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'It's just a whole new world': Homeschooling surge continues despite schools reopening
The coronavirus pandemic ushered in what may be the most rapid rise in homeschooling the U.S. has ever seen. Two years later, even after schools reopened and vaccines became widely available, many parents have chosen to continue directing their children’s educations themselves.
Homeschooling numbers this year dipped from last year's all-time high, but are still significantly above pre-pandemic levels, according to data obtained and analyzed by The Associated Press.
Families that may have turned to homeschooling as an alternative to hastily assembled remote learning plans have stuck with it — reasons include health concerns, disagreement with school policies and a desire to keep what has worked for their children.
In 18 states that shared data through the current school year, the number of homeschooling students increased by 63% in the 2020-2021 school year, then fell by only 17% in the 2021-2022 school year.
Around 3% of U.S. students were homeschooled before the pandemic-induced surge, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The rising numbers have cut into public school enrollment in ways that affect future funding and renewed debates over how closely homeschooling should be regulated. What remains unknown is whether this year’s small decrease signals a step toward pre-pandemic levels — or a sign that homeschooling is becoming more mainstream.
Linda McCarthy, a suburban Buffalo mother of two, says her children are never going back to traditional school.
Unimpressed with the lessons offered remotely when schools abruptly closed their doors in spring 2020, she began homeschooling her then fifth- and seventh-grade children that fall. McCarthy, who had been working as a teacher's aide, said she knew she could do better herself. She said her children have thrived with lessons tailored to their interests, learning styles and schedules.
“There’s no more homework 'til the wee hours of the morning, no more tears because we couldn’t get things done,” McCarthy said.
Once a relatively rare practice chosen most often for reasons related to instruction on religion, homeschooling grew rapidly in popularity following the turn of the century before leveled off at around 3.3%, or about 2 million students, in the years before the pandemic, according to the Census. Surveys have indicated factors including dissatisfaction with neighborhood schools, concerns about school environment and the appeal of customizing an education.
In the absence of federal guidelines, there is little uniformity in reporting requirements. Some states, including Connecticut and Nevada, require little or no information from parents, while New York, Massachusetts and some others require parents to submit instruction plans and comply with assessment rules.
The new surge in homeschooling numbers has led state legislatures around the country to consider measures either to ease regulations on homeschool families or impose new ones — debates have gone on for years. Proponents of more oversight point to the potential for undetected cases of child abuse and neglect while others argue for less in the name of parental rights.
All of the 28 state education departments that provided homeschooling data to the AP reported that homeschooling spiked in 2020-21, when fears of infection kept many school buildings closed. Of the 18 states whose enrollment data included the current school year, all but one state said homeschooling declined from the previous year but remained well above pre-pandemic levels. (The exception, South Dakota, recently changed the way it collects data).
Minnesota, for example, reported that 27,801 students are being homeschooled now, compared to 30,955 during the last school year. Before the pandemic, homeschool figures were around 20,000 or less.
Black families make up many of the homeschool converts. The proportion of Black families homeschooling their children increased by five times, from 3.3% to 16.1%, from spring 2020 to the fall, while the proportion about doubled across other groups, according to U.S. Census surveys.
Raleigh, North Carolina, mother Laine Bradley said the school system's shortcomings became more evident to families like hers when remote learning began.
“I think a lot of Black families realized that when we had to go to remote learning, they realized exactly what was being taught. And a lot of that doesn’t involve us,” said Bradley, who decided to homeschool her 7-, 10- and 11-year-old children. “My kids have a lot of questions about different things. I’m like, 'Didn't you learn that in school?' They're like, ‘No.’”
Bradley, who works in financial services, converted her dining room into a classroom and rearranged her work schedule to take over her children's education, adding lessons on financial literacy, Black history and Caribbean history important to her heritage.
“I can incorporate things that I feel like they should know,” she said. Her husband, Vince, who retired from the Air Force last year, steps in at times. The couple also have a 14-month-old. They plan to continue homeschooling for as long as their children want it. Her social media posts about her experience have drawn so much interest that Bradley recently created an online community called Black Moms Do Homeschool to share resources and experiences.
Boston University researcher Andrew Bacher-Hicks said data showed that while homeschool rates rose across the board during the last school year, the increase was greater in school districts that reverted to in-person learning, perhaps before some parents were ready to send their children back.
He said the same health concerns that drove those increases are likely behind the continued elevated rates, despite additional upheaval in schools as parents and policy-makers debate issues surrounding race and gender and which books should be in libraries.
“It’s really hard to disentangle those two things because all of this is kind of happening at the same time,” he said. “But my my guess would be that a large part of the decisions to exit from the system do have to do with COVID-related issues as opposed to political issues, because those things come up frequently and we’ve never seen an increase in homeschooling rates like this before.”
He said parents also may be concerned about the quality of education delivered by schools that have had to rely heavily on substitute teachers amid pandemic-caused staffing shortages.
McCarthy, the mom from suburban Buffalo, said it was a combination of everything, with the pandemic compounding the misgivings she had already held about the public school system, including her philosophical differences over the need for vaccine and mask mandates and academic priorities.
The pandemic, she said, “was kind of — they say the straw that broke the camel’s back — but the camel’s back was probably already broken.”
“There are kids that don’t know basic English structure but they want to push other things on children, and it can be blatant but it can be, and mostly is, very subtle, very, very subtle,” McCarthy said. “So we were ready to pull them and will never send them back to traditional school. It’s just not a fit for us.”
“It's just a whole new world that is a much better world for us,” she said. | https://www.koat.com/article/homeschooling-surge-continues/39728094 | 2022-04-14T21:23:39 | 0 | https://www.koat.com/article/homeschooling-surge-continues/39728094 |
House panels probe government use of facial recognition software following security concerns
Two House committees have launched an investigation into the government's use of facial recognition software that was most recently used by the Internal Revenue Service, but stopped after complaints from lawmakers and privacy advocates.
Critics of the software said facial recognition databases could become a target for cyberthreats. They also expressed concerns about how the information could be used by other government agencies.
In a letter Thursday to Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, the lawmakers requested documents and information related to the company’s contracts with 10 federal agencies and 30 state governments for use of its facial recognition technology.
“I am deeply concerned that the federal government lacks a clear plan, leaving agencies like the IRS to enter contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with questionable terms and oversight mechanisms," House oversight committee chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
“Without clear rules of the road, agencies will continue to turn to companies like ID.me, which heightens the risk that essential services will not be equitably provided to Americans, or will be outright denied, and that their biometric data won’t be properly safeguarded."
The letter was signed by Maloney and Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. It was first reported by The Washington Post.
In an emailed statement, a company representative said “ID.me remains a highly effective solution available for government agencies that provides the most access for under-served Americans.”
“ID.me adheres to the federal guidelines for identity verification and login while providing services to public sector agencies. These standards have proved remarkably effective at preventing fraud. Four states have credited ID.me with preventing $210 billion in fraud,” the statement reads.
In February, the IRS said it would suspend its use of facial recognition technology to authenticate people who create online accounts after the practice was criticized by privacy advocates and lawmakers.
Lawmakers, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the IRS to end its use of the ID.me software.
The agency is currently grappling with a worker shortage and an expanded workload processing tax filings and administering pandemic-related programs.
The tax day deadline is Monday. | https://www.koat.com/article/house-panels-probe-government-use-of-facial-recognition/39728621 | 2022-04-14T21:23:50 | 1 | https://www.koat.com/article/house-panels-probe-government-use-of-facial-recognition/39728621 |
Toyota recalls 460,000 vehicles due to software problem
Related video above: Rossen Reports: Check used cars for this before buying
Toyota is recalling about 460,000 vehicles in the U.S. to fix a software problem that can inadvertently disable the electronic stability control system.
In a news release, the company says that when the vehicles are restarted, in rare cases the software may not automatically switch the system into the "on" mode. That can disable the system, which uses a computer to individually brake wheels to help drivers keep control.
The recall covers vehicles from the 2020 to 2022 model years including the Toyota brand's Venza, Mirai, RAV4 Hybrid, RAV4 Prime, Sienna Hybrid, and Highlander Hybrid. Also included are the LS500h, LX600, NX350h, and NX450h-plus from the Lexus luxury brand.
Dealers will update the software on the skid control computer to fix the problem. Owners will be notified by mid-June. | https://www.koat.com/article/toyota-recalls-460000-vehicles-due-to-software-problem/39729078 | 2022-04-14T21:24:00 | 0 | https://www.koat.com/article/toyota-recalls-460000-vehicles-due-to-software-problem/39729078 |
Could Winter Park’s former downtown library be transformed into a trendy food hall with boutique shopping? Or perhaps a co-working space with arts and cultural elements?
The city is on the verge of requesting proposals from developers for ideas to reuse the 33,000-square-foot, three-story brick building blocks from famous Park Avenue.
However, commissioners are wary of too many eateries moving into the space on New England Avenue, fearful that it could stress parking and clog traffic nearby. The property has homes to its north.
“I have no idea what to anticipate from the development community on this, it’s a very interesting project if someone is willing to take it on,” said Peter Moore, the city’s Budget & Performance Measurement manager, in a meeting this week with commissioners. “If someone is going to bring any food service, there’s a fair amount of retrofitting of that building that has to take place.”
The city’s library moved out last year into a state-of-the-art, yet controversial, building at Martin Luther King Jr. Park. The former library was built in 1979 and became impractical as libraries became more reliant on technology and advanced past being a facility for residents to check out books.
“We’ve had a lot of ideas circulating for the entire time the new library was under construction,” Mayor Phil Anderson said. “We think it’s an iconic location coming into Winter Park.”
Winter Park had considered at one point moving at least a portion of its city hall to the old building but instead decided to maintain ownership of it and open it up for bidding for other reuses.
In a draft of documents to be released for bid, the city said it’s looking for creative proposals that “repurpose older civic buildings and create unique activity centers.” It lists potential uses as smaller dining concepts, arts, cultural and nonprofit components, small retail, office space or coworking and incubator spaces.
It offered up examples of a pair of Tampa hotspots as inspiration: Oxford Exchange and Armature Works.
Oxford Exchange, which reshaped an 1890s hotel, has meeting spaces, restaurants, gift shops, book stores and coworking. Armature Works transformed a former electric utility building into a 70,000-square-foot mixed-use market with restaurants, bars and event space overlooking the Hillsborough River.
The documents also state developers should plan to lease the building from the city and not propose demolishing it. Winter Park also plans to contribute about $300,000 toward HVAC and roof repairs, though other investment would be needed from developers.
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But what commissioners don’t want to create is a venue that brings too much traffic to the area and strains the homes to the north or attracts more vehicles than its parking lot can handle.
The library has 68 parking spaces with room for about 15 more. Commissioner Sheila DeCiccio cited the nearby East End Market in Orlando, which draws crowds and has parking in high demand.
“A restaurant is OK, but a food court like the idea of the East End Market, to me, wouldn’t be a good fit there,” she said, later adding: “My concern is if you turn it into that kind of food court, where are the people going to park? There’s certainly not enough at the library.”
Ultimately, commissioners didn’t put a cap on the number of eateries allowed, but wanted staff to communicate in bid documents that food service shouldn’t be the sole focus of developers’ plans.
“This is not a shopping mall; this is not a fast-food place… this is ancillary food services to whatever else goes in there,” Anderson said.
Moore, the city official, told commissioners he expected the bidding to open in the next week or so. | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange-county/os-ne-orange-old-winter-park-library-20220414-qluusvc5drghlijjds52qz4lsq-story.html | 2022-04-14T21:24:27 | 0 | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orange-county/os-ne-orange-old-winter-park-library-20220414-qluusvc5drghlijjds52qz4lsq-story.html |
The past three years have tested the resolve and resiliency of Florida communities and our state’s public health infrastructure. COVID-19 has only worsened our state’s raging opioid epidemic, and fentanyl in the drug supply is only compounding the overdose crisis across the state. Amid a rise in fatal overdose events in Florida, it’s clear that we need to take additional actions to protect our neighbors from the harms of opioid overdose.
Thankfully, the Florida Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis answered the call to action to help our state combat this crisis and ensure at-risk individuals and those so often at the frontlines of the opioid epidemic have access to opioid-overdose-reversal medications such as naloxone.
In the 12-month period ending in October 2021, there were 7,616 deaths from drug overdose in Florida alone. It’s a tragedy that’s more than just a number, representing family members, friends and loved ones in Florida who lost their lives to fatal overdose and are no longer able to live out their dreams.
In each of those instances, having a simple medication on hand may have prevented a fatal outcome. Naloxone is an FDA-approved medicine that is used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose and revive someone in an emergency situation.
Increasing access to opioid-overdose-reversal medications like naloxone is critical to our community response to the opioid crisis.
Chapter 2022-28, signed by the Florida governor in early April, will help to expand access to this critical tool in the fight against our state’s opioid crisis. This law ensures that law enforcement personnel can possess and administer naloxone and have immunity for administering emergency opioid antagonists such as naloxone in certain situations. The law will also increase education and availability of opioid overdose reversal medicines such as naloxone for key communities.
In my role as a researcher on the overdose crisis during COVID-19, my colleagues and I have seen the human impact of the epidemic behind the numbers. We have witnessed Floridians’ desperation and isolation as they were kept from needed services. This desperation is far from over. However, I have also seen how an opioid-overdose-reversal medication such as naloxone can give someone a second chance in a life-threatening emergency.
Organizations such as Project Opioid are dedicated to reducing opioid deaths in communities. As an organization headquartered in Orlando, we have brought together leaders from across the state who are committed to protecting Floridians from fatal opioid overdose, and we constantly hear from them about the need to expand the availability of these potentially lifesaving medications.
It is vital that law enforcement and communities in Florida have access to opioid overdose reversal medications that help us prevent the fatal harms of accidental overdose. Chapter 2022-28 includes meaningful reforms that will help our local communities in the fight to protect at-risk individuals against the ongoing opioid epidemic.
On behalf of so many Floridians who continue to suffer during our opioid crisis, thank you to the Florida legislature and Gov. DeSantis for taking action to protect Floridians. We have more work to do to effectively reach all at-risk individuals with naloxone, but this law represents an immediate and significant step to protect Florida patients from accidental overdose.
Dr. Kendall Cortelyou is a researcher with Project Opioid and program director for the health care informatics program at the University of Central Florida. Project Opioid is a coalition of business, faith, and philanthropic leaders fighting the overdose crisis in communities. | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-op-opioids-new-law-20220414-d5olkfkq3fbxxktiqcvzinx72a-story.html | 2022-04-14T21:24:33 | 0 | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/guest-commentary/os-op-opioids-new-law-20220414-d5olkfkq3fbxxktiqcvzinx72a-story.html |
United Launch Alliance hitched a ride from NASA in order to gear up for the flight of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, which now has a target liftoff date in May.
To get the first stage of an Atlas V rocket to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, ULA needed to borrow NASA’s Pegasus barge, which last year transported the core stage of the new Space Launch System to Kennedy Space Center and serviced the space shuttle program in years past. ULA’s normal go-to barge, the R/S RocketShip, was stuck in dry dock as its normal route was blocked with river locks closed for maintenance.
The 107-foot-long stage instead made its way from the company’s Decatur, Alabama facility to the Space Coast arriving this past Tuesday on board NASA’s workhorse transport.
The Atlas V is the rocket that will launch Boeing’s uncrewed commercial crew vehicle on Orbital Flight Test-2, now targeting May 19 at 6:54 p.m. for the company’s retry to fly up to and dock with the International Space Station.
The spacecraft, which is supposed to have already joined SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to help provide taxi service for NASA astronauts to the ISS, has endured more than two years of fixes following the initial Orbital Flight Test in December 2019, which managed to launch and land safely, but because of software issues, was not able to rendezvous with the ISS. The mission was labeled by NASA as a “high visibility close call” that led to a post-launch review that recommended 80 changes to the program.
After running through all of recommendations, things were looking good for a launch attempt last August, but a new issue involving a malfunctioning valve scrubbed the attempt. Despite the company identifying the likely problem, Boeing and NASA decided to change out hardware pulling a service module off a Starliner tapped for a future crewed test flight.
Now, though, all of the parts are falling in place, and Boeing looks to complete the test flight setting the stage for a crewed test flight later this year.
Both Boeing and SpaceX were initially given contracts for six missions each to bring crew to and from the ISS for normal six-month expeditions. To date, SpaceX has flown three of those missions with a fourth on tap for launch April 23 and a fifth this November.
A new Atlast V first-stage rocket was required after the one tapped for August’s aborted attempt was repurposed for NASA’s Lucy mission in October.
Starliner will lift off from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex-41, marking ULA’s 150th launch overall and 93rd for the Atlas V. | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/space/os-bz-nasa-pegasus-ula-atlas-v-stage-boeing-starliner-launch-date-20220414-hykafvpmvzba7mhqhqtyhyf3va-story.html | 2022-04-14T21:24:40 | 0 | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/space/os-bz-nasa-pegasus-ula-atlas-v-stage-boeing-starliner-launch-date-20220414-hykafvpmvzba7mhqhqtyhyf3va-story.html |
When David Cutcliffe found himself out of a job last November, the longtime coach spent some quality time with his family over the Christmas holidays. Football wasn’t there front and center for the first time in more than 46 years, but it wasn’t far out of his mind.
“I knew I had a lot of energy,” said Cutcliffe, 67. “I don’t just love college football. I love the people of college football.”
There were many options for a return to football, including a move to the NFL, where lifelong friendships provided opportunities. But when he received a call from the Southeastern Conference about a unique opportunity, it was too good to pass up.
After meeting with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey over Zoom and later in person, Cutcliffe took the job as special assistant to the commissioner for football relations.
“I laugh because the title is kind of if you’ve ever watched The Office — it’s a Dwight Schrute title in length,” said Cutcliffe. “I don’t know what that means, but I know that football relations mean I’m working with football people.
“This was the best way for me to stay involved and hopefully make a minuscule difference.”
It’s a return to the SEC for Cutcliffe, who coached at Tennessee (1982-98) and Ole Miss (1998-2004) before spending the last 13 seasons with the Blue Devils.
When it came down to it, there were two reasons Cutcliffe embarked on this new venture. One was to help make a difference in college football as the sport works through a transformative phase with Name, Image and Likeness, transfer portal, opt-outs, etc. The other was the chance to work with Sankey and the members of the SEC.
“The biggest part of my job will be making sure I continue to educate myself,” said Cutcliffe. “And by developing relationships, I can do that and then certainly serve with the commissioner as he navigates nationally.
“We have a good job description: working in football and developing relationships with everybody.”
Cutcliffe believes his 40-plus years of experience will be a considerable asset, particularly his friendships among the coaching ranks. He’s already been on the road recently, visiting SEC schools while meeting with coaches, assistant coaches, and their support staff.
“I know all the head coaches, but I like meeting with all the football operations directors, other coaches on the staff, and the people in the equipment room. All the things that drive college football,” said Cutcliffe. “I’ve done all those things as a head coach, maybe more than I should have, but I just think a line of communication which may be coach-to-coach is different from anything that’s ever been there.”
Cutcliffe was in Gainesville Wednesday, spending time with new University of Florida coach Billy Napier and his staff, helping answer any questions they might have about the conference and other relevant issues.
He made the hour-plus drive down to Orlando to participate in a panel discussion with UCF coach Gus Malzahn Thursday as part of the Bowl Season’s annual conference. It was vital for him to hear what people were saying about NIL, the transfer portal and how to keep players from opting out of bowl games.
“I felt like this event was important. Not just because I had so many friends,” said Cutcliffe, who cites his participation in 28 bowl games during his career. “These are friends and people that I respect that care a lot about the game.”
In a time when coaches like Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Alabama’s Nick Saban add their voices to concerns over NIL and its impact on the game, Cutcliffe said their worries could be well-founded.
“It’s like when water runs to the edge of something and there’s just drips coming off and we’re still in the drip stage,” he added. “As it goes, we’re going to start seeing a waterfall.
“What we have to do then is to address them with solutions. Many people can tell you what the problems are, and we’ve got to find the people who have solutions that best serve everybody.”
This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Matt Murschel at mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com or follow him on Twitter at @osmattmurschel. | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college-gridiron-365/os-sp-former-duke-coach-david-cutcliffe-discuses-new-role-with-sec-20220414-2h46ifflajgvtb43zir5ela6jy-story.html | 2022-04-14T21:24:46 | 0 | https://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/college-gridiron-365/os-sp-former-duke-coach-david-cutcliffe-discuses-new-role-with-sec-20220414-2h46ifflajgvtb43zir5ela6jy-story.html |
Trae Young bounced back from a sluggish start to score 24 points and De’Andre Hunter led a third-quarter surge that carried the Atlanta Hawks to a 132-103 rout of the Charlotte Hornets in an Eastern Conference play-in game Wednesday night.
Trae Young bounced back from a sluggish start to score 24 points and De’Andre Hunter led a third-quarter surge that carried the Atlanta Hawks to a 132-103 rout of the Charlotte Hornets in an Eastern Conference play-in game Wednesday night.
PORTLAND — Participants in Maine’s tourism industry gathered this week for the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism.
Updated
MONTVILLE — Three people have now died as the result of Wednesday’s explosion at a Montville residence.
AUGUSTA — Maine might make it easier for residents to access heating assistance.
AUGUSTA — Pooled testing for COVID-19 in Maine schools will conclude in May.
BANGOR — The Bangor Water District is in the final stages of its ozone system upgrade.
BANGOR — Our station was greeted by a high-flying visitor on Wednesday.
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AUGUSTA — The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that 356 new cases of COVID-19 …
PORTLAND (WGME) — The U.S. Coast Guard says that while temps are warming up, the water is still …
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Through a season of turmoil, Derek Carr performed at his best. So the Las Vegas Raiders have given … | https://www.foxbangor.com/national-sports/trae-young-deandre-hunter-lead-hawks-to-play-in-rout-of-hornets-2/?src=rss | 2022-04-14T21:28:28 | 0 | https://www.foxbangor.com/national-sports/trae-young-deandre-hunter-lead-hawks-to-play-in-rout-of-hornets-2/?src=rss |
Cheney Public Schools in Spokane County, Wash., will hold informal interviews with four candidates on Thursday and Friday as it seeks to find a new superintendent to replace Robert Roettger.
The four semifinalists are John Goldhardt, former superintendent of the Manchester School District in Manchester, N.H.; Sean Dotson, superintendent of the Tumwater (Washington) School District; Ben Ferney, superintendent of the Valley School District in Stevens County; and Don Vanderholm, superintendent of Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools.
Interviews will begin at 5:30 p.m. both days in the Cheney High School auditorium where staff, students and community members may attend.
The interviews will also be accessible via Zoom. Webinar information can be found on the district website calendar.
Following Friday's interviews, the district board of directors is scheduled to meet in an executive session to determine which candidates will move forward as finalists.
Finalist interviews are scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday and will include a full-day process for each candidate.
Roettger will serve until June 30, after which he will become the new superintendent of Educational Service District 101.
All four of the candidates have experience as a superintendent, three of them in Washington.
Goldhardt resigned as superintendent of the Manchester school district on Feb. 11. He later claimed eggs were thrown at him while he walked his dog, piles of feces were left on his doorstep. and he was attacked in Union Leader editorials before he stepped down.
When asked by a Union Leader reporter about those in Manchester who question the validity of his claims involving eggs and feces, Goldhardt said, “Unlike some politicians, I share the truth. What I shared happened.”
Asked if he had any regrets about how his tenure in Manchester ended, he said he didn’t think it wise to address them — if any exist — due to the conditions outlined in his agreement with the Manchester schools.
Last month, Goldhardt was offered the superintendent's position at Carson City, Nev., but Goldhardt withdrew his candidacy citing concerns over the contract he was offered and “slanderous” comments made by school officials.
“I was truthful to the Carson Board and shared about as much with them as prudent,” said Goldhardt. “The bottom line: I had no discipline nor cause for dismissal.”
Last month, members of the Carson City School District Board of Trustees voted 6-1 to reject terms of a contract proposed by Goldhardt, including $5,000 more in annual salary than the $170,000 a year being offered by the district, as well as a second year, coverage of relocation expenses, travel costs and other items.
Prior to voting on the proposal, Laurel Crossman, the board’s vice president, said Goldhardt proposed the changes “to protect himself,” because his situation in Manchester did not end well.
“This is evidence of a me-first attitude, rather than a kids-first attitude, and that has me concerned,” Crossman said.
In a letter to the trustees, Goldhardt said as he watched the March 22 meeting “it became very apparent that the Trustees are still deeply divided on my hire and cannot move past it.”
“I can live with some division,” wrote Goldhardt. “However, I cannot live with undermining, defamation, slander, and subversion. The tone of Vice President Crossman was accusatory, demeaning, and slanderous in sharing multiple false statements about me. I would expect someone who is a trained attorney to know better to not spread hearsay and publicly slander my personal and professional reputation.”
Goldhardt served in a senior leadership position in Salt Lake City schools before moving to New Hampshire in 2019.
Dotson has spent the past three years at Tumwater, a district of about 6,250 students near Olympia. Prior to that, he spent 12 years in Cheney — five as principal at Sunset Elementary School and seven as assistant superintendent. Earlier in his career, Dotson was a teacher in East Valley and Spokane, and a principal in Elma, Washington.
For the past four years, Ferney has led the 1,600-student Valley School District, located south of Chewelah.
For five years before that, Ferney was the principal at Freeman Middle School. A Washington State University graduate, Ferney also has taught in Cheney and Spokane.
Vanderholm has served the past four years as superintendent of Lind-Ritzville Cooperative Schools in Adams County.
Prior to that, Vanderholm was the principal of Manson (Washington) High School, northwest of Chelan.
Vanderholm began his career as a social studies teacher and basketball coach on the Colville Indian Reservation, then worked for 11 years as a teacher, coach and administrator at the Mary Walker School District in Stevens County.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. | https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/goldhardt-among-finalists-for-superintendent-job-in-washington-state/article_8a680fba-bae6-54da-b131-b413dd27c69a.html | 2022-04-14T21:30:09 | 0 | https://www.unionleader.com/news/education/goldhardt-among-finalists-for-superintendent-job-in-washington-state/article_8a680fba-bae6-54da-b131-b413dd27c69a.html |
GENEVA, Ind. (WANE) — Authorities in Adams County are investigating the death of a woman whose body was pulled from the Wabash River in Geneva earlier this week.
Indiana DNR said Thursday the body of Melissa R. Vickers, 39, of Decatur was recovered from the river on Tuesday after a passerby spotted the body and called 911.
