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Posted: Apr 6, 2022 / 11:16 PM EDT Updated: Apr 6, 2022 / 11:16 PM EDT SHARE Close Modal Suggest a Correction Your name(required) Your email(required) Report a typo or grammatical error(required) Submit Δ Suggest a Correction
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https://fox59.com/hoosier-lottery/daily-3-daily-4-evening-drawing-april-6-2022/
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https://fox59.com/hoosier-lottery/daily-3-daily-4-evening-drawing-april-6-2022/
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Volusia veterans homeless shelter gets key approval for new home
DAYTONA BEACH — A plan to create a new refuge for homeless veterans cleared a crucial hurdle this week.
At their meeting Tuesday, County Council members approved a rezoning for a 2.35-acre Derbyshire Road property just north of Daytona Beach city limits that's now able to become the home of a 20-bed shelter for both male and female veterans.
"I'm really happy to see this for the veterans," said County Chair Jeff Brower.
The property at 962 Derbyshire Road had been the longtime home of a church, and it's still owned by First United Methodist Church of Port Orange. But since 2012 it's been the home of the Derbyshire Place community center.
The faith-based community center is a ministry of the Port Orange Methodist church. Ownership of the property will now transfer via a quitclaim deed to Halifax Urban Ministries, a longtime local nonprofit that will run the veterans shelter.
The community center will continue to operate on the Derbyshire Road site even after Halifax Urban Ministries buys it, and plans are being made for how the property will be shared.
Read more about affordable housing in Daytona Beach:Daytona Beach's North Street could become site of new affordable apartments
Learn about other affordable housing efforts in Volusia County:Affordable housing, civil citations for kids discussed at annual FAITH rally
Other housing projects in Daytona Beach:New riverfront apartments and Beach Street makeover teed up for Commission votes
"Some (community center) services might be relocated," county Director of Growth and Resource Management Clay Ervin told Council members Tuesday.
Ervin noted that there will mainly be interior renovations to the complex of community center buildings, and the community garden on the site will remain. New landscaping will be added on the west side of the property to provide more of a buffer for single-family homes behind the community center, he said.
New chapter for Daytona veterans shelter
Halifax Urban Ministries already runs a homeless veterans shelter in a property it rents in Daytona Beach. That shelter one block west of Ridgewood Avenue will be transferring now to Derbyshire Road.
In the three years the Barracks of Hope veterans shelter has existed, it's operated in the high-crime North Street area.
"We've been looking for an opportunity to move the program," said Halifax Urban Ministries Executive Director Buck James. "This is an opportunity to move into a neighborhood, so we're excited about that."
The ability to move the Barracks of Hope, a nonprofit organization that provides transitional housing for veterans for up to nine months, was sparked by a $1 million federal grant that came out of COVID pandemic relief dollars.
Halifax Urban Ministries will use the federal money as well as an additional $1 million from the county government to move into its new home on Derbyshire Road.
The Veterans Administration provided the $1 million federal grant for the project, so the VA will need to OK the plan for the transitional housing. Like the current Barracks of Hope site, there will be 20 small apartments veterans can stay in until they find a permanent place to live.
The VA received the money from COVID relief funding, and the grant requires a commitment to create a facility less likely to transmit germs, so the design will include things such as new individual bathrooms for tenants.
The Derbyshire Place buildings will also undergo some minor exterior improvements and landscaping will be refurbished, James said.
He said an architect and engineer are already involved in the project, but there's no timetable yet for construction.
"It's a remodel, so it should be pretty quick," James said.
Halifax Urban Ministries signed the grant agreement with the VA in October. It's a 24-month agreement that requires the project to be completed by October 2023, James said.
Halifax Urban Ministries also remodeled an old elementary school off of Derbyshire Road that's now the home of the Hope Place homeless shelter for families. The new transitional housing for veterans will be just a half mile away.
Derbyshire Place community center staying put
Miguel Rodriguez will continue to be the executive director of Derbyshire Place after the new homeless veterans apartments are added. And the community center will continue to offer its wide array of free programs and assistance every week Monday through Saturday.
Derbyshire Place has a community garden, thrift store, food pantry, hot meals people pick up drive-through style on Friday nights, tutoring programs and spiritual guidance for kids, job assistance, a single mothers support group, computer classes, family movie nights and more.
"We expect to remain there and do the same things," Rodriguez said.
The community center, located a few blocks south of LPGA Boulevard, is needed in the Derbyshire neighborhood. The community has an unemployment rate that hovers around 10%, a median household income below $30,000 and low levels of higher education.
Rodriguez said the old church buildings were ready for an overhaul anyway. The kitchen will be renovated and fellowship hall will be converted into apartments.
He's not sure where in the three-building complex his office will be, and how his programs will be impacted by up to 20 veterans staying there. But he's not worried.
"We'll have to do some strategic planning," he said, noting the veterans can take advantage of his programs. "Things are still up in the air for planning and what the final product will be."
With the 20-bed space used by the Barracks of Hope expected to be vacant by the fall of 2023, the property owner of the North Street complex the veterans shelter is in now got to thinking about new ways to use the buildings.
For decades, the one-block section of North Street just west of Ridgewood Avenue has been the de facto homeless assistance headquarters in Daytona Beach. Now the Volusia-Flagler County Coalition for the Homeless is looking into turning its four connected North Street buildings into badly needed low-income housing, and relocating most all of the agencies and services in the aging structures now.
"It'd be a game changer for the neighborhood," said Jeff White, executive director of the Volusia-Flagler County Coalition for the Homeless.
In two or three years, that stretch of the road riddled with crime, drugs and crippling poverty could transform into something that would help stabilize the blighted neighborhood pulled down by the nearly constant presence of homeless people.
It could also become a place that helps struggling city residents in desperate need of affordable rental housing.
For now it's just an idea, and it will take some time to determine the viability of transforming the aging urban core property into affordable apartments.
You can reach Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com
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https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2022/04/06/daytona-beach-area-homeless-shelter-for-veterans-move/9466647002/
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MLB OPENING DAY: Volusia-Flagler-St. Johns' stars take field as Major League Baseball season begins
Play ball!
For a short time this spring, Opening Day looked like a longshot. Ugly labor negotiations between Major League Baseball's owners and its players' association dragged into the early days of March, but a deal was finally struck and — more importantly — regular-season games will take place.
To celebrate baseball's return, let's have a quick look at some of the Volusia-Flagler-St. Johns area's pros and forecast how their individual seasons could look.
OPENING DAY:MLB's lockout is mercifully over. Where do we go from here?
Daytona Tortugas:It's time for Daytona Tortugas baseball: Here's everything you need to know for the 2022 season
The big leaguers
Jacob deGrom, RHP, Mets: It will be a little while until Mets fans get to see the dream 1-2 punch of DeLand native deGrom and Max Scherzer at the top of the rotation. The Stetson and Calvary Christian product was diagnosed with a stress reaction in the scapula of his pitching shoulder, and the Mets announced a minimum four-week shutdown. When available in 2021, deGrom was electric on the mound — posting a 7-2 record with a 1.08 ERA and 146 strikeouts in 92 innings. He's declared plans to opt out of his contract at the conclusion of this season, meaning deGrom, who turns 34 in June, will need to demonstrate he is fully healthy and at his best in order to cash in on a potential mega-deal.
Logan Gilbert, RHP, Mariners: Stetson's former ace broke into the bigs last season and stuck in the Seattle rotation. Gilbert made 24 starts, going 6-5 with a 4.68 ERA, a 1.17 WHIP and averaging 9.7 strikeouts and 2.1 walks per nine innings. Entering his age-25 campaign, Gilbert slots in behind prized free-agent acquisition Robbie Ray, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, and left-handed stalwart Marco Gonzales.
Austin Hays, OF, Orioles: The Spruce Creek grad suited up for a career-high 131 games in the 2021 season and produced some quality numbers. He hit .256 with a .769 OPS, 22 home runs, 26 doubles and 71 RBIs. However, the analytics tell a slightly different tale. Hays ranked in the 37th percentile for hard-hit percentage, the 35th in expected batting average and the 8th in walk rate. Hays, who turns 27 in July, will make his third straight Opening Day start for the O's and hit in the middle of the order.
Corey Kluber, RHP, Rays: The two-time AL Cy Young winner has had horrible luck with injuries the last three seasons, limited to a total of 23 starts. For context, Kluber started 33 games in 2018 alone. In his lone campaign for the Yankees, the Stetson product went 5-3 with a 3.83 ERA and 82 strikeouts in 80 innings. Notably, Kluber tossed the 12th no-hitter in team history last May, haunting one of his former teams, the Texas Rangers. Tampa's unorthodox approach to starting pitching might work in Kluber's favor, keeping him fresher for the long haul. He signed a one-year deal in December worth $8 million, including $5 million in incentives.
Luke Weaver, RHP, Diamondbacks: Since joining the D'backs in December 2018 as part of the Paul Goldschmidt trade, Weaver has made 37 starts on the mound. However, the DeLand High grad will begin this season in the bullpen, manager Torey Lovullo said Monday. Weaver's velocity fluctuated from inning to inning this spring, and Lovullo believes he is better suited to get outs in short spurts. Turning 28 in August, Weaver is coming off a season in which he had a 3-6 record with a 4.25 ERA and 62 Ks in 65⅔ innings.
On the cusp
Kyle Bird, LHP, Mariners: Last appearing in the majors in 2019, Flagler College product Bird spent last year in Japan playing for the Hiroshima Carp. He signed a minor league deal in March, being assigned to Triple-A Tacoma and appearing twice in spring training.
Josh Dye, LHP, Royals: The starting pitcher for DeLand's 2014 state semifinal game, Dye thrived out of the bullpen in Double-A last season. He made 38 appearances for Northwest Arkansas, going 9 for 9 in save opportunities and adding four wins while posting a 2.52 ERA. Dye, 25, earned a non-roster invitation to spring training and figures to start 2022 at Triple-A Omaha.
Nick Fortes, C, Marlins: Fortes swung a hot stick when called up to the majors for the first time last September. The DeLand grad bashed four home runs in his first 34 career plate appearances and ended the season with a .290 average in the majors. Of course, that trend is unlikely to be sustainable considering Fortes totaled 10 home runs over 655 minor league ABs prior to that. Still, he'll start at Triple-A Jacksonville and be just a phone call away from a return to the majors.
Justin Lawrence, RHP, Rockies: Optioned to Colorado's Triple A affiliate in Albuquerque over the weekend, former Daytona State pitcher Lawrence saw action in six spring training games. He struggled across 19 appearances in relief for the major league club, walking 19 hitters and conceding 16 earned runs. For Albuquerque, he racked up 13 saves in 20 chances and went 6-5 with a 4.73 ERA.
Jack López, IF/OF, Tigers: Deltona High grad López enjoyed a career renaissance in 2021, finally cracking the majors with the Boston Red Sox and winning a silver medal for Team USA at the Tokyo Olympics. López slashed .285/.355/.413 in the minors last season. A breakout campaign at age 28 landed López a contract with the Detroit Tigers and an invitation to spring training. He is expected to start with Triple-A Toledo.
Patrick Mazeika, C, Mets: Selected out of Stetson in the eighth round of the 2015 draft, Mazeika is a career .278 hitter with a .799 OPS across 1,981 minor league plate appearances. He finally made it to the Big Apple in 2021 and helped the Mets win twice with bizarre walkoff fielder's choices. In total, Mazeika batted .190 with one home run, six RBIs and six runs scored. He'll head back to Triple-A Syracuse, stuck behind the backstop pairing of James McCann and Tomas Nido.
Brooks Wilson, RHP, Braves: A crucial member of Stetson's super regionals squad, as a closer and designated hitter, Wilson might prove to be an $80,000 bargain for the reigning World Series champs. Atlanta added the 26-year-old reliever to its 40-man roster in November on the heels of a dominant Double-A season (73 strikeouts, 2.45 ERA in 44 innings).
Further down the farm
Logan Allen, LHP, Guardians: The three-time News-Journal Baseball Player of the Year breezed through A-ball and had the best ERA in Cleveland's farm system in 2021 (2.26). He went 9-0 in 21 appearances (19 starts), striking out 143 batters in 111⅓ innings. Allen's fastball velocity has ticked up, now sitting between 90-94 mph, in addition to a plus changeup and an effective slider.
Jack Perkins, RHP, Phillies: Running mates with Gilbert at the top of Stetson's 2018 rotation, Perkins competed at three different levels of the minors last year. The 24-year-old went 3-6 with a 4.74 ERA in 23 appearances (20 starts), picking up 89 Ks in 100⅔ innings.
Demetrius Sims, IF, Marlins: Of Bethune-Cookman's three active pros in MLB farm systems, two of them are within the Miami Marlins organization. Sims saw action in 81 games for Double-A Pensacola last year, hitting .196 and swiping 17 bags. The 26-year-old split time at second base, third base and shortstop last season.
Zac Veen, OF, Rockies: It was a promising pro debut for Veen, the No. 9 pick in 2020 out of Spruce Creek. The 20-year-old slashed .301/.399/.501, homered 15 times, drove in 75 runs, drew 64 walks and stole 36 bases. MLB Pipeline ranks the 6-foot-4, 180-pound Veen as the No. 36 prospect in all of baseball, and scouts believe he is just scratching the surface of his offensive potential.
Jacob Young, OF, Nationals: Last year's seventh-round pick out of Florida, Young debuted for Low-A Fredericksburg in mid-August. The Ponte Vedra grad had 21 hits in 101 at-bats (.208 average), including six doubles. A return trip to Fredericksburg makes sense for the 22-year-old.
Notable Tortugas alumni
Amir Garrett, LHP, Royals: After making 219 appearances out of the Reds' bullpen the past four seasons, Garrett was shipped to Kansas City in a one-for-one trade for veteran starter Mike Minor. The 6-foot-5, 239-pound southpaw struggled in 2021, sporting a 6.04 ERA and 1.57 WHIP. Garrett's swing-and-miss rate checked out in the 91st percentile, but he walked 5.5 batters per nine and gave up lots of hard-hit balls (3rd percentile).
Jimmy Herget, RHP, Angels: The former USF pitcher slammed the door 24 times in 27 chances for the Tortugas in 2016. He's had three stints in the majors, taking the mound for the Reds, Rangers and Angels. Herget pitched 14 times for L.A. last year, going 2-2 with a 4.30 ERA and 18 Ks in 14⅔ innings.
Jonathan India, 2B, Reds: Few could have predicted the sort of immediate impact India would make. The former No. 5 pick out of Florida played 150 games, slashed .269/.376/.459 and won the National League's Rookie of the Year award. He crushed 21 home runs, roped 34 doubles and stole 12 bases. Ownership trimmed the Reds' payroll under $100 million, but India is a surefire everyday player for the present and future.
Tyler Mahle, RHP, Reds: The 27-year-old was among 16 pitchers in Major League Baseball to surpass 200 strikeouts last season. Mahle, a 4.9 WAR performer in 2021, went 13-6 with a 3.75 ERA, a solid number considering the Reds call the hitter-friendly Great American Ball Park home. Mahle generated reported trade interest from the Mets, but Reds GM Nick Krall said last month he does not expect to part with him or fellow starter Luis Castillo.
Jose Siri, OF, Astros: Siri's tenure in Daytona was relatively short (30 games) and far less memorable than his time in Dayton, where he set a Midwest League record with a 37-game hitting streak. He logged 14 postseason at-bats for Houston as it returned to the World Series, driving in three runs. During the 2021 regular season, Siri hit .318 in the minors and .304 in the majors, totaling 20 home runs and 27 stolen bases.
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https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/sports/mlb/2022/04/06/think-florida-has-mlb-talent-degrom-kluber-and-gilbert-just-few-names-volusia-flagler-st-johns/9466675002/
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C.E.R.T. partners with RPS to improve behavioral issues
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Rochester’s Community Engagement Response Team (C.E.R.T.) will soon have a presence in Rochester Public Schools (RPS).
“We are a solution-based organization,” said Andre Crockett, C.E.R.T. leader.
C.E.R.T. is a group of volunteers who help alleviate issues within the community.
Last summer, the group patrolled downtown weekends night to prevent violence. The initiative began after a fatal shooting in downtown Rochester last June.
The organization has grown from around six members to around 30.
By the end of April, C.E.R.T. will mentor RPS students to help them resolve problems effectively.
“We’re going to develop a Junior C.E.R.T. program. And what that entails is that we’re going to bring inclusivity. We’re going to bring a non-violent approach,” Crockett said. “Bringing back the sense of community within inside the schools.”
The schools involved are Willow Creek Middle School, John Marshall, and Mayo High School.
The district said the program is a way to lower behavioral problems in schools.
“The question of why schools across the country we are seeing disruptive behavior is super complex,” said Kent Pekel, RPS superintendent. “Is it the impact of the pandemic? Is it the aftermath of the struggles that followed George Floyd’s murder? Is it the economic challenges families are facing? And it’s probably all of the above.”
He said the schools are doing their part to help students feel comfortable inside buildings.
“If kids do not feel they really belong. If they don’t feel positively engaged. If they don’t feel that school is meaningful that disruptive behaviors are very likely to increase. So we’re doing a lot inside the schools to enhance their sense of belonging,” Pekel said. “While we are still putting very clear expectations on behaviors we’re also going to lean in to support and this new partnership with CERT is one example of the support we’re trying to put in place.”
Pekel also emphasized the need for students to have more positive role models of color inside schools.
“The schools in terms of our staff are not as diverse as they should be or as they need to be and in our new strategic plan we are going to be working on very very hard to increase the diversity of our staff,” he said.
Crockett believes with extra attention and guidance, students can be motivated to be better versions of themselves.
“If we give the kids the opportunity to lead community engagement activities. I think that we’ll see the empowerment, and we can see the change they can bring forth with their peers inside the schools,” he said.
C.E.R.T. will only be at three RPS schools for the rest of the school year as a pilot program. If the program is successful, it could continue into next year.
Copyright 2022 KTTC. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/cert-partners-with-rps-improve-behavioral-issues/
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Future of Silver Lake in contention at public meeting Wednesday
ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – On Wednesday night, the City of Rochester provided the public with the latest on its plans to renovate Silver Lake. The renovations include dredging of 200,000 cubic yards of sediment material, as well as updates to the lake’s dam and renovations to its surrounding trails and bridges.
“What we’re looking at, by doing this project, is opportunities to increase recreational and environmental opportunities along the Silver Lake corridor,” said Matt Crawford, a project development manager with Rochester.
The city said the lake will remain intact. However, members of the public, such as Friends of Silver Lake Group co-founder, Greg Munson doesn’t believe the city’s proposal is the truth.
“There is a general sense of lack of trust in the city, especially the park department, for the projects that they take on,” said Munson.
According to Munson, an overwhelming majority of the people at the meeting Wednesday night did not support the city’s proposals.
“Right now, the parks department has plans to totally eliminate soldiers field golf course, totally eliminate silver lake pool, and totally eliminate silver lake dam. And they’re not really that interested in the input from people on any of those including this project,” said Munson.
The city said the meeting’s purpose was to address these concerns about the potential development plans.
“Answer the questions that people will have so that there’s not rumors and misinformation flying out there,” said Rochester Mayor Kim Norton
The city estimates the project to cost more than $23 million.
“The parks department has some money to work with, as does the city, but on projects like this, you typically ask the state for help and support,” said Norton.
Copyright 2022 KTTC. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/future-silver-lake-contention-public-meeting-wednesday/
| 2022-04-07T05:10:14
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US experts wrestle with how to update COVID-19 vaccines
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials are beginning to grapple with how to keep the vaccines updated to best protect Americans from the ever-changing coronavirus.
On Wednesday, a panel of vaccine advisers to the Food and Drug Administration spent hours debating key questions for revamping the shots and conducting future booster campaigns. They didn’t reach any firm conclusions.
The questions facing the experts included: How often to update the vaccines against new strains, how effective they should be to warrant approval and whether updates should be coordinated with global health authorities.
Last week, the FDA authorized a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines for anyone 50 or older and for some younger people with severely weakened immune systems. It’s an effort to get ahead of another possible surge.
But the FDA’s vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks acknowledged at the meeting “we simply can’t be boosting people as frequently as we are.” He called the latest booster update a “stopgap” measure to protect vulnerable Americans while regulators decide whether and how to tweak the current vaccines.
Marks cautioned that waning vaccine protection, new variants and colder weather in the fall could raise the risk of more surges.
“Our goal here is to stay ahead of future variants and outbreaks and ensure we do our best to reduce the toll of disease and death due to COVID-19,” said Marks, adding that he expects more meetings of the vaccine panel in coming months.
Some of the key questions the panel discussed:
HOW SHOULD THE U.S. DECIDE WHEN TO LAUNCH FUTURE ROUNDS OF BOOSTER SHOTS?
One area where experts appeared to agree is that vaccines should be judged on their ability to prevent severe disease that leads to hospitalization and death.
“We need to focus on the worst case, which is severe disease, and we need to change strains when we’re losing that battle,” said Dr. Mark Sawyer of the University of California, San Diego.
By that measure, the current vaccines have held up remarkably well.
During the last omicron-driven surge, two vaccine doses were nearly 80% effective against needing a breathing machine or death — and a booster pushed that protection to 94%, federal scientists recently reported.
But only about half of Americans eligible for a third shot have gotten one. And many experts said it was unsustainable to continue asking Americans to get boosted every few months.
A panelist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the 80% protection from severe disease could become the standard for evaluating the vaccines.
“I think we may have to accept that level of protection and then use other alternative ways to protect individuals with therapeutics and other measures,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, CDC’s chief medical officer.
Presentations at the meeting by government health officials and independent researchers underscored the challenges of predicting when the next major COVID-19 variant might appear.
Trevor Bedford, a disease modeler with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said a major new strain like omicron could emerge anywhere from every 1.5 years to once a decade, based on currently available data. Given that unpredictability, researchers will need methods to quickly determine whether current vaccines work against emerging variants.
WHAT’S THE PROCESS FOR UPDATING VACCINES TO ADDRESS NEW VARIANTS?
All three COVID-19 vaccines now used in the U.S. are based on the original coronavirus version that emerged in late 2019. Updating the vaccines will be a complex task, likely requiring coordination between the FDA, manufacturers and global health authorities.
To speed the vaccines to market, the FDA relied on research shortcuts to judge effectiveness, mainly looking at their early impact on the immune system’s antibody levels. A number of panelists said Wednesday they wanted more rigorous data from studies that track patients over time to see who gets sick or dies.
But that approach would likely be too time consuming.
“We’re looking at a conundrum here in that it’s going to be hard to generate all the data we want in short order when a new variant emerges,” said Dr. Ofer Levy of Harvard Medical School.
A representative for the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority laid out the narrow window that manufacturers could face to reformulate, study and mass produce an updated vaccine by September.
“If you’re not on your way to a clinical trial by the beginning of May, I think it’s going to be very difficult to have enough product across manufacturers to meet demand,” said Robert Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of BARDA.
The process for updating annual flu vaccines offers one possible model, as laid out by a representative from the World Health Organization.
Twice a year, WHO experts recommend updates to flu vaccines to target emerging strains. The FDA then brings those recommendations to its own vaccine panel, which votes on whether they make sense for the U.S., setting the stage for manufacturers to tweak their shots and begin mass production.
But COVID-19 hasn’t yet fallen into a predictable pattern like the flu. And as the coronavirus evolves, different strains may become dominant in different regions of the world.
Several experts said they would need more meetings with more data and proposals from the FDA to decide on a strategy.
“We’ve never been here before. We’re all working together to do the best we can and it’s very complex,” said Oveta Fuller of the University of Michigan’s Medical School.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/us-experts-wrestle-with-how-update-covid-19-vaccines/
| 2022-04-07T05:10:18
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| 2022-04-07T05:15:08
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Digital & Mobile
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Print, Digital & Project Center
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Enter your user name and password in the fields above to gain access to the subscriber content on this site.
Your subscription includes one set of login credentials for your exclusive use. Security features have been integrated on this site: If someone signs in with your credentials while you are logged in, the site will automatically close your ongoing login and you will lose access at that time.
To inquire about group subscriptions or an enterprise site license for your organization, contact Joe Owens or by phone at 504.293.9207.
If you feel your login credentials are being used by a second party, contact customer service at 877-615-9536 for assistance in changing your password.Already a paid subscriber but not registered for online access yet? For instructions on how to get premium web access, click here.
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(The Hill) – The Senate will confirm Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to be the first Black, female Supreme Court justice on Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) locked in a deal — which requires the buy-in of all 100 senators — to hold an initial vote on Jackson’s nomination around 11 a.m. on Thursday. After that, Schumer said he expected a final vote to confirm Jackson to take place around 1:45 p.m., depending on how long senators want to speak before the vote.
“We have reached an agreement for the Senate to conclude the confirmation process of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson tomorrow,” Schumer said.
“It will be a joyous day. Joyous for the Senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America,” he added. “America tomorrow will take a giant step to becoming a perfect nation.”
Jackson’s confirmation vote will hand both President Biden and Senate Democrats a significant win and mark the pinnacle of their efforts to put their own stamp on the federal judiciary.
Though Justice Stephen Breyer has said he will not retire until the summer, Thursday’s vote will also cap off a weeks-long sprint since Biden nominated Jackson to be Breyer’s successor.
Jackson’s confirmation will be historic on multiple fronts: In addition to being the first Black, female Supreme Court justice, she will also be the first justice to have been a former public defender.
Thursday’s vote means that Republicans agreed to speed up her confirmation. Under Senate rules, GOP senators could have delayed a final vote until Friday by requiring an additional 30 hours of debate. But top Republicans indicated earlier Wednesday that their caucus would yield back some time, as senators are eager to leave for a two-week break.
Though Jackson’s nomination included moments of high-profile tensions with GOP senators, she was widely expected from the outset to be confirmed.
Democrats could confirm her on their own as long as all 50 members of their caucus supported her, as is expected.
In addition to all Democrats, three GOP senators will vote for Jackson on Thursday: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah).
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| 2022-04-07T05:18:19
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CHICAGO RIDGE, Ill. — A Chicago Ridge family is breathing a sigh of relief after a stolen Make-A-Wish gift with sentimental value was returned.
Jamie Watson tells WGN News that a red pickup truck, restored by the Make-A-Wish Foundation for her teenage son battling a rare blood disease, was located Tuesday night after the family received an anonymous tip of the vehicle’s whereabouts.
The family says they called the authorities and the truck, located at 56th and Winchester in Englewood, was towed back to their residence.
Last July, WGN News spoke with 18-year-old Jacob Watson, who wished to restore his grandfather’s pickup after his passing in 2015.
“When he got sick and did pass away, he mentioned he wanted Jake to have it,” Jacob’s mother said.
Someone stole the pickup truck from the parking lot at Wintrust Sports Arena in Bedford Park during a volleyball game on Sunday.
“It was a rollercoaster of emotions,” Jacob said. “I was pretty down at the beginning. It’s hard to keep hope when you don’t know what’s going on at all.”
Information from an unknown caller restored Jacob’s faith.
“I have no clue how it happened. I don’t understand any part of it,” he said. “I honestly think this is God working his magic and he just wanted me to have my stuff back.”
The recovered truck is a little muddier than Jacob left it and it’s minus one window but Jacob’s uncle is working to repair the damage. The teen adds that his grandfather’s cross, which he kept tucked away and out of sight, will now hang from the truck’s rear-view mirror.
“I’m not sure if they were sending a message or not but that’s the way I’m going to take it,” he said.
Jacob’s mother says she is thankful that someone decided to do right by her son.
“I really think somebody had a heart, I really do,” Jamie Watson said. “They saw this story and I think that’s why it’s here.”
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| 2022-04-07T05:18:25
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This story originally published online at NC Policy Watch.
A UNC-Chapel Hill investigation of its own faculty was much wider and deeper than previously disclosed, according to new documents released under state open records law .
Documents released last week show the probe went beyond reading faculty members’ emails to searching backup systems on their computers. It may have included as many as 22 separate faculty members.
As Policy Watch reported last August, UNC-Chapel Hill launched an investigation into a leaked donor agreement that included examining faculty member emails without their knowledge and asking them to sit for questioning.
At issue: the agreement between the university and Walter Hussman, the wealthy Arkansas media magnate whose $25 million pledge to the university’s journalism school led to it being renamed for him.
Hussman was at the center of the controversy over a tenure vote in the university’s failed attempt to hire Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. When it was revealed Hussman lobbied against Hannah-Jones’s hire behind the scenes and had confidential details of the hiring process students, faculty and alumni began asking larger questions about his relationship with the university.
The Hussman contract, which the university considers confidential, was published by the News & Observer on July 14. The university announced an investigation two days later, seeking to determine how the paper got the document.
The university argues any leaked donor agreement endangers the confidentiality of all such contracts, which could in turn have a chilling effect on donations.
By the time the university launched its investigation, the Hussman document had been shared widely, including on a faculty email listserv where dozens of faculty members could access and forward it.
As Policy Watch reported, the school asked to question at least two professors in the journalism school Deb—Aikat and Daniel Kreiss—as part of its investigation. Kreiss declined. As part of his questioning, Aikat learned the university had accessed his university emails without his knowledge.
The revelation led to swift condemnation from staff, open government advocates and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which sent a letter to Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz warning the investigation appeared violate the First Amendment rights of faculty members.
“I have been at this university for 27 years,” Aikat told Policy Watch Wednesday. “I have never seen such illicit overreach. And for what?”
The new documents, released last week in response to public records requests filed seven months ago, show the investigation went well beyond Kreiss and Aikat and beyond the reading of faculty email.
In an email to fellow faculty Wednesday, Kreiss said what they reveal has “sweeping and disturbing implications for faculty, staff, and research at this institution.”
“As a reminder, all of this was ostensibly in pursuit of an inquiry into a leaked donor agreement that the University later admitted was a public record,” Kreiss wrote. “As reporting and a letter by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has made clear, the University has never presented any evidence, nor has there ever been any evidence produced more generally, that these Hussman faculty had access to the donor agreement before the media.”
The university’s accessing faculty data without their knowledge has worrying implications beyond this donor agreement, Kreiss said.
“I run a center that works on extremism,” Kreiss said. “I have a lot of data that is sensitive, that includes data under NDAs from major platform companies, stored on my computer. I was not aware that data would have a lot more touch-points.”
Kreiss said experience of being targeted in this investigation, and the disrespect with which faculty has been treated throughout this controversy, has had real consequences for faculty morale and confidence in the university’s commitment to its mission.
“I’m one of the initiative co-leads for the UNC Strategic Plan around promoting democracy,” Kreiss said. “I resigned from that today.”
The revelations of these new documents had a direct impact on that decision, Kreiss said.
“If we don’t have basic principles of transparency and due process in faculty governance and public justification and accountability with our faculty and staff, how can I in good faith promote democracy on campus?” Kreiss said.
Ryan Thornburg, an associate professor at the university’s journalism school, is part of a collective that requested the documents along with a number of reporters and organizations seven months ago.
Though the documents were highly redacted by the university before their release, they show that former university provost Bob Blouin repeatedly signed off on the widening of the investigation shortly after it was announced. The extent of Blouin’s involvement was not revealed by the university during the initial investigation.
The email chain in the new documents shows communications between Blouin, General Counsel Charles Marshall and senior university counsel Kara Simmons. Everything Marshall wrote was redacted from the newly released documents, but the emails show Simmons asking to add names to the list of those being investigated and for access to their Microsoft Office 365 cloud storage space and a separate backup system. Blouin repeatedly approved.
Using a formula taking into account the number of characters redacted from emails requesting access to specific accounts and the average length of faculty members named, Thornburg said he was able to estimate that as many as 22 faculty members may have been targeted in the probe.
“In my mind, it’s important to understand when a government agency is using its power to monitor communications of academics and journalists,” Thornburg told Policy Watch Wednesday.
“It’s too bad the University took seven months to respond to the records request, but it is not unusual,” Thornburg said. “I do think this is in some part due to the volume of requests, but I also believe it is part of the University’s strategic communication plan. That plan may be very effective in the short run, but in the long run I worry that it erodes the public’s trust and patience.”
Thornburg said that when he files a public records request, he doesn’t assume anything about the response except that it will be timely and complete. In this case, he said, the university’s response—seven months in coming and highly redacted—was neither.
