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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://fox59.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-sean-payton-says-he-regrets-criticizing-predecessor-nathaniel-hackett-and-his-own-general-manager/ | 2023-07-29T10:24:02 | 0 | https://fox59.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-sean-payton-says-he-regrets-criticizing-predecessor-nathaniel-hackett-and-his-own-general-manager/ |
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://fox59.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-super-bowl-champion-chiefs-hold-hot-tough-practice-in-1st-day-of-pads/ | 2023-07-29T10:24:09 | 0 | https://fox59.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.
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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://fox59.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-usc-still-preparing-for-a-european-tour-as-bronny-james-recovers-at-home-after-cardiac-arrest/ | 2023-07-29T10:24:15 | 1 | https://fox59.com/sports/ap-sports/ap-usc-still-preparing-for-a-european-tour-as-bronny-james-recovers-at-home-after-cardiac-arrest/ |
Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:
Colson Whitehead channels the paranoia and fear of 1970s NYC in 'Crook Manifesto': "My early '70s New York is dingy and grimy," the Pulitzer Prize-winning author says. Whitehead's sequel to Harlem Shuffle centers on crime at every level, from small-time crooks to Harlem's elite.
Crime writer S.A. Cosby loves the South — and is haunted by it: Cosby's novel All the Sinners Bleed centers on a Black sheriff in a small Southeast Virginia county. The novel was inspired by his own experiences growing up in the shadow of the Confederacy.
You can listen to the original interviews and review here:
Colson Whitehead channels the paranoia and fear of 1970s NYC in 'Crook Manifesto'
Crime writer S.A. Cosby loves the South — and is haunted by it
Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.nepm.org/2023-07-29/fresh-air-weekend-colson-whitehead-s-a-cosby | 2023-07-29T10:24:16 | 1 | https://www.nepm.org/2023-07-29/fresh-air-weekend-colson-whitehead-s-a-cosby |
CANBERRA, Australia — Four air crew members were missing after an Australian army helicopter ditched into waters off the Queensland state coast during joint military exercises with the United States, officials said Saturday.
The MRH-90 Taipan helicopter went down near Lindeman Island, a Great Barrier Reef tourist resort, at about 11 p.m. Friday, exercise director Australian Army Brigadier Damian Hill said.
A search involving U.S., Canadian and Australian personnel was underway to find the crew who are all Australian men, officials said.
Debris that appeared to be from a helicopter had been recovered, Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner Douglas McDonald said.
The Taipan was taking part in Talisman Sabre, a biennial joint U.S.-Australian military exercise that is largely based in Queensland. This year's exercise involves 13 nations and more than 30,000 military personnel.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said the helicopter ditched, which refers to an emergency landing on water.
"Defense exercises, which are so necessary for the readiness of our defense force, are serious. They carry risk," Marles told reporters in Brisbane. "As we desperately hope for better news during the course of this day we are reminded about the gravity of the act which comes with wearing our nation's uniform."
Hill said the exercise was postponed on Saturday morning but had restarted limited activity later in the day. Australia had grounded its Taipan fleet as a precaution, Hill said.
It was the second emergency involving an Australian Taipan this year, after one ditched into the sea off the New South Wales state coast in March. That helicopter was taking part in a nighttime counterterrorism training exercise when it ran into trouble. All 10 passengers and crew members were rescued.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Brisbane for a meeting on Saturday and is due to travel with Marles to north Queensland on Sunday to see the exercise.
Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid tribute to the missing air crew at the outset of a meeting with their Australian counterparts, Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
"It's always tough when you have accidents in training, but ... the reason that we train to such high standards is so that we can be successful and we can protect lives when we are called to answer any kind of crisis," Austin said.
"Our guys tend to make this look easy and they make it look easy because they're so well exercised and rehearsed and trained, and this is unfortunately a part of that, what it takes to get them to where we need them to be," Austin added.
Blinken said, "We're so grateful to them for their dedication, for their service, for everything they've been doing to stand up for the freedom that we share and that is what unites us more than anything else."
Marles thanked the United States for their contribution to the search and rescue effort.
The missing helicopter had just dropped off two Australian commandos before it hit the water, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Australia announced in January that its army and navy would stop flying the European-built Taipans by December 2024, 13 years earlier than originally planned, because they had proven unreliable. They will be replaced by 40 U.S. Black Hawks. Marles said at the time the Lockheed Martin-designed Black Hawks "have a really good proven track record in terms of their reliability."
Australia's Taipans had been plagued by problems since the first helicopter arrived in the country in 2007.
Australia's entire fleet of 47 Taipans was grounded in 2019 to fix a problem with their tail rotor blades. A year later, 27 Taipans were grounded because of a problem with doors.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/4-air-crew-members-are-missing-after-an-australian-army-helicopter-ditched-off-coast | 2023-07-29T10:24:22 | 0 | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/4-air-crew-members-are-missing-after-an-australian-army-helicopter-ditched-off-coast |
From the outside, the tall white building looks like any other hip, new Brooklyn living space. But about a thousand migrant men sleep here every night and there's room for hundreds more. It's a sort of mega shelter, poised to become one of New York City's largest.
It's been open for just a few weeks, and it's already riddled with accusations of abuse.
For months, Mayor Eric Adams has been issuing warnings that the New York City shelter system simply cannot handle the deluge of over 90,000 people it has received in the last year or so. "We have no more room in the city," he cautioned at a recent press conference. "We need help from the federal government."
The Adams administration is challenging New York's right to shelter law in court: That's the law that for decades has assured that the city provide a safe haven to anyone in need, regardless of immigration status.
Adams also recently announced several unusual measures including distribution of fliers to asylum-seekers at the border in order to discourage migrants from coming to New York City. Single adults will only be able to stay in shelters for 60 days before having to reapply.
Activists say it's in keeping with this policy shift that the new shelter site — located in Brooklyn's posh Clinton Hill neighborhood — is being referred to as an "emergency respite center," rather than a shelter. It's been touted as a temporary humanitarian aid solution.
NPR spent several days speaking to asylum seekers who say conditions in the building are dire. Many described zones of 80 to 90 people sharing two bathrooms. A 26-year-old man named Deivy says he's fleeing armed conflict in Colombia and that he's been living in the shelter for over a week.
He asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retaliation. Deivy says fighting over use of the bathroom facilities is common and showering is an odyssey. Parked outside, two trailers with showers serve the entire building.
"It's bad in there," says one Mauritanian man named Neimar, who also asked that his last name be withheld for fear he'd be in trouble with shelter authorities. Sitting listlessly on a nearby park bench, Neimar describes the experience as a sort of limbo. "We had no life where we came from, but here we have no luck here. No clothing. No food. Nothing."
Lack of access to food is one of the most common complaints. On a recent day shelter occupants say lunch consists of a bag of chips and a water. Often the food has gone bad.
What troubles many people here the most is the security guards. "They treat us like animals," says Neimar. "As if we were not people."
In interviews with more than two dozen people, nearly everyone recounted experiencing physical harassment and verbal slights at the shelter. "I understand enough English to know I'm being insulted," says Deivy.
NPR reached out to the New York City government multiple times for comment on these accusations without response.
Advocates say shelters like this one are disheartening, especially given that New York has long been seen as a beacon for immigrants. "For at least 40 years, New York City has provided a right to shelter to all people — regardless of their immigration status — who need a place to stay for the night," says Columbia University Professor Elora Mukherjee, who studies immigration and law. She called the shift in policy "devastating."
For many migrants and asylum seekers, this Brooklyn location is not the first encounter with the New York shelter system. But it does feel like the last straw. Several described the situation at this new site so dire, they would rather sleep under a nearby highway overpass. Others have no choice but to join a homeless camp of nearly 20 men.
Among them is Jose Antonio. He says he left Venezuela to escape government harassment. "Eighty people using two bathrooms?" he says. "It's a health hazard." When he arrived at the shelter a few weeks ago, it was under construction, still lacking lights. After an altercation over bathroom access in the morning, he says, he was asked to leave. He now he sleeps outside. During the day, he works odd landscaping gigs.
The motto down here: stay working.
But the question of work and who is allowed to do it is where the federal immigration bureaucracy labyrinth gets even more complicated. The soonest an asylum seeker can get a work permit is six months after they apply for asylum. That's a process that can in turn take years.
"The Mayor does make a good point when he says that the city needs help. And that help should take various forms," said Professor Elora Mukherjee. The city, she says, needs the federal government to lend their authority. "First and foremost: the federal government should authorize asylum seekers to receive their lawful work organization as soon as they enter the United States and fill out the relevant paperwork."
There's no indication that this will happen anytime soon. Instead, many men rent scooters in order to work for food delivery apps. By noon on a recent day, the dinging sound of orders start echoing under the bridge.
The men head out.
It's a dystopian scene: asylum seekers, staying in a shelter and under a bridge, delivering pricey meals throughout New York.
A few days later, the police sweep the camp. For several hours the men say they are driven around the city on a bus and taken to two different shelters where they are turned away.
Eventually, the bus drops them off in Brooklyn again. The men walk back to the highway overpass and to the camp where they find many of their belongings are now missing. One man reports his immigration papers, cellphone, and clothing all gone.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/as-nyc-limits-access-to-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-many-are-left-homeless | 2023-07-29T10:24:28 | 0 | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/as-nyc-limits-access-to-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-many-are-left-homeless |
LIMA, Peru — Although the top tourist destination in Peru is the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, high in the Andes Mountains, the capital Lima also holds a treasure trove of ancient ruins — so many, in fact, that authorities can't take care of them all.
The city is home to more than 400 known pyramids, temples and burial sites, many of which predate the Incas and and are known in Spanish as "huacas." They sit next to modern shopping centers, hotels and highways or rise up in the middle of neighborhoods in this city of 11 million people. Meanwhile, archaeologists keep digging up new sites.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Peruvian president who lives across the street from a pyramid called Huallamarca, built around 1,800 years ago, says with a smile: "I know where I am when I wake up in the morning. I'm in Peru!"
Due mostly to budget limitations, Huallamarca is one of only 27 sites in Lima that have been excavated, restored and opened to visitors, according to archaeologists who spoke with NPR.
Many other sites are deteriorating. Squatters have occupied some, and others have become de facto garbage dumps or gathering spots for drug users and homeless people.
"Everywhere you dig, you will find something — because Lima was home to great civilizations," says Micaela Álvarez, director of the museum at Pucllana, a massive pyramid in Lima's business district of Miraflores. "But it's impossible to save everything in a poor country."
Pucllana is one of the exceptions.
Thought to be about 1,500 years old, the pyramid was a ceremonial site for the Lima Indigenous group that gave this city its name. Excavations began in 1981 and continue today.
On a recent morning, workers scraped sand and dirt from part of the site that archaeologists are beginning to explore for the first time. Nearby, guides pointed to the intricate brickwork, which has withstood earthquakes, and then led visitors to the top of the 82-foot-tall pyramid for views of the Pacific Ocean.
Among the visitors was Manuel Larrabure, a professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania who was born and raised in Lima but had never been to Pucllana.
"It's very impressive," he said. "The tendency is to look outside of Lima for interesting things, but it's good to look inside and to appreciate our own culture. People are still getting to know these sites."
Before it was restored following the start of excavations some 40 years ago, Pucllana was routinely looted and abused. At one point, a factory was using Pucllana's sand and clay to make bricks. Tour guide Blanca Arista says the pyramid also served as a neighborhood playground — and a motocross track.
"It's unbelievable, but several groups were practicing motocross," she said. "So, imagine different groups riding motorcycles, riding bikes."
Indeed, Lima's ancient Indigenous sites have, more often, been desecrated instead of safeguarded, says Giancarlo Marcone, a Peruvian archaeologist and professor at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lima.
Some were bulldozed to make way for apartment blocks and streets amid a wave of migration from the countryside that began in the 1950s.
"That put a lot of pressure on the city, and we didn't have good planning," Marcone says. "Until recently, we didn't really care about what we had."
Attitudes shifted as Peruvians became more sensitive to their cultural heritage and the country's ancient sites began to attract more international tourists. Janie Gómez, who until April was deputy culture minister, said the government of President Dina Boluarte is committed to preserving these sites.
"Their recovery will prevent them from deteriorating and being invaded," she told the state-run Andina news agency in January. "The millennial history over which Lima was built must not be lost."
However, Peru is struggling to reduce poverty and improve hospitals and schools, Marcone says. Thus, governments have been unable or unwilling to finance robust excavations or to turn more than a few sites into tourist attractions. The result is that many have been left in limbo.
Rosa María Barillas, a Peruvian archaeology student who recently completed fieldwork at an ancient temple on the outskirts of Lima, recalls looters prowling the area.
"I had to chase them away," she says.
Other sites have been colonized by squatters. The archaeological complex at Mateo Salado, near Lima's international airport, features a beautifully restored 1,000-year-old pyramid, but is also home to several modern houses. Until 2013, when major restoration work began, farmers used the site to cultivate roses and neighborhood kids played soccer there.
In the working-class neighborhood of Los Olivos, a dusty, dun-colored archaeological site called Infantas I is hemmed in by streets and houses. Ashes from a campfire are smoldering while trash piles up in several areas. Three youths are smoking crack, and a shirtless man is digging up sand and putting it in sacks. The area is part of a series of temples, but has yet to be excavated.
Benito Trejo, who heads the neighborhood committee, calls Infantas I a headache.
"It's not a good thing, because these sites are ignored by the government which is supposed to look after them," he says.
There was no response to NPR's requests for comment from the Culture Ministry.
For now, archaeologists say that surrounding communities must get more involved in preserving and promoting the sites. Pucllana, for example, has been used for art exhibits, while other sites have hosted film screenings.
At Mateo Salado, fifth graders were recently visiting the site and drawing pictures of the ruins, which are part of their school logo.
"We shouldn't look at these sites simply as relics of the past," says Andrés Ramírez, one of the instructors. "They should be part of everyday society. That's what we are trying to promote."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/in-peru-discovery-of-ancient-ruins-outpaces-authorities-ability-to-care-for-them | 2023-07-29T10:24:34 | 0 | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/in-peru-discovery-of-ancient-ruins-outpaces-authorities-ability-to-care-for-them |
The numbers are in and things look surprisingly rosy for the U.S. economy:
The Federal Reserve is still cautious, but big brands – including Coca-Cola, Hilton and Visa — are singing praises to shoppers seemingly undeterred by companies' raising prices. What's more, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Barbie are enticing people to part with their money, bolstering local businesses.
Financial reports by corporations and government data have been painting a picture this month of insatiable American shoppers making companies positively exuberant.
This week, GDP or gross domestic product – considered the measure of economic growth – showed the U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.4%, much higher than expected. What's fueling it is — you guessed it — spending. Brand after brand this week boosted their earnings forecasts for the year, calling consumers "resilient" in the face of higher prices.
The 'she-conomy' takes center stage
Americans have been scaling back in some categories, including clothing and furniture, but we're splurging on travel. We're also going out to eat, and see concerts and movies. You could call it the Barbie bump.
Plus, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have been moving markets, quite literally. The Federal Reserve has tracked the striking effect of Taylor Swift's tour on host cities. One analysis estimates it could generate almost $5 billion in global revenue. When Beyoncé comes to town, hotels, hair stylists and bartenders all get a boost, according to Yelp.
Southwest Airlines this week reported record revenue. Hilton executives said people were spending more across all its hotels, from the humbler Garden Inn to the upscale Waldorf Astoria, with business travel picking up and overall demand exceeding available rooms. Hotel prices have been setting records too.
"Not to be a Pollyanna at all, it all feels pretty good. ... I think the rest of this year's going to be very solid," Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta told analysts on Wednesday. "And I think next year will be a darn good year."
Companies test price limits in a 'Hot Profit Summer'
Higher prices showed up as good news in corporate reports across the board. Among them was Hershey (whose brands include Reese's and Skinny Pop). The company said people were buying slightly fewer snacks and candies, but its profits rose almost 30% anyway. A similar thing happened at Procter & Gamble (which makes Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste) and Colgate-Palmolive.
Coca-Cola, like rival Pepsi, reported that shoppers remained loyal to brand-name soda despite several rounds of price hikes.
Corporate execs offered many explanations for those hikes, including higher wages and other costs, such as sugar and corn syrup. Chipotle said it was still spending more on beef, tortillas, salsa, beans and rice, and did not rule out additional price hikes later in the year.
Is a spending hangover on the way?
So how are shoppers paying for all of this? Part of it is going on credit cards; the Federal Reserve Bank of New York saying credit card debt is at a record high. Banks report families are dipping into or even draining their pandemic-era savings.
But there's more to the story: A lot of workers have gotten raises recently. For the first time in months, our wages are outpacing inflation, as employers continue to compete for workers. This, in fact, raises the specter of the notorious wage-price spiral, with companies citing higher labor costs as a major cause of higher prices, and then workers pointing to those rising prices as proof they need higher pay.
Still, it seems like the pace of those raises is slowing down, which could signal that the labor market is softening. This is good news for inflation – which is now at 3% versus last year's 9% – but not enough for the Fed to ease up. It raised interest rates again this week, to a 22-year high.
"Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year," Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters, explaining the decision. "Nonetheless, the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go."
While the economy has remained strong amid months of interest rate hikes — and the unemployment rate near a record low at 3.6% — the effects of the Fed's actions could still be coming.
If they can cool off the economy just enough to stop companies from raising prices, but not so much that they lay off workers, the Fed will have achieved what economists call a soft landing.
"We're not there yet," said KPMG Chief Economist Diane Swonk. "The hope is certainly high that we could get there."
NPR's David Gura contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/what-recession-its-a-summer-of-splurging-profits-and-girl-power | 2023-07-29T10:24:40 | 0 | https://www.nepm.org/national-world-news/2023-07-29/what-recession-its-a-summer-of-splurging-profits-and-girl-power |
City of Springfield and American International College officials believe the college's student nursing facility could be a total loss after the building caught fire during Thursday’s storm.
Courniotes Hall houses some of AIC’s health science courses – a program made up of about 400 to 500 students – including the nursing major.
Officials say the building’s second floor was destroyed by the fire, causing a collapsed roof. The first floor was flooded with water.
The cause of the fire is still being investigated, but police and fire officials said a lightning strike could be a possibility.
AIC President Hubert Benitez said nursing equipment lost in the fire is “extremely expensive.”
“All the simulation[s] for [the] center for nursing takes place here, so that’s our immediate need – how do we provisionally…how do we temporarily adjust our teaching plans, so students get the same experience, because we are committed to that,” he said.
As the fall semester approaches, Benitez and Mayor Dominic Sarno are discussing plans to relocate the nursing program and other affected health science classes. The unoccupied Homer Street School, which is soon to be integrated into the new DeBerry-Swan School opening this fall, could potentially accommodate the students to continue their education.
“We’ll assist them any way we can," Sarno said. "We’re gonna shake the trees, rattle the trees to see what is there for assistance financially. I’ll try to do whatever I can on the city side."
Benitez said Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey and U.S. Rep. Richie Neal – an AIC alum – reached out to discuss support for the school, which plans to build a new facility to house its nursing program.
Although the nursing program will relocate off campus, the school is reassuring students that courses will start in August as usual. | https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2023-07-29/american-international-college-nursing-program-will-relocate-off-campus-after-fire-destroys-building | 2023-07-29T10:24:46 | 0 | https://www.nepm.org/regional-news/2023-07-29/american-international-college-nursing-program-will-relocate-off-campus-after-fire-destroys-building |
Column: What ‘Barbie’ teaches us about the beauty of growing old
I was 5 ½ when Barbie was born. I didn’t take much notice at the time — or ever — and hadn’t intended to catch the new movie starring the plastic princess.
But I got curious the other day when, in the middle of a Sacramento hearing on aging, Little Hoover Commission chairman Pedro Nava mentioned the summer box office sensation.
The commission — an independent state oversight agency that checks up on how our tax dollars are spent — was asking questions of public officials and others to see if enough progress is being made on a 10-year-long project called the Master Plan for Aging.
Nava, commenting on the daunting challenge of recruiting a big enough workforce to care for the state’s rapidly growing population of older adults, said that society has done a good job of demeaning and marginalizing older adults.
Then the conversation turned to pop culture. “I don’t know how many of you have seen the ‘Barbie’ movie,” Nava said.
I wondered where he was going with that, but he quickly recalled a scene in which the eternally youthful Barbie, played without a wrinkle by Margot Robbie, travels from Barbieland to Los Angeles. She takes a seat on a bench, next to a white-haired 91-year-old woman, and is transfixed.
“You’re so beautiful,” Barbie tells the woman.
OK, I thought. Maybe I should see that movie, which hits on something I’ve been writing about since I began the Golden State column six months ago. We’re all getting older, for better and for worse. It’s okay, and generally speaking, better than the alternative.
I’ll admit to being a bit concerned, back in January, that writing about aging might feel limiting, or maybe even depressing at times.
None of that has happened.
Sure, I’ve written about people suffering the pain of loss, financial hardship and chronic disease.
But speaking of “Barbie’s” message, I was inspired by my visit with actress Mimi Rogers and hearing her thoughts on aging naturally and with grace. I got a kick out of watching Benny Wasserman, 88, hit 90 mph fastballs in a batting cage. Ken and Audrey Mattlin, in their 80s, are defying stereotypes and embracing change with their family of robots in Bakersfield.
And Somkene Okwuego, a 23-year-old USC gerontology grad now studying to be a geriatric dentist, is living hope that the young haven’t forgotten the old. She’s also a reminder that job opportunities in healthcare, technology, housing and transportation abound for millennials and Gen-xers as the global population races toward the point at which those over 65 outnumber those under 18.
Before I tuned in to Thursday’s hearing on aging, I searched my emails for leads on older adults who continue reinventing themselves. And I began researching love among older adults after interviewing a woman who emailed me to say that, at 71, she’s enjoying a robust affair with an 81-year-old man, and they are having, in her words, “wild monkey sex.” We had a nice chat, during which I did not ask for details.
And she’s not the only reader who wondered why I haven’t touched on twilight romance yet. So you might read all about it here soon, if I can figure out the right treatment, and squeeze in a trip to a Coachella Valley restaurant/night club where, I’m told, age stands in the way of nothing.
And just as I was taking stock of where I’ve been and where I’m going, the Little Hoover Commission was doing the same with Gov. Newsom’s directive to get the state ready for 2030, when people 60 and older will make up a quarter of the state’s population.
The short answer is that things appear to be going reasonably well halfway through the third year. One witness — a healthcare policy consultant— testified that California’s work has been a model for many of the 20 states implementing similar programs.
The problem is the size of the undertaking, which involves more than 100 initiatives and multiple state agencies, as well as coordination with counties and philanthropic groups.
Fernando Torres-Gil, of the UCLA Policy Center for Research on Aging, serves on a committee overseeing the master plan’s implementation. He testified at the hearing, expressing both optimism and some concerns about pulling together all the people needed to make the plan work. At times, he said, it’s like “trying to herd kittens.”
Susan DeMarois, director of the Department of Aging, told commissioners progress has been made toward each of the five main master plan goals – equal access to quality healthcare; remedies for isolation, discrimination, abuse and neglect; 1 million new high-quality caregiving jobs; and financial security for all aging adults.
Early achievements include expansion of Medi-Cal coverage, a $1 billion-plus investment in healthcare workforce development, and nearly $1 billion earmarked for senior housing for low-income adults (a major goal is to reverse a trend in which older adults are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population).
“With extreme humility,” DeMarois told commissioners, “we also recognize that our work has just begun.”
Commissioners had lots of questions.
How much money has been spent, and can the digital tracker be improved so taxpayers can keep tabs on progress? What happens if the state runs low on cash? Will the plan still be in play after Newsom leaves office? Is there enough legislative support to keep the early momentum going, or to persuade state department heads to continue prioritizing the master plan?
Some but not all the questions were answered, but there’s another hearing next month.
It’s anyone’s guess if there will be another “Barbie” moment, but Nava told me he enjoyed the movie. He said he had read that director Greta Gerwig resisted a suggestion to cut the scene in which Barbie compliments Ann Roth, who portrays the 91-year-old and is an Academy-award winning costume designer in real life.
“It’s the heart of the movie,” Gerwig told Rolling Stone.
So, in addition to saying something about motherhood and feminism, it seems that Gerwig wanted to comment on our youth-obsessed culture.
Under the Golden State banner, I’d already served as a restaurant critic, reviewing early-bird specials. I figured I had no choice but to broaden my scope and become a movie critic.
So on Thursday night I bought a ticket, a bag of popcorn and a soda, and took a seat in the company of moviegoers dressed in what appeared to be Barbie-inspired outfits. (No one told me that I was supposed to dress like Ken.)
Without giving too much way, Barbie develops a touch of cellulite and begins to fear death, neither of which are supposed to exist in Barbieland, where everyone is forever young and perfect. So she travels to the real world — or Venice, Los Angeles, at least — to get herself right. And here in the City of Angels she is shocked to find that men, rather than women, run the world, and she concludes, unlike many of us, that aging is something to embrace rather than fear.
The character played by Roth is reading the Los Angeles Times while seated on the bench, so we know she’s a woman of good taste. When Barbie tells her she’s beautiful, the woman flashes a big smile and says:
“I know it.”
Two thumbs up.
Steve.lopez@latimes.com
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‘Don’t give up the ship’: Advocates urge resolve in unending war over LGBTQ+ legal rights
Forty-five years ago, Sue Englander went door knocking in San Francisco to tell anyone who would listen that she was a proud bisexual woman who supported LGBTQ+ rights.
Other queer activists were fanning out across California to do the same as part of a 1978 campaign to defeat a ballot measure that would have made it illegal for gay men and lesbians — and possibly their allies — to teach in the state’s public schools.
The activists saw the measure as an attack on LGBTQ+ teachers and queer people’s 1st Amendment right to free speech, so they used that same right to share their stories and shift public sentiment against the measure — which voters ultimately rejected.
“We were able to overcome, and stop in its tracks really, this attempt to silence not just teachers but the expression of support for LGBTQ rights,” said Englander, now a 71-year-old history lecturer at San Francisco State University.
Gwenn Craig, who helped defeat California’s anti-gay Proposition 6 in 1978, hears echoes in recent anti-LGBTQ laws.
It’s a lesson that came back to Englander, she said, after the U.S. Supreme Court used the law in a very different way — ruling that a Colorado wedding website designer with religious objections to same-sex nuptials had a 1st Amendment right to refuse service to queer couples.
The high court’s June 30 ruling in 303 Creative vs. Elenis was a clear blow to the LGBTQ+ rights movement, raising questions for queer people and other minorities about where they might be next denied service. But it was also a reminder to keep fighting, Englander said — that the battle over queer rights is far from over, and every defeat can be challenged.
“The Supreme Court does not necessarily have the last say,” said Englander, still defiant. “Don’t give up the ship.”
It’s a message being echoed by queer rights activists, scholars, lawyers and litigants fighting for LGBTQ+ rights in courts all across the country.
In the court’s 303 Creative decision, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a President Trump appointee, wrote that public accommodations laws born out of the civil rights movement that mandate public businesses and facilities be open to everyone equally are justified. He also wrote that newer anti-discrimination laws aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ people and other minorities “have done much to secure the civil rights of all Americans.”
Nonetheless, Gorsuch concluded that wedding website designer Lorie Smith’s work is sufficiently creative that it represents her speech, and that the 1st Amendment therefore protects her from being forced by Colorado to create websites in a way that violates her beliefs.
“The 1st Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Gorsuch wrote.
Some legal observers stressed that the ruling was limited — applying only to businesses in which the work product itself is creative and might constitute speech and not to more general services such as those provided by restaurants, hotels and other public places.
Supreme Court rules that conservative Christians have a free-speech right to refuse to provide some business services for same-sex marriages.
Still, many LGBTQ+ advocates and allies expressed concern that the ruling would be used by a host of business owners to justify denying services to queer people.
In fact, such efforts are already underway.
Take the pending federal case brought by a substitute teacher who claims he was let go by a Catholic high school for being gay. A lawyer for the school recently wrote a letter to the court arguing that, if the 1st Amendment protects Smith’s decision to withhold business services from same-sex couples, it also “protects a church’s decision about who is religiously qualified to fulfill the mission of a religious school.”
In Texas, a judge who came under a judicial investigation for refusing to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies sued the court overseers behind the probe. She alleged the requirement that she perform such ceremonies just as she does opposite-sex marriage ceremonies violates her religious beliefs. Her lawyer recently submitted a letter to the court arguing the 303 Creative decision bolsters her argument.
A wedding photographer who is suing the city of Louisville, Ky., over its anti-discrimination law, alleging she shouldn’t have to photograph same-sex weddings, has cited the 303 Creative decision in her case too.
Combined with a massive wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation being put forward in conservative state houses in recent years, the high court’s ruling in 303 Creative and the more recent efforts to swiftly expand its scope have caused resentment, anger, frustration and fear in the queer community.
But those in the thick of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights say such feelings — though legitimate — shouldn’t lead people to give up on the fight for queer rights, or on the role the American legal system has to play in bolstering the demands of protesters and organizers.
Because, they said, that same legal system has laid the foundation for queer rights for decades.
LGBTQ+ rights have never been a foregone conclusion in this country. Instead, they note, those rights are the product of persistence and resolve among queer activists and their allies — even in the face of powerful opposition, especially in the face of setbacks, often in a court of law.
Modern wins for the LGBTQ+ community, such as the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision upholding a right to marry for all, are built on more than half a century of legal victories won by queer people. And those wins form a strong legal foundation for LGBTQ+ rights upon which modern victories are continuing, said Kara Ingelhart, a senior attorney with Lambda Legal, one of the nation’s most prominent LGBTQ+ legal advocacy organizations.
Gorsuch also authored a ruling in 2020 that federal law prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It was considered a major victory for the LGBTQ+ community.
Supreme Court rules for civil rights protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.
A federal judge recently tossed as unconstitutional a Tennessee ban on drag performances in public. Courts in several states have rejected broad bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, though an appellate court recently stayed an injunction on such a law in Tennessee — allowing it to be enforced as the legal fight over it continues.
“It’s a tough time,” Ingelhart said. “But we have been making strides.”
Carlos A. Ball, a Rutgers University law professor and author of “The First Amendment and LGBT Equality: A Contentious History,” said the law has long been a tool for freedom in the queer community.
“Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, before any courts recognized that LGBTQ people had rights to privacy and equality, some courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, recognized that gay men and lesbians had basic free speech rights that allowed them, for example, to publish magazines, advocate for policy reforms, and meet in public places,” Ball said.
Queer people exercising their free speech rights “made the LGBTQ movement’s later successes, including on marriage equality, possible,” he said.
Ball said the Supreme Court’s 303 Creative decision was a “radical departure” from legal precedent.
“Before [the decision], there was a well-established distinction in constitutional law,” he said, between what people who disagree with anti-discrimination laws can say about the laws and queer people and how they must treat customers when they open a business serving the general public.
“That distinction has now been eviscerated, to the detriment of equality rights and the enforcement of civil rights laws.”
Still, the 1st Amendment remains “a crucial source of protections for LGBTQ people,” Ball said.
Jim Obergefell was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case that established a right to marry for same-sex couples nationwide in 2015. In the 303 Creative case, Smith derided the marriage equality decision as driving America “away from God’s design for marriage.”
Obergefell called the 303 Creative decision a disgrace. He said it gives religious bigots a right to discriminate against other people under “the guise of freedom of speech,” which those same people will seek to exploit further.
Across the country, LGBTQ+ people are struggling against a wave of legislation aimed at restricting their rights. They are also fighting back.
“People who are opposed to the queer community and who are opposed to us enjoying any sort of equality are going to take this decision and run with it,” Obergefell said.
Obergefell said he sees the 303 Creative ruling as a betrayal by the court because marriage equality no longer truly exists if queer couples planning their weddings can be turned away by businesses such as Smith’s that are otherwise open to the public.
“I especially think about same-sex couples in rural areas,” Obergefell said. “Maybe there is only one bakery [in their town]. Maybe there is only one photographer. Maybe there is only one provider for whatever service, you name it.”
Though his name is attached to one of the greatest LGBTQ+ legal victories in American history, Obergefell said he worries about how the legal system will be used moving forward by the current conservative Supreme Court, which he believes is bent on reversing queer rights.
He urged LGBTQ+ people to defy the conservative right’s “determination to push us back into the closet, to take back every bit of progress we have made as a country on LGBTQ+ rights and civil rights.”
Ingelhart, with Lambda Legal, said she appreciated Obergefell’s candor about the threats and his call to action. Lawyers like her are fighting to build on decades of LGBTQ+ legal wins and hold the line against challenges to those rights — including any new ones that arise out of 303 Creative — but they can’t do it alone.
“I just hope people stand up together and speak up for each other and support our movement,” Ingelhart said. “It takes support from everybody for us to be able to do it.”
Groups such as Lambda Legal are litigating a vast array of queer rights issues — from cases challenging gender-affirming care bans to one challenging the long ban on people living with HIV serving in the military.
Every LGBTQ+ rights case is important, because each victory bolsters the baseline argument that American law protects the rights of queer people, Ingelhart said.
“It’s important that in general people understand that LGBTQ people should be protected and that the law will be on their side,” Ingelhart said. “That’s why we’re in the courts, so that there is push back, so that everybody is on notice that the entire community should be protected.”
There are more than 30 plaintiffs in the gay marriage lawsuits that will be argued before the Supreme Court this month.
Englander, in San Francisco, noted that in her lifetime, LGBTQ+ activists have managed to make astounding gains, shifting public sentiment on queer identity so profoundly that things that were once unthinkable — such as same-sex marriage — are now the law of the land.
And yet, in the last few years, that progress has seemed increasingly vulnerable. Millennials who came up in a world of increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people are seeing the trend shift, seemingly in the opposite direction, for the first time. Younger Americans are confronting a new level of animosity toward queer people.
Englander said that, for people in her generation, it all looks familiar.
It was extremely disheartening when the 303 Creative decision came down, she said, and the “devil” on her shoulder — her internal voice of pessimism — piped up fast.
“Dammit, I did this 50 years ago,” it said, of fighting such clear-cut anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination.
Almost as quickly, though, came the angel on her other shoulder, Englander said.
“Yeah, well, you know what? You just have to keep winning the same rights,” it said.
“Over and over again.”
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Santa Barbara News-Press bankruptcy brings uneasy end to an owner’s bitter tenure
This city of red-tile roofs, temperate breezes and coastal charm has long glimmered as one of those exceptional California places.
Its natural beauty attracts a literate and engaged population, and its residents, at least from afar, seem unduly blessed with fine weather, prosperity and more than a dose of the good life.
That good fortune appeared to shine on Santa Barbara in 2000, when one of the state’s richest women bought the Santa Barbara News-Press, a venerable newspaper that at the time had been at the heart of the city’s public life for more than 130 years. Santa Barbarans cheered at the notion of having a local in charge after more than a decade under the ownership of the New York Times Co. They saw in Wendy McCaw an owner with the financial resources (once pegged by Forbes at $1.5 billion) to ensure long-term viability of the Pulitzer Prize-winning news outlet. And they liked what they knew of her politics: environmentalist; champion of wildlife. McCaw seemed in step with the liberal-leaning beach and university community.
The reports of a match made in heaven proved greatly exaggerated. Within a few years, McCaw’s relationship with newsroom leaders — and then with many readers — began to crumble. A “bloodbath” exodus of top editors in 2006 unleashed what would become a slow-motion unraveling of the newspaper and its credibility.
The downward spiral reached rock bottom July 21, when Ampersand Publishing, the McCaw-led company that owns the News-Press, filed for bankruptcy. The finishing stroke came without fanfare or public notice. “All of our jobs are eliminated, and the News-Press has stopped publishing,” Managing Editor Dave Mason wrote in a brief email to the outlet’s staffers. “They ran out of money to pay us.”
Santa Barbarans reacted to the shutdown with measures of sadness and resignation. Many said the newspaper’s fate had been sealed ever since McCaw began warring with her staff and injecting her right-leaning, government-upbraiding views deep into the news pages. Whether through inexperience or intent, her critics said, McCaw transformed a respected local news organization — steeped in industry standards of fairness and independence — into a tormented plaything. Circulation swooned.
“It’s been like watching a cancer victim die,” said Dawn Hobbs, a former News-Press reporter, who was fired in 2007 after she called for readers to boycott the paper because of McCaw’s purported meddling in editorial decisions. “You are so sad at the end. But you’re almost relieved that the entity has been put out of its misery.”
Joining in the regrets about the newspaper’s fate was a nominal rival, Nick Welsh, the irascible dean of the Santa Barbara press corps who has written for the alternative weekly, the Independent, for four decades. “At the time it was ‘Local owner! Billionaire! Animal rights activist!’ There was such an opportunity there for the News-Press, which was just totally squandered,” said Welsh, whose droll “Angry Poodle” column is considered a must-read by many locals.
The effects of the bankruptcy remain unclear because the famously reclusive McCaw, who lives in a gated seaside estate in ultra-luxe Hope Ranch, has said nothing publicly about what will happen next. The paper’s website as of Friday remained intact but frozen with a handful of stories from shutdown day. The site had no mention of the closure.
Mason, the managing editor, responded with a “no comment” to The Times’ interview request. The attorney handling the company’s bankruptcy did not answer emailed questions asking about the legal filing or who would speak for the owner.
McCaw in the past has argued, in columns, interviews, legal proceedings and through intermediaries, that she is the victim in the long-running feud with News-Press journalists and the community. She has contended she was targeted because she dared to buck Santa Barbara’s insular liberal ethos. Her editorial pages often railed against Santa Barbara’s left-leaning orthodoxy and the purported overreach of the local, state and federal governments.
With the News-Press team silent, it was left to journalist Joshua Molina of Noozhawk — an online site maintained largely by former News-Press staffers — to alert the community that a newspaper founded not long after the Civil War was no more.
That’s not to say the closure shocked Santa Barbara. Locals had watched the paper go from a publication with a daily print circulation of more than 45,000 and a robust website to an online-only enterprise with paltry local coverage and national stories provided by a right-tilting news service. A news staff of close to 50 withered to fewer than 10 and became reliant on student interns to cover many public meetings.
The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing by parent company Ampersand Publishing calls for liquidation, not a reorganization, suggesting there will be little chance for a new owner to take over. The filing claims the News-Press has less than $50,000 in assets and up to $10 million in liabilities, owed to 818 individuals and entities, including subscribers and McCaw. Two of the most valuable holdings — the News-Press’ graceful Spanish-style headquarters on De La Guerra Plaza and its Goleta printing plant — are owned by other McCaw companies.
Former employees expressed bitterness that the Chapter 7 filing could mean a crushing postscript to their two-decade legal fight with McCaw. They feared it might allow the owner to avoid paying nearly $3.5 million in back wages and interest levied by the National Labor Relations Board, which years ago found the company guilty of unfair labor practices. McCaw’s repeated appeals extended the ordeal through last summer, when the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that she needed to pay up.
“I hope there is a way for the creditors to go after her and force her to sell those properties to pay her debt,” said Hobbs, the former reporter. “She is coming out of this unscathed while the lives of so many have been turned upside down.”
This is not where this Santa Barbara media marriage was supposed to end.
McCaw had obtained much of her fortune in a divorce settlement from her one-time Stanford University sweetheart, Craig McCaw, a Seattle-area cellular phone industry magnate who became a multibillionaire.
After Wendy McCaw bought the paper from the New York Times in 2000 for a reported $110 million, she spoke of wanting to bolster attention to local issues. In an essay headlined “Integrity,” McCaw pledged “to leave it entirely to our newsroom professionals to decide which stories were worth covering and how they should be covered.”
The paper’s bid for journalistic excellence was reinforced in 2002, when Jerry Roberts, a noted political writer and former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, took the post of executive editor. Reporters who worked under Roberts in those early years described an era of ambition, growth and an imperative to hold powerful interests to account.
But the good times did not last.
One dispute arose when McCaw directed that the paper kill a short article about a drunk-driving sentence given to the News-Press’ editorial page editor, who was soon to be publisher. The journalists argued the bust was public information, while the company countered the paper didn’t cover most DUIs that didn’t involve injury or death.
In another owner-newsroom beef, a reporter and three editors drew a sharp reprimand for publishing the address where actor Rob Lowe had applied to public agencies to build his “dream home,” a mega-mansion with elaborate trappings proposed for a vacant lot in Montecito. The journalists argued for transparency in a matter of public concern. McCaw, a personal friend of Lowe’s, said listing the address intruded on his privacy.
In what the Independent reported as a “self-inflicted bloodbath,” Roberts, four other top editors and veteran columnist Barney Brantingham resigned en masse in July 2006, protesting what they described as McCaw’s improper meddling in editorial content. The owner countered that she was the one trying to uphold journalistic standards because “news articles became opinion pieces, reporting went unchecked and the paper was used as a personal arena to air petty infighting by the editors.”
The meltdown drew national attention, most of it accusing McCaw of violating the journalistic credo that insists on a “wall” between media owners and news-gatherers. Renowned political commentator Lou Cannon, a Santa Barbara resident, accused McCaw of destroying the public’s trust and canceled his subscription.
Journalists who remained at the Santa Barbara paper began labor-organizing and voted for representation by a unit of the Teamsters Union, also calling for a public boycott of the News-Press to protest the owner’s purported overreach into editorial matters.
In rapid succession, eight journalists were fired. Two were accused of bias in their reporting. Six others hung a banner above the 101 Freeway that urged “Cancel Your Newspaper Today!” in protest of what they said was McCaw’s failure to bargain and intrusion into news decisions.
The NLRB in 2011 declared that the “News-Press Eight” (as the Independent called them) had been illegally terminated for engaging in protected union activities. The agency ordered them reinstated. But a federal appeals court upheld the terminations in 2012. “The First Amendment affords a publisher — not a reporter — absolute authority to shape a newspaper’s content,” the three-judge panel ruled.
The Byzantine legal fights dragged on. In one round, a federal appellate court ruled that the News-Press had engaged in “unusually aggravated conduct” against its employees. That conduct included bargaining in bad faith, discontinuing merit raises and unilaterally transferring work away from union employees to nonunion workers. Last summer, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an order for the News-Press to pay $2 million in back wages and other levies, which had grown with interest to nearly $3.5 million by the end of 2022.
The decline of Salinas’ 152-year-old newspaper leaves residents hungry for a trusted watchdog and worried about what stories won’t be covered.
The clashes between McCaw, her staff and the community would die down for a time, only to flare anew: Another reporter and editor lost their jobs after the owner objected to a story she said quoted then-Mayor Marty Blum — a liberal and McCaw foe — too often. Many readers objected strongly in 2015 when the paper’s publishers insisted on calling migrants who did not hold immigration documents “illegals.”
In 2020, a McCaw editorial accused Democratic lawmakers of using the coronavirus for their own political agenda and compared stay-at-home orders to Nazi Germany. Editor-in-Chief Nick Masuda was soon out the door, though it was unclear whether he quit or was fired.
As with many prolonged passings, the demise of the News-Press felt both inevitable and sudden. Sitting at the bar of a favorite local haunt, Harry’s Plaza Cafe, Bente and Stephen Millard shook their heads at the disintegration of a paper “we used to be proud to get on our driveway every day.”
“She can have a conservative slant on the opinion page. That’s her right,” said Stephen Millard, a retired outdoor-festival impresario. “But she shouldn’t be controlling the stories in the news section of the newspaper. And previously the News-Press had supported the community and all sorts of events. That all seemed to slip away.”
In conversations with a dozen locals, it was clear residents had grown accustomed to searching alternative sources to get news about their community: the Independent, in print and online; the Noozhawk website; and Edhat, an online site reliant on citizen journalism.
“Valiant” was the word News-Press veteran Melinda Burns used to describe the efforts made to fill the news void left during the paper’s unraveling. But she and an array of civic activists said the heft and influence of the old News-Press has never been fully replaced.
With his ouster from Fox News, Tucker Carlson holds the rare distinction of being fired by all three major cable news channels. Yet every time so far, he has bounced back and grown his audience, while moving toward darker and more divisive themes. What’s stopping him from doing it again?
Even the News-Press’ origin story has been a point of contention. The owners have long claimed an 1855 birthday and asserted the paper’s position as the oldest in Southern California. But a 1941 history published by the federal Works Progress Administration said the agency’s research supported a May 1868 birthday for the Santa Barbara Post, one of the publications later melded into what became the News-Press.
Birth date aside, longtime residents strike a uniform note of nostalgia about the newspaper’s founder, a towering figure named Thomas More Storke.
Storke was introduced to the trade by his father and went from cub reporter to editor to owner, a journalist acclaimed for sterling ethics and civic activism. He took on big topics in the pages of the News-Press and rallied his community to tackle outsized public works. He is credited as the force who drove forward Santa Barbara’s Mediterranean motif and generous open spaces; championed the Lake Cachuma reservoir, and demanded a University of California branch just up the road in Isla Vista.
Most notably, he powered a 1961 editorial exposé revealing the skulduggery and character assassination employed by the John Birch Society, rabid anti-Communists who had risen to prominence in California.
Storke won the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. When he died in 1971, at 94, former Chief Justice Earl Warren memorialized the Santa Barbara native as “one of the last of the old-time giants of journalism whose like will not be seen again.”
Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps grew up next door to the Storke home, and her father and mother, former U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), spoke reverently about the storied publisher.
“He stood as this pillar of integrity,” said Supervisor Capps. “And then [McCaw] turned the News-Press into something unrecognizable and something that actually detracted from the community.”
McCaw, asked through intermediaries to comment, failed to respond.
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Broncos Odds to Make Playoffs and Win Super Bowl
The Denver Broncos right now have the 17th-ranked odds in the NFL to win the Super Bowl at +5000.
Watch the Broncos this season on Fubo!
Broncos Super Bowl Odds
- Odds to Win the AFC West: +500
- Odds to Win the Super Bowl: +5000
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Denver Betting Insights
- Denver went 6-9-0 ATS last season.
- The Broncos and their opponents combined to hit the over six out of 17 times last season.
- Denver put up 325.1 yards per game on offense last season (21st in ), and it ranked seventh on defense with 320 yards allowed per game.
- Last year the Broncos won just one game on the road and had a 4-4 record at home.
- Denver got three wins as the favorite in eight games last season, and won twice (in seven opportunities) as an underdog.
- The Broncos won just once in the AFC West (1-5), and they went 3-9 in the AFC as a whole.
Broncos Impact Players
- Russell Wilson threw for 3,524 yards (234.9 per game), completing 60.5% of his passes, with 16 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 15 games last year.
- In addition, Wilson ran for 277 yards and three TDs.
- Jerry Jeudy had 67 receptions for 972 yards (64.8 per game) and six touchdowns in 15 games.
- On the ground with the Bengals a season ago, Samaje Perine scored two touchdowns a season ago and picked up 394 yards (24.6 per game).
- Courtland Sutton had 64 receptions for 829 yards (55.3 per game) and two touchdowns in 15 games.
- Josey Jewell had two interceptions to go with 128 tackles, 7.0 TFL, 2.5 sacks, and four passes defended last year.
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2023-24 Broncos NFL Schedule
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kmvt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/broncos-nfl-playoffs-super-bowl-odds/ | 2023-07-29T10:25:09 | 0 | https://www.kmvt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/broncos-nfl-playoffs-super-bowl-odds/ |
Letters to the Editor: Protecting seniors from a boiling planet
My air conditioning was broken for the first week of this recent heat wave, and after it was fixed, as I basked in its glory, I thought about how lucky I was to have it at all. So many don’t, and the temperatures are only going to go up.
It isn’t just me wondering how this heat is affecting people. The Editorial Board wrote about how the city can save lives by requiring air conditioning in rentals. This is the second attempt by officials to pursue this type of rule. As the Board stated, “the climate isn’t waiting, and neither should we.”
It’s our most vulnerable populations that experience the worst of it. People living in poor and low-income households often work outside and live in places without air conditioning. Our homeless neighbors live outdoors. All of these communities may lack access to the amenities many of us, myself included, come to think of as normal.
Our seniors are especially at risk from the high temperatures. When three scholars wrote an op-ed on the dangers this group faces from the heat, many readers weighed in.
————
To the editor: It’s a terrifying reality that the parts of our country that are facing the fiercest effects of climate change house a substantial elderly population. Once seen as islands of paradise to escape cold northern winters, southern and western states are quickly becoming lethal hellscapes to their most vulnerable populations. As noted in the op-ed by Carr, Falchetta and Wing, the risk of heat-related deaths are no longer relegated to the southern reaches of this country.
In fact, that risk is only increasing. Birth rates in the U.S. have been consistently declining since the mid-2000s, and average global temperatures have been rising for much longer. What will we do as we continue to age and the world gets hotter? How will our elected leaders address these problems that only worsen? They must command the situation and remove our reliance on fossil fuels to protect current and future generations. They must act today.
Cody O’Neill, Glendale
..
To the editor: The op-ed on the vulnerability of older adults in extreme heat is yet another sobering reality of our warming climate. Public investments for climate adaptations — cooling stations, warning systems, transport — are essential.
But we also need, desperately, to invest in new energy systems. It’s time to demand that our representatives sign swift climate legislation that will stop the burning of fossil fuel. The Inflation Reduction Act was just a start. If the true test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its weakest members, we are failing. Let’s act as if our house is on fire, because it is. Let’s do whatever we can to let our leaders know we must stop the use of fossil fuels.
And let’s befriend our neighbors, young and old, and seek shelter as this place continues to heat up.
Maggie Light, Van Nuys
..
To the editor: The op-ed on why older adults are especially susceptible to the extreme heat we have been experiencing lately was another sobering reality check. When I got back from work today, I needed a walk, but didn’t go because of the temperature.
What our older population must be going through, especially in underserved areas, cannot be overstated. With climate change becoming a climate boil, this is only going to get worse before it gets better, and we need to prepare.
As stated, older adults are more vulnerable to the heat both mentally and physically. We need to be doing more for our older populations’ mental and physical health and utilize the resources provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Let’s urge our legislators to take full advantage of this historic law to acquire the resources to prepare for the next heat wave so we can all go for an afternoon walk.
William Smart, North Hollywood | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/extreme-heat-climate-change-elderly-aging-seniors | 2023-07-29T10:25:15 | 1 | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/extreme-heat-climate-change-elderly-aging-seniors |
Man fatally shot outside Shell gas station on near northeast side
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A man is dead after being shot late Friday night outside a Shell gas station on the near northeast side.
According to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, officers were called to the scene on Emerson Avenue, near 34th Street at around 11:55 p.m. after getting reports that a person had been shot.
When officers arrived, they found the man with a gunshot wound in a car outside the gas station. He was taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital, but was later pronounced dead by hospital staff.
Investigators say that the initial investigation led them to believe the man was shot while he was in the vehicle parked outside the business. Police also say they believe the suspect fled on foot after the shooting.
IMPD says there were several witnesses at the gas station when the incident happened.
Detectives ask anyone with information about the shooting to contact Detective Doug Swails at the IMPD Homicide Office at 317-327-3475 or e-mail him at Douglas.Swails@indy.gov. | https://www.wishtv.com/news/crime-watch-8/man-killed-in-friday-night-shooting/ | 2023-07-29T10:25:26 | 1 | https://www.wishtv.com/news/crime-watch-8/man-killed-in-friday-night-shooting/ |
Letters to the Editor: For Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, the cruelty is the point
To the editor: The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit over the illegal buoys and razor-wire fencing in Texas on the Rio Grande? A lawsuit? Really? This should not be handled by litigation from DOJ, but by Customs and Border Protection, Homeland Security or the military.
Biden should act boldly. The Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clauses 4 and 15) clearly confers sole power over immigration, border control and to repel invasions — as conservatives describe undocumented entries — to the federal government. The state of Texas has no jurisdiction in such matters unless invited by the federal government, which has not occurred.
Biden should just send in Border Patrol or the military and remove the illegal barriers. Just do it! They have the authority. If Gov. Greg Abbott can concoct some kind of bizarre constitutional justification for his illegal scheme, let him be the one to file lawsuits after the illegal and inhumane safety hazards are removed.
Douglas Dunn, Escondido
..
To the editor: I find it incongruent to learn Catholic conservative Gov. Greg Abbott is doing Satan’s work along the Rio Grande River. When ordered by the Justice Department to stop the carnage his buoy barriers wrought, he responds coldly, uncaringly and arrogantly, “Texas will see you in court, Mr. President!”
Gov. Abbott, how would Pope Francis respond to you drowning and endangering the lives of thousands of desperate, helpless immigrants?
Apparently, Abbott believes scoring political points with life-endangering, despicable, sickening stunts that create more misery is more important than saving lives, helping the helpless, and caring for the desperate and downtrodden among us.
Is cruelty, inhumanity, meanness, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice and racism, now the Texas state motto? Does Abbott represent what is best about Texas?
Gov. Abbott, you continue to criticize, blame, and shame President Biden in the press and continually avoid any collaboration required to find humane solutions to the border crises.
I implore Democrats in Texas: Save your state. Restore tolerance, acceptance, dignity, integrity and compassion. Organize to vote in overwhelming numbers and stop your governor.
Nelson Sagisi, Santa Maria
..
To the editor: It is looking more and more like Los Angeles should have its own Statue of Liberty with the words “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” engraved on it. While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott continues to cruelly and mindlessly bus immigrants to Los Angeles in an effort to appeal to his anti-immigrant Republican base, the city of Los Angeles continues to graciously accept and welcome immigrant families in the spirit of true American patriotism. They’re likely to be much better treated and happier here in Los Angeles than in anti-immigrant, Republican-controlled Texas anyway.
James Mundy III, Inglewood | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/greg-abbott-texas-cruelty-migrants | 2023-07-29T10:25:22 | 0 | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/greg-abbott-texas-cruelty-migrants |
Hot and humid start to the weekend
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — After early morning storms, the weekend forecast starts to quiet down in central Indiana.
TODAY: Storms before daybreak move out as we wake up. Partly sunny, hot, and humid. A stray pop-up storm is possible south in the afternoon. High temperatures will be right around 90 degrees.
TONIGHT: Partly cloudy with clouds decreasing as the night goes on. Low temperatures in the mid to upper 60s.
SUNDAY: Mostly sunny, not as humid as previous days, but still in the uncomfortable category. High temperatures in the mid-80s.
8-DAY FORECAST: Relief from the heat and humidity kicks in to start the work week. Dew points will be pleasant with temperatures in the low to mid 80s through Tuesday. Temperatures then rebound Wednesday into the upper 80s before rain chances towards the end of the week. | https://www.wishtv.com/weather/weather-blog/hot-and-humid-start-to-the-weekend/ | 2023-07-29T10:25:32 | 1 | https://www.wishtv.com/weather/weather-blog/hot-and-humid-start-to-the-weekend/ |
Letters to the Editor: Finding low-cost energy solutions without damaging the economy
To the editor: Former Obama advisor David Axelrod tweeted: “One of the things that galls Americans about our politics is the impulse of politicians to weaponize problems for political profit instead of solving them.”
Sadly, this Editorial Board too often weaponizes energy realities while demonizing our industry. Energy realities are tough. They’re not free.
As your own columnist Gustavo Arellano wrote last year, banning energy makes for bad policy that only works for wealthy Californians.
Energy realities must be explained for all citizens, especially young people. Everyone embraces the idea of free and low-cost energy solutions, but the actual costs of a rushed transition will devastate those same young people’s economic future.
“Bans in the name of saving the Earth almost always fall on the very people they claim to uplift.” Arellano said it perfectly. We in oil and gas welcome your time to show how we are indeed operating in good faith.
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president and chief executive, Western States Petroleum Association, Sacramento | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/letters-to-the-editor-oil-gas-industry-energy-solutions-environment | 2023-07-29T10:25:36 | 0 | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/letters-to-the-editor-oil-gas-industry-energy-solutions-environment |
Letters to the Editor: We should be concerned about Mitch McConnell — but he deserves compassion too
To the editor: After freezing up midsentence in a news conference Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is the latest example and may as well be the poster child illustrating the need for elected officials over the age of 70 to undergo cognitive testing. This should also apply to those younger, like Sen. John Fetterman, 53, who suffered a stroke. Many of our leaders are aging and it is imperative for them to carry out their duties without the aid of others. If our leaders are weak, it puts our great nation at risk.
JoAnn Lee Frank, Clearwater, Fla.
..
To the editor: When a sandbag brought President Biden to his knees,
His detractors on the right could not help but ridicule and tease.
Yet, when Mitch McConnell scarily stopped talking,
Democrats refrained from trolling and stalking.
Civility and compassion can treat the disease.
Vin Morabito, Scranton, Pa. | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/mitch-mcconnell-elder-politicians | 2023-07-29T10:25:42 | 1 | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/2023-07-29/mitch-mcconnell-elder-politicians |
Jose Federico Cervantes Arista was in trouble.
The smuggler had stood him up at the agreed pick-up spot in Ocotillo, a lonely desert crossroads on the southwestern edge of Imperial County, which was suffering record heat from climate change. The afternoon hit 111 degrees. He was about 10 miles north of the border. The landscape was sand and dried-out shrubs.
It was July 7, 2020, months into the pandemic, and it was Cervantes’ third attempt to reunite with his wife and four children in Delaware, where he had lived for two decades. He’d gone to Mexico in November 2019 to see his elderly father before he passed away. The plan had been to stay a short while, then return through the desert, but the pandemic had delayed him. He’d tried twice already, only to be caught and sent back by the border guards. He had no immigration papers and no legal path into the country.
Opinion Columnist
Jean Guerrero
Jean Guerrero is the author, most recently, of “Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda.”
In the border guards’ eyes, Cervantes, 48, was an invader. In his eyes, he was a family man trying to go home. He had started a mobile food business with his wife, selling tamales, tacos and other treats. Their U.S.-born kids were on track to go to college. He was a proud Mexicano, with an “Hecho en México” tattoo on his biceps and a passion for norteño love ballads, which he posted to Facebook and texted to his wife. But he also appeared in family photos wearing shirts printed with the American flag. Shortly before going to Mexico, he’d taken the family to the Statue of Liberty.
That day in the desert, he planned to forge on toward El Centro, about 27 miles east of where the smuggler stood him up. In that city he might blend in, find a hotel. He thought he could make it. He was strong, with years of working construction and other grueling jobs. Earlier, he had found three gallons of water left for migrants by activists. He drank some, but not all, wanting to leave some for others.
He kept walking in the heat and eventually came across a small bridge under a mostly abandoned road. He took shelter underneath. It was still hot, but there was shade. He called his wife on his Mexican cellphone and told her he was struggling to walk, falling every few steps, but would rest and keep going. He was two miles from Interstate 8, where he might seek help from drivers, but he didn’t want to risk detection.
“I’ll fight to the death to make it back to you,” his wife, Reyna, recalled him saying. I met her this month in that fateful spot in the desert, where she shared with me the tragedy that would alter the fate of their family forever.
The use of towering steel barriers, military surveillance gear and armed border guards to push people into dangerous parts of the border began during the Clinton administration, decades before Donald Trump made banning immigration his signature issue. More than 9,000 migrants have died crossing the border since the late 1990s.
If the 30-foot-tall steel wall goes up in California, it won’t be Republicans who will be remembered for transforming a once-hopeful place into one of anguish.
The border has long been a Squid Game for the global south. The reward for the players who survive this hide-and-seek with border guards is the “American dream”; everybody else is eliminated by death or deportation.
Although most crossing deaths occur along southern Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has launched a campaign of open cruelty that includes pushing pregnant women and children back into the Rio Grande, the desert of California’s southeastern border is increasingly dangerous because of climate-change-induced extreme heat.
The border’s death toll is soaring for many other reasons: More people are coming, the border militarization budget keeps getting bigger, and President Biden’s new asylum restrictions motivate people to cross illegally. Last year, the U.S.-Mexico border became the deadliest land border in the world. At least 853 people died trying to cross, nearly triple the annual average since 1998, when Border Patrol began to record the deaths.
Experts believe the actual number is far higher. Most bodies are never recovered. Moreover, Border Patrol has been failing to collect and record all available data on deaths, according to a 2022 Government Accountability Office report.
Thousands of desperate migrants have died trying to cross the militarized U.S. border, but U.S. administrations refuse to change border strategies that drive these deaths.
In the absence of legal pathways like the European Union’s temporary protections for refugees, like those leaving Ukraine, people fleeing violence in Latin America or seeking to return to their relatives in the U.S. will continue to die by the “killing machine that simultaneously uses and hides behind the viciousness of the Sonoran desert,” writes Jason de León, an anthropologist at UCLA.
