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SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. — Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is speaking just ahead of potential charges being filed against former President Donald Trump and his allies.
It's still unclear if Trump will be charged by D.A. Willis, but 11Alive is getting a little more insight into what we can expect in the coming days after speaking with Willis at a back-to-school event in Sandy Springs.
Willis said her back-to-school events are her favorite time of the year. And it's bringing her joy before the big decisions she has to make in the next few weeks.
"I was a single mom," Willis said. "And I can remember at the beginning of school years, that's one more financial hit. We want to relieve that stress for parents."
Mother-of-three Amiria Otiti said she hadn't even started back-to-school shopping yet. However, events like this take the load off.
"It helps tremendously because everything is priced high," Otiti said. "And anything I can do to save, I want to save."
Willis was all smiles giving away free school supplies at Morgan Falls Overlook Park in Sandy Springs, but after this, it's back to business. While the kids prepare for school, Willis is preparing for a potential indictment of former President Trump and his allies for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
"Some people may not be happy with the decisions that I'm making," Willis said. "And sometimes, when people are unhappy, they act in a way that could create harm."
She didn't give many details, but Willis said another way she's preparing is by upping security. She explained she wrote a letter to the Fulton County Sheriff Patrick "Pat" Labat.
"I think that the sheriff is doing something smart in making sure that the courthouse stays safe," Willis said.
That includes the grand jury.
"I'm not willing to put any of the employees or the constituents that come to the courthouse in harm's way," Willis said.
Willis said she's holding true to her commitment to giving the American people an answer by Sep. 1. This could be Trump's third indictment case of the year.
Saturday students got what they needed to do their homework. And Willis said she's doing hers too.
"The work is accomplished," Willis said, "We've been working for two-and-a-half years. We're ready to go."
Willis has blocked off much of August for her team to work remotely, asking judges not to schedule trials or in-person hearings from Aug. 7 to Aug. 14.
As for the back-to-school drive, there were supplies left over. Willis said if you're a Fulton County parent who needs something, you can stop by the district attorney's office and she will help you out. | https://www.11alive.com/article/news/special-reports/ga-trump-investigation/fulton-co-da-fani-willis-discusses-big-decisions-ahead-of-trump-election-investigation-donald-2020-fraud/85-6ff845d7-ead5-4488-bec4-bde23b2ce627 | 2023-07-30T05:11:01 | 0 | https://www.11alive.com/article/news/special-reports/ga-trump-investigation/fulton-co-da-fani-willis-discusses-big-decisions-ahead-of-trump-election-investigation-donald-2020-fraud/85-6ff845d7-ead5-4488-bec4-bde23b2ce627 |
HSFT Stop #34: North Pontotoc
ECRU, Miss. (WCBI) — When asked about what to expect from North Pontotoc football this season, senior right tackle Case Young put it best:
“A better record than 3-7.”
After a 2-0 start, the Vikings dropped their next seven games. The 2022 season gave them plenty to learn from.
“Of course, nobody wants to lose. But you learn a lot about everybody’s character. You learn a lot about who your friends are. You learn a lot about who’s there come thick or thin. In the long run, it does make you more resilient,” head coach Andy Crotwell said.
The Vikings battled through injuries last season, especially among the wide receivers and defensive backs.
“I missed half of the year last year with an injury,” senior wide receiver Tyler Pickens said. “I’m looking to come back for a big senior year. I feel like we’re gonna bounce back from last year. I’m pretty confident in our team.”
The depth and experience North Pontotoc has at the receiver and linemen positions gives this group confidence in turning things around.
“There are plenty of things to be excited about. The biggest thing to be excited about is that our kids show up and they work hard,” Crotwell said.
North Pontotoc opens its season at home against Okolona on Aug. 25. | https://www.wcbi.com/hsft-stop-34-north-pontotoc/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:01 | 0 | https://www.wcbi.com/hsft-stop-34-north-pontotoc/ |
UFC 291 ended with a massive win for Justin Gaethje, who scored the biggest victory of his career in decisive fashion. Gaethje landed a perfect head kick to knock out Dustin Poirier and secure the BMF title belt.
In the co-main event, Alex Pereira had an impressive light heavyweight debut with a split decision win over Jan Blachowicz, potentially setting himself up for a shot at the promotion's most mobile belt. Pereira's record now sits at 8-2.
Derrick Lewis snapped a three-fight losing streak in emphatic fashion, charging Marcos Rogério de Lima with a flying knee at the start of the fight and never letting up once his opponent was down. It was Lewis' record 14th knockout in UFC. Given that it was the final fight of his UFC contract, it was a very well-timed win for Lewis.
"I just said 'Imma throw some bulls*** and see if it lands.' It did," Lewis said after the match.
Bobby Green was on track for a decision win over Tony Ferguson, but removed all doubt with a submission of the veteran in the final 10 seconds of the fight. The win broke a four-fight streak without a victory for Green, while Ferguson posted his sixth straight loss.
In the pay-per-view opener, Kevin Holland submitted Michael Chiesa with a D'arce choke in the first round of their welterweight scrap. It was Holland's 25th win in 35 pro fights. Chiesa record is now 18-7 after this third loss in a row.
Here's how UFC 291 went down:
UFC 291 live tracker: Updates, highlights and analysis
UFC 291 main card, odds (Live now on ESPN+PPV)
• Lightweight: Justin Gaethje def. Dustin Poirier by KO - 1:00 of R2
JUSTIN GAETHJE KO's POIRIER BY HEAD KICK 😱
— UFC (@ufc) July 30, 2023
WE HAVE A NEW BMF #UFC291 pic.twitter.com/eUunAPoHnO
• Light heavyweight: Alex Pereira def. Jan Blachowicz by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)• Welterweight: Stephen Thompson (-225) vs. Michel Pereira (+175)• Heavyweight: Derrick Lewis def. Marcos Rogério de Lima by TKO (flying knee and punches) - 0:33 of R1
AND HIS BALLS WAS HOT #UFC291 pic.twitter.com/uqz1Tqefxn
— UFC (@ufc) July 30, 2023
• Lightweight: Bobby Green def. Tony Ferguson by submission (arm-triangle choke) - 4:54 of R3• Welterweight: Kevin Holland def. Michael Chiesa by submission (D'arce) - 2:39 of R1
UFC 291 prelims card results, highlights
• Welterweight: Gabriel Bonfim def. Trevin Giles by submission (guillotine) - 1:13 of R1:
SLICK SUBMISSION FROM BONFIM 😨#UFC291 is LIVE on ESPN+ PPV 🍿 pic.twitter.com/jIaAQnPaIH
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 30, 2023
• Flyweight: CJ Vergara def. Vinicius Salvador by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)• Middleweight: Roman Kopylov def. Claudio Ribeiro by KO (head kick) - 0:33 of R2:
KOPYLOV’S NASTY HEADKICK DROPS RIBEIRO 😱#UFC291 LIVE on ABC and ESPN 🍿 pic.twitter.com/ZX8Gb4hUC3
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 30, 2023
• Welterweight: Jake Matthews def. Darrius Flowers by submission (rear naked) - 2:37 of R2
UFC 291 early prelims card results, highlights
• Welterweight: Uroš Medić def. Matthew Semelsberger by TKO (ground and pound) - 2:36 of R3:
Uros Medic brought the spin move 🌪️ #UFC291 is LIVE on ESPN 🍿 pic.twitter.com/sWsJaPFD5f
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) July 29, 2023
• Women's flyweight: Miranda Maverick def. Priscila Cachoeira by submission (armbar) - 2:11 of R2:
Miranda Maverick kicks off #UFC291 with a finish!@FearTheMAVERICK locks the armbar in Round 3 💪 pic.twitter.com/lUox5wVbrc
— UFC (@ufc) July 29, 2023 | https://www.star945.com/news/national/copy-ufc-291-full/J5NWBME44VDREOG44GHVK2VBB4/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:01 | 1 | https://www.star945.com/news/national/copy-ufc-291-full/J5NWBME44VDREOG44GHVK2VBB4/ |
Local business help Monroe County students gear up to start back
Aberdeen's Freshly's Market, and Urgent Care, under the umbrella of Hollidaay's Helping Hands organization, gave away over two hundred backpacks and supplies, along with snacks for kids to enjoy.
MONROE COUNTY, Miss (WCBI) – Back school preparation is happening throughout Mississippi. As Monroe County students gear up, local business is helping students with essential school items.
Aberdeen’s Freshly’s Market, and Urgent Care, under the umbrella of Holliday’s Helping Hands organization, give away over two hundred backpacks and supplies, along with snacks for kids to enjoy.
“Kids are our future they are future leaders of tomorrow making sure the kids are prepared and not looked down upon,” said CEO of Holliday’s Helping HAnds Katina Holliday. “I was fortunate and I was raised by a single mom to be able to always have what I needed when school started because our family stuck together. If one didn’t have it they filled in but you know today families are not what they use to be. Because we are a part of the community here we were built by the community for the community just like our Freshly’s slogan. So, I just had to make sure that what I do in LA which we do Backpack drive there in collaboration with our church that I do the same thing in my community here.
Monroe County public schools start August 7. | https://www.wcbi.com/local-business-help-monroe-county-students-gear-up-to-start-back/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:07 | 0 | https://www.wcbi.com/local-business-help-monroe-county-students-gear-up-to-start-back/ |
LOS ANGELES — “Let’s go Joe! Let’s go Joe!”
Cheers rang out in Dodger Stadium for the return of right-handed relief pitcher Joe Kelly, who was acquired by the Dodgers Friday in a trade with the Chicago White Sox.
In his first game after the trade, he played an important role in L.A's 3-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday night.
Kelly returns to the team he won the 2020 World Series with after a little over a year in Chicago. The UC Riverside product gained online notoriety in his last stint with the Dodgers after taunting Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa.
Ironically, the Dodgers traded for Kelly on the three-year anniversary of Kelly’s pouty-face meme.
Joe Kelly gets traded back to the Dodgers on the same day that this happened three years ago 👀 pic.twitter.com/rHySxRY55l
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) July 28, 2023
While seeing Kelly back on the mound brought back fond memories for Dodgers fans, his presence may be key to bolstering a struggling pitching staff.
Kelly was quickly brought in after fellow reliever Caleb Ferguson, the Dodgers’ second pitcher of the night, squandered a 2-0 lead in the sixth inning. Ferguson allowed three hits and two runs in only 2/3 of an inning.
Huge cheers at Dodger Stadium for Joe Kelly, who will enter for Caleb Ferguson.
— Christina Huang (@stina_huang) July 30, 2023
Kelly was acquired from the White Sox yesterday and returns to the team he won the 2020 World Series with. pic.twitter.com/gkCf6QqKjA
He quickly cleaned up for Ferguson, getting himself out of a bases-loaded jam to end the sixth.
Kelly instantly stifled the building Reds momentum on Saturday, but his signing may not solve everything for a thin Dodgers pitching rotation.
The Dodgers held a 4.47 team ERA coming into Saturday’s game, ranking 21st out of the league’s 30 teams. With the slew of injuries that Los Angeles has dealt with, it’s no surprise why the pitching is inconsistent.
Veteran pitchers Walker Buehler and Dustin May have been out for the year due to injury. Buehler, an NL Cy Young candidate in 2021, underwent his second Tommy John surgery in August 2022 and still has a shot to return this season. May needs elbow surgery and is likely out for the season.
Longtime ace Clayton Kershaw had an inflamed shoulder during the Rockies series last month, but he’s working his way back. Kershaw was spotted pitching a simulated game before Saturday’s matchup.
Clayton Kershaw pitching is simulated game. #Dodgers pic.twitter.com/Yxp8Y0zwE4
— David Vassegh (@THEREAL_DV) July 29, 2023
Young pitchers, like Saturday’s rookie starter Emmet Sheehan, have been forced to step up and take on more responsibility. To secure Saturday’s win over the Reds, the Dodgers needed five pitchers, with three guys pitching less than a full inning.
Sure, having Kelly back to get the team out of a bases-loaded jam is pretty helpful. Lance Lynn, who was acquired in the same trade as Kelly, could pitch as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
But as things stand, the Dodgers may still need extra pitching help. And they have until Tuesday's trade deadline to get a deal done. | https://www.star945.com/news/national/dodgers-trade/HVLRR6NH4GAD3RZJKGFKMOCFCI/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:08 | 1 | https://www.star945.com/news/national/dodgers-trade/HVLRR6NH4GAD3RZJKGFKMOCFCI/ |
Mississippi Bureau of Investigation issues endangered, missing child alert
Malyiah Crosby was last seen getting into a tan 2001 Ford Explorer with a Mississippi license plate HN57049.
HINDS COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation has issued an Endangered, Missing Child Alert for 14-year-old Malyiah Crosby of Hinds County, Mississippi.
She is described as a black female, 5’3, weighing 95 pounds, with maroon hair and brown eyes.
Crosby was last seen at 3 a.m. on July 29, wearing a maroon Byram bulldog hoodie, light gray tights, burgundy hat, and red slides.
Malyiah Crosby was last seen getting into a tan 2001 Ford Explorer with a Mississippi license plate HN57049.
To report information contact Byram Police Department at 601-372-7748 or 911. | https://www.wcbi.com/mississippi-bureau-of-investigation-issues-endangered-missing-child-alert/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:13 | 1 | https://www.wcbi.com/mississippi-bureau-of-investigation-issues-endangered-missing-child-alert/ |
Terence Crawford is the new king of the welterweight division after handing Errol Spence Jr. his first loss in a dominant performance to unify the belts at 147 pounds.
Story will be updated.
Terence Crawford is the new king of the welterweight division after handing Errol Spence Jr. his first loss in a dominant performance to unify the belts at 147 pounds.
Story will be updated. | https://www.star945.com/news/national/terence-crawford/MCXBAFQKNBDF5UPH3MZJVBPCTE/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:15 | 0 | https://www.star945.com/news/national/terence-crawford/MCXBAFQKNBDF5UPH3MZJVBPCTE/ |
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency holds Resource Fair in Amory
It has been about 5 months since tornados moved through Mississippi, and the recovery continues.
AMORY, Miss. (WCBI) – It has been about 5 months since tornados moved through Mississippi, and the recovery continues.
Mississippi Emergency Management Agency held a Resource Fair on July 29 in Amory, offering additional support.
At the Fair, Atmos Energy donated the CREATE foundation for relief efforts. The CREATE Foundation has been a force in these efforts for the past 50 years.
CREATE was founded in 1972 by George and Anna McLean. The foundation has been a vehicle for charitable giving since its beginnings. Juanita Floyd, Senior Vice President of Finance and Administration, speaks about what she loves about the foundation.
“What I love about CREATE is when there is a problem or when there is something that needs to be done, CREATE is there on the ground,” Floyd said.
Create was on the ground in Monroe County following the March storms.
That’s why additional funding, like the $100,000 check from Atmos helps Create support for the community.
Atmos has and continues to give to those affected communities after the tornados.
“After the tornados, we gave $25,000 to the Red Cross for short-term needs, but we wanted to be there for the community in the long term,” said Atmos Vice President of Public Affairs Bobby Brown. “We care about being there for the communities in the days after and the months and years ahead too.”
This is why Atmos donated to the CREATE Foundation. There is a fund committee that helps designate what non-profits the money will go to.
The CREATE Foundation is founded on the goal of helping neighbors and Floyd feels that they continue that goal today.
“Mississippi gets a bad name but when disasters occur or when something occurs, you see neighbors helping neighbors helping neighbors,” said Floyd. “You see our foundation out there saying we will set up a fund to help and so it feels really good to see the principles of our founder, helping each other.”
Atmos also provided food, shaved ice, and jumpers at the Resource Fair. | https://www.wcbi.com/mississippi-emergency-management-agency-holds-resource-fair-in-amory/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:20 | 0 | https://www.wcbi.com/mississippi-emergency-management-agency-holds-resource-fair-in-amory/ |
Derrick Lewis is nothing if not an entertainer.
The veteran UFC heavyweight notched his first win since 2021 on the main card of UFC 291 in the most demented of fashions, throwing out the rarely seen heavyweight flying knee to knock Marcos Rogério de Lima off balance. Thirty seconds and dozens of punches later, Lewis had a first-round TKO win.
DERRICK LEWIS CAME FLYING IN 😳#UFC291 LIVE on ESPN+ PPV pic.twitter.com/XLXJXYvK8r
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 30, 2023
Lewis then proceeded to get his money's worth out of the win, which was broke a record for most UFC knockouts with 14.
After losing his last three fights, Lewis yanked his shorts off — a move he's performed before — and threw down a crotch chop before jumping to the top of the Octagon.
AND HIS BALLS WAS HOT #UFC291 pic.twitter.com/uqz1Tqefxn
— UFC (@ufc) July 30, 2023
After being declared the winner, Lewis gave a postfight interview where, well, we'll just list off some highlights:
"I just said 'Imma throw some bulls*** and see if it lands.' It did."
"Your dickhead got a mind of its own."
"Shout out to my wife, I'm gonna come home and bust those guts up. Get ready girl."
Lewis also mentioned this was the final fight of his current UFC contract. As far as the promotion is concerned, he probably couldn't have represented himself better. | https://www.star945.com/news/national/ufc-291-derrick/QILIE5O3K6PZCMWRKKXADRRINQ/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:22 | 1 | https://www.star945.com/news/national/ufc-291-derrick/QILIE5O3K6PZCMWRKKXADRRINQ/ |
As of UFC 291, Justin Gaethje is a certified BMF.
The fan favorite lightweight notched the biggest win of his career with a second-round KO of Dustin Poirier, winning the honorary "BMF" title with a head kick that sent his opponent flat. Referee Herb Dean had to leap between the two fighters to stop Gaethje from doing further damage.
Gaethje celebrated the win with a backflip off the fence.
JUSTIN GAETHJE WITH A HIGHLIGHT KICK 💥 #UFC291 pic.twitter.com/5zjnzXmLES
— ESPN (@espn) July 30, 2023
Gaethje had performed well in the first round, landing 33 of 56 significant strikes to Poirier's 27 of 51.
Over the last few years, Gaethje has been a participant in the most competitive division with UFC, with the likes of Poirier, Islam Makhachev, Charles Oliveira, Michael Chandler and more competing for a belt currently held by Makhachev.
Before Saturday, Gaethje's only win among that wave had been Chandler, but rocking Poirier could move him up a place in line to challenge Makhachev. Oliveira, the former champ, is currently scheduled to rematch Makhachev at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 21.
"You know what I want to do next. I want to fight for the world championship," Gaethje said after the fight. "I want to prove I'm the best in the world. Win, lose or draw, max effort is what you're going to get from me. Luck and chance are a factor and I'm willing to roll the dice any f***ing day."
Gaethje lost his first title shot against Oliveira, who missed weight before the fight, by first-round submission. Since then, he has defeated Poirier and defeated by majority decision Rafael Fiziev in a bout that won Fight of the Night at UFC 286. | https://www.star945.com/news/national/ufc-291-justin/JWANC5OMTMQJGCP4M6TIJHH5IA/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:29 | 1 | https://www.star945.com/news/national/ufc-291-justin/JWANC5OMTMQJGCP4M6TIJHH5IA/ |
Saltillo Citizens participate in annual Kids N’ Cops
The event was created to bridge the gap between youth and law enforcement.
SALTILLO, Miss. (WCBI) – Despite the sweltering heat folks descended on the Saltillo City Park to participate in the annual Kids N’ Cops. They were able to sit in Fire Engines or Police Cars.
They lined up to take advantage of a free school supplies giveaway. Deundra Poole is the Public Relations Director for the Saltillo Police Department and organizer of the event.
“It is an event that we created to bridge the gap between youth and law enforcement,” Poole said. “During the time it was created law enforcement was seen as someone that was unapproachable. And kids felt like they couldn’t walk up to us and talk to us. This event was created to show our young people that hey we’re people too. We want you to be able to come talk to us. We want to love you. We want to support you. We believe in you. And so we created the Kids N Cops.”
Saltillo Police Chief Rusty Haynes assumed office in January of this year so this is his first Kids N Cops event.
“It helps the children get ready to start school,” Haynes said. “They’re able to get their supplies for free, which certainly helps the families out. It helps children out so they’ll be ready on day one. It gives the children the chance to interact with police officers in a way that maybe they usually don’t, so they understand that we’re their first line of defense, where they should come to if they ever need help, we’re there for them.”
This is the second year that Mississippi Highway Patrol has taken part in this event. Sergeant Bryan McGee is the Public Information Officer for Troop F in New Albany.
“It’s very important the Highway Patrol comes out and is a part of these types of events,” McGee said. “So we’re being seen by the general public and know we’re approachable. We can be talked to and that kind of thing. We’re not just out there making traffic stops or working crashes. We’re out here in the communities, being a part of the community….It just fills you with hope and pride and all that the community wants to come out here and see us and talk to us and you know just look in our cars and kind of see what we do on a day to day basis because right now the Highway Patrol, we’re trying to hire more people and to get the word out we need to be a part of the community.”
This is the seventh year this event has been held here in Saltillo and organizers are amazed at how much it has grown since it’s inception. And it is surely an indication that the community supports local law enforcement.
“Our message is very clear with Saltillo PD. Regardless of what you think about us,” Poole said. “We love you. We’re going to support you and each time that phone rings, each time that call goes over the radio our guys are going to make sure that we show up and we treat you as such. We don’t care nothing about the people that don’t like us. We’re there to protect all people. We love all people. We’re going to protect all people and we’re going to serve all people.”
Haynes said Public rapport is a huge part of what they do.
“We depend on the citizens every bit as much as they depend on us,” Haynes said. “It’s certainly a hearts and minds effort. We need them on our side and they need to know that we’re on theirs.”
“It just fills you with hope and pride and all that the community wants to come out here and see us and talk to us and you know just look in our cars and kind of see what we do on a day to day basis because right now the Highway Patrol, we’re trying to hire more people and to get the word out we need to be a part of the community.” | https://www.wcbi.com/saltillo-citizens-participate-in-annual-kids-n-cops/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:32 | 1 | https://www.wcbi.com/saltillo-citizens-participate-in-annual-kids-n-cops/ |
LAS VEGAS — A Nevada man is accused of strangling his roommate and living in their Las Vegas home for more than two months before family members discovered her body in an upstairs closet, authorities said.
George Anthony Bone, 31, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with open murder, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. He is accused of killing Beverly Ma, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced on Thursday.
Victim Beverly Ma's family stopped by the southwest valley home on Wednesday when they found her body in a closet. Police said suspect George Bone was "afraid of going back to jail … for being found with a dead body." https://t.co/Wd59sryaPG
— Las Vegas Review-Journal (@reviewjournal) July 29, 2023
In a news release, police said they received a telephone call at about 2:27 p.m. PDT about a report of a deceased woman found inside a residence at 5437 Railroad River Ave.
Ma’s relatives had gone to the residence because they had not seen her in person since April, the Review-Journal reported.
Family members called 911 and told the dispatcher that Ma’s body “was in the closet and had been there for two months,” KLAS-TV reported, citing court documents. Police found Ma’s body in the master bedroom closet shortly after arriving at the residence, according to KVVU-TV.
Police said that Bone allegedly said that in early May, he found Ma dead in the closet with a fabric belt around her neck, the Review-Journal reported. Upon further investigation, police said that Bone’s description of how Ma was found “had inconsistencies,” and evidence from the closet contradicted Bone’s claim that Ma killed herself, according to the newspaper.
“I was afraid of going back to jail … for being found with a dead body,” Bone allegedly told police.
Ma’s family said they last received a text message from her telephone on June 22, stating that she would be unable to attend a July 4 celebration in Washington, KVVU reported. A family member texted Ma again on July 2 but never heard back from her, according to the television station.
According to the arrest report, Bone allegedly admitted to ordering more than 170 items from Amazon under Ma’s name, the Review-Journal reported. He also allegedly set the air conditioner thermostat to 60 degrees, believing that it would limit the number of flies in the residence.
Bone also left a cooler by the closet, allegedly telling police that he wanted there to alert him in case Ma rose from the dead, which he had seen in “The Grudge,” a horror movie, according to the newspaper.
On Wednesday, one of Ma’s relatives sent an air conditioning repairman to fix the unit because the electric bill was high, KVVU reported. When no one answered, the family member gave the technician the access code to the residence and he went inside, according to the television station.
The technician called for Ma but received no response, KVVU reported. That is when family members came to the home and found her body, according to the arrest report.
According to the Review-Journal, Bone is a registered sex offender in Nevada after pleading guilty in 2013 to attempted lewdness with a child under 14. Bone took an Alford plea on the charge, KLAS reported. An Alford plea occurs when a defendant accepts that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him or her but does not admit guilt, according to the television station.
He was sentenced to two to eight years in state prison, court records show.
Bone allegedly told police that he had known Ma since he was in high school and became romantically involved with her after he was released from prison in 2019, KVVU reported.
The couple began living together in July 2022, according to the arrest report. | https://www.star945.com/news/trending/man-accused-murder-lived-with-womans-corpse-more-than-2-months-police-say/KR5ZMYZLMBAVFCOVGRKO4QA3UA/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:36 | 1 | https://www.star945.com/news/trending/man-accused-murder-lived-with-womans-corpse-more-than-2-months-police-say/KR5ZMYZLMBAVFCOVGRKO4QA3UA/ |
“Sneaker Ball” at American Legion inspires audience members to make a difference in the community.
Entrepreneur Katina Holliday Wiseman was the guest speaker and encouraged young people to follow their dreams by putting God first, working hard, and not being afraid of failure.
ABERDEEN, Miss. (WCBI) – It was a night of glamour, good food, and inspiration at the Mayor’s Youth Council Blue Carpet Ball in Aberdeen.
It was a “Sneaker Ball” at the American Legion as members of the Mayor’s Youth Council encouraged and inspired audience members to make a positive difference in their community.
“To see the energy they have and how they have infected the school with a walk that is different from others. We have asked each one of them to talk to at least five people in their school and tell them how we need them to perform because it’s about excellence,” said Aberdeen Mayor Charles Scott.
Entrepreneur Katina Holliday Wiseman was the guest speaker and encouraged young people to follow their dreams by putting God first, working hard, and not being afraid of failure.
Mayor’s Youth Council members say they have learned many valuable life lessons during their time with the leadership group.
“We do tons of things to help in the community such as city cleanups and we go to the food pantry and help, it’s just to boost the self-esteem of the youth and give us things to look forward to in the future,” said Nicolas Shaw of the Mayor Youth Council.
Toniya Brandon of the Mayor Youth Council said it helped build his confidence.
“I’m not afraid to publicly speak anymore, not afraid to go up to anybody and make those connections,” Brandon said. | https://www.wcbi.com/sneaker-ball-at-american-legion-inspires-audience-members-to-make-a-difference-in-the-community/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:42 | 0 | https://www.wcbi.com/sneaker-ball-at-american-legion-inspires-audience-members-to-make-a-difference-in-the-community/ |
Starkville Little League prepares for regional tournament in Waco
WATCH: Starkville Little League is representing Mississippi in the Little League regional tournament in Waco. The team is excited about the chance to represent its hometown of Starkville on the national stage. | https://www.wcbi.com/starkville-little-league-prepares-for-regional-tournament-in-waco/ | 2023-07-30T05:13:48 | 1 | https://www.wcbi.com/starkville-little-league-prepares-for-regional-tournament-in-waco/ |
Victim of the Main Street car crash has died
26-year-old Ryan Koehn was airlifted from the accident scene and later died from his injuries at Regional One Hospital in Memphis.
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The victim of the Main Street crash has died. According to the Lowndes County Coroner, the victim is 26-year-old Ryan Koehn, who was airlifted from the accident scene.
He later died from his injuries at Regional One Hospital in Memphis.
The crash took place in downtown Columbus at the intersection of Main and 5th Streets.
An attempted stop by the Mississippi Highway Patrol near the state line turned into what witnesses say was a high-speed chase.
The suspect was driving a truck with a trailer. He allegedly plowed into the pickup truck, injuring the other driver.
Residents near downtown say a helicopter landed nearby and one person was airlifted from the accident scene. | https://www.wcbi.com/victim-of-the-main-street-car-crash-has-died/ | 2023-07-30T05:14:00 | 1 | https://www.wcbi.com/victim-of-the-main-street-car-crash-has-died/ |
ROCHESTER, Minn.-People who were at the History Center of Olmsted County earlier today got to experience a blast from the past. The Roosters Base Ball Club of Rochester, MN took on the Afton Red Socks Base Ball Club today at Schmitt Field. They played each other in the style of 1864 base ball. That meant the pitchers pitched underhand, the players didn't wear baseball gloves, and runners who ran through first base could still get tagged out. Another big difference was that a base ball caught on one bound was still an out. Corky Gaskell, the captain of the Roosters Base Ball Club of Rochester, MN, said it's a good idea to mix education and entertainment.
“Education means people are sitting in the classroom listening to a professor, and that kinda can get boring sometimes, and so by having this entertainment live on a field, people are more engaged, they’re more apt to ask questions. Wh-they see something happen and go, ‘ooh, what was that? Why did that happen? Why are they chasing that guy,’ kinda thing, and so it’s-it’s more lively, more entertaining, and more fun to do it this way," Gaskell said.
The Roosters Base Ball Club of Rochester, MN will play another game at Schmitt Field in late August. They will play against the Atlantic Base Ball Club. | https://www.kimt.com/news/blast-from-the-past-at-the-history-center-of-olmsted-county/article_2e4578fe-2e92-11ee-88e2-531b60b495fc.html | 2023-07-30T05:16:09 | 1 | https://www.kimt.com/news/blast-from-the-past-at-the-history-center-of-olmsted-county/article_2e4578fe-2e92-11ee-88e2-531b60b495fc.html |
ROCHESTER, Minn.-A boutique had its grand opening today. At Malika Malika, the Minority Owned Business Network helped the owner, Omnya Mohamed, cut a red ribbon to celebrate the occasion. Attendees could check out the store's dresses as well as their cute, crocheted items. They could also get their hair braided by one of the store's five braiders. If they had their kids with them, they could leave them close by in a play area.
“I’m honestly nervous, and I think I’m always going to be nervous cuz I just don’t know what this would take us, but I’m so excited. We’ve worked so hard, and we’re really just ready to get started and get going," Mohamed said.
The store will start selling shoes sometime in late September. | https://www.kimt.com/news/new-boutique-opens-in-the-med-city/article_356ca4bc-2e93-11ee-8a27-e73608025074.html | 2023-07-30T05:16:15 | 1 | https://www.kimt.com/news/new-boutique-opens-in-the-med-city/article_356ca4bc-2e93-11ee-8a27-e73608025074.html |
Several thunderstorms rolled through the area Friday evening, producing some severe weather, but most of the severe weather stayed just to our south. A tornado was reported in southern Franklin County, just east of Dows and north of Iowa Falls.
Elsewhere, many people captured some great photos of mammatus clouds on the backside of thunderstorms. Here's a collection of photos that were sent from across the area. | https://www.kimt.com/news/storm-photos-from-fridays-storms-that-rolled-through-north-iowa/article_c3e7f81e-2e47-11ee-87ab-47d1ab5b31b5.html | 2023-07-30T05:16:21 | 0 | https://www.kimt.com/news/storm-photos-from-fridays-storms-that-rolled-through-north-iowa/article_c3e7f81e-2e47-11ee-87ab-47d1ab5b31b5.html |
Elks Scramble in Rupert gives attendees a chance to win big
Two separate hole-in-one shootouts were offered for $100k and $1 MILL
RUPERT, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The Rupert Elks Lodge along with the Rupert Country Club held its annual Steve Schow Golf Scramble Saturday morning, July 29, and into the afternoon, and the day concluded with a golf shootout for a big chunk of change.
The Steve Schow Golf Scramble has been a memorial tournament the past two years in honor of former Rupert Elks Lodge member Steve Schow, a Rupert resident who passed away in 2019.