Policy Watch recently received documents from UNC-Chapel Hill and the UNC System pertaining to public records requests filed as long as two years ago. Those requests were handled at the UNC System level.
“It’s also too bad they finally got around to sharing this information during what was supposed to be a week of major celebration for the School,” Thornburg said. “We are inducting new members into our halls of fame and dedicating a new building that caps years of work by a lot of generous and hard-working people. But, perhaps, we can see this effort to improve transparency and accountability of an important and powerful government institution as a celebration that we live the values we teach here.”
The university swiftly launched an investigation into how the Hussman agreement was made public. But no comparable investigation appears to have been launched into how Hussman, an alum outside of the hiring process, was given access to confidential information and documents in Hannah-Jones’s hiring process. That same information, part of a confidential personnel process, was not available to reporters or the general public.
Thornburg, who has been part of hiring processes at UNC-Chapel Hill, said he always keeps such information confidential. It isn’t clear why Hannah-Jones’s information was not similarly kept within the process, Thornburg said.
“You want our alumni to be engaged, but you also have to draw a line at some point,” Thornburg said.
That line generally does and should include things like details of hiring decisions and research, Thornburg said.
“We’re obviously still working on where that line is,” he said.
It’s possible, Thornburg said, that university administrators did communicate to Hussman that confidentiality should limit their communications with Hussman on Hannah-Jones. If that happened, no such documentation of it has yet been found.
“I do worry about the inability of our leadership to draw lines where I think they should be drawn,” Thornburg said.
Kreiss agreed.
“If you are really concerned with anything that is corrosive, with making public private information, you would start with confidential personnel information being given to someone outside of the personnel process,” Kreiss said.
“I have to assume that these same practices, policies and informal agreements are still in place in terms of donors and donor influence in various aspects of the university’s life, because I haven’t seen any indication that’s changes,” Kreiss said. “I’ve seen far more resources and time devoted to going after faculty members around the supposed leak of information on a donor agreement than has been put into questions about our tenure and hiring processes, who has access to that information and whether it is in fact confidential.”
Aikat said both the investigation into faculty and Hussman’s access to hiring and tenure information set terrible precedents.
“If we are not told when investigators may be accessing the information in our e-mails and on our computers, without our knowledge and without any warning, if we don’t even know who has this access, how can we have confidence that we can keep confidential the things that should be confidential?” Aikat said. “And if donors can be given access to information they tell us should be confidential without our knowledge and without any consequence or investigation or anything, how can anyone who applies for a position or undergoes the tenure process believe that it is confidential and that it is fair?”
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https://indyweek.com/news/orange/documents-show-new-details-in-sweeping-faculty-investigation/
| 2022-04-07T05:40:37
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More than 100 Raleigh residents turned out at the Wake County Board of Commissioners meeting Monday to ask officials for relief from skyrocketing property taxes.
The cohort were all members of ONE Wake, a grassroots community group calling for a program that offers payments to people who have owned their homes for at least 10 years and earn less than 80 percent of the area median income. The program would cover any and all property taxes that exceed 2 percent of qualifying homeowners' annual income.
That goes much farther than existing relief programs, which limit aid based on both income level and age, disability, or veteran status. In a discussion last month, some commissioners seemed reluctant to commit to a tax grant program, which would offer the kind of direct aid ONE Wake is asking for. Commissioners asked staff to explore other options for keeping housing affordable, such as the creation of a community land trust, a homeowner care fund, or a foreclosure prevention fund.
Many residents who spoke at the meeting Monday reflected on their circumstances in detail, describing how existing programs are not helping them. Leslie Fox, who (for now) lives on Haynes Street in Raleigh, spoke about how health problems cut her career short in 2012, leaving her with a house that had expenses greater than her income.
Fox was "livid" when she found out she was ineligible for the state's existing relief program because of her disability benefits, she said. Without disability, her taxable income is $8,500 a year.
"I have had to rent out a portion of my house to take care of my house and stay in my house, and meanwhile my property taxes have skyrocketed," she said. "There's not gonna be any way I can stay in it without property tax relief. I expect that my property taxes are gonna go up, probably another $3,000 with the next valuation."
Elaine Peebles-Brown, a fourth-generation Wake County resident and leading ONE Wake advocate, talked about how she wants to keep her home in the family.
"My granddaughter would like to move here from Maryland and continue her career in education. She would be the sixth generation of the Peebles family. But the escalating property taxes are making it extremely difficult," Peebles-Brown said.
She added that she would be happy to work with the commissioners to help "craft a solution" that works for everyone.
Members of ONE Wake were optimistic and positive when speaking to the commissioners, talking about how they wanted to bring the community together and support their neighbors. So far, commissioners seem willing to work with them.
Also Monday, the board voted unanimously to again rename the public library in the Village District south of Wade Avenue, the largest in the county.
Commissioners changed the name from Village Regional Library to "Oberlin Regional Library," taking another step toward racial equity.
Most people know the library by its earlier name, Cameron Village Library. The name of the shopping center and library was changed last year after it came to light that the Cameron family for which the center was named were slave-owners.
Cameron Village was rechristened simply "The Village," a name that is innocuous at best and meaningless at worst. At the time, some North Carolinians questioned why the owners of the shopping center hadn't taken the opportunity to recognize nearby Oberlin Village, a historic Black community.
Oberlin Village was originally founded in the late 1860s when former slaves, freed during or after the Civil War, settled there. It soon grew into a thriving African American community that today is home to some of the area's oldest homes and churches.
Now, library staff will develop an exhibit inside the institution to educate visitors about the history of Oberlin Village and why the library's name was changed, according to a news release.
“By honoring this community and the people who lived there, we are recognizing and celebrating a very important part of Wake County’s rich history,” said Commissioner Matt Calabria in the release.
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https://indyweek.com/news/wake/raleigh-residents-keep-the-pressure-on-for-property-tax-relief/
| 2022-04-07T05:40:43
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Even with constant weather interruptions, Vardaman’s baseball team has been consistently good.
The Rams are 13-2, including a 6-0 mark in Division 4-1A. They’ve endured several rainouts, often going nearly a week between games.
“We’re fortunate to be where we are given the circumstances we’ve been dealt at times early on in the season,” coach Josh Warren said. “When we get out there, we’re good.”
Vardaman has indeed been good in all phases. It’s batting .347 as a team, has stolen 71 bases, and the pitching staff has a 1.58 ERA. The lead horse has been junior pitcher and third baseman Chipper Moore: He leads the team with a .487 batting average, 11 extra-base hits, 21 RBIs, 23 runs scored and 11 stolen bases. On the mound, he’s 6-0 with a 0.82 ERA and 69 strikeouts in 34 innings.
“He pitches all our big games,” Warren said. “We ride him, for sure, against our tougher opponents. And we love to see his spot due up in the lineup, because he’s going to give us a chance with something.
“… He has more productive at-bats than anybody I’ve had the privilege of coaching.”
Entering the season, Warren thought he would have to count heavily on the top half of his batting order, but the 5-through-9 hitters have proved quite productive. Three freshmen have come up big in Bentley Hamilton, Josh Jenkins and Brady White.
“The bottom of the order has been really surprising. Lot of young guys, lot of inexperience, so I wasn’t expecting them to be as good as they are,” Warren said.
Vardaman closes out division play next week with two games against Hamilton, which is also unbeaten in 4-1A.
Class 7A vote today
The Mississippi High School Activities Association’s executive committee will vote today on adding a seventh classification.
The committee first discussed the proposal two months ago. The tentative plan was to have the state’s 24 largest schools comprise Class 7A, with the same number for 6A and 5A. Classes 4A, 3A and 2A would have approximately 40 schools apiece, and the rest would fall into 1A.
Mississippi went to a sixth classification in 2009. Three area schools – Oxford, Starkville and Tupelo – are in 6A. Starkville and Tupelo would be in 7A if the proposal passes, and Oxford likely would as well.
Coaching moves
After one season, Oxford softball coach Kyle Long is leaving for family reasons.
Long will resign at season’s end with plans to return to the Coast area. He was head coach at East Central in Moss Point for 12 years before coming to Oxford.
Also resigning after the season is Hatley baseball coach Jamie Edwards, who will be headed to Itawamba AHS for an administrative position. Edwards has led the Tigers the last three years.
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| 2022-04-07T06:01:08
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Person hurt after shooting at Town Center at Boca Raton
Gunfire shut down the Town Center at Boca Raton mall and surrounding roads Wednesday evening.
"Somebody was buying something, and I was scanning their stuff and then as I was scanning it I hear a loud gunshot," said a mall employee who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. "I was scared I literally thought I was gonna die, I was crying I called my mom and told her I loved her."
Boca Raton police said one person was shot in the leg.
"I just see everybody rushing and running and people running into my store and that freaked me out so I locked the gate and I told everybody to run in the back," said the mall employee.
For Chris Figua, a William Sonoma employee, he said the shooting happened right in front the store.
"I just saw out of the corner of my eye, everybody scatter, I left the counter and ran to the back with everybody," said Figura.
Boca Raton police say they do have a possible suspect in custody and the victim was taken to the hospital.
"We stayed in the storage room for like 10-15 minutes then we got the okay that everything was safe," said Figura.
Boca Raton Police said they are investigating the shooting.
Scripps Only Content 2022
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| 2022-04-07T06:03:55
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US experts wrestle with how to update COVID-19 vaccines
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials are beginning to grapple with how to keep the vaccines updated to best protect Americans from the ever-changing coronavirus.
On Wednesday, a panel of vaccine advisers to the Food and Drug Administration spent hours debating key questions for revamping the shots and conducting future booster campaigns. They didn’t reach any firm conclusions.
The questions facing the experts included: How often to update the vaccines against new strains, how effective they should be to warrant approval and whether updates should be coordinated with global health authorities.
Last week, the FDA authorized a fourth dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines for anyone 50 or older and for some younger people with severely weakened immune systems. It’s an effort to get ahead of another possible surge.
But the FDA’s vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks acknowledged at the meeting “we simply can’t be boosting people as frequently as we are.” He called the latest booster update a “stopgap” measure to protect vulnerable Americans while regulators decide whether and how to tweak the current vaccines.
Marks cautioned that waning vaccine protection, new variants and colder weather in the fall could raise the risk of more surges.
“Our goal here is to stay ahead of future variants and outbreaks and ensure we do our best to reduce the toll of disease and death due to COVID-19,” said Marks, adding that he expects more meetings of the vaccine panel in coming months.
Some of the key questions the panel discussed:
HOW SHOULD THE U.S. DECIDE WHEN TO LAUNCH FUTURE ROUNDS OF BOOSTER SHOTS?
One area where experts appeared to agree is that vaccines should be judged on their ability to prevent severe disease that leads to hospitalization and death.
“We need to focus on the worst case, which is severe disease, and we need to change strains when we’re losing that battle,” said Dr. Mark Sawyer of the University of California, San Diego.
By that measure, the current vaccines have held up remarkably well.
During the last omicron-driven surge, two vaccine doses were nearly 80% effective against needing a breathing machine or death — and a booster pushed that protection to 94%, federal scientists recently reported.
But only about half of Americans eligible for a third shot have gotten one. And many experts said it was unsustainable to continue asking Americans to get boosted every few months.
A panelist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that the 80% protection from severe disease could become the standard for evaluating the vaccines.
“I think we may have to accept that level of protection and then use other alternative ways to protect individuals with therapeutics and other measures,” said Dr. Amanda Cohn, CDC’s chief medical officer.
Presentations at the meeting by government health officials and independent researchers underscored the challenges of predicting when the next major COVID-19 variant might appear.
Trevor Bedford, a disease modeler with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said a major new strain like omicron could emerge anywhere from every 1.5 years to once a decade, based on currently available data. Given that unpredictability, researchers will need methods to quickly determine whether current vaccines work against emerging variants.
WHAT’S THE PROCESS FOR UPDATING VACCINES TO ADDRESS NEW VARIANTS?
All three COVID-19 vaccines now used in the U.S. are based on the original coronavirus version that emerged in late 2019. Updating the vaccines will be a complex task, likely requiring coordination between the FDA, manufacturers and global health authorities.
To speed the vaccines to market, the FDA relied on research shortcuts to judge effectiveness, mainly looking at their early impact on the immune system’s antibody levels. A number of panelists said Wednesday they wanted more rigorous data from studies that track patients over time to see who gets sick or dies.
But that approach would likely be too time consuming.
“We’re looking at a conundrum here in that it’s going to be hard to generate all the data we want in short order when a new variant emerges,” said Dr. Ofer Levy of Harvard Medical School.
A representative for the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority laid out the narrow window that manufacturers could face to reformulate, study and mass produce an updated vaccine by September.
“If you’re not on your way to a clinical trial by the beginning of May, I think it’s going to be very difficult to have enough product across manufacturers to meet demand,” said Robert Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of BARDA.
The process for updating annual flu vaccines offers one possible model, as laid out by a representative from the World Health Organization.
Twice a year, WHO experts recommend updates to flu vaccines to target emerging strains. The FDA then brings those recommendations to its own vaccine panel, which votes on whether they make sense for the U.S., setting the stage for manufacturers to tweak their shots and begin mass production.
But COVID-19 hasn’t yet fallen into a predictable pattern like the flu. And as the coronavirus evolves, different strains may become dominant in different regions of the world.
Several experts said they would need more meetings with more data and proposals from the FDA to decide on a strategy.
“We’ve never been here before. We’re all working together to do the best we can and it’s very complex,” said Oveta Fuller of the University of Michigan’s Medical School.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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Are Your Feet Hurting a Ton? Here’s How to Be More Shoe Smart
We turned to the pros to find out how you can give your aching feet much-needed relief.
Now that the weather is getting nicer and more in-person events are taking place, it’s likely that you’re out and about way more than you have been recently. With the combo of socializing and non-frigid temps comes the desire to forgo hitching a ride in favor of hitting the town on foot — after all, Philly is a super walkable city.
But after two years of letting the shoe closet basically collect dust, you might find that wearing those statement heels, trendy mules, or high-top sneaks is harder — ahem, more painful — than it was before the age of working from home. That’s why we turned to three local foot and shoe experts to find out everything we need to know — and wear — in order to get some relief and prevent our dogs from barking so dang much.
Why your feet might be hurting
Foot pain is on the rise lately mainly due to lifestyle changes brought on by the pandemic. Elena Wellens, podiatric surgeon at Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, says that these past two years have caused a kind of “epidemic in the world of feet” because many people who have been working from home have been barefoot or shoeless most of the time. “This is not kind to certain foot types, especially flat feet or rigid/high-arch feet,” she says. “Conditions such as plantar fasciitis, foot and ankle tendonitis, and flare-ups of mid-foot arthritis have reared their ugly heads, and going barefoot aggravates these conditions because the feet are lacking the structural support and shock absorption that shoes provide.”
About those new blisters you might have…
Jordan Katz, podiatrist at Advanced Foot & Ankle in Vineland, New Jersey, says blisters can be the body’s reaction to a pathogen, like athlete’s foot or a bacterial infection. “They can come from mechanical forces including excessive rubbing on the skin, possibly from sweaty shoes or ones that are too big or too small — they all cause friction to the skin,” he says. This can lead to an allergic skin reaction, meaning that a blister that might’ve simply been uncomfortable and coverable with a bandaid in the past is now bringing on itchiness and swelling. The pandemic might have something to do with this change, especially if the skin on your feet hasn’t been exposed to that shoe’s material ever or in a long time. He says there have also been new diagnoses of “COVID toes,” which can present as painful toes that are blue or purple in color, or with small-to-medium-sized blisters or raised bumps and pain.
All about the shoes
After working from and being at home so much, it’s almost as if we need “training heels” — just like learning to ride a bike again. We can’t expect our feet to go from wearing slippers at home to jumping into a pair of shoes that haven’t been worn in ages. Here’s everything you need to know about best footwear practices.
How should your shoes really fit?
“Ideally, there should be a thumb’s width between the end of your big toe to the edge of the shoe,” says Elena Brennan, owner of Bus Stop Boutique in Queen Village and seasoned footwear expert. “You don’t want your toes to butt up against the edge of the shoe as then you’ll be prone to ingrown toenails. As far as the ankle is concerned, you really do not want any extra room in your shoe as that’s just asking for blisters. However, it’s a bit of a different story with boots, as you want your heel to move in the back for extra comfort and flexibility. Some customers feel that if their ankle slips in the back that they’re too big, but that’s not the case.”
The right sneakers
Katz says you should perform three tests purchasing sneakers. First is the toe bend test: When you push the front of the shoe towards the back, it should only bend in the toes. If it bends like an inverted arc the midsole, it’s too flimsy and lacks support. Second comes the twist test: If you twist the midsole of the shoe and it feels firm, that signals a supportive shoe. If you can easily twist the shoe, it lacks mid-arch support. Last is the heel cup squeeze test: Lightly squeeze the heel cup of the shoe — it should feel firm. If it collapses, then it won’t control the rearfoot well enough. For a sneaker that has great internal arch support, Katz recommends getting a pair of sneakers fitted with custom orthotics from a specialist so you can have “happy feet, knees, hips, and back.”
The right dress shoes
“Once patients return to working in the office and are back in dress shoes the above tips are very important to reduce acute onset of pain,” Wellens says. “Heels in particular can put quite a bit of stress on the forefoot, so I suggest starting with lower profile heels and gradually return to higher heels. Silicone pads for the forefoot can be helpful for any dress shoe, as well.”
Brennan adds that you should think about the material of all shoes, but especially for ones you’ll be wearing to work or to a professional event. “When buying a new shoe, make sure that there isn’t too much room as they will stretch out and cause blisters,” she says. “Suede stretches the most, then leather and after that would be nubuck and patent leathers.” Now’s also a good reminder to break your shoes in gently — wear them for one or two hours around the house first before gradually increasing your use both indoors and outdoors. The worst thing you can do, Brennan says, is to buy new shoes and wear them immediately to an event. You’re bound to get blisters or foot pain.
The right shoes for walking long distances in the city, especially when athletic sneakers are not an option
Brennan says when walking in the city, opt for a shoe that has a padded footbed and a substantial outer sole (nothing too flat or hard), and if you can, wear leather as this allows your foot to breathe. This can be an oxford shoe, boot, wedge or anything with a lug sole. She loves Woden, a sneaker brand from Denmark, for their removable cork insoles. “The cork makes it super cushiony and comfortable, but if you need to add an orthotic insole, it’s so easy to remove the cork one.” Brennan’s in-house line is also a great option, as the sneaker features a thick rubber sole and is lined with a soft leather (as opposed to synthetic materials). Bonus: They don’t look like an athletic sneaker, meaning you can wear them with workwear, a dress or fun pantsuit, or a casual pair of trousers or jeans. Versatility!
The right at-home footwear
When you’re in the comforts of your own home, you likely go shoeless — sporting socks or going completely barefoot — or wear a pair of comfy slippers. Unfortunately, neither will help keep your feet and ankles supported. If you’re reluctant to wear sneakers or closed shoes inside, Wellens recommends sandals like Birkenstocks, which offer stability and structured arch support.
Ways to protect the top of your foot
“If you have a high arch or instep, you want to avoid a strap that goes across the top of your foot or a shoe that is cut high,” Brennan says. Making sure your shoe laces aren’t tied too tight will also help avoid aggravating the top of your foot, she adds.
General day-to-day tips
When your feet hurt, everything else seems to hurt. Katz says the best things you can do to prevent foot and ankle aches is to wear supportive shoes with inserts (prefabricated or custom-molded to the patient’s foot prescription), exercise or move your body if you can, and see a podiatrist sooner rather than later if you experience pain. Wellens adds that stretching daily can help relax your calf muscles and foot arches, and reduce pain in the plantar fascia and tendons, including the achilles. And finally, save the flip flops for the beach, pool, or pedicure.
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| 2022-04-07T06:04:13
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Just Listed: Rebuilt Bungalow in Oaklyn
Two veteran rehabbers step out of their comfort zone and produce a gem.
You could say that David and Laura Vitarelli channeled Oaklyn’s past when they took it upon themselves to make over this modest bungalow there.
After all, today’s leafy borough traces its origins to a settlement a group of Quakers purchased from the Lenape in 1682 — forested land that was soon cleared for farming. The farms have been replaced by houses, and enough of the trees have grown back to make this community a green and pleasant place to live.
And with this farmhouse-inspired rebuilt bungalow house for sale in Oaklyn, the Vitarellis have made it just a little more pleasant.
The Vitarellis specialize in finding rundown properties in distressed or underinvested neighborhoods and turning them into attractive, affordable housing. In pursuit of this, the couple run several related firms, all named Laurel. One does construction, another property management, and the third interior design.
Some of the properties they restore they hang onto, renting them to lower-income tenants in need of a decent place to live. They also renovate properties for outside clients. But this house isn’t a rental, and they didn’t make it over for a client. They remade this one because they thought it would be fun to do, and they did it for you.
One of the reasons why they did it: They wanted to do a total makeover, from top to bottom. “This was a whole-house rehab — it wasn’t just superficial,” says David. “I wanted to put our imprint on every single aspect of this house.”
Plus, it took them into new territory. “It was different from any other house we’d done before,” says Laura. “We were very familiar with the typical Philadelphia rowhouse layouts. I personally was looking for something a little bit different,” to which David adds in agreement, “You get sick and tired doing the same Philly rowhomes.”
The Vitarellis definitely put their imprint on this house. They replaced everything from the roof to the guts, inside and out. When they started work on this house, it looked like this:
Compare that to the photo at the top of this article. Or compare this:
to this:
Their makeover totally reconfigured its main floor and turned the attic into usable space.
In addition to completely opening up the main floor, one of the original three bedrooms got removed and turned into the dining room.
A shiplap wall with display shelves serves as the gateway to this space.
That, in turn, made the kitchen the hinge of the L-shaped main floor. Complementing the shiplap wall across from it are colorful tile walls with open shelves. And it’s nicely equipped with high-end appliances, quartz countertops and a farmhouse sink.
Behind the main living area, what had been a family room:
got transformed into the primary bedroom.
Its sliding glass doors open onto a huge deck and equally spacious backyard.
The new primary bathroom got a rustic vanity and a rain-head shower lined in herringbone tile, while the original one, now accessed by a barn door from the dining room, got a subway-tile tub/shower surround.
The third bedroom got moved upstairs to the attic. You enter it through the bonus room at the top of the stairs. As seen here, it replaces that family room, but it could also serve as a playroom or home office.
The makeover also paved and extended the house’s driveway to accommodate three to four cars. There’s also a concrete side patio next to the deck.
All this is situated just a few blocks from the White Horse Pike, which is lined with shops and restaurants as it passes through Oaklyn and neighboring Haddon Township. The Ritz Theatre Company presents live theater in a historic former movie house just a few blocks from here on the White Horse Pike. And you’re also not far from Newton Lake, Collingswood’s happening business district, and the PATCO Lindenwold Line for a quick trip into the city.
Everything the Vitarellis have learned from their years in the development and design business has been poured into this Oaklyn rebuilt bungalow house for sale. And you get the benefit of their knowledge and skill at a price within reach for most working families.
THE FINE PRINT
BEDS: 3
BATHS: 2
SQUARE FEET: 1,400
SALE PRICE: $339,900
307 Kendall Blvd., Oaklyn, NJ 08107 [David Vitarelli | Houwzer]
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https://www.phillymag.com/property/2022/04/06/oaklyn-rebuilt-bungalow-house-for-sale/
| 2022-04-07T06:04:19
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WASHINGTON — The Senate is expected to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his historic pick.
Three Republican senators have said they will support Jackson, who would replace Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires this summer. While the vote will be far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, it will still be a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the narrow 50-50 Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.
“It will be a joyous day,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he announced Thursday's vote late Wednesday evening. “Joyous for the senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America.”
Schumer said the final vote is expected to happen around 1:45 p.m. EDT, depending on how many members wish to speak on the matter.
Jackson, a 51 year-old federal appeals court judge, would be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal side of a 6-3 conservative court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett sitting at the other end of the bench, four of the nine justices would be women for the first time in history.
After a bruising hearing in which Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee aggressively interrogated Jackson on her sentencing record, three GOP senators came out and said they would support her. The statements from Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job.
Collins and Murkowski both decried the increasingly partisan confirmation process, which Collins called “broken” and Murkowski called “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.”
Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the beginning that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from three brutal Supreme Court battles during President Donald Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s, when Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Jackson said her life was shaped by her parents’ experiences with lawful racial segregation and civil rights laws that were enacted a decade before she was born.
With her parents and family sitting behind her, she told the panel that her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American. Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in addition to her nine years on the federal bench.
“I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously,” Jackson said. “I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.”
Once sworn in, Jackson would be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She would join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.
Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.
Republicans spent the hearings interrogating her sentencing record on the federal bench, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.
The GOP questioning in the Judiciary committee stuck for many Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a floor speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got tough once in this area.”
Democrats criticized the Republicans’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomination 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge it from committee and moved ahead with her confirmation.
In an impassioned moment during the hearings last month, Booker, who is also Black, told Jackson that he felt emotional watching her testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and yours” in her image.
“But don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said. “Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Travis Pittman contributed to this report.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/nation-world/ketanji-brown-jackson-supreme-court-senate-confirmation-vote/507-114300dc-82a4-4af5-b88b-f7220848ed80
| 2022-04-07T06:05:29
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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A major power outage hit Puerto Rico late Wednesday, plunging nearly 350,000 customers into darkness after a fire erupted at one of the largest power plants in the U.S. territory.
The outage was one of the biggest in recent months for the island's crumbling electrical grid, which has seen its periodic blackouts grow worse the last few years. The outage elicited a collective groan across the island of 3.2 million people, with many who depend on insulin or respiratory therapies once again worried about how long it would last.
“Apagón!” wrote many frustrated customers across social media, using the Spanish word for outage.
Luma, a private company that took over transmission and distribution of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority last year, called it an island-wide power outage. However, the state power company's website said nearly 350,000 clients out of nearly 1.5 million were without lights.
Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said priority would be given to hospitals and other institutions as he tweeted: “I urge everyone to remain calm.”
Puerto Rico’s health secretary said generators at all hospitals and health centers were functioning and had enough fuel, adding that coronavirus vaccines remained properly stored at the correct temperature.
Transportation officials said crews evacuated passengers from the island's rapid transit system and took them to their destinations via buses. Meanwhile, long lines formed at some gas stations as those with generators sought to refill them.
Education officials said they would soon announce whether classes at public schools would be cancelled Thursday, frustrating many parents who worried they might not find out if their cellphones died and they were unable to charge them.
Luma said in a statement that power might not be restored until Thursday, “given the size and scope” of the outage.
“The power grid has suffered a massive island-wide blackout, potentially caused by a circuit breaker failure at the Costa Sur generation plant. We are not clear on the exact cause at this time,” the company said.
Costa Sur is one of the island's four main power plants.
Puerto Rico's fire department worked late into the night to put out the blaze as frustration and anger over yet another blackout continued to grow.
Carian Montull, 36, said she was at a clothing store in southern Puerto Rico when the lights went out. She said the store's generators failed to turn on, so she and about a dozen other customers were forced to leave their purchases behind and go home.
She said someone nearby cried out: “The lights seriously went out?! It can't be.”
Montull said she doesn't have a generator at home and hoped the power would come back soon so the food in her refrigerator wouldn't spoil.
Luma said it would release additional information once it had more details. When it took over transmission and distribution in June, the governor at the time said the company had pledged to reduce power interruptions by 30% and the length of outages by 40%. That same month, a large fire at a substation in the capital of San Juan left hundreds of thousands without power.
Another fire at a power plant in September 2016 sparked an island-wide blackout. A year later, Hurricane Maria hit, razing the island's frail electrical grid and leaving some customers without power for nearly a year. Emergency repairs have since been made, but reconstruction efforts have yet to start.
In addition, Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority is trying to emerge from bankruptcy and holds some $9 billion in public debt that it is trying to restructure. The utility has long struggled with mismanagement, corruption and aging infrastructure that has not been maintained.
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| 2022-04-07T06:05:35
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ANDRIIVKA, Kyiv Oblast — Ukraine braced for a climactic battle for control of the besieged country's industrial east, as Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup and intensify their offensive across the Donbas region, where authorities urged people to evacuate before time runs out.
The mayor of the southern port city of Mariupol said Wednesday that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed there. Meanwhile, in areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid telltale signs that Moscow’s troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating over the past several days.
In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the Russian military continued to build up its forces in preparation for a new offensive in the east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland. But he said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle.
“We will fight and we will not retreat,” he said. “We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won’t give them up.”
Ukrainian authorities urged people living in the Donbas to evacuate immediately.
“Later, people will come under fire,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
A U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia had completed the pullout of all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, probably to return to the fight in the east.
But a Western official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it will take Russia’s battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded as war crimes.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. He said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The attacks on the strategic city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying for days without success to get into the city.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In the north, Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
In his address Wednesday night, Zelenskyy accused Russia of interfering with an international investigation into possible war crimes by removing corpses and trying to hide other evidence in Bucha, northeast of Kyiv.
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
He called on Russians to demand an end to the war, “if you have even a little shame about what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.”
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin's two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia and to codify President Joe Biden’s executive action banning the importation of Russian oil. The trade suspension would allow Biden to enact higher tariffs on certain Russian imports.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes, charging that the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
More bodies were yet to be collected in Bucha. The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time there was the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance.
Workers at a cemetery began to load more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March and took locals’ phones. Some people were detained, then released. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
To the north of the village, in the town of Borodyanka, rescue workers searched through the rubble of apartment blocks, looking for bodies.
Thwarted in their efforts to swiftly take the capital, increasing numbers of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas.
Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas since 2014. Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states.
Also Wednesday, the United States and the United Kingdom boycotted an informal meeting of the Security Council called by Russia to press its baseless claims that the U.S. has biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine. The meeting was the latest of several moves by Russia that have led Western countries to accuse Moscow of using the U.N. as a platform for disinformation to divert attention from the war.
Russia's allegations have previously been debunked. Ukraine does own and operate a network of biological labs that have received funding and research support from the U.S. and are not a secret. The labs are part of a program that aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or man-made.
The U.S. efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction.
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Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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| 2022-04-07T06:05:41
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GRESHAM, Ore. — Gresham police confirmed on Wednesday night that two people were injured in a shooting near Kirk Park, at the intersection of Northeast 188th Avenue and Northeast Holladay Street.
The two victims were a man and a woman, police said. Both were conscious and breathing when officers arrived, but further information on the extent of their injuries was not immediately available.
Police were also responding to reports of a car that crashed into a house nearby where the shooting happened. According to a Gresham police spokesman, the two shooting victims were in the car that crashed.
The shooter is believed to have been outside of the car — either a pedestrian or someone in another car.
The intersection of Northeast 188th and Holladay will be closed indefinitely while police investigate the scene.
There were 90 homicides in Portland last year, coupled with a surge in gun violence with more than 1,200 shootings by the end of the year, compared with fewer than 400 shootings in 2019. Most of the homicide victims were killed by someone with a gun.
At this rate, 2022 is on track to be Portland's deadliest year on record. There have been more than 100 injury shootings and two-dozen homicides in the city so far this year. In many cases, there have been no arrests.
This is a developing story and will be updated with more details as they emerge.
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https://www.kgw.com/article/news/crime/gun-violence/gresham-shooting-kirk-park-two-injured-car-crash/283-62925e22-228a-40e4-9a77-19be01bc07cc
| 2022-04-07T06:08:34
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MINNEAPOLIS — No criminal charges will be filed against the officers involved in serving a no-knock warrant on a Minneapolis apartment that ended in the fatal shooting of Amir Locke.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman and Attorney General Keith Ellison made the announcement in a press release sent out Wednesday morning.
"After a thorough review of all available evidence, however, there is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case," Freeman said in a released statement. "Specifically, the State would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota’s use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force by Officer Hanneman. Nor would the State be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal charge against any other officer involved in the decision-making that led to the death of Amir Locke."
Locke, 22, was killed the morning of Feb. 2 as he slept on a couch inside an apartment at Bolero Flats in downtown Minneapolis. Body camera footage showed SWAT officers entering the apartment with a key fob, and Locke stirring underneath a blanket before he reached for a handgun, which he was permitted to carry. Shots were then fired by a SWAT officer, striking Locke multiple times and killing him.
The entire incident took just nine seconds to unfold.
