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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson is taking Disney to task for its new FX series, ‘Little Demon,’ and warning parents to guard their children’s hearts and minds.
A trailer for the series caught the Louisiana congressman’s eye when it aired during a commercial break during the LSU Tigers played the Florida State Seminoles on Sunday evening.
“The shocking ending to the LSU opener was not the most disturbing part of the game last night,” Rep. Johnson said in a Facebook post on Monday Morning. “For me, that came during a commercial break in the second quarter when the television audience was presented with the trailer for a new FXX cartoon “sitcom” entitled ‘LITTLE DEMON.'”
FXX is a partner of cable channel FX and features a lineup of mostly adult animated series. Disney bought the channel in 2019.
The cartoon series depicts a teenage Antichrist, chronicling the adventures of Satan’s 13-year-old daughter as she and her mother try to live an ordinary life in Delaware even though her father is keen for her to join the family business. The series is rated TV-MA, for Mature Audiences only.
“I couldn’t get to the remote fast enough to shield my 11-year-old from the preview, and I wonder how many other children were exposed to it—and how many millions more will tune in to the new series, owned and marketed by DISNEY. The trailer included dark images of Hell, demons, satanic imagery, and an explanation that the main character is… the Antichrist(!).”
Johnson also excerpted interviews and reviews of the show that highlight the normalization of paganism and the glorification of gore and depravity. It was all enough to inspire Johnson to share a warning for parents.
“I could write volumes this morning, and unpack pages of Bible verses here, but instead I’m just going to state the obvious: Please be careful. Our job as parents is to guard the hearts and minds of our kids. This culture has become alarmingly dark and desensitized and this is not a game. Disney and FX have decided to embrace and market what is clearly evil. STAY FAR FROM IT.”
In a follow-up post, Johnson gave a shout-out to free speech as he highlighted that ratings for the primetime college football match drew 5.87 million viewers, compared to his post, which reached a little over 6 million social media users.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/state-news/louisiana/johnson-slams-satanic-imagery-in-disney-fx-series-little-demon/
| 2022-09-21T11:11:44Z
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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes requested a new trial Tuesday, asserting in a court filing that a key witness for the prosecution now regrets the role he played in her conviction for investor fraud and conspiracy related to her failed blood-testing startup.
The petition centers on the reliability of testimony provided by former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, who said he repeatedly raised concerns about the accuracy of bloods tests that were being administered to patients during his tenure in 2013 and 2014.
Prosecutors highlighted Rosendorff’s testimony during their closing arguments to a jury that convicted Holme s on four felony counts of investor fraud and conspiracy earlier this year after a nearly four-month trial. The same jury acquitted Holmes on charges of fraud and conspiracy against patients who had their blood tested by Theranos.
Rosendorff, reached via LinkedIn, said he had no comment, adding “Do not contact me.”
Holmes, 38, is currently free on bail, but is facing up to 20 years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Oct. 17 in San Jose, California.
Her lawyers argued in a 17-page filing that Rosendorff is now expressing misgivings about his testimony, based on recent actions described in the court document.
The filing states that Rosendorff appeared at the home Holmes shares with her partner, William Evans, on the evening of August 8 in an attempt to meet with her. Evans intercepted Rosendorff, according to the document, and asked him to leave.
Before departing, according to the filing, Rosendorff told Evans that during his trial testimony “he tried to answer the questions honestly but that the prosecutors tried to make everyone look bad” and now feels like “he had done something wrong.” Before he appeared at Holmes’ residence, the document said, Rosendorff left a 30-second voicemail for one of her lawyers asking for a face-to-face meeting with Holmes because he thought it could be “quite healing” for both of them.
In their filing, Holmes lawyers said they had not been able to ask Rosendorff for further information about his reflections on his trial testimony for ethical reasons. The lawyers proposed an Oct. 3 hearing to discuss why they believe Rosendorff’s recent actions merit a new trial.
Also on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila formally rejected a request to set aside the jury’s verdicts in Holmes’ trial. Davila’s decision cited Rosendorff’s testimony in support of his ruling.
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| 2022-09-21T11:11:59Z
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — A ransomware attack targeting the huge Los Angeles school district prompted an unprecedented shutdown of its computer systems as schools increasingly find themselves vulnerable to cyber breaches at the start of a new year.
The attack on the Los Angeles Unified School District sounded alarms across the country, from urgent talks with the White House and the National Security Council after the first signs of ransomware were discovered late Saturday night to mandated password changes for 540,000 students and 70,000 district employees.
Though the attack used technology that encrypts data and won’t unlock it unless a ransom is paid, in this case the district’s superintendent said no immediate demand for money was made and schools in the nation’s second-largest district opened as scheduled on Tuesday.
Such attacks have become a growing threat to U.S. schools, with several high-profile incidents reported since last year as pandemic-forced reliance on technology increases the impact. And ransomware gangs have in the past planned major attacks on U.S. holiday weekends, when they know IT staffing will be thin and security experts relaxing.
While it was not immediately clear when the LA attack began — officials have only said when it was detected and a district spokesperson declined to answer additional questions — Saturday night’s discovery reached the highest levels of the federal government’s cybersecurity agencies.
According to a senior administration official, this pattern of support was consistent with the Biden administration’s efforts to provide maximum assistance to critical industries affected by such breaches.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the federal response, said the school district did not pay ransom, but would not get into detail on what potentially might have been stolen or damaged and what systems were affected by the breach.
The White House’s response to the LA incursion reflects a growing national security concern: A Pew Research Center survey, published last month, found that 71% of Americans say cyberattacks from other countries are a major threat to the U.S.
Authorities believe the LA attack originated internationally and have identified three potential countries where it may have come from, though LA Superintendent Alberto Carvalho would not say which countries may be involved. Most ransomware criminals are Russian speakers who operate without interference from the Kremlin.
LA officials did not identify the ransomware used.
“This was an act of cowardice,” said Nick Melvoin, the school board vice president. “A criminal act against kids, against their teachers and against an education system.”
So far this year, 26 U.S. school districts — including Los Angeles — and 24 colleges and universities have been hit by so-called ransomware, according to Brett Callow, a ransomware analyst at the cybersecurity firm Emsisoft.
With victims increasingly refusing to pay to have their data unlocked, many cybercriminals instead use the same technology to steal sensitive information and demand extortion payments. If the victim doesn’t pay, the data gets dumped online.
Callow said at least 31 of the schools hit this year had data stolen and released online, and noted that eight of the school districts have been hit since Aug. 1. The upsurge on schools as summer vacations end is almost certainly not coincidental, he said.
“It is the No. 1 threat to our safety,” said Michel Moore, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. “It is an invisible foe and it is tireless.”
Tireless — and expensive, even outside of any monetary demands. A ransomware extortion attack in Albuquerque’s biggest school district forced schools to close for two days in January, while Baltimore City’s response to a 2019 hit on its computer servers cost upwards of $18 million.
The LA attack was discovered around 10:30 p.m. Saturday when staff first detected “unusual activity,” Carvalho said. The perpetrators appear to have targeted the facilities systems, which involves information about private-sector contractor payments — which are publicly available through records requests — rather than confidential details like payroll, health and other data.
He said district IT officials detected the malware and stopped it from propagating but not until after it infected key network systems, necessitating the reset of passwords for all staff and students.
Authorities scrambled to trace the intruders and restrict potential damage.
“We basically shut down every one of our systems,” Carvalho said, noting that each one had been checked and all but one — the facilities system — restarted by late Monday night, when the district first notified the public of the hit.
On Tuesday, federal authorities separately warned of potential ransomware attacks by the criminal syndicate known as Vice Society, which has allegedly disproportionately targeted the education sector.
Authorities have not said whether they believe Vice Society is involved in the LA attack and the group did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
“The fact that a joint cybersecurity advisory relating to Vice Society was issued within days of the attack on LAUSD being discovered may be telling, especially as this gang has frequently targeted the education sector in both the U.S. and the U.K.,” said Callow, the ransomware expert.
Vice Society first appeared in May 2021 and, rather than a unique variant, it has used ransomware widely available in the Russian-speaking underground, security researchers say. Among victims claimed by Vice Society are the Elmbrook School district in Wisconsin and the Savannah College of Art and Design.
Ransomware gangs routinely dissolve after high-profile attacks such as last year’s Colonial Pipeline incident, which triggered runs on gas stations. Their members then reconstitute under new names.
While there was pressure to cancel school in Los Angeles on Tuesday, officials ultimately decided to stay open.
Had the activity not been discovered on Saturday night, Carvalho said there could have been “catastrophic” consequences.
“If we had lost the ability to run our school buses, over 40,000 of our students would not have been able to get to school, or it would have been a highly disrupted system,” he said.
The district plans to do a forensic audit of the attack to see what can be done to prevent future incursions.
“Every teacher, every employee, every student can be a weak point,” said Soheil Katal, the district’s chief information officer.
___
Bajak reported from Boston and Miller reported from Washington. Associated Press reporter Seung Min Kim also contributed.
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| 2022-09-21T11:12:05Z
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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — One of the strictest internet privacy laws in the United States has withstood a legal challenge, as a group of telecommunication providers has dropped its bid to overturn the Maine standard.
Maine created one of the toughest rules in the nation for internet service providers in 2020 when it began enforcing an “opt-in” web privacy standard. The law stops the service providers from using, disclosing, selling or providing access to customers’ personal information without permission.
Industry associations swiftly sued with a claim that the new law violated their First Amendment rights. A federal judge rejected that challenge, but legal wrangling continued.
The groups, which include the country’s biggest telecommunications providers, filed to dismiss the lawsuit on Sept. 2, said Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey. Frey said the state’s privacy law held up despite the efforts of an “army of industry lawyers organized against us,” and now other states can follow Maine’s lead.
“Maine’s Legislature wisely sought to protect Maine residents by restricting the disclosure and use of their most private and personal information,” Frey said.
The Maine Legislature passed the bill, proposed by former Democratic state Sen. Shenna Bellows, who is now Maine’s secretary of state, in 2019. Internet service providers then sued in February 2020, and attorneys for Maine have been in court defending the law since. The proposal stemmed from a Maine effort to bring back rules implemented during President Barack Obama’s tenure that were repealed by Congress during President Donald Trump’s term.
Industry plaintiffs agreed to reimburse Maine for more than $55,000 in costs incurred defending the law, Frey said.
Supporters of Maine’s law include the ACLU of Maine, which filed court papers in the case in favor of keeping the law on the books. The ACLU said in court papers that the law was “narrowly drawn to directly advance Maine’s substantial interests in protecting consumers’ privacy, freedom of expression, and security.”
Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has also defended the law as “common sense.”
Maine is also the home of another privacy law that regulates the use of facial recognition technology. That law, which came on the books last year, has also been cited as the strictest of its kind in the U.S.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/tech-news/ap-internet-service-providers-drop-challenge-of-privacy-law/
| 2022-09-21T11:12:11Z
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BAHAMAS (NEXSTAR) — A Pennsylvania woman is dead after reportedly being attacked by a bull shark while snorkeling in the Bahamas on Tuesday.
According to Royal Bahamas Police Chief Superintendent Chrislyn Skippings, the woman and her family booked a tour to snorkel in the waters off Green Cay, roughly a half-mile northwest of the private island of Rose Island, near Nassau.
While in the water, the 58-year-old woman’s family reportedly saw a shark attack her, local outlet Eyewitness News reported.
Family members and tour company employees were able to rescue the woman and bring her to mainland New Providence. The woman had suffered injuries to her upper extremities, according to Skippings, and was pronounced dead by emergency medical services.
Police have not identified the woman, who was a passenger aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas. A press release issued Wednesday by the Royal Bahamas Police said only that the family was from Lake Erie.
A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean confirmed to Nexstar that the incident happened during an “independent shore excursion” and added that the cruise line is “providing support and assistance to the guest’s loved ones during this difficult time.” Harmony of the Seas is on a seven-night cruise after sailing out of Port Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday.
According to Reuters, a 21-year-old American woman was killed in a shark attack in the same area in 2019.
The Pennsylvania woman’s death comes just a few months after three American tourists died while at a Sandals Resort in the Bahamas. Authorities later confirmed all three died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/american-woman-killed-in-shark-attack-while-snorkeling-with-family-in-the-bahamas/
| 2022-09-21T11:12:12Z
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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Australia said Tuesday its navy ships have been given clearance to resume visits to the Solomon Islands, which had last week announced a temporary block on all military vessels during a review of its approval processes.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed to reporters that military ships from New Zealand and Fiji would also be allowed to visit the South Pacific nation.
But that means military ships from the U.S., Britain and other countries still won’t be able to dock at a time that many Pacific nations are alarmed about the Solomon Islands increasing security ties to China.
“Of course, we welcome the continued access of a member of the Pacific family — in this case, Australia — to Solomon Islands waters,” Wong told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “We are regular visitors.”
Asked if she was disappointed the U.S. wasn’t also given an exemption, Wong said the Solomon Islands had indicated it was making its decisions on a case-by-case basis.
“They are a sovereign nation and that’s a matter for them,” Wong told the broadcaster. “What I would say is that the U.S. has a long history of presence in the Pacific, going back to World War II.”
The move comes ahead of a visit to Australia by Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
“We welcome the Prime Minister’s visit,” Wong told reporters, adding that she welcomed his assurance “that Australia remains the security partner of choice.”
The Solomon Islands put the temporary block in place after the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Oliver Henry and the British navy patrol boat HMS Spey recently canceled planned port calls due to bureaucratic delays. Both ships were part of an international effort to prevent illegal fishing.
Sogavare said the Oliver Henry crew had failed to provide required information in time for his office to approve the visit. The Oliver Henry refueled instead at Papua New Guinea.
The HMS Spey withdrew its application to visit, Sogavare said.
“The delay in these approvals demonstrate the need for the government to review and refine its approval requirements and procedures for visiting military vessels to Solomon Islands,” Sogavare said in a statement.
The Solomon Islands did allow a visit last week by the U.S. hospital ship USNS Mercy to go ahead.
Meanwhile, Wong angered Sogavare on Tuesday by publicly revealing that the Australian government had offered to help pay for Solomon Islands elections, which are due next year.
Sogavare’s government introduced a bill to the Solomons’ Parliament on Tuesday to delay the election until 2024. The administration argues the country can’t afford to hold a national poll and host the Pacific Games, a multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from Oceania, in 2023.
Sogavare accused Wong of trying to influence Solomons’ lawmakers to vote against the bill on Thursday.
“This is an assault on our parliamentary democracy and is a direct interference by a foreign government into our domestic affairs,” Sogavare said in a statement.
Wong said Australia had “made an offer of assistance” to the Solomons to hold the election on schedule, but did not detail the scale of the offer.
Sogavare said Wong made a written offer last week to entirely fund the elections. The Solomons’ government had yet to respond.
____
Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Australia, contributed to this report.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/ap-australia-says-its-navy-can-resume-visits-to-solomon-islands/
| 2022-09-21T11:12:20Z
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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro transformed the nation’s bicentennial Wednesday into a multi-city campaign event, but didn’t use his appearances to undermine the upcoming election as his opponents had feared.
Bolsonaro, who trails former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in polls before the Oct. 2 vote, drew tens of thousands of supporters to rallies in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. The armed forces put on military displays in the cities, with the president attending.
The far-right Bolsonaro has stacked his administration with military officers and repeatedly sought their support, most recently to cast doubt on the reliability of the nation’s electronic voting system, which raised fears his speeches on Independence Day would be filled with fresh attacks. The far-right nationalist held back from doing so, and instead focused on attacks on da Silva and his leftist Workers’ Party.
Bolsonaro compared da Silva to autocratic leftist leaders in Venezuela and Nicaragua and called Brazil’s former president “a gangster.”
“We will have a much better administration with us being elected, with the grace of God,” the president said in a speech in Rio.
His prior efforts to sow doubt about the voting system has prompted widespread concern among his opponents that he may follow former U.S. President Donald Trump ’s footsteps in rejecting election results.
Bolsonaro arrived at the military display in Brasilia accompanied by at least one of the business executives who allegedly participated in a private chat group that included comments favoring a possible coup and military involvement in politics, and who is being investigated by Federal Police for possibly financing anti-democratic acts.
The crowd, decked out in green and yellow, chanted against da Silva, who wants to return to the post he held in 2003-2010.
Later, da Silva said he had never used Independence Day for electoral ends.
“Brazil needs better luck. It needs a government that takes care of people. A person who talks about harmony, love, economic growth, industrialization, job creation, pay increases,” da Silva said. “Brazil needs love, not hatred.”
Other presidential candidates also criticized Bolsonaro’s electoral use of the country’s independence bicentennial, and party leaders have suggested they will take the case to electoral courts.
Speaking at a rally after the parade in Brasilia, Bolsonaro made no reference to Brazil’s struggle for independence and instead focused on his achievements while his supporters made clear they came to support their candidate.
“We came for democracy, we want a free country, with no corruption or robbing, we want a country with clean elections,” said farmer Marcelo Zanella, 46, who drove some 800 kilometers (496 miles) from the state of Tocantins.
Tens of thousands also gathered on Sao Paulo’s main downtown boulevard. Due to a downpour and the fact Bolsonaro wasn’t scheduled to appear, turnout was apparently smaller than last year’s.
Later, Bolsonaro attended another military display in Rio along Copacabana beach — where his supporters often hold demonstrations. It entailed rifle salutes, cannon fire, flyovers, paratroopers and warships anchored offshore. He delivered his speech from a sound truck, on the back of which a draped banner read: “CLEAN AND TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS.”
Bolsonaro, a former army captain and lawmaker for decades before winning the 2018 presidential election, has spent most of his first term locking horns with Supreme Court justices, some of whom are also top members of the electoral authority.
He has accused some judges of hamstringing his administration and favoring da Silva. That has effectively turned those figures and their institutions into enemies for Bolsonaro’s base.
When Bolsonaro launched his reelection bid July 24, he asked supporters for “one last” show of support on Independence Day.
Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said Bolsonaro needed to energize his campaign and reach out to undecided voters.
“He needed something new and failed to do that. Bolsonaro once more only spoke with his supporters, indeed many of them, and with that the window might be closing for other voters to join him,” Melo said.
Since his campaign began, Bolsonaro has softened his tone. In the southern city of Curitiba last week, he told supporters to lower a banner demanding a military coup.
Carlos Ranulfo de Melo, a political scientist at Federal University of Minas Gerais, said this likely reflects campaign strategy to avoid fiery rhetoric and instead focus on the improving economy.
“We will convince those who think differently from us, we will convince them of what is best for Brazil,” Bolsonaro told the crowd in Brasilia.
The president is known for off-the-cuff outbursts. At last year’s Independence Day rally, he pushed the country to the brink of an institutional crisis by proclaiming he would ignore rulings from a Supreme Court justice. He later backtracked, saying his comments came in the heat of the moment, and the boiling tension was reduced to a simmer.
In both speeches in Brasilia and Rio, he made a couple veiled critiques of the Supreme Court, which elicited boos from the crowd.
“The institutional wear-and-tear was present in his speech in Brasilia, but in a less explicit way than last year,” said Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.
There had also been concerns about political violence, which didn’t materialize during the afternoon.
In Rio, it was a scene of adulation. Sound trucks blasted songs exalting Bolsonaro to a crowd packing multiple blocks of the beachside boulevard, spilling onto the sand and down to the waterline. Motorboats and jet skis floated just offshore. When the first paratroopers started gliding down, one group began chanting, “Legend!”, a nickname for the president.
“I came to honor my president,” said Myleni Lima, 50, from the city’s west zone. “I’m going to reeelect him, me and the Brazilian people.”
___ Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. Associated Press journalists Diane Jeantet and David Biller Jeantet in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.
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https://www.ktalnews.com/news/u-s-world/ap-brazil-on-edge-for-a-bicentennial-bolsonaro-has-made-his-own/
| 2022-09-21T11:12:27Z
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A brutal Western heat wave brought California to the verge of ordering rolling blackouts but the state’s electrical grid managed to handle record-breaking demand.
The state’s 39 million people were warned Tuesday that demand — some of it from people cranking up the air conditioning — might outstrip supply as temperatures in many areas soared past 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius). The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), which oversees the electrical grid, issued a Stage 3 emergency power alert — one step below ordering utilities to start rotating outages to ease the strain on the system. The move allowed it to draw on emergency power sources.
Demand swelled in the late afternoon and into the evening, with everyone from Gov. Gavin Newsom to the state’s legal marijuana business control agency urging people to turn off lights and reduce power or use backup generators.
CAISO said the peak electricity demand on Tuesday hit 52,061 megawatts, far above the previous high of 50,270 megawatts set on July 24, 2006.
While there were no rolling blackouts over large areas, two outages were reported in the San Francisco Bay Area cities of Palo Alto and Alameda, affecting several thousand customers for about an hour.
Demand fell as evening fell, businesses closed and dropped sharply after CAISO sent out a message on its mobile phone app begging customers to cut back their use, warning that “power interruptions may occur unless you take action.”
The Stage 3 alert ended at 8 p.m. without major rotating outages. CAISO tweeted that “consumer conservation played a big part in protecting electric grid reliability.”
Even without intentional blackouts, however, tens of thousands of people found themselves without power in Northern California.
Some 35,700 people lost electricity in Silicon Valley and southern and inland areas of the San Francisco Bay Area and most of the outages were heat-related, said Jason King of Pacific Gas & Electric said Tuesday evening. There was no word on when power would resume.