Vickers had been reported missing a month prior, on March 12.
It’s not known how Vickers died. DNR said autopsy results had not come back yet.
No other information was immediately available. DNR said the investigation was ongoing. | https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/decatur-womans-body-pulled-from-wabash-river-in-adams-county/ | 2022-04-14T21:30:59 | 1 | https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/decatur-womans-body-pulled-from-wabash-river-in-adams-county/ |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Local developers and builders are taking the housing shortage seriously and proving it by putting applications before the Allen County Plan Commission faster than slab on to a fresh lot.
The Allen County Plan Commission on Thursday entertained five applications that will bring 1,252 new homes to the county. Very little opposition was voiced at the meeting as a housing boom works to fill the housing shortage.
The four proposed developments in Perry and Eel River townships in the county’s northwest brought Brandon Seifert, Huntertown Town Council president, to the microphone to voice support. The developments are proposed by two of the county’s most active developers, Ric Zehr of Northeastern Realty Group and Jeff Thomas of Oakmont Development, located on Coldwater Road at the same address as Mike Thomas Associates.
Along with a smaller 24-lot subdivision proposed by JRN Construction to be called the Bluffs of Carroll Creek, Thursday’s total of 1,252 adds up to more than 2,000 homes when Zehr’s previously announced 825-lot subdivisions, The Fens and The Farmstead of Carroll Creek, off Woods and Hand Roads, proposed in January, are figured in.
Zehr reiterated his argument that the county is desperate for housing. Currently, there are 167 homes on the market when normally the county has between 2,500 and 3,000 for sale. The shortage has led to homes sold before they hit the market, selling for higher than asking price and making it difficult for some people to even think about buying a home.
Zehr is proposing another large development of 715 lots on nearly 300 acres called Broad Acres that WANE 15 first reported last month. Salomon Farm Holdings was listed as the owner of the property at Hathaway, Carroll and Hand Roads. To the west is farmland, still plentiful in the Huntertown area, according to Seifert. If it is developed, Huntertown Water and Sewer has the capacity to handle the aggressive development, Seifert added.
“People want to live in our area because we have low taxes. We have a great school district and it’s just a hot area to be a part of here in Allen County,” Seifert said. “The waste water treatment plant is still relatively new and has more than enough capacity to handle all the development that we are seeing, and with the continued growth, it can handle that as well.”
Huntertown is authorized to provide sewer service to the “back corner of Allen County” that stretches to the boundaries of Whitley and DeKalb counties. Local officials built the sewer plant in anticipation of that growth predicted in a 1994 study.
Thomas of Oakmont Development has proposed three developments, the largest, Sonora, on 165 acres off Bethel Road with 322 lots. To the north is Hathaway Road, according to filing documents, to the east and south, agricultural land. The housing additions of Carroll Creek and Lakes of Carrol Creek, Eel River Elementary School and Carroll Middle School surround the development.
Another application for Emrich Hills for an additional 57 lots and Cascata Estates, another seven, is a continuation of Oakmont’s existing developments off Shoaff Road.
Off Bass Road in southwest Allen County, Thomas has proposed adding 174 lots in Aboite Township on an 83-acre parcel and is seeking R-2 or two-family zoning rather than R-1 zoning that stipulates single family homes. Tiburon is designated for 76 lots and Livingston Lakes Extended, 98lots, filing documents said. Part of the development will connect to Livingston Lakes and the proposed Signal Ridge development, with an entrance to Bass Road, primarily because there is an adjacent railroad.
The future Bluffs of Carroll Creek sits on 8.6 acres and is owned by Christ’s Hope ministries in the 2800 block of Carroll Road. The church sits adjacent to the proposed development next to a housing development.
The developments await final approval from the Plan Commission at its next meeting on April 21 and then final approval from the Allen County Commissioners during their regular Friday meetings. | https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/more-than-1200-new-homes-planned-for-allen-county/ | 2022-04-14T21:31:05 | 0 | https://www.wane.com/news/local-news/more-than-1200-new-homes-planned-for-allen-county/ |
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation announced the participants in the 2022 Remember the Removal Bike Ride.
This June, six cyclists from the Cherokee Nation will participate in the bike ride that retraces an estimated 950 miles along the northern route of the Trail of Tears by bicycle. This is also the first year for the team to be comprised entirely of Cherokee women.
2022 Remember the Removal Bike Ride cyclists are:
- Emily Christie, 24, Stilwell
- Kortney Dry, 24, Tahlequah
- Kayce O’Field, 24, Tahlequah
- Jeanetta Leach, 23, Rocky Mountain
- Madison Whitekiller, 23, Verdigris
- Desiree Matthews, 18, Watts
The ride will span from Georgia to Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma taking place over nearly three weeks. The cyclists will average around 60 miles a day along the same routes used by Cherokee ancestors, who made the same trek by foot more than 180 years ago.
“It is a huge honor to have been selected for the 2022 RTR bike ride and to be able to retrace the steps of my ancestors,” Kayce O’Field said. “I’ve already learned so much about myself and where I come from. It is a humbling experience. I am extremely grateful for my team and for the resiliency of where we come from. The knowledge that I have learned thus far, and will continue to learn on the ride, is something special I will keep with me for the rest of my life. I am truly honored and blessed for the opportunity to represent my family, my tribe, and my ancestors.”
Participants were selected based on an essay, in-person interviews and a physical, to ensure they are up for the challenge. The group began training in December 2021 by spending weekends undergoing physical training and cycling on various routes throughout the Cherokee Nation Reservation. The cyclists also had their family trees mapped out by a professional genealogist, to provide insight into their ancestral past and connect any family links they might share with their teammates.
During the bike ride, the cyclists will visit several Cherokee gravesites and historic landmarks, including Blythe Ferry in Tennessee. The Cherokee Nation cyclists will also be joined by seven cyclists from the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina. The cyclists will start the ride together in New Echota, Georgia, the former capital of the Cherokee Nation, on May 30.
For more information on the upcoming Remember the Removal Bike Ride or to follow along during the journey, click here.
RELATED: Cherokee Nation announces proposal to use opioid settlement funds to build drug treatment facilities
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To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com. | https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/community/cherokee-nation-remember-removal-bike-ride-2022-participants/527-899e9abd-e826-473b-afb4-0d5996e6f502 | 2022-04-14T21:37:28 | 1 | https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/community/cherokee-nation-remember-removal-bike-ride-2022-participants/527-899e9abd-e826-473b-afb4-0d5996e6f502 |
Florida has come under intense scrutiny nationwide over legislation that critics have called the “Don't Say Gay" law. The legislation, which Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on March 28, bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade in Florida.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order in February directing the state’s child welfare agency to investigate reports of gender-confirming care for transgender youth as abuse. On March 11, a Texas state district judge temporarily blocked the directive.
Legislation directed at the LGBTQ community sometimes draws criticism from state or local government officials in other states and communities in the United States. VERIFY viewer Verushka sent us a text asking if a social media post claiming Los Angeles County banned official travel to Texas is true. Other posts online also claim the county has also imposed a travel ban for the state of Florida.
THE QUESTION
Did Los Angeles County ban travel to Texas and Florida over LGBTQ laws?
THE SOURCES
- California Assembly Bill 1887
- Supreme Court briefs filed by Texas and California
- Rob Bonta, attorney general of California
- Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
- Motion filed by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis
THE ANSWER
Yes, Los Angeles County did ban government-funded travel to Texas and Florida over LGBTQ laws.
WHAT WE FOUND
In 2016, the state of California passed Assembly Bill 1887 (AB 1887). The law, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2017, banned state-funded or state-sponsored travel to other states that were deemed to have anti-LGBTQ laws. As of April 14, 2022, 18 states are on the ban list, including Texas and Florida.
According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, AB 1887 serves two purposes – as an employer, the state wants to protect its employees from hostilities, and it doesn’t want to spend money in states that don’t share its values towards the LGBTQ community.
In February 2020, Texas sued California over AB 1887, arguing that the law is unconstitutional, but in April 2021 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case and the law still stands today.
Los Angeles County’s travel ban is a local-level policy that mirrors AB 1887.
A motion filed by Los Angeles County supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Hilda Solis on April 5 directed Los Angeles County Chief Executive Officer Fesia Davenport to suspend all travel to the states of Texas and Florida in response to the states’ recent anti-LGBTQ policies. The motion was passed unanimously during a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting held on the same day.
Other states and communities in the U.S. have imposed similar government-related travel restrictions in the past over other states’ anti-LGBTQ laws.
In 2016, Washington, Minnesota, and four other states, along with dozens of cities, including Washington, D.C., banned travel to North Carolina over the state’s controversial “bathroom law,” known as House Bill 2 (HB 2), according to news reports. HB 2 required people to use the bathroom of the gender that was assigned to them at birth. The law was mostly repealed in 2017 following the backlash.
State travel bans, including AB 1887, typically have several exceptions. For instance, AB 1887 does not apply to state travel that is required for enforcement of California law, litigation, or for the protection of public health, welfare, or safety, such as when firefighters travel to other states to assist during disasters. The travel bans also only apply to publicly funded trips, meaning there are no restrictions on residents traveling on their own to the banned states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report | https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/los-angeles-county-california-government-travel-ban-over-lgbtq-laws-texas-florida-fact-check/536-f994e517-00ba-4bdd-b9da-e4db755e2190 | 2022-04-14T21:37:34 | 1 | https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/los-angeles-county-california-government-travel-ban-over-lgbtq-laws-texas-florida-fact-check/536-f994e517-00ba-4bdd-b9da-e4db755e2190 |
The products and services mentioned below were selected independent of sales and advertising. However, Simplemost may receive a small commission from the purchase of any products or services through an affiliate link to the retailer's website.
Couldn’t we all use a little more smoothness during our workdays?
While glass chair mats might not be the first thing that come to mind when getting your home office situated, protecting your flooring shouldn’t be overlooked. Not only will a glass chair mat save your carpet from uneven wear or your hardwood floor from scratches, but using a chair mat might actually make you more comfortable. When you’re using one, your chair glides around easier — especially opposed to trying to roll on the carpet — making your chair jerk around less.
We know what you’re thinking: Glass? Under the chair? With me sitting in it? Is it going to break?
Nope. Tempered glass is incredibly strong can hold over 1,000 pounds of weight! If you’d like to try one for yourself, here are a few great options for tempered glass chair mats available on Amazon.
Premium Heavy Duty 1/4-Inch Thick Tempered Glass Chair Mat
This glass chair mat from 975 Supply measures 36 by 46 inches, has rounded corners and four fixed (but detachable) anti-skid pads. A chair won’t scratch the glass and the glass won’t scratch the floor underneath it. Use it to protect tile, hardwood, carpet and rugs. You’ll hardly notice this mat is even there when you walk into the room because it’s crystal clear.
We like that it comes with an unlimited lifetime guarantee covering transit damage or flaws. It’s highly rated on Amazon with an overall score of 4.9 out of 5 stars, scoring especially well for use on hardwood floors, its sheerness and durability. One reviewer said after trying this glass chair mat that she sent her plastic one back.
Clean it like you would a mirror: just wipe it down with glass spray and you’re good to go. You can purchase it on Amazon for $149.99.
Glaciermat Reinforced Glass Executive Chair Mat
The Glaciermat Reinforced Glass Executive Chair Mat from Floortex lays flat, fostering easy gliding mobility. It protects hard floors and all styles of carpets (high or low pile) and won’t ever curl as a plastic mat would. Amazon users have rated this mat 4.6 stars, while one customer mentioned it didn’t even scratch despite having dropped multiple household objects on it, like a phone, bike lights, chargers and more.
This one measures 36 by 48 inches and lists for $163.59 on Amazon.
Glass Chair Mat with Exclusive Beveled Edge
If you’re looking for a glass chair mat that’s a little bigger, this one spans 44 by 50 inches. This mat from Clearly Innovative has beveled edges that help your chair easily roll onto and off of it. The edges also prevent it from cracking. One reviewer noted this feature was nice when working with bare feet, stating that they don’t even feel the edge of the mat because it sinks into the carpet.
You can purchase this one for $298 on Amazon.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories. | https://www.wrtv.com/glass-chair-mat-protect-home-office-floor | 2022-04-14T21:51:14 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/glass-chair-mat-protect-home-office-floor |
The products and services mentioned below were selected independent of sales and advertising. However, Simplemost may receive a small commission from the purchase of any products or services through an affiliate link to the retailer's website.
Have you ever wondered how to clean your makeup brushes? Don’t panic: If you’re not cleaning them regularly, you’re not alone. One survey reported that almost 39% of women cleaned their brushes less than once a month, with 22% admitting to never cleaning them at all. Their most commonly reported reasons seem to be lack of time and lack of know-how.
Yet the fact is that makeup brushes need to be cleaned. This is because over time, brushes accumulate dirt, bacteria, dead skin cells and oil. And this gunk can lead to breakouts. Ugh. The good news is that the more you clean them, the less acne-inducing bacteria you’re wiping across your skin. Ick, but true. Clean brushes also help you apply your makeup better, because if you’re using a brush to apply a dark eye shadow color and switch to another lighter shade, having a dirty brush will just muddy the color.
Many beauty pros recommended washing our makeup brushes at least once a week. Some makeup artists suggest after each use — especially if it’s a beauty blender — which really makes the most sense when you think about it. Beauty pros say that while you can use something you might already have on hand, such as Dawn dish soap, using a product specifically designed for cleaning makeup brushes is actually much faster and easier.
Since I’ve often neglected my makeup brushes, I jumped at the opportunity to test out the makeup industry cult-favorite Cinema Secrets, a professional-grade liquid makeup brush cleaner that claims to kill 99.99% of bacteria.
An 8-ounce bottle of Cinema Secrets professional makeup brush cleaner is $24 on Amazon, and this cleaner promises a quick and easy way to do this job so many of us have been putting off forever.
Here’s how to clean your makeup brushes with Cinema Secrets: You just pour a little of the liquid into a small bowl, dip the tip of your brushes in it, swirl and wipe them clean. Its fast-drying formula doesn’t need to be rinsed off. Really! My smaller brushes were ready to use again immediately, while my larger ones needed a few more minutes to dry — but only 10 minutes maximum.
Could skipping the rinse and shortening the dry time really make me clean my makeup brushes more often? The answer is YES. This blue cleaner can be used on both natural and synthetic fiber brushes and somehow, magically, it doesn’t leave any residue. You really have to see it to believe it. It washes and deodorizes at once and rendered my makeup brushes clean as a whistle.
I couldn’t help but notice how beloved this makeup cleaner is on Amazon! With 1,969 reviews and counting, it ranks highly with 4.7 out of 5 stars. Customers also note that “a little goes a long way,” which makes the $24.00 cost well worth it in my book, and several mentioned how it “dries almost instantly.”
What do you think? Now that you know how to clean your makeup brushes will you do it more regularly? Your skin might thank you!
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories. | https://www.wrtv.com/how-to-clean-your-makeup-brushes | 2022-04-14T21:51:20 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/how-to-clean-your-makeup-brushes |
We’ve all heard stories from fishermen about “the one that got away.” In those tales, the biggest fish ever got hooked on the end of the line and gave such a fight that it escaped its fate.
Sometimes, though, the angler wins the battle, and now Eugene Cronley of Mississippi has a fish story that needs no exaggeration. In fact, the catfish Cronley caught is so big, that it’s been certified as a state record-breaker and could be considered for a world record, as well.
During his April 7 fishing excursion on the Mississippi River near Natchez, Mississippi, Cronley reeled in a 131-pound blue catfish that looked like something from prehistoric times. Needless to say, that big-‘ol blue wasn’t coming out of the river willingly.
“He hit the rod and started pulling drag,” Cronley told the Clarion Ledger. “I couldn’t move him. I’d pull on him and he’d pull and take 10 feet.”
The determined angler spent 45 minutes fighting to reel in the fish and finally, Cronley and the others on the boat got a glimpse of his river opponent.
“We catch a lot of 50-pounders down there and I knew he was bigger than that,” Cronley told the Ledger. “We didn’t know until we pulled him up. We knew then we had a monster.”
“We could hardly get him in the boat,” he added. “I was wore out.”
In addition to its whopping body weight, the blue catfish measured 4.7-feet long and had a girth of 41 inches around.
The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks took a few days to certify the measurements, but once it did, the news of the broken record spread on social media.
Prior to Cronley’s catch, the state record was 95 pounds.
After already breaking one record, Cronley could also be a line class world record holder based on the size of the fish and the equipment he used.
According to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, Cronley used a rod and reel with skipjack herring as bait. The line on the reel was a 30-pound test monofilament variety, which the International Game Fish Association needs to confirm. If the organization confirms the equipment, Cronley’s fish will be the biggest fish caught on that strength of the fishing line.
Either way, Cronley said his catch “is truly the fish of a lifetime.”
“I’ve been catfishing all my life and I never dreamed of something like this,” he said.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories. | https://www.wrtv.com/mississippi-man-catches-record-breaking-catfish | 2022-04-14T21:51:26 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/mississippi-man-catches-record-breaking-catfish |
INDIANAPOLIS — Medxcel, a provider of healthcare facilities services in the United States, will host four job fairs in Indianapolis beginning April 20.
The company is looking to add people to fill urgently needed landscaping positions in their central Indiana facilities.
The fairs will last from 2-6 p.m. on April 20, May 4, May 18 and June 1 at 2150 Covey Lane in Indianapolis.
The company is offering up to $1,500 in sign-on bonuses with a benefits package that includes:
- Full-time, year-round work
- Medical, dental and vision care coverage
- Competitive compensation
- Company-paid life insurance
- Tuition assistance
- 27 days of PTO yearly
- 8 paid holidays
Walk-ins are welcome at the job fairs.
TOP STORIES: IUPUI commencement ceremony subject of uproar as some students won't be able to walk | Gainbridge concertgoers say they were denied access to rescheduled Elton John show; told tickets invalid | Meteor likely cause of mysterious explosion-like noise that rattled parts of Indiana, AMS says | Carvana building demolished to clear way for construction of new I-465 interchange | Apple to pay $14.8M to iCloud subscribers over breached contract | https://www.wrtv.com/news/hiring-hoosiers/medxcel-hosting-four-local-job-fairs | 2022-04-14T21:51:33 | 1 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/hiring-hoosiers/medxcel-hosting-four-local-job-fairs |
LAWRENCE — Lawrence police say they have arrested who had been jailed in Cuyahoga County, Ohio on suspicion of murder and mistakenly released.
Cornell Gray, 22, was taken into police custody after officers responded about 10:30 p.m. Sunday and found him in the area of East 42nd Street and North Franklin Road, said Lawrence Police Chief Gary Woodruff.
Officers were dispatched after receiving a report of a wanted person in an apartment there. Gray was taken into custody and transported to the Marion County Adult Detention Center.
Gray did not have any local charges, Woodruff said.
WEWS-TV, a sister station of WRTV, reports that Gray was mistakenly released from Cuyahoga County Jail due to an apparent mixup.
Gray had been charged with murder in connection with the April 17, 2021 killing of a 28-year-old man found with multiple gunshot wounds outside a home on Anita Kennedy Road in Cleveland.
A warrant for Gray's arrest was issued in September 2021 and he was captured in Texas by the U.S. Marshal's Gulf Coast Task Force in February, WEWS-TV reported.
Cuyahoga County Sheriff Christopher Viland released this statement when asked for details on how Gray was released: "We are working with our law enforcement partners to ensure the community's safety. We understand the seriousness of what is being reported and are investigating all of the facts and circumstances. We will ensure our processes are correct and our employees accountable."
WEWS-TV reported this is at least the 10th time someone was mistakenly released from the jail in just the last three years.
WRTV has reached out to Cuyahoga County spokeswoman Mary Louise Madigan to determine whether Gray has been extradited back to Ohio. | https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/cleveland-murder-suspect-found-arrested-in-lawrence-police-say | 2022-04-14T21:51:39 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/cleveland-murder-suspect-found-arrested-in-lawrence-police-say |
INDIANAPOLIS — This Saturday, following the grand opening of the Ross Center at 8901 E. 42nd St., The Ross Foundation will host its seventh annual Easter egg hunt.
For the second straight year, the foundation has scheduled up to 10,000 eggs filled with candy and toys from a helicopter.
There will be a drop for younger kids and then a second drop for older kids. Only a limited amount can participate, so arriving early will be key.
The foundation has also announced there will be three special golden eggs with $100 to be given out in them.
The grand opening of the Ross Center, including a ribbon-cutting ceremony, is scheduled for noon. The Easter egg hunt is scheduled to follow.
TOP STORIES: IUPUI commencement ceremony subject of uproar as some students won't be able to walk | Gainbridge concertgoers say they were denied access to rescheduled Elton John show; told tickets invalid | Meteor likely cause of mysterious explosion-like noise that rattled parts of Indiana, AMS says | Carvana building demolished to clear way for construction of new I-465 interchange | Apple to pay $14.8M to iCloud subscribers over breached contract | https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/ross-center-hosting-helicopter-drop-egg-hunt-on-eastside | 2022-04-14T21:51:45 | 1 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/ross-center-hosting-helicopter-drop-egg-hunt-on-eastside |
SOUTHFIELD, Mich (WXYZ) — A nationwide infant formula shortage has families struggling to feed their babies.
Empty shelves and signs rationing out supplies is a sight many have not seen since the early days of the pandemic. But moms say it’s a constant crisis.
“What happens if she drinks her last bottle?” Ashley Rippey asked.
Rippey said she spends hours online searching for a store that has her daughter's sensitive stomach formula stocked and if she is lucky, one out of seven stores will have one can.
“It’s ridiculous. I don’t mean to cry, I don’t mean to start getting emotional but when there is no other option to feeding your kid, what’s my option,” Rippey said.
“It’s a bit frustrating and it’s sad,” said Dymon Williams, whose newborn Mason has a milk allergy.
Williams after many failed formula attempts finally found one that settled his stomach, but after the doctor's samples ran out, she quickly realized it was close to impossible to find the brand in stores.
"We had to get a family member from Chicago to find it for us and bring it down here, which it just got here this week,” Williams, a resident of the Detroit area, said.
Prior to her cousin saving the day, Williams says they were forced to give her 6-week-old son food they knew he was allergic to, causing him to break out, cry and become constipated. And she fears in a few days, they could have to do the same thing.
“We only got to get four cans from down there, and the milk doesn’t last that long. One can only lasts two-and-a-half days,” Williams said.
“We had a bad situation with access to baby formula before, and the recall by Abbott only made in worse,” said Kevin Ketels, an associate professor at The Mike Ilitch School of Business at Wayne State University.
Ketels says a massive formula recall earlier in the year is one of the causes for the empty shelves, with 31% of formula products being out of stock across the country.
According to Ketels, Abbott has begun airlifting formula products to the states to fill the gap, and other companies are looking at ways to stretch the supply. But he says the solution could take weeks if not months.
“Hopefully, the company can ramp up production quickly and we can avoid the severe shortages that we have right now, but we will not be able to escape the general shortages just because of the pandemic," Ketels said.
In the meantime, families have had to become resourceful. Posting on social media to see if anyone has extra samples or reaching out to families members in other states to be on the search.
This article was written by Kiara Hay for WXYZ. | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/family-travels-from-detroit-to-chicago-to-find-infant-formula-amid-nationwide-shortages | 2022-04-14T21:51:51 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/family-travels-from-detroit-to-chicago-to-find-infant-formula-amid-nationwide-shortages |
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has just approved an emergency use authorization to bring the first breath COVID-19 diagnostic test to market.
The test detects chemical compounds in the breath which are associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the FDA said in a statement.
Samples will be collected and analyzed in environments like a doctor's office, mobile testing sites, and hospitals the agency said. They will have to be performed by a trained healthcare provider, and results can be returned in less than three minutes the FDA said.
Dr. Jeff Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health said in a statement, “The FDA continues to support the development of novel COVID-19 tests with the goal of advancing technologies that can help address the current pandemic and better position the U.S. for the next public health emergency.”
Earlier in April, President Joe Biden announced that his administration would be ordering a new national research push on long COVID-19, while also directing federal agencies to support patients dealing with the mysterious and debilitating condition.
The White House said Biden ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to coordinate an urgent new initiative across federal agencies, building on research already underway at the National Institutes of Health. The president also directed federal agencies to support patients and doctors by providing science-based best practices for treating long COVID, maintaining access to insurance coverage, and protecting the rights of workers coping with the condition. | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/fda-approves-first-covid-19-breath-diagnostic-test | 2022-04-14T21:51:57 | 1 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/fda-approves-first-covid-19-breath-diagnostic-test |
An investigation in Nebraska has concluded that a Nebraska state lawmaker who resigned after admitting that he took photos of a female subordinate without her permission acted in a "boorish, brainless and bizarre" manner but did not commit illegal sexual discrimination or harassment.
Lincoln attorney Tara Paulson wrote in her report that was released Wednesday that former state Sen. Mike Groene's behavior was "wholly unprofessional and inappropriate" and that he would have faced disciplinary action in a private-sector job.
Groene resigned in February after admitting that he took the photos of a female staffer. Groene, a blunt-spoken, often abrasive Republican who clashed with Democratic colleagues, also ended his candidacy to become a University of Nebraska Regent.
Paulson wrote that Groene emailed photos to himself with subject lines like, “Inmd pic,” “Inmdsm,” “PAGEBOY,” “BLONDE” and “LEGS.”
Kristina Konecko, the staffer who was photographed without permission wrote in a statement, “I appreciate and am grateful to Mr. Groene hiring me all those years ago. Earning his trust was like a badge of honor for me. Filing the complaint was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. It was like betraying a friend.”
Groene would not participate in the probe and said he regretted resigning and said in a statement that his reputation was "drug through the mud in a political witch hunt.”
“The legislative report confirmed what I said from the beginning,” Groene said. “I did nothing unlawful. In no manner did I harass an employee. All photos on my computer were never shared and all were taken in a public setting.” | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/investigation-finds-nebraska-lawmakers-behavior-wasnt-sexual-harassment | 2022-04-14T21:52:03 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/investigation-finds-nebraska-lawmakers-behavior-wasnt-sexual-harassment |
A possible missile attack on the Moskva, a Russian ship that is stationed in the Black Sea, caused “significant damage" to the cruiser, the U.S. Department of Defense said Thursday.
Following the Pentagon’s announcement, Russian state media said the ship sank as a result of the attack.
