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With stage one well underway with Derek Kraus starting on the pole before Chandler Smith while working heavy traffic allow him to take over lead for the first time of the night. Boyd would be the first victim of the night getting into the wall but not drawing a caution. Boyd would drive his car to pit road with a tire down and a fire under the hood before going to the garage and ending his night.
Within laps Reaume well back in the field would lose the truck backing it into the wall off turn two before Caruth would slide in later and smack the side of Reaume truck that has already come to a stop on the bottom of the track. Reaume would be taken by ambulance to a local hospital after visiting the infield care center for further evaluation.
Nemechek who had gone to a backup truck and Zane Smith who also didn’t qualify had been able to work themselves up into 26th and 24th respectively just prior to the caution coming out with Chandler Smith closing in as the lead truck.
When the stage one caution would fall Chandler Smith would cross the line first over Friesen, Kraus, DiBenedetto and Enfinger.
Just as the race was starting to hit a rhythm Mosack would loop his truck off turn two keeping it off the wall to bring out the third caution of the night.
Stage two would come to a close just as stage one did with Chandler Smith taking home the stage win followed by Friesen, Eckes, Rhodes and Taylor Gray.
While closing in on 50 to go Eckes would get into Hacker down the back sending him spinning into turn three to bring out the fifth caution of the night.
With just 20 to go tempers began to flare when Thompson and Tanner Gray got together in turn three after Thompson had blocked Gray multiple times. This time however Tanner would get into the rear of Thompson hooking him and backing the truck into the wall. Thompson would take his truck to the garage to end his night.
As the final green flag went in the air for the night Majeski would clear away with the lead setting sail for the final 12 laps of the night. When it was all over with Ty Majeski would take him the win in Bristol and lock himself into the 2022 Truck Series Championship race in Phoenix.
The Camping World Truck Series returns to Talladega Superspeedway October 1st for the second round of eight. | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73025-cwts-ty-majeski-wins-unoh-200-at-bristol-locks-into-championship-race-in-phoenix | 2022-09-16T18:18:28Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73025-cwts-ty-majeski-wins-unoh-200-at-bristol-locks-into-championship-race-in-phoenix | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Quote: You know what happened tonight, you finished in the Top-5, but still fall below that cut line, so what do you take away from Bristol?
“Yeah, I mean honestly, we’re in the same position that we were coming here. I feel like we are in a must-win situation, but we gave it everything we could. We had a pretty okay Champion Power Equipment Chevy. If we could have gotten out to the lead, we could have stole it. But running fifth, we were a fifth place truck; running fifteenth, we were a fifteenth place truck. It is what it is, we made the right call to try and win the race there. I don’t know if we were good enough to do that, but that was the strategy that we chose. I think we would have balanced out either way points wise, but we would have had a worse finish if we opted for the stage points. But overall, we were making gains; anytime we show up to a short track, we want to contend for a win, and we didn’t do that tonight. [I was] hoping to steal one tonight, but congratulations to Ty and those guys, they did a great job tonight.”
Yeah, he was able to get his first win. Now, you are a student of the sport, I know that you watch all of these guys and watch how these races unfold, but as you look ahead to these next two races in this Round of 8, what do you need to do inside of the truck?
“I think we need to be aggressive and go for a win, you know? Yeah, it’s possible to point our way in, but I’m not banking on that. Obviously, we’re going to Talladega, the hometown track next, which is enjoyable, but definitely you can’t count on anything there. But I’m really looking forward to finishing the year off strong. I feel like we’ve got an opportunity to win anytime we show up. You know Hensley and I have run really well at Homestead as well. I feel like we can win either of these next two, and that’s what we’ve got to do.” | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73026-gms-racing-ncwts-race-recap-bristol-motor-speedway | 2022-09-16T18:18:35Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73026-gms-racing-ncwts-race-recap-bristol-motor-speedway | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan have killed about 100 troops on both sides in the largest outbreak of fighting between the longtime adversaries in nearly two years, fueling fears of even bigger hostilities.
Here is a look at the decades-long conflict between the two neighbors, and the latest clashes.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Armenia and Azerbaijan have faced each other off in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for more than three decades.
The mountainous region is part of Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.
The territory in the southern Caucasus covers an area of roughly 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), about the size of the U.S. state of Delaware.
During the Soviet era, the mostly Armenian-populated region had an autonomous status within Azerbaijan. Long-simmering tensions between Christian Armenians and mostly Muslim Azeris, fueled by memories of the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million Armenians by Muslim Ottoman Turks, boiled over as the Soviet Union frayed in its final years.
Fighting broke out in 1988 when the region made a bid to join Armenia, and after the 1991 Soviet collapse hostilities escalated into a full-blown war, killing an estimated 30,000 people and displacing about 1 million.
When the war ended with a cease-fire in 1994, Armenian forces not only held Nagorno-Karabakh itself but also broad areas outside the territory’s borders.
International mediation efforts over the following decades failed to achieve a diplomatic settlement.
THE 2020 WAR
On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan launched an operation called “Iron Fist” to reclaim control over Nagorno-Karabakh.
NATO-member Turkey, which has close ethnic, cultural and historic bonds with Azerbaijan, offered it strong support.
In six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery, rockets and drones that killed more than 6,700 people, Azeri troops drove Armenian forces out of areas they controlled outside the separatist region and also seized broad chunks of Nagorno-Karabakh proper.
A Russia-brokered peace deal on Nov. 10 allowed Azerbaijan to reclaim control of the areas occupied by Armenian forces outside Nagorno-Karabakh for nearly three decades, including the Lachin region, which holds the main road leading from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. Armenian forces also agreed to surrender control over significant sections of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Russia has deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers under the deal.
The agreement triggered years of protests in Armenia, where the opposition denounced it as a betrayal of the country’s interests and called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Pashinyan has weathered the pressure, defending the deal as the only way to prevent Azerbaijan from seizing all of Nagorno-Karabakh.
AND THE NEW HOSTILITIES?
Sporadic clashes between Azeri and Armenian forces have repeatedly erupted in the area, but the fighting that began Tuesday was the most serious since the 2020 peace deal.
Both sides blamed each other for starting hostilities, with Armenia accusing Azerbaijan of an unprovoked attack and Baku saying it was responding to shelling by Armenian forces.
Armenia said at least 49 of its soldiers were killed while Azerbaijan said it lost 50.
Russia moved quickly to help negotiate an end to hostilities, but a cease-fire it tried to broker has failed to hold and clashes have continued.
Late Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin chaired a call with leaders of countries belonging to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a Moscow-dominated grouping of several ex-Soviet nations that includes Armenia. The leaders agreed to send a fact-finding mission including top officials from the grouping to the conflict area. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-explainer-whats-behind-the-new-armenia-azerbaijan-fighting/ | 2022-09-16T18:18:44Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-explainer-whats-behind-the-new-armenia-azerbaijan-fighting/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Final Stage Recap:
· Before hitting pit road, Smith communicated to Stockman “too tight on exit, entry is fine.” The veteran crew chief ordered up a four-tire and fuel stop with a wedge adjustment and the No. 18 Safelite Tundra TRD Pro would be the first truck to exit pit road.
· Fourteen trucks had remained on track, leaving Smith the 15th driver to elect their position for the ensuing restart. The talented youngster would start his climb back through the field from the top of the seventh row when the Final Stage went green on lap 121.
· On lap 125 he was scored 13th and on lap 136 cracked the top 10. He was scored in the eighth position when the fifth caution of the night occurred with 50 laps remaining.
· The Georgia driver chose to start from the top of the fourth row when the field went back green on lap 156. He made a strong surge heading into Turn 1 but was forced to get on the brakes as another competitor in front of him didn’t get as strong of a restart.
· When the sixth and final caution waved on lap 179, Smith was scored in the eighth position. He communicated to Stockman that he was still “a tick too snug.”
· The Safelite Tundra lined up at the top of the fourth row for the final restart of the race with 12 laps remaining. Smith was scored eighth with 10 laps remaining but lost one position in the closing laps and crossed the stripe ninth. It was his fifth top-10 finish across the last six races.
Chandler Smith, driver of the No. 18 Safelite Tundra TRD Pro for KBM:
Do you feel like you did enough today for your run towards the Championship 4?
“I guess it is an okay day. I know how stage points really matter – every little bit counts, especially if two drivers win these next two races and they’re Playoff drivers. We want to go to Talladega or Miami and win it, so we don’t have to worry about pointing our way in though. We had this one circled to win. I felt like we had a dominant truck. We had a really, really fast Safelite Toyota Tundra TRD Pro tonight. Once we went stage racing, they played track position at the very end and the 66 (Ty Majeski) and 38 (Zane Smith) were able to get up front. Us and the 52 (Stewart Friesen) were the only two that passed all night. I don’t know how to fix that. It wasn’t good fun racing; I can promise you that. Us as a group, we were just a little bit too tight coming back through the field. I felt like if we were freer, we would have had something for them, but we ran so many caution laps as well. We would have probably run out of time no matter what.”
UNOH 200 Recap
- Ty Majeski earned the first win of his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series career and will advance to the Championship 4. Zane Smith, Parker Kligerman, Grant Enfinger and Matt Crafton rounded out the top-five finishers.
- There were six cautions for 49 laps and three lead changes among four drivers, including Smith who led a race-high 89 laps. Smith now leads the series in total laps led this season with 423.
How Chandler Smith's KBM Teammates Fared:
· Corey Heim, driver of the No. 51 Toyota, finished 10th
· John Hunter Nemechek, driver of the No. 4 Toyota, finished 12th
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship Standings
Smith leaves the opening race in the Round of 8 with the most points of any driver (3076) but with Majeski’s win locking him into the Championship 4, sits second on the playoff grid 23 points above the cutoff line for advancing.
Next Race:
Smith will be behind the wheel of the No. 18 iBUYPOWER Tundra TRD Pro when the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series heads to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway Oct. 1 for the second race of the Round of 8. Live coverage of the event will be on FS1, Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM at 12:30 p.m. ET.
KBM PR | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73040-after-winning-opening-two-stages-chandler-smith-finishes-ninth-at-bristol | 2022-09-16T18:19:00Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73040-after-winning-opening-two-stages-chandler-smith-finishes-ninth-at-bristol | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
· Nemechek once again brought his No. 4 Tundra down pit road at the stage break for four new tires and a top off of fuel before restarting the final stage in 18th.
· As the laps began to click off in the final stage, Nemechek started to deal with the same handling issues he faced in the second stage as his Tundra began to tighten up again.
· When the final caution of the night came out on lap 180, Nemechek was scored in 14th. The second-generation driver was able to gain two more spots over the final 12 laps and took the checkered flag in 12th.
John Hunter Nemechek, driver of the No. 4 Mobil 1 Tundra TRD Pro:
Can you talk about your race after having to go to a back-up truck?
“We had a fast truck in practice. We got behind by blowing a right front tire. All my guys scrambled hard and gave us a fast piece. Racing here sucked tonight, honestly. I don’t want to say that, but you couldn’t pass. It was super hard to pass. Heck, the 38 (Zane Smith) and I started in the back, almost went a lap down early on, running the bottom, couldn’t really make the bottom work. I thought the PJ1 was going to wear out tonight, and it didn’t. We were just one adjustment behind, I feel like, all night. You get that when you get behind from the start of the race.”
UNOH 200 Recap:
- Ty Majeski earned his first Camping World Truck Series victory and locked himself in to the Championship 4. Zane Smith, Parker Kligerman, Grant Enfinger, and Matt Crafton rounded out the top-five finishes.
- There were six cautions for 49 laps and three lead changes among four drivers.
How John Hunter Nemechek's KBM Teammates Fared:
· Chandler Smith, driver of the No. 18 Toyota, finish ninth.
· Corey Heim, driver of the No. 51 Toyota, finished 10th.
NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Championship Standings
After the first race in the Round of 8, Nemechek finds himself just nine tallies below the cutoff line to advance to the Championship 4 at Phoenix (Ariz.) Raceway.
Next Race
John Hunter Nemechek and the No. 4 Pye-Barker Fire & Safety team will return to action on Oct. 1 when the Camping World Truck Series playoffs continue at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. Live coverage of the Talladega 250 will be on FS1, Motor Racing Network, and SiriusXM at 12:30 p.m. ET.
KBM PR | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73041-john-hunter-nemechek-finishes-12th-in-round-of-8-opener-at-bristol | 2022-09-16T18:19:06Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73041-john-hunter-nemechek-finishes-12th-in-round-of-8-opener-at-bristol | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
LONDON (AP) — Reports that up to 100 staff at King Charles III’s former residence could lose their jobs have drawn criticism of the British monarchy, within days of his accession to the throne.
The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that dozens of staff at Clarence House, Charles’ former official residence, were given notice that their jobs were on the line. The report said the notices came in the midst of a busy period of transition as Charles and his wife Camilla, the queen consort, move to Buckingham Palace after Queen Elizabeth II’s death on Thursday.
The Public and Commercial Services Union called the royals’ decision to inform staff of job cuts during a period of mourning “nothing short of heartless.”
“While some changes across the households were to be expected, as roles across the royal family change, the scale and speed at which this has been announced is callous in the extreme,” the union’s general secretary, Mark Serwotka, said
Britain is in a national period of mourning until Monday, when the queen’s state funeral will be held.
In a statement, Clarence House said that following Charles’ accession, operations of his and Camilla’s household “have ceased” and “as required by law, a consultation process has begun.”
“Our staff have given long and loyal service and, while some redundancies will be unavoidable, we are working urgently to identify alternative roles for the greatest possible number of staff,” the statement added.
The Guardian said one unnamed member of Charles’ staff told the newspaper that “everyone is absolutely livid … people were visibly shaken by it.”
The criticism added to negative press for the 73-year-old monarch after two videos showing him visibly irritated by a leaky pen and a pen holder went viral on social media in recent days.
In one video, Charles was seen losing his temper at a leaking pen while he was signing a visitors’ book in front of cameras in Northern Ireland, where he was visiting Tuesday on the latest leg of his royal tour of the U.K.’s four nations.
Charles was heard exclaiming “Oh god I hate this!” and muttering “I can’t bear this bloody thing … every stinking time.”
The video came after another pen-related incident on Saturday, when the new monarch was seen gesturing in irritation at his staff when a pen holder got in his way as he signed a document during his accession ceremony.
Charles has been under intense media scrutiny and had a grueling schedule since his mother’s death in Scotland on Thursday. He and Camilla flew from Scotland to London for his accession ceremony and a visit to Parliament to address legislators, before flying back to Scotland where he walked behind the queen’s coffin.
He then jetted to Northern Ireland on Tuesday and returned to London the same night, in time for the procession of the queen’s coffin from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall on Wednesday.
___
Follow AP coverage of Queen Elizabeth II at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-leaky-pen-and-staff-job-cuts-king-charles-under-scrutiny/ | 2022-09-16T18:19:06Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-leaky-pen-and-staff-job-cuts-king-charles-under-scrutiny/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghan and Pakistani authorities blamed each other Wednesday for an overnight clash at the border that caused casualties on both sides.
Taliban in a statement Wednesday said that Afghan authorities tried to stop Pakistani forces form building a check point close to the border in eastern Paktia province’s Dand-e Patan district, but the Pakistani forces opened fire.
Pakistan’s military said in a statement that three soldiers were killed in the country’s northwest by militant fire from across the Afghan border Tuesday night. The attack hit a border security post in Kurram, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman for the Taliban’s government said that by understanding, no military installations can be built near the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But Pakistani forces tried to build a post. Some people approached them to talk and discuss the matter, when suddenly the Pakistani forces opened fire, said Karimi.
“The issue is under investigation and (Taliban) leaders have been informed,” Karimi said.
Both Pakistan and Afghanistan accuse each other of providing sanctuaries to their enemy insurgents — something both sides deny. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-pakistan-taliban-say-border-crossfire-caused-casualties/ | 2022-09-16T18:19:21Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-pakistan-taliban-say-border-crossfire-caused-casualties/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Chase Purdy ran inside the top-10 for a significant portion of Thursday night’s UNOH 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway (BMS) before sustaining severe damage on the race’s final restart which relegated him to a 30th-place finish. The driver of the No. 61 Gunma Toyopet Toyota Tundra TRD Pro remains 16th in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series point standings with three races remaining.
Purdy took the green flag from 24th position and began methodical progress in the opening stage. A tight condition from the center through the exit of BMS’ high banks posed a challenge for Purdy, yet he managed to run 16th at the end of Stage 1 on lap 55. Crew chief Matt Lucas elected to keep Purdy on track during the first stage caution to preserve track position.
The Meridian, Miss. driver restarted 12th on lap 66 and quickly vaulted himself to seventh position until the race’s second natural caution occurred on lap 85. Purdy once again kept his Gunma Toyopet Toyota Tundra TRD Pro on track which placed him in prime position to garner stage points on lap 110. Purdy was scored sixth after running consistent laps for the balance of the segment on lap 110 and made his first pit stop during the stage caution.
The HRE squad armed Purdy with four tires, fuel, and a track bar adjustment to correct his tight handling condition under the lap 111 caution period. He restarted 23rd on lap 122 after pitting and fought dense traffic for the remainder of the event. With 30 laps remaining, Purdy radioed the team that the balance had built tighter and lined up 24th for the race’s final restart on lap 189. It was then when Purdy experienced terminal trouble as he was turned sideways into Turn 1 on the restart. He suffered significant contact to the left side door and left front fender of his Toyota Tundra TRD Pro. He was forced to pit road under green flag conditions in the waning laps which relegated him to a 30th-place result.
Chase Purdy Quote:
“We had a pretty strong Gunma Toyopet Toyota Tundra TRD Pro tonight when we were able to get that track position in the second stage. We had a lot of pace in our truck when we weren’t back in traffic and that was good to see. I fought being tight most of the night, and when we got back in traffic, it just made it worse. We had a lot fresher tires on that last run, but it wasn’t quite enough to get back towards the front. We’ll regroup and try to put ourselves in a good position to contend at Talladega in a couple weeks.”
HRE PR | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73044-purdy-s-top-10-run-at-bristol-ends-with-30th-place-result | 2022-09-16T18:19:24Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/nascar-truck-series-news/73044-purdy-s-top-10-run-at-bristol-ends-with-30th-place-result | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
There are hundreds of reasons why Eldora Speedway is the place to be on Friday, Sept. 23 and Saturday, Sept. 24.
But to whittle it down in the style set by David Letterman, here are the top 10 reasons why drivers and fans alike can’t wait for the 40th running of the 4-Crown Nationals at the world’s greatest dirt track Sept. 23-24.
- The 4-Crown Nationals is the only event all year where fans can see the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink sprint cars, the top three divisions of USAC (USAC Silver Crown, the USAC AMSOIL national sprint cars, and the USAC NOS Energy Drink national midgets), and the Tezos All Star Circuit of Champions sprint cars on the same track on the same weekend. Friday night’s program consists of full programs for the WoO sprints and the USAC midgets plus USAC Silver Crown qualifying. Saturday night’s show features the USAC Silver Crown race and full programs for the All Star sprints and USAC sprints and midgets. Whether fans prefer wings or non-wings, it’s heaven on Earth for open-wheel fans.
- Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Eldora’s USAC dates were rained out in May, so the 4-Crown Nationals is the only event for that sanctioning body at Eldora this year.
- WoO sprint car fans agree that Eldora is one of that series’ crown jewels of tracks. Friday night, Sept. 23 is the series’ final visit to Eldora this year. David Gravel and Brent Marks were the stars of the WoO shows earlier this year at Eldora. Gravel won the Joker’s Wild and the Knight Before the King’s Royal, while Marks won the Historical Big One and the King’s Royal. Will they be able to win again on Friday, or will someone else celebrate in victory lane that night?
- It’s going to be a long winter. The 4-Crown Nationals is Eldora’s final race of the season, so fans are going to want to savor every moment. The sights, sounds and smells of Eldora are special, the concession stand food is delicious, and new friends or life-long ones will be found throughout the grandstands and the lawn seating areas. Many race fans love to camp, and camping at Eldora is always fun. The 4-Crown Nationals is paradise for T-shirt shoppers. All of these fans will be making memories on crisp, clear autumn nights while they can, trying not to think about shoveling snow under gray, gloomy skies this winter.
- If one is good, then two is great. Fans can see two full, regular programs for the USAC NOS Energy Drink national midgets back to back on Friday and Saturday nights.
- Title fights spur the competition to new heights.
With three races remaining there are only 57 points between leader Kody Swanson and second-place Logan Seavey in the USAC Silver Crown point standings, 524 to 467. C.J. Leary, Brian Tyler and Justin Grant are right behind them.
At press time the top five in USAC sprints are Grant, Brady Bacon, Leary, Robert Ballou and rookie Emerson Axsom.
At press time Buddy Kofoid tops the USAC midget point standings followed by Grant, Cannon McIntosh, Bryant Wiedeman and rookie Mitchel Moles.
After Eldora there will only be two more All Star sprint races in 2022, so the leader at press time, defending champion Tyler Courtney, will be searching for every point possible as will the drivers behind him like Justin Peck; Bellevue, Ohio’s Cap Henry; Hunter Schuerenberg and Bill Balog.
The WoO sprint car point battle has been tight all year. At press time three-time and defending champion Brad Sweet tops those standings, but David Gravel; Carson Macedo; Wooster, Ohio’s own Sheldon Haudenschild, and WoO king Donny Schatz are trying to find an edge in order to beat him.
- The 4-Crown Nationals are important in motorsports history. Historians know that legendary driver Jack Hewitt of Troy, Ohio is the only driver to sweep the 4-Crown Nationals. In 1998 Hewitt posted victories in the USAC national sprint cars, midgets, and Silver Crown plus the UMP modified features.
However, Tyler Courtney has won six of the last 16 total 4-Crown features dating back to 2017. No one else has more than one, so it’s pretty clear he’s well on his way to making his own legend. Fans will want to be there to see it in person.
- Teams and drivers try harder when there is big money on the line. All four features on Saturday night will pay $10,000 to the winning driver. In total, it’s a $40,000 purse increase. This year’s 4-Crown features’ posted purses total nearly $215,000!
- The just-announced NKTelco Broadband bonus will pay an additional $40,000 if a driver can sweep all four divisions on Saturday night. Will anyone try? If so, who? If anyone does, it’ll be an $80,000 payday for one night’s work.
- Eldora is rich in history, and so is this event. Eldora is celebrating its 69th season of racing this year, and this is the 40-year anniversary of the 4-Crown Nationals. Four-wide salutes, cell phone flashlight send-offs, wave laps, 50-50 drawings and autograph sessions add to the excitement of seeing the best drivers tackle Eldora’s fast and demanding track. Tony Stewart has made significant improvements to the property and it’s a bucket-list track for all race fans. With five series competing over the course of two days, anyone with a pulse will want to be there to witness it for themselves! The list of previous winners is a who’s who of short-track superstars, and the best of the best in 2022 will compete at Eldora at the 4-Crown Nationals.
Tickets can be purchased online, by phone or at the gate. Tickets, schedules, camping information and other information are available on the track website at eldoraspeedway.com. The speedway office phone number during normal business hours is (937) 338-3815.
Race fans can join a community of over 1,000,000 people from around the world who enjoy behind-the-scenes access by following @EldoraSpeedway on social channels Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. Exclusive video content posted on www.youtube.com/EldoraSpeedway has nearly nine million views.
Eldora Speedway PR | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/speedway-news/73022-reasons-why-eldora-s-4-crown-nationals-is-a-can-t-miss-event | 2022-09-16T18:20:01Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/speedway-news/73022-reasons-why-eldora-s-4-crown-nationals-is-a-can-t-miss-event | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Sammy Smith capped off a championship night Thursday with a dominant victory in the ARCA Menards Series Bush's Beans 200 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Smith clinched a pair of titles at The Last Great Colosseum: the ARCA Menards East Series championship and the Sioux Chief Showdown title.
"It means a lot," Smith said. "I was telling these guys the two championships mean a lot, but it wouldn't be the same if we didn't win the race. Thanks to them and all the guys who work hard all season. Glad we were able to pull it off."
Smith started on the pole and led 189 of the 200 laps around Bristol's high-banked concrete oval, passing Toyota teammate Brandon Jones on lap 11 and pacing the field the rest of the race.
Jones, though, made things interesting after a caution bunched the field for a two-lap shootout to the checkered flag. Smith took the outside lane for the restart, and he and Jones raced side by side for nearly a lap.
"That was a tough restart there," Smith said. "Glad we were able to pull it off."
A slip heading into Turn 3 forced Jones to check up and allowed Smith to drive away.
"It came to life those last 30 laps or so, and I really started to catch Sammy," Jones said. "I think he got trapped in some traffic as well. … I gave it all I had, and I think I just got in too deep down in Turns 3 and 4. Kicking myself a little bit; that was kind of a dumb move on my behalf. But we were trying to go for it. Gosh, we only had one lap left.
"It would have been tough to beat him. Maybe if I could've stayed side by side for another lap, it would have been a different story."
Jones finished second, with Taylor Gray third, Rajah Caruth fourth and Daniel Dye fifth. Parker Chase was sixth, followed by Andres Perez de Lara (in his series debut), Andy Jankowiak, Connor Mosack and Jesse Love.
ARCA Menards Series points leader Nick Sanchez finished 12th, allowing Dye to close the lead to five points with two races remaining in the 2022 season. Caruth is third, 30 points back.
The 10-race Sioux Chief Showdown is held on short tracks and road courses and is designed to be a competition between drivers who may not be old enough to compete for the full ARCA Menards Series title and those who are.
Smith won four of the 10 Sioux Chief Showdown races.
Smith, who is also entered in the Food City 300 NASCAR Xfinity Series race on Friday, also won the ARCA Menards Series East title in 2021.
BMS PR | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/speedway-news/73038-smith-dominates-bush-s-beans-200-captures-pair-of-championship-titles-in-arca-series | 2022-09-16T18:20:10Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/speedway-news/73038-smith-dominates-bush-s-beans-200-captures-pair-of-championship-titles-in-arca-series | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A woman was arrested in South Korea on Thursday on two murder charges from New Zealand, where the bodies of two long-dead children were found last month in abandoned suitcases, authorities said.
Authorities didn’t immediately say if the 42-year-old suspect was the dead children’s mother. New Zealand police had earlier told their South Korean counterparts that the mother might be living in South Korea.
South Korean police detained the woman in the southeastern port city of Ulsan, based on a South Korean court warrant issued after New Zealand requested her provisional arrest as part of an extradition process, according to South Korea’s National Police Agency and Justice Ministry.
The unidentified woman covered her face with the hood of her coat as officers escorted her outside an Ulsan police station and put her in a car headed for the capital, Seoul, where she was expected to be questioned by prosecutors.
New Zealand authorities must submit the formal request for her extradition to the South Korean Justice Ministry within 45 days. The ministry will then decide whether to proceed with an extradition review at the Seoul High Court to rule whether she would be sent to New Zealand.
New Zealand police said the South Korean warrant was in connection with two charges of murder, and they have asked South Korean authorities to keep the woman in jail until she is extradited.
“To have someone in custody overseas within such a short period of time has all been down to the assistance of the Korean authorities and the coordination by our New Zealand Police Interpol staff,” Detective Inspector Tofilau Fa’amanuia Vaaelua said in a statement.
He said the investigation had been “very challenging” and that inquiries were continuing both in New Zealand and abroad.
Vaaelua said police weren’t going to comment further as the matter was now before the courts. Authorities in New Zealand typically don’t comment on pending court cases in order to avoid the possibility of influencing the outcome.
The children’s bodies were discovered last month after a New Zealand family bought abandoned goods, including two suitcases, from a storage unit in Auckland in an online auction. Police said the New Zealand family had nothing to do with the deaths.
The children were between 5 and 10 years old, had been dead for a number of years, and the suitcases had been in storage for at least three or four years, according to police.
South Korean police say the woman was born in South Korea and later moved to New Zealand, where she gained citizenship. She returned to South Korea in 2018, according to immigration records.
South Korean police say it was suspected she could be the mother of the two victims, as her past address in New Zealand was registered to the storage unit where the suitcases were kept for years.
____
Perry reported from Wellington, New Zealand. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-woman-arrested-in-s-korea-after-bodies-found-in-new-zealand/ | 2022-09-16T18:20:11Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-woman-arrested-in-s-korea-after-bodies-found-in-new-zealand/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Notes of Interest: Welcome Back Joe: After stepping out of the No. 07 SS GreenLight Racing with Jeff Lefcourt Ford Mustang for the most recent NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Kansas Speedway, Joe Graf Jr. returns to the cockpit for his 87th career Xfinity Series start in “Thunder Valley” Friday night. Full of Energy (Burn): Bucked Up Energy Drink and its sister products will continue their role as the primary partner of Graf’s No. 07 Ford Mustang this weekend. Bristol Motor Speedway is the 15th race of 2022 and 46th race overall in a multi-year, multi-race deal with the former ARCA Menards Series winner. For the third time this year, the team will promote Bucked Up’s LFG Burn product. LFG Burn is a revolutionary pre-workout specifically designed to optimize fat loss. Designed to complement your hard work, LFG acts as both a pre-workout and a fat-burning supplement. This science-based, non-proprietary formula supplies breakthrough ingredients to help you achieve your noble quest towards fat loss. About Bucked Up Energy: Bucked Up started in 2013 when twin brothers Ryan and Jeff Gardner started marketing a product called Deer Antler Spray. After selling thousands of bottles to GNCs nationwide, the company morphed into what is now Bucked Up, a full-fledged vitamins and supplements manufacturer. The company has gone from its humble beginnings to becoming the No. 1 best-selling pre-workout brand that’s available in over 10,000 stores worldwide. Plenty Of Other Bucked Up Products Available Too: Don’t forget that Bucked Up Energy now offers more than 10 quenching options, but several of their popular flavors include Rocket Pop, Gym ‘N’ Juice, Mango Tango and Pink Lemonade now include low-stim options. Low-stim has the same innovative ingredients that make their OG formula so powerful for focus, mood, motivation and energy. Bucked Up made just one small change and they have been surprised by the resulting epicness. Boasting a modest of 100mg of caffeine, Bucked Up Low-Stim delivers the same energy, focus, mood, motivation – while reducing the common side effects that come from too-much caffeine, jitters, sleeplessness and anxiety. Thanks For Your Support: With more than 75 percent of the 2022 Xfinity Series season complete, Joe Graf Jr. and SS GreenLight Racing with Jeff Lefcourt would like to thank their associate marketing partners: AVOID, Bass Reaper Bait Company, CoverSeal, EAT SLEEP RACE Apparel, fgrACCEL, G-Coin, Gtechniq, HazHeart, Model Electronics and ShopRite for their continued support. Congratulations Friend!: Joe Graf Jr. and the SS GreenLight Racing with Jeff Lefcourt team would like to congratulate investor and National Football League (NFL) player Antonio Williams for making the starting roster for his first season of play as a running back for the New York Giants. This Sunday, Sep. 18, Williams and his team will square off against the Carolina Panthers beginning at 1:00 p.m. ET. Races for Faces: For the third consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series season, fgrACCEL and Graf will be participating in myFace’s Races for Faces, an event to raise awareness for myFace, an organization that helps kids and families living with craniofacial differences. Graf’s partner fgrACCEL is encouraging in the industry along with race fans to join “Team Graf” and show your support of their mission. While the event will be held on Sept. 18., donations to “Team Graf” will be accepted through Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. Get Bucked Up at Homestead-Miami Speedway: With their traditional stop at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway later this year, Joe Graf Jr. and partner Bucked Up Energy Drink are giving a lucky fan and a guest an ALL-EXPENSES paid trip to Homestead-Miami Speedway in October, along with $1,000 in spending cash! To enter, spend at least $10 at buckedup.com from now until Friday, September 30, 2022. Every $10 spent earns another entry. Visit buckedup.com for additional information. Joe Graf Jr. Xfinity Series Bristol Motor Speedway Stats: Joe Graf Jr. will make his fourth career start at the “World’s Fastest Half-Mile” Friday night. In his previous three starts, Graf has delivered a track-best of 13th in his Bristol debut in June 2020. Additionally, Graf has two top-20s, including a competitive 17th place run last September. While carrying an average finish of 19.0, he has also completed 900 of the 909 available laps available for a 99 percent lap completion. Joe Graf Jr. Xfinity Series Career Short Track Stats: At NASCAR Xfinity Series tracks classified as a short track, Graf has competed in 13 NASCAR Xfinity Series races. He holds an average starting position of 25.8 and an average result of 22.8. Darlington (S.C.) Raceway | Sport Clips Haircuts VFW Help a Hero 200 Race Recap: In his most recent NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Darlington (S.C.), Graf and the SSGLRwJL team showcased the No. 07 G-Coin Ford Mustang for their second trip to the “Lady in Black!” After practicing inside the top-10, Graf earned a solid 20th place qualifying effort and contended for a top-20 finish before being collected in a multi-vehicle accident that ended the team’s day after just 61 laps. Sneaker Mania: Along with the adrenaline of the Motorsports competition, Joe Graf Jr. also has a vogue for hype sneakers. In his current collection, he owns and wears at least 90 limited edition sneakers – and his collection continues to grow every month. The current estimated value of his collection tops $100,000. From the Pit Box: Industry veteran Joe Williams is Joe Graf Jr.’s crew chief. He will crew chief his 90th NASCAR Xfinity Series race as crew chief on Friday night and his fourth at the historic racing facility. In his previous 89 NASCAR Xfinity Series starts, he has collected one win (Auto Club Speedway | February 2022), seven top-five and 21 top-10 finishes. Hello From The Other Side: Graf Jr. has a teammate at SS GreenLight Racing with Jeff Lefcourt. Veteran David Starr will drive the No. 08 Good Boy Vodka Ford Mustang on Friday night for his 15th start of the 2022 season. Starr is set to make his 249th career NASCAR Xfinity Series start and 15th at Bristol. His best Xfinity track finish occurred in the 2016 Food City 300, where he finished 16th after starting 30th for RSS Racing. Follow on Social Media: For more on Joe Graf Jr. visit JoeGrafRacing.com, like him on Facebook (Joe Graf Jr.), follow him on TikTok (@JoeGrafJr), Twitter (@JoeGrafJr) and Instagram (@joegrafjr). For more on SS GreenLight Racing with Jeff Lefcourt, please like them on Facebook (SS GreenLight Racing) and follow them on Instagram (@ssgreenlightracing) and Twitter (@SSGLR0708). Joe Graf Jr. Pre-Race Quotes: On Bristol Motor Speedway: “I’m actually very excited to go to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend. With every lap turned at Bristol, I feel like I become a better driver. We were extremely quick in the simulator to prepare for the race. “We had a really strong run with a fast race car last September but ran out of laps to earn an even better finish. “I’m determined to pick up where we left off and deliver another strong finish for our SS GreenLight Racing with Jeff Lefcourt team and everyone who supports our No. 07 Bucked Up LFG Burn Ford Mustang.” On Goals For Remainder of 2022: “We made some strides during the first half of the 2022 NASCAR Xfinity Series season but there is certainly room for improvement. “We are quickly approaching the stretch drive of the Xfinity Series season. We continue to showcase that we have speed in our race cars but don’t always have the finishes to show that. “We have plenty of gas left in the tank to continue to showcase our speed this weekend at Bristol and for the rest of the 2022 season. “From now until the end of the season at Phoenix, I am determined to nail the execution so we can carry some momentum into the offseason and to the 2023 season.” Race Information: The Food City 300 (300 laps | 159.9 miles) is the 26th of 33 NASCAR Xfinity Series races on the 2022 schedule. Practice begins on Friday, September 16th from 2:35 p.m. – 3:10 p.m. Qualifying follows shortly after 3:10 p.m. The 38-car field will take the green flag later in the day shortly after 7:30 p.m. with live coverage on the USA Network, the Performance Racing Network (Radio) and SiriusXM NASCAR Channel 90. All times are local (ET). SS Green Light Racing PR | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/xfinity-series-news/73023-joe-graf-jr-ss-greenlight-racing-with-jeff-lefcourt-bristol-motor-speedway-september-event-preview | 2022-09-16T18:20:16Z | speedwaydigest.com | control | https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/xfinity-series-news/73023-joe-graf-jr-ss-greenlight-racing-with-jeff-lefcourt-bristol-motor-speedway-september-event-preview | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Donations are pouring in to help a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim who was ordered by a court to pay $150,000 to the family of a man she stabbed to death after he raped her.
