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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Christine Sinclair. Megan Rapinoe. Sarina Bolden.
Like many players in the Women’s World Cup, all three stars built their skills at the U.S. collegiate level.
Of the 736 players competing at this year’s Women’s World Cup, 137 have roots in American college-level soccer, according to the NCAA. The total includes 16 players who currently compete for Division I schools or lower divisions.
Across the 32 teams that qualified for the group stage, more than one in every six players has had a career stop at an American school.
Not all the NCAA athletes in the tournament are tied to the United States.
Canada has 22 of 23 athletes who played or still play on U.S. college teams, most of any team in the tournament. That includes Sinclair, the the all-time leader in international goals for men and women, who played at the University of Portland.
The United States ranks second with 20 players. Rapinoe also played at Portland, but Alyssa Thompson, Trinity Rodman, and Lindsey Horan all turned professional without playing a college match. Horan also did not play for a high school team.
More than 70 U.S. schools are represented in the 2023 tournament, with Florida State the leader with eight current or former players competing. Stanford and North Carolina each have six, Penn State has five and four universities have four former players.
Even schools with lesser-known soccer programs have players competing in New Zealand and Australia. Hilary Jaen of Panama plays for Jones County Community College in Mississippi, Carleigh Frilles of the Philippines plays for Coastal Carolina and Chiara Singarella of Argentina plays for South Alabama. Erin Nayler of New Zealand previously played at Purdue Fort Wayne in Indiana.
TITLE IX
The success of American college soccer can trace its roots back just over 50 years, with the introduction of Title IX. As the U.S. government required universities to establish equal opportunities for men and women in education, those protections – and funding – spread to college athletics.
“The U.S. was providing one of the only games in town so to speak, in terms of opportunities for women to get some kind of compensation,” said Ellen Staurowsky, a professor in sports media at Ithaca College.
Title IX drew female athletes from outside the United States to American schools. Since the passage of Title IX, the number of female athletes competing in NCAA athletics has increased seven-fold and currently represents 44% of all university athletes, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
NCAA TRENDS
In 2021, there were 1,464 international student-athletes playing in NCAA Division I and Division II women’s soccer.
Traditional soccer powerhouses such as Germany and Sweden are sending significant numbers of players to college soccer, even though they have developmental programs of their own. There were 114 from Sweden and 128 from Germany in 2021.
In that same year, NCAA teams had 38 players from New Zealand, 35 players from the Netherlands, 16 players from Japan, and 5 players from South Africa.
“Then you would see those women going back to their own countries, taking what they learned with them,” Staurowsky said. “And you can begin to see how the sport begins to expand out.”
Penn State women’s soccer coach Erica Dambach has seen the collegiate process up close for some time. She’s coached at the Division I level since 1997, won the national title in 2015, and worked as an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s national teams at both the youth and senior levels.
“Until these players are making millions, I think an education is going to be the most important thing for these young women,” Dambach said. “I don’t think it’s for everyone, you have to be invested in getting your education.”
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM
That can be easier than it sounds.
“Educational systems around the globe are so different that our international students really don’t know how to navigate the (U.S.) system,” said Nicole LaVoi, a former collegiate tennis coach and the director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota.
Coumba Sow, a Swiss midfielder, attended Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York, for two years before transferring to play Division I soccer at Oklahoma State.
“I didn’t understand the system. I was in a rush to just go to the States,” Sow said. “I wanted to keep on learning a language and studying and also play soccer. It’s a lot of paperwork, so I just looked at the facility. I was like, ‘Oh, New York,’ and I went. Then I got there I was like, ‘OK, maybe I should have checked it out better.’”
For New Zealand forward Gabi Rennie, taking the pathway to Division I soccer was an easy decision after watching others succeed. Rennie is entering her final year of NCAA eligibility at Arizona State after spending two seasons at Indiana.
“I wasn’t too sure what to do. But obviously, the college circuit was a really good option,” Rennie said. “Being able to kind of look to the likes of Ali Riley and Katie Bowen and the likes of those girls that had done the college circuit was cool, and just opened those doors for me.”
A PROVING GROUND
Katrina Guillou, a starting forward for the Philippines, spent four years at North Carolina–Wilmington. Her time playing soccer in Wilmington was pivotal to her career.
“The way the season is, with everything so condensed into the three-month span, playing two games every week, I think it really helps build the stamina that’s needed,” Guillou said. “And coming to this level, I think I’ve been able to build on top of that.”
Like many others, Sow saw her experience with American teams impact her style of play.
“Before I went to the U.S., I wasn’t really a physical player,” said Sow. “I learned how to fight in the U.S. because it’s a lot, a lot of long balls. You have to fight for the second ball. And before, I was just a technical player.”
Jody Brown of Jamaica was named the best young players in CONCACAF at the age of 16 and now plays for Florida State.
“The coaches helped us,” said Brown of Florida State. “I feel like college also prepared me for this moment and I’m just so grateful for that and the work that I’ve put in to get to this point because it’s all paid off right now.”
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Joe Lister is a student in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
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Contributing reporters included Luke Vargas in Hamilton and Max Ralph in Auckland, students in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State; and Clay Witt in Sydney, a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.yourbasin.com/sports/ap-several-stars-at-the-womens-world-cup-honed-their-skills-with-us-collegiate-teams/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:17 | 1 | https://www.yourbasin.com/sports/ap-several-stars-at-the-womens-world-cup-honed-their-skills-with-us-collegiate-teams/ |
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.”
by: AP
Posted:
Updated: | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-russian-military-says-it-shot-down-a-ukrainian-missile-over-a-southern-russian-city-accuses-kyiv-of-a-terror-attack/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:21 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-russian-military-says-it-shot-down-a-ukrainian-missile-over-a-southern-russian-city-accuses-kyiv-of-a-terror-attack/ |
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid watched his team work out in pads for the first time since their Super Bowl triumph last February and saw his players’ energy rise.
“Naturally it does that,” Reid said. “But I like the way they did it, how they got after each other.”
The defending champions ratcheted up the competition for an hour, 40 minutes in sweltering conditions as the heat index soared into the mid-90s.
The air wasn’t all that was hot, like when cornerback Dicaprio Bootle continued hacking at the football in the grasp of tight end Travis Kelce after a play. Cornerback Lamar Jackson raised eyebrows when he delivered a late hit on receiver Kekoa Crawford out of bounds.
Reid doesn’t mind trash-talking and spirited play as long as players keep their wits about them.
“They’re going to jaw,” Reid said. “It’s hot, humid, they’re going to jaw a little bit. As long as there are no punches thrown we’re all right.”
The Chiefs dug in during practice for three separate periods of 11-on-11, along with a nine-on-seven run session.
However, the most anticipated session in Friday’s practice focused on offensive and defensive linemen facing off in pass-rushing scenarios.
“It’s you mano a mano,” guard Trey Smith said. “All the technical details, every little piece matters. Being able to lock in those little seconds and get your job done.”
Linebacker Willie Gay said the hard, hot practice was tailor made for Reid. Although it was grueling, “I told the guys, as long as we continue to get better, it’s going to make the games and preseason even easier, and we’ll start winning,” he continued.
There’s rust to knock off whenever the pads first come on.
“You have some things that you got to clean up, some things you can be a little tighter technique-wise, but it’s always good to put the pads back on,” Smith said. “It’s always good knowing the season’s around the corner.”
Off the field, defensive tackle Chris Jones held out for seventh day and Reid, who hasn’t communicated with Jones recently, didn’t know when the holdout would end.
“We’re moving fast and furious even though he’s not here,” Reid said.
The 29-year-old-Jones is set to earn $19.5 million in base salary this season in the final year of a four-year extension signed in 2020. The All-Pro is seeking an extension that would make him the league’s second-highest-paid defensive tackle behind Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald, whose contract sports an annual average value of $31.67 million.
Jones has been fined $50,000 fine for each missed day of training camp missed, a total that’s grown to $350,000 00 so far. If Jones doesn’t report by Aug. 13, he will be assessed an additional fine of $1.147 for missing the team’s preseason opener against New Orleans.
NOTES: Linebacker Nick Bolton returned to practice Friday following a brief illness, but fellow linebacker Drue Tranquill exited practice early due to a sprained neck. Defensive end Mike Danna left with a strained calf while tight end Jody Fortson is undergoing further examination on a shoulder injury. Wide receiver Kadarius Toney expects to miss the remainder of training camp after surgery Tuesday for a torn meniscus.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.yourbasin.com/sports/ap-super-bowl-champion-chiefs-hold-hot-tough-practice-in-1st-day-of-pads/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:24 | 1 | https://www.yourbasin.com/sports/ap-super-bowl-champion-chiefs-hold-hot-tough-practice-in-1st-day-of-pads/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-salvage-crews-board-a-cargo-ship-burning-off-the-netherlands-the-smoke-and-flames-are-easing/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:28 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-salvage-crews-board-a-cargo-ship-burning-off-the-netherlands-the-smoke-and-flames-are-easing/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As Bronny James continues to recover after going into cardiac arrest, his Southern California teammates have been at practice to prepare for a 10-day exhibition tour of Greece and Croatia that begins next week.
The tour will run from from Aug. 5-15 and see the Trojans visit Athens and Mykonos, Greece, and Dubrovnik, Croatia. Teams are allowed to go on a foreign tour once every four years under NCAA rules.
James was discharged from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Thursday and is resting at home, according to a statement from the hospital. His father, Lakers superstar LeBron James, also posted on social media that his family is “safe and healthy.”
Bronny James will continue to undergo tests to determine the cause of his cardiac arrest, which occurred Monday morning during a workout at USC’s Galen Center.
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart abruptly stops beating, because of a problem with its electrical activity. While uncommon in young people, sudden cardiac arrest is the leading medical cause of death in young athletes. Some studies have estimated one sudden cardiac death in 50,000 to 80,000 young athletes each year.
No information has been made public about what may have caused Bronny James’ cardiac arrest. But one of the most common causes in young athletes is an underlying problem with the heart’s structure, such as a genetic condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that leads to a thickened heart muscle more prone to irregular electrical activity. A more rare cause is commotio cordis, which occurs when someone receives a sharp blow to the chest during a specific part of the heartbeat’s cycle — what happened to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin earlier this year.
James was the second high-profile USC basketball recruit to go into cardiac arrest in the last year. Vincent Iwuchuwku also was stricken during a workout last July, but the 7-foot-1 center returned to the court six months later and appeared in 14 games.
It’s too soon to know how James’ playing career could be affected, especially without a lot of information being made public. Various experts point to James’ quick move out of intensive care and being released three days later as encouraging.
The upcoming trip is important for the Trojans as James recovers. USC had the nation’s fourth-ranked recruiting class, including the top-rated player in guard Isaiah Collier.
James committed to the Trojans in May after the 6-foot-3 18-year-old became one of the nation’s top prospects as a two-way point guard for Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth, California.
He is the sixth McDonald’s All-American to come to USC since Andy Enfield became coach in 2013.
With his family fame and huge social media following, Bronny James also has the top name, image and likeness valuation in sports at $6.3 million, as estimated by On3.com. He is the oldest of LeBron and Savannah James’ three children.
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AP Sports Writer Greg Beacham and AP Health & Science Writer Lauran Neergard contributed to this report.
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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/lebron-james | https://www.yourbasin.com/sports/ap-usc-still-preparing-for-a-european-tour-as-bronny-james-recovers-at-home-after-cardiac-arrest/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:32 | 1 | https://www.yourbasin.com/sports/ap-usc-still-preparing-for-a-european-tour-as-bronny-james-recovers-at-home-after-cardiac-arrest/ |
10 dogs die after air conditioning in truck fails during traffic delay
HOBART, Ind. (WLS) - Ten dogs died in Indiana during a drive from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Michigan.
Authorities said the driver did not know the air conditioning in the truck’s cargo failed.
Police arrived at a Lake Station, Indiana, gas station Thursday night for a report that 19 German shepherds became overheated while being transported to a training facility.
Ten of the dogs died as a result, according to officials.
WARNING: Some may find the content of this video disturbing.
The Humane Society of Hobart was called to the scene.
Police in Lake Station say the driver of the van, who picked the dogs up from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was bound for a training facility in Michigan, was unaware that the air conditioning in the cargo area of the truck failed in the sweltering heat.
“We had cooling vans and animal care and control vehicles ready to transport. And because we were asking for that paperwork, it seemed to make the owner mad and so he said that he would not allow us to help,” Jenny Webber, with the Humane Society of Hobart, said.
Lake Station police posted a narrative of the situation on Facebook, calling it a “freak event” and not a matter of neglect on the part of the truck’s driver.
They went on to write the “scene was chaotic and took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
The humane society said they believe the dogs were traveling to a Michigan trainer to become police dogs.
“This is truly a sad day for all of us,” Webber added.
Five German shepherds were still being treated in Lake Station and will go into the care of the humane society unless the owner claims the dogs.
The record-breaking temperatures stretching from coast-to-coast sparked heat alerts in multiple states.
Copyright 2023 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.kait8.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:35 | 0 | https://www.kait8.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-singapore-hangs-first-woman-in-19-years-after-she-was-convicted-of-trafficking-31-grams-of-heroin/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:35 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-singapore-hangs-first-woman-in-19-years-after-she-was-convicted-of-trafficking-31-grams-of-heroin/ |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant “X” sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform.
City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons.
The X appeared after San Francisco police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand’s iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they hadn’t taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.
Any replacement letters or symbols would require a permit to ensure “consistency with the historic nature of the building” and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign, Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection said earlier this week.
Erecting a sign on top of a building also requires a permit, Hannan said Friday.
“Planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign. The city is opening a complaint and initiating an investigation,” he said in an email.
Musk unveiled a new “X” logo to replace Twitter’s famous blue bird as he remakes the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year. The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday.
Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has long been fascinated with the letter X and had already renamed Twitter’s corporate name to X Corp. after he bought it in October. One of his children is called “X.” The child’s actual name is a collection of letters and symbols.
On Friday afternoon, a worker on a lift machine made adjustments to the sign and then left. | https://www.yourbasin.com/technology/ap-technology/ap-x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate-permit-violation/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:39 | 0 | https://www.yourbasin.com/technology/ap-technology/ap-x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate-permit-violation/ |
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Typhoon Doksuri weakened into a tropical storm late Friday night after bringing heavy winds and rain that left more than a million people without power in southern China.
After making landfall Friday morning in southern Fujian province, where at least 400,000 people were evacuated, the storm flooded streets and toppled electric transmission towers in the province. Over a million households were left without power, according to the state-backed Xiamen Evening News.
The typhoon was downgraded to a tropical storm at 11 p.m. Friday night, China’s state-owned broadcaster CCTV announced.
Businesses and summer school classes had been ordered suspended and the public was urged to stay indoors. In the city of Quanzhou by China’s southern coast, authorities reported some 50 individuals sustained minor injuries. Residents shared photos on social media showing downed trees with roots fully out of the ground Saturday morning.
The tropical storm is expected to move its way farther inland in China, bringing heavy rains to the capital, Beijing.
Earlier in the week, the storm grazed past Taiwan’s main island after hitting the Philippines ‘ main island of Luzon, where it produced landslides, flooding and downed trees. The storm displaced thousands and caused 41 deaths — including 27 killed in the capsizing of a passenger ship. About 20 others remained missing, including four coast guard personnel whose boat overturned while on a rescue mission in hard-hit Cagayan province, officials said Saturday, adding that they were monitoring another approaching storm. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-typhoon-doksuri-is-downgraded-to-tropical-storm-status-as-it-leaves-southern-china/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:42 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-typhoon-doksuri-is-downgraded-to-tropical-storm-status-as-it-leaves-southern-china/ |
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.
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AP reporter Jim Gomez contributed from Manila, Philippines. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-typhoon-doksuri-makes-landfall-in-china-after-bringing-deadly-landslides-to-philippines/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:49 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-typhoon-doksuri-makes-landfall-in-china-after-bringing-deadly-landslides-to-philippines/ |
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. It cut its caseload by 60%, or 200,000 people. 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. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-un-says-its-forced-to-cut-food-aid-to-millions-globally-because-of-a-funding-crisis/ | 2023-07-29T06:47:56 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/international/ap-un-says-its-forced-to-cut-food-aid-to-millions-globally-because-of-a-funding-crisis/ |
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.
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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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-a-notre-dame-professor-sues-a-student-publication-over-its-coverage-of-her-abortion-rights-work/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:04 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-a-notre-dame-professor-sues-a-student-publication-over-its-coverage-of-her-abortion-rights-work/ |
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.
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Yamat reported from Las Vegas. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-arizona-mom-never-stopped-looking-for-her-missing-daughter-she-showed-up-4-years-later-in-montana/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:11 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-arizona-mom-never-stopped-looking-for-her-missing-daughter-she-showed-up-4-years-later-in-montana/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-arizona-teen-alicia-navarro-missing-since-2019-shows-up-safe-at-montana-police-station/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:17 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-arizona-teen-alicia-navarro-missing-since-2019-shows-up-safe-at-montana-police-station/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-as-illegal-crossings-drop-the-legal-challenges-over-bidens-us-mexico-border-policies-grow/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:22 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-as-illegal-crossings-drop-the-legal-challenges-over-bidens-us-mexico-border-policies-grow/ |
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.
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Associated Press writer Lolita Baldor contributed to this report. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-biden-orders-changes-to-the-military-code-of-justice-for-sexual-assault-victims/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:29 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-biden-orders-changes-to-the-military-code-of-justice-for-sexual-assault-victims/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-charges-dropped-against-7-oklahoma-police-officers-in-3-separate-fatal-shootings/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:35 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-charges-dropped-against-7-oklahoma-police-officers-in-3-separate-fatal-shootings/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-defense-presses-case-that-mental-illness-spurred-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:41 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-defense-presses-case-that-mental-illness-spurred-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/ |
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.”
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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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-homeless-struggle-to-stay-safe-from-record-high-temperatures-in-blistering-phoenix/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:48 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-homeless-struggle-to-stay-safe-from-record-high-temperatures-in-blistering-phoenix/ |
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.
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Associated Press photographer Gerald Herbert and video journalist Stephen Smith contributed to this report. Borenstein reported from Washington and Fassett from Seattle.
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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Follow Seth Borenstein, Camille Fasset and Michael Goldberg on Twitter at @borenbears, @camfassett and @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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-homes-that-become-deadly-tornadoes-kill-disproportionately-more-in-mobile-homes-ap-analysis-finds/ | 2023-07-29T06:48:55 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-homes-that-become-deadly-tornadoes-kill-disproportionately-more-in-mobile-homes-ap-analysis-finds/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-justice-alito-says-congress-lacks-the-power-to-impose-an-ethics-code-on-the-supreme-court/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:01 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-justice-alito-says-congress-lacks-the-power-to-impose-an-ethics-code-on-the-supreme-court/ |
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?”
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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska, and Metz reported from Salt Lake City.
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Follow Josh Funk on Twitter at www.twitter.com/funkwrite | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-montana-train-derailment-report-renews-calls-for-automated-systems-to-detect-track-problems/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:09 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-mounting-job-vacancies-push-state-and-local-governments-into-a-wage-war-for-workers/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:16 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-mounting-job-vacancies-push-state-and-local-governments-into-a-wage-war-for-workers/ |
SALEM, Ore. — There are currently only two states in the U.S. that don't allow drivers to pump their own gas. At some point in the next week, that number will drop to just one.
The Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 2426 earlier this year to legalize self-service gas statewide, and Gov. Tina Kotek signaled Friday that she intends to let the bill go into effect, either by signing it at some point in the next week or allowing it to become law without her signature when it reaches an Aug. 4 deadline for her to take action.
HB 2426 includes an emergency clause that will make it take effect immediately upon becoming law, which means gas stations throughout Oregon will be free to start offering self-service gas next weekend at the latest, although they're not required to do so. The law will also prohibit them from charging different prices for full service and self service.
Even at stations that choose to offer self-service, the attendants aren't going away; stations will still be required to offer full service on half their pumps, and they can't offer self-service without providing full service at the same time, e.g. a station can't leave the pumps running for self-service overnight unless it's also staffed for full service all night.
The rules are different in certain rural counties, where overnight self-service was legalized by a 2015 law and expanded to a 24/7 option in a 2017 update — although rural stations are still required to offer full service as an option during daytime hours.
Drivers who spoke to KGW at a Chevron gas station on Friday all said the change will make getting gas more efficient, and said they plan to use self-service when gas stations are busy.
"Where we're from in the lower part of Oregon, it takes probably 15 to 20 minutes to get someone to come out and pump your gas, no matter where you're at," said customer Freida Hasko, adding "I can't tell you how many times I've had to go to a different gas station just because there's nobody available."
Some customers expressed concern that jobs would be lost in the switch, although station attendant Johnny Connor said he wasn't concerned about that because stations have had trouble hiring enough attendants anyway.
"I like it because people have choice now," he said. "Theoretically everyone should be happy about that."
The announcement of Kotek's intentions for HB 2426 comes in the form of a planned veto list that her office released on Friday. During a news conference on Thursday, Kotek said the list would include all pending legislation that she intends to veto before the Aug. 4 deadline, so the gas bill's absence from the list confirms that she doesn't intend to block it.
Friday's confirmation comes after weeks of speculation and questions about the future of the bill following the end of the legislative session in June. Kotek's office previously declined to indicate which way the governor was leaning on the bill, and said she was still evaluating a large amount of mixed feedback about the bill from constituents.
Self-serve gas is a contentious topic in Oregon; voters have previously weighed in and opted to stick with mandatory full service, but more recent polls have suggested that public opinion may have shifted to favor adding a self-serve option. Kotek's office said it received a large amount of feedback about HB 2426 in the past month that showed Oregonians are still closely split on the issue.
The urban-rural divide
Oregon has required that gas station attendants pump gas for over 70 years, since 1951. It's been a little more complicated since new rules went into effect in 2018, allowing gas stations in a number of rural eastern Oregon counties to allow self-service at all hours of the day, and in three coastal counties during overnight hours.
Under HB 2426, there will still be a few fiddly rules that divide up the state by urban and rural counties. In 16 of the state's more populated counties, gas stations can designate up to half of their pumps as self-service. This means that they still need to keep at least one gas attendant on-site at all hours to pump for customers who don't want to do it themselves.
In 20 of Oregon's less-populated counties, no attendant is required — meaning stations could go fully self-service if they want to. Regardless, stations across the state have to charge the same price for gas whether it's being pumped by an attendant or by drivers.
Here are the "rural" counties that don't have to provide attendants: Baker, Clatsop, Crook, Curry, Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Hood River, Jefferson, Klamath, Lake, Malheur, Morrow, Sherman, Tillamook, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, Wasco and Wheeler.
The push to divide Oregon up this way came from a bipartisan effort to bridge the divide between the state's metro areas and rural counties. That's according to two of the bill's chief sponsors in the Oregon Senate — one Democrat and one Republican. KGW spoke to them both back in March after the bill passed in the House.
"I really appreciate giving Oregonians opportunity to see Democrats and Republicans working together on issues, and I think this is one example of that, (one) out of many," said Sen. Janeen Sollman, a Democrat from Hillsboro. "And I just appreciate hearing all different perspectives, and that we see the issue and we come together and try to find a solution for that. So I've enjoyed this."
"I think the bill really highlights that the rural-urban divide isn't always a negative thing," agreed Sen. Daniel Bonham, a Republican from The Dalles. "That sometimes it just means some extra consideration. I mean the bill calls out 16 counties to do one thing and 20 counties to do another, and it's responsive to different parts of the state. And I think, to Senator Sollman's point, that ability for us to come together and work together and take into consideration what the local needs are, it's so important. And so, you know, sometimes divide is good and and we can cater a piece of legislation to accommodate the local need."
KGW Reporter Thomas Shults contributed to this story. | https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/regional/kotek-oregon-self-serve-gas-decision/283-d612cb4f-930e-48f8-b9b8-d41edaf0cbef | 2023-07-29T06:49:20 | 0 | https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/regional/kotek-oregon-self-serve-gas-decision/283-d612cb4f-930e-48f8-b9b8-d41edaf0cbef |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-nearly-200-million-people-in-us-are-under-heat-flood-advisories/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:22 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-nearly-200-million-people-in-us-are-under-heat-flood-advisories/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-officer-who-put-suspect-in-car-hit-by-train-found-guilty-of-reckless-endangerment/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:29 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-officer-who-put-suspect-in-car-hit-by-train-found-guilty-of-reckless-endangerment/ |
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.
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Associated Press writer Tom Murphy in Indianapolis contributed to this report. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-paperwork-problems-drive-surge-in-people-losing-medicaid-health-coverage/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:36 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-paperwork-problems-drive-surge-in-people-losing-medicaid-health-coverage/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-rapper-g-herbo-pleads-guilty-in-credit-card-fraud-that-paid-for-private-jets-and-designer-puppies/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:42 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-rapper-g-herbo-pleads-guilty-in-credit-card-fraud-that-paid-for-private-jets-and-designer-puppies/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-rioter-who-stole-badge-radio-from-beaten-officer-on-jan-6-gets-more-than-4-years-in-prison/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:49 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-rioter-who-stole-badge-radio-from-beaten-officer-on-jan-6-gets-more-than-4-years-in-prison/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-supreme-courts-student-loan-decision-will-lower-us-deficit-according-to-new-white-house-projection/ | 2023-07-29T06:49:56 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-supreme-courts-student-loan-decision-will-lower-us-deficit-according-to-new-white-house-projection/ |
10 dogs die after air conditioning in truck fails during traffic delay
HOBART, Ind. (WLS) - Ten dogs died in Indiana during a drive from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Michigan.
Authorities said the driver did not know the air conditioning in the truck’s cargo failed.
Police arrived at a Lake Station, Indiana, gas station Thursday night for a report that 19 German shepherds became overheated while being transported to a training facility.
Ten of the dogs died as a result, according to officials.
WARNING: Some may find the content of this video disturbing.
The Humane Society of Hobart was called to the scene.
Police in Lake Station say the driver of the van, who picked the dogs up from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was bound for a training facility in Michigan, was unaware that the air conditioning in the cargo area of the truck failed in the sweltering heat.
“We had cooling vans and animal care and control vehicles ready to transport. And because we were asking for that paperwork, it seemed to make the owner mad and so he said that he would not allow us to help,” Jenny Webber, with the Humane Society of Hobart, said.
Lake Station police posted a narrative of the situation on Facebook, calling it a “freak event” and not a matter of neglect on the part of the truck’s driver.
They went on to write the “scene was chaotic and took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
The humane society said they believe the dogs were traveling to a Michigan trainer to become police dogs.
“This is truly a sad day for all of us,” Webber added.
Five German shepherds were still being treated in Lake Station and will go into the care of the humane society unless the owner claims the dogs.
The record-breaking temperatures stretching from coast-to-coast sparked heat alerts in multiple states.
Copyright 2023 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.valleynewslive.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:03 | 1 | https://www.valleynewslive.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ |
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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Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-teen-says-she-just-prayed-while-saving-girl-in-michigan-school-shooting/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:03 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-teen-says-she-just-prayed-while-saving-girl-in-michigan-school-shooting/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:10 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment/ |
The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.05 billion after no one managed to beat the massive odds and match the lottery game’s six numbers drawn Friday night.
The numbers drawn Friday night were: 5, 10, 28, 52, 63 and the gold ball 18.
The lack of a winner of Friday’s $940 million jackpot means there have been 29 straight draws without a winner. The last time someone won a Mega Millions jackpot was April 18.
The $1.05 billion prize up for grabs in the next drawing Tuesday night 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 Tuesday’s drawing would be an estimated $527.9 million.
While no one won the Mega Millions jackpot, it has been less than two weeks since someone in Los Angeles won a $1.08 billion Powerball prize that ranked as the sixth-largest in U.S. history. The winner of the prize is still a mystery.
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.
Winners also would be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings.