A Department of Defense official said Thursday afternoon that explosions from the missiles caused fire damage to the ship.
"We do believe that [the cruiser] has experienced significant damage. Our assessment is that [the crew] still appears to be battling a fire onboard,” a Pentagon official said. “But we do not know the extent of the damage. We don't know anything about casualties to [the] crew. And we cannot definitively say at this point what caused that damage.”
The Pentagon said it observed a handful of ships operating in the northern Black Sea have moved south in the wake of the damage to the Moskva.
The Department of Defense says the ship contains munitions, artillery rounds, missiles, a propulsion plant and plenty of fuel onboard. | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/russia-ukraine-conflict/russian-flagship-ship-blasted-by-ukranian-missiles-dod-says | 2022-04-14T21:52:09 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/russia-ukraine-conflict/russian-flagship-ship-blasted-by-ukranian-missiles-dod-says |
Music made by Queen, Journey, and Alicia Keys is heading to the Library of Congress.
Their works are part of the 25 recordings the Library of Congress will be added to the national recording registry this year, the library announced in a press release.
"The National Recording Registry reflects the diverse music and voices that have shaped our nation’s history and culture through recorded sound,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said. “The national library is proud to help preserve these recordings, and we welcome the public’s input. We received about 1,000 public nominations this year for recordings to add to the registry.”
Other artists that are joining the collection include Linda Ronstadt, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, and Buena Vista Social Club.
The registry, which was established in 2000, has 25 new titles added to its archive every year.
Historical recordings are also included in the collection including public speeches and radio shows.
This year, the collection added Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential speeches and a broadcast of baseball player Hank Aaron's 715th career home run. | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/songs-by-queen-a-tribe-called-quest-added-to-recording-registry | 2022-04-14T21:52:15 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/songs-by-queen-a-tribe-called-quest-added-to-recording-registry |
A new study released Thursday that shows those diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder are 3.7% more likely to get a breakthrough COVID-19 infection than those without psychiatric disorders.
The study was published Thursday by the JAMA Network Open.
It shows people with substance use disorder had an up to 16% greater risk of getting a breakthrough infection.
Those with adjustment disorder were linked to a roughly 13% higher chance of breakthrough infection.
The study also found that those with anxiety disorders had a roughly 8% higher risk of breakthrough infection.
Researchers say their findings might warrant focusing more prevention efforts on this group, like prioritizing testing and boosters. | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/study-finds-people-with-psychiatric-diagnoses-more-at-risk-of-covid | 2022-04-14T21:52:21 | 1 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/national/study-finds-people-with-psychiatric-diagnoses-more-at-risk-of-covid |
ADAMS COUNTY — The body of a woman who had been reported missing exactly one month ago was located Thursday in the Wabash River.
Melissa R. Vickers, 39, of Decatur was found dead in the river by a passerby who reported the discovery to police, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Vickers was reported missing on March 12, according to DNR.
The cause and manner of Vickers' death is pending. Indiana conservation officers are investigating in conjunction with the Decatur Police Department and the Adam County Sheriff's Department.
WRTV has reached out to Decatur police and has yet to hear back.
This is a developing story.
TOP STORIES: IUPUI commencement ceremony subject of uproar as some students won't be able to walk | Gainbridge concertgoers say they were denied access to rescheduled Elton John show; told tickets invalid | Meteor likely cause of mysterious explosion-like noise that rattled parts of Indiana, AMS says | Carvana building demolished to clear way for construction of new I-465 interchange | Apple to pay $14.8M to iCloud subscribers over breached contract | https://www.wrtv.com/news/public-safety/body-of-adams-county-woman-reported-missing-a-month-ago-found-in-wabash-river | 2022-04-14T21:52:27 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/public-safety/body-of-adams-county-woman-reported-missing-a-month-ago-found-in-wabash-river |
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Police in a Georgia city where a Carmel woman was visiting with family the week of her disappearance say they have obtained video confirming her last known location.
Ciera Breland (Locklair), 31, was last captured on video about 7:17 p.m. Feb. 24 at her mother-in-law's home on Highgate Manor Court, according to Johns Creek police Lt. Debra Kalish.
Kalish said police had previously searched the Chattahoochee River for Breland before receiving video confirmation of her presence at the home.
According to the FBI, Breland was last known to be visiting her family in John's Creek, Georgia, during the week of Feb. 20 with her husband, their 5-month-old son and the family's white labradoodle.
Breland's husband reported her missing on Feb. 26 to the Carmel Police Department. However, the FBI says there is no evidence that Breland ever returned to Indiana after the trip to Georgia.
The FBI previously said Breland was last seen just before 7 p.m. Feb. 24 in the 10500 block of Highgate Manor Court. She was driving a white 2017 Volkswagon Tiguan with GA license plate RMB 5869.
Carmel police have named Breland's husband a "person of interest" in her disappearance. He was arrested last month on an unrelated warrant out of Georgia and extradited back to the state, but he has not yet been charged with anything in connection with Breland's disappearance.
Breland's cousin, Shelby Campbell, told WRTV that Breland had a rocky relationship with her husband.
Campbell said Breland had had gone back and forth from being scared and then wanting to fix things with her husband. Campbell also said she had turned over multiple videos to police that Breland had asked her to save and give to them if anything ever happened to her.
The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Breland.
Anyone with information related to the disappearance of Ciera Breland is asked to contact the Johns Creek [Georgia] Police Tip line at 678-474-1610 or the Carmel Police Dept. at 317-571-2500. You can also call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or visit tips.fbi.gov.
RELATED | 'I'm really scared': Texts between Ciera Breland, cousin reveal she was worried for her safety | FBI offering $10,000 reward in disappearance of missing Carmel woman Ciera Breland | Carmel mother was last in Georgia, not Indiana, contrary what husband told police | https://www.wrtv.com/news/public-safety/ciera-breland-case-georgia-police-say-video-confirms-missing-carmel-womans-last-location | 2022-04-14T21:52:33 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/news/public-safety/ciera-breland-case-georgia-police-say-video-confirms-missing-carmel-womans-last-location |
The wife of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Dwayne Haskins made her first public comment since her husband died last weekend after he was hit by a dump truck on a South Florida highway.
"I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to every loving soul who has supported our family during this arduous time of loss," Kalabrya Haskins said in a statement released through the Steelers on Wednesday. "The overwhelming thoughts and prayers have been fuel for our emotional depletion. All of your blessings have been greatly valued and appreciated."
The Florida Highway Patrol said Haskins died April 9 while attempting to cross the westbound lanes of Interstate 595. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities are still investigating the incident.
ESPN reported that Haskins was in Florida training with several teammates, including fellow quarterback Mitch Trubisky.
The Associated Press reported that two funerals will be held to honor Haskins.
The first one will be held on April 23 at noon at Christ Church in Rockaway Township and the second one will be held on April 24 at Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland. | https://www.wrtv.com/sports/wife-of-steelers-qb-dwayne-haskins-releases-statement-following-his-passing | 2022-04-14T21:52:39 | 0 | https://www.wrtv.com/sports/wife-of-steelers-qb-dwayne-haskins-releases-statement-following-his-passing |
DECATUR COUNTY — The National Weather Service has confirmed a tornado touched down in Decatur County on Wednesday.
According to the NWS, the EF0 tornado touched down near Millhousen in Decatur County at 8:26 p.m. and lasted until 8:28 p.m.
Winds are estimated to have peaked at 84 mph, according to the NWS.
Preliminary findings show damage to a farm building and a horse trailer near the site of the tornado.
An EF0 tornado is categorized as a weak tornado with winds between 65 and 85 mph.
TOP STORIES: IUPUI commencement ceremony subject of uproar as some students won't be able to walk | Gainbridge concertgoers say they were denied access to rescheduled Elton John show; told tickets invalid | Meteor likely cause of mysterious explosion-like noise that rattled parts of Indiana, AMS says | Carvana building demolished to clear way for construction of new I-465 interchange | Apple to pay $14.8M to iCloud subscribers over breached contract | https://www.wrtv.com/weather/weather-news/nws-confirms-tornado-touched-down-wednesday-in-decatur-county | 2022-04-14T21:52:46 | 1 | https://www.wrtv.com/weather/weather-news/nws-confirms-tornado-touched-down-wednesday-in-decatur-county |
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As seen on News 4 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/auction-celebrates-jackie-robinsons-75th-mlb-anniversary/3647106/ | 2022-04-14T21:53:54 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/auction-celebrates-jackie-robinsons-75th-mlb-anniversary/3647106/ |
Dallas Mavericks owner and tech entrepreneur Mark Cuban has received many business pitches during his lengthy career, but in 2018, a cold email from a man named Dr. Alex Oshmyansky stuck out to him.
In the email, Oshmyansky asked Cuban for an investment in his company, Osh's Affordable Pharmaceuticals. Cuban had some ideas of his own regarding affordable medicine, so an email exchange between the two began. Four years later, the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company opened in January 2022 with Oshmyansky as the chief executive. The company offers an array of generic medications to customers at low prices and does not accept insurance.
"We spent more than three years going through all the requirements to do what we do today," Cuban said in an email to NBC. "It was not easy at all. Alex gets all the credit. He has done an amazing job of making sure that all regulations are met."
How does the Mark Cuban-Backed Cost Plus Drug Company work?
The company uses cost-plus pricing and marks each drug up 15%, then charges a $3 pharmacy fee if applicable. The company showcases possible savings on its website and shows exactly how its pricing was calculated. The company says it prides itself on having no middleman and being transparent with consumers about how they reached the final cost of the medications.
Cuban said that his main motivation behind creating the company is to be "the absolute lowest cost provider for as many medications as we can offer and to reduce the stress for as many people as we possibly can."
Some of the largest savings currently available on CostPlusDrugs.com come from the drugs Abacavir / Lamivudine (Generic for Epzicom) — used to treat HIV infection — and Albendazole (Generic for Albenza) — used to treat infections caused by tapeworms. For 30 tablets of Abacavir / Lamivudine, Cost Plus Drugs charges $57.60. At other pharmacies, 30 tablets of the name brand version of this drug, Epzicom, can retail as high as $1,096.20. Two tablets of Albendazole will cost $33 through the online pharmacy, while other pharmacies can charge up to $437.68 for the name brand version of the medication.
According to the Association for Accessible Medicines, more than 80 percent of medications dispensed in the U.S. are generic. The Cost Plus Drug online pharmacy has hundreds of generic medications available for common diseases and infections, such as cancer, dementia and diabetes. You can search by disease, medical condition or infection. In order for a person to receive the medication, their doctor has to write a new prescription and send it to the company electronically. If your drug is not on the list, you can add it to the suggestion box on the medications page.
"We will grow the number of drugs from 100 plus today to about 1,000 by year end, Cuban said. "We hope to add more monthly."
According to Cuban, there is no limit for how many consumers the company can serve.
"I think the greatest number of people who could be helped are people who have insurance, but they face a pretty big deductible or high co-payment for prescription drugs even if they're generic," Sean Nicholson, a professor in the Department of Economics at Cornell University said.
For many Americans, when overpriced medicine is mentioned, insulin is the first one to come to mind. While it is currently not offered through the company, it may be available soon.
"As far as insulin and other diabetic needs, we are exploring all of our options," Cuban said. "We know there is significant demand. We are hopeful we can find a solution by next year."
In 2015, Martin Shkreli became the face of pharmaceutical greed that was one of the catalysts to the creation of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. Shkreli, who is currently incarcerated on security fraud charges, was the co-founder and former CEO of Retrophin and Turing Pharmaceuticals. That company obtained the manufacturing license for Daraprim, a name brand anti-parasite drug, and raised its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.
Cuban has cited stories like that as one of the many reasons he wanted to help change the pharmaceutical industry. The company’s mission statement reads, in part, “We started this company as an effort to disrupt the drug industry and to do our best to end ridiculous drug prices.”
In 2015, there was not a generic version of Daraprim on the market. In 2020, the FDA approved the first generic version of the medication, pyrimethamine.
Who is Dr. Alex Oshmyansky?
Dr. Alex Oshmyansky founded Osh Affordable Pharmaceuticals in 2018. Shortly after, he sent a cold email to Mark Cuban who financially backed the company. The name was then changed to Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company and is currently the operating business.
"We will do whatever it takes to get affordable pharmaceuticals to patients," Oshmyansky said in a news release. "The markup on potentially lifesaving drugs that people depend on is a problem that can't be ignored. It is imperative that we take action and help expand access to these medications for those who need them most."
In addition to being the CEO and Founder of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, Oshmyansky is also an emergency radiologist at Vision Radiology in Dallas, Texas.
Where are the drugs manufactured?
The company is planning to build an $11 million, 22,000-square-foot pharmaceutical factory in the Deep Ellum neighborhood in Dallas by the end of this year. According to Cuban, it will bring about 80 jobs to the area.
Has this been done before?
There are additional generic medication companies that are challenging the norms of the pharmaceutical industry.
Civica RX, founded in 2018, partners with hospitals and healthcare systems to provide affordable and generic drugs. It is a nonprofit whereas the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company is a for-profit company that looks at the issue from a consumer angle. GoodRX is another healthcare company that compares prescription prices from 75,000 pharmacies in the U.S., then provides free coupons for consumers to use in order to purchase their medication at lower prices.
Akorn Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceuticals are examples of companies that sell generic medications to pharmacies, such as Walmart, CVS and Walgreens.
"Now when there are market failures as economists say and for whatever reason, you don't get a lot of competition between generic drug companies, well then that's when it opens an opportunity for Mark Cuban's company to come in," Nicholson, who is also a professor at the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, said.
"So, one of the benefits of his company presumably will be putting all of the other generic firms on watch. And if they're not aggressively cutting their prices close to cost, then Mark Cuban is going to take some of their business. That would be beneficial because that could affect lots of drugs, not just the ones he's making, but the ones that he could make."
To Cuban, the reason why these types of pharmacies are not currently prevalent in the U.S. is quite simple: Greed.
"It's very difficult to avoid the legacy pharmacy benefit managers," Cuban said. "They are the gatekeeps for most revenue in the system. We are not searching to maximize revenue or profits. We decided to not partner with them and compete with them."
Frank Lichtenberg, the Cain Brothers & Company Professor of Healthcare Management at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business believes the impact the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company may have is on the insurance industry.
"It may actually affect prescription drug insurance," Lichtenberg, who has spent 25 years studying biomedical innovation with an emphasis in pharmaceutical innovation, said. "Insurers may recognize in a sense that they’re facing competition from this source, so it could disrupt the industry in that way."
And for why this exact business model isn't already common, Lichtenburg says it may simply be because no one else has thought of it.
"They might require a significant scale of operations to make this efficient, so that may have prevented some people from doing it," Lichtenburg said. "But after the fact, why didn’t someone develop Amazon before Jeff Bezos, now we know that was fantastically successful and anybody could have done it, but it took somebody to basically develop that innovation, and if Cuban is successful in this, he may invite competition and that could undermine the profitability of that business, although maybe he’s not primarily doing it for the profit, but I don’t see any reason why it could not be imitated."
During an interview on the NPR podcast "The Limits," Mark Cuban also answered that question in his own words, "People always ask, well why didn't somebody do this before? The reality is there's so much money there, it's hard not to be greedy,” Cuban said on the podcast. “If you get to any scale at all, those PBMs will start throwing money at you and saying, 'Look, just play the game.'"
So while the company is technically a for-profit business, Cuban said his goal is not to make money from this venture, which is why they were able to cut out the middlemen while building the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.
"Most people thought that was an impossible task to undertake," Cuban said. "We didn't." | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/health/how-mark-cubans-online-pharmacy-plans-to-make-medications-affordable/3647048/ | 2022-04-14T21:53:57 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/health/how-mark-cubans-online-pharmacy-plans-to-make-medications-affordable/3647048/ |
An Arizona man faces animal cruelty charges after 183 dead dogs, rabbits, birds and other animals were found in a freezer, including some that were apparently frozen while alive, officials said.
Mohave County deputies and animal control officers found the animals in a garage freezer April 3 after a woman reported that Michael Patrick Turland, 43, hadn’t returned snakes she’d lent him for breeding, the Sheriff’s Office said Thursday in a statement. The deep freezer was at a home that Turland previously rented in Golden Valley, a rural community in far western Arizona.
The frozen animals included dogs, turtles, lizards, birds, snakes, mice, rats and rabbits, the statement said. “Several of the animals appeared to have been frozen alive due to their body positioning."
The home's owner reportedly discovered the frozen animals while cleaning after Turland and his wife vacated the property. The owner then contacted the woman who notified the Sheriff's Office, the statement said.
Turland was arrested at the home Wednesday when deputies were told he had returned to the property, the office said.
“When interviewed, Turland eventually admitted to placing some of the animals in the freezer when they were still alive," the statement said.
Court records didn't list an attorney who could comment on behalf of Turland, who was arrested on 94 counts of animal cruelty. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/cops-arizona-man-stuffed-183-animals-in-freezer-some-alive/3647081/ | 2022-04-14T21:53:58 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/cops-arizona-man-stuffed-183-animals-in-freezer-some-alive/3647081/ |
Two House committees have launched an investigation into the government's use of facial recognition software that was most recently used by the Internal Revenue Service, but stopped after complaints from lawmakers and privacy advocates.
Critics of the software said facial recognition databases could become a target for cyberthreats. They also expressed concerns about how the information could be used by other government agencies.
In a letter Thursday to Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, the lawmakers requested documents and information related to the company’s contracts with 10 federal agencies and 30 state governments for use of its facial recognition technology.
“I am deeply concerned that the federal government lacks a clear plan, leaving agencies like the IRS to enter contracts worth tens of millions of dollars with questionable terms and oversight mechanisms," House oversight committee chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
“Without clear rules of the road, agencies will continue to turn to companies like ID.me, which heightens the risk that essential services will not be equitably provided to Americans, or will be outright denied, and that their biometric data won’t be properly safeguarded."
The letter was signed by Maloney and Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. It was first reported by The Washington Post.
In an emailed statement, a company representative said “ID.me remains a highly effective solution available for government agencies that provides the most access for under-served Americans.”
“ID.me adheres to the federal guidelines for identity verification and login while providing services to public sector agencies. These standards have proved remarkably effective at preventing fraud. Four states have credited ID.me with preventing $210 billion in fraud,” the statement reads.
In February, the IRS said it would suspend its use of facial recognition technology to authenticate people who create online accounts after the practice was criticized by privacy advocates and lawmakers.
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Lawmakers, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called on the IRS to end its use of the ID.me software.
The agency is currently grappling with a worker shortage and an expanded workload processing tax filings and administering pandemic-related programs.
The tax day deadline is Monday. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/house-panels-probe-govt-use-of-facial-recognition-software/3647056/ | 2022-04-14T21:54:05 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/house-panels-probe-govt-use-of-facial-recognition-software/3647056/ |
The Republican National Committee on Thursday announced it unanimously voted to require GOP presidential candidates to abstain from presidential debates sanctioned by the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has overseen the process for decades.
"Debates are an important part of the democratic process, and the RNC is committed to free and fair debates," RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement. "The Commission on Presidential Debates is biased and has refused to enact simple and commonsense reforms to help ensure fair debates including hosting debates before voting begins and selecting moderators who have never worked for candidates on the debate stage."
She added that the RNC will "find newer, better debate platforms" for Republican candidates to make their case.
The RNC will require Republican presidential candidates to sign a pledge that they will only appear at party-sanctioned primary and general election debates, an RNC official confirmed. The requirement was first reported by The Wall Street Journal reported. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/rnc-votes-to-withdraw-from-commission-on-presidential-debates-events/3647063/ | 2022-04-14T21:54:12 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/rnc-votes-to-withdraw-from-commission-on-presidential-debates-events/3647063/ |
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Report: Murray not expected to play this season without new contract originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
The 2022 NFL offseason has been filled with quarterback drama, and there could be more on the horizon.
Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray reportedly isn't expected to play this season without a contract extension, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported Thursday. The club hasn't made him an extension offer yet, Pelissero said.
This offseason has been a lucrative one for quarterbacks across the league. The Rams' Matthew Stafford, the Packers' Aaron Rodgers, the Browns' Deshaun Watson and the Raiders' Derek Carr have all signed long-term deals worth over $40 million per year.
Murray, who is entering his fourth season, is set to make just under $5.5 million in 2022. He is still under team control through 2023, with the team holding his fifth-year rookie option for that season.
Since February, Murray and the franchise have seemingly been at odds. The 24-year-old deleted all Cardinals-related content from his social media before his agent released a lengthy statement about his upcoming contract negotiations. Arizona also signed contract extensions through 2027 with GM Steve Keim and head coach Kliff Kingsbury in March.
Sports
With the 2022 NFL Draft just two weeks away, teams are sure to be monitoring Murray's status. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/report-kyler-murray-not-expected-to-play-for-cardinals-without-new-contract/3647059/ | 2022-04-14T21:54:21 | 1 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/report-kyler-murray-not-expected-to-play-for-cardinals-without-new-contract/3647059/ |
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have taken a procedural step toward playing at the 2022 U.S. Open.
The two were among the 48 fully exempt players who registered for the tournament, which is set to take place June 16-19 at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. Wednesday was the deadline for entry and all players had to submit an application in order to participate.
Just because Woods and Mickelson filed entries doesn’t mean they are locked into playing, though.
Woods finished tied for 47th place at last week’s Masters, which served as his return to the PGA Tour after he suffered serious leg injuries in a February 2021 car crash. After his final round, Woods said he plans to play at The Open Championship at St. Andrews in July. There are two majors between the Masters and The Open Championship – one being the U.S. Open in June and the other being the PGA Championship in mid-May.
Aside from The Open Championship, Woods currently has just one other tournament penciled into his schedule. On Thursday, he committed to the JP McManus Pro-Am at Adare Manor in Limerick, Ireland. That event will take place from July 4-5, beginning 10 days before the first round of The Open Championship.
As for Mickelson, the 51-year-old has not played since February in the aftermath of comments made about Saudi Arabians and the Super Golf League. | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/tigers-woods-phil-mickelson-file-entries-for-2022-u-s-open/3647124/ | 2022-04-14T21:54:28 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/sports/tigers-woods-phil-mickelson-file-entries-for-2022-u-s-open/3647124/ |
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As seen on News 4 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/symbols-of-hate-found-sprayed-in-long-island-park/3647065/ | 2022-04-14T21:54:41 | 0 | https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-seen-on/symbols-of-hate-found-sprayed-in-long-island-park/3647065/ |
TRAFFIC BARREL SNAKE: This giant orange snake is made out of traffic barrels, and it was built to send a reminder to drivers during National Work Zone Awareness Week (4/11-4/15).
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You have been added to Daily News Newsletter | https://www.wane.com/dont-miss/giant-snake-made-of-orange-traffic-barrels-in-texas/ | 2022-04-14T21:55:44 | 1 | https://www.wane.com/dont-miss/giant-snake-made-of-orange-traffic-barrels-in-texas/ |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – Five Carroll High School seniors signed to continue their academic and athletic careers in college as Jasmine Anderson (basketball/Maine Maritime Academy), Nicholas Kiplinger (track & cross country/Ohio Northern), Robert Lohman (track & cross country/Marian University), Brad Ogle (track & cross country/Indiana Tech), and Luke Schlatter (track/Indiana Wesleyan) all put pen to paper on Thursday afternoon.
Carroll’s Anderson, Kiplinger, Lohman, Ogle, Schlatter sign
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You have been added to Daily News Newsletter | https://www.wane.com/high-school-sports/carrolls-anderson-kiplinger-lohman-ogle-schlatter-sign/ | 2022-04-14T21:55:50 | 0 | https://www.wane.com/high-school-sports/carrolls-anderson-kiplinger-lohman-ogle-schlatter-sign/ |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – After serving as an assistant under Fonso White, Seth Coffing is now taking the reigns as head coach of the Bishop Luers boys basketball program the school announced on Thursday.
Coffing was previously the head coach at Garrett High School for a season and a half (2015-17). He posted a record of 10-23 with the Railroaders.
Prior to his time at Garrett, Coffing was a high school head coach in Michigan. | https://www.wane.com/high-school-sports/coffing-named-boys-basketball-coach-at-bishop-luers/ | 2022-04-14T21:55:56 | 1 | https://www.wane.com/high-school-sports/coffing-named-boys-basketball-coach-at-bishop-luers/ |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Parkview Health is welcoming back all of its volunteers after the program was suspended for two years because of the pandemic.
Volunteers began returning in March of 2021 in gradual steps and now the program is fully staffed again.
“Our volunteers are supporting the clinical staff so when you take that out, it’s more work the clinical staff has to work in in their already busy day and then you’re throwing COVID on top of it. It just added to the stress and pressure of everything that was already going on.” Parkview Health Supervisor of Volunteer Services Cassie Kurtz said.
There are 240 volunteers throughout the Parkview Health facilities in Allen County and 400 system-wide.
Parkview Health officials say they expect those numbers to increase because they are receiving a lot of applications.
Volunteer positions range from clerical work to patient support.
One volunteer who used to work at Parkview Health says volunteering is a very enriching experience.
“I love the fact that I am able to do the volunteering,” Bev Hullinger said. “That I am physically able to still give back not only to Parkview, but to the community so any volunteer would find it very rewarding.”
If you would like to volunteer you can go to parkview.com to get more information and fill out an application. | https://www.wane.com/news/all-parkview-health-volunteers-return-after-pandemic/ | 2022-04-14T21:56:02 | 1 | https://www.wane.com/news/all-parkview-health-volunteers-return-after-pandemic/ |
(KTLA) – The Los Angeles Police Department has tied at least 17 gangs from South L.A. to the surge of “follow-home” robberies targeting people who wear jewelry or drive luxury vehicles throughout the city, officials said Tuesday.
Police said they noticed a sudden increase in violent armed robberies that involve victims being followed from places like Melrose Avenue, downtown L.A.’s Jewelry District or high-end Hollywood restaurants and nightclubs.
Many of the robberies involve armed assailants, with shots fired in nearly two dozen of the reported incidents.
LAPD formed a task force late last year to investigate these “follow-home” or “follow-off” robberies.
Capt. Jonathan Tippet told the civilian Police Commission on Tuesday that the phenomenon was almost unheard of before last year.
“In my 34 years in the LAPD, I have never seen this type of criminal behavior in such large groups, coordinating to conduct attacks on unsuspecting citizens to take their property,” LAPD Capt. Jonathan Tippet said.
People have been tackled, kicked, beaten, punched and pistol-whipped in the head during these robberies. “It is a miracle that more deaths have not occurred,” Tippet said.