A GoFundMe campaign set up for Pieper Lewis has already raised more than $200,000 just one day after the restitution order was handed down by an Iowa judge.
Lewis also received a deferred 20-year prison sentence on Tuesday that will be expunged if she successfully completes five years of closely supervised probation. Prosecutors described the sentence as merciful for a teen who had been horribly abused — and the judge said the law compelled him to order the $150,000 payment — but it struck many observers as unnecessarily harsh.
Lewis pleaded guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, a married father of two. Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment.
Lewis has maintained that she was trafficked against her will to Brooks for sex multiple times and stabbed him in a fit of rage. Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked.
The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Lewis agreed to have her name used previously in stories about her case.
Here’s a look at how Lewis ended up facing criminal charges in an Iowa court and what’s next for her:
WHAT’S THE BACKSTORY OF THE GOFUNDME CAMPAIGN FOR LEWIS?
The account was set up late last year for Lewis by one of her former high school teachers. Initially the goal was set at $150,000 to cover the restitution payment. All additional money raised will help Lewis pay for college or start her own business, and help other young victims of sex crimes.
“Pieper has five years of probation ahead of her; five years that she will be required to be nearly perfect to avoid facing 20 years in prison,” Leland Schipper, a math teacher at Des Moines Lincoln High School, said on the GoFundMe page. “Pieper’s path to true freedom will not be easy, and she is still a teenager that has experienced a lot of trauma.”
The vast majority of donations came in increments of less than $50. Almost every donor offered words of encouragement or outrage over the teen’s prosecution — and sometimes both.
“Pieper, from one survivor to another, life gets better,” one $20 donor wrote. “I am disgusted you spent a second in jail, but don’t look back. Use whatever funds are left to move on and move up.”
WHY WAS LEWIS ORDERED TO PAY $150,000 TO THE ESTATE OF HER ATTACKER?
Iowa law mandates that anyone convicted of a felony that leads to the death of another person must pay “at least” this much to the victim’s estate.
The payment cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, and it does not preclude a victim’s family from suing for more damages. But there is nothing in the law that would appear to bar someone from using donations to pay the restitution, said Grant Gangestad, a criminal defense attorney who helps lead the Iowa Association for Justice, a trade group for trial lawyers.
Lewis’ lawyers argued that as a victim of human trafficking and sexual abuse, she should be spared from making any payment at all. They argued that Brooks was partially responsible for what happened and that such restitution would be cruel and unusual under the circumstances.
The judge rejected those arguments at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, noting that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld the state’s restitution law even in the face of some of those same arguments.
It is not clear whether Lewis’ lawyers will appeal; they said Wednesday they are still weighing their options.
WHY DID PROSECUTORS CHARGE LEWIS FOR KILLING A MAN WHO RAPED HER?
Dozens of states have so-called safe harbor laws that give trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity. Iowa is not one of them.
Iowans can avoid being convicted of violent crimes, however, if they can prove that they faced ‘’imminent” serious injury.
While nobody disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked, prosecutors successfully argued that Brooks was not an immediate danger to Lewis because he was asleep at the time he was stabbed.
Prosecutors said that their goal in seeking charges against Lewis was twofold: To ensure the protection of the public from someone capable of stabbing another person to death, and to ensure that Lewis receives the rehabilitative help she needs.
HAS THE MAN LEWIS ACCUSED OF TRAFFICKING HER BEEN CHARGED?
No. Lewis has said she lived with a man for more than two months in 2020 after she had run away from an abusive home. The then-28-year-old man told her she was his girlfriend, but told others she was his niece, Lewis said.
The man told her she couldn’t live with him for free, she said, and created a dating profile for her on websites and arranged for her to have sex with other men for money, which occurred seven or eight times when she lived with him.
It was this man who took her to Brooks beginning in May 2020 to have sex, she said. When she resisted going back to Brooks’ apartment another time, Lewis said the man held a knife to her neck and cut her with it.
Lewis names the man in court documents, but The Associated Press is not releasing his name because he has not been charged with a crime.
Polk County Attorney John Sarcone on Wednesday gave few details on why.
“No charges have been filed,” Sarcone said. “The matter is under investigation, and our office will not comment further.”
WHAT’S NEXT FOR LEWIS?
Lewis’ five years of supervised probation will be spent at the state’s Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines, a low-level prison facility that allows convicts some level of freedom to work and make some trips outside the facility. Lewis’ whereabouts will be monitored through a GPS-enabled ankle bracelet.
She was also ordered to conduct 600 hours of community service, to be carried out by speaking to other young people about the dangers they face and the importance of making responsible choices.
“You have a story to tell,” Polk County District judge David M. Porter said at her sentencing. “You should be willing to tell it to other young women.”
Lewis, who earned her GED diploma while being held in juvenile detention, has said she would like to go to college and dreams of being a fashion designer.
At Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, she expressed both hope and fear for her future.
“I know that I am being watched by a million eyes. The reality is, I will make mistakes, even with the court’s pressure,” she said, reading from a prepared statement.
“I refuse to fail,” she said. “I refuse to let the system fail me.”
___
Beck reported from Omaha, Nebraska. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/ap-qa-next-steps-for-iowa-teen-sentenced-for-killing-rapist/ | 2022-09-16T18:21:01Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/ap-qa-next-steps-for-iowa-teen-sentenced-for-killing-rapist/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK (AP) — Home is where the heart is for Brandon Maxwell and it showed in his use of purple, his mother’s favorite color, throughout his New York Fashion Week spring/summer collection.
Tuesday’s show at Christie’s New York in Rockefeller Plaza opened with moody blue lighting and the sound of chirping birds as if it was just before daybreak. The atmospheric lighting gradually shifted to an airy lilac, evoking sunrise in the countryside.
Opting for pastels, layering and relaxed symmetrical silhouettes, Maxwell focused on a theme of soft feminine beauty. He mixed neutrals with pastels like baby blue, sage green and blush pink in everyday staple closet pieces for women. The show opened with a blush pink layered look: silver sequined mini skirt layered with a classic white graphic T-shirt, glittery cardigan and a pink blazer with structured shoulders.
Maxwell, a Texas native, said his inspiration for the collection came when he moved out of New York City.
“So (the collection) is still inspired by the people that raised me because a lot of I think what went into this collection were like involuntary memories that have been triggered in my time, in the silence outside of the city that took me back to my youth and the things that I loved,” Maxwell said.
He said that’s reflected in the clothes and their late 90s, early 2000 vibe. “I think that that’s when I really came to love fashion and and so yeah, my family’s always in there,” he said.
Maxwell’s nostalgia was reflected in looks like denim overalls with a matching black sequined top embroidered with yellow sunflowers and a plunging v-neckline. Other looks included wide tan cargo pants with a matching strapless halter top layered under a white cotton tank top. The most notable 90s-inspired look was a sheer full-length tulle dress layered on top of a white graphic tank.
The show closed with another slouchy layered look, featuring a floor-length silvery skirt resembling a Monet painting paired with a white T-shirt, rose pink blazer and chunky platform heel.
Sitting in the front row were Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, TV personality La La Anthony, supermodel Karlie Kloss and singer Kelsea Ballerini.
“(Maxwell) just gets it. He’s versatile, fits all body types (like) curvy like mine, which I love. He just gets it,” Anthony said. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-brandon-maxwell-blossoms-in-lilac-for-ny-fashion-week/ | 2022-09-16T18:21:37Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-brandon-maxwell-blossoms-in-lilac-for-ny-fashion-week/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland will formally ask Russia to return seven paintings now in a leading Moscow museum that were looted during World War II by the Soviet Red Army, the Polish culture minister said Wednesday.
But Piotr Glinski also said that about 20 previous requests to Moscow for the return of thousands of other items stolen during WWII have fallen on deaf ears. The previously requested items included archives of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, paintings by Old Masters such as Durer, Holbein or Cranach and manuscripts by Polish authors.
“Until this day (Russia’s) government has not reviewed any of the claims,” Glinski told a press conference. He added that Russia is the only among several countries approached so far to have failed to even respond to Poland on the subject.
Poland’s historically strained ties with Russia hit a new low following Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February. A former satellite of the Soviet Union, Warsaw supports Kyiv and is pushing for more sanctions against Moscow.
The new request concerns seven paintings by Italian artists that are now at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. They date from the 14th to the 18th century and include “Two Saints” by Spinello Aretino and “Adoration of the Child” by Lorenzo di Credi.
Before the war they were in the collections of the Czartoryski family in Goluchow, at the Wilanow Palace, and in Poznan, Wroclaw and Lodz.
Glinski said it is hard to estimate how much of Poland’s art and culture was destroyed or looted by occupying Nazi German and Soviet troops during the war, but at the time it was believed that Polish museums had lost about 50% of their collections.
“Traces of hundreds of thousands of items lead to the Russian Federation and to the former Soviet republics,” Glinski said.
He said Poland “will never stop searching for … cultural items that were looted” during the war.
Since 2016 alone, Poland has retrieved more than 600 looted cultural artifacts, but none of them from Russia, Glinski said.
Among them are the paintings “Madonna under the Fir Tree” by Lucas Cranach the Elder, which had ended up in Switzerland, and “Jewish Woman Selling Oranges” by Polish 19th century painter Aleksander Gierymski, which was returned from Germany. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-poland-wants-russia-to-return-paintings-looted-during-wwii/ | 2022-09-16T18:22:13Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-poland-wants-russia-to-return-paintings-looted-during-wwii/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A former Massachusetts town official pleaded guilty on Wednesday to joining a mob in storming the U.S. Capitol after she organized a bus trip to Washington, D.C., for fellow members of a right-wing group called “Super Happy Fun America.”
Before her guilty plea, Suzanne Ianni had argued in February that federal authorities had selectively targeted her for prosecution based on her political beliefs. Prosecutors said her political views played no role in charging her with crimes for her conduct at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A judge rejected Ianni’s request to dismiss the case before she pleaded guilty.
Ianni, 60, of Natick, Massachusetts, faces a maximum sentence of six months of imprisonment and five years of probation after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols is scheduled to sentence her on Dec. 2.
Ianni was an elected member of Natick Town Meeting in a Boston suburb while serving as operation director of Super Happy Fun America, which gained national notoriety for organizing a “Straight Pride Parade” in Boston in 2019.
On its website, Super Happy Fun America calls itself “a right of center civil rights organization focusing on defending the Constitution, opposing gender madness and defeating cultural Marxism.” The group registered as a nonprofit with Massachusetts state regulators.
A Dec. 29, 2020, post on the group’s Twitter account said Super Happy Fun America members would be in Washington “to get wild.” Ianni was listed as the contact for the trip. The account also tweeted a photo of Ianni and other members on a bus traveling to Washington on the eve of the riot.
After marching to the Capitol, she joined a crowd chanting “Fight for Trump!” and “Our house!” while rioters near her broke windows, forced open doors and breached police barricades. Surveillance video captured Ianni marching through the Capitol after she entered the building through a Senate fire-exit door. She raised her fist in the air in front of police officers who stopped her and other members of the mob, prosecutors said in a court filing.
Mark Sahady, another Super Happy Fun America member, was arrested on Capitol riot-related charges that haven’t been resolved.
In April 2021, Natick Town Meeting members voted to condemn the Capitol riot. Ianni, who was elected to a three-year term that was due to expire in March 2022, told the MetroWest Daily News that the vote represented “political persecution of conservatives.”
Also on Wednesday, a Nevada man pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers at the Capitol with what appeared to be a table leg, injuring an officer. Josiah Kenyon, 35, of Winnemucca, Nevada, is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 15. Kenyon was dressed up as “Jack Skellington,” a character from the movie “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” when he attacked police.
More than 870 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Jan. 6 riot. Approximately 400 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors, and over 250 have been sentenced.
___
This version of story has been corrected to reflect that Judge Carl Nichols did deny Suzanne Ianni’s request to dismiss her case before she pleaded guilty. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-ex-town-official-pleads-guilty-to-capitol-riot-charge/ | 2022-09-16T18:23:39Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-ex-town-official-pleads-guilty-to-capitol-riot-charge/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Which Acure skin care product is best?
Shopping for clean beauty doesn’t have to stress out your wallet. American brand Acure uses only organic and vegan ingredients, so you can be certain that what you’re putting on your skin is safe. Plus, Acure products are widely available and reasonably priced compared to other clean beauty brands. If you’re looking for an affordable face wash that’s free from any worrisome ingredients, Acure Ultra Hydrating Green Juice Cleanser is the top pick.
What to know before you buy an Acure skin care product
Clean skin care with drugstore pricing
You may have seen Acure on the shelves of your local grocery store or drugstore, but the brand has attained cult-favorite status thanks to the quality of its products and its 100% organic ingredients. Acure’s founders had nearly 20 years of experience formulating products before launching Acure, and today the company offers a huge range of products that focus on ingredient safety and efficacy.
What are your skin concerns?
With dozens of products to choose from, it’s possible to find an Acure product to address a particular skin concern or fill in a gap in your skin care routine. Whether you need a new specialized face oil or serum or an all-purpose face cleanser, Acure offers a clinically formulated product to suit your needs.
How Acure approaches clean beauty
Acure’s philosophy is to source high-quality ingredients while making them accessible to all shoppers interested in clean beauty. Potentially harmful or questionable ingredients such as parabens, sulfates, mineral oil and more are omitted from Acure formulas.
What to look for in a quality Acure skin care product
Color-coded packaging
With their expansive product line, it can be intimidating to try to find the right product. Luckily, Acure’s smart packaging design helps shoppers find what they need.
- Teal: The Essentials (basic, often single-ingredient products that can be incorporated into almost any routine)
- Yellow: Brightening (for skin that’s naturally more radiant)
- Purple: Radically Rejuvenating (for skin that needs help recovering and revitalizing)
- Pink: Seriously Soothing (formulated for sensitive skin)
- Green: Ultra Hydrating (for dry skin)
- Iridescent: Resurfacing (exfoliating products for refining skin)
- Blue: Incredibly Clear (for oily or acne-prone skin)
Acure starter kits
Are you unsure which product line or ingredient is right for you? Sample Acure’s offerings by picking out a starter kit. Test face oils or facial mists to see which one suits your skin type. You can get a feel for Acure’s lineup for brightening, soothing or rejuvenating your skin with miniature sizes of three products.
Trusted skin care ingredients
Acure’s products feature reliable hero ingredients alongside antioxidant-rich superfoods and trending skin care favorites such as bakuchiol, a plant-derived alternative to retinol. Coconut oil, olive extracts, argan oil and antioxidant-loaded botanicals such as pomegranate are frequently used in Acure skin care.
Environmental and ethical responsibility
All Acure products are made in six factories across the U.S., which are subject to auditing for labor health and safety, ethics and environmental impact. Acure packaging can also be recycled through TerraCycle, which accepts mailed-in recyclables to turn into raw material for new products.
How much you can expect to spend on an Acure skin care product
Acure’s sustainable skin care line is surprisingly affordable for clean beauty, with cleansers that cost between $9.99-$12.99 and moisturizers for $16.99-$19.99. Serums, oils and treatments range from $12.99-$24.99.
Acure skin care FAQ
Who is Acure for?
A. Acure products are formulated to suit all ages, skin types and preferences. Its carefully selected ingredients also make it a good pick for those with sensitive skin. With a wide range of safe, high-quality products, Acure is a good choice for anyone who wants a trustworthy skin care routine that’s also safe for the planet.
Does Acure test on animals?
A. Acure does not test ingredients or finished products on animals. Plus, Acure products are made with no animal-derived ingredients.
Are Acure products fragrance-free?
A. Acure products don’t contain artificial fragrances. Product scents are the result of botanical extracts or essential oils. Users with especially sensitive skin should keep an eye out for citrus essential oils in Acure’s ingredient list since they can cause irritation.
What’s the best Acure skin care product to buy?
Top Acure skin care product
Acure Ultra Hydrating Green Juice Cleanser
What you need to know: This cleanser foams up to wash away impurities and restore moisture.
What you’ll love: Along with hydrating and replenishing shea butter and sunflower oil, this green-juice-inspired cleanser contains spinach, turmeric, reishi mushroom and more to deliver a dose of antioxidants and rejuvenate skin. Users with dry and sensitive skin love how this cleanser fully cleans skin without making it feel stripped or stressed.
What you should consider: It performs best as a second cleanser after you’ve used a different product to remove makeup.
Where to buy: Sold by iHerb, Ulta Beauty and Amazon
Top Acure skin care product for the money
Acure Radically Rejuvenating Rose Argan Oil
What you need to know: This beauty multitasker can be used to soothe dry skin and even pamper hair.
What you’ll love: This face oil combines cold-pressed argan oil with Damask rose and geranium to deliver nourishing vitamin E and fatty acids. Use it as a face serum, cuticle oil, massage oil or to nurture dry skin patches and hair.
What you should consider: It should be applied sparingly, especially to hair, to avoid feeling greasy.
Where to buy: Sold by iHerb and Amazon
Worth checking out
Acure Brightening Facial Scrub
What you need to know: It may not look very appealing, but this popular scrub gently exfoliates to detoxify skin and clear out pores.
What you’ll love: This Allure Best of Beauty-winning scrub is a top pick for thorough exfoliation that’s still suitable for sensitive or acne-prone skin. Lemon peel, kaolin clay and walnut shells exfoliate, while sage and blackberry extracts clarify skin. Aloe and sea kelp soften and hydrate skin.
What you should consider: It’s primarily a physical, not chemical exfoliator, which may be too harsh for some skin types. The application can also be messy.
Where to buy: Sold by iHerb, Ulta Beauty and Amazon
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Laura Duerr writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.wwlp.com/reviews/best-acure-skin-care-product/ | 2022-09-16T18:26:09Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/reviews/best-acure-skin-care-product/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Everything you need to know about Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation earbuds
While we’re not getting any new devices — such as a VR headset — from Apple this fall, last week’s Apple Event did reveal some remarkable upgrades to its existing line. One product graduating into the second generation is the immensely popular Apple AirPods Pro. Although you can’t buy these high-tech earbuds yet, you can preorder them right now on Amazon. We highly recommend you do just that if you want to be one of the first to own this upgraded version.
In this article: Apple AirPods Pro Wireless Earbuds, Beats Fit Pro x Kim Kardashian and Powerbeats Pro Wireless Earbuds
What’s new on Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation earbuds?
H2 chip
The big upgrade to the Apple AirPods Pro is the addition of the powerful new H2 chip. This meticulously designed chip not only offers high-bandwidth connectivity and seamless handoff between devices but enhanced audio. Apple’s AirPods Pro have a low-distortion driver paired with a custom amplifier to deliver greater clarity across a wider range of frequencies.
Personalized Spatial Audio
The revolutionary Spatial Audio feature that makes it sound like you’re in the middle of the music has been upgraded as well. You can now make a personal profile that takes into account the size and shape of your head and ears to customize Spatial Audio for an even better listening experience.
Advanced Active Noise Cancellation
Thanks to the H2 chip and a couple of other tweaks, Apple was able to upgrade its Active Noise Cancellation feature. The technology is so adept at identifying disruptive sounds that it offers up to double the amount of noise cancellation as the original AirPods Pro earbuds. The addition of a set of extra-small ear tips helps people with smaller ears have a better listening experience as well.
Adaptive Transparency
The big change to the Transparency Mode is it can selectively limit high-decibel sounds. For example, if a fire engine races by while you’re in transparency mode, the AirPods will protect your ears from the potentially damaging volume.
Increased battery life
While the increased performance would seem to mean a decrease in battery life, the H2 chip has an energy-efficient design, which actually increases battery life by up to 33%. This means you can get up to six hours of listening on a single charge, or up to 30 hours by using the included charging case. Additionally, the case can now charge on your wireless Apple Watch charger or any MagSafe or Qi-compatible chargers.
Precision finding
Each AirPod can individually play a sound to help you locate the earbuds if you ever misplace one or both, and the case now has a built-in speaker that helps you know when the AirPods are finished charging. Even better, the case is compatible with Apple’s Find My app so you can pinpoint its exact location if it’s ever lost. You can also trigger the case to play a sound when it’s nearby and you just can’t see it.
How much do Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation earbuds cost?
With all the inflation and rising prices we’ve been experiencing since the pandemic, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that Apple has not raised the price of its AirPods Pro 2nd Generation earbuds. They still cost $249.
How to preorder Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation earbuds
If you’d like to be one of the first to receive the new Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation earbuds, all you have to do is go to Amazon and click the orange “Preorder now” button on the right-hand side of the screen. The earbuds will be released on September 23.
Other earbud options
If you’d like to consider other earbud options from Apple, you can still get the original Apple AirPods Pro Wireless Earbuds (while supplies last), Powerbeats Pro Wireless Earbuds or Beats Fit Pro x Kim Kardashian.
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Allen Foster writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.wwlp.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/headphones-br/apple-airpods-pro-2nd-generation-earbuds-are-now-available-for-preorder-on-amazon/ | 2022-09-16T18:26:16Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/headphones-br/apple-airpods-pro-2nd-generation-earbuds-are-now-available-for-preorder-on-amazon/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Who is Peter Holder, the sub-organist at Westminster Abbey?
Introducing Peter Holder, the sub-organist at Westminster Abbey, who will play the organ at the Queen's funeral
Who plays the organ at Westminster Abbey?
As sub-organist at Westminster Abbey, Peter Holder is the principal organist for the Abbey’s daily services and at state occasions. As such, he is likely to be performing on the Westminster Abbey organ at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. He also accompanies the renowned Westminster Abbey Choir in its concerts, recordings and broadcasts.
Holder is also the principal deputy conductor of the choir, supporting the organist and master of the choristers James O’Donnell in training the Abbey choristers.
How long has Peter Holder been at Westminster Abbey?
Holder has been in the post of sub-organist at the Abbey since 2017.
What was his career path before then?
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Holder had a previous stint at Westminster Abbey, serving as organ scholar from 2012 to 2014. He then spent three years as sub-organist of St Paul’s Cathedral from 2014, before making the move west in 2017.
While at St Paul's, Holder played an important role in developing the profile of organ performance there. His work included two Grand Organ Galas, at which he performed organ concerti by Handel and Poulenc.
Where else has Peter Holder performed?
Holder has performed organ recitals in cathedrals and concert halls around the globe. In 2019, Holder made his BBC Proms solo debut at the 2019 First Night of the Proms performing Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass. BBC Music reporter Mark Savage reported that '… Holder deservedly received an ovation after untangling the labyrinthine solo'.
The organist also has a recording to his name. His solo recording Bach ist der Vater, wir sind die Buben ('Bach is the father, we are the children'), played on the 1797 organ at Neresheim Abbey in southern Germany, has been well reviewed. He also regularly features on BBC radio and television broadcasts.
Does Peter Holder have time for anything else?
He certainly does! Holder also teaches organ at his alma mater, the Royal Academy of Music, his alma mater. In 2016, meanwhile, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. | https://www.classical-music.com/features/artists/peter-holder-organist-westminster-abbey/ | 2022-09-16T18:26:43Z | classical-music.com | control | https://www.classical-music.com/features/artists/peter-holder-organist-westminster-abbey/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Who is the piper to the sovereign, and what is their role?
The piper to the sovereign plays under the monarch's window every morning. But what else does their role entail?
What is the piper to the sovereign - and what do they do?
Also known as the Queen's Piper or King's Piper, the piper to the sovereign is responsible for playing the bagpipes at the monarch's request.
The role dates back to 1843, early in the reign of Queen Victoria. The previous year, the Queen and Prince Albert had visited a Scottish nobleman, the Marquess of Breadalbane. The Marquess, based at Taymouth Castle in the Highlands, had his own personal piper - and the Queen was very impressed. Indeed, she wrote to her mother, the Dowager Duchess of Kent:
'We have heard nothing but bagpipes since we have been in the beautiful Highlands and I have become so fond of it that I mean to have a Piper, who can if you like it, pipe every night at Frogmore [the Dowager Duchess' residence near Windsor Castle].'
Since 1843, the Royal Household has always had its own piper to call upon - with a brief hiatus during World War II.
What are the responsibilities of the piper to the sovereign?
The piper's chief duty is to play under the Sovereign's window, for 15 minutes at 9 o'clock every morning. They also play on state occasions.
For example, after the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, Her Majesty’s coffin will be transferred to St George’s Chapel, Windsor for the committal service. The Choir of St George’s Chapel will sing during the service: then, when the late Queen’s coffin is lowered into the Royal Vault, the piper to the sovereign will play a Lament - possibly Flowers of the forest.
Who was the first piper to the sovereign?
The first person to occupy the role was one Angus MacKay. Interestingly, MacKay was a well-known collector and publisher of piobaireachd, a musical genre from the Scottish Highlands that typically features a theme and elaborate variations.
Subsequently, every piper to the sovereign has been chosen from a Scottish or Irish regiment. The piper is a member of the Royal Household - but retains their military rank while they are on secondment.
Who is the current piper to the sovereign?
The role is currently occupied by Paul Burns, from the Royal Regiment of Scotland. | https://www.classical-music.com/features/artists/who-is-sovereign-piper/ | 2022-09-16T18:26:49Z | classical-music.com | control | https://www.classical-music.com/features/artists/who-is-sovereign-piper/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The athletic directors who lead the schools that play Division I college football at the highest level want the sport to continue be governed by the NCAA — if that governance can be streamlined.
LEAD1, an association of Football Bowl Subdivision ADs, convened 105 of its 131 members Wednesday for a meeting that focused mostly on how best to govern major college football.
There has been some momentum in the past year to seriously explore breaking FBS away from the NCAA and creating another structure to run the biggest revenue generator in college sports.
For now, though, the preference is for reform within the current structure.
“At the end of the day, it was very clear that the status quo is not acceptable,” said LEAD1 President and CEO Tom McMillen, the former Maryland basketball star and congressman. “And that there was a strong, very strong, preference for a model in the NCAA that is extremely streamlined and much less bureaucratic.”
McMillen added: “And if that can’t be accomplished, move it to the outside.”
McMillen did not detail what a more efficient governing model for major college football would entail.
He said LEAD1 planned to gather ideas cultivated at Wednesday’s meeting and share them with NCAA officials in a letter.
“We’re a facilitator. We’re not the decision-maker,” McMillen said. “We recommend. That’s really the extent of what we can do.”
The NCAA is in the midst of what college sports leaders hope will be an overhaul of the way Division I is structured and governed.
The Division I Transformation Committee was formed last year and has been meeting regularly for months. It is led by Southeastern Conference Commissioner Greg Sankey and Ohio athletic director Julie Cromer, who is also a member of LEAD1.
“Certainly the debate today has been helpful,” Cromer said. “I think we’ll use this feedback in our transformation committee work.”
The Transformation Committee has already handed down proposals related to transfer rules and how NCAA enforcement operates as part of phase one of its work. A set of those proposals were approved last month.
Phase two is in progress, with membership requirements for schools, student-athlete benefits, access to championship events and revenue distribution at the core of the discussions.
“I think there exists some frustration with the lack of responsibility and the ability to be nimble and specific to our needs in football, within the current decision-making structure,” Cromer said of the FBS ADs.
As the NCAA’s role in governance is deemphasized, and more power is handed down to conferences and schools, it seemed a perfect time for a re-assessment of how major college football operates to many athletic directors.
The NCAA has limited involvement over FBS compared to the rest of Division I sports. The conferences run the College Football Playoff and share the hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue it generates with no NCAA involvement.
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith has suggested the College Football Playoff could become the governing body for major college football.
“Nothing about its current constitution would support that,” Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbick told The Associated Press last month. “So you can change it to play that role. But it’s not set up to do it now.”
One of the concerns about moving away from the NCAA would be the need to create a new, similar organization.
McMillen said the NCAA spends about $65 million per year on administrative and insurance costs.
“That does not include any kind of extraordinary costs or legal,” McMillen said. ”As you know, the NCAA is the legal shield. They take a lot of the front load.”
The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, an independent group of former and current college administrators that advocates for an emphasis on education in college sports, proposed in 2020 separating FBS from the rest of NCAA sports.
Sankey has said he is adamantly against the Knight Commission’s proposal, in large part because he doesn’t like the idea of compartmentalizing one sport within an athletic department.
Sankey attended the LEAD1 meeting to give the ADs an update on the Transformation Committee’s work.
He said he also shared with the ADs his skepticism for the effectiveness of an FBS breakaway from the NCAA. He said he understands the desire for change.
“And given the distinctions around football, there are those who view that as a relevant point of change,” Sankey said. “But then the why, the outcomes, those have to be much further developed.”
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Follow Ralph D. Russo at https://twitter.com/ralphDrussoAP and listen at http://www.appodcasts.com
___
More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/ap_top25. Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://bit.ly/3pqZVaF | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-fbs-ads-urge-college-football-reform-but-not-ncaa-breakaway/ | 2022-09-16T18:27:05Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-fbs-ads-urge-college-football-reform-but-not-ncaa-breakaway/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK (AP) — More than 5,500 minor league baseball players formed a union on Wednesday, completing a lightning-fast organization campaign that launched just 17 days earlier in an effort to boost annual salaries as low as $10,400.
Martin Scheinman, the sport’s independent arbitrator, notified Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association that a majority of the 5,567 players in the minor league bargaining unit had signed union authorization cards since the drive started Aug. 28. He did not provide the sides a specific number.
“This historic achievement required the right group of players at the right moment to succeed,” union head Tony Clark said in a statement. “Minor leaguers have courageously seized that moment, and we look forward to improving their terms and conditions of employment through the process of good faith collective bargaining.”
MLB had agreed Saturday that it would voluntarily accept a union if there was majority support and would not force players to petition the National Labor Relations Board to hold a representation election.
“Major League Baseball has a long history of bargaining in good faith with unions, including those representing minor and major league umpires, and major league players,” the league said in a statement. “Based on the authorization cards gathered, MLB has voluntarily and promptly recognized the MLBPA as the representatives of minor league players. We are hopeful that a timely and fair collective bargaining agreement will be reached.”
Minor leaguers form a separate bargaining unit within the MLBPA, which negotiated its first collective bargaining agreement for big leaguers in 1968 but had until now been uninterested in representing players with minor league deals. Approximately 1,200 major leaguers are covered by the big league agreement, and their average salary has risen from $19,000 in 1967 to more than $4 million this year.
Minor leaguers are expected to choose player representatives who will lead them in bargaining during the offseason. Bruce Meyer, who headed negotiations last winter for a major league agreement, will lead the minor league negotiations, and Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem will be the point man for management. Meyer was promoted to deputy executive director in July.
Harry Marino, who has served as head of Advocates for Minor Leaguers since April 2021, was hired as an MLBPA assistant general counsel.
“For decades, conventional wisdom said it was impossible to unionize the minor leagues,” Marino said in a statement. “Over the past few years, a group of audacious and committed folks came together to prove that wrong.”
MLB raised weekly minimum salaries for minor leaguers in 2021 to $400 at rookie and short-season levels, $500 at Class A, $600 at Double-A and $700 at Triple-A. For players with major league contracts on option to the minors, the minimum is $57,200 per season for a first big league contract and $114,100 for later big league contracts.
In addition, MLB this year began requiring teams to provide housing for most minor leaguers.
“In a multibillion-dollar industry, there is no excuse to pay these players below the poverty line,“ AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement. “By joining together to use their collective voice at the bargaining table, the minor leaguers will be able to advocate for a union contract that will ensure a future with the good pay and benefits they deserve.”
Many amateurs receive large initial signing bonuses: 67 of the top 68 draft picks this year agreed to $1 million or more, and the top 97 picks who signed got more than $690,000 each.