The tournament raises scholarship money for students looking to go into trade school.
Last year, the tournament raised over $15,000 for the scholarship fund and is looking to top $20,000 this year according to Committee Chair Tim Vaughan.
In addition to the fundraising for those causes, participants also had to chance to play in two separate shootouts for large cash prizes which could only be won with a hole-in-one from 165 yards away.
“We unfortunately did not give away a million dollars today. We had two shootouts, our 100-thousand-dollar shootout and our million-dollar shootout and nobody made it in the hole for either one. It was a fun contest, but nobody won,” Vaughan said.
Even though these cash prizes went unclaimed in this year’s scramble, the day’s events were a success as plenty of money was raised for a great cause to support the local community.
Copyright 2023 KMVT. All rights reserved. | https://www.kmvt.com/2023/07/30/elks-scramble-rupert-gives-attendees-chance-win-big/ | 2023-07-30T05:17:16 | 1 | https://www.kmvt.com/2023/07/30/elks-scramble-rupert-gives-attendees-chance-win-big/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers.
But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated those changes, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a show that can be binged any time or get dog food delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.
Overworked and underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries — from delivery drivers to Starbucks baristas and airline pilots — where surges in consumer demand have collided with persistent labor shortages. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, punishing schedules or company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract forces.
At issue for Hollywood screenwriters and actors staging their first simultaneous strikes in 40 years is the way streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing showrunners to produce content faster with smaller teams.
“This seems to happen to many places when the tech companies come in. Who are we crushing? It doesn’t matter,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May. Earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the writers’ union on the picket line.
Actors and writers have long relied on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of films and televisions shows. But reruns aren’t a thing on streaming services, where series and films simply land and stay with no easy way, such as box office returns or ratings, to determine their popularity.
Consequently, whatever residuals streaming companies do pay often amount to a pittance, and screenwriters have been sharing tales of receiving single digit checks.
Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever,” said many actors were initially content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles that streaming suddenly offered. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but rather the future of the business, he said.
“Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said during a recent union event.
Shapiro, who has been acting for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his normal rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like “a great opportunity, and it’s going to be all over the world. And it was. It really was. Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”
Then there’s the rising use of “mini rooms,” in which a handful of writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may take a year to be greenlit, or never get picked up at all.
Sanchez-Witzel, co-creator of the recently released Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep her team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with just one other writer.
“It’s not sustainable and I’ll never do that again,” she said.
Sanchez-Witzel said she was struck by the similarities between her experience and those of UPS drivers, some of whom joined the WGA for protests as they threatened their own potentially crippling strike. UPS and the Teamsters last week reached a tentative contract staving off the strike.
Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season. Drivers never knew what time they would get home or if they could count on two days off each week, while 14-hour days in trucks without air conditioning became the norm.
“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.
Along with pay raises and air conditioning, the Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have yet to ratify the deal.
The Teamsters and labor activists hailed the tentative deal as a game-changer that would pressure other companies facing labor unrest to raise their standards. But similar outcomes are far from certain in industries lacking the sheer economic indispensability of UPS or the clout of its 340,000-member union.
Efforts to organize at Starbucks and Amazon stalled as both companies aggressively fought against unionization.
Still, labor protests will likely gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, which released a report this year that found the number of labor strikes rose 52% in 2022.
“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic. We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable,’” Campos-Medina said.
___
Associated Press video journalist Leslie Ambriz contributed from Los Angeles. | https://www.seattletimes.com/business/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:16 | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/business/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China accused the United States of turning Taiwan into an “ammunition depot” after the White House announced a $345 million military aid package for Taipei, and the self-ruled island said Sunday it tracked six Chinese navy ships in waters off its shores.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
“No matter how much of the ordinary people’s taxpayer money the … Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.
“Their actions are turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot, aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait,” the statement said.
China’s People’s Liberation Army has increased its military maneuvers in recent years aimed at Taiwan, sending fighter jets and warships to circle the island.
On Sunday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it tracked six Chinese navy ships near the island.
Taiwan’s ruling administration, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, has stepped up its weapons purchases from the U.S. as part of a deterrence strategy against a Chinese invasion.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Taiwan has never been governed by China’s ruling Communist Party.
Unlike previous military purchases, the latest batch of aid is part of a presidential authority approved by the U.S. Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales.
While Taiwan has purchased $19 billion worth of weaponry, much of it has yet to be delivered to Taiwan. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles to Taiwan. | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/china-says-us-military-aid-to-taiwan-will-not-deter-its-will-to-unify-the-island/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:22 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/china-says-us-military-aid-to-taiwan-will-not-deter-its-will-to-unify-the-island/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Legion Baseball: Minico’s season comes to an end at State Tournament
The Storm fell to Idaho Falls JNS in Nampa on Saturday to conclude their season.
Published: Jul. 29, 2023 at 10:47 PM MDT|Updated: 29 minutes ago
NAMPA, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The Minico Storm Legion baseball team was in Nampa on Saturday for the Legion A State Tournament.
Unfortunately for the Storm their State Tournament run came to an end at the hands of Idaho Falls JNS.
The Storm allowed six first inning runs and weren’t able to recover and fell to Idaho Falls 12-1.
Copyright 2023 KMVT. All rights reserved. | https://www.kmvt.com/2023/07/30/legion-baseball-minicos-season-comes-an-end-state-tournament/ | 2023-07-30T05:17:22 | 0 | https://www.kmvt.com/2023/07/30/legion-baseball-minicos-season-comes-an-end-state-tournament/ |
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia will host a Ukrainian-organized peace summit in early August seeking to find a way to start negotiations over Russia’s war on the country, an official said Saturday night. The kingdom and Kyiv did not immediately acknowledge the planned talks.
The summit will be held in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as no authorization had been given to publicly discuss the summit.
Those taking part in the summit will include Ukraine, as well as Brazil, India, South Africa and several other countries, the official said. A high-level official from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration also is expected to attend, the official said. Planning for the event is being overseen by Kyiv and Russia is not invited, the official said.
Details regarding the summit, however, remain in flux and the official did not offer dates for the talks. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the summit, said the talks would take place Aug. 5 and 6 with some 30 countries attending, citing “diplomats involved in the discussion.”
Saudi officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press, nor did Ukraine’s Embassy in Riyadh. News of the summit comes after U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan visited the kingdom on Thursday.
The official who spoke to the AP said the summit would be the next step after talks that took place in Copenhagen in June.
Saudi Arabia’s hosting of the talks come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in May attended an Arab League summit in Jeddah to press those nations to back Kyiv. Arab nations largely have remained neutral since Russia launched the war on Ukraine in February 2022, in part over their military and economic ties to Moscow.
Saudi Arabia also has maintained a close relationship with Russia as part of the OPEC+ group. The organization’s oil production cuts, even as Moscow’s war on Ukraine boosted energy prices, have angered Biden and American lawmakers.
But hosting such talks also help raise the profile of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has sought to reach a détente with Iran and push for a peace in the kingdom’s yearslong war in Yemen. However, ties also remain strained between Riyadh and the West over the 2018 killing and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, which U.S. intelligence agencies assess that Prince Mohammed ordered.
___
Madhani reported from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/official-tells-ap-that-saudi-arabia-will-host-a-ukrainian-organized-peace-summit-in-august/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:28 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/official-tells-ap-that-saudi-arabia-will-host-a-ukrainian-organized-peace-summit-in-august/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Swim, bike, run: 37th Burley Lions Spudman Triathlon
This year’s winner became a three-time Spudman champion.
BURLEY, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — The Burley Lions held their 37th Spudman Triathlon on Saturday morning, July 29, and nearly 2,000 triathletes came out to compete in the event.
The triathlon began at 6:50 a.m. At River’s Edge Golf Club with a nearly one mile, current-aided swim down the Snake River.
After completing the swim, some triathletes opted for a change of clothes in the bike storage area before heading out on the 25-mile bike ride around the city.
The bike ride concluded back at River’s Edge Golf Club where once again competitors stored their bikes before beginning the final 10k or 6.2 mile run before crossing the finish line.
This year’s winner won for a third straight time while also dealing with some injuries from a bike accident one month ago.
“I actually had an a/c joint separation in my shoulder and fractured my sacrum, so this is really the first time running in like a month,” said Spudman winner Travis Wood. “It was pretty painful pretty much the whole run to be honest. I’m definitely feeling it, but I’m feeling good, happy.”
Wood won the event this year with a time of 1:47:27.
It took him 15 minutes for the swim, a blazing 53 minutes for the 25-mile bike ride and ran the 10k in 37 minutes.
Copyright 2023 KMVT. All rights reserved. | https://www.kmvt.com/2023/07/30/swim-bike-run-37th-burley-lions-spudman-triathlon/ | 2023-07-30T05:17:28 | 0 | https://www.kmvt.com/2023/07/30/swim-bike-run-37th-burley-lions-spudman-triathlon/ |
Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure for traffic of one of four airports around the Russian capital.
It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fueling concerns about Moscow’s vulnerability to attacks as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.
The Russian Defense Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defense systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district in the capital.
Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.
No flights went into or out of the Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the air space over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed for any aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.
Moscow authorities have also closed a street for traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who rarely if ever take responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside Moscow on Friday. Two more drones struck the Russian capital on Monday, one of them falling in the center of the city near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters along the Moscow River about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.
In another attack on July 4, the Russian military said four drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and a fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down. | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/world/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-prompts-temporary-airport-closure/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:34 | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/world/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-prompts-temporary-airport-closure/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Wells Plastic Surgery & Skin Care is celebrating 35 years in Lexington. They help women and men look and feel their best with the latest surgical and non-surgical procedures, from facials to facelifts. To learn more about their services, call (859) 255-6649 or visit https://www.wellsplasticsurgery.com/.
Posted at 12:15 AM, Jul 30, 2023
and last updated 2023-07-30 00:15:51-04
Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/beauty-in-the-bluegrass-with-wells-plastic-surgery-skin-care | 2023-07-30T05:17:34 | 1 | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/beauty-in-the-bluegrass-with-wells-plastic-surgery-skin-care |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Shawn Steik and his wife were forced from a long-term motel room onto the streets of Anchorage after their rent shot up to $800 a month. Now they live in a tent encampment by a train depot, and as an Alaska winter looms they are growing desperate and fearful of what lies ahead.
A proposal last week by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson to buy one-way plane tickets out of Alaska’s biggest city for its homeless residents gave Steik a much-needed glimmer of hope. He would move to the relative warmth of Seattle.
“I heard it’s probably warmer than this place,” said Steik, who is Aleut.
But the mayor’s unfunded idea also came under immediate attack as a Band-Aid solution glossing over the tremendous, and still unaddressed, crisis facing Anchorage as a swelling homeless population struggles to survive in a unique and extreme environment. Frigid temperatures stalk the homeless in the winter and bears infiltrate homeless encampments in the summer.
A record eight people died of exposure while living outside last winter and this year promises to be worse after the city closed an arena that housed 500 people during the winter months. Bickering between the city’s liberal assembly and its conservative mayor about how to address the crisis, and a lack of state funding, have further stymied efforts to find a solution.
With winter fast approaching in Alaska, it’s “past time for state and local leaders to address the underlying causes of homelessness — airplane tickets are a distraction, not a solution,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska said in a statement to The Associated Press.
About 43% of Anchorage’s more than 3,000 unsheltered residents are Alaska Natives, and Bronson’s proposal also drew harsh criticism from those who called it culturally insensitive.
“The reality is there is no place to send these people because this is their land. Any policy that we make has to pay credence to that simple fact. This is Dena’ina land, this is Native land,” said Christopher Constant, chair of the Anchorage Assembly. “And so we cannot be supporting policies that would take people and displace them from their home, even if their home is not what you or I would call home.”
Bronson’s airfare proposal caps a turbulent few years as Anchorage, like many cities in the U.S. West, struggles to deal with a burgeoning homeless population.
In May, the city shut down the 500-bed homeless shelter in the city’s arena so it could once more be used for concerts and hockey games after neighbors complained about open drug use, trespassing, violence and litter. A plan to build a large shelter and navigation center fell through when Bronson approved a contract without approval from the Anchorage Assembly.
That leaves a gaping hole in the city’s ability to house the thousands of homeless people who have to contend with temperatures well below zero for days at a time and unrelenting winds blasting off Cook Inlet. At the end of June, Anchorage was estimated to have a little more than 3,150 homeless people, according to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. Last week, there were only 614 beds at shelters citywide, with no vacancies.
New tent cities have sprung up across Anchorage this summer: on a slope facing the city’s historic railroad depot, on a busy road near the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson and near soup kitchens and shelters downtown.
Assembly members are slated to consider a winter stop-gap option in August falling far short of the need: a large, warmed, tent-like structure for 150 people.
Summer brings its own challenges: hungry bears last year roamed a city-owned campground where homeless people were resettled after the arena closed. Wildlife officials killed four bears after they broke into tents.
Bronson said he prefers to spend a few hundred dollars per person for a plane ticket rather than spending about $100 daily to shelter and feed them. He said he doesn’t care where they want to go; his job is to “make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets.”
It’s not clear if his proposal will move forward. There is not yet a plan or a funding source.
Dr. Ted Mala, an Inupiaq who in 1990 became the first Alaska Native to serve as the state’s health commissioner, said Anchorage should be working with social workers and law enforcement to discover people’s individual reasons for homelessness and connect them with resources.
Buying the unsheltered a ticket to another city is a political game that’s been around for years. A number of U.S. cities struggling with homelessness, including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, have also offered bus or plane tickets to homeless residents.
“People are not pawns, they’re human beings,” Mala said.
The mayor’s proposal, while focused on warmer cities, also would fund tickets to other Alaska locations for those who want them.
Clarita Clark became homeless after her medical team wanted her to move from Point Hope to Anchorage for cancer treatment because Anchorage is warmer. The medical facility wouldn’t allow her husband to stay with her, so they pitched a tent in a sprawling camp to stay together.
Having recently found the body of a dead teenager who overdosed in a portable toilet, Clark yearns to return to the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Point Hope, where her three grandchildren live.
“I got a family that loves me,” she said, adding she would use the ticket and seek treatment closer to home.
Danny Parish also is leaving Alaska, but for another reason: He’s fed up.
Parish is selling his home of 29 years because it sits directly across the street from Sullivan Arena. Bad acts by some homeless people — including harassment, throwing vodka bottles in his yard, poisoning his dog and using his driveway as a toilet — made his life “a holy hell,” he said.
Parish is convinced the arena will be used again this winter since there isn’t another plan.
He, too, hopes to move to the contiguous U.S. — Oregon, for starters — but not before asking Anchorage leaders for his own plane ticket out.
“If they’re going to give them to everybody else,” Parish said, “then they need to give me one.” | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:40 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Some of the biggest names in professional tennis, from Naomi Osaka to Frances Tiafoe, have competed in the Lexington Challenger. This year's tournament will be on July 30 through August 6 at the Hilary J. Boone Tennis Complex on the University of Kentucky campus. Jennifer Palumbo takes you there to talk to 2022 champion Katie Swan and tournament director Diane Atchison. Get more information at https://lexingtonchallenger.com/.
Posted at 12:08 AM, Jul 30, 2023
and last updated 2023-07-30 00:08:49-04
Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/lexington-challenger-tennis-tournament | 2023-07-30T05:17:41 | 0 | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/lexington-challenger-tennis-tournament |
Our Mug Shot of the Week is a beautiful double rainbow from April Milby in Harrodsburg. She wins an LEX 18 coffee mug for sharing it. If you have a photo that captures the beauty of Kentucky, email it to bestofthebluegrass@wlex.tv for your chance to be our Mug Shot of the Week.
Posted at 12:18 AM, Jul 30, 2023
and last updated 2023-07-30 00:18:29-04
Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/mug-shot-of-the-week-april-milby | 2023-07-30T05:17:47 | 1 | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/mug-shot-of-the-week-april-milby |
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Terence Crawford knocked down Errol Spence Jr. three times Saturday night before finally ending the fight at 2:32 of the ninth round on a technical knockout to cement himself as one of the greatest welterweights in history.
The fight, the most-anticipated boxing match in several years, unified the division for the first time in the four-belt era that began in 2004.
Crawford (40-0, 31 knockouts) already owned the WBO belt, and took the WBC, WBA and IBF titles from Spence (28-1). Crawford also ran his KO streak to 11 matches, the second-longest active stretch.
Crawford, 35, has won titles in super lightweight and lightweight in addition to welterweight, capturing the latter after moving up in 2018. The Omaha, Nebraska, fighter became the first male boxer to become the undisputed champion in two divisions in the four-belt era.
“I only dreamed of being a world champion,” Crawford said. “I’m an over-achiever. Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer. I want to thank Spence and his team because without him none of this would have been possible.”
A big fight night on the Strip still brings out the stars, with recording artists Cardi B and Andre 3000 of Outkast, actor and Las Vegas resident Mark Walhberg, NBA star Damian Lillard and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at T-Mobile Arena. They were among the celebrities that also included former boxing champions such as Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Eminem introduced Crawford and his song “Lose Yourself” played as he walked into the ring before a sellout crowd of 19,990 at T-Mobile Arena.
Spence was the aggressor early on, but Crawford sent him to the floor with a right hand with 20 seconds left in the second round. Then Crawford went after Spence, but time ran out before he could finish him off.
Crawford, a minus-154 favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, then took control of the fight, landing several major blows, often on counters. But Crawford also picked his spots to go after Spence, his punching power taking a heavy toll.
“He was just better tonight,” Spence said. “I make no excuses. He was throwing a harder jab. He was timing with his jab, and he had his timing down on point.”
In the seventh round, Crawford knocked down Spence twice — with a short right at 1:02 and with another right with just a second left.
The fight was essentially over at that point, though Crawford backed off in the eighth round. He came roaring back in the ninth to end it for sure.
“They said I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t beat these welterweights,” Crawford said. “I just kept my head to the sky and kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world how great Terence Crawford is. Tonight, I believe I showed how great I am.”
Spence, however, said he would be up for a rematch.
“We’ve got to do it again,” Spence said. “I would be a lot better.”
The 33-year-old Spence who lives in DeSoto, Texas, won the IBF title in 2017, claimed the WBC championship in 2019 and took the WBA championship last year.
In the co-main event, Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz (25-2-1) of Mexico beat Chicago resident Giovanni Cabrera (21-1) by split decision in a WBC and WBA lightweight match. Judges Benoit Roussel (114-113) and Don Trella (115-112) scored the fight in favor of Cruz, and Glenn Feldman gave Cabrera the fight by a 114-113 score. Cruz had a point deducted because of a head butt.
Also, Alexandro Santiago (28-3-5) of Mexico won the vacant WBC bantamweight title with a 115-113, 116-112, 116-12 decision over Nonito Donaire (42-8), who lives in Las Vegas.
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AP boxing: https://apnews.com/hub/boxing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/crawford-unifies-welterweight-division-with-9th-round-tko-in-dominant-performance-over-spence/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:47 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/crawford-unifies-welterweight-division-with-9th-round-tko-in-dominant-performance-over-spence/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
The Shaker Village Craft Fair is one of Kentucky's premier craft events. More than 80 vendors from the Bluegrass and beyond will share their talents for pottery, jewelry, artwork, leather goods, and more. Jennifer Palumbo takes a trip to Harrodsburg to talk to retail sales manager Lorrin Ingerson about the 26th annual event that also features great food and live music. The Craft Fair is August 5 and 6 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For more information, call (859) 734-5411 or visit https://shakervillageky.org/events/2023-craft-fair/
Posted at 12:11 AM, Jul 30, 2023
and last updated 2023-07-30 00:11:38-04
Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/shaker-village-gets-ready-for-26th-annual-craft-fair | 2023-07-30T05:17:53 | 0 | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/shaker-village-gets-ready-for-26th-annual-craft-fair |
FUKUOKA, Japan (AP) — The American swim team has had a so-so meet at the world championships in Japan. Meanwhile, Australia and China have been pouring it on.
The American gold-medal count at the worlds is the lowest in at least two decades, although the overall medal count of gold, silver, and bronze, is similar to most years.
“Obviously, we’d like to win more gold medals and I think we will,” American coach Bob Bowman said going into Sunday’s final day.
The slight predicament for Bowman is that two of the swimmers he coaches at Arizona State University, Leon Marchand of France and Hungary’s Hubert Kos, have won four gold medals. Marchand has three, and he’s sure to be a star in next year’s Paris Olympic, and Kos has one.
That’s the same gold-medal total for the entire American team through seven of eight days — four gold. The average for the Americans over the last nine championships has been about 15 golds.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, two of the first three questions Bowman fielded were about Marchand and Kos, from French and Hungarian news outlets.
“If you look at swimming, every coach on the U.S. team is coaching a foreign swimmer, an international swimmer. There’s always that dynamic,” said Bowman, who has legendary status for helping Michael Phelps win 23 Olympic gold medals.”
Bowman was cautious about taking credit for Kos, who came to Arizona State late last year. He went from being a good individual medley swimmer to a world champion a few days ago in the 200-meter backstroke.
“I think it’s just the Bob Bowman effect,” said Kos, son of an American father and Hungarian mother. ”That’s as simple as it is.”
He said Bowman had a “magic” touch.“
Bowman played down his role.
“He (Kos) had an excellent coach at home for 10 years before me,” Bowman said. “He deserved the credit for this. I just helped a little bit at the end.”
Swimming is an individual sport, separate from team sports like soccer. It would be unthinkable for the coach of Real Madrid to be also coaching Barcelona players on the side. But it’s normal in swimming, and Bowman said he was “ethically” comfortable with it.
“I mean, the bottom line is I get paid to coach these guys at ASU,” he said. “I’m representing my country for the love of my country and happy to do that. I don’t think there’s an ethical question. It’s not a zero-sum. I’m not taking away from the US guys.”
He said he was interested in coaching the Americans at next year’s Olympics, but suggested any decision was still pending.
“I don’t think we know yet,” he said. “I have to go through this week, get home, think about what the scenarios look (like) and then we’ll decide. I always want to do. But we’ll see how it goes.”
___
AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/legendary-coach-bob-bowman-keeps-turning-out-winning-swimmers-and-not-just-americans/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:53 | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/legendary-coach-bob-bowman-keeps-turning-out-winning-swimmers-and-not-just-americans/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
Enjoy your golden years in style at Preston Greens Senior Living in Lexington. Residents can enjoy the good life with an in-house restaurant, movie theater, library, salon, dog park, putting green and more. Preston Greens offers personal care and memory care as well as physical therapy. Jennifer Palumbo takes you there to learn more from executive director Kristi Peters. Preston Greens is located at 1825 Little Herb Way in Hamburg. To schedule a tour, call (859) 309-1897 or visit https://prestongreensseniorliving.com/.
Posted at 12:13 AM, Jul 30, 2023
and last updated 2023-07-30 00:13:45-04
Copyright 2023 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/the-good-life-at-preston-greens-senior-living | 2023-07-30T05:17:59 | 0 | https://www.lex18.com/community/best-of-the-bluegrass/the-good-life-at-preston-greens-senior-living |
Adelaide, Australia (AP) — Stepping onto the field against South Korea in Morocco’s second Women’s World Cup match, defender Nouhaila Benzina made history as the first player to wear a hijab while competing at a senior-level global tournament.
A FIFA ban on playing in religious head coverings in its sanctioned games for “health and safety reasons” was overturned in 2014 after advocacy from activists, athletes and government and soccer officials.
“I have no doubt that more and more women and Muslim girls will look at Benzina and just really be inspired – not just the players, but I think decision makers, coaches, other sports as well,” said Assmaah Helal, a co-founder of the Muslim Women in Sports Network.
Benzina plays professional club soccer for the Association’s Sports of Forces Armed Royal – the eight-time defending champion in Morocco’s top women’s league. She did not play in Morocco’s opening 6-0 loss to Germany in Melbourne, and had to wait six days to finally get her start in the Group H game in Adelaide.
Morocco is the first Arab or North African nation to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.
The Atlas Lionesses were ranked No. 72 in the world ahead of the tournament and were overwhelmed by two-time champion Germany, which is ranked second. But the Morocco team played with more freedom in an afternoon game against South Korea, and scored the opening goal.
“We are honored to be the first Arab country to take part in the Women’s World Cup,” Morocco captain Ghizlane Chebbak told reporters before tournament, “and we feel that we have to shoulder a big responsibility to give a good image, to show the achievements the Moroccan team has made.”
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Cassidy Hettesheimer contributed to this report from Melbourne, Australia.
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Hettesheimer is a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
___
AP Women’s World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/soccer/moroccos-benzina-becomes-the-first-senior-level-womens-world-cup-player-to-compete-in-hijab/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:17:59 | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/soccer/moroccos-benzina-becomes-the-first-senior-level-womens-world-cup-player-to-compete-in-hijab/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
SYDNEY (AP) — Some of the biggest names in soccer have yet to show up at the Women’s World Cup.
That’s literally been the case of Australian star Sam Kerr, who missed the first two games with a calf injury.
Kerr has recovered in time to play for Australia in a crucial final Group B game against Canada on Monday. The Matildas need to beat the Canadians to ensure they advance to the knockout round, and the Chelsea striker’s return to the lineup brings needed energy to the team.
“Mentally, it’s massive. It brings so much to our team and obviously also a lot to the opposition knowing that we have Sam available for this game,” Australia defender Ellie Carpenter said.
Kerr’s injury on the eve of Australia’s opening game against Ireland set the tone for a tournament that hasn’t been kind to some of its biggest stars. She was the face of co-host Australia’s preparations for the tournament, which is also being staged in New Zealand.
She dominated the covers of magazines across newsstands, while the autobiography she released late last year chronicled her rise to become arguably the best player in the women’s game right now. Kerr’s popularity transcends women’s soccer and she is considered a national icon.
So the disappointment was palpable when news broke about an hour before the opening match that Kerr was going to be sidelined at least two games in this tournament.
Kerr’s absence was felt in the 3-2 loss to Nigeria in Australia’s second game, a loss that put the Matildas in danger of elimination. It is not known what her role will be against Canada, but Australia needs Kerr to deliver in the final game of group play.
“I’m definitely going to be available, but how we decide to use that is not to be given to the opposition,” said Kerr.
The World Cup is supposed to be a showcase for the finest talent and biggest names, but injuries have always robbed the tournament of some its star players.
Norway forward Ada Hegerberg has had her playing time curtailed. Often referred to as “the Lionel Messi of women’s soccer,” Hederberg was part of a Norway’s 1-0 upset loss to New Zealand in the opening game of the World Cup.
It got worse for the 2018 Ballon d’Or winner when she suffered a groin injury in the warm-up ahead of Norway’s game against Switzerland, and she’s been ruled out of the final Group A game against the Philippines.
Keira Walsh of England suffered a knee injury against Denmark that will sidenline her for the Lionesses’ final Group D game against China. Described as irreplaceable, it is not known how much she will be able to play.
Even for some stars who have seen plenty of playing time, it has been difficult to make an impact.
American icon Alex Morgan has underwhelmed so far at her fourth World Cup, where she is hoping to help the United States to an unprecedented third consecutive title.
Morgan, the co-leading scorer at the last World Cup, has yet to score at this year’s event and missed a penalty in the 3-0 win against Vietnam. U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski said Morgan was adapting to playing in a forward line with Sophia Smith and Trinity Rodman.
“I think it’s not hard to realize that Alex’s role is slightly different than the Alex that we’re used to maybe in the past,” Andonovski said. “She does set up the other two forwards a lot more. It’s not that she’s not capable of scoring goals or getting behind crosses, but we can also see her playing balls to Trinity and Soph, but also getting crosses for them as well.”
Morgan, at 34, is now one of the older players at the tournament.
Christine Sinclair of Canada is also searching for first goal of the tournament. Sinclair is highest scorer in international soccer — men or women — with 190 goals.
Like Morgan, she also missed a penalty, in a 0-0 draw with Nigeria that could still prove costly. She was benched for Canada’s second game against Ireland before coming in as a substitute at halftime as the gold medalist from the Tokyo Olympics logged a come-from-behind 2-1 win.
At 40 years old, Sinclair is having to accept a more limited role for Canada.
Brazil great Marta, at 37, has also been used sparingly in her sixth World Cup.
Her teammate, Debinha, who is also an iconic figure to Brazil fans, has been one of the standout players for her country so far. But she wasn’t able to stop a 2-1 loss to France on Saturday despite scoring in that match.
The gap appears to be closing in the women’s game, with underdogs proving more of a test for the more established nations. That’s one reason some of the big name stars have yet to impress in tournament.
One of the few standouts who has not disappointed so far has been Alexandra Popp, who scored twice in Germany’s 6-0 rout of Morocco.
Major tournaments are traditionally a mix of rising talents coming to the surface, while established stars have the chance to confirm their status among the greats.
Linda Caicedo of Colombia, Lauren James of England and Melchie Dumornay of Haiti have proven their worth as some of the brightest prospects in the game. But as the second round of games nears its completion, it feels like the tournament is still waiting for many of its big hitters to make an impact.
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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
___
More AP Women’s World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/soccer/some-of-soccers-biggest-stars-are-struggling-to-make-an-impact-at-the-womens-world-cup/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all | 2023-07-30T05:18:05 | 1 | https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/soccer/some-of-soccers-biggest-stars-are-struggling-to-make-an-impact-at-the-womens-world-cup/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all |
LAKELAND, Fla. — Lakeland police say they're investigating a shooting that killed one man and critically injured another woman in the parking lot of a club.
The shooting reportedly happened just before 2 am on Saturday at the Jade Fox Lounge.
A statement from the Lakeland Police Department said 2 officers were on the scene when a 'disturbance erupted' in the parking lot followed by gunshots.
The statement also said that emergency medical professionals pronounced one of the victims, a 25-year-old man, dead shortly after he was driven to the hospital in a personal vehicle. An ambulance drove the second victim, a 48-year-old woman, to the hospital with serious injuries. She is still hospitalized.
Police arrested 23-year-old Jamilah Johnson. They claim they also found a gun on the scene which someone had reported stolen in 2015. They have charged Johnson with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
The investigation is ongoing, and police say they're still gathering evidence and trying to determine if anyone else was involved.
Investigators are asking anyone who may have information to contact Detective Neal Robertson at neal.roberston@lakelandgov.net | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/crime/man-killed-woman-injured-in-shooting-at-lakeland-club/67-141d3f74-e78d-4f77-b06e-d23253fefc7f | 2023-07-30T05:19:09 | 1 | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/crime/man-killed-woman-injured-in-shooting-at-lakeland-club/67-141d3f74-e78d-4f77-b06e-d23253fefc7f |
A nurse from New Hampshire now living in Haiti was kidnapped with her child near the Caribbean nation’s capital Thursday morning, according to the Christian humanitarian group she works for.
El Roi Haiti Outreach International said the woman, Alix Dorsainvil, 31, is the wife of the organization’s director, Sandro Dorsainvil.
She was kidnapped with their child from the nonprofit’s campus near Port-au-Prince “while serving in our community ministry,” El Roi Haiti president and co-founder Jason Brown said in an e-mail Saturday.
“Alix is a deeply compassionate and loving person who considers Haiti her home and the Haitian people her friends and family,” Brown wrote. “Alix has worked tirelessly as our school and community nurse to bring relief to those who are suffering as she loves and serves the people of Haiti in the name of Jesus.”
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The organization declined to release further information Saturday.
The US State Department on Friday confirmed it was “aware of reports of the kidnapping of two U.S. citizens in Haiti.”
“We are in regular contact with Haitian authorities and will continue to work with them and our U.S. government interagency partners,” a department spokesperson said. “We have nothing further to share at this time.”
US officials said kidnappings are “widespread” in Haiti, a nation that has spiraled into turmoil and gang violence since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and a devastating earthquake the following month.
