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Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a freshman Republican from Wisconsin, said he was enraged after witnessing a group of high school-age Senate pages "defiling" the Capitol and treating the building like a "frat house common room."
What were the teenagers exactly doing? Briefly lying on the floor to snap photos of the historic Rotunda dome.
On Wednesday night, Senate pages, who help assist day-to-day operations at the Capitol, were touring the Capitol as part of their last week of service, Punchbowl News first reported. To capture a photo of the ceiling, some pages positioned themselves and their camera on the floor. That's when Van Orden walked in.
According to a transcript written by one of the pages and obtained by The Hill, Van Orden said, "Wake the f‑‑‑ up you little s‑‑‑‑" and "Get the f‑‑‑ out of here. You are defiling the space." He reportedly also called the teenagers "jackasses" and "lazy s----."
Since the incident, the congressman has refused to apologize for his outburst — insisting that he was protecting the integrity of the Capitol Rotunda.
"I have long said our nation's Capitol is a symbol of the sacrifice our servicemen and women have made for this country and should never be treated like a frat house common room," Van Orden said in a statement.
Maddy Pritzl, a former Senate page, defended the teenagers and clarified that it was a years-long tradition.
Every single Senate Page has taken midnight photos on the Rotunda floor at some point. I did it in 2016—it's tradition!
— Maddy Pritzl (@pritzlmaddy) July 27, 2023
Leave it to @derrickvanorden to ruin both the fun and experience for some of the hardest working 16-17-year-olds. https://t.co/3MQ05hoPJR
Senior members of Congress say the freshman needs a lesson on manners
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was disturbed by Van Orden's behavior and his lack of remorse.
"I understand that late last night a member of the House majority thought it appropriate to curse at some of these young people," Schumer said Thursday on the Senate floor. "I was shocked when I heard about it. I am further shocked at his refusal to apologize."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., agreed with Schumer, adding "everybody on this side of the aisle feels exactly the same way." Both Schumer and McConnell also took time to thank the Senate pages.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told reporters Friday that the incident was possibly a "misunderstanding" — adding that he planned to call Van Orden later that day. McCarthy's team did not immediately respond to NPR's request for an update on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, poked fun at Van Orden's outburst by imitating the position that the Senate pages reportedly were rebuked for.
TGIF after a rough week, Senate Pages? I got a great photo, how about you? @SenateCloakroom pic.twitter.com/xaPVVVrFDa
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) July 28, 2023
Van Orden is known for having a short fuse. In 2021, while running for office, he was accused of threatening a 17-year-old Wisconsin library staffer over a display of children's books in honor of Pride Month, the Associated Press reported.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wdiy.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/rep-van-orden-gets-bipartisan-scolding-after-he-cursed-at-teen-senate-pages | 2023-07-29T17:17:31 | 1 | https://www.wdiy.org/npr-news/2023-07-29/rep-van-orden-gets-bipartisan-scolding-after-he-cursed-at-teen-senate-pages |
The two leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination will share the same stage for the first time in Iowa Friday at the state party's Lincoln Dinner.
Former President Donald Trump maintains a double-digit lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in local polls, but Iowa GOP leaders say Trump has left an opening for DeSantis – and other rivals - to gain some ground.
Recently, Trump rubbed some Iowans the wrong way after ducking some prominent 'cattle calls' and publicly criticizing popular Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has pledged to remain neutral in the primary.
"It just kind of underlines the fatigue that I'm feeling from people who are concerned about the former president stepping on his own toes sometimes," said Brett Barker, the chair of the Story County Republican Party in Iowa.
"The governor has been very, very popular within the party in the state and is seen as the leader of the party in the state," he explained. "And, so for one of the candidates who wants to win the state to come in and not necessarily have the most flattering things to say, was, perplexing."
Presidential campaigning has already ramped into high gear in Iowa where the first presidential caucuses are less than six months away.
Several Republican candidates are frequenting the state, attending presidential forums, joining fundraisers with local county parties and hosting solo events.
Trump has shied away from most of the group forums and instead favored solo events. This dinner will be a good opportunity for voters to see him on the same stage with other candidates who are desperate to cut into his lead.
Those include former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina who have all confirmed they will attend.
Iowa voters do expect to meet presidential candidates before they're willing to vote for them, and not just once, from a distance.
Early-state polling illustrates Trump's dominance. A recent Fox Business Iowa GOP caucus poll shows Trump leading, 46%, with DeSantis far behind at 16%. But it also showed Scott gaining some ground, polling at 11%.
Trump enjoys the benefit of somewhat pseudo-incumbency. Republican voters already know quite a bit about the former president.
But for those looking to gain traction, Trump's relative absence in Iowa has lent his rivals an opportunity.
The polls may show Trump ahead, but political science professor Rachel Paine Caufield says voters have different expectations in Iowa.
"Iowa voters do expect to meet presidential candidates before they're willing to vote for them, and not just once, from a distance," said Caufield, who is co-chair of the political science department at Drake University in Des Moines. "They expect to shake hands. They expect a real connection with a presidential candidate. That's what motivates them to show up on a snowy night in January at a caucus site."
And there have been some other signs of Trump's vulnerabilities.
Jeff Reichman, an Iowa state senator who'd previously endorsed Trump, for example, switched his support to DeSantis just days after the former president attacked Gov. Reynolds.
"How many times have we gritted our teeth and shook our heads at some of the things that the former president has said?" Reichman told NPR. "And then when it was focused on our governor, and I know her, I worked with her, I know her personally. It was too much. It was a bridge too far."
The Trump campaign does not appear to be concerned and has been touting recent Iowa polling.
"President Trump is CRUSHING the competition," Steven Cheung tweeted this week, linking to the Fox Business poll.
It's still early though. Both Trump and other Republicans have time to pick up the pace. There is also time for some rivals to catch fire.
Haley and Scott, for example, have been generating buzz across Republican circles, according to both Barker and Caufield.
"I've seen Ambassador Haley a lot," Barker said. "And everywhere she goes, she really impresses people. She's one of those who I do think has the ability to catch people's attention."
Meanwhile, Scott has been rising in the polls as he gains name recognition.
"A couple of them seem to be gaining some momentum among kind of a party elite class that's looking for an alternative to Donald Trump," Caufield said. "So this is their chance to make that pitch. And whatever happens on Friday, it's the beginning of the conversation, not the end of the conversation."
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wdiy.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-28/trump-still-leads-the-pack-in-iowa-but-other-republicans-are-hoping-for-an-opening | 2023-07-29T17:17:37 | 1 | https://www.wdiy.org/npr-news/npr-news/2023-07-28/trump-still-leads-the-pack-in-iowa-but-other-republicans-are-hoping-for-an-opening |
Pet owner says 4-foot-long python has gone missing from his yard
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR/Gray News) - Residents in an Illinois neighborhood are currently on the lookout for a pet snake.
Jonathan Delaney told WIFR that his 15-year-old ball python named Bubba slithered away from his yard last weekend.
Delaney said his exotic 4-foot-long snake is missing, but neighbors shouldn’t be worried.
“He’s completely harmless,” Delaney said. “We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s never been mean and the biggest thing he’d eat is a rat.”
Fellow Edgewater resident Rhonda Hanley said she’d likely be startled if she came across Bubba. But because he’s someone’s pet, she’ll try to help find him.
“I’ll try and put something over the top of it like a blanket or a garbage can if I find him,” Hanley said.
Delaney is thankful that his neighbors are concerned enough to lend a helping hand.
“We are hoping he’s still around here and nobody harms him,” he said. “We are hoping to find him as soon as possible.”
Experts say because ball pythons prefer to be hidden most of the time the snake doesn’t appear to pose a threat to the public.
The snake can strike if it gets agitated, but those bites don’t normally require medical attention.
“The most that could happen is that the snake could take a defensive swipe,” Stephanie Stone, owner of Jurassic Reptile Supply, said. “It’s less impact than a cat scratch or a cat bite.”
Stone added that ball pythons typically don’t travel very far.
“Unless it feels the need to try to find a meal, it’s probably very close to where it was originally,” she said.
Anyone who spots Bubba has been urged to contact Delaney on social media.
Copyright 2023 WIFR via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kswo.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ | 2023-07-29T17:17:57 | 1 | https://www.kswo.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ |
Hot and Humid to Start Off This Week
COLUMBUS, Mississippi (WCBI) – Starting off this weekend with mostly sunny to partly cloudy skies this morning! It will be a muggy weekend with storms beginning to roll in tomorrow, so be prepared for some hot days ahead!
TODAY – Make sure to have the sunglasses and water handy for today as we are seeing temperatures warming up quickly this morning. Mostly sunny skies are in store for your Saturday, but with this extreme humidity, it will feel much hotter! With more sunshine, temperatures are quickly going to climb into the upper 90s for the high later today! Heading into the later evening hours we will begin to cool off and have a break from the heat. Overnight, skies remain partly cloudy and temperatures cooling off into the mid 70s with an overnight low of 76.
TOMORROW – Another hot and humid day is in store for your Sunday with storms rolling in for the afternoon. Skies will start off partly cloudy, but more cloud coverage will build into the region as the storms begin to approach our area. Temperatures will quickly warm up and reach a high of 98 for tomorrow afternoon! The SPC has issued our viewing area under a level 1 risk for the storms moving in tomorrow evening, so stay weather aware just in case! Heading into the overnight hours, things begin to calm down and temperatures will quickly begin to cool off into the mid 70s for the overnight low.
NEXT WEEK – We have more sunshine in store for next week, but there still remains a slight rain chance. It will be another hot week in store for the upcoming days, so make sure you drink plenty of water and stay hydrated! | https://www.wcbi.com/hot-and-humid-to-start-off-this-week/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:09 | 1 | https://www.wcbi.com/hot-and-humid-to-start-off-this-week/ |
Bangladesh opposition supporters clash with police in protest over election oversight
DHAKA,Bangladesh (AP) — Police in Bangladesh’s capital have clashed with supporters of the country’s main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. The violence broke out Saturday as the opposition party organized sit-in protests at all the entry points to Dhaka. They demand that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina step down and hand over power to a non-party caretaker government to oversee the next election, expected to be held in January. Hasina has rejected the demand and says the election will be held under her leadership as defined in the constitution. On Saturday, police said at least 20 officers were injured. Zia’s party says more than 100 of its supporters have been injured. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/bangladesh-opposition-supporters-clash-with-police-in-protest-over-election-oversight/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:09 | 0 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/bangladesh-opposition-supporters-clash-with-police-in-protest-over-election-oversight/ |
Ex-Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon joins push for third-party presidential bid as Democrats try to stop it
By STEVE PEOPLES
AP National Political Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri is joining No Labels’ effort to lay the groundwork for a centrist third-party presidential ticket in 2024. Nixon gives the bipartisan organization another prominent ally amid concerns from Democrats that the No Labels campaign could unintentionally help Donald Trump return to the White House. Nixon is stepping back into national politics for the first time since leaving office in 2017. He’ll be No Labels’ director of ballot integrity. He says in an interview he was drawn to the role after learning that Democratic-aligned groups were working to stop No Labels from securing ballot access in key states. No Labels is preparing the strongest third-party presidential bid in at least three decades. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/ex-missouri-gov-jay-nixon-joins-push-for-third-party-presidential-bid-as-democrats-try-to-stop-it/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:15 | 0 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/ex-missouri-gov-jay-nixon-joins-push-for-third-party-presidential-bid-as-democrats-try-to-stop-it/ |
Kansas man sentenced to nearly 57 years in death of 2-year-old daughter who went days without food
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man whose 2-year-old daughter died after going days without food while he was passed out drunk has been sentenced to nearly 57 years in prison. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the sentence ordered Friday was the maximum that could be imposed after Jeffrey Exon was convicted in April of charges that included aggravated child endangerment and first-degree murder in the commission of a felony. Exon, a 47-year-old who goes by the name of James, called 911 on Jan. 5. 2021, telling a dispatcher that his daughter, Aurora Exon, had stopped breathing. He also said she recently had been “starving herself.” The coroner blamed her death on a form of malnutrition called marasmus. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/kansas-man-sentenced-to-nearly-57-years-in-death-of-2-year-old-daughter-who-went-days-without-food/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:21 | 1 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/kansas-man-sentenced-to-nearly-57-years-in-death-of-2-year-old-daughter-who-went-days-without-food/ |
‘The Few, the Proud’ aren’t so few: Marines recruiting surges while other services struggle
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Pres
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Not long ago, Marine Col. Jennifer Nash, a combat engineer with war deployments under her belt, made a vow to fellow officers as they headed to a dinner in Atlanta: She would get two new recruiting contacts by the end of the evening.
She admits recruiting is not the job that she or other Marines had in mind when they enlisted. But after stints as a recruiter and senior officer at the Eastern recruiting command, she has become emblematic of the Corps’ tradition of putting its best, battle-tested Marines on enlistment duty. They get results.
Marine leaders say they will make their recruiting goal this year, while the active-duty Army, Navy and Air Force all expect to fall short. The services have struggled in the tight job market to compete with higher-paying businesses for the dwindling number of young people who can meet the military’s physical, mental and moral standards.
On that night, Nash achieved her own goal. She had gotten the valet at the hotel and the hostess at the restaurant to provide their phone numbers and to consider a Marine career.
Nash’s boss, Brig. Gen. Walker Field, who head the Eastern recruiting region, says the Corps has historically put an emphasis on selecting top-performing Marines to fill recruiting jobs. He says that has been a key to the Marines’ recruiting success, along with efforts to increase the number of recruiters, extend those who do well and speed their return to high schools, where in-person recruiting stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said his recruiters — who cover the territory between Canada and Puerto Rico and as far west as Mississippi — will meet their mission and expect to have 30% of their 2024 goal when they start the next fiscal year, Oct. 1. More broadly, Marine officials say they expect the Corps to achieve its recruiting target of more than 33,000.
Last year, the Navy, Air Force and Marines had to eat into their pools of delayed entry applicants in order to make their goals. The Marines will avoid that this year.
“That would be a great ending,” said Field, speaking to The Associated Press on a recent steamy day at South Carolina’s Parris Island, along the Atlantic Coast. “I’m bearish for not only concluding FY23 on a strong footing, but also how we set the conditions for FY24.”
The Marine Corps may get some help from its small size. The Army, for example, has a recruiting goal of 65,000 this year, which is nearly double the Corps’, and expects to fall substantially short of that. Air Force and Navy officials say they will also miss their goals, although the Space Force, which is the smallest service and does its recruiting within Air Force stations, is expected to meet its goal of about 500 recruits.
Sitting in the shadow of Parris Island’s replica of the Iwo Jima monument, Field said his biggest challenge is that a number of Marine hopefuls cannot pass the military’s academic test, known as the Armed Services Voluntary Aptitude Battery.
That is a widespread problem, but the Army recently set up a program that targets recruits who score below 30 on the test and provides schooling for several weeks to help them pass. Already more than 8,800 recruits have successfully gone through the classes, raised their scores and moved on to basic training.
The Navy is taking another route with a pilot program that allows up to 20% of their recruits to score below 30 on the test, as long as they meet specific standards for their chosen naval job. Marine leaders, however, do not take those lowest scoring recruits, and so far have no plans for any type of formal improvement program such as the Army’s.
Field said the Marines are repositioning recruiting stations, moving them around based on where population totals have increased in the latest census. More important, he said, the Corps maintains its focus on choosing the right recruiters, encouraging successful ones to stay in the job and increasing the number of Marine reservists tapped for recruit duties from the current 31 to 96 by the end of next year.
Nash, who until last month was assistant chief of staff for the Eastern region, said Marines are hand-selected for recruiting command jobs. Many three- and four-star Marines, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, will cite their years doing enlistment duty.
“We put our best and brightest in those positions,” said Nash, adding that those chosen for recruiting posts have a proven track record of success in previous assignments and have demonstrated critical leadership skills. “That’s why they got selected, because they were above their peers.”
She acknowledged that the first time she was picked for a recruiting job she was “voluntold.” But now, recounting her sales pitch in Atlanta, her rapid fire pitch comes without taking a breath.
“I say, ‘Hey, ever thought about being Marine? We’re a bunch of Marines. And, you know, I think you potentially could be a good Marine. You ever thought about it?’ And usually you get, ‘Yeah, I thought about it.’ And I’m, like, ‘What’s holding you back? Would you like to learn more about your opportunities?’ ‘Absolutely.’ `OK. Mind giving me your name and phone number? I’ll have one of my recruiters give you a phone call.’”
The Marines have resisted increasing bonuses to attract recruits — something the other services have found helpful.
Gen. Eric Smith, the acting Marine Corps commandant, got some ribbing for his response when he was asked about bonuses during a naval conference in February.
“Your bonus is you get to call yourself a Marine,” he said. “That’s your bonus, right? There’s no dollar amount that goes with that.”
Field, Nash and others also say the Corps prefers to give a lot of recruits a few thousand dollars, rather than increasing the amount and giving money to far fewer people.
Field said that getting Marine recruiters in uniform back into high schools this year, after several years of COVID-19 restrictions, has been a key driver. There, young people line up to compete in pull-up contests, vying for a free T-shirt if they can do 20. And recruiters say many are drawn to the cache of being a Marine.
“If you told me you’ll give me $10 million worth of advertising and I can do something with it, or you’ll give me 10 great-looking Marines in a Marine uniform — what’s going to get the most value? Give me those 10 Marines and give me a day,” Nash said. “We’ll go out and we’ll get more out of that, I think, than $10 million in advertising.” | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/the-few-and-the-proud-arent-so-few-marines-recruiting-surges-while-other-services-struggle/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:28 | 0 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/the-few-and-the-proud-arent-so-few-marines-recruiting-surges-while-other-services-struggle/ |
EXCLUSIVE: Sister of man stabbed to death in Piedmont Park 14 years ago wants answers
By Tori Cooper
Click here for updates on this story
ATLANTA, Georgia (WANF) — When most people think of Piedmont Park murders, they think of the latest brutal stabbing of Midtown resident Katie Janness and her dog Bowie two years ago.
The gruesome murder still haunts the community today as the killer remains on the loose.
However, as we mark the two-year anniversary of Janness’ murder, Atlanta News First uncovered another murder in Piedmont Park from 14 years ago.
The case still remains unsolved — and Patrick Boland’s family still wants answers.
Atlanta News First spoke exclusively with the victim’s sister, Sheron Bautista, about what it’s been like trying to find closure for over a decade.
“I miss talking to him, miss hugging him,” Bautista said, adding that her bother was her shining light. “I cannot even begin to describe the pain that I feel when I look at my brother’s picture. His smiling face and just his warmth.”
Bautista would often visit Boland in Atlanta. She lives more than 780 miles west of the city now, but despite the distance, Piedmont Park for her is a dark place that haunts her family every day.
“It is dark but it’s the reality of what we live,” Bautista said.
Fourteen years ago, Boland was also found stabbed to death in Piedmont Park, according to Atlanta Police.
“I want people out there to realize that even after 14 years, the pain is still immense,” Bautista said.
Boland’s home showed signs that he left abruptly. His sister believes he left to meet someone in the park, but who exactly… remains a mystery.
“Who would want to do this to your brother?” Atlanta News First Reporter Tori Cooper asked Bautista.
“That is the million-dollar question and I would give almost everything that I have right now to find that answer,” she said.
Like in the murder of Janness, investigators had very few suspect leads in Boland’s case.
“While surveying the crime scene we noticed that there were some cameras in the immediate vicinity in the park, I asked our detectives to start reaching out,” former Atlanta Police homicide commander and current South Fulton Police Chief Keith Meadows said.
Meadows was one of the lead investigators on Boland’s case and he said he still remembers the night of his murder vividly.
“Unfortunately, our cameras didn’t yield much in the way of leads. At that time, we learned that the cameras in the park were not working,” Meadows said.
“There wasn’t an answer at all really about the cameras, they weren’t working and there may not be a good answer for that question,” Bautista said.
More than a decade later Bautista lives with guilt. She said she feels she hasn’t done enough to get answers as to who murdered her brother.
“I know that I haven’t done enough to push for someone to reopen the case because the pain sometimes is unbearable,” Bautista said.
She is hoping that by speaking out for the first time, new answers will come to light despite this dark memory. Not just for her brother Patrick but for Katie too.
“I think it’s worth reopening right now and taking a stronger look at the case and the physical evidence that did exist at that time,” Meadows said.
He went on to say that local investigators should also look at the other stabbing attack that happened nearby the park on the same night that Boland was stabbed to death. He said the other victim survived the stabbing attack, but investigators could never confirm that the two incidents were related.
“That person never wanted to talk to us, unfortunately,” Bautista said.
Bautista is now holding on to hope that the Atlanta community will member something from the night of May 28, 2009.
“There’s that one percent of cold cases that are solved and I’m hoping and pray every day that his case is among that one percent,” she said.
In both the murder of Katie Janness and Patrick Boland, the cameras in Piedmont Park were not working.
However, it is important to note that last year, the city spent more than $40 million to install more than 30 new surveillance cameras in Piedmont Park, that are not linked up to the Atlanta Police Department video integration system.
If you have any information on the murder of Patrick Boland or Katie Janness contact crime stoppers.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/exclusive-sister-of-man-stabbed-to-death-in-piedmont-park-14-years-ago-wants-answers/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:34 | 1 | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/exclusive-sister-of-man-stabbed-to-death-in-piedmont-park-14-years-ago-wants-answers/ |
Foley company fighting for medical cannabis license
By Hal Scheurich
Click here for updates on this story
FOLEY, Alabama (WALA) — The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) put a hold on issuing medical cannabis business licenses June 16, 2023. This was just four days after that same it announced the winning applicants. The stay on licenses came about after several companies complained and filed suit, alleging the scoring system used in evaluating applicants is flawed.
The medical marijuana movement in Alabama looked to be off and running, but before the first business license could be awarded, AMCC ordered a stay until an independent review of the scoring data used for the selections is completed. Commission Chairman, Dr. Steven Stokes told other members of AMCC at the June 16 meeting that inconsistencies in the tabulation of scores had been discovered.
“People were awarded large numbers of points that weren’t even operating yet or stated that they would be doing things that they’re not doing yet and we’re already operating. We know what it takes. We’re ready to go,” said CEO of Oscity Labs, Ray French.
French’s new sister company to Oscity is Specialty Medical Products of Alabama (SMPA) and is one of 90 who applied for licensing with AMCC in six categories, ranging from farming to manufacturing and transport. Foley-based SMPA was created for the specific purpose of bringing medical cannabis products to patients in the Alabama.
Oscity is already Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) certified which is the standard set by the Food and Drug Administration. Despite GMP certification and being a top manufacturer in the cannabis industry nationally, the Foley company only scored 33rd out of the 38 companies who applied for an Integrated Facility License. Company officials said the scores were given without a single visit to any of the facilities.
“If you look at the actual letter of the law, it says that they’re supposed to visit applicants and what they’re proposing is that they’re going to visit the awardees and only see those locations after they’ve awarded the initial licenses,” French explained.
French said the job of scoring the applicants was given to the University of South Alabama. The names and associations of the individuals doing the scoring aren’t being made available and applicants aren’t allowed to communicate with any of the Cannabis Commission members. Because of this, French said there is concern over lack of transparency and that his companies are being as open as they can about their business practices in hopes of reconsideration.
There’s already 350 acres of cannabis being harvested from their Escambia County farm which is being processed inside their 100,000 square foot Foley manufacturing facility. With the addition of a state-of-the-art clean room, armored vehicle for transport and several retail locations across the state, SMPA is sitting on ready to deliver the goods.
“This is the nicest facility, not just in the state but in the country so for them to look over the facility readiness and only award us sixty percent of those points was also really shocking. Those are the things we want to be instigated and hopefully, when we get these new scores on August 10th that they have been rectified and maybe the problem in tabulation was our application alone and hopefully, that’s what we see,” said SMPA CEO, Chris Whaley.
Another concern is that several of the companies making the cut are either from out-of-state or don’t currently have an operational facility. The independent review that’s being done is only to re-tabulate the scoring data already taken, not to re-score the facilities themselves.
Fox 10 News did reach out to AMCC today for comment. A spokesperson replied by email saying they could not comment on the process because of pending litigation but that contingent on the court lifting the stay, the Commission will re-award licenses at its August 10th meeting.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/foley-company-fighting-for-medical-cannabis-license/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:40 | 0 | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/foley-company-fighting-for-medical-cannabis-license/ |
FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- One person is in custody after a traffic stop in western Fresno County revealed a large amount of cash.
A California Highway Patrol officer pulled over a jeep on interstate-five and manning avenue Wednesday evening for a traffic violation.
During a search of the car, a hidden compartment was found containing more than $120,000 dollars.
Investigators say the money came from the sale of narcotics.
The driver, identified as 31-year-old Carlos Eduardo Paez Garcia was arrested for criminal and drug charges. | https://abc30.com/california-highway-patrol-man-arrested-cash-found-in-car-traffic-stop/13568860/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:44 | 0 | https://abc30.com/california-highway-patrol-man-arrested-cash-found-in-car-traffic-stop/13568860/ |
Power could be out for some people through the weekend due to severe overnight storms
By WDJT Staff
Click here for updates on this story
MILWAUKEE (WDJT) — According to We Energies, there are about 59,000+ customers without power at this moment, due to the overnight storms.
They are working hard to restore power after the storms brought winds of more than 70 miles per hour.
So far, they have restored power to more than 40,000 customers.
There has been extensive damage including downed trees and power lines. Some customers may be without power for the weekend.
Customers can get the latest information on the estimated time of restoration for their outage on their outage map online or on the We Energies app.
CBS 58 reports that Richfield and East Troy appear to be the hardest hit.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/power-could-be-out-for-some-people-through-the-weekend-due-to-severe-overnight-storms/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:46 | 0 | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/power-could-be-out-for-some-people-through-the-weekend-due-to-severe-overnight-storms/ |
Suspect in murder of 13-year-old Beaverton girl can be tried as adult
By Will Maetzold
Click here for updates on this story
HILLSBORO, Oregon (KPTV) — A 16-year-old arrested for the death of a 13-year-old girl whose body was discovered in a Beaverton creek last year can be tried as an adult.
Daniel Gore, now 17, has been in Washington County juvenile custody since being charged with murder on May 20, 2022.
On Friday, Washington County judge Erik Buchér waived the case to adult jurisdiction in a 54-page decision. The judge ruled Gore was of sufficient maturity to understand the crime he’s accused of.
On May 10, 2022, 13-year-old Milana Li was found dead in a creek in the Murrayhill neighborhood of Beaverton. She had been reported missing the day before.
Li’s grandmother, Lidiya Li, was her only family member in court. Milana Li’s parents appeared at the hearing via video conference.
Lidiya Li said she agrees with the judge’s decision. She said she doesn’t want Gore to be a threat to the public anymore.
“My granddaughter is gone,” Lidiya Li said. “She’s not with us anymore here. I don’t want him to hurt other people.”
Buchér ordered Gore to remain in juvenile custody at least until his next scheduled review hearing on August 25.
The prosecutor’s office has 30 days from the ruling to bring an indictment.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/suspect-in-murder-of-13-year-old-beaverton-girl-can-be-tried-as-adult/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:53 | 0 | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/suspect-in-murder-of-13-year-old-beaverton-girl-can-be-tried-as-adult/ |
Vigil held for 15-year-old fatally shot near 33rd and Center Tuesday night
By WDJT Staff
Click here for updates on this story
MILWAUKEE (WDJT) — “I lost my only baby I have no other child of my own to give a hug to,” said Celeste Cummings, mother of 15-year-old Raul Rios.
The family of one of those gun violence victims — remembering his life with a balloon release and vigil tonight.
Candles, flowers and pictures have been placed around 33rd and Center – where 15-year-old Raul Rios was shot and killed Tuesday night.
No arrest has been reported yet in Rios’ shooting.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform. | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/vigil-held-for-15-year-old-fatally-shot-near-33rd-and-center-tuesday-night/ | 2023-07-29T17:18:59 | 1 | https://kion546.com/cnn-regional/2023/07/29/vigil-held-for-15-year-old-fatally-shot-near-33rd-and-center-tuesday-night/ |
‘Madonna’ at 40: An oral history of the Queen of Pop’s debut album
By Dan Heching, CNN
(CNN) — Madonna’s self-titled first album was released 40 years ago this week.
In a social media video she shared on Thursday, the pop culture icon marked the anniversary by dancing to “Lucky Star,” the fourth single from her 1983 debut album, which was also her first top-five Billboard hit in the US.
“To be able to move my body and dance just a little bit makes me feel like the Luckiest Star in the world!” Madonna wrote, referencing her recovery from a medical issue earlier this summer. “Thank you to all of my fans and friends!”
Those friends include Michael Rosenblatt, the former A&R man at Sire Records – Madonna’s first label – who helped launch her career.
“I gave Madonna – after we signed – I gave her a gift of one of these old school Casiotone keyboards with a cassette player built in,” Rosenblatt told CNN in a recent interview. “And a week or two – definitely not longer than two weeks after I signed her – she came into my office and she played me ‘Lucky Star.’ She said, ‘I just wrote this on this little thing’ I got her.”
“I told her she wrote her first hit,” he recalled.
But luck had very little to do with the future Queen of Pop’s initial rise to fame, the kind of storied journey that has generated as many versions as those who tell it. One through-line, however, is that Madonna herself always seemed to know exactly where she was headed.
“I was so impressed with her from the first time I met her,” Bobby Shaw – who worked in the world of music promotion in early-1980s New York City and was the first promoter of Madonna’s music – told CNN. He also called her a “go-getter” who was “really aggressive” in wanting to know all about the business.
“Madonna” the album served as an explosive entry for the trained dancer-turned-singer on the road to being so much more. Although the album only contained eight songs total, those songs – including additional singles “Borderline,” “Burning Up” and “Holiday” – embodied the young and exuberant New York club culture of the time.
Danceteria, a dance club in Manhattan’s Garment District from 1979 to 1986, served as one of the nexus points for the burgeoning music scene in the city. A then 24-year-old Michigan native who had already tried to put together a record in Paris, Madonna was known to frequent the spot – she even said she “stalked” a DJ there in a recent Instagram post.
“My best friend at the time was Mark Kamins, who was the Friday, Saturday night DJ at Danceteria” Rosenblatt recalled. “And he told me about this girl who kept coming by trying to get him to play her demo – which he wouldn’t. But he told me this girl was just incredibly hot.”
“There was a star radiating in my office. It was her.”
One Saturday night in the winter of ’81-‘82, he would finally meet Madonna, coincidentally while he was accompanying another duo of artists who recently had been signed by a friend of his in England – namely, Wham!.
“So I’m out that night with George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, taking them to various clubs. And we’re at Danceteria, we’re at the second floor bar area, which is where Mark Kamins was the DJ. And I saw this girl go across the dance floor and up to the DJ booth and I said to myself, ‘That’s gotta be this girl that Mark’s talking about,’” Rosenblatt said, going on to mention that the two started talking, and made an appointment that Monday for Madonna to play him her demo. (The demo, he later said, contained the track “Everybody” – which would eventually become “Madonna’s” lead single, along with a B-side titled “Ain’t No Big Deal.”)
“So Monday, end of the day, Madonna and Mark showed up at my office and played me her demo, which was good. I mean, it wasn’t f–king amazing, but it was good,” he continued. “But what happened was, there was a star radiating in my office. It was her.”
Rosenblatt knew from the get-go that he was dealing with someone special, but he had one more test up his sleeve to spring on the neophyte.
“I always ask this question – and I still do with any artist I’m interested in – (which) is, ‘What do you want? What are you looking for?’” he explained. “The wrong answer is, ‘I want to get my art out there.’ The best answer was the one Madonna gave me, which said, ‘I want to rule the world.’ And I thought, that’s a hell of an answer.” (As it happens, it’s also the answer Madonna famously gave Dick Clark on “American Bandstand” in 1984.)
Rosenblatt’s instincts kicked in, and he wanted to move fast in securing a deal with Madonna. Which meant talking to his boss, Sire Records president Seymour Stein, and setting up an appointment for the two to meet the very next day – even though Stein was in the hospital at the time for a heart-related issue. (Stein lived for much longer, though, and passed away earlier this year).
“I went up to see Seymour, played him the demo, told him all about her, that she’s just a f–king star and we gotta sign her,” Rosenblatt recalled.
But there was still one thing that stuck out for him.
“I told Madonna, ‘You have to bring some ID, because I don’t believe your name is Madonna.’ And she said, ‘What are you talking about?’” he said, adding that he replied to her at the time that it was “just too good to be true. It’s like, it’s perfect.”
“And she came up the next day with her passport!”
“She was just this club kid.”