This machine is built with the desert’s furnace and the rising height of border walls, from which people fall and break their backs. It’s the rivers strung with barbed wire. It’s the border guards’ bullets, fired at innocent migrants.
Women are killed by the hundreds, but the majority of the machine’s victims are working-age men, often primary breadwinners like Jose Cervantes.
On July 8, his second day in the desert, he still couldn’t walk. But he called Reyna and reassured her that he’d make it to El Centro after sundown. He told her he thought it was two hours away. He just needed to rest a bit longer. He told her not to call him that night because Border Patrol agents might hear the phone. He’d contact her from the hotel.
On the morning of July 9, Reyna was in agony. She hadn’t heard from her husband. He wasn’t responding to her texts. From her job walking horses at a racetrack at 6 a.m. in Wilmington, Reyna called him. He picked up. She begged for news, but after a long silence, she heard only a slow and strange “Hola.”
Reyna broke into sobs. She knew he was in trouble. Jose was her best friend; she’d loved him since they’d met in Mexico when she was 16. They had matching “Cervantes” tattoos on their arms under their inked Zodiac symbols: he a Scorpio, she a Taurus. She cried and asked him questions. Finally, she heard a few slurred words: “I can’t walk. I can’t talk. I’m here, on top of the bridge. I’m waiting for somebody to give me a ride.”
These technologies are just as deadly as Trump’s wall — with greater potential for abuse.
She told me she felt desperate and unmoored. Back at home, she told her children what was happening; the two oldest, Ricky, 16 at the time, and Francisco, 19 then, said they’d use the family’s savings to fly west and find him. They called Border Patrol and told them their father was lost near El Centro. According to Border Patrol, agents initiated a search. But they didn’t trust agents to do a thorough search.
Last year, Border Patrol agents documented a record 22,014 migrant rescues. Nobody saves more migrants than the very border guards who chase them to their deaths. But agents don’t always search. A report by No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos found that in 63% of distress calls, Border Patrol didn’t conduct any confirmed search. Only 0.03% of the Border Patrol’s budget goes to the Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue Unit, or BORSTAR.
The evening of her sons’ departure, after numerous calls for help, Reyna learned about San Diego’s “Armadillos,” one of several volunteer rescue and rescue groups that try to fill that gap. Reyna called them and told them her sons were going to California. Cesar Ortigoza, the group’s leader, said it wasn’t safe for her sons to search the desert alone. He and other volunteers would meet the boys in El Centro the next morning.
Starting early on July 10, Ricky and the volunteers searched bridge after bridge around El Centro. Francisco stayed in El Centro to keep contacting authorities. He called 911 requesting that his dad’s cellphone be pinged for a location; Border Patrol’s attempts failed, according to Imperial County dispatcher notes. Border Patrol initiated an “inactive search,” deciding not to deploy BORSTAR because they didn’t have an exact location.
Back home, Reyna, who doesn’t speak English like her son, called everybody she could think of for help: the Mexican consulates, relatives in Los Angeles, the smuggler, who was a family acquaintance. She called Jose, who was silent on the phone, and told him to hang on, help was on the way. Finally, she was able to reach the smuggler. She recalls him saying: He’s in Ocotillo. Hurry. He won’t last.
She called Ortigoza, and the rescue group sped to Ocotillo around sunset, sharing the new information with Border Patrol. They searched bridge by bridge near the desolate Evan Hewes Highway. After dark, the Armadillos saw a Border Patrol vehicle speed past with flashing lights, heading straight for a nearby bridge.
Under that bridge, at 8:48 p.m., agents found a man with a broken leg and head injuries, according to the dispatcher notes. Ten minutes later, they said he had no pulse. Paramedics arrived. The Armadillos got there. They were told to stand back. Ricky caught a glimpse of his father’s favorite pants, bleach-splotched jeans with colorful patches. The Border Patrol guards told him he couldn’t get any closer. Somebody declared forcefully that he had only recently died.
“My entire world was shattered there,” Ricky told me later.
For weeks, Reyna couldn’t get up from the couch where she’d sat during the search, she said. She couldn’t bear to go into her bedroom, where she felt her husband’s absence. She lost her job at the racetrack because five days of bereavement wasn’t enough to recover. Francisco and Ricky picked up more jobs to provide for the family. The whole family was struggling — with insomnia and other mental health issues.
No politician would suggest bombing U.S. corporations behind opioid-related deaths, but all top GOP presidential contenders endorse a counterterrorism operation against cartels in Mexico.
Meanwhile, priests, friends and strangers stopped by to drop off groceries. Somebody left a check for the month’s rent. When Reyna got the strength to restart the family’s mobile food business, people saw her grief and gave her $20, $50, or $100 bills for nothing.
Reyna remembered something Jose had once said, explaining why he gave to charity: “You’re not going to go poor by giving to others. God will reward you.”
Although Reyna couldn’t afford to send for Jose’s body after thousands of dollars were stolen by the smuggler, Border Angels, another San-Diego humanitarian nonprofit organization, paid for the body’s transfer to the family’s home in Delaware and some funeral expenses.
Reyna was grateful for the help of ordinary people, because she confronted negligence or worse in every government agency. She wanted to see Jose’s face. But his body had been stored improperly and she was told that it was too decomposed for an open casket funeral. The death certificate says he died of hyperthermia. But what of the injuries on the dispatcher notes? Did he hurt himself falling, or did somebody hurt him? Reyna is haunted by these questions. The coroner’s report remains open due to a backlog of cases in Imperial County. An incident report was never taken, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Nevertheless, Reyna considers herself fortunate compared to others who lose loved ones to the border’s killing machine. Most bodies are lost forever, becoming bone fragments after animals eat and scatter them. Reyna has a grave site to visit. She stops there most days, on her way back from work. On special occasions, she hires mariachi bands to play him love songs. She posts pictures of him to her Facebook.
Remittances are vital to many Latin American nations’ economies. A few policy shifts to increase the flow could do more good than another aid package.
Three years later, Reyna still stays in touch with the Armadillos, who periodically visit the site of Jose’s death to place flowers, Modelo Especial beers and other offerings at a memorial they made for him with a large wooden crucifix carved with his name. At the site, volunteers play Calibre 50’s “Te Volvería A Elegir,” which Reyna says she wants her husband to hear. “I’d choose you again,” the lyrics say in Spanish. One volunteer, Kari Frost, camped there one night to play guitar for Jose.
Reyna has kept the mobile food business going, but she has had to pick up other jobs to make ends meet, such as packing boxes at an Amazon warehouse. Ricky got a job at Amazon too, but injured his head on machinery there. He’s on worker’s compensation and taking a break from his college computer science studies until he’s recovered. He started having panic attacks after his father’s death, but listening to music keeps him going. So does his desire to live by his hardworking father’s example. Francisco got an IT job to help support the family. Their two younger siblings are in school.
For three years, Reyna has longed to see the place of her husband’s death, but she couldn’t go because she was undocumented and feared being detained at a Border Patrol checkpoint near the site. Now she has a pending immigration case seeking residency and cancellation of deportation because her fatherless U.S. citizen children need her here.
Last August, she received a temporary work permit while her case is being processed. It allowed her to make the trip. On July 8, just before the anniversary of Jose’s death, she flew to L.A. with Ricky and his teenage sister Juana. The Armadillos, led by Cesar Ortigoza, picked them up and drove them to Ocotillo.
They parked by the bridge. Reyna got out of the van first and walked straight under the bridge, ahead of everyone. When she reached the volunteers’ memorial, she fell to her knees and sobbed, clutching the sand. She slumped to the desert floor. She seemed to absorb the pain and anguish of Jose’s last moments, his longing for his family.
“I can’t walk anymore,” she cried. “My feet.” She wept for a long time, until her sobs slowly quieted. “I felt the release of a burden I had been carrying for three years,” she told me later, referring to guilt she felt at not finding him in time. “I felt as if something exited my body, and he was resting. ‘Finally. You came. You found me. You didn’t abandon me.’ I found him. I realized he never blamed me.”
She remained there for an hour and a half. Eventually, she sat up, wiping tears from her face. “Thank you,” she said to Cesar and Kari. “I needed to come for him. Now I know my husband will rest.”
The border machinery had killed Jose and devastated his family. It was the kindness of the border volunteers that allowed Reyna to feel some measure of peace.
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Opinion: A dark drive of the soul
A golf course in Encino. A phone call.
It’s my college roommate, from the East Coast. A friend has died.
“Oh, no.”
“But you don’t know how he died.”
I’m still playing.
“He was murdered ... by his son.”
“Oh my God.”
When you can’t make a dog joke on Montana Avenue, L.A.’s officially a tough room.
Approaching the 15th green, I tell my golfing partner the news, then sink a 24-foot putt for par.
“If you’d gotten that call three hours ago, you’d have had your best round ever.”
We laugh a lot.
It’s the drive home that wrenches me toward the casual atrocity of American life and my numb reaction to it. Like most emigres to L.A., I thought I’d put a continent between me and bad news from the old country. Now, 34 years after my move, the continent is tailgating me on Hayvenhurst Avenue.
I pull over to a red zone and consider the math that doesn’t add up: News of a murdered frat brother equals improved golf and big laughs?
This is not good. Sometime when I wasn’t looking, blanket immunity to shock dulled my nervous system.
And so begins — depending on traffic — my 40-minute quest to relearn the ability to be appropriately sickened.
Why are Angelenos so blasé about meeting their heroes? In my experience, they do not disappoint.
Turning onto Ventura, the idea arises that such pitilessness isn’t just me. A 1982 Chrissie Hynde lyric comes to mind: “The phone, the TV and the news of the world / Got in the house like a pigeon from hell.” Now it’s 2023, when we’re strung out on lockdowns, mass shootings, Proud Boys and the zillion et ceteras. Maybe disassociation is a symptom of nationwide survivor guilt?
It’s a reassuring but unsatisfying thought, an alibi for a high school druggie, a version of “everyone’s doing it.” This needs to get personal.
My friend. He was a good guy. Funny. Rough around the edges but sensitive. We bonded over the Bronx, where my grandparents lived and where he grew up. I’d seen him just twice since 1979 and got one call from him in the ’90s, re: estate planning. “Sorry. Already got a guy. No, I love living in L.A. Good hearing your voice, man.”
East of Haskell, I estimate that at the time of that call, his son — now sitting in a jail cell — would have been in grade school.
My mind instantly derails into a screenplay plot. Let’s say an accidental overdose of L.A. tap water empowers me with supernatural powers to see the future, leading to a second act of increasingly desperate attempts to save an old friend’s life. Wow, a less futuristic “Minority Report”!
You go from dreary Parsons Boulevard in Queens to Hollywood movie mogul but can’t feel your life.
I’d write it if not for the Writers Guild of America strike. I really should picket tomorrow. They say the Netflix picket line is tons of fun—
Wait. What?
This is scary, like my brain has developed hands-free emotional avoidance. Even scarier: I realize it’s nothing new.
Nearing Sepulveda, I consider the desensitizing impact of having had a Hollywood comedy writing career. I flash to 1997 when “woke” was just a verb and no joke was “too soon.” In (maybe) the darkest ever “Seinfeld” moment — the hospital scene in which Susan is pronounced dead from licking toxic wedding invitation envelopes bought on the cheap by her fiancé, George Costanza — George feigns grief and then says to Jerry, Elaine and Kramer: “Well, let’s get some coffee.”
I loved that scene so much. It made me proud to be part of the show. Now, passing the Skirball Cultural Center, I wonder if that was the first symptom of an emotional intake-valve shutdown.
No. A few years earlier, in the wake of Rodney King, the Northridge quake and O.J., I’d joked: “People say they wouldn’t move to L.A. because they’d miss the change of seasons. But L.A. has four seasons: Fire season, earthquake season, riot season and pilot season.”
You might think I’m about to pin some blame on Los Angeles for my unfeeling state, but I’m not. Turning onto Sunset, I don’t want to blame anyone or anything, especially not this great city. When “How did I get this way?” turns to “Whose fault?” all is lost.
Stopped in another red zone, I Google my friend. The horrific news pops right up. Shot twice in the head, once in the chest, once in the abdomen.
As a hobbyist comedian, I do a joke about a man who “died peacefully in his sleep after being shot four times in the head and twice in the chest.” There should be a restraining order on how close comedy can hit home.
But this is all about hitting home. I need this to hit home.
Over speed bumps on Amalfi, I think back to 1975 and my friend throwing incredibly long Frisbee passes on Fraternity Row. How he tied my tie for the spring formal. How he laughed like a car with dual exhaust pipes.
Turning onto my street, I go where I really don’t want to go: imagining him holding his infant son in the delivery room, the farthest thing from his mind being, “Someday, this gurgling little boy will ...”
Home.
Peter Mehlman’s latest novel is “#MeAsWell.” He was a writer and producer on “Seinfeld.”
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The 2023 Formula 1 World Championship continues this weekend with round 13, the Belgian Grand Prix, which takes place at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit and will see the Saturday Sprint race return.
The Spa circuit is nestled within the beautiful Ardennes hills and features a long, unrelenting track that serves as a stern test for car and driver. The average speed approaches 145 mph, making it one of the fastest laps of the season, and drivers experience over 5 g in some of the turns, such as Turn 10, known as Pouhon. The cars also run at full throttle for almost 80% of the lap.
Stretching 4.35 miles, Spa has the longest track on the calendar, resulting in the race lasting only 44 laps—the lowest on the calendar. The track is so big that it’s not unusual to have varying weather conditions at different parts. For example, rain at one end and sunshine at the other. The current forecast calls for heavy rain throughout the weekend, which has already resulted in some calls for the race to possibly be canceled.
The first and third sectors at Spa feature long straights and flat-out sections, but the second sector is twisty. This makes it challenging to find the right balance and set-up compromise, particularly with the wing level.
The track surface is on the abrasive side, meaning tires get quite the workout. Pirelli has nominated its mid-range compounds: the C2 as the White hard, C3 as the Yellow medium, and C4 as the Red soft.
The Belgian round will mark 2023’s third running of the Saturday Sprint race, after the Azerbaijan and Austrian Grands Prix. This season, the Sprint race has been made a standalone event rather than the qualifier for the main race, as was previously the case. It still has championship points on the table for both drivers and teams, however.
The round is the last stop before the summer break and will see some teams run upgrades, including Mercedes-Benz AMG whose cars will feature a new design for the side pods.
Going into the weekend, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen leads the 2023 Drivers’ Championship with 281 points. Fellow Red Bull driver Perez is second with 171 points and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso is third with 139 points. In the Constructors’ Championship, Red Bull leads with 452 points, versus the 223 of Mercedes and 184 of Aston Martin in second and third places. Last year’s winner in Belgium was Verstappen, driving for Red Bull.
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Opinion: Russia is deploying a new weapon in Ukraine: world hunger
In the next stage of Vladimir Putin’s bloody attempt to conquer Ukraine, grain is his strategic weapon of choice. In pulling out of a crucial deal that allowed the export of grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea and attacking the port of Odessa in recent days, he is setting the stage for a global food crisis.
The consequences will be dire for low-income countries, which are particularly vulnerable to rising grain prices on global commodity markets. If Putin is allowed to pursue this strategy, the likely effect will be economic disruption, increased poverty and more disaster-driven migration around the world.
For centuries, Ukraine was referred to as the “breadbasket of Europe.” Since regaining its independence in 1991, Ukraine improved its agricultural efficiency and in 2021-22 was exporting between 3 and 6 million metric tons of grain (corn, wheat and barley) per month. Before the full-scale invasion in early 2022, much of this export was by ship through the Black Sea. This route was initially blocked by Russian forces, but in July 2022, all sides agreed to allow Ukrainian grain exports to resume.
Russia has suspended a wartime deal brokered by the U.N. and Turkey that was designed to move food from Ukraine to parts of the world where millions are going hungry.
Now, unfortunately, Russia is again blocking that grain export corridor.
Earlier this month, Russian forces destroyed a grain terminal in the port of Odessa, wiping out storage facilities holding enough grain to feed nearly 300,000 people for a whole year. Russia has since blocked the movement of more than two dozen ships that were already loaded with enough Ukrainian grain to feed millions. Russia is not strong enough to conquer Ukraine, but it has enough missiles to close trade in the Black Sea.
Higher grain prices will tend to increase inflation in the U.S., the European Union and other rich countries. But in lower-income countries, the potential impact on food prices and supplies will be sufficient to put perhaps 500 million people at significantly increased risk of hunger (the World Food Program estimated that 345 million people would face food insecurity in 2023, when the Black Sea grain corridor agreement was still in place). Hunger means increased risk of childhood and adult diseases in the poorest countries. And worsening social conditions will create more migration pressures in part of the world.
Russia comes under pressure at U.N. to avoid global food crisis and revive Ukrainian grain shipments
Russia came under pressure at the U.N. Security Council from its ally China and developing countries, among others.
The Russian international propaganda machine is already hard at work, trying to divert blame for the coming crisis. The leadership in some poorer countries has been credulous enough to think that Putin is still their friend — as seen in the Russia-Africa summit held in St. Petersburg this week. A more realistic interpretation is that Putin and his colleagues want to create chaos and will do anything to strengthen their hand against Ukraine and the Western democracies that support Ukraine.
The U.S., the G7 and the European Union need to prevent food shortages and to keep food prices at a reasonable level. But it is hard to boost agricultural output and exports on short notice — this year’s harvest is already planted in the northern hemisphere. At this point, there is no way to replace Ukrainian exports by sea; there is not enough rail and other land infrastructure in place or that can be built.
Ukrainian forces have shot down 25 exploding drones and six cruise missiles from a predawn attack launched by Russia on the Black Sea port of Odesa.
The only way to reopen the Black Sea corridor is through a diplomatic agreement with Russia. Pressure from Turkey can help and did help in 2022. But Russia will ignore the West, unless Putin feels that he may be losing support among developing countries. The U.S. and Ukraine’s other allies need a high-level diplomatic initiative, persuading low-income countries to push Russia to allow Ukraine’s grain exports.
If high-income countries provide more money (loans or grants) to low-income countries to buy food, that will just drive up the price of food and wouldn’t solve the problem of a supply shortage.
The world is in a precarious state. Many of the poorest countries are already unable to feed themselves and remain ill-prepared to deal with climate change and extreme weather events. Global poverty has declined in recent decades, but according to the World Bank at least half a billion people still live in extreme poverty.
Putin’s strategy is to hold tens of millions of people hostage by using food as a weapon of war — both in weakening Ukraine’s shattered economy and threatening the global grain markets — to exact an even higher price for Ukraine’s refusal to capitulate. The governments of poorer countries need to demand that Ukrainian grain be allowed to flow freely. The Black Sea corridor must be reopened and kept open as a top priority for all parties working to defeat Putin.
Simon Johnson is a professor at MIT Sloan and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. Oleg Ustenko is economic advisor to President Zelensky of Ukraine.
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You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-07-29/ukraine-russia-war-putin-grain | 2023-07-29T10:25:58 | 1 | https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-07-29/ukraine-russia-war-putin-grain |
Anyone looking to take delivery of Lamborghini’s Revuelto supercar better be prepared to wait (or pay hefty markups on the used market) as the car’s production run for the next two years is already allocated, the automaker announced this week.
Despite an upgrade to Lamborghini’s plant in Sant’Agata Bolognese to accommodate more automated processes, production of the Revuelto is still very much a hands-on affair, with plenty of traditional handcrafted skills retained, ensuring production will remain limited. According to Lamborghini, around 500 staff are dedicated to the car’s production.
The Revuelto was revealed in March as the successor to the Aventador. It’s Lamborghini’s first plug-in hybrid and is powered by a sophisticated setup combining a newly developed V-12 and three electric motors for a combined output of 1,000 hp.
The Revuelto isn’t just an Aventador with more power, though. It represents a ground-up redesign that in addition to electrification includes a new carbon-fiber tub, a new 8-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, and that new V-12.
Lamborghini quotes performance numbers of 2.5 seconds in the 0-62 mph run and a top speed of 218 mph.
Lamborghini hasn’t announcing pricing for the Revuelto in the U.S., but in other markets the car is priced from 500,000 euros (approximately $548,700). Deliveries are scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Lamborghini’s Urus will be the automaker’s next plug-in hybrid. The SUV will go the electrified route starting in the first half of 2024. A plug-in hybrid successor to the Huracán will then arrive toward the end of 2024. Further out, Lamborghini plans to launch an electric vehicle in 2028. It was confirmed by the automaker in April as a 2+2 grand tourer.
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- “Wanted: The Escape Of Carlos Ghosn” debuts Aug. 25—watch the trailer | https://www.qcnews.com/automotive/internet-brands/lamborghini-revuelto-already-sold-out-for-next-2-years/ | 2023-07-29T10:25:57 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/automotive/internet-brands/lamborghini-revuelto-already-sold-out-for-next-2-years/ |
Mercedes-Benz has introduced an update to its mid-size van family to help keep the vehicles fresh until the arrival of successor models based on a dedicated electric vehicle platform later this decade.
The sole mid-size van Mercedes currently sells in the U.S. is the Metris. In other markets, the Metris is known as the Vito and is sold alongside a luxury version called the V-Class. The Vito and V-Class also come in electric form, known as the eVito and EQV respectively.
While the Vito has been updated, there are no plans to bring it to the U.S. as an updated Metris. The current Metris is still available to U.S. buyers but will be phased out later this year.
The updates to the mid-size van family include tweaks to the exterior styling highlighted by an enlarged grille and new light signatures for the headlights. There’s also a new dash design that adopts a single panel integrating both a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster and 12.3-inch infotainment screen in the plush V-Class and EQV. In the Vito and eVito commercial models, the dash sticks to analog gauges with a 5.5-inch screen in the center, plus a 10.3-inch infotainment screen. Buyers also have five new colors to choose from, along with various wheel patterns ranging from 17-19 inches in diameter.
Mercedes has also added new digital services and safety features, one of which is an updated Active Brake Assist feature that now functions in intersections. Active Brake Assist is a collision warning system that supports the driver by automatically adding extra braking pressure when necessary, and activating automatic emergency braking if the driver fails to apply the brakes.
No change has been made to the powertrains meaning buyers have a series of diesels to choose from, including 4- and 6-cylinder options, plus an electric powertrain in the eVito and EQV.
While the U.S. will soon lose the Metris, Mercedes in May said it will bring a luxury mid-size van to this market later this decade. It will be based on the new Van.EA platform. The dedicated EV platform will spawn its first model in 2026, though Mercedes hasn’t revealed the model’s identity.
Mercedes said it expects electric vans to account for 50% of its van sales by 2030.
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Porsche earlier this week revealed more than just a first look at its lounge-like road-trip fast-charging stations, to be laid out along some top routes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Within details for these design-savvy charging oases there was a bigger technology reveal: Its EVs in the future, it hinted, may charge above 300 kw and perhaps closer to 400 kw.
That message came within how the automaker explained the charging hardware situated at these Porsche Charging Lounges. They’ll be “perfectly tailored to the requirements of Porsche drivers on long journeys,” the company explained. That means a current max charge power of 300 kw from the Alpitronic hardware at those stations, it explained, but it then stated: “By the start of next year, 400 kw per charging point should be possible.”
Since its launch, the Porsche Taycan has been capable of 800-volt DC fast-charging up to 270 kw—made more reproducible for 2022—offering a 5-80% charge in as little as 22.5 minutes.
The 2024 Porsche Macan Electric, which is due to go on sale in the first half of 2024 and built on the PPE platform jointly developed by Porsche and Audi, will inherit the Taycan’s 800-volt charging. But Porsche has suggested that PPE may be capable of a bit more.
While the Macan may stretch closer to 300 kw, it has to be another future vehicle that fast-charges at an even higher rate, taking advantage of those 400-kw connectors.
But the charger announcement may be teasing a product that’s yet to come and farther in the future. Will that be the Boxster-inspired electric sports car, which might include the 718 badge; a production version of the 900-volt Mission X concept the brand recently revealed; or another new EV from the sports-car brand? Or all of the above?
Porsche has said that by 2030 over 80% of the vehicles it delivers globally will be fully electric—although it’s suggested that the last gasoline model it will make will be the 911.
That said, a model that might take advantage of a 400-kw connector might top out higher than the Lucid Air, which reaches a max just over 300 kw, and the GMC Hummer EV with the largest dual-layer pack, which can at times pull the full power from a 350-kw connector.
Such a model tapping the potential of a 400-kw connector might not be coming until 2025 or 2026, but when it does, then Porsche looks prepared with the infrastructure.
The Taycan is already approaching its intended gas-station refueling times—if the infrastructure’s there. With some carefully planned charging stops, one crossed the U.S. last year at real-world highway speeds with just 2.5 hours of charging.
As for those lounges, Porsche aims to place them close to “busy routes with significant traffic flow,” make them open 24/7, barrier-free, and part of the Ionity network, and provide centralized billing and a very comfortable environment. If the images provided, showing woodgrain finishes, bright interiors, workout areas, and rooftop solar cells are any indication, it looks like a very pleasant environment compared to the edge of the Walmart parking lot or strip-mall access road.
Although Porsche has no plans to build these charging oases in the U.S. as of yet, fellow VW Group entity Electrify America offers 350-kw connectors at many of its 809 U.S. fast-charging locations. And the national fast-charging network set to be bankrolled by seven automakers, announced earlier this week, with 350-kw connectors as a baseline, will help support these even-faster-charging EVs.
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- 2018-2023 Nissan Leaf EV recalled for cruise-control acceleration flaw | https://www.qcnews.com/automotive/internet-brands/porsche-hints-a-future-ev-may-utilize-400-kw-fast-charging/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:00 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/automotive/internet-brands/porsche-hints-a-future-ev-may-utilize-400-kw-fast-charging/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Signs that inflation pressures in the United States are steadily easing emerged Friday in reports that consumer prices rose in June at their slowest pace in more than two years and that wage growth cooled last quarter.
Together, the figures provided the latest signs that the Federal Reserve’s drive to tame inflation may succeed without triggering a recession, an outcome known as a “soft landing.”
A price gauge closely monitored by the Fed rose just 3% in June from a year earlier. That was down from a 3.8% annual increase in May, though still above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.2% from May to June, up slightly from 0.1% the previous month.
Last month’s sharp slowdown in year-over-year inflation largely reflected falling gas prices, as well as milder increases in grocery costs. With supply chains having largely healed from post-pandemic disruptions, the costs of new and used cars, furniture and appliances also fell in June.
The cost of some services, though, continued to surge. Average prices of movie tickets rose 0.5% from May to June, and are up 6.2% from a year earlier. Veterinary services, up 0.5% last month, are 10.5% higher than a year ago. And restaurant meal prices increased 0.4% in June; they’re up 7.1% from 12 months earlier.
A measure of “core” prices, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, did remain elevated even though it also eased last month. Economists track core prices because they are considered a better signal of where inflation is headed. Those still-high underlying inflation pressures are a key reason why the Fed raised its short-term interest rate Wednesday to a 22-year high.
Core prices were still 4.1% higher than they were a year ago, well above the Fed’s target, though down from 4.6% in May. From May to June, core inflation was just 0.2%, down from 0.3% the previous month, an encouraging sign.
A separate report Friday from the Labor Department showed that a gauge of wages and salaries grew more slowly in the April-June quarter, suggesting that employers were feeling less pressure to boost pay as the job market cools.
Employee pay, excluding government workers, rose 1%, down from 1.2% in the first three months of 2023. Compared with a year earlier, wages and salaries grew 4.6%, down from 5.1% in the first quarter.
The Fed is closely watching the pay gauge, known as the employment cost index. Smaller wage increases should slow inflation over time, because companies are less likely to need to raise prices to cover their higher labor costs.
Taken together, Friday’s data “will provide further support to the view that the economy is in the midst of a soft landing,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide. The softer wage data, she suggested, “will be welcomed by Fed officials.”
Americans’ average paychecks are still growing briskly, boosting their ability to spend and underscoring the economy’s resiliency. The inflation report that the Commerce Department issued Friday showed that consumer spending jumped in June, despite two years of high inflation and 11 Fed rate hikes over 17 months. From May to June, consumer spending rose 0.5%, up from 0.2% the previous month.
“Better push out those recession forecasts by another quarter,” Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at investment bank Santander, wrote in a research note.
The inflation gauge that was issued Friday, called the personal consumption expenditures price index, is separate from the better-known consumer price index. Earlier this month, the government reported that the CPI rose 3% in June from 12 months earlier.
The Fed prefers the PCE index because it accounts for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps — when, for example, consumers shift away from pricey national brands in favor of cheaper store brands. And housing costs, which are among the biggest inflation drivers but many economists think aren’t well-measured, carry about half the weight in the PCE than the CPI.
With inflation now steadily cooling, consumers are becoming more optimistic about the economy, a trend that could lead them to keep spending and driving growth.
On Friday, the University of Michigan reported that its consumer sentiment index rose in June to its highest level since October 2021, though it has still recovered only about half of the drop caused by the pandemic. And earlier this week, the Conference Board, a business research group, said its consumer confidence index rose this month to its highest point in two years.
The U.S. economy is in a hopeful but precarious place: A solid job market is bolstering hiring, lifting wages and keeping unemployment near a half-century low. Yet inflation is weakening rather than rising, as it typically does when unemployment is low. That suggests that the Fed may be able to achieve a soft landing.
The Fed’s policymakers, though, are concerned that the steadily growing economy could help perpetuate inflation. This can occur as persistent consumer demand enables more companies to raise prices, thereby keeping inflation above the Fed’s target and potentially causing the central bank to raise rates even higher.
The latest evidence of the economy’s resilience came Thursday, when the government reported that it grew at a 2.4% annual rate in the April-June quarter — faster than analysts had forecast and an acceleration from a 2% growth rate in the first three months of the year.
At a news conference Wednesday, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed’s benchmark short-term rate, now at about 5.3%, was high enough to restrain the overall economy and likely tame inflation over time. But Powell added that the Fed would need to see more evidence that inflation has been sustainably subdued before it would consider ending its rate hikes.
Powell declined to offer any signal of the central bank’s likely next moves. In June, Fed officials had forecast two more rate hikes this year, including Wednesday’s.