Mega Millions is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-the-mega-millions-jackpot-is-now-910-million-after-months-without-a-big-winner/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:16 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-the-mega-millions-jackpot-is-now-910-million-after-months-without-a-big-winner/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-tim-scott-criticizes-ron-desantis-over-floridas-new-slavery-curriculum/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:23 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-tim-scott-criticizes-ron-desantis-over-floridas-new-slavery-curriculum/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-tom-durden-georgia-da-who-ordered-takeover-of-stalled-ahmaud-arbery-investigation-dies-at-66/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:29 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-tom-durden-georgia-da-who-ordered-takeover-of-stalled-ahmaud-arbery-investigation-dies-at-66/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-we-were-in-the-air-mississippi-family-recounts-surviving-tornado-that-tore-mobile-home-apart/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:35 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-worker-warned-organizer-someones-going-to-end-up-dead-before-crowd-surge-at-21-travis-scott-show/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:42 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/national-news/ap-worker-warned-organizer-someones-going-to-end-up-dead-before-crowd-surge-at-21-travis-scott-show/ |
By JACK MAGRUDER | Associated Press
DENVER — Zack Gelof and Ramon Laureano homered, JP Sears won for the second time this season and the Oakland Athletics broke a three-game losing streak with an 8-5 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.
Shea Langeliers had a double, a triple and scored twice, Laureano had two hits and scored twice and Tony Kemp had two doubles as the major league-worst A’s pounded out 14 hits. They were 3-13 in their previous 16 games.
“We followed the game plan,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said. “This park can get you out of the right approach, and from the onset we stayed through the middle, we stayed through the other side of the field, and you saw the results. We were able to add onto a lead, which we haven’t been able to do. Overall it was a good night.
Oakland took a 7-2 lead into the eighth inning, but the Rockies closed to 7-5 on pinch-hitter Michael Toglia’s run-scoring single and Jurickson Profar’s two-run double. Lucas Erceg, Oakland’s third pitcher of the inning, got two groundouts to end the inning.
Laureano hit a 429-foot homer leading off the ninth.
Sears (2-7) gave up four hits including a homer to Randal Grichuk, struck out five and walked one in five innings while breaking a four-game losing streak. Sears has not missed a turn in the rotation this season, but his only other victory came against Milwaukee on June 11. A’s starting pitchers are 10-47 this season.
“It was good to get a big lead early, so I could go out and attack those guys,” Sears said. “It’s an adjustment (pitching at Coors Field). You can’t think too much about it. Some of the late movement on some of your pitches may not be there. Just knowing when to be a little more aggressive and a little less aggressive to guys.”
Gelof has 10 hits, seven for extra bases, since being recalled from Triple-A Las Vegas on July 14. He has reached base in 10 of his 12 games.
“Competing against the best players in the word is pretty special,” Gelof said. “I want to do this for a long time. I love playing this game. I’m going to keep trying to have a blast out there and bring some energy.”
After Laureano singled in Rooker in the first inning, Langeliers tripled in the first run of a three-run second for a 4-0 lead. His was the only ball the A’s got out of the infield in a rally fueled on errors by third baseman Ryan McMahon and second baseman Alan Trejo, a hit batter and a fielder’s choice that did not result in an out.
Allen drove in Langeliers with Oakland’s only other hit in the second, a liner the caromed off Colorado left-hander Kyle Freeland (4-11), who was activated from the injury list before the game.
Langeliers doubled with two outs in the third inning and scored on Allen’s triple to make it 5-0.
Grichuk’s 445-foot homer in the fourth inning broke Sears’ shutout. Gelof’s 393-foot homer with two outs in the fifth made it 7-1.
Freeland gave up nine hits and five runs, three earned, in his first start since suffering a right shoulder injury when he dove for an popup in San Francisco on July 9. He struck out three and hit a batter.
“Kyle’s stuff was good,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “We didn’t help him.”
The Rockies have lost three in a row.
FAMILY REUNION
Rockies 1B CJ Cron returned from the injury listed Friday to face his father Chris, Oakland’s hitting coach, a career first. “It’s the greatest feeling in the world for a baseball dad,” said Chris, who spent 12 years as a player with two brief stops in the majors and has been a minor league coach or manager since retiring in 1995.
Cron was 1 for 5 with a single. Cron and Grichuk, who have expiring contracts, have been mentioned as possible trade candidates.
TRAINERS RO0M
Athletics: OF Esteury Ruiz (shoulder) was 1 for 2 with a triple and a throwing error in five innings in his first rehab game at Triple-A Las Vegas on Friday. There is no timeline for his return. He leads the AL with 43 stolen bases. … RHP Mason Miller (UCL strain) threw a 20-pitch fastball/changeup bullpen Wednesday and is scheduled to throw another before beginning a rehab assignment.
Rockies: RHP Chase Anderson (shoulder inflammation) was placed on the IL retroactive to July 15 when Freehand was activated for his start Friday. RHP Tommy Doyle was recalled from Triple-A Albuquerque to replace RHP Riley Pint, who was optioned to Albuquerque on Wednesday. … RHP Tyler Kinley (elbow) has made four rehab appearances and could return during the homestand that ends Wednesday. … 2B Brendan Rodgers (left shoulder) homered for Triple-A Albuquerque on Friday and has made 33 plate appearances on a rehab assignment. The Rockies have set 40-50 as a benchmark before considering his return.
UP NEXT
Rockies RHP Chris Flexen (0-4, 7.71 ERA) is to face A’s RHP Paul Blackburn (1-2, 5.06) in the second game of a three-game series. Flexen will make his first appearance for the Rockies after appearing in 17 games with Seattle this season.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP–Sports | https://www.chicoer.com/2023/07/28/gelof-laureano-homer-to-back-sears-in-the-athletics-8-5-victory-over-the-rockies/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:45 | 0 | https://www.chicoer.com/2023/07/28/gelof-laureano-homer-to-back-sears-in-the-athletics-8-5-victory-over-the-rockies/ |
10 dogs die after air conditioning in truck fails during traffic delay
HOBART, Ind. (WLS) - Ten dogs died in Indiana during a drive from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Michigan.
Authorities said the driver did not know the air conditioning in the truck’s cargo failed.
Police arrived at a Lake Station, Indiana, gas station Thursday night for a report that 19 German shepherds became overheated while being transported to a training facility.
Ten of the dogs died as a result, according to officials.
WARNING: Some may find the content of this video disturbing.
The Humane Society of Hobart was called to the scene.
Police in Lake Station say the driver of the van, who picked the dogs up from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was bound for a training facility in Michigan, was unaware that the air conditioning in the cargo area of the truck failed in the sweltering heat.
“We had cooling vans and animal care and control vehicles ready to transport. And because we were asking for that paperwork, it seemed to make the owner mad and so he said that he would not allow us to help,” Jenny Webber, with the Humane Society of Hobart, said.
Lake Station police posted a narrative of the situation on Facebook, calling it a “freak event” and not a matter of neglect on the part of the truck’s driver.
They went on to write the “scene was chaotic and took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
The humane society said they believe the dogs were traveling to a Michigan trainer to become police dogs.
“This is truly a sad day for all of us,” Webber added.
Five German shepherds were still being treated in Lake Station and will go into the care of the humane society unless the owner claims the dogs.
The record-breaking temperatures stretching from coast-to-coast sparked heat alerts in multiple states.
Copyright 2023 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.newschannel6now.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:45 | 1 | https://www.newschannel6now.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-australian-prime-minister-is-confident-the-us-will-deliver-nuclear-powered-submarines/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:49 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-biden-will-sign-an-executive-order-in-maine-encouraging-new-inventions-to-be-made-in-the-us/ | 2023-07-29T06:50:56 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-democrats-claim-the-gop-is-withholding-evidence-contradicting-claims-in-hunter-biden-probe/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:02 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-donald-trump-appeals-judges-decision-to-keep-hush-money-case-in-new-york-state-court/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:09 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-donald-trump-appeals-judges-decision-to-keep-hush-money-case-in-new-york-state-court/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a stunning new allegation in an already serious case: Former President Donald Trump sought to delete Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified documents.
The latest criminal charges unsealed Thursday deepen Trump’s legal jeopardy, alleging a more central role for the former president than previously known in a cover-up that prosecutors say was meant to prevent them from recovering top-secret documents he took with him after he left the White House. Coming as Trump braces for possible additional indictments related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the new allegations strengthen special counsel Jack Smith’s already powerful case against Trump while undercutting potential defenses floated by the former president, experts say.
“Before these new charges, you could maybe try some sort of defense that ‘this was all a mistake, it was my staff’ or confusion about what documents he actually had,” said former federal prosecutor Randall Eliason, a George Washington University law professor.
“But especially now, when you’re trying to destroy video footage,” he added, “that’s kind of the final nail in the coffin. I don’t see much in the way of a defense, not a real defense. All he can do is claim he’s being persecuted and hope for a holdout juror or something.”
Trump resorted to that familiar playbook on Friday, writing in a post on his Truth Social platform that “this is textbook Third World intimidation by rabid, lawless prosecutors.” He insisted during an interview with radio host John Fredericks that he did nothing wrong and accused prosecutors of trying to intimidate his staff into making up lies about him.
Later Friday, Trump posted on Truth Social that Mar-a-Lago security tapes were voluntarily handed over to prosecutors. Trump said he was told they were not “deleted in any way, shape or form.”
The new Florida charges came as a surprise given that Trump and his legal team have been focused on the prospect of an additional indictment in Washington — possibly within days — related to his efforts to cling to power after he lost to President Joe Biden. Trump received a letter this month informing him that he’s a target in that probe, and his lawyers met Thursday with special counsel Jack Smith’s office.
Hours after that meeting, Smith revealed the new classified documents case charges on top of a 38-count indictment issued last month against Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta. The updated indictment includes a detailed chronology of phone conversations and other interactions between Trump, Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, in the days after the Justice Department last June drafted a subpoena for security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago.
Video from the home would ultimately become vital to the government’s case because, prosecutors said, it shows Nauta moving boxes in and out of a storage room — an act alleged to have been done at Trump’s direction and in an effort to hide records not only only from investigators but Trump’s own lawyers.
The day after a draft subpoena was sent to the Trump Organization, the indictment says, Trump called De Oliveira and spoke with him for about 24 minutes. Though the details of that conversation are not included in the indictment, De Oliveira is described by prosecutors as asking a Mar-a-Lago information technology staffer several days later how long the server retained footage for and is quoted as telling the employee that “the boss” wanted it deleted.
Lawyers for Nauta, who has pleaded not guilty, and De Oliveira declined to comment on the allegations. De Oliveira is expected to make his first court appearance in Miami on Monday.
To the extent that evidence of Trump’s involvement in trying to delete video is circumstantial rather than direct, it might present a challenge for prosecutors, said David Aaron, a former Justice Department national security prosecutor who has worked on cases involving the mishandling of classified documents.
But if they can tie the effort to Trump, he added, “it’s devastating in its own right, because it doesn’t matter at that point what he thought he had the right to do, or whatever other defense he’s going to have about the classified documents. That’s in and of itself very bad.”
It could also help prosecutors establish that Trump knew what he was doing was wrong because “you only delete video of what you’ve done if you think it’s going to get you in trouble,” Aaron said. And Trump’s own accusations against others, like his claims against Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 presidential race, could boomerang against him.
Trump has claimed that Clinton deleted emails from her private server for the purpose of obstructing a criminal investigation into her own handling of classified information — something the FBI and Justice Department never alleged — but now stands himself accused of scheming to delete evidence he feared would be incriminating.
“He has specifically criticized other public figures for deleting data when he says they thought they were going to be in trouble,” Aaron said. “So if you needed to prove his consciousness of guilt, it’s not just an obvious thing that you would ask the jury to rely on common sense for — he’s actually made statements about what it means when someone does this.”
Trump and Nauta are set for trial next May, though it’s not clear if that date will hold.
Smith’s team also added a new count of willful retention of national defense information related to a classified document about a Pentagon plan of attack on a foreign country prosecutors say Trump showed off during a July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey resort.
That charge comes after Trump repeatedly claimed he didn’t have any secret documents when he spoke, only magazine and newspaper clippings, even though an audio recording captured him saying “this is secret information.” The document was returned to the government in January 2022, months before the subpoena for classified records.
It’s not clear why prosecutors moved now to indict another one of Trump’s underlings, though bringing charges against De Oliveira that could carry significant prison time adds serious pressure on him, potentially increasing the odds that he could decide to cut a plea deal and cooperate.
“But, you know, Trump seems to inspire a lot of loyalty, at least in some people,” Eliason said. “Maybe they are holding out for the idea that he is reelected and he can pardon them.”
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Richer reported from Boston. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-to-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:17 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-to-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes/ |
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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-obamas-first-college-is-latest-to-end-legacy-admissions/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:24 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-president-biden-to-host-the-leaders-of-japan-and-korean-for-an-august-summit-at-camp-david/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:31 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/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.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-sen-mcconnell-says-he-plans-to-serve-his-full-term-as-leader-despite-questions-about-his-health/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:37 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-sen-mcconnell-says-he-plans-to-serve-his-full-term-as-leader-despite-questions-about-his-health/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — A freshman Republican congressman from Wisconsin is refusing to apologize after he yelled and cursed at high school-aged Senate pages during a late night tour of the Capitol this week, eliciting a bipartisan rebuke from Senate leaders.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, speaking in a round of interviews Friday on Wisconsin conservative talk radio, did not refute reports of his actions or back down from what he did.
Van Orden used a profanity to describe the pages as lazy and and another to order them off the floor of the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday night, according to a report in the online political newsletter PunchBowl News. The pages were laying down to take photos in the Rotunda, according to the publication.
“I’m not going to apologize for making sure that anybody — I don’t care who you are and who you’re related to — defiles this House,” Van Orden said on “The Dan O’Donnell Show.” “It’s not going to happen on my watch, man.”
Van Orden said he was protecting the integrity of the Capitol Rotunda because it served as a field hospital during the Civil War and it’s where presidents have lain in state upon their deaths. He said the young people he confronted were “goofing off” and that Democrats were making it an issue.
“Would this be an issue if those young people did not have political connections?” Van Orden said on “The Jay Weber Show.” “Why do you think this is an issue, pal?”
A former Navy SEAL who was outside of the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, Van Orden also appeared to embrace the presence of alcohol in his office the same evening he encountered the pages. Images were posted on social media showing bottles of liquor and beer cans on a desk in his office. Van Orden said on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, that the alcohol was from constituents.
And his spokeswoman Anna Kelly posted: “As the Congressman says, once you cross the threshold to our office, you are in Wisconsin!” She followed that with a beer mug emoji.
Van Orden represents Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, a GOP-leaning jurisdiction that comprises parts of central, southwestern and western Wisconsin, including moderate exurbs of Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
On Thursday evening, just before the Senate left for its August recess, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rebuked Van Orden’s behavior and thanked the pages, high school-age students who serve as helpers and messengers around the Senate. Several of the pages were sitting on the Senate floor at the time, smiling and nodding as dozens of senators stood and gave them a standing ovation.
Without mentioning Van Orden by name, Schumer said he was “shocked” to hear about the behavior of a member of the House Republican majority and “further shocked at his refusal to apologize to these young people.” He noted that Thursday was the final day for this class of pages.
“They’re here when we need them,” Schumer said. “And they have served this institution with grace.”
McConnell said he associated himself with Schumer’s words. “Everybody on this side of the aisle feels exactly the same way,” he said.
When asked about McConnell’s rebuke, Van Orden said Friday “I don’t know what it was because I honestly have not tracked any of this stuff.”
Van Orden was elected to Congress in 2022 after a losing bid in 2020. He has insisted that he did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and on Friday again condemned those who did, calling them “buffoons.” That didn’t stop fellow Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat, from invoking the Jan. 6 attack in criticizing Van Orden.
“Wonder if he told that to his fellow insurrectionists, who were beating police officers on the same ground?” Pocan said on X.
Rebecca Cooke, a Democrat who is running to challenge Van Orden in 2024, called him an embarrassment and a hypocrite. She called Van Orden a “serial harasser” and referenced an incident in June 2021 when Van Orden was upset about a display of LGBTQ+ books at a southwestern Wisconsin library and yelled at a teenager who was working there.
“For someone to perhaps drunkenly, and definitely belligerently, yell at these kids for enjoying our nation’s Capitol is just stupid,” Pocan said Friday. “He would be best to say it was stupid and just move on.”
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EDITORS’ NOTE: An earlier version of this story misidentified the name of “The Dan O’Donnell Show.”
___
Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-senate-rebukes-wisconsin-congressman-who-yelled-vulgarities-at-high-school-age-pages/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:43 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-senate-rebukes-wisconsin-congressman-who-yelled-vulgarities-at-high-school-age-pages/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. on Friday announced $345 million in military aid for Taiwan, in what is the Biden administration’s first major package drawing on America’s own stockpiles to help Taiwan counter China.
The White House’s announcement said the package would include defense, education and training for the Taiwanese. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters ahead of the announcement.
U.S. lawmakers have been pressuring the Pentagon and White House to speed weapons to Taiwan. The goals are to help it counter China and to deter China from considering attacking, by providing Taipei enough weaponry that it would make the price of invasion too high.
While Chinese diplomats protested the move, Taiwan’s trade office in Washington said the U.S. decision to pull arms and other materiel from its stores provided “an important tool to support Taiwan’s self-defense.” In a statement, it pledged to work with the United States to maintain “peace, stability and the status quo across the Taiwan Strait.”
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense also expressed its appreciation in a statement Saturday morning that thanked “the U.S. for its firm commitment to Taiwan’s security.”
The package is in addition to nearly $19 billion in military sales of F-16s and other major weapons systems that the U.S. has approved for Taiwan. Delivery of those weapons has been hampered by supply chain issues that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been exacerbated by the global defense industrial base pressures created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The difference is that this aid is part of a presidential authority approved by Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales. This gets weapons delivered faster than providing funding for new weapons.
The Pentagon has used a similar authority to get billions of dollars worth of munitions to Ukraine.
Taiwan split from China in 1949 amid civil war. Chinese President Xi Jinping maintains China’s right to take over the now self-ruled island, by force if necessary. China has accused the U.S. of turning Taiwan into a “powder keg” through the billions of dollars in weapons sales it has pledged.
The U.S. maintains a “One China” policy under which it does not recognize Taiwan’s as an independent country and has no formal diplomatic relations with the island in deference to Beijing. However, U.S. law requires a credible defense for Taiwan and for the U.S. to treat all threats to the island as matters of “grave concern.”
Getting stockpiles of weapons to Taiwan now, before an attack begins, is one of the lessons the U.S. has learned from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pentagon deputy defense secretary Kathleen Hicks told The Associated Press earlier this year.
Ukraine “was more of a cold-start approach than the planned approach we have been working on for Taiwan, and we will apply those lessons,” Hicks said. Efforts to resupply Taiwan after a conflict erupted would be complicated because it is an island, she said.
China regularly sends warships and planes across the center line in the Taiwan Strait that provides a buffer between the sides, as well as into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, in an effort to intimidate the island’s 23 million people and wear down its military capabilities.
Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, said in a statement Friday that Beijing was “firmly opposed” to U.S. military ties with Taiwan. The U.S. should “stop selling arms to Taiwan” and “stop creating new factors that could lead to tensions in the Taiwan Strait,” Liu said. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-us-to-announce-345-million-military-aid-package-for-taiwan/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:49 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-us-to-announce-345-million-military-aid-package-for-taiwan/ |
Johnson City, TN — News Channel 11 sports has learned tonight that FB schedule dot-com is reporting there will be a couple of changes on the ETSU football schedule.
The first begins with Liberty, they are reporting their football games have been rescheduled…Liberty and ETSU were set to played in 2023 and 2025….However Liberty announced their non conference schedule and the Bucs were not on there.
They are also reporting the Tennessee Volunteers have added the ETSU Buccaneers to their 2025 football schedule… The Volunteers will pay the Buccaneers a $575,000 guarantee for the contest, according to the copy of the contract.
Tennessee and ETSU’s only contest on the gridiron was played on Sept. 8, 2018 in Knoxville. The Volunteers defeated the Buccaneers in that game, 59-3
ETSU commented Jacksonville State will replace Liberty this year and they had no comment on the Vols possible match-up. | https://www.wjhl.com/sports/college-sports-2/etsu-bucs/etsu-football-could-possibly-play-the-tennessee-volunteers-in-2025/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:56 | 0 | https://www.wjhl.com/sports/college-sports-2/etsu-bucs/etsu-football-could-possibly-play-the-tennessee-volunteers-in-2025/ |
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on three additional charges in a case that accuses him of illegally possessing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, allegations that add fresh detail to the criminal case initially issued last month.
Here’s a look at the charges, the special counsel’s investigation and how Trump’s case differs from those of other politicians known to be in possession of classified documents:
WHAT ARE THE NEW CHARGES?
There are three new charges against Trump, as well as a new defendant in the case.
Prosecutors accuse the former president of trying to “alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal evidence,” and of inducing another person to do so. They say Trump asked a staffer — Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira — to delete camera footage at his Florida estate in an effort to obstruct the federal investigation into his possession of classified documents.
Prosecutors allege that De Oliveira schemed with Trump and his valet, Walt Nauta, to conceal the footage from investigators.
A third count also accuses Trump of willfully retaining national defense information related to a presentation about military activity in another country.
Investigators say Trump showed a classified document during July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort to the writer and publisher of the memoir of his former chief of staff Mark Meadows. Details about that document and the meeting were included in the original indictment, but none of the charges had related to it until now.
Trump had returned that document to the government on Jan. 17, 2022 — nearly a year after he left office, according to the indictment.
Trump was indicted last month on 37 counts related to the mishandling of classified documents. The charges include counts of retaining classified information, obstructing justice and making false statements, among other crimes.
Trump is accused of keeping documents related to “nuclear weaponry in the United States” and the “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” along with documents from White House intelligence briefings, including some that detail the military capabilities of the U.S. and other countries, according to the indictment. Prosecutors alleged Trump showed off the documents to people who did not have security clearances to review them and later tried to conceal documents from his own lawyers as they sought to comply with federal demands to find and return documents.
The top charges carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
After leaving office in 2021, the former president showed someone working for his political action committee a map that detailed a military operation in a foreign country, prosecutors allege in the document. On another occasion that year, Trump showed a writer, a publisher and two of his staffers — none of whom had security clearances — a military plan of attack.
HOW IS TRUMP REACTING?
A Trump campaign statement dismissed the new charges as “nothing more than a continued desperate and flailing attempt” by the Biden administration “to harass President Trump and those around him” and to influence the 2024 presidential race.
In an interview Thursday night with Breitbart News, Trump called the superseding indictment “harassment,” repeating his insistence that his activities were “protected by the Presidential Records Act.”
On Friday, Trump and a dozen other Republicans seeking the 2024 presidential nomination were expected at an Iowa GOP event.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
De Oliveira is due in court in Florida on Monday.
Both Trump and Nauta have pleaded not guilty to the original 38-count indictment.
Their trial is currently scheduled for May 20, 2024 — deep into the presidential nominating calendar, and probably well after the Republican nominee is known — and it was unclear if the addition of a new defendant could result in a postponement.
Prosecutors, who had wanted the case to go to trial in December, wrote in a separate court filing Thursday that the new charges “should not disturb” the May trial date, “and the Special Counsel’s Office is taking steps related to discovery and security clearances to ensure that it does not do so.”
Trump’s lawyers have claimed that he can’t get a fair trial before the 2024 election.
HOW DID THIS CASE COME ABOUT?
Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration contacted representatives for Trump in spring 2021 when they realized that important material from his time in office was missing.
According to the Presidential Records Act, White House documents are considered property of the U.S. government and must be preserved.
A Trump representative told the National Archives in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago. In January 2022, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida home, later telling Justice Department officials that they contained “a lot” of classified material.
That May, the FBI and Justice Department issued a subpoena for remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession. Investigators who went to visit the property weeks later to collect the records were given roughly three dozen documents and a sworn statement from Trump’s lawyers attesting that the requested information had been returned.
But that assertion turned out to be false. With a search warrant, federal officials returned to Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and seized more than 33 boxes and containers totaling 11,000 documents from a storage room and an office, including 100 classified documents.
In all, roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021.
HOW DID A SPECIAL COUNSEL GET INVOLVED?
Last year, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland picked Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption probes, to lead investigations into the presence of classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate, as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.
Smith’s appointment was a recognition by Garland of the politics involved in an investigation into a former president and current White House candidate. Garland himself was selected by Democratic President Joe Biden, whom Trump is seeking to challenge for the White House in 2024.
Special counsels are appointed in cases in which the Justice Department perceives itself as having a conflict or where it’s deemed to be in the public interest to have someone outside the government come in and take responsibility for a matter.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a special counsel must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decision making,” as well as “an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies.”
DIDN’T BIDEN AND FORMER VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE HAVE CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS, TOO?
Yes, but the circumstances of their cases are vastly different from those involving Trump.
After classified documents were found at Biden’s think tank and Pence’s Indiana home, their lawyers notified authorities and quickly arranged for them to be handed over. They also authorized other searches by federal authorities to search for additional documents.
There is no indication either was aware of the existence of the records before they were found, and no evidence has so far emerged that Biden or Pence sought to conceal the discoveries. That’s important because the Justice Department historically looks for willfulness in deciding whether to bring criminal charges.
A special counsel was appointed earlier this year to probe how classified materials ended up at Biden’s Delaware home and former office. But even if the Justice Department were to find Biden’s case prosecutable on the evidence, its Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office.
As for Pence, the Justice Department informed his legal team this month that it would not be pursuing criminal charges against him over his handling of the documents.
DOES A FEDERAL INDICTMENT PREVENT TRUMP FROM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT?
No. Neither the indictment itself nor a conviction would prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.
And, as his indictment earlier this year in a New York hush-money case showed, criminal charges have historically been a boon to his fundraising. The campaign announced that it had raised over $4 million in the 24 hours after that indictment became public, smashing its previous record after the FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-with-trump-newly-indicted-heres-what-to-know-about-the-documents-case-and-whats-next/ | 2023-07-29T06:51:55 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-with-trump-newly-indicted-heres-what-to-know-about-the-documents-case-and-whats-next/ |
Amazon Essentials is offering low prices on pink apparel
If you are obsessed with the new “Barbie” movie, you aren’t alone. Not only is it an epic box office hit, but it’s the highest-grossing movie ever by a female director. Anyone who loves the flick understandably wants to update their wardrobe with pink clothing and accessories that Barbie would be proud to wear.
You can show your enthusiasm for Barbie by shopping Amazon’s private clothing line, Amazon Essentials, for deals on pink fashions. The retailer is celebrating with deals on everything from jackets to sandals that are sure to excite fans of all ages. We’ve rounded up our favorite Barbie-friendly fashion deals to help you shop.
Facts about the doll and the movie
“Barbie” has fans young and young at heart flocking to theaters to see what all the buzz is about. Here are a few facts about the movie and the iconic fashion doll:
- Greta Gerwig is the director of “Barbie.”
- Leading actress Margot Robbie is transformed into a real-life version of the beloved doll.
- The film made $470 million globally after only five days in theaters.
- The first Barbie doll was introduced on March 9, 1959, at the New York Toy Fair.
- All shades of pink are associated with Barbie, especially hot pink and bubble gum pink.
- Barbie merchandise is sold in 150-plus countries throughout the world.
Best Barbie pink apparel from Amazon Essentials
Amazon Essentials Pink Pullover Packable Windbreaker
You can sport your love of Barbie pink — even in inclement weather — with this bright pink windbreaker. It offers a pullover style with a protective hood and is packable for easy transport. It’s available at a low price too.
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Amazon Essentials Pink Thong Sandals
These simple thong sandals come in hot pink. They are perfect for hot summer days when you want to sport a splash of pink on casual outings.
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Amazon Essentials Classic Cap Sleeve Wrap Dress
If you want to dress like Barbie, you need a stylish dress in pink. This pretty one has a wrap-style that’s on-trend and figure-flattering. It’s available in a nice selection of sizes, from extra small to 6X.
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Amazon Essentials Neon Pink High-Rise Capri Leggings
With a vibrant pink color, these capri leggings are perfect for any Barbie enthusiast. Pair them with workout gear or a pretty tunic top for stylish looks in and out of the gym.
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Amazon Essentials Pink Knit Pull-On Shorts
These shorts boast a simple pull-style that’s easy to wear. They look great with flirty summer shirts for a warm-weather look that’s Barbie-approved.
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Amazon Essentials Pink Sleeveless Woven Shirt Dress
With a feminine design that offers a button-up front and waist bow, this fashionable dress certainly looks like something Barbie would wear. It has a stylish collar and flowing fit.
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Amazon Essentials Pink Tank Top
This affordable tank top comes in packs of two, which makes it a solid deal. The pink also comes with a white one, both of which can be paired with other pink items in summertime outfits.