Some of the robberies have, however, been deadly.
In one case, a man was shot while trying to defend his girlfriend when robbers tried to forcibly remove her watch and jewelry, police said.
“Extremely coordinated” robbery crews
LAPD noticed a spike in these types of violent robberies between September and October, with detectives noticing a pattern: vehicles of multiple armed suspects were working in a coordinated effort to rob victims of their high-end cars or jewelry.
Tippet said investigators reviewing video surveillance of the robberies noticed that the crews are “extremely coordinated.”
The robbers are oftentimes in contact with each other, sometimes with “spotters” inside businesses watching for victims and letting crew members outside know who to keep an eye on, the captain explained.
Several vehicles are typically involved, with robbers coming out of the cars in large groups, usually armed.
Tippet said that many of the robberies start off violently, with attackers not allowing time for the victims to comply with demands for their watches or jewelry.
A total of 51 of these violent armed robberies were identified in that two-month period between September and October.
LAPD seeing resurgence after robberies decrease for a few months
Typically, LAPD would try to identify everyone involved before trying to take down crews. But “due to the crisis,” investigators started operating differently, the captain said.
Police made quick arrests as soon as suspects were identified, and used the information they got from search warrants and interviews to find other crew members. LAPD says this strategy helped disrupt the crews and, for a while, reduced the number of robberies on L.A.’s streets.
L.A. went from a high of 26 of these robberies during a two-week period in November, to seven during the most recent two-week period, according to the captain.
“We had some months where the velocity dropped quite a bit and we started working on the follow-up,” LAPD Chief Michel Moore said.
But there has been a “resurgence” in recent days, Moore added.
In the 48 hours before Tuesday, five additional incidents were reported. One of them involved robbers striking a woman with a car as she tried to run away from them while they chased her to take her watch.
Are gangs working together?
As of April, the LAPD task force has identified a total of 221 “follow-home” or “follow-off” robberies in the city of Los Angeles, Tippet told commissioners.
And it doesn’t appear to be one coordinated effort.
“These gangs are from the South Los Angeles area and many of them are rivals from different sects, indicating that they’re not working together,” Tippet said.
LAPD has placed surveillance cameras throughout the city to try find the robbers, and served dozens of search warrants, seizing a total of 45 guns from suspects.
“This has been a major undertaking, however, I’m confident that we are slowing this trend down,” Tippet said.
Have there been arrests?
The follow-home robbery task force has so far made dozens of arrests, including four on suspicion of murder and six for attempted murder.
But in some cases, robbery suspects are released from custody, only to take part in more robberies, according to police.
In one case, a robbery suspect named Cheyenne Hale was arrested in connection with a violent armed robbery in downtown L.A. that involved a victim who was tackled to the ground before a group of men stripped him of his watch and left him lying in the gutter, according to police.
Hale is already out on bail, Tippet said.
Another suspect, Matthew Adams, was arrested on suspicion of robbery then released on bond in January. Now, he’s in custody again in connection with another seven robberies, according to police.
How to protect yourself
Tippet said a lot of the robberies are happening between midnight and 4 a.m., but there have been robberies happening in broad daylight, too.
“It’s just individuals that are willing to do brazen robberies in the middle of downtown L.A. in daylight. So you can’t even say anymore not to not to go out late at night,” Tippet said.
Chief Moore said the brazen and arrogant nature of the crimes “shocks ones senses.”
“Be mindful of your surroundings and be mindful that today — unlike previous earlier periods in the last five or 10 years — you’re being targeted. You’re being targeted by individuals who find a ready market in the Internet to resell these goods.”
Here are some more tips from LAPD about protecting yourself from so-called follow-home robbers:
- Be careful while out with visible expensive jewelry.
- Traveling in groups and remaining in well-lit areas can help deter robbers.
- Always be aware of your surroundings and pay attention to those around you.
- After shopping, make it a habit to take a different route home and pay attention to vehicles and pedestrians behind you.
- If you think you are being followed, change your route and call the police.
- If approached by a robber, especially if the person has a firearm, the department encourages victims not to resist. “No property is worth the risk of loss of life,” LAPD says. | https://www.wane.com/news/lapd-at-least-17-gangs-behind-recent-spate-of-extremely-coordinated-follow-home-robberies/ | 2022-04-14T21:56:08 | 0 | https://www.wane.com/news/lapd-at-least-17-gangs-behind-recent-spate-of-extremely-coordinated-follow-home-robberies/ |
(NEXSTAR) — Are you looking to rent instead of buying a home during the hot housing market? You may not find much relief: Since March 2020, the national average rent has jumped nearly 20%, according to a new rental report released Thursday.
Last month marked the eighth in a row in which rent growth has reached double-digits, Realtor.com found. The average rent for the nation’s 50 largest metros even reached a new high at $1,807. That marks a year-over-year average rent increase of 17%.
While rent in many of the largest metros has risen relatively as much as the national average, some have been hit harder than others.
Among those is the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, Fla., area, where rent has spiked by more than 57% since March 2020, Realtor.com’s report shows. Hardly any other market was hit as hard. Two other Florida markets — Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater — saw the closest rates of change in the average rent price at 35% and 31%, respectively.
Despite having the greatest year-over-year change in rent, none of the above have the highest overall median rent. That title belongs, unsurprisingly, to a metro in another sunny state: California.
Among the 50 metros evaluated, just three have overall median rents at $3,000 a month or more, and they’re all in California. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara has the highest at $3,075. Close behind are San Diego-Carlsbad at $3,016 and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim at $3,000. (Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach isn’t far behind with a median rent of $2,988.)
Of the top 10 metros with the highest rent prices, seven are either in California or Florida. Of the 10 markets that have seen the largest year-over-year increase in rent, eight are within traditionally warmer states (Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, and Texas).
On the other end, Detroit-Warren-Dearborn is the only metro to report a year-over-year rent increase of less than 1% with 0.70%. The next closest rate is that of a fellow Midwestern metro — Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington — at 5.3%.
Overall, cities within the Midwest and the Rust Belt — Minnesota south to Missouri and Illinois, then east along the Great Lakes to Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York — have seen the smallest increase in rent prices since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. That includes Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, and St. Louis, all of which have seen rent prices rise by less than 10%. Of the 25 metros where rent has increased by less than 15% since March 2020, 14 are in the Midwest and Rust Belt.
Oklahoma City, Okla., has the lowest median rental rate at just $943 — and it’s the only metro with a median rental rate that doesn’t surpass $1,000. Metros in the Midwest and Rust Belt widely have the lowest median rents, making up 14 of the 25 least expensive metros.
Here’s the full list of rent changes since March 2020, courtesy of Realtor.com:
There is a bit of relief for renters, though. According to Realtor.com, the rate at which rent prices are growing is slowing and has remained in the same range since January. | https://www.wane.com/news/rent-is-up-by-15-in-some-cities-heres-where-its-worse/ | 2022-04-14T21:56:14 | 1 | https://www.wane.com/news/rent-is-up-by-15-in-some-cities-heres-where-its-worse/ |
(NEXSTAR) – Have you ever noticed that Easter never seems to fall on the same day? Christmas is always Dec. 25, Independence Day is always July 4, Mother’s Day is the second Sunday of May. But you’ll always have to check the calendar for Easter. Why?
If you aren’t familiar, Easter is a Christian festivity that marks the resurrection of Jesus. It always falls on a Sunday during March or April. To understand why, you have to look skyward.
“The date of Easter is determined by the moon. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox,” says Kim Mandelkow, director of the Office for Worship with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.
This year, the first full moon after the vernal equinox (also known as the first day of spring, which is March 20) is on Saturday, April 16, putting this Easter Sunday on April 17.
April’s full moon is sometimes referred to as the Paschal Moon because of its significance to Easter – ‘paschal’ is defined as relating to Easter or the Jewish Passover.
“The moon is not regular,” Father Martin Schlag, a professor and chair of Catholic social thought at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, explains. “It doesn’t follow the solar calendar, but it has its own lunar calendar that varies every year.”
If the first full moon fell on a Sunday, Easter Sunday would be pushed back a week, Mandelkow explains.
Because Easter is dependent on the vernal equinox, it can fall anywhere from March 22 to April 25. Having Easter on either of those days, though, is relatively rare, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. You’re more likely to see a year of Easter falling on March 31 or April 16, which have the greatest frequencies of claiming the holiday.
Next year, we’ll have an earlier Easter on April 9. | https://www.wane.com/news/top-picks/why-is-easter-never-on-the-same-sunday/ | 2022-04-14T21:56:20 | 1 | https://www.wane.com/news/top-picks/why-is-easter-never-on-the-same-sunday/ |
The Bangor Symphony Orchestra was just a community orchestra in 1957 when pharmacist Bernard "Billy" Miller was asked to play the triangle. It's grown over the decades to be a professional orchestra.
Copyright 2022 NPR
The Bangor Symphony Orchestra was just a community orchestra in 1957 when pharmacist Bernard "Billy" Miller was asked to play the triangle. It's grown over the decades to be a professional orchestra.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/after-65-years-percussionist-finally-says-farewell-to-bangor-symphony-orchestra | 2022-04-14T21:57:20 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/after-65-years-percussionist-finally-says-farewell-to-bangor-symphony-orchestra |
NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, about the ongoing food insecurity problem in Ukraine during the war.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Programme, about the ongoing food insecurity problem in Ukraine during the war.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/as-the-war-in-ukraine-continues-so-does-the-threat-to-a-global-food-crisis | 2022-04-14T21:57:26 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/as-the-war-in-ukraine-continues-so-does-the-threat-to-a-global-food-crisis |
From a severely damaged Russian warship in the Black Sea to the beginnings of what might become a ban on Moscow's oil exports, here are the latest developments 50 days into Russia's war on Ukraine.
Copyright 2022 NPR
From a severely damaged Russian warship in the Black Sea to the beginnings of what might become a ban on Moscow's oil exports, here are the latest developments 50 days into Russia's war on Ukraine.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/day-50-of-war-major-russian-black-sea-warship-is-damaged-as-an-oil-ban-looms | 2022-04-14T21:57:32 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/day-50-of-war-major-russian-black-sea-warship-is-damaged-as-an-oil-ban-looms |
Florida high school senior gets into 27 schools, including Ivy League
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG//Gray News) - A senior at a Florida high school has been admitted into all of the 27 schools he applied to. Among those include multiple Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Walker said he is ecstatic about his future.
“That’s such a rare thing to occur, but the fact that it did happen, I’m so excited about it,” Walker told WJHG.
The 18-year-old is in the International Baccalaureate Program, which means he completed college-level classes in his junior and senior years of high school. The program covers all subjects and gives students college credits after they complete multiple assessments.
He also loves sports and is on the school’s football team. Besides extracurricular activities and making time for a social life, Walker is also an inventor. He said he wants to help people, so he created a device that helps the deaf and blind. It’s currently in the process of being patented.
Walker said he made sure to take his time during the application process.
“It’s really just like writing a set of essays for one college and then tweaking them specifically for the colleges,” Walker said.
His advice for students applying to colleges is to make sure they are passionate and put in the hard work.
“Keep grinding no matter what,” Walker said.
Walker has received scholarship offers totaling over $4 million from all the schools. He is still deciding which school he will attend.
Copyright 2022 WJHG via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/florida-high-school-senior-gets-into-27-schools-including-ivy-league/ | 2022-04-14T21:57:31 | 0 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/florida-high-school-senior-gets-into-27-schools-including-ivy-league/ |
GRAPHIC: Husband of Food Network star pleads guilty in 3-year-old’s beating death
GRAPHIC WARNING: The details of this story may disturb some readers.
GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina/Gray News) – The husband of a Food Network star pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in the death of the couple’s 3-year-old foster daughter.
Jerry “Austin” Robinson pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse in the death of Victoria “Tori” Smith.
Prosecutors say Tori died in January 2021 after she was beaten by Ariel Robinson, the winner of season 20 of Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America.”
Jerry Robinson will remain on house arrest until his wife’s trial.
Prosecutors said Jerry Robinson claims he never physically hurt Tori but told investigators Ariel Robinson would beat the child with different items, including a belt.
Ariel Robinson was angry with Tori the night before her death because she vomited on herself on the way to church, Jerry Robinson told investigators. The next morning, he said Ariel Robinson was frustrated with Tori for not eating her pancakes fast enough.
He described hearing Ariel Robinson giving Tori a “whooping” with a belt that was audible from outside the home. According to prosecutors, when Jerry Robinson went inside, he saw his wife standing over Tori with the belt, saying, “You don’t get to tell me when you’re done.”
Jerry Robinson claims he told his wife, “You’ve gone too far. You went too far this time.” He went to CVS to buy liquid Tylenol to try to bring Tori’s bruising down, attorneys said, and then gave the child an Epsom salt bath.
Jerry Robinson called 911 hours later, and when first responders arrived at the home, Tori was in cardiac arrest.
Jerry Robinson’s attorney asked the judge to take his cooperation with the investigation into account when considering sentencing. He faces 10 to 20 years minimum in prison. He will be sentenced after Ariel Robinson’s trial.
Ariel Robinson will go to trial on May 9.
Prosecutors asked for body camera footage from when first responders responded to the 911 call to be admissible in court during Ariel Robinson’s trial. The body camera footage captures first responders’ “horrified” reactions when they found the bruising on Tori’s body, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Ariel Robinson told first responders the bruising on Tori’s abdomen was caused by the force she used trying to do CPR. She claimed the bruising on Tori’s legs was caused by her then-7-year-old brother, according to prosecutors.
However, Ariel Robinson’s attorney has pushed for the body camera footage to be inadmissible since she was not read her Miranda Rights on the scene at the time.
The judge will decide Friday whether the body camera footage is admissible in Ariel Robinson’s trial.
Copyright 2022 WHNS via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/graphic-husband-food-network-star-pleads-guilty-3-year-olds-beating-death/ | 2022-04-14T21:57:34 | 0 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/graphic-husband-food-network-star-pleads-guilty-3-year-olds-beating-death/ |
New Jersey to start recreational marijuana sales April 21
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Recreational marijuana sales in New Jersey for those 21 and older will begin April 21, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday.
Murphy’s announcement on Twitter comes just three days after state regulators green lighted permits for seven facilities that already sell medical cannabis to begin retailing recreational marijuana.
“This is a historic step in our work to create a new cannabis industry,” Murphy said.
The news comes about a year after the state’s regulatory commission started operating, and a year and a half after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question to permit recreational marijuana for people 21 and older.
New Jersey is one of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have legalized recreational marijuana. There also are 37 states, including New Jersey, that have legalized medical marijuana.
Three of the seven facilities, known as alternative treatment centers, are in the northern part of the state. Three are in the south, and one is in central New Jersey.
To get approval, the centers agreed that the coming influx of recreational buyers won’t interrupt access for patients. The facilities said they would reserve parking spaces for patients as well as keep hours specifically for patients only.
There are about 130,000 medical marijuana patients in the state, with an estimated roughly 800,000 potential recreational consumers, and fewer than 800,000 estimated “tourism” consumers, according to the commission.
The alternative treatment centers that already had medical cannabis retail sales are getting a head start in the recreational market, but regulators have attached strings to their advantage. The centers have to meet social equity standards, such as providing technical knowledge to new marijuana businesses, especially social equity applicants — those located in economically struggling parts of the state or people who have had cannabis-related offenses.
“We remain committed to social equity,” Cannabis Regulatory Commission Chair Dianna Houenou said in a statement. “We promised to build this market on the pillars of social equity and safety. Ultimately, we hope to see businesses and a workforce that reflect the diversity of the state.”
How much tax revenue New Jersey gets from recreational marijuana isn’t clear. Murphy’s fiscal year 2023 budget, which is pending before the Democrat-led Legislature, estimates revenues of just $19 million in a nearly $49 billion budget. In 2019, as legalization of recreational marijuana was still just pending before voters, he had estimated about $60 million in revenue.
Legislation governing the recreational market calls for the 6.625% sales tax to apply, with 70% of the proceeds going to areas disproportionately affected by marijuana-related arrests. Black residents were likelier — up to three times as much — to face marijuana charges than white residents. Towns can also levy a tax of up to 2%.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/new-jersey-start-recreational-marijuana-sales-april-21/ | 2022-04-14T21:57:36 | 1 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/new-jersey-start-recreational-marijuana-sales-april-21/ |
Police: 183 animals found in man’s freezer, some frozen alive
GOLDEN VALLEY, Ariz. (Gray News) - An Arizona man is facing animal cruelty charges after authorities found numerous dead animals in his freezer.
The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office said a woman reported that Michael Patrick Turland, 43, hadn’t returned snakes she’d lent him for breeding and that several animals, including hers, were located in his freezer.
According to police, the property owner told the woman that a freezer full of dead animals was found in the garage while they were cleaning after Turland and his wife, Brooklyn Beck, had left the state.
Deputies and Animal Control officers entered the property and said they located the freezer, which contained approximately 183 frozen animals of different breeds.
According to the sheriff’s office, dogs, turtles, lizards, birds, snakes and rabbits were among the animals found in the freezer. Several of the animals also appeared to have been frozen alive due to their body positioning.
On April 13, deputies were notified that Turland returned to the residence, where he was then taken into custody.
Police said the 43-year-old eventually admitted to placing some of the animals in the freezer when they were still alive.
Turland was arrested on 94 counts of animal cruelty. He was taken to the Mohave County Adult Detention Facility in Kingman, Ariz.
The sheriff’s office said it is also looking to speak to Turland’s wife regarding the incident.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/police-183-animals-found-mans-freezer-some-frozen-alive/ | 2022-04-14T21:57:38 | 1 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/police-183-animals-found-mans-freezer-some-frozen-alive/ |
Softball umpire speaks after parent attack leaves her with severe nerve damage
LAUREL, Miss. (WDAM/Gray News) - An umpire in Mississippi is speaking out while she recovers from being punched in the face after a softball game for 12-year-old children.
Kristie Moore was filling in for an umpire who got sick, something she said she has been doing for several years with 10 years of experience calling games.
However, during this game, the coach asked one of the athlete’s mothers to leave the game for excessive cursing. Instead of going home, the woman is accused of waiting to confront Moore after the game, punching her and then running away.
Moore told WDAM that the parent became irate after a call she made at second base, but the coaches and other officials had no opposition to the call.
The 10-year umpire said abuse to referees, whether physical or verbal, is becoming too familiar and leading to an umpire shortage.
“This is not a Laurel thing or a Mississippi thing,” Moore said. “This is a nationwide thing for officials across the board. It’s harder and harder, every weekend because of the abuse that umpires and officials across the board are experiencing.”
According to police, the parent in question, Kiara Thomas, was arrested after the incident and charged with simple assault.
Moore said she wants people to understand that umpires are just human.
“Officials in any sport are expected to be perfect and we’re not,” Moore said. “We never will be.”
Moore experienced a severe contusion and nerve damage in her left eye, but it won’t stop her from umpiring.
She hopes that her story will bring awareness to the umpire shortage and brings consequences for similar actions.
“There definitely needs to be stricter consequences and laws to stop and to deter this from happening to anyone else,” Moore said.
Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in the legislature that would make assaulting a referee or umpire a felony as aggravated assault. That bill, however, did not make the calendar.
Moore said she hopes after this incident lawmakers will take a second look at the bill.
Copyright 2022 WDAM via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/softball-umpire-speaks-out-after-parent-attack-leaves-her-with-severe-nerve-damage/ | 2022-04-14T21:57:38 | 0 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/softball-umpire-speaks-out-after-parent-attack-leaves-her-with-severe-nerve-damage/ |
More demonstrations are planned in Grand Rapids, Mich., after the city released video of a white police officer shooting and killing a Black resident during a struggle after a traffic stop.
Copyright 2022 NPR
More demonstrations are planned in Grand Rapids, Mich., after the city released video of a white police officer shooting and killing a Black resident during a struggle after a traffic stop.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/demonstrators-call-for-the-arrest-of-cop-who-killed-an-unarmed-black-man-in-michigan | 2022-04-14T21:57:38 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/demonstrators-call-for-the-arrest-of-cop-who-killed-an-unarmed-black-man-in-michigan |
The orange excrement of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales — so called because they were once seen as the right ones to hunt — can give researchers a window into their health.
Copyright 2022 NPR
The orange excrement of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales — so called because they were once seen as the right ones to hunt — can give researchers a window into their health.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/encore-how-do-you-give-a-whale-a-pregnancy-test-one-way-check-its-poop | 2022-04-14T21:57:45 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/encore-how-do-you-give-a-whale-a-pregnancy-test-one-way-check-its-poop |
2022 is set to break records for anti-LGBTQ legislation, with hundreds of bills introduced across the U.S. Who's behind this wave of legislation, and why is this becoming such a potent wedge issue?
Copyright 2022 NPR
2022 is set to break records for anti-LGBTQ legislation, with hundreds of bills introduced across the U.S. Who's behind this wave of legislation, and why is this becoming such a potent wedge issue?
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/hundreds-of-anti-lgbtq-bills-have-already-been-introduced-this-year-here-may-be-why | 2022-04-14T21:57:51 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/hundreds-of-anti-lgbtq-bills-have-already-been-introduced-this-year-here-may-be-why |
Texas lawmakers respond as second bus of immigrants arrives in DC
A second bus of undocumented immigrants arrived in Washington from Texas Thursday. According to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), it’s part of his response to President Biden’s decision to end Title 42 expulsions.
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - A second bus of undocumented immigrants arrived in Washington from Texas Thursday. According to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), it’s part of his response to President Biden’s decision to end Title 42 expulsions.
Some Texas lawmakers support Gov. Abbott’s plan, but some of their colleagues are calling the bus trip a political stunt.
Noting that Texas is bearing the burden of an unsecured border, Gov. Greg Abbott began bussing migrants, who are awaiting deportation trials to Washington D.C.
Two buses have arrived so far, filled with only those who, according to Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), volunteered for the trip.
“[It] wouldn’t surprise me if we take people to Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, but we’re trying to move people to where they want to go as an option,” Sessions said. “I support what the governor is doing.”
But it’s the location: Washington D.C., that feeds into concerns that the bus trips are purely political.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said the governor is using the trips to make a political point, though he does agree with Abbott on some facets of immigration, such as his push to keep Title 42.
“He’s trying to get publicity. But, you know, that’s the whole key I think people need to understand that, that we at the border, we’re the ones that see the whole thing. We’re the ones who see the migrants,” Cuellar said.
Politically, this is all part of broader conflict at the border. Immigration has been one of the most divisive issues between the primary parties and it remains so, as the next election cycle nears.
Title 42 was first written decades ago to prevent sick immigrants from crossing the U.S. border. It was enforced during the coronavirus pandemic, but now, it’s set to end next month.
Copyright 2022 Gray DC. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/texas-lawmakers-respond-second-bus-immigrants-arrives-dc/ | 2022-04-14T21:57:51 | 1 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/texas-lawmakers-respond-second-bus-immigrants-arrives-dc/ |
CIA Director Bill Burns made a rare public speech Thursday and talked about the agency's role in Ukraine. Also, hundreds of suspected Russian spies have been kicked out of embassies in Europe.
Copyright 2022 NPR
CIA Director Bill Burns made a rare public speech Thursday and talked about the agency's role in Ukraine. Also, hundreds of suspected Russian spies have been kicked out of embassies in Europe.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/in-rare-public-speech-the-cia-director-spoke-about-the-spy-agencys-role-in-ukraine | 2022-04-14T21:57:57 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/in-rare-public-speech-the-cia-director-spoke-about-the-spy-agencys-role-in-ukraine |
Windy and cold conditions continue through the weekend
Highs in the 30s and 40s through Monday
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Strong winds are expected to continue Thursday night through Friday afternoon. Peak wind gusts Thursday afternoon reached near 50-60 mph for many communities in SE MN and NE IA.
Rochester and Mason City experienced the strongest wind gusts with speeds reaching near 55-60 mph. Pretty everyone had winds exceeding 30-35 mph Thursday.
High temperatures on Friday will be in the upper 30s with partly cloudy skies. Winds will continue to be out of the northwest around 15-20 mph with some gusts reaching near 30 at times. Highs will return to the middle and lower 40s both Saturday and Sunday. Winds will be out of the northwest around 10-15 mph Saturday with partly sunny skies. Our next weather-maker will move into the region on Easter Sunday bringing the chance of a rain/snow mix through the afternoon. Highs on Easter Sunday will be in the lower 40s.
I do have some positive news as we look towards the final two weeks of April. Both the 6-10 and 8-14 day temperature outlooks are looking warmer for the upper Midwest! We could see the return of the 60s by the following weekend!
Cold temperatures will continue Monday with highs in the upper 30s. We’ll finally start seeing warmer temperatures on Tuesday before another rain chance Tuesday night into Wednesday. Highs return to the lower 50s Wednesday and Thursday. Then the 60s could finally make an appearance in the forecast by the following Saturday and Sunday.
Nick
Copyright 2022 KTTC. All rights reserved. | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/windy-cold-conditions-continue-through-weekend/ | 2022-04-14T21:58:00 | 0 | https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/14/windy-cold-conditions-continue-through-weekend/ |
The Starbucks unionization campaign is picking up speed, despite attempts by the company to slow its momentum. 20 stores have now voted to unionize, and more than 200 have petitioned for votes.
Copyright 2022 NPR
The Starbucks unionization campaign is picking up speed, despite attempts by the company to slow its momentum. 20 stores have now voted to unionize, and more than 200 have petitioned for votes.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/more-and-more-starbucks-stores-are-voting-to-unionize | 2022-04-14T21:58:03 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/more-and-more-starbucks-stores-are-voting-to-unionize |
Ukraine says it scored a direct hit on the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Meanwhile, Moscow is moving more troops, artillery and helicopters into eastern Ukraine ahead of an expected offensive.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Ukraine says it scored a direct hit on the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet. Meanwhile, Moscow is moving more troops, artillery and helicopters into eastern Ukraine ahead of an expected offensive.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/more-russian-troops-and-artillery-head-into-eastern-ukraine | 2022-04-14T21:58:09 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/more-russian-troops-and-artillery-head-into-eastern-ukraine |
Experts have been combing through the apparent social media presence of Frank James, a suspect in Brooklyn's subway shootings. They've found elements of extremist ideologies and conspiracy theories.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Experts have been combing through the apparent social media presence of Frank James, a suspect in Brooklyn's subway shootings. They've found elements of extremist ideologies and conspiracy theories.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/nyc-subway-shooting-suspect-had-a-history-of-posting-offensive-material-online | 2022-04-14T21:58:16 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/nyc-subway-shooting-suspect-had-a-history-of-posting-offensive-material-online |
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Eleanor Klibanoff of The Texas Tribune about the child welfare workers who are leaving their jobs over state orders to investigate the families of trans kids.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Eleanor Klibanoff of The Texas Tribune about the child welfare workers who are leaving their jobs over state orders to investigate the families of trans kids.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/texas-welfare-workers-are-resigning-over-orders-to-investigate-trans-kids-families | 2022-04-14T21:58:22 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/texas-welfare-workers-are-resigning-over-orders-to-investigate-trans-kids-families |
The only public psychiatric hospital in Montana had important federal funding pulled after failing to correct patient safety issues, which resulted in deaths. Advocates worry things will get worse.
