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MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge in Miami on Friday criticized prosecutors for an apparent attempt to undercut a court order and take control of a oceanside condo belonging to a former Republican congressman ahead of a high-profile trial connected to a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government.
When David Rivera and an associate were charged last November with money laundering and acting as unregistered foreign agents for President Nicolás Maduro’s government, prosecutors obtained a judge’s order freezing several banking and brokerage accounts as well as Florida properties that they said were the product of some $24 million in ill-gotten gains.
Prosecutors also blocked eight more properties belonging to Rivera and his associate in Florida and Georgia that, while unrelated to criminal activity, would likely be seized if the two are found guilty.
This month, in a harshly worded ruling, Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said that the government had no right to take the “innocent” Florida assets without a conviction. Rather than lift the restraining order, the government then asked the court to reconsider and said that it had since determined that three of the properties — including a condo that Rivera and his wife purchased in 2019 for $301,000 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida — could also be traced to the defendants’ alleged lobbying on behalf of Maduro’s government.
Judge Darrin Gayles on Friday expressed frustration with the government’s change in strategy.
“This reeks of gamesmanship,” said Gayles, who reversed his own sealed order of a week ago granting prosecutors’ request that the real estate properties once again be frozen. “It seems like the government simply filed this because it lost.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nalina Sombuntham said prosecutors first learned from investigators that the property could be directly “tainted” by Rivera’s consulting work with Venezuela in May or June but didn’t alert the court until July 14 — a week after Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres issued his 23-page order freeing up the properties.
Gayles, who is overseeing the criminal case, was unimpressed. “It seems like you’re wasting the court’s time,” he said.
Rivera has been marred by scandals stretching back to his days in Congress from 2011 to 2013. He was arrested late last year on an eight-count criminal indictment alleging that at the start of the Trump administration he was part of a conspiracy to lobby on behalf of Venezuela to lower tensions with the U.S., resolve a legal dispute with a U.S. oil company and end U.S. sanctions against the South American nation — all without registering as a foreign agent.
As part of that effort, he arranged meetings in Washington, New York and Dallas for allies of Maduro with U.S. lawmakers and a top aide to former President Donald Trump, according to the indictment. To hide the sensitive nature of his work, prosecutors allege Rivera referred to Maduro in chat messages as the “bus driver,” a congressman as “Sombrero” and millions of dollars as “melons.”
Court records show Rivera’s consulting work was closely coordinated with Raúl Gorrín, a Venezuelan insider and media tycoon who has himself been sanctioned and indicted in the U.S. on money laundering charges. Part of the more than $20 million that Rivera was alleged to have received from Venezuela was used to pay maintenance on one of Gorrin’s yachts, according to prosecutors.
Rivera maintains that Gorrín was his attorney in Venezuela and that all of his work was conducted on behalf of PDV USA — a Delaware-based affiliate of Venezuelan-owned Citgo — and didn’t require he register as a foreign agent.
The dispute over Rivera’s assets has slowed the government’s prosecution of the high-profile case. Eight months after being charged, Rivera has yet to be formally arraigned — normally a routine procedural step — because he said he needs access to the disputed assets to pay his attorneys.
Rivera’s attorneys in filings have accused prosecutors of waging a “scorched earth attack” against the south Florida GOP stalwart who once shared an apartment in Tallahassee with now Sen. Marco Rubio when both were state lawmakers.
“They lost, they got caught and they came to this court and it is wrong,” David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Rivera’s co-defendant Esther Nuhfer said.
Rivera was triumphant following Friday’s hearing, accusing the prosecutors of “misconduct.” Judge Gayles was more restrained, making no such finding of wrongdoing even as he questioned prosecutors’ actions.
“Today’s decision shows that there are still honorable judges in America who will not tolerate misconduct from dishonest government prosecutors,” Rivera wrote The Associated Press in a text message. “Another victory for truth and justice.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida didn’t immediately comment.
___
Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-judge-blasts-prosecutors-handling-of-venezuela-case-against-ex-miami-congressman/ | 2023-07-29T03:11:31 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-judge-blasts-prosecutors-handling-of-venezuela-case-against-ex-miami-congressman/ |
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s navy located the boat of a missing American sailor off the country’s southern coast, but the Maryland man who had been piloting it solo wasn’t found, authorities said Friday.
Donald Lawson’s capsized trimaran was found Thursday night by a patrol boat involved in the search 356 nautical miles (about 410 miles or 660 kilometers) southwest of the resort city of Acapulco, according to the navy’s press office.
The navy said that it would continue its search for Lawson, 41, an experienced sailor.
A plane had reported spotting a boat similar to the description of Lawson’s on July 23 about 320 nautical miles (370 miles or 595 kilometers) south of Acapulco. The navy sent boats to the area, but it wasn’t until Thursday night that they found it.
Port authorities in Acapulco said that Lawson had arrived on Jan. 26 for repairs to a motor and hull of the boat. After the repairs were completed, Lawson left Acapulco on July 5, headed for the Panama Canal, where he planned to cross to the Caribbean Sea and continue north to Baltimore, Maryland.
His wife, Jacqueline Lawson, told local media outlets that on July 9, he had sent her a message saying he was having mechanical problems and the motor was losing power. Three days later, he told her a storm had knocked out his wind generator and he would try to return to Acapulco. The last satellite positioning message received for the Defiant was July 13.
Lawson, who is Black, grew up in Baltimore and from his first sailing opportunity at age 9, set his sights on making it his career.
“From that day forward, that was my goal – become a professional sailor,” Lawson said in a profile published by U.S. Sailing last year.
He started out cleaning boats, folding sails and stowing gear in Annapolis. Later, he and his wife founded the Dark Seas Project, an effort to increase diversity in the sport of sailing. He is the chairman of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for U.S. Sailing.
Lawson was working toward challenging records for circumnavigating the globe solo. | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-mexicos-navy-finds-boat-but-not-missing-us-sailor/ | 2023-07-29T03:11:37 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-mexicos-navy-finds-boat-but-not-missing-us-sailor/ |
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world on Friday commemorated Ashoura, a remembrance of the 7th-century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, Hussein, that gave birth to their faith.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban cut mobile phone services in key cities holding commemorations for fear of militants targeting Shiites, whom Sunni extremists consider heretics. Security forces in neighboring Pakistan as well stood on high alert as the commemorations there have seen attacks in the past.
Not all Shiites, however, were to mark the day Friday. Iraq, Lebanon and Syria planned their remembrances for Saturday, which will see a major suburb of Beirut shut down and the faithful descend on the Iraqi city of Karbala, where Hussein is entombed in a gold-domed shrine.
Shiites represent over 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims and view Hussein as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s death in battle at the hands of Sunnis at Karbala, south of Baghdad, ingrained a deep rift in Islam and continues to this day to play a key role in shaping Shiite identity.
Over 1,340 years after Hussein’s martyrdom, Baghdad, Tehran, Islamabad and other major capitals in the Middle East were adorned with symbols of Shiite piety and repentance: red flags for Hussein’s blood, symbolic black funeral tents and black dress for mourning, processions of men and boys expressing fervor in the ritual of chest-beating and self-flagellation with chains.
In Iran, where the theocratic government views itself as the protector of Shiites worldwide, the story of Hussein’s martyrdom takes on political connotations amid its tensions with the West over its advancing nuclear program.
Iranian state television aired images of commemorations across the Islamic Republic, tying the event to criticizing the West, Israel and the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Anchor Wesam Bahrani on Iran’s state-run English-language broadcaster Press TV referred to America as the “biggest opponent of Islam” and criticized Muslim countries allied with the U.S.
Men wore black, rhythmically beating their chests in mourning or using flails to strike their backs. Some wore red headbands, as black and red banners bore Hussein’s name. Some sprayed water over the mourners in the intense heat.
“Every year everyone joins hands in solidarity,” said 23-year-old Mohammad Hajatmand, who took part in a processional in Tehran. Hussein “was martyred very brutally and when anyone hears the story of Ashoura, regardless of their religion, their hearts will be broken and they will sympathize with him.”
The commemoration in Iran also comes as Tehran prepares for the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini. Her death launched protests nationwide in Iran that reportedly saw more than 500 protesters killed and some 20,000 others detained. Authorities have begun stepping up their enforcement of mandatory hijab, or headscarf, laws for women in recent weeks.
In the suburb of Sayida Zeinab near Syria’s capital, Damascus, security forces guarded checkpoints after a bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens more. On Tuesday, another bomb in a motorcycle wounded two people. The suburb is home to a shrine to Zeinab, the daughter of the first Shiite imam, Ali, and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad.
Local resident Mustafa Semaan, 41, said the area had seen a resurgence of religious tourism after security stabilized amid Syria’s ongoing war and the worst of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I don’t believe the religious observances will be affected (by the recent bombings), but the economic situation as a result of visitors coming from outside Syria may be affected,” Semaan said. “If this continues, if there were a third attack, there might be a very negative impact.”
Iraq will see the main observance of the Ashoura on Saturday in Karbala, where hundreds of thousands are expected and many will rush toward the shrine to symbolize their desire to answer Hussein’s last cries for help in battle. Convoys of the faithful already had begun to arrive there.
Those marking the commemoration in Kabul, Afghanistan, beat their backs bloody with chains and knives in ritual bloodletting known as “tatbir,” meant to recreate the blood flowing from the slain Hussein. The practice has become debated among Shiite clerics in recent decades.
“We have only one problem that (the Taliban) are preventing us to raise our flags and enter (the city) with the flags,” said Karbalayee Rashid, an organizer of the Kabul commemoration. “Thank God the security has been taken care. It is OK, but there are more limits in this country this year than last year.”
In Pakistan, authorities stepped up security as an Interior Ministry alert warned that “terrorists” could target Ashoura processions in major cities. Security was tight in the capital, Islamabad, where police were deployed at a key Shiite place of worship.
The main Ashoura processions also got underway in the eastern city of Lahore in the Punjab province, where thousands of police officers have been deployed. Processions in Karachi and elsewhere were also starting. There was no immediate report of any violence.
“The Imam’s lesson is … hold on to patience,” said Anam Batool, a mourner who took part in a commemoration in Islamabad. “After that, resist falsehood, stand with the truth. Where you must raise your voice against oppression, raise your voice there.”
___
Associated Press writers Abby Sewell in Baghdad; Anmar Khalil in Karbala, Iraq; Munir Ahmed in Islamabad; and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-millions-of-shiite-muslims-across-the-world-commemorate-the-mourning-day-of-ashoura/ | 2023-07-29T03:11:43 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-millions-of-shiite-muslims-across-the-world-commemorate-the-mourning-day-of-ashoura/ |
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was joined by senior Russian and Chinese delegates as he displayed his most powerful nuclear-capable missiles in a military parade marking a major war anniversary with a show of defiance against the United States and deepening ties with Moscow as tensions on the peninsula are at their highest point in years.
Kim attended Thursday night’s parade with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chinese ruling party official Li Hongzhong from a balcony looking over a brightly illuminated Kim Il Sung Square, named after Kim’s grandfather, the founder of North Korea.
Edited footage from North Korean state TV on Friday showed streets and stands packed with tens of thousands of mobilized spectators, who roared in approval as waves of goose-stepping soldiers, tanks and huge, intercontinental ballistic missiles wheeled out on launcher trucks filled up the main road. People were brought from around the country to the capital, Pyongyang, to fill the crowd, according to state media.
The parade began with warm-up events that featured ceremonial flights of newly developed surveillance and attack drones, which were first unveiled by state media this week as they reported on an arms exhibition attended by Kim and Shoigu.
The main event began with Kim arriving at the square in a limousine escorted by a formation of motorcycles. Kim saluted honor guards and military officials and walked down a red carpet to enter a building where Shoigu and Li greeted him at the balcony, as troops below chanted “protect Kim Jong Un with our lives!”
Organizers broadcast messages in Russian, Chinese and Korean while introducing Kim’s guests to the crowd, drawing cheers and applause.
As the parade proceeded, Kim was constantly talking and exchanging smiles with Shoigu and Li, who respectively stood to his right and left at the balcony’s center. Kim and Shoigu repeatedly raised their hands to salute the parading troops. The broadcast did not show Kim making a speech.
Kim’s biggest weapons were saved for the end, when his troops rolled out new ICBMs that were flight-tested in recent months and demonstrated ranges that could reach deep into the U.S. mainland, the Hwasong-17 and Hwasong-18. Some analysts say the missiles are based on Russian designs or know-how.
North Korean Defense Minister Kang Sun Nam spoke, describing the parade as a historic celebration of the country’s “great victory” against “U.S. imperialist aggression forces and groups of its satellite states.”
He condemned the United States for its expanding military exercises with South Korea, which the North portrays as invasion rehearsals, and also holding new rounds of nuclear contingency planning meetings with Seoul. The allies describe their drills as defensive, and say the upgrades in training and planning are necessary to cope with the North’s evolving nuclear threat.
“We solemnly declare that if they attempt military confrontation as now, the exercise of our state’s armed forces will go beyond the scope of the right to defense for the United States of America and (South Korea),” Kang said, repeating previous North Korean threats of nuclear conflict.
“The U.S. imperialists have no room of choice of survival in case they use nuclear weapons against the DPRK,” he said, using the initials of his country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Clouds over Pyongyang in recent days made it difficult for satellites to monitor preparations for the parade, which took place at night.
Satellite images showed what appeared to be a massing of people at the square at 1316 GMT (10:16 p.m. local) Thursday, said Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, which is part of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
North Korea’s invitation of Russian and Chinese delegates was a rare diplomatic opening since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts say Kim is trying to break out of diplomatic isolation and boost the visibility of his partnership with authoritarian allies to counter pressure from the United States.
The parade followed meetings between Kim and Shoigu this week that demonstrated North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and added to suspicions the North was willing to supply arms to Russia, whose war efforts have been compromised by defense procurement and inventory problems.
North Korean state media also highlighted a message sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who thanked Kim for “firmly supporting” his war efforts in Ukraine. Putin said that interests between Moscow and Pyongyang were aligning as they counter the “collective West in its policy to stand in the way of establishing a genuinely multipolar and just world order,” according to the Kremlin’s version of the letter.
Kim also held a luncheon and dinner banquet for Shoigu and his delegation following a second day of talks about expanding the countries’ “strategic and tactical collaboration and cooperation” in defense and security, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
“Given Russia’s need for ammunition for its illegal war in Ukraine and Kim Jong Un’s willingness to personally give the Russian defense minister a tour of North Korea’s arms exhibition, U.N. member states should increase vigilance for observing and penalizing sanctions violations,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.
He added: “China’s representation at North Korea’s parading of nuclear-capable missiles raises serious questions about Beijing enabling Pyongyang’s threats to global security.”
The parade capped off the North Korean festivities for the 70th anniversary of the armistice that stopped fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, which triggered the war with a surprise attack on the South in June 1950, was supported by Chinese troops and the then-Soviet air force. South Korea, the United States and troops from other nations under the aegis of the U.N. fought to push back the invasion.
The July 1953 truce was never replaced with a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war, but the North still sees it as a victory in the “Grand Fatherland Liberation War.”
The anniversary events were more somber in South Korea, where President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a war cemetery in Busan to honor foreign troops who died while fighting for the South.
In the face of growing North Korean threats, Yoon has pushed to expand South Korea’s military exercises with Washington and is seeking stronger U.S. reassurances that it would use its nuclear capabilities to defend the South in the event of a nuclear attack.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also marked the anniversary with a statement expressing concern over what he described as a growing “nuclear risk” on the Korean Peninsula.
“I urge the parties to resume regular diplomatic contacts and nurture an environment conducive to dialogue,” he said.
___
Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and Edith Lederer in New York contributed to the report. | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-north-korean-leader-kim-shares-center-stage-with-russian-chinese-delegates-at-military-parade/ | 2023-07-29T03:11:49 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-north-korean-leader-kim-shares-center-stage-with-russian-chinese-delegates-at-military-parade/ |
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces on Friday struck the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro and pounded a key village in the southeast that Ukraine claimed to have recaptured in its grinding counteroffensive, while Moscow accused Kyiv of firing two missiles at southern Russia and wounding 20 people.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, marked Ukraine’s Statehood Day by reaffirming the country’s sovereignty — a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who used his claim that Ukraine didn’t exist as a nation to justify his invasion.
“Now, like more than a thousand years ago, our civilizational choice is unity with the world,” Zelenskyy said in a speech on a square outside St. Michael’s Monastery in Kyiv. “To be a power in world history. To have the right to its national history -– of its people, its land, its state. And of our children -– all future generations of the Ukrainian people. We will definitely win!”
He also honored servicemen and handed out first passports to young citizens as part of ceremonies. The holiday coincides with commemorations of the adoption of Christianity on lands that later became Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
The Russian Defense Ministry said it shot down a Ukrainian missile in the city of Taganrog, about 40 kilometers (about 24 miles) east of the border with Ukraine, and local officials reported 20 people were injured, identifying the epicenter as an art museum.
Debris fell on the city, the ministry added, alleging the missile was part of a “terror attack” by Ukraine.
Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, blamed Russian air defense systems for the explosion.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it downed a second Ukrainian missile near the city of Azov, which like Taganrog is in the Rostov region, and debris fell in an unpopulated location.
Earlier in the day, a Ukrainian drone was shot down outside Moscow, the Defense Ministry said, in the third drone strike or attempt on the capital region this month. The ministry reported no injuries or damage in the latest incident, and it didn’t give an exact location where the drone fell.
Since the war began, Russia has blamed Ukraine for drone, bomb and missile attacks on its territory far from the battlefield’s front line. Ukrainian officials rarely confirm being behind the attacks, which have included drone strikes on the Kremlin that unsettled Russians.
The strikes have hit Russian ammunition and fuel depots, as well as bridges the Russian military uses to supply its forces, and military recruitment stations. The attacks have also included killings of Russian-appointed officials on occupied Ukrainian territory.
Three months ago, a Russian warplane accidentally dropped a bomb on Belgorod, injuring two people, in an incident where Ukraine was initially suspected.
In Dnipro, an apparent Russian missile attack wounded nine people in the area of a newly constructed and as yet unoccupied 12-story apartment building, as well as an unoccupied adjacent Security Service of Ukraine building. “Russian missile terror again,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Video showed the apartment building’s upper floors in ruins, with gray smoke billowing from them, and flames raging in the night at ground level, where shattered concrete and glass littered a courtyard.
Russia has often struck apartment buildings during the conflict, while denying it intentionally targets civilians.
Meanwhile, the commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Col.-Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, said his troops were pushing forward in parts of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russia and meeting stiff resistance as the war drags into its 18th month.
“The enemy fiercely clings to every centimeter, conducting intense artillery and mortar fire,” he said in a statement.
Recent fighting has taken place at multiple places along the more than 1,000-kilometer (more than 600-mile) front, where Ukraine deployed its recently acquired Western weapons to push out the Kremlin’s forces. However, it is attacking without vital air support and faces a deeply entrenched foe.
A Western official said Thursday that Ukraine had launched a major push in the southeast. Putin acknowledged that fighting has intensified there, but insisted Kyiv’s push has failed.
Zelenskyy posted a video Thursday night in which Ukrainian soldiers said they had taken Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region. Russian military bloggers said artillery fire at the Ukrainian troops had effectively razed the village and reported more barrages Friday.
Capturing the village, which in 2014 had a population of 682, would give Ukraine a platform to push deeper into Russian-held territory, the bloggers noted.
The area has been a focus of Ukraine’s counteroffensive since June, and its troops have previously captured several other villages there as they slowly work their way across extensive Russian minefields.
It was not possible to verify either side’s claims about what is happening in the war zone.
Syrskyi said fighting that targets the enemy’s artillery as well as its command and control structure is a priority as his troops probe Russian lines for weaknesses.
“In these conditions, it is crucial to make timely management decisions in response to the situation at hand and take measures for maneuvering forces and resources, shifting units and troops to areas where success is evident, or withdrawing them from the enemy’s fire,” he said.
Russia is trying to hold on to the territory it controls in the four provinces it illegally annexed in September — Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kherson and Luhansk.
___
Heintz reported from Tallinn, Estonia. Andrew Katell in New York contributed.
___
An earlier version corrected that Oleksiy Danilov is Ukraine’s secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, not defense minister.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-russia-says-a-ukrainian-drone-was-shot-down-outside-moscow/ | 2023-07-29T03:11:57 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-russia-says-a-ukrainian-drone-was-shot-down-outside-moscow/ |
BENSALEM, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- Police in Bensalem, Bucks County arrested a man on Thursday for allegedly traveling to have sex with a minor.
Officials say on Monday, July 16, 35-year-old Eliseo Caraballo from Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, began conversing with an alleged 12-year-old girl over social media.
The two continued to message one another over the course of several days. Police say during those chats, Caraballo asked the juvenile sexually-charged questions and hinted at wanting to engage in sexual acts with her.
Caraballo also allegedly asked the girl for nude photographs and sent her explicit images of himself.
On Thursday, Caraballo arranged to meet with the 12-year-old for an alleged sexual encounter.
Caraballo allegedly traveled from his home to the meet-up location, which was over an hour away.
At the location, Bensalem police were waiting for him and took him into custody.
Police said they found condoms and candy in Caraballo's possession.
He has since been charged with attempted rape and indecent assault of a child under the age of 13, corruption of minors, and other related offenses. | https://6abc.com/eliseo-caraballo-bensalem-police-indecent-assault-child-predator/13565888/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:07 | 1 | https://6abc.com/eliseo-caraballo-bensalem-police-indecent-assault-child-predator/13565888/ |
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian military says it shot down a Ukrainian missile over a southern Russian city, accuses Kyiv of a “terror attack.”
Russian military says it shot down a Ukrainian missile over a southern Russian city, accuses Kyiv of a “terror attack.”
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Subscribe Now | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-russian-military-says-it-shot-down-a-ukrainian-missile-over-a-southern-russian-city-accuses-kyiv-of-a-terror-attack/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:06 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-russian-military-says-it-shot-down-a-ukrainian-missile-over-a-southern-russian-city-accuses-kyiv-of-a-terror-attack/ |
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Salvage crews dealing with a cargo ship loaded with cars that has been burning for more than two days off the northern Dutch coast boarded the vessel for the first time Friday as heat, flames and smoke eased, the Netherlands’ coast guard said.
“In the course of the morning, after measurements by the recovery companies, it turned out that the temperature on board the Fremantle Highway had dropped sharply. The fire is still raging but decreasing. The smoke is also decreasing,” the coast guard said in a statement.
Salvage workers boarded the ship and established “a new more robust towing connection,” the agency added. “This makes it easier to move the ship and keep it under control.”
Government officials are now “looking at various scenarios to determine the next steps,” the coast guard said.
One crew member died and others were injured after the blaze started. The entire crew was evacuated from the ship in the early hours of Wednesday, with some leaping into the sea and being picked up by a lifeboat. The cause of the fire hasn’t been established.
The Fremantle Highway was 23 kilometers (14 miles) north of the island of Terschelling on Friday afternoon, close to busy North Sea shipping lanes and an internationally renowned migratory bird habitat.
K Line, the company that chartered the ship, said Friday that it was carrying far more electric vehicles than initially reported by the coast guard.
Company spokesman Pat Adamson said the ship was carrying a total of 3,783 new vehicles, including 498 electric vehicles. The coast guard, citing an early freight list, had said it was carrying 2,857 cars, including 25 electric cars.
Adamson said K Line didn’t know the source of the initial lower number.
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has warned about the possible dangers of electric vehicle battery fires, a hazard that stems from thermal runaway, a chemical reaction that causes uncontrolled battery temperature and pressure increases.
The burning vessel was close to the shallow Wadden Sea, a World Heritage-listed area that is considered one of the world’s most significant habitats for migratory birds. It’s also close to the Netherlands’ border with Germany, whose environment minister, Steffi Lemke, said Thursday that if the ship were to sink, it “could turn into an environmental catastrophe of unknown proportions.”
Earlier this month in Newark, New Jersey, firefighters took nearly a week to extinguish a similar blaze in a car transport ship. Two firefighters were killed and five others were injured battling the flames. | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-salvage-crews-board-a-cargo-ship-burning-off-the-netherlands-the-smoke-and-flames-are-easing/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:14 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-salvage-crews-board-a-cargo-ship-burning-off-the-netherlands-the-smoke-and-flames-are-easing/ |
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Singapore conducted its first execution of a woman in 19 years on Friday and its second hanging this week for drug trafficking despite calls for the city-state to cease capital punishment for drug-related crimes.
Activists said another execution is planned next week.
Saridewi Djamani, 45, was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking about 31 grams (1 ounce) of diamorphine, or pure heroin, the Central Narcotics Bureau said. It said the amount was “sufficient to feed the addiction of about 370 abusers for a week.”
Singapore’s laws mandate the death penalty for anyone convicted of trafficking more than 500 grams (17.6 ounces) of cannabis and 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of heroin.
Djamani’s execution came two days after that of a Singaporean man, Mohammed Aziz Hussain, 56, for trafficking around 50 grams (1.7 ounces) of heroin.
The narcotics bureau said both prisoners were accorded due process, including appeals of their convictions and sentences and petitions for presidential clemency.
Human rights groups, international activists and the United Nations have urged Singapore to halt executions for drug offenses and say there is increasing evidence it is ineffective as a deterrent. Singapore authorities insist capital punishment is important to halting drug demand and supply.
Human rights groups say it has executed 15 people for drug offenses since it resumed hangings in March 2022, an average of one a month.
Anti-death penalty activists said the last woman known to have been hanged in Singapore was 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen, also for drug trafficking, in 2004.
Transformative Justice Collective, a Singapore group which advocates for the abolishment of capital punishment, said a new execution notice has been issued to another prisoner for Aug, 3, the fifth this year alone.
It said the prisoner is an ethnic Malay citizen who worked as a delivery driver before his arrest in 2016. He was convicted in 2019 of trafficking around 50 grams (1.7 ounces) of heroin and his appeal was dismissed last year, it said.
The group said the man had maintained in his trial that he believed he was delivering contraband cigarettes for a friend to whom he owed money, and he didn’t verify the contents of the bag as he trusted his friend.
The High Court judge ruled that their ties weren’t close enough to warrant the kind of trust he claimed to have had for his friend. Although the court found he was merely a courier, the man still had to be given the mandatory death penalty because prosecutors didn’t issue him a certificate of having cooperated with them, it said.
“But how could he have cooperated if, as he told the police and the court, he had not even been aware that he was being used to deliver heroin?” the group said on Facebook.
The group said it “condemns, in the strongest terms, the state’s bloodthirsty streak” and reiterated calls for an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Critics say Singapore’s harsh policy punishes low-level traffickers and couriers, who are typically recruited from marginalized groups with vulnerabilities. They say Singapore is also out of step with the trend of more countries moving away from capital punishment. Neighboring Thailand has legalized cannabis while Malaysia ended the mandatory death penalty for serious crimes this year. | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-singapore-hangs-first-woman-in-19-years-after-she-was-convicted-of-trafficking-31-grams-of-heroin/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:22 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-singapore-hangs-first-woman-in-19-years-after-she-was-convicted-of-trafficking-31-grams-of-heroin/ |
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BEIJING (AP) — Typhoon Doksuri made landfall in China after bringing deadly landslides to the Philippines.
The storm plowed into the eastern province of Fujian on Friday morning after bringing heavy rains and gale-force winds to parts of Taiwan, especially the Penghu island group, also known as the Pescadores.
In the Philippines, a week of stormy weather across the main island of Luzon caused 39 deaths, including 26 killed in the capsizing of a passenger ship. At least 13 people were reported killed earlier due to Doksuri’s onslaught, mostly due to landslides, flooding and toppled trees, and thousands were displaced, disaster response officials said. More than 20 others remained missing, including four coast guard personnel whose boat overturned while on a rescue mission in hard-hit Cagayan province, disaster response officials said Friday.
The storm caused widespread power outages and agricultural damage in the archipelagic country and prompted the suspension of work, classes and sea travel at the height of the onslaught, officials said, adding they were monitoring another approaching storm.
China has upped its typhoon preparedness through text messaging and notices on social media. In Fujian, more than 400,000 people had been moved to safety, hundreds of ships returned to ports and transportation suspended. Businesses and summer school classes were also ordered suspended and the public was urged to stay indoors. In the city of Quanzhou, the roof of a sports stadium was partially torn off, but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
After hitting the coast, most typhoons tend to lose strength while moving into the mountainous interior of southeastern China, although they sometimes linger over areas, dropping heavy rain.
___
AP reporter Jim Gomez contributed from Manila, Philippines. | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-typhoon-doksuri-makes-landfall-in-china-after-bringing-deadly-landslides-to-philippines/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:30 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-typhoon-doksuri-makes-landfall-in-china-after-bringing-deadly-landslides-to-philippines/ |
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A University of Notre Dame professor has filed a defamation lawsuit against a student-run publication over news coverage of her abortion-rights work. The case is raising questions about press freedom and academic freedom at one of the nation’s preeminent Catholic universities.
Tamara Kay’s suit, filed in May, alleges falsehoods in two articles published by The Irish Rover in the past academic year. The Rover defended its reporting as true in a motion filed earlier this month to dismiss the case, under a law meant to protect people from frivolous lawsuits over matters of public concern.
Kay, a professor of global affairs and sociology, asks for unspecified punitive damages after she “has been harassed, threatened, and experienced damage to her residential property” and “continues to experience mental anguish” because of the two articles.
Published in October and March after public events in which Kay participated, the articles cover her remarks about her support for abortion rights. The lawsuit alleges that the articles contained “false and defamatory” information, arguing that they misinterpreted a sign on her door about helping students access healthcare and denying two quotes about academic freedom and her work at a Catholic institution.
“The note on my door referenced sexual assault, and the inadequate resources and support for student survivors at Notre Dame,” Kay told The Associated Press via email.
She added that she had asked the Rover’s faculty advisors to retract or correct the story, and that Notre Dame officials refused to intervene on her behalf.
“All of this is utterly devastating,” Kay said. She said her public writing and public speech “are all fair game for reporting and critique, as long as that reporting is accurate. It has not been.”
Notre Dame’s Office of Media Relations didn’t answer repeated requests for comment from the AP. Neither did Kay’s attorney in the lawsuit.
In the motion filed under Indiana’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) law, the Irish Rover argued that – as an “independent, non-profit, student publication ‘devoted to preserving the Catholic identity of Notre Dame’” – its coverage of a Notre Dame professor’s public statements and actions about abortion qualify under the law’s public interest and free speech criteria.
The motion added that the stories were “at least substantially true” and “did not contain defamatory imputation.” Exhibits include a transcript of the March event and since-deleted tweets by Kay last fall referring Notre Dame colleagues to websites with information on where to find abortion providers and how to procure abortion pills.
That “targeted advocacy” — just as Indiana’s abortion ban first went briefly into effect — motivated Notre Dame student W. Joseph DeReuil, 21, to seek comments from Kay and write a news story, he told the AP.
DeReuil, the Rover’s editor-in-chief during the last academic year, said he is a practicing Catholic and believes the Church’s teaching that life starts at conception and thus abortion is intentional killing.
“I do wish at times that, I guess, Notre Dame would take, as an institution, a stronger stance in favor of the Catholic position on some of these issues,” he said.
He added that he condemned harassment of abortion rights advocates and specifically the threats mentioned in the lawsuit by Kay.
DeReuil said he was confident his reporting was factually correct and hoped the suit would be dismissed, instead of consuming his senior year.
“You’ll face pushback, but you can still be a normal, cheerful, happy student,” he said. “It’s not going to affect you negatively in the long term if you’re standing up for what you believe is true.”
The Rover’s attorney, James Bopp, Jr., said lawsuits like this can create a chilling effect.
“If we fail, it will send the message that if you speak out about the abortion issue, then you risk punishment through the legal system, and particularly if you speak out on the pro-life side,” said Bopp, who has worked on major national cases on behalf of anti-abortion and free speech causes.
While the Church’s position on abortion is unwavering, not all Catholics agree with it. Some oppose it based on their sense of Catholic teachings about individual conscience or social justice, said professor Samira Mehta, an expert on gender and religion at the University of Colorado.
It’s rare to have faculty sue students for libel over an issue broaching “diametrically opposed worldviews,” said Jonathan Gaston-Falk, an attorney with the Student Press Law Center. The organization defends press freedom rights for high school and college journalists and their advisors; it is not involved in this litigation.
“Libel can be boiled down to a false statement of fact that harms somebody’s reputation” – and is published with knowledge of that falsity and malice if the person is a public figure, Gaston-Falk added.
According to Indiana law, courts have six months to rule on an anti-SLAPP motion.
Indiana was the first state to enact sweeping abortion restrictions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-a-notre-dame-professor-sues-a-student-publication-over-its-coverage-of-her-abortion-rights-work/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:38 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-a-notre-dame-professor-sues-a-student-publication-over-its-coverage-of-her-abortion-rights-work/ |
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HAVRE, Mont. (AP) — When Alicia Navarro disappeared in 2019 from her home in a Phoenix suburb days before her 15th birthday, she left a signed note for her family promising she would return.
“I will be back, I swear,” the note read. “I’m sorry.”
Believing she would keep her promise, Jessica Nunez never stopped searching for her daughter.
She paid for a billboard ad in Mexico that featured a photo of her daughter for a year. She bought 10 more ads in Las Vegas. She spoke at events and gave media interviews to raise awareness. She left flyers all around Glendale — at salons, truck stops, parks.