As with many parts of Madonna’s origin story, that meeting with Stein at the hospital has become the stuff of legend. There was a boombox in the room, and Rosenblatt played her demo again for Stein while Madonna was there. Beyond her music, the clincher was the artist standing there who was ready to take on the world.
“We listened to the music again and Madonna charmed the hell out of him,” Rosenblatt said of that fateful day with Stein. “She knew that she was this close to getting a deal, and this was the guy who was gonna make it happen.”
And while “everybody hit it off,” Rosenblatt still wasn’t fully confident that Stein would agree to sign her, because, he said, nobody else wanted to sign Madonna at the time. (The singer herself has spoken of the professional rejection she experienced in her early years in New York.)
Rosenblatt said it had to do with just how novel Madonna really was – not only in terms of her personality and (later, oft-imitated) presentation – but also because her music differed from what was popular at the time.
“You think about that genre, it hadn’t happened yet,” he said of Madonna’s early sound.
“There was disco, and there was new wave. And there was nothing in the middle, you know what I mean? So nobody was interested,” he added, going on to say that it was “also maybe because she didn’t have a manager or lawyer out there shopping. She was just this club kid.”
“Madonna was really coming out of the new wave clubs in a way that never really happened before,” he later said. “I mean, Debbie Harry was huge, but nobody was doing the disco/new wave thing, (the) R&B thing the way Madonna did. I mean, we created a format. But before that it didn’t (exist).”
Still, Rosenblatt knew a star when he saw one, and Stein agreed. He said yes to signing her for a singles deal – “a $10,000 singles deal” – that day in hospital. Rosenblatt and Stein had a strategy, knowing that the singles deal would eventually lead to a full-on record contract down the road.
“It made noise. It made noise enough to give her an album deal.”
“We went into the studio with Mark Kamins to cut ‘Ain’t No Big Deal,’ as the A-side, and ‘Everybody’s’ the B-side.” Rosenblatt said. “‘Ain’t No Big Deal’ did not come out well. So we just went with ‘Everybody.’ And I remember going into Bobby Shaw’s office because we’re all psyched about ‘Ain’t No Big Deal.’ And I said, ‘Well, that didn’t come out well. Is ‘Everybody’ strong enough for you?’ He goes, ‘Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.’”
Shaw explained that his decision to promote “Everybody” was a little unorthodox, since there was still no album secured yet behind it.
“Back then, unless there’s an album to back it up, the record companies aren’t going to spend a lot of money to try to get it on radio,” he explained.
Still, they went for it.
”(‘Everybody’) was a good record. It’s pretty simple,” Shaw said. “The song was great. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
Additionally, much like Rosenblatt, Shaw had more than a hunch that the person singing the song was going to be a big deal.
“I knew before this first song that (Madonna) was somebody special,” Shaw said. “The music had to be good, but nonetheless, the first song was great. I loved it. And I mean, it made noise. It made noise enough to give her an album deal.”
Madonna collaborated with a string of producers that included Kamins, Reggie Lucas – with whom they cut the song “Physical Attraction,” “which we loved,” Rosenblatt said – and John ‘Jellybean’ Benitez on her first few singles.
“So we made the album and it had ‘Borderline,’ which I knew was a smash. It had ‘Lucky Star,’ which I thought was gonna be a big hit, but it didn’t have what I wanted to be the lead off, just stone cold hit,” Rosenblatt said. “And I went to Seymour and I said, ‘Dude, I need another $10,000 to do another song.’”
Stein told him that in order to secure that additional funding, they would have to go to Los Angeles to meet the the top brass at Warner Bros. Records (now Warner Records) – Sire being a subsidiary of that company.
“I just knew that if I were to take Madonna out to LA to meet Warner Bros., getting the money would be no problem,” Rosenblatt said.
“Do you think you should tell Madonna to take the rags out of her hair?”
The pair traveled out to the West Coast, and stayed at Rosenblatt’s parents’ house, where Madonna invariably caught the attention of his mother.
“We’re getting ready to go out to meet the Warner crew,” Rosenblatt recalled. “My mom pulls me aside before we leave and goes… ‘Do you think you should tell Madonna to take the rags out of her hair before you meet Warner Bros.?’” – a clear reaction to the future star’s style that would soon take youth fashion by storm.
“And I said, ‘Thanks for caring mom, but we’re good!’” Rosenblatt added with a laugh.
Of course, the meetings with the top brass went well – their trip even coincided with the Passover holiday, Rosenblatt shared, and Madonna ended up as a guest at the Seder with Rosenblatt, his family, and some of the WB music execs, including Mo Ostin, at the legendary Chasen’s Restaurant, where she sang verses of the Haggadah (Passover prayer book) while wearing her trademark crosses.
“We met everybody and everybody loved her, everybody just loved her. Everybody got it,” Rosenblatt said. “She just charmed everybody. And at the end of the day before we left, I ran up to Lenny Waronker, who was the president of Warner Bros. at the time, (and) I said, ‘I need $10,000 to do one more song. I just need that lead out single.’ He said, ‘You got it.’ So the trip was a success.”
Back in New York, Rosenblatt came to Lucas, Benitez and Kamins with a proposal.
“I said, ‘Look, whoever comes to me with the song gets to produce it, I have $10K to cut a song.’”
Four days later, he said Benitez came in with a demo version of a song called “Holiday.”
“Sung by a guy. Much slower. But I love the song,” Rosenblatt recalled, adding how they proceeded to “speed it up and make it a dance record.”
“Holiday” – to this day one of Madonna’s most well-known anthems – was the surefire element Rosenblatt thought they needed to finish the album.
“It was grassroots, ground up.”
Then came the time to promote it, which wasn’t exactly in the bag yet. Shaw remembers how he and Madonna went down to Florida on a publicity tour, and drove around in “a beautiful convertible” while her brother, then-dancer Christopher Ciccone, and two other backup dancers traveled separately.
“We were listening to music while we were driving. And I was smoking pot and she wasn’t smoking,” Shaw recalled of their drive to Key West from Fort Lauderdale. “And then that night it poured. We did the Copa in Key West.”
Before the show, Shaw remembers sitting in one of their hotel rooms, watching the group rehearse. This was before Madonna was the Madonna the world eventually came to know, so sometimes the shows they played were for only a couple dozen people.
“I look back at this now, it just seems so surreal. But I was sitting on the edge of a bed watching them practice dancing in a hotel room. And it poured that night and maybe 25 people came to the venue. She was nobody. Nobody knew her then. We were trying to break her. So it was grassroots, ground up.”
Things changed, of course, thanks to the singles from the “Madonna” album picking up airplay on the radio and her music videos finding heavy rotation on the still new MTV. Madonna had a prescient attitude to music as a visual medium, quickly embracing the music video format when more established musicians initially balked at the concept.
“When ‘Holiday’ just started to break, and then ‘Borderline,’ and then it was, like, over,” Rosenblatt recalls of the moment when the scales tipped and Madonna started to catch on. “And I think the record just started to explode.”
This was still 1983, before Madonna’s smash sophomore album “Like A Virgin” and her now-legendary performance at the first-ever MTV Video Music Awards in September 1984, a showstopping display that made everyone who wasn’t already start paying attention.
“She’s gonna be bigger than Olivia Newton John.”
Looking back, Rosenblatt remembers telling Stein that Madonna was going to “be the biggest artist” he would ever work with.
“And he’s like, laughing, he goes, ‘Yeah? How big is she gonna be?’ And I said, ‘Seymour, she’s gonna be bigger than Olivia Newton John,’ who at the time was the biggest selling female artist.”
“I said she’d be bigger than Olivia Newton John and I thought she’d be like Barbara Streisand, because I really saw her acting,” Rosenblatt later added. “But who knew she was going to be this cultural idea, who knew she was going to be Marilyn Monroe. She became this cultural icon and that I don’t think anybody saw coming. But I knew, and as did Madonna.”
“I went to New York. I had a dream. I wanted to be a big star, I didn’t know anybody, I wanted to dance, I wanted to sing, I wanted to do all those things,” Madonna said of her meteoric rise in a 1985 concert documentary. “I wanted to make people happy, I wanted to be famous, I wanted everybody to love me. I wanted to be a star. I worked really hard, and my dream came true.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. | https://kion546.com/entertainment/cnn-entertainment/2023/07/29/madonna-at-40-an-oral-history-of-the-queen-of-pops-debut-album/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:05 | 1 | https://kion546.com/entertainment/cnn-entertainment/2023/07/29/madonna-at-40-an-oral-history-of-the-queen-of-pops-debut-album/ |
Bike ride across Iowa puts vibrant small-town America into sharp focus
By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Sports Writer
COLFAX, Iowa (AP) — It’s become easy to say that “small-town America” is slowly dying. That opportunities for young people have dried up, just like businesses and main streets, and that the only way of life involves life in a big city. But the reality is many small towns are flourishing, and that quickly becomes clear on RAGBRAI, the annual bike ride across the state of Iowa. In places like Madrid, the population has grown from just over 2,500 to nearly 3,000 since the last census, and there are many towns like it. Those towns have leaned into their strengths to buck the trend toward population movement into urban areas. | https://kion546.com/news/2023/07/29/bike-ride-across-iowa-puts-vibrant-small-town-america-into-sharp-focus/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:11 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/2023/07/29/bike-ride-across-iowa-puts-vibrant-small-town-america-into-sharp-focus/ |
A Luke Combs paradox at Lincoln Financial Field: A concert that both happened and didn’t happen
Thanks to a thunderstorm warning, Luke Combs didn't take to the stage until 11 p.m., two hours after the scheduled time. Much to the dismay and joy of fans.
Country-pop singer Luke Combs’ weekend stopover in Philadelphia got off to a rocky start Friday night, thanks to inclement weather and a massive breakdown of communication between the organizers and ticket holders.
Combs, who recently shot up the country charts with a cover of Tracy Chapman’s 1988 hit “Fast Car,” was scheduled to take the stage at Lincoln Financial Field at 9 p.m., following sets by openers Brent Cobb, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Turnpike Troubadours. In the heady hours before the headlining set, fans tailgated, splashed bean bags across slanted cornhole boards, and consumed heroic quantities of light beer. Spirits were high.
The mood was soured considerably by a passing storm and a warning handed down by the National Weather Service, minutes before Combs was slated to take the stage. Thousands of de-sleeved, cowboy-hatted concertgoers filed toward the main concourse, seeking shelter as per an announcement blasted over the public address system. Others chose to stay put.
For an hour, and then 90 minutes, and then nearly two hours, no official word came down.
The singer issued his own branded, faux-autographed statements on the stadium’s screens, stating that he’d take the stage when the weather had cleared. Many fans headed for the exits, while venue staff offered mixed reports on whether the show would indeed go on. Conflicting reports also spread around social media. At one point, a fight broke out.
Combs finally took the stage around 11:20 p.m., minutes before an 11:30 p.m. city curfew that some in attendance had been whispering about. He was donning an Eagles cap, perhaps in a bid to win back a waterlogged audience who stuck it out. (This reporter didn’t.)
Many Combs fans took to social media demanding refunds, and griping about the lack of communication. Others speculated that Combs took the stage two hours late so promoters would not have to issue a refund, as the concert was never officially canceled. A mood of annoyance and confusion prevailed, both at the Linc and online.
Combs is due back at the Linc Saturday night for his planned second show of the tour. The Inquirer will post a review of that show — weather permitting, of course. Thunderstorms are in the forecast for the area, primarily between 2 and 8 p.m., according to the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. | https://www.inquirer.com/entertainment/music/luke-combs-lincoln-financial-field-philadelphia-thunderstorm-20230729.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:17 | 0 | https://www.inquirer.com/entertainment/music/luke-combs-lincoln-financial-field-philadelphia-thunderstorm-20230729.html |
Pet owner says 4-foot-long python has gone missing from his yard
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR/Gray News) - Residents in an Illinois neighborhood are currently on the lookout for a pet snake.
Jonathan Delaney told WIFR that his 15-year-old ball python named Bubba slithered away from his yard last weekend.
Delaney said his exotic 4-foot-long snake is missing, but neighbors shouldn’t be worried.
“He’s completely harmless,” Delaney said. “We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s never been mean and the biggest thing he’d eat is a rat.”
Fellow Edgewater resident Rhonda Hanley said she’d likely be startled if she came across Bubba. But because he’s someone’s pet, she’ll try to help find him.
“I’ll try and put something over the top of it like a blanket or a garbage can if I find him,” Hanley said.
Delaney is thankful that his neighbors are concerned enough to lend a helping hand.
“We are hoping he’s still around here and nobody harms him,” he said. “We are hoping to find him as soon as possible.”
Experts say because ball pythons prefer to be hidden most of the time the snake doesn’t appear to pose a threat to the public.
The snake can strike if it gets agitated, but those bites don’t normally require medical attention.
“The most that could happen is that the snake could take a defensive swipe,” Stephanie Stone, owner of Jurassic Reptile Supply, said. “It’s less impact than a cat scratch or a cat bite.”
Stone added that ball pythons typically don’t travel very far.
“Unless it feels the need to try to find a meal, it’s probably very close to where it was originally,” she said.
Anyone who spots Bubba has been urged to contact Delaney on social media.
Copyright 2023 WIFR via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wbtv.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:17 | 1 | https://www.wbtv.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ |
Historically Black fraternity drops Florida for convention because of DeSantis policies
By MIKE SCHNEIDER
Associated Press
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The oldest historically Black collegiate fraternity in the U.S. says it is relocating a planned convention in two years from Florida because of what it described as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration’s “harmful, racist and insensitive” policies towards African Americans. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity said this week that it would move its 2025 convention from Orlando. The convention draws between 4,000 and 6,000 people and has an economic impact of $4.6 million. The decision comes after the NAACP and other civil rights organizations this spring issued a travel advisory for Florida, warning that recent policies are openly hostile to African Americans and members of the LGBTQ+ community. | https://kion546.com/news/2023/07/29/historically-black-fraternity-drops-florida-for-convention-because-of-desantis-policies/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:17 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/2023/07/29/historically-black-fraternity-drops-florida-for-convention-because-of-desantis-policies/ |
2nd break found on North Carolina roller coaster
CNN, WSOC
By Carrington Peavy and Dawn Sawyer, CNN
(CNN) — Another break or crack has been found on a North Carolina amusement park ride, weeks after the roller coaster was shut down when a visitor spotted a crack in a steel support pillar, state officials say.
The discovery of the additional “weld indication” was made during an investigation into the structural integrity of the closed Fury 325 roller coaster at Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, according to a statement from the North Carolina Department of Labor.
The agency said the indication “could be either a break or a crack,” the statement said.
The Fury 325 will stay closed until inspections and repairs happen, park officials have said. It’s one of the tallest and longest rides in a massive park that straddles the North and South Carolina state line. The park says the Fury 325 takes riders to a peak height of 325 feet and reaches 95 mph.
Carowinds said it’s not “uncommon to discover slight weld indications in various locations of a steel superstructure” when conducting a maintenance review, in a statement given to CNN. The park added that such indications “do not compromise the structural integrity or safety of the ride.”
The amusement park closed the roller coaster on June 30 after visitor Jeremy Wagner took a video of the crack and said he immediately showed it to guest services before following up with the Charlotte Fire Department. The fire department called him back and said the ride had been shut down, CNN previously reported.
“I’m not an engineer, but that’s not right,” Wagner thought on his visit to the Carowinds park, he previously told CNN.
At the park with family, Wagner knew something was wrong when he spotted the crack, he told CNN. He pulled out his phone and hit record, zooming in to show the support pillar moving slightly out of place as passengers flew by.
“My daughter and niece rode it six times,” he told CNN.
Carowinds said it “continues to conduct a comprehensive series of detailed tests and inspections” to prepare for the ride’s reopening.
The North Carolina Department of Labor said there is no timeline for issuing the certificate of operation and that the investigation continues.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Dianne Gallagher contributed to this report. | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2023/07/29/2nd-break-found-on-north-carolina-roller-coaster-3/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:23 | 0 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2023/07/29/2nd-break-found-on-north-carolina-roller-coaster-3/ |
2nd break found on North Carolina roller coaster
By Carrington Peavy and Dawn Sawyer, CNN
(CNN) — Another break or crack has been found on a North Carolina amusement park ride, weeks after the roller coaster was shut down when a visitor spotted a crack in a steel support pillar, state officials say.
The discovery of the additional “weld indication” was made during an investigation into the structural integrity of the closed Fury 325 roller coaster at Carowinds amusement park in Charlotte, according to a statement from the North Carolina Department of Labor.
The agency said the indication “could be either a break or a crack,” the statement said.
The Fury 325 will stay closed until inspections and repairs happen, park officials have said. It’s one of the tallest and longest rides in a massive park that straddles the North and South Carolina state line. The park says the Fury 325 takes riders to a peak height of 325 feet and reaches 95 mph.
Carowinds said it’s not “uncommon to discover slight weld indications in various locations of a steel superstructure” when conducting a maintenance review, in a statement given to CNN. The park added that such indications “do not compromise the structural integrity or safety of the ride.”
The amusement park closed the roller coaster on June 30 after visitor Jeremy Wagner took a video of the crack and said he immediately showed it to guest services before following up with the Charlotte Fire Department. The fire department called him back and said the ride had been shut down, CNN previously reported.
“I’m not an engineer, but that’s not right,” Wagner thought on his visit to the Carowinds park, he previously told CNN.
At the park with family, Wagner knew something was wrong when he spotted the crack, he told CNN. He pulled out his phone and hit record, zooming in to show the support pillar moving slightly out of place as passengers flew by.
“My daughter and niece rode it six times,” he told CNN.
Carowinds said it “continues to conduct a comprehensive series of detailed tests and inspections” to prepare for the ride’s reopening.
The North Carolina Department of Labor said there is no timeline for issuing the certificate of operation and that the investigation continues.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Dianne Gallagher contributed to this report. | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2023/07/29/2nd-break-found-on-north-carolina-roller-coaster/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:29 | 0 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-national/2023/07/29/2nd-break-found-on-north-carolina-roller-coaster/ |
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Today is July 18 — a day that is always remembered. My mother would be 87 if she were still with us. Rest in peace dear, sweet Mother! Tomorrow, July 19, is sister Emma’s 50th birthday. On July 15 my husband Joe and I celebrated 30 years of marriage together. July 15 was also brother Albert’s 59th birthday. Happy birthday to all July birthdays.
Son Benjamin’s 24th birthday was July 14 and son Joseph’s 21st birthday will be July 24. Yes, our family has many birthdays in July. Benjamin treated us with Pizza Hut pizza and wings on his birthday. That was a treat for all of us. The years fly by so fast.
Our horse Midnight’s little colt is really growing. He is 4 1/2 weeks old and is changing color. So far, he is still nameless. Joe hasn’t decided on a name for him. It is fun to watch him run and play in the field.
Today my plans are to cut out daughter Lovina’s dress, cape, and apron for nephew Menno and Diane’s wedding. They will exchange vows on July 22 in Clare, Michigan. Lovina and her special friend Daniel were asked to be servers at their wedding. Joe and I will be unable to attend but daughters Verena and Lovina (and Daniel), sons Benjamin, Joseph (and special friend Grace) and Kevin have plans to drive the three hours to attend the wedding. We wish them a long, happy married life with God’s richest blessings.
Lovina’s color dress will be pink and Daniel will wear black pants and vest with a white shirt. The color is very pretty, but it will look much better to me once my job of cutting it out and sewing it is done. I tend to put jobs like this off until the last minute.
Daughter Loretta has another appointment today an hour away. Dustin stayed home so he can help her to her appointment. He has missed many days of work to go with her but never grumbles and is always glad to help. They will bring Denzel, age 1, here this afternoon while they leave. He is always fun to have around.
Yesterday we had granddaughters Allison, 3, and Andrea, 17 months, here for a few hours. They are also so precious. Both took a nap while they were here.
Last week daughter Susan and children, daughter Verena, daughter Loretta and Denzel, daughter Lovina, son Kevin and I spent a day helping daughter Elizabeth with her work. They will host church services soon. We cleaned their basement and the can room (where all her canned food is stored), as well as the windows in the basement, plus some other odd and end jobs she needed to have done.
Loretta and Denzel, Lovina, and I all went out with Loretta and Dustin’s handicap buggy with son Benjamin’s horse Beauty. I tied Beauty outside in the shade and gave her some hay to eat. She somehow got the rope around her foot and that made her fall.
When daughter Verena came back from taking the children on a walk, she heard Beauty gasping and saw her laying there. Needless to say, when Verena yelled to us in the basement to come, we all ran to see what was wrong. We couldn’t get Beauty untangled, so we cut the rope and she could get up. She was fine, but how thankful we were that someone saw it in time. Beauty is a good, safe horse and that is worth so much. We were all shook up for a while. Of course, that morning I used a brand-new tie rope, but that’s replaceable.
God’s blessings to all!
Pepper Poppers
Jalapeño peppers (small), approximately 10
cream cheese
Batter
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 C. milk
1 C. flour
1 t. baking powder
1 1/2 t. salt
1 t. vegetable oil
1/2 t. paprika
1/2 t. garlic powder
Take the jalapeño peppers, cut off the tops, and remove the seeds. Fill with cream cheese and set aside. Mix batter ingredients together in small bowl. Roll peppers in batter and deep fry at 350–375 degrees. Eat with dip. Lovina’s family prefers ranch dip or cheese sauce. The batter can also be used with fish or chicken. | https://www.record-eagle.com/news/lifestyles/lovinas-amish-kitchen-lovina-and-family-celebrate-many-july-anniversaries-and-birthdays/article_18203ca8-2cc6-11ee-bc4b-bb117c806427.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:32 | 1 | https://www.record-eagle.com/news/lifestyles/lovinas-amish-kitchen-lovina-and-family-celebrate-many-july-anniversaries-and-birthdays/article_18203ca8-2cc6-11ee-bc4b-bb117c806427.html |
Typhoon Doksuri brings heavy rain to north China, rainfall alert issued for Beijing
By Radina Gigova, CNN
(CNN) — Typhoon Doksuri has brought heavy rainfall to several regions in northern China, including the capital Beijing, after lashing the Philippines and Taiwan where it caused dozens of deaths and forced hundreds of thousands to evacuate.
The provinces of Hebei and Shandong are also among those affected, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Saturday.
The meteorological bureau of Beijing said that the capital will experience heavy downpours from Saturday night to Tuesday next week, according to Xinhua.
An orange alert for rainstorms was issued across the city at around 11:45 am local time on Saturday, but the provincial meteorological bureau upgraded it later in the day to a red alert for rainstorms that are expected over the following three days, according to Xinhua.
The provincial water conservancy department and meteorological bureau also jointly issued an alert for mountain torrents, Xinhua said.
Downpours have also swept many parts of east China’s Shandong Province since Friday night, the agency reported. Due to the continuous rainfall, Shandong has issued a yellow alert for heavy rain and alerts for mountain torrents.
Tens of millions of people could potentially be impacted by Doksuri, which made landfall Friday.
Across China, several coastal cities, such as Xiamen, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, temporarily shut businesses, factories, and schools as of Friday afternoon, Xinhua added. More than 400,000 people were evacuated in Fujian province.
Prior to making landfall in China, the storm battered parts of the Philippines and killed at least 39 people, including dozens on an overcrowded boat that capsized in strong winds.
Like much of the northern hemisphere, China has seen extreme weather this year, earlier this month grappling with a heat wave.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/typhoon-doksuri-brings-heavy-rain-to-north-china-rainfall-alert-issued-for-beijing/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:35 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/typhoon-doksuri-brings-heavy-rain-to-north-china-rainfall-alert-issued-for-beijing/ |
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CHARLEVOIX — A sting operation resulted in the arrest of a Mexican citizen Thursday, the Charlevoix County Sheriff’s office reported.
Sheriff Charles Vondra said he and his deputies are investigating what they suspect is human trafficking in Charlevoix County.
“Through investigative steps, our deputies and detectives discovered that Juan Gomez Hernandez was involved in an attempted sex trafficking of an underage girl,” Vondra said in a release. “Due to law enforcement sensitivity, investigative steps are not revealed nor are names of minors.”
The sheriff commended Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson for his leadership and support in helping other law enforcement agencies conduct these kinds of investigations.
Vondra specifically cited Swanson’s G.H.O.S.T. — which stands for Genesee Human Oppression Strike Team — program as an instrumental learning tool for how to combat human trafficking.
Last summer, the Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Office conducted a G.H.O.S.T. operation of their own, alongside Swanson and some of his commanding officers.
Grand Traverse Sheriff’s Office “Operation TC Safe” in early June 2022 employed male and female decoys who represented themselves as minors in online advertisements and chats.
The suspects later agreed to in-person meetings for sex in an undisclosed Traverse City location. Instead, they were met by one or more undercover officers.
Those posing as minors did not make any of the initial contacts, Sheriff Tom Bensley said during a press conference last June.
Bensley said his office worked closely with the Grand Traverse County prosecutor’s office in planning the operation.
Law enforcement from local, state and federal jurisdictions assisted.
The Grand Traverse County operation took place June 8-9, 2022.
The eight men who were apprehended ranged in age from 22 to 66 and were later arraigned on felony charges of child sexually abusive activity, solicitation of a minor for immoral purposes, and using a computer to commit a crime.
Swanson defined sex trafficking as moving individuals, and those who are under age, against their will for the purposes of sexual activity. Especially vulnerable to these criminals are those who feel sad, lost or forgotten, he said.
The apps most of these traffickers use, Swanson said, are Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok.
Bensley said he first heard about GHOST in 2021 at a conference of the Michigan Sheriffs’ Association, and later decided to work with Swanson on a local sting.
Vondra did not say what charges Hernandez would be facing, or if they had worked alongside Charlevoix County Prosecutor Kit Tholen during this investigation.
Anyone with concerns about human trafficking – or who may have information about these crimes – is urged to contact 911; Vondra’s department at 231-547-4461; or the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 877-605-3424. | https://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/sheriffs-office-arrests-one-in-human-trafficking-sting/article_5e69760c-2d6b-11ee-baa7-73e4ad747616.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:38 | 0 | https://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/sheriffs-office-arrests-one-in-human-trafficking-sting/article_5e69760c-2d6b-11ee-baa7-73e4ad747616.html |
An Allegiant Air flight attendant was injured on a plane that took "evasive action" to avoid a collision with another jet near a South Florida airport, the Federal Aviation Administration said, according to reports.
On Sunday, an Allegiant Air plane headed for Kentucky had just taken off from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport when the pilot received a message about a plane flying at the same altitude, according to CNN.
An air traffic controller from the Miami Air Route Traffic Control Center instructed the Allegiant Air pilot "to turn eastbound at an altitude of 23,000 feet when it crossed in front of a northbound Gulfstream business jet," the FAA said, according to CNN.
The Gulfstream jet also took evasive action.
Allegiant Air passenger Jerrica Thacker told CNN that the plane abruptly "went straight up."
"It truly felt like a roller coaster," she said. "We went up and down and then leveled out."
When the plane went upward, two flight attendants fell backwards — one of whom stayed on the ground for five minutes until being helped to the rear of the plane, Thacker recounted.
"The flight crew asked if there were any medically trained individuals on the plane," said Thacker.
About 20 minutes later, the pilot explained over the intercom that the sudden ascension was a maneuver to avoid a collision, and that the aircraft would be returning to Fort Lauderdale.
Thacker said people began crying and praying after the announcement.
She said her and her family rented a car and drove 15 hours to Kentucky because they were too shaken to get back on a plane.
Trending stories at Scrippsnews.com | https://www.kxxv.com/evasive-action-taken-to-avoid-plane-collision-near-florida-airport | 2023-07-29T17:19:41 | 0 | https://www.kxxv.com/evasive-action-taken-to-avoid-plane-collision-near-florida-airport |
Wagner troops moving towards Polish border and could try sneaking across, PM says
By Martin Goillandeau, Sharon Braithwaite and Oleg Racz, CNN
(CNN) — More than 100 troops from the Russian mercenary group Wagner are moving towards a thin strip of land between Poland and Lithuania, Poland’s prime minister says, who warned they could pose as migrants to cross the border.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Saturday that his government had received information that the Wagner mercenaries were not far from Grodno, a city in western Belarus close to the land, which is also known as the Suwalki gap or corridor.
Thousands of Wagner troops are reportedly in Belarus following a failed military uprising in Russia.
Morawiecki repeated allegations that Belarus, a key ally to Russia, has been sending migrants westward in an attempt to overwhelm Polish border forces.
The troop movements, Morawiecki said, appeared to be another element in this campaign to destabilize the border.
“They will probably be disguised as Belarusian border guards and will help illegal immigrants to enter Polish territory, destabilize Poland, but they will also probably try to infiltrate Poland pretending to be illegal immigrants and this creates additional risks,” he said.
So far this year, there have been about 16,000 attempts by migrants to cross the border illegally, “pushed to Poland” by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Morawiecki said.
What exactly Wagner troops are doing in Grodno is unclear, as Wagner has not commented on the reports. But deploying Russian-allied forces near the Suwalki corridor would represent an escalation that could rattle NATO and EU members.
Though just 60 miles long, the corridor is strategically important to NATO, the EU, Russia and Belarus. The border region connects the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to Belarus and it is the only overland link between the Baltic states and the rest of the EU.
Analysts feared in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that the Kremlin would target the Suwalki corridor in an attempt to protect Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost territory and the only part of the country surrounded by EU states.
It is not clear exacttly how many Wagner troops are in Belarus. They were invited to the country as part of a deal negotiated by the Belarus president to end the mercenary group’s armed insurrection against the Kremlin last month.
Lukashenko then asked Wagner to help train his country’s military. The two plan to hold joint military exercises near the border with Poland, a move likely to further raise tensions.
At a summit Lukashenko joked with Russia’s President Putin that Wagner fighters had begun to stress him as they wanted to go west on “an excursion.”
Poland has said its borders are safe but has moved troops east due to possible threats posed from Wagner.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Tim Lister and Rob Picheta contributed to this report | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/wagner-troops-moving-towards-polish-border-and-could-try-sneaking-across-pm-says/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:42 | 0 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/wagner-troops-moving-towards-polish-border-and-could-try-sneaking-across-pm-says/ |
Country
United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/typhoon-doksuri-brings-heavy-rain-to-north-china-rainfall-alert-issued-for-beijing/article_d5265bc0-9c1e-58ec-a219-fea76b9e52a8.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:43 | 1 | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/typhoon-doksuri-brings-heavy-rain-to-north-china-rainfall-alert-issued-for-beijing/article_d5265bc0-9c1e-58ec-a219-fea76b9e52a8.html |
- To Paddle Antrim, which recently gave a total of $2,118 to three projects via its Ripple Effect Mini Grant Program. The recipients include the Michigan 4-H Foundation for Antrim County 4-H, Wagbo Farm and Education Center and the Conservation Resource Alliance.
Paddle Antrim is an Elk Rapids-based “nonprofit organization working to protect our water resources by using paddle sports to connect people to our waterways,” as stated on the group’s website.
- To the Little Traverse Conservancy — including members Peter and Quin Curran — and the Top of Michigan Mountain Bike Association. The conservancy and association are planning out 5 miles of new trail at the Offield Family Viewlands reserve. The trail is meant for both walkers and bikers.
The Currans are matching donations for the project, which was designed by Flow Track.
- To SEEDS Ecology and Education Centers EcoSchool students — and other students — at Benzie Central Middle School, as well as social studies teacher Greg Kempton. The students constructed a doghouse for the Cherryland Humane Society, with Kempton donating wood pallets, siding boards, paint and a metal roof.
- To the Northwoods League — the collegiate summer baseball league featuring the Traverse City Pit Spitters — for giving a Rawlings equipment set to the Traverse City Little League as part of its “Share the Glove” initiative.
- To Traverse City Horse Shows, which is donating all general admission ticket sales from major competitions at Flintfields Horse Park to area nonprofits, including Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Cherryland and Little Traverse Bay humane societies, Grass River Natural Area, Paddle Antrim and more.
TCHS raised $30,000 in the first year of its Charity Ticket Program, and the goal is $50,000 this year, according to a May release on the Horse Shows’ website. | https://www.record-eagle.com/opinion/editorials/cheers-07-29-2023/article_3de5a0a2-2d4a-11ee-aa60-9f1612d487c2.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:44 | 0 | https://www.record-eagle.com/opinion/editorials/cheers-07-29-2023/article_3de5a0a2-2d4a-11ee-aa60-9f1612d487c2.html |
Plaintiffs in high-profile redistricting case urge judges to toss out Alabama’s controversial congressional map
By Fredreka Schouten, CNN
(CNN) — Civil rights groups representing plaintiffs in a high-profile congressional redistricting case are urging a federal court in Alabama to reject a controversial new map crafted by the Republican-dominated legislature, saying it perpetuates a violation of the nation’s landmark voting rights law.
