me, which makes it impossible for them to act as fair agents on my behalf,” Visbal told design commission members over Zoom.
She urged the city to take ownership of the piece itself. “I am convinced the only way artists’ rights can be honored and acknowledged is if the city owns the work,” she said.
Both Visbal and State Street indicated support for the board’s vote to renew the statue’s temporary permit while working toward a permanent solution.
“As the Artist and the creator of the ‘Fearless Girl’ statue, I am beyond grateful to New York City and the Public Design Commission for hearing my concerns,” Visbal said in a statement. “I pledge to work with the City to identify a fair and reasonable solution in the coming six months.”
A State Street spokesperson said in a statement: “We are appreciative the Fearless Girl statue will remain at her current location in front of the New York Stock Exchange. With the outcome of today’s hearing with the City of New York’s Public Design Commission, we will work together with the Department of Transportation, PDC and the artist regarding our desire to keep the Fearless Girl statue at her current location for an extended period.” | https://www.wivb.com/news/fearless-girl-statue-will-stay-put-opposite-nyse-for-now/ | 2022-04-12T15:30:59 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/fearless-girl-statue-will-stay-put-opposite-nyse-for-now/ |
ATLANTA (AP) — A lawyer representing critics of Georgia’s election system said state officials have “erected a series of roadblocks” to voting through their policies and practices. An attorney for the state countered that the critics are trying to prove “democracy failed” the state, but they lack the evidence to prove it.
The statements came Monday as a trial got underway in a federal lawsuit that initially called for a broad overhaul of Georgia’s election system. The scope of the suit was considerably narrowed when some allegations were addressed by changes in state law and others were dismissed by the court. The lawsuit was filed in 2018 by Fair Fight Action, an organization founded by voting rights activist and Democratic candidate for Georgia governor Stacey Abrams, just weeks after Abrams narrowly lost her first bid for governor.
The bench trial — which means there’s no jury — is being presided over by U.S. District Judge Steve Jones and is expected to last four or five weeks. Jones has said he doesn’t expect to rule before the state’s May 24 primary.
During her opening statement, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, an attorney for Fair Fight and the other plaintiffs, evoked the image of U.S. Rep. John Lewis marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 to fight for voting rights. The congressman, who died in July 2020, had planned to be the plaintiffs’ first witness at trial, Lawrence-Hardy said.
“Voting is also a bridge. It is the most basic path to democracy,” she said. Because of the actions of state election officials, she said, “eligible voters in Georgia face roadblock after roadblock as they try to get to that path.”
The secretary of state and State Election Board have made it difficult for Georgians to register to vote, stay registered and cast a ballot that will count, she said.
When Abrams ended her 2018 bid to become governor, she said that under the watch of her victorious Republican opponent, former Secretary of State Brian Kemp, “democracy failed Georgia.” That’s a hypothesis that Fair Fight and its allies have been trying to prove ever since without success, state lawyer Josh Belinfante said.
State officials take very seriously any claims of disenfranchisement or burdens on the right to vote, Belinfante said. The plaintiffs fall short of proving their hypothesis in part because they overlook “the hard work of everyday Georgians,” the election workers who toil under difficult conditions and “just want to get it right,” he said.
The lawsuit initially said state election officials “grossly mismanaged” the 2018 election in a way that disenfranchised some citizens, particularly low-income people and people of color. The issues remaining for the trial have to do with the state’s “exact match” policy, the statewide voter registration list and in-person cancellation of absentee ballots. The plaintiffs allege violations of the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Under the “exact match” policy, information from voter registration applications is checked against information held by the state Department of Driver Services. The “flawed matching methods” used by the state inevitably produce erroneous results, Lawrence-Hardy said. Critics of “exact match” have long said data entry errors or differences as minor as a missing hyphen can trigger a non-match and that naturalized citizens can also be wrongly flagged if records are outdated. The problems disproportionately affect people of color, naturalized citizens and residents of certain counties, Lawrence-Hardy said.
Evidence will show that 98% of Georgians have had no problem with the policy and the other 2% can vote after showing a photo ID, which every voter is required to do, Belinfante said. The “exact match” policy has also become “less stringent” as a result of litigation and a 2019 law, he said.
Lawrence-Hardy also alleged that the statewide voter registration database is full of errors, and state efforts to clean the voter rolls of ineligible voters too often result in the erroneous deletion of eligible voters’ registration or critical information being incorrect. Belinfante acknowledged some unfortunate mistakes but said there’s no evidence that the state deliberately disenfranchises voters.
The lawyer for the plaintiffs argued that counties have different processes for canceling an absentee ballot if someone chooses to vote in person instead, and some subject voters to unnecessary burdens. State officials are aware of these problems, which can cause voters to be turned away or forced to cast a provisional ballot, she said.
Belinfante said a 2019 law clarified the process for canceling an absentee ballot at a polling place and poll worker manuals have been updated.
Lawrence-Hardy told the judge that, over the course of the trial, he will hear from people who experienced trouble voting, as well as from experts who have studied voting in Georgia.
Belinfante said the judge will hear from very few people who were unable to vote in 2018 and even fewer who had problems in 2020. Election officials will testify about ongoing measures to ensure the integrity of the state’s voting system and improve the voter experience, he said.
Fair Fight filed the lawsuit along with Care in Action, a nonprofit that advocates for domestic workers. Several churches have also joined as plaintiffs. | https://www.wivb.com/news/georgia-elections-lawsuit-backed-by-abrams-goes-to-trial/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:06 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/georgia-elections-lawsuit-backed-by-abrams-goes-to-trial/ |
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — A trial opened Monday in Florida’s opioid epidemic lawsuit against the Walgreens pharmacy chain, which state officials accuse of prioritizing profits over health by improperly dispensing millions of powerful painkillers that caused tens of thousands of deaths.
The trial, in Pasco County north of Tampa, comes after other defendants in the Florida lawsuit including the CVS drug store chain settled for an estimated $870 million. The state could seek similar massive damages from Walgreens in the jury trial expected to last a few weeks.
OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma has a tentative nationwide deal that includes $6 billion in cash from members of the Sackler family who own the company. In all, settlements, civil and criminal penalties around the country since 2007 have totaled over $45 billion, according to an Associated Press tally.
In Florida, the state’s case hinges on accusations that as Walgreens dispensed more than 4.3 billion total opioid pills in Florida from May 2006 to June 2021, more than half contained one or more easily recognized red flags for abuse, fraud and addiction that the company should have noticed and acted upon.
“The evidence will show Walgreens knowingly profited from the opioid crisis,” said attorney Jim Webster for the state in an opening statement, which was attended by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody. “Walgreens wasn’t just greedy. It was fueling the opioid crisis that was killing people.”
Walgreens is based in Deerfield, Illinois, and operates more than 9,000 stores in all 50 states, according to the company website. About 820 of those locations are in Florida.
Walgreens attorney Steve Derringer told jurors they should focus on how manufacturers such as Purdue Pharma misled pharmacies on opioid addictive properties. He also noted that Florida did little as the opioid epidemic arose, particularly the predatory “pill mills” that proliferated in the state before a crackdown finally ended them.
“Walgreens had nothing to do with any of that,” Derringer said in his opening statement. “They (drug makers) caused this epidemic by misrepresenting the risks and benefits to pharmacies.”
The opioid epidemic has been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades, counting those from prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and generic oxycodone as well as illicit drugs such as heroin and illegally produced fentanyl.
In Florida, Webster said, more than 39,000 Floridians died from opioid abuse or related problems between 1999 and 2020. Walgreens, he said, sold about one of every four opioids in the state over a similar time span often under questionable circumstances, such as a shady doctor, fake prescriptions or huge amounts of drugs obviously far in excess of what was necessary for a given patient.
“Walgreens was the last line of defense,” Webster said. “Walgreens failed its duty to investigate suspicious prescriptions.”
Florida has spent some $14 billion over the last 20 years for multiple opioid-related costs, ranging from criminal justice to drug rehabilitation for addicts to treatment for opioid-addicted infants, Webster said. The state will seek billions of dollars in damages in the Walgreens case.
In the same case, Moody said CVS Health Corp. and CVS Pharmacy Inc. will pay the state $484 million. Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. agreed to pay $195 million and Allergan PLC more than $134 million.
Florida has previously obtained millions of dollars in opioid settlements involving McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc., Johnson & Johnson Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. | https://www.wivb.com/news/health-news/trial-opens-in-florida-opioid-lawsuit-case-against-walgreens/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:12 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/health-news/trial-opens-in-florida-opioid-lawsuit-case-against-walgreens/ |
BEIJING (AP) — The U.S. has ordered non-emergency government staff to leave Shanghai, which is under a tight lockdown to contain a COVID-19 surge.
Many residents in the city of 26 million have been confined to their homes for up to three weeks as China maintains its “zero-COVID” strategy of handling outbreaks with strict isolation and mass testing.
But people living under the restrictions have described an increasingly desperate situation, with families unable to leave their homes or obtain food and daily necessities, while people who test positive for the coronavirus have been forced into mass quarantine centers where conditions at times have been called crowded and unsanitary.
Authorities on Tuesday said another 23,342 people in Shanghai tested positive for the virus over the previous day, just 994 of whom displayed symptoms. Total infections have topped more than 200,000 in the latest wave, although no additional deaths have been reported.
The State Department said the order announced late Monday is an upgrade from the “authorized” departure advisory last week that made the decision voluntary. The order covers non-emergency U.S. government employees at the consulate in Shanghai and their family members. Consular officers will remain on duty at the consulate.
“Our change in posture reflects our assessment that it is best for our employees and their families to be reduced in number and our operations to be scaled down as we deal with the changing circumstances on the ground,” the announcement said.
The State Department also issued a series of advisories for Americans in Shanghai, including that they ensure they have a “sufficient supply of money, medication, food, and other necessities for your family in the event of sudden restrictions or quarantine.”
China’s government and the entirely state-controlled media are growing increasingly defensive about complaints over the COVID-19 prevention measures.
Beijing responded angrily to last week’s voluntary departure advisory, with Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian saying China was “strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the U.S. side’s groundless accusation against China’s epidemic response.”
In that announcement, the State Department advised Americans to reconsider traveling to China due to “arbitrary enforcement” of local laws and COVID-19 restrictions, particularly in Hong Kong, Jilin province and Shanghai. U.S. officials cited a risk of “parents and children being separated.”
Despite that, and indications the hardline policy is being dictated by head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping, China has rejected any notion that its response is political in nature. Xi has demanded social stability above all else in the runup to a key party congress later this year at which he is expected to bestow on himself an unprecedented third-term as party leader.
Shanghai authorities also say they have secured daily supplies for residents, following complaints about deliveries of food and other necessities being unavailable or inadequate to demand.
Shanghai says it will gradually lift some restrictions on neighborhoods where no new infections have been reported over the past two weeks. Residents will be able to travel around their districts but not meet in groups. Others will be restricted to their immediate neighborhoods. | https://www.wivb.com/news/health-news/us-orders-consular-to-leave-shanghai-amid-covid-outbreak/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:19 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/health-news/us-orders-consular-to-leave-shanghai-amid-covid-outbreak/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Frank Vogel masterminded the 17th championship in the Los Angeles Lakers’ remarkable history in his first season on their bench.
Exactly 18 months after that triumph, he also became part of the Lakers’ past.
The Lakers fired Vogel on Monday, choosing their title-winning coach to take the first fall for one of the most disappointing seasons in NBA history.
Los Angeles finished 33-49 and missed the 10-team Western Conference playoffs this season. It was a humiliating underachievement for LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Carmelo Anthony and a veteran-laden supporting cast widely expected to contend for another championship.
Vogel was under contract through next season, but almost nothing has gone right over the past two seasons for the rosters assembled by general manager Rob Pelinka and coached by Vogel, who went 127-98 in his three seasons running the club.
Pelinka declined to elaborate Monday on why he and owner Jeanie Buss felt Vogel needed to be fired.
“Today is not going to be a day of finger-pointing and unwinding all the specific reasons,” Pelinka said. “We just felt organizationally, at the highest level, it was time for a new voice. … That’s not to say anything against the incredible accomplishments that Frank Vogel has had. He was a great coach here, and he’s going to go on to be a great coach somewhere else.”