Nunez’s yearslong search came to an end Sunday when her daughter, now 18, walked into a small-town Montana police station near the Canadian border and identified herself as the missing teenager.
Police said Navarro told them she hadn’t been harmed, wasn’t being held, and could come and go as she pleased. She does not face any criminal charges, they added.
Investigators are now trying to determine what happened to Navarro after she disappeared and how she ended up in Havre, Montana, more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) from her home.
A spokesperson for the Glendale police said Friday that no one has been taken into custody in Navarro’s disappearance. Officer Gina Winn declined to say whether investigators know how long Navarro was in Montana.
Glendale police Lt. Scott Waite said at a news conference Wednesday they were looking into all the possible scenarios that could have led to Navarro’s disappearance, including kidnapping.
Over the years, Nunez had raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed with autism, may have been lured away by someone she met online.
In Havre — a town of about 9,200 people surrounded by farmland and north of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation — Navarro’s story had residents buzzing even though most had never seen or heard of her. It also piqued interest when a team of heavily armed law enforcement officers entered an apartment and took a man into custody just a few blocks from the Havre police station Wednesday night, witnesses told The Associated Press.
As many as 10 uniformed and undercover officers showed up at about 8 p.m. and took him away in handcuffs. The man had been living in the apartment, said Rick Lieberg, who lives across the street.
A young woman later emerged from the apartment — one of six units in an aging building in a residential neighborhood — who Lieberg said he had not previously seen. The woman resembled a photograph of Navarro that was released by police, he said.
Jonathan Michaelson, who lives next door, said he was questioned Wednesday night by a plainclothes police officer from Arizona who asked whether he had ever seen a girl at the apartment next door. He said he had not.
“If she was in that apartment, I’m surprised I never saw her,” Michaelson said.
A person who works at the Dollar Tree in Havre, Jeff Hummert, said he saw a young woman resembling a photograph of Navarro last year in a city park just up the street from the apartment raided by police Wednesday. She was walking alone and carrying a plastic Walmart bag, Hummert said.
Theories about how Navarro came to be in Montana topped the conversation Friday among the regulars at a coffee shop inside Gary & Leo’s IGA, a grocery store in downtown Havre. With scant details from authorities, most of the talk — about Navarro’s possible destination and whether she was being coerced — was conjecture, said former county Coroner Steve Sapp, who joined the discussion.
“When you’re in law enforcement, all these different stories about what happened make it hard to tell which story is really true,” Sapp said. “I would really like to know more.”
Nunez declined an interview request. But for years, she had documented her efforts to find her daughter on a Facebook page titled “Finding Alicia” and an audio podcast. In an emotional video viewed more than 200,000 times since it was posted Wednesday, Nunez told her tens of thousands of followers: “For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example. Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”
Nunez had amassed a loyal following on social media throughout the years while sharing inspirational quotes, photos of Navarro as a young child and posts addressed directly to her daughter.
“Alicia I know you will fulfill what you promised,” Nunez wrote in one post. “You will be back.”
People across the U.S. reached out to the Arizona mother to ask how they could help, creating an informal network of volunteers. They shared photos and information through the Facebook page.
Glendale police said this week that they received thousands of tips over the years.
In a short video clip that Glendale police said was taken shortly after Navarro arrived at the Montana police station, she can be heard telling authorities, “No one hurt me.” In another short video, Navarro thanked the police.
“Thank you for offering help to me,” she said.
___
Yamat reported from Las Vegas. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-arizona-mom-never-stopped-looking-for-her-missing-daughter-she-showed-up-4-years-later-in-montana/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:47 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-arizona-mom-never-stopped-looking-for-her-missing-daughter-she-showed-up-4-years-later-in-montana/ |
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We've placed cookies on your device to improve your browsing experience. They're safe and don't contain sensitive information. | https://tj.news/national-post/102147339 | 2023-07-29T03:12:50 | 1 | https://tj.news/national-post/102147339 |
‘Our hero is going home’: Police officer released from rehab 3.5 months after Ky. bank shooting
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - After 109 days, Louisville Metro police officer Nickolas Wilt has been released from Frazier Rehabilitation Institute and is going home.
Wilt has been hospitalized, receiving medical care for the last three and a half months after the Old National Bank mass shooting on April 10. Wilt was critically injured when he was shot in the head after responding to the shooting that ultimately killed five people.
The victims were identified as Tommy Elliott, 63; Jim Tutt, 64; Josh Barrick, 40; Juliana Farmer, 45; and Deana Eckert, 57.
Wilt was listed in critical condition for nearly a month. Officials with the University of Louisville Health said Wilt received multiple surgeries and underwent several procedures at University of Louisville Hospital and Jewish Hospital.
On May 10, one month after the shooting, Wilt was transferred to Frazier Rehabilitation Institute to begin neuro and physical rehabilitation after seeing an improvement in his condition. Over the course of the last three and a half months, doctors and family of Wilt have called his journey remarkable.
On Friday, Governor Andy Beshear shared a photo with Wilt ahead of his release.
“Kentucky, our prayers were heard. @LMPD Officer Nick Wilt is headed home with his family. Officer Wilt is a hero who ran toward danger to save the lives of several of my friends. I am forever grateful for him and his bravery. Let’s keep praying for him.”
Wilt was honored as he left the halls of Frazier Rehab. He was accompanied by family as well as some fellow officers.
After leaving the rehab facility, Wilt was driven to Southeast Christian Church on Blankenbaker Parkway where he was driven past a line of well-wishers. The van then headed for Oldham County where community members were invited to gather along Highway 53 in La Grange to greet Wilt.
LMPD shared their sentiment on their social media, honoring the heroic actions of Wilt.
“Resilience, strength, courage. Those are just a few words to describe Ofc. Nickolas Wilt. April 10th, innocent lives were lost. Ofc. Wilt, just 10 days on the job, answered the call to help stop an active shooter. Today, our hero is going home. He’s ready. #WiltsWarriors”
Louisville Metro Police Foundation has created a donation site to help pay for Wilt’s medical expenses.
To make a donation, click or tap here.
Copyright 2023 WAVE via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kswo.com/2023/07/29/our-hero-is-going-home-police-officer-released-rehab-35-months-after-ky-bank-shooting/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:54 | 1 | https://www.kswo.com/2023/07/29/our-hero-is-going-home-police-officer-released-rehab-35-months-after-ky-bank-shooting/ |
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HAVRE, Mont. (AP) — An Arizona teenager who disappeared days before her 15th birthday nearly four years ago is safe after walking into a small-town police station in Montana this week, authorities announced Wednesday.
Police in Havre, Montana, said Alicia Navarro, now 18, showed up alone Sunday morning in the town of about 9,200 people near the Canadian border and identified herself as a missing teenager from the Phoenix suburb of Glendale.
Navarro’s disappearance on Sept. 15, 2019, sparked a massive search that included the FBI. Glendale police spokesperson Jose Santiago said over the years, police had received thousands of tips.
Investigators are now trying to determine what happened to Navarro after vanishing at age 14 and how she ended up in Montana, more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) away from her hometown.
When she disappeared, Navarro left a signed note that read: “I ran away. I will be back, I swear. I’m sorry.”
But her mother, Jessica Nunez, raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed as on the autism spectrum, may have been lured away by someone she met online.
Law enforcement officers took a man into custody at an apartment just a few blocks from the Havre police station on Wednesday night, according to several witnesses interviewed by The Associated Press.
As many as 10 heavily-armed uniformed and undercover officers showed up about 8 p.m. and took away in handcuffs the man who had been living in the apartment, said Rick Lieberg, who lives across the street.
A young woman later emerged from the apartment who Lieberg said he had not previously seen. He said the woman resembled a photograph of Navarro that has been released by police.
“She came out, talked to the officers, then two ladies pulled up and then she got into a car with them and they left,” Lieberg said.
Officers remained on the scene for several hours, taking pictures and doing other work inside the apartment, Lieberg said. He said the young woman returned to the apartment building with the two women on Thursday, but he did not see her go into the apartment.
A second witness, Jonathan Michaelson, who lives next door, said he was questioned at the scene by a plainclothes police officer who said he was from Arizona and asked if Michaelson had ever seen a girl at the apartment. He said he had not.
“If she was in that apartment, I’m surprised I never saw her,” Michaelson said.
Glendale police Lt. Scott Waite, the lead investigator, said they were looking into all the possible scenarios that could have led to Navarro’s disappearance, including kidnapping.
“As much as we’d like to say this is the end,” Waite said, “we know this is only the beginning of where this investigation will go.”
Police said Navarro told them after her arrival at the station she hadn’t been harmed, wasn’t being held and could come and go as she pleased. She does not face any criminal charges, they added.
In a short video clip that police said was taken shortly after Navarro arrived at the police station this week, she can be heard telling authorities, “No one hurt me.”
In another short video, Navarro thanked the police.
“Thank you for offering help to me,” she said.
Authorities in both Montana and Arizona haven’t said how long Navarro had been in Havre before walking into the police station. Havre is surrounded by farmland and is north of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation.
Waite described Navarro’s reunion this week with her mother as “emotionally overwhelming” and that Navarro said she was sorry for “what she has put her mother through.”
In an emotional video posted Wednesday to a Facebook account titled “Finding Alicia,” Nunez told her tens of thousands of followers, “I want to give glory to God for answering prayers and for this miracle.”
Nunez had been documenting her efforts to find her daughter on the Facebook page throughout the years. The account features hundreds of posts with photos of Navarro as a young child and pictures of Nunez holding up signs that read, “Children don’t just disappear!”
“For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example,” Nunez said in the video, which had been viewed more than 200,000 times. “Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”
___
Yamat reported from Las Vegas. Associated Press writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-arizona-teen-alicia-navarro-missing-since-2019-shows-up-safe-at-montana-police-station/ | 2023-07-29T03:12:55 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-arizona-teen-alicia-navarro-missing-since-2019-shows-up-safe-at-montana-police-station/ |
Sooners looks to bounce back from forgettable season
Published: Jul. 28, 2023 at 9:50 PM CDT|Updated: 20 minutes ago
NORMAN, Okla. (KSWO) - The 2022 season didn’t exactly go to plan for the Sooners, recording a losing record for the first time since 1998.
It takes some serious work to get back to their usual blue-blood self, but for some of the defensive leaders on the roster, it’s about coming together and connecting to get back to contention.
Copyright 2023 KSWO. All rights reserved. | https://www.kswo.com/2023/07/29/sooners-looks-bounce-back-forgettable-season/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:01 | 1 | https://www.kswo.com/2023/07/29/sooners-looks-bounce-back-forgettable-season/ |
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Immigration advocates said Thursday that an online appointment system to seek asylum at the U.S. border with Mexico is out of reach for many migrants, in the latest legal challenge to the Biden administration’s immigration agenda.
The lawsuit says the administration, often working with Mexican authorities, has physically blocked migrants from claiming asylum at land crossings with Mexico unless they have an appointment through the CBP One app. It says the app is “impossible” for those with inferior internet access, language difficulties or lack of technical know-how. Appointments are capped at 1,450 a day.
“CBP One essentially creates an electronic waitlist that restricts access to the U.S. asylum process to a limited number of privileged migrants,” according to the lawsuit by advocacy groups Al Otro Lado and the Haitian Bridge Alliance and would-be asylum-seekers from Mexico, Haiti, Nicaragua and Russia who say they couldn’t get appointments while waiting in Mexico.
More than 38,000 people were processed for entry using CBP One in June and more than 170,000 got appointments during the first six months of the year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said last week.
CBP said late Thursday that use of the app has increased processing at land crossings to “historic levels,” significantly expanding access to asylum and humanitarian protections. At the same time, the agency said it continues to serve people “who walk up to a port of entry without an appointment.”
The lawsuit is the latest legal threat to the Biden administration’s carrot-and-stick approach to the border that combines new avenues for legal entry, like CBP One, and shuts down routes to asylum for those who enter the country without government permission.
Officials say the approach is working, noting a sharp drop in illegal crossings since a rule took effect on May 11 that allows authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the border without applying on CBP One or seeking protection in another country they passed through. In June, authorities stopped migrants nearly 145,000 times, the lowest level since February 2021 and down 43% from December’s peak.
But the lawsuits complicate President Joe Biden’s efforts to introduce new policies.
“Litigation is, to a certain extent, dictating immigration policy along the border, also in the interior,” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, said.
A look at some of the other legal challenges and where they stand:
The government is appealing a federal judge’s decision to block the new asylum rule. U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar delayed his ruling from taking effect for two weeks. It may fall to an appeals court to decide whether to keep the rule in place during what may be a lengthy challenge.
Some legal observers don’t expect a final resolution until 2025, probably in the Supreme Court.
Another closely watched case challenges the administration’s policy to grant parole for two years to up to 30,000 people a month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela if they apply online with a financial sponsor and arrive at an airport. Texas is leading 21 states to argue that Biden overreached his authority, saying it “amounts to the creation of a new visa program that allows hundreds of thousands of aliens to enter the United States who otherwise have no basis for doing so.”
A trial is scheduled Aug. 24 in Victoria, Texas, before U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton. Legal observers anticipate a decision in the fall.
Mexico says the policy was critical to it agreeing to take back people from those four countries who enter the U.S. illegally and are denied asylum.
An appeals court could rule soon on the Biden administration’s use of what is known as humanitarian parole, in which asylum-seekers are released in the U.S. while they pursue cases in immigration court.
U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II said in a March ruling prohibiting the practice that the administration “effectively turned the Southwest Border into a meaningless line in the sand.”
The Border Patrol paroled 572,575 migrants last year, including a record-high 130,563 in December. The practice sharply subsided even before the administration lost a lawsuit by the state of Florida, but it wants the option in case Border Patrol stations become too overcrowded.
Texas sued the administration in May to block Biden’s policies, particularly the use of CBP One. “The Biden Administration’s attempt to manage the southern border by app does not meet even the lowest expectation of competency and runs afoul of the laws Congress passed to regulate immigration,” the lawsuit states.
Indiana and 17 other states sued the administration on similar grounds, saying in its federal lawsuit filed in North Dakota that new policies “will further degrade our nation’s border security and make it even easier to illegally immigrate into the United States.”
Neither case appears headed toward swift resolution. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-as-illegal-crossings-drop-the-legal-challenges-over-bidens-us-mexico-border-policies-grow/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:04 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-as-illegal-crossings-drop-the-legal-challenges-over-bidens-us-mexico-border-policies-grow/ |
BEIJING, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chengdu Universiade officially kicked off Friday night in the capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, known as the hometown of giant pandas and one of the most vibrant Chinese cities.
Ahead the opening ceremony of the 31st summer edition of the FISU World University Games, Chinese President Xi Jinping has engaged himself in a flurry of face-to-face high-level meetings with foreign leaders attending the ceremony over the past couple of days.
Behind the tight diplomatic schedule, Xi has highlighted the importance of solidarity, cooperation and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, three key messages shared by the visiting leaders of Indonesia, Guyana, Georgia, Mauritania and Burundi.
Solidarity
In a toast at a welcoming banquet on Friday noon, Xi said the Games, since its inception, has always been "a celebration of youth, solidarity, and friendship."
"We should promote solidarity through sports, build up positive energy across the international community, join hands to tackle global challenges such as climate change, food crisis and terrorism, and shape a better future through cooperation," he urged.
Solidarity, unity and togetherness were also one of the hot topics during the Chinese president's separate meetings with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani and Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye.
During the meeting with the Burundian leader, for instance, Xi stressed the importance of solidarity between China and Africa in safeguarding the common interests of developing countries and the international fairness and justice.
Cooperation
During the meetings of the leaders, China and the five countries agreed to further cooperation, such as on trade, infrastructure and people-to-people exchanges.
In a meeting with Xi on Thursday, Widodo said Indonesia is willing to continue to enhance cooperation with China in areas including investment, marine fisheries, food security and healthcare. The leaders witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents following the meeting.
China and Georgia will issue a joint statement and announce the establishment of strategic partnership during Garibashvili's historic visit. Xi hailed the remarkable achievements in cooperation in various fields between the two countries over the past 31 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, while the Georgian prime minister said the elevation of bilateral relations will bring more opportunities to his country.
On Friday, China and Mauritania also signed a cooperation plan on jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to enhance bilateral ties.
A community with a shared future for mankind
The term of building a community with a shared future for mankind was repeatedly highlighted during the leaders' meetings, with Indonesia, Guyana, Georgia, Mauritania and Burundi also expressing support for China-proposed initiatives.
While meeting with Xi on Friday afternoon, Ghazouani said Mauritania supports the BRI, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, saying that these initiatives are in line with the norms governing international relations that respect countries' independence and sovereignty and exchanges between different civilizations.
Addressing the welcoming banquet, Xi stressed the importance of deepening exchanges and mutual learning to promote harmony without uniformity in the spirit of inclusiveness and seeing different cultures with an attitude of mutual appreciation and mutual learning.
"The Chengdu Games should be an opportunity for us to champion the common values of humanity and write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind," said Xi.
In an interview with CGTN, Ali, the Guyanese president, said the Games goes beyond the competitions among the young athletes.
"They can share the experiences, they can share culture, [and] they can share who they are in building a stronger family of humanity," he said.
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SOURCE CGTN | https://www.kswo.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/cgtn-solidarity-vowed-xi-hosts-foreign-leaders-amid-chengdu-universiade/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:07 | 1 | https://www.kswo.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/cgtn-solidarity-vowed-xi-hosts-foreign-leaders-amid-chengdu-universiade/ |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday for the first time publicly acknowledged his seventh grandchild, a four-year-old girl fathered by his son Hunter with an Arkansas woman, Lunden Roberts, in 2018.
“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward,” Biden said in a statement. It was his first acknowledgement of the child.
“This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” he said. “Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”
Hunter Biden’s paternity was established by DNA testing after Roberts sued for child support, and the two parties recently resolved outstanding child support issues. The president’s son wrote about his encounter with Roberts in his 2021 memoir, saying it came while he was deep in addiction to alcohol and drugs, including crack cocaine.
“I had no recollection of our encounter,” he wrote. “That’s how little connection I had with anyone. I was a mess, but a mess I’ve taken responsibility for.”
An attorney for Roberts did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The president, who has made a commitment to family central to his public persona, has faced increasing criticism from political rivals and pundits for failing to acknowledge the granddaughter. According to a person familiar with the matter, he was taking the cue from his son while the legal proceedings played out. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.
Hunter Biden has four other children, including a son, Beau, born by his wife Melissa Cohen in 2020. He was named after the president’s late son who died of cancer in 2015, leaving behind two children.
Biden’s grandchildren have played a distinctive role in his presidency, often accompanying the president or first lady on trips and making regular visits to the White House. The president has also credited his grandchildren with persuading him to challenge then-President Donald Trump for the White House in 2020.
Biden’s statement was first reported by People Magazine. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-biden-openly-acknowledges-7th-grandchild-the-daughter-of-son-hunter-and-an-arkansas-woman/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:13 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-biden-openly-acknowledges-7th-grandchild-the-daughter-of-son-hunter-and-an-arkansas-woman/ |
NEW YORK, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sooth, an industry-leading strategic marketing insights platform and consultancy, is excited to announce a dynamic partnership with Kestrel Consulting. This collaboration brings Sooth's founder, Ian Baer, and his innovative methodologies and expertise into Kestrel's broad network, promising to enrich Kestrel's client marketing and branding initiatives with fresh perspectives and deeper understanding.
Recognized for its patent-pending method that fuses data, AI, and human intellect, Sooth deciphers the intricacies of human decision-making, mapping emotional drivers and receptivity of diverse consumer and business audiences. Now part of Kestrel's network, Sooth's unique, sophisticated approach will bolster client marketing initiatives, offering a powerful toolset to unlock new avenues for connection, empathy, and understanding that is proven to increase customer lifetime value by four times or more.
As Kestrel's preferred provider of brand strategic services, Sooth will also accelerate its own growth by working on branding and marketing projects for clients and partners within the Kestrel network.
"Kestrel Consultants helps leadership teams, founders, entrepreneurs, and enterprises fly higher and achieve strategic outcomes through its exclusive partnership network of fractional executives and boutique business consultants," the company said in a statement. "We're proud to welcome Sooth into our exclusive partnership and referral network. We've admired Ian Baer's work for years, and his exceptional talent is a real complement to our network's other areas of expertise. We're excited to collaborate on new projects together."
This partnership represents a convergence of Sooth's methodologies and Kestrel's expansive network. By bringing together Sooth's unparalleled insights and Kestrel's team of skilled executives and consultants, they aim to empower Kestrel's clientele with deeper understanding and fresh perspectives, enabling them to achieve their marketing goals.
"Changes in consumer and business culture over the past several years have irrevocably changed how marketing works at an elemental level," said Ian Baer, Founder and Chief Soothsayer at Sooth. "With 90 percent of all decisions now determined by each person's unique emotional priorities, we're able to roadmap success for brands by unlocking an in-depth understanding of the factors that create connection between these brands and the customers they serve. Kestrel's model brings together complementary innovators to help companies elevate their game across a broad spectrum of business and marketing interdependencies. I could not be more excited to align with the talented leaders of Kestrel Consultants to bring clients high-impact business solutions at the speed and efficiency of modern commerce."
About Sooth
Sooth is an industry-leading strategic marketing insights platform and consultancy. Using a unique, patent-pending method that synergizes data, artificial intelligence, and human intellect, Sooth decodes the intricacies of consumer decision-making and maps the emotional motivators of diverse audiences with unparalleled precision. Sooth is committed to making marketing strategies more effective, intuitive, and emotionally engaging, empowering brands with the insights they need. www.SoothBeTold.com
About Kestrel Consultants
Kestrel Consultants helps leadership teams, founders, entrepreneurs, and enterprises fly higher and achieve strategic outcomes through its exclusive partnership network of fractional executives and boutique business consultants. Learn more at KestrelConsultants.com.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday giving decisions on the prosecution of serious military crimes, including sexual assault, to independent military attorneys, taking that power away from victims’ commanders.
The order formally implements legislation passed by Congress in 2022 aimed at strengthening protections for service members, who were often at the mercy of their commanders to decide whether to take their assault claims seriously.
Members of Congress, frustrated with the growing number of sexual assaults in the military, fought with defense leaders for several years over the issue. They argued that commanders at times were willing to ignore charges or incidents in their units to protect those accused of offenses and that using independent lawyers would beef up prosecutions. Military leaders balked, saying it could erode commanders’ authority.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York spent about a decade in an uphill battle to reform how the military handles sexual assaults and get the legislative changes passed that were codified through Biden’s order.
“While it will take time to see the results of these changes, these measures will instill more trust, professionalism, and confidence in the system,” Gillibrand said.
The change was among more than two dozen recommendations made in 2021 by an independent review commission on sexual assault in the military that was set up by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. And it was included in the annual defense bill last year. But since it requires a change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it needed formal presidential action.
In a call with reporters previewing the order, senior Biden administration officials said it was the most sweeping change to the military legal code since it was created in 1950.
The Pentagon had already been moving forward with the change. A year ago, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force set up the new special trial counsel offices, which will assume authority over prosecution decisions by the end of this year. Beginning Jan. 1, 2025, that prosecution authority will expand to include sexual harassment cases.
The changes come as the military grapples with rising numbers of reported sexual assaults in its ranks.
While the services have made inroads in making it easier and safer for troops to come forward, they have had far less success reducing the number of assaults, which have increased nearly every year since 2006. Overall, there were more than 8,942 reports of sexual assaults involving service members during the 2022 fiscal year, a slight increase over 8,866 the year before.
Defense officials have long argued that an increase in reported assaults is a positive trend because so many people are reluctant to report them, both in the military and in society as a whole. Greater reporting, they say, shows there is more confidence in the reporting system, greater comfort with the support for victims, and a growing number of offenders who are being held accountable.
___
Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor contributed to this report. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-biden-orders-changes-to-the-military-code-of-justice-for-sexual-assault-victims/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:19 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-biden-orders-changes-to-the-military-code-of-justice-for-sexual-assault-victims/ |
BEIJING, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Tarena International, Inc. (NASDAQ: TEDU) ("Tarena" or the "Company"), a leading provider of IT professional education and IT-focused supplementary STEAM education services in China, today announced that it received a written notification from the Staff of the Listing Qualifications Department of the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC ("Nasdaq") dated July 28, 2023, indicating that the Company no longer meets the continued listing requirement of minimum Market Value of Publicly Held Shares ("MVPHS") for the Nasdaq Global Select Market, as set forth in the Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(b)(2)(C), because the Company's MVPHS for the last 30 consecutive business days was below the minimum MVPHS requirement of US$15,000,000.
Pursuant to the Nasdaq Listing Rules, the applicable grace period to regain compliance is 180 calendar days, or until January 24, 2024. The Company can cure this deficiency if its MVPHS closes at US$15,000,000 or more for a minimum of ten consecutive business days during the compliance period. The Company's management is looking into various options available to regain compliance and maintain its continued listing on The Nasdaq Global Select Market. In the event the Company does not regain compliance prior to the expiration of the compliance period, it will receive written notification that its securities are subject to delisting. Alternatively, the Company may apply to transfer the Company's securities to The Nasdaq Capital Market, subject to the Nasdaq Capital Market's continued listing requirements.
About Tarena International, Inc.
Tarena is a leading provider of IT professional education and IT-focused supplementary STEAM education services in China. Through its innovative education platform combining live distance instruction, classroom-based tutoring and online learning modules, Tarena offers professional education courses in IT and non-IT subjects. Its professional education courses provide students with practical skills to prepare them for jobs in industries with significant growth potential and strong hiring demand. Tarena also offers IT-focused supplementary STEAM education programs, including computer coding and robotics programming courses, etc., targeting students between three and eighteen years of age. Aiming to encourage "code to learn," Tarena embraces the latest trends in STEAM education and technology to develop children's logical thinking and learning abilities while allowing them to discover their interests and potential.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements made under the "safe harbor" provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Tarena may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Any statements that are not historical facts, including any business outlook and statements about Tarena's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Many factors, risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, but not limited to the following: the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak; Tarena's goals and strategies; its future business development, financial condition and results of operations; its ability to continue to attract students to enroll in its courses; its ability to continue to recruit, train and retain qualified instructors and teaching assistants; its ability to continually tailor its curriculum to market demand and enhance its courses to adequately and promptly respond to developments in the professional job market; its ability to maintain or enhance its brand recognition, its ability to maintain high job placement rate for its students, and its ability to maintain cooperative relationships with financing service providers for student loans.
Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in Tarena's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is current as of the date of the press release, and Tarena does not undertake any obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
For further information, please contact:
Investor Relations Contact
Tarena International, Inc.
Email: ir@tedu.cn
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SOURCE Tarena International, Inc. | https://www.kswo.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/tarena-announces-receipt-nasdaq-notification-regarding-minimum-market-value-publicly-held-shares/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:21 | 1 | https://www.kswo.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/tarena-announces-receipt-nasdaq-notification-regarding-minimum-market-value-publicly-held-shares/ |
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LONDON, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- VAPORESSO, a leading innovator in the vaping industry, has received well-deserved recognition at this year's London Design Awards, with four of its groundbreaking products being awarded for their exceptional design. The London Design Awards is an international competition that recognises exceptional designs and outstanding creative projects worldwide, celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of the international design community.
The four distinguished products from VAPORESSO - the COSS, ECO NANO, LUXE XR, and XROS 3 NANO - have showcased the brand's formidable innovative prowess and have also been recognized with awards from many organizations. VAPORESSO's latest groundbreaking offering, the VAPORESSO COSS, is regarded as a game-changer in the vaping industry. It tackles existing issues with a thoughtful design that seamlessly caters to user habits. Its slogan, 'Convenient Operating, Smart Supplying', perfectly encapsulates the product's core values of INNOVATION, RELIABILITY, and STYLE.
"Winning these awards is a testament to the creativity, skill, and dedication of our team," said Jimmy Hu, Vice President of VAPORESSO, "We are thrilled to have our efforts recognised on such a prestigious global platform. It validates our commitment to delivering innovative, high-quality products that enhance the vaping experience for our customers."
The London Design Awards, held annually, applauds outstanding design achievements across various creative sectors. It acknowledges exemplary projects, products, and professionals who demonstrate innovation, creativity, and excellence within their respective industries. Meanwhile, the London Design Awards not only honours design excellence but also fosters creativity, encourages innovation, and facilitates collaborations between designers and design-driven businesses. The awards have grown in stature and popularity since their inception, attracting a wide range of participants from various design fields.
The recognition from the London Design Awards underscores VAPORESSO's dedication to creating products that exceed customer expectations and further solidifies its position as a thought leader in the industry. It also acts as an external validation of VAPORESSO's capabilities and quality of work, building trust and confidence among potential customers.
About VAPORESSO
Established in 2015, VAPORESSO is committed to creating a smoke-free world and enhancing the quality of life for its users. Through continuous innovation, stringent quality control, and substantial commitment, VAPORESSO produces products that cater to all levels and styles of vapers.
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OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The new prosecutor in Oklahoma’s biggest county announced Friday she’s dropping criminal charges against seven police officers in three separate fatal shootings from 2020, including one in which five officers were charged with killing a 15-year-old boy outside a convenience store.
District Attorney Vicki Behenna’s predecessor and fellow Democrat, David Prater, had filed criminal charges against the police officers before leaving office. Behenna said she hired a use-of-force expert to examine the evidence, and her office spent hundreds of hours reviewing the three cases.
“Under Oklahoma law, these shootings were justified,” Behenna said at a news conference.
“This was not just a quick, spur-of-the-moment decision. This was a very difficult, very fact-intensive decision and review,” she said.
The charges were dismissed with prejudice, which means they are permanently dismissed and can’t be refiled, she said.
A former federal prosecutor and defense attorney from the suburb of Edmond, Behenna is the first woman elected top prosecutor in the state’s most populous county. She defeated conservative Republican Kevin Calvey last year to win a four-year term.
The most high-profile case dismissed Friday involved five Oklahoma City officers charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of Stavian Rodriguez. The teen was shot on Nov. 23, 2020, by officers responding to reports of an attempted armed robbery at a convenience store.
TV news reports of the shooting showed video of the boy dropping a gun then reaching toward his waist before being shot.
Willard Paige, the investigator for the previous district attorney, said the officers fired live rounds “unnecessarily,” and that an autopsy determined Rodriguez suffered 13 gunshot wounds.
Initially charged in the shooting were officers Bethany Sears, Jared Barton, Corey Adams, John Skuta and Brad Pemberton. All five have been on paid administrative leave since the shooting.
The teen’s mother, Cameo Holland, said in a statement that she intends to work to change the law to make it easier for police to be criminally charged.
“When the district attorney of Oklahoma County apologizes to your face for the justice system failing you, it’s clear we need changes in the law,” Holland said.
Behenna said Friday that she does not take these decisions lightly.
“These families are grieving,” she said. “No matter what this office does or says, these families are forever changed.”
Holland has a pending civil rights excessive force lawsuit against Oklahoma City and the five officers in federal court.
In another Oklahoma City case, Sgt. Clifford Holman was charged with first-degree manslaughter in the shooting death of 60-year-old Bennie Edward.
Holman, who is white, had responded to a call of a Black man harassing customers at a business in north Oklahoma City, according to a police affidavit by homicide detective Bryn Carter. When he arrived at the scene, Holman encountered Edwards, who was holding a knife and refusing officers’ commands to drop it, the affidavit states.
The shooting sparked days of protests and demonstrations by Black Lives Matter groups and other activists.
The third case involved The Village officer Chance Avery, who was charged with second-degree murder in the July 2020 shooting death of Christopher Pool.
Avery was called to the home by Pool’s wife, who was retrieving personal belongings, when Pool ran inside carrying a bat and was shot by Avery after refusing to drop it, police said.
Gary James, an attorney for Avery and Adams, one of the officers charged in the Rodriguez shooting, said he was “ecstatic” about Behenna’s decision.
“We’ve got seven police officers who were just doing their duty, and were placed in a position by all three of the deceased that they had to use deadly force,” James said.
Although criminal charges against police officers are not common, previous district attorney Prater — himself an ex-cop who served 16 years as the county’s top prosecutor — had secured criminal convictions against officers before.
In 2013, Del City police Capt. Randy Harrison was sentenced to four years in prison for second-degree manslaughter after shooting an unarmed teenager in the back as he ran away following a scuffle.
In 2019, another Oklahoma City police sergeant, Keith Sweeney, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder in the shooting death of an unarmed, suicidal man.
Behenna said that in future cases involving police shootings, she will present evidence to a multi-county grand jury to make a decision on whether to file criminal charges, rather than making that decision herself.
Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley said the department has implemented “significant changes” since the fatal shootings, such as creating a training unit that has worked with every officer on de-escalation strategies. The chief’s statement Friday said officers are also provided with additional less-lethal equipment, like stun guns and weapons that deploy bean bags, as well as crisis-intervention training. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-charges-dropped-against-7-oklahoma-police-officers-in-3-separate-fatal-shootings/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:27 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-charges-dropped-against-7-oklahoma-police-officers-in-3-separate-fatal-shootings/ |
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PITTSBURGH (AP) — A federal trial for the man who fatally shot 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue approached its conclusion Friday as the defense, trying to persuade a jury to spare his life, pressed its case that mental illness spurred the nation’s deadliest antisemitic attack.
