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The summer break and the wait for another fantastic NASCAR Whelen Euro Series event is finally over. The Autodrom Most is set to host the 3rd edition of the NASCAR GP Czech Republic on September 3-4 with four exciting races scheduled at the 4.222-Km Bohemian track. With 34 cars on the entry list, the races in EuroNASCAR PRO and EuroNASCAR 2 promise to excite fans from all over the world.
The Autodrom Most has been part of the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series calendar since 2019 and it hosted two successful events over the years. With its twisty but fast layout, the circuit is a guarantee for thrilling races and high-speed battles. In the past, Nicolo Rocca, Giorgio Maggi, Alon Day and Vittorio Ghirelli all scored wins among the active NWES drivers.
EuroNASCAR PRO: Five drivers within 13 points
Alon Day enters the second half of the season as the EuroNASCAR PRO points leader and is chasing an unprecedented fourth European NASCAR championship. The PK Carsport driver boasts three wins, five top-5 finishes and 199 points. Day won in the Czech Republic back in 2021 and therefore knows what it takes to top the standings at the technical track in Eastern Europe.
But four other drivers are in range to challenge the winningest driver in EuroNASCAR history at Autodrom Most with only 13 points separating the top five championship contenders. 2019 Most race winner Rocca and reigning EuroNASCAR 2 Champion Martin Doubek are the Israeli’s closest rivals. The duo share second place only 12 points down on Day. Rocca kicked off the season in Valencia with a fabulous win in his CAAL Racing Chevrolet, while Doubek is still chasing his maiden EuroNASCAR PRO win with Hendriks Motorsport.
Alexander Graff and Maggi share fourth place with a gap of 13 points on the championship leader. Graff took his maiden NASCAR win at Brands Hatch in July. The Speedhouse driver impressed with his consistency and proved that he’s one of the fierces title contenders in the 2022 NWES season. Another driver looking for a breakthrough performance and his maiden EuroNASCAR PRO win is Maggi. Lately, the Swiss scored three consecutive podiums and cleared his path to become a protagonist in the championship battle with Race Art Technology. Maggi also leads the Junior Trophy ranks for drivers aged 25 and under.
The top-5 are followed by NWES veteran Romain Iannetta in sixth. The Marko Stipp Motorsport driver sits ahead of three time EuroNASCAR PRO runner-up Frederic Gabillon. Vallelunga race winner Gianmarco Ercoli is eighth and keen to find his way back into title contention. Sebastiaan Bleekemolen and Henri Tuomaala close the top-10 with the latter also leading the Challenger Trophy standings for bronze and silver drivers in EuroNASCAR PRO.
EuroNASCAR 2: Two rookies lead the standings
In EuroNASCAR 2 it is all about the impressive rookies who are challenging the experienced NWES veterans. With three wins on his account, CAAL Racing’s Alberto Naska carries the red Whelen banner on his windshield. The Italian had a phenomenal first part of the season but also experienced the toughness of racing when he was involved in a crash with Doubek at his home track in Vallelunga.
Naska leads the overall standings and the Rookie Trophy ranks ahead of another newcomer: Liam Hezemans. The younger brother of two-time EuroNASCAR Champion and NASCAR Cup Series driver Loris Hezemans is again pulling double duties in the Czech Republic by racing in both championships. The Dutchman scored two wins so far and proved to have the killer instinct that comes with the Hezemans DNA. He’s only nine points behind Naska in the standings.
Sitting in third place is Vladimiros Tziortzis. Despite being only 25, the Cypriot is the most experienced among the top 3 in EuroNASCAR 2. At the wheel of his Academy / Alex Caffi Motorsport EuroNASCAR FJ, Tziortzis is poised to overcome the 41 points gap on Naska and fight his way back into the championship battle. After winning the season opener in Spain, the race driver from Nicosia experienced a rollercoaster of emotions with strong results but also some setbacks.
Reigning EuroNASCAR 2 Champion Doubek is fourth ahead of 2018 Champion Ulysse Delsaux. Sixth-placed Legend Trophy leader Melvin de Groot will miss the NASCAR GP Czech Republic and therefore play his regular season joker – only the best eight out of ten results count before the finals at Grobnik. Paul Jouffreau follows in seventh and also rounds out the top-3 in the Rookie Trophy.
Rookie Patrick Schober sits in eighth driving for Double V Racing. The Austrian had a solid first half of the season and keeps on digging a little bit under the radar. He’s ahead of Yevgen Sokolovskiy, who wants to gain ground on de Groot in the Legend Trophy. The Ukrainian has a good chance of closing the gap and taking the lead in the special classification. The top-10 are completed by NWES returnee Gil Linster in his CAAL Racing Chevrolet. Luli Del Castello leads the Lady Trophy in 13th overall.
EuroNASCAR PRO
First home race for Buggyra ZM Racing – The Czech team will celebrate its first home NASCAR GP at Autodrom Most with the twins Aliyyah and Yasmeen Koloc entered for the event. They share the home field advantage with Martin Doubek.
A chance for a comeback? – Vittorio Ghirelli struggled at the beginning of the season but made good progress to get back up to pace in Italy. The Not Only Motorsport driver will return to the place where he scored his maiden EuroNASCAR PRO win in 2021.
A pack ready to attack – The 2022 EuroNASCAR PRO season is one of the closest in the history of the championship with 18 drivers separated by less than 100 points after 3 events.
EuroNASCAR 2
Patrick Schober on the rise – With three consecutive top-10 finishes in the last three races, Austrian Rookie Patrick Schober may be the breakthrough surprise at Most, a track that he knows thanks to his experience in single seaters
A new track for two title contenders – Alberto Naska and Liam Hezemans are fighting for the championship but Autodrom Most is an unknown ground for both title contenders. Is this Vladimiros Tziortzis’ chance to strike back and make his way back to the top?
Tuomas Pontinen one to watch – With two top-5 finishes and his first podium at Vallelunga, Tuomas Pontinen is one of the hottest drivers in EuroNASCAR 2. Will find his way to Victory Lane at Most?
NWES PR | https://www.speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/racing-news/72452-nascar-gp-czechia-preview-autodrom-most-kicks-off-the-second-half-of-the-2022-euronascar-season | 2022-08-30T21:19:34Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://www.speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/racing-news/72452-nascar-gp-czechia-preview-autodrom-most-kicks-off-the-second-half-of-the-2022-euronascar-season | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The attention in the chase for the 2022 USAC Silver Crown title shifts to the “Magic Mile” of the Du Quoin State Fairgrounds after the postponement of the Bettenhausen 100 at Springfield to October. Six-time champ Kody Swanson of California is in the hunt for an unprecedented seventh Silver Crown title and comes to Du Quoin with a 63-point margin over Logan Seavey.
Swanson has three point paying victories in 2022 and one special event win in the big cars. He won the Ted Horn 100 in 2010 and again in 2017 and was leading last year until being overtaken mid race by 2008 Ted Horn 100 winner Brian Tyler. Tyler sailed to victory in the first daytime championship race at Du Quoin in nearly two decades, after the original night race was postponed due to rain.
Well over 40 machines were entered at Springfield for the first mile dirt track race on the schedule and a similar number is expected for the Ted Horn 100, Saturday night September 3. MiteXstream comes on board as a new presenting sponsor of the championship event.
It’s all part of a Labor Day weekend full of racing which also includes the ARCA Menards Series on Sunday night and DIRTcar Modifieds both nights.
Practice for the USAC Silver Crown championship cars begins Saturday, September 3 at 5 p.m. with qualifying slated at 6:30 and the Ted Horn 100 presented by MiteXstream at 8:15 p.m. Sunday, September 4 event schedule will begin with practice at 4:15, qualifying at 6:00, and feature racing at 6:30.
Tickets will be available on raceday or by calling the Du Quoin Fair office at 618-542-1535. Info and tickets can also be obtained by calling the Track Enterprises office at 217-764-3200.
For more info, visit www.trackenterprises.com.
Track Enterprises PR | https://www.speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/racing-news/72455-usac-silver-crown-series-set-for-saturday-night-in-du-quoin-il | 2022-08-30T21:19:40Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://www.speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/racing-news/72455-usac-silver-crown-series-set-for-saturday-night-in-du-quoin-il | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, has died at 91, Russian media reported Thursday.
News organizations quoted a statement from the Central Clinical Hospital as saying he died after a long illness. No other details were given.
Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.
His decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.
A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in a nuclear country.
“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.
Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became the Soviet leader in March 1985.
By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.
“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.
“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.
Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.
Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.
Te official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.
Vladimir Isachenkov and Kate de Pury in Moscow contributed. | https://www.wspa.com/news/world-news/russian-media-ex-soviet-leader-mikhail-gorbachev-dead-at-91/ | 2022-08-30T21:21:57Z | wspa.com | control | https://www.wspa.com/news/world-news/russian-media-ex-soviet-leader-mikhail-gorbachev-dead-at-91/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A staggering 81 individuals on the US terrorist watchlist have been stopped at the border since President Joe Biden took office, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted.
The Republican governor cited data from US Border Patrol showing its agents have encountered 66 people on the terror watchlist at the US border this fiscal year. Another 15 people on the list were stopped the year Biden took office.
In previous years, Border Patrol agents had only encountered 3 terror suspects a year or none at all.
The terror watchlist is a federal database of all known or suspected terrorists, and most people on the list are not US citizens, said the FBI. In the last decade, the list has grown to include those could be a potential threat to the US or who are associates of those who are threats.
“The sharp rise in apprehensions of the watchlisted individuals coincides with a significant rise in overall border encounters,” the US Border Patrol said.
Since October, Border Patrol has encountered 1.8 million people at the southern Border of the US. That’s more than four times the number of people who arrived at the US border in 2020, when 405,036 were stopped at the border.
“His refusal to secure the border is a direct threat to our national security,” tweeted Abbott about President Biden.
Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales, whose district covers much of the Texas border, told The Post the Biden Administration has refused to acknowledge the crisis at the border, including children drowning trying to cross into Texas, and the 53 immigrants who died in the back of tractor trailer in San Antonio in June.
“The Administration has failed to acknowledge that these things are happening,” said Rep. Gonzales. “They have chosen to ignore all aspects of the border, not just the areas they don’t want to talk about, everything.” | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/abbott-81-suspects-on-terror-watchlist-found-at-border-in-biden-era/ | 2022-08-30T21:23:35Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/abbott-81-suspects-on-terror-watchlist-found-at-border-in-biden-era/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
CNN senior political analyst John Avlon slammed President Biden on Tuesday for accusing the GOP of embracing “semi-fascism” – a rebuke that came as CNN bosses purportedly push the left-leaning network’s personalities to focus on non-partisan news coverage.
Avlon argued that Biden’s inflammatory remarks toward Republicans at a Democratic donor rally last week were “not helpful” for Democrats struggling to connect with swing voters.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), who is up for re-election in the Granite State, was among those who pushed back on Biden’s framing of the political landscape.
“The term semi-fascist is not helpful,” Avlon said during an appearance on CNN’s “New Day” on Tuesday. “It’s not befitting the office of president.”
“You can absolutely call out the dangers to our democracy, but it makes obviously perfect sense for someone like Sen. Hassan, because look, in New Hampshire, more than 40% of registered voters are independent,” Avlon added. “Another 30-and-change are Republicans. Democrats are the third category among registered voters, so she needs to be able to reach out and that language doesn’t help her do that.”
Alice Stewart, a fellow CNN panelist and Republican strategist, said Avlon was “being kind” in his interpretation of Biden’s words.
“The takeaway from Republicans is that the President of the United States, who campaigned on, won on, and was sworn in on a message of unity, lowering the temperature and bringing this country together, just called half of the country fascist,” Stewart said.
Mediaite earlier reported on Avlon’s remarks during the segment.
Biden ripped Republicans during an appearance at a Democratic fundraiser rally in Maryland last Thursday, urging supporters “to vote to literally save democracy once again” in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections.
“What we’re seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy,” Biden told donors at the rally. “It’s not just Trump, it’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism.”
Later in the event, Biden said that he respects “conservative Republicans” but not “these MAGA Republicans.”
Hassan reacted to Biden’s comments on Monday, arguing the president had “painted with way too broad a brush” in invoking the phrase, according to WMUR.
Meanwhile, new CNN President Chris Licht and WarnerBros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav are in the midst of an overhaul at the network, whose personalities frequently took an antagonist stance toward Republicans during the Trump administration.
John Malone, a major WarnerBros. Discovery shareholder, recently said he wanted CNN to be “more centrist,” even as he denied having any role in the network’s decision to oust liberal anchor Brian Stelter earlier this month.
The Daily Beast reported last week that Licht was planning on “blowing up” the “New Day” morning show due to low ratings. Licht previously indicated at an upfront presentation in May that CNN wanted to “reimagine” its morning programming, but provided no additional specifics. | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/cnns-john-avlon-blasts-biden-over-gop-semi-fascism-remark-not-helpful/ | 2022-08-30T21:23:53Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/cnns-john-avlon-blasts-biden-over-gop-semi-fascism-remark-not-helpful/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
After a week off to take in the knockout heard around the world at UFC 278, we are back with Dana White’s Contender Series predictions and picks today. As usual, we have five fights on the docket, all of which hope to leave the UFC APEX center with a contract in hand.
The event begins at 8 p.m. ET and can be streamed on ESPN+.
Dana White’s Contender Series features amateur fighters who are raw but talented. These fights typically have a lot of variance and luck involved, so bet these fights responsibly.
At the time of writing, Bet365 and BetRivers had an extensive list of prop bets available, and every major sportsbook allows moneyline bets.
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Dana White’s Contender Series Week 6 predictions and picks
Alex Morgan (-205) vs. Blake Bilder (+175)
From Tristar MMA, Alex Morgan walks into Dana White’s Contender Series tonight as a -205 favorite against Blake Bilder. Bilder is going to be the smaller fighter in the octagon tonight, which could affect his ability to get takedowns — his best path to victory is by submission.
Bilder does cage-push quite a bit, which isn’t the most entertaining, but could tire Morgan out. Morgan has some very solid knockout power and has two victories over the UFCs TJ Laramie. Morgan also had an entertaining fight — a loss — against Charles Jourdain.
Bilder cannot get sucked into a striking match with Morgan. If he is able to avoid that, he should have a sizeable grappling advantage. Bilder’s back take is very solid, and if he gets there, he should submit Morgan pretty quick; Morgan has been submitted in three of his four losses. Bilder, at +200 on Caesars Sportsbook, is disrespectful to the CFFC featherweight champion.
Side note: It was fun listening to CM Punk commentate Bilder’s last fight.
Dana White’s Contender Series pick
- Blake Bilder ML +200 (Caesars)
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Mateusz Rebecki (-255) vs. Rodrigo Lidio (+210)
A good old fashion wrestle fest could be on tap here as Mateusz Rebecki faces off against Rodrigo Lidio. Rebecki will likely shoot for a takedown immediately in this fight. In his lone loss, he dominated almost every minute of the fight, and his opponent had zero answers for his grappling. He was shockingly willing to drop down from top-half guard for a heel hook.
This was a tactical error and one he has not made since (12 fight winning streak).
While always hunting for the finish is admirable, dropping from top-half guard to a heel-hook is foolish in MMA and only acceptable in jiu-jitsu competitions. That loss was years ago, and he has finished nearly every opponent he has faced since.
Take Rebecki to win this fight for parlays, and a shot on wins in Round 3 at +900 isn’t a bad value either. Oftentimes, grapplers get late finishes as lactic acid builds up, and defending gets too tiresome.
Dana White’s Contender Series pick
Rebecki by KO/TKO or submission -120 (BetRivers) | Rebecki wins in Round 3 +900 (Bet365) | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/dana-whites-contender-series-week-6-predictions-odds-and-picks-today/ | 2022-08-30T21:23:59Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/dana-whites-contender-series-week-6-predictions-odds-and-picks-today/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
What the puck? A young ice hockey player says he spent years pretending his much-older boyfriend was his uncle — because he had not come out as gay and was embarrassed by their 37-year age gap.
Janne Puhakka was 19 years old when he met Rolf Nordmo, then age 56, in June 2014.
At the time, Puhakka was a professional athlete playing for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and had not disclosed his true identity to his family, friends or teammates.
“I was frightened, and I didn’t want people to know about my sexuality,” Puhakka, now 27, told South West News Service. “I was scared of the way I would be perceived in the ultra-masculine sporting world.”
Puhakka and Nordmo spent the summer together in Europe and quickly realized their deep attraction to one another.
“I knew that I had feelings I had never felt before, but was constantly telling myself it was just a summer fling and wouldn’t work because of our age gap,” Nordmo, now 64, stated.
“I was fighting myself the whole time and was trying to fight the love I had for him, but it was impossible,” he continued. “I had never felt like this before. I thought, ‘What on earth does this young man want with me, an old pig?'”
Puhakka also admitted he was falling in love with Nordmo, but was not yet ready to publicly come out of the closet.
After the summer ended, he returned to Canada for the commencement of the next ice hockey season, with Nordmo flying out to visit him a short time later.
Puhakka — originally from Finland — was staying with a host family in Canada and lied to them, saying Nordmo was his uncle, so that he didn’t have to explain their relationship when he went to see Nordmo at his hotel.
“I had to keep him a secret, and it isn’t a nice thing to hide the person you love,” Puhakka admitted.
Puhakka later came out to his family, and told them that his boyfriend was the same age as his dad.
The family took the news well, but Puhakka still wasn’t ready to tell his teammates and other friends about his beau — so he kept up the uncle lie.
Meanwhile, Nordmo had been married to a woman for 17 years and had three children before coming out at age 40. So he understood his boyfriend’s hesitation in being openly gay.
However, the brave sportsman finally came out in 2019, quitting ice hockey and returning to Europe to move in with Nordmo.
The pair have spent the past three years living in Helsinki, Finland — where people often mistake them for father and son.
“We find all the comments quite funny, and once people start talking and get to know us they are generally so warm and accepting,” Nordmo said.
Other strangers assume Nordmo — who works as a vet — is Puhakka’s “sugar daddy.”
“When we’re out on the town and I buy him a drink, people instantly make assumptions because I’m older, but he has his own job and makes his own money,” Nordmo said. “Sometimes I pay and sometimes he pays.”
The couple say they haven’t noticed their almost-four-decade age gap, with Nordmo romantically swooning: “I often say Janne is an old soul in a young body and I’m a young soul in an old body.”
His three children — who were initially reluctant about their dad’s romance with a teenager who was around their age — are now accepting of the partnership.
And Nordmo can more than keep up in the bedroom with his much-younger beau, despite being in late middle age.
Puhakka revealed that he sometimes has to tell his amorous older boyfriend that he needs a day off from sex.
For now, the couple don’t plan to have any children of their own, and are loved-up living together with their dog.
“It’s important to be happy now, and I don’t see the point in dwelling on the future,” Nordmo said about his advancing years. “Who knows what’s around the corner?” | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/i-told-people-that-my-boyfriend-was-my-uncle-i-was-ashamed-of-our-37-year-age-gap/ | 2022-08-30T21:24:11Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/i-told-people-that-my-boyfriend-was-my-uncle-i-was-ashamed-of-our-37-year-age-gap/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
This via the folks at eFX.
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Nomura on AUD, EUR and GBP.
- "Our short EUR (50%) and short GBP (50%) versus long AUD position performed moderately well. We retain conviction at 3/5
- our entry levels on 18 August," Nomura notes.
- "Our position remains exposed to risk from a major swing in global sentiment, but we believe that likely respective (near-term) macro performance and respective terms of trade shifts (favouring Australia over Europe) offer significant underlying fundamental support. There is little local near-term news of significance, ahead of the RBA meeting on 6 September, at which point we remain very confident that it will deliver a fourth-consecutive 50bp rate hike. However, until we reach this point, we expect AUD will largely remain driven by global themes," Nomura adds. | https://www.forexlive.com/news/nomura-is-looking-for-aud-to-trade-higher-against-eur-and-gbp-20220830/ | 2022-08-30T21:29:38Z | forexlive.com | control | https://www.forexlive.com/news/nomura-is-looking-for-aud-to-trade-higher-against-eur-and-gbp-20220830/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Sharjah: A fine performance from the spinners and an impactful cameo from Najibullah Zadran helped Afghanistan record a seven-wicket win over Bangladesh in the Asia Cup here on Tuesday.
Afghanistan's star spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman (3/16) and Rashid Khan (3/22) ran through a reckless Bangladesh batting line-up to restrict the opposition to 127.
Bangladesh stifled Afghanistan in the run chase before Najibullah's belligerent 43 not out off 17 balls, comprising six sixes, got his team over the line in 18.3 overs.
Ibrahim Zadran also contributed with 42 off 41 balls as he shared an unbeaten 69-run stand off 36 balls with Najibullah.
With their second win in as many games, Afghanistan also became the first team to qualify for the Super 4.
Like Bangladesh, Afghanistan too found it hard to push the scoring rate.
Skipper Shakib Al Hasan opened the bowling for Bangladesh and returned with impressive figures of 1 for 13 in four overs. The other bowlers too were accurate with Afghanistan batters not able to put them away.
After the fall of openers Hazratullah Zazai (23) and Rahmanullah Gurbaz (11), Afghanistan found themselves needing 80 off the last 10 overs.
With the batters struggling to find the big hits, it seemed the game would go down to the wire. However, a barrage of sixes from Najibullah quickly changed the course of the game.
It was only fitting that the left-hander finished the game with a six.
Earlier, Mossadek Hossain (48 not out off 31 balls) was the sole Bangladesh batter who played smartly and saved Bangladesh the blushes.
It was the pacers who rocked Sri Lanka in Afghanistan's earlier match but the team's traditional strength, the spin, wreaked havoc here as Mujeeb and Rashid shared three wickets each.
The spinners had a clear plan to target the stumps and Bangladesh batters chose to play cross-batted strokes against them, leading to their downfall.
Mujeeb broke the backbone of Bangladesh batting by striking thrice in the powerplay. He used the slider effectively to get through left-handed Mohammad Naim's (6) stumps before Anamul Haque (5) went for the slog sweep only to be trapped in front of the stumps.
Mujeeb's third scalp was of opposition skipper Shakib Al Hasan (11) who played a poor shot to see his stumps dislodged.
Number one spinner Rashid then joined the party by removing the seasoned Mushfiqur Rahim (1) with a googly. He got rid of left-handed Afif Hussain (12 off 15 balls) with a leg-break, leaving Bangladesh in dire straits at 53 for five. The quick pace both the spinners bowl at did not give the batters time to free their arms.
The experienced Mahmudullah (25) and Hossain tried to stabilise the innings but the damage was already done.
Medium pacer Azamatullah Omarzai was brought into the attack in the 20th over in which he did well to concede just seven runs. | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/08/30/asia-cup-afghan-beat-bangladesh-seven-wickets.amp.html | 2022-08-30T21:32:02Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/08/30/asia-cup-afghan-beat-bangladesh-seven-wickets.amp.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Good morning, I'm A Martinez. What's the most you've ever spent for fast food? Flying into Australia without declaring breakfast at customs can be very costly. Two McMuffins and a ham croissant sniffed out by a detector dog led to a fine for one traveler of about 1,800 bucks. Someone else had to cough up the same amount for a stowaway sandwich last month, although the Subway chain reimbursed that traveler with a gift card. Takeout sammies (ph) as contraband - wonder if the police pooch got the munch on the evidence. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-food/2022-08-03/flying-into-australia-without-declaring-breakfast-to-customs-can-be-costly | 2022-08-30T21:32:08Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-food/2022-08-03/flying-into-australia-without-declaring-breakfast-to-customs-can-be-costly | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
In the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, the names of just a few justices are linked with a single very famous--or infamous--decision. Chief Justice John Marshall for his 1803 decision declaring that the courts have the power to strike down laws that violate the constitution; Chief Justice Roger Taney for the infamous decision in the Dred Scott case, declaring that no African American, enslaved or free, could be a citizen of the United states, a decision that led in part to the Civil War; Chief Justice Earl Warren for his 1954 decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional. And now, the name of Samuel Alito is indelibly linked with the court's opinion overturning a half century's worth of decisions declaring that women have a right to abortion.
Alito, unlike Marshall, Taney and Warren, is not chief justice, and he may be little known to the public generally. But he has played a key role on the court, often leading the conservative charge not just on abortion, but for expanded religious rights, against LGBTQ rights, against expanded voting rights, against labor unions, for the death penalty, and more.
The workhorse of the right
Indeed, within a short time of replacing the more moderate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, he became something of the workhorse of the right.
On contraception, for instance, he wrote the court's 5-to-4 decision, declaring that closely held, for-profit corporations could refuse, on religious grounds, to comply with a federal law that required employer insurance policies to cover contraception for their employees.
"This court has said time and again that we have no business judging whether any sincere religious belief is valid or reasonable and it would be dangerous if we started down that road," he said in announcing his opinion from the bench in 2014.
He wrote the court's 2010 decision striking down state bans on handguns in the home, declaring the "right to keep and bear arms is implicit in our understanding of ordered liberty and is deeply rooted in the traditions of our country."
He wrote the court's 2007 decision declaring that victims of race and sex discrimination on the job could only recover damages dating back 180 days after filing suit, as opposed to when the discrimination began. Congress promptly rebuked the court, amending the anti-discrimination statute to make clear that damages and back pay are to be paid from the date the discrimination begins.
In death penalty cases, Alito has been impatient with attempts to limit capital punishment, in one case writing that any death row inmate who challenges the state's execution method as cruel and unusual punishment, must now come up with an alternative method.
In voting rights cases, he has repeatedly sided with state laws that make it more difficult for people to vote. As he wrote in a 2021 opinion, "Mere inconvenience cannot be enough to demonstrate a violation" of the Voting Rights Act.
One special Alito crusade focused on public employee labor unions. In particular, he took aim at a 40-year-old Supreme Court decision that upheld the rights of unions to collect fees from non-union members, as long as the fees were used only for collective bargaining and other non-political activities that benefitted all workers, union and non-union alike. The idea was to prevent non-union workers from being "free-riders" on the backs of the union. But in 2018, Alito, after whittling away at the precedent for more than a decade, even repeatedly inviting challenges, finally managed to overturn it. The First Amendment right of free speech, he said, includes the right not to speak or support a union in any way. "Nonunion members are not free riders at all," he said. "They are captive riders."
The overturning of Roe
Few issues appear to rankle Alito as much as those that directly or indirectly involve religion, and perhaps not incidentally, the modern culture war. As he put it in a July speech, There is a "growing hostility to religion or at least the traditional religious beliefs that are contrary to the new moral code that is ascendant in some sectors."
The Dobbs decision overturning Roe was his exegesis on abortion and constitutional interpretation. There is no audio of his opinion announcement because the court conveniently abandoned the longtime tradition of these announcements at the height of the epidemic and thereafter, prompting an increasing wave of criticism.
But as Alito explained in his written abortion opinion, the Supreme Court's Roe decision and the decisions that followed, had to be overruled because Roe was "egregiously wrong," the arguments for it "exceptionally weak," and because there was no history or tradition of abortion at the time of the founding or thereafter. There was no evidence, said Alito, "zero," that supported such a right.
Many on the political right hailed the decision as "brilliant," and an example of Alito's approach to the law. "He is not a partisan," said one former Alito clerk. "He just believes that the law is based on rules and rules are rules, regardless of politics."
'He's able to succeed'
Liberal Yale law professor Akhil Amar defends Alito too, maintaining that the justice succeeds by staying within the lines and not overreaching. "He's quiet. He's able to succeed," says Amar.
But others, including some conservatives, disagree. Among them is Sarah Isgur, a former official in the Trump Justice Department, who at one time was a leading member of the conservative Federalist Society. She says the Alito opinion fails the critical test of persuasion because it speaks only to those who agree with him.
"When you have a court that is 6-3 on so many different types of opinions, you can end up with a feeling there there are permanent winners and losers," she says. "And the court when it writes, it needs to write more persuasively to the people who might feel like they're permanent losers."
The question, at this point, she adds, is not whether Roe was correctly decided, but, "Do you overturn a precedent that has been on the books for 50 years--the most famous case probably to most Americans in the country, and it's not even close."
Cornell Constitutional law professor Michael Dorf is more pointed, calling the opinion, "dishonest" because it "so selectively cites history" to argue just one side of a case.
"The judge is supposed to look at it from a more balanced perspective, and that's not what Justice Alito does," Dorf says. "One wonders how so many prior justices, a majority of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, could have found a right to abortion in the constitution and then reaffirmed that right. There's a kind of arrogance to the opinion in the way it proceeds in a one-sided manner."
Isgur adds that Alito's assurances ring hollow when he contends at the end of his opinion that the Dobbs case should not cast doubt on other precedents based on the same reasoning as Roe-- the same-sex marriage opinion, or opinions guaranteeing the right to access contraception, for instance.
That may be, but Alito is part of a court, that, as Chief Justice John Roberts observed in the Dobbs case, is displaying "a relentless freedom from doubt on legal issues."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-politics/2022-08-03/samuel-alito-a-workhorse-on-the-supreme-court-shapes-its-conservative-path | 2022-08-30T21:32:20Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-politics/2022-08-03/samuel-alito-a-workhorse-on-the-supreme-court-shapes-its-conservative-path | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
In Republican primary races this year, few issues have come up more in TV ads than immigration. And one word in particular stands out: invasion.
A few years ago, that word was confined to the fringes of the immigration debate. Most candidates would avoid it.
In this election cycle, it's moved squarely into the mainstream.
"We're gonna end this invasion," Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Arizona, says in a campaign ad.
The word has also appeared in ads for Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia, Sen. Rick Scott in Florida, and Kari Lake, who's locked in a close race in the Republican primary for governor in Arizona.
"Before these ideas might have been seen as outliers. But now, it is really troubling," said Vanessa Cárdenas, the deputy director of America's Voice, an immigrant advocacy group that's been tracking political ads. It's found dozens of ads that use the word invasion by Republicans campaigning all over the country.
"This type of rhetoric, it's meant to agitate people for political reasons," Cárdenas said, "because it makes people feel anger and hate."
Ties to a conspiracy theory
It's been three years since a white gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 23 people, most of them Latino. The suspect was motivated by what he called a "Hispanic invasion" of people coming to the U.S. illegally.
Since then, the number of migrant apprehensions at the southern U.S. border has climbed to new records — while the political rhetoric around immigration has gotten more extreme.
The word invasion has a long history in white nationalist circles. For years, it was used widely by supporters of the "replacement theory" — the false conspiracy theory that says Jews or elites are deliberately replacing white Americans with immigrants and people of color. Until recently, you rarely heard it from Republican officeholders or candidates.
So what changed? For one thing, former President Trump, who used the word invasion a lot.
"Trump kind of exposed the kinds of rhetoric that resonated with the Republicans," said John Thomas, a Republican strategist based in California.
Thomas is working with several candidates for state office in Texas who've used "invasion" in their messaging this election cycle. That's partly because of Trump's example, he says. But for Thomas, the bigger issue is what's happening at the southern border, where the number of migrant apprehensions is on pace to exceed 2 million this year — breaking the record set just last year.
"The word invasion presses the hot buttons of Republican voters as they feel that it's a much bigger deal than it was before," Thomas said. "The rhetoric is increasing its intensity to match."
Southern border apprehensions climb
"I've never ever seen what we're seeing today," said Brad Coe, the longtime sheriff of Kinney County, Texas, at a press conference last month. Coe said his deputies are overwhelmed trying to catch unauthorized migrants crossing through ranches and small towns.
"This is unprecedented in Kinney County," he said. "Our numbers are gonna triple. We cannot sustain this type of invasion."
Immigration hardliners argue that it's fair to use the word invasion even if the migrants crossing the border don't look like a traditional military force, in part because their sheer numbers have distracted law enforcement officers from responding to other threats.
But immigrant advocates say the invasion narrative is fundamentally misleading.
Almost half of all migrants apprehended at the southern border are quickly expelled back to Mexico. Nearly all are unarmed. Many are fleeing poverty and violence and autocratic governments all over the hemisphere, and turning themselves in to the Border Patrol in hopes of getting asylum or other protections in the U.S.
A 'target' on the backs of immigrants
"They're mothers and children and fathers, people who are basically doing what any one of us would do if we were in their shoes," said Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso in Congress.
What worries Escobar is that this invasion rhetoric will inspire another tragedy like the mass shooting in the El Paso Walmart — or the shooting earlier this year in Buffalo, where the man suspected of killing 10 Black people was also motivated by the replacement theory.
"I am very, very concerned for communities like mine that we will see more acts of violence committed against immigrants, against Latinos, because of this rhetoric," Escobar said on a call with reporters last month.
Advocates say this increasingly extreme language is putting a target on the backs of immigrants — one that will still be there when the midterm elections have come and gone.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-top-stories/2022-08-03/talk-of-invasion-moves-from-the-fringe-to-the-mainstream-of-gop-immigration-message | 2022-08-30T21:32:39Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-top-stories/2022-08-03/talk-of-invasion-moves-from-the-fringe-to-the-mainstream-of-gop-immigration-message | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Back-to-back summers with scorching triple-digit heat have led officials in the Pacific Northwest to add new regulations to protect people working outdoors. Oregon has some of the nation's strongest rules for working in excessive temperatures. But as Oregon Public Broadcasting's Monica Samayoa reports, not everyone benefits.
MONICA SAMAYOA, BYLINE: For more than a decade, Willie Grishell (ph) has walked the same mail route in northeast Portland. He loves his job, but on hot days, he says it gets hard.
WILLIE GRISHELL: Hello. Man, you are so lucky. Your own letter from the AARP - just what you're waiting for, right?
SAMAYOA: When temperatures soared into triple digits, his pedometer recorded he took nearly 34,000 steps during his 12-hour shift. On days like these, Grishell takes extra care for himself. He eats celery and cucumbers for lunch and drinks a ton of water throughout the day.
GRISHELL: If I don't get to that point of hydration, I'm already going to be in trouble at the start of the next day.
SAMAYOA: After last year's heat dome event, the state put in place new protocols to protect outdoor workers. Employers are now required to provide access to shade, cold drinking water and additional rest breaks. But some workers say they're still laboring in unsafe conditions. Schuyler Fisher (ph) is a forklift driver at a grocery warehouse.
SCHUYLER FISHER: Usually I get home and I do stuff, but I just collapse on the couch pretty much because I'm so exhausted.
SAMAYOA: On this recent hot day, Fisher says the warehouse he was working in had no AC or air ventilation. He also says his employer has not provided additional rest breaks or cool drinking water.
FISHER: You kind of lose hope. You got to go in there and get your paycheck or else your family isn't going to be fed. So you just - you go in there begrudgingly every day.
SAMAYOA: His employer disputes Fisher's claims. Last year, labor rights groups were instrumental in establishing new rules shortly after four people died during the heat dome event. Two of those deaths were farmworkers. In Oregon, there are more than 100,000 agriculture employees. Ira Cuello-Martinez is with the group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste. They represent farmworkers. He says the new rules haven't been consistently enforced.
IRA CUELLO-MARTINEZ: Some workers were unaware of the rules even being in effect.
SAMAYOA: Cuello-Martinez says he's also heard that some farmers end the workday earlier when temperatures get too high. But that creates another problem for farm workers when they don't get paid as much.
CUELLO-MARTINEZ: They don't have any other source of income, and it does get stressful for them.
SAMAYOA: So far, the state has opened more than 100 inspections and issued just a handful of citations for not following the heat rules. The agency says they'll issue more. Some farmers say the rules have been confusing and hard to enforce. But for some outside workers, the new rules don't apply at all, like letter carrier Willie Grishell. He's a federal employee, not covered by state law.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)
GRISHELL: I know, baby. It's all right.
SAMAYOA: As he nears the end of his route on this day in the 90-degree heat, Grishell says he hopes the federal government adopts standards like those in Oregon. If not, he fears more tragedies may force more regulation.
GRISHELL: The other way that it's going to happen is we're going to have more and more people die.
SAMAYOA: Grishell describes the worst day he can remember last year when it reached 116 degrees. On that day, he says the sun just seemed angry.
For NPR News, I'm Monica Samayoa in Portland.
(SOUNDBITE OF ADRIENNE INDIGO AND PAUL GRANT SONG, "I JUST NEED") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-top-stories/2022-08-03/encore-oregons-outdoor-worker-protection-rules-are-tested-as-temps-heat-up | 2022-08-30T21:33:10Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-top-stories/2022-08-03/encore-oregons-outdoor-worker-protection-rules-are-tested-as-temps-heat-up | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. Increasing wealth inequality has become a widely acknowledged problem in the United States in recent years. When the Biden administration pushed for passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, there were hopes it would take a step toward fairness by adjusting tax rates or policies for the wealthy and by strengthening the Internal Revenue Service's capacity to ensure people and corporations pay what they owe.