Officials said kidnapping victims “regularly include U.S. citizens” and local police “generally lack the resources to respond effectively to serious criminal incidents.”
The State Department on Thursday issued a “do not travel” advisory for Haiti and ordered all non-emergency government employees and their families to leave the country, citing widespread gang violence and attacks targeting US travelers.
US citizens were urged to evacuate “as soon as possible by commercial or other privately available transportation options.”
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“The U.S. government is extremely limited in its ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Haiti,” the US embassy said in an alert Thursday.
Embassy workers had been under orders since last Sunday to remain at the embassy or residential compounds due to “gang activity and incidents of gunfire,” according to security alerts posted on the embassy’s website.
Officials said kidnappings often involve ransom negotiations, and families have paid thousands of dollars to get their family members back.
“Kidnappers may use sophisticated planning or take advantage of unplanned opportunities, and even convoys have been attacked,” officials said in the embassy’s alert.
The National Human Rights Defense Network warned of a surge in kidnappings and killings in Haiti two weeks ago, reporting that at least 40 people had been abducted and 75 killed from May 1 to July 12.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters at a news conference in Australia that the Biden administration has a “very deep concern for the situation” in Haiti, “particularly with regard to the violence and the activities of the gangs.”
The U.N. Security Council this month called for an international security force to strengthen law enforcement in Haiti.
Alix Dorsainvil is listed on El Roi Haiti’s website as the organization’s community health nurse. Beneath the listing is a picture of Alix and Sandro Dorsainvil smiling with their arms around each other, alongside a video where Alix talks about her work with the organization.
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“My name is Alix. I’m a nurse from New Hampshire, but now I live in Haiti,” she says in the video. “Sandro invited me to come to the school to do some nursing for some of the kids. He said that was a big need they had.”
Alix Dorsainvil graduated with a degree in nursing from Regis College in Weston in 2014, according to the Washington Post. The school’s president, Antoinette Hays, told the Post that Regis has held programs in Haiti for more than a decade and was not surprised Dorsainvil chose to work in the country given the school’s ties there.
Regis officials did not immediately respond to a message from the Globe seeking comment Saturday night.
Sandro Dorsainvil lived in poverty while growing up in Port-au-Prince and taught himself English and Spanish by ninth grade, leading to several translating jobs in Haiti, according to El Roi Haiti’s website. A family he assisted at an adoption agency invited him to finish high school in Montana, where he graduated from Lustre Christian High School in 2014, according to the organization.
He went on to earn a degree in Developmental Psychology & Biblical Counseling from Liberty University in 2018, according to the organization’s website. He then began working with El Roi ministries and founded El Roi Academy, which seeks to provide “a quality Christian education” to children in Haiti.
“Students receive a quality education and a hot meal every day, regardless of their family’s capability to afford tuition,” the organization’s website says.
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The school currently has 390 students enrolled in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, according to the website.
A Lustre High School alumni newsletter from 2021 reported Sandro Dorsainvil had married Alix Comeau in Haiti on Jan. 2 of that year. The newsletter said they have an adopted son and are fostering two girls.
Material from the Washington Post was used in this report.
Nick Stoico can be reached at nick.stoico@globe.com. Follow him @NickStoico. | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/30/metro/nurse-nh-kidnapped-with-her-child-haiti-nonprofit-says/ | 2023-07-30T05:19:09 | 1 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/30/metro/nurse-nh-kidnapped-with-her-child-haiti-nonprofit-says/ |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Shawn Steik and his wife were forced from a long-term motel room onto the streets of Anchorage after their rent shot up to $800 a month. Now they live in a tent encampment by a train depot, and as an Alaska winter looms they are growing desperate and fearful of what lies ahead.
A proposal last week by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson to buy one-way plane tickets out of Alaska’s biggest city for its homeless residents gave Steik a much-needed glimmer of hope. He would move to the relative warmth of Seattle.
“I heard it’s probably warmer than this place,” said Steik, who is Aleut.
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But the mayor's unfunded idea also came under immediate attack as a Band-Aid solution glossing over the tremendous, and still unaddressed, crisis facing Anchorage as a swelling homeless population struggles to survive in a unique and extreme environment. Frigid temperatures stalk the homeless in the winter and bears infiltrate homeless encampments in the summer.
A record eight people died of exposure while living outside last winter and this year promises to be worse after the city closed an arena that housed 500 people during the winter months. Bickering between the city’s liberal assembly and its conservative mayor about how to address the crisis, and a lack of state funding, have further stymied efforts to find a solution.
With winter fast approaching in Alaska, it's “past time for state and local leaders to address the underlying causes of homelessness — airplane tickets are a distraction, not a solution,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska said in a statement to The Associated Press.
About 43% of Anchorage’s more than 3,000 unsheltered residents are Alaska Natives, and Bronson’s proposal also drew harsh criticism from those who called it culturally insensitive.
“The reality is there is no place to send these people because this is their land. Any policy that we make has to pay credence to that simple fact. This is Dena’ina land, this is Native land," said Christopher Constant, chair of the Anchorage Assembly. "And so we cannot be supporting policies that would take people and displace them from their home, even if their home is not what you or I would call home.”
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Bronson's airfare proposal caps a turbulent few years as Anchorage, like many cities in the U.S. West, struggles to deal with a burgeoning homeless population.
In May, the city shut down the 500-bed homeless shelter in the city's arena so it could once more be used for concerts and hockey games after neighbors complained about open drug use, trespassing, violence and litter. A plan to build a large shelter and navigation center fell through when Bronson approved a contract without approval from the Anchorage Assembly.
That leaves a gaping hole in the city’s ability to house the thousands of homeless people who have to contend with temperatures well below zero for days at a time and unrelenting winds blasting off Cook Inlet. At the end of June, Anchorage was estimated to have a little more than 3,150 homeless people, according to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. Last week, there were only 614 beds at shelters citywide, with no vacancies.
New tent cities have sprung up across Anchorage this summer: on a slope facing the city’s historic railroad depot, on a busy road near the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson and near soup kitchens and shelters downtown.
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Assembly members are slated to consider a winter stop-gap option in August falling far short of the need: a large, warmed, tent-like structure for 150 people.
Summer brings its own challenges: hungry bears last year roamed a city-owned campground where homeless people were resettled after the arena closed. Wildlife officials killed four bears after they broke into tents.
Bronson said he prefers to spend a few hundred dollars per person for a plane ticket rather than spending about $100 daily to shelter and feed them. He said he doesn’t care where they want to go; his job is to “make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets.”
It’s not clear if his proposal will move forward. There is not yet a plan or a funding source.
Dr. Ted Mala, an Inupiaq who in 1990 became the first Alaska Native to serve as the state’s health commissioner, said Anchorage should be working with social workers and law enforcement to discover people’s individual reasons for homelessness and connect them with resources.
Buying the unsheltered a ticket to another city is a political game that's been around for years. A number of U.S. cities struggling with homelessness, including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, have also offered bus or plane tickets to homeless residents.
“People are not pawns, they’re human beings,” Mala said.
The mayor's proposal, while focused on warmer cities, also would fund tickets to other Alaska locations for those who want them.
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Clarita Clark became homeless after her medical team wanted her to move from Point Hope to Anchorage for cancer treatment because Anchorage is warmer. The medical facility wouldn't allow her husband to stay with her, so they pitched a tent in a sprawling camp to stay together.
Having recently found the body of a dead teenager who overdosed in a portable toilet, Clark yearns to return to the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Point Hope, where her three grandchildren live.
“I got a family that loves me," she said, adding she would use the ticket and seek treatment closer to home.
Danny Parish also is leaving Alaska, but for another reason: He's fed up.
Parish is selling his home of 29 years because it sits directly across the street from Sullivan Arena. Bad acts by some homeless people — including harassment, throwing vodka bottles in his yard, poisoning his dog and using his driveway as a toilet — made his life “a holy hell," he said.
Parish is convinced the arena will be used again this winter since there isn't another plan.
He, too, hopes to move to the contiguous U.S. — Oregon, for starters — but not before asking Anchorage leaders for his own plane ticket out.
“If they’re going to give them to everybody else,” Parish said, “then they need to give me one.” | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/30/nation/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-bears-plan-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-bigger-crisis/ | 2023-07-30T05:19:15 | 0 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/30/nation/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-bears-plan-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-bigger-crisis/ |
PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — State officials are demanding that Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Manny Diaz revise the new African American history standards. They were approved last week.
As a history teacher in Dunedin, Brandt Robinson said the revisions will make his job very different this school year.
"We have a lot of teachers who really have scaled back on the way they would normally teach about plantation slavery," Robinson said.
Robinson said sixth graders will see changes when talking about specific massacres, and there is language which suggests slaves developed skills which could be applied for their personal benefit.
"Is the motivation to have students walk away thinking, 'well racial slavery wasn’t that bad, at least people learned something', and that’s quite disturbing," Robinson explained.
Some state lawmakers believe the revisions are harmful and factually incorrect.
"I’m just so dismayed that that these standards were put into place without any real thought," Florida State Representative Dianne Hart said.
Hart wants to see Governor DeSantis and Commissioner Diaz make changes. "We want that language taken out," Hart said.
The Department of Education has defended the standards. 10 Tampa Bay reached out to the Department of Education and the Governor's office for their response to the letter from the Florida Legislative Black Caucus. Once we get a response, we will update this article. | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/politics/florida-black-caucus-demands-revisions-to-black-history-standards/67-c9e908b7-5eff-499f-a1ec-702e7b32d311 | 2023-07-30T05:19:15 | 1 | https://www.wtsp.com/article/news/politics/florida-black-caucus-demands-revisions-to-black-history-standards/67-c9e908b7-5eff-499f-a1ec-702e7b32d311 |
Today is Sunday, July 30, the 211th day of 2023. There are 154 days left in the year.
Today’s Birthdays: Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is 89. Blues musician Buddy Guy is 87. Feminist activist Eleanor Smeal is 84. Singer Paul Anka is 82. Jazz musician David Sanborn is 78. Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is 76. Actor William Atherton is 76. Actor Jean Reno is 75. Blues singer-musician Otis Taylor is 75. Actor Frank Stallone is 73. Actor Ken Olin is 69. Actor Delta Burke is 67. Law professor Anita Hill is 67. Singer-songwriter Kate Bush is 65. Country singer Neal McCoy is 65. Actor Richard Burgi is 65. Movie director Richard Linklater is 63. Actor Laurence Fishburne is 62. Actor Lisa Kudrow is 60. Bluegrass musician Danny Roberts (The Grascals) is 60. Country musician Dwayne O’Brien is 60. Actor Vivica A. Fox is 59. Actor Terry Crews is 55. Actor Simon Baker is 54. Actor Donnie Keshawarz is 54. Movie director Christopher Nolan is 53. Actor Tom Green is 52. Rock musician Brad Hargreaves (Third Eye Blind) is 52. Actor Christine Taylor is 52. Actor-comedian Dean Edwards is 50. Actor Hilary Swank is 49. Olympic gold medal beach volleyball player Misty May-Treanor is 46. Former soccer player Hope Solo is 42. Actor Yvonne Strahovski is 41. Actor Martin Starr is 41. Actor Gina Rodriguez is 39. Actor Joey King is 24.
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In 1619, the first representative assembly in America convened in Jamestown in the Virginia Colony.
In 1729, Baltimore, Maryland, was founded.
In 1864, during the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Virginia, by exploding a gunpowder-laden mine shaft beneath Confederate defense lines; the attack failed.
In 1916, German saboteurs blew up a munitions plant on Black Tom, an island near Jersey City, New Jersey, killing about a dozen people.
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In 1918, poet Joyce Kilmer, a sergeant in the 165th US Infantry Regiment, was killed during the Second Battle of the Marne in World War I. Kilmer is remembered for his poem “Trees.”
In 1945, the Portland class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, having just delivered components of the atomic bomb to Tinian in the Mariana Islands during World War II, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine; only 317 out of nearly 1,200 men survived.
In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a measure making “In God We Trust” the national motto, replacing “E Pluribus Unum.”
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a measure creating Medicare, which began operating the following year.
In 1980, Israel’s Knesset passed a law reaffirming all of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.
In 2008, ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was extradited to The Hague to face genocide charges after nearly 13 years on the run. (He was sentenced by a UN court in 2019 to life imprisonment after being convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.)
In 2010, the Afghan Taliban confirmed the death of longtime leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and appointed his successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
In 2013, US Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning was acquitted of aiding the enemy — the most serious charge she faced — but was convicted of espionage, theft and other charges at Fort Meade, Maryland, more than three years after she’d spilled secrets to WikiLeaks. (The former intelligence analyst was later sentenced to up to 35 years in prison, but the sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama in his final days in office.) Harry F. Byrd, a newspaper publisher who served as governor of Virginia then Senator for the state for more than 30 years, leading the Senate’s conservative coalition in opposition to the New Deal policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, died at age 98.
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In 2016, 16 people died when a hot air balloon caught fire and exploded after hitting high-tension power lines before crashing into a pasture near Lockhart, Texas, about 60 miles northeast of San Antonio.
In 2018, Zimbabwe voted for the first time without Robert Mugabe on the ballot; there were long lines at some polling stations. President Donald Trump said he’d be willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani “anytime” with “no preconditions.” More than 27,000 people remained evacuated because of a Northern California wildfire that ranked as the ninth most destructive blaze in the state’s history; the fire in the area of Redding had destroyed more than 800 homes and left two firefighters and four civilians dead. Ron Dellums, an antiwar activist who championed social justice as Northern California’s first black congressman, died of cancer at his home in Washington at the age of 82.
In 2020, John Lewis was eulogized in Atlanta by three former presidents and others who urged Americans to continue the work of the civil rights icon in fighting injustice during a moment of racial reckoning.
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Last year, at least 25 people died — including four children — when torrential rains swamped towns across Appalachia. A ticket bought in the Chicago suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois beat the odds and won a $1.337 billion Mega Millions jackpot. Samuel Sandoval, one of the last remaining of hundreds of members of the Navajo Nation to serve as Code Talkers for the U.S. military during World War II, died in Shiprock, New Mexico at age 98. | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/30/nation/today-history-president-lyndon-b-johnson-signs-medicare-into-law/ | 2023-07-30T05:19:21 | 1 | https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/07/30/nation/today-history-president-lyndon-b-johnson-signs-medicare-into-law/ |
GLENDALE, Ariz. — A section of Camelback Road is shut down in Glendale after a pedestrian was hit by a vehicle, according to authorities.
The Glendale Fire Department said the incident happened Saturday evening in the area of 91st Avenue and Camelback Road.
The pedestrian suffered serious injuries and has been taken to the hospital.
Due to the crash, Camelback Road westbound and eastbound, as well as 91st Avenue northbound and southbound are shut down and drivers are encouraged to use alternate routes, the fire department said.
There is no estimate for when the roadway will reopen.
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Amazon Fire TV: Search for "12 News KPNX" to find the free 12News+ app to add to your account, or have the 12News+ app delivered directly to your Amazon Fire TV through Amazon.com or the Amazon app. | https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/camelback-road-shutdown-after-pedestrian-hit-near-91st-avenue/75-562d75ae-b902-4a55-af24-f5351b1109d6 | 2023-07-30T05:20:51 | 0 | https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/camelback-road-shutdown-after-pedestrian-hit-near-91st-avenue/75-562d75ae-b902-4a55-af24-f5351b1109d6 |
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday for the first time publicly acknowledged his seventh grandchild, a four-year-old girl fathered by his son Hunter with an Arkansas woman, Lunden Roberts, in 2018.
“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward," Biden said in a statement. It was his first acknowledgement of the child.
“This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter,” he said. "Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”
Hunter Biden's paternity was established by DNA testing after Roberts sued for child support, and the two parties recently resolved outstanding child support issues. The president's son wrote about his encounter with Roberts in his 2021 memoir, saying it came while he was deep in addiction to alcohol and drugs, including crack cocaine.
“I had no recollection of our encounter,” he wrote. “That’s how little connection I had with anyone. I was a mess, but a mess I’ve taken responsibility for.”
An attorney for Roberts did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The president, who has made a commitment to family central to his public persona, has faced increasing criticism from political rivals and pundits for failing to acknowledge the granddaughter. According to a person familiar with the matter, he was taking the cue from his son while the legal proceedings played out. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private matters.
Hunter Biden has four other children, including a son, Beau, born by his wife Melissa Cohen in 2020. He was named after the president's late son who died of cancer in 2015, leaving behind two children.
Biden's grandchildren have played a distinctive role in his presidency, often accompanying the president or first lady on trips and making regular visits to the White House. The president has also credited his grandchildren with persuading him to challenge then-President Donald Trump for the White House in 2020.
Biden's statement was first reported by People Magazine. | https://www.12news.com/article/news/nation-world/biden-acknowledges-seventh-grandchild-hunters-daughter/507-ad6442fa-448f-4603-bb7e-17493e4449f0 | 2023-07-30T05:20:57 | 0 | https://www.12news.com/article/news/nation-world/biden-acknowledges-seventh-grandchild-hunters-daughter/507-ad6442fa-448f-4603-bb7e-17493e4449f0 |
Bronny James plays piano in a video posted by his father, LeBron James, on Saturday, four days after the teenager went into cardiac arrest during a basketball workout at the University of Southern California.
The 18-year-old plays a brief melody in front of his family, smiles and gets up without speaking in the video posted on his father's Instagram account. The video doesn't indicate where or when it was shot.
“A man of many talents,” the Los Angeles Lakers superstar can be heard saying in the background as Bronny finishes playing with his two younger siblings looking on.
TMZ posted photos of Bronny out to dinner with his family, which it says were taken Friday night. They show the teenager with his father outside celebrity hot spot Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica.
Wearing black pants and a zip-up hoodie, Bronny carried his phone while standing outside the Italian restaurant.
Bronny was released from the hospital on Thursday. He will continue to undergo tests to determine the cause of his cardiac arrest, which occurred Monday morning during a workout at USC’s Galen Center.
"We have our family together, safe and healthy, and we feel your love," LeBron wrote on social media Thursday. "Will have more to say when we’re ready but I wanted to tell everyone how much your support has meant to all of us!"
Bronny, whose full name is LeBron James Jr., committed to USC in May after the 6-foot-3 guard became one of the nation’s top prospects out of Sierra Canyon School in nearby Chatsworth.
TEGNA's Val Lick contributed to this report. | https://www.12news.com/article/news/nation-world/bronny-james-update-after-cardiac-arrest/507-3280e25d-0548-45c6-b647-40568b3c99ea | 2023-07-30T05:21:03 | 0 | https://www.12news.com/article/news/nation-world/bronny-james-update-after-cardiac-arrest/507-3280e25d-0548-45c6-b647-40568b3c99ea |
AUCKLAND, New Zealand — The United States heads into its final group match at the Women's World Cup with questions swirling about the team's tactics.
U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski started the same lineup against Netherlands on Thursday that he rolled out for the opening match against Vietnam. While it was enough for the United States to beat the Vietnamese 3-0, it was less successful against the stronger Dutch, and the Americans settled for a 1-1 draw.
That lineup had never played together before the World Cup.
The tie meant that the United States will likely need a more decisive outcome on Tuesday against Portugal to finish atop Group E and secure a favorable path in the knockout round. Going into the game, advancing out of the group wasn't a given for the two-time defending World Cup champions.
In addition to the same starters, Andonovski made just one substitution in the game against the Dutch, bringing on midfielder Rose Lavelle to start the second half. But no fresh legs were subbed in even after players showed fatigue. Forwards Lynn Williams and Megan Rapinoe remained on the sidelines.
He was asked about the strategy afterward.
“I just didn’t want to disrupt the rhythm at that point because sometimes a substitute comes in and it might take a minute or two to get into a rhythm,” he said. “We just didn’t want to jeopardize anything because I thought all three of our forwards were very good, dangerous, created opportunities and were a handful.”
It was the first time that the United States had made just one or fewer substitutions in a World Cup game since 2007.
Known in 2019 for jumping on World Cup opponents early, the Americans did not score against the Dutch until the second half when they were already down 1-0.
Lavelle is one of the team's top midfielders and made an immediate impact in the game — boosting the energy and feeding the attack — and the United States looked like that 2019 championship team again. She served up a corner kick to Lindsey Horan, angry about getting knocked down by a Dutch player moments before, for the game-tying goal in the 62nd minute.
Lavelle had a knee injury going into the World Cup and hadn't played since April. She's been on a minutes restriction and Andonovski has been starting Savannah DeMelo, one of the teams' 14 players making their first-ever appearance in the World Cup.
DeMelo hadn't played in a match with the national team until the send-off game against Wales in San Jose, the day the team departed for the World Cup.
“I think we weren’t in sync," midfielder Andi Sullivan said. “That happens, and we were able to adjust and respond. Hopefully, we can do that earlier in the future. And I think that’s also a great strength of this team -- we have lots of different ways we can do that together.”
Andonovski said the team can build off that second half against the Dutch in Wellington.
“Even though it didn’t finish the way we wanted to finish I thought it was a very good match for our team and especially for a group of young players. They grew throughout the game, individually, but also as a team we grew throughout the game as well,” Andonovski said. “I’ve said this before, this team is not just young. This team is also a fresh team that hasn’t spent a lot of minutes together. What you saw in the second half is what you’re going to see going forward as a best baseline. I think that we’re just going to get better from game to game and we’re gonna be a lot more efficient as well.”
Portugal fell 1-0 in its opening match against the Dutch, then defeated Vietnam 2-0 on Thursday in Hamilton. The victory knocked Vietnam out of the next round.
The United States sits atop Group E, even on points — four — with the Netherlands but edging the Dutch on goal differential. Portugal, third in the group with three points, could leap in front of the U.S. with a win at Auckland's Eden Park.
The Dutch play Vietnam in an earlier game Tuesday in Dunedin.
Telma Encarnacao and Kika Nazareth each scored in the match against Vietnam, which made history as Portugal's first win in its first World Cup appearance.
“We are aware of what awaits us, but we are focused on ourselves, which is very important,” Nazareth told reporters at training on Saturday. “We will enter the field respecting the opponent, with humility, but always with character and personality. The work will be there, the talent is there. And I think you also always need a little bit of luck. It’s believing.” | https://www.12news.com/article/sports/soccer/us-faces-portugal-with-womens-world-cup-future-still-up-in-the-air-knockout-stage/507-6403953b-33b2-4d89-b452-919cd9f37dac | 2023-07-30T05:21:09 | 1 | https://www.12news.com/article/sports/soccer/us-faces-portugal-with-womens-world-cup-future-still-up-in-the-air-knockout-stage/507-6403953b-33b2-4d89-b452-919cd9f37dac |
Dear Dr. John,
About two weeks ago, my 14-year-old Retriever X developed a persistent hacking cough. I took him in to see my local vet and they ran bloodwork and took chest x-rays. They determined he had a type of kennel cough and gave me some antibiotics and a cough medication. With things not improving that much, I then took him to a specialty hospital.. The diagnosis was pretty much the same and no additional medications were given. His energy level seems a little off. Can kennel cough last this long and do I need to keep him away from my sister’s dog or other dogs since my dog and my sister’s dog have been together this entire time. Why did my dog get kennel cough if he is vaccinated for it and why has her dog not developed the same cough? V.H.
Dear V.H.,
Kennel cough is a broadly used term that describes a contagious viral cough in dogs caused by Bordetella bronchiseptica as well as other strains of various coughs. It seems as if your veterinarian did the proper workup. If they felt it wasn’t too significant then it hopefully is not. Antibiotics were probably given to prevent a secondary bacterial infection from developing but do nothing in combating any virus. The cough medication was probably the best thing for your dog to calm the coughing and hacking.
Since a specialty hospital had nothing to add suggests to me that your dog does have a viral cough and all one can do is to provide supportive care ensuring the dog continues to eat and drink normally. I have seen versions of kennel cough last for four months or more. Even if your dog was vaccinated against kennel cough, viral coughs of different strains can still affect a dog. I cannot explain why your sister’s dog has not gotten the same cough other than her dog is likely resistant and probably has antibodies to whatever strain of virus that your dog has. I think the two dogs can still hang out but perhaps keep them away from other dogs for another week or so in case they are still contagious. I would ask your vet for more of the cough suppressant to give your dog some relief.
Dr. John de Jong owns and operates the Boston Mobile Veterinary Clinic.He can be reached at 781-899-9994. | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/vaccinated-dog-still-got-viral-cough/ | 2023-07-30T05:21:21 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/vaccinated-dog-still-got-viral-cough/ |
BALTIMORE — It didn’t take long for Aaron Judge to make his presence felt.
After drawing three walks in his Friday return, the reigning MVP got his bat going in the Yankees’ 8-3 win over the Orioles on Saturday. Judge, playing the field for the first time since tearing a ligament in his right big toe on June 3, recorded three hits, including a two-run, 442-foot blast to centerfield.
The home run, Judge’s 20th of the year, came in the third inning off Tyler Wells. The Orioles starter, a frequent victim of Judge’s power, exited shortly after that.
Judge wasn’t the only Yankees slugger to homer off Wells, as Giancarlo Stanton hit a 427-foot missile with nobody on in the first inning. Kyle Higashioka then crushed a Cole Irvin pitch 428 feet for another solo shot in the sixth inning.
However, it was Isiah Kiner-Falefa who broke the game open, as he ended a 10-pitch at-bat with a three-run double off Bryan Baker in the sixth. The two-bagger gave the Yankees five-run lead.
Kiner-Falefa, who walked twice, also forced a 10-pitch at-bat his first time up.
The Yankees scored an additional run in the fourth when Gleyber Torres lofted a sac fly.
Clarke Schmidt, meanwhile, fought hard to continue his run of dependability. The right-hander totaled five innings, five hits, three earned runs, one walk, two strikeouts and 96 pitches.
Ryan Mountcastle hit a solo homer off Schmidt in the second before Ramón Urías added a run on an infield single. The Orioles scored again in the fifth on an Anthony Santander groundout, but Schmidt got Ryan O’Hearn on a check swing to end the inning with a runner on third.
Having preserved a one-run lead with a devastating, 3-2 breaking ball, Schmidt excitedly spun off the mound before calling it a night.
With the series all tied up and the trade deadline approaching, the Yankees will try to grab one more win in Baltimore when they play the Orioles on Sunday Night Baseball. Luis Severino, coming off two solid starts following prolonged struggles, will pitch the series finale for the Yankees.
Dean Kramer will start for the Orioles. The right-hander held the Yankees to one earned run over seven innings on July 5. He struck out 10 that day.
Once the Yankees wrap things up in Baltimore, they’ll head home for a three-game series against the Rays and a four-game series against the Astros. The series against Tampa Bay overlaps with Tuesday’s deadline.
() | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/29/aaron-judge-homers-in-second-game-back-as-yankees-rebound-vs-orioles/ | 2023-07-30T05:21:21 | 1 | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/29/aaron-judge-homers-in-second-game-back-as-yankees-rebound-vs-orioles/ |
Mike Elias on Friday said the increasing workloads of his young starting rotation is “becoming more of a conversation.”
It might be even more so if Tyler Wells continues pitching the way he has since the All-Star break.
Wells, the Orioles’ best starting pitcher before the All-Star break, struggled again Saturday night in an 8-3 loss to the New York Yankees. The announced crowd of 42,829 — the second sellout at Camden Yards this season — witnessed Wells fail to make it through three innings for the second time in three starts.
The relief behind Wells, who surrendered three runs, wasn’t much better, as Mike Baumann gave up one run and Cole Irvin allowed four in the sixth.
Ryan Mountcastle blasted a solo home run in the second and Ramón Urías hit an RBI single later in the inning to give the Orioles an early 2-1 lead, but they could only manage three more hits and one additional run in the final seven frames. Baltimore’s final run crossed the plate on a groundout by Anthony Santander that made it 4-3 in the fifth.
Wells was pulled after 63 pitches. In his past five starts, he’s averaged just 73 pitches and hasn’t thrown more than 86 in any of them.
The 6-foot-8 right-hander was seen as an All-Star candidate, posting a 3.18 ERA and 0.927 WHIP in the first half. He covered at least five innings in each of his first 17 starts.
In three second-half starts, Wells has allowed 11 runs and 19 base runners in just nine innings. He’s failed to record more than 13 outs in all three outings.
“We’re trying to be mindful of indicators that they might be exhibiting that might be reason to pull back other than just sort of the academic concept of, like, ‘Oh, hey, look how many innings this guy’s thrown, let’s back that off,’” said Elias, the Orioles’ executive vice president and general manager. “There’s really not a ton of science, or any science, there. We try to use common sense. We try to use our expertise.
“I don’t know that a single member of our rotation right now wants to go leave the rotation in some way shape or form. There’s that, too. They’re having the season of their lives, they’re competing, the team’s in first, they’ve got their whole careers ahead of them.”
Baltimore is 63-41 and still atop the American League standings. The Orioles will attempt to win the season series against the Yankees for the first time since 2016.
Around the horn
- Catcher Adley Rutschman hit in the leadoff spot for the first time in his career Saturday. Manager Brandon Hyde said before the game that he values the plate discipline and approach Rutschman provides atop the order. Gunnar Henderson, the Orioles’ typical leadoff hitter in recent weeks, hit in the No. 2 hole. Rutschman went 0-for-2 with a walk and a hit by pitch.
- Two days after former Orioles outfielder Adam Jones served as the Bird Bath Splash Zone’s first “guest splasher” of the season Friday, the club announced it would have a new guest Sunday. Gov. Wes Moore will be in Section 86 to potentially spray fans with water during the Orioles’ night game against the Yankees broadcast nationally on ESPN.
- After Dean Kremer takes the mound Sunday, right-handers Kyle Gibson, Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez and Wells are projected to pitch the four games against the Toronto Blue Jays beginning Monday, the club announced.
- Left-handed pitching prospect DL Hall threw two innings for the Orioles’ Florida Complex League team on Friday, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out six. Elias said Hall, the club’s top pitching prospect, has seen an uptick in his velocity after spending the past few months focusing on strength training over pitching. His outing Friday was his second since mid-June.
This story will be updated.
Yankees at Orioles
Sunday, 7:10 p.m.
TV: ESPN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
() | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/29/tyler-wells-falters-again-in-orioles-8-3-loss-to-yankees-in-front-of-sellout-crowd-at-camden-yards/ | 2023-07-30T05:21:27 | 1 | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/29/tyler-wells-falters-again-in-orioles-8-3-loss-to-yankees-in-front-of-sellout-crowd-at-camden-yards/ |
A few days after the lockout began in December 2021, Mike Tauchman weighed the direction of his baseball career.
He received an offer to play overseas and without having any concrete options at that point from a big-league team, Tauchman evaluated the opportunity to go to the Korea Baseball Organization for the 2022 season. He realized, though, it really wasn’t that hard of a decision to leave.
But when Tauchman signed with the Hanwha Eagles, it came with the understanding he might not play in Major League Baseball again.
“That was something I was OK with,” Tauchman told the Tribune on Saturday.
Tauchman’s time in the KBO ultimately led the 32-year-old outfielder to the Chicago Cubs, and he has become an important piece on a surging team. He produced a three-hit game, including an RBI double, in the Cubs’ 5-1 win Saturday against the Cardinals. Their eight-game winning streak is the Cubs’ longest since 2016.
The Palatine native’s journey back the the big leagues might not have come to fruition without Tauchman’s year in South Korea. It came on the heels of a difficult 2021 season that began with a trade from the New York Yankees to the San Francisco Giants one month in and ended with a 56 OPS+ over 75 games.
His season in Korea provided a positive experience and “a new world” for Tauchman and his wife, Eileen. Most importantly, on the baseball side, playing in the KBO gave him a needed reset even as he navigated the inherent challenges that come with the language barrier.