City officials later identified police officer Mark Hanneman as the person who fired the shots that killed Locke. Records show that Hanneman has had three complaints filed against him since 2016 but no disciplinary actions.
Hanneman's initial statement to investigators following the shooting was revealed for the first time Wednesday. Court documents show Hanneman told them he "feared for his life" and said he believed there was "no way" to de-escalate the situation.
Also Wednesday, the MPD said Hanneman had returned to active duty at the end of February. A statement sent to KARE 11's Danny Spewak said the department believes Hanneman was "assigned to a role that is the best fit for the needs of the department."
Freeman and Ellison held a virtual press conference late Wednesday morning to further explain the decision not to charge officer Hanneman or any others involved in serving the warrant. Both said prosecutors have an ethical responsibility to not file charges in a case they feel cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, according to laws on the books. Both spoke of the need to examine the use, even the existence of no-knock warrants, and urged reform in the way officers are trained so another life is not needlessly lost.
"I will say that it calls for reform, and I think it's appropriate for community to engage to have a policy that's going to preserve life for everyone involved," Ellison told reporters.
"I am not disappointed, I am disgusted," Locke's mother, Karen Wells, said in a news conference on Wednesday afternoon. She also addressed Hanneman, the officer involved in her son's death: "In the eyes of me, being the mother who I am, you are guilty, and I'm not going to give up... The spirit of my baby is going to haunt you for the rest of your life."
Appearing alongside Locke's mother on Wednesday afternoon, Rev. Al Sharpton called on the U.S. Justice Department to review the shooting.
Ben Crump, the attorney for the Locke family who also represented the family of George Floyd in their legal action against the city of Minneapolis, posted a reaction to news of the decision on his Twitter account.
Crump and his fellow attorneys Jeff Storms and Antonio Romanucci also released a statement, vowing to continue their efforts to end the use of no-knock warrants.
"The family of Amir Locke is deeply disappointed by the decision not to criminally charge Minneapolis Police Officer Mark Hanneman," the statement read. "The tragic death of this young man, who was not named in the search warrant and had no criminal record, should never have happened. The family and its legal team are firmly committed to their continued fight for justice in the civil court system, in fiercely advocating for the passage of local and national legislation, and taking every other step necessary to ensure accountability for all those responsible for needlessly cutting Amir’s life far too short. Today only deepens the resolve of Amir’s family and its legal team. We hope this deepens the resolve of the community at large as well. This is only the latest reminder that we must work even harder to protect and obtain equal justice and accountability for our communities of color. No family should ever suffer like Amir’s again."
Court documents revealed that SWAT officers were looking for Locke's cousin, 17-year-old Mekhi Speed, who was a suspect in a January St. Paul homicide. There was no mention of Locke's name in the warrant. St. Paul police asked their counterparts in Minneapolis to serve the warrant, but did not request that it be of the no-knock variety.
Locke's death triggered an uproar across the city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota, with activists calling the fatal shooting an act of murder. Locke's parents and their legal team called for an end to no-knock warrants in the city, and said the incident was proof that the culture of the police department has not changed since the murder of George Floyd at the hands of then-officer Derek Chauvin.
The statement released by Freeman and Ellison said the two prosecutors met with Locke's family to inform them of the decision, and mourn the loss of a young life.
"Amir Locke’s life mattered. He was a young man with plans to move to Dallas, where he would be closer to his mom and – he hoped – build a career as a hip-hop artist, following in the musical footsteps of his father," the statement read.
"He should be alive today, and his death is a tragedy. Amir Locke was not a suspect in the underlying Saint Paul criminal investigation nor was he named in the search warrants. Amir Locke is a victim. This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case."
Interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman released a statement expressing sympathy for Locke's family and the community, while also stressing the importance of training within the department. Chief Huffman's full statement reads:
We recognize the deep loss felt by Amir Locke’s family and those who loved and knew him best, as well as the profound grief in our community.
Officers never want to face split second decisions that end in the loss of life. I’m thankful for the commitment of our men and women who faithfully provide police service every day, steadfast in their response in the face of danger. We do, and we must, ask much of our officers – not only to act with courage, but also with compassion and character.
It is vitally important that the Department provide the training, equipment and policy support necessary for them to carry out their work, mitigating the risks to community members and officers as we work together toward a safer and more peaceful City.
I appreciate the diligent work carried out by the investigators with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the efforts of Hennepin County Attorney Freeman and Attorney General Ellison.
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https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/no-charges-against-officers-in-amir-locke-fatal-shooting/89-2143a54c-361d-4fa4-b447-374338deb1c9
| 2022-04-07T06:08:40
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WASHINGTON — The Senate is expected to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his historic pick.
Three Republican senators have said they will support Jackson, who would replace Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires this summer. While the vote will be far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, it will still be a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the narrow 50-50 Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.
“It will be a joyous day,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he announced Thursday's vote late Wednesday evening. “Joyous for the senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America.”
Schumer said the final vote is expected to happen around 1:45 p.m. EDT, depending on how many members wish to speak on the matter.
Jackson, a 51 year-old federal appeals court judge, would be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal side of a 6-3 conservative court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett sitting at the other end of the bench, four of the nine justices would be women for the first time in history.
After a bruising hearing in which Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee aggressively interrogated Jackson on her sentencing record, three GOP senators came out and said they would support her. The statements from Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job.
Collins and Murkowski both decried the increasingly partisan confirmation process, which Collins called “broken” and Murkowski called “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.”
Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the beginning that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from three brutal Supreme Court battles during President Donald Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s, when Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Jackson said her life was shaped by her parents’ experiences with lawful racial segregation and civil rights laws that were enacted a decade before she was born.
With her parents and family sitting behind her, she told the panel that her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American. Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in addition to her nine years on the federal bench.
“I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously,” Jackson said. “I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.”
Once sworn in, Jackson would be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She would join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.
Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.
Republicans spent the hearings interrogating her sentencing record on the federal bench, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.
The GOP questioning in the Judiciary committee stuck for many Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a floor speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got tough once in this area.”
Democrats criticized the Republicans’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomination 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge it from committee and moved ahead with her confirmation.
In an impassioned moment during the hearings last month, Booker, who is also Black, told Jackson that he felt emotional watching her testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and yours” in her image.
“But don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said. “Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Travis Pittman contributed to this report.
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https://www.kgw.com/article/news/nation-world/ketanji-brown-jackson-supreme-court-senate-confirmation-vote/507-114300dc-82a4-4af5-b88b-f7220848ed80
| 2022-04-07T06:08:46
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ANDRIIVKA, Kyiv Oblast — Ukraine braced for a climactic battle for control of the besieged country's industrial east, as Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup and intensify their offensive across the Donbas region, where authorities urged people to evacuate before time runs out.
The mayor of the southern port city of Mariupol said Wednesday that more than 5,000 civilians had been killed there. Meanwhile, in areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid telltale signs that Moscow’s troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating over the past several days.
In his nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the Russian military continued to build up its forces in preparation for a new offensive in the east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland. But he said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle.
“We will fight and we will not retreat,” he said. “We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won’t give them up.”
Ukrainian authorities urged people living in the Donbas to evacuate immediately.
“Later, people will come under fire,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
A U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia had completed the pullout of all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, probably to return to the fight in the east.
But a Western official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it will take Russia’s battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded as war crimes.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. He said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The attacks on the strategic city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying for days without success to get into the city.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In the north, Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
In his address Wednesday night, Zelenskyy accused Russia of interfering with an international investigation into possible war crimes by removing corpses and trying to hide other evidence in Bucha, northeast of Kyiv.
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
He called on Russians to demand an end to the war, “if you have even a little shame about what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.”
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin's two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia and to codify President Joe Biden’s executive action banning the importation of Russian oil. The trade suspension would allow Biden to enact higher tariffs on certain Russian imports.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes, charging that the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
More bodies were yet to be collected in Bucha. The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time there was the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance.
Workers at a cemetery began to load more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March and took locals’ phones. Some people were detained, then released. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
To the north of the village, in the town of Borodyanka, rescue workers searched through the rubble of apartment blocks, looking for bodies.
Thwarted in their efforts to swiftly take the capital, increasing numbers of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas.
Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas since 2014. Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states.
Also Wednesday, the United States and the United Kingdom boycotted an informal meeting of the Security Council called by Russia to press its baseless claims that the U.S. has biological warfare laboratories in Ukraine. The meeting was the latest of several moves by Russia that have led Western countries to accuse Moscow of using the U.N. as a platform for disinformation to divert attention from the war.
Russia's allegations have previously been debunked. Ukraine does own and operate a network of biological labs that have received funding and research support from the U.S. and are not a secret. The labs are part of a program that aims to reduce the likelihood of deadly outbreaks, whether natural or man-made.
The U.S. efforts date back to work in the 1990s to dismantle the former Soviet Union’s program for weapons of mass destruction.
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Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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https://www.kgw.com/article/news/nation-world/ukraine/russia-ukraine-war-thursday/507-9257bf5f-b42d-4fad-9c8e-1fcdb1e56210
| 2022-04-07T06:08:52
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PORTLAND, Ore. — After a brief window of mild weather this week, much of Western Oregon will see a pretty dramatic fluctuation over the next few days — bouncing from the highest temperatures we've seen so far this year to much chillier weather and dropping snow levels by the weekend.
Thursday
Thursday morning won’t be nearly as cold as Wednesday morning, when temperatures were just above freezing in the Portland area. Lows will be in the 40s, but the afternoon highs are the real story.
KGW Chief Meteorologist Matt Zaffino said that the Portland area will have a particularly beautiful spring day by Thursday afternoon. Oregon's western valleys will see temperatures climb into the mid to upper 70s for the first time since late September.
Friday
Despite the long-awaited warm temperatures on Thursday, winter makes a comeback by Friday. Rain showers will return, and highs will top out around 60 degrees.
Saturday and Sunday
Temperatures will only continue to drop into the weekend, and the showers will stick around. Highs on Saturday are expected to be around 50 degrees, and may remain below 50 throughout Sunday.
Showers will continue through the weekend, and the snow level will drop to 500 feet — low enough to reach the West Hills in Portland and the foothills surrounding our valleys, perhaps even the valley floors at times.
Snow will be heavy in the Cascades, but the KGW weather team doesn't expect any accumulation of note in Oregon's western valleys.
Looking beyond the weekend, Monday will continue the trend of cold, rainy days, with highs recovering into the low 50s. Cool and wet weather is likely to hang on into the middle of next week.
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https://www.kgw.com/article/weather/portlands-hottest-day-so-far-this-year-expected-thursday-before-temperatures-plunge/283-49fe0ed7-0e4a-4b09-8e0d-51dfeda25225
| 2022-04-07T06:08:58
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SANTA FE, N.M. – Anyone following the inner workings of New Mexico politics - knows there's been a rift between state Sen. Jacob Candelaria and Senate Pro Tem Mimi Stewart for a while.
Now Candelaria, a former Democrat turned Independent, is suing his colleague, claiming she retaliated against him and violated the state's Human Rights Act.
"What I'm really out for here is to send a clear message that no matter how elite or powerful people believe themselves to be in state government, no matter where they are, they have a responsibility to the law," said Candelaria.
Candelaria - a lawyer himself- filed the suit this week. He claims this started with how Stewart handled an investigation into comments made by the executive director of a state legislative committee.
Last summer, Rachel Gudgel was accused of workplace discrimination - on the basis of race and sexual orientation. Candelaria claims Stewart approved an investigation into Gudgel's comments, but never shared the results.
"When supervisors and agency heads across government see discrimination going on but do nothing to stop it and worse yet, empower it, embolden it, continue to support it, that is also unlawful," said Candelaria.
Candelaria was very outspoken, including on social media, about how Stewart handled the case and claims that's when Stewart retaliated.
The suit states Stewart emailed Candelaria a month later to say in part:
"She was moving his office in the Roundhouse from the ground floor with a window to a less desirable location on the third floor without a window. At this time, she was moving his seat on the Senate Floor to a less desirable location in the front row. These are petty forms of retaliation, but they're illegal. Where your office is, and where your seat is not an insignificant matter. It typically comes with years of seniority and it matters a great deal for a whole bunch of reasons."
He's asking Stewart to admit she failed in her responsibilities, and resign. If she doesn't, he plans to take this case to a jury.
"She violated the law, she needs to be held accountable," Candelaria said.
KOB 4 reached out to Stewart for a response, a representative told us the senator cannot comment on any pending legal matter at this time.
Copyright 2022 - KOB-TV LLC, A Hubbard Broadcasting Company
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https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/nm-senator-files-lawsuit-against-senate-leader-/6439225/?cat=500
| 2022-04-07T06:10:41
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https://www.kob.com/albuquerque-news/nm-senator-files-lawsuit-against-senate-leader-/6439225/?cat=500
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NJ bag ban includes pickup, delivery orders — NJ senator wants to change that
One of New Jerseyans' biggest concerns regarding the upcoming prohibition on single-use plastic bags is the target of upcoming legislation from a Republican state senator.
Sen. Kristin Corrado, R-Passaic, wants to exempt online orders for home delivery or pickup from the statewide ban that kicks in on May 4. Grocery stores larger than 2,500 square feet will also be blocked from providing single-use paper bags to customers.
"Since the pandemic forced residents to find new ways to get their groceries, people have become hooked on the convenience of placing online orders and having bags delivered to their homes," Corrado said. "Now that's in jeopardy as grocers across the state are scrambling to find solutions to the pending bag crisis."
New Jersey's upcoming ban was signed into law on Nov. 4, 2020, giving businesses and consumers 18 months to prepare for the shift. But Corrado says today, less than a month before the ban kicks in, New Jerseyans who rely on home delivery and curbside pickup have no idea how the process will work or how much more it may cost them.
As recently as late March, supermarkets in New Jersey could not offer us specifics on their plans for handling online orders.
"My legislation would provide a similar stay for deliveries and pickups until workable alternatives are delivered," Corrado said. "Right now, my constituents are telling me they are worried that extra charges will be applied to their orders to compensate for the cost of reusable bags that they won't be able to utilize. Given the impact of inflation on prices, their concern levels are elevated."
The New Jersey Food Council, which represents supermarkets, said on Wednesday that it had no comment on Corrado's plans because full language of the proposed law has not yet been seen.
According to the New Jersey Clean Communities Council, one of the groups charged with raising awareness about the upcoming ban, the issue of pickup/delivery orders is one of the most common concerns among New Jersey residents.
On March 25, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a law giving New Jersey food banks and pantries a 6-month extension on getting in line with the bag ban.
Dino Flammia is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dino.flammia@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
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https://nj1015.com/nj-bag-ban-includes-pickup-delivery-orders-nj-senator-wants-to-change-that/
| 2022-04-07T06:15:49
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US: 2 posed as agents, gave gifts to Secret Service officers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail.
The two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 — were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.
Prosecutors allege Taherzadeh and Ali had falsely claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and work on a special task force investigating gang and violence connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They allege the two posed as law enforcement officers to integrate with actual federal agents.
Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools, according to court documents.
He also offered to let them use a black GMC SUV that he identified as an “official government vehicle,” prosecutors say. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady.
Prosecutors said four Secret Service employees were placed on leave earlier this week as part of the investigation.
The plot unraveled when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault involving a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit.
Prosecutors say the men had also set up surveillance in the building and had been telling residents there that they could access any of their cellphones at any time. The residents also told investigators they believed the men had access to their personal information.
Taherzadeh and Ali are scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers who could comment on the allegations.
Authorities did not detail what, if anything, the men were aiming to accomplish by posing as law enforcement officers or by providing the gifts. Prosecutors said the investigation remains ongoing.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/us-2-posed-agents-gave-gifts-secret-service-officers/
| 2022-04-07T07:37:50
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One of the last legal hurdles that threatened to stop Arizona's "social equity" cannabis license drawing has been cleared.
On Wednesday afternoon, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith denied the last-ditch effort by three social equity applicants to stall the drawing, which is scheduled for Friday.
The lead attorney on the case, Paul Conant, had argued that the drawing for the highly valued — and controversial — licenses should be delayed, because the Arizona Department of Health Services had not conducted background checks on the 1,175 applicants who still remain in the pool. That could lead some licenses being issued to people who would be disqualified, he said.
But Smith disagreed that this necessitated court intervention.
"The Court finds that the Department properly exercised power that Proposition 207 expressly gave it, used proper procedures, and used its discretion when deciding whether to hold the drawing before or after completing the checks," Smith ruled.
He denied Conant's request for a preliminary injunction to halt the drawing.
The lawsuit, Williams v. Arizona Department of Health Services, was not the first challenge brought against Arizona's social equity program.
The program was created by Prop 207, the ballot initiative that legalized marijuana in the state of Arizona. Voters directed the state to create a program that promoted ownership of dispensaries by people from communities most harmed by old pot laws.
Arizona's answer to that request was to create a social equity dispensary license lottery, wherein applicants who met a specific set of criteria — including income level, a prior marijuana charge, and ZIP code — could put their name in a hat for a cannabis dispensary license.
Arizona has a cap on the number of cannabis dispensary licenses it will issue, and the 26 social equity licenses will be the last. This makes them highly valuable — up to $15 million just on paper, some experts have estimated.
Prior lawsuits have argued that the program did not do enough to keep large cannabis companies from gaming the drawing. Phoenix New Times has reported on how investors submitted hundreds of applications into the lottery.
One of those, brought by a nonprofit called Black Seed that submitted an application to the lottery, is still pending. The attorney on the case, Timothy McCulloch, wrote to New Times on Wednesday that "it is certainly my hope" that there will be action on the case before Friday.
Conant's argument, however, hinged on the fact that the DHS, which is administering the social equity program, has not conducted background checks on applicants.
Because Arizona statute prevents people with certain felony charges on their record from holding a license, plaintiffs in the case argued that without background checks, the licenses could be awarded to an applicant who later is found to be ineligible.
All applicants signed attestations that they did not have a disqualifying charge, which the state says was all that was required by the rules.
It's not clear what would happen should a social equity license be awarded to someone who was later found to be ineligible because of a disqualifying criminal record. The state says it would re-issue the license, but it's unclear if it would need to start the application process over again, as well.
"This is a one-time deal in Arizona," Conant argued at a hearing Wednesday morning. If the license were awarded to an unqualified applicant, and then revoked, it "would be unfair to all the other people who have submitted applications, paid their $4,000 application fee, and otherwise have gone through the process of trying to qualify."
Attorneys for the state emphasized that they had broad discretion over the rules of the program, and that it would take several months to complete background checks of the hundreds of applicants in the lottery — possibly delaying the drawing until the fall.
Smith concluded that while it was clear the state had not yet completed the background checks, this was not a cut-and-dried violation of the statute. Furthermore, he said, the idea that there were some applicants who might fail the background checks was based largely on speculation.
You can read Judge Smith's complete order below:
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https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/marijuana/judge-clears-way-for-arizona-social-equity-drawing-on-friday-13378432
| 2022-04-07T07:49:41
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The four brothers who comprise the band KONGOS may have been born in South Africa, and may currently reside in Austin, Texas, but since they graduated from high school here and attended Arizona State University, we're going to claim them as one of the local acts who have made it big.
It's been a couple of years since Dylan, Johnny, Jesse, and Daniel Kongos left the Grand Canyon State for Texas, but they've just announced they'll be back next month for an intimate concert.
On Friday, May 13, the band will take the stage at Last Exit Live, 717 South Central Avenue. Local rockers The Deadbeat Cousins are the opening act. Doors open at 7:30 for the 8:30 show.
KONGOS is most famous for its smash hit "Come With Me Now," which was used in numerous commercials and trailers. Their most recent album,
1929, Pt. 2, was released in 2019.
General admission is $25 plus fees in advance, or $30 plus fees on the day of the show. Or, you can shell out $75 plus fees to come early at 6 p.m. for a VIP acoustic performance and a Q&A with the band.
For more information and tickets, visit the
Last Exit Live website.
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https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/hometown-heroes-kongos-will-play-last-exit-live-in-phoenix-next-month-13377061
| 2022-04-07T07:49:47
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Arizona has set a date for the execution of Clarence Dixon, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Tuesday.
If the execution goes forward as intended on May 11, it will be the first time Arizona has put a man to death in the eight years since the botched execution of Joseph Wood.
Dixon was convicted in 2002 of sexually assaulting and murdering Deana Bowdoin, a 21-year-old Arizona State University student. The crime had occurred more than two decades earlier, in 1978, and gone unsolved for years. A DNA match eventually led investigators to charge Dixon with the crime.
At the time, he already was serving life in prison for raping another woman. Jurors handed down a death sentence in the murder case.
But Dixon also has a long history of serious mental illness and health conditions, which his attorneys have argued should spare him from the death penalty.
A member of the Navajo Nation, Dixon grew up on the reservation, suffering abuse as a child. He had a heart condition at birth and now is blind. His attorneys did not immediately return Phoenix New Times' inquiries Wednesday, but told press that under these circumstances, Dixon's execution would be "unconscionable."
Furthermore, the Navajo Nation opposes the use of the death penalty, and has historically fought against capital punishment for its citizens. In this case, though, the tribe has little legal sway, given that the crime did not occur on tribal land.
Brnovich has been trying to set an execution date for Dixon for more than a year. The attorney general has promised to bring the death penalty back to Arizona during his time in office, though so far has been unsuccessful.
This week's announcement fulfills one of Brnovich's central campaign pledges when he ran for office.
The 2014 execution of Wood sparked a wave of litigation over Arizona's execution protocols, forcing the state to suspend capital punishment.
Wood's death was gruesome: The man, convicted of murdering his former girlfriend and her father, lay on the gurney alive for two hours as he was injected with lethal drugs. During the course of the execution, he was injected 15 times.
Ultimately, the state was forced to adopt a new, "one-drug" policy to use either pentobarbital or sodium thiopental in executions. But it took until 2019 for the state to figure out a way to obtain pentobarbital.
Lethal injection drugs are notoriously difficult to obtain. Some states have been accused of orchestrating secretive cash exchanges for them in parking lots, according to an investigation into Idaho's procurement of the drugs. In Arizona, the Department of Corrections still refuses to identify its pentobarbital supplier.
Last May, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed Brnovich to go forward with a briefing schedule for the executions of Dixon and another prisoner, Frank Atwood. This move signaled that a death warrant was imminent.
But concerns quickly emerged that the Department of Corrections had not correctly calculated the expiration date of the pentobarbital it planned to use to execute the two men. The state conceded that, indeed, the drug would expire in half the time that it had originally thought — making its timeline for the executions impossible.
Now, with a warrant in hand, the state of Arizona is closer to an execution than it has been in years. "I made a promise to Arizona voters that people who commit the ultimate crime get the ultimate punishment," Brnovich wrote in the announcement.
In most death penalty cases, however, legal challenges often continue up until the date of the execution. Dixon now has just 35 days.
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https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-sets-date-for-first-execution-in-eight-years-13377064
| 2022-04-07T07:49:54
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At around 6:40 a.m. on March 30, Michael Schroeder, a man in custody at the Fourth Avenue Jail in Phoenix, called the officer on duty.
According to court documents obtained by Phoenix New Times, Schroeder told that officer that he was angry at his cellmate, a 35-year-old man named Steven Lemus.
Schroeder told the officer, "Get someone over. I'm going to fuck this guy up," court records stated.
According to court records, no officers responded to Schroeder's threats until Schroeder called again, eight minutes later, saying, "Come get the body."
These were the events that preceded the death of Lemus, an inmate who was locked up in county jail on drug possession charges.
Monica Bretado, a spokesperson for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, confirmed the incident to Phoenix New Times on March 31, after an anonymous source informed the Times. Lemus, she wrote, "was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries" and was in "critical condition."
On Tuesday, another spokesperson for MCSO confirmed that Lemus had died over the weekend, and that a criminal investigation, as well as an internal investigation, was underway.
The new details about Lemus' death were revealed in charging documents filed in Maricopa County Superior Court on Monday. According to a criminal complaint, Schroeder faces one count of aggravated assault, although police accused him of first-degree murder.
Those court records describe that once Schroeder made his second call, the on-duty officer requested a wellness check, and officers arrived to find Lemus covered in blood and unresponsive.
Schroeder quickly confessed, telling officers that he had "killed him," as they put him in a holding cell, MCSO said in court records. "It was going to be me or him," he said, MCSO added. Later on, records state that Schroeder confessed to punching Lemus in the gut, choking him using the jail sink, and stabbing him in one eye with a pencil.
A source at MCSO familiar with the case, who spoke to New Times under the condition of anonymity, said that it was fairly common for inmates to call and claim they were going to fight their cellmates.
"What's unusual would be to ignore it for 10 minutes," the source said. Policy dictates that officers respond immediately to such calls. And, according to the source, shift notes from that day indicate that the officers were not responding to another emergency at the time — though the internal investigation is still ongoing.
Spokespeople for MCSO did not immediately reply to another request for comment Wednesday regarding the actions of officers involved.
For years, both men had been in and out of Arizona's jails and prisons, online Arizona Department of Corrections data and court records show. Schroeder was booked on charges of arson and burglary on March 20, 10 days before the incident.
Lemus had been in and out of custody in the last 15 years on various drug charges, according to ADOC and court records.
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https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/inmate-dies-at-fourth-avenue-jail-after-officers-fail-to-respond-to-threats-13377895
| 2022-04-07T07:50:00
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https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/inmate-dies-at-fourth-avenue-jail-after-officers-fail-to-respond-to-threats-13377895
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PORTLAND, Ore. — Kevin Long and Sarah Smith just spent the last 6 months traveling around the United States camping in a camper van they've dubbed the "Dyrt-mobile."
"We really wanted to go out and take the opportunity to meet people again and talk to users," Smith said.
Some of those they talked to were among the more than 30 million people to visit their site or use their app, The Dyrt, over the last year.
In 2013, the Portland couple created The Dyrt as a way to post photos and reviews on campgrounds.
"The Dyrt is a go-to resource for camping to help people find and book campgrounds," said Smith.
The Dyrt promotes all kinds of camping spots, from public and privately owned campgrounds to state parks, RV parks, and cabins, and even glamping.
"You name it, we have it," Long said.
The founders of the app took a survey of campers they talked with. They published their findings in their 2022 Camping Report.
The survey found over 66 million people went camping in the United States last year, with more than 8 million of those having camped for the first time.
Of those that went camping, nearly 40% were from diverse backgrounds. They also found 57% of people that were trying a new type of camping last year opted for RV’s and trailers.
The increased interest in camping is reflected in the growth of their app. Users upload photos and reviews to The Dyrt app and website to help populate the site.
The Dyrt's founders say that it took years to get 2 million photos, videos or reviews. Then last year it exploded in popularity, doubling to 4 million.
Those uploaded photos, reviews and videos are also peer-reviewed.
"The community itself is a cycle that helps put the content up and helps regulate the content as well," Smith said.
The new survey shows the western United States dominated in top searches for camping destinations. Portland, ranked Number 6, and Bend, ranked Number 21, were in the top 25 of most searched destinations. Denver, Colo., was the top search.
Both Smith and Long hope the survey will provide guidance for campers and also give campgrounds an idea of what’s most important for visitors.
More than 50% of the respondents said campfires were their number one priority. Others included drinking water and the ability to bring pets on their camping adventures.
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https://www.kgw.com/article/life/portland-camping-app-the-dyrt-releases-report-on-2022-camping-outlook/283-acf243a4-2e99-4fe4-aa4b-fabff81e174f
| 2022-04-07T08:04:28
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https://www.kgw.com/article/life/portland-camping-app-the-dyrt-releases-report-on-2022-camping-outlook/283-acf243a4-2e99-4fe4-aa4b-fabff81e174f
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PORTLAND, Oregon — On Wednesday, a group of Harriet Tubman Middle School students staged a walkout in support of social studies teacher, Bryan Chu. They said Portland Public Schools put Chu on leave effective Monday.
School staff members told KGW the district is investigating Chu for a number of reasons, including disruptions made during school board meetings and for coaching students into opposing the I-5 expansion near the school.
District officials would not confirm Chu’s leave or the reasons behind it, citing privacy rules. By email, a district spokesperson said, "We also take the conduct of our professionals very seriously, and we expect a certain level of decorum in classrooms and in public."
Eighth grader Sonja Seidman is in Chu's social studies class and participated in the walkout. She said one thing Chu has taught students is how to stand up for what they believe in.
“He was like, ‘Well you know, if we ever have a walkout, there's these signs in the cafeteria and you can just take them off the walls,’” said Seidman. “And so we did that.”
Seidman said Chu had also led class discussions on ODOT’s planned expansion of I-5 near the school, something he's protested outside of work hours. The district is planning to move Harriet Tubman Middle School because of the expansion.
“He was like, ‘Do you think writing letters to the PPS board' — he was like, 'that would be great, do you guys want to do that?’” said Seidman. “And we were like, yes!”
Seidman said other than Chu providing them with board members' email addresses, students who wrote the letters did so of their own free will. She has her own theory for why Chu is on leave.
“PPS feels threatened because Mr. Chu was helping us advocate for the school and the community and he was the only one doing that,” said Seidman.
Chu has a history of speaking out against the school district. In February, he was part of a group that interrupted a school board meeting. He accused the superintendent of lying about replacing teachers' HEPA filters and also swore.
During a 2017 board meeting, Chu criticized the district over its framework for middle school curriculum saying, "PPS, aka mostly BS, this is the crazy-making that has become mostly synonymous with PPS.”
And in a 2018 guest opinion published in The Oregonian, Chu called the district “white supremacist” and “patriarchal,” among other things.
For now, Mr. Chu's classes go on without him, led by a substitute teacher. While Chu's future with the district is unclear, Seidman said she knows what she wants.
“We as students value Mr. Chu so much,” said Seidman. “We really need him in our school to thrive, fully.”
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https://www.kgw.com/article/news/education/harriet-tubman-students-i5-expansion-odot-bryan-chu-on-leave/283-7621a4e0-4b65-438e-9b99-b4589f119f6e
| 2022-04-07T08:04:34
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https://www.kgw.com/article/news/education/harriet-tubman-students-i5-expansion-odot-bryan-chu-on-leave/283-7621a4e0-4b65-438e-9b99-b4589f119f6e
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April is National Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Month, a devastating topic that impacts all of us. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women in the United States have experienced completed or attempted rape during their lifetime; and nationwide, 81% of women reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment or assault in their lifetime. To help local victims of sexual assault in their recovery, Phoenix business owner and sexual assault survivor Heidi Koffman is launching a new creative healing support group for adult women survivors of sexual assault.
“Six years ago, after I was sexually assaulted, and the one thing I needed was a creative outlet for healing and a support group dedicated to women survivors of sexual assault,” Koffman, who owns Craft Nights, an arts and crafts studio located in north Phoenix, said. “I couldn’t find one easily. I’m hoping to change that with the creation of ‘Art in the Afternoon,’ a support group for adult women healing from sexual assault. We meet monthly, so we don’t feel alone and have an opportunity to heal from trauma through art and creativity.”
The first meeting of Art in the Afternoon will take place on Sunday, April 24, from 3-5:30 p.m., and all third Sundays of the month after the initial date. (The May date is May 22, and so forth.) The new monthly event takes place at Grounded32, a community center dedicated to mindfulness and creative healing, located at 13651 N. 32nd St. in Phoenix. The event is free to participate in, but donations are welcome.
“I grew up with a Jewish father and immersed in all of the holidays I still cherish today,” Koffman shared. “From that experience, I learned the importance of community, culture, love and forgiveness.”
Koffman is partnering with two local nonprofits to help propel the monthly event: Grounded32, which provides the meeting space and the Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, which will be providing pamphlets and resources for additional help survivors may need. Craft Nights and Grounded32 will be providing the art supplies for each monthly project.
“Art and creativity are a huge part of my healing and I wanted to have a space and group where creativity and healing could exist for survivors by survivors,” she said.
With the date of the first meeting coming soon, Koffman has high expectations for the future of the event.
“My hope for this group is that other women who have gone through sexual violence come together and realize they aren’t alone in their thoughts, struggles and journey to heal,” Koffman added. “And that by creating this group, friendships are formed and we create a community of healing.” JN
To RSVP for this group or for more information about this event, visit grounded32.org or e-mail info@grounded32.org.