In a late-night court filing Friday, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and multiple attorneys asked a three-judge panel to direct an official to devise a new map that complies with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
The plaintiffs in the case said legislators who drew and approved the maps didn’t comply with a court mandate to create a second congressional district where Black voters have an opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.
Instead, they argued, lawmakers were “focused on pleasing national leaders whose objective is to maintain the Republican Party’s slim majority in the US House.”
State officials, who have defended the map as fair, have until August 4 to respond to the new filings.
The dispute has drawn national attention after critics accused Alabama legislators of openly defying the US Supreme Court and its directive to give Black voters more political power in the state.
And the outcome of the legal battle in Alabama – along with court skirmishes in several other states over congressional redistricting – could help determine whether Republicans retain their slim majority in the House after next year’s elections.
In this case, the Republican supermajority in the Alabama legislature approved a new map on July 21, weeks after the US Supreme Court said that an existing map – with just one majority-Black congressional district out of seven in a state where Black residents make up 27% of the population – likely violated the decades-old federal voting law by diluting the voting power of Black residents. The high court, by a 5-4 majority, affirmed a lower court decision that had ordered the state to redraw the congressional maps to include a second majority-Black district or “something quite close to it.”
But the map approved this month and signed into law by Alabama’s GOP Gov. Kay Ivey instead boosted the share of Black voters in the majority-White 2nd Congressional District from roughly 30% to nearly 40%. It also reduced the Black voting-age population in the state’s only majority-Black district to around 50% from about 55%.
Voting rights experts say the state has a history of racially polarized voting, making it harder for candidates favored by Black voters to win in a district where Black residents account for less than 50% of the voting-age population.
“The new CD2 … does not provide Black voters a realistic opportunity to election their preferred candidate in any but the most extreme situations,” the plaintiffs argued in the new filings.
In Alabama, most Black voters have supported Democrats. If the federal judges approve a map with a second majority-Black district, that could result in two Democrats representing the state in the House.
House Republicans hold just a narrow edge on Democrats, and the Supreme Court’s decision in the Alabama case has given Democrats fresh optimism that their side will prevail in legal fights aimed at increasing the share of Black voters in congressional districts in Louisiana, Georgia and several other states.
In a sign of the high political stakes, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has weighed in on the debate and told reporters that he spoke to Alabama lawmakers as they met for the special session to redraw the map to comply with the court order.
The Justice Department filed a so-called “statement of interest” on Friday but did not side with any party in the dispute. The agency outlined factors the judges should consider in its analysis and called on the court to impose its own map if it determines that the one drawn by lawmakers violated the Voting Rights Act.
A court hearing on objections to the legislature’s map is set for August 14.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. | https://kion546.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2023/07/29/plaintiffs-in-high-profile-redistricting-case-urge-judges-to-toss-out-alabamas-controversial-congressional-map/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:49 | 0 | https://kion546.com/politics/cnn-us-politics/2023/07/29/plaintiffs-in-high-profile-redistricting-case-urge-judges-to-toss-out-alabamas-controversial-congressional-map/ |
KENOSHA — The Pit Spitters’ final trip to Kenosha for the 2023 regular season is in the books, but it wasn’t the ending the Spitters hoped for after falling 11-3 to the Kingfish on Friday.
The Spitters (34-24) remain above .500 for the second half of the season after losing on Friday, but remain 2.5 games back overall of the Kalamazoo Growlers (35-20) in the Great Lakes East. Traverse City already secured a playoff spot in the first half of the season with 14 games to go before playoffs begin.
Right-handed pitcher Jake Michel got the start for the Spitters. After allowing a run in the first inning, Michel (0-2) completed a four-inning outing and allowed four runs on eight hits while striking out two and walking one.
Kenosha tacked on two more runs in the third inning after an RBI single from Connor Goodwin and a fielder choice to go up 3-0, but Traverse City didn’t give up.
Spitters’ catcher Glenn Miller tacked in an RBI double in the fourth inning to cut the deficit to 3-1, but Kenosha responded quickly to push the lead to 4-1. Alec Atkinson pumped life into the Pit Spitters with an RBI single to left field to chop away at Kenosha’s 6-2 lead, but it wouldn’t be enough.
The Spitters’ right-handed pitcher Holden Wilder came in to relieve Michel, but it would be Kenosha getting the best of Wilder by tacking on six runs to go up 10-4 in the fifth inning.
Holder threw for two innings, allowing seven runs on six hits while walking one and striking out four. Right-handed pitcher Easton Johnson got some throwing for two innings while allowing zero runs on one hit and striking out two.
Kenosha combined for 15 hits against the Spitters pitchers.
Eastern Michigan product Glenn Miller snapped his three-game hitting streak on Thursday but bounced back by going 1-for-3 with an RBI single and a walk. Georgia Tech product Tyler Minnick extended his five-game hitting streak by going 2-for-3 with a double.
The Spitters hope to get back on track at Turtle Creek Stadium on Saturday as the Battle Creek Battle Jacks come to town for a two game stint. | https://www.record-eagle.com/sports/kingfish-routs-pit-spitters-11-3-minnick-extended-his-hitting-streak-to-five-games/article_0b66af48-2da6-11ee-abf8-9b0131e93601.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:50 | 0 | https://www.record-eagle.com/sports/kingfish-routs-pit-spitters-11-3-minnick-extended-his-hitting-streak-to-five-games/article_0b66af48-2da6-11ee-abf8-9b0131e93601.html |
Country
United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/wagner-troops-moving-towards-polish-border-and-could-try-sneaking-across-pm-says/article_25bd7297-2252-5b5e-90b6-39308c2fe64a.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:55 | 1 | https://www.albanyherald.com/news/wagner-troops-moving-towards-polish-border-and-could-try-sneaking-across-pm-says/article_25bd7297-2252-5b5e-90b6-39308c2fe64a.html |
A small town holds its breath as home hero Céline Boutier edges closer to fairytale first major
By Jack Bantock, CNN
(CNN) — Tucked at the bottom of the Alps, Évian-les-Bains was a picture of calm on Saturday afternoon as drizzles of rain cast light ripples across nearby Lake Geneva.
Yet beneath the surface, the charming spa town is crackling with excitement. If France’s Celine Boutier can achieve her dream on Sunday, that electricity will spread across the country.
The 29-year-old took a step closer to her first major title with another imperious showing at The Evian Championship on Saturday, shooting four-under 67 to take a three-shot cushion into Sunday’s final round.
It’s the type of performance that’s been a long time coming for the world No. 15. Despite top-10 finishes in every other major, tied-29th marks Boutier’s best career outing in seven appearances at the tournament she wants to impress at more than any other.
That sense of yearning has festered even longer for the nation as a whole. Even including the 19 years prior to the Evian Championship becoming a major in 2013, no Frenchwoman has ever won – let alone finished runner-up – at the tournament.
Both Boutier and organizers played down the occasion on the eve of the event. Admitting it “hadn’t been easy” to manage herself and her emotions in Evian, the Montrouge-native told CNN she was planning to treat the week “like a regular tournament.”
When asked what the impact of a French winner would be, championship director Jacques Bungert said “it wouldn’t change anything from us.”
“Of course we would be happy for it and that’s great,” Bungert told reporters Wednesday. “What is important to understand is that we have two major Grand Slams in France, Roland Garros and the Evian Championship. It’s the same impact.
“If a French tennis woman won Roland Garros, it’s fantastic, just like Yannick Noah 30 years ago. It changes a little bit the sports here and the crowd and the audience in France behind it.”
Tournament president Frank Riboud added: “The real question for me is one day if we have a player from Morocco or Tunisia winning the Evian Championship, what will be the impact? It’s much more open because you open a new country for the game of golf.”
Allez
Even so, all week the small spa town – with a population of less than 15,000 – has buzzed with the growing hope of a historic home winner.
Large crowds had already trailed Boutier during her first round, where she opened with a 66 to move within two of the lead, and grew in number on Friday to watch her shoot 69 to edge to the front of the field.
It was a testament to the levels of support that her number of followers grew further still on Saturday, when tee times were moved forward due to the forecasts of stormy weather later in the day.
Even as dark clouds rolled in across the lake and rain started to fall, the crowds remained, coos of “allez” soundtracking Boutier’s third-round charge. Four birdies before the turn extended her lead, a bogey at the 12th the sole blemish on her scorecard amid tricky closing conditions.
“It’s been really amazing to be able to see and hear the support from the fans,” Boutier told reporters.
“I feel like it’s been very enjoyable for me. I am just trying to take it one shot at a time.”
Chasers
Best placed to spoil the party is Japan’s Nasa Hataoka, who – three shots behind in solo second – has enjoyed impressive support of her own in her pursuit of a first major title.
Hataoka has been the best performer of 10 Japanese players at the tournament, with the country’s national flag dotting the crowds at Evian Resort Golf Club.
Her own reflection that she was “dialed in” during the front nine was something of an understatement – the 24-year-old shot four birdies in a row on course to arrive at the turn five-under par.
The six-time LPGA Tour winner could not maintain the pace as conditions worsened though, carding no further birdies and two bogeys to drop to 68 for the round.
Trailing Hataoka by a stroke are a pair of two-time major winners, Australia’s Minjee Lee and Canada’s defending champion Brooke Henderson, who shot 66 and 67 respectively.
One to watch Sunday is Nelly Korda, who motors into the final round at a furious pace after shooting a bogey-free third round 64, the joint-best score of the week.
It marked the lowest round of the American’s season, and puts her within range of a second career major in joint-third alongside Japan’s Yuka Saso.
“It was super nice to see all the hard work kind of pay off today,” Korda told reporters.
“Obviously still have 18 more holes, anything can happen, but I made a push today on moving day, which I’m really happy about.”
Korda and Saso will be the third-last pairing to tee off for Sunday’s final round at 12:05 p.m. local time (6:05 a.m. ET), followed by Lee and Henderson at 12:15 p.m, then Boutier and Hataoka at 12:25 p.m.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved. | https://kion546.com/sports/cnn-sports/2023/07/29/a-small-town-holds-its-breath-as-home-hero-celine-boutier-edges-closer-to-fairytale-first-major/ | 2023-07-29T17:19:55 | 1 | https://kion546.com/sports/cnn-sports/2023/07/29/a-small-town-holds-its-breath-as-home-hero-celine-boutier-edges-closer-to-fairytale-first-major/ |
TODAY’S SPORTS ON TV
Saturday, July 29
AUTO RACING
5:55 a.m.
ESPN2 — Formula 1: The MSC Cruises Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Shootout, Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium
10:25 a.m.
ESPN2 — Formula 1: The Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Race, Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot, Belgium
11:30 a.m.
CBSSN — ABB FIA Formula E: The Hankook London E-Prix, Round 15, London
12 p.m.
CBS — ABB FIA Formula E: The Hankook London E-Prix, Round 15, London
FS1 — NHRA: Qualifying, Sonoma Raceway, Sonoma, Calif. (Taped)
12:30 p.m.
USA — NASCAR Cup Series: Practice and Qualifying, Richmond Raceway, Richmond, Va.
3 p.m.
NBC — NASCAR Xfinity Series: The Henry 180, Road America, Elkhart, Wis.
7:30 p.m.
FS1 — NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series: The Worldwide Express 250, Richmond Raceway, Richmond, Va.
FISHING
8 a.m.
FS1 — Bassmaster Elite Series: The 2023 AFTCO Bassmaster Elite at Lake St. Clair, New Baltimore, Mich.
GOLF
5:30 a.m.
GOLF — LPGA Tour: The Amundi Evian Championship, Third Round, Evian Resort Golf Club, Évian-les-Bains, France
9 a.m.
CNBC — PGA Tour Champions: The Senior Open Championship, Third Round, Royal Porthcawl GC, Wales, England
12 p.m.
NBC — PGA Tour Champions: The Senior Open Championship, Third Round, Royal Porthcawl GC, Wales, England
1 p.m.
GOLF — PGA Tour: The 3M Open, Third Round, TPC Twin Cities, Blaine, Minn.
3 p.m.
CBS — PGA Tour: The 3M Open, Third Round, TPC Twin Cities, Blaine, Minn.
GOLF — U.S. Junior Amateur: Championship Match, Daniel Island Club, Charleston, S.C.
5:30 a.m. (Sunday)
GOLF — LPGA Tour: The Amundi Evian Championship, Final Round, Evian Resort Golf Club, Évian-les-Bains, France
LACROSSE (WOMEN’S)
5 p.m.
ESPN2 — Athletes Unlimited: Team Colson vs. Team Apuzzo, Sparks Glencoe, Md.
7:30 p.m.
ESPN2 — Athletes Unlimited: Team Read vs. Team Moreno, Sparks Glencoe, Md.
MIXED MARTIAL ARTS
7 p.m.
ESPN — UFC 291 Early Prelims: Undercard Bouts, Salt Lake City
8 p.m.
ABC — UFC 291 Prelims: Undercard Bouts, Salt Lake City
ESPN — UFC 291 Prelims: Undercard Bouts, Salt Lake City
11 p.m.
SHO — Bellator MMA x Rizin: Patricky Pitbull vs. AJ McKee (Lightweights), Tokyo
MLB BASEBALL
3 p.m.
MLBN — LA Angels at Toronto
4 p.m.
FS1 — Detroit at Miami
7 p.m.
FOX — Regional Coverage: Boston at San Francisco OR Tampa Bay at Houston
10 p.m.
MLBN — Regional Coverage: Cincinnati at LA Dodgers OR Texas at San Diego (Joined in Progress)
SOCCER (MEN’S)
9 a.m.
CBSSN — Club Friendly: Celtic vs. Wolverhampton, Dublin
7 p.m.
FS2 — CPL: Cavalry FC at Atletico Ottawa
SOCCER (WOMEN’S)
3:30 a.m.
FS1 — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: Sweden vs. Italy, Group G, Wellington, New Zealand
6 a.m.
FOX — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: France vs. Brazil, Group F, Brisbane, Australia
8:30 a.m.
FOX — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: Panama vs. Jamaica, Group F, Perth, Australia
12:30 a.m. (Sunday)
FOX — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: South Korea vs. Morocco, Group H, Adelaide, Australia
3 a.m. (Sunday)
FOX — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: Switzerland vs. New Zealand, Group A, Dunedin, New Zealand
FS1 — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: Norway vs. Philippines, Group A, Auckland, New Zealand
5:30 a.m. (Sunday)
FS1 — FIFA World Cup Group Stage: Germany vs. Colombia, Group A, Sydney
TENNIS
7:30 a.m.
TENNIS — Warsaw-WTA, Hamburg-ATP, Umag-ATP, Semifinals; Hamburg-WTA Final
3 p.m.
TENNIS — Umag-ATP, Atlanta-ATP Semifinals
7 p.m.
TENNIS — Atlanta-ATP Semifinal
RADIO
4 p.m. — MLB Detroit at Miami, FM 101,1/AM-1210
LOCAL SPORTS
NORTHWOODS LEAGUE — Battle Creek at Traverse City, 7:05p | https://www.record-eagle.com/sports/today-in-sports-07-29-2023/article_e461ff5a-2d79-11ee-b9aa-772890258767.html | 2023-07-29T17:19:56 | 0 | https://www.record-eagle.com/sports/today-in-sports-07-29-2023/article_e461ff5a-2d79-11ee-b9aa-772890258767.html |
‘Stuff the Bus’ event happening in Lexington this weekend
The goal is to fill a school bus with donations for Central Kentucky students.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - Colin Matthews - Afternoon Host, Hot 102.5 <>
Carolyn Ford - Family & Community Liaison, FCPS <>
Deidre Ransdell - Program Director, K 92.9 <>
Cumulus Media and Fayette County Schools are teaming up to make sure students have the supplies they need this school year.
“We are literally trying to stuff this entire Fayette County school bus full of school supplies,” said Afternoon Host for Hot 102.5, Colin Matthews.
“We understand that families can’t always afford everything that’s on the list. They try their best but sometimes it’s between getting their school supplies or getting a meal on the table,” said Family and Community Liaison for FCPS, Carolyn Ford.
That’s why they’ve asked for the community’s help to stuff this bus full of donations. There will be one bus at the Lexington Green from 9am-4pm on Saturday. Another bus will be at Greyline Station from 9am-6pm Saturday and 12pm-4pm Sunday.
“It’s such a great feeling to know you’re making a difference and every year our donations grow and grow,” said Program Director for K 92.9, Deidre Ransdell.
High-Demand Items:
- Dry-erase markers
- Composition notebooks
- Ziploc bags (sandwich, quart, and gallon size)
- Colored pencils
- Colored markers
- Earbuds and headphones
- Three-ring binder (1- to 3-inch)
- Tab dividers
- Spiral notebooks
- Two-pocket folders (plastic)
- Graphing paper (notebook)
More Options:
- Crayons
- Backpacks (no wheels)
- Highlighters
- Pencil boxes or pouches
- Erasers (large/cap)
- Clorox or Lysol wipes
- Handheld pencil sharpeners
- Mechanical pencils
- Post-it Notes (standard size)
If you cannot make it in person, you can also support the cause through the Fayette Education Foundation by clicking here.
Copyright 2023 WKYT. All rights reserved. | https://www.wkyt.com/2023/07/29/stuff-bus-event-happening-lexington-this-weekend/ | 2023-07-29T17:20:30 | 0 | https://www.wkyt.com/2023/07/29/stuff-bus-event-happening-lexington-this-weekend/ |
Pet owner says 4-foot-long python has gone missing from his yard
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR/Gray News) - Residents in an Illinois neighborhood are currently on the lookout for a pet snake.
Jonathan Delaney told WIFR that his 15-year-old ball python named Bubba slithered away from his yard last weekend.
Delaney said his exotic 4-foot-long snake is missing, but neighbors shouldn’t be worried.
“He’s completely harmless,” Delaney said. “We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s never been mean and the biggest thing he’d eat is a rat.”
Fellow Edgewater resident Rhonda Hanley said she’d likely be startled if she came across Bubba. But because he’s someone’s pet, she’ll try to help find him.
“I’ll try and put something over the top of it like a blanket or a garbage can if I find him,” Hanley said.
Delaney is thankful that his neighbors are concerned enough to lend a helping hand.
“We are hoping he’s still around here and nobody harms him,” he said. “We are hoping to find him as soon as possible.”
Experts say because ball pythons prefer to be hidden most of the time the snake doesn’t appear to pose a threat to the public.
The snake can strike if it gets agitated, but those bites don’t normally require medical attention.
“The most that could happen is that the snake could take a defensive swipe,” Stephanie Stone, owner of Jurassic Reptile Supply, said. “It’s less impact than a cat scratch or a cat bite.”
Stone added that ball pythons typically don’t travel very far.
“Unless it feels the need to try to find a meal, it’s probably very close to where it was originally,” she said.
Anyone who spots Bubba has been urged to contact Delaney on social media.
Copyright 2023 WIFR via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ | 2023-07-29T17:21:21 | 0 | https://www.kwch.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Astros vs. Rays on July 29, 2023
Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 10:50 AM CDT|Updated: 30 minutes ago
Bookmakers have listed player props for Kyle Tucker, Wander Franco and others when the Houston Astros host the Tampa Bay Rays at Minute Maid Park on Saturday at 7:15 PM ET.
Bet on this matchup or its props with BetMGM!
Astros vs. Rays Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:15 PM ET
- Where: Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas
- How to Watch on TV: FOX
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Explore More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Houston Astros
Kyle Tucker Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -204)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +105)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +475)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +185)
Tucker Stats
- Tucker has 25 doubles, 18 home runs, 51 walks and 69 RBI (112 total hits). He has swiped 19 bases.
- He has a slash line of .304/.386/.518 on the year.
Tucker Recent Games
Alex Bregman Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -204)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +110)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +475)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +150)
Bregman Stats
- Alex Bregman has 14 doubles, two triples, 17 home runs, 54 walks and 66 RBI (101 total hits). He has swiped four bases.
- He's slashed .253/.344/.426 on the year.
Bregman Recent Games
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MLB Props Today: Tampa Bay Rays
Wander Franco Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -244)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +110)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +750)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +245)
Franco Stats
- Franco has 23 doubles, five triples, 11 home runs, 36 walks and 48 RBI (103 total hits). He has swiped 28 bases.
- He has a .264/.328/.433 slash line on the season.
Franco Recent Games
Yandy Díaz Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 1.5 (Over Odds: +190)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +100)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +500)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +220)
Diaz Stats
- Yandy Diaz has 104 hits with 20 doubles, 14 home runs and 42 walks. He has driven in 50 runs.
- He's slashed .315/.398/.503 so far this year.
Diaz Recent Games
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-player-prop-bets/ | 2023-07-29T17:21:28 | 1 | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-player-prop-bets/ |
Astros vs. Rays Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The Houston Astros (58-46) host the Tampa Bay Rays (63-43) at 7:15 PM ET on Saturday, a game featuring two of the league's most consistent hitters. Kyle Tucker has an average of .304 (ninth in league) for the Astros, and Yandy Diaz is fourth at .315 for the Rays.
The probable starters are Hunter Brown (6-7) for the Astros and Taj Bradley (5-6) for the Rays.
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Astros vs. Rays Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:15 PM ET
- TV: FOX
- Location: Houston, Texas
- Venue: Minute Maid Park
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Brown - HOU (6-7, 4.27 ERA) vs Bradley - TB (5-6, 5.17 ERA)
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Explore More About This Game
Astros Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Hunter Brown
- Brown (6-7) will take the mound for the Astros, his 20th start of the season.
- The right-hander gave up two earned runs and allowed six hits in six innings pitched against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday.
- The 24-year-old has an ERA of 4.27 and 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings, with a batting average against of .259 in 19 games this season.
- He has started 19 games this season, earning a quality start (6 or more IP, 3 or fewer ER) in nine of them.
- Brown will look to finish five or more innings for the third start in a row.
- He has finished four appearances without allowing an earned run in 19 chances this season.
Hunter Brown vs. Rays
- The Rays rank 10th in MLB with a .255 batting average this season. They have a team slugging percentage that ranks fifth in the league (.444) and 151 home runs.
- The right-hander has faced the Rays one time this season, allowing them to go 2-for-21 in seven innings.
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Rays Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Taj Bradley
- Bradley (5-6 with a 5.17 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 71 1/3 innings pitched) gets the start for the Rays, his 16th of the season.
- His last appearance was on Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles, when the righty tossed five innings, surrendering three earned runs while allowing five hits.
- In 15 games this season, the 22-year-old has amassed an ERA of 5.17, with 12 strikeouts per nine innings. Opponents are hitting .263 against him.
- Bradley is trying to pick up his second quality start of the season in this game.
- Bradley is trying for his fourth straight appearance lasting five or more innings. He averages 4.7 frames per start.
- He has held his opponents without an earned run in two of his 15 appearances this season.
Taj Bradley vs. Astros
- The opposing Astros offense has a collective .248 batting average, and is 16th in the league with 873 total hits and 12th in MLB play with 487 runs scored. They have the 14th-ranked slugging percentage (.411) and are 10th in all of MLB with 130 home runs.
- Bradley has pitched five innings, giving up three earned runs on four hits while striking out six against the Astros this season.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:21:30 | 0 | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Orioles vs. Yankees on July 29, 2023
Gleyber Torres and Adley Rutschman are among the players with prop bets available when the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles play at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Saturday (beginning at 7:15 PM ET).
Bet on this matchup or its props with BetMGM!
Orioles vs. Yankees Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:15 PM ET
- Where: Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland
- How to Watch on TV: FOX
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Read More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Baltimore Orioles
Tyler Wells Props
- Strikeouts Prop: Over/Under 4.5 (Over Odds: -141)
Wells Stats
- Tyler Wells (7-5) will take the mound for the Orioles, his 20th start of the season.
- He has started 19 games this season, earning a quality start (6 or more IP, 3 or fewer ER) in eight of them.
- In 19 starts, Wells has pitched through or past the fifth inning 18 times. He has a season average of 5.6 frames per outing.
- In 20 appearances this season, he has finished three without allowing an earned run.
- Among qualified pitchers in the majors this campaign, the 28-year-old ranks 27th in ERA (3.65), first in WHIP (.991), and 29th in K/9 (8.9).
Wells Recent Games
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Adley Rutschman Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +105)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +700)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +190)
Rutschman Stats
- Rutschman has 17 doubles, 14 home runs, 60 walks and 46 RBI (100 total hits).
- He has a slash line of .268/.368/.426 on the season.
- Rutschman will look for his fifth straight game with a hit in this contest. In his last five games he is batting .190 with a double, a home run, two walks and four RBI.
Rutschman Recent Games
Anthony Santander Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -105)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +350)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +135)
Santander Stats
- Anthony Santander has recorded 97 hits with 26 doubles, a triple, 18 home runs and 38 walks. He has driven in 56 runs with three stolen bases.
- He has a slash line of .256/.328/.472 on the year.
Santander Recent Games
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MLB Props Today: New York Yankees
Gleyber Torres Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 1.5 (Over Odds: +175)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -130)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +500)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +180)
Torres Stats
- Torres has 13 doubles, two triples, 16 home runs, 39 walks and 43 RBI (100 total hits). He's also stolen eight bases.
- He's slashing .261/.327/.431 on the season.
Torres Recent Games
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-player-prop-bets/ | 2023-07-29T17:21:31 | 1 | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-player-prop-bets/ |
Orioles vs. Yankees Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The New York Yankees (54-49) visit the Baltimore Orioles (63-40) at 7:15 PM ET on Saturday.
This contest's pitching matchup is set, as the Orioles will send Tyler Wells (7-5) to the mound, while Clarke Schmidt (6-6) will get the nod for the Yankees.
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Orioles vs. Yankees Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:15 PM ET
- TV: FOX
- Location: Baltimore, Maryland
- Venue: Oriole Park at Camden Yards
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Wells - BAL (7-5, 3.65 ERA) vs Schmidt - NYY (6-6, 4.33 ERA)
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Orioles Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Tyler Wells
- Wells (7-5) will take the mound for the Orioles, his 20th start of the season.
- The right-hander gave up three earned runs and allowed one hit in 4 1/3 innings pitched against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.
- The 28-year-old has pitched in 20 games this season with a 3.65 ERA and 8.9 strikeouts per nine innings with a batting average against of .198.
- In 19 starts this season, he's earned eight quality starts.
- Wells has started 19 games this season, and he's lasted five or more innings 18 times. He averages 5.6 innings per appearance.
- He has three appearances this season with zero earned runs allowed out of his 20 chances this season.
Tyler Wells vs. Yankees
- The Yankees have scored 446 runs this season, which ranks 21st in MLB. They have 771 hits, 29th in baseball, with 141 home runs (seventh in the league).
- The Yankees have gone 16-for-65 with two doubles, a triple, seven home runs and 11 RBI in 17 innings this season against the right-hander.
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Yankees Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Clarke Schmidt
- Schmidt makes the start for the Yankees, his 21st of the season. He is 6-6 with a 4.33 ERA and 97 strikeouts in 99 2/3 innings pitched.
- In his last time out on Friday, July 21 against the Kansas City Royals, the right-hander went 5 2/3 innings, giving up three earned runs while surrendering five hits.
- The 27-year-old has an ERA of 4.33, with 8.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 21 games this season. Opponents are batting .265 against him.
- Schmidt has recorded three quality starts this year.
- Schmidt is trying for his third straight appearance lasting five or more innings. He averages 4.7 innings per start.
- In five of his appearances this season he did not allow an earned run.
Clarke Schmidt vs. Orioles
- He will face an Orioles offense that ranks 10th in the league with 499 total runs scored while batting .249 as a unit. His opponent has a collective .418 slugging percentage (10th in MLB action) and has hit a total of 121 home runs (13th in the league).
- Schmidt has thrown 13 1/3 innings, giving up eight earned runs on 15 hits while striking out 14 against the Orioles this season.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:21:38 | 0 | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Red Sox vs. Giants on July 29, 2023
Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 10:50 AM CDT|Updated: 31 minutes ago
Player prop bet odds for Justin Turner and others are listed when the Boston Red Sox visit the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park on Saturday at 7:15 PM ET.
Bet on this matchup or its props with BetMGM!
Red Sox vs. Giants Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:15 PM ET
- Where: Oracle Park in San Francisco, California
- How to Watch on TV: FOX
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Discover More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Boston Red Sox
Justin Turner Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +120)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +700)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +160)
Turner Stats
- Turner has 108 hits with 24 doubles, 16 home runs, 38 walks and 66 RBI. He's also stolen four bases.
- He's slashed .286/.356/.476 on the year.
Turner Recent Games
Rafael Devers Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +125)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +550)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +150)
Devers Stats
- Rafael Devers has 22 doubles, 25 home runs, 34 walks and 76 RBI (98 total hits). He has swiped two bases.
- He's slashing .261/.329/.520 on the season.
Devers Recent Games
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Red Sox vs. Giants Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The Boston Red Sox (56-47) carry a five-game winning streak into a road matchup versus the San Francisco Giants (56-48) at 7:15 PM ET on Saturday.
The probable starters are James Paxton (6-2) for the Red Sox and Ryan Walker (3-0) for the Giants.
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Red Sox vs. Giants Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:15 PM ET
- TV: FOX
- Location: San Francisco, California
- Venue: Oracle Park
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Paxton - BOS (6-2, 3.46 ERA) vs Walker - SF (3-0, 2.70 ERA)
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Explore More About This Game
Red Sox Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: James Paxton
- The Red Sox will send Paxton (6-2) to the mound for his 13th start this season.
- The left-hander last pitched on Saturday, when he gave up two earned runs and allowed three hits in six innings against the New York Mets.
- The 34-year-old has an ERA of 3.46 and 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings, with a batting average against of .198 in 12 games this season.
- He has seven quality starts in 12 chances this season.
- Paxton has made nine starts of five or more innings in 12 chances this season, and averages 5.4 frames when he pitches.
- He has finished two appearances without allowing an earned run in 12 chances this season.
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Giants Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Ryan Walker
- Walker (3-0 with a 2.70 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 33 1/3 innings pitched) gets the start for the Giants, his seventh of the season.
- In his last appearance on Thursday, the right-hander went 2 2/3 scoreless innings against the Oakland Athletics while surrendering one hit.
- In 24 games this season, the 27-year-old has an ERA of 2.70, with 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings. Opponents are hitting .250 against him.
- Walker has yet to notch a quality start so far this season.
- Walker has not pitched five or more innings in a start this season (in six starts). He averages 1.4 per outing.
- He has had 17 appearances this season that he kept his opponents to zero earned runs.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/red-sox-vs-giants-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:21:48 | 1 | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/red-sox-vs-giants-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Royals vs. Twins on July 29, 2023
You can see player prop bet odds for Carlos Correa, Bobby Witt Jr. and other players on the Minnesota Twins and Kansas City Royals heading into their matchup at 7:10 PM ET on Saturday at Kauffman Stadium.
Bet on this matchup or its props with BetMGM!
Royals vs. Twins Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:10 PM ET
- Where: Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri
- How to Watch on TV: BSKC
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Discover More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Kansas City Royals
Bobby Witt Jr. Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 1.5 (Over Odds: +195)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +100)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +600)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +160)
Witt Jr. Stats
- Witt Jr. has 107 hits with 18 doubles, six triples, 17 home runs, 22 walks and 57 RBI. He's also stolen 29 bases.
- He's slashed .257/.296/.451 on the year.
Witt Jr. Recent Games
Salvador Pérez Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -270)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +140)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +340)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +120)
Pérez Stats
- Salvador Perez has 88 hits with 16 doubles, 17 home runs, 12 walks and 43 RBI.
- He has a .246/.285/.433 slash line so far this year.
Pérez Recent Games
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MLB Props Today: Minnesota Twins
Bailey Ober Props
- Strikeouts Prop: Over/Under 5.5 (Over Odds: +115)
Ober Stats
- Bailey Ober (6-4) will take to the mound for the Twins and make his 17th start of the season.
- If he completes six or more innings with three or fewer earned runs allowed, he'll earn his eighth consecutive quality start.
- Ober will look to finish five or more innings for the 17th start in a row.
- He has made 16 appearances and finished three of them without allowing an earned run.
Ober Recent Games
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Carlos Correa Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 1.5 (Over Odds: +160)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -120)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +380)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +175)
Correa Stats
- Correa has 23 doubles, two triples, 12 home runs, 39 walks and 45 RBI (83 total hits).
- He's slashed .229/.305/.402 on the year.
Correa Recent Games
Byron Buxton Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -185)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +110)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +330)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +145)
Buxton Stats
- Byron Buxton has 58 hits with 12 doubles, a triple, 17 home runs, 35 walks and 40 RBI. He's also stolen nine bases.
- He's slashing .198/.287/.420 on the season.
- Buxton enters this game looking to extend his two-game hit streak. In his last five games he is hitting .235 with two home runs, two walks and four RBI.