“There were some things from the mental side that I was struggling with over here, just in terms of confidence and reliance and different things like that,” Tauchman said. “And over there, you’re kind of on your own, to an extent, and you’re also expected to play every single day, so that was something that I looked forward to. A year of you’ve just got to figure it out on your own, you’ve got to manage things on your own and the only person you truly, truly rely on is yourself. But that was good for me.”
When the Cubs presented a chance to come back to the U.S. through a minor-league contract with a big-league camp invite he signed in January, Tauchman didn’t go into this season with high expectations that it would lead him back to the majors. The draw of playing close to family, even if he was at Triple-A Iowa, made the Cubs’ offer appealing regardless.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that, at times, results aren’t the only determining factor on how things work at this level,” Tauchman said. “There’s obviously a business component and other components, so to get the opportunity, I was just extremely grateful for it and just try to enjoy it. That mental reset helped in that way.
“I definitely feel more relaxed than 2020-21, which were challenging years with the pandemic stuff, getting traded in early in the season and really struggling and feeling just not myself.”
Cody Bellinger’s knee injury sustained in mid May and subsequent time on the injured list opened the door for Tauchman, who got off to a great start in his first month at Triple A to earn the promotion. Since then, Tauchman has become a stabilizing option when hitting leadoff — .276/.351/.474 slash line in 27 starts in that spot — and given manager David Ross more defensive flexibility with how he builds the Cubs’ daily lineup.
“At points in my career, I would put greater importance on every single at-bat than maybe there needed to be and it’s something you might do as a young player because you want to maximize every opportunity you have and you feel like if you don’t, nobody’s going to think you’re any good,” Tauchman said. “But maybe with the passage of time or getting older or just different experiences, it’s, like, you’ve had thousands of at-bats in your life and some go well, some don’t, and it has no bearing on the next one.
“That’s something that I’ve tried to keep perspective on this year because hitting in the big leagues is really hard. It’s really hard. And some days pitchers just out execute you and there’s little you can do about it. So I’m just trying to keep perspective that way.”
Tauchman’s game-ending home run robbery Friday night to beat the St. Louis Cardinals sealed the Cubs’ biggest win of the season. Within the clubhouse, the way Tauchman has made the most of his major-league return has not gone unnoticed even before his outstanding play.
“I have a lot of belief in guys like that that just keep going,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “He’s going to embrace whatever role he has and he’s got a really big one for us.”
() | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/30/how-a-season-in-the-kbo-positioned-mike-tauchman-to-make-the-most-of-his-opportunity-with-the-chicago-cubs/ | 2023-07-30T05:21:33 | 0 | https://www.twincities.com/2023/07/30/how-a-season-in-the-kbo-positioned-mike-tauchman-to-make-the-most-of-his-opportunity-with-the-chicago-cubs/ |
Mother hopes to find closure after search in Morgan Bauer case
ABERDEEN, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - After searching for her daughter for more than seven years, the mother of Morgan Bauer is hoping the latest developments in the case can help her bring her daughter home.
Morgan Bauer grew up in Aberdeen. In February 2016, she moved to the Atlanta area at just 19 years old. Just two weeks after she moved, her loved ones lost contact with Bauer.
Bauer’s best friend, Taryn Ryan, was the last person to speak with her on February 26th.
”It was really just a quick five-minute Skype conversation and kind of like, ‘I love you. I have to go, talk to you later.’ I just never got that later,” said Ryan.
Bauer was last seen being dropped off by friends at a gas station in Covington, Georgia. She got into a green Eclipse with an unknown driver. Her phone’s last ping was in Yellow River Park in Porterdale, Georgia, on February 27th.
On Thursday, Porterdale police confirmed that a search they conducted at a property just half a mile from Bauer’s phone’s last ping was related to her case.
”So far, the search has located items of evidentiary interest,” said Sgt. Michael Walden of the Porterdale Police Department.
What those items found are has not yet been revealed.
Bauer’s mother, Sherri Keenan, said authorities have kept her in the loop as much as they can.
”They’ve made it very comfortable for me to be able to feel very much a part of what’s happening. Even though there’s not a lot of information they can give me, they’ve been very inclusive,” said Keenan.
Keenan said she could not discuss all of the details she was made aware of as she does not want to interfere with the investigation.
Within the whirlwind of emotions that came from Thursday’s search, Keenan said she has sympathy for the owners of the property, who authorities say have been cooperative.
”My heart just goes out to that family. They must be going through a lot also. It must be very upsetting for them, and my heart just goes out to everyone involved,” said Keenan.
Although she’s always held on to hope, Keenan said she knows that if Bauer could come home, she would.
”I don’t think they would have done everything that they did if there wasn’t a reason for it. I know Morgan would have reached out to somebody if she had an opportunity by now. So, I feel like we’re coming to the place of understanding what happened to Morgan, which I’m really grateful for. I’m sad, but I’m grateful,” said Keenan.
While the possibility of Bauer coming home safely begins to seemingly fade, Keenan said she just wants to be able to bring her daughter home.
”At this point, after seven years, I feel like in my heart, I already kind of know. If they found something, I’m going to do what I said I would and I’m going to go to Atlanta and I’m going to bring my daughter home to South Dakota,” said Keenan.
The Porterdale Police Department confirmed that they concluded their search of the property on Broad Street Thursday night, but did not release any further details.
Copyright 2023 KSFY. All rights reserved. | https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/07/28/mother-hopes-find-closure-after-search-morgan-bauer-case/ | 2023-07-30T05:23:24 | 1 | https://www.kfyrtv.com/2023/07/28/mother-hopes-find-closure-after-search-morgan-bauer-case/ |
CROFTON, Neb. — Consistent early scoring and a strong pitching effort from Capp Bengston lifted Crofton to the District 6B amateur baseball championship on Saturday night over Tabor by a score of 8-4.
Bengston threw eight innings, allowing three unearned runs and eight hits, while striking out a pair of Bluebirds batters. Andy Knapp had three hits and scored twice for the Bluejays, while Colton Schieffer, Lathan Maibaum and Seth Wiebelhaus each had two hits for tournament host Crofton. Zach Hegge threw the ninth inning and struck out three batters to close the game for the Bluejays. The victory is Crofton's third district title in the last four seasons and returns the Bluejays to the state tournament after missing out in 2022.
For Tabor, Beau Rothschadl had three hits and Chris Sutera had two doubles and drove in a pair of runs. Chase Kortan and Hunter Hallock both had two-hit games, as well. Bryce Scieszinski started and was chased early, taking the loss after allowing four hits, three earned runs and striking out three in two innings. Rothschadl pitched seven innings in relief and allowed eight hits, four runs (one earned) and struck out four. Crofton outhit Tabor by a 12-9 margin, while the Bluebirds committed five errors.
Both teams will play in the Class B state tournament, which starts Aug. 2 in Mitchell.
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Dell Rapids PBR 3, Salem 2
FLANDREAU, S.D. — Dell Rapids PBR emerged to win the District 4B last-chance game against Cornbelt League rival Salem on Saturday by a 3-2 score.
PBR is the seventh and final team from the Cornbelt to qualify for the 32-team Class B state tournament, which begins Aug. 2 in Mitchell.
Dell Rapids' Brett Mogen pitched a 139-pitch complete game with five hits and two unearned runs allowed, striking out eight. Riley Calhoon had three hits for PBR, which outhit Salem 9-5.
Dell Rapids scored runs in the second, third and sixth innings, before Salem added two runs in the seventh inning but could not tie the game. Each run of the game was unearned and the contest had a combined eight errors, with Salem committing five.
Kyle Tuschen had two of the Cubs' five hits. Tyler Earls, who pitched a complete game for Salem and threw 150 pitches, allowed nine hits and struck out seven PBR batters. The season ends at 10-17 for Salem.
Dell Rapids Mudcats 9, Canova 3
FLANDREAU, S.D. -- The No. 1 seeded Dell Rapids Mudcats backed it up at the District 4B tournament, claiming the championship on Saturday night with a 9-3 win over second-seeded Canova.
The two teams split the season series leading into Saturday's championship game. No other information was reported.
Dell Rapids (21-4) and Canova (13-5) await the Class B state tournament next week in Mitchell. | https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/sports/amateur-baseball-roundup-for-july-29-crofton-dell-rapids-mudcats-win-district-titles | 2023-07-30T05:23:31 | 1 | https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/sports/amateur-baseball-roundup-for-july-29-crofton-dell-rapids-mudcats-win-district-titles |
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I’m sad to say I won’t be at the next Wilkes-Barre POWER! event.
While I’m off to Chicago for a trip (which I’m super stoked about, by the way), I still want to share all the details with you about the August mixer slated for 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 10 at Breaker Brewing Company in Wilkes-Barre Township.
My fellow board members Bill Corcoran Jr., Jess Corcoran, Rich Perry and Meagan Zielinski will be there greeting guests, engaging in conversations and introducing the representatives from the SPCA of Luzerne County, the featured nonprofit of the night.
As you may know, the SPCA’s mission is to uplift the community by providing compassion, comfort and care to domestic companion animals through education, advocacy, protection and a shelter/adoption program. I hope they’ll have some animals on hand for guests to mingle with.
I absolutely love seeing the dedication of the SPCA staff and volunteers and the ways in which they help animals in need, so I’m disappointed I won’t be there.
But besides the SPCA at the event, another reason to attend is because Breaker Brewing Company is awesome. It’s a cool space, and I encourage you to view the website at breakerbrewingcompany.com to read more about the history.
I wrote a story about the company back in its infancy in 2009 as the owners were brewing the beer in a basement. To see how it’s grown is truly remarkable.
The company is now housed in a former monastery and school on top of the hill in Wilkes-Barre Township with multiple relaxing areas for patrons, a food menu and outdoor patio.
I love seeing businesses grow, expand and thrive right here in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
If you’ve never been to the brewery before, Aug. 10 is your chance.
We’ve had POWER! events there before, most recently in 2018 where I remember guests loving learning about the brew system and rotating beers on tap.
This will be a great introduction into the Breaker Brewing world for anyone who’s unfamiliar with the beer or the brand.
So, mark your calendars and plan to attend on August 10. A membership at POWER! is just $35 for the year or $15 for a one-time event. Choose what works for you, come mingle and hopefully make some meaningful connections.
***
Mike McGinley is a Times Leader columnist who is often called a man about town. Email him thoughts at [email protected].
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Click now to support or get more information.Mike McGinley is a Times Leader columnist who is often called a man about town. Email him thoughts at [email protected]. | https://www.timesleader.com/features/1615666/around-town-power-mixer-set-for-breaker-brewing-co | 2023-07-30T05:23:51 | 1 | https://www.timesleader.com/features/1615666/around-town-power-mixer-set-for-breaker-brewing-co |
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WILKES-BARRE — The Wilkes-Barre Crime Watch group is sponsoring a fundraiser to support the city’s Police K-9 Unit.
“Cause For Paws” begins at 5 p.m. Sunday, July 30 at St. Andrews Church, 316 Parrish St. Please use the back entrance access the parking lot; it’s located off the alley that runs alongside Angelo’s Pizza.
There will be free food and drinks, basket raffles, a 50/50 drawing, and t-shirts for sale. All proceeds will go toward adding another K-9 officer to the unit. Donations will be accepted and encouraged for the food. All donations are tax-deductible.
No fundraiser would be complete without a member of the unit in attendance, so K-9 Chase will be present with officer Joe Homza.
Donors also can support the cause through a special fund set up with the Luzerne Foundation by visiting https://www.luzfdn.org/types-of-funds/wilkes-barre-city-crime-watch-cause-for-paws/ or clicking the QR code attacked to this article.
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Click now to support or get more information. | https://www.timesleader.com/news/1615652/cause-for-paws-k-9-fundraiser-set-for-sunday-in-wb | 2023-07-30T05:24:01 | 0 | https://www.timesleader.com/news/1615652/cause-for-paws-k-9-fundraiser-set-for-sunday-in-wb |
Works by Daevid Mendlivil at Marquis Art & Frame
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Artist Daevid Mendivil is fluent in Spanish and English, and understands French, Italian and Portuguese.
But when he says “I let the canvas speak to me,” you might think his canvases speak not only those five languages but many more — languages of creativity and whimsy, humor and passion. Languages perhaps understood by Mendivil’s inspirations, who range from George Condo to Peter Max to Walt Disney’s cartoonists.
And, sometimes, the canvas speaks the language of thought-provoking possibilities.
Consider “As You May See It,” one of several works on display in the Second Floor Gallery of Marquis Art & Frame in downtown Wilkes-Barre, where “Beyond Boundaries: The Infinite Perspectives of Daevid Mendivil” is on exhibit through late August.
At first glance you might think it’s an image of two men, each wearing a top hat, and simply facing each other.
Actually, it’s not two men, Mendivil explained during a recent meet-the-artist reception. It’s one man standing before a mirror. But … which is the real person and which is the reflection?
While the figure on the right has a smallish top hat perched on his head, the figure on the left has a top hat so large it falls down over his eyes.
If the figure on the left is the real person, he might see himself as possessing only a little talent, when in reality he has a lot of talent, represented by that big hat.
If the figure on the right is the true one, the person has only a small amount of talent, but perceives himself to be drowning in talent.
Surely we all know people who fit those categories.
As you walk around the rooms in the gallery, you’ll see Mendivil has painted likenesses of celebrities ranging from Freddie Mercury to Cher to Madonna to Audrey Hepburn to Marlon Brando as “The Godfather.”
“I added flowers to soften him,” Mendivil said, noting that even if the character Brando played in Francis Ford Coppola films was a ruthless mobster, the Godfather had a softer side when it came to his family.
Speaking of flowers, Mendivil has painted floral pieces in which the blossoms have eyes, in some cases interacting and making a connection to each other.
And speaking of eyes, Mendivil has painted a “Cat in Love,” who has multiple eyes, each of them conveying a different emotion that a person in love might experience.
That unusual piece was inspired by the work of George Condo, Mendivil said.
As art lovers milled about the gallery during the opening reception, Sharon Rolland of Shavertown especially admired one of Mendivil’s more classic pieces — an equine portrait called “Black Beauty” that author Anna Sewell probably would have been proud to see on her classic children’s novel of the same name.
“He has perfectly captured the energy of a stallion,” Rolland said. “I can feel it, and I’m a horse person.”
Mendivil previously called New York City home, but for six years has lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where he appreciates “the fresher air” and “the more powerful energy.”
He is pleased to be able to present such a variety of art in his exhibit.
“We should all be free and ever evolving,” he said. “Art especially should go beyond boundaries.”
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Click now to support or get more information. | https://www.timesleader.com/news/1615655/art-especially-should-go-beyond-boundaries | 2023-07-30T05:24:11 | 0 | https://www.timesleader.com/news/1615655/art-especially-should-go-beyond-boundaries |
Officials discuss human trafficking in NEPA
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WILKES-BARRE — Suzanne M. Beck, Chief Executive Officer at Victims Resource Center, this week said people have a perception in their mind about what human trafficking looks like and it’s not always what is seen in the movies.
“Human trafficking victims can be recruited and trafficked in our own home towns, including here in NEPA,” Beck said. “Pennsylvania is ranked 9th in the nation for reported cases of trafficking, and while this is for reported cases, human trafficking is notoriously one of the most under-reported crimes.”
Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce agrees. He attended Friday’s Red Sand Project ceremony on Public Square and said human trafficking has increased significantly in Luzerne County in recent years.
“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “Major city problems are also here in Luzerne County. That’s why we need to increase awareness, especially in our neighborhoods.”
Beck and Sanguedolce say that human traffickers succeed when systems and communities don’t work together.
The NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking has been coordinating efforts to combat the problem. Tom Mosca, co-Chair of the NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking, said Friday’s Red Sand Project demonstration on Public Square was held to remind people that human trafficking not only occurs across the country and across the world, but right here in Luzerne County as well.
Mosca noted that today, Sunday, July 30, is the United Nations World Day Against Trafficking in Persons.
“Human trafficking is modern-day slavery,” Mosca said. “And it’s estimated that more than 40 million people around the world are victims of human trafficking.”
Mosca said more than 80% of those victims are female and over 50% are children. He said the majority of adult victims were trafficked as minors and the average age of entry for a minor victim in between 12 and 14.
“Human trafficking is not the same as human smuggling and it doesn’t require anyone to be transported across a border, ” Mosca said. “Most human trafficking is for sex and approximately 83% of confirmed sex trafficking victims identified in this country are U.S. citizens.”
Mosca said events like Friday’s Red Sand Project ceremony are held to acknowledge the millions of victims of human trafficking across the world.
Sanguedolce said, “When we all work together, that’s when we can eradicate human trafficking. We always tell the public that just because you can’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I is happening here in the shadows and it’s happening every day.”
Sanguedolce said his office has seen an increase in reported human trafficking cases, but the reality is most cases go unreported.
“Through training, we have become much better at recognizing it,” Sanguedolce said. “We’ve done a few sting operations that have been successful and we have conducted training with the FBI.”
Tracking statistics difficult
Local, state and national statistics are difficult to collect for many reasons. The statistics are based on reported cases and victims rarely report.
Officials said there is often difficulty in identifying victims due to the nature of the crime.
“What we do know is the number of incidences far exceeds the number of reports,” VRC’s Beck said.
Victims that VRC has seen over the past 4½ years:
• 2019: 1 human trafficking victim served
• 2020: 4 human trafficking victims served
• 2021: 14 human trafficking victims served
• 2022: 20 human trafficking victims served
• 2023: 17 human trafficking victims served (January–present)
Again these are reported cases only. As Beck and Sanguedolce stress, most cases go unreported.
”We attribute the increase to a number of things,” Beck said. “The increased outreach efforts and the collaborative work being done locally to reach victims in addition to our AllOne Foundation Grant, which allows us to have a Human Trafficking Advocate on staff.”
Alysha Ennis is the Human Trafficking Advocate at the Victims Resource Center. Ennis said reported incidents have increased in all three counties served by the agency.
“We want everyone to be more aware of their surroundings,” Ennis said. “A human trafficker could be a friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a husband or a wife. And victims could be any age, from children to adults.”
Human Trafficking Hotline
Sanguedolce said if you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911 and report it.
The Human Trafficking Hotline defines human trafficking as “a situation in which an individual is compelled to work or engage in commercial sex through the use of force, fraud or coercion. If the individual is under the age of 18 and engaging in commercial sex they are experiencing trafficking regardless of whether force, fraud, or coercion is also taking place.”
If you believe you may have information about a trafficking situation or are involved in a situation:
• Call the National Human Trafficking Hotline toll-free hotline at — 1-888-373-7888.
• Anti-Trafficking Hotline Advocates are available 24/7 to take reports of potential human trafficking.
• Text the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 233733. Message and data rates may apply.
• Chat the National Human Trafficking Hotline via — humantraffickinghotline.org/chat.
• Please note that if the situation is urgent or occurred within the last 24 hours you are encouraged to call, text or chat.
If you believe a child is involved in a trafficking situation, submit a tip through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline or call 1-800-THE-LOST. FBI personnel assigned to NCMEC review information that is provided to the CyberTipline.
FBI.gov
The FBI website —fbi.gov — provides information on human trafficking.
The FBI website says:
• Human trafficking is the illegal exploitation of a person. Anyone can be a victim of human trafficking, and it can occur in any U.S. community — cities, suburbs, and even rural areas.
• The FBI works human trafficking cases under its Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking program.
• Here in the United States, both U.S. residents and foreign nationals are being bought and sold like modern-day slaves. Traffickers use violence, manipulation, or false promises of well-paying jobs or romantic relationships to exploit victims. Victims are forced to work as prostitutes or to take jobs as migrant, domestic, restaurant, or factory workers with little or no pay. Human trafficking is a heinous crime that exploits the most vulnerable in society.
Under the human trafficking program, the FBI investigates:
Sex trafficking: When individuals are compelled by force, fraud, or coercion to engage in commercial sex acts. Sex trafficking of a minor occurs when the victim is under the age of 18. For cases involving minors, it is not necessary to prove force, fraud, or coercion.
Labor trafficking: When individuals are compelled by force, threats, or fraud to perform labor or service.
Domestic servitude: When individuals within a household appear to be nannies, housekeepers, or other types of domestic workers, but they are being controlled and exploited.
Human Trafficking task forces
The NEPA Task Force Against Human Trafficking is a collaborative, multi-disciplinary effort to establish and incorporate best practices to identify and serve victims and at-risk populations, investigate and prosecute perpetrators and increase overall awareness of the purpose of preventing and eliminating exploitation and Human Trafficking, and assisting victims suffering from these crimes to achieve restoration and justice.
For more information:
http://www.stoptraffickingnepa.org/
Victims Resource Center
360 East End Centre
Wilkes Barre, PA 18702
570-823-0766
U.S. Department of Human Services
indicators of human trafficking
Recognizing key indicators of human trafficking is the first step in identifying victims and can help save a life. Here are some common indicators to help recognize human trafficking.
Does the person appear disconnected from family, friends, community organizations, or houses of worship?
Has a child stopped attending school?
Has the person had a sudden or dramatic change in behavior?
Is a juvenile engaged in commercial sex acts?
Is the person disoriented or confused, or showing signs of mental or physical abuse?
Does the person have bruises in various stages of healing?
Is the person fearful, timid, or submissive?
Does the person show signs of having been denied food, water, sleep, or medical care?
Is the person often in the company of someone to whom he or she defers? Or someone who seems to be in control of the situation, e.g., where they go or who they talk to?
Does the person appear to be coached on what to say?
Is the person living in unsuitable conditions?
Does the person lack personal possessions and appear not to have a stable living situation?
Does the person have freedom of movement? Can the person freely leave where they live? Are there unreasonable security measures?
Not all indicators listed above are present in every human trafficking situation, and the presence or absence of any of the indicators is not necessarily proof of human trafficking.
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Click now to support or get more information.Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle. | https://www.timesleader.com/news/1615668/fighting-modern-day-slavery | 2023-07-30T05:24:21 | 0 | https://www.timesleader.com/news/1615668/fighting-modern-day-slavery |
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – An Albuquerque cannabis shop is back open after thieves broke in and shot up their business a few weeks ago. Now, they’re celebrating their opening by helping students head back to the classroom.
“Our roots are here. Our foundation is here, and we want to be a positive part,” said Jaquelene Enciso, one of the owners of Trident Cannabis.
Weeks after a devastating break-in, leaving thousands of dollars in damages to their front door, merchandise, and their ATM, Trident Cannabis is back open. In order to celebrate, they are bringing the community together.
“That has been the goal from the get-go for us to be involved with our community, for us to be able to get back to our community, and just be a forefront for positive our industry to be a positive in the community,” said Alfonso Enciso, Jaquelene’s husband and co-owner of Trident.
During a reopening, they hosted a business outreach.
It included local food vendors and other cannabis industry professionals to expand to other clientele. The major drive for the gathering was getting kids ready for the classroom.
Trident Cannabis partnered with Classic 66 Cuts to give free haircuts and a bag full of school supplies to kids.
“My mom actually is the one that created it. Like, I want to say 10 years ago. Yeah, back in the day,” said John Padilla, who operates Classic 66 Cuts with his mother Anna Chavez.
“When we first started here, we got, we had some problems happening here. We’d have broken in, and stuff like that as well, but, you know what? We’re still here. We’re still here, and we’re still trying to give back to the community,” said Anna Chavez
Trident Cannabis said, despite the setback a few weeks ago, this is a fresh start while they grow with and give back to the community.
“The goal from the get-go for us to be involved with our community for us to be able to get back to our community and just be a forefront for positive our industry to be a positive in the community,” said Enciso.
Police are still investigating the break-in a few weeks ago at Trident as well as several other businesses in the area. | https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/albuquerque-cannabis-shop-reopens-with-community-give-back-event-after-shooting-break-in/ | 2023-07-30T05:24:31 | 1 | https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/albuquerque-cannabis-shop-reopens-with-community-give-back-event-after-shooting-break-in/ |
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DALLAS — Avery Dietrick has a simple explanation why she started her lemonade stand four years ago to raise money for non-kill animal shelters.
“I just love animals,” Dietrick said. “It’s kind of hard for these shelters to raise all the money they need to take care of their animals.”
Avery Dietrick is 10 years old and she started her “Avery’s Lemonade Stand at the home of her grandparents, Frank and Jeannette Killian of Duryea.
“Avery has always had a love for animals and she wanted a way to give back to the shelters,” said her mother, Kristen Dietrick.
Avery has raised money for non-kill shelters like Blue Chip Farm Animal Rescue in Dallas, where she and her fundraising friends presented a check for $1,700 on Thursday.
Avery has also raised money for Laura’s Hope Rescue in Hop Bottom, and Griffin Pond Animal Shelter in South Abington Township.
Over the years, her mom said the lemonade stand has grown to offer not just fresh squeezed lemonade, but hot dogs, popcorn, tie-dyed t-shirts, jewelry and homemade baked goods made by Avery’s grandmother, Cathy, and her great aunts, Carol, Mary, and Nettie.
Avery’s friends also help out with the stand, and they all really enjoy raising money for the animals. Those friends joined Avery on Thursday to present the check to Blue Chip — Maddy Malloy, 10, of Pittston; Gabby Skula, 9, Jenkins Township; and Veronica Carey, 10, Jenkins Township. Two members of “Team Avery” were not able to attend: Addie Joyce, 11, Clarks Summit; and Sloane Twardowski, 10, Pittston.
Also at Thursday’s check presentation were Zach Conners and Max and Ben Shupp, all 14, who also help out at the lemonade stand.
Corbie Braun, fundraising director at Blue Chip, accepted the check on behalf of Marge Bart, founder of the shelter, who was unavailable.
“These kids are terrific,” Braun said. “We really appreciate what they have done to help us provide care for our animals. This is really very special.”
Avery’s parents, Kristen and Ronnie, said they have always instilled the importance of giving back to the community and the great joy that brings.
“Avery has a heart of gold,” her mom said. “And we’re beyond proud of the accomplishments she’s made at such a young age.”
Her mom said Avery is a straight-A student at Pittston Area where she plays soccer and does competitive cheerleading at Cross Valley Cheer.
“Avery wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up,” Kristen said. “She hopes to attend Cornell University — she even has a Cornell sweatshirt already.”
Avery’s grandfather, Frank Killian, said the lemonade stand started small, but it has grown every year.
“It’s amazing what Avery and her friends have done to raise so much money,” Killian said. “And the support of the community has been terrific. The elected officials in Duryea have always been there for Avery. Avery realizes that these animals depend on people to help out. There are so many abandoned animals who need a home and until they find their home, shelters like Blue Chip are essential to care for them.”
Braun said Blue Chip currently has 60 dogs awaiting adoption and 65 cats and 20 rabbits. Avery and her friends couldn’t wait to meet some of them.
Braun took Avery and her friends to see a few puppies and then they toured Blue Chip and met most of the animals just to say hello.
Avery said she intends to keep holding her annual lemonade-plus fundraising event every year in front of her grandparents house in Duryea.
“Avery has such a good heart,” her mom said.
Avery and her team members said they want to do what they can to help.
“Like I said, we just love animals.”
More about Blue Chip
In a 2022 Times Leader story, Marge Bart said she established her Blue Chip Farm Animal Refuge in 2002 because she believes there are no bad animals, however given poor situations they are given little choice but to resort to bad behavior.
“It saddens us to see any animal surrendered for reasons that are totally preventable,” Bart said in the story. “People get a dog that is not suitable for their living conditions, such as they are not allowed pets where they live, they are not home enough, and the excuses go on and on. The pet pays the price in the end.
“When we adopt out a pet, they have been seen by a vet and all there shots, microchip and spay/neuter are included in the adoption fee.”
On the Blue Chip Farm website it states, “We keep bellies full, beds warm, and tails wagging. Here at BCF, there is a steadfast belief that every life matters. We work, every day, to provide the very best care to the animals at our shelter. We happily take them in and care for them until they find a forever home, or for as long as they need us to. We are proud to be a no-kill organization. Our animals receive no eviction notice.
Bart said for the past 21 years, Blue Chip’s mission has been to provide care, comfort, and safety to every single animal, and they have done so solely through the support of donations.
Bart said Blue Chip has always depended on its volunteers. Volunteers must be 18 years of age or older; however, children ages 13 and older may volunteer and/or work with the animals if accompanied by a parent or legal guardian at all times.
For more information, or to volunteer or donate, contact Marge Bart at:
Blue Chip Farm Animal Refuge
974 Lockville Road, Dallas, PA 18612
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 570-333-5265
FAX: 570-333-4986
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There once were two sisters from Tamaqua.
It’s not the beginning of a Limerick or an epic journey, but there was some travel involved.
In her story about Friday’s last Rockin’ The River event for the season, staff writer Hannah Simerson introduced us to Kristen Welsh and Kerri Quick, a pair of siblings who had made the trek north to Wilkes-Barre three weeks in a row to attend each of this year’s concerts.
“We came the first night and we loved it, so we just kind of came back for all of the bands,” Welsh said.
“I was actually surprised just how positive it is here — everybody is just hanging out,” she continued.
Quick was impressed to have been greeted by Wilkes-Barre Mayor George Brown during the first show of the series.
“I think the best thing that happened was the first night that we were here, the mayor came by and said hello to us and asked if we were having a great time,” Quick said.
“It was really nice because where we’re from, you don’t often see the mayor out like that in a big city like this, but he was there to introduce himself,” she added.
We might not think of ourselves as a big city, but certainly to folks from a much smaller town it can seem that way. There are two important lessons to take away from this anecdote, though.
The first is that you never want to lose neighborly friendliness, whatever the size of your community.
The second is that we often take for granted many of the things that make this a special place to live, work and play. Increasingly, Rockin’ The River is proving to be one of them.
As County Manager Romilda Crocamo said during week two of the series’ three-week run, “These types of events — and this event in particular — really highlight what’s positive about Luzerne County, and there are so many things that are positive.”
“You have people from all over the county in a beautiful setting, and they’re with their friends, their family, they bring their dogs, they listen to the music, and everybody is getting along and it’s a beautiful thing,” she added.
We know life isn’t always beautiful. The story of any community will have its highs and lows, its bright spots and its dark moments; in our pages and on our website you will see both. Shining a light on problems is an important part what reporting the news entails, including holding public officials to account for the things that go wrong.
It’s also important to praise them for the things that go right, and Rockin’ The River is perhaps one of the greatest ideas to emerge from local officials in recent years. It began during the tenure of then-County Manager C. David Pedri, former tourism director Theodore Wampole, and Mohegan Sun Arena general manager Will Beekman, among others. Some of the names and faces of changed, but the yearly series continues to delight fans.
The concert series is one of those things which originated in “the before times” — 2019, which may seem like a lifetime ago, but of course it’s only been four years. The first year was a major success, and how could it be anything but? The concept is simple: With assistance of sponsors including Times Leader Media Group, a series of three free concerts is held each year at the scenic River Common recreational complex. Food and beverage vendors are brought in for the crowd, who are treated to a lineup of local and regional talent, often including tribute acts. Throw in easy-access parking nearby in downtown Wilkes-Barre and all the pieces come together.
Of course, life changed for all of us less than a year after the series debuted.
In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic forced the planning committee to switch gears and take the shows on the road. Bands rolled through county neighborhoods on the back of a flat-bed truck as residents watched the performances from front porches. No, it wasn’t the same, but it was a creative approach to keep the community’s spirits up.
Public concerts by the river resumed in 2021, as vaccinations became available and a sense of normalcy began to return. Long may it reign, and long may we rock.
So a hearty congratulations once again to the organizers, sponsors, vendors, and performers who have made these concerts possible. And thanks to the attendees who bring a sense of community and fun to the shows, including the two sisters from Tamaqua.
See you on the River Common next summer.