“I would say it is certainly possible that we would raise (rates) again at the September meeting, if the data warranted,” Powell said Wednesday, “and I would also say it’s possible that we would choose to hold steady at that meeting.” | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-an-inflation-gauge-that-is-closely-tracked-by-the-fed-falls-to-its-lowest-level-in-more-than-2-years/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:15 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-an-inflation-gauge-that-is-closely-tracked-by-the-fed-falls-to-its-lowest-level-in-more-than-2-years/ |
Tesla is ramping up efforts to open showrooms on tribal lands where it can sell directly to consumers, circumventing laws in states that bar vehicle manufacturers from also being retailers in favor of the dealership model.
Mohegan Sun, a casino and entertainment complex in Connecticut owned by the federally recognized Mohegan Tribe, announced this week that the California-based electric automaker will open a showroom with a sales and delivery center this fall on its sovereign property where the state’s law doesn’t apply.
The news comes after another new Tesla showroom was announced in June, set to open in 2025 on lands of the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York.
“I think it was a move that made complete sense,” said Lori Brown, executive director of the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters, which has lobbied for years to change Connecticut’s law.
“It is just surprising that it took this long, because Tesla had really tried, along with Lucid and Rivian,” she said, referring to two other electric carmakers. “Anything that puts more electric vehicles on the road is a good thing for the public.”
Brown noted that lawmakers with car dealerships that are active in their districts, no matter their political affiliation, have traditionally opposed bills allowing direct-to-consumer sales.
The Connecticut Automotive Retail Association, which has opposed such bills for years, says there needs to be a balance between respecting tribal sovereignty and “maintaining a level playing field” for all car dealerships in the state.
“We respect the Mohegan Tribe’s sovereignty and the unique circumstance in which they operate their businesses on Tribal land but we strongly believe that this does not change the discussion about Tesla and other EV manufacturers with direct-to-consumer sales, and we continue to oppose that model,” Hayden Reynolds, the association’s chairperson, said in a statement. “Connecticut’s dealer franchise laws benefit consumers and provide a competitive marketplace.”
Over the years in numerous states, Tesla has sought and been denied dealership licenses, pushed for law changes and challenged decisions in courts. The company scored a victory earlier this year when Delaware’s Supreme Court overturned a ruling upholding a decision by state officials to prohibit Tesla from selling its cars to directly customers.
At least 16 states have effectively changed their laws to allow Tesla and other direct-to-consumer manufacturers to sell there, said Jeff Aiosa, executive director of the Connecticut dealers association. He doesn’t foresee Connecticut changing its law, noting that 32 “original equipment manufacturers,” a list that includes major car companies like Toyota and Ford, currently abide by it.
“It’s not fair to have an unlevel playing field when all the other manufacturers abide by the state franchise laws and Tesla wants this exception to go around the law,” he said. “I would suggest their pivoting to the sovereign nation is representative of them not wanting to abide by the law.”
Tesla opened its first store as well as a repair shop on Native American land in 2021 in New Mexico. The facility, built in Nambé Pueblo, north of Santa Fe, marked the first time the company partnered with a tribe to get around state laws, though the idea had been in the works for years.
Brian Dear, president of the Tesla Owners Club of New Mexico, predicted at the time that states that are home to tribal nations and also have laws banning direct car sales by manufacturers would likely follow New Mexico’s lead.
“I don’t believe at all that this will be the last,” he said.
Tesla’s facility at Mohegan Sun, dubbed the Tesla Sales & Delivery Center, will be located at a shopping and dining pavilion within the sprawling casino complex. Customers will be able to test drive models around the resort. and gamblers will be able to use their loyalty rewards toward Tesla purchases.
Tesla also plans to exhibit its solar and storage products at the location. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-automaker-tesla-is-opening-more-showrooms-on-tribal-lands-to-avoid-state-laws-barring-direct-sales/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:22 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-automaker-tesla-is-opening-more-showrooms-on-tribal-lands-to-avoid-state-laws-barring-direct-sales/ |
Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:
Colson Whitehead channels the paranoia and fear of 1970s NYC in 'Crook Manifesto': "My early '70s New York is dingy and grimy," the Pulitzer Prize-winning author says. Whitehead's sequel to Harlem Shuffle centers on crime at every level, from small-time crooks to Harlem's elite.
Crime writer S.A. Cosby loves the South — and is haunted by it: Cosby's novel All the Sinners Bleed centers on a Black sheriff in a small Southeast Virginia county. The novel was inspired by his own experiences growing up in the shadow of the Confederacy.
You can listen to the original interviews and review here:
Colson Whitehead channels the paranoia and fear of 1970s NYC in 'Crook Manifesto'
Crime writer S.A. Cosby loves the South — and is haunted by it
Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.wlrn.org/2023-07-29/fresh-air-weekend-colson-whitehead-s-a-cosby | 2023-07-29T10:26:23 | 1 | https://www.wlrn.org/2023-07-29/fresh-air-weekend-colson-whitehead-s-a-cosby |
Ron DeSantis was involved in a traffic accident while in Chattanooga, Tenn., this week raising money for his presidential bid. The candidate was not injured, which may have been the single best piece of news the campaign has had in a while.
The other kind of news for the Florida Republican seemed to be everywhere and all at once. His campaign announced it was shedding a third of its staff and "retooling" its fundraising amid reports of donor desertion. The Associated Press referred to the campaign as "stalled," Rich Lowry of National Review used the words "faltering" and "diminished" in a piece for Politico. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, often a cheerleader for the governor, noted "the headlines say [the campaign] is in an unrecoverable dive."
The media critiques went beyond DeSantis' problems with staffing and fundraising to question his performance on the stump. Stories told of DeSantis "scolding" students at one event for wearing masks and snapping at reporters at a news conference.
Most troubling of all may have been DeSantis' problems with messaging. He has defended his administration's new Florida history curriculum, which alludes to "benefits" that enslaved people may have derived from their life in bondage – such as blacksmithing skills. That drew a rebuke from rival candidate Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who's Black, who said there had been no "silver lining in slavery."
DeSantis may have been expected to stand by his state's curriculum changes, but it was harder to understand why he reached for controversy by saying he might appoint Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as head of the FDA or the CDC. Kennedy, a Democrat, is also a candidate for president, and famous as a vaccine conspiracy theorist, harshly critical of the scientists who lead the federal health agencies.
Most candidates would not consider either slavery or RFK Jr. an issue to emphasize, much less the hill they would choose to die on.
Perceptions prompt comparison to former presidential hopeful Rick Perry
Perceptions of DeSantis have changed greatly since he won reelection in November 2022 by 20 points. In January he was seen as the foremost threat to Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, trailing the former president by just two percentage points in the 538.com average of national polls. As of this week, that gap has widened to 37 percentage points. DeSantis poll numbers have fallen by more than half as other candidates have entered the fray and taken a share. And that trendline has prompted comparisons to the recent history of another Sun Belt governor who had his eyes on the White House, Rick Perry of Texas.
A dozen years ago, Perry entered the GOP lists for the 2012 nomination against incumbent President Barack Obama. Having been elected and reelected in the nation's second most populous state, Perry had a gaudy list of endorsements and wealthy backers. His TV ads were impressive.
But Perry's in-person campaigning did not match expectations. After the first candidate debates of 2007 the buzz was all about his lackluster performances. Vowing to fight on, Perry pointed to a November debate where he hoped to turn things around. That was when he pledged to eliminate three cabinet level departments of the federal government if elected – Education, Commerce ... and he could not remember the third. After a fumbling pause he said: "Oops."
Needless to say, things did not get better after that. Crushed in the 2012 Iowa caucuses, Perry all but ignored New Hampshire to concentrate on South Carolina. But when his poll numbers there also sagged, he dropped out. In 2016, having just retired as the longest-tenured governor in Texas history, he tried again. But in a field of more than 15 candidates dominated by Trump, Perry barely registered. He dropped out before the Iowa caucuses.
Needless to say, no candidate for president wants to be compared to Rick Perry. But on Fox News on June 28, DeSantis told a Fox News host he would eliminate the same three departments as Perry — Education, Commerce and, as Perry had eventually remembered, Energy (which wound up being the department where Perry served as secretary under Trump). DeSantis threw in the IRS, too, which gave him a longer list than Perry's.
Throughout the agonizing train wreck that was the Perry campaign, the candidate seemed unable to understand that the persona and priorities that had lifted him to such success in Texas were not working the same on the national stage.
Can this campaign be saved?
DeSantis' campaign has reached the point where some observers wonder if it's too late to turn his fortunes around. They note that Trump's growing advantage over DeSantis in polls has been driven less by improving numbers for Trump than by deteriorating support for the Floridian.
But there are positives in this picture for the Florida governor. First, it is early — or at least relatively early — in the campaign season. The first voting activity leading to actual delegates being chosen does not happen until January 15, when Iowa holds its caucuses. That gives DeSantis and other candidates still seeking traction more than five months to find it. If the right formula can be found, there is time to follow it.
Second, the field is in some senses still unsettled. While half the Republican electorate may be satisfied with Trump, there is still the other half. And if the ever-mounting legal woes of the former president finally begin to erode the bedrock of his support, it may be possible for a single strong challenger to consolidate the opposition.
Third, there are beacons of hope for troubled candidates in recent presidential campaign history. By choosing to call the latest phase of his effort an "insurgency," DeSantis has acknowledged that he is battling the odds. Of course, when he adopted the campaign motto "The Great American Comeback," he was not expecting it to apply to his campaign.
The term "comeback" has long been associated with the first presidential push of a young Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Then 45, Clinton was seeking the Democratic nomination against the sitting president George H.W. Bush in 1992. Bush had been so popular following the success of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 that many ambitious Democrats in Washington thought it better to wait for the 1996 cycle to run. Clinton looked strong in the preliminary phase of the campaign but was on the ropes as the primaries began, battered by two potentially fatal blows.
Newspaper stories had highlighted steps he took to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, and in a woman he had known in Arkansas named Gennifer Flowers told a supermarket tabloid the two had had a years-long affair. She repeated her story in a televised news conference.
Clinton stumbled to a distant third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses (won by a favorite son candidate, Tom Harkin) and fell far behind in New Hampshire. But on that state's primary night in February, Clinton in second place had closed the gap to single digits and won half the available delegates.
He went on TV to thank New Hampshire for making "Bill Clinton the comeback kid." The national media coverage largely followed that line, much to the distress of the primary's first-place winner, Sen. Paul Tsongas of neighboring Massachusetts. A few weeks later, on Super Tuesday, Clinton won most of the big state primaries, many of them in the South, and the lion's share of the delegates. He was soon cruising to the nomination.
McCain turned his ship around
More directly comparable to DeSantis' situation, and closer to his political home, was the turnaround achieved 16 years later by the campaign of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. A former POW in Vietnam who had made many friends in his time in the Senate, McCain was well known for his spirited "Straight Talk Express" campaign challenging George W. Bush for the GOP nomination in 2000. McCain came up short that time, but his profile was elevated in the Senate and he retained much of his appeal for independents.
But when it came to running another campaign, McCain quickly ran aground. The national agenda had changed over the two terms of the second President Bush, which included the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The man who had been New York City mayor during those attacks, Rudy Giuliani, was now running for president as "America's Mayor" and leading in national polls for a time.
Other notables in the field in 2007 included Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (now a senator from Utah) and Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas. McCain's standing in Iowa had suffered with his opposition to ethanol subsidies and he trailed Romney in polling in New Hampshire.
In the summer of 2007, with his early money drying up and fundraising slowed, McCain saw many news accounts of his flagging campaign. Some were ready to write him off. But that July he revamped his campaign from top to bottom and let go some longtime aides, including close friends, to begin anew. He seemed ready to do whatever it took, including altering his positions on key issues such as immigration.
By the time the campaign reached the voters in January 2008, the McCain operation had righted itself. After conceding Iowa to his rivals, McCain stormed back into contention with a smashing win in New Hampshire that netted him most of the delegates at stake.
As for one-time front-runner Giuliani, he had decided he did not need to go hard at Iowa and New Hampshire and concentrated instead on the late January primary in Florida. Giuliani finished third there, winning no delegates, and withdrew from the race the next day.
The following week brought Super Tuesday and a favorable mix of states for McCain, who won nine states to Romney's seven and Huckabee's five and pocketed most of the delegates. Romney then left the race and urged the other candidates and the party to unite behind McCain.
At such times in the past, struggling campaigns have rescued themselves with the right moves and a dose of luck. At other times, it has taken major missteps by front-running candidates to open the door. In DeSantis' case, it might well require both.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wlrn.org/national-politics/2023-07-29/presidential-primaries-have-seen-dramatic-comebacks-could-desantis-24-be-next | 2023-07-29T10:26:30 | 0 | https://www.wlrn.org/national-politics/2023-07-29/presidential-primaries-have-seen-dramatic-comebacks-could-desantis-24-be-next |
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Europe’s banking sector could withstand a severe economic downturn without depleting their financial buffers against losses, the European Central Bank said Friday.
A survey of 98 large and medium-sized banks done by the ECB’s supervisory arm in conjunction with the European Banking Authority showed that even in the most adverse scenario — a fall of almost 10% in economic outpoint over three years — banks would still have enough capital to cover losses and then some.
The stress test was not a pass-fail exercise for banks in the 20 countries that use the euro currency. Rather, results for individual banks will be used by banking regulators in determining how much capital they need to hold in reserve.
Banks are crucial to the European economy because companies get most of their financing from them, instead of from financial markets — the opposite of the situation in the U.S.
The ECB took over supervision of the biggest banks after the eurozone debt crisis more than a decade ago, when bank losses led to heavy bailout costs for governments. National supervisors were perceived to have been less than vigilant on developing risks.
Scrutiny of bank finances has grown after the failure of three U.S. banks amid rising interest rates that led to losses on investments and mass withdrawal of deposits. The financial turmoil then hit Credit Suisse, a globally significant bank that had long-running problems, leading the Swiss government to engineer an emergency takeover by rival UBS to prevent further banking chaos.
Switzerland is not part of the European Union, where some of the safeguards instituted after the 2008-2009 global financial crisis were more widely applied. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-europes-banks-could-survive-a-drastic-economic-downturn-stress-test-shows/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:29 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-europes-banks-could-survive-a-drastic-economic-downturn-stress-test-shows/ |
President Biden publicly acknowledged his seventh grandchild, a 4-year-old named Navy Joan Roberts, for the first time on Friday, capping a month of questions about why he had seemingly excluded the little girl from his tight family circle.
Roberts is the daughter of Hunter Biden and Lunden Roberts, an Arkansas woman who filed a paternity lawsuit against her child's father in 2019.
"Our son Hunter and Navy's mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward," President Biden said in a statement to People magazine published on Friday evening.
President Biden Speaks Out on Hunter’s Daughter, 4, with Ark. Woman: ‘Jill and I Only Want What’s Best’ (Exclusive) https://t.co/9qlHMZXH7E
— People (@people) July 28, 2023
"This is not a political issue, it's a family matter," Biden said in the statement. "Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy."
President Biden is known for often speaking about his love of his family and grandchildren. Last year, Hunter Biden's eldest child, Naomi, was married at the White House in what was a lavish affair.
In early July, the New York Times profiled Navy, her mother, and some of the details of their child support settlement. The story drew attention to the fact that the president had never recognized his 4-year-old granddaughter.
Some GOP presidential contenders like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley made jabs at the president for the omission.
Hunter Biden recently settled a lawsuit over his daughter
Hunter Biden has struggled with addiction. In his 2021 memoir, he blamed his addictions for his court battle over his daughter's paternity.
"It's why I would later challenge in court the woman from Arkansas who had a baby in 2018 and claimed the child was mine — I had no recollection of our encounter. That's how little connection I had with anyone," he wrote in his memoir. "I was a mess, but a mess I've taken responsibility for."
Hunter Biden was proven to be the child's father through a DNA test. He has recently settled a lawsuit for child support.
He has three older children, now in their 20s, as well as a 3-year-old son named Beau, who is often seen at the White House.
Hunter Biden has been the target of Republican attacks on the president because of his business dealings and legal issues.
He recently agreed to plead guilty to tax and gun charges in a deal that would allow him to avoid future prosecution. But that plea deal fell apart when the judge said she needed more information and wasn't ready to accept the deal he struck with the Justice Department.
The White House has refused to comment on whether Hunter Biden's legal troubles are a political liability for the president, describing them as personal matters, and saying only that the president loves his son and supports him as he tries to rebuild his life.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wlrn.org/national-politics/national-politics/2023-07-28/biden-has-a-7th-grandchild-but-hes-never-acknowledged-her-until-now | 2023-07-29T10:26:36 | 0 | https://www.wlrn.org/national-politics/national-politics/2023-07-28/biden-has-a-7th-grandchild-but-hes-never-acknowledged-her-until-now |
TOKYO (AP) — An official in charge of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant says the upcoming release of treated radioactive water into the sea more than 12 years after the reactors’ meltdown marks “a milestone,” but is still only an initial step in a daunting decades-long decommissioning process.
Junichi Matsumoto, the corporate officer in charge of treated water management for Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, which operates the Fukushima Daiichi plant, also pledged to conduct careful sampling and analysis of the water to make sure its release is safely carried out in accordance with International Atomic Energy Agency standards.
The water is being treated with what’s called an Advanced Liquid Processing System, which can reduce the amounts of more than 60 selected radionuclides to government-set releasable levels, except for tritium, which the government and TEPCO say is safe for humans if consumed in small amounts.
“The release of the ALPS-treated water into the sea is a major milestone for us, as well as for the decommissioning of the plant,” Matsumoto said in an interview with The Associated Press at TEPCO headquarters in Tokyo.
“In order to steadily advance decommissioning, the ever-growing amounts of water was a pressing issue that we could not put off, and we had a sense of crisis,” said Matsumoto, a nuclear engineering expert. “We still have to tackle far more challenging and higher-risk operations such as removal of melted debris and spent fuel” from the damaged reactors, he said.
Another task for TEPCO is combatting the damage to the reputation of Fukushima fisheries caused by the water release, he said.
A massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water, which has since leaked continuously. The water is collected, filtered and stored in around 1,000 tanks, which will reach their capacity in early 2024.
Large amounts of fatally radioactive melted nuclear fuel remain inside the reactors. Robotic probes have provided some information about its status, but it remains largely unknown.
The government and TEPCO say the water must be removed to make room for the plant’s decommissioning, and to prevent accidental leaks from the tanks because much of the water is still contaminated and needs retreatment.
The release plan has faced strong opposition from Japanese fishing organizations, which worry about further damage to the reputation of their seafood as they struggle to recover from the accident. Groups in South Korea and China have also raised concerns, turning it into a political and diplomatic issue.
Matsumoto said the key to gaining understanding is to patiently explain the situation by providing scientific evidence.
“It is difficult, but we hope to make it as easy to understand as possible,” he said. “If we describe (the water release) in one word, it’s safe.”
“As the operator responsible for the accident, we must admit TEPCO is a company that is not fully trusted. We must keep up the effort and sincerely respond to any concern,” Matsumoto said. “It is our responsibility to demonstrate we can carry out the water release as planned, and that’s how we can regain public trust.”
The government said the release is set to start this summer but hasn’t set the date amid protests. TEPCO has obtained safety permits for all of the equipment needed for the release and is currently carrying out training so the water release team can begin work at any time, Matsumoto said.
“It’s not like just turning a faucet to run tap water,” he said.
Scientists generally agree that the environmental impact of the treated wastewater would be negligible, but some call for more attention to dozens of low-dose radionuclides that remain in it, saying data on their long-term effects on the environment and marine life are insufficient and the water requires close scrutiny.
The treated water will be diluted with massive amounts of seawater and will be released gradually over many years.
Matsumoto acknowledged that treated water that came in contact with the damaged nuclear fuel contains radionuclides such as uranium and plutonium that are not in water that is routinely released from healthy nuclear plants around the world.
He said the total concentration of radionuclides in the water meets government standards after treatment, and after dilution the wastewater will be fully safe and have a minimal environmental impact, according to the IAEA, which has provided assistance in evaluating the release plan.
Matsumoto said he has struggled to manage the massive amounts of contaminated water to keep it from escaping into the environment and safely stored at the plant since the accident.
There were instances in which plant workers had no other choice but to dump some into the sea or temporarily put it inside a basement or in temporary water tanks, Matsumoto recalled.
Now, after taking measures to minimize the seeping of rainwater and groundwater into the reactor buildings and establishing a stable water management system, the amount of contaminated water has come down to less than one-fifth of what it used to be, he said. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-fukushima-plant-official-says-the-coming-release-of-treated-water-a-milestone-for-decommissioning/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:36 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-fukushima-plant-official-says-the-coming-release-of-treated-water-a-milestone-for-decommissioning/ |
CANBERRA, Australia — Four air crew members were missing after an Australian army helicopter ditched into waters off the Queensland state coast during joint military exercises with the United States, officials said Saturday.
The MRH-90 Taipan helicopter went down near Lindeman Island, a Great Barrier Reef tourist resort, at about 11 p.m. Friday, exercise director Australian Army Brigadier Damian Hill said.
A search involving U.S., Canadian and Australian personnel was underway to find the crew who are all Australian men, officials said.
Debris that appeared to be from a helicopter had been recovered, Queensland Police Assistant Commissioner Douglas McDonald said.
The Taipan was taking part in Talisman Sabre, a biennial joint U.S.-Australian military exercise that is largely based in Queensland. This year's exercise involves 13 nations and more than 30,000 military personnel.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said the helicopter ditched, which refers to an emergency landing on water.
"Defense exercises, which are so necessary for the readiness of our defense force, are serious. They carry risk," Marles told reporters in Brisbane. "As we desperately hope for better news during the course of this day we are reminded about the gravity of the act which comes with wearing our nation's uniform."
Hill said the exercise was postponed on Saturday morning but had restarted limited activity later in the day. Australia had grounded its Taipan fleet as a precaution, Hill said.
It was the second emergency involving an Australian Taipan this year, after one ditched into the sea off the New South Wales state coast in March. That helicopter was taking part in a nighttime counterterrorism training exercise when it ran into trouble. All 10 passengers and crew members were rescued.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Brisbane for a meeting on Saturday and is due to travel with Marles to north Queensland on Sunday to see the exercise.
Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken paid tribute to the missing air crew at the outset of a meeting with their Australian counterparts, Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
"It's always tough when you have accidents in training, but ... the reason that we train to such high standards is so that we can be successful and we can protect lives when we are called to answer any kind of crisis," Austin said.
"Our guys tend to make this look easy and they make it look easy because they're so well exercised and rehearsed and trained, and this is unfortunately a part of that, what it takes to get them to where we need them to be," Austin added.
Blinken said, "We're so grateful to them for their dedication, for their service, for everything they've been doing to stand up for the freedom that we share and that is what unites us more than anything else."
Marles thanked the United States for their contribution to the search and rescue effort.
The missing helicopter had just dropped off two Australian commandos before it hit the water, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Australia announced in January that its army and navy would stop flying the European-built Taipans by December 2024, 13 years earlier than originally planned, because they had proven unreliable. They will be replaced by 40 U.S. Black Hawks. Marles said at the time the Lockheed Martin-designed Black Hawks "have a really good proven track record in terms of their reliability."
Australia's Taipans had been plagued by problems since the first helicopter arrived in the country in 2007.
Australia's entire fleet of 47 Taipans was grounded in 2019 to fix a problem with their tail rotor blades. A year later, 27 Taipans were grounded because of a problem with doors.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/4-air-crew-members-are-missing-after-an-australian-army-helicopter-ditched-off-coast | 2023-07-29T10:26:42 | 1 | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/4-air-crew-members-are-missing-after-an-australian-army-helicopter-ditched-off-coast |
Fresh charges tie Trump even more closely to coverup effort. That could deepen his legal woes
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.”
____
Richer reported from Boston.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kalb.com/2023/07/29/fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:43 | 1 | https://www.kalb.com/2023/07/29/fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes/ |
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — The German economy is still failing to grow, figures showed Friday, as the country that should be the industrial powerhouse for all of Europe struggles with high energy prices, rising borrowing costs and a lagging rebound from key trading partner China.
Economic output in Germany stagnated in the April-to-June quarter, the Federal Statistics Office said. That follows a decline of 0.1% in the first three months of the year and a drop of 0.4% in the last three months of 2022 as the energy shock from Russia’s war in Ukraine echoed through Europe’s largest economy.
It comes after the International Monetary Fund forecast this week that Germany would be the globe’s only major economy to shrink this year, even with weak economic growth around the world amid rising interest rates and the threat of growing inflation.
In Germany, the economy has been buffeted by several challenges. Above all, its long-term dependence on Russian natural gas to fuel industry backfired when the invasion of Ukraine led to the loss of most of Moscow’s supply and to higher costs for energy-intensive industries such as metals, glass, cars and fertilizer.
Higher interest rates from the European Central Bank have weighed on construction projects that depend on borrowing. Meanwhile, the rebound in China, Germany’s largest trade partner, after the end of drastic COVID-19 restrictions has been less than many had hoped for.
The second-quarter economic performance was “far from satisfactory,” said Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck.
He urged action on his proposal to cap energy prices for industry with government help, which has run into skepticism in parts of the governing coalition, and more investment in future-oriented technology such as renewable energy.
“What Germany needs is a targeted impulse for investment and breathing room for our energy-intensive industry,” he said.
Longer-term factors such as an aging population, lagging use of digital technology in business and government, excessive red tape that holds back business launches and public construction projects, and a shortage of skilled labor also have weighed on the economy.
Yet the slowdown does not resemble a classic recession because jobs are abundant, with companies competing for workers and complaining of skills shortages. The unemployment rate was only 2.9% in May, well below the eurozone’s 6.5% — one of the lowest rates on record.
Carsten Brzeski, chief eurozone economist at ING, has described Germany’s situation as a “slowcession,” with the economy “stuck in the twilight zone between stagnation and recession.”
He said Friday that recent data “do not bode well for economic activity in the coming months.”
“In fact, weak purchasing power, thinned-out industrial order books, as well as the impact of the most aggressive monetary policy tightening in decades, and the expected slowdown of the U.S. economy, all argue in favor of weak economic activity,” Brzeski said in a note.
Germany’s woes are calling forth comparisons with the late 1990s, when high labor costs held back the country’s competitiveness. A series of labor market reforms under former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 2003-2004 helped restore economic growth and Germany’s position as an export powerhouse selling industrial machinery and vehicles to the rest of the world.
Germany’s current account surplus of $290 billion, the broadest measure of foreign trade, was the highest in the world in 2019, according to the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. It remained above 7% of GDP for six straight years but fell to 4.2% last year. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-germany-used-to-be-the-worlds-export-powerhouse-now-its-not-growing-what-happened/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:43 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-germany-used-to-be-the-worlds-export-powerhouse-now-its-not-growing-what-happened/ |
From the outside, the tall white building looks like any other hip, new Brooklyn living space. But about a thousand migrant men sleep here every night and there's room for hundreds more. It's a sort of mega shelter, poised to become one of New York City's largest.
It's been open for just a few weeks, and it's already riddled with accusations of abuse.
For months, Mayor Eric Adams has been issuing warnings that the New York City shelter system simply cannot handle the deluge of over 90,000 people it has received in the last year or so. "We have no more room in the city," he cautioned at a recent press conference. "We need help from the federal government."
The Adams administration is challenging New York's right to shelter law in court: That's the law that for decades has assured that the city provide a safe haven to anyone in need, regardless of immigration status.
Adams also recently announced several unusual measures including distribution of fliers to asylum-seekers at the border in order to discourage migrants from coming to New York City. Single adults will only be able to stay in shelters for 60 days before having to reapply.
Activists say it's in keeping with this policy shift that the new shelter site — located in Brooklyn's posh Clinton Hill neighborhood — is being referred to as an "emergency respite center," rather than a shelter. It's been touted as a temporary humanitarian aid solution.
NPR spent several days speaking to asylum seekers who say conditions in the building are dire. Many described zones of 80 to 90 people sharing two bathrooms. A 26-year-old man named Deivy says he's fleeing armed conflict in Colombia and that he's been living in the shelter for over a week.
He asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retaliation. Deivy says fighting over use of the bathroom facilities is common and showering is an odyssey. Parked outside, two trailers with showers serve the entire building.
"It's bad in there," says one Mauritanian man named Neimar, who also asked that his last name be withheld for fear he'd be in trouble with shelter authorities. Sitting listlessly on a nearby park bench, Neimar describes the experience as a sort of limbo. "We had no life where we came from, but here we have no luck here. No clothing. No food. Nothing."
Lack of access to food is one of the most common complaints. On a recent day shelter occupants say lunch consists of a bag of chips and a water. Often the food has gone bad.
What troubles many people here the most is the security guards. "They treat us like animals," says Neimar. "As if we were not people."
In interviews with more than two dozen people, nearly everyone recounted experiencing physical harassment and verbal slights at the shelter. "I understand enough English to know I'm being insulted," says Deivy.
NPR reached out to the New York City government multiple times for comment on these accusations without response.
Advocates say shelters like this one are disheartening, especially given that New York has long been seen as a beacon for immigrants. "For at least 40 years, New York City has provided a right to shelter to all people — regardless of their immigration status — who need a place to stay for the night," says Columbia University Professor Elora Mukherjee, who studies immigration and law. She called the shift in policy "devastating."
For many migrants and asylum seekers, this Brooklyn location is not the first encounter with the New York shelter system. But it does feel like the last straw. Several described the situation at this new site so dire, they would rather sleep under a nearby highway overpass. Others have no choice but to join a homeless camp of nearly 20 men.
Among them is Jose Antonio. He says he left Venezuela to escape government harassment. "Eighty people using two bathrooms?" he says. "It's a health hazard." When he arrived at the shelter a few weeks ago, it was under construction, still lacking lights. After an altercation over bathroom access in the morning, he says, he was asked to leave. He now he sleeps outside. During the day, he works odd landscaping gigs.
The motto down here: stay working.
But the question of work and who is allowed to do it is where the federal immigration bureaucracy labyrinth gets even more complicated. The soonest an asylum seeker can get a work permit is six months after they apply for asylum. That's a process that can in turn take years.
"The Mayor does make a good point when he says that the city needs help. And that help should take various forms," said Professor Elora Mukherjee. The city, she says, needs the federal government to lend their authority. "First and foremost: the federal government should authorize asylum seekers to receive their lawful work organization as soon as they enter the United States and fill out the relevant paperwork."