Copyright 2022 NPR
The only public psychiatric hospital in Montana had important federal funding pulled after failing to correct patient safety issues, which resulted in deaths. Advocates worry things will get worse.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/the-only-psychiatric-hospital-in-montana-is-losing-federal-funding | 2022-04-14T21:58:28 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/the-only-psychiatric-hospital-in-montana-is-losing-federal-funding |
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Elizabeth Tsurkov of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Foreign Policy about Russia's new top commander in Ukraine, Gen. Dvornikov, who is notoriously ruthless.
Copyright 2022 NPR
NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Elizabeth Tsurkov of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Foreign Policy about Russia's new top commander in Ukraine, Gen. Dvornikov, who is notoriously ruthless.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/what-the-ruthless-new-commander-of-russias-military-signals-for-war-in-ukraine | 2022-04-14T21:58:34 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/2022-04-14/what-the-ruthless-new-commander-of-russias-military-signals-for-war-in-ukraine |
State investigators say three people have died of injuries from a house fire in Montville Wednesday afternoon caused by a gas explosion.
Homeowner Stuart Nichols and his relative Robert Buxton were outside the house and were taken to Waldo General Hospital for initial treatment. They were later taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where they died from their injuries. Nichols was 74 and Buxton was 78.
A third person, 88-year-old Rocco Taddeo, was found dead inside the house. The Montville Fire Department and nine other departments responded to the scene.
An appliance in the home was leaking gas, investigators said. The explosion occurred when Taddeo tried to light a propane cooking stove. | https://www.mainepublic.org/news/2022-04-14/montville-house-fire-and-explosion-kills-three-people | 2022-04-14T21:58:40 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/news/2022-04-14/montville-house-fire-and-explosion-kills-three-people |
Fanned by 100 mile an hour winds in the dead of winter, the Marshall Fire raced into the suburbs east of Boulder last December. It burned from home to home, igniting a whole shopping center and a hotel.
More than three months later, that hotel's eerie four story high elevator shaft is the only thing that remains in the rubble. Suburban neighborhoods around the Boulder turnpike are leveled. More than a thousand homes were destroyed, making Marshall the most destructive wildfire ever in Colorado. The steady hum of giant bulldozers is heard all around, as the machines scoop up twisted burnt debris; torched patio furniture, smashed ceramic garden pots and even the skeletons of charred cars.
"When I drive through our neighborhood and it looks like a war zone, I can't help but just be still shocked," says Lonni Pearce, who lost everything in the fire.
The University of Colorado professor was underinsured - a common problem after disasters - and she's not sure she and her family will rebuild. For now, they feel lucky to have found a place nearby to rent. But this spring, as the fierce winds like those that whipped the Marshall Fire into an inferno have returned to the area, so has the trauma.
"It just felt like, ok, can this really be happening again?" Pearce says.
So many red flags
It's become hard to remember a day recently when the heavily populated - and tinder dry - Colorado Front Range wasn't under a red flag warning for extreme fire danger. Since the Marshall Fire, there have been several close calls, including the recent NCAR Fire, which forced Arzelia Walker to briefly evacuate her home of forty years in south Boulder.
"You sort of start to feel anxious," Walker says, referring to the winds. "The fact that the Marshall Fire was in the dead of winter is terrifying."
Like a lot of this college town of about 100,000 people at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, Walker's neighborhood abuts open space and forest land.
"Our big winds tend to come in the winter so that's not been a problem so much in the past because there's been snow," she says.
But climate change has made winters warmer and drier. The irony of the NCAR Fire, named after the climate change research lab it threatened, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, wasn't lost on many Boulderites. Fortunately, firefighters got a handle on it before it got bigger than 200 acres though.
"Definitely a scare," says Brian Oliver, the wildland division chief for Boulder Fire. "You can see the neighborhood just a couple hundred yards away from the fire line, that black edge there."
Boulder is on edge
On a recent windy afternoon, Oliver stood on the mesa where NCAR sits, with its 360 degree view of the city and its striking flatiron rock formations. Red flag warnings prompted him to station fire engines in strategic places around town. A pair of heavy air tankers was also on call in nearby Fort Collins, assuming it was safe for them to fly in the wind.
"There's definitely a feeling of, I'm not sure the word to use, on edge is a good way to put it," Oliver says. "Because we haven't gotten a break."
Fires, floods, the pandemic, a mass shooting a year ago at the grocery store just down the hill, Oliver says it's been relentless. When the NCAR fire ignited, evacuation alerts went out to an estimated 19,000 people, more than probably needed it, and traffic was bottlenecked. But Oliver says he'd rather be overly cautious than have people trapped behind a fire. Firefighters will never be able to stop modern wildfires like these.
"I equate that to trying to fight a hurricane," he says. "We don't mobilize a force to go turn a hurricane around. We get everybody out of the way and then we try to come back in and clean up after we can."
These aren't the wildfires burning into newly built communities out in the woods and wildland that lately have grabbed headlines. Boulder capped growth and sprawl some 40 years ago. But climate change, Oliver says, is bringing the fires into the city.
Get ready for fire years, not seasons
Federal leaders, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, toured Boulder County this week trying to sound that alarm. One of their stops was the still charred hillsides of the Calwood Fire in a canyon north of town. In late October of 2020, it burned about 10,000 acres and destroyed homes. The same day, what had been the state's largest wildfire until last year, the Cameron Peak Fire, also ignited in neighboring Larimer County.
"It is clear that fire seasons no longer exist here in Colorado, we have fire years," says Rep. Joe Neguse, the Democratic congressman who represents the two counties. "It is all the more reason and motivation for us to take wildfire mitigation and resiliency seriously."
Neguse touted the $130 million in new fire funding in the infrastructure law President Biden signed in November. It will go to prevention and hiring more fire crews in the western states.
The spending plan won't help the scores of people in crisis in Boulder County right now. But Lonni Pearce, whose home burned down last December, found the news encouraging.
"It feels like this is a little bit of a tipping point," she says. " Okay, things are really real now and we need to, not just as individuals, but as communities, start to do things differently."
From changing landscaping around homes to building codes, Pearce says, westerners have to live with fire now, even in cities.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/after-a-rough-year-new-wildfire-warnings-have-boulder-colorado-on-edge | 2022-04-14T21:58:46 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/after-a-rough-year-new-wildfire-warnings-have-boulder-colorado-on-edge |
Updated April 14, 2022 at 12:52 PM ET
Last week, Elon Musk became Twitter's largest shareholder. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO was going to join Twitter's board — then he wasn't.
Now the world's richest person is offering to buy the entire company for $43 billion in cash, according to a regulatory filing dated Wednesday.
"I made an offer," Musk tweeted to his 81 million followers on Thursday.
Musk said he believes in the promise of Twitter to be a platform for free speech, but does not have confidence in its management to fulfill that mission, and thinks it needs to be "transformed" as a private company.
"Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it," he said in the filing.
"My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder," Musk continued. He holds more than 9% of Twitter's shares, and some analysts expect if he were to sell his stake, that could trigger a sharp sell-off.
Twitter confirmed it received the "unsolicited" offer from Musk and said its board "will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders."
Musk's bid could attract other potential Twitter buyers
Musk's offer of $54.20 per share is 38% more than the value of Twitter stock the day before his investment was publicly announced and 18.2% higher than Wednesday's closing price.
"It would be utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote," Musk tweeted on Thursday afternoon. "They own the company, not the board of directors."
Twitter stock closed down 1.35% on Thursday, well below Musk's offer price, however, suggesting investors may be skeptical of the billionaire's bid.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, a longtime Twitter shareholder, tweeted on Thursday that Musk's offer doesn't come close to the company's "intrinsic value" and said he would reject it. Musk responded on Twitter by asking: "What are the Kingdom's views on journalistic freedom of speech?"
Interesting. Just two questions, if I may.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly?
What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?
But Musk's approach may open the door to other interested buyers who have their own designs on Twitter, said Scott Kessler, an analyst at research firm Third Bridge.
"This is really perhaps the beginning of a process, and it's not necessarily going to start and end with Elon Musk," Kessler said.
However, analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote in a note to clients that he expects Musk to succeed.
"It would be hard for any other bidders/consortium to emerge and the Twitter board will be forced likely to accept this bid and/or run an active process to sell Twitter," Ives said.
Still, there are unanswered questions, including how Musk would balance his time given that he is already CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and how he would finance his cash offer. Most of his $266 billion net worth is held in Tesla shares. Selling part of his stake could affect Tesla's valuation.
From Twitter's most vocal user to would-be owner
The takeover bid is the latest twist in a wild two weeks for the billionaire and the social media platform.
On April 4, Musk disclosed he'd been buying up Twitter shares and had become its largest individual shareholder. (Earlier this week, a Twitter shareholder filed a securities fraud lawsuit against Musk, alleging his late disclosure of his stake cost investors money and saved Musk around $143 million.)
The Tesla CEO is both a prolific user of Twitter and a vocal critic, so his investment immediately sparked questions about his intentions. In the weeks before his stake became public, he had publicly questioned Twitter's commitment to free speech and mused about creating his own rival social network.
The next day, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced Musk would join the company's board — and had agreed to limit how much more Twitter stock he could buy. Both men said they looked forward to working together on the company's future.
But those plans quickly fell apart. Over the weekend, Musk notified Twitter he would not join the board after all, a decision that Agrawal described as "for the best."
Before his about-face became public on Sunday night, Musk had spent much of the weekend tweeting suggestions, criticisms and jokes about Twitter. "Is Twitter dying?" he asked in one tweet, noting that many of its most-followed users, such as Barack Obama and Katy Perry, rarely tweet.
Musk is a self-described free-speech absolutist
While it's not clear why Musk changed his mind about joining the board, in his filing on Thursday, he doubled down on his vision of Twitter's role in society — and what is needed to realize it.
"I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy," he wrote in a letter to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor. "However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form."
Musk has described himself as a "free speech absolutist" and has been critical of Twitter's rules about what people are allowed to say on the site.
"I don't like to lose": Musk
But Twitter, which is much smaller than other social networks like Facebook and TikTok, is also under pressure to grow its business. Changing its policies against content such as hate speech and false claims about COVID could be a turn-off for users and advertisers.
"This is a moneymaking platform where your ideas are amplified if they're going to help the company make money," said Karen Kornbluh of the German Marshall Fund, who studies online disinformation.
"When you poll people, people say they want moderation, that they don't want conspiracy theories floating freely on their platforms, that they don't want harassment," she said. "So I think it's a misunderstanding of what people want."
At a conference on Thursday, Musk said his interest in Twitter was not about economics or making money. "Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square," he said. "So it's just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law."
And if Twitter's board rejects his offer, Musk said he has a plan B.
"I don't like to lose," he said.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/elon-musk-offers-to-buy-twitter-says-43-billion-is-best-and-final-offer | 2022-04-14T21:58:52 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/elon-musk-offers-to-buy-twitter-says-43-billion-is-best-and-final-offer |
Inside the Washington, D.C., jail, where a group of defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been held for as long as a year or more, a bitter divide is growing, current and former inmates say.
A combination of that intense proximity, the stress of criminal cases and a fight over more than a million dollars donated to support the defendants has contributed to the rift.
One inmate described the situation to NPR as "too many rats together in a small cage for too long."
"Tempers naturally get short," he said, with "cliques solidifying further into independent 'camps' as time progresses."
That inmate, like several others, told his story to NPR on the condition of anonymity to describe the pressure-cooker environment inside the jail. A dozen current or former inmates of the D.C. jail ultimately spoke to NPR and said that the divisions among some of the highest-profile defendants in the country are now boiling over.
It all started in the weeks immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. FBI agents conducted a campaign of "shock and awe," in the words of a top prosecutor, making arrests as the Department of Justice rushed to bring charges. Most of the people arrested were allowed to go free while their cases worked their way through court. Judges decided a smaller group — often those facing the most serious charges or those who prosecutors worried might flee the country — should be locked up while they awaited trial. That decision presented authorities with a challenge: Where exactly should the government hold them?
Some ended up scattered in jails close to their homes. But a few dozen (the precise number has fluctuated) were incarcerated in the city where the Jan. 6 attack took place, in Washington, D.C.'s Correctional Treatment Facility. The District's Department of Corrections decided for the inmates' "own safety and security" to detain all of the Jan. 6 defendants in just one part of the facility, a section known as C2B.
The combination of a court backlogged with COVID-19-related delays, plus the lumbering nature of a massive federal criminal investigation, has stretched the "pretrial" period to as long as a year or more for some detainees. And so the decision to hold a disparate group of alleged Capitol rioters from all over the country — including people linked by prosecutors to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and QAnon — in one section of the jail for a protracted period has had unintended consequences.
Initially, the inmates seemed so unified and bonded that a defense attorney told a judge the jail had developed a "cult-like" atmosphere. Experts on extremism worried that the jail was radicalizing the inmates. But recently, conflicts have blown up between the inmates and grown into what another attorney referred to as a "schism" and what an inmate compared to a "middle school lunchroom."
The main driver of this conflict, according to C2B inmates, along with their attorneys and family members, is the growing pool of money donated in the name of the Jan. 6 defendants. An alphabet soup of groups has sprung up to support the Jan. 6 defendants — from A4J (Americans For Justice Inc.), to CAPP (Citizens Against Political Persecution), to PFP (Patriot Freedom Project) and PMP (Patriot Mail Project). As donations have grown, so have resentments. And the conflict that has built inside the jail has been amplified outside by a kind of power struggle over who speaks for the so-called political prisoners.
Detainees describe a pressure-cooker environment
When Brandon Fellows first arrived in C2B in the summer of 2021, he hoped to find camaraderie with his fellow "patriots," as he calls them.
About 140 police officers were injured defending the Capitol. About 250 people have pleaded guilty to one or more criminal charges related to the attack, which the FBI classifies as an act of domestic terrorism. Fellows, however, calls Jan. 6 "the best day of my life."
Fellows, 28, is facing comparatively minor charges compared to some others in the D.C. jail. Prosecutors say he breached the Capitol, put his feet up on a senator's desk and smoked a joint, but did not attack police. He has pleaded not guilty and was locked up because a judge found he violated the terms of his pretrial release. Prosecutors said Fellows harassed his probation officer and ignored court orders. (Fellows apologized in court.)
Due to COVID-19 protocols, Fellows and other inmates in C2B spent long stretches of the last year alone in their cells for 22 or 23 hours a day. Many of the inmates declined to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and were restricted from going to the barbershop or getting in-person visits.
When they did have access to recreation time, many bonded. They sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at 9 every evening, held Bible studies, compared notes on legal cases and even hosted a short-lived jailhouse show called the "Hopium Den," where inmates put on skits and did comedy routines roasting one another. Some inmates said the jokes could be brutally mean. But Troy Smocks, a former Jan. 6 detainee who recently finished his sentence for posting online threats against elected officials, said it "relieved pressure" in an often hopeless environment. For years, the D.C. jail has been notorious for unsanitary, substandard and, in the words of D.C.'s attorney general, "squalid" conditions.
Still, factions started to form.
"Being incarcerated with a group of people who are from vastly different backgrounds, income brackets, education levels and viewpoints — compounded with the stress of solitary confinement, being away from our loved ones and looking down the barrel of 6- to 15-year prison sentences — is very stressful, so naturally there is going to be tension," said one inmate, who asked to speak anonymously to discuss the conditions inside the jail.
A handful of inmates said their experience of being arrested had turned them away from Donald Trump. "I stopped caring about politics because that's what got me incarcerated," said one inmate, "and I don't ever want to be a pawn in someone else's game again." Another said he would never go to another political rally in his life.
The opposite is true of Fellows. He said the government had made an "enemy" by prosecuting him and that he rejected a plea offer from the government that would have resulted in a sentence of time served — meaning, he would go free. "I just don't negotiate with terrorists," he said. (The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., generally does not discuss plea negotiations and declined to comment on Fellows' case.)
Others have gotten more deeply invested in the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory and have even been writing letters to a post office box that they've heard reaches Trump.
There have been deep divides over donations
An even deeper divide has grown around the issue of money. Inmates use money for items at the jail commissary, time on the phone, bills back home and, perhaps most important, legal assistance.
Many inmates were eager to hear about the launch of the Patriot Freedom Project, which said it would provide financial help to Jan. 6 riot defendants and their families, including cash grants, gifts and legal aid.
Early on, the group raised big money: The pro-Trump writer and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza donated $100,000. "These are people who have a very good, close to the ground assessment of who needs what," D'Souza said on his podcast, "so there's no money going to administrative costs or any sort of rigmarole."
"I hear he donates $100,000 to us," remembers Fellows, who had arrived at the jail not long before the announcement. He said he expected the funds to be distributed equally among all of the jailed Jan. 6 defendants.
"I divided it by the amount of people in C2B, and I got all excited," he said.
But then Fellows said he found out the group, led by Cynthia Hughes of New Jersey, was going to pick and choose which defendants and families to support.
The people that have received aid from the Patriot Freedom Project have praised the group effusively. "If Cynthia didn't create the Patriot Freedom Project many families would have suffered," the wife of one inmate told NPR.
"I don't know where we would be if we didn't have that support," said the wife of another detainee.
By April 2022, the group announced it had raised almost $1.2 million. But resentments have built among the defendants who said they did not receive donations from the group.
"I personally have not gotten a dime out of it," Fellows told NPR, even though the Patriot Freedom Project featured Fellows' photo on its website until recently.
Fellows is not alone in his frustration. As NPR has reported, experts in charity law said the group presented some "red flags." For example, Hughes has disclosed a history of financial problems documented in legal filings. The group's board also initially consisted of just Hughes, Hughes' sister-in-law and Hughes' son. After facing criticism, Patriot Freedom Project replaced Hughes' family members on the board, public records indicate. Hughes said, as of now, "I don't have financial problems."
Initially, many of the criticisms of the group simmered in group chats on the outside, or quiet conversations in the jail, as people hoped they were next in line for help.
But after NPR's reporting, a group of inmates organized and contacted NPR. In all, a dozen current and former inmates of C2B said they wanted the Patriot Freedom Project to be more transparent. Several were not willing to go on the record because they were concerned about backlash. And defendants are often reluctant to talk publicly, because they worry their comments might be used against them in court. But five people decided to go public with their criticism.
"The people that gave to Patriot Freedom Project believed that they were giving to help with the legal and financial cause for the men and women themselves. It wasn't for [Cynthia Hughes] to select and choose," said Troy Smocks. Smocks' photo was also featured on the group's website until recently, even though he said the group has not given him any money.
"The Patriot Freedom Project's disbursement process is a disgrace to both donors and defendants alike," Thomas Sibick said in a statement. Sibick has pleaded not guilty to several charges, including the alleged assault of Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone during the riot.
Jacob Lang, who has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he assaulted police with a shield and a bat, praised Hughes and Patriot Freedom Project for providing support to some families and defendants. "I truly commend Cindy for stepping up to the plate and helping out these patriot families when no one else was there for them," he said. But he agreed more transparency was needed so "everyone would sleep better at night."
In the past, the group has pointed to the "Statement of Activities" document posted on its website. That document claims that the group has spent $665,000 on legal aid and financial support to defendants' families. But that leaves nearly half a million dollars yet to be disbursed — a major point of frustration as trials for many defendants begin.
Allegations of antisemitism and bullying arise
Several defendants said Patriot Freedom Project had reacted "defensively" to their concerns.
Three sources, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, claimed Hughes had discussed taking legal action against a Jan. 6 defendant for criticizing the group — one of the "patriots" referenced in the group's name. (Hughes did not respond to NPR's questions about that claim.)
Ronnie Sandlin — who prosecutors allege breached the Capitol, smoked a joint in the rotunda, and tried to "rip" the helmet off a police officer — said he was even more concerned by the group's "belligerent responses to any suggestion that they should be transparent with the fund." (Sandlin has pleaded not guilty to all charges.)
A particular sore point for some of the inmates of C2B is fear that donations are distributed through "favoritism."
Hughes is personally close to one defendant, Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, whom she has described as an "adoptive nephew." Hale-Cusanelli's defense attorney is actually court-appointed, and so the government — not Patriot Freedom Project — pays for Hale-Cusanelli's defense. But other inmates said they were concerned they had to "suck up" to Hale-Cusanelli to get access to donations.
"Looking at where the money is and looking at the parties that don't get along with him, I would say that there's evidence to support that," said Fellows.
And Hale-Cusanelli is, by many accounts, a polarizing figure.
Federal prosecutors have accused Hale-Cusanelli, a former Army reservist, of being a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. Hale-Cusanelli allegedly breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 but has not been accused of violence or property damage. He has pleaded not guilty but was detained before trial because a federal judge found that he posed a danger to the community.
The allegations made by prosecutors are consistent with his behavior inside the jail, according to Smocks.
"He would sit at the table closest to his cell and draw antisemitic characters on the table," said Smocks. He compared the drawings to Nazi-style propaganda cartoons.
Smocks has a "lengthy criminal history," according to prosecutors, and has previously been convicted of bank fraud, forgery and other offenses. Supporters of Patriot Freedom Project have suggested that undermines his credibility.
Seven other current and former inmates of the D.C. jail, however, agreed with Smocks and told NPR that Hale-Cusanelli had made antisemitic comments or drawings — such as depicting Jewish people as pigs and dropping an atomic bomb on Israel. The drawings were "hateful and inflammatory," said one detainee. "It perpetuates a stereotype that I resent about Trump supporters being racist and intolerant, because we're not."
Still, sources inside the jail said Hale-Cusanelli had a group of supporters, in part, because of his connection to the Patriot Freedom Project. (Those supporters did not respond to NPR's messages seeking comment.)
One detainee compared the situation to "the movie Mean Girls, but with racist, antisemitic extremists."
Jonathan Crisp, Hale-Cusanelli's defense attorney, said the claims about the supposed antisemitic drawings were false but declined to comment further.
Recently, the Patriot Freedom Project launched its own podcast and appeared to address the allegations against Hale-Cusanelli. Jan. 6 defendant Kash Kelly, who is Black, told Hughes that it was false to claim anyone in C2B was a white supremacist. Neither Hughes nor Kelly specified exactly which people they were talking about. Kelly did not respond to a message from NPR seeking comment.
Others close to Patriot Freedom Project have suggested their critics are just trying to get a bigger portion of the donated funds.
Fellows, for example, has raised more than $30,000 via the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo. He said if people want to support Jan. 6 defendants, they should give directly to individuals, not third-party groups.
"I think there's enough evidence to warrant an investigation — a third-party audit," said Fellows. "And in the meantime, people should just honestly not donate to Patriot Freedom Project."
State regulators in a handful of states have said they're looking into whether the group is complying with state charity registration requirements. On April 6, the California Department of Justice sent a second letter to the organization saying it must provide records within 30 days or potentially lose tax-exempt status in the state.
In response to NPR, Hughes did not directly respond to the criticisms from Jan. 6 defendants or answer specific questions.
"I started Patriot Freedom Project to help the J6 prisoners and their families," Hughes wrote, in part, in a statement to NPR. "Patriot Freedom Project will never stop fighting for these people, their families, and their children." On the Patriot Freedom Project's own podcast, Hughes was more defiant in her defense against critics of the group, saying: "They don't affect me because my work speaks for itself."
Inside the jail, some inmates said they have faced blowback for speaking to NPR and have been labeled "snitches" or federal informants. They said they were concerned that the jail grievance system could be used to retaliate against them.
As trials move closer and closer, that pressure has only intensified.
NPR contacted the spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Corrections to ask how the department is handling the conflict in the jail. The agency did not respond.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/in-a-d-c-jail-jan-6-defendants-awaiting-trial-are-forming-bitter-factions | 2022-04-14T21:58:58 | 0 | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/in-a-d-c-jail-jan-6-defendants-awaiting-trial-are-forming-bitter-factions |
Five years ago, Donald Strayer thought he'd bought a dream home for his extended family. It was on a pretty spot in Ohio's Appalachian mountain foothills, with room for him and his wife, his daughter's family, plus their horses and goats. And he could actually afford it.
Strayer had been turned down for a bank loan because of bad credit — he says it's because of hospital bills years ago. The 58-year-old former forklift driver has a chronic lung disease and lives off disability. Instead of a regular mortgage, he signed what's known as a land contract directly with the seller.
The price was $39,900. For a down payment he sold his childhood home, which he inherited when his dad died, "the only thing I had in the whole world."
For years he made monthly payments of $350 on his new home. And then "one day the sheriff just showed up," he says. "It was foreclosed and they wanted to take my property."
It turned out the seller's family — to whom Strayer had been sending his payments — was keeping the money instead of paying down the mortgage. That left Strayer out a major investment, with no equity and no legal right to the property.
Land contracts and other kinds of alternative financing have been around a long time, with roots in the race-based redlining that blocked Black Americans from traditional mortgages. But legal aid experts say they became more common after the Great Recession, and as housing and rental costs have skyrocketed. They may be the only option for some, but these alternative deals pose a financial risk to families with the least to lose.
"For many American families, homeownership has been the largest source of wealth over the past century," says Tara Roche with The Pew Charitable Trusts. "Mortgages are a key step to achieving that financial security."
People of color and those in rural areas are more likely to use these risky arrangements
A first of its kind national survey by The Pew Charitable Trusts finds 36 million Americans — about 20% of all borrowers — have used alternative ways to finance a home at some point, including 7 million currently in such arrangements. The borrowers are largely low-income, more likely to live in rural areas, and disproportionately Hispanic and Black, reflecting the racial gap in homeownership.
Unlike mortgages, alternative financing deals are usually not recorded with any government office. They don't start with a bank or mortgage company, and so are not subject to the same state or federal regulations.