— Times Leader
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Click now to support or get more information. | https://www.timesleader.com/opinion/1615664/rockin-the-river-shows-why-this-is-a-special-place-to-be | 2023-07-30T05:24:41 | 1 | https://www.timesleader.com/opinion/1615664/rockin-the-river-shows-why-this-is-a-special-place-to-be |
NEW YORK – Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers.
But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated those changes, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a show that can be binged any time or get dog food delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.
Overworked and underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries — from delivery drivers to Starbucks baristas and airline pilots — where surges in consumer demand have collided with persistent labor shortages. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, punishing schedules or company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract forces.
At issue for Hollywood screenwriters and actors staging their first simultaneous strikes in 40 years is the way streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing showrunners to produce content faster with smaller teams.
“This seems to happen to many places when the tech companies come in. Who are we crushing? It doesn’t matter,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May. Earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the writers’ union on the picket line.
Actors and writers have long relied on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of films and televisions shows. But reruns aren’t a thing on streaming services, where series and films simply land and stay with no easy way, such as box office returns or ratings, to determine their popularity.
Consequently, whatever residuals streaming companies do pay often amount to a pittance, and screenwriters have been sharing tales of receiving single digit checks.
Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever," said many actors were initially content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles that streaming suddenly offered. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but rather the future of the business, he said.
"Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said during a recent union event.
Shapiro, who has been acting for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his normal rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like "a great opportunity, and it’s going to be all over the world. And it was. It really was. Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”
Then there's the rising use of “mini rooms,” in which a handful of writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may take a year to be greenlit, or never get picked up at all.
Sanchez-Witzel, co-creator of the recently released Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep her team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with just one other writer.
“It's not sustainable and I'll never do that again,” she said.
Sanchez-Witzel said she was struck by the similarities between her experience and those of UPS drivers, some of whom joined the WGA for protests as they threatened their own potentially crippling strike. UPS and the Teamsters last week reached a tentative contract staving off the strike.
Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season. Drivers never knew what time they would get home or if they could count on two days off each week, while 14-hour days in trucks without air conditioning became the norm.
“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.
Along with pay raises and air conditioning, the Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have yet to ratify the deal.
The Teamsters and labor activists hailed the tentative deal as a game-changer that would pressure other companies facing labor unrest to raise their standards. But similar outcomes are far from certain in industries lacking the sheer economic indispensability of UPS or the clout of its 340,000-member union.
Efforts to organize at Starbucks and Amazon stalled as both companies aggressively fought against unionization.
Still, labor protests will likely gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, which released a report this year that found the number of labor strikes rose 52% in 2022.
“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic. We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable,’” Campos-Medina said.
___
Associated Press video journalist Leslie Ambriz contributed from Los Angeles. | https://www.wsls.com/business/2023/07/30/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:12 | 0 | https://www.wsls.com/business/2023/07/30/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/ |
Dew Points Return to the Upper 70′s
Tropics Down to One Disturbance
SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - It will be another hot and muggy day as dewpoint temperatures will hit 77 tomorrow. The feels-like temperature will hit 107 along the coastal areas. Inland counties will feel a few degrees cooler at peak heat times. The air temperature will reach the low 90s, and the morning low will dip down to the low 80s and upper 70′s inland.
Thunderstorms are expected to grace the Suncoast tomorrow. Some afternoon showers may reach the coast, while the brunt of storms fall in our inland counties. Sarasota and Manatee county need as much rain as possible. Sarasota is down over four inches from the normal level for this month. The Suncoast area is currently the driest area within the Florida Peninsula.
Boaters can expect overnight clouds to make way for sunshine through the a.m. hours, then storms will develop in the afternoon. Most will fall inland but expect some coastal showers. When storms are not present, seas will be around one foot with a light chop. Winds will be five to ten knots out of the west. The ultra violet index will be very high.
Only one disturbance remains in the tropics. It is located in the central Atlantic Ocean. It has a 30% chance of developing into at least a tropical depression in two days and a 70% chance within seven days. It is expected to move northwest. It is not in line to threaten the United States.
Copyright 2023 WWSB. All rights reserved. | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2023/07/30/dew-points-return-upper-70s/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:12 | 0 | https://www.mysuncoast.com/2023/07/30/dew-points-return-upper-70s/ |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Shawn Steik and his wife were forced from a long-term motel room onto the streets of Anchorage after their rent shot up to $800 a month. Now they live in a tent encampment by a train depot, and as an Alaska winter looms they are growing desperate and fearful of what lies ahead.
A proposal last week by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson to buy one-way plane tickets out of Alaska’s biggest city for its homeless residents gave Steik a much-needed glimmer of hope. He would move to the relative warmth of Seattle.
“I heard it’s probably warmer than this place,” said Steik, who is Aleut.
But the mayor's unfunded idea also came under immediate attack as a Band-Aid solution glossing over the tremendous, and still unaddressed, crisis facing Anchorage as a swelling homeless population struggles to survive in a unique and extreme environment. Frigid temperatures stalk the homeless in the winter and bears infiltrate homeless encampments in the summer.
A record eight people died of exposure while living outside last winter and this year promises to be worse after the city closed an arena that housed 500 people during the winter months. Bickering between the city’s liberal assembly and its conservative mayor about how to address the crisis, and a lack of state funding, have further stymied efforts to find a solution.
With winter fast approaching in Alaska, it's “past time for state and local leaders to address the underlying causes of homelessness — airplane tickets are a distraction, not a solution,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska said in a statement to The Associated Press.
About 43% of Anchorage’s more than 3,000 unsheltered residents are Alaska Natives, and Bronson’s proposal also drew harsh criticism from those who called it culturally insensitive.
“The reality is there is no place to send these people because this is their land. Any policy that we make has to pay credence to that simple fact. This is Dena’ina land, this is Native land," said Christopher Constant, chair of the Anchorage Assembly. "And so we cannot be supporting policies that would take people and displace them from their home, even if their home is not what you or I would call home.”
Bronson's airfare proposal caps a turbulent few years as Anchorage, like many cities in the U.S. West, struggles to deal with a burgeoning homeless population.
In May, the city shut down the 500-bed homeless shelter in the city's arena so it could once more be used for concerts and hockey games after neighbors complained about open drug use, trespassing, violence and litter. A plan to build a large shelter and navigation center fell through when Bronson approved a contract without approval from the Anchorage Assembly.
That leaves a gaping hole in the city’s ability to house the thousands of homeless people who have to contend with temperatures well below zero for days at a time and unrelenting winds blasting off Cook Inlet. At the end of June, Anchorage was estimated to have a little more than 3,150 homeless people, according to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. Last week, there were only 614 beds at shelters citywide, with no vacancies.
New tent cities have sprung up across Anchorage this summer: on a slope facing the city’s historic railroad depot, on a busy road near the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson and near soup kitchens and shelters downtown.
Assembly members are slated to consider a winter stop-gap option in August falling far short of the need: a large, warmed, tent-like structure for 150 people.
Summer brings its own challenges: hungry bears last year roamed a city-owned campground where homeless people were resettled after the arena closed. Wildlife officials killed four bears after they broke into tents.
Bronson said he prefers to spend a few hundred dollars per person for a plane ticket rather than spending about $100 daily to shelter and feed them. He said he doesn’t care where they want to go; his job is to “make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets.”
It’s not clear if his proposal will move forward. There is not yet a plan or a funding source.
Dr. Ted Mala, an Inupiaq who in 1990 became the first Alaska Native to serve as the state’s health commissioner, said Anchorage should be working with social workers and law enforcement to discover people’s individual reasons for homelessness and connect them with resources.
Buying the unsheltered a ticket to another city is a political game that's been around for years. A number of U.S. cities struggling with homelessness, including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, have also offered bus or plane tickets to homeless residents.
“People are not pawns, they’re human beings,” Mala said.
The mayor's proposal, while focused on warmer cities, also would fund tickets to other Alaska locations for those who want them.
Clarita Clark became homeless after her medical team wanted her to move from Point Hope to Anchorage for cancer treatment because Anchorage is warmer. The medical facility wouldn't allow her husband to stay with her, so they pitched a tent in a sprawling camp to stay together.
Having recently found the body of a dead teenager who overdosed in a portable toilet, Clark yearns to return to the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Point Hope, where her three grandchildren live.
“I got a family that loves me," she said, adding she would use the ticket and seek treatment closer to home.
Danny Parish also is leaving Alaska, but for another reason: He's fed up.
Parish is selling his home of 29 years because it sits directly across the street from Sullivan Arena. Bad acts by some homeless people — including harassment, throwing vodka bottles in his yard, poisoning his dog and using his driveway as a toilet — made his life “a holy hell," he said.
Parish is convinced the arena will be used again this winter since there isn't another plan.
He, too, hopes to move to the contiguous U.S. — Oregon, for starters — but not before asking Anchorage leaders for his own plane ticket out.
“If they’re going to give them to everybody else," Parish said, “then they need to give me one.” | https://www.wsls.com/news/politics/2023/07/30/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:18 | 1 | https://www.wsls.com/news/politics/2023/07/30/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/ |
TAIPEI – China accused the United States of turning Taiwan into an “ammunition depot” after the White House announced a $345 million military aid package for Taipei, and the self-ruled island said Sunday it tracked six Chinese navy ships in waters off its shores.
China's Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
“No matter how much of the ordinary people's taxpayer money the ... Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.
“Their actions are turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot, aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait," the statement said.
China’s People’s Liberation Army has increased its military maneuvers in recent years aimed at Taiwan, sending fighter jets and warships to circle the island.
On Sunday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it tracked six Chinese navy ships near the island.
Taiwan's ruling administration, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, has stepped up its weapons purchases from the U.S. as part of a deterrence strategy against a Chinese invasion.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Taiwan has never been governed by China’s ruling Communist Party.
Unlike previous military purchases, the latest batch of aid is part of a presidential authority approved by the U.S. Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales.
While Taiwan has purchased $19 billion worth of weaponry, much of it has yet to be delivered to Taiwan. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles to Taiwan. | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/china-says-us-military-aid-to-taiwan-will-not-deter-its-will-to-unify-the-island/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:33 | 1 | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/china-says-us-military-aid-to-taiwan-will-not-deter-its-will-to-unify-the-island/ |
SANTA MARIA DE JESUS – Presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo stood before a few hundred residents of this small Indigenous community on the slopes of the Agua Volcano and told them they could be the seeds of a brighter, more corruption-free spring in Guatemala.
The metaphor fits neatly with his political party, the Seed Movement, and allows the 64-year-old academic and former diplomat to riff on themes of renewal and growth.
But it also alludes to Guatemala’s “democratic spring," considered a more inclusive period in the country's history during the presidency in the 1940s and early 1950s of his late father, Juan José Arévalo.
Bernardo Arévalo won just 11% of the vote in the presidential election’s first round June 25, but it was enough to give him the surprise second slot in the Aug. 20 runoff ballot. He will face Sandra Torres, a conservative and former first lady who was the leading vote-getter in the first round and is making her third bid for the presidency.
Arévalo's recent speech in Santa Maria de Jesus was similar to those he has given in Guatemala’s capital, but the imagery could be especially important in rural Indigenous communities as he seeks to rapidly expand his largely urban, youthful base before the runoff.
He won in Guatemala City and other important cities, including Sacatepequez and Quetzaltenango. It remains to be seen whether he can convince people in rural communities that he can address their daily problems.
The delayed certification of the first round results shortened the already small window that Arévalo has to reintroduce himself to much of the country as his opponents rush to paint their own negative picture.
“Do you feel what is happening?” Arévalo told the crowd in Santa Maria de Jesus. “The new spring is arriving, that’s what you feel, and you all are the seeds of that new spring."
“A new spring that is going to bring us well-being, the water we lack, the education they owe us, the health that they have denied us thanks to those corrupt contracts that serve few," Arévalo said, standing in front of an old, damaged Roman Catholic church, in a wide-brimmed hat and untucked shirt against the tropical heat.
Among those listening was Juana Orón, a 67-year-old homemaker of the Kaqchikel people. She is one of the older voters who remember hearing about Arévalo’s father, one of only two leftist presidents in Guatemala’s democratic era.
The elder Arévalo, who governed from 1945 to 1951, is credited with establishing key social programs that remain in place today, including Guatemala's labor code and social security. Guatemala’s democratic spring was cut short in 1954 by the CIA-backed overthrow of his successor, President Jacobo Arbenz.
Under Juan José Arévalo, the state advocated for rights for Indigenous peoples and others beyond the country’s small elite.
“I remember I was little and (my parents) said he had done good things,” said Orón whose first language as a child was Kaqchikel. If his father was good, Arévalo could be a good president, too, she said.
Opponents have tried to frame Arévalo’s candidacy as a step toward some of the region’s more notorious leftist regimes, such as Cuba and Nicaragua. They warn that the progressive candidate will bring expropriations, abortion and same-sex marriage to the conservative country.
Arévalo has been the election’s surprise.
In the days before the June 25 vote, he was polling below 3% and trailing at least seven of the other 21 candidates. But his anti-corruption message resonated in the country where gains against corruption have been erased and the justice system reoriented to pursue the prosecutors and judges who formerly led that fight.
In the month since that initial result, the Attorney General’s Office announced an investigation into his party and had a judge suspend its legal status until the Constitutional Court stepped in to block that move.
In Santa Maria de Jesus, people wanted to compare Arévalo in person to what they were hearing about him. Some handed him flowers, posed for photos or reached out to touch him as he made his way through the throng.
Arévalo pushed back against attempts to frame him as a left-wing radical — he has said private property rights are not up for discussion — and pounded the issue of corruption.
“Let us work, let us get ahead on our own effort, let’s get rid of the corrupt once and for all,” he said.
For Francisco Jiménez, a political scientist at Rafael Landivar University, Arévalo will need concrete proposals to make inroads with the base of Torres, who has spent two decades assembling it.
“He will have to make governing proposals with a social agenda, where the people see that he is going to have an impact on their lives and communities,” Jiménez said. “The other part is continuing to present himself as the different model. That has been his success, someone totally different from the other candidates.”
Evangelical churches in Guatemala have painted Arévalo as an existential threat to the family.
Gladys Sunun, a 35-year-old Kaqchikel vendor from an evangelical family, said she came to hear Arévalo for herself. She said she had heard that Arévalo would convert Guatemala into another Cuba or Nicaragua, but left feeling that might not be true, though she wants to investigate more.
“He came to tell us not to worry,” she said. “It sounds real, but we don’t know.”
Her sister July Sunun said she wanted to hear more about Arévalo's positions on gender ideology. “As a mother I’m afraid, because we’ve grown up with a Christian background. I don’t want to marry my daughter with another woman," she said.
July Sunun acknowledged that Arévalo said he would respect the identities and decisions of the people, “but what he hasn’t said is that he won’t allow (same-sex marriage) to happen here." | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/guatemala-presidential-candidate-rushes-to-expand-base-beyond-urban-youth/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:34 | 0 | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/guatemala-presidential-candidate-rushes-to-expand-base-beyond-urban-youth/ |
Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure for traffic of one of four airports around the Russian capital.
It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fueling concerns about Moscow’s vulnerability to attacks as Russia's war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.
The Russian Defense Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime" and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defense systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district in the capital.
Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia's state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.
No flights went into or out of the Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the air space over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed for any aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.
Moscow authorities have also closed a street for traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who rarely if ever take responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.
Russia's Defense Ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside Moscow on Friday. Two more drones struck the Russian capital on Monday, one of them falling in the center of the city near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters along the Moscow River about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.
In another attack on July 4, the Russian military said four drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and a fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down. | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-prompts-temporary-airport-closure/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:35 | 1 | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-prompts-temporary-airport-closure/ |
PAVLIVKA – The summer winds carried the smell of burned grain across the southern Ukrainian steppe and away from the shards of three Russian cruise missiles that struck the unassuming metal hangars.
The agricultural company Ivushka applied for accreditation to export grain this year, but the strike in mid-July destroyed a large portion of the stock, days after Russia abandoned the grain deal that would have allowed the shipments across the Black Sea without fear of attack.
Men shirtless and barefoot, with blackened soles from ash, swept unburnt grain into piles and awaited the loader, whose driver deftly steered around twisted metal shrapnel, bits of missile and craters despite his shattered windshield.
They hoped to beat the next rain to rescue what was left of the crop. According to the Odesa Regional Prosecutor’s Office, Russia struck the facility July 21 with three Kalibr- and Onyx-class cruise missiles.
“We don’t have a clue why they did it,” explained Olha Romanova, the head of Ivushka. Romanova, who worked in the debris alongside the others, wore a red headscarf and an exhausted expression and was too frazzled to even estimate her losses.
She cannot comprehend why the Russians targeted Ivushka, as there are no nearby military facilities and the frontlines are far from the village in the Odesa region.
“They spent so much money on us,” she said, puzzled. The missiles that ruined the silos are worth millions of dollars — far more than the crop they destroyed.
But Ivushka wasn't the only target in Odesa. The main port also was struck, leaving Black Sea shipping companies that relied upon the grain deal to keep them safe and food supplies flowing to the world at a standstill.
The Black Sea handled about 95% of Ukrainian grain exports before Russia’s invasion and the U.N.-brokered initiative allowed Ukraine to ship much of what farmers harvested in 2021 and 2022, said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
Ukraine, a major supplier of corn, wheat, barley and vegetable oil, shipped 32.9 million metric tons (36.2 million U.S. tons) of grain under the nearly yearlong deal designed to ease a global food crisis. It has been able to export an additional 2 million to 2.5 million metric tons (2.2 to 2.7 million U.S. tons) monthly by the Danube River, road and rail through Europe.
Those are now the only routes to ship grain, but have stirred divisions among nearby European countries and generated higher costs to be absorbed by Ukrainian farmers, said Glauber, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Russian missiles strikes against the Danube port last Monday also raised questions about how much longer that route will remain viable.
That’s a disincentive to keep planting fields already threatened by missiles and strewn with explosive mines. Corn and wheat production in agriculture-dependent Ukraine is down nearly 40% this year from prewar levels, analysts say.
From the first of July last year until June 30 this year, Ukraine exported 68 million tons of grain, according to data from Mykola Horbachov, the president of the Ukrainian Grain Association. Ukrainian farmers shipped 11.2 million tons via railways, 5.5 million tons by road transport and around 18 million tons through Danube ports. Additionally, nearly half of the total exported grain, 33 million tons, was delivered through seaports under the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
Ihor Osmachko, the general director of Agroprosperis Group, was unsurprised by Russia's withdrawal from the deal leading to its collapse. His company had never considered it a reliable or permanent solution during wartime.
He said Russians frequently stymied the deal, even while it was functioning, by delaying ship inspections until the cargos were sent back, leading to $30 million in losses for his company alone. Now, they are once again forced to pay to reroute 100,000 tons of grain trapped in ports that are no longer safe, Osmachko said.
“We have been preparing for this whole time,” Osmachko said. “We haven’t stopped. We are moving forward.”
Osmachko estimated around 80% to 90% of the approximately 3.2 million tons of grain Agroprosperis exported to China, Europe and African countries during the past year went through the grain corridor.
“The most significant problem today is the cost of logistics,” explained Mykola Horbachov, president of the Ukrainian Grain Association. Before the war, farmers paid approximately $20 to $25 per ton to transport grain to the Odesa ports. Now, logistics costs have tripled as they are forced to pay more than $100 to transport a single ton via alternative routes through the Danube port to Constanta, Romania.
“If we were to go on the Danube with the grain corridor closed, practically all our production would be unprofitable,” Osmachko said.
The Danube ports can't handle the same volume as seaports. The most Agroprosperis has sent through this route is 75,000 tons per month, compared with a monthly average of 250,000 tons through Black Sea ports.
The Ukrainian harvest this year is the lowest in a decade, according to a July report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Horbachov said shipping costs to export around the world and uncertainty about the length of the war will last could quickly make new planting unprofitable for Ukrainian farmers.
Ukraine currently produces three times more grain than it consumes, while global prices will inevitably rise if the country's exports decrease.
“I think you’re looking at a diminished Ukraine for at least the next couple of years and maybe longer,” said Glauber, the former U.S. agricultural official. “That’s something the rest of the world just needs to make up.”
The war from all sides poses risks for Agroprosperis.
In the Sumy region on the Russian border, farmers harvest their crops wearing body armor. Sometimes they must stop their combines in the middle of the wheat fields to pick up shrapnel from Russian projectiles.
“It can get tough at times,” Osmachko acknowledged. “But there are responsibilities — some have duties on the front. Some must grow food and ensure the country’s and world’s security.”
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Volodymyr Yurchuk in Lviv, Ukraine, and Courtney Bonnell in London contributed.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/russian-missile-attacks-leave-few-options-for-ukrainian-farmers-looking-to-export-grain/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:52 | 1 | https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2023/07/30/russian-missile-attacks-leave-few-options-for-ukrainian-farmers-looking-to-export-grain/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers.
But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated those changes, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a show that can be binged any time or get dog food delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.
Overworked and underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries — from delivery drivers to Starbucks baristas and airline pilots — where surges in consumer demand have collided with persistent labor shortages. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, punishing schedules or company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract forces.
At issue for Hollywood screenwriters and actors staging their first simultaneous strikes in 40 years is the way streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing showrunners to produce content faster with smaller teams.
“This seems to happen to many places when the tech companies come in. Who are we crushing? It doesn’t matter,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May. Earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the writers’ union on the picket line.
Actors and writers have long relied on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of films and televisions shows. But reruns aren’t a thing on streaming services, where series and films simply land and stay with no easy way, such as box office returns or ratings, to determine their popularity.
Consequently, whatever residuals streaming companies do pay often amount to a pittance, and screenwriters have been sharing tales of receiving single digit checks.
Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever,” said many actors were initially content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles that streaming suddenly offered. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but rather the future of the business, he said.
“Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said during a recent union event.
Shapiro, who has been acting for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his normal rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like “a great opportunity, and it’s going to be all over the world. And it was. It really was. Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”
Then there’s the rising use of “mini rooms,” in which a handful of writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may take a year to be greenlit, or never get picked up at all.
Sanchez-Witzel, co-creator of the recently released Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep her team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with just one other writer.
“It’s not sustainable and I’ll never do that again,” she said.
Sanchez-Witzel said she was struck by the similarities between her experience and those of UPS drivers, some of whom joined the WGA for protests as they threatened their own potentially crippling strike. UPS and the Teamsters last week reached a tentative contract staving off the strike.
Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season. Drivers never knew what time they would get home or if they could count on two days off each week, while 14-hour days in trucks without air conditioning became the norm.
“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.
Along with pay raises and air conditioning, the Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have yet to ratify the deal.
The Teamsters and labor activists hailed the tentative deal as a game-changer that would pressure other companies facing labor unrest to raise their standards. But similar outcomes are far from certain in industries lacking the sheer economic indispensability of UPS or the clout of its 340,000-member union.
Efforts to organize at Starbucks and Amazon stalled as both companies aggressively fought against unionization.
Still, labor protests will likely gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, which released a report this year that found the number of labor strikes rose 52% in 2022.
“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic. We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable,’” Campos-Medina said.
___
Associated Press video journalist Leslie Ambriz contributed from Los Angeles. | https://www.seattletimes.com/business/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_business | 2023-07-30T05:25:58 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/business/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_business |
ROANOKE, Va. – William Fleming was part of our coaching carousel spring, with Jamar Lovelace heading to E.C. Glass, enter Nick Leftwich, who spent the last two years in charge at Cave Spring.
During that time, Leftwich doubled the amount of wins from 2021 to 2022, including the first playoff appearance in 4 years. his love and excitement of the game shined when he was hired at William Fleming, and his players bought in quickly.
Leftwich said the work ethic was already established before he arrived on the Cliff - now it’s time to implement his own changes to the offense and defense.
“They’re excited, they’re ready to get out here,” Leftwich said. “As far as numbers are concerned, we’re sophomore and junior heavy, which is good, we have about 10 or 11 seniors, and you know some guys are gonna be ready to play that are young but they’re excited. They’re ready to go and again ready to get the season started.”
“Honestly, I don’t think anybody’s gonna be able to get away from our tackles too much,” senior offensive lineman James Haynes said. “Hopefully as successful as I think our defense is, I think how good we are at tackling. I’m not really worried about anybody getting away from us too much this year.”
His teammate Michael Finley agreed. “We’ve just been working all summer putting in the grind. It’s been a hot summer and we’ve just been working. Just physicality, physicality is the main thing, and mental toughness and we will be good.”
William Fleming opens their season at home against Cave Spring on August 25th. | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/2023-1st-and-10-camp-tour-william-fleming-colonels/ | 2023-07-30T05:25:58 | 0 | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/2023-1st-and-10-camp-tour-william-fleming-colonels/ |
Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure for traffic of one of four airports around the Russian capital.
It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fueling concerns about Moscow’s vulnerability to attacks as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.
The Russian Defense Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defense systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district in the capital.
Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.
No flights went into or out of the Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the air space over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed for any aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.
Moscow authorities have also closed a street for traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who rarely if ever take responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside Moscow on Friday. Two more drones struck the Russian capital on Monday, one of them falling in the center of the city near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters along the Moscow River about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.
In another attack on July 4, the Russian military said four drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and a fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down. | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/world/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-prompts-temporary-airport-closure/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_world | 2023-07-30T05:26:04 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/world/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-prompts-temporary-airport-closure/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_world |
LAS VEGAS – Terence Crawford knocked down Errol Spence Jr. three times Saturday night before finally ending the fight at 2:32 of the ninth round on a technical knockout to cement himself as one of the greatest welterweights in history.
The fight, the most-anticipated boxing match in several years, unified the division for the first time in the four-belt era that began in 2004.
Crawford (40-0, 31 knockouts) already owned the WBO belt, and took the WBC, WBA and IBF titles from Spence (28-1). Crawford also ran his KO streak to 11 matches, the second-longest active stretch.
Crawford, 35, has won titles in super lightweight and lightweight in addition to welterweight, capturing the latter after moving up in 2018. The Omaha, Nebraska, fighter became the first male boxer to become the undisputed champion in two divisions in the four-belt era.
“I only dreamed of being a world champion,” Crawford said. “I’m an over-achiever. Nobody believed in me when I was coming up, but I made everybody a believer. I want to thank Spence and his team because without him none of this would have been possible.”
A big fight night on the Strip still brings out the stars, with recording artists Cardi B and Andre 3000 of Outkast, actor and Las Vegas resident Mark Walhberg, NBA star Damian Lillard and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at T-Mobile Arena. They were among the celebrities that also included former boxing champions such as Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Eminem introduced Crawford and his song “Lose Yourself” played as he walked into the ring before a sellout crowd of 19,990 at T-Mobile Arena.
Spence was the aggressor early on, but Crawford sent him to the floor with a right hand with 20 seconds left in the second round. Then Crawford went after Spence, but time ran out before he could finish him off.
Crawford, a minus-154 favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, then took control of the fight, landing several major blows, often on counters. But Crawford also picked his spots to go after Spence, his punching power taking a heavy toll.
“He was just better tonight,” Spence said. “I make no excuses. He was throwing a harder jab. He was timing with his jab, and he had his timing down on point.”
In the seventh round, Crawford knocked down Spence twice — with a short right at 1:02 and with another right with just a second left.
The fight was essentially over at that point, though Crawford backed off in the eighth round. He came roaring back in the ninth to end it for sure.
“They said I wasn’t good enough and I couldn’t beat these welterweights," Crawford said. "I just kept my head to the sky and kept praying to God that I would get the opportunity to show the world how great Terence Crawford is. Tonight, I believe I showed how great I am.”
Spence, however, said he would be up for a rematch.
“We've got to do it again,” Spence said. “I would be a lot better.”
The 33-year-old Spence who lives in DeSoto, Texas, won the IBF title in 2017, claimed the WBC championship in 2019 and took the WBA championship last year.
In the co-main event, Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz (25-2-1) of Mexico beat Chicago resident Giovanni Cabrera (21-1) by split decision in a WBC and WBA lightweight match. Judges Benoit Roussel (114-113) and Don Trella (115-112) scored the fight in favor of Cruz, and Glenn Feldman gave Cabrera the fight by a 114-113 score. Cruz had a point deducted because of a head butt.
Also, Alexandro Santiago (28-3-5) of Mexico won the vacant WBC bantamweight title with a 115-113, 116-112, 116-12 decision over Nonito Donaire (42-8), who lives in Las Vegas.
___
AP boxing: https://apnews.com/hub/boxing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/crawford-unifies-welterweight-division-with-9th-round-tko-in-dominant-performance-over-spence/ | 2023-07-30T05:26:05 | 1 | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/crawford-unifies-welterweight-division-with-9th-round-tko-in-dominant-performance-over-spence/ |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Shawn Steik and his wife were forced from a long-term motel room onto the streets of Anchorage after their rent shot up to $800 a month. Now they live in a tent encampment by a train depot, and as an Alaska winter looms they are growing desperate and fearful of what lies ahead.
A proposal last week by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson to buy one-way plane tickets out of Alaska’s biggest city for its homeless residents gave Steik a much-needed glimmer of hope. He would move to the relative warmth of Seattle.
“I heard it’s probably warmer than this place,” said Steik, who is Aleut.
But the mayor’s unfunded idea also came under immediate attack as a Band-Aid solution glossing over the tremendous, and still unaddressed, crisis facing Anchorage as a swelling homeless population struggles to survive in a unique and extreme environment. Frigid temperatures stalk the homeless in the winter and bears infiltrate homeless encampments in the summer.
A record eight people died of exposure while living outside last winter and this year promises to be worse after the city closed an arena that housed 500 people during the winter months. Bickering between the city’s liberal assembly and its conservative mayor about how to address the crisis, and a lack of state funding, have further stymied efforts to find a solution.
With winter fast approaching in Alaska, it’s “past time for state and local leaders to address the underlying causes of homelessness — airplane tickets are a distraction, not a solution,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska said in a statement to The Associated Press.
About 43% of Anchorage’s more than 3,000 unsheltered residents are Alaska Natives, and Bronson’s proposal also drew harsh criticism from those who called it culturally insensitive.
“The reality is there is no place to send these people because this is their land. Any policy that we make has to pay credence to that simple fact. This is Dena’ina land, this is Native land,” said Christopher Constant, chair of the Anchorage Assembly. “And so we cannot be supporting policies that would take people and displace them from their home, even if their home is not what you or I would call home.”
Bronson’s airfare proposal caps a turbulent few years as Anchorage, like many cities in the U.S. West, struggles to deal with a burgeoning homeless population.
In May, the city shut down the 500-bed homeless shelter in the city’s arena so it could once more be used for concerts and hockey games after neighbors complained about open drug use, trespassing, violence and litter. A plan to build a large shelter and navigation center fell through when Bronson approved a contract without approval from the Anchorage Assembly.
That leaves a gaping hole in the city’s ability to house the thousands of homeless people who have to contend with temperatures well below zero for days at a time and unrelenting winds blasting off Cook Inlet. At the end of June, Anchorage was estimated to have a little more than 3,150 homeless people, according to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. Last week, there were only 614 beds at shelters citywide, with no vacancies.
New tent cities have sprung up across Anchorage this summer: on a slope facing the city’s historic railroad depot, on a busy road near the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson and near soup kitchens and shelters downtown.
Assembly members are slated to consider a winter stop-gap option in August falling far short of the need: a large, warmed, tent-like structure for 150 people.
Summer brings its own challenges: hungry bears last year roamed a city-owned campground where homeless people were resettled after the arena closed. Wildlife officials killed four bears after they broke into tents.
Bronson said he prefers to spend a few hundred dollars per person for a plane ticket rather than spending about $100 daily to shelter and feed them. He said he doesn’t care where they want to go; his job is to “make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets.”
It’s not clear if his proposal will move forward. There is not yet a plan or a funding source.
Dr. Ted Mala, an Inupiaq who in 1990 became the first Alaska Native to serve as the state’s health commissioner, said Anchorage should be working with social workers and law enforcement to discover people’s individual reasons for homelessness and connect them with resources.