For some insight into what's happened and the state of tax policies for the wealthy, we turn to Jesse Eisinger, senior editor and reporter at ProPublica, an independent nonprofit news organization focused on investigative reporting. He's written on the IRS' efforts to tax the rich in recent years. And over the last several months, he's been an editor and worked with a team of reporters on a series of stories drawn from a vast trove of IRS data ProPublica obtained. The data included information on the tax returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people covering more than 15 years. The stories covered a variety of ways the ultrarich shield income from federal taxation, such as claiming deductions from expensive hobbies, like thoroughbred horse racing. Jesse Eisinger is a veteran investigative reporter. In 2011, he and ProPublica's Jake Bernstein won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on questionable practices on Wall Street.
Jesse Eisinger, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Let's talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. There were a lot of goals for this legislation, and one of them was putting a dent in inequality of wealth. There was reporting that, you know, that there were changes in corporate taxes that were meaningful, could generate as much as $300 billion in revenue. What's the story here? What actually happened?
JESSE EISINGER: Yes, this is a bad news and good news story for taxing the wealthy and holding the wealthy accountable. In the bad news, the ambitions of the Democrats were ratcheted back significantly as they were for their other policy goals, as in climate and social welfare spending. We have a consensus now that wealth inequality is an enormous problem in the country, at least among economists, many policymakers and Democrats and even some centrist-thinking Republicans. But we don't have a system that taxes the wealthy equitably. And there were efforts proposed to address this by the Biden administration and by Democrats. But in the end, they did not do anything to address taxes on the wealthy and particularly the ultrawealthy in any significant measure. But they did do some things that will be positive and bring about a fairer tax system.
DAVIES: One thing that the Inflation Reduction Act does is provide significant new funding for the IRS, which is generally regarded as underfunded and understaffed. This is something that you have written about. Just take a moment here and give us a sense of how much the IRS has lost in recent years in staff and budget and why.
EISINGER: So Paul Kiel and I explored this in a series of stories a couple of years ago, and the IRS has been gutted, primarily starting in 2010 when Republicans took over Congress and started slashing the budget. The result of this is an agency on life support today. The budget is down in real dollars, about $2 billion. It's roughly going to be about a $13 billion budget. So this is huge, significant budget cut. And the result of this is that tens of thousands of employees have left the agency in recent years. The systems have not been upgraded. In fact, some systems actually run an ancient computer language called COBOL, and they have to take people out of retirement to update it when they need a fix. So the systems are really decrepit. The - those tens of thousands of people, many of them were the best, most able employees who could get jobs in the private sector. So it even understates how significant those personnel losses are.
And the result is that audits have collapsed. Audits for the wealthy have collapsed by 80%. And audits for the largest corporations - it used to be that the largest corporations were audited more than once a year because the IRS was in there every single year and sometimes auditing multiple years simultaneously. Now, barely half of the largest companies get audited every year, and the audits are much thinner. They're much less thorough. They're looking at many fewer things. And it means that we collect less taxes, particularly from the wealthy.
DAVIES: What exactly does the Inflation Reduction Act provide for the IRS?
EISINGER: So the Inflation Reduction Act provides $80 billion to the IRS in addition to its regular budget over 10 years. And it was clear when we were writing our series that the IRS was now a reclamation project that was going to take years and billions and billions of dollars. And now we have that. It's one of the biggest influxes of money into an ailing federal agency in modern memory. And what it's going to do is help the IRS upgrade its systems, its computer systems. I was telling you about the antiquated computer languages that it uses. A lot of what it still does is on paper with fax machines. They don't have enough people to answer the phones. So you can wait hours and hours if you try to call the - have a question answered. So a lot of that is just going to be what they call customer service.
And then there's going to be a significant boost to the enforcement budget. Forty-five billion dollars of that $80 billion is supposed to go to new enforcement. And what that enforcement is - will be audits, particularly of the wealthy, and corporations and then enforcing our tax laws. One of the consequences of the collapse is that we almost never prosecute tax evasion now. Audits look at tax avoidance and try to figure out whether you're avoiding taxes improperly. It's not necessarily a crime. And then there's tax evasion, having some secret effort to avoid taxes illegally. And we almost never investigate and prosecute tax evaders.
DAVIES: A lot of Republicans have attacked this additional IRS funding, saying that they're really going after ordinary Americans and that it's going to be an intrusive attack. And I have to share quotes that were in The Washington Post from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. This is the Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. He said, quote, "do you know what the IRS has? Four thousand six hundred guns, 5 million rounds of ammunition. Why? Democrats want to double its already massive size." He further adds, "with this new power, the IRS will snoop around in your bank account, your Venmo, your small business. They, the government, will shake you down for every last cent." And then he adds that in light of the FBI's search on, you know, President Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago, "do you really trust this administration's IRS to be fair, not to abuse their power?" This has really gotten some traction, particularly in conservative media. What do you make of all that?
EISINGER: Well, I mean, let's be frank. It's ridiculous. These claims are based on lies. They're lying that these IRS agents are going to be armed. A bare, small percentage of them will be for only the most egregious situations of tax evasion for drug dealers, you know, cartel owners, organized crime. And they're going to have more agents, but they're losing agents at a huge clip and you - losing employees at a huge clip, so they can't answer phones for people. So most of these new employees are going to be answering phones for average people and helping them get their questions answered so that they can pay taxes.
This is a campaign against the IRS to protect corporations and the wealthy because corporations and the wealthy have had it so good for the last few years and decades and been able to avoid taxes and their tax burden - the largest corporations and the wealthy, especially the ultrawealthy - has collapsed. They're not paying their fair share. And the Republicans are protecting those people by attacking the IRS. And it would be comical - these lies are so easily debunked - except that when they talk about the IRS wielding weapons and Chuck Grassley talked about agents having AK-15s - I think he meant AR-15s, which is ludicrous - what that's doing is putting civil servants, hardworking IRS people, at risk. And in fact, the commissioner of the IRS, just in the recent days, had to put a safety alert out and a safety assessment out for employees because of all the threats that IRS employees are experiencing.
DAVIES: Right. And the recent events surrounding the FBI after the search at Mar-a-Lago underlines the, you know, the real - the credibility of some of those threats. You know, you say that - the treasury officials say that a lot of this increased enforcement and auditing activity will be directed at the wealthy, and we'll see how that plays out. But when you and Paul Kiel were doing your work on the IRS, you also looked at what kinds of audits have been conducted in recent years, particularly, you know, as the agency has lost personnel. And you have a story - I just have to mention this - about the earned-income tax credit and people who were audited for allegedly abusing this break. You want to just explain what the earned-income tax credit is and what happened here?
EISINGER: Sure. The result of this is that if you are a member of the working poor in this country, if you make roughly 20 or $30,000 a year, you're more likely to be audited than if you make $500,000 a year in this country. That is the result of the massive budget cuts from the Republicans. So what is the earned-income tax credit? Well, it's one of our biggest social welfare programs, and it provides extra money - and it's a really significant amount of money when you are a member of the working poor - several thousand dollars a year to add to your $20,000 of income. You have to have a job to get the earned-income tax credit. But because money is going out, Republicans in particular have attacked this program.
DAVIES: Well, and it's particularly troubling because people who are taking advantage of this tax credit are living paycheck to paycheck. They count on the refunds that they're going to get. You tell the story of a 28-year-old woman who's expecting a $2,000 refund. And she gets a computer-generated letter saying we must - we have questions about your return and your use of this tax credit. Please send us all of your W-2s, et cetera, et cetera, all kinds of information. What happens then, when a, you know, a staff-depleted IRS has to follow-up on this kind of audit?
EISINGER: Yes. Well, people don't answer the phones. You can't get a straight answer. It's incredibly time-consuming. A lot of these people are holding down two jobs. They may be single mothers. And let's be clear about what's happening, is that the most audited county in the United States, when Paul and I did this story, was a majority-Black county in Mississippi. These audits fall disproportionately on not just the poor, but people of color. And so the most audited county in America being a Black county speaks to the essential unfairness of our tax system.
DAVIES: All right. We're going to take a break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Jesse Eisinger. He's a senior reporter and editor at ProPublica. We'll be back to continue our conversation in just a moment. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIJAY IYER'S "BLACK AND TAN FANTASY")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're talking with Jesse Eisinger. He's a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He worked with a team of reporters recently on a series of stories about ways the wealthiest Americans drastically reduce their tax obligations.
So let's talk about this tax avoidance project that you and many other reporters at ProPublica did. And this was based on a trove of IRS data. And you say in the reporting that you cannot disclose how you got this data. What can you tell us about its contents - how many taxpayers, all that?
EISINGER: Yeah, we got a vast trove of private tax-return information about only the wealthiest individuals in America. So we have thousands of individuals. We have it going back for more than 15 years. But it's really the 1% of the 1% - the billionaire class. We don't have waitresses. We don't even have doctors or lawyers. We have, as I say, billionaires. And we obtained it. It's probably the biggest single trove of private tax information that's ever been obtained by any journalistic or academic entity in the history of the country. And we've been culling it for stories that we believe are in the public interest.
DAVIES: Right. And you acknowledge, in the stories, that privacy is a legitimate concern. It is no small thing for journalists or others to get this kind of information. What did you decide is fair to print? And what did you not print?
EISINGER: Yeah, this was a delicate effort. And we took this very seriously and were extremely careful with the information. And we thought that the stories we had, the public interest of the stories we had, outweighed the privacy concerns of the billionaires that we were writing about. What we found was that the billionaire class operate in a completely different universe than average people when it comes to taxes. And these data provided, like the Webb telescope, the most vivid, clearest images that we have ever seen of billionaire tax avoidance. And that was so overwhelmingly important that we thought we had to get it out even though these data were so sensitive.
DAVIES: All right. We'll talk about some of the ways that the wealthiest Americans reduce their tax bills. But one of the things that you did was you simply - you did a calculation of what they're really paying over how much their financial well-being increased in a given year. That is to say, if you look at what they reported as income compared to their tax, it - maybe not so far out of line, but that really doesn't capture their reality. You came up with what you said was the real tax rates. You want to explain how you did this and what it showed?
EISINGER: Yeah, sure. So for the billionaire class, what's really important is how much their wealth grows in a given year. The rest of us, we have income, and we need income to live. But for the billionaire class, they don't actually need income. They avoid income. If you avoid income, you avoid taxes. And so it turns out that the billionaire class pays much less in tax than average people. And what we found is that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Michael Bloomberg and Carl Icahn, they literally, in recent years, paid zero in federal income tax. And what you do is you let your mountain of wealth grow over time. You let Amazon stock grow. Or if you're Warren Buffett, you let Berkshire Hathaway go up and up and up. And you never sell. And if you never sell, you don't take any income.
And how are these people living if they don't sell? Well, often, what they do is they borrow against their wealth. And if you're borrowing against your wealth, that's not taxed. So ultimately, what we found was that the ultrawealthy in this country, they had wealth growth of $400 billion from 2014 to 2018, and they paid about $14 billion in taxes. And so average people pay roughly 15% in federal income taxes effectively, and the ultrawealthy paid 3.4% when compared to their wealth growth.
DAVIES: You said the IRS is afraid of the ultrawealthy I mean, I guess that's a euphemism for saying their experience is when the ultrawealthy get all of their tax lawyers and accountants in the game, the IRS loses?
EISINGER: The IRS is utterly overmatched and under-resourced when it comes to going after the superrich for their tax avoidance strategies. The superrich have huge battalions of lawyers and accountants to envelop their affairs in ways that look legitimate and complicated and hard to parse and get to the bottom of.
One of the things that the ultrawealthy do is they have corporations that own partnerships that own partnerships that own partnerships that finally trickle down to provide income for the individual. And to get through those Russian-doll structures and open it up and open it up to figure out who actually owns it and who's making the money and who's losing the money and whether that's legitimate would take years and many, many people. And the IRS just doesn't have the resources. And when they try to do it, they confront these battalions of lawyers and accountants and get overwhelmed. And so it becomes very difficult. And what the result is, is that they don't do that as often. They're scared.
DAVIES: OK. We're going to take another break here. Let me reintroduce you. We are speaking with Jesse Eisinger. He's a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He'll be back to talk more after this short break. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE MOLES' "IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST - FRONT TITLES")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. Our guest is Jesse Eisinger, a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He worked with a team of reporters on a series of stories about the many ways the wealthiest Americans drastically reduce their tax obligations. Much of that reporting was drawn from a large trove of IRS tax data that ProPublica acquired, which included information on the returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years.
Well, Jesse Eisinger, we were talking about how the wealthiest Americans tend not to pay much because they don't report what's technically income. What they do is they accrue wealth through their assets, which you don't get taxed on until you actually sell the assets. And then what they do is they borrow when they need living expenses, they borrow. And they count those assets as collateral for the loans. And money that you borrow, you don't pay taxes on. So that's a nice little move. But it occurred to me as I read that that, well, you do have to repay the loans, right? And to repay the loans, you got to get that cash from somewhere. Wouldn't that generate income as the IRS sees it, and generate tax liability?
EISINGER: You would think so. But actually, the wealthy don't have to repay those loans often. They can just keep borrowing until they die. And this is a technique that has been coined by a USC tax law professor as buy, borrow, die. What you do is you buy or you build your asset like Amazon or Berkshire Hathaway or Tesla, and then you borrow against the asset. And there's no evidence that Bezos or Buffett has done this. But Musk discloses this in his SEC filings that he does this. And Larry Ellison, another mega billionaire, also has borrowed billions and billions of dollars. So this is a common technique. You buy, borrow, and then you can keep those debts as long as nothing catastrophic happens to your stock or your asset. You keep those debts rolling and rolling and rolling until you die.
And then when you die, there are a couple of tax loopholes that come into play that allow you to wipe out those capital gains for the purposes of taxes. And then you never have to pay taxes on the gains at all. And then the lovely thing is that the debts come off the size of estate. And so if you were subject to estate taxes - many of these people are not because you can get around estate taxes - but if you were, the debts actually reduce the size of your estate. It's a win-win-win to never pay taxes when you're alive and not pay taxes after you've died.
DAVIES: I want to make sure I understand this. When I think of a loan, I think of a few thousand dollars. You're saying that some of these people will actually borrow - from what? - a bank, I guess, or out of some financial institution, hundreds of millions of dollars, the collateral being their enormous assets?
EISINGER: Billions of dollars with a B...
DAVIES: Like, goes into a bank account that you can write checks on? You can spend billions based on these loans?
EISINGER: Well, these poor guys, they have trouble spending billions. Even they, in their wonderful, bountiful appetites and imagination, it's hard to spend billions. But they can buy lots of yachts. Larry Ellison is well known for buying sailing teams. And actually, Ellison owns an entire Hawaiian island. So with enough imagination, you can figure out how to spend billions, and they really put their minds to it.
DAVIES: What's interesting about this is that this is not tax evasion, right? It's tax avoidance. The difference, the distinction being it's legal. They're not doing anything illegal. They're not - it's not secret accounts. It's not, you know, they're not phony, you know, charities hiding money. This is all legal, right?
EISINGER: That's an absolutely crucial point to all of this, is that this does not require illegality. It doesn't even require complex lawyers or accountants finding you loopholes. The basic inequity of our tax system is based on what we tax and what we don't tax. And there are two structural issues. One is that we do not tax unrealized gains. The other that we alluded to earlier with the carried interest loophole is that we tax capital at much, much lower rates than labor income. And it's easy, it's - they understand it. It's not complex. And it's completely attainable and available to them from any major bank.
DAVIES: You know, being the credible journalists that you are, you asked everyone that you wrote about in this for comment. Not surprisingly, many ignored your inquiries. Of those who responded, what were some of the more interesting responses?
EISINGER: We got some very telling responses from the few people who engaged with our reporting. As you say, most people just ignored this issue because they see no percentage in commenting on how good the billionaire class has it. But Warren Buffett did respond to us. And Warren Buffett may be the king of American tax avoidance. He has sold so little Berkshire Hathaway and takes so little income that his true tax rate is actually .1%. And it's an astonishingly low number. And what Buffett said is, look, I'm going to give my money away to charity, and I'm a better allocator of money to causes that are important than the federal government. The federal government is going to pay down its debts with my money and I can give it to societally beneficial issues. And so I think that's better.
And one response to that is, well, I happen to think that I could spend federal money much better than the federal government and even probably better than Warren Buffett. And probably every listener out there thinks he or she could also spend federal government money better than I could or Warren Buffett could. And we don't do that in a democratic society. We have a democracy, a democratically elected government, allocate funds for societal needs rather than giving them up to individuals, except the billionaire class, who really is able to do that because of our tax system.
DAVIES: Well, while we're on the subject, does Buffett actually give - you know, do - philanthropic contributions and social spending on the kind of scale that would amount to a fair taxation rate?
EISINGER: Fair enough. He does give lots and lots of money away and is pledging to give the entirety of his wealth away - almost the entirety of his wealth. I mean, he's given billions and billions of dollars to his children, but he's planning to give most of it away. But, again, what this is is it amounts to an enormous tax subsidy from us to Warren Buffett to allocate to his favorite charities.
And when you talk about charities, some may be beneficial. Some people may be getting rid of African River Blindness, but others are giving to Harvard and Yale to burnish their reputations. And do Harvard and Yale need that money? Maybe. Maybe not. Or they give to private museums that are on land that you can't get into so the public can't see them. Those are the kinds of donations that may not be as socially beneficial as the government providing for retirement for the elderly.
DAVIES: All right. Let's take another break here. I need to reintroduce you. We are speaking with Jesse Eisinger. He's a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. We will continue this conversation right after this break. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROBBEN FORD AND BILL EVANS' "CATCH A RIDE")
DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we are speaking with Jesse Eisinger. He's a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. He worked with a team of reporters on a series of stories about the many ways the wealthiest Americans reduce their tax obligations, much of that drawn from a large trove of IRS tax data that ProPublica acquired, which include information about the returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people.
When you got all this information, you looked at individual people and their returns and their deductions and all this, and you could put together a picture that just wasn't possible before. When you did this, you discovered that one of the people who was doing this had been a contributor to ProPublica. That was kind of interesting.
EISINGER: Yes. We tried to report this without fear or favor. And in the end, we ended up reporting on several ProPublica contributors. We are dependent often on the ultrawealthy for donations. They get the charitable donation, which we have written about and questioned and - when they donate to ProPublica.
So this was a big risk for this news organization. And Steve Engelberg, the editor-in-chief, and Dick Tofel, who was our CEO at the time, had to take into account both that risk that we would anger this donor class and the risk - the legal risk because it could be construed and it has been argued that what we're doing is illegal in publishing these data.
We think that our First Amendment rights supersede the questionable - the questions about the legality of what we're doing. But it was a risk. So it was an enormous risk that ProPublica did in backing me and my team. And I'm really grateful for that.
DAVIES: So apart from hobbies that the wealthy structure as businesses so they can take deductions, you write that there are a lot that take big deductions from real businesses, like hotels and resorts. Some that you cite pay no taxes for years on end. And this is a little confusing to me. I'm going to play a clip from the "Seinfeld" series when Jerry and Kramer are talking about writing things off. Let's listen to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SEINFELD")
MICHAEL RICHARDS: (As Kramer) It's a write-off for them.
JERRY SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) How is it a write-off?
RICHARDS: (As Kramer) They just write it off.
(LAUGHTER)
SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) Write it off what?
RICHARDS: (As Kramer) Jerry, all these big companies, they write off everything.
SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) You don't even know what a write-off is.
(LAUGHTER)
RICHARDS: (As Kramer) Do you?
SEINFELD: (As Jerry Seinfeld) No, I don't.
(LAUGHTER)
RICHARDS: (As Kramer) But they do, and they're the ones writing it off.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVIES: That's from the series "Seinfeld."
I mean, it is true. This is mysterious to most of us. And I have to say, if somebody is wealthy and they set up a real business - right? - and then they get losses that they can then count as tax deductions, it just seems strange because for every dollar of tax avoidance you get from those losses, you're actually paying a dollar, losing a dollar in an unprofitable business. So it seems what you're really doing is instead of paying the IRS, you're paying the suppliers and employees of your business. What - how do you gain from that? It seems like a wash.
EISINGER: You're so naive (laughter).
DAVIES: That's why I'm here and you're there.
EISINGER: So real estate - commercial real estate moguls barely pay any taxes. We saw this with Donald Trump's taxes. And the owner of the Miami Dolphins is a billionaire named Stephen Ross. He developed Hudson Yards in New York, one of the biggest developments in recent years in New York City. And he's gone almost 20 years never paying any federal income tax. In fact, he tells the IRS in a given year, I've lost $400 million.
Well, is he actually losing that money? No. What's happening with commercial real estate people is that their buildings often are appreciating. They're going up in value, and they're throwing off income when the renters give them income. But they get to tell the IRS that the buildings are falling in value, they're depreciating, because over time, assets are considered to depreciate.
Like your car - when your car goes off the lot on the first day, it starts to lose value. Well, they get to say that their buildings are losing value in that same way, except they're not. As I say, for the buildings in the biggest cities in America, typically, they're going up in value. So you get to tell the IRS something that's not true. You get to tell the IRS that something is losing money when it's actually making money. And by doing that, you get to avoid taxes. And so then what you can do is you can go into a hobby of having a boutique hotel and keep putting money into that and tinkering away.
We found - Paul Kiel and I found a guy named Ty Warner they - who made Beanie Babies - a fortune in Beanie Babies. And he's a guy who hates paying taxes. And we know this because when he made his first billions, the first thing he did was get on a plane and open a secret Swiss bank account so he wouldn't have to pay taxes. And that's illegal, and he got caught. And he didn't actually go to prison because we don't really send rich, white billionaires to prison very often in this country. But he did get caught, and he had to plead guilty. And then he figured out a way to avoid taxes perfectly legally. And he creates boutique hotels, and he endlessly tinkers with those hotels, making them bigger and more beautiful and more elaborate. This is clearly something of a hobby for him, but he gets to produce losses through depreciation - often non-cash losses, even though these hotels may be going up in value. But he avoids taxes and hasn't paid taxes for years and years.
DAVIES: So what do we do about this? Campaign finance reform?
EISINGER: Well, we have a system now with enormous wealth inequality. We have hyper-wealth in this country. And as we were discussing, when we introduced the income tax a hundred years ago, that was to address hyper-wealth of a different era. We have the kind of fortunes that we had back then with Rockefellers and Morgans and Carnegie. And back then, we had this incredible, epochal shift where we started to tax incomes. And at that point, the wealthy really did have income. And now we've had huge shifts in our economy so that the wealthy generate money that isn't technically income. And that provides them huge wherewithal to both enjoy their lives and spend without paying taxes and then also dominate our politics and warp our politics in such a way that their power perpetuates itself.
So there needs to be a reevaluation of our politics so that the ultrawealthy do not have such a disproportionate say in how we make our decisions. But as you can see, with the Biden administration's and the Democrats in Congress' efforts to tax the wealthy, those failed. The Biden administration and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and many others in Congress wanted to tax the wealthy. They wanted to tax wealth gains, or they wanted to introduce higher rates for taxes, which wouldn't be very effective but would be something. And all of those got defeated.
DAVIES: You know, these glaring contrasts of wealth kind of offends our sense of fairness. I'm wondering how it also concretely impacts the rest of Americans - working Americans and poor Americans - the fact that all of this tax obligation just gets avoided.
EISINGER: Yeah, I think it's deeply corrosive. I think Americans are already pretty cynical about how the wealthy can get away with things. And I've thought of my beat almost as elite impunity because we don't hold the ultrawealthy accountable, and we allow them to get away with tax avoidance and even crime disproportionately to average people. But one of the things that we perennially hear about is how constrained our government is, how there isn't enough money to fix our crumbling infrastructure or to provide adequately for retirement.
We're constantly hearing about how Social Security is about to go broke or that we cannot afford to give people reasonable, affordable health care and on and on and on - that we can't keep the air clean and the water clean. And the reason we can't do that is we're not taxing the wealthy and corporations at their fair share. And I think that that offends the basic sense of fairness and is deeply corrosive to the legitimacy of our government and our democracy.
DAVIES: Well, Jesse Eisinger, thanks so much for speaking with us again.
EISINGER: Thank you for having me.
DAVIES: Jesse Eisinger is a senior editor and reporter at ProPublica. You can find the stories he and fellow reporters wrote about how the wealthiest Americans avoid federal taxes on ProPublica's website.
Coming up, John Powers reviews "Kleo," the new Netflix series about a young woman who's an East German assassin as communism is collapsing in the late '80s. This is FRESH AIR.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRIAN ENO AND JOHN CALE'S "SPINNING AWAY") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-top-stories/2022-08-25/how-the-ultrawealthy-devise-ways-to-not-pay-their-share-of-taxes | 2022-08-30T21:34:17Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-top-stories/2022-08-25/how-the-ultrawealthy-devise-ways-to-not-pay-their-share-of-taxes | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A MARTINEZ, HOST:
Now let's hear from some students who could be affected directly by the Biden plan.
ASHANTI JEAN-CLAUDE: Ten thousand dollars - to not have to pay that and put it towards my family back at home - that would be awesome. My parents have worked real hard to put me through college. I have 10 siblings. So it would mean a lot.
MYKALA ELDER: So I certainly think that it's something great. It'll help me personally and help my little sister. At this point, I just feel like, you know, it's good to kind of take what we can get. Unfortunately, I am planning on going to law school, which will put me even more into debt.
LUKE WINNOCKE: Still, I'm not sure that the 10K really quite lives up to the expectations of some of those progressives, but it's still a step in the right direction, I think.
MARTINEZ: Those were the voices of Ashanti Jean-Claude (ph), Mykala Elder and Luke Winnocke (ph) from the campuses of Howard University and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren is a longtime advocate for student loan debt forgiveness, and she joins us now. Senator, thanks for being on.
ELIZABETH WARREN: Oh, good morning.
MARTIN: You had been pushing legislation that would have eliminated $50,000 in student debt for more than 40 million Americans, including private borrowers. So the Biden plan is less than that. Are you satisfied with what the administration has come up with?
WARREN: I'm celebrating. Look; in the last 24 hours, 20 million Americans learned that they never have to pay another nickel of student loan debt, and 23 million more Americans learned that the amount they owed on their student loans when COVID hit is now substantially reduced. In addition to that, all the parents of high schoolers and people who will be going to school in the future learned that the income-determined repayment plan has changed so that anyone who wants to go to school and isn't in a family that can write a check for that will not have to go through debt hell. And that just means life got better for a whole lot of folks in America's middle class. So yay. Would I like more? You bet I would. Will I keep fighting for it? Of course. But this is huge.
MARTIN: So forgiveness applies to borrowers who earn less than $125,000 a year or households that make less than $250,000. I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere, but do you think this is a fair standard?
WARREN: Yes, I think that - I get it. The president was absolutely locked in that he wanted an income cap in order to concentrate resources for those who need it most. But the part to remember here is that more than half of all the recipients will get $20,000 in student loans cancellation.
MARTIN: These are students who received Pell Grants.
WARREN: And that's more than half of all the people who have student loans. And what that does is that concentrates the relief among African Americans, among Latinos, among veterans, among mamas and daddies who decided to go back to school and among first-generation college students. Remember that Pell Grants are given - 95% of the families have incomes less than $60,000. So there's a big push in this to get help to the people who need it most.
MARTIN: Former Treasury secretary under President Obama, Larry Summers, criticized the administration's forgiveness plans, saying it's going to make inflation worse. Do you agree?
WARREN: No. And in fact, the data just don't back that up. Even the most conservative outlets that have looked at this have said maybe it'll have a tiny little effect on inflation. But here's the thing - they forget the other half. The president has paired cancellation of student loan debt with the resumption of payments for the 23 million Americans who will still owe student loan debt. So that is - that means that for 23 million Americans, there's going to be a new payment starting, which has a deflationary effect, not an inflationary effect.
MARTIN: May I ask what you think of Larry Summers' alternative? He thinks that these loans should be discharged by filing for bankruptcy. You happen to have a lot of experience in bankruptcy law.
WARREN: You know, first of all, you'd have to change the bankruptcy laws. One of the reasons that we have created this horrible situation with debt is that the bankruptcy laws were changed years ago to make it virtually impossible to discharge debts in bankruptcy. But the second is to say that is - you have to think of it as, that's a hand-tailored response. People go into bankruptcy, and it is a very complex and pretty expensive process. It's not designed to handle 43 million Americans.
The president is making this change both to help middle-class families, working-class families and, frankly, to help our whole economy. Understand that the people who have student loan debt - remember, 40% of them don't even have a college diploma. But these are people who are struggling with debt, and we know as a group they are less likely right now to move out of mom's basement, to be able to save up money to buy a home, to be able to start their own small business or even to start a family. And that has an impact on our whole economy.
MARTIN: So does the overall cost of college. And we have to address this.
WARREN: Yes. You bet.
MARTIN: The administration's plan for loan forgiveness does not do anything about the skyrocketing cost of college tuition. I mean, it's gone up on average 9%. I mean, that's an annual average increase. What is the administration planning to do? What are you pushing them to do?
WARREN: You preach to the choir on this. I have been arguing also for years that we need to get the cost of college under control. Let me mention a couple of things really quickly. I have gotten legislation that's partway through Congress - not all the way there yet - that would cause - we'd have more transparency. So schools would be required to disclose not just the so-called sticker price in their scholarships but, in fact, how many people graduate, how long it takes them to graduate, which affects the price, and how much they make when they get out on the other side.
We also, though, need more public support for our public colleges and universities to bring down the tuition cost, and we need to force colleges to have skin in the game to keep their costs down. So there's a lot of work still to be done. That's on Congress, and I'm leading that fight.
MARTIN: Senator Elizabeth Warren, thank you for your time this morning. We appreciate it.
WARREN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-politics/npr-politics/2022-08-25/sen-elizabeth-warren-has-been-pushing-for-student-loan-relief-for-years | 2022-08-30T21:34:48Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-politics/npr-politics/2022-08-25/sen-elizabeth-warren-has-been-pushing-for-student-loan-relief-for-years | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
KYIV, Ukraine — If you want to challenge that old expression "you can't fight city hall," you should probably pick someplace besides Ukraine's capital. That's because the mayor's previous job title was heavyweight champion of the world.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko held that title on and off from 1999 to 2013.
Now, he's fighting the Russians. Klitschko is quick to the scene when Russian airstrikes slam into the capital.
"They killed children, women, civilians, for what reason?" Klitschko said as he arrived at an apartment building that was attacked in March. "Where's the military target? Is this building a military target?"
The Russian invasion in February has transformed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from a leader with sagging popularity into one of the world's most famous political figures. Yet before the war, Klitschko was better known globally, at least to boxing fans.
The Russians reached the outskirts of the capital early in the war and had just retreated when Klitschko spoke to NPR in April.
"Kyiv is the largest city in Eastern Europe. Right now, we guess half of the population (of 3.5 million) has already left," Klitschko said. "The city's changed totally. In the springtime, this city has energy. And right now, the city is almost dead."
Now the capital is more relaxed
The war is still raging in eastern and southern Ukraine. But in the capital, many residents who initially fled have come back and the city has in many ways regained a sense of normalcy. There are still soldiers in the streets, checkpoints on the edge of the city, and frequent air raid sirens. But the streets are full of cars and pedestrians, shops and restaurants are open, and the day-to-day atmosphere is generally relaxed.
Even when the Russians were nearby, Klitschko never stopped working out of City Hall, a massive stone building in the center of Kyiv, surrounded by sandbags. He said in a recent interview with The Sunday Times that he's left the city just twice since the war began.
At age 51, Klitschko stands 6-foot-7 and still looks to be around his fighting weight of 250. When he retired nearly a decade ago, he'd won 45 professional bouts — 41 by knockout — and lost only twice. His nickname? Dr. Ironfist.
In politics, he did lose his first bid for mayor. But he won the post in 2014 and was easily reelected in 2020. He generally gets good marks from citizens.
"He's done a pretty good job and I'm very thankful for what he's done so far," said Dmytro Belov.
Belov gives toy car rides to children at a park that Klitschko upgraded. The park — one of several renovated by the mayor — now has an elevated walkway with a commanding view overlooking the Dnipro River , which bisects the city.
"These are beautiful parks. I think they're the new calling card of the city," Belov said. "These are historical places and they've been modernized."
Still, not everyone is a fan of the mayor.
"I think that he is essentially a sportsman and he should stick to sports," said Anya Hovenko, who was pushing her child in a stroller through the park.
"He is definitely not someone who is adept at governing. I'm not very sure that he's very good at his job."
Ukraine is poor compared to most of Europe. But there were signs of growing wealth in Kyiv — with Klitschko presiding over substantial development — until Russia invaded in February.
The city is now a mix of sleek glass towers that have risen in recent years, as well as stodgy apartment blocks from the Soviet era, and grand, ornate architectural gems that date back to czarist-era Russia.
Before the war, Klitschko did face critics who said he favored wealthy developers over ordinary residents.
"His reputation is someone who has greatly developed the city, but mostly private development," said Liubomyr Mysiv of the group Rating, a private polling organization. Klitschko, he said, is seen as a mayor who has supported "building condominiums and shopping malls, as opposed to the public services that employ people."
Also, Klitschko supported President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's opponent in the presidential election in 2019. But the war has unified Ukrainians and pushed most internal political differences to the side, at least for now.
Brothers made a promise to their mother
One of Klitschko's strongest supporters is his younger brother, Wladimir, who also held multiple world heavyweight titles, from 2006 to 2015. At times, both Klitschko brothers held title belts from rival boxing associations, an unprecedented domination of the heavyweight ranks by a pair of brothers.
Yet they never settled it in the ring, keeping a promise to their mother that they would never pummel each other the way they hammered most everyone else.
Their mother is Russian and their father is Ukrainian. Such marriages were quite common in the Soviet era. In addition, their father was a general in the Soviet air force. The brothers grew up on Soviet military bases in the 1970s and '80s.
In a recent interview with Britain's Sunday Times, Klitschko said his family was deeply loyal to the Soviet Union and viewed the U.S. as an enemy. But as his boxing career was taking off, he traveled to the U.S. in the late 1980s.
"I came back and told my father, 'I've been to Florida. I visited Disney World, so many places.' I told him, 'Sorry, everything you've heard about the United States is (nonsense). It's a great country. They are great people,'" he told the paper.
The Klitschko brothers say that given mixed Russian-Ukrainian heritage, they have nothing against the Russian people. But they're full-throated opponents of President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine.
Mayor Klitschko made that point, as he has done repeatedly, at a deadly missile strike in June.
"This senseless war. We have to do everything to stop this war. Because thousands and thousands of civilians die," he said.
Greg Myre is a NPR national security correspondent. Follow him @gregmyre1.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-sports/npr-sports/2022-08-25/once-a-heavyweight-champion-kyivs-mayor-now-fights-the-russians | 2022-08-30T21:35:37Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-sports/npr-sports/2022-08-25/once-a-heavyweight-champion-kyivs-mayor-now-fights-the-russians | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
If you've tried flying anywhere this summer, there's a fair chance your flight was delayed or even canceled. And with the busy Labor Day weekend coming up, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is warning the airlines that they're going to face consequences if they can't improve operations and customer service. NPR's transportation correspondent David Schaper sat down with Buttigieg in Minneapolis.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Since Memorial Day weekend, U.S. airlines have canceled more than 50,000 flights, while more than half a million have been delayed, according to the flight tracking site flightaware.com. That amounts to more than 1 in 4 of all scheduled flights this summer. And like many travelers, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is frustrated.
PETE BUTTIGIEG: Look. Americans have had experiences with cancellations, delays and poor customer service that just aren't at an acceptable level. We understand there are some things they're up against - extreme weather or other situations that that are beyond their control. But a lot of things are in their control. And one of those things is how they treat customers.
SCHAPER: Buttigieg says the airlines haven't been transparent in telling passengers what they're legally entitled to for flight disruptions.
BUTTIGIEG: For example, if you get canceled - for any reason, you don't take your flight. They have to offer you a cash refund. If you'd rather take miles or a different flight, fine. But that's up to you, not them. They've got to give you a refund. That's a basic rule. That's the floor.
SCHAPER: So Buttigieg says the Department of Transportation will be rolling out a new website next week that will explain passengers' rights and each airline's policies.