Robert Bowers, a 50 year-old truck driver from suburban Baldwin, was convicted in June on 63 criminal counts for the 2018 massacre at Tree of Life synagogue. The jury has been hearing testimony in the penalty phase of the trial and will decide whether Bowers will receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors have presented evidence that Bowers was motivated by his hatred of Jewish people when he opened fire at the synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, killing members of three congregations gathered for Sabbath worship and study. The defense argues Bowers has schizophrenia and acted out of a delusional belief that Jews were participating in a genocide of white people.
On Friday, a defense psychiatrist who met with Bowers 10 times for nearly 40 hours said Bowers saw himself as a soldier of God in a war in which Satan was trying to use Jewish people to bring about the end of the world. Dr. George Corvin, of Raleigh, N.C., said it was a delusion brought on by psychosis.
Corvin said Bowers continues to express delusional beliefs about Jews — “disgustingly so” — and that he is incapable of remorse. He said Bowers should be on anti-psychotic medication.
Bowers “has a belief that we’re at the end of a war that’s been going on for thousands of years,” Corvin testified. “He still envisions what he did as an unfortunate act of violence at the direction of God — that it will save lives. He believes he’s a tool for God. I know it sounds absurd. It’s psychotic.”
Corvin continued: “This is the result of a mental illness.”
Corvin was one of several defense experts who diagnosed Bowers with schizophrenia, a serious brain disorder whose symptoms include delusions and hallucinations. A neurologist testifying for the prosecution disputed that Bowers has schizophrenia, saying Bowers has a personality disorder but is not delusional, and that mental illness did not appear to play a role in the attack. Prosecutors have noted Bowers spent six months planning the shooting.
Also testifying Friday were Bowers’ aunt and uncle.
The uncle, Clyde Munger, said he visited with Bowers in prison because “he is my nephew and I love him.” He said he prays for Bowers every morning.
The aunt, Patricia Fine, was expected to the final defense witness. She said Bowers had a difficult childhood from infancy, describing the house where he lived as unsafe. She said he was a sad child and that she “was convinced” he would take his own life. A defense expert previously described Bowers’ early life as deeply unstable and said he attempted suicide several times in his teens.
Fine’s testimony was scheduled to resume Monday, with closing arguments and jury deliberations expected to follow. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-defense-presses-case-that-mental-illness-spurred-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:35 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-defense-presses-case-that-mental-illness-spurred-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/ |
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PHOENIX (AP) — Homeless in America’s hottest big metro, Stefon James Dewitt Livengood was laid out for days inside his makeshift dwelling, struggling to breath, nauseous and vomiting.
Every day this month, temperatures have soared past 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius).
Livengood said he stopped briefly at a free clinic that took his blood pressure and declared it acceptable. But he received no other medical help for his apparent heat exhaustion, or for the peeling skin on his arms he believes was caused by sun exposure. He is careful when he walks through the sprawling tent city, cognizant that if he falls, the simmering black asphalt could seriously burn his skin.
“If you’re going outside, let somebody know where you’re going so you can be tracked so you don’t pass out out there,” he said. “If you fall out in the heat, you don’t want a third degree burn from the ground.”
The 38-year-old sleeps in a structure cobbled together with a frame of scavenged wood and metal covered by blue vinyl tarp. The space inside is large enough to stand up and walk around in and features an old recliner and a bicycle Livengood uses less now that he spends more time inside with the sides of his dwelling open.
“Some of the friends that I’ve made down here, they come check on me if they don’t see me moving around,” he said.
Homeless people are among those most likely to die in the extreme heat in metro Phoenix. The city is seeing its longest run of consecutive days of 110 Fahrenheit (43.3 Celsius) ever recorded, clocking 28 in a row as of Thursday, even as the first monsoon storm of the season brought some overnight relief.
“It has been a scary situation this year and it’s especially scary for our homeless population,” said Dr. Geoff Comp, an emergency room physician for Valleywise Health in central Phoenix. “They have a more constant exposure to the heat than most of us.”
People living outside are also vulnerable to surface burns from contact with hot metal, concrete or asphalt.
Surgeons at the Arizona Burn Center–Valleywise Health recently warned about burns caused by walking, sitting or falling on outside surfaces reaching up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit (82.2 degrees Celsius). The burn center last year saw 85 people admitted with heat-related surface burns for the months of June through August. Seven died.
Record high overnight temperatures persisted above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 degrees Celsius) for 16 days straight after finally slipping to 89 Fahrenheit (31.6 Celsius) on Thursday after a storm Wednesday evening kicked up dust, high winds and a bit of rainfall.
If temperatures don’t drop sufficiently after the sun sets, it’s hard for people’s bodies to cool down, health professionals say, especially those who live in flimsy structures without air conditioning or fans.
“People really need a lot of water and a cooling system to recover overnight,” Comp said.
There is no air conditioner, fan or even electricity in Livengood’s home, just a little, flat piece of plastic he uses as a hand fan.
Unhoused people accounted for about 40% of the 425 heat-associated deaths tallied last year in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, during its hottest summer on record. More than half of the 425 deaths occurred in July and 80% occurred outdoors.
Maricopa County reported Wednesday that as of July 22, there were 25 heat-associated deaths confirmed this year going back to April 11. Another 249 deaths remain under investigation.
Livengood’s shack stands among some 800 people living in tents and other makeshift dwellings outside Arizona’s largest temporary shelter. The tents stand close together on concrete sidewalks, and seem to increase the stifling heat from the encampment called “The Zone.”
But the location is convenient. Nearby agencies provide social services, food and life-saving water, including the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA and St. Mary’s Food Bank.
Livengood can get breakfast and lunch with faith-based groups in the area before taking a nap in his recliner.
On some hot days, the local transportation agency Valley Metro send over a couple of empty buses so people can sit for hours in the air conditioning. On other days, Livengood and a few friends walk to a nearby city park and sit in the grass under shade trees outside a public swimming pool.
“It’s a definite part of what keeps everybody safe down here in the ‘The Zone,’” Livengood said, ticking off the things people distribute: hygiene items, sunscreen, lip balm, hats and cooling rags. “A lot of love is given out here.”
Livengood tells of a childhood of trauma and neglect. Born in Phoenix and originally named Jesse James Acosta Jr., Livengood spent much of his early years in public housing in a low-income, largely African American neighborhood of south Phoenix. Both of his parents spent time in prison. His mother struggled with addiction, giving birth to a daughter behind bars, and later slipped into homelessness.
“My childhood has been filled with a lot of memories of being bounced around, never really having anything stable,” Livengood said.
Livengood was adopted at age 12 by a woman named Denise who legally changed his name to the current one. He and the rest of his adoptive family moved to Alaska, where his adoptive mother died in a traffic accident.
Livengood struggled in school and met the mother of his son. He later left behind the woman and their child to return to Phoenix, a decision he regrets.
Back in the desert, Livengood said he is well aware of the dangers from extreme heat from the pamphlets volunteers pass out with bottles of icy water.
“Yeah, it gets really hot out here, guys,” he said. “Stay hydrated, drink plenty of water even when you think you’ve had a lot of water. And drink more.”
___
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.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-homeless-struggle-to-stay-safe-from-record-high-temperatures-in-blistering-phoenix/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:43 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-homeless-struggle-to-stay-safe-from-record-high-temperatures-in-blistering-phoenix/ |
BEIJING, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chengdu Universiade officially kicked off Friday night in the capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, known as the hometown of giant pandas and one of the most vibrant Chinese cities.
Ahead the opening ceremony of the 31st summer edition of the FISU World University Games, Chinese President Xi Jinping has engaged himself in a flurry of face-to-face high-level meetings with foreign leaders attending the ceremony over the past couple of days.
Behind the tight diplomatic schedule, Xi has highlighted the importance of solidarity, cooperation and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, three key messages shared by the visiting leaders of Indonesia, Guyana, Georgia, Mauritania and Burundi.
Solidarity
In a toast at a welcoming banquet on Friday noon, Xi said the Games, since its inception, has always been "a celebration of youth, solidarity, and friendship."
"We should promote solidarity through sports, build up positive energy across the international community, join hands to tackle global challenges such as climate change, food crisis and terrorism, and shape a better future through cooperation," he urged.
Solidarity, unity and togetherness were also one of the hot topics during the Chinese president's separate meetings with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani and Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye.
During the meeting with the Burundian leader, for instance, Xi stressed the importance of solidarity between China and Africa in safeguarding the common interests of developing countries and the international fairness and justice.
Cooperation
During the meetings of the leaders, China and the five countries agreed to further cooperation, such as on trade, infrastructure and people-to-people exchanges.
In a meeting with Xi on Thursday, Widodo said Indonesia is willing to continue to enhance cooperation with China in areas including investment, marine fisheries, food security and healthcare. The leaders witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents following the meeting.
China and Georgia will issue a joint statement and announce the establishment of strategic partnership during Garibashvili's historic visit. Xi hailed the remarkable achievements in cooperation in various fields between the two countries over the past 31 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, while the Georgian prime minister said the elevation of bilateral relations will bring more opportunities to his country.
On Friday, China and Mauritania also signed a cooperation plan on jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to enhance bilateral ties.
A community with a shared future for mankind
The term of building a community with a shared future for mankind was repeatedly highlighted during the leaders' meetings, with Indonesia, Guyana, Georgia, Mauritania and Burundi also expressing support for China-proposed initiatives.
While meeting with Xi on Friday afternoon, Ghazouani said Mauritania supports the BRI, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, saying that these initiatives are in line with the norms governing international relations that respect countries' independence and sovereignty and exchanges between different civilizations.
Addressing the welcoming banquet, Xi stressed the importance of deepening exchanges and mutual learning to promote harmony without uniformity in the spirit of inclusiveness and seeing different cultures with an attitude of mutual appreciation and mutual learning.
"The Chengdu Games should be an opportunity for us to champion the common values of humanity and write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind," said Xi.
In an interview with CGTN, Ali, the Guyanese president, said the Games goes beyond the competitions among the young athletes.
"They can share the experiences, they can share culture, [and] they can share who they are in building a stronger family of humanity," he said.
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SOURCE CGTN | https://www.wistv.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/cgtn-solidarity-vowed-xi-hosts-foreign-leaders-amid-chengdu-universiade/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:46 | 0 | https://www.wistv.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/cgtn-solidarity-vowed-xi-hosts-foreign-leaders-amid-chengdu-universiade/ |
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We've placed cookies on your device to improve your browsing experience. They're safe and don't contain sensitive information. | https://tj.news/telegraph-journal/102147416 | 2023-07-29T03:13:47 | 1 | https://tj.news/telegraph-journal/102147416 |
ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — Many were not just killed at home. They were killed by their homes.
Angela Eason had visited Brenda Odoms’ tidy mobile home before. It was a place where Odoms, who had many tragedies in her life, felt safe.
In March, a tornado ripped through this small Mississippi town and people in mobile or manufactured homes were hit the hardest. Inside a mobile morgue, Eason, the county coroner, examined Odoms’ gaping fatal head wound. Odoms was found just outside of her collapsed mobile home that was tossed around by a tornado. Blunt force trauma killed her.
“The one place she felt safe she was not,” Eason said. Fourteen people died in that Rolling Fork tornado, nine of them, including Odoms, were in uprooted manufactured or mobile homes.
Tornadoes in the United States are disproportionately killing more people in mobile or manufactured homes, especially in the South, often victimizing some of the most socially and economically vulnerable residents. Since 1996, tornadoes have killed 815 people in mobile or manufactured homes, representing 53% of all the people killed at home during a tornado, according to an Associated Press data analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tornado deaths. Meanwhile, less than 6% of America’s housing units are manufactured homes, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
While the dangers of tornadoes to mobile homes have long been known, and there are ways to mitigate the risk, the percentage of total tornado deaths that happen in mobile homes has been increasing. Part of the problem is that federal housing rules that call for tougher manufactured home standards, including anchoring, only apply in hurricane zones, which is most of Florida and then several counties along the coast. Those are not the areas where tornadoes usually hit.
Auburn University engineering professor David Roueche called manufactured homes in non-coastal places “death traps compared to most permanent homes” when it comes to tornadoes.
A DEADLY YEAR
The first tornado deaths this year were in Alabama in January, killing seven people, all in mobile homes. All but one were thrown at least 1,000 feet from their homes, with the seventh person thrown at least 500 feet, said Ernie Baggett, the former emergency management chief for Autauga County, Alabama. Less than 100 yards from where four of those people died was a permanent home that had little more than shingle damage, he said.
When the wind hits the mobile homes, “it’s like a house of cards. They just crumble,” Baggett said.
So far this year, at least 45 of the 74 people killed in the U.S. by tornadoes were in some form of manufactured housing when they died, according to NOAA data. Nine others died in site homes and the rest were killed in other places, such as in vehicles.
The manufactured housing industry — which disputes that there’s any disproportionate danger — insists on calling the structures manufactured homes if they are built after hurricane-based federal standards in 1976 and mobile homes if they are built before, saying age of the home matters. Federal housing officials use the term manufactured housing. Other people, including many researchers and residents, use the terms interchangeably.
More than 70% of the 8 million manufactured homes in America were built after 1976. Because a big chunk were built in the 1980s and early 1990s, 60% of all those homes were installed before increased federal standards were adopted in 1994, the industry’s trade group, Manufactured Housing Institute said.
TORNADOES DON’T HAVE TO BE DEADLY
Tornado experts say most tornadoes should be survivable.
“You just have to be in some structure that’s attached to the ground. And then no matter what the tornado throws at you, you have really good odds,” said NOAA social scientist Kim Klockow-McClain.
But in manufactured homes, even the weakest tornadoes are killing people in large numbers when they shouldn’t be, more than a dozen experts in meteorology, disasters and engineering told The AP.
More than 240 people in mobile homes in the past 28 years have died in tornadoes with winds of 135 mph or less, the three weakest of the six categories of twisters, the AP analysis found. That’s 79% of the deaths at home in the weaker tornadoes. It’s only in storms with winds higher than 165 mph where most of the at home deaths are in more permanent structures.
Auburn’s Roueche not only studies what happens in mobile homes during tornadoes, he grew up in one. What he sees over and over are mobile homes that fail from the bottom up because they are not secured enough to the ground, like permanent homes are.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A TORNADO
“The whole structure is rolling or flying through air. You’ve got dressers falling on top of you. You’ve got the entire structure that’s trying to crush you,” said Roueche.
That March evening in Rolling Fork, when the tornado roared through Ida Cartlidge remembered the air blowing so powerfully that she couldn’t breathe, the sounds of windows shattering and then utter mayhem.
“The only thing that’s holding a mobile home down are the little straps in the ground,” Cartlidge said. “It picked up the home one time, set it down. It picked it up again, set it down. It picked it up a third time, and we were in the air.”
The tornado hit Mildred Joyner’s mobile home so hard she felt the mobile home shake, heard the cracking sound of what she figured was her home coming apart and then she woke up in the hospital and her mother who was in the mobile home with her ended up paralyzed from the waist down.
The problem is worsening in the South because tornadoes have been moving more from the Great Plains to the mid-South in recent decades and will likely to continue to do so with climate change a possible factor, studies show. Alabama has the most tornado deaths by far.
Unlike the rest of the country, which usually has most manufactured housing in parks, the South has mobile homes scattered about the countryside in ones and twos, making central tornado shelters less effective and likely to be built, said Villanova University tornado expert Stephen Strader and Northern Illinois meteorology professor Walker Ashley.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ANCHORING
One thing scientists, emergency managers and the manufactured housing industry agree on is that anchoring mobile homes to the ground is key.
That requires expensive concrete or expensive tie down systems, said former Alabama emergency official Jonathan Gaddy, now a professor at Idaho State University.
“Why does that matter? Well, it explains why we haven’t fixed the problem with anchoring because nobody can fix the problem and still make money. That’s the bottom line,” Gaddy said.
“Anchoring matters and has been shown to be the difference between life or death,” Villanova’s Strader said in an email. “However, the MH industry seems disinterested in addressing this because it would make their homes more expensive.”
Manufactured Home Institute Chief Executive Officer Lesli Gooch said the industry is “very clear” about the importance of anchoring. “We also talk about making sure that a professional checks your anchoring systems on your manufactured home, especially on mobile homes built prior to (19)76,” she said.
“We’re very focused on making sure that there are minimum installation standards in the states,” Gooch said.
Northern Illinois’ Ashley said lack of state regulations and inspections, especially in much of the South, is a big problem.
Improvements in federal codes that went into effect in 1976, 1994 and 2008 make a big difference, Gooch said, arguing that the NOAA data the AP analyzed and that scientists use lump different ages of manufactured homes together and tar them with the problems of the oldest ones.
“I wouldn’t want your readers to misinterpret your data to suggest that living in a manufactured home is somehow more deadly than living in a site-built home because I would tell you that I don’t think that the data bears that out,” Gooch said.
Gooch pointed to manufactured homes in Florida, where tighter federal Housing and Urban Development safety rules apply because it is a hurricane wind zone. “Homes in Florida that are manufactured homes are performing better than what you see in the site-built world,” she said.
IT’S NOT GETTING BETTER
Several scientists and engineers said data, and history, show the situation has not improved.
“This is more of the handwaving- and misdirection-type statements that has come to represent the manufactured housing industry’s take on tornado and manufactured home safety,” Villanova’s Strader said in an email, with Northern Illinois’ Ashley agreeing.
“Our study of the Lee County Alabama EF4 tornado found that 19 of the 23 deaths were in manufactured homes (all built after 1994),” Strader said. “All of those deaths were due to a lack of anchoring or a floor-to-wall connection. There have been many prior studies that have illustrated that these homes are failing at lower wind loads than permanent homes.”
If Gooch were right, the percentage of tornado deaths in mobile homes would be going down with time and they are not, NOAA National Severe Storms Lab tornado scientist Harold Brooks said, presenting data that goes back to 1975. His data showed mobile home deaths between 1975 and 1984 were 43.6% of all at-home tornado deaths and the same figure was 63.2% for the past ten years through the end of May.
A contributing factor, Strader, Ashley and Roueche said, is that federal rules for anchoring only apply in hurricane zones, mostly in Florida. Those are not the areas where tornadoes usually hit. Instead, they hit inland where the weakest federal standards are, they said. Most of tornado-prone areas, including almost all of Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas and Mississippi are in “Zone 1,” where safety and anchoring of mobile homes have the most lax standards.
“People are dying in new and old Zone 1 manufactured homes,” Roueche said in response to Gooch’s comments. Tornado homes throughout the country would be much safer if the coastal federal requirements applied everywhere, he said.
HURTING POOR PEOPLE MORE
One of the issues with mobile homes and tornadoes is that it is an intersection of risk and “different social vulnerability factors like poverty, even some issues pertaining to race, ethnicity, age,” NOAA’s Klockow said.
And it makes it harder for people to leave their mobile homes and head for a permanent shelter.
“I always think about the single mother who’s living in a manufactured home. It’s the middle of the night. She has three kids. Her car’s not starting correctly and all of a sudden here comes a tornado,” Strader said in an interview.
Officials tell her “to get to a storm shelter because our manufactured home isn’t safe,” Strader said. “Well, the problem there is that there’s all these factors up against them.”
Tornadoes pop down rapidly, which doesn’t allow meteorologists to give much warning, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. In many cases, the National Weather Service warns days in advance that the conditions are ripe for tornadoes, but that isn’t the same as warning that one has touched down.
University of Oklahoma social scientist Justin Sharpe, who studies disaster warnings, said with poor and disabled residents the key is to avoid warnings that simply say “get out now” and nothing else.
Instead, a couple hours before a tornado is possible, meteorologists should warn people to be packed up and ready to go at a moment’s notice later, Sharpe and Klockow-McClain said.
FINDING SAFER PLACES
A relatively new law in Alabama could help provide more shelters and be a model for other states. The law gives liability protection to buildings like churches and stores that open up in an emergency as a shelter if specifically-built shelters aren’t available.
When this year’s first deadly tornado struck just outside Montgomery, Alabama, Autauga County had about 30 minutes warning but no “safer places” to send people, the then-emergency chief, Baggett said. Seven people in mobile homes died.
The tornado continued into neighboring Elmore County, which had already set off its 30 warning sirens, used a mass notification system to make 16,772 calls to phones in the danger area and opened up 16 churches and other safer places.
People went into the temporary shelters. Homes were destroyed, but no one died.
___
Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert and video journalist Stephen Smith contributed to this report. Borenstein reported from Washington and Fassett from Seattle.
___
Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
___
Follow Seth Borenstein, Camille Fasset and Michael Goldberg on Twitter at @borenbears, @camfassett and @mikergoldberg.
___
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.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-homes-that-become-deadly-tornadoes-kill-disproportionately-more-in-mobile-homes-ap-analysis-finds/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:52 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-homes-that-become-deadly-tornadoes-kill-disproportionately-more-in-mobile-homes-ap-analysis-finds/ |
NEW YORK, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sooth, an industry-leading strategic marketing insights platform and consultancy, is excited to announce a dynamic partnership with Kestrel Consulting. This collaboration brings Sooth's founder, Ian Baer, and his innovative methodologies and expertise into Kestrel's broad network, promising to enrich Kestrel's client marketing and branding initiatives with fresh perspectives and deeper understanding.
Recognized for its patent-pending method that fuses data, AI, and human intellect, Sooth deciphers the intricacies of human decision-making, mapping emotional drivers and receptivity of diverse consumer and business audiences. Now part of Kestrel's network, Sooth's unique, sophisticated approach will bolster client marketing initiatives, offering a powerful toolset to unlock new avenues for connection, empathy, and understanding that is proven to increase customer lifetime value by four times or more.
As Kestrel's preferred provider of brand strategic services, Sooth will also accelerate its own growth by working on branding and marketing projects for clients and partners within the Kestrel network.
"Kestrel Consultants helps leadership teams, founders, entrepreneurs, and enterprises fly higher and achieve strategic outcomes through its exclusive partnership network of fractional executives and boutique business consultants," the company said in a statement. "We're proud to welcome Sooth into our exclusive partnership and referral network. We've admired Ian Baer's work for years, and his exceptional talent is a real complement to our network's other areas of expertise. We're excited to collaborate on new projects together."
This partnership represents a convergence of Sooth's methodologies and Kestrel's expansive network. By bringing together Sooth's unparalleled insights and Kestrel's team of skilled executives and consultants, they aim to empower Kestrel's clientele with deeper understanding and fresh perspectives, enabling them to achieve their marketing goals.
"Changes in consumer and business culture over the past several years have irrevocably changed how marketing works at an elemental level," said Ian Baer, Founder and Chief Soothsayer at Sooth. "With 90 percent of all decisions now determined by each person's unique emotional priorities, we're able to roadmap success for brands by unlocking an in-depth understanding of the factors that create connection between these brands and the customers they serve. Kestrel's model brings together complementary innovators to help companies elevate their game across a broad spectrum of business and marketing interdependencies. I could not be more excited to align with the talented leaders of Kestrel Consultants to bring clients high-impact business solutions at the speed and efficiency of modern commerce."
About Sooth
Sooth is an industry-leading strategic marketing insights platform and consultancy. Using a unique, patent-pending method that synergizes data, artificial intelligence, and human intellect, Sooth decodes the intricacies of consumer decision-making and maps the emotional motivators of diverse audiences with unparalleled precision. Sooth is committed to making marketing strategies more effective, intuitive, and emotionally engaging, empowering brands with the insights they need. www.SoothBeTold.com
About Kestrel Consultants
Kestrel Consultants helps leadership teams, founders, entrepreneurs, and enterprises fly higher and achieve strategic outcomes through its exclusive partnership network of fractional executives and boutique business consultants. Learn more at KestrelConsultants.com.
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SOURCE Sooth | https://www.wistv.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/ian-baer-brings-sooths-brand-strategy-mastery-kestrel-consultings-executive-network/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:53 | 1 | https://www.wistv.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/ian-baer-brings-sooths-brand-strategy-mastery-kestrel-consultings-executive-network/ |
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NEW YORK (AP) — Three men convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting have been ordered freed from prison by a judge who deemed their lengthy sentences “unduly harsh and unjust” and decried the FBI’s role in radicalizing them in a plot to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes.
Onta Williams, David Williams and Laguerre Payen — three of the men known as the “Newburgh Four” — were “hapless, easily manipulated and penurious petty criminals” caught up more than a decade ago in a scheme driven by overzealous FBI agents and a dodgy informant, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon said in her ruling Thursday.
“The real lead conspirator was the United States,” McMahon wrote in granting the men’s request for compassionate release, effective in three months.
She said that it was “heinous” of the men to agree to participate in what she called the government’s “made for TV movie.” But, the judge added, “the sentence was the product of a fictitious plot to do things that these men had never remotely contemplated, and that were never going to happen.”
She excoriated the government for sending “a villain” of an informant “to troll among the poorest and weakest of men for ‘terrorists’ who might prove susceptible to an offer of much-needed cash in exchange for committing a faux crime.”
The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment on the judge’s decision. A message seeking comment was sent to the FBI.
Citing concerns for the men’s health and her own qualms about the case, McMahon cut the 25-year mandatory minimum sentences she imposed on them in 2011 to time served plus 90 days. She said that would allow time for probation officials to prepare and for Payen’s lawyer to line up supportive housing for the man, who has a severe mental illness.
“We are tremendously pleased that our clients are on their way home — even if it’s fourteen years too late,” said Amith R. Gupta, part of a group of lawyers representing Payen and the Willamses, who are not related. Gupta in his statement described the three as destitute men “entrapped for their race, religion, and working-class backgrounds by a government looking to spread fear of Muslims and justify bloated budgets.”
Kathy Manley, who represented Payen, said the prosecution “should never have happened, but now at least the men will soon be out of prison.” Samuel Braverman, who represented Payen at trial, called the ruling “incredibly brave and just.”
The fourth man, James Cromitie, wasn’t part of the compassionate release request and is expected to complete his prison sentence in 2030.
Cromitie’s attorney, Kerry Lawrence, plans to speak with him about pursuing similar action on his behalf.
“I’m confident he would be entitled to relief for the same reasons articulated by Judge McMahon for the other defendants,” Lawrence said.
Payen, Cromitie and the Williamses were arrested in 2009, during a period of heightened public and law enforcement concern about the threat of terror strikes hatched within the U.S. by supporters of foreign extremists.
Officials portrayed Cromitie as the ringleader of a “chilling plot” among “extremely violent men” loyal to a Pakistani terrorist group — though the government later decided not to present any evidence about foreign terrorist organizations at trial. A court complaint described him as a man seething with anti-American and antisemitic sentiment and eager to translate those feelings into bloody action.
Prosecutors said the defendants had spent months scouting targets and securing what they thought were explosives and a surface-to-air missile, aiming to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York, and blow up synagogues in Riverdale, a heavily Jewish part of the Bronx. They were arrested there after allegedly planting bombs that were, in fact, packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI.
From the start, relatives said the four were men who were down on their luck after doing prison time.
The men’s lawyers soon raised questions about entrapment — a legal defense that argues that people were enticed into illegal conduct they wouldn’t have otherwise committed.
The defense lawyers said federal informant Shaheed Hussain tried to stir up the men with rhetoric and went on to choose the targets, offer hefty payment, buy the defendants groceries, and provide the fake bombs and missile. The defense portrayed Hussain as a self-serving manipulator who was trying to please the government after his own, unrelated fraud conviction.
Jurors deliberated for eight days before convicting the men in 2010. Three years later, they lost an appeal.
A possible phone number for Hussain rang unanswered Thursday night.
Hussain also worked with the FBI on other stings, including one that targeted an Albany pizza shop owner and an imam — and involved a loan using money from a fictitious missile sale. Both men, who said they were tricked, were convicted of money laundering and conspiring to aid a terrorist group.
A few years later, Hussain was in the public eye again when a stretch limo crashed in rural Schoharie, New York, killing 20 people. Hussain owned the limo company, operated by his son Nauman Hussain.
After it emerged that the limo had failed a safety inspection a month before the crash and that the slain driver didn’t have a commercial license, Nauman Hussain was charged with criminally negligent homicide and manslaughter. His lawyer blamed a repair shop for the vehicle’s problems and said his client was being treated like a scapegoat.
Nauman Hussain was convicted this May and is serving five to 15 years in prison. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-judge-orders-release-of-3-of-newburgh-four-and-assails-fbis-role-in-a-post-9-11-terror-sting/ | 2023-07-29T03:13:58 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-judge-orders-release-of-3-of-newburgh-four-and-assails-fbis-role-in-a-post-9-11-terror-sting/ |
BEIJING, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Tarena International, Inc. (NASDAQ: TEDU) ("Tarena" or the "Company"), a leading provider of IT professional education and IT-focused supplementary STEAM education services in China, today announced that it received a written notification from the Staff of the Listing Qualifications Department of the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC ("Nasdaq") dated July 28, 2023, indicating that the Company no longer meets the continued listing requirement of minimum Market Value of Publicly Held Shares ("MVPHS") for the Nasdaq Global Select Market, as set forth in the Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(b)(2)(C), because the Company's MVPHS for the last 30 consecutive business days was below the minimum MVPHS requirement of US$15,000,000.
Pursuant to the Nasdaq Listing Rules, the applicable grace period to regain compliance is 180 calendar days, or until January 24, 2024. The Company can cure this deficiency if its MVPHS closes at US$15,000,000 or more for a minimum of ten consecutive business days during the compliance period. The Company's management is looking into various options available to regain compliance and maintain its continued listing on The Nasdaq Global Select Market. In the event the Company does not regain compliance prior to the expiration of the compliance period, it will receive written notification that its securities are subject to delisting. Alternatively, the Company may apply to transfer the Company's securities to The Nasdaq Capital Market, subject to the Nasdaq Capital Market's continued listing requirements.
About Tarena International, Inc.
Tarena is a leading provider of IT professional education and IT-focused supplementary STEAM education services in China. Through its innovative education platform combining live distance instruction, classroom-based tutoring and online learning modules, Tarena offers professional education courses in IT and non-IT subjects. Its professional education courses provide students with practical skills to prepare them for jobs in industries with significant growth potential and strong hiring demand. Tarena also offers IT-focused supplementary STEAM education programs, including computer coding and robotics programming courses, etc., targeting students between three and eighteen years of age. Aiming to encourage "code to learn," Tarena embraces the latest trends in STEAM education and technology to develop children's logical thinking and learning abilities while allowing them to discover their interests and potential.
Safe Harbor Statement
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Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in Tarena's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is current as of the date of the press release, and Tarena does not undertake any obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Samuel Alito says Congress lacks the power to impose a code of ethics on the Supreme Court, making him the first member of the court to take a public stand against proposals in Congress to toughen ethics rules for justices in response to increased scrutiny of their activities beyond the bench.
“I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period,” Alito said in an interview he gave to the Wall Street Journal opinion pages. An account of the interview, which the paper said took place in New York in early July, was published Friday.
Democrats last week pushed Supreme Court ethics legislation through a Senate committee, though the bill’s prospects in the full Senate are dim.
All federal judges other than the justices already adhere to an ethics code that was developed by the federal judiciary. But the Supreme Court’s unique status — it’s the only federal court created by the Constitution — puts it outside the reach of those standards that apply to other federal jurists.
Democrats first sought to address that after ProPublica reported earlier this year that Justice Clarence Thomas participated in lavish vacations and a real estate deal with a top Republican donor — and after Chief Justice John Roberts declined to testify before the committee about the ethics of the court.
Since then, ProPublica also revealed that Alito had taken a luxury vacation in Alaska with a Republican donor who had business interests before the court. The Associated Press reported in early July that Justice Sonia Sotomayor, aided by her staff, has advanced sales of her books through college visits over the past decade.
The 73-year-old Alito, who joined the court in 2006, has rejected the idea that he should have disclosed the Alaska trip or stepped away from cases involving the donor, hedge fund owner Paul Singer. Alito penned his own Wall Street Journal op-ed, which was published hours before ProPublica posted its story.
Alito said that he is unwilling to leave allegations unanswered, though he acknowledged judges and justices typically don’t respond to their critics.
“And so at a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself,” he said in the newest column.
While no other justice has spoken so definitively about ethics legislation, Roberts has raised questions about Congress’ authority to oversee the high court.
In his year-end report in 2011, Roberts wrote that the justices comply with legislation that requires annual financial disclosures and limits their outside earned income. “The Court has never addressed whether Congress may impose those requirements on the Supreme Court. The Justices nevertheless comply with those provisions,” Roberts wrote.
The justices have so far resisted adopting an ethics code on their own, although Roberts said in May that there is more the court can do to “adhere to the highest standards” of ethical conduct, without providing specifics.
The column is co-written by James Taranto, the paper’s editorial features editor, and David Rivkin, a Washington lawyer. Rivkin represents Leonard Leo, the onetime leader of the conservative legal group The Federalist Society, in his dealings with Senate Democrats who want details of Leo’s dealings with the justices. Leo helped arrange Alito’s trip to Alaska.
Rivkin, in a letter Tuesday to leading Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the request was politically motivated and violates Leo’s constitutional rights. Rivkin also wrote that a congressionally imposed ethics code for the Supreme Court would falter on constitutional grounds. Separately, Rivkin represents a couple whose tax case will be argued before the court in the fall.