The MLBPA also governs agents for major leaguers, requiring certification and establishing regulations that include prohibitions on payments, gifts and loans to clients. Agents negotiating minor league contracts have been unregulated.
MLB and the big league union have had a contentious relationship that led to nine work stoppages, including a 99-day lockout last winter that delayed the start of this season.
Minor league union dues are likely to be a fraction of big league dues: $85 per day this year over the 182-day season. The union does not represent players in the Dominican Summer League.
Next year’s minor league schedule opens March 31 at Triple-A and April 6 at lower levels, when the minor leaguers’ leverage may be greatest. A strike could lead each team to keep its dozen or so optioned players at training complexes playing makeshift games.
The big league union has represented optioned players since 1981.
MLB and lawyers for minor leaguers agreed this year to a $185 million settlement of an eight-year-old federal lawsuit alleging violations of minimum wage laws, a deal that may be finalized next year. An early estimate is that perhaps 23,000 players could share roughly $120 million with an average payment of $5,000 to $5,500, and their lawyers will split $55.5 million.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-minor-leaguers-form-union-17-days-after-organizing-began/ | 2022-09-16T18:27:40Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-minor-leaguers-form-union-17-days-after-organizing-began/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK (AP) — Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver was likely spared even stronger sanctioning by the NBA for his racist, misogynistic and hostile words and actions because of one key conclusion by investigators, Commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday.
The law firm that spent nearly a year digging into the situation determined Sarver’s use of slurs “was not motivated by racial animus.”
Had that not been the case, Silver indicated, Sarver’s punishment — a one-year suspension and $10 million fine — would have been far more severe.
“It was relevant,” Silver said after the league’s Board of Governors meetings concluded. “I think if they had made findings that, in fact, his conduct was motivated by racial animus, absolutely that would have had an impact on on the ultimate outcome here. But that’s not what they found.”
And that, to Silver, is one of the key distinctions between the Sarver case and the one surrounding then-Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014, when he was banned for life and fined $2.5 million for racist comments.
Some players, Silver said, have reached out to him to voice concerns. Silver said he would keep the details of those conversations private.
But LeBron James — obviously, one of the league’s most prominent player voices ever — took his concerns public Wednesday night, tweeting that the NBA did not go far enough with Sarver.
“I gotta be honest…Our league definitely got this wrong,” James tweeted to his 52 million followers. “I don’t need to explain why. Y’all read the stories and decide for yourself. I said it before and I’m gonna say it again, there is no place in this league for that kind of behavior.
“I love this league and I deeply respect our leadership. But this isn’t right. There is no place for misogyny, sexism, and racism in any work place. Don’t matter if you own the team or play for the team. We hold our league up as an example of our values and this aint it,” he wrote.
Suns point guard Chris Paul echoed James’ sentiment later Wednesday.
“Like many others, I reviewed the report,” Paul wrote on social media. “I was and am horrified and disappointed by what I read. This conduct especially towards women is unacceptable and must never be repeated. … I am of the view that the sanctions fell short in truly addressing what we can all agree was atrocious behavior. My heart goes out to all of the people that were affected.”
The NBA had the option of giving Sarver a longer ban than the one-year suspension. The $10 million fine was the maximum allowable, as was the case with Sterling’s $2.5 million fine eight years ago; NBA rules on maximum fines were changed in 2019.
Another reason Silver, who was the ultimate decider of the penalty in this case, stopped short of suspending Sarver for longer or even banning him: He said he took into account a number of anonymous details that could not be revealed in the investigative report that was published Tuesday, along with other elements of Sarver’s actions in his 18 years owning the Suns and the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury.
“There were these terrible things,” Silver said. “There are also many, many people with very positive things to say about him through this process. And ultimately, I took all of that into account in making the decision that the one-year suspension plus the fine was appropriate.”
A 10-month investigation into Sarver’s behavior confirmed he had used racist language, made sexually inappropriate comments, left some employees — male and female — feeling uncomfortable with his words and actions, and took part in what would be considered workplace bullying.
“Indefensible is not strong enough,” Silver said.
But the league did not have discussions about removing Sarver as owner during the Board of Governors meetings. Silver permanently banned Sterling after tapes of him making racist comments were leaked to TMZ in a move that started the process of Sterling being forced to sell the franchise.
“This case is very different,” Silver said. “It’s not that one was captured on tape and the other isn’t. … Mr. Sarver ultimately acknowledged his behavior.”
Sarver did, and issued an apology Tuesday, though noted he did not agree with all of the report’s findings.
Silver was asked about how most employees of any company would likely face firings if they were to use racial slurs or partake in lewd actions or comments in the way that the investigation showed that Sarver did.
“It’s hard to make those comparisons to somebody who commits an inappropriate act in the workplace in somewhat of an anonymous fashion versus what is a huge public issue now around this person,” Silver said. “There’s no neat answer here, other than the rights that come with owning an NBA team, how that is set up within our Constitution. What it would take to remove that team from his control is a very involved process, and it’s different than holding a job. It just is. When you actually own a team, it’s just a very different proposition.”
A difference between the Sterling and Sarver cases is this: Sarver cooperated with the league’s investigation and Sterling, in many ways, did not. Sterling wound up suing the NBA for $1 billion in federal court after his lifetime ban was announced, saying his constitutional rights were violated.
The report said Sarver “repeated or purported to repeat the N-word on at least five occasions spanning his tenure with the Suns.”
“However, the investigation does not find that Sarver’s conduct in any of these instances was motivated by racial animus,” the report read, adding that investigators made “no finding that Sarver used this racially insensitive language with the intent to demean or denigrate.”
The Sterling investigation — from when the audio tapes of him making racist remarks to a girlfriend were released, to Silver’s announcement of the lifetime ban — took three days. The Sarver probe took 100 times longer, involved more than 320 interviews and the review of more than 80,000 documents and other materials.
Both investigations were handled by the same New York-based firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz. Attorney David Anders led both probes.
Sarver will be welcomed back in 2023, though Silver made clear that his words and actions going forward will be highly scrutinized.
“I don’t have the right to take away his team,” Silver said. “I don’t want to rest on that legal point because of course there could be a process to take away someone’s team in this league. It’s very involved, and I ultimately made the decision that it didn’t rise to that level. But to me, the consequences are severe here on Mr. Sarver.”
Sarver’s punishment is also similar to others levied in past high-profile examples of wrongdoing, either words, actions or both.
In 1993, then-Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott was fined $25,000 and suspended one year for making “racially and ethnically offensive remarks.” And last year, the NFL fined the Washington Commanders $10 million, plus investigative fees, after a probe found the team’s workplace environment for women was, in the words of Commissioner Roger Goodell, “highly unprofessional” — but stopped short of suspending owner Daniel Snyder.
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More AP NBA coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-nba-considered-suspending-sarver-for-more-than-1-year/ | 2022-09-16T18:28:02Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-nba-considered-suspending-sarver-for-more-than-1-year/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Multiple Royal Caribbean cruise ships are likely to have itinerary shifts and port changes this weekend and early next week due to the impact of Tropical Storm Fiona.
Individual ships will be receiving confirmations of changes later today, and all guests sailing close to the storm should be prepared for schedule disruptions.
Multiple Ships Impacted in Eastern Caribbean
Multiple Royal Caribbean cruise ships currently sailing eastern and southern Caribbean itineraries are likely to have schedule changes due to Tropical Storm Fiona.
In a post through his popular Twitter feed, James Van Fleet – chief meteorologist for Royal Caribbean International – announced the several vessels may have adjustments to their schedules to avoid the worst impact of the storm in the coming days.
According to Van Fleet, the Oasis-class Allure of the Seas will likely flip its next itinerary, an 8-night Southern Caribbean sailing departing Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, September 17, 2022. The original itinerary planned to first visit the cruise line’s private destination Labadee in the Dominican Republic on Monday, September 19.
Because Tropical Storm Fiona is forecast to be directly over the Dominican Republic on Monday, it is likely the ship will reverse its itinerary route, visiting Labadee last and instead moving up the visits to Aruba and Curacao that are also on the schedule.
This will permit the vessel to enjoy the same ports, albeit in a different order, while avoiding the roughest weather of the storm.
Van Fleet also noted that other Royal Caribbean ships are likely to have schedule changes, including Harmony of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Mariner of the Seas, and Oasis of the Seas.
The exact nature of such itinerary changes has not been announced, but may include changing port orders, adjusting arrival times, or canceling ports as necessary. Always, cruise lines put the safety of their guests, crew, and vessels as the top priority when making such adjustments.
In addition to Royal Caribbean vessels, several other cruise lines currently have ships sailing in the impacted region, including Virgin Voyages, Carnival Cruise Line, Disney Cruise Line, and Norwegian Cruise Line.
Any cruise traveler booked on an eastern or southern Caribbean sailing – with any cruise line – in the next week should stay in close contact with their cruise line for potential schedule changes and itinerary updates.
Update on Tropical Storm Fiona
Tropical Storm Fiona is currently 200 miles (322 kilometers) west-southwest of Puerto Rico, impacting much of the eastern and southern Caribbean, including Barbados, St. Lucia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tropical storm warnings and watches are currently in place for affected areas.
As of 11 a.m. EDT on Friday, September 16, the storm has maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour (80 kph), and is moving west at 14 miles per hour (22 kph). This puts the storm well below hurricane strength (74 miles per hour / 120 kph) at this time.
Fiona is forecast to pass slightly to the south of Puerto Rico on Saturday night, September 17, before turning to the north and likely crossing northwest over the Dominican Republic.
While the storm is likely to strengthen to hurricane force, it is not expected to do so until early next week, as it approaches The Bahamas.
Because the storm’s overall strength, track, and wind field can vary widely in the coming days, no cruise itinerary or route changes related to The Bahamas have been made so far in advance.
At this time, the storm is not anticipated to strongly impact Florida or the multiple cruise homeports on the state’s Atlantic coast. | https://www.cruisehive.com/royal-caribbean-cruise-ships-feeling-tropical-storm-fiona-impact/81775 | 2022-09-16T18:28:34Z | cruisehive.com | control | https://www.cruisehive.com/royal-caribbean-cruise-ships-feeling-tropical-storm-fiona-impact/81775 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The redesigned 2023 Honda CR-V compact crossover starts at a much higher price than the outgoing model, but it also comes with a much better-equipped base model. Honda ditched the LX grade on its bestseller, and the new base EX starts at $32,355, including a $1,245 destination fee, Honda announced Tuesday.
The dinky 5.0-inch dash display gets taken out with the LX in favor of a standard 7.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility (as well as a physical knobs for volume and tuning), heated front seats, dual-zone climate control, heated side mirrors, 18-inch wheels, and LED headlights.
Every 2023 CR-V comes with standard driver-assist features such as automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitors, adaptive cruise control that works down to a stop, active lane control, and a driver attention monitor.
The 2023 CR-V EX carries at least an $1,800 price increase over the 2022 Honda CR-V EX.
The EX and EX-L use the same 190-hp 1.5-liter turbo-4 from last year’s model and it is mated to a continuously variable automatic transmission (CVT). It comes in front-wheel drive, and available all-wheel drive adds $1,500 to either model. The CR-V has grown larger by 2.7 inches but Honda hasn’t released final specs to show the change in vehicle weight. It has the same EPA rating as last year of 28 mpg city, 34 highway, 30 combined. AWD costs it 1 mpg combined.
The $35,005 EX-L adds more creature comforts and upgraded tech. It comes with a 9.0-inch touchscreen, wireless smartphone compatibility with a wireless charger, and an 8-speaker audio system.
The big news for the 2023 Honda CR-V is the revised hybrid model, which Honda expects to account for more than 50% of CR-V sales.
Sport and Sport Touring grades use a hybrid powertrain with a refined 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine and a pair of electric motors. The system outputs 204 hp and 247 lb-ft of torque, an improvement of 3 hp and 15 lb-ft of torque over last year’s Hybrid model. Honda says it does a better job of mimicking the stepped acceleration feel of a gas drivetrain. Front-wheel drive is standard on all trims except for the Sport Touring with AWD. The Hybrid can tow up to 1,000 lb, which is a first, and hill descent control and a snow mode have been added for 2023.
The 2023 CR-V Hybrid improves where it matters most: the EPA rating increases to 43 mpg city, 36 highway, 40 combined. The 2022 CR-V Hybrid was rated at 40 mpg city, 35 highway, 38 combined.
The 2023 CR-V Sport starts the hybrid bidding at $33,695. All-wheel drive adds $1,500. It comes with EX features as well as blacked-out trim pieces, black 18-inch wheels, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel and shift knob.
The Sport Touring hybrid tops the lineup with standard AWD and a $39,845 starting price. AWD lowers the efficiency to 40/34/37 mpg. Sport Touring features 19-inch wheels, Bose 12-speaker audio, navigation, and a wi-fi hotspot.
Built in the U.S., the sixth-generation 2023 Honda CR-V goes on sale September 22, followed by Hybrid models in October.
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- VW Tiguan vs. Toyota RAV4: Compare Crossover SUVs | https://www.wwlp.com/automotive/internet-brands/2023-honda-cr-v-starts-at-32355-hybrid-costs-1650-more-and-gets-40-mpg-combined/ | 2022-09-16T18:31:51Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/automotive/internet-brands/2023-honda-cr-v-starts-at-32355-hybrid-costs-1650-more-and-gets-40-mpg-combined/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Interest in purchasing an EV is high among communities of color, which are also more burdened by air pollution than white communities. Yet significant barriers exist to greater EV adoption, according to a new study from Consumer Reports, EVNoire, GreenLatinos, and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Communities of color are most harmed by vehicle-generated air pollution, but currently purchase and lease EVs at disproportionately low rates, the study’s authors noted, citing 2018 research. It’s not due to lack of interest in EVs, but rather issues that tend to affect people of color more than white people, according to the study, which is based on a national survey of 8,027 United States adults conducted by Consumer Reports between January 27, 2022 and February 18, 2022.
That survey showed broad interest in EVs. Of those surveyed, 33% of white respondents, 38% of Black respondents, 43% of Latino respondents, and 52% of Asian American respondents said they would “definitely” or seriously consider” purchasing or leasing an EV for their next vehicle.
However, the study highlighted several issues that might limit EV adoption in communities of color. Home charging is currently the most affordable way to charge an EV, but it’s not always possible for renters and residents of multi-family dwellings, Consumer Reports noted. The study recommends specifically boosting charging accessibility for these living situations, as well as increased affordable public charging.
Incentive programs accessible to all consumers are another important component to equitable EV adoption, the study said.
That isn’t off to a great start. The federal EV tax credit, which was recently re-upped, requires a certain amount of tax liability in able to claim the benefits. Meanwhile, because of the way it was just restructured, EV leases have become more expensive. The revamped EV tax credit does at least include a $4,000 credit on used EVs up to $25,000.
California has also considered refocusing it incentives toward “gasoline superusers“—although that doesn’t necessarily align with low-income families or communities of color.
The study also calls for increased education efforts, including loaner, test drive, or car sharing programs that let people experience EVs. Across racial groups, experience with an EV “strongly correlated” with interest in purchasing or leasing one, according to Consumer Reports. And a larger percentage of Black (13%) and Latino (10%) respondents than white (5%) and Asian American (2%) respondents said they didn’t know enough about EVs to purchase or lease one.
As has been covered for EVs, and for trucks and buses specifically, air quality issues disproportionately affect communities of color, and it’s likely they will benefit in quality of life from greater rates of EV adoption.
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- Nissan approves first US bidirectional charger for Leaf, use won’t affect warranty | https://www.wwlp.com/automotive/internet-brands/communities-of-color-affected-by-air-pollution-lag-in-ev-adoption-study-looks-at-how-to-fix-this/ | 2022-09-16T18:32:21Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/automotive/internet-brands/communities-of-color-affected-by-air-pollution-lag-in-ev-adoption-study-looks-at-how-to-fix-this/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Since releasing his smoldering 2017 breakthrough, Green Twins, the psych-soul singer-songwriter Nick Hakim has steadily blurred his sound. His 2020 follow-up, Will This Make Me Good, was uninhibited and sometimes amorphous, and on his collaboration with jazz saxophonist Roy Nathanson, Small Things, the performances he delivered were often even fainter, as indistinct as the faces in a crowd on a rainy night. "Vertigo," from the forthcoming COMETA, leans all the way into his progression, using the warped dimensions of his songcraft to enter a space where a moment lasts a lifetime.
The title gives away the sensations at play. The song's slo-mo, out-of-focus appeal only enhances its lyrics about a lovestruck encounter so tender yet intense that it seems to distort time itself. The quiet patter of the drums and the whirring arrangement of guitars and synths create a sort of carousel effect — incandescent and swiveling; disorienting if you zone out. Hakim's music often has this dizzying, punch-drunk quality, but here he verbalizes the reaction ("Can't tell if it's me or the room that's moving"), playing off of the action. It might be difficult to reorient if not for the echo. There isn't a hook, but there are repeated phrases to latch onto: "Slow down," he pleas. "Make this moment last." Yet as they repeat, they, too, start to feed into the cyclical excitement of an endless romp. The harder you try to pull away, the deeper you sink.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-music/2022-09-16/nick-hakim-vertigo | 2022-09-16T18:32:31Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-music/2022-09-16/nick-hakim-vertigo | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Has COVID-19 become no more dangerous than the flu for most people?
That's a question that scientists are debating as the country heads into a third pandemic winter. Early in the pandemic, COVID was estimated to be 10 times more lethal than the flu, fueling many people's fears.
"We have all been questioning, 'When does COVID look like influenza?''' says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. "And, I would say, 'Yes, we are there.'"
Gandhi and other researchers argue that most people today have enough immunity — gained from vaccination, infection or both — to protect them against getting seriously ill from COVID. And this is especially so since the omicron variant doesn't appear to make people as sick as earlier strains, Gandhi says.
So unless a more virulent variant emerges, COVID's menace has diminished considerably for most people, which means that they can go about their daily lives, says Gandhi, "in a way that you used to live with endemic seasonal flu."
But there's still plenty of differing views on this topic. While the threat from COVID-19 may be approaching the peril the flu poses, skeptics doubt it's hit that point yet.
"I'm sorry — I just disagree," says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's medical adviser, and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The severity of one compared to the other is really quite stark. And the potential to kill of one versus the other is really quite stark."
COVID is still killing hundreds of people every day, which means more than 125,000 additional COVID deaths could occur over the next 12 month if deaths continue at that pace, Fauci notes. COVID has already killed more than 1 million Americans and it was the third leading cause of death in 2021.
A bad flu season kills about 50,000 people.
"COVID is a much more serious public health issue than is influenza," Fauci says, noting this is especially true for older people, the group at the highest risk dying from the disease.
Debating the way deaths are counted
The debate over COVID's mortality rate hinges on what counts as a COVID death. Gandhi and other researchers argue that the daily death toll attributed to COVID is exaggerated because many deaths blamed on the disease are actually from other causes. Some of the people who died for other reasons happened to also test positive for the coronavirus.
"We are now seeing consistently that more than 70% of our COVID hospitalizations are in that category," says Dr. Shira Doron, an infectious disease specialist and professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. "If you're counting them all as hospitalizations, and then those people die and you count them all as COVID deaths, you are pretty dramatically overcounting."
If deaths were classified more accurately, then the daily death toll would be closer to the toll the flu takes during a typical season, Doron says. If this is true, the odds of a person dying if they get a COVID infection — what's called the case fatality rate — would be about the same as the flu now, which is estimated to be around 0.1%, or perhaps even lower.
In a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published Thursday, researchers attempted to filter out other deaths to analyze mortality rates for people hospitalized "primarily for COVID-19." They find the death rate has dropped significantly in the omicron era, compared to the delta period.
But Fauci argues that it's difficult to distinguish between deaths that are caused "because of" COVID and those "with" COVID. The disease has been found to put stress on many systems of the body.
"What's the difference with someone who has mild congestive heart failure, goes into the hospital and gets COVID, and then dies from profound congestive heart failure?" he asks. "Is that with COVID or because of COVID? COVID certainly contributed to it."
A second reason many experts estimate that COVID's mortality rate is probably lower than it appears is that many infections aren't being reported now because of home testing.
The fatality rate is a ratio — the number of deaths over the number of confirmed cases — so if there are more actual cases, that means that the likelihood of an individual dying is lower.
"I believe that we have reached the point where, for an individual, COVID poses less of a risk of hospitalization and death than does influenza," Doron says.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, agrees, especially because the vaccines and treatments for COVID are better than those for the flu.
"If you are up-to-date on your vaccines today, and you avail yourself of the treatments, your chances of dying COVID are vanishingly rare and certainly much lower than your risk of getting into trouble with the flu," Jha told NPR.
Risk remains high for the elderly and frail
But Jha stresses that omicron is so contagious and is infecting so many people that it overall "on a population level poses a much greater threat to the American population than flu does," and it can still cause a greater number of total deaths.
And, mortality rates for any disease vary by age and other demographic factors. Importantly, COVID remains much more lethal for older and medically frail people than younger people. Recent data from the CDC shows that compared to 18- to 29-year-olds, people aged 65 to 74 have 60 times the risk of dying; those aged 75 to 84 have 140 times the risk; and those 85 and older have 330 times greater risk.
The danger is especially high for those not vaccinated, boosted and treated properly. And with COVID still spreading widely, they remain vulnerable to exposure from social contact.
While younger, otherwise healthy people can sometimes get very sick and even die from COVID, that's gotten rare.
"I think it's really important people have an accurate sense of the reality in order to go about their lives," says Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease specialist at Stanford University. "If their risk assessments are being driven by or influenced by these overestimated hospitalization and death rates, I think that's problematic."
Waiting to see if the pattern in confirmed
Other researchers still argue that COVID remains far riskier than the flu.
"However you slice it, there was never an instance where COVID-19 was milder than the flu," says Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly of Washington University in St. Louis, who has done research comparing COVID to the flu.
"We've never, ever in the history of the pandemic, in all our studies from the beginning until now, have found that COVID-19 is equally risky to the flu," Al-Aly says. "It's always carried a higher risk."
Some experts are waiting for more data showing a clear trend in reduced mortality rates.
"I'll probably feel more comfortable saying something like, 'Oh COVID is similar to the flu' when we actually see a pattern that resembles that," says Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in the division of health policy and public health. "We're sort of just starting to see that, and I haven't really seen that in a sustained way."
Many also point out that COVID can increase the risk of experiencing long-term health problems, such as long COVID.
"Even people with mild to moderate symptoms from COVID can end up with long COVID," Fauci says. "That doesn't happen with influenza. It's a totally different ball game."
But Gandhi also questions that. Much of the estimated risk for long COVID comes from people who got seriously ill at the start of the pandemic, she says. And if you account for that, the risk of long-term health problems may not be greater from COVID than from other viral infections like the flu, she says.
"It was really severe COVID that led to long COVID. And as the disease has become milder, we're seeing lower rates of long COVID," Gandhi says.
In fact, some experts even fear that this year's flu season could be more severe than this winter's COVID surge. After very mild or even non-existent flu seasons during the pandemic, the flu hit Australia hard this year. And what happens in the Southern hemisphere often predicts what happens in North America.
"If we have a serious influenza season, and if the omicron variants continue to cause principally mild disease, this coming winter could be a much worse flu season than COVID," says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease researcher at Vanderbilt University.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-news/2022-09-16/scientists-debate-how-lethal-covid-is-some-say-its-now-less-risky-than-flu | 2022-09-16T18:32:37Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/npr-news/2022-09-16/scientists-debate-how-lethal-covid-is-some-say-its-now-less-risky-than-flu | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Cruise, a self-driving technology company majority owned by General Motors, will expand its fledgling robotaxi service to two more U.S. cities before 2022 is out, CEO Kyle Vogt said Monday during a Goldman Sachs conference, Reuters has reported.
Cruise’s taxi service currently operates in San Francisco, where the company is headed, but will expand to Austin and Phoenix later this year, Vogt said. Phoenix is where Alphabet’s rival Waymo self-driving technology company has been operating a service for the past three years.
Vogt also said he expects Cruise to earn $1 billion in revenues as early as 2025, though that’s still about half what GM annually invests in the company, according to Reuters.
Cruise has been offering rides to the public in San Francisco since February and was granted permission to start charging for rides in June, though the service is limited to between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The taxis are also limited to 30 mph and cover only certain parts of the city. Cruise’s service will also be rolled out in a limited fashion in Austin and Phoenix, Vogt said.
Cruise has about 70 of the taxis in operation in San Francisco but is on track to double or even triple the number by the end of the year. The taxis are based on the Chevrolet Bolt EV, though Cruise plans to eventually add a dedicated vehicle known as the Origin.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Cruise. One of its taxis was involved in a crash in June, resulting in minor injuries. The company later recalled its fleet and made updates to the software.
Cruise’s self-driving system ranks at Level 4 on the SAE scale of self-driving capability, as it is limited in areas in which it operate. The final goal is Level 5, where a self-driving car is able to operate at the same level as a human. While Level 5 might be a decade or more away, companies are already offering commercial services involving Level 4 cars. The Waymo One service has been running successfully in Phoenix for the past three years and is currently testing in San Francisco, and China’s Baidu continues to expand its Apollo Go service in Chinese cities.
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Are you someone who lives in the U.S. and has family and friends overseas, or do you have family members with these connections? Do you find yourself having sometimes complicated discussions with them about whether the information you are seeing online, on TV or on the radio is accurate and fair compared with what they are seeing?
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Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-world-news/2022-09-16/share-your-stories-of-navigating-information-gaps-with-friends-and-family-overseas | 2022-09-16T18:32:49Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-world-news/2022-09-16/share-your-stories-of-navigating-information-gaps-with-friends-and-family-overseas | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
LONDON (AP) — There are fridge magnets, tea sets and flags. And of course mugs, T-shirts and sweatshirts with the face of Queen Elizabeth II that are inscribed with the dates of her 70-year reign: 1952-2022.
Just days after the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch, unofficial souvenirs have rolled out at royal-themed gift shops in London and online marketplaces like Amazon and Etsy.
Cool Britannia, a shop selling U.K.-themed memorabilia across the street from Buckingham Palace, pushed its suppliers to work overnight to get mementos ready by Saturday, just two days after the queen’s death, store manager Ismayil Ibrahim said. Items depicting the new monarch, King Charles III, were also on their way to Ibrahim’s shop, where tourists were buying other royal gifts like queen bobbleheads and rubber ducks wearing crowns.
Official merchandise, however, will take longer to arrive to approved vendors, who have suspended sales of royal souvenirs out of respect for the mourning period.
Based on strong customer demand for gifts for the queen’s recent Platinum Jubilee celebrating her seven decades on the throne, Ibrahim anticipates even greater interest in souvenirs commemorating her life and death.
“People kept asking us, ‘Have you got anything yet?’ Ibrahim said.
So he quickly stocked T-shirts and mugs saying, “Forever in our Hearts” and “Gone but not forgotten,” bearing a portrait of the queen as a young woman. Another version carried portraits of the queen both young and old with the words: “Queen Elizabeth II — The Greatest Reign 1952-2022.”
There was a constant stream of tourists browsing at the shop Monday, and two others nearby, though not many were buying the items commemorating her reign.
Lorenzo Corbani, an Italian living in Bath, England, bought a solar-powered bobblehead figure of the queen for his mother, who was a big fan.
“She felt she was a great woman,” said Corbani, 35.
Unofficial gifts have spread quickly online, too. Sellers on eBay are already hawking King Charles III souvenir mugs, badges, fridge magnets, and key rings that say “God Save The King.” Amazon vendors are flogging similarly tacky and hastily churned out royal merchandise like Union Jack flags adorned with Charles’ portrait and decals and posters commemorating Queen Elizabeth II’s life. There’s even a pet bandana with the dates of her reign.
At Majestic Gifts near Buckingham Palace, Paul Callaghan splurged on a tin of Platinum Jubilee English breakfast tea bearing the queen’s picture for 15 pounds ($17.50), which he said was a one-off purchase.
“It’s not cheap, but it’s limited. It’s never going to happen again,” said Callaghan, 35, who works in financial services and was visiting London from Dublin.
Now that the queen has died, he decided to buy a memento “before all the stocks run out.”
“Because, again, it’s quite a historic thing. You’re never going to see a queen live until this long or reign this long,” Callaghan said. “And not only that, but we’re probably not going to have another queen for another century.”
There’s likely to be big demand for King Charles III souvenirs, and vendors of unofficial royal merchandise like Ibrahim are poised to capitalize on it, raising questions over copyright. But it’s unlikely that the royal family will take legal action, according to a lawyer specializing in trademark law.
“Given the fascination with the monarchy it would be a full-time job to stop unlicensed merchandise,” said Charlotte Wilding, a partner at the firm Wedlake Bell.
“I suspect the Royal Family takes the view that it would rather not punish the general public for its ‘support,’ even if that support may not be in the correct form,” Wilding said by email. “Bad press is just not something the Royal Family want to be a part of or risk being a part of, even if they are legally in the right.”
In the meantime, official vendors of royal gifts are observing a 10-day mourning period. One of them, the Royal Collection Trust, which manages public access to the queen’s residences, said on its website that its shops have closed in London, Windsor and Edinburgh and online sales of items like Buckingham Palace magnets have been suspended.
With no official items to snag, Judy Kline, a 74-year-old tourist from suburban Detroit, spent 32 pounds on souvenirs at a tourist shop at London’s famed Piccadilly Circus, including several ornate blue and white fridge magnets with the queen’s portrait.
“I have some friends who are very envious that they’re not on this trip with us. I wanted to give them a little token,” Kline said.
Kline said she felt a certain affinity with the royals and wanted to buy King Charles III memorabilia but would be departing before any arrived at souvenir shops and stalls.
“The prince — I mean the king — is a year younger than I am. So I saw him as a little kid, and he was like my peer, you know?” Kline said. “And then their grandkids are just a little bit younger than our grandkids.”
___
Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed from London.
___
Follow all AP stories on Britain’s royal family at https://apnews.com/hub/queen-elizabeth-ii. | https://www.wwlp.com/business/ap-business/ap-a-piece-of-the-queen-new-souvenirs-mark-monarchs-death/ | 2022-09-16T18:33:11Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/business/ap-business/ap-a-piece-of-the-queen-new-souvenirs-mark-monarchs-death/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MANASSAS, Va. (AP) — In a universe of cloud computing, northern Virginia might be in a perpetual fog.
More of the data centers that feed the cloud are clustered in the region outside the nation’s capital than anywhere else in the world.
As cloud computing — which enables data storage and other services to be delivered over the internet — continues its exponential increase, the appetite for new data centers continues to grow. And increasingly, communities that abut the centers are complaining about their new neighbors, mostly about the noise from constantly whirring fans needed to cool the computers and servers warehoused within.
“It’s just a constant whir at a frequency that’s obnoxious,” said Dale Browne, president of the Great Oak Homeowners Association. Residents there led a protest recently outside a nearby data center in Prince William County, newly built to support Amazon Web Services.
Browne said he preferred the quarry that used to occupy the land over the data center. And he’s worried that the noise will only get worse in winter, when a line of trees that provides something of a buffer sheds its leaves.
Speakers at the protest said they fear Prince William County is on the verge of joining its neighbor, Loudoun County, which is known as the data center capital of the world.
“We are the canary in the coalmine,” Browne said.
Northern Virginia has been a tech hub since the formation of the internet, and now hosts more data centers than the next five largest U.S. markets combined, according to the Northern Virginia Technology Council.
Collectively, the northern Virginia data centers demand about 1,900 megawatts of power, said Josh Levi, president of the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire output of Dominion Energy’s nuclear reactors at its North Anna power plant.
Browne and his neighbors say noise from the data center regularly exceeds the local limit of 60 decibels for noise — a study by Amazon disputes this — but it’s largely a moot point because the county noise ordinance exempts air conditioning units. Activists say the ordinance was written more than 30 years ago and never anticipated the massive cooling systems used in data centers.
Amazon Web Services, for its part, said it’s installing acoustical shrouds at the site as part of its noise-reduction efforts.
“Addressing our neighbors’ noise concerns in Prince William County is a priority for us,” a company spokesman said in a statement.
Noise is not the only issue. Spencer Snakard, president of Protect Fauquier, worries that more data centers will require more high-voltage transmission lines to deliver the massive amounts of electricity they require, destroying views and posing their own potential health risks.
“I see these noisy monstrosities much like computers of the 1960s and 70’s: massive, bulky, ugly, and in their infant stage,” she said.
Not all residents are opposed to the data centers. In the Gainesville area, a group of property owners proposed having their land rezoned from agricultural use to allow them. County staff recommended approving this ahead of a Sept. 14 planning commission vote.
Mary Ann Ghadban of Gainesville, 68, is one of the property owners who would sell if the area is rezoned. A lifelong county resident, she built what she called her “dream barn” on her 55-acre horse farm.
“All my neighbors, we were all long-timers. We were going to live here until we died,” she said.
But after the electric company built high-voltage transmission lines through her property in 2008, she said her horses suffered ill health effects, and property values dropped. Housing developers took over nearby tracts, and her rural enclave became something else.
“It breaks our heart, but it’s a fact: It’s not rural anymore,” she said. “We should have had this area open to data centers years ago, because you’ve already ruined the property. You’ve already ruined people’s lives by adding massive transmission towers, so put the data centers where the power is already.”
There’s also opposition from the nearby Manassas National Battlefield Park. Superintendent Brandon Bies likened the threat to Disney’s bid 30 years ago to build a theme park near the battlefield — a proposal environmentalists and other activists famously scuttled — and pushed back against the notion that transmission lines have already destroyed the area’s rural character.
“While indeed unsightly, the agricultural and historic nature of the battlefield’s western edge is still largely intact,” he wrote in a letter to the county board.
Counties that snub data centers would be turning down a lucrative source of tax revenue.
Data centers now provide for more than 30 percent of the general fund budget of Loudoun County, a suburb of the nation’s capital with more than 400,000 residents.