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Amazon Essentials Pink Crop Puffer Jacket
Keep your Barbie style going when the weather turns chilly with this puffer jacket. The edgy crop style pairs perfectly with all types of pants and jeans. It has a cozy fill and high collar to lock out the cold.
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Amazon Essentials Hot Pink Swim Top
Pair this swim top with your favorite bikini bottoms for a Barbie look that’s ideal for the pool or beach. It’s made of a nylon blend that washes nicely and dries fast.
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Amazon Essentials Pink Active Seamless Long-Sleeve T-shirt
We love this long-sleeve T-shirt for yearlong wear with jeans, leggings or skirts. Featuring a comfortable fit and a breathable material, this shirt is likely to become your go-to pink top for casual days.
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Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/apparel-br/shirts-tops-br/amazon-has-barbie-fever-too-and-the-fashion-deals-to-prove-it/ | 2023-07-29T06:52:02 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/apparel-br/shirts-tops-br/amazon-has-barbie-fever-too-and-the-fashion-deals-to-prove-it/ |
Digital detox for kids
Between remote learning, video games and social media, it’s common for kids to experience digital overstimulation. Digital overload occurs when a child uses tech devices that expose them to more sensory information than they can handle. With this in mind, it’s worth having an occasional digital detox day to help kids unwind with screen-free activities.
While it’s easy to go electronics-free for a digital detox day, it’s essential to have other activities lined up to engage kids. A trip to the park or beach are fun outdoor options, especially when sports or arts and crafts are involved. Popular indoor activities include puzzles, building projects and even hands-on experience in the kitchen.
Shop this article: Intex Underwater Play Sticks, Singer M1500 Mechanical Sewing Machine, Stomp Rocket Dueling Rocket Launcher for Kids
Effects of digital overload on kids
According to a 2021 study from PubMed, overconsumption of tech devices can lead to:
- Insufficient work.
- Bouts of confusion.
- Delayed decision-making.
- Loss of control over information.
- Refusal to take in information.
- Higher tolerance for error.
- Lack of critical thinking of information.
- Mental health challenges such as anxiety and stress.
How unplugging for a day may help kids
Here’s how you can help your kids detox from their devices.
Benefits eye health
Spending long hours in front of screens due to school, video games or watching TV can wear on your eyes. According to the American Optometric Association, prolonged screen time may lead to digital eye strain, dry eyes, headaches or difficulty sleeping.
As a result, it’s recommended to unplug from devices when possible to alleviate these symptoms. A digital detox can help set the stage for what the AOA refers to as healthier “visual hygiene.” Ideally, kids and adults should take a 20-second break from screens every 20 minutes to view an object 20 feet away to minimize digital eye strain.
Boosts activity levels
A 24-hour digital detox challenge often inspires kids to get more active during the day. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that kids between the ages of 6 to 17 years should engage in an hour of “moderate-to-vigorous intense physical activity each day.”
Without the hindrance or distractions of devices, kids may find it easier to enjoy sports and physical activities, whether swimming, running around a park or playing tag. Older kids, namely high school-aged kids, may prefer spending their digital detox day at the gym, track or basketball court.
Encourages family time
Board game
Digital detox isn’t just for kids. Instead, the entire household can participate in and benefit from it.
If everyone unplugs for a day together, there’s more time to bond and talk over board games, story time, or home improvement projects. Or, the digital detox may present the ideal opportunity to enjoy an undistracted day trip, museum visit or outdoor excursion.
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Best toys and activities for 24-hour digital detox challenges
The backyard, park or pool are fun places for kids to play device-free. Investing in a new outdoor toy or game to enjoy during detox day is worth considering, too. Throw Throw Burrito, for example, is a dodgeball-inspired card game for ages 7 and older that keeps kids on their toes as they duck from flying burritos.
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Lego Creator 3-in-1 Space Shuttle Toy to Astronaut Figure to Spaceship
This 144-piece building set that offers three project configurations. Suitable for ages 6 and older and well-received for its realistic details.
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Every household member can play this wacky word association game with outrageous comparisons. It comes with 1,000 cards and you can play with as many as eight players.
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Kids Xplore Nature Exploration Kit
Tap into kids’ curiosity with this kit, which comes with binoculars, magnifying glass, nets and specimen containers. The kit helps kids learn map-reading skills and teaches kids the basics of nature-watching.
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Step up pool-time fun with this set of five quick-sinking toys. They’re made with soft, flexible silicone and have rounded edges for safe handling.
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Giantville Giant Tumbling Timber Toy
These blocks can grow as high as 4 feet when players flex their block-stacking skills. An all-ages-friendly game, it’s considered a favorite option for household-wide detox days spent outdoors.
Sold by Amazon
KaraoKing Karaoke Machine for Kids
This Bluetooth karaoke machine has plenty of high-tech features kids can enjoy while they belt out their favorite tunes. The machine has a built-in disco ball and connects with most devices for easy streaming.
Sold by Amazon
If a camping excursion is in the cards, either in the backyard or somewhere local, this tent is a wise investment for its 60-second setup. The tent has a spacious 8 feet by 7 feet interior and fits one queen-size air bed.
Sold by Amazon
Nerf Elite 2.0 Commander RD-6 Blaster
Take a game of tag to the next level with this popular dart blaster. It’s equipped with a rotating drum that blasts six darts up to 90 feet. As one of the more affordable Nerf blasters, many people invest in several to enjoy all-out blaster battles.
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Creativity for Kids Hide and Seek Rock Painting Kit
The kit comes with 10 rocks and eight colorful paints. Because the paint is weather-resistant, you can place the painted rocks around the yard.
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“The Master Guide to Drawing Anime” By Christopher Hart
The book teaches kids how to draw six popular anime figures, including vengeful bad guys. The book includes step-by-step demonstrations as well as templates and outfit guides. It’s recommended for kids ages 14 and older.
Sold by Amazon
Mademax Upgraded 79-Inch Splash Pad
Kids will have tons of summer fun with this splash pad. It comes with a storage bag, a repair patch, a hose connector and rubber washers. It’s easy to set up by connecting it to a garden hose or PVC tube.
Sold by Amazon
Creativity for Kids Grow N’ Glow Terrarium Kit
The kit is perfect for kids that love science. It is designed for kids ages 5 to 8 but can be a fun activity for the entire family. It has a terrarium jar, potting mix, organic chia and wheat grass seeds and more.
Sold by Amazon
Peter Pauper Press Premium Black Sketchbook
Let your kids’ imagination run rampant with a sketchbook. The pages are 8 ½ by 11 inches, giving kids plenty of space for their creativity. It includes 192 perforated, heavyweight pages and a study book binding.
Sold by Amazon
Stomp Rocket Dueling Rocket Launcher for Kids
This rocket launcher provides kids with a fun, safe outdoor activity. It launches four rockets 200 feet. It is safe for kids 5 and up, easy to assemble and 100% kid-powered. No batteries are needed for this Science, Technology, Engineering and Math toy.
Sold by Amazon
Looikoos Walkie Talkies for Kids
Let your kids communicate the old-fashioned way with walkie-talkies. This 3-pack of walkie-talkies come in three colors and a high anti-interference, clear voice technology. It has real-time monitoring, anti-wandering off, an alarm system, and 22 channels. They require four AAA batteries, which are sold separately.
Sold by Amazon
“Disney Dreams Collection Coloring Book” By Thomas Kinkade
This coloring book is for the ultimate Disney-lover. It features 63 color and black-and-white pages of classic Disney stories. It includes paintings from “The Jungle Book,” “Sleeping Beauty” and others. It is available as a paperback or spiral-bound book.
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Kinetic Sand Beach Sand Kingdom Playset
Bring the beach to your backyard or your kitchen table with this set. It has 3 pounds of beach sand, molds and tools for kids to enjoy. Kids 3 and older can use six molds to build amazing castles.
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This adorable set of whale-shaped bubble guns is sure to keep kids away from their devices. It has four 50-milliliter bubble solutions and three color choices. They are leak- and spill-proof, child-safe and ASTM Safety Test approved.
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The kit lets kids try several science experiments from the comfort of their homes. Safe for kids as young as 3, it includes 30 scientific experiments, such as rainbow rain, erupting volcanoes and bottle-blowing balloons. Kids use the instruction cards to guide them through the experiments.
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Kids can get creative with modeling clay. It includes 50 colors of clay and tools. It is non-toxic, environmentally-friendly, soft and non-sticky. It air dries, so there’s no need for it to be put in the oven to set.
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For the future architect, the magnetic tiles are a great STEM toy to challenge their building skills. This 52 0r 102-piece set can be used to build castles, animals, plants and more. They are made of rounded, high-quality acrylonitrile butadiene styrene plastic.
Sold by Amazon
National Geographic Microscope for Kids
Kids can examine various species with this microscope. The microscope has large focus knobs, a soft-touch eyepiece and adjustable platform to view species. It comes with six plant sides, six rocks and minerals and six blank sides. It has tools kids use to conduct experiments.
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“Where’s Waldo? The Ultimate Waldo Watcher Collection” By Martin Handford
Kids can get lost in time searching for Waldo. It includes seven puzzle books requiring kids to find the iconic character as well as other people and items.
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This set has 70 toys to keep kids entertained. Some of the fidget toys include pop bubbles, an infinity cube, fidget spinners, a pop ball, sensory rings and much more. They are great for children with conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, attention-deficit disorder, autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Sold by Amazon
Hapinest Find and Seek Scavenger Hunt
Scavenger hunts are a classic outdoor game that brings tons of fun. The set is designed for two players, including items such as 35 find and seek cards, two instruction cards and a drawstring bag.
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Soppycid Reusable Water Bomb Balloons
These reusable water bombs are an excellent way to have fun in the summer heat. They are offered in a 4-, 6-, 12-, 16-, 18- and 20-pack, and can be used several times. To fill them, simply sink them into water for about a second.
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Made By Me Ultimate Weaving Loom
Kids can develop a new hobby with this weaving kit. It can make up to 25 projects that kids can use or share with their friends. It has 378 pieces to make items such as pencil holders, potholders and friendship bracelets. No sewing is needed and it is kid-friendly.
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Hapray 4-Pack Bird House Crafts for Kids
This craft set lets kids design birdhouses for their animal friends. It includes four unassembled birdhouses, paint, four brushes, a painting palette, four strings and two glues. The birdhouses are made of high-quality, thick plywood and are non-toxic and eco-friendly.
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Let your athletes get some practice in with a punching bag. It comes in three colors and is adjustable to fit the child’s height. It has gloves, a durable stand, a weighted base and a 180-degree spring.
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“Paint by Sticker Kids: Zoo Animals” By Workman Publishing
Keep kids entertained for hours with this picture book. It includes 10 sticker paintings that require kids to find the stickers and place them in the right places to create a work of art.
Sold by Amazon
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BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing, and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers.
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Written by Laura Duerr
For better sleep without replacing your bed, try one of these mattress toppers
Do you feel like you’re not getting enough sleep, even if the clock says you slept eight hours? A mattress topper may be the solution. Mattress toppers help support your sleeping position, soften firm mattresses and minimize disruptive movement from your partner, all without making you replace your entire bed. Mattress toppers are available in several types of foam, gel and feathers, making it easy to customize your bed for a more comfortable night’s sleep.
Shop this article: Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Adapt Supreme Mattress Topper, Sleep On Latex Pure Green Natural Latex Mattress Topper, Linenspa Gel-Infused Memory Foam Mattress Topper
The best mattress toppers tested
Our BestReviews Testing Lab tried out two popular mattress toppers. Key features to look for in a mattress topper include temperature regulation and the right balance between softness and support. Mattress toppers are generally between 2 and 4 inches thick, though toppers up to 6 inches thick are available. Finally, if you’re hoping to reduce disruption caused by a partner’s restless sleep, look for a memory foam or gel mattress topper with low transmission of movement.
Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Adapt Supreme Mattress Topper review
Made by trusted mattress brand Tempur-Pedic, the Tempur-Adapt Supreme Mattress Topper transformed the tester’s bed into a luxury sleep experience. The soft memory foam delivered uninterrupted sleep and felt deep and soft yet still supportive. Its sturdy corner straps keep the mattress topper from sliding around, and our tester reported that after several weeks of use, the mattress topper felt just as soft and comfortable as it did on the first day.
Testing Sleep On Latex Pure Green Natural Latex Mattress review
This foam mattress topper, made from latex from organically grown rubber trees, provides sturdy support that’s still comfortable to sleep on. Our tester reports that the Pure Green mattress topper helped them sleep more comfortably than ever, thanks to how well it supported their back and bad shoulder. Plus, it was ready to use right away because the foam unrolled and lay flat instantly, without the uncurling period many mattress toppers need.
Best mattress toppers
Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Adapt Supreme Mattress Topper
The memory foam in this mattress topper conforms to support the body while retaining bounce-back comfort. It’s made from moisture-wicking, hypoallergenic materials and adds 3 inches of height to mattresses.
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Sleep On Latex Pure Green Natural Latex Mattress Topper
This 3-inch thick mattress topper is made from organic latex foam and is OEKO-TEX certified free from harmful chemicals. It’s durable and supportive, while small air chambers throughout the pad help promote airflow for a cooler sleep.
Sold by Amazon
Linenspa Gel-Infused Memory Foam Mattress Topper
This budget-friendly pick is infused with cooling gel, making it good for those who sleep too warm. The extra-soft foam is available in 2- and 3-inch thicknesses.
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Sleep Innovations Dual Layer Memory Foam Mattress Topper
At 4 inches thick, this mattress topper is extremely soft and comfortable. It’s made with a layer of memory foam topped with a down alternative pillow-top cover.
Sold by Amazon
This popular mattress topper features targeted zones designed to relieve pressure on different body parts. It’s also helpful for temperature regulation and stays in place well.
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Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/bedding-br/these-mattress-toppers-make-upgrading-your-bedroom-easy-and-inexpensive/ | 2023-07-29T06:52:16 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/bedding-br/these-mattress-toppers-make-upgrading-your-bedroom-easy-and-inexpensive/ |
Affordable school supplies and other budget picks
The school year is coming back around, and there’s no better time to start checking items off of your school supply list than right now. Finding affordable school supplies can be somewhat of a chore, but with an understanding of what supplies you need, you can probably find all your needs at a fair price.
From pens and pencils to planners, notebooks and more, being prepared for the back-to-school season doesn’t have to be stressful or break the bank.
Shop this article: Ticonderoga 30-Pack of Yellow Pre-Sharpened Graphite No. 2 Pencils, Blue Sky Academic Planner and Apple iPad Air
Picking your school supply essentials
Student age and grade
Perhaps the main factors for your school supply list are the student’s age, grade and classes. For example, glue is an excellent option for elementary and middle school students who are likely to perform arts and crafts. Older students could benefit from tools with more versatility, such as laptops, tablets or other smart devices. Additionally, a student taking specific classes, such as art or dance, may require more specific materials than what you’ll find on a school supplies list.
School supply options for keeping to your budget
Most school supply lists include several different items, all of which students are expected to have. These costs can add up quickly, though there are a few ways to keep to your budget. If you know the student will use certain disposable items, such as crayons, pens, pencils or erasers, for more than just one school year, you can buy them in bulk to save year after year. Otherwise, consider looking for deals on the student’s essentials.
Choosing your student’s essentials
What constitutes “back-to-school essentials” can vary from student to student, and if they’re too old for elementary school supply lists, then it may be up to you to choose. A few agreed-upon essentials are backpacks, pens and pencils, notebooks and binders. However, this can depend on your student’s classes and may include things ranging from cameras to musical instruments and more.
Best back-to-school supplies on a budget
Ticonderoga 30-Pack Of Yellow Pre-Sharpened Graphite No. 2 Pencils
Pencils are a must-have school supply item, no matter the student’s age. These number two pencils fit most peoples’ budgets and write with the standard lightness used in most schools. They include a useful eraser on the end that’s perfect for math, writing, drawing and other subjects.
Sold by Amazon
Paper Mate InkJoy 100RT Medium Point Ultra Smooth Ink Pens
These pens are super affordable when purchased in bulk and they write very smoothly compared to most other pens. You can buy these pens in either assorted color or black packages, in packs of 12 or 20.
Sold by Amazon
Crayola 24-Pack of Long Barrel Colored Woodcase Pencils
These colored pencils from Crayola are the industry standard, with colors including red, yellow, blue, white and black, among many others still. They come pre-sharpened and are made from all nontoxic materials.
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Crayola 152-Pack Ultimate Crayon Collection With Assorted Colors
The price of this massive crayon pack is impressive. It also comes with a crayon sharpener and a useful carrying caddy that makes coloring time easy. You can buy this crayon set in a bundle with a pack of twistable crayons for a little bit more money.
Sold by Amazon
JanSport Student Backpack With 15-Inch Laptop Compartment
This JanSport backpack works great for books and other supplies, and it also has a mesh pocket for holding water bottles and a 15-inch laptop compartment. You can purchase this option in several different colors and styles, each with JanSport’s signature S-curve shoulder straps with adjustable 14.5-inch shoulder drops.
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Fiskars Kids Pointed-Tip 5-Inch Safety Scissors In Random Colors
Scissors are another must-have for preschool and K-8 students, and this particular pair is extremely affordable and made blunt for added safety. They come in a random color, either red, blue, light blue or green. This option also comes with a full lifetime warranty, according to the product description.
Sold by Amazon
Gorilla Kids Retractable Disappearing Purple Glue Sticks
For students involved in arts and crafts, glue sticks are a necessity. These disappearing purple glue sticks are ideal for visual projects, offering a strong adhesive in both single packs of six-packs.
Sold by Amazon
Paper Mate 12-Pack Of Large Pink Pearl Classic Pencil Erasers
If a student plans to work in pencil often, another useful tool to keep handy is an eraser. While most pencils include an eraser, these offer a backup solution for when those tiny erasers on your pencil run out.
Sold by Amazon
PowerMe Black Electric Pencil Sharpener for No. 2 Pencils
If you plan to use a pencil, then you will also require a pencil sharpener. This electric sharpener is battery-powered and offers long-term pencil sharpening. You can buy this electric pencil sharpener in black, blue, green, pink, purple or white.
Sold by Amazon
Emraw Four-Pack Of 100-Sheet Black-and-White Marble-Style Cover Composition Books
Composition books are a classic lined paper option for use when taking notes or working on assignments. These lined composition books come with four units, and you can purchase them in black and white or assorted colors.
Sold by Amazon
Blue Sky Academic Year Planner
Academic planners are essential for older kids, and this flexible planner offers weekly and monthly calendar planning. You can buy this planner in 8.5-by-11-inch, 7-by-9-inch or 5-by-8-inch sizes.
Sold by Amazon
Apple 2022 Fifth-Generation 10.9-Inch Purple iPad Air With Wi-Fi
Tablets aren’t exactly cheap, but with Apple offering more budget options than ever, these can make an excellent alternative to laptops for older students. You can buy the iPad Air with either 64 or 256GB of storage, with Wi-Fi or a Wi-Fi and cellular bundle. It’s also available in purple, blue, pink, space gray and starlight.
Sold by Amazon
Acer Aspire 5 15.6-Inch Full Display Slim Laptop With AMD Ryzen 5 Processor
The Aspire 5 is a powerful Acer laptop that comes at a fair price, featuring a powerful processor and multiple bundle options for maximizing your purchase. It also includes 8GB of DDR4 RAM for multitasking and up to 11 hours of battery life off the charger.
Sold by Amazon
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These school supplies deals will save you money when you shop for the new school year
Shopping for back-to-school can be expensive. Kids need new clothes, shoes and accessories plus numerous classroom items before the new school year begins. The good news is that you can save on school essentials by finding them on sale.
This time of year, many popular retailers mark down the prices of the things kids need to head to class. Our back-to-school collection of must-have deals includes everything from shirts to calculators to help you stay within your budget as you shop.
Shop this article: Texas Instruments TI 84 Plus CE Graphing Calculator, Adidas Big Boys Iconic Tricot Pants and Castle Art Supplies Set of 72 Colored Pencils
How to shop for back-to-school deals
The key to successful back-to-school shopping is to think about what your kids need and prefer. After all, what good is a discounted jacket or budget-friendly backpack if your favorite students don’t like them or can’t use them? You can take control of your back-to-school shopping endeavors with a few helpful tips.
Look for on-trend styles
It may seem like various types of attire go out of style as quickly as they become hot items, but kids know what is trending. Get their guidance as you shop so they will be happy with any new additions to their wardrobe. When in doubt, you can’t go wrong with the basics such as jeans and T-shirts.
Think about their shoe needs
Most kids need more than one pair of shoes for school. In addition to current styles such as chunky platform shoes and casual sneakers, athletic shoes are necessary for sports or gym class.
Focus on classroom items
Pencils, calculators, notebooks, pens, erasers and highlighters are some of the most popular essentials that students need when they head back to class. This isn’t a complete list, and the items needed vary depending on the age of the student and class requirements. However, now is a good time to find low prices on these classroom must-haves.
Invest in coursework-friendly tech
Students of all ages work on computers or tablets to conduct research and do assignments. Devices such as headphones and earbuds will help them concentrate. What’s more, a simple home printer makes it possible for kids to print assignments to present to their teachers. When you shop early, you can save big on student-friendly tech.
Consider bags and packs
Don’t forget that kids need something to carry their gear to class. Backpacks, lunch boxes, pencil cases and gym bags are on the lists of most parents as they help their kids gather the items they’ll take back to school.
Best back-to-school deals for school supplies and clothing
Texas Instruments TI 84 Plus CE Graphing Calculator
Even if they are dreading it, many students will have to go to advanced math classes when school is back in session. The TI 84 Plus model is perfect for equations that require graphing to solve. A large vivid screen, lightweight build and rechargeable battery are other features students appreciate.
Sold by Amazon
There are good reasons that the Aspire 5 is a popular choice for students. Although it sports a vivid 15.6-inch screen that’s ideal for working on assignments, the design is trim and easy to stash in a backpack. The responsive 11th-generation Intel processor can easily keep up with important work. Parents will also appreciate the budget-friendly price.
Sold by Amazon
Under Armour Hustle 5.0 Backpack
Kids won’t run out of room in this spacious backpack, as it has ample pockets including one that’s large and padded for a laptop. It even has a lower compartment for stashing gear such as gym shoes.
Sold by Amazon
Epson WorkForce All-in-One Printer
This printer proves that you don’t have to spend a lot of money for a versatile model. Although inexpensive, it prints, scans and copies. It’s also capable of faxing and double-sided printing. Additionally, it has wireless connectivity and can pair with devices that offer voice control via Alexa or Siri.
Sold by Walmart
Adidas Big Boys Iconic Tricot Pants
Lightweight and comfortable, these classic Adidas pants are practical for warming up, playing sports or heading to class. They feature the iconic three-stripe pattern on the legs. Parents will also love how easy the polyester fabric is to wash.
Castle Art Supplies Set of 72 Colored Pencils
Colored pencils are great for kids who have art classes as part of their schedules. This set is perfect for exploring their creative side, as it’s packed with 72 pencils in every color of the rainbow. It includes a case to keep them organized and ready for use.
Sold by Amazon
Available in numerous colors, this pencil case features ample space for numerous writing tools and accessories. It has five elastic holders to keep important pencils and pens easy to access. Several smaller interior pockets will keep small items such as change and paper clips organized.
Sold by Amazon
These fan-favorite earbuds distance themselves from competitors for their amazing sound and reliable noise-canceling technology. These features are beneficial to students when using them to hone in on audio assignments or block out interruptive sounds. Transparency mode is there when they need it to hear outside sounds. They are comfortable to wear, too.
Sold by Amazon
Celebrity Pink Juniors’ High-Rise Wide-Leg Frayed Jeans
Pants with wide legs and denim with rips are both in style this year. This pair of jeans offers both, with an ultra-relaxed fit and on-trend frays. In addition to a casual, comfortable fit, they come in a nice selection of sizes and in a choice of two shades of blue.
Sold by Macy’s
Nike Big Kids Court Borough 2 SE Casual Sneakers
Regardless of your kid’s favorite styles, there’s a good chance that these sneakers will look great with them. They are designed for comfort and have laid-back casual looks that are perfect for class or weekends. They come in trendy white with a colorful Nike swoosh.
Sold by Macy’s
Other back-to-school deals worth checking out
- The Tommy Hilfiger Big Girls’ Ruffle Stripped Jersey Dress is perfect for special school days.
- Oxford Spiral Notebooks can be used for multiple classes thanks to their pocket dividers and three subjects.
- The Under Armour Boys’ Pennant Jacket is both stylish and warm.
- This Boys’ Nike Character T-shirt will look great with your little man’s favorite pair of jeans.
- Soundcore Life Q20 Hybrid Active Wireless Noise-canceling Headphones offer a nice blend of affordability and quality.
- A kids’ Bentgo Lunch Box provides room for their favorite foods and snacks.
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Jennifer Manfrin writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
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With great power comes limited pre-order availability
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, from developer Insomniac Games, is one of the biggest games scheduled to release this year. The first game, released in 2018, and the Miles Morales spinoff, released in 2020, were massive critical and commercial hits, so expectations are sky-high.
To capitalize on the fervor, Sony is releasing a special, limited edition PlayStation 5 console packed with Spider-Man goodness. If you already have a PS5, don’t fret. All of the bundle’s contents are also available separately. You’d better act fast, though. Some pieces are already sold out at certain retailers.
What’s in the bundle?
The Spider-Man 2 bundle is composed of four parts. The console, special console covers, a special controller and a digital copy of the game. The total price of the bundle is $599.99. That’s a huge savings compared to the cost of each item separately: $714.96.
The console
There are two versions of the PS5 console. One with a disk drive, which costs $499.99, and one without, which costs $399.99.
The console included in the bundle is the disk version of the console. There’s nothing special or different about the console itself, such as improved performance. It’s just a regular disc PS5.
The console covers
Typically, limited edition console bundles featured special designs painted right onto the system. But, because the PS5 uses detachable covers instead of a built-on body, this bundle just includes covers that come pre-attached to the console. This means you can mix and match any covers you may have or get later.
Console covers for the PS5 generally cost anywhere from $25 to $70 depending on the seller. The limited edition Spider-Man 2 covers cost $64.99. Be careful when purchasing these separately; there is a different version for both the disc and the discless PS5.
The controller
The PS5 controller, known as the “DualSense” controller, has unique features such as a special rumble feature that can mimic the surfaces your character walks on in-game and triggers with adjustable tension so you can feel the weight of pulling a bowstring, for example. It costs $69.99.
The special Spider-Man 2 controller is no different from any other DualSense, save for its design mimicking that of the console cover. It costs $79.99.
The game
Likely the reason you’re considering grabbing any of the above items in the first place, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is set to greatly expand on the gameplay found in the first two games in the series. Some of the biggest changes include being able to swap between Peter Parker and Miles Morales at will, and the introduction of gliding on web wings in your suit. Story-wise, Kraven the Hunter and Venom have been revealed as two big antagonists.
There are three versions of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 you can buy.
- Base version: Also called the Launch Edition, this includes special bonuses for pre-ordering. That’s the version included in the console bundle, and it costs $69.99.
- Digital Deluxe: This includes the Launch Edition bonuses and further extras such as more suits and Photo Mode items. It costs $79.99. If you want those bonuses after buying the base version, you can later upgrade your copy of the game for $9.99.
- Collector’s Edition: This version includes everything in the Digital Deluxe version, plus a SteelBook case and a statue of Peter and Miles fighting Venom. It costs $229.99.
Limited edition purchase details
The Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 limited edition console bundle and all of the individual items are currently available for pre-order. All of the above items are set to start shipping out on Sept. 1. The game itself, however, is not due for release until Oct. 20. If you buy the console bundle with the digital code, you can still redeem it. You simply can’t access the software until the game officially releases.
Best Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 items
PlayStation Limited Edition Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 Console Bundle
This set includes everything you need to get started on your next-generation Spider-Man journey once the game launches. The console included is the version with a disc drive.
Sold by Amazon
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Launch Edition
The special Launch Edition of the game includes early unlocks of one suit each for Peter Parker and Miles Morales, three color variants for each suit, an early unlock of the Web Grabber skill and three free skill points.