Alito talked with the Taranto and Rivkin for four hours in interviews in April and July, they wrote. They published an account of the earlier interview in April. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-justice-alito-says-congress-lacks-the-power-to-impose-an-ethics-code-on-the-supreme-court/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:06 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-justice-alito-says-congress-lacks-the-power-to-impose-an-ethics-code-on-the-supreme-court/ |
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LONDON, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- VAPORESSO, a leading innovator in the vaping industry, has received well-deserved recognition at this year's London Design Awards, with four of its groundbreaking products being awarded for their exceptional design. The London Design Awards is an international competition that recognises exceptional designs and outstanding creative projects worldwide, celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of the international design community.
The four distinguished products from VAPORESSO - the COSS, ECO NANO, LUXE XR, and XROS 3 NANO - have showcased the brand's formidable innovative prowess and have also been recognized with awards from many organizations. VAPORESSO's latest groundbreaking offering, the VAPORESSO COSS, is regarded as a game-changer in the vaping industry. It tackles existing issues with a thoughtful design that seamlessly caters to user habits. Its slogan, 'Convenient Operating, Smart Supplying', perfectly encapsulates the product's core values of INNOVATION, RELIABILITY, and STYLE.
"Winning these awards is a testament to the creativity, skill, and dedication of our team," said Jimmy Hu, Vice President of VAPORESSO, "We are thrilled to have our efforts recognised on such a prestigious global platform. It validates our commitment to delivering innovative, high-quality products that enhance the vaping experience for our customers."
The London Design Awards, held annually, applauds outstanding design achievements across various creative sectors. It acknowledges exemplary projects, products, and professionals who demonstrate innovation, creativity, and excellence within their respective industries. Meanwhile, the London Design Awards not only honours design excellence but also fosters creativity, encourages innovation, and facilitates collaborations between designers and design-driven businesses. The awards have grown in stature and popularity since their inception, attracting a wide range of participants from various design fields.
The recognition from the London Design Awards underscores VAPORESSO's dedication to creating products that exceed customer expectations and further solidifies its position as a thought leader in the industry. It also acts as an external validation of VAPORESSO's capabilities and quality of work, building trust and confidence among potential customers.
About VAPORESSO
Established in 2015, VAPORESSO is committed to creating a smoke-free world and enhancing the quality of life for its users. Through continuous innovation, stringent quality control, and substantial commitment, VAPORESSO produces products that cater to all levels and styles of vapers.
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Federal investigators renewed their recommendation that major freight railroads equip every locomotive with the kind of autonomous sensors that could have caught the track flaws that caused a fatal 2021 Amtrak derailment in northern Montana.
But installing the sensors on the tens of thousands of locomotives in the fleet could be cost prohibitive, and it’s not entirely clear if one would have caught the combination of rail flaws that the National Transportation Safety Board said caused the crash near Joplin, Montana, that killed three people and injured 49 others. And rail unions caution that no technology should be a substitute for human inspectors.
The NTSB report laid blame in part on BNSF railroad, which owns the tracks, and “a shortcoming in its safety culture.” But it noted that even if track inspections had been more frequent, the severity of the problems may not have been noticed the day of the crash without devices and technology designed to enhance the inspections.
“It is unlikely that the track deviations would have been detected through the current track inspection process,” the board concluded in the report released Thursday. But “autonomous monitoring systems … have the ability to monitor track conditions and provide real-time condition monitoring that could be used for early identification and mitigation of unsafe track conditions.”
BNSF defends its safety record and said it already employs a number of the sensors that the NTSB is recommending, but spokeswoman Lena Kent said the Fort Worth, Texas-based railroad will review the report for any additional lessons and ways to improve safety.
But track problems have long been a safety concern for the NTSB, which can recommend but not mandate changes. In a 2021 report on the Joplin derailment, it attributed 592 U.S. derailments over a decade-long timespan to “track geometry,” which includes the distance between the rails and their horizontal and vertical alignment. Those issues were the second-leading cause of derailment in 2021.
Railroad safety expert Dave Clarke, the former director of University of Tennesse’s Center for Transportation Research, said it is important to remember that the NTSB doesn’t do any kind of cost-benefit analysis on its recommendations.
“If they think something is a good idea for safety they put it out there. In the real world there may be no way to economically or practically do everything NTSB recommends,” Clarke said.
Clarke said it’s also not clear that these sensors would have definitely caught the problems that caused the Montana derailment because none of the individual factors was severe enough to be considered a defect under Federal Railroad Administration rules. The NTSB said it was the combination of all those factors that caused the derailment.
The major freight railroads have more than 23,000 locomotives in their fleets, including thousands that have been put into storage in recent years as the railroads have overhauled their operations to rely more on longer trains that don’t need as many locomotives.
It would require a major investment to add detectors to every locomotive, although the Association of American Railroads trade group couldn’t immediately provide an estimate of how much each sensor costs. BNSF and the five other major U.S. freight railroads already spend roughly $23 billion every year on improving and maintaining their networks and investing in new equipment.
But attorney Jeff Goodman, who represented family members of the three passengers who died in the derailment, said he believes his clients would have lived if trains that had passed through the area before the Amtrak train had been equipped with these sensors.
Tracks will always bend or get out of sync because they’re exposed to the elements, but monitoring allows trains to know when to slow down and prevent accidents, he said.
“If the recommendations that the NTSB issued today were implemented prior to this tragedy, Zach Scheider and Don and Marjorie Varnadoe would all be alive today,” he said, naming the deceased family members of his clients.
Railroads have long resisted new regulations, Although there aren’t any rules requiring these automated inspection sensors or the thousands of trackside detectors they employ, railroads have spent millions developing the technology and installed them voluntarily to improve safety. But regulators are considering drafting rules for them in the wake of recent derailments.
An AAR trade group spokeswoman said that the type of sensors the NTSB singled out measure the force a locomotive exerts on the track and hasn’t proven as useful as other kinds of sensors railroads have developed.
“This technology has been difficult to maintain in real-world operations and lacks a strong correlation to track geometry defects,” Jessica Kahanek said.
Railroads are experimenting with a variety of technologies to find the best way to spot problems.
Another kind of autonomous sensor that can be installed on locomotives as well as the trucks inspectors use to ride along the rails can spot problems like misaligned track and wear on the rails by testing the track continuously.
Vehicle track interaction systems, like the ones the NTSB singled out, must be mounted on locomotives because they measure the force a train puts on the tracks.
Both kinds of sensors can help identify areas of concern for a human inspector to follow up on after computers analyze the data they generate. But the VTI sensors tend to be so sensitive that they flag areas where there aren’t true defects.
Kent said BNSF’s use of both kinds of sensors allows the railroad to check its track network multiple times — more than 450,000 miles (720,000 kilometers) of track each year — and that the technology has helped the railroad reduce the rate of defects that it finds by 82% over the past five years.
In the past, BNSF and other railroads have even petitioned the Federal Railroad Administration to get a waiver releasing them from some inspection requirements because they believe the track geometry sensors provide enough information that the frequency of human inspections can be safely reduced.
Federal officials approved a waiver allowing BNSF to reduce inspections on a couple of areas of its more than 30,000-mile (48,000-kilometer) network after the railroad successfully tested the devices for several years, but later declined to let the railroad expand that practice, including its tracks that cross Montana. BNSF took the FRA to court over that decision and the dispute is still pending.
Rail unions have opposed the waivers. They argue that while the new technology is helpful, it shouldn’t replace human inspections. Even with an interest in preserving jobs, they say safety is their primary concern.
Already, the unions say the widespread job cuts the major railroads have made — eliminating nearly one-third of all rail jobs over the past six years — have made it difficult for employees to keep up with inspection demands and meet all FRA requirements. The NTSB pointed out that the inspector responsible for the territory where the Montana derailment happened had worked an average of 13 hours a day in the four weeks prior to the crash.
Former NTSB director Bob Chipkevich, who spent years investigating rail crashes, said it often takes multiple derailments to force railroads to implement new safety technology.
One of the biggest recent advances in rail safety came after a commuter train collided head-on with a freight train near Los Angeles in 2008, killing 25 people and injuring more than 100. Congress mandated a $15 billion automatic braking system that stops trains when they’re in danger of colliding, derailing and other situations — but it took 12 years to complete.
“When there are safety issues that have been raised after multiple accidents that occurred again and again, the question is to the industry,” Chipkevich said. “Why haven’t you done it after all these years?”
___
Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and Metz reported from Salt Lake City.
___
Follow Josh Funk on Twitter at www.twitter.com/funkwrite | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-montana-train-derailment-report-renews-calls-for-automated-systems-to-detect-track-problems/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:12 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-montana-train-derailment-report-renews-calls-for-automated-systems-to-detect-track-problems/ |
FULTON, Mo. (AP) — At the entrance to Missouri prisons, large signs plead for help: “NOW HIRING” … “GREAT PAY & BENEFITS.”
No experience is necessary. Anyone 18 and older can apply. Long hours are guaranteed.
Though the assertion of “great pay” for prison guards would have seemed dubious in the past, a series of state pay raises prompted by widespread vacancies has finally made a difference. The Missouri Department of Corrections set a record for new applicants last month.
“After we got our raise, we started seeing people come out of the woodwork, people that hadn’t worked in a while,” said Maj. Albin Narvaez, chief of custody at the Fulton Reception and Diagnostic Center, where new prisoners are housed and evaluated.
Public employers across the U.S. have faced similar struggles to fill jobs, leading to one of the largest surges in state government pay raises in 15 years. Many cities, counties and school districts also are hiking wages to try to retain and attract workers amid aggressive competition from private sector employers.
The wage war comes as governments and taxpayers feel the consequences of empty positions.
In Kansas City, Missouri, a shortage of 911 operators doubled the average hold times for people calling in emergencies. In one Florida county, some schoolchildren frequently arrived late as a lack of bus drivers delayed routes. In Arkansas, abused and neglected kids remained longer in foster care because of a caseworker shortage. In various cities and states, vacancies on road crews meant cracks and potholes took longer to fix than many motorists might like.
“A lot of the jobs we’re talking about are hard jobs,” said Leslie Scott Parker, executive director of the National Association of State Personnel Executives.
Lingering vacancies “eventually affects service to the public or response times to needs,” she added.
Workforce shortages worsened across all sorts of jobs due to a wave of retirements and resignations that began during the pandemic. Many businesses, from restaurants to hospitals, responded nimbly with higher wages and incentives to attract employees. But governments by nature are slower to act, requiring pay raises to go through a legislative process that can take months to complete — and then can take months more to kick in.
Meanwhile, vacancies mounted.
In Georgia, state employee turnover hit a high of 25% in 2022. Thousands of workers left the Department of Corrections, pushing its vacancy rate to around 50%. The state began a series of pay raises. This year, all state employees and teachers got at least a $2,000 raise, with corrections officers getting $4,000 and state troopers $6,000.
The Georgia Department of Corrections used an ad agency to bolster recruitment and held an average of 125 job fairs a month. It’s starting to pay off. In the first week of July, the department received 318 correctional officer applications — nearly double the weekly norm, said department Public Affairs Director Joan Heath.
Almost 1 in 4 positions — more than 2,500 jobs — were empty in the Missouri Department of Corrections late last year, which was twice the pre-pandemic vacancy rate in 2019.
Missouri gave state workers a 7.5% pay raise in 2022. This spring, Gov. Mike Parson signed an emergency spending bill with an additional 8.7% raise, plus an extra $2 an hour for people working evening and night shifts at prisons, mental health facilities and other institutions. The vacancy rate for entry level corrections officers now is declining, and the average number of applications for all state positions is up 18% since the start of last year.
At the Fulton prison, where staff shortages have led to a standard 52-hour work week, newly hired employees can earn around $60,000 annually — an amount roughly equal to the state’s median household income. The prison also is proposing to provide free child care to correctional officers willing to work nights.
If prison staffing is too low, “it can get dangerous” for both inmates and guards, Narvaez said.
Public safety concerns also have arisen in Kansas City, where a country music fan attacked before a concert last month waited four minutes for a 911 call to be answered and an hour for an ambulance to arrive. About one-quarter of 911 call center positions are vacant — “a huge factor” in the longer wait times to answer calls, said Tamara Bazzle, assistant manager of the communications unit for the Kansas City Police Department.
In Biddeford, Maine, a 15-person roster of 911 dispatchers dipped to just eight employees in July as people quit a “pressure cooker job” for less stress or better pay elsewhere, Police Chief JoAnne Fisk said. The city is now offering fully certified dispatchers $41 an hour to help plug the gaps on a part-time basis — $10 an hour more than comparable new workers normally would earn.
This month, Biddeford also launched a $2,000 bonus for city employees who refer others who get jobs. That comes a year after Biddeford adopted a four-day work week with paid lunch periods to try to make jobs more appealing, said City Manager Jim Bennett.
To attract workers, other governments have dropped college degree requirements and spiced up drab job descriptions.
Nationally, the turnover rate in state and local governments is twice the average of the previous two decades, according federal labor statistics.
Uncompetitive wages were the most common reason for leaving cited in exit interviews, according to a survey of 249 state and local government human resource managers conducted by MissionSquare Research Institute, a Washington, D.C. -based nonprofit. The hardest positions to fill included police and corrections officers, doctors, nurses, engineers and jobs requiring commercial driver’s licenses.
Along Florida’s east coast, the Brevard County transit system and school district have been competing for bus drivers. On days when drivers are lacking, the transit system has cut the frequency of bus stops on some routes. The school system, meanwhile, has asked some bus drivers to run a second route after dropping children off at school, often resulting in the second busload arriving late.
Since 2022, the county has twice raised bus driver wages to a current rate of $17.47 an hour. The school board recently countered with a $5 increase to a minimum $20 an hour for the upcoming school year. The goal is to hire enough drivers to regularly get kids to class on time, said school system communications director Russell Bruhn.
In Arkansas, the goal is to get foster kids into permanent homes in less than a year. But during the first three months of this year, the state met that target for just 32% of foster children — well below the national standard of over 40%. More than one-fifth of the roughly 1,400 positions in the Arkansas Division of Children and Family Services are vacant.
Many new employees leave in less than two years because of heavy caseloads and the “very difficult, emotionally tolling work,” Mischa Martin, the Department of Human Services’ deputy secretary of youth and families, told lawmakers last month.
“If we had a knowledgeable, experienced workforce,” she said, “they would be able to work cases in a better way to get kids home quicker.” | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-mounting-job-vacancies-push-state-and-local-governments-into-a-wage-war-for-workers/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:18 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-mounting-job-vacancies-push-state-and-local-governments-into-a-wage-war-for-workers/ |
Laurel teen faces hate crime, weapons charges after racial incident
On Friday, July 21, at about 12:30 p.m., Laurel police units were dispatched to the 1200 Block of W 6th Street for a weapons complaint.
The 911 caller, a 13-year-old juvenile, was reporting that someone pointed a gun at him. Officers contacted the victim, who was accompanied by a guardian, and learned that the suspect had already left the area.
The initial investigation determined that the victim was playing basketball in the driveway of his residence when a white male subject, who was not known to the victim, drove to and stopped in front of the victim’s residence without provocation.
The suspect reportedly began yelling racial slurs at the victim, a black male, and told the victim to “go inside." The suspect then produced a firearm and pointed it at the victim, who ran inside the house as the vehicle fled the area, according to police.
The victim described the suspect and the suspect’s vehicle, which included specific identifying characteristics. Officers canvassed the area for surveillance video and potential witnesses. Several subjects were contacted who reported seeing the same vehicle and driver in the area on multiple prior occasions driving recklessly and yelling racist remarks at pedestrians.
The suspect was later identified as Zachary T Dyson, 16, of Delmar. He
A 16-year-old suspect was located and subsequently charged with possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, hate crime for underlying Class E felony and aggravated menacing.
The teen turned himself in to Laurel police with a guardian and was released on his own recognizance pending a future Sussex County Family Court arraignment.
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Per Delaware Title 11 Section 1913, the juvenile suspect’s information is being released solely in the interest of public safety. The suspect is currently not incarcerated and is accused of violent felony offenses. Additionally, the Delaware Juvenile Justice System has different bail guidelines than the adult system. It favors release to legal guardians over incarceration of juvenile offenders except with rare, extenuating circumstances.
This is an active investigation.
Anyone with information about this incident or other criminal activity is asked to contact the Laurel Police Department at 302-875-2244 or by direct message to this page. Information can also be submitted anonymously to Delaware Crime Stoppers by calling 800-847-3333 or texting "KEYWORD" followed by your information to CRIMES (274637). Tips submitted to Crime Stoppers that lead to an arrest are potentially eligible for a cash reward. | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/2023/07/28/racial-incident-leads-to-hate-crime-weapons-charges-for-laurel-teen/70488864007/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:25 | 1 | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/2023/07/28/racial-incident-leads-to-hate-crime-weapons-charges-for-laurel-teen/70488864007/ |
No fly zone: Swath of Santa Clarita Valley under quarantine due to invasive tau fruit fly
A swath of the Santa Clarita Valley is under a first-of-its-kind quarantine after the invasive and pestilent tau fruit fly was found in the area, officials announced this week.
The quarantine went into effect July 11, after more than 20 flies were found in the area of Stevenson Ranch, the California Department of Food and Agriculture said in a release. The flies were probably introduced to the area by travelers who brought uninspected produce from out of state.
The action marks the first-ever tau fruit fly quarantine in the Western Hemisphere, state officials said.
Unlike quarantines implemented in response to COVID-19, however, this one is not for people but for fruits and vegetables.
Plants like Sahara or black mustard, common in Southern California but not native to it, can strangle native flowers and pose fire danger.
Native to Asia, the yellow-and-black tau fruit fly is a serious pest for plants — with a wide host range that includes numerous fruits and vegetables, as well as some native California plants, the department said.
Residents in the 79-square-mile quarantine zone are advised to not “move any fruits and vegetables from their property,” according to the department’s statement.
Produce can be consumed, cooked or juiced onsite.
“Otherwise, they should be disposed of by double-bagging in plastic” and placed “in a bin specifically for garbage,” the department said.
Since getting a foothold in L.A. County a decade ago, the aggressive Aedes mosquito has expanded rapidly. It has been found from Laguna Beach to Santa Clarita.
Officials said the circular quarantine zone is roughly bordered to the north by Castaic Junction, the south by Oat Mountain, west by Del Valle Road and east by Honby Avenue. A detailed map can be viewed here.
The Food and Agriculture Department will work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Los Angeles County agricultural commissioner to eliminate the fly and prevent its spread.
On properties within a 200-meter radius of where flies have been detected, “staff will cut host fruit and vegetables to inspect for any fruit fly larvae that may be present,” according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Properties will also be treated with Spinosad, a “naturally derived organic-approved material” to remove adult flies, officials said. Responders will also use fly traps.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Carlos Reyes sought shade under a tree in the Bronx on a day that felt like it was over 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) because of the heat and humidity.
“It’s not like when you were younger, you were playing around,” said the 56-year-old who runs a daycare center. “Now it’s like you got the humidity. It makes you kind of not breathe the same way. So when you walk, you get a little more tired, a little more exhausted.”
Reyes was one of nearly 200 million people in the United States, or 60% of the U.S. population, under a heat advisory or flood warning or watch since Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
Dangerous heat engulfed much of the eastern half of the United States Friday as extreme temperatures spread from the Midwest into the Northeast and mid-Atlantic where some residents saw their hottest temperatures of the year.
Although much of the country does not cool much on normal summer nights, night temperatures are forecast to stay hotter than usual, prompting excessive heat warnings from the Plains to the East Coast.
From Thursday to Friday, the number of people under a heat advisory rose from 180 to 184 million and the number of people under a flood warning or watch dropped from 17 to 10 million.
Moisture moved into the Southwest, cooling somewhat the southernmost counties of California and parts of southern Arizona, but excessive heat warnings remain for much of the region.
On top of the heat, severe thunderstorms are forecast for multiple regions of the country. There are forecasts with flash flood warnings for Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, west to the Middle Missouri Valley through Saturday morning. There are severe thunderstorm warnings with a chance of quarter-sized hail Friday night for the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
Tornado watches are posted in Wisconsin and New Hampshire, in addition to the heat advisories and potential for severe storms.
The prediction for continued excessive heat comes as the World Meteorological Organization and the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service declared July 2023 the hottest month on record this week.
Scientists have long warned that climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, by deforestation and by certain agricultural practices, will lead to more and prolonged bouts of extreme weather.
On Thursday, heat and humidity in major cities along the East Coast, including Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City, made it feel above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius). Forecasters expect several records may break Friday with temperatures 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 to 8 degrees Celsius) above average.
The “dangerous” heat wave, as the National Weather Service called it, may begin to subside on Saturday as thunderstorms and a cold front from Canada progress through the region. It seems the hottest temperatures happened on Friday.
“By Sunday, the high temperature is going to be 86,” he said, “so that’s more typical weather you would expect in July.”
The Salvation Army in the Bronx was one of hundreds of cooling centers open in New York City to give people a respite from the scorching heat.
“It’s very hot every year. This year, it started last week, becoming very hot,” said Robert Ciriaco, a corps officer with The Salvation Army. “(It’s) very dangerous for people. Some people die. So that’s why we open to offer people (a place) to come to be comfortable.”
Philadelphia declared a heat health emergency as temperatures soared into the 90s, and city authorities opened cooling centers.
But some residents took the heat in stride. Alexander Roman, who brought his children to play in the fountain at the city’s iconic Love Park, said he is not worried about heat stroke as long as his family can cool down. “A lot of water with ice and it will be O.K,” he said.
In the Southwest and southern Plains, oppressive temperatures have been a blanket for weeks. One meteorologist based in New Mexico called the prolonged period of temperatures over 100 degrees (37.8 Celsius) unprecedented.
Due to the extreme heat, some of the nation’s large power grids and utilities are under stress, which could affect Americans’ ability to cool off.
In New York City, utility Con Edison sent out a text blast asking residents to be frugal with air conditioning to conserve electricity. Overtaxing an electrical grid can mean blackouts, which are not just an inconvenience, but can lead to equipment failures and major pollution as equipment restarts.
The country’s largest power grid, PJM Interconnection, declared a level one energy emergency alert for its 13-state grid on Wednesday, meaning the company had concerns about ability to provide enough electricity.
“PJM currently has enough generation to meet forecast demand, but operators continue to monitor the grid conditions for any changes,” said spokesperson Jeffrey Shields on Thursday.
PJM isn’t the only electrical grid to issue such an alert. The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which mostly covers states in the Midwest and Northern Plains, issued a similar one Thursday.
The California Independent System Operator also issued an energy emergency alert for the evening on Wednesday, in part due to excess heat in Southern California, but that expired the same day. Anne Gonzales, a CAISO spokesperson, said they expect to be able to meet demand the next few days.
A spokesperson for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which covers most of Texas, said they expect their grid will operate per usual during this latest blast of extreme weather across the country.
The dangerous heat peaks in the Northeast, mid-Atlantic, and Midwest Friday and Saturday before a cold front is expected to bring some relief Sunday and into next week.
Heat experts and environmental advocates said that these effects of the high temperatures will not be felt equally.
“The impacts of heat are highly inequitable,” said Ladd Keith, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona who studies heat policy and governance. He explained that people experiencing homelessness feel heat effects more than the housed, and low-income and communities of color are often hotter than more affluent and whiter neighborhoods.
“When we’re talking about how to keep people safe, we not only need to be thinking about the neighborhoods that are disproportionately warmer during these heat waves,” said Jeremy Hoffman, director of climate justice and impact at Groundwork USA, an environmental justice nonprofit. “But (also) the folks that can’t avoid being outside during these heat waves, people that rely on public transportation, people that work outside, and the extremely elderly that may be living in substandard housing without a lot of ventilation and air conditioning.”
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Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-nearly-200-million-people-in-us-are-under-heat-flood-advisories/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:26 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-nearly-200-million-people-in-us-are-under-heat-flood-advisories/ |
Emporia’s own Addie Kirmer’s dream was to wear Emporia State jersey
EMPORIA, Kan. (WIBW) - Come 2024, Addie Kirmer will head down the street and play at White Auditorium.
Kirmer averaged 13 points and five rebounds per game her junior year while making it to the state tournament. She says when she met head coach Brian Ostermann, it was an obvious choice to be a part of his program.
She says she used to go games growing up and now that dream has become a reality for her.
“It was important for me to stay close to home because my family is really important to me and when I got the chance, I just took it and it’s a great opportunity,” Kirmer said. “There’s a huge support system here and there always has been, and we have a really great community. I think that will be a big part and it will help me just feel more welcome and just to have my parents be there and if I need to go home I can, and it’ll be great.”
When Kirmer was able to meet “Coach O,” she believed in his vision.
He’s a really great guy. He has a lot of energy and right from the get go you knew his expectations,” she said. “You knew he was going to root for you and root for everyone on the team and treat you like his own daughter. I thought that was really important to have someone who believes in you and wants the best for you.”
Kirmer told 13 Sports she wants to shoot the three at a higher percentage this season. Also, with a senior heavy class of 12 players, that main goal is to win that state championship.
Copyright 2023 WIBW. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/emporias-own-addie-kirmers-dream-was-wear-emporia-state-jersey/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:30 | 0 | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/emporias-own-addie-kirmers-dream-was-wear-emporia-state-jersey/ |
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While the Dodgers completed a few trades this week, bolstering their bench depth with Kiké Hernández and Amed Rosario and their pitching staff with Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly, their front office has been pursuing bigger fish in the trade deadline pond, as well.
Their talks with the St. Louis Cardinals about Nolan Arenado have continued, with the team still focused on a potential blockbuster for the superstar third baseman.
The Dodgers were also engaged in advanced talks for Chicago White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation unauthorized to speak publicly. They ultimately decided not to top the Angels’ offer of top prospects Edgar Quero and Ky Bush for Giolito and reliever Reynaldo López in a trade that was completed Wednesday night.
The Dodgers reacquire reliever Joe Kelly and add starter Lance Lynn from the White Sox as the team fortifies its pitching staff ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline.
Despite that, adding a true impact starter — one who could join Clayton Kershaw, Julio Urías and Tony Gonsolin in a potential playoff rotation — remains a top priority for the club, which entered Friday ranked 21st in the majors in rotation ERA.
Just days out from Tuesday’s deadline, here is a list of potential targets for the Dodgers, and where their chances for each one stands.
Of all the remaining starting pitchers who could possibly be moved before the deadline, no one checks more boxes than Verlander, the three-time Cy Young Award winner in his first season with the New York Mets.
The Dodgers have explored Verlander as a trade option, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. The fourth-place Mets have also emerged as likely sellers, after dealing top reliever David Robertson to the Miami Marlins on Thursday.
The Dodgers tried to sign Verlander this past offseason, making a two-year, $80 million offer. Verlander ultimately signed for two years and $86.6 million with the Mets instead. The contract also includes a vesting option for a third season.
The Dodgers might have a chance to acquire him now — though it would likely require a hefty package rich on young talent, particularly with other contenders such as the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers reportedly also showing interest in Verlander.
Verlander began the season on the injured list with an arm strain and owned a 4.50 ERA over his first nine starts. But he’s returned to form recently, posting a 1.46 ERA in his last six outings. Given the 40-year-old’s track record and postseason pedigree as a two-time World Series champion, there may not be a more accomplished pitcher moved at the deadline this year.
And while no deal is imminent at this stage, the Dodgers are interested.
The Dodgers acquired Kiké Hernández and Amed Rosario ahead of the MLB trade deadline, and St. Louis Cardinals standout Nolan Arenado is on their radar.
Beyond Verlander, there are a number of B-tier options the Dodgers have shown interest in leading up to the deadline.
A pair of St. Louis starters, left-hander Jordan Montgomery and right-hander Jack Flaherty, have been involved in the team’s discussions with the Cardinals. If a deal can’t be reached for Arenado and either pitcher, it’s possible the Dodgers could attempt to acquire one of them individually. Both are slated for free agency this offseason.
Mitch Keller of the Pittsburgh Pirates is another pitcher the Dodgers like. The 27-year-old right-hander was a first-time All-Star this season, and also has two seasons of club control left after this one. However, the asking price for Keller would not be cheap. And while the Pirates reportedly have been willing to listen to offers, it’s unclear whether they’d actually accept a deal for him before Tuesday’s deadline.
The Dodgers have also targeted Detroit Tigers left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez, according to a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly. The 30-year-old veteran is having a career season with a 6-5 record and 2.95 ERA. While Rodriguez has three more years and $49 million left on his contract after this season, he could also opt out of the deal this winter to become a free agent.
The Dodgers are all but certain to add depth to their starting rotation before the trade deadline. But will they settle for a low-cost arm, or splurge for a bigger name?
Like Verlander, Max Scherzer is another three-time Cy Young winner that the Mets could look to move. However, the likelihood of the Dodgers re-acquiring the right-hander, who was their prized deadline addition in 2021, isn’t as strong.
Scherzer’s first stint with the Dodgers came to an awkward ending, when he was unable to pitch in Game 6 of the National League Championship Series because of arm fatigue. He has a 4.20 ERA this season, his highest since 2011. And, like Verlander, the 39-year-old Scherzer is due another $43.3 million next season.
On the other end of the age spectrum, the Dodgers did check in on 26-year-old Kansas City Royals right-hander Brady Singer, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. But no traction toward a deal has materialized.
Two veteran Chicago-based pitchers, Dylan Cease of the White Sox and Marcus Stroman of the Cubs, have headlined media reports as potential deadline options for contending clubs. Both would demand a high price, however, and it’s possible their clubs hold on to them through the deadline.
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You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. | https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-07-28/dodgers-justin-verlander-trade-deadline-interest | 2023-07-29T03:14:31 | 1 | https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2023-07-28/dodgers-justin-verlander-trade-deadline-interest |
Coastal allure: Wind turbine, sandy beaches and a sitting president to boot
Just when you thought it might be safe to venture out on Route 1 comes word that Traveling Lifestyle has named Lewes one of the “8 Underrated Small Towns in the U.S. to Visit This Summer.” And in an embarrassment of riches, Ocean City, situated right there on Coastal Highway Extended, was also named to the list.
Lest you think this seems a bit incestuous, none of the other towns was close, either geographically or in terms of tourist appeal. The list also included Cannon Beach, Oregon; Eureka Springs, Arkansas; and Monroe, Wisconsin (not to be confused with Madison, his predecessor as president).
This, of course, isn’t, as one might say, Lewes’ first rodeo. It (and other communities that dot the Delaware coast) is often described as most livable, idyllic, a hidden gem, or, my personal favorite, Best Coastal Town Name Spelled with Just Five Letters (obviously to be preferred over the four-letter kind).
But returning to our theme which careful readers will note has yet to be clarified, what have we done to deserve all these accolades? What is it that travel writers find so alluring about the coastal region?
Well, what other beach community can boast that its coast has an impressive and historic skyline?
The latter is dominated by three imposing structures. There’s a solitary wind turbine, its shaft planted, as it were, like a DeSantis dagger in the heart of local academic life, on the UDel campus in Lewes.
Second, there is a new million-gallon water tower nearing completion in Rehoboth. Rumor has it that a clandestine swimming pool resides within, but that seems highly unlikely. Rooms for reptilian aliens on vacation from Area 51 in Nevada is another story.
Finally, there are the cylindrical concrete WWII watch towers along the coast. The U.S. Army has never admitted their use as early silos for surface-to-air missiles, maintaining instead that they were always used as observation sites, searching the ocean for enemy vessels and passing that information on to soldiers at Fort Miles. If you believe that, I have a corn crib I want to sell you.
In addition, to the skyline, travel writers cite our magnificent beaches.
There are good reasons why Coastal Highway signs direct one to the “beach,” rather than to the “shore.” If you want the latter, I know a boat you can take that will get you there in 90 minutes — about the same time as some of Dogfish Head IPAs are continuously hopped.
Not only do Delaware beaches feature broad, sandy vistas, but some, like Rehoboth, are multi-functional in nature. In addition to providing space for sunbathing, state-issued surf-fishing permits allow SUVs, trucks and other ATVs access to a section of the beach. They tend to line up in rows, looking from the air somewhat like a UPC barcode.
MORE BERGER HUMOR:Purple pearl, sea angels and more: Plumbing the depths for gifts from the seas
LEWES HISTORY:'Up in Smoke': How Lewes' iconic Auditorium ended long run of movies, vaudeville and more
Walking even on this portion of the beach can be pleasing. Don’t worry about those people with the fishing poles, they’re only pretending to be anglers and hoping the DNREC will buy their act (hook, line, and sinker I would think), so they can continue to hold onto their beachfront parking space.
And then there’s another section known as Poodle Beach, in which a particular group of bathers take the greatest pride, and the state has deemed worthy of a historical marker.
Furthermore, it’s not every beach community that has its own sitting, but never lying, U.S. president in residence. The Bidens own a house in the fashionable North Shores area of Rehoboth.
While it may not be as expansive as Mar-a-Lago and has yet to be documented (if you know what I mean), their home is large enough to serve the First Family well. It even has room for an occasional visiting hunter.
From time to time, the vacationing POTUS and FLOTUS, as the Secret Service so quaintly call them, fly into Dover Air Force Base, conveniently located adjacent to Route 1. (How often have you seen “conveniently located” and “Route 1” combined in the same sentence?)