Buxton Recent Games
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Royals vs. Twins Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The Minnesota Twins (54-51) will try to snap a three-game losing streak when visiting the Kansas City Royals (30-75) at 7:10 PM ET on Saturday.
This contest's pitching matchup is set, as the Twins will send Bailey Ober (6-4) to the mound, while Jordan Lyles (1-12) will answer the bell for the Royals.
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Royals vs. Twins Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:10 PM ET
- TV: BSKC
- Location: Kansas City, Missouri
- Venue: Kauffman Stadium
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Ober - MIN (6-4, 2.76 ERA) vs Lyles - KC (1-12, 6.10 ERA)
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Royals Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Jordan Lyles
- Lyles (1-12 with a 6.10 ERA and 76 strikeouts in 107 2/3 innings pitched) gets the start for the Royals, his 20th of the season.
- In his last time out on Sunday, the right-hander went five innings against the New York Yankees, giving up five earned runs while surrendering nine hits.
- The 32-year-old has amassed an ERA of 6.10, with 6.4 strikeouts per nine innings in 19 games this season. Opponents have a .252 batting average against him.
- Lyles is trying to collect his fourth quality start of the year.
- Lyles will try to continue an 11-game streak of going five or more innings (he's averaging 5.6 frames per outing).
- In one of his appearances this season he has not allow an earned run.
Jordan Lyles vs. Twins
- He meets a Twins offense that ranks 17th in the league with 462 total runs scored while batting .236 as a squad. His opponent has a collective .412 slugging percentage (13th in MLB play) and has hit a total of 139 home runs (eighth in the league).
- Lyles has a 7.71 ERA and a 1.929 WHIP against the Twins this season in 9 1/3 innings pitched, allowing a .308 batting average over two appearances.
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Twins Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Bailey Ober
- Ober (6-4) will take to the mound for the Twins and make his 17th start of the season.
- The right-hander's last start was on Sunday, when he tossed six innings while giving up two earned runs on five hits in a matchup with the Chicago White Sox.
- The 28-year-old has pitched in 16 games this season with a 2.76 ERA and 8.6 strikeouts per nine innings with a batting average against of .215.
- If he completes six or more innings with three or fewer earned runs allowed, he'll earn his eighth consecutive quality start.
- Ober will look to finish five or more innings for the 17th start in a row.
- He has three appearances this season with zero earned runs allowed out of his 16 chances this season.
Bailey Ober vs. Royals
- The Royals are batting .233 this season, 25th in MLB. They have a team slugging percentage of .378 (27th in the league) with 94 home runs.
- The right-hander has allowed the Royals to go 4-for-21 with a double and an RBI in 5 2/3 innings this season.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/royals-vs-twins-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:22:02 | 0 | https://www.kwch.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/royals-vs-twins-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
HUARINA, Bolivia (AP) — A 70-year-old man’s feet sink into the soil as he passes abandoned boats where there used to be the water of Lake Titicaca. The highest navigable lake in the world has receded to what Bolivian authorities say are critically low levels due to a persistent drought.
“It’s completely dry,” Jaime Mamani said in exasperation while walking along the new shoreline in Huarina, a farming town 70 kilometers (43 miles) west of La Paz where he is a community leader.
The National Service of Naval Hydrography declared an alert this week for the iconic lake after its surface fell 2 centimeters (0.8 inches) below the drought warning stage, or 3,807.8 meters (12492.7 feet) above sea level. But the agency says this is just the beginning of a situation that is worrying Indigenous Aymara communities that rely on the lake for their livelihoods and fear the dry spell could permanently impact the region’s flora and fauna.
The hydrology unit of Bolivia’s navy warned that water levels could reach historically low levels in the coming months. By December, there is a “high probability” Lake Titicaca will be 64 centimeters (more than 25 inches) below the drought alert level, breaking a low water record set in 1998 by 33 centimeters (almost 13 inches).
“In three months, the water has decreased by 30 centimeters (11.8 inches), and considering that radiation is much stronger during this time of the year … we expect it to keep decreasing,” Carlos Carrasco, a hydraulic engineer for the hydrography service said.
The drought is the result of a combination of factors, including natural phenomena like La Niña and El Niño, which arrived unusually early this year and have been particularly strong due in part to climate change, according to Lucía Walper, who heads up the Hydrological Forecasting Unit at Bolivia’s National Meteorology and Hydrology Service.
But the vast lake is vital for this region of the Bolivian highlands, where hundreds of Aymara rural communities have relied on the blue body of water for millennia to practice subsistence farming and raise livestock.
Authorities in the Peruvian city of Puno also issued a warning about the declining water levels and expressed concern about the potential impact on tourism.
“We’re reaching a critical point. There will be a significant loss of water,” said Juan José Ocola, president of the Binational Authority of Lake Titicaca. The lake serves as the border between Bolivia and Peru.
Mateo Vargas, 56, a fisherman who has lived off the Lake Titicaca for 28 years, said he used to catch “lots” of fish daily. Now he considers himself lucky if he can catch six.
Vargas’ wife, Justina Condori, shares his concerns.
“The fish have vanished,” Condori, 58, said, predicting there will be famine if the current conditions persist.
Condori makes a living by renting boats to tourists. She worries fewer people will come to visit the lake, which at an elevation of 3,810 meters above sea level, is the largest body of freshwater in the Andes mountain range.
Evidence of the receding lake is seemingly everywhere. Women who sell fried fish and other snacks by the lake face rising costs for ingredients. Those who make a living transporting people from one side of the lake to the other are altering their routes because their rafts and boats no longer reach their usual docks.
Livestock farmers who rely on the plants that grow on the shores of the Titicaca to feed their animals are also seeing their livelihoods threatened.
The economic hardship is causing many residents of Huarina to migrate to other areas of the country, leaving behind mostly older townspeople, Mamani said. The waters of the Titicaca have always been shallow around the town, so the drought is even more visible there.
“There is a detriment to the economy of the inhabitants of the region,” he said.
Vargas, the fisherman, is also concerned about what the declining water levels will mean for the future.
“It looks like it will continue to decrease, day by day,” he said. “We’re worried because if we continue like this, what’s going to happen to our children?”
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the climate and environment at https://apnews.com/climate-and-environment | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-a-drought-alert-for-receding-lake-titicaca-has-indigenous-communities-worried-for-their-future/ | 2023-07-29T17:22:46 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-a-drought-alert-for-receding-lake-titicaca-has-indigenous-communities-worried-for-their-future/ |
NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — The African Union has issued a 15-day ultimatum to the junta in Niger to reinstall the country’s democratically elected government just as the coup leaders met with senior civil servants to discuss how they would run the country and as the U.S. and the European Union threatened sanctions against the regime.
Brig. Gen. Mohamed Toumba, one of the soldiers who ousted President Mohamed Bazoum on Wednesday, told state television that the junta met with civil servants on Friday and asked them to continue their work as usual following the suspension of the constitution. “The message given was not to stop the processes underway, to keep on with things,” said Brig. Gen. Toumba.
“Everything that must be done will be done,” he said, signaling the intention of the regime led by Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who also goes by Omar, to remain in power.
After its meeting on Friday, the African Union Peace and Security Council said it was concerned by the “alarming resurgence” of coups that undermine democracy and stability on the continent. It asked the soldiers to “return immediately and unconditionally to their barracks and restore constitutional authority, within a maximum of fifteen (15) days.”
Bazoum, whose condition and that of his officials remains unknown since the government was overthrown, should also be released immediately and unconditionally, the AU said. Failure to do so would compel the bloc to take “necessary action, including punitive measures against the perpetrators.”
On the streets of the Nigerien capital Niamey on Saturday, things appeared to be returning to normal, though many in the international community were still on lockdown with hotels full of foreigners, many given instructions not to leave.
Locals say they’re waiting to see what unfolds, with many still in support of Bazoum who has not yet resigned. “I’m with him, he does a good work. (But) what can we do?” said Mohamed Cisse, a street seller. “This is (the new leader’s) time, Bazoum’s time is over,” he said.
Tchiani, the junta leader and commander of Niger’s presidential guard, is close to former Nigerien president Mahamadou Issoufou, who stepped down in 2021 after a decade in office. Tchiani’s takeover of power will reinforce speculation that Issoufou is behind the coup, said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank and consultancy.
The U.S. threatened to halt its economic support to Niger while the European Union announced the immediate indefinite suspension of budgetary support and security assistance.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who is in Australia as part of a Pacific tour, estimated America’s economic and security partnership with Niger at hundreds of millions of dollars and said its continuity depends on “the continuation of the democratic governance and constitutional order.”
“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 said.
While there are no signs of the junta backing down amid growing international pressure, analysts called for synergy in the interventions of the international community and continental organizations such as the AU and the regional bloc of ECOWAS, which is scheduled to meet over the coup on Sunday.
A successful coup in Niger and the sanctions in the aftermath could cause more hardship for millions of poor and hungry people in West Africa and could further threaten international relations with the region, which is seeing a resurgence of coups in recent years, according to Idayat Hassan, senior Africa program fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“A non-reversal of the coup also means that we are defining a new world order in West Africa in particular as you are pitching the west and other countries against few military regimes which may be backed by Russia,” said Hassan.
———
Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria. Baba Ahmed in Bamako, Mali contributed. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-african-union-gives-15-day-ultimatum-to-niger-junta-to-end-regime-but-soldiers-seek-continuity/ | 2023-07-29T17:22:53 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-african-union-gives-15-day-ultimatum-to-niger-junta-to-end-regime-but-soldiers-seek-continuity/ |
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Salvage crews were preparing Saturday to tow a car-carrying cargo ship that has been burning for days to an anchor point in the North Sea after flames and smoke on board subsided, the Dutch government said.
Fire erupted in the Fremantle Highway late Tuesday night near a chain of islands in the northern Netherlands and has been blazing ever since. The ship is carrying 3,783 new vehicles, including 498 electric vehicles, the company that chartered the vessel said.
One crew member died and others were injured after the fire broke out on the ship that was heading from Bremerhaven in Germany to Singapore. The crew was evacuated in the early hours of Wednesday. The cause of the fire has not been established.
Measurements Friday showed that heat, flames and smoke had subsided enough for salvage experts to board the ship for the first time and establish a strong towing connection with a tugboat, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management said.
It will be towed, likely over the weekend, to a new position 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of the island of Schiermonnikoog , the ministry said in a statement. The timing of the operation that is expected to take 12-14 hours depends on smoke development and weather, the ministry added. The aim is ultimately “once conditions on board allow,” to tow the ship to a port, though the destination has not yet been decided.
The ministry said the ship is stable and intact below the waterline.
The burning vessel is close to the shallow Wadden Sea, a World Heritage-listed area that is considered one of the world’s most significant habitats for migratory birds. It’s also near the Netherlands’ border with Germany, whose environment minister, Steffi Lemke, has warned of “an environmental catastrophe of unknown proportions,” if the ship were to sink. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-burning-cargo-ship-off-dutch-coast-will-be-towed-to-a-new-location-after-flames-and-smoke-subsided/ | 2023-07-29T17:22:59 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-burning-cargo-ship-off-dutch-coast-will-be-towed-to-a-new-location-after-flames-and-smoke-subsided/ |
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The North Little Rock Police Department is investigating an early morning homicide in the 1200 block of Graham Avenue.
NLRPD said officers arrived on the scene around 2:03 a.m. about gunshots in the area and found a man lying in a residence with one gunshot wound.
According to authorities, the victim was transported to a local hospital and later died.
The victim's name is not being released at this time, pending the notification of the next of kin.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the North Little Rock Police Department Tip Line at (501) 680-8439 or Detective Gibbons at (501) 771-7149.
Those with information can remain anonymous.
The investigation into this incident is ongoing. We are working to gather additional information and will update you as soon as it becomes available. | https://www.thv11.com/article/news/crime/north-little-rock-police-investigating-homicide/91-1ecebb38-3bc2-4239-af98-d914d2744701 | 2023-07-29T17:23:04 | 1 | https://www.thv11.com/article/news/crime/north-little-rock-police-investigating-homicide/91-1ecebb38-3bc2-4239-af98-d914d2744701 |
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron held discussions with his Sri Lankan counterpart Saturday on an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region in the first-ever visit by a French leader to the Indian Ocean island nation.
As the fourth-largest creditor to Sri Lanka, France had pledged cooperation in debt restructuring to help the island nation recover from its economic crisis.
Macron arrived in Sri Lanka Friday night, following his trip to the South Pacific region, to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations, Sri Lanka’s president’s office said.
Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe praised France’s significant role in global affairs, particularly in areas such as climate mitigation, global debt restructuring, and matters related to the Indo-Pacific region, the statement said.
“Sri Lanka and France are two Indian Ocean nations that share the same goal: an open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific. In Colombo we confirmed it: strengthened by 75 years of diplomatic relations, we can open a new era of our partnership,” Macron said in a Twitter message after the meeting. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-french-president-macron-visits-his-counterpart-in-sri-lanka/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:06 | 0 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-french-president-macron-visits-his-counterpart-in-sri-lanka/ |
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. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-lebanons-hezbollah-leader-urges-muslims-to-punish-quran-desecrators-if-governments-fail-to-do-so/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:13 | 0 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-lebanons-hezbollah-leader-urges-muslims-to-punish-quran-desecrators-if-governments-fail-to-do-so/ |
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) —
A 9-year-old girl and her 10-year-old brother have been called as witnesses in a criminal case against their mother after she was accused of repeatedly “discrediting” the Russian army.
Lidia Prudovskaya and her two children were summoned by investigators in the northern Russian region of Arkhangelsk on Friday to give testimony in the case, Russian news outlet Sota reported.
Prudovskaya previously faced administrative charges on similar allegations after sharing anti-war posts on Russian social media platform VKontakte in September 2022.
Discrediting the Russian military is a criminal offense under a law adopted after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. The law is regularly used against Kremlin critics.
In April, Russian authorities petitioned to restrict the parental rights of a single father convicted of discrediting the army following an anti-war sketch drawn by his daughter at school.
Alexei Moskalyov, 54, was sentenced to two years in prison for social media comments he had made criticizing Moscow’s war in Ukraine, while his daughter Maria was placed in an orphanage.
The 13-year-old was later moved to live with her mother. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-russian-investigators-call-children-as-witnesses-against-their-mother-accused-of-discrediting-army/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:20 | 0 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-russian-investigators-call-children-as-witnesses-against-their-mother-accused-of-discrediting-army/ |
The Crown had been steadily chugging along, telling the story of Queen Elizabeth II's highs and lows as wife, mother, daughter, sister and, above all else, monarch, most events ripped from reality and the blanks intuitively filled in by the Netflix series' writers.
But it was really all just leading up to season five, which covered the chapter of the royal family's story where the genteel action went spectacularly off the rails.
And as fascinating as it was when Prime Minister John Major pushed back against the queen's request for a yacht renovation on the government's dime, of course we're talking about the collapse of King Charles and Princess Diana's marriage. Which, as seen on The Crown's fourth season, was on shaky footing before they ever said I do on July 29, 1981.
Still, after tying the knot in front of 3,500 people at St. Paul's Cathedral, plus another 750 million tuning in on TV, the couple settled in for the presumed long haul. They traveled the world, became parents to Prince William and Prince Harry, and carried out the duties expected of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
"I've got what my mother's got," Diana explained in the interview tapes she made for biographer Andrew Morton in 1991. "However bloody you're feeling you can put on the most amazing show of happiness."
How did Princess Diana describe her marriage to Prince Charles?
Diana detailed a vicious cycle to Morton: From day one she felt unsupported by her husband in her weighty new role. She also didn't trust him, convinced he was still romantically involved with his married ex Camilla Parker Bowles.
In turn, Diana continued, Charles was dismissive of what she acknowledged were her blatant cries for help, including instances of self-harm such as throwing herself down the stairs when she was pregnant with William in 1982. Charles accused her of "crying wolf," she said.
Even if he was at a loss as how to help his wife, Charles did arrange for Diana to see a psychiatrist in the fall of 1982. He wrote to a friend, per Jonathan Dimbleby's 1994 biography The Prince of Wales, "The trouble is one day I think some steps are being made uphill only to find that we've slid back one and a half steps the following day."
Intense love for her children aside, Diana described the two-year stretch between William being born and Harry's birth in 1984 as "total darkness. I can't remember much, I've blotted it out, it was such pain."
Yet at the same time, she was undoubtedly coming into her own as a public figure, her uncanny ability to connect with people making her far more popular than her husband.
"Because I had a smile on my face everybody thought I was having a wonderful time," Diana reflected to Morton. "That's what they chose to think—it made them happier thinking that."
What was the nature of Charles and Camilla's relationship during his marriage to Diana?
Diana was livid when she found a bracelet Charles intended to give Camilla before their wedding. He assured her it was just a token acknowledging their in-the-past history together and, yes, he'd be delivering it in person. (According to Dimbleby, when Charles brought Camilla the bracelet in July 1981, it was the first time he'd seen her since his engagement was announced in February.)
"I never dealt with that side of things," Diana recalled to Morton. "I just said to him: 'You must always be honest with me.'"
Diana said she did confront her perceived rival, though, at a 40th birthday party for Camilla's sister. She recalled telling Camilla, "'I would just like you to know that I know exactly what is going on,'" and Camilla replied, "'I don't know what you're talking about!'"
But by the beginning of the '90s, Charles and Camilla were fully, if theoretically secretly, back on. And Diana was not the only one who assumed they'd been having an affair, according to The Prince of Wales. Charles' closest friends suspected as much, as did "one or two members of his own family," Dimbleby wrote, who warned the prince an "illicit liaison would be damaging to his own standing and to the institution of which he was so crucial a member."
Charles told Dimblebly in a June 1994 TV interview that he wed Diana fully intending to be committed to his wife, and that he didn't resume his romance with Camilla until their marriage was "irretrievably broken down, us both having tried."
Camilla, Charles said, "has been a friend for a very long time and will continue to be a friend for a very long time."
Diana told her confidante (and rumored former lover) James Gilbey, per Morton's Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words, "If I let it get to me I will just upset myself more. So the thing to do is to involve myself in my work; get out and about. If I stop to think, I'll go mad."
What happened during the year leading up to Charles and Diana's separation?
The Crown's Golden Globe-nominated fifth season picks up in 1991, when Charles and Diana (Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki) and their boys embarked on an idyllic-looking cruise along the Italian coast that palace staffers helped frame to the press as a "second honeymoon" for the couple.
"You're very aware everyone has a strong opinion about what happened and whose side they're on," West told the New York Times of the fraught territory covered in the controversial-upon-arrival season. "It's a bit of a minefield."
Charles, an avid artist, had already been on a sketching trip to Tuscany earlier in the year, and the tabloids found out that Camilla spent several days in a villa that was a 30-minute drive away. When they went to Italy as a family, Diana told Morton, Charles regularly phoned Camilla from the yacht.
Diana's collaboration with Morton was also getting underway. The princess, upon hearing that the former tabloid journalist was planning a biography of her anyway, had given the OK to her inner circle to cooperate with the project. And she shockingly agreed to participate as well, albeit entirely in secret. Her longtime friend Dr. James Colthurst brought her Morton's questions and then delivered the tapes back to the writer.
"Initially, I sat and I read out the questions, but that was too slow for Diana," Colthurst told NBC News in 2004. "She snatched the questions away from me and then clipped the microphone on to herself and the tape recorder was on and away she went."
Christmas with the royal family at Sandringham in 1991 wasn't exactly the pivotal, hallucinatory couple of days the 2021 film Spencer—featuring Kristen Stewart's Oscar-nominated portrayal of the princess—would suggest.
But Diana really was trying to figure out how to be free and married to Charles at the same time.
"I think I'm going to cut a very different path from everyone else," she predicted to Morton. "I'm going to break away from this set-up and go and help the man on the street." That sounds "so condescending," she added, but "I'm being pushed more and more that way."
Charles and Diana's paths had, indeed, diverged and were at times viewed to be competing, such as when Charles sent flowers to Mother Teresa when she was convalescing at a hospital in Rome in January 1992—and Diana flew to visit her in person.
The disconnect continued when the pair traveled to India together that February, site of Diana's infamous solo photo op outside the Taj Mahal. When asked why she described the sojourn as a "healing experience," she told the reporters gathered round that they could "work that out" for themselves.
Per Morton, Diana no longer felt comfortable around her husband's staff, worrying they were watching and judging her every move. She started opening her own mail and sending scented candles as tokens of thanks instead of writing letters, for fear they'd be used against her. She also thought long and hard before going anywhere with anyone, especially any man, weighing whether it was worth the inevitable headlines.
How did Andrew Morton's book affect Charles and Diana's marriage?
"Diana driven to five suicide bids by 'uncaring' Charles," read the first headline from the Sunday Times, which serialized Morton's book starting June 7 before its publication June 16.
The extent of Charles' involvement with Camilla was also on unprecedented display. Tina Brown reported in her 2007 book The Diana Chronicles that Morton asked for proof before he took Diana's word about an affair, so the princess brought him letters from Camilla that Charles had saved. The publishing team "was instantly persuaded that the affair was real," Brown wrote.
The Sunday Times' editor, Andrew Neil, also told Dimbleby that he didn't initially believe Diana's claims about suffering from bulimia and attempting suicide, but Morton stood by every word and produced statements from numerous people quoted in the book attesting to its accuracy.
Having purposely never met Morton, Diana maintained deniability. She insisted she wasn't involved to the queen's private secretary (and Diana's brother-in-law), Robert Fellowes, who, going on her word, shut down rumors that she was—which in turn paved the way for the Press Complaints Commission's statement slamming the "odious exhibition of journalists dabbling their fingers in the stuff of other people's souls."
Morton had agreed to the subterfuge and kept the princess' confidence even as he was publicly raked over the coals, accused of everything from outright fabrication to trying to ruin the royal family. "[A] potpourri of MPs were keen to see me locked away in the Tower," he recalled in a later edition.
The In Her Own Words part of the title was only added after Diana's death, along with a transcript. "I felt she was very hard done by Charles and the royal family," Morton told the Belfast Telegraph in 2017 upon the release of the 25th anniversary edition, which was three-times as long as the 150-page original. "So, I had no qualms about supporting her."
Dimbleby wrote that, even after the Morton book came out, Charles was telling friends that he hoped his marriage would survive, at least for the sake of their children and the monarchy, even if they basically led separate lives.
Opposed to a divorce but understanding that things couldn't go on as they were, the queen and Prince Philip advised the younger couple to give themselves three months to see if they could reconcile.
What was "Squidgygate"?
The spectacle went from bad to worse in August 1992, when The Sun published a transcript of a leaked phone conversation allegedly between Diana and an unidentified admirer from Dec. 31, 1989. The man called her "darling" 53 times and "Squidgy" or "Squidge" 14 times during the course of the chat, as Diana lamented that her husband was making her life "real, real torture."
The man on the phone was identified as Gilbey, who was subsequently trashed by the press but resolutely never commented on the scandal, even to Morton. (More from the "Squidgy" conversation was aired on Australian TV in March 1993, the day before Diana left on a trip to Nepal, her first post-split solo engagement.)
This time the queen and Philip met with Charles and Diana at Balmoral to sign off on an unofficial separation. Charles agreed to move out of Kensington Palace and the estranged pair would be free to go their separate ways, converging necessarily for the kids and events such as Trooping the Colour.
Yet the show also went on, and Charles and Diana embarked on an official trip to South Korea at the end of October, quietly promoted by Charles' staff to several papers as the "togetherness tour." While successful on its diplomatic face, Dimbleby wrote, "both the Prince and the Princess were aware that their lovelessness was the only story in Britain."
While they were away, there was much ado about the paperback edition of the Morton book, containing for the first time mention of several tough-love letters Philip wrote to Diana. She later publicly defended her in-laws, saying in a statement, "The suggestion that they have been anything other than sympathetic and supportive is untrue and particularly hurtful.
She and Charles flew to Hong Kong, but she didn't stay, instead traveling on to London. On his flight back to the U.K. on Nov. 8, 1992, Charles wrote to a friend, "I don't know what will happen from now on but I dread it."
When did Princess Diana and Prince Charles formally separate?
Diana ultimately agreed to a legal separation on Nov. 25, the day after the queen gave her historic "annus horribilis" speech.
During the ensuing week, Diana visited William and Harry at Ludgrove School in Berkshire so she could tell them in person before it became international news.
John Major—who had advised the queen on the split's constitutional implications (there were none)—announced the breakup of the Prince and Princess of Wales' marriage to the House of Commons on Dec. 9, 1992. "This decision has been reached amicably," the prime minister said, "and they will both continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children."
The queen and Philip, "though saddened, understand and sympathize with the difficulties that have led to this decision," the PM continued. "Her Majesty and His Royal Highness particularly hope that the intrusions into the privacy of the Prince and Princess may now cease."
Major raised some eyebrows, however, when he noted that the line of succession remained intact and "there is no reason why the Princess of Wales should not be crowned Queen in due course."
Talking to the Mail on Sunday in October, Major encouraged a boycott of season five of The Crown, singling out the episode in which Charles ponders the meaning of a poll that seemingly showed people were in favor of the queen abdicating as particularly offensive. Major called any suggestion that Charles tried to mess with his mother's reign a "barrel load of malicious nonsense." (Jonny Lee Miller portrays the queen's ninth PM.)
What was "Tampongate," exactly?
Charles and Diana's marriage may have been over for all intents and purposes, but the intrusions didn't cease. In January 1993, making for the family's second "gate" in six months, multiple tabloids published the transcript from a surreptitiously recorded Dec. 17, 1989, phone call between Charles and Camilla in which he mused about how nice it would be to "live inside" her trousers. But, he cracked, with his luck he'd probably be reincarnated as her tampon.
The future king and queen consort were mocked far and wide—Dana Carvey played Charles dressed as a tampon on Saturday Night Live—and even the prince's fitness to rule one day was called into question. A Gallup poll put his approval rating at 4 percent in the wake of the humiliation. (Pre-engagement to Diana in 1980, 70 percent of poll respondents picked Charles as their favorite royal.)
Charles lamented to Camilla during the same conversation that loving him had meant that she suffered "all these indignities and tortures and calumnies." To which she replied, "I'd suffer anything for you. That's love. It's the strength of love."
What did Diana's life look like after the separation?
Diana tried to be away from London as much as possible in 1993, going to Nepal in March and Zimbabwe in July on official tours, then vacationed in Bali and took William and Harry to the United States, where their itinerary included a visit to Disney World.
At a charity luncheon in December 1993, Diana announced her intent to withdraw from public life, at least temporarily, explaining that she needed "time and space" to process everything that had happened.
She emerged a few months later at the chic Serpentine Gallery—located on the grounds of Hyde Park's Kensington Gardens, so the most convenient destination possible for the Kensington Palace resident—for a reception where, according to Morton, Oscar winner Jeremy Irons told Diana he took a year off from acting and she replied, "So have I."
Why was Diana's memorable LBD called her "revenge dress"?
In 1994, Dimbleby interviewed the Prince of Wales for the documentary Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role to commemorate the 25th anniversary of his investiture.
On the night the special aired, June 29, 1994, Diana—tipped off beforehand that Charles had admitted to his affair with Camilla on camera—showed up at the Serpentine Gallery for a Vanity Fair party in a short, black, off-the-shoulder Christina Stambolian number with a plunging (for a royal) sweetheart neckline.
According to Princess Diana's Dresses: The Auction, Stambolian said Diana had the dress hanging in her closet for three years but worried it was too racy to actually wear.
"Revenge is chic," heralded The Sun. "Di last night showed Charles what he's missing."
Did Princess Diana's explosive 1995 BBC interview really lead to her divorce?
Diana's hour-long interview with Martin Bashir on the BBC's Panorama—during which she flooded the room with tea, let alone spilled it—was widely viewed as the last straw for the royal family when it came to her and Charles' still-technically-married status.
Diana covered much of the same territory from the Morton book—her bulimia, depression, Charles' future as king, Camilla—but also shockingly acknowledged her own extramarital affair with her (and her sons') former riding instructor, James Hewitt.
Four weeks after Diana told the world "there were three of us in this marriage," the queen wrote to both her son and daughter-in-law to tell them it was time to divorce, signing the letter to Diana, "with love from Mama."
The next day, Dec. 19, Charles wrote to Diana, per Sally Bedell Smith's 2017 biography Prince Charles, asking her to join him in putting an end to their "sad and complicated situation."
Even after the separation in 1992, Diana had still spent every Christmas at Sandringham to make the holidays normal for William and Harry, but she chose not to join the royals in 1995.
How complicated was Charles and Diana's divorce?
On Feb. 28, 1996—the "saddest day of my life," Diana called it—the princess' office announced that she had "agreed to Prince Charles's request for a divorce." The release also divulged she would be retaining her Princess of Wales title, as well as her home at Kensington Palace and office at St. James's Palace.
Notably similar to Buckingham Palace's "these are complicated issues that will take time to work through" response to Harry and Meghan Markle's 2020 announcement that they were stepping back from royal duties, the palace didn't immediately confirm the particulars of Diana's statement, instead noting, "This will take time."
Already peeved that Diana had jumped the gun, Bedell Smith reported, the queen had her press secretary pointedly deny reports that she and Philip pressured Diana to drop the honorific Her Royal Highness, saying the "decision to drop the title is the Princess's and the Princess's alone."
And hammering out the terms did take time. The next update came July 13, 1996: Diana would retain her home and office, share custody of her sons with her ex-husband and receive the reported sum of at least $22 million, plus yearly office expenses of $600,000. And yes, Diana was still Princess of Wales—but she would no longer go by HRH.
Per Bedell Smith, Diana planned on fighting for the HRH, but dropped it when then-14-year-old William assured her it didn't matter to him. She would still be "regarded as a member of the royal family," the palace stated.
Charles and Diana's marriage officially ended Aug. 28.
Tensions eased once the negotiations were behind them, and they reunited without incident for the Christmas service at Eton and William's confirmation in the spring of 1997. But old grudges lingered.
On June 23, 1997, two months before she died, Diana attended a cocktail party at Christie's in New York to celebrate the upcoming charity auction of a number of her dresses. When fellow guests commented on the Verdura bracelet she was wearing, gold with a diamond clasp of interlocking C's, she quipped, "That is for Charles, and that is for Camilla."
(Originally published Nov. 12, 2022, at 5 a.m. PT) | https://www.eonline.com/news/1353988/the-messy-truth-about-the-end-of-princess-diana-and-king-charles-marriage?cmpid=rss-syndicate-genericrss-us-top_stories | 2023-07-29T17:23:22 | 0 | https://www.eonline.com/news/1353988/the-messy-truth-about-the-end-of-princess-diana-and-king-charles-marriage?cmpid=rss-syndicate-genericrss-us-top_stories |
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian police arrested the president’s son Saturday as part of a high-profile money laundering probe into funds he allegedly collected from convicted drug traffickers during last year’s presidential campaign.
President Gustavo Petro, a former rebel who rose through Colombia’s political ranks as an anti-corruption crusader, said he wouldn’t interfere with the investigation.
“As an individual and father, it pains me to see so much self destruction and one of my sons going to jail,” Petro said in an early morning message on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “As president of the republic, I’ve assured the chief prosecutor’s office that it will have all of the guarantees so it can proceed according to the law.”
The arrest of Nicolas Petro is a major blow to the government, which has been buffeted by conservative attacks from day one at the same time it has struggled to maintain bipartisan support for Colombia in the U.S., a longtime ally in the war on drugs and fight against illegal armed groups.
The investigation stems from shocking declarations made by Nicolas Petro’s ex-wife, Daysuris del Carmen Vasquez, to local media outlet Semana earlier this year.
In the extended interview, Vasquez detailed how she was present at meetings when her husband arranged a donation of more than 600 million pesos (around $150,000) from a politician once convicted in Washington of drug trafficking and who was seeking the Petro campaign’s support to resume his political career.
She said President Petro was unaware of her son’s dealings and the money he collected in his campaign’s name was kept inside a safe inside the couple’s home in the coastal city of Barranquilla.
Nicolas Petro has denied his ex wife’s claims as unfounded.
The chief prosecutor’s office said in a statement that Nicolas Petro and his ex-wife were taken into custody on orders of a court in Bogota around 6 a.m. local time Saturday. It said that once brought before a judge, prosecutors would seek their provisional detention as it investigates the two for money laundering. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-son-of-colombias-president-arrested-as-part-of-money-laundering-probe/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:27 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-son-of-colombias-president-arrested-as-part-of-money-laundering-probe/ |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday pushed back against Australian demands for an end to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s prosecution, saying the Australian citizen was accused of “very serious criminal conduct” in publishing a trove of classified documents more than a decade ago.
Australia’s center-left Labor Party government has been arguing since winning the elections last year that the United States should end its pursuit of the 52-year-old, who has spent four years in a British prison fighting extradition to the United States.