Western states, meanwhile, were still struggling through one of the hottest and longest September heat waves on record. Temperatures began soaring last week and the National Weather Service warned that dangerous heat could continue through Friday, despite some slight moderation.
California’s state capital of Sacramento hit an all-time high Tuesday of 116 degrees (46.7 C), breaking a 97-year-old record.
Sacramento native Debbie Chang was out walking in Capitol Park on Tuesday morning, pulling a wagon of Pop-Tarts and water to hand out to homeless people. She lives in an old house that relies on wall-mounted units that she says don’t work so well. The temperature reached 91 degrees (33 C) in her house Monday night.
“The past few years in California, it’s really rough,” she said. “I really love this state. And growing up I never imagined I’d exactly want to live outside of California, unless maybe internationally. But this is very difficult.”
Sacramento County officials used the air-conditioned lobbies of some of their public buildings as cooling centers for people with nowhere else to go and offering free transportation for people who could not get there. Officials even handed out motel vouchers to some homeless people through a program they normally reserve for the winter, according to county spokeswoman Janna Haynes.
“While a lot of people can stay home, a lot of people do not have a home to stay in,” Haynes said.
In state office buildings, thermostats were being set at 85 degrees (29 C) at 5 p.m. to conserve electricity.
Six places in the San Francisco Bay Area and central coast set all-time record maximum temperatures, including Santa Rosa with 115 degrees F (46 C).
In neighboring Nevada, Reno’s 106 F (41 C) on Tuesday was its hottest day ever recorded in September and smashed the previous record for the date, 96 F (35.5 C) in 1944. It came within 2 degrees of the all-time high for any day or month of 108 F (42 C), set in July 2002 and equaled in July 2007, according to the National Weather Service.
In Utah’s Salt Lake City — a city at more than 4,000 feet (1,219 meters) elevation — temperatures were about 20 degrees higher than normal, hitting 105 F (40.5 C) on Tuesday, the hottest September day recorded going back to 1874.
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 state history.
A wildfire that started Friday in the Northern California community of Weed killed two people and one that erupted Monday and spread rapidly in the Hemet area of Southern California also killed two people. Authorities said they were found in the same area and apparently died while trying to flee the flames.
___
Associated Press reporters Sophie Austin and Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, California; Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City, John Anctzak in Los Angeles and Scott Sonner in Reno, Nevada, contributed.
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| 2022-09-21T11:12:35Z
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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s President Gabriel Boric shook up his cabinet Tuesday in an effort to relaunch his government less than 48 hours after he was dealt a resounding blow when citizens overwhelmingly rejected a new progressive constitution he had championed.
Boric, 36, changed the leadership of five ministries in what marked the first cabinet shake-up since he became Chile’s youngest president in March and has since suffered a precipitous plunge in his approval ratings.
“I’m changing this cabinet, thinking about our country,” Boric said, qualifying the shake-up as “painful but necessary.”
“This is, maybe, I don’t think I have to hide it, one of the most politically difficult moments that I’ve had to face,” he aded.
The shake-up does not come as a surprise. Boric, who had been a big proponent of adopting the proposed constitution, had previewed there would be changes coming to his administration during a televised address Sunday night, shortly after results showed Chileans had voted overwhelmingly against the proposed constitution.
The opposition had also said they were expecting changes to Boric’s team with some conservative leaders refusing to meet with the president to begin talking about a new constitutional process until there was a change in his government.
While the press waited for Boric to unveil his new ministers, sirens could be heard and the smell of tear gas was evident from a nearby protest as hundreds of students marched through the streets of Chile’s capital of Santiago.
There were isolated clashes between demonstrators downtown with law enforcement that tried to disperse protesters in what marked the first important street demonstration since the constitution lost in Sunday’s plebiscite.
Izkia Siches, the former interior minister, was the biggest name to leave the cabinet but probably the most expected as her tenure had been marked by controversy. Carolina Tohá is taking her place.
Another strong Boric ally, Giorgio Jackson, was ousted from the post of secretary general of the presidency and will take on the role of social development minister. Ana Lya Uriarte is taking his place.
Boric also swore in new health, energy and science ministers.
Although polls had predicted Chileans would vote against the proposed constitution, the 24-point margin of victory for the rejection camp was a shocking repudiation of a document that was three years in the making and crafted by a constitutional convention that had been engulfed in controversy.
“We must listen to the voice of the people and walk alongside the people,” Boric said.
The process to write the constitution that Chileans rejected on Sunday began in 2019, when the country exploded in student-led street protests sparked by a hike in public transportation prices that quickly morphed into broader demands for greater equality and more social protections.
The following year, just under 80% of Chileans voted in favor of changing the constitution. Then in 2021, they elected delegates to a constitutional convention to write a new charter that would replace the one imposed by a military dictatorship led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet 41 years ago.
Boric had been a big proponent of the document that would have enshrined a string of new rights and at least some voters saw the plebiscite on the constitutional proposal as a referendum on his administration.
Despite the rejection, political leaders on all sides, as well as Chileans as a whole, largely agree that the constitution needs to change but it remains unclear how a new proposal will be written.
Whatever document the new convention comes up with is also likely to be far less ambitious than the 388-article proposed charter. The charter draft characterized Chile as a plurinational state, would have established autonomous Indigenous territories, prioritized the environment and gender parity and introduced rights to free education, health care and housing, among other issues.
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| 2022-09-21T11:12:42Z
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CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s foreign minister withdrew Tuesday from an Arab League session chaired by the chief diplomat of one of Libya’s two rival governments. The move was an apparent protest against her representing Libya at the pan-Arab summit. Egypt supports her administration’s rival.
The seats of the Egyptian delegation were seen empty as Najla Mangoush, the foreign minister of the Tripoli-based administration, was addressing a meeting for the Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukry left the meeting room in the Arab League headquarters when Mangoush took her seat to chair the meeting. Egypt sees the chaos in neighboring Libya as a threat to its stability, with militants using the Libyan desert as a safe haven from which to launch deadly attacks on Egyptian security forces and Christians.
Egypt’s government has argued the mandate of the Tripoli-based government of Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah has ended after Libya’s east-based parliament appointed a rival premier earlier this year.
In a news conference following the meeting, Mangoush attempted to downplay Shukry’s withdrawal, saying that it was “not a crisis but a divergence of views” regarding the legitimacy of Dbeibah’s government.
Libya’s current political stalemate grew out of the failure to hold elections in December and Dbeibah’s refusal to step down. In response, the country’s east-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister, Fathy Bashagha, who has for months sought to install his government in Tripoli.
The parliament cancelled its session Monday in the eastern city of Benghazi after it said lawmakers were prevented from leaving the capital, Tripoli, which is controlled by Dbeibah-allied militias.
The divisions have contributed to fresh fighting in the war-torn country. Deadly clashes between militias backed by its two rival administrations killed 23 people last month in Libya’s capital, portending a return to violence amid a long political stalemate.
The escalation threatens to shatter the relative calm Libya has enjoyed for most of the past two years. The oil-rich nation plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Tens of thousands of Egyptians have sought work in neighboring Libya over the years, although the number has declined since the 2011 uprising.
Egypt was a key backer of eastern aligned military commander Khalifa Hifter, who is now allied with Bashagha.
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| 2022-09-21T11:12:50Z
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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — With Brazil’s presidential election just a month off, President Jair Bolsonaro is feeding concern about the nation’s electronic voting system. He has long insisted that the machines, used for a quarter-century, are prone to fraud, though he acknowledged last year that hasn’t been proved. Brazil’s top electoral authority says the system has been tested rigorously and some critics of Bolsonaro say he may be laying the groundwork for an attempt to cling to power if the vote doesn’t go his way – much like former U.S. President Donald Trump, whom Bolsonaro admires.
Here’s a look at Brazil’s electronic vote system.
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WHY DOES BRAZIL USE AN ELECTRONIC SYSTEM?
Brazilian authorities adopted electronic voting machines to tackle longstanding fraud. In earlier elections, ballot boxes arrived at voting stations already stuffed with votes. Others were stolen and individual votes were routinely falsified, according to Brazil’s electoral authority.
Electronic machines were first used in 1996 and the first nationwide, electronic-only vote took place four years later. Today, results from more than 150 million eligible voters are presented mere hours after polls close. And no significant fraud has ever been detected.
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HOW COMMON IS ELECTRONIC VOTING ELSEWHERE?
More than two dozen countries use some form of an electronic system for national elections, according to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. But 80 percent don’t, and voters in most advanced democracies cast their ballots on paper.
Unlike Brazil, most ballots cast in the United States are hand-marked and tabulated by scanners. Since 2016, U.S. voting jurisdictions have almost completely phased out fully electronic balloting. Louisiana is now the only U.S. state where voting machines don’t produce some type of paper record statewide.
Most voters in the U.S. also cast a hand-marked paper ballot, which is then run through an electronic tabulator to produce results far more quickly than a hand count would do.
In the U.S., a 2018 report by the National Academy of Sciences urged that a voter-verified paper record exist for every ballot cast, with the originals secured in case results are challenged.
Mark Lindeman, director of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that tracks use of voting equipment in the U.S., said a lack of physical records makes it harder to fight accusations of fraud.
“The 2020 (U.S.) election showed the value of paper ballots to check election results,” he said. “But it also showed that political leaders can attack any election result they don’t like — even before the election — and that those attacks can do harm even when the claims defy physical reality. That’s probably a larger threat to free and fair elections than any current election technology.”
Brazil’s system doesn’t produce a paper record of individual votes, though Bolsonaro has advocated for that.
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HOW IS BRAZIL’S VOTING SYSTEM AUDITED?
The electoral authority says voting machines are checked for reliability before, during and after balloting. Votes recorded by each machine can be cross-checked with the overall tallies after the vote.
Election officials acknowledge that hacking is always a risk, but say no one has ever managed to alter the machines’ source code or election results. They say risks are further minimized because the machines aren’t connected to the internet and information is sent only through internal systems, segments of which shut down if alterations are detected.
For this year’s elections, over a dozen institutions — including police, the military, prosecutors and universities — accepted the electoral court’s invitation to audit the machines. During a three-day hackathon in May, some 20 hired experts sought to penetrate the system. None succeeded.
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WHEN DID FRAUD ALLEGATIONS BEGIN?
In 1993, then-lawmaker Bolsonaro complained to members of the military that the paper voting system was rigged, and spoke in favor of digitalization. Once electronic voting was implemented, however, he became one of its fiercest critics. In 2015, he proposed a constitutional amendment to introduce printed records of votes that would allow manual recounts. That passed Congress, but arguments it was too costly and could violate the right to a secret ballot led the Supreme Court to block it.
___
WHAT EVIDENCE DOES BOLSONARO CITE?
Bolsonaro won the presidency in a 2018 runoff, and later vociferously claimed fraud had denied him an outright victory in the first round.
For months, he promised proof was coming, and his administration tasked the Federal Police with scouring the prior 25 years for evidence. Finally, last year he acknowledged, “There is no way to prove the elections were or weren’t fraudulent. There are indications.” Following that admission, lawmakers rejected a new Bolsonaro-backed bill once again seeking to adopt printed records.
Still, Bolsonaro has continued to attack the machines’ reliability. In July, he called dozens of diplomats to the presidential residence to present his claims. He focused heavily on the existence of a police investigation into a 2018 incident in which a hacker broke into the electoral authority’s internal system. The authority, which asked for the police investigation, said the hacker never accessed any voting machines nor their source code and so couldn’t alter the data or compromise results.
The U.S. State Department issued a statement a day after Bolsonaro’ s meeting with diplomats, saying Brazil’s electoral system and democratic institutions are a “model for the world.”
Allegations that the system is unreliable have spread across social media and messaging apps — often in groups backing the president. That is similar to the attacks questioning the security of voting equipment in the U.S. since Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. Republicans in some places have sought to ditch all voting and tabulating machines in favor of paper ballots and hand-counting.
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WHAT IS THE MILITARY’S ROLE?
Bolsonaro, a former army captain who has filled his government with military figures, has sought to expand armed forces’ role in elections. As a gesture, the electoral authority invited the armed forces to sit on its transparency commission and propose modifications to the system. On that commission, Defense Minister Paulo Sérgio Nogueira has made a series of statements echoing Bolsonaro’s claims. That has provoked concern at home and abroad about the armed forces — which imposed a 1964-1985 dictatorship — overstepping constitutional bounds and potentially becoming tools in an antidemocratic campaign.
Earlier this year, accompanied by top adviser Gen. Augusto Heleno, Bolsonaro said the armed forces “will not perform the role of just rubber stamping the electoral process, or taking part as spectators.” He suggested the military could conduct a parallel count of the results. The Defense Ministry also sent dozens of questions and suggestions to the electoral authority for potential improvements.
Negotiations with the electoral authority’s president, Alexandre de Moraes, seemed to bear fruit last week. The Defense Ministry acknowledged the success of tests carried out on the electronic machines. And de Moraes accepted the ministry’s proposal to run public pre-election tests using biometrics, with voters identified by fingerprints and photos. It isn’t clear whether such a system could be implemented for the election’s first round on Oct. 2.
Any last-minute changes, even if adopted with the best intentions, could cause instability or create vulnerabilities, according to Lindeman, of Verified Voting. ___ Bridi reported from Brasilia. Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Georgia, contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:12:57Z
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — Three weeks before he faced sentencing, the Malaysian defense contractor at the center of one of the biggest bribery investigations in U.S. military history made an escape as stunning and brazen as the case itself: U-Haul trucks were seen at his home in a tony San Diego neighborhood before Leonard Glenn Francis, known as “Fat Leonard,” snipped off his ankle monitor and disappeared.
Nearly a dozen U.S. law enforcement agencies were searching for Francis on Tuesday. But officials acknowledged he may already be in Mexico, and possibly on his way back to Asia.
Four years ago, U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino feared Francis might run off when she turned down his lawyer’s request to allow him to be under house arrest without round-the-clock security guards watching the ailing defense contractor. At the time, Francis was cooperating with prosecutors as they pursued charges against dozens of Navy officials who accepted bribes in exchange for classified information that gave Francis’ ship servicing business in Asia an edge in getting military contracts.
When asked about the bold escape Tuesday, his lawyer, Devin Burstein, who pushed for more leniency for his client, said: “At this time, I have no comment, sorry.”
Sammartino repeatedly maintained that Francis, who was in poor health and needed medical care, could only remain under house arrest if private security guards were on site. At one point she expressed concern that if he were to escape and ended up “back in Malaysia for whatever reason,” her name would come up if anyone asked “who let somebody do this without any security,” according to a transcript of a closed-door hearing in February 2018 that was unsealed in January.
She raised similar concerns in another hearing on Dec. 17, 2020, after receiving a report that the home was left without anyone guarding it for nearly three hours, according to the court transcript. The guard said he had been on a long lunch break, and Francis apologized to the judge for the mishap.
It was unclear if round-the-clock security guards were still in place this weekend.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in San Diego declined to comment, referring calls to the U.S. Marshals Service. Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal, Omar Castillo, said his officers found no security officers at the home when they arrived Sunday afternoon, nearly seven hours after Francis is believed to have removed his ankle monitor with heavy scissors. The device was found in the home.
Castillo said someone called the San Diego police department, which sent officers to the home shortly before 2 p.m. to check on it. Castillo said he did not know who made the call. After finding the home empty, police contacted U.S. Pre-Trial Services, the federal agency in charge of his confinement, which then called the U.S. Marshals Service.
Castillo said he did not know if security guards were still ordered to be there. He said neighbors reported seeing U-Haul trucks coming and going from the home one or two days before the escape. Pre-Trial Services declined to comment or answer questions.
The home is about a 40-minute drive from the Mexican border, where vehicles stream into Tijuana and are only stopped randomly. Castillo said Mexican authorities have been put on alert and 10 U.S. law enforcement agencies at local, state and federal levels were searching for Francis on Tuesday.
Castillo said GPS ankle monitors are easy to remove and do not stop people from escaping. He added that he would not be surprised if Francis was already in Mexico since it is easy to drive into the country and not be stopped.
“That’s the risk that is taken when defendants are on GPS monitoring, you know,” he said. “They don’t all cut off their GPS bracelets, but this can happen.”
It was a surprising turn in a case already full of shocking revelations.
Nearly a decade ago, Francis was arrested in a San Diego hotel as part of a federal sting operation. Investigators say he and his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, bilked the Navy out of more than $35 million by buying off dozens of top-ranking Navy officers with booze, sex, lavish parties and other gifts. In exchange the officers, including the first active-duty admiral to be convicted of a federal crime, concealed the scheme in which Francis would overcharge for supplying ships or charge for fake services at ports he controlled in Southeast Asia.
The case, which delved into salacious details about service members cheating on their wives and seeking out prostitutes, was an embarrassment to the Pentagon. It was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney’s office, which offered an independent authority from the military justice system.
Francis was scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 22 after working with prosecutors for years, leading to dozens of convictions.
All that cooperation will mean nothing now, but Francis may be hard to catch, given his wealth and vast worldwide connections, said Jason Forge, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego who worked on a number of high-profile corruption cases.
“He doesn’t strike me as the type of person under these circumstances to make a spontaneous decision,” Forge said. “I’m assuming this means he has planned things out and he has the wherewithal to do so. He will probably be a free bird for awhile.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:13:05Z
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BEIRUT (AP) — International human rights groups Tuesday condemned acts of torture in Lebanese prisons following the death of a Syrian refugee in detention and urged authorities to transfer the investigation into his death from a military to a civil court.
Photos surfaced last week of the battered body of a Syrian who had been held for questioning. The grisly visual made headlines in Lebanon and was followed by a video of a coroner assessing the body, which was covered in gashes and bruises. The body was later identified as that of Bashar Abdel-Saud, 30, a Syrian refugee who fled the war-torn country in 2014.
“To ensure transparency and impartiality, Abdel-Saud’s case must urgently be referred to a civilian court,” Amnesty’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Heba Morayef said in the statement. “His family deserves justice and reparations for their tragic loss.”
According to Abdel-Saud’s lawyer, officers from Lebanon’s State Security agency arrested the Syrian at his home in a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut last week, before calling his family four days later asking them to retrieve his body.
State Security in a press statement said Abdel-Saud was arrested for the possession of a fake $50 bill and had confessed during the interrogation that he was combatant for the Islamic State group.
His lawyer denied the charges and State Security first promised an internal investigation, before the case was transferred to Lebanon’s military court.
Lebanon’s military court government commissioner ordered the arrest of five State Security personnel from the branch that held Abdel-Saud in southern Lebanon, according to Amnesty.
State Security released a second statement on Monday, requesting media outlets to “not broadcast news related to the matter, aiming to stir strife and incite tensions especially in these sensitive circumstances Lebanon is going through.”
Senior Lebanese officials have not commented on the recent incident.
The only minister under Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s caretaker government to do so was Environment Minister Nasser Yassin, who in a tweet condemned the incident and called for prosecutors to investigate.
Meanwhile, several of Lebanon’s recently elected independent legislators penned critical statements.
“What happened completely contradicts our aspirations for Lebanon,” Ibrahim Mneimneh, a member of Parliament, told The Associated Press. “We need human rights to be a key reference point to all the work we do.”
He added that the security agency conducting an internal investigation is a “conflict of interest.”
Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups have echoed similar sentiments. Human rights organizations have frequently criticized Lebanon for what they say is an incomplete 2017 anti-torture law, and authorities not putting it into practice five years later.
Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Director Lama Fakih said torture in the crisis-hit country has been a years-long problem.
“Lebanon suffers from a legacy of impunity for torture,” Fakih told the AP. “We have not yet seen steps taken to ensure that robust investigations are undertaken and that responsible individuals are held accountable.”
Several cases of alleged torture in Lebanon have surfaced in recent years, including actor and writer Ziad Itani, Syrian refugees arrested in camp raids and checkpoints, and protesters in Beirut, Tripoli, and Sidon during Lebanon’s antigovernment uprisings in late 2019.
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| 2022-09-21T11:13:13Z
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — In flood-stricken Pakistan where an unprecedented monsoon season has killed hundreds of people, the rains now threaten a famed archeological site dating back 4,500 years, the site’s chief official said Tuesday.
The ruins of Mohenjo Daro — located in southern Sindh province near the Indus River and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — are considered among the best preserved urban settlements in South Asia. They were discovered in 1922 and to this day, mystery surrounds the disappearance of its civilization, which coincided with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The swelling waters of the Indus, a major river in this part of the world, have wreaked havoc as heavy rains and massive flooding unleashed devastation across much of Pakistan. At least 1,343 people have been killed and millions have lost their homes in the surging waters, with many experts blaming the unusually heavy monsoon rains on climate change.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he is flying to Pakistan on Wednesday to express solidarity with its people and “to appeal for the massive support of the international community to the Pakistanis, in this hour of need after the devastating floods that we are witnessing.” He said the floods are a result of climate change that is “supercharging the destruction of our planet,” warning: “Today it is Pakistan. Tomorrow it can be anywhere else.”
The flooding has not directly hit Mohenjo Daro but the record-breaking rains have inflicted damage on the ruins of the ancient city, said Ahsan Abbasi, the site’s curator.
“Several big walls, which were built nearly 5,000 years ago, have collapsed because of the monsoon rains,” Abbasi told The Associated Press.
He said dozens of construction workers under the supervision of archaeologists have started the repair work. Abbasi did not give an estimated cost of the damages at Mohenjo Daro.