BUTTIGIEG: So you can actually compare and know your rights before you choose to purchase that ticket and before you board that plane.
SCHAPER: While Buttigieg acknowledges some flight disruptions are due to severe weather and air traffic control problems, he says the airline's aggressive scheduling has made matters worse.
BUTTIGIEG: A lot of this, we're finding, has to do with the airlines not being prepared to staff the tickets that they're selling. And the remedy to that is, of course, No. 1, more staff but No. 2, in the meantime, realistic scheduling so that they know they're only collecting revenue on the routes they can actually serve.
SCHAPER: Many airlines did trim back their flight schedules some this summer, and they're cutting even more flights this fall. As for critics who say Buttigieg refuses, to take action against airlines that deny customers refunds, Buttigieg says this.
BUTTIGIEG: We've got nearly a dozen active investigations going on right now. They're not something that you can just do by fiat or that I can just decide one fine day we're going to impose, but we're taking this very seriously.
SCHAPER: The industry group Airlines for America says its members comply with federal laws and regulations regarding cash refunds and issued $21 billion in refunds to customers over the past two years. The group also says the airlines are committed to working collaboratively with the federal government to overcome the industry's current headwinds. David Schaper, NPR News, Minneapolis. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-top-stories/npr-top-stories/2022-08-26/flight-delays-and-poor-customer-service-are-at-unacceptable-levels-buttigieg-says | 2022-08-30T21:37:09Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-top-stories/npr-top-stories/2022-08-26/flight-delays-and-poor-customer-service-are-at-unacceptable-levels-buttigieg-says | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Bella Hadid Had the Time of Her Life Watching Serena Williams at the US Open
Serena Williams sold out all 23,000+ seats of Arthur Ashe Stadium for the opening night of the US Open, and per usual for a tennis tournament, a number of them played host to a wide array of celebrities. Everyone from Hugh Jackman to Bill Clinton to Queen Latifah was in attendance, and while all are noted tennis fans, no one seems to have had as much of a ball as Bella Hadid. Sitting between Offset (who recently cast her in his “Code” music video) and her boyfriend Marc Kalman, the 25-year-old model cheered her heart out and documented the face-off between Williams and Danka Kovinic with both a digital camera and an iPhone. Naturally, she sipped one of her Kin Euphorics “brain care beverages” in between.
This summer has proved that no one loves denim like Hadid, so it’s no surprise that she was again outfitted in the material from head to toe. Whereas few can say they’ve ever worn a denim corset, she stepped out in her second one in recent weeks, completing the look with one of the many pairs of big jeans in her wardrobe.
As for Williams, for what had the potential to be her last professional match ever, the imminently retiring athlete worked with Nike on a six-layered skirt—a number representing all of her US Open titles. (So far, anyway: There’s still time for no. 7.) | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/bella-hadid-us-open-double-denim | 2022-08-30T21:37:12Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/bella-hadid-us-open-double-denim | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Lagos is a major, central location in Nigeria—but it’s also a beguiling character. The city, overflowing with people from within and outside Nigeria and considered the country’s foremost cultural hub, has remained a source of inspiration for many creatives. And while some attempt to capture its energy through writing or in films, making it an essential part of their storytelling, the Nigerian photographer, stylist, and director Daniel Obasi considers the multilayered body of the city through his photographic work.
In “Beautiful Resistance,” his debut photo book created in collaboration with Louis Vuitton as part of its Fashion Eye Series, Obasi explores and observes Lagos in its rawest state: a place where historic and political movements like the #EndSARS protests have occurred; or as a religious epicenter filled with otherworldly elements that inform the experiences of those people inhabiting the city. However, the most striking angle Obasi explores in this book is the place of queer Nigerians in Lagos—and what that might look like in an imagined utopian future.
“Lagos curates an experience that is unique to you,” Obasi tells me on a warm Wednesday afternoon. “Your experience of Lagos and my experience of Lagos are two different things. For me, it’s not even the scenery that attracts people to Lagos, but people are so tied to this city.” The photographer and I are sitting across from each other in his bedroom—the quietest place in his spacious Lagos apartment, a rare gem in a city whose architecture is known for pinched rooms in glossy buildings. From the window, the Lagos Lagoon is visible, stretching out to resemble a calm, gray floor.
Obasi began to work on “Beautiful Resistance” at the beginning of 2020. Although the initial tone of the project was meant to be somewhat journalistic, Obasi ultimately decided to create intentional images alongside candid shots of the people, places, and elements that define Lagos. “I wanted to be more surreal or metaphorical with the images I put together,” he says, “and because I had so much I wanted to say at that time with images, it just made sense to use the book and the city as the canvas to do that.”
In one of the metaphorical shots, a person painted gold, their face half-shielded by a shining, moon-like mask and wielding a cutlass, stands in the middle of a gathering filled with older-looking people wearing traditional attires. “In that particular image, I was thinking about where people were in very traditional setups,” Obasi says. “You could use it as a metaphor for meetings with elders where they all sit down and make these very damning decisions around the fate of young people without including young people in it.” In another image exploring the imagined queer futures, a man wearing wings on his back—his pants sagging so low that his briefs with the word Barbie scribbled across can be seen—skates while holding a flag and wearing an emperor’s helmet. This figure represents trade culture (men who have casual sex with other men but do not explicitly identify as gay) protecting queerness, Obasi explains—an especially daring projection, knowing that trade culture exists out of a need to maintain anonymity from any public affiliations with queer identity.
Courtesy of Daniel Obasi
While working on this book, Obasi drew substantial inspiration from those #EndSARS protests that took place in October 2020. The movement saw young Nigerians marching across the country in protests against rising cases of police brutality. But a perplexing phenomenon Obasi explores in “Beautiful Resistance” is the marginalization queer Nigerians experienced at the demonstrations, including harassment, verbal abuse, and threats from their fellow country people, with whom they were marching in solidarity. Protesters considered the experiences queer Nigerians faced at the hands of the police an unnecessary distraction that needed to be squashed.
Ultimately, in “Beautiful Resistance,” Obasi aims to tell a true and unburnished story of Lagos. “I think the city is beautiful, but there are things in the city that have not always agreed with me,” he says. “And trying to navigate all of that became much more real during the #EndSARS protests, when queer people were being asked to leave the protest ground. It just became more real, like, this is actually my life. This is actually where I live. This is a huge part of who I am, or a huge part of what I have become—and what I will become.” | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/daniel-obasi-louis-vuitton-book-beautiful-resistance-interview | 2022-08-30T21:37:18Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/daniel-obasi-louis-vuitton-book-beautiful-resistance-interview | 0 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | 1 |
Lagos is a major, central location in Nigeria—but it’s also a beguiling character. The city, overflowing with people from within and outside Nigeria and considered the country’s foremost cultural hub, has remained a source of inspiration for many creatives. And while some attempt to capture its energy through writing or in films, making it an essential part of their storytelling, the Nigerian photographer, stylist, and director Daniel Obasi considers the multilayered body of the city through his photographic work.
In “Beautiful Resistance,” his debut photo book created in collaboration with Louis Vuitton as part of its Fashion Eye Series, Obasi explores and observes Lagos in its rawest state: a place where historic and political movements like the #EndSARS protests have occurred; or as a religious epicenter filled with otherworldly elements that inform the experiences of those people inhabiting the city. However, the most striking angle Obasi explores in this book is the place of queer Nigerians in Lagos—and what that might look like in an imagined utopian future.
“Lagos curates an experience that is unique to you,” Obasi tells me on a warm Wednesday afternoon. “Your experience of Lagos and my experience of Lagos are two different things. For me, it’s not even the scenery that attracts people to Lagos, but people are so tied to this city.” The photographer and I are sitting across from each other in his bedroom—the quietest place in his spacious Lagos apartment, a rare gem in a city whose architecture is known for pinched rooms in glossy buildings. From the window, the Lagos Lagoon is visible, stretching out to resemble a calm, gray floor.
Obasi began to work on “Beautiful Resistance” at the beginning of 2020. Although the initial tone of the project was meant to be somewhat journalistic, Obasi ultimately decided to create intentional images alongside candid shots of the people, places, and elements that define Lagos. “I wanted to be more surreal or metaphorical with the images I put together,” he says, “and because I had so much I wanted to say at that time with images, it just made sense to use the book and the city as the canvas to do that.”
In one of the metaphorical shots, a person painted gold, their face half-shielded by a shining, moon-like mask and wielding a cutlass, stands in the middle of a gathering filled with older-looking people wearing traditional attires. “In that particular image, I was thinking about where people were in very traditional setups,” Obasi says. “You could use it as a metaphor for meetings with elders where they all sit down and make these very damning decisions around the fate of young people without including young people in it.” In another image exploring the imagined queer futures, a man wearing wings on his back—his pants sagging so low that his briefs with the word Barbie scribbled across can be seen—skates while holding a flag and wearing an emperor’s helmet. This figure represents trade culture (men who have casual sex with other men but do not explicitly identify as gay) protecting queerness, Obasi explains—an especially daring projection, knowing that trade culture exists out of a need to maintain anonymity from any public affiliations with queer identity.
Courtesy of Daniel Obasi
While working on this book, Obasi drew substantial inspiration from those #EndSARS protests that took place in October 2020. The movement saw young Nigerians marching across the country in protests against rising cases of police brutality. But a perplexing phenomenon Obasi explores in “Beautiful Resistance” is the marginalization queer Nigerians experienced at the demonstrations, including harassment, verbal abuse, and threats from their fellow country people, with whom they were marching in solidarity. Protesters considered the experiences queer Nigerians faced at the hands of the police an unnecessary distraction that needed to be squashed.
Ultimately, in “Beautiful Resistance,” Obasi aims to tell a true and unburnished story of Lagos. “I think the city is beautiful, but there are things in the city that have not always agreed with me,” he says. “And trying to navigate all of that became much more real during the #EndSARS protests, when queer people were being asked to leave the protest ground. It just became more real, like, this is actually my life. This is actually where I live. This is a huge part of who I am, or a huge part of what I have become—and what I will become.” | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/daniel-obasi-louis-vuitton-book-beautiful-resistance-interview | 2022-08-30T21:37:18Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/daniel-obasi-louis-vuitton-book-beautiful-resistance-interview | 1 | 0 | green-iguana-35 | 1 |
Lady Gaga Gives Blackpink a Shoutout (Fittingly, in Pink)
Blackpink couldn’t be enjoying a better response to “Pink Venom,” the first single off their upcoming comeback album Born Pink. The song is currently no. 1 on the Billboard Global Charts, and its accompanying fashion-packed music video (which they brought to life during their first U.S. awards show performance at Sunday’s VMAs) has racked up more than 226,000,000 views since its August 19 release. To top it all off, on Monday, Lady Gaga gave “Pink Venom” an added boost by using it as the soundtrack of a pink-heavy Instagram dispatch from Tokyo, Japan. (She’s in town for the latest stops on her The Chromatica Ball tour.)
Blackpink weren’t the only ones to get a shoutout in the post. Gaga captioned the video “Haus of Yamamoto” in a nod to Kansai Yamamoto, the pioneering Japanese designer who died of leukemia in 2020 at the age of 76. While best known for outfitting David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust—beginning in 1971, the same year he became the first Japanese designer to show at London Fashion Week—Gaga has put him back on the map by repeatedly championing his designs over the past decade. The 36-year-old pop star was a riot of colors in a loudly printed silk Yamamoto blouse and matching wide-leg trousers, accessorized with an Austin James Smith statement earring and yet another pair of towering platform boots.
It’s interesting timing to find out that Gaga’s love of Blackpink is still going strong. They gave her assist on Chromatica’s “Sour Candy” in 2020, and we wouldn’t be surprised if she returned the favor when it comes time for Born Pink. | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/lady-gaga-blackpink-pink-venom | 2022-08-30T21:37:24Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/lady-gaga-blackpink-pink-venom | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Jodie Turner-Smith’s Chiffon Suit Will Have You Craving Sherbet
The Venice Film Festival hasn’t even officially started yet, but already we’re getting a parade of A+ looks as celebrities touch down in the Italian city for a week of cinematic premieres and events. Tessa Thompson arrived in a look that basically redefined summer layering, and now Jodie Turner-Smith is there looking like a walking ad campaign in her picture perfect ensemble.
The actress arrived on Tuesday morning, and immediately had us craving a scoop of sherbet in a sheer chiffon suit from Casablanca’s spring 2022 ready-to-wear collection. The jacket starts with a delicious pink hue at the top, continuing down the slightly-scalloped lapels before turning into a yellow, and eventually subtle blue-green at the bottom, with the pants mimicking the same tone. Turner-Smith then accessorized with yellow strappy Jimmy Choo heels and layers of chain necklaces. For bags, Turner-Smith doubled up on Gucci to carry her travel supplies, carrying the Attache shoulder bag with an orange strap on one arm, and an Ophidia duffle bag in the other. It was the oversized red sunglasses—also Gucci—that pulled the whole look together.
As a reminder, no that photo above isn’t a Gucci or Casablanca ad, just Turner-Smith caught candidly on camera. If that photo isn’t enough to convince every design house ever to hire the actress immediately, I don’t know what will. And, lucky for us, Turner-Smith is just getting started in Venice. The actress will join Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and the rest of the cast of Noah Baumbach’s White Noise when it premieres at the festival on Wednesday night. This is the first time a Netflix film has ever opened the festival, so its a big night for the cast and crew, and we expect Turner-Smith to dress for the occasion. | https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/jodie-turner-smith-venice-film-festival-style-sherbert-suit | 2022-08-30T21:37:30Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/jodie-turner-smith-venice-film-festival-style-sherbert-suit | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Serena Williams and Olympia’s Matching Moment is About So Much More Than Clothes
When Serena Williams entered Arthur Ashe Stadium on Monday night, fans tuned in from across the world to see the “greatest of all time” enter the court for what will likely be her last tournament as a professional tennis player, yes, but they also wanted to see what she was wearing. Throughout her career, Williams has pushed boundaries in the sport of tennis in more ways than one, and fashion has been as important of a tool in doing so as her racquet. So, when Williams stepped out in a black, sparkling dress, rife with symbolism, and the camera panned to her almost-five-year-old daughter wearing a matching look, it just felt right.
Williams worked with Nike to design her latest ensemble, which features long, sheer sleeves and a six-layered skirt (a layer for every US Open she has won). The bodice of the dress is covered in crystals shaped into stars, “inspired by the night sky above center court in Flushing, NY,” according to Nike. On her feet were matching NikeCourt Flare 2s, designed in collaboration with her jewelry brand, with charms reading “queen” and “mama” on the front of each shoe.
But to fully appreciate the style moment, one would have to turn their attention to off the court as well, where William’s daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. (known as Olympia) was sitting with her father and aunt, Isha Price, in the front row. Olympia, who turns five on Thursday, matched her mom in a mini version of the performance dress, complete with her own set of crystallized sneakers. Most notably, however, was Olympia’s hair, done in braids and beads, a style forever linked with Serena and Venus Williams’ rise in the tennis world in the ‘90s and worn by Serena when she won her first US Open in 1999.
“It was either her wear beads or me,” Williams said in a news conference following the match. “I wanted to do it but I just didn’t have the time.” According to Williams, Olympia asks to wear the beads often. Last year, she wore them in her bangs for the premiere of King Richard at AFI Fest, where she once again matched her mother in David Koma. “I was so happy when she had them on, it’s perfect on her,” Williams said.
The matching mother-daughter moment is also notable considering that Williams’s retirement is based her commitment to family. In her essay for Vogue’s September issue, Willliams speaks on the topic, about Olympia’s desire to be a big sister and Williams’ own desire to grow her family. “I definitely don’t want to be pregnant again as an athlete,” she says. “I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
And while some are upset about the end of William’s tennis era, Olympia is excited, much to her mother’s chagrin. “Olympia doesn’t like when I play tennis,” she told Time. “That kind of makes me sad...and brings anxiety to my heart.” In fact, when she told Olympia about her plan to retire, Olympia responded with “a fist-pumping, ‘Yes!’”
Despite that, Olympia was on the sidelines on Monday night, matching her mother in clothing and energy, cheering on Williams and later posing with her on the court. Her beads flying around in the air, just as her mother’s used to do. | https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/serena-williams-olympia-matching-dresses-us-open | 2022-08-30T21:37:36Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/serena-williams-olympia-matching-dresses-us-open | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Tessa Thompson Has Perfected the Art of Layering
We’ve been talking a lot about transitional dressing lately, and maybe that’s just because we are over this searing heat and ready to layer up against some cool fall temps. Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t quite agree, and the sun continues to beat down, pushing any ideas of comfortably wearing a cardigan out of our mind for a minute. But, if you still can’t wait for layering season, allow Tessa Thompson to show you how to embrace the practice while still remaining cool in the continuing heat.
The actress just touched down in Venice ahead of the city’s film festival which kicks off on Wednesday, and while normally, travel looks prioritize comfort, Thompson hopped off the plane dripping in Italian elegance. The actress managed to layer up in a weather-appropriate way, wearing a sheer, long-sleeve Victoria Beckham dress, covered in golden embroidery atop a black bralette and satin trousers. She then paired the outfit with bright red leather gloves, a Vivienne Westwood mini shopper bag, and black Anny Nord pumps. The bow in her hair and round black sunglasses completed the ensemble.
While there’s a lot of layers going on here, the lightweight nature of each piece means Thompson was likely able to stay cool in the Northern Italian heat. The best part about this look is if you wanted to wear it in, say 50 degree weather as opposed to 80, a more substantial layer either underneath or on top of the dress would easily do the trick.
Thompson has a big week ahead of her at the 79th annual Venice Film Festival. The actress is not only part of the jury for the Luigi de Laurentiis award for the best debut film, but she also has a movie of her own premiering. Thompson’s The Listener, directed by Steve Buscemi, will debut at the festival on September 9th, meaning we have a lot more Thompson looks in out future.
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We may receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article. | https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/tessa-thompson-dress-over-pants-venice-film-festival | 2022-08-30T21:37:42Z | wmagazine.com | control | https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/tessa-thompson-dress-over-pants-venice-film-festival | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
In this episode we sit down with Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Program Manager, Maj. Paul Weisgarber, and Procurement Contracting Officer, Noel Burke, to talk about their experience working on the Special Operations Command Ghost Program. Weisgarber and Burke give insights into what the Ghost program is and the culture they experienced there. They also share their advice to anyone thinking of applying for the program and what they learned that has shaped their perspective for future assignments in the Air Force.
Acronyms:
SOCOM - Special Operations Command
SOF - Special Operations Forces
KPP - Key Performance Parameters
KSA - Key System Attributes
HCA - Head of the Contracting Activity
FAR - Federal Acquisition Regulation
If you would like to share feedback on the podcast, please submit via
thecontractingexperience@gmail.com.
This work, The Contracting Experience - Episode 39: The Ghost Program, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/audio/70334/contracting-experience-episode-39-ghost-program | 2022-08-30T21:38:30Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/audio/70334/contracting-experience-episode-39-ghost-program | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Command Sgt. Maj. Raquel DiDomenico, Fort McCoy Garrison command sergeant major, gives a short message about women's equality Aug. 25, 2022, at the end of the installation observance of Women's Equality Day at McCoy's Community Center at Fort McCoy, Wis. Author and domestic-violence survivor Carolyn Colleen shared her personal story of perseverance and more during the 2022 Fort McCoy observance. DiDomenico became the Fort McCoy Garrison senior enlisted leader in 2021. (Video by Scott T. Sturkol, Public Affairs Office, Fort McCoy, Wis.)
This work, Fort McCoy Garrison command sergeant major provides remarks during installation's 2022 Women's Equality Day observance, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/video/855794/fort-mccoy-garrison-command-sergeant-major-provides-remarks-during-installations-2022-womens-equality-day-observance | 2022-08-30T21:42:24Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/video/855794/fort-mccoy-garrison-command-sergeant-major-provides-remarks-during-installations-2022-womens-equality-day-observance | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Everywhere you look, someone’s watching House of the Dragon. If you haven’t yet seen the entire New York City apartment building watching the premiere in unison, you really ought to check it out. There was never any question that even in the face of Game of Thrones’ rough ending, the follow-up to HBO’s biggest hit ever would also be a hit. That it would catch like wildfire, sparking a season two renewal in its first week and boasting a record-setting 10 million viewers for its premiere, and pushing past that number for episode two? Not even Aegon the Conqueror could have prophesied such an outcome.
Yet perhaps we could have predicted this: an obsession over House of the Dragon’s opening credits sequence, or initial lack thereof. Even the most jilted Thrones fan would be hard-pressed to rebel against the original show’s title sequence. It was notable, then, that the very first episode of House of the Dragon more or less got right into the action, eschewing the credits entirely.
Honestly, I thought that was a smart call. If you can’t top the greatness of Thrones’s sequence, why try at all? After all, these two shows are telling very different stories: Game of Thrones sprawled all over Planetos (the fandom’s affectionate nickname for the world in which the series takes place), and an introductory tour of the known universe was very useful indeed in locating and tracking all the various characters and stories.
In contrast, House of the Dragon is telling a relatively straightforward story—one narrowly focused on Westeros’s side of the Narrow Sea. While it’s epic in its own right, House of the Dragon is aimed squarely at the throne, and the matter of who will sit on it by the end of the show; the action will largely remain in this physical and thematic space. As such, a sequence that flies too far away from King’s Landing doesn’t really provide us with anything useful as we try to grok the story.
Still, perhaps the proverbial stone-masons at HBO heard the collective disappointment from those who wanted a splashy opening. Sunday night’s episode, “The Rogue Prince,” delivered the title sequence that was promised — one very deliberately designed to cash in on all of the good Game of Thrones will that still remains.
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The sequence features Ramin Djawadi’s exact same Game of Thrones theme, with no variations. But in lieu of maps of Westeros and Essos, we’re dropped into one very specific location: Old Valyria, the fallen empire from which House Targaryen descends. This same land is front and center in House of the Dragon itself, as King Viserys (Paddy Considine) painstakingly works on and obsesses over a Valyria-for-ants-sized model replica.
In the credits sequence, a red river runs through the cold city stones of Valyria, covering certain insignias as they emerge and bypassing others as the blood continues its violent flood through the fallen Freehold. It all happens so quickly that even a viewer well-versed in George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood could struggle to identify every single detail littered throughout the sequence. Easter eggs are fun, sure, but the granularities matter less than the big picture. Basically, we’re watching as House Targaryen’s words, “fire and blood,” intermingle with one another through their own ruined history. Blood pours from insignia to insignia, often overwhelmingly so, signifying death; as it continues to spill out, it represents familial connection, literalized at one point as the bloodlines combine to form a tree of life.
It’s an evocative sequence, no doubt about it. Perhaps too evocative. The opening is so similar to the Game of Thrones credits sequence, both visually and sonically, that it rightly draws direct comparisons — and rightly loses the joust. Even as someone who loves what this is going for — a sequence that centers on a family, instead of traversing the world — the agenda could have come across much more clearly with even a little bit of added breathing room, some more time to study all the minutiae, perhaps even a flourish of fire to pair with the blood as per the Targaryens’ house words. The fact that it comes equipped with Djawadi’s utterly iconic Game of Thrones theme song has many folks feeling freshly nestled back into their Sunday night routine, while leaving others wondering if HBO is fresh out of ideas. | https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/08/house-of-the-dragon-opening-credits-sequence | 2022-08-30T21:42:49Z | vanityfair.com | control | https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/08/house-of-the-dragon-opening-credits-sequence | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
After essentially blaming America’s economic woes on the female, Black, and LGBTQ staffers who work at the Federal Reserve, Blake Masters, the Republican nominee for US Senate in Arizona, triggered a wave of online backlash this past weekend, with a broad swath of critics accusing him of racism, sexism, and homophobia. But instead of walking back his incendiary remark, Masters took on a more Trump-like posture by doubling down. In a video released Monday, he said, “I can’t think of a single policy since the end of Jim Crow that’s been worse or more divisive for race relations in this country,” referring to affirmative action policies.
Masters, who previously said that “Black people, frankly,” are responsible for the nation’s gun violence epidemic, also accused Joe Biden of running an “affirmative action regime,” saying, “If you want to see the affirmative action regime on display, just look at Biden’s White House.” But Masters did not reserve his vitriol for Biden only. “Biden promised that he would choose a woman for his VP,” the Republican added. “Then, of course, he chose Kamala Harris, so incompetent she can’t even get a sentence out.”
Masters continued his outlandish remarks with a baseless allegation that the Democratic Party is “addicted” to giving opportunities to supposedly unqualified minorities. “I don’t care if every single employee at the Fed is a Black lesbian,” he stated, “as long as they’re hired for their competence and not because of what they look like or who they sleep with.” The Arizona Republican’s diatribe came in direct response to an Associated Press report about how the Fed’s current leadership is the “most diverse” in its history, an achievement to which Masters sarcastically replied, “Finally a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well.”
Masters’ inflammatory rhetoric runs in contrast to his campaign’s recalibration of some of the hardline positions he took during the primary. On Monday, CNN reported that his campaign site recently removed copy accusing the Democratic Party of plotting to “import” a new electorate via undocumented migrants—a claim that falls in line with the white nationalist “great replacement” theory. (He previously echoed ”great replacement” talking points during an appearance on the Patriot Edition podcast back in April.) During the primary, Masters’s website framed the 2020 election as “a rotten mess” and stated, “If we had a free and fair election, President [Donald] Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today.” But according to CNN, Masters’s election denials were removed earlier this month.
Like other Republicans running in battleground states this cycle, Masters has also distanced himself from the staunch antiabortion platform he embraced during the primary. NBC News reported last week that his campaign site had scrapped language billing him as a “100% pro-life” candidate who, if elected, would pursue a “federal personhood law,” which previously indicated his support for a nationwide abortion ban. Upon winning the GOP nomination in early August, Masters declared that Arizona’s 15-week abortion law was “a reasonable solution.” But according to his updated website, the Senate hopeful now backs a federal ban only on “late-term (third trimester) abortion and partial-birth abortion.” Unsurprisingly, Masters’s attempted rebrand is already receiving backlash from the right, with the conservative Washington Examiner calling it a “sad betrayal that pro-lifers should not forget.” | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/blake-masters-affirmative-action-regime | 2022-08-30T21:42:55Z | vanityfair.com | control | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/blake-masters-affirmative-action-regime | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The cameras went live in Fox headquarters in midtown Manhattan last week as Larry Kudlow introduced a special in-studio guest. Beside him was Jared Kushner, his former Trump administration colleague, there to plug his memoir, Breaking History. Who’s actually going to read this book? Kudlow asked.
“I wasn’t really a communicator when we were in Washington,” began Kushner, in his signature ultra-slim suit and starched spread collar. “I was behind the scenes…. It’s [for] people who want to know the truth, who want to know what the media wasn’t telling them…about what was actually happening inside the Trump White House.”
It is rare that on a book tour, an author undersells something. But Kushner saying that he was not really a communicator during his four years in Washington doesn’t quite capture the way he blended in with his surroundings. He almost never sat for interviews or talked to reporters on the record, which was unusual for such a high-ranking, long-lasting figure in a West Wing generally obsessed with cable news and navel-gazing gossip. Why would Kushner put himself out there? He had no need. His position and hard power had always been secure, the more quietly so the better.
In the first few days after Breaking History was released, Kushner did more interviews than he had in his collective six years in the public eye, by a long shot. For weeks ahead of its release, bits of the book’s newsiest details dripped out from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, as well as Vanity Fair. Hope Hicks coordinated requests, with a little help from Kushner’s longtime right-hand man, Avi Berkowitz. Kushner enlivened his Instagram account to post behind-the-scenes photos of events he wrote about in the book, lauding his father-in-law and urging his followers to pick up copies. Same goes for his Twitter account, which, until now, had almost never been used (Kushner himself was not posting on either platform; it was tasked to staffers). He sent out several email blasts each day to his father-in-law’s email list, asking people to donate at least $75 dollars to receive a signed copy of the book.
“I’ve never reached out before,” went his initial email, which was followed by many more, plus some cameo correspondence by his wife, Ivanka Trump. “I’m very proud of this book and am humbled by the support I’ve received thus far. I want to thank you for always standing by my family and me by sending you a signed copy of my new book,” wrote Kushner. And “Just contribute $75 or more.” Kushner’s combo promo-stumping proceeds went to the PAC Trump founded after he lost the election, Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. Trump himself praised Breaking History in a post on Truth Social and yet another email to his supporters. The book’s release happens to come at a moment when Kushner and his wife’s father are the closest they’ve been in years, according to people familiar with their relationship. The last couple of months, the two men have lived in cottages 30 feet from each other in Bedminster, New Jersey, separated just by the entrance to the pool.
It’s not surprising that Kushner remained so under the radar until now. He enjoyed complete security within Trump’s notoriously insecure orbit and had Trump’s ear enough that he didn’t need to reach him by talking to the press, as many of his other aides felt they had to. He had a pretty nice life without all of this; he was wealthy by birth, made richer by connections formed during his time in the White House.
What is striking is that he’s decided to ratchet up his volume after so many years of intense scrutiny, when he could just continue to live the lower-key, by all accounts settled, life he’s set up for himself since leaving the White House. He and Ivanka moved to Florida, alongside people content to trade New York City for the tax break. His investment firm, Affinity Partners, raised more than $3 billion, including a $2 billion commitment from the Saudi sovereign-wealth fund. He’s received relatively little attention, beyond a few gossip items that included details about Ivanka nearly walking the family dog on a dog-free beach and the couple reportedly having a date night in Rochester, Minnesota, where the Mayo Clinic is located, on the night that FBI agents executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago. To upset that to sell books, particularly for a billionaire, seems to belie reason. I was initially surprised that, post White House, the Kushners wouldn’t try to at least publicly distance themselves from the Trump brand—particularly after January 6 and the January 6 committee hearings and polling that shows the American public is losing its taste for Trump—as they went on their merry way. | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/jared-kushners-book-blitz-is-straight-out-of-the-donald-trump-pr-playbook | 2022-08-30T21:43:01Z | vanityfair.com | control | https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/08/jared-kushners-book-blitz-is-straight-out-of-the-donald-trump-pr-playbook | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The face mask Laverne Cox wore to attend the US Open caused a very flattering case of mistaken identity on social media.
The actress shared a viral Twitter moment on her Instagram on Monday night that caused Beyoncé fans everywhere to believe the pop star was in attendance at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY to cheer on her friend Serena Williams. Someone had shared the video of Cox cheering at the US Open captioning it, “#Beyoncé at the #USOpen,” to which the Orange Is the New Black star replied, “Not me getting mistaken for @Beyonce at the #USOpen tonight then trending on Twitter as the internet cackles over the mistaken identity. These tweets are funny as hell. Enjoy!!!” She then concluded the post with, “Go @serenawilliams #GOAT.”
When the clip of Cox went viral on Twitter, a number of users attempted to correct the original poster, but it was too late for many of Beyoncé's fans who had already taken the news and ran with it. After all, the pop star making a public appearance in support of Williams wouldn't be all that surprising given that the pair have been good friends for years and the tennis champion even made a cameo in Beyoncé's music video for her song “Sorry” from the album Lemonade. The singer was also one of only 200 guests who attended Williams's wedding to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in 2017.
Cox attempted to set the record straight herself, quote retweeting someone who said, “2nd biggest winner tonight: Laverne Cox who was mistaken for Beyonce all night. Which is a career highlight for literally anyone,” responding, “Absolutely! GO @serenawilliams #USOpentennis.” And when another fan asked, “Was Beyoncé at the US Open or not ? This Bey/Laverne Cox confusion is sending me,” she once again clarified, “Girl it was me. Lol.”
Earlier this month, Williams announced her retirement from tennis in a cover story for Vogue. “These days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter,” she explained. The Grand Slam champ and Ohanian share one 4-year-old daughter, Olympia. “I need to be two feet into tennis or two feet out.”
And in a video for Time that was retweeted by Cox, Williams also addressed playing her last match at the 2022 US Open. “I never thought about changing the world” she said. “I haven't really known how to feel because I've been doing this since I was born, literally…I've been emotional.” She continued, “I just want to be the best mom I can be and I want to always put a smile on my daughter's face as much as I can, but I'm excited for the possibilities…I'm just trying to get to a point where I'm going to enjoy my time out there and take it all in for one last time. Sad, but yeah, one last time." When asked if she had anything to say to the fans, Williams added, “Thank you, thank you so much, I am so overwhelmed and it's just been an incredible, incredible ride, and I'm just so happy you guys are on it with me and I love you.” | https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/08/laverne-cox-mistaken-beyonce-us-open-serena-williams-twitter | 2022-08-30T21:43:07Z | vanityfair.com | control | https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/08/laverne-cox-mistaken-beyonce-us-open-serena-williams-twitter | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Meghan Markle invited Mariah Carey to join her on the second episode of her podcast Archetypes for a conversation about “The Duality of Diva.”
On the latest episode released Tuesday, the Duchess of Sussex and the Queen of Christmas had a wide-ranging discussion that touched on subjects including their experience growing up biracial and the negative connotations often associated with a label like “diva.” Carey shared that because she was constantly moving throughout her childhood, she struggled with each new start to make friends. “I didn't fit in,” she explained. “You know, it would be more of the Black area of town or then you could be where my mom chose to live, which were the more white neighborhoods, and I didn't fit in anywhere at all.”
Meghan also identified with that experience, adding that even more than her music, she wanted to speak to Carey because of how important it was to her to see a famous biracial woman growing up. The Duchess revealed, “You were so formative for me. Representation matters so much. But when you are a woman and you don't see a woman who looks like you somewhere in a position of power or influence, or even just on the screen—because we know how influential media is—you came onto the scene, I was like ‘Oh, my gosh. Someone kind of looks like me.’” She added, “I had read this article about Halle Berry, and they were asking her how she felt being treated as a mixed-race woman in the world. And her response was her saying, ‘Well, your experience through the world is how people view you.’ So she said because she was darker in color, she was being treated as a Black woman, not as a mixed woman.”
The royal went on to explain that, “I think for us, it's very different because we're light-skinned. You're not treated as a Black woman. You're not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit in between.” In fact, Meghan confessed, “if there's any time in my life that it's been more focused on my race, it's only once I started dating my husband. Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman because up until then, I had been treated like a mixed woman. And things really shifted.” Carey agreed that feeling forced to choose between identifying with these two side of yourself is an “interesting thing.” She continued, “As mixed woman, because I always thought it should be okay to say I'm mixed. Like it should be okay to say that. But people want you to choose.”
The podcast episode also opens with actress Amanda Seales sharing a story about her own relationship with the word "diva," and later on Meghan is joined by Dr. Mashinka Firunts Hakopian to discuss the definition and history of the label. | https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/08/meghan-markle-mariah-carey-archetypes-podcast-diva-treated-like-black-woman-prince-harry | 2022-08-30T21:43:13Z | vanityfair.com | control | https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/08/meghan-markle-mariah-carey-archetypes-podcast-diva-treated-like-black-woman-prince-harry | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Madison, Ind. school resource officer under investigation for misconduct
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - One of Madison Indiana’s school resource officers is on leave after a complaint about misconduct.
Law enforcement is saying very little about the case at this time.
Madison Consolidated Schools resource officer Timothy Armstrong was put on leave on Aug. 18, the same day a complaint came in related to misconduct. The district said it turned over the complaint to law enforcement right away.
WAVE News reporters knocked on Armstrong’s door to ask if he had any information he’d like to share. No one answered.
A neighbor said she saw five or six state police cars there a few days ago. She said officers were searching Armstrong’s home as well as his police cruiser.
Indiana State Police said detectives were working a case, but wouldn’t say anything more.
As a school resource officer, Armstrong is employed by the school district but deputized through the sheriff’s office.
The Jefferson County Sheriff said he’s taken some administrative action, but wouldn’t say what specifically, and sent an emailed statement saying the department has nothing to say.
The district’s website said Armstrong is the varsity boys’ baseball coach. He also served a term as Mayor of Madison between 2008 through 2011.
As of Tuesday evening, Armstrong has not been charged with a crime. The County Clerk said warrants are kept confidential.
It’s likely this case will be sent to a different county to handle, given Armstrong’s law enforcement role there. It has not been confirmed whether that decision has been made.
Copyright 2022 WAVE. All rights reserved. | https://www.wave3.com/2022/08/30/madison-ind-school-resource-officer-under-investigation-misconduct/ | 2022-08-30T21:45:21Z | wave3.com | control | https://www.wave3.com/2022/08/30/madison-ind-school-resource-officer-under-investigation-misconduct/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Ethan Andrew started smoking marijuana during his sophomore year of high school in Colorado to help with his anxiety.