ESPN reported Vogel’s imminent firing immediately after the Lakers finished the season by beating Denver in overtime Sunday night. During an awkward postgame news conference, Vogel admitted he had not yet been told of the club’s decision before it was leaked to ESPN.
Pelinka dismissed the public relations embarrassment of the leak for the Lakers, calling the report “speculative and unsourced.”
But it was a tacky end to a tenure that began tremendously for Vogel, the former coach at Orlando and Indiana. The Lakers claimed a title in the Florida bubble in October 2020, but haven’t won another playoff round since.
Pelinka doesn’t plan to replace Vogel immediately, and he said he hasn’t even assembled a list of potential candidates. The GM said it “would be great” to have a coach in place before the draft in June, but the Lakers’ search will be “thorough and methodical.”
Los Angeles never resembled a championship team this season despite trading for Westbrook and signing Anthony to play alongside James and Davis. The Lakers stumbled along near .500 until Jan. 7, when they entered a 10-30 nosedive exacerbated by the latest lengthy injury absence for Davis, who has missed more games than he has played in the past two seasons.
“This was a disappointing Lakers season at every level,” Pelinka said. “In the face of disappointment, our fans expect more, and that’s in every facet. It starts in the front office led by me, and our ability to construct the right roster. It starts with the coaches holding players accountable and making sure there’s on-court execution.”
Despite another impressive season from the 37-year-old James, the Lakers never jelled this season with a roster built around nine players over 30 and 11 players who weren’t with the team last season. Davis managed to play in only 40 of their 82 games, while Westbrook struggled to fit into the Lakers’ team concept during one of the worst seasons of his professional career.
After so much preseason ballyhoo around the teaming of James, Davis and Westbrook, the trio managed to play in only 21 games together — and went 11-10. The Lakers used 41 different starting lineups.
“At the end of the day, the reason why we weren’t very good together is we weren’t on the damn floor together,” said James after the Lakers finished with the worst winning percentage of his 19 NBA seasons (.402). “You never got a chance to see what the ballclub could be.”
Although Vogel remained publicly confident in his ability to fix the problems created by the injuries and two years of high-risk roster assembly, the coach never came up with any consistent solutions to Los Angeles’ woes.
But while Vogel received ample criticism for his curious decisions on player rotations and his lack of an offensive game plan, the Lakers’ single biggest problem in Vogel’s final two seasons was Davis’ inability to stay healthy.
The eight-time All-Star big man was dominant in the bubble, but Davis has played in just 76 of the Lakers’ 154 games over the past two seasons while battling several major injury problems.
James also struggled with injuries during the last two years, appearing in only 101 games. He played in just one of the Lakers’ final eight games this season because of a sprained ankle, and Los Angeles was eliminated from playoff contention during that stretch despite Davis’ return from a six-week absence for three late games.
James spoke to the media Monday morning before Vogel’s fate was revealed by the Lakers’ front office.
“I respect Frank as a coach, as a man,” James said. “Our partnership that we’ve had over the few years here has been nothing but candid, and great conversations. This is a guy that gives everything to the game and prepared us every single night. … I don’t know what’s going to happen with Frank being here, but I’ve got nothing but respect for him.”
Vogel was hired in May 2019 to assemble a cohesive team around James and Davis, who was officially acquired from New Orleans two months later. Vogel’s plans worked right away: His first team weathered the NBA’s coronavirus shutdown and then won a ring, with Vogel leading a deep, defensively dominant group to the title.
Pelinka has thoroughly altered that championship roster since then, and the results have been catastrophic. Less than a full calendar year after the triumph in the bubble, only James, Davis and Talen Horton-Tucker remained on the roster to start this season — along with Dwight Howard, who left the team and returned.
Los Angeles went 42-30 last season while battling major injuries to Davis and James before losing to Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs. Pelinka then disassembled the Lakers’ championship-winning supporting cast when he allowed Alex Caruso to leave for Chicago and traded Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Kyle Kuzma in a package for Westbrook.
Pelinka hoped to build a Big Three of elite talent to be supplemented by low-cost veterans, rather than homegrown or long-tenured Lakers. Instead, Pelinka’s moves forced Vogel to rebuild his defense from scratch with inferior defensive players.
The Lakers didn’t come close to matching the last two teams’ defensive success, finishing 21st in defensive rating after being a top-three team in Vogel’s first two seasons, and their offensive output couldn’t make up for it with Davis frequently unavailable.
___
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wivb.com/news/lakers-fire-title-winning-coach-frank-vogel-after-3-seasons/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:26 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/lakers-fire-title-winning-coach-frank-vogel-after-3-seasons/ |
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A state court judge has ruled that Democrat Abby Finkenauer cannot appear on the June 7 Iowa primary ballot for U.S. Senate because she didn’t gather enough petition signatures, potentially knocking off the candidate considered by many to be the party’s best chance to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley.
Judge Scott Beattie, a 2018 appointee of Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, filed a ruling late Sunday that overturned a decision by a three-member panel of state elected officials. The panel concluded last week that Finkenauer’s campaign staffers had substantially complied with Iowa law that requires candidates to obtain 3,500 names, including at least 100 signatures from at least 19 counties.
Finkenauer plans to appeal the decision and the Iowa Supreme Court scheduled a hearing Wednesday with a promise to rule on the matter by the end of the week to meet deadlines for sending ballots to overseas voters.
Two Republicans challenged Finkenauer’s petition papers, saying signatures from at least two counties did not have the required date accompanying them.
In the past, the panel, which includes the secretary of state, attorney general and state auditor, has found petitions to be in substantial compliance with the law even though signatures were missing or difficult to interpret. Attorney General Tom Miller and Auditor Rob Sand, both Democrats, voted to allow Finkenauer’s petitions citing past precedent for giving deference to campaigns that used the proper forms and made efforts to comply with the law. Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, voted against Finkenauer’s petition.
Kim Schmett and Leanne Pellett, former Republican county elections officials, challenged the signatures and then filed a court appeal of the Iowa Objection Panel’s decision last week.
Beattie concluded that the panel’s legal interpretation was wrong and that the law clearly says each signature should be accompanied by a date. His decision knocked signatures from Allamakee and Cedar counties off of Finkenauer’s nomination petitions, which meant her campaign failed to submit at least 100 signatures from at least 19 counties as required.
Beattie said he took no joy in the decision.
“This court should not be in the position to make a difference in an election, and Ms. Finkenauer and her supporters should have a chance to advance her candidacy. However, this court’s job is to sit as a referee and apply the law without passion or prejudice. It is required to rule without consideration of the politics of the day. Here the court has attempted to fulfill that role,” he said,
Finkenauer accused Beattie of doing the bidding of Grassley and his allies in Washington.
“This misguided, midnight ruling is an outrageous and partisan gift to the Washington Republicans who orchestrated this meritless legal action,” she said. “We are exploring all of our options to fight back hard against this meritless partisan attack, and to ensure that the voices of Iowans will be heard at the ballot box.”
Finkenauer said her petitions had more than 5,000 signatures and she’s confident she has met the requirements to be on the ballot.
Beattie promised last week he would file a decision by midnight Sunday to give either side time to appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. He filed the decision at 10:49 p.m. Sunday. Pate has said he must know whether Finkenauer qualifies for the ballot by Friday to give him time to have ballots printed and sent to overseas voters who must get their ballots by April 23 to comply with the law.
Finkenauer, who served one term in the U.S. House from 2019-2021, seeks to be on the ballot with Democrats Mike Franken, a retired Navy admiral, and Glenn Hurst, a doctor and Minden City Council member. The primary winner will face Grassley, who is seeking an eighth term in the Senate.
Federal fundraising data and statewide polling indicate that Grassley, who turns 89 in September, is well positioned to retain the seat he has held since 1981 for another six years.
Grassley has raised more than $4.7 million, Finkenauer about $1.9 million and Franken $1.8 million. Hurst raised just over $66,000. Republican state Sen. Jim Carlin, who will be on the Republican primary ballot opposite Grassley, raised $282,151.
The Des Moines Register/Medicom Poll published in November gave Grassley a lead of 18 percentage points over Finkenauer.
Alan R. Ostergren, the attorney for Schmett and Pellett, said the judge’s decision is a victory for the rule of law.
“Iowans expect candidates to follow state law and to follow the same rules as the hundreds of other candidates who successfully qualified to be on the ballot,” he said in a statement. “Anyone who has ever been involved in a political campaign knows that you can easily avoid problems by turning in more than the bare minimum number of signatures. Abby Finkenauer didn’t do this for some reason and got caught short.” | https://www.wivb.com/news/leading-iowa-democrat-knocked-off-us-senate-primary-ballot/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:33 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/leading-iowa-democrat-knocked-off-us-senate-primary-ballot/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Many New Yorkers just want their city to feel orderly, functional and fun again after two years of plague and social disruption. Their new mayor, Eric Adams, has promised to deliver.
The question is, can the Democrat who pledged to bring back New York’s “swagger” gain momentum in the face of repeated setbacks?
Adams’ optimism remained high even as he marked his 100th day as mayor Sunday by going into quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.
A hands-on politician and nightlife enthusiast, Adams, 61, caught the virus after a whirlwind week typical of his persona and time in office: He had attended the Gridiron dinner in Washington, gone to a New York gala, posed with Robert de Niro at a film festival, attended the Yankees opener and a slew of events in the state Capitol.
“I’m going to continue to try to be as visible as possible as we get through COVID and many of the other crises that we’re facing,” Adams said Monday, promising to resume his busy schedule after recovering from the virus.
In his first 100 days in office, Adams has projected an aggressive confidence as he’s implemented policies aimed at combating an image of New York City as hobbled by the pandemic and beset by rising crime.
He dropped many COVID-19 precautions and is reluctant to bring them back, even as virus cases have steadily risen.
He’s ordered homeless encampments removed from public spaces, despite complaints from activists that the sweeps are inhumane.
Over the objection of progressives, Adams, a former police captain, brought back an NYPD anti-gun unit disbanded by the previous mayor, saying that with better oversight it will shed its past reputation for usingexcessive force.
Critics say Adams is embracing the worst tendencies of previous mayors known for their heavy-handed approaches to policing and social services.
Adams says he doesn’t like chaos, as “Saturday Night Live” noted in his first days in office. Instead, he is seeking to harness the city’s tangly dynamism.
“That is what I think our failure is in our city … We have thrown up our hands and said this city is not manageable. That is just not true,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, prior to testing positive for COVID-19.
He said he starts every morning poring over a series of spreadsheets filled with data on his key initiatives.
When inspecting his efforts to clear tents and makeshift shelters set up by homeless people, Adams scrolls through hundreds of color-coded rows listing individual encampments reported to the city — some that the mayor has phoned in himself.
He checks to see if the entries are shaded blue by someone in his administration, indicating city workers have posted notices they’re about to clean the area. He checks to see that the blue entries are later turned yellow, coded as a “successful cleanup.” If too many days pass and the colors don’t change, he’ll make a call to find out why.
At a news conference last month, he said the city cleared 239 encampments in its first 12 days. Although the city didn’t offer data about how many people were living at the encampments, only five accepted offers to move to a shelter.
Adams said he thinks the number will grow, as it did with efforts to reach out to homeless people in the subway system.
The mayor also checks daily spreadsheets laying out data on crime, the city’s sprawling transit system, affordable and supportive housing units, and hires and promotions in his government.
He likened himself to an airline pilot who sits down and checks his instruments before taking off, calling the city a “complex piece of machinery.”
“You have to constantly inspect what you expect, or it’s suspect,” Adams said, using one of his favored catchphrases.
Adams, a former New York City police captain, state lawmaker and elected borough president of Brooklyn, had to deal with unrelenting crisesin his first month in office.
A fire ripped through a high-rise apartment building, killing 17 people; a baby was wounded by gunfire; two police officers were fatally shot while responding to a call; a woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train by a stranger.
“Outside of 9/11, I don’t know if another mayor was just inundated with so much at one time,” Adams remarked.
Crime, which has risen in cities across the U.S., has become one of his chief concerns.