If you have experienced sexual assault or domestic violence, help is available. Speak with someone immediately by calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233) or 800-787-3224 (TTY) or by calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). Locally, victims can contact the Arizona Sexual and Domestic Violence Helpline at 602-279-2980 or via SMS text message at 520-720-3383 Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. with extended hours Tuesdays from 8:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Of course, if in doubt, call 9-1-1. Visit acesdv.org/get-help-now for information and local resources.
Michelle Talsma Everson is an independent writer, editor and occasional public relations professional.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/arts_features/phoenix-business-owner-launches-arts-based-support-group-for-survivors-of-sexual-assault/article_25c4ffee-b5e7-11ec-9489-8b739a3a951b.html
| 2022-04-07T08:05:29
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https://www.jewishaz.com/arts_features/phoenix-business-owner-launches-arts-based-support-group-for-survivors-of-sexual-assault/article_25c4ffee-b5e7-11ec-9489-8b739a3a951b.html
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There are some in this world who always seem to be broke. No matter how hard they try and how much they earn, they are always strapped for cash come the end of the month. They have no savings and don’t seem to think of the financial pressure that tomorrow could bring. Sound familiar? If you fall into this category, now is the time to make changes as you don’t want to be playing catch up forever. But what do you need to do to get your act together? Is it even possible to save money at the end of each week? Here’s a quick guide on money mistakes to avoid.
Never Learning to Budget
This is arguably the biggest personal finance tip and also mistake you can make when managing your money for the first time. If you are not setting boundaries on your spending, you’re more likely to spend every cent that you have. Budgeting is essential for planning for the future, and you need to lock down a savings plan. Your budget is the foundation of your financial future, and you need to respect it and maintain it properly. Ignore it and everything could come crumbling down.
Failing to Prepare
Life can be unpredictable and even the best laid plans can go wrong. Often, when we are hit with unforeseen circumstances, like a health issue or a sudden redundancy, it can have detrimental effects on our finances. When faced with these challenges, it is always good to have a back-up plan at the ready.
You should try and build up an emergency fund that contains at least 3-6 months of living expenses. If you are dealing with a situation now and you don’t have savings to fall back on, there are other options to consider. You can refinance your student loans to free up some cash every month. The application process for a student loan refinance is quick and you can spread out the costs over an extended time period. All you need to do is submit some personal and financial information and you’ll be able to customize the terms.
Other options to get your hands on quick cash include selling your life insurance policy or taking out a personal loan. Remember that the key here is to have a stash of cash ready should you be faced with a financial emergency. Even if you don’t want access to the cash right away, it’s always a good idea to know what options are available to you.
Failing to Set Financial Goals
The importance of setting and sticking to financial goals cannot be overstated. Although you may think that they are an unnecessary step in achieving financial stability, these goals will keep you focused on your savings. They will help you practice self-discipline and prevent you from making unnecessary purchases that could dent your savings. You need to give your savings plan a structure and a goal; otherwise, it will feel like you are working towards nothing. It doesn’t matter how big or small this goal is, the important part is to get started and pick one.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/blog/3-money-mistakes-that-will-keep-you-broke/article_035bfe86-b5e6-11ec-8a8a-135649a7bc67.html
| 2022-04-07T08:05:35
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https://www.jewishaz.com/blog/3-money-mistakes-that-will-keep-you-broke/article_035bfe86-b5e6-11ec-8a8a-135649a7bc67.html
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What follows is my experience with an insidious scourge that — while rare nationwide — finds its epicenter right here in Arizona.
Endemic to the American Southwest, Valley fever is also known as coccidioidomycosis (cocci, for short). In 2019, 18,407 cases of Valley fever were reported to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s transmitted by microscopic fungal spores made airborne by disturbing the desert soil. If you inhale cocci-laden dust, you may or may not get sick. Symptoms can range from mild to severe and are notorious for mimicking other diseases, often making diagnosis a challenge. This invisible beast hit me like a Mack Truck more than 15 months ago and I spiraled into a medical rabbit hole from which I’ve yet to emerge fully.
One Sunday morning in December 2020, I headed to the emergency room with a fever, chills and bloody sputum. Valley fever was the furthest thing from my mind. We were in the thick of the COVID pandemic, a vaccine was not yet available and I assumed my number was up for the dreaded coronavirus.
Driving to the ER, I was overcome by existential fears. If I had COVID, would I ever see the outside of a hospital again? Would I be saying final goodbyes to my husband at the front doors? I was 58 years old and reasonably healthy, but coughing up blood was not a positive sign and this COVID thing was shooting random arrows at unlikely victims.
The ER workup was shocking. I was hooked up to monitors, given a COVID test and chest X-ray and had blood drawn. A doctor arrived to share the results. “Your COVID test is negative; that’s the good news, but there is a problem,” he continued, while uploading my chest X-ray to a computer screen. “See this 5 cm x 5 cm mass in your left lung? That’s about the size of a baseball.” I went light headed as the words “mass” and “baseball” pounded in my ears.
My elevated pulse and blood pressure set off monitor alarms. Acknowledging this, and the terror in my eyes, the doctor continued, “It’s hard to tell, but a consolidation like this usually represents an infection — like pneumonia or it could be a neoplasm.” That’s when the pounding in my ears, and everything else, went silent. The doctor continued speaking but I heard nothing after the word neoplasm. I knew what that term meant. (A neoplasm is a tumor that may be benign or malignant.)
The doctor interrupted the gathering storm of my questions and announced, “I’ve ordered a CT scan.” Afterward, he stood at maximum distance from me and my predicament. “Well, the scan gave us a clearer picture of the mass,” he began. “And you’ve never been a smoker?”
“Correct,” I replied hopefully. He took a breath and explained what would come next: antibiotics for a presumed bacterial pneumonia and follow up with a pulmonologist and oncologist. Oncologist? He told me he placed a call (on a Sunday?) to an oncologist who’d see me in two days. Two days? Why so urgent?
“But if this is cancer, why the pneumonia symptoms?” I managed to pipe up before the doctor left. He anticipated my question. “A tumor could be obstructing the [blah, blah, blah]… causing an infection.” I shouldn’t have asked.
A nurse arrived to disconnect the monitors and IV. I searched her eyes for acknowledgment of my newfound predicament but she focused on completing her tasks and finally said, “Have a good rest of the weekend.” Seriously, she said that.
Emerging from the building, I surveyed the gorgeous afternoon and it occurred to me that, just hours earlier, it seemed possible I’d never be outdoors again. I was grateful that I’d dodged the potentially deadly COVID bullet. Still, I had no idea what lay ahead. I only knew I was very sick and the specter of cancer was on the table.
The ensuing seven weeks were a blur: ongoing sickness; consulting with doctor friends; scrambling to find a pulmonologist who — amid a respiratory pandemic — would even see me; many physician visits, blood tests, x-rays and scans; and anxiety that spiraled out of control when a diagnosis remained elusive and no doctor would definitively rule out cancer.
Anxiety crushed my usual strong, grounded persona. Insomnia took siege and I dropped weight precipitously, which only fueled the fear of cancer. I sought psychiatric care for the first time in my life.
I soon began experiencing migrating joint pain and a doctor friend told me it sounded like desert rheumatism, another name for Valley fever. Valley fever was mentioned as a potential diagnosis from the beginning but initial and follow-up blood tests were negative. An infectious disease doctor explained that blood tests are notoriously negative in the early stages.
I sought a second opinion from a pulmonologist who confidently declared, “This looks very much like Valley fever. Nothing suggests cancer.” I was finally ready to believe cancer was out of the equation. He ordered more blood labs and the results, after seven weeks and four rounds of testing, were positive.
I wish I could report all the pieces fell into place after this official diagnosis, that I was treated, symptoms disappeared and I happily moved on with my life. But treating Valley fever, I learned, is tricky. A doctor must assess disease severity and likely immune response before deciding whether to prescribe antifungal medications. The drugs don’t outright kill cocci; they merely inhibit its ability to grow and reproduce.
Because a one-inch cavitary lesion (fungus surrounding an air space) remained in my lung, three doctors recommended I take the antifungal fluconazole but they disagreed for how long. After six months and two follow-up CT scans, a pulmonologist instructed me to stop fluconazole and “hope for the best.” He explained that the lung lesion would hopefully remain dormant, diminish and disappear over time.
Then while vacationing in Oregon that summer, I became sick, was diagnosed with pneumonia and told to consult with my Arizona doctors about possible reactivation of Valley fever.
Two pulmonologists said the illness now appeared chronic and I should restart fluconazole. This was depressing and troubling news. I sought counsel from a professor and infectious disease doctor in Tucson, widely considered an expert in Valley fever.
I heard from him a different take on my disease status and prognosis. At this point, I’d seen five doctors in eleven months. Doctors disagree whether I have acute or chronic Valley fever, whether the lesion is worrisome and whether I should still be treated with medication.
For sanity’s sake, I’ve opted to continue care with just one local doctor. Under his guidance, I stopped my second course of fluconazole three months ago. Recently I developed a nagging, wet cough. Tests just showed I’m still positive for specific cocci antibodies. And though the lung lesion has slightly diminished, there are signs of increased inflammation surrounding it. Might this explain the new “productive” cough? Might another pneumonia be brewing? Will I benefit from another course of antifungal therapy?
I see the doctor next week and my story continues. JN
Janice Friebaum is a consultant, trainer, speaker, educator and immediate past vice president of the Phoenix Holocaust Association.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/community/a-personal-tale-from-the-frontlines-of-illness/article_2685b18c-b5f4-11ec-b40c-d7b4a5764fb6.html
| 2022-04-07T08:05:42
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https://www.jewishaz.com/community/a-personal-tale-from-the-frontlines-of-illness/article_2685b18c-b5f4-11ec-b40c-d7b4a5764fb6.html
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The most often repeated comment Ora Kurland hears is, “I thought I was the only Jewish person in Cave Creek.” However, soon that comment might not be as commonplace. In fact, there’s a booming of Jewish life happening in Cave Creek and Carefree.
According to Kurland, Jewish life in Cave Creek and Carefree was an oxymoron a few years ago. Now, there’s an impressive growth of Jewish community happening in the area.
“It’s important to form a strong sense of comfort and unity in our area, which has a large population of non-Jewish residents,” said Kurland.
Kurland is the founder and leader of the Jewish Social Group of Cave Creek and Carefree. For now, they don’t even have a website; however, their mailing list has 250 names on it.
“Group members love knowing who their Jewish neighbors are. It’s important socially and the quality of holiday and Shabbat celebrations is improved when you can share them with friends,” said Kurland. “In addition, there are many unaffiliated Jews in the area. For some, our group is their only Jewish connection.”
Their mission is simple: developing and growing the Jewish community in their geographic area. They hold an array of holiday-based events — like hamantaschen baking and a Rosh Hashanah luncheon — but try to focus on the social side of things. For example, they have a book club and organize outings, such as touring the Arizona Jewish Historical Society and Queen Creek Olive Mill during Chanukah.
“Our planning meetings are held every six months and open to all members of the group,” said Kurland. “Also, all our events have a tzedakah component; a worthy cause is chosen and group members are invited to donate.”
However, that’s not the only Jewish affiliation in the area. Cave Creek is also home to Congregation Kehillah, led by Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman, who is dedicated to evolving Jewish growth in the area.
“Congregation Kehillah is a small, dynamic, friendly synagogue offering services and programming for all ages,” said Sharfman. “Our purpose is to provide a community for Jews and their families to foster their Jewish identity, live Jewishly, pursue social justice and engage in learning.”
Sharfman has led the synagogue since 2008, when seven individuals were hungry for new, different ways to explore Judaism. The independent synagogue has a membership that consists of congregants from all over metro Phoenix.
With family being a priority, they created YEP!, their Youth Education Program for kids. YEP! is tuition-free for Kehillah member families and starts in kindergarten and continues through high school. The older students participate in their Tzedek Teen Initiative, a philanthropic leadership program to learn about being better leaders and activists in the Jewish and Greater Phoenix communities.
Another organization that caters to Jews living in Cave Creek and Carefree is the Desert Foothills Jewish Community Association (DFJCA). DFJCA was founded in 1998 by a group of residents living in the Terravita Golf and Country Club community. At the time, Terravita was a new development and its Jewish residents were seeking a spiritual community. The original idea was to offer High Holy Day Services at Terravita, but since the response was overwhelming, DFJCA was created, becoming a corporation and receiving nonprofit 501(c)(3) status.
They aim to provide spiritual and social activities to its 200-plus members. DFJCA donates funds to local, national and international organizations such as the Greater Phoenix Jewish Film Festival, Arizona Jewish Historical Society and more.
“These three established groups — the Jewish Social Group, Congregation Kehillah and Desert Foothills Jewish Community Association — all contribute in unique ways to building a sense of Jewish life and community in our geographic area,” said Kurland.
For the past five years, The Town of Carefree has also hosted an annual Chanukah in Carefree at the Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion downtown. Every night of Chanukah, a different Jewish organization in the Greater Phoenix area leads the menorah lighting and a program that is also presented via live stream. The goal is to bring light to the Jewish community and provide an opportunity for people to gather together during the holiday.
“This community has taught me the true meaning behind ‘labor of love.’’ said Kurland. “I love the friendships that I witness develop and it has enhanced my Jewish life in a very meaningful way.” JN
For more information on the Desert Foothills Jewish Community Association, visit dfjca.org; for Congregation Kehillah, visit congregationkehillah.org. Ora Kurland can be contacted via email at ora@morah-ora.com.
Nadine Bubeck is an author and freelance writer living in Scottsdale.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/community/carefree-and-cave-creek-see-dynamic-jewish-growth/article_760e1d50-b5c9-11ec-a97e-3fec1b8c88a2.html
| 2022-04-07T08:05:48
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https://www.jewishaz.com/community/carefree-and-cave-creek-see-dynamic-jewish-growth/article_760e1d50-b5c9-11ec-a97e-3fec1b8c88a2.html
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If you’d like to change up your Passover greeting this year, you could try it in Navajo. That would be atis adeesdzá bééhániih — Passover in Navajo — as it appears in a calendar published annually showcasing Navajo and Hopi artists by the Flagstaff-based publishing house Salina Bookshelf, Inc.
Salina Bookshelf, founded in 1994, is an independent publisher of multicultural materials which includes textbooks, children’s picture books, children’s chapter books, informational texts, reference books, audiobooks and language learning materials. They specialize in dual language books in Navajo/English and Hopi/English and textbooks used to teach the Navajo language in schools.
Passover has been included in the calendar for several years, stated Tyler Mitchell, executive editor at Salina. However, he’s not exactly sure when it was initially added or who translated the word for the holiday into Navajo.
Navajo is the third most spoken language in Arizona, after English and Spanish. According to “Ethnologue: Languages of the World,” the Navajo language has 7,600 monolingual speakers and more than 170,000 fluent speakers worldwide. There are some slight regional variations in pronunciation and vocabulary among the language spoken in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.
“It’s is in the 2022 calendar and we have been including it for quite a few years now,” Mitchell said about Passover. “We have Christian holidays and Navajo Nation Treaty Day, which commemorates the Treaty of 1868 on June 1 every year.”
For the Navajo (Diné), the 1868 Treaty allowed a return to their ancestral homelands (Dinétah) and is an important symbol of Navajo sovereignty, according to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
“It’s an important holiday that commemorates when the U.S. government allowed the tribes to return to their homelands after having been displaced in ‘the Long Walk,’” Mitchell said.
As far as he knows, Passover is the only Jewish holiday in their calendar.
“When we do our calendar, we find a list of holidays on the internet, include some of them and give Navajo names to them,” he said.
For the past several years, Albuquerque, N.M. resident Dr. Gordon Bronitsky, who received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1977, has worked promoting indigenous artisans. He has extensively studied Native American history and is an expert on Native American-Jewish relations, having worked on cultural diplomacy with the state department.
Bronitsky discovered the unique calendar and broke down the translation of atis adeesdzá bééhániih. “Atis is the act of moving over an object; it is the literal translation of ‘passing over an object,’” Bronitsky said. “Adeesdzá is the act of walking and bééhániih is ‘its’ remembrance.’ Thus it is a literal translation of the term Passover.”
Bronitsky thinks the Jews and the Native Americans have several things in common besides the obvious tribal social structure.
“We both are living in two worlds — the traditional and the contemporary,” he said, “Both Jews and Native Americans understand this concept. I, for instance, am not the kind of Jew my grandfather was or the kind my grandchildren will be. The Navajo understand that.”
Bronitsky asked a Navajo tribal member to come up with a Navajo word for “Jew,” and what they devised was “bicha yaji Dine’e’” or “people who wear small hats.” On the other hand, the Navajo word for “German” translates to “people who wear metal hats,” he said.
He said he hopes to create a panel discussion with members of both tribes one day. “Native Americans who are Jewish and Jews who are Native American,” and ask, “What does it mean to belong to two tribes?”
The calendar is 9 inches by 12 inches and opens into a double-page spread that includes an illustration from “one of the many children’s books illustrated by Navajo or Hopi artists showcased each month,” said Mitchell. JN
For more information, visit salinabookshelf.com.
Rachel Raskin-Zrihen is a freelance writer living in Anthem.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/community/chag-atis-adeesdz-b-h-niih-sameach-to-one-and-all/article_aeb8e6e2-b5d0-11ec-8368-0fadfc0ccaf6.html
| 2022-04-07T08:05:54
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https://www.jewishaz.com/community/chag-atis-adeesdz-b-h-niih-sameach-to-one-and-all/article_aeb8e6e2-b5d0-11ec-8368-0fadfc0ccaf6.html
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SHIRLEY ANN OBERFIELD
Shirley Ann (Myers) Oberfield, born in New Castle, Pa., on June 5, 1938 to William and Bella Myers, passed away peacefully on the morning of March 26, 2022 in Scottsdale, AZ. Shirley was 83 years of age.
Shirley graduated from New Castle High School in 1956. While there, she excelled in classroom studies and enjoyed participating in theater productions. After high school, she attended Penn State University, majoring in education and earned her degree at Youngstown State University.
In 1961, Shirley married Robert Oberfield, who died in 2018, with whom she spent 57 loving years. They lived in Pittsburgh, Pa. for thirty years where they raised their sons Wayne and Eric. In 1990, Shirley and Robert moved to Scottsdale, Ariz. where they happily built many lifelong friendships. Outside of her family life, Shirley was employed as an office coordinator for a physical rehabilitation center in Scottsdale and spent many years volunteering for the Mended Hearts organization and the Honor Health hospital system. She was also active in a knitting club to create clothing items for children in need. She enjoyed cooking for her family and experimenting with new recipes. Shirley visited various cities around the world and found joy in traveling with her husband and sons. She cherished the time spent with her family, including her two sisters with whom she had close and meaningful relationships.
Shirley will be remembered and forever missed. She is survived by her sons Wayne and Eric (Jenn Reno); granddaughter, Harper; sisters Marcia Myers and Marlene Myers; nieces Emily Barnes (Michael Opest) and Blaire Patrick; and grand-niece Prudence and grand-nephew Rhys.
The funeral was held on March 29, 2022 at Mt. Sinai Cemetery and was conducted by Rabbi Sara Mason-Barkin of Temple Beth Israel, where she was a member. The family would like to extend a special thank you to all her caregivers at Honor Health hospital.
Those wishing to do so may make memorial donations in Shirley's memory to the American Cancer Society.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/milestones/milestone---obituary/article_569b0f06-b5f0-11ec-8492-83c897956235.html
| 2022-04-07T08:06:00
| 0
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https://www.jewishaz.com/milestones/milestone---obituary/article_569b0f06-b5f0-11ec-8492-83c897956235.html
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SELMA FREEMAN SHAPIRO
Selma Freeman Shapiro, 97, passed away peacefully March 31, 2022.
Born in Bronx, N.Y. as the youngest of four girls to Herschel and Clara Freeman, she moved with her husband Lenny in the early 1950s, first to El Centro, Calif., then to Phoenix in 1957. She lived in the same home in north Phoenix with Lenny until 2012.
Selma learned to be fiercely independent growing up on the streets of Brooklyn and as the youngest of four girls. She ranked second in her class at Samuel Tilden High School in Brooklyn, where she was a member of the National Honor Society. She also attended Brooklyn College until World War II intervened and she took a job to support the war effort.
Selma was married to Lenny for over 60 years until his passing in 2010. She was a legal secretary in Phoenix and Scottsdale, working well into her 80s. She was an avid card player and excelled at pan and bridge, frequently winning tournaments in both. She was a longtime member of Congregation Beth Israel and a supporter of the arts, including the Phoenix Symphony, Phoenix Art Museum, Heard Museum and the Desert Botanical Garden.
Selma is survived by her sons Rick (Nancy) of Dunwoody, Ga., and Neil (Diane) of Phoenix, as well as four grandchildren Lori, Jeff, Danny and Aaron.
The family wishes to express their gratitude to the administration and staff of the La Siena senior living community for making Selma’s final years warm and comfortable.
Funeral services were held April 4, 2022 at Beth Israel Cemetery, Phoenix.
Donations in Selma’s name can be made to Congregation Beth Israel or the Phoenix Symphony.
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https://www.jewishaz.com/milestones/milestones---obituary/article_fe14fe7c-b5f0-11ec-b987-1f75d969c30d.html
| 2022-04-07T08:06:06
| 0
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https://www.jewishaz.com/milestones/milestones---obituary/article_fe14fe7c-b5f0-11ec-b987-1f75d969c30d.html
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In last week’s heart-wrenching reminder of Middle East volatility, 11 people were killed in Israel in three separate terror attacks. As a frightened civilian population grieves for the senseless loss of life, they worry about personal safety. At the same time, politicians and security personnel grapple with the proper response to the orchestrated bursts of violence that appear to be motivated by movements of conciliation between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
The issue is made even more complicated by the fact that the Muslim month of Ramadan began over the weekend, and Easter and Passover are approaching. Israel’s government knows that in this month of symbolism it needs to maintain order both to present a stable face to the world in a time of global volatility and in order to maintain sufficient public support to stay in power. All the while, the opposition led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party is watching closely, as they use last week’s killings to support the narrative that Israel’s terror concern is uniquely an Arab threat and one which can only be controlled by more security- minded leadership.
Israel’s delicately balanced coalition government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid — which includes the Ra’am Islamist party — has managed to survive by cooperating where possible, and avoiding controversial decisions. An example of the cooperation came in response to last week’s killings. Ra’am’s leader Mansour Abbas forcefully condemned the attacks, calling them “a heinous and indecent terrorist crime … against innocent civilians,” and pledged that ”we all stand together in the face of a murderous wave of terror, all of us with no differences.” In return, the government changed the phrase “wave of murderous Arab terror” to “wave of terror,” as part of an effort to stop pointing an accusatory terror finger at every Arab in Israel and the territories.
Nonetheless, safety and security remain top concerns for Israeli voters. And if the attacks continue, a rattled public could embrace what is touted as Netanyahu and Likud’s more security-conscious approach of — which would also bring greater intolerance, and a more accepting attitude toward the aggression of the settler population’s militant side.
It is for this reason, among others, that the Bennett government’s decisions and actions in response to the terror attacks are so important. Under the current coalition regime, the cooperative and collaborative efforts between Jews and Arabs in Israel are perceived as a threat to those Arabs and Israelis for whom ideological purity is more important than amity. And terror feeds that narrative.
There is speculation that the recent violence was orchestrated in response to last week’s appearance of the foreign ministers of Egypt, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco at an Abraham Accords summit in Israel. Fortunately, the violence didn’t stop the summit. We hope it will not be allowed to jeopardize other cooperative progress that has been made. JN
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https://www.jewishaz.com/opinion/the-extremes-against-the-center/article_75980e9a-b5d7-11ec-b0b8-2f28cd3f1bb0.html
| 2022-04-07T08:06:12
| 1
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https://www.jewishaz.com/opinion/the-extremes-against-the-center/article_75980e9a-b5d7-11ec-b0b8-2f28cd3f1bb0.html
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Doctors remove ‘miracle’ baby’s grapefruit-sized facial tumor
HAYWARD, Wis. (WCCO) - A Wisconsin family is celebrating their little boy’s first birthday. Doctors had to perform life-saving surgery on him before he was even born, due to a rare and potentially deadly birth defect.
Jagger Scalzo celebrated a hard-fought first birthday after dealing with a medical condition that surprised even experts.
Mycaela and Donovan Scalzo, parents to an almost 1-year-old girl found out they were expecting a boy, but when they got an ultrasound, there was something they were not expecting: a congenital tumor.
“He had what’s called an oropharyngeal teratoma. They can be really small or quite large. His was huge,” said Dr. Joseph B. Lilligard, surgeon at Children’s Minnesota. “It’s a condition that happens in about one in 35,000 to one in 200,000 live births. They can block the airway, so the moment the baby is born, they wouldn’t have the ability to protect their airway or breathe.”
The Scalzo family decided to the Midwest Fetal Care Center in Minneapolis, a partnership between Children’s Minnesota and Allina Health.
“I think I cried almost every appointment up until he was there. It’s just so unknown,” Mycaela Scalzo said.
Lilligard and his coworkers knew what to do. It would require a C-section where the baby would be partially born while doctors removed the grapefruit-sized tumor from his mouth and face.
The surgery was risky for both baby and mother.
“I mean, we went into my C-section not knowing if he would be OK or if I would,” Scalzo said.
But thankfully, everything worked out.
“It’s pretty remarkable. You go from a really horrific-type scene to a quite normal, exciting, almost perfect outcome,” Lilligard said. “The sky’s the limit for Jagger. He can do anything.”
After conquering a brain bleed, Jagger was able to leave the hospital after 76 days.
“I cried the entire way from Minneapolis, and I was just so excited. His dad was driving and was like, ‘Are you just gonna stare at him the whole time?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ It was just so exciting for him to meet our daughter and see them finally realize that the other exists,” Scalzo said.
Jagger’s mother says he is doing well and getting stronger. He did have a recent setback when he had a brain bleed and was treated for hydrocephalus, but his family says he’s recovering.
“He’s a miracle, and I think that’s the best way any of us can describe it. He’s the perfect, happy, smiley, little miracle, and we are so grateful we ended up where we did,” Scalzo said.
She hopes Jagger won’t have another surgery for at least 20 years.
Copyright 2022 WCCO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/doctors-remove-miracle-babys-grapefruit-sized-facial-tumor/
| 2022-04-07T08:51:30
| 0
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/doctors-remove-miracle-babys-grapefruit-sized-facial-tumor/
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US: 2 posed as agents, gave gifts to Secret Service officers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail.
The two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 — were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.
Prosecutors allege Taherzadeh and Ali had falsely claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and work on a special task force investigating gang and violence connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They allege the two posed as law enforcement officers to integrate with actual federal agents.
Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools, according to court documents.
He also offered to let them use a black GMC SUV that he identified as an “official government vehicle,” prosecutors say. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady.
Prosecutors said four Secret Service employees were placed on leave earlier this week as part of the investigation.
The plot unraveled when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault involving a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit.
Prosecutors say the men had also set up surveillance in the building and had been telling residents there that they could access any of their cellphones at any time. The residents also told investigators they believed the men had access to their personal information.
Taherzadeh and Ali are scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers who could comment on the allegations.
Authorities did not detail what, if anything, the men were aiming to accomplish by posing as law enforcement officers or by providing the gifts. Prosecutors said the investigation remains ongoing.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/us-2-posed-agents-gave-gifts-secret-service-officers/
| 2022-04-07T08:51:38
| 0
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/us-2-posed-agents-gave-gifts-secret-service-officers/
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Doctors remove ‘miracle’ baby’s grapefruit-sized facial tumor
HAYWARD, Wis. (WCCO) - A Wisconsin family is celebrating their little boy’s first birthday. Doctors had to perform life-saving surgery on him before he was even born, due to a rare and potentially deadly birth defect.
Jagger Scalzo celebrated a hard-fought first birthday after dealing with a medical condition that surprised even experts.
Mycaela and Donovan Scalzo, parents to an almost 1-year-old girl, found out they were expecting a boy, but when they got an ultrasound, there was something they were not expecting: a congenital tumor.
“He had what’s called an oropharyngeal teratoma. They can be really small or quite large. His was huge,” said Dr. Joseph B. Lilligard, surgeon at Children’s Minnesota. “It’s a condition that happens in about one in 35,000 to one in 200,000 live births. They can block the airway, so the moment the baby is born, they wouldn’t have the ability to protect their airway or breathe.”
The Scalzo family decided to head to the Midwest Fetal Care Center in Minneapolis, a partnership between Children’s Minnesota and Allina Health.
“I think I cried almost every appointment up until he was there. It’s just so unknown,” Mycaela Scalzo said.
Lilligard and his coworkers knew what to do. It would require a C-section where the baby would be partially born while doctors removed the grapefruit-sized tumor from his mouth and face.
The surgery was risky for both baby and mother.
“I mean, we went into my C-section not knowing if he would be OK or if I would,” Scalzo said.
But thankfully, everything worked out.
“It’s pretty remarkable. You go from a really horrific-type scene to a quite normal, exciting, almost perfect outcome,” Lilligard said. “The sky’s the limit for Jagger. He can do anything.”
After conquering a brain bleed, Jagger was able to leave the hospital after 76 days.
“I cried the entire way from Minneapolis, and I was just so excited. His dad was driving and was like, ‘Are you just gonna stare at him the whole time?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ It was just so exciting for him to meet our daughter and see them finally realize that the other exists,” Scalzo said.
Jagger’s mother says he is doing well and getting stronger. He did have a recent setback when he had a brain bleed and was treated for hydrocephalus, but his family says he’s recovering.
“He’s a miracle, and I think that’s the best way any of us can describe it. He’s the perfect, happy, smiley, little miracle, and we are so grateful we ended up where we did,” Scalzo said.
She hopes Jagger won’t have another surgery for at least 20 years.
Copyright 2022 WCCO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/doctors-remove-miracle-babys-grapefruit-sized-facial-tumor/
| 2022-04-07T09:00:43
| 1
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/doctors-remove-miracle-babys-grapefruit-sized-facial-tumor/
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US: 2 posed as agents, gave gifts to Secret Service officers
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged two men they say were posing as federal agents, giving free apartments and other gifts to U.S. Secret Service agents, including one who worked on the first lady’s security detail.
The two men — Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 36 — were taken into custody as more than a dozen FBI agents charged into a luxury apartment building in Southeast Washington on Wednesday evening.
Prosecutors allege Taherzadeh and Ali had falsely claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and work on a special task force investigating gang and violence connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They allege the two posed as law enforcement officers to integrate with actual federal agents.
Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools, according to court documents.
He also offered to let them use a black GMC SUV that he identified as an “official government vehicle,” prosecutors say. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady.
Prosecutors said four Secret Service employees were placed on leave earlier this week as part of the investigation.
The plot unraveled when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault involving a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit.
Prosecutors say the men had also set up surveillance in the building and had been telling residents there that they could access any of their cellphones at any time. The residents also told investigators they believed the men had access to their personal information.
Taherzadeh and Ali are scheduled to appear in court on Thursday. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers who could comment on the allegations.
Authorities did not detail what, if anything, the men were aiming to accomplish by posing as law enforcement officers or by providing the gifts. Prosecutors said the investigation remains ongoing.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/us-2-posed-agents-gave-gifts-secret-service-officers/
| 2022-04-07T09:00:50
| 1
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https://www.kttc.com/2022/04/07/us-2-posed-agents-gave-gifts-secret-service-officers/
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CUMBERLAND, Ind. — Vandals smash and burn a Cumberland park doing an estimated $20,000 in damages. Now the teens believed to be involved are being questioned by police.
“We are hearing at least they are showing some remorse. It’s looking like they want to do something to remedy that,” said Sgt. Mark Waggoner, a detective with the Cumberland Police Department (CPD).
The damages happened last weekend at Lions Park. City officials say the destruction lasted several hours from Saturday evening into Sunday morning. Police say at least one teen poured gasoline down a slide, and lit it on fire. The park’s tennis court and net were also burned. A $20,000 mural was spray painted with obscenities. A $4,500 drinking fountain was smashed down to its base.
“I have been here 15 years, and this is the single worst night of vandalism we have ever seen here in town,” said Cumberland Town Manager Benjamin Lipps.
“I hate that someone would decide to take advantage of this nice location,” said Darla Gibson who lives near the park. “I come out to walk here early in the morning. There are people out here as early as 7:30 a.m. taking walks. We have noticed that when there is more traffic going through, there is less riff raff that is going on.”