The site’s landmark “Buddhist stupa” — a large hemispherical structure associated with worship, meditation and burial — remains intact, Abbasi said. But the downpour has damaged some outer walls and also some larger walls separating individual rooms or chambers.
Abbasi said the civilization at Mohenjo Daro, also known as “Mound of the Dead” in the local Sindhi language, built an elaborate drainage system, which has been critical in flooding in the past.
Though the floods have touched all of Pakistan, the Sindh province has been among the worst hit.
On Monday, army engineers made a second cut into an embankment at Lake Manchar, Pakistan’s largest freshwater lake, to release rising waters in hopes of saving the nearby city of Sehwan from major flooding.
The water from the lake has already inundated dozens of nearby villages, forcing hundreds of families to leave their mudbrick homes in a hurry, many fleeing in panic.
Meanwhile, rescue operations continued Tuesday with troops and volunteers using helicopters and boats to get those stranded out of the flooded areas and to nearest relief camps. Tens of thousands of people are already living in such camps, and thousands more have taken shelter on roadsides on higher ground.
Ghulam Sabir, 52, from the outskirts of Sehwan, said Tuesday that he left his home three days ago after authorities told them to evacuate.
“I took my family members with me and came to this … safer place,” said Sabir, staying by the roadside where he has set up camp. He echoed complaints of several other villagers — that no government help had reached them yet.
Sabir said he did not know whether his home had collapsed or not.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif urged Pakistanis in televised remarks Tuesday to generously donate to flood victims, most of whom are relying on government help to survive. Sharif has also repeatedly asked the international community to send more aid to the flood victims. He insisted that Pakistan is facing a climate-change-induced tragedy.
In a statement Tuesday, the U.N. refugee agency said it handed over thousands of tents and other emergency items to the Sindh government, meant for those affected by the flooded areas in the province.
Multiple experts say that since 1959, Pakistan has emitted about 0.4% of heat-trapping carbon dioxide, compared to 21.5% by the United States and 16.4% by China. Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” through the crisis. He plans to visit flood-hit areas on Sept. 9.
According to Pakistani officials, Guterres will travel to Sindh but it’s unclear whether he will visit the archaeological site.
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| 2022-09-21T11:13:20Z
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BEIRUT (AP) — Israel launched a missile attack on Tuesday targeting Syria’s Aleppo airport for the second time in a week, this time putting it out of commission, Syrian state media said.
The Syrian government did not report any casualties. The transport ministry said all flights will be diverted to the capital, Damascus.
State media, citing a military source, reported that Syrian anti-missile defense systems fired back at what they said were Israeli missiles.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition war monitor, the airstrikes also destroyed warehouses belonging to Iran-backed militias.
The private airliner Cham Wings said in a statement that it is diverting all its flights from Aleppo to the international airport of Damascus. It added that passengers will be shuttled by buses for free between the two cities.
Israel launched airstrikes at Aleppo airport last week, damaging its runway and, according to the war monitor, a warehouse that likely stored a shipment of Iranian rockets.
Last week’s strike tore a hole in the runway and also damaged a structure close to the military side of the airfield, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press showed.
Syria’s foreign minister last week said the attack “completely destroyed the navigation station with its equipment.”
On June 10, Israeli airstrikes that struck Damascus International Airport caused significant damage to infrastructure and runways and rendered the main runway unserviceable. The airport opened two weeks later following renovation work.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
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| 2022-09-21T11:13:28Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Police in Tennessee said Tuesday they had found the body of a Memphis woman abducted during a pre-dawn run, confirming fears that Eliza Fletcher was killed after she was forced into an SUV on Friday morning.
The news followed an exhaustive search throughout the long weekend with dogs, ATVs and a helicopter in a case that has drawn national media attention and is already becoming a source of partisan controversy over criminal sentencing and parole.
U.S. Marshals arrested Cleotha Abston, 38, on Saturday after police detected his DNA on a pair of sandals found near to where Fletcher was last seen, according to an arrest affidavit. Police did not find Fletcher’s body until just after 5 p.m. on Monday and did not publicly confirm that the body was Fletcher’s until Tuesday morning. The 34-year-old Fletcher was a school teacher and the granddaughter of a prominent Memphis businessman.
Abston was released from prison in 2020 after serving 20 years for a previous kidnapping. On Tuesday morning, he made his first court appearance on charges of kidnapping, tampering with evidence, theft, identity theft, and fraudulent use of a credit card.
Several of Fletcher’s relatives were in the courtroom along with more than 20 media members as Abston was issued a $510,000 bond. Abston said he could not afford bond and he could not afford a lawyer. General Sessions Judge Louis Montesi appointed a public defender to represent Abston.
Court records showed Abston also has been charged with first-degree murder. He is scheduled to appear in court again Wednesday.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said it was too early in the investigation to determine how and where Fletcher was killed. Davis said the body was found behind a vacant duplex. A police affidavit said officers noticed vehicle tracks next to the duplex’s driveway, and they “smelled an odor of decay.”
Purple running shorts whose appearance was consistent with those Fletcher was wearing were found in a discarded trash bag nearby, the affidavit said.
Abston previously kidnapped a prominent Memphis attorney in 2000 when he was just 16 years old. He spent 20 years in prison for that crime, but he had been sentenced to 24. Some prominent Tennessee Republicans on Tuesday were quick to argue that had Abston served his full sentence, Fletcher would still be alive.
“This case not only proves that the recently passed Truth in Sentencing Act was necessary, but that it was long overdue,” Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said in a statement Tuesday. “We must redouble our efforts to ensure those who transgress against citizens are punished — and severely.”
The statute requires serving entire sentences for various felonies, including attempted first-degree murder, vehicular homicide resulting from the driver’s intoxication and carjacking.
Newly elected Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, a Democrat, said Tuesday it was time for grief and “not trying to use this case as a political football.”
Mulroy has notably voiced his opposition to the truth in sentencing law, arguing it does not reduce crime and drives up Tennessee’s prison budget. Speaking Tuesday, he called Fletcher’s case an “isolated attack by a stranger.” Mulroy noted that Abston served 85% of his previous sentence and the DA’s office had opposed parole.
In the earlier kidnapping, Abston forced Kemper Durand into the trunk of his own car at gunpoint, the Commercial Appeal reported. After several hours, Abston took Durand out and forced him to drive to a Mapco gas station to withdraw money from an ATM. At the station, an armed Memphis Housing Authority guard walked in and Durand yelled for help. Abston ran away but was found and arrested. He pleaded guilty in 2001 to especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery, according to court records.
Durand, in a victim impact statement, wrote, “I was extremely lucky that I was able to escape from the custody of Cleotha Abston. … It is quite likely that I would have been killed had I not escaped,” the Commercial Appeal reported.
Fletcher is the granddaughter of the late Joseph Orgill III, a Memphis hardware businessman and philanthropist. Her case is the latest that reinforces the fears of many female athletes when it comes to working out alone, at night or in secluded places. Crime statistics show these types of attacks are exceedingly rare. Women out for a run face much greater dangers from traffic. But the fear they inspire is real, as are smaller-scale episodes of harassment or assaults on women, even in well-populated areas.
In a statement, Fletcher’s family said it was “heartbroken and devastated by this senseless loss.”
“Liza was a such a joy to so many … Now it’s time to remember and celebrate how special she was and to support those who cared so much for her,” the statement said.
In a Facebook post, St. Mary’s Episcopal School, where Fletcher taught kindergarten, said faculty and staff started Tuesday in chapel and lit candles to remember her as “a bright light in our community.”
___
Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi and Travis Loller contributed to this report from Nashville, Tennessee.
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| 2022-09-21T11:13:35Z
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CAIRO (AP) — Suspected al-Qaida militants on Tuesday attacked a security post in southern Yemen, sparking clashes that killed at least 21 troops and six militants, military officials said.
The early morning attack in Ahwar, in the province of Abyan, targeted a post manned by troops from the Security Belt, a security force loyal to the secessionist Southern Transitional Council.
The separatist council is backed by the United Arab Emirates and controls much of Yemen’s south. It is at odds with the internationally recognized government.
The officials said at least 21 troops were killed in the attack and the clashes that ensures for hours. Four more troops were also wounded, they said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Among the dead troops was Yasser Nasser Shaea, a senior commander in the force fighting terror groups in Yemen, the Security Belt said in a statement.
It said six militants were killed and others were detained. It posted images showing bodies it said were the dead militants.
No group claimed responsibility for the ambush. But it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP.
AQAP has long been considered the global network’s most dangerous branch, and has attempted to carry out attacks on the U.S. mainland.
AQAP, along with an affiliate of the Islamic State group, are active in several regions of Yemen and have taken advantage of the yearslong civil war to make inroads.
Yemen’s war pits Iran-backed Houthi rebels against the internationally recognized government, which is aided by a Saudi-led coalition. The UAE is part of the coalition.
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| 2022-09-21T11:13:43Z
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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Since he was toppled by parliament five months ago, former Prime Minister Imran Khan has demonstrated his continued popularity with mass rallies across Pakistan, signaling to his rivals that he remains a considerable political force.
On Tuesday, he addressed some 25,000 supporters in the northwestern city of Peshawar, the capital of deeply conservative Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan.
Khan said he would soon organize a mass march to the capital, as a culmination of his campaign to force the government of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif to hold a snap election, which some analysts say Khan might win due a groundswell of support.
“I will soon give you a call for a march on Islamabad,” Khan told the cheering crowd, then asked: “Are you ready for it?”
“Yes,” came the response from his supporters.
Sharif has rejected the demand for early elections, saying the vote should take place as scheduled in 2023.
As during previous rallies, Tuesday’s speech was not shown live by TV stations on instructions from the country’s media regulatory agency. The regulators have banned broadcasting his live speeches, purportedly because of his recent critical remarks about the military and judiciary. Viewers also had difficulty accessing the speech via YouTube and other social media.
Since his ouster, Khan has claimed that the current government came into power under a plot by the U.S. which allegedly disagreed with his more independent foreign policy; Washington has denied such a claim.
Khan had served as prime minister for over three-and-a-half years until he was brought down by an alliance of political parties in a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April.
In a new twist to his comeback campaign, the former cricket star-turned-Islamist politician faces terrorism charges for allegedly threatening police and a judge at a rally last month in Islamabad. At the time, Khan sharply criticized the authorities for having arrested his close aide Shahbaz Gill on charges of inciting troops to mutiny against top army generals.
Khan could face several years in prison under Pakistan’s 1997 anti-terrorism law, which grants police wider powers. He is currently on a type of bail that shields him from arrest until Sept. 12.
“Look, a terrorist is standing in front of you,” Khan sarcastically told the crowd Tuesday evening.
Analysts say that even in the opposition, Khan remains a political force.
“Yes, Imran Khan will win elections whenever the voting takes place,” predicted Rana Akram Rabbani, a newspaper columnist and former senior politician.
In Tuesday’s speech, Khan again attacked Washington, saying his removal from office was the result of a U.S.-organized plot and collusion with Sharif. Both have denied the allegation.
Khan said Pakistan should not allow its soil to be used for attacks against any country.
His comments come amid reports that the U.S. drones were using Pakistan’s air space for surveillance in neighboring Afghanistan, where the Afghan Taliban seized power last year.
Khan is a vocal critic of military operations.
Even before coming to power, he called for the resolution of the Afghan issue through peace talks. Addressing the United States on Tuesday, he said he wants friendship with Washington, but that “we will not accept your slavery.”
Khan has said in recent months that the United States wanted him gone because of his foreign policy choices in favor of Russia and China, and a visit he made on Feb. 24 to Moscow, where he held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.
Khan has said he was not aware that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would start during his visit.
After coming to power in 2018, Khan initially enjoyed excellent ties with the military.
His troubles began when he resisted the appointment of a new spy chief by the army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa.
Although the issue was later resolved, analysts say Khan and Bajwa never repaired the relationship and that Khan still believes Bajwa was part of the alleged plot to topple him.
Khan claimed Tuesday that his political opponents tried to drive a wedge between him and the army which traditionally plays an out-sized role in Pakistan politics.
“I love my army,” Khan said.
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MADRID (AP) — The Spanish government on Tuesday passed a law giving hundreds of thousands of domestic cleaners and carers the right to unemployment benefits and other job protection measures for the first time.
Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz said the law would benefit more than 370,000 people, 95% of whom are women. She said the bill was intended to end discrimination against workers whose jobs have been undervalued for too long.
“If there is a job in our lives that is important it is that of caring and cleaning, and for that reason I think today the country is better off,” said Díaz.
The law will take effect in October.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced Monday that the bill would be passed at the Cabinet meeting Tuesday, saying it was to “put an end to unacceptable injustice.”
Díaz said the law follows long-standing recommendations from both the European Union and the International Labor Organization that people employed in private houses should have the same rights as other workers.
Díaz said that a third of the cleaners and carers were more than 50 years of age. More than 40% are foreigners, principally from Colombia, Romania and Honduras.
Unions and domestic worker collectives have long campaigned for the bill. They argued that most house cleaners and carers had no social or labor protection and often worked up to 60 hours a week. They could also be fired without notice or justification.
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — In the aftermath of the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, governors around the country vowed to take steps to ensure their students would be kept safe.
Months later, as students return to classrooms, money has begun to flow for school security upgrades, training and other new efforts to make classrooms safer.
But the responses have often reflected political divisions: Many Republicans have emphasized school security spending, while Democrats have called for tighter gun control.
At every step, the actions have stirred debate over whether states are doing the right things to address the scourge of school shootings.
In a special legislative session in Arkansas last month, lawmakers set aside $50 million for a school safety fund proposed by Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson. The rules for distributing the money haven’t been finalized, but Hutchinson has said he wants it to help implement recommendations from a school safety commission he reinstated following the May shooting in Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed.
The shooting “served as a reminder that the threat of violence in our schools has not abated,” Hutchinson said. “It continues to be real, and we have to act with a renewed sense of urgency to protect our children.”
Texas was among several other states that set aside money for school security. Gov. Greg Abbott and other top Republican leaders announced $105.5 million for school safety initiatives. Nearly half of that was slated for bullet-resistant shields for school police and $17.1 million was for districts to purchase panic-alert technology.
Other Republican governors who made money available for security upgrades include Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who announced $100 million for school security three days after the Uvalde shooting, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whose state is giving $2.6 million to increase training capacity and classes for school resource officers.
“While these are the latest measures we’re taking to ensure our children’s safety, I can assure you they will not be the last. I will work with anyone, even in the midst of a heated election cycle, to protect our students,” Kemp, who is running for reelection, said in June.
Some of the Republican governors who have moved aggressively to bolster school security have ruled out any kind of gun control measures.
Hutchinson had said there should be a conversation about raising the age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle — the type of weapon used in Uvalde — but didn’t pursue such a measure during the session. Abbott also has pushed back on calls for more gun control by families of the Uvalde shooting victims. Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt vowed to fight any firearms restrictions when he signed an executive order on training for law enforcement and risk assessment at schools.
In California, which already had some of the nation’s toughest gun laws, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a dozen more this legislative session and even took out ads in Texas newspapers criticizing the state’s stances on guns.
“We’re sick and tired of being on the defense in this movement,” Newsom said in July.
In New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation last month requiring the state’s nearly 600 school districts to set up assessment teams aimed at stemming violence in schools. One of the bill’s sponsors recounted hearing of an Uvalde victim who pretended to have been killed in the attack to escape the shooter.
“Does anybody want to teach this — how to play dead?” Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt, a Democrat, said during a hearing in June.
Despite the partisan divisions on gun violence, a group of governors says it will attempt to find common ground. A task force created by the National Governor Association following the Uvalde shooting will develop recommendations to stop mass shootings, with an emphasis on school safety. Hutchinson, a former chairman of the association, has said the task force will focus in part on how states might use money coming to them through the bipartisan gun control bill President Joe Biden signed in June.
Teachers, political opponents and others have raised questions about the scope and effectiveness of state leaders’ plans.
In Arkansas, Democratic lawmakers questioned whether districts taking the new grant program’s money would be required to have an armed presence on campus, one of the initial recommendations from the state’s school safety commission.
“It’s one thing to say ‘school safety,’ but that runs the gamut of so much,” said Democratic Sen. Linda Chesterfield, a retired educator and the only legislator to vote against the grant program. “What specifically do you have in mind, and what price is it going to cost? I guess I’m just tired of having to fly by the seat of my pants and not know a thing about what’s going to go into that (commission’s) report.”
In Ohio, teachers unions say one-time funding that’s for equipment like door locks and radio systems — but not ongoing needs like personnel — is helpful but not enough.
Schools need money for staffing, too, including for safety and mental health personnel, said Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association.
“Ideally, you’re gonna use funding to ensure that every school that wants to hire well-trained school resource officers, as part of their school safety plan, can do that,” DiMauro said. “And from that perspective, you know, the $100 million isn’t going to solve the problem in the long run.”
___
Associated Press writers Samantha Hendrickson in Columbus, Ohio; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; Paul Weber in Austin, Texas; Don Thompson in Sacramento, California; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; and Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.
___
For more back-to-school coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/back-to-school
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| 2022-09-21T11:14:13Z
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ROSTHERN, Saskatchewan (AP) — The final suspect in a stabbing rampage that killed 10 people in and around a Canadian Indigenous reserve died after being arrested by police Wednesday following a manhunt that stretched more than three days, authorities said. One official said he died of self-inflicted injuries.
Myles Sanderson, 32, was caught on a highway near the town of Rosthern in the province of Saskatchewan as officers responded to a report of a stolen vehicle being driven by a man armed with a knife, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.
Officers forced Sanderson’s vehicle off the road and into a ditch, Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore, commander of the RCMP in Saskatchewan, said at a news conference. He was detained and a knife was found inside the vehicle she said.
She said Sanderson went into medical distress after he was arrested. She said CPR was attempted on him before an ambulance arrived. She said emergency medical personnel then took him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
“All life saving measures that we are capable of were taken at that time,” she said.
Blackmore gave no details on the cause of death. “I can’t speak to the specific manner of death,” she said.
But an official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, earlier said Sanderson died of self-inflicted injuries, without giving any further details.
Video and photos from the scene showed a white SUV off to the side of the road with police cars all around. Air bags had deployed in the SUV. Some photos and video taken from a distance appeared to show Sanderson being frisked.
His death came two days after the body of his brother, 30-year-old Damien Sanderson, was found in a field near the scene of their rampage, which also wounded 18 people. Police are investigating whether Myles Sanderson killed his brother.
Blackmore said that with both men dead, authorities will find it hard to figure out what set off the rampage.
“Now that Myles is deceased we may never have an understanding of that motivation,” she said.
But she started off her remarks that the news conference by stressing that people in Saskatchewan can rest easier.
“This evening our province is breathing a collective sigh of relief,” Blackmore said.
Later, she added: “I hope that this brings them closure. I hope they can rest easy knowing that Myles Sanderson is no longer a threat to them.”
Some family members of the victims arrived at the scene Wednesday, including Brian Burns, whose wife and son were killed.
“Now we can start to heal. The healing begins today, now,” he said.
The stabbing rampage raised questions of why Myles Sanderson — an ex-con with 59 convictions and a long history of shocking violence — was out on the streets in the first place.
He was released by a parole board in February while serving a sentence of over four years on charges that included assault and robbery. But he had been wanted by police since May, apparently for violating the terms of his release, though the details were not immediately clear.
His long and lurid rap sheet also showed that seven years ago, he attacked and stabbed one of the victims killed in the weekend rampage, according to court records.
Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said there will be an investigation into the parole board’s assessment of Sanderson.
“I want to know the reasons behind the decision” to release him, Mendicino said. “I’m extremely concerned with what occurred here. A community has been left reeling.”
Investigators have not given a motive for the bloodshed.
The Saskatchewan Coroner’s Service said nine of those killed were from the James Smith Cree Nation: Thomas Burns, 23; Carol Burns, 46; Gregory Burns, 28; Lydia Gloria Burns, 61; Bonnie Burns, 48; Earl Burns, 66; Lana Head, 49; Christian Head, 54; and Robert Sanderson, 49, One was from Weldon, 78-year-old Wesley Patterson.
Authorities would not say how the victims might be related.
Mark Arcand said his half sister Bonnie and her son Gregory were killed.
“Her son was lying there already deceased. My sister went out and tried to help her son, and she was stabbed two times, and she died right beside him,” he said. “Right outside of her home she was killed by senseless acts. She was protecting her son. She was protecting three little boys. This is why she is a hero.”
Arcand rushed to the reserve the morning of the rampage. After that, he said, “I woke up in the middle of the night just screaming and yelling. What I saw that day I can’t get out of my head.”
As for what set off the violence, Arcand said: “We’re all looking for those same answers. We don’t know what happened. Maybe we’ll never know. That’s the hardest part of this.”
Court documents said Sanderson attacked his in-laws Earl Burns and Joyce Burns in 2015, knifing Earl Burns repeatedly and wounding Joyce Burns. He later pleaded guilty to assault and threatening Earl Burns’ life.
Many of Sanderson’s crimes were committed when he was intoxicated, according to court records. He told parole officials at one point that substance use made him out of his mind. Records showed he repeatedly violated court orders barring him from drinking or using drugs.
Many of Canada’s Indigenous communities are plagued by drugs and alcohol.
“The drug problem and the alcohol problem on these reserves is way out of hand,” said Ivor Wayne Burns, whose sister was killed in the weekend attacks. “We have dead people, and we asked before for something to be done.”