It’s by far the thorniest issue Adams took on, said Jon Reinish, a Democratic political strategist in New York City. But 100 days is still early, Reinish said, and a better barometer of progress would be a year into the administration.
“I think that he has navigated that well so far, but Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said.
New York City’s elected public advocate Jumaane Williams, a progressive Democrat who serves as a city ombudsman, praised Adams for partnering with him on issues like food insecurity, Black maternal health and summer jobs for young people. But he said he’s concerned about too much emphasis on policing and not enough focus on mental health.
Adams, who is Black, points out that he spoke out about racist and unjust practices in the department while he was an officer. He says police can learn from the mistakes of the past while using new tools like body cameras to stay accountable — but the city also can’t go back to the days of high rates of violent crime.
“I know I don’t want to go back to the violence or the abuse. Some people only talk about not going back to the abuse,” he said.
Critics have also called Adams’ actions to clear homeless encampments short-sighted, especially when some people living on the street say they don’t feel safe in the city’s shelters and there’s not enough affordable housing to provide a long-term solution.
“It sounds to me like we’re doing the last thing first,” Williams said.
Adams contends it’s inhumane to accept that people sleep on the street, and defends his plan by pointing to to a city law guaranteeing a right to space in a shelter for any homeless person who needs it.
But he also notes that when an encampment is cleared, “It is just unbelievable how visually, it just changes your mindset of your neighborhood. And that is part of the goal. Because we’re dealing with an actual problem and the perception of a problem.”
Perception, he said is also why he’s posting photos and videos on social media of himself shoveling snow during snowstorms or is seen meeting people all over the city and hitting up restaurants, night clubs and glitzy events.
“We have to get the city back up and operating and many New Yorkers are starting to do so. And they need to see me in the process,” he said. “As I deal with the crises, I also have to be on that red carpet. Because Broadway is a major economic driver for our city.” | https://www.wivb.com/news/new-nyc-mayor-adams-strives-for-order-post-covid-comeback/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:40 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/new-nyc-mayor-adams-strives-for-order-post-covid-comeback/ |
MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Extreme rainfall in southeast Africa has become heavier and more likely to occur during cyclones because of climate change, according to a new analysis released Monday by an international team of weather scientists.
Multiple tropical storms that pummeled Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique earlier this year were analyzed by the World Weather Attribution group, who determined that the storms were made worse by the increase in global temperatures. In just six weeks between January and March the region saw a record three tropical cyclones and two tropical storms make landfall. The heavy rains, storm surges and floods left more than 230 people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands across the region.
The countries remain vulnerable to devastating weather this year, with cyclone season set to end in May.
The team of climate scientists used established peer-reviewed methods, including weather observations and computer simulations, to model scenarios using both preindustrial global temperatures and today’s — which is approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer. The difference between the models determined the impact of human-caused global warming.
Sarah Kew, from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and participated in the study, said they investigated the influence of climate change using 34 prediction models but data gaps made it difficult to determine the full impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
“While our analysis clearly shows that climate change made the storms more damaging, our ability to establish precisely by how much was hampered by inconsistent data and lack of weather observations,” said Dr. Kew. “This would also help to improve forecasts of extreme weather events and their impacts.”
In both Madagascar and Malawi, the study was contrained by a lack of weather stations with suitable data. And of the 23 weather stations in the affected regions of Mozambique, only four had complete records dating back to 1981.
“Strengthening scientific resources in Africa and other parts of the global south is key to help us better understand extreme weather events fueled by climate change, to prepare vulnerable people and infrastructure to better cope with them,” Dr. Izidine Pinto, a climate system analyst at the University of Cape Town, said.
The 33-page study was conducted by 22 researchers, including scientists from universities and meteorological agencies in Madagascar, Mozambique, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and the US.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://www.wivb.com/news/study-africa-cyclones-exacerbated-by-climate-change/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:48 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/study-africa-cyclones-exacerbated-by-climate-change/ |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Kelly Tshibaka, who has received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, on Monday officially filed to run as a candidate for U.S. Senate in the race against the incumbent Republican.
Tshibaka will face off against U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who drew Tshibaka’s aim during a news conference after Tshibaka filed with the state Division of Elections in Anchorage.
“Lisa Murkowski has forgotten us because she cares more about being popular with her friends in Washington, D.C.,” said Tshibaka, also a Republican.
Tshibaka claimed Murkowski was helping the agenda of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, with her vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson — whom Tshibaka described as a “leftist judge” — to the U.S. Supreme Court. At the same time, she criticized Murkowski for not backing two Trump nominees to the court, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
Murkowski opposed and later voted “present” on Kavanaugh’s nomination. She voted to confirm Barrett in 2020, after earlier saying she did not support taking up a nominee for a Supreme Court vacancy so close to a presidential election.
Tshibaka chastised Murkowski for supporting other Biden nominees, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.
“These are not the votes that a senator from Alaska should be casting,” Tshibaka said. “Murkowski has made poor decisions like this over and over, and we, the people of Alaska, continue to pay the price for her popularity in Washington, D.C.”
Tshibaka is a former commissioner in the Alaska Department of Administration. She formerly worked in the offices of inspector general for the U.S. Postal Service, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice before joining the administration of Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, according to her resume.
A message sent to Murkowski’s campaign seeking comment was not immediately returned Monday. Her campaign did send a news release showing the support of more than a dozen Alaska mayors and other officials who are endorsing Murkowski.
When Murkowski filed for office in November, she was asked about running against a Trump-backed opponent.
Murkowski told reporters at the time there will be “plenty of people on the outside who will be gunning for me, who will suggest that I am not right for Alaskans. I would put that directly to the people of this state.”
Murkowski, who has held the Senate seat since late 2002, had about six times the cash on hand over Tshibaka at the end of 2021. The latest quarterly fundraising reports — reflecting the first three months of this year — are due around mid-month. Tshibaka’s totals will include money collected from a fundraiser at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Trump has said he would campaign for Tshibaka after vowing revenge against Murkowski, who voted to convict him in his second impeachment trial and called on Trump to resign after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“He said that he’ll come up into a rally for us, and I think that’ll be great for voter turnout,” Tshibaka said.
Trump also has endorsed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is one of 48 candidates running to fill the remainder of U.S. Rep. Don Young’s term after he died last month. Palin was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee.
When asked if the two big personalities of Trump and Palin could overshadow her campaign, Tshibaka said that is separate from the Senate campaign.
“I’m completely focused on Lisa Murkowski and the damage that she’s done and the fact that she serves as Biden’s chief enabling officer, helping him every step of the way,” she said.
In addition to Murkowski and Tshibaka, 10 other candidates so far have filed to run in the Senate race. Under a new election system approved by Alaska voters in 2020, the top four vote-getters in the August primary, regardless of party, will advance to the November general election, where ranked choice voting will be used. | https://www.wivb.com/news/trump-backed-alaska-hopeful-officially-files-for-senate-run/ | 2022-04-12T15:31:55 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/trump-backed-alaska-hopeful-officially-files-for-senate-run/ |
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An area at the U.S. government’s nuclear waste repository in southeastern New Mexico was evacuated over the weekend after workers handling a shipping container discovered a small amount of radioactive liquid inside it.
There was no indication of airborne contamination and testing of workers’ hands and feet turned up no contamination after the discovery was made late Saturday in a bay where containers are processed before being taken underground for disposal, officials said in a statement issued late Saturday.
“The event at the site has been secured. There is no risk of radiological release and there is no risk to the public or the environment,” plant officials said in the statement.
Officials confirmed Monday that the shipment was packed and sent from Idaho National Laboratory, but investigators were trying to determine the source of the liquid found inside the container, said Bobby St. John, a spokesperson for the contractor that manages the repository for the federal government.
The waste containers were securely placed back into the special shipping container, St. John said.
“We have written processes and protocols in place for this type of situation and all protocols were followed,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “Additionally, the (contact-handled waste) bay is designed to contain radiological contaminants in order to protect the workforce, surrounding ecology and the local community.”
The repository is the backbone of a multibillion-dollar cleanup program that involves tons of Cold War-era waste from federal labs and defense-related sites around the country.
The waste — remnants of decades of nuclear research and bomb making — typically consists of lab coats, gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements.
Independent federal investigators last month raised concerns about whether cost overruns and missed construction deadlines will continue at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
A multimillion-dollar project is underway at the underground facility to install a new ventilation system so that full operations can resume, following a radiation leak in 2014 that forced the repository’s closure for nearly three years and led to major policy overhauls.
The container that caused that release had been inappropriately packed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico.
Operations had to be reduced after the waste plant reopened in 2017 because areas of the facility were contaminated and airflow needed for mining and disposal operations was limited.
It was unclear Monday whether operations had resumed in the area where shipments are processed. St. John said only that the shipping container with the radioactive liquid was placed in a “safe configuration, pending results of the investigation and resulting mitigation actions.”
The repository was carved out of an ancient salt formation about a half-mile (0.8 kilometer) below the ground because officials say that the shifting salt will eventually entomb the radioactive waste.
Its current footprint includes eight sections, which the U.S. Energy Department estimates will be filled in 2025.
State regulators are weighing a permit change that some critics have said could lead to expanded repository operations. A decision is expected later this year. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/discovery-of-radioactive-liquid-pauses-work-at-us-nuke-dump/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:02 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/discovery-of-radioactive-liquid-pauses-work-at-us-nuke-dump/ |
DETROIT (AP) — A jury’s inability to reach a unanimous verdict for two men charged in a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer means the federal government can take them to trial again.
The jury last week acquitted Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta, whom prosecutors described as “soldiers” in the foiled plot, but deadlocked on the alleged leaders, Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. It was an extraordinary setback for the government, which claimed the men wanted to trigger a civil war before the 2020 election.
HUNG JURY
A hung jury is unable to unanimously agree on someone’s guilt or innocence. It could be just one person on the 12-member panel who disagrees with the others.
Prosecutors can put someone on trial again or drop the case. U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge told reporters Friday that Fox and Croft are “awaiting trial and we’ll get back to work on that.” They remain in jail.
Mark Chutkow, who until recently led the criminal division of the U.S. attorney’s office in Detroit, said he would be surprised if prosecutors fold, citing the significance of the allegations.
“The government has two cooperating defendants who pled guilty, who said they were part of the crime. That’s pretty compelling evidence,” Chutkow said, referring to Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, who testified for prosecutors.
SO WHAT HAPPENED?
Only the jury knows. U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker barred lawyers from contacting jurors for any post-trial intelligence, but jurors can reach out to them on their own.
Chutkow said it could help prosecutors and defense attorneys as they prepare for a second trial.
“As a litigant, sometimes you get in the fog of war,” he said. “You’ve spent so much time with your case, you’re not objective as to what it looked like.”
Fox, who was living in the Grand Rapids area, and Croft, from Bear, Delaware, didn’t testify. Their defense came through the cross-examination of the government’s witnesses.
Fox and Croft might have been angry with Whitmer over COVID-19 restrictions, but there was no real plan to kidnap the Democratic governor, their lawyers insisted. They say undercover FBI agents and informants inside the groupfueled wild talk.
Detroit-area defense lawyer Michael Rataj said the challenge for prosecutors in Grand Rapids will be picking a jury from western and northern Michigan.
“It’s Trump country and they don’t like Whitmer. Prosecutors have an uphill battle,” Rataj said.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER OTHER BIG CASES WITH HUNG JURIES?
Prosecutors sharpened their focus after a federal jury couldn’t agree on 23 of 24 charges at former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s 2010 corruption trial. Jurors said just one person was a holdout.
At Blagojevich’s second trial, prosecutors skipped past his expensive taste for tailored suits and furs for his wife. He was convicted of multiple crimes, including an effort to sell an appointment to the U.S. Senate.
But prosecutors decided against retrying New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez.Many jurors at his 2017 trial favored acquittal. A judge subsequently threw out key bribery charges.
“Sometimes, there is bluster and chest thumping” by prosecutors about a retrial after a deadlocked jury, said Alan Tuerkheimer, a Chicago-based jury consultant. “But when the dust settles and they think more clearly, they can change their minds.”