Buying the unsheltered a ticket to another city is a political game that’s been around for years. A number of U.S. cities struggling with homelessness, including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, have also offered bus or plane tickets to homeless residents.
“People are not pawns, they’re human beings,” Mala said.
The mayor’s proposal, while focused on warmer cities, also would fund tickets to other Alaska locations for those who want them.
Clarita Clark became homeless after her medical team wanted her to move from Point Hope to Anchorage for cancer treatment because Anchorage is warmer. The medical facility wouldn’t allow her husband to stay with her, so they pitched a tent in a sprawling camp to stay together.
Having recently found the body of a dead teenager who overdosed in a portable toilet, Clark yearns to return to the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Point Hope, where her three grandchildren live.
“I got a family that loves me,” she said, adding she would use the ticket and seek treatment closer to home.
Danny Parish also is leaving Alaska, but for another reason: He’s fed up.
Parish is selling his home of 29 years because it sits directly across the street from Sullivan Arena. Bad acts by some homeless people — including harassment, throwing vodka bottles in his yard, poisoning his dog and using his driveway as a toilet — made his life “a holy hell,” he said.
Parish is convinced the arena will be used again this winter since there isn’t another plan.
He, too, hopes to move to the contiguous U.S. — Oregon, for starters — but not before asking Anchorage leaders for his own plane ticket out.
“If they’re going to give them to everybody else,” Parish said, “then they need to give me one.” | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_seattle-news | 2023-07-30T05:26:10 | 0 | https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_seattle-news |
FUKUOKA – The American swim team has had a so-so meet at the world championships in Japan. Meanwhile, Australia and China have been pouring it on.
The American gold-medal count at the worlds is the lowest in at least two decades, although the overall medal count of gold, silver, and bronze, is similar to most years.
“Obviously, we’d like to win more gold medals and I think we will,” American coach Bob Bowman said going into Sunday's final day.
The slight predicament for Bowman is that two of the swimmers he coaches at Arizona State University, Leon Marchand of France and Hungary's Hubert Kos, have won four gold medals. Marchand has three, and he's sure to be a star in next year's Paris Olympic, and Kos has one.
That's the same gold-medal total for the entire American team through seven of eight days — four gold. The average for the Americans over the last nine championships has been about 15 golds.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, two of the first three questions Bowman fielded were about Marchand and Kos, from French and Hungarian news outlets.
“If you look at swimming, every coach on the U.S. team is coaching a foreign swimmer, an international swimmer. There's always that dynamic," said Bowman, who has legendary status for helping Michael Phelps win 23 Olympic gold medals."
Bowman was cautious about taking credit for Kos, who came to Arizona State late last year. He went from being a good individual medley swimmer to a world champion a few days ago in the 200-meter backstroke.
“I think it’s just the Bob Bowman effect,” said Kos, son of an American father and Hungarian mother. ”That’s as simple as it is."
He said Bowman had a “magic” touch.“
Bowman played down his role.
“He (Kos) had an excellent coach at home for 10 years before me,” Bowman said. "He deserved the credit for this. I just helped a little bit at the end.”
Swimming is an individual sport, separate from team sports like soccer. It would be unthinkable for the coach of Real Madrid to be also coaching Barcelona players on the side. But it's normal in swimming, and Bowman said he was “ethically” comfortable with it.
“I mean, the bottom line is I get paid to coach these guys at ASU,” he said. “I’m representing my country for the love of my country and happy to do that. I don’t think there’s an ethical question. It’s not a zero-sum. I’m not taking away from the US guys.”
He said he was interested in coaching the Americans at next year's Olympics, but suggested any decision was still pending.
“I don’t think we know yet,” he said. "I have to go through this week, get home, think about what the scenarios look (like) and then we’ll decide. I always want to do. But we’ll see how it goes.”
___
AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/legendary-coach-bob-bowman-keeps-turning-out-winning-swimmers-and-not-just-americans/ | 2023-07-30T05:26:11 | 0 | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/legendary-coach-bob-bowman-keeps-turning-out-winning-swimmers-and-not-just-americans/ |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Shawn Steik and his wife were forced from a long-term motel room onto the streets of Anchorage after their rent shot up to $800 a month. Now they live in a tent encampment by a train depot, and as an Alaska winter looms they are growing desperate and fearful of what lies ahead.
A proposal last week by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson to buy one-way plane tickets out of Alaska’s biggest city for its homeless residents gave Steik a much-needed glimmer of hope. He would move to the relative warmth of Seattle.
“I heard it’s probably warmer than this place,” said Steik, who is Aleut.
But the mayor's unfunded idea also came under immediate attack as a Band-Aid solution glossing over the tremendous, and still unaddressed, crisis facing Anchorage as a swelling homeless population struggles to survive in a unique and extreme environment. Frigid temperatures stalk the homeless in the winter and bears infiltrate homeless encampments in the summer.
A record eight people died of exposure while living outside last winter and this year promises to be worse after the city closed an arena that housed 500 people during the winter months. Bickering between the city’s liberal assembly and its conservative mayor about how to address the crisis, and a lack of state funding, have further stymied efforts to find a solution.
With winter fast approaching in Alaska, it's “past time for state and local leaders to address the underlying causes of homelessness — airplane tickets are a distraction, not a solution,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska said in a statement to The Associated Press.
About 43% of Anchorage’s more than 3,000 unsheltered residents are Alaska Natives, and Bronson’s proposal also drew harsh criticism from those who called it culturally insensitive.
“The reality is there is no place to send these people because this is their land. Any policy that we make has to pay credence to that simple fact. This is Dena’ina land, this is Native land," said Christopher Constant, chair of the Anchorage Assembly. "And so we cannot be supporting policies that would take people and displace them from their home, even if their home is not what you or I would call home.”
Bronson's airfare proposal caps a turbulent few years as Anchorage, like many cities in the U.S. West, struggles to deal with a burgeoning homeless population.
In May, the city shut down the 500-bed homeless shelter in the city's arena so it could once more be used for concerts and hockey games after neighbors complained about open drug use, trespassing, violence and litter. A plan to build a large shelter and navigation center fell through when Bronson approved a contract without approval from the Anchorage Assembly.
That leaves a gaping hole in the city’s ability to house the thousands of homeless people who have to contend with temperatures well below zero for days at a time and unrelenting winds blasting off Cook Inlet. At the end of June, Anchorage was estimated to have a little more than 3,150 homeless people, according to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. Last week, there were only 614 beds at shelters citywide, with no vacancies.
New tent cities have sprung up across Anchorage this summer: on a slope facing the city’s historic railroad depot, on a busy road near the Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson and near soup kitchens and shelters downtown.
Assembly members are slated to consider a winter stop-gap option in August falling far short of the need: a large, warmed, tent-like structure for 150 people.
Summer brings its own challenges: hungry bears last year roamed a city-owned campground where homeless people were resettled after the arena closed. Wildlife officials killed four bears after they broke into tents.
Bronson said he prefers to spend a few hundred dollars per person for a plane ticket rather than spending about $100 daily to shelter and feed them. He said he doesn’t care where they want to go; his job is to “make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets.”
It’s not clear if his proposal will move forward. There is not yet a plan or a funding source.
Dr. Ted Mala, an Inupiaq who in 1990 became the first Alaska Native to serve as the state’s health commissioner, said Anchorage should be working with social workers and law enforcement to discover people’s individual reasons for homelessness and connect them with resources.
Buying the unsheltered a ticket to another city is a political game that's been around for years. A number of U.S. cities struggling with homelessness, including San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Oregon, have also offered bus or plane tickets to homeless residents.
“People are not pawns, they’re human beings,” Mala said.
The mayor's proposal, while focused on warmer cities, also would fund tickets to other Alaska locations for those who want them.
Clarita Clark became homeless after her medical team wanted her to move from Point Hope to Anchorage for cancer treatment because Anchorage is warmer. The medical facility wouldn't allow her husband to stay with her, so they pitched a tent in a sprawling camp to stay together.
Having recently found the body of a dead teenager who overdosed in a portable toilet, Clark yearns to return to the Chukchi Sea coastal village of Point Hope, where her three grandchildren live.
“I got a family that loves me," she said, adding she would use the ticket and seek treatment closer to home.
Danny Parish also is leaving Alaska, but for another reason: He's fed up.
Parish is selling his home of 29 years because it sits directly across the street from Sullivan Arena. Bad acts by some homeless people — including harassment, throwing vodka bottles in his yard, poisoning his dog and using his driveway as a toilet — made his life “a holy hell," he said.
Parish is convinced the arena will be used again this winter since there isn't another plan.
He, too, hopes to move to the contiguous U.S. — Oregon, for starters — but not before asking Anchorage leaders for his own plane ticket out.
“If they’re going to give them to everybody else," Parish said, “then they need to give me one.”
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/ap-top-news/2023/07/30/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis | 2023-07-30T05:26:17 | 0 | https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/ap-top-news/2023/07/30/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis |
Of all extreme weather conditions, heat is the most deadly. It kills more people in the U.S. in an average year than hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. The human body has a built-in cooling mechanism – sweat. But that system can only do so much, especially in soaring temperatures with high humidity.
Here's a look at what happens to the human body in extreme temperatures – and the three main pathways to fatal consequences.
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Organ failure caused by heatstroke
When the surrounding temperatures approach your internal body temperature – which is about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit for most of us – your body starts to cool off through evaporative cooling, better known as sweating. But when it's very humid out, that sweat won't evaporate as well and cool you down.
When your body is exposed to heat, it will try to cool itself down by redirecting more blood to the skin, says Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney, where he directs the Heat and Health Research Incubator. But that means less blood and less oxygen are going to your gut. If these conditions go on long enough, your gut can become more permeable.
"So, nasty things like endotoxins that usually reside and stay inside the gut start leaking out of the gut, entering the circulation. And that sets off a cascade of effects that ultimately result in death," Jay says.
For example, those toxins can activate white blood cells, says Camilo Mora, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who has researched how heat can turn fatal. "They say, Oh my God, we're getting attacked right now. And the white blood cells are going to attack this contamination in the blood, creating coagulation" – or blood clots, Mora says. Those clots can lead to multiple organ failure.
"And at that point, it's pretty irreversible," Jay adds.
Cardiovascular collapse
The second way people die in high heat also has to do with your body pumping more blood to the skin. Your heart has to pump faster – which can make you feel lightheaded – to keep your blood pressure up.
"We might have a heart rate of 60 beats per minute, all of a sudden, we might be asking the heart to contract 100 times per minute, 110 times per minute. So now you're asking the heart to do a lot more work," Jay says.
Those spikes in the heart rate can be triggers for a heart attack, he says, especially for the elderly and those with underlying heart conditions.
Fluid loss leading to kidney failure
The third deadly danger has to do with the fluids your body is losing in extreme heat. People can sweat as much as a liter and half per hour, Jay says. And if you don't replenish those fluids, you get dehydrated and your blood volume shrinks, which makes it harder to maintain blood pressure. That can strain your heart and your kidneys.
"People with kidney disorders can be at greater risk of a negative health outcome during extreme heat exposure," Jay says.
Mora notes another danger to the kidneys that people who work physically demanding jobs in high heat outdoors face. Rhabdomyolysis causes muscle tissue to break down, releasing proteins into the blood that can clog kidneys. This usually occurs in the acute phase of heatstroke. Jay says there's also some evidence that habitually working outdoors in high heat without proper hydration can increase the risk of chronic kidney disease.
What you can do to stay safe
Watch for the first signs of mild heat exhaustion:
If that happens, Jay says, get out of the heat and into the shade or indoors ASAP. Drink plenty of water and wet your clothes and skin. Immersing your feet in cold water can also help.
Jay says the goal is to cool down so you don't progress to severe heat exhaustion, where you might start vomiting or seem to lose coordination – signs of neurological disturbance.
If your core body temperature rises to about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, Jay says, that's where you risk heatstroke.
How hot is too hot?
Experts say there's no absolute temperature at which extreme heat can turn dangerous.
"It depends on the individual," says Lewis Halsey, a professor of environmental physiology at the University of Roehampton in the U.K. "It depends on how acclimated they are to heat. It depends how long they're exposed to the heat for. It depends on how they're experiencing this heat."
If sweating is our superpower to keep cool, then "the kryptonite to that superpower is humidity," Halsey says.
So a person might start feeling overwhelmed much sooner in higher humidity at lower temperatures than if they're in dry heat, he says. Direct sunlight will heat us up faster than when we're in the shade. A nice breeze could help sweat evaporate and cool us off.
The elderly and very young are considered particularly vulnerable in the heat. But Mora of the University of Hawaii at Manoa notes heat stress can hit anyone.
He points to the story of a young family who died after becoming dangerously overheated while hiking on a day in August 2021 when temperatures reached 109 degrees Fahrenheit in Northern California. The husband, wife, their one-year-old daughter and even the family dog were found dead two days later.
Mora says those kinds of conditions could kill within a few hours — even if you are young and healthy.
"The military has done a lot of research into heat exposure and they find the first symptoms of heat exhaustion, heatstroke after only a few hours, even among the healthiest of people," Mora says.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.wbaa.org/2023-07-23/how-heat-kills-what-happens-to-the-body-in-extreme-temperatures | 2023-07-30T05:26:17 | 0 | https://www.wbaa.org/2023-07-23/how-heat-kills-what-happens-to-the-body-in-extreme-temperatures |
SYDNEY – Some of the biggest names in soccer have yet to show up at the Women's World Cup.
That's literally been the case of Australian star Sam Kerr, who missed the first two games with a calf injury.
Kerr has recovered in time to play for Australia in a crucial final Group B game against Canada on Monday. The Matildas need to beat the Canadians to ensure they advance to the knockout round, and the Chelsea striker's return to the lineup brings needed energy to the team.
“Mentally, it’s massive. It brings so much to our team and obviously also a lot to the opposition knowing that we have Sam available for this game,” Australia defender Ellie Carpenter said.
Kerr's injury on the eve of Australia's opening game against Ireland set the tone for a tournament that hasn't been kind to some of its biggest stars. She was the face of co-host Australia's preparations for the tournament, which is also being staged in New Zealand.
She dominated the covers of magazines across newsstands, while the autobiography she released late last year chronicled her rise to become arguably the best player in the women's game right now. Kerr's popularity transcends women's soccer and she is considered a national icon.
So the disappointment was palpable when news broke about an hour before the opening match that Kerr was going to be sidelined at least two games in this tournament.
Kerr's absence was felt in the 3-2 loss to Nigeria in Australia's second game, a loss that put the Matildas in danger of elimination. It is not known what her role will be against Canada, but Australia needs Kerr to deliver in the final game of group play.
"I’m definitely going to be available, but how we decide to use that is not to be given to the opposition,” said Kerr.
The World Cup is supposed to be a showcase for the finest talent and biggest names, but injuries have always robbed the tournament of some its star players.
Norway forward Ada Hegerberg has had her playing time curtailed. Often referred to as “the Lionel Messi of women's soccer,” Hederberg was part of a Norway's 1-0 upset loss to New Zealand in the opening game of the World Cup.
It got worse for the 2018 Ballon d’Or winner when she suffered a groin injury in the warm-up ahead of Norway's game against Switzerland, and she's been ruled out of the final Group A game against the Philippines.
Keira Walsh of England suffered a knee injury against Denmark that will sidenline her for the Lionesses' final Group D game against China. Described as irreplaceable, it is not known how much she will be able to play.
Even for some stars who have seen plenty of playing time, it has been difficult to make an impact.
American icon Alex Morgan has underwhelmed so far at her fourth World Cup, where she is hoping to help the United States to an unprecedented third consecutive title.
Morgan, the co-leading scorer at the last World Cup, has yet to score at this year's event and missed a penalty in the 3-0 win against Vietnam. U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski said Morgan was adapting to playing in a forward line with Sophia Smith and Trinity Rodman.
“I think it’s not hard to realize that Alex’s role is slightly different than the Alex that we’re used to maybe in the past,” Andonovski said. "She does set up the other two forwards a lot more. It’s not that she’s not capable of scoring goals or getting behind crosses, but we can also see her playing balls to Trinity and Soph, but also getting crosses for them as well.”
Morgan, at 34, is now one of the older players at the tournament.
Christine Sinclair of Canada is also searching for first goal of the tournament. Sinclair is highest scorer in international soccer — men or women — with 190 goals.
Like Morgan, she also missed a penalty, in a 0-0 draw with Nigeria that could still prove costly. She was benched for Canada's second game against Ireland before coming in as a substitute at halftime as the gold medalist from the Tokyo Olympics logged a come-from-behind 2-1 win.
At 40 years old, Sinclair is having to accept a more limited role for Canada.
Brazil great Marta, at 37, has also been used sparingly in her sixth World Cup.
Her teammate, Debinha, who is also an iconic figure to Brazil fans, has been one of the standout players for her country so far. But she wasn't able to stop a 2-1 loss to France on Saturday despite scoring in that match.
The gap appears to be closing in the women's game, with underdogs proving more of a test for the more established nations. That's one reason some of the big name stars have yet to impress in tournament.
One of the few standouts who has not disappointed so far has been Alexandra Popp, who scored twice in Germany's 6-0 rout of Morocco.
Major tournaments are traditionally a mix of rising talents coming to the surface, while established stars have the chance to confirm their status among the greats.
Linda Caicedo of Colombia, Lauren James of England and Melchie Dumornay of Haiti have proven their worth as some of the brightest prospects in the game. But as the second round of games nears its completion, it feels like the tournament is still waiting for many of its big hitters to make an impact.
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James Robson is at https://twitter.com/jamesalanrobson
___
More AP Women’s World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/some-of-soccers-biggest-stars-are-struggling-to-make-an-impact-at-the-womens-world-cup/ | 2023-07-30T05:26:18 | 1 | https://www.wsls.com/sports/2023/07/30/some-of-soccers-biggest-stars-are-struggling-to-make-an-impact-at-the-womens-world-cup/ |
NEW YORK (AP) — Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers.
But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated those changes, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a show that can be binged any time or get dog food delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.
Overworked and underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries — from delivery drivers to Starbucks baristas and airline pilots — where surges in consumer demand have collided with persistent labor shortages. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, punishing schedules or company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract forces.
At issue for Hollywood screenwriters and actors staging their first simultaneous strikes in 40 years is the way streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing showrunners to produce content faster with smaller teams.
“This seems to happen to many places when the tech companies come in. Who are we crushing? It doesn’t matter,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May. Earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the writers’ union on the picket line.
Actors and writers have long relied on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of films and televisions shows. But reruns aren’t a thing on streaming services, where series and films simply land and stay with no easy way, such as box office returns or ratings, to determine their popularity.
Consequently, whatever residuals streaming companies do pay often amount to a pittance, and screenwriters have been sharing tales of receiving single digit checks.
Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever," said many actors were initially content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles that streaming suddenly offered. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but rather the future of the business, he said.
"Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said during a recent union event.
Shapiro, who has been acting for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his normal rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like "a great opportunity, and it’s going to be all over the world. And it was. It really was. Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”
Then there's the rising use of “mini rooms,” in which a handful of writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may take a year to be greenlit, or never get picked up at all.
Sanchez-Witzel, co-creator of the recently released Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep her team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with just one other writer.
“It's not sustainable and I'll never do that again,” she said.
Sanchez-Witzel said she was struck by the similarities between her experience and those of UPS drivers, some of whom joined the WGA for protests as they threatened their own potentially crippling strike. UPS and the Teamsters last week reached a tentative contract staving off the strike.
Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season. Drivers never knew what time they would get home or if they could count on two days off each week, while 14-hour days in trucks without air conditioning became the norm.
“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.
Along with pay raises and air conditioning, the Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have yet to ratify the deal.
The Teamsters and labor activists hailed the tentative deal as a game-changer that would pressure other companies facing labor unrest to raise their standards. But similar outcomes are far from certain in industries lacking the sheer economic indispensability of UPS or the clout of its 340,000-member union.
Efforts to organize at Starbucks and Amazon stalled as both companies aggressively fought against unionization.
Still, labor protests will likely gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, which released a report this year that found the number of labor strikes rose 52% in 2022.
“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic. We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable,’” Campos-Medina said.
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Associated Press video journalist Leslie Ambriz contributed from Los Angeles.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/ap-top-news/2023/07/30/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups | 2023-07-30T05:26:23 | 0 | https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/ap-top-news/2023/07/30/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups |
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Emmett Till would have turned 82 today. Till was tortured and murdered in Mississippi after a white woman accused the Black 14-year-old of whistling and grabbing at her. Till and his mother's willingness to share the brutality Till suffered marked a pivotal moment in the early Civil Rights Movement. Mamie Till Mobley described her decision in a 2003 interview with The Chicago Project.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAMIE TILL MOBLEY: Let the people see what I've seen. And I want open casket viewing from now until the time we take Emmett for burial.
KELLY: Now, almost 70 years after Till was beaten, shot, had a cotton gin tied around his body and was thrown in the Tallahatchie River, Till and his mother are being memorialized in the form of three monuments in Chicago and Mississippi. President Biden signed the proclamation designating the sites earlier today. Patrick Weems is the executive director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in Sumner, Miss. He was at the White House when President Biden put pen to paper. We spoke before he headed to that event.
Patrick Weems, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
PATRICK WEEMS: Thank you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: You've come to D.C. for this event at the White House, and you picked up the Till family en route.
WEEMS: We drove from Chicago to D.C. to be here today, and I couldn't think of a more memorable trip to be here with Wheeler Parker, who's one of the most gracious, forgiving human beings and probably one of the most important people alive.
KELLY: So tell me about the three locations. There are two in Mississippi, one in Illinois. Start with the one that marks the site where Till's body was believed to have been pulled from the Tallahatchie River. What will visitors see there?
WEEMS: Yeah, well, hopefully what they won't see is a bullet-riddled sign. You know, we've had a lot of history of this site being desecrated, being shot up. We were able to put a bulletproof marker there recently in the last couple of years. But more significant is that the site where Till's body came out of the Tallahatchie River will now be a part of the National Park Service system. And to know that it will be federally protected - to make sure that if someone does vandalize our signs, it won't be a local sheriff. It will be the federal government that will get involved. But this is the big bang of the Civil Rights Movement, as Jesse Jackson talked about. This is a site where so many Black bodies were thrown into rivers. But Emmett's miraculously emerged. An 18-year-old fisherman found the body and brought it to the banks of the Tallahatchie River, where his body was initially identified because he had his father's ring on his finger. But then later, Mamie Till made sure the body came to Chicago, where she said, this is my son. I know my son.
KELLY: Yeah. And that's - the site in Illinois is the site where she insisted on an open casket. Describe what we'll see there.
WEEMS: Yeah. So, I mean, public officials wanted to bury Emmett in Mississippi. The sheriff had a directive to make sure the body was buried in Money, Miss. Mamie refused. She wanted to have a very private mourning for her son, first and foremost. But she also took that moment to remember and kind of resist white supremacy, resist the Jim Crow system by having a public funeral, having an open casket to show the world what they did to her son.
KELLY: And then the last location is also in Mississippi, back in Tallahatchie County.
WEEMS: That's right. So the site of the injustice - right? - so the miscarriage of justice took place in our courtroom in 1955. And it's also the site where people like Willie Reed, an 18-year-old sharecropper who witnessed the murder. He testified at the trial, and he whispered his testimony because he was scared to death. He later had a nervous breakdown, changed his name and moved to Chicago and didn't talk about this until 30 years later. And so, you know, it's a low point in American history, the fact that these men get off without any penalty. But it also is a testimony to people like Medgar Evers, Willie Reed, Mose Wright, Mamie Till, Dr. T.R.M. Howard - people who did the right thing that day and had the courage to at least try to get some attempt at justice.
KELLY: You know, I'm thinking about how this monument designation comes as a national conversation is underway about how to teach Black history in our schools. Do you think these monuments might help inform that conversation?
WEEMS: They already are. I mean, this is American history. We have young people visit these sites already. This will only amplify and make it easier for young people to come. It takes the best of us to talk about the worst of us. And if we're going to have a true democracy and multicultural democracy, we have to understand where we've stumbled. And we stumbled badly in 1955. And no matter party affiliation, I think we should all agree that what took place in 1955 was wrong. The system was wrong. Mississippi was wrong. The United States was wrong. But we can be better. It's our hope that this memorial marks a line in the sand that says, never again, and that if we want to hold and cherish our democracy, we need to learn about Mose Wright and Mamie Till.
KELLY: Patrick Weems. Thank you.
WEEMS: Thank you, Mary Louise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. | https://www.wbaa.org/2023-07-25/the-journey-for-the-emmett-till-and-mamie-till-mobley-national-monuments | 2023-07-30T05:26:23 | 1 | https://www.wbaa.org/2023-07-25/the-journey-for-the-emmett-till-and-mamie-till-mobley-national-monuments |
Anchorage homeless face cold and bears. A plan to offer one-way airfare out reveals a bigger crisis
By MARK THIESSEN
Associated Press
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A proposal by the mayor of Anchorage, Alaska, to fly homeless people to warmer climates or other Alaska cities underscores the homeless crisis affecting the state’s largest city, and the very unique dangers faced by the unsheltered in an extreme environment. A record eight people died of exposure last winter and the situation could be much worse this year. The 500-bed shelter in a sports arena won’t open after neighbors’ complaints. Bickering between the city’s liberal assembly and its conservative mayor has complicated the search for a solution as winter approaches. More than 40% of Anchorage’s homeless are Indigenous people. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:05 | 1 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/anchorage-homeless-face-cold-and-bears-a-plan-to-offer-one-way-airfare-out-reveals-a-bigger-crisis/ |
China says US military aid to Taiwan will not deter its will to unify the island
By HUIZHONG WU
Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China accused the United States of turning Taiwan into an “ammunition depot” after the White House announced a $345 million military aid package for Taipei, and the self-ruled island said Sunday it tracked six Chinese navy ships in waters off its shores.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement late Saturday opposing the military aid to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
“No matter how much of the ordinary people’s taxpayer money the … Taiwanese separatist forces spend, no matter how many U.S. weapons, it will not shake our resolve to solve the Taiwan problem. Or shake our firm will to realize the reunification of our motherland,” said Chen Binhua, a spokesperson for the Taiwan Affairs Office.
“Their actions are turning Taiwan into a powder keg and ammunition depot, aggravating the threat of war in the Taiwan Strait,” the statement said.
China’s People’s Liberation Army has increased its military maneuvers in recent years aimed at Taiwan, sending fighter jets and warships to circle the island.
On Sunday, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it tracked six Chinese navy ships near the island.
Taiwan’s ruling administration, led by the Democratic Progressive Party, has stepped up its weapons purchases from the U.S. as part of a deterrence strategy against a Chinese invasion.
China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, and Taiwan has never been governed by China’s ruling Communist Party.
Unlike previous military purchases, the latest batch of aid is part of a presidential authority approved by the U.S. Congress last year to draw weapons from current U.S. military stockpiles — so Taiwan will not have to wait for military production and sales.
While Taiwan has purchased $19 billion worth of weaponry, much of it has yet to be delivered to Taiwan. Washington will send man-portable air defense systems, intelligence and surveillance capabilities, firearms and missiles to Taiwan. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/china-says-us-military-aid-to-taiwan-will-not-deter-its-will-to-unify-the-island/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:11 | 0 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/china-says-us-military-aid-to-taiwan-will-not-deter-its-will-to-unify-the-island/ |
Consumer demand for speed and convenience drives labor unrest among workers in Hollywood and at UPS
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers.
But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated those changes, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a show that can be binged any time or get dog food delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.
Overworked and underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries — from delivery drivers to Starbucks baristas and airline pilots — where surges in consumer demand have collided with persistent labor shortages. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, punishing schedules or company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract forces.
At issue for Hollywood screenwriters and actors staging their first simultaneous strikes in 40 years is the way streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing showrunners to produce content faster with smaller teams.
“This seems to happen to many places when the tech companies come in. Who are we crushing? It doesn’t matter,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May. Earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the writers’ union on the picket line.
Actors and writers have long relied on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of films and televisions shows. But reruns aren’t a thing on streaming services, where series and films simply land and stay with no easy way, such as box office returns or ratings, to determine their popularity.
Consequently, whatever residuals streaming companies do pay often amount to a pittance, and screenwriters have been sharing tales of receiving single digit checks.
Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever,” said many actors were initially content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles that streaming suddenly offered. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but rather the future of the business, he said.
“Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said during a recent union event.
Shapiro, who has been acting for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his normal rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like “a great opportunity, and it’s going to be all over the world. And it was. It really was. Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”
Then there’s the rising use of “mini rooms,” in which a handful of writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may take a year to be greenlit, or never get picked up at all.
Sanchez-Witzel, co-creator of the recently released Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep her team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with just one other writer.
“It’s not sustainable and I’ll never do that again,” she said.
Sanchez-Witzel said she was struck by the similarities between her experience and those of UPS drivers, some of whom joined the WGA for protests as they threatened their own potentially crippling strike. UPS and the Teamsters last week reached a tentative contract staving off the strike.
Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season. Drivers never knew what time they would get home or if they could count on two days off each week, while 14-hour days in trucks without air conditioning became the norm.
“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.
Along with pay raises and air conditioning, the Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have yet to ratify the deal.
The Teamsters and labor activists hailed the tentative deal as a game-changer that would pressure other companies facing labor unrest to raise their standards. But similar outcomes are far from certain in industries lacking the sheer economic indispensability of UPS or the clout of its 340,000-member union.
Efforts to organize at Starbucks and Amazon stalled as both companies aggressively fought against unionization.
Still, labor protests will likely gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, which released a report this year that found the number of labor strikes rose 52% in 2022.
“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic. We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable,’” Campos-Medina said.
___
Associated Press video journalist Leslie Ambriz contributed from Los Angeles. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups-2/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:17 | 0 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups-2/ |
Guatemala presidential candidate rushes to expand base beyond urban youth
By SONIA PÉREZ D.
Associated Press
SANTA MARIA DE JESUS, Guatemala (AP) — Presidential candidate Bernardo Arévalo won just 11% of the vote in Guatemala’s presidential election’s first round June 25. But it was enough to give him the surprise second slot in the Aug. 20 runoff ballot. Now he must rapidly expand his largely urban, youthful base. Opponents have tried to frame Arévalo’s candidacy as a step toward some of the region’s more notorious leftist regimes, like Cuba and Nicaragua. He has pushed back against that, and has been campaigning in rural villages by stressing his anti-corruption message. He’s also using farming metaphors, telling rural residents they could be seeds of a new, corruption-free springtime in Guatemala. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/guatemala-presidential-candidate-rushes-to-expand-base-beyond-urban-youth/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:23 | 1 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/guatemala-presidential-candidate-rushes-to-expand-base-beyond-urban-youth/ |
Morocco’s Benzina becomes the first senior-level Women’s World Cup player to compete in hijab
Associated Press
Adelaide, Australia (AP) — Stepping onto the field against South Korea in Morocco’s second Women’s World Cup match, defender Nouhaila Benzina made history as the first player to wear a hijab while competing at a senior-level global tournament.
A FIFA ban on playing in religious head coverings in its sanctioned games for “health and safety reasons” was overturned in 2014 after advocacy from activists, athletes and government and soccer officials.
“I have no doubt that more and more women and Muslim girls will look at Benzina and just really be inspired – not just the players, but I think decision makers, coaches, other sports as well,” said Assmaah Helal, a co-founder of the Muslim Women in Sports Network.
Benzina plays professional club soccer for the Association’s Sports of Forces Armed Royal – the eight-time defending champion in Morocco’s top women’s league. She did not play in Morocco’s opening 6-0 loss to Germany in Melbourne, and had to wait six days to finally get her start in the Group H game in Adelaide.
Morocco is the first Arab or North African nation to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.