While the windfall has been a boon to Loudoun, Phyllis Randall, chair of the county’s Board of Supervisors, has raised concerns about overreliance on the industry.
“I’m not an economist, but even I know that not diversifying your economy to that degree gets a little dangerous,” she said at a February meeting where a board committee considered plans to manage the data centers’ growth.
Levi, with the Data Center Coalition, said northern Virginia remains a particularly attractive site for a number of reasons. He points to the region’s history as an internet hub for starters — in a business where nanoseconds matter, so does proximity to those hubs, Levi said.
In addition, Virginia was one of the first states to establish tax incentives for data centers.
He acknowledged that community resistance has increased as the industry has expanded. The industry is typically tight-lipped because of its security requirements, and needs to do more to promote its beneficial impacts, along with its advances in designing centers to have less environmental impact, he said.
“I think you’ve seen a lot of continuing innovation and design changes in response to community concerns,” he said. | https://www.wwlp.com/business/ap-business/ap-as-data-centers-proliferate-neighbors-knock-the-noise/ | 2022-09-16T18:33:18Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/business/ap-business/ap-as-data-centers-proliferate-neighbors-knock-the-noise/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
‘She looked bad:’ Observant store clerk saves teen from alleged abuse situation
FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP, Ohio (WXIX/Gray News) – A convenience store employee in Ohio is being credited with rescuing a teen from her stepfather’s alleged abuse after recognizing the girl’s injuries during an encounter last month.
Rebecca Austin works at Hamilton Quick Mart, where the teen visited on Aug. 15 or 16, according to Fairfield Township police.
Austin said the teen entered the store “dazed and confused,” walked around a bit and approached the counter. She had only $1 in her pocket, Austin said. The girl asked if there was something she could buy with it.
When Austin looked up, she said she couldn’t believe her eyes.
“She had all these marks and bruises,” Austin explained. “We first thought she had a choker that the kids wear, but it was a bruise from the ties that he used on her.”
Austin let the girl keep her money. She then fed her a sandwich and a soda before approaching her to ask who had hurt her.
“She said, ‘Nobody, I fell down a hill,’” Austin recalled the girl saying.
Immediately she knew that was a lie, because the blood vessels in the girl’s eyes were busted, and her face was bruised.
“She looked bad,” Austin said.
Fairfield Township police later confirmed the teen had injuries to her eyes, neck and wrists as well as burns on her palms.
Eventually, Austin took the teen outside, where she became visibly anxious.
“She kept saying, ‘If my stepdad comes by, he’ll see me and make me go,’” Austin said. “I said, ‘Nobody’s going to make you leave.’”
The teen was shaking, Austin recalls. Then she told Austin some things her family members had supposedly told her, a combination of alleged threats and lies to keep her from fleeing.
“If she called the cops, they [the police] would be mean to her,” Austin said. “They wouldn’t help her. And if she went to foster care, they would have to kill a kid for her to go.”
Austin succeeded in calming the teen down and called 911.
The situation came to light Wednesday, a month after the teen’s stepfather, James Evans, admitted to police that he’d bound her feet with a ratchet strap and zip-tied her to a bed.
According to a police bodycam recording obtained by WXIX, Evans claimed to have done so because the girl had allegedly threatened to kill him as well as the girl’s mother and step-grandfather.
He said he woke up with the teen standing over his head with a kitchen knife. It isn’t clear when this allegedly happened, but the officer inferred it happened the previous night and asked whether Evans had called police. Evans replied that he had not.
He told the officer the ties were intended to keep the girl from running away. He also vaguely mentioned their hope that she would see a counselor.
Police said, Sarah Evans, the teen’s mother, cut her free at least once so she could use the bathroom but tied her back up afterward.
It isn’t known whether the alleged abuse happened on more than one occasion, nor is it known how the girl escaped and came to the convenience store.
EMS transported her to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Liberty Township due to the severity of her injuries. She is currently with children’s services.
Police arrested James Evans immediately following his admission on Aug. 16. They said other children were removed from the Evans’ home as well.
The teen’s step-grandfather, Robert Evans, also allegedly knew about the abusive situation.
“If you’re a parent or guardian and you’re aware that a child in your custody is being abused, and you do nothing, you could easily be subjected to criminal liability and be charged for that,” explained Fairfield Police Sgt. Brandon McCroskey. “I’ve had a couple cases myself where that’s occurred, this being one of them.”
The three adults are facing 14 total criminal charges, including abduction and child endangering.
Copyright 2022 WXIX via Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wbko.com/2022/09/16/she-looked-bad-observant-store-clerk-saves-teen-alleged-abuse-situation/ | 2022-09-16T18:33:26Z | wbko.com | control | https://www.wbko.com/2022/09/16/she-looked-bad-observant-store-clerk-saves-teen-alleged-abuse-situation/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Lawmakers in an Australian state pledged their allegiance to King Charles III on Tuesday with some using the occasion to call for an Australian republic.
Australia’s center-left Labor Party government wants an Australian president to replace the British monarch as the nation’s head of state. The death of Queen Elizabeth II last week after a 70-year reign is seen by many as an ideal opportunity for change.
Lawmakers from the minor Greens party used their swearing in ceremony in the Victoria Parliament to advocate for an Australian head of state.
“We’re here as Victorian MPs to swear allegiance to King Charles III, a new head of state decided for us, but not by us,” Greens leader Samantha Ratnam told reporters before the ceremony, referring to members of Parliament.
“This is a really important time to reflect on the role of the British monarchy going forward in Australia, the impact of colonization and the need to move forward in this country with a treaty and with a republic,” Ratnam added.
Despite the protest, all four Greens lawmakers fell in with the rest in swearing or affirming their allegiance to the king, whose is head of state of Britain, Australia and another 13 countries that were once part of the British Empire.
Three Greens lawmakers wore clothes with slogans that highlighted that the British colonized Australia without signing a treaty with its Indigenous people.
The ceremony in Australia’s second-most populous state, which is named after the 19th century monarch Queen Victoria, was the result of a legal quirk that underscores how complicated the process of Australia severing its constitutional ties with Britain’s monarch could become.
Lawmakers’ pledge of allegiance in the other five states and in the Australian Parliament roll over from the late queen to her eldest son.
Victoria demands a new oath to a dead monarch’s successor before lawmakers can vote on motions or legislation — a procedure one expert called a “silly quirk.”
“They’ve got a clause in their constitution that shouldn’t be there,” George Williams, a University of New South Wales constitutional lawyer, said.
“Really, you don’t need it. You should have the oath … to the monarch’s heirs and successors” as occurs in the Australian Parliament, Williams said.
Australians voted at a 1999 referendum against Australia becoming a republic and breaking its constitutional ties to its former colonial master.
If that referendum had succeeded in establishing an Australian president, the states were expected to eventually take the same step, Williams said.
Williams did not consider an Australian republic with state monarchies would be sustainable in the long term.
“It would be symbolically fraught and pretty inconvenient and wouldn’t make much sense either to be a republican nation and have state monarchies,” Williams said.
“I don’t think anyone would think it would last very long, but it’s at least a theoretical possibility,” Williams added.
Adelaide University Law Professor Greg Taylor said the potential for states to resist ending their links to monarch was no reason for Australia not to hold a second referendum on becoming a republic.
“There are very good reasons for not doing it, but ‘it’s too hard’ is not one of them,” Taylor said.
He said the German Empire from 1871 until 1918 was an example of a coalition of monarchies and republics.
“So such a thing is possible. I think personally it would be rather odd,” Taylor, said referring to the possibility of state monarchies remaining in an Australian republic.
The British monarch is represented across the Australian nation by a governor-general who is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister.
The monarch is represented in each state by a state governor appointed on the advice of the state premier.
The Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory don’t have the same rights as states and their links to the monarch are less direct. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-lawmakers-in-australian-state-pledge-allegiance-to-king/ | 2022-09-16T18:35:01Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/ap-lawmakers-in-australian-state-pledge-allegiance-to-king/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PITTSBURGH, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "One day I noticed a mud puddle from condensation. I placed a 6 gallon pail below the tube and the pail was full or more than full twice a day. I thought there should be a way to collect and reuse this water to water a lawn or garden," said an inventor, from Martinsburg, W.V., "so I invented the CONDENSATION COLLECTOR. My design prevents the water from being wasted, especially during dry-climate seasons or times without rain."
The invention provides an effective way to collect water/condensation from a home HVAC unit. In doing so, it enables the water to be used for lawn and garden use. As a result, it helps to conserve water and it could help to reduce water bills. The invention features a flexible and eco-friendly design that is easy to set up and use so it is ideal for households and businesses.
The original design was submitted to the Baltimore sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 21-BDH-154, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.
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SOURCE InventHelp | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/inventhelp-inventor-develops-hvac-condensation-collector-bdh-154/ | 2022-09-16T18:35:31Z | wbko.com | control | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/inventhelp-inventor-develops-hvac-condensation-collector-bdh-154/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When local school officials voted down a Tennessee charter school linked to Hillsdale College this summer, staffers at the state commission that would soon have to decide whether to let the controversial school open anyway reacted with shock at how things unfolded.
The text messages they exchanged, obtained through a records request by The Associated Press, showed the close attention state staffers paid to the school board’s resounding rejection in the wake of Hillsdale President Larry Arnn’s disparaging comments about teachers. When no one showed up to make the case for the Hillsdale-affiliated charter school application, the alarm among those who would be left holding the bag was palpable.
“What!!!! They invited both schools to speak and (they) did not show!!!” texted Beth Figueroa, the commission’s director of authorizing.
“WHAT,” replied Chase Ingle, commission spokesperson.
“I’m speechless!!!” Figueroa wrote.
Critics ranging from some Democratic lawmakers to educators have argued the Tennessee Charter School Commission was designed to rubberstamp charters that local communities don’t want, with several members tied to pro-charter groups. The nine members are handpicked by Republican Gov. Bill Lee — a vocal charter schools supporter and proponent of Hillsdale College’s charter initiative — and confirmed by lawmakers in the GOP-supermajority General Assembly. The staffers work for the commission.
Hillsdale, a small conservative college in Michigan, holds outsized influence with Republican politicians. Arnn had recently spearheaded the “1776 Curriculum,” inspired by former President Donald Trump’s short-lived “1776 Commission,” as a direct response to The New York Times’ “1619 Project” focusing on America’s history of slavery. Curriculum materials glorify the founders, downplay America’s role in slavery and condemn the rise of progressive politics.
Its prominence has strengthened among conservatives amid the national debate over the role schools should play in teaching race and sexuality. South Dakota, for one, turned to a former Hillsdale politics professor to write proposed social studies standards for its public schools. They align with the “1776 Curriculum.”
Tennessee’s state commission will be put to the test this week during public hearings— run by commission staffers — as board members consider whether to approve applications from three Hillsdale-affiliated charter schools appealing their rejections by local school boards.
The texts were among hundreds of documents the commission provided after the AP requested all conversations relating to Hillsdale College and their charter school affiliates. Most of the records showed commission staffers helping applicants navigate the appeals process, telling them what information was needed and offering appeals training.
But the documents also included texts as staffers watched the fallout of Arnn’s disparaging remarks on teachers as local school boards in Rutherford, Jackson-Madison and Clarksville-Montgomery school board denied the Hillsdale-affiliated applications.
“Are we having fun yet?” texted Tess Stovall, commission executive director, on Aug. 10 after sending a link to a news article on the panel’s independence being tested. “I like my quotes.”
During the Rutherford County school board meeting on July 18, Ingle and Figueroa texted while watching the livestream. When no one showed from the Hillsdale-affiliated school to defend their application, both expressed alarm. Board members voted 6-1 to reject the charter.
Ingle wrote, “Beth, that’s a tough look.”
“This does not help us,” Ingle continued. He said the Rutherford school board member who voted against rejecting Hillsdale calls him “once a quarter.”
The text messages drew further skepticism about the commission from Jim Wrye, a representative of Tennessee’s largest organization representing educators.
“The administration sold the state charter commission to the General Assembly as a neutral appellate body,” Wrye, Tennessee Education Association government relations director, told the AP. “We believed the goal was to undermine local control and drop charter schools on communities that do not want them. That belief is only growing.”
In 2010, Hillsdale began establishing charter schools nationwide. Hillsdale maintains it does not operate or manage them, but instead offers support by licensing their curriculum for free and providing training and other resources to so-called member schools.
Tennessee’s state commission could overrule local decision-makers on Hillsdale-affiliated schools. Or, the panel could spike them after Arnn’s comments, including a declaration that educators are “trained in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.” The governor, who was on stage with Arnn during some of his remarks, has refused to condemn his words.
Asked about the texts, the commission said staffers regularly monitor local school board meetings to stay “fully prepared” for potential appeals.
“(At) the time of these text messages, commission staff was anticipating 16 new start appeals. Of those 16 possible appeals, we are currently handling 13 public charter school appeals, an unprecedented number in Tennessee since the state started hearing appeals in 2002,” Ingle said via email, noting the commission only had three appeals last year, its first year operating.
Any charter school approved at the local level spares the commission from the time and effort required for additional appeals, Ingle said.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Jeff Yarbro questioned the commission’s logic, saying, “Hillsdale’s poor showing only makes the commission’s job harder if their mandate is to greenlight new schools.”
“The commission shouldn’t have a rooting interest in the charter schools under review,” Yarbro told the AP. “Here, the danger is a commission and staff focused on opening more charters rather than ensuring a fair and independent process.”
Tennessee’s Charter School Commission was formed in 2019. Rep. Mark White, the Republican who sponsored the legislation backed by Gov. Lee, said at the time the proposal would move the charter school appeals process from the state education board — which has a wide variety of oversight responsibilities — to a new charter-focused panel.
White, who joined in widespread outcry against Arnn’s comments, told the AP he still believes the state commission is the best option for vetting and ensuring Tennessee has quality charter schools. He said the text messages show staffers carefully watch the proceedings because it would affect their workload.
“I know where they’re coming from, and I know they’re solid,” he said.
___
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Tess Stovall’s last name. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/ap-amid-hillsdale-fallout-tenn-staffers-fretted-about-optics/ | 2022-09-16T18:36:07Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/ap-amid-hillsdale-fallout-tenn-staffers-fretted-about-optics/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- ELITE SPORTS MEDICINE + ORTHOPEDICS, Middle Tennessee's premier orthopedic group, is thrilled to announce the addition of board-certified orthopedic spine surgeon Dr. Elliot Kim.
"I am passionate about serving the community through orthopedics," says Dr. Kim. "I look forward to seeing my neighbors, friends, and people of all walks of life enter my clinic!"
Dr. Kim earned his B.A. degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology High Honors and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University where he graduated summa cum laude. He then went on to earn his medical degree at Vanderbilt School of Medicine. Dr. Kim completed his orthopedic surgery residency at Vanderbilt Orthopaedics. He completed his training with a spine surgery fellowship at the Emory Orthopaedics and Spine Center in Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Kim will see patients at Elite's Franklin, Centennial and Brentwood locations. To schedule an appointment and learn more about Dr. Kim call 615.324.1600 or visit: eliteorthopedic.com
Established in 2006 by Dr. Burton F. Elrod, Dr. David R. Moore, and Dr. Jeffrey D. Willers, Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics provides patient-driven, integrative care for people experiencing musculoskeletal pain and impairments. Elite's team of twelve (13) board-certified subspecialized orthopedic surgeons are uniquely experienced in diagnosing and treating a wide variety of injuries and conditions affecting joints, muscles, bones, ligaments, and tendons. The practice serves many professional and amateur athletes but emphasizes exceptional care for patients from all walks of life across its six (6) Nashville and Franklin locations.
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SOURCE Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/orthopedic-spine-surgeon-dr-elliot-kim-joins-elite-sports-medicine-orthopaedics/ | 2022-09-16T18:36:32Z | wbko.com | control | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/orthopedic-spine-surgeon-dr-elliot-kim-joins-elite-sports-medicine-orthopaedics/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Longtime Bridgewater-Raritan HS athletics director to retire this fall
After a quarter century as an athletics director, including the past 23 years at Bridgewater-Raritan High School, John Maggio has decided to retire, making it official with Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting.
Maggio, who spent two years as the AD at Bound Brook before taking over at Bridgewater-Raritan in July of 1999, will work his last day Nov. 30. He said he originally planned to retire in August, but with some of the programs at the school undergoing major transitions, including the football team bringing in a new head coach, he wanted to ensure thing were running smoothly before turning over the keys to Somerset County’s largest athletics department.
“I love being the AD at Bridgewater-Raritan. I love the district, I love my coaching staff, athletic trainers, support staff, and all the departments I work with in the district. The only reason I’m leaving is I’m going to be 61 at the end of November,” Maggio said. “I really love the job, the people I work with, and our coaching staff if second to none. As is our administration and district. It’s all top notch. I have zero complaints. It’s just that I’m getting older, and I want to do some of the things I have not been able to do.”
A graduate of Bound Brook High School, where he played football and baseball, Maggio went to Glassboro State, before eventually returning to his alma mater as an assistant football coach. He then moved to Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, where he spent nine years as an assistant football and strength coach, before getting the AD job at Bound Brook in 1997.
Two years later, he moved to Bridgewater-Raritan, replacing Carl Weigner, becoming just the second AD the school has had in its 31-year history.
Athletics is in Maggio’s blood, and being an AD had been a longtime dream for the son of Ben Maggio, who spent 40 years in athletics, including 24 as the AD at Plainfield. John Maggio’s brother, Fran, is a Hall of Fame coach at Roselle Park High School, and the winningest softball coach in Union County history.
“I grew up in that environment, and I wanted to be an AD since I was in the sixth grade,” Maggio said.
Maggio has not only run the athletic department at Somerset County’s largest school, he has tirelessly served on numerous state, conference and county committees, and ran several county tournaments, including the SCT softball tournament for 22 years. He also hosted plenty of county championships, including the Somerset County basketball finals.
He is the longest tenured AD in the Skyland Conference, and at a Somerset County public school.
Rich Shello has been the athletics director at Ridge since 1998, coming in a year after Maggio began at Bound Brook. Shello is also the son of a longtime area athletics director. His father, Mike Shello, spent over 40 years at Dunellen.
“I’m going to miss John tremendously,” said Shello, who even spent a year working under John Maggio’s father at Plainfield, as an assistant football, basketball and baseball coach. “He’s been a colleague and a friend, certainly, and we’ve both in this business a long time. We’re both sons of athletics directors from the area, and I was quite surprised when he first mentioned he was thinking about it (retirement). I didn’t expect it. John has done a tremendous job for Bridgewater, the way he’s led the program there, and what he’s done for the Skyland Conference and our Somerset County association. He’s been a workhorse. We are going to greatly miss him and all that he’s done.”
“I will miss working daily with our coaches, athletic trainers and staff,” Maggio said. “I’ve been an AD for 26 years. It’s non-stop. And I’ll miss that. I’ll miss the games and doing what I do. I’m sure there’s other things I’ll miss that I don’t know I’ll miss. I’ll also miss my colleagues, the other athletics directors. I’ll miss the work that we do and seeing them.
“There are a lot of really great things going on at Bridgewater-Raritan, and I’m disappointed that I won’t be around to see all the positive things they’ve got planned for the future. But at some point you’ve got to move on. I know when everything’s good, it’s the time to go.”
Football preview:Bridgewater-Raritan boasts depth and versatility, continues upward trend
Maggio is looking forward to life away from the 24/7, 365-day-a-year responsibilities of running a massive athletics operation. He’s looking forward to fishing and spending more time with his wife., Chrissy, their daughters, Francis and Dena, and their son, Jake, who is playing football at West Liberty College in West Virginia.
“I know it’s the right time to do it,” he said. “I’m still in good health and I’m looking forward to doing some of things I haven’t been able to do.”
“I couldn’t be happier for John as he opens this new chapter of his life,” said Bridgewater-Raritan softball coach Sandy Baranowski, who arrived with the Panthers just a year before Maggio was hired. “Finally, a time when he can put himself first after a career of dedicated service to both Bridgewater-Raritan and Bound Brook athletics. A true professional at a job that is, at times, thankless. It has been an honor to work with John for all these years. He will be deeply missed by all of the coaches here at BR as well as the athletes. I hope he knows the impact he has made on this community. I wish him all the best.
“Fish beware!”
Simeon Pincus has been covering New Jersey sports since 1997. He can be reached atSPincus@GannettNJ.com. Follow him on Twitter @SimeonPincus | https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/sports/high-school/football/2022/09/16/longtime-somerset-county-athletics-director-to-retire-this-fall/69499184007/ | 2022-09-16T18:36:49Z | mycentraljersey.com | control | https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/sports/high-school/football/2022/09/16/longtime-somerset-county-athletics-director-to-retire-this-fall/69499184007/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The $225 million development will bring boutique restaurants, retail and multifamily to Gilbert
PHOENIX, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Thompson Thrift, a full-service nationally recognized real estate company, announced today the acquisition of a 35-acre parcel in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert where the company plans to develop The Gilmore, a mixed-use project with luxury apartment homes and more than 200,000 square feet of boutique restaurant and retail space. The company expects to break ground on the development in the first half of 2023.
"As Gilbert's path of growth has extended south in recent years, there is strong demand from residents to have elevated shopping and dining options near where they work and live," said Ashlee Boyd, managing partner for Thompson Thrift Commercial. "We are excited to collaborate across Thompson Thrift's commercial, residential and construction business units to bring a high-end, mixed-use project to the community."
Located just off Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway on the northwest corner of Val Vista Drive and Germann Road, The Gilmore is located in the heart of the southeast valley and is expected to bring a host of regional and local retailers, restaurants, entertainment-based and service-based tenants to the community.
Thompson Thrift has designed The Gilmore to provide a sense of place and will feature a seamless blending of retail, restaurants and residential uses with a Main Street-style entrance, beautiful landscaping, covered walkways, common area seating, local artist murals and multiple outdoor gathering spaces.
"Mixed-use developments like The Gilmore are possible for Thompson Thrift because of the synergy between our Commercial and Residential development companies. This in-house relationship allows us the ability to work with planners and designers to partner with local municipalities to deliver a first-class development that will be well received by local residents," said Josh Purvis, managing partner for Thompson Thrift Residential.
Chris Hake, senior vice president, director of the Southwest region for Thompson Thrift, added, "We expect leasing interest to continue to be robust due to the Gilmore's proximity to the Val Vista and 202 Loop exchange, strong day time population and the high-end residential neighborhoods that surround the site."
Phoenix Commercial Advisors, an experienced Arizona retail commercial brokerage, will be representing Thompson Thrift in leasing the retail component of the project.
"The Gilmore will be a unique, high-density mixed-use project in the southeast Valley. It will include boutique retail, full-service and fast-casual regional and national restaurants along with high-end multifamily residential," said Zach Pace, senior vice president for Phoenix Commercial Advisors.
Gilbert is located southeast of Phoenix in Maricopa County, about 18 miles from Scottsdale. The city's dedicated attention to nurturing local and regional businesses, its attractive cost of living, economic diversity and a highly ranked public school system helped it earn the title as the best place to live in Arizona as well as the most prosperous large city in the nation.
Thompson Thrift is a full-service real estate development company focused on ground-up commercial and mixed-use development across the Midwest, Southeast and Southwest. Since its founding more than 30 years ago, Thompson Thrift has invested more than $3.8 billion into local communities and has become known as a trusted partner committed to developing high-quality, attractive retail and residential projects.
Thompson Thrift is well-established throughout Arizona with more than 20 retail, multifamily and industrial projects in development, with an estimated volume of more than $1.5 billion.
About Thompson Thrift Real Estate Company
Thompson Thrift is an integrated full-service real estate company with offices in Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Indiana, Denver, Houston and Phoenix. Three business units drive Thompson Thrift's success—Thompson Thrift Residential which is focused on upscale Class A multifamily communities and luxury leased homes, Thompson Thrift Commercial which is focused on ground-up commercial development, and Thompson Thrift Construction, a full-service construction company. Through these business units, Thompson Thrift is engaged in all aspects of acquisition, development, construction, leasing, and management of quality multifamily, mixed-use, retail, industrial and commercial projects across the country. We are passionate about our customer's success and strive to ensure our projects not only meet the needs of our customers but also the communities we serve. For more information, please visit www.thompsonthrift.com
Contact:
Jennifer Franklin
Spotlight Marketing Communications
949.427.1385
jennifer@spotlightmarcom.com
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SOURCE Thompson Thrift | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/thompson-thrift-purchases-35-acres-mixed-use-development-near-phoenix/ | 2022-09-16T18:37:04Z | wbko.com | control | https://www.wbko.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/thompson-thrift-purchases-35-acres-mixed-use-development-near-phoenix/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
OAK GLEN, Calif. (AP) — Rescuers searched for a person missing in a mudslide Tuesday as big yellow tractors plowed through dark, thick sludge and pushed boulders off roads after flash floods swept dirt, rocks and trees down fire-scarred slopes, washed away cars and buried buildings in small mountain communities in Southern California.
With thunderstorms forecast and more mudslides possible into Wednesday, evacuation orders remained in place in parts of the San Bernardino Mountains while a wildfire raging 500 miles (805 kilometers) to the north forced residents to abandon their homes.
The Mosquito Fire burning 110 miles (177 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco erupted in the afternoon just hours after officials had reported making “great strides” in the battle.
“We have all hands on deck,” fire spokesperson Chris Valenzuela said as the fire burned near Todd Valley and Foresthill. “It’s burning very erratic and intensely.”
The blaze was one of three large fires in the state.
East of Los Angeles, crews searched street by street for people who might be trapped by mudflows that washed rocks, trees and other debris with astonishing force the day before into Forest Falls, Oak Glen and Yucaipa and left a muddy mess and untold destruction.
Homes and other buildings were damaged, including a commercial building buried so high its roof collapsed, said Eric Sherwin, spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
“We have boulders that moved through that weigh multiple tons,” Sherwin said. “It could take days just to find all the cars that are missing because they are completely covered by mud.”
A video showed a slow-moving black river of sludge rolling past the sign for the Oak Glen Steakhouse and Saloon followed seconds later by a surging wave of deeper mud carrying logs. The mud appeared to be head-high in places the next day.
Sherwin said crews were searching for one missing person.
Residents who tried to return home found it tough going in the sticky mess.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Perla Halbert, whose feet were caked in mud after trying to walk to her home. “If you try and take two steps, you get submerged. You just get stuck.”
Halbert had been out of town and returned to her Oak Glen home late Monday to find the driveway covered with a few inches of mud. Her family stayed the night with family members and returned after first light to discover several feet of mud and a fence washed away.
Her husband went to buy boots and coveralls before trekking through the muck to assess the damage.
“There’s lots of rocks and so much mud. But hopefully the house itself is OK,” she said.
Officials lifted some mandatory evacuation and shelter in place orders Tuesday evening.
Workers were able to clear most of Valley of the Falls Drive — the only road to Forests Falls — and teams were assessing damage. Other major roads in the San Bernardino Mountains were reopened.
For some homes in Forest Falls, it was too late to evacuate Monday. Residents were told to shelter in place through the night because it was safer than venturing out.
The rains were the remnants of a tropical storm that brought high winds and some badly needed rainfall to drought-stricken Southern California last week, helping firefighters largely corral the Fairview Fire that had been burning out of control about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the mudslides.
The mud flows and flash flooding occurred in parts of the San Bernardino Mountains where there are burn scars — areas where there’s little vegetation to hold the soil — from the 2020 wildfires.
“All of that dirt turns to mud and starts slipping down the mountain,” Sherwin said.
One of the 2020 blazes, the El Dorado Fire, was sparked by a smoke device used by a couple to reveal their baby’s gender. A firefighter died, and the couple was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
The mudslides occurred about 175 miles (280 kilometers) east of Montecito, where enormous debris flows killed more than 20 people and destroyed hundreds of homes in January 2018, a month after a huge wildfire scorched hillsides.
About 40 miles (64 kilometers) west, Cal State San Bernardino reopened Tuesday, a day after the campus was closed when several buildings were flooded during heavy rains.
The powerful thunderstorms came after a week that saw California endure a record-long heatwave. Temperatures in many parts of the state rocketed past 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), and pushed the state’s electrical grid to the breaking point as air conditioners sucked up power. The Fairview Fire in Southern California and the Mosquito Fire burning east of Sacramento broke out and raged out of control.
The tropical storm aided crews battling the Fairview Fire about 75 miles (121 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. The 44-square-mile (114-square-kilometer) blaze was 62% contained by Tuesday. Two people died fleeing the fire, which destroyed at least 35 homes and other structures in Riverside County.
The Mosquito Fire has grown to nearly 79 square miles (nearly 204 square kilometers), with 25% containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
More than 11,000 people have been evacuated and nearly 6,000 structures are threatened — an increase in both figures as the blaze raged Tuesday near Foresthill and Todd Valley after a spot fire jumped the Middle Fork of the American River, officials said.
Increased winds earlier Tuesday pushed out a smoke -inversion layer that had been stifling the blaze and gave fresh oxygen to the flames, Valenzuela said. The area is full of extremely dry fuels that were rapidly igniting, challenging both firefighters on the ground and aircraft.
Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. In the last five years, California has experienced the largest and most destructive fires in its history.
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Weber reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles contributed.
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For more AP coverage of the climate and environment: https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/ap-rains-mudslides-prompt-southern-california-evacuations/ | 2022-09-16T18:37:04Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-national-news/ap-rains-mudslides-prompt-southern-california-evacuations/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country music as a genre has always been a melting pot of influences and cultures, often shifting and morphing to reflect popular sounds and trends. BRELAND’s debut full-length album “Cross Country” builds on that history, interpolating and sampling older songs and bringing in his background in gospel, R&B and hip-hop under the expansive umbrella of country music.
“I’ve gone on and on about cross country being the intersection of country and all these other genres,” said the 27-year-old New Jersey native. “But when you zoom out from that definition a little bit, and in practice, in reality, cross country is a movement.”
Since his breakout viral hit, “My Truck,” landed in 2019, BRELAND has quickly immersed himself in Nashville’s songwriting rooms, taking over as the king of country collabs. He’s had songs with Keith Urban, Sam Hunt, Thomas Rhett, Jimmie Allen, Dierks Bentley, Tennille Townes, Lauren Alaina and Chase Rice, just to name a few. With each co-writing session, he’s building on his brand of a more fluid and inclusive genre.
“We live in a world where there are a lot of different divisions,” said BRELAND. “They pop up everywhere, whether it’s political or not, people don’t really agree on a lot. And music is one of the unifiers that we have. It’s one of the only things that we have that really brings people together.”
The Georgetown University grad grew up in a very musical family, which he jokingly referred to as the Von Trapps. His parents met in a gospel choir and they have continued their musical ministry. After singing in a cappella in college, BRELAND moved to Atlanta to write songs for other artists. But his goal has always been to be a singer, and after seeing positive reaction on social media to a demo for “My Truck,” he took the leap.
He got early support from Urban, a similarly minded country artist who brought him into the studio to work on tracks for Urban’s 2020 record “Speed of Now, Pt. 1.” Since then, BRELAND has been hopping from one collaboration to the next. Those collabs also led to his first CMA nomination for musical event of the year on the Bentley No. 1 song “Beers on Me” with HARDY.
“When I’m in those types of rooms, I’m not really worried about what the outcome is going to be. I just want to try to make the best song possible,” said BRELAND. “I think musically I bring so many different sounds and possibilities on a record that if I’m on a more country-leaning song, I might be the hip-hop element as a feature. If I’m on a more hip hop-leaning song, I might be the country element.”
His album has even more features with other artists: a country trap song anchored by Urban’s banjo and vocals, a poppy duet with Ingrid Andress, a slow jam drinking song with country group Lady A and the title track with Mickey Guyton.
Together with his producers Sam Sumser and Sean Snell, BRELAND also reinterprets samples and interpolations of older country songs to bridge his music to country’s past, most notably songs by female artists. In a homage to Shania Twain, BRELAND’s “Natural” mimics the distinctive guitar riffs from “Man! I Feel Like a Woman,” while the song “County Line” uses the jingly keyboard from the No. 1 crossover hit “Nobody” by Sylvia, which came out in 1982.
Co-written with Hunt and country singer-songwriter Ernest, BRELAND raps about small town characters with tongue-in-cheek lyrics over a beat built over the distinctive ’80s sounding “Nobody” melody. Ernest said that Sumser brought them the sample, and the writers immediately started vibing on its throwback sound.
“Trends come back around,” Ernest said of reworking the song. “I think we’re just all tipping our hat and paying homage to the stuff that had the sauce before us.”
BRELAND said, “Both of those songs can exist under the umbrella of historical country music.”
Given that gospel was his family’s cornerstone, BRELAND said his parents ideally would have wanted him to continue that path of religious music. But he found a different way to preach a unifying message.
“Whether or not it’s a directly religious message, I do think that there is a God message in the music, which is being positive,” said BRELAND. “I want people to feel good. I want people to be positive. I want people to love each other.”
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Online: https://www.brelandmusic.com/
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Follow Kristin M. Hall at https://twitter.com/kmhall
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For more AP music news, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/music | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-breland-king-of-collabs-invents-the-sound-of-cross-country/ | 2022-09-16T18:37:55Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-breland-king-of-collabs-invents-the-sound-of-cross-country/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
CHICAGO (AP) — A federal jury in Chicago convicted R. Kelly on Wednesday of producing child pornography and enticing girls for sex after a monthlong trial in his hometown, delivering another legal blow to the Grammy Award winning singer who was once one of the world’s biggest R&B stars.
Prosecutors won convictions on six of the 13 counts against him, with many of the convictions carrying long mandatory sentences. But the government lost the marquee count — that Kelly and his then-business manager successfully rigged his state child pornography trial in 2008.
Both of his co-defendants, including longtime business manager Derrel McDavid — who had told jurors that testimony from four Kelly accusers had led him to change his mind about Kelly’s believability — were acquitted of all charges.