Learning how jurors voted can be crucial. A jury that was one or two votes away from acquittal is a sign of a weak case, Tuerkheimer said, and can dissuade prosecutors from trying again.
WHO’S IN THE WINGS?
Eight other men face state charges in either Jackson or Antrim counties. They’re accused of assisting the others in the Whitmer plot, among other crimes, and have pleaded not guilty.
Whitmer’s vacation home is in Antrim. Fox and Croft, accompanied by undercover operatives, took a night ride to check the location and look at a bridge that could be blown up during a kidnapping, according to evidence in the federal case.
The state cases have moved slowly since fall 2020; five men charged in Antrim still haven’t had a key hearing at which a judge decides whether there’s enough evidence to go to trial.
Defense attorney Kareem Johnson, who is representing Pete Musico, a founding member of the Wolverine Watchmen militia, compared the two acquittals in federal court to a thrilling basketball game.
“It’s like when a teammate hits a 3-pointer. It motivates you to get back on defense and get a stop,” Johnson said Monday.
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Find AP’s full coverage of the Whitmer kidnap plot trial at: https://apnews.com/hub/whitmer-kidnap-plot-trial
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Tarm reported from Chicago. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/explainer-2-men-in-gov-whitmer-plot-could-be-tried-again/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:10 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/explainer-2-men-in-gov-whitmer-plot-could-be-tried-again/ |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Farms that rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake on the California-Oregon border, along with a Native American tribe fighting to protect fragile salmon, will both receive extremely limited amounts of water this summer as a historic drought and record-low reservoir levels drag on in the U.S. West.
More than 1,000 farmers and ranchers who draw water from a 257-mile-long (407-kilometer) river that flows from the Upper Klamath Lake to the Pacific Ocean will have access to roughly one-seventh the amount they could get in a wetter year, a federal agency announced Monday. Downstream salmon will receive about half the water they’d get if the reservoir was full.
It’s the third year in a row that severe drought has impacted farmers, fish and tribes in a region where there’s not enough water to satisfy competing demands. Last year, no water at all flowed through the Klamath Reclamation Project’s main irrigation canal, and thousands of downstream juvenile salmon died without reservoir releases to support the Klamath River’s health.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the irrigation project, announced $15 million in relief for affected farmers and $5 million for Native American tribes as a result of its decision and warned farmers not to take water beyond what was ordered or risk further irrigation reductions and legal action. The agency decides the allocations each year, taking into account court rulings that require certain lake levels to support two federally endangered fish species.
Across the American West, a 22-year megadrought deepened so much last year that the region is now in the driest spell in at least 1,200 years — a worst-case climate change scenario playing out in real time, a study found last month.
Inflow to the Upper Klamath Lake is at a record lows, water managers said, and water allocations could drop further if drought conditions worsen this summer.
“We wish we had better news today. Obviously there are no winners in this critical year as all interests are suffering — fisheries, farmers tribes and waterfowl alike — but given the current hydrology that we have to work with, we did the best job we could,” said Ernest Conant, the bureau’s regional director.
Irrigators reacted with shock and anger to the news and said they weren’t sure they could survive another growing season without adequate water supplies. The amount of water available is less than 15% of what the farmers need, said Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, who operates a farm in Tulelake, California.
“We have 170,000 acres (68,800 hectares) that could be irrigated this year, and we’re ready to get to work,” he said. “On a single acre, we can produce over 50,000 pounds (22,700 kilograms) of potatoes, or 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of wheat. This year, most of that land will not produce any food because the government is denying water for irrigation.”
Klamath River water that is dammed in the Upper Klamath Lake is the linchpin of the nearly 200,000-acre (80,940-hectare) Klamath Reclamation Project, a major agricultural powerhouse of more than 1,000 farms and ranches. Today, farmers there grow everything from mint to alfalfa to potatoes that go to In ’N Out Burger, Frito-Lay and Kettle Foods.
But the reservoir water is also source of conflict among competing demands, and amid historic drought in the carefully managed river basin there hasn’t been enough water to go around in recent years. Before 2020, the last time water allocations reached such a boiling point in the Klamath Basin was in 2001, when the U.S. government sent federal marshals to the area during a drought year and farmers threatened to breach the head gates.
Under the law, the lake’s water must be kept at a certain level to protect its sucker fish, a key species to the heritage of the Klamath Tribes in southern Oregon. This year’s water decision order irrigators to keep the lake’s water above a certain level for sucker fish spawning in April and May and then at a different level for the remainder of the summer — but even at those levels, the lake will not meet federally mandated minimums for the spring months.
Farmers can start drawing the limited water on Friday.
But federally threatened coho salmon that live in the lower Klamath River, below the reservoir, also need pulses of water from the lake to keep at bay a deadly parasite that thrives in warm and slow-moving water. The salmon are revered by the Yurok Tribe, California’s second-largest Native American tribe.
One so-called “flushing flow” of water that’s about half the normal amount — and half what farmers will get — will be released Friday also.
Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers said the fact that salmon, sucker fish and waterfowl are competing for the region’s water was a “direct sign of the ecological collapse brought by water withdrawals.” He said the Yurok would never stop working to save the salmon.
“Although we are gratified that the river is afforded minimal protections under this plan, it is no time for celebration. Salmon runs will continue to suffer under these conditions, and as climate change intensifies, such protections will become increasingly important,” Myers said.
The slashed water allocations to the Klamath Reclamation Project also will impact two national wildlife refuges in the region that are replenished with irrigation runoff. The refuges host tens of thousands of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway. Last year, environmentalists and farmers used pumps to combine water from two stagnant wetlands into one deeper one to prevent another outbreak of avian botulism like the one that killed 50,000 ducks in 2020.
Hundreds of domestic wells impacted by the increased groundwater pumping have also gone dry since late last summer. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/farms-fish-on-dry-california-oregon-border-see-scant-water/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:16 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/farms-fish-on-dry-california-oregon-border-see-scant-water/ |
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho judge ruled Monday that a mother accused of conspiring to kill her children, her estranged husband and a lover’s wife is now mentally competent to stand trial on some of the charges in Idaho.
Daybell and her new husband, Chad Daybell, face numerous charges in the complicated case involving allegations of bizarre spiritual beliefs involving “zombies” and doomsday predictions.
Prosecutors have said that Lori and Chad Daybell espoused the religious beliefs in an effort to encourage or justify the murders.
The case against her had been hold for months after Judge Steven Boyce ordered her committed to a mental facility so she could undergo treatment in an effort to make her mentally fit enough to assist in her own defense.
Boyce’s new order said Lori Vallow Daybell “is restored to competency and is fit to proceed” in the Idaho murder case. He did not provide other details about her treatment or mental condition.
She is scheduled to be formally arraigned in court next week and both Lori and Chad Daybell are set to stand trial together early next year.
Tare charged withconspiracy to commit murder and first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of Lori Daybell’s children 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow, 16-year-old Tylee Ryan, as well as Chad Daybell’s first wife, Tammy Daybell.
Lori Daybell is also charged in Arizona with conspiring to kill her former estranged husband, Charles Vallow, with the help of her now-deceased brother, Alex Cox.
Chad Daybell has pleaded not guilty to the charges and Lori Daybell has not yet had an opportunity to enter a plea. Chad Daybell’s attorney, John Prior, declined to comment on the case. Lori Daybell’s attorney, Jim Archibald, did not immediately respond to voice and email messages requesting comment.
An indictment said Chad and Lori Daybell in 2018 while still married to other people began espousing an apocalyptical system of religious belief.
Lori Daybell’s brother Alex Cox shot and killed her estranged husband, Charles Vallow, in suburban Phoenix, according to an indictment in Arizona.
Cox asserted the shooting was in self-defense, and he was never charged. At the time, Charles Vallow was seeking a divorce, saying his wife believed she had become a god-like figure responsible for ushering in the biblical end of times. Cox later died of an apparent blood clot in his lung.
Shortly after Charles Vallow’s death, Lori Daybell — who then had the last name Vallow — and her children moved to the rural eastern Idaho community of Rexburg, near where Chad Daybell lived. At the time, Chad Daybell was married to Tammy Daybell. She died in October of 2019, and her obituary said the death was from natural causes.
Authorities grew suspicious, however, when Chad and Lori Daybell got married just two weeks later, and investigators had Tammy Daybell’s body exhumed for an autopsy. Authorities have not released her cause of death.
Police began searching for Lori Daybell’s youngest two children in November after relatives raised concerns. The Daybells quickly left town, and were found months later in Hawaii without the children.
Investigators later found the bodies of JJ and Tylee buried in Chad Daybell’s yard back in Idaho. They have not disclosed causes of death but court documents said Tylee’s body was partially burned.
Friends of the Daybells told investigators that the couple believed people could become “zombies” if they were possessed by evil spirits, a state in which their soul was trapped in limbo, according to police reports. The couple reportedly believed that the only way to rid a person of a zombie was for their body to die, according to police reports.
A friend of the couple, Melanie Gibb, told investigators that Lori Daybell referred to her youngest children as “zombies,” and police in Arizona said the couple exchanged text messages saying that Tammy Daybell had been possessed by a dark spirit. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/idaho-judge-mom-accused-in-kids-killings-now-fit-for-trial/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:23 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/idaho-judge-mom-accused-in-kids-killings-now-fit-for-trial/ |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Prosecutors revealed Monday evening that they offered plea deals to three former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd, but said at a hearing that the defendants rejected them.
Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill held the hearing mostly to consider whether he has the authority to allow live video coverage of the upcoming trial set to begin in June for former Officers Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng. They’re charged with aiding and abetting both manslaughter and murder when former officer Derek Chauvin used his knee to pin Floyd, a Black man, to the pavement for 9 1/2 minutes on May 25, 2020. Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back, Lane held his legs and Thao kept bystanders back.
Lead prosecutor Matthew Frank did not disclose details of the plea offers in open court but said they were identical and were made March 22 after a jury convicted the three in a separate trial in February on federal civil rights charges stemming from Floyd’s death, according to pool reports from inside the courtroom.
Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, said it was hard for the defense to negotiate when the three still don’t know what their federal sentences will be. The judge in that case has not set a sentencing date, and all three remain free on bail.
Cahill told Frank to file the offers for the record after the jury is seated for the upcoming trial, which is expected to take around eight weeks, including three for jury selection.
Cahill took the rare step of allowing live audiovisual coverage of Chauvin’s murder trial last year, making an exception to the normal rules of Minnesota courts. He cited the extenuating circumstance of the need to balance protecting participants from COVID-19 against the constitutional requirement for a public trial.
Now that the U.S. has entered a new phase of living with the coronavirus, Cahill must decide whether to allow the same sort of access for the trial of Thao, Lane and Kueng. He did not rule during their pretrial hearing, and said he won’t until after the Minnesota Judicial Council — a panel of leading judges and court administrators — meets Thursday to discuss the issue.
Attorney Leita Walker, who represents a coalition of media organizations, including The Associated Press, urged Cahill to allow video coverage again, saying it’s the most reasonable way to ensure public and media access to the trial. She said the public got to watch Chauvin’s trial, and that interest remains high because both involve Floyd’s death. The killing, which was recorded on video, sparked protests around the world and a national reckoning on race.
“The public is just not going to understand why they got to watch that one gavel to gavel and they won’t be able to watch this one,” Walker said.
But Cahill questioned Walker’s assertions that he has the authority to make another exception and that the pandemic is still an extenuating circumstance.
“COVID-19 is less of a pandemic and more of an endemic issue now,” Cahill said.
Cahill noted that while he has publicly said he now believes the legal presumption should be to allow televised trials, he pointed out that that’s not the rule yet. “I’m still sworn to uphold the law,” he said.
Defense attorneys said they still oppose audiovisual coverage of the upcoming trial, and renewed concerns about the willingness of witnesses to testify.
Minnesota court rules generally require the consent of all parties for audiovisual coverage of trials, with fewer restrictions for sentencings. Chauvin’s trial was the first in Minnesota to be entirely televised, from jury selection to his murder conviction to his sentencing to 22 1/2 years in prison. People worldwide tuned into the livestreams.