“We are honored to be the first Arab country to take part in the Women’s World Cup,” Morocco captain Ghizlane Chebbak said ahead of the tournament, “and we feel that we have to shoulder a big responsibility to give a good image, to show the achievements the Moroccan team has made.”
___
Cassidy Hettesheimer contributed to this report from Melbourne, Australia.
___
Hettesheimer is a student at the University of Georgia’s Carmical Sports Media Institute.
___
AP Women’s World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-womens-world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/moroccos-benzina-becomes-the-first-senior-level-womens-world-cup-player-to-compete-in-hijab/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:29 | 1 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/moroccos-benzina-becomes-the-first-senior-level-womens-world-cup-player-to-compete-in-hijab/ |
Overnight drone attack on Moscow injures 1, temporarily closes airport for traffic
By The Associated Press
Russian authorities say three Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow in the early hours on Sunday, injuring one person and prompting a temporary closure for traffic of one of four airports around the Russian capital.
It was the fourth such attempt at a strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, fueling concerns about Moscow’s vulnerability to attacks as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.
The Russian Defense Ministry referred to the incident as an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and said three drones targeted the city. One was shot down in the surrounding Moscow region by air defense systems and two others were jammed. Those two crashed into the Moscow City business district in the capital.
Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.
No flights went into or out of the Vnukovo airport on the southern outskirts of the city for about an hour, according to Tass, and the air space over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed for any aircraft. Those restrictions have since been lifted.
Moscow authorities have also closed a street for traffic near the site of the crash in the Moscow City area.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who rarely if ever take responsibility for attacks on Russian soil.
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside Moscow on Friday. Two more drones struck the Russian capital on Monday, one of them falling in the center of the city near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters along the Moscow River about 3 kilometers (2 miles) from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.
In another attack on July 4, the Russian military said four drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and a fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down. | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-temporarily-closes-airport-for-traffic/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:35 | 0 | https://kion546.com/ap-colorado/2023/07/29/overnight-drone-attack-on-moscow-injures-1-temporarily-closes-airport-for-traffic/ |
Consumer demand for speed and convenience drives labor unrest among workers in Hollywood and at UPS
By ALEXANDRA OLSON
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Six straight days of 12-hour driving. Single digit paychecks. The complaints come from workers in vastly different industries: UPS delivery drivers and Hollywood actors and writers.
But they point to an underlying factor driving a surge of labor unrest: The cost to workers whose jobs have changed drastically as companies scramble to meet customer expectations for speed and convenience in industries transformed by technology.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated those changes, pushing retailers to shift online and intensifying the streaming competition among entertainment companies. Now, from the picket lines, workers are trying to give consumers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a show that can be binged any time or get dog food delivered to their doorstep with a phone swipe.
Overworked and underpaid employees is an enduring complaint across industries — from delivery drivers to Starbucks baristas and airline pilots — where surges in consumer demand have collided with persistent labor shortages. Workers are pushing back against forced overtime, punishing schedules or company reliance on lower-paid, part-time or contract forces.
At issue for Hollywood screenwriters and actors staging their first simultaneous strikes in 40 years is the way streaming has upended entertainment economics, slashing pay and forcing showrunners to produce content faster with smaller teams.
“This seems to happen to many places when the tech companies come in. Who are we crushing? It doesn’t matter,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, a screenwriter and showrunner on the negotiating team for the Writers Guild of America, whose members have been on strike since May. Earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists joined the writers’ union on the picket line.
Actors and writers have long relied on residuals, or long-term payments, for reruns and other airings of films and televisions shows. But reruns aren’t a thing on streaming services, where series and films simply land and stay with no easy way, such as box office returns or ratings, to determine their popularity.
Consequently, whatever residuals streaming companies do pay often amount to a pittance, and screenwriters have been sharing tales of receiving single digit checks.
Adam Shapiro, an actor known for the Netflix hit “Never Have I Ever,” said many actors were initially content to accept lower pay for the plethora of roles that streaming suddenly offered. But the need for a more sustainable compensation model gained urgency when it became clear streaming is not a sideshow, but rather the future of the business, he said.
“Over the past 10 years, we realized: ‘Oh, that’s now how Hollywood works. Everything is streaming,’” Shapiro said during a recent union event.
Shapiro, who has been acting for 25 years, said he agreed to a contract offering 20% of his normal rate for “Never Have I Ever” because it seemed like “a great opportunity, and it’s going to be all over the world. And it was. It really was. Unfortunately, we’re all starting to realize that if we keep doing this we’re not going to be able to pay our bills.”
Then there’s the rising use of “mini rooms,” in which a handful of writers are hired to work only during pre-production, sometimes for a series that may take a year to be greenlit, or never get picked up at all.
Sanchez-Witzel, co-creator of the recently released Netflix series “Survival of the Thickest,” said television shows traditionally hire robust writing teams for the duration of production. But Netflix refused to allow her to keep her team of five writers past pre-production, forcing round-the-clock work on rewrites with just one other writer.
“It’s not sustainable and I’ll never do that again,” she said.
Sanchez-Witzel said she was struck by the similarities between her experience and those of UPS drivers, some of whom joined the WGA for protests as they threatened their own potentially crippling strike. UPS and the Teamsters last week reached a tentative contract staving off the strike.
Jeffrey Palmerino, a full-time UPS driver near Albany, New York, said forced overtime emerged as a top issue during the pandemic as drivers coped with a crush of orders on par with the holiday season. Drivers never knew what time they would get home or if they could count on two days off each week, while 14-hour days in trucks without air conditioning became the norm.
“It was basically like Christmas on steroids for two straight years. A lot of us were forced to work six days a week, and that is not any way to live your life,” said Palmerino, a Teamsters shop steward.
Along with pay raises and air conditioning, the Teamsters won concessions that Palmerino hopes will ease overwork. UPS agreed to end forced overtime on days off and eliminate a lower-paid category of drivers who work shifts that include weekends, converting them to full-time drivers. Union members have yet to ratify the deal.
The Teamsters and labor activists hailed the tentative deal as a game-changer that would pressure other companies facing labor unrest to raise their standards. But similar outcomes are far from certain in industries lacking the sheer economic indispensability of UPS or the clout of its 340,000-member union.
Efforts to organize at Starbucks and Amazon stalled as both companies aggressively fought against unionization.
Still, labor protests will likely gain momentum following the UPS contract, said Patricia Campos-Medina, executive director of the Worker Institute at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, which released a report this year that found the number of labor strikes rose 52% in 2022.
“The whole idea that consumer convenience is above everything broke down during the pandemic. We started to think, ‘I’m at home ordering, but there is actually a worker who has to go the grocery store, who has to cook this for me so that I can be comfortable,’” Campos-Medina said.
___
Associated Press video journalist Leslie Ambriz contributed from Los Angeles. | https://kion546.com/news/ap-california/2023/07/29/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:42 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/ap-california/2023/07/29/consumer-demand-for-speed-and-convenience-drives-labor-unrest-among-workers-in-hollywood-and-at-ups/ |
Max Muncy blasts two home runs, helps Dodgers rally past Reds 3-2
By BETH HARRIS
AP Sports Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Max Muncy hit a pair of two-out homers, including a go-ahead shot in the sixth inning, and the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied to beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-2 on Saturday night.
Muncy had the Dodgers’ only two hits as he snapped an 0-for-9 skid with his 26th and 27th homers. The rest of the lineup went 0 for 25, including Freddie Freeman and David Peralta who were each hitless in four at-bats.
Both of Muncy’s homers came off Luke Weaver (2-3). Muncy gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in the first with a 400-foot shot to right. In the sixth, he snapped a 2-all tie with a 371-foot blast into the lower right-field seats.
Muncy got the green light from manager Dave Roberts to swing away on a 3-0 count.
“We get the green light quite a bit, but they usually trust me knowing that I’m not going to just swing to swing,” Muncy said. “If it’s a pitch right where I’m looking, I’ll take a hack at it. But I’ve taken plenty of 3-0 strikes this year when I’ve had the green light.”
The Reds had the potential tying run at second in the eighth. Matt McLain singled off reliever Brusdar Graterol and took second on pinch hitter Kevin Newman’s groundout. After Graterol struck out Spencer Steer, Evan Phillips came on and retired Joey Votto on a groundout to first to end the inning.
Phillips got the final four outs to earn his 13th save.
“It was pretty much Max and Evan versus the Reds tonight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
The Dodgers bullpen wobbled in the sixth when the Reds tied it 2-all.
Caleb Ferguson gave up a leadoff double to Elly De La Cruz and TJ Friedl reached on an infield single to second. Newman’s sacrifice fly to right scored De La Cruz.
Steer’s RBI single scored Friedl with the tying run. Votto walked before Ferguson exited.
Joe Kelly (2-5) got the victory in his Dodgers debut after being traded from the Chicago White Sox a day earlier.
“Obviously, Max put the team on his back. That was fun to watch,” Kelly said. “The whole entire game was great — defense, pitching, great team win.”
Kelly’s wild pitch sailed to the backstop and moved Votto to second and Steer to third. The right-hander then walked Christian Encarnacion-Strand to load the bases.
“Joe is a different bird,” Roberts said. “He just rises to the bigger moments. He thrives on taking on inherited runners.”
Kelly retired pinch hitter Will Benson on a called third strike to end the inning, drawing cheers from fans who have fond memories of Kelly’s previous stint with the team.
“The crowd was awesome,” Kelly said. “It helped definitely the four hours of sleep I had last night, I was a little bit groggy, but when it comes time to pitch it’s always an adrenaline rush.”
Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan gave up two hits over five innings, struck out five and walked one in his first scoreless start since his major league debut on June 16 against San Francisco.
“I was definitely feeling a lot better than the past couple weeks,” Sheehan said. “Just being on the attack and trusting stuff in the zone. Before I was being a little defensive and I don’t like pitching like that.”
After giving up a leadoff double to Luke Maile in the third, Sheehan retired his final nine consecutive batters.
Weaver allowed three runs — one earned — and two hits in six innings. The right-hander struck out two and walked two.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Reds: 2B Jonathan India (left heel pain) was scratched shortly before the game.
Dodgers: RF Mookie Betts (right ankle soreness) was scratched a few hours before game time. … LHP Clayton Kershaw (shoulder) threw a three-inning simulated game. There was no immediate decision on his next move.
HONORING OREL
Cy Young Award-winning pitcher Orel Hershiser was inducted into the Legends of Dodger Baseball in a pregame ceremony. Among those on hand were Sandy Koufax, Fernando Valenzuela, Rick Dempsey and more of Hershiser’s teammates from the 1988 World Series championship team. Kirk Gibson, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, spoke by video, saying he was in Alaska.
“It’s nice to be recognized for all the times you tried to be your best in the past,” Hershiser said before the on-field presentation.
The honor recognizes former Dodger greats and their on and off the field impact on the franchise.
UP NEXT
RHP Graham Ashcraft (5-7, 5.64 ERA) makes his second start this season against LA in the series finale Sunday. He lost 6-0 on June 6, giving up three runs and three hits in 2 2/3 innings. RHP Michael Grove (2-2, 6.19) faces the Reds for the first time in his career.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://kion546.com/news/ap-california/2023/07/29/max-muncy-blasts-two-home-runs-helps-dodgers-rally-past-reds-3-2/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:48 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/ap-california/2023/07/29/max-muncy-blasts-two-home-runs-helps-dodgers-rally-past-reds-3-2/ |
Antarctica is missing an Argentina-sized amount of sea ice – and scientists are scrambling to figure out why
By Sophie Tanno, CNN
(CNN) — As the Northern Hemisphere swelters under a record-breaking summer heat wave, much further south, in the depths of winter, another terrifying climate record is being broken. Antarctic sea ice has fallen to unprecedented lows for this time of year.
Every year, Antarctic sea ice shrinks to its lowest levels towards the end of February, during the continent’s summer. The sea ice then builds back up over the winter.
But this year scientists have observed something different.
The sea ice has not returned to anywhere near expected levels. In fact it is at the lowest levels for this time of year since records began 45 years ago. The ice is around 1.6 million square kilometers (0.6 million square miles) below the previous winter record low set in 2022, according to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
In mid-July, Antarctica’s sea ice was 2.6 million square kilometers (1 million square miles) below the 1981 to 2010 average. That is an area nearly as large as Argentina or the combined areas of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado
‘The game has changed’
The phenomenon has been described by some scientists as off-the-charts exceptional – something that is so rare, the odds are that it only happens once in millions of years.
But Ted Scambos, a glaciologist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said that speaking in these terms may not be that helpful.
“The game has changed,” he told CNN. “There’s no sense talking about the odds of it happening the way the system used to be, it’s clearly telling us that the system has changed.”
Scientists are now scrambling to figure out why.
The Antarctic is a remote, complex continent. Unlike the Arctic, where sea ice has been on a consistently downwards trajectory as the climate crisis accelerates, sea ice in the Antarctic has swung from record highs to record lows in the last few decades, making it harder for scientists to understand how it is responding to global heating.
But since 2016, scientists have begun to observe a steep downwards trend. While natural climate variability affects the sea ice, many scientists say climate change may be a major driver for the disappearing ice.
“The Antarctic system has always been highly variable,” Scambos said. “This [current] level of variation, though, is so extreme that something radical has changed in the past two years, but especially this year, relative to all previous years going back at least 45 years.”
Several factors feed into sea ice loss, Scambos said, including the strength of the westerly winds around Antarctica, which have been linked to the increase of planet-heating pollution.
“Warmer ocean temperatures north of the Antarctic Ocean boundary mixing into the water that’s typically somewhat isolated from the rest of the world’s oceans is also part of this idea as to how to explain this,” Scambos said.
In late February of this year, Antarctic sea ice reached its lowest extent since records began, at 691,000 square miles.
This winter’s unprecedented occurrence may indicate a long-term change for the isolated continent, Scambos said. “It is more likely than not that we won’t see the Antarctic system recover the way it did, say, 15 years ago, for a very long period into the future, and possibly ‘ever.’”
Others are more cautious. “It’s a large departure from average but we know that Antarctic sea ice exhibits large year to year variability,” Julienne Stroeve, a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center told CNN, adding “it’s too early to say if this is the new normal or not.”
Cascading effects
Sea ice plays a vital role. While it doesn’t directly affect sea level rise, as it’s already floating in the ocean, it does have indirect effects. Its disappearance leaves coastal ice sheets and glaciers exposed to waves and warm ocean waters, making them more vulnerable to melting and breaking off.
A lack of sea ice could also have significant impacts on its wildlife, including krill on which many of the region’s whales feed, and penguins and seals that rely on sea ice for feeding and resting.
More broadly, Antarctica’s sea ice contributes to the regulation of the planet’s temperature, meaning its disappearance could have cascading effects far beyond the continent.
The sea ice reflects incoming solar energy back to space, when it melts, it exposes the darker ocean waters beneath which absorb the sun’s energy.
Parts of Antarctica have been seeing alarming changes for a while. The Antarctic Peninsula, a spindly chain of icy mountains which sticks off the west side of the continent, is one of the fastest warming places in the Southern Hemisphere.
Last year, scientists said West Antarctica’s vast Thwaites Glacier – also known as the “Doomsday Glacier” – was “hanging on by its fingernails” as the planet warms.
Scientists have estimated global sea level rise could increase by around 10 feet if Thwaites collapsed completely, devastating coastal communities around the world.
Scambos said that this winter’s record low level of sea ice is a very alarming signal.
“In 2016, [Antarctic sea ice] took the first big down-turn. Since 2016, it’s remained low, and now the bottom has fallen out. Something major in a huge part of the planet is suddenly behaving differently from what we saw for the past 45 years.”
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™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Laura Paddison contributed to this report. | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/antarctica-is-missing-an-argentina-sized-amount-of-sea-ice-and-scientists-are-scrambling-to-figure-out-why/ | 2023-07-30T05:27:54 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/antarctica-is-missing-an-argentina-sized-amount-of-sea-ice-and-scientists-are-scrambling-to-figure-out-why/ |
Exclusive: Rare access to Ukraine’s sea drones, part of Ukraine’s fightback in the Black Sea
CNN
By Sebastian Shukla, Alex Marquardt and Daria Martina Tarasova, CNN
Ukraine (CNN) — At a secret makeshift military base a nondescript van and pickup truck tow two gray objects covered by tarpaulin mounted on trailers.
In the driving rain, they resemble something more akin to a Boston Whaler, rather than hiding one of Ukraine’s most closely guarded secrets.
Perched on the banks of a secret lake, CNN was given exclusive access to the base where much-vaunted sea – or surface – drones are tested.
As the tarps are drawn back, a gun-gray, sleek hull appears. Just over five meters (16 feet) in length, its narrow shape resembles a wide canoe.
These naval drones, never before shown to journalists, are increasingly allowing the Ukrainians to attack and surveil the Russians in the Black Sea and on the Crimean Peninsula. A country with no real fleet to speak of is outmanned and outgunned off their own coastline, but these sea drones are proving a vital tool in countering the Russians.
A government-linked Ukrainian fundraising organization called United24 has sourced money from companies and individuals all around the world, pooling the funds to disperse it to a variety of developers and initiatives from defense to soccer matches.
The entire outfit is very security conscious, insisting on strict guidelines on filming and revealing identities. Those who CNN met with declined to give their full names or even their ranks within Ukraine’s armed forces.
On a creaky wooden jetty, a camouflaged sea drone pilot says he wants to go by “Shark.” In front of him is a long black hardshell briefcase. He unveils a bespoke, multi-screened mission control – essentially an elaborate gaming center, complete with levers, joysticks, a monitor and buttons that have covers over switches that shouldn’t be accidentally knocked, with labels like “blast.”
The developer of the drone, who asked to remain anonymous, said their work on the sea drones only began once the war started. It was “very important, because we did not have very many forces to resist the maritime state – Russia. And we needed to develop something of our own, because we didn’t have the existing capabilities”.
Battles in the Black Sea
Ukraine is now starting to show those capabilities, even if missions are have varying degrees of success.
The latest versions of the drone seen by CNN weigh up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), with an explosive payload of up to 300 kilograms (661 pounds), a range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) and maximum speed of 80 kph (50 mph).
Multiple sea drone attack carried out on Russian assets in Crimea and the Black Sea have grabbed recent headlines, with dramatic videos posted online. Some, but by no means all, have been claimed by the security services themselves.
Ukrainian defense sources confirmed to CNN that sea drones were involved in at least two recent attacks: the Kerch Bridge in July and in Crimea’s Sevastopol port last October.
On 14 July the Ukrainian security services, alongside the navy, claimed joint responsibility for the second attack in nine months on the much-derided Kerch Bridge.
The vital artery, a nearly $4 billion project by Russia and personally opened by President Putin, is a key target to disrupt and sever the resupply route for Russian forces in the illegally annexed peninsula and in occupied areas of the southern front.
The pre-dawn attack left a section of the bridge unpassable and out of service until September.
The developer, watching his brainchild churn water, says the “these drones are a completely Ukrainian production. They are designed, drawn and tested here. It’s our own production of hulls, electronics and software. More than 50% of the production of equipment is here (in Ukraine).”
The Russians have yet to adjust to Ukraine’s newest capabilities, they claim.
“It is very difficult for them to get into such a small drone, it is very difficult to find it,” the developer says. “The speed of these drones exceeds any sea craft in the Black Sea region at the moment.”
The speed and difficulties in detection may go some way to explaining how the drones that attacked the bridge traveled undetected in the dark across the Black Sea to the bridge.
Targeting flagships
Ukraine has also been aiming their new equipment at Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which has cruised menacingly off the coast and become a recipient of many vicious volleys of missile attacks.
Before the recent attack left a key piece of Russian infrastructure bruised, other attempted attacks had already put the Russians on notice.
In October last year sea drones were responsible for the attack on the fleet’s flagship, the Admiral Makarov, which was docked in port in Sevastopol. Ukrainian defense sources told CNN that the internal security services (SBU) carried out the attacks.
There was never any real proof given to the damage caused to the vessel, and it later reappeared without any major damage, but the fact that the Ukrainians were able to get within striking distance of the Admiral Makarov reinforces the success rate of the Ukrainians.
The brazen attack also gave Kyiv’s forces a boost and some propaganda for the public. Especially since the Admiral Makarov was newly installed as the Black Sea flagship after the Moskva was famously sunk by Ukrainian forces in April 2022.
“Shark,” languidly guiding the sea-drone from his control station, says :”these drones are designed to destroy ships and the fleet… such things that are used quite successfully and terrify the Russians.”
The damage sustained to the Admiral Makarov was unclear, but the intentions for Kyiv were on show.
The developer argues their work in against Russian naval targets forces them further into the Black Sea, therefore making deeper missile strikes into Ukraine harder. “300, 400, 600 kilometers is a long distance that makes some operations impossible and makes other operations more difficult.”
He said that makes cities like Odesa “safer.” But after the bridge strike, the city came under days of intense air attacks from drones and cruise missiles launched from the Russian Black sea fleet. Twenty-five UNESCO World Heritage sites across the city were hit. Russia claimed it was responding to an area it says was housing sea drones.
The drones’ capabilities and successes have given the developer some bravado though
“I think it will be five to 10 years or more before they (Russians) can effectively counter this type of equipment,” he says. “Their equipment is from the 20th century, ours is from the 21st. There are 100 years between us.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Victoria Butenko contributed to this report | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/exclusive-rare-access-to-ukraines-sea-drones-part-of-ukraines-fightback-in-the-black-sea-2/ | 2023-07-30T05:28:00 | 0 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/exclusive-rare-access-to-ukraines-sea-drones-part-of-ukraines-fightback-in-the-black-sea-2/ |
Exclusive: Rare access to Ukraine’s sea drones, part of Ukraine’s fightback in the Black Sea
By Sebastian Shukla, Alex Marquardt and Daria Martina Tarasova, CNN
Ukraine (CNN) — At a secret makeshift military base a nondescript van and pickup truck tow two gray objects covered by tarpaulin mounted on trailers.
In the driving rain, they resemble something more akin to a Boston Whaler, rather than hiding one of Ukraine’s most closely guarded secrets.
Perched on the banks of a secret lake, CNN was given exclusive access to the base where much-vaunted sea – or surface – drones are tested.
As the tarps are drawn back, a gun-gray, sleek hull appears. Just over five meters (16 feet) in length, its narrow shape resembles a wide canoe.
These naval drones, never before shown to journalists, are increasingly allowing the Ukrainians to attack and surveil the Russians in the Black Sea and on the Crimean Peninsula. A country with no real fleet to speak of is outmanned and outgunned off their own coastline, but these sea drones are proving a vital tool in countering the Russians.
A government-linked Ukrainian fundraising organization called United24 has sourced money from companies and individuals all around the world, pooling the funds to disperse it to a variety of developers and initiatives from defense to soccer matches.
The entire outfit is very security conscious, insisting on strict guidelines on filming and revealing identities. Those who CNN met with declined to give their full names or even their ranks within Ukraine’s armed forces.
On a creaky wooden jetty, a camouflaged sea drone pilot says he wants to go by “Shark.” In front of him is a long black hardshell briefcase. He unveils a bespoke, multi-screened mission control – essentially an elaborate gaming center, complete with levers, joysticks, a monitor and buttons that have covers over switches that shouldn’t be accidentally knocked, with labels like “blast.”
The developer of the drone, who asked to remain anonymous, said their work on the sea drones only began once the war started. It was “very important, because we did not have very many forces to resist the maritime state – Russia. And we needed to develop something of our own, because we didn’t have the existing capabilities”.
Battles in the Black Sea
Ukraine is now starting to show those capabilities, even if missions are have varying degrees of success.
The latest versions of the drone seen by CNN weigh up to 1,000 kilograms (2,200 pounds), with an explosive payload of up to 300 kilograms (661 pounds), a range of 800 kilometers (500 miles) and maximum speed of 80 kph (50 mph).
Multiple sea drone attack carried out on Russian assets in Crimea and the Black Sea have grabbed recent headlines, with dramatic videos posted online. Some, but by no means all, have been claimed by the security services themselves.
Ukrainian defense sources confirmed to CNN that sea drones were involved in at least two recent attacks: the Kerch Bridge in July and in Crimea’s Sevastopol port last October.
On 14 July the Ukrainian security services, alongside the navy, claimed joint responsibility for the second attack in nine months on the much-derided Kerch Bridge.
The vital artery, a nearly $4 billion project by Russia and personally opened by President Putin, is a key target to disrupt and sever the resupply route for Russian forces in the illegally annexed peninsula and in occupied areas of the southern front.
The pre-dawn attack left a section of the bridge unpassable and out of service until September.
The developer, watching his brainchild churn water, says the “these drones are a completely Ukrainian production. They are designed, drawn and tested here. It’s our own production of hulls, electronics and software. More than 50% of the production of equipment is here (in Ukraine).”
The Russians have yet to adjust to Ukraine’s newest capabilities, they claim.
“It is very difficult for them to get into such a small drone, it is very difficult to find it,” the developer says. “The speed of these drones exceeds any sea craft in the Black Sea region at the moment.”
The speed and difficulties in detection may go some way to explaining how the drones that attacked the bridge traveled undetected in the dark across the Black Sea to the bridge.
Targeting flagships
Ukraine has also been aiming their new equipment at Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which has cruised menacingly off the coast and become a recipient of many vicious volleys of missile attacks.
Before the recent attack left a key piece of Russian infrastructure bruised, other attempted attacks had already put the Russians on notice.
In October last year sea drones were responsible for the attack on the fleet’s flagship, the Admiral Makarov, which was docked in port in Sevastopol. Ukrainian defense sources told CNN that the internal security services (SBU) carried out the attacks.
There was never any real proof given to the damage caused to the vessel, and it later reappeared without any major damage, but the fact that the Ukrainians were able to get within striking distance of the Admiral Makarov reinforces the success rate of the Ukrainians.
The brazen attack also gave Kyiv’s forces a boost and some propaganda for the public. Especially since the Admiral Makarov was newly installed as the Black Sea flagship after the Moskva was famously sunk by Ukrainian forces in April 2022.
“Shark,” languidly guiding the sea-drone from his control station, says :”these drones are designed to destroy ships and the fleet… such things that are used quite successfully and terrify the Russians.”
The damage sustained to the Admiral Makarov was unclear, but the intentions for Kyiv were on show.
The developer argues their work in against Russian naval targets forces them further into the Black Sea, therefore making deeper missile strikes into Ukraine harder. “300, 400, 600 kilometers is a long distance that makes some operations impossible and makes other operations more difficult.”
He said that makes cities like Odesa “safer.” But after the bridge strike, the city came under days of intense air attacks from drones and cruise missiles launched from the Russian Black sea fleet. Twenty-five UNESCO World Heritage sites across the city were hit. Russia claimed it was responding to an area it says was housing sea drones.
The drones’ capabilities and successes have given the developer some bravado though
“I think it will be five to 10 years or more before they (Russians) can effectively counter this type of equipment,” he says. “Their equipment is from the 20th century, ours is from the 21st. There are 100 years between us.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
CNN’s Victoria Butenko contributed to this report | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/exclusive-rare-access-to-ukraines-sea-drones-part-of-ukraines-fightback-in-the-black-sea/ | 2023-07-30T05:28:06 | 1 | https://kion546.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2023/07/29/exclusive-rare-access-to-ukraines-sea-drones-part-of-ukraines-fightback-in-the-black-sea/ |
Mike Elias on Friday said the increasing workloads of his young starting rotation is “becoming more of a conversation.”
It might be even more so if Tyler Wells continues pitching the way he has since the All-Star break.
Wells, the Orioles’ best starting pitcher before the All-Star break, struggled again Saturday night in an 8-3 loss to the New York Yankees. The announced crowd of 42,829 — the second sellout at Camden Yards this season — witnessed Wells fail to make it through three innings for the second time in three starts.
The relief behind Wells, who surrendered three runs, wasn’t much better, as Mike Baumann gave up one run and Cole Irvin allowed four in the sixth.
Ryan Mountcastle blasted a solo home run in the second and Ramón Urías hit an RBI single later in the inning to give the Orioles an early 2-1 lead, but they could only manage three more hits and one additional run in the final seven frames. Baltimore’s final run crossed the plate on a groundout by Anthony Santander that made it 4-3 in the fifth.
Wells was pulled after 63 pitches. In his past five starts, he’s averaged just 73 pitches and hasn’t thrown more than 86 in any of them.
The 6-foot-8 right-hander was seen as an All-Star candidate, posting a 3.18 ERA and 0.927 WHIP in the first half. He covered at least five innings in each of his first 17 starts.
In three second-half starts, Wells has allowed 11 runs and 19 base runners in just nine innings. He’s failed to record more than 13 outs in all three outings.
“We’re trying to be mindful of indicators that they might be exhibiting that might be reason to pull back other than just sort of the academic concept of, like, ‘Oh, hey, look how many innings this guy’s thrown, let’s back that off,’” said Elias, the Orioles’ executive vice president and general manager. “There’s really not a ton of science, or any science, there. We try to use common sense. We try to use our expertise.
“I don’t know that a single member of our rotation right now wants to go leave the rotation in some way shape or form. There’s that, too. They’re having the season of their lives, they’re competing, the team’s in first, they’ve got their whole careers ahead of them.”
Baltimore is 63-41 and still atop the American League standings. The Orioles will attempt to win the season series against the Yankees for the first time since 2016.
Around the horn
- Catcher Adley Rutschman hit in the leadoff spot for the first time in his career Saturday. Manager Brandon Hyde said before the game that he values the plate discipline and approach Rutschman provides atop the order. Gunnar Henderson, the Orioles’ typical leadoff hitter in recent weeks, hit in the No. 2 hole. Rutschman went 0-for-2 with a walk and a hit by pitch.
- Two days after former Orioles outfielder Adam Jones served as the Bird Bath Splash Zone’s first “guest splasher” of the season Friday, the club announced it would have a new guest Sunday. Gov. Wes Moore will be in Section 86 to potentially spray fans with water during the Orioles’ night game against the Yankees broadcast nationally on ESPN.
- After Dean Kremer takes the mound Sunday, right-handers Kyle Gibson, Kyle Bradish, Grayson Rodriguez and Wells are projected to pitch the four games against the Toronto Blue Jays beginning Monday, the club announced.
- Left-handed pitching prospect DL Hall threw two innings for the Orioles’ Florida Complex League team on Friday, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out six. Elias said Hall, the club’s top pitching prospect, has seen an uptick in his velocity after spending the past few months focusing on strength training over pitching. His outing Friday was his second since mid-June.
This story will be updated.
Yankees at Orioles
Sunday, 7:10 p.m.
TV: ESPN
Radio: 97.9 FM, 101.5 FM, 1090 AM
() | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/29/tyler-wells-falters-again-in-orioles-8-3-loss-to-yankees-in-front-of-sellout-crowd-at-camden-yards/ | 2023-07-30T05:30:24 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/29/tyler-wells-falters-again-in-orioles-8-3-loss-to-yankees-in-front-of-sellout-crowd-at-camden-yards/ |
Will you be traveling solo with kids or grandchildren soon?
If so, here are five ideas to consider:
1. Opt for a guest ranch.
With an authentic and scenic setting as backdrop, you and your junior adventurers can enjoy beautiful places and learn horsemanship from experienced hands who will tailor the instruction to your skill and interest level. Opt to ride in open meadows, on mountain trails or in the desert Southwest. Will your family members choose to participate in a real cattle drive? Are you up for a horse pack trip into the backcountry? Will your youngsters be eager to learn the skills required for team penning and other arena games? Or will you be happy to relax during daily trail rides. The options are yours at working dude ranches and guest ranches across the country. Furthermore, you’ll easily meet other families and share stories on the trail, around a campfire or across the breakfast and dinner tables.