In any case, with the Delaware State Police showing the way, the motorcade heads south to North Shores — as geographically confusing as that sounds.
The motorcade always seems to make good time, encountering no traffic, and passing a roadside barn near Milford whose owner has proudly painted “BIDEN” on the side in large, block letters in expectation of just this moment.
It's good to be president. For we humble coastal citizens, there is no barn with our name on it, and, even when we are headed to the water, Route 1 never seems to be “smooth sailing.” Of late, it might be better described as the Coastal Distressway.
In fact, one wag from Lewes has suggested a new state motto: “Via Semper Sub Constructus,” which, roughly translated from the Latin, means “roads always under construction”.
Mike Berger is a freelance writer and retired university administrator with a home in Lewes. Contact him atedadvice@comcast.net. | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2023/07/28/coastal-allure-why-travel-writers-find-lower-del-beaches-so-alluring/70461434007/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:31 | 0 | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2023/07/28/coastal-allure-why-travel-writers-find-lower-del-beaches-so-alluring/70461434007/ |
‘Our hero is going home’: Police officer released from rehab 3.5 months after Ky. bank shooting
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - After 109 days, Louisville Metro police officer Nickolas Wilt has been released from Frazier Rehabilitation Institute and is going home.
Wilt has been hospitalized, receiving medical care for the last three and a half months after the Old National Bank mass shooting on April 10. Wilt was critically injured when he was shot in the head after responding to the shooting that ultimately killed five people.
The victims were identified as Tommy Elliott, 63; Jim Tutt, 64; Josh Barrick, 40; Juliana Farmer, 45; and Deana Eckert, 57.
Wilt was listed in critical condition for nearly a month. Officials with the University of Louisville Health said Wilt received multiple surgeries and underwent several procedures at University of Louisville Hospital and Jewish Hospital.
On May 10, one month after the shooting, Wilt was transferred to Frazier Rehabilitation Institute to begin neuro and physical rehabilitation after seeing an improvement in his condition. Over the course of the last three and a half months, doctors and family of Wilt have called his journey remarkable.
On Friday, Governor Andy Beshear shared a photo with Wilt ahead of his release.
“Kentucky, our prayers were heard. @LMPD Officer Nick Wilt is headed home with his family. Officer Wilt is a hero who ran toward danger to save the lives of several of my friends. I am forever grateful for him and his bravery. Let’s keep praying for him.”
Wilt was honored as he left the halls of Frazier Rehab. He was accompanied by family as well as some fellow officers.
After leaving the rehab facility, Wilt was driven to Southeast Christian Church on Blankenbaker Parkway where he was driven past a line of well-wishers. The van then headed for Oldham County where community members were invited to gather along Highway 53 in La Grange to greet Wilt.
LMPD shared their sentiment on their social media, honoring the heroic actions of Wilt.
“Resilience, strength, courage. Those are just a few words to describe Ofc. Nickolas Wilt. April 10th, innocent lives were lost. Ofc. Wilt, just 10 days on the job, answered the call to help stop an active shooter. Today, our hero is going home. He’s ready. #WiltsWarriors”
Louisville Metro Police Foundation has created a donation site to help pay for Wilt’s medical expenses.
To make a donation, click or tap here.
Copyright 2023 WAVE via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/our-hero-is-going-home-police-officer-released-rehab-35-months-after-ky-bank-shooting/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:30 | 1 | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/our-hero-is-going-home-police-officer-released-rehab-35-months-after-ky-bank-shooting/ |
Scam Alert: Phishing emails reported, claiming to be from State Office
Published: Jul. 28, 2023 at 9:43 PM CDT|Updated: 29 minutes ago
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - If you receive an email claiming to be from the Kansas Secretary of State’s office, note it is likely a scam.
The Secretary of State’s Office posted on Facebook that the department has become aware of several phishing emails sent to Kansas residents.
If you received such an email that did not come from a ‘.gov’ email, it is not from the Secretary of State’s Office.
For any questions regarding the emails, contact the Secretary of State’s Office at 785-296-4564.
Copyright 2023 WIBW. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/scam-alert-phishing-emails-reported-claiming-be-state-office/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:31 | 0 | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/scam-alert-phishing-emails-reported-claiming-be-state-office/ |
Topeka Rescue Mission to assist over 500 students with back-to-school supplies
TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - A local shelter aims to assist families in getting ready for back to school.
The Topeka Rescue Mission (TRM) says they will hold a three-day back-to-school bash from August 2 to August 4.
Students and families can stop by to pick up free items like backpacks, notebooks, pens, markers, and more — all for free.
According to TRM, they are expecting to serve over 500 children. They also ask for donations for all and any back-to-school items.
“As of right now, we have about a third of what we need to be able to serve the kids that we are expecting to have,” said Holton Witman, TRM Director of Distribution Services. “We’re not panicked, but we are definitely asking the community to come along and partner with us. We just really believe in providing dignity for kids as they go back to school. We want to make sure that each kid that walks through those doors has a new backpack, new pens, new pencils, and that sort of thing. It just sets the school year up for such a better note to get started as they’re heading back.”
Those interested in participating must register online to pick up their school items.
Click here to signup.
Copyright 2023 WIBW. All rights reserved. | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/topeka-rescue-mission-assist-over-500-students-with-back-to-school-supplies/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:32 | 0 | https://www.wibw.com/2023/07/29/topeka-rescue-mission-assist-over-500-students-with-back-to-school-supplies/ |
DENVER (AP) — A Colorado police officer who put a handcuffed woman in a parked police vehicle that was hit by a freight train was found guilty of reckless endangerment and assault but was acquitted of a third charge of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter during a trial Friday.
Jordan Steinke was the first of two officers to go to trial over the Sept. 16, 2022, crash that left Yareni Rios-Gonzalez seriously injured.
“There’s no reasonable doubt that placing a handcuffed person in the back of a patrol car, parked on railroad tracks, creates a substantial and unjustifiable risk of harm by the train,” said Judge Timothy Kerns.
But the evidence didn’t convince Kerns that Steinke “knowingly intended to harm Ms. Rios-Gonzalez,” and he added that Stienke had shown “shock and remorse.”
Steinke testified that she did not know that the patrol car of another officer she was helping was parked on the tracks even though they can be seen on her body camera footage along with two railroad crossing signs. Steinke said she was focused on the threat that could come from Rios-Gonzalez and her pickup truck, not the ground.
Steinke said she put Rios-Gonzalez in the other officer’s vehicle because it was the nearest spot to temporarily hold her. She said she didn’t know the train was coming until just before it hit.
The judge found that Steinke observed the tracks, but failed to “appreciate the risk.”
There was no jury in Steinke’s trial, which started Monday. Instead, Kerns listened to the evidence and issued the verdict. Mallory Revel, Steinke’s attorney, didn’t immediately respond to requests by phone and email for comment.
Steinke, who was working for the Fort Lupton Police Department at the time of the crash, was charged with criminal attempt to commit manslaughter, a felony; and reckless endangerment and third-degree assault, both misdemeanors.
The other officer, Pablo Vazquez, who worked for the police department in nearby Platteville, is being prosecuted for misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and traffic offenses. He hasn’t entered a plea yet. His lawyer, Reid Elkus, didn’t immediately respond to a request by phone for comment.
Vazquez pulled over Rios-Gonzalez on a rural road that intersects U.S. Highway 85 after she was accused of pointing a gun at another driver. Trains pass on tracks that parallel the highway about a dozen times a day, prosecutors said, and the sound of their horns is common in the area north of Denver.
Rios-Gonzalez, who suffered a traumatic brain injury, is suing over her treatment. She later pleaded no contest to misdemeanor menacing, said one of her lawyers, Chris Ponce, who was in court to watch the trial. Rios-Gonzalez did not testify or attend herself.
Steinke said she placed Rios-Gonzalez in the other police car temporarily because it was the nearest place to keep her secure, a move that is standard practice for high-risk traffic stops, said defense expert witness Steve Ijames. He also testified that in dangerous situations officers can become hyperfocused on particular threats and overlook things that turn out to be important in hindsight.
Steinke, who drove at around 100 mph (161 kph) at times on her way to backup Vazquez, testified that she was surprised to see him sitting in his vehicle when she arrived, rather than pointing a gun at Rios-Gonzalez’s truck. She said she quickly parked her patrol vehicle behind his and got out because it was the quickest way “to get a gun in the fight.”
Steinke also said she did not notice the tracks or the ground when she squatted down to arrest a kneeling Rios-Gonzalez along the tracks after the suspect was ordered out of her pickup truck.
When pressed by Deputy District Attorney Christopher Jewkes, Steinke replied, “I am sure I saw the tracks sir, but I did not perceive them.” She said she was focused on the suspect and the potential threat she posed and was “fairly certain” that the traffic stop would end in gunfire.
“I never in a million years thought a train was going to come plowing through my scene,” Steinke said.
The Weld County District Attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request by phone for comment.
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This story has been updated to correct that the officer was acquitted of the charge of criminal attempt to commit manslaughter, not manslaughter.
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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-officer-who-put-suspect-in-car-hit-by-train-found-guilty-of-reckless-endangerment/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:35 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-officer-who-put-suspect-in-car-hit-by-train-found-guilty-of-reckless-endangerment/ |
Dead or alive! How a sea captain's death in Lewes fueled sensational story
“Capt. George Newton of the schooner Anna Shepard,” the New York Sun reported on March 12, 1873, “fell overboard yesterday morning while entering the harbor of Lewes, Del., and was drowned. The body was recovered.”
Capt. Newton’s unfortunate demise set off a chain of events that would end in one of Delaware’s most curious unsolved mysteries.
How Newton fell overboard was not reported. The hazards of a sailing vessel were many. In a strong wind, a listing schooner created tilting slippery decks that could easily send a sliding sailor overboard. While adjusting a sail, a wayward boom could sweep across the top deck knocking anyone in its path into the drink.
Whatever the cause, Newton was swept into the waters off Lewes on March 11, 1873. After the schooner’s crew pulled Newton from the bay, all attempts to revive him failed. The sailors anchored the schooner and took the captain’s body ashore to Lewes, where they arranged to have it shipped by railroad to New York.
An investigation by the New York Times uncovered an entry in the records of the Health Department that read: “March 13, 1873 — Permission is granted to the Adams Express Company to remove the body of George Newton from Lewes, Del. for interment at Port Jefferson, Long Island. Cause of death, drowning.”
The documentation from the New York Sun and the Health Department records seemed very clear, and the case of George Newton’s death appeared to be closed.
MORE LEWES NEWS:This prime Lewes property near the beach is finally set to be developed after legal battle
A month later, however, the story was reborn when the Philadelphia Press printed a sensational story under the headline, “A Miraculous Escape, A Supposed Corpse Comes to Life.”
The newspaper’s account of the incident was reprinted in several newspapers, outlining how the sea captain died, the shipment of his corpse, and an astounding turn of events. When the train reached New York, some irregularities were discovered in the death certificate.
According to the Philadelphia Press, “It was at last concluded to open the [inner and outer] cases, and when this was done the man was found to be alive. The best medical aid was immediately called in, and it was ere long thought possible to remove the captain with safety to the Bellevue Hospital, where he now is. He is not only doing well, but there is every probability of his speedy and permanent recovery.”
Curiously, Philadelphia Press gave the sea captain’s name not as George Newton, but as S. H. Mills. When the New York Times learned of the story, the editors of the paper sent a reporter to follow up on the incident, and a search of the records of Bellevue Hospital failed to turn up any patient by the name of Mills.
In addition, no one at the Adams Express Company could remember reviving a man who had been shipped to them in a coffin. The Times did confirm that the dead captain’s name was Newton, and not Mills, but there was no hint of the deceased mariner springing to life when the coffin was opened.
Despite the New York newspaper’s debunking of the story of a corpse returning to life, it continued to be reprinted in a number of newspapers for several weeks.
FISHY BUSINESS:Purple pearl, sea angels and more: Plumbing the depths for gifts from the seas
Journalistic standards in the 19th century were on a par with those of today’s Internet, and the newspapers at that time often ran stories that today would be called “fake news.” Although most of these stories were the result of sloppy journalism, some fake news reports were politically motivated.
Sensational articles that would boost sales were also printed by editors, who would not let the facts get in the way of a good story, The Times hinted that that was the case when it concluded that Newton was “no doubt, the unfortunate gentleman whose corpse has furnished a subject for the imagination and pen of a Philadelphia reporter.”
Principal sources
Sun (New York), March 12, 1873,
New York Times, April 14, 1873.
Wilmington Daily Gazette, April 15, 1873.
New York Dispatch, April 20, 1873. | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2023/07/28/how-the-death-of-a-sea-captain-in-lewes-fueled-a-sensational-story/70455835007/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:37 | 1 | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/delaware/2023/07/28/how-the-death-of-a-sea-captain-in-lewes-fueled-a-sensational-story/70455835007/ |
BEIJING, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chengdu Universiade officially kicked off Friday night in the capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, known as the hometown of giant pandas and one of the most vibrant Chinese cities.
Ahead the opening ceremony of the 31st summer edition of the FISU World University Games, Chinese President Xi Jinping has engaged himself in a flurry of face-to-face high-level meetings with foreign leaders attending the ceremony over the past couple of days.
Behind the tight diplomatic schedule, Xi has highlighted the importance of solidarity, cooperation and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, three key messages shared by the visiting leaders of Indonesia, Guyana, Georgia, Mauritania and Burundi.
Solidarity
In a toast at a welcoming banquet on Friday noon, Xi said the Games, since its inception, has always been "a celebration of youth, solidarity, and friendship."
"We should promote solidarity through sports, build up positive energy across the international community, join hands to tackle global challenges such as climate change, food crisis and terrorism, and shape a better future through cooperation," he urged.
Solidarity, unity and togetherness were also one of the hot topics during the Chinese president's separate meetings with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ghazouani and Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye.
During the meeting with the Burundian leader, for instance, Xi stressed the importance of solidarity between China and Africa in safeguarding the common interests of developing countries and the international fairness and justice.
Cooperation
During the meetings of the leaders, China and the five countries agreed to further cooperation, such as on trade, infrastructure and people-to-people exchanges.
In a meeting with Xi on Thursday, Widodo said Indonesia is willing to continue to enhance cooperation with China in areas including investment, marine fisheries, food security and healthcare. The leaders witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents following the meeting.
China and Georgia will issue a joint statement and announce the establishment of strategic partnership during Garibashvili's historic visit. Xi hailed the remarkable achievements in cooperation in various fields between the two countries over the past 31 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations, while the Georgian prime minister said the elevation of bilateral relations will bring more opportunities to his country.
On Friday, China and Mauritania also signed a cooperation plan on jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to enhance bilateral ties.
A community with a shared future for mankind
The term of building a community with a shared future for mankind was repeatedly highlighted during the leaders' meetings, with Indonesia, Guyana, Georgia, Mauritania and Burundi also expressing support for China-proposed initiatives.
While meeting with Xi on Friday afternoon, Ghazouani said Mauritania supports the BRI, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, saying that these initiatives are in line with the norms governing international relations that respect countries' independence and sovereignty and exchanges between different civilizations.
Addressing the welcoming banquet, Xi stressed the importance of deepening exchanges and mutual learning to promote harmony without uniformity in the spirit of inclusiveness and seeing different cultures with an attitude of mutual appreciation and mutual learning.
"The Chengdu Games should be an opportunity for us to champion the common values of humanity and write a new chapter in building a community with a shared future for mankind," said Xi.
In an interview with CGTN, Ali, the Guyanese president, said the Games goes beyond the competitions among the young athletes.
"They can share the experiences, they can share culture, [and] they can share who they are in building a stronger family of humanity," he said.
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SOURCE CGTN | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/cgtn-solidarity-vowed-xi-hosts-foreign-leaders-amid-chengdu-universiade/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:38 | 0 | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/cgtn-solidarity-vowed-xi-hosts-foreign-leaders-amid-chengdu-universiade/ |
JEFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The nation’s top health official implored states to do more to keep lower-income residents enrolled in Medicaid, as the Biden administration released figures Friday confirming that many who had health coverage during the coronavirus pandemic are now losing it.
Though a decline in Medicaid coverage was expected, health officials are raising concerns about the large numbers of people being dropped from the rolls for failing to return forms or follow procedures.
In 18 states that began a post-pandemic review of their Medicaid rolls in April, health coverage was continued for about 1 million recipients and terminated for 715,000. Of those dropped, 4 in 5 were for procedural reasons, according to newly released data from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra sent a letter Friday to all governors encouraging them to bolster efforts to retain people on Medicaid. He particularly encouraged them to use electronic information from other federal programs, such as food stamps, to automatically confirm people’s eligibility for Medicaid. That would avert the need to mail and return documents.
“I am deeply concerned about high rates of procedural terminations due to ‘red tape’ and other paperwork issues,” Becerra told governors.
During the pandemic, states were prohibited from ending people’s Medicaid coverage. As a result, Medicaid enrollment swelled by nearly one-third, from 71 million people in February 2020 to 93 million in February 2023. The prohibition on trimming rolls ended in April, and states now have resumed annual eligibility redeterminations that had been required before the pandemic.
The new federal data captures only the first month of state Medicaid reviews from states that acted the most expeditiously. Since then, additional states also have submitted reports on those renewed and dropped from Medicaid in May and June.
Though the federal government hasn’t released data from the most recent reports, information gathered by The Associated Press and health care advocacy groups show that about 3.7 million people already have lost Medicaid coverage. That includes about 500,000 in Texas, around 400,000 in Florida and 225,000 in California. Of those who lost coverage, 89% were for procedural reasons in California, 81% in Texas and 59% in Florida, according to the AP’s data.
Many of those people may have still been eligible for Medicaid, “but they’re caught in a bureaucratic nightmare of confusing forms, notices sent to wrong addresses and other errors,” said Michelle Levander, founding director of the Center for Health Journalism at the University of Southern California,
Top CMS officials said they have worked with several states to pause Medicaid removals and improve procedures for determining eligibility.
South Carolina is one state that voluntarily slowed down. It reported renewing Medicaid coverage for about 27,000 people in May while removing 118,000. Of those dropped, 95% were for procedural reasons. In a recent report to the federal government, South Carolina said it removed no one from Medicaid in June because it extended the eligibility renewal deadline from 60 days to 90 days.
Michigan reported renewing more than 103,000 Medicaid recipients in June and removing just 12,000. It told the federal government that the state opted to delay terminations for those who failed to respond to renewal requests while instead making additional outreach attempts. As a result, the state reported more than 100,000 people whose June eligibility cases remained incomplete.
People who are dropped from Medicaid can regain coverage retroactively if they submit information within 90 days proving their eligibility. But some advocacy groups say that still poses a challenge.
“State government is not necessarily nimble,” said Keesa Smith, executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. “When individuals are being disenrolled, the biggest concern … is that there is not a fast track to get those individuals back on the rolls.”
Arkansas officials have been at the forefront of defending Medicaid cuts. They contend that many people likely don’t return forms because they no longer need Medicaid.
People are “transitioning off of Medicaid” because “they are working, making more money, and have access to health care through their employers or the federal marketplace,” Arkansas Medicaid Director Janet Mann said earlier this month. “This should be celebrated, not criticized.”
Insurance companies that run Medicaid programs for states said they are trying to reduce procedural terminations and enroll people in new plans.
The Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer Elevance Health lost 130,000 Medicaid customers during the recently completed second quarter, as Medicaid eligibility redeterminations began. Chief Financial Officer John Gallina said earlier this month that many people lost Medicaid coverage for administrative reasons but are likely to reenroll in the near future.
Leaders of the insurer Molina Healthcare told analysts Thursday that the company lost about 93,000 Medicaid customers in the recently completed second quarter, mostly due to eligibility redeterminations. Molina officials said they are trying to switch people who no longer qualify for Medicaid to one of the individual insurance plans they sell through state-based marketplaces.
Federal data for April indicates that some states did a better job than others at handling a crush of questions from people about their Medicaid coverage.
In 19 states and the District of Columbia, the average Medicaid call center wait time was one minute or less in April. But in Idaho, the average caller to the state’s Medicaid help line waited 51 minutes. In Missouri, the average wait was 44 minutes, and in Florida 40 minutes.
___
Associated Press writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-paperwork-problems-drive-surge-in-people-losing-medicaid-health-coverage/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:41 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-paperwork-problems-drive-surge-in-people-losing-medicaid-health-coverage/ |
FBI: Former Larry Hogan aide died of two gunshot wounds, one self-inflicted
A former Maryland political aide who failed to appear for his trial on federal corruption charges died after suffering two gunshot wounds — one of them self-inflicted — as FBI agents closed in on him in Tennessee, according to an autopsy report made public Friday.
Authorities said agents acted in self-defense, and there will be no charges against any of the agents involved.
Roy McGrath died on April 4 near Knoxvillle, Tennessee, after he failed to appear at Baltimore’s federal courthouse for his March 13 trial.
“One of the gunshot wounds was self-inflicted and the other gunshot wound was not; however due to a prolonged survival interval after sustaining the wounds and ultimately dying in the hospital, it cannot be determined which gunshot wound killed him, and therefore the cause of death is ‘gunshot wounds of the head’ and manner of death is ‘could not be determined,’ " the autopsy report said.
Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen said in a news release that the agent who shot McGrath was acting in self-defense.
“In this case, it is clear that agents had probable cause and a reasonable belief that McGrath posed a threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury,” Allen's office said in the release.
The news release also provided details about what happened leading up to the FBI agents closing in on McGrath. FBI agents in Baltimore asked if Knoxville agents could arrest McGrath, and they provided a copy of the warrant, a description of McGrath’s vehicle, and information about McGrath's location.
When agents responded, they found McGrath's vehicle and attempted to conduct a traffic stop when the vehicle left a parking lot, according to the release. Despite the lights and sirens of the agents’ vehicles, McGrath continued to drive until he was boxed in between two other businesses.
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Agents approached the vehicle and repeatedly announced “FBI,” and ordered McGrath to put his hands out the open driver’s side window, the release said, but McGrath replied, “No,” and, “I have a gun, and it’s loaded.”
Agents saw McGrath with a handgun raised to his right temple, and the way McGrath held the handgun placed agents within the trajectory of McGrath’s gun, causing one agent to believe McGrath posed a threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury to himself and other agents, the release said.
“Simultaneously, McGrath fired his gun, striking his right temple, and the agent fired one round striking McGrath’s left cheek. Agents immediately called for an ambulance. EMTs arrived and transported McGrath to the University of Tennessee Medical Center where he was pronounced dead thirty minutes later,” the release said.
McGrath, 53, served as chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. He was declared a wanted fugitive after his disappearance.
After McGrath failed to appear at Baltimore’s federal courthouse on March 13, his attorney said he believed McGrath, who had moved to Naples, Florida, was planning to fly to Maryland the night before. Instead of beginning jury selection, a judge issued an arrest warrant and dismissed prospective jurors.
McGrath was indicted in 2021 on accusations he fraudulently secured a $233,648 severance payment, equal to one year of salary as the head of Maryland Environmental Service, by falsely telling the agency’s board the governor had approved it. He was also accused of fraud and embezzlement connected to roughly $170,000 in expenses. McGrath pleaded not guilty.
McGrath resigned just 11 weeks into the job as Hogan’s chief of staff in 2020 after the payments became public.
A superseding indictment in June 2022 added falsification of records to the wire fraud and theft charges, according to the Justice Department. According to that indictment, McGrath created a fake memo from Hogan that approved McGrath’s severance pay from the environmental service. | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2023/07/28/fbi-former-larry-hogan-died-of-two-gunshot-wounds-one-self-inflicted/70488400007/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:43 | 0 | https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2023/07/28/fbi-former-larry-hogan-died-of-two-gunshot-wounds-one-self-inflicted/70488400007/ |
Judge criticizes prosecutors’ handling of Venezuela case against ex-Miami congressman
MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge in Miami on Friday criticized prosecutors for an apparent attempt to undercut a court order and take control of a oceanside condo belonging to a former Republican congressman ahead of a high-profile trial connected to a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela’s socialist government.
When David Rivera and an associate were charged last November with money laundering and acting as unregistered foreign agents for President Nicolás Maduro’s government, prosecutors obtained a judge’s order freezing several banking and brokerage accounts as well as Florida properties that they said were the product of some $24 million in ill-gotten gains.
Prosecutors also blocked eight more properties belonging to Rivera and his associate in Florida and Georgia that, while unrelated to criminal activity, would likely be seized if the two are found guilty.
This month, in a harshly worded ruling, Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres said that the government had no right to take the “innocent” Florida assets without a conviction. Rather than lift the restraining order, the government then asked the court to reconsider and said that it had since determined that three of the properties — including a condo that Rivera and his wife purchased in 2019 for $301,000 in New Smyrna Beach, Florida — could also be traced to the defendants’ alleged lobbying on behalf of Maduro’s government.
Judge Darrin Gayles on Friday expressed frustration with the government’s change in strategy.
“This reeks of gamesmanship,” said Gayles, who reversed his own sealed order of a week ago granting prosecutors’ request that the real estate properties once again be frozen. “It seems like the government simply filed this because it lost.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nalina Sombuntham said prosecutors first learned from investigators that the property could be directly “tainted” by Rivera’s consulting work with Venezuela in May or June but didn’t alert the court until July 14 — a week after Magistrate Judge Edwin Torres issued his 23-page order freeing up the properties.
Gayles, who is overseeing the criminal case, was unimpressed. “It seems like you’re wasting the court’s time,” he said.
Rivera has been marred by scandals stretching back to his days in Congress from 2011 to 2013. He was arrested late last year on an eight-count criminal indictment alleging that at the start of the Trump administration he was part of a conspiracy to lobby on behalf of Venezuela to lower tensions with the U.S., resolve a legal dispute with a U.S. oil company and end U.S. sanctions against the South American nation — all without registering as a foreign agent.
As part of that effort, he arranged meetings in Washington, New York and Dallas for allies of Maduro with U.S. lawmakers and a top aide to former President Donald Trump, according to the indictment. To hide the sensitive nature of his work, prosecutors allege Rivera referred to Maduro in chat messages as the “bus driver,” a congressman as “Sombrero” and millions of dollars as “melons.”
Court records show Rivera’s consulting work was closely coordinated with Raúl Gorrín, a Venezuelan insider and media tycoon who has himself been sanctioned and indicted in the U.S. on money laundering charges. Part of the more than $20 million that Rivera was alleged to have received from Venezuela was used to pay maintenance on one of Gorrin’s yachts, according to prosecutors.
Rivera maintains that Gorrín was his attorney in Venezuela and that all of his work was conducted on behalf of PDV USA — a Delaware-based affiliate of Venezuelan-owned Citgo — and didn’t require he register as a foreign agent.
The dispute over Rivera’s assets has slowed the government’s prosecution of the high-profile case. Eight months after being charged, Rivera has yet to be formally arraigned — normally a routine procedural step — because he said he needs access to the disputed assets to pay his attorneys.
Rivera’s attorneys in filings have accused prosecutors of waging a “scorched earth attack” against the south Florida GOP stalwart who once shared an apartment in Tallahassee with now Sen. Marco Rubio when both were state lawmakers.
“They lost, they got caught and they came to this court and it is wrong,” David Oscar Markus, an attorney for Rivera’s co-defendant Esther Nuhfer said.
Rivera was triumphant following Friday’s hearing, accusing the prosecutors of “misconduct.” Judge Gayles was more restrained, making no such finding of wrongdoing even as he questioned prosecutors’ actions.
“Today’s decision shows that there are still honorable judges in America who will not tolerate misconduct from dishonest government prosecutors,” Rivera wrote The Associated Press in a text message. “Another victory for truth and justice.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida didn’t immediately comment.
___
Joshua Goodman on Twitter: @APJoshGoodman
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kob.com/news/business-money/judge-criticizes-prosecutors-handling-of-venezuela-case-against-ex-miami-congressman/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:45 | 0 | https://www.kob.com/news/business-money/judge-criticizes-prosecutors-handling-of-venezuela-case-against-ex-miami-congressman/ |
The rapper G Herbo pleaded guilty Friday to his role in a scheme that used stolen credit card information to pay for a lavish lifestyle including private jets, exotic car rentals, a luxury vacation rental and even expensive designer puppies.
Under a deal with prosecutors, the 27-year-old Chicago rapper, whose real name is Herbert Wright III, entered a guilty plea in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts, to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false statements. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed several counts of aggravated identity theft.
He also agreed to forfeit nearly $140,000, the amount he benefited from what prosecutors have said was a $1.5 million scheme that involved several other people.
“Mr. Wright used stolen account information as his very own unlimited funding source, using victims’ payment cards to finance an extravagant lifestyle and advance his career,” acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement.
Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 7, and he faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. A voicemail seeking comment was left with his attorney.
From at least March 2017 until November 2018, G Herbo and his promoter, Antonio Strong, used text messages, social media messages and emails to share account information taken from dark websites, authorities said.
On one occasion, the stolen account information was used to pay for a chartered jet to fly the rapper and members of his entourage from Chicago to Austin, Texas, authorities said. On another, a stolen account was used to pay nearly $15,000 for Wright and seven others to stay several days in a six-bedroom Jamaican villa.
In court documents, prosecutors said G Herbo “used the proceeds of these frauds to travel to various concert venues and to advance his career by posting photographs and/or videos of himself on the private jets, in the exotic cars, and at the Jamaican villa.”
G Herbo also helped Strong order two designer Yorkshire terrier puppies from a Michigan pet shop using a stolen credit card and a fake Washington state driver’s license, according to the indictment. The total cost was more than $10,000, prosecutors said.
When the pet shop’s owner asked to confirm the purchase with G Herbo, Strong directed her to do so through an Instagram message, and G Herbo confirmed he was buying the puppies, authorities said.
Because the stolen credit card information was authentic, the transactions went through and it wasn’t until later that the real credit card holders noticed and reported the fraud.
G Herbo was also charged in May 2021 with lying to investigators by denying that he had any ties to Strong when in fact the two had worked together since at least 2016, prosecutors said.
Strong has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
G Herbo’s music is centered on his experiences growing up on the East Side of Chicago in a neighborhood dubbed Terror Town, including gang and gun violence.
He released his debut mix tapes “Welcome to Fazoland” and “Pistol P Project” in 2014, both named for friends who had been killed in the city. His first album was 2017’s “Humble Beast,” and his latest is “Survivor’s Remorse,” released last year.
His 2020 album “PTSD” debuted at number 7 on the Billboard 200.
G Herbo also started a program in Chicago called Swervin’ Through Stress, aimed at giving urban youths tools to navigate mental health crises, after publicly acknowledging his own struggle with PTSD. In 2021 he was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 music list. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-rapper-g-herbo-pleads-guilty-in-credit-card-fraud-that-paid-for-private-jets-and-designer-puppies/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:47 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-rapper-g-herbo-pleads-guilty-in-credit-card-fraud-that-paid-for-private-jets-and-designer-puppies/ |
NEW YORK, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Sooth, an industry-leading strategic marketing insights platform and consultancy, is excited to announce a dynamic partnership with Kestrel Consulting. This collaboration brings Sooth's founder, Ian Baer, and his innovative methodologies and expertise into Kestrel's broad network, promising to enrich Kestrel's client marketing and branding initiatives with fresh perspectives and deeper understanding.
Recognized for its patent-pending method that fuses data, AI, and human intellect, Sooth deciphers the intricacies of human decision-making, mapping emotional drivers and receptivity of diverse consumer and business audiences. Now part of Kestrel's network, Sooth's unique, sophisticated approach will bolster client marketing initiatives, offering a powerful toolset to unlock new avenues for connection, empathy, and understanding that is proven to increase customer lifetime value by four times or more.
As Kestrel's preferred provider of brand strategic services, Sooth will also accelerate its own growth by working on branding and marketing projects for clients and partners within the Kestrel network.
"Kestrel Consultants helps leadership teams, founders, entrepreneurs, and enterprises fly higher and achieve strategic outcomes through its exclusive partnership network of fractional executives and boutique business consultants," the company said in a statement. "We're proud to welcome Sooth into our exclusive partnership and referral network. We've admired Ian Baer's work for years, and his exceptional talent is a real complement to our network's other areas of expertise. We're excited to collaborate on new projects together."
This partnership represents a convergence of Sooth's methodologies and Kestrel's expansive network. By bringing together Sooth's unparalleled insights and Kestrel's team of skilled executives and consultants, they aim to empower Kestrel's clientele with deeper understanding and fresh perspectives, enabling them to achieve their marketing goals.
"Changes in consumer and business culture over the past several years have irrevocably changed how marketing works at an elemental level," said Ian Baer, Founder and Chief Soothsayer at Sooth. "With 90 percent of all decisions now determined by each person's unique emotional priorities, we're able to roadmap success for brands by unlocking an in-depth understanding of the factors that create connection between these brands and the customers they serve. Kestrel's model brings together complementary innovators to help companies elevate their game across a broad spectrum of business and marketing interdependencies. I could not be more excited to align with the talented leaders of Kestrel Consultants to bring clients high-impact business solutions at the speed and efficiency of modern commerce."