There's no indication that this will happen anytime soon. Instead, many men rent scooters in order to work for food delivery apps. By noon on a recent day, the dinging sound of orders start echoing under the bridge.
The men head out.
It's a dystopian scene: asylum seekers, staying in a shelter and under a bridge, delivering pricey meals throughout New York.
A few days later, the police sweep the camp. For several hours the men say they are driven around the city on a bus and taken to two different shelters where they are turned away.
Eventually, the bus drops them off in Brooklyn again. The men walk back to the highway overpass and to the camp where they find many of their belongings are now missing. One man reports his immigration papers, cellphone, and clothing all gone.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/as-nyc-limits-access-to-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-many-are-left-homeless | 2023-07-29T10:26:49 | 0 | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/as-nyc-limits-access-to-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-many-are-left-homeless |
Saints Odds to Make Playoffs and Win Super Bowl
At +4000, the New Orleans Saints are No. 15 in the league in terms of Super Bowl-winning odds as of December 31.
Watch the Saints this season on Fubo!
Saints Super Bowl Odds
- Odds to Win the NFC South: +125
- Odds to Win the Super Bowl: +4000
Looking to place a futures bet on the Saints to win the Super Bowl this season? Head to BetMGM using our link and enter the bonus code "GNPLAY" for special offers!
New Orleans Betting Insights
- New Orleans compiled a 6-10-0 record against the spread last season.
- Saints games went over the point total six out of 17 times last season.
- New Orleans ranked 19th in total offense this year (333.8 yards per game), but it played really well on the defensive side of the ball, ranking fifth-best in the with 333.8 yards allowed per game.
- The Saints put up a 4-5 record at home and were 3-5 on the road last season.
- New Orleans picked up four wins as the favorite in six games last season, and was victorious twice (in 10 opportunities) as an underdog.
- The Saints won just twice in the NFC South (2-4) and went 5-7 in the NFC overall.
Saints Impact Players
- Derek Carr had 24 TD passes and 14 interceptions in 15 games for the Raiders last year, completing 60.8% of his throws for 3,522 yards (234.8 per game).
- Jamaal Williams rushed for 1,066 yards (62.7 per game) and 17 touchdowns in 17 games for the Lions last season.
- In 15 games a season ago, Alvin Kamara ran for 897 yards (59.8 per game) and two TDs.
- Taysom Hill had nine catches for 77 yards (4.8 per game) and two touchdowns in 16 games.
- Demario Davis posted one interception to go with 109 tackles, 9.0 TFL, 6.5 sacks, and six passes defended in 17 games last year.
Bet on Saints to win the Super Bowl and plenty more with BetMGM. Head to BetMGM using our link and enter the bonus code "GNPLAY" for special offers!
2023-24 Saints NFL Schedule
Odds are current as of July 29 at 5:21 AM ET. Not all offers available in all states, please visit BetMGM for the latest promotions for your area. Must be 21+ to gamble, please wager responsibly. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, contact 1-800-GAMBLER.
© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kalb.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/saints-nfl-playoffs-super-bowl-odds/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:50 | 0 | https://www.kalb.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/saints-nfl-playoffs-super-bowl-odds/ |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A merger that would have created one of the largest health service companies in the Upper Midwest has been scrapped.
Minneapolis-based Fairview Health Services and Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Sanford Health announced Thursday that they would not proceed with the merger they had been discussing since late last year. It would have created a system with more than 50 hospitals and about 78,000 employees.
This is the second time in a decade that the two companies considered a merger but failed to complete it, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
The latest attempt drew fierce opposition at the University of Minnesota, which has a partnership with Fairview. The university sold its teaching hospital to Fairview in 1997 and opposed the idea of an out-of-state entity owning the University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis. The merged system would have been based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota’s largest city.
Statements from the two companies’ CEOs stated that without support from stakeholders, it was determined that the merger couldn’t move forward.
The companies first considered merging in 2013 but met with strong political opposition.
Minnesota lawmakers this spring gave the state attorney general additional power to scrutinize health care mergers, including the Sanford-Fairview proposal.
The affiliation between Fairview and the University of Minnesota includes financial support from Fairview for the school’s academic medicine mission. This agreement continues through 2026, but both parties have an option to signal by the end of this year if they want to end the partnership. Fairview has said the current agreements are not financially sustainable. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-merger-talks-end-between-large-health-care-systems-in-minnesota-south-dakota/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:50 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-merger-talks-end-between-large-health-care-systems-in-minnesota-south-dakota/ |
LIMA, Peru — Although the top tourist destination in Peru is the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, high in the Andes Mountains, the capital Lima also holds a treasure trove of ancient ruins — so many, in fact, that authorities can't take care of them all.
The city is home to more than 400 known pyramids, temples and burial sites, many of which predate the Incas and and are known in Spanish as "huacas." They sit next to modern shopping centers, hotels and highways or rise up in the middle of neighborhoods in this city of 11 million people. Meanwhile, archaeologists keep digging up new sites.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Peruvian president who lives across the street from a pyramid called Huallamarca, built around 1,800 years ago, says with a smile: "I know where I am when I wake up in the morning. I'm in Peru!"
Due mostly to budget limitations, Huallamarca is one of only 27 sites in Lima that have been excavated, restored and opened to visitors, according to archaeologists who spoke with NPR.
Many other sites are deteriorating. Squatters have occupied some, and others have become de facto garbage dumps or gathering spots for drug users and homeless people.
"Everywhere you dig, you will find something — because Lima was home to great civilizations," says Micaela Álvarez, director of the museum at Pucllana, a massive pyramid in Lima's business district of Miraflores. "But it's impossible to save everything in a poor country."
Pucllana is one of the exceptions.
Thought to be about 1,500 years old, the pyramid was a ceremonial site for the Lima Indigenous group that gave this city its name. Excavations began in 1981 and continue today.
On a recent morning, workers scraped sand and dirt from part of the site that archaeologists are beginning to explore for the first time. Nearby, guides pointed to the intricate brickwork, which has withstood earthquakes, and then led visitors to the top of the 82-foot-tall pyramid for views of the Pacific Ocean.
Among the visitors was Manuel Larrabure, a professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania who was born and raised in Lima but had never been to Pucllana.
"It's very impressive," he said. "The tendency is to look outside of Lima for interesting things, but it's good to look inside and to appreciate our own culture. People are still getting to know these sites."
Before it was restored following the start of excavations some 40 years ago, Pucllana was routinely looted and abused. At one point, a factory was using Pucllana's sand and clay to make bricks. Tour guide Blanca Arista says the pyramid also served as a neighborhood playground — and a motocross track.
"It's unbelievable, but several groups were practicing motocross," she said. "So, imagine different groups riding motorcycles, riding bikes."
Indeed, Lima's ancient Indigenous sites have, more often, been desecrated instead of safeguarded, says Giancarlo Marcone, a Peruvian archaeologist and professor at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lima.
Some were bulldozed to make way for apartment blocks and streets amid a wave of migration from the countryside that began in the 1950s.
"That put a lot of pressure on the city, and we didn't have good planning," Marcone says. "Until recently, we didn't really care about what we had."
Attitudes shifted as Peruvians became more sensitive to their cultural heritage and the country's ancient sites began to attract more international tourists. Janie Gómez, who until April was deputy culture minister, said the government of President Dina Boluarte is committed to preserving these sites.
"Their recovery will prevent them from deteriorating and being invaded," she told the state-run Andina news agency in January. "The millennial history over which Lima was built must not be lost."
However, Peru is struggling to reduce poverty and improve hospitals and schools, Marcone says. Thus, governments have been unable or unwilling to finance robust excavations or to turn more than a few sites into tourist attractions. The result is that many have been left in limbo.
Rosa María Barillas, a Peruvian archaeology student who recently completed fieldwork at an ancient temple on the outskirts of Lima, recalls looters prowling the area.
"I had to chase them away," she says.
Other sites have been colonized by squatters. The archaeological complex at Mateo Salado, near Lima's international airport, features a beautifully restored 1,000-year-old pyramid, but is also home to several modern houses. Until 2013, when major restoration work began, farmers used the site to cultivate roses and neighborhood kids played soccer there.
In the working-class neighborhood of Los Olivos, a dusty, dun-colored archaeological site called Infantas I is hemmed in by streets and houses. Ashes from a campfire are smoldering while trash piles up in several areas. Three youths are smoking crack, and a shirtless man is digging up sand and putting it in sacks. The area is part of a series of temples, but has yet to be excavated.
Benito Trejo, who heads the neighborhood committee, calls Infantas I a headache.
"It's not a good thing, because these sites are ignored by the government which is supposed to look after them," he says.
There was no response to NPR's requests for comment from the Culture Ministry.
For now, archaeologists say that surrounding communities must get more involved in preserving and promoting the sites. Pucllana, for example, has been used for art exhibits, while other sites have hosted film screenings.
At Mateo Salado, fifth graders were recently visiting the site and drawing pictures of the ruins, which are part of their school logo.
"We shouldn't look at these sites simply as relics of the past," says Andrés Ramírez, one of the instructors. "They should be part of everyday society. That's what we are trying to promote."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/in-peru-discovery-of-ancient-ruins-outpaces-authorities-ability-to-care-for-them | 2023-07-29T10:26:55 | 0 | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/in-peru-discovery-of-ancient-ruins-outpaces-authorities-ability-to-care-for-them |
NEW YORK (AP) — Procter & Gamble reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter profits and revenue, showing that the appetite for established brands like Crest toothpaste, Tide detergent and Charmin toilet paper is still strong even as the consumer products company pushes up prices.
P&G increased prices by about 7% across various brands from the same period last year, less than the 10% increase in third quarter. Global volume fell 1% in the quarter, however, still an improvement over a 3% drop in volume during the third quarter, and a 6% drop in the second quarter.
During a call with analysts Friday, Chairman and CEO Jon Moeller said higher prices are tied to company innovations and aren’t going away.
Examples include Cruiser 360 diapers, made for babies that move around a lot. Sales have increased 33% over the past 12 months, according to Andre Schulten, the company’s chief financial officer. And a detox body wash sold in China called Safeguard goes for twice the market average price. Sales have almost doubled in the past year.
“When you have a strong innovation program, it compels consumers to try even better performing products,” Moeller said.
During the fourth quarter prices for fabric care, as well as home and health care, went up 6% and grooming products rose 9%. Beauty items rose 8%.
Pricing has been a boost to sales growth in nearly all of P&G’s past 51 quarters, Moeller said.
The easing of volume declines may be encouraging news for P&G and other producers after recent evidence of a pushback by shoppers to seemingly relentless price hikes coming from a broad spectrum of retailers and companies the make products for them.
Conagra Brands, which makes Slim Jim beef jerky, Duncan Hines cake mix and more, said this month that smaller price increases have not translated to higher sales volume. The company raised prices 15% in the quarter before that and it didn’t dent demand.
Also this month, PepsiCo said higher prices lifted the company’s revenue in the second quarter but snack food volumes fell 3% in the April-June period, while beverage volumes dropped 1%. The company said that price increases could start to moderate in the second half of this year.
Overall inflation continues to slow and on Friday, the U.S. reported that the consumer price index, which is followed closely because it accounts for changes in how people shop when inflation jumps, rose in June at the slowest pace in more than two years.
Procter & Gamble Co., based in Cincinnati, reported net income of $3.39 billion, or $1.37 per share, in the quarter ended June 30. That compares with $3.06 billion, or $1.21 per share, in the year-ago quarter.
Sales rose 5% to $20.6 billion from $19.51 billion in the quarter.
Analysts were expecting $1.32 per share on sales of $20.01 billion, according to FactSet.
P&G expects fiscal 2024 sales growth in the range of 3% to 4% versus the prior year. The company expects organic sales growth, which excludes deals and currency moves, to be in the range of 4% to 5%.
P&G expects net earnings per share growth in the range of 6% to 9% for the current year. This outlook equates to a range of $6.25 to $6.43 per share, with a mid-point estimate of $6.34, or an increase of 7.5%. Analysts were expecting $6.37 per share.
Shares rose more than 3% Friday.
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Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-pgs-better-than-expected-4q-results-show-consumers-appetite-for-iconic-brands-despite-price-hikes/ | 2023-07-29T10:26:57 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-pgs-better-than-expected-4q-results-show-consumers-appetite-for-iconic-brands-despite-price-hikes/ |
The numbers are in and things look surprisingly rosy for the U.S. economy:
The Federal Reserve is still cautious, but big brands – including Coca-Cola, Hilton and Visa — are singing praises to shoppers seemingly undeterred by companies' raising prices. What's more, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Barbie are enticing people to part with their money, bolstering local businesses.
Financial reports by corporations and government data have been painting a picture this month of insatiable American shoppers making companies positively exuberant.
This week, GDP or gross domestic product – considered the measure of economic growth – showed the U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.4%, much higher than expected. What's fueling it is — you guessed it — spending. Brand after brand this week boosted their earnings forecasts for the year, calling consumers "resilient" in the face of higher prices.
The 'she-conomy' takes center stage
Americans have been scaling back in some categories, including clothing and furniture, but we're splurging on travel. We're also going out to eat, and see concerts and movies. You could call it the Barbie bump.
Plus, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have been moving markets, quite literally. The Federal Reserve has tracked the striking effect of Taylor Swift's tour on host cities. One analysis estimates it could generate almost $5 billion in global revenue. When Beyoncé comes to town, hotels, hair stylists and bartenders all get a boost, according to Yelp.
Southwest Airlines this week reported record revenue. Hilton executives said people were spending more across all its hotels, from the humbler Garden Inn to the upscale Waldorf Astoria, with business travel picking up and overall demand exceeding available rooms. Hotel prices have been setting records too.
"Not to be a Pollyanna at all, it all feels pretty good. ... I think the rest of this year's going to be very solid," Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta told analysts on Wednesday. "And I think next year will be a darn good year."
Companies test price limits in a 'Hot Profit Summer'
Higher prices showed up as good news in corporate reports across the board. Among them was Hershey (whose brands include Reese's and Skinny Pop). The company said people were buying slightly fewer snacks and candies, but its profits rose almost 30% anyway. A similar thing happened at Procter & Gamble (which makes Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste) and Colgate-Palmolive.
Coca-Cola, like rival Pepsi, reported that shoppers remained loyal to brand-name soda despite several rounds of price hikes.
Corporate execs offered many explanations for those hikes, including higher wages and other costs, such as sugar and corn syrup. Chipotle said it was still spending more on beef, tortillas, salsa, beans and rice, and did not rule out additional price hikes later in the year.
Is a spending hangover on the way?
So how are shoppers paying for all of this? Part of it is going on credit cards; the Federal Reserve Bank of New York saying credit card debt is at a record high. Banks report families are dipping into or even draining their pandemic-era savings.
But there's more to the story: A lot of workers have gotten raises recently. For the first time in months, our wages are outpacing inflation, as employers continue to compete for workers. This, in fact, raises the specter of the notorious wage-price spiral, with companies citing higher labor costs as a major cause of higher prices, and then workers pointing to those rising prices as proof they need higher pay.
Still, it seems like the pace of those raises is slowing down, which could signal that the labor market is softening. This is good news for inflation – which is now at 3% versus last year's 9% – but not enough for the Fed to ease up. It raised interest rates again this week, to a 22-year high.
"Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year," Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters, explaining the decision. "Nonetheless, the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go."
While the economy has remained strong amid months of interest rate hikes — and the unemployment rate near a record low at 3.6% — the effects of the Fed's actions could still be coming.
If they can cool off the economy just enough to stop companies from raising prices, but not so much that they lay off workers, the Fed will have achieved what economists call a soft landing.
"We're not there yet," said KPMG Chief Economist Diane Swonk. "The hope is certainly high that we could get there."
NPR's David Gura contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/what-recession-its-a-summer-of-splurging-profits-and-girl-power | 2023-07-29T10:27:01 | 0 | https://www.wlrn.org/npr-breaking-news/2023-07-29/what-recession-its-a-summer-of-splurging-profits-and-girl-power |
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s lawmakers voted Friday to approve an amended but divisive law on Russian influences believed to be targeting the opposition and criticized by the U.S. and the European Union.
The law was proposed in May by Poland’s ruling right-wing Law and Justice party and critics see it as primarily targeting opposition leader and former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, before a parliamentary election scheduled for this fall. Following criticism, President Andrzej Duda proposed urgent amendments to tone it down.
The lower house, or Sejm, voted 235-214 with four abstentions to reject the Senate’s veto to the draft law amended by Duda. It only now requires Duda’s signature to take effect.
The amended bill calls for a commission to check whether between 2007 and 2022 politicians have taken decisions under Russia’s influence that could threaten Poland’s security. Duda has said it is needed for transparency’s sake and to prevent Russia from influencing Poland’s stability in the future.
Poland is supporting neighboring Ukraine to fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion and is supplying weapons, humanitarian aid and political backing for Kyiv. That has drawn harsh comments from Moscow.
The previous, more restrictive law is currently in effect, but the commission members haven’t been chosen yet.
When it takes effect, the law will create a powerful committee by experts but not lawmakers to investigate Russian influence in Poland and name politicians who allegedly allowed them, thus barring them in practice from holding public positions. However, critics say it is primarily targeting Tusk, who also served as a top EU official.
Law and Justice accuses Tusk of having been too friendly toward Russia and President Vladimir Putin as prime minister between 2007 and 2014, and making gas deals favorable to Moscow before he went to Brussels to be the president of the European Council between 2014 and 2019.
Law and Justice party leader Jarosław Kaczyński and Tusk are longtime political rivals.
Critics say the law violates the Polish Constitution and could keep government opponents from holding public office by having a negative effect on their eligibility, especially in a parliamentary election later this year. Amendments by Duda, who holds a law doctorate, allowed for the commission verdict to be appealed to court.
The U.S. State Department and EU authorities have strongly criticized the law in its first version and expressed concerns about Poland’s democracy. The 27-member EU, which Poland joined in 2004, also threatened to take measures, if it became fully clear that such a law would undermine democratic standards.
When Duda proposed the amendments in June, he also bowed partially to critics and sent the bill to the Constitutional Tribunal for a review for conformity with the supreme law. That verdict is still pending. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-polands-lawmakers-approve-a-divisive-law-on-russian-influence/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:04 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-polands-lawmakers-approve-a-divisive-law-on-russian-influence/ |
An attorney for Bryan Kohberger is asking the Latah County District judge to dismiss the grand jury indictment that led to the quadruple murder suspect’s arraignment.
In a 22-page motion filed Tuesday, attorney Jay Logsdon argued the grand jury was misled about the standard of proof required for an indictment.
Kohberger, the former Monroe County resident, faces four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary in the November stabbing deaths of University of Idaho students Kaylee Goncalves, Madison Mogen, Xana Kernodle and Ethan Chapin. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
The grand jury indictment led to his arraignment in May in Latah County District Court. Kohberger chose to stand silent rather than enter a plea during that arraignment. District Judge John Judge entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Logsdon argued the grand jury was not instructed to find the burden of proof for an indictment, but instead was told to find a lesser burden of proof, which is only appropriate for a preliminary hearing.
“Because the grand jury in this matter was only informed of the improper standard, it was a fundamental error, necessarily depriving Mr. Kohberger of an essential right,” Logsdon wrote.
Logsdon said the indictment should be dismissed or the case should be remanded to magistrate court for a preliminary hearing.
Kohberger’s other attorney, Anne Taylor, also alleged the grand jury was not selected properly and filed a motion to stay court proceedings.
Her motion stated the grand jury selection process failed Idaho code requiring jury candidates to be randomly drawn from a county jury list and “that the jury commissioner shall draw a requisite number of qualified jurors for one or more panels or for a grand jury.”
She also suggested there was an error regarding the qualification questionnaire form that jurors must fill out.
Because of these failures, she wrote, Kohberger requests a stay of proceedings so further investigation can be done.
Latah County Prosecutor Bill Thompson filed a motion this week stating Kohberger did not comply with Idaho code regarding an alibi defense. The suspect was supposed to provide an alibi by July 24, which was the deadline both Thompson and the defense agreed to.
An alibi defense means there is evidence that Kohberger was somewhere other than the crime scene when the murders were committed.
Thompson stated Kohberger’s attorneys did not specify where he was at the time of the murders. The suspect also did not provide the names and address of witnesses that can support his alibi defense.
Since Kohberger’s jury trial is scheduled for October, Thompson said his office needs this information so it has time to investigate the evidence.
“Any further delays will substantially prejudice the State’s rights,” Thompson wrote.
Thompson is responding to a court document filed earlier this week by Taylor. In that document Taylor did not provide specific details about an alibi, but stated: “Evidence corroborating Mr. Kohberger being at a location other than the King Road address will be disclosed pursuant to discovery and evidentiary rules as well as statutory requirements.”
Latah County District Court has scheduled a hearing Aug. 18 to discuss multiple issues, including Kohberger’s alibi defense and Judge’s order to stay time for Kohberger’s speedy trial.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. | https://www.mcall.com/2023/07/29/bryan-kohbergers-defense-team-seeks-dismissal-of-indictment/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:06 | 0 | https://www.mcall.com/2023/07/29/bryan-kohbergers-defense-team-seeks-dismissal-of-indictment/ |
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin courted leaders from Africa at a summit on Friday, hailing the continent’s growing role in global affairs and offering to expand political and business ties.
Addressing the Russia-Africa summit for a second day, Putin said Moscow would closely analyze a peace proposal for Ukraine that African leaders have sought to pursue.
“This is an acute issue, and we aren’t evading its consideration,” the Russian leader said, emphasizing that his government was treating the African initiative with respect and “looking at it attentively.”
He encouraged the African leaders to talk to Ukraine, which has refused to engage in talks until Russian troops pull back. “I believe it’s necessary to also talk to the other side, although we are grateful to our African friends for their attention to the issue,” Putin said at the St. Petersburg summit.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said African leaders were looking forward to engaging further with Putin later Friday on their peace proposal.
“It is our hope that constructive engagement and negotiation can bring about an end to the ongoing conflict,” Ramaphosa, who leads sub-Saharan Africa’s most developed country, said, adding in South Africa, “our own history has taught us that this is indeed possible.”
Without specifically mentioning the fighting in Ukraine, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni denounced those who foment ideologically-driven military conflicts as “time and opportunity wasters,” adding that “human history will move on, whether they like it or not.”
“The only justified wars are the just wars, like the anti-colonial wars,” Museveni said. “Wars of hegemony will fail and waste time and opportunity. Dialogue is the correct way.”
In the public portion of a late night meeting Friday about the peace proposal, Putin repeated to the African leaders his explanations for the conflict’s origins and Russia’s actions in it, without giving any specific reaction to their suggestions. The African leaders said they expected to hear Putin’s detailed reactions in a subsequent closed part of the meeting.
In his speech, Putin reaffirmed his pledge that Russia will maintain steady supplies of grain and other agricultural products to the continent after its withdrawal from a deal allowing grain shipments from Ukraine. Moscow’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative has fueled concerns of a global food crisis.
“Russia will always be a responsible international supplier of agricultural products and will continue to support the countries and region in need by offering free grain and other supplies,” the Russian leader said.
He declared at the summit’s opening Thursday that Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Central African Republic each will receive 25,000 to 50,000 tons of Russian grain in the next three to four months.
In comparison, the U.N. World Food Program shipped 725,000 tons of grain to several countries, including Somalia, under the Black Sea deal.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres responded to Putin’s pledge of no-cost grain shipments by noting that such donations of grain can’t compensate for the impact of Moscow cutting off grain exports from Ukraine, which along with Russia is a top supplier to the world market.
Guterres said the U.N. was in contact with Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and other countries to try to reestablish the year-old agreement, under which Ukraine exported more than 32 million tons of grain. The resumption of shipments from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports allowed global food prices to drop significantly from the levels they reached after Putin sent troops into the neighboring country.
The deal brokered a year ago by the U.N. and Turkey reopened Ukrainian Black Sea ports blocked by fighting and provided assurances that ships entering them wouldn’t be attacked. Russia declined to renew the agreement last week, complaining that its own exports were being held up.
Putin used the summit to repeat his accusations against the West of obstructing the export of Russian grain and fertilizers, including proposed no-cost supplies of fertilizers to Africa.
The Russia-Africa summit marks a renewed Kremlin effort to bolster ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people that is increasingly assertive on the global stage. Africa’s 54 nations make up the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and have been more divided than any other region on General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Only 17 heads of state were at the summit, compared to 43 at the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019, a sharp drop in attendance that the Kremlin has attributed to what it described as “outrageous” Western pressure to discourage African countries from showing up.
Putin hailed Africa’s role in the emerging “multipolar world order,” noting that “the era of hegemony of one or several countries is receding into the past, albeit not without resistance on the part of those who got used to their own uniqueness and monopoly in global affairs.”
“Russia and Africa are united by an innate desire to defend true sovereignty and the right to their own distinctive path of development in the political, economic, social, cultural and other spheres,” he said.
He said Russia plans to expand trade and economic ties with Africa and continue efforts to relieve their debt burden by writing off another $90 million of their debts.
Putin noted that Moscow also stands ready to bolster defense ties with African countries by helping train their military and expanding supplies of military equipment, some of them on a no-cost basis.
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This story corrects the amount that Ukraine exported under the Black Sea deal to 32 million tons.
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Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Cara Anna in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-putin-woos-african-leaders-at-a-summit-in-russia-with-promises-of-expanding-trade-and-other-ties/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:11 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-putin-woos-african-leaders-at-a-summit-in-russia-with-promises-of-expanding-trade-and-other-ties/ |
Q: My vegetable garden is totally taken over by those wild violets. I keep pulling and they keep growing. Endless job. I am planning to weed and turn over the garden and weed again. I’ve heard that the best time to spray to kill the wild violets is in late fall. My question is if I do spray in the fall — what should I use so that I can plant the vegetables again in the spring. Is it safe to spray weed killer and plant in the spring? Thanks
— Ed Frack
These cute little plants can be a nightmare for both lawn and vegetable/flower garden lovers. The sweet things are very invasive and very difficult to remove. They spread by seed and underground root. Digging, as Ed mentions is tedious and at best, a long-term, perhaps lifetime, job. However, it is one of the environmental safest and best choices, particularly in areas where edible plants will be grown.
If you must use an herbicide, select one that specifically targets wild violets, follow all instructions and use as little as possible. Wild violets are perennial, increasing removal difficulties as you must fight not only the new ones, but any old plants or bits of roots you missed the previous season. The leaves have a waxy layer that provides protection from many herbicides.
The best time to deal with violets is in the spring or fall. I found no agreement on which is better. However, fall would seem the best for any area that you plan to grow in the spring. Spot application is highly recommended but seems almost as intensive as digging each one out.
You need a post-emergent herbicide to be effective; one specially listing safe for food gardens. A nonspecific broadleaf herbicide, such as glyphosate, must be applied to the stem/leaf of the offending intruder. Any overspray will affect nearby plants so always use on a day with no breezes. Note that this is a systemic herbicide, although listed for use on food crops, it is known to carry risks to the health of wildlife and people. Personally, I don’t use glyphosate and generally avoid chemical solutions on anything I intend to eat but that is a personal choice. Vinegar (at least 5% acetic acid) is one of my favorite solutions but is only effective on young plants. An excellent overview of weed eradication in the vegetable garden is available from the University of Georgia Extension, Weed Control Options for the Vegetable Gardener (https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C1144&title=weed-control-options-for-the-home-vegetable-gardener)
In the Garden
The most important task in our garden this week has been eliminating standing water. It is surprising how many places rainfall can collect. We found a major source in a poorly aligned gutter. It forms a puddle, used as a birdbath, just before the downspout. We have contacted the gentleman who keeps our gutters clear to adjust the offending gutter and eliminate that problem.
Week in the Garden
Planting: Plant but protect from heat: late-season cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, peas and broccoli for late summer or early fall harvest. Sow seeds that require a cold period for germination, i.e., poppies. Start thinking about adding asters and mums to your fall display, either in the garden or as part of a container display. Hold new plants until the weather cools. Gather pots together to make watering easier.
Seasonal: Stake tall flowers and provide supports for vining plants. Allow the final flush of flowers to go to seed. Many provide food for the birds and small mammals during the fall and winter. Take cuttings of those annuals that you want to winter over or other favorite plants that have grown too big to move indoors. Order asparagus, rhubarb, bulbs, flower and fruit plants, and shrubs for fall planting. Shop nurseries for end-of-season bargains or new fall arrivals. Weed often and cut off flowers of any weeds you don’t get pulled out. Deadhead flowers and trim damaged, diseased and dead foliage to keep beds tidy and encourage reblooming. In particular, keep irises and daylilies from forming seedpods. Allow peony greens to grow until fall and then cut back. Prune summer-flowering shrubs about two weeks after flowering. Apply corn gluten based weed control in the garden and establish a schedule for reapplication, usually at four to six week intervals
Lawn: Purchase seed for fall lawn projects and broadleaf weed control. Plan sodding projects and order sod for early fall installation. Treat for chinch bugs and sod webworms. Purchase fertilizer and, if desired, apply now until mid October. Cut as needed, based on growth not schedule, to a height of about 2 ½ to 3 inches tall. Use a sharp blade. Keep newly seeded or sodded lawns watered; supplement rain in weeks where less than an inch. Apply preemergent crabgrass control. Fill in holes and low spots in lawn. Apply corn gluten based weed control in the garden; reapply at four to six week intervals.
Chores: Start getting plants ready to bring in. Repot those that need it and pot up those you want to winter over indoors. Harvest crops regularly, at least every other day. Check hoses; replace washers and correct leaky connections. Dump standing water and remove anything that may collect rainwater to help control mosquito populations. Check seed inventory for late crops and fall planting. Water any recent plantings and containers anytime we experience a week with less than an inch of rain. Note damaged caulking around doors and windows. Provide deer, rabbit and groundhog protection for vulnerable plants. Reapply taste or scent deterrents. Clear gutters and direct rainwater runoff away from house foundations.
Tools, equipment, and supplies: Check spring equipment and supplies, repair or replace. Sharpen blades, get fresh gas, check and/or replace oil. Send mowers and tractors for tune-up or repair.