Like many teens, he said he thought it was “just weed” and did not see the harm in smoking the popular drug containing THC, the active chemical found in cannabis that produces a “high.”
His causal marijuana use turned to smoking potent cannabis flower and concentrates, known as dabs, which contain high levels of THC. Andrew said he smoked every day from morning to night.
“I couldn’t think or sleep without it,” the 23-year-old told Fox News. “When you’re a stoner, you think, ‘I’ll be fine. In the future, I’ll clean myself up.’”
However, it was too late. Two years after becoming an avid marijuana user, Ethan was only 18 when he developed cannabis-induced psychosis, a condition including severe hallucinations, delusions and paranoia.
“I had to quit my job because the voices in my head were so distracting,” Ethan said, adding that the worst symptom was confusing dreams with reality. “I’d wake up and tell my friends, ‘Yeah, remember when we hung out and did that?’ And they would have no idea what I’m talking about.”
A recent study review published by Lancet Psychiatry found high-cannabis-potency products are associated with a greater risk of psychosis and addiction called cannabis use disorder (CUD).
“The content of THC not many decades ago was 2%-3%,” Dr. Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told Fox News, adding that marijuana is considered high in potency if the product contains more than 10% THC.
“Now, the average content of THC in the United States is 14-16%,” she said. “There are [cannabis] varieties that have a content that goes to 30% THC.”
Today, manufacturers have found ways to add marijuana into vaping devices, edibles and wax that can contain nearly 100% pure THC.
“We’re seeing more and more young men with these type of episodes because the cannabis that they are consuming has higher contents of THC that have the highest risk for triggering a psychotic episode and becoming addicted,” Dr. Volkow said. “It’s much more widely available and a larger percentage of them smoking.”
Currently, 19 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized recreational marijuana, while 37 states have approved medical use. That, Dr. Volkow said, does not mean cannabis use is harmless, especially on adolescent brain development.
“The consumption of marijuana as a young person modifies the brain in ways that make it more susceptible later on to that rewarding and addictive effects of other drugs,” she said. “So, you start to mess around by smoking marijuana, you’re going to interfere with that process, which is crucial because ultimately who we are very much is a reflection of how our brain works.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., alongside Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., recently introduced the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act aiming to legalize cannabis on a federal level and establish a federal cannabis tax.
States including Massachusetts, Colorado and California, where cannabis is legal, are already benefiting from state and local taxes by the billions, said Beau Whitney, one of the nation’s leading experts on the economics of cannabis, adding that a federal tax would only embolden the illicit, dangerous market.
“Last year, only $25 billion worth of cannabis was sold legally while $75 to $80 [billion] was sold in the illegal market,” Whitney said. “Pricing plays a key role in incentivizing consumers to participate legally. If the price is too high, they’ll go back onto into the illicit market.”
After seeing firsthand how marijuana affected her son and husband, Aubree Adams moved her family out of Colorado – one of the first states that made it legal, which she described as “ground zero for the marijuana expansion movement” – to Texas where it is still illegal to possess any substance containing THC. She started Every Brain Matters, an advocacy group supporting and educating families on the harmful effects of cannabis.
“In the state of Colorado, the number one drug found in completed suicides ages 10 to 18 is marijuana,” she said. She added that she believed families like hers have been “fed a bag of lies that cannabis is harmless.”
Adams went on, “THC is the perfect drug to hijack our kids’ brains and lead them down a path of addiction and mental illness.”
It has been five years since Ethan Andrew made a full recovery from cannabis-induced psychosis.
“I got so paranoid that my brain was damaged that I got an MRI, and they did find some damage to my white matter. I’m too traumatized to even smoke weed again.” | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/marijuana-with-high-thc-levels-can-cause-cannabis-use-disorder-lancet/ | 2022-08-30T21:49:39Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/marijuana-with-high-thc-levels-can-cause-cannabis-use-disorder-lancet/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A panhandler who was left paralyzed after an Atlanta cop shot him with a stun gun was awarded $100 million by a federal jury last week.
Jerry Blasingame, 69, requires 24-hour care, costing up to $1 million per year, after the officer shot him with a taser, causing him to fall and break his neck when his head slammed into the pavement in 2018, according to WXIA-TV and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He’s additionally amassed $14 million in medical expenses since the incident.
The jury found that Atlanta police officer John Grubbs used an excessive amount of force when he encountered Blasingame on July 10, 2018 as he was begging for money from drivers passing by.
Blasingame took off running as the officer approached him, but was pursued by Grubbs who fired his stun gun at him from about ten feet away, hitting him in the back of the head and causing him to fall on his face and paralyzing him.
“Since he’s not under arrest, he can run or do whatever he wants to do,” Blasingame’s attorney, Ven Johnson, said. “Jerry then fell again, face forward, face planted in smashing his head, multiple facial fractures, brain injury and broke his neck.”
Body cam footage of the incident shows Blasingame lying on the ground unconscious.
The jury ordered that the Atlanta Police Department pay the quadriplegic $60 million while Grubbs pay $40 million.
Grubbs has been a member of the force since 2014 and remains employed by the department, records show.
The Georgia NAACP said this is the largest settlement it has ever seen. They said they hope the case sets a precedent for holding police departments and officers liable for using excessive force.
“Do you really think that it’s a good idea to have somebody that’s $100 million liability on your force still interacting with the citizens?” Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs told WXIA-TV.
The Atlanta Police Department has declined to comment on the verdict.
“We’re really, really happy for Jerry, because what we now see as a quadruple pathetic, in other words, a quadriplegic with just a little bit of movement in his arms, hopefully now he will have money to fund his care so that he can live the rest of his life as best as he can possibly live,” Johnson said. | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/panhandler-left-paralyzed-after-he-was-tased-by-atlanta-cop-awarded-100m/ | 2022-08-30T21:49:45Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/panhandler-left-paralyzed-after-he-was-tased-by-atlanta-cop-awarded-100m/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Whenever a mass shooting occurs, the headlines tell us how many were killed. These body counts then allow us to rank mass shootings: Robb Elementary (21 killed) was terrible, but not as bad as Sandy Hook (26 killed), which was worse than Parkland (17 killed). But what about the injured survivors, who often outnumber the dead? At the 2002 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, for example, 12 people were killed, but 58 were wounded; in the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting, 60 people were killed, and at least 413 were wounded.
Every day in the United States more than 300 people are shot, and just over 200 of them survive their injuries, according to data compiled by Brady. That makes for 76,725 gunshot survivors a year. While the emotional trauma certainly takes its toll, the financial toll can be just as devastating. The luckiest survivors get patched up at the local emergency room for, on average, about $5,200, and are sent home. The less fortunate require additional care — multiple surgeries, nursing home residency, rehabilitation treatment, physical therapy, for an average additional cost of around $179,000. Many survivors live the rest of their lives with physical limitations like missing or disabled limbs, and they often require wheelchairs, modifications to their homes, and in-home care. Some of them go permanently to nursing homes or residential treatment facilities, where the lifetime costs of their care stretch into the millions of dollars.
Some survivors, desperately relying on the kindness of strangers, set up GoFundMe campaigns to raise funds for their medical and other costs. Survivors and families of those killed in the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, for example, have 37 dedicated GoFundMe sites, which have collectively raised $6.7 million to date to cover medical treatment and memorial costs.
A 2017 study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University estimated that the U.S. spends $2.8 billion per year on medical treatments for gun violence survivors. Many survivors find themselves struggling with co-pays and deductibles if they are insured, and with mountainous medical bills if they are not. An insured person who has been shot can easily find that they are responsible for $20,000 of a $100,000 bill. Only 12 percent are able to pay their medical bills in full, per the study. In any case, Americans subsidize the gun industry and gun owners by picking up these unpaid bills through our taxes or increased insurance premiums.
This approach to the medical needs of gun violence survivors is cruel, irrational, and unjust. A saner, fairer model for paying such costs is staring us in the face: automobile insurance. Americans have accepted the price we pay for living with cars, a cost of over 35,000 lives each year, and millions of people injured. We have devised an elaborate insurance system to make sure the medical costs of those injured by automobiles are paid for not by the victims, but by the community of automobile owners. As this system has evolved, insurance companies have developed nuanced ways of assessing the risk posed by each driver and adjusting their payments into the system accordingly. Men are higher risk than women. Teenagers are higher risk than middle-aged drivers. Those who have speeding tickets are higher risk than those with clean driving records. Porsche drivers are higher risk than Volvo owners.
It is easy to imagine an analogous system that would pool the risks posed by gun owners and aim to ensure that innocent victims of gun violence do not pay insurmountable bills as punishment for having the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In such a system, older gun owners with clean records would pay lower insurance rates than 18-year-olds, and people with lots of guns would pay more than those with a single gun. And, just as insurance companies offer discounts to those who take defensive driving classes, so could they offer discounts to gun owners who have taken firearm safety classes, or who can demonstrate that they keep their guns locked up at home.
The assumption that most American gun owners would never allow this infringement on their freedoms finds a counter in automobile owners, who by and large do not see mandatory auto insurance as intolerable, or as a portent that the government will take their cars away. With the exception of a small minority who illegally drive without insurance, they may complain about their own insurance rates, but they accept that a system for pooling the costs of risk is much better than a world where one mistake — made by oneself or another driver — can lead not just to a totaled car and hospital stay, but to financial ruin. Auto insurance is also set up to absorb the residual risk posed by those who refuse to insure their cars or have let their policies lapse temporarily. Insurance spreads these liabilities fairly and mitigates the risks of driving. Such a system, run by market institutions rather than the government, can do the same for gun owners, and for the more than 200 Americans who are shot by guns each day and live — people who do not deserve to pay the price for someone else’s mistake.
Gun owners have managed to externalize the medical costs of their gun ownership to the rest of us.
This is not a gun control proposal, but a proposal to more fairly distribute the costs of America’s love affair with guns. It might even have beneficial implications for gun safety: By increasing the costs of gun ownership, it might encourage Americans to buy fewer guns. And it might encourage gun owners, seeking discounts, to take more gun safety classes, or to buy gun safes for their homes, in which roughly 4.6 million minors live with unsecured guns.
Gun insurance would probably not have averted the carnage of Uvalde or Buffalo. But it may mitigate the other 99 percent of gun accidents and violence in this country. If Americans have indeed decided, as a matter of principle, that they want to live in a society with more guns than people and few restrictions on who can own them, then the least we can do is make fair provisions for the innocents who will inevitably suffer the consequences of this choice. | https://www.thetrace.org/2022/08/gun-insurance-victim-medical-bills/ | 2022-08-30T21:53:48Z | thetrace.org | control | https://www.thetrace.org/2022/08/gun-insurance-victim-medical-bills/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
What To Know Today
The characteristics of New Jersey’s ~1.5M people living in armed households. An annual representative survey on guns from the state-funded New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at the Rutgers School of Public Health had several interesting insights about gun owners in the state. About one in five adults live in homes where guns are usually kept, with men being about twice as likely as women to live with a firearm. Broken down by race: About 24 percent of white residents live in an armed household, the most of any group, compared to 68 percent without; about 11 percent of Black people live in homes with guns, versus 77 percent without; and 13 percent of Hispanic respondents lived in homes with guns, compared to 73 percent without. Black respondents were twice as likely to refuse to answer the question as white residents. Questions of security: While the approximately 75 percent of respondents who said they store guns securely is relatively high, according to NJGVRC executive director Mike Anestis, the survey found that fewer than 10 percent of respondents said that a healthcare provider had ever asked them about gun access. That, public health and gun violence researchers have frequently said, is an important way to promote firearm safety.
A tech company promised its AI-based gun screening would be efficient and effective. Some clients paint a different picture. Massachusetts-based Evolv Technology markets its weapons scanner as a faster, easier way than traditional metal detectors to identify concealed weapons among entrants at sports stadiums, venues, and schools. That has landed Evolv plum contracts, including schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, and beyond. But in a new investigation based on public records requests, Vice Motherboard finds that the onboarding of Evolv’s system in places where it has contracts has been rough, and the devices — which, Vice reports, are not the subject of any peer-reviewed efficacy studies — have not lived up to marketing promises. School board administrators have reported mistakes in the company’s scanners, including detecting computers as guns or not spotting handguns at all when tested. “Today was probably the least safe day,” a principal said in an email the day the scanners were installed at her school.
Also in New Jersey: A look at one of the state’s nine hospital-based intervention programs. The state recently renewed funding for its programs that work to break cycles of retaliation by providing services within hospitals after someone has been shot. One of those programs, the Paterson Healing Collective, says it has helped more than 130 gunshot victims since it launched in 2020 at St. Joseph’s Hospital, while the Newark Community Street Team, which serves a larger population, has worked with more than 500 survivors since its 2018 launch. “It’s a public health emergency,” Dr. James Pruden of St. Joseph’s Hospital said about gun violence. “We have money for AIDS. We have money for diabetes. We have money for asthma. Why don’t we have money for violence intervention?”
At least 20 gun companies have moved from blue to red states in the last decade. That’s according to reporting from The Washington Post, which offers the latest comprehensive look at the regionalization of American gun and ammo production. Much of it is a result of gun restrictions in Democratic-controlled states that the companies say will hurt their bottom line, but gun-friendly states have also lured companies with inexpensive labor costs and tax breaks. One of the latest high-profile cases was Smith & Wesson’s decision in September to move its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee.
25 years on, a convicted school shooter faces the possibility of parole. In 1997, a 14-year old high school student killed three fellow classmates and wounded five others in West Paducah, Kentucky. Tried and convicted as an adult, he will have his first parole hearing next month. While experts think his release is unlikely, The Washington Post reports on the community grief the case has revived along with questions about what should happen to a minor convicted of an atrocity when they become eligible for release.
Data Point
1 — the number of public carry permits issued in Hawaii since the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. Before the ruling, police chiefs in Hawaii issued six permits in 21 years, according to data from the state. [The Associated Press] | https://www.thetrace.org/newsletter/new-jersey-firearms-survey/ | 2022-08-30T21:53:54Z | thetrace.org | control | https://www.thetrace.org/newsletter/new-jersey-firearms-survey/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Designer Lamont “Tory” Stapleton took to social media the weekend of Aug. 25 to charge the luxury brand Balenciaga of appropriation, a form of cultural exploitation that is particularly sensitive to the Black community regarding creative license.
According to Lamont, in 2019 he kicked off the collection Struggle is Common in response to losing a close friend who battled with addiction, with a popular logo on a black crew neck that says “Free.” The term “Free” was a statement commonly used by the culturally and fashion conscious to encourage others not to be enslaved by trauma, addiction, or any other negative life experience.
A few days after his launch, Stapleton was invited to a private party in Los Angeles with celebrities who noticed the crew neck and fell in love with the story behind the collection. Lamont was seen wearing the infamous crew neck in photos with notable figures such as Ye, Paris Hilton and Khloe Kardashian. While wearing the statement piece to the party, he brought more attention to the brand.
After what he thought was successful networking, a few months passed and he was tagged by hundreds of people in a Vanity Fair post where Sean “Diddy” Combs was spotted wearing the popular “Free” black crew neck. Ecstatic that such an icon was wearing and supporting his brand, Stapleton was confused once he realized that he didn’t distribute to Combs. Friends began sending him the link to Balenciaga’s website showing him proof that his concept was stolen and resold t0 25X for the original price without any credit or agreement with him. The Balenciaga “Free” crew neck version debuted on their fashion show runway in the Fall/Winter 2021, coincidentally a year after Stapleton’s design debuted.
After his post on social media, many consumers were enraged that a designer as big as Balenciaga would take credit for a concept that was derived from a place of personal sentiment and that the company would take advantage of a Black creator’s work. This issue has come to the surface multiple times in correlation to appropriation and Black creatives feeling undervalued by major designers taking their ideas and marketing them as their own. Stapleton closed his post by tagging Balenciaga and offering to engage in a dialogue to discuss the reasonable “coincidence.” Consumers anticipate what the response will be from Balenciaga, with high hopes of accountability and credit to Stapleton.
Balenciaga has yet to respond to this issue, however, their Instagram profile remains blank on the issue. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/__trashed-311/ | 2022-08-30T21:55:40Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/__trashed-311/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Tammy Rivera, a fashion designer, actress, singer, and television personality is promoting her tv-show “What the Flocka,” which debuted two years ago on WEtv, detailing her marriage to rap star Waka Flocka and the drama between their combined families.
In March of 2022, fans raved as the two confirmed that they would be separating and preparing for divorce. Fans who have followed the couple’s relationship journey since “Love & Hip-Hop Atlanta” when their relationship was widely broadcasted, were heartbroken when the news of their split broke. This season of “What the Flocka” follows the leading factors leading to their decision to divorce.
Rolling out sat down with Tammy Rivera to discuss, her businesses, her new music, her relationship with her daughter Charlie, and what we can expect from this season of “What the Flocka.”
How was the process of filming this season different from last?
This season is one a lot of people can relate to. It’s transparent because we’re open. This season, you see a lot more mess and feedback from Charlie. Every season she evolves into a different human being. Now that she’s getting older, she’s wiser. Of course, last season me, and Waka were together and this season, we’re not. Season three takes you through our life in dealing with our new reality of being separated and headed towards divorce.
Do you feel like people often try to associate you specifically with your relationship instead of getting to know you outside of that?
There are a lot of people who try to put me in a box and say, “Oh, that’s Waka’s wife or she’s from ”Love & Hip Hop.'”People overlook the fact that I have sold records, and that I own multiple businesses, including a skincare line that introduced me to the beauty industry. They overlook the fact that I’m a mother and prioritize my daughter. I’ve also just done the national anthem for one of the playoffs. Those are the things that not everybody can do so I don’t allow people to put me in a box. I’ve made my own money upright without Waka. I created a name and a brand outside of that relationship.
What’s next for you? Can we expect any new music?
I’m sitting on so much music. I need to just go ahead and step out there and let it go. I just launched my skincare line and it’s been doing amazing. The results and reviews are amazing. I use it every day, I love my skincare line and I stand behind it 100 percent. I have also launched the T-Rivera Swim & Resort wear and opened up my first flagship store in Atlanta, specifically for my fans and my followers to experience. The next thing for me is just letting go and writing a book this year. I feel like my story can help a lot of younger girls and a lot of women. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/__trashed-312/ | 2022-08-30T21:55:46Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/__trashed-312/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Animazement
Date: May 27-29, 2022
Place: Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh, North Carolina
2022 attendees: 10,812
Website: animazement.com
Animazement, a multi-day celebration of Japanese visual culture, including anime, manga (a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels), video games, and more, hosted close to 11,000 fans at its 2022 convention — a far cry from its humble origins.
The all-volunteer, fan-run convention got its start in 1997 as a 36-hour anime marathon organized by the Triangle Area Anime Society at North Carolina State University. After the popularity of that event, said Animazement’s public relations and outreach coordinator Matthew Holmes, “Animazement spun off under the direction” of local Japanese language teacher Yoshimi Yamagata Aoyagi. It is now sponsored by the charity Educational Growth Across Oceans.
Since its first official event in 1998, this celebration has continued to grow, moving from small hotels to its current host venue, the Raleigh Convention Center, in 2009.
Culture Class
Fan conventions often conjure images of endless photo ops with talented cosplayers. While Animazement attendees celebrate Japanese popular culture in part through elaborate costuming — the event’s Animazement Masquerade showcasing participants’ cosplaying and design talents is always a smash hit — the event honors its academic roots by leaning “heavily into education,” Holmes said, with a program that includes sessions “that broaden the knowledge of attendees, be that through language, music, or other cultural arts, in addition to the typical anime convention offerings of acting, visual design, and production.” Educational sessions this year included:
- The Story of Chopsticks
- Japanese Urban Legends
- What Is School Like in Japan?
- A panel discussing Buddhism in Hayo Miyazaki films
- Traditional Japanese puppetry
The demographics of attendees have changed and grown “quite a bit” over the years, Holmes said, in step with the popularity of anime itself. But Animazement’s goal has remained the same: to instill a “greater depth of understanding of Japanese culture, but also arts and culture at large,” Holmes said. “For many, Animazement is often the first time they are exposed to cultural surveys, professional actors and artists, or animation industry representatives, and many will go on to pursue careers or passions in those fields, which is the best outcome we can hope for.”
Casey Gale is managing editor at Convene. Illustration by Carmen Segovia
Visit the Archive
- Read past installments of There’s a Meeting For That | https://www.pcma.org/animazement-japanese-culture-visual-arts-cosplay/ | 2022-08-30T21:55:47Z | pcma.org | control | https://www.pcma.org/animazement-japanese-culture-visual-arts-cosplay/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The third week of R. Kelly’s federal child pornography trial resumed on Aug. 29, as two more women testified that the singer engaged in sexual activity with them while they were minors. Kelly is charged with creating and receiving child pornography and obstruction of justice, among other charges.
One of the witnesses, testifying under the pseudonym “Pauline,” was friends with Kelly’s goddaughter “Jane” around age 14. Jane played a big part in R. Kelly’s legal troubles for more than two decades, and she testified on Aug. 18 that he sexually abused her “hundreds” of times starting when she was 15 years old.
Pauline claims that one day she went looking for Jane and found her naked and kneeling in front of Kelly.
“He told me he was just looking for bruises on her because she hurt herself,” Pauline said. “That’s not how you look for bruises and he said that’s how he looked for bruises. Then he stated, ‘We all have secrets.’ ”
Pauline then says that Kelly insisted that she engage in sexual activity with him and Jane. Pauline began to hook up with the two “dozens or maybe hundreds of times” from age 14 to 16 after Kelly would give them alcohol.
When describing the sexual interactions, Pauline says that Kelly had tripods and cameras in the room, and would record his threesomes with Pauline and another girl by the name of “Brittany.”
Despite what allegedly happened, Pauline said that she still has affection for Kelly. “I loved him and I still love him,” Pauline said. “It’s like best friend meets boyfriend meets dad.” | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/another-woman-testifies-that-r-kelly-had-sex-with-her-as-a-minor/ | 2022-08-30T21:55:52Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/another-woman-testifies-that-r-kelly-had-sex-with-her-as-a-minor/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Chris Rock, who previously hosted the Oscars in 2005 and 2016, said in a recent comedy show that he was asked to host next year’s awards, even after being slapped by Will Smith on stage earlier this year.
Rock was performing in Phoenix, Arizona on Aug. 28 when he addressed the situation.
According to the Arizona Republic, Rock compared returning back to the scene of a crime to host the Oscars when he referenced the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, saying that the night of Simpson’s ex-wife’s murder began with her leaving her glasses at a restaurant. Rock said returning to the Oscars would be like telling Nicole Brown Simpson “to go back to the restaurant.”
Rock also revealed during the show that he was asked to do a Super Bowl commercial after the Oscars slap, but also turned down the offer.
An audience member wanted him to talk more about the slap, and he referenced Smith’s role as Muhammad Ali in the movie Ali.
Rock said, “He’s bigger than me. The state of Nevada would not sanction a fight between me and Will Smith.”
On July 29, Smith finally opened up in a YouTube video about the events surrounding that night.
The first question that Smith read aloud was; “Why didn’t you apologize to Chris in your acceptance speech?”
“It’s all fuzzy,” Smith said. “I’ve reached out to Chris and the message that came back is he’s not ready to talk, and when he is, he will reach out. I will say to you Chris, I apologize to you. My behavior was unacceptable, and I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.” | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/chris-rock-references-oj-simpson-after-saying-he-was-asked-to-host-oscars/ | 2022-08-30T21:55:58Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/chris-rock-references-oj-simpson-after-saying-he-was-asked-to-host-oscars/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Howard cheerleading captains senior Maya Higginbotham and junior Simonne Legette are aware of their influence. As young girls watch from a distance, they want to make sure they make a strong impression.
The captains spoke to rolling out during Howard’s season-opener against Alabama State in the 2022 Cricket MEAC/SWAC Challenge.
What are you looking forward to most this season?
Maya Higginbotham: For the season, I hope to compete this year. I’m a very competitive person and I know that our team is good, so I definitely want to compete.
Simonne Legette: I’m just excited to see how far we progressed in our skills [and to] see what things we can do by the end of this season.
How does it feel to be back on the field?
MH: It feels amazing. I definitely miss being on a big field … [[in front of] a gigantic crowd.
SL: All of the energy from the fans, the band, our team and the football team. It’s just exciting to be around the energy.
Maya, this is your last season.
MH: Yes, it is. I’m really sad, actually.
What do you want to get most out of this season?
MH: I think meeting new people and being able to share our positivity because this year we’ve become a lot closer as a team. Just being able to share that happiness with other people. Seeing little kids and even older people smiling with us and being excited to see us. I definitely want to get that out of this season.
What are you going to miss most about Howard?
MH: Definitely being around a bunch of beautiful Black people who are amazing and want to push you to be better as well … I’m from a Dallas suburb, so it was predominantly White. Coming to Howard was a really big change for me, but it didn’t feel that big because everyone made me feel so comfortable in my own skin. I didn’t have to think as much when I’m in the classroom or when I’m out with people. I didn’t have to like pretend to be somebody I’m not.
How can people help Howard?
MH: Donating. Actually interacting with students and talking to us.
SL: Just genuinely support us in any way you can. Education, career wise, on the field, off the field. In any way.
How do you handle the responsibility of representing Howard?
SL: It’s an honor to be a representation of our culture and what we have to offer.
What are some confidence tips you have for the little girls who look up to you?
MH: Fake it till you make it. If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will believe in you. As long as you know that you look good and that you’re that girl, then you’re going to be that girl.
SL: Positive self-talk. Always cheer yourself on more than anyone else does. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/howard-cheerleaders-offer-confidence-tips-to-young-girls/ | 2022-08-30T21:56:04Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/howard-cheerleaders-offer-confidence-tips-to-young-girls/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NBA superstar John Wall feels rejuvenated and recharged after emerging from “the darkest place” he’d ever been in his life that had him contemplating taking his own life.
Wall, who suffered devasting injuries and endured the back-to-back losses of the two closest people in his life, said that thought his life was imploding.
“Darkest place I’ve ever been in,” Wall said. “At one point in time, I thought about committing suicide. Tearing my Achilles, my mom being sick, my mom passing and my grandma passing a year later. All this in the midst of COVID at the same time. Me going to the chemotherapy and sitting there. Me seeing my mom take her last breath. Wearing the same clothes for three days straight and laying on the couch sobbing.”
Wow. Really honest stuff from John Wall. John has been through so much in his life. Glad to hear he’s doing better. https://t.co/LIFo5dLugn
— Chase Hughes (@ChaseHughesNBCS) August 29, 2022
Wall’s mother, Frances Pulley, died of cancer in 2019 at 58 years old. Soon thereafter, his grandmother also died and that was followed up by the onset of the pandemic in 2020 that brought about actual and quasi-quarantine measures nationwide.
“She raised him for much of his life as a single mom and through the winding road of his upbringing became his closest confidant, his best friend and the most important influence in his life,” NBC Sports Washington wrote.
Wall unabashedly admitted that he got deep into therapy and leaned on his support system to pull him out of the veritable black hole that he had fallen into. He also has his NBA brotherhood to turn to, as LeBron James confirmed.
And I mean ALWAYS!!!!!! Don't ever question it bro!! Proud of you @JohnWall https://t.co/KtDBmzvRgK
— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 30, 2022
If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/john-wall-admits-he-had-suicidal-thoughts-the-past-2-years/ | 2022-08-30T21:56:10Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/john-wall-admits-he-had-suicidal-thoughts-the-past-2-years/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
In 2002, LeBron James appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated when he was just a junior in high school. On the cover, the headline was “The Chosen One” with a picture of him in his St. Vincent-St. Mary basketball jersey.
At the time James was the most coveted NBA prospect, and to this day, it’s hard to name anybody else who has received as much attention coming into the league.
Twenty years later, and James is back on the Sports Illustrated cover, but this time with his two sons, Bronny and Bryce James.
🤯🤯😤😤 WHOA!!!! Just kids from Akron!!!! 🤴🏾🤴🏾🤴🏾🔥🔥 The Chosen One x The Chosen Sons #JamesGang👑 #TheLegecyContinues 📸 Jeffery A. Salter @SInow
https://t.co/m7YE9nHthw pic.twitter.com/ShWIvGWO86— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 30, 2022
This go-around the title reads “The Chosen Sons” on the issue with James and his sons. James is wearing a T-shirt with a screenprint of the 2002 Sports Illustrated cover.
As James made a name for himself 20 years ago, his sons are now trying to do the same. Bronny is a senior at Sierra Canyon and is expected to take the collegiate route after high school. There have been numerous rumors of colleges offering him a commitment, but James shut that down in a tweet on Aug. 16.
He hasn’t taken 1 visit yet and has only had a few calls with coaches and universities. When Bronny makes his choice you’ll hear it from him. #JamesGang👑 https://t.co/BBciKxl7m8
— LeBron James (@KingJames) August 17, 2022
Bryce is a sophomore at Sierra Canyon and picked up his first D-1 offer from Duquesne. Their head coach served as the head coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary in Ohio for two of the years that James attended.
James has openly said on numerous occasions that he would like to play in the league with Bronny, and in the Sports Illustrated story, he has hinted at playing with Bryce, who won’t be NBA eligible until 2026. James is 37 and is still playing at a high level, so he might still be around when Bryce joins the league. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/lebron-james-graces-cover-of-sports-illustrated-with-2-sons-photo/ | 2022-08-30T21:56:16Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/lebron-james-graces-cover-of-sports-illustrated-with-2-sons-photo/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Megan Thee Stallion has been inspired by the OG hip-hop heavyweights to expand her game beyond music and immerse herself within the moviemaking realm.
Megan, 27, is on track to replicate the powerful examples provided by Grammy-, Emmy- and Screen Guild award-winner Queen Latifah, the titular star of the popular “Equalizer” series, and Ice Cube, who went from rapping to directing, producing and starring in a a number of blockbuster movies, including Friday, Barbershop, Are We There Yet? and Ride Along.
The Houston rapper, whose real name is Megan Pete, has confirmed she will have a role in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.” There is no word yet on what precise role she will have, but reporters were tipped off when Megan’s stunt double, Marshe Day, put “She-Hulk” on her résumé.
Now that the news is out, Megan said she is going to follow in the footsteps of her musical predecessors.
“When I look at them, it inspires me to take it further than just music,” Megan told The Cut about Queen Latifah and Ice Cube on Aug. 29. “I don’t feel like I’m only going to be an actress — I feel like I’m also going to be a director and I’m also going to be a producer.”
Stallion has already been cast in the musical comedy F—ing Identical Twins, which details the story of look-a-like siblings who switch places in order to trick their family into reconciling their long-standing differences. Though the casting was announced in February, there is no word on the character Megan will portray.
Also, on the eve of Stallion’s highly anticipated sophomore album Traumazine, Megan also revealed what her dream movie role would be.
“I always have wanted to be Isis,” Megan said of the rumors of a Bring it On reboot that stars Gabrielle Union. “I would be perfect for that. If they were ever to make a new Bring It On, I should be that character.” | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/megan-thee-stallion-to-star-in-marvel-comics-comedy/ | 2022-08-30T21:56:22Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/megan-thee-stallion-to-star-in-marvel-comics-comedy/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Nichole Lynel is the CEO, author, and fashion designer of Nichole Lynel The Label. Inspired by the fashion-forward women in her family, Lynel took it upon herself to create a unique lane of style for other women to partake in.
Lynel chats with rolling out to discuss her upcoming fall line of clothing and her favorite fashion brands.
How did you become a fashion guru and an influencer on social media?
I feel like I had no choice. I was born into fashion. I come from a family of fabulous women. I was raised by my grandmother and I grew up watching her put herself together. She was my superhero. I noticed as she went into the world and put herself together, it was like she could do anything. That was my first fashion moment. When I was five, my cousin gave me a pair of Channel paper dolls and that was further confirmation that fashion would be my niche. Unfortunately, my family and I grew up traditionally. They didn’t encourage careers that were not of a teacher, doctor, or lawyer. However, I started taking fashion seriously when I noticed that women would come to me for style advice in every job that I’ve had. In 2014, I launched an online boutique because being a fashion designer was always the end goal.
How are you able to find balance and peace in your world while maintaining your relationships?
Okay, you guys want the truth? I am fighting for my life. People always talk about balance, but there is no balance. I’m in a long-distance relationship and I have friends and family that I adore, but on my journey, I have had to make extreme sacrifices. I feel like nobody tells you that to be excellent and to grow, you are going to have to sacrifice a lot. Luckily, I have an amazing support system. I have built a network of people who make my life easier and rally behind me. I am in a relationship with someone who encourages me and pushes me toward my dream so they are my closest source of balance.
What can we expect from your brand’s collection this coming fall?
You can expect glam on the go. I’m gonna make sure the girls are fabulous. I am known for my denim and snowsuit collection and I’m currently launching a few more collections. I want the moments when you walk into the room, and people whisper who is that? I want people to walk up to you and ask you “Where did you get that?” I’m gonna make sure you are “that girl,” and that’s what these pieces are all about. I’m working on bags. I also have a fall collection that I’m doing for Nordstroms. There’s a whole bunch to come. I want to do it all honestly, especially when it comes to the fashion and beauty space. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/reasons-that-nicole-lynel-is-a-popular-designer/ | 2022-08-30T21:56:28Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/reasons-that-nicole-lynel-is-a-popular-designer/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The woman charged in connection to a 7-year-old’s death has been identified as the child’s mother, according to Atlanta police.
Kameka Springfield is in custody and is charged with aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Her charges have not been upgraded to murder. She was denied bond during a court appearance.
On Aug. 27, 7-year-old Ava Phillips was shot during a family gathering inside an apartment. When police arrived at the scene, Phillips was found with a gunshot wound to the head.
Phillips’ father, Jonathan Phillips, told WSB-TV that Ava and her brother were visiting their mother when there was some type of disagreement and “one thing led to another.”
By Aug. 29, police had obtained warrants for the arrests of Springfield and Deshon Collins.
According to a warrant, Springfield assaulted Collins with a gun during a dispute. Collins is still at large and has arrest warrants for murder, cruelty towards children, aggravated assault, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. His relationship with Springfield and Phillips is unknown. | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/woman-charged-in-connection-to-death-of-7-year-old-is-a-close-relative/ | 2022-08-30T21:56:34Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/08/30/woman-charged-in-connection-to-death-of-7-year-old-is-a-close-relative/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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When you think of hot chocolate, scenes of twinkling lights and snow-covered sidewalks may come to mind, but a chilly fall night is also the perfect time for a cup of cocoa — especially if you have Halloween hot chocolate bombs on hand.
Made with Belgian chocolate, these Halloween hot chocolate bombs from Frankford Candy are shaped like skulls and filled with mini marshmallows. They are easy to use, as you simply place them in a mug, slowly pour hot milk on top and stir to enjoy a cozy fall cup of cocoa.
These Halloween hot chocolate bombs are priced at $34 for a pack of six on Amazon, but you may notice that they are only $24 if you order directly from Frankford Candy’s website. Shipping costs around $11 if you order from Frankford Candy, however, so the price comes to about $35.13, a bit more than ordering from Amazon, where shipping is included.
If you’re looking for just one skull hot chocolate bomb, Dylan’s Candy Bar will soon be bringing back their skull hot chocolate bombs from last Halloween, but this year, they shimmer for an extra fun cup of cocoa. The shimmering skull milk chocolate cocoa bombs are priced at $12 each.
You’ll also find other Halloween hot chocolate bombs, like this Halloween Mummy Hot Cocoa Bomb from Joann, this adorable Halloween Hot Cocoa Cauldron from Williams Sonoma and a handful of spooky hot chocolate bombs on Etsy.
This six-pack of hot chocolate bombs from Etsy seller is priced at $30, while Hocus Pocus fans can get these cauldron bombs from or this set of four bombs by , which includes all three Sanderson Sisters and an extra hot chocolate bomb that resembles Winnie’s book!
If you want some specific Halloween shapes for your hot chocolate bombs and can’t find them for sale anywhere, you can also try making your own.
This recipe from the Food Network uses bittersweet chocolate and hot cocoa mix, plus whatever toppings you like in your hot cocoa, like mini marshmallows or sprinkles. You will also need a hot chocolate bomb mold, which you can find on Amazon. This silicone mold is $13.84 and makes six large bombs at once, but all will just be round, so you’ll need to decorate them.