Sold by Amazon
PlayStation Limited Edition Spider-Man 2 DualSense Controller
This gorgeous controller sports the same “Venom taking over Spider-Man” design featured on the limited edition PS5. The Spider-Man symbol from the video game’s version of Spider-Man’s main suit is front and center on the touchpad.
Sold by Amazon
PlayStation Limited Edition Spider-Man 2 PlayStation 5 Console Covers
These slick Venom-black covers are for the disc drive version of the console. Use caution when taking off your original ones and attaching these to avoid any damage to your system.
Sold by Best Buy
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Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/gaming-accessories-br/how-to-pre-order-the-spider-man-2-ps5-and-accessories/ | 2023-07-29T06:52:37 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/gaming-accessories-br/how-to-pre-order-the-spider-man-2-ps5-and-accessories/ |
What’s the best way to organize your life in college?
College is a major life change. Adapting to the new lifestyle is the key to success, and with that comes other changes, including finding new ways to keep your life organized.
Getting organized isn’t only a physical process of tidying up and keeping a calendar. It’s largely a mental process that taps into a work-life balance, mindfulness and understanding one’s limits. Because everyone approaches the idea of organization differently, it’s important to explore different methods to find ones that work for you.
Shop this article: Mag-Fancy Dry Erase Calendar Kit, Clever Fox Planner Premium Edition and Maalbok Monthly Wall Calendar
How to organize your life as a college student
Keep a calendar
It’s no secret that college students are busy between classes, internships, work and activities. Keeping a calendar may improve time management skills and can help prevent overscheduling and burnout.
Additionally, a calendar serves as an informal list of goals. As college students complete each task or finish each day, they may feel a sense of accomplishment as they cross off completed tasks, whether it’s finishing a paper or doing their laundry.
While many students embrace the convenience of calendar apps, others still use planner books or wall calendars to write down appointments and due dates.
Mag-Fancy Dry Erase Calendar Kit
Divide cleaning responsibilities among suitemates and display them on this dry erase board fridge calendar. It comes with a set of four markers with eraser toppers.
Sold by Amazon
Clever Fox Planner Premium Edition
This weekly and monthly planner is jam-packed with features to help users stay organized, such as monthly review sections, bookmarks and blank space.
Sold by Amazon
The oversized day blocks of this monthly calendar leave plenty of room for recording important dates and appointments.
Sold by Amazon
Two Tumbleweeds Daily Planner Notepad
Praised for its convenient design, this daily notepad planner has dedicated sections for a schedule, meal planning and to-do list.
Sold by Amazon
Get used to “day before” prep
Rather than rushing to morning classes or activities — or arriving late — getting into a “day before” prep routine can optimize time. Before going to bed each night, pick out clothes and place textbooks and devices in your school bag. On top of that, it’s helpful to plan and prepare breakfast the night before. Some college students make overnight oats for an easy, nutrient-dense breakfast, while others use personal blenders and pre-measure shake ingredients to enjoy breakfast on the go.
It’s easy to bring breakfast to class with this Magic Bullet set, which includes a few travel cups. The blender handles everything from omelets to smoothies.
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Crystalia Breakfast On the Go Cups
These BPA-free yogurt cups are ideal meal prep accessories for yogurt, overnight oats or muesli. The cups are leakproof and come with matching spoons.
Sold by Amazon
Set a cleaning schedule
Cleaning a suite or the dorm bathroom isn’t a glamorous job, but it needs to get done. Instead of putting it off, set a cleaning schedule that works for everyone in the dorm, as teamwork often makes cleaning less daunting.
It’s hugely convenient to have cleaning supplies that are efficient, like multipurpose surface cleaners or wet/dry vacuums. Many of these products offer better results and may cut cleaning time in half.
Shellenbarger 69” Metal Blanket Ladder
A space-saving design, this blanket ladder has four 15-inch rungs to hold clothes or towels. When it’s not in use, it tucks easily behind doors or dressers.
Sold by Wayfair
Bissell Crosswave Pet Pro All-in-One Wet/Dry Vacuum
This popular Bissell vacuum cleans most floor types, making it easy to clean an entire dorm in one fell swoop. It has a tangle-free brush roll and an easy-to-empty dirt tank.
Sold by Amazon
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Multi-Surface Everyday Cleaner
Available in five scents, this multi-surface cleaner is suitable for everyday use. The formula is cruelty-free and can be used on hardwood floors, tile, countertops and walls.
Sold by Amazon
Clorox ToiletWand Disposable Toilet Cleaning System
Thanks to this convenient toilet cleaning system, there’s no need to bend or scrub. The set comes with six Clorox-infused scrubber heads that make quick work of stains.
Sold by Amazon
Make time for self-care
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with packed schedules, especially around exams or major projects. Making time for self-care gives you the opportunity to take a step back and reset both physically and mentally, which in turn may boost productivity levels later on.
Some college students benefit from adding activities like yoga or fitness classes to their schedules to help them unwind. Others adopt daily habits for self-care, like journaling, skin care routines or meditation.
Calm the Chaos Journal by Nicola Ries Taggart
This daily mindfulness journal has easy-to-follow prompts that aid in goal-setting, reflection and planning. The simple layout leaves plenty of room for writing or doodling.
Sold by Amazon
Kiehl’s Rare Earth Deep Pore Cleansing Mask
Indulge in self-care after a long day with this bestselling clay mask. It draws out impurities and leaves skin feeling refreshed and clean.
Sold by Amazon
This pillow is comfortable for meditation or practicing yoga poses. It’s filled with buckwheat and comes in six colors.
Sold by Amazon
Utilize closet and drawer organization
Most dorms are on the smaller side, which makes space a hot commodity. To maximize storage space, purchase closet and drawer organizers. These help keep clothes and accessories tidy and accessible.
One thing to keep in mind with these organizers is that they free up quite a bit of space. To stay organized, it’s smart to leave the free space free. Otherwise, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with an overabundance of stuff.
Home Basics Chevron 10-Shelf Hanging Closet Organizer
Not only is this hanging closet organizer affordable, its slender design is less than 6 inches wide. It’s great for storing shoes, shirts or soft accessories.
Sold by Amazon
Simple Houseware Drawer Organizer Set
This four-piece drawer divider set helps organize bras, socks and underwear. The dividers are made with mold-proof material.
Sold by Amazon
Sterilite Stackable Storage Drawer Set
These stacking storage drawers can go anywhere in dorms, including closets. While they’re often used for storing shoes, they’re suitable to organize makeup or hygiene products.
Sold by Amazon
Tidy up your desk
Tidying up your desk may help boost productivity levels while studying or writing papers. To maintain a desk free and clear of distractions, consider desk organizers to maximize space and storage solutions.
At the very least, it’s smart to have classic desk organizers like pencil cups or file organizers. In the digital era, however, you may need organizers that accommodate devices, cables and other electronics.
MobileVision Bamboo Multi Device Organizer
This five-slot organizer, available in a few design variations, keeps devices organized while they charge, including laptops and smartphones.
Sold by Amazon
These cable ties keep device power cords and wires tangle-free, plus they can be used to wrap up pens, pencils and other office supplies in desk drawers.
Sold by Amazon
Popular for its small footprint, this four-compartment pencil organizer holds dozens of pens as well as highlighters and scissors.
Sold by Amazon
ABC Life Expanding File Folder
Keep paperwork organized with this 26-pocket accordion file organizer. It’s made with high-quality plastic and has a waterproof lid.
Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/home-br/storage-organization-br/how-to-stay-organized-in-college/ | 2023-07-29T06:52:44 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/home-br/storage-organization-br/how-to-stay-organized-in-college/ |
Comparing the Roomba i3 EVO and i7 models
Vacuuming is no one’s favorite chore, but a robot vacuum does make it a whole lot easier. After more than two decades in business, iRobot, maker of the Roomba, has become synonymous with convenient, low-effort vacuuming, thanks to their impressive range of models. But if you’re trying to decide between the Roomba i3 EVO and the i7, there are some key differences to consider before choosing the best fit for your home.
We put the i3 EVO and i7 to the test in the BestReviews Testing Lab and found that both offer similar performance on most types of flooring as well as smart mapping of your home, which allows for more thorough cleaning. However, the i3 EVO beats the i7 on battery life and dustbin capacity as well as price (the i3 EVO is about $250 cheaper).
But the i7 is no slouch, either. It wins on navigation, thanks to its onboard camera, which gives it advanced capabilities and provides more opportunities to customize your cleaning. It also proved to have better suction power, making it ideal for homes with carpeting.
iRobot Roomba i3 EVO vs. iRobot Roomba i7 specs
When it comes to their performance on hard flooring, the Roomba i3 EVO and Roomba i7 are fairly similar. But small differences in a few key specs affect the overall user experience and ground they can cover.
iRobot Roomba i3 EVO specs
The testing team is checking the dustbin on the iRobot Roomba i3 EVO
Product specifications
Battery life: 96 minutes | Dimensions: 13.26” L x 13.26” W x 3.63” H | Dustbin capacity: 0.5 L | Weight: 7.44 lb | Mapping: Yes | Self-emptying: No | Voice commands: Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri | Scheduling: Yes
Released in 2020 as a new and improved Roomba i3 with better mapping features, the Roomba i3 EVO is similar in size to many other robot vacuums. Compared to the i7, which came out in 2018, it’s slightly narrower by less than a tenth of an inch, which won’t likely make too much of a difference in regard to maneuverability. It has a fairly average-sized dustbin among robot vacuums and is 0.2 liters larger than the i7’s dustbin. It also has a longer battery life, allowing it to clean for 20 minutes more than the i7. Unlike the i3+ EVO, this model isn’t self-emptying, so depending on the size of the space and how dirty it is, vacuuming may be interrupted when the bin is full.
Like many Roombas, the i3 EVO has smart-mapping capabilities that help it to learn your home and navigate the space more effectively. It identifies specific areas and rooms, so you can send the robot out for targeted cleaning by selecting a chosen room in the app’s drop-down menu when scheduling cleaning or sending the robot out for a one-off vacuuming run. Unlike some Roombas (including the i7), however, it doesn’t recognize Keep-Out Zones, which means you can’t prevent it from entering areas you don’t want it to clean.
The i3 EVO is compatible with voice commands through a home assistant, such as Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. It also lets you set up scheduled cleaning sessions with the iRobot app. You can choose specific days and times for cleaning or set the robot to clean as soon as it detects you’ve left the house.
iRobot Roomba i7 specs
The testing team is using the iRobot app to navigate the iRobot Roomba i7.
Product specifications
Battery life: 75 minutes | Dimensions: 13.34” L x 13.34” W x 3.63” H | Dustbin capacity: 0.3 L | Weight: 7.44 lb | Mapping: Yes | Self-emptying: No | Voice commands: Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri | Scheduling: Yes
Though it’s about the same size as the i3 EVO, the Roomba i7 offers a battery life that’s about 20 minutes shorter. Additionally, its dustbin is approximately 40% smaller than the i3, which means it will likely need to be emptied more frequently during vacuuming to keep the robot cleaning, as it’s not a self-emptying model like the i7+.
Like the i3 EVO and many other robot vacuums, the i7 uses smart-mapping technology to learn your home’s floor plan. However, unlike the i3 EVO, it has an onboard camera for more advanced navigation. As a result, the i7 can clean specific rooms or zones on a vacuuming run and avoid certain areas using Keep-Out Zones. It is also compatible with Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant for voice commands, but its range of commands is more extensive than those offered by the i3 EVO and other entry-level robots. For example, in addition to telling the robot to start, pause or stop vacuuming, you can also ask the i7 to vacuum a specific room like the living room or clean near a certain object like under the kitchen table.
The i7 allows for scheduling in the iRobot app. You can set certain times each week or have the robot “sense” when you’re out (via location services or a connected device signal through the app) to begin vacuuming. Through the app, you can also choose cleaning preferences for your i7’s scheduled jobs, including the suction power and number of passes.
Design comparison
The i3 EVO and i7 both feature a classic round robot vacuum shape, but their appearance is slightly different. The i3 EVO features a two-tone gray design mainly composed of plastic. However, it also has a textured fabric-like ring around its top that definitely stood out for its stylish appearance during our testing. On the other hand, the i7 is made entirely of plastic and has a sleek black-and-gray design.
Both models have rubber rolls with enough flexibility to discourage hair from tangling around them. During testing, we found a small amount of easily removed hair around the i3’s brushes and little to no hair around the i7’s rollers. Both models also have plastic wheels that felt sturdy when we tested them. Additionally, the i3 EVO and i7 have a pop-out caster wheel at their front, which is extremely easy to remove if dirt or hair gets stuck around it.
Overall, the i3 EVO and i7 felt equally durable during testing. Because they’re mostly made of sturdy plastic, both models can take a pretty good beating without showing signs of wear and tear. However, we found that the i3 EVO’s textured fabric ring didn’t just give it a more distinctive look than the i7 — it also prevented the robot from showing fingerprints and dust as easily, so it seemed to stay cleaner during our testing.
Navigation comparison
While the i3 EVO and i7 both offer smart mapping, their navigational abilities differ fairly significantly. The i3 EVO maps a space using floor-tracking sensors on its bottom, while the i7 has an camera that provides more thorough, accurate mapping. The i3 EVO can only support a single smart map, while the i7 can recognize up to 10. That makes the i7 a better choice if you want to clean multiple floors of your home or move it between two locations, such as your home and office.
During our testing, we observed a clear difference in the robots’ performance based on these mapping capabilities. The i3 EVO and i7 both map specific rooms or zones, so we sent them out to clean in certain areas. This feature is highly convenient in homes with children and/or pets because the robot can go clean up a mess as soon as it happens.
However, the i7 learned specific rooms as well as objects, so we also sent it out to clean around certain objects, such as in front of the kitchen counter or under the dining table. Unlike the i3 EVO, the i7 also recognizes Keep-Out Zones, which proved a highly convenient feature. During testing, we were able to prevent it from going into areas that didn’t need cleaning or had obstacles that might cause it to get stuck. Overall, this led to more efficient vacuuming.
Neither model offers an obstacle-avoidance feature, so both had issues with objects in their path. The i7 got caught up on string-like items, including power cords and the fringe on a rug. The i3 EVO bumped into small objects in its way, such as a handbag, a shoe and a rubber dog toy, several times before it finally pivoted away from them.
Ultimately, the i7’s advanced navigation makes it the better choice for a cluttered or busy home where you might want to prevent the robot from entering certain areas. For example, the Keep-Out Zone feature can prevent the vacuum from going into a playroom where children’s toys might be scattered on the floor or into the space where your pets’ food and water bowls are located. The i3 EVO still offers strong navigation skills, but it would work best in a home that doesn’t have any real no-go areas.
Features comparison
If you want to ensure your floors get the deepest clean possible, both the Roomba i3 EVO and i7 feature dirt-detect technology, which uses sensors on their underside to detect dirt and debris. These sensors alert the robots when there is a higher concentration of dirt in a given area, so it knows to work harder in those spots. They will continue to clean those areas until the sensors identify fewer debris particles.
During testing, we observed the smart maps for the i3 EVO and i7 after they went out for vacuuming runs. Both models indicated areas on their map where heavier dirt was detected with dark green triangles, so we could see where the dirt-detect technology was triggered. We didn’t observe any noticeable debris in those spots afterward, indicating that the robots had successfully cleaned those dirtier areas.
The Roomba i3 EVO and i7 also work with voice commands when paired with a home assistant like Alexa or Google Assistant. During testing, we used voice control to send the robots out to clean, and both models responded within seconds.
However, the available commands for the i3 EVO are fairly basic. We tested prompts like “start vacuuming,” “pause vacuuming,” “resume vacuuming” and “return to Home Base,” and all worked well. The i7 offers a broader range of voice commands, so we asked it to clean specific rooms like the living room and around certain objects like under the dining table for targeted cleaning. These additional commands can come in handy in a home with children or pets because you can simply command the robot to clean up messes as they happen.
Neither the Roomba i3 EVO nor i7 are self-emptying. If you want a model that empties itself, you’ll need to upgrade to the i3+ EVO or i7+.
Suction comparison
During testing, we found that the Roomba i3 EVO and i7 both performed well on hard flooring, including hardwood and tile. Like many robot vacuums, these models sometimes blew particles out of the path, which required a second pass to capture. Overall, though, they removed nearly all visible debris on hard flooring.
However, our testing found that the i7 offered better suction power when it came to carpeting. We only ran into one issue with it on carpeting — it sometimes got caught on the tasseled edge of a rug. Otherwise, it thoroughly cleaned all carpeted surfaces.
On the other hand, the i3 EVO struggled slightly on carpeting. It left behind a few visible particles of coarse kosher salt and some pieces of pet hair from a larger clump we’d placed in its path. It picked up kitty litter more effectively but also had trouble capturing cereal. It actually crushed a couple of pieces and ground the crumbs into the carpet without removing all the debris, making it the less effective option of the two.
Price
The iRobot Roomba i3 EVO typically retails for $349.99 and can be found at Amazon. The iRobot Roomba i7 usually costs $600 and is available at Amazon. Note that iRobot now only makes the self-emptying versions of these models: the Roomba 3+ EVO and Roomba i7+.
Bottom line
The Roomba i3 EVO and i7 offer many similar features, but their performance differs quite a bit on carpeting. Because of its superior suction power and advanced navigation capabilities, we give the i7 the overall edge. Its performance on carpet and Keep-Out Zones feature make it an excellent choice for a home with small children or pets because you can clean up crumbs and pet hair easily and prevent the robot from going into areas where they might get stuck on toys or bump into pet bowls.
The i3 EVO is still worth consideration, though. It has a longer-running battery and a bigger dustbin, so we recommend it for larger homes with more space to clean. It’s also more affordable than the i7, making it a perfect option if you’re on a budget.
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Jennifer Blair writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/home-br/vacuums-br/roomba-i3-evo-vs-i7-which-is-best-for-you/ | 2023-07-29T06:52:52 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/home-br/vacuums-br/roomba-i3-evo-vs-i7-which-is-best-for-you/ |
NIAMEY, Niger — Mutinous soldiers who staged a coup in Niger declared their leader the new head of state on Friday, hours after the general asked for national and international support despite rising concerns that the political crisis could hinder the nation's fight against jihadists and boost Russia's influence in West Africa.
Spokesman Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said on state television that the constitution was suspended and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani was in charge.
Various factions of Niger's military have reportedly wrangled for control since members of the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum, who was elected two years ago in Niger's first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence from France.
Niger is seen as the last reliable partner for the West in efforts to battle jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in Africa's Sahel region, where Russia and Western countries have vied for influence in the fight against extremism. France has 1,500 soldiers in the country who conduct joint operations with the Nigeriens, and the United States and other European countries have helped train the nation's troops.
The coup sparked international condemnation and the West African regional group ECOWAS, which includes Niger and has taken the lead in trying to restore democratic rule in the country, scheduled an emergency summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Sunday.
The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned efforts "to unconstitutionally change the legitimate government." Its statement, agreed to by all 15 members including the U.S. and Russia, called for "the immediate and unconditional release" of Bazoum and expressed concern over the negative effect of coups in the region, the "increase in terrorist activities and the dire socio—economic situation."
Extremists in Niger have carried out attacks on civilians and military personnel, but the overall security situation is not as dire as in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso — both of which have ousted the French military. Mali has turned to the Russian private military group Wagner, and it's believed that the mercenaries will soon be in Burkina Faso.
Now there are concerns that Niger could follow suit. Before the coup, Wagner, which has sent mercenaries around the world in support of Russia's interests, already had its sights set on Niger, in part because it's a large producer of uranium.
"We can no longer continue with the same approaches proposed so far, at the risk of witnessing the gradual and inevitable demise of our country," Tchiani, who also goes by Omar Tchiani, said in his address. "That is why we decided to intervene and take responsibility."
"I ask the technical and financial partners who are friends of Niger to understand the specific situation of our country in order to provide it with all the support necessary to enable it to meet the challenges," he said.
If the United States designates the takeover as a coup, Niger stands to lose millions of dollars of military aid and assistance.
The mutinous soldiers, who call themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, accused some prominent dignitaries of collaborating with foreign embassies to "extract" the deposed leaders. They said it could lead to violence and warned against foreign military intervention.
Bazoum has not resigned and he defiantly tweeted from detention on Thursday that democracy would prevail.
It's not clear who enjoys majority support, but the streets of the capital of Niamey were calm Friday, with a slight celebratory air. Some cars honked in solidarity at security forces as they drove by — but it was not clear if that meant they backed the coup. Elsewhere, people rested after traditional midday prayers and others sold goods at their shops and hoped for calm.
"We should pray to God to help people come together so that peace comes back to the country. We don't want a lot of protests in the country, because it is not good ... I hope this administration does a good job," said Gerard Sassou, a Niamey shopkeeper.
A day earlier, several hundred people gathered in the city chanting support for Wagner while waving Russian flags. "We're fed up," said Omar Issaka, one of the protestors. "We are tired of being targeted by the men in the bush. ... We're going to collaborate with Russia now."
That's exactly what many in the West likely fear. Tchiani's criticism of Bazoum's approach and of how security partnerships have worked in the past will certainly make the U.S., France, and the EU uneasy, said Andrew Lebovich, a research fellow with the Clingendael Institute.
"So that could mark potentially some shifts moving forward in Niger security partnerships," he said.
Even as Tchiani sought to project control, the situation appeared to be in flux. A delegation from neighboring Nigeria, which holds the ECOWAS presidency and was hoping to mediate, left shortly after arriving, and the president of Benin, nominated as a mediator by ECOWAS, has not arrived.
Earlier, an analyst who had spoken with participants in the talks said the presidential guard was negotiating with the army about who should be in charge. The analyst spoke on condition they not to be named because of the sensitive situation.
A western military official in Niger who was not authorized to speak to the media also said the military factions were believed to be negotiating, but that the situation remained tense and violence could erupt.
Speaking in Papua New Guinea, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the coup as "completely illegitimate and profoundly dangerous for the Nigeriens, Niger and the whole region."
The coup threatens to starkly reshape the international community's engagement with the Sahel region.
On Thursday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said the country's "substantial cooperation with the Government of Niger is contingent on Niger's continued commitment to democratic standards."
The United States in early 2021 said it had provided Niger with more than $500 million in military assistance and training programs since 2012, one of the largest such support programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union earlier this year launched a 27 million-euro ($30 million) military training mission in Niger.
The United States has more than 1,000 service personnel in the country.
Some military leaders who appear to be involved in the coup have worked closely with the United States for years. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the head of Niger's special forces, has an especially strong relationship with the U.S., the Western military official said.
While Russia has also condemned the coup, it remains unclear what the junta's position would be on Wagner.
The acting head of the United Nations in Niger said Friday that humanitarian aid deliveries were continuing, even though the military suspended flights carrying aid.
Nicole Kouassi, the acting U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator, told reporters via video from Niamey that 4.3 million people needed humanitarian aid before this week's military action and 3.3 million faced "acute food insecurity," the majority of them women and children.
Jean-Noel Gentile, the U.N. World Food Program director in Niger, said "the humanitarian response continues on the ground." He said the U.N. is providing cash assistance and food to people in accessible areas and that the agency is continuously assessing the situation to ensure security and access.
This is Niger's fifth coup and marks the fall of one of the last democratically elected governments in the Sahel.
Its army has always been very powerful and civilian-military relations fraught, though tensions had increased recently, especially with the growing jihadist insurgency, said Karim Manuel, an analyst for the Middle East and Africa with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wbaa.org/2023-07-29/soldiers-declare-niger-general-as-head-of-state-following-coup | 2023-07-29T06:52:52 | 0 | https://www.wbaa.org/2023-07-29/soldiers-declare-niger-general-as-head-of-state-following-coup |
NIAMEY, Niger — Mutinous soldiers who staged a coup in Niger declared their leader the new head of state on Friday, hours after the general asked for national and international support despite rising concerns that the political crisis could hinder the nation's fight against jihadists and boost Russia's influence in West Africa.
Spokesman Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said on state television that the constitution was suspended and Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani was in charge.
Various factions of Niger's military have reportedly wrangled for control since members of the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum, who was elected two years ago in Niger's first peaceful, democratic transfer of power since independence from France.
Niger is seen as the last reliable partner for the West in efforts to battle jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in Africa's Sahel region, where Russia and Western countries have vied for influence in the fight against extremism. France has 1,500 soldiers in the country who conduct joint operations with the Nigeriens, and the United States and other European countries have helped train the nation's troops.
The coup sparked international condemnation and the West African regional group ECOWAS, which includes Niger and has taken the lead in trying to restore democratic rule in the country, scheduled an emergency summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, on Sunday.
The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned efforts "to unconstitutionally change the legitimate government." Its statement, agreed to by all 15 members including the U.S. and Russia, called for "the immediate and unconditional release" of Bazoum and expressed concern over the negative effect of coups in the region, the "increase in terrorist activities and the dire socio—economic situation."
Extremists in Niger have carried out attacks on civilians and military personnel, but the overall security situation is not as dire as in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso — both of which have ousted the French military. Mali has turned to the Russian private military group Wagner, and it's believed that the mercenaries will soon be in Burkina Faso.
Now there are concerns that Niger could follow suit. Before the coup, Wagner, which has sent mercenaries around the world in support of Russia's interests, already had its sights set on Niger, in part because it's a large producer of uranium.
"We can no longer continue with the same approaches proposed so far, at the risk of witnessing the gradual and inevitable demise of our country," Tchiani, who also goes by Omar Tchiani, said in his address. "That is why we decided to intervene and take responsibility."
"I ask the technical and financial partners who are friends of Niger to understand the specific situation of our country in order to provide it with all the support necessary to enable it to meet the challenges," he said.
If the United States designates the takeover as a coup, Niger stands to lose millions of dollars of military aid and assistance.
The mutinous soldiers, who call themselves the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, accused some prominent dignitaries of collaborating with foreign embassies to "extract" the deposed leaders. They said it could lead to violence and warned against foreign military intervention.
Bazoum has not resigned and he defiantly tweeted from detention on Thursday that democracy would prevail.
It's not clear who enjoys majority support, but the streets of the capital of Niamey were calm Friday, with a slight celebratory air. Some cars honked in solidarity at security forces as they drove by — but it was not clear if that meant they backed the coup. Elsewhere, people rested after traditional midday prayers and others sold goods at their shops and hoped for calm.
"We should pray to God to help people come together so that peace comes back to the country. We don't want a lot of protests in the country, because it is not good ... I hope this administration does a good job," said Gerard Sassou, a Niamey shopkeeper.
A day earlier, several hundred people gathered in the city chanting support for Wagner while waving Russian flags. "We're fed up," said Omar Issaka, one of the protestors. "We are tired of being targeted by the men in the bush. ... We're going to collaborate with Russia now."
That's exactly what many in the West likely fear. Tchiani's criticism of Bazoum's approach and of how security partnerships have worked in the past will certainly make the U.S., France, and the EU uneasy, said Andrew Lebovich, a research fellow with the Clingendael Institute.
"So that could mark potentially some shifts moving forward in Niger security partnerships," he said.
Even as Tchiani sought to project control, the situation appeared to be in flux. A delegation from neighboring Nigeria, which holds the ECOWAS presidency and was hoping to mediate, left shortly after arriving, and the president of Benin, nominated as a mediator by ECOWAS, has not arrived.
Earlier, an analyst who had spoken with participants in the talks said the presidential guard was negotiating with the army about who should be in charge. The analyst spoke on condition they not to be named because of the sensitive situation.
A western military official in Niger who was not authorized to speak to the media also said the military factions were believed to be negotiating, but that the situation remained tense and violence could erupt.
Speaking in Papua New Guinea, French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the coup as "completely illegitimate and profoundly dangerous for the Nigeriens, Niger and the whole region."
The coup threatens to starkly reshape the international community's engagement with the Sahel region.
On Thursday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said the country's "substantial cooperation with the Government of Niger is contingent on Niger's continued commitment to democratic standards."
The United States in early 2021 said it had provided Niger with more than $500 million in military assistance and training programs since 2012, one of the largest such support programs in sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union earlier this year launched a 27 million-euro ($30 million) military training mission in Niger.
The United States has more than 1,000 service personnel in the country.
Some military leaders who appear to be involved in the coup have worked closely with the United States for years. Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the head of Niger's special forces, has an especially strong relationship with the U.S., the Western military official said.
While Russia has also condemned the coup, it remains unclear what the junta's position would be on Wagner.