Assange’s freedom is widely seen as a test of Australia’s leverage with President Joe Biden’s administration.
Blinken confirmed on Saturday that Assange had been discussed in annual talks with Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Brisbane, Australia.
“I understand the concerns and views of Australians. I think it’s very important that our friends here understand our concerns about this matter,” Blinken told reporters.
“Mr. Assange was charged with very serious criminal conduct in the United States in connection with his alleged role in one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of our country,” he added.
Wong said Assange’s prosecution had “dragged for too long” and that Australia wanted the charges “brought to a conclusion.”
Australia remains ambiguous about whether the United States should drop the prosecution or strike a plea bargain.
Assange faces 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks’ publication of of hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic and military documents in 2010.
American prosecutors allege he helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published, putting lives at risk.
Australia argues there is a “disconnect” between the U.S. treatment of Assange and Manning. Then-U.S. President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s 35-year sentence to seven years, which allowed her release in 2017. | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-us-secretary-of-state-tells-australia-that-wikileaks-founder-is-accused-of-very-serious-crime/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:34 | 0 | https://pix11.com/ap-international/ap-us-secretary-of-state-tells-australia-that-wikileaks-founder-is-accused-of-very-serious-crime/ |
Ex-Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon joins push for third-party presidential bid as Democrats try to stop it
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri is joining No Labels ' increasingly contentious effort to lay the groundwork for a moderate third-party presidential ticket in the 2024 election. He gives the embattled organization another prominent ally amid escalating concerns from Democratic officials that the No Labels campaign could unintentionally help Republican Donald Trump return to the White House.
Nixon, a 67-year-old lawyer, is stepping back into national politics for the first time since leaving office in 2017 and will serve as No Labels’ director of ballot integrity. He said in an interview that he was drawn to the role after learning that well-funded groups aligned with Democrats were working to stop No Labels from securing ballot access in key states.
He said that those seeking to block the group’s right to appear on the presidential ballot are attacking a pillar of American democracy.
“What do I say to those Democrats? I say, ‘You’re entitled to your opinion. But we are also entitled to use our constitutional and statutory rights to allow Americans to have another choice,’” Nixon told The Associated Press.
President Joe Biden and Trump have dominated the 2024 campaign conversation so far. But No Labels, a Washington-based group that promotes compromise, national unity and centrist policy solutions, has been preparing for the strongest third-party presidential bid at least since Texas businessman Ross Perot earned nearly 19% of the popular vote in 1992.
Working with an operating budget of roughly $70 million, No Labels is taking steps to secure presidential ballot spots in roughly 20 states this year; the group has done so already in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Oregon and Utah.
While No Labels has yet to nominate candidates for president and vice president, its leadership insists there is a path to victory for a centrist third-party ticket “if the two parties select unreasonably divisive presidential nominees.”
The group’s critics across the Democratic Party are terrified that No Labels will siphon votes that would otherwise go to Biden, who narrowly beat Trump in 2020 with a coalition that included moderate Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans.
No Labels’ leadership has promised a series of checks and balances that would allow the organization to withdraw its presidential ticket if it appears the group’s participation would help Trump win. No Labels has not outlined a detailed plan about that, and leaders acknowledge privately there is some urgency to come out with their specific safeguards, which would vary state by state. They intend to do so by “early fall.”
Anxious Democrats are unconvinced.
On Thursday, two prominent Democratic groups, the centrist Third Way and more progressive MoveOn, hosted private meetings on Capitol Hill with dozens of chiefs of staff and senior aides to House and Senate Democrats to emphasize the need to stop No Label’s presidential ambitions. In a nod to the seriousness of the Democratic establishment’s concerns, the meetings were held in both the House and Senate Democrats’ campaign headquarters.
“We told them what we have been saying consistently now for a long time: This is dangerous,” said Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett, who helped lead the briefing along with MoveOn’s executive director, Rahna Epting.
The organizers detailed data showing that a No Labels ticket would undercut Biden in the general election and warned that it could handicap vulnerable House and Senate candidates is tight elections. They also questioned that No Labels’ promise to withdraw its ticket if necessary to stop Trump.
No Labels’ leaders are furious.
“They are telling the elected leaders of this country right now that our ballot is a runaway train. And that is categorically false. That is propaganda. And that is why we’re bringing on a director of ballot integrity to stop it because it’s outrageous,” said No Labels’ founder Nancy Jacobson, a former Democratic fundraiser.
For now, Democrats are not willing to take Jacobson’s word for it.
“I don’t want to be doing this. I’d much rather focus on other things. I am concerned, genuinely,” Epting said. “They’re in over their head. They have not given any assurances that they’re clear and sober in their analysis. And when they talk about being able to put the horse back in the barn, they are not consistent about when or how they’re going to do that.”
“They’re just saying, ‘Trust us,’” Epting said. “We can’t. We don’t know you. And the stakes are too high.”
Meanwhile, Nixon joins a growing roster of former elected officials in both parties now affiliated with No Labels. Among the others: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; former Govs. Jon Huntsman Jr., R-Utah, Larry Hogan, R-Md., and Pat McCrory, R-N.C.; and former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who became an independent late in his political career.
Manchin and Huntsman, ambassador to China under President Barack Obama and to Russia under Trump, hosted a town hall in New Hampshire this month, driving speculation they may ultimately become the No Labels presidential ticket.
No Labels plans to hold a presidential nominating convention next April in Dallas, and the group is showing no signs of backing off its 2024 plans. With a massive budget fueled by anonymous donations, No Labels can afford to be patient in the fights ahead.
Democrats in Arizona filed a complaint this month with the secretary of state asking to have the group suspended until it discloses it donors. In May, Maine’s top elections official sent a cease-and-desist letter regarding No Labels voter registration efforts after claiming the group was misleading voters.
The group Citizens to Save Our Republic formed a super political action committee this month specifically designed to stop No Labels. The group’s members includes Bennett from Third Way, several advisers to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.
Nixon, who declined to criticize Biden or Trump, said he understands that he is walking into a political firestorm. But he said he is passionate about No Labels’ constitutional right to secure a place on the ballot.
“I feel calm. I feel correct. I think we have a high moral ground here,” he said.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/ex-missouri-gov-jay-nixon-joins-push-third-party-presidential-bid-democrats-try-stop-it/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:39 | 0 | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/ex-missouri-gov-jay-nixon-joins-push-third-party-presidential-bid-democrats-try-stop-it/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri is joining No Labels ‘ increasingly contentious effort to lay the groundwork for a moderate third-party presidential ticket in the 2024 election. He gives the embattled organization another prominent ally amid escalating concerns from Democratic officials that the No Labels campaign could unintentionally help Republican Donald Trump return to the White House.
Nixon, a 67-year-old lawyer, is stepping back into national politics for the first time since leaving office in 2017 and will serve as No Labels’ director of ballot integrity. He said in an interview that he was drawn to the role after learning that well-funded groups aligned with Democrats were working to stop No Labels from securing ballot access in key states.
He said that those seeking to block the group’s right to appear on the presidential ballot are attacking a pillar of American democracy.
“What do I say to those Democrats? I say, ‘You’re entitled to your opinion. But we are also entitled to use our constitutional and statutory rights to allow Americans to have another choice,’” Nixon told The Associated Press.
President Joe Biden and Trump have dominated the 2024 campaign conversation so far. But No Labels, a Washington-based group that promotes compromise, national unity and centrist policy solutions, has been preparing for the strongest third-party presidential bid at least since Texas businessman Ross Perot earned nearly 19% of the popular vote in 1992.
Working with an operating budget of roughly $70 million, No Labels is taking steps to secure presidential ballot spots in roughly 20 states this year; the group has done so already in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Oregon and Utah.
While No Labels has yet to nominate candidates for president and vice president, its leadership insists there is a path to victory for a centrist third-party ticket “if the two parties select unreasonably divisive presidential nominees.”
The group’s critics across the Democratic Party are terrified that No Labels will siphon votes that would otherwise go to Biden, who narrowly beat Trump in 2020 with a coalition that included moderate Democrats, independents and disaffected Republicans.
No Labels’ leadership has promised a series of checks and balances that would allow the organization to withdraw its presidential ticket if it appears the group’s participation would help Trump win. No Labels has not outlined a detailed plan about that, and leaders acknowledge privately there is some urgency to come out with their specific safeguards, which would vary state by state. They intend to do so by “early fall.”
Anxious Democrats are unconvinced.
On Thursday, two prominent Democratic groups, the centrist Third Way and more progressive MoveOn, hosted private meetings on Capitol Hill with dozens of chiefs of staff and senior aides to House and Senate Democrats to emphasize the need to stop No Label’s presidential ambitions. In a nod to the seriousness of the Democratic establishment’s concerns, the meetings were held in both the House and Senate Democrats’ campaign headquarters.
“We told them what we have been saying consistently now for a long time: This is dangerous,” said Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett, who helped lead the briefing along with MoveOn’s executive director, Rahna Epting.
The organizers detailed data showing that a No Labels ticket would undercut Biden in the general election and warned that it could handicap vulnerable House and Senate candidates is tight elections. They also questioned that No Labels’ promise to withdraw its ticket if necessary to stop Trump.
No Labels’ leaders are furious.
“They are telling the elected leaders of this country right now that our ballot is a runaway train. And that is categorically false. That is propaganda. And that is why we’re bringing on a director of ballot integrity to stop it because it’s outrageous,” said No Labels’ founder Nancy Jacobson, a former Democratic fundraiser.
For now, Democrats are not willing to take Jacobson’s word for it.
“I don’t want to be doing this. I’d much rather focus on other things. I am concerned, genuinely,” Epting said. “They’re in over their head. They have not given any assurances that they’re clear and sober in their analysis. And when they talk about being able to put the horse back in the barn, they are not consistent about when or how they’re going to do that.”
“They’re just saying, ‘Trust us,’” Epting said. “We can’t. We don’t know you. And the stakes are too high.”
Meanwhile, Nixon joins a growing roster of former elected officials in both parties now affiliated with No Labels. Among the others: Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; former Govs. Jon Huntsman Jr., R-Utah, Larry Hogan, R-Md., and Pat McCrory, R-N.C.; and former Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat who became an independent late in his political career.
Manchin and Huntsman, ambassador to China under President Barack Obama and to Russia under Trump, hosted a town hall in New Hampshire this month, driving speculation they may ultimately become the No Labels presidential ticket.
No Labels plans to hold a presidential nominating convention next April in Dallas, and the group is showing no signs of backing off its 2024 plans. With a massive budget fueled by anonymous donations, No Labels can afford to be patient in the fights ahead.
Democrats in Arizona filed a complaint this month with the secretary of state asking to have the group suspended until it discloses it donors. In May, Maine’s top elections official sent a cease-and-desist letter regarding No Labels voter registration efforts after claiming the group was misleading voters.
The group Citizens to Save Our Republic formed a super political action committee this month specifically designed to stop No Labels. The group’s members includes Bennett from Third Way, several advisers to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.
Nixon, who declined to criticize Biden or Trump, said he understands that he is walking into a political firestorm. But he said he is passionate about No Labels’ constitutional right to secure a place on the ballot.
“I feel calm. I feel correct. I think we have a high moral ground here,” he said. | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-ex-missouri-gov-jay-nixon-joins-push-for-third-party-presidential-bid-as-democrats-try-to-stop-it/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:40 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-ex-missouri-gov-jay-nixon-joins-push-for-third-party-presidential-bid-as-democrats-try-to-stop-it/ |
‘His jaw dropped’: Woman wins lottery on husband’s birthday
WASHTENAW COUNTY, Mich. (Gray News) - A Michigan woman gave her husband a birthday present he’ll soon not forget.
Kristin Murawski, 46, matched the winning Fantasy 5 numbers on July 21 and won the $288,903 jackpot.
Murawski told Michigan Lottery officials that the win was even more special as it happened on her husband’s birthday.
“It was my husband’s birthday and we stopped at our neighbor’s house to celebrate,” she said. “While we were there, we checked the winning numbers. My husband looked at the ticket and his jaw dropped!”
The lucky lottery winner said she bought the winning ticket at a Red Party Store in Willis, Michigan, about 40 minutes away from Detroit.
Murawski said she likes to play the Fantasy 5 game when the jackpot is more than $150,000, so she made a quick stop at the store to purchase a ticket.
The couple recently visited Michigan lottery headquarters to claim their big prize.
“Winning this jackpot is life-changing and makes our lives easier,” Murawski said.
With her winnings, she plans to pay student loans and then invest the remainder.
“It means an earlier retirement for my husband and less worry about how we’ll make ends meet once we are both retired,” Murawski said.
According to the Michigan Lottery, the Fantasy 5 game is available for $1 with drawings held seven days a week.
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/his-jaw-dropped-woman-wins-lottery-husbands-birthday/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:45 | 1 | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/his-jaw-dropped-woman-wins-lottery-husbands-birthday/ |
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. | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-to-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:46 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-fresh-charges-tie-trump-even-more-closely-to-coverup-effort-that-could-deepen-his-legal-woes/ |
Pet owner says 4-foot-long python has gone missing from his yard
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR/Gray News) - Residents in an Illinois neighborhood are currently on the lookout for a pet snake.
Jonathan Delaney told WIFR that his 15-year-old ball python named Bubba slithered away from his yard last weekend.
Delaney said his exotic 4-foot-long snake is missing, but neighbors shouldn’t be worried.
“He’s completely harmless,” Delaney said. “We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s never been mean and the biggest thing he’d eat is a rat.”
Fellow Edgewater resident Rhonda Hanley said she’d likely be startled if she came across Bubba. But because he’s someone’s pet, she’ll try to help find him.
“I’ll try and put something over the top of it like a blanket or a garbage can if I find him,” Hanley said.
Delaney is thankful that his neighbors are concerned enough to lend a helping hand.
“We are hoping he’s still around here and nobody harms him,” he said. “We are hoping to find him as soon as possible.”
Experts say because ball pythons prefer to be hidden most of the time the snake doesn’t appear to pose a threat to the public.
The snake can strike if it gets agitated, but those bites don’t normally require medical attention.
“The most that could happen is that the snake could take a defensive swipe,” Stephanie Stone, owner of Jurassic Reptile Supply, said. “It’s less impact than a cat scratch or a cat bite.”
Stone added that ball pythons typically don’t travel very far.
“Unless it feels the need to try to find a meal, it’s probably very close to where it was originally,” she said.
Anyone who spots Bubba has been urged to contact Delaney on social media.
Copyright 2023 WIFR via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:52 | 1 | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ |
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The oldest historically Black collegiate fraternity in the U.S. says it is relocating a planned convention in two years from Florida because of what it described as Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration’s “harmful, racist and insensitive” policies towards African Americans.
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity said this week that it would move its 2025 convention from Orlando to another location that is yet undecided. The convention draws between 4,000 and 6,000 people and has an economic impact of $4.6 million, the fraternity said.
The decision comes after the NAACP and other civil rights organizations this spring issued a travel advisory for Florida, warning that recently passed laws and policies are openly hostile to African Americans, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Willis Lonzer, the fraternity’s general president, said in statement on Wednesday that the decision was motivated in part by Florida’s new education standards that require teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”
“Although we are moving our convention from Florida, Alpha Phi Alpha will continue to support the strong advocacy of Alpha Brothers and other advocates fighting against the continued assault on our communities in Florida by Governor Ron DeSantis,” Lonzer said.
An email seeking comment on Saturday about the fraternity’s decision was sent to Jeremy Redfern, the governor’s press secretary and the governor’s office.
DeSantis, who is running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has come under fire this week over Florida’s new education standards. Among those criticizing the Florida governor on Friday was a rival for the Republican nomination, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the sole Black Republican in the Senate.
Responding to the criticism, DeSantis said Friday that he was “defending” Florida “against false accusations and against lies. And we’re going to continue to speak the truth.”
In May, the NAACP joined the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a Latino civil rights organization, and Equality Florida, a gay rights advocacy group, in issuing travel advisories for the Sunshine State, where tourism is one of the state’s largest job sectors. The groups cited recent laws that prohibited state colleges from having programs on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as critical race theory, and the Stop WOKE Act that restricts certain race-based conversations and analysis in schools and businesses.
They also cited laws that they say made life more difficult for immigrants in Florida and limited discussions on LGBTQ topics in schools.
At least nine other organizations or associations have pulled the plug on hosting conventions in Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, two of the state’s most population convention cities, because of Florida’s political climate, according to local media reports.
Florida is one of the most popular states in the U.S. for tourists, and tourism is one of its biggest industries. More than 137.5 million tourists visited Florida last year, marking a return to pre-pandemic levels, according to Visit Florida, the state’s tourism promotion agency. Tourism supports 1.6 million full-time and part-time jobs, and visitors spent $98.8 billion in Florida in 2019, the last year figures are available.
___
Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-historically-black-fraternity-drops-florida-for-convention-because-of-desantis-policies/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:53 | 0 | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-historically-black-fraternity-drops-florida-for-convention-because-of-desantis-policies/ |
WVLT’s Chef Walter passes away
Chef Walter shared recipes on WVLT for over 30 years.
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Walter Lambert, more famously known on WVLT as Chef Walter, passed away on Friday, according to his family.
Chef Walter cooked up recipes weekly on WVLT News for decades as a chef on the noon show. His last show was on Jan. 4, 2019, when he hung up his apron. When he left WVLT, Chef Walter was working on two books, was a part of the Author’s Guild of Tennessee and was creating a podcast called myunexpectedlife.
In 2017, Alan Williams sat down with him to learn more about the famous chef.
Chef Walter grew up in the Gibbs community before his family moved on to Fountain City. His family raised horses when he was young.
“I learned how to cook out of necessity,” Walter had said. “I’m the oldest of eight, seven years between my next brother. I say my folks were good at family. They raised a babysitter, then raised a family, and I had to cook because my mother was sick a lot.”
Chef Walter attended Central High School before moving on to the University of Tennessee. For the next 30 years, he worked in the Political Science Department, then as a lobbyist, spending most of his time in Nashville and Washington, D.C. He met a few presidents along the way.
Chef Walter also had a key role in bringing the 1982 World’s Fair to Knoxville.
Walter used to look completely different as well.
“I’m a classic yo-yo dieter,” he said. “My top weight was 297 pounds.”
Walter suffered from high blood pressure and uncontrolled diabetes, so he went on a life-changing diet. He started growing his beard one year when he and his wife Anne were at the beach. He said he wouldn’t shave, and he still had not after 40 years.
His beloved wife Anne passed away in 2010, six months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. He admitted Anne looked after him and even made all the centerpieces Walter referred to on TV.
When asked what Anne would say to him if she were alive today, Walter had responded, “‘Do you really want to keep that mustache?’”
Chef Walter was on WVLT for over 30 years. His family has not yet shared funeral arrangements.
Copyright 2023 WVLT. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/wvlts-chef-walter-passes-away/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:59 | 0 | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/wvlts-chef-walter-passes-away/ |
PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Not long ago, Marine Col. Jennifer Nash, a combat engineer with war deployments under her belt, made a vow to fellow officers as they headed to a dinner in Atlanta: She would get two new recruiting contacts by the end of the evening.
She admits recruiting is not the job that she or other Marines had in mind when they enlisted. But after stints as a recruiter and senior officer at the Eastern recruiting command, she has become emblematic of the Corps’ tradition of putting its best, battle-tested Marines on enlistment duty. They get results.
Marine leaders say they will make their recruiting goal this year, while the active-duty Army, Navy and Air Force all expect to fall short. The services have struggled in the tight job market to compete with higher-paying businesses for the dwindling number of young people who can meet the military’s physical, mental and moral standards.
On that night, Nash achieved her own goal. She had gotten the valet at the hotel and the hostess at the restaurant to provide their phone numbers and to consider a Marine career.
Nash’s boss, Brig. Gen. Walker Field, who head the Eastern recruiting region, says the Corps has historically put an emphasis on selecting top-performing Marines to fill recruiting jobs. He says that has been a key to the Marines’ recruiting success, along with efforts to increase the number of recruiters, extend those who do well and speed their return to high schools, where in-person recruiting stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said his recruiters — who cover the territory between Canada and Puerto Rico and as far west as Mississippi — will meet their mission and expect to have 30% of their 2024 goal when they start the next fiscal year, Oct. 1. More broadly, Marine officials say they expect the Corps to achieve its recruiting target of more than 33,000.
Last year, the Navy, Air Force and Marines had to eat into their pools of delayed entry applicants in order to make their goals. The Marines will avoid that this year.
“That would be a great ending,” said Field, speaking to The Associated Press on a recent steamy day at South Carolina’s Parris Island, along the Atlantic Coast. “I’m bearish for not only concluding FY23 on a strong footing, but also how we set the conditions for FY24.”
The Marine Corps may get some help from its small size. The Army, for example, has a recruiting goal of 65,000 this year, which is nearly double the Corps’, and expects to fall substantially short of that. Air Force and Navy officials say they will also miss their goals, although the Space Force, which is the smallest service and does its recruiting within Air Force stations, is expected to meet its goal of about 500 recruits.
Sitting in the shadow of Parris Island’s replica of the Iwo Jima monument, Field said his biggest challenge is that a number of Marine hopefuls cannot pass the military’s academic test, known as the Armed Services Voluntary Aptitude Battery.
That is a widespread problem, but the Army recently set up a program that targets recruits who score below 30 on the test and provides schooling for several weeks to help them pass. Already more than 8,800 recruits have successfully gone through the classes, raised their scores and moved on to basic training.
The Navy is taking another route with a pilot program that allows up to 20% of their recruits to score below 30 on the test, as long as they meet specific standards for their chosen naval job. Marine leaders, however, do not take those lowest scoring recruits, and so far have no plans for any type of formal improvement program such as the Army’s.
Field said the Marines are repositioning recruiting stations, moving them around based on where population totals have increased in the latest census. More important, he said, the Corps maintains its focus on choosing the right recruiters, encouraging successful ones to stay in the job and increasing the number of Marine reservists tapped for recruit duties from the current 31 to 96 by the end of next year.
Nash, who until last month was assistant chief of staff for the Eastern region, said Marines are hand-selected for recruiting command jobs. Many three- and four-star Marines, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis, will cite their years doing enlistment duty.
“We put our best and brightest in those positions,” said Nash, adding that those chosen for recruiting posts have a proven track record of success in previous assignments and have demonstrated critical leadership skills. “That’s why they got selected, because they were above their peers.”
She acknowledged that the first time she was picked for a recruiting job she was “voluntold.” But now, recounting her sales pitch in Atlanta, her rapid fire pitch comes without taking a breath.
“I say, ‘Hey, ever thought about being Marine? We’re a bunch of Marines. And, you know, I think you potentially could be a good Marine. You ever thought about it?’ And usually you get, ‘Yeah, I thought about it.’ And I’m, like, ‘What’s holding you back? Would you like to learn more about your opportunities?’ ‘Absolutely.’ `OK. Mind giving me your name and phone number? I’ll have one of my recruiters give you a phone call.’”
The Marines have resisted increasing bonuses to attract recruits — something the other services have found helpful.
Gen. Eric Smith, the acting Marine Corps commandant, got some ribbing for his response when he was asked about bonuses during a naval conference in February.
“Your bonus is you get to call yourself a Marine,” he said. “That’s your bonus, right? There’s no dollar amount that goes with that.”
Field, Nash and others also say the Corps prefers to give a lot of recruits a few thousand dollars, rather than increasing the amount and giving money to far fewer people.
Field said that getting Marine recruiters in uniform back into high schools this year, after several years of COVID-19 restrictions, has been a key driver. There, young people line up to compete in pull-up contests, vying for a free T-shirt if they can do 20. And recruiters say many are drawn to the cache of being a Marine.
“If you told me you’ll give me $10 million worth of advertising and I can do something with it, or you’ll give me 10 great-looking Marines in a Marine uniform — what’s going to get the most value? Give me those 10 Marines and give me a day,” Nash said. “We’ll go out and we’ll get more out of that, I think, than $10 million in advertising.” | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-the-few-and-the-proud-arent-so-few-marines-recruiting-surges-while-other-services-struggle/ | 2023-07-29T17:23:59 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-the-few-and-the-proud-arent-so-few-marines-recruiting-surges-while-other-services-struggle/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Astros vs. Rays on July 29, 2023
Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 11:50 AM EDT|Updated: 33 minutes ago
Bookmakers have listed player props for Kyle Tucker, Wander Franco and others when the Houston Astros host the Tampa Bay Rays at Minute Maid Park on Saturday at 7:15 PM ET.
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Astros vs. Rays Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:15 PM ET
- Where: Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas
- How to Watch on TV: FOX
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Explore More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Houston Astros
Kyle Tucker Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -204)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +105)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +475)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +185)
Tucker Stats
- Tucker has 25 doubles, 18 home runs, 51 walks and 69 RBI (112 total hits). He has swiped 19 bases.
- He has a slash line of .304/.386/.518 on the year.
Tucker Recent Games
Alex Bregman Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -204)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +110)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +475)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +150)
Bregman Stats
- Alex Bregman has 14 doubles, two triples, 17 home runs, 54 walks and 66 RBI (101 total hits). He has swiped four bases.
- He's slashed .253/.344/.426 on the year.
Bregman Recent Games
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MLB Props Today: Tampa Bay Rays
Wander Franco Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -244)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +110)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +750)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +245)
Franco Stats
- Franco has 23 doubles, five triples, 11 home runs, 36 walks and 48 RBI (103 total hits). He has swiped 28 bases.
- He has a .264/.328/.433 slash line on the season.
Franco Recent Games
Yandy Díaz Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 1.5 (Over Odds: +190)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +100)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +500)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +220)
Diaz Stats
- Yandy Diaz has 104 hits with 20 doubles, 14 home runs and 42 walks. He has driven in 50 runs.
- He's slashed .315/.398/.503 so far this year.
Diaz Recent Games
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-player-prop-bets/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:05 | 1 | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-player-prop-bets/ |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The United States will expand its military industrial base by helping Australia manufacture guided missiles and rockets for both countries within two years, the allies announced on Saturday as they ramped up defense cooperation to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific.
The new cooperation on guided weapon production follows a trilateral partnership announcement in March that will see Britain provide Australia with a fleet of eight submarines powered by U.S. nuclear technology.
The greater integration of U.S. and Australian militaries was announced after annual talks between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and their Australian counterparts, Defense Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
They agreed to cooperate on Australia producing Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems by 2025, a communique said.
U.S. companies Raytheon and Lockheed Martin only established an Australian enterprise to build such weapons last year. That followed the drain on Western countries’ munitions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Austin said the move on missiles would strengthen the two allies’ defense industrial base and technological edge.
“We’re racing to accelerate Australia’s priority access to munitions through a streamlined acquisition process,” Austin told reporters in Brisbane, Australia.
Marles welcomed U.S. support to achieve Australian missile production within two years.
“We are really pleased with the steps that we are taking in respect of establishing a guided weapons and explosive ordnance enterprise in this country,” Marles said.
The two governments also agreed to upgrade joint military facilities in Australia and to increase U.S. nuclear submarine visits as the United States increases its focus on the South Pacific.
The region came to the forefront of the U.S. competition with China for influence last year, when Beijing signed a security pact with Solomon Islands and raised the prospect of a Chinese naval base being established there.
Austin became the first U.S. defense secretary to visit Papua New Guinea and Blinken visited New Zealand and Tonga before they arrived in Australia.
Saturday’s meeting was overshadowed by the loss of an Australian Army helicopter with four air crew late Friday, during military exercises with the U.S. off the northeastern coast of Australia.
U.S., Australian and Canadian militaries are taking part in the search for potential survivors near Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland state coast.
Austin and Marles will travel to north Queensland on Sunday to inspect Talisman Sabre, a biennial military exercise between the two countries that this year includes 13 nations and more than 30,000 military personnel. | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-us-pledges-to-help-australia-manufacture-guided-missiles-by-2025/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:06 | 1 | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-us-pledges-to-help-australia-manufacture-guided-missiles-by-2025/ |
Astros vs. Rays Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The Houston Astros (58-46) host the Tampa Bay Rays (63-43) at 7:15 PM ET on Saturday, a game featuring two of the league's most consistent hitters. Kyle Tucker has an average of .304 (ninth in league) for the Astros, and Yandy Diaz is fourth at .315 for the Rays.
The probable starters are Hunter Brown (6-7) for the Astros and Taj Bradley (5-6) for the Rays.
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Astros vs. Rays Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:15 PM ET
- TV: FOX
- Location: Houston, Texas
- Venue: Minute Maid Park
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Brown - HOU (6-7, 4.27 ERA) vs Bradley - TB (5-6, 5.17 ERA)
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Explore More About This Game
Astros Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Hunter Brown
- Brown (6-7) will take the mound for the Astros, his 20th start of the season.
- The right-hander gave up two earned runs and allowed six hits in six innings pitched against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday.
- The 24-year-old has an ERA of 4.27 and 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings, with a batting average against of .259 in 19 games this season.
- He has started 19 games this season, earning a quality start (6 or more IP, 3 or fewer ER) in nine of them.
- Brown will look to finish five or more innings for the third start in a row.
- He has finished four appearances without allowing an earned run in 19 chances this season.
Hunter Brown vs. Rays
- The Rays rank 10th in MLB with a .255 batting average this season. They have a team slugging percentage that ranks fifth in the league (.444) and 151 home runs.
- The right-hander has faced the Rays one time this season, allowing them to go 2-for-21 in seven innings.
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Rays Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Taj Bradley
- Bradley (5-6 with a 5.17 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 71 1/3 innings pitched) gets the start for the Rays, his 16th of the season.
- His last appearance was on Sunday against the Baltimore Orioles, when the righty tossed five innings, surrendering three earned runs while allowing five hits.
- In 15 games this season, the 22-year-old has amassed an ERA of 5.17, with 12 strikeouts per nine innings. Opponents are hitting .263 against him.
- Bradley is trying to pick up his second quality start of the season in this game.
- Bradley is trying for his fourth straight appearance lasting five or more innings. He averages 4.7 frames per start.
- He has held his opponents without an earned run in two of his 15 appearances this season.
Taj Bradley vs. Astros
- The opposing Astros offense has a collective .248 batting average, and is 16th in the league with 873 total hits and 12th in MLB play with 487 runs scored. They have the 14th-ranked slugging percentage (.411) and are 10th in all of MLB with 130 home runs.
- Bradley has pitched five innings, giving up three earned runs on four hits while striking out six against the Astros this season.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:12 | 0 | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/astros-vs-rays-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pamela Smith’s voice soared and quivered like a preacher in midsermon as she recalled her troubled childhood and how it helped prepare her for the challenges she faces as the new police chief in the nation’s capital.
“I stand before you as a child who had no hopes, who had no dreams — they were far beyond my reach. But I believe that all things are possible,” she said at her introductory news conference in Washington, in cadences honed by years as an ordained Baptist minister. “I believe I bring a fresh perspective, a different kind of energy, a different level of passion to what I’m going to do.”
Smith takes on the job at a precarious time.
Violent crime is rising sharply, fueled by more homicides and carjackings. The District of Columbia’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, and the D.C. Council have, at times, been at odds about crime legislation. On Capitol Hill, the Republican-led House has begun citing the city’s crime statistics while aggressively reviewing local public safety laws.
On July 24, the Mexican Consulate posted a tweet urging its nationals to “take precautions” in the city due to “a significant increase in crime in areas previously considered safe.”
Smith, 55, now becomes one of the public faces of this long-term fight even before the Council votes on her nomination as chief. She brings an inspirational story to her new role leading the Metropolitan Police Department. Raised in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, by a single mother who battled substance abuse, Smith and her siblings were at one point removed from their home and spent time in foster care. Smith emerged as a track star and went on to a 24-year career in the U.S. Park Police, where she served as the agency’s first Black female chief before retiring in 2022 to take up a senior leadership position at the MPD.
Law enforcement and government officials repeatedly point out that overall crime numbers in Washington have stayed relatively stable. But the crimes that have increased the most — murders and carjackings — are the ones most likely to damage public confidence.
“The scariest crimes are going up and regardless of what’s happening with other crimes, that’s what’s going to fuel the overall perception,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves told The Associated Press.
Graves’ office prosecutes most felonies in Washington, in a unique arrangement due to the district’s status as a nonstate. The city’s attorney general’s office prosecutes misdemeanors and juvenile crime, which is also on the rise.
This intricate dynamic among two separate sets of prosecutors, the city’s police force, Bowser’s administration and the Council has been publicly tested as the crime numbers have stayed high — all with Congress taking an increasing interest in the district’s affairs. Public safety was a primary topic of debate last year when Bowser, 50, successfully ran for a third term in office. She has spent this term sparring with both the Council and the House Oversight and Accountability Committee over how best to address crime.