Safety: Clear lawns of debris before mowing and make sure pets, children and others are well away from the area being mown. Store garden chemicals indoors away from pets and children. Discard outdated ones at local chemical collection events. Photograph storm damage before clearing or repairing for insurance claims and file promptly. Anytime you are outside and the temperatures are about 50 F or warmer watch for tick bites. Use an insect repellent containing Deet on the skin. Apply a permethrin product to clothing. Wear light-colored clothing, long sleeves, hats and long pants when working in the garden. Stay hydrated. Drink water or other non-caffeinated, nonalcoholic beverages. Even in cold weather, apply sunscreen, wear hats and limit exposure to sun. Wear closed-toe shoes and gloves; use eye protection; and use ear protection when using any loud power tools.
Sue Kittek is a freelance garden columnist, writer, and lecturer. Send questions to Garden Keeper at grdnkpr@gmail.com or mail: Garden Keeper, The Morning Call, PO Box 1260, Allentown, PA 18105. | https://www.mcall.com/2023/07/29/garden-keeper-eliminating-wild-violets-from-a-vegetable-garden/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:12 | 1 | https://www.mcall.com/2023/07/29/garden-keeper-eliminating-wild-violets-from-a-vegetable-garden/ |
By The Associated Press
The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.05 billion Friday night, only the fifth time in the history of the game that the grand prize has reached into the billions.
No one managed to beat the massive odds and match all six numbers for Friday’s estimated $940 million jackpot. The numbers drawn were: 5, 10, 28, 52, 63 and the gold ball 18.
There have been 29 straight draws without a Mega Millions jackpot winner since the last grand prize ticket on 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.
The potential jackpot is the fourth-largest in the game and the fifth over $1 billion, Mega Millions said in a statement early Saturday.
Although there were no jackpot winners, one ticket in Pennsylvania was worth $5 million and another in the state connected for $1 million. There also were $1 million winners in Arizona, California and New York, Mega Millions said.
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.mcall.com/2023/07/29/mega-millions-jackpot-climbs-to-1-05-billion-after-another-drawing-without-a-big-winner/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:18 | 0 | https://www.mcall.com/2023/07/29/mega-millions-jackpot-climbs-to-1-05-billion-after-another-drawing-without-a-big-winner/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — The fate of U.S. trucking company Yellow Corp. isn’t looking good.
After years of financial struggles, Yellow is reportedly preparing for bankruptcy and seeing customers leave in large numbers — heightening risk for future liquidation. While no official decision has been announced by the company, the prospect of bankruptcy has renewed attention around Yellow’s ongoing negotiations with unionized workers, a $700 million pandemic-era loan from the government and other bills the trucker has racked up over time.
Yellow, formerly known as YRC Worldwide Inc., is one of the nation’s largest less-than-truckload carriers. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company has some 30,000 employees across the country.
Here’s what you need to know.
Not yet. But industry experts suspect that a bankruptcy filing could come any day now.
People familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that the company could seek bankruptcy protection as soon as this week — with some noting that a significant amount of customers have already started to leave the carrier.
Meanwhile, according to FreightWaves, employees were told to expect the filing Monday. Yellow laid off an unknown number of employees Friday, the outlet later reported, citing a memo that stated the company was “shutting down its regular operations.”
According to Satish Jindel, president of transportation and logistics firm SJ Consulting, Yellow handled an average of 49,000 shipments per day in 2022. As of this week, he estimates that number is down to between 10,000 and 15,000 daily shipments.
With customers leaving — as well reports of Yellow stopping freight pickups earlier this week — bankruptcy would “be the end of Yellow,” Jindel told The Associated Press, noting increased risk for liquidation.
“The likelihood of them surviving and remaining solvent diminishes really by the day,” added Bruce Chan, a research director at investment banking firm Stifel.
Yellow media contacts did not immediately respond to the Associated Press’ requests for comment on Friday. In a Wednesday statement to The Journal, the company said it was continuing “to prepare for a range of contingencies.” On Thursday, Yellow said it was in talks with multiple parties about selling its third-party logistics organization.
Even if Yellow was able to sell its logistics firm, it would “not generate a sufficient amount of cash to keep them operational on any sort of permanent basis,” Chan said. “Without a major equity injection, it would be very difficult for them to survive.”
As of late March, Yellow had an outstanding debt of about $1.5 billion. Of that, $729.2 million was owed to the federal government.
In 2020, under the Trump administration, the Treasury Department granted the company a $700 million pandemic-era loan on national security grounds. Last month, a congressional probe concluded that the Treasury and Defense Departments “made missteps” in this decision — and noted that Yellow’s “precarious financial position at the time of the loan, and continued struggles, expose taxpayers to a significant risk of loss.”
The government loan is due in September 2024. As of March, Yellow had made $54.8 million in interest payments and repaid just $230 million of the principal owed, according to government documents.
Yellow’s current finances and prospect of bankruptcy “is probably two decades in the making,” Chan said, pointing to poor management and strategic decisions dating back to the early 2000s. “At this point, after each party has bailed them out so many times, there is a limited appetite to do that anymore.”
In May, Yellow reported a loss of $54.6 million, a decline of $1.06 per share, for its first quarter of 2023. Operating revenue was about $1.16 billion in the period.
A Wednesday investors note from financial service firm Stephens estimated that Yellow could be burning between $9 million and $10 million each day. Using a liquidity disclosure from earlier this month, Yellow had roughly $100 million in cash at the end of June, the note added — estimating that the company has been burning through increasing amounts of money through July.
“It is reasonable to believe that the Company could breach its $35 mil. liquidity requirement at any moment,” Stephens analyst Jack Atkins and associate Grant Smith wrote.
The reports of bankruptcy preparations arrive just days after a strike from the Teamsters, which represents Yellow’s 22,000 unionized workers, was averted.
A series of heated exchanges have built up between the Teamsters and Yellow, who sued the union in June after alleging it was “unjustifiably blocking” restructuring plans needed for the company’s survival. The Teamsters called the litigation “baseless” — with general president Sean O’Brien pointing to Yellow’s “decades of gross mismanagement,” which included exhausting the $700 million federal loan.
On Sunday, a pension fund agreed to extend health benefits for workers at two Yellow Corp. operating companies, averting a strike — and giving Yellow “30 days to pay its bills,” notably $50 million that Yellow failed to pay the Central States Health and Welfare Fund on July 15, the union said. While the strike didn’t occur, talks of a walkout may have caused some Yellow customers to pull back, Chan said.
Talks between Yellow and the Teamsters, which also represents UPS’s unionized workers, are ongoing. The current contract expires in March 2024.
“The financial struggles of Yellow are not related to the union and the contracts,” Jindel said, pointing to management’s responsibility around its services and prices. He added the union wages from Yellow are “lower than any competitor.”
If Yellow files for bankruptcy and customers continue to take their shipments to other carriers, like FedEx or ABF Freight, prices will go up.
Yellow’s prices have historically been the cheapest compared to other carriers, Jindel said. “That’s why they obviously were not making money,” he added. “And while there is capacity with the other LTL carriers to handle the diversions from Yellow, it will come at a high price for (current shippers and customers) of Yellow.”
Chan adds that we’re in an interesting time for the LTL marketplace — noting that, if Yellow declares bankruptcy and liquidates, “the freight would find a home” with other carriers, which may not have been true in recent years.
“It may take time, but there’s room for it to be absorbed,” he said. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-trucking-company-yellow-corp-is-reportedly-preparing-for-bankruptcy-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:18 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-trucking-company-yellow-corp-is-reportedly-preparing-for-bankruptcy-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ |
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two taxi drivers have been arrested in the Mexican city of Cancun for assaulting a van carrying foreign tourists, prosecutors said Friday.
The events in the Caribbean coast resort on Thursday were the latest in a months-long string of assaults on vehicles that medallion-cab drivers suspect of being operated by ride-hailing apps such as Uber.
Prosecutors in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo said such behavior will not be tolerated.
“Strong action will be taken to ensure that the state is a safe destination for local inhabitants and visitors,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Local residents posted video on social media showing at least two uniformed cab drivers bashing a Chevy Suburban with poles and other objects.
The van driver attempts to escape with the vehicle’s tailgate open, according to the footage, and the tourists’ luggage spills into the street. Three women can later be seen retrieving their luggage from the street.
“What are you doing?” cries one woman in English as belligerent cabbies mill around the scene, carrying what looked like improvised cudgels. “That is not okay.”
A local business owner who filmed the incident invited the women to take refuge in her store. The video shows the taxi drivers chasing the driver of the Suburban down the street until he reached a police officer.
The state prosecutors’ office said two taxi drivers were charged with robbery, and causing damage and injuries.
Local media reported the Suburban was not run through a ride-hailing app but by a local, non-medallion limousine service. Past incidents of taxi drivers attacking private vehicles in Cancun were based on the mistaken assumption they were Uber cars.
Cancun residents organized a boycott of medallion taxis in January following a week of blockades and violent incidents by drivers protesting the ride-hailing app Uber.
Road blockades, stone throwing and cabbies physically getting in the way had prevented tourists from boarding Uber vehicles. The U.S. issued a travel advisory warning that “past disputes between these services and local taxi unions have occasionally turned violent, resulting in injuries to U.S. citizens in some instances.”
Ride-hailing app s were blocked in Cancun until January, when a court granted an injunction allowing Uber to operate. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-two-taxi-drivers-arrested-in-mexican-resort-of-cancun-for-assaulting-van-carrying-foreign-tourists/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:25 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-two-taxi-drivers-arrested-in-mexican-resort-of-cancun-for-assaulting-van-carrying-foreign-tourists/ |
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government wants to raise the fuel economy of new vehicles 18% by the 2032 model year so the fleet would average about 43.5 miles per gallon in real world driving.
The proposed numbers were released Friday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which eventually will adopt final mileage requirements.
Currently the fleet of new vehicles must average 36.75 mpg by 2026 under corporate average fuel economy standards adopted by the administration of President Joe Biden, who reversed a rollback made by former President Donald Trump.
The highway safety agency says it will try to line up its regulations so they match the Environmental Protection Agency’s reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But if there are discrepancies, automakers likely will have to follow the most stringent regulation.
In the byzantine world of government regulation, both agencies essentially are responsible for setting fuel economy requirements since the fastest way to reduce greenhouse emissions is to burn less gasoline.
“I want to make clear that EPA and NHTSA will coordinate to optimize the effectiveness of both agency standards while minimizing compliance costs,” NHTSA Acting Administrator Ann Carlson said.
A large auto industry trade group which includes General Motors, Toyota, Ford, Stellantis and others said requirements from the agencies should be lined up. “If an automaker complies with EPA’s yet-to-be-finalized greenhouse gas emissions rules, they shouldn’t be at risk of violating CAFE rules (from NHTSA) and subject to civil penalties,” John Bozzella, CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement.
However the alliance has said the EPA’s proposed cut in carbon emissions will require a huge increase in electric vehicle sales that’s not attainable by 2032. The EPA says the industry can reach the greenhouse gas emissions goals if 67% of new vehicles sold in 2032 are electric. Currently, EVs make up about 7% of new vehicle sales.
NHTSA said its proposal includes a 2% annual improvement in fuel mileage for passenger cars, and a 4% increase for light trucks. It’s proposing a 10% improvement per year for commercial pickup trucks and work vans. Automakers can meet the requirements with a mix of electric vehicles, gas-electric hybrids and efficiency improvements in gas and diesel vehicles.
The agency says the new regulations will save more than $50 billion on fuel over the vehicles’ lifetimes and save more than 88 billion gallons of gasoline through 2050 if NHTSA’s preferred alternative is adopted. The standards would cut new-vehicle fuel consumption nearly in half by the 2035 model year, and benefits will exceed costs by $18 billion, the agency said.
NHTSA will take comments from the public for 60 days before drafting a final regulation. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-us-proposes-18-fuel-economy-increase-for-new-vehicle-fleet-from-2027-through-2032/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:32 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-us-proposes-18-fuel-economy-increase-for-new-vehicle-fleet-from-2027-through-2032/ |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesotans can legally possess and grow their own marijuana for recreational purposes starting Tuesday, Aug. 1, subject to limits meant to keep a lid on things while the state sets up a full-blown legal cannabis industry.
The Democratic-controlled Minnesota Legislature approved a massive legalization bill and Democrat Gov. Tim Walz signed it in May.
At least one Minnesota tribe plans to take advantage of its sovereignty and allow sales right away. But the state projects most legal retail sales won’t begin until early 2025, while it creates as licensing and regulatory system for the new industry.
Legalization followed a debate between critics who fear for the impacts on public safety and young people, and supporters who argue that prohibition of the drug had failed. Backers of the law framed legalization noted that people of color were more likely than whites to be arrested for minor offenses, and to suffer lasting consequences in employment and housing.
Minnesota is the 23rd state to legalize recreational marijuana, more than a decade after Colorado and Washington did so.
It comes as New York struggles to end the illicit trade while failing to quickly license legal shops with a focus on “social equity” and New Mexico punishes retailers for illegally selling weed sourced from California — amid wider gluts and plummeting prices for pot farmers.
Farmers, like members of the public, can’t legally move cannabis across state lines amid the ongoing federal ban.
Here’s a look at what will and won’t change in Minnesota as of Aug. 1:
WHAT’S LEGAL
Adults 21 and older can possess and travel in the state with 2 ounces of cannabis flower, 8 grams of concentrate and 800 milligrams worth of THC-containing edible products such as gummies and seltzers. They can have up to 2 pounds of cannabis flower at home.
Low-potency edibles made with THC from industrial hemp were legalized last year. They’ve been subject to a 10% marijuana tax since July 1.
That tax will apply to other marijuana products as they become licensed for sales, but not on sovereign tribal lands.
It remains illegal under federal law to bring marijuana in from out of state.
RETAIL WEED
The Red Lake Nation plans to sell recreational marijuana at its existing medical cannabis dispensary starting Aug. 1. But that’s on its remote reservation in northwestern Minnesota. It’s not clear yet if other tribes will follow.
While states like New Mexico managed to legalize and regulate marijuana within a year of legalization, Minnesota will take a bit longer.
Like New York, the Minnesota law gives priority to social equity considerations for awarding licenses. That can mean applicants from low-income areas that have felt disproportionate effects from marijuana being illegal, people whose convictions have been expunged, and military veterans who lost their honorable status due to a marijuana-related offense, to name a few.
That includes a long list of license categories for cannabis-related businesses, with application fees ranging from $250 for delivery services to $10,000 for growers and product manufacturers.
Local governments can’t ban cannabis sales, but they can limit the number of retailers to one per 12,500 residents.
MINNESOTA GROWN
Adults can grow up to eight plants at home, with no more than four flowering at a time. The plants must be grown in an enclosed, locked space that’s not open to public view, whether that’s indoors or in a garden.
Retailers can start selling marijuana seeds if they comply with labeling and other requirements set by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.
WHERE AND WHERE NOT TO TOKE
Cannabis can be legally consumed on private property, including private homes. Eventually it will be allowed at special events where organizers have permits.
But it’s still illegal to smoke or vape cannabis anywhere that tobacco smoking is prohibited, including most businesses, apartment buildings and college campuses. Nothing in the state law prohibits smoking it on a public sidewalk, but local ordinances might.
Cannabis use remains illegal in all forms while driving, in public schools, on school buses, in state prisons, and on federal property. It can’t be smoked or vaped where a minor could inhale it.
GUNS AND GANJA
Federal law still bars cannabis consumers from owning firearms or ammunition.
That’s despite Second Amendment-friendly provisions in the Minnesota law. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has said that regardless of Minnesota’s new law, a “current user” of marijuana is defined as an “unlawful user” for federal purposes. That means people following state law are still prohibited from having guns and ganja.
Gun purchasers must fill out an ATF form saying whether or not they use marijuana. Lying on the form is a felony under federal law.
CLEANING SLATES
Minor marijuana convictions, like possession of small amounts, will began to be automatically expunged starting in August. More than 60,000 Minnesotans could benefit, but the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says the process could take up to a year to clear everyone’s record.
A special Cannabis Expungement Board will be formed to review felony convictions to determine eligibility case by case.
REGULATING IT
The Office of Cannabis Management will oversee the cannabis industry in Minnesota. It’s starting to list job positions, with applications for the office’s first executive director open through July 31.
The office will also take over the running of Minnesota’s medical marijuana program, which won’t be taxed.
Tribal governments will set their own rules. | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-what-to-know-as-recreational-marijuana-becomes-legal-in-minnesota-on-aug-1/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:39 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/business/ap-what-to-know-as-recreational-marijuana-becomes-legal-in-minnesota-on-aug-1/ |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two weeks into the the actors strike, Max Greenfield is urging the studios and their CEOs to return to the bargaining table.
“Be the heroes, come to the table, make a deal,” said Greenfield, who co-stars in the CBS sitcom “The Neighborhood.” “My hope is these guys get organized and have a real conversation with both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA so that we can get to a resolution,” he said, referencing the unions for the writers and actors, respectively.
Greenfield spoke at a charity ping pong event at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night, joined by his co-star Cedric the Entertainer.
“We struck because our deal was up and it’s time to adjust to what has changed in the business. To make a minor adjustment feels disproportionate to what has obviously changed in a massive, massive way,” Greenfield said. “Until we feel like we’re getting fair compensation and we feel like we’re protected, this is going to continue to go on.”
Bryan Cranston, who had fiery words for Disney CEO Bob Iger at a New York rally on Tuesday, acknowledged things are “going very, very slowly.”
“Until we’re able to get back to the table, which we are more than willing to do and we’ve told them so, we want to keep talking through this strike,” he said. “We want to end this as soon as possible.”
On July 14, actors joined striking screenwriters who walked out in May. The stoppage has shuttered nearly all film and television production.
The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Writers Guild of America are striking for fair pay and protections involving the use of artificial intelligence, among other issues.
There has reportedly been no negotiating between the unions and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers since shortly after the actors hit the picket lines.
“I think when people realize that the artists are the people that are making this and nothing is going to get made without the actors and the writers, maybe that will force a little more flexibility in the negotiations,” Oscar-winning actor Casey Affleck said.
Actor and entrepreneur Danny Trejo urged the studios to look beyond Hollywood’s highest-paid actors and consider the financial plight of those working behind the scenes.
“One of the problems is people on top are making a lot of money right now and they don’t want to share,” he said. “We’ve got people that are in SAG that can’t even afford to live in LA. It’s like, wait a minute guys, we got to just be fair.
“Figure if one of your kids was trying to get into the movies and was working as an extra or just made it into SAG, they couldn’t live in LA,” Trejo said, imagining the offspring of a Hollywood CEO. “Oh no wait, yes they could. They could live in Beverly (expletive) Hills with you, punk.”
Trejo filed for Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy earlier this year and owes over $2 million in back taxes to the IRS, according to a report by KABC-TV.
“I make good money, but right now I’m buried in taxes, so I have to work that out,” he said. “This strike is killing me. I can’t pay what I’m supposed to be paying for my taxes, so man, imagine the guy that’s making $18 an hour and not working all the time.”
Actor Holly Robinson-Peete, a SAG member since 1977, said it’s important for the actors’ union to communicate the economic issues behind the strike.
“We’re not just a bunch of spoiled people that want more and we’re greedy,” she said. “The majority of our union are people who are not working very often, can’t really make a living at this. It’s going to take an incredible amount of patience and messaging, and we just got to stick to it.” | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-actor-max-greenfield-urges-studio-ceos-to-be-the-heroes-and-make-a-deal-in-hollywood-strikes/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:46 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-actor-max-greenfield-urges-studio-ceos-to-be-the-heroes-and-make-a-deal-in-hollywood-strikes/ |
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Adidas said Friday that it is releasing a second batch of high-end Yeezy sneakers after cutting ties with rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, as the German sportswear brand seeks to unload the unsold shoes while donating to groups fighting antisemitism.
The online sale, to start Wednesday through Adidas smartphone apps and its website, follows an earlier set of sales in May. Models that will be available include the Yeezy Boost 350 V2, 500, and 700 as well as the Yeezy Slide and Foam RNR.
The company cut ties with Ye in October after he made antisemitic and other offensive remarks online and in interviews. That left Adidas holding 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) worth of unsold Yeezys and searching for a responsible way to dispose of them.
Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden said in May that selling the popular sneakers and donating some of the profits was the best solution to deal with the unsold inventory and make a difference. He said the company spoke with nongovernmental organizations and groups that were harmed by Ye’s comments and actions.
Part of the profits from the sales of the Yeezy shoes will go to the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, run by social justice advocate Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd.
Shoes sold directly by Adidas in North America will include blue square pins established by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism as a symbol of solidarity in rejecting antisemitism, the company said.
The Anti-Defamation League calls the sale “a thoughtful and caring resolution” for the unsold merchandise and that “any attempt to turn the consequences of (Ye’s) actions into something that ultimately benefits society and the people he has hurt is most welcome.”
Adidas declined to give details on numbers of shoes that would be released for sale and how much of the proceeds would be donated. Asked if Ye would receive royalties from the sales, the company would only say that “we will honor our contractual obligations and enforce our rights but will not share any more details.”
The company said Monday that the first sale of Yeezy shoes helped its preliminary second-quarter financial results and contributed to it raising its outlook for the year — from a high single-digit decline in revenue to a mid-single digit decline.
That would still amount to an operating loss of 450 million euros (more than $494 million) this year, instead of a loss of 700 million euros.
Adidas, which reports its earnings for the first half of the year on Thursday, said it expected future Yeezy sales to further boost its results. | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-adidas-to-release-second-batch-of-yeezy-sneakers-after-breakup-with-ye/ | 2023-07-29T10:27:53 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-adidas-to-release-second-batch-of-yeezy-sneakers-after-breakup-with-ye/ |
DALLAS (AP) — The combat boots and dog tags Alan Alda wore while playing the wisecracking surgeon Hawkeye on the beloved television series “M-A-S-H” sold at auction Friday for $125,000.
Alda held onto the boots and dog tags for more than 40 years after the show ended but decided to sell them through Heritage Auctions in Dallas to raise money for his center dedicated to helping scientists and doctors communicate better.
The buyer’s name wasn’t released.
Alda, 87, said he wore the boots and dog tags for the 11-season run of the show about a Korean War medical unit. His character, Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce, was a talented surgeon who helped ease the stress of working in a war zone with quips and practical jokes. The show’s final episode, which aired in 1983 and was written and directed by Alda, was the most watched TV show in U.S. history.
The boots and dog tags, given to him by the costume department, “made an impression on me every day that we shot the show,” said Alda, who won five Emmys for his work on the sitcom.
Alda said auctioning off the dog tags and boots now made sense. “I saw this as a chance to put them to work again,” he said.
The money raised from the auction will go to the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York, which aims to help scientists and doctors communicate better through the use of improvisational exercises and other strategies.
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Associated Press writer Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report. | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-boots-and-dog-tags-alan-alda-wore-on-m-a-s-h-sell-at-auction-for-125000-that-will-go-to-charity/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:00 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-boots-and-dog-tags-alan-alda-wore-on-m-a-s-h-sell-at-auction-for-125000-that-will-go-to-charity/ |
Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:
Colson Whitehead channels the paranoia and fear of 1970s NYC in 'Crook Manifesto': "My early '70s New York is dingy and grimy," the Pulitzer Prize-winning author says. Whitehead's sequel to Harlem Shuffle centers on crime at every level, from small-time crooks to Harlem's elite.
Crime writer S.A. Cosby loves the South — and is haunted by it: Cosby's novel All the Sinners Bleed centers on a Black sheriff in a small Southeast Virginia county. The novel was inspired by his own experiences growing up in the shadow of the Confederacy.
You can listen to the original interviews and review here:
Colson Whitehead channels the paranoia and fear of 1970s NYC in 'Crook Manifesto'
Crime writer S.A. Cosby loves the South — and is haunted by it
Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air. | https://www.knau.org/2023-07-29/fresh-air-weekend-colson-whitehead-s-a-cosby | 2023-07-29T10:28:05 | 0 | https://www.knau.org/2023-07-29/fresh-air-weekend-colson-whitehead-s-a-cosby |
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A judge in Florida on Friday refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Gov. Ron DeSantis appointees against Disney’s efforts to neutralize the governor’s takeover of Disney World’s governing district.
The judge in state court in Orlando denied Disney’s motion in the lawsuit that says the company wrongly stripped appointees of powers over design and construction at Disney World when it made agreements with predecessors, who were supporters.
The case is one of two lawsuits stemming from the takeover, which was retaliation for the company’s public opposition to the so-called Don’t Say Gay legislation championed by DeSantis and Republican lawmakers. In the other lawsuit, in federal court in Tallahassee, Disney says DeSantis violated the company’s free speech rights.
The governor has touted his yearlong feud with Disney in his run for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, often accusing the entertainment giant of being too “woke.” Disney has accused the governor of violating its First Amendment rights.
Attorneys for Disney had argued that any decision in state court would be moot since the Republican-controlled Legislature already has passed a law voiding agreements that the company made with a prior governing board made up of Disney supporters that gave design and construction powers to the company.
The entertainment giant had asked that the state court case be put on hold if it’s not dismissed until the federal lawsuit in Tallahassee was resolved since they covered the same ground and that lawsuit was filed first.
In that case, Disney sued DeSantis and his appointees to the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District in an effort to stop the takeover, saying the governor was violating the company’s free speech and “weaponizing the power of government to punish private business.”
DeSantis wasn’t a party in the state court lawsuit.
The fight between DeSantis and Disney began last year after the company, facing significant pressure internally and externally, publicly opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades, a policy critics call “Don’t Say Gay.”
As punishment, DeSantis took over the district through legislation passed by Florida lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors to oversee municipal services for the sprawling theme parks and hotels. But before the new board came in, the company made agreements with previous oversight board members who were Disney supporters that stripped the new supervisors of their authority over design and construction.
In response, DeSantis and Florida lawmakers passed the legislation that repealed those agreements.
Disney announced in May that it was scrapping plans to build a new campus in central Florida and relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development. Disney had planned to build the campus about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the giant Walt Disney World theme park resort.
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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-lawsuit-against-disneys-efforts-to-neutralize-governing-district-takeover/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:06 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-lawsuit-against-disneys-efforts-to-neutralize-governing-district-takeover/ |
From the outside, the tall white building looks like any other hip, new Brooklyn living space. But about a thousand migrant men sleep here every night and there's room for hundreds more. It's a sort of mega shelter, poised to become one of New York City's largest.
It's been open for just a few weeks, and it's already riddled with accusations of abuse.
For months, Mayor Eric Adams has been issuing warnings that the New York City shelter system simply cannot handle the deluge of over 90,000 people it has received in the last year or so. "We have no more room in the city," he cautioned at a recent press conference. "We need help from the federal government."
The Adams administration is challenging New York's right to shelter law in court: That's the law that for decades has assured that the city provide a safe haven to anyone in need, regardless of immigration status.
Adams also recently announced several unusual measures including distribution of fliers to asylum-seekers at the border in order to discourage migrants from coming to New York City. Single adults will only be able to stay in shelters for 60 days before having to reapply.
Activists say it's in keeping with this policy shift that the new shelter site — located in Brooklyn's posh Clinton Hill neighborhood — is being referred to as an "emergency respite center," rather than a shelter. It's been touted as a temporary humanitarian aid solution.
NPR spent several days speaking to asylum seekers who say conditions in the building are dire. Many described zones of 80 to 90 people sharing two bathrooms. A 26-year-old man named Deivy says he's fleeing armed conflict in Colombia and that he's been living in the shelter for over a week.
He asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retaliation. Deivy says fighting over use of the bathroom facilities is common and showering is an odyssey. Parked outside, two trailers with showers serve the entire building.
"It's bad in there," says one Mauritanian man named Neimar, who also asked that his last name be withheld for fear he'd be in trouble with shelter authorities. Sitting listlessly on a nearby park bench, Neimar describes the experience as a sort of limbo. "We had no life where we came from, but here we have no luck here. No clothing. No food. Nothing."
Lack of access to food is one of the most common complaints. On a recent day shelter occupants say lunch consists of a bag of chips and a water. Often the food has gone bad.
What troubles many people here the most is the security guards. "They treat us like animals," says Neimar. "As if we were not people."
In interviews with more than two dozen people, nearly everyone recounted experiencing physical harassment and verbal slights at the shelter. "I understand enough English to know I'm being insulted," says Deivy.
NPR reached out to the New York City government multiple times for comment on these accusations without response.
Advocates say shelters like this one are disheartening, especially given that New York has long been seen as a beacon for immigrants. "For at least 40 years, New York City has provided a right to shelter to all people — regardless of their immigration status — who need a place to stay for the night," says Columbia University Professor Elora Mukherjee, who studies immigration and law. She called the shift in policy "devastating."
For many migrants and asylum seekers, this Brooklyn location is not the first encounter with the New York shelter system. But it does feel like the last straw. Several described the situation at this new site so dire, they would rather sleep under a nearby highway overpass. Others have no choice but to join a homeless camp of nearly 20 men.
Among them is Jose Antonio. He says he left Venezuela to escape government harassment. "Eighty people using two bathrooms?" he says. "It's a health hazard." When he arrived at the shelter a few weeks ago, it was under construction, still lacking lights. After an altercation over bathroom access in the morning, he says, he was asked to leave. He now he sleeps outside. During the day, he works odd landscaping gigs.
The motto down here: stay working.
But the question of work and who is allowed to do it is where the federal immigration bureaucracy labyrinth gets even more complicated. The soonest an asylum seeker can get a work permit is six months after they apply for asylum. That's a process that can in turn take years.
"The Mayor does make a good point when he says that the city needs help. And that help should take various forms," said Professor Elora Mukherjee. The city, she says, needs the federal government to lend their authority. "First and foremost: the federal government should authorize asylum seekers to receive their lawful work organization as soon as they enter the United States and fill out the relevant paperwork."
There's no indication that this will happen anytime soon. Instead, many men rent scooters in order to work for food delivery apps. By noon on a recent day, the dinging sound of orders start echoing under the bridge.
The men head out.
It's a dystopian scene: asylum seekers, staying in a shelter and under a bridge, delivering pricey meals throughout New York.
A few days later, the police sweep the camp. For several hours the men say they are driven around the city on a bus and taken to two different shelters where they are turned away.
Eventually, the bus drops them off in Brooklyn again. The men walk back to the highway overpass and to the camp where they find many of their belongings are now missing. One man reports his immigration papers, cellphone, and clothing all gone.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.knau.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/as-nyc-limits-access-to-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-many-are-left-homeless | 2023-07-29T10:28:11 | 0 | https://www.knau.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/as-nyc-limits-access-to-migrants-and-asylum-seekers-many-are-left-homeless |
The 75th Emmy Awards are the latest production to be put on pause due to the Hollywood strikes and will not air as planned in September.