The acting head of the United Nations in Niger said Friday that humanitarian aid deliveries were continuing, even though the military suspended flights carrying aid.
Nicole Kouassi, the acting U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator, told reporters via video from Niamey that 4.3 million people needed humanitarian aid before this week's military action and 3.3 million faced "acute food insecurity," the majority of them women and children.
Jean-Noel Gentile, the U.N. World Food Program director in Niger, said "the humanitarian response continues on the ground." He said the U.N. is providing cash assistance and food to people in accessible areas and that the agency is continuously assessing the situation to ensure security and access.
This is Niger's fifth coup and marks the fall of one of the last democratically elected governments in the Sahel.
Its army has always been very powerful and civilian-military relations fraught, though tensions had increased recently, especially with the growing jihadist insurgency, said Karim Manuel, an analyst for the Middle East and Africa with the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.apr.org/2023-07-29/soldiers-declare-niger-general-as-head-of-state-following-coup | 2023-07-29T06:52:57 | 1 | https://www.apr.org/2023-07-29/soldiers-declare-niger-general-as-head-of-state-following-coup |
Written by Allen Foster
Here’s what we learned about the robot vacuums everyone loves to hate
You want your home clean, but you don’t necessarily want to do it yourself. That’s fine. It’s why iRobot created the Roomba. These little machines have come a long way in the past two decades, so BestReviews Testing Lab tested iRobot’s 2023 line to find out which was the best robotic vacuum.
To get a comprehensive understanding of iRobot’s line, the BestReviews Testing Lab evaluated 10 models. In order of performance during testing, they are:
- Roomba s9+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
- Roomba j7+ Combo Mop and Robot Vacuum
- Roomba j7+ Self Emptying Vacuum
- Roomba i4 Robot Vacuum
- Roomba i8+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
- Roomba i7 Robot Vacuum
- Roomba i1+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
- Roomba 694 Robot Vacuum
- Roomba 692 Robot Vacuum
- Roomba i3+ EVO Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
Each of these models was tested in a real-world environment so we could understand how they performed on hardwood and carpet, as well as in homes with pets. The goal is to provide consumers with valuable information that can help them simplify their purchasing decision without getting lost in a sea of tech specs.
Roombas’ performance varies widely
In a nutshell, BestReviews learned that the models’ capabilities vary dramatically. For example, while the 600 series models missed some areas and only had power for a little over an hour, the s9+ ran for almost 2 hours on a single charge and performed an exceptional deep clean in all areas.
If you are interested in purchasing a Roomba, you must take into consideration the size of your home, whether you have a pet, and how much you have in your budget. While iRobot makes Roombas for a variety of users at different price points, the Testing Lab learned if you don’t match your needs to the product’s abilities, you will be disappointed.
What was our favorite Roomba?
While most of the iRobot Roombas had desirable features and could not be considered a poor choice — especially if you are balancing price and performance — the clear winner was the s9+ model. It scored impressively high when cleaning all floor types. It also offers impressive navigation and scored top marks in quality, ease of setup, performance and user experience. If you want the best, the Roomba s9+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum is the way to go.
Do the hybrid Roomba/Mops compete with the main Roombas?
After testing all 10 of the iRobot Roombas, the BestReviews Testing Lab realized that there was no compromise made when manufacturing the combo model — it offers roughly the same amount of power, intelligence and convenience as the one that doesn’t mop. So the hybrid Roomba is not only comparable to the regular version, it is superior, because a robot that can vacuum and mop at the same time cuts down on cleaning time while increasing efficiency.
What was our least favorite?
While the BestReviews Testing Lab found the two 600 series vacuums to be merely adequate, the lower price helped make those models a slightly better value. The Roomba i3+ EVO Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum, however, has a higher price without substantially more to offer, so it wins the prize for “least favorite.”
Besides having a considerably shorter runtime and questionable cleaning skills, its Wi-Fi range was not impressive and its navigation left a lot to be desired. Since there are far better and comparably priced vacuums in the line, it’s best to steer clear of the i3+.
Testing a Roomba with dog poop
Because it is not a hygienically sound idea, the BestReviews Testing Lab did not encourage a dog to make a mess inside. The lab also did not bring feces into the home just for the purpose of a test. Instead, we approximated the situation using different items so we could discern how the robot vacuums would handle encountering a small unexpected obstacle.
The ideal response was avoidance. Because there’s no guarantee of dryness and solidity, any other option might just spread the mess throughout the home, creating a very unsanitary condition.
After testing a variety of sizes and configurations, the lab found most Roomba models either tried to pass directly through the obstacle or tested it out, by bumping into it and backing up. The only successful avoidance occurred with the j7+ models.
The 10 Roombas that were tested
Roomba s9+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
This model offers deep multi-surface cleaning. It is easy to set up, and the vacuum remembers specific objects and locations, making spot cleaning effortless. It efficiently transitions between all surfaces and is effective at removing debris of all sizes. This is what it is the BestReviews top pick.
Sold by: Amazon
Roomba j7+ Combo Mop and Robot Vacuum
If you’re looking for a thorough, versatile cleaning robot, this is the BestReviews runner-up pick. It vacuums and mops, is powerful enough for pet owners and only takes a few minutes to get up and running. The j7+ combo passed all the Testing Lab’s cleaning challenges with ease and worked well on all types of floors.
Sold by: Amazon
Roomba j7+ Self-Emptying Vacuum
This self-emptying option is also one of BestReviews’ favorite models. It has an impressive range and cleans up all sizes of debris quickly and thoroughly. Besides mapping out the home, this vacuum is smart enough to detect and avoid new obstacles and has admirable real-time reactions.
Sold by: Amazon
While the i4 is a little lacking in features (when compared to high-end models), the price to performance ratio is high enough to make this a solid option for the right home. The main issue with this model is it can take several passes to pick everything up as the brushes have a tendency to spread debris out on the first pass. But eventually, it gets the job done.
Sold by: Amazon
Roomba i8+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
The Testing Lab wouldn’t place this model at the top with regard to power, but it is smart, has a decent amount of runtime and thoroughly cleaned a 250-square-foot room in under 30 minutes. While it had a little trouble with dry cereal, it was impressive in its ability to remove pet hair.
Sold by: Walmart
The i7 isn’t quite as impressive as the j7+. It does a decent job of cleaning, but it doesn’t have a self-emptying feature, which for the price is a little disappointing. As far as performance, this model is satisfactory, doing an okay job in most situations.
Sold by: Amazon
Roomba i1+ Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
This offering does a satisfactory job. It gives you the convenience of self-emptying and is powerful enough to keep a home with a pet relatively clean. Occasionally, it can get stuck and may miss a patch of tiny debris, but if you are after general maintenance, this model will satisfy.
Sold by: Walmart
Unfortunately, the Roomba 694 has a few flaws. When testing, the lab noticed it could miss small sections. The unit also didn’t communicate when it was full, so average users might run into some frustration. However, the lower price might make this an acceptable option for some consumers.
Sold by: Amazon
While this model tries, and often delivers an exceptional clean, there are times the brushes scatter smaller debris around instead of picking them up. The BestReviews Testing Lab also noticed this model did a lot of bumping into objects, including walls, making its navigating ability less than impressive. However, it performs well enough for entry-level consumers
Sold by: Amazon
Roomba i3+ EVO Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum
The i3+ has its share of pros and cons. It is a self-emptying model, so you get the benefit of forgetting about vacuuming for weeks at a time, but the navigation isn’t super-impressive and the setup can be a little finicky. While it was BestReviews’ least favorite in the line, it still offers adequate performance. That may be enough for some, but we really can’t give it a glowing review.
Sold by: Amazon
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Allen Foster writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2023 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/home-br/vacuums-br/we-tested-10-roombas-in-3-days-heres-what-we-learned/ | 2023-07-29T06:52:58 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/reviews/br/home-br/vacuums-br/we-tested-10-roombas-in-3-days-heres-what-we-learned/ |
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. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-aaron-hernandezs-brother-now-facing-federal-charges-over-alleged-threatening-messages/ | 2023-07-29T06:53:05 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-aaron-hernandezs-brother-now-facing-federal-charges-over-alleged-threatening-messages/ |
The Pac-12 Conference issued a statement aimed at stability after Colorado became the third school in a year to announce plans to leave. The nine schools remaining for the 2024-25 season were largely silent Friday.
Colorado on Thursday announced it would join the Big 12 beginning in 2024, joining Big Ten-bound Southern California and UCLA in an exodus that could continue in coming weeks and months. Their departures coincide with the expiration of the league’s current media rights deals and the Pac-12 has not yet announced a lucrative deal going forward.
Shortly after CU’s regents approved the move to the Big 12, the Pac-12 issued a statement pledging to soldier on. Possible Pac-12 expansion targets could include San Diego State and SMU.
“We are focused on concluding our media rights deal and securing our continued success and growth,” the Pac-12 said. “Immediately following the conclusion of our media rights deal, we will embrace expansion opportunities and bring new fans, markets, excitement and value to the Pac-12.”
The Pac-12’s media rights contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, and Commissioner George Kliavkoff has not noted any progress in landing a new deal.
Oregon State was the only Pac-12 school to comment following the Colorado announcement. A founding member of the league in 1915, Oregon State is considered one of the least likely schools to be poached by another conference.
“Oregon State Athletics trusts that the Pac-12 will secure a media rights deal that will strongly benefit the institutions that are remaining loyal to this conference,” Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes said. “All of us at Oregon State will continue to work hard and diligently to continue the long-term membership and success of our athletic department at a national level.”
Oregon State President Jayathi Murthy said her school joins other members in reaffirming its commitment to the Pac-12.
“We are united by our shared values, our passion for the highest level of intercollegiate athletic competition, our leadership roles as Tier 1 research universities and our support for student-athletes’ academic and athletic excellence,” Murthy said.
The administrations and athletic departments at Utah and Washington declined comment. Arizona State, California and Washington State athletic departments also declined comment, as did the Arizona and Oregon president’s offices.
Stanford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Arizona, Arizona State and Utah are believed to be potential targets for further Big 12 expansion, though those schools publicly committed to the Pac-12 prior to Colorado’s announced departure. The Big 12 has a six-year, $2 billion contract that is projected to net annual revenue of $31 million for each school.
Under then-Commissioner Kevin Warren, the Big Ten still had eyes out west even after landing USC and UCLA, with Oregon and Washington having the most appeal of the remaining Pac-12 schools. But Warren is gone now and his replacement, Tony Pettit, said earlier this week that the Big Ten isn’t eager to expand more.
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AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/ap_top25 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-beleaguered-pac-12-says-it-will-pursue-expansion-with-colorado-usc-and-ucla-all-leaving-next-year/ | 2023-07-29T06:53:12 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-beleaguered-pac-12-says-it-will-pursue-expansion-with-colorado-usc-and-ucla-all-leaving-next-year/ |
CINCINNATI (AP) — Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow could miss “several weeks” with a right calf strain, coach Zac Taylor said Friday.
The 26-year-old franchise quarterback hobbled on one leg and then went to the ground after a scramble play near the end of Thursday’s practice. He rode off the field in a medical cart.
“It will take several weeks, and that’s all the information we have,” Taylor said.
Burrow did not practice Friday, with backup QBs Jake Browning and Trevor Siemian taking the snaps. The Bengals play their first preseason game on Aug. 11 and open the regular season Sept. 10.
Taylor said Burrow “has seen the doctors” and was present for meetings at the team’s training facility Friday. The quarterback was wearing a compression sleeve on his right calf when he pulled up with the injury, but Taylor said Friday he was unaware there was anything wrong before that play.
Burrow is still negotiating with the Bengals on a long-term contract that could make him one of the NFL’s highest-paid players.
The team’s top draft pick in 2020 had talked Wednesday about how good he felt at the opening of camp after his first three NFL training camps were disrupted and how he hoped to play in some preseason games.
Preseason practice was truncated in Burrow’s rookie year in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. In 2001, he was still rehabbing after knee surgery the previous December. On the first day of camp last year, he was stricken with appendicitis.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-bengals-qb-joe-burrow-could-miss-several-weeks-with-calf-strain-coach-taylor-says/ | 2023-07-29T06:53:19 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-bengals-qb-joe-burrow-could-miss-several-weeks-with-calf-strain-coach-taylor-says/ |
EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP) — Celine Boutier posted a 2-under 69 in the second round of the Evian Championship to move to 7 under overall, giving her a one-shot lead on Friday.
But surprise overnight leader Paula Reto dropped down the leaderboard after a 4-over 75.
The 29-year-old Boutier, who was two shots back from Reto overnight, is looking to become the first Frenchwoman to win the tournament, which became a major in 2013.
“It’s really great to feel the support from the fans when you play some good shots and some good putts go in,” Boutier said. “This kind of support used to put me under pressure in the past, and I didn’t cope well with it, but this year I’m trying to stay very relaxed.”
Her solid round kept her narrowly ahead of Thailand’s Patty Tavatanakit, who carded 67, and Japan’s Yuka Saso (69), in a tie for second.
They are one shot ahead of Nasa Hataoka of Japan (67), Mexico’s Gaby Lopez (68) and American Alison Lee (71).
Reto struggled badly on the back nine, with a double bogey on the 12th hole followed by three bogeys over the next four holes.
The 33-year-old South African ended the day in a tie for eighth at 3 under overall along with defending champion Brooke Henderson of Canada, who finished on 70.
Boutier was level with 2015 champion Lydia Ko of New Zealand overnight, but Ko drifted way back into a tie for 22nd after a dismal round of 76 at the Evian Resort Golf Club.
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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-boutier-holds-a-1-shot-lead-after-2nd-round-of-evian-championship/ | 2023-07-29T06:53:26 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-boutier-holds-a-1-shot-lead-after-2nd-round-of-evian-championship/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Miles Mikolas was suspended for five games and fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Baseball on Friday for intentionally throwing at Ian Happ of the Chicago Cubs.
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol was suspended for one game and fined as a result of Mikolas’ actions Thursday night. Mikolas appealed his penalties, while Marmol served his suspension Friday night against the Cubs.
In the first inning in the Cardinals’ 10-3 loss, Happ bloodied St. Louis catcher Willson Contreras when he hit him in the head with a long follow-through on a swing, then was soon hit himself by a pitch from Mikolas.
Andrew Knizner took over behind the plate for Contreras, and Mikolas brushed back Happ with the first pitch when play resumed to run the count to 3-1. With the next pitch, Mikolas hit Happ in the rear end.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-cardinals-mikolas-suspended-5-games-and-fined-for-intentionally-throwing-at-cubs-happ/ | 2023-07-29T06:53:34 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-cardinals-mikolas-suspended-5-games-and-fined-for-intentionally-throwing-at-cubs-happ/ |
GENEVA (AP) — The IOC assured Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan on Friday that she will have a place at the Paris Olympics next year after she was disqualified from a key ranking event for refusing to shake hands with a Russian she had beaten.
In a letter to Kharlan, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said it would make a “unique exception” by allocating her an extra place to ensure she competes in Paris.
“It is admirable how you are managing this incredibly difficult situation,” wrote Bach, who like Kharlan is a former Olympic champion in a fencing team event.
Each Olympic sport has a strict quota for athletes within the IOC-imposed 10,500 overall total at the Summer Games in Paris.
A protected entry for the 32-year-old Kharlan, a four-time Olympic medalist, has now been found after controversy over her disqualification at the world championships on Thursday marred the event at Milan, Italy.
The incident between Kharlan and her Russian opponent — Anna Smirnova, who was competing as an approved neutral athlete — also cast doubt on the IOC’s hopes for athletes from the two countries to compete against each other without incident.
Kharlan comfortably beat Smirnova 15-7 in a first-round contest then refused a handshake, and instead pointed her sabre toward the Russian. Touching blades was used as an alternative to handshakes at fencing competitions during the coronavirus pandemic.
Smirnova stood facing Kharlan and did not raise her sabre. Kharlan then turned and left the piste and the Russian refused to leave for more than 50 minutes. Smirnova sat on a chair on the piste in an apparent protest over the handshake.
Kharlan was later disqualified by the International Fencing Federation (FIE) which denied her the chance to earn more ranking points that feed into Olympic qualification.
The IOC said Thursday that sports governing bodies should show “sensitivity” on issues involving Ukrainians and neutral athletes from Russia – an apparent suggestion that the FIE made an error.
One day later, Bach wrote to Kharlan acknowledging a “roller coaster of emotions and feelings” she must have.
The FIE changed course Friday by saying it would allow Kharlan to compete for Ukraine in the upcoming team sabre event, but still defended the decision to punish her. Kharlan had faced a suspension from the rest of the world championships and from other events.
Echoing the IOC, the FIE interim president Emmanuel Katsiadakis said the ruling “sends a message of sensitivity and understanding to our members and all sports federations, as the world faces tremendous challenges.” The FIE published a comment attributed to Kharlan saying she was ”thankful for this decision” and wanted to return to competition.
However, the FIE statement made no mention of allowing Ukrainians to avoid handshakes with Russian opponents in future — which could mean more disputes ahead of the Olympics — and the federation insisted it was right to punish Kharlan.
“The FIE stands fully behind the penalty, which, after a thorough review, is in complete accordance and compliance with its official rules and associated penalties,” it said.
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AP coverage of the Paris Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-ioc-assures-ukraine-fencer-of-paris-games-spot-after-dq-for-not-shaking-hands-with-russian-opponent/ | 2023-07-29T06:53:41 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-ioc-assures-ukraine-fencer-of-paris-games-spot-after-dq-for-not-shaking-hands-with-russian-opponent/ |
GENEVA (AP) — Juventus was removed from European competition next season and Chelsea was fined $11 million in separate UEFA rulings over financial rules breaches on Friday.
The expulsion of Juventus from the third-tier Europa Conference League was expected because of a false accounting case that already saw the two-time European champion deducted 10 points in Serie A. That penalty dropped Juventus out of Champions League qualification places.
Juventus’ spot in the Europa Conference League should go to Fiorentina in the playoffs round starting on Aug. 24.
UEFA said Friday that Juventus also must also pay a fine of 10 million euros ($11 million) for breaking Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. A further 10 million euros can be deducted if the club fails to comply with UEFA financial monitoring rules in future seasons.
Juventus regretted the ruling but said it wouldn’t appeal.
“We regret the decision of the UEFA Club Financial Control Body,” Juventus president Gianluca Ferrero said in a statement on the club’s website. “We do not share the interpretation that has been given of our defense and we remain firmly convinced of the legitimacy of our actions and the validity of our arguments.
“However, we have decided not to appeal this judgment. Despite this painful decision, we can now face the new season by focusing on the field and not on the courts.”
In a separate case, Chelsea will also pay a settlement of 10 million euros to UEFA for incorrect financial information submitted between 2012 and 2019 when the club was owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.
Chelsea’s current American-led ownership group reported “potentially incomplete financial reporting under the club’s previous ownership” in May last year, UEFA said.
Chelsea, which won the Champions League in 2012 and 2021, did not qualify for the next editions of European competitions.
“In accordance with the club’s ownership group’s core principles of full compliance and transparency with its regulators, we are grateful that this case has been concluded by proactive disclosure of information to UEFA and a settlement that fully resolves the reported matters,” Chelsea said in a statement. “Chelsea greatly values its relationship with UEFA and looks forward to building on that relationship in the years to come.”
UEFA had opened an investigation against Juventus in December for probable breaches of FFP rules after prosecutors in Italy unsealed their case against the storied club.
Juventus was ultimately docked 10 points in Serie A by Italian authorities which dropped the club from potentially finishing in the top four and earning a place in the next Champions League to finish seventh — enough only for the third-tier Conference League. AC Milan got into the Champions League instead.
The false accounting allegations pushed UEFA club finance investigators to terminate a settlement agreed with the club last year and impose fresh sanctions, the European soccer body said.
The chaotic 2022-23 season for Juventus also saw it lose long-standing club officials who resigned, including president Andrea Agnelli and vice president Pavel Nedvěd, a former playing great.
Juventus also lost two years of European football from 2006 to 2008 in fallout from the Calciopoli corruption scandal.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Dodgers, who have made pitching a priority in advance of the trade deadline, acquired starter Lance Lynn and reliever Joe Kelly on Friday in a swap with the Chicago White Sox.
The NL West leaders sent outfielder Trayce Thompson, pitcher Nick Nastrini and reliever Jordan Leasure to the White Sox.
Lynn and Kelly join utilityman Kiké Hernández from the Boston Red Sox and infielder-outfielder Amed Rosario from the Cleveland Guardians in Los Angeles, ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline.
“I would argue we have raised the floor and the ceiling,” manager Dave Roberts said.
The Dodgers may not be done, either, with a need for more starting pitching.
“I think there’s always a chance,” Roberts said. “There’s still time on the clock.”
Lynn has been mostly underwhelming this season. The 36-year-old right-hander is 6-9 with a 6.18 ERA and leads the American League in earned runs (79) and home runs allowed (28).
Roberts called Lynn a “victim of sort of the circumstance” with the sub-.500 White Sox, who are 13 games back of AL Central leader Minnesota.
“I just feel like getting in this environment, playing meaningful games will bring out the best in him,” Roberts said.
Lynn has 139 strikeouts in 115 innings and 10.9 per nine innings. In June, Lynn struck out 16 in a game against Seattle, setting a major-league mark for most strikeouts in a game by a pitcher with an ERA above 6.00.
He was an All-Star for the White Sox in 2021 and shortly after signed a $38 million, two-year contract extension that included a club option.
“I’m happy to have had the time that I had here, but it is a business and sometimes these things happen,” Lynn said. “I’m just looking forward to the possibility of making a playoff push.”
Lynn began the 2022 season on the injured list with a meniscus tear suffered in spring training. He returned in mid-June and finished the season with an 8-7 record in 21 starts and a 3.99 ERA. He recorded 121 strikeouts in 121 2/3 innings.
Lynn has spent most of his career in the AL. Besides the White Sox, he has pitched for Minnesota, the New York Yankees and Texas. He began his career with St. Louis, and missed the 2016 season with them after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Lynn won a World Series with the Cardinals in 2011, his debut season in the majors. The following year he earned his first All-Star berth.
The Dodgers have not yet decided who Lynn will replace in the rotation. He’ll arrive in Los Angeles this weekend and discuss a possible start against Oakland next week.
Kelly returns to Los Angeles for his second stint with the Dodgers. The hard-throwing right-handed reliever recently returned from the injured list for elbow inflammation. He has one save, a 4.97 ERA and 41 strikeouts this season.
Like Lynn, Kelly is eager to join a contending team.
“It’s something that I thrive on,” he said. “I think my personality type is to love the adrenaline, love the big moments. So, I’m super, super stoked to go back for sure.”
Kelly pitched for the Dodgers from 2019-21, winning the World Series during the pandemic-delayed 2020 season. He had a 3.59 ERA in 105 1/3 innings during that span.
“I would argue that his stuff is even better than it was then when he was with us, the velocity, the curveball, all that stuff,” Roberts said. “He’s a guy, like most players when they’re in a winning environment, they thrive.”
Kelly isn’t the only former Dodger to land back in Los Angeles. Hernández returns three years after he departed for the East Coast.
Rosario was set to start at shortstop Friday night in the series opener against the Reds. But the plan is for him to get acclimated to second base and also play some center field. He’ll mostly start against left-handed pitching.
“It’s certainly a big upgrade for our ballclub,” Roberts said. “He’s been good versus right-handed pitching, but he’s been a killer versus lefties and that’s something we want to capture.”
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AP Baseball Writer Jay Cohen, AP Sports Writer Eric Olson and AP freelancer Seth Engle contributed to this report.
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BLAINE, Minn. (AP) — With the FedEx Cup two weeks away, Lee Hodges can breathe easier. Justin Thomas can’t.
Hodges birdied four of his last six holes for a 7-under 64 and a four-stroke lead over Tyler Duncan on Friday after almost two rounds of the 3M Open.
A nearly two-hour afternoon weather delay led to play being suspended due to darkness with six players yet to finish — none within 10 shots of the lead.
Hodges, 74th in the FedEx Cup points race, opened with a 63 for the first-round lead and had a 15-under 127 total to break the tournament 36-hole record of 128 set by Bryson DeChambeau in 2019.
Hodges was 3 under on the front nine and added a 33-foot birdie putt on No. 13, followed by birdies from 14 feet on No. 14 and 11 feet on No. 17.
“I’ve got a great attitude out there. Me and my caddie (Andrew Medley), we’re 70-something on the points list, like what do we have to lose, you know?” Hodges said. “We’ve committed to every shot we’ve hit so far, which has been great. We’ll continue to do it, because what do we have to lose.”
A lengthy last-hole putt was not enough to overcome a couple bad holes as Thomas aims to make the FedEx Cup playoffs for the eighth straight season. He birdied four of his last five holes to shoot a shot an even-par 71, leaving him 2 under for the tournament and two strokes short.
Thomas, at No. 75 in the FedEx Cup standings, has missed five cuts in his last seven starts. The top 70 next week after the Wyndham Championship will advance to the playoffs. Looking to stay in strong consideration for the U.S. Ryder Cup team, Thomas has just two top-10 finishes in 14 tournaments since mid-February.
Starting on the back nine, Thomas put two balls in the water on the par-5 18th, falling to 1 under. An errant tee shot and poor chip led to another double bogey on the par-3 fourth, before a strong finishing stretch was punctuated by a 30-foot putt on No. 9.
“This is a good chance for me to learn a little bit about myself and push myself and become better,” Thomas said before the tournament. “I mean, this game, nothing’s given to you. I’ve had great chances to win the FedEx Cup the last five or six years and now I’m trying to make the playoffs. That’s just the way that this sport is. And it can happen to anybody, so you’ve just got to go out and get it.”
He wasn’t the only player to put untimely dents in possible playoff plans by missing the cut. No. 70 K.H. Lee (1 under), No. 72 Davis Thompson (2 under) and No. 90 Gary Woodland (3 over) also get the weekend off.
Duncan, who has missed six cuts in his past eight events and 17 of 27 this season, shot a 67. He has back-to-back bogey-free rounds.
“You never know when it’s coming, but I’ve been putting in the work and you always hope it shows up,” Duncan said. “But it doesn’t always show up when you want it to.”
Defending champion Tony Finau (66), J.T. Poston (66), Brandt Snedeker (68) and Kevin Streelman (68) were 10 under.
With one top-10 in 25 starts this season, Streelman is in a rare position.
“I haven’t been in the final groups in a while on a Saturday, so looking forward to that. At my age I don’t have much to lose, so go out and have some fun this weekend,” the 44-year-old Streelman said.
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MIAMI (AP) — Miguel Cabrera’s farewell tour has reached a special location.
The Detroit Tigers’ slugger is approaching the last two months of his major league career. And in his final season, Cabrera has received numerous tributes in visiting stadiums.
This weekend, the honors bring added significance.
The Tigers opened a three-game series Friday in Miami against the Marlins. The 40-year-old Cabrera is returning to the city where he spent his first five seasons and is facing the organization that signed him shortly after his 16th birthday.
“It is very emotional because this is where it all started,” Cabrera, a native of Venezuela, said before the Tigers lost to the Marlins 6-5 in Friday’s series opener. “To be back here is awesome.”
The Marlins brought up the then-20-year-old Cabrera two months into the 2003 season. Cabrera made an immediate impact, hitting a walk-off home run to help the Marlins beat Tampa Bay in his major league debut.
“I remember it well because in all the stadiums I’ve visited, that is the first video presented,” said Cabrera, who went 0 for 3 and was hit by a pitch. “My teammates kid me because I was so skinny back then.”
It was a sign of things to come. Cabrera played a key role in the Marlins’ postseason run in 2003 that culminated with a World Series championship.
Cabrera was a four-time All-Star during his time with the Marlins. But the club, fearing it would lose Cabrera to free agency once he became eligible, dealt him to Detroit following the 2007 season.
“When I received that call, I had many questions on why I was being traded,” Cabrera said. “The club had a good young group and was growing tremendously. Had the group stayed together, we had a chance to contend for the division. They told me to be calm, that you’re going to a good club with a chance to win.”
Cabrera flourished in Detroit, becoming one of the game’s top hitters and a two-time AL MVP. In 2012, Cabrera won the AL Triple Crown, the first to accomplish the feat since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967.
But the offensive production, which included four AL batting titles, declined as Cabrera reached his late 30s. Nonetheless, Cabrera reached the career 3,000-hit and 500-homer milestones over the last two seasons.