The trial was, in ways, a do-over of Kelly’s 2008 child pornography trial, with a key video critical to both. Kelly, who shed tears of joy when jurors acquitted him in 2008, gave a thumbs-up sign to spectators after Wednesday’s verdict but otherwise showed little emotion.
Before Kelly was returned to federal lockup, McDavid hugged Kelly, who rose from poverty on Chicago’s South Side to become a superstar.
Asked by reporters later outside court how Kelly felt after the verdict, his lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said: “Mr. Kelly is used to bad news.”
“He’s still got many fights to fight,” she said. “But what he did say is that he had a sense of relief that this particular case was in the past now.”
The verdict comes months after a federal judge in New York sentenced Kelly to 30 years in prison in June for racketeering and sex trafficking. Based on that sentence, the 55-year-old won’t be eligible for release until he is around 80.
And two sexual misconduct trials still await Kelly — one in Minnesota and one in state court in Chicago.
After deliberating for 11 hours over two days, jurors convicted Kelly of three counts each of producing child pornography and enticement, while acquitting him of obstruction of justice, one count of production of child porn and three counts of receiving child porn.
Among the charges McDavid was acquitted of was conspiring with Kelly to rig the 2008 trial. Milton Brown, the other co-defendant, was acquitted of receiving child pornography.
Chicago-based U.S. Attorney John Lausch expressed satisfaction with the verdict. He told reporters that, when you add up the potential punishments on the six guilty counts, Kelly was staring at at least 10 years and up to 90 in prison.
Judge Harry Leinenweber did not set a sentencing date. He could order that Kelly serve whatever sentence he imposes simultaneously with the New York sentence or only after that one is fully served. The latter would, for practical purposes, mean a life sentence.
Prosecutors at the federal trial in Illinois portrayed Kelly as a master manipulator who used his fame and wealth to reel in star-struck fans, some of them minors, to sexually abuse then discard them.
Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, was desperate to recover pornographic videos he made and lugged around in a gym bag, witnesses said. They said he offered up to $1 million to recover missing videos before his 2008 trial, knowing they would land him in legal peril. The conspiracy to hide his abuse ran from 2000 to 2020, prosecutors said.
Some dozen Kelly fans regularly attended the trial. On at least one occasion during a break, several made hand signs of a heart at Kelly. He smiled back.
Bonjean, Kelly’s attorney, told jurors in her closings that the government had relied, in some cases, on liars and and blackmailers as witnesses. She earlier implored jurors not to see Kelly as “the monster” she said prosecutors so badly wanted them to see.
In her closing rebuttal Tuesday, prosecutor Jeannice Appenteng cited testimony that Kelly’s inner circle increasingly focused on doing what Kelly wanted as his fame boomed in the mid-1990s.
“And ladies and gentlemen, what R. Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls,” she said.
All four Kelly accusers who testified went by pseudonyms or their first names: Jane, Nia, Pauline and Tracy. Some cried when describing the abuse but otherwise spoke calmly and with confidence. A fifth accuser, Brittany, didn’t testify, and jurors acquitted Kelly of the one charge related to her.
Four of his six convictions were tied directly to Jane and relied largely on her testimony.
She was the government’s star witness and also pivotal to the trial fixing charge, of which he was acquitted, and which accused him of using threats and payoffs to get her to lie to a grand jury before his 2008 trial.
A single video, which state prosecutors said was Kelly abusing a girl of around 14, was the focal point of that trial. Three of the child porn charges that Kelly was convicted of Wednesday were related to that video and others depicting Jane.
Jane, 37, said publicly for the first time at the just-ended trial that the girl in the video was her at age 14 and that the man was Kelly, who would have been around 30.
Some jurors in the 2008 trial said they had to acquit Kelly because the girl in the video didn’t testify.
Asked on the witness stand how many times Jane and Kelly had sexually abused her before she turned 18, Jane answered quietly: “Uncountable times. … Hundreds.”
Jane, who belonged to a teenage singing group, first met Kelly in the late 1990s when she was in junior high school. Soon after that, Jane told her parents Kelly was going to be her godfather.
Jane testified that when her parents confronted Kelly in the early 2000s he dropped to his knees and begged them for forgiveness. She said she implored her parents not to take action against Kelly because she loved him.
Defense attorneys suggested a desire for money and fame drove some government witnesses to accuse Kelly, and they accused several people of trying to blackmail him.
Prosecutors played jurors excerpts from three videos that Jane said featured her. Court officials set up opaque screens around the jurors so spectators couldn’t see the videos or the jurors’ reactions.
But the sound was audible. In one video, the girl is heard repeatedly calling the man “daddy.” At one point she asks: “Daddy, do you still love me?” The man gives her sexually explicit instructions.
Prosecutors have said Kelly recorded the video that was also evidence in the 2008 trial in a log cabin-themed room at his North Side Chicago home around 1998.
Another accuser, Pauline, said Jane introduced her to Kelly when they were 14-year-old middle school classmates in 1998. She told jurors she still cares for Kelly. But, as a 37-year-old mom, she said she now has a different perspective.
“If somebody did something to my kids,” she said, “I’m killing ’em. Period.”
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Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mtarm and find AP’s full coverage of the R. Kelly trial at https://apnews.com/hub/r-kelly
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This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Derrel McDavid’s first name. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-day-2-of-jury-deliberations-at-r-kellys-child-porn-trial/ | 2022-09-16T18:38:16Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-day-2-of-jury-deliberations-at-r-kellys-child-porn-trial/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday announced a national debate on end-of-life options that will include exploring the possibility of legalizing assisted suicide.
A 2016 French law provides that doctors can keep terminally ill patients sedated before death but stops short of allowing assisted suicide.
Macron said in a written statement that a panel of citizens would work on the issue in coordination with health care workers over the coming months, while local debates are organized in French regions.
The government plans to hold parallel discussions with lawmakers from all political parties to find the broadest consensus, with the aim of implementing changes next year, the president’s statement said.
Some French patients travel to other European countries to seek further end-of-life options. While campaigning for his successful reelection this year, Macron promised to open the debate in France, suggesting he was personally in favor of legalizing physician-assisted suicide.
Assisted suicide, which involves patients self-administering a lethal dose of drugs, is allowed in Switzerland. Euthanasia, a process in which a medical professional directly gives the drugs, is currently legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Spain under certain conditions. .
Macron’s announcement came the day the family of French director Jean-Luc Godard said he died by assisted suicide at his home in the Swiss town of Rolle.
French polls in recent years steadily showed a broad majority of people are in favor of legalizing euthanasia.
The current law allows patients to request “deep, continuous sedation altering consciousness until death” but only when their conditions are likely to lead to a quick death.
Doctors are allowed to stop life-sustaining treatments, including artificial hydration and nutrition. Sedation and painkillers are allowed “even if they may shorten the person’s life.” | https://www.wwlp.com/news/health/ap-health/ap-france-to-open-debate-meant-to-broaden-end-of-life-options/ | 2022-09-16T18:40:04Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/health/ap-health/ap-france-to-open-debate-meant-to-broaden-end-of-life-options/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for a search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida home, showing that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago.
A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity of the Mar-a-Lago storage room.
“Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” department lawyers wrote.
The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says.
The footage could be an important piece of the investigation, including as agents evaluate whether anyone has sought to obstruct the probe. The Justice Department has said in a separate filing that it has “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”
The Justice Department has been investigating the holding of top-secret information and other classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. FBI agents during their Aug. 8 search of the home and club said they recovered more than 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items, including roughly 100 with classification markings.
Separately Tuesday, the Justice Department again urged U.S. District Aileen Cannon to lift her hold on core aspects of the investigation. Cannon last week granted the Trump team’s request for an independent arbiter to review the seized documents and weed out from the investigation any records that may be covered by claims of executive or attorney-client privilege.
She also ordered the department to halt its review of the records pending any further court order or the completion of a review by the yet-to-be-named special master. The department urged Cannon last week to put her order on hold and told the judge Tuesday that its investigation would be harmed by a continued delay of its ability to scrutinize the classified documents.
“The government and the public unquestionably have an interest in the timely enforcement of criminal laws, particularly those involving the protection of highly sensitive information, and especially where, as here, there may have been efforts to obstruct its investigation,” the lawyers wrote.
The Trump team on Monday urged the judge to leave her order in place. His lawyers raised questions about the documents’ current classification status and noted that a president has absolute authority to declassify information, though they pointedly did not say that Trump had actually declassified anything.
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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-judge-unseals-additional-portions-of-mar-a-lago-affidavit/ | 2022-09-16T18:41:24Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-judge-unseals-additional-portions-of-mar-a-lago-affidavit/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Over 500,000 Miami residents will be able to subscribe and receive crucial updates, city news, information about municipal services, emergency alerts, and more – straight to their smartphones via a single app.
MIAMI, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Simplicity Tech Inc. announces today that the City of Miami has added Simplicity to its list of social networks to enhance the way it communicates with residents. With the Simplicity app, Miami residents can access a range of important city information in English or Spanish in a single app.
"Simplicity adds another important layer for our city to connect with our residents and deliver them important information in a timely and engaging manner. I am glad to see more innovation emerge that focuses on enhancing communication between municipalities and residents," commented Mayor of Miami Francis X. Suarez.
Simplicity app is a "city in your phone" where people can see all critical city updates, emergencies, outages, road closures, city events, and more. The app is currently used by over 100 cities, mainly in the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago suburbs. The city of Cleveland, the City of Denver, and other major cities are launching the app in the upcoming months.
With the Simplicity app, municipalities and residents can combat the growth of misinformation on social media, improve the speed of information sharing, and reduce the environmental impact of printed materials. The app lets residents choose the type of alerts they want to receive, including updates from various municipal agencies and departments critical to residents' daily lives, such as the health department, updates about road closures, upcoming events, and emergency notifications.
Simplicity's CXO Miguel Gamiño Jr. said the company was proud to be working with one of America's most vibrant cities. "Miami's been the center of a lot of tech development, and we are excited to join in and help the city serve its diverse community of residents."
Gamiño, a former CTO of New York City, joined Simplicity as CXO and Founding Partner in July 2022.
Simplicity Tech Inc. is a technology company based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices in Chicago and Bratislava, Slovakia. Its Simplicity application helps municipalities and residents fight misinformation and stay informed about the most critical updates affecting their communities. Following its successful launch in Silicon Valley, the company raised over $10M in seed funding for further expansion. For more information, visit www.onesimplicity.com
Contact:
Mariia Ternovskaia
mariia@onesimplicity.com
View original content:
SOURCE Simplicity Tech Inc. | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/city-miami-partners-with-simplicity-app/ | 2022-09-16T18:41:31Z | wave3.com | control | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/city-miami-partners-with-simplicity-app/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Ken Starr, a former federal appellate judge and a prominent attorney whose criminal investigation of Bill Clinton led to the president’s impeachment and put Starr at the center of one of the country’s most polarizing debates of the 1990s, has died at age 76, his family said Tuesday.
Starr died at a hospital Tuesday of complications from surgery, according to his former colleague, attorney Mark Lanier. He said Starr had been hospitalized in an intensive care unit in Houston for about four months.
For many years, Starr’s stellar reputation as a lawyer seemed to place him on a path to the Supreme Court. At age 37, he became the youngest person ever to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia also had served. From 1989-93, Starr was the solicitor general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, arguing 25 cases before the Supreme Court.
Roberts said Tuesday: “Ken loved our country and served it with dedication and distinction. He led by example, in the legal profession, public service, and the community.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remembered Starr Tuesday as “a brilliant litigator, an impressive leader, and a devoted patriot.”
Despite his impressive legal credentials, nothing could have prepared him for the task of investigating a sitting president.
In a probe that lasted five years, Starr looked into fraudulent real estate deals involving a long-time Clinton associate, delved into the removal of documents from the office of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster after his suicide and assembled evidence of Clinton’s sexual encounters with Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern. Each of the controversies held the potential to do serious, perhaps fatal, damage to Clinton’s presidency.
In a Tuesday tweet, Lewinsky expressed mixed emotions on the news of Starr’s death. “As I’m sure many can understand, my thoughts about ken starr bring up complicated feelings,” she tweeted. “But of more importance, is that i imagine it’s a painful loss for those who love him.”
As Clinton’s legal problems worsened, the White House pilloried Starr as a right-wing fanatic doing the bidding of Republicans bent on destroying the president.
“The assaults took a toll” on the investigation, Starr told a Senate committee in 1999. “A duly authorized federal law enforcement investigation came to be characterized as yet another political game. Law became politics by other means.”
In a bitter finish to his investigation of the Lewinsky affair that engendered still more criticism, Starr filed a report, as the law required, with the U.S. House of Representatives. He concluded that Clinton lied under oath, engaged in obstruction of justice and followed a pattern of conduct that was inconsistent with the president’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. House Republicans used Starr’s report as a roadmap in the impeachment of the president, who was acquitted in a Senate trial.
In 2020, he was recruited to help represent Trump in his first impeachment trial. In a memorable statement to Congress, Starr said “we are living in what I think can aptly be described as the ‘age of impeachment.’” He said that “like war, impeachment is hell, or at least presidential impeachment is hell.”
In a post to his Truth Social account, Trump paid tribute to Starr as “a true American Patriot who loved our Country and the Law. I so appreciated his support and his thoughts that our cause against fascists and other mentally sick people in our Country is just.”
Clinton’s legal problems began during the 1992 presidential campaign. Questions arose over the candidate’s ties to the owner of a failed Arkansas savings and loan. The issue faded quickly. But it caught the attention of federal regulators, who began looking into whether money from the S&L had been diverted to a real estate venture called Whitewater in which Bill and Hillary Clinton and the S&L’s owner, Jim McDougal, shared a financial interest.
Bowing to intense political pressure from Republicans and some members of his own party, Clinton called for appointment of a special counsel to investigate Whitewater. A three-member appeals court for independent counsels selected Starr.
On the Whitewater front, Starr’s prosecutors investigated Mrs. Clinton’s legal work for Jim McDougal’s S&L. Both she and the president were questioned by Starr’s prosecutors and their videotaped depositions were played for juries in criminal trials of McDougal and his ex-wife Susan. Neither of the Clintons was ever charged in connection with Whitewater.
The investigation of Clinton’s intimate relationship with Lewinsky was a Washington spectacle.
In 1995, Lewinsky went to work at the White House as an intern. During the government shutdown late that year, she and Clinton had a sexual encounter in a hallway near the Oval Office, the first of 10 sexual encounters over the next year and a half. Lewinsky confided the affair to a co-worker, Linda Tripp, who tape-recorded some of their conversations and brought the tapes to Starr’s prosecutors. Lewinsky was granted immunity from prosecution in the case that brought Starr celebrity and thrust a presidential sex scandal into America’s living rooms. She became Starr’s chief witness against the president, who had denied having sexual relations with her.
Putting the investigation behind him, Starr embarked on a career in academia, first as dean of the law school at Pepperdine University where he taught constitutional issues and civil procedures, then as president of Baylor University in his home state of Texas. He also became an author, writing “First Among Equals: The Supreme Court in American Life.”
Starr was demoted from the presidency at Baylor in 2016 amid a sex assault scandal that rocked the Big 12 school and its football program, as women alleged campus leaders at the nation’s largest Baptist school bungled or ignored their assault complaints. Baylor eventually settled with several women who filed a cascade of lawsuits, including a case where the victim of a 2015 attack accused Baylor of fostering a “hunting ground for sexual predators.”
The school’s board of regents allowed Starr to stay on as chancellor and law school professor, jobs that carried no “operational” duties at Baylor. He resigned altogether a few months later. Football coach Art Briles also was fired.
A review commissioned by the school found that under Starr, school administrators discouraged students from reporting or participating in student conduct reviews, and even contributed to or accommodated a “hostile” environment against the alleged victims.
In a statement, Starr apologized to “those victims who were not treated with the care, concern, and support they deserve.”
Starr also drew scrutiny for his role helping defend Jeffrey Epstein, the multimillionaire who killed himself in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually abused multiple underage girls. Starr was part of a team that helped Epstein reach a controversial plea agreement in 2008 that led to him receiving a 13-month sentence instead of facing more serious federal charges for sex abuse.
Starr was born in Vernon, a small Texas town near the Oklahoma state, and raised in San Antonio. He earned his B.A. from George Washington University in 1968, his M.A. from Brown University in 1969 and his J.D. degree from Duke University Law School in 1973. He was a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger from 1975 to 1977.
As a young attorney at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles, Starr worked with William French Smith, who became attorney general in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Starr became counselor to Smith, and from there was nominated by Reagan to the federal appeals court.
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Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Associated Press writers Jim Vertuno in Austin, Terry Wallace in Dallas and the late Pete Yost contributed to this report. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-ken-starr-whose-probe-led-to-clinton-impeachment-dies/ | 2022-09-16T18:41:31Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-ken-starr-whose-probe-led-to-clinton-impeachment-dies/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK (AP) — Monica Lewinsky had a tempered, compassionate response to the death of Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation of Bill Clinton helped reveal her affair with the president and, she once wrote, made her life a “living hell.”
“As I’m sure many can understand, my thoughts about ken starr bring up complicated feelings,” she tweeted Tuesday after reports that Starr had died at age 76. “But of more importance, is that i imagine it’s a painful loss for those who love him.”
Lewinsky was a White House intern in the mid-1990s, in her early 20s, when she began a relationship with Clinton, one that Starr would document in exhaustive, explicit detail. Starr had initially been retained to look into an Arkansas real estate deal Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in, but his investigation shifted after he learned of allegations about the president’s private behavior. Lewinsky denied their affair in a sworn affidavit, but did not know that her former colleague, Linda Tripp, had been taping their phone conversations about Bill Clinton and would turn them over to Starr.
Lewinsky would recall with horror being interrogated for hours in 1998 by Starr’s prosecutors — but not Starr himself — and threatened with prison if she didn’t cooperate with their investigation, a demand she initially refused. Months later, she agreed to testify about the affair, and turned over to prosecutors a dress stained with the president’s semen, in return for immunity.
Lewinsky later wrote that she was diagnosed with “post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly from the ordeal of having been publicly outed and ostracized,” and was for years subjected to crude jokes. But starting with a Vanity Fair essay in 2014 and a TED talk she gave in 2015 on “The Price of Shame,” she has become a widely respected anti-bullying activist. David Letterman and John Oliver are among those who have apologized for once mocking her.
Writing in Vanity Fair in 2018, Lewinsky remembered finally encountering Starr in person, at a Greenwich Village restaurant the previous Christmas Eve. Starr stepped forward with a “warm, incongruous smile,” and introduced himself to Lewinsky, who was dining with her family.
“Ken Starr asked me several times if I was ‘doing O.K.’ A stranger might have surmised from his tone that he had actually worried about me over the years. His demeanor, almost pastoral, was somewhere between avuncular and creepy. He kept touching my arm and elbow, which made me uncomfortable,” she wrote.
“I turned and introduced him to my family. Bizarre as it may sound, I felt determined, then and there, to remind him that, 20 years before, he and his team of prosecutors hadn’t hounded and terrorized just me but also my family — threatening to prosecute my mom (if she didn’t disclose the private confidences I had shared with her), hinting that they would investigate my dad’s medical practice, and even deposing my aunt, with whom I was eating dinner that night.”
Starr would write about Lewinsky in his 2018 memoir “Contempt,” describing how “Monica screamed, she cried, she pouted, and complained bitterly about her scheming, no-good, so-called friend (Tripp).” But their threats, and the urging of Lewinsky’s mother to accept the prosecutors’ terms, did not change her mind.
“Monica overruled her mother. She would fall on her sword rather than implicate the president of the United States,” Starr wrote. “It was becoming increasingly clear: in thinking she was a naive, starstruck young woman in love who would quickly cooperate, we underestimated her. In her determination to protect the president, Monica kept a team of experienced FBI agents and career prosecutors twiddling their thumbs for much of the day.” | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-lewinsky-says-starrs-death-painful-for-those-who-love-him/ | 2022-09-16T18:41:38Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-lewinsky-says-starrs-death-painful-for-those-who-love-him/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz announces that investors with substantial losses have opportunity to lead the securities fraud class action lawsuit against Carvana Co. ("Carvana" or the "Company") (NYSE: CVNA).
Class Period: May 6, 2020 – June 24, 2022
Lead Plaintiff Deadline: October 3, 2022
If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.
The complaint filed alleges that, throughout the Class Period, Defendants failed to disclose to investors that: (1) Carvana faced serious, ongoing issues with documentation, registration, and title with many of its vehicles; (2) as a result, Carvana was issuing unusually frequent temporary plates; (3) as a result of the foregoing, Carvana was violating laws and regulations in many existing markets; (4) as a result of the foregoing, Carvana risked its ability to continue business and/or expand its business in existing markets; (5) as a result of the foregoing, Carvana was at an increased risk of governmental investigation and action; (6) Carvana was in discussion with state and local authorities regarding the above-stated business tactics and issues; (7) Carvana was facing imminent and ongoing regulatory actions including license suspensions, business cessation, and probation in several states and counties including in Arizona, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina; and (8) as a result, Defendants' positive statements about the Company's business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.
Follow us for updates on Twitter: twitter.com/FRC_LAW.
To be a member of the class action you need not take any action at this time; you may retain counsel of your choice or take no action and remain an absent member of the class action. If you wish to learn more about this class action, or if you have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to the pending class action lawsuit, please contact Frank R. Cruz, of The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz, 1999 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 1100, Los Angeles, California 90067 at 310-914-5007, by email to info@frankcruzlaw.com, or visit our website at www.frankcruzlaw.com. If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.
This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.
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SOURCE The Law Offices of Frank R. Cruz, Los Angeles | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/cvna-investors-have-opportunity-lead-carvana-co-securities-fraud-lawsuit/ | 2022-09-16T18:41:46Z | wave3.com | control | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/cvna-investors-have-opportunity-lead-carvana-co-securities-fraud-lawsuit/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — An independent commission is recommending that the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery be dismantled and taken down, as part of its final report to Congress on the renaming of military bases and assets that commemorate the Confederacy.
Panel members on Tuesday rolled out the final list of ships, base roads, buildings and other items that they said should be renamed. But unlike the commission’s recommendations earlier this year laying out new names for nine Army bases, there were no suggested names for the roughly 1,100 assets across the military that bear Confederate names.
Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, vice-chair of the commission, said the final cost for all of its renaming recommendations will be $62,450,030. The total for the latest changes announced Tuesday is $40,957,729, and is included in that amount.
The latest group of assets includes everything from the Arlington memorial, two Navy ships and some Army vessels to street signs, water towers, athletic fields, hospital doors and even decals on recycling bins, according to the panel.
The bulk of the remaining costs — or $21,041,301 — would cover the renaming of nine Army bases, and about $450,000 for recommended new names at the U.S. Military at West Point in New York.
Seidule said the panel determined that the memorial at Arlington was “problematic from top to bottom.” He said the panel recommended that it be entirely removed, with only the granite base remaining.
The statue, unveiled in 1914, features a bronze woman, crowned with olive leaves, standing on a 32-foot pedestal, and was designed to represent the American South. According to Arlington, the woman holds a laurel wreath, a plow stock and a pruning hook, with a Biblical inscription at her feet that says: “They have beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
The pedestal features 14 shields, engraved with the coats of arms of the 13 Confederate states and Maryland, which didn’t secede or join the Confederacy. Some of the figures also on the statue include a slave woman depicted as “Mammy” holding what is said to be the child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.
And the Latin inscription translates to: “The victorious cause was pleasing to the gods, but the lost cause to Cato,” and was meant to equate the South’s secession to a noble “lost cause.”
Seidule said the panel decided early on to propose new names only for the nine Army bases. It said that the Navy secretary has the authority to rename the two ships, which are the USS Chancellorsville and USNS Maury. The Chancellorsville was named for the Civil War battle and the Maury was named after a Confederate soldier.
He said the service secretaries can find new names for the handful of Army ships and the Air Force’s Fort Fisher Recreation Area in North Carolina. The panel recommended that the defense secretary rename Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
The panel’s most sweeping recommendations were released in May, and laying out new names for nine U.S. Army bases that commemorated Confederate officers: Fort Bragg in North Carolina; Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Polk in Louisiana and Fort Rucker in Alabama.
The recommendations are the latest step in a broader effort by the military to confront racial injustice, most recently in the aftermath of the May 2020 police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
For years, U.S. military officials had defended the naming of bases after Confederate officers. As recently as 2015 the Army argued that the names did not honor the rebel cause but were a gesture of reconciliation with the South.
But in the aftermath of the Floyd killing, and the months of racial unrest that followed, the Pentagon and Congress pushed for a comprehensive plan to rename the military posts and hundreds of other federal assets such as roads, buildings, memorials, signs and landmarks that honored rebel leaders.
The secretary of defense is expected to implement the commission’s plan no later than Jan. 1, 2024.
The panel also is recommending that the department set up a process to try and save money and efficiently change the names. And it said the secretary of defense should authorize the military service secretaries and other leaders to remove smaller items —- such as portraits, plaques and awards — that honor the Confederacy or those who served in it.
Created in 2020, the Naming Commission first met in March 2021 and began taking name recommendations from the public in September. Overall, the commission received more than 34,000 potential names for the nine Army bases.
Seidule said that some of the names that were not used can be used by the service secretaries as they determine new names for roads and other base locations and assets. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-panel-advises-removal-of-confederate-statue-at-arlington/ | 2022-09-16T18:41:59Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-panel-advises-removal-of-confederate-statue-at-arlington/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Archives is still not certain that it has custody of all Donald Trump’s presidential records even after the FBI search of his Mar-a-Lago club, a congressional committee said in a letter Tuesday.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform revealed that staff at the Archives on an Aug. 24 call could not provide assurances that they have all of Trump’s presidential records. The committee in the letter asked the Archives to conduct an assessment of whether any Trump records remain unaccounted for and potentially in his possession.
“In light of revelations that Mr. Trump’s representatives misled investigators about his continued possession of government property and that material found at his club included dozens of ‘empty folders’ for classified material, I am deeply concerned that sensitive presidential records may remain out of the control and custody of the U.S. Government,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the chairwoman of the Oversight Committee, wrote in the letter.
The House committee has jurisdiction over the Presidential Records Act, a 1978 law that requires the preservation of White House documents as property of the U.S. government. The request is the latest development in a monthslong back-and-forth between the agency and the committee, which has been investigating Trump’s handling of records.
The request also comes weeks after the FBI recovered more than 100 documents with classified markings and even more than 10,000 other government documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The search came after lawyers for Trump provided a sworn certification that all government records had been returned.
Maloney and other Democratic lawmakers on the panel have been seeking a briefing from the National Archives, but haven’t received one due to the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal investigation into the matter.
But the letter notes a call between Archives staff and the committee on Aug. 24, where lawmakers were informed that documents could still be missing.
As a result, Maloney wrote, the committee is asking the agency to conduct an “urgent review” of all of the government records that have been recorded from the Trump White House to determine whether any additional records remain unaccounted for and potentially in the possession of the former president.
In addition, the committee also asked for the Archives to get a personal certification from Trump “that he has surrendered all presidential records that he illegally removed from the White House after leaving office.”
The committee is asking the Archives to provide an initial assessment of this review by Sept. 27. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-panel-archives-still-not-certain-it-has-all-trump-records/ | 2022-09-16T18:42:07Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-panel-archives-still-not-certain-it-has-all-trump-records/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee eked out a victory in his Democratic primary on Tuesday, beating back strong challenges from a pair of opponents as he seeks his first full term in office.
McKee, the former lieutenant governor who became the state’s chief executive a year and a half ago when two-term Gov. Gina Raimondo was tapped as U.S. commerce secretary, will be the heavy favorite in the liberal state in November against Republican Ashley Kalus, a business owner and political novice.
McKee edged out former CVS executive Helena Foulkes, who saw a late surge in the polls and won a last-minute endorsement from The Boston Globe’s editorial board. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, who was seeking to become the first Latina governor in New England, finished a close third.
“I’m proud to be here,” the 71-year-old governor said in his victory speech. “Because Rhode Island is positioned in a way where we’ve never had this momentum before and we’re going to take full advantage of it.”
In an awkward moment, a phone was handed toward McKee during the speech. When he was told it was Foulkes, McKee said, “No, that’s not going to happen.” As the crowd chanted “four more years,” McKee said, “Hang up on them, hang up on them.”
Foulkes told her supporters she was unhappy McKee wouldn’t answer her call.
In the last primaries before the November general election, voters in Rhode Island were choosing nominees for statewide offices, U.S. House, the state Legislature and local positions. New Hampshire and Delaware also held primaries on Tuesday.
With his victory, McKee avoided becoming the first governor to lose his primary since 2018, when Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer narrowly lost the Republican nomination to Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who went on to lose the general election to Democrat Laura Kelly. Like McKee, Colyer took over when the sitting governor resigned for another job.
In his campaign, McKee touted his leadership in navigating the state’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic after he was sworn in as governor in March 2021. Foulkes said she would work to find new ways for companies to invest in Rhode Island and help existing companies find new markets. Gorbea argued the state needed better leadership on issues like housing, education and climate change.
Besides McKee, Foulkes and Gorbea, two other Democrats were also seeking the nomination: former Secretary of State Matt Brown, a progressive; and community activist Dr. Luis Daniel Muñoz.
Kalus easily defeated her lone Republican rival, Jonathan Riccitelli, whom the Globe reported had been arrested dozens of times since 2000 under a different name, on charges ranging from obstructing police officers to assault, according to court records.
Kalus, who owns a COVID-19 testing company that’s in a dispute with the state over a canceled contract, moved to Rhode Island last year from Illinois and previously worked for former Illinois Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. She said Rhode Island needs a fighter like her, now more than ever, because every day gets harder for working families.
In another top race on Tuesday, voters were choosing nominees in the 2nd Congressional District for the seat being vacated by Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin, who is retiring after more than 20 years representing the district. Langevin was the first quadriplegic to serve in Congress.
State Treasurer Seth Magaziner, who was endorsed by Langevin, won the crowded Democratic primary. Republican Allan Fung, the former mayor of Cranston, was unopposed in his bid for the Republican nomination. National Republican leaders think this is their best chance to flip the seat in more than three decades. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy visited Rhode Island in August to raise money for Fung.
Magaziner had been running for governor but switched races after Langevin’s announcement to try to keep the seat in Democratic control. Magaziner told supporters Tuesday night that the election is about values and preserving democracy for the next generation.
In the 1st Congressional District, Democratic U.S. Rep. David Cicilline will face Republican Allen Waters in November. Both were unopposed Tuesday. Cicilline is seeking his seventh term.
But the top race in Rhode Island on Tuesday was the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Both McKee and Gorbea benefited from the base of support and name recognition they have gotten since both were elected to statewide office in 2014. Foulkes proved to be an adept fundraiser and spent heavily on the race in her first bid for public office.
Late in the primary, Gorbea’s campaign aired an attack ad to criticize McKee over the awarding of a controversial state contract that the FBI is now investigating. It had to pull the ad because of errors in it, including featuring an article by a conservative commentator who was criticizing McKee on another issue. McKee’s campaign said the governor would continue to rise above dirty politics and false attacks, and show “leadership when it matters most.”
McKee was endorsed by a host of large unions, including those representing teachers, firefighters, building trades and auto workers. He highlighted his efforts to help the state’s economy recover from COVID-19, the gun control bills he signed into law and his efforts to protect access to abortion care.
He had a memorable ad of his own, called “motha,” featuring his 94-year-old mother. As he plays cards with her, he discusses the state’s economic recovery from COVID-19, eliminating the state’s car tax, creating affordable housing and passing gun safety laws to keep families safe.
“Not bad for a year and a half,” the governor says.
His mother, Willa, replies, “Not bad for a governor that lives with his motha.”
During his victory speech, McKee ticked off his accomplishments and asked the crowd, “Are you ready?” He said, “Not bad for 18 months.” Laughing, some of his supporters said Willa’s line, “Not bad for a governor that lives with his mother.”
___
Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-ri-governor-faces-tough-primary-in-bid-for-1st-full-term/ | 2022-09-16T18:42:14Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-ri-governor-faces-tough-primary-in-bid-for-1st-full-term/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
HarbourVest Partners to Become Anchor Tenant and
New Namesake at Iconic Downtown Office Building
BOSTON, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In collaboration with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, One Lincoln, the iconic, skyline-defining office tower located in Boston's Financial District, achieves several significant milestones as it sets a new bar for Class-A office buildings in the marketplace. Today, national real estate developer Fortis Property Group announced the closing of a $1 billion-plus refinancing of One Lincoln. The refinancing proceeds will be used to repay existing debt and provide more than $200 million in capital upgrades geared toward wellness and lifestyle amenities, as well as future leasing costs.
"One Lincoln's milestones would never have been possible without the commitment and assistance of Mayor Wu's office, as well as Boston City Council President Ed Flynn, to revitalize Downtown Boston and support Chinatown nonprofits," said Jonathan Landau, CEO of Fortis Property Group."
"On behalf of Mayor Michelle Wu, I wish to express my congratulations and appreciation to the teams at HarbourVest Partners and Fortis Property Group on this significant effort to ensure that a local institution will both stay and grow in one of the most vital areas of our city," said Segun Idowu, Boston's Chief of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion. "By moving to One Lincoln, HarbourVest Partners is leading the way in reimagining the future of work, advancing the City's priority to revitalize our Downtown, and making a long term investment that will ensure the vibrancy of our local small businesses and our residents for years to come."
In addition to the loan closing, Fortis has signed an office lease with HarbourVest Partners, a leading global private markets firm, establishing them as the new anchor tenant at the building. The Boston-based private equity firm has signed a long-term lease for over 250,000 square feet of office space spread across 11 floors in the building.
"We are reimagining the post-covid office environment and One Lincoln signifies the beginning of a new era for workplaces in Boston," added Landau. "It has been a pleasure getting to know and working together with the HarbourVest team on this transaction. We both recognized the tremendous demand for luxury office space that is amenitized with unparalleled wellness and lifestyle driven experiences in today's office environment."