Thanks to tips and surveillance video from the public, police were able to identify all four teens involved. They have questioned three of the four teens. So far, police say the children are cooperating with investigators.
“Seems like they were regretful. I don’t think they really understood exactly what they were doing and thought it was going to be fun prank and got carried away,” continued Sgt. Waggoner. “I think it was just a poor immature decision by some young kids who haven’t had the full brain development.”
The city was in the process of beefing up security at the park. This includes improved lighting and cameras. Workers had just finished Phase One of the upgrades before the teens smashed an electrical panel. Now Phase Two will face setbacks.
Cumberland police are talking with the Hancock County prosecutors office regarding potential charges. CPD believes the teens could face charges of criminal mischief and possibly arson.
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https://fox59.com/indiana-news/vandalism-spree-sees-teens-do-20000-in-damages-to-a-cumberland-park/
| 2022-04-07T09:06:14
| 1
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https://fox59.com/indiana-news/vandalism-spree-sees-teens-do-20000-in-damages-to-a-cumberland-park/
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Dry weather holding this morning under partly to mostly cloudy skies, as temperatures hover in the lower 40s, with wind chills in the 30s. A dry morning rush hour is expected but a heavier coat will be needed at the bus-stop, as we enjoy some early, limited sun in spots!
Clouds will be on the increase by late morning and showers will begin to develop and sweep across the state. This will add to the cooler feel, as highs barely reach 50° and a few ice pellets/graupel may mix in with the rain for the evening rush. Winds will turn breezy from the southwest at 12-20mph.
Friday and Saturday brings a much colder, wintry flow, as highs reach the upper 30s for most, as rain and snow showers return. Ground temperatures will be too warm Friday for any accumulation but some grassy accumulations will be possible Friday night and into Saturday. Is this winter’s last stand!?
Warming gets underway on Sunday and will drive our weather for early next week! 70s return on Monday and hold through Wednesday, as rain chances increase, along with a few storms. In the meantime, bundle up!
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https://fox59.com/weather/colder-shift-underway-tracking-rain-and-snow/
| 2022-04-07T09:06:20
| 0
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https://fox59.com/weather/colder-shift-underway-tracking-rain-and-snow/
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Doctors remove ‘miracle’ baby’s grapefruit-sized facial tumor
HAYWARD, Wis. (WCCO) - A Wisconsin family is celebrating their little boy’s first birthday. Doctors had to perform life-saving surgery on him before he was even born, due to a rare and potentially deadly birth defect.
Jagger Scalzo celebrated a hard-fought first birthday after dealing with a medical condition that surprised even experts.
Mycaela and Donovan Scalzo, parents to an almost 1-year-old girl, found out they were expecting a boy, but when they got an ultrasound, there was something they were not expecting: a congenital tumor.
“He had what’s called an oropharyngeal teratoma. They can be really small or quite large. His was huge,” said Dr. Joseph B. Lilligard, surgeon at Children’s Minnesota. “It’s a condition that happens in about one in 35,000 to one in 200,000 live births. They can block the airway, so the moment the baby is born, they wouldn’t have the ability to protect their airway or breathe.”
The Scalzo family decided to head to the Midwest Fetal Care Center in Minneapolis, a partnership between Children’s Minnesota and Allina Health.
“I think I cried almost every appointment up until he was there. It’s just so unknown,” Mycaela Scalzo said.
Lilligard and his coworkers knew what to do. It would require a C-section where the baby would be partially born while doctors removed the grapefruit-sized tumor from his mouth and face.
The surgery was risky for both baby and mother.
“I mean, we went into my C-section not knowing if he would be OK or if I would,” Scalzo said.
But thankfully, everything worked out.
“It’s pretty remarkable. You go from a really horrific-type scene to a quite normal, exciting, almost perfect outcome,” Lilligard said. “The sky’s the limit for Jagger. He can do anything.”
After conquering a brain bleed, Jagger was able to leave the hospital after 76 days.
“I cried the entire way from Minneapolis, and I was just so excited. His dad was driving and was like, ‘Are you just gonna stare at him the whole time?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ It was just so exciting for him to meet our daughter and see them finally realize that the other exists,” Scalzo said.
Jagger’s mother says he is doing well and getting stronger. He did have a recent setback when he had a brain bleed and was treated for hydrocephalus, but his family says he’s recovering.
“He’s a miracle, and I think that’s the best way any of us can describe it. He’s the perfect, happy, smiley, little miracle, and we are so grateful we ended up where we did,” Scalzo said.
She hopes Jagger won’t have another surgery for at least 20 years.
Copyright 2022 WCCO via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/doctors-remove-miracle-babys-grapefruit-sized-facial-tumor/
| 2022-04-07T09:12:04
| 0
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/doctors-remove-miracle-babys-grapefruit-sized-facial-tumor/
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TUPELO • Since experiencing live theater in the Big Apple, Misty Cox has developed a deep appreciation for theatrical productions, both big and small.
It’s the latter that’s captured her heart. As vice president of the Tupelo-based Pied Piper Players, Mississippi's only all-children nonprofit theater, Cox is channeling her love of the stage into the next generation of theater kids.
"Kids come from all walks of life to perform in our plays, and I realized very quickly that for some children, that's the only good time they have," she said from inside Tupelo’s Civic Auditorium, where the group will debut its production of “Frozen Jr.” on Friday.
Based on the massively popular Disney animated film, “Frozen,” the musical tells the story of royal sisters Anna and Elsa, the latter of which was born with icy powers that she must keep from everyone … including Anna. When Elsa accidentally freezes the kingdom of Arendelle on her coronation day, she flees to the icy mountains, setting Anna and a growing collection of friends on an adventure to find her and bring her home.
The play will run Friday, April 8, and Saturday, April 9 at 7 p.m.. There will also be a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10.
Cox came by her love of theater naturally. Cox grew up attending Broadway productions in the hustle and bustle of New York City. As a student at a Baltimore boarding school, she would occasionally take the journey north by train when her mother came to visit.
"My mom and I would take the train to New York City and squeeze in as many Broadway shows as we could in a weekend," Cox said.
After living in Louisiana, Baltimore, San Francisco and Atlanta, Cox returned closer to her hometown of Tupelo. When her daughter, Bel — now a ninth grader at Tupelo High School — began taking part in theatrical productions six years ago, Cox pitched in.
"I was just a mom who worked backstage," she said of the time.
But three years ago, Cox was approached by volunteers with the Pied Piper Players about directing a production. After lots of thought and plenty of prodding from her daughter, Cox agreed. After that, she joined the Pied Piper Players board.
According to Cox, she was scared to death when her first-ever rehearsal arrived.
"I only had the first scene of 'Madagascar' planned out," she said.
Her fears quickly subsided when she noticed how talented her older leads were, and how much working as a group meant to the kids.
"A lot of what I've learned has been from the kids," said Cox, who has yet to act on stage herself.
These days, Cox usually directs two of the theater company’s four annual productions. Since the pandemic, however, the playhouse hasn't performed as many plays, although the upcoming season will see a return to their regular schedule.
Over the years, the director has realized her key role in the group is as a vessel for the children to learn to express themselves.
"If kids have an idea, I'm always going to try it," Cox said. "Every kid's idea is important.”
Cox's daughter, Bel, will help her direct while her youngest daughter, Meadow, will debut onstage for the first time with a speaking part in this weekend's production of "Frozen Jr."
The cast of “Frozen Jr.” comprises 75 children from across the area, the largest in Pied Piper’s recent history. Among them is Meadow, Cox’s youngest daughter, who has her first speaking part in the production. Bel is also helping direct, making the production a family affair.
Despite the headaches that naturally accompany such a large-scale small production, Cox said the rewards in the work she’s doing are more than she ever expected.
"It's a whole different ball game when you're touching kids' lives that really need it," she said.
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https://www.djournal.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/pied-pipers-misty-cox-its-a-whole-different-ballgame-when-youre-touching-kids-lives/article_140bd71a-8ab1-5ada-ae4b-138da63fbbae.html
| 2022-04-07T09:51:30
| 1
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https://www.djournal.com/lifestyle/arts-entertainment/pied-pipers-misty-cox-its-a-whole-different-ballgame-when-youre-touching-kids-lives/article_140bd71a-8ab1-5ada-ae4b-138da63fbbae.html
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Felonies
The following people were booked into the Lee County-Tupelo Adult Jail in connection with felony charges ending Wednesday at 1 p.m.
Quintize Atkinson, 35, of Saltillo, was arrested by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, possession of hydrocodone.
Brian Caldwell, 48, of Tupelo, was arrested by the Tupelo Police Department, possession of methamphetamine.
Shelton McGreger, 45, of Tupelo, was arrested by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, kidnapping.
Harold Payne, 59, of Tupelo, was arrested by the Tupelo Police Department, violation of probation, contempt of court.
Christopher Terrell Prince, 42, of Tupelo, was arrested by the Tupelo Police Department, attempted grand larceny, violation of probation, contempt of court, false ID.
Derrick Quinn, 41, no address listed, was arrested by the Tupelo Police Department, possession of methamphetamine.
Nicholas Shields, 29, no address listed, was arrested by the Mississippi Department of Corrections, MDOC warrant.
Arthur Washington, 31,of Verona, was arrested by the Verona Police Department, possession of a firearm by a felon.
Lee County Sheriff's Office
The following reports were filed Wednesday by the Lee County Sheriff's Office.
A Birmingham Ridge Road woman said her ex-husband stopped at her house around 5 a.m. to use the bathroom. They got into a verbal argument and took her house and car keys when he left. She said he called her back claiming he would return the keys if she gave him $70.
A Highway 371 Mooreville man said his two county-issued garbage cans were missing or stolen.
A guard at a Lipford Road Verona industry said a woman in a silver Nissan Armada pulled into the parking lot around 11 a.m. He told her it was private property and she needed to leave. When a second employee came out, she started an argument and pulled a pistol, pointing it at the second man. The guard drew his weapon, pointed it at her and told her to drop her weapon three times. She eventually complied and drove away. She returned one time before deputies arrived to take possession of the Sig Sauer pistol.
A County Road 1178 Mooreville woman said her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend has been sending threatening and harassing text messages. The suspect has threatened to shoot her and to show up at her job and create problems.
A County Road 300 Shannon woman said a large brown Boxer mix showed up at the end of March and refuses to leave. The dog has a collar, but no tag. When she tries to catch it, the dog gets aggressive.
A County Road 2716 Baldwyn man said his neighbor’s large dog came onto his property and killed two guinea fowl, chased his cat and growled at him.
A County Road 1399 Eggville woman heard a commotion around 2 p.m. She looked outside and saw two men on the ground across the road fighting. One suspect got up, got into a green Honda and left. The other male eventually got up and walked away.
A County Road 811 Saltillo woman came home and found kittens “up in the roof of her house.” She doesn’t own a cat and wants them removed.
A County Road 1820 Saltillo woman said her neighbors have been causing her problems. She said they called Tombigbee Electric Power Association pretending to be her, saying she was moving and they needed to turn the power off and list the house as vacant.
A Tupelo man said his truck “messed up” last night on Highway 45 near Verona. He had the truck towed to his friend’s Highway 6 Plantersville house so he could work on it. The friend did not answer the door, so he left the truck with a note on it. When he returned the next morning, the friend hit him with a stick, pulled a gun on him and threatened to kill him.
A Baldwyn man said someone in a white Tahoe was riding his bumper down County Road 1498. When he got to the intersection of county roads 1498 and 931, a white male in his 20s got out and started yelling and cursing at him. The suspect told the man to pull into the church parking lot. When he did, the suspect drove past him. When he saw the suspect at the Chevron, he pulled in to ask what the problem was. The suspect pulled out a baseball bat and hit the man in the head, knocking him unconscious.
A Highway 6 Plantersville man said a male suspect dropped off a vehicle overnight without permission. The suspect called the next day asking about the vehicle. He told the suspect several times he could come and get the vehicle off his property. The suspect continues to call but has yet to remove the offending vehicle.
Tupelo Police Department
No reports filed since April 4.
Anyone with information on any of these crimes is urged to call the Lee County Sheriff's Office at 841-9041, the Tupelo Police Department at 841-6491 or Crime Stoppers of Northeast Mississippi at (800) 773-TIPS or download the P3 Tip App and leave an anonymous tip that way.
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https://www.djournal.com/news/crime-law-enforcement/crime-reports-thursday-april-7-2022/article_61767361-1150-5560-9ae1-04d986fac189.html
| 2022-04-07T09:51:36
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https://www.djournal.com/news/crime-law-enforcement/crime-reports-thursday-april-7-2022/article_61767361-1150-5560-9ae1-04d986fac189.html
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TUPELO • After 24 years without a Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) at Tupelo High School, the program will return this fall.
It will start out as a National Defense Cadet Corps (NDCC) program, which is virtually identical to JROTC but is entirely school-funded. NDCC programs can eventually transition to an official JROTC program, receiving partial funding from the U.S. Army, once established.
Tupelo High's Air Force JROTC program was discontinued in 1998, and initial discussions about a new Army JROTC program began two decades later in 2018.
A plan was presented to the Tupelo Public School District Board of Trustees in Feb. 2020, but everything was put on hold as the COVID-19 pandemic began one month later.
Planning picked back up in fall 2021, and JROTC instructor Col. Roger Johnson has been actively recruiting students this school year. Classes won't begin until the 2022-23 school year, but 87 students have already signed up and began being outfitted for uniforms last week.
Johnson served 31 and a half years in the Army National Guard and retired in 2015. He later worked five and a half years in Tupelo for the Mississippi Department of Transportation before accepting the position at Tupelo High.
Developing productive citizens
One of Tupelo High School's goals is to offer programs for everybody, principal Art Dobbs said. The addition of a JROTC program will meet that need for many students.
In researching JROTC, Dobbs read about the program's mission and compared it with TPSD's goals. A major goal the two share is promoting citizenship.
"That's always been one of my favorite rules to go by," Dobbs said. "The goal of education is to produce productive citizens."
The intent of the JROTC program, Johnson said, is to take a student and teach them accountability, responsibility, discipline, teamwork and leadership, shaping their character along the way.
Doing so will equip students with the skills they need to be productive citizens whether they decide to join the military, attend a college or university or join the workforce after high school.
JROTC will be a 90-minute elective course called Leadership Education Training. In the first year, all students will begin with Leadership Education Training 1 and can enroll in subsequent classes each year that build on the skills they learned the previous year.
Students will begin by learning JROTC basics and history. They'll also learn about the flag and what it represents. Then they'll put that knowledge into practice, learning how to fold the flag. From there, they'll move to physical training, learning how to march and organize themselves.
It will be almost like basic training, Johnson said, in that students will get a practical start, learning from the ground up.
"The first year is the groundwork where we basically take these kids and we bring them from soup to nuts, so to speak," Johnson said. "It's just like if you were coaching football. 'Hey, this is a football. And this is a center, a guard, a tackle.' You just sort of start out with the basic and walk them through it."
Growing the program from the ground up
In the 2022-23 school year Johnson hopes to get 10% of the high school's students involved. With a total enrollment of 2,000 students, he'd like to have at least 200 join the program.
With 87 students already signed up, he's a little under halfway to his goal and the program hasn't even officially launched yet.
"Once we put effort into actions and the kids see it, I think we're going to grow this thing," Johnson said. "There's no question it'll be a top notch program."
By the 2024-25 school year, Johnson hopes to transition to an Army-funded JROTC program and grow Tupelo's JROTC program into the largest in the Mississippi.
TPSD is in the early planning stages of constructing a multipurpose building for JROTC activities, which will also house other hands-on classes like safety education and health classes.
For the time being, marching and drill practices will take place in the gym or outdoor spaces at the high school.
Johnson said JROTC will allow students the chance to become a part of something and take ownership in it. Teamwork is a critical part of the program, but students will be assigned personal responsibilities based on their shown leadership, along with natural and developed skills.
"It's a good opportunity for this person to really find their niche in doing something," Johnson said.
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https://www.djournal.com/news/education/tupelo-high-school-revives-jrotc-program-after-more-than-two-decades/article_81d5f190-924d-5592-b930-f92834be21d4.html
| 2022-04-07T09:51:42
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https://www.djournal.com/news/education/tupelo-high-school-revives-jrotc-program-after-more-than-two-decades/article_81d5f190-924d-5592-b930-f92834be21d4.html
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SALTILLO • Water bills and payments are getting lost in the mail, causing trouble for both Saltillo city hall and residents.
For more than a year, city officials have been uncertain if customers were receiving their bills through the U.S. Postal Service, and customers have no way to know if their payments ever made it through the mail to city hall. And if payment is not received, the city has to shut off the resident's water.
Saltillo City Clerk Mary Parker said this has been an ongoing problem for about a year-and-a-half, but the problem has gotten worse over the last two months. The city mailed bills on Feb. 28. When some customers said they had not received them more than a week later, the city went to social media to remind people that there were issues with the post office.
When the same thing happened with the March water bills, Mayor Copey Grantham addressed the issue at the end of the board of aldermen meeting Tuesday.
“We’ve been having a lot of problems with our mailing system. I have reached out to Trent Kelly’s office and our U.S. Senators to let them know that our post office is losing a lot of mail,” Grantham said at the end of the April 5 meeting that was streamed live on Facebook.
City officials suspect part of the problem may be the lengths a letter must travel to get across town from a residence in Saltillo to the city hall. Years ago, local mail was sorted in Tupelo. Now, all mail is sent to Memphis to be sorted, then returned to Saltillo to be delivered. But that process does not always work as designed.
“If you (mail) your bill, from here it travels from here all the way to Memphis and it disappears once it gets to Memphis, Tennessee,” Grantham said. “It does not always make it back to city hall. Just be aware we are having problems with the mail and the post office.”
Water bills are due at the same time each month, and late fees have to be applied on the 15th, whether the customer received a bill or not. To ensure citizens don’t have their water cut off, city officials recommend people pay online or by bank draft.
If someone has not received a bill, they can go online, enter their account number and see their bill. People can also drop by city hall and pay in person.
Parker said they understand there is an issue with the post office, but the city is bound by statute and can’t offer exceptions for lost bills or payments.
“We try to be as lenient as we can,” Parker said. “We’ve had people come in and pay after their payment was lost. When we finally get their payment, we just apply it and they will end up with a credit.”
Parker noted that these types of issues have plagued more than just Saltillo's citizenry.
“It’s not just us," Parker said. "Fulton, Guntown and Baldwyn are all having problems with the mail. And it is affecting us as well. I have mailed city payments only to have the vendors call and ask where their check is.”
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https://www.djournal.com/news/postal-service-lags-causing-problems-with-water-bills/article_aba0091b-f848-5f46-bc15-494544838666.html
| 2022-04-07T09:51:49
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https://www.djournal.com/news/postal-service-lags-causing-problems-with-water-bills/article_aba0091b-f848-5f46-bc15-494544838666.html
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JACKSON • The Mississippi Legislature has voted to send more than $19 million to counties, municipalities and other entities in Northeast Mississippi to help fund projects ranging from tourism to infrastructure needs.
Often jokingly referred to as a “Christmas tree” bills, Capitol leaders tend to use bonded debt to dole out money for pet projects across the state as a way to curry favor with local favors.
With the state coffers are awash in excess revenues, lawmakers decided to use cash to fund the projects this year.
“We’re not incurring any debt,” Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann told reporters on Tuesday. “Over the next two years, we will write off approximately half a billion dollars in debt in Mississippi, making our financial statement very strong for this year and for every year in the future.”
Before the 2022 session began, the city of Tupelo, the largest city in Northeast Mississippi, asked state lawmakers to set aside around $9 million in money for local projects, including improvements to the Elvis Presley Birthplace and upgrades to McCullough Boulevard.
Lawmakers ended up giving the All-America City money for most of their requested projects, but they didn’t come close to giving the city the amount of money they asked for.
Here is a list of some of the Northeast Mississippi projects for which state lawmakers allocated money:
- City of Oxford - $1 million for the repair and renovation of a building to be used by the city of Oxford police department
- City of Columbus - $350,000 for acquisition of a fire engine; $350,000
- Chickasaw Inkana Foundation - $5 million for the Chickasaw Heritage Center in Tupelo
- Marshall County: $500,000 for the Blackwater road bridge project
- City of Byhalia - $500,000 for the old school commons restoration
- Lowndes County - $250,000 for the town of Crawford with infrastructure needs
- City of Starkville - $250,000 for Northside Drive drainage improvements
- City of Starkville - $250,000 for J.L. King center infrastructure
- City of Fulton - $1 million to purchase, repair and renovate a building to house city hall
- Itawamba County - $1 million to renovate the old county courthouse and construct a justice court
- City of Baldwyn - $200,000 for the construction of a satellite fire station
- City of Baldwyn - $100,000 for repairs to Winddance drive
- City of Tupelo - $500,000 for lighting and curb upgrades to McCullough Boulevard
- City of Booneville - $1 million for repairs and improvements to sewer lines near the Northeast Mississippi Community College football field
- Town of Bruce -$400,000 for infrastructure improvements around both of the city’s parks
- Town of Bruce - $500,000 to repair Industrial Park Road
- Town of Derma – $50,000 for water well repairs
- Itawamba County - $50,000 for playground equipment for Houston Community Park
- Town of Plantersville - $100,000 for infrastructure improvements to the police department
- Oktibbeha County - $1 million for upgrades to Maben Sturgis Road
- City of Starkville - $1.25 million for a Main Street project
- City of New Albany - $250,000 for business district renovations
- Union County - $150,00 for storm shelter renovations in the Red Hill community
- Lee County - $500,000 for improvements to Endville Road
- Benton County - $500,000 fir road and bridge maintenance
- Town of Potts Camp - $300,000 for the acquisition of a fire truck
- Town of Hickory Flat - $100,000 for police department equipment equipment for police department
- Union County - $1 million for road maintenance
- Prentiss County – $425,000 for fire department equipment
- Marshall County - $1 million for the Chickasaw Trail Emergency Response Center
- Lee County - $300,000 for community center improvements
- Windows of Amory - $200,000
- City of Aberdeen - $150,000 for improvements to the Magnolias
- City of Tupelo - $500,000 for an all inclusive playground in Ballard Park
- City of Tupelo - $250,000 for turnaround access for the Elvis Presley Birthplace
- Town of Vardaman - $150,000 for paving streets
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https://www.djournal.com/news/state-news/northeast-mississippi-receives-more-than-19-million-from-legislature-for-local-projects/article_6501c577-1775-557a-be1a-498c71a4d7bc.html
| 2022-04-07T09:51:55
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https://www.djournal.com/news/state-news/northeast-mississippi-receives-more-than-19-million-from-legislature-for-local-projects/article_6501c577-1775-557a-be1a-498c71a4d7bc.html
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Osteen area's 3,300-acre Palm Bluff Preserve about to expand by more than 1,200 acres
DAYTONA BEACH — The Volusia County Council has approved an agreement that means a large conservation area near Osteen that’s popular with wildlife and outdoor enthusiasts is about to get even bigger.
Volusia Forever, the county’s voter-approved land acquisition program, has teamed up with the St. Johns River Water Management District to preserve huge swaths of the county’s natural landscape and wildlife corridors.
The water management district manages one of the more popular preserves — the 3,321-acre Palm Bluff Preserve that provides wooded vistas and trails for the public to hike, ride horses and bicycles, camp out and commune with nature.
At their meeting on Tuesday, the Council approved a $3.1 million cost-sharing agreement between Volusia Forever and the district to purchase 854 acres of property adjacent to Palm Bluff Preserve and acquire a conservation easement to another 422 acres of adjacent land.
The properties contain an ecologically-sensitive mix of forest and wetlands that are important for preservation, habitat protection, recreational use and groundwater recharge.
The deal involves three different parcels owned by three siblings and represents the first time in about a decade that the Volusia Forever program has acquired conservation property.
Read more about Volusia Forever:15 Volusia Forever projects recommended for county approval by advisory committee
Learn about Volusia Forever and ECHO programs:VOLUSIA COUNTY ELECTION | In era of rancor, voters agree on ECHO, Volusia Forever taxes
Under the deal approved by the Council on Tuesday, Volusia Forever and the water management district will jointly buy the 854 acres for $2.4 million, add it to the preserve and pay another $701,662 for the 422-acre conservation easement.
With the conservation easement, the property doesn’t change hands. However, the owner agrees to a set of rules and then manages the property consistent with the objective of preserving the easement in its natural state.
The easement will connect up with a much larger wildlife corridor that runs north to south through the center of the county to serve as a connected and protected habitat and passageway for endangered and threatened animal species. The purchases will expand the land protected as part of the Volusia Conservation Corridor to more than 40,000 acres.
Of the total $3.1 million total acquisition cost, Volusia Forever will contribute $1.3 million and the St. Johns River Water Management District will pay a little over $1 million. Volusia Forever’s share will come from revenue generated by a voter-approved tax that funds the Forever program.
The Volusia Forever program initially was approved by Volusia County voters in 2000, and by 2012 the bulk of its acquisition funds were exhausted. However, Volusia Forever and a sister program, Volusia ECHO, were so popular that county residents voted overwhelmingly in 2020 to extend them for another 20 years.
The properties that are part of the new joint participation agreement mark Volusia Forever’s first acquisition since the program was renewed. But they won’t be the last.
Also on Tuesday, the Council endorsed a list of 16 additional properties that the Volusia Forever Advisory Committee has recommended for consideration. The properties total more than 10,000 acres, and most were placed on the Council’s group of sites considered higher priority for acquisition based on site ranking criteria and the furthering of the program’s goals to preserve land considered environmentally sensitive, water resource protection, forested, farmland and an outdoor recreation area.
County staff will work to negotiate contracts with the property owners and bring each new acquisition to the County Council for approval.
Among those turning out to support the Council’s adoption of the acquisition list were DeBary officials, who are anxious for a 170-acre tract in their city that sits along the east shore of the St. Johns River to be purchased for preservation. The property was placed on the county’s priority, and DeBary Mayor Karen Chasez said the city will be a willing funding partner.
"We are ready to start these negotiations tomorrow," Chasez told the Council. "This is a very critical parcel within our city."
You can each Eileen at Eileen.Zaffiro@news-jrnl.com
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https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2022/04/07/sprawling-volusia-county-conservation-area-to-get-bigger/9479570002/
| 2022-04-07T10:22:14
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https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/volusia/2022/04/07/sprawling-volusia-county-conservation-area-to-get-bigger/9479570002/
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| 2022-04-07T10:26:35
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A cold front pushing through North Carolina will bring scattered showers and storms starting Thursday morning and lasting through the evening.
Any of the storms could be strong or severe. However, areas east of Raleigh have a higher risk of those storms being severe.
The main concerns with the storms include damaging wind and hail. An isolated tornado is also possible.
Temperatures in the region will be in the 70s, but once the cold front moves through those temperatures will drop--meaning most areas in the region will be in the 60s by Thursday evening.
First Alert 4/7: Off & on showers and storms will develop this morning and through the afternoon. A few storms may be strong to severe. Main threats: damaging wind & large hail. An iso. tornado is possible. #ncwx #Raleigh @ABC11_WTVD #Thursday pic.twitter.com/d61vtgMdCc
— Kweilyn Murphy WTVD (@KweilynM) April 7, 2022
TIMING
Showers could pop up anytime Thursday, but they're more likely to happen early in the morning and then again in the afternoon.
ABC11 Meteorologist Kweilyn Murphy said the highest chance for strong and severe storms is between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m.
By sunset, the storms should have moved out of the region.
All told, these storms will bring less than half an inch of rain to the majority of areas. Although some isolated locations where severe storms develop could see more than that--but the rain should not cause any widespread flooding.
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https://abc11.com/nc-weather-today-raleigh-forecast/11720394/
| 2022-04-07T10:34:54
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https://abc11.com/nc-weather-today-raleigh-forecast/11720394/
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Lawrence Ray, 62, was convicted at a trial where weeks of testimony chronicled his psychologically manipulative relationship with young people he met in fall 2010 at Sarah Lawrence College, a small New York liberal arts school. Ray moved into his daughter's dorm after finishing a prison stint for a securities fraud conviction.
Sentencing was set for Sept. 16 on charges including racketeering, conspiracy, forced labor, sex trafficking and obstruction of justice. Ray, who stood with his arms at his side and faced the Manhattan jury as guilty verdicts were returned on 15 counts, could face up to life in prison.
After the verdict was read, Ray was returned to custody, where he had been since his early 2020 arrest.
RELATED | Man speaks out about college sex cult mastermind living in his apartment
His lawyers declined comment outside court and did not immediately return email messages seeking comment.
In a statement, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said Ray had changed "a group of friends who had their whole lives ahead of them."
"For the next decade, he used violence, threats, and psychological abuse to try to control and destroy their lives," Williams said. "He exploited them. He terrorized them. He tortured them. Let me be very clear. Larry Ray is a predator. An evil man who did evil things. Today's verdict finally brings him to justice."
Jurors concluded deliberations less than a day after receiving the case following a monthlong trial that featured testimony from numerous victims who usually referred to Ray just as "Larry." Some testified that Ray had made them believe they had poisoned or otherwise harmed him and they needed to pay him back.
One woman testified that she became a sex worker to try to pay reparations to Ray after becoming convinced that she had poisoned him. She said that, over four years, she gave Ray $2.5 million in installments that averaged between $10,000 and $50,000 per week.
Ray's lawyers maintained he was victimized by former friends who fabricated their stories.
Ray did not testify. Twice, the trial was interrupted as he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance for undisclosed illnesses.
Several students testified that they were drawn into Ray's world as he told them stories of his past influence in New York City politics, including his role in ruining the career of former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik after serving as the best man at his wedding years earlier. Ray had, in fact, been a figure in the corruption investigation that derailed Kerik's nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Some of the students agreed to live with Ray in the summer of 2011 at his Manhattan one-bedroom apartment, where his sinister side emerged as he started to claim that the students had poisoned and harmed him or his property.
To make amends, they testified, they did what he asked, including turning over money. One man said he gave Ray over $100,000.
Prosecutors said the money was never enough. Through threats and violence and videotaped "confessions," Ray tightened his hold on the young people, including forcing them to to landscaping and other work at the Pinehurst, North Carolina home of his stepfather for weeks in 2013, they said.
The abuse culminated in October 2018 when Ray for hours repeatedly abused the woman who gave him her proceeds from sex work, forcing her to be tied naked to a chair while he berated her, choked her with a leash and made her fear for her life by putting a bag over her head, prosecutors said.
Ray carried out his crimes with help from his daughter and Isabella Pollok, a woman who has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges, prosecutors said. Her trial is set for later this year. The daughter has not been charged.
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https://abc11.com/sarah-lawrence-college-sex-cult-the-ray-family-leader/11719102/
| 2022-04-07T10:35:00
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https://abc11.com/sarah-lawrence-college-sex-cult-the-ray-family-leader/11719102/
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Person hurt after shooting at Town Center at Boca Raton
Gunfire shut down the Town Center at Boca Raton mall and surrounding roads Wednesday evening.
"Somebody was buying something, and I was scanning their stuff and then as I was scanning itm I hear a loud gunshot," said a mall employee who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. "I was scared. I literally thought I was going to die. I was crying. I called my mom and told her I loved her."
Boca Raton police said one person was shot in the leg.
"I just see everybody rushing and running and people running into my store and that freaked me out, so I locked the gate and I told everybody to run in the back," said the mall employee.
For Chris Figua, a William Sonoma employee, he said the shooting happened right in front the store.
"I just saw out of the corner of my eye, everybody scatter," said Figura. "I left the counter and ran to the back with everybody."
Police said they have a possible suspect in custody and the victim was taken to a hospital.
"We stayed in the storage room for like 10 to 15 minutes, then we got the OK that everything was safe," said Figura.
Police said the shooting remains under investigation.
Scripps Only Content 2022
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/06/person-hurt-after-shooting-town-center-boca-raton/
| 2022-04-07T10:42:18
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/06/person-hurt-after-shooting-town-center-boca-raton/
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Senate poised to confirm Jackson to Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is expected to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his historic pick.
Three Republican senators have said they will support Jackson, who would replace Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires this summer. While the vote will be far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, it will still be a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the narrow 50-50 Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.
“It will be a joyous day,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he announced Thursday’s vote late Wednesday evening. “Joyous for the senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America.”