Now limited to a parttime role, Cabrera will play the three games against Miami. The second game on Saturday also will be promoted as Venezuelan Heritage Day.
“It is going to be great for me and my family,” Cabrera said of the ceremony,” Cabrera said. “You have to enjoy this moment, every second, every minute. After that, you prepare for the game and do your best to help our team win.”
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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Jalen Ramsey, set for surgery on Friday, addressed his Miami Dolphins teammates a day earlier about the injury and told them not to worry or feel sorry for him.
The six-time Pro Bowl cornerback suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee at the end of Thursday’s practice and is expected to miss the start of the regular season. But he vowed — bragged a little — that he could beat whatever timeline for return doctors give him.
“It really moved a lot of people,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Friday. “He first let everybody know how much he appreciated this team, how this team has accepted him, how he has been in the league a little bit and how he knows what we’re doing here, in his opinion, is special, for his position group not to waiver, and exuded all the confidence that he had in that position group.”
McDaniel said Ramsey will have surgery Friday afternoon to repair the tear and his timeline for return won’t be known until the procedure is complete.
The injury happened during an 11-on-11 drill during Miami’s second practice of training camp. McDaniel said it was a non-contact injury that happened while he was matched up against receiver Tyreek Hill. Ramsey and Hill collided on the play, but the injury, McDaniel clarified, happened before the contact.
“That end of the season push (will) be legendary!” Ramsey tweeted Thursday night.
Miami acquired the All-Pro cornerback Ramsey in a trade with the Los Angeles Rams in March.
When veteran players reported to training camp on Monday, Ramsey spoke of the potential of the Dolphins defense, which is adjusting to a new scheme under defensive coordinator Vic Fangio.
“I’ve been a part of his defense for the past three years so I kind of know how to play it,” Ramsey said. “I know what’s needed to play this defense and be one of the best defenses in the league and be elite. And we got all the pieces — edge rushers to the secondary. We even got the linebackers and all that. Like I said, I don’t compare, but I look at other teams I’ve been a part of and I feel like we, on paper, we stack up well. But the work comes first.”
The Dolphins dealt with several injuries at the cornerback position last season. Veteran cornerback Xavien Howard played through groin injuries all year.
Byron Jones missed the entire season after having surgery on his Achilles tendon. The Dolphins cut him earlier this year in a cost-cutting move.
Trill Williams tore the ACL in his left knee during the preseason. Nik Needham tore his Achilles last October.
Williams and safety Brandon Jones are still working their way back from their respective season-ending injuries.
McDaniel said he’s confident in the team’s cornerback room, which also includes Kader Kohou, who had a breakout 2022 season as an undrafted rookie free agent, Keion Crossen and 2020 first-round pick Noah Igbinoghene.
Earlier this week, Howard pointed to Kohou as a player to watch as camp opened.
“My boy, Kader. Dude is a straight dawg,” Howard said. “His mentality he has, just being an undrafted guy, I continue to see him grow and get better on the field.”
Miami also drafted cornerback Cam Smith in the second round in April to add more depth. Smith’s role will likely increase in Ramsey’s absence.
“I feel good about the entire crew,” McDaniel said. “We are dealing with some injuries now in that group, but I feel very, very, very good about the competition there and the guys that are ready to go see some more opportunities.”
With the cornerback room not at full strength, McDaniel said the team will work out a cornerback soon for “depth purposes.”
Notes: McDaniel said linebacker Jaelan Phillips was “stepped on” during the first practice of training camp. McDaniel said the team is not worried about the injury, but it would “not be healed” if he continues practicing with it. Phillips did not practice Thursday. … Crossen has an undisclosed injury and will not practice Friday. … McDaniel said he’s happy with Miami’s running back group as the Dolphins continue to be linked to Pro Bowl running back Dalvin Cook.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-mike-mcdaniel-confident-in-dolphins-cb-depth-amid-jalen-ramsey-injury/ | 2023-07-29T06:54:12 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-mike-mcdaniel-confident-in-dolphins-cb-depth-amid-jalen-ramsey-injury/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — The NBA told teams Friday that Damian Lillard and his agent confirmed that the All-Star guard would honor his contract in any potential trade, despite the agent saying Lillard only wanted to be dealt to the Miami Heat.
A memo sent to general managers and obtained by The Associated Press also warned that Lillard would be subject to discipline by the league if he or Aaron Goodwin make additional comments suggesting he won’t fully perform the requirements of his contract in the event of a trade.
Lillard told the Portland Trail Blazers earlier this month he wanted to be traded and Goodwin subsequently made clear his preference was Miami.
“Dame’s position won’t change,” Goodwin told AP on July 6. “This entire situation was about building an opportunity for Portland to win or giving him another opportunity that he wants, which is Miami.”
The league said it interviewed Lillard and Goodwin, along with several teams with whom Goodwin spoke. Goodwin denied telling teams that Lillard would refuse to play for them and the teams provided descriptions that were “mostly, though not entirely, consistent with Goodwin’s statements to us.”
Players are not allowed to publicly request trades. The league also stated in the memo that it told the Players Association that further comments such as Goodwin’s will be subject to discipline.
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TORONTO (AP) — Shohei Ohtani hit his major league-leading 39th home run for the Angels before leaving with leg cramps as the Toronto Blue Jays slugged three solo homers and rallied to beat Los Angeles 4-1 on Friday night.
Ohtani was replaced by pinch-hitter Michael Stefanic when his at-bat came up with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. Ohtani was lifted because of cramping in both of his calves, Angels manager Phil Nevin said.
“We’ll evaluate it tomorrow when he gets up,” Nevin said. “It’s just cramping right now. It’s kind of in both legs. He’s done a lot of work the last two days and wasn’t able to go.”
A day earlier, Ohtani left the second game of a doubleheader at Detroit because of cramps. The two-way superstar threw a one-hitter in the opener Thursday for his first career MLB shutout, then homered twice in the second game.
Nevin said Ohtani’s soreness developed after he grounded out to begin the eighth.
“He came in and was trying to get some work done and just kept cramping up,” Nevin said.
Stefanic struck out looking at a 3-2 pitch from right-hander Jordan Romano as Toronto ended the Angels’ four-game winning streak.
After the game, an angry Nevin was seen holding up a tablet computer and yelling at plate umpire Mike Estabrook as the crew left the field.
“I just explained to him that I thought the pitch to Stefanic was outside,” Nevin said.
Matt Chapman, Danny Jansen and Whit Merrifield homered for the Blue Jays, who are 24-11 when they hit two or more home runs.
“Our team has been playing a good brand of baseball for a while now,” Chapman said. “I think maybe we’re just starting to find ways to come out on top of some of those close games.”
Chapman hit a two-out drive in the second, his 14th of the season. Jansen homered to lead off the third, his 14th. Both home runs came off right-hander Lucas Giolito, who made his first start for the Angels since being acquired from the White Sox earlier this week.
Giolito (6-7) allowed three runs and six hits in 5 1/3 innings. He walked one and struck out five.
“I felt relatively sharp, throwing a lot of strikes, but they hammered my mistakes pretty good,” Giolito said.
Bo Bichette hit an RBI double off Giolito in the sixth and Merrifield made it 4-1 with a two-out homer off José Soriano in the seventh, his eighth. Merrifield finished 3 for 4 and has six home runs in his last 17 games. He hit a three-run homer in Thursday’s road win over the Dodgers.
The Blue Jays began the day in the third AL wild-card spot, three games ahead of the Angels. Los Angeles trails Boston and the New York Yankees in the postseason race.
After being greeted with a loud ovation from the sellout crowd of 42,106, Ohtani homered on the first pitch he faced, going deep in three straight at-bats over two games.
Ohtani’s 397-foot drive came off Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman. Ohtani homered in consecutive games for the ninth time this season.
Ohtani’s streak of homers ended when he struck out swinging on a 2-2 pitch from Gausman in the third. Ohtani singled in the sixth and grounded out against left-hander Tim Mayza in the eighth.
Gausman (8-5) allowed one run and five hits in six-plus innings to win for the first time since June 21 at Miami. Gausman walked three and struck out nine, increasing his AL-leading total to 171.
Erik Swanson relieved Gausman after the Angels loaded the bases with no outs in the seventh. Swanson struck out Trey Cabbage and pinch-hitter Eduardo Escobar, then retired Luis Rengifo on a fly ball.
“Not getting one across, that hurts,” Nevin said.
Mayza worked one inning and Romano got two outs in the ninth before Yimi García finished for his third save in six chances. Romano was pitching for the fifth time since leaving the July 11 All-Star game because of a sore back.
“He’s doing alright,” manager John Schneider said of Romano. “Just lower back discomfort, it kind of locked up on him a little bit. Just kind of wanted to play it safe there.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
Angels: Before the game, Nevin said Ohtani would get an extra day of rest before his next start, which was scheduled for next Thursday’s home game against Seattle. … SS Zach Neto (sore back) was scratched from the starting lineup and replaced by Andrew Velazquez. Rengifo took over in the leadoff spot.
Blue Jays: LHP Hyun Jin Ryu (Tommy John surgery) will start on Tuesday against Baltimore, Schneider said. With the Blue Jays beginning a stretch of 17 games in 17 days Friday, Schneider said Ryu will be part of a six-man rotation. … RHP Chad Green (Tommy John surgery) will make a rehab appearance with Class-A Dunedin Saturday, his third.
ANGRY WORDS
Cameras caught Chapman yelling at Schneider in the dugout after the top of the first.
“That’s just everybody being competitive, wanting to win baseball games,” Chapman said. “Just a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing. What was said and what it’s about, I’m just going to keep between us.”
NEW-LOOK LINEUP
Blue Jays OF George Springer, who came in stuck in an 0-for-16 slump, was dropped from the leadoff spot to fifth. Springer finished 0 for 4. Merrifield moved up to hit leadoff.
ROSTER MOVES
The Angels optioned RHP Gerardo Reyes to Triple-A Salt Lake to make room on the roster for Giolito.
UP NEXT
RHP Alek Manoah (2-8, 6.10 ERA) starts for the Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon. LHP Reid Detmers (2-7, 4.38) goes for the Angels.
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TORONTO (AP) — Shohei Ohtani hit his major league-leading 39th home run — for a streak of three homers in three at-bats over two games — before being sidelined due to cramping for a second consecutive game.
Ohtani was replaced by pinch-hitter Michael Stefanic when his at-bat came up with the bases loaded in the ninth inning due to leg cramps. The Blue Jays beat the Angels 4-1 Friday.
Los Angeles manager Phil Nevin said Ohtani was removed because of cramping in both of his calves.
“We’ll evaluate it tomorrow when he gets up,” Nevin said. “It’s just cramping right now. It’s kind of in both legs. He’s done a lot of work the last two days and wasn’t able to go.”
Ohtani homered twice in the second game of a doubleheader at Detroit on Thursday before leaving with cramps. He threw an eight-strikeout, one-hitter in the opener for his first career MLB shutout.
The two-way superstar became the first player to throw a shutout in one game of a doubleheader and hit one homer — much less two — in the other.
Thursday’s performance against the Tigers came hours after the team confirmed Ohtani will stay with the Angels for the rest of the season before he becomes a free agent.
Nevin said Ohtani’s soreness developed after he grounded out to begin the eighth inning.
“He came in and was trying to get some work done and just kept cramping up,” Nevin said.
Stefanic struck out looking at a 3-2 pitch from right-hander Jordan Romano as Toronto ended the Angels’ four-game winning streak.
On Friday, Ohtani homered on the first pitch he faced, going deep in three straight at-bats. His drive to right came off Blue Jays right-hander Kevin Gausman and traveled 397 feet.
Ohtani streak of homers ended when he struck out swinging on a 2-2 pitch from Gausman in the third. He singled off Gausman in the sixth and grounded out to shortstop against left-hander Tim Mayza in the eighth, slowing up as he approached first base.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-ohtani-hits-majors-leading-39th-home-run-against-blue-jays-extends-hr-streak-to-3-at-bats/ | 2023-07-29T06:54:34 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-ohtani-hits-majors-leading-39th-home-run-against-blue-jays-extends-hr-streak-to-3-at-bats/ |
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — Colorado’s return to the Big 12 in 2024 fits right into Deion Sanders’ recruiting blueprint, allowing him to get an even better foothold in the teeming Texas and Florida markets.
“I think Colorado is already an exciting team on the recruiting trail with Coach Prime and his experienced staff full of college coaches who have been around for a while and a lot of guys with NFL pedigree,” said Steve Wiltfong, national recruiting director for 247Sports. “So I think more than anything it adds to the excitement because it’s moving to what is certainly a more stable conference and one that just had a football team (TCU) in the playoff.”
Athletic director Rick George said he kept basketball coaches Tad Boyle and JR Payne in the loop along with Sanders, who’s entering his first season in Boulder, before the CU board of regents rubber-stamped Colorado’s return to the Big 12 on Thursday.
“I think all of them felt like: Whatever you think’s best for us, we’re going to play whomever you ask us to play,” George said. “I will tell you, there are tremendous benefits for being in the Big 12 for the direction that Coach Prime’s going as it relates to recruiting, being able to play in Orlando against UCF, where he’s recruiting very heavily (and) the state of Texas has always been a priority for us.”
The newfangled Big 12 isn’t the same league the Buffs left in 2011 during the initial rounds of conference realigment when Texas A&M, Missouri and Nebraska also left. Texas and Oklahoma are leaving next year for the Big Ten. TCU and West Virginia came on board a decade ago and Cincinnati, Houston, BYU and Central Florida were added this year.
Sanders, who’s overseen the biggest roster overhaul in the nation since his hiring this spring, already has strong roots in Florida and Texas.
He was born in Fort Myers and starred at Florida State before embarking on a dual sports career as an NFL defensive back and a Major League outfielder. Some of his best years came during his half decade with the Cowboys from 1995-99 and he still has a home in the Dallas area.
When the Buffaloes return to the Big 12 next year, they will have four conference opponents in the Lone Star State in TCU, Texas Tech, Baylor and Houston, which features one of the nation’s largest television markets.
“Houston has always been a favorable market for us in recruiting,” said George, who then mentioned a few players from CU’s heyday in the late 1980s and early ’90s. “You think back to Alfred Williams, Kanavis McGhee and Chris Hudson. That area — the fifth-largest market in the country — also was a factor” in Colorado’s decision to return to the Big 12.
“Colorado recruits Texas hard because it’s an obvious state to go recruit,” Wiltfong said, “and now being in the Big 12, with all those Texas teams, it gives them one more inch to say, ’Hey, we’re going to be coming to the Lone Star State a lot throughout your career to play some big games.’”
Wiltfong expects Sanders to compete with the big boys when it comes to the recruiting trails of Texas.
“Deion’s lived in Texas, right? Deion is going to go where the players are. He’s going to recruit nationally because his name is electric,” Wiltfong said.
Colorado is the third school to leave the Pac-12 in the last year, joining UCLA and USC, which are going to the Big Ten next year. The moves coincide with the expiration of current media rights deals with ESPN and Fox.
Colorado is expected to get $31.7 million in annual TV revenue in the Big 12, which last year came to an agreement with ESPN and Fox on a six-year extension worth more than $2 billion that runs through 2030-31.
After Colorado’s vote to leave, the Pac-12 issued a statement that read, “We are focused on concluding our media rights deal and securing our continued success and growth. Immediately following the conclusion of our media rights deal, we will embrace expansion opportunities and bring new fans, markets, excitement and value to the Pac-12.”
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AP College Football Writer Eric Olson contributed to this report.
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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Broncos coach Sean Payton said Friday he regrets disparaging his predecessor in an interview in which he called the work Nathaniel Hackett and his staff did in Denver last season “one of the worst coaching jobs in the NFL” and said there were “20 dirty hands” around Russell Wilson’s career-worst season.
“Listen, I had one of those moments where I still had my Fox hat on and not my coaching hat,” said Payton, who’s returning to the sideline this season after a year’s sabbatical during which he worked as a studio football analyst for Fox Sports following a 15-year stint with the New Orleans Saints.
Payton’s comments in an interview with USA Today’s Jarrett Bell rocked the NFL because he broke the coaches code in which they refrain from publicly lambasting one another and because he spent his first six months on the job admonishing his players not to look back at last year’s dismal season and to ignore “outside noise.”
“I said this to the team in the meeting yesterday: we’ve had a great offseason relative to that, you know, and I’ve been preaching that message and here I am the veteran” doing just that, Payton said during a lengthy mea culpa in his first comments since he ignited the firestorm.
“It was a learning experience for me. It was a mistake. Obviously, I needed a little bit more filter … I needed a little bit more restraint. And I regret that,” Payton continued.
Payton said he’s usually pretty media savvy “and I just had one of those moments. Jarrett’s a good friend, real good at his job. And two lattes in the morning, first one I see and 40 minutes later, I’m regretting it.”
In the interview, Payton also took potshots at the Jets, who hired Hackett as their offensive coordinator this year, and criticized Broncos general manager George Paton and team President Damani Leech for allowing Hackett and his staff to give Wilson so much free rein, including having his personal quarterback coach with him at team headquarters.
That was one of many unconventional allowances — another was having his own office upstairs next to the coaches — that drew heavy scrutiny when Wilson looked nothing like the star he’d been in Seattle or like a QB who deserved the $245 million extension he signed last summer.
Payton’s criticisms were part of a spirited defense of Wilson, whom he expects to have a big comeback this year and help the Broncos end a seven-year playoff drought.
“Listen, I’m not afraid of the expectation,” Payton said Friday. “I’ve talked with several people about, you know, being used to contending for the postseason. You don’t take it for granted. But that mindset needs to be present here. And so yeah, I see this as a team that has that ability.”
Payton didn’t specifically apologize for his critical comments but he did say he’ll reach out to Hackett and Jets head coach Robert Saleh “at the right time” to do so.
The Broncos host the Jets on Oct. 8, and the row he started “certainly will bring more interest to the game when we play them,” Payton said. “But that seems like years from now.”
Closer to home, Payton has some damage control to do with his GM and the team president who came on board late last summer.
“The front office and the ownership are the two reasons I came here,” Paton said. “So, George and I are close. He was one of the big attractions, he and ownership. My point was it was across the board organizationally, it wasn’t just one person” responsible for Wilson’s dismal season.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-sean-payton-says-he-regrets-criticizing-predecessor-nathaniel-hackett-and-his-own-general-manager/ | 2023-07-29T06:54:48 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-sean-payton-says-he-regrets-criticizing-predecessor-nathaniel-hackett-and-his-own-general-manager/ |
AWS AI-powered video highlights feature introduces game-changing World Cup viewing experience for fans
The 'Catch Up With Highlights' feature is available on the Fox Sports App
Sports fans continue to seek a dynamic viewing experience whenever they decide to tune into a live sporting event. The advancements in technology have only raised expectations.
Creative uses of graphics, on-demand game data and video replays and highlights are just some of the ways a broadcast can keep fans engaged.
The World Cup is one of the most anticipated sporting events on earth, and this year's women's edition of the soccer tournament is no exception.
Fox Sports, a unit of FOX Corp., parent to Fox News and FOX Business, proactively tackled the trend of enhancing sports fans' viewing experiences by building and deploying an innovative AI-powered feature called "Catch Up With Highlights."
The "Catch Up With Highlights" feature, which autonomously generates recap videos and game highlights in real time, initially launched last year for the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
FOX teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for the AI-powered replay feature. Julie Souza, head of sports, global professional services, at AWS, said the amount of data available in modern sports presents several exciting and unique opportunities for fans and professional sports leagues.
"Now you have all this data in sports, whether its optical tracking through camera capture or sensors, or [players] are wearing chips in their pads … and you're getting this granular level of data now that lets you do really cool stuff and apply AI and ML (machine learning) to get insights out of it to help you if you're a [sports] league do officiating analysis, rule development or develop new analytics," Souza told Fox News Digital.
CHATGPT AI CHATBOT AVAILABLE ON ANDROID IN US, OTHER COUNTRIES
The "Catch Up With Highlights" feature is available for fans in the U.S. via the Fox Sports App. New Zealand and Australia are serving as the host countries for this year's Women's World Cup. The U.S. women's national team is the reigning back-to-back champion, but the difference in time zones could present a challenge to fans in the U.S. who want to watch games live.
"Catch Up With Highlights" seeks to solve that problem by providing viewers with an easy tool that shows key plays they may have missed should they tune into after kickoff.
Phil Martin, FOX’s vice president of data products and machine learning strategy, helped spearhead the "Catch Up With Highlights" development. He said the innovative feature was created with sports fans in mind.
"Over the last five years, our team has had tremendous success with unlocking the power of data through the building of advanced and intelligent platforms and products. In addition, we’ve really rallied around the idea of revolutionizing fandom. We believe that sports should be enjoyable and accessible for everyone, which is why we've designed our platform to make it easy to engage with and enjoy," Martin said in a statement to Fox News Digital.
Audio cues and camera angles in games are used to teach a computer which elements should be featured in a video recap. The technology utilizes services from AWS, including Amazon Rekognition.
"This is leveraging computer vision and a lot of other services from AWS to help us develop what they did for the World Cup, which is called ‘Catch Up With Highlights,'" Souza said.
"It's allowing our systems like Rekognition and some of these other tools to identify plays that are happening that are significant in the game and use that data to help cut clips so that you can have almost a condensed game showing up, accumulating in real time. So, if somebody joins a broadcast halfway through … we can go back and isolate those clips and create an ‘up til now’ highlight of the game."
The next step involved the auto assembly of clips with elements such as transitions and a fade to black. The video content then becomes available to fans via the FOX Sports app and connected TVs/mobile devices.
The partnership between FOX and AWS resulted in cutting-edge AI-based technology that helps fans stay up to date with the game action.
MLS TEAMS UP WITH AI.IO FOR AISCOUT APP LAUNCH, AIMS TO REVOLUTIONIZE PLAYER SCOUTING
"We understand that the level of play at events like the World Cup is exceptional, and we wanted our feature to reflect that standard," Martin noted. "To achieve this, we developed a cutting-edge AI technology to create a highlights engine that can dynamically retell the game's story in real time, highlighting key moments and events as they unfold. This ensures that our users can stay up to date with the action and experience the excitement of the game, no matter where they are."
All the technology involved in "Catch Up With Highlights" works in unison in an automated fashion.
"We were able to create a highlight engine which pairs with the data feed and then leverages machine learning, specfically computer vision and some audio detection models which synchronizes the events that happen on the field," FOX's Data Products Director Edward Ciafardini told Fox News Digital.
In addition to Amazon Rekognition, "Catch Up With Highlights" incorporates several AWS services, including but not limited to Amazon DynamoDB, which is where the sports data is housed. Live video is delivered to fans via AWS Elemental MediaConnect, and videos are stored in Amazon Simple Storage Service — Amazon S3.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM
"We developed this for the 2022 Men's World Cup and have since rolled this out for other sports, including USFL and MLB. So if you were to join any FOX broadcast on the Fox Sports app or (FoxSports.com) you would be prompted with 'Do you want to join the game live?’ or ‘Do you want to Catch Up With Highlights?’" Ciafardini said.
FOX also plans to bring the feature to football broadcasts later this year. | https://www.foxnews.com/sports/aws-ai-powered-video-highlights-feature-introduces-game-changing-world-cup-viewing-experience-fans | 2023-07-29T06:54:56 | 1 | https://www.foxnews.com/sports/aws-ai-powered-video-highlights-feature-introduces-game-changing-world-cup-viewing-experience-fans |
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Christine Sinclair. Megan Rapinoe. Sarina Bolden.
Like many players in the Women’s World Cup, all three stars built their skills at the U.S. collegiate level.
Of the 736 players competing at this year’s Women’s World Cup, 137 have roots in American college-level soccer, according to the NCAA. The total includes 16 players who currently compete for Division I schools or lower divisions.
Across the 32 teams that qualified for the group stage, more than one in every six players has had a career stop at an American school.
Not all the NCAA athletes in the tournament are tied to the United States.
Canada has 22 of 23 athletes who played or still play on U.S. college teams, most of any team in the tournament. That includes Sinclair, the the all-time leader in international goals for men and women, who played at the University of Portland.
The United States ranks second with 20 players. Rapinoe also played at Portland, but Alyssa Thompson, Trinity Rodman, and Lindsey Horan all turned professional without playing a college match. Horan also did not play for a high school team.
More than 70 U.S. schools are represented in the 2023 tournament, with Florida State the leader with eight current or former players competing. Stanford and North Carolina each have six, Penn State has five and four universities have four former players.
Even schools with lesser-known soccer programs have players competing in New Zealand and Australia. Hilary Jaen of Panama plays for Jones County Community College in Mississippi, Carleigh Frilles of the Philippines plays for Coastal Carolina and Chiara Singarella of Argentina plays for South Alabama. Erin Nayler of New Zealand previously played at Purdue Fort Wayne in Indiana.
TITLE IX
The success of American college soccer can trace its roots back just over 50 years, with the introduction of Title IX. As the U.S. government required universities to establish equal opportunities for men and women in education, those protections – and funding – spread to college athletics.
“The U.S. was providing one of the only games in town so to speak, in terms of opportunities for women to get some kind of compensation,” said Ellen Staurowsky, a professor in sports media at Ithaca College.
Title IX drew female athletes from outside the United States to American schools. Since the passage of Title IX, the number of female athletes competing in NCAA athletics has increased seven-fold and currently represents 44% of all university athletes, according to the National Women’s Law Center.
NCAA TRENDS
In 2021, there were 1,464 international student-athletes playing in NCAA Division I and Division II women’s soccer.
Traditional soccer powerhouses such as Germany and Sweden are sending significant numbers of players to college soccer, even though they have developmental programs of their own. There were 114 from Sweden and 128 from Germany in 2021.
In that same year, NCAA teams had 38 players from New Zealand, 35 players from the Netherlands, 16 players from Japan, and 5 players from South Africa.
“Then you would see those women going back to their own countries, taking what they learned with them,” Staurowsky said. “And you can begin to see how the sport begins to expand out.”
Penn State women’s soccer coach Erica Dambach has seen the collegiate process up close for some time. She’s coached at the Division I level since 1997, won the national title in 2015, and worked as an assistant coach for the U.S. women’s national teams at both the youth and senior levels.
“Until these players are making millions, I think an education is going to be the most important thing for these young women,” Dambach said. “I don’t think it’s for everyone, you have to be invested in getting your education.”
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM
That can be easier than it sounds.
“Educational systems around the globe are so different that our international students really don’t know how to navigate the (U.S.) system,” said Nicole LaVoi, a former collegiate tennis coach and the director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota.
Coumba Sow, a Swiss midfielder, attended Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York, for two years before transferring to play Division I soccer at Oklahoma State.
“I didn’t understand the system. I was in a rush to just go to the States,” Sow said. “I wanted to keep on learning a language and studying and also play soccer. It’s a lot of paperwork, so I just looked at the facility. I was like, ‘Oh, New York,’ and I went. Then I got there I was like, ‘OK, maybe I should have checked it out better.’”
For New Zealand forward Gabi Rennie, taking the pathway to Division I soccer was an easy decision after watching others succeed. Rennie is entering her final year of NCAA eligibility at Arizona State after spending two seasons at Indiana.
“I wasn’t too sure what to do. But obviously, the college circuit was a really good option,” Rennie said. “Being able to kind of look to the likes of Ali Riley and Katie Bowen and the likes of those girls that had done the college circuit was cool, and just opened those doors for me.”
A PROVING GROUND
Katrina Guillou, a starting forward for the Philippines, spent four years at North Carolina–Wilmington. Her time playing soccer in Wilmington was pivotal to her career.
“The way the season is, with everything so condensed into the three-month span, playing two games every week, I think it really helps build the stamina that’s needed,” Guillou said. “And coming to this level, I think I’ve been able to build on top of that.”
Like many others, Sow saw her experience with American teams impact her style of play.
“Before I went to the U.S., I wasn’t really a physical player,” said Sow. “I learned how to fight in the U.S. because it’s a lot, a lot of long balls. You have to fight for the second ball. And before, I was just a technical player.”
Jody Brown of Jamaica was named the best young players in CONCACAF at the age of 16 and now plays for Florida State.
“The coaches helped us,” said Brown of Florida State. “I feel like college also prepared me for this moment and I’m just so grateful for that and the work that I’ve put in to get to this point because it’s all paid off right now.”