If you want shaped hot chocolate bombs, like the skulls, you’ll want to grab a mold like this gravestone mold for $13 that works for ice, candy or soap. For a cuter, less spooky option, this 4-piece mold set would make a total of 32 bombs in a variety of shapes including pumpkins, vampires, skeletons, witches, bats, ghosts, mummies and more.
Frankford Candy also has fall-inspired hot chocolate bombs, which have pumpkin spice, caramel apple, double chocolate and milk chocolate flavors. You’ll find the 16-count pack of new Frankford Fall Hot Chocolate Bombs exclusively at BJ’s Wholesale Club for $20.
If you don’t have a BJ’s Wholesale near you, you can buy a 12-pack of the pumpkin spice hot chocolate bomb directly from Frankford Candy for $45, or a pack of two skulls and two pumpkin spice bombs from Amazon for $24. You can also find a Frankford Candy caramel apple bomb at Big Lots.
Are you looking forward to cozy fall nights with a warm cup of hot chocolate?
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories. | https://www.katc.com/halloween-hot-chocolate-bombs-shape-skulls | 2022-08-30T22:04:34Z | katc.com | control | https://www.katc.com/halloween-hot-chocolate-bombs-shape-skulls | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Lily Banhegyesi, a drill master with Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, oversees future Marine as they train during a pool function at Recruiting Station New York in Garden City, New York, Jan. 22, 2022. Banhegyesi, a native of Syosset, Long Island, New York, attended the event to assist future Marines in mental and physical preparation for Marine Corps Recruit Training. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Tia Carr)
This work, Aye Ma'am [Image 4 of 4], by Cpl Tia Carr, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7394987/aye-maam | 2022-08-30T22:04:35Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7394987/aye-maam | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
LAFAYETTE, L.a. — Higher prices at the grocery store may lead to some pretty hefty pain in the pocketbook.
According to the US Department of Agriculture's forecast, "food-at-home" or grocery store food costs increased as a whole by 1.4 percent from June of this year to July. That's 13.1 percent higher than July of last year. Food-at-home prices are predicted to increase in total by between 10 and 11 percent by the end of 2022, which is above the increases seen in the last two years.
Per the forecast, prices are expected to increase slower in 2023 compared to 2022, but they'll still have historic average rates — predicted to go up by two and three percent on top of this — all adding up to what industry experts consider the highest levels of inflation in about 40 years.
The Consumer Price Index corroborates this as the groceries with the largest cost increase overall are your meats, poultry, fish, and eggs; followed by fresh fruits and vegetables; then your pre-packaged cereals and baked goods. Along with this, because of inflation and supply chain issues, manufacturers are shrinking sizes while the price you pay may stay around the same or even go up. This is becoming better known as "shrinkflation."
So what are you supposed to do while still feeding the family and getting the nutritional value you need?
"It's really about making your meals and ingredients stretch, while still making sure to get those nutrient-dense foods incorporated into your diet," said Yvette Quantz, a registered dietitian local to Lafayette. "And it doesn't have to break the bank."
Here are some tips:
- Shop local and make use of coupons — local markets typically lack higher prices from shipping costs and a "middle man. Coupons are easier to clip now than ever before with digital options.
- Shop in the freezer aisle for produce, nuts, and meats. Frozen usually costs less than fresh.
- Make a list and map your weekly shopping ahead of time. This also helps you plan which coupons to use.
- Choose to substitute beans for meat in your meals at least once a week. They're significantly cheaper while maintaining healthy levels of protein.
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Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox. Select from these options: Breaking News, Evening News Headlines, Latest COVID-19 Headlines, Morning News Headlines, Special Offers | https://www.katc.com/news/grocery-inflation-avoiding-fear-at-the-cashier | 2022-08-30T22:04:41Z | katc.com | control | https://www.katc.com/news/grocery-inflation-avoiding-fear-at-the-cashier | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has a new title: Dad.
CNN reported that his girlfriend, Nessa Diab, announced on social media Sunday that she'd given birth to the couple's first child.
According to TMZ, the child was born a few weeks ago.
The news outlets reported that the couple, who began dating in 2015, has not revealed the gender nor the name of the baby.
In the social media post, Nessa, a radio and television host, said that Kaepernick has been "the most amazing dad," People reported.
Kaepernick hasn't played in the NFL since 2017 following his peacefully protesting by kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality during the 2016 season.
He was the San Francisco 49ers' starting quarterback from 2012 through 2016, leading the team to the Super Bowl in 2013.
Kaepernick has since tried out for the Seattle Seahawks and the Las Vegas Raiders, but he hasn't signed with anyone. | https://www.katc.com/news/national/colin-kaepernick-girlfriend-announce-birth-of-their-first-baby | 2022-08-30T22:04:47Z | katc.com | control | https://www.katc.com/news/national/colin-kaepernick-girlfriend-announce-birth-of-their-first-baby | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PLANT CITY, Fla. — If it’s a weekday afternoon, you’ll most likely find 5-year-old Brantley Kimbel looking out of his bedroom window, eagerly awaiting UPS delivery driver Michelle Dearhart.
“Every time he’d see her, it didn’t matter where I was, he’d see her truck come by, and he’d just scream, ‘Shell is here,’” said mother, Leslie Kimbel
Over the past few years, Brantley Kimbel has been confined to the house due to health concerns, undergoing several neurology exams.
“They had to hook things up to his head, and he just had cords everywhere, so it was really frightening,” said Kimbel.
Dearhart's deliveries became a huge part of Brantley Kimbel’s life.
“Not seeing his grandparents, not seeing his cousins, so Michelle was his best friend at that point. It was just a face that he loved,” said Leslie Kimbel.
“It would just become every day I’d get him candy,” said Dearhart. “It made my day, just delivering and stopping here every day. He is the coolest kid I ever met.”
Brantley Kimbel even surprised Dearhart on her birthday.
“He answered the door with a bouquet of flowers and a bag of Godiva chocolate,” said Dearhart.
So now it’s Brantley Kimbel's birthday, and it’s Dearhart’s turn to deliver a surprise.
“Oh, my heart was beating out of my chest. I was nervous all morning,” said Dearhart, who arrived in an extraordinary truck with flames down the side.
Brantley Kimbel ran out of the house and jumped into her arms.
Then it was time to hand out presents, including a UPS cape for this 5-year-old superhero.
However, the best gift of all is that Brantley Kimbel has finally received a clean bill of health. There’s no one he’d rather celebrate with than his best friend.
“I’m just so happy I got to do this. This is a birthday he’s never going to forget,” said Dearhart.
Robert Boyd first reported this story at WFTS in Tampa Bay, Florida. | https://www.katc.com/news/national/florida-ups-driver-delivers-special-birthday-surprise-for-5-year-old | 2022-08-30T22:04:53Z | katc.com | control | https://www.katc.com/news/national/florida-ups-driver-delivers-special-birthday-surprise-for-5-year-old | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
As the Wisconsin journalistic community grieves the sudden death of Wausau news anchor Neena Pacholke, it reveals the importance of caring for mental health.
ABC affiliate WAOW announced that Pacholke died suddenly on Saturday. According to her family, the journalist died by suicide.
"Neena loved this community and the people who lived here. She was a kind person with a big heart and a contagious smile, and we will miss her greatly," according to WAOW.
Originally from Tampa Bay, Pacholke quickly found a home in Wausau, where viewers knew her as a glowing personality on air.
"You never know what's going on behind somebody's persona. Whether you're in news or not, but especially in news, because we're taught to put on that brave face," said former news anchor Deb Sherwood.
Deb Sherwood co-anchored and worked in various newsrooms across the country with her husband, Bob Sherwood.
"I had an amazing marriage. I was married for over 31 years to the same man and we worked together in this very public media. We co-anchored together for many years and ran news departments together. Unfortunately, he had some medical issues that came up that were not going to get better and he eventually decided to take his own life," said Sherwood.
Bob Sherwood passed away 11 years ago. He was an award-winning reporter at TMJ4 in the 70s.
"In my particular case and had absolutely no clue that's where his mind was," she said. "So it's sort of like, what did I miss?"
Deb Sherwood has found healing and freedom in sharing her husband's story. She's now using her voice to work with Mental Health America in hopes of spreading awareness.
"Be willing to admit you don't know it all," she said. "Be willing to admit that sometimes we need help. If you are going through a particularly rough spot, why not get the assistance of someone who is particularly trained to help."
If you or a loved one is struggling with thoughts of suicide, contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988. The free and confidential line is available 24/7.
A GoFundMe was created to help Pacholke's family as they make funeral preparations. | https://www.katc.com/news/national/former-journalist-reflects-on-importance-of-mental-health-after-wisconsin-news-anchor-dies | 2022-08-30T22:04:59Z | katc.com | control | https://www.katc.com/news/national/former-journalist-reflects-on-importance-of-mental-health-after-wisconsin-news-anchor-dies | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
For the third year in a row, Regent Seven Seas Cruises celebrates its largest booking day in history as the demand for its luxury cruises continues to increase.
As the world’s leading luxury cruise line, it once again beat its own single-day booking record with the commencement of its 2024-2025 Voyages released on August 24, 2022.
Historical Booking Day for Regent Seven Seas Cruises
Delivering an unrivaled experience for over 25 years, Regent Seven Seas Cruises continues to grow as it commenced its largest booking day in history on August 30, 2022, surpassing past years.
Previously, its largest booking day was on August 18, 2021, after the release of its 2023-2024 Voyage Collection, surpassing the year prior by 15%.
The President and Chief Executive Officer of Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Jason Montague stated, “This is an incredible achievement and is testament to the hard-working Regent teams across both our ships and shore-side offices around the globe. We thank our valued Travel Advisors we partner with and our loyal guests for their passion for luxury travel.”
“This year’s voyage collection was highly appealing with more variety featuring over 160 new port-intensive itineraries that discover every part of the globe, including on board our newest ship Seven Seas Grandeur once she joins The World’s Most Luxurious Fleet in 2023,” he added.
This achievement displays guests’ willingness to spend more to explore the world in luxury. An increase in reservations made through travel partners was also observed compared to years past.
Shown in the bookings this Tuesday, demand for the line’s distinctive suites, such as the 4,443 square foot Regent Suite, is on the rise as guests desire longer, more exclusive experiences that visit bucket-list destinations.
Read Also: Regent Seven Seas Restarts Sailings After 18-Month Pause
Similar to the previous year’s launch day, guests continue to choose travel destinations in Africa, Asia, and South America. Longer duration sails to these exotic destinations made up approximately 70% of the top ten itineraries reserved.
In addition, the all-inclusive line, carrying no more than 732 voyagers at a time, noticed an upsurge of sales made by guests who have sailed the five-ship fleet in the past, noting a strong customer return rate.
Of the top ten popular voyages booked on this record-breaking day, every voyage chosen had a duration longer than 16 nights, the longest being 25 nights.
This achievement notes the company’s eighth record-breaking launch since the line’s 2019 record-breaking World Cruise release day. It has subsequently attained three additional World Cruise launch day records.
In June 2022, the 2025 World Cruise became fully reserved before officially opening for bookings, and in July 2021, the cruise line celebrated selling out its 2024 World Cruise in under three hours.
Regent experienced another launch day record in July 2022 when the line made its 2024-2025 Grand Voyage Collection open to the public.
Regent Seven Seas 2024-2025 Voyage Collection
The line’s 2024-2025 Voyage Collection will offer 160 sailings with 130 overnight stays, 18 maiden ports of call, four Grand Voyages, and a 150-night World Cruise. New to this collection, these itineraries will visit ports of call that are new to the line’s previous offerings.
Additionally, these voyages will explore every continent of the world, including Africa and Arabia to Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Canada and New England, Alaska, and Bermuda.
On Tuesday, Seven Seas Splendor was the most booked ship on the 2024-2025 Voyage Collection, featuring its Africa’s West Coast 2024 Lisbon to Cape Town 24-night sail with visits to Dakar, Senegal; Banjul, Gambia; and Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
In addition, Seven Seas Voyager made it to the top ten voyages selected via the 2024-2025 Voyage Collection, with its 25-night Barcelona to Cape Town sail.
Three of the top ten sailings selected on August 30 were aboard Seven Seas Grandeur, set to launch 2023, on its 16-night transatlantic 2024 Barcelona to New York sailing as the third most booked itinerary that day.
Notable destinations featured in these top ten booked itineraries on the record launch day include the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South America. | https://www.cruisehive.com/cruise-line-tops-its-own-single-day-booking-record/80104 | 2022-08-30T22:05:01Z | cruisehive.com | control | https://www.cruisehive.com/cruise-line-tops-its-own-single-day-booking-record/80104 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
P&O Cruises’ upcoming new vessel, Arvia, will have exclusive, destination-inspired dining options to tantalize the taste buds of every passenger, no matter what their menu preferences.
With a total of more than 30 dining venues and bars to choose from, everyone on the new ship will be able to find delicious options to enjoy.
Destination-Inspired Dining Announced
A key feature of Arvia‘s new menus are the connections to the ports the ship will visit.
P&O Cruises is collaborating with “Caribbean Food Supremo” and “Queen of Contemporary Caribbean Cooking” Shivi Ramoutar for decadent Caribbean dishes, such as vibrant Jerk Chicken Supreme with rice and peas, shallow-fried plantains, and a Jamaican cornmeal specialty known as festivals.
These dishes tropical dishes will be available when the ship sails in the Caribbean, with itineraries including Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, and other exotic favorites.
Similarly, when the vessel sails to outstanding Mediterranean ports such as Cadiz, Barcelona, and Valencia, acclaimed Spanish chef, José Pizarro, will bring local food experiences to eager guests.
Specialties will include tapas with grilled whole tiger prawns and mango, chilli, and garlic salsa as well as lamb cutlets with crushed potatoes, olives, dried cherry tomatoes and romesco sauce.
With menus linked to destinations, P&O Cruises is ensuring an immersive world experience for its guests, while simultaneously being able to take advantage of the freshest locally-sourced ingredients.
Exclusive Restaurants
Arvia will also feature several exclusive onboard restaurants found nowhere else in the P&O Cruises fleet.
Of special interest is Green & Co feat. Mizuhana, a sushi bar which will offer exquisitely crafted fish and plant-based dishes. Top menu choices include South African-inspired Chakalaka Wellington and Moriawase Platters Nigiri with a variety of decadent fish, including yellow fin tuna, sea bass, and maki.
The tempting Chocolate Earth Plate is a decadent dessert with dark chocolate and beetroot pebbles, chocolate mushrooms, tarragon jelly, chocolate soil, and non-dairy vanilla gelato.
Another dining venue only on Arvia will be the American-themed 6th Street Diner, offering classic comfort fare such as Pennsylvania Dutch waffles with fried chicken and spicy maple syrup, a Red Velvet Whoopie Pie with cream cheese frosting, and boldly delicious New York Strip Steak with grilled asparagus.
Wide Range of Global Restaurant Options
No matter what guests’ tastes may be or what they are craving, Arvia is sure to have something delicious available.
For those who want to wet their whistles, the Amber Lounge will feature exclusive-to-Arvia cocktail options, and the boutique distillery of Anderson’s Bar has craft rums and gins to try. Guests can also imbibe with stylish cocktails and negronis at The 710 Club, or try beach-inspired refreshments at Infinity, the new swim-up bar.
Casual fare such as burgers, hot dogs, and pizza will be available at Taste 360, while regional favorites are on the menu at the Mediterranean-inspired The Olive Grove, the British-inspired gastropub The Keel and Cow, and the Indian-inspired Sindhu.
The satisfy a sweet tooth, guests can visit the Ripples gelateria, perhaps opting for a special Caribbean-inspired sundae, while Vistas Café Bar will offer a variety of exquisite pastries.
With so many delicious options onboard, Arvia is sure to satisfy all tastes when she joins the P&O Cruises fleet in December 2022 as its second LNG-powered, Excel-class ship.
The 184,700-gross-ton vessel, sister ship to Iona, will initially offer a lengthy range of itineraries from Southampton, before homeporting between Barbados and Antigua through March 2023. | https://www.cruisehive.com/exclusive-dining-options-coming-on-new-po-cruises-ship/80069 | 2022-08-30T22:05:07Z | cruisehive.com | control | https://www.cruisehive.com/exclusive-dining-options-coming-on-new-po-cruises-ship/80069 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Guests aboard Royal Caribbean International’s Mariner of the Seas will not be visiting the cruise line’s private resort destination of Labadee, Haiti, as originally scheduled, due to an onboard medical emergency that required the ship to make a significant route diversion. Instead, the ship will enjoy two days at a different popular private island, Perfect Day at CocoCay.
Mariner of the Seas Changes
Mariner of the Seas diverted off its planned route in response to an onboard medical emergency Monday night, in order to rendezvous with the Coast Guard and transfer the affected individual off the cruise ship. This diversion occurred while the ship was en route from its homeport, Port Canaveral, to Labadee, Haiti.
The Voyager-class ship departed Port Canaveral on Monday, August 29, 2022, and Tuesday was planned to be a leisurely day at sea before arriving in Labadee on Wednesday.
The medical emergency occurred Monday night. To safeguard the person’s privacy, neither the nature of the emergency nor whether the person is a passenger or crew member has been released.
The ship adjusted course south to bring the affected individual closer to Port Everglades, where they were transferred to a Coast Guard vessel at approximately 5:30 a.m. for further transport to appropriate medical facilities.
While rare, medical emergencies do occur on cruise ships. Each ship is equipped with a well-stocked medical center to deal with most minor concerns, including illnesses and injuries. If a medical emergency is beyond the scope of the care that can be provided onboard, however, the cruise ship will divert to bring the affected individual to land-based care.
After the diversion, Mariner of the Seas turned north back toward its original route, but the diversion was too lengthy to guarantee a suitable arrival at Labadee on Wednesday as planned. Instead, the ship slowed and held off dramatic changes until the new itinerary was decided.
Labadee Canceled, CocoCay Twice
By 9:30 Monday morning, the itinerary shift was confirmed, and the ship’s captain announced that Mariner of the Seas would no longer be calling on Labadee. Instead, the vessel will visit Perfect Day at CocoCay twice, on Wednesday, August 31, and again on Friday, September 2.
Read Also: Labadee, Haiti – What You Need to Know
The call on September 2 was part of the ship’s original itinerary, as was the day at sea on Thursday, September 1.
Both destinations are privately owned and operated by Royal Caribbean, offering a variety of on shore activities, beach relaxation, and local flair. Labadee, however, is 550 miles (478 nautical miles) southeast of CocoCay, a much greater distance to be traveled and requiring more time to reach.
While some guests onboard may be disappointed at the prospect of missing Labadee, a second day at CocoCay also opens new opportunities to book shore tours or experiences that may have sold out for just a single day’s visit.
Normally, just one ship is scheduled to visit Cococay on any given day, ensuring a more exclusive, private, and uncrowded experience.
Because of this last-minute change, however, Mariner of the Seas may be sharing the island with Oasis of the Seas on Wednesday. The destination is large, however, with plenty of room for passengers from both ships to enjoy the visit.
It is also possible that Oasis of the Seas‘ itinerary may be altered, to shift its visit to Cococay to a different day. The ship is currently sailing a 7-night roundtrip itinerary from New York, with port of call visits to Port Canaveral (Orlando), Cococay, and Nassau. No such itinerary change has been announced at this time.
Mariner of the Seas can welcome as many as 3,344 guests at double occupancy and up to 4,000 guests when fully booked, while Oasis of the Seas is a larger vessel that can accommodate up to 5,606 passengers at double occupancy, and up to 6,699 guests when fully booked. | https://www.cruisehive.com/royal-caribbean-cruise-ship-diverts-cancels-port-of-call/80106 | 2022-08-30T22:05:13Z | cruisehive.com | control | https://www.cruisehive.com/royal-caribbean-cruise-ship-diverts-cancels-port-of-call/80106 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Chief Petty Officer Amanda Palmer, Hospital Corpsman at Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Pearl Harbor, fills out a bone marrow donation packet from the Salute to Life organization. A bone marrow donation campaign kicked off on Tuesday, Aug. 30, at Branch Health Clinics Makalapa and Kaneohe Bay, and Tripler Army Medical Center. The campaign aims to raise awareness about the bone marrow registry and encourage military service members, Department of Defense civilians, retirees and dependents to join. The congressionally-authorized bone marrow donor center, Salute to Life, was created in 1991 to help U.S. DoD members and their dependents become volunteer bone marrow donors and has since recruited more than 1 million new potential donors and coordinated more than 8,000 cellular donations.
This work, Bone Marrow Donation Drive at Branch Health Clinic Makalapa [Image 10 of 10], by Macy Hinds, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7394997/bone-marrow-donation-drive-branch-health-clinic-makalapa | 2022-08-30T22:05:19Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7394997/bone-marrow-donation-drive-branch-health-clinic-makalapa | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Royal Caribbean Group has announced it plans to implement SpaceX’s Starlink high-speed internet onboard all of the ships in the fleet. The company takes a huge leap forward to connecting guests while at sea, enabling everything from streaming movies to moving to cloud-based applications.
All ships sailing for the Royal Caribbean Group will have the Starlink satellite receivers installed, which includes Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea Cruises.
The implementation follows extensive testing that has been taking place onboard Royal Caribbean International’s Freedom of the Seas in the past months.
Royal Caribbean Will Offer High-Speed Internet to Guests
Royal Caribbean is the first cruise company worldwide to fully implement the SpaceX Starlink Maritime high-speed internet terminals onboard cruise ships.
Starting immediately, the company will start installation onboard cruise ships sailing for Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, and Silversea.
The company has been extensively testing the system onboard Freedom of the Seas over the last weeks, insights the company is taking onboard for the rest of the fleet.
According to the company, the feedback from guests has been extremely positive, and by the end of the first quarter of 2023, the company hopes to have the rollout complete for the entire fleet.
Jason Liberty, president and chief executive officer of Royal Caribbean Group: “Our purpose as a company is to deliver the best vacation experiences to our guests responsibly, and this new offering, which is the biggest public deployment of Starlink’s high-speed internet in the travel industry so far, demonstrates our commitment to that purpose.”
The technology is lightyears ahead of where the current technological systems are, with speeds for the SpaceX system far exceeding the current standards:
“This technology will provide game-changing internet connectivity onboard our ships, enhancing the cruise experience for guests and crew alike. It will improve and enable more high-bandwidth activities like video streaming as well as activities like video calls. Using Starlink is one more example of our continued focus on innovation and excellence for our guests, our crew, the communities we visit and our shareholders.”
Celebrity Cruises has already provided an update on when it plans to implement the new systems on its ships. Celebrity’s newest ship, Celebrity Beyond, will receive the new system on September 5, among one of the first ships to be turned over this Holiday Weekend.
All of the Celebrity Edge Series ships will have been updated by the end of this year. The installation will then continue into 2023 and be complete by May.
What Faster Internet Means for Guests
Guests sailing onboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ships will be seeing a huge improvement in internet connectivity onboard.
Not only does the speed far exceed the current norm, SpaceX reports speeds up to 350 Mbps; the low-orbit satellite connection also means extremely low latency, which in effect means that faster connections actually work as they would at home.
Besides the high download speeds, latency should be lower than 99 ms, and upload speeds will vary between 20-40 Mbps.
Guests and crew will be able to remain connected to work, friends, and family while onboard while also being able to stream sports, movies, and favorite series without issue.
Although the system does not yet work worldwide and in all sailing areas, eventually, this will be the case, with a suggested near-worldwide coverage by 2023 or 2024.
“Royal Caribbean Group selecting Starlink to provide high-speed, low-latency internet across their fleet will make their passengers’ getaways even more luxurious,” said SpaceX Vice President of Starlink Sales Jonathan Hofeller. “We couldn’t be more excited to work with Royal Caribbean Group to ensure travelers at sea can stay connected with a great internet experience.”
What Will Starlink Internet Cost for Guests Onboard?
Eventually, guests could possibly expect costs for internet packages to go down significantly. Installation of a dual terminal for the general public costs 10,000 USD, with a connection fee of 5000 USD, while it would speak for itself that Royal Caribbean and SpaceX have made a deal for this many vessels.
While cruise ships will need several terminals to service all onboard systems and all guests and crew, the cost is still significantly less than the high-orbit satellite connections that are the norm.
Costs for these systems can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, with about 10% of the speed SpaceX offers, which explains the current high costs for internet packages onboard.
Royal Caribbean Group has not announced yet if it will be making changes to the cost of internet packages onboard in the near future. However, even with the cost of the current packages and with a huge increase in speed, not many guests will be declining the service going forward. | https://www.cruisehive.com/royal-caribbean-unveils-plan-to-rollout-starlink-fleetwide/80203 | 2022-08-30T22:05:19Z | cruisehive.com | control | https://www.cruisehive.com/royal-caribbean-unveils-plan-to-rollout-starlink-fleetwide/80203 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
They said it couldn’t be done. They said he was crazy. They said he would never make it.
But Duane Hansen and his beautiful gourd, which he christened Berta, proved them all wrong. Like Cinderella’s fairy godmother, this Nebraska man proved that you really can turn a pumpkin into a functional vehicle — in this case, a seaworthy vessel.
Yes, you read that right. Hansen wanted to celebrate his 60th birthday by hollowing out his prized 846-pound gourd and sailing down the Missouri River inside it. (We guess that for some, when you hit a milestone age, a plate of cake and ice cream just aren’t enough.)
Not only did Hansen enjoy a pumpkin cruise on his special day, but his 38-mile journey also landed him a world record! In case you wondered, the previous world record for the longest sail in a pumpkin was 25 miles, set by a North Dakota man in 2018. How’s that for a birthday gift to yourself?
It wasn’t an easy journey. Getting your hands on a gourd big enough to use as a boat is already a challenge. Then, there was his chosen waterway: The city of Bellevue, Nebraska, posted a shot of Hansen on the water that offers a reminder of just how big the Missouri River is:
Check out a report from News Channel Nebraska about his unique feat below:
About his pumpkin passage, Hansen’s daughter, Morgan Buchholz, had this to say of her pop:
“He has always said that you can do anything you want and how can you not believe somebody who goes out and does exactly what he wants and I’m just so proud,” Buchholz told News Channel Nebraska through tears.
Hansen reportedly spent nearly a decade trying to grow a gourd big enough to work as a sailing vessel. He was inspired to begin his mission after meeting a woman who previously held the record at a pumpkin-grower seminar. He told News Channel Nebraska that he asked her many questions about her experience, including if you could drink beer while sailing a pumpkin.
As for his gourd-sailing future, well, Hansen says there isn’t one.
“I ain’t gonna do this again,” he said after his record-setting trip. “I’m done with this.”
He told KMTV that the voyage made his knees ache. The wake from boats was rough, and when they passed, he said he had to stop everything and just hang on.
“If somebody breaks this record, I will, like, bow down to them because they are tough,” he said.
Maybe he can focus on growing the world’s largest pumpkin next time!
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories. | https://www.katc.com/pumpkin-boats-38-mile-trip-shatters-world-record | 2022-08-30T22:05:23Z | katc.com | control | https://www.katc.com/pumpkin-boats-38-mile-trip-shatters-world-record | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Chief Petty Officer Amanda Palmer, Hospital Corpsman at Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Pearl Harbor, completes her bone marrow donation screening packet from the Salute to Life organization. A bone marrow donation campaign kicked off on Tuesday, Aug. 30, at Branch Health Clinics Makalapa and Kaneohe Bay, and Tripler Army Medical Center. The campaign aims to raise awareness about the bone marrow registry and encourage military service members, Department of Defense civilians, retirees and dependents to join. The congressionally-authorized bone marrow donor center, Salute to Life, was created in 1991 to help U.S. DoD members and their dependents become volunteer bone marrow donors and has since recruited more than 1 million new potential donors and coordinated more than 8,000 cellular donations.
This work, Bone Marrow Donation Drive at Branch Health Clinic Makalapa [Image 10 of 10], by Macy Hinds, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7395001/bone-marrow-donation-drive-branch-health-clinic-makalapa | 2022-08-30T22:05:44Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7395001/bone-marrow-donation-drive-branch-health-clinic-makalapa | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
(KTLA) – South African actress Charlbi Dean died on Monday.
According to Variety, the 32-year-old passed away in New York from an unexpected illness.
The up-and-coming star was recently in the 2022 Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness.” She starred in the film opposite Woody Harrelson.
She also starred in The CW hit “Black Lightning, which is based on the DC Comics series. She played Syonide, a highly skilled assassin.
She made her acting debut in the 2010 South African film “Spud” and its 2013 sequel “Spud 2: The Madness Continues,” according to her IMDb page.
Dean would go on to appear in “Blood in the Water,” the horror film “Don’t Sleep,” “An Interview With God,” and “Porthole,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Dean was also a model and appeared on various magazine covers and runways, including appearing on the cover of Vogue.
She was engaged to male model Luke Volker. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/national/black-lightning-actress-charlbi-dean-dies-at-32/ | 2022-08-30T22:08:55Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/national/black-lightning-actress-charlbi-dean-dies-at-32/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Mattel Reveals New 1987 Movie Masters of the Universe Figures
The alpha, and the omega. The beginning and the end. And as one dies, so shall another be reborn! For the first time, Mattel has created He-Man and Skeletor action figures based on the 1987 Masters of the Universe live-action movie. They’re not the first 1987 movie Masters figures: Blade, Saurod and Gwildor appeared in the ’80s toy line, and Super7 made Ultimates of He-Man, Skeletor, and Karg. But these will be the first Mattel versions of the two main characters, and presumably available on a wider basis.
Licensing agreements previously hampered toy deals based on the movie. While Masters of the Universe remained a niche, mail-order collectors’ line, paying for the rights was cost-prohibitive. For a larger line to sell at mainstream stores, it’s less of an issue. Both He-Man and Skeletor utilize the Masterverse base body, and it’s not clear if Mattel obtained the actor likenesses. If they did, they’re a little soft and stylized.
RELATED: Toy Review: SDCC 2022 Masters of the Universe Exclusive Figures, Mega
So far, we know nothing besides the above images, shared on Mattel’s social media channels. But they’ve given fans new hope that other movie variants could happen. The William Stout designs for Beast Man, Teela, Man-at-Arms, Sorceress, Pig Boy, and Evil-Lyn never saw toy form. Nor did Skeletor’s robot troopers and Sky Centurions, not designed by Stout. The radically redesigned Castle Grayskull would also make quite the fun toy if Mattel wanted to go all out.
What do you think of these Masterverse figures? Let us know in comments.
Recommended Reading: The Toys of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. This affiliate advertising program also provides a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. | https://www.superherohype.com/geek-culture/518518-mattel-reveals-new-1987-movie-masters-of-the-universe-figures | 2022-08-30T22:12:51Z | superherohype.com | control | https://www.superherohype.com/geek-culture/518518-mattel-reveals-new-1987-movie-masters-of-the-universe-figures | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The release of the bi-lingual movie, 'Ottu', starring Arvind Swami and Kunchacko Boban has been postponed in connection with the release of the Tamil version of the film titled, 'Randakam'. The news was shared by director T P Fellini through his social media handles.
The movie has been censored with a clean U/A certification. Fellini said that the release of the movie has been deferred to make it coincide with that of its Tamil version.
"This has been a long journey and we as a team, have given our blood and sweat to this project. It is made on a huge scale, keeping the audience across India in mind and hence, we are leaving no stone unturned for its release," he wrote in the Facbook post.
The film is produced by actor Arya, Shaji Nadesan under the banner August Cinemas. The movie also marks Arvind Swam's comeback to Malayalam cinema after a gap of 25 years. Jackie Shroff also appears in a prominent role in the movie.
While Gautham Sankar is the director of photography, Appu N Bhattathiri is the editor.
Arulraj Kennady has composed the background score and the songs penned by Vinayak Sasikumar. | https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/08/30/release-ottu-starring-kunchako-boban-arvind-swami-postponed.amp.html | 2022-08-30T22:13:49Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/08/30/release-ottu-starring-kunchako-boban-arvind-swami-postponed.amp.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON — Nikiesha Thomas was on her way to work one day when she told her sister that she was thinking about getting involved with domestic violence prevention.
The idea gave Keeda Simpson pause. Her younger sister had never mentioned anything like that before, and she was bringing it up in a phone call just days after filing for a protective order against her ex-boyfriend.
It was their last conversation.
Less than an hour later, Thomas’ ex-boyfriend walked up to her parked car in a southeastern neighborhood of the nation’s capital and shot through her passenger window, killing the 33-year-old.
It’s cases like hers, where warning signs and legal paperwork weren’t enough to save a life, that lawmakers had in mind this summer when they crafted the first major bipartisan law on gun violence in decades.
The measure signed by President Joe Biden in June was part of a response to a harrowing string of shootings over the summer, including the slaying of 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
The package included tougher background checks for the youngest gun buyers and help for states to put in place “red flag” laws that make it easier for authorities to take weapons from people adjudged dangerous.
Also tucked into the bill was a proposal that will make it more difficult for a convicted domestic abuser to obtain firearms even when the abuser is not married to or doesn’t have a child with the victim.
Nearly a decade in the making, lawmakers’ move to close the “boyfriend loophole” received far less attention than other aspects of the legislation. But advocates and lawmakers are hopeful this provision will save lives and become a major part of the law’s legacy.
“We have so many women killed — one every 14 hours, from domestic partners with guns in this country,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a longtime advocate for the proposal, said before passage of the bill in June. “Sadly, half of those involve dating partners, people who aren’t married to someone, but they are in a romantic relationship with them in some way.”
Federal law has long barred people convicted of domestic violence or subject to a domestic violence restraining order from being able to buy a gun. But that restriction had only applied to an individual who is married to the victim, lived with the victim or had a child with the victim. As a result, it missed a whole group of perpetrators — current and former boyfriends or intimate partners — sometimes with fatal consequences.
At least 19 states and the District of Columbia have taken action on this issue, according to data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety. Klobuchar and domestic violence advocates have worked for years to do the same on the federal level, with little success.
The struggle over defining a boyfriend in the law remained difficult to the end. Negotiations in Congress nearly broke down over the provision. The same thing happened in March when a similar bipartisan effort to reauthorize a 1990s-era law that extended protections to victims of domestic and sexual violence passed only after Democratic lawmakers took out the loophole provision to ensure Republican support.
“That was the toughest issue in our negotiations,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a lead negotiator of the gun package, said of the loophole proposal. “The biggest discussion that took us a long time at the end was around the question of how you would get your rights back after you had been prohibited.”
Murphy and other Democratic negotiators were able to persuade Republicans by including a narrow path to restoring access to firearms for first-time offenders after five years, only if they are not convicted of another misdemeanor for violent crime. For married couples, and those who have had a child together, the firearm ban is permanent.
To some advocates, more change is still needed. The legislation only partially closes the loophole because dating partners subject to a domestic violence restraining order, as in Thomas’ case, are still able to buy and maintain access to firearms.
“It will for sure save lives. But also to be clear, this is a partial closure of what’s known as the boyfriend loophole. There’s still a lot of work to be done,” Jennifer Becker, the legal director and senior attorney for Legal Momentum, a legal defense and education fund for women, told The Associated Press.
Federal crime data for 2020 showed that out of all murder victims among intimate partners — including divorced and gay couples — girlfriends accounted for 37%, while wives accounted for 34%. Only 13% of the victims were boyfriends, and 7% were husbands.
In 2018, a group of researchers who looked at intimate partner homicides in 45 states from 1980 to 2013 found that when firearm prohibitions linked to domestic restraining orders included people who were dating, deaths dropped by 13%.
“It suggests that when you cast that wider net, by covering boyfriends, you are able to cover people who are more dangerous and potentially save more lives,” April Zeoli, a researcher at the University of Michigan who was part of that study, told the AP.
Thomas’ family hopes the changes in the law will save lives and ensure their daughter’s death wasn’t in vain. They say Thomas was doing everything she could to protect herself when she left her yearslong relationship with 36-year-old Antoine Oliver in late September 2021.
It was only after her death in October that her family members found out that the protective order Thomas had filed three days earlier, detailing how her former partner had access to firearms and she felt unsafe, was never served. Sheriff’s deputies in Prince George’s County, Maryland, where Oliver lived, had been trying to reach him by phone.
When law enforcement finally reached Oliver, he told them he would come to accept service of the judicial order the following day. Instead, authorities said, he killed Thomas that day before fatally shooting himself.
“Some days I just sit and review the paper she had filed with the court just a few days prior and just think, what else could she have done to protect herself?” said Nadine Thomas, her mother. Gilbert Thomas, her father, said his daughter did everything she was supposed to do, but it was the system that failed her.