Jackson, a 51 year-old federal appeals court judge, would be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal side of a 6-3 conservative court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett sitting at the other end of the bench, four of the nine justices would be women for the first time in history.
After a bruising hearing in which Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee aggressively interrogated Jackson on her sentencing record, three GOP senators came out and said they would support her. The statements from Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job.
Collins and Murkowski both decried the increasingly partisan confirmation process, which Collins called “broken” and Murkowski called “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.”
Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the beginning that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from three brutal Supreme Court battles during President Donald Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s, when Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Jackson said her life was shaped by her parents’ experiences with lawful racial segregation and civil rights laws that were enacted a decade before she was born.
With her parents and family sitting behind her, she told the panel that her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American. Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in addition to her nine years on the federal bench.
“I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously,” Jackson said. “I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.”
Once sworn in, Jackson would be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She would join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.
Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.
Republicans spent the hearings interrogating her sentencing record on the federal bench, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.
The GOP questioning in the Judiciary committee stuck for many Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a floor speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got tough once in this area.”
Democrats criticized the Republicans’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomination 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge it from committee and moved ahead with her confirmation.
In an impassioned moment during the hearings last month, Booker, who is also Black, told Jackson that he felt emotional watching her testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and yours” in her image.
“But don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said. “Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/senate-poised-confirm-jackson-supreme-court/
| 2022-04-07T10:42:24
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/senate-poised-confirm-jackson-supreme-court/
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Ukraine seeks arms from NATO as fight looms on eastern front
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine told residents of its industrial heartland to leave while they still can and urged Western nations to send “weapons, weapons, weapons” Thursday after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the country’s east.
Russia’s six-week-old invasion failed to take Ukraine’s capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say was President Vladimir Putin’s initial aim to oust the Ukrainian government. Russia’s focus is now on the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine.
In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported in Kyiv’s northern suburbs. Ukrainian authorities are working to identify hundreds of bodies they say were found in Bucha and other towns after Russian troops withdrew and to document what they say were war crimes.
“My agenda is very simple… it’s weapons, weapons and weapons,” Kuleba said as he arrived at NATO headquarters for talks with the military organization’s foreign ministers about Ukraine’s fight to defend itself.
“The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved,” he said.
Some NATO nations worry they may be Russia’s next target, but the alliance is striving to avoid actions that might pull any of its 30 members directly into the war. Still, he NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged member nations to send Ukraine more weapons, and not just defensive arms.
WARNING: Videos in this story may contain graphic content.
“Ukraine is fighting a defensive war, so this distinction between offensive and defensive weapons doesn’t actually have any real meaning,” he said.
Western countries have provided Ukraine with portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, but they have been reluctant to supply aircraft or tanks plus any equipment that Ukrainian troops would have to be trained to use.
Asked what more his country was seeking, Kuleba listed planes, land-based missiles, armored vehicles and air defense systems.
A U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia had pulled all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply, reorganize and likely prepare to return to fight in the east.
Growing numbers of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and control two areas.
Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk areas as independent states. Military analysts have said Putin also could be seeking to expand into government-controlled parts of the Donbas.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least five civilians were killed and another eight were wounded by Russian shelling on Wednesday. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged civilians to evacuate to safer regions before it was too late.
“Later, people will come under fire, and we won’t be able to do anything to help them,” Vereshchuk said.
Another Western official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it may take Russia’s battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Oleksandr Shputun, spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reported Thursday that near Donbas, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, remained blockaded. He said Russian forces also were carrying out “brutal measures” in the southern Kherson region, which they hold.
In his nightly address to the nation late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle.
“We will fight and we will not retreat,” he said. “We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won’t give them up.”
In areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs Moscow’s troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating.
Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
Western officials warned that similar atrocities were likely to have taken place in other areas occupied by Russian troops. Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of trying to cover up war crimes in areas still under their control, “afraid that the global anger over what was seen in Bucha would be repeated.”
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said in a nighttime video address. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from speaking Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
He called on Russians to demand an end to the war, “if you have even a little shame about what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.”
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia, paving the way for higher tariffs on some imports, and to codify President Joe Biden’s executive action banning imports of Russian oil.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes and alleged the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
Bodies were still being collected in the city. On Wednesday, The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time, the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance interrupted the silence.
Workers at a cemetery began to load more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March, taking locals’ phones and detaining and then releasing some people. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
In the southern port city of Mariupol, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death, he said.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure was destroyed. The attacks on the strategic city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has tried to get into the city for days, without success.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
___
Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/ukraine-seeks-arms-nato-fight-looms-eastern-front/
| 2022-04-07T10:42:31
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https://www.wflx.com/2022/04/07/ukraine-seeks-arms-nato-fight-looms-eastern-front/
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KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine told residents of its industrial heartland to leave while they still can and urged Western nations to send "weapons, weapons, weapons" Thursday after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the country's east.
Russia's six-week-old invasion failed to take Ukraine's capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say was President Vladimir Putin's initial aim to oust the Ukrainian government. Russia's focus is now on the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine.
In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported in Kyiv's northern suburbs. Ukrainian authorities are working to identify hundreds of bodies they say were found in Bucha and other towns after Russian troops withdrew and to document what they say were war crimes.
"My agenda is very simple... it's weapons, weapons and weapons," Kuleba said as he arrived at NATO headquarters for talks with the military organization's foreign ministers about Ukraine's fight to defend itself.
"The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved," he said.
Some NATO nations worry they may be Russia's next target, but the alliance is striving to avoid actions that might pull any of its 30 members directly into the war. Still, he NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged member nations to send Ukraine more weapons, and not just defensive arms.
"Ukraine is fighting a defensive war, so this distinction between offensive and defensive weapons doesn't actually have any real meaning," he said.
Western countries have provided Ukraine with portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, but they have been reluctant to supply aircraft or tanks plus any equipment that Ukrainian troops would have to be trained to use.
Asked what more his country was seeking, Kuleba listed planes, land-based missiles, armored vehicles and air defense systems.
A U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russia had pulled all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply, reorganize and likely prepare to return to fight in the east.
Growing numbers of Putin's troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and control two areas.
Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk areas as independent states. Military analysts have said Putin also could be seeking to expand into government-controlled parts of the Donbas.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least five civilians were killed and another eight were wounded by Russian shelling on Wednesday. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged civilians to evacuate to safer regions before it was too late.
"Later, people will come under fire, and we won't be able to do anything to help them," ," Vereshchuk said.
Another Western official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it may take Russia's battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Oleksandr Shputun, spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reported Thursday that near Donbas, Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, remained blockaded. He said Russian forces also were carrying out "brutal measures" in the southern Kherson region, which they hold.
In his nightly address to the nation late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine, too, was preparing for battle.
"We will fight and we will not retreat," he said. "We will seek all possible options to defend ourselves until Russia begins to seriously seek peace. This is our land. This is our future. And we won't give them up."
In areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs Moscow's troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating.
Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
Western officials warned that similar atrocities were likely to have taken place in other areas occupied by Russian troops. Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of trying to cover up war crimes in areas still under their control, "afraid that the global anger over what was seen in Bucha would be repeated."
"We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied," he said in a nighttime video address. "This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more."
Switching from speaking Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians "to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine" instead of being "equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life."
He called on Russians to demand an end to the war, "if you have even a little shame about what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine."
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin's two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia, paving the way for higher tariffs on some imports, and to codify President Joe Biden's executive action banning imports of Russian oil.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes and alleged the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
Bodies were still being collected in the city. On Wednesday, The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time, the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance interrupted the silence.
Workers at a cemetery began to load more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March, taking locals' phones and detaining and then releasing some people. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
"First we were scared, now we are hysterical," said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. "We didn't cry at first. Now we are crying."
In the southern port city of Mariupol, Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death, he said.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city's infrastructure was destroyed. The attacks on the strategic city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has tried to get into the city for days, without success.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
___
Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
Ukraine seeks arms from NATO as fight looms on eastern front
By ADAM SCHRECK
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https://abc11.com/ukraine-russia-nato-vladimir-putin/11720409/
| 2022-04-07T10:52:17
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https://abc11.com/ukraine-russia-nato-vladimir-putin/11720409/
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Senate poised to confirm Jackson to Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is expected to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his historic pick.
Three Republican senators have said they will support Jackson, who would replace Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires this summer. While the vote will be far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, it will still be a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the narrow 50-50 Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.
“It will be a joyous day,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he announced Thursday’s vote late Wednesday evening. “Joyous for the senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America.”
Jackson, a 51 year-old federal appeals court judge, would be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal side of a 6-3 conservative court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett sitting at the other end of the bench, four of the nine justices would be women for the first time in history.
After a bruising hearing in which Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee aggressively interrogated Jackson on her sentencing record, three GOP senators came out and said they would support her. The statements from Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job.
Collins and Murkowski both decried the increasingly partisan confirmation process, which Collins called “broken” and Murkowski called “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.”
Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the beginning that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from three brutal Supreme Court battles during President Donald Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s, when Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Jackson said her life was shaped by her parents’ experiences with lawful racial segregation and civil rights laws that were enacted a decade before she was born.
With her parents and family sitting behind her, she told the panel that her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American. Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in addition to her nine years on the federal bench.
“I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously,” Jackson said. “I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.”
Once sworn in, Jackson would be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She would join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.
Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.
Republicans spent the hearings interrogating her sentencing record on the federal bench, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.
The GOP questioning in the Judiciary committee stuck for many Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a floor speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got tough once in this area.”
Democrats criticized the Republicans’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomination 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge it from committee and moved ahead with her confirmation.
In an impassioned moment during the hearings last month, Booker, who is also Black, told Jackson that he felt emotional watching her testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and yours” in her image.
“But don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said. “Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/senate-poised-confirm-jackson-supreme-court/
| 2022-04-07T10:57:41
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/senate-poised-confirm-jackson-supreme-court/
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Ukraine appeals for weapons as fight looms on eastern front
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine told residents of its industrial heartland to leave while they still can and urged Western nations to send “weapons, weapons, weapons” Thursday after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the country’s east.
Russia’s six-week-old invasion failed to take Ukraine’s capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say was President Vladimir Putin’s initial aim of ousting the Ukrainian government. Russia’s focus is now on the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine.
In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported on Kyiv’s northern outskirts. Ukrainian authorities are working to identify hundreds of bodies they say were found in Bucha and other towns after Russian troops withdrew and to document what they say were war crimes.
“My agenda is very simple… it’s weapons, weapons and weapons,” Kuleba said as he arrived at NATO headquarters for talks with the military organization’s foreign ministers.
“The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved,” he said.
Some NATO nations worry they may be Russia’s next target, but the alliance is striving to avoid actions that might pull any of its 30 members directly into the war. Still, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged member nations to send Ukraine more weapons, and not just defensive arms.
WARNING: Videos in this story may contain graphic content.
“Ukraine is fighting a defensive war, so this distinction between offensive and defensive weapons doesn’t actually have any real meaning,” he said.
Western countries have provided Ukraine with portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, but they have been reluctant to supply aircraft, tanks or any equipment that Ukrainian troops would have to be trained to use.
Asked what more his country was seeking, Kuleba listed planes, land-based missiles, armored vehicles and air defense systems.
Since Moscow announced more than a week ago that it planned to concentrate its forces in the east, growing numbers of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and control two areas.
Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk areas as independent states. Military analysts have said Putin also could be seeking to expand into government-controlled territory.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged civilians to evacuate to safer regions before it was too late.
“Later, people will come under fire, and we won’t be able to do anything to help them,” Vereshchuk said.
She said Ukraine and Russian officials agreed to establish 10 civilian evacuation routes from Donetsk, Luhansk and the Zaporizhzhia region. She said residents would be able to seek safety in the cities of Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine and Bakhmut in the east.
Britain’s defense ministry said Thursday that Russia was targeting the “line of control” between Ukrainian-held and rebel-controlled areas in the Donbas with artillery and airstrikes and hitting infrastructure targets around Ukraine to wear down the Ukrainian defense.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least five civilians were killed and another eight were wounded by Russian shelling on Wednesday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it struck fuel storage sites around the cities of Mykolaiv, Zaporozhe, Kharkiv and Chuguev overnight using cruise missiles fired from ships in the Black Sea.
A Ukrainian naval vessel caught fire under unclear circumstances in the besieged port city of Mariupol, satellite photos analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press show. The images from Planet Labs PBC appear to show the Ukrainian command ship Donbas burning at the Sea of Azov port on Wednesday afternoon as a nearby building also burned.
A cause for the fire remained unclear. Russian forces are fighting to capture Mariupol, which would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian forces in the city also could be trying to scuttle the vessel so it doesn’t fall into Russian hands. Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine had accused Ukrainian forces of setting fire to the vessel as a “provocation” to “discredit the Russian military.”
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said more than 5,000 civilians have been killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, including 210 children. The attacks have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine. British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000.
While a tentative state of calm returned to the capital following the Russian withdrawal, the possibility of a renewed attack around Kyiv and an escalation in western Ukraine remains. Air raid sirens were again heard Thursday in Lyiv and the relatively secure western city of Lviv, near the Polish border. There was no immediate report of any strikes hitting the cities.
Oleksandr Shputun, spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reported Thursday that Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, remained blockaded near the Donbas. He said Russian forces also were carrying out “brutal measures” in the southern Kherson region, which they hold.
The International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine. In areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs Moscow’s troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating.
Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
Western officials warned that similar atrocities were likely to have taken place in other areas occupied by Russian troops. Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of trying to cover up war crimes in areas still under their control, “afraid that the global anger over what was seen in Bucha would be repeated.”
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said in a nighttime video address. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from speaking Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
The Kremlin insists its troops have committed no war crimes and alleged the images of brutality coming out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
Bodies were still being collected in the town. Cemetery workers on Wednesday began loading more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck so they could be taken to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March, took locals’ phones and detained and then released some people. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” resident Valentyna Klymenko, 64, said. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
In reaction to the alleged atrocities, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia, paving the way for higher tariffs on some imports, and to codify President Joe Biden’s executive action banning imports of Russian oil.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on Russian coal.
Zelenskyy said the sanctions would not be effective unless they included a ban on Russian oil, on which Europe relies heavily. He said the West’s sanctions on Russia so far “can’t be called commensurate to the evil the world saw in Bucha” and elsewhere.
___
Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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https://www.1011now.com/2022/04/07/ukraine-seeks-arms-nato-fight-looms-eastern-front/
| 2022-04-07T10:57:48
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Senate poised to confirm Jackson to Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate is expected to confirm Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Thursday, securing her place as the first Black woman on the high court and giving President Joe Biden a bipartisan endorsement for his historic pick.
Three Republican senators have said they will support Jackson, who would replace Justice Stephen Breyer when he retires this summer. While the vote will be far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations for Breyer and other justices in decades past, it will still be a significant bipartisan accomplishment for Biden in the narrow 50-50 Senate after GOP senators aggressively worked to paint Jackson as too liberal and soft on crime.
“It will be a joyous day,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as he announced Thursday’s vote late Wednesday evening. “Joyous for the senate, joyous for the Supreme Court, joyous for America.”
Jackson, a 51 year-old federal appeals court judge, would be just the third Black justice, after Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal side of a 6-3 conservative court. With Justice Amy Coney Barrett sitting at the other end of the bench, four of the nine justices would be women for the first time in history.
After a bruising hearing in which Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee aggressively interrogated Jackson on her sentencing record, three GOP senators came out and said they would support her. The statements from Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Utah Sen. Mitt Romney all said the same thing — they might not always agree with Jackson, but they found her to be enormously well qualified for the job.
Collins and Murkowski both decried the increasingly partisan confirmation process, which Collins called “broken” and Murkowski called “corrosive” and “more detached from reality by the year.”
Biden, a veteran of a more bipartisan Senate, said from the beginning that he wanted support from both parties for his history-making nominee, and he invited Republicans to the White House as he made his decision. It was an attempted reset from three brutal Supreme Court battles during President Donald Trump’s presidency, when Democrats vociferously opposed the nominees, and from the end of President Barack Obama’s, when Republicans blocked Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from getting a vote.
Before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, the Jackson said her life was shaped by her parents’ experiences with lawful racial segregation and civil rights laws that were enacted a decade before she was born.
With her parents and family sitting behind her, she told the panel that her “path was clearer” than theirs as a Black American. Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm and was appointed as a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission in addition to her nine years on the federal bench.
“I have been a judge for nearly a decade now, and I take that responsibility and my duty to be independent very seriously,” Jackson said. “I decide cases from a neutral posture. I evaluate the facts, and I interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case before me, without fear or favor, consistent with my judicial oath.”
Once sworn in, Jackson would be the second youngest member of the court after Barrett, 50. She would join a court on which no one is yet 75, the first time that has happened in nearly 30 years.
Jackson’s first term will be marked by cases involving race, both in college admissions and voting rights. She has pledged to sit out the court’s consideration of Harvard’s admissions program since she is a member of its board of overseers. But the court could split off a second case involving a challenge to the University of North Carolina’s admissions process, which might allow her to weigh in on the issue.
Republicans spent the hearings interrogating her sentencing record on the federal bench, including the sentences she handed down in child pornography cases, which they argued were too light. Jackson pushed back on the GOP narrative, declaring that “nothing could be further from the truth” and explaining her reasoning in detail. Democrats said she was in line with other judges in her decisions.
The GOP questioning in the Judiciary committee stuck for many Republicans, though, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said in a floor speech Wednesday that Jackson “never got tough once in this area.”
Democrats criticized the Republicans’ questioning.
“You could try and create a straw man here, but it does not hold,” said New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at the committee’s vote earlier this week. The panel deadlocked on the nomination 11-11, but the Senate voted to discharge it from committee and moved ahead with her confirmation.
In an impassioned moment during the hearings last month, Booker, who is also Black, told Jackson that he felt emotional watching her testify. He said he saw “my ancestors and yours” in her image.
“But don’t worry, my sister,” Booker said. “Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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12 special spots in New Jersey to check out this spring
So many people from out of state are blown away by the beautiful natural wonders New Jersey has to offer. From the mountains and waterfalls in the north (yes there are waterfalls in NJ), to the beaches and state parks from central to south, there are plenty of places to enjoy the great outdoors in the Garden State.
Some of these you may be familiar with, others you may have never heard of.
Monmouth Beach
Barnegat Light
Raccoon Creek, Logan Township
Connor's Beach, Highlands
Henry Hudson Trail & Popamora Point: A 24-mile trail through Monmouth County
Pig Island, Fortescue (only accessible by boat)
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton Township
Holland Ridge Farms, Cream Ridge
Buttermilk Falls, Layton
Jenny Jump State Park, Warren County
Ringwood Manor, Ringwood
South Mountain Reservation, Essex County
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.
You can now listen to Dennis & Judi — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite best friends anytime, anywhere and any day of the week. Download the Dennis & Judi show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
Every NJ pizza joint Barstool's Dave Portnoy has reviewed
Dave Portnoy, commonly known as El Presidente, is the founder of Barstool Sports. Somewhere along the way, he decided to start reviewing local pizzerias, and the concept took off. Here is every New Jersey pizzeria Dave has stopped in, along with the score he gave them.
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| 2022-04-07T11:06:58
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Turkey suspends trial of Saudi suspects in Khashoggi killing
ISTANBUL (AP) — A Turkish court ruled Thursday to suspend the trial in absentia of 26 Saudis accused in the gruesome killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and for the case to be transferred to Saudi Arabia.
Khashoggi, a United States resident who wrote critically about Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed on Oct. 2, 2018, at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He had gone into the consulate for an appointment to collect documents required for him to marry his Turkish fiancee, Hatice Cengiz. He never emerged from the building.
Turkish officials alleged that Khashoggi was killed and then dismembered with a bone saw inside the consulate by a team of Saudi agents sent to Istanbul. The group included a forensic doctor, intelligence and security officers and individuals who worked for the crown prince’s office. His remains have not been found.
The Istanbul court’s decision comes despite warnings from human rights groups that turning the case over to the kingdom would lead to a cover up of the killing, which has cast suspicion on the crown prince.
It also comes as Turkey, which is in the throes of a deep economic downturn, has been trying to repair its troubled relationship with Saudi Arabia and an array of other countries in its region. Some media reports have claimed that Riyadh has made improved relations conditional on Turkey dropping the case, which had inflamed tensions between two countries.
The move would pave the way to a resolution of disputes between the two regional heavyweights since the 2011 Arab Spring, including Turkey’s support for Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood, which Riyadh considers a terrorist group. Turkey also sided with Qatar in a diplomatic dispute that saw Doha boycotted by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Last week, the prosecutor in the case recommended that it be transferred to the kingdom, arguing that the trial in Turkey would remain inconclusive. Turkey’s justice minister supported the recommendation, adding that the trial in Turkey would resume if the Turkish court is not satisfied with the outcome of proceedings in the kingdom. It was not clear, however, if Saudi Arabia, which has already put some of the defendants on trial behind closed doors, would open a new trial.
During Thursday’s hearing, lawyers representing Cengiz asked the court not to move proceedings to Saudi Arabia, the private DHA news agency reported.
“Let’s not entrust the lamb to the wolf,” the agency quoted lawyer Ali Ceylan as telling the court, using a Turkish saying. “Let’s protect the honor and dignity of the Turkish nation.”
The court however, ruled to halt the trial in line with the Justice Ministry’s “positive opinion,” DHA reported. It also decided to lift arrest warrants issued against the defendants and gave the sides seven days in which to lodge any opposition to the court’s decisions.
Human rights advocates had also urged Turkey not to transfer the case to Saudi Arabia, arguing that justice for Khashoggi would not be delivered by Saudi courts.
“It’s a scandalous decision,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director for the New York-based Human Rights Watch, asserting that the court had “rubber stamped” a political decision that would allow the government to repair its ties with Saudi Arabia.
“In the interest of realpolitik, Turkey is ready to sacrifice justice for an egregious crime on its own soil,” she told The Associated Press. “(The decision) opens the way for other countries to commit assassinations on Turkish territory and get away with it.”
Cengiz said she would continue to seek justice.
“We will continue this (judicial) process with all the power given to me, as a Turkish citizen,” she told reporters outside the courthouse.
“The two countries may be making an agreement, the two countries may be opening a new chapter ... but the crime is still the same crime,” she said. “The people who committed the crime haven’t changed. Governments and states must have a principled stance.”
At the time of the crime, Turkey apparently had the Saudi Consulate bugged and shared audio of the killing with the CIA, among others.
The slaying sparked international outrage and condemnation. Western intelligence agencies, as well as the U.S. Congress, have said that an operation of such magnitude could not have happened without knowledge of the prince.
Turkey, which had vowed to shed light on the brutal killing, began prosecuting the defendants in absentia in 2020 after Saudi Arabia rejected requests for their extradition. The defendants included two former aides of the prince.
Some of the men were put on trial in Riyadh behind closed doors. A Saudi court issued a final verdict in 2020 that sentenced five mid-level officials and operatives to 20-year jail terms. The court had originally ordered the death penalty, but reduced the punishment after Khashoggi’s son Salah, who lives in Saudi Arabia, announced that he forgave the defendants. Three others were sentenced to lesser jail terms.
___
Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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3 cities in NJ among the most dangerous in the U.S.
It seems like every time we turn around we see New Jersey cities on a "top 100 list" for all that’s negative: Highest taxes, most people looking to flee, least business-friendly, etc.
I’d like to tell you that this list is different, but it’s not.
Every year, the website Neighborhood Scout puts together the numbers of the most dangerous cities in America. We are lucky that none of our New Jersey cities ever land in the top 10. But unfortunately, we always have some contenders among the top 100 most dangerous cities in America. And, for 2022, one is in the top 15!
As was the case in surveys past, the Neighborhood Scout research includes only big cities in America—ones that have 25,000 or more residents.
They base their findings on the number of violent crimes—murder, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault—per 1,000 residents. The ones with the most are considered to be the most dangerous cities in America.
See the full results from Neighborhood Scout here.
Interestingly, the most violent city in America has been the same for a couple years in a row. It is Monroe, Louisiana, which has a violent crime rate of 29.4 per 1,000 people. That means the chance of being a victim of violent crime is 1 in 34.
Most of the cities that end up on this list are repeaters. They keep showing up year after year. Some come and go, like Salt Lake City, Utah, which disappeared for a while and for some reason is back on the list at number 80. (26% violent crime increase year after year)
I love the Neighborhood Scout database because it actually has a creative feature where you can set a radius around any place you choose to also find the LOW percentages of crime: a.k.a. the SAFEST cities near where you live.
At any rate, this list contains the usual New Jersey suspects. No surprise to anyone, it’s Camden, New Jersey.
At number 14 of the top 100 most dangerous cities in the country, Camden has a Violent Crime Rate of 16.5 per 1,000 residents. In plain talk, that means your chance of being a victim of a violent crime in Camden is a frightening 1 in 61.
Trenton follows at number 57 of the top 100 with Violent Crime Rate of 10.8 per 1,000 residents, making your chance of being a victim in Trenton just one in 93.
The other New Jersey city that makes it to the top 100 is, also pretty predictably, Paterson, with a Violent Crime Rate of 9.0 crimes per 1,000 residents. That makes your chance of being a victim of a violent crime in Paterson a frightening 1 in 111.
For reference, remember, the most dangerous city in America, the aforementioned Monroe, Louisiana has a Violent Crime Rate of 29.4 per 1,000 residents, making your chance of being a victim in this violent Louisiana city only 1 in 3.
I mention this again because I’m hoping that, by comparison, it’ll make you feel safer in our three New Jersey hotspots.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.
You can now listen to Dennis & Judi — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite best friends anytime, anywhere and any day of the week. Download the Dennis & Judi show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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https://nj1015.com/3-cities-in-nj-among-the-most-dangerous-in-the-u-s/
| 2022-04-07T11:07:04
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Ukraine appeals for weapons as fight looms on eastern front
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) - Ukraine told residents of its industrial heartland to leave while they still can and urged Western nations to send “weapons, weapons, weapons” Thursday after Russian forces withdrew from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup for an offensive in the country’s east.
Russia’s six-week-old invasion failed to take Ukraine’s capital quickly and achieve what Western countries say was President Vladimir Putin’s initial aim of ousting the Ukrainian government. Russia’s focus is now on the Donbas, a mostly Russian-speaking region in eastern Ukraine.
In Brussels, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba urged NATO to provide more weapons for his war-torn country to help prevent further atrocities like those reported on Kyiv’s northern outskirts. Ukrainian authorities are working to identify hundreds of bodies they say were found in Bucha and other towns after Russian troops withdrew and to document what they say were war crimes.
“My agenda is very simple… it’s weapons, weapons and weapons,” Kuleba said as he arrived at NATO headquarters for talks with the military organization’s foreign ministers.
“The more weapons we get and the sooner they arrive in Ukraine, the more human lives will be saved,” he said.
Some NATO nations worry they may be Russia’s next target, but the alliance is striving to avoid actions that might pull any of its 30 members directly into the war. Still, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg urged member nations to send Ukraine more weapons, and not just defensive arms.
WARNING: Videos in this story may contain graphic content.
“Ukraine is fighting a defensive war, so this distinction between offensive and defensive weapons doesn’t actually have any real meaning,” he said.
Western countries have provided Ukraine with portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons, but they have been reluctant to supply aircraft, tanks or any equipment that Ukrainian troops would have to be trained to use.
Asked what more his country was seeking, Kuleba listed planes, land-based missiles, armored vehicles and air defense systems.
Since Moscow announced more than a week ago that it planned to concentrate its forces in the east, growing numbers of Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and control two areas.
Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk areas as independent states. Military analysts have said Putin also could be seeking to expand into government-controlled territory.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged civilians to evacuate to safer regions before it was too late.
“Later, people will come under fire, and we won’t be able to do anything to help them,” Vereshchuk said.
She said Ukraine and Russian officials agreed to establish 10 civilian evacuation routes from Donetsk, Luhansk and the Zaporizhzhia region. She said residents would be able to seek safety in the cities of Zaporizhzhia in southeast Ukraine and Bakhmut in the east.
Britain’s defense ministry said Thursday that Russia was targeting the “line of control” between Ukrainian-held and rebel-controlled areas in the Donbas with artillery and airstrikes and hitting infrastructure targets around Ukraine to wear down the Ukrainian defense.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least five civilians were killed and another eight were wounded by Russian shelling on Wednesday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it struck fuel storage sites around the cities of Mykolaiv, Zaporozhe, Kharkiv and Chuguev overnight using cruise missiles fired from ships in the Black Sea.
A Ukrainian naval vessel caught fire under unclear circumstances in the besieged port city of Mariupol, satellite photos analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press show. The images from Planet Labs PBC appear to show the Ukrainian command ship Donbas burning at the Sea of Azov port on Wednesday afternoon as a nearby building also burned.
A cause for the fire remained unclear. Russian forces are fighting to capture Mariupol, which would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian forces in the city also could be trying to scuttle the vessel so it doesn’t fall into Russian hands. Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine had accused Ukrainian forces of setting fire to the vessel as a “provocation” to “discredit the Russian military.”
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said more than 5,000 civilians have been killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, including 210 children. The attacks have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine. British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000.
While a tentative state of calm returned to the capital following the Russian withdrawal, the possibility of a renewed attack around Kyiv and an escalation in western Ukraine remains. Air raid sirens were again heard Thursday in Lyiv and the relatively secure western city of Lviv, near the Polish border. There was no immediate report of any strikes hitting the cities.
Oleksandr Shputun, spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, reported Thursday that Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, remained blockaded near the Donbas. He said Russian forces also were carrying out “brutal measures” in the southern Kherson region, which they hold.
The International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into possible war crimes in Ukraine. In areas north of the capital, Ukrainian officials gathered evidence of Russian atrocities amid signs Moscow’s troops killed people indiscriminately before retreating.
Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians were found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
Western officials warned that similar atrocities were likely to have taken place in other areas occupied by Russian troops. Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of trying to cover up war crimes in areas still under their control, “afraid that the global anger over what was seen in Bucha would be repeated.”
“We have information that the Russian troops have changed tactics and are trying to remove the dead people, the dead Ukrainians, from the streets and cellars of territory they occupied,” he said in a nighttime video address. “This is only an attempt to hide the evidence and nothing more.”
Switching from speaking Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskyy urged ordinary Russians “to somehow confront the Russian repressive machine” instead of being “equated with the Nazis for the rest of your life.”
The Kremlin insists its troops have committed no war crimes and alleged the images of brutality coming out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
Bodies were still being collected in the town. Cemetery workers on Wednesday began loading more than 60 bodies into a grocery shipping truck so they could be taken to a facility for further investigation.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March, took locals’ phones and detained and then released some people. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” resident Valentyna Klymenko, 64, said. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
In reaction to the alleged atrocities, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The U.S. Senate planned to take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia, paving the way for higher tariffs on some imports, and to codify President Joe Biden’s executive action banning imports of Russian oil.
The European Union is also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on Russian coal.
Zelenskyy said the sanctions would not be effective unless they included a ban on Russian oil, on which Europe relies heavily. He said the West’s sanctions on Russia so far “can’t be called commensurate to the evil the world saw in Bucha” and elsewhere.
___
Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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8 New Jersey municipalities designated as ‘Healthy Towns’
The Mayors Wellness Campaign has announced eight 2021 “Healthy Town” winners that are addressing food insecurity, supporting COVID-19 testing and vaccinations, and organizing programs to promote physical and mental health throughout their communities.
The Mayors Wellness Campaign (MWC) is a program of the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute in partnership with the New Jersey State League of Municipalities.
In addition to the eight Healthy Town Winners, another seven towns were designated as 2021 Healthy Towns to Watch, and seventeen were designated as 2021 Healthy Towns Up-and-Coming.
The eight municipalities are:
City of Bayhead
Evesham Township
Montclair
Paterson
Plainfield
Scotch Plains
Wildwood Crest
Woodbridge Township
Each year, communities participating in the MWC complete a comprehensive Healthy Town Application outlining the research they’ve done to identify their community health needs and explaining how they have organized their local MWC committee. The application also highlights the actions the towns have taken to make their communities healthier places to live, work, and play.
The towns in the next tier, Healthy Towns to Watch were: Belleville, Borough of Freehold, Franklin Lakes, Hillsborough Township, Jefferson Township, Norwood, and Vernon Township.