About Sooth
Sooth is an industry-leading strategic marketing insights platform and consultancy. Using a unique, patent-pending method that synergizes data, artificial intelligence, and human intellect, Sooth decodes the intricacies of consumer decision-making and maps the emotional motivators of diverse audiences with unparalleled precision. Sooth is committed to making marketing strategies more effective, intuitive, and emotionally engaging, empowering brands with the insights they need. www.SoothBeTold.com
About Kestrel Consultants
Kestrel Consultants helps leadership teams, founders, entrepreneurs, and enterprises fly higher and achieve strategic outcomes through its exclusive partnership network of fractional executives and boutique business consultants. Learn more at KestrelConsultants.com.
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SOURCE Sooth | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/ian-baer-brings-sooths-brand-strategy-mastery-kestrel-consultings-executive-network/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:50 | 1 | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/ian-baer-brings-sooths-brand-strategy-mastery-kestrel-consultings-executive-network/ |
Aaron Hernandez’s brother now facing federal charges over alleged threatening messages
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The troubled brother of the late NFL player Aaron Hernandez was charged Friday, now in federal court, with new counts of threatening and stalking after authorities say he threatened to shoot up the University of Connecticut and kill three people in another state.
Dennis Hernandez was ordered to be held in custody after his appearance in the court in Hartford. A message seeking comment was sent Friday night to his attorney.
The new charges came days after it emerged that Hernandez was arrested July 18 on state charges after police said he threatened to kill officers and then urged them to shoot him at his home in Bristol. Officers had gone there after two people close to him raised concerns about his mental health, police said.
The arrest report said the 37-year-old had sent threatening messages, including ones about carrying out a shooting at UConn. He was a Huskies quarterback and wide receiver who went by DJ Hernandez in the mid-2000s.
Court filings in the new federal case include the same messages. Some say the writer is struggling financially, is frustrated at seeing other people get hired as coaches, feels owed by UConn, is planning on “taking down everything” and doesn’t care “who gets caught in the crossfire.”
“I’ve died for years now and now its others peoples turn,” read a July 7 message sent to a woman in Hernandez’s life. It followed a message the day before that warned: “UConn’s gonna see how accurate I am too with my targets.”
Hernandez told another person that he drove July 7 to UConn’s campus in Storrs and to Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, where he coached quarterbacks during the 2010-11 season, according to court papers.
He had been due in state court that day on another case stemming from allegations that he threw a bag containing a brick and a note over a fence and onto ESPN’s property in Bristol.
UConn police confirmed that a vehicle linked to Hernandez was on campus that day. Brown has said that its investigation didn’t indicate Hernandez had been on campus in recent weeks.
Hernandez is due back in state court Tuesday and in federal court Aug. 11.
His younger brother, former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, killed himself in 2017 while serving a murder sentence.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/aaron-hernandezs-brother-now-facing-federal-charges-over-alleged-threatening-messages/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:51 | 1 | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/aaron-hernandezs-brother-now-facing-federal-charges-over-alleged-threatening-messages/ |
A New York man who stole a badge and radio from a police officer brutally beaten by other rioters during the attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Friday to more than four years in prison.
Thomas Sibick, of Buffalo, pleaded guilty in March for his role in the attack on Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone, who has described fighting for his life to defend the Capitol as lawmakers inside fled from the angry mob on Jan. 6, 2021.
In a letter to the judge, Sibick, 37, called the trauma Fanone experienced “undeniably sickening” and said he takes full responsibility for his “uncivilized display of reckless behavior.”
“It was an attack on the institutions of our democracy and not as some would make you believe legitimate political discourse. The attack was far from peaceful, my actions played a role that will follow me for the rest of my life,” Sibick wrote.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced him to 50 months in prison during a hearing in Washington’s federal court.
Sibick’s attorney Stephen Brennwald did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Following his arrest, Sibick spent eight months behind bars but was released on home confinement in October 2021 after his lawyer pressed the judge to free him while his case played out.
Sibick’s attorney had asked for a sentence of home confinement, writing in court papers that a mental health misdiagnosis resulted in his client taking medication on Jan. 6 that “severely and negatively impacted him.” Sibick’s attorney said, unlike other rioters, his client did not physically assault Fanone, and their interaction was limited to Sibick grabbing Fanone’s radio and badge.
“Mr. Sibick has made a remarkable change in his life since he received his correct mental health diagnosis and has begun cognitive behavioral therapy,” Brennwald wrote. “Because he sees January 6 for what it was, he is not a threat to re-offend in the future.”
Rioters kicked, punched, grabbed and shocked Fanone with a stun gun after pulling him away from other officers who were guarding a tunnel entrance on the Capitol’s Lower West Terrace. Another rioter threatened to take Fanone’s gun and kill him. Fanone said the attack gave him a heart attack and a traumatic brain injury and ultimately cost him his career.
Fanone’s body camera captured Sibick removing the officer’s badge and radio from his tactical vest, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.
Others in the crowd escorted Fanone back to the police line. Before FBI agents showed Sibick the body camera video, he initially claimed that he tried in vain to pull the officer away from his attackers.
Sibick said he buried Fanone’s badge in his backyard after returning home to Buffalo. He returned the badge, but Fanone’s $5,500 radio hasn’t been recovered.
Other rioters have been charged with attacking Fanone, who lost consciousness and was taken to an emergency room.
Albuquerque Cosper Head, a Tennessee man who dragged Fanone into the crowd, was sentenced in October 2022 to seven years and six months in prison. Another man, Daniel Rodriguez of California, was sentenced last month to more than 12 years in prison for driving a stun gun into Fanone’s neck as the officer screamed out in pain. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-rioter-who-stole-badge-radio-from-beaten-officer-on-jan-6-gets-more-than-4-years-in-prison/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:53 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-rioter-who-stole-badge-radio-from-beaten-officer-on-jan-6-gets-more-than-4-years-in-prison/ |
BEIJING, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Tarena International, Inc. (NASDAQ: TEDU) ("Tarena" or the "Company"), a leading provider of IT professional education and IT-focused supplementary STEAM education services in China, today announced that it received a written notification from the Staff of the Listing Qualifications Department of the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC ("Nasdaq") dated July 28, 2023, indicating that the Company no longer meets the continued listing requirement of minimum Market Value of Publicly Held Shares ("MVPHS") for the Nasdaq Global Select Market, as set forth in the Nasdaq Listing Rule 5450(b)(2)(C), because the Company's MVPHS for the last 30 consecutive business days was below the minimum MVPHS requirement of US$15,000,000.
Pursuant to the Nasdaq Listing Rules, the applicable grace period to regain compliance is 180 calendar days, or until January 24, 2024. The Company can cure this deficiency if its MVPHS closes at US$15,000,000 or more for a minimum of ten consecutive business days during the compliance period. The Company's management is looking into various options available to regain compliance and maintain its continued listing on The Nasdaq Global Select Market. In the event the Company does not regain compliance prior to the expiration of the compliance period, it will receive written notification that its securities are subject to delisting. Alternatively, the Company may apply to transfer the Company's securities to The Nasdaq Capital Market, subject to the Nasdaq Capital Market's continued listing requirements.
About Tarena International, Inc.
Tarena is a leading provider of IT professional education and IT-focused supplementary STEAM education services in China. Through its innovative education platform combining live distance instruction, classroom-based tutoring and online learning modules, Tarena offers professional education courses in IT and non-IT subjects. Its professional education courses provide students with practical skills to prepare them for jobs in industries with significant growth potential and strong hiring demand. Tarena also offers IT-focused supplementary STEAM education programs, including computer coding and robotics programming courses, etc., targeting students between three and eighteen years of age. Aiming to encourage "code to learn," Tarena embraces the latest trends in STEAM education and technology to develop children's logical thinking and learning abilities while allowing them to discover their interests and potential.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements made under the "safe harbor" provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "confident" and similar statements. Tarena may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Any statements that are not historical facts, including any business outlook and statements about Tarena's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Many factors, risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such factors and risks include, but not limited to the following: the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak; Tarena's goals and strategies; its future business development, financial condition and results of operations; its ability to continue to attract students to enroll in its courses; its ability to continue to recruit, train and retain qualified instructors and teaching assistants; its ability to continually tailor its curriculum to market demand and enhance its courses to adequately and promptly respond to developments in the professional job market; its ability to maintain or enhance its brand recognition, its ability to maintain high job placement rate for its students, and its ability to maintain cooperative relationships with financing service providers for student loans.
Further information regarding these and other risks, uncertainties or factors is included in Tarena's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release is current as of the date of the press release, and Tarena does not undertake any obligation to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
For further information, please contact:
Investor Relations Contact
Tarena International, Inc.
Email: ir@tedu.cn
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SOURCE Tarena International, Inc. | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/tarena-announces-receipt-nasdaq-notification-regarding-minimum-market-value-publicly-held-shares/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:56 | 0 | https://www.wibw.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/tarena-announces-receipt-nasdaq-notification-regarding-minimum-market-value-publicly-held-shares/ |
Man questioned in Montana after Arizona woman reappears following four years missing
HAVRE, Mont. (AP) — A man was detained and questioned by police and his Montana apartment searched as authorities tried to piece together the mysterious disappearance and sudden reappearance this week of Alicia Navarro, who was 14 when she vanished from her Arizona home four years ago.
Police on Friday provided no details about Wednesday’s search or the identity of the man, who was released. But Garrett Smith, who lives in the apartment next to the one that was searched, said for at least a year Navarro lived there with the man who was questioned. He described them as quiet and said he hasn’t seen the man since the night police were there.
Navarro’s whereabouts were revealed Sunday when she showed up at the Havre police station and told officers she wanted her name removed from the missing persons list. Police in Glendale, Arizona, the community where she lived before disappearing, held a news conference Wednesday to announce that she’d been found.
Outside of a brief video appearance at the news conference, Navarro has said nothing publicly. On Friday, an Associated Press reporter knocked on the door of the apartment that was searched in Montana and the woman who opened it said she wanted to be left alone. The woman didn’t give her name but looked and sounded like Navarro.
Police had not made any arrests as of Friday night and questions remained about how she got there, who she has been with and what she has been doing since she ran away.
Authorities in both states aren’t saying much and neither is Alicia Navarro’s family or a private investigator they hired. Navarro has seen and spoken to her mother, Jessica Nuñez, remotely but they have not been reunited in person.
Glendale police spokesperson Gina Winn said that a person was temporarily detained for questioning Wednesday and released as Glendale detectives executed a search warrant in Havre.
“That was the purpose of the search warrant, to interview a person,” she said.
Three other people in Havre have been questioned, she said. She declined to name the people who were interviewed and would not specify whether detectives are still in the Montana town. Winn said authorities are working to determine what happened over the past four years and whether a crime occurred and someone could be held accountable.
Kidnapping is among the possible scenarios, Glendale police Lt. Scott Waite said earlier this week.
Asked why Nuñez hasn’t traveled to Montana to see her daughter, private investigator Trent Steele, who assisted Nuñez in the search for Navarro through the Miami-based nonprofit Anti-Predator Project, said Nuñez was attending to her other children at home in metropolitan Phoenix as the investigation unfolds in Montana. He also alluded to another dynamic.
“They need to keep Alicia close – the law enforcement officers who are currently working the investigation. And until they are done with what they need, they need to keep her close,” Steele said. “It has nothing to do with family dynamics.”
Police in Havre and Steele said when Navarro, 18, walked into the city’s police department, she also talked about wanting to move forward in life as an adult, including getting a driver’s license. She appeared to be fine and in good health, according to police.
One of the biggest questions remains: How did she end up nearly 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) away from her childhood home in Glendale, Arizona, in far northern Montana?
Police have said Navarro told them she hadn’t been harmed, wasn’t being held, and could come and go as she pleased. She does not face any criminal charges, they added.
In Havre — a town of about 9,200 people surrounded by farmland — Navarro’s story had residents buzzing even though most had never seen or heard of her. It also piqued interest when a team of heavily armed law enforcement officers entered an apartment and took a man into custody just a few blocks from the Havre police station Wednesday night, witnesses told The Associated Press.
As many as 10 uniformed and undercover officers showed up around 8 p.m. and took him away in handcuffs. The man had been living in the apartment, said Rick Lieberg, who lives across the street.
A young woman, who resembled Navarro, later emerged from the apartment — one of six units in an aging building in a residential neighborhood — who Lieberg said he had not previously seen.
A person who works at the Dollar Tree in Havre, Jeff Hummert, said he saw a young woman resembling a photograph of Navarro last year in a city park just up the street from the apartment police searched Wednesday. She was walking alone and carrying a plastic Walmart bag, Hummert said.
Theories about how Navarro came to be in Montana topped the conversation Friday among the regulars at a coffee shop inside Gary & Leo’s IGA, a grocery store in downtown Havre. With scant details from authorities, most of the talk — about Navarro’s possible destination and whether she was being coerced — was conjecture, said former county Coroner Steve Sapp, who joined the discussion.
“When you’re in law enforcement, all these different stories about what happened make it hard to tell which story is really true,” Sapp said. “I would really like to know more.”
When Navarro disappeared in 2019, days shy of her 15th birthday, she left a note for her family promising she would return.
“I will be back, I swear,” the note read. “I’m sorry.”
The years Navarro has been gone have been agonizing for Nuñez, who never stopped searching for her daughter. She paid for a billboard ad in Mexico that featured a photo of her daughter for a year and bought 10 more ads in Las Vegas. She spoke at events and gave media interviews to raise awareness. She left flyers around Glendale — at salons, truck stops, parks.
Over the years, Nuñez had raised concerns that Navarro, who was diagnosed with autism, may have been lured away by someone she met online. Police have emphasized their efforts to afford privacy to Navarro even as investigations move forward.
“She is an adult, so it’s up to her whether or not she wants to go home,” Winn said.
In brief video clips that Glendale police released shortly after she arrived at the Havre police station, Navarro thanked authorities for offering to help her and said: “No one hurt me.”
Nunez declined an interview request. But for years, she had documented her efforts to find her daughter on a Facebook page titled “Finding Alicia” and an audio podcast. In an emotional video posted Wednesday, Nunez said “For everyone who has missing loved ones, I want you to use this case as an example. Miracles do exist. Never lose hope and always fight.”
Nunez had amassed a loyal following on social media throughout the years while sharing inspirational quotes, photos of Navarro as a young child and posts addressed directly to her daughter.
“Alicia I know you will fulfill what you promised,” Nunez wrote in one post. “You will be back.”
___
Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Associated Press reporter Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this story.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/man-questioned-in-montana-after-arizona-woman-reappears-following-four-years-missing/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:57 | 0 | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/man-questioned-in-montana-after-arizona-woman-reappears-following-four-years-missing/ |
Each year, the Phoenix Rescue Mission hands out more than 600,000 bottles of water to people living on the streets.
Every day, case managers with PRM, like Sergio Armendariz, load up a PRM Hope Coach with lifesaving essentials to hit the city's streets. Those essentials include water, snacks, and some basic necessities, like deodorant and a toothbrush.
"Especially in Phoenix, you could go down any area, and I can go through pretty much all or most of my hygiene and water just because of the amount of people who are living on the street," Armendariz said.
"This is typically a spot where there's always a lot of people," he said.
One man he came across, David, said he'd been experiencing homelessness for about two years.
"It's just tough out here," David said. "I can barely walk, or get out of bed."
He told Armendariz that he wanted to get out of the hot Phoenix sun that day. Armendariz called some of his contacts at PRM and other local non-profit organizations to see what was available.
A lot of times, that's not a quick or easy task for him because of the number of people experiencing homelessness looking to get off the streets.
"I think, with this job, that's the toughest part about it is being able to find bed space," Armendariz said. "Sometimes, it's just not enough. That's why I'm huge on more shelter space."
SEE MORE: How much heat is too much for the human body?
David ended up not wanting to start a year-long recovery program, which would have gotten him a space at a shelter that had room that week.
Armendariz understands why making the decision to make a change can be difficult for some people. Five years ago, he was in the same place as the people he now serves.
"Every day, I get to wake up and I give thanks to God for having a place to sleep, a shelter, restoration with my family, restoration with my kids, with my extended family," he said.
"It's just been amazing, really. Freedom - the freedom to just live my life, go to work every day, and do something that I really enjoy doing, and it has its difficulties, but, ultimately, I'm here to help."
Phoenix Rescue Mission is currently doing its "Code:Red Summer Heat Relief" campaign through the end of August.
If you'd like to help or donate, visit their website.
This story was originally published by Amelia Fabiano at Scripps New Phoenix.
Trending stories at Scrippsnews.com | https://www.wtvr.com/advocates-rush-to-help-those-living-with-homelessness-in-record-heat | 2023-07-29T03:14:58 | 0 | https://www.wtvr.com/advocates-rush-to-help-those-living-with-homelessness-in-record-heat |
PHOENIX (AP) — By the time Aaliyah Ibarra started second grade, her family had moved five times in four years in search of stable housing. As she was about to start a new school, her mother, Bridget Ibarra, saw how much it was affecting her education.
At 8 years old, her daughter did not know the alphabet.
“She was in second grade and couldn’t tell me any of the letters. I would point them out and she didn’t know,” Bridget Ibarra said. “She would sing the song in order, but as soon as I mixed them up, she had no idea.”
“I just didn’t know what letters were which,” says Aaliyah, now 9. “I know them now.”
The family’s struggles coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic that forced Aaliyah to begin her school experience online. Unfamiliar with a computer, Aaliyah was regularly kicked out of the virtual classroom, her mother said. Teachers complained she was not looking at the screen and took too many breaks.
Zoom school was especially difficult for Aaliyah because she was homeless — and like thousands of students nationally, her school didn’t know.
Homeless students often fell through the cracks during the tumult of the pandemic, when many schools struggled to keep track of families with unstable housing. Not being identified as homeless meant students lost out on eligibility for crucial support such as transportation, free uniforms, laundry services and other help.
Years later, the effects have cascaded. As students nationwide have struggled to make up for missed learning, educators have lost critical time identifying who needs the most help. Schools are offering tutoring and counseling but now have limited time to spend federal pandemic relief money for homeless students, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, a national homelessness organization.
“There is urgency because of the losses that have occurred over the pandemic — loss in learning, the gaps in attendance and the health crisis,” she said. Many education leaders, Duffield said, don’t even know about federal money earmarked for homeless students — and the programs expire next year.
The number of children identified as homeless by schools nationwide dropped by 21% from the 2018-2019 school year to the 2020-2021 school year, according to federal data. But the decrease, representing more than 288,000 students, likely includes many kids whose homelessness was unknown to schools. Federal counts of homeless people living on the street or in shelters also appeared to decrease in 2021 due to pandemic disruptions, but by 2022, those numbers shot up to the highest in a decade.
In Bridget Ibarra’s case, she chose not to tell the school her kids were homeless — and she says teachers, disconnected from students by a screen, never asked. She was worried if officials knew the family was staying in a shelter, and the school was obliged by law to provide transportation, the family would face pressure to enroll in a different school that was closer.
She knew how hard the disruptions were on her kids.
“I know they didn’t enjoy moving as often as we did. They would say things like, ‘We’re moving again? We just moved!’” Ibarra said.
“When I moved, I missed my friends and my teacher,” Aaliyah said.
The stigma and fear associated with homelessness also can lead families not to tell anyone they lack secure housing, Duffield said.
“If we don’t identify children proactively, we can’t ensure that they have everything they need to be successful in school and even go to school,” she said.
Before the pandemic, Ibarra and her two children moved in with her brother in Phoenix because she was having trouble making ends meet. Then her brother died unexpectedly. At the time, Ibarra was pregnant with her third child and couldn’t afford the rent with what she earned working at a fast-food restaurant.
The family spent the next six months at Maggie’s Place, a shelter in North Phoenix that caters to pregnant women. The four of them, including Aaliyah’s infant brother, moved next to Homeward Bound, an apartment-like shelter for families, where they were living when the pandemic hit a few months before Aaliyah started kindergarten.
Aaliyah’s school, David Crockett Elementary, stuck with online learning her entire kindergarten year. Aaliyah and her older brother, joined by several other children, spent most of their school days on computers in a mixed-grade makeshift classroom at the shelter.
“It was like she wasn’t even in school,” Ibarra said.
While the shelter helped the family meet their basic needs, Ibarra said she asked the school repeatedly for extra academic help for her daughter. She blamed the struggles partly on online learning, but she also felt the school was giving all their attention to Aaliyah’s older brother because he already was designated as a special education student with an individualized education program, or IEP.
The principal, Sean Hannafin, said school officials met frequently with the children’s mom. He said they offered the support they had available, but it was hard to determine online which students had needs that required intervention.
“The best thing we could do was take that data and flag them for when we returned in person, because you need a certain amount of time to observe a child in a classroom,” he said. “The online setting is not the place to observe.”
A federal law aimed at ensuring homeless students have equal access to education provides rights and services to children without a “fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.”
Many students aren’t identified as homeless when their parents or guardians enroll them. At school, teachers, cafeteria staff, aides or bus drivers often notice other students whose well-being may need looking into. Students may have unwashed clothes, or many late arrivals or absences.
But with children learning online, teachers and staff often didn’t see those things.
Overall, the drop in the student homelessness count began before the pandemic, but it was much steeper in the first full school year after COVID-19 hit. The percentage of enrolled students identified as homeless in the U.S. dropped from 2.7% in 2018-2019 to 2.2% in 2020-2021.
Over that timeframe, Arizona had one of the biggest drops in the number of students identified as homeless, from about 21,000 to nearly 14,000. But there were signs many families were in distress. KateLynn Dean, who works at Homeward Bound, said the shelter saw huge numbers of families dealing with homelessness for the first time during the pandemic.
Eventually, Bridget Ibarra had to enroll Aaliyah in a different school.
After getting kicked out of low-income housing last year when their property owner sold the building, the family lived with Ibarra’s mother before finding another low-income unit in Chandler, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Phoenix.
Once the family moved, enrolling in school was far from easy. Aaliyah missed the first three weeks of the school year last fall because of delays obtaining transcripts, and Ibarra insisted she not start the year without a plan to address her delays in reading and writing. Aaliyah spent that time playing and sitting around the house.
“Honestly, Aaliyah said she didn’t care how long, because she didn’t want to go to that school anyway,” her mother said. She said Aaliyah missed her friends and was tired of moving.
At Aaliyah’s new school, Frye Elementary, Principal Alexis Cruz Freeman saw for herself how hard it was to keep in touch with families when children were not in classrooms. Several students disappeared altogether. But she said families have started re-engaging with school. The state of Arizona reported more than 22,000 students were identified as homeless in the last school year — twice as many as the year before.
Ibarra said she tried to shield as much discomfort about their living situation from her kids as possible. It worked. Aaliyah doesn’t remember much about the places they’ve stayed except the people that surrounded her family.
Aaliyah has gained ground academically at her new school, Cruz Freeman said. She still has trouble pronouncing and recognizing some words. But by the end of the school year, she was able to read a text and write four sentences based on its meaning. She is also performing at grade level in math.
The principal considers her a success story in part because of her mother’s support.
“She was an advocate for her children, which is all that we can ever ask for,” Cruz Freeman said.
___
Associated Press data journalist Sharon Lurye contributed to this report from New Orleans.
___
The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-schools-lost-track-of-homeless-kids-during-the-pandemic-many-face-a-steep-path-to-recovery/ | 2023-07-29T03:14:59 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-schools-lost-track-of-homeless-kids-during-the-pandemic-many-face-a-steep-path-to-recovery/ |
LONDON, July 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- VAPORESSO, a leading innovator in the vaping industry, has received well-deserved recognition at this year's London Design Awards, with four of its groundbreaking products being awarded for their exceptional design. The London Design Awards is an international competition that recognises exceptional designs and outstanding creative projects worldwide, celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of the international design community.
The four distinguished products from VAPORESSO - the COSS, ECO NANO, LUXE XR, and XROS 3 NANO - have showcased the brand's formidable innovative prowess and have also been recognized with awards from many organizations. VAPORESSO's latest groundbreaking offering, the VAPORESSO COSS, is regarded as a game-changer in the vaping industry. It tackles existing issues with a thoughtful design that seamlessly caters to user habits. Its slogan, 'Convenient Operating, Smart Supplying', perfectly encapsulates the product's core values of INNOVATION, RELIABILITY, and STYLE.
"Winning these awards is a testament to the creativity, skill, and dedication of our team," said Jimmy Hu, Vice President of VAPORESSO, "We are thrilled to have our efforts recognised on such a prestigious global platform. It validates our commitment to delivering innovative, high-quality products that enhance the vaping experience for our customers."
The London Design Awards, held annually, applauds outstanding design achievements across various creative sectors. It acknowledges exemplary projects, products, and professionals who demonstrate innovation, creativity, and excellence within their respective industries. Meanwhile, the London Design Awards not only honours design excellence but also fosters creativity, encourages innovation, and facilitates collaborations between designers and design-driven businesses. The awards have grown in stature and popularity since their inception, attracting a wide range of participants from various design fields.
The recognition from the London Design Awards underscores VAPORESSO's dedication to creating products that exceed customer expectations and further solidifies its position as a thought leader in the industry. It also acts as an external validation of VAPORESSO's capabilities and quality of work, building trust and confidence among potential customers.
About VAPORESSO
Established in 2015, VAPORESSO is committed to creating a smoke-free world and enhancing the quality of life for its users. Through continuous innovation, stringent quality control, and substantial commitment, VAPORESSO produces products that cater to all levels and styles of vapers.
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UN says it’s forced to cut food aid to millions globally because of a funding crisis
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations has been forced to cut food, cash payments and assistance to millions of people in many countries because of “a crippling funding crisis” that has seen its donations plummet by about half as acute hunger is hitting record levels, a top official said Friday.
Carl Skau, deputy executive director of the World Food Program, told a news conference that at least 38 of the 86 countries where WFP operates have already seen cuts or plan to cut assistance soon — including Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and West Africa.
He said WFP’s operating requirement is $20 billion to deliver aid to everyone in need, but it was aiming for between $10 billion and $14 billion, which was what the agency had received in the past few years.
“We’re still aiming at that, but we have only so far this year gotten to about half of that, around $5 billion,” Skau said.
He said humanitarian needs were “going through the roof” in 2021 and 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine and its global implications. “Those needs continue to grow, those drivers are still there,” he said, “but the funding is drying up. So we’re looking at 2024 (being) even more dire.”
“The largest food and nutrition crisis in history today persists,” Skau said. “This year, 345 million people continue to be acutely food insecure while hundreds of millions of people are at risk of worsening hunger.”
Skau said conflict and insecurity remain the primary drivers of acute hunger around the world, along with climate change, unrelenting disasters, persistent food price inflation and mounting debt stress — all during a slowdown in the global economy.
WFP is looking to diversify its funding base, but he also urged the agency’s traditional donors to “step up and support us through this very difficult time.”
Asked why funding was drying up, Skau said to ask the donors.
“But it’s clear that aid budgets, humanitarian budgets, both in Europe and the United States, (are) not where they were in 2021-2022,” he said.
Skau said that in March, WFP was forced to cut rations from 75% to 50% for communities in Afghanistan facing emergency levels of hunger, and in May it was forced to cut food for 8 million people — 66% of the people it was assisting. Now, it is helping just 5 million people, he said. In Syria, 5.5 million people who relied on WFP for food were already on 50% rations, Skau said, and in July the agency cut all rations to 2.5 million of them. In the Palestinian territories, WFP cut its cash assistance by 20% in May and in June, and cut its caseload by 60%, or 200,000 people, he said. And in Yemen, he said, a huge funding gap will force WFP to cut aid to 7 million people as early as August.
In West Africa, where acute hunger is on the rise, Skau said, most countries are facing extensive ration cuts, particularly WFP’s seven largest crisis operations: Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Central African Republic, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon.
He said cutting aid to people who are only at the hunger level of crisis to help save those literally starving or in the category of catastrophic hunger means that those dropped will rapidly fall into the emergency and catastrophe categories, “and so we will have an additional humanitarian emergency on our hands down the road.”
“Ration cuts are clearly not the way to go forward,” Skau said.
He urged world leaders to prioritize humanitarian funding and invest in long-tern solutions to conflicts, poverty, development and other root causes of the current crisis.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/un-says-its-forced-to-cut-food-aid-to-millions-globally-because-of-a-funding-crisis/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:03 | 1 | https://www.kob.com/news/us-and-world-news/un-says-its-forced-to-cut-food-aid-to-millions-globally-because-of-a-funding-crisis/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruling that upended President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive student loan debt changed his budget math, modestly lowering the projected deficit for this year, his budget office reported Friday.
The White House expects to pare back $259 billion in spending that otherwise would have gone to erasing student loans. This contributed to lowering expected red ink this year under Biden’s budget plans from $1.569 trillion to $1.543 trillion.
The Office of Management and Budget’s Mid-Session Review represents the administration’s first recalculations of the loan program since the court’s June decision, which will affect millions of borrowers.
The court decision initially was expected to reduce the deficit by $400 billion. But a portion of that money will instead be used to pay for a smaller income-driven loan repayment program that goes into effect this summer, according to the report.
Millions of Americans with student loans will be able to enroll in the new SAVE repayment plan that offers some of the most lenient terms the government has ever offered borrowers.
Looking ahead to 2024, the report projects that inflation will continue to decline and the unemployment rate will average 3.8% for the rest of the year. Unemployment is expected to hit 4.4 % in 2024, then decline over the rest of the 10-year budget window to an annual average of 3.8%.
The new forecast comes as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell earlier this week said staff economists no longer foresee a recession.
“There is clear evidence that the President’s economic plan — Bidenomics — is growing our economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down,” said Biden’s budget director Shalanda Young in a statement accompanying the report.
The administration has been pushing “Bidenomics” as an approach that spurs economic growth through promoting domestic supply chains and favoring firms that use those supply chains through tax credits and other measures. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-supreme-courts-student-loan-decision-will-lower-us-deficit-according-to-new-white-house-projection/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:07 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-supreme-courts-student-loan-decision-will-lower-us-deficit-according-to-new-white-house-projection/ |
Trump and his top 2024 primary rivals mostly ignore the case against him during key Iowa GOP event
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donald Trump and his top rivals for the GOP presidential nomination took the stage one by one Friday night to address an influential gathering of Iowa Republicans, with none of the top-tier hopefuls mentioning that new federal charges had been filed against the former president just a day earlier.
Instead, Trump’s competitors mostly reserved their sharpest criticism for President Joe Biden and a Democratic Party they argued had lost touch with mainstream America — failing to pounce on additional counts over Trump’s retention of classified documents that might have otherwise been an opportunity to cut into his comfortable early lead in the polls.
“The time for excuses is over. We must get the job done,” said Ron DeSantis. “I will get the job done.”
The Florida governor also repeated his frequent promise to halt the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, an allusion to Trump’s legal troubles. But he offered no specific thoughts on the cases against him — even though Trump is also bracing to be charged soon in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The former president frequently avoids attending multicandidate events in person, questioning why he would share a stage with competitors who are badly trailing him in polls. Still, with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus less than six months away, Trump joined a dozen other GOP hopefuls in speaking to about 1,200 GOP members and activists at the Lincoln Day Dinner.
“If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me,” Trump said in his only veiled reference to his legal issues. He also insisted the same would be true if he were trailing in the polls.
While DeSantis didn’t mention the former president by name, meanwhile, Trump didn’t return the favor. He told the crowd, “I wouldn’t take a chance on that one,” and repeatedly branded him “DeSanctus.”
Trump was even blunter before the dinner as he opened a campaign office in Urbandale, outside Des Moines.
“I understand the other candidates are falling very flat … it’s like death,” Trump said.
More than 100 people packed the small office, many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and shirts. They had waited in 100-degree weather to enter, and the poorly ventilated office quickly became sweltering. Staff handed out water bottles, and people fanned themselves with campaign handouts. Some used paper towels to wipe away sweat.
Similar strong support for the former president was evident during the dinner, when many attendees wore “Trump Country” stickers, including 72-year-old Diane Weaver of Ankeny, Iowa.
“I think he makes America great,” said Weaver, a retiree who plans to caucus for Trump. “I think he did it once and I think he can do it again.”
West Des Moines resident Jane Schrader chose to wear her “Trump Country” sticker on her pants instead of at eye level. “I’m not quite dyed-in-the-wool. I’m a supporter, but not that kind,” said the retired physician, explaining her sticker placement.
DeSantis, who like most of Friday’s speakers vowed to visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties, is Trump’s strongest primary competitor but has been trying to reset his stalled campaign for two weeks. He’s increasingly focusing on Iowa in its efforts on trying to derail Trump, and spoke at the dinner in the midst of a two-day bus tour of the state.
The governor’s stumbles have raised questions about whether another candidate might be able to emerge from the field and catch the former president. Some evangelicals, who can be determinative in Iowa’s caucuses, have pointed to South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s upbeat message and pulpit-style delivery as strengths that could help him rise there.
Scott, who also spoke Friday night and didn’t mention Trump or the cases against him, took a swipe this week at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s support for new standards that require the state’s teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”
The only Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, Scott said all Americans should recognize how “devastating” slavery was. “There is no silver lining” to slavery, he added.
DeSantis has also faced criticism from teachers and civil rights leaders, as well as mounting pushback from some of his party’s most prominent Black elected officials. Florida Rep. Byron Donalds said he hoped officials might “correct” parts of the curriculum addressing lessons on the developed skills of enslaved people. Texas Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt, Michigan Rep. John James and Will Hurd, a former Texas congressman now also running in the GOP presidential primary, have also criticized DeSantis.