"In most of our cases, we have handwritten notes that wouldn't pass muster," says Peggy Lee, an attorney with Southeastern Ohio Legal Services. She says some of her clients have even been duped into thinking a verbal contract was binding, though they're not recognized in Ohio.
This leaves borrowers with higher costs and fewer protections. They can be suddenly evicted without a right to a normal foreclosure process. They're shut out of tax and other homeowner benefits. The legal ambiguity prevented many from being eligible for COVID-19 financial relief or the moratorium on evictions, creating a double whammy for families most likely to suffer during the pandemic.
Another crucial distinction: usually the seller maintains the property deed until the last payment, yet the tenant is responsible for maintenance and repairs.
In 2014, Marisela Orozco signed a contract to buy a house from the co-worker of a friend in Kansas City, Missouri, for $22,000. At the time she didn't have authorization to live in the United States, spoke little English, and did not understand how property titles worked.
The house was in rough shape, Orozco told member station KCUR and the Midwest Newsroom, which investigated the high prevalence of these arrangements in the region.
"Walls not done. Little bit of the bathroom finished. No good plumbing," she said. "But I say, 'OK,' we fix it up'. And I move in with my kids, fixing things little by little when I have the money."
But after 44 months of regular payments, and more than $10,000 in home improvements, the owner disappeared, never giving Orozco the title to the house.
Repeat offenders engage in "profit-driven 'churning'"
Legal aid attorneys say they've seen more alternative financing since the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, when millions lost their homes to foreclosure. Large investors bought the houses in bulk, many of them in disrepair and in economically struggling areas, then marketed alternative financing schemes to resell them.
Several state attorneys general have filed suits alleging deceptive practices. Pennsylvania recently won a partial victory when a judge ordered that 285 homes be immediately deeded to people who'd signed alternative leasing arrangements.
Some experts worry about the possibility of another spike coming out of the pandemic, as mortgage bailouts and moratoriums expire and foreclosures start to rise.
In rural Ohio, attorney Lee says given the severe housing crunch, a dilapidated home may be the only one some people can afford. But she finds it distressing to see clients invest thousands fixing up a place, believing it will pay off, when the seller never actually intends to turn it over.
"They just want to shift the burden of making repairs by letting them think they're going to build some sort of equity in the home," she says. "And then, oops, the first time something goes wrong... they're in eviction court."
The Pew survey finds a lot of repeat offenders, calling it "profit-driven 'churning'" when an owner initiates the sale of the same house over and over.
States are starting to consider more protections for borrowers
Since it's hard to track alternative financing arrangements, there's been a lack of data on who uses them, where they live, and what their experiences are. Pew's Roche hopes the information in the survey "can help inform policymakers, who are considering policies for alternative home financing borrowers."
Some states have been trying to better protect consumers, and Roche is seeing an uptick this year in proposed legislation.
Sarah Mancini, with the National Consumer Law Center, would like to at least ensure a house is habitable, the same protection a renter would have. And in case of problems, she says there should be a process more akin to foreclosure, so tenants aren't at risk of sudden eviction.
Beyond that, Mancini would like to see traditional, smaller mortgages more available, and not as difficult to get approved.
"We know there's a racial wealth gap. We know that individuals of color are more likely to have experienced a bump in the road at some point that may have caused a payment default," she says.
Instead of requiring an "unreasonably high credit score," she says lenders should look at someone's current income and ability to pay.
Steve Vockrodt of the Midwest Newsroom and Laura Ziegler of KCUR contributed reporting to this story.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/millions-of-americans-are-resorting-to-risky-ways-to-buy-an-affordable-home | 2022-04-14T21:59:05 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/millions-of-americans-are-resorting-to-risky-ways-to-buy-an-affordable-home |
Updated April 14, 2022 at 5:06 PM ET
Basketball star Brittney Griner has been detained in Russia since February, when vape cartridges containing hashish oil were allegedly found in her luggage.
"The reality is, she's over there because of a gender issue — pay inequity," said Nneka Ogwumike, the head of the WNBA players union, in an interview Tuesday with ABC's Good Morning America.
She noted that Griner was in Russia in the first place because of the money. "We go over there to supplement our incomes, and quite frankly, we go over there to maintain our game," she said.
The gender pay gap in America is nothing new. In 2020, annual earnings for women in the U.S. were just 82.3% of what men earned. But in the WNBA, the disparity is especially acute.
The average NBA base salary this season is about $5.4 million, compared with about $120,600 for the WNBA. The WNBA season is shorter — 36 games versus 82 in the NBA. But the average annual base salaries mean an NBA player makes 44 times what the average WNBA player makes.
The gap was on display at this week's WNBA draft
This week's WNBA draft offered just the latest reminder of the pay gap. The No. 1 pick was University of Kentucky star Rhyne Howard, selected by the Atlanta Dream. The shooting guard will be paid according to the league's rookie pay scale, which dictates that the first four picks in this year's draft receive three-year contracts worth $226,668.
That means in her first three seasons, Howard will make an average base salary of $75,556.
The NBA's 2022 draft won't take place until June, but the top pick in last year's draft was Oklahoma State's Cade Cunningham, selected by the Detroit Pistons. He signed a four-year contract with the Pistons for $45.6 million, with an average annual salary of $11.4 million, according to Spotrac, which tracks player contracts.
In other words, Cunningham's rookie salary in the NBA is 150 times that of Howard's in the WNBA.
And it's not just the rookies. Even the WNBA's highest-paid players aren't making particularly lofty sums. Only 14 players in the league make $200,000 or more, according to Spotrac data. Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury and the Seattle Storm's Jewell Loyd and Breanna Stewart reportedly make the most, at $228,094.
The WNBA says players can make up to half a million dollars or more annually for four-months play between salary, bonuses, in-season tournaments and league and team marketing deals. Players also receive family planning and maternity benefits year-round, tuition reimbursement, free housing during the season and child care allowances. In 2020, the league said the average cash compensation for its players averaged about $130,000.
Still, NBA salaries are on a whole other level. The league's top-paid players, like Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry, will be paid more than $45 million this year.
WNBA players go overseas to earn extra money
The pay situation has been pushing players overseas for years.
Liz Cambage, an Australian hoopster, says she makes 5 to 8 times more in the overseas leagues than she does in the WNBA. That economic reality has pushed her to sit out five seasons of WNBA play for more lucrative opportunities elsewhere.
"It's hard when you have 'the best league in the world,' but we're not treated like the best athletes in the world," she told ESPN in February.
She also said that due to the current collective bargaining agreement between players and the league, her team, the Los Angeles Sparks, can't pay to fly her in first class, even though she says at 6 foot 8, she doesn't fit into coach seats: "The fact that I have to pay to upgrade my flight so I can get to work and perform, it's crazy to me. ... I'd like to see that loosened up a bit," and maximum salary caps go up.
Ogwumike, the players union president, has played in Russia, China and Poland in addition to the WNBA. She says players are treated well when they moonlight abroad, "but we don't want to feel as though we have to go over there to get what we want to get at home."
In Russia, Griner plays for UMMC Ekaterinburg, which is owned by an Uzbek-born oligarch with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It's not clear how much Griner's salary was at Ekaterinburg, but in 2015, the team paid Diana Taurasi nearly $1.5 million per season as she sat out of the WNBA. "[T]his is my profession. Why shouldn't I try to make the most money I can?" Taurasi told The New York Times.
Candace Parker, her teammate at Ekaterinburg, agreed. "I mean, people look at this as our off-season, but this is our season, and the WNBA is our off-season. This is where you take care of your family," she told the Times.
One team was fined for treating players too well
One recent episode illustrates the disparity between the WNBA and the NBA.
New York Liberty owner Joe Tsai was recently in hot water with the league for taking the team's players on an R&R trip to Napa Valley over Labor Day weekend, as well as providing charter flights for the team for the second half of the season, as Sports Illustrated reported.
Tsai is a co-founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. He also owns the NBA's Brooklyn Nets.
"Our ownership is freaking amazing. They treat us just like they treat the NBA team," player Jazmine Jones told reporters about the Napa trip. "It was a great experience and I'm super grateful and thankful for them."
But the charter flights — the norm in the NBA — and Napa trip were a violation of the collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players. For the infractions, the Liberty were threatened with losing draft picks and even termination of the franchise, SI reported. The team was eventually fined $500,000 by the WNBA.
A push for better pay and conditions in the WNBA
There's a movement afoot to recognize and fully embrace the money-making potential in women's sports — and compensate female athletes appropriately.
In February, U.S. Soccer agreed to pay $22 million in back pay to members of the U.S. women's national soccer team as part of a settlement over the team's equal pay lawsuit.
After an uproar a year ago about unequal facilities for the men's and women's NCAA basketball tournaments, the NCAA launched an investigation into the disparities and committed to making some changes. One of those changes: The women's tournament is finally allowed to use "March Madness" branding, which had previously been reserved for the men, as The Wall Street Journal reported.
The tussle over charter flights has intensified scrutiny on the WNBA.
"What a joke," tweeted Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu, about the league's fine of the Liberty.
The players union responded to the league's decision by saying: "Fining the teams for standing up for equity, standing up for the players, harkens back to a league that fined the players for standing up for social justice."
For many players and fans — and some of the league's newer owners — the episode is evidence that perhaps the 2-year-old collective bargaining agreement needs more work.
After all, even the new agreement holds that minimum base salaries in the WNBA for those with less than two years in the league is just $60,471, while those with three-plus make at least $72,141.
With salaries like that, WNBA players won't stop heading abroad anytime soon. Though the league is trying to sweeten the deal stateside. Players can now earn "time off bonuses" — extra payments of $50,000 or more if the player agree to limit the days they play elsewhere.
The WNBA says it's also been working to create more opportunities for players — such as coaching internships and internships with other companies — to give them more alternatives to playing abroad in the offseason. The league says that's helped drive down the number of players going overseas, from 89 five years ago, to 70 out of 144 players this offseason.
At the same time, the league is introducing penalties for those whom playing abroad causes them to miss the start of the WNBA season. Starting in 2023, players will be fined 1% of their base salary for each day of training camp they miss, and will be suspended without pay for the season if they don't report by the start of the season.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/what-brittney-griners-detention-in-russia-tells-us-about-basketballs-gender-pay-gap | 2022-04-14T21:59:11 | 1 | https://www.mainepublic.org/npr-news/2022-04-14/what-brittney-griners-detention-in-russia-tells-us-about-basketballs-gender-pay-gap |
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- Two NC State students are working to make the fashion world more inclusive by creating a line of adaptive clothing.
Each piece in the collection is accessible for people on a wide spectrum of cognitive and physical abilities. Some of the dresses are seamless. Other pieces use special buttons to make them easier to use.
"I've said this so many times, as much as I think I'm making something that's helpful, if it doesn't help somebody there's no point in doing it. I'm wasting my time, I'm wasting their time. It's so important to make sure what we're adding adds benefit to them and not just there," Sabrina Martin said.
Martin and Mary Grace Wilder displayed their collection at the 2021 Threads Senior Collection fashion show. Baristas from 321 Coffee modeled the inclusive clothing line. The coffee shop employs people with cognitive or developmental disabilities.
Martin and Wilder said their clothing line combines fashion and accessibility.
"It boils down to the fact that we want people to be able to dress with dignity. We go into our closets every day and have an opportunity to express ourselves and we want everybody to have that opportunity as well," Wilder said.
Wilder and Martin are now working to produce their pieces into their own brand. They're hoping to make the pieces affordable too.
For more information, email Info@anybodyclothing.com. | https://abc11.com/adaptive-clothing-inclusive-nc-state-students-line-ncsu-clothes/11748116/ | 2022-04-14T22:06:57 | 0 | https://abc11.com/adaptive-clothing-inclusive-nc-state-students-line-ncsu-clothes/11748116/ |
CARY, N.C. (WTVD) -- More than 15 million donated airline miles are helping Ukrainians flee their war-torn country.
ABC11 first told you about the Apex couple, MG and his wife Dawnna who started a movement of donating their frequent flier miles to help with the humanitarian efforts. Other travelers joined in and more than 240 families have made it to safety, many here in the Triangle.
Besides donating airline miles, this community is also stepping up to give those who left everything behind, a fresh start.
Iryna Byrohova is one of those Ukrainians now living in Cary.
"I wanted her to be safe that is the most important," Byrohova said, referring to her 19-month-old daughter Alisa. Byrohova grabbed her daughter and fled her home country of Ukraine just days after the war with Russia started.
"I was really was lost. I didn't know where to go," she recalled.
She documented her journey out of her homeland, as she fled on a crowded bus through Moldova, then to Romania. Through the power of social media, Byrohova spotted a Facebook page that belongs to MG, a wake county businessman.
He and his wife open the gates to their apex home every Christmas and invite families to see Lights on Holt Road. Now he's using his popular platform to make a plea for people to donate their airline miles to get Ukrainians out of the war zone.
Byrohova didn't have money to buy her ticket, but when she reached out to MG on social media. He stepped up and gave her some miles.
"Basically those miles can be a lifeline to families who are in desperate need," MG said.
But the problem wasn't over, Byrohova also didn't know a single person in the United States.
MG once again reached out, asking if anyone could sponsor Byrohova and her daughter.
That's when Irene Acosta picked up the mantle.
"I'm an immigrant to the United States from Venezuela, and I can understand how it's like how you have to leave the country there is not an option to go back, start a new life in the US," Acosta said.
Once the US granted Byrohova humanitarian parole, she along with her daughter arrived at RDU airport and saw a welcoming smile on Acosta's face.
"I want her to feel like she's safe," Acosta said when asked why she offered up her home to the displaced mother and daughter.
After a week of settling in Cary, Byrohova's daughter Alisa found an instant playmate in Acosta's son as they are just one month apart.
"No regrets it was a destiny," Byrohova said.
Besides Acosta opening her home, others in the community have opened their hearts. Jennifer Smith, a mom in Apex, donated several items for Alisa, and her neighborhood also collected donations for the mom and daughter--like toys, clothes, and lots of baby items.
"I just saw the story and I used to be a teacher until just recently with a pandemic, and my heart breaks for people in need," Smith said.
Byrohova said she is overwhelmed by the generosity. "The people--it's amazing. People are very helpful. They ask him do you need help do you need this and that."
A GoFundMe is also raising money to give Iryna and her daughter a fresh start, so far more than $7,800 has been donated.
While Byrohova is so grateful for the generosity of those in the Triangle, she still worries dearly for her family still trapped in Ukraine.
Cary family opens home to Ukrainian mom, daughter seeking fresh start after fleeing war
By Diane Wilson | https://abc11.com/ukraine-refugee-refugees-war/11747599/ | 2022-04-14T22:07:03 | 0 | https://abc11.com/ukraine-refugee-refugees-war/11747599/ |
Aberdeen Lake
The bass report at Aberdeen has been good. Water temps are averaging in the mid-60s, and bass have been caught in the shallows, but temperature fluctuations and rainfall have kept the fishing hit or miss. Weightless soft plastics are a good choice for the shallow bass that may still be moving a little slowly. Crappie have been caught in 1-2 feet of water along the shoreline, but many larger fish are still offshore.
Bay Springs
Crankbaits (both lipless and traditional), jerkbaits, swimbaits, and Texas-rigged plastics are best baits. T-rigged plastics, chatterbaits, and rattletraps will be good bait choices as bass move shallower to spawn. Crappie anglers have been catching fish in 6 ft of water or less. Ashcraft, Five Fingers, Riddle, and McDougal should all be crappie hot spots, as well as around the Jackson Camp area. Best depths have been anywhere from 4 – 8 ft.
Columbus Lake
Bass anglers are catching fish, and the action has picked up, but it remains inconsistent. Anglers are having good luck fishing the backwaters where the water is warmer and less muddy. Crappie anglers are fishing grass beds and standing timber in the cleaner backwaters.
Enid Lake
Although some male crappie have moved shallow, best reports have been for pre-spawn fish 4 to 7 ft deep.
Grenada Lake
Crappie fishing improved last week with more folks catching fish, even those wading. Fish 3 - 6 ft deep (method of choice) in the mouths of creek coves, out from spawning areas, or in the backs of creeks and covers tributaries with black/chartreuse jigs and/or minnows.
JP Coleman/Pickwick
The Bear Creek and Mill Creek area has been a crappie hot spot as of late but other major creeks like Yellow and Indian creeks are producing fish as well. Anglers are catching some as shallow as 3 ft to as deep as 15 ft. depending on the day and conditions.
Lake Lamar Bruce
Anglers are catching bass up in the shallows chasing shad. Crappie anglers are targeting brush piles in around 6 to 8 feet of water with some success.
Sardis Lake
The water has risen enough that there have been good catches in the upper end of the lake, mostly on pre-spawn fish suspended 5 – 6 ft deep in deeper water. A couple of reports of fish 3 ft deep, but not many. Fish will move with rising water levels. Elsewhere, drift, troll, or scope jigs and/or minnows 4 to 8 ft deep for suspended pre-spawn fish in the main lake, creek mouths, and out from spawning areas around any cover.
Tombigbee State Park
Bass anglers are fishing the points and other offshore structure in the morning and moving up to the shoreline and coves in the afternoon. For crappie, look for brush tops in 6-10 ft. of water to hold fish.
Trace State Park
For crappie, target coves in 4-8 feet of water with minnows and jigs. Look for bass to be moving up shallow for the spawn. The lake has abundant small bass, and anglers are strongly encouraged to keep a limit of bass under 12 inches. | https://www.djournal.com/fishing-report-4-15/article_67f8517d-430d-52ac-be9f-11d0df016c9a.html | 2022-04-14T22:12:16 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/fishing-report-4-15/article_67f8517d-430d-52ac-be9f-11d0df016c9a.html |
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The chance to wet a line, set a hook and drop fresh filets into Crisco Bay is one both handily and afford Bly available to Mississippi residents essentially everywhere statewide.
According to the state department of wildlife, fisheries and parks, Mississippi his home to 119 public lakes and 123,000 miles of rivers and streams. These combine to offer nearly a quarter million acres of freshwater access. These waters are navigable with a variety of floating craft, and bank access for those who prefer to keep solid ground beneath their feet is rarely hard to come by.
These waters are an important source of income for our state. Anglers spend around $240 million per year directly in Mississippi, and produce a total economic impact of nearly $1.5 billion. That said, the resource is accessible to our individual citizens very affordably. Including fees, an annual freshwater fishing license can be purchased for as little as $12 or so by residents. Fishermen at some state lakes, such as Lake Lamar Bruce, are asked to pay a few dollars per day for lake access, and annual state lake permits can be picked up for around $30 per year. These fees are used by state wildlife officials to maintain the quality of the fisheries under their care, a job they tale very seriously.
A 2011 survey of Mississippi anglers revealed the following:
• 651,000 licensed anglers that year included 57,500 non-residents
• 94 percent of licensed anglers focused on freshwater
• 72 percent of resident anglers live in rural areas
• 44 percent of licensed anglers were female
• Factors including cleanliness, safety and proximity to home had the most impact on anglers’ choices of fishing destinations
Public management of public waters helped produce the current state record largemouth bass, caught on the last day of 1992 by Anthony Denny at Natchez State Park Lake. It weighed in at 18.15 pounds.
A scientific art
The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks manages 18 state park lakes. These span 3,133 acres across 17 state parks. Here, fish populations are sampled by fisheries biologists operating from written fisheries management plans custom built for each location. At these sites, management practices include sampling, stocking, liming and fertilization and the establishment of fish harvest regulations.
Another 20 bodies of water in Mississippi owned by counties, cities or private groups are enrolled in the MDWFP Community Fishing Assistance Program. This maintains these 411 acres in 18 locations for public use as well. The goal of the Community Fishing Assistance Program is to enhance the management and development of these lakes and ponds, typically in urban settings, so local residents, especially youth, will be able to experience the joys of fishing close to home.
Communities, cities, counties and other sponsors take part in this program through a cooperative agreement with the MDWFP. In these lakes, state wildlife officials provide technical advice regarding fish harvest regulations, aquatic plant control, management recommendations and fish for stocking free of charge. The state also provides a management plan developed through periodic on-site sampling, and it provides signs recognizing every entity participating in developing the water, along with a listing of the local regulations. In return, the lake’s owner maintains the grounds around the fishing site and follows the state’s recommendations on lake management.
For more information about public fishing in Mississippi, or about the Community Fishing Assistance Program, contact Dennis Riecke, Fisheries Bureau CFAP Coordinator, by emailing dennis.riecke@wfp.ms.gov, or call 601-432-2207. | https://www.djournal.com/outdoor-briefs-4-15/article_8cc3b7d6-5af3-5027-b765-369a047cfeca.html | 2022-04-14T22:12:40 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/outdoor-briefs-4-15/article_8cc3b7d6-5af3-5027-b765-369a047cfeca.html |
The Ecru town board voted to opt out of allowing medical marijuana to be sold, distributed or cultivated in their town limits.
Only one member of the board voted for the sale of medical marijuana while the rest voted to opt out. Gable Todd was the vote for the sale; and the other options- cultivating and distributing the board voted unanimously to opt out.
Before making the decision the board heard from three people who spoke during the hearing.
Town chief financial officer on a volunteer basis Mike Nesbit told the board that there is a difference between laws in regulations.
“Regulations are not secheduled to come out until the first of May. Even if you are going to approve it sometime in the future, please opt out right not to give us time to look at the regulations. Both the Department of Health and the Department of Revenue will be writing these."
Bro. Greg Lassett, pastor of Ecru Baptist Church asked the board to please think about what they are doing. “I think as a pastor,” he said. “I want to protect my flock and the children in this community. I lived in Greenville. When they asked for the casinos to come in they promised to fix up downtown and we wouldn’t have to worry about schools or anything else. Look at it now. It is a disaster.
“When you make something easily accessible it is deadly and dangerous.
“As a community we have a responsibility to what goes on. Let’s say someone who is high on the drug veers over into the other lane while driving and kills someone. That is a consequence we can’t go back and undo.”
Lassett thanked the board for their time and listening to him.
Ecru Chief Matt Stringer was get third speaker and he told the board that he couldn’t feel confident that his police force could keep the warehouses from being broken into if marijuana is allowed in the town. “I’m against it from a moral standpoint and from a law enforcement standpoint. There are a lot of varibles that we have to take into consideration.”
Once the hearing was closed, Ecru alderman Dr. James speck spoke up. “I know how catastrophic the drug is and I know what it does. The medical benefits of that drug are very little in comparison to the dangers. I’m apposed to it. Not every doctor will be scrupulus in administering it. I think for the general public it is unsafe.”
After discussion the board voted to opt out.
In other business Nesbit spoke on behalf of Jimmy and Ida Scoott who were wanting a special exception to put a mobile home at 180 Highland Avenue. “They said they had permission years ago and failed to do so and that has expired.” The measure failed for lack of a motion.
Contractor Bobby Chambers asked the board the steps he needed to take to get the sewer service at the Exxon Store located at 5575 Highway 15. “I’d like for AHS to do the entire job, they will take care of the boring and all the things it will take if you will just waive the fee.” The board agreed to waive the fee.
The board also approved April as Fair Housing month. They also approved a payment to ESI Engineering for $2,580 from the ARPA funds, also coming from the ARPA funds was a payment for $39,900 to TLSL.
Tim Ball was approved to go to summer conference in Biloxi June 13-17. The board also voted to advertise on the church directory in the Pontotoc Progress.
The board also accepted a bid from Roberts Paving of $41,200 to repave the cemetery streets. Mike Nesbit said he expects them to get started in the next month and a half. “I ran an ad in the Pontotoc Progress and got $10,000 in funding for the cemetery,” he noted.
Jeannie Thompson reported to the board that the M.B. Mayfield project has taken off, “just in the last two weeks. We have established the foundation and we are already being funded by Create.”
As far as park and recreation goes, Brittany Seale reported that things are going well in the park. “We had a good Blake Mounce run,” she noted. Nesbit spoke up and told her to tell the board how many donations she has gotten from sponsors of the signs. She grinned shyly. “We have $14,000 in sign sponsorships,” she noted. | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/ecru-board-opts-out-of-medical-marijuana/article_34170b00-1587-5c8e-8d81-0d9e64239f52.html | 2022-04-14T22:12:46 | 1 | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/ecru-board-opts-out-of-medical-marijuana/article_34170b00-1587-5c8e-8d81-0d9e64239f52.html |
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People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/series-of-classes-on-diabetes-starting-in-may/article_d72bb01e-420e-5619-ab4e-066c66e2c8ca.html | 2022-04-14T22:12:52 | 1 | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/series-of-classes-on-diabetes-starting-in-may/article_d72bb01e-420e-5619-ab4e-066c66e2c8ca.html |
There will be an Easter Celebration this Saturday. April 16, 2022, at the Thaxton Community Park starting at 3:00 p.m. Bring lawn chairs and your Easter baskets. Food will be served.
I assume the Thaxton Baptist Church is sponsoring this event. There was no sponsor listed on the banner advertisement downtown.
Section 30 of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act of 2022 allows the governing authority of Town of Thaxton to vote to opt out of the Cultivation, processing, sale,and/or distribution of medical cannabis and cannabis products. The Mayor/Town Board set a public hearing to be held at the regular monthly board meeting on Tuesday, April 5,2022. There was a public hearing notice placed in The Pontotoc Progress and at all business within the town limits. However, we did not have anyone to attend the public hearing. After much discussion and opinions expressed for the betterment of our town/community the Mayor/Town Board voted to "OPT OUT" of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act of 2022.
It is time to start mowing the Cemetery so now is the time to send in your contributions for the year. The up-keep of the cemetery depends on your contributions. We have already received several contributions at this time. There have been a number of donations to the cemetery in memory of Billie Dove (Bevill) Graham. Billie's services were held last Monday at the Thaxton Methodist Church,burial at Thaxton Cemetery. You may mail your contributions to Thaxton Cemetery Fund, P.O. Box 23 Thaxton, MS 38871. We will be placing flags on Veterans graves for the Memorial Day Holidays in May.
Also, placing flags and wreaths at the Veterans Memorial Monument at the Park. I appreciate the Lisa Gooch and her Youth Group from Thaxton Methodist helping with this project.