“She feared for her life and what did the police do? They called him and made arrangements for him to come to pick up the order,” he said. “There was no urgency placed on it.”
But now the family is bracing for the anniversary of Thomas’ killing. The weight of grief is heavy, particularly for her 11-year-old daughter, Kylei, whom Thomas had from a relationship before she met Oliver.
In the months before her death, Thomas had been making plans to buy a home for her and her daughter. She was saving up from her job with the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education, where she was assigned to an intervention program to help some of the district’s most challenged students.
“We really were starting to map out some things and it just got taken away,” her sister, Keeda Simpson, said. “One of the last things we talked about was her wanting to evoke change for other women.”
“I’m going to do whatever it takes — even if it’s a small thing — to help someone else that’s in her situation, not to lose their life,” she added. | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/in-new-gun-law-a-quiet-breakthrough-for-victims-of-abuse/article_cfd36b82-2884-11ed-84b6-e38b05cd255f.html | 2022-08-30T22:17:15Z | lockportjournal.com | control | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/in-new-gun-law-a-quiet-breakthrough-for-victims-of-abuse/article_cfd36b82-2884-11ed-84b6-e38b05cd255f.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK — At 24, El Johnson has made up her mind that she won't bear children, though she and her girlfriend haven't ruled out adoption.
The graduate student who works in legal services in Austin, Texas, has a list of reasons for not wanting to give birth: the climate crisis and a genetic health condition among them.
"I don't think it's responsible to bring children into this world," Johnson said. "There are already kids who need homes. I don't know what kind of world it's going to be in 20, 30, 40 years."
She's so sure, in fact, that she'll soon have her tubes removed. It's a precautionary decision sealed by the fall of Roe v. Wade and by tight restrictions on abortion services in her state and around the country.
Other women interviewed also cited climate change, along with overwhelming student debt coupled with inflation, as reasons they'll never be parents. Some younger men, too, are opting out and more are seeking vasectomies.
Whatever the motivation, they play a role in dramatically low birth rates in the U.S.
The U.S. birth rate fell 4% in 2020, the largest single-year decrease in nearly 50 years, according to a government report. The government noted a 1% uptick in U.S. births last year, but the number of babies born was still lower than before the coronavirus pandemic: about 86,000 fewer than in 2019.
Walter and Kyah King live in suburban Las Vegas. Walter, 29, a sports data scientist, and Kyah, 28, a college career counselor, have been together nearly 10 years, the last four as a married couple. The realization that they didn't want to have kids came on slowly for both of them.
"It was in our early 20s when the switch sort of flipped," Kyah said. "We had moved to California and we were really just starting our adult lives. I think we talked about having three kids at one point. But just with the economy and the state of the world and just thinking about the logistics of bringing children into the world. That's really when we started to have our doubts."
Finances are top of mind. Before taxes, the two earn about $160,000 combined, with about $120,000 in student loan debt for Kyah and about $5,000 left for Walter. The couple said they wouldn't be able to buy a house and shoulder the costs of even one child without major sacrifices they're not willing to make.
But for Kyah, the decision goes well beyond money.
"I think we would be great parents, but the thought of going into our health system to give birth is really scary. Black women, black mothers, are not valued in the same way that white mothers are," said Kyah, who is Black.
When Kyah's IUD expires, Walter said he'll consider a vasectomy, a procedure that went on the rise among men under 30 during the pandemic.
Jordan Davidson interviewed more than 300 people for a book out in December titled, "So When are You Having Kids?" The pandemic, she said, led many to delay childbirth among those contemplating children at all.
"These timelines that people created for themselves of, I want to accomplish X by three years from now, changed. People weren't necessarily willing to move the goalposts and say, OK, I'm going to forgo these accomplishments and do this differently," she said. "People still want to travel. They still want to go to graduate school. They still want to meet certain financial benchmarks."
Fears about climate change have cemented the idea of living without children for many, Davidson said.
"Now with increased wildfires, droughts, heat waves, all of a sudden it is becoming real that, OK, this is happening during my time, and what is this going to look like during the time that my children are alive?" she said.
In New York City, 23-year-old Emily Shapiro, a copywriter for a pharmaceutical ad agency, earns $60,000 a year, lives at home as she saves money and has never wanted children.
"They're sticky. I could never imagine picking up a kid that's covered in ice cream. I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I don't want to change a diaper. If I did have one, I wouldn't want them until they're in, like, sixth grade. I also think the physical Earth isn't doing so great so it would be unfair," she said.
Among those Jordan interviewed, concerns over the environment were far more prevalent among the younger group. Questions of affordability, she said, troubled both millennials and members of Gen Z.
"There is a lot of fear around having children who would be worse off than they viewed themselves during their childhoods," Davidson said.
Dannie Lynn Murphy, who helps find software engineers for Google, said she was nearly 17 when she was removed from her home by child protective services due to a pattern of child abuse. Her wife, she said, was similarly raised in a "not great" environment.
"Both of us at one point would have said yes to kids," she said. "In my late teenage, early adult years, I saw and understood the appeal and was attracted to the idea of getting to raise someone differently than I was raised. But the practical realities of a child kind of suck."
Murphy earns about $103,000 a year, with bonuses and equity that can drive that amount up to $300,000. Her wife earns about $60,000 as an attorney. They don't own their Seattle home.
"I can't see myself committing to a mortgage, let alone a child," the 28-year-old Murphy said. "I think the primary reason is financial. I would prefer to spend that money on traveling versus sinking a half a million dollars into raising a child. Secondarily, there's now the fear of behaving with our children the way our parents behaved with us."
Alyssa Persson, 31, was raised in small town South Dakota. Getting married and having children was ingrained in the culture, she said. It wasn't until after her divorce from her high school sweetheart that she took a step back and asked herself what she actually wanted out of life.
"Most women where I'm from lose their identities in motherhood," said Persson, who now lives in St. Louis and earns about $47,000 a year as a university librarian.
She's carrying student loan debt of about $80,000. Persson is a former teacher who loves children, but she feels she is now thinking more clearly than ever about the costs, implications and sacrifices of parenting.
"Having children sounds like a trap to me, to be frank," she said. "Financially, socially, emotionally, physically. And if there were ever any shadow of a doubt, the fact that I cannot comfortably support myself on my salary is enough to scare me away from the idea entirely." | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/lifestyles/gen-z-millennials-speak-out-on-reluctance-to-become-parents/article_ecf920b6-2880-11ed-9469-e794e61c174d.html | 2022-08-30T22:17:19Z | lockportjournal.com | control | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/lifestyles/gen-z-millennials-speak-out-on-reluctance-to-become-parents/article_ecf920b6-2880-11ed-9469-e794e61c174d.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
U.S. Rep. Claudia Tenney attacked law enforcement for carrying out a legally obtained warrant to search Mar-a-Lago for classified documents, held illegally, that could damage U.S. intelligence gathering capabilities. “Don’t be fooled. This dirty FBI raid isn’t about ‘stolen documents’ or pee tapes,” Tenney stated on Twitter. She then went on, without evidence, to claim that the search was politically motivated to prevent Donald Trump from running for office again.
This isn’t the first time Trump has damaged or demeaned U.S. intelligence agencies, rather this is part of a pattern.
It is also a pattern for Republicans like Tenney to defend Trump’s antipathy for U.S. intelligence. In May 2017 President Trump gave sensitive, secret information about Israel to the Russians in the Oval Office, jeopardizing U.S. intelligence gathering ability. A high level CIA operative in Russia had to be removed for his own safety because of Trump's carelessness. In Helsinki Trump held a two-hour conference with Vladimir Putin then told a news conference he trusted Putin over U.S. intelligence. In 2018, Trump posted video of members of Seal Team Five revealing the team’s location and un-blurred faces. In 2019, Trump released classified images of a surveillance photo revealing highly classified U.S. surveillance capabilities, which allowed amateur satellite trackers to determine the photograph came from National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite USA-224. This is only a partial list of Trump’s compromising U.S. intelligence.
Tenney’s kowtowing to Trump and his failures to protect and defend the U.S. show how unfit she is to hold office.
WILLIAM FINE, Brockport | https://www.lockportjournal.com/opinion/mailbag-a-kowtowing-tenney-shows-shes-unfit-to-hold-office/article_e7471566-2889-11ed-ac2d-27a4526d801f.html | 2022-08-30T22:17:20Z | lockportjournal.com | control | https://www.lockportjournal.com/opinion/mailbag-a-kowtowing-tenney-shows-shes-unfit-to-hold-office/article_e7471566-2889-11ed-ac2d-27a4526d801f.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Former CEO Daniel Hernandez will assume role as Executive Chairman of the Board
MIAMI, Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Solis Health Plans, a 4-star Florida Medicare Advantage Plan, is pleased to announce the appointment of Efrain Duarte as CEO and Michael Lynch as COO. Former CEO Daniel Hernandez will assume the role of Executive Chairman of the Board with a focus on growth strategy.
"Together with the board, we have worked on a growth and transition plan to take both the provider and payer side to the next level. We are pleased to welcome Efrain and Michael to Solis Health Plans and know that they will continue our mission to transform healthcare with Medicare Advantage solutions that are transparent, connected, and effective for our members and providers." says Executive Chairman of the Board, Daniel Hernandez.
"I am excited to join Solis Health Plans and continue to expand the business, bringing value to both Members and Providers," says Efrain Duarte, CEO.
Mr. Duarte is a distinguished Healthcare Executive and Medical Doctor with 13 years of leading healthcare organizations (Simply, Better Health, Clear Health Alliance, Amerigroup, and Health Sun) in driving cost-efficient results, statewide expansions, membership retention strategies, development of new product offerings and generating operational efficiencies.
Mr. Lynch joins Solis Health Plans from Cano Health, bringing over 30 years of experience within the health insurance industry. Lynch was the finance lead for Humana's S.E. and headed up contracting for Humana's South Florida Market. Lynch served as VP of Network Administration for CarePlus' start-up operation and developed the business strategy that led to a $450 million sale within 2 years of start-up. Additionally, he worked with Vista and Summit Health Plans to implement approximately $20 million of cost-saving initiatives.
Solis Health Plans uses innovative technology to simplify the process for providers by streamlining authorizations and payments. With this process, Providers are liberated from paperwork and can focus on providing the level of care and service that result in better outcomes for Solis Health Plans members.
About Solis Health Plans
Solis Health Plans is a community-focused Florida Medicare Advantage health plan delivering an outstanding member experience and exceptional service to its members, providers, and brokers. Solis offers competitive plans with expanded benefits in multiple counties. The company is locally based and self-identifies as the Un-Corporate Plan: personal as opposed to bureaucratic, innovative instead of risk-averse, and accountable rather than ambiguous. Solis Health Plans is committed to exceeding expectations and to being the plan of choice for the communities served, with the goal of achieving better healthcare outcomes.
For more information on Solis Health Plans, please visit www.solishealthplans.com.
Solis Health Plans is a 4-star, NCQA Accredited HMO with a Medicare contract and a contract with the Florida Medicaid Program for dually-eligible beneficiaries. Enrollment in Solis Health Plans depends on contract renewal.
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SOURCE Solis Health Plans, Inc. | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/08/30/solis-health-plans-its-board-directors-appoint-efrain-duarte-ceo-michael-lynch-coo/ | 2022-08-30T22:19:29Z | wbko.com | control | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/08/30/solis-health-plans-its-board-directors-appoint-efrain-duarte-ceo-michael-lynch-coo/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - Alexco Resource Corp. (NYSE American: AXU) (TSX: AXU) ("Alexco" or the "Company") announced today that the Company's Securityholders (as defined below) approved the previously announced acquisition of Alexco by 1080980 B.C. Ltd. ("108"), a subsidiary of Hecla Mining Company (NYSE: HL) ("Hecla") by way of a plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") at a special meeting of Securityholders held earlier today (the "Meeting").
The special resolution approving the Arrangement was approved by (i) 92.04% of the votes cast by Alexco's shareholders (the "Alexco Shareholders") present or represented by proxy at the Meeting; (ii) 92.92% of the votes cast by Alexco Shareholders, optionholders, restricted share unit holders and deferred share unit holders of Alexco (collectively, "Securityholders"), voting as a single class, present or represented by proxy at the Meeting; and (iii) 91.50% of votes cast by Alexco Shareholders other than votes attached to Alexco shares required to be excluded pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 – Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions.
Under the terms of the Arrangement, Alexco Shareholders will receive 0.116 common shares in the capital of Hecla for each Alexco share held (the "Consideration"). Information regarding the procedure for exchange of shares for Consideration is provided in the Company's management information circular dated July 28, 2022, related to the Meeting (the "Circular"). The Circular and accompanying letter of transmittal (the "Letter of Transmittal") are available on SEDAR under the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and on the Company's website at https://alexcoresource.com/investors/special-meeting-of-shareholders/. If you are a holder of Alexco restricted share units, you will need to wait to submit your Letter of Transmittal until you have received details from the Company following the effective date of the Arrangement regarding your shares of Alexco.
The Arrangement remains subject to approval of the Supreme Court of British Columbia (the "Court") and the satisfaction or waiver of other customary conditions. On July 27, 2022, the Commissioner of Competition issued an advance ruling certificate. The Court hearing for the final order to approve the Arrangement is currently scheduled to take place on September 1, 2022 and closing of the Arrangement is expected to close on September 7, 2022. Following completion of the Arrangement, Alexco's shares are expected to be delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange and NYSE American. An application is also expected to be made for the Company to cease to be a reporting issuer in the applicable jurisdictions upon closing of the Arrangement.
Additional information regarding the terms of the Arrangement is set out in the Circular which is available under Alexco's profile at www.sedar.com.
About Alexco
Alexco is a Canadian primary silver company that owns and operates the majority of the historic Keno Hill Silver District in Canada's Yukon Territory, one of the highest-grade silver mines in the world.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein include, without limitation, statements with respect to the consummation and timing of the Arrangement; the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions precedent to the transaction; the Consideration to be received by Alexco Shareholders; the expected benefits of the Arrangement; the timing, receipt and anticipated approval of the Court, and of any other regulatory consents and approvals; the delisting of the Alexco shares; and the intention that Alexco will cease to be a reporting issuer. Such forward-looking statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company, including assumptions as to the ability of Alexco and Hecla to receive, in a timely manner and on satisfactory terms, the necessary regulatory, Court and other third party approvals; the satisfaction or waiver of the conditions to closing of the Arrangement in a timely manner and completion of the Arrangement on the expected terms; the expected adherence to the terms of the arrangement agreement, as assigned and amended (the "Arrangement Agreement") and agreements related thereto; the adequacy of our and Hecla's financial resources; favourable equity and debt capital markets; and stability in financial capital markets. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among others: the risk that the Arrangement may not close when planned or at all or on the terms and conditions set forth in the Arrangement Agreement; the failure of the Company and Hecla to obtain the necessary regulatory, Court, and other third-party approvals, or to otherwise satisfy the conditions to the completion of the Arrangement, in a timely manner, or at all, may result in the Arrangement not being completed on the proposed terms, or at all; changes in laws, regulations and government practices; if a third party makes a Superior Proposal (as defined in the Arrangement Agreement), the Arrangement may not be completed and the Company may be required to pay the Termination Fee (as defined in the Arrangement Agreement); if the Arrangement is not completed, and the Company continues as an independent entity, there are risks that the announcement of the Arrangement and the dedication of substantial resources of the Company to the completion of the Arrangement could have an impact on the Company's current business relationships and could have a material adverse effect on the current and future operations, financial condition and prospects of the Company; future prices of silver, gold, lead, zinc and other commodities; market competition; and the geopolitical, economic, permitting legal climate that Alexco and Hecla operate in; and the additional risks and uncertainties identified in Alexco's filings with Canadian securities regulators on SEDAR in Canada (available at www.sedar.com) and with the SEC on EDGAR (available at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml). These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.
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SOURCE Alexco Resource Corp. | https://www.witn.com/prnewswire/2022/08/30/alexco-announces-securityholder-approval-plan-arrangement-special-meeting-provides-transaction-update/ | 2022-08-30T22:20:32Z | witn.com | control | https://www.witn.com/prnewswire/2022/08/30/alexco-announces-securityholder-approval-plan-arrangement-special-meeting-provides-transaction-update/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
- Net earnings were $872.4 million, or $0.85 per diluted share for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 compared with $764.4 million, or $0.71 per diluted share for the first quarter of fiscal 2022. Adjusted net earnings1 were approximately $875.0 million compared with $758.0 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2022. Adjusted diluted net earnings per share1 were $0.85, representing an increase of 19.7% from $0.71 for the corresponding quarter of last year.
- Total merchandise and service revenues of $4.1 billion, an increase of 0.1%. Same-store merchandise revenues increased by 3.5% in the United States, by 2.8% in Europe and other regions1, and decreased by 1.3% in Canada.
- Merchandise and service gross margin1 decreased by 0.3% in the United States to 33.9%, and increased by 0.5% in Europe and other regions to 38.9%, and by 0.8% in Canada to 33.1%.
- Same-store road transportation fuel volumes decreased by 4.0% in the United States, by 3.7% in Europe and other regions, and increased by 0.4% in Canada.
- Road transportation fuel gross margin1 of 49.00¢ per gallon in the United States, an increase of 12.25¢ per gallon, US 12.26¢ per liter in Europe and other regions, an increase of US 1.94¢ per liter, and CA 14.04¢ per liter in Canada, an increase of CA 3.12¢ per liter. Fuel margins remained healthy throughout the network, due to favorable market conditions and the continued work on the optimization of the supply chain.
- Despite the growth in expenses of 9.4%, the Corporation has deployed strategic efforts to mitigate costs increases and inflationary pressures, which is demonstrated by the normalized growth of expenses1 of 7.3%, remaining below inflation.
- Sequential improvement of the leverage ratio1 at 1.31 : 1, and of the return on capital employed1 at 15.9%, both driven by strong earnings.
- On April 22, 2022, the Corporation renewed its share repurchase program which allows it to repurchase up to 10.0% of the public float. Under the renewed program, shares for a net amount of $478.0 million were repurchased during the quarter.
- On August 30, 2022, subsequent to the end of the quarter, the Corporation also announces that, following satisfaction of closing conditions, it has closed its proposed acquisition of Cape D'Or Holdings Limited, Barrington Terminals Limited and other related holding entities in Atlantic Canada.
LAVAL, QC, Aug. 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ - For its first quarter ended July 17, 2022, Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ("Couche-Tard" or the "Corporation") (TSX: ATD) announces net earnings of $872.4 million, representing $0.85 per share on a diluted basis. The results for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were affected by pre-tax acquisition costs of $1.2 million, as well as by a pre-tax net foreign exchange loss of $1.0 million. The results for the comparable quarter of fiscal 2022 were affected by a pre-tax net foreign exchange gain of $8.6 million as well as by pre-tax acquisition costs of $0.8 million. Excluding these items, the adjusted net earnings1 were approximately $875.0 million, or $0.85 per share on a diluted basis for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, compared with $758.0 million, or $0.71 per share on a diluted basis for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, an increase of 19.7% in the adjusted diluted net earnings per share1, driven by higher road transportation fuel gross margins1, by organic growth in the convenience activities, as well as by the favorable impact of the share repurchase program, partly offset by higher expenses. All financial information presented is in US dollars unless stated otherwise.
"In the face of continued and historic inflationary conditions and high fuel prices, we are pleased to report strong results this quarter, especially in convenience where we had healthy same stores sales in our U.S. market. We also continued to generate robust fuel margins across all of our platforms. In this period of high inflation and high prices, we remain focused on delivering a strong and consistent value to our customers and on maintaining cost discipline in our operations," said Brian Hannasch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alimentation Couche-Tard.
"We are proud of the progress we made this quarter in our vision to become the world's preferred destination in convenience and mobility. With our Fresh Food, Fast priority, we are hitting key targets in site numbers and seeing very strong growth in our private label brands as consumers look for value. To enhance the customer experience at our locations, we are progressing with the roll out of our innovative, easy-to-use, smart checkout technology after announcing plans to deploy 10,000 units in 7,000 stores during the next three years. Also, after a year of record organic growth in store builds, we added 30 more new sites this quarter," concluded Brian Hannasch.
Claude Tessier, Chief Financial Officer, added: "We delivered another impressive quarter highlighted by increases of 10.6% in adjusted EBITDA1 and 19.7% in adjusted diluted net earnings per share2 compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2022, bringing our last four quarters adjusted EBITDA1 to more than $5.4 billion. Our customary cost discipline, combined with an improving labor market, have allowed us to limit the normalized growth of expenses1 to 7.3%, compared to the first quarter of last year, more than 1% below inflation, which was particularly notable once again this quarter. Our financial position remains strong, highlighted by our leverage ratio1 of 1.31, providing us with opportunities for the future. I am especially proud of our teams' execution this quarter which resulted in sequential improvements on both of our key return metrics."
Significant Items of the First Quarter of Fiscal 2023
- On April 22, 2022, the Toronto Stock Exchange approved the renewal of our share repurchase program, which took effect on April 26, 2022. The renewed share repurchase program allows us to repurchase up to 79,703,614 shares, representing 10.0% of the shares comprising the public float as at April 20, 2022, and the share repurchase period will end no later than April 25, 2023. During the first quarter of fiscal 2023, we repurchased 10,940,400 shares, for an amount of $478.0 million.
- On May 9, 2022, we established a commercial paper program in the United States on a private placement basis. The commercial paper program allows us to issue, at our discretion, unsecured commercial paper notes with maturities not exceeding 397 days. The aggregate principal amount of unsecured commercial paper notes outstanding at any one time cannot exceed $2.5 billion and our term revolving unsecured operating credit facility serves as a liquidity backstop for the repayment of the unsecured commercial paper notes. As at July 17, 2022, there were no outstanding unsecured commercial paper notes.
- On April 28, 2022, we exercised the Series B common share warrants in Fire & Flower for a total consideration of CA $37.8 million ($29.5 million), which increased our interests in Fire & Flower to 35.3%.
Changes in our Network during the First Quarter of Fiscal 2023
- We acquired one company-operated store since the beginning of the first quarter of fiscal 2023.
- We completed the construction of 23 stores and the relocation or reconstruction of 7 stores, reaching a total of 30 stores since the beginning of fiscal 2023. As of July 17, 2022, another 54 stores were under construction and should open in the upcoming quarters.
- During the first quarter of fiscal 2023, we invested an amount of $30.1 million in a joint venture with Musket Corporation, which then acquired four road transportation fuel terminals located in Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina, United States.
- On August 30, 2022, subsequent to the end of the quarter, we announce that, following satisfaction of closing conditions, we have closed our proposed acquisition of all the issued and outstanding shares of Cape D'Or Holdings Limited, Barrington Terminals Limited, and other related holding entities which operate an independent convenience store and fuel network in Atlantic Canada under the Esso, Go! Store and Wilsons Gas Stops brands (collectively "Wilsons"). The Wilsons network comprises 79 company-owned and operated convenience retail and fuel locations, 2 company-owned and dealeroperated locations, 137 dealer-owned and operated locations, and a fuel terminal in Halifax, Canada. The transaction was settled for a consideration, subject to post-closing adjustments including debt repayment, of CA $346.8 million ($265.9 million), using available cash. In connection with obtaining the Competition Bureau (Canada) approval for the transaction, we entered into a consent agreement with the Commissioner of Competition to divest 34 company-owned and operated convenience retail and fuel locations, 1 company-owned and dealer-operated location, and 12 dealer-owned and operated locations in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Canada.
Summary of changes in our store network
The following table presents certain information regarding changes in our store network over the 12‑week period ended July 17, 2022:
We use the US dollar as our reporting currency, which provides more relevant information given the predominance of our operations in the United States.
The following table sets forth information about exchange rates based upon closing rates expressed as US dollars per comparative currency unit:
For the analysis of consolidated results, the impact of the translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars is defined as the impact from the translation of our Canadian, European and Asian operations into US dollars. Variances of our foreign currency operations into US dollars are determined as being the difference between the corresponding period results in local currencies translated at the current period average exchange rate and the corresponding period results in local currencies translated at the corresponding period average exchange rate.
The following table highlights certain information regarding our operations for the 12-week periods ended July 17, 2022, and July 18, 2021, and the results analysis in this section should be read in conjunction with this table. Europe and other regions include the results from our operations in Asia.
Our revenues were $18.7 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, up by $5.1 billion, an increase of 37.4% compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022, mainly attributable to a higher average road transportation fuel and other fuel products selling price, organic growth on merchandise and service revenues, and the contribution from acquisitions while being partly offset by lower road transportation fuel demand, the impact of the divestiture of sites following the strategic review of our network as well as the net negative impact of approximately $336.0 million from the translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars.
Merchandise and service revenues
Total merchandise and service revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were $4.1 billion, an increase of $4.5 million compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $78.0 million. The remaining increase of approximately $82.0 million, or 2.0%, is primarily attributable to organic growth in the United States and Europe and other regions, and to the contribution from acquisitions which amounted to approximately $31.0 million, while being partly offset by the disposal of stores following the strategic review of our network. Same-store merchandise revenues increased by 3.5% in the United States, by 2.8%1 in Europe and other regions, and decreased by 1.3% in Canada. Same-store merchandise revenues in Canada were strongly impacted by increased competition of the illicit market in the cigarettes category compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022.
Road transportation fuel revenues
Total road transportation fuel revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were $14.3 billion, an increase of $4.9 billion compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $249.0 million. The remaining increase of approximately $5.2 billion, or 55.1%, is attributable to a higher average road transportation fuel selling price, which had an impact of approximately $5.5 billion partly offset by the impact of lower road transportation fuel demand. Same-store road transportation fuel volumes decreased by 4.0% in the United States and by 3.7% in Europe and other regions, and increased by 0.4% in Canada. During the quarter, road transportation fuel demand remained unfavorably impacted by the significant rise in retail prices driven by the increase in crude oil costs, from work from home trends and the impact from our fuel rebranding activities.
The following table shows the average selling price of road transportation fuel of our company-operated stores in our various markets for the last eight quarters. The average selling price of road transportation fuel consists of the road transportation fuel revenues divided by the volume of road transportation fuel sold:
Other revenues
Total other revenues for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were $266.1 million, an increase of $150.4 million compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $11.0 million. The remaining increase of approximately $161.0 million, or 139.2%, is primarily driven by higher prices and higher demand on our other fuel products, which had a minimal impact on gross profit1.
Our gross profit was $2.9 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, up by $282.8 million or 10.9%, compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022, mainly attributable to higher road transportation fuel gross margins and organic growth in our convenience activities, while being partly offset by the net negative impact of the translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars of approximately $60.0 million.
Merchandise and service gross profit
In the first quarter of fiscal 2023, our merchandise and service gross profit was $1.4 billion, an increase of $0.8 million compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $29.0 million. The remaining increase of approximately $30.0 million, or 2.1%, is primarily due to organic growth driven by pricing initiatives. Our gross margin1 decreased by 0.3% in the United States to 33.9%, while it increased by 0.5% in Europe and other regions to 38.9%, and by 0.8% in Canada to 33.1%.
Road transportation fuel gross profit
In the first quarter of fiscal 2023, our road transportation fuel gross profit was $1.4 billion, an increase of $285.0 million compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $29.0 million. The remaining increase in our gross profit was approximately $314.0 million, or 27.1%. In the United States, our road transportation fuel gross margin1 was 49.00¢ per gallon, an increase of 12.25¢ per gallon, in Europe and other regions, our road transportation fuel gross margin1 was US 12.26¢ per liter, an increase of US 1.94¢ per liter, and in Canada, it was CA 14.04¢ per liter, an increase of CA 3.12¢ per liter. Fuel margins remained healthy throughout our network, due to favorable market conditions and the continued work on the optimization of our supply chain.
The road transportation fuel gross margin1 of our company-operated stores in the United States and the impact of expenses related to electronic payment modes for the last eight quarters, were as follows:
Generally, during normal economic cycles, road transportation fuel margins in the United States can be volatile from one quarter to another, while in Europe and other regions and in Canada, fuel margins and expenses related to electronic payment modes are not as volatile.
Other revenues gross profit
In the first quarter of fiscal 2023, other revenues gross profit was $35.4 million, a decrease of $3.0 million compared with the corresponding period of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $2.0 million.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2023, expenses increased by 9.4% compared with the corresponding period of fiscal 2022. Normalized growth of expenses1 was 7.3%, as shown in the table below:
For the first quarter of fiscal 2023, we have continued to deploy strategic efforts in order to mitigate the impact of a higher inflation level and continued pressure on wages, which is demonstrated by our normalized growth of expenses1 of 7.3%, which is below inflation, despite the challenging market conditions. The normalized growth of expenses1 in the first quarter was mainly driven by inflationary pressures, most notably on higher occupancy costs, higher costs from rising minimum wages, as well as by incremental investments in our stores to support our strategic initiatives partly offset by the impact of lower pressure in the employment market.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and impairment ("EBITDA1") and adjusted EBITDA1
During the first quarter of fiscal 2023, EBITDA stood at $1.5 billion, an increase of 10.6% compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 increased by $144.4 million, or 10.6%, compared with the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022, mainly due to higher road transportation fuel margins, and organic growth in our convenience operations, partly offset by higher expenses. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $28.0 million.
For the first quarter of fiscal 2023, our depreciation expense increased by $4.9 million compared with the first quarter of fiscal 2022. The translation of our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net favorable impact of approximately $9.0 million. The remaining increase of approximately $14.0 million, or 4.5%, is mainly driven by the replacement of equipment, the ongoing improvement of our network and the impact from investments made through acquisitions.
Net financial expenses for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were $67.1 million, a decrease of $7.2 million compared with the corresponding period of fiscal 2022. A portion of the decrease is explained by certain items that are not considered indicative of future trends, as shown in the table below:
The remaining variation is mainly driven by the reduction of long-term debt compared with the corresponding period of fiscal 2022.
The income tax rate for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 was 21.9% compared with 21.3% for the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022. The increase is mainly stemming from the impact of a different mix in our earnings across the various jurisdictions in which we operate.
Net earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were $872.4 million, compared with $764.4 million for the first quarter of the previous fiscal year, an increase of $108.0 million, or 14.1%. Diluted net earnings per share stood at $0.85, compared with $0.71 for the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal year. The translation of revenues and expenses from our foreign currency operations into US dollars had a net negative impact of approximately $20.0 million on net earnings of the first quarter of fiscal 2023.
Adjusted net earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 were approximately $875.0 million, compared with $758.0 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, an increase of $117.0 million, or 15.4%. Adjusted diluted net earnings per share were $0.85 for the first quarter of fiscal 2023, compared with $0.71 for the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2022, an increase of 19.7%.
During its August 30, 2022 meeting, the Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of CA 11.0¢ per share for the first quarter of fiscal 2023 to shareholders on record as at September 8, 2022, and approved its payment effective September 22, 2022. This is an eligible dividend within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada).
To provide more information for evaluating the Corporation's performance, the financial information included in our financial documents contains certain data that are not performance measures under IFRS ("non-IFRS measures"), which are also calculated on an adjusted basis to exclude specific items. We believe that providing those non-IFRS measures is useful to management, investors, and analysts, as they provide additional information to measure the performance and financial position of the Corporation.
The following non-IFRS financial measures are used in our financial disclosures:
- Gross profit;
- Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and impairment ("EBITDA") and adjusted EBITDA;
- Adjusted net earnings; and
- Interest-bearing debt;
The following non-IFRS ratios are used in our financial disclosures:
- Merchandise and service gross margin and Road transportation fuel gross margin;
- Normalized growth of operating, selling, general and administrative expenses;
- Growth of same-store merchandise revenues for Europe and other regions;
- Adjusted diluted net earnings per share;
- Leverage ratio; and
- Return on equity and return on capital employed.
The following capital management measure is used in our financial disclosures:
- Net interest-bearing debt/total capitalization.
Supplementary financial measures are also used in our financial disclosures and those measures are described where they are presented.
Non-IFRS financial measures and ratios, as well as the capital management measure are mainly derived from the consolidated financial statements, but do not have standardized meanings prescribed by IFRS. These non-IFRS measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial measures prepared in accordance with IFRS. In addition, our definitions of non-IFRS measures may differ from those of other public corporations. Any such modification or reformulation may be significant. These measures are also adjusted for the pro forma impact of our acquisitions and impacts of new accounting standards, if they are considered to be material.
Gross profit. Gross profit consists of revenues less the cost of sales, excluding depreciation, amortization and impairment. This measure is considered useful for evaluating the underlying performance of our operations.
The table below reconciles revenues and cost of sales, excluding depreciation, amortization and impairment, as per IFRS, to gross profit:
Please note that the same reconciliation applies in the determination of gross profit by category and by geography presented in the section "Summary Analysis of Consolidated Results".
Merchandise and service gross margin. Merchandise and service gross margin consists of Merchandise and service gross profit divided by Merchandise and service revenues, both measures are presented in the section ''Summary Analysis of Consolidated Results''. Merchandise and service gross margin is considered useful for evaluating how efficiently we generate gross profit by dollar of revenue.
Road transportation fuel gross margin. Road transportation fuel gross margin consists of Road transportation fuel gross profit divided by total volume of road transportation fuel sold. For the United States and Europe and other regions, both measures are presented in the section ''Summary Analysis of Consolidated Results''. For Canada, this measure is presented in functional currency and the table below reconciles, for road transportation fuel, Revenues and Cost of sales, excluding depreciation, amortization and impairment, as per IFRS, to gross profit and the resulting road transportation fuel gross margin. This measure is considered useful for evaluating how efficiently we generate gross profit by gallon or liter of road transportation fuel sold.
Normalized growth of operating, selling, general and administrative expenses ("normalized growth of expenses"). Normalized growth of expenses consists of the growth of Operating, selling, general and administrative expenses adjusted for the impact of the changes in our network, the impact of more volatile items over which we have limited control, as well as the impact from changes in accounting policies and adoption of accounting standards. This measure is considered useful for evaluating our ability to control our expenses on a comparable basis.
The tables below reconcile growth of Operating, selling, general and administrative expenses to normalized growth of expenses:
Growth of same-store merchandise revenues for Europe and other regions. Same-store merchandise revenues represent cumulated merchandise revenues between the current period and comparative period for those stores that were open for at least 23 days out of every 28-day period included in the reported periods. Merchandise revenues are defined as Merchandise and service revenues excluding service revenues. For Europe and other regions, the growth of same-store merchandise revenues is calculated based on constant currencies using the respective current period average exchange rate for both the current and corresponding period. In Europe and other regions, same-store merchandise revenues include same-store revenues from company-operated stores, CODO and DODO stores, as well as Asian corporate stores prior to their acquisition date of December 21, 2020. These last two items are not included in our consolidated results. This measure is considered useful for evaluating our ability to generate organic growth on a comparable basis in our overall European and other regions store network.
The tables below reconcile Merchandise and service revenues, as per IFRS, to same-store merchandise revenues for Europe and other regions and the resulting percentage of growth:
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and impairment ("EBITDA") and adjusted EBITDA. EBITDA represents net earnings plus income taxes, net financial expenses, and depreciation, amortization and impairment. Adjusted EBITDA represents the EBITDA adjusted for acquisition costs and other specific items for which the impact on consolidated results is not deemed indicative of future trends. These performance measures are considered useful to facilitate the evaluation of our ongoing operations and our ability to generate cash flows to fund our cash requirements, including our capital expenditures program, share repurchases, and payment of dividends.
The table below reconciles net earnings, as per IFRS, to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA:
Adjusted net earnings and adjusted diluted net earnings per share. Adjusted net earnings represents net earnings adjusted for net foreign exchange gains or losses, acquisition costs and other specific items for which the impact on consolidated results is not deemed indicative of future trends. These measures are considered useful for evaluating the underlying performance of our operations on a comparable basis.
The table below reconciles net earnings, as per IFRS, with adjusted net earnings and adjusted diluted net earnings per share:
Interest-bearing debt. This measure represents the sum of the following balance sheet accounts: Current portion of long-term debt, Long-term debt, Current portion of lease liabilities and Lease liabilities. This measure is considered useful to facilitate the understanding of our financial position in relation with financing obligations. The calculation of this measure of financial position is detailed in the ''Net interest-bearing debt/total capitalization'' section below.
Net interest-bearing debt/total capitalization. This measure represents the basis for monitoring our capital as well as a measure of financial condition that is especially used in financial circles.