Still, the governor continued to dig in on the issue, saying at a pre-dinner event in Oskaloosa on Friday, “D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left.”
John Niemeyer, 52, from Kalona, Iowa, attended DeSantis’ event and was impressed. But, as a high school teacher, he’s not a fan of some of the governor’s positions on education policy.
“I don’t want to make our classrooms a political battlefield,” he said, adding that it would be a “mistake” to make the issue the forefront of his campaign.
Vice President Kamala Harris made her own Iowa stop on Friday, seeking to draw a contrast with the Republicans as she looked to lift President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Harris met in Des Moines with activists and discussed abortion rights, after Reynolds recently signed a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
“I do believe that we are witnessing a national agenda that is about a full-on attack on hard won freedoms and hard won rights,” the vice president said.
Trump, meanwhile, did face criticism Friday night from some Republican opponents, but only those considered long shots. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison declared, “As a party, we need a new direction for America and for the GOP,” drawing only muted reaction from the crowd.
Loud and sustained boos came, however, for Hurd, who said, “The reason Donald Trump lost the election in 2020 is he failed to grow the GOP brand.”
The former congressman pressed on, saying: “Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. … Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.”
That was the only reference to locking Trump up on the night, except for a surprising — and potentially coincidental — snippet of walk-on music played as the former president took the stage. Like all the candidates, the event’s organizers played parts of Brooks & Dunn’s “Only in America” as Trump approached.
But his part included the lyrics: “One could end up going to prison. One just might be president.”
___
Weissert reported from Washington.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kob.com/politics-news/trump-and-his-top-2024-primary-rivals-mostly-ignore-the-case-against-him-during-key-iowa-gop-event/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:09 | 0 | https://www.kob.com/politics-news/trump-and-his-top-2024-primary-rivals-mostly-ignore-the-case-against-him-during-key-iowa-gop-event/ |
PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A teenager recalled Friday how she helped save a girl who was severely wounded during a Michigan school shooting in 2021, telling a judge that she moved her to an empty classroom, applied pressure to stop the bleeding and prayed with her.
“I asked her if she knew who God was. She said, ‘Not really,’” Heidi Allen, 17, recalled.
“I think I’m supposed to be here right now,” she said, describing how she felt at the time. “Because there’s no other reason that I’m OK, that I’m in this hallway, completely untouched.”
Heidi testified at a hearing to determine whether Ethan Crumbley, 17, will get a life prison sentence, or a shorter term with an opportunity for parole, for killing four students and wounding seven other people at Oxford High School.
She said she recognized him as soon as he exited a bathroom and brandished a gun.
“It fired,” Heidi recalled. “Everything kind of slowed down for me. It was all slow motion. I had covered my head. I dropped down. … It sounded like a balloon popping or a locker slamming. It was very loud.
“I just prayed and covered my head,” she said. “I didn’t know if those were my last moments.”
Heidi wasn’t shot but others were. She said she took a girl into a classroom, installed a portable lock on the door and applied pressure to the girl’s wounds. The victim survived.
“I just kept reassuring her she was going to be OK. She was crying,” Heidi testified. “I don’t fully remember what she was saying. I was trying to stay calm.”
The shooter, who was 15 at the time, pleaded guilty to murder, terrorism and other crimes. But a life sentence for minors isn’t automatic after a series of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and Michigan’s top court.
Defense attorneys are arguing that he can be rehabilitated in prison and eventually released. They said the shooting followed years of a turbulent family life, grossly negligent parents and untreated mental illness.
A former warden, Ken Romanowski, testified about a variety of programs available in prison, such as mental health therapy, anger management, education and trade skills.
“Honestly, I think everybody has the potential for change. But he has to be the one who makes that choice,” Romanowski said, appearing for the defense.
A psychiatrist, Dr. Fariha Qadir, said Crumbley discussed having depression, hallucinations and hearing voices when they first met after his arrest. She has talked to him more than 100 times while in jail and prescribed medication for depression, mood and sleep.
James and Jennifer Crumbley are separately charged with involuntary manslaughter. They’re accused of buying a gun for their son and ignoring his mental health needs.
Earlier Friday, Judge Kwame Rowe denied a request by the shooter’s lawyers to stop students from testifying. They argued that it’s irrelevant when applying key factors set by the U.S. Supreme Court when determining a sentence for a minor.
“I’m able to discern what’s relevant to the… factors and what’s not relevant,” the judge said.
Prosecutors presented other witnesses Friday. An assistant principal, Kristy Gibson-Marshall, tearfully described how she tried to revive Tate Myre, a student whom she had known since he was 3 years old. He died.
“It was crushing. I had to help him,” Gibson-Marshall testified. “I could feel the entrance wound in the back of his head. … I just kept talking to him, that I love him, that I needed him to hang with me.”
It took “months to get the taste of Tate’s blood out of me,” she said.
Gibson-Marshall also knew the shooter, who passed by but didn’t harm her.
Separately, a 16-year-old boy explained how he hid in a bathroom with another student, Justin Shilling, who was killed by the shooter. Keegan Gregory said he suddenly found an opportunity to run behind the shooter’s back and escape.
“I realized if I stayed I was going to die,” said Keegan, who now wears a tattoo to honor the victims. “I just kept running as fast as I could, making turns so if he chased me I’d lose him.”
The hearing will resume Tuesday.
If the shooter doesn’t get a life sentence, he would be given a minimum prison sentence somewhere from 25 years to 40 years. He would then be eligible for parole, though the parole board has much discretion to keep a prisoner in custody.
There were opportunities to possibly prevent the shooting earlier that day. The boy and his parents met with school staff after a teacher was troubled by drawings that included a gun pointing at the words: “The thoughts won’t stop. Help me.”
The teen was allowed to stay in school, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Detroit, though his backpack was not checked for weapons.
___
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Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly said he is "fine" since he froze up mid-sentence during a press conference on Wednesday. And now his office is trying to tamp down speculation that he might not fill out his term as leader because of his health.
In a statement, his office said McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues and "plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do."
The statement, first reported by Politico, comes after McConnell, 81, has suffered health problems in recent months.
At his weekly press conference this week, he froze and stared vacantly for about 20 seconds before his GOP colleagues standing behind him grabbed his elbows and asked if he wanted to go back to his office. He later returned to the news conference and answered questions as if nothing had happened.
When asked about the episode, he said he was "fine" - a statement he repeated in a hallway to reporters later that day.
Neither McConnell nor his office would answer questions about whether he got medical help afterward.
SEE MORE: Feinstein corrected, told to 'just say aye' at Senate hearing
Even as McConnell tried to brush off the concerns, the episode raised new questions among his colleagues about his health and also whether McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has served as Republican leader since 2007, might soon step aside from his leadership post.
He was elected to a two-year term as leader in January by a large majority of his conference, despite an insurgent challenge from Florida Sen. Rick Scott.
He would be up for re-election as leader again after the 2024 elections. By then, he will have to decide also if he wants to run again for another Senate term. He is up for re-election in 2026.
In March, McConnell suffered a concussion and a broken rib after falling and hitting his head after a dinner event at a hotel. He didn’t return to the Senate for almost six weeks.
He has been using a wheelchair in the airport while commuting back and forth to Kentucky. And his speech has recently sounded more halting. But McConnell, famously reticent and often private about his personal life and health, has said very little about what is going on.
Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said after, Wednesday’s episode, that McConnell’s job as leader calls for more transparency than it would for others.
"We should find out, you know, fairly soon what happened and how serious it is," Cramer said. "But I don’t have to tell you, Mitch is also, as an individual, a pretty private guy. So we’ll see."
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he talked to McConnell on Wednesday night and he seemed "strong and alert." But, he said, what happened at the news conference on Wednesday was disturbing to watch.
"Mitch is strong, he’s stubborn as a mule," Cruz said. "My prayers are with them. I hope that - we’re going into the August recess - I hope he has time to fully recuperate."
GOP senators who are seen as potential successors have been cautious in their reaction.
"He’s fine, he’s back to work," said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican and one of the senators standing behind McConnell when he froze up."
"I support Senator McConnell as long as he wants to serve as leader," said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, another potential replacement.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 3 Senate Republican and a former orthopedic surgeon, guided McConnell back to his office to rest during the news conference. Afterwards, he told reporters that he has been concerned since McConnell was injured earlier this year, "and I continue to be concerned."
Barrasso then added: "I said I was concerned when he fell and hit his head a number of months ago and was hospitalized. And I think he’s made a remarkable recovery, he’s doing a great job leading our conference and was able to answer every question the press asked him today."
Several other GOP senators projected confidence in the Republican leader.
"I do have confidence in his leadership," said Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis. "At lunch yesterday, he spoke. He was completely on his game using numbers that were pulled out of his head and he was completely with it. So I don’t know what precipitated the freeze, but he’ll be careful to evaluate his own capabilities."
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said he was "a little concerned" after the news conference.
"He said that he got a little overheated, a little dehydrated," said Marshall, who is also a doctor.
"That’s what it looks like to me. I can tell you, he’s got a strong, strong voice in our conference. He’s providing steady leadership. And I think he’s doing a great job as leader."
McConnell had polio in his early childhood and he has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in climbing stairs. In addition to his fall in March, he also tripped and fell four years ago at his home in Kentucky, causing a shoulder fracture that required surgery.
The Republican leader carried on with his full schedule after the episode on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he spoke with his Republican counterpart at an event Wednesday evening for Major League Baseball owners.
"I said I’m so glad you’re here," Schumer said. "And he made a very good speech."
The Republican leader is one of several senators who have been absent due to health issues this year. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, 90, was out of the Senate for more than two months as she recovered from a bout of shingles. And, Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., 53, took leave for several weeks to get treatment for clinical depression.
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Aaron Judge lines out in first at-bat after coming off injured list for Yankees at Baltimore
BALTIMORE (AP) — The New York Yankees have been a sub-.500 team since Aaron Judge injured his toe in early June. Now they hope his return can help them rally for a postseason spot.
The Yankees reinstated Judge from the injured list on Friday before the opener of their weekend road series against the Baltimore Orioles. Judge admits he isn’t fully recovered but says he’s healthy enough to play.
“It’s feeling all right, feeling good. It’s not 100%. I don’t think it’ll be 100% until the end of the year,” he said. “I think our biggest goal is just getting to a point where I could play, I could tolerate it.”
The game was delayed 2 hours, 32 minutes by rain, and when Judge finally batted in the top of the first, the New York fans in attendance gave him a big ovation while others at Camden Yards booed. He lined out to right field on the first pitch he saw.
Judge had been out since tearing a ligament in his right big toe June 3 when he crashed into the right-field fence while making a catch at Dodger Stadium.
Judge played a simulated game Wednesday at the team’s complex in Tampa, Florida, and returned to New York after that. The 2022 American League MVP faced live pitching Sunday at Yankee Stadium for the first time since the injury. Manager Aaron Boone said Judge homered during a simulated game Tuesday in Florida. He also played the field and ran the bases.
Judge was penciled into the lineup as the designated hitter, batting second Friday night. Boone said he could have potentially played in the field, but that will be a day-by-day decision.
“Obviously, as much as there’s urgency for us, we’ve got to be smart about that and make sure that in talking to Aaron, making sure he’s honest with his feedback about how he’s recovering, how he’s bouncing back,” Boone said. “Obviously, how the toe’s doing, but how everything else is doing.”
New York is 19-23 since Judge got hurt in Los Angeles. The Yankees are 30-19 with the star outfielder, who also missed 10 games earlier this season with a right hip strain.
Judge set an AL record with 62 home runs last year. He is batting .291 with 19 homers and 40 RBIs in the first season of a $360 million, nine-year contract he signed last offseason.
“I guess he’s back and he’s ready,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “So we’ll have to pitch to him well.”
Baltimore entered this series with a 1 1/2-game lead in the AL East over Tampa Bay. The Yankees were six games over .500 but at the bottom of the ultracompetitive division. New York was eight games behind the Orioles and 2 1/2 behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the American League’s final wild card.
Judge was asked if the team’s offensive struggles without him made him even more anxious to come back.
“No, I just wanted to get back,” Judge said after a noticeable pause. “Any time you’re sitting out, even if we were winning and we had an eight-game lead in the division, or we were 10 games out of it, I want to be back out there battling with the guys.”
Boone said Judge had an MRI in the last few days, and Judge indicated that was a factor in his return.
“I didn’t want to come back and make it worse, and this is something that leads into the next year and the following year,” he said. “Ligament’s stable. Last couple MRIs didn’t really show much healing, but this one did.”
To make room for Judge, the Yankees optioned infielder Oswald Peraza to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
___
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Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kob.com/sports-stories/ap-baseball/aaron-judge-lines-out-in-first-at-bat-after-coming-off-injured-list-for-yankees-at-baltimore/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:16 | 1 | https://www.kob.com/sports-stories/ap-baseball/aaron-judge-lines-out-in-first-at-bat-after-coming-off-injured-list-for-yankees-at-baltimore/ |
Analysis by real estate firm Redfin finds that in 2021 and 2022, more people moved into regions that are at risk of flooding, wildfire or extreme heat events.
Nearly 400,000 more people moved into the counties in the U.S. that are most prone to flooding. Nearly 450,000 more moved to places where fire is a big risk, and nearly 630,000 more people will have to deal with the risks of extreme heat, according to Redfin's numbers.
In all three of those risk categories, the rate of people moving to the areas increased over the rates from 2019-2020.
Refdin crunched numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and from the climate risk assessment scores by First Street Foundation.
It found more people are moving into flood-prone counties than out. The most popular was Florida's Lee County — where roughly half of homes are at high flood risk.
Riverside County, California, where homes are at high risk from wildfires, saw a net population increase. So did Maricopa County, Arizona, where extreme heat is a regular risk, and is currently baking the region in an unprecedented heatwave. Redfin says Maricopa County gained the most residents of any in the U.S. in 2022.
Separate data from moving van company U-Haul showed the same: more people moved to the Southeast and Southwest in 2022 than anywhere else. Texas and Florida were the top two destinations, respectively.
SEE MORE: Why are insurance companies pulling out of some states?
As for why — real estate is relatively affordable in many of these destinations, Redfin says. Construction in Florida's Lee County is still buzzing to meet demand.
Research into the phenomenon published last year also found natural amenities and socioeconomic factors can play a big role: people often moved toward bodies of water, for example, or away from regions that had high unemployment. That study, too, warned that people were increasing their risk of encountering hazards like wildfire.
Meanwhile, certain short- and long-term costs of living are changing along with the climate.
Residents in Phoenix, Arizona, are facing steep utility bills due to air conditioning demand.
And some major home insurance companies are starting to back out of the Florida market, saying that recent disasters like last year's Hurricane Ian are pushing their operating costs too high.
Average home insurance in Florida now runs $6,000 a year — roughly three times he national average.
SEE MORE: What are some health complications from extreme heat?
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HENRICO COUNTY, Va. -- Some children taking part in the Greater Richmond YMCA's summer program were surprised with free bikes Friday at Richmond Raceway.
The bikes were assembled by volunteers with the NASCAR Foundation and Richmond Area Toyota Dealer employees on Thursday.
NASCAR Truck Series Driver Corey Heim helped the children pick out bike helmets.
“It was cool. They were going crazy. They were jumping up and down for like three minutes,” Heim said. “It was awesome to see how excited they were.”
Heim said the event allows kids who have not been to the raceway to “see what it's all about.”
In addition to the bikes, the kids got to spend the morning playing games.
All the activities were held in the morning, so the kids could get out of the heat before it got too hot.
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PHOENIX (AP) — The backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty Friday to endangerment in the first fatal collision involving a fully autonomous car.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge David Garbarino, who accepted the plea agreement, sentenced Rafaela Vasquez, 49, to three years of supervised probation for the crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. Vasquez told police that Herzberg “came out of nowhere” and that she didn’t see Herzberg before the March 18, 2018, collision on a darkened Tempe street.
Vasquez had been charged with negligent homicide, a felony. She pleaded guilty to an undesignated felony, meaning it could be reclassified as a misdemeanor if she completes probation.
Authorities say Vasquez was streaming the television show “The Voice” on a phone and looking down in the moments before Uber’s Volvo XC-90 SUV struck Herzberg, who was crossing with her bicycle.
Vasquez’s attorneys said she was was looking at a messaging program used by Uber employees on a work cellphone that was on her right knee. They said the TV show was playing on her personal cellphone, which was on the passenger seat.
Defense attorney Albert Jaynes Morrison told Garbarino that Uber should share some blame for the collision as he asked the judge to sentence Vasquez to six months of unsupervised probation.
“There were steps that Uber failed to take,” he said. By putting Vasquez in the vehicle without a second employee, he said. “It was not a question of if but when it was going to happen.”
Prosecutors previously declined to file criminal charges against Uber, as a corporation. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded Vasquez’s failure to monitor the road was the main cause of the crash.
“The defendant had one job and one job only,” prosecutor Tiffany Brady told the judge. “And that was to keep her eyes in the road.”
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said in a statement after the hearing that her office believes the sentence was appropriate “based on the mitigating and aggravating factors.”
The contributing factors cited by the NTSB included Uber’s inadequate safety procedures and ineffective oversight of its drivers, Herzberg’s decision to cross the street outside of a crosswalk and the Arizona Department of Transportation’s insufficient oversight of autonomous vehicle testing.
The board also concluded Uber’s deactivation of its automatic emergency braking system increased the risks associated with testing automated vehicles on public roads. Instead of the system, Uber relied on the human backup driver to intervene.
It was not the first crash involving an Uber autonomous test vehicle. In March 2017, an Uber SUV flipped onto its side, also in Tempe when it collided with another vehicle. No serious injuries were reported, and the driver of the other car was cited for a violation.
Herzberg’s death was the first involving an autonomous test vehicle but not the first in a car with some self-driving features. The driver of a Tesla Model S was killed in 2016 when his car, operating on its Autopilot system, crashed into a semitrailer in Florida.
Nine months after Herzberg’s death, in December 2019, two people were killed in California when a Tesla on Autopilot ran a red light, slammed into another car. That driver was charged in 2022 with vehicular manslaughter in what was believed to be the first felony case against a motorist who was using a partially automated driving system.
In Arizona, the Uber system detected Herzberg 5.6 seconds before the crash. But it failed to determine whether she was a bicyclist, pedestrian or unknown object, or that she was headed into the vehicle’s path, the board said.
The backup driver was there to take over the vehicle if systems failed.
The death reverberated throughout the auto industry and Silicon Valley and forced other companies to slow what had been a fast march toward autonomous ride-hailing services. Uber pulled its self-driving cars out of Arizona, and then-Gov. Doug Ducey prohibited the company from continuing its tests of self-driving cars.
Vasquez had previously spent more than four years in prison for two felony convictions — making false statements when obtaining unemployment benefits and attempted armed robbery — before starting work as an Uber driver, according to court records. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:19 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment/ |
On Friday, Washington, D.C. metro rail authorities announced that the city's commuter train lines would be slowed down to 35 mph on above-ground tracks because of extremely hot weather.
The service said that passengersshould expect delays, which had the possibility of causing issues in Washington's many open-air stations without air conditioning.
The issue is not unique to just the U.S. capital, as other major cities have expressed worry that high temperatures could cause major issues for commuter rail operations.
In Los Angeles, officials called extreme heat the "most pervasive risk that metro faces," the LAist reported in 2019.
The heat could cause failures with signal switches, station elevators and other mechanical equipment.
SEE MORE: Biden to sign executive order to encourage more US-made inventions
In a study that included researchers from Northwestern University's engineering school, Professor Alessandro Rotta Loria stated, "Subsurface temperature rises can also cause transportation infrastructure and public health issues, such as overheated subway rails that force trains to slow down or stop to avoid incidents with significant economic costs associated with the delay of public transportation services."
The study authors wrote, "Urban areas increasingly suffer from subsurface heat islands: an underground climate change responsible for environmental, public health, and transportation issues. Soils, rocks, and construction materials deform under the influence of temperature variations and excessive deformations can affect the performance of civil infrastructure."
In New York City, officials tried the short-term solution of placing fans in subway stations to try and create more breeze, and cool down subsurface temperatures.
Masoud Ghandehari, a professor at NYU of Urban Systems Engineering said he doesn't believe it's "financially viable" to ventilate the subway system in that city, and said it may not be physically possible.
Trending stories at Scrippsnews.com | https://www.wtvr.com/washington-among-cities-slowing-metro-rail-amid-hot-weather | 2023-07-29T03:15:19 | 0 | https://www.wtvr.com/washington-among-cities-slowing-metro-rail-amid-hot-weather |
Lottery players will have another shot at a huge Mega Millions jackpot Friday night and a chance to break a stretch of more than three months without a big winner of the game.
The estimated $940 million prize has been building since someone last matched all six numbers and won the jackpot April 18. Since then, there have been 28 straight drawings without a jackpot winner.
The jackpot is now the eighth-largest ever in the U.S. It comes a little over a week after someone in Los Angeles won a $1.08 billion Powerball prize that ranked as the sixth-largest in U.S. history. It’s still a mystery who won that prize.
Lottery jackpots grow so large because the odds of winning are so small. For Mega Millions, the odds of winning the jackpot are about 1 in 302.6 million.
The $940 million prize would be for a sole winner choosing to be paid through an annuity with annual payments over 30 years. Jackpot winners almost always opt for a lump sum payment, which for Friday night’s drawing would be an estimated $472.5 million.
Winners also would be subject to federal taxes, while many states also tax lottery winnings.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-the-mega-millions-jackpot-is-now-910-million-after-months-without-a-big-winner/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:38 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-the-mega-millions-jackpot-is-now-910-million-after-months-without-a-big-winner/ |
ARLINGTON, Tex. — Natasha Cloud was battling with everything she had in her 5-foot-10 frame early Friday night as she tried to keep from getting posted up by 6-6 Awak Kuier. By halftime she had three fouls.
“It’s a disadvantage,” Mystics Coach Eric Thibault “There’s no way around it. And then they’re big on the three and four spots, too. So they finished in the paint way better than we did, and that’s probably the story of the game.
“Again, come here twice basically [without] three posts and playing the biggest team in the league. It’s the wrong game for it.”
Thibault and all of the Mystics (12-12) knew rebounding was the key against a Wings team that features 6-7 Teaira McCowan, 6-4 Satou Sabally, Kuier and 6-2 Natasha Howard. The previous meeting was a 17-point Wings victory July 2 in which they dominated the boards 54-24. That day, the Mystics had just lost Elena Delle Donne to an ankle injury the game before and were trying to adjust on the fly.
They were better prepared this time, having played several games without Delle Donne and Shakira Austin (hip). And they now had 6-4 Queen Egbo on the roster after a Fourth of July trade. Egbo, however, left 18 seconds after she checked in in the first quarter because of her own ankle injury, and she never returned. That left Thibault experimenting on defense, running a lot of zone in the second half.
The Wings bullied their way to a 43-29 halftime lead as they attacked the paint with lobs and converted second-chance points. Washington was behind 28-11 on the boards in the first half and allowed 34 points in the paint.
“We’ve handled the challenge well in general, big picture,” Thibault said. “But that doesn’t mean there’s not moments within games that we have to do a better job. When we make a mistake or they make a little run, especially on the road, you got to snap out of it. And we’re not just going to accept plays where we don’t help each other correctly defensively or we miss a block out or we don’t want to run. We’re not just going to accept that just because were shorthanded or in a bad situation.”
McCowan had 16 of her 18 points in the first half and finished with seven rebounds. Arike Ogunbowale added 18 on the night, while Satou Sabally posted 14 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. Howard clocked out with 14 points and nine rebounds. The night finished with the Wings, the No. 1 rebounding team in the league, up 48-21 in the rebounding battle and shooting 58.7 percent from the field. They also outscored the Mystics 60-28 in the paint.
Brittney Sykes (12 points, five rebounds, four assists, five steals) and Cloud (11 points, four rebounds, three assists, two steals) continued to lead the charge for the Mystics, who remain without three regular starters. Shatori Walker-Kimbrough added 14.
“It’s part of the game,” Walker-Kimbrough said. “It’s unfortunate. We’ve just got to come together. We got to really lean on each other. We’ve got to really pick each other up. We got another one. These games are coming quick. We have literally no time to feel sorry for ourselves.
“We can’t give up. These moments, they’re going to pay off in the end. If we can get through this, we can get through anything.”
Here’s what else to know about the Mystics’ loss:
Still fighting
Thibault talked earlier in the day about the team continuing to fight despite being shorthanded. With all the firepower missing, it would be easy to fall apart completely, but the Mystics have adjusted on both ends of the floor and continued to play hard instead of getting down on themselves. The Mystics came out of halftime full of energy and cut the lead to seven points in the third quarter, but that was as close as they got.
“One thing I’ve liked probably the most is we’ve competed constantly,” Thibault said before the game. “I think we had a good resilience to us. We’ve lost people or we’ve lost games, [but] we haven’t let it linger. Not even from game to game or from late game to the next morning, coming back in for practice or walk-through or whatever. We’ve had a nice bounce-back factor to this group. I think that’ll serve us well when we are whole again.”
Losing a numbers game
By the end of Friday’s game, the Mystics had six players available who started the season with the team — Cloud, Sykes, Myisha Hines-Allen, Tianna Hawkins, Li Meng and Walker-Kimbrough. The other three available are on hardship contracts — Cyesha Goree, Linnae Harper and Abby Meyers.
Delle Donne, Austin, Ariel Atkins (ankle sprain) and Kristi Toliver (plantar fasciitis) remain out without a clear-cut timeline for their return. That’s three starters and two Olympians.
Up next
The Mystics wrap up the three-game road trip with the Atlanta Dream on Sunday. Washington has lost the first two games of the swing. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/28/mystics-wings/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:40 | 1 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/28/mystics-wings/ |
ANKENY, Iowa (AP) — U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina has criticized fellow Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for supporting new standards that require teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”
“What slavery was really about was separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating,” Scott, the sole Black Republican in the Senate, told reporters on Thursday after a town hall in Ankeny. “So I would hope that every person in our country — and certainly running for president — would appreciate that.”
“People have bad days,” Scott added. “Sometimes they regret what they say. And we should ask them again to clarify their positions.”
DeSantis has been facing criticism from Florida teachers, civil rights leaders, President Joe Biden’s White House and even Black Republicans on the school standards. Vice President Kamala Harris, the nation’s first Black vice president, traveled to Florida last week to condemn the curriculum.
DeSantis fired back on Friday, saying that “part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left.”
Campaigning in Iowa, he added that he was “defending” Florida “against false accusations and against lies. And we’re going to continue to speak the truth.”
The back-and-forth marked a shift in campaign styles for both DeSantis and Scott, who have not directly critiqued each other and have instead focused much of their antagonism toward President Joe Biden. It also comes as DeSantis’ effort has endured a mid-campaign reset, making staffing cuts to accommodate campaign expenses.
Another Black Republican presidential candidate, former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, has also criticized DeSantis over the curriculum, as have Reps. Byron Donalds of Florida, Wesley Hunt of Texas and John James of Michigan, Trump allies who are among a handful of Black Republicans in Congress.
Scott’s comments came as he and DeSantis stumped in Iowa before the state Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner. At that gathering, 13 candidates in the GOP presidential primary field, including front-runner Donald Trump, will be addressing an expected 1,200 activists on Friday. Scott, part of the GOP’s most diverse presidential field ever, was asked for his opinion on the standards hours after DeSantis defended them to reporters.
“At the end of the day, you got to choose: Are you going to side with Kamala Harris and liberal media outlets or are you going to side with the state of Florida?” DeSantis said, citing Democrats’ criticism of the wording on slavery. “I think it’s very clear that these guys did a good job on those standards. It wasn’t anything that was politically motivated.”
Responding on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, to reporters’ posts of Scott’s video, a super PAC supporting DeSantis on Thursday night called the posts “incredibly sloppy or intentionally disingenuous,” reposting video of DeSantis’ defense of the curriculum earlier in the day.
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Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C., and can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-tim-scott-criticizes-ron-desantis-over-floridas-new-slavery-curriculum/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:44 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-tim-scott-criticizes-ron-desantis-over-floridas-new-slavery-curriculum/ |
NEW YORK — MacKenzie Gore ambled back to the visiting dugout after the fifth inning, his head down and his cap slightly tipped up on his head. Gore had made only one major mistake — a center-cut slider to Pete Alonso that wasn’t supposed to be located there. But that seems to be the theme of Gore’s season: a mistake or two that ruin what otherwise would have been a strong outing.
He walked two batters to open the inning. Then that slider hung in the air, then hung some more. And after Alonso connected with it, the ball carried and carried until it landed in the second deck in left-center field at Citi Field on Friday night. To that point, neither team could generate any offense. But that was one of two home runs Alonso hit in the Washington Nationals’ 5-1 loss to the New York Mets on Friday night.
“A slider down the middle is a big no-no for him, and that’s what he got,” Gore said. “And when he gets those, that’s what he does.”
The Nationals avoided an injury scare Friday night. Jeimer Candelario exited the game in the eighth inning after he tried to stretch a single into a double. He initially beat the throw but came off the bag and hit the arm of second base umpire Vic Carapazza as he tried to get back to the base. After the play, Candelario grabbed his arm and eventually left the field with Manager Dave Martinez and athletic trainer Paul Lessard. But after the game, Candelario was smiling and said, “Everything is good.” That was great news for the Nationals with the trade deadline around the corner. Candelario is the team’s most obvious candidate to be dealt.
Before the home run, Gore went toe-to-toe with Mets starter Max Scherzer. But as the Nationals know all too well — and as their youngsters learned the hard way Friday night — the margin for error is slim against Scherzer, even at 39.
Scherzer allowed just one run and struck out seven in seven innings. And though the Nationals recorded six hits against their former ace, they couldn’t string them together at the right time.
The Nationals’ best chance came in the second inning after Luis García doubled to put runners on second and third with one out. García is one of the few hitters who has had consistent success against Scherzer; he recorded a pair of hits, including a solo home run in the seventh inning, and now has six hits in 11 career at-bats against Scherzer. He recorded three hits total Friday.
“To be honest, I can’t even tell you,” García said. “I feel like maybe I go in there with a greater focus because it is Max Scherzer and he’s a very good pitcher. I think one of his best pitches, if not the best pitch, is his fastball and I’m a good fastball hitter. So maybe that’s it."
But his teammates weren’t so lucky. Ildemaro Vargas popped out to shallow center. Then, after Dominic Smith drew a four-pitch walk, Alex Call grounded out to third base to end the frame.
Scherzer relied heavily on his fastball to get the Nationals early before attacking primarily with his secondary pitches in the later innings. After García’s seventh-inning home run, Smith doubled for first hit in 19 at-bats against Scherzer. But Scherzer recorded the final two outs, getting Abrams to pop out to third base and end his outing.
Scherzer — like Gore earlier — ambled to the dugout, briefly peeking up at the fans as he walked into the home dugout. There, he was met with a handshake from Buck Showalter at the bottom of the stairs before getting high fives from his teammates.
At that point, Gore was out of the game, with a high-pitch count ending his outing after five innings. Of Gore’s 95 pitches, 20 were fouled off by the Mets. His fastball — which he throws 60 percent of the time — was fouled off 14 times. He got only two whiffs in 25 tries on that pitch. And when he was erratic, the Mets didn’t chase outside of the zone and drew four walks.
“I just didn’t get ahead of guys,” Gore said. “Hits happen. Some of those hits, they were not hit very hard. But when I’m behind in the count consistently, it’s tough to get guys out, and that’s why I had runners on every inning.”
Two of them came in the fifth inning — he walked Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez, the Mets’ eighth and ninth hitters, to open the frame. He spiked his rosin bag as pitching coach Jim Hickey came out for a mound visit. Yet it seemed as if he would find his way out of it after he retired the next two hitters on flyouts. But he couldn’t find a way to get out Alonso.
“Two bad walks and then a hanging slider, and it was 3-0,” Martinez said. “But the walks. I always talk about a leadoff walk, and then he walked the next guy. And you put yourself in a position to face a really good hitter.”
Alonso strolled down the first base line, admiring his 29th blast of the year. Gore looked for a brief second, then turned away. Keibert Ruiz looked down immediately and couldn’t bear to watch.
The seventh was more of the same — but with a different pitcher. Rico Garcia jumped ahead of Alonso 0-2 with two outs and a runner on second base. Alonso then fouled off two pitches and watched two balls to work the count even.
Garcia threw him a 2-2 fastball up in the zone that Alonso look to the opposite field in right-center. The ball kept carrying until Alex Call turned in hopes it would bounce off the wall in center. It never did. The Mets had extended their lead, and though the Nationals didn’t make many mistakes Friday night, Alonso made them pay when they did. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/28/nationals-mets-alonso-scherzer/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:46 | 1 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/28/nationals-mets-alonso-scherzer/ |
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Tom Durden, the Georgia district attorney who kick-started the prosecution of Ahmaud Arbery’s killing by calling in state investigators to take over the languishing case, has died at age 66.
The Atlantic Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office, which Durden led for 24 years before stepping down last year, confirmed Durden’s death in a Facebook post Friday. No cause of death was given.
During his career of nearly four decades, Durden served briefly as the second outside prosecutor overseeing the investigation into the February 2020 killing of Arbery. The 25-year-old Black man was fatally shot as he ran from white men in pickup trucks who chased him through their Georgia neighborhood. The shooter said he fired in self-defense.