Myles Sanderson’s childhood was marked by violence, neglect and substance abuse, court records show. Sanderson, who is Indigenous and was raised on the Cree reserve, population 1,900, started drinking and smoking marijuana at around 12, and cocaine followed soon after.
In 2017, he barged into his ex-girlfriend’s home, punched a hole in the door of a bathroom while his two children were hiding in a bathtub and threw a cement block at a vehicle parked outside, according to parole documents.
He got into a fight a few days later at a store, threatening to kill an employee and burn down his parents’ home, documents said.
That November he threatened an accomplice into robbing a fast-food restaurant by clubbing him with a gun and stomping on his head. He then stood watch during the holdup.
In 2018, he stabbed two men with a fork while drinking and beat someone unconscious.
When he was released in February, the parole board set conditions on his contact with his partner and children and also said he should not enter into relationships with women without written permission from his parole officer.
In granting Sanderson “statutory release,” parole authorities said: “It is the Board’s opinion that you will not present an undue risk to society.”
Canadian law grants prisoners statutory release after they serve two-thirds of their sentence. But the parole board can impose conditions on that freedom, and inmates who violate them — as Sanderson did more than once — can be ordered back to prison.
Sharna Sugarman, who was organizing a GoFundMe for the victims, questioned the parole board for releasing him and wondered why Sanderson was still on the loose so many months after he was deemed “unlawfully at large.”
“That’s just egregious to me,” said Sugarman, a counselor who counted one of the stabbing victims as a client. “If they claim that they’ve been looking for him, well, you weren’t looking that hard.”
___
Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:14:20Z
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New Delhi: Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) have been given 10 per cent quota in admissions and jobs out of 50 per cent general category seats for the first time without eroding the totally independent reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Strongly defending the 103rd constitutional amendment which provides for 10 per cent quota to the EWS, Attorney General K K Venugopal told a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice U U Lalit that it does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution as it has been given without disturbing the 50 per cent quota meant for the socially and economically backward classes (SEBC).
Tamil Nadu, however, opposed the EWS quota, saying the economic criteria cannot be the basis for classification and the top court will have to revisit the Indira Sawhney (Mandal) judgement if it decides to uphold the EWS reservation.
Expounding on the existing state's affirmative action besides the quota, the top law officer referred to constitutional provisions and said Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes have been given reservation in promotion in government jobs, legislature, panchayat and municipalities.
EWS have been given this for the first time. On the other hand, so far as the SCs and STs are concerned, they have been loaded with the benefits by way of State affirmative actions. They are highly unequals..., he told the bench which also comprised Justices Dinesh Maheshwari, S Ravindra Bhat, Bela M Trivedi and J B Pardiwala.
A large population of this general category, which is perhaps more meritorious, will be deprived of the opportunities in educational institutions and jobs (if quota for them is scrapped), Venugopal said and sought to distinguish between the SEBC and the EWS of general category, insisting both are unequal and not a homogenous group.
He said the quotas for SCs, STs and OBCs are self contained sections of backwardness and the EWS reservation is separate.
Do you have any data that shows that EWS in open category, how much will be their percentage? the bench asked.
Altogether 18.2 percent of the total population in the general category belonged to EWS, the law officer said and referred to the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index used by the Niti Ayog.
So far as numbers are concerned, it would be about 350 million (3.5 crore) of the population, he said.
The reservation for OBCs, SCs and STs fall under different silos other than the EWS quota and it does not violate the basic structure of the Constitution, Venugopal asserted.
I would now conclude that there existed two compartments so far as reservations are concerned. One is backward classes, which is limited to 50 per cent. The other is a class which is also 50 per cent which is for general category, he said.
Venugopal would resume his argument on Wednesday.
At the outset, senior advocate Gopal Sankarnarayanan, appearing for NGO Youth for Equality', supported the EWS quota scheme, contending it was long overdue and a right step in the right direction.
The fact that a maximum of 10 per cent has been fixed as the limit for EWS reservation in addition to the existing reservations suggests that the 50 per cent ceiling limit would be crossed.
"In fact, the reservation numbers across the country reveal how things stand in upsetting the gentle balance that has been achieved by the 50 per cent limit, he said and gave examples of states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala where the 50 per cent ceiling stood breached.
It may be worth noting that the SCs, STs and OBCs receive political reservation as well under the Constitution, and there are no ceiling limits to the extent of reservation each of the groups can receive, he said.
On the other hand, EWS reservation is capped at 10 per cent and is not extended to political reservation, thereby providing a balance, he added.
The insertion of the Economically Weaker Sections is perfectly valid as a class for the extension of special provisions for their advancement, for admissions and for reservations in posts, he said.
Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for Tamil Nadu, said the principle of reasonableness and absence of arbitrariness are part of Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution.
The right to equality is a part of basic structure and fixing economic criteria solely for grant of quota would violate it, he noted.
Earlier, the top court had on September 15 refused to entertain a submission about Parliament having cleared the 103rd constitutional amendment to provide 10 per cent quota to the EWS without much debate, saying it was barred from entering into that arena.
The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha cleared the 103rd Amendment Bill on January 8 and 9 in 2019 respectively before it was signed into law by then President Ram Nath Kovind.
The apex court had said the constitution bench will also decide whether the 103rd amendment breached the doctrine of the basic structure of the Constitution by allowing the state to make such special provisions.
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OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — A suspected jihadi roadside bomb has hit a convoy in northern Burkina Faso, killing at least 35 people and injuring dozens more.
The supply convoy escorted by the army was hit Monday while driving between Bourzanga and Djibo towns with one of the vehicles carrying civilians, the governor of Sahel region, Lt. Col. Rodolphe Sorgho, said in a statement.
The wounded have been evacuated and the area of the explosion has been secured, he said.
Although no group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb, it is suspected to be by Islamic extremist rebels. Burkina Faso has been ravaged by violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in which thousands have been killed.
This is the fifth explosion in Soum province since August, particularly around Djibo, which has been under siege by jihadis for months, according to an internal security report for aid workers seen by The Associated Press.
A double explosion last month between Djibo and Namssiguia killed at least 15 people, said the report.
A military coup in January ousted the country’s democratically elected government claiming they could better secure the country from the extremists.
Monday’s attack comes one day after interim President Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba spoke to the nation saying the junta had achieved some progress in pushing back the jihadis.
“We have made many efforts since we came to power … Our efforts have begun to bear fruit at the military operational level,” he said.
This latest attack, however, damages the credibility of Damiba’s claim, say analysts.
“Aside from the staggering casualty toll, the timing of the incident is unfortunate, given that only two days ago President Damiba made a speech in an attempt to convince the public that the country was making progress,” said Heni Nsaibia, senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.
“While his speech was praised, many commentators criticized the lack of a balance sheet detailing the progress he claimed to have made,” he said.
While Burkina Faso’s military struggles to stem the extremist violence, the humanitarian crisis is escalating. Nearly 2 million people have been displaced — making it one of the fastest growing displacement crises in the world alongside Ukraine and Mozambique. More than 600,000 people are facing emergency hunger, creating the country’s worst food crisis in a decade, according to a statement this week by 28 international aid groups in Burkina Faso.
“Too often, displacement and hunger come as a one-two punch,” said Hassane Hamadou, country director of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “People forced to move have left behind their fields and livestock. Many displaced families report being down to one meal a day in order to allow children to eat twice.”
Residents say even if the junta has made gains, the country has a long road ahead to return to peace and stability.
“I am very sad,” Ousmane Amirou Dicko, the Emir of Liptako told The Associated Press. “Even if advances have been made in the past seven months, we do not yet have security.”
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Mednick reported from Goma, Congo.
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GENEVA (AP) — Police in Switzerland said Tuesday that they found 23 migrants packed into the back of a delivery van during a traffic check on a highway.
The Italian-registered vehicle was stopped early Monday morning as it headed northward on the A2 highway at Buochs, near the central city of Lucerne , police in Nidwalden canton (state) said.
Officers found the migrants crammed into the windowless cargo area of the van. Police said they were standing and had been shut in the van for several hours without a break.
The migrants were aged between 20 and 50 and were from Afghanistan, India, Syria and Bangladesh, police said in a statement. They said that they wanted to travel to European countries outside Switzerland.
The driver, a 27-year-old Gambian man who lives in Italy, was arrested and faces an investigation on suspicion of human trafficking, police said.
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| 2022-09-21T11:14:35Z
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New Delhi: In a clear indication that he could throw his hat in the ring for the Congress president polls, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Wednesday said he will file his nomination if his party people wish so and fulfil any responsibility given to him.
However, Gehlot, who is set to go to Kochi later in the day, said he will make one last-ditch effort to convince Rahul Gandhi to take up the party president's post.
Speaking with reporters after landing here from Jaipur, Gehlot said he will take decisions with which the Congress is strengthened.
"The party and high command have given me everything. I have been on posts for 40-50 years. For me no post is important, I will fulfil any responsibility given to me," he said.
He also asserted that not only the Gandhi family, but scores of Congress members have faith in him.
"I am very fortunate that I have got love and affection of Congress men and women across the country and they have faith in me," Gehlot said.
"Therefore, if they ask me to fill the form (nomination), I will not be able to refuse...Will speak with friends. I was given the responsibility of being Rajasthan chief minister, I am fulfilling that responsibility as a CM and will continue to do so," said Gehlot, who was here to meet party chief Sonia Gandhi.
On whether keeping both posts of the CM and party president could be a violation of the party's pledges in Udaipur, Gehlot said that applies when the high command nominates people, while the president polls were an open election and anybody among the 9,000 PCC delegates, irrespective of whether that person is MP, MLA or minister, can contest.
Citing an example, he said if a minister in a state stands for Congress president election, that person can stay minister and also contest polls.
"Time will tell where I remain. I would like to stay where the party benefits from me, I will not back down," he asserted when asked if he would remain CM along with being party chief.
Gehlot said he wants to serve the Congress, wherever he is useful, be it Rajasthan or Delhi.
"Party has given me everything, post is not so important for me. If it is up to me, I would not take any post, I would join Rahul Gandhi in the Bharat Jodo Yatra looking at the situation in the country, the Constitution is being destroyed, democracy is in danger. They (the BJP) are destroying the country," he said.
The UPA rule was unparalleled, the BJP won elections using religion and is now destroying the country, he alleged.
He said if the Congress people want him in the role of CM or as president of the party, he will not be able to turn down their request.
Asserting that it is important to strengthen the Congress for the sake of the country, Gehlot said he would do wherever is required for that and would not back down.
Asked about a prospective contest with Shashi Tharoor for the party chief's post, he said contest should take place as it is good for internal democracy of the party.
"Rajnath Singh became BJP president, then Amit Shah became president then Nadda ji, was it discussed. We are fortunate that the media only talks about the Congress (polls)," he said.
Gehlot said he will try to convince Rahul Gandhi one last time to take on the post of party chief. If Rahul Gandhi carries out the Bharat Jodo Yatra being president of the Congress, it will add to the aura of the party, Gehlot said.
Meanwhile, Tharoor, who is set to contest the polls, met party central election authority chief Madhusudan Mistry at the AICC headquarters here.
The process for filing nominations for the election will be held from September 24 to 30.
The date of scrutiny of the nomination papers would be October 1, while the last date of withdrawal of nominations would be October 8.
The election, if there is more than one candidate, will take place on October 17, while counting of votes, if necessary, and the counting of votes and the declaration of results would be on October 19.
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LONDON (AP) — Boris Johnson’s term as British leader was a mix of high drama and low disgrace. But he left office Tuesday with a casual shrug of a farewell: “Well, this is it, folks.”
The prime minister’s final speech outside 10 Downing Street, delivered before he offered his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II, was vintage Johnson — a quixotic blend of humor, classical erudition, ego and an elastic relationship with the truth. And it left many observers wondering whether this really is the end for a leader who has long defied political gravity.
“It was a classic Boris speech,” said Hannah White, acting director of the Institute for Government think-tank. “It was very much focused on him and his achievements. But I think that it is quite clear that he’s licking his wounds. He understands that if he steps away at this moment, he is going to continue to be an influential figure. And I think he will be biding his time.”
For Johnson fans, the speech was a moment to regret the departure of Britain’s most entertaining modern prime minister — and perhaps to nurture a flame for his return. For critics, it was a reminder of why his administration collapsed in scandal before it could fulfil Johnson’s lofty policy aims.
Not that you would have known that from Johnson’s words. He claimed big successes for his government, including leading Britain out of the European Union, overseeing Europe’s fastest COVID-19 vaccine rollout and sending weapons to Ukraine to help it resist Russia’s invasion.
Some of those achievements are debatable at best. Johnson says he “got Brexit done,” but the consequences of Britain’s messy, testy divorce from the European Union will roil both sides for decades. Britain did have a rapid vaccine rollout, but also one of Europe’s highest COVID-19 death tolls.
As in his debut speech as prime minister three years ago, Johnson painted a vision of the high tech, high-energy Britain of his dreams, a powerhouse in wind power and in scientific research and development. As with so much in his career, it was part reality, part aspiration.
Some of the successes he claimed are still in preliminary stages, such as three new high speed rail lines and “a new nuclear reactor every year.” Others, like reforming social care, remain thorny problems for his successor, Prime Minister Liz Truss.
And there was a bitter note amid the boosterism. Johnson spent his political career shrugging off outrage over his ethical lapses and offensive remarks, but was finally brought down when a scandal too far — over giving a government job to a lawmaker accused of sexual misconduct — triggered mass resignations in his government.
Johnson has made it clear he does not want to leave. He said, without explanation, that he was removed because his party “changed the rules half-way through.”
Nonetheless he turned to one of his beloved classical allusions to insist that he plans to retire gracefully.
“Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plow,” Johnson said, a reference to the Roman dictator who relinquished power and returned to his farm to live in peace.
Yet the allusion was ambiguous. Classicist Mary Beard pointed out that the ancient story has a “sting in the tale.” Years later, Cincinnatus returned to power “to suppress a popular uprising by the underprivileged.
“So it’s a risky analogy,” she told the BBC.
Johnson insisted this really is the end of his leadership ambitions.
“I am like one of those booster rockets that has fulfilled its function, and I will now be gently re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down invisibly in some remote and obscure corner of the Pacific,” he said.
Former Conservative leader William Hague saw that as a melancholy image for a leader whose faults eclipsed his attributes.
“He was a rocket booster on which the guidance system failed,” Hague told Times Radio. “He was this great soaring thing in politics, an extraordinary thing, which unnecessarily went wrong. And that is a tragedy for the country and the Conservative Party and for him.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:14:43Z
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ISTANBUL (AP) — Troubled relations between regional rivals Turkey and Greece worsened Tuesday, with Turkey’s president doubling down on a thinly veiled invasion threat and Athens responding that it’s ready to defend its sovereignty.
Turkey and Greece have decades-old disputes over an array of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and disagreements over the airspace there. The friction between the neighbors has brought the NATO allies to the brink of war three times in the last half-century.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey could “come all of a sudden one night” in response to perceived Greek threats, suggesting a Turkish attack on its neighbor cannot be ruled out.
Questioned about his earlier use of the phrase over the weekend and the possibility of Turkish military action, Erdogan reiterated the expression.
“What I’m talking about is not a dream,” he said at a news conference in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. “If what I said was that we could come one night all of a sudden (it means) that, when the time comes, we can come suddenly one night.”
Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said that for days Turkish officials have been making “outrageous comments” against Greece, including Erdogan’s remarks that he said suggested Turkey “could invade” the Greek islands.
“I would advise anybody who dreams of attacks and conquest to consider three or four times,” he said after talks in Athens with French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna. “We are in a position to defend our country, our independence and territorial integrity.”
Ankara says Greece is violating international agreements by militarizing islands close to Turkey’s Aegean coastline. It has also accused Greek air defenses of locking on to Turkish fighter jets during NATO exercises over the eastern Mediterranean.
Dendias said Greece needs to defend its eastern Aegean Sea islands — including tourist hotspots Rhodes and Kos, which are much closer to Turkey than to the Greek mainland — against its larger and militarily stronger neighbor.
“The Turkish side maintains that these islands are under Greek occupation,” he said. “Let me point out that opposite the Aegean islands is stationed the biggest landing fleet in Europe and a full Turkish army group,” he said.
He also accused Turkey’s military of repeatedly violating Greek airspace and waters.
“This year there have been 6,100 violations of our airspace, 157 overflights of Greek territory and 1,000 violations of our territorial waters,” he said.
Greece almost daily scrambles fighter aircraft to identify and intercept Turkish military planes and often simulated dogfights break out, which have led to several fatalities in the past decades.
Erdogan was no less adamant. “There are some illegitimate threats against us and if these illegitimate threats continue there’s an end to one’s patience,” he said.
“When the time is due, necessary action will be taken because it is not a good sign to lock on radars to our planes. Such things done by Greece are not a good sign.”
Erdogan has previously said Turkish forces can “come all of a sudden one night” when threatening military action against Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq. Turkey has conducted several military operations against the militants in recent years.
He first used the phrase in connection to Greece at an aerial technology festival on Saturday.
Erdogan faces elections next year, as does Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, and increasing rhetoric against Greece would rally his nationalist base amid Turkey’s economic troubles.
___
Nicholas Paphitis in Athens, Greece, contributed.
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CAIRO (AP) — Around 380 people were killed in tribal clashes in Sudan between January and August, most of them in the conflict-wracked Darfur region, the U.N. said Tuesday.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, said more than 430 people were injured during the same period, which has seen 224 violent incidents in 12 of the country’s 18 provinces.
The clashes – mostly between Arab and non-Arab tribes – have displaced around 177,340 people, OCHA said, further straining operations of aid agencies in the crisis-hit country.
West Darfur province was the hardest hit with 76 incidents that killed at least 145 people and wounded 156 others, it said.
The tally did not include 23 people, including two children, who were killed when tribal fighting renewed earlier this month in the Blue Nile Province, Save the Children charity said.
The violence, which erupted Sept. 1 and last for four days in the town of Roseires, also wounded 23 people, including 10 children, according to the charity.
Sudan, home to several long-running ethnic conflicts, has plunged into chaos since a military coup last year. The takeover upended the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
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| 2022-09-21T11:14:58Z
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Chandigarh: A first-year student of a private university in Punjab's Phagwara committed suicide, triggering a protest by fellow students on the campus, police said on Wednesday.
The deceased Agni S Dilip, 21, hailing from Kerala was studying B Design at Lovely Professional University (LPU).
Soon after the suicide, other students of the university held a protest on the campus. Policemen have been deployed outside the university campus.
Prima facie, the student was facing some personal issues, as was suggested by a suicide note left by him, a police official in Phagwara said.
Police said the student's parents have been informed and an investigation is underway.
A Kapurthala district administration official appealed to students not to believe any rumours.
LPU said it is saddened by the unfortunate incident.
"The initial investigation by the police, and the content of the suicide note point towards personal issues of the deceased. The university is providing full support to the authorities for further investigation.
"The University mourns the loss of the student and expresses its condolences to the bereaved family," LPU said in a statement posted on its Twitter handle.
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LONDON (AP) — American authors Elizabeth Strout and Percival Everett are up against writers from Britain, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka as finalists for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
Strout’s symphony of everyday lives “Oh William!” and Everett’s powerful novel about racism and police violence, “The Trees,” are on a shortlist announced Tuesday for the 50,000 pound ($58,000) prize.
The other contenders include Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo, for animal fable “Glory”; Irish writer Claire Keegan’s “Small Things Like These”; and “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka.
British fantasy author Alan Garner — the oldest-ever Booker nominee at 87 — is on the list for “Treacle Walker.”
Former British Museum director Neil MacGregor, who is chairing the judging panel, said several of the books are inspired by real events and “address long national histories of cruelty and injustice, in Sri Lanka and Ireland, Zimbabwe and the United States.”
“Set in different places at different times, they are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all,” he said of the shortlist.
Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers and was originally open only to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers. Eligibility was expanded in 2014 to all novels in English published in the U.K.
Last year’s winner was “The Promise,” by South Africa’s Damon Galgut.
The winner will be crowned Oct. 17 at a ceremony in London.
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Gilbert Mata woke up excited Tuesday for the first day of school since a gunman’s bullet tore through his leg three months ago in a fourth grade classroom in Uvalde.
The 10-year-old has healed from his physical wounds, but burning smells still remind him of gunfire and the sight of many police officers recalls the day in May that an assailant killed 19 of his classmates and two teachers.
On a morning that many Uvalde families had dreaded, a new school year began in the small South Texas town with big hugs on sidewalks, patrol cars parked at every corner and mothers wiping away tears while pulling away from the curb in the drop-off line.
Mata was ready to return, this time with his own cellphone. His mother, Corina Comacho, had a tougher time letting her child go back to class.
“There’s a certain time he can get his phone out and text us he’s OK,” she said after walking him into a new school, Flores Elementary, and dropping him off behind doors with new locks. “That’s like, ‘OK, that’s good. Now I feel better.'”
Outside Uvalde Elementary, teachers in matching turquoise shirts emblazoned with “Together We Rise & Together We Are Better” gently led students through a newly installed 8-foot (2.4-meter) fence and past a state trooper standing outside the front entrance.
“Good morning, sunshine!” greeted one teacher. “You ready to have a good school year?”
Robb Elementary, where the attack unfolded on May 24, is permanently closed and will eventually be demolished.
A large memorial of stuffed animals, victims’ photographs and crosses remains outside the scene of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
Outside the other schools in Uvalde — which are only a short drive away — some added safety measures that the district rushed to implement after the attack were incomplete.