"This is an important moment for our firm and all of our partners, and we couldn't be prouder to see this deal come to fruition after nearly a year in the making," said Joel Kestenbaum, President of Fortis Property Group.
HarbourVest will move its Boston headquarters and all Boston-based employees to One Lincoln. As part of the lease agreement, HarbourVest will replace State Street Corp as the building's namesake. The firm expects to move into the building in 2025. HarbourVest has over 650 employees in Boston and over 1,000 employees in 12 global offices.
"HarbourVest has been headquartered in Boston since our founding 40 years ago, and we are excited to continue growing our presence locally in this dynamic city," said John Toomey, Managing Director, HarbourVest Partners. "One Lincoln is an iconic building that will help create a best-in-class workplace experience for our team."
Originally built in 2003, the trophy office tower, which offers over 1,114,000 square feet of premium commercial office space and 900 parking spaces, is undergoing major capital improvements by Fortis. Embracing a highly amenitized, wellness-oriented ethos, One Lincoln will embark on a complete renovation of the lobby, food services and amenity center. In addition to reconfigured floorplates, the spaces will be complemented by a wide array of indoor and outdoor amenities.
A first of its kind in Boston, the building will offer an array of dining experiences, including an artisanal market, biergarten, al fresco seating and dining space, as well as health and wellness spaces consisting of a rooftop tennis and basketball courts, boxing ring, state-of-the-art fitness center, and 1/8-mile outdoor walking trail. Adapting to the new office environment, the building will also feature flexible spaces with stadium seating that can be used for exhibitions, speaking events or private gatherings.
Situated at the nexus of culture and commerce in the heart of Downtown Boston, One Lincoln boasts magnificent views of the city skyline and a central location just moments from South Station, Boston Common and the Rose K. Greenway. The building provides easy access to multiple transportation hubs and Logan International Airport, which offers 115 flights per day.
For additional information on One Lincoln, please visit https://onelincolnboston.com/.
About Fortis Property Group
Innovative, strategic and performance driven, Fortis is a private diversified real estate investment, operating, management and development company headquartered in New York City. As a vertically integrated owner/operator/developer, Fortis successfully spearheads transformative residential and multi-faceted real estate projects in Midtown and The Seaport District in Manhattan; Cobble Hill, Williamsburg; DUMBO, Brooklyn; and along the Greenway and in Downtown Boston. With a proven ability to identify and add value to opportunistic assets, the Fortis portfolio includes the ownership and operation of over eight million square feet of commercial and residential properties in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Texas.
About HarbourVest Partners
HarbourVest is an independent, global private markets firm with 40 years of experience and more than $98 billion of assets under management as of March 31, 2022. Our interwoven platform provides clients access to global primary funds, secondary transactions, direct co-investments, real assets and infrastructure, and private credit. Our strengths extend across strategies, enabled by our team of more than 1000 employees, including more than 180 investment professionals across Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Across our private markets platform, our team has committed more than $51 billion to newly-formed funds, completed over $41 billion in secondary purchases, and invested over $28 billion in directly operating companies. We partner strategically and plan our offerings innovatively to provide our clients with access, insight, and global opportunities.
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SOURCE Fortis Property Group | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/fortis-property-group-closes-1-billion-refinancing-one-lincoln-boston/ | 2022-09-16T18:42:19Z | wave3.com | control | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/fortis-property-group-closes-1-billion-refinancing-one-lincoln-boston/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a frequent emissary in hostage negotiations who has worked to secure the releases of WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American, Paul Whelan, visited Moscow this week and held meetings with Russian leaders, a person familiar with the matter said Tuesday night.
The visit came as American officials have continued to press Russia to release Griner, who was sentenced last month to nine years in prison in a drug possession case, and Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive serving a 16-year sentence on espionage-related charges. The U.S. government regards both as wrongfully detained.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in July that the U.S. had made a “substantial proposal” to Russia to facilitate a swap. Though he did not detail the terms, a person familiar the matter said the U.S. had offered to release convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
In in interview with The Associated Press last month, Richardson said he was hopeful about the chances of a two-for-two prisoner swap. In cases like this, Richardson said at the time, “it’s proportional — two-for two.”
The person who confirmed Richardson’s visit insisted on anonymity to discuss private negotiations. The Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which Richardson founded, issued a statement declining to comment on his visit. The nature of the dialogue and any outcome were not immediately clear.
CNN was first to report Richardson’s visit.
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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-richardson-visits-moscow-as-griner-whelan-remain-jailed/ | 2022-09-16T18:42:21Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-richardson-visits-moscow-as-griner-whelan-remain-jailed/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sitting on top of more than $115 million across several political committees, Donald Trump has positioned himself as a uniquely indomitable force in the GOP who would almost certainly have the resources to swamp his rivals if he launched another presidential campaign.
But that massive pile of money is also emerging as a potential vulnerability. His chief fundraising vehicle, Save America PAC, is under new legal scrutiny after the Justice Department issued a round of grand jury subpoenas that sought information about the political action committee’s fundraising practices.
The scope of the probe is unclear. Grand jury subpoenas and search warrants issued by the Justice Department in recent days were related to numerous topics, including Trump’s PAC, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The subpoenas seek records as well as testimony and ask at least some of the recipients about their knowledge of efforts to engage in election fraud, according to one of the people.
The subpoenas also ask for records of communication with Trump-allied lawyers who supported efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and plotted to line up fake electors in battleground states. A particular area of focus appears to be on the “Save America Rally” that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the person said.
The investigation is one of several criminal probes Trump currently faces, including scrutiny of how documents with classified markings wound up at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. Regardless of Save America’s ultimate role in the investigations, the flurry of developments has drawn attention to the PAC’s management, how it has raised money and where those funds have been directed.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich slammed the subpoenas, saying a “weaponized and politicized Justice Department” was “casting a blind net to intimidate and silence Republicans who are fighting for his America First agenda.” Representatives for the Justice Department have declined to comment.
While Trump has more than $115 million held across various committees, the vast majority of it is stored at Save America. The PAC ended July with more than $99 million cash-on-hand, according to fundraising records — more than the Republican and Democratic national campaign committees combined.
Trump has continued to shovel up small-dollar donations in the months since, frustrating other Republicans who have been struggling to raise money ahead of the November midterm elections.
Save America is set up as a “leadership PAC” designed to allow political figures to fundraise for other campaigns. But the groups are often used by would-be candidates to fund political travel, polling and staff as they “test the waters” ahead of potential presidential runs. The accounts can also be used to contribute money to other candidates and party organizations, helping would-be candidates build political capital.
Much of the money Trump has amassed was raised in the days and weeks after the 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. That’s when Trump supporters were bombarded with a nonstop stream of emails and texts, many containing all-caps lettering and blatant lies about a stolen 2020 election, soliciting cash for an “election defense fund.”
But no such fund ever existed. Instead, Trump has dedicated the money to other uses. He’s financed dozens of rallies, paid staff and used the money to travel as he’s teased an expected 2024 presidential run.
Other expenses have been more unusual. There was the $1 million donated last year to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit that employs Cleta Mitchell and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, both of whom encouraged Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
There was the $650,000 “charitable contribution” in July to the Smithsonian Institution to help fund portraits of Trump and the former first lady that will one day hang in the National Portrait Gallery, according to the Smithsonian spokesperson Linda St. Thomas.
Much of the money has also funded a different sort of defense fund — one that has paid the legal expenses of Trump confidants and aides who have been called to testify before the Jan. 6 committee.
Overall, Trump’s sprawling political operation has spent at least $8 million on “legal consulting” and “legal expenses” to at least 40 law firms since the insurrection, according to an analysis of campaign finance disclosures.
It’s unclear how much of that money went to legal fees for staffers after a congressional committee started investigating the origins of the attack. But at least $1.1 million has been paid to Elections LLC, a firm started by former Trump White House ethics lawyer Stefan Passantino, according to campaign finance and business records. An additional $1 million was paid to a legal trust housed at the same address as Passantino’s firm. Passantino did not respond to a request for comment Monday night. Payments have also been made to firms that specialize in environmental regulation and real estate matters.
As of July, only about $750,000 had been doled out to candidates for Congress, with an additional $150,000 given to candidates for state office, records show. Trump is expected to ramp up his political spending now that the general election season has entered full swing, though it remains unclear how much the notoriously thrifty former president will ultimately agree to spend.
Trump has long played coy about his 2024 plans, saying a formal announcement would trigger campaign finance rules that would, in part, force him to create a new campaign committee that would be bound by strict fundraising limits.
In the meantime, Trump aides have been discussing the prospect of creating a new super PAC or repurposing one that already exists as gets he closer to an expected announcement. While Trump could not use Save America to fund campaign activity after launching a run, aides have discussed the possibility of moving at least some of that money into a super PAC, according to people familiar with the talks who insisted on anonymity to discuss private plans.
Campaign finance experts are mixed on the legality of such a move. Some, like Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert in campaign finance, said he didn’t see a problem.
“There may be some hoops he has to jump through,” he said. But “I don’t see a problem with it going from one PAC to another … I don’t see what would block it.”
Others disagree.
“It is illegal for a candidate to transfer a significant amount of money from a leadership PAC to a super PAC. You certainly can’t do $100 million,” said Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission attorney who now works for the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based government watchdog group focused on money and politics.
And whether or not Trump would face any consequences is a different matter.
For years, the FEC, which polices campaign finance laws, has been gridlocked. The commission is split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and a majority vote is needed to take any enforcement action against a candidate.
Indeed, legal experts say Trump has repeatedly flouted campaign finance law since launching his 2016 White House run, with no consequence.
More than 50 complaints involving Trump and his various campaign committees have been filed with the FEC. In roughly half of those instances, FEC lawyers have concluded that there was reason to believe that he or his committees may have broken campaign finance law. But the commission, which now includes three Trump-appointed Republicans, has repeatedly deadlocked.
The list of dismissed complaints against Trump is extensive. In 2021, Republicans on the commission rejected the claim, supported by the FEC’s staff attorneys, that a Trump orchestrated hush-money payment by his former lawyer to pornographic film star Stormy Daniels amounted to an unreported in-kind contribution. In May, the commission similarly deadlocked over whether his campaign broke the law by hiding how it was spending cash during the 2020 campaign.
And over the summer, the commission rejected complaints stemming from Trump’s threat to withhold $391 million in aid for the Ukraine unless the Ukrainian officials opened an investigation into the relationship President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had with a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma, which the FEC’s attorney’s determined was a potential violation of campaign finance law.
“There is no legal basis whatsoever for believing that Congress intended the FEC to police official acts of the government that may be intended to assist an officeholder’s reelection,” the commission’s three Republicans said in a written statement late last month.
That means any enforcement action would likely have to come from the Justice Department.
“He has nothing to fear from the Federal Election Commission until either its structure is changed or there is turnover among the FEC Commissioners,” said Brett G. Kappel, a longtime campaign finance attorney who works at the Washington-based firm Harmon Curran and has represented both Republicans and Democrats. “That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to fear from the Justice Department, which is already apparently investigating Save America. From what I can see, there are multiple wire fraud allegations that could be the subject of a Justice Department investigation.”
In the meantime, Trump and Save America continue to rake in contributions from grassroots supporters, blasting out fundraising solicitations with aggressive demands like “this needs to be taken care of NOW” and threatening donors that their “Voter Verification” canvass surveys are “OUT OF DATE,” even as some of the Republican Senate contenders Trump endorsed and helped drag across the finish line in primaries are struggling to raise cash.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has urged those candidates to ask Trump for money, which the former president has so far proven reluctant to provide. That has left the candidates, some of whom presented themselves as McConnell antagonists during their primaries, to grovel to McConnell and the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC he controls and has $100 million in reserve.
It also strengthens McConnell’s hand in his long-simmering feud with Trump, who has urged GOP senators to oust the Kentucky Republican. Some close to Trump acknowledge the candidates could use the money, but said he doesn’t see it as his responsibility to fill the void.
___
Colvin reported from New York.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-trumps-pac-faces-scrutiny-amid-intensifying-legal-probes/ | 2022-09-16T18:42:35Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/political-news/ap-politics/ap-trumps-pac-faces-scrutiny-amid-intensifying-legal-probes/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PITTSBURGH, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- "One day I noticed a mud puddle from condensation. I placed a 6 gallon pail below the tube and the pail was full or more than full twice a day. I thought there should be a way to collect and reuse this water to water a lawn or garden," said an inventor, from Martinsburg, W.V., "so I invented the CONDENSATION COLLECTOR. My design prevents the water from being wasted, especially during dry-climate seasons or times without rain."
The invention provides an effective way to collect water/condensation from a home HVAC unit. In doing so, it enables the water to be used for lawn and garden use. As a result, it helps to conserve water and it could help to reduce water bills. The invention features a flexible and eco-friendly design that is easy to set up and use so it is ideal for households and businesses.
The original design was submitted to the Baltimore sales office of InventHelp. It is currently available for licensing or sale to manufacturers or marketers. For more information, write Dept. 21-BDH-154, InventHelp, 217 Ninth Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222, or call (412) 288-1300 ext. 1368. Learn more about InventHelp's Invention Submission Services at http://www.InventHelp.com.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Lower gas costs slowed U.S. inflation for a second straight month in August, but most other prices across the economy kept rising — evidence that inflation remains a heavy burden for American households.
Consumer prices rose 8.3% from a year earlier and 0.1% from July. But the jump in “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, was especially worrisome. It outpaced expectations and ignited fear that the Federal Reserve will boost interest rates more aggressively and raise the risk of a recession.
Fueled by high rents, medical care and new cars, core prices leaped 6.3% for the year ending in August and 0.6% from July to August, the government said Tuesday. Furniture and sports gear, among many other items, also got costlier, suggesting that businesses are still raising prices in response to robust consumer demand.
The breadth of the price increases dashed hopes, at least for now, that core inflation would moderate. Economists tend to track core prices for a clearer read on where inflation is headed.
Stock prices plunged, with the S&P 500 index suffering its worst day June 2020 — a loss of more than 4% — and bond yields jumped on the worse-than-expected core figures. Many investors are now fearful that the Fed will tighten credit even more vigorously in its drive to curb inflation. Chair Jerome Powell is expected to announce another big increase in the Fed’s key rate next week, which will lead to higher costs for consumer and business loans.
Further aggressive Fed rate hikes could weaken growth so much as to push the economy into a downturn. Some economists now expect the Fed to raise its benchmark short-term rate, currently in a range of 2.25% to 2.5%, to 4.5% or higher by early next year. That would make it even harder for the central bank to meet its goal of achieving a “soft landing,” whereby it would tame inflation without causing a recession.
“This was a disappointing report,” said Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives. “It raises the risk of higher interest rates and a hard landing for the economy.”
Inflation is higher than many Americans have ever experienced, escalating families’ grocery bills, rents and utility costs, among other expenses. It has deepened gloom about the economy despite strong job growth and low unemployment.
Republicans have sought to make inflation a central issue in the midterm congressional elections. They blame President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package passed last year for much of the increase. Many economists generally agree, though they say that snarled supply chains, sharp pay increases and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have also been key factors in the inflation surge.
At the same time, the drop in gas prices — for consumers, perhaps the most visible barometer of inflation — could bolster Democrats’ prospects in the midterm elections. It may already have contributed to slightly higher public approval ratings for Biden.
In a statement Tuesday, the president said, “Overall, prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months. That is welcome news for American families, with more work still to do.”
In his speeches, Biden has generally stopped referring to the impact of inflation on family budgets. He has instead highlighted his administration’s recent legislative accomplishments, including a law enacted last month that’s intended to reduce pharmaceutical prices and fight climate change.
Nationally, the average cost of a gallon of gas has dropped to $3.71, down from just above $5 in mid-June. But grocery prices have continued to rise rapidly, jumping 0.7% from July to August. In the past year, they have soared 13.5% — the biggest 12-month increase since 1979.
Chicken prices have risen nearly 17% in the past year. And egg prices surged 2.9% just in August from July and are up nearly 40% from a year ago.
Worsening food inflation is a particular strain on lower-income families, more of whom have had to turn to food banks and other aid as inflation has worsened. Mary Jane Crouch, executive director of America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia, which works with a network of food banks, said 38% more food was distributed in August compared with July.
Though much of the food is donated, Crouch said her organization buys some of it and has faced sharp increases in meat and dairy prices in the past few months.
And the prices of many other goods are still rising even as supply chain snarls unravel, said Rosner-Warburton, the MacroPolicy economist.
“Companies are still putting through large price increases for those goods, and that’s problematic,” she said. It means the Fed will likely have to work harder to slow consumer spending through higher rates.
Elaine Buckberg, chief economist at General Motors, said Friday that the pandemic disruptions to overseas production of semiconductors, which have slowed auto output, have significantly dissipated and that overall supply chain disruptions have improved about 80% from the worst days of the pandemic.
Yet Americans are still desperate for cars, Buckberg said, which has allowed dealers to keep their markups much higher than pre-pandemic levels. New car prices, which rose 0.8% in August, have climbed nearly 11% in the past year.
“Virtually every vehicle that gets to a dealer has already been sold to someone,” she said.
Ongoing price increases for raw materials — and labor — have left many small businesses struggling. Some are raising their own prices to keep up, only to then lose customers, according to a survey by Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Voices.
Meaghan Thomas, co-owner of Pinch Spice Market in Louisville, Kentucky, an online seller, has avoided raising prices for the past two years but worries that that can’t last if inflation worsens.
The price to ship spices from overseas have quadrupled, she said, and she’s seen little relief so far despite reports that such costs are declining. The cost of spices, which Thomas and her partner grind and blend in a small factory, have jumped by as much as 25% in the past year.
The company’s profit margin has been cut by half, Thomas said, but she and her partner think it’s important to keep their products affordable. She says larger companies have made inflation worse by raising prices unnecessarily.
“We can hang on for a little bit if all these other companies can stop raising their prices,” she said.
Wages are still rising at a strong pace — before adjusting for inflation — which has elevated demand for apartments as more people move out on their own. A shortage of available houses has also forced more people to keep renting, thereby intensifying competition for apartments.
As a result, rental costs jumped 6.7% in August from a year earlier, the most since 1986. Rents change much more slowly than commodity prices like gas. That could mean that apartment prices will keep inflation elevated well into 2023.
Other data from companies like Apartment List, which tracks prices of new apartments and leases, suggests that rental price inflation is starting to decline. But that data takes time to filter into the government’s measure, which tracks all rents.
Rosner-Warburton said it’s not clear if those declines, when they do start to affect the government’s measure, will slow inflation enough for the Fed.
“At this point, we need to see it to believe it,” she said. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/ap-cheaper-gas-likely-slowed-high-us-inflation-for-a-2nd-month/ | 2022-09-16T18:43:12Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/ap-cheaper-gas-likely-slowed-high-us-inflation-for-a-2nd-month/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
CHICAGO (AP) — A 21-year-old sailor was laid to rest Tuesday following a decades-long effort to identify remains pulled from Pearl Harbor, more than 80 years after he was killed in the attack that propelled the United States into World War II.
Members of Herbert “Bert” Jacobson’s family waited all their lives to attend a memorial for the young man they knew about but never met. Jacobson was among the more than 400 sailors and Marines killed on the USS Oklahoma during the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
The casket containing his remains was carried Tuesday morning on a horse-drawn caisson led by a military escort before his burial at Arlington National Cemetery, said Amber Vincent, a cemetery spokeswoman.
“This has kind of been an unsolved mystery and it gives us closure to finally know what happened to Bert, where he is and that he’s being finally laid to rest after being listed as an unknown for so long,” said Brad McDonald, a nephew.
The service at Arlington was the latest chapter in the story of the man from the small northern Illinois town of Grayslake, for the family that never had a body to bury when he was killed and the scientific quest to put names to the remains of hundreds of personnel from the battleship who lay buried anonymously for decades in a dormant volcanic crater near Pearl Harbor.
It is a story of waiting.
The battleship remained submerged for two years before it was refloated and bodies were recovered. A few years later, the graves of men on the Oklahoma were reopened in the hopes that dental records might lead to their names. But 27 sets of remains were not identified and had to be reinterred at the crater, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu, commonly known as the Punchbowl.
Another effort to identify about 100 sets of remains came up empty in 2003.
In 2015, the Department of Defense announced plans to exhume the remains again.
“We now have the ability to forensically test these remains and produce the identifications,” Debra Prince Zinni, a forensic anthropologist and laboratory manager at the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Hawaii, told The Associated Press at the time.
That gave new hope to Jacobson family members, who had been disappointed by each failed effort. They told the AP that Jacobson’s mother cried every Dec. 7, at least in part because she never knew where he was.
“She always had the hope the phone would ring and it would be Bert,” McDonald said.
The 2015 effort, Project Oklahoma, has led to the identification of 355 men — including Jacobson — who were killed when their ship was hit by at least nine torpedoes. That leaves 33 sets of remains still to be identified. To mark the 80th anniversary of the attack, those unidentified remains were reinterred, said Gene Hughes, a public affairs officer with Navy Personnel Command. He has worked with the families of those killed on the Oklahoma, including Jacobson’s relatives.
For Jacobson’s family, any hope they would know exactly what happened on Dec. 7, 1941, faded long ago. All they knew from talking to Jacobson’s shipmates was that he had just come off duty after spending several hours ferrying men to shore.
McDonald said a good friend of his uncle from the Navy said he was pretty sure Jacobson “was asleep in his bunk and died before he even knew a war was going on. But we don’t really know.”
That left one final question: What happened to Bert Jacobson’s body?
The answer came in 2019, when McDonald said the family was notified that Jacobson’s remains had been identified. Hoping the burial could take place the next year, they were forced to wait, in large part because the COVID-19 pandemic delayed most gatherings, funerals included.
Now, they have gotten the closure that Jacobson’s parents and other family members never had.
“I wish they could have seen this,” McDonald said of his grandparents, parents and others.
For him, seeing the funeral for the uncle he never met take his place at Arlington is especially significant.
“When Bert joined the Navy, he ran into a fella from South Dakota who was an orphan,” McDonald said. “When they got a weekend pass, Bert took him home and the orphan met his (Bert’s) younger sister.”
Orville McDonald and Norma Jacobson dated and later married, giving McDonald a favorite ending to that story.
“That orphan was my dad, and Bert’s sister was my mom,” he said. “So, I wouldn’t be here without Bert.”
___
Find past coverage of Pearl Harbor and efforts to identify remains at https://apnews.com/hub/attack-on-pearl-harbor | https://www.wwlp.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/ap-sailor-killed-at-pearl-harbor-to-be-laid-to-rest-at-last/ | 2022-09-16T18:44:02Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/ap-sailor-killed-at-pearl-harbor-to-be-laid-to-rest-at-last/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Her debut single "Deeper" will be released, today, September 16th on all streaming platforms with her NFT Artist Pass release to follow on September 21st
Listen to "Deeper" and Follow all things Amari here:
https://linktr.ee/amariv3rse
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Amari comes from CyberBrokers, a first-of-its-kind art collectibles ecosystem centered around 10,001 unique and on-chain CyberBroker NFTs designed by heralded cryptoartist Josie Bellini. Constructed from a community where the world governments had come together to save humanity by moving into the metaverse, Amari of Medina was born. Once in the metaverse her well known NFT materialized and her artistry thrived. As an artist she is inspired by many things. Amari is always taking bits and pieces from all the thrills that she seeks in the world around her, always looking for a deeper meaning and a deeper connection, which ultimately leads to her first single "Deeper."
"Deeper" is written and produced by Sean Myer (Ava Max / Fletcher / Demi Lovato / Ekali ) and is rounded out by a team of strong writers including, Sarah Barrios (Ava Max / Fletcher / Demi Lovato / Ekali) Linnea Sodahl (Zara Larsson, Tove Styrke, Twice, Tinie Tempah and Axwell) and Kevin Fisher ( Fergie / All Time Low / Five Seconds of Summer / Lany / One Republic). Heavily influenced by strong female artists like Halsey and Ellie Goulding, the direction of her sound is best described as top 40's pop with electronic undertones.
Following "Deeper" on DSPs, more will be made available on September 21 via the Amari Artist Pass NFT. It serves as the ticket into the Amari community with access to limited edition Amari merch, special access to artist related IRL and metaverse activations, access to seasonal holders events, activities, and giveaways, voting on creative direction of Artist (i.e. collaborations) and free claim of the Amari one-shot comic and future lore drops.
The mint of the pass will have 2000 total available on Ethereum with some dedicated to the original Player Zero Founders Pass holders.
Player Zero Records is a new Web3 record label which was founded by innovators Digital Arts & Sciences and famed producer Dr. Luke.
Listen to "Deeper" and Follow Amari here
https://linktr.ee/amariv3rse
Emerging from a virtual world, Player Zero––a joint venture from web3 collective Digital Arts & Sciences and multi-GRAMMY Award-winning producer Dr. Lukon e–introduces the AVA (Animated Virtual Artist) to entertain music fans in a new reality. AVA's enable limitless multimedia possibilities within virtual worlds, and allow Player Zero to lift the creators behind the scenes (songwriters, producers, digital artists, writers and animators), as well as give fans an opportunity to participate in the creative direction and success of the artists. Follow Player Zero through its music releases, socials, videos, metaverse experiences and NFT drops. Creativity should have no limits.
Web | Instagram | Twitter | Discord
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SOURCE Player Zero Records | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/player-zero-records-introduces-amari-their-first-artist-well-first-sentient-animated-virtual-artist-ava-signed-their-label/ | 2022-09-16T18:44:03Z | wave3.com | control | https://www.wave3.com/prnewswire/2022/09/16/player-zero-records-introduces-amari-their-first-artist-well-first-sentient-animated-virtual-artist-ava-signed-their-label/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian troops piled pressure on retreating Russian forces Tuesday, pressing deeper into occupied territory and sending more Kremlin troops fleeing ahead of the counteroffensive that has inflicted a stunning blow on Moscow’s military prestige.
As the advance continued, Ukraine’s border guard services said the army took control of Vovchansk — a town just 3 kilometers (2 miles) from Russia seized on the first day of the war. Russia has acknowledged that it recently withdrew troops from areas in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Russian troops were also pulling out from Melitopol, the second largest city in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, the city’s pre-occupation mayor said. His claim could not immediately be verified.
Melitopol has been occupied since early March. Capturing it would give Kyiv an opportunity to disrupt Russian supply lines between the south and the eastern Donbas region, the two major areas where Moscow-backed forces hold territory.
Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram that the Russian troops were heading toward Moscow-annexed Crimea. He said columns of military equipment were reported at a checkpoint in Chonhar, a village marking the boundary between the Crimean peninsula and the Ukrainian mainland.
In the newly freed village of Chkalovske in the Kharkiv region, Svitlana Honchar said the Russians’ departure was sudden and swift.
“They left like the wind,” Honchar said Tuesday after loading cans of food aid into her car. “They were fleeing by any means they could.”
Some Russians appeared to have been left behind in the hasty retreat. “They were trying to catch up,” she said.
It was not yet clear if the Ukrainian blitz, which unfolded after months of little discernible movement, could signal a turning point in the nearly seven-month war.
But the country’s officials were buoyant, releasing footage showing their forces burning Russian flags and inspecting abandoned, charred tanks. In one video, border guards tore down a poster that read, “We are one people with Russia.”
Momentum has switched back and forth before, and Ukraine’s American allies were careful not to declare a premature victory since Russian President Vladimir Putin still has troops and resources to tap.
In the face of Russia’s largest defeat since its botched attempt to capture Kyiv early in the war, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said troops were hitting back with “massive strikes” in all sectors. But there were no immediate reports of a sudden uptick in Russian attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian forces were carrying out “stabilization measures” across recaptured territory in the south and east, and rounding up Russian troops, “saboteurs” and alleged collaborators.
In his nightly address, Zelenskyy also pledged to restore normalcy in the liberated areas.
“It is very important that together with our troops, with our flag, ordinary, normal life enters the de-occupied territory,” he said, citing an example of how people in one village had already begun receiving pension payments after months of occupation.
Reports of chaos abounded as Russian troops pulled out — as well as claims that they were surrendering en masse. The claims could not be confirmed.
Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar said Kyiv is trying to persuade even more Russian soldiers to give up, launching shells filled with flyers ahead of their advance.
“Russians use you as cannon fodder. Your life doesn’t mean anything for them. You don’t need this war. Surrender to Armed Forces of Ukraine,” the flyers read.
In the wake of the retreat, Ukrainian authorities moved into several areas to investigate alleged atrocities committed by Russian troops against civilians.
Since Saturday, the Kharkiv regional police have repeatedly reported that local law enforcement officers have found civilian bodies bearing signs of torture across territories formerly held by Russia. It was not possible to verify their statements.
On Tuesday, regional police alleged that Russian troops set up “a torture chamber” at the local police station in Balakliya, a town of 25,000, that was occupied from March until last week.
In a Facebook post, the head of the police force’s investigative department, Serhii Bolvinov, cited testimony from Balakliya residents and claimed that Russian troops “always kept at least 40 people captive” on the premises.
Meanwhile, military analysts sought to understand the blow sustained by Moscow.
British intelligence said that one premier force, the 1st Guards Tank Army, had been “severely degraded” during the invasion, along with the conventional Russian forces designed to counter NATO.
“It will likely take years for Russia to rebuild this capability,” the British officials said.
The setback might renew Russia’s interest in peace talks, said Abbas Gallyamov, an independent Russian political analyst and former speechwriter for Putin.
But even if Putin were to sit down at the negotiating table, Zelenskyy has made it clear that Russia must return all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, Gallyamov said.
“This is unacceptable to Moscow, so talks are, strictly speaking, impossible,” he said.
Putin’s previous actions “have restricted his room to maneuver,” so he “wouldn’t be able to put anything meaningful on the table.”
For talks to be possible, Putin “would need to leave and be replaced by someone who’s relatively untarnished by the current situation,” such as his deputy chief of staff, the Moscow mayor or the Russian prime minister, Gallyamov said.
The retreat did not stop Russia from pounding Ukrainian positions. It shelled the city of Lozova in the Kharkiv region, killing three people and injuring nine, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.
And Ukrainian officials said Russia kept up shelling around Europe’s largest nuclear facility, where fighting has raised fears of a nuclear disaster. The Nikopol area, which is across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, was shelled six times during the night, but no injuries were immediately reported, said regional Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko.
Strikes have also continued unabated on the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest and one that has been hammered by artillery for months.
Among Kharkiv’s battle-scarred apartment buildings, one man who returned to feed the birds struck a defiant tone, saying that the success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive would likely prompt harsh Russian retaliation against civilian targets. But he said the Kremlin would not succeed in intimidating ordinary Ukrainians.
Putin “will strike so we don’t have water, electricity, to create more chaos and intimidate us,” said Serhii who only gave his first name. “But he will not succeed because we will survive, and Putin will soon croak!”
The counteroffensive has provoked rare public criticism of Putin’s war in Russia. Some of the war’s defenders played down the idea that the success belonged to Ukraine, blaming instead Western weapons and fighters for the losses.
___
Arhirova reported from Kyiv.
___
Follow AP war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.wwlp.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/ap-ukraine-piles-pressure-on-retreating-russian-troops/ | 2022-09-16T18:44:09Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/ap-ukraine-piles-pressure-on-retreating-russian-troops/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
BARNSTABLE, Mass. (WPRI) — Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration announced Friday it would provide new emergency shelter for the nearly 50 Venezuelan refugees who arrived on Martha’s Vineyard Wednesday.
The migrants landed on the island unannounced, sparking questions about how the flights were organized and who paid for them. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told media outlets he sent two planes with migrants to Massachusetts as part of his state’s relocation program.
The Baker administration transported the migrants who chose to move to the mainland on Friday to Joint Base Cape Cod (JBCC). As of Thursday, the migrants were being housed at St. Andrews Parish in Edgartown, with support from Martha’s Vineyard Community Services.
Volunteers on the island rallied to provide clothing, shoes, food, and interpreters after the refugees’ arrival. The ordeal has garnered national attention, as state and federal officials scramble to find answers on the circumstances of the flights.
“While Wednesday’s arrival on Martha’s Vineyard was unexpected, the extraordinary response was not,” Public Safety and Security Secretary Terrence Reidy said in a statement.
Baker will activate up to 125 members of the Massachusetts National Guard who will offer support at JBCC. The administration will also provide health care, crisis counseling services, and legal services in Spanish for the refugees.
The base has served as an emergency shelter in the past, according to Baker. It is prepared to house individuals and families in a dormitory-style shelter. The state said families will not be separated.
“The island communities are not equipped to provide sustainable accommodation, and state officials developed a plan to deliver a comprehensive humanitarian response,” the governor’s office said in a statement.
JBCC is not accepting donations at this time, but the state’s emergency services agency is making arrangements to collect them.
“We are grateful to the providers, volunteers and local officials that stepped up on Martha’s Vineyard over the past few days to provide immediate services to these individuals,” Baker said in a statement. “Our Administration has been working across state government to develop a plan to ensure these individuals will have access to the services they need going forward, and Joint Base Cape Cod is well equipped to serve these needs.”
12 News reached out to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office for comment and has not heard back. | https://www.wpri.com/new-england/massachusetts/venezuelan-refugees-moved-from-marthas-vineyard-to-cape-cod/ | 2022-09-16T18:44:13Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/new-england/massachusetts/venezuelan-refugees-moved-from-marthas-vineyard-to-cape-cod/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Kyle Busch will move to Richard Childress Racing next season, ending a 15-year career with Joe Gibbs Racing because the team could not come to terms with NASCAR’s only active multiple Cup champion.
Busch will drive the No. 8 Chevrolet for Childress in an announcement made Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. He wore the two Cup championship rings he won driving for Gibbs on his middle fingers.
“I’ll be taking my talents to Welcome, North Carolina to drive the No. 8 car starting in 2023,” Busch said of moving to the team based about an hour north of Charlotte.