For more: www.duderanch.org
2. Choose an all-inclusive resort.
With so much to do at a resort like the Windjammer Landing Villa Beach Resort on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia, it will be a breeze to keep everyone happy and active. Ride a banana boat, play on the floating trampoline or clamber on the inflatable climbing wall. Learn to snorkel or try a guided “Snuba” experience, a kid-size first step toward learning to scuba dive. Sail on a catamaran, then visit a volcano or tour a rain forest. Take an adult break at the spa while the kids take a tennis lesson or take part in the VIP kids’ sports activities.
For more: https://www.windjammer-landing.com
3. Board a cruise ship.
Whether you choose a small sailing ship or a city-size vessel, there will be plenty to engage the younger set, plus a multitude of ways to carve out “me time.” On the bigger ships expect water parks, rope courses, rock-climbing walls, multiple pools, theaters, ice-skating rinks, surf simulators, a zipline and character parades. Companies like Royal Caribbean have made families a priority and have dedicated large portions of their ships to putting smiles on young faces. Many lines offer separate areas for toddlers, kids and teens and provide free daytime and early evening access to their kids’ clubs. With nursery care and after-hours fun in kids’ clubs, it’s easy to book grown-up time in the evenings.
For more: www.UnCruise.com; www.RoyalCaribbean.com
4. Join an organized tour.
Feed your junior explorer’s natural curiosity on a memory filled trip. Do they yearn to learn more about art, history or science? Is there a burgeoning chef, musician or engineer in your midst? How about a language-immersion class? Are your kids curious about other religions, cultures or lifestyles? Whether you opt for magnificent cities, nature’s classroom or immersive experiences, expand their knowledge (and your own) by exploring new ideas together. An organized tour can provide the opportunity for kids to connect and share the experience with others in their own age group and for adults to enjoy their own camaraderie.
For more: www.RoadScholars.com; www.nationalgeographice.com; www.AustinAdventures.com
5. Before the adventure begins.
Sure, you know your kids or grandchildren. But make sure you are up to speed on any new food allergies and preferences, anxieties about travel, the need for a certain stuffed animal at bedtime or a teen’s recent breakup. Will the kids have their own money to spend and should it be monitored? Cover the final itinerary with the parents to uncover any additional insights they might have for making the trip as stellar as possible.
Consider discussing the itinerary and the rules of the road before departure. If the children are old enough, talk about bedtime, dining decisions and safety measures so it will be clear who is in charge. If you’ll be traveling with older children, get clarity on guidelines regarding social media, phone and computer time and options for independent outings.
Lynn O’Rourke Hayes (LOHayes.com) is an author, family travel expert and enthusiastic explorer. /Tribune News Service | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/5-travel-ideas-to-make-adults-kids-happy/ | 2023-07-30T05:30:30 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/5-travel-ideas-to-make-adults-kids-happy/ |
If you had a hit single in 1967, you didn’t walk around thinking you’d still be performing it in 2023. That was back when rock was young, and long before anyone heard of the Happy Together Tour.
“Back when we were 17, nobody was thinking that the songs would be serving us our whole life,” says Paul Cowsill of the Newport-raised family band. “I would have just said, ‘Yeah, if we’re doing this after 50, just get us off the stage fast.”
Adds Vogues frontman Troy Elich , “Believe me, nobody back then thought they’d be doing these songs 60 years later. If they had, they never would have sung in those keys.”
Now the biggest ‘60s pop tour, Happy Together has lasted far longer than the ‘60s themselves. The package tour was launched in 1984 with the Turtles as headliners, and named after their greatest hit. Faces have changed over the years: The Turtles will still close the show Sunday night at the Lynn Memorial Auditorium but their lead singer Howard Kaylan has retired; his place is being taken by Ron Dante, the voice of the Archies. The Cowsills are now on their eighth go-round, the Vogues on their second. Joining up this year is the silken-voiced Little Anthony of Imperials fame, plus perennials Gary Puckett and the Classics IV.
The Cowsills spend part of the year doing new music together and separately (They made a new album “Rhythm of the World” last year), but are glad to hop back on the bus every summer. “It’s like music camp,” says Susan Cowsill. “The vibe is that we’re going to have a beautiful summer and we’re going to make a lot of people happy.” Adds older brother Bob, “This feels like a validation. We knew we belonged on this tour but I took a few years to land it. The personality changes every year, the new guys get acclimated and the veterans are smiling as they go through what we did.”
The siblings were all teenagers (or younger in Susan’s case) when “The Rain, the Park and Other Things” hit in ‘67. “We’d already been dropped by two labels, then they added our mom to the group. So we sure weren’t saying ‘We’re going to have a hit now’,” recalls Bob. And Paul says there are a few echoes with those days. “We’re on a bus tour and we’re going out there every night and killing it. It’s always good to see audiences from our past, but now it’s our present.”
The Cowsills are the closest to original lineup on the tour; Bob, Paul and Susan were all in the ‘60s group. On the other hand the Vogues have no originals, but there’s still a direct connection. Frontman Elich is a second-generation member who had to audition for his dad; he has sung with the founding members who have died or retired. And though he joined in the 2000s, Elich is well schooled in the group’s history.
“I was a Vogues fan long before I joined, when I was a teenager and my dad was in the group,” he said. “I even told the guys how much I liked those really bizarre singles they made before their hits, which they thought were garbage,” he said. The Vogues actually had two hit stretches in the ‘60s– the first hits had working-class themes and a Philly soul-inspired sound; the later ones were pop standards with orchestra. “Nobody could believe it was the same group,” Elich said. “But if you look at [their greatest hit] ‘Five O’Clock World’, that was their lives; they were all working in factories and steel mills. That song could not have mirrored their lives any better than it did.”
He says that Happy Together has given him a taste of ‘60s style touring, “Little sleep, lots of travel and big venues, but it’s great. For a group like us this tour is the only chance to work 60 times in a summer. It gives us all a chance to feel like rock stars.” | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/60s-pop-stars-so-happy-together-on-summer-tour/ | 2023-07-30T05:30:36 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/60s-pop-stars-so-happy-together-on-summer-tour/ |
BALTIMORE — It didn’t take long for Aaron Judge to make his presence felt.
After drawing three walks in his Friday return, the reigning MVP got his bat going in the Yankees’ 8-3 win over the Orioles on Saturday. Judge, playing the field for the first time since tearing a ligament in his right big toe on June 3, recorded three hits, including a two-run, 442-foot blast to centerfield.
The home run, Judge’s 20th of the year, came in the third inning off Tyler Wells. The Orioles starter, a frequent victim of Judge’s power, exited shortly after that.
Judge wasn’t the only Yankees slugger to homer off Wells, as Giancarlo Stanton hit a 427-foot missile with nobody on in the first inning. Kyle Higashioka then crushed a Cole Irvin pitch 428 feet for another solo shot in the sixth inning.
However, it was Isiah Kiner-Falefa who broke the game open, as he ended a 10-pitch at-bat with a three-run double off Bryan Baker in the sixth. The two-bagger gave the Yankees five-run lead.
Kiner-Falefa, who walked twice, also forced a 10-pitch at-bat his first time up.
The Yankees scored an additional run in the fourth when Gleyber Torres lofted a sac fly.
Clarke Schmidt, meanwhile, fought hard to continue his run of dependability. The right-hander totaled five innings, five hits, three earned runs, one walk, two strikeouts and 96 pitches.
Ryan Mountcastle hit a solo homer off Schmidt in the second before Ramón Urías added a run on an infield single. The Orioles scored again in the fifth on an Anthony Santander groundout, but Schmidt got Ryan O’Hearn on a check swing to end the inning with a runner on third.
Having preserved a one-run lead with a devastating, 3-2 breaking ball, Schmidt excitedly spun off the mound before calling it a night.
With the series all tied up and the trade deadline approaching, the Yankees will try to grab one more win in Baltimore when they play the Orioles on Sunday Night Baseball. Luis Severino, coming off two solid starts following prolonged struggles, will pitch the series finale for the Yankees.
Dean Kramer will start for the Orioles. The right-hander held the Yankees to one earned run over seven innings on July 5. He struck out 10 that day.
Once the Yankees wrap things up in Baltimore, they’ll head home for a three-game series against the Rays and a four-game series against the Astros. The series against Tampa Bay overlaps with Tuesday’s deadline.
() | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/aaron-judge-homers-in-second-game-back-as-yankees-rebound-vs-orioles/ | 2023-07-30T05:30:42 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/aaron-judge-homers-in-second-game-back-as-yankees-rebound-vs-orioles/ |
Skylher is a chill and laid back teen with many interests, which she does independently or with peers. Skylher is a very animated and active, and enjoys outdoor activities and playing at the gym daily. Sklyer enjoys reading, listening to music, doing crafts, playing board and card games, and socializing with peers. She participates in group activities, such as weekly basketball and volleyball games, demonstrating great athleticism. Skylher also enjoys community-based events such as trips to the mall, library, and movies.
Skylher is enrolled in school and receives extra support. She completes assigned work independently and attends all scheduled classes. She has made many new friends. Skylher has goals of being successful in whatever she chooses to do and wants to attend college.
Skylher’s social worker is looking for a caring family who will provide direction and support. Her social worker is open to a two-parent family with a mom and dad or two moms, with or without other children. It is very important that Skylher is able to maintain bi-weekly visitation with her grandmother when available and appropriate.
To learn more about adoption from foster care visit www.mareinc.org . Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE) can give you guidance and information on the adoption process. Reach out today to find out all the ways you can help children and teens in foster care. | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/active-skylher-loves-sports-music-crafts/ | 2023-07-30T05:30:48 | 1 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/active-skylher-loves-sports-music-crafts/ |
“Dark Winds” returns for its second season Sunday with significant changes for Kiowa Gordon’s Jim Chee.
Executive produced by Robert Redford and adapted from Tony Hillerman’s bestselling series about two Navajo policemen in the early 1970s, “Dark Winds” follows tribal policeman Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) and Chee. In Season 1 Chee was Leaphorn’s deputy — and secretly an undercover FBI agent.
This season is an adaptation of Hillerman’s novel “People of Darkness” – and “dark’ it is, in its subject matter and violence.
“This is just a whole lot more, taking that deep dive into the world Tony Hillerman created,” Gordon, 33, said in a Zoom interview conducted before the current actors’ strike.
Chee’s changed dramatically; he’s now an independent private investigator with issues. “He’s become completely disillusioned; so he goes back to the rez. Coming back home and trying to find himself — find the center, find his balance.
“Along the way, he is picking up some meaningful people in his life with Leaphorn and Bernadette,” a tribal police officer who works with Leaphorn and is played by Jessica Matten.
Gordon concedes Chee has wrecked his relationship with Bernadette. “By struggling under false pretenses, being an undercover FBI, he was totally ruining these relationships he was trying to foster in the first season.
“Everything hit the fan once Bernadette found out he was an FBI agent. So it’s very clear he has some soul searching to do.
“Coming into this season as a private investigator is just a whole new perspective for him. He’s finding who he is as a detective, as somebody who wants to reconnect to his community, and to maybe get back into good graces with Bernadette and Joe Leaphorn. It’s really nice that he could sit himself up for this season and hopefully for seasons to come.”
The darkness in this “Dark Winds” comes from a powerful, moneyed malignant force. A bravura entire episode finds Chee, already shot in the shoulder and recuperating in the hospital, attacked by a hired assassin who quickly becomes a killing machine.
“I’ve seen enough movies and doctor shows with people getting shot, so I had an idea that I always need to have a pestering feeling of adult pain lingering in my shoulder,” Gordon said.
“It’s been what — two days now? I’m still pretty raw. It really hurts to even move — and I have to remember that all the time which is really hard.
“So is the physical part, like when I had to lift myself up into the little crawl space in the ceiling [to hide]. That took so much effort.”
“Dark Winds” streams Sunday on AMC+ | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/big-changes-ahead-for-kiowa-gordon-in-dark-winds-second-season/ | 2023-07-30T05:30:54 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/big-changes-ahead-for-kiowa-gordon-in-dark-winds-second-season/ |
Q. My ex and I were married for five years. He worked nights and I worked days. He would call me every day at 9 a.m. to say he was home and wish me a good morning. I thought it was cute, but then a year and a half ago I found out he was cheating and I filed for divorce. He still calls every morning at 9 a.m. I’ve blocked him. He changed his number and continues to call. I changed my number, but my sister felt sorry for him and gave him my new number. What’s good ex-etiquette?
A. You haven’t mentioned children, so from an ex-etiquette standpoint (or good behavior after divorce or separation), there’s really no reason to continue with contact.
I have to wonder why your ex is still trying to win you over after a year of you not answering the phone. If, as you say, you have told him in no uncertain terms that you are no longer interested, his calling every day at 9 a.m. would be a little unnerving — and cause for concern. It sounds a little like stalking.
You can request a restraining order from family court, and if he doesn’t stop trying to contact you, he will have violated the restraining order and could end up in jail. I’d check with the police or an attorney.
Your ex sounds a little unbalanced, or at least obsessed. That your sister gave him your phone number when I’m sure she understood you were trying to stay away from him is a concern. You said her motivation was that she felt sorry for him. That’s not an excuse to put your life in jeopardy.
I understand that may sound over the top, but we have all heard of breakups that take on a life of their own when someone has been hurt.
I’m sure your family members all have your new number, but all must be aware that it is a private number, and they are to give it to no one. If you want to share your number, you should be the only one to pass it on.
Again, if he hasn’t stopped upon request and you’re more frightened than irritated, call the authorities. Under these circumstances, that’s good ex-etiquette.
Dr. Jann Blackstone is the author of “Ex-etiquette for Parents: Good Behavior After Divorce or Separation,” and the founder of Bonus Families, bonusfamilies.com. /Tribune News Service | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/call-authorities-to-step-exs-relentless-calls/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:00 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/call-authorities-to-step-exs-relentless-calls/ |
Dear Abby: About 10 years ago, I visited my oldest and dearest friend, who I see a few times a year. The last time, her husband, who I’ve also known for years and who I thought was a friend, started teasing me. I can take a joke, but the teasing got mean. Eventually he stopped, and I continued my visit.
I was really angry at him, but because I didn’t want to involve my friend, I sent him an email. I told him I thought his teasing went too far and to please not do it again. He never replied. Now when I visit my friend, her husband is never there. He stays away. I haven’t seen him in years.
My friend makes silly excuses why he isn’t at home when I visit. In fact, the last time I went I saw him driving away when I drove up! I don’t hold a grudge against the guy. I think it’s sad that he has to run away. Should I say something? — Perplexed in California
Dear Perplexed: No. You dealt with your friend’s husband appropriately without involving his wife. Enjoy your visits with her, and do not drag her into this. I see no reason to raise the subject. Your problem is solved.
Dear Abby: I’m a gentleman who would like to date more than I do. I want to ask a woman in my church choir out for coffee or lunch on a Sunday afternoon. But I get so nervous I get knots in my stomach. I know dating is one of the things I need to leave in God’s hands and have His help in getting over the nerves.
I like my friend in the choir a lot. I think she’s a wonderful and caring person. I want to get to know her better because, even though we’ve said “Hi” and “Bye” and exchanged glances during choir practice on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings, I don’t know her heart and what makes her tick. Can you offer some advice? — Painfully Shy in Missouri
Dear Painfully Shy: Start treating the woman as you would a friend rather than a love interest. Asking a fellow choir member to join you for coffee afterward or for a lunch could be a healthy, nonthreatening beginning of a relationship. (Notice I didn’t use the word “romance.”) Because you want to get to know her better, summon your courage and let her get to know YOU better. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Dear Abby: I have a friend I occasionally meet for breakfast. She always stops someplace en route and brings takeout coffee into the restaurant. I am often kept waiting because she’s in a drive-thru getting that drink. I find it embarrassing that she joins me with drink in hand from elsewhere. How should I handle this? — Embarrassed in the East
Dear Embarrassed: Ask your friend why she does it. It’s possible she simply doesn’t like the coffee that restaurant serves, although she does enjoy their food and your company. I don’t think you should tell her it embarrasses you, because it is really no reflection ON you.
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Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069. | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/dear-abby-pals-teasing-hubby-now-awol-in-visits/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:06 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/dear-abby-pals-teasing-hubby-now-awol-in-visits/ |
Hunter Biden’s plea deal on tax and weapons charges is on life support. Even if it makes a comeback in the coming days, this fiasco remains a stain on the president and the White House.
On Wednesday, a federal judge refused to accept the agreement reached in June, under which President Joe Biden’s son would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges while escaping prosecution on a gun charge. At issue is the scope of the immunity Hunter Biden would receive.
According to news reports, Hunter Biden’s attorneys believed the deal would give their client protection from other charges that might arise in the government’s investigation. Prosecutors, on the other hand, insisted the agreement was confined to the tax and gun charges.
It’s odd that the defendant and the government would be at odds over such a basic element of any plea bargain. Perhaps the events of the past few weeks — when more damaging information about Hunter Biden has emerged — led prosecutors to back off the broader immunity interpretation.
It’s notable that Justice Department official Leo Wise admitted to Judge Maryellen Noreika that the investigation into the president’s son was ongoing and could potentially result in charges under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, most likely related to Hunger Biden’s financial dealings with foreign governments.
All this comes after two longtime IRS investigators testified before a House committee that, despite assurances to the contrary, the agency gave Hunter Biden preferential treatment for political reasons. The agents made the allegation that the plea deal was inappropriate because of the nature of the offenses and that the IRS slow-played the investigation to ensure that the statute of limitations had passed on potential charges while handcuffing investigators.
During the hearings, Democrats had little success impugning the motives or integrity of the men.
A White House spokeswoman responded to Wednesday’s developments by saying that “Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter for him.” But that defense is getting more difficult to sustain. Miranda Devine of The New York Post reported this week that Hunter Biden’s one-time close friend will testify for a House committee that it wasn’t unusual for Joe Biden, as vice president, to participate in meetings with his son’s business associates. This runs counter to the president’s repeated assertion that he had no knowledge of Hunter’s various business interests.
Democrats have accused House Republicans of wasting time with their hearings — and it’s true that talk of impeaching the president at this point is ridiculous. But with smoke billowing from this ongoing probe into the shady dealings of Mr. Biden’s son, continued scrutiny is not just warranted, but vital.
Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/editorial-hunter-biden-plea-deal-takes-a-bizarre-twist/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:12 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/editorial-hunter-biden-plea-deal-takes-a-bizarre-twist/ |
With temperatures worldwide breaking records, there is an escalating sense of urgency that countries must make bigger, bolder and more enforceable commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But it would be a terrible mistake to double down on the current “kitchen sink” approach of trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once because we can’t force a green transition with regulatory mandates, subsidies and generalized moral pressure. That impulse isn’t wrong; it just won’t work.
The harsh reality is that until clean energy is as cheap and performs as well as dirty energy, the world will not adopt it at anything like the needed scale. So, governments must focus on developing clean energy sources at price and performance parity with dirty fuels — “P3.” Only then will governments, organizations and individuals rapidly switch to a new energy system.
Why won’t forcing approaches work? There are two primary reasons.
First, climate change is a global issue, so solutions must be global. In particular, clean-energy solutions must meet the needs of lower-income countries, where energy demand is rising fast and where there is little to no ability or willingness to pay a green premium. Ending emissions in wealthy countries — unlikely if we don’t reach P3 — will not solve the problem if the developing world cannot follow suit.
Second, the green transition will require a global shift of energy production, distribution and use across all industries. The estimated capital expenditures needed by 2050 range from $84 trillion to $275 trillion — and that does not include the higher operating costs of existing clean technologies. Governments — especially in low-income countries — cannot afford to pay that bill.
Unfortunately, many clean-energy solutions miss the global point. For example, the U.S. government offers $7,500 in federal electric vehicle subsidies (11% of the median U.S. income). The same subsidy in India would cost almost 350% of household income, which is not affordable. And that’s just for EVs. The problem repeats itself, sector by sector, across the entire economy. So, until clean energy solutions achieve P3 for all those industrial and end-user purposes, the global effect of discrete actions in a few wealthy nations will be insufficient.
We do not have the clean technologies we need to get near net-zero emissions without paying a significant price premium. Wind and solar are low-cost energy sources in some places, for some times of the day (and year), at the point of production. But what matters is the delivered cost at the point of use, where green technology must provide the same performance and reliability as fossil fuels. On that basis, there is still a long way to go. Claims to the contrary lean on assumptions that renewable energy production costs will decline enough and that subsidies will continue to be poured into green solutions. But that may or may not happen.
Given the enormous scale and cost of the green transition, markets offer the only levers powerful enough to transform the world’s energy system. So, governments’ main job is not to force high-cost clean energy solutions but to support two distinct pathways through the green transition: For technologies already on course to reach P3, governments should accelerate progress down the cost curve by encouraging rapid adoption and increasing scale. Time-limited and tightly focused subsidies to seed adoption are one potentially useful tool, among many. Whereas, for technologies not on track to meet P3, governments should stop trying to force adoption and spur the development of better technologies instead.
Blue hydrogen, for example, will never reach P3 because it is produced using the existing production process, plus an additional step, carbon capture. In cases like that, governments need to step back and support the development of different technologies that can, with scale, reach P3 globally.
A technology policy guided by the P3 lens should be the North Star to guide all nations’ climate strategies. Governments should focus all their policy tools on the most important task: bringing a suite of needed clean energy technologies and solutions to price-performance parity with dirty energy. Market forces — with some help — will do the rest.
Robin Gaster is president of Incumetrics Inc. and a visiting scholar at George Washington University.
Robert D. Atkinson is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. He and Gaster co-wrote an Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report detailing the case for a P3 strategy, “Beyond Force: A Realist Pathway Through the Green Transition.”/InsideSources | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/gaster-atkinson-clean-energy-solutions-cant-be-forced/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:18 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/gaster-atkinson-clean-energy-solutions-cant-be-forced/ |
Q. My soon-to-be ex has been dragging out our divorce for over a year. She has it made right now because I am paying child support and all of the house expenses – mortgage, utilities, insurance, etc. I have been living in my mom’s finished attic for a year because I don’t make enough to rent a place for myself.
Our pre-trial conference just got continued again – this time because her lawyer is going on vacation. Our next date is November. They still won’t answer my discovery requests (I’ve responded to all of their requests and supplemented my responses). And they keep scheduling and then canceling our settlement meetings.
I still have access to our Ring doorbell camera. Yesterday I saw her boyfriend moving into our home. My lawyer says he can’t ask the judge to order the house sold at this stage because where will our kids live. Why does her boyfriend get to move into our home where our kids live and why do I have to pay his housing expenses? Is there anything I can do?
A. You are right to be angry – she should not be playing house until your divorce is finalized AND you have no obligation to finance his housing. First step is to save moving-in footage from your Ring camera and get it to your lawyer to use in court. Next, ask your lawyer to file a motion to allow you to move back into the house to care for your children and have your soon-to-be-ex move out if she wants to live with another man. Most judges find introduction of a new partner to children before the divorce is over to be problematic.
As part of the motion, ask that your child support end and, instead, that she be ordered to pay you some child support and/or contribute to the cost of the house. This is likely to accomplish two things – first, your wife is likely to ask her boyfriend to move back out so she can tell the judge you are wrong and he is not living there. This is why you need the doorbell video footage to show the judge. Keep watching and also record his moving out assuming that happens so you can also show the judge the bad-faith. Second, this will probably get her to the negotiating table.
If she now wants to talk, try to reach an agreement on all issues and use the next court date to get divorced.
Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/hes-paying-for-his-kids-and-exs-boyfriend/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:24 | 0 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/hes-paying-for-his-kids-and-exs-boyfriend/ |
A few days after the lockout began in December 2021, Mike Tauchman weighed the direction of his baseball career.
He received an offer to play overseas and without having any concrete options at that point from a big-league team, Tauchman evaluated the opportunity to go to the Korea Baseball Organization for the 2022 season. He realized, though, it really wasn’t that hard of a decision to leave.
But when Tauchman signed with the Hanwha Eagles, it came with the understanding he might not play in Major League Baseball again.
“That was something I was OK with,” Tauchman told the Tribune on Saturday.
Tauchman’s time in the KBO ultimately led the 32-year-old outfielder to the Chicago Cubs, and he has become an important piece on a surging team. He produced a three-hit game, including an RBI double, in the Cubs’ 5-1 win Saturday against the Cardinals. Their eight-game winning streak is the Cubs’ longest since 2016.
The Palatine native’s journey back the the big leagues might not have come to fruition without Tauchman’s year in South Korea. It came on the heels of a difficult 2021 season that began with a trade from the New York Yankees to the San Francisco Giants one month in and ended with a 56 OPS+ over 75 games.
His season in Korea provided a positive experience and “a new world” for Tauchman and his wife, Eileen. Most importantly, on the baseball side, playing in the KBO gave him a needed reset even as he navigated the inherent challenges that come with the language barrier.
“There were some things from the mental side that I was struggling with over here, just in terms of confidence and reliance and different things like that,” Tauchman said. “And over there, you’re kind of on your own, to an extent, and you’re also expected to play every single day, so that was something that I looked forward to. A year of you’ve just got to figure it out on your own, you’ve got to manage things on your own and the only person you truly, truly rely on is yourself. But that was good for me.”
When the Cubs presented a chance to come back to the U.S. through a minor-league contract with a big-league camp invite he signed in January, Tauchman didn’t go into this season with high expectations that it would lead him back to the majors. The draw of playing close to family, even if he was at Triple-A Iowa, made the Cubs’ offer appealing regardless.
“Unfortunately, the reality is that, at times, results aren’t the only determining factor on how things work at this level,” Tauchman said. “There’s obviously a business component and other components, so to get the opportunity, I was just extremely grateful for it and just try to enjoy it. That mental reset helped in that way.
“I definitely feel more relaxed than 2020-21, which were challenging years with the pandemic stuff, getting traded in early in the season and really struggling and feeling just not myself.”
Cody Bellinger’s knee injury sustained in mid May and subsequent time on the injured list opened the door for Tauchman, who got off to a great start in his first month at Triple A to earn the promotion. Since then, Tauchman has become a stabilizing option when hitting leadoff — .276/.351/.474 slash line in 27 starts in that spot — and given manager David Ross more defensive flexibility with how he builds the Cubs’ daily lineup.
“At points in my career, I would put greater importance on every single at-bat than maybe there needed to be and it’s something you might do as a young player because you want to maximize every opportunity you have and you feel like if you don’t, nobody’s going to think you’re any good,” Tauchman said. “But maybe with the passage of time or getting older or just different experiences, it’s, like, you’ve had thousands of at-bats in your life and some go well, some don’t, and it has no bearing on the next one.
“That’s something that I’ve tried to keep perspective on this year because hitting in the big leagues is really hard. It’s really hard. And some days pitchers just out execute you and there’s little you can do about it. So I’m just trying to keep perspective that way.”
Tauchman’s game-ending home run robbery Friday night to beat the St. Louis Cardinals sealed the Cubs’ biggest win of the season. Within the clubhouse, the way Tauchman has made the most of his major-league return has not gone unnoticed even before his outstanding play.
“I have a lot of belief in guys like that that just keep going,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “He’s going to embrace whatever role he has and he’s got a really big one for us.”
() | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/how-a-season-in-the-kbo-positioned-mike-tauchman-to-make-the-most-of-his-opportunity-with-the-chicago-cubs/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:30 | 1 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/how-a-season-in-the-kbo-positioned-mike-tauchman-to-make-the-most-of-his-opportunity-with-the-chicago-cubs/ |
Not so long ago, job interviews were conducted almost exclusively in person. Hiring managers were able to assess candidates during these interviews, getting an idea about everything from the applicant’s skill set to how he or she affected the energy in the room to body language and the confidence of a handshake.
Today a growing number of interviews are virtual. Many are conducted via popular video conferencing apps like Zoom. In a recent survey of talent leaders and recruiters conducted by the tech firm Talview, 80% of respondents said their hiring process is now fully remote. There are many advantages to remote/virtual interviews. They tend to be more convenient for screening applicants for remote positions because the applicant pool may be coming from anywhere around the world. Remote interviews also can be less time-consuming.
As useful as they can be, remote interviews are not foolproof. Technical snarls or uncooperative conditions at home can affect remote interviews. Virtual interviews also may not give candidates an accurate idea of the culture at a given firm. But remote interviews are likely here to stay, so here’s how candidates can put their best (virtual) foot forward.
Test the technology
Open the conferencing app and test links to make sure that you can get on the service and understand how it functions. Log in early, even if it means sitting in a virtual waiting room until the meeting organizer arrives. At least you’ll be ensured of being on time.
Have a cheat sheet at the ready
A remote interview gives candidates a distinct advantage, as they can utilize notes without it being obvious. Place them just above the device camera or off to the side slightly so you can refer to them like one may read a teleprompter or cue cards on television.
Use your space wisely
If you’ll be on video, set up your space and your appearance so that it is professional but engaging. Use your home office environment to make a strong impression.
Keep background clutter to a minimum.
If necessary, use a virtual office backdrop, which was preferred by 97% of the 513 recruiters that Harvard Business Review observed and interviewed over an eight-month period in 2020.
Engage with the interviewer and avoid distractions
Distractions can knock you off of your game and make you come across as less engaging to recruiters. Ask housemates to make themselves scarce during the interview and lock pets out of the room. Silence your phone (if it isn’t the device being used for the interview) and look into the camera while speaking. Maintaining eye contact is a sign of respect and confidence. If the interviewer is speaking at length, utilize the mute button on your phone or conferencing app to silence ambient noise. | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/how-to-navigate-a-remote-job-interview/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:36 | 1 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/how-to-navigate-a-remote-job-interview/ |
Strike averted
This is both good and bad for our country (“UPS averts strike,” 7/26/23), The good, if this strike happened it would probably grind this country to a halt and cause even more problems than already exist.
The bad, whenever a company goes on strike (or as I call it extortion), they will always get what they want because this country is in such bad shape we have to agree or the country will suffer (nurses, teachers, UPS etc).
Just another broken thing we have to deal with in this broken country.
Michael Westen
Malden
City leadership
Three members of the Boston City Council are a complete embarrassment to the capitol of Massachusetts. Councilors Tania Fernandes Anderson, Felix Arroyo and Kendra Lara should all have been asked to resign. Mayor Wu and the deafening silence of other elected officials have proven that there is something terribly wrong in the City of Boston.
Taxpayers deserve leadership that lives up to high ethical standards and good judgement. All three are lacking these qualifications.
Donald Houghton
Quincy
Vetting councilors
Re: “City Council misdeeds now 3 for 3 – where’s the accountability?” editorial from 7/27/2023.
Public service clearly isn’t for everyone. That said, all elected officials should be subjected to a thorough background check. The voters deserve to know whether candidates for public office can perform their jobs without prejudice. For government to function effectively, the voters need to know that matters of public policy are formulated objectively, without premeditation.
What we have with these three councilors is the opposite – a complete lack of accountability, fostering mistrust and chaos. They’ve managed to turn a government institution into a laughingstock. Operating a vehicle without a license is not some minor oversight – it’s a serious public safety issue. Hiring family members to paid staff positions isn’t an error in judgment – it’s illegal.
Elected officials must have strength of character. They must act at all times beyond reproach. They’re implicitly accepting the public’s trust when they run for office. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Sean F. Flaherty
Charlestown
MBTA hires
Re: “MBTA chief dishes out high-paying jobs with no bidding or advertising,” by Joe Battenfeld, 7/29/23
The MBTA and the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York are reading from the same playbook.
Our state’s transit agency just approved a fare increase. They say it will be used to “maintain current service levels and even increase service frequency.”
But we taxpayers know better. Our governor is going to pad the payroll with six figure salaries and no bid contracts just like Mr. Eng is doing.
Gene Roman
Bronx, NY | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/letters-to-the-editor-505/ | 2023-07-30T05:31:42 | 1 | https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/07/30/letters-to-the-editor-505/ |