A person familiar with the postponement plans but not authorized to speak publicly pending an official announcement confirmed the delay Friday. No information about a new date was immediately available.
The Emmy Awards were scheduled to be broadcast on Fox on Sept. 18. Rules laid out by the actors’ union, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, say stars cannot campaign for the Emmys or attend awards shows while on strike.
Writers are also not permitted to work on awards shows until the strike ends.
Whenever the next Emmy Awards are held, HBO will walk in as the leading contender. The network is up for 74 awards for three of its top shows: “ Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us.”
“Ted Lasso” has the most comedy category nominations with 21, including best comedy series and best actor for Jason Sudeikis.
Roughly 65,000 SAG-AFTRA actors and 11,500 Writers Guild of America screenwriters are on strike, calling for better pay, structure with residual payments and protection from the use of artificial intelligence. | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-the-emmy-awards-are-postponed-due-to-the-hollywood-actors-and-writers-strike-source-says/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:12 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-the-emmy-awards-are-postponed-due-to-the-hollywood-actors-and-writers-strike-source-says/ |
LIMA, Peru — Although the top tourist destination in Peru is the ancient Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, high in the Andes Mountains, the capital Lima also holds a treasure trove of ancient ruins — so many, in fact, that authorities can't take care of them all.
The city is home to more than 400 known pyramids, temples and burial sites, many of which predate the Incas and and are known in Spanish as "huacas." They sit next to modern shopping centers, hotels and highways or rise up in the middle of neighborhoods in this city of 11 million people. Meanwhile, archaeologists keep digging up new sites.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Peruvian president who lives across the street from a pyramid called Huallamarca, built around 1,800 years ago, says with a smile: "I know where I am when I wake up in the morning. I'm in Peru!"
Due mostly to budget limitations, Huallamarca is one of only 27 sites in Lima that have been excavated, restored and opened to visitors, according to archaeologists who spoke with NPR.
Many other sites are deteriorating. Squatters have occupied some, and others have become de facto garbage dumps or gathering spots for drug users and homeless people.
"Everywhere you dig, you will find something — because Lima was home to great civilizations," says Micaela Álvarez, director of the museum at Pucllana, a massive pyramid in Lima's business district of Miraflores. "But it's impossible to save everything in a poor country."
Pucllana is one of the exceptions.
Thought to be about 1,500 years old, the pyramid was a ceremonial site for the Lima Indigenous group that gave this city its name. Excavations began in 1981 and continue today.
On a recent morning, workers scraped sand and dirt from part of the site that archaeologists are beginning to explore for the first time. Nearby, guides pointed to the intricate brickwork, which has withstood earthquakes, and then led visitors to the top of the 82-foot-tall pyramid for views of the Pacific Ocean.
Among the visitors was Manuel Larrabure, a professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania who was born and raised in Lima but had never been to Pucllana.
"It's very impressive," he said. "The tendency is to look outside of Lima for interesting things, but it's good to look inside and to appreciate our own culture. People are still getting to know these sites."
Before it was restored following the start of excavations some 40 years ago, Pucllana was routinely looted and abused. At one point, a factory was using Pucllana's sand and clay to make bricks. Tour guide Blanca Arista says the pyramid also served as a neighborhood playground — and a motocross track.
"It's unbelievable, but several groups were practicing motocross," she said. "So, imagine different groups riding motorcycles, riding bikes."
Indeed, Lima's ancient Indigenous sites have, more often, been desecrated instead of safeguarded, says Giancarlo Marcone, a Peruvian archaeologist and professor at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lima.
Some were bulldozed to make way for apartment blocks and streets amid a wave of migration from the countryside that began in the 1950s.
"That put a lot of pressure on the city, and we didn't have good planning," Marcone says. "Until recently, we didn't really care about what we had."
Attitudes shifted as Peruvians became more sensitive to their cultural heritage and the country's ancient sites began to attract more international tourists. Janie Gómez, who until April was deputy culture minister, said the government of President Dina Boluarte is committed to preserving these sites.
"Their recovery will prevent them from deteriorating and being invaded," she told the state-run Andina news agency in January. "The millennial history over which Lima was built must not be lost."
However, Peru is struggling to reduce poverty and improve hospitals and schools, Marcone says. Thus, governments have been unable or unwilling to finance robust excavations or to turn more than a few sites into tourist attractions. The result is that many have been left in limbo.
Rosa María Barillas, a Peruvian archaeology student who recently completed fieldwork at an ancient temple on the outskirts of Lima, recalls looters prowling the area.
"I had to chase them away," she says.
Other sites have been colonized by squatters. The archaeological complex at Mateo Salado, near Lima's international airport, features a beautifully restored 1,000-year-old pyramid, but is also home to several modern houses. Until 2013, when major restoration work began, farmers used the site to cultivate roses and neighborhood kids played soccer there.
In the working-class neighborhood of Los Olivos, a dusty, dun-colored archaeological site called Infantas I is hemmed in by streets and houses. Ashes from a campfire are smoldering while trash piles up in several areas. Three youths are smoking crack, and a shirtless man is digging up sand and putting it in sacks. The area is part of a series of temples, but has yet to be excavated.
Benito Trejo, who heads the neighborhood committee, calls Infantas I a headache.
"It's not a good thing, because these sites are ignored by the government which is supposed to look after them," he says.
There was no response to NPR's requests for comment from the Culture Ministry.
For now, archaeologists say that surrounding communities must get more involved in preserving and promoting the sites. Pucllana, for example, has been used for art exhibits, while other sites have hosted film screenings.
At Mateo Salado, fifth graders were recently visiting the site and drawing pictures of the ruins, which are part of their school logo.
"We shouldn't look at these sites simply as relics of the past," says Andrés Ramírez, one of the instructors. "They should be part of everyday society. That's what we are trying to promote."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.knau.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/in-peru-discovery-of-ancient-ruins-outpaces-authorities-ability-to-care-for-them | 2023-07-29T10:28:18 | 1 | https://www.knau.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/in-peru-discovery-of-ancient-ruins-outpaces-authorities-ability-to-care-for-them |
NEW YORK (AP) — Rapper Travis Scott has released “Utopia,” his first album in five years and his first major release since 10 people died at his 2021 Astroworld music festival.
The star-studded 19-track “Utopia” features Beyoncé, SZA, Drake, Sampha, Young Thug, Playboi Carti, Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Future, Bon Iver, James Blake, Kid Cudi, 21 Savage, and many more.
The LP, Scott’s fourth full-length, was originally announced back in 2020 and follows 2018’s “Astroworld.” In November 2019, 10 people died as a result of compression asphyxia during a massive crowd surge during Scott’s Astroworld festival. A grand jury declined to file charges against Scott earlier this year.
Also Friday, Houston police released files that showed that some workers were concerned about the crowd conditions at the show. The 1,300-page report also included a summary of an interview with Scott in which he said he did not hear calls from the crowd to stop the show.
The first track from the album, the popetón -adjacent “K-pop”, was released on July 21 and features the Weeknd and Bad Bunny. The release spans genres — an eclectic mix of autotune ambient ballads (“My Eyes”), ferocious bars (“Looove”), futuristic trap (“Lost Forever,” Telekinesis”), and beyond.
In addition to the album, Scott hosted a one-night-only release of his feature film, “Circus Maximus” at select theaters on Thursday night.
“Utopia” was originally scheduled to be celebrated with a livestreamed concert at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, but was canceled due to “complex production issues,” Live Nation said in a statement. | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-travis-scott-drops-utopia-his-first-album-since-the-astroworld-festival-tragedy/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:19 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/entertainment/ap-travis-scott-drops-utopia-his-first-album-since-the-astroworld-festival-tragedy/ |
Ron DeSantis was involved in a traffic accident while in Chattanooga, Tenn., this week raising money for his presidential bid. The candidate was not injured, which may have been the single best piece of news the campaign has had in a while.
The other kind of news for the Florida Republican seemed to be everywhere and all at once. His campaign announced it was shedding a third of its staff and "retooling" its fundraising amid reports of donor desertion. The Associated Press referred to the campaign as "stalled," Rich Lowry of National Review used the words "faltering" and "diminished" in a piece for Politico. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, often a cheerleader for the governor, noted "the headlines say [the campaign] is in an unrecoverable dive."
The media critiques went beyond DeSantis' problems with staffing and fundraising to question his performance on the stump. Stories told of DeSantis "scolding" students at one event for wearing masks and snapping at reporters at a news conference.
Most troubling of all may have been DeSantis' problems with messaging. He has defended his administration's new Florida history curriculum, which alludes to "benefits" that enslaved people may have derived from their life in bondage – such as blacksmithing skills. That drew a rebuke from rival candidate Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who's Black, who said there had been no "silver lining in slavery."
DeSantis may have been expected to stand by his state's curriculum changes, but it was harder to understand why he reached for controversy by saying he might appoint Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as head of the FDA or the CDC. Kennedy, a Democrat, is also a candidate for president, and famous as a vaccine conspiracy theorist, harshly critical of the scientists who lead the federal health agencies.
Most candidates would not consider either slavery or RFK Jr. an issue to emphasize, much less the hill they would choose to die on.
Perceptions prompt comparison to former presidential hopeful Rick Perry
Perceptions of DeSantis have changed greatly since he won reelection in November 2022 by 20 points. In January he was seen as the foremost threat to Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, trailing the former president by just two percentage points in the 538.com average of national polls. As of this week, that gap has widened to 37 percentage points. DeSantis poll numbers have fallen by more than half as other candidates have entered the fray and taken a share. And that trendline has prompted comparisons to the recent history of another Sun Belt governor who had his eyes on the White House, Rick Perry of Texas.
A dozen years ago, Perry entered the GOP lists for the 2012 nomination against incumbent President Barack Obama. Having been elected and reelected in the nation's second most populous state, Perry had a gaudy list of endorsements and wealthy backers. His TV ads were impressive.
But Perry's in-person campaigning did not match expectations. After the first candidate debates of 2007 the buzz was all about his lackluster performances. Vowing to fight on, Perry pointed to a November debate where he hoped to turn things around. That was when he pledged to eliminate three cabinet level departments of the federal government if elected – Education, Commerce ... and he could not remember the third. After a fumbling pause he said: "Oops."
Needless to say, things did not get better after that. Crushed in the 2012 Iowa caucuses, Perry all but ignored New Hampshire to concentrate on South Carolina. But when his poll numbers there also sagged, he dropped out. In 2016, having just retired as the longest-tenured governor in Texas history, he tried again. But in a field of more than 15 candidates dominated by Trump, Perry barely registered. He dropped out before the Iowa caucuses.
Needless to say, no candidate for president wants to be compared to Rick Perry. But on Fox News on June 28, DeSantis told a Fox News host he would eliminate the same three departments as Perry — Education, Commerce and, as Perry had eventually remembered, Energy (which wound up being the department where Perry served as secretary under Trump). DeSantis threw in the IRS, too, which gave him a longer list than Perry's.
Throughout the agonizing train wreck that was the Perry campaign, the candidate seemed unable to understand that the persona and priorities that had lifted him to such success in Texas were not working the same on the national stage.
Can this campaign be saved?
DeSantis' campaign has reached the point where some observers wonder if it's too late to turn his fortunes around. They note that Trump's growing advantage over DeSantis in polls has been driven less by improving numbers for Trump than by deteriorating support for the Floridian.
But there are positives in this picture for the Florida governor. First, it is early — or at least relatively early — in the campaign season. The first voting activity leading to actual delegates being chosen does not happen until January 15, when Iowa holds its caucuses. That gives DeSantis and other candidates still seeking traction more than five months to find it. If the right formula can be found, there is time to follow it.
Second, the field is in some senses still unsettled. While half the Republican electorate may be satisfied with Trump, there is still the other half. And if the ever-mounting legal woes of the former president finally begin to erode the bedrock of his support, it may be possible for a single strong challenger to consolidate the opposition.
Third, there are beacons of hope for troubled candidates in recent presidential campaign history. By choosing to call the latest phase of his effort an "insurgency," DeSantis has acknowledged that he is battling the odds. Of course, when he adopted the campaign motto "The Great American Comeback," he was not expecting it to apply to his campaign.
The term "comeback" has long been associated with the first presidential push of a young Arkansas governor named Bill Clinton. Then 45, Clinton was seeking the Democratic nomination against the sitting president George H.W. Bush in 1992. Bush had been so popular following the success of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 that many ambitious Democrats in Washington thought it better to wait for the 1996 cycle to run. Clinton looked strong in the preliminary phase of the campaign but was on the ropes as the primaries began, battered by two potentially fatal blows.
Newspaper stories had highlighted steps he took to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War, and in a woman he had known in Arkansas named Gennifer Flowers told a supermarket tabloid the two had had a years-long affair. She repeated her story in a televised news conference.
Clinton stumbled to a distant third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses (won by a favorite son candidate, Tom Harkin) and fell far behind in New Hampshire. But on that state's primary night in February, Clinton in second place had closed the gap to single digits and won half the available delegates.
He went on TV to thank New Hampshire for making "Bill Clinton the comeback kid." The national media coverage largely followed that line, much to the distress of the primary's first-place winner, Sen. Paul Tsongas of neighboring Massachusetts. A few weeks later, on Super Tuesday, Clinton won most of the big state primaries, many of them in the South, and the lion's share of the delegates. He was soon cruising to the nomination.
McCain turned his ship around
More directly comparable to DeSantis' situation, and closer to his political home, was the turnaround achieved 16 years later by the campaign of Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. A former POW in Vietnam who had made many friends in his time in the Senate, McCain was well known for his spirited "Straight Talk Express" campaign challenging George W. Bush for the GOP nomination in 2000. McCain came up short that time, but his profile was elevated in the Senate and he retained much of his appeal for independents.
But when it came to running another campaign, McCain quickly ran aground. The national agenda had changed over the two terms of the second President Bush, which included the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The man who had been New York City mayor during those attacks, Rudy Giuliani, was now running for president as "America's Mayor" and leading in national polls for a time.
Other notables in the field in 2007 included Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (now a senator from Utah) and Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas. McCain's standing in Iowa had suffered with his opposition to ethanol subsidies and he trailed Romney in polling in New Hampshire.
In the summer of 2007, with his early money drying up and fundraising slowed, McCain saw many news accounts of his flagging campaign. Some were ready to write him off. But that July he revamped his campaign from top to bottom and let go some longtime aides, including close friends, to begin anew. He seemed ready to do whatever it took, including altering his positions on key issues such as immigration.
By the time the campaign reached the voters in January 2008, the McCain operation had righted itself. After conceding Iowa to his rivals, McCain stormed back into contention with a smashing win in New Hampshire that netted him most of the delegates at stake.
As for one-time front-runner Giuliani, he had decided he did not need to go hard at Iowa and New Hampshire and concentrated instead on the late January primary in Florida. Giuliani finished third there, winning no delegates, and withdrew from the race the next day.
The following week brought Super Tuesday and a favorable mix of states for McCain, who won nine states to Romney's seven and Huckabee's five and pocketed most of the delegates. Romney then left the race and urged the other candidates and the party to unite behind McCain.
At such times in the past, struggling campaigns have rescued themselves with the right moves and a dose of luck. At other times, it has taken major missteps by front-running candidates to open the door. In DeSantis' case, it might well require both.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.knau.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/presidential-primaries-have-seen-dramatic-comebacks-could-desantis-24-be-next | 2023-07-29T10:28:24 | 1 | https://www.knau.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/presidential-primaries-have-seen-dramatic-comebacks-could-desantis-24-be-next |
ATLANTA (AP) — Authorities in Alabama said Friday they filed criminal charges against a woman who confessed to fabricating a story that she was kidnapped after stopping to check on a toddler she saw walking on the side of an interstate highway.
Carlee Russell was charged with false reporting to law enforcement and falsely reporting an incident, both misdemeanors that carry up to a year in jail, Hoover Police Chief Nick Derzis said. Russell turned herself in to jail Friday and was released on bond, he said.
“Her decisions that night created panic and alarm for citizens of our city and even across the nation as concern grew that a kidnapper was on the loose using a small child as bait,” he said. “Numerous law enforcement agencies, both local and federal, began working tirelessly not only to bring Carlee home to her family but locate a kidnapper that we know now never existed. Many private citizens volunteered their time and energy in looking for a potential kidnapping victim that we know now was never in any danger.”
Derzis said he was frustrated that Russell was only being charged with two misdemeanors despite the panic and disruption she caused, but he said the law did not allow for enhanced charges.
Russell, 25, disappeared after calling 911 on July 13 to report a toddler wandering beside a stretch of interstate. She returned home two days later and told police she had been abducted and forced into a vehicle.
Her disappearance became a national news story. Images of the missing woman were shared broadly on social media.
“We don’t see this as a victimless crime,” Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said at a Friday news conference. “There are significant hours spent, resources expended as a result of this investigation.”
Marshall’s office was asked to handle the prosecution because of the attention the case received, Derzis said. Marshall said he intends to “fully prosecute” Russell and said his office will take into account the police investigation to see whether additional charges are warranted.
Russell, through her attorney, Emory Anthony, acknowledged earlier that she made the story up.
In a statement read by police on Monday, Anthony said Russell was not kidnapped, did not see a baby on the side of the road, did not leave the city and acted alone. He said Russell apologized and he asked for prayers and forgiveness as she “addresses her issues and attempts to move forward, understanding that she made a mistake in this matter.”
A message left Friday at Anthony’s office was not immediately returned.
Russell told detectives she was taken by a man who came out of the trees when she stopped to check on the child, put in a car and an 18-wheel truck, was blindfolded and was held at a home where a woman fed her cheese crackers, authorities said at a news conference last week. At some point, Russell said she was put in a vehicle again but managed to escape and run through the woods to her neighborhood.
“This story opened wounds for families whose loved ones really were victims of kidnappings,” Derzis said.
He said police have not determined where Russell went during the 49 hours she was missing. They plan to talk to the attorney general’s office about recovering some of the money spent on the investigation. | https://www.qcnews.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-authorities-charge-alabama-woman-who-acknowledged-fabricating-story-about-kidnapping-toddler/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:26 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-authorities-charge-alabama-woman-who-acknowledged-fabricating-story-about-kidnapping-toddler/ |
Peggy Coppom hasn’t quite seen it all with the Colorado Buffaloes, but she’s seen much more than most, so believe her when she says Thursday was a good day to be a fan.
The 98-year-old has been attending football games since her family moved from the high plains of eastern Colorado to Boulder in 1939 to escape the Dust Bowl, and she’s missed only a couple home games since buying season tickets in 1966.
The excitement in her voice was obvious during a phone call minutes after university regents approved the school’s return to the Big 12 in 2024.
“I’m so happy to get back to the Big 12 — or the Big 15 or whatever it ends up being,” she said, laughing. “It seems like that’s where we belong. We don’t belong with the West Coast people.”
Of course, the Big 12 isn’t the same league it was when the Buffs left for the Pac-12 in 2012. Nebraska and Missouri are gone, and Oklahoma and Texas will be, too. BYU could become a rival, but the Buffs have little in common with Cincinnati, Houston and Central Florida.
“I wish some of those old schools were there, but we’ll make the best of it,” Coppom said.
The conference change, plus the hiring of Deion Sanders, has her eagerly anticipating watching the Buffs from her seats near the 40-yard line on the west side of Folsom Field — “God willing, I always have to add,” she said.
Coppom, carrying a gold pom-pom, was escorted onto the field by Sanders and performed a ceremonial kickoff during the spring game in April. Coppom said Sanders and the return to the Big 12 has created the most buzz about the team since it won a share of the national championship in 1990.
Former CU fullback Jim Kelleher, who was second in the Big Eight with 15 rushing touchdowns in 1976, said he’s in wait-and-see mode about the move.
“I originally wasn’t that excited about it, but at the same time, the Pac-12 had let things get to such a point where you had to do something,” he said. “The Big 12 signed a good media rights agreement. It’s just sad the Pac-12 hasn’t been able to get a TV contract.”
Kelleher said that while Colorado will get exposure across three time zones, which is a positive, he’s sad to see how traditions and geographic rivalries have been sacrificed with realignment in general.
Specific to Colorado, he said, the Buffs seemed to be a good fit in the Pac-12. He said his sentimental attachment to the Big 12 won’t be there without Nebraska and other teams he played against in the old Big Eight.
“Whether it’s the school or the individual athletes — with TV and NIL — it’s all money, money, money,” he said. “I understand their decision. Hey, I’m part of the Colorado team, so I’m for my team and hope it works out.”
Tom Osborne, the College Football Hall of Fame coach at Nebraska and its former athletic director, shepherded the Cornhuskers’ move from the Big 12 to Big Ten in 2011. He said he’s able to view past, present and future realignment from the perspective of both a fan and administrator.
“You’re talking about lost traditions,” Osborne said. “I can share the feelings of the fans in that I miss those drives to Manhattan, Kansas; Lawrence, Kansas; Ames, Iowa, and some of those relationships.”
Nebraska’s move to the Big Ten had as much or more to do with finding stability as it did with finances, Osborne said. In the summer of 2011, Osborne said, Big 12 South teams were negotiating with the Pac-12, Missouri wanted to go to the SEC and Texas A&M also was looking to leave.
“Finances are driving this thing more than anything, and my guess is that the uncertainty about where the Pac-12 stands right now appears to make the Big 12 better for Colorado — even though the Big 12 has not been a paragon of stability.”
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Racing will resume at Churchill Downs in September, with no changes being made after a review of surfaces and safety protocols in the wake of 12 horse deaths, including seven in the days leading up to the Kentucky Derby in May.
The Louisville track suspended racing operations on June 7 and moved the rest of its spring meet to Ellis Park in western Kentucky at the recommendation of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the sport’s national overseer.
Training continued at Churchill Downs during the track’s investigation.
Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen called the deaths “a series of unfortunate circumstances” and said the review “didn’t find anything fundamentally wrong or different about our track from previous years.”
“That, in a sense, can sometimes be unsatisfying,” he said. “But that’s business, and that’s sports.”
Two of the horse deaths occurred in undercard races on Derby day. Another five died later.
“The takeaway is, the track is very safe,” Carstanjen said Thursday on an earnings call with CDI investors.
“What we needed to do was spend some of this time in the interim, while we ran the rest of the (spring) meet at Ellis to just go soup to nuts through every single thing we do at the racetrack. There was nothing that jumped out as an apparent cause of the injuries, of the breakdowns; and, as we went through and rebuilt our processes from the ground up to check everything that we do to make extra sure, we didn’t find anything material.”
The track’s fall meet begins Sept. 14 and runs through Oct. 1.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.qcnews.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-churchill-downs-to-resume-racing-at-fall-meet-with-no-changes-after-horse-deaths/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:40 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-churchill-downs-to-resume-racing-at-fall-meet-with-no-changes-after-horse-deaths/ |
DEAR ABBY: My son is dating a girl I can’t stand. I’m not too crazy about my son right now, either. I no longer want to be out in public with them because their public displays of affection are so over the top it makes me ill. I cannot imagine spending every holiday, birthday or whatever with them for the rest of my life. He hasn’t told us anything about this person. We don’t even know her last name. Help! -- TURNED-OFF MOM IN INDIANA
DEAR MOM: You didn’t mention your son’s age or how long he has been involved with this young woman. It appears they are both quite young. Romances that burn with this kind of intensity usually cool down fairly quickly. In the meantime, be patient. Say nothing that will cause you to be perceived as the “enemy.”
If you would like more information about the girl, ask her in a non-threatening way. (“Are you a schoolmate?” “Do you have a last name?” “Does your family live in town?”) Then make sure your son knows how to protect them both from unwanted pregnancy and STDs “should the need arise,” and wait them out.
***
MORE FROM DEAR ABBY:
Dear Abby: Woman expecting quadruplets is devastated when her fiancé unexpectedly leaves her
Dear Abby: I’m madly in love with a man who only wants to drink when not sleeping or working
Dear Abby: Father fails to show up for teen son
Dear Abby: Painting is a painful reminder of a former friend
Dear Abby: I want out, but he has nowhere to go. I feel guilty.
***
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
***
To receive a collection of Abby’s most memorable -- and most frequently requested -- poems and essays, send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Keepers Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)
COPYRIGHT 2023 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106; 816-581-7500 | https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/advice/2023/07/dear-abby-the-public-displays-of-affection-between-my-son-and-his-girlfriend-make-me-ill.html | 2023-07-29T10:28:45 | 0 | https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/advice/2023/07/dear-abby-the-public-displays-of-affection-between-my-son-and-his-girlfriend-make-me-ill.html |
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Ballots from Spaniards living abroad were counted Friday, and they gave a new twist to the inconclusive results from the general election.
The conservative Popular Party gained an additional seat from Madrid’s constituency late in the day at the expense of the Socialist Workers’ Party. That change gives the right-wing coalition of the PP and the far-right Vox party 172 seats in the lower house of parliament and drops left-wing forces to 171.
Forming a stable governing coalition will require one of the blocks to have the support of 176 lawmakers in the 350-seat body, and it’s not clear that either side will be able to obtain enough backing from smaller parties.
The country’s main political parties had been waiting for the count in the hope they might win seats from opponents and recompose the final picture. Results coming in from different constituencies during the day showed no changes across Spain — until Madrid added the last-gasp surprise.
The switch likely will make it even tougher to cobble together a government.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is considered the only leader with a chance to form a coalition, since the Popular Party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo is being shunned by other parties for allying with Vox.
But Sánchez does not have it easy. He needs help from secessionist parties in the Basque Country and Catalonia, and it could be politically risky to bid for support from the Catalan party Junts, which is headed by Carles Puigdemont, a leader of 2017’s failed secession bid in Catalonia.
His party has seven seats, but its goal of forcing Spain to allow a secession referendum is Catalonia is highly unpopular, including in Sánchez’s party.
The new parliament is to convene Aug. 17 and it will have three months to vote in a new prime minister. Otherwise, new elections would be called. | https://www.qcnews.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-count-of-ballots-from-spaniards-abroad-gives-edge-to-right-wing-block-and-deepens-the-stalemate/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:47 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/ap-top-headlines/ap-count-of-ballots-from-spaniards-abroad-gives-edge-to-right-wing-block-and-deepens-the-stalemate/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-a-notre-dame-professor-sues-a-student-publication-over-its-coverage-of-her-abortion-rights-work/ | 2023-07-29T10:28:54 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-arizona-mom-never-stopped-looking-for-her-missing-daughter-she-showed-up-4-years-later-in-montana/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:01 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-arizona-mom-never-stopped-looking-for-her-missing-daughter-she-showed-up-4-years-later-in-montana/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-charges-dropped-against-7-oklahoma-police-officers-in-3-separate-fatal-shootings/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:08 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-defense-presses-case-that-mental-illness-spurred-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:15 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-defense-presses-case-that-mental-illness-spurred-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-homes-that-become-deadly-tornadoes-kill-disproportionately-more-in-mobile-homes-ap-analysis-finds/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:16 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-justice-alito-says-congress-lacks-the-power-to-impose-an-ethics-code-on-the-supreme-court/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:22 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-montana-train-derailment-report-renews-calls-for-automated-systems-to-detect-track-problems/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:29 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-montana-train-derailment-report-renews-calls-for-automated-systems-to-detect-track-problems/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-officer-who-put-suspect-in-car-hit-by-train-found-guilty-of-reckless-endangerment/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:36 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-paperwork-problems-drive-surge-in-people-losing-medicaid-health-coverage/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:36 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-paperwork-problems-drive-surge-in-people-losing-medicaid-health-coverage/ |
CANBERRA, Australia — (AP) — Political instability in Niger resulting from a military takeover that deposed the president this week threatens the economic support provided by Washington to the African nation, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Saturday.
Members of the Niger military announced on Wednesday they had deposed democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum and on Friday named Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani as the country's new leader, adding Niger to a growing list of military regimes in West Africa's Sahel region.
Blinken, who is in Australia as part of a Pacific tour, said the continued security and economic arrangements that Niger has with the U.S. hinged on the release of Bazoum and “the immediate restoration of the democratic order in Niger.”
“Our economic and security partnership with Niger — which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars — depends on the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order that has been disrupted by the actions in the last few days,” Blinken said. “So that assistance, that support, is in clear jeopardy as a result of these actions, which is another reason why they need to be immediately reversed.”
Blinken stopped short of calling the military actions in Niger a coup, a designation that could result in the African country losing millions of dollars of military aid and assistance.
Speaking in Brisbane, Blinken said he had spoken with President Bazoum on Saturday but did not provide details. He cited the support of the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States and other regional entities in trying to bring an end to the unrest.
“The very significant assistance that we have in place that’s making a material difference in the lives of the people of Niger is clearly in jeopardy and we’ve communicated that as clearly as we possibly can to those responsible for disrupting the constitutional order and Niger’s democracy," Blinken said.
Blinken said the U.S. Embassy in Niger had accounted for the safety of all staff members and their families, while issuing a security alert advising U.S. citizens in the country to limit unnecessary movements and avoid areas impacted by the coup.
The military group that conducted the coup, calling itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, said its members remained committed to engaging with the international and national community.
“This is as a result of the continuing degradation of the security situation, the bad economic and social governance,” air force Col. Major Amadou Abdramane said in the video released by the coup leaders Wednesday. He said aerial and land borders were closed and a curfew was in place until the situation stabilized.
Bazoum 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 jihadis 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 Niger's military, while the U.S. and other European countries have helped train the nation’s troops.
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Hannon reported from Bangkok.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.wpxi.com/news/world/blinken-says-us/JJIP73JLTYRAIK3UJGO2AFGJYY/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:42 | 0 | https://www.wpxi.com/news/world/blinken-says-us/JJIP73JLTYRAIK3UJGO2AFGJYY/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-rapper-g-herbo-pleads-guilty-in-credit-card-fraud-that-paid-for-private-jets-and-designer-puppies/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:42 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-rapper-g-herbo-pleads-guilty-in-credit-card-fraud-that-paid-for-private-jets-and-designer-puppies/ |
BAGHDAD — (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah said Saturday that if governments of Muslim-majority nations do not act against countries that allow the desecration of the Quran, Muslims should “punish” those who facilitate attacks on Islam's holy book.