Tyler Reddick, who is currently competing for the Cup championship in the No. 8 Chevrolet, will remain under contract at RCR and drive for the team next season. Reddick in July told Childress he was moving to 23XI Racing in 2024.
Richard Childress said he informed Reddick he’d be out of the No. 8 next season one hour before Busch’s announcement. Childress said he’d obtain a third charter for Reddick’s car, but gave no other details except that Reddick’s current crew chief will be paired with Busch next season.
When Childress joined Busch at the announcement, the Hall of Fame team owner presented Busch’s 7-year-old son, Brexton, with a contract option to someday drive for RCR. But before that, Childress handed Busch his “signing bonus,” which was a boxed watch.
Childress in 2011 tussled with Busch after a Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway. The car owner removed his watch and handed it to someone, saying ‘Hold my watch’ before the altercation. Childress was fined $150,000 by NASCAR afterward.
Childress and Busch, now 37 years old, long ago made amends, which helped make RCR a landing spot for Busch during his excruciatingly long free agency period. JGR learned longtime partner Mars Wrigley was leaving the sport at the end of 2022, and Gibbs had been searching for a deep-pocketed sponsor to keep Busch in the No. 18 Toyota.
Busch even said he’d drive for below his market value to get a deal done.
But as the year went on and no progress was made on Busch’s 2023 plans, he was forced to look elsewhere for both his own Cup seat and a landing spot for Kyle Busch Motorsports, his Truck Series team. KBM will now be a Chevrolet organization, but Busch said all details on KBM and how many trucks it fields next year is still being decided.
“Kyle has been a major part of our history and success here at Joe Gibbs Racing. We are thankful for all his contributions to our organization over the years,” Joe Gibbs said in a statement. “When you look at all that he has accomplished already, it is truly remarkable, and we know someday we will be celebrating his Hall of Fame induction.”
The move to RCR and rival Chevrolet is a tremendous blow to Toyota, which has been with Busch since he joined JGR and powered him to all but four of his 60 career Cup wins. Busch is also the winningest driver in the lower-level Xfinity Series and Truck Series, and his KBM truck team is a massive part of Toyota’s dominance in that series.
But Toyota could do nothing to find Busch a slot in its small fleet — JGR and 23XI combine for a Cup Series low six full-time entries — and Busch was able to move to Chevrolet. The manufacturer lauded the driver it considers a future Hall of Famer for all that “one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history” has accomplished for Toyota.
“We’re disappointed and saddened that his future won’t continue to be with Team Toyota,” the manufacturer said in a statement. “Kyle has been an ambassador for Toyota since joining the program in 2008. He’s gone on to accumulate some of the most prestigious milestones possible for the Toyota brand. He will undoubtedly hold the record for the most wins in a Toyota across all three Championship Series for decades to come.
“But more than that, Kyle has been a friend, part of our family and has played a key role in the development of many of our drivers through his ownership of Kyle Busch Motorsports. We wish nothing but the best for Kyle and his entire family as he moves into the next chapter of his Hall of Fame career. We’re thankful to have been along for the ride.”
Childress said the atmosphere at his shop in Welcome has been electric since rumors started that Busch might move to the organization. He also said when he looks in Busch’s eyes, he sees the same fiery look of competition he once saw in the late Dale Earnhardt.
Earnhardt won six of his seven Cup championships driving for Childress. RCR has not won a Cup title since Earnhardt, but has both Reddick and Austin Dillon, Childress’ grandson, in this year’s playoff field.
But RCR has not won a title since Earnhardt’s final championship in 1994. Reddick, a two-race winner this season, is currently 11th in the playoff standings. Austin Dillon, who won the regular-season finale to snag the final playoff spot, is 14th in the standings as the Cup Series heads into Saturday night’s elimination race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
It was Dillon, Childress said, who encouraged his grandfather to speak to Busch after Reddick blindsided RCR with his plans to leave in 2024. Busch goes into Bristol ranked 13th in the standings.
The move to RCR returns Busch to Chevrolet, the manufacturer he began with when he signed a development driver contract with Hendrick Motorsports when Busch was a teenager. He made his Cup debut as a 19-year-old for Hendrick and won four races over three seasons driving the No. 5 Chevrolet — the number currently used by champion Kyle Larson.
Busch was released from Hendrick at the end of 2007 when Dale Earnhardt Jr. became available and Hendrick could no longer tolerate Busch’s volatile behavior. Gibbs gave Busch a longer leash — Gibbs won three Super Bowls with the Washington Redskins and also employed Hall of Fame driver Tony Stewart — and Busch thanked Gibbs on Tuesday for “being patient with me.”
“You guys took a chance at a kid 15 years ago to let me drive a race car, and we hit the ground running,” Busch said of Gibbs, who allowed “me to be a kid and grow into a man, most days.”
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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-busch-leaving-gibbs-toyota-to-drive-for-childress-in-2023/ | 2022-09-16T18:45:56Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-busch-leaving-gibbs-toyota-to-drive-for-childress-in-2023/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
LAS VEGAS (AP) — I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to put on the USA jersey every day.
It’s been a long road back after thinking my career was over after having spinal surgery in January of 2020.
I thought my life was going to change drastically and I wouldn’t ever be able to play again. Yet here I am 2 years later, hoping to earn a spot on the U.S. World Cup roster.
Thinking back to my time in the hospital bed to be now being back at the peak of competition, I’m just so grateful to be playing basketball at this level again. I can’t really discredit God at this point, I’m just really humbled to be here.
It’s a dream as a basketball player to play for the USA. It’s the one team that everyone wants to play for at some point and everyone knows is one of the hardest to make. To have the opportunity right now is a dream come true.
This isn’t my first time playing for USA, having won a gold medal at the World University Games when I was in college. That probably was the longest flight I ever took, well until now when we head off to Sydney.
One thing you can always count with USA Basketball is that they take you all over the world. Up next might be outer space.
This is my first time going to the Outback. I think I’m looking forward to learning more about the place. Experiencing the continent and just trying to get myself back on track. Ever since the Phoenix Mercury season ended I’ve been running and ripping across multiple states.
We had a good training week in Las Vegas. It’s a really good group and everybody carries the same energy and intensity as far as winning goes. Practices are really competitive and there are a lot of new faces which is nice. There’s also a lot of youth.
I’ve gotten to spend some time with Rhyne Howard. She and I are very similar in a lot of ways. It’s been great to pick her brain a little bit and take in this whole experience with her. At some point soon, we’ll have to have a conversation about SEC basketball.
As a group we’re still looking to build our team chemistry, but everyone’s bought in on the process and what the team will look like. We eat all our meals together and lift together. We’ve had some good recovery pool workouts too.
And now we’ll get a chance to bond for 15 hours on the flight to Australia. Catch you all soon.
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Phoenix Mercury star Diamond DeShields is checking in periodically from USA Basketball training camp and the FIBA World Cup. | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-diamond-deshields-chronicles-usa-basketball-training-camp/ | 2022-09-16T18:46:32Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-diamond-deshields-chronicles-usa-basketball-training-camp/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
SEATTLE (AP) — Hearing his name chanted as he left the field as a winner for the Seattle Seahawks wasn’t validation for Geno Smith.
It was gratification that eight years after he last was a starting quarterback on the opening weekend of the NFL season he again had the opportunity.
“As far as worrying about naysayers, anything like that, I don’t get into that type of stuff,” Smith said. “People can write you off, but life is about what you make it and so I’ve just been blessed enough to be in the NFL for 10 years, and been working my butt off, and it’s a team game and we got to win tonight as a team.”
With most of the attention on Russell Wilson’s return to Seattle on the other side of the field, it was Smith and the Seahawks celebrating a 17-16 win on Monday night.
Wilson had the more memorable evening, from the boos that cascaded down on him from Seattle fans, to Denver’s decision not to go for it on fourth-and-5 and instead attempt a 64-yard field goal in the closing seconds.
But it was Smith that was in the celebratory locker room afterward, the one that Wilson called home for a decade.
“He’s had it in his whole time. He just hasn’t had the perfect opportunity for him to go out there and showcase what he really is able to do when he’s in full control of a football team or of an offense,” Seattle wide receiver DK Metcalf said.
Smith was spectacular in the first half and perhaps more of what was expected in the second half as Seattle was shut out. He finished 23 of 28 for 195 yards, but was 17 of 18 for 164 yards and two touchdowns in the first half.
Smith threw a 38-yard touchdown to Will Dissly on Seattle’s first possession of the season. He added a 25-yard strike to Colby Parkinson in the second quarter that gave Seattle a 17-7 lead at the time. He jogged off the field at halftime to chants of “Geno, Geno.”
That big half proved to be enough, but barely.
“He was so poised and so calm in this game. It was just fun playing with him,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said. “And we’re talking as the game is going on, he’s having fun and laughing and enjoying it. The moment came to him and he was ready for it.”
Smith’s second season in the NFL, in 2014, was the last time he started on the opening weekend of the season. It was the first time since 1971 there had been that large of a time gap for a quarterback between opening week starts.
Smith appeared to relish his opportunity. He played fearless and the Seattle crowd — already amped by Wilson’s return — roared its approval. When Smith lowered his shoulder on a 14-yard scramble late in the third quarter rather than sliding, the Seahawks fans followed with more chants of his name.
For all Smith did right, Seattle’s offense was inefficient in the second half. The Seahawks had just 34 total yards and five first downs after halftime. Seattle had less than 10 minutes time of possession in the third and fourth quarters.
It made for a nervy final few moments for Smith as he watched Denver try to rally. It created flashbacks to the past three seasons serving as Wilson’s backup and watching him lead the Seahawks in games and practices down the field in those late-game situations.
“For so long, I watched Russ go down and win those games,” Smith said. “It was a surreal moment seeing him on the other side, up against our defense, going for one of his vintage comeback wins, and we stood up tonight and I was happy about that.”
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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-geno-smith-hears-chants-relishes-seahawks-opening-victory/ | 2022-09-16T18:46:46Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-geno-smith-hears-chants-relishes-seahawks-opening-victory/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW YORK (AP) — The NBA has suspended Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury owner Robert Sarver for one year, plus fined him $10 million, after an investigation found that he had engaged in what the league called “workplace misconduct and organizational deficiencies.”
The findings of the league’s report, published Tuesday, came nearly a year after the NBA asked a law firm to investigate allegations that Sarver had a history of racist, misogynistic and hostile incidents over his nearly two-decade tenure overseeing the franchise.
Sarver said he will “accept the consequences of the league’s decision” and apologized for “words and actions that offended our employees,” though noted he disagreed with some of the report’s findings.
The report said Sarver “repeated or purported to repeat the N-word on at least five occasions spanning his tenure with the Suns,” though added that the investigation “makes no finding that Sarver used this racially insensitive language with the intent to demean or denigrate.”
The study also concluded that Sarver used demeaning language toward female employees, including telling a pregnant employee that she would not be able to do her job after becoming a mother; made off-color comments and jokes about sex and anatomy; and yelled and cursed at employees in ways that would be considered bullying “under workplace standards.”
The $10 million fine is the maximum allowed by NBA rule.
“I take full responsibility for what I have done,” Sarver said. “I am sorry for causing this pain, and these errors in judgment are not consistent with my personal philosophy or my values. … This moment is an opportunity for me to demonstrate a capacity to learn and grow as we continue to build a working culture where every employee feels comfortable and valued.”
Sarver, the league said, cannot be present at any NBA or WNBA team facility, including any office, arena, or practice facility; attend or participate in any NBA or WNBA event or activity, including games, practices or business partner activity; represent the Suns or Mercury in any public or private capacity; or have any involvement with the business or basketball operations of the Suns or Mercury.
The league said it would donate the $10 million “to organizations that are committed to addressing race and gender-based issues in and outside the workplace.”
“The statements and conduct described in the findings of the independent investigation are troubling and disappointing,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said. “We believe the outcome is the right one, taking into account all the facts, circumstances and context brought to light by the comprehensive investigation of this 18-year period and our commitment to upholding proper standards in NBA workplaces.”
It’s the second-largest penalty — in terms of total sanctions — ever levied by the NBA against a team owner, behind Donald Sterling being banned for life by Silver in 2014. Sterling was fined $2.5 million, the largest allowable figure at that time, and was forced to sell the Los Angeles Clippers as part of the massive fallout that followed him making racist comments in a recorded conversation.
The allegations against Sarver were reported by ESPN last year, which said it talked to dozens of current and former team employees for its story, including some who detailed inappropriate behavior. He originally denied or disputed most of the allegations through his legal team.
On Tuesday, Sarver’s representatives said the investigation’s findings “confirmed that there was no evidence, whatsoever, to support several of the accusations in ESPN’s reporting from November 2021.”
“While it is difficult to identify with precision what motivated Sarver’s workplace behavior described in this report, certain patterns emerged from witness accounts: Sarver often acted aggressively in an apparent effort to provoke a reaction from his targets; Sarver’s sense of humor was sophomoric and inappropriate for the workplace; and Sarver behaved as though workplace norms and policies did not apply to him,” read the report from the New York-based investigating firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz.
Sarver will have to complete a training program “focused on respect and appropriate conduct in the workplace” during his suspension, the league said.
Sarver, through his attorney, continued denying the allegations as recently as June in a letter to the league and insisted the claims against him were “demonstrably false.”
The attorney, Thomas Clare, wrote that Sarver’s record shows a “longstanding commitment to social and racial justice” and that it attests to his “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
“Mr. Sarver is one of few NBA owners who continues to support and advance the development of women’s professional basketball,” Clare wrote, citing upgrades to the Mercury team facilities, how the Suns claim a league-best rate of 55% employment of minorities within its front office and how more than half of the Suns’ coaches and general managers in Sarver’s tenure — including current coach Monty Williams and current GM James Jones — are Black.
Among the league’s findings:
— That Sarver engaged in “crude, sexual and vulgar commentary and conduct in the workplace,” including references to sexual acts, condoms and the anatomy, referring to both his own and those of others.
— The investigation also found that Sarver sent a small number of male Suns employees “joking pornographic material and crude emails, including emails containing photos of a nude woman and a video of two people having sex.”
— Sarver, the investigation found, also exposed himself unnecessarily to a male Suns employee during a fitness check, caused another male employee to become uncomfortable by grabbing him and dancing “pelvis to pelvis” at a holiday party, and standing nude in front of a male employee following a shower.
— He also made comments about female employees, the investigation found, including the attractiveness of Suns dancers, and asked a female Suns employee if she had undergone breast augmentation.
The league also will require the Suns and Mercury to engage in a series of workplace improvements, including retaining outside firms that will “focus on fostering a diverse, inclusive and respectful workplace.”
Employees of those organizations will be surveyed, anonymously and regularly, to ensure that proper workplace culture is in place. The NBA and WNBA will need to be told immediately of any instances, or even allegations, of significant misconduct by any employees.
All those conditions will be in place for three years.
The league said the results of the investigation were based on interviews with 320 individuals, including current and former employees who worked for the teams during Sarver’s 18 years with the Suns, and from the evaluation of more than 80,000 documents and other materials, including emails, text messages and videos.
Sarver and the Suns and Mercury “cooperated fully with the investigative process,” the league said.
“Regardless of position, power or intent, we all need to recognize the corrosive and hurtful impact of racially insensitive and demeaning language and behavior,” Silver said. “On behalf of the entire NBA, I apologize to all of those impacted by the misconduct outlined in the investigators’ report. We must do better.”
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More AP NBA coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-nba-bans-suns-owner-sarver-1-year-fine-him-10m-after-probe/ | 2022-09-16T18:46:53Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-nba-bans-suns-owner-sarver-1-year-fine-him-10m-after-probe/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Pittsburgh Steelers star outside linebacker T.J. Watt will miss Sunday’s game against New England with a left pectoral injury, though coach Mike Tomlin is optimistic Watt’s prognosis isn’t as bad as initially feared.
Tomlin said Tuesday the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year won’t be available for Pittsburgh’s home opener, but refused to offer a potential timetable on how long Watt might be unavailable and hinted the worst-case situation — that Watt would be lost for the season — is no longer on the table.
“We’re encouraged and we’ll just continue to look at the situation and gain opinions and do what’s appropriate,” Tomlin said.
Watt sustained the injury late in the fourth quarter of a 23-20 overtime victory over Cincinnati while attempting to sack the Bengals’ Joe Burrow. Watt walked off the field with Steelers physician Dr. James Bradley and went straight to the locker room. He declined interview requests on Monday but appeared to be upbeat.
Tomlin declined to give specifics about the injury on Sunday and remained intentionally vague about the extent of the damage to Watt’s pectoral on Tuesday other than to say “we’re probably in a lot better place than we were after the game. And usually that’s the case.”
The three-time All-Pro had a sack and even snagged his fifth career interception in the opener, picking up right where he left off in 2021 when he tied an NFL record with 22 1/2 sacks.
The Steelers will turn to newcomers Malik Reed and Jamir Jones to fill in. Reed arrived in a trade with Denver on Aug. 31. The Steelers claimed Jones — who played with them briefly in 2021 before being cut — off waivers on Sept. 1.
Tomlin made it a point to take some of the pressure off Reed and Jones, who will fill in for Watt.
“Those guys are not going to be T.J. (and) it’s not realistic to think that they’re going to be T.J.,” Tomlin said. “But we expect them to be varsity.”
Reed and Jones played a combined 50 snaps against Cincinnati, combining for three tackles. Reed is more of a known quantity, getting 15 sacks in three seasons with Denver before being caught in a numbers crunch with the Broncos and being shipped to Pittsburgh.
“Man, Malik is a 700-plus snap defender the last two years,” Tomlin said. “His resume speaks for itself. That’s why we went out acquiring him. He’s a very, very credible NFL player.”
There’s still a chance Watt could be placed on injured reserve, which would force him to miss a minimum of four weeks. Tomlin said the team will take its time to determine whether to take that step, adding that Watt is in the process of getting second and third opinions on the injury.
While Watt is out, second-year running back Najee Harris could play after leaving late against Cincinnati with a left foot injury. Harris appeared to be in significant pain afterward and was seen with his left foot and lower left leg heavily wrapped.
“It’s good to be young, you know,” Tomlin said. “He appears to be in position (to play), but he’s going to have to practice and prove his readiness.”
Pittsburgh’s top backup is Jaylen Warren, an undrafted rookie free agent who ran three times for 7 yards against the Bengals and proved to be an adept and enthusiastic blocker in the passing game.
Asked about Warren’s performance, Tomlin smiled.
“He didn’t urinate down his leg and that’s a great place to begin, you know,” Tomlin said with a laugh.
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More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-steelers-star-tj-watt-out-at-least-1-game-with-pec-injury/ | 2022-09-16T18:47:08Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-steelers-star-tj-watt-out-at-least-1-game-with-pec-injury/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MADRID (AP) — Less could be more for Antoine Griezmann going into the World Cup.
The France forward has been getting few minutes with Atlético Madrid because of a unique contractual dispute with Barcelona, but with his World Cup spot not really in danger, he may end up being one of the few players arriving fresh for the tournament in November.
Griezmann has been on the bench at Atlético while the Spanish club reportedly tries to avoid having to pay Barcelona 40 million euros ($40.5 million) if he plays more than 45 minutes on average in a number of matches during his loan. Atlético coach Diego Simeone has used the forward only after the 60-minute mark in all six of the team’s matches this season.
The 31-year-old Griezmann, a World Cup champion with France four years ago, is in the second of his two-year loan from Barcelona. He was a star at Atlético from 2014-19 before moving to the Catalan club for two disappointing seasons.
“It is what it is, it’s not up to me,” Griezmann said. “Of course, I want to play more, but I will give everything I have in the minutes that I get. I am a team player, I am happy here and I just want to play and give it all for the club, for Simeone and for the fans.”
And Griezmann has certainly made the most of his time on the field so far, performing well whenever he comes off the bench. He has scored three goals already, including a stoppage-time winner in Atlético’s victory over Porto in the team’s Champions League opener last week.
“At this point in the season, he is helping us this particular way, and it shows in the quality of the minutes he plays, and in his hierarchy,” Simeone said. “What we know is that in 30 minutes he has been playing very well. We don’t know how it would be in 60. I can only go by what we know.”
If Griezmann keeps playing well while not getting too overworked, he could arrive at the World Cup in great physical condition while the majority of players will be coming off a schedule of non-stop games prompted by the tight calendar of a World Cup year.
Griezmann would be in good position to be the third starter in a France attack that is expected to be spearheaded by Kylian Mbappé and Karim Benzema. France coach Didier Deschamps’ other choices up front include Wissam Ben Yedder, Kingsley Coman, Moussa Diaby, Ousmane Dembélé, Olivier Giroud and Christopher Nkunku.
And the good thing for France if Griezmann does arrive in top form, there will be no limit on his playing time.
LA DEFENSE
Just 10 weeks before France begins its title defense against Australia, Paris Saint-Germain said central defender Presnel Kimpembe will miss the next six of them with a left hamstring injury.
Competition for places has heated up with William Saliba emerging at Arsenal and both Samuel Umtiti and Clément Lenglet leaving Barcelona on loan — for Lecce and Tottenham, respectively — to seek more playing time and also cut the Spanish club’s salary bill.
SANÉ’S TIMING
Just in time, Leroy Sané is finally starting to live up to expectations at Bayern Munich.
The Germany forward has endured a frustrating spell in Munich since his big-money return to Germany from Manchester City in 2020. He was even booed by Bayern’s fans last year.
But the 26-year-old Sané seems like a new player this season. He has been producing impressive performances in the Bundesliga and was “man of the match” in Bayern’s 2-0 win at Inter Milan in the Champions League last week, scoring one goal and setting up the other.
That’s good news for Germany coach Hansi Flick, who has also played Bayern midfielder Jamal Musiala on the left wing. Sané has 11 goals in 45 appearances for Germany but is not yet an undisputed starter.
“When he’s in the mood and brings his qualities to the field,” Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić said, “he can be one of the best players in Europe.”
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More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Tales Azzoni on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tazzoni | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-world-cup-watch-contractual-tug-of-war-may-help-griezmann/ | 2022-09-16T18:47:37Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/ap-world-cup-watch-contractual-tug-of-war-may-help-griezmann/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP)Patriots veteran running back Ty Montgomery will miss at least the next four games after being placed on injured reserve with a right knee injury.
To fill his spot on the 53-man roster, New England signed receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey from the practice squad. Offensive lineman Marcus Cannon was also signed to the practice squad.
Montgomery was limited in practices leading up to the Patriots’ season-opening loss at Miami. But he was active for the game, catching three passes for 15 yards and a touchdown.
Humphrey signed with New England as a free agent in June, was released at the end of training camp and signed to the practice squad on Aug. 31. The 6-foot-4, 225-pounder was elevated to the active roster prior to the Miami game and saw limited action against the Dolphins before reverting back to the practice squad.
Cannon made 69 starts for the Patriots from 2011 through the 2019 season before opting out of the 2020 season.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/new-england-patriots/patriots-place-montgomery-on-ir-elevate-humphrey-to-roster/ | 2022-09-16T18:47:51Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/sports/new-england-patriots/patriots-place-montgomery-on-ir-elevate-humphrey-to-roster/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
For nearly a century, audiences have watched dreams come true for countless Disney characters who’ve wished upon a star. But just how did the wishing star come to be? That’s the premise of a new Disney animated film, “Wish,” announced at the company’s 2022 D23 Expo.
When Jennifer Lee, Walt Disney Animation Studios chief creative officer, took the stage at D23 Expo to give fans a closer look at what’s coming to the big screen and Disney+ in the coming years, she invited “Wish” co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn to join her to share more about the film. Buck co-directed “Frozen” with Lee and Veerasunthorn worked on “Zootopia,” “Raya and the Last Dragon” and “Moana.”
“Wish” is expected to be released in November 2023 as part of the company’s year-long 100th anniversary celebration.
The film’s heroine is named Asha, and will be voiced by Ariana DeBose, who recently won an Oscar for her work in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake. The directors described Asha as a witty, driven, 17-year-old who cares deeply about her community, the Kingdom of Rosas — also known as the Kingdom of Wishes — which needs her help against a serious threat.
Buck said Asha’s journey will pit her against “one of the most formidable foes in Disney history. Asha sees a darkness in the kingdom that nobody else does and must find a way to help the people she loves.”
Asha makes a wish to the stars for guidance and the power of her wish brings down a star from the sky to help her — “Star,” a “cosmic force,” and a “little ball of boundless energy” that communicates through pantomime. The audience got a sneak peek and, from what we saw, Star is destined to be a fan-favorite character.
Giving Star a run for the cuteness prize will be Valentino (voiced by Alan Tudyk), a pajama-wearing goat who wishes for the ability to speak.
“Wish” will be a musical, with songs written by Grammy-winner Julia Michaels. DeBose performed one of the movie’s tracks, “More for Us,” for fans at D23 Expo and having heard it live — take it from me — this one could quickly find itself in modern-classic, “Let It Go” territory.
More Major Movie News from D23 Expo
D23 Expo was a star-studded weekend packed with panels and announcements about everything on the horizon for Disney’s various studios, including Marvel, Lucasfilm, Pixar and 20th Century, as well as news about Disney theme parks.
Fans learned about new films in production, like Pixar’s “Inside Out 2;” got to see the cast live on stage for films and Disney+ series including “Indiana Jones,” “Loki” (season two coming soon), “The Mandalorian” (season three coming soon), “The Haunted Mansion” and “The Marvels;” and got first looks at trailers and footage from highly anticipated upcoming releases like “Avatar — The Way of Water,” “Hocus Pocus 2” and Disney’s live-action “The Little Mermaid.”
Fans in attendance were also the first to learn about possible expansion plans at Walt Disney World, including new areas inspired by “Coco,” “Encanto” and the studio’s famous villains in early development for Magic Kingdom, and “Zootopia” and “Moana” areas in potential development for Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories. | https://www.fox17online.com/disneys-wish-what-know-about-new-movie | 2022-09-16T18:53:32Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/disneys-wish-what-know-about-new-movie | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
By Gord Mackenize March is the cruelest of months, lest there be too pleasant. “You mean because I had another baby girl I thought I have... MOURIN ROMAC\n“When people hear or learn new cult practices we think this creates a problem; but from that learning perspective I ask who will I offend if someone new decides they are not... MOUREN MACOCARE\nBulky Womblis in Tranby Street IONIA, Mich. — An Ionia County deputy participated in a fundraiser event during a swim meet at Ionia High School Thursday night!
We’re told the fundraiser helped raise awareness for cancer.
The Ionia County Sheriff’s Office compared Undersheriff Andrew Bucholtz’s cannonball dive to “a floundering porpoise” on social media Friday.
CANNONBALL! Undersheriff plunges into pool for cancer awareness
The sheriff's office suggests the judges were much kinder with their assessment of Bucholtz’s performance.
During the event, the Ionia Girls Varsity Team paid tribute to those who died of cancer as well as patients who are currently battling the disease, deputies say. | https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/ionia/ionia-county-undersheriff-performs-cannonball-at-varsity-swim-meet | 2022-09-16T18:53:38Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/ionia/ionia-county-undersheriff-performs-cannonball-at-varsity-swim-meet | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
← Sitting still…thinking out and aloud on spiritual friendship..be sure it be true\n20+…the next best years???…23rd Sunday through Advent in St Minians’.. →\nO Antiphons and our year…the 14 Nite before Bethulie WASHINGTON (AP) — A Michigan man was sentenced on Friday to five years in federal prison for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack by a mob that disrupted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's 2020 electoral victory.
Chief Judge Beryl Howell also sentenced Anthony Robert Williams, 47, of Southgate, Michigan, to three years of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution and a $5,000 fine, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.
In June, a jury convicted Williams of a felony count of obstructing the Jan. 6, 2021, joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. Jurors also convicted him of four related misdemeanor offenses.
Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of five years and four months for Williams, who was arrested in Detroit in March 2021.
In a Facebook post three days after the riot, Williams called himself an “Operation Swamp Storm veteran" and referred to Jan. 6 as the “proudest day of my life.” He added that it "felt like the founding fathers were smiling down on us in that room, and I guarantee my dad and gramps, both vets, would be proud.”
“Williams’ participation in the riot was purposeful, extensive, enthusiastic, and remorseless,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
Outside the Capitol, Williams stole water bottles that police intended to use for decontaminating themselves from chemical spray, according to prosecutors. They said Williams entered the Capitol through the Senate Wing doors and joined other rioters in overwhelming police officers in the Crypt area.
“Williams advanced to the Rotunda where he celebrated with other rioters and smoked marijuana," prosecutors wrote. "When the police tried to force Williams out of the Rotunda, he joined with other rioters and actively resisted and mocked the police.”
Williams' attorneys requested a sentence of 15 months of incarceration.
"Mr. Williams has learned from his experience and from listening to the testimony at trial and during jury selection. He will not become involved in something like this ever again," they wrote.
More than 870 people have been charged with federal crimes for the conduct on Jan. 6. More 260 of them have been sentenced, with roughly half of them receiving a term of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years. Only five other Capitol riot defendants have been sentenced to a longer prison term than Williams. | https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/michigan-man-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-role-in-capitol-riot | 2022-09-16T18:53:45Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/michigan-man-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-role-in-capitol-riot | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A road No. 23 Chicago Bulls jersey worn by Michael Jordan just sold for $10 million by auction house Sotheby’s.
The auction was expected to fetch anywhere from $3 million to $5 million.
The jersey, complete with an NBA Finals emblem, was worn by Jordan during Game 1 of the 1998 NBA Finals. The Bulls ended up losing the game 88-85, but Jordan’s Bulls won the series 4-2 games.
The 1998 Finals was the last time Jordan played for the Bulls. It also marked his final championship.
The 1998 NBA championship run led to the 2020 documentary “The Last Dance” which recounted Jordan’s final season with the Bulls. | https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/michael-jordans-last-dance-jersey-sold-at-auction | 2022-09-16T18:54:09Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/michael-jordans-last-dance-jersey-sold-at-auction | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
It has been two months since the launch of the new 988 suicide and crisis lifeline number, and there has been a jump in people contacting the lifeline since the switch.
Nationally, more than 83,000 additional contacts were made in August compared to June.
Calls to the veterans crisis line aren't included in these figures, but veterans are at a higher risk of suicide than those who have not served.
Data indicates veteran suicides have decreased over the last two years.
“If there's one good aspect of the pandemic from my perspective, I think it's really open dialogue across the nation, and including veterans with regard to the importance of mental health, wellness, and well-being, and how mental health is physical health,” said Matthew A. Miller who heads suicide prevention with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Veterans Health Administration said it's seeing success using artificial intelligence to help identify veterans at the highest risk for suicide.
A computer scans electronic health records of patients in the system to identify those showing warning signs.
“Certain medical issues or facing medical complexities is a risk factor for a lot of individuals, and the more at risk you are from a medical perspective,” Miller said. “Generally speaking, we found that there is a relationship for risk with regard to suicide and suicide prevention.”
Resources to help are available by calling 988. | https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/suicide-hotline-receives-more-calls-after-988-number-launches | 2022-09-16T18:54:21Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/suicide-hotline-receives-more-calls-after-988-number-launches | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
BOGOTA, Colombia (Sept. 5, 2022) -- U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson, commander of U.S. Southern Command, presents the Legion of Merit award to retired Colombian Gen. Luis Navarro Jiménez for his efforts in strengthening the U.S.-Colombia security partnership. Richardson visited Colombia Sept. 5-7 to meet with leaders to discuss security cooperation. (Photo courtesy U.S. Embassy Colombia)
This work, SOUTHCOM Commander Visits Colombia, Brazil [Image 12 of 12], must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7421053/southcom-commander-visits-colombia-brazil | 2022-09-16T18:56:25Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7421053/southcom-commander-visits-colombia-brazil | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Farah Yousry
Reporter, Side Effects, WFYI and the Indianapolis RecorderFarah Yousry covers health equity for Side Effects Public Media, in partnership with the Indianapolis Recorder. She focuses on healthcare disparities in minority communities across the Midwest. Before moving to the U.S., she worked as a journalist for local news organizations in Egypt during the Arab Spring and the contentious political period following the Egyptian revolution. She has worked with the BBC World Service for more than five years, producing radio, television and digital features for audiences across Europe and the Middle East. Farah speaks Arabic, English and Mandarin Chinese. She can be reached at fyousry@wfyi.org.
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Not a single scientific or health authority in the U.S. recommends the use of the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19. Still, some Americans see the unproven drug as a way out of the pandemic. | https://www.kcur.org/farah-yousry | 2022-09-16T18:57:00Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/farah-yousry | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WICHITA, Kansas — Federal pandemic programs that buoyed health insurance rates nationwide in 2021 didn’t ultimately lead to an increase in coverage in Kansas — meaning that, for the first time in decades, Kansans are significantly less likely to have health insurance than the U.S. population as a whole.
As millions of Americans lost jobs and with it their employer-based health insurance, the federal government enacted broad relief measures to help people access coverage. Those programs contributed to a marked drop in the rate of uninsured Americans in 2021 to match a prior record low of 8.6%, according to new data released this week by the Census Bureau.
But the rate of uninsured Kansans remained steady between 2019 and 2021 at 9.2%. And uninsured rates for people of color in Kansas remain even more elevated: 14.1% of Black Kansans lack health insurance compared to 9.6% in the U.S. overall. Of the Kansas Hispanic population, 20.3% are uninsured, compared to 17.7% in the U.S. overall.
One reason insurance rates are lower in Kansas is the state’s failure to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. As of 2021, 36 states and the District of Columbia had expanded Medicaid. Gains in insurance coverage were higher on average in those places.
The new data suggests that the pandemic programs did help many Kansans obtain or keep health insurance coverage, even if they didn’t ultimately cause the overall insurance rate to increase. Public health insurance coverage in the state swelled 1.5%, at a similar rate to the U.S. as a whole, likely thanks to a provision that prevented states from kicking most people off of Medicaid during the pandemic.