Several months ago, I was going through some articles, regarding Pontotoc County history, and Pontotoc High School that was donated to the Pontotoc County Historical Society from the family of Sarah (Carter) Naugher. In these articles I found a 1947 Pontotoc High School, School Paper" The Pow-Wow." The following article caught my eye and I decided to share in my news column. Some of the Jaggers Family members will enjoy reading this article, as I did. "Richard 'Clab' Jaggers": "Clab" was born in the Troy community, Pontotoc County, Mississippi, on July 31, 1927. He now lives at Pontotoc. His father is Luke Jaggers, his mother, Lula Elliott Jaggers. His church preference is Baptist. Richard is a member of the 4-H Club. He was captain of the basketball team, second, third, and fourth years of high school. He was also captain of the football team in Junior and Senior years of school. Richard was a member of the baseball team his Senior year. He lettered two years in football and lettered four years in basketball. He received Little Ten Conference honorable mention. His hobby is baseball. He is interested in agriculture and plans to further his education Holmes Junior College." I will add this note: Richard was offered a scholarship in basketball at Holmes Junior College; however, he decided not to take the scholarship and made the decision to go into the work force for several years and then joined the U.S Force. The years we were married I did not know of the nick name "Clab". He never mentioned it.
I will sign off for now. Easter week-end is coming up this week-end. "In your Easter Bonnet with all the frills upon it you will be the grandest lady in the Easter Parade." I know a lot of you senior citizens remember this song. I do not hear it very often this days. it was very popular in our day. Happy Easter!! Happy Birthday to Betty Ann. It is today-April 11, 2022 | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/thaxton-news-for-april-13/article_b95ca0e6-ba3c-5a36-b2c2-d1ffbe605829.html | 2022-04-14T22:12:58 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/thaxton-news-for-april-13/article_b95ca0e6-ba3c-5a36-b2c2-d1ffbe605829.html |
Spring is finally here! With the arrival of warmer weather comes common chores that we all must tackle. One of these tasks is fire ant control in our lawns. Without proper consideration, these relentless insects will cause unsightly mounds along with serious pain and agony.
Treating fire ants can feel like you are fighting a losing battle. When one mound is removed there are often three ready to take its place. Don’t wave the white flag. You can win this war!
I will discuss how baits and individual mound treatments can be used to provide season long fire ant control. The source for this column is the Mississippi State University Extension Service publication, “Fire and Control in Home Lawns.”
Broadcast Bait Treatments
A fire ant control strategy should begin with the use of broadcast bait products. When used properly, baits can reduce the number of mounds by 80 percent. Examples of brand names of effective fire ant bait products include Advion, Amdro, and Extinguish Plus.
To ensure season long control, fire ant baits should be applied in early spring, mid-summer, and in the fall. The easiest way to remember when to apply the baits is to use the holidays – Easter, Fourth of July, and Labor Day.
It is best to apply baits when rain is not forecasted for several days. Dry weather will allow worker ants time to take the bait back to the mound. The insecticide will then be spread throughout the colony. Please note that it can take two to six weeks for baits to finish the job.
For home lawns fire ant baits are best applied using a small hand-held spreader. Most fire ant baits are recommended to be applied at a rate of 1 to 2 1/2 pounds per acre. To spread this small amount of product, it is often necessary to walk fast and turn the spreader handle slowly. It is not important to evenly apply fire ant baits as compared to fertilizer applications. The ants will seek out the bait and take it back to the mound.
Individual Mound Treatments
Broadcast bait treatments will kill most, but not all the mounds in your yard. Those that remain will need to be treated individually.
The quickest way to kill individual mounds is to use liquid drenches that contain permethrin or bifenthrin. Check the product label to determine how much chemical to mix per gallon of water. It is important to thoroughly soak the mound. It can take 1-2 gallons of the mixture depending on the mound size.
Products that contain acephate are effective dry individual mound treatments. Ortho or Surrender are products that contain acephate. The drawback of this product is that it smells bad. Dry mound treatments containing deltamethrin or cyfluthin don’t have the foul odor, but they are not as effective as acephate.
Using the techniques described above will effectively control fire ants in home lawns. Fire ants are very persistent creatures. To eliminate this nuisance, it is important not give up! | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/time-to-do-battle-with-fire-ants/article_73ecf65d-3be7-57bb-b73e-eabfaaa643d3.html | 2022-04-14T22:13:04 | 1 | https://www.djournal.com/pontotoc/time-to-do-battle-with-fire-ants/article_73ecf65d-3be7-57bb-b73e-eabfaaa643d3.html |
Easter's message of renewal will be especially poignant this year for four U.S. congregations rebounding from disasters.
Their churches were destroyed by a tornado in Kentucky, gutted by a blaze in New York City, shattered when Hurricane Ida hit the Louisiana coast, and filled with smoke and ash by the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history. For the pastors, Easter's promise of hope couldn't be more timely as their resilient congregations come to terms with what happened and prepare for what's next.
KENTUCKY
Members of Mayfield First United Methodist Church will not be celebrating Easter in their 100-year-old sanctuary. They can't.
A Dec. 10 tornado ripped apart their stately building as it carved a deadly path through the western Kentucky community of about 10,000 people. A demolition crew tore down the rest.
Instead, on Easter Sunday, members will walk into their temporary home, Christ United Methodist Church, to mark the holy day.
"That's going to be tough," said the Rev. Joey Reed. He rode out the storm at Mayfield First, wondering if he would live to officiate his daughter's wedding.
Reed started ministering soon after, encouraging his roughly 100 church members to pivot from suffering to servanthood. Congregants walked through the disaster zone assessing needs, passing out thousands of dollars in gift cards and helping residents rescue belongings.
"The example of Jesus Christ is the suffering servant," he said. "When we turn away from our own difficulties … we are able to let go of our own pain for a minute and focus on our neighbor, which is the core strength of Christianity."
As the congregation weighs how best to rebuild, they continue to process the tornado's destruction through waves of grieving and helping. Only in recent weeks – after Reed performed his daughter's wedding, escaped to a cabin with his wife and mourned the death of their cat, George – did Reed realize he was still carrying around trauma from the storm.
"As much as we place our faith in resurrection and the life that is to come, there's still that whole idea of what's it like to leave this one, and I think we're still parsing that question," he said.
But there has been hope amid the despair, like the pieces of the church's baptismal font rescued from the landfill. "We are all about finding those bright spots," Reed said.
NEW YORK CITY
The Middle Collegiate Church gospel choir swayed to the beat of a live band during a joyful rehearsal at a synagogue that has become their new home.
"It's Passover and our Jewish friends are exercising the most radical hospitality," said the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, the church's senior minister.
Her church was gutted by a fire on Dec. 5, 2020, in what seemed a tragic coda to an already-challenging pandemic year. When Middle Collegiate decided recently to resume in-person worship, East End Temple led by Rabbi Joshua Stanton invited the congregation to share its sacred space while they rebuild.
"It was very clear when the tragedy fell on Middle Collegiate Church that we needed to live out our values, open our doors," said Stanton, who will offer prayer during the church's Easter celebration.
On Palm Sunday, the choir belted out hymns in preparation for Easter, and even the carols they weren't able to sing together after COVID-19 concerns canceled their in-person Christmas Eve service.
"It feels like a miracle, going through the fire and the pandemic worldwide, all that we've gone through… to now have a place to call home," said Joy Lau, a member of the church's Jerriese Johnson gospel choir.
The multicultural congregation lives what it calls "on-your-feet worship and take-it-to-the-streets activism." Members have provided meals to people with AIDS, worked on storm recovery, fought for environmental protection and demonstrated for the Black Lives Matter movement, LGBTQ equality and women's rights.
The belfry of the historic church housed New York's Liberty Bell, which tolled to mark the birth of the country in 1776 and was later rung for inaugurations, deaths of presidents and in remembrance of the 9/11 terror attacks. The fire spared the bell and left behind a skeletal façade and two vinyl banners reading "Black Lives Matter" and "Just Love," the church's motto.
Amid the grief of losing their beloved church, Lewis has asked parishioners to "worship God with joy" and find the promise of hope that is a part of every Easter.
"For Middle, this is a time of resurrection. We keep rising to new challenges and we're the living body of Christ. More than ever, we understand that and what our mission is, our calling is," she later said at the site of her charred church.
"The hospitality and the love of the strangers of Judaism that we inherit as Christians is on full display on these weeks that are holy for both communities."
LOUISIANA
The windows at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic church were blown out, and its ceiling, sacristy and vestibule crumbled after Hurricane Ida blasted ashore in August, hitting the small fishing community of Point-aux-Chenes, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of New Orleans.
Since then, its pastor, the Rev. Rajasekar Karumelnathan, has celebrated Mass in the rectory and under a tent set up in the church's parking lot. Attendance dwindled after the storm: from about 80 people who used to attend Sunday services to about 15 worshippers now.
Celebrating Christmas under the ruins was especially emotional for the congregation, the pastor said. But he expects a different, lighter mood for their first post-Ida Easter service, which promises believers eternal life.
"We have lots of hope. We hope that we can reclaim all that we've lost," he said. "Easter strengthens us."
Parishioner Teddy Neal, who lives a half mile from the church, is still rebuilding his storm-damaged home. He would love to see his church and home rebuilt — restored to what they once were or better.
"I see Easter as a new beginning," said Neal, a truck driver. "I'm pretty much humbled, where it doesn't matter what the conditions are in or around with the destruction -- as long as I'm present with Jesus during the Eucharist."
COLORADO
At the charred remains of Bill and Jackie Stephens' home in Superior, where they raised four kids and made countless memories over 22 years, the daffodils are blooming again.
When he looks at the green shoots and bright yellow blossoms, Bill Stephens sees rebirth. He also feels grief anew: for the house; the incinerated family photos and videos; the yard they loved on spring days, with its newly laid patio and magnolia tree named after their third child — "Maggie-nolia."
"As a pastor I see this and go, this is an Easter illustration. It's life out of the death," Stephens said. "In some ways it's beautiful, and in other ways it's the reminder of, dang, we lost a lot."
The lead pastor at Ascent Community Church in neighboring Louisville and his loved ones are one of 26 families in the congregation who lost their homes Dec. 30 in a wind-whipped wildfire that destroyed 1,084 residences in Denver-area suburbs. Hundreds more church members were displaced.
The church itself, a cavernous space inside a former Sam's Club with auditorium seating for 750, was largely spared. The flames wrapped around the building, scorching trees and shrubs in the parking lot. But ash and smoke seeped in through skylights and ventilation shafts, coating everything in sooty charcoal.
Volunteers hauled out everything that wasn't nailed down to be washed before a building-wide deep clean. Carpets, curtains, walls and lighting were replaced. Ascent returned in February after two months of worshipping in a hotel ballroom.
In the early days, police used Ascent's parking lot as a staging area for displaced residents to collect passes to enter their neighborhoods. Thousands showed up and were met by church members, therapy dogs and meals. A relief fund raised a couple hundred thousand dollars, and the church reached out to schools on caring for affected students.
As for the congregation, Stephens said suffering his own loss positioned him to minister to others. An adopt-a-family program pairs up households to support people through companionship and tasks like grocery shopping. Volunteer therapists provided counseling and offered group sessions.
Three months after the most destructive blaze in Colorado history, Stephens reminds his flock that people still need help as they navigate trauma and challenges like insurance, housing and debris removal. To his delight, he sees congregants stepping up.
One thing he's sure of: Christ's resurrection carries special significance this year.
"That Jesus conquered the grave, conquered the sin ... and breathed life on Easter Sunday," Stephens said, "there's something really powerful about thinking about ours as just a minor version of that." | https://www.djournal.com/print-features/for-churches-hit-by-disaster-easter-brings-promise-of-hope/article_37914c44-6a81-5507-ada1-2a8ece319e3c.html | 2022-04-14T22:13:11 | 1 | https://www.djournal.com/print-features/for-churches-hit-by-disaster-easter-brings-promise-of-hope/article_37914c44-6a81-5507-ada1-2a8ece319e3c.html |
KYIV, Ukraine • The flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, a guided-missile cruiser that became a potent target of Ukrainian defiance in the opening days of the war, sank Thursday after it was heavily damaged in the latest setback for Moscow's invasion.
Ukrainian officials said their forces hit the vessel with missiles, while Russia acknowledged a fire aboard the Moskva but no attack. U.S. and other Western officials could not confirm what caused the blaze.
The loss of the warship named for the Russian capital is a devastating symbolic defeat for Moscow as its troops regroup for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine after retreating from much of the north, including the capital.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the ship sank in a storm while being towed to a port. Russia earlier said the flames on the ship, which would typically have 500 sailors on board, forced the entire crew to evacuate. It later said the blaze had been contained and that the ship would be towed to port with its missile launchers intact.
The ship had the capacity to carry 16 long-range cruise missiles, and its removal reduces Russia's firepower in the Black Sea. It's also a blow to Russian prestige in a war already widely seen as a historic blunder. Now entering its eighth week, Russia's invasion has stalled because of resistance from Ukrainian fighters bolstered by weapons and other aid sent by Western nations.
During the first days of the war, The Moskva was reportedly the warship that called on Ukrainian soldiers stationed on Snake Island in the Black Sea to surrender in a standoff. In a widely circulated recording, a soldier responded: "Russian warship, go (expletive) yourself."
The Associated Press could not independently verify the incident, but Ukraine and its supporters consider it an iconic moment of defiance. The country recently unveiled a postage stamp commemorating it.
The news of the flagship's damage overshadowed Russian claims of advances in the southern port city of Mariupol, where they have been battling the Ukrainians since the early days of the invasion in some of the heaviest fighting of the war — at a horrific cost to civilians.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday that 1,026 Ukrainian troops surrendered at a metals factory in the city. But Vadym Denysenko, adviser to Ukraine's interior minister, rejected the claim, telling Current Time TV that "the battle over the seaport is still ongoing today."
It was unclear how many forces were still defending Mariupol.
Russian state television broadcast footage that it said was from Mariupol showing dozens of men in camouflage walking with their hands up and carrying others on stretchers. One man held a white flag.
Mariupol has been the scene of the some the war's worst suffering. Dwindling numbers of Ukrainian defenders are holding out against a Russian siege that has trapped well over 100,000 civilians in desperate need of food, water and heating.
The mayor said Monday that more than 10,000 civilians have died in the siege, and that the death toll could surpass 20,000. Weeks of attacks and privation left bodies "carpeted through the streets," he said.
Mariupol's capture is critical for Russia because it would allow its forces in the south, which came up through the annexed Crimean Peninsula, to fully link up with troops in the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine's industrial heartland and the target of the coming offensive.
The Russian military continues to move helicopters and other equipment together for such an effort, according to a senior U.S. defense official, and it will likely add more ground combat units "over coming days." But it's still unclear when Russia could launch a bigger offensive in the Donbas.
Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukraine in the Donbas since 2014, the same year Russia seized Crimea. Russia has recognized the independence of the rebel regions in the Donbas.
The loss of the Moskva could delay any new, wide-ranging offensive.
Maksym Marchenko, the governor of the Odesa region, across the Black Sea to the northwest of Sevastopol, said the Ukrainians struck the ship with two Neptune missiles and caused "serious damage."
Russia's Defense Ministry said ammunition on board detonated as a result of a fire, without saying what caused the blaze. It said the "main missile weapons" were not damaged. In addition to the cruise missiles, the warship also had air-defense missiles and other guns.
The Neptune is an anti-ship missile that was recently developed by Ukraine and based on an earlier Soviet design. The launchers are mounted on trucks stationed near the coast, and, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, the missiles can hit targets up to 175 miles away. That would have put the Moskva within range, based on where it was when the fire began.
Other Russian ships that were also in the northern Black Sea moved further south after the Moskva caught fire, said a senior U.S. defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal military assessments.
Before the Moskva sank, Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's defense minister, told The Associated Press its removal would mean " we can only have a sigh of relief because this means that fewer missiles will reach Ukrainian cities."
The U.S. was not able to confirm Ukraine's claims of striking the warship, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. Still, he called it "a big blow to Russia."
"They've had to kind of choose between two stories: One story is that it was just incompetence, and the other was that they came under attack, and neither is a particularly good outcome for them," Sullivan told the Economic Club of Washington.
Russia invaded on Feb. 24 and has lost potentially thousands of fighters. The conflict has killed untold numbers of Ukrainian civilians and forced millions more to flee.
It's also further inflated prices at grocery stores and gasoline pumps, while dragging on the global economy. The head of the International Monetary Fund said Thursday that the war helped push the organization to downgrade economic forecasts for 143 countries.
Also Thursday, Russian authorities accused Ukraine of sending two low-flying military helicopters across the border and firing on residential buildings in the village of Klimovo in Russia's Bryansk region, some 7 miles from the frontier. Russia's Investigative Committee said seven people, including a toddler, were wounded.
Russia's state security service had earlier said Ukrainian forces fired mortar rounds at a border post in Bryansk as refugees were crossing, forcing them to flee.
The reports could not be independently verified. Earlier this month, Ukrainian security officials denied that Kyiv was behind an air strike on an oil depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, some 35 miles from the border. | https://www.djournal.com/print-features/russian-militarys-damaged-black-sea-flagship-sinks/article_bddd78b1-df3e-5842-ab2a-caf1f62be89c.html | 2022-04-14T22:13:17 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/print-features/russian-militarys-damaged-black-sea-flagship-sinks/article_bddd78b1-df3e-5842-ab2a-caf1f62be89c.html |
Sometimes the last five steps we need a turkey to take never happen. Inevitably, those are the ones we remember best.
The Boy has had an interesting turkey season. Two too-close encounters during spring break had us wary of sitting down to his next opportunity with an overly-open view of the world. When we’d located turkeys and made our plan before sunrise last Saturday, he and his grandfather placed a decoy and tucked themselves well away. I situated myself 50 yards to their rear in a spot that would soon offer a view of a neighboring field. As daylight grew, I could see my two companions and their decoy. They could see a long, narrow field of their own. Somewhere at its other end, a chorus of turkeys chattered away.
Our first locating owl hoot had drawn not a single sound, but the second provoked an explosion of gobbles and yelps that seemed to go on and on. I guess he just needed to hear it twice to be sure.
The gobbles and almost-gobbles we heard in the dark confirmed the presence of at least one longbeard and a troop of jakes, plus hens. All of these soon pitched down, not into the field, but into a deep hollow that ran along the field’s western side. The hollow curved gently as it ran past the place my companions sat before ending in a point very close to me.
Turkey hunting is a pursuit conducted mainly by ear, and Saturday’s exercise was no exception. Yelps and clucks from my father-in-law encouraged the birds steadily closer. Occasional replies from the mature gobbler in the group confirmed we were in the game, and yelping hens confirmed they were leading him our way. The majority of the commentary, though, came from the jakes.
Jakes are male turkeys less than two years old. They are the juvenile delinquents of the natural world. In some states during turkey season, they are fair game. Hunters age 15 and younger may shoot them in Mississippi, but generally they get a free pass, as they are the stock that will grow into mature birds for the season and seasons to follow. They are smaller than mature gobblers and their spurs are not yet developed, but three or four jakes working together can harass one mature longbeard into tranquility. In areas fortunate enough to have good populations of turkeys, they are both the boon and the bane of hunters. They promise good seasons in years to come while doing their best to spoil the season at hand.
We listened as the birds, out of sight but drawing closer, worked their way toward us. From the sounds that echoed up the hollow, I was pretty sure the turkeys were going to walk out to stand right at my feet. I had not issued a single yelp. There was no reason for them to come to me, but turkeys are contrary and follow paths of reasoning all their own. I pulled my hat bill down low and quietly squirmed myself into as much invisibility as physics would allow. Still, I knew if the birds had to circle past me to come back to my companions, it would require a long and major effort of breath-holding stillness to not spook them.
I was expecting this effort to have to begin any second when the first hen stepped out, not by me, but next to the decoy. A second and third hen soon followed. Somewhere behind them but definitely on his way, the longbeard gobbled. I took my first deep breath in a long time and thought we had a good chance going. Then, the jakes trooped onto the scene.
Male turkeys are physically aggressive among themselves. They fight for breeding opportunities. Between mature birds, this is settled in single combat, but something in the psyche of jakes leads them to band together to battle a bigger foe.
The longbeard was the last turkey to step into the field. He lingered only a moment, looked at the jakes as they strutted around our decoy, then dropped his own tail and walked back into the woods. An unfortunately-placed cedar bough blocked the Boy’s only brief chance for a shot.
The turkeys hung around tauntingly for another hour. When the longbeard returned to the field 75 yards downrange and began strutting the Boy’s way, the jakes intercepted him and sent him packing.
Every day in the woods is a learning opportunity, but some are packed with more new knowledge than others. The Boy certainly had plenty served up for him Saturday last. Thankfully, there is still time this spring for him to put it into practice, if the bane of jakes allow.
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email kevinmtate@gmail.com. | https://www.djournal.com/turkey-season-offers-never-ending-education/article_815ed4fd-82a1-5987-be00-74e0e5c0e34b.html | 2022-04-14T22:13:23 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/turkey-season-offers-never-ending-education/article_815ed4fd-82a1-5987-be00-74e0e5c0e34b.html |
Turkey season isn’t the last good excuse of the spring for taking a walk in the woods. Mississippi’s two-week spring squirrel season, open May 15 through June 1, is a great segue to summer.
After a fall and winter spent waiting out whitetails and a spring sitting still for turkeys, a return to the small game arena offers a welcome break. It’s an ideal opportunity to stretch your legs and see what the the woods have in store.
The first key to finding squirrels, in any time of year, is locating their food sources. These are not the same in the spring as they are in the fall. In the fall, squirrels are found by listening for the patter of chewed acorns, pecans and hickory nuts falling onto dry leaves at the forest’s floor. In the latter two weeks of May, there are no acorns or nuts to crunch. Squirrels and deer will have long since cleaned up last fall’s crop.
In the spring, squirrel food includes soft mast, buds on trees, early berries and seeds, soft and fresh ground plants and the like. This means they’re also at ground level more frequently than in the fall, a blessing that provides its own challenge.
As tree-dwellers, squirrels are at their most alert when they’re on the ground because they instinctively know that’s when they’re most vulnerable to predators. While they’re scratching around they’re easier to see and hear, and also easier to spook. Still, finding them is 85 percent of the challenge, and having them at ground level makes them easier to find.
At water’s edge
Some of the best spring squirrel hunting is found lakeside and creekside. Vines and berry plants flourish here and squirrels may be found generally in abundance, especially early and late in the day. When it’s cool and overcast but not very windy, squirrels may move throughout much of the day as well. When it’s hot, they den up and when it’s windy, they can’t hear as well and are more cautious.
Still, as small animals, they have to eat for a significant amount of time every day and they’re not nocturnal. That means the opportunities will be there at some point no matter what.
When you find a likely spot to sit and wait, give such an area 30 minutes or more, but don’t hesitate to walk and cover ground. A stroll in the woods before summer’s heat sets in is a large part of the hunt’s satisfaction.
Paddle away
A great and enjoyable strategy is to hunt from a canoe. This is an especially good tactic to involve youngsters. For safety’s sake, take only one gun and put the shooter in the middle of the canoe. Often there’s not a seat in the widest centerpoint of a canoe. If the canoe has a carry handle, use a life jacket to pad it as a seat back and have the shooter sit on the canoe’s bottom. Even better, a low folding beach chair makes an ideal seat that will keep the shooter from sitting in any water the bottom of the canoe may collect.
Fill a good sized ice chest with ice and drinks and secure it as far forward in the canoe as it will go. With the paddler at the rear, a canoe with no weight at the bow will often float with the leading edge of the keel just out of the water, which will make it hard to steer. A heavy ice chest will press the bow into the water and make it handle much better. Paddling a canoe with the bow out of the water is like steering a button. It can be done, but it’s a hassle. The extra weight will make paddling and steering easier, not harder.
Aim high
Where there’s no likely water handy, look high in the trees for squirrel nests. Spot dead trees and study them carefully for possible den holes. Any such area that is home to lots of squirrels will be an ideal spot to sit and wait, especially early and late in the day. Do not shoot into nests, as this is unethical. Hunting nearby however is certainly an acceptable tactic.
Don’t be afraid to try out calling techniques. There are a number of commercially-made calls on the market, and most are pretty inexpensive. While they won’t typically call up a squirrel stampede, they will make the critters curious. Find a comfortable setup, give the woods 10 or 15 minutes to get quiet, then offer a call sequence or two. That will be enough to make squirrels peep out and see what’s happening, helping locate your quarry.
If you don’t have a commercial squirrel call, try scratching in the leaves or making a cutting sound by grinding two sticks together, anything that makes a sound similar to those squirrels make while feeding. This can often be enough to do the trick.
Damp spring woods are a haven for mosquitoes, so don’t forget to take measures to fend them off. A Thermacell device may be the most valuable tool a spring squirrel hunter can have. | https://www.djournal.com/two-week-season-a-special-opportunity/article_62b6d994-fe3f-5da4-948f-bf4e7b86e175.html | 2022-04-14T22:13:29 | 0 | https://www.djournal.com/two-week-season-a-special-opportunity/article_62b6d994-fe3f-5da4-948f-bf4e7b86e175.html |
FROM ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 2022
DEAR ABBY by Abigail Van Buren
WIDOW'S FRIEND UNSETTLED WHEN MYSTERY MAN APPEARS
DEAR ABBY: A friend of mine lost her husband a couple of years ago. I didn't think she was looking for love or companionship, but all of a sudden she has met a younger man, and I'm concerned. I have observed several red flags, but I'm not sure if I should say something.
She owns a home in a big city and another smaller, very nice one with a view of the lake in a resort town three hours away. This man has posted on his main Facebook page a picture of "his" new cabin. (I don't have any details regarding who else was there.) I looked at his Facebook pictures and saw one of his daughter, who looks to be around 13, along with several pictures of a woman I assume to be his beautiful significant other posing with him and his daughter.
On my friend's birthday, he showed up at her door with a huge bouquet, balloons and all. She called a mutual friend about the flowers and was all giddy. This scenario makes me suspect he's a predator who may start asking her for money. What, if anything, should I do? -- FRIEND SEEING SIGNS
DEAR FRIEND: If it were me, I'd ask my friend how SHE enjoyed the family party at her lake house -- and whether she has seen what this new man in her life has posted about it on his FB. Then, I would tell her how seeing his claim that the place is "his" made you do a double-take. After that, I would simply listen.
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DEAR ABBY: My mother-in-law, "Gladys," was never a particularly good mother as her kids were growing up. We don't get along very well. She interjects herself into every aspect of my family's life, especially when some sort of crisis happens. Most recently, it concerned the death of my wife's father's second wife. Gladys actually parked her truck in front of ours to prevent us from going over there to give him emotional support.