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Joe Lister is a student in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
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Contributing reporters included Luke Vargas in Hamilton and Max Ralph in Auckland, students in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State; and Clay Witt in Sydney, a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-several-stars-at-the-womens-world-cup-honed-their-skills-with-us-collegiate-teams/ | 2023-07-29T06:54:55 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-several-stars-at-the-womens-world-cup-honed-their-skills-with-us-collegiate-teams/ |
I was surprised that the July 23 “Young, fit, and sick” (Page A1) article about cancer striking more and more younger people didn’t mention plastics as a possible contributing factor.
Plastic production grew from none before 1950 to 50 million tons in 1970 to over 350 million tons in 2015. Therefore younger people have been exposed to plastics more than their forebears were.
Plastics from food packaging (such as plastic water bottles) leach into our food products. Less than 10 percent of plastics get recycled, so much of our plastic waste winds up in landfills (or as litter), breaking into microplastics that get into our water and eventually into the ocean.
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Microplastics have been found in human breast milk, and due to the sheer quantity of microplastics in the ocean, it would be difficult to find any marine animal without plastic particles in its gut or tissues.
Plastics (styrene) are recognized as carcinogenic by the US National Toxicology Program and the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency recognizes styrene as a health threat to humans.
Along with climate change, plastic pollution is a major menace to our health and safety.
Jim Whalen
Hudson
A factor that the experts featured in the article “Young, fit, and sick” don’t consider is our exposure to the life-altering substances hidden in our water, air, soil, food, and in common products. Cancer patient Chris Gosline was right. “There’s something going on out there, some variable.”
We all, but especially our children, have been the hit-and-run victims of toxic chemicals such as the ubiquitous class of chemicals known as PFAS. PFAS are linked to increased risk of cancers, reduced immunity, infertility, altered metabolism, increased risk of obesity, and reduced vaccine effectiveness. Many of PFAS’ toxic effects were identified in the 1950s by the manufacturers’ own research.
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And PFAS join the thousands of other unregulated or minimally regulated chemicals that threaten infants and children with an unhealthy start and an uncertain future.
In 1962, Rachel Carson warned us to stop the most dangerous type of contact — the “minute exposures, repeated over and over throughout the years.” Today, a bill in the Massachusetts Legislature, the Toxic-Free Kids Act, would require businesses to disclose the toxic chemicals in and eliminate PFAS from children’s products. It would reduce one source of toxic exposures linked to increased rates of cancers in children and young adults.
Ellie Goldberg
Newton
The article “Young, fit, and sick” shines a much-needed spotlight on a worrisome trend. Although changes in diet and lifestyle factors could be to blame, we know that widespread exposures to harmful chemicals in the environment are important contributing factors in the development of cancer.
For instance, a recent study by Silent Spring Institute and University of California Berkeley showed that people are exposed to thousands of tons of toxic chemicals from consumer products inside their homes and workplaces every year. Common products like shampoos, body lotions, cleaners, mothballs, and paint removers contain toxic volatile organic compounds — chemicals that escape as gases, accumulate in indoor air, and cause a variety of health problems including cancer.
We also know that roughly 45 percent of the nation’s tap water is contaminated with cancer-causing PFAS chemicals. These same chemicals are also widely used in everyday items including food packaging, clothing, and furnishings. If we really want to address rising incidence rates of cancer, we need to focus on reducing harmful exposures by choosing safer products and supporting policies that keep carcinogens out of products in the first place — those things are actionable.
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Kristin Knox
Newton
The writer is a staff scientist at Silent Spring Institute, a nonprofit research organization focused on environmental health and breast cancer prevention.
I have only one question for the doctors interviewed: Why is there no mention of the proliferation of chemicals, hugely amplified since their parents’ day.
Research has shown that, since the early 1950s, there has been a 50-fold increase in chemicals. They might have been out there, but my socially connected family in the 1940s, ’50s, and even ‘60s knew no one with cancer.
Doctors are puzzled, I understand. But I suspect they’re not looking at the bigger picture. How can we ignore what we have done to the earth — especially, as it concerns humans, to our food supply — from its seed production to its planting and growing, and its harvesting, marketing, packaging, and transporting.
It just might be a no-brainer.
Lisa Millimet
Camden, Maine
Of the many possible explanations considered in Felice Freyer’s report on the recent increase in cancer diagnoses before age 50, a fundamental one is missing. With quotes from cancer experts, the report suggests causative changes in the usual cancer suspects, including risky behaviors, diet, lifestyle choices, predisposing health conditions, environmental exposures, and genetic predispositions.
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However, it does not consider an increase in the effectiveness of cancer detection, caused by increases and improvements in cancer screening, as well as in health monitoring in general. There is an irony in this omission because the legend of the figure presented in the report states, “2020 data omitted because pandemic restrictions lowered screening and diagnosis.” In the same way, increased rates of “screening and diagnosis” in persons younger than 50 during the period of study could also contribute significantly to the observed increase in cancer rates, without much of anything else going on.
Dr. James L. Sherley
Boston
The writer is president and CEO of Asymmetrex LLC. | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/29/opinion/readers-weigh-what-may-be-causing-rise-cancer-among-younger-people/ | 2023-07-29T06:54:57 | 0 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/29/opinion/readers-weigh-what-may-be-causing-rise-cancer-among-younger-people/ |
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid watched his team work out in pads for the first time since their Super Bowl triumph last February and saw his players’ energy rise.
“Naturally it does that,” Reid said. “But I like the way they did it, how they got after each other.”
The defending champions ratcheted up the competition for an hour, 40 minutes in sweltering conditions as the heat index soared into the mid-90s.
The air wasn’t all that was hot, like when cornerback Dicaprio Bootle continued hacking at the football in the grasp of tight end Travis Kelce after a play. Cornerback Lamar Jackson raised eyebrows when he delivered a late hit on receiver Kekoa Crawford out of bounds.
Reid doesn’t mind trash-talking and spirited play as long as players keep their wits about them.
“They’re going to jaw,” Reid said. “It’s hot, humid, they’re going to jaw a little bit. As long as there are no punches thrown we’re all right.”
The Chiefs dug in during practice for three separate periods of 11-on-11, along with a nine-on-seven run session.
However, the most anticipated session in Friday’s practice focused on offensive and defensive linemen facing off in pass-rushing scenarios.
“It’s you mano a mano,” guard Trey Smith said. “All the technical details, every little piece matters. Being able to lock in those little seconds and get your job done.”
Linebacker Willie Gay said the hard, hot practice was tailor made for Reid. Although it was grueling, “I told the guys, as long as we continue to get better, it’s going to make the games and preseason even easier, and we’ll start winning,” he continued.
There’s rust to knock off whenever the pads first come on.
“You have some things that you got to clean up, some things you can be a little tighter technique-wise, but it’s always good to put the pads back on,” Smith said. “It’s always good knowing the season’s around the corner.”
Off the field, defensive tackle Chris Jones held out for seventh day and Reid, who hasn’t communicated with Jones recently, didn’t know when the holdout would end.
“We’re moving fast and furious even though he’s not here,” Reid said.
The 29-year-old-Jones is set to earn $19.5 million in base salary this season in the final year of a four-year extension signed in 2020. The All-Pro is seeking an extension that would make him the league’s second-highest-paid defensive tackle behind Los Angeles Rams star Aaron Donald, whose contract sports an annual average value of $31.67 million.
Jones has been fined $50,000 fine for each missed day of training camp missed, a total that’s grown to $350,000 00 so far. If Jones doesn’t report by Aug. 13, he will be assessed an additional fine of $1.147 for missing the team’s preseason opener against New Orleans.
NOTES: Linebacker Nick Bolton returned to practice Friday following a brief illness, but fellow linebacker Drue Tranquill exited practice early due to a sprained neck. Defensive end Mike Danna left with a strained calf while tight end Jody Fortson is undergoing further examination on a shoulder injury. Wide receiver Kadarius Toney expects to miss the remainder of training camp after surgery Tuesday for a torn meniscus.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-super-bowl-champion-chiefs-hold-hot-tough-practice-in-1st-day-of-pads/ | 2023-07-29T06:55:02 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-super-bowl-champion-chiefs-hold-hot-tough-practice-in-1st-day-of-pads/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — As Bronny James continues to recover after going into cardiac arrest, his Southern California teammates have been at practice to prepare for a 10-day exhibition tour of Greece and Croatia that begins next week.
The tour will run from from Aug. 5-15 and see the Trojans visit Athens and Mykonos, Greece, and Dubrovnik, Croatia. Teams are allowed to go on a foreign tour once every four years under NCAA rules.
James was discharged from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on Thursday and is resting at home, according to a statement from the hospital. His father, Lakers superstar LeBron James, also posted on social media that his family is “safe and healthy.”
Bronny James will continue to undergo tests to determine the cause of his cardiac arrest, which occurred Monday morning during a workout at USC’s Galen Center.
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart abruptly stops beating, because of a problem with its electrical activity. While uncommon in young people, sudden cardiac arrest is the leading medical cause of death in young athletes. Some studies have estimated one sudden cardiac death in 50,000 to 80,000 young athletes each year.
No information has been made public about what may have caused Bronny James’ cardiac arrest. But one of the most common causes in young athletes is an underlying problem with the heart’s structure, such as a genetic condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that leads to a thickened heart muscle more prone to irregular electrical activity. A more rare cause is commotio cordis, which occurs when someone receives a sharp blow to the chest during a specific part of the heartbeat’s cycle — what happened to Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin earlier this year.
James was the second high-profile USC basketball recruit to go into cardiac arrest in the last year. Vincent Iwuchuwku also was stricken during a workout last July, but the 7-foot-1 center returned to the court six months later and appeared in 14 games.
It’s too soon to know how James’ playing career could be affected, especially without a lot of information being made public. Various experts point to James’ quick move out of intensive care and being released three days later as encouraging.
The upcoming trip is important for the Trojans as James recovers. USC had the nation’s fourth-ranked recruiting class, including the top-rated player in guard Isaiah Collier.
James committed to the Trojans in May after the 6-foot-3 18-year-old became one of the nation’s top prospects as a two-way point guard for Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth, California.
He is the sixth McDonald’s All-American to come to USC since Andy Enfield became coach in 2013.
With his family fame and huge social media following, Bronny James also has the top name, image and likeness valuation in sports at $6.3 million, as estimated by On3.com. He is the oldest of LeBron and Savannah James’ three children.
___
AP Sports Writer Greg Beacham and AP Health & Science Writer Lauran Neergard contributed to this report.
___
AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/lebron-james | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-usc-still-preparing-for-a-european-tour-as-bronny-james-recovers-at-home-after-cardiac-arrest/ | 2023-07-29T06:55:09 | 0 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-usc-still-preparing-for-a-european-tour-as-bronny-james-recovers-at-home-after-cardiac-arrest/ |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The city of San Francisco has opened a complaint and launched an investigation into a giant “X” sign that was installed Friday on top of the downtown building formerly known as Twitter headquarters as owner Elon Musk continues his rebrand of the social media platform.
City officials say replacing letters or symbols on buildings, or erecting a sign on top of one, requires a permit for design and safety reasons.
The X appeared after San Francisco police stopped workers on Monday from removing the brand’s iconic bird and logo from the side of the building, saying they hadn’t taped off the sidewalk to keep pedestrians safe if anything fell.
Any replacement letters or symbols would require a permit to ensure “consistency with the historic nature of the building” and to make sure additions are safely attached to the sign, Patrick Hannan, spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection said earlier this week.
Erecting a sign on top of a building also requires a permit, Hannan said Friday.
“Planning review and approval is also necessary for the installation of this sign. The city is opening a complaint and initiating an investigation,” he said in an email.
Musk unveiled a new “X” logo to replace Twitter’s famous blue bird as he remakes the social media platform he bought for $44 billion last year. The X started appearing at the top of the desktop version of Twitter on Monday.
Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla, has long been fascinated with the letter X and had already renamed Twitter’s corporate name to X Corp. after he bought it in October. One of his children is called “X.” The child’s actual name is a collection of letters and symbols.
On Friday afternoon, a worker on a lift machine made adjustments to the sign and then left. | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/technology/ap-technology/ap-x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate-permit-violation/ | 2023-07-29T06:55:16 | 1 | https://www.conchovalleyhomepage.com/technology/ap-technology/ap-x-logo-installed-atop-twitter-building-spurring-san-francisco-to-investigate-permit-violation/ |
To wrap, or not to wrap? Hungarian bookstores face fines over closed packaging for LGBTQ+ books
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — In a snug, wood-paneled Jewish bookstore in Hungary’s capital, Eva Redai carefully climbed the rungs of a ladder to arrange titles on the shelves. Among the books were volumes bound in plastic wrapping — titles containing LGBTQ+ content that the country’s right-wing government has deemed unsuitable for minors under 18.
The 76-year-old has run the Láng Téka bookstore in central Budapest for nearly 35 years, since just before Hungary’s democratic transition from state socialism. But never, until now, has she needed to segregate the books she sells to avoid violating a government ban.
“I consider this such a level of discrimination. This law is an act of force that can hardly be made sense of,” Redai said. “As someone who’s been in this business for such a long time, even I cannot decide which books fall under the ban.”
Hungary’s government under populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has in recent years taken a hard line on LGBTQ+ issues, passing legislation that rights groups and European politicians have decried as repressive against sexual minorities.
A “child protection” law, passed in 2021, bans the “depiction or promotion” of homosexuality in content available to minors, including in television, films, advertisements and literature. It also prohibits the mention of LGBTQ+ issues in school education programs, and forbids the public depiction of “gender deviating from sex at birth.”
Hungary’s government insists that the law, part of a broader statute that also increases criminal penalties for pedophilia and creates a searchable database of sex offenders, is necessary to protect children. But it is seen by Orban’s critics as an attempt to stigmatize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and conflate homosexuality with pedophilia.
Earlier this month, a government office levied a hefty fine against Hungary’s second-largest bookstore chain for violating the contentious law. Líra Könyv was ordered to pay 12 million forints (around $35,000) for placing a popular LGBTQ+ graphic novel in its youth literature section, and for failing to place it in closed packaging.
The fine, the second issued by the government in a single month, sent booksellers rushing to determine whether selling certain titles without closed packaging could result in financial penalties for their own stores. Along with outlawing LGBTQ+ content for minors, the law also prohibits depicting “sexuality for its own sake” to audiences under 18 — a rule that could potentially apply to countless works of literature.
Krisztian Nyary, an author and the creative director for Líra Könyv, said that the language of the law contains many ambiguities, which places a burden on booksellers to determine which of the thousands of titles they offer may contain proscribed content.
“The practical problem is that the sellers are supposed to decide what the law applies to and what it does not,” Nyary said, adding that the Bible, too, depicts homosexuality. “In a small bookstore of four to five thousand titles, or a large one with sixty to seventy thousand titles, a bookseller does not know in much detail what the books contain.”
Nyary said Líra Könyv plans to challenge the fine in court, and does not intend to begin placing books in closed packaging. The requirement to do so is “anti-culture,” he said, and could carry adverse financial effects as well.
“The ability to sell a packaged book is one-tenth of what it is when it’s unpackaged. It’s like putting a painting in a dark basement: Everyone knows it’s there, but you can’t look at it,” he said.
The Láng Téka bookstore, a much smaller business, has opted to comply with the law. On Wednesday, an employee packaged titles that depict homosexuality in household cellophane wrap, and slid them onto the packed shelves. Eva Redai, the shop owner, posted a sign on the front window reading, “In this bookshop, we also sell books with ‘non-traditional content’.”
“This is completely against my own principles and thoughts,” Redai said. “But obviously, I’m a law-abiding person, and I also don’t want to pay a fine of several million forints for my non-existent crime. So we, too, are trying to obey the laws which they have recently forced on us.”
Mark Mezei, a novelist in Budapest, has published a book which contains a lesbian relationship — making his work subject to the restrictions. But he believes Hungary’s legislation, which he described as “bad for democracy,” will not have a chilling effect on authors.
“Whoever wants to write is going to write … it doesn’t matter what legislators think,” he said. “That we live in times when such a thing can happen is not up to me. But as a writer, this doesn’t influence me at all.”
Others, too, are resisting the legislation. A group of university activists this week have given away over 100 free copies of what they call “banned books” — those subject to the closed packaging provision — in front of one of Budapest’s largest bookstores.
One activist, 22-year-old Vince Sajosi, said on Wednesday that Hungary’s law reduces the accessibility of important works and “restricts a process of social development.”
“We want these books to appear in Hungarian literary public life and in everyday conversations, which is why we want to give them to people for free,” he said.
Redai, the bookstore owner, said that in Hungary today, people that identify as non-heterosexual “are being stigmatized and ostracized, and they are not considered equal members of society, which I simply find outrageous.”
“This feeds into an idea that, unfortunately, already happened in the 20th century, where people were judged and persecuted based on their appearance, skin color, religion or other affiliation, and many, many people fell victim to this idea,” she said. “Quite simply, this could be the beginning of something terrible that so many of us have tried to forget.”
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/business-news/to-wrap-or-not-to-wrap-hungarian-bookstores-face-fines-over-closed-packaging-for-lgbtq-books/ | 2023-07-29T06:56:28 | 1 | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/business-news/to-wrap-or-not-to-wrap-hungarian-bookstores-face-fines-over-closed-packaging-for-lgbtq-books/ |
A drought alert for receding Lake Titicaca has Indigenous communities worried for their future
HUARINA, Bolivia (AP) — A 70-year-old man’s feet sink into the soil as he passes abandoned boats where there used to be the water of Lake Titicaca. The highest navigable lake in the world has receded to what Bolivian authorities say are critically low levels due to a persistent drought.
“It’s completely dry,” Jaime Mamani said in exasperation while walking along the new shoreline in Huarina, a farming town 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of La Paz where he is a community leader.
The National Service of Naval Hydrography declared an alert this week for the iconic lake after its surface fell 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) below the drought warning stage, or 3,807.8 meters (12492.7 feet) above sea level. But the agency says this is just the beginning of a situation that is worrying Indigenous Aymara communities that rely on the lake for their livelihoods and fear the dry spell could permanently impact the region’s flora and fauna.
The hydrology unit of Bolivia’s navy warned that water levels could reach historically low levels in the coming months. By December, there is a “high probability” Lake Titicaca will be 64 centimeters (more than 25 inches) below the drought alert level, breaking a low water record set in 1998 by 33 centimeters (almost 13 inches).
“In three months, the water has decreased by 30 centimeters (11.8 inches), and considering that radiation is much stronger during this time of the year … we expect it to keep decreasing,” Carlos Carrasco, a hydraulic engineer for the hydrography service said.
The drought is the result of a combination of factors, including natural phenomena like La Niña and El Niño, which arrived unusually early this year and have been particularly strong due in part to climate change, according to Lucía Walper, who heads up the Hydrological Forecasting Unit at Bolivia’s National Meteorology and Hydrology Service.
But the vast lake is vital for this region of the Bolivian highlands, where hundreds of Aymara rural communities have relied on the blue body of water for millennia to practice subsistence farming and raise livestock.
Authorities in the Peruvian city of Puno also issued a warning about the declining water levels and expressed concern about the potential impact on tourism.
“We’re reaching a critical point. There will be a significant loss of water,” said Juan José Ocola, president of the Binational Authority of Lake Titicaca. The lake serves as the border between Bolivia and Peru.
Mateo Vargas, 56, a fisherman who has lived off the Lake Titicaca for 28 years, said he used to catch “lots” of fish daily. Now he considers himself lucky if he can catch six.
Vargas’ wife, Justina Condori, shares his concerns.
“The fish have vanished,” Condori, 58, said, predicting there will be famine if the current conditions persist.
Condori makes a living by renting boats to tourists. She worries fewer people will come to visit the lake, which at an elevation of 3,810 meters above sea level, is the largest body of freshwater in the Andes mountain range.
Evidence of the receding lake is seemingly everywhere. Women who sell fried fish and other snacks by the lake face rising costs for ingredients. Those who make a living transporting people from one side of the lake to the other are altering their routes because their rafts and boats no longer reach their usual docks.
Livestock farmers who rely on the plants that grow on the shores of the Titicaca to feed their animals are also seeing their livelihoods threatened.
The economic hardship is causing many residents of Huarina to migrate to other areas of the country, leaving behind mostly older townspeople, Mamani said. The waters of the Titicaca have always been shallow around the town, so the drought is even more visible there.
“There is a detriment to the economy of the inhabitants of the region,” he said.
Vargas, the fisherman, is also concerned about what the declining water levels will mean for the future.
“It looks like it will continue to decrease, day by day,” he said. “We’re worried because if we continue like this, what’s going to happen to our children?”
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment at https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/us-world-news/a-drought-alert-for-receding-lake-titicaca-has-indigenous-communities-worried-for-their-future/ | 2023-07-29T06:56:30 | 1 | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/us-world-news/a-drought-alert-for-receding-lake-titicaca-has-indigenous-communities-worried-for-their-future/ |
Black Belt Eagle Scout’s latest record inspired by return home to Swinomish tribe’s ancestral lands
CHICAGO (AP) — The beginning of the pandemic was devasting for the leader of the indie rock band Black Belt Eagle Scout, Katherine Paul. All her tours, including one headlining across North America, were canceled and she feared her ascending music career might be over.
She got a day job at a nonprofit and returned to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s homelands in Western Washington. But as Paul, or KP to her friends, spent time in the cedar forests and walked along the Skagit River, she turned to her guitar to deal with the isolation and stress. Those snippets, recorded on her phone, provided the foundation for what would become songs on her powerful, grunge-soaked new record “The Land, The Water, The Sky.”
“I feel like if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t have made this record,” said KP, who writes the songs, sings and plays guitar in the band that was the only Native American artist at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago this month.
“I spent a lot of time outside. I spent a lot more time than normal going on hikes, being part of the land,” she continued. “It’s not like I never do that stuff but it brought me back to a place where this is who I am.”
The new record, which came out in February, helped launch what has probably been the most successful year so far for Black Belt Eagle Scout. The band toured Europe and will go to Australia later this year. Two of her songs, “Soft Stud” from an earlier record and “Salmon Stinta” from her latest, appear this season on the television series “Reservation Dogs.”
Reservation Dogs Music Supervisor Tiffany Anders said she was introduced to the band’s music by the show’s creator, Sterlin Harjo, when they started working on the second season.
“It’s always been important for us on this show to include Native American artists, but beyond representation, Black Belt Eagle Scout’s music is beautiful and emotional, and fits these characters, their world and landscape — and the vibe of the show,’” she said in a statement.
Then there was Pitchfork, a three-day festival that is a significant milestone for indie musicians. The festival is held every year in Chicago’s Union Park and this year’s headliners included Bon Iver, Big Thief and The Smile, which has members of Radiohead.
She admitted stepping on that stage last weekend was nerve-wracking given her high hopes for the show, a feeling compounded by concerns that storms could scuttle their performance. But as she launched into the blistering set of mostly new songs in front of thousands of eager fans, KP found solace in her guitar. She launched several long jams that were punctuated by her twirling her jet-black hair around to the point it obscured her face.
“It was totally a moment,” she said with a laugh.
“I kind of cried after we played because it felt so meaningful,” she added. “Like, I’ve always wanted to play this music festival. I remember trying to play one of the years before the pandemic when I was touring and it didn’t happen. This year, I was just so stoked to play.”
Reaching Pitchfork has been a long journey for the 34-year-old artist, who is a member of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and left her home on the reservation in LaConner, Washington, when she was 17 to attend Lewis & Clark College in Oregon and play rock music.
Growing up on the reservation off the Washington coast on islands in the Salish Sea, she drummed and sang cultural songs. As a teenager, she discovered local Pacific Northwest bands like Mount Eerie and the sounds of the Riot Grrrl movement and played one of her first gigs at a small bar called Department of Safety. She moved to Portland, Oregon, due to its outsized role in the indie scene that featured bands like Sleater-Kinney and quickly immersed herself in the music scene playing drums and guitar.
She joined an all-female outfit whom she met at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland. She went on to play a lot of small, basement shows with bands like Genders — whose wolf tattoo she still has on her left arm.
But she wanted to write her own songs and formed Black Belt Eagle Scout in 2013. Her early music was defined by her ethereal singing about love, friendship and healing — often only accompanied by minimal guitar strumming. But she did rock out on songs like “Soft Stud,” which featured searing solos.
“She is a really an authentic musician and she carries a lot of power on stage with her presence and sound,” Claire Glass, who plays guitar in the band and first saw KP seven years ago.
KP has said her Native American identify has always been present on her records. But her latest music paints a more vivid picture of life on the Swinomish reservation. There are references to chinook salmon, which are traditionally fished, and a powwow dance.
“I started thinking of feeling grateful for the life that I have been given; this place that I’m from; how much the land, the water, the sky means to me — being surrounded by it,” KP said of writing the song ”Don’t Give Up.” “It has so much more meaning because the land, that’s where my people are from.”
Her songs aren’t meant to directly confront issues like the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women or tribes’ forced relocation. It’s not the way she writes songs. Instead, she envisions them connecting with people, drawing more Native Americans to indie rock shows in places like Minneapolis, which has a vibrant Native American community, and inspiring young Native Americans to connect with her after shows.
“Isn’t me like being here existing with my music good enough? Can’t I just be who I am?” she asked, adding she doesn’t need to speak out from stage about these issues because being Native often means she is already wrestling with them. A judge, for example, ruled in March that BNSF Railway intentionally violated the terms of an easement agreement with the tribe by running 100-car trains carrying crude oil over the reservation.
“As a Native person, you know someone who is missing. Your tribe is trying to get your land back. Those are topics that are part of your every day life,” she said. ”I care about those things deeply but there are certain ways in which my music is, maybe not as direct, but it can be healing.”
KP also doesn’t want to be seen just as a rock musician or as a Native artist. “I am a musician who happens to be Native, but I am also a Native musician … I think I am always both,” she said.
Her latest record aims to show that.
“I kind of had in the back of mind, just kept thinking what would Built to Spill do,” KP said of the guitar-heavy, indie-rock band from the Pacific Northwest. “I’ve gone on tour with them and seen their three guitars at one point playing together and how they overlap and all these other things.”
It’s also a more collaborative effort with more musicians playing on the record— a departure for KP, who is accustomed to doing everything herself. A cellist who played with Nirvana, Lori Goldston, is featured on several songs, as are two violinists, as well as a saxophone and mellotron player.
Takiaya Reed, a first-time producer who is also in a doom metal band, described the experience of working on the record as “beautiful and amazing” and said the two bonded over their love of punk. Reid also brought her classical training and love of “heavier sounds” to the studio.
“We approached it fearlessly. It was wonderful to be expansive in terms of sonic possibilities,” she said.
KP also wanted to find a place for her parents, whom she had grown especially close to during the pandemic, to play on the record. She chose the song “Spaces,” which she described as having a “healing vibe.” Her dad, who is one of the main singers at the tribe’s cultural events, embraced the idea of lending his powerful powwow chant to the song. Her mom sang harmonies.
KP said: “It meant the world to me to have my parents sing because it felt like it was full circle in who I am.”
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/us-world-news/black-belt-eagle-scouts-latest-record-inspired-by-return-home-to-swinomish-tribes-ancestral-lands/ | 2023-07-29T06:56:32 | 0 | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/us-world-news/black-belt-eagle-scouts-latest-record-inspired-by-return-home-to-swinomish-tribes-ancestral-lands/ |
‘God willing, we will meet again in Libya.’ A migrant family’s tale shows chaos at Tunisian border
When Mbengue Nyimbilo Crepin regained consciousness after collapsing in the desert, the sun had already set. Tunisian authorities had violently forced him, his wife and their 6-year-old daughter across the border to Libya by foot without water, in the blazing heat, he said. Nyimbilo crumpled to the ground, exhausted and dehydrated, but urged his wife to carry on with little Marie and catch up to dozens of other migrants ahead.
“God willing, we will meet again in Libya,” he told them.
Nyimbilo eventually made it there — only to find out days later that his wife and daughter almost certainly did not.
A graphic photo widely shared on social media shows the lifeless body of a Black woman with braided hair next to a little girl, their faces down in the sand. The child is curled up next to the woman, her bare feet red and swollen, likely from walking on blistering hot sand.