The table below presents the calculation of this performance measure:
Leverage ratio. This measure represents a measure of financial condition that is especially used in financial circles.
The table below reconciles net interest-bearing debt and adjusted EBITDA, for which the calculation methodologies are described in other tables of this section, with the leverage ratio:
Return on equity. This measure is used to assess the relation between our profitability and our net assets. Average equity is calculated by taking the average of the opening and closing balance for the 52-week period.
The table below reconciles net earnings, as per IFRS, with the ratio of return on equity:
Return on capital employed. This measure is used to measure the relation between our profitability and capital efficiency. Earnings before interest and taxes ("EBIT") represents net earnings plus income taxes and net financial expenses. Capital employed represents total assets less short-term liabilities not bearing interest, which excludes the current portion of long-term debt and current portion of lease liabilities. Average capital employed is calculated by taking the average of the beginning and ending balance of capital employed for the 52-week period.
The table below reconciles net earnings, as per IFRS, to EBIT with the ratio of return on capital employed:
Couche-Tard is a global leader in convenience and fuel retail, operating in 24 countries and territories, with close to 14,100 stores, of which approximately 10,700 offer road transportation fuel. With its well-known Couche-Tard and Circle K banners, it is one of the largest independent convenience store operators in the United States and it is a leader in the convenience store industry and road transportation fuel retail in Canada, Scandinavia, the Baltics, as well as in Ireland. It also has an important presence in Poland and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. Approximately 122,000 people are employed throughout its network.
For more information on Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., or to consult its audited annual Consolidated Financial Statements, unaudited interim condensed consolidated financial statements and Management Discussion and Analysis, please visit: https://corpo.couche-tard.com.
The statements set forth in this press release, which describes Couche-Tard's objectives, projections, estimates, expectations, or forecasts, may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities legislation. Positive or negative verbs such as "believe", "can", "shall", "intend", "expect", "estimate", "assume", and other related expressions are used to identify such statements. Couche-Tard would like to point out that, by their very nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties such that its results, or the measures it adopts, could differ materially from those indicated in or underlying these statements, or could have an impact on the degree of realization of a particular projection. Major factors that may lead to a material difference between Couche-Tard's actual results and the projections or expectations set forth in the forward-looking statements include the effects of the integration of acquired businesses and the ability to achieve projected synergies, uncertainty related to the duration and severity of the current COVID-19 pandemic, fluctuations in margins on motor fuel sales, competition in the convenience store and retail motor fuel industries, exchange rate variations, and such other risks as described in detail from time to time in the reports filed by Couche-Tard with securities authorities in Canada and the United States. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Couche-Tard disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The forward-looking information in this release is based on information available as of the date of the release.
Couche-Tard invites analysts known to the Corporation to ask their questions to its management on August 31, 2022, during the question and answer period of the webcast.
Financial Analysts, Investors, media and any individuals interested in listening to the webcast on Couche-Tard's results, which will take place online on August 31, 2022, at 8:00 A.M. (EDT) can do so by either accessing the Corporation's website at https://corpo.couche-tard.com/en and by clicking in the "Investors/Events & Presentations" section or by dialing 1-888-390-0549 or the international number 1-416-764-8682, followed by the access code 35419650#.
Rebroadcast: For individuals who will not be able to listen to the live webcast, a recording of the webcast will be available on the Corporation's website for a period of 90 days.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. | https://www.witn.com/prnewswire/2022/08/30/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-its-results-its-first-quarter-fiscal-year-2023/ | 2022-08-30T22:20:40Z | witn.com | control | https://www.witn.com/prnewswire/2022/08/30/alimentation-couche-tard-announces-its-results-its-first-quarter-fiscal-year-2023/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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Eugene Masonic Cemetery
Eugene Masonic Cemetery now accredited as an arboretum | https://www.klcc.org/tags/eugene-masonic-cemetery | 2022-08-30T22:21:11Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/tags/eugene-masonic-cemetery | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Earlier this year, we reported on the Eugene Masonic Cemetery applying to become an accredited arboretum. As of today, the association that overlooks the cemetery says that accreditation has been granted by ArbNet.
Shawn Walker is vice president of the board of directors of the Eugene Masonic Cemetery Association. He said this is great news for the community.
“We recognize many of the community members visit the cemetery because it is a unique urban forest in the middle of Eugene," he told KLCC. "It creates resources and opportunities for others to learn about the trees and the plant life within the cemetery, and we’re just pleased to be part of that community and be accredited as an arboretum.”
The new designation for this “forest museum” is The Arboretum at Eugene Masonic Cemetery.
The cemetery is already on the National Registry of Historic Places, and is the final resting place for many notable Oregonians, including the city’s namesake, Eugene Skinner, and the state’s first governor, John Whiteaker.
Copyright @2022, KLCC. | https://www.klcc.org/human-interest/2022-08-30/eugene-masonic-cemetery-now-accredited-as-an-arboretum | 2022-08-30T22:21:29Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/human-interest/2022-08-30/eugene-masonic-cemetery-now-accredited-as-an-arboretum | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Baseball is sometimes called the "timeless game." Unlike football, basketball or soccer, there's no clock. Theoretically, the game could go on forever. Four decades ago, one game came close.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Baseball is sometimes called the "timeless game." Unlike football, basketball or soccer, there's no clock. Theoretically, the game could go on forever. Four decades ago, one game came close.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.klcc.org/npr-sports/npr-sports/2022-08-30/the-story-behind-the-longest-baseball-game-ever | 2022-08-30T22:22:18Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-sports/npr-sports/2022-08-30/the-story-behind-the-longest-baseball-game-ever | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Hurricane Season is here but before things get too crazy…now is the time to get your house and yard in order.
When preparing for hurricanes people should always inspect their trees to avoid trees falling in their yards. Signs of increased risk of tree failure is large dead branches, trees with broken tree limbs, and missing tree bark. On average Florida experiences 30-40 mph windstorms but during hurricane season that can increase to 50-70 mph.
Michael Lindsey has been an arborist for nearly 20 years and feels when in doubt contact a professional.
“You can have a tree that looks completely solid from the outside but there may be some indications that there’s decay on the inside. We can see from the outside because we’ve been doing it and because we’ve been trained,” says Lindsey.
Lindsey feels there is no right time of year to have your trees checked out but the sooner the better. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/experts-share-ways-homeowners-can-get-their-yard-ready-for-hurricane-season | 2022-08-30T22:22:26Z | wtxl.com | control | https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/experts-share-ways-homeowners-can-get-their-yard-ready-for-hurricane-season | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick has a new title: Dad.
CNN reported that his girlfriend, Nessa Diab, announced on social media Sunday that she'd given birth to the couple's first child.
According to TMZ, the child was born a few weeks ago.
The news outlets reported that the couple, who began dating in 2015, has not revealed the gender nor the name of the baby.
In the social media post, Nessa, a radio and television host, said that Kaepernick has been "the most amazing dad," People reported.
Kaepernick hasn't played in the NFL since 2017 following his peacefully protesting by kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality during the 2016 season.
He was the San Francisco 49ers' starting quarterback from 2012 through 2016, leading the team to the Super Bowl in 2013.
Kaepernick has since tried out for the Seattle Seahawks and the Las Vegas Raiders, but he hasn't signed with anyone. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/colin-kaepernick-girlfriend-announce-birth-of-their-first-baby | 2022-08-30T22:22:44Z | wtxl.com | control | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/colin-kaepernick-girlfriend-announce-birth-of-their-first-baby | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.
The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered deep condolences over Gorbachev’s death and would send an official telegram to Gorbachev’s family in the morning.
Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.
His decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.
A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in the nuclear country.
“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.
Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became Soviet leader in March 1985.
By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.
“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.
“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.
Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.
Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.
His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1% of the vote.
In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.
“In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again,” quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter.
Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.
Soon after taking power, Gorbachev began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation, using “glasnost” or openness, to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.
In his memoirs, he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources, tens of millions were living in poverty.
“Our society was stifled in the grip of a bureaucratic command system,” Gorbachev wrote. “Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”
Once he began, one move led to another: He freed political prisoners, allowed open debate and multi-candidate elections, gave his countrymen freedom to travel, halted religious oppression, reduced nuclear arsenals, established closer ties with the West and did not resist the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern European satellite states.
But the forces he unleashed quickly escaped his control.
Long-suppressed ethnic tensions flared, sparking wars and unrest in trouble spots such as the southern Caucasus region. Strikes and labor unrest followed price increases and shortages of consumer goods.
In one of the low points of his tenure, Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.
The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.
Chief among them was his former protegee and eventual nemesis, Boris Yeltsin, who became Russia’s first president.
“The process of renovating this country and bringing about fundamental changes in the international community proved to be much more complex than originally anticipated,” Gorbachev told the nation as he stepped down.
“However, let us acknowledge what has been achieved so far. Society has acquired freedom; it has been freed politically and spiritually. And this is the most important achievement, which we have not fully come to grips with in part because we still have not learned how to use our freedom.”
There was little in Gorbachev’s childhood to hint at the pivotal role he would play on the world stage. On many levels, he had a typical Soviet upbringing in a typical Russian village. But it was a childhood blessed with unusual strokes of good fortune.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. Both of his grandfathers were peasants, collective farm chairmen and members of the Communist Party, as was his father.
Despite stellar party credentials, Gorbachev’s family did not emerge unscathed from the terror unleashed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: Both grandfathers were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly anti-Soviet activities.
But, rare in that period, both were eventually freed. In 1941, when Gorbachev was 10, his father went off to war, along with most of the other men from Privolnoye.
Meanwhile, the Nazis pushed across the western steppes in their blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union; they occupied Privolnoye for five months.
When the war was over, young Gorbachev was one of the few village boys whose father returned. By age 15, Gorbachev was helping his father drive a combine harvester after school and during the region’s blistering, dusty summers.
His performance earned him the order of the Red Banner of Labor, an unusual distinction for a 17-year-old. That prize and the party background of his parents helped him land admission in 1950 to the country’s top university, Moscow State.
There, he met his wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko, and joined the Communist Party. The award and his family’s credentials also helped him overcome the disgrace of his grandfathers’ arrests, which were overlooked in light of his exemplary Communist conduct.
In his memoirs, Gorbachev described himself as something of a maverick as he advanced through the party ranks, sometimes bursting out with criticism of the Soviet system and its leaders.
His early career coincided with the “thaw” begun by Nikita Khrushchev. As a young Communist propaganda official, he was tasked with explaining the 20th Party Congress that revealed Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s repression of millions to local party activists. He said he was met first by “deathly silence,” then disbelief.
“They said: ‘We don’t believe it. It can’t be. You want to blame everything on Stalin now that he’s dead,’” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.
He was a true if unorthodox believer in socialism. He was elected to the powerful party Central Committee in 1971, took over Soviet agricultural policy in 1978, and became a full Politburo member in 1980.
Along the way he was able to travel to the West, to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. Those trips had a profound effect on his thinking, shaking his belief in the superiority of Soviet-style socialism.
“The question haunted me: Why was the standard of living in our country lower than in other developed countries?” he recalled in his memoirs. “It seemed that our aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.”
But Gorbachev had to wait his turn. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and was succeeded by two other geriatric leaders: Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev’s mentor, and Konstantin Chernenko.
It wasn’t until March 1985, when Chernenko died, that the party finally chose a younger man to lead the country: Gorbachev. He was 54 years old.
His tenure was filled with rocky periods, including a poorly conceived anti-alcohol campaign, the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
But starting in November 1985, Gorbachev began a series of attention-grabbing summit meetings with world leaders, especially U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which led to unprecedented, deep reductions in the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.
After years of watching a parade of stodgy leaders in the Kremlin, Western leaders practically swooned over the charming, vigorous Gorbachev and his stylish, brainy wife. But perceptions were very different at home. It was the first time since the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that the wife of a Soviet leader had played such a public role, and many Russians found Raisa Gorbachev showy and arrogant.
Although the rest of the world benefited from the changes Gorbachev wrought, the rickety Soviet economy collapsed in the process, bringing with it tremendous economic hardship for the country’s 290 million people.
In the final days of the Soviet Union, the economic decline accelerated into a steep skid. Hyper-inflation robbed most older people of their life’s savings. Factories shut down. Bread lines formed.
And popular hatred for Gorbachev and his wife Raisa grew. But the couple won sympathy in summer 1999 when it was revealed that Raisa Gorbachev was dying of leukemia.
During her final days, Gorbachev spoke daily with television reporters, and the lofty-sounding, wooden politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional family man surrendering to deep grief.
Gorbachev worked on the Gorbachev Foundation, which he created to address global priorities in the post-Cold War period, and with the Green Cross foundation, which was formed in 1993 to help cultivate “a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.”
Gorbachev took the helm of the small United Social Democratic Party in 2000 in hopes it could fill the vacuum left by the Communist Party, which he said had failed to reform into a modern leftist party after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He resigned from the chairmanship in 2004.
He continued to comment on Russian politics as a senior statesman — even if many of his countrymen were no longer interested in what he had to say.
“The crisis in our country will continue for some time, possibly leading to even greater upheaval,” Gorbachev wrote in a memoir in 1996. “But Russia has irrevocably chosen the path of freedom, and no one can make it turn back to totalitarianism.”
Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.
He said Putin had done much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse. He did, however, protest growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, with a businessman associate.
“We should — this is one of our goals — promote the newspaper’s qualitative development in the interests of democratic values,” he said, tacitly criticizing the Kremlin’s efforts to bring Novaya Gazeta and other independent media outlets to heel.
Gorbachev ventured into other new areas in his 70s, winning awards and kudos around the world. He won a Grammy in 2004 along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy.
Gorbachev had a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.
The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.
___
Vladimir Isachenkov and Kate de Pury in Moscow contributed. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/russian-media-ex-soviet-leader-mikhail-gorbachev-dead-at-91 | 2022-08-30T22:23:02Z | wtxl.com | control | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/russian-media-ex-soviet-leader-mikhail-gorbachev-dead-at-91 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
There is a theme coming from the European Central Bank, see if you can spot it!
- ECB's Wunsche: Have to move quickly on rate hikes to a level that may be restrictive
- ECB's Nagel: ECB must act decisively to preserve credibility
- ECB's Stournaras: Will see peak of inflation this year
- ECB Muller (more of a hawk): ECB should discuss 75 basis point hike in September
- ECB's Knot leaning toward 75 basis points but open for discussion
- ECB's Knot: Frontloading of rate hikes should not be excluded
That lot above is just from Tuesday Europe/US time.
Earlier this week were these also, note the concern with the falling euro:
- ECB's Villeroy de Galhau forecasts 'significant' Sept. rate hike, & to neutral by year end
- ECB's Rehn concerned about the falling euro: Certainly we are monitoring the exchange rate
- ECB's Schnabel says rates must be raised, even into a recession
- ECB's Kazaks says he is not happy with the lower EUR (euro)
Meanwhile EUR/USD is straddling parity. It has hung in there since piercing the level: | https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/ecb-have-flicked-the-switch-firmly-to-hawkish-more-restrictive-faster-rate-hikes-ahead-20220830/ | 2022-08-30T22:26:17Z | forexlive.com | control | https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/ecb-have-flicked-the-switch-firmly-to-hawkish-more-restrictive-faster-rate-hikes-ahead-20220830/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The AGWSR Cougars and Belmond-Klemme Broncos combined for 20 penalties with 151 yards in Ackley Friday night. Nine of those, for 51 yards in a scoreless first quarter. The penalties, along with other miscues, cleared up in the second quarter, allowing the hosts to show hints of what they would do in the second half of their 36-8 win.
After the first of four interceptions - one each by Bradly Roder, Kaden Abbas, Bo Gerbracht and a second by Abbas in order - stopped a promising Bronco drive early in the second quarter, the Cougars started running the ball with a little more pop. Still, the ensuing drive ended with a punt.
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism
that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness
accounts, the history behind an article. | http://www.timescitizen.com/ackley_world_journal/cougars-survive-errors-to-beat-broncos/article_a505a818-289b-11ed-b5c5-2719cea54b5d.html | 2022-08-30T22:29:12Z | timescitizen.com | control | http://www.timescitizen.com/ackley_world_journal/cougars-survive-errors-to-beat-broncos/article_a505a818-289b-11ed-b5c5-2719cea54b5d.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Nakia Ollivierre, a freshman, took first in her first high school run. That helped the Iowa Falls-Alden/AGWSR Cadets finish second in the Cadet Invite at Maynes Grove.
Nakia Ollivierre, a freshman, took first in her first high school run. That helped the Iowa Falls-Alden/AGWSR Cadets finish second in the Cadet Invite at Maynes Grove.
Nakia Ollivierre, an Iowa Falls-Alden/AGWSR Cadet freshman from AGWSR, led everybody in the season opening Cadet Invite at Maynes Grove on Thursday. She ran the Franklin County park track in 19:35.5, beating a pair of two-time Cadet State qualifiers in the process.
Those two, Teah Miller and Abby Harding finished third and sixth respectively. Another freshman, Demi Beaubien, finished eighth while Elizabeth Kielty ran to 30th. That all added up to a second place team finish with 48 points, 15 behind winner Clear Lake in the 10-team field which ran both varsity and junior varsity at the same time.
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism
that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness
accounts, the history behind an article. | http://www.timescitizen.com/ackley_world_journal/if-a-agwsr-sees-mixed-results-in-opener/article_136fb962-289a-11ed-83b9-7ff3fe6860b1.html | 2022-08-30T22:29:18Z | timescitizen.com | control | http://www.timescitizen.com/ackley_world_journal/if-a-agwsr-sees-mixed-results-in-opener/article_136fb962-289a-11ed-83b9-7ff3fe6860b1.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MARION-Larry Gehrls, 42, of Marion and formerly of Iowa Falls, passed away Sunday, Aug. 28, 2022 at UnityPoint Health - St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids. Arrangements are pending with the Counsell Woodley Funeral Home and Cremation Services of Iowa Falls. | http://www.timescitizen.com/obituaries/death_notices/larry-gehrls-sunday-aug-28-2022/article_50bca85e-2889-11ed-a87a-cf20358f1432.html | 2022-08-30T22:29:24Z | timescitizen.com | control | http://www.timescitizen.com/obituaries/death_notices/larry-gehrls-sunday-aug-28-2022/article_50bca85e-2889-11ed-a87a-cf20358f1432.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
TRI-CITIES, Wash.-
Wednesday, August, 31st, is International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) and communities in Washington and around the world are coming together to remember those that have died due to a drug overdose.
In 2020 construction, trade, and labor industries saw a 100% increase in overdose deaths.
There was a 300% increase in overdose deaths among food service workers in 2020.
2020 also saw a 100% increase in opioid overdose deaths compared to 2019.
IOAD is dedicated to reducing the stigma of drug-related deaths and bringing awareness to ways that can help save the lives of those experiencing an opioid overdose.
There is a way that everyone can help save a life through a legal substance known as Naloxone, or Narcan.
Narcan may stop an opioid overdose and due to a statewide standing order, Washington residents can get Narcan at pharmacies without a prescription. | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/bfhd-encourages-community-to-carry-a-second-chance/article_b1f85a7c-289e-11ed-b285-3f8c88ed18c6.html | 2022-08-30T22:29:46Z | nbcrightnow.com | control | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/bfhd-encourages-community-to-carry-a-second-chance/article_b1f85a7c-289e-11ed-b285-3f8c88ed18c6.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
RICHLAND, Wash.-
Richland Police Officers responded to a vehicle collision in the area of West Cliff and Keene Rd on Tuesday afternoon.
Minor injuries were reported and all of West Cliff is currently blocked.
Police are asking drivers to avoid the area until the accident is cleared. | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/crash-closes-west-cliff-in-richland/article_26c5635a-28a3-11ed-924c-4fc599271325.html | 2022-08-30T22:29:52Z | nbcrightnow.com | control | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/crash-closes-west-cliff-in-richland/article_26c5635a-28a3-11ed-924c-4fc599271325.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
YAKIMA, Wash. - Traffic heading west on Nob Hill Boulevard is being rerouted after a four-car crash at the 16th Avenue intersection by Yakima Valley College. Injuries have been reported by the Yakima Police Department. The crash is still being investigated.
One car was on its side when firefighters arrived. Yakima Firefighters reports five people were involved. Most of the injuries were minor, but one person is in the hospital now.
This is a developing story, which means information could change. We are working to report timely and accurate information as we get it. | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/nob-hill-traffic-rerouted-due-to-four-car-crash/article_fba0e438-28ac-11ed-a805-332aa5af5c2b.html | 2022-08-30T22:29:58Z | nbcrightnow.com | control | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/nob-hill-traffic-rerouted-due-to-four-car-crash/article_fba0e438-28ac-11ed-a805-332aa5af5c2b.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
ELLENSBURG, Wash.-
UPDATE: 8/30/22 1:40 p.m.
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), I-82 is reopen after being closed for several hours after a vehicle fire on Tuesday afternoon.
Traffic is now moving in both directions.
8-30-22, 12:15 p.m.
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) I-82 near Ellensburg is closed due to a vehicle fire.
There is no estimate for when the road will reopen for traffic.
A detour on SR 821 through the Yakima Canyon is available. | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/update-i-82-reopen-after-vehicle-fire-near-ellensburg/article_438314fc-2898-11ed-916a-7ff4f3b17f56.html | 2022-08-30T22:30:04Z | nbcrightnow.com | control | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/update-i-82-reopen-after-vehicle-fire-near-ellensburg/article_438314fc-2898-11ed-916a-7ff4f3b17f56.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
(KTLA) – South African actress Charlbi Dean died on Monday.
According to Variety, the 32-year-old passed away in New York from an unexpected illness.
The up-and-coming star was recently in the 2022 Palme d’Or winner “Triangle of Sadness.” She starred in the film opposite Woody Harrelson.
She also starred in The CW hit “Black Lightning, which is based on the DC Comics series. She played Syonide, a highly skilled assassin.
She made her acting debut in the 2010 South African film “Spud” and its 2013 sequel “Spud 2: The Madness Continues,” according to her IMDb page.
Dean would go on to appear in “Blood in the Water,” the horror film “Don’t Sleep,” “An Interview With God,” and “Porthole,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Dean was also a model and appeared on various magazine covers and runways, including appearing on the cover of Vogue.
She was engaged to male model Luke Volker. | https://www.wpri.com/news/national/black-lightning-actress-charlbi-dean-dies-at-32/ | 2022-08-30T22:31:54Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/news/national/black-lightning-actress-charlbi-dean-dies-at-32/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have sued a data broker they accuse of selling sensitive geolocation data from millions of mobile devices, information that can be used to identify people and track their movements to and from sensitive locations, including reproductive health clinics, homeless shelters and places of worship.
The Federal Trade Commission on Monday sued Idaho-based Kochava Inc. amid a charged debate over the privacy of individuals who may be seeking an abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling in June ending the constitutional protections for abortion. Although it’s not the first case the FTC has brought against a data broker, experts say it is the first one involving health care data and referencing reproductive health clinics.
“This is potentially a big deal,” Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy advocacy group, said of the FTC’s action. “They’ve placed a stake in the ground.”
The data-broker industry, which gathers, sells or trades location data from mobile phones, has come under increased scrutiny from Congress and regulators following the Supreme Court decision. Lawmakers have asked the top executives of major tech companies, as well as smaller data brokers, for information about their handling of consumers’ location data from mobile phones, and what steps they have taken to protect the privacy rights of individuals seeking information on abortion.
The FTC this month announced it was looking at drafting rules to crack down on what it sees as harmful commercial surveillance and lax data security by tech companies and others.
In its lawsuit against Kochava filed in federal court in Idaho, the FTC alleges that by selling tracking data, the company enables other parties to identify individuals and exposes them to threats of stigma, stalking, discrimination, job loss and even physical violence. The agency is seeking to halt Kochava’s sale of “sensitive geolocation data” and to compel the company to delete the geolocation data it has collected.
“Where consumers seek out health care, receive counseling, or celebrate their faith is private information that shouldn’t be sold to the highest bidder,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau. “The FTC is taking Kochava to court to protect people’s privacy and halt the sale of their sensitive geolocation information.”
The company filed a suit against the FTC earlier this month, after the agency sent Kochava a proposed complaint indicating that it could take the company to court.
On Monday, the company said the FTC's lawsuit is a sign the agency does not understand the company's operations or other data businesses.
“”Kochava operates consistently and proactively in compliance with all rules and laws, including those specific to privacy,” said Brian Cox, general manager of Kochava Collective. The company describes itself as the world’s largest independent mobile data marketplace, enabling marketers to “purchase mobile audiences.”
Before the legal proceedings with the FTC began, Kochava unveiled a new capability to block geo data from sensitive locations, Cox said. That effectively removed that data from the data marketplace, and is currently in the implementation process, he said.
“We are constantly monitoring and proactively adjusting our technology to block geo data from other sensitive locations," he said.
Concerns over consumers’ online privacy deepened last week when allegations surfaced from Twitter’s former security chief that the influential social network misled regulators — including the FTC — about its cyber defenses and efforts to control fake accounts. Among Peiter Zatko’s most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users.
In a landmark privacy action, Sephora Inc., one of the world’s largest cosmetics retailers, last week settled a California lawsuit alleging the company sold customer information without proper notice in violation of the state’s consumer privacy law.
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- Still reading this list? We're on YouTube, too: | https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/ftc-accuses-idaho-data-company-of-selling-sensitive-geolocation-data/277-5ce9e616-dc9c-4758-958e-ddff85c5e190 | 2022-08-30T22:35:00Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/ftc-accuses-idaho-data-company-of-selling-sensitive-geolocation-data/277-5ce9e616-dc9c-4758-958e-ddff85c5e190 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Piroshky Piroshky, the iconic Russian bakery based out of Seattle, will be returning to Spokane on Monday, Sept.19 to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Piroshky Piroshky opened in Seattle's historic Pike Place Market in 1992. Since then, the bakery has offered hand-crafted Russian pastries that have garnered critical acclaim from a variety of sources, including Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations.” The Smithsonian also voted the bakery one of “The Top 20 Most Iconic Food Destinations Across America.”
People can order from a variety of Russian pastries including traditional, vegan and vegetarian Piroshky. The menu caters to all tastes and dietary choices, ranging from beef and onion piroshki, cinnamon cardamom braids, and even vegan potato and mushroom piroshki.
Piroshky Piroshky Bakery
“Over the years, when people visit our bakery from all over U.S., they often ask when we will be in their city," Olga Sagan, Piroshky Piroshky's owner said in a press release. "We listened and decided to travel to cities across to the United States to meet our customers personally and connect with our community across the country."
The bakery has also been featured in many publications, most notably within the Statesman Journal and the Phoenix New Times.
The Piroshky Piroshky truck will be located at 9320 E Mission Ave, Spokane Valley on Monday, Sept. 19. Customers can preorder their favorite pastry in advance by Sept.17 with a minimum order of $40. | https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/spokane-county/piroshky-piroshky-bakery-back-to-spokane/293-4dacc520-e933-4350-b130-1bd84419b911 | 2022-08-30T22:35:06Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/spokane-county/piroshky-piroshky-bakery-back-to-spokane/293-4dacc520-e933-4350-b130-1bd84419b911 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK — Charlbi Dean, the South African actor and model who had a breakout role in “Triangle of Sadness,” which won this year's top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, has died at age 32.
Dean died Monday at a hospital in New York from a sudden unexpected illness, her representatives said Tuesday.
Dean also had a recurring role as the assassin Syonide on the DC Comics television series “Black Lightning,” which aired on the CW from 2018 to 2021.
She was born Charlbi Dean Kriek in Cape Town, where she was also raised.
Dean began modeling as a child, making frequent appearances on fashion runways and magazine covers in the decades that followed.
She survived a near-fatal car accident in 2009.
She made her acting debut in the 2010 film “Spud,” an adaptation of a popular South African novel about a boys' boarding school starring Troye Sivan and John Cleese. She reprised her role in a 2013 sequel.
In “Triangle of Sadness,” the first English-language film from Swedish “Force Majeure” director Ruben Östlund, Dean and Harris Dickinson play a celebrity fashion-model couple on a cruise for the ultra-rich that descends into chaos. It also stars Woody Harrelson as the ship's captain.
The film won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in May and opens in the U.S. and most of Europe in October.
At the festival before the film won the award, Dean told The Associated Press, “For me, I’m like, I’ve already won. I’m already at Cannes with the movie. That’s so unbelievable. Anything is just a cherry on top at this point for me, you know?” | https://www.krem.com/article/news/nation-world/charlbi-dean-dead-at-32/507-de0ed20c-ab66-4275-b5da-e2355581b683 | 2022-08-30T22:35:12Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/news/nation-world/charlbi-dean-dead-at-32/507-de0ed20c-ab66-4275-b5da-e2355581b683 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MOSCOW, Russia — Mikhail Gorbachev, who as the last leader of the Soviet Union waged a losing battle to salvage a crumbling empire but produced extraordinary reforms that led to the end of the Cold War, died Tuesday. He was 91.
The Central Clinical Hospital said in a statement that Gorbachev died after a long illness. No other details were given.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin offered deep condolences over Gorbachev’s death and would send an official telegram to Gorbachev’s family in the morning.
Though in power less than seven years, Gorbachev unleashed a breathtaking series of changes. But they quickly overtook him and resulted in the collapse of the authoritarian Soviet state, the freeing of Eastern European nations from Russian domination and the end of decades of East-West nuclear confrontation.
“History will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as a giant who steered his great nation towards democracy," former Secretary of State James Baker said about Gorbachev. "He played the critical role in a peaceful conclusion of the Cold War by his decision against using force to hold the empire together. I found him to be an honest broker and could count on his word despite domestic pressure in Moscow. The free world misses him greatly."
Gorbachev's decline was humiliating. His power hopelessly sapped by an attempted coup against him in August 1991, he spent his last months in office watching republic after republic declare independence until he resigned on Dec. 25, 1991. The Soviet Union wrote itself into oblivion a day later.
A quarter-century after the collapse, Gorbachev told The Associated Press that he had not considered using widespread force to try to keep the USSR together because he feared chaos in the nuclear country.
“The country was loaded to the brim with weapons. And it would have immediately pushed the country into a civil war,” he said.
Many of the changes, including the Soviet breakup, bore no resemblance to the transformation that Gorbachev had envisioned when he became Soviet leader in March 1985.
By the end of his rule he was powerless to halt the whirlwind he had sown. Yet Gorbachev may have had a greater impact on the second half of the 20th century than any other political figure.
“I see myself as a man who started the reforms that were necessary for the country and for Europe and the world,” Gorbachev told The AP in a 1992 interview shortly after he left office.
“I am often asked, would I have started it all again if I had to repeat it? Yes, indeed. And with more persistence and determination,” he said.
Gorbachev won the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending the Cold War and spent his later years collecting accolades and awards from all corners of the world. Yet he was widely despised at home.
Russians blamed him for the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union — a once-fearsome superpower whose territory fractured into 15 separate nations. His former allies deserted him and made him a scapegoat for the country’s troubles.
His run for president in 1996 was a national joke, and he polled less than 1% of the vote.
In 1997, he resorted to making a TV ad for Pizza Hut to earn money for his charitable foundation.
“In the ad, he should take a pizza, divide it into 15 slices like he divided up our country, and then show how to put it back together again,” quipped Anatoly Lukyanov, a one-time Gorbachev supporter.
Gorbachev never set out to dismantle the Soviet system. What he wanted to do was improve it.
Soon after taking power, Gorbachev began a campaign to end his country’s economic and political stagnation, using “glasnost” or openness, to help achieve his goal of “perestroika” or restructuring.
In his memoirs, he said he had long been frustrated that in a country with immense natural resources, tens of millions were living in poverty.
“Our society was stifled in the grip of a bureaucratic command system,” Gorbachev wrote. “Doomed to serve ideology and bear the heavy burden of the arms race, it was strained to the utmost.”
Once he began, one move led to another: He freed political prisoners, allowed open debate and multi-candidate elections, gave his countrymen freedom to travel, halted religious oppression, reduced nuclear arsenals, established closer ties with the West and did not resist the fall of Communist regimes in Eastern European satellite states.
But the forces he unleashed quickly escaped his control.
Long-suppressed ethnic tensions flared, sparking wars and unrest in trouble spots such as the southern Caucasus region. Strikes and labor unrest followed price increases and shortages of consumer goods.
In one of the low points of his tenure, Gorbachev sanctioned a crackdown on the restive Baltic republics in early 1991.
The violence turned many intellectuals and reformers against him. Competitive elections also produced a new crop of populist politicians who challenged Gorbachev’s policies and authority.
Chief among them was his former protegee and eventual nemesis, Boris Yeltsin, who became Russia’s first president.
“The process of renovating this country and bringing about fundamental changes in the international community proved to be much more complex than originally anticipated,” Gorbachev told the nation as he stepped down.
“However, let us acknowledge what has been achieved so far. Society has acquired freedom; it has been freed politically and spiritually. And this is the most important achievement, which we have not fully come to grips with in part because we still have not learned how to use our freedom.”
There was little in Gorbachev’s childhood to hint at the pivotal role he would play on the world stage. On many levels, he had a typical Soviet upbringing in a typical Russian village. But it was a childhood blessed with unusual strokes of good fortune.
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was born March 2, 1931, in the village of Privolnoye in southern Russia. Both of his grandfathers were peasants, collective farm chairmen and members of the Communist Party, as was his father.
Despite stellar party credentials, Gorbachev’s family did not emerge unscathed from the terror unleashed by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin: Both grandfathers were arrested and imprisoned for allegedly anti-Soviet activities.
But, rare in that period, both were eventually freed. In 1941, when Gorbachev was 10, his father went off to war, along with most of the other men from Privolnoye.
Meanwhile, the Nazis pushed across the western steppes in their blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union; they occupied Privolnoye for five months.
When the war was over, young Gorbachev was one of the few village boys whose father returned. By age 15, Gorbachev was helping his father drive a combine harvester after school and during the region’s blistering, dusty summers.
His performance earned him the order of the Red Banner of Labor, an unusual distinction for a 17-year-old. That prize and the party background of his parents helped him land admission in 1950 to the country’s top university, Moscow State.
There, he met his wife, Raisa Maximovna Titorenko, and joined the Communist Party. The award and his family’s credentials also helped him overcome the disgrace of his grandfathers’ arrests, which were overlooked in light of his exemplary Communist conduct.
In his memoirs, Gorbachev described himself as something of a maverick as he advanced through the party ranks, sometimes bursting out with criticism of the Soviet system and its leaders.
OTHER STORIES: Daughter of 'Putin's brain' ideologist killed in car blast
His early career coincided with the “thaw” begun by Nikita Khrushchev. As a young Communist propaganda official, he was tasked with explaining the 20th Party Congress that revealed Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s repression of millions to local party activists. He said he was met first by “deathly silence,” then disbelief.
“They said: ‘We don’t believe it. It can’t be. You want to blame everything on Stalin now that he’s dead,’” he told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview.
He was a true if unorthodox believer in socialism. He was elected to the powerful party Central Committee in 1971, took over Soviet agricultural policy in 1978, and became a full Politburo member in 1980.
Along the way he was able to travel to the West, to Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and Canada. Those trips had a profound effect on his thinking, shaking his belief in the superiority of Soviet-style socialism.
“The question haunted me: Why was the standard of living in our country lower than in other developed countries?” he recalled in his memoirs. “It seemed that our aged leaders were not especially worried about our undeniably lower living standards, our unsatisfactory way of life, and our falling behind in the field of advanced technologies.”
But Gorbachev had to wait his turn. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, and was succeeded by two other geriatric leaders: Yuri Andropov, Gorbachev’s mentor, and Konstantin Chernenko.
It wasn’t until March 1985, when Chernenko died, that the party finally chose a younger man to lead the country: Gorbachev. He was 54 years old.
His tenure was filled with rocky periods, including a poorly conceived anti-alcohol campaign, the Soviet military withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
But starting in November 1985, Gorbachev began a series of attention-grabbing summit meetings with world leaders, especially U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, which led to unprecedented, deep reductions in the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals.
After years of watching a parade of stodgy leaders in the Kremlin, Western leaders practically swooned over the charming, vigorous Gorbachev and his stylish, brainy wife.
But perceptions were very different at home. It was the first time since the death of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that the wife of a Soviet leader had played such a public role, and many Russians found Raisa Gorbachev showy and arrogant.
Although the rest of the world benefited from the changes Gorbachev wrought, the rickety Soviet economy collapsed in the process, bringing with it tremendous economic hardship for the country’s 290 million people.