“The Medicaid continuous coverage provision drove increases in Medicaid that very likely prevented an increase in the uninsured rate in Kansas,” said Gideon Lukens, director of research and data analysis for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
But those gains were offset by a considerable decline in private health insurance coverage. Kansas saw a 1.7% drop in private coverage, more than four times the national rate of decline.
That drop can be largely tied to a decline in employment-based health coverage. There was a small, but not statistically significant, increase in the percent of Kansans who purchased health insurance directly, including from the state’s health care marketplace. The American Rescue Plan made that insurance cheaper for low- and moderate-income people.
Phillip Steiner, a senior analyst at the Kansas Health Institute, said there are a few reasons why people could have lost employment-based coverage.
“It could be people changing jobs, or opting for jobs without coverage, or people leaving the labor force,” he said. “But it could be people also opting out of their employer-sponsored plans that they have available to them. We've seen premiums climbing pretty steadily in Kansas.”
The institute receives funding from the Kansas Health Foundation, a funder of the Kansas News Service.
The Census Bureau said a nationwide drop in employment-based health insurance partially stems from a rise in people working in jobs that are less likely to offer health insurance, like food service and construction. The Bureau will release state-level data on the issue next month, but a similar story could be playing out in Kansas.
Once the federally-declared public health emergency and the Medicaid continuous coverage provision ends — which could happen as soon as October — the federal government estimates 15 million Americans will lose their health insurance, including approximately 5 million children.
Some will have access to Marketplace subsidies and other insurance options. But an estimated 383,000 people living in Kansas and the other 11 states that have not expanded Medicaid won’t have another affordable option for coverage. That’s because they fall into the coverage gap that exists in nonexpansion states: they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough money to qualify for Marketplace tax credits that would make buying their own insurance affordable.
“A good chunk of the number [of Kansans] who have remained enrolled will probably fall into that gap,” Steiner said.
Lukens said the process of ending the COVID-19 coverage provisions, referred to as the “unwinding,” could leave even fewer Kansans insured than before the pandemic.
“It's really important that states take steps now to prevent things like administrative errors from keeping people who are still eligible from being disenrolled, as well as to help people who lose their Medicaid coverage to transition to other coverage,” he said.
Medicaid expansion has been a contentious issue in the Kansas Statehouse. Democrats support it, but the Republican leaders of both chambers have opposed the idea.
“There's still the opportunity for Kansas to expand [Medicaid] to more than offset any decline in coverage that could occur during the unwinding,” Lukens said.
Rose Conlon reports on health for KMUW and the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter at @rosebconlon or email her at conlon@kmuw.org.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Copyright 2022 KMUW | NPR for Wichita. To see more, visit KMUW | NPR for Wichita. | https://www.kcur.org/health/2022-09-16/more-americans-got-health-insurance-during-the-pandemic-but-not-in-kansas | 2022-09-16T18:57:07Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/health/2022-09-16/more-americans-got-health-insurance-during-the-pandemic-but-not-in-kansas | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
I’m a veteran investigative reporter who came up through newspapers and moved to public media. I want to give people a better understanding of the criminal justice system by focusing on its deeper issues, like institutional racism, the poverty-to-prison pipeline and police accountability. Today this beat is much different from how reporters worked it in the past. I’m telling stories about people who are building significant civil rights movements and redefining public safety. Email me at lowep@kcur.org. | https://www.kcur.org/overlooked | 2022-09-16T18:57:13Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/overlooked | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A local plant sale set for this Saturday aims to promote the use of native plants in home landscaping.
The Missouri Prairie Foundation is teaming up with the Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center to hold the sale. Seven native plant vendors will be present at the event, selling seeds, wildflowers, trees, grasses and much more.
KCUR's Up To Date was joined by the executive director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation to discuss the sale, as well as the importance of native plants to any ecosystem.
- Carol Davit, executive director of the Missouri Prairie Foundation
Native Plant Sale, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 at the Anita B. Gorman Conservation Discovery Center, 4750 Troost Ave., Kansas City, Missouri 64110. | https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2022-09-16/kansas-city-plant-sale-underscores-importance-of-native-plants-to-local-ecosystem | 2022-09-16T18:57:19Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/podcast/up-to-date/2022-09-16/kansas-city-plant-sale-underscores-importance-of-native-plants-to-local-ecosystem | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Compositions and Recordings
Violin Concerto in D minor
by Richard Strauss
Rudolf Kempe with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Ulf Hoelsher
Intermezzo: 4 Symphonic Interludes
by Richard Strauss
Andre Previn with the Vienna Philharmonic
Compositions and Recordings
Violin Concerto in D minor
by Richard Strauss
Rudolf Kempe with the Staatskapelle Dresden, Ulf Hoelsher
Intermezzo: 4 Symphonic Interludes
by Richard Strauss
Andre Previn with the Vienna Philharmonic | https://www.kcur.org/show/from-the-archives-with-frank-byrne/2022-09-16/from-the-archives-tribute-to-queen-elizabeth-ii | 2022-09-16T18:57:25Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/show/from-the-archives-with-frank-byrne/2022-09-16/from-the-archives-tribute-to-queen-elizabeth-ii | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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medication abortion | https://www.kcur.org/tags/medication-abortion | 2022-09-16T18:57:37Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/tags/medication-abortion | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
commission hears from planning on rocky top landfill
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Two car shows planned this weekend in Yakima and Moxee | https://www.yakimaherald.com/commission-hears-from-planning-on-rocky-top-landfill/article_426cb628-35e4-11ed-b08b-2b8052b6b64b.html | 2022-09-16T18:57:39Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/commission-hears-from-planning-on-rocky-top-landfill/article_426cb628-35e4-11ed-b08b-2b8052b6b64b.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
commissioners set public hearing date on solar farm moratorium
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Two car shows planned this weekend in Yakima and Moxee | https://www.yakimaherald.com/commissioners-set-public-hearing-date-on-solar-farm-moratorium/article_fb925a18-35e4-11ed-920a-9f9569e493f8.html | 2022-09-16T18:57:41Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/commissioners-set-public-hearing-date-on-solar-farm-moratorium/article_fb925a18-35e4-11ed-920a-9f9569e493f8.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Yakima police have arrested two people in connection with a homicide Thursday night.
Police responding to a call for shots fired in the 1100 block of South Third Street around 11:15 p.m. found a man with gunshot wounds, YPD spokesperson Yvette Inzunza said. The man was taken to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead, she said.
Following up on witness statements, police found two suspects and placed them under arrest, Inzunza said.
YPD’s Major Crimes and Gang units are investigating, she said.
Yakima County Coroner Jim Curtice said he is scheduling an autopsy.
The man’s death is the 11th homicide in the city this year, and the 26th for the county.
This is a developing story and will be updated. | https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/yakima-police-arrest-two-in-connection-with-thursday-homicide/article_d448a5ee-35e3-11ed-933d-27c5a812576c.html | 2022-09-16T18:57:43Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/yakima-police-arrest-two-in-connection-with-thursday-homicide/article_d448a5ee-35e3-11ed-933d-27c5a812576c.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Theresa Adkison shares her story of addiction, recover, helping others
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Two car shows planned this weekend in Yakima and Moxee | https://www.yakimaherald.com/theresa-adkison-shares-her-story-of-addiction-recover-helping-others/article_d6aa6456-35e5-11ed-94db-c7ee9cbc70d4.html | 2022-09-16T18:57:59Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/theresa-adkison-shares-her-story-of-addiction-recover-helping-others/article_d6aa6456-35e5-11ed-94db-c7ee9cbc70d4.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
15 Skin Brightening Serums That Actually Work, According to Dermatologists
Shine bright like a diamond.
One product that deserves a spot in everyone's daily skincare routine, regardless of skin type or concerns, is a brightening serum. Brightening serums are, well, serums that help increase radiance. Depending on the ingredients used in the formula, though, they have the power to do so much more, such as decreasing the look of dark spots and protecting against environmental aggressors that can speed up the aging process if left exposed.
Not to mention, if you've ever dreamt about replicating the viral glazed donut, jelly, or glass skin trends, shopping for a brightening serum is a great way to help you achieve that dewy and glowing skin. All to say, radiance-boosting serums are a serious game changer in any routine.
Ahead learn all about brightening serums, including what they are and how to apply them. Then, keep scrolling to shop some of the best brightening serums available on the market at every price point.
What is a brightening serum?
“A brightening serum is a skincare product that is formulated to enhance the skin’s tone and brighten your skin by helping to improve the appearance of dullness or target specific dark spots, discoloration, or hyperpigmentation,” says Melissa Kanchanapoomi Levin MD, a board-certified dermatologist and founder of Entière Dermatology. You can find brightening serums in a variety of textures with other skin-benefitting ingredients to help cater to your specific skin type and concerns.
Our Top Picks:
What ingredients to look for in a brightening serum?
Vitamin C is probably one of the best powerhouse ingredients for targeting dullness and hyperpigmentation. “[It’s] one of the most well-studied and evidence-based antioxidants with decades of research,” says Levin. “Vitamin C and its derivatives can be used to lighten hyperpigmentation, encourage collagen production, and brighten the complexion overall as a potent antioxidant.”
Other ingredients that can help promote glowing, bright skin are niacinamide, alpha hydroxy acids, and retinol, says Levin. “Retinols or retinoids are the holy grail of anti-aging due to their proven quickened turnover of skin cells to help eliminate pigmented keratinocytes, increase collagen production, reduce the synthesis of melanin, and correct sun damage,” she says. Levin also loves phytic acid, a mild alpha hydroxy acid that helps treat conditions like melasma due to its exfoliating and antioxidant properties.
How to use a brightening serum?
In addition to its radiance-boosting effects, most brightening serums can help protect against environmental aggressors, which is why Levin recommends applying it each morning. “In the morning, after cleansing, and before moisturizing, brightening serums with antioxidants like vitamin C provide better protection from UV radiation and other triggers of hyperpigmentation, such as visible light and the environment,” she says. You can also use it at night for even better results. “Using a brightening serum at night aids in the natural repair process while sleeping,” explains Levin. When in doubt, make sure to consult with a dermatologist about the best treatment and maintenance plans. | https://www.oprahdaily.com/beauty/skin-makeup/g29582592/best-brightening-serums/ | 2022-09-16T18:58:04Z | oprahdaily.com | control | https://www.oprahdaily.com/beauty/skin-makeup/g29582592/best-brightening-serums/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Manifest your goals and create the life you want with Oprah as your guide. Part weekly planner, part intention journal, this powerful tool—bound in a beautiful linen cover with two ribbons to mark your spots—will help you strengthen the 12 focus areas Oprah believes are essential to creating a life filled with purpose and joy.
- Writing prompts, quotes, and advice from Oprah herself help you set a vision for your life and intentions for each week.
- The undated format makes it easy to start or stop at any time and includes 12 monthly calendar pages and 52 weekly pages for notes and schedule-keeping.
- Weekly reflection pages are your space to look back on achievements and forward to new accomplishments.
Building on Oprah’s own lifelong love of journaling, Oprah's “The Life You Want” Planner equips you with everything you need to begin a regular practice of intention-setting and self-reflection, bringing you closer to a life filled with connection, joy, and a deep sense of satisfaction every day.
And did we mention that the planner is on sale for 27 percent off on Amazon? But you'll have to hurry! This deal is available on 9/19 for 12 hours only, starting at 11:40 A.M. to 11:40 P.M! | https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a41032368/oprahs-the-life-you-want-planner-amazon-sale/ | 2022-09-16T18:58:14Z | oprahdaily.com | control | https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a41032368/oprahs-the-life-you-want-planner-amazon-sale/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
When you have a curvy body, finding the perfect plus-size leggings can be as difficult as sourcing that golden pair of jeans. Often they're a bit too see-through, don't provide much support, or simply aren't all that stylish. One should never have to be in a situation that requires choosing between cute and quality. It's 2022, and you absolutely can have it all. We're talking plus-size leggings with pockets, comfy materials, and gorgeous colors. Because in this day and age, leggings are so much more than the activewear you bring to the gym. They're pieces you can style and wear at everyday functions. Our Top Picks:
Whether you’re running laps or errands, the most supportive styles have high rises, wide waistbands to hold you in, and flexible stretch that moves with you. If you are seeking shaping and smoothing, snug compression tights will do the trick. Seamless designs are also a comfortable option since they will erase the stress of chafing. And any flattering style with convenient pockets automatically gets bonus points in our book.
We scoured the virtual racks to find the best plus-size leggings—just throw them on with your sports bra and workout clothes for your next gym training session or at-home yoga routine. Many of these pairs are substantial and warm enough to act as winter leggings, too, and some even work as base layers under snow pants. Whichever way you style these, you’ll be glad to have them in your rotation. | https://www.oprahdaily.com/style/g28482338/best-plus-size-leggings/ | 2022-09-16T18:58:24Z | oprahdaily.com | control | https://www.oprahdaily.com/style/g28482338/best-plus-size-leggings/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Harley Quinn Showrunners on the Series’ New Status Quo For Season 4
Warning: There are spoilers ahead for the third season finale of Harley Quinn! Harley Quinn Showrunners.
For most of Harley Quinn‘s three season run, the title character has tried to prove herself as a villain only to realize that she simply isn’t as evil as she pretended to be. That’s not to say that Harley didn’t commit a lot of crimes, and she did murder Penguin and Mad Hatter. However, after the events of the third season finale, Harley has been embraced as a hero by Gotham City. That’s because she saved Gotham from her girlfriend, Poison Ivy, while saving Ivy from herself. Now, even the Batman family has welcomed Harley into the fold while Bruce Wayne is imprisoned for tax evasion.
In a new interview with EW, outgoing showrunners Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker, as well as the new showrunner, Sarah Peters, shared their thoughts on Harley’s heroic turn. Schumacker noted that Harley’s comic book counterpart has already gone in this direction. However, they wanted to play with Harley as a villain before following that example.
“In the comics at the time that we were developing the show, Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner were doing the run and Harley had gone off to Coney Island and had become a heroic vigilante,” said Schumacker. “So that was in the ether when we were thinking about the show and pitching it, but it was too delicious to have her as a villain to start with…It felt right to start her as a villain. But we knew we could recalibrate her moral compass towards the heroic North Star, it would just take some time. So here we are.”
RELATED: Harley Quinn’s New Showrunner Teases Her Season 4 Plans
“As we get to the end of season 3 and into the future, [Harley is] going to have this confidence and this support at home that she’s never had before,” added Peters. “Hopefully she can parlay that confidence into figuring out where she fits in this world that is very binary when it comes to good and evil. She’ll be able to have a more individualized journey.”
There is also more potential conflict between Harley and Ivy, especially since Lex Luthor has recruited Ivy to run a new Legion of Doom. Harley and Ivy supported each others’ career decisions, but they may find themselves on opposite sides next season. Regardless, Peters reiterated that there are no plans to break up the couple at the heart of the show.
“”I think we all want them to be together forever,” noted Peters. “Now it’s just a matter of, how is that going to affect them moving forward? They are a power couple now, and we’ve got a dynamic where they might be on different sides of the aisle.”
Harley Quinn season 3 is now streaming on HBO Max. The fourth season may be a year to two years away.
What do you think about Harley’s new status quo? Let us know in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: Harley Quinn The Rebirth: Deluxe Collection Vol. 1
We are also 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/tv/519258-harley-quinn-showrunners-on-the-series-new-status-quo-for-season-4 | 2022-09-16T19:02:00Z | superherohype.com | control | https://www.superherohype.com/tv/519258-harley-quinn-showrunners-on-the-series-new-status-quo-for-season-4 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Charlie Cox Talks About His New Daredevil Suit on She-Hulk
This week’s episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was noticeably light on action. But it certainly looks as though next week’s chapter will more than make up for this. In the final moments of the episode, viewers learned that super-suit designer Luke Jacobson also counts Matt Murdock/Daredevil as one of his famous clients. He even crafted a new yellow costume for Marvel’s Man Without Fear that hearkens back to the character’s early comic book appearances. Now, Charlie Cox is opening up about what it was like to slip back into DD’s signature threads.
Cox offered new insight into the design process while speaking with Rotten Tomatoes at last weekend’s D23 Expo. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as simple as grabbing one of his old suits from Netflix’s Daredevil series out of storage and giving it a paint job. Although the costume department had the basic look of the costume to use as a template, they still needed to start over from scratch. And Cox was just as stunned by the new color scheme as anyone else.
“Yeah, so I had to go to LA to have a fitting,” said Cox. “And I walk in, I can say this now, I walk in, I knew I wasn’t going to wear it in Spider-Man, I knew that much. But whilst we’re doing Spider-Man, we were getting ready to do She-Hulk, and so I got to go to LA to a fitting and I walk in, and the suit is hanging there, but then there’s a picture, there’s a drawing on the wall, and it has the gold and red, and I was like ‘No way!’”
RELATED: She-Hulk: Attorney at Law Episode 5 – What Did You Think?!
“It’s funny, because when you play the character this long, you’re emotionally connected to the fans’ response,” added Cox. “So you see something like that and it means something to you, but you know what it means, what it’s going to mean. Like, you start to have a sense of how people are going to respond to that. So I saw that, and then they come in with it, I’m like ‘Oh man, this is unreal.’”
The sixth episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law hits Disney+ next Thursday, September 22.
Are you excited to see Cox show up in the series? Let us know in the comment section below!
Recommended Reading: She-Hulk By Dan Slott Omnibus
We are also 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/tv/519259-charlie-cox-talks-about-his-new-daredevil-suit-on-she-hulk | 2022-09-16T19:02:07Z | superherohype.com | control | https://www.superherohype.com/tv/519259-charlie-cox-talks-about-his-new-daredevil-suit-on-she-hulk | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Have a topic or question you’d like us to address on the show? Send them our way through the Successful Living Facebook page.
Watch Successful Living every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. on FOX Providence and catch up on any segments you missed on FoxProvidence.com. | https://www.wpri.com/fox-providence/successful-living/word-of-the-day-patient/ | 2022-09-16T19:04:03Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/fox-providence/successful-living/word-of-the-day-patient/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Gov. Andy Beshear offers defense on issues looming in reelection bid
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP/WYMT) - Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is defending his record on a host of challenges sure to surface next year when the Democrat seeks a second term.
Those issues include the pandemic, inflation, crime and drug deaths.
Some topics came up at his news conference Thursday on the heels of recent developments. Beshear fell back on talking points he’s used before and will likely use again.
As more Republicans jump into the 2023 governor’s race, the criticism of him is intensifying.
Beshear didn’t mention the Republican candidates. His defense comes days after Kelly Craft linked Beshear to President Joe Biden as she launched her gubernatorial campaign.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. | https://www.wbko.com/2022/09/16/gov-andy-beshear-offers-defense-issues-looming-reelection-bid/ | 2022-09-16T19:07:37Z | wbko.com | control | https://www.wbko.com/2022/09/16/gov-andy-beshear-offers-defense-issues-looming-reelection-bid/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Bear removed from tree on CSU campus Oval on Friday morning
While Northern Colorado bears are typically associated with the university in Greeley, Colorado State University briefly hosted an ursine visitor Friday morning.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials safely removed a young black bear from a tree on the CSU Oval about 10:30 a.m., roughly two hours after university officials warned those on campus to avoid the area. The bear, which state wildlife officials estimated to be about 2 years old and 200 pounds, was tranquilized three times before it was lowered from the tree on large inner tubes.
The bear will be relocated in the mountains by state wildlife officials.
Officials asked people to avoid the area so they could "calmly and safely remove the bear," though it drew an estimated crowd of about 100 people to campus.
The bear had been seen in Old Town Fort Collins about 7:30 a.m. Friday before it made its way to a tree just south of Ammons Hall on CSU's campus.
This was the second time within a month that a bear has been seen on campus. According to a CSU police post on Facebook, a bear was on the south end of campus in late August. However, CSU police spokesperson Dell Rae Ciaravola said she believes there hasn't been a bear on campus "for some time" before this fall.
The same day the bear was seen on CSU's campus in August, a bear was also seen at Beattie Elementary School, forcing the school to go on lockdown.
Bears are more apt to be found in towns and cities along the foothills this time of year as they get ready for hyperphagia by spending up to 20 hours a day trying to eat more than 20,000 calories to fatten up for winter, according to the state wildlife agency.
Last year, Fort Collins and the northern half of Larimer County had 68 reports of bears, which was a 56% decline from 2020, according to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife bear report.
Bearproofing your home
- Keep garbage in a well-secured location.
- Only put out garbage on the morning of pickup.
- Clean garbage cans regularly to keep them free of food odors: ammonia is effective.
- Use a bear-resistant trash can or bin.
- Don't leave pet food or stock feed outside.
- If you have fruit trees, make sure to pick up any fruit that falls to the ground.
- Bird feeders are a major source of bear/human conflicts. Do not hang bird feeders from April 15 to Nov. 15.
- Do not attract other wildlife by feeding them, such as deer, turkeys or small mammals.
- Don’t allow bears to become comfortable around your house. If you see one, yell at it, throw things at it, make noise to scare it off.
- Secure compost piles. Bears are attracted to the scent of rotting food.
- Clean the grill after each use.
- If you keep small livestock, keep animals in a fully covered enclosure. Construct electric fencing if possible. Don’t store livestock food outside, keep enclosures clean to minimize odors, hang rags soaked in ammonia and/or Pine-Sol around the enclosure.
- If you have beehives, install electric fencing where allowed.
- Talk to your neighbors and kids about being bear aware.
- Keep garage doors closed.
Source: Colorado Parks and Wildlife
Molly Bohannon covers city government for the Coloradoan. Follow her on Twitter @molboha or contact her at mbohannon@coloradoan.com. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. | https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2022/09/16/bear-seen-on-csu-campus-police-ask-people-to-avoid-the-oval/69498917007/ | 2022-09-16T19:11:20Z | coloradoan.com | control | https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2022/09/16/bear-seen-on-csu-campus-police-ask-people-to-avoid-the-oval/69498917007/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WORCESTER COUNTY, Md. - Maryland State Police say a motorcyclist died in a Thursday afternoon crash on Route 50 near Whaleyville.
The crash was reported around 4:40 p.m. at the intersection of Route 50 and Route 610.
Troopers say a 2006 Harley Davidson motorcycle traveling south on Route 610 attempted to cross Route 50 when it was hit by a 2017 Nissan Rouge heading west on Route 50.
The motorcyclist, identified as 61 year-old Richard Banning of Virginia was flow to Shock Trauma in Baltimore where he died from his injuries on Friday morning.
The motorcycle passenger, a 69 year-old woman was flown to TidalHealth Peninsula Regional in Salisbury where she was treated for her injuries.
The incident remains under investigation and there is no word on any charges at this time. | https://www.wboc.com/news/man-dies-in-worcester-county-motorcycle-crash/article_3b914134-35e9-11ed-bfa5-430bddcbd95a.html | 2022-09-16T19:15:02Z | wboc.com | control | https://www.wboc.com/news/man-dies-in-worcester-county-motorcycle-crash/article_3b914134-35e9-11ed-bfa5-430bddcbd95a.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
HONOLULU (KITV4) -- Before it was even built, housing advocates and critics tried to stop the Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting from allowing construction on a 23-bedroom home on Hala Drive in Kalihi, which property records show has just as many bathrooms.
The home was built back in 2017 and the complaints haven't ceased since then.
"I mean, 23 toilets?" area neighborhood board chair Wesley Fong said in disbelief. "It's perturbing."
Tyler Dos Santos-Tam, founder of housing advocacy group HI Good Neighbor, was also among the opponents.
"Here we are several years later with the project built. Many of the warnings that groups like HI Good Neighbor have been raising on the neighborhood infrastructure, like parking and other things, have unfortunately come to pass," Dos Santos-Tam said.
"There's a lot of parking issues in the neighborhood."
The dwelling was approved before the city rolled out monster home ordinances.
However, DPP is investigating two complaints about too many unrelated people living in the structure. The current city limit is five.
"It's kind of obvious it's more than a small, single-family dwelling," Fong said.
The landlord, who was on property Wednesday, declined comment.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
'A'ali'i is a reporter with KITV. He was born and raised on the island of Maui and graduated from the University of Southern California with a bachelor's degree in Journalism. | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/its-perturbing-kalihi-residents-blame-parking-problem-on-23-bedroom-monster-home/article_01acff3c-3498-11ed-a04a-27f77263b174.html | 2022-09-16T19:15:35Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/its-perturbing-kalihi-residents-blame-parking-problem-on-23-bedroom-monster-home/article_01acff3c-3498-11ed-a04a-27f77263b174.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
KAPOLEI, Hawaii (KITV4) -- A town hall hosted by 1st district councilmember Andria Tupola brought public safety into the spotlight at Kapolei Hale. Residents called for expanded operations at the Waianae substation, which has not been active.
Honolulu Police Chief Joe Logan discussed operations in HPD precinct 8, the second busiest police district on Oahu, and addressed the current officer shortage at HPD.
"So there's 350 vacancies. There's a fluctuating number that's gonna change over the next 6 to 8 months," Logan said.
Residents in West Oahu say they would also like to see the Weed and Seed program expanded.
First Deputy Prosecutor Thomas Brady says there has been an issue with "weeding" out repeat criminals from returning to areas where they commit crimes. The effort hasn't been backed by judicial decisions in the courts.
"So over 200 and something requests that we have made as prosecutors to the judge, please as part of your pre-trial bail, or as part of your sentence, restrict this individual he has no right to be in this area. Please restrict him so he's not here," Brady told the crowd, "The court has granted it around 10% of the time. That means 90% of the time the court has said no, we're not going to do that."
Residents are hopeful the program will endure.
"I know they're just starting the program again and getting it back on its feet. So I just hope that it's gonna be a positive impact enough where they're able to fund it and see it through into our community," Tiana Wilbur told KITV4.
Residents also told KITV4 more coordination between law enforcement and community organizations is called for; what's more, oversight with programs that have put demands on officer resources, according to West Oahu resident Austin Salcedo.
"We have a shortage of HPD officers in precinct 8, covered from Ewa Beach all the way to Kaena point. Major manning shortage. But we still have an increase of mental health and drug rehab on the westside. There should be regulation for this type of business to open up on our side," Salcedo said, referencing a housing center across from Waianae Hight School which he says has already had 20 police calls this year alone.
Do you have a story idea? Email news tips to news@kitv.com
Jeremy Lee joined KITV after over a decade & a half in broadcast news from coast to coast on the mainland. Jeremy most recently traveled the country documenting protests & civil unrest. | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/town-hall-in-west-oahu-envisions-expanded-role-from-honolulu-police/article_c847f9a0-359a-11ed-849e-bb955b968b18.html | 2022-09-16T19:15:41Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/news/local/town-hall-in-west-oahu-envisions-expanded-role-from-honolulu-police/article_c847f9a0-359a-11ed-849e-bb955b968b18.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Biden administration officials are set to meet on September 16 to discuss a multitude of critical immigration issues. Immigrants are pictured here gathering with their belongings outside St. Andrews Episcopal Church, September 14, on Martha's Vineyard.
Biden administration officials are set to meet Friday to discuss a multitude of critical immigration issues as the administration responds to Republican governors sending migrants north in protest of President Joe Biden's border policies.
A White House official said the meeting had been planned prior to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott sending two busloads of migrants to Vice President Kamala Harris' residence in Washington on Thursday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also sent two planes carrying migrants to Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts on Wednesday.
Biden accused the Republicans of "playing politics with human beings" and "using them as props" in response to those stunts. The two governors have been frequent antagonists for Biden on immigration and the southern border since he came into office in January 2021.
The meeting is expected to cover issues such as operational support along the border and support in destination cities, including funding for services and housing.
Lawyers from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security are separately weighing litigation options regarding the movement of migrants out of state by Republican governors. An administration official referred CNN to the Justice Department when asked whether litigation options would specifically be discussed in Friday's meeting.
Immigration has been a major issue for the Biden administration and Republicans have cited border security as a key issue ahead of the midterm elections. The US is on track to see a record high of more than 2 million encounters at the US-Mexico border by the end of the fiscal year, CNN has reported, as conditions deteriorate in Latin America. To draw attention to the issue and protest what they say are inadequate federal efforts on southern border security, several Republican officials have transported migrants to northern cities and states.
An estimated 50 migrants arrived on Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday, and officials said the group included several families with young children. In DC, dozens of migrants were left standing on the sidewalk and in the grass outside the gated US Naval Observatory in Washington on Thursday. Harris' residence is located on Naval Observatory grounds. The migrants are asylum-seekers who have been processed by federal immigration authorities and are awaiting court dates.
The migrants were transported to Harris' residence days after the vice president said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that she was confident the border was "secure."
Second gentleman Doug Emhoff told CNN Friday that Abbott sending migrants to the vice president's residence was "shameful."
"These are human beings, these are people. They needed to be treated with dignity and kindness and respect and they weren't," Emhoff said.
He continued, "And we have so-called leaders in this country who, rather than focusing on what's good for the public within their own states, they're using their people as pawns for a political stunt."
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday accused DeSantis and Abbott of using tactics similar to those used by smugglers in Mexico and Guatemala.
"These vulnerable migrants were reportedly misled about where they were headed, told they would be headed to Boston, misled about what they would be provided when they arrived, promised shelter, refuge, benefits and more. These are the kinds of tactics we see from smugglers in places like Mexico and Guatemala. And for what -- a photo op?" Jean-Pierre said at a news briefing.
Jean-Pierre accused the Republican governors of using the migrants as "political pawns" and said they "treated them like chattel in a cruel, premeditated political stunt."
The migrants on Martha's Vineyard will be voluntarily transported Friday to receive shelter and humanitarian support at Joint Base Cape Cod, according to Massachusetts Republican Gov. Charlie Baker, who is also activating up to 125 National Guard to assist in the relief effort. Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) is coordinating with state and local officials to ensure access to food, shelter and other essential services for the families.
This story has been updated with additional developments on Friday. | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/biden-officials-meeting-to-coordinate-administrations-response-to-gop-governors-sending-migrants-north/article_11478659-d13b-5462-994b-145ded0722b3.html | 2022-09-16T19:15:47Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/biden-officials-meeting-to-coordinate-administrations-response-to-gop-governors-sending-migrants-north/article_11478659-d13b-5462-994b-145ded0722b3.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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Sewer line discussion to be on Fort Smith Board of Directors' Tuesday agenda
The Fort Smith Board of Directors will address the sewer line replacement plans and a consent decree with the EPA when they meet Tuesday.
Director Lavon Morton has requested a resolution be placed on the September 20, 2022 regular meeting agenda for Board consideration, and provided the verbiage of said resolution via email, a Fort Smith city spokesperson reports.
A federal appeals court decided problems with sewer runoff and other infrastructure needs with the aging system should be completed. The city of Fort Smith has asked for more time. The consent decree dates back to 2015.
The city entered the consent decree — designed to address sanitary sewer overflows — in 2015, with a cost estimate from the Environmental Protection Agency of $200 million over the next 12 years, said Lance McAvoy, city utilities director.
That number was revised up to around $480 million, which includes work done prior to the consent decree. The total cost is now estimated at $650 million in 2021.
More:Board of directors talk consent decree costs, understanding at the federal level | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/09/16/fort-smith-board-of-directors-to-discuss-consent-decree-with-epa/69498732007/ | 2022-09-16T19:17:31Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/09/16/fort-smith-board-of-directors-to-discuss-consent-decree-with-epa/69498732007/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Southside student attends program in South Korea
One Southside student spent the summer in South Korea, learning the culture and the language, and he is already planning to go back.
Jayden Tran received a scholarship from a U.S. Department of State program called National Security Language Initiative for Youth. Every year since 2006, the program has been sending teens, 15 to 18, across the world.
Tran competed against thousands of applicants to get into the program and became one of approximately 400 students to reap the benefits of travel abroad.
“It also taught me to go for it, just go for it you know," Tran said. "Reach for whatever you’re going for and never doubt yourself.”
Tran hopes to do a year-long stint in the program as a gap year once he completes high school.
Tran said he also got to learn about other parts of the country while he was interacting with his fellow teens during the program.
“It was a really interesting experience because people came from all over the United States, and I came from Arkansas you know, so I really got to learn more about the United States outside of just our little bubble in Arkansas," Tran said.
He also added that the program made him more independent. Prior to the summer program, Tran said he had not been away from his parents for more than a couple of days. Tran, now 15, was only 14 when he applied to the program.
“Overall it was a really eye-opening experience through this program I became very mature, independent," Tran said.
The program ran from June 26 to Aug. 12. During the week, Tran and his classmates studied Korean from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The rest of the time, he got to explore the city where he stayed, Gwangju.
During Tran's stay, his Resident Director Young Lee oversaw the students in South Korea. She described Tran as creative and motivated.
“He sees things in a very interesting view," Lee said. She later added, “I just wanted to kind of support him whatever he wanted to do."
Lee said that she thinks traveling to a different country and learning about the culture and the language is beneficial for everyone.
“I had the best time of my life," Tran said. | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/09/16/fort-smith-teen-explores-south-korea/65575603007/ | 2022-09-16T19:17:37Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/09/16/fort-smith-teen-explores-south-korea/65575603007/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
August unemployment rate up slightly in Arkansas
State falls below national average
The unemployment rate in Arkansas for August was up slightly compared to July, but not by much.
The August rate was 3.4%, compared to 3.3% in July, still below the national unemployment rate. The August national average was 3.7%. There were six million people unemployed nationwide in August, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In Arkansas, the number of unemployed workers was reported as 46,000 and there were 9,600 unemployment insurance claims reported for the month of August 2022.
The Arkansas unemployment average in July 2022 of 3.3% was below the national average of 3.5%, according to the bureau.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed 45,000 people unemployed in Arkansas and 11,000 unemployment insurance claims made for July 2022.
The August Arkansas unemployment rate is a big improvement from two years ago, during the pandemic, the unemployment rate in Arkansas was 7.1%. | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/09/16/unemployment-rate-for-arkansas-from-august-2022/69499376007/ | 2022-09-16T19:17:43Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/09/16/unemployment-rate-for-arkansas-from-august-2022/69499376007/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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