July has been a particular bloody month, with 22 homicides as of Friday, including murders on the campuses of both Howard and Catholic universities. The victims include an Afghan man who survived years of working as a translator for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan only to be murdered in America while driving for Lyft. Nine people, including two children, were shot at a July Fourth party, when an assailant in an SUV opened fire on the crowd. A 12-year old girl remains hospitalized after being shot in the back Tuesday night by a bullet that penetrated the walls of her home.
Although the local murder rate is well below the levels in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Washington regularly led the nation in murders per capita, it has climbed steadily in recent years. In 2022, there was a roughly 10% drop in homicides, but now, homicides are up 15 percent compared with this time a year ago and the city is on pace to surpass 200 for the third year in a row. Police also reported 140 carjacking incidents in the month of June — the highest monthly total in more than five years.
Crime in Washington is now a national headline issue in Congress. In the spring, Bowser and Council members were summoned before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee for a heated session on local crime rates.
Congress voted to completely overturn the Council’s comprehensive rewrite of the district’s criminal code. Bowser was caught in the middle of the dispute. She had vetoed the overhaul, saying the reduction of maximum penalties for certain violent crimes “sent the wrong message,” but was overridden by the Council.
The mayor opposes congressional intervention in local affairs as part of Washington’s long push for statehood, but her initial veto was frequently cited by Republican lawmakers as proof that the rewrite was soft on crime. In an embarrassment for the heavily Democratic city, the move to cancel the criminal code revision drew support from dozens of congressional Democratic and was signed into law by President Joe Biden.
Earlier this month, the Council, with Bowser’s support, passed emergency public safety legislation meant to serve as a temporary fix. The bill makes it a felony to fire a gun in public and makes it easier for judges, in cases where people are charged with a violent crime, to detain them before trial. As an emergency bill, the changes will only last 90 days and will not be subject to congressional review; plans to make the changes permanent in the fall will face scrutiny by lawmakers.
“It is no secret … to the public that we are in a state of emergency right now,” said Brooke Pinto, the D.C. Council member who was the bill’s architect. “Like in any emergency, we have to act like it and we have to act urgently to address the problem we’re seeing.”
But some pushing for a criminal justice overhaul said city lawmakers were reverting to mass incarceration policies that had long ago been discredited.
“We’re way beyond thinking that we can just incarcerate more people,” said Patrice Sulton, executive director of the D.C. Justice Lab, who helped draft the now-canceled criminal code revision. “I think everybody who voted for it knows that it will not have an impact.”
The local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on Twitter that the new bill “essentially flips due process on its head — treating people as guilty and detaining them.”
All sides point to one primary factor fueling the violence: a flood to firearms entering Washington.
Graves, the district’s federal prosecutor, said the number of guns being used in crimes has skyrocketed, turning petty disputes into deadly battles. This includes a new wave of “ghost guns” — firearms that can be ordered in kits and assembled at home. Other kits can easily turn a semiautomatic weapon into an automatic, enabling a rapid-fire and generally less accurate spray of dozens of bullets. In 2018, authorities recovered three such guns; in 2022, the number was 461.
Graves compared the illegal guns to “a virus” in the neighborhood.
“The more virus there is in the community, the more people are going to get sick,” he said. “The more illegal firearms are in the community, the more likelihood those illegal firearms are going to be used.” | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-violent-crime-is-rising-in-the-nations-capital-dc-seeks-solutions-as-congress-keeps-close-watch/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:13 | 0 | https://pix11.com/ap-political/ap-violent-crime-is-rising-in-the-nations-capital-dc-seeks-solutions-as-congress-keeps-close-watch/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Orioles vs. Yankees on July 29, 2023
Gleyber Torres and Adley Rutschman are among the players with prop bets available when the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles play at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Saturday (beginning at 7:15 PM ET).
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Orioles vs. Yankees Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:15 PM ET
- Where: Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland
- How to Watch on TV: FOX
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Read More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Baltimore Orioles
Tyler Wells Props
- Strikeouts Prop: Over/Under 4.5 (Over Odds: -141)
Wells Stats
- Tyler Wells (7-5) will take the mound for the Orioles, his 20th start of the season.
- He has started 19 games this season, earning a quality start (6 or more IP, 3 or fewer ER) in eight of them.
- In 19 starts, Wells has pitched through or past the fifth inning 18 times. He has a season average of 5.6 frames per outing.
- In 20 appearances this season, he has finished three without allowing an earned run.
- Among qualified pitchers in the majors this campaign, the 28-year-old ranks 27th in ERA (3.65), first in WHIP (.991), and 29th in K/9 (8.9).
Wells Recent Games
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Adley Rutschman Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +105)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +700)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +190)
Rutschman Stats
- Rutschman has 17 doubles, 14 home runs, 60 walks and 46 RBI (100 total hits).
- He has a slash line of .268/.368/.426 on the season.
- Rutschman will look for his fifth straight game with a hit in this contest. In his last five games he is batting .190 with a double, a home run, two walks and four RBI.
Rutschman Recent Games
Anthony Santander Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -105)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +350)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +135)
Santander Stats
- Anthony Santander has recorded 97 hits with 26 doubles, a triple, 18 home runs and 38 walks. He has driven in 56 runs with three stolen bases.
- He has a slash line of .256/.328/.472 on the year.
Santander Recent Games
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MLB Props Today: New York Yankees
Gleyber Torres Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 1.5 (Over Odds: +175)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -130)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +500)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +180)
Torres Stats
- Torres has 13 doubles, two triples, 16 home runs, 39 walks and 43 RBI (100 total hits). He's also stolen eight bases.
- He's slashing .261/.327/.431 on the season.
Torres Recent Games
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-player-prop-bets/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:19 | 1 | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-player-prop-bets/ |
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Saturday that Sri Lanka is a key partner in a Tokyo-led initiative aimed at building security and economic cooperation around the Indo-Pacific but also at countering an increasingly assertive China.
Sri Lanka, strategically located in the Indian Ocean, is integral to realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, Hayashi said. He was speaking after a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart, Ali Sabry, in the capital, Colombo.
The initiative, announced by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in March includes Japan’s assistance to emerging economies, support for maritime security, a provision of coast guard patrol boats and equipment and other infrastructure cooperation.
Last year Sri Lanka, which owed $51 billion in foreign debt, became the first Asia-Pacific country since the late 1990s to default, sparking an economic crisis.
While Japan is Sri Lanka’s largest creditor, about 10% of its debt is held by China, which lent Colombo billions to build sea ports, airports and power plants as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. In March, China agreed to offer Sri Lanka a two-year moratorium on loan repayments.
Hayashi said that he conveyed expectations for further progress in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring process. He welcomed Sri Lanka’s efforts under an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which includes anti-corruption measures and transparency in the policy-making process.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Sabry said that he, along with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, invited Japan to resume investment projects already in the pipeline and to consider fresh investments in sectors such as power generation, ports and highways, and dedicated investment zones, as well as in the green and digital economy.
Over many decades, Japan became one of Sri Lanka’s key donors, carrying out key projects under concessionary terms. However, relations between the two countries came under strain after Wickremesinghe’s predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa unilaterally scrapped a Japan-funded light railway project following his election in 2019.
Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has already approved a proposal to restart the railway project.
Rajapaksa was forced to resign in July 2022 amid angry public protects over the country’s worst economic crisis. | https://pix11.com/business/ap-business/ap-with-one-eye-on-china-japan-backs-sri-lanka-as-a-partner-in-the-indo-pacific/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:19 | 1 | https://pix11.com/business/ap-business/ap-with-one-eye-on-china-japan-backs-sri-lanka-as-a-partner-in-the-indo-pacific/ |
Orioles vs. Yankees Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The New York Yankees (54-49) visit the Baltimore Orioles (63-40) at 7:15 PM ET on Saturday.
This contest's pitching matchup is set, as the Orioles will send Tyler Wells (7-5) to the mound, while Clarke Schmidt (6-6) will get the nod for the Yankees.
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Orioles vs. Yankees Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:15 PM ET
- TV: FOX
- Location: Baltimore, Maryland
- Venue: Oriole Park at Camden Yards
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Wells - BAL (7-5, 3.65 ERA) vs Schmidt - NYY (6-6, 4.33 ERA)
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Orioles Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Tyler Wells
- Wells (7-5) will take the mound for the Orioles, his 20th start of the season.
- The right-hander gave up three earned runs and allowed one hit in 4 1/3 innings pitched against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday.
- The 28-year-old has pitched in 20 games this season with a 3.65 ERA and 8.9 strikeouts per nine innings with a batting average against of .198.
- In 19 starts this season, he's earned eight quality starts.
- Wells has started 19 games this season, and he's lasted five or more innings 18 times. He averages 5.6 innings per appearance.
- He has three appearances this season with zero earned runs allowed out of his 20 chances this season.
Tyler Wells vs. Yankees
- The Yankees have scored 446 runs this season, which ranks 21st in MLB. They have 771 hits, 29th in baseball, with 141 home runs (seventh in the league).
- The Yankees have gone 16-for-65 with two doubles, a triple, seven home runs and 11 RBI in 17 innings this season against the right-hander.
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Yankees Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Clarke Schmidt
- Schmidt makes the start for the Yankees, his 21st of the season. He is 6-6 with a 4.33 ERA and 97 strikeouts in 99 2/3 innings pitched.
- In his last time out on Friday, July 21 against the Kansas City Royals, the right-hander went 5 2/3 innings, giving up three earned runs while surrendering five hits.
- The 27-year-old has an ERA of 4.33, with 8.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 21 games this season. Opponents are batting .265 against him.
- Schmidt has recorded three quality starts this year.
- Schmidt is trying for his third straight appearance lasting five or more innings. He averages 4.7 innings per start.
- In five of his appearances this season he did not allow an earned run.
Clarke Schmidt vs. Orioles
- He will face an Orioles offense that ranks 10th in the league with 499 total runs scored while batting .249 as a unit. His opponent has a collective .418 slugging percentage (10th in MLB action) and has hit a total of 121 home runs (13th in the league).
- Schmidt has thrown 13 1/3 innings, giving up eight earned runs on 15 hits while striking out 14 against the Orioles this season.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:25 | 0 | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/orioles-vs-yankees-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. (AP) — For a single, unthinkable moment last summer, the Chautauqua Institution was a hostile place for the freedom of expression that has been its hallmark for 150 years: As Salman Rushdie was about to speak, an audience member leapt onto the stage and stabbed the celebrated author more than a dozen times.
By the next day, Chautauqua Institution President Michael Hill recently recounted, the decision had been made not only to resume programming, but to “double down on what Mr. Rushdie stands for, what our speakers and preachers and artists stand for — which is the free exchange of ideas and the belief that society is stronger when we do that.”
A year later, Rushdie, blinded in one eye by the assault, is recovering from the attack. The Chautauqua Institution is recovering, too.
Programming and revenue for the arts and intellectual retreat in the rural southwest corner of New York was disrupted for two seasons by COVID-19. Then the attack further shattered the return to normal that regular visitors had so craved.
With a new nine-week summer season now under way, well-tended gardens are in bloom and rocking chairs are back out on the porches of Victorian- and cottage-style homes.
Security has been strengthened, though the gated compound remains open to anyone who buys a pass to enter.
“We look at the work that we do under a different lens since” the stabbing, Hill said during an interview in his office, which overlooks Bestor Plaza, a lush expanse of greenery anchoring the 750-acre (303-hectare) grounds. “The attack was an attempt at silencing, which underscores the need for institutions like ours to not stay silent.”
As an institution, Chautauqua defies easy explanation.
“NPR camp for grown-ups” is the description preferred by Erica Higbie, who owns a house on the grounds.
Located on the shore of Chautauqua Lake, the institution is a self-contained community with lecture halls, houses of worship, cafes, shops, a library, post office and bookstore, along with private homes, rentals and the Athenaeum Hotel, which served as former President Bill Clinton’s executive mansion for a week in 1996 as he prepared for his debate with Republican challenger Bob Dole.
Aside from boating and golf, the 4,400-seat, open-air amphitheater is a main draw, with a summer entertainment lineup this year offering concerts by Diana Ross and Bonnie Raitt, ballet and theater productions and performances by the house Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra.
But for Higbie and many others, the primary appeal exists in the institution’s 19th Century beginnings as a summer educational experiment in which daily lectures are curated around weekly explorations of anything from politics to infrastructure and faith to friendship.
“I am a lecture junkie,” Higbie said from her porch as people navigated the grounds on foot, bikes and scooters. The speed limit for the rare vehicle traffic is 12 mph. The retired teacher takes in a daily morning lecture and may hear two more in the afternoon at the amphitheater and the Hall of Philosophy.
Through the decades, Susan B. Anthony advocated for women’s rights at the institution and President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his 1936 “I Hate War” speech in the amphitheater. Former Vice President Al Gore spoke about the climate crisis and Supreme Court Judges Robert H. Jackson and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are among countless others who have offered insights.
Rushdie’s appearance came during a week last year exploring home as “a place for human thriving.”
Henry Reese, co-founder of the City of Asylum Pittsburgh, was about to interview “The Satanic Verses” author about violence against writers when Rushdie was attacked as the men sat in armchairs on the amphitheater’s sunken stage.
Rushdie, the target of a decades-old fatwa by the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini calling for his death, was stabbed in the neck, stomach, chest, hand and right eye. Reese suffered bruises and a gash to his forehead.
With alleged assailant Hadi Matar awaiting trial in a nearby courthouse, Reese is scheduled to return to the institution on the anniversary of the attack, Aug. 12. His appearance is expected to kick off a week exploring freedom of expression, imagination and the resilience of democracy. Republican strategist Karl Rove and Democratic strategist David Axelrod are among other invited guests.
It would have been out of character for the institution to do anything but pick up where it left off after the assault, regular guest lecturer Eboo Patel said.
“Not a single artist or speaker canceled,” Patel, founder of Interfaith America in Chicago, said by phone.
“Chautauqua recognizes that it has a responsibility to its own community, honestly to American civilization and the human spirit, and it’s back up in 24 to 48 hours. That’s stunning,” he said.
Property owners differed on how far the institution should go to ensure personal safety, said Higbie, the president of the Chautauqua Property Owners Association.
“Everybody was in shock for a long time,“ Higbie said.
Visitors say they notice more security and protocols at events. Amphitheater patrons can bring only clear bags inside, for example, and may be scanned or asked to walk through a weapons detector.
Even so, “I never hesitated for a minute” to return, said Michael Crawford of Washington, D.C., as he chatted with Mary Pat McFarland of Philadelphia. The two sat on one of the red benches placed around the grounds to invite discussion.
A handful of musicians with violins, guitars and a small harp played an impromptu jam session beneath a tree nearby.
Hill said he sees his role as “teeing up” issues for engagement, so shying away from difficult ones would be a disservice at a time when civic discourse is in short supply.
“It’s about bringing divergent viewpoints for people to digest,” Hill said. “For us to have made the decision to stop bringing speakers who may be controversial in any way would have been for us to stop doing our mission.”
“It would have been,” he said, “to literally stop the reason this place was created.” | https://pix11.com/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-after-an-attack-on-salman-rushdie-the-chautauqua-institution-says-its-mission-wont-change/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:25 | 0 | https://pix11.com/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-after-an-attack-on-salman-rushdie-the-chautauqua-institution-says-its-mission-wont-change/ |
Red Sox vs. Giants Probable Starting Pitchers Today - July 29
The Boston Red Sox (56-47) carry a five-game winning streak into a road matchup versus the San Francisco Giants (56-48) at 7:15 PM ET on Saturday.
The probable starters are James Paxton (6-2) for the Red Sox and Ryan Walker (3-0) for the Giants.
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Red Sox vs. Giants Pitcher Matchup Info
- Date: Saturday, July 29, 2023
- Time: 7:15 PM ET
- TV: FOX
- Location: San Francisco, California
- Venue: Oracle Park
- Live Stream: Watch this game on Fubo!
- Probable Pitchers: Paxton - BOS (6-2, 3.46 ERA) vs Walker - SF (3-0, 2.70 ERA)
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Red Sox Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: James Paxton
- The Red Sox will send Paxton (6-2) to the mound for his 13th start this season.
- The left-hander last pitched on Saturday, when he gave up two earned runs and allowed three hits in six innings against the New York Mets.
- The 34-year-old has an ERA of 3.46 and 10.4 strikeouts per nine innings, with a batting average against of .198 in 12 games this season.
- He has seven quality starts in 12 chances this season.
- Paxton has made nine starts of five or more innings in 12 chances this season, and averages 5.4 frames when he pitches.
- He has finished two appearances without allowing an earned run in 12 chances this season.
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Giants Probable Starting Pitcher Tonight: Ryan Walker
- Walker (3-0 with a 2.70 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 33 1/3 innings pitched) gets the start for the Giants, his seventh of the season.
- In his last appearance on Thursday, the right-hander went 2 2/3 scoreless innings against the Oakland Athletics while surrendering one hit.
- In 24 games this season, the 27-year-old has an ERA of 2.70, with 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings. Opponents are hitting .250 against him.
- Walker has yet to notch a quality start so far this season.
- Walker has not pitched five or more innings in a start this season (in six starts). He averages 1.4 per outing.
- He has had 17 appearances this season that he kept his opponents to zero earned runs.
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© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/red-sox-vs-giants-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:32 | 1 | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/red-sox-vs-giants-mlb-probable-starting-pitchers/ |
CHICAGO (AP) — The beginning of the pandemic was devasting for the leader of the indie rock band Black Belt Eagle Scout, Katherine Paul. All her tours, including one headlining across North America, were canceled and she feared her ascending music career might be over.
She got a day job at a nonprofit and returned to the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community’s homelands in Western Washington. But as Paul, or KP to her friends, spent time in the cedar forests and walked along the Skagit River, she turned to her guitar to deal with the isolation and stress. Those snippets, recorded on her phone, provided the foundation for what would become songs on her powerful, grunge-soaked new record “The Land, The Water, The Sky.”
“I feel like if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t have made this record,” said KP, who writes the songs, sings and plays guitar in the band that was the only Native American artist at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago this month.
“I spent a lot of time outside. I spent a lot more time than normal going on hikes, being part of the land,” she continued. “It’s not like I never do that stuff but it brought me back to a place where this is who I am.”
The new record, which came out in February, helped launch what has probably been the most successful year so far for Black Belt Eagle Scout. The band toured Europe and will go to Australia later this year. Two of her songs, “Soft Stud” from an earlier record and “Salmon Stinta” from her latest, appear this season on the television series “Reservation Dogs.”
Reservation Dogs Music Supervisor Tiffany Anders said she was introduced to the band’s music by the show’s creator, Sterlin Harjo, when they started working on the second season.
“It’s always been important for us on this show to include Native American artists, but beyond representation, Black Belt Eagle Scout’s music is beautiful and emotional, and fits these characters, their world and landscape — and the vibe of the show,’” she said in a statement.
Then there was Pitchfork, a three-day festival that is a significant milestone for indie musicians. The festival is held every year in Chicago’s Union Park and this year’s headliners included Bon Iver, Big Thief and The Smile, which has members of Radiohead.
She admitted stepping on that stage last weekend was nerve-wracking given her high hopes for the show, a feeling compounded by concerns that storms could scuttle their performance. But as she launched into the blistering set of mostly new songs in front of thousands of eager fans, KP found solace in her guitar. She launched several long jams that were punctuated by her twirling her jet-black hair around to the point it obscured her face.
“It was totally a moment,” she said with a laugh.
“I kind of cried after we played because it felt so meaningful,” she added. “Like, I’ve always wanted to play this music festival. I remember trying to play one of the years before the pandemic when I was touring and it didn’t happen. This year, I was just so stoked to play.”
Reaching Pitchfork has been a long journey for the 34-year-old artist, who is a member of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community and left her home on the reservation in LaConner, Washington, when she was 17 to attend Lewis & Clark College in Oregon and play rock music.
Growing up on the reservation off the Washington coast on islands in the Salish Sea, she drummed and sang cultural songs. As a teenager, she discovered local Pacific Northwest bands like Mount Eerie and the sounds of the Riot Grrrl movement and played one of her first gigs at a small bar called Department of Safety. She moved to Portland, Oregon, due to its outsized role in the indie scene that featured bands like Sleater-Kinney and quickly immersed herself in the music scene playing drums and guitar.
She joined an all-female outfit whom she met at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Portland. She went on to play a lot of small, basement shows with bands like Genders — whose wolf tattoo she still has on her left arm.
But she wanted to write her own songs and formed Black Belt Eagle Scout in 2013. Her early music was defined by her ethereal singing about love, friendship and healing — often only accompanied by minimal guitar strumming. But she did rock out on songs like “Soft Stud,” which featured searing solos.
“She is a really an authentic musician and she carries a lot of power on stage with her presence and sound,” Claire Glass, who plays guitar in the band and first saw KP seven years ago.
KP has said her Native American identify has always been present on her records. But her latest music paints a more vivid picture of life on the Swinomish reservation. There are references to chinook salmon, which are traditionally fished, and a powwow dance.
“I started thinking of feeling grateful for the life that I have been given; this place that I’m from; how much the land, the water, the sky means to me — being surrounded by it,” KP said of writing the song ”Don’t Give Up.” “It has so much more meaning because the land, that’s where my people are from.”
Her songs aren’t meant to directly confront issues like the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women or tribes’ forced relocation. It’s not the way she writes songs. Instead, she envisions them connecting with people, drawing more Native Americans to indie rock shows in places like Minneapolis, which has a vibrant Native American community, and inspiring young Native Americans to connect with her after shows.
“Isn’t me like being here existing with my music good enough? Can’t I just be who I am?” she asked, adding she doesn’t need to speak out from stage about these issues because being Native often means she is already wrestling with them. A judge, for example, ruled in March that BNSF Railway intentionally violated the terms of an easement agreement with the tribe by running 100-car trains carrying crude oil over the reservation.
“As a Native person, you know someone who is missing. Your tribe is trying to get your land back. Those are topics that are part of your every day life,” she said. ”I care about those things deeply but there are certain ways in which my music is, maybe not as direct, but it can be healing.”
KP also doesn’t want to be seen just as a rock musician or as a Native artist. “I am a musician who happens to be Native, but I am also a Native musician … I think I am always both,” she said.
Her latest record aims to show that.
“I kind of had in the back of mind, just kept thinking what would Built to Spill do,” KP said of the guitar-heavy, indie-rock band from the Pacific Northwest. “I’ve gone on tour with them and seen their three guitars at one point playing together and how they overlap and all these other things.”
It’s also a more collaborative effort with more musicians playing on the record— a departure for KP, who is accustomed to doing everything herself. A cellist who played with Nirvana, Lori Goldston, is featured on several songs, as are two violinists, as well as a saxophone and mellotron player.
Takiaya Reed, a first-time producer who is also in a doom metal band, described the experience of working on the record as “beautiful and amazing” and said the two bonded over their love of punk. Reid also brought her classical training and love of “heavier sounds” to the studio.
“We approached it fearlessly. It was wonderful to be expansive in terms of sonic possibilities,” she said.
KP also wanted to find a place for her parents, whom she had grown especially close to during the pandemic, to play on the record. She chose the song “Spaces,” which she described as having a “healing vibe.” Her dad, who is one of the main singers at the tribe’s cultural events, embraced the idea of lending his powerful powwow chant to the song. Her mom sang harmonies.
KP said: “It meant the world to me to have my parents sing because it felt like it was full circle in who I am.” | https://pix11.com/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-black-belt-eagle-scouts-latest-record-inspired-by-return-home-to-swinomish-tribes-ancestral-lands/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:32 | 0 | https://pix11.com/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-black-belt-eagle-scouts-latest-record-inspired-by-return-home-to-swinomish-tribes-ancestral-lands/ |
Hidden camera found inside porta-potty at Wisconsin beach
OCONOMOWOC, Wis. (WISN) - A woman at a Wisconsin beach made a terrible discovery after she found a hidden camera underneath the toilet seat of a port-a-potty.
Police are trying to determine if it was the only camera and who put it there.
“That’s insane. Oh my gosh,” Chrissy Hartwig said.
On a beautiful day at Oconomowoc’s Bender Beach, the talk turns instead to something ugly after Hartwig and other beachgoers learn of a small digital camera hidden inside a porta-potty.
“That’s crazy and now that makes me think of all the other porta-potties that might have had something in it,” Hartwig said. “You don’t think about those things.”
Hartwig said she’s heard of people hiding cameras in dressing rooms and even vacation rentals, but never before in a porta-potty.
“I just, I mean, I’m mind blown. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never thought about it. I wouldn’t have thought about it, probably. People are creeps,” she said.
The camera was reportedly inside the toilet, positioned in a way that showed people entering and using the toilet.
Oconomowoc police, along with the public, have a lot of questions.
“It’s, you know, it’s very concerning because you know the little ones use the bathroom,” Lissa Hagen said. “Yeah, it’s concerning, you know, wondering who did it and why they would do something like that. It’s very gross too.”
Hagen’s daughter is a lifeguard at the beach and learned of the camera the day after it was found.
“I mean, it’s uncomfortable. It’s, you know, concerning. Yeah, so, I’m glad they found it at least before, you know, anything happened,” Hagen said.
Police have not shared how long they believe the camera was there and what if anything was on it.
Copyright 2023 WISN via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/hidden-camera-found-inside-porta-potty-wisconsin-beach/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:39 | 1 | https://www.wymt.com/2023/07/29/hidden-camera-found-inside-porta-potty-wisconsin-beach/ |
NEW YORK, July 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ --
WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of securities of Baxter International Inc. (NYSE: BAX) between May 12, 2022 and February 8, 2023, both dates inclusive (the "Class Period"), of the important September 11, 2023 lead plaintiff deadline.
SO WHAT: If you purchased Baxter securities during the Class Period you may be entitled to compensation without payment of any out of pocket fees or costs through a contingency fee arrangement.
WHAT TO DO NEXT: To join the Baxter class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=17664 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action. A class action lawsuit has already been filed. If you wish to serve as lead plaintiff, you must move the Court no later than September 11, 2023. A lead plaintiff is a representative party acting on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation.
WHY ROSEN LAW: We encourage investors to select qualified counsel with a track record of success in leadership roles. Often, firms issuing notices do not have comparable experience, resources or any meaningful peer recognition. Many of these firms do not actually litigate securities class actions, but are merely middlemen that refer clients or partner with law firms that actually litigate the cases. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers.
DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (1) Baxter concealed the true extent of the supply chain problems it was experiencing while simultaneously exaggerating its ability to maintain a healthy supply chain in the face of global pressures; (2) as a result, Baxter's projected earnings were materially misleading during the Class Period; (3) the foregoing, once revealed, was reasonably likely to have a material negative impact on Baxter's financial condition; and (4) as a result, Baxter's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.
To join the Baxter class action, go to https://rosenlegal.com/submit-form/?case_id=17664 or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.
No Class Has Been Certified. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. You may select counsel of your choice. You may also remain an absent class member and do nothing at this point. An investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff.
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Contact Information:
Laurence Rosen, Esq.
Phillip Kim, Esq.
The Rosen Law Firm, P.A.
275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Tel: (212) 686-1060
Toll Free: (866) 767-3653
Fax: (212) 202-3827
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SOURCE Rosen Law Firm, P.A. | https://www.wymt.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/rosen-leading-trial-attorneys-encourages-baxter-international-inc-investors-secure-counsel-before-important-deadline-securities-class-action-bax/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:45 | 0 | https://www.wymt.com/prnewswire/2023/07/29/rosen-leading-trial-attorneys-encourages-baxter-international-inc-investors-secure-counsel-before-important-deadline-securities-class-action-bax/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — The entertainment publication Variety, under fire this week for an article it published about former CNN chief Jeff Zucker’s interest in his old employer, revised the piece on Friday to reflect some of the complaints about it.
None of its changes affected what was written about Zucker, however. He has called for the story to be retracted.
The article by Tatiana Siegel, which initially ran online Tuesday, depicted Zucker as badmouthing his successor at CNN, Chris Licht, while simultaneously trying to buy the news organization that fired him in early 2021. Licht’s unsuccessful run atop the struggling news network ended with his firing in May.
The dispute also points to the dangers inherent in the use of confidential sources by journalists. There are at least a dozen claims made in the story that Variety did not attribute to a named source that were denied on the record, either in the story or after publication, leaving it up to readers to decide who to believe.
“There used to be a time when Variety held its content and its reporters to a high standard of truth and facts in journalism, but those days are clearly over,” said Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Zucker. “It is stunning to read a piece that is so patently and aggressively false. On numerous occasions, we made it clear to the reporter and her editors that they were planning to publish countless anecdotes and alleged incidents that never happened. They did so anyway. The piece is a total joke.”
Variety’s co-editor-in-chiefs, Cynthia Littleton and Ramin Setoodeh, said in a statement Friday that they have been carefully following the conversation about the story.
“The story was heavily vetted and deeply sourced,” they said. “Everyone included in the story was asked to comment and given the chance to respond. We stand by our reporting and our award-winning reporter.”
The piece is also critical of two reporters who have covered CNN, Tim Alberta of The Atlantic and Dylan Byers of Puck. Both of those news organizations complained of inaccuracies and, in the changes made on Friday, Variety added their specific denials.
Zucker’s team hasn’t sought to hide ill feelings toward Licht, but strongly denied he has tried to buy CNN.
The story begins with an anecdote about Zucker, “with tears in his eyes,” approaching David Zaslav in Miami Beach in March. Zaslav is CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, current owners of CNN, and Variety said Zucker complained that Licht was unfairly maligning him in the press. Zaslav wanted to know if Zucker was trying to assemble investors to buy CNN.
Byers, writing for Puck, said “multiple sources” said no such run-in at the Faena Hotel ever took place and Zucker’s spokeswoman said that anecdote wasn’t checked with them; Variety says it was.
The story outlines several specific efforts made by Zucker, or on his behalf, to convince investors to join him in buying CNN. The story includes his denials: “Any allegation or insinuation that Jeff has made any effort to purchase CNN is unequivocally false,” Heller said. Zucker is now head of a private equity firm, RedBird IMI.
At one point, Variety also floated the theory that a secret group of investors was using Zucker’s name without his knowledge to approach Warner Bros. Discovery about buying CNN.
In a June 4 article, The New York Times reported that Zucker was not in talks to buy CNN, although “he has told some associates he would be interested in acquiring the network” if it came up for sale one day, the newspaper said.
The Variety article “struck me as utterly implausible and sophomoric,” Byers wrote for Puck this week.
Variety’s piece called Byers “a former Zucker disciple at CNN who, by his own admission, wrote about Licht incessantly and even took a victory lap after his exit.” The piece described Byers as a writer of “Zucker fan fiction” and criticized him for a conflict of interest in not disclosing in any of his articles that Zucker once had discussions about funding Puck, an online subscription news service.
In its revision on Friday, Variety quoted Puck’s co-founder, Jon Kelly, saying the discussions with RedBird were not disclosed by Byers because “Dylan was intentionally unaware of them.”
For The Atlantic, Alberta wrote a widely-read story that seen by many as being instrumental in Licht’s dismissal by Zaslav. Variety was critical of Alberta, and accused the reporter of using material in his story that he had agreed to keep off the record — a serious charge of malfeasance against a journalist.
As with Byers, Variety didn’t change what it had written about Alberta. But it added a paragraph to its story using some of what Alberta had written on social media, including a denial that he had used off-the-record material, and disputing Variety’s claim of how many times he had met with Licht while reporting the story.
The story was reposted on Variety’s home page. The only indication that it had been changed was a note at its end: “This story was updated on July 28 to reflect new statements from Kelly and Alberta.” | https://pix11.com/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-variety-revises-article-on-former-cnn-chief-jeff-zucker-that-was-sharply-criticized/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:46 | 1 | https://pix11.com/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-variety-revises-article-on-former-cnn-chief-jeff-zucker-that-was-sharply-criticized/ |
Hidden camera found inside porta-potty at Wisconsin beach
OCONOMOWOC, Wis. (WISN) - A woman at a Wisconsin beach made a terrible discovery after she found a hidden camera underneath the toilet seat of a port-a-potty.
Police are trying to determine if it was the only camera and who put it there.
“That’s insane. Oh my gosh,” Chrissy Hartwig said.
On a beautiful day at Oconomowoc’s Bender Beach, the talk turns instead to something ugly after Hartwig and other beachgoers learn of a small digital camera hidden inside a porta-potty.
“That’s crazy and now that makes me think of all the other porta-potties that might have had something in it,” Hartwig said. “You don’t think about those things.”
Hartwig said she’s heard of people hiding cameras in dressing rooms and even vacation rentals, but never before in a porta-potty.
“I just, I mean, I’m mind blown. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never thought about it. I wouldn’t have thought about it, probably. People are creeps,” she said.