Security cameras are still in the works. New metal fencing surrounds some campuses, partially encloses others and isn’t up at all at Flores Elementary, where many Robb students are enrolled this year.
The attack lasted more than 70 minutes before police finally confronted the gunman and killed him. The delay infuriated parents and led to a damning report by state lawmakers. Now more police are on patrol, but distrust is rampant.
“There’s a big ol’ gap right here. Anyone can walk through,” said Celeste Ibarra, 30, pointing to the new barrier around Uvalde Elementary while standing in her front yard across the street.
Ibarra’s older daughter, 9-year-old Aubriella Melchor, was in Robb Elementary during the shooting and seemed to drag out Tuesday morning as long as possible, taking longer than usual to get dressed and poking at her breakfast. When back-to-school shopping rolled around, she didn’t want to go to Walmart, and the glittery pencils Ibarra bought to get her daughter excited didn’t work.
“She kind of just played with her cereal,” Ibarra said after dropping her off. “She was thinking. I know she was scared.”
Uvalde is off to a late start for school: Classes resumed weeks ago in many parts of Texas, where other districts encouraged students and teachers Tuesday to show support by wearing Uvalde’s maroon colors. “We are all standing with you,” first lady Jill Biden tweeted.
Uvalde pushed back the first day of class after a summer of heartache, anger and revelations that nearly 400 officers who rushed to the scene waited so long to go inside the classroom.
Steve McCraw, the head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, called the response an “abject failure,” and the district fired school Police Chief Pete Arredondo last month after he was blamed for the slow law enforcement response.
As the new school year got underway, the DPS said Tuesday that five of its officers had been referred to the agency’s inspector general over their action during the shooting. The referrals are the result of an internal review, spokesman Travis Considine said. Two of the five have been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the inspector general’s investigation.
The department had more than 90 troopers and officers at the scene of Robb Elementary, more than any other agency.
The agency also made public a letter McCraw sent in July, saying that DPS officers should treat anyone who opens fire at a school as an active shooter, not a “barricaded subject.”
“We will provide proper training and guidelines for recognizing and overcoming poor command decisions at an active shooter scene,” the letter said.
Over the summer, more than 100 students in Uvalde signed up for virtual learning. Others transferred to private schools. Elsa Avila, a fourth grade teacher who was shot in the abdomen and survived, missed the first day of school Tuesday for the first time in 30 years.
For Mata’s family, virtual school wasn’t really in the conversation: Gilbert didn’t do well with online classes during the pandemic. And besides, he wanted to go to Flores Elementary with his friends, said his mother and Michael Martinez, his stepfather.
Mata is one of 11 survivors of the classroom whose families stay in touch, Comacho said. A ricocheted bullet went through his ankle and calf in Room 112.
The extra security measures have brought little comfort to Martinez, who tried to put off everything when it came to the first day. “I wasn’t ready for him to go back to school, but he says he was,” Martinez said.
During an open house at Flores Elementary, Martinez said when he pressed a teacher about how the staff would protect students this time, the response was an unsatisfactory rundown about new locks.
“He didn’t answer me what I really asked him. Like, how are you going to help? How are you going to save my kid if something happens?” Martinez said. “He didn’t give me what I wanted to hear.”
Admittedly, Martinez said, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. He just knows he wasn’t reassured.
“I just wanted to hear something to make my mind change,” he said.
___
For more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting.
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Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, built during the Soviet era and one of the 10 biggest in the world, has been engulfed by fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops in recent weeks, fueling concerns of a nuclear catastrophe.
Here is a look at the current situation:
WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW
The plant has six reactors, only one of which was operational as of Saturday.
The shelling so far hasn’t damaged the plant’s reactors or spent nuclear fuel storage, but has repeatedly struck some auxiliary equipment.
On Monday, the plant was knocked off Ukraine’s electricity grid after its last transmission line was disconnected because of a fire caused by shelling.
Pending repairs, the plant’s only operational reactor was generating the power the plant needs for its own safety in so-called “island mode.”
Two inspectors from the U.N.’s atomic watchdog have remained at the plant following a visit by a larger team last week.
WHAT ARE THE POTENTIAL THREATS
Fighting near the plant has fueled fears of a disaster like the one at Chernobyl, where a reactor exploded and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the world’s worst nuclear accident.
Nuclear experts say while the buildings housing Zaporizhzhia’s reactors are protected by reinforced concrete that could withstand an errant shell or rocket, a disruption in the electrical supply could knock out cooling systems essential for the reactors’ safety. Emergency diesel generators can be unreliable.
“If power is lost in the fog of war, then we are in unchartered territory,” says Paul Dorfman, a nuclear safety expert at the University of Sussex in England.
WHAT IS “ISLAND MODE”
Functioning in “island mode” supplies power for the residual heat removal of the reactor cores and the spent fuel pools.
Experts say it is very unreliable.
Mycle Schneider, an independent policy consultant and coordinator of the World Nuclear Industry Status Report, said if the diesel generators fail, a core meltdown could occur within hours.
If the reactor is already turned off, the risk depends on the time since shutdown. The less time has passed, the more cooling is required, said Schneider.
While the pool containing Zaphorizhzha’s spent fuel is located inside the plant’s containment area, a serious reactor accident would likely affect the pool as well.
“Irradiated fuel overheats and catches fire spontaneously if it exposed to air and not cooled anymore,” said Schneider.
___
This story was corrected to show that the plant has had only one reactor operational since Saturday, not Monday.
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(NewsNation) — If you’re a new college graduate looking for a place to move, the Midwest might be an ideal landing spot.
An analysis by Insurify has identified five Midwest cities as the best for new graduates, based on factors including unemployment rate, cost of living, rental prices, alternative transit and arts and entertainment venues. The criteria were used to determine an overall appeal score for cities on a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the highest/best.
Eight of the top 10 cities identified in the rankings are in the Midwest.
“Across the board, these cities offer entertainment and alternative transit opportunities in line with many of the nation’s coastal metropolises, yet at a discounted price that can appeal to many young grads just starting their professional careers,” Insurify said of the region.
Here are the top 5 cities:
1. St. Louis, Missouri
- Overall Appeal Score: 100.0 (25% greater than state average)
- Cost of living index: 89.6 (vs. national average of 100)
- Unemployment rate (June 2022): 2.8%
2. Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Overall Appeal Score: 98.3 (30% greater than state average)
- Cost of living index: 105.4 (vs. national average of 100)
- Unemployment rate (June 2022): 2.2%
3. Rapid City, South Dakota
- Overall Appeal Score: 88.8 (23% greater than state average)
- Cost of living index: 94.2 (vs. national average of 100)
- Unemployment rate (June 2022): 2.5%
4. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Overall Appeal Score: 85.5 (58% greater than state average)
- Cost of living index: 93.1 (vs. national average of 100)
- Unemployment rate (June 2022): 4.6%
5. Lincoln, Nebraska
- Overall Appeal Score: 84.9 (12% greater than state average)
- Cost of living index: 94.7 (vs. national average of 100)
- Unemployment rate (June 2022): 2.4%
Rounding out the top 10 after Lincoln are Portland, Oregon; Rochester, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota; Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Denver, respectively.
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Police in Tennessee said Tuesday they had found the body of a Memphis woman abducted during a pre-dawn run, confirming fears that Eliza Fletcher was killed after she was forced into an SUV on Friday morning.
The news followed an exhaustive search throughout the long weekend with dogs, ATVs and a helicopter in a case that has drawn national media attention and is already becoming a source of partisan controversy over criminal sentencing and parole.
U.S. Marshals arrested Cleotha Abston, 38, on Saturday after police detected his DNA on a pair of sandals found near to where Fletcher was last seen, according to an arrest affidavit. Police did not find Fletcher’s body until just after 5 p.m. on Monday and did not publicly confirm that the body was Fletcher’s until Tuesday morning. The 34-year-old Fletcher was a school teacher and the granddaughter of a prominent Memphis businessman.
Abston was released from prison in 2020 after serving 20 years for a previous kidnapping. On Tuesday morning, he made his first court appearance on charges of kidnapping, tampering with evidence, theft, identity theft, and fraudulent use of a credit card.
Several of Fletcher’s relatives were in the courtroom along with more than 20 media members as Abston was issued a $510,000 bond. Abston said he could not afford bond and he could not afford a lawyer. General Sessions Judge Louis Montesi appointed a public defender to represent Abston.
Court records showed Abston also has been charged with first-degree murder. He is scheduled to appear in court again Wednesday.
Memphis Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said it was too early in the investigation to determine how and where Fletcher was killed. Davis said the body was found behind a vacant duplex. A police affidavit said officers noticed vehicle tracks next to the duplex’s driveway, and they “smelled an odor of decay.”
Purple running shorts whose appearance was consistent with those Fletcher was wearing were found in a discarded trash bag nearby, the affidavit said.
Abston previously kidnapped a prominent Memphis attorney in 2000 when he was just 16 years old. He spent 20 years in prison for that crime, but he had been sentenced to 24. Some prominent Tennessee Republicans on Tuesday were quick to argue that had Abston served his full sentence, Fletcher would still be alive.
“This case not only proves that the recently passed Truth in Sentencing Act was necessary, but that it was long overdue,” Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally said in a statement Tuesday. “We must redouble our efforts to ensure those who transgress against citizens are punished — and severely.”
The statute requires serving entire sentences for various felonies, including attempted first-degree murder, vehicular homicide resulting from the driver’s intoxication and carjacking.
Newly elected Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy, a Democrat, said Tuesday it was time for grief and “not trying to use this case as a political football.”
Mulroy has notably voiced his opposition to the truth in sentencing law, arguing it does not reduce crime and drives up Tennessee’s prison budget. Speaking Tuesday, he called Fletcher’s case an “isolated attack by a stranger.” Mulroy noted that Abston served 85% of his previous sentence and the DA’s office had opposed parole.
In the earlier kidnapping, Abston forced Kemper Durand into the trunk of his own car at gunpoint, the Commercial Appeal reported. After several hours, Abston took Durand out and forced him to drive to a Mapco gas station to withdraw money from an ATM. At the station, an armed Memphis Housing Authority guard walked in and Durand yelled for help. Abston ran away but was found and arrested. He pleaded guilty in 2001 to especially aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery, according to court records.
Durand, in a victim impact statement, wrote, “I was extremely lucky that I was able to escape from the custody of Cleotha Abston. … It is quite likely that I would have been killed had I not escaped,” the Commercial Appeal reported.
Fletcher is the granddaughter of the late Joseph Orgill III, a Memphis hardware businessman and philanthropist. Her case is the latest that reinforces the fears of many female athletes when it comes to working out alone, at night or in secluded places. Crime statistics show these types of attacks are exceedingly rare. Women out for a run face much greater dangers from traffic. But the fear they inspire is real, as are smaller-scale episodes of harassment or assaults on women, even in well-populated areas.
In a statement, Fletcher’s family said it was “heartbroken and devastated by this senseless loss.”
“Liza was a such a joy to so many … Now it’s time to remember and celebrate how special she was and to support those who cared so much for her,” the statement said.
In a Facebook post, St. Mary’s Episcopal School, where Fletcher taught kindergarten, said faculty and staff started Tuesday in chapel and lit candles to remember her as “a bright light in our community.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:15:35Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The body of Eliza Fletcher was found Monday night in South Memphis, Memphis Police confirmed on Tuesday morning.
Police officially identified a body found on Victor Street as the missing 34-year-old mother and teacher.
Additional charges of first-degree murder and murder in perpetration of kidnapping have been added for suspect Cleotha Abston, police said.
The body was found during a search in South Memphis near where police say Abston was seen cleaning out his vehicle.
Tuesday morning, Abston faced a judge for the first time since he was arrested.
His bond was set at $500,000.
Abston stood by bailiffs with Fletcher’s family sitting in the front row watching the proceedings. He nodded his head for most of his answers to the judge and only spoke when asked by the judge whether his last name was Abston or Henderson.
After his court appearance, the Memphis Police Department, the FBI, ATF U.S. Marshals, and the District Attorney’s office held a press conference outside MPD headquarters where they confirmed Abston’s charges were being upgraded after the discovery of Fletcher’s body.
Students at St. Mary’s Episcopal School, the private school where missing jogger Eliza Fletcher taught, will start school late and gather in chapel Tuesday.
Fletcher was a Junior Kindergarten teacher at St. Mary’s. A Youtube account shows videos she made for her students during the pandemic. You can view it here.
► Eliza Fletcher abduction: See all our coverage
Fletcher, a 34-year-old mother and teacher, disappeared after she left her Midtown Memphis home and went for a run early Friday morning. Police said she was forced into an SUV on Central Avenue near the University of Memphis.
Fletcher is the granddaughter and heiress of the late Joseph “Joe” Orgill III, a Memphis hardware business owner and philanthropist who died in 2018.
Cleotha Abston has been arrested by Memphis Police and charged with kidnapping and several other charges in connection with the case.
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| 2022-09-21T11:15:42Z
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WELDON, Saskatchewan (AP) — Canadian police hunted for the remaining suspect in the stabbing deaths of 10 people in an Indigenous community and nearby town in the province of Saskatchewan after finding the body of his brother amid a massive manhunt for the pair.
Damien Sanderson, 31, was found dead Monday near the stabbing sites and authorities believe his brother and fellow suspect, Myles Sanderson, 30, is injured, on the run and likely in the provincial capital of Regina, said police chief Evan Bray. The series of stabbings also wounded 18 people.
RCMP Commanding Officer Assistant Commissioner Rhonda Blackmore said authorities are not sure of the cause of death yet but the injuries were not self-inflicted.
Damien Sanderson’s “body was located outdoors in a heavily grassed area in proximity to a house that was being examined. We can confirm he has visible injuries,” said Blackmore. Asked if Myles Sanderson was responsible for his brother’s death, Blackmore said police are investigating that possibility, but “we can’t say that definitively at this point in time.″
Leaders of the James Smith Cree Nation, where most of the stabbing attacks took place, blamed the killings on the drug and alcohol abuse plaguing the community, which they said was a legacy of the colonization of Indigenous people.
James Smith Cree Nation resident Darryl Burns and his brother, Ivor Wayne Burns, said their sister, Gloria Lydia Burns, was a first responder who was killed while trying responding to a call. Burns said his 62-year-old sister was on a crisis response team.
“She went on a call to a house and she got caught up in the violence,” he said. “She was there to help. She was a hero.”
He blamed drugs and pointed to colonization for the rampant drug and alcohol use on reserves.
“We had a murder suicide here three years ago. My granddaughter and her boyfriend. Last year we had a double homicide. Now this year we have 10 more that have passed away and all because of drugs and alcohol,” Darryl Burns said.
Ivor Wayne Burns also blamed drugs for his sister’s death and said the suspect brothers should not be hated.
“We have to forgive them boys,” he said. “When you are doing hard drugs, when you are doing coke, and when you are doing heroin and crystal meth and those things, you are incapable of feeling. You stab somebody and you think it’s funny. You stab them again and you laugh.”
Blackmore said police were still determining the motive, but the chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations echoes suggestions the stabbings could be drug-related.
“This is the destruction we face when harmful illegal drugs invade our communities, and we demand all authorities to take direction from the chiefs and councils and their membership to create safer and healthier communities for our people,” said Chief Bobby Cameron.
Blackmore said the criminal record of Myles Sanderson dates back years and includes violence. . Last May, Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers issued a wanted list that included him writing that he was “unlawfully at large.”
While authorities believe Myles Sanderson is in Regina, about 335 kilometers (210 miles) south of where the stabbings happened, they have issued alerts in Canada’s three vast prairie provinces — which also include Manitoba and Alberta — and contacted U.S. border officials. The manhunt entered its third day Tuesday.
Before Damien’s body was found, arrest warrants were issued for the suspects and both men faced at least one count each of murder and attempted murder.
The stabbing attack was among the deadliest mass killings in Canada, where such crimes are less common than in the United States. The deadliest gun rampage in Canadian history happened in 2020, when a man disguised as a police officer shot people in their homes and set fires across the province of Nova Scotia, killing 22 people. In 2019, a man used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto.
Deadly mass stabbings are rarer than mass shootings, but have happened around the world. In 2014, 29 people were slashed and stabbed to death at a train station in China’s southwestern city of Kunming. In 2016, a mass stabbing at a facility for the mentally disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, left 19 people dead. A year later, three men killed eight people in a vehicle and stabbing attack at London Bridge.
Police in Saskatchewan got their first call about a stabbing at 5:40 a.m. on Sunday, and within minutes heard about several more. In all, dead or wounded people were found at 13 different locations on the sparsely populated reserve and in the town, Blackmore said. James Smith Cree Nation is about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from Weldon.
Among the 10 killed was Lana Head, who is the former partner of Michael Brett Burns and the mother of their two daughters.
“It’s sick how jail time, drugs and alcohol can destroy many lives,” Burns told the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. “I’m hurt for all this loss.”
Weldon residents have identified one of the dead as Wes Petterson, a retired widower who made he coffee every morning at the senior center. He loved gardening, picking berries, canning, and making jam and cakes, recalled William Works, 47, and his mother, Sharon Works, 64.
“He would give you the shirt off his back if he could,” William Works said, describing his neighbor as a “gentle old fellow” and “community first.”
Sharon Works was baffled: “I don’t understand why they would target someone like him anyway, because he was just a poor, helpless little man, 100 pounds soaking wet. And he could hardly breathe because he had asthma and emphysema and everybody cared about him because that’s the way he was. He cared about everybody else. And they cared about him.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:15:50Z
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(NEXSTAR) – Harry Styles and Chris Pine were in Italy over the weekend for the premiere of their movie “Don’t Worry Darling” at the Venice International Film Festival. The movie’s Monday debut has left people talking about more than just the plot or performances.
One moment caught on camera has people asking: Did Harry Styles just spit on his costar?
Video shared to Twitter shows Styles taking his seat next to Pine in the auditorium. But as he’s preparing to sit, he looks toward Pine’s feet or lap before settling down in his seat. Pine stops clapping, looks down at himself, then appears to chuckle.
So what was going on? Perhaps nothing. But some viewers claim Styles was actually spitting in Pine’s direction. (Watch for yourself in the 10-second clip.)
Fans of both actors (and fans of arguing about things on the internet) played and replayed the video, trying to figure out exactly what happened. Some jumped to Styles’ defense, saying video from another angle makes it look less like Styles is spitting at Pine’s feet. Others offered an alternate explanation for Pine’s mid-clap pause: He temporarily zoned out, like he had during interviews at the film festival earlier in the weekend.
Variety co-editor-in-chief Ramin Setoodeh weighed in, saying, “Coming from the #DontWorryDarling premiere tonight, this is all I can say: There are no trash cans in the Sala Grande — not in the lobby or in the mezzanine where these seats are located. So hypothetically, if you were chewing a piece of gum, there’d be no place to put it.”
We may never know exactly what happened in those few seconds; representatives for both stars declined to comment to Newsweek.
“Don’t Worry Darling” is a psychological thriller about picture-perfect couple Alice (Florence Pugh) and her husband Jack (Styles), who live in an experimental mid-century community in the desert.
The possible #spitgate moment, however, is far from the only source of intrigue surrounding the movie’s cast.
Twitter also had a lot of fun with Pine’s glassy stare as he sat alongside Styles during a press interview. As Styles says, “My favorite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a movie,” Pine stares straight ahead, occasionally blinking.
The question of exactly what happened in the making of “Don’t Worry Darling” has also become a source of global intrigue. Lack of clarity about everything from Shia LaBeouf’s departure from the film to Florence Pugh’s perceived lack of public support for the project have been simmering on TikTok and Twitter for some time. The rumors were furthered by a report in the Hollywood newsletter Puck, citing various anonymous studio and production sources.
The impression that Pugh isn’t supportive of the film largely comes from her silence about it on social media. Pugh is in the middle of production on “Dune 2,” a massive blockbuster, and is expected to go straight back to the set after her Venice obligations.
Though she’s the star of the film, she did not attend Venice press conference as her flight had not yet landed.
Olivia Wilde, the movie’s director, said she didn’t want to contribute to “the endless tabloid gossip” and “the noise.”
“Florence is a force and we are so grateful that she is able to make it tonight,” Wilde said. “I know as a director how disruptive it is to lose an actor even for a day.”
Wilde herself also became a tabloid fixture after paparazzi caught on to her off-screen relationship with Styles. And then there was the CinemaCon moment, in which Wilde was served custody papers by her ex, Jason Sudeikis, during a presentation about her movie on stage in front of thousands of industry professionals and theater owners.
In the past few weeks, all the little threads seemed to catch fire at once. Much of that was stoked by LaBeouf, who came out of the woodwork to contest a two-year-old narrative that he’d been fired from the project. Ultimately, his role went to Styles.
Wilde, in a Variety cover story, is not directly quoted as saying she fired LaBeouf. She did offer: “His process was not conducive to the ethos that I demand in my productions. He has a process that, in some ways, seems to require a combative energy, and I don’t personally believe that is conducive to the best performances.”
In response, LaBeouf sent private emails, texts and video messages to Variety to prove his case that he actually quit due to lack of rehearsal time. The video message, in which she tries to convince LaBeouf to stay on as Jack, was subsequently leaked online in which she calls Pugh “Miss Flo.”
“Don’t Worry Darling” premieres in U.S. theaters Sept. 23.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:15:58Z
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — Family, friends, and community leaders in Memphis expressed their grief after the body of Eliza Fletcher, a local teacher who was last seen jogging on Friday, was found on Monday.