“I think livestreaming that trial enabled people here and around the world to see the inner workings of a system that was handling one of the most important trials of our time,” Suki Dardarian, senior managing editor and vice president of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, which is part of the media coalition, said before the hearing.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office initially opposed having cameras in the court for Chauvin’s trial, but now supports them for the other officers’ upcoming trial.
“The Chauvin trial demonstrated the benefits of robust public access to this important case and proved that the Court could successfully navigate the concerns animating the State’s initial opposition to audio and video coverage,” prosecutors wrote last week. “The Court’s commendable transparency inspired public confidence in the proceedings and helped ensure calm in Minneapolis and across the country.”
Due to federal court rules, live video coverage was not allowed for the first trial of Thao, Lane and Kueng this year, when all three were convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights. Nor was it allowed for Chauvin’s federal case in which he pleaded guilty to civil rights violations. But it was allowed in the December state court trial of former Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter in the death of Daunte Wright, who was killed one year ago Monday.
An advisory committee to the Minnesota Supreme Court is considering whether to allow more video coverage of criminal proceedings. It’s due to release its report by July 1.
Cahill, in a letter to the committee, said he had opposed cameras in criminal cases before, but that his experience in Chauvin’s case changed his opinion, and he now believes they should be presumptively allowed, subject to the trial judge’s discretion.
Hennepin County Judge Regina Chu, who presided over Potter’s trial, told the Star Tribune in an interview that both the Potter and Chauvin trials convinced her that cameras can be present without being disruptive.
“I forgot they were even there,” Chu told the newspaper. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/judge-weighs-cameras-in-next-trial-over-george-floyds-death/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:30 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/judge-weighs-cameras-in-next-trial-over-george-floyds-death/ |
Philadelphia became the first major U.S. city to reinstate its indoor mask mandate on Monday after reporting a sharp increase in coronavirus infections, with the city’s top health official saying she wanted to forestall a potential new wave driven by an omicron subvariant.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases have risen more than 50% in 10 days, the threshold at which the city’s guidelines call for people to wear masks indoors, said Dr. Cheryl Bettigole, the health commissioner. Health officials believe the recent spike is being driven by the highly transmissible BA.2 subvariant of omicron, which has spread rapidly throughout Europe and Asia, and has become dominant in the U.S. in recent weeks.
“If we fail to act now, knowing that every previous wave of infections has been followed by a wave of hospitalizations, and then a wave of deaths, it will be too late for many of our residents,” said Bettigole, noting about 750 Philadelphia residents died in the wintertime omicron outbreak. “This is our chance to get ahead of the pandemic, to put our masks on until we have more information about the severity of this new variant.”
Health inspectors will begin enforcing the mask mandate at city businesses on April 18.
Most states and cities dropped their masking requirements in February and early March following new guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that put less focus on case counts and more on hospital capacity. The CDC said at that time that with the virus in retreat, most Americans could safely take off their masks.
Philadelphia ended its indoor mask mandate March 2, and Bettigole acknowledged “it was wonderful to feel that sense of normalcy again.”
Confirmed cases have since risen to more than 140 per day — still a fraction of what Philadelphia saw at the height of the omicron surge — while only 46 patients are in the hospital with COVID-19. The CDC says community spread in Philadelphia remains low, a level at which the agency says that masking can be optional.
The restaurant industry pushed back against the city’s reimposed mask mandate, saying workers will bear the brunt of customer anger over the new rules.
“This announcement is a major blow to thousands of small businesses and other operators in the city who were hoping this spring would be the start of recovery,” said Ben Fileccia, senior director of operations at the Pennsylvania Restaurant & Lodging Association.
PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said Friday that while it expects some increased transmission in the northern U.S. over the next several weeks, hospital admissions have remained low and “our team advises against required masking given that hospital capacity is good.”
Bettigole said requiring people to mask up will help restaurants and other businesses stay open, while a huge new wave of COVID-19 would keep customers at home. She said hospital capacity was just one factor that went into her decision to reinstate the mandate.
“I sincerely wish we didn’t have to do this again,” Bettigole said. “But I am very worried about our vulnerable neighbors and loved ones.”
In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams has paused his push to unwind many of the city’s virus rules as cases have risen, opting for now to keep a mask mandate for 2 to 4-year-olds in city schools and preschools. But Adams, a Democrat who has said New Yorkers should not let the pandemic run their lives, has already lifted most other mask mandates and rules requiring proof of vaccination to dine in restaurants, work out at gyms or attend shows.
Adams was asked at a virtual news conference Monday afternoon if he was considering reimposing the New York City mask mandate in light of Philadelphia’s decision. The mayor said he would listen to his team of medical doctors for their advice on whether to bring back any restrictions. Adams himself tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday.
New York City is now averaging around 1,800 new cases per day, about three times higher than in early March when New York began easing rules. That does not include the many home tests that go unreported to health officials.
The latest outbreak has struck many high-profile officials in Washington, including Cabinet members and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut. Some universities have reinstated mask mandates.
D.C. health officials say they have no immediate plans to change virus protocols, but they reserve the right to change course down the road.
___
Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. Associated Press reporter Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this story. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/philadelphia-to-restore-indoor-mask-mandate-as-cases-rise/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:37 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/philadelphia-to-restore-indoor-mask-mandate-as-cases-rise/ |
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota House is set to decide Tuesday whether Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg should be impeached for his conduct before and after he struck and killed a pedestrian on the shoulder of a highway.
Troopers have said Ravnsborg was distracted before the September 2020 crash that killed 55-year-old Joseph Boever. Ravnsborg initially told authorities he thought he had struck a deer or other large animal. He went back the next day and found Boever’s body.
Opponents of impeachment say Ravnsborg need not be held accountable by the House because he wasn’t on the job when the crash happened. He had been driving back from a Republican fundraiser.
Ravnsborg has cast Boever’s death as a tragic accident. He pleaded no contestlast year to a pair of traffic misdemeanors, including making an illegal lane change.
An investigation committee from the Republican-controlled House votedagainst recommending impeachment after arguments that Ravnsborg’s actions were not part of his official duties. Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has pushed for impeachment, saying Ravnsborg lied to investigators.
The Highway Patrol concluded that Ravnsborg’s car crossed completely onto the highway shoulder before hitting Boever, and criminal investigators said later that they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.
Republican Rep. Will Mortenson, of Pierre, brought articles of impeachment against Ravnsborg more than a year ago. He did not return phone messages left Monday by The Associated Press.
Last week, at the request of Republican Rep. Tim Goodwin, of Rapid City, about 30 lawmakers took in a presentation by two Highway Patrol troopersoutlining details of the investigation.
Goodwin said it raised doubts about the committee’s recommendation. House Speaker Spencer Gosch, who chaired the committee, called it a sales pitch. Gosch did not respond to phone messages Monday.
While it’s unclear whether the presentation would have any effect on the impeachment vote, Noem’s spokesman referenced it Monday to sum up the feelings in the governor’s office.
“The troopers’ presentation speaks better than I ever could,” Ian Fury said.
Democrat House Minority Leader Jamie Smith, a member of the impeachment investigation committee, said the troopers helped with unanswered questions, but he doesn’t believe they will change any minds. He expects Tuesday’s floor debate to last a couple of hours before the vote.
“As a member of the committee, I said I believed there were grounds for impeachment and I will stay with that,” Smith said. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/south-dakota-house-to-vote-on-impeaching-attorney-general/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:44 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/south-dakota-house-to-vote-on-impeaching-attorney-general/ |
COLUMBUS – Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers filed felony drug charges against an Ohio man and woman after a traffic stop in Scioto County. During the traffic stop, troopers seized 114 grams of fentanyl worth approximately $14,820.
On April 7, at 5:05 p.m., troopers stopped a 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe with Florida registration for an unsafe lane change violation on U.S. 23. While interacting with the occupants, troopers detected an odor of marijuana coming from the vehicle. During a search of the passenger, she forfeited a small amount of marijuana and troopers located 114 grams of suspected fentanyl on the driver.
The driver, Darrius J. L. Marrow, 27, and passenger, Roneisha C. Anderson, 24, both from Columbus, were incarcerated in the Scioto County Jail and charged with possession of fentanyl and trafficking in drugs, both first-degree felonies.
If convicted, each could face up to 22 years in prison and up to a $40,000 fine. | https://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/news/74568/troopers-seize-14820-worth-of-suspected-fentanyl-in-scioto-county | 2022-04-12T15:32:45 | 0 | https://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/news/74568/troopers-seize-14820-worth-of-suspected-fentanyl-in-scioto-county |
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Families with transgender teens sued the state of Alabama in federal court on Monday to overturn a law that makes it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity.
The two lawsuits — one on behalf of two families and another on behalf two families and the physicians who treat their children— pose legal challenges to legislation signed into law Friday by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.
“Transgender youth are a part of Alabama, and they deserve the same privacy, access to treatment, and data-driven health care from trained medical professionals as any other Alabamian,” Tish Gotell Faulks, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said in a statement. Faulks added that lawmakers are using children, as, “political pawns for their reelection campaigns.” Ivey and legislators face primaries next month.
Unless blocked by the court, the Alabama law will take effect May 8, making it a felony for a doctor to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to aid in the gender transition of anyone under age 19. Violations will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison. It also prohibits gender transition surgeries, although doctors told lawmakers those are not performed on minors in Alabama.
“The level of legislative overreach into the practice of medicine is unprecedented. And never before has legislative overreach come into pediatric examination rooms to shut down the parent voice in medical decision making between a parent, their pediatrician and their child,” Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, a medical provider and a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, told The Associated Press in an interview.
Ivey signed the legislation Friday, a day after it was approved by the Alabama Legislature. At a campaign stop Monday, the governor invoked religion when asked about her decision to sign the legislation.
“If the good Lord made you a boy at birth, then you are a boy. If the good Lord made you a girl at birth, then you are a girl,” she said. “We should especially focus our efforts on helping these young people become healthy adults just like God wanted them to be rather than self-induced medical intervenors.”
Asked if the law would survive a court challenge, she replied, “We’ll wait and see.”
The two lawsuits were filed by advocacy groups on behalf of families with transgender children, as well as by two medical providers. The children were not identified in the lawsuits because of their age,
“I know that I am a girl and I always have been,” one of the 15-year-old plaintiffs said in a statement provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. “Even before I learned the word ‘transgender’ or met other trans people, I knew myself.”
In one of the lawsuits, parents described their fears that their transgender daughter, called “Mary Roe” in the suit, would harm herself or try to commit suicide if she loses access to the puberty blockers she began taking last year. “For Mary to be forced to go through male puberty would be devastating; it would predictably result in her experiencing isolation, depression, anxiety, and distress,” the lawsuit states.
Similar measures have been pushed in other states, but the Alabama legislation is the first to lay out criminal penalties for doctors.
In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate as abuse reports of gender-confirming care for kids. And a law in Arkansas bans gender-affirming medications. That law has been blocked by a court, however.
Ivey also signed a separate measure that requires students to use bathrooms that align with their original birth certificate and prohibits instruction of gender and sexual identity in kindergarten through fifth grades. | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/transgender-treatment-ban-challenged-by-lawsuit-in-alabama/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:51 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/u-s-headlines/transgender-treatment-ban-challenged-by-lawsuit-in-alabama/ |
This still image provided by WABC shows law enforcement gathering at the scene of a shooting in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Law enforcement sources say five people were shot at a subway station in Brooklyn . Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke Tuesday morning at the 36th Street station in Sunset Park found multiple people shot and unexploded devices. (WABC via AP)
This still image provided by WABC shows law enforcement gathering at the scene of a shooting in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Law enforcement sources say five people were shot at a subway station in Brooklyn . Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke Tuesday morning at the 36th Street station in Sunset Park found multiple people shot and unexploded devices. (WABC via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — Five people were shot Tuesday morning at a subway station in Brooklyn, New York, law enforcement sources said.
Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke at the 36th Street station in the Sunset Park neighborhood found multiple people shot and undetonated devices, a New York City Fire Department spokesperson said. The fire department said 13 people were injured, but there were no details on what those injuries entailed.
According to multiple law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation, preliminary information indicated a suspect fled wearing a construction vest and a gas mask.
A photo from the scene showed people tending to bloodied passengers lying on the floor of the station.