The case stalled without charges for more than two months before Durden asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to take over from local police. GBI agents rapidly made arrests that led to three murder convictions. Durden stepped aside soon after the arrests, saying the case needed a DA with a larger staff.
“He played a significant role, as we know the others before him did nothing,” said Thea Brooks, one of Arbery’s aunts. “No matter how long he had it on his desk, he did the right thing.”
Following Arbery’s killing outside the port city of Brunswick in 2020, the local district attorney recused herself and the first outside prosecutor assigned, George Barnhill, opposed bringing criminal charges before he stepped aside.
Georgia’s attorney general then appointed Durden, who had the case for roughly a month amid a growing outcry for arrests. Durden asked the GBI to get involved after cellphone video of the killing leaked online May 5, 2020.
Father and son Greg and Travis McMichael were arrested on murder charges the day after GBI agents arrived in Brunswick. A neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, was charged soon after.
“The fact that he sent it to the GBI was a positive turn in the case for us, and I think he deserves credit for it,” said the Rev. John Perry, who led Brunswick’s NAACP chapter at the time Arbery was killed.
The job of prosecuting the McMichaels and Bryan was passed to the district attorney for Cobb County in metro Atlanta. All three men were ultimately convicted of murder in 2021 and sentenced to life in prison.
Durden joined the district attorney’s office as an assistant prosecutor in 1984, two years after earning his law degree from Mercer University. He was elected DA after his predecessor retired in 1998.
Durden prosecuted hundreds of criminal cases in the Atlantic Circuit, which covers six southeast Georgia counties outside Savannah.
“Mr. Durden was a true public servant to the State of Georgia for close to 40 years,” Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said in a statement. “My sincerest condolences to Tom’s family.”
In 1998, Durden successfully prosecuted four family members and a friend in the killing of Thurmon Martin, a case that would become known as Georgia’s infamous “tomato patch” murder.
Martin, 64, was shot while sleeping in May 1997 and buried behind his home in rural Ludowici. The case gained notoriety for the tomato plants growing atop Martin’s grave, as well as the defendants’ harrowing courtroom accounts of being abused by the slain man. | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-tom-durden-georgia-da-who-ordered-takeover-of-stalled-ahmaud-arbery-investigation-dies-at-66/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:50 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-tom-durden-georgia-da-who-ordered-takeover-of-stalled-ahmaud-arbery-investigation-dies-at-66/ |
The Washington Spirit arrived at Audi Field on Friday ready to shake off any lingering effects of last Saturday’s 6-0 loss to the North Carolina Courage, the largest defeat in club history.
Then came the rain — and with it an hour-plus weather delay. That break proved the night’s turning point: The Spirit side that emerged from the locker room after the storms looked significantly sharper than the one that had first taken the field two hours earlier.
Washington scored three times in the second half to come from behind and beat Gotham, 4-2. Striker Ashley Hatch had two goals, while 16-year-old midfielder Chloe Ricketts became the youngest scorer in NWSL history with her goal in the 70th minute. The win was the Spirit’s first in all competitions since June 18.
Playing without six regular starters — five players are on World Cup duty, while midfielder Inès Jaurena was suspended for a yellow card accumulation — the Spirit fielded a young lineup, including three rookies.
Gotham dictated the early pace of play, keeping Washington without any quality chances through the first 20 minutes. In the fourth minute, a shot bounced off the hands of Spirit keeper Nicole Barnhart and landed at the feet of Gotham forward Midge Purce (Good Counsel), who knocked it in to put the visitors ahead. Four minutes later, defender Jenna Nighswonger headed a cross into the top corner of the net to stretch Gotham’s lead.
In its blowout loss to the Courage, the Spirit managed only three shots after conceding the first goal. This time, it was able to muster a response. On a breakaway in the 25th minute, winger Lena Silano sent a through ball to Hatch. The striker fired a shot into the bottom right corner of the net for the Spirit’s first goal from open play since June 23.
Hatch’s goal gave the Spirit’s attack a jolt, but the game was halted in the 43rd minute because of storms in the area. After a delay of more than an hour, play resumed for two minutes plus added time before the sides headed back in for the halftime break.
Midfielder Camryn Biegalski found the equalizer for the Spirit in the 55th minute, finding the back of the net on an assist from defender Amber Brooks for her first career goal. From there, the goals followed at a quick pace.
The Spirit took its first lead of the night on Hatch’s strike from distance in the 63rd minute. In the 70th, she caught the ball on a break and fed a through ball in to Ricketts, who put it away for her own first career score.
Veteran Tori Huster made her first appearance in more than 20 months, playing 15 minutes in the second half. The 33-year-old midfielder, who has been with the Spirit since its inception in 2013, had not played since she tore her Achilles’ in November 2021.
The Spirit will face the Orlando Pride in its final Challenge Cup game next Friday. The top teams from each of the tournament’s three groups, plus the second-place team with the most points, will advance to the semifinals in September.
Washington is third in the East Division standings with six points. Gotham sits in second at seven points with one game in hand. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/28/spirit-gotham-fc-rain/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:52 | 0 | https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/07/28/spirit-gotham-fc-rain/ |
ROLLING FORK, Miss. (AP) — Streams of air whirled by Ida Cartlidge in every direction, but she couldn’t breathe.
Between the thin walls and above the shaky foundation of a mobile home, Cartlidge, 32, miraculously survived a March tornado that carved a path of destruction through Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Mobile home residents in the path of a twister’s fury often don’t live to recount the experience.
“It sounded like a real loud train coming through,” Cartlidge said. “And I could feel the wind, it was so powerful you couldn’t even breathe while you were in the air.”
Cartlidge and her husband, Charles Jones, 59, had forged a quiet life in Rolling Fork with their three sons. She worked in customer service for an appliance company and Jones for a local auto parts shop. They viewed Rolling Fork as a refuge from city life and an ideal place to raise kids. The family lived in a mobile home park behind Chuck’s Dairy Bar, a diner that had long been a nexus of local life for Rolling Fork residents.
Then the tornado tore through the park, making it a point of misery.
Most of the 14 people who died in Rolling Fork when the March 24 tornado hit the Mississippi Delta lived in the mobile home park, with large families crowding into one or two-bedroom units. Such living arrangements have been a way to offset the financial strain endemic to the Mississippi Delta, where poverty is prevalent and stable jobs are scarce.
Tornadoes in the United States are disproportionately killing more people in mobile or manufactured homes, especially in the South. Since 1996, tornadoes have killed 815 people in mobile or manufactured homes. That’s 53% of all the people killed in their homes during a tornado, according to an Associated Press data analysis of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tornado deaths.
Cramped living arrangements forced mobile home inhabitants to shelter just as they lived: with little space between them.
“The only thing I could tell them to do was get on the floor,” said Charles Jones, Cartlidge’s husband. “And I got on top. I got on top of my family.”
Just seconds before Cartlidge found herself burrowed beneath her husband on the mobile home’s living room floor, her father had called her. He had been watching the news and saw that a tornado had touched down in Rolling Fork.
Cartlidge heard car windows shattering outside. The home’s windows shattered next. She scooped up her 1-year-old son and dove to the floor, with her 11- and 12-year-old sons next to her and Jones atop them. They didn’t know the incoming winds had reached 200 mph (320 kph). The storm’s force was instead measured by the fear it induced.
“The only thing that’s holding a mobile home down are the little straps in the ground,” Cartlidge said. “It picked up the home one time, set it down. It picked it up again, set it down. It picked it up a third time, and we were in the air.”
Her future was suspended in the air alongside her home. “You don’t know what’s happening next, whether you’re going to live it through it or not,” she said.
The next thing Cartlidge remembers is lying with her back on the ground and the baby resting on her chest. He was the only member of the family who made it through the storm unscathed.
Her fear didn’t subside. “All you could hear were people screaming and hollering for help,” she recalled.
Cartlidge propped herself up with a piece of wood and walked to the highway. She could feel her bones shifting with every step.
She suffered a crushed pelvis bone and broken shoulder. One of her sons punctured a lung and had shattered bones in his spine and shoulder blade. Jones injured his ribs and spine.
Since returning from the hospital, the family has been living in a motel room only minutes down the highway from where their mobile home used to be. Rain storms still make Cartlidge and Jones anxious, as they experienced the raw force of twister first-hand.
“The tornado’s going to win every time,” Jones said. “It’s just like when a nail meets a tire.”
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Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mikergoldberg.
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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.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-we-were-in-the-air-mississippi-family-recounts-surviving-tornado-that-tore-mobile-home-apart/ | 2023-07-29T03:15:56 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-we-were-in-the-air-mississippi-family-recounts-surviving-tornado-that-tore-mobile-home-apart/ |
HOUSTON (AP) — Just moments before rap superstar Travis Scott took the stage at the deadly 2021 Astroworld festival, a contract worker had been so worried about what might happen after seeing people getting crushed that he texted an event organizer saying, “Someone’s going to end up dead,” according to a police report released Friday.
The texts by security contract worker Reece Wheeler were some of many examples in the nearly 1,300-page report in which festival workers highlighted problems and warned of possible deadly consequences. The report includes transcripts of concertgoers’ 911 calls and summaries of police interviews, including one with Scott conducted just days after the event.
The crowd surge at the Nov. 5, 2021, outdoor festival in Houston killed 10 attendees who ranged in age from 9 to 27. The official cause of death was compression asphyxia, which an expert likened to being crushed by a car. About 50,000 people attended the festival.
“Pull tons over the rail unconscious. There’s panic in people eyes. This could get worse quickly,” Reece Wheeler texted Shawna Boardman, one of the private security directors, at 9 p.m. Wheeler then texted, “I know they’ll try to fight through it but I would want it on the record that I didn’t advise this to continue. Someone’s going to end up dead.”
Scott’s concert began at 9:02 p.m. In their review of video from the concert’s livestream, police investigators said that at 9:13 p.m., they heard the faint sound of someone saying, “Stop the show.” The same request could also be heard at 9:16 p.m. and 9:22 p.m.
In an Aug. 19, 2022, police interview, Boardman’s attorneys told investigators that Boardman “saw things were not as bad as Reece Wheeler stated” and decided not to pass along Wheeler’s concerns to anyone else.
A grand jury declined to indict anyone who was investigated over the event, including Scott, Boardman and four other people.
During a police interview conducted two days after the concert, Scott told investigators that although he did see one person near the stage getting medical attention, overall the crowd seemed to be enjoying the show and he did not see any signs of serious problems.
“We asked if he at any point heard the crowd telling him to stop the show. He stated that if he had heard something like that he would have done something,” police said in their summary of Scott’s interview.
Hip-hop artist Drake, who performed with Scott at the concert, told police that it was difficult to see from the stage what was going on in the crowd and that he didn’t hear concertgoers’ pleas to stop the show.
Drake found out about the tragedy later that night from his manager, while learning more on social media, police said in their summary.
Marty Wallgren, who worked for a security consulting firm hired by the festival, told police that when he went backstage and tried to tell representatives for Scott and Drake that the concert needed to end because people had been hurt and might have died, he was told “Drake still has three more songs,” according to an interview summary.
Daniel Johary, a college student who got trapped in the crush of concertgoers and later used his skills working as an EMT in Israel to help an injured woman, told investigators hundreds of people had chanted for Scott to stop the music and that the chants could be heard “from everywhere.”
“He stated staff members in the area gave thumbs-up and did not care,” according to the police report.
Richard Rickeada, a retired Houston police officer who was working for a private security company at the festival, told investigators that from 8 a.m. the day of the concert, things were “pretty much in chaos,” according to a police summary of his interview. His concerns and questions about whether the concert should be held were “met with a lot of shrugged shoulders,” he said.
About 23 minutes into the concert, cameraman Gregory Hoffman radioed into the show’s production trailer to warn that “people were dying.” Hoffman was operating a large crane that held a television camera before it was overrun with concertgoers who needed medical help, police said.
The production team radioed Hoffman to ask when they could get the crane back in operation.
Salvatore Livia, who was hired to direct the live show, told police that following Hoffman’s dire warning, people in the production trailer understood that something was not right, but “they were disconnected to the reality of (what) was happening out there,” according to a police summary of Livia’s interview.
Concertgoer Christopher Gates, then 22, told police that by the second or third song in Scott’s performance, he came across about five people on the ground who he believed were already dead.
Their bodies were “lifeless, pale, and their lips were blue/purple,” according to the police report. Random people in the crowd – not medics – provided CPR.
The police report was released about a month after the grand jury in Houston declined to indict Scott on any criminal charges in connection with the deadly concert. Police Chief Troy Finner had said the report was being made public so that people could “read the entire investigation” and come to their own conclusions about the case. During a news conference after the grand jury’s decision, Finner declined to say what the overall conclusion of his agency’s investigation was or whether police should have stopped the concert sooner.
The report’s release also came the same day that Scott released his new album, “Utopia.”
More than 500 lawsuits were filed over the deaths and injuries at the concert, including many against concert promoter Live Nation and Scott. Some have since been settled.
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Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
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Find more AP coverage of the Astroworld festival: https://apnews.com/hub/astroworld-festival-deaths | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-worker-warned-organizer-someones-going-to-end-up-dead-before-crowd-surge-at-21-travis-scott-show/ | 2023-07-29T03:16:04 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-worker-warned-organizer-someones-going-to-end-up-dead-before-crowd-surge-at-21-travis-scott-show/ |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday the United States stands with countries fighting Chinese “bullying behavior” as he launched bilateral talks in Australia aimed at countering Beijing’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in the Australian city of Brisbane late Thursday ahead of annual bilateral meetings on Friday and Saturday that will focus on a deal to provide Australia, a defense treaty partner, with a fleet of submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology.
Ahead of a meeting with Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles, Austin said both countries share concerns about China’s break from international laws and norms that resolve disputes peacefully and without coercion.
“We’ve seen troubling P.R.C. coercion from the East China Sea, to the South China Sea, to right here in the Southwest Pacific,” Austin told reporters, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
“We’ll continue to support our allies and partners as they defend themselves from bullying behavior,” he added.
China has imposed a series of official and unofficial trade barriers in recent years against Australian exports including coal, wine, barley, beef, seafood and wood. The barriers are widely seen as a punitive reaction to Australian government policy that has cost Australian exporters as much as $15 billion a year.
Australia’s icy relationship with Beijing was thawing since a change of Australian government at elections last year. Meanwhile, the sharing of U.S. nuclear secrets with Australia takes that bilateral relationship to a new level.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is planning state visits to both the United States and China before the end of the year.
Under the AUKUS partnership — an acronym for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States — Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the United States and build five of a new AUKUS-class submarine in cooperation with Britain.
Australian media have focused on a letter signed by more than 20 Republican lawmakers to President Joe Biden that warned the deal would “unacceptably weaken the U.S. fleet” without a plan to boost U.S. submarine production.
Albanese said he remained “very confident” that the United States would deliver the three submarines.
The prime minister said he’d been reassured by discussions he had with Republicans and Democrats earlier in July at a NATO summit in Lithuania.
“What struck me was their unanimous support for AUKUS, their unanimous support for the relationship between the Australia and United States,” Albanese said.
Marles agreed the AUKUS program was on track.
“Congress can be a complicated place as legislation makes its way through it, but actually we’re encouraged by how quickly it is going through it and we are expecting that there will be lots of discussions on the way through,” Marles said.
“Fundamentally, we have reached an agreement with the Biden administration about how Australia acquires the nuclear-powered submarine capability and we’re proceeding along that path with pace,” he added.
Australia understood there was “pressure on the American industrial base” and would contribute to submarine production, Marles said. The AUKUS deal is forecast to cost Australia up to 368 billion Australian dollars ($246 billion) over 30 years.
Albanese publicly welcomed Austin and Blinken at a media event before the three began a meeting with Marles, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, U.S. Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy and Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd, a former prime minister.
“The relationship between Australia and the United States has never been stronger,” Albanese told the two visitors. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-australian-prime-minister-is-confident-the-us-will-deliver-nuclear-powered-submarines/ | 2023-07-29T03:16:10 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-australian-prime-minister-is-confident-the-us-will-deliver-nuclear-powered-submarines/ |
AUBURN, Maine (AP) — President Joe Biden — buoyed by new signs the economy is continuing on the upswing — took a swipe on Friday at House Republicans’ flirtations with an impeachment inquiry, quipping that GOP lawmakers may decide to impeach him because inflation is cooling down.
Standing in a textile manufacturing facility in Auburn Biden pointed to inflation statistics that showed the U.S. has the lowest rate of price increases among the world’s biggest economies. Though he was careful to say he was not taking a victory lap on the economy, Biden suggested that his Republican opponents in Congress may need to find a fresh line of attack against him because of improving economic circumstances.
“Maybe they’ll decide to impeach me because it’s coming down,” Biden said. “I don’t know. I’d love that one.”
Earlier this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy made his most direct remarks yet that GOP lawmakers could launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct related to Hunter Biden, the president’s son. However, the California Republican has acknowledged privately that it’s too soon to know whether the president was aware of — much less involved in — his son’s financial dealings in a way that would rise to the level of impeachable conduct.
While McCarthy publicly floated the inquiry this week, the White House has engaged little with those efforts, instead focused on promoting “Bidenomics” and the president’s domestic agenda. Aides have repeatedly played down any inquiry as a hypothetical and pointed out the hesitation among McCarthy’s own ranks about pursuing impeachment against the president.
“We’re not going to get into what House Republicans want to do, may not do, hypotheticals, that’s on them,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Air Force One en route to Maine earlier Friday. “What I can speak to is exactly what we’re doing today, right? We’re going to Maine. We’re going to be able to talk about an issue that matters to Americans: investing in America, manufacturing, bringing good union-paying jobs back to America.”
Indeed, that was the focus of the White House on Friday, as Biden used the trip to Maine to sign an executive order that would encourage companies to manufacture new inventions in the United States. It was Biden’s first trip to the state as president.
“I’m not here to declare victory on the economy. We have more work to do,” Biden said. But “we have a plan for turning things around. ‘Bidenomics’ is just another way of saying restoring the American dream.”
The Democrat won three out of the state’s four electoral votes in 2020 and is seeking to shore up his support in the state. Maine allocates its electoral votes by congressional district, and Biden lost the vote in the state’s 2nd District, which provided the only electoral vote in New England for then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.
By going to that district on Friday, Biden sought to show its blue-collar voters that he’s committed to them, as a single electoral vote could be critical in a narrow 2024 presidential election.
Democrats can compete in Maine’s 2nd District as Rep. Jared Golden has been its congressman since 2019. But Golden has also been one of the Democratic lawmakers who has openly criticized Biden over his handling of debt limit talks this year and the administration’s forgiveness of student debt that has since been overturned by the Supreme Court. Despite distancing himself from the White House on some policies, Golden traveled with Biden on Air Force One on Friday.
And shortly before Biden spoke at Auburn Manufacturing Inc., Golden noted to the audience that “it’s no secret” he doesn’t always agree with the president’s agenda but that he “proudly” supports Bidenomics.
Republicans have said that Biden’s policies have led to higher inflation. Consumer prices climbed to a four-decade high last summer, but inflation has eased over the past 12 months to a rate of 3% annually.
“ Bidenomics is hurting working people in my district,” said Maine state Rep. Joshua Morris, a Republican. “The cost of groceries, heating oil, gas, health care and electricity have gone up as a result of Joe Biden’s policies. He should be apologizing to us while he’s here, not bragging.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee went on the attack against Golden, calling him “Joe Biden’s loyal foot soldier” who had backed inflation-boosting policies earlier in his presidency.
The White House outlined the executive order being signed by Biden, which would improve the transparency of federal research and development programs to meet the administration’s goals for domestic manufacturing. The order asks agencies to weigh U.S. national security and economic interests when determining if domestic manufacturing requirements should be broadened.
The order also urges federal agencies to consider domestic production when investing in research and development and to use their own legal authorities to encourage manufacturing new technologies in the U.S. But when goods cannot be made in the U.S., the order instructs the Commerce Department to create a clearer and timelier process for receiving a waiver.
Auburn Manufacturing Inc., where Biden spoke Friday, is a maker of heat- and fire-resistant fabrics for industries that include shipbuilding, oil refining and electricity generation. The company challenged China for its unfair trade practices regarding amorphous silica fabric, or ASF, which is a heat-resistant material.
Biden was also scheduled to appear at a fundraiser in Freeport, Maine, later Friday.
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Kim reported from Washington. AP writer David Sharp contributed to this report from Portland, Maine. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-biden-will-sign-an-executive-order-in-maine-encouraging-new-inventions-to-be-made-in-the-us/ | 2023-07-29T03:16:38 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-biden-will-sign-an-executive-order-in-maine-encouraging-new-inventions-to-be-made-in-the-us/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats are demanding the release of a transcript from a new FBI witness that they say contradicts Republicans’ claims in the expanding congressional inquiry into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on House Oversight Committee, sent a letter Friday to Rep. James Comer, the Republican chair of the committee, asking him to produce the transcribed interview this month with an FBI agent who worked on the investigation into the younger Biden’s taxes and foreign business dealings. The witness was interviewed on July 17.
“This failure to release a transcript is the latest in your troubling pattern of concealing key evidence in order to advance a false and distorted narrative about your ‘investigation of Joe Biden’ that has not only failed to develop any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden but has, in fact, uncovered substantial evidence to the contrary,” Raskin wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Associated Press.
The Maryland lawmaker claimed the closed-door interview with the unidentified agent conducted by committee staff “directly undermined” testimony released by Republicans last month from two IRS whistleblowers who allege that the Justice Department interfered with their yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden.
Republicans said the transcript will be released but is not yet ready. “The transcript is going through the normal review process where the witness reviews it and makes any corrections needed,” the GOP majority tweeted Thursday night. “Once that process has been completed, we will release it.”
House rules allow only the majority party to release transcribed interviews from a committee investigation, meaning minority Democrats have no direct power over the matter.
Raskin says in the letter that it is unusual for the release of a transcript to take this long. However, it is not unusual for committee staff to handle whistleblowers cautiously and keep sensitive information tightly held.
The letter from Raskin comes days after Hunter Biden’s plea deal in a criminal case unraveled during a court hearing. A federal judge in the case raised concerns about the terms of the agreement. Republicans like Comer claimed vindication, having slammed the agreement as a “sweetheart deal.”
“The judge did the obvious thing, they put a pause on the plea deal, so I think that was progress,” Comer said Wednesday. “I think it adds credibility to what we’re doing.”
The president’s youngest son was charged last month with two misdemeanor crimes of failure to pay more than $100,000 in taxes on over $1.5 million in income in both 2017 and 2018. He had been expected to plead guilty Wednesday after he made an agreement with prosecutors, who wanted two years of probation.
Prosecutors said Wednesday that Hunter Biden remains under active investigation, but would not reveal details. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-democrats-claim-the-gop-is-withholding-evidence-contradicting-claims-in-hunter-biden-probe/ | 2023-07-29T03:16:44 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-democrats-claim-the-gop-is-withholding-evidence-contradicting-claims-in-hunter-biden-probe/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump asked a federal appeals court Friday to reverse a federal judge’s decision to keep his hush-money criminal case in a New York state court that the former president claims is “very unfair” to him.
Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan after U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein last week rejected his bid to move the case to federal court, where his lawyers were primed to argue he was immune from prosecution.
U.S. law allows criminal prosecutions to be moved from state to federal court if they involve actions taken by federal government officials as part of their official duties, but Hellerstein ruled that the hush-money case involved a personal matter, not presidential duties.
Trump’s appeal notice came at the end of another busy week of legal action for the twice-indicted Republican as he seeks a return to the White House in next year’s election. On Thursday, he was indicted on new criminal charges in a separate case in federal court in Florida involving allegations that he illegally hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting the hush-money case and fought to keep it in state court, declined to comment on Trump’s appeal.
Trump pleaded not guilty April 4 in state court to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements made to his longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen for his role in paying $130,000 to the porn actor Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
Cohen also arranged for the National Enquirer to pay Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for the rights to her story about an alleged affair, which the supermarket tabloid then squelched in a dubious journalism practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
Trump denied having sexual encounters with either woman. His lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and not part of any cover-up.
He is scheduled to stand trial in state court on March 25, 2024. In the meantime, his lawyers have asked the state court judge presiding over the case, Juan Manuel Merchan, to step aside, arguing that he’s biased in part because his daughter does political consulting work for some of Trump’s Democratic rivals. Trump has referred to Merchan as “a Trump-hating judge” with a family full of “Trump haters.” The judge has yet to rule on the request.
In seeking to try the hush-money case tried in federal court, Trump’s lawyers have argued that some of his alleged conduct amounted to official presidential duties because it occurred in 2017 while he was president, including checks he purportedly wrote while sitting in the Oval Office.
Moving the case from state court to federal court would have significant legal and practical consequences for Trump. In federal court, for example, his lawyers could then try to get the charges dismissed on the grounds that federal officials have immunity from prosecution over actions taken as part of their official job duties.
A shift to federal court would also mean a more politically diverse jury pool — drawing not only from heavily Democratic Manhattan, where Trump is wildly unpopular, but also from suburban counties north of the city where he has more political support. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-donald-trump-appeals-judges-decision-to-keep-hush-money-case-in-new-york-state-court/ | 2023-07-29T03:16:50 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-donald-trump-appeals-judges-decision-to-keep-hush-money-case-in-new-york-state-court/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — A California college where President Barack Obama started his undergraduate studies will no longer give special treatment to the children of alumni.
Occidental College, a private liberal arts school in Los Angeles, is the latest school to end legacy admissions in the wake of a Supreme Court decision removing race from college admissions decisions.
A campus letter from the school’s president said an applicant’s family ties to Occidental alumni “could be considered” in the past but had only “minimal impact” on decisions.
“Still, to ensure we are removing any potential barriers to access and opportunity, Occidental will no longer ask applicants about alumni relationships as part of the application,” President Harry J. Elam Jr. said in a campus message on Wednesday. He cited the Supreme Court’s decision.
The school of about 2,000 students is known for being the campus where Obama began his college career in 1979. Obama spent two years at Occidental before transferring to Columbia University. Obama gave his first political speech at the college in 1981, urging its leaders to divest from South Africa.
An Occidental spokesman said Obama was not a legacy student and his parents did not attend the school.
Colleges across the nation have faced mounting pressure to end legacy admissions following the Supreme Court’s decision. Seen as an extra perk for the white and wealthy, opponents say it’s no longer defensible without a counterbalance in affirmative action.
Occidental announced the change a week after Wesleyan University in Connecticut ended legacy admissions. An applicant’s family connection to Wesleyan graduate “indicates little about that applicant’s ability to succeed at the university,” the school’s president wrote.
The U.S. Education Department is now investigating Harvard’s use of the practice after a civil rights group filed a complaint alleging that legacy admissions are discriminatory and given an unfair boost to white students. The complaint from Lawyers for Civil Rights argues that students with legacy ties are up to seven times more likely to be admitted to Harvard, can make up nearly a third of a class and that about 70% are white.
Opponents have redoubled their efforts after the end of affirmative action. The NAACP has asked more than 1,500 colleges to end legacy admissions this month, and the group Ed Mobilizer revived a campaign urging alumni of 30 prestigious colleges to withhold donations until their schools end the practice.
Democrats in Congress reintroduced legislation Wednesday that would cut federal money from colleges that favor students based on their ties to alumni or donors. State legislators in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York have proposed similar bills after Colorado banned the practice at public universities in 2021.
Some colleges defend the practice, saying it builds an alumni community and encourages donations. It’s unclear how many schools use the practice, but it’s most common at the nation’s wealthiest and most selective colleges.
Some colleges abandoned the policy long before the Supreme Court opinion, including Amherst College and Johns Hopkins University. Some other prestigious schools say they have never used it, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Occidental’s shift was announced among other efforts to promote campus diversity. The school will also expand outreach to schools with higher concentrations of low-income students and will work to increase the number of students transferring from community colleges, the president said in his letter.
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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-obamas-first-college-is-latest-to-end-legacy-admissions/ | 2023-07-29T03:16:56 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-obamas-first-college-is-latest-to-end-legacy-admissions/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Japan and South Korea next month for a summit at Camp David, the White House announced Friday.
The Aug. 18 meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is the latest sign of warming relations between Japan and South Korea as they move to set aside generations of tensions and mistrust while the United States deepens its commitment to Asia.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the leaders “will discuss expanding trilateral cooperation across the Indo-Pacific and beyond.” Expected topics include the threat posed by North Korea and ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and with the Pacific Islands.
The invitation spun out of a brief photo-op that the three leaders had at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, in May. The Biden administration has been urging stronger economic and defense ties between South Korea and Japan as it looks to bolster the region against China’s assertive territorial moves, as well as to secure their cooperation to support Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-president-biden-to-host-the-leaders-of-japan-and-korean-for-an-august-summit-at-camp-david/ | 2023-07-29T03:17:02 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-president-biden-to-host-the-leaders-of-japan-and-korean-for-an-august-summit-at-camp-david/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly said he is “fine” since he froze up midsentence during a press conference on Wednesday. And now his office is trying to tamp down speculation that he might not fill out his term as leader because of his health.
In a statement, his office said McConnell appreciates the continued support of his colleagues and “plans to serve his full term in the job they overwhelmingly elected him to do.”
The statement, first reported by Politico, comes after McConnell, 81, has suffered health problems in recent months. At his weekly press conference this week, he froze and stared vacantly for about 20 seconds before his GOP colleagues standing behind him grabbed his elbows and asked if he wanted to go back to his office. He later returned to the news conference and answered questions as if nothing had happened.
When asked about the episode, he said he was “fine,” a statement he repeated in a hallway to reporters later that day. Neither McConnell nor his office would answer questions about whether he got medical help afterward.
Even as McConnell tried to brush off the concerns, the episode raised new questions among his colleagues about his health and also whether McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and has served as Republican leader since 2007, might soon step aside from his leadership post.
He was elected to a two-year term as leader in January by a large majority of his conference, despite an insurgent challenge from Florida Sen. Rick Scott. He would be up for re-election as leader again after the 2024 elections.
By then, he will have to decide also if he wants to run again for another Senate term. He is up for re-election in 2026.
In March, McConnell suffered a concussion and a broken rib after falling and hitting his head after a dinner event at a hotel. He didn’t return to the Senate for almost six weeks. He has been using a wheelchair in the airport while commuting back and forth to Kentucky. And his speech has recently sounded more halting.
But McConnell, famously reticent and often private about his personal life and health, has said very little about what is going on.
Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said after Wednesday’s episode that McConnell’s job as leader calls for more transparency than it would for others.
“We should find out, you know, fairly soon what happened and how serious it is,” Cramer said. “But I don’t have to tell you, Mitch is also, as an individual, a pretty private guy. So we’ll see.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said he talked to McConnell on Wednesday night and he seemed “strong and alert.” But he said what happened at the news conference on Wednesday was disturbing to watch.
“Mitch is strong, he’s stubborn as a mule,” Cruz said. “My prayers are with them. I hope that — we’re going into the August recess — I hope he has time to fully recuperate.”
GOP senators who are seen as potential successors have been cautious in their reaction.
“He’s fine, he’s back to work,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican and one of the senators standing behind McConnell when he froze up.
“I support Senator McConnell as long as he wants to serve as leader,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, another potential replacement.
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 3 Senate Republican and a former orthopedic surgeon, guided McConnell back to his office to rest during the news conference. Afterwards, he told reporters that he has been concerned since McConnell was injured earlier this year, “and I continue to be concerned.”
Barrasso then added: “I said I was concerned when he fell and hit his head a number of months ago and was hospitalized. And I think he’s made a remarkable recovery, he’s doing a great job leading our conference and was able to answer every question the press asked him today.”
Several other GOP senators projected confidence in the Republican leader.
“I do have confidence in his leadership,” said Wyoming Sen. Cynthia Lummis. “At lunch yesterday, he spoke. He was completely on his game using numbers that were pulled out of his head and he was completely with it. So I don’t know what precipitated the freeze, but he’ll be careful to evaluate his own capabilities.”
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said he was “a little concerned” after the news conference.
“He said that he got a little overheated, a little dehydrated,” said Marshall, who is also a doctor. “That’s what it looks like to me. I can tell you, he’s got a strong, strong voice in our conference. He’s providing steady leadership. And I think he’s doing a great job as leader.”
McConnell had polio in his early childhood and he has long acknowledged some difficulty as an adult in climbing stairs. In addition to his fall in March, he also tripped and fell four years ago at his home in Kentucky, causing a shoulder fracture that required surgery.
The Republican leader carried on with his full schedule after the episode on Wednesday. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he spoke with his Republican counterpart at an event Wednesday evening for Major League Baseball owners.
“I said I’m so glad you’re here,” Schumer said. “And he made a very good speech.”
The Republican leader is one of several senators who have been absent due to health issues this year. Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, 90, was out of the Senate for more than two months as she recovered from a bout of shingles. And Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., 53, took leave for several weeks to get treatment for clinical depression.
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Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro and AP videojournalist Mike Pesoli contributed to this report. | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-sen-mcconnell-says-he-plans-to-serve-his-full-term-as-leader-despite-questions-about-his-health/ | 2023-07-29T03:17:08 | 0 | https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/ap-politics/ap-sen-mcconnell-says-he-plans-to-serve-his-full-term-as-leader-despite-questions-about-his-health/ |