Memphis Police confirmed Tuesday that Fletcher was found dead behind a home in South Memphis. Her body was discovered during a search near where police said suspect Cleotha Abston was seen cleaning out his vehicle.
The 34-year-old mother’s family released a statement during a press conference with the Shelby County District Attorney and law enforcement officials Tuesday:
“We are heartbroken and devastated by this senseless loss. Liza was a such a joy to so many – her family, friends, colleagues, students, parents, members of her Second Presbyterian Church congregation, and everyone who knew her.
Now it’s time to remember and celebrate how special she was and to support those who cared so much for her. We appreciate all the expressions of love and concern we have received. We are grateful beyond measure to local, state and federal law enforcement for their tireless efforts to find Liza and to bring justice to the person responsible for this horrible crime.
We hope that everyone, including media representatives, understand the need for the family to grieve in privacy without outside intrusion during this painful time.”
Following the release of the family’s statement, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee expressed his condolences and support on Twitter, writing:
“Maria & I are heartbroken by the tragic death of Eliza Fletcher, a dedicated teacher, wife & mother of two. We lift the Fletcher family up in prayer during this time of unspeakable grief. I thank law enforcement for their tireless efforts & trust justice will be swift & severe.“
Second Presbyterian Church, the church Fletcher attended, also expressed their grief in a Facebook post:
“We are grieving deeply over the loss of dear church member, Liza Fletcher.
Please join us in prayer for the Fletcher, Wellford, and Orgill families, as well as for the Memphis community. We are seeking shelter in the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort whose Son is the blessed hope of the resurrection and will at the Great Day heal us and our whole world.”
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris released the following statement:
“Eliza Fletcher was an indefatigable educator, devoted wife and mother, and deeply rooted member of her church and our community. Our prayers are with her family and all of those touched by her life. We all hope the perpetrator of this heinous crime is swiftly brought to justice.”
Dr. Greg Jones, President of Belmont University where Fletcher attended, shared about the difference she has made as a teacher in the Memphis area.
“Eliza (Wellford) Fletcher was a Belmont alumna making a tangible difference in her community, and we are all heartbroken by the news of her tragic death. Liza graduated from Belmont University in 2012 with a Master’s of Arts in Teaching education degree and was shaping young lives as a teacher in the Memphis area. Though we all hoped for a different outcome following Friday’s news of her kidnapping, we are grateful for the many law enforcement teams that worked together throughout the weekend to find Liza and to bring justice to the person responsible. The entire Belmont community joins with many around the nation in praying for Liza’s family and friends as they begin to navigate incomprehensible grief.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:16:05Z
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HONOLULU (KHON) – Imagine you’re swimming at one of Hawaii’s beaches and you turn around to see a shark headed in your direction. What should you do in this situation? Swim away as fast as you can? Stay as still as possible? Make wild gestures to try to scare it away?
One diver who lives in Kona gives people a close look at shark encounters, so you don’t have to imagine it. She also offers tips on what to do if you do find yourself face-to-face with one.
“They aren’t looking at you and thinking that we are their prey. It’s actually surprising how shy sharks can be,” said Kayleigh Grant, who owns and operates Kaimana Ocean Safari, a tour company that takes people out to experience the ocean and teach them about marine life.
Most of the time, making eye contact is enough to spook sharks and have them maintain a respectful distance, according to Grant. With approximately 1.2 million followers on TikTok, Grant shows people with her videos how they can stay safe around sharks.
“The best way to do that is stay calm, don’t splash, maintain eye contact, and if one comes up to you, try putting your fins or camera between you and them,” she explained. “Don’t surf or swim in murky waters or after big rainfall, don’t swim near someone actively fishing or harbor mouths, and swim and surf in groups.”
On Saturday, Sept. 3, Maui County closed several beaches and posted shark warning signs after a 51-year-old woman visiting from France was hospitalized in critical condition. According to witnesses, she had reportedly been snorkeling in murky water about 100 yards offshore before she was bitten by the shark.
One misconception Grant wants to settle is that sharks are attracted to our blood. While their sense of smell is unparalleled, sharks aren’t interested in human blood.
“When you dive for a living, you definitely enter the ocean with plenty of cuts and scrapes, and I’ve been around sharks while bleeding a bit and there is no reaction,” said Grant. “We don’t smell or taste like their natural food source which is fish!”
Grant has been scuba diving since she moved to the islands about 10 years ago and quickly fell in love with being able to hold her breath underwater, eventually becoming FII freediving certified. In 2020, she and her husband started Kaimana Ocean Safari to offer tours that allow nature to deliver great experiences.
“No two days are ever the same, and the search far and wide is part of the thrill,” said Grant. “You never know what you’ll see or experience out on the ocean.”
At this point, Grant said she must have swam with thousands of sharks, and despite that, she doesn’t have any example to give that would be considered a “close call,” even the time she encountered a great white shark feeding off a dead sperm whale in 2019, just 12 miles off the coast of Oahu.
“It was incredible to see sharks doing what they are here to do. It was amazing how powerful that shark was but also incredibly peaceful at the same time,” said Grant. “There were even some rough toothed dolphins there swimming alongside this massive shark, which showed how chill and gentle she was! It’s something that still feels like a dream every day.”
Grant remembers her first encounter with a shark off North Shore, her heart beating hard at first.
“Swimming with sharks was nothing like I’d imagined it to be or had seen in movies,” she said. “It was thrilling of course, but you spend more time in awe of their beauty and movements versus being scared and worried. Sharks are definitely not the man-eaters you’d see in ‘Jaws.’ Being in the ocean and especially around sharks, you feel very present. It’s a place to forget the stress of the world and you’re certainly not concerned about emails and deadlines. I crave this feeling now, and it’s become a part of my daily practice to find that sense of peace it gives me.”
As someone with years of experience with sharks, Grant is able to read their behavior and body language. If she determines that it’s no longer a good idea to be in the water, she hops out.
“These guys aren’t man-eating monsters that actively try to hunt humans, but they are apex predators and should be respected and treated as such! It’s important to always have that humility when diving with sharks,” she said. “Know that it’s their ocean and we are the visitors. You do take a risk anytime you enter the ocean as it’s a force greater than ourselves and these are still wild animals.”
As she becomes more popular on TikTok and more people discover her videos, Grant is always surprised at how many people still don’t understand sharks or continue to believe what the movies portray. While some might think she’s crazy to be interacting with sharks, she hopes that by showing their true nature, people will see a new side and learn to love them.
“We only protect what we love,” said Grant, “so our aim is to get people loving the ocean.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:16:12Z
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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Elsa Avila slid to her phone, terrified as she held the bleeding side of her abdomen and tried to stay calm for her students. In a text to her family that she meant to send to fellow Uvalde teachers, she wrote: “I’m shot.”
For the first time in 30 years, Avila will not be going back to school as classes resume Tuesday in the small, southwest Texas city. The start of school will look different for her, as for other survivors of the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School in which 21 people died, with an emphasis on healing, both physically and mentally. Some have opted for virtual education, others for private school. Many will return to Uvalde school district campuses, though Robb Elementary itself will never reopen.
“I’m trying to make sense of everything,” Avila said in an August interview, “but it is never going to make sense.”
A scar down her torso brings her to tears as a permanent reminder of the horror she endured with her 16 students as they waited in their classroom for an hour for help while a gunman slaughtered 19 children and two teachers in two adjoining classrooms nearby.
Minutes before she felt the sharp pain of the bullet piercing her intestine and colon, Avila was motioning students away from the walls and windows and closer to her. A student lined up by the door for recess had just told her something was going on outside: People were running — and screaming. As she slammed the classroom door so the lock would catch, her students took their well-practiced lockdown positions.
Moments later, a gunman stormed into their fourth-grade wing and began spraying bullets before ultimately making his way into rooms 111 and 112.
In room 109, Avila repeatedly texted for help, according to messages reviewed by The Associated Press. First at 11:35 a.m. in the text to her family that she says was meant for the teacher group chat. Then at 11:38 in a message to the school’s vice principal. At 11:45, she responded to a text from the school’s counselor asking if her classroom was on lockdown with: “I’m shot, send help.” And when the principal assured her that help was on the way, she replied simply: “Help.”
“Yes they are coming,” the principal wrote back at 11:48 a.m.
It’s unclear whether her messages were relayed to police. District officials did not respond to requests for comment on actions taken to communicate with law enforcement on May 24, and an attorney for then-Principal Mandy Gutierrez was not available for comment.
According to a legislative committee’s report that described a botched police response, nearly 400 local, state and federal officers stood in the hallway of the fourth-grade wing or outside the building for 77 minutes before some finally entered the adjoining classrooms and killed the gunman. Lawmakers also found a relaxed approach to lockdowns — which happened often — and security concerns, including issues with door locks. State and federal investigations into the shooting are ongoing.
The district is working to complete new security measures, and the school board in August fired the district’s police chief, Pete Arredondo. Residents say it remains unclear how — or even if — trust between the community and officials can be rebuilt, even as some call for more accountability, better police training and stricter gun safety laws.
Avila recalls hearing the ominous bursts of rapid fire, then silence, then the voices of officers in the hallway yelling, “Crossfire!” and later more officers standing nearby.
“But still nobody came to help us,” she said.
As Avila lay motionless, unable to speak loud enough to be heard, some of her students nudged and shook her. She wished for the strength to tell them she was still alive.
A light flashed into their window, but nobody identified themselves. Scared it might be the gunman, the students moved away.
“The little girls closest to me kept patting me and telling me, ‘It’s going to be OK miss. We love you miss,’” Avila said.
Finally, at 12:33 p.m. a window in her classroom broke. Officers arrived to evacuate her students — the last to be let out in the area, according to Avila.
With her remaining strength, Avila pulled herself up and helped usher students onto chairs and tables and through the window. Then, clutching her side, she told an officer she was too weak to jump herself. He came through the window to pull her out.
“I never saw my kids again. I know they climbed out the window and I could just hear them telling them, `Run, run, run!’” Avila said.
She remembers being taken to the airport, where a helicopter flew her to a San Antonio hospital. She was in and out of care until June 18.
Avila later learned that a student in her class was wounded by shrapnel to the nose and mouth but had since been released from medical care. She said other students helped their injured classmates until officers arrived.
“I am very proud of them because they were able to stay calm for a whole hour that we were in there terrified,” Avila said.
As her students prepare to return to school for the first time since that traumatic day, Avila is on the way to recovery, walking up to eight minutes at a time on the treadmill in physical therapy and going to counseling. She looks forward to teaching again someday.
Outside of a shuttered Robb Elementary, a memorial for the people killed overflows at the entrance gate. Teachers from across Texas stopped by this summer to pay their respects and reflect on what they would do in the same situation.
“If I survive, I have to make sure they survive first,” said Olga Oglin, an educator of 23 years from Dallas, her voice breaking.
“Whatever happens to a student at our school, it just happens to one of my kids,” Olgin said, adding that as the person to greet parents, students and staff at the door in the mornings, she likely would be the first person shot.
Ofelia Loyola, who teaches elementary school in San Antonio, visited with her husband, middle school teacher Raul Loyola. She was baffled at the delayed response from law enforcement, as seen on security and police video.
“They are all kids. It doesn’t matter how old they are, you protect them,” she said.
Last week, Avila and several of her students met for the end-of-year party they were unable to have in May. They played in the pool at a country club and she gave them each a bracelet with a little cross to remind them that “God was with us that day and they are not alone,” she said.
“We always talked about being kind, being respectful, taking care of each other — and they were able to do that on that day,” Avila said.
“They took care of each other. They took care of me.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:16:20Z
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MIAMI (WFLA) — The Food and Drug Administration has announced a recall of smoked salmon sold in 10 states over a potential listeria contamination.
The FDA said St. James Smokehouse of Miami voluntarily recalled 93 cases of Scotch Reserve Scottish Salmon after a routine sampling by the Washington State Department of Agriculture detected the bacteria in the product.
The salmon was distributed to stores in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington State and Wisconsin.
Listeria monocytogenes is a dangerous bacteria that can cause fatal infections in children, the elderly, or those with weakened immune systems.
While those with listeria infections typically suffer high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, those who are pregnant can end up having miscarriages or stillbirths. Recently, a pregnant woman said she lost her baby to a listeria infection from ice cream produced by Big Olaf Creamery.
The affected salmon has a lot number of 123172 and the UPC code 060022710356. No other products, brands or lots are associated with this recall.
If you have this type of salmon, dispose of it immediately or return it for a refund.
As of Friday, no infections have been reported. If you have questions about the recall, call 305-461-0231.
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| 2022-09-21T11:16:42Z
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MIAMI (WFLA) — The Food and Drug Administration has announced a recall of smoked salmon sold in 10 states over a potential listeria contamination.
The FDA said St. James Smokehouse of Miami voluntarily recalled 93 cases of Scotch Reserve Scottish Salmon after a routine sampling by the Washington State Department of Agriculture detected the bacteria in the product.
The salmon was distributed to stores in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Washington State and Wisconsin.
Listeria monocytogenes is a dangerous bacteria that can cause fatal infections in children, the elderly, or those with weakened immune systems.
While those with listeria infections typically suffer high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, those who are pregnant can end up having miscarriages or stillbirths. Recently, a pregnant woman said she lost her baby to a listeria infection from ice cream produced by Big Olaf Creamery.
The affected salmon has a lot number of 123172 and the UPC code 060022710356. No other products, brands or lots are associated with this recall.
If you have this type of salmon, dispose of it immediately or return it for a refund.
As of Friday, no infections have been reported. If you have questions about the recall, call 305-461-0231.
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| 2022-09-21T11:16:49Z
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DUNEDIN, Fla. (WFLA) — Swimmers in Dunedin, Florida, had a close encounter with a pair of stingrays.
Drone operator John Yanchoris captured the stingrays swimming near the Dunedin Causeway.
The video shows two people wading in the water while the stingrays swim by.
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, six species of stingrays are found in the state. They include the Atlantic Stingray, the Bluntnose Stingray, Roughtail Stingray, Smooth Butterfly Ray, Southern Stingray and the Yellow Stingray.
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — Her stolen truck was found, but when a Memphis woman got it back, she got more than she bargained for.
“I said, Roger — my husband is Roger — I said Roger, I don’t want to keep this stuff,” Christy Pennington said. “It’s just scary to me.”
He found several bags. One was a bunch of junk. Glasses, stuff like that. Then another bag was full of panties, so we chucked that not thinking anything, you know.
Christy Pennington
It all started June 29 in a parking lot off Front Street, where Pennington’s husband parked his 2005 red Chevy Silverado truck.
“My husband went outside to go to work, and it was gone,” she said.
About an hour later, police pulled up. They asked questions, combed for evidence, and put together a report.
“We thought it was gone,” Pennington said.
But weeks later, officers spotted the truck on Mt. Moriah Road. They say the driver, 53-year-old Stacey Hardwick, rammed a Chevy Cruze on Aug. 3 and threatened a man and woman inside the vehicle, threatening to “blow their brains out.”
When police tried to pull him over, he lead them on a chase into Mississippi, ditching Pennington’s truck before he was put into handcuffs. Hardwick was wanted on 15 warrants including kidnapping, aggravated assault, convicted felon in possession of a handgun and possession of methamphetamine with intent to manufacture, deliver or sell.
“When they called and told us, we were like, wow that’s something,” Pennington said.
On August 11, Pennington was able to get the truck from the impound lot. She showed Nexstar’s WREG these pictures of what it looked like.
“RAM” had been slapped on the back of it. The bed was full of tires and dirty tools. The inside was worse. None of it belonged to her.
Pennington said right away, her husband started sifting through it.
“He found several bags. One was a bunch of junk. Glasses, stuff like that. Then another bag was full of panties, so we chucked that not thinking anything, you know. Then he grabbed this bag,” she said.
A red backpack contained two laptops, old credit cards, and IDs belonging to a man and two women.
“I Googled these two girls’ names, and I can’t find anything on either one of them,” she said.
The name of the man whose Social Security card was in the truck, Doubse Edwards — matched that of a guy who was arrested in January during a sting operation.
“I look up his name and that’s when I discovered he was one of the nine that was arrested in January for human trafficking,” Pennington said. It’s not yet clear why Hardwick allegedly had the items in the truck.
Investigators say Edwards had meth and crack on him when he agreed to have sex with an undercover agent posing as a 16-year-old prostitute.
Pennington thought police would want to know about the items she found, so she called the police officer who did the report.
He told her, “Our investigation is done. We don’t need anything. You can do what you want, basically is what he said,” Pennington explained.
She also called the district attorney’s office but says the woman who answered the phone wasn’t interested either.
“I said, ‘OK.’ That’s weird to me. Then I talked to you all,” she said. “It’s probably nothing. But I don’t want that to be my daughter and didn’t do something in case there was something.”
Nexstar’s WREG reached out to the Memphis Police Dept. (MPD), the district attorney’s office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. MPD said they would handle the matter.
Officers asked Pennington to bring the items to the North Main precinct. She handed over the backpack and was told the items would be delivered to sex crime investigators. They would look at it to see if any of it could be possible evidence.
Pennington said she’s also continuing to go through the mess and wishes she hadn’t thrown things away before realizing not everything in the truck is trash.
MPD did say their officers sorted through the items in the truck and took inventory. They say they found meth and tagged saws and tools they believed to be stolen.
They also said they won’t clear out a vehicle when it’s returned in case any items belong to the owner. They ask that people call the detective back if they find anything suspicious.
But that’s what Pennington tried to do. WREG didn’t know why officers didn’t want these items at first.
“I didn’t want to get rid of it until someone looks at it and says no, nothing there,” Pennington said.
She now feels better police are taking a second look.
“Let them do with it what they want. I don’t want to be responsible for any of it,” she said.
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| 2022-09-21T11:17:04Z
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(NEXSTAR) — Every state has one: a capital. Dover, Delaware, is technically the oldest, and Juneau, Alaska, the youngest. But some of the nation’s capitals are better to live in than others.
Reviewing employment, education, affordability, leisure, and safety data points, SmartAsset recently ranked the best state capitals to live in. This is the ninth time they’ve created such a list, and a new capital has been crowned as the most liveable.
Specifically, in order to rank the 50 capitals, the report’s authors ranked them based on 10 different metrics: June unemployment, five-year income grown, 2022 high school graduation rate, income after housing costs, down payment-to-income rate, estimated annual cost of living, the concentration of dining and entertainment establishments, hours worked each week, and 2020 rates of violent and property crimes.
Overall, SmartAsset found two common trends: state capitals vary greatly in how affordable they are and the Midwest is largely the most livable.
The most expensive state capital was Boston, Massachusetts, which was found to be $15,000 more expensive to live in annually than the cheapest on the list, Jefferson City, Missouri.
Half of the states ranking in the top 10, listed below, were found in the Midwest. This is largely due to their strong rankings regarding employment, education, and affordability. Capitals across the Northeast and West also snagged top-10 spots, with no Southern states ranking as high.
Pierre, South Dakota, took the top spot on SmartAsset’s list thanks to its unemployment rate of 1.9% and fourth-highest income after housing costs, as well as a high rate of high school graduation. Pierre edged out Madison, Wisconsin, which was ranked as the best capital to live in for the past two years.
Here are the top 10 state capitals to live in, according to SmartAsset’s review:
- Pierre, South Dakota
- Madison, Wisconsin
- Lincoln, Nebraska
- Boise, Idaho
- Helena, Montana
- Concord, New Hampshire
- Montpelier, Vermont
- Jefferson City, Missouri
- Albany, New York
- Des Moines, Iowa
Jefferson City and Albany edged out Raleigh, North Carolina, and Frankfort, Kentucky, both of which ranked among the top 10 last year.
Pierre had the highest scores for affordability and employment and education, while Madison had the highest score in terms of leisure and safety.
While some Northeastern capitals landed among the best to live in, others landed among the worst. The lowest-ranked capitals, according to SmartAsset, were found throughout the country – from the Northeast to the South and into the Mountain West.
Dover, Delaware, was ranked as the worst capital after recording the worst possible score for employment and education, and a low score for affordability. It did, however, earn a higher leisure and safety score than the top-ranked capital, Pierre (41.71 versus 34.12). Last year’s worst-ranked capital was Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which climbed slightly to 49th in this year’s rankings.
Below are the worst capitals to live in, according to SmartAsset:
- Dover, Delaware
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Denver, Colorado
- Hartford, Connecticut
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Olympia, Washington
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Augusta, Maine
Little Rock had the lowest leisure and safety score while Hartford had the worst affordability score. Hartford did, however, have a top-10 leisure and safety score.
You can see where your state capital ranks here.
SmartAsset’s rankings of best capitals to live in isn’t too different from a recent ranking by WalletHub, which analyzed dozens of different metrics to determine the best states to live in.
The authors of WalletHub’s list found states in the Northeast and Midwest were among the best, while states in the southern part of the country were considered among the worst.
Topping out that list was Massachusetts (Boston ranked as the 26th best capital to live in) followed by New Jersey, New York, Idaho, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Wyoming, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. At the bottom of the list was Mississippi, followed by Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
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| 2022-09-21T11:17:11Z
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CLEVELAND (WJW) — Video released to WJW shows a man crawling in where luggage comes out at Ohio’s Cleveland Hopkins International Airport.
Hopkins Airport security video captured the man at the carousel where baggage is sent out to travelers on arriving flights.