Further details were not immediately available.
Trains servicing that station were delayed during the morning rush hour.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office did not immediately have more details. Adams was at the mayor’s residence Tuesday morning and was being briefed, according to a spokesperson.
This still image provided by WABC shows law enforcement gathering at the scene of a shooting in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Law enforcement sources say five people were shot at a subway station in Brooklyn . Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke Tuesday morning at the 36th Street station in Sunset Park found multiple people shot and unexploded devices. (WABC via AP)
This still image provided by WABC shows law enforcement gathering at the scene of a shooting in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Tuesday, April 12, 2022. Law enforcement sources say five people were shot at a subway station in Brooklyn . Fire personnel responding to reports of smoke Tuesday morning at the 36th Street station in Sunset Park found multiple people shot and unexploded devices. (WABC via AP)
Associated Press reporters Michael Balsamo in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report. | https://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/news/74572/5-shot-unexploded-devices-found-at-nyc-train-station | 2022-04-12T15:32:51 | 0 | https://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/news/74572/5-shot-unexploded-devices-found-at-nyc-train-station |
SPRING SCOREBOARD — April 11
Baseball
Minford 13, Eastern 1
Notre Dame 5, Ironton St. Joseph 1
Leesburg Fairfield 18, Western 0
Fairland 14, Chesapeake 1 (5 innings)
Ironton at Portsmouth, ppd. to April 21
South Point at Coal Grove, ppd. to April 30
Gallia Academy at Rock Hill, ppd.
Valley at Oak Hill, ppd. to April 12 (at VA Memorial Stadium)
Wheelersburg at Northwest, ppd. to April 21
Peebles at South Webster, ppd.
Symmes Valley at Clay, ppd. to April 16
New Boston at Green, ppd.
Softball
Western at East, ppd.
Clay at Symmes Valley, ppd. to April 21
New Boston at Green, ppd.
Eastern at Minford, ppd.
Valley at Oak Hill, ppd. to April 14
Wheelersburg at Northwest, ppd. to April 21
Gallia Academy at Rock Hill, ppd. to April 12
Ironton at Portsmouth, ppd.
South Point at Coal Grove, ppd.
Fairland 6, Chesapeake 5 (8 innings) | https://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/sports/74564/spring-scoreboard-april-11 | 2022-04-12T15:32:58 | 1 | https://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/sports/74564/spring-scoreboard-april-11 |
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion, and the United Nations has verified the deaths of 142 youngsters, though the number is almost certainly much higher, the U.N. children’s agency said Monday.
Manuel Fontaine, UNICEF’s emergency programs director who just returned from Ukraine, said having 4.8 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children displaced in such a short time is “quite incredible.” He said it is something he hadn’t before seen happen so quickly in 31 years of humanitarian work.
“They have been forced to leave everything behind — their homes, their schools and, often, their family members,” he told the U.N. Security Council. “I have heard stories of the desperate steps parents are taking to get their children to safety, and children saddened that they are unable to get back to school.”
Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed Russia has taken more than 121,000 children out of Ukraine and reportedly drafted a bill to simplify and accelerate adoption procedures for orphans and even those who have parents and other relatives. He said most of the children were removed from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol and taken to eastern Donetsk and then to the Russian city of Taganrog.
Fontaine said UNICEF has heard the same reports, but added that “we don’t have yet the access that we need to have to be able to look and verify and see if we can assist.”
He said that of Ukraine’s displaced children, 2.8 million are in Ukraine and 2 million more are in other countries. At the same time, he said, nearly half the estimated 3.2 million children still in their homes in Ukraine “may be at risk of not having enough food,” with those in besieged cities like Mariupol facing the most dire situation.
Fontaine said school closings are affecting the education of 5.7 million younger children and 1.5 million students in higher education.
“Hundreds of schools and educational facilities have been attacked or used for military purposes,” he said. “Others are serving as shelters for civilians.”
The council also heard from Sima Bahous, the executive director of the UN Women agency, who recently returned from Moldova, which is hosting an estimated 95,000 Ukrainian refugees.
Bahous said her agency is increasingly hearing allegations of rape and sexual violence. She said Moldova’s government and border police are also very concerned at the risk of human trafficking, especially of young women and unaccompanied teenagers.
“The combination of mass displacement with the large presence of conscripts and mercenaries, and the brutality displayed against Ukrainian civilians, has raised all red flags,” she said.
Ukraine’s ambassador said his country’s prosecutor’s office is now investigating a case in the Kyiv region in which a Russia soldier is alleged to have killed a local resident and then repeatedly raped his wife in their home. He said the alleged perpetrator has been identified.
Kyslytsya said the Prosecutor General’s Office, in cooperation with investigation agencies and health facilities, is also installing “a special mechanism” to document cases of sexual violence by Russian soldiers.
The Security Council meeting on the impact of the war on women and children was convened by the U.S. and Albania during Britain’s presidency of the body.
The three countries, Ukraine and other council members attacked Russia for creating the dire situation for women and children, which Russian deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky vehemently denied.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that when men like Russian President Vladimir Putin “start wars, women and children get displaced,” hurt, raped and abused, and they die.
“Since the start of Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine, Russia has bombed orphanages and maternity hospitals,” she said. “We’ve seen mass graves with dead children stacked on top of each other.”
Albanian Ambassador Ferit Hoxha accused Russia of committing “unspeakable crimes” every day, including burning civilians, throwing bodies in mass graves, shooting into playgrounds, attacking schools on purpose, and leaving all Ukrainians suffering, especially women and children.
“In their normal life, children draw parents, houses and trees. Russia’s war has made Ukraine kids draw bombs, tanks and weapons,” Hoxha said.
Both the U.S. and Albanian ambassadors, and many others, pointed to the discovery of bodies, some with hands tied behind their backs, in the town of Bucha on the outskirts of Kyiv following the withdrawal of Russian troops, and the missile that killed at least 52 mainly women and children at the train station in eastern Kramatorsk. Hoxha noted that the missile had “a vicious signature, `for our children.’”
Russia’s Polyansky blamed “Ukrainian Nazis” for civilian killings in Bucha and the bombing at the Kramatorsk station, which he called “a classic false flag operation.”
He accused Ukraine and its public relations experts, along with the West, of promoting “fakes and propaganda” as part of “the information war unleashed against Russia.”
“That war is as intense as the military operations on the ground,” he said.
Lord Tariq Ahmad, Britain’s minister of state for the U.N. who presided over the meeting, countered that Russia again was trying to deflect from the reality on the ground “by what can only be described as quite extraordinary statements, and even lies.”
“Yet, what is true, what is fact, is that Russian attacks on civilians and residential areas have been truly barbaric,” he said. | https://www.wivb.com/news/un-nearly-two-thirds-of-ukraines-children-have-fled-homes/ | 2022-04-12T15:32:57 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/un-nearly-two-thirds-of-ukraines-children-have-fled-homes/ |
VIENNA (AP) — Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Monday that he urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the invasion of Ukraine and raised the issue of “serious war crimes” committed by the Russian military.
Nehammer was the first European leader to meet Putin in Moscow since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine Feb. 24.
In a statement released after the meeting, the Austrian chancellor said his primary message to Putin in the “very direct, open and tough” talks was that “this war needs to end, because in war both sides can only lose.”
Nehammer told Putin all those responsible for war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha and elsewherewould be “held to account.”
He also stressed the need to open humanitarian corridors so that civilians trapped in cities under attack can access basic supplies like food and water, according to his statement.
The Austrian leader called the Moscow trip to Moscow his “duty” to exhaust every possibility for ending the violence in Ukraine, coming just two days after travelling to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Speaking at a news conference in Moscow, Nehammer said face-to-face talks to look “each other in the eye, discussing the horrors of war,” could have a greater impact over the long term.
But he said he walked away from the meeting without much optimism for an end to the war any time soon.
“It might be necessary to do it 100 times,” Nehammer said of the meeting. “But I think it’s necessary to do it, so that peace reigns again and the people of Ukraine can live safely.”
European Union-member Austria supported the 27-nation bloc’s sanctions against Russia, though it so far has opposed cutting off deliveries of Russian gas. The country is militarily neutral and is not a member of NATO.
But Nehammer and other Austrian officials have been keen to stress that military neutrality does not mean moral neutrality.
“We are militarily neutral, but have a clear position on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” Nehammer wrote on Twitter Sunday when announcing his trip to Moscow. “It must stop!”
Nehammer said he told Putin the EU is “as united as it’s ever been” on the issue of sanctions, and that these will remain in place – and may even be strengthened – as long as Ukrainians continue to die.
Earlier Monday, Austrian foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg said Nehammer decided to make the Moscow trip after meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv and following contacts with the leaders of Turkey, Germany and the European Union.
Schallenberg said ahead of a meeting with his EU counterparts in Luxembourg that it was an effort to “seize every chance to end the humanitarian hell” in Ukraine.
He added that “every voice that makes clear to President Putin what reality looks like outside the walls of Kremlin is not a wasted voice.” | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/austrian-chancellor-tells-putin-to-end-ukraine-war/ | 2022-04-12T15:33:04 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/austrian-chancellor-tells-putin-to-end-ukraine-war/ |
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Gunmen burst into a home just north of Mexico City and killed eight members of a family, including four children.
Prosecutors in the State of Mexico, which borders the capital, said the shootings occurred in the township of Tultepec, just north of the capital.
The shootings happened between late Sunday and early Monday. Seven people died at the scene, and one woman died late at a hospital.
There was no immediate information on a possible motive, but Tultepec is known for its fireworks workshops, both legal and illegal. | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/gunmen-kill-family-of-8-near-mexico-city/ | 2022-04-12T15:33:12 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/gunmen-kill-family-of-8-near-mexico-city/ |
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s decision to conduct the trials of suspects charged with terrorism behind closed doors has been criticized by human rights advocates.
The West African nation last week began implementing a new court practice that bans the media and the public from trials involving terrorism charges at the start of the trial of a pro-Biafra separatist leader.
Nnamdi Kanu, who holds dual Nigerian and British citizenship, leads the Indigenous People of Biafra campaigning for the secession from Nigeria of the Igbo, Nigeria’s third-largest ethnic group.
Kanu’s trial in the capital, Abuja, resumed behind closed doors a day after the nation’s Federal High Court announced that court proceedings for offences of terrorism “shall be held in camera,” prompting concern among many human rights advocates.
“We are concerned that this breaches the constitution,” Anietie Ewang, Nigeria Researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch told The Associated Press of the secret court trials.
If Nigerian authorities fear that confidential security information could be made public in a terrorism trial, those concerns should be examined “on a case-by-case basis,” Ewang said, “as opposed to giving out a blanket ban that would clearly restrict public scrutiny.”
Kanu is accused of leading terrorism-related activities and instigating violence in Nigeria’s southeast, including a jailbreak in Imo state last year that led to the escape of nearly 2,000 inmates. He denies the seven charges including terrorism and felony. Eight other charges were dropped by the court when the trial resumed last week.
The proceedings against Kanu “should be a public trial that the whole world can watch,” his lawyer Mike Ozekhome said, likening the secret court sitting to “a gathering of witches and wizards in a coven.”
The concerns are not just about Kanu’s trial, say the activists as Nigeria has dozens of terrorism suspects in detention, many who have been held for years.
“The right to a public hearing safeguards the fairness and independence of the judicial process and helps to maintain public confidence in the judicial system,” Amnesty International Nigeria office told The Associated Press.
Except when a secret trial is meant to protect the interest of a child, “court hearings and judgements must be public,” said Seun Bakare, head of programs at Amnesty Nigeria. | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/nigerias-secret-terrorism-trials-raise-human-rights-worries/ | 2022-04-12T15:33:19 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/nigerias-secret-terrorism-trials-raise-human-rights-worries/ |
Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr., who was twice sickened in incidents he suspected were poisonings, has been detained in Moscow by police, another prominent opposition figure said Monday.
Ilya Yashin said on Twitter that Kara-Murza was detained Monday near his Moscow residence. It was unclear whether he had been charged.