The Healthy Towns Up and Coming were: Bernardsville, Borough of Oradell, Cranbury, Cresskill Borough, Deerfield Township, Denville, Eatontown, Garfield, Highlands Borough, Keyport Borough, Lawrence Township, Morristown, Municipality of Princeton, Ridgewood, South Brunswick, and Stafford Township.
Each year, communities participating in the MWC complete a comprehensive Healthy Town Application outlining the research they’ve done to identify their community health needs and explaining how they have organized their local MWC committee. The application also highlights the actions the towns have taken to make their communities healthier places to live, work, and play.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.
You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:07:11
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A list of dog-friendly beaches in NJ
Seaside Heights was poised to make a huge mistake. Having your dog on the beach in the off-season is one thing. Seaside Heights considering allowing dogs on the boardwalk year-round was quite another.
There was a pilot program in the works that would have allowed pooches on the boards from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. the whole year. Yes, that would mean during the crowded summer season. I found this to be a ridiculous idea that can bring about problems so obvious I'm not going to even bother stating them.
If you just have to bring your dog along, why not drop down a little bit south and go to Island Beach State Park. Your pet can tag along with you on a 6-foot leash except for the lifeguarded portion of the beach. And that's during the summer!
Here's a rundown of some Jersey beaches that will allow your dog and what time of year they are welcome. Many of these are outside the summer months so have your dog enjoy these places while you can.
Avon-by-the-Sea
Dogs are on leashes are allowed on the beach from Oct. 1 through May 1.
Asbury Park
Dogs are okay on the beach and even the boardwalk but only from Sept. 15 through May 15. But did you know all summer long you can take your dog to the 8th Avenue Dog Beach? Dogs are even allowed to go off-leash on that stretch of beach from 6 p.m. until 8:30 a.m.
Barnegat Light
The beach allows dogs on leashes from Sept. 16 through April 14.
Beach Haven
Dogs on leashes are good to go from Sept. 16 through May 14. There is also a beach just for four-legged friends at the bay on Taylor Avenue.
Belmar
Leashed dogs are allowed on the beach from Oct. 1 through April 30. And they can never use the boardwalk except to cross over to and from the beach.
Bradley Beach
Here you can bring your dog on the beach from Oct. 1 through May 15 and you can even allow your dog off its leash but only if it is well trained by voice control.
Brigantine Beach
Your dog can be on the north end of the beach all year long. As far as the rest of the beach here, dogs need to be on a 6-foot leash and are welcome from Oct. 1 through May 29.
Harvey Cedars
Dogs properly leashed can enjoy the beach from Sept. 16 through May 29.
Long Beach Island
Long Beach Island Township beaches let your dog on a leash explore the beaches from Oct. 1 through April 30. This includes Beach Haven Crest, Beach Haven Gardens, Beach Haven Inlet, Beach Haven Park, Beach Haven Terrace, Brant Beach, Brighton Beach, Haven Beach, High Bar Harbour, Holgate, Loveladies, North Beach, North Beach Haven, Peahala Park, South Beach Haven, Spray Beach and the Dunes.
Mantoloking
Beaches here welcome leashed dogs from Sept. 15 through June 15. However, during the summer, dogs can walk the sands during slow beach hours from 6 p.m. through 10 a.m.
Ocean City
Dogs on leashes no longer than 6 feet are allowed on the beach here from Oct. 31 through April 30.
Sea Isle City
Dogs on 6-foot leashes can explore this beach from Oct. 31 through April 30.
Stone Harbor
Again, 6-foot leash is the rule here, and dogs are welcome on the north end between 80th and 82nd streets before 9:00 am and after 7 pm.
Sunset Beach at Cape May Point
Your leashed dog is accepted here from Sept. 15 through April 15.
Ventnor City
Dogs on leashes can be here from Oct. 1 through May 14 in the areas washed by the high tideline and with a strict window from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
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https://nj1015.com/a-list-of-dog-friendly-beaches-in-nj/
| 2022-04-07T11:07:17
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Charles Kane Jr. – A Plea Bargain Shouldn’t Be An Option
How do you negotiate with a guy like Charles R. Kane Jr.?
A guy who was left in charge of a little 3-year-old boy named Elijah. Elijah accidentally wet his pants. Furious, Charles R. Jane Jr. shoved him so hard into a refrigerator that the child was unconscious when the mother returned home. So hard that Elijah slipped into a coma. So hard that he never recovered and died a few weeks later in the hospital. 3 years old.
How do you negotiate with a guy like Charles R. Kane Jr., who said, "I pushed him a little too hard into the refrigerator. I was angry. But I didn't think I pushed him that hard."
Instead of going to trial, the state pursued a plea bargain. The negotiations went on for months. One offer was to plead guilty to aggravated manslaughter and serve a 20-year term. Charles R. Kane Jr. turned that down. The negotiations continued.
Now, two years after Elijah's death, Kane finally took a plea agreement and accepted a 15-year term. He's been held in jail in lieu of bail, so I'm sure that time will come off the 15 years. And I'm sure the phrase "must serve 85% of his sentence" will come into play here too. So what are we really talking here? Maybe 11 years? So he'll be out when Elijah still would have been a child in his teens? Still not able to even drive a car, let alone vote, live on his own, go to college, have a wife, have a life? This is justice?
Aren't there some crimes when a plea bargain shouldn't even be a consideration? Isn't this one of them? How do you negotiate with a guy like Charles R. Kane Jr.? God forgive us, we found a way.
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https://nj1015.com/a-plea-bargain-shouldnt-be-an-option/
| 2022-04-07T11:07:23
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An open letter of apology to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights
Dear Scarlet Knights,
I owe you an apology.
For years I ignored you. And when I wasn’t ignoring you, I mocked you. Assuming that there was no way that you could ever make any headway in the NCAA. And even though you may not even know who I am, I probably should’ve been more supportive, having an audience of New Jersey listeners as I do. I should’ve gotten people on your side. But I didn’t.
Most people know that I am not really a sports fan. Most people also know that just about the only sport I can watch is basketball. I’m not sure why that is. I think because it’s easy to follow and it’s the only sport that I was really exposed to most of my life. Don’t ask me why.
Jewish kids love basketball. But Dennis and I spent a good amount of time trashing Rutgers on the air. And I apologize.
We didn’t specifically pick the basketball team to trash. We were actually focusing more on the football team. But in general, we have not been supportive of Rutgers sports and all the years we’ve been together. So, I’m sorry. Because this is exciting. One of the most competitive times of the year has finally arrived.
Every year when the NCAA tournament rolls around, New Jersey living rooms are immediately occupied by families and posters with the tournament brackets. Regardless of what Dennis and I think of it, March Madness is exciting to no matter what teams are playing, so to think that New Jersey is lucky enough to have one of his very own teams participating means that I got to show Rutgers some love. You Scarlet Knights from Rutgers have inched your way into the tournament.
You’re on your way to the first round of March Madness on March 15 or 16, in Dayton, Ohio, against Notre Dame.
Everyone loves a "Cinderella story." And wouldn’t it be great to see the Scarlet Knights become New Jersey’s heroes? I know it’s a long shot but I just want to tell the team that I am sorry for never giving them any recognition.
This is pretty cool and we’re behind you. So I guess I’ll be watching basketball this year. And win or lose, forgive me. You did New Jersey proud.
Sincerely,
Judi Franco
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.
You can now listen to Dennis & Judi — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite best friends anytime, anywhere and any day of the week. Download the Dennis & Judi show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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https://nj1015.com/an-open-letter-of-apology-to-the-rutgers-scarlet-knights/
| 2022-04-07T11:07:30
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Are food trucks the future of dining in New Jersey?
New Jersey has some of the best food trucks in the nation.
As a foodie, what's better than having the food come to you? What's funny is that I'm old enough to remember that a food truck was a pickup truck with storage delivering coffee and assorted breakfast pastries. We used to call them "roach coaches." Wow, have things changed.
Today food trucks offer everything from empanadas to cheesesteaks to baked potatoes. I love it.
The best part of my job is when I'm walking out of the studio and there's a food truck with all the delicious smells wafting through the front of our building. We've had some great food trucks visit the studio over the years and each one brought a unique style, flavor and technique.
The best part is that the food truck is totally contained. Food storage, grills, ovens, beverages. It's a restaurant on wheels. I love it.
We've had several trucks that have taken the journey early to feed the crew. I might be writing this article to encourage them to come back, just sayin'. We love food trucks at New Jersey 101.5. Here are some of the best around New Jersey.
Cousins Maine Lobster
House of Cupcakes
Maddalenas
My Treat Truck
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:07:36
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Big names to perform at concert for Ukraine in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ
POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Tickets are on sale now for Mayor Paul Kanitra's promised concert to benefit Ukrainians fleeing their country following the attack by Russia.
No more than 1,800 tickets are available via axs.com at $60 each for the concert scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday, April 10 at Jenkinson's Pavilion.
The concert features the Eddie Testa Band, Bobby Bandiera, Green Secret, Joe Bonanno and Steve Forbert.
While not on the official lineup, several special guests including Southside Johnny may also perform at the concert, according to sources close to the concert.
The Ukrainian Chorus of Dumka of New York, which appeared on Saturday Night Live, will open the concert with the Ukrainian national anthem.
Two of the charitable groups that Kanitra met during his trip to the Ukrainian border will benefit from the concert. All proceeds from the concert minus credit card fees will go towards charity.
"For certain, we're going to be making a donation to Caritas. They are the group that was behind bringing a lot of the orphans that I met at the border to Poland and resettling them. They're doing incredible work there and throughout Europe resettling a lot of the orphans," Kanitra said.
The mayor also anticipates making a donation to World Central Kitchen, a group Kanitra helped prepare and hand out meals at the border crossing.
"I saw first hand what a difference they're making putting food in people's hands after a long journey," Kanitra said.
There are also sponsorship opportunities are available for the concert which comes with VIP tickets.
An appearance from Springsteen?
Kanitra said he had a lot of help for his first foray into concert promotion.
"We had some really great help with Tom Parr, who was a friend of mine, and Bobby Bandiera, who is a friend of his. Tom knows the industry really well. Bobby knows all the musicians and PJ Storino from Jenkinsons jumped in and offered the venue and the staff and things got rolling from there."
As with other charitable concerts on the Jersey Shore, will one of the unannounced performers be a certain singer from Freehold?
"The way I understand it, he is friends with two or three of the acts that are going to be there. Nobody ever directly asks. He just finds out about it on his own and decides to show up or not," Kanitra said.
Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
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| 2022-04-07T11:07:42
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DWI arrest of candidate Ian Smith: When can you refuse a breathalyzer in NJ?
An attorney with experience in drunk-driving cases says a controversial candidate for Congress may have created more trouble by refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test after a traffic stop this month.
The political consultant for Ian Smith, meanwhile, says the gym owner is innocent of the charges and has called for the release of police bodycam and dashcam footage.
Cinnaminson Police Chief Richard A. Calabrese told New Jersey 101.5 that Smith was stopped around 12:25 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of the Pandora Diner on Route 130. He was taken to police headquarters and also charged with reckless driving, careless driving and refusing to consent to a breathalyzer test among other offenses.
“Ian Smith was not driving drunk. Ian Smith is innocent. Bodycam footage will show Ian passed a field sobriety test. The Cinnaminson police department should immediately release the body cam footage to every news outlet immediately," Steve Kush said in a statement.
Kush, who offered no proof of a connection, blamed Gov. Phil Murphy for harboring a vendetta over Smith's defiance of the 2020 mandate that closed indoor gyms.
New Jersey 101.5 has requested copies of any video of the stop and arrest recorded by police.
Smith, who served a prison sentence for killing a young man in a drunk driving crash, is a candidate in the 3rd Congressional District Republican primary. His defiance of Murphy's executive orders turned him into a hero in some conservative and Republican circles. Using the spotlight, he is making his first run for public office.
Refusing a breathalyzer has consequences
Toms River attorney Robert Fuggi, who is not involved in Smith's case, said that from a legal standpoint Smith may have made a bigger problem for himself by refusing the test.
"Not taking a breathalyzer is not good advice," Fuggi told New Jersey 101.5.
A police officer has to have a "reasonable suspicion" that a person is driving while intoxicated that can be backed up by factual support in order to initiate a traffic stop. That support comes in the form of behaviors such as erratic driving, speeding, going through a red light or not using a turn signal.
"If the police officer is making observations and there's the suggestion or basis that a person may be driving while intoxicated or under the influence of some narcotic or drug, then he can ask for a field sobriety test," Fuggi said.
The driver's performance during that test determines if the next step is taken, a breathalyzer test at the police station, according to Fuggi.
And if a driver refuses to take the test? The assumption under the law is that you are operating under the influence.
"If there are sufficient facts to warrant that a person should have taken a breathalyzer under New Jersey law then they're going to lose their license as if they were driving while intoxicated or under the influence. There's no difference," Fuggi said.
Smith's campaign as said that he passed the field sobriety test.
Taking the test gives a defendant option
Fuggi said that if a driver believes they are not intoxicated they should let the justice system play out. An attorney can request the calibration record of the breathalyzer machine, for example.
"You're better off taking the breathalyzer and taking your chances with whether or not the machine was properly working. Make sure all the T's are crossed and the I's dotted rather than a flat-out refusal," Fuggi said.
Fuggi said that the refusal could be considered a second offense for a driver with a previous offense.
Smith was charged in 2007 with causing the death of Atlantic County College student Kevin Ade. He was also charged with possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide while the other charges were dismissed. He was sentenced in 2008 to five years and six months in prison with three years of supervised release.
Smith's consultant cited Assemblyman Paul Moriarty's refusal to take the breathalyzer test 10 years ago as a precedent for a public figure to decline the test. The charges against Moriarty were dropped and the officer ultimately lost his job in a legal saga that lasted years.
Chief: Smith is welcome to dispute the charges
The police chief would not say if he has viewed the video.
"The request for the release of the video is under consideration by the township solicitor’s office. The charges have been filed. If he wants to dispute them, he can do so when he has his day in court," Calabrese told New Jersey 101.5 Wednesday morning.
Only one of Smith's opponents has commented on the arrest.
"Drunk driving is dangerous. I think we all know that especially what happened earlier in his life you'd hope he learned a lesson. It's just unfortunate," Nicholas Ferrara told New Jersey 101.5.
Robert Healey and Shawn Hyland did not respond to New Jersey 101.5's request for comment on Tuesday.
Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
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| 2022-04-07T11:07:49
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Clock change should be a thing of the past (Opinion)
Twice a year, New Jerseyans, like most Americans, suffer the foolishness of changing the clocks by an hour. The worst time of year is the "Spring forward" event that is taking place this coming weekend.
I've written about this nearly every year that I've been on the air. There are so many reasons why it's time to stop changing the clocks altogether. Health, safety, productivity, all could be supported by one decision.
Stick with Daylight Savings and stop changing the clocks going forward.
Here's what I wrote in 2017 about the increase in energy use:
The original arguments for Daylight Savings Time are based on energy savings. Although there are now several studies that show it actually is having the opposite effect. One reason is that in the summer months air conditioning is running on lower settings longer into the evening.
And about the adverse impact on farming:
In my research of this very important subject that is forced on the American people twice a year, It turns out that the time changes are also detrimental to dairy cows. Who knew? What jumped out at me is that it isn’t the time forward or back that upsets the cows … and the people … it’s the very act of changing.
In 2019, I called for the federal government to get involved and finally make Standard Time a thing of the past.
This is a great idea, but it requires action at the Federal Level as DST is optional for states, but Standard Time is mandated by the feds.
There are certainly benefits of longer summer days and not driving home in the dark at 4:30 p.m. So let's get the message to the politicians in D.C. It's time to #BanStandardTime.
Will any New Jersey member of Congress or candidate commit to submitting a bill to move the entire nation forward and have the clocks change this one last time? If only to shut me up so I can stop writing about this every year.
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:07:55
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Coffee shop that hires adults with disabilities looks to expand in NJ
Ethan and the Bean, a Passaic County coffee shop that hires adults with learning disabilities, is outgrowing its space and is looking to expand.
What started out as a pilot program in a church basement has proven to be so successful that it needs bigger digs. The shop is named for the founder’s son, Ethan Donovan, who has both autism and epilepsy; he had aged out of a system that caters to younger people with disabilities.
Ethan’s mom, Pam Donovan, decided to create a program for Ethan and people like him. With the help of a Montclair roaster, Java Love, she set up shop in November of 2019; for a time she partnered with Caldwell University’s autism program to help find and train prospective employees.
Now, over 50% of Ethan and the Bean’s workers have some sort of intellectual or developmental disability. According to their website, “We want to train and employ a significant number of persons with intellectual or developmental delays, become a treasured asset within the community, and change the way people see those special souls challenged by disabilities.”
Ethan and the Bean (Where Hope is Always Brewing!) is a nonprofit. Donovan told New Jersey Monthly that the shop uses the principles of ABA (applied behavioral analysis), tailored to each trainee’s individual needs and strengths. She said that they aren’t hiring right now, but that the shop is willing to help like-minded people; you can contact them here.
Things have gone so well that Ethan and the Bean need more room and, with the help of the Little Falls Historical Society, it looks like they might be getting it. According to NorthJersey.com, the Historical Society is renovating a former municipal building and has plans to rent a space to Ethan and the Bean, approximately doubling the size of the café.
They would not only get more space for things like their own coffee roaster, but it would allow them to train and employ more special needs young adults.
Assuming things go on schedule, they hope to have the project completed within two years; they are in the fundraising stage right now.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Doyle only.
You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:01
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Desperate for workers in NJ, Six Flags offering ‘premium wages’
JACKSON — Great news if you're looking for a job this summer along with a decent paycheck to go with it.
Six Flags Great Adventure has announced it will raise the hourly wage for ride operators up to $20 during its busiest times.
Security, lifeguards, and landscapers can up between $16 and $18 per hour, as well.
"Most positions will now pay from $15 to $20 per hour, and leadership positions will pay even more. We want to recruit team members who will maintain our high standards of safety and guest service, and it's crucial that we offer competitive wages to attract and retain these top employees," said park President John Winkler.
Potential job seekers can gain immediate interviews and land jobs in more than 10 diverse departments including rides, food service, retail, and lifeguarding in preparation for Six Flags Great Adventure's opening on April 2 and Hurricane Harbor's opening on May 14.
Six Flags Wild Safari opened on March 19, and the park is currently hiring tour guides and gate guards.
Most jobs at Six Flags are available to those 16 years of age and older, with select positions open to 14 and 15-year-olds. Most positions range from $15 to $20 per hour and full and part-time positions are available through Jan. 1, 2023.
To apply, complete a job application at www.sixflagsjobs.com or text FUN to 732-307-6688.
Job seekers can also visit the Six Flags Employment Center in person from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily at 1 Six Flags Blvd; Jackson, NJ, located next to 607 Monmouth Road.
Jen Ursillo is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at jennifer.ursillo@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
St Peters enters NCAA Sweet 16, NJ gets Peacock Fever
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Former mayor of Newark, NJ has no political shame (Opinion)
There’s no more shameless creature than a power-hungry New Jersey politician. And none seems as shameless this week as the former mayor of Newark, Sharpe James.
He was a five-time mayor of Brick City but left in disgrace. He was convicted of fraud in federal court in 2008 having conspired to rig the sale of city property, 9 lots in all, to his mistress (he denied it was his mistress) for her to then resell. Tamika Riley made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit from the scheme. He served 18 months in federal prison for the crime.
That same year a judge ordered that James was “forever disqualified from holding any office or position of honor.” Now at 86 years old, he’s been fighting to win a seat on the Newark City Council.
First he filed a lawsuit to get on the ballot but City Clerk Kenneth Louis refused to certify the candidacy based on the 2008 disqualifying order. The fight continues this week with a hearing on whether ballot drawing ought to be delayed.
This is the same Sharpe James who recently made news for a bizarre slow-motion car accident last month in Newark. It ended with someone pinned beneath his car according to police.
Authorities say James in slow speed ran head-on into an oncoming vehicle, then reversed across the whole intersection almost colliding with an NJ Transit bus. Next police say he jumped the curb in his 2009 Cadillac and pinned a male pedestrian beneath his vehicle. Authorities say James seemed confused and unaware of having pinned someone.
What a sad ending to have a doddering 86-year-old man still fighting for a power position. Contrition is clearly not part of this guy’s skill set.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.
You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:14
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From carrot cake to chicken parm — NJ’s ‘Small Business Monday’
Each Monday we open up the show for small business owners and employees to call and plug their business. This week we heard from one of the most diverse grounds of business owners from carrot cake bakers to dog walkers to the best chicken parm in America.
Here's a list of the top picks from the calls on Monday. As we've discussed so often on the air, the backbone of New Jersey's economy is the thousands of small businesses that line our main streets, strip malls and are increasingly popping up in people's home offices.
In 2021, there were nearly a million New Jerseyans employed in what is considered a small business. The accepted definition is fewer than 500 employees, but if you look at those businesses which employ 20 or fewer, there are more than 900,000 people making a living with a true small business.
The real challenge in New Jersey is that most businesses consider the state of the economy as either poor or fair, with only 3% considering the economic outlook as excellent. Clearly, the politicians in Trenton have better things to do that help the small business climate in New Jersey or lower the onerous regulatory burden, or alleviate the highest in the national tax burden. After all, some inmates think the word "inmate" is offensive, so they need to focus on ridding the world of that scourge.
Here's a list of some of the New Jersey businesses we heard about on Monday:
We So Korny Kettle Korn in Toms River
Martinsville Tavern on Washington Valley Road in Martinsville
Kelsey from KK Sweets explained the difference between a macaroon and a macron (both delicious)
Marilyn in Franklin Lakes called about her clothing store: Boutique 811
Carol called to tell us about her son's music school, Music Notes Academy in East Brunswick
We learned that the best chicken parm around is served at Laicos Restaurant in Jersey City.
Looking at the menu there are at least a dozen things I want to order on my next visit.
Brandon called and plugged a business started by his mom, New Jersey Yellow Pages - NJYP.com
And we wrapped up the show with a call from Carly who owns Best Paw First, a dog walking company in Belmar
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:20
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From food to fasteners — check out these NJ small businesses
It seems we're busier now than before the lockdowns that shuttered and slowed so many small businesses for nearly two years. In addition to events that are picking up at a rapid rate, there's the reconnection with friends who are traveling again.
Three great New Jersey small businesses jumped off the page over the last few days.
Although one is hardly a small business, it's worth mentioning because of the outstanding service from the employees.
I'll start with the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. I know, it's a huge company. But the employees did such a fantastic job with our State Police Awards dinner and ALS fundraiser it's worth a mention.
From the chefs that prepared the banquet food to the bartenders, wait staff, and service team that presented one of the nicest hotel stays that we've had in a while. Kudos to the management and the staff for providing a great experience.
We also had two great restaurant experiences over the weekend. The first was at a truly authentic Italian restaurant in Hamilton called Chick and Nello's.
Owner Peter is a proud family man representing three generations of quality and service. The grilled veal chop was cooked perfectly with the right amount of char. Simple and delicious marked everyone's dinner that night and we will certainly be back.
On Saturday, we met friends at the Peacock Inn located in Princeton. Really terrific to have the fine dining of their restaurant "The Perch" so close to home. The GM Chris knows how to run a restaurant for sure. The food was outstanding and memorable with an atmosphere in the bar and dining room that will have us back soon.
Here are a few other small businesses who joined the conversation today:
The Mobile Cigar Lounge
31 South Grille and Deli in Clinton
Pie Lady Cafe in Moorestown
Max's Market Eatery in Flemington
HappiNest Antiques in Whitehouse Station
TNC Party Rental in Burlington
Get Wet Powerwashing in Forked River
Champion Fastening Systems in Egg Harbor Township
House of Flowers in Linden
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:27
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Happy Pi day! Here are NJ’s best pies voted by the NJ 101.5 morning show
It's "Pi" day, not that math is my favorite subject, just ask former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
So instead of thinking about math, let's talk about pie. I love pie, apple, mince-meat, and my wife's "blueberry sour cream pie" which she makes every Fourth of July.
Although I don't really have a sweet tooth, preferring a salty snack 9 times out of 10, I can appreciate a good pie. The only pie I order out and even then, only from a New Jersey diner, is Lemon Meringue pie.
And as Jill Myra reminded us this morning, pie is not just a sweet treat for dessert. New Jersey has some great bakeries and pizza places specializing in the classic Tomato Pie! One of the best I've had is at DeLorenzo's in Robbinsville.
What's your favorite pie for dinner or dessert?
Here's what the morning show said:
Board Op Kathy - Apple pie
Chief Meteorologist Dan Zarrow - Coconut Cream pie
New Jersey Traffic South's Jill Myra - Tomato pie (who said pie has to be for dessert?!)
Producer Kristen - Pumpkin
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:33
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Help NJ woman’s family in Poland save Ukrainians with GoFundMe
You've got to love mobile apps like Nextdoor. They connect you with neighbors that you never would have met otherwise, and sometimes they allow you to help strangers.
With the war in Ukraine right now, so many New Jerseyans are looking for a way to help.
On the Nextdoor app, I read an interesting story from a woman of Polish ancestry who, as it turns out, is a neighbor of mine. Her name is Niki Koslowski and she has cousins in Poland who are actively helping the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flooding over the border into Poland.
Nikki‘s cousin, Agnieszka, along with her husband and two adult children, live near the Polish-Ukrainian border, where her family is originally from. Like a lot of other people in Poland, these selfless and caring people have taken in families—in some cases large families with children—and have also set them up in rental properties they may have.
They are providing comfort, food, financial help and love to these families whose husbands and older brothers, in many cases, have remained in Ukraine to fight in the war.
Now New Jersey can help contribute by way of GoFundMe. Learn more about it here.
As the description in their GoFundMe states, many of them have arrived with nothing but the clothing they are wearing and a few dollars in their pockets. Agnieszka is working together with other family members, along with Ukrainian community members, to transport and house other Ukrainian refugees in other parts of Poland, too.
This is a great humanitarian effort as well as a difficult and expensive one and the money raised in this go fund me will go directly to these families.
As of this writing, their GoFundMe is still short of its $10,000 goal. I am confident that with the help of selfless New Jerseyans, we can help get them there. And then some.
Niki signs the GoFundMe declaration like this:
“From the bottom of my heart, I sincerely am grateful for you, as are the recipients of your generosity. Wishing you and yours love, light, health, and peace. Dziękuję bardzo (thank you so much).
In kindness and solidarity,
Nicole (Niki) Kalaigian (Kozlowski)”
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Judi Franco only.
You can now listen to Dennis & Judi — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite best friends anytime, anywhere and any day of the week. Download the Dennis & Judi show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:40
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Home invasion, mugging reported near Rutgers campus in New Brunswick, NJ
NEW BRUNSWICK — A home invasion near Rutgers University in New Brunswick led to one suspect being arrested but another remains on the loose.
Police responded Sunday just after 11 p.m. at a home near the intersection of Delafield and Courtland streets, a block from Saint Peter's University Hospital.
The victims, affiliated with Rutgers, reported that as they started to leave their house, two people forced their way into the home. Once inside, the perpetrators held up the residents, claiming they had a weapon.
A struggle between the victims and the suspects broke out, which resulted in one suspect running away and the other being subdued by the victims until police arrived. Nobody was injured, police said.
The suspect on the run was described as a black man in his late 20s with a skin-tight fade with an afro hairstyle on top, approximately 5 fee 8 inches tall, a chipped tooth, and wearing a black hoodie, black jacket and black pants.
Sunday's home invasion follows a robbery that occurred on Friday, also near the New Brunswick campus.
Police said in this incident, the victims, who are not affiliated with Rutgers, reported that while standing outside of a private home on Division Street between Hamilton and Somerset streets shortly before 2 a.m., they were approached by three men who robbed them.
Both victims sustained non-life-threatening injuries as one was punched and the other was hit with a sharp object.
Following the robbery, the suspects fled down Division towards Somerset Street. Descriptions of them are limited at this time but if anyone has any information, please contact the city's Detective Bureau at 732-745-5217.
Jen Ursillo is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at jennifer.ursillo@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
Best coffee places recommended in Central Jersey
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:46
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Ian Smith hasn’t learned his lesson, says family of young man he killed in DWI
When Ian Smith shows you who he is, believe him the first time.
That's the message from his victim's family, still raw more than a decade after Smith — now a conservative hero and candidate — killed college student Kevin Ade in a drunk driving crash.
Smith made headlines this week after he was arrested in a new drunk-driving case in Cinnaminson early Sunday morning.
The candidate in the 3rd Congressional District Republican primary and co-owner of the Atilis Gym in Belmawr, which defied Gov. Phil Murphy's 2020 pandemic mandate keeping gyms closed, was stopped around 12:25 a.m. in the parking lot of the Pandora Diner on Route 130.
He was taken to police headquarters and also charged with reckless driving, careless driving and refusing to consent to a breathalyzer test, among other offenses.
Smith was charged in 2007 with causing the death of the Atlantic County College student. He was also charged with possession of marijuana. He pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide and was sentenced in 2008 to five years and six months in prison with three years of supervised release.
"I can't say it's very surprising. Last time when everything was coming to light, in my family's mind, he didn't really accept any responsibility for had happened in the past to Kevin that he did," Ade's cousin, Jimmy Connelly, told New Jersey 101.5 on Thursday. "If he'd learned his lesson and said 'I was drunk I was wrong' but he didn't. He said he was a victim of misinformation."
Connelly brought the crash to the media's attention when Smith was in the national spotlight during his defiance of Murphy's mandates.
Smith protesting his innocence
Smith and campaign consultant Steven Kush say he passed the field sobriety test. Smith said he refused a breathalyzer, which state law requires that motorists submit to on request of a police officer, because of his distrust of government and Murphy's "hate" for him.
Smith said Wednesday on his Instagram page that he is not bashing police, placing blame on anyone else or asking anyone to feel bad for him.
“Right or wrong these were choices that I made. No matter what the outcome of court I will handle it accordingly. We only move forward from here,” Smith's statement says.
Connelly, however, said that if Smith were innocent he would have had no problem submitting to a breathalyzer test and thinks it's "preposterous" that police would tamper with the test. Under New Jersey law, refusal to take the test is an admission of guilt.
"He was trying to hide something. Thankfully his ignorance of the law — which he had plenty of time to study up on with that free law library for a few years — came through," Connelly said referring to the time Smith spent incarcerated.
'They just see what the national news media has regurgitated about him being a martyr and someone standing up for our rights.'
The 'real Ian Smith'
Connelly said he hopes the arrest will reveal the real Smith, especially to Republican voters in the 3rd Congressional District. He believes that most of Smith's support comes from people outside the district and who are unaware of Smith's past.
"Hopefully people will see now that he's not who he says he is He doesn't deserve, at least in my mind, to run for any type of public position and have the support of people who aren't from this area and don't know the news. They just see what the national news media has regurgitated about him being a martyr and someone standing up for our rights," Connelly said.
Connelly said he has not been approached by any of Smith's opponents in the primary to talk about Kevin Ade but would be happy to have the conversation.
"I'd be more than willing to. Anytime I can be Kevin's voice I usually don't shy away from it. It's the one thing I am obliged to continue," Connelly said.
Ade's memory also lives on with the Kevin Aaron Ade Memorial Scholarship, which is administered by the Community Foundation of New Jersey.
Smith is due in court on April 14, according to Cinnaminson police Chief Richard Calabrese. His department has not yet released video of Smith's police stop and arrest, which New Jersey 101.5 has requested.
Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:52
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It’s the best pizza from your childhood in New Jersey
I got into a pizza conversation with New Jersey 101.5's Dan Alexander this morning. We were talking about delicious foods that are somewhat addictive.
Seriously, there are some foods out there that if you smell it, or are within a few miles of the restaurant, you simply have to have it. And then there are some foods you smell that remind you of your childhood.
For Dan, his go-to pizza is in Neptune City. Pete and Elda's is the way to go.
For me, as a kid, it was always Mack's Pizza on the Wildwood boardwalk. Wildwood is one of those Jersey towns that is comfortable in a 50's style environment and I love it.
To be fair, I have not been back in several years, but I have great memories of the outstanding smells on the boardwalk and the sweeter sauce that covers to pie. So good. Actually, as much as I love toppings, for Mack's it's all plain all the time. The melty cheese, the sauce, and the "toothsome" crust. Hmmm. One of the best in Jersey.