When she acts like this, my wife refuses to stand up to her. This woman has more than once come between me and my family. How should I confront her and my wife about this? I feel like Gladys had her chance, but now it is my place to call the shots. Please tell me if I am being unreasonable. -- HUSBAND AND DAD IN GEORGIA
DEAR HUSBAND: I don't think you are being unreasonable. I do think you need to have a serious, private conversation with your wife. You both need to learn how to set firm boundaries for her mother. If you need help doing that, consult a marriage counselor. A marriage in which one spouse feels sidelined is headed for trouble.
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DEAR READERS: At sundown, the first night of Passover begins. This major Jewish holiday celebrates the most momentous event in Jewish history -- the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. Happy Passover to my readers who observe this important holiday. -- LOVE, ABBY
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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.
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What teens need to know about sex, drugs, AIDS and getting along with peers and parents is in "What Every Teen Should Know." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $8 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Teen Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)
(EDITORS: If you have editorial questions, please contact Clint Hooker, chooker@amuniversal.com.)
COPYRIGHT 2022 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — In high school, Daniel Scheinert and his friends made a film, their own version of a Kung Fu movie, shot in their backyard of the Birmingham suburbs they grew up in.
Scheinert, who went to Shades Valley High School, ultimately submitted the film to the Sidewalk Film Festival. To him, the idea of anyone sitting in a theater to watch his movie, the first he screened at the festival, was nothing short of amazing.
“The was the first thing I ever played at Sidewalk for an audience was our fake Kung Fu movie,” Scheinert said. “And now, I got to make one with Michelle Yeoh.”
Scheinert’s new movie, which he co-wrote and directed with Daniel Kwan, is “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which stars Yeoh (“Crazy Rich Asians”) as an overworked Chinese-American mother who finds herself and her family torn between different universes, all while trying to file their taxes. Released last week, the film has received critical acclaim and has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
On paper, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is several movies, depending on how you see it. All at once, it’s a comedy, a Kung Fu movie, a superhero movie, and a family drama. And Scheinert said it’s much more than that.
“At its core, we kind of wanted to draw in the crowd that wants to go see a Marvel movie and be like, ‘Hey, this has just as many fight scenes and it’s the same runtime, It’s got fun visual effects. It’s a Marvel movie, but ultimately, it’s grounded in something personal and emotional,” Scheinert said. “At the end of the day, it’s about this family and every universe, no matter how weird it is, is meant to kind of take this family on a journey.”
Scheinert, who also wrote and directed “Swiss Army Man” with Kwan, is taken aback by how much positive feedback “Everything” has received. However, more than critical acclaim, he’s most proud of how audiences have been receiving the film.
“So many people are talking about how it has to been to see it in a theater, and that makes me so happy because my favorite theatrical experience isn’t the biggest screen or the loudest speakers, it’s the funnest audience,” he said. “And the fact that people are getting to go with crowds and laugh and scream and cry together, you know, and then are celebrating the movie for that reason, I’m like, ‘Oh hell yeah, that’s what I wanted.’”
Outside of Yeoh, another actor whose performance has been praised has been Ke Huy Quan, best known for several memorable performances in the 1980s as Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and Data in “The Goonies.” “Everything” marks Quan’s first major leading role in over 20 years.
Scheinert said a recent comment he saw on Twitter calling Quan “an absolute movie star” in the film made him particularly emotional.
“I just started imagining what he would think reading that because his character is a sweet pushover, a nice guy who just gets pushed to the sidelines of this action adventure, but ultimately is just this treasure of a person. And that’s what Ke is, too.” he said. “He’s just the sweetest guy and he got neglected by Hollywood and they missed out, and he should have been starring in movies all along. And and just like the movie, now we get to celebrate him, which feels great. It feels like a cosmic coincidence that that it happened that way.”
Although the movie is set in only a handful of locations–a laundromat, an IRS office, and countless parallel universes– Alabama had a part in how Scheinert and Kwan wrote and filmed the movie. While writing “Everything,” Scheinert decided to go back to Alabama to make a movie on his own, “The Death of Dick Long,” a black comedy involving two friends trying to cover up the death of their friend.
Scheinert said making “The Death of Dick Long” shaped how he wanted to make movies, something he would bring to “Everything.”
“I loved the script, but also I wanted to experiment with how we make movies, not just what we make them about,” Scheinert said. “The movie is kind of dark and upsetting, and we try to counterbalance that by making it in the most wholesome, ethical way possible.”
Scheinert said that while shooting “Dick Long” outside Birmingham, he and the crew formed relationships with the community, from the people they rented houses from for the shoot to the non-profit groups they donated to. He felt this approach off-screen had an impact on what was shown on-screen.
“I think it bled into the movie and made the movie better and made everybody working on it work harder,” he said. “And so I came in, I came back from that experience and persuaded our producer, John and Dan, to try to tackle this movie the same way and be like, ‘This movie is about kindness. If we make this movie in a mean way, we’re such hypocrites.'”
Bringing that same approach from “Dick Long” to “Everything” was a joy for Scheinert.
“A lot of that was about like trying to pull in the Chinese-American community and empower them and celebrate their culture while making the movie itself, but also doing a bunch of sustainability efforts and trying to not fill up a landfill while we made our movie.”
Scheinert said Alabama played an enormous part in helping him develop his creative vision, where theater was his varsity sports and the Sidewalk Film Festival showed him how far movies could go.
“I feel like I met a bunch of like-minded weirdos as a kid, and that was really fun,” he said.
Scheinert said he wants to continue pushing forward as a filmmaker, finding new ways to tell different stories.
“If it’s not personal at all, then you’re just kind of wasting your own time and your audience’s time, so we’re always chasing questions that genuinely interest us, that we don’t know the answer to, that kind of scare us and try to make sense of my own life by biting off projects that will explore something that I’m trying to wrap my head around,” he said. “There’s always going to be something emotional and personal that we’re going to explore.” | https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/birmingham-native-behind-one-of-the-strangest-mind-bending-critically-acclaimed-movies-of-2022/ | 2022-04-14T22:14:08 | 1 | https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/birmingham-native-behind-one-of-the-strangest-mind-bending-critically-acclaimed-movies-of-2022/ |
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — She helped him with his costume. Her classmates did, too. Stitch by stitch, the senior at Magic City Acceptance Academy helped her history teacher become a Mardi Gras queen. The occasion was a drag show fundraiser to help the school’s history quiz bowl team attend a competition in Washington, D.C. The fundraiser was a student idea, the school’s principal said, and was successful. The quiz bowl team will head to D.C. next week.
“It was a fun thing,” the senior at MCAA said, although it’s hard for her to remember it that way now. Because now, in the shadow of an Alabama election, she said that the fun event has been “weaponized” in a television advertisement by Tim James, a Republican candidate for governor. The advertisement, which incorrectly labels MCAA as “the first transgender public school in the South,” includes images of the fundraiser the senior had worked to make a success. The images showed staff and students, including the senior, their faces visible.
“I hope he’s ashamed”
The senior at MCAA, who CBS 42 has chosen not to identify by name, was one of the students visible in the ad. She said when she realized she was pictured, her heart sank.
“I didn’t process it immediately,” she said. “My initial reaction was to laugh because it’s such a ridiculous concept to attack a school that’s purpose is to avoid bullying people for something they can’t control.”
The senior, who identifies as queer, said Magic City Acceptance School is one of the best places she’s ever been. The public charter school, which labels itself as an LGBTQ-affirming learning environment, opened last year and serves students from all backgrounds. Transgender students make up less than 10% of the school’s student population, its principal said, and the majority of pupils at MCAA are not members of the LGBTQ community.
The senior wanted to attend MCAA because she’d been bullied at her previous school.
“I was facing a lot of ostracization, bullying, and just meanness directed at me and my friends,” she said. “I became desensitized to it because of how bad it was.”
One afternoon at her previous school, she was waiting to be picked up when a group of boys who had never been friendly threw a noose at her.
“You can go home and use this later,” she remembers them saying.
So when she heard about the opportunity to attend Magic City Acceptance Academy, she hopped on the opportunity. She hoped she’d be able to feel safe without needing to isolate herself.
She got that at MCAA.
“The first day I came here, I went home and cried because of how fantastic it was,” she said.
But now, the senior feels her school has been violated.
Since the release of Tim James’ gubernatorial ad, Magic City Acceptance Academy has increased security. The decision was a prudent one. On one occasion, a car drove by the school and its occupants yelled slurs at students outside the school. On another, a woman approached the school, filming its exterior, with a person waiting in a car nearby. When students noticed her, she ran away.
The senior was there for the second incident. She and her friends were eating lunch outside when the woman approached the school.
“While security was running after her, I pushed my friends to go inside,” she said. “It was a serious situation that could’ve ended in violence.”
She said before Tim James’ ad aired, she’d never felt unsafe at MCAA. Now, while she’s glad the school has increased security, she worried that “there’s still a threat of people coming around.” Her safe place has changed forever.
The senior said she wants the ad to be taken down.
“It’s misinformation, and it’s deplorable to act like being part of a minority group is some shameful thing,” she said. “It’s straight-up lying, and it’s embarrassing for him.”
She said that the advertisement stokes hatred and resentment and that she’s worried it could lead to violence against minorities.
“I hope to God it doesn’t turn violent,” she said, “but I am genuinely afraid that it will.”
At 18, this is the first election cycle in which the senior will be able to vote. She said she won’t be voting for Tim James, and he is unfit to be governor.
She has a message for James.
“I hope he’s ashamed of himself,” she said. “I hope he can learn from this experience. I hope he puts any amount of effort into educating himself, and I hope he can learn to stop attacking people for the sole reason that they are different than him.”
A mother’s story
The senior’s mom is an attorney, Kimberly Fasking. Three of her children attend MCAA.
When she saw the ad, she was sickened.
“I was beyond livid,” Fasking said. “As bad as the ad was — endangering the students and the faculty and staff — they’re specifically targeting my child.”
Like her daughter, she said the ad should be taken down.
“It’s disgusting and it’s ignorant and it’s hateful,” Fasking said. “Mr. James puts himself out there as a Christian, but this is certainly not anything that I think Jesus would approve of. I don’t remember him taunting and mocking people. I don’t remember those stories in the Bible.”
Fasking reached out to the James campaign to demand they pull the ad. In response, the James campaign “obscured” Fasking’s daughter but has continued to run the ads.
In a statement released to media outlets regarding the original ad, Tim James’ campaign doubled down on its claims.
“The principal said that the TV ad scared the children,” the statement said. “What should scare mothers and fathers of these children is what the faculty is doing by presenting this ungodly display through the drag show to which the children were subjected.”
Asked for comment on Fasking’s demands regarding the ad, Elizabeth Jordan, communications director for James, sent a 1,000-word response including a list of questions for Fasking, which can be read in full below.
Kimberly Fasking said the campaign’s response is a reflection of exactly who they are.
“They’re really excellent at being horribly hateful, disgusting people,” she said. “They want to play a semantic game about whether it was actually a cease and desist. Call it whatever you want. I sent them a letter demanding they stop using my child’s image in their hate ad.”
While they’ve obscured Fasking’s daughter’s image, the Tim James campaign has doubled down on their attacks. There’s now another video advertisement, titled “Exploitation,” and radio ads featuring MCAA.
Fasking hopes voters don’t fall for the ad when they head to the polls on May 24.
“Somebody with this much hate in his heart is not fit to lead the state of Alabama,” she said. “He doesn’t want these teachers around my children? I don’t want him around my children.”
In its response to questions about Fasking’s concerns, the James campaign said that if Fasking was “truly concerned about her child, she would remove her from the Magic City Acceptance Academy period.”
“My mom brought me to Magic City Acceptance Academy because she was concerned about me,” the senior said. “If they were concerned about children, they wouldn’t be attacking them. My mother is concerned about me. That’s why she’s keeping me in the school. To keep me safe from other people who, like the Tim James campaign, want me to stay quiet or just stop existing.”
The senior said she hopes that transgender people at MCAA and Alabama are able to stay safe and stay strong through the turmoil the ad has brought about.
“A trans person is a person, and they deserve to be able to live happily and freely,” she said. “They shouldn’t let bigots and attackers of children force them to live authentically or live in fear.” | https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/jesus-would-not-approve-targeted-by-an-alabama-political-ad-queer-student-and-mother-share-their-story/ | 2022-04-14T22:14:14 | 1 | https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/jesus-would-not-approve-targeted-by-an-alabama-political-ad-queer-student-and-mother-share-their-story/ |
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Preparations for the World Games 2022 continue as the city marks 84 days until the major event and CBS 42 is counting down the days!
Each day CBS 42 will feature a community member or someone tied to the event helping us countdown the days until the World Games begin. | https://www.cbs42.com/sports/world-games-2022/world-games-countdown-84-days/ | 2022-04-14T22:14:20 | 1 | https://www.cbs42.com/sports/world-games-2022/world-games-countdown-84-days/ |
Florida high school senior gets into 27 schools, including Ivy League
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG//Gray News) - A senior at a Florida high school has been admitted into all of the 27 schools he applied to. Among those include multiple Ivy League universities such as Harvard, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Jonathan Walker said he is ecstatic about his future.
“That’s such a rare thing to occur, but the fact that it did happen, I’m so excited about it,” Walker told WJHG.
The 18-year-old is in the International Baccalaureate Program, which means he completed college-level classes in his junior and senior years of high school. The program covers all subjects and gives students college credits after they complete multiple assessments.
He also loves sports and is on the school’s football team. Besides extracurricular activities and making time for a social life, Walker is also an inventor. He said he wants to help people, so he created a device that helps the deaf and blind. It’s currently in the process of being patented.
Walker said he made sure to take his time during the application process.
“It’s really just like writing a set of essays for one college and then tweaking them specifically for the colleges,” Walker said.
His advice for students applying to colleges is to make sure they are passionate and put in the hard work.
“Keep grinding no matter what,” Walker said.
Walker has received scholarship offers totaling over $4 million from all the schools. He is still deciding which school he will attend.
Copyright 2022 WJHG via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/florida-high-school-senior-gets-into-27-schools-including-ivy-league/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:17 | 0 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/florida-high-school-senior-gets-into-27-schools-including-ivy-league/ |
Friday Forecast: Still a bit cool...but a lot less wind
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - Quiet-but-cool weather should lead us into the Easter weekend...
Much of the region should get a break from the blustery conditions of the past several days...with much lighter winds expected for both Friday and Saturday. With that being said...temperatures will remain seasonably cool. Overnight lows in the 20s-to-lower 30s will remain through the weekend...with daytime highs expected to hold in the upper 40s-to-upper 50s for both Friday and Saturday. While not as windy...it won’t be “calm” either...with north-northeasterly winds of 8-to-18 mph and gusts to 25 mph quite common. There will be a chance for some light rain...maybe even some light snow...from late Saturday night and into Easter Sunday morning...with some rain showers still possible over eastern Nebraska even into the afternoon on Sunday. This disturbance should be a “minor” one...but may have a bit of an impact on anyone involved with sunrise church services on Easter Sunday...or Easter Egg hunts later in the day. Stay tuned for forecast updates going forward.
Lows tonight will drop into the teens...20s...and lower 30s again.
Highs on Friday will still be “seasonably” cool...but it will feel a little nicer because of lighter winds. Temperatures are expected to be in the 40s and 50s.
Saturday morning lows will still be quite chilly...with upper teens to upper 20s for most of us.
Highs on Saturday afternoon will stay in the mid 40s to mid 50s range across 10-11 Country.
Easter Sunday highs should return to the 50s and 60s...with the warmer readings in the western-half of the state...but we will have that precipitation chance during the day.
Our latest 7-Day Outlook includes cooler-than-average temperatures into early next week...the precipitation chance for Easter Sunday...then a return of more moderate temperatures and an additional moisture chance for Tuesday-Wednesday of next week.
Copyright 2022 KOLN. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/friday-forecast-still-bit-coolbut-lot-less-wind/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:19 | 1 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/friday-forecast-still-bit-coolbut-lot-less-wind/ |
GRAPHIC: Husband of Food Network star pleads guilty in 3-year-old’s beating death
GRAPHIC WARNING: The details of this story may disturb some readers.
GREENVILLE, S.C. (FOX Carolina/Gray News) – The husband of a Food Network star pleaded guilty Thursday to charges in the death of the couple’s 3-year-old foster daughter.
Jerry “Austin” Robinson pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting homicide by child abuse in the death of Victoria “Tori” Smith.
Prosecutors say Tori died in January 2021 after she was beaten by Ariel Robinson, the winner of season 20 of Food Network’s “Worst Cooks in America.”
Jerry Robinson will remain on house arrest until his wife’s trial.
Prosecutors said Jerry Robinson claims he never physically hurt Tori but told investigators Ariel Robinson would beat the child with different items, including a belt.
Ariel Robinson was angry with Tori the night before her death because she vomited on herself on the way to church, Jerry Robinson told investigators. The next morning, he said Ariel Robinson was frustrated with Tori for not eating her pancakes fast enough.
He described hearing Ariel Robinson giving Tori a “whooping” with a belt that was audible from outside the home. According to prosecutors, when Jerry Robinson went inside, he saw his wife standing over Tori with the belt, saying, “You don’t get to tell me when you’re done.”
Jerry Robinson claims he told his wife, “You’ve gone too far. You went too far this time.” He went to CVS to buy liquid Tylenol to try to bring Tori’s bruising down, attorneys said, and then gave the child an Epsom salt bath.
Jerry Robinson called 911 hours later, and when first responders arrived at the home, Tori was in cardiac arrest.
Jerry Robinson’s attorney asked the judge to take his cooperation with the investigation into account when considering sentencing. He faces 10 to 20 years minimum in prison. He will be sentenced after Ariel Robinson’s trial.
Ariel Robinson will go to trial on May 9.
Prosecutors asked for body camera footage from when first responders responded to the 911 call to be admissible in court during Ariel Robinson’s trial. The body camera footage captures first responders’ “horrified” reactions when they found the bruising on Tori’s body, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Ariel Robinson told first responders the bruising on Tori’s abdomen was caused by the force she used trying to do CPR. She claimed the bruising on Tori’s legs was caused by her then-7-year-old brother, according to prosecutors.
However, Ariel Robinson’s attorney has pushed for the body camera footage to be inadmissible since she was not read her Miranda Rights on the scene at the time.
The judge will decide Friday whether the body camera footage is admissible in Ariel Robinson’s trial.
Copyright 2022 WHNS via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/graphic-husband-food-network-star-pleads-guilty-3-year-olds-beating-death/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:22 | 1 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/graphic-husband-food-network-star-pleads-guilty-3-year-olds-beating-death/ |
New Jersey to start recreational marijuana sales April 21
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Recreational marijuana sales in New Jersey for those 21 and older will begin April 21, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday.
Murphy’s announcement on Twitter comes just three days after state regulators green lighted permits for seven facilities that already sell medical cannabis to begin retailing recreational marijuana.
“This is a historic step in our work to create a new cannabis industry,” Murphy said.
The news comes about a year after the state’s regulatory commission started operating, and a year and a half after voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot question to permit recreational marijuana for people 21 and older.
New Jersey is one of 18 states, along with the District of Columbia, that have legalized recreational marijuana. There also are 37 states, including New Jersey, that have legalized medical marijuana.
Three of the seven facilities, known as alternative treatment centers, are in the northern part of the state. Three are in the south, and one is in central New Jersey.
To get approval, the centers agreed that the coming influx of recreational buyers won’t interrupt access for patients. The facilities said they would reserve parking spaces for patients as well as keep hours specifically for patients only.
There are about 130,000 medical marijuana patients in the state, with an estimated roughly 800,000 potential recreational consumers, and fewer than 800,000 estimated “tourism” consumers, according to the commission.
The alternative treatment centers that already had medical cannabis retail sales are getting a head start in the recreational market, but regulators have attached strings to their advantage. The centers have to meet social equity standards, such as providing technical knowledge to new marijuana businesses, especially social equity applicants — those located in economically struggling parts of the state or people who have had cannabis-related offenses.
“We remain committed to social equity,” Cannabis Regulatory Commission Chair Dianna Houenou said in a statement. “We promised to build this market on the pillars of social equity and safety. Ultimately, we hope to see businesses and a workforce that reflect the diversity of the state.”
How much tax revenue New Jersey gets from recreational marijuana isn’t clear. Murphy’s fiscal year 2023 budget, which is pending before the Democrat-led Legislature, estimates revenues of just $19 million in a nearly $49 billion budget. In 2019, as legalization of recreational marijuana was still just pending before voters, he had estimated about $60 million in revenue.
Legislation governing the recreational market calls for the 6.625% sales tax to apply, with 70% of the proceeds going to areas disproportionately affected by marijuana-related arrests. Black residents were likelier — up to three times as much — to face marijuana charges than white residents. Towns can also levy a tax of up to 2%.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/new-jersey-start-recreational-marijuana-sales-april-21/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:31 | 1 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/new-jersey-start-recreational-marijuana-sales-april-21/ |
Police: 183 animals found in man’s freezer, some frozen alive
GOLDEN VALLEY, Ariz. (Gray News) - An Arizona man is facing animal cruelty charges after authorities found numerous dead animals in his freezer.
The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office said a woman reported that Michael Patrick Turland, 43, hadn’t returned snakes she’d lent him for breeding and that several animals, including hers, were located in his freezer.
According to police, the property owner told the woman that a freezer full of dead animals was found in the garage while they were cleaning after Turland and his wife, Brooklyn Beck, had left the state.
Deputies and Animal Control officers entered the property and said they located the freezer, which contained approximately 183 frozen animals of different breeds.
According to the sheriff’s office, dogs, turtles, lizards, birds, snakes and rabbits were among the animals found in the freezer. Several of the animals also appeared to have been frozen alive due to their body positioning.
On April 13, deputies were notified that Turland returned to the residence, where he was then taken into custody.
Police said the 43-year-old eventually admitted to placing some of the animals in the freezer when they were still alive.
Turland was arrested on 94 counts of animal cruelty. He was taken to the Mohave County Adult Detention Facility in Kingman, Ariz.
The sheriff’s office said it is also looking to speak to Turland’s wife regarding the incident.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/police-183-animals-found-mans-freezer-some-frozen-alive/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:38 | 0 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/police-183-animals-found-mans-freezer-some-frozen-alive/ |
The Scarlet Hotel opens on Innovation Campus
Published: Apr. 14, 2022 at 4:32 PM CDT|Updated: 43 minutes ago
LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - The Scarlet Hotel on Nebraska’s Innovation Campus opened its doors to guests for the first time Thursday.
The Marriott-operated boutique hotel includes a café, restaurant and rooftop bar for the public to enjoy.
On the walls, you’ll find art that reflects Nebraska. The 154 rooms are all named after Nebraska towns.
The $35 million project will eventually house the University of Nebraska’s Hospitality, Restaurant and Tourism Management program. Students will take classes there, participate in internships and even work for the hotel.
READ MORE: A sneak peek at the new Scarlet Hotel
Copyright 2022 KOLN. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/scarlet-hotel-opens-innovation-campus/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:45 | 1 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/scarlet-hotel-opens-innovation-campus/ |
Softball umpire speaks after parent attack leaves her with severe nerve damage
LAUREL, Miss. (WDAM/Gray News) - An umpire in Mississippi is speaking out while she recovers from being punched in the face after a softball game for 12-year-old children.
Kristie Moore was filling in for an umpire who got sick, something she said she has been doing for several years with 10 years of experience calling games.
However, during this game, the coach asked one of the athlete’s mothers to leave the game for excessive cursing. Instead of going home, the woman is accused of waiting to confront Moore after the game, punching her and then running away.
Moore told WDAM that the parent became irate after a call she made at second base, but the coaches and other officials had no opposition to the call.
The 10-year umpire said abuse to referees, whether physical or verbal, is becoming too familiar and leading to an umpire shortage.
“This is not a Laurel thing or a Mississippi thing,” Moore said. “This is a nationwide thing for officials across the board. It’s harder and harder, every weekend because of the abuse that umpires and officials across the board are experiencing.”
According to police, the parent in question, Kiara Thomas, was arrested after the incident and charged with simple assault.
Moore said she wants people to understand that umpires are just human.
“Officials in any sport are expected to be perfect and we’re not,” Moore said. “We never will be.”
Moore experienced a severe contusion and nerve damage in her left eye, but it won’t stop her from umpiring.
She hopes that her story will bring awareness to the umpire shortage and brings consequences for similar actions.
“There definitely needs to be stricter consequences and laws to stop and to deter this from happening to anyone else,” Moore said.
Earlier this year, a bill was introduced in the legislature that would make assaulting a referee or umpire a felony as aggravated assault. That bill, however, did not make the calendar.
Moore said she hopes after this incident lawmakers will take a second look at the bill.
Copyright 2022 WDAM via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/softball-umpire-speaks-out-after-parent-attack-leaves-her-with-severe-nerve-damage/ | 2022-04-14T22:16:51 | 1 | https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/14/softball-umpire-speaks-out-after-parent-attack-leaves-her-with-severe-nerve-damage/ |
Texas lawmakers respond as second bus of immigrants arrives in DC
A second bus of undocumented immigrants arrived in Washington from Texas Thursday. According to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), it’s part of his response to President Biden’s decision to end Title 42 expulsions.
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - A second bus of undocumented immigrants arrived in Washington from Texas Thursday. According to Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas), it’s part of his response to President Biden’s decision to end Title 42 expulsions.
Some Texas lawmakers support Gov. Abbott’s plan, but some of their colleagues are calling the bus trip a political stunt.
Noting that Texas is bearing the burden of an unsecured border, Gov. Greg Abbott began bussing migrants, who are awaiting deportation trials to Washington D.C.
Two buses have arrived so far, filled with only those who, according to Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), volunteered for the trip.
“[It] wouldn’t surprise me if we take people to Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, but we’re trying to move people to where they want to go as an option,” Sessions said. “I support what the governor is doing.”
But it’s the location: Washington D.C., that feeds into concerns that the bus trips are purely political.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said the governor is using the trips to make a political point, though he does agree with Abbott on some facets of immigration, such as his push to keep Title 42.
“He’s trying to get publicity. But, you know, that’s the whole key I think people need to understand that, that we at the border, we’re the ones that see the whole thing. We’re the ones who see the migrants,” Cuellar said.
Politically, this is all part of broader conflict at the border. Immigration has been one of the most divisive issues between the primary parties and it remains so, as the next election cycle nears.
Title 42 was first written decades ago to prevent sick immigrants from crossing the U.S. border. It was enforced during the coronavirus pandemic, but now, it’s set to end next month.
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