Kara-Murza was hospitalized with poisoning symptoms twice, in 2015 and 2017. A journalist and associate of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was shot and killed in 2015, and oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Kara-Murza nearly died from kidney failure in the first incident. He suspects he was poisoned but no cause has been determined.
He was taken to a hospital with a sudden, similar illness in 2017 and put into a medically induced coma. His wife said doctors confirmed that he was poisoned. | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/russian-activist-who-said-he-had-been-poisoned-is-detained/ | 2022-04-12T15:33:26 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/russian-activist-who-said-he-had-been-poisoned-is-detained/ |
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. official spearheading global vaccination efforts against the coronavirus said Monday the number of countries where 10% or less of the population has been vaccinated dropped from 34 to 18 since January and called for accelerated progress to end the pandemic.
Assistant Secretary-General Ted Chaiban told the U.N. Security Council that with over 6 million lives lost to COVID-19 and just over 1 million new coronavirus infections reported to the World Health Organization in the last 24 hours, it is urgent to increase vaccinations in countries where it wasn’t possible to boost rates in 2021.
“The next six months are critical,” he said. “In 2022, we must take the rapid action needed to accelerate vaccination. The window of opportunity is gradually closing. We risk losing the momentum and failing on vaccine equity.”
Chaiban said more than 11.1 billion doses of vaccines have been administered globally, and 124 of the 194 WHO member nations have vaccinated more than 40% of their populations and 51 countries have reached more than 70%.
However, in low-income countries the rate is only 11%, he said. In WHO’s Africa region, 83% of the people remain unvaccinated, and in its eastern Mediterranean region, which includes Afghanistan, 51% haven’t gotten a first jab.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed Chaiban, a senior official at the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF, in February to lead a U.N. team to ensure an effective global response to the pandemic and help close the gap in vaccine availability and distribution. It will also provide financial and technical assistance to overcome vaccine bottlenecks.
Chaiban said a just ended campaign in Ethiopia increased vaccination coverage from 4% in January to just over 20%, including in some conflict-affected areas. In the conflict-affected Central African Republic, he said, strong community engagement including focus group discussions, TV and radio spots with leaders and influencers and the mobilization of young people has led to almost 19% of the population being vaccinated.
Chaiban told the council he was speaking by video link from Congo where this week the U.N. team will be meeting with government officials and key partners “to better address the urgent needs and bottlenecks to expanding vaccination coverage across this country of nearly 100 million people.”
Dr. Esperanza Martinez, a senior adviser to the director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said vaccinations and other health-related activities “are incredibly difficult to carry out” in conflict-affected areas.
“The good news is that as the supply of vaccine doses grows, the potential to get jabs in arms grows, too,” she said.
To achieve this, Martinez said, the Security Council should ensure that international humanitarian law requiring the protection of health workers and facilities is respected, makes coronavirus vaccinations part of broader efforts to improve health and strengthens the health systems of conflict-affected countries. He said community involvement in vaccination activities is key to gaining public trust.
“We have seen vaccines expire on airport tarmacs in Afghanistan, Nigeria, South Sudan and several other places,” Martinez said. “Some of these vaccines were wasted because they arrived with too short expiry date, others because the receiving country’s health systems were not ready to distribute them.”
To address the significant vaccine equity gap, the U.N’s Chaiban urged the council to continue supporting two resolutions it adopted calling for cease-fires and increased global cooperation to facilitate access for vaccinations in major conflict areas.
He urged countries to turn $4.8 billion in pledges at a virtual summit Friday to help lower income countries boost vaccinations “into tangible support” now.
Chaiban also urged council members to advocate for and help guarantee unhindered humanitarian access to deliver vaccine supplies and administer doses and to invest in primary health care “as a key element of future pandemic preparedness.” | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/un-official-urges-acceleration-in-coronavirus-vaccinations/ | 2022-04-12T15:33:33 | 0 | https://www.wivb.com/news/world/un-official-urges-acceleration-in-coronavirus-vaccinations/ |
The best Origins skin care products on Sephora
Since the 1990s, Origins has relied on plant-based science to create innovative products that help transform the skin without irritation. The brand has focused on a holistic approach that gives back to the environment to truly celebrate the nature that inspires its skin care.
From gentle cleansers and intensive serums to soothing treatment masks, Origins offers skin care products for every step of your routine. The range includes formulas for all skin types, so you can find products that target your specific skin issues.
To introduce some natural but effective products into your skin care routine, here are the most popular Origins skin care products at Sephora to help give you clear, fresh, healthy skin.
Most popular cleansers
Origins Checks and Balances Frothy Face Wash
This oil-free facial cleanser easily removes dirt, oil, makeup and other impurities from the skin. It has a gel formula that foams up for effective cleaning but never leaves the skin feeling stripped. It’s an excellent option for oily, combination and acne-prone skin.
Sold by Sephora
Origins GinZing Refreshing Scrub Cleanser
Save some time in your skin care routine with this two-in-one cleanser. Not only does it remove dirt and oil, it also helps exfoliate to remove dead skin cells. It has an invigorating citrus and mint scent to help wake you up for the day.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Checks and Balances Polishing Exfoliator
This gentle scrub effectively buffs away dull, dead skin to reveal a soft, smooth complexion. It can also help unclog and soften the look of pores in as little as a week. Best of all, the formula is vegan and cruelty-free.
Sold by Sephora
Most popular serums
Dr. Andrew Weil for Origins Mega-Mushroom Relief & Resilience Advanced Face Serum
Featuring a fermented chaga mushroom and reishi mushroom blend, this serum helps strengthen and nourish the skin. It reduces visible redness and calms irritation for healthier skin. Because the formula is gentle, it can work well for sensitive skin.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Plantscription Multi-Powered Anti-Aging Peptide Serum
Minimize the visible signs of aging with this peptide-rich serum. It softens the look of fine lines and helps encourage collagen and elastin production for plumper skin. It also features niacinamide to reduce the appearance of your pores.
Sold by Sephora
Origins GinZing into the Glow Brightening Serum
This lightweight serum features a potent blend of vitamin C, AHAs, BHAs and green coffee extract to give you healthy, glowing skin. It encourages cell turnover, so your skin looks brighter and smoother. It also helps moisturize and plump the skin with hyaluronic acid.
Sold by Sephora
Most popular moisturizers
Origins Plantscription Retinol Night Moisturizer
This nighttime moisturizer helps increase the skin’s hydration while boosting its glow. The included retinol promotes cell turnover to improve your skin’s tone, texture and elasticity. It works especially well for fine lines, wrinkles, dark spots and uneven texture. All skin types can use it.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Original Skin Matte Moisturizer with Willowherb
If you want to reduce shine, this water cream moisturizer is an excellent option. It has a natural matte finish, so your skin never looks greasy or oily. The included willow herb helps even out your skin tone and minimizes the appearance of your pores. It also absorbs quickly, so it works well under makeup.
Sold by Sephora
Origins GinZing Ultra-Hydrating Energy-Boosting Cream
This thick, rich moisturizer is like a drink of water for dry skin. It helps prevent moisture loss, so your skin stays hydrated for up to 72 hours. It contains caffeine and ginseng to help energize the skin, leaving it looking fresh and well-rested. The formula is free of parabens and phthalates.
Sold by Sephora
Origins GinZing Refreshing Eye Cream to Brighten and Depuff
This lightweight eye cream hydrates the delicate under-eye area and creates the perfect canvas for concealer. The formula features vitamin C to brighten dark circles and ginseng and caffeine to reduce puffiness. The cream is available in two different brightening tones to match most skin tones.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Ginger Souffle Whipped Body Cream
This creamy body moisturizer leaves your skin feeling soft and smooth after just one application. It features olive, grapeseed, rice bran and apricot kernel oils to nourish and hydrate the skin. It also contains natural lemon, lime and bergamot to give it a bright, refreshing scent.
Sold by Sephora
Most popular face masks
Origins Clear Improvement Charcoal Honey Mask to Purify and Nourish
This bamboo charcoal-fortified mask gently purifies the skin, leaving you with a clean, clear complexion. It’s formulated to draw dirt and impurities from your pores, so it’s effective for treating blemishes and blackheads. It also contains golden wildflower and fermented honey to nourish the skin, so it never feels dry or tight.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Original Skin Retexturizing Mask with Rose Clay
This face mask not only draws impurities out of the skin but also exfoliates. It features rose clay, willow herb and jojoba beads to gently cleanse the skin and buff away dead skin cells. It’s ideal for normal, oily and combination skin, leaving you with a clear, smooth complexion.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Drink Up Intensive Overnight Hydrating Mask with Avocado & Glacier Water
This sleeping mask provides intense moisture for normal and dry skin while you sleep. With Swiss glacier water, hyaluronic acid and avocado butter, it provides up to 72 hours of hydration and nourishment. It can be used twice a week, or more if your skin is particularly dry.
Sold by Sephora
Origins Out of Trouble 10-Minute Mask to Rescue Problem Skin
This multi-action mask helps prevent breakouts and clogged pores for oily and acne-prone skin. It has zinc oxide and sulfur to absorb excess oil that can lead to acne. The formula also helps remove dead skin cells and pulls impurities out of the skin.
Sold by Sephora
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Jennifer Blair writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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What are the best sheet masks at Sephora?
Just about every self-care checklist will suggest treating yourself to a sheet mask — and with good reason. Not only are sheet masks great at delivering nourishing skin care ingredients, but they also give you an excuse to relax.
Whether you struggle with acne, redness or dry skin, there’s a sheet mask for you. If you’re looking to find a popular option, cosmetics retailer Sephora carries a range of sheet masks beloved by customers and beauty experts alike for their nourishing ingredients and excellent results.
Sheet masks vs. clay masks
Sheet masks have been gaining in popularity in Western markets for a few years now, but they’ve been a staple in Korean beauty regimens for much longer. Unlike wash-off facial masks, which usually consist of a clay base, sheet masks are made from fabric, paper or gel that’s been saturated with skin care ingredients. The sheet fibers give your skin a chance to absorb the essence’s beneficial ingredients without the dried-out feeling that can come from clay masks, and there’s no rinsing necessary. While both kinds of masks offer several benefits, sheet masks tend to focus on hydration while clay masks are better for decongesting skin.
How to use sheet masks
To use a sheet mask effectively, start by cleansing your face. You may wish to steam your face with a hot washcloth or facial steamer to open up your pores. This helps your skin absorb the mask’s essence. Wear the mask for the recommended amount of time, then gently massage the leftover essence into your skin. Treat your neck and décolleté as well: if there’s any essence left in the mask’s packaging, massage that in, too. Sheet masks with acne-fighting or exfoliating ingredients are recommended for use once a week, while gentler, hydrating masks can be used more often.
Sheet mask benefits
Almost any skin care concern can be addressed with a sheet mask. Here are some of the key ingredients to look for if you’re shopping for a specific type of sheet mask:
- Exfoliating sheet masks may contain fruit enzymes (like pineapple or papaya) or retinol.
- Hydrating sheet masks may contain hyaluronic acid, snail jelly, honey or coconut water.
- Brightening sheet masks may contain licorice root extract, pearl extract or vitamin C.
- Soothing sheet masks may contain green tea extract, aloe vera or chamomile.
- Acne and blemish-clearing masks may contain salicylic acid, tea tree oil or charcoal.
- Redness-reducing masks may contain niacinamide or tiger grass.
The most popular sheet masks from Sephora
Sephora Collection Clean Face Mask
These affordable masks make great spa-night treats or gifts, and they cover a variety of skin concerns like soothing, exfoliating, mattifying and toning. Biodegradable eucalyptus fibers carry essences formulated with plant extracts like matcha, grapefruit and coconut. The masks are cruelty-free, but not everyone is a fan of the added fragrance.
Sold by Sephora
Glamglow Bubblesheet Oxygenating Deep-Cleanse Mask
Formulated with bamboo charcoal and green tea, this foaming mask bubbles up to help clear out pores and clean away dirt and buildup. It can be drying, so it’s recommended for those with oily skin. Use it as a weekly detox by wearing the mask for just three minutes, then using the charcoal sheet as an exfoliating washcloth while you rinse off.