Nyimbilo said he immediately recognized his wife’s yellow dress, pulled up on her body, and his daughter’s black sandals, sitting beside them. He shared recent photographs with The Associated Press showing them in the same clothing. He said he hasn’t heard from his wife, Matyla Dosso, who also went by Fatima, or their daughter since that day in the desert, July 16.
Nyimbilo believes Matyla and Marie are among more than a dozen Black migrants Libyan border guards say they’ve found dead in the desert border area of the North African nations since Tunisian authorities began conducting mass expulsions in early July. Nyimbilo is from Cameroon; his wife, Ivory Coast. They lived for years in Libya but hoped to finally make it to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea from Tunisia.
The Libyan police border guard in al-Assa, near the Tunisian border, found the woman and child in the July 19 photo dead, spokesperson Maj. Shawky al-Masry said. He declined to provide further details or say where the bodies are now.
Different border units have found at least 10 bodies on the Libyan side since last week, including that of another small child.
Black Africans in Tunisia have faced increasing discrimination and violence since President Kais Saied’s February remarks that sub-Saharan migrants are part of a plot to alter the country’s identity and demographics. He said “hordes of irregular migrants” bring “violence, crime and unacceptable practices.” The speech to his security council inflamed longstanding tensions throughout the region and country, but particularly between Tunisians and migrants in the port city of Sfax and other eastern coastal towns.
Tunisia has replaced Libya as the main point of departure for people attempting the deadly Mediterranean crossing to Italy, according to United Nations and other figures. Through July 20, more than 15,000 foreign migrants were intercepted by Tunisian authorities — more than double that period last year, Interior Minister Kamel Fekih told Parliament this week. He blasted the influx of sub-Saharan migrants and said Tunisia can’t accept becoming “a transit country.”
Tunisian authorities have responded to rising tensions with a crackdown on Black migrants and refugees, and some have been rounded up from coastal cities and sent to Libya or Algeria — countries with their own long track records of grave human rights violations, abuses against migrants and collective deportations.
Human rights organizations, Libyan authorities and migrants themselves have accused Tunisia of violating international law with the mass expulsions across its borders. Tunisian authorities long skirted a direct response to those accusations, but on Thursday, the Interior Ministry rejected any responsibility about “Africans outside its borders,” a clear reference to those in the desert. The ministry stressed Tunisia’s right to protect borders and insisted it carries out its “humanitarian duty.”
Officials also issued a warning against publication of content from social networks and in news outlets, and made a veiled reference in a recent statement to prison sentences of up to 10 years for anyone circulating information it deems incorrect.
This week, hundreds of people — including pregnant women and children — remain trapped in the border area between Tunisia, Libya and the Mediterranean Sea, while others are stranded on the Algeria side, U.N. agencies said, urging their immediate rescue.
Libyan authorities have stepped up security near Tunisia and found hundreds of migrants stranded in temperatures that surpassed 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). They’ve shared dramatic photos and videos on social media of their desert encounters with exhausted migrants desperate for water, as well as graphic images of the deceased.
Libyan guard Ali Wali said his team has seen through binoculars Tunisian security forcing migrants toward Libya. He said his unit finds more than 100 daily: “Some migrants spent up to three days with no food and water in the desert.”
Without elaborating, Wali said those found are handed to relevant authorities. U.N. agencies and the Libyan Red Crescent say they’ve provided food, water and other assistance.
But according to another security official, migrants were taken to detention centers run by Libya’s Directorate for Combatting Illegal Migration, notorious for abuse. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Despite the growing evidence of abuse against some migrants in Tunisia and issues at the border, European leaders have doubled up their show of support for Saied, offering hundreds of millions of euros to stabilize the country with hopes it will also reduce migration.
That didn’t deter Nyimbilo and his family.
Nyimbilo and his wife had already tried to get to Europe. Their previous five attempts to cross the Mediterranean, from Libya to Italy, all failed. Each time, they were intercepted by EU-equipped Libyan forces and imprisoned. Nyimbilo told AP his wife was raped twice in front of their child in detention.
“We had no more hope,” Nyimbilo said of their time in Libya, where Marie couldn’t even attend school because she’s the child of immigrants. “This country has traumatized us so much.”
So, on July 13, they left the coastal city of Zuwara and trekked through the desert with other migrants, making it to the border in the early hours of July 15. They continued to the town of Ben Guerdane, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) into Tunisia.
The group split up to avoid attracting attention. But they grew desperate for water. Nyimbilo and his family walked to a main road in search of help. That’s when a police car stopped and detained them, he said, and officers found their registration papers.
“When they saw it and realized we had left Libya, they beat us,” Nyimbilo said. The next day, he said, they were loaded onto a truck with other migrants and dropped at the border, without water.
Today, he said, he struggles to cope with his loss and to realize he’ll never see his wife or daughter again. They’d survived so much — failed voyages to Europe, assaults, even the 2019 bombing of the Tajoura detention center. He can hardly accept that Matyla and Marie died in the desert.
“A bottle of water could have saved my family,” he said.
___
Brito reported from Barcelona, Spain; Ganley from Paris; and Magdy from Cairo. Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/us-world-news/god-willing-we-will-meet-again-in-libya-a-migrant-familys-tale-shows-chaos-at-tunisian-border/ | 2023-07-29T06:56:39 | 1 | https://www.kaaltv.com/news/us-world-news/god-willing-we-will-meet-again-in-libya-a-migrant-familys-tale-shows-chaos-at-tunisian-border/ |
Local student makes dean's list
Sydney Graner, Mandan, has been named to the dean's list at Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, for the spring 2023 semester.
Scholarship recipients
The Department of Medical Laboratory Science at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences has awarded scholarships to medical laboratory science students for the 2023-24 academic year.
Area students are Abigail Meier, Bismarck, Mary Noble Award; Justus Bradford-Boos, Baldwin, and Daylin Roberson-Kitzman, Bismarck, Linnea J Veeder MLS Scholarship.
One included on list
Robi Buzakovic, Bismarck, has been named to the dean's list at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, for the spring 2023 semester.
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University of North Dakota graduates
The University of North Dakota held its spring commencement ceremonies May 13.
More than 1700 students were eligible to receive their degrees, including the following area students:
Bismarck -- Yousif Al Mubarak, Master of Science; Kennedy Anderson, Bachelor of Arts, political science, summa cum laude; Grace Anderson, Bachelor of Business Administration; Kennedy Baker, Bachelor of Science, education; Matthew Bakken, Doctor of Physical Therapy; Allison Bard, Bachelor of Accountancy; Olyvia Bender, Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude; Jennifer Bladow, Doctor of Education; Ericka Bowman, Bachelor of Arts, political science, Bachelor of Science, public affairs; Kaden Brennan, Bachelor of Business Administration; Nicholas Brown, Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude; Cody DeWitt, Master in physician assistant studies; Christina Feland, Bachelor of Business Administration; Brooke Fleming, Bachelor of Business Administration, magna cum laude; Emma Fricke, Bachelor of Science, education, summa cum laude; Isaiah Germolus, Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude; Desiree Giesen, Master of Science; Caylie Graeber, Bachelor of Science, chemical engineering, magna cum laude; Gracie Grinsteiner, Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, honors program leader in action scholar; Alexie Harms, Master in physician assistant studies; Skye Hertel, Bachelor of Accountancy, magna cum laude; Nikolas Holweger, Master of Arts; Madelyn House, Bachelor of Arts, political science, Bachelor of Science, public affairs, summa cum laude; Ashley Hulm, Bachelor of Science, dietetics; Aaron Hultstrand, Master of Science; Caitlyn Inman, Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude; Zachary Johnson, Bachelor of Business Administration; Bradyn Just, Doctor of Physical Therapy; Aaron Landrie, Master of Social Work; Mason Leingang, Bachelor of Business Administration, cum laude; Sarah Lesmeister, Doctor of Medicine; William Litchfield, Doctor of Medicine; Aubrey Malnourie, Master of Social Work; Carla Maurstad, Doctor of Physical Therapy; LiQiong McDowell, Bachelor of Business Administration; Gavin Mindt, Juris Doctor, cum laude; Aimee Olson, Bachelor of Arts, McKenzie Richard, Master of Public Administration; Natalie Rixen, Doctor of Medicine; Anna Roaldson, Master of Public Administration; Monica Ruhland, Master of Accountancy; Keaton Rummel, Doctor of Medicine; Kambri Schaner, Bachelor of Science, Medical Laboratory Science, summa cum laude; Tess Sether, Master of Science; Brynn Shirley, Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, honors program research scholar; Erik Solie, Bachelor of Science, chemical engineering, magna cum laude; Mandy Stenehjem, Master in physician assistant studies; Kevin Tengesdal, Master of Social Work; Chandler Tobeck, Master of Public Health; Mason Trahan, Bachelor of Science, magna cum laude; Jessica Trinneer, Bachelor of Science, social work; Faith Wahl, Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude; Alexis Wanner, Bachelor of Science, criminal justice studies, summa cum laude; Kailey Weigel, Bachelor of Science, Nursing, summa cum laude, honors program research scholar; Katherine Weikum, Bachelor of Business Administration; Mary Weisberg, Master in physician assistant studies; Haylie Wetzel, Master of Science; Sarah Wobbema, Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude; Austin Wolf, Bachelor of Accountancy, magna cum laude; Austin Wolf, Bachelor of Business Administration, magna cum laude; Lauren Wrede, Doctor of Physical Therapy.
Lincoln -- Elijah Meidinger, Bachelor of Business Administration; Edina Zukic, Bachelor of Business Administration.
Mandan -- Mikaela Herberg, Doctor of Medicine; Larissa Baird, Bachelor of Science, human nutrition; Leah Breuer, Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude; Jayme Cepek, Bachelor of Science in education, summa cum laude; Sasha Hopfauf, Master in physician assistant studies; Olivia Moe, Bachelor of Arts, cum laude; Justin Schafer, Doctor of Medicine; Nathan Schwindt, Bachelor of Science, nursing; Holly Tweed, Bachelor of Arts; McKenzie Ulrich, Bachelor of General Studies; Katie Weiand, Bachelor of Science, education, magna cum laude; Gabrielle Wolf, Juris Doctor, cum laude.
Menoken -- Gabriel Schettler, Bachelor of Science, mechanical engineering, summa cum laude; Ethan Van Vleet, Bachelor of Science.
New Salem -- Erin Freadhoff, Master of Social Work. | https://bismarcktribune.com/lifestyles/hometown/on-campus---july-29-2023/article_878305c6-27da-11ee-976e-3f080f9b69d0.html | 2023-07-29T06:58:18 | 1 | https://bismarcktribune.com/lifestyles/hometown/on-campus---july-29-2023/article_878305c6-27da-11ee-976e-3f080f9b69d0.html |
Two attend national program
Lauren Beck and Marjorie Rue, Bismarck, represented North Dakota at the American Legion Auxiliary’s Girls Nation in Washington, D.C., July 22-29.
The weeklong program shapes future leaders through hands-on experiences in government and public service.
4-H shooting sports winners
North Dakota's 4-H shooting sports archery team placed third and the shotgun team placed 14th at the 4-H National Shooting Sports Championships in Grand Island, Nebraska.
Area team members from Morton County were Bennet Schuler, Hatley Hetletved, Kadin Beneke, Josh Entzel, Jack Gebhardt and Kaden Schafer.
In the individual standings, Schuler finished in third place overall and was national field archery champion. Beneke placed 14th, Hetletvedt 36th, Entzel 49th, Schafer 66th and Gebhardt 81st.
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The archery team placed sixth in Federation Internationale de Tir a l’Arc archery and the shotgun team placed 15th in sporting clays. Individual placements were Entzel, 29th; Gebhardt, 86th; Schafer, 93rd. The archery team placed first in field archery. Individual placements were Schuler, national champion; Beneke, 14th; Hetletved, 15th. The shotgun team finished 14th in skeet. Individual placements were Entzel, 49th; Schafer, 73rd; Gebhardt, 84th. The archery team placed third in 3-D archery. Individual placements were Schuler, fifth; Beneke, 10th; Hetletved, 46th. The shotgun team finished eighth in trap. Individual placements were Schafer, 10th; Gebhardt, 58th; Entzel, 112th.
“Report card” highlights achievements of Burleigh and Morton County students through high school. Please send submissions to news@bismarcktribune.com by noon Wednesday. | https://bismarcktribune.com/lifestyles/hometown/report-card---july-29-2023/article_5856dada-27de-11ee-8a90-db4dec5d30a6.html | 2023-07-29T06:58:24 | 0 | https://bismarcktribune.com/lifestyles/hometown/report-card---july-29-2023/article_5856dada-27de-11ee-8a90-db4dec5d30a6.html |
SCHEDULE
Saturday, July 29
Auto racing: Governors Cup night 2, 7 p.m., Dacotah Speedway.
Legion baseball: Class AA state tournament at Dickinson: 12 p.m. (championship), 3 p.m. (if necessary); Class A state tournament at Kindred: Loser out (11 a.m./1:30 p.m.); winner’s bracket (4/6:30 p.m.) Class B state tournament at Carrington: loser out (Noon), championship (3 p.m.).
Northwoods League: Bismarck at St. Cloud, 6:05 p.m.
Sunday, July 30
Legion baseball: Class A state tournament at Kindred: (12/2:30/5 p.m.); Class B state tournament at Carrington: Second championship game (if necessary), (Noon).
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Northwoods League: Bismarck at St. Cloud, 4:05 p.m.
Monday, July 31
Legion baseball: Class A state tournament at Kindred (3/5:30 p.m.).
Northwoods League: Home Run Derby, 7:05 p.m., Municipal Ballpark.
RADIO TODAY
MLB
6 p.m.
KXMR (7`10 AM) – Minnesota at Kansas City
TV TODAY
AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBALL
3 a.m.
FS2 — Sydney at Essendon
AUTO RACING
4:55 a.m.
ESPN2 — Formula 1 MSC Cruises Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Shootout
9:25 a.m.
ESPN2 — Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Race
2 p.m.
NBC — NASCAR Xfinity Series Henry 180
6:30 p.m.
FS1 — NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Worldwide Express 250
CFL
3 p.m.
CBSSN — Saskatchewan at Toronto
6 p.m.
CBSSN — B.C. at Edmonton
GOLF
4:30 a.m.
GOLF — LPGA Tour Amundi Evian Championship
8 a.m.
CNBC — PGA Tour Champions Senior Open Championship
11 a.m.
NBC — PGA Tour Champions Senior Open Championship
Noon
GOLF — PGA 3M Open
2 p.m.
CBS — PGA 3M Open
GOLF — U.S. Junior Amateur Championship Match
HORSE RACING
12:30 p.m.
FS1 — Saratoga Live
2 p.m.
FOX — Saratoga Live
5 p.m.
FS2 — Saratoga Live
MLB
2 p.m.
MLBN — L.A. Angels at Toronto
3 p.m.
FS1 — Detroit at Miami
6 p.m.
BSN – Minnesota at Kansas City
FOX — Boston at San Francisco or Tampa Bay at Houston
9 p.m.
MLBN — Cincinnati at L.A. Dodgers or Texas at San Diego (joined in progress)
TENNIS
6:30 a.m.
TENNIS — Warsaw-WTA, Hamburg-ATP, Umag-ATP, Semifinals; Hamburg-WTA Final
2 p.m.
TENNIS — Umag-ATP, Atlanta-ATP Semifinals
6 p.m.
TENNIS — Atlanta-ATP Semifinal
PLAYBACK
10 YEARS AGO (2013): Steve Kennedy of Fargo South and Fargo Davies made the jump to the college coaching ranks as he was named the new men’s golf coach at North Dakota State. During his time in high school golf, Kennedy coached 12 state championships in 18 years of coaching and was a five-time North Dakota coach of the year and was national coach of the year in 1998.
20 YEARS AGO (2003): Terry Barnes of Mandan kept closing the gap in the Dacotah Speedway standings, taking first in his heat and the checkered flag in the streets feature race to inch closer to Erik Paul of Dickinson. Local racers dominated the results, as Vince McCleary of Lincoln won in the hobby stocks, Eugene Halvorson and Mark Frohlich jumped from third to first for the road hogs feature, Kelly Hoerner won the legends feature, and Shawn Strand won gold in the modifieds feature.
50 YEARS AGO (1973): Thanks to a seven-run second inning, Hazen blew out Wilton 14-4 and secured the District 6 American Legion baseball title. Wilton had three doubles to Hazen’s one, but the teams each had a triple and Hazen’s Terry Opp had the lone home run. Kevin Weigum threw all seven innings for Hazen and earned the win.
TRIVIA ANSWER
Bobby Cox is the major-league leader in times ejected from a game with 162. John McGraw was second on the list with 121.
CONTACT US
Dave Selvig, Tribune sports editor, 250-8246 or 888-684-2293 after 3 p.m. (e-mail: david.selvig@bismarcktribune.com)
Josh Dungan, Tribune sportswriter, 355-8839 or 888-684-2293 after 3 p.m. (e-mail: josh.dungan@bismarcktribune.com)
Scott Throlson, Tribune sportswriter, 250-8245 or 888-684-2293 after 3 p.m. (e-mail: scott.throlson@bismarcktribune.com)
Send e-mail results to: sports@bismarcktribune.com | https://bismarcktribune.com/morning-kickoff---july-29-2023/article_80d381e8-2d88-11ee-8d9f-6b3139facd00.html | 2023-07-29T06:58:30 | 1 | https://bismarcktribune.com/morning-kickoff---july-29-2023/article_80d381e8-2d88-11ee-8d9f-6b3139facd00.html |
Bismarck's Capitol Avenue at State Street will be closed for a brief time to support construction work in the area.
The closure is planned from 1 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday, according to the city. Traffic will be detoured onto North 11th Street.
Bismarck's Capitol Avenue at State Street will be closed for a brief time to support construction work in the area.
The closure is planned from 1 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday, according to the city. Traffic will be detoured onto North 11th Street.
The five Dan's Supermarket grocery stores in Bismarck-Mandan are being rebranded as Family Fare.
The Mandan City Commission has submitted its preferred option for a North Dakota Department of Transportation project that would expand the In…
A Mandan woman accused of pulling a knife on police officers after entering a home without permission in the middle of the night late last mon…
A Mandan man facing drug and driving charges following a mid-June police chase in Bismarck in which he allegedly crashed into the Federal Buil…
Federal statistics show that people of Asian descent make up less than a percent of Bismarck’s population, but many residents still have a nat…
Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. | https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/bismarck-road-work-announced/article_ab663a5c-2d62-11ee-8bbb-bfcaf42d8da6.html | 2023-07-29T06:58:36 | 0 | https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/bismarck-road-work-announced/article_ab663a5c-2d62-11ee-8bbb-bfcaf42d8da6.html |
Program invests in area business
The North Dakota Development Fund has finalized three new investments through its Angel Match Program.
An area business selected for the program is Medobby Corporation, doing business as Learnery, a Bismarck-based digital software company offering training and education programs for organizations to improve employee performance and engagement.
Funds for the Angel Match Program were provided through the U.S. Department of Treasury State Small Business Credit Initiative.
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The business news you need
Get the latest local business news delivered FREE to your inbox weekly. | https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/business/business-digest---july-29-2023/article_6eab1d42-27d8-11ee-b45c-c74f83d6ef9c.html | 2023-07-29T06:58:42 | 1 | https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/business/business-digest---july-29-2023/article_6eab1d42-27d8-11ee-b45c-c74f83d6ef9c.html |
Hospice of the Red River Valley hire
Chivon Kapphahn has been hired as a philanthropy officer by Hospice of the Red River Valley. In her position, Chivon will work with the development team, manage major gift production, donor stewardship and recognition efforts.
Prior to her joining Hospice of the Red River Valley, she served as operations director for Cornerstone Caregiving and senior executive director at Edgewood Healthcare.
Chivon attended Bismarck State College and Flasher High School.
Deputy commissioner selected
North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Commissioner Sara Stolt has been selected to participate in the 2023 Council of State Governments Henry Toll Fellowship.
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The fellowship brings 47 people representing 29 states and U.S. territories to a leadership development program. A graduation ceremony is set for Dec. 6-9 during the 2023 CSG National Conference.
Long term care director selected
Lana Charvat, facility director at Maple View Memory Care, has been selected to join AHCA/NCAL’s Future Leaders program by the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living.
The program offers training and guidance for industry professionals. | https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/business/businesspeople---july-29-2023/article_43bcdfaa-27d6-11ee-8d95-1f6eab1e68fd.html | 2023-07-29T06:58:48 | 0 | https://bismarcktribune.com/news/local/business/businesspeople---july-29-2023/article_43bcdfaa-27d6-11ee-8d95-1f6eab1e68fd.html |
10 dogs die after air conditioning in truck fails during traffic delay
HOBART, Ind. (WLS) - Ten dogs died in Indiana during a drive from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Michigan.
Authorities said the driver did not know the air conditioning in the truck’s cargo failed.
Police arrived at a Lake Station, Indiana, gas station Thursday night for a report that 19 German shepherds became overheated while being transported to a training facility.
Ten of the dogs died as a result, according to officials.
WARNING: Some may find the content of this video disturbing.
The Humane Society of Hobart was called to the scene.
Police in Lake Station say the driver of the van, who picked the dogs up from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was bound for a training facility in Michigan, was unaware that the air conditioning in the cargo area of the truck failed in the sweltering heat.
“We had cooling vans and animal care and control vehicles ready to transport. And because we were asking for that paperwork, it seemed to make the owner mad and so he said that he would not allow us to help,” Jenny Webber, with the Humane Society of Hobart, said.
Lake Station police posted a narrative of the situation on Facebook, calling it a “freak event” and not a matter of neglect on the part of the truck’s driver.
They went on to write the “scene was chaotic and took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
The humane society said they believe the dogs were traveling to a Michigan trainer to become police dogs.
“This is truly a sad day for all of us,” Webber added.
Five German shepherds were still being treated in Lake Station and will go into the care of the humane society unless the owner claims the dogs.
The record-breaking temperatures stretching from coast-to-coast sparked heat alerts in multiple states.
Copyright 2023 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.azfamily.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ | 2023-07-29T06:59:03 | 1 | https://www.azfamily.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ |
10 dogs die after air conditioning in truck fails during traffic delay
HOBART, Ind. (WLS) - Ten dogs died in Indiana during a drive from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Michigan.
Authorities said the driver did not know the air conditioning in the truck’s cargo failed.
Police arrived at a Lake Station, Indiana, gas station Thursday night for a report that 19 German shepherds became overheated while being transported to a training facility.
Ten of the dogs died as a result, according to officials.
WARNING: Some may find the content of this video disturbing.
The Humane Society of Hobart was called to the scene.
Police in Lake Station say the driver of the van, who picked the dogs up from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was bound for a training facility in Michigan, was unaware that the air conditioning in the cargo area of the truck failed in the sweltering heat.
“We had cooling vans and animal care and control vehicles ready to transport. And because we were asking for that paperwork, it seemed to make the owner mad and so he said that he would not allow us to help,” Jenny Webber, with the Humane Society of Hobart, said.
Lake Station police posted a narrative of the situation on Facebook, calling it a “freak event” and not a matter of neglect on the part of the truck’s driver.
They went on to write the “scene was chaotic and took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
The humane society said they believe the dogs were traveling to a Michigan trainer to become police dogs.
“This is truly a sad day for all of us,” Webber added.
Five German shepherds were still being treated in Lake Station and will go into the care of the humane society unless the owner claims the dogs.
The record-breaking temperatures stretching from coast-to-coast sparked heat alerts in multiple states.
Copyright 2023 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ | 2023-07-29T06:59:03 | 0 | https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ |
10 dogs die after air conditioning in truck fails during traffic delay
HOBART, Ind. (WLS) - Ten dogs died in Indiana during a drive from Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Michigan.
Authorities said the driver did not know the air conditioning in the truck’s cargo failed.
Police arrived at a Lake Station, Indiana, gas station Thursday night for a report that 19 German shepherds became overheated while being transported to a training facility.
Ten of the dogs died as a result, according to officials.
WARNING: Some may find the content of this video disturbing.
The Humane Society of Hobart was called to the scene.
Police in Lake Station say the driver of the van, who picked the dogs up from Chicago O’Hare International Airport and was bound for a training facility in Michigan, was unaware that the air conditioning in the cargo area of the truck failed in the sweltering heat.
“We had cooling vans and animal care and control vehicles ready to transport. And because we were asking for that paperwork, it seemed to make the owner mad and so he said that he would not allow us to help,” Jenny Webber, with the Humane Society of Hobart, said.
Lake Station police posted a narrative of the situation on Facebook, calling it a “freak event” and not a matter of neglect on the part of the truck’s driver.
They went on to write the “scene was chaotic and took an emotional toll on all that were involved in trying to save as many canines as possible.”
The humane society said they believe the dogs were traveling to a Michigan trainer to become police dogs.
“This is truly a sad day for all of us,” Webber added.
Five German shepherds were still being treated in Lake Station and will go into the care of the humane society unless the owner claims the dogs.
The record-breaking temperatures stretching from coast-to-coast sparked heat alerts in multiple states.
Copyright 2023 WLS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wkyt.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ | 2023-07-29T06:59:03 | 0 | https://www.wkyt.com/2023/07/29/10-dogs-die-after-air-conditioning-truck-fails-during-traffic-delay/ |
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is getting a lot of media -- way out of proportion to the impact he has made as a candidate, measured by his low standing in the polls and the very modest amount of money he has raised.
The explanation for this seems clear. The media loves his sharp and aggressive animosity to and criticism of former President Donald Trump.
But the American people are looking for a leader. Could Chris Christie be that man?
If Christie wants to be that man, he is going to have to do a better job showing how America gets back in the race and focus less on what's wrong with other candidates.
The Cato Institute publishes a biannual fiscal policy report on the nation's governors. It rates each governor according to success in cutting taxes and spending. Governors are scored and ranked A, B, C, D or F.
People are also reading…
Christie was rated three times during his two terms as governor of New Jersey. Each time he came in with a solid B.
But Americans are looking for, Americans need, an A leader.
When asked on CBS' "Face the Nation" about the new Black history curriculum in Florida, which teaches "how slaves developed some skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit," Christie replied as a politician and not as a leader.
With little knowledge of the full thrust of this curriculum, Christie immediately attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, including calling the Stop Woke Act as "micromanaging curricula in schools."
Regarding Black history in particular, the passage quoted above is taken totally out of context and in no way can be construed as justifying slavery. The point is to show that despite the evil and oppression, the spirit of those enslaved prevailed.
Moreover, included in the curriculum is the directive to "analyze the contribution of founding principles of liberty, justice and equality in the quest to end slavery."
Of course, the real answer is competition, and DeSantis has been superlative in making school choice available throughout the State of Florida.
But as long as many kids are still in public schools, responsible leadership means pushing back against woke content and making sure truth about American history and culture are taught. The Stop Woke Act signed by DeSantis accomplishes this important objective.
Christie deserves credit for saying we need to reform our entitlements -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
In this regard, he distinguishes himself from Trump, who somehow does not think he needs to address this huge problem facing the nation.
What does Christie say? "We need to make sure we preserve the systems, but we have to do it honestly."
But this itself is not honest, because we cannot preserve the systems as they are.
Regarding Social Security, he wants to means test so that higher-earning Americans do not get benefits and he wants to raise the retirement age for younger Americans.
However, if we remove Social Security benefits for high earners, Christie surely doesn't mean they also stop paying payroll taxes. So, he proposes to transform Social Security into a welfare program, where higher earners pay in and only lower earners get benefits.
Regarding raising the retirement age, can we tell someone 40 years old that has been paying taxes for 20 years, under the assumption of a certain benefit structure, that suddenly we are changing the rules?
If Christie means only raising the retirement age for those who will be entering the workforce after the change is made, this won't work because the current projection from Social Security trustees shows insufficient funds beginning in 2034, just 11 years from now.
Chris Christie is energetic and provocative. But he needs to move from grade B ideas to grade A ideas -- or soon the Sunday morning talk shows will no longer have him around.
Star Parker is an author and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at www.urbancure.org. | https://bismarcktribune.com/opinion/columnists/star-parker-chris-christies-grade-b-candidacy/article_e051580e-2bec-11ee-a86e-87cdb05f815c.html | 2023-07-29T06:59:07 | 1 | https://bismarcktribune.com/opinion/columnists/star-parker-chris-christies-grade-b-candidacy/article_e051580e-2bec-11ee-a86e-87cdb05f815c.html |