The comments by Hassan Nasrallah came in a video address to tens of thousands gathered in Beirut's southern suburbs to mark Ashoura, a Shiite holy day commemorating the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein.
Nasrallah often uses religious occasions to send political messages to followers, and on Saturday slammed recent incidents in which the Quran was burned or otherwise desecrated at authorized demonstrations in Sweden and Denmark.
He said Muslims should watch for the outcome of an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, scheduled to take place in Baghdad on Monday to discuss the organization’s response to the Quran burnings.
The organization and its member states should “send a firm, decisive and unequivocal message to these governments that any repeat of the attacks will be met with a boycott,” Nasrallah said. If they do not, he said, Muslim youth should “punish the desecrators.”
He did not elaborate what such a boycott and punishment should entail.
Members of the crowd, who carried banners with religious slogans alongside the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Palestine, chanted, “Oh, Quran, we are at your service; Oh, Hussein, we are at your service.”
Shiites represent over 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims and view Hussein as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s death in battle at the hands of Sunnis at Karbala, south of Baghdad, ingrained a deep rift in Islam and continues to this day to play a key role in shaping Shiite identity.
Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world on Friday commemorated Ashoura, while Saturday marked the culmination of the observances in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the Iraqi city of Karbala, where Hussein is entombed in a gold-domed shrine. In the streets of the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, mourners gathered to watch reenactments of the Battle of Karbala and Hussein’s death.
In the streets, young men clad in black and white slashed their heads with swords and knives to demonstrate their grief. Friends swabbed each other’s heads with tissues and handed each other water.
In Syria’s capital, Damascus, the crowds were mourning not only the death of Hussein but a deadly attack in the suburb of Sayida Zeinab, home to a shrine to Zeinab, the daughter of the first Shiite imam, Ali, and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad.
A bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded there on Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens more. On Tuesday, another bomb in a motorcycle had wounded two people.
On Friday, the Islamic State group — a Sunni militant group that often targets Shiites — claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying Thursday’s bombing came “during their annual polytheistic rituals.” The group’s extreme interpretation of Islam holds Shiite Muslims to be apostates.
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Associated Press writers Anmar Khalil in Karbala, Iraq, and Hassan Ammar in Beirut contributed to this report.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.wpxi.com/news/world/lebanons-hezbollah/PAYWX6XNA3RCJ3IHAB6LKAZ5PE/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:49 | 1 | https://www.wpxi.com/news/world/lebanons-hezbollah/PAYWX6XNA3RCJ3IHAB6LKAZ5PE/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-rioter-who-stole-badge-radio-from-beaten-officer-on-jan-6-gets-more-than-4-years-in-prison/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:49 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-supreme-courts-student-loan-decision-will-lower-us-deficit-according-to-new-white-house-projection/ | 2023-07-29T10:29:56 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-supreme-courts-student-loan-decision-will-lower-us-deficit-according-to-new-white-house-projection/ |
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.
___
Follow Ed White at http://twitter.com/edwritez | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-teen-says-she-just-prayed-while-saving-girl-in-michigan-school-shooting/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:03 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:10 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-the-backup-driver-in-the-1st-death-by-a-fully-autonomous-car-pleads-guilty-to-endangerment/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-tim-scott-criticizes-ron-desantis-over-floridas-new-slavery-curriculum/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:18 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-tom-durden-georgia-da-who-ordered-takeover-of-stalled-ahmaud-arbery-investigation-dies-at-66/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:24 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-tom-durden-georgia-da-who-ordered-takeover-of-stalled-ahmaud-arbery-investigation-dies-at-66/ |
CANBERRA – Political instability in Niger resulting from a military takeover that deposed the president this week threatens the economic support provided by Washington to the African nation, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Saturday.
Members of the Niger military announced on Wednesday they had deposed democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum and on Friday named Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani as the country's new leader, adding Niger to a growing list of military regimes in West Africa’s Sahel region.
Blinken, who is in Australia as part of a Pacific tour, said the continued security and economic arrangements that Niger has with the U.S. hinged on the release of Bazoum and “the immediate restoration of the democratic order in Niger.”
“Our economic and security partnership with Niger — which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars — depends on the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order that has been disrupted by the actions in the last few days,” Blinken said. “So that assistance, that support, is in clear jeopardy as a result of these actions, which is another reason why they need to be immediately reversed.”
Blinken stopped short of calling the military actions in Niger a coup, a designation that could result in the African country losing millions of dollars of military aid and assistance.
Speaking in Brisbane, Blinken said he had spoken with President Bazoum on Saturday but did not provide details. He cited the support of the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States and other regional entities in trying to bring an end to the unrest.
“The very significant assistance that we have in place that’s making a material difference in the lives of the people of Niger is clearly in jeopardy and we’ve communicated that as clearly as we possibly can to those responsible for disrupting the constitutional order and Niger’s democracy," Blinken said.
Blinken said the U.S. Embassy in Niger had accounted for the safety of all staff members and their families, while issuing a security alert advising U.S. citizens in the country to limit unnecessary movements and avoid areas impacted by the coup.
The military group that conducted the coup, calling itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, said its members remained committed to engaging with the international and national community.
“This is as a result of the continuing degradation of the security situation, the bad economic and social governance,” air force Col. Major Amadou Abdramane said in the video released by the coup leaders Wednesday. He said aerial and land borders were closed and a curfew was in place until the situation stabilized.
Bazoum 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 jihadis 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 Niger's military, while the U.S. and other European countries have helped train the nation’s troops.
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Hannon reported from Bangkok. | https://www.clickorlando.com/news/world/2023/07/29/blinken-says-us-economic-support-for-niger-is-at-risk-as-military-takeover-threatens-stability/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:28 | 0 | https://www.clickorlando.com/news/world/2023/07/29/blinken-says-us-economic-support-for-niger-is-at-risk-as-military-takeover-threatens-stability/ |
TRAVERSE CITY — The 2022 Munson Community Health Needs Assessment found that a lack of affordable and safe housing is one of the top 10 issues in the Grand Traverse region.
A lack of housing can have a significant impact on health, with research showing that homelessness can reduce life expectancy by 30 years.
For the past three years, Munson Healthcare, Goodwill Northern Michigan, and Traverse Health Clinic have been connecting those experiencing homelessness to the services that they need through a street medicine program.
We saw that there was a need for our neighbors that were experiencing homelessness,” Dr. David Klee said.
“A lot of these people feel very disenfranchised with the normal healthcare system.
“By bringing care to the people, going to them, instead of having them come to us, we’re able to help alleviate some of their medical issues.
Klee, the associate program director for the Munson family practice residency program and the community assistant dean for the Traverse City campus of the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, helps with the program’s outreach.
The street medicine program is set up to provide a variety of services. For example, their mobile unit can help with trauma treatment like burns and lacerations. And their street medicine program can help order blood work and X-rays.
In the past 10 months, the street medicine program reports treating more than 230 individuals and provided 445 patient visits.
“We’ve taken care of pregnant women and people from young ages and their late teens to people in their 70s,” Klee said
The street medicine program operates on Tuesdays and Fridays to meet patients wherever they may be found
On Friday, the group parked their mobile medical unit in the area near the men’s and women’s walking trails by the Grand Traverse Commons, an area often called “The Pines.”
The outreach team included participants from Munson Healthcare, Goodwill Northern Michigan, Traverse City Health Clinic and other community partners
The team split into two groups, with a mix of medical professionals and Goodwill staff, so they can effectively cover more ground.
The groups approach camps with a “hello” or “good morning.” Then they encourage those who answer to visit the mobile unit.
“We’re selling hope,” said Percy Bird, who is a street outreach housing navigator for Goodwill of Northern Michigan{
Bird estimates that 60 to 70 people live in The Pines, but that number doesn’t include what he calls the “comers and goers.”
Part of Goodwill’s mission in the street medicine program is to connect individuals to housing resources.
“They (Goodwill street outreach team) can follow up with folks with housing discussions or paperwork applications while medical care is also,” said Ryan Hannon, who is Goodwill Northern Michigan’s housing and homeless services community engagement officer.
Hannon explained that Goodwill is the “eyes and ears” of the street medicine program. His organization is responsible for keeping up with individuals and helping to identify those most in need.
The street medicine program started with Hannon and a volunteer nurse.
They began developing connections with healthcare providers until progress was stopped by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then the COVID-19 vaccine became a springboard for this street medicine program.
“It gave a good venue to get back out during that time,” Hannon said.
In the past three years, Hannon said he’s seen the support for the program and collaboration between organizations grow.
He also views this program as an opportunity for future healthcare professionals to expand their knowledge.
“It educates the student residents and the healthcare providers about the real things that go on and the conditions that people are living and suffering from in homelessness,” Hannon said.
Rishi Partha, a third-year psychiatry resident with Pine Rest, said the street medicine program has given him insight into the “acute mental health needs of people who can’t afford care on a regular basis.
Partha, who has provided his services for the street medicine program twice, has offered recommendations for medications and therapy. But, sometimes, Partha is just a listening ear.
“A lot of these people, they’re very lonely,” he said. “They’re alone, and they need someone to talk to.”
Rusty Mattson, who lives in The Pines, said he appreciates the care he receives from the street medicine program.
“But I don’t have anyone else,” he said.
In the future, Hannon said, he sees the program continuing to help people and he hopes they are able to expand their days of outreach.
Both Hannon and Klee said securing housing for people in need is synonymous with good health.
“Providing housing, in itself, is providing health care,” Hannon said. | https://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/taking-it-to-the-street-collaboration-provides-health-services-for-homeless/article_df0111b6-2cb8-11ee-bdff-1fded7e6dd0a.html | 2023-07-29T10:30:28 | 1 | https://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/taking-it-to-the-street-collaboration-provides-health-services-for-homeless/article_df0111b6-2cb8-11ee-bdff-1fded7e6dd0a.html |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-we-were-in-the-air-mississippi-family-recounts-surviving-tornado-that-tore-mobile-home-apart/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:31 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-we-were-in-the-air-mississippi-family-recounts-surviving-tornado-that-tore-mobile-home-apart/ |
BAGHDAD – The leader of Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah said Saturday that if governments of Muslim-majority nations do not act against countries that allow the desecration of the Quran, Muslims should “punish” those who facilitate attacks on Islam's holy book.
The comments by Hassan Nasrallah came in a video address to tens of thousands gathered in Beirut’s southern suburbs to mark Ashoura, a Shiite holy day commemorating the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein.
Nasrallah often uses religious occasions to send political messages to followers, and on Saturday slammed recent incidents in which the Quran was burned or otherwise desecrated at authorized demonstrations in Sweden and Denmark.
He said Muslims should watch for the outcome of an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, scheduled to take place in Baghdad on Monday to discuss the organization’s response to the Quran burnings.
The organization and its member states should “send a firm, decisive and unequivocal message to these governments that any repeat of the attacks will be met with a boycott,” Nasrallah said. If they do not, he said, Muslim youth should “punish the desecrators.”
He did not elaborate what such a boycott and punishment should entail.
Members of the crowd, who carried banners with religious slogans alongside the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Palestine, chanted, “Oh, Quran, we are at your service; Oh, Hussein, we are at your service.”
Shiites represent over 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims and view Hussein as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s death in battle at the hands of Sunnis at Karbala, south of Baghdad, ingrained a deep rift in Islam and continues to this day to play a key role in shaping Shiite identity.
Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world on Friday commemorated Ashoura, while Saturday marked the culmination of the observances in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the Iraqi city of Karbala, where Hussein is entombed in a gold-domed shrine. In the streets of the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, mourners gathered to watch reenactments of the Battle of Karbala and Hussein’s death.
In the streets, young men clad in black and white slashed their heads with swords and knives to demonstrate their grief. Friends swabbed each other’s heads with tissues and handed each other water.
In Syria’s capital, Damascus, the crowds were mourning not only the death of Hussein but a deadly attack in the suburb of Sayida Zeinab, home to a shrine to Zeinab, the daughter of the first Shiite imam, Ali, and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad.
A bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded there on Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens more. On Tuesday, another bomb in a motorcycle had wounded two people.
On Friday, the Islamic State group — a Sunni militant group that often targets Shiites — claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying Thursday’s bombing came “during their annual polytheistic rituals.” The group’s extreme interpretation of Islam holds Shiite Muslims to be apostates.
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Associated Press writers Anmar Khalil in Karbala, Iraq, and Hassan Ammar in Beirut contributed to this report. | https://www.clickorlando.com/news/world/2023/07/29/lebanons-hezbollah-leader-urges-muslims-to-punish-quran-desecrators-if-governments-fail-to-do-so/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:34 | 1 | https://www.clickorlando.com/news/world/2023/07/29/lebanons-hezbollah-leader-urges-muslims-to-punish-quran-desecrators-if-governments-fail-to-do-so/ |
CADILLAC — Nick Winkler went from runner-up to first place in a year.
He’s hoping Cadillac does much the same.
A finalist when the Vikings hired Shaun Jackson for the 2022 season, Winkler now replaces Jackson.
“We really liked him,” Cadillac athletic director Fred Bryant said. “We just felt the previous coach had more head coaching experience.”
When Jackson departed after only one season, Winkler was right there. Fresh off a 7-4 season in Wisconsin at the helm of a program without much success in years prior to his arrival.
Cadillac went 5-5 last season, its fourth in a row with a .500 or better mark. The Vikings went to the Division 4 state finals in 2020 and won a district title in 2021 under Cody Mallory, who since left for Spring Lake.
Winkler has plenty of connection to the Cadillac area.
Winkler’s grandparents own a dairy farm outside of Cadillac, and his grandfather, Joe Peterson, was a bus driver for the school for 40 years. His cousin played in a Vikings uniform under Jim Webb. His mother attended Cadillac High School.
“He did a great job of setting the standard and Cody did a really good job of continuing that,” Winkler said of Webb, who now coaches at Big North Conference rival Petoskey. “It’s great to be at a place like Cadillac where they have such a rich history.”
The 35-year-old from Iron Mountain played at Kingsford for Chris Hofer, moving on to play offensive line at at Saginaw Valley State University.
Bryant said Winkler’s GLIAC connections are a nice bonus, because former Vikings frequently end up playing in that league, much like Derek Rood and Christ Reinhold from last year’s squad.
Bryant likes what Winkler does with the team outside of football as well. He’s already had several guest speakers in to talk to the team, and promotes frequent community service.
“He’s a good communicator,” Bryant said. “He’s a young coach, which brings energy. He understands the expectations here. He’s been coming here since he was a kid, so he’s excited.”
The majority of Cadillac’s assistant coaches under Jackson are back, giving some added continuity.
Winkler graduated from SVSU in 2011 and spent one year as a grad assistant there.
From there, he coached Dimond High School in Anchorage Alaska for three years, Gallup, New Mexico for two and the last three at Clintonville, Wiconsin.
Gallup went from 25 players to over 60 in his tenure, and he was able to learn from Bob Davie’s staff at the University of New Mexico.
Winkler took over a Clintonville team that produced a combined nine wins in the previous eight seasons and turned the program around, making the playoffs last year with a 7-4 mark. He posted a 12-15 overall record with the Truckers, with quarterback Kade Rosenau throwing for 2,383 yards and 32 touchdowns.
Winkler said he sees similar traits in Charle Howell, a 6-foot-5 senior who looks to start at quarterback. Eli Main and Nate Roberts are also in the quarterback competition.
“They have eerily similar traits,” Winkler said of Rosenau and Howell. “We’ve got some great leaders. We’ve got guys willing to take charge and do the right things.”
Howell actually met Rosenau in Wisconsin last weekend, getting to throw the ball between them and pick his brain about Winkler’s spread offense.
“He calls me his doppleganger,” Howell said. “I think coach Winkler is going to stick. It’s been good. We’re adjusting to the new stuff and it’s starting to click.”
Summer conditioning and lifting sessions were well-attended, despite Winkler having to convert an elementary school gym into a makeshift weight room while the high school was without power much of the summer because of ongoing renovations.
He was 10-16 with Dimond, a school whose 2015-16 record of 6-4 was the first winning season since 2006.
Winkler went 4-16 at Gallup, going 2-8 each season at a school with a 1-24 record since his departure.
“Football is a vehicle for life,” said Winkler, a high school special education teacher. “You can live a whole life in one game — the highs and lows. If you’re not teaching them something other than football, you’re not doing it right.”
Winkler also coached wrestling and was a track assistant at Clintonville. The Truckers went from three to 15 on the wrestling team, including Keela Deering, who placed second in the state’s female division. | https://www.record-eagle.com/sports/winkler-aims-to-keep-cadillac-surge-going/article_1f864e64-2a38-11ee-a356-6fb44e1708e8.html | 2023-07-29T10:30:35 | 0 | https://www.record-eagle.com/sports/winkler-aims-to-keep-cadillac-surge-going/article_1f864e64-2a38-11ee-a356-6fb44e1708e8.html |
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.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-worker-warned-organizer-someones-going-to-end-up-dead-before-crowd-surge-at-21-travis-scott-show/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:38 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/national-news/ap-worker-warned-organizer-someones-going-to-end-up-dead-before-crowd-surge-at-21-travis-scott-show/ |
ORLANDO, Fla. – Happy Saturday! Expect another hot and humid day with daytime highs reaching 93° this afternoon with feels like temperatures between 104°-106°. The west coast seabreeze will be the primary source for showers and thunderstorms to get going. The east coast seabreeze will kick up later this afternoon pinning storms along the Space and Treasure Coasts.
It’ll be an Inconvenient Weather Day for many cities this afternoon, so make sure you have that rain gear nearby. The timing of storms are expected to fire up around noon lasting through 10 p.m. A few storms will have the opportunity to produce locally heavy rain, frequent lightning and strong wind gusts. This evening showers and storms are expected to begin to slowly wind down.
Sunday, scattered storms and showers are likely. It’ll be hot and humid with an excessive heat watch in effect for Flagler County through the morning into the afternoon. Heat Indices could reach 112° in that area.
Through the week it’ll be hot and humid with highs in the lower to middle 90s. Heat index values staying in the triple digits daily. Rain chances will be moderate to high through the week.
Tropics update: An area of showers and storms continue to meander over the central Atlantic. It won’t do much in the next 48 hours but conditions will be favorable through the next seven days for tropical development. It’s expected to become a tropical depression sometime next. Not a threat to Florida. Tropical models are in good agreement showing that’ll it’ll curve around an area of high pressure away from the Lesser Antilles. | https://www.clickorlando.com/weather/2023/07/29/scattered-storms-developing-today-could-produce-locally-heavy-rain/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:40 | 1 | https://www.clickorlando.com/weather/2023/07/29/scattered-storms-developing-today-could-produce-locally-heavy-rain/ |
He’s the Babe Ruth of bass fishing.
And he’s taking his final swings in Bay City.
Bass fishing legend Kevin VanDam competes in the final regular season event of his star-spangled career when Major League Fishing brings its Bass Pro Tour season finale to Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay Aug. 1-6.
Major League Fishing is the world’s largest tournament fishing organization and the Bass Pro Tour is the top level of the sport. And VanDam is the king of it all.
The Kalamazoo native is a seven-time BASS Angler of the Year, with 25 Bassmaster victories on his resume. The 2018 Hall of Fame inductee announced in February that this would be his final season on the tournament trail.
“Obviously, the main focus during this event will be Uncle Kevin’s last Tour event of his career,” nephew and fellow pro Jonathon VanDam said in a press release. “It’s going to be an exciting time to celebrate with him.”
Kevin VanDam headlines a lineup of some of the top stars of the sport who are venturing to Bay City. Two-time reigning Bally Bet Angler of the Year Jacob Wheeler, 2023 REDCREST champion Bryan Thrift and previous tournament winner Jordan Lee are also part of the 80-angler field.
Competitors from across the country will be fishing a 1,143-square mile expanse of Saginaw Bay as well as a 2.2-mile stretch of Saginaw River in search smallmouth and largemouth bass. And they do so with $805,000 in prize money on the line, with $100,000 going to the champion.
The influx of competitors, staff and fans should provide quite a boon to local businesses, as hotels and restaurants gear for plenty of activity tied to the tournament.
“Bringing the best bass fishermen in the world -- and the No. 1 competitive fishing tournament in the world – to Bay City is an opportunity we have been working toward for several years,” said Bay City Commissioner Edward Clements, a fishing guru himself. “Our fishing is spectacular, along with our restaurants, bars, shops, parks and the community as a whole. We are confident the professional anglers and families, fans, sponsors and tournament staff are going to have a great stay in Bay City.”
Bay City has hosted numerous professional fishing tournaments over the years – including a National Professional Fishing League stop here earlier this month – but is a first-time venue for Major League Fishing.
“I’m really excited to see the circuit go to a new fishery,” Jonathon VanDam said. “I’ve been there a handful of times, but it’s a really big body of water, so I’m not super familiar with it myself and am looking forward to it.
“Some of the biggest smallmouth in the Great Lakes are in Lake Huron. They move into Saginaw Bay in the springtime, and you’ll see tournament bags of 26-27 pounds (in the spring).”
The tournament features a 7:30 a.m. launch each day and at 4 p.m. takeout and fans are invited to attend each at the Golson Boat Launch at 1598 North Johnson St. But the big action takes place from 1-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at Wenonah Park, where the MLF Fan Experience is planned, featuring giveaways, photo opportunities and the MLF Watch Party. The first 100 kids on site each day receive a rod and reel.
The tournament is being livestreamed on MajorLeagueFishing.com and Chad McKee, Marty Stone and J.T. Kennedy form the broadcast team on MLFNow! A two-hour tournament show is scheduled to air at 7 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 11 on Discovery Channel.
The catch, weigh and release format awards points based on each angler’s five heaviest fish. The top 40 competitors from the Tuesday-Friday rounds advance to the Knockout Round on Saturday, with the top 10 from that portion moving on to Sunday’s championship. | https://www.mlive.com/sports/2023/07/bass-fishings-biggest-star-brings-farewell-tour-to-bay-city-for-major-league-fishing-finale.html | 2023-07-29T10:30:44 | 0 | https://www.mlive.com/sports/2023/07/bass-fishings-biggest-star-brings-farewell-tour-to-bay-city-for-major-league-fishing-finale.html |
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.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-democrats-claim-the-gop-is-withholding-evidence-contradicting-claims-in-hunter-biden-probe/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:45 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/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.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-donald-trump-appeals-judges-decision-to-keep-hush-money-case-in-new-york-state-court/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:52 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-donald-trump-appeals-judges-decision-to-keep-hush-money-case-in-new-york-state-court/ |
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.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-president-biden-to-host-the-leaders-of-japan-and-korean-for-an-august-summit-at-camp-david/ | 2023-07-29T10:30:59 | 1 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-president-biden-to-host-the-leaders-of-japan-and-korean-for-an-august-summit-at-camp-david/ |
ORLANDO, Fla. — Residents in Volusia and Lake counties will have a chance to pick up food items at no cost Saturday morning.
>>> STREAM CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS LIVE <<<
Farm Share, a nonprofit that aims to help food-insecure residents in Florida, will distribute free, fresh produce and non-perishable canned goods in DeLand and Clermont.
At 9 a.m., organizers will join Houses of Hope to distribute food in DeLand.
READ: Clark Howard: Here’s how young parents can prepare now for the cost of higher education
The July 29 event will be held at:
- 1640 East Voohis Avenue in DeLand, Florida 32724
See the map below for event location:
Volusia Farm Share Flyer by Gene Saladna on Scribd
Then, starting at 10 a.m. in Clermont, Farm Share will be teaming up with local community organizations to give away food as part of the Back 2 School Backpack Bash.
READ: 9 things to do this weekend: Food and Wine starts, Back-to-School bash
The event will happen at East Ridge High School, located at:
- 13322 Excalibur Road, Clermont, Florida 32711
See the map below for event location:
Clermont Farm Share Flyer by Gene Saladna on Scribd
Farm Share said it helps to fight hunger “by working hand-in-hand with local farmers to recover and redistribute produce that would otherwise be thrown away due to aesthetic imperfections.”
Both distribution events will be drive-thru style.
Attendees should arrive in a vehicle with a trunk or cargo bed, organizers said.
READ: Orange County sees 156% jump in risk protection orders, sheriff says
Saturday’s food giveaways will be on a first-come, first-served basis and will operate until supplies run out.
Click here to download the free WFTV news and weather apps, click here to download the WFTV Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
©2023 Cox Media Group | https://www.wftv.com/news/local/saturday-food-giveaways-clermont-deland/C5PVWOFVDFDRJG4CARCH6GXJMQ/ | 2023-07-29T10:31:05 | 0 | https://www.wftv.com/news/local/saturday-food-giveaways-clermont-deland/C5PVWOFVDFDRJG4CARCH6GXJMQ/ |
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.
—-
Associated Press writer Lisa Mascaro and AP videojournalist Mike Pesoli contributed to this report. | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-sen-mcconnell-says-he-plans-to-serve-his-full-term-as-leader-despite-questions-about-his-health/ | 2023-07-29T10:31:06 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-sen-mcconnell-says-he-plans-to-serve-his-full-term-as-leader-despite-questions-about-his-health/ |
CANBERRA, Australia — (AP) — Political instability in Niger resulting from a military takeover that deposed the president this week threatens the economic support provided by Washington to the African nation, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Saturday.
Members of the Niger military announced on Wednesday they had deposed democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum and on Friday named Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani as the country's new leader, adding Niger to a growing list of military regimes in West Africa's Sahel region.
Blinken, who is in Australia as part of a Pacific tour, said the continued security and economic arrangements that Niger has with the U.S. hinged on the release of Bazoum and “the immediate restoration of the democratic order in Niger.”
“Our economic and security partnership with Niger — which is significant, hundreds of millions of dollars — depends on the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order that has been disrupted by the actions in the last few days,” Blinken said. “So that assistance, that support, is in clear jeopardy as a result of these actions, which is another reason why they need to be immediately reversed.”
Blinken stopped short of calling the military actions in Niger a coup, a designation that could result in the African country losing millions of dollars of military aid and assistance.
Speaking in Brisbane, Blinken said he had spoken with President Bazoum on Saturday but did not provide details. He cited the support of the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States and other regional entities in trying to bring an end to the unrest.
“The very significant assistance that we have in place that’s making a material difference in the lives of the people of Niger is clearly in jeopardy and we’ve communicated that as clearly as we possibly can to those responsible for disrupting the constitutional order and Niger’s democracy," Blinken said.
Blinken said the U.S. Embassy in Niger had accounted for the safety of all staff members and their families, while issuing a security alert advising U.S. citizens in the country to limit unnecessary movements and avoid areas impacted by the coup.
The military group that conducted the coup, calling itself the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country, said its members remained committed to engaging with the international and national community.
“This is as a result of the continuing degradation of the security situation, the bad economic and social governance,” air force Col. Major Amadou Abdramane said in the video released by the coup leaders Wednesday. He said aerial and land borders were closed and a curfew was in place until the situation stabilized.
Bazoum 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 jihadis 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 Niger's military, while the U.S. and other European countries have helped train the nation’s troops.
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Hannon reported from Bangkok.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.wftv.com/news/world/blinken-says-us/JJIP73JLTYRAIK3UJGO2AFGJYY/ | 2023-07-29T10:31:12 | 1 | https://www.wftv.com/news/world/blinken-says-us/JJIP73JLTYRAIK3UJGO2AFGJYY/ |
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.”
___
EDITORS’ NOTE: An earlier version of this story misidentified the name of “The Dan O’Donnell Show.”
___
Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin. | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-senate-rebukes-wisconsin-congressman-who-yelled-vulgarities-at-high-school-age-pages/ | 2023-07-29T10:31:14 | 0 | https://www.qcnews.com/news/politics/election/ap-senate-rebukes-wisconsin-congressman-who-yelled-vulgarities-at-high-school-age-pages/ |
BAGHDAD — (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s Shiite militant group Hezbollah said Saturday that if governments of Muslim-majority nations do not act against countries that allow the desecration of the Quran, Muslims should “punish” those who facilitate attacks on Islam's holy book.
The comments by Hassan Nasrallah came in a video address to tens of thousands gathered in Beirut's southern suburbs to mark Ashoura, a Shiite holy day commemorating the 7th century martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein.
Nasrallah often uses religious occasions to send political messages to followers, and on Saturday slammed recent incidents in which the Quran was burned or otherwise desecrated at authorized demonstrations in Sweden and Denmark.
He said Muslims should watch for the outcome of an emergency meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, scheduled to take place in Baghdad on Monday to discuss the organization’s response to the Quran burnings.
The organization and its member states should “send a firm, decisive and unequivocal message to these governments that any repeat of the attacks will be met with a boycott,” Nasrallah said. If they do not, he said, Muslim youth should “punish the desecrators.”
He did not elaborate what such a boycott and punishment should entail.
Members of the crowd, who carried banners with religious slogans alongside the flags of Hezbollah, Lebanon and Palestine, chanted, “Oh, Quran, we are at your service; Oh, Hussein, we are at your service.”
Shiites represent over 10% of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims and view Hussein as the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad. Hussein’s death in battle at the hands of Sunnis at Karbala, south of Baghdad, ingrained a deep rift in Islam and continues to this day to play a key role in shaping Shiite identity.
Millions of Shiite Muslims in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and around the world on Friday commemorated Ashoura, while Saturday marked the culmination of the observances in countries such as Lebanon, Iraq and Syria.
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gathered in the Iraqi city of Karbala, where Hussein is entombed in a gold-domed shrine. In the streets of the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, mourners gathered to watch reenactments of the Battle of Karbala and Hussein’s death.
In the streets, young men clad in black and white slashed their heads with swords and knives to demonstrate their grief. Friends swabbed each other’s heads with tissues and handed each other water.
In Syria’s capital, Damascus, the crowds were mourning not only the death of Hussein but a deadly attack in the suburb of Sayida Zeinab, home to a shrine to Zeinab, the daughter of the first Shiite imam, Ali, and granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad.
A bomb hidden in a motorcycle exploded there on Thursday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens more. On Tuesday, another bomb in a motorcycle had wounded two people.
On Friday, the Islamic State group — a Sunni militant group that often targets Shiites — claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying Thursday’s bombing came “during their annual polytheistic rituals.” The group’s extreme interpretation of Islam holds Shiite Muslims to be apostates.
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Associated Press writers Anmar Khalil in Karbala, Iraq, and Hassan Ammar in Beirut contributed to this report.
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