Sold by Sephora
This two-step mask comes with an ampoule of gel-like serum, which is applied to the two-part rubber sheet mask that’s made from natural clay and algae. Leave the mask on for 30-40 minutes while the rubber prevents ingredients from evaporating, leaving skin soothed, brightened and moisturized. The masks are available for four different skin concerns.
Sold by Sephora
Sephora Collection Clean Foot Mask
Sheet masks aren’t just for your face! Treat your feet with this foot mask. It’s cruelty-free and available in two formulas, one for refreshing feet and one for nourishing dry skin. Just wrap up your clean feet in the masks and leave on for 20 minutes, then massage in the essence.
Sold by Sephora
JLo Beauty That Limitless Glow Sheet Mask
Sold individually or in a set of three, this two-piece mask is engineered to wrap around your ears, gripping your face for targeted treatment. It’s saturated with one ounce of the brand’s Glow serum, which can help minimize the look of pores and fine lines, brighten your complexion and boost radiance. Wear this cruelty-free mask for 10 minutes up to twice a week.
Sold by Sephora
Dr. Jart+ Ceramidin Facial Barrier Mask
This mask is formulated to combat dryness and support the skin barrier. Whether you have dry, oily, combination or sensitive skin, this mask can hydrate without increasing oil production or irritating your skin. It’s made from biodegradable bamboo cellulose. Users recommend treating the creamy essence like a sleep mask so you can wake up to smoother, hydrated skin.
Sold by Sephora
Peter Thomas Roth 24-Karat Gold Pure Luxury Lift and Firm
Give your under-eye area special attention with these luxurious under-eye masks. They’re formulated with hydrolyzed collagen, caffeine and 24K and colloidal gold to firm, brighten, depuff and smooth the skin under your eyes. The jar contains 30 pairs of eye gels, which are worn for 10-15 minutes at a time.
Sold by Sephora
Sephora Collection After-Sun Mask
This two-piece mask can help both your face and chest recover from a day at the beach with its cooling, hydrating formula. It’s great for mitigating sunburn thanks to watermelon extract, and it can even extend the look of a suntan. Apply both pieces to your face and décolleté and leave on for 15 minutes.
Sold by Sephora
SK-II Pitera Facial Treatment Mask
For a spa-quality treatment, these masks are a luxurious way to improve skin’s elasticity and texture. The fragrance-free formula contains a powerful dose of Pitera, the brand’s exclusive essence, which is packed with vitamins, minerals and amino acids to encourage cell renewal. The masks come in a set of six or 10 and can be used once or twice a week for 10-15 minutes.
Sold by Sephora
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Laura Duerr writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.wivb.com/reviews/9-most-popular-sheet-masks-at-sephora/ | 2022-04-12T15:33:47 | 1 | https://www.wivb.com/reviews/9-most-popular-sheet-masks-at-sephora/ |
Which bodyboard is best?
Bodyboarding is used as a stepping stone to surfing; in fact, many people find it more enjoyable. Bodyboards are also just as complex in construction as surfboards, with multiple material and design choices to make.
The best bodyboard is Own The Wave Wave Weapon Bodyboard. It’s light, includes a variety of tethers and comes in several sizes and colors. It’s perfect for beginners to learn and intermediates to improve.
What to know before you buy a bodyboard
Core material
Bodyboards are usually made of one or a mixture of polypropylene, polyethylene or expanded polystyrene. Each interacts differently with various aspects of water.
- PP cores are among the more commonly made. They’re light, which lets them move through the water fastest. They have little flex in return, making them difficult to control. They’re also the most durable.
- Low-density PP sacrifices a little durability for a little more flex, leading to easier control, especially in cold water. It goes by a few other acronyms, such as PX.
- PE cores are the most common. They’re a little heavier with a little more flex than PP cores, making them move slower but granting a greater degree of control. They’re best used in cool water.
- Dual-core, also called 3D core, is a mixture of PP for durability and PE for flex and control.
- EPS cores are the best for beginners. They’re ultra-light, granting maximum buoyancy. As most beginners simply move straight, the lack of flex isn’t a problem.
Tail
The tail (or backend) of the bodyboard comes in two shapes: crescent and bat.
- Crescent tails look like a “C.” They’re easier to control and ride, making them best for beginners or for use on large waves.
- Bat tails resemble a bat. They allow for more precise control, in particular on small waves, but can create drag through large waves.
What to look for in a quality bodyboard
Deck material
The deck, or top, of the bodyboard is usually made of crosslink or polyethylene.
- Crosslink decks are durable but inflexible. They’re also inexpensive, meaning the majority of low-cost and beginner boards are crosslink.
- PE decks are softer and more flexible. They’re more comfortable but will develop divots from your body weight over time, particularly when used regularly.
Slick material
The slick (or bottom) of the bodyboard is arguably the most important section, since it’s what’s in contact with the water. They’re usually made of high-density polyethylene or Surlyn.
- HDPE slicks are inexpensive and equally low-quality. However, they’re more than enough for beginners and casual bodyboarders.
- Surlyn is a soft, translucent polymer. It’s flexible but rapidly returns to its original shape. You’ll have to shell out for a board with a Surlyn slick.
Channels
Most bodyboards have channels like little grooves in the back half of the slick. They usually provide more control or increased speed. For example, some professional boards use a large concave scoop in the back half of the slick for maximum speed with increased control.
How much you can expect to spend on a bodyboard
The low-cost bodyboards you may rent from a beachside shack rarely cost more than $40, while high-end pro-level boards cost $200-$300. A board worth buying to learn and improve on typically costs $50-$100.
Bodyboard FAQ
Do the dimensions of a bodyboard matter?
A. Yes, bodyboard buyers should consider the length and width of their prospective purchase. The length affects comfort. It should be roughly the same as the distance between your chin and knees. You won’t be able to paddle and won’t be kept afloat properly if it’s too long or short, respectively. The width as measured at the widest point of the board affects performance. Wider boards favor stability over control; narrow boards are the inverse. You won’t find narrower boards until you get close to or exceed $100.
Why do bodyboards have indentations at the front?
A. Most have little indentations, sometimes called nose bulbs, to provide extra grip for your fingers. Gripless boards can be difficult to hold onto once you start attempting any non-beginner moves. They’re especially helpful for making sudden, sharp moves and keeping precise control over your direction.
What’s the best bodyboard to buy?
Top bodyboard
Own The Wave Wave Weapon Bodyboard
What you need to know: This is an effective and stylish bodyboard with decent buoyancy and a high-speed surface.
What you’ll love: It has an EPS core with an HDPE slick, a crescent tail and rear-end channels. It comes with a coiled leash and two fin tethers. An e-guide is emailed to you with how-tos and tips. It’s available in three sizes and nearly 10 color combinations.
What you should consider: The skin begins to peel away faster than some consumers appreciate. Some arrived damaged and a few became damaged quickly.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top bodyboard for the money
What you need to know: This board costs a little less than usual without much sacrifice in quality.
What you’ll love: It has an EPS core with an HDPE slick, a crescent tail and rear-end channels. It includes a leash. It’s available in two lengths, each with two color options. It weighs only 1.2 or 1.5 pounds, depending on size.
What you should consider: The slick separated quickly for some consumers. Some packages didn’t contain the leash. Some consumers had issues with the paint staining clothes and hair.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Thurso Surf Quill 42-Inch Bodyboard
What you need to know: This board breaks the design mold with a gorgeous faux-wood look.
What you’ll love: It has an EPS core with an HDPE slick, a crescent tail and rear-end channels. The slick is heat-laminated for extra durability. It’s designed for stability and smooth gliding — perfect for recreation of any skill level. It includes a stainless steel double-swivel coiled wrist leash.
What you should consider: It’s a little pricey. Its weight limit is only 210 pounds. There are rare reports of the board breaking down on initial use.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Jordan C. Woika writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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Which electric knife is best?
For many, the scene is familiar: You’re standing around a magnificent turkey on Thanksgiving or presenting an elaborate roast to a dinner party of friends and family, and the carving pressure is on. If you’re comfortable handling a razor-sharp knife, this might not be a big deal. However, if you’re looking for an easier tool that produces perfect slices with minimal effort or skill, an electric knife is the way to go.
The Cuisinart AC Electric Knife is easy to handle and works well on turkey and ham. It’s also comfortable enough for people with hand pain to use.
What to know before you buy an electric knife
Corded vs. cordless
Electric knives can be either corded or cordless. Corded knives offer more power and can be used for as long as they’re plugged in an outlet. The downside is that you always need an outlet in order to operate them.
On the other hand, cordless electric knives run on batteries and can be used anywhere. You’ll need to keep extra batteries on hand or have a charger to make sure you have enough power when you need it.
Blade length
Blade length matters, especially if you’re cutting into a large fish or piece of meat. Look for blades with a length of 7 to 9 inches. This length allows for the most flexibility and versatility.
Intended use
Another consideration is your intended use of the electric knife. Different blades are used to cut different proteins. The blade to cut a roast is sturdier than the one for filleting a fish.
What to look for in a quality electric knife
Additional blades
If you don’t want to choose your knife based on one type of protein or cutting task, look for one that comes with additional blades. These might vary in both length and cutting edge to provide more uses.
Rechargeable battery
Depending on your use, electric knives can go through a lot of batteries. The best come with rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that offer anywhere from one to three hours of use per battery.
Variable speed
Variable speeds come in handy. These allow you to slow down when carving around bone and speed up when working your way through a large piece of meat.
Accessories
Accessories make it easier to use your knife. These might include:
- Carrying or storage case
- Cutting board
- Carving fork
- Instructional charts
At a minimum, your electric knife should include a storage case to protect the blade.
Safety features
Electric knives are sharp and dangerous. Children should never operate them, but in the event you’re using them around younger family members, safety features can protect them from harm. Blade locks and a quick shut-off button can prevent accidents and injuries.
How much you can expect to spend on an electric knife
Electric knives are an affordable kitchen tool. Expect to spend $15- $175, depending on functionality and accessories.
Electric knife FAQ
Is there a recommended technique for using an electric knife?
A. As with any new kitchen tool, there’s a bit of a learning curve. To get the best results, do the following:
- Stabilize whatever you’re cutting with a carving fork or other utensil. You can also carve the meat or slice the bread on a kitchen towel to keep it from shifting as you cut.
- Let gravity and the knife itself do the cutting work. There’s no need to saw or press down as you cut.
- To cut around bones or joints, use a slower speed and make shallow cuts. This allows you to see exactly what you’re carving around.
- When you’re finished with your cut, release the power button and gently slide the knife out of whatever you’re cutting.
How do you care for an electric knife?
A. Electric knives should never go into the dishwasher, but the blade is removable. Take care as you remove it and wash with hot, soapy water. Dry completely, then set it aside as you wipe down the body of the electric knife (including the cord).
If the edge of your electric knife dulls, you can either sharpen it yourself following the manufacturer’s instructions, or you can take it to be professionally sharpened at your local grocery or hardware store.
If one is included, always store your electric knife in a carrying or storage case.
What’s the best electric knife to buy?
Top electric knife
What you need to know: This electric knife comes with features and accessories that make it easy to use and store.
What you’ll love: It has a wide stainless steel blade that starts up with light pressure on the switch. The results are consistent, and it’s versatile across a wide variety of cutting tasks. This set includes a cutting board, the knife itself, a form and a storage tray.
What you should consider: This knife is loud when in use, and some of the plastic parts can break.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Top electric knife for the money
Hamilton Beach Electric Carving Knife Set
What you need to know: Hamilton Beach offers this economical choice for those on a budget or who only use an electric knife occasionally.
What you’ll love: It’s easy to use and clean. The handle is comfortable and well-designed, and the knife comes with a carving fork and storage case. One of the best uses is on thick, crusty bread.
What you should consider: The power button is in an awkward position, and users with smaller hands felt the handle was too large.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Bubba Li-Ion Cordless Electric Fillet Knife
What you need to know: Take your carving on the go with this battery-powered knife.
What you’ll love: The included two lithium-ion batteries power this knife for three to five hours total. The kit includes four different blades and a carrying case. It’s great for carving on site when fishing and hunting.
What you should consider: Users note that the blades don’t hold their edge well.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Suzannah Kolbeck writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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