Instead of waiting at the opening, he crawled through it to get to the airline side of baggage claim, a secure area where passengers are not allowed.
Body camera video shows a Cleveland police officer confronting him.
The officer tells him on the video, “This is a big, big no-no. We’re talking federal government. This is a secured area.”
The man, later identified in a police report as Nicholas Garrett, answers, “I wasn’t trying to break no laws or nothing.”
According to the police report, when Garrett’s luggage arrived, he noticed the zipper was open and a pair of $1,000 pair of sneakers was missing. “He said he could see an employee,” the report stated.
So he crawled through the opening.
Garrett told police, “Like, who took my shoes out my bag? All my stuff is scattered around like somebody here just went through my bag and took my shoes.”
Later, as he was led away in cuffs, he said, “My bag is still sitting right there with all my stuff, and I’m already missing stuff out of my bag.”
Federal agencies overseeing airports did not get involved. In court, Garrett faced a minor charge of criminal trespass. He pleaded no contest and got a $100 fine.
When WJW called Garrett for comment, someone answered and then hung up.
It wasn’t clear from the police report what happened to the missing shoes.
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| 2022-09-21T11:17:19Z
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(The Conversation) – A heat dome occurs when a persistent region of high pressure traps heat over an area. The heat dome can stretch over several states and linger for days to weeks, leaving the people, crops and animals below to suffer through stagnant, hot air that can feel like an oven.
Typically, heat domes are tied to the behavior of the jet stream, a band of fast winds high in the atmosphere that generally runs west to east.
Normally, the jet stream has a wavelike pattern, meandering north and then south and then north again. When these meanders in the jet stream become bigger, they move slower and can become stationary. That’s when heat domes can occur.
When the jet stream swings far to the north, air piles up and sinks. The air warms as it sinks, and the sinking air also keeps skies clear since it lowers humidity. That allows the sun to create hotter and hotter conditions near the ground.
If the air near the ground passes over mountains and descends, it can warm even more. This downslope warming played a large role in the extremely hot temperatures in the Pacific Northwest during a heat dome event in 2021, when Washington set a state record with 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius), and temperatures reached 121 F in British Columbia in Canada, surpassing the previous Canadian record by 8 degrees F (4 C).
The human impact
Heat domes normally persist for several days in any one location, but they can last longer. They can also move, influencing neighboring areas over a week or two. The heat dome involved in the June 2022 U.S. heat wave crept eastward over time.
On rare occasions, the heat dome can be more persistent. That happened in the southern Plains in 1980, when as many as 10,000 people died during weeks of high summer heat. It also happened over much of the United States during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.
A heat dome can have serious impacts on people, because the stagnant weather pattern that allows it to exist usually results in weak winds and an increase in humidity. Both factors make the heat feel worse – and become more dangerous – because the human body is not cooled as much by sweating.
The heat index, a combination of heat and humidity, is often used to convey this danger by indicating what the temperature will feel like to most people. The high humidity also reduces the amount of cooling at night. Warm nights can leave people without air conditioners unable to cool off, which increases the risk of heat illnesses and deaths. With global warming, temperatures are already higher, too.
One of the worst recent examples of the impacts from a heat dome with high temperatures and humidity in the U.S. occurred in the summer of 1995, when an estimated 739 people died in the Chicago area over five days.
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| 2022-09-21T11:17:27Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden ended the summer on a legislative winning streak, chalking up victories that once appeared out of reach in this polarized capital. Now he wants to make sure voters reward him for that when they cast ballots in November’s big congressional elections.
It’s a tough task with gas and grocery prices still painfully high and the daily political news awash with contentious investigations into his predecessor and with repercussions in the states from the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion.
In an attempt to cut through it all, the White House is escalating its campaign to promote new laws designed to repair the economy and help consumers on a personal level, boosting crucial computer chip manufacturing, lowering prescription drug prices, expanding clean energy and revamping the country’s infrastructure.
Biden, in a meeting with his Cabinet on Tuesday, said his administration has passed “extraordinary parts of our economic agenda” and provided “proof that democracy can deliver for the people.”
His schedule is filling up with trips to promote his policies — Ohio on Friday, Michigan next week — in battleground states where Democrats are facing tight races with Republicans. And his administration is rolling out plans to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars authorized by legislation he has signed.
The president chose John Podesta, a veteran of Democratic administrations, to lead the $375 billion plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change. The money is included in a huge bill — dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act by the White House — which also generates new tax revenue to reduce the deficit and limits the cost of prescription drugs.
“People believe that the legislative accomplishments are meaningful when they can feel them or see them,” William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as a domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, said in an interview.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo announced Tuesday that the administration is preparing to divvy up $50 billion in federal assistance to the computer chip industry, part of a new law known as the CHIPS and Science Act. Companies can apply by February, she said, and the money will be distributed after that.
“With this funding, we’re going to make sure the United States is never again in a position where our national security interests are compromised or key industries are immobilized due to our inability to produce essential semiconductors here at home,” Raimondo said at a White House briefing.
Many of the policies won’t pay dividends for months or years to come. Grant applications must be filed and vetted, new bridges have to be designed, regulations written.
But Biden is seizing opportunities to argue that the legislation is already having an impact. On Friday, he’s going to Ohio for the groundbreaking of Intel’s new computer chip factory, which Biden called “the biggest investment of its kind ever in our nation.”
The factory was announced earlier this year, but the company said in June that it would be delayed because Congress had not yet passed the CHIPS Act.
“We’re finally bringing home jobs that had been overseas for a while,” he said Tuesday.
Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat who is running against Republican J.D. Vance for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Sherrod Brown, plans to join Biden at the event.
Biden makes another trip on Sept. 14 to the Detroit Auto Show to talk about manufacturing electric vehicles in the U.S. as he tries to pair ambitious goals for reducing emissions with promises of new jobs.
His big-money Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates for the purchase of electric cars, although many vehicles won’t qualify because they must include batteries built in North America with minerals mined or recycled here.
This summer’s legislative victories helped Biden vanquish the hardening narrative that Democrats were failing to accomplish much of significance despite controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress. The president plans to hold still another event to celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act, even though he signed it last month.
However, holding voters’ attention could prove difficult. Inflation has cooled somewhat but prices remain high, eating away at pocketbooks despite low unemployment and rising wages.
“Compared to where the administration was at the beginning of 2022, the accomplishments are impressive and several of them were accomplished against the odds,” Galston observed. “That said, I continue to believe that circumstances on the ground, as experienced by voters and citizens, are much more influential in determining voter choice than lists of legislative accomplishments.”
Biden has also been leaning on other issues in hopes of driving up Democratic turnout in November. He delivered a speech last Thursday in Philadelphia where he described Donald Trump as a threat to democracy, and he’s focused on the proliferation of abortion restrictions in states run by Republicans. The new laws have taken effect in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.
At the same time, Biden’s approval rating has been ticking upward. The latest Gallup poll showed him with an approval rating of 44%, up from his lowest level of 38% in July.
“These are not good numbers,” Galston said. “But at least he’s not sinking and drowning. And there’s hope that his nostrils will clear the water line in the not-too-distant future.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will embark on a month-long tour touting Biden’s achievements ahead of the midterms, starting in Detroit on Thursday.
She’s expected to meet with business owners and local leaders before delivering a speech. In addition to talking about modernizing the IRS and cracking down on tax evasion among the rich and big corporations, Yellen plans to address “the existential threat posed by climate change.”
“In the process of boosting domestic clean energy production, the law will support our energy security and insulate us from the type of fossil fuel-driven energy volatility that we’ve seen in the past year,” Yellen will say, according to speech excerpts provided to The Associated Press.
Yellen’s September tour includes stops planned in North Carolina, the Washington, D.C., area. Then there’s an October speech at the 157th anniversary of the Freedman’s Bank Forum to talk about how the president’s economic agenda “advances equity and makes our economy stronger as a result.”
Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company was created by Abraham Lincoln in 1865 to provide economic opportunity for newly emancipated slaves.
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Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein and Josh Boak contributed to this report.
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The names of hundreds of U.S. law enforcement officers, elected officials and military members appear on the leaked membership rolls of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to a report released Wednesday.
The Anti-Defamation League Center on Extremism pored over more than 38,000 names on leaked Oath Keepers membership lists and identified more than 370 people it believes currently work in law enforcement agencies — including as police chiefs and sheriffs — and more than 100 people who are currently members of the military.
It also identified more than 80 people who were running for or served in public office as of early August. The membership information was compiled into a database published by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets.
The data raises fresh concerns about the presence of extremists in law enforcement and the military who are tasked with enforcing laws and protecting the U.S. It’s especially problematic for public servants to be associated with extremists at a time when lies about the 2020 election are fueling threats of violence against lawmakers and institutions.
“Even for those who claimed to have left the organization when it began to employ more aggressive tactics in 2014, it is important to remember that the Oath Keepers have espoused extremism since their founding, and this fact was not enough to deter these individuals from signing up,” the report says.
Appearing in the Oath Keepers’ database doesn’t prove that a person was ever an active member of the group or shares its ideology. Some people on the list contacted by The Associated Press said they were briefly members years ago and are no longer affiliated with the group. Some said they were never dues-paying members.
“Their views are far too extreme for me,” said Shawn Mobley, sheriff of Otero County, Colorado. Mobley told the AP in an email that he distanced himself from the Oath Keepers years ago over concerns about its involvement in the standoff against the federal government at Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada, among other things.
The Oath Keepers, founded in 2009 by Stewart Rhodes, is a loosely organized conspiracy theory-fueled group that recruits current and former military, police and first responders. It asks its members to vow to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” promotes the belief that the federal government is out to strip citizens of their civil liberties and paints its followers as defenders against tyranny.
More than two dozen people associated with the Oath Keepers — including Rhodes — have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. Rhodes and four other Oath Keeper members or associates are heading to trial this month on seditious conspiracy charges for what prosecutors have described as a weekslong plot to keep then-President Donald Trump in power. Rhodes and the other Oath Keepers say that they are innocent and that there was no plan to attack the Capitol.
The Oath Keepers has grown quickly along with the wider anti-government movement and used the tools of the internet to spread their message during Barack Obama’s presidency, said Rachel Carroll Rivas, interim deputy director of research with the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. But since Jan. 6 and Rhodes’ arrest, the group has struggled to keep members, she said.
That’s partly because Oath Keepers had been associated so strongly with Rhodes that the removal of the central figure had an outsized impact, and partly because many associated with the group were often those who wanted to be considered respectable in their communities, she said.
“The image of being associated with Jan. 6 was too much for many of those folks,” she said.
Among the elected officials whose name appears on the membership lists is South Dakota state Rep. Phil Jensen, who won a June Republican primary in his bid for reelection. Jensen told the AP he paid for a one-year membership in 2014 but never received any Oath Keepers’ literature, attended any meetings or renewed his membership.
Jensen said he felt compelled to join because he “believed in the oath that we took to support the US Constitution and to defend it against enemies foreign and domestic.” He wouldn’t say whether he now disavows the Oath Keepers, saying he doesn’t have enough information about the group today.
“Back in 2014, they appeared to be a pretty solid conservative group, I can’t speak to them now,” he said.
ADL said it found the names of at least 10 people who now work as police chiefs and 11 sheriffs. All of the police chiefs and sheriffs who responded to the AP said they no longer have any ties to the group.
“I don’t even know what they’re posting. I never get any updates,” said Mike Hollinshead, sheriff of Idaho’s Elmore County. “I’m not paying dues or membership fees or anything.”
Hollinshead, a Republican, said he was campaigning for sheriff several years ago when voters asked him if he was familiar with the Oath Keepers. Hollinshead said he wanted to learn about the group and recalls paying for access to content on the Oath Keepers’ website, but that was the extent of his involvement.
Benjamin Boeke, police chief in Oskaloosa, Iowa, recalled getting emails from the group years ago and said he believes a friend may have signed him up. But he said he never paid to become a member and doesn’t know anything about the group.
Eric Williams, police chief in Idalou, Texas, also said in an email that he hasn’t been a member or had any interaction with the Oath Keepers in over 10 years. He called the storming of the Capitol “terrible in every way.”
“I pray this country finds its way back to civility and peace in discourse with one another,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington contributed to this report.
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A New Mexico state district court judge on Tuesday disqualified county commissioner and Cowboys for Trump cofounder Couy Griffin from holding public office for engaging in insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The judgment from state District Court Judge Francis Mathew permanently bars Griffin from federal and local public office. It arrived amid a spate of lawsuits aimed at sidelining political candidates and elected officials linked to the Capitol riots.
Griffin was previously convicted in federal court of a misdemeanor for entering Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, without going inside the building. He was sentenced to 14 days and given credit for time served.
The new ruling immediately removes Griffin from his position as a commissioner in Otero County in southern New Mexico. He also is barred from serving as a presidential elector.
“Mr. Griffin aided the insurrection even though he did not personally engage in violence,” Mathew wrote. “By joining the mob and trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds, Mr. Griffin contributed to delaying Congress’s election-certification proceedings.”
Griffin said he was notified of his removal from office by Otero County staff, who prevented him from accessing his work computer and office space at a county building in Alamogordo.
Griffin, who served as his own legal counsel at a two-day bench trial in August, called the ruling a “total disgrace” that disenfranchises his constituents in Otero County.
“The actions that are being taken are, I believe, perfect evidence of the tyranny that we’re right now living under,” Griffin said. “The left continues to speak about democracy being under attack, but is this democracy? Whenever you’re removed from office by the civil courts by the opinion of a liberal judge.”
A flurry of similar lawsuits around the country are seeking to punish politicians who took part in Jan. 6 under provisions of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which holds that anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution can be barred from office for engaging in insurrection or rebellion.
The provisions were put in place shortly after the Civil War.
“It was written to deal with former Confederates … and it’s basically been dormant ever since with one or two odd exceptions,” said Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. “There was nothing else that could be described as an insurrection against the Constitution until Jan. 6.”
At trial, Griffin invoked free speech guarantees in his defense and argued that removing him from office would cut against the will of the people and set a “dangerous precedent.” Elected in 2018, Griffin withstood a recall vote last year but isn’t running for reelection or other office in November.
Mathew wrote that Griffin’s arguments “disregard that the Constitution itself reflects the will of the people.”
Griffin “overlooks that his own insurrectionary conduct on January 6 sought to subvert the results of a free and fair election, which would have disenfranchised millions of voters.”
The lawsuit against Griffin was brought by three plaintiffs in New Mexico with assistance from the Washington-based Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Supportive briefs were filed by the NAACP and progressive watchdog group Common Cause. A federal court declined a recent request to take up the case.
Tuesday’s judgment is “a historic win for accountability for the January 6th insurrection and the efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in the United States,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement.
Griffin, a Republican, forged a group of rodeo acquaintances in 2019 into the promotional group called Cowboys for Trump that staged horseback parades to spread President Donald Trump’s conservative message about gun rights, immigration controls and abortion restrictions.
This year, Griffin voted twice as a county commissioner against certifying New Mexico’s June 7 primary election, in a standoff over election integrity fueled by conspiracy theories about the security of voting equipment in the Republican-dominated county.
Two other commissioners eventually agreed to certify, but Griffin cast the lone dissenting vote while acknowledging that he had no specific basis for questioning the results of the election — attributing his decision to “my gut feeling and my own intuition.”
Griffin is among a dozen people charged in the Jan. 6 riot that had either held public office or ran for a government leadership post in the two and a half years before the attack. Of those, seven have been convicted of crimes for their participation.
Unlike Griffin, the members of Congress targeted for disqualification were neither charged nor convicted of crimes associated with the Capitol riot.
In Georgia, a federal judge allowed a 14th Amendment challenge against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green to advance, but a state administrative law judge found there wasn’t sufficient evidence to back voters’ claims that she had engaged in insurrection, and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Greene was qualified to run.
Greene won her primary, and the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the decision last week to leave her on the ballot. The federal appeal is pending.
In North Carolina, a federal judge blocked the state elections board from formally examining whether U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who spoke at the rally that preceded the riot, should remain on the state’s May 17 primary ballot.
Cawthorn narrowly lost that election, and later in May a federal appeals court reversed the lower court decision. The panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the trial judge got it wrong when he ruled that an 1872 law that removed office-holding disqualifications from most ex-Confederates also exempted current members of Congress like Cawthorn. The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed as moot because Cawthorn isn’t on the November ballot.
Arizona state courts have kept U.S. Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs and a state legislator on the ballot amid efforts to disqualify them. A judge agreed in April with the lawmakers that Congress created no enforcement mechanism for the 14th Amendment, barring a criminal conviction.
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Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Mark Sherman in Washington, and Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to show that Mathew is a New Mexico state district judge, not a U.S. federal judge.
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| 2022-09-21T11:18:13Z
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HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz teamed up with U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey on Tuesday to publicly call on his Democratic rival, John Fetterman, to participate in a debate in their high-profile Pennsylvania race.
Oz and Toomey, holding a news conference in Philadelphia, also questioned Fetterman’s fitness for office and criticized his reluctance to speak with reporters since suffering a stroke in May. Fetterman has been sidelined for most of the summer while recovering, though he did appear Monday with President Joe Biden at a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh and has spoken briefly at a number of events.
“What happens if a U.S. senator in an important state like Pennsylvania is elected, never having answered a legitimate question from a voter, from a newscaster … in a debate stage?” Oz said. “What would that mean for future campaigns around the country?”
Fetterman’s campaign countered Tuesday that Oz’s insistence on a debate is “about mocking John for having a stroke” and maintained that Fetterman’s doctor says he should be able to campaign and serve in the Senate without a problem.
“Anyone who’s seen John speak knows that while he’s still recovering, he’s more capable of fighting for PA than Dr. Oz will ever be,” Fetterman’s campaign said in a statement.
The news conference with Toomey — the retiring senator both candidates are vying to replace — signals Oz’s increasing aggressiveness in taking on Fetterman as the celebrity heart surgeon seeks to make up ground in polls with just nine weeks to go until Election Day. Democrats see the race as one of their best chances nationally to flip a Republican-held seat, and the winner could help decide the chamber’s partisan control next year.
Fetterman has only given three media interviews since suffering the stroke and has held no news conferences. He has acknowledged that he has diminished auditory processing speed — he cannot always respond quickly to what he’s hearing — and conducted all three interviews by video, with real-time closed captions. Fetterman, in brief public speaking events, also has struggled to speak fluidly.
Oz, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has accused Fetterman of lying about the seriousness of the effects of the stroke. Fetterman’s campaign says he is not lying and is willing to debate, but they want a debate that can accommodate the lingering effects of his stroke. A campaign spokesperson declined to elaborate on what that might require.
Roughly a dozen news organizations and other groups have reached out to the campaigns about hosting a debate, Fetterman’s campaign has said.
Oz has touted his willingness to join five. The first one, proposed by Pittsburgh TV station KDKA, would have taken place Tuesday night. Fetterman’s campaign told the station that Tuesday night didn’t work.
The station’s news director, Shawn Hoder, said KDKA is still willing to host a televised debate at a later date and is awaiting word from Fetterman’s campaign on when that might be. The station would need about two weeks’ notice to make a debate happen, Hoder said.
Besides any health concerns, political strategists suggest Fetterman could also be wanting to avoid a debate — or push it as late as possible in the campaign — because he is ahead in polls. Leading candidates often believe they have less incentive to join a debate and risk their opponent scoring points, especially considering Oz is a former TV show host.
“You have a whole heck of a lot more to lose, especially if you’re John Fetterman standing on a stage two, three, four, five times with a guy who spent his life on television,” said Michael Manzo, a Harrisburg-based lobbyist and former Democratic campaign strategist. “It’s almost a no-win situation for Fetterman.”
Fetterman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on any strategy for avoiding or delaying a debate.
In any case, because candidates can communicate with voters through social media, debates are simply not as important as they used to be, or as substantive, said Mark Nevins, a Philadelphia-based Democratic campaign strategist.
In the Democratic primary, before he suffered the stroke, Fetterman skipped a couple of candidate forums, earning criticism from his rivals. But he also joined a couple other forums where — as the perceived front-runner in polls — he was the primary subject of attacks.
In particular, rivals went after Fetterman over a 2013 incident when he was mayor of small-town Braddock in western Pennsylvania and, shotgun in hand, confronted an unarmed Black man because he suspected the man was involved in gunfire nearby. Police didn’t file charges against Fetterman or the other man in the matter.
In Pennsylvania’s last four U.S. Senate contests, debates have not been a major feature. All the debates took place in mid- to late October, with two debates in each race — except for 2012′s contest, which had one debate.
Toomey — who won in 2010 and 2016 — said that if Fetterman is being honest about his condition, then he should debate Oz.
“If John Fetterman were elected to the Senate and he’s not able to communicate effectively, if he’s not able to engage with the press, if he’s not able to engage with his colleagues, he would not be able to do the job,” Toomey said. “It’s just not possible to be an effective senator if you cannot communicate. It’s just the essence of the job.”
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Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/timelywriter.
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Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ap_politics.
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| 2022-09-21T11:18:20Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, said Tuesday that he expects to be charged soon in a state criminal case in New York City.
Bannon, 68, plans to turn himself in on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The Washington Post, citing anonymous sources, reported that the state criminal case would resemble an earlier attempted federal prosecution, in which Bannon was accused of duping donors who gave money to fund a wall on the U.S. southern border.
That federal case ended abruptly, before trial, when Trump pardoned Bannon.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment late Tuesday.