The camera was reportedly inside the toilet, positioned in a way that showed people entering and using the toilet.
Oconomowoc police, along with the public, have a lot of questions.
“It’s, you know, it’s very concerning because you know the little ones use the bathroom,” Lissa Hagen said. “Yeah, it’s concerning, you know, wondering who did it and why they would do something like that. It’s very gross too.”
Hagen’s daughter is a lifeguard at the beach and learned of the camera the day after it was found.
“I mean, it’s uncomfortable. It’s, you know, concerning. Yeah, so, I’m glad they found it at least before, you know, anything happened,” Hagen said.
Police have not shared how long they believe the camera was there and what if anything was on it.
Copyright 2023 WISN via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wflx.com/2023/07/29/hidden-camera-found-inside-porta-potty-wisconsin-beach/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:53 | 0 | https://www.wflx.com/2023/07/29/hidden-camera-found-inside-porta-potty-wisconsin-beach/ |
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.
___
Hannon reported from Bangkok. | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-blinken-says-us-economic-support-for-niger-is-at-risk-as-military-takeover-threatens-stability/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:54 | 1 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-blinken-says-us-economic-support-for-niger-is-at-risk-as-military-takeover-threatens-stability/ |
Top Player Prop Bets for Red Sox vs. Giants on July 29, 2023
Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 11:50 AM EDT|Updated: 34 minutes ago
Player prop bet odds for Justin Turner and others are listed when the Boston Red Sox visit the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park on Saturday at 7:15 PM ET.
Bet on this matchup or its props with BetMGM!
Red Sox vs. Giants Game Info
- When: Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 7:15 PM ET
- Where: Oracle Park in San Francisco, California
- How to Watch on TV: FOX
- Live Stream: Watch the MLB on Fubo!
Discover More About This Game
MLB Props Today: Boston Red Sox
Justin Turner Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +120)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +700)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +160)
Turner Stats
- Turner has 108 hits with 24 doubles, 16 home runs, 38 walks and 66 RBI. He's also stolen four bases.
- He's slashed .286/.356/.476 on the year.
Turner Recent Games
Rafael Devers Props
- Hits Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: -263)
- Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +125)
- Home Runs Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +550)
- RBI Prop: Over/Under 0.5 (Over Odds: +150)
Devers Stats
- Rafael Devers has 22 doubles, 25 home runs, 34 walks and 76 RBI (98 total hits). He has swiped two bases.
- He's slashing .261/.329/.520 on the season.
Devers Recent Games
Bet on player props for Justin Turner, Rafael Devers or other Red Sox players with BetMGM.
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Not all offers available in all states. Please gamble responsibly. If you or someone you know has developed a gambling problem or addiction, contact 1-800-GAMBLER.
© 2023 Data Skrive. All rights reserved. | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/red-sox-vs-giants-mlb-player-prop-bets/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:59 | 0 | https://www.wymt.com/sports/betting/2023/07/29/red-sox-vs-giants-mlb-player-prop-bets/ |
Military, veterans' families receive back-to-school supplies
School is just around the corner and every little bit of help families get can really make a difference.
About 100 military or veteran families in West Palm Beach received a little extra help from Operation Homefront on Saturday morning. During their “Back-to-school Brigade” families could get a backpack and fill it up with all sorts of supplies needed for a successful school year.
The area manager for the organization, Beth McGregor, said the need exists, and it’s worse among military and veteran families.
“Military life can be hard. Everyone is struggling this year,” she said. “We see those same struggles amplified in the military and veteran community, especially things like food insecurity."
She said one in every four military or veteran family reports food insecurity and that’s even higher with families of color.
"Sometimes school supplies get skipped when you have to put food on the table or a roof over your head," McGregor said.
They serve the entire state of Florida doing several initiatives throughout the year, from this back-to-school event to holiday food drives.
Scripps Only Content 2023 | https://www.wflx.com/2023/07/29/military-veterans-families-receive-back-to-school-supplies/ | 2023-07-29T17:24:59 | 1 | https://www.wflx.com/2023/07/29/military-veterans-families-receive-back-to-school-supplies/ |
CHICAGO (AP) — Leading up to the 2020 election, Facebook ads targeting Latino and Asian American voters described Joe Biden as a communist. A local station claimed a Black Lives Matter co-founder practiced witchcraft. Doctored images showed dogs urinating on Donald Trump campaign posters.
None of these claims was true, but they scorched through social media sites that advocates say have fueled election misinformation in communities of color.
As the 2024 election approaches, community organizations are preparing for what they expect to be a worsening onslaught of disinformation targeting communities of color and immigrant communities. They say the tailored campaigns challenge assumptions of what kinds of voters are susceptible to election conspiracies and distrust in voting systems.
“They’re getting more complex, more sophisticated and spreading like wildfire,” said Sarah Shah, director of policy and community engagement at the advocacy group Indian American Impact, which runs the fact-checking site Desifacts.org. “ What we saw in 2020, unfortunately, will probably be fairly mild in comparison to what we will see in the months leading up to 2024.”
A growing subset of communities of color, especially immigrants for whom English is not their first language, are questioning the integrity of U.S. voting processes and subscribing to Trump’s lies of a stolen 2020 election, said Jenny Liu, mis/disinformation policy manager at the nonprofit Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Still, she said these communities are largely left out of conversations about misinformation.
“When you think of the typical consumer of a conspiracy theory, you think of someone who’s older, maybe from a rural area, maybe a white man,” she said. “You don’t think of Chinese Americans scrolling through WeChat. That’s why this narrative glosses over and erases a lot of the disinformation harms that many communities of colors face.”
In addition to general misinformation themes about voting machines and mail-in voting, groups are catering their messaging to communities of color, experts say.
For example, immigrants from authoritarian regimes in countries like Venezuela or who have lived through the Chinese Cultural Revolution may be “more vulnerable to misinformation claiming politicians are wanting to turn the U.S. into a Socialist state,” said Inga Trauthig, head of research for the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. People from countries that have not recently had free and fair elections may have a preexisting distrust of elections and authority that may make them vulnerable to misinformation as well, Trauthig said.
Disinformation efforts often hinge on topics most important to each community, whether that is public safety, immigration, abortion, education, inflation or alleged extramarital affairs, said Laura Zommer, co-founder of the Spanish-language fact-checking group Factchequeado.
“It takes advantage of their very real fear and trauma from their experiences in their home countries,” Zommer said.
Other vulnerabilities include language barriers and a lack of knowledge of the U.S. media landscape and how to find credible U.S. news sources, several misinformation experts told The Associated Press. Many immigrants rely on translated content for voting information, leaving space for bad actors to inject misinformation.
“These tactics exploit information vacuums when there’s a lot of uncertainty around how these processes work, especially because a lot of election materials may not be translated in the languages our communities speak or be available in forms they are likely to access,” said Clara Jiménez Cruz, another co-founder of Factchequeado.
Misinformation can also arise from mistranslations. The Brookings Institute, a nonprofit think tank, found examples of mistranslations in Colombian, Cuban and Venezuelan WhatsApp groups, where “progressive” was translated to “progresista,” which carries “far-left connotations that are closer to the Spanish words ‘socialista’ and ‘comunista.’”
Disinformation, often in languages like Spanish, Mandarin or Hindi, flows onto social media apps like WhatsApp and WeChat heavily used by communities of color.
Minority communities that believe their views and perspectives aren’t represented by the mainstream are likely to “retreat into more private spaces” found on messaging apps or groups on social media sites like Facebook, Trauthig said.
“But disinformation also targets them on these platforms, even though it may feel to them to be that safer space,” she said.
Messages on WhatsApp are also encrypted and can’t be easily seen or traced by moderators or fact-checkers.
“As a result, messages on apps like WhatsApp often fly under the radar and are allowed to spread and spread, largely unchecked,” said Randy Abreu, policy counsel for the National Hispanic Media Coalition, which leads the Spanish Language Disinformation Coalition.
Abreu also raised concerns about Spanish YouTube channels and radio shows that are growing in popularity. He said the coalition is tracking more and more YouTube and radio personalities who are spreading misinformation in Spanish.
A 2022 report by the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters tracked 40 Spanish-language YouTube videos spreading misinformation about U.S. elections. Many of these videos remained on the platform, despite violating YouTube election misinformation policy, the report said.
Amid changes in voting policies at state and local levels, advocates are sounding the alarm on how disinformation about voting in 2024 may target communities of color. Many of these efforts have surged as Asian American, Black and Latino communities have grown in political power, said María Teresa Kumar, founding president of the nonprofit advocacy group Voto Latino.
“Disinformation is, at its core, meant to be a sort of voter suppression tactic for communities of color,” she said. “It targets communities of color in a way that feeds into their already justifiable concerns that the system is stacked against them.”
The tactics also feed into a history “as old as the Jim Crow era of attempting to disenfranchise people of color, going back to voter intimidation and suppression efforts after the Civil Rights Act of 1866,” said Atiba Ellis, a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
While many of the same recycled claims around alleged fraud in the 2020 and 2022 elections are expected to resurface, experts say disinformation campaigns will likely be more sophisticated and granular in attempts to target specific groups of voters of color.
Trauthig also raised concerns about how layoffs and instability at social media platforms like Twitter may leave them less prepared to tackle misinformation in 2024. It also remains to be seen how new social media platforms like Threads will approach the threat of misinformation. Changes in policies like WhatsApp launching a “Communities” function connecting multiple groups and expanding group chat sizes may also “have big implications for how quickly misinformation will spread on the platform,” she said.
In response to the mounting threat of misinformation, Indian American Impact is ramping up its fact-checking efforts through what the organization says is the first fact-checking website specifically for South Asian Americans. Shah said the group is drawing inspiration from 2022 projects, including a voting toolkit using memes with Bollywood characters and passing out Parle-G crackers with voting information stickers at Indian grocery stores.
Cruz of Factchequeado is paying close attention to misinformation in swing states with significant Latino populations like Nevada and Arizona. And Liu of Asian Americans Advancing Justice is reviewing misinformation trends from previous elections to strategize about how to inoculate Asian American voters against them.
Still, they say there is more work to be done.
Critics are urging social media companies to invest in content moderation and fact-checking in languages other than English. Government and election officials should also make voting information more accessible to non-English speakers, organize media literacy trainings in community spaces and identify “trusted messengers” in communities of color to help approach trends in misinformation narratives, experts said.
“These are not monolithic groups,” Cruz said. “This disinformation is very specifically tailored to each of these communities and their fears. So we also need to be partnering with grassroots organizations in each of these communities to tailor our approaches. If we don’t take the time to do this work, our democracy is at stake.”
___
The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-election-disinformation-campaigns-targeted-voters-of-color-in-2020-experts-expect-2024-to-be-worse/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:00 | 1 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-election-disinformation-campaigns-targeted-voters-of-color-in-2020-experts-expect-2024-to-be-worse/ |
Pet owner says 4-foot-long python has gone missing from his yard
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR/Gray News) - Residents in an Illinois neighborhood are currently on the lookout for a pet snake.
Jonathan Delaney told WIFR that his 15-year-old ball python named Bubba slithered away from his yard last weekend.
Delaney said his exotic 4-foot-long snake is missing, but neighbors shouldn’t be worried.
“He’s completely harmless,” Delaney said. “We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s never been mean and the biggest thing he’d eat is a rat.”
Fellow Edgewater resident Rhonda Hanley said she’d likely be startled if she came across Bubba. But because he’s someone’s pet, she’ll try to help find him.
“I’ll try and put something over the top of it like a blanket or a garbage can if I find him,” Hanley said.
Delaney is thankful that his neighbors are concerned enough to lend a helping hand.
“We are hoping he’s still around here and nobody harms him,” he said. “We are hoping to find him as soon as possible.”
Experts say because ball pythons prefer to be hidden most of the time the snake doesn’t appear to pose a threat to the public.
The snake can strike if it gets agitated, but those bites don’t normally require medical attention.
“The most that could happen is that the snake could take a defensive swipe,” Stephanie Stone, owner of Jurassic Reptile Supply, said. “It’s less impact than a cat scratch or a cat bite.”
Stone added that ball pythons typically don’t travel very far.
“Unless it feels the need to try to find a meal, it’s probably very close to where it was originally,” she said.
Anyone who spots Bubba has been urged to contact Delaney on social media.
Copyright 2023 WIFR via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wflx.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:06 | 1 | https://www.wflx.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ |
TOKYO (AP) — Toshihiro Mutsuda was only 5 years old when he last saw his father, who was drafted by Japan’s Imperial Army in 1943 and killed in action. For him, his father was a bespectacled man in an old family photo standing by a signed good-luck flag that he carried to war.
On Saturday, when the flag was returned to him from a U.S. war museum where it had been on display for 29 years, Mutsuda, now 83, said: “It’s a miracle.”
The flag, known as “Yosegaki Hinomaru,” or Good Luck Flag, carries the soldier’s name, Shigeyoshi Mutsuda, and the signatures of his relatives, friends and neighbors wishing him luck. It was given to him before he was drafted by the Army. His family was later told he died in Saipan, but his remains were never returned.
The flag was donated in 1994 and displayed at the museum aboard the USS Lexington, a WWII aircraft carrier, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Its meaning was not known until it was identified by the family earlier this year, said museum director Steve Banta, who brought the flag to Tokyo.
Banta said he learned the story behind the flag earlier this year when he was contacted by the Obon Society, a nonprofit organization that has returned about 500 similar flags as non-biological remains, to the descendants of Japanese servicemembers killed in the war.
The search for the flag’s original owner started in April when a museum visitor took a photo and asked an expert about the description that it had belonged to a “kamikaze” suicide pilot. When Shigeyoshi Mutsuda’s grandson saw the photo, he sought help from the Obon Society, group co-founder Keiko Ziak said.
“When we learned all of this, and that the family would like to have the flag, we knew immediately that the flag did not belong to us,” Banta said at the handover ceremony. “We knew that the right thing to do would be to send the flag home, to be in Japan and to the family.”
The soldier’s eldest son, Toshihiro Mutsuda, was speechless for a few seconds when Banta, wearing white gloves, gently placed the neatly folded flag into his hands. Two of his younger siblings, both in their 80s, stood by and looked on silently. The three children, all wearing cotton gloves so they wouldn’t damage the decades-old flag, carefully unfolded it to show to the audience.
“After receiving the flag today, I earnestly felt that the war like that should never be fought again and that I do not wish anyone else to go through this sadness (of separation),” Toshihiro Mutsuda said.
The soldier’s daughter, Misako Matsukuchi, touched the flag with both hands and prayed. “After nearly 80 years, the spirit of our father returned to us. I hope he can finally rest in peace,” Matsukuchi said later.
Toshihiro Mutsuda said his memory of his father was foggy. However, he clearly remembers his mother, Masae Mutsuda, who died five years ago at age 102, used to make the long-distance bus trip almost every year from the farming town in Gifu, central Japan, to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where the 2.5 million war dead are enshrined, to pay tribute to her husband’s spirit.
The shrine is controversial, as it includes convicted war criminals among those commemorated. Victims of Japanese aggression during the first half of the 20th century, especially China and the Koreas, see Yasukuni as a symbol of Japanese militarism. However, for the Mutsuda family, it’s a place to remember the loss of a father and husband.
“It’s like an old love story across the ages coming together … It doesn’t matter where,” Banta said, referring to the Yasukuni controversy. “The important thing is this flag goes to the family.”
That’s why Toshihiro Mutsuda and his siblings chose to receive the flag at Yasukuni and brought the framed photos of their parents.
“My mother missed him and wanted to see him so much and that’s why she used to pray here,” he said. “Today her wish finally came true, and she was able to be reunited.”
Keeping the flag on his lap, he said, “I feel the weight of the flag.” | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-its-a-miracle-say-family-of-japanese-soldier-killed-in-wwii-as-flag-he-carried-returns-from-us/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:07 | 1 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-its-a-miracle-say-family-of-japanese-soldier-killed-in-wwii-as-flag-he-carried-returns-from-us/ |
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand striker Hannah Wilkinson has helped create two milestones at the Women’s World Cup.
With her 48th-minute goal in the tournament opener against Norway, she led the co-host Football Ferns to their first win in six trips to the Women’s World Cup. She’s also one of at least 95 out members of the LGBTQ+ community competing in this year’s tournament, according to a count being kept by Outsports, a website that covers the LGBTQ+ sports.
The Ferns were greeted with a fan-made sign at their next match in Wellington: “Gay for soccer, gay for Wilkie,” it read.
The 95 out participants make up roughly 13% of the 736 total players at the Women’s World Cup, more than doubling the 40 players and coaches Outsports counted in 2019.
The 2023 tournament also is hosting the first openly trans and non-binary player in either a men’s or Women’s World Cup, Quinn of Canada.
“Last World Cup was so big, especially with the visibility of the U.S. women’s national team winning and (Megan Rapinoe) fighting with (Donald) Trump. So I think that was a huge year for LGBTQ+ visibility,” said Lindsey Freeman, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
“It’s just the ad hoc, fun culture of women’s soccer that you’re seeing in this World Cup,” said Freeman, who is in New Zealand conducting research on the topic.
Jim Buzinski, co-founder of Outsports, agreed. “In the Western world, it’s such a non-issue that it really just doesn’t get talked about,” he said. “And I think that’s in a good way.”
VISIBILITY
Prior to the start of the tournament, FIFA designated eight socially conscious armbands team captains could wear throughout the Women’s World Cup. The decision came after “One Love” armbands were denied to men’s teams in Qatar in 2022.
The armbands being used this year include anti-discriminatory sayings and multiple colors, but the rainbow version Germany wanted to use is not allowed. None of the available options explicitly mention LGBTQ+ rights.
The decision has led many players to express their support in more creative ways across Australia and New Zealand.
New Zealand midfielder Ali Riley was interviewed on the official Women’s World Cup broadcast after her team’s upset of Norway. Her painted fingernails, left hand in the colors of the pride flag and right hand as the trans flag, were clearly visible as she held her head and fought back tears.
“She’s such an advocate and she’s definitely someone who uses her platform in such a positive way. We are all so proud of her and the way she represents the LGBTQ+ community,” teammate CJ Bott said. “Good on her. We’re all backing her, and we all back the community as well.”
The Philippines, making its Women’s World Cup debut, took home its own historic win over New Zealand 1-0 thanks to the foot of Sarina Bolden. Bolden’s Instagram bio reads, “i just wanna have fun n b gay.”
Irish star Katie McCabe wowed fans with a goal directly from a corner kick. She’s also made tabloid news for her relationships with other players.
Thembi Kgatlana, who has scored in the tournament for South Africa, has a patch of her hair dyed rainbow colors.
“My personality is very big for me, and my hair has become a part of my personality,” Kgatlana said. “And I did this rainbow because I want to represent all the people that are part of the LGBTQ and cannot talk while in countries where they’re oppressed.”
FAN EXPERIENCE
Kristen Pariseau and her wife started a U.S. women’s national team supporters group on Facebook ahead of traveling to this year’s Women’s World Cup. Aside from some hateful users she blocked, it’s been “super LGBT friendly.”
She and her wife did not go to Qatar for the 2022 men’s World Cup to avoid referencing each other as friends and receiving questions on their sexuality. In New Zealand, she said she’s met many same-sex couples at games and while traveling around the country.
“Everywhere you turn, it’s like, ‘Oh, my wife, my girlfriend.’ It’s been so welcoming and open,” Pariseau said. “In a way, it is kind of cool to be where there’s a lot of other people like you.”
Kelsie Bozart took her own pride flag armband to the United States’ second match in Wellington, along with a pride scarf.
“If you look back a couple years, I feel like it just wasn’t really talked about or there just wasn’t much of a presence,” Bozart said. “But moving forward I feel like, especially for the U.S., they’ve done an amazing job of just incorporating pride and LGBTQ.”
NOT UNIVERSAL
Though this year’s tournament has highlighted vast gains for the LGBTQ+ community in women’s soccer, advocates feel there is still work to be done.
According to Buzinski and Outsports, there were at least 186 LGBTQ+ athletes at the Tokyo Olympics. Women outnumbered men by a 9:1 ratio. There also were no confirmed out players at the 2022 men’s World Cup.
“I think women’s sports have always been open,” Denmark striker Pernille Harder said, adding that there are many role models for women who want to come out.
Freeman said it would be good to see men feel the same level of comfort.
“What can happen in the women’s game, I would love to spill over to the men’s game,” she said. “Because obviously, there’s way more queer players in the men’s game and it’s just not safe for them to come out.
“If you want to say that you’re in an inclusive space, you really have to be an inclusive space,” Freeman added. “And I think that that includes also holding the World Cup in places where it’s fine to be a queer person.”
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Max Ralph is a student in John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
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Contributing reporters included Joe Lister in Wellington and Rafaela Pontes in Auckland, students in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State, and Clay Witt in Sydney, Australia, a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-lgbtq-community-proud-and-visible-at-womens-world-cup/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:13 | 1 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-lgbtq-community-proud-and-visible-at-womens-world-cup/ |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers broke for their August recess this week with work on funding the government largely incomplete, fueling worries about whether Congress will be able to avoid a partial government shutdown this fall.
Congress has until Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year, to act on government funding. They could pass spending bills to fund government agencies into next year, or simply pass a stopgap measure that keeps agencies running until they strike a longer-term agreement. No matter which route they take, it won’t be easy.
“We’re going to scare the hell out of the American people before we get this done,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.
Coons’ assessment is widely shared in Congress, reflecting the gulf between the Republican-led House and the Democratic-led Senate, which are charting vastly different — and mostly incompatible — paths on spending.
The Senate is adhering mostly to the top-line spending levels that President Joe Biden negotiated with House Republicans in late May as part of the debt-ceiling deal that extended the government’s borrowing authority and avoided an economically devastating default.
That agreement holds discretionary spending generally flat for the coming year while allowing increases for military and veterans accounts. On top of that, the Senate is looking to add $13.7 billion in additional emergency appropriations, including $8 billion for defense and $5.7 billion for nondefense.
House Republicans, many of whom opposed the debt-ceiling deal and refused to vote for it, are going a different way.
GOP leaders have teed up bills with far less spending than the agreement allows in an effort to win over members who insist on rolling back spending to fiscal year 2022 levels. They are also adding scores of policy add-ons broadly opposed by Democrats. There are proposals to reduce access to abortion pills, bans on the funding of hormone therapy and certain surgeries for transgender veterans, and a prohibition on training programs promoting diversity in the federal workplace, among many others.
At a press conference at the Capitol this past week, some members of the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction within the House GOP, said that voters elected a Republican majority in that chamber to rein in government spending and it was time for House Republicans to use every tool available to get the spending cuts they want.
“We should not fear a government shutdown,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va. “Most of the American people won’t even miss if the government is shut down temporarily.”
Many House Republicans disagree with that assessment. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, called it an oversimplification to say most Americans wouldn’t feel an impact. And he warned Republicans would take the blame for a shutdown.
“We always get blamed for it, no matter what,” Simpson said. ”So it’s bad policy, it’s bad politics.”
But the slim five-seat majority Republicans hold amplifies the power that a small group can wield. Even though the debt ceiling agreement passed with a significant majority of both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives opponents were so unhappy in the aftermath that they shut down House votes for a few days, stalling the entire GOP agenda.
Shortly thereafter, McCarthy argued the numbers he negotiated with the White House amounted to a cap and “you can always do less.” GOP Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, followed that she would seek to limit nondefense spending at 2022 budget levels, saying the debt agreement “set a top-line spending cap — a ceiling, not a floor.”
The decision to cut spending below levels in the the debt ceiling deal helped get the House moving again, but put them on a collision course with the Senate, where the spending bills hew much closer to the agreement.
“What the House has done is they essentially tore up that agreement as soon as it was signed,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. “And so we are in for a bumpy ride.”
Even as House Republicans have been moving their spending bills out of committee on party-line votes, the key committee in the Senate has been operating in a bipartisan fashion, drafting spending bills with sometimes unanimous support.
“The way to make this work is do it in a bipartisan way like we are doing in the Senate. If you do it in a partisan way, you’re heading to a shutdown. And I am really worried that that’s where the House Republicans are headed,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters this week.
McCarthy countered that people had the same doubts about whether House Republicans and the White House could reach an agreement to pass a debt ceiling extension and avoid a default.
“We’ve got ’til Sept. 30. I think we can get this all done,” McCarthy said.
In a subsequent press conference, McCarthy said he had just met with Schumer to talk about the road ahead on an array of bills, including the spending bills.
“I don’t want the government to shut down,” McCarthy said. “I want to find that we can find common ground.”
In all, there are 12 spending bills. The House has passed one so far, and moved others out of committee. The Senate has passed none, though it has advanced all 12 out of committee, something that hasn’t happened since 2018.
Still, the difficulty ahead was evident on the House side, where Republicans gave up until after the recess on trying to pass a spending measure to fund federal agriculture and rural programs and the Food and Drug Administration, amid disagreements over its contents. They began their August recess a day early instead of holding votes Friday.
Simpson said some of his Republican colleagues don’t want to take money approved already outside the appropriations process to cover some of this year’s spending and avoid deeper cuts. For example, the House bills would take almost all of the money approved last year for the Internal Revenue Service in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and use the savings to avoid deeper spending cuts elsewhere.
Simpson said that without such rescissions, as they are called in Washington, he couldn’t vote for the agriculture spending bill because the cuts “would have just been devastating.”
“That’s the challenge we’re going to have when we get back in September,” he said.
Further complicating things in the House, a few Republicans are opposed to some of the policy riders being included in the spending bills. For example, the agriculture spending bill would reverse the FDA’s decision to allow abortion pills to be dispensed in certified pharmacies, instead of only by prescribers in hospitals, clinics, and medical offices.
“I had a problem with abortion being put inside an ag bill,” said Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa. “I think that’s ridiculous.”
It’s a strong possibility that Congress will have to pass a stopgap spending bill before the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. The Senate can vote first on the measure, which would put the onus on House Republicans to bring it up for a vote or allow for a shutdown. | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-members-of-congress-break-for-august-with-no-clear-path-to-avoiding-a-shutdown-this-fall/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:20 | 1 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-members-of-congress-break-for-august-with-no-clear-path-to-avoiding-a-shutdown-this-fall/ |
PHOENIX (AP) — A historic heat wave that turned the U.S. Southwest into a blast furnace throughout July is beginning to abate with the late arrival of monsoon rains.
Forecasters expect that by Monday at the latest, people in metro Phoenix will begin seeing high temperatures under 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43.3 degrees Celsius) for the first time in a month. As of Friday, the high temperature in the desert city had been at or above that mark for 29 consecutive days.
Already this week, the overnight low at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport fell under 90 (32.2 C) for the first time in 16 days, finally allowing people some respite from the stifling heat once the sun goes down.
Temperatures are also expected to ease in Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Death Valley, California.
The downward trend started Wednesday night, when Phoenix saw its first major monsoon storm since the traditional start of the season on June 15. While more than half of the greater Phoenix area saw no rainfall from that storm, some eastern suburbs were pummeled by high winds, swirling dust and localized downfalls of up to an inch (2.5 centimeters) of precipitation.
Storms gradually increasing in strength are expected over the weekend.
Scientists calculate that July will prove to be the hottest globally on record and perhaps the warmest human civilization has seen. The extreme heat is now hitting the eastern part of the U.S, as soaring temperatures moved from the Midwest into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, where some places are seeing their warmest days so far this year.
The new heat records being set this summer are just some of the extreme weather being seen around the U.S. this month, such as flash floods in Pennsylvania and parts of the Northeast.
And while relief may be on the way for the Southwest, for now it’s still dangerously hot. Phoenix’s high temperature reached 116 (46.7 C) Friday afternoon, which is far above the average temperature of 106 (41.1 C).
“Anyone can be at risk outside in this record heat,” the fire department in Goodyear, a Phoenix suburb, warned residents on social media while offering ideas to stay safe.
For many people such as older adults, those with health issues and those without access to air conditioning, the heat can be dangerous or even deadly.
Maricopa County, the most populous in Arizona and home to Phoenix, reported this week that its public health department had confirmed 25 heat-associated deaths this year as of July 21, with 249 more under investigation.
Results from toxicological tests that can takes weeks or months after an autopsy is conducted could eventually result in many deaths listed as under investigation as heat associated being changed to confirmed.
Maricopa County confirmed 425 heat-associated deaths last year, and more than half of them occurred in July.
Elsewhere in Arizona next week, the agricultural desert community of Yuma is expecting highs ranging from 104 to 112 (40 C to 44.4 C) and Tucson is looking at highs ranging from 99 to 111 (37.2 C to 43.9 C).
The highs in Las Vegas are forecast to slip as low as 94 (34.4 C) next Tuesday after a long spell of highs above 110 (43.3 C). Death Valley, which hit 128 (53.3 C) in mid-July, will cool as well, though only to a still blistering hot 116 (46.7 C).
In New Mexico, the highs in Albuquerque next week are expected to be in the mid to high 90s (around 35 C), with party cloudy skies. | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-the-extreme-heat-wave-that-blasted-the-southwest-is-abating-with-late-arriving-monsoon-rains/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:27 | 1 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-the-extreme-heat-wave-that-blasted-the-southwest-is-abating-with-late-arriving-monsoon-rains/ |
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. (WFLA) — Pinellas Park police are looking for a woman who they say killed a man in a hit-and-run Saturday morning.
A release said police responded to a crash at about 3:05 a.m. involving a bicyclist who was hit by a car on 66th Street, which then left the scene.
According to police, the victim — identified as William Christopher Rothey, 37, of St. Petersburg — was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Rothey was said to have been riding a bicycle along the paved shoulder of 66th Street when a vehicle came up and left the curb lane, hitting the 37-year-old victim.
Investigators identified the driver as Anaya Elisia Millan, 26, of Seminole. Pinellas County deputies located her vehicle at a Public at 7333 Park Boulevard.
Police are still looking for Millan. If you know where she is, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-973-TIPS or the Pinellas Park Police Department at 727-369-7840. | https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/woman-wanted-after-killing-bicyclist-in-pinellas-park-hit-and-run-police/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:30 | 1 | https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-county/woman-wanted-after-killing-bicyclist-in-pinellas-park-hit-and-run-police/ |
SEATTLE — If you run at an upcoming Seattle summer "race," you may actually be heckled.
The organizer of the Lard Butt 1K, Mark Peterson, said this run is more about building confidence and having fun.
His organization describes itself as a lifestyle and apparel company dedicated to below-average athletes and weekend warriors.
The race is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 5, at Magnuson Park in Seattle.
Instead of traditional water stations, Peterson the Lard Butt 1K features donut stations every 250 meters and a well-stocked beer garden before and after the race.
Participants are asked to bring at least one non-perishable food item for a canned-food drive for the University District Food Bank.
People are encouraged to run or walk in costumes for the "Spirit of Lard Butt” costume party.
Categories for entry:
- Show-off Wave: For those with the "audacity to run"
- Legends Wave: For those 250 pounds and heavier
- Waddlers Wave: For everyone
- Free Kids Dash: For those 10 and younger
The walk/run/waddle starts at 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 5, with day-of registration opening at 8 a.m. The Beer Garden opens at 8:30 a.m.
Advance registration is $35 at www.lardbutt.com, covering event entry, a Lard Butt 1K T-shirt, limitless donuts, one beer or mimosa for those 21 and over, along with other on-site surprises.
Parents with child strollers are welcome and the event is dog-friendly for leashed pets.
Day-of registration costs increase to $40. | https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-1k-race-beer-donut-stations-magnuson-park/281-ded326de-4c8e-40ba-9e59-5acf15908ad2 | 2023-07-29T17:25:30 | 0 | https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-1k-race-beer-donut-stations-magnuson-park/281-ded326de-4c8e-40ba-9e59-5acf15908ad2 |
Governor DeSantis appoints three to Early Learning Coalition of Alachua County
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - Governor Ron DeSantis appointed three people to the Early Learning Coalition of Alachua County on Friday.
DeSantis announced the appointment of Tammy Prince as Chair, Raymond Holt Jr, and April Tisher to Alachua County’s Early Learning Coalition.
Tammy Prince is an executive board member for the Pace Center for Girls. She is from Newberry.
Raymond Holt Jr. of Alachua is the owner of C Bar Ranch Luxury Wedding and Events, a wedding venue in Gainesville. He previously served as a Jacksonville City Councilmember from 2007 to 2015.
April Tisher is a substitute teacher for Alachua County Public Schools. She was also a recipient of the Legacy Award for advocacy for women and children from the Junior League of Gainesville.
TRENDING: Newly released video shows moments after AJ Owens, mother of four, shot in Marion County
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Copyright 2023 WCJB. All rights reserved. | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/governor-desantis-appoints-three-early-learning-coalition-alachua-county/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:30 | 0 | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/governor-desantis-appoints-three-early-learning-coalition-alachua-county/ |
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons culminating in a rare blue moon.