One of the best things about New Jersey is the fact that almost every one of the more than 560 towns and cities has a great pizza place. In Princeton, there's the pepperoni pizza at Conte's and the Brooklyn pie at Nino's Pizza Star.
In Montgomery, there's Alfonso's.
I'm sure you are thinking about having pizza tonight, right?
When I was a kid and not at the shore, my dad would bring home pizza from work almost every Friday night, our go-to? Woodcrest Pizza in the Woodcrest Shopping Center in Cherry Hill.
There might be a different owner now, but it was perfect for pizza night. What's your go-to in your town?
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:08:59
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Watch the replay: Learning loss in NJ schools after pandemic
Nearly two years of remote and hybrid learning has caused significant learning troubles for New Jersey school kids. Some may never catch up.
At 7 p.m. on Thursday, New Jersey 101.5 will broadcast a special town hall with a panel of educators, behavioral specialists and policymakers to examine how best to deal with pandemic learning loss.
New Jersey 101.5 news anchor Eric Scott and his guests will help parents identify areas where their kids may be struggling, and offer ways to take corrective action.
Deficits are not confined to the classroom. Social anxiety, loss of interpersonal skills and an increase in bullying has been blamed on remote learning.
The program’s on-air expert panel will feature: Mount Olive Schools Superintendent Robert Zywicki; JerseyCan Family Advocate Janellen Duffy; NJ Coalition for Bullying Awareness founder Stuart Green; and College of New Jersey President Kathryn Foster.
Guests will also include Linden public school teacher Monica Goncalves, NJEA President Sean Spiller and New Jersey 101.5 Statehouse Bureau Chief Michael Symons.
Scott and his guests will also answer live, call-in questions from listeners throughout the hour.
In addition to listening live through the free New Jersey 101.5 app, you can watch the town hall and participate in the live chat on our Facebook page.
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:05
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Man charged in house fire feared the government wanted to kill him
SOMERS POINT — A man who set a house on fire because he thought the government was trying to kill him was released from jail on Wednesday and ordered to seek mental health treatment.
Video captures DeShaun Howard, 21, and Faith Tompkins, 18, both of Somers Point, driving to get gasoline, spreading it around the foundation and lighting the fire on Dawes Avenue about 4 a.m. on March 23, according to an affidavit obtained by BreakingAC.com.
The family sleeping inside made it out safely, according to the report.
The Somers Point Fire Department said the fire was on the deck of the house. A picture of the house shows it was not heavily damaged.
Both Howard and Tompkins were arrested March 24 and charged with aggravated arson, criminal mischief and conspiracy and held at the Atlantic County Justice Facility.
'Seeing things and hearing things'
At a detention hearing on Wednesday, Howard's attorney said that his client was experiencing "severe mental health issues." He was undergoing psychosis and thought the government was trying to kill him, his attorney told the judge.
Howard was released and ordered to get mental health help within two days, according to BreakingAC.com. Tompkins was ordered to remain in custody.
The relationship between Howard, Tompkins and the residents of the house was not disclosed.
Somers Point police on Thursday morning did not respond to New Jersey 101.5's request for more information.
Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
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https://nj1015.com/man-charged-in-house-fire-feared-the-government-wanted-to-kill-him/
| 2022-04-07T11:09:11
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Murphy doesn’t have to worry about filling his gas tank (Opinion)
On another nauseating appearance on national TV, King Murphy says we NEED "pain at the pump" to defeat Putin.
How insulting, disgusting and misleading.
Gas prices were going up before Putin attacked Ukraine two weeks ago. He doesn't realize that no matter how much the Russian people suffer, it will have no effect on Mr. Putin. He doesn't care about his people and their economy being crippled.
Russia will find willing customers in China and India for his oil.
Crude oil and gas prices are up because production is down, especially in our country. We were a net exporter of oil in the previous administration and now we import it from bad actors like Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
In the first week in office, the Biden administration canceled the Keystone Pipeline coming from Canada and put a pause on any drilling leases on public land.
If we were energy independent, we wouldn't have to depend on any foreign actors, good or bad, to keep our energy costs low. Even the chief executive of Tesla, who makes a fortune on electric cars, says we should produce more energy here.
You can't make this stuff up.
People like Murphy and the other acolytes of the climate change agenda seem to be blinded to the truth in their commitment to the cause of climate change. This isn't about paying more at the pump. They don't care about the public. They care about their climate change agenda. It's their religion, and it's total nonsense.
California, which is promoting the use of electric cars and making it more difficult to buy combustion engine vehicles, experienced rolling blackouts last summer. There will likely be more this year. So where do you get the energy for your EV if there's no reliable electricity?
It makes as much sense as getting 72 virgins if you martyr yourself in killing your enemy. It's a religion to these people and nothing will stop them unless, of course, you stop voting for these morons. History will judge this period as the most silly, unwise, emotionally driven era on nonsense in the history of mankind.
Of all of the blame that can be assigned to the evil Vladimir Putin, and there's plenty, the cost of our energy is not one of them. The state trooper who fills up the governor's giant SUV or whoever else drives him around may notice the price of filling the tank, but the governor doesn't know and doesn't care.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.
You can now listen to Dennis & Judi — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite best friends anytime, anywhere and any day of the week. Download the Dennis & Judi show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:18
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New Jersey 101.5 Spring Break Contest Rules
New Jersey 101.5 Spring Break Contest Rules
1. No Purchase Required to Enter or Win
2. Eligibility: Townsquare Media Inc. Giveaways (the "Giveaways") are open only to individuals who are legal residents of the 48 contiguous states who are 21 years of age or older residing or working in New Jersey 101.5’s (WKXW) terrestrial listening area. Employees of Townsquare Media Inc., their advertising or promotion agencies, those involved in the production, development, implementation or handling of Giveaways, any agents acting for, or on behalf of the above entities, their respective parent companies, officers, directors, subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees, service providers, prize suppliers any other person or entity associated with the Giveaways (collectively "Giveaway Entities") and/or the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings and children) and household members (whether related or not) of each such employee, are not eligible. All U.S., federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Void in Quebec, Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law.
3. Sponsor: The sponsor of the Contest is Townsquare Media, Inc., (the "Sponsor") with offices at 1 Manhattanville Rd, Suite 202, Purchase, NY 10577.
4. Agreement to Official Rules: Participation in the Giveaway constitutes entrant's (or his or her parent or legal guardian if the entrant is under the legal age of majority in their home state) full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules and the decisions of the Sponsor, which are final and binding. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein.
5. Entry Period: The start and end dates/times of each Giveaway (the "Entry Period") will be posted on the applicable Giveaway site. The official Entry Period for the Spring Break Contest is 12:01 am EST, March 21, 2022 to 11:59 pm EST April 1, 2022.
6. Entry: To enter a Giveaway, follow the instructions on the Giveaway site. Submission will result in one (1) entry. The number of times you can enter the Giveaway will be posted on the applicable Giveaway site. The use of any agencies or automated software to submit entries will void all entries submitted by that person. Listeners may enter up to 3 times per day, 1 time for each code word. Code words will air on NJ 101.5 FM, WKXW FM weekdays during the entry period at approximately 9:00 am, 2:00 pm and 5:00 pm. Listeners must enter the code words on the free NJ 101.5 app, available in the Apple App Store or Android Marketplace. Odds of winning depend on the number of entries received.
7. Drawing: At the conclusion of the Entry Period, Sponsor will select the names of the potential winners in a random drawing of all eligible entries received during each Entry Period. The number of winners to be selected in a specific Giveaway will be posted on the applicable Giveaway site. The odds of being selected as a potential winner depend on the number of eligible entries received during the Entry Period. Potential winners will be contacted via email and will be asked to provide their full name, age and mailing address within a specified time period. If a potential winner does not respond within the timeframe stated in the notification email, the Sponsor may select an alternate potential winner in his/her place at random from all entries received during the Entry Period. Limit one (1) prize per household per Giveaway. During the Spring Break Contest, winners will be selected and notified via the email address used for contest entry.
8. Requirements of the Potential Winners: The prize is non-transferrable. If a potential winner is not of legal age of majority in his or her state of residence (a "minor"), at Sponsor's option, the applicable prize will be awarded to the minor or the minor's parent or legal guardian. Except where prohibited, the potential winners (or their parent/legal guardian in the case of a minor) may be required to complete and return an affidavit of eligibility and liability/publicity release (the "Affidavit/Release") within seven (7) days of being notified. If a potential winner (or their parent/legal guardian in the case of a minor) fails to sign and return the Affidavit/Release within the required time period, an alternate entrant will be selected in his/her place in a random drawing of all entries received.
9. Prize(s): The prize(s) (including each prize's approximate retail value) available to be won in a specific Giveaway will be posted on the Giveaway site. The prize is not transferrable and may only be redeemed by the contest winner. No cash or other substitution may be made, except by the Sponsor, who reserves the right to substitute a prize with another prize of equal or greater value if the prize is not available for any reason as determined by the Sponsor in its sole discretion. The winners (or their parent/legal guardian in the case of a minor) are responsible for any taxes and fees associated with receipt or use of a prize. Prizes for the Spring Break Contest include thirty (30) one night stays at Ocean Casino Resort, located at 500 Boardwalk, Atlantic City, NJ 08401. Prize is based on room availability; not valid on holidays or special events. Black-out dates may apply. Prize includes an overnight stay in a contemporary king or queen room, Monday-Thursday only. Dining credit of $20; gratuities not included. F&B charges to be signed back to room for redemption. Allow for a 14-day advance reservation request. Winner must be 21 or older and present a valid ID and credit card at check in for $100 deposit per night and incidental charges. Taxes, fees and gratuity are not included. Reservations must be cancelled 48 hours prior to arrival to avoid a cancellation fee. Offer is non-transferable. Not valid in conjunction with another offer. Winner cannot be part of any exclusionary list. The retail value of the prize is $109.99.
10. General Conditions: In the event that the operation, security, or administration of the Giveaway is impaired in any way for any reason, including, but not limited to fraud, virus, or other technical problem, the Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, either: (a) suspend the Giveaway to address the impairment and then resume the Giveaway in a manner that best conforms to the spirit of these Official Rules; or (b) award the prizes at random from among the eligible entries received up to the time of the impairment. The Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to individuals it finds to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Giveaway or to be acting in violation of these Official Rules or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner. Any attempt by any person to undermine the legitimate operation of the Giveaway may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, the Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. The Sponsor's failure to enforce any term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. In case of a dispute as to the owner of an entry, entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the authorized account holder of the screen name from which the entry is made. The authorized account holder is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address.
11: Use of Information: By participating in the Giveaway, each entrant agrees that information submitted in connection with the Giveaway may be used for promotional and marketing purposes, including, without limitation, to provide information to the entrant about products, services, promotions and other content, and in connection with the administration of the Giveaway.
12. Release and Limitations of Liability: By participating in the Giveaway, entrants (and parent/legal guardian if entrant is a minor) agree to release and hold harmless the Sponsor and Giveaway Entities from and against any claim or cause of action arising out of participation in the Giveaway or receipt or use of any prize, including, but not limited to: (a) unauthorized human intervention in the Giveaway; (b) technical errors related to computers, servers, providers, or telephone or network lines; (c) printing errors; (d) lost, late, postage-due, misdirected, or undeliverable mail; (e) errors in the administration of the Giveaway or the processing of entries; or (f) injury or damage to persons or property which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from entrant's participation in the Giveaway or receipt of any prize. Entrant (and parent/legal guardian if entrant is a minor) further agrees that in any cause of action, the Sponsors' and Giveaway Entities' liability will be limited to the cost of entering and participating in the Giveaway, and in no event shall the Sponsor or the Giveaway Entities be liable for attorney's fees. Entrant (and parent/legal guardian if entrant is a minor) waives the right to claim any damages whatsoever, including, but not limited to, punitive, consequential, direct, or indirect damages.
13. Disputes: Except where prohibited, entrant agrees that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with, the Giveaway or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by the appropriate court located in New York. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules, entrant's (and parent/legal guardian's if entrant is a minor) rights and obligations, or the rights and obligations of the Sponsors in connection with the Giveaway, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of New York, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules (whether of New York or any other jurisdiction), which would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than New York.
14. Giveaway Results: To request the name of the winners, send a separate, self-addressed stamped envelope to Townsquare Media List, c/o Townsquare Media, Inc., ATTN: WKXW Spring Break Manhattanville Rd, Suite 202, Purchase, NY 10577. Requests must be received within thirty (30) days from the end date of the applicable Giveaway.
15. Uploading Media: If the contest includes uploading media – including but not limited to pictures, videos or audio – entrant gives Townsquare Media, Inc., unconditional license to use such pictures, video or audio without limitation.
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:24
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New Jersey is a pretty ‘chill’ state, personal finance site says
How stressed is New Jersey? Not very, according to a new report from WalletHub.
The personal finance website released its report on 2022's "Most and Least Stressed States," comparing all 50 states across 41 key metrics, said analyst Jill Gonzalez. The data set ranges from average hours worked per week, to the personal bankruptcy rate to the share of adults getting adequate sleep.
New Jersey is one of the least stressed states. It ranked 41st on the list, putting it as one of the 10 least stressed states in the U.S.
She said New Jersey did well in three main categories: money, family, and health and safety.
"Adults are getting enough sleep there. We're seeing that adults are, for the most part in good or excellent health, the depression diagnoses are very low there, mental health seems to be pretty stable. The separation and divorce rate is one of the lowest in the country," Gonzalez said.
The other area where New Jersey did well is that there are not a lot of adults who are worried about money, she added. The personal bankruptcy rate is low, credit scores are high, and debt levels are relatively low when they are compared to earnings.
Job security in New Jersey is very high too. When it comes to neighboring states, the Garden State did the best. Pennsylvania is more middle-of-the-pack. It ranked 24th. New York was exactly middle-of-the-pack, coming in at 25th.
However, New Jersey needs to improve on its work-related stress levels. Even though people seem to be happy with their salaries, Gonzalez said residents are working longer hours to make that money. Their commute times are longer, so they're not spending as much leisure time throughout the day as those in other states may be doing.
The most stressed states are in the south, according to the report with Louisiana coming in as the most stressed state in America. Nevada came in second, followed by New Mexico, West Virginia, and Mississippi.
Utah is the least stressed state followed by Minnesota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.
For the full report, please visit: https://wallethub.com/edu/most-stressed-states/32218
Jen Ursillo is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at jennifer.ursillo@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
LOOK: Food history from the year you were born
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NJ 101.5 NJ Lottery Big Spin Contest
NJ 101.5 NJ Lottery Big Spin Contest
1. No purchase necessary.
2. Eligibility: Townsquare Media, Inc. Giveaways (the "Giveaways") are open only to individuals who are legal residents of the 48 contiguous states who are 18 years of age or older. Winner must provide valid photo identification. Employees of Townsquare Media , their advertising or promotion agencies, those involved in the production, development, implementation or handling of giveaways, any agents acting for, or on behalf of the above entities, their respective parent companies, officers, directors, subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees, service providers, prize suppliers any other person or entity associated with the Giveaways (collectively "Giveaway Entities") and/or the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings and children) and household members (whether related or not) of each such employee, are not eligible. All U.S., federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Void in Quebec, Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law.
3. Sponsor: The sponsor of the Contest is Townsquare Media, Inc., (the "Sponsor") with offices at 1 Manhattanville Rd, Suite 202, Purchase, NY 10577.
4. Agreement to Official Rules: Participation in the Giveaway constitutes entrant's (or his or her parent or legal guardian if the entrant is under the legal age of majority in their home state) full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules and the decisions of the Sponsor, which are final and binding. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein.
5. Entry Period: The contest will begin at 12:01 AM EST on March 25, 2022 and conclude at 11:59:59 PM EST on March 27, 2022.
6. Entry: To enter contestants must download the free NJ 101.5 app, available in the Apple App Store or Android Marketplace and complete the entry form for a chance to win $50 in New Jersey Lottery ‘Big Spin’ Instant Games. Six (6) winners will be selected at random each day during the entry period. Winners will be contacted via the e-mail address used for entry. Incomplete entry forms will be discarded. NJ 101.5 is not responsible for incomplete, incoherent, misdirected, misspelled or unintelligible entries. In the unlikely event of a service outage, winners will be selected at random from all eligible entries received prior to the outage during the official Entry Period. The use of any agencies or automated software to submit entries will void all entries submitted by that person.
7. Odds: Odds of winning are based on the number of entries received. The decision of the judges is final. NJ 101.5 reserves the right to cancel the contest at any time in the event of fraudulent practices or any unforeseen electronic disruption of the contest.
8. Winner Requirements: All winners will be required to complete and return an affidavit of eligibility and liability/publicity release (the "Affidavit/Release") within seven (7) days of being notified. If a potential winner fails to sign and return the Affidavit/Release within the required time period, an alternate entrant will be selected in his/her place from entries received. Prizewinners must complete a W-9 and contest release form and provide valid photo identification with proof of residence.
9. Prizes: A maximum of six (6) $50 prizes will be awarded in the form of 10 New Jersey Lottery Instant Games, valued at $5 each. Prizes will be sent via USPS after the winner address has been verified. NJ 101.5 is not responsible for lost, late, damaged or misdirected mail. NJ 101.5 assumes no liability if prizes are unable to be redeemed for any reason and is not obligated to offer substitute prizes, including cash or prizes with equivalent cash value. Winners are responsible for any taxes and fees associated with receipt or use of a prize.
10. General Conditions: In the event that the operation, security, or administration of the Giveaway is impaired in any way for any reason, including, but not limited to fraud, virus, or other technical problem, the Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, either: (a) suspend the Giveaway to address the impairment and then resume the Giveaway in a manner that best conforms to the spirit of these Official Rules; or (b) award the prizes at random from among the eligible entries received up to the time of the impairment. The Sponsor reserves the right at its sole discretion to disqualify any individual for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to individuals it finds to be tampering with the entry process or the operation of the Giveaway or to be acting in violation of these Official Rules or in an unsportsmanlike or disruptive manner. Any attempt by any person to undermine the legitimate operation of the Giveaway may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, the Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. The Sponsor's failure to enforce any term of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. In case of a dispute as to the owner of an entry, entry will be deemed to have been submitted by the authorized account holder of the screen name from which the entry is made. The authorized account holder is defined as the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address. The Sponsor reserves the right to alter, amend, cancel, postpone or adjust the Giveaway at any time including method of entry and contest dates.
11. Release and Limitations of Liability: By participating in the Giveaway, entrants (and parent/legal guardian if entrant is a minor) agree to release and hold harmless the Sponsor and Giveaway Entities from and against any claim or cause of action arising out of participation in the Giveaway or receipt or use of any prize, including, but not limited to: (a) unauthorized human intervention in the Giveaway; (b) technical errors related to computers, servers, providers, or telephone or network lines; (c) printing errors; (d) lost, late, postage-due, misdirected, or undeliverable mail; (e) errors in the administration of the Giveaway or the processing of entries; or (f) injury or damage to persons or property which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from entrant's participation in the Giveaway or receipt of any prize. Entrant (and parent/legal guardian if entrant is a minor) further agrees that in any cause of action, the Sponsors' and Giveaway Entities' liability will be limited to the cost of entering and participating in the Giveaway, and in no event shall the Sponsor or the Giveaway Entities be liable for attorney's fees. Entrant (and parent/legal guardian if entrant is a minor) waives the right to claim any damages whatsoever, including, but not limited to, punitive, consequential, direct, or indirect damages.
12. Winner agrees to accept the prize ‘as-is’. The station is not the manufacturer or distributor of the prize. With respect to any claims that the winner may now have, or that he/she may subsequently acquire as a result of the possession and/or use of the prize, the winner acknowledges and agrees that he/she shall look solely to others in the chain of production and distribution of the prize to the exclusion of the station and any sponsors of the contest.
The station makes no warranties of any kind with respect to the prize, including, but not limited to, any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Station hereby expressly disclaims any and all such warranties.
13. Disputes: Except where prohibited, entrant agrees that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with, the Giveaway or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by the appropriate court located in New York. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules, entrant's (and parent/legal guardian's if entrant is a minor) rights and obligations, or the rights and obligations of the Sponsors in connection with the Giveaway, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of New York, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules (whether of New York or any other jurisdiction), which would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than New York.
14. Giveaway Results: To request the name of the winners, send a separate, self-addressed stamped envelope (stating the specific Giveaway you are requesting the winners for) to Townsquare Media List, c/o Townsquare Media, Inc., 1 Manhattanville Rd, Suite 202, Purchase, NY 10577 ATTN: WKXW Big Spin. Requests must be received within thirty (30) days from the end date of the applicable Giveaway.
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:37
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NJ congressman says what many of us are thinking (Opinion)
Congressman Jeff Van Drew, who switched parties two years ago to become a Republican, made a statement last week that mirrored what a lot of us are saying. It seems as though the people in charge at all levels of society are intentionally trying to destroy the country.
Van Drew listed the potential for Russian cyberattacking several things at the federal level, without mentioning some of the nonsense the Murphy Administration has done like releasing prisoners early, even though the pandemic is no longer the threat.
The congressman pointed to the open southern border, the potential for Russian cyber-attacks, the lying corporate media, soft-on-crime politicians and inflation. He warned the Democrats are now trying to "buy the election" with a plan to send out monthly stimulus checks to lower-earning Americans for the rest of the year in anywhere the price of gas is more than $4 a gallon.
Then he turned his attention to the nonsense in New Jersey, where he served at every level of local government.
If you talk to anyone who immigrated to this country, legally, in the past 20 years and they'll say the same thing. Perhaps we've become too complacent, taking our freedoms and our comfort for granted.
If you came here from Eastern Europe, Russia, China or just about anywhere else in the world you can't believe how we're pissing away what much of the world wishes they had. So, if you've watched what's going on in our country and wondered "WTF," at least you've got company in the House of Representatives.
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.
You can now listen to Dennis & Judi — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite best friends anytime, anywhere and any day of the week. Download the Dennis & Judi show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:43
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NJ driver charged with wrong-way DWI death of Philadelphia woman
GLOUCESTER TOWNSHIP — A 66-old Philadelphia woman who was a passenger in a car struck by a drunk wrong-way driver last month has died of her injuries.
As a result of Melissa Hart's death on Tuesday, March 5, police charged 47-year-old New Jersey resident Elizabeth V. McDonel with death by automobile.
The Blackwood woman is already facing other charges including five counts of assault by auto and driving while intoxicated in the crash on Black Horse Pike in Blackwood. She was also issued several motor vehicle summonses.
The head-on collision happened in the area of Landing Road just after 2 p.m. on Feb. 24.
Police said McDonel was driving a gray Chevrolet Traverse northbound in the southbound lane, causing vehicles traveling southbound to swerve out of the way.
After almost striking several vehicles, McDonel continued traveling in the wrong direction and struck a white Nissan Murano head-on, causing significant damage to both vehicles, police said.
All five occupants of the Murano were taken to Cooper Medical Center in Camden with serious injuries.
McDonel also sustained serious injuries. The investigation revealed she was intoxicated at the time of the collision.
Jen Ursillo is a reporter and anchor for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach her at jennifer.ursillo@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
7 things NJ should ban right now
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:49
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NJ man diagnosed with ALS honors NJ police officer
ALS, known as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a debilitating disease that impacts the brain and spinal cord. There is no cure for ALS.
On this #BlueFriday we had a unique opportunity to bring attention to an important organization helping families in our local communities have a better quality of life.
Two New Jersey state troopers, Detective Sgt. 1st Class Sarah Beninghof of the NJ Crime Scene Investigators Association, and Detective Sgt. 1st Class Joe Itri from the NJ Homicide Investigators Association, deferred the honor to a man who has spent his life supporting local and state law enforcement.
Alan Picker joined the show today to tell his story of courage in the face of adversity starting with his time as a foster care kid who ended up homeless to his recent diagnosis with ALS.
Alan is the owner and operator of All Time Auto in Point Pleasant and since 1994 he has been using his skills and technical expertise to assist cops in identifying vehicles involved in many serious crimes.
His efforts have resulted in numerous arrests of serious criminals. Alan shared his story about how he is facing this next battle with strength and a positive attitude.
Our conversation today reminded me of a quote from famed Yankee Lou Gehrig addressing his own diagnosis which is posted to the site of the group we're helping.
I might have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for. - Lou Gehrig
Alan is setting a strong example of how to stand up, stay positive and face adversity head-on. Please join me in praying for Alan, his wife Michelle, and their two children Declan and Charlotte.
We were also joined by Sean McGovern who heads up the Joan Darcy & PALS Foundation. Sean's dad worked for Bruce Springsteen for many years and after he passed, Bruce wrote and dedicated "Terry's Song" in his memory.
Out of respect for the battle that these folks have undertaken to help others and the message of showing courage in the face of crisis, for the first time in seven years I ended the show with a Bruce song.
For the full story, listen to my conversation with Sean here:
We still have a few spots open for the NJCSIA Awards Dinner and Comedy night that I'm hosting at the Hard Rock Casino in Atlantic City on Friday, March 11. Please join us or if you can't make it, please donate to this important cause HERE.
The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own. Bill Spadea is on the air weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m., talkin’ Jersey, taking your calls at 1-800-283-1015.
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| 2022-04-07T11:09:56
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TOMS RIVER — A motorcycle riding lesson in a parking lot turned deadly when he lost control Sunday evening.
Nicholas Cacciapaglia, 24 of Toms River, was learning to ride a Harley Davidson in the parking lot of Ocean County Power Sports on Route 37 around 7:30 p.m., according to Toms River police spokeswoman Jillian Messina.
Cacciapaglia's motorcycle hopped the curb and went down on Route 37, causing him to slide into the center lane where he was fatally struck by a passing vehicle.
The driver of the vehicle, Dominick Maruca, 62 of Toms River, was not believed to be impaired and no charges were issued, according to Messina.
Ocean County Power Sports was closed at the time of the crash and did not own the motorcycle, officials said.
Cacciapaglia attended Toms River High School East, Ocean County Vocational Technical High School and Ocean County College. He worked at R & H Spring and Truck Repair in Wall Township.
The westbound lanes of Route 37 were closed for several hours after the crash.
The crash remains under investigation.
Dan Alexander is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at dan.alexander@townsquaremedia.com
Click here to contact an editor about feedback or a correction for this story.
New Jersey's new legislative districts for the 2020s
Boundaries for the 40 legislative districts for the Senate and Assembly elections of 2023 through 2029, and perhaps 2031, were approved in a bipartisan vote of the Apportionment Commission on Feb. 18, 2022.
The map continues to favor Democrats, though Republicans say it gives them a chance to win the majority.
Best coffee shops & cafes near NJ beaches
When it comes to food, New Jersey is known for many things such as pizza and pork roll. Don't count us out when it comes to coffee.
With all the hustle and bustle involved in the average New Jersey resident's day, coffee is essential. It doesn't matter whether you're living in the cities of North Jersey or the vacation spots at the shore.
In fact, as the former owner of two Jersey shore coffee houses, Coffee Dot Comedy in Sea Isle City and the Daily Grind in Ocean Grove, I know firsthand how much people at the Jersey shore love their coffee.
With respect to that, I asked my social media following where the best coffee houses at the Jersey Shore were, especially since my two places no longer exist.
Below is what they came up with. (And see
this other article for their coffee shop and cafe recommendations for Central Jersey.)
Update: NJ arrests in Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot
A year later, more than 20 people from New Jersey have been charged with involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
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NJ rounds up deadbeat parents who owe $27.3 million
It’s become semiannual event in the Garden State.
At the end of last month, sheriff’s officers joined forces with the U.S. Marshals service and other law enforcement officials to conduct a statewide sweep of those owing child support payments.
The latest sweep was conducted over a three-day period from Sept. 26 to 28.
“The total warrants that were served and brought in were 1,596,” said John Armeno, executive director of the Sheriffs Association of New Jersey.
The money collected from those individuals when they were taken into custody was $256,939, but “the total that was due — sit down on your pants on this one here" — was about $27.35 million.
He said when the raids are conducted, those arrested are brought before a judge “and the judge usually takes what they have on them, gives them three days to come back with some more money, and they’re all released. So nobody goes to jail."
Armeno said two statewide child support raids are publicized twice a year, but this activity takes place in different counties year-round.
“You have these men and women who have to pay child support [...] because they had children that they are responsible for and should be taken care of, but you can see by the numbers that are out there, they are not doing that,” he said.
Armeno said in Camden County, 243 warrants were served on individuals owing a combined total of $5,299,860. “But the total actually collected was $14,572.”
Mercer County had the most arrests.
A statement released by Mercer Sheriff Jack Kemler said most of the individuals arrested “deliberately avoided paying their court-ordered child support,” and “many had habitually evaded making payments, leaving their children without monies for adequate food or shelter.”
Armeno noted some parents who owe child support money move out of state so the sheriff’s department officers can’t go after them.
He said the message to parents owing child support is “we are there, we are very well aware that you are out there, that you are not supporting your family, and we’re looking for you all year long.”
You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.Matthau@townsquaremedia.com
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| 2022-04-07T11:10:08
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Most service on NJ Transit's Morris & Essex Line and Gladstone Branch was suspended during the morning commute and the prospects for the afternoon commute remain up in the air.
Wind gusts as a line of thunderstorms moved across New Jersey Monday night are being blamed for toppling a catenary pole in Maplewood blocking the tracks.
"It will take some time to repair the severe damage to the catenary pole, the support for that pole and wires," NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder told New Jersey 101.5. "There is no estimated time of repairs at this time, our crews are working as quickly and safely as possible to make the needed repairs."
Cross honoring in effect
Morris and Essex and Gladstone tickets/passes are being cross-honored on the Raritan Valley and Montclair-Boonton rail lines, NJ Transit buses, private carrier services and PATH at 33rd Street and Hoboken.
Snyder said there are some Morris and Essex trains operating east out of Hackettstown and joining the Montclair Boonton line for service to Hoboken getting around the storm damage.
NJ freedom trucker convoy on March 5 — What Bill Spadea saw
It was a chilly Saturday night and a rainy Sunday morning but that did not dampen the enthusiasm of the hundreds of vehicles participating in the New Jersey Freedom Convoy on March 5-6, 2022. Here are some pics of the event, from the crowds lining the overpasses and roadways, to the trucks to the line of vehicles heading south.
New Jersey's new legislative districts for the 2020s
Boundaries for the 40 legislative districts for the Senate and Assembly elections of 2023 through 2029, and perhaps 2031, were approved in a bipartisan vote of the Apportionment Commission on Feb. 18, 2022. The map continues to favor Democrats, though Republicans say it gives them a chance to win the majority.
According to Thompson Island's Article on the differences between a craft brewery, microbrewery, brewpub & gastropub, it says:
"A brewpub is a hybrid between a restaurant and a brewery. It sells at least 25% of its beer on-site in combination with significant food services. At a brewpub, the beer is primarily brewed for sale inside the restaurant or bar. Where it's legally allowed, brewpubs may sell beer to go or distribute it to some offsite destinations."
New Jersey has tons of Brewpubs, some of which have been around for years and some that have just opened in the past year.
Here is a full list of the 21 brewpubs in New Jersey according to New Jersey Craft Beer:
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| 2022-04-07T11:10:15
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NJ’s Bon Jovi music plays as Ukrainians get psyched for battle
The people of Ukraine have impressed the world with their willingness to stand their ground against Russian invaders. Even though New Jersey boasts the fourth largest Ukrainian population in the United States it all seems so foreign to most of us.
But then you see this.
This is the port city of Odessa. These are people of Ukraine refusing to roll over. They are preparing for battle. Listen to what's blaring in the background.
"This ain't a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for faith-departed
And I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd
You're gonna hear my voice when I shout it out loud
It's my life
It's now or never
But I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive"
That's right, Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" from stereos with Ukranians singing along as they prepared to defend Odessa, and one guy even banging along on drums. It got the attention of Jon Bon Jovi who took to Twitter with it and quoted his own song in writing "This is for the ones who stood their ground...Odessa, Ukraine. #SlavaUkraini"
"Yeah, this is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina, who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder, make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky, got to make your own breaks"
Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.
You can now listen to Deminski & Doyle — On Demand! Hear New Jersey’s favorite afternoon radio show any day of the week. Download the Deminski & Doyle show wherever you get podcasts, on our free app, or listen right now:
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| 2022-04-07T11:10:21
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