In a statement, Bannon said District Attorney Alvin Bragg “has now decided to pursue phony charges against me 60 days before the midterm election,” accusing the Democratic prosecutor of targeting him because he and his radio show are popular among Trump’s Republican supporters.
“The SDNY did the exact same thing in August 2020 to try to take me out of the election,” Bannon said, referring to his arrest months before Trump’s re-election loss.
Federal agents pulled Bannon from a luxury yacht off the Connecticut coast and arrested him on charges he pocketed more than $1 million in wall donations.
“It didn’t work then, it certainly won’t work now,” the former White House strategist said. “This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.”
Bannon, who had pleaded not guilty, was dropped from the federal case when Trump pardoned him on his last day in office in January 2021.
Two other men involved in the “We Build the Wall” project pleaded guilty in April. They had been scheduled to be sentenced this week, but that was recently postponed to December. A third defendant’s trial ended in a mistrial in June after jurors said they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
A president can only pardon federal crimes, not state offenses, but that doesn’t mean state-level prosecutors have carte blanche to try similar cases.
In 2019, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. brought state mortgage fraud charges against Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort in what was widely seen as an attempt to hedge against a possible pardon.
But a judge threw the case out on double jeopardy grounds, finding that it was too similar to a federal case that resulted in Manafort’s conviction. (Manafort was later pardoned by Trump).
While Manafort’s New York case was pending, New York eased its double jeopardy protections, ensuring that state-level prosecutors could pursue charges against anyone granted a presidential pardon for similar federal crimes.
Bannon’s case differs because he was dropped from the federal case in its early stages. In most cases, double jeopardy is only a factor when a person has been convicted or acquitted of a crime.
In another case not covered by Trump’s pardon, Bannon was convicted in July on contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He is scheduled to be sentenced in October and faces up to two years in federal prison.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
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| 2022-09-21T11:18:28Z
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PROVO, Utah (AP) — Campaigning at a park filled with 19th-century pushcarts on a state holiday honoring Utah’s early Mormon pioneers, Evan McMullin glad hands voters as he strolls past potato sack races and beverage stands selling cold, sugary drinks under a sweltering sun.
The independent U.S. Senate candidate who won the official backing of Utah’s Democratic Party in this year’s midterm election harks back to Utah’s pioneer days as he explains his quest to unseat two-term Republican Sen. Mike Lee.
“When our ancestors arrived, the only way to make this harsh but very beautiful place work in order for them to survive and thrive was to work together,” said McMullin, who casts his candidacy as an opportunity to ”unite Americans across party lines to protect democracy.”
To defeat Lee, McMullin’s idealized call for cross-party unity will have to do a lot more than just win over Democrats and a few disgruntled conservatives. Republicans have won every U.S. Senate race in Utah since 1976.
It’s been six years since McMullin, a soft-spoken former Republican congressional staffer, emerged as a third-party candidate as a conservative alternative to Donald Trump. McMullin won 21.5% of the vote in Utah in 2016, the most of any third-party candidate in the country. Trump still breezed to victory.
McMullin warned in a New York Times op-ed after Trump’s election that he was an authoritarian who “undermined critical democratic norms including peaceful debate and transitions of power.” This year, McMullin is hitting that message even harder, denouncing his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents.
McMullin has cast both Trump and Lee as threats to democracy, noting text messages obtained by the Jan. 6 House committee that show Lee discussing legally dubious schemes to keep Trump in power, before shifting course, backing away and voting to certify the election results.
“Authoritarians serve themselves and the small cadres that surround them,” McMullin, an ex-CIA officer, said. “They never solve problems.”
As both parties jockey for control of the evenly split Senate, the peculiar Republican-versus-independent contest has transformed Utah from an electoral afterthought into a possible spoiler. Conservative groups like Club for Growth are spending millions to defend Lee.
If McMullin were to win in November, he would become the Senate’s third independent, joining Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Both caucus with the Democrats, though McMullin has said he wouldn’t caucus with either party.
Both Lee and McMullin are vying for voters like Cindy Kemp of Lehi, who credits Trump for the country’s thriving pre-pandemic economy but was often fed up with his public persona.
“With Trump and everything, we were like, ‘What do we do?’” Kemp said after speaking to McMullin in Provo. “But he did good for the country.”
She plans to vote for McMullin.
Eighty miles (129 kilometers) north at a junior livestock auction in Ogden, Lee wears ostrich skin cowboy boots and sits cross-legged on a folding chair. Mingling with voters amid the the sound of squealing hogs after purchasing a sheep at the auction, he acknowledges the race defies traditional two-party dynamics yet hews closely to conventional Republican talking points: government spending, inflation and polling showing widespread disapproval of President Joe Biden.
In response to questions about prominent midterm election issues, Lee repeatedly prefaces his answers by circling back to a reminder that McMullin has been “embraced and endorsed and funded by the Democratic Party.”
Lee, a one-time critic of the former president who even voted for McMullin in protest of Trump in the 2016 election, dismisses McMullin’s alarm bells about extremism and says their race has less to do with Trump than Biden.
“Trump’s not on the ballot. This one is not about him,” Lee said as he walked through a cattle corral talking about the effects of inflation on feed and fuel prices.
“People in Utah feel strongly about the horrible state of affairs that Joe Biden has brought and the horrible conditions that we’re now facing with inflation and all that goes along with it.”
McMullin acknowledges issues like inflation and abortion rights are focal points in Senate races nationwide. Still, his campaign is laser-focused on what he believes are growing threats to democracy from power-hungry extremists willing to abandon it. It’s difficult to fix issues like air quality near the Great Salt Lake or buoy economically depressed coal towns in Carbon County, he said, without a functional, representative democracy.
“It’s democracy. And it’s what democracy allows us to do,” McMullin explains.
Although he says voters he speaks to largely agree having a functional government in Washington is important, McMullin is aware opinions clash within the coalition he hopes to unite behind him.
He insists voters are less polarized than people assume, yet despite that belief, offers carefully calibrated answers on polarizing topics such as abortion. He talks about “standing up to the extremes that want to criminalize women” and rejects abortion bans that don’t have exceptions for rape, but says he “doesn’t have all the answers” rather than articulating when he thinks abortion should be legal and when it shouldn’t.
Much like Lee repeatedly references McMullin’s Democratic Party support, McMullin repeatedly prefaces explanations about where he stands on issues by referencing “our coalition” — a group he says is the same one that supports Sen. Mitt Romney and includes Democrats, moderate Republicans and independents.
The “coalition,” he said, also supports investing in more modern infrastructure, but he doesn’t clarify his position on the billions in infrastructure spending approved since Democrats took control of Washington.
Back at the Weber County Fair, Lee says recently approved spending will exacerbate inflation and expand the role of government in everyday life.
“It’s pretty relevant if the party that has endorsed you and is funding you and is backing you is behind a $750 billion spending boondoggle at a time we’re in a recession and at a time we’re experiencing rampant inflation,” Lee said of McMullin.
Although Lee’s frequent “no” votes on bipartisan legislation garner criticism, they endear him to legions of Utah Republicans who call him “a fighter” and like that he isn’t afraid to disrupt Washington.
“He fights for us and takes what we say and takes it to heart. Not like other politicians, who lie to us and do different things, like Mitt Romney,” Heidi Hadley of Plain City said after meeting Lee at the fair.
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| 2022-09-21T11:18:35Z
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ATLANTA (AP) — Two months after the 2020 presidential election, a team of computer experts traveled to south Georgia to copy software and data from voting equipment in an apparent breach of a county election system. They were greeted outside by the head of the local Republican Party, who was involved in efforts by then-President Donald Trump to overturn his election loss.
A security camera outside the elections office in rural Coffee County captured their arrival. The footage also shows that some local election officials were at the office during what the Georgia secretary of state’s office has described as “alleged unauthorized access” of election equipment.
Security footage from two weeks later raises additional alarms — showing two people who were instrumental in Trump’s wider efforts to undermine the election results entering the office and staying for hours.
The security video from the elections office in the county about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta offers a glimpse of the lengths Trump’s allies went in service of his fraudulent election claims. It further shows how access allegedly was facilitated by local officials entrusted with protecting the security of elections while raising concerns about sensitive voting technology being released into the public domain.
Georgia wasn’t the only state where voting equipment was accessed after the 2020 presidential election. Important information about voting systems also was compromised in election offices in Pennsylvania,Michigan and Colorado. Election security experts worry the information obtained — including complete copies of hard drives — could be exploited by those who want to interfere with future elections.
“The system is only as secure as the people who are entrusted to keep it secure,” said lawyer David Cross, who represents plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit over Georgia’s voting machines.
The Coffee County security footage was obtained through that lawsuit, which alleges that Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are vulnerable to attack and should be replaced by hand-marked paper ballots. The suit long predates and is unrelated to false allegations of widespread election fraud pushed by Trump and his allies after the 2020 election.
The alleged breach in Coffee County’s elections office also has caught the attention of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is overseeing an investigation into whether Trump and his allies illegally tried to influence the 2020 election results in Georgia.
Last month, Willis cited the Coffee County activity, among other things, when she sought to compel testimony from Sidney Powell, an attorney who was deeply involved in Trump’s effort to undo the election results.
Emails and other records show Powell and other attorneys linked to Trump helped arrange for a team from data solutions company SullivanStrickler to travel to Coffee County, which Trump won by nearly 40 percentage points.
The surveillance video, emails and other documents that shed light on what happened there in January 2021 were produced in response to subpoenas issued in the voting machine lawsuit and were obtained by The Associated Press. Parts of the security video appear to contradict claims by some of the local officials:
— Footage captures Cathy Latham, then chair of the Coffee County Republican Party, arriving at the elections office shortly after 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol. Just a few weeks earlier, she was one of 16 Georgia Republicans who signed a certificate falsely stating that Trump had won the state and declaring that they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors.
A few minutes after her arrival, she is seen outside greeting SullivanStrickler Chief Operating Officer Paul Maggio and two other people. Less than 10 minutes later, she escorts two other men into the building.
The video shows her leaving the elections office just before 1:30 p.m., roughly two hours after she greeted the SullivanStrickler team. She returns a little before 4 p.m. and then leaves around 6:15 p.m.
Latham said under oath during a deposition in August that she stopped by the elections office that evening for “Just a few minutes” and left before 5 p.m. Pressed on whether she had been there earlier in the day, Latham said she couldn’t recall but suggested her schedule as a teacher would not have allowed it.
A lawyer for SullivanStrickler said in an email attached to a court filing that Latham was a “primary point of contact” in coordinating the company’s work and “was on site” while that work was done.
Robert Cheeley, a lawyer for Latham said in an emailed statement that his client doesn’t remember all the details of that day. But he said she “would not and has not knowingly been involved in any impropriety in any election” and “has not acted improperly or illegally.”
— The video also shows Eric Chaney, a member of Coffee County’s election board, arriving shortly before 11 a.m. the same day and going in and out several times before leaving for the night around 7:40 p.m. Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the voting machine lawsuit wrote in a court filing that a photo produced by SullivanStrickler’s COO shows Chaney in the office as the copying is happening.
During a deposition last month, Chaney declined to answer many questions about that day, citing the Fifth Amendment. But when an attorney representing the county reached out to him in April regarding questions from the The Washington Post, Chaney wrote, “I am not aware of nor was I present at the Coffee County Board of Elections and Registration’s office when anyone illegally accessed the server or the room in which it is contained.” Chaney resigned from the elections board last month, days before his deposition.
Attempts to reach Chaney by phone were unsuccessful, and his lawyer did not respond to an email seeking comment.
— About two weeks after the initial breach, video shows Misty Hampton — then the county elections director — arriving at the elections office at 4:20 p.m. on Jan. 18, when it was closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. She unlocked the door and let in two men — Doug Logan and Jeff Lenberg, who have been active in efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.
Logan founded Cyber Ninjas, which participated in a partisan and ultimately discredited review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona. The two men remained inside until just after 8 p.m. and then spent more than nine hours there the next day. Lenberg returned for brief visits on at least three more days later that month.
Hampton resigned as elections supervisor in February 2021 after elections board officials said she falsified her timesheets. Attempts by the AP to reach her were unsuccessful.
In a statement released by its attorney, SullivanStrickler said the company was retained by attorneys to forensically copy voting machines used in the 2020 election and had no reason to believe they would ask its employees to do anything improper.
The Georgia secretary of state’s office said it opened an investigation in March and asked the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for assistance last month. State officials have said the system remains secure because of multiple protections in place.
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| 2022-09-21T11:18:43Z
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(The Hill) — President Joe Biden responded to a heckler while delivering remarks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday, saying “everyone’s entitled to be an idiot.”
Biden traveled to Wisconsin on Labor Day to deliver a speech at Milwaukee Laborfest where he spoke about his support for unions and lauded Democratic legislative victories such as last year’s coronavirus relief package and bill to invest in domestic semiconductor manufacturing that he signed into law last month.
At one point, someone in the audience could be heard trying to disrupt the speech.
“No, no, no, don’t – let him go. He’s, look, everybody’s entitled to be an idiot,” Biden said. It was not immediately clear what prompted the heckling or what the person was saying.
Biden also responded to protesters while delivering a prime-time speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Thursday. Hecklers shouted “F Joe Biden” and the anti-Biden phrase “Let’s go Brandon.”
“They’re entitled to be outrageous. This is a democracy,” Biden said during that speech, also saying “good manners is nothing they’ve ever suffered from.”
Biden’s stop in Wisconsin comes just two months ahead of the November midterms. Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Democratic Senate nominee Mandela Barnes are gearing up for high-profile contests against Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) respectively.
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| 2022-09-21T11:18:51Z
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Monday’s court ruling requiring an independent review of documents seized last month from Mar-a-Lago is raising new legal questions about the reach of executive privilege while scrambling the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into former President Trump.
The decision passed down by Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon sets the stage for her to appoint an outside expert, known as a special master, to examine the thousands of documents recovered from Trump’s Florida residence after the DOJ’s extraordinary search operation on Aug. 8.
The idea is to determine which of those documents, if any, should be off limits to federal investigators based on Trump’s rights to attorney-client privilege and executive privilege.
Here are five things to watch as the process evolves.
The ruling expects cooperation between Trump and DOJ
A page from the order granting a request by former President Donald Trump’s legal team to appoint a special master to review documents seized by the FBI. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
Cannon repeatedly argued in her ruling that the appointment of a special master offers “at a minimum, the appearance of fairness,” suggesting the appointed official may not ultimately withhold many of the documents seized by the DOJ.
“Plaintiff ultimately may not be entitled to return of much of the seized property or to prevail on his anticipated claims of privilege. That inquiry remains for another day,” she wrote.
The ruling directs both parties to “meaningfully confer” and together craft a filing with a list of potential candidates who could serve as a special master as well as a proposal outlining any limitations on their review.
After a pointed legal battle, it’s not clear who Trump’s legal team and the DOJ might agree on, but the candidates will likely need a high-level security clearance in order to review the roughly 300 classified records recovered.
The ruling does not lay out a deadline for the special master to complete their review — though the DOJ has indicated its team was able to filter through all the evidence in two weeks.
The ruling impacts two different investigations
The Justice Department has argued Trump has no claim to any of the documents. (AP Photo)
The ruling blocks the DOJ from continuing its criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of records at Mar-a-Lago until the special master can complete their review.
As a result, at a minimum, it’s a temporary setback for the Justice Department just as it has recovered another 100 classified documents from Trump’s Florida home.
A special master more sympathetic to Trump’s broad views on executive privilege could lead to key evidence being withheld from the investigation.
The Justice Department has argued Trump has no claim to any of the documents, noting that anything protected by executive privilege would therefore belong to the government and should be maintained by the National Archives. Trump had roughly 10,000 government records at Mar-a-Lago that contained no classification labels.
Cannon’s ruling does allow the intelligence community to continue its separate review of the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago — a tranche that includes some 184 classified documents turned over in January, another 38 turned over by Trump’s team following a May subpoena and the 100 more confiscated in August.
But critics worry the limitations on the Justice Department could hamper the review led by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which is set to assess the potential fallout from the alleged mishandling of the documents as well as the risks to national security.
It’s a task that has become only more pressing since a DOJ inventory unsealed by Cannon revealed that among the evidence were numerous empty folders that once held classified documents as well as materials designated to be returned to the military. The revelation has raised questions about whether those materials were found elsewhere in the boxes and if they have been accounted for.
It also complicates matters for the FBI, one of the 18 agencies overseen by the ODNI.
“The FBI’s investigation and the Intelligence Community (IC) assessments are inextricably intertwined from a counterintelligence perspective,” Brian Greer, a former CIA attorney, told The Hill by email.
“To assess the risks, it’s important for the IC to know who accessed a given document, and they can only get that from the FBI. But if the court prohibits the FBI from accessing certain classified documents because they might be subject to an executive privilege claim, that process will break down,” Greer added.
A highly unusual decision
Pages from a Department of Justice court filing on Aug. 30, 2022, in response to a request from the legal team of former President Donald Trump for a special master to review the documents. Included in the filing was a FBI photo of documents that were seized during the search. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)
Perhaps the most controversial part of Cannon’s ruling is the provision granting the special master the power to determine if any of the seized documents are protected by executive privilege — an authority typically reserved for the president.
That stipulation has created a highly unusual scenario in which Trump, while no longer a part of the executive branch, could claim executive powers over the existing Justice Department — pertaining to documents that federal law suggests should belong to the government.
Former Attorney General William Barr, who served under Trump, has said that while some of the seized documents might be protected by attorney-client privilege, his ex-boss has no right to claim executive power over the others as a private citizen. That’s particularly true, Barr said, when it comes to sensitive material.
“All the other documents taken, even if they claim to be executive privilege, either belong to the government because they’re government records — even if they’re classified, even if they’re subject to executive privilege, they still belong to the government and go to the Archives,” Barr told Fox News last week.
“I can’t think of a legitimate reason why they should have been — could be taken out of the government, away from the government, if they’re classified,” Barr said.
Trump’s effort to keep government documents after leaving office is not unprecedented: Nixon also challenged the powers of government archivists to retrieve presidential papers and tape recordings after he’d exited the White House. Nixon lost that challenge in a landmark 1977 Supreme Court case, on which the Justice Department has leaned this year in arguing against the appointment of a special master.
Cannon rejected the DOJ’s argument, writing that the 1977 decision “did not rule out the possibility of a former President overcoming an incumbent President on executive privilege matters.” Trump might ultimately fail in his effort to shield certain documents by executive privilege, she said, but he at least has the right to try.
“Even if any assertion of executive privilege by [the] Plaintiff ultimately fails in this context, that possibility, even if likely, does not negate a former President’s ability to raise the privilege as an initial matter,” Cannon wrote.
DOJ has to weigh appeal and whether to let ruling stand
The DOJ could also file a motion for clarification or reconsideration. (AP Photo)
The Justice Department could appeal Cannon’s ruling — but in doing so must weigh a number of factors.
An appeal, especially one seeking to block Cannon’s decision, would eat up time and continue to subject the department to claims of politicization as Trump rails against the investigation.
But not taking action carries its own risks, particularly when it comes to the precedent that could be laid out in the ruling with regard to executive privilege and the ability of litigants to use civil suits to stall criminal investigations.
Special masters are commonly used to help screen for any evidence that might be covered by attorney-client privilege, but asking one to weigh executive privilege concerns is new territory.
Cannon’s ruling devotes remarkably little time to weighing the DOJ’s arguments in the case when it comes to the national security implications of the investigation — both its own and, most particularly, the review being carried out by the ODNI.
Beyond an appeal, the DOJ could take other less commonly used approaches, including filing motions for clarification or reconsideration as a way to expand on its argument that a special master could hamstring national security efforts.
Rare win for Trump in a bad month
Trump is facing legal troubles as he weighs a possible White House run in 2024. (AP Photo)
For Trump and his followers, Monday’s ruling was a rare glimmer of light in a stormy month.
The FBI’s remarkable search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 was a humiliating episode for the former president, revealing that he had hoarded troves of government documents — including many alleged to be highly classified — even after his lawyers had assured the DOJ that all such materials had been returned to the National Archives earlier in the year.
A day later, a federal appeals court ruled that Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee should be granted access to Trump’s tax returns, ending a years-long standoff over the disputed records.
And just one day after that, Trump was deposed in Manhattan by New York’s attorney general, who is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Trump’s finances and business dealings. He pleaded his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times.
The back-to-back episodes highlighted the simmering legal troubles facing Trump as he weighs another run at the White House in 2024. In Cannon’s decision to appoint a special master — a move that has, at the very least, delayed the criminal investigation into his handling of documents — Trump found a unique reason to celebrate. He did so, in part, by blaming the “fake news,” Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans for his predicament.
“All American Patriots know that I always do everything ‘by the book’ and that this Hoax will fail miserably,” he said Tuesday in an email blast soliciting donations to his PAC.
Cannon’s ruling does not mean Trump is out of the woods. Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a nonprofit law firm specializing in national security law, previously told The Hill there are ways a special master could ultimately backfire for Trump.
He noted a special master could easily decide the FBI did not obtain any materials that should be protected by either attorney-client or executive privilege, as Trump is asserting, undercutting a major argument for a former president who often likes to claim he’s been treated unfairly.
“He won’t be able to say, ‘The DOJ privilege review team wrongfully decided it.’ He’s going to have to say, ‘The DOJ privilege review team, and the subject matter expert that I asked for, and