Catch the first show Tuesday evening as the full moon rises in the southeast, appearing slightly brighter and bigger than normal. That’s because it will be closer than usual, just 222,159 miles (357,530 kilometers) away, thus the supermoon label.
The moon will be even closer the night of Aug. 30 — a scant 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometers) distant. Because it’s the second full moon in the same month, it will be what’s called a blue moon.
“Warm summer nights are the ideal time to watch the full moon rise in the eastern sky within minutes of sunset. And it happens twice in August,” said retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, dubbed Mr. Eclipse for his eclipse-chasing expertise.
The last time two full supermoons graced the sky in the same month was in 2018. It won’t happen again until 2037, according to Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.
Masi will provide a live webcast of Tuesday evening’s supermoon, as it rises over the Coliseum in Rome.
“My plans are to capture the beauty of this … hopefully bringing the emotion of the show to our viewers,” Masi said in an email.
“The supermoon offers us a great opportunity to look up and discover the sky,” he added.
This year’s first supermoon was in July. The fourth and last will be in September. The two in August will be closer than either of those.
Provided clear skies, binoculars or backyard telescopes can enhance the experience, Espenak said, revealing such features as lunar maria — the dark plains formed by ancient volcanic lava flows — and rays emanating from lunar craters.
According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the August full moon is traditionally known as the sturgeon moon. That’s because of the abundance of that fish in the Great Lakes in August, hundreds of years ago.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-two-supermoons-in-august-mean-double-the-stargazing-fun/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:33 | 0 | https://pix11.com/news/ap-general/ap-two-supermoons-in-august-mean-double-the-stargazing-fun/ |
Cutoff Ridge Fire in Guadalupe Mountains contained after burning 430 acres
A fire burning for 10 days in Guadalupe Mountains National Park was declared 100 percent contained as of July 24, according to a fire information officer.
Allison Jolley said the Cutoff Ridge Fire burned nearly 430 acres of a remote area of the park. She said management of the fire was moved into monitor status.
More:Fire in Guadalupe Mountains National Park burns nearly 400 acres
“Although unlikely, smoke and flames may be visible within the interior of the fire perimeter,” Jolley said.
According to the InciWeb website, the fire was located nearly 33 miles southwest of Whites City and mainly burned brush vegetation.
Lightning was the apparent cause of the fire, which was first reported on July 14, per InciWeb.
Portions of the park remain closed
The U.S. Department of Interior’s (DOI) National Park Service (NPS) placed a closure order for some portions of Guadalupe Mountains National Park June 28.
Overnight camping at all 10 wilderness campgrounds within the park was prohibited and permitting of overnight trips in the wilderness area were suspended until further notice, according to the order.
All trails in the park are closed along with the McKittrick Canyon Visitor Center and the Frijole Ranch Museum, read the closure order.
Smoking is prohibited, except inside personal vehicles.
The Pine Springs Area remains open along with the Salt Basin Dunes trailhead, noted the park website.
'Cooler weather' forecast for Guadalupe Mountains
High temperatures around the park ranged from the 90s to around 100 for nearly two weeks, according to the National Weather Service's Midland station.
Temperatures were forecast to drop below 90 for the rest of July and early August.
More:High heat and fire danger close portions of Guadalupe Mountains National Park Wednesday
Daytime highs ranged from 84 to 89 with nighttime lows around 66, read the NWS forecast.
There was a chance for showers and thunderstorms for Monday and Tuesday in the Guadalupe Mountains.
Mike Smith can be reached at 575-628-5546 or by email at MSmith@currentargus.com or @ArgusMichae on Twitter. | https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2023/07/29/cutoff-ridge-fire-in-guadalupe-mountains-fully-contained-fire-season-lightning-caused-fire/70458713007/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:37 | 0 | https://www.currentargus.com/story/news/local/2023/07/29/cutoff-ridge-fire-in-guadalupe-mountains-fully-contained-fire-season-lightning-caused-fire/70458713007/ |
ATLANTA (AP) — “Excuse me, are you a city of Atlanta voter? Do you know about ‘Cop City?’”
Clipboards in hand, canvassers Sienna Giraldi and Gabriel Sanchez approached shopper after shopper at a Kroger supermarket lot on a recent evening collecting signatures for a referendum over whether to cancel the city’s lease of a proposed police and firefighter training center that’s become a national rallying cry for environmentalists and anti-police protesters.
Most people kept on walking. Others said they weren’t registered to vote or didn’t live within the city limits, both of which are required. Many seemed to have no idea what “Cop City” was and weren’t interested in finding out. The fact that it began raining certainly didn’t help. By the end of a 90-minute shift, 21 people had signed.
“We definitely need to come back here,” Sanchez said. “I was on a roll before the rain started.”
Over the past month, hundreds of people like them — many volunteers, some paid — have spread out across the city of about 500,000, in hopes of persuading more than 70,000 registered voters to sign on to the petition drive. The deadline had been mid-August, but the effort got a boost Thursday when a federal judge extended it to late September, though significant logistical and legal hurdles remain.
Technically, organizers say, they need just 58,203 signatures by Aug. 14 to qualify for the November ballot — the equivalent of 15% of registered voters as of the last city election — but they set the higher goal knowing some will be disqualified. If that’s not reached until late August or September, the referendum wouldn’t happen until March, when a competitive GOP presidential primary could turn out conservative voters and hurt its chances. The city also could move forward with construction in the meantime, unless a judge intervenes.
As of July 25, the drive had collected more than 30,000 signatures, according to Paul Glaze, a spokesperson for the Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition. And with the paid canvassing effort still ramping up, he expects the pace to pick up significantly.
“We’re confident of hitting our number,” Glaze said. “How much extra padding we’re able to get is still a question. … Our experience is that when you talk about this with people, when they hear the price tag, when you ask them if they would choose this or something else to spend the money on, the vast majority are against it.”
Organizers of the drive say Mayor Andre Dickens and the City Council have failed to listen to a groundswell of opposition to the $90 million, 85-acre (34-hectare) training center, which they fear will lead to greater militarization of the police and exacerbate environmental damage in the South River Forest in a poor, predominantly Black area.
Officials counter that the campus would replace outdated, far-flung facilities and boost police morale, which is beset by hiring and retention struggles, especially in the wake of 2020 protests over racial injustice. Dickens has said that the facility will teach the “most progressive training and curriculum in the country” and that officials have repeatedly revised their plans to address concerns about noise pollution and environmental impact.
In June, after hearing about 14 hours of public testimony that was overwhelmingly against the training center, council members voted 11-4 to approve $67 million toward the project. Outraged but not surprised, organizers of the petition drive announced it the next day.
Outside the Kroger, located in a majority-Black neighborhood a few miles south of a Wendy’s parking lot where officers fatally shot Rayshard Brooks in 2020, Giraldi chatted with Lee Little, a Black construction worker who stopped to talk despite the rain, his hands full of bagged groceries.
Little was working near the proposed training center in March and saw the helicopters and mass of armed officers that descended on the area after about 150 masked activists stormed the site and torched construction equipment. He hadn’t thought about it much since, but he signed the petition after hearing Giraldi’s pitch.
“She was just saying that City Council approved 60-something million dollars without listening to the taxpayers. Does that sound fair to you? That should be for the voters to decide,” Little said afterward.
Another who signed was Makela Atchison, who was wearing a “Black Voters Matter” T-shirt as she left the store with her two children.
“I’m not saying I’m for it or against it,” Atchison said, “but I want to be able to have my input.”
The signature drive is the most ambitious in terms of numbers that has ever been launched in a Georgia city, but it has precedent from last year in Camden County, where voters overwhelmingly rejected a planned launchpad for blasting commercial rockets into space. The Georgia Supreme Court in February unanimously upheld the legality of that referendum, though it remains an open question whether citizens can veto decisions of city governments.
In a recent court filing seeking to quash the Atlanta referendum, attorneys for the city said residents can’t force officials to retroactively revoke the lease agreement, which was made in 2021. They called organizers’ efforts “futile” and “invalid.” The state agreed with the city in a separate filing, though that dispute is on hold for now.
Still, activists see the referendum as the best remaining option to block the project. They’ve gotten support from numerous groups, including the Working Families Party and the New Georgia Project Action Fund, which pledged to get 15,000 signatures over the next few weeks.
Activist Hannah Riley tries to collect a handful of them whenever she is out in public, including on a recent afternoon as she worked remotely from Muchacho, a popular taco restaurant in the ultra-liberal Reynoldstown neighborhood. At the end of her table, she taped a sign that read: “Voter? Sign Stop Cop City Petition Here.”
“This is a bit of a Hail Mary, but it’s a Hail Mary that makes a lot of sense,” Riley said. “They’ve begun to clear-cut the trees. They’re getting close to pouring concrete. … Our options are quite limited right now, so this does feel like the most practical, effective next step.”
At the same time, a small number of activists have continued taking a more violent tack, including torching eight police motorcycles over the Fourth of July weekend, actions that canvass organizers have not condemned.
Curtis Duncan, 40, said the first day he went out canvassing, a man approached and accused him of being one of the vandals.
“I said, ‘Well, sir, respectfully, I wasn’t burning cars, and the majority of people within this movement have not been engaging in any type of violent actions,’” Duncan said. He added that troopers fatally shot an activist in the forest and that authorities have brought dozens of “very flimsy” domestic terrorism charges against “Stop Cop City” protesters this year — actions he considers far worse.
Sanchez, who works for a voting rights nonprofit, said that even if the signature drive falls short, it will have made an important impact.
“I feel like we’ve exhausted all the other options, aside from full-on revolution, which I don’t think we need for this,” he said. “There’s a lot of obstacles in our way. … If we only get to 50,000, I think that still shows a real warning sign for these politicians for the 2025 election.” | https://pix11.com/news/national-news/ap-national/ap-atlanta-cop-city-activists-say-theyre-confident-of-getting-70k-signatures-but-big-hurdles-remain/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:39 | 0 | https://pix11.com/news/national-news/ap-national/ap-atlanta-cop-city-activists-say-theyre-confident-of-getting-70k-signatures-but-big-hurdles-remain/ |
SEATTLE — The Seattle Police Department and city attorney’s office have deemed two motels along Aurora Avenue “chronic nuisance” properties due to an increase in crime and violence.
That means if they don’t clean up, the businesses could face big crimes.
Mathew Walters says he sees the problems at the Seattle Inn and Emerald Motel every time he helps out at an autobody shop across the street.
“I’m telling you, they’ve got a big problem and it’s linked to these two motels who are harboring the girls,” he said.
There’s a pattern of drug dealing, prostitution and violence, according to Seattle police and the city attorney’s office, and a letter lays out the evidence.
Police report numerous incidents at the Emerald Motel, including assault, prostitution, human trafficking, and even a homicide in May of last year when a 26-year-old man was shot and killed in the parking lot.
At the Seattle Inn additional crimes, ranging from assault to rape to a minor engaging in prostitution – something Walters has seen along Aurora Avenue.
The prostitution of minors is hard to see. Walters said he knows of a 14-year-old girl in the area.
“You basically don’t want to look at it and it can’t be ignored,” he said.
Two teenagers were charged Tuesday for holding a woman against her will. Police said they came to Seattle for All-Star Week to make money and trafficked the woman out of the Seattle Inn.
“The girl’s safety out here is very much jeopardized,” said Walters.
Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison released a statement in support of the action against the two motels:
“These locations have been a nuisance and a danger to the public, crime victims and neighboring areas. This won’t be tolerated, and it won’t be the last time we take action in the north Seattle area. The safety of everyone in our city remains my top priority.”
Walters said that crime along the Aurora corridor has only gotten worse in recent years and hopes this is the first step towards change.
“They need to step up to the plate and start changing some things that will benefit the community as a whole.” | https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-attorney-motels-aurora-avenue-chronic-nuisance-properties/281-f753cce2-f997-456c-bf31-a3cc561aa148 | 2023-07-29T17:25:40 | 1 | https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle-police-attorney-motels-aurora-avenue-chronic-nuisance-properties/281-f753cce2-f997-456c-bf31-a3cc561aa148 |
Hidden camera found inside porta-potty at Wisconsin beach
OCONOMOWOC, Wis. (WISN) - A woman at a Wisconsin beach made a terrible discovery after she found a hidden camera underneath the toilet seat of a port-a-potty.
Police are trying to determine if it was the only camera and who put it there.
“That’s insane. Oh my gosh,” Chrissy Hartwig said.
On a beautiful day at Oconomowoc’s Bender Beach, the talk turns instead to something ugly after Hartwig and other beachgoers learn of a small digital camera hidden inside a porta-potty.
“That’s crazy and now that makes me think of all the other porta-potties that might have had something in it,” Hartwig said. “You don’t think about those things.”
Hartwig said she’s heard of people hiding cameras in dressing rooms and even vacation rentals, but never before in a porta-potty.
“I just, I mean, I’m mind blown. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never thought about it. I wouldn’t have thought about it, probably. People are creeps,” she said.
The camera was reportedly inside the toilet, positioned in a way that showed people entering and using the toilet.
Oconomowoc police, along with the public, have a lot of questions.
“It’s, you know, it’s very concerning because you know the little ones use the bathroom,” Lissa Hagen said. “Yeah, it’s concerning, you know, wondering who did it and why they would do something like that. It’s very gross too.”
Hagen’s daughter is a lifeguard at the beach and learned of the camera the day after it was found.
“I mean, it’s uncomfortable. It’s, you know, concerning. Yeah, so, I’m glad they found it at least before, you know, anything happened,” Hagen said.
Police have not shared how long they believe the camera was there and what if anything was on it.
Copyright 2023 WISN via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved. | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/hidden-camera-found-inside-porta-potty-wisconsin-beach/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:40 | 0 | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/hidden-camera-found-inside-porta-potty-wisconsin-beach/ |
Alaska needs to value its live bears
Grizzly bears in Alaska, called brown bears, that live around the town of Bethel, population 6,325, should have a good life as they don’t interact with many people. But their future is in peril.
Alaska’s bears have powerful governmental enemies, starting with the state of Alaska. This spring, state wildlife agents in helicopters gunned down 94 brown bears, including cubs. Agents also killed five black bears and five wolves.
Why were these animals destroyed? It was an attempt to eliminate carnivores in a misguided effort to grow a small caribou herd for hunters. By Alaska’s own admission, the aerial gunning went too far. An early assessment by a state biologist said fewer than 25 brown bears would be killed.
For now, in the lower 48 states grizzly bears are protected, though some Western governors and members of Congress support trophy-hunting seasons targeting bears.
In Alaska that’s already legal, although a 2019 study co-authored by conservation biologist William Ripple, and others, found that in addition to state-sponsored shooting and trapping of brown bears, trophy hunters have doubled their kill numbers for bears over the past 30 years.
That is not sustainable. Alaska’s population of some 32,000 iconic brown bears now face the same fate as their lower 48 cousins, which once numbered 50,000 but are reduced to 2,000 animals.
Alaska’s predator-control projects cater to a small number of hunters who want to bring home trophy animals, or who wrongly believe that fewer carnivores like bears and wolves will create more prey animals.
Alaska’s wildlife culls have been roundly criticized by many biologists as unnecessary. Numerous studies indicate that predator-prey relationships are always complicated by multiple factors. In this case, the caribou herd was plagued by brucellosis, a disease of ungulates, as well as inadequate food and poachers.
What is undeniable, say multiple biologists from North America — writing as part of a 2018 letter to the U.S. Department of the Interior — is that officials need to protect Alaska’s bears and wolves from too much trophy hunting.
Shockingly, Alaska’s bear-killing activities are funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, using Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act dollars, which is an excise tax on guns, ammunition and archery equipment. The Service also funds other controversial predator-control programs such as in Colorado and New Mexico.
What’s puzzling is why hunting would come first when Alaska decides the fate of its brown bears. Why is bear-related tourism — a growth industry — ignored?
Americans love to watch bears. Because of their popularity, brown-bear viewing opportunities in Alaska’s Katmai National Park had to be limited by lottery. What’s more, over 10 million viewers tune into bear cams annually to virtually watch Katmai bears fish for salmon.
Tapping into this fervor, the National Park Service began an annual Fat Bear Week contest at the park, based on grizzles gorging themselves to get ready for hibernation. In 2021, more than 800,000 voted for Otis, an aged, toothless fellow who lost out the next yearto 747, a colossus nicknamed “Bear Force One” by the Park Service.
Thousands of tourists travel to Alaska every year just to catch a glimpse of Alaska’s brown bears in the wild, a pilgrimage that pours dollars into the state. A 2011 survey valued wildlife-watching tourism in Alaska at more than a billion dollars and this number has almost certainly grown as appreciation for wildlife has expanded in the United States. A 2018 American Wildlife Values national survey showed that more Americans than ever before appreciate their wildlife alive.
The question almost asks itself: What sense does it make for Alaska to kill bears? The answer is none. Federal funding for state wildlife agencies to kill carnivores makes no sense.
The Fish and Wildlife Service needs to adopt the widely supported 2021 formal petition, led by the Global Indigenous Council and co-signed by 28 organizations and scholars, which asks the agency to set up a public comment process before Pittman-Robertson funds can go to states for killing projects.
Wildlife management ought to represent all the people who care about wildlife, and sound science should be the guide when it comes to deciding what animal gets to live or die.
Wendy Keefover is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. She is a senior strategist for the Humane Society of the United States. | https://www.currentargus.com/story/opinion/2023/07/29/alaska-needs-to-value-its-live-bears/70468823007/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:42 | 0 | https://www.currentargus.com/story/opinion/2023/07/29/alaska-needs-to-value-its-live-bears/70468823007/ |
Newly released video shows moments after AJ Owens, mother of four, shot in Marion County
OCALA, Fla. (WCJB) - The Marion County Sheriff’s office has released body camera footage of Susan Lorincz moments after she shot Ajike ‘AJ’ Owens through her front door.
The mother of four was killed when Lorincz shot through her front door on Friday, June 2.
The video footage shows MCSO deputies responding to the incident and detaining Lorincz. She would not be arrested until June 6.
The video also includes a nearly 4-minute long segment where a deputy is giving CPR to Owens. Deputies and bystanders are heard saying they can feel her pulse and that they can’t see an exit wound from the gunshot. Due to its graphic nature, this portion of the footage is not included below.
Below is a list of our previous stories regarding the shooting of AJ Owens:
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Copyright 2023 WCJB. All rights reserved. | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/newly-released-video-shows-moments-after-aj-owens-mother-four-shot-marion-county/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:42 | 0 | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/newly-released-video-shows-moments-after-aj-owens-mother-four-shot-marion-county/ |
(iSeeCars) — Most consumers know there are various electric vehicle tax credits available if they buy a new electric vehicle.
The original credit, officially known as the “Qualified Plug-in Electric Drive Motor Vehicle Credit”, was instituted over a decade ago. It created a tax credit amount between $2,500 and $7,500 based on a specific qualifying vehicle’s battery capacity. There was also a 200,000-unit limit to how many zero-emissions electric cars a single manufacturer could sell before the credit would phase out and eventually be eliminated. Two automakers, General Motors and Tesla, had already hit this limit in recent years, with a few more getting very close in 2022
But the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 has altered the existing rules for the federal tax credit, removing the 200,000 limit, extending the up-to-$7,500 credit through 2032…but also adding a new set of eligibility requirements based on the final assembly location of the vehicle and its battery components. New vehicle pricing and adjusted gross income requirements have also been enacted. The new rules are a reaction to China’s dominance in the EV space, a dominance President Biden and the U.S. Department of Energy would like to reverse by encouraging the production of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and battery components in North America.
The Inflation Reduction Act – Pros and Cons
Encouraging the American production of clean vehicles, including plug-in electric vehicles (EVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), is commendable. However, the change in eligibility requirements could actually limit new vehicle tax credits more than the outgoing legislation. Let’s take a closer look at where this new legislation helps, and hurts, your chances at seeing a rebate.
Pros:
- No 200,000 Vehicle Limit per Manufacturer – which means brands like Cadillac, Chevrolet and Tesla will be back in the running for a $7,500 tax break, along with every other automaker selling EVs, PHEVs (with a battery of 7 kilowatt hours or larger), or FCEVs.
- Income and MSRP Restrictions – the previous legislation had no limit on household income or eligible vehicle pricing, which meant a lot of taxpayer money was spent helping millionaires get a $7,500 price break on their $100,000-plus Tesla. Starting on January 1st, 2023, the new legislation puts an MSRP limit of $80,000 on electric vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks, and a $55,000 MSRP limit on electric sedans, coupes, wagons, and convertibles. The IRS also puts a $150,000 annual income limit on single tax filers, a $225,000 limit on head-of-household filers, and a $300,000 limit on joint filers.
- Used EVs Count Too – For the first time ever, car buyers seeking a lower cost of entry into EV ownership don’t have to choose from pricier current or new model year vehicles. A tax credit on used vehicles, worth either $4,000 or 30% of the used EV’s sales price (whichever is lower) will be available on used models costing less than $25,000. This credit is only available to single filers below $75,000, head-of-household filers below $112,000, and joint filers of $150,000.
- Commercial Tax Credit – If you happen to be a business owner looking to go electric the new bill provides up to $7,500 for electric vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) under 14,000 pounds and up to $40,000 for vehicles with a GVWR above 14,000 pounds. The rebate is based on either 30 percent of the total vehicle cost, or the incremental cost of a commercial EV over the cost of an equivalent non-EV vehicle. For instance, the Ford F-150 Lightning has a starting MSRP of $46,974, but you can buy an equivalent crew-cab F-150 with an internal combustion engine for around $50,000. There’s no incremental cost to buying the Lightning, so a commercial buyer could only benefit from 30 percent of the truck’s $46,974 price (around $15,680).
- Point of Sale Price Reduction: Starting on January 1st, 2024, buyers can transfer their credit to the selling dealer, essentially providing an immediate reduction in the price of an EV during purchase versus waiting to receive the benefit as part of their next tax filing.
Cons:
- Final Assembly Must be in North America – Starting on August 17th, 2022, only plug-in electric vehicles assembled in North America are eligible for tax credits. As of this writing, that includes 26 EVs from model year 2022, but only 8 EVs from model year 2023. A vehicle’s VIN (vehicle identification number) will be used to determine where a potential candidate was built. Popular EVs like the BMW 330e, Chevrolet Bolt, and Nissan Leaf have already been approved for model year 2023, and we’d expect other models assembled in Canada, Mexico, or the U.S. to be approved soon, including the Audi Q5, Ford Mustang Mach E, and every Rivian and Tesla model. However…
- Critical Mineral and Battery Component Requirements – Even if an electric vehicle is assembled in North America it will need to meet increasingly stringent battery requirements over the coming 5 years. Starting in 2023 an EV’s battery will need 40 percent of its critical minerals value to have been extracted or processed in the U.S. or a U.S. free-trade agreement partner to receive up to $3,750 in tax credits. This percentage will increase 10 percent a year, up to 80% of the battery’s critical mineral value in 2027 and beyond. Additionally, starting in 2023, 50 percent of the value of an EV battery’s components must be assembled in the U.S., increasing 10 percent a year until it reaches 100 percent in 2029.
The newest bill’s final assembly and critical mineral battery requirements are meant to shift the production of electric vehicles back toward the U.S. and its allies, and away from foreign entities of concern, including China. Given the supply chain issues we’ve experienced over the past 2 years this is a wise long-term goal. However, the time and resources needed to transplant the electric vehicle alternative fuels industry from the Asia Pacific region to the U.S are substantial.
Foreign automakers like Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota have already committed to high-volume North American vehicle production in recent decades. There’s every reason to believe they can relatively quickly do the same for their electric vehicle fleets to meet the final assembly requirement for successful new models not yet produced here, like the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Several automakers with smaller U.S. production capacity, including BMW, Volkswagen, and Volvo, also continue to expand their U.S. presence.
But battery production is an entirely different process compared to vehicle assembly. It involves significant investments in land assessment/exploration, permit applications, approval, mining, extraction, refining, etc. You can imagine the processes and time frame involved in, for instance, setting up a lithium mine in California. Investing in, and establishing, those capabilities will take several years at least, and could easily prove a limiting factor on how many new EVs can fully qualify for the latest tax credits under the current legislation.
More from iSeeCars:
- How Much Does it Cost to Charge an Electric Car?
- How Long Do Electric Car Batteries Last?
- Electric Cars with the Longest Range
If you’re in the market for a new or used electric vehicle you can search over 4 million used electric cars, SUVs, and trucks with iSeeCars’ award-winning car search engine that helps shoppers find the best car deals by providing key insights and valuable resources, like the iSeeCars free VIN check report and Best Cars rankings. Filter by vehicle type, front or all-wheel drive, and other parameters in order to narrow down your car search.
This article, The New EV Tax Credits Explained, originally appeared on iSeeCars.com. | https://www.kxnet.com/automotive/ev-tax-credits-explained/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:43 | 1 | https://www.kxnet.com/automotive/ev-tax-credits-explained/ |
Compared with the devil, angels carry more credence in America.
Angels even get more credence than, well, hell. More than astrology, reincarnation, and the belief that physical things can have spiritual energies.
In fact, about 7 in 10 U.S. adults say they believe in angels, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
“People are yearning for something greater than themselves — beyond their own understanding,” said Jack Grogger, a chaplain for the Los Angeles Angels and a longtime Southern California fire captain who has aided many people in their gravest moments.
That search for something bigger, he said, can take on many forms, from following a religion to crafting a self-driven purpose to believing in, of course, angels.
“For a lot of people, angels are a lot safer to worship,” said Grogger, who also pastors a nondenominational church in Orange, California, and is a chaplain for the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks.
People turn to angels for comfort, he said. They are familiar, regularly showing up in pop culture as well as in the Bible. Comparably, worshipping Jesus is far more involved; when Grogger preaches about angels it is with the context that they are part of God’s kingdom.
American’s belief in angels (69%) is about on par with belief in heaven and the power of prayer, but bested by belief in God or a higher power (79%). Fewer U.S. adults believe in the devil or Satan (56%), astrology (34%), reincarnation (34%), and that physical things can have spiritual energies, such as plants, rivers or crystals (42%).
The widespread acceptance of angels shown in the AP-NORC poll makes sense to Susan Garrett, an angel expert and New Testament professor at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Kentucky. It tracks with historical surveys, she said, adding that the U.S. remains a faith-filled country even as more Americans reject organized religion.
But if the devil is in the details, so are people’s understandings of angels.
“They’re very malleable,” Garrett said of angels. “You can have any one of a number of quite different worldviews in terms of your understanding of how the cosmos is arranged, whether there’s spirit beings, whether there’s life after death, whether there’s a God … and still find a place for angels in that worldview.”
Talk of angels, Garrett said, is often also about something else, like the ways God interacts with the world and other hard-to-articulate ideas.
The large number of U.S. adults who say they believe in angels includes 84% of those with a religious affiliation — 94% of evangelical Protestants, 81% of mainline Protestants and 82% of Catholics — and 33% of those without one. And of those angel-believing religiously unaffiliated, that includes 2% of atheists, 25% of agnostics and 50% of those identified as “nothing in particular.”
The broad acceptance is what fascinates San Francisco-based witch and author Devin Hunter: Angels show up independently in different religions and traditions, making them part of the fabric that unites humanity.
“We’re all getting to the same conclusion,” said Hunter, who spent 16 years as a professional medium, and started communicating as a child with what he believed were angels.
Hunter estimates that a belief in angels applies to about half of those practicing modern witchcraft today, and for some who don’t believe, their rejection is often rooted in the religious trauma they experienced growing up.
“Angels become a very big deal” for long-time practitioners who’ve made occultism their primary focus, said Hunter, an angel-loving occultist. “We cannot escape them in any way, shape or form.”
Jennifer Goodwin of Oviedo, Florida, also is among the roughly seven in 10 U.S. adults who say they believe in angels. She isn’t sure if God exists and rejects the afterlife dichotomy of heaven and hell, but the recent deaths of her parents solidified her views on these celestial beings.
Goodwin believes her parents are still keeping an eye on the family — not in any physical way or as a supernatural apparition, but that they manifest in those moments when she feels a general sense of comfort.
“I think that they are around us, but it’s in a way that we can’t understand,” Goodwin said. “I don’t know what else to call it except an angel.”
Angels mean different things to different people, and the idea of loved ones becoming heavenly angels after death is neither an unusual belief nor a universally held one.
In his reading of Scripture as an evangelical Protestant, Grogger said he believes angels are something else entirely — they have never been human and are on another level in heaven’s hierarchy. “We are higher than angels,” he said. “We do not become an angel.”
Angels do interact with humans though, said Grogger, but what “that looks like we’re not 100% sure.” They worship God who created this angelic legion of unknown numbers, he said, adding that evangelicals often attribute the demonic forces in the world to the angels who fell from heaven when the devil rebelled.
The Western ideas about angels can be traced through the Bible — and to the worldviews of its monotheistic authors, Garrett said. Those beliefs have changed and developed for millennia, influenced by cultures, theologians and even the ancient polytheistic beliefs that came before the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, she said.
“There are sort of lines of continuity from the Bible that you can trace all the way up to the New Age movement,” said Susan Garrett, who wrote “No Ordinary Angel: Celestial Spirits and Christian Claims about Jesus.”
The angels in the Bible do God’s bidding, and angelic violence is one part of their job description, said Esther Hamori, author of the upcoming book, “God’s Monsters: Vengeful Spirits, Deadly Angels, Hybrid Creatures, and Divine Hitmen of the Bible.”
“The angels of the Bible are just as likely to assassinate individuals and slaughter entire populations as they are to offer help and protect and deliver,” said Hamori. She doesn’t believe in these angels, but studies them as a Hebrew Bible professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York where she teaches a popular “Monster Heaven” class.
“They’re just God’s obedient soldiers doing the task at hand, and sometimes that task is in human beings’ best interests, and sometimes it’s not,” she said.
The perception that angels act angelic and look like the idyllic, winged figurines atop Christmas trees could be attributed to an early centuries belief that people are assigned one good angel and one bad — or have a good and bad spirit to guide them, Garrett said.
This idea shows up on the shoulders of cartoon characters and is likely what Abraham Lincoln was alluding to in his famous appeal for unity when he referenced “the better angels of our nature” in his first inaugural address, she said.
“It’s also tied in with ideas about guardian angels, which again, very ancient views that got developed over the centuries,” Garrett said.
For Sheila Avery of Chicago, angels are protectors, capable of keeping someone from harm. Avery, who belongs to a nondenominational church, credits them with those moments like when a person’s plans fall through, but ultimately it saves them from being in the thick of an unexpected disaster.
“They turn on the news and a terrible tragedy happened at that particular place,” Avery said, suggesting it was an “angel that was probably watching over them.”
___
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://pix11.com/news/national-news/ap-national/ap-do-you-believe-in-angels-about-7-in-10-u-s-adults-do-a-new-ap-norc-poll-shows/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:45 | 0 | https://pix11.com/news/national-news/ap-national/ap-do-you-believe-in-angels-about-7-in-10-u-s-adults-do-a-new-ap-norc-poll-shows/ |
Pet owner says 4-foot-long python has gone missing from his yard
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR/Gray News) - Residents in an Illinois neighborhood are currently on the lookout for a pet snake.
Jonathan Delaney told WIFR that his 15-year-old ball python named Bubba slithered away from his yard last weekend.
Delaney said his exotic 4-foot-long snake is missing, but neighbors shouldn’t be worried.
“He’s completely harmless,” Delaney said. “We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s never been mean and the biggest thing he’d eat is a rat.”
Fellow Edgewater resident Rhonda Hanley said she’d likely be startled if she came across Bubba. But because he’s someone’s pet, she’ll try to help find him.
“I’ll try and put something over the top of it like a blanket or a garbage can if I find him,” Hanley said.
Delaney is thankful that his neighbors are concerned enough to lend a helping hand.
“We are hoping he’s still around here and nobody harms him,” he said. “We are hoping to find him as soon as possible.”
Experts say because ball pythons prefer to be hidden most of the time the snake doesn’t appear to pose a threat to the public.
The snake can strike if it gets agitated, but those bites don’t normally require medical attention.
“The most that could happen is that the snake could take a defensive swipe,” Stephanie Stone, owner of Jurassic Reptile Supply, said. “It’s less impact than a cat scratch or a cat bite.”
Stone added that ball pythons typically don’t travel very far.
“Unless it feels the need to try to find a meal, it’s probably very close to where it was originally,” she said.
Anyone who spots Bubba has been urged to contact Delaney on social media.
Copyright 2023 WIFR via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ | 2023-07-29T17:25:45 | 0 | https://www.wcjb.com/2023/07/29/pet-owner-says-4-foot-long-python-has-gone-missing-his-yard/ |