In the final days of the Soviet Union, the economic decline accelerated into a steep skid. Hyper-inflation robbed most older people of their life’s savings. Factories shut down. Bread lines formed.
And popular hatred for Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, grew. But the couple won sympathy in summer 1999 when it was revealed that Raisa Gorbachev was dying of leukemia.
During her final days, Gorbachev spoke daily with television reporters, and the lofty-sounding, wooden politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional family man surrendering to deep grief.
Gorbachev worked on the Gorbachev Foundation, which he created to address global priorities in the post-Cold War period, and with the Green Cross foundation, which was formed in 1993 to help cultivate “a more harmonious relationship between humans and the environment.”
Gorbachev took the helm of the small United Social Democratic Party in 2000 in hopes it could fill the vacuum left by the Communist Party, which he said had failed to reform into a modern leftist party after the breakup of the Soviet Union. He resigned from the chairmanship in 2004.
He continued to comment on Russian politics as a senior statesman — even if many of his countrymen were no longer interested in what he had to say.
“The crisis in our country will continue for some time, possibly leading to even greater upheaval,” Gorbachev wrote in a memoir in 1996. “But Russia has irrevocably chosen the path of freedom, and no one can make it turn back to totalitarianism.”
Gorbachev veered between criticism and mild praise for Putin, who has been assailed for backtracking on the democratic achievements of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras.
He said Putin had done much to restore stability and prestige to Russia after the tumultuous decade following the Soviet collapse. He did, however, protest growing limitations on media freedom, and in 2006 bought one of Russia’s last investigative newspapers, Novaya Gazeta, with a businessman associate.
“We should — this is one of our goals — promote the newspaper’s qualitative development in the interests of democratic values,” he said, tacitly criticizing the Kremlin’s efforts to bring Novaya Gazeta and other independent media outlets to heel.
Gorbachev ventured into other new areas in his 70s, winning awards and kudos around the world. He won a Grammy in 2004 along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Italian actress Sophia Loren for their recording of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, and the United Nations named him a Champion of the Earth in 2006 for his environmental advocacy.
Gorbachev is survived by a daughter, Irina, and two granddaughters.
The official news agency Tass reported that Gorbachev will be buried at Moscow’s Novodevichy cemetery next to his wife.
___
Vladimir Isachenkov and Kate de Pury in Moscow contributed. | https://www.krem.com/article/news/nation-world/ex-soviet-leader-mikhail-gorbachev-dies-at-91-russian-media/507-04e685fb-51b5-4cd3-b33a-5ed61ac840d2 | 2022-08-30T22:35:18Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/news/nation-world/ex-soviet-leader-mikhail-gorbachev-dies-at-91-russian-media/507-04e685fb-51b5-4cd3-b33a-5ed61ac840d2 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
If you receive an unsolicited letter in the mail, it might raise suspicions about a potential scam.
That was the case for VERIFY reader Karen when she received a letter purportedly from the U.S. Department of State asking her to take part in a passport study.
“The Office of Passport Services, U.S. Department of State would like to better serve the American public’s need for passport services in the coming months and years. To do this we are conducting interviews with Americans ages 18 and older,” the letter reads in part.
Karen asked in an email, “Is this passport survey from the U.S. Department of State legit?”
THE QUESTION
Are passport study letters from the U.S. State Department real?
THE SOURCES
THE ANSWER
Yes, passport study letters from the U.S. State Department are real.
WHAT WE FOUND
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department told VERIFY that the study and letter are legitimate. The study has been conducted by the State Department since as early as 2008, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office.
Passport Services sends letters to a random sample of 35,000 addresses every month asking them to complete a survey aimed at determining the demand for U.S. passports, according to the State Department spokesperson. The residential addresses are pulled from the U.S. Postal Service’s list.
According to the Office of Budget and Management, the survey helps the State Department and Passport Services make decisions about “staffing, resource allocation, and budget.”
More from VERIFY: Yes, the Facebook internet tracking settlement is real
The survey is conducted by two companies on behalf of the State Department and participation is voluntary. People who receive a letter can participate in the study via phone or online.
A sample of the letter asking people for their participation in the study, provided by the State Department, matches the one that Karen emailed to VERIFY.
The only difference between the sample letter and the one Karen received is the toll-free number to call for participation in the study via phone. The phone number listed on Karen’s letter is legitimate, the State Department spokesperson said.
According to the letter, the survey is estimated to take less than 10 minutes to complete. Here are the two ways to participate if you receive the letter:
- Visit passportplanning.com to complete the survey online and enter the passcode included in your letter.
- Call this toll-free number to complete the survey via phone: 1-888-741-1703
Those who do not respond to the survey will receive a call from the State Department. People who don’t want to participate in the survey can tell the agency during that phone call. | https://www.krem.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/passport-planning-survey-letters-us-state-department-are-real/536-0632d143-322b-4fab-9d3e-5e3cb96de781 | 2022-08-30T22:35:25Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/news/verify/government-verify/passport-planning-survey-letters-us-state-department-are-real/536-0632d143-322b-4fab-9d3e-5e3cb96de781 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK — Baseball’s elite are getting involved with one of Europe’s most celebrated soccer clubs.
The New York Yankees are becoming a minority investor in Italian champion AC Milan, the second soccer team the baseball power will partially own after MLS’s New York City.
A Los Angeles-based fund that includes LeBron James also is becoming a minority investor in the seven-time European champion under RedBird Capital Partners, The Financial Times reported Tuesday. RedBird is nearing a deal to purchase a controlling interest in Milan for 1.2 billion euros ($1.2 billion).
Gerry Cardinale, who founded RedBird in 2014 and is a managing partner, announced a preliminary agreement in June to buy Milan from fellow American firm Elliott Management. The closing is to take place by the end of September.
Yankees Global Enterprises, the baseball team's parent company led by the Steinbrenner family, will take a stake of about 10% in Milan, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the final deal has not been announced.
“We're very confident that the Yankee brand is the most famous sports brand in the world, and we think we can help boost the revenue of AC Milan by being associated with it,” Yankees president Randy Levine said Tuesday.
Milan declined to comment.
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The Yankees agreed in 2013 to purchase a 20% stake in the New York City Major League Soccer team that launched in 2015. City Football Group, Manchester City’s parent company, is the controlling owner.
Yankees Global Enterprises also owns stakes in the YES Network and Legends Hospitality, formed in 2008 with the NFL's Dallas Cowboys.
“It came about based on our relationship with Gerry and RedBird that goes back over 25 years,” Levine said. “The Steinbrenners were one of the original investors in RedBird when Gerry started it. We worked very closely with Gerry when he was at Goldman Sachs in building the YES Network and Legends Hospitality. He was involved with Goldman’s work on the new Yankee Stadium when RedBird was formed and YES was purchased back from Disney, RedBird became a partner with us and YES.”
The Yankees, 27-time World Series champions, are signing a separate marketing agreement with Milan, a 19-time Italian champion, that will include broadcasting replays of games on the YES Network, as Manchester City does. There also will be cross-merchandising between the pinstripes and the Rossoneri.
“We have a little familiarity with soccer — we’ve learned a little since our relationship with City Football Group,” Levine said. “We think it’s a good investment. Like with Man City, we do not intend to get involved in running the soccer side. We leave it to the experts. We've got enough to do on the baseball side.”
New York City plays most of its home games at Yankee Stadium, and Levine is helping lead the search for a site for a soccer stadium for the MLS team.
Milan is coming off its first Italian title in 11 years.
Main Street Advisors, the fund supported by James, also counts the rapper Drake among its partners, as well as English Premier League club Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox.
James and Drake will be passive investors in Milan through the fund and have not taken direct stakes, according to The Financial Times, which first reported the investments.
RedBird also has a stake in Fenway Sports Group, parent company of Liverpool and the Red Sox. Champions League rules prohibit two clubs in the competition from being under the same ownership to protect the integrity of games on the field. UEFA likely will have to make a judgment on the extent of RedBird’s influence on decision-making at Liverpool.
RedBird is set to become Milan’s fourth owner in five years.
Milan was owned by Silvio Berlusconi from 1986 until 2017. Italy’s prime minister from 2001-06 and 2008-11, Berlusconi sold control to a company controlled by Sino-Europe Sports Investment Management Changxing Co. The American hedge fund Elliott provided financing and took control of the team in 2018 when loan payments were not made.
Inter Milan, Roma, Fiorentina and Bologna are among other foreign-owned teams in Serie A.
“Italian soccer is still experiencing financial contraction,” Inter CEO Giuseppe Marotta said of the Milan transaction. “We’ve gone from a period of patronage by the Morattis and the Berlusconis who brought (trophies) to Milan and Inter to a situation in which both clubs have foreign ownership. And thank goodness they came.
“Most of the foreign owners are American and they’ve brought in a new business model, and a different mentality in which economic and financial sustainability is very important.”
Having previously failed to qualify for Europe’s elite competition for seven consecutive years, including a one-year UEFA ban for breaking financial monitoring rules, Milan is playing in the Champions League for a second consecutive season. That competition can increase revenue by about 100 million euros ($100 million) in UEFA prize money and help restore the club’s global brand.
Milan shares one of soccer’s iconic venues, San Siro, with rival Inter Milan. With a capacity of about 80,000, the stadium opened in 1926, was extensively renovated ahead of the 1990 World Cup and is scheduled to host the opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympics. There are few luxury suites and fan amenities in the venue, formally known as Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, and both Milan and Inter have discussed building a new stadium adjacent to the current arena.
“As we help the City Football Group here in New York," Levine said, "in commercial ways and trying to get through a stadium and a whole bunch of other things, we think in our brand there could be synergies between us and Milan that will raise the value of Milan significantly.”
Former longtime team captain Paolo Maldini will stay on as Milan’s technical area director despite the ownership change, a person involved in the negotiations said, adding that Stefano Pioli is safe in his job as Milan’s coach. That person also spoke the AP on condition of anonymity because the final deal has not been announced yet.
The only Italians investing in the deal are media rights executive Riccardo Silva and his brother, Saverio Silva, the person said.
Riccardo Silva owns the Miami soccer club, which plays in the second-tier USL Championship. He founded the Miami team together with Maldini, who withdrew his ownership stake in Miami when he took on his current role at Milan.
The deal could involve players from Milan’s youth academy spending time at Miami.
___
Dampf reported from Rome. AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report. | https://www.krem.com/article/sports/yankees-lebron-james-to-invest-in-ac-milan-soccer-team-new-york-yankees-sports-news-lakers-italian-soccer/535-e70c7506-3166-44e6-8abe-ba35b0ff2c99 | 2022-08-30T22:35:31Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/sports/yankees-lebron-james-to-invest-in-ac-milan-soccer-team-new-york-yankees-sports-news-lakers-italian-soccer/535-e70c7506-3166-44e6-8abe-ba35b0ff2c99 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) – Tonight the low will drop to 55° under clear skies. It’ll feel very comfortable outside! The wind will turn southerly at around 5 MPH.
Quiet sunny weather carries on through this week. Highs will sit near 90° Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Friday evening, there’s a small chance of showers and thunderstorms as the wind shifts northerly. Highs will slip into the lower and middle 80s for the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend.
Highs will hold steady at about 90° heading through next week. Rain chances will remain sparse.
For more from Siouxland’s Accurate Forecast, click here. | https://www.siouxlandproud.com/weather/weather-forecasts/august-30th-pm-sunny-and-relatively-hot-moving-forward/ | 2022-08-30T22:38:23Z | siouxlandproud.com | control | https://www.siouxlandproud.com/weather/weather-forecasts/august-30th-pm-sunny-and-relatively-hot-moving-forward/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
After market close today, ChargePoint (CHPT) released its Fiscal Q2-2023 earnings results. While earnings per share (EPS) missed analysts’ expectations, revenue came in stronger than expected. The company also reaffirmed its guidance for the rest of the year. As a result, the stock is trending higher in the after-hours session.
ChargePoint’s revenue of $108 million grew 93% on a year-over-year basis, beating the consensus estimate of $103 million. This significant increase was driven by a 106% jump in networked charging systems revenue and a 68% increase in subscription revenue. CHPT’s earnings per share came in at -$0.28, missing the -$0.22 estimate, and its Q2 GAAP loss was $92.7 million, worse than the $84.9 million loss in the same quarter last year.
In addition, ChargePoint’s gross profit margin increased by 200 basis points on a quarter-over-quarter basis but dropped by the same amount on a year-over-year basis, reaching 17%. The company ended the quarter with $471.9 million in cash & cash equivalents and $294.3 million in long-term debt.
ChargePoint Provides Q3 Guidance, Reaffirms Fiscal 2023 Outlook
What probably pleased investors, besides the revenue beat, was CHPT’s guidance. For Q3 (ending October 31, 2022), CHPT is projecting revenue of $125 million to $135 million, implying 100% year-over-year growth at the midpoint. For Fiscal 2023, revenue is expected to be between $450 million and $500 million, which would represent a 96% growth rate.
The company also expects its non-GAAP gross margin to come in at 22% to 26%. In the most recent quarter, Chargepoint’s non-GAAP gross margin was 19%; therefore, the company expects improvements on this front.
Importantly, CHPT anticipates that its Fiscal 2023 operating expenses will increase by 50%. While this may seem bad, they will be increasing slower than revenue, which should help with profitability.
What is the Price Target for CHPT Stock?
Turning to Wall Street, Chargepoint stocks earns a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on seven Buys and four Holds assigned in the past three months. The average CHPT stock price prediction of $18.91 implies 30.5% upside potential.
Top TipRanks Investors are Neutral on CHPT Stock
TipRanks currently tracks 729,068 investor portfolios that use the Smart Portfolio tool. The top investors, which amount to 145,813 portfolios, appear neutral on CHPT stock.
In the past 30 days, the number of top-performing TipRanks portfolios holding CHPT increased by just 1.4%, leading to 2% of portfolios holding the stock. However, in the past seven days, this number decreased by 0.5%. ChargePoint’s neutral-to-slightly-negative investor sentiment is still above the sector average, as shown in the image below:
Conclusion: ChargePoint’s Mixed Q2 Results Were Enough to Satisfy Investors
While ChargePoint missed its Q2-EPS estimates, it made up for it by beating revenue expectations and reaffirming its full-year guidance. This caused the stock to rally slightly in the after-hours trading session. Nonetheless, CHPT is still a high-growth, money-losing company that is entering a tough economic period. Therefore, the risks are high. Still, it has the backing of analysts, who are cautiously optimistic about the stock. | https://www.tipranks.com/news/chargepoint-nysechpt-stock-rallies-despite-mixed-q2-results-heres-why | 2022-08-30T22:45:46Z | tipranks.com | control | https://www.tipranks.com/news/chargepoint-nysechpt-stock-rallies-despite-mixed-q2-results-heres-why | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Central Washington’s embracing a host of new challenges as it seeks back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time in 13 years.
Before making their Lone Star Conference debut, the Wildcats open with a trip to Ferris State in Big Rapids, Mich., on Thursday for the program’s first-ever game against Division II’s No. 1 team. Senior safety Jahleel Breland, one of three first-team all-GNAC players back in the secondary, said Central’s ready to take advantage of its significant experience throughout the roster.
“I think we’re a confident team no matter who we go up against,” Breland said. “We know that the guys we’ve got on this field right now, we can go toe-to-toe with anybody.”
The Wildcats have won five of nine games against LSC opponents in the past five years and earned the No. 3 spot in the preseason media poll. Running back Tyler Flanagan said he still feels like they'll be looked at as underdogs, so the nine-game round-robin schedule gives them a great chance to prove themselves.
Head Coach Chris Fisk called it the toughest schedule CWU's played in recent memory, which could be valuable when the playoff committee makes its selections in November. After opening conference play against the bottom four teams in the LSC poll, the Wildcats face the other five teams in five straight weeks.
That stretch begins with a home game against Midwestern State, the defending LSC champs who lost 30-20 at Central last season. Then three weeks later, the Wildcats will try to avenge their only regular-season Division II loss of 2021 at No. 8 Angelo State.
"We've got a lot of familiar faces back," Fisk said. "The challenge of last season was a lot of injuries, so a lot of guys got to play."
Central played Angelo State without quarterback Quincy Glasper, defensive lineman Isaiah Carbajal and cornerback Nate Perkins due to injury, and Tyler Flanagan couldn't carry the football in his first game back from a separated shoulder. All of them should be back and ready to play key roles this fall.
Flanagan's expecting to split carries with a deep running back group featuring North Dakota transfer Cameron McKinney and Stephen F. Austin transfer Tre'Jon Henderson. New running backs coach Chris Schlicting brings valuable experience as a former offensive lineman at Eastern Washington.
"I've just been diving into the film, talking with Coach Fisk, getting to know the O-line play more," Flanagan said. "(Schlicting) knows a lot about line play so I'll be talking to him a lot and so I feel like that's helped me understand a little more 400, 500-level football."
As a pass blocker, he appreciates the elusiveness and playmaking ability of Glasper, who ran for 218 yards last season. Fisk expects the sophomore to once again rely heavily on his top receiver, Darius Morrison, plus Tai-John Mizutani and Idaho State transfer Demonte Horton could provide solid targets.
On the defensive side, Fisk and Breland know it won't be possible to simply replace linebacker Donte Hamilton, the GNAC's defensive player of the year. Between him and fellow senior Zach Stuecklein, Central graduated the two players responsible for more than half of the team's 29.5 sacks.
Only Breland recorded more tackles than Hamilton with 86 in 11 games. He's confident an experienced front seven can make up for what they've lost.
"You got guys like Isaiah Carbajal, Kai Gamble, Christian Penny, and all of those guys are just hungry to get to the quarterback," Breland said. "They make our job easy in the back because they do a good job in the pass game and the ball gets out quick."
They'll face a big test immediately against Ferris State, the Division II leader in yards and points per game last season. The Bulldogs visited Ellensburg in 2019 and looked unstoppable for much of a 62-28 win over the Wildcats.
Although the Ferris State offense still features plenty of explosive athletes, it did lose the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference player of the year, quarterback Jared Barnhart, GLIAC offensive lineman of the year Dylan Pasquali and star running back Tyler Minor. Beating the defending national champs on the road wouldn’t be unprecedented for Central, which beat No. 2 Minnesota Duluth 13-10 on the road in 2009 and routed North Dakota 42-7 in 2002. | https://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/college_sports/cwu_sports/trip-to-1-ferris-state-kicks-off-tough-schedule-for-central-washington/article_c8475cca-2898-11ed-90c3-f7eee88de3ba.html | 2022-08-30T22:47:43Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/college_sports/cwu_sports/trip-to-1-ferris-state-kicks-off-tough-schedule-for-central-washington/article_c8475cca-2898-11ed-90c3-f7eee88de3ba.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Virginia judge dismisses obscenity case seeking to stop sale of 2 books to kids
A Virginia judge on Tuesday dismissed a case that sought to stop the sale of two books to children over alleged obscenity, according to the Virginia Pilot.
Driving the news: The books, "Gender Queer: A Memoir" by Maia Kobabe and "A Court of Mist and Fury" by Sarah J. Maas are not obscene under state law, Virginia Beach Circuit Court Judge Pamela Baskervill ruled, per the Virginia Pilot.
- "Gender Queer: A Memoir" chronicles the author's journey from adolescence to adulthood, including the exploration of gender identity and sexuality.
- "A Court of Mist and Fury" is a part of a fantasy series that documents the protagonist's trials through a web of "politics, passion, and dazzling power, a greater evil looms."
The big picture: Book bans have risen substantially over the last year, as conservative groups have successfully challenged and purged books from public school libraries, generally about LGBTQ issues and people of color, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.
- As the nation's public schools become more diverse, conflicts over what books students can access are posing new questions about free speech, Contreras writes.
What they're saying: Former congressional candidate Tommy Altman and his attorney, Republican State Delegate Tim Anderson initiated the complaint earlier this year and argued that there should be a different standard for obscenity for materials in the hands of minors.
- "Ultimately, my client believes some materials that may not be obscene to adults in some cases should be obscene to children in certain circumstances," Anderson said in an email to Axios.
- Anderson added that although the court declined that request Tuesday, as a state delegate, he intends to start a conversation on book ratings in Virginia's General Assembly next year.
Of note: Barnes & Noble opposed the petition to restrict sales of the two books in a brief filed with the court, per the Virginia Pilot.
- Barnes & Noble did not immediately return Axios' request for comment.
By the numbers: An April report from the American Library Association found over 700 "challenges" to library, school and university materials in 2021, the most since at least 2000, when the organization started tracking them.
- "Gender Queer" was the top most challenged book, according to the report. | https://www.axios.com/2022/08/30/virginia-judge-dismisses-obscenity-case-seeking-book-ban | 2022-08-30T22:50:57Z | axios.com | control | https://www.axios.com/2022/08/30/virginia-judge-dismisses-obscenity-case-seeking-book-ban | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Baseball fans, many of them, believe in frontier justice. So in their minds, the 2017 Houston Astros exist in an orbit of sporting purgatory, their World Series victory removed from the record book, stripped of the Commissioner’s Trophy, vacating their championship like a renegade college basketball program.
In their minds, Barry Bonds is the proud owner of two asterisks: one for the all-time home run record (762), one for the single-season home run record (73, set in 2001).
Read both sides: The Aaron Judge home run debate
61 is the real record
PEDs or not, 73 is the number to beat
Roger Maris remains the real single-season home run record holder. In our hearts and minds, we all know that to be true.
Pick up a copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia, click on baseball-reference.com, look at baseball’s official record books, the home run record is 73.
And here’s the thing: Baseball fans are perfectly within their rights to feel that way. They are well within their personal purview to refuse to acknowledge the ’17 Astros, or any of Bonds’ career achievements after, say, 1998 or so, which is when it is generally believed he began to dabble in the dark arts of PEDs.
But that doesn’t mean those things didn’t happen.
Because, like it or not, they did. If you pick up a copy of the Baseball Encyclopedia, if you click on baseball-reference.com, if you look at baseball’s official record books, the Astros did, indeed, defeat the Dodgers in seven games in the 2017 World Series. They remain the champions for that year. As Casey said, you could look it up.
And Bonds’ single-season record of 73 is also in those same places. For baseball ethicists, what’s especially galling is that Roger Maris’ 61 home runs — the “clean” record — isn’t just absent from the official statistics; Maris actually sits seventh. And Babe Ruth is EIGHTH. It is a list dripping with infamy:
- Barry Bonds, 2001, 73*
- Mark McGwire, 1998, 70*
- Sammy Sosa, 1998, 66*
- Mark McGwire, 1999, 65*
- Sammy Sosa, 2001, 64*
- Sammy Sosa, 1999, 63*
- Roger Maris, 1961, 61
- Babe Ruth, 1927, 60
When Ruth hit No. 60 off Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators on Sept. 30, 1927, he famously crowed in the Yankees clubhouse: “Sixty! Count ’em! Let’s see some other son of a bitch match that!”
Well, five other SOBs not only matched it, but surpassed it. And four of them did so with needles and syringes taking the place of Ruth’s preferred PEDs of hot dogs and soda pop. It was a terrible time in baseball. It was a time of deceit and skirting laws. But, notably, there was no steroid policy on the books then.
Maybe that would’ve made a difference. Probably, it wouldn’t. The fact is the record is 73. It belongs to Bonds. It’s gross, sure. It’s wrong. And maybe someday a commissioner will assume office who feels it is his mission and his duty to cleanse the record books. It will not be the present commissioner, who had the power to take the Astros’ title away and didn’t.
So Bonds it is. For better or for worse.
And yes: For Yankees fans, the home run record is a personal thing. Ruth set the record his first year as a Yankee, hitting 54 in 1920. He bumped it up to 59 the next season before setting what for decades seemed the impossible standard of 60. He held the record for 34 years, and when it was time to fall it was two more Yankees — Maris and Mickey Mantle — who chased the magic number all across that summer of ’61 until Maris took Tracy Stallard deep and into the right-field stands and into the hands of a fan named Sal Durante on the last day of the season.
(In a bitter irony, Maris was forced to see his name attached to an actual asterisk for 30 years because he hit 61 in a 162-game season before Fay Vincent and an eight-man panel finally removed it in 1991.)
So yes: It would almost be poetic if Judge could be declared the record-holder if and when he swats No. 62. And there are a lot of people — not just Yankees fans — who will happily make such a pronouncement.
It just won’t be official.
It won’t erase Bonds’ name from the record book.
Only a 74th home run — or a future commissioner with Vincent’s sensitivities for righting past wrongs — will do that. Which is just as well for angry Yankee fans, who tend to grow quieter when asked if the presence of Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Jose Canseco on their dynasty-boy teams from 1996-2000 ought to be handled with similarly draconian scrutiny.
No. For now, for the foreseeable future, 73 is the record. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to recognize it. But that’s the way it is. | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/aaron-judge-home-run-debate-hes-chasing-bonds-not-maris/ | 2022-08-30T22:53:29Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/aaron-judge-home-run-debate-hes-chasing-bonds-not-maris/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
President Biden repeatedly shouted that he wasn’t “joking” and that he was “serious” during a stump speech in Pennsylvania on Tuesday — as he addressed reducing gun violence and a renewed push to ban assault-style weapons.
Biden uttered the two phrases at least half-a dozen times during his 30-minute address to a crowd of more than 500 stone-faced supporters in Wilkes-Barre while touting his administration’s crime-prevention efforts.
The 79-year-old used his remarks in the swing state to continue to pressure Congress to revive a long-expired federal ban on assault-style weapons, arguing there was no rationale for such weapons “outside of a war zone.”
“No, I’m not joking,” he told the crowd at Wilkes University at one point after mentioning how parents in the recent Uvalde, Texas school massacre had to supply DNA to identify their slain children.
“I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined. I did it once before. And I’ll do it again,” he continued, referring to the leading role he played in temporarily banning assault-style weapons as a US senator.
Elsewhere, Biden insisted again — “I’m not joking” — as he praised law enforcement in the crowd and criticized the Defund Police movement.
“I’ve not met a cop who likes a bad cop,” he said. “There’s lousy senators, there’s lousy presidents, there’s lousy doctors, there’s lousy lawyers. No, I’m serious. But I don’t know any police officer that feels good about the fact that there may be a lousy cop.”
He went on to defend the FBI after the agency faced backlash in the wake of the raid on former president Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“It’s sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI, threatening the life of law enforcement and their families, for simply carrying out the law and doing their job,” Biden said.
“I’m opposed to defunding the police; I’m also opposed to defunding the FBI.”
Despite raising his voice multiple times during Tuesday’s stump speech, Biden’s rhetoric was considerably toned down compared to last week’s Maryland rally when he raged that MAGA philosophy was “semi-fascism.”
Biden only mentioned the phrase “MAGA Republicans” twice as he accused GOP lawmakers of refusing to condemn those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress: Don’t tell me support law enforcement if you won’t condemn what happened on the 6th. You can’t do it. For God’s sake. Whose side are you on?” he raged. | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/biden-keeps-shouting-hes-serious-in-assault-weapon-ban-speech/ | 2022-08-30T22:53:42Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/biden-keeps-shouting-hes-serious-in-assault-weapon-ban-speech/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Purchase this set in the store for the cheapest (only around €8 if it still applies now on all models in it.) You just have an opportunity purchase all models together for much fair price rather it should buy single items individually - you buy single items and waste the \"other items/stock remaining from set X or whatever is cheaper than if were not bundled as single model). Now if those \"deferred/stock remained (or still the deal that the single thing you pick Mel Tucker looking for focus from his team heading into opener
Michigan State is large favorite heading into Friday night's season opener against Western Michigan at Spartan Stadium.
Spartans head coach Mel Tucker is doing his best to make sure his team doesn't take the Broncos lightly.
"We are watching the film and whatever we've seen in their personnel and their film, they are going to be better than that," Tucker said about WMU. "They are going to be way better than that. They are going to be way more intense than that, they are going to be stronger than that , they are going to be faster than that, they are going to be more physical than that. So that is our focus, we have to play our fannies off.
Friday's game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. kickoff and will air on ESPN. | https://www.fox17online.com/sports/ncaa/mel-tucker-on-playing-wmu-we-have-to-play-our-fannies-off | 2022-08-30T22:53:48Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/sports/ncaa/mel-tucker-on-playing-wmu-we-have-to-play-our-fannies-off | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The Issue: The partial release of the affidavit supporting the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago.
First, it was the Steele dossier, then it was the two impeachment efforts, then it was the Jan. 6 hearings and now we have the raid on President Donald Trump’s home (“Worst kept secrets,” Aug. 27).
When the redacted document was shown to the press, I had to stare in disbelief. It looked like 95% of what was there was blacked out.
All of this while Hunter Biden’s laptop was in possession of the FBI for over two years, and there has been not a peep from it.
More and more, it looks like the FBI needs restructuring, and there needs to be elimination of all the bad apples.
Harry Winkler
West Palm Beach, Fla.
Once again, we’re letting Trump misdirect, obfuscate and delay, delay, delay (which were, admittedly, his great strengths in the business world).
The issue is not “were the documents discovered in his possession classified or not?” but rather, “why was he in possession of government documents of any sort?”
As a former president, he has no legitimate reason to have any government documents in his possession.
Ian Randal Strock
Brooklyn
I remember reading many accounts of questionable handling of classified information — going all the way back to Sandy Berger stealing classified documents from the archives, former President Bill Clinton “misplacing” nuclear codes that went missing for weeks and Hillary Clinton storing classified documents on an unauthorized server and the millions of documents in the possession of President Barack Obama, who promised to digitize them and properly file them, which is still not done.
Other than with Trump, there was no “crisis” — no raids on the personal homes of these people.
The Democrats are desperately trying to motivate their far-left base to avoid losing power after this year’s election.
Joseph J. Grassi
Port Saint Lucie, Fla.
Trump’s supporters, including many members of Congress, demanded that the basis for the Mar-a-lago search warrant be revealed, and now, it has been.
It shows that the former president believed that he had a right to retain myriad classified, secret and top secret documents which belong in the National Archives, many of which could severely compromise national security if they fell into the wrong hands.
What difference is the release of the affidavit going to make? Trump’s diehard supporters, who believe his lie that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 election, accept any atrocious thing that he says or does, so they will continue to believe that — despite his improperly retaining boxes of government documents — he is being persecuted by Biden and the Democrats.
Oren Spiegler
Peters Township, Pa.
Day after day, all we hear is how Trump’s actions have put our nation’s security at risk — yet when it came to Hillary’s unsecured server and all of Hunter’s shady deals, not a word was said about how their actions undermined national security.
The media, helped by the hysteria coming from the Democratic-controlled Congress, have done nothing but stoke divisiveness against Trump and ignore and hide the crooked dealings of Hillary and Hunter.
Vote Republican this November and stop this partisan madness.
Alan Brooks
Brooklyn
If it’s not the deep state or the media that bear responsibility for Trump’s troubles, then who is the guilty party? Could it be the former president himself?
Before he lost his battle with Alzheimer’s, former President Ronald Reagan organized his memoirs and supervised the creation of the Reagan Presidential Library. President Jimmy Carter established The Carter Center, and George W. Bush pursued his passion for painting, with one collection dedicated to veterans.
The common thread for these post presidencies, like so many others, is dignity and decorum — attributes yet to appear in Trump’s Oval Office afterlife.
Jim Paladino
Tampa, Fla.
Want to weigh in on today’s stories? Send your thoughts (along with your full name and city of residence) to letters@nypost.com. Letters are subject to editing for clarity, length, accuracy and style. | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/letters-to-the-editor-aug-31-2022/ | 2022-08-30T22:54:19Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/letters-to-the-editor-aug-31-2022/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Is it always sunny in the world of morning television?
At least for Savannah Guthrie, there are real estate escapes where she can flee from the alleged tension on the set of “Today” between her and co-host Hoda Kotb.
For instance, earlier this month, Guthrie said that she had overslept — arriving to the studio just 20 minutes before she was set to go live at 7 a.m. But TV insiders said this was more than a silly faux pas. Instead, Guthrie, 50, deliberately overslept to show NBC News “who is the real boss,” according to Page Six.
The rumored feud between the two big-name television hosts allegedly stems from Guthrie seeing herself as the show’s leading news anchor, though Kotb is more popular among viewers, Page Six added, creating “an underlying competitiveness” between the two.
However, on Tuesday, an insider told The Post that reports on the rumored animosity between the two are false.
Still, what’s good is that Guthrie has two homes where she can kick up her feet away from the spotlight.
The longtime NBC anchor lives in a roughly 3,700-square-foot home in New York’s affluent Tribeca when filming the show. And when off the clock, Guthrie, her husband Michael Feldman and their children unwind upstate in the tony Hudson Valley town of Rhinebeck.
Manhattan condo — Tribeca: $7.1 million
Guthrie and Feldman purchased a four-bedroom, four-bathroom condo in Tribeca for $7.1 million in 2017. They upgraded to the more-than 3,700-square-foot home after listing their 2,690-square-foot abode in the same neighborhood that year.
A keyed elevator entry opens into a foyer accented with bluestone and oak screen detail, a previous listing of the home says. The great room features 50 feet of city views and comes with a wet bar and an under-counter SubZero refrigerator.
Meanwhile, the kitchen opens to the living and dining rooms, and comes with a marble center island and a wine refrigerator.
The primary suite boasts a walk-in dressing room and a five-fixture bath, which includes Carrara marble walls, a soaking tub, a rain shower and a hand shower with thermostatic controls.
The second bedroom has an ensuite shower, while the third and fourth bedrooms share a Jack and Jill bathroom.
Upstate New York house — Rhinebeck: $2.7 million
In 2014, Guthrie and Feldman, who married that year, shelled out $2.7 million for a five-bedroom, five-bathroom Hudson Valley estate overlooking the Catskills.
Spanning 7,000 square feet, the estate is on 20 acres.
Known as Moonstruck Ridge, the home was built in 2011.
Perched high on a scenic ridge facing the mountains, features include white oak flooring, 10-foot ceilings, chef’s kitchen, first-floor primary suite, artist studio, gym, a grand scale porch and four fireplaces.
It also boasts a sprawling garden and a pool.
It’s a 10-minute drive from Rhinebeck and two hours from New York City.
Guthrie often talked about her time in the home during the quarantine period at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m home, I’m home. The reason is because my family is upstate,” she explained during an episode of the NBC show in April 2020. “So I’m sticking close to the family and coming to the city less and less. I’m trying to work from home and also, frankly, this is what those officials are telling us to do. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
The home is worth about $4.5 million today. | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/savannah-guthrie-has-two-homes-to-escape-alleged-today-feud/ | 2022-08-30T22:55:01Z | nypost.com | control | https://nypost.com/2022/08/30/savannah-guthrie-has-two-homes-to-escape-alleged-today-feud/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
DOVER, Del. - Delaware State Auditor Kathy McGuiness was denied a new trial Tuesday after being found guilty for several misdemeanor charges related to her work in office.
A Kent County Superior Court jury on July 1 found McGuiness, a Democrat elected in 2018, guilty of three misdemeanor counts of conflict of interest, official misconduct and structuring a contract with a consulting firm to avoid compliance with state procurement rules. McGuiness was acquitted of felony charges of theft and witness intimidation.
Despite calls to resign, McGuiness has said she will remain in office and is also seeking re-election.
On Tuesday Delaware Senate Leadership issued the following statement:
“As leaders of the Delaware Senate, we called on Auditor Kathy McGuiness to resign when she was first indicted on multiple criminal charges in late 2021. We again called on her to resign when she was found guilty of those crimes by a jury of her peers.
After she repeatedly refused to put the public’s interests ahead of her own, we held a special session where the Senate voted to call on Governor John Carney and our colleagues in the House to begin removal proceedings, a Constitutional power granted to the General Assembly that was dismissed as political theater.
Delawareans have had enough.
Now that she has been tried and convicted of multiple crimes and her request for a new trial has been denied, Kathy McGuiness owes it to the people of Delaware to do what is right and step down before she is forced out of the elected office that the Attorney General, a jury and a Superior Court judge all agree she used to violate the public’s trust.”
McGuiness has not yet commented on being denied a new trial. She faces challenger Lydia York in the democratic primary September 13. | https://www.wboc.com/news/delaware-state-auditor-mcguiness-denied-new-trial/article_d1b52e38-28af-11ed-bfc0-2f105489f8d2.html | 2022-08-30T22:56:18Z | wboc.com | control | https://www.wboc.com/news/delaware-state-auditor-mcguiness-denied-new-trial/article_d1b52e38-28af-11ed-bfc0-2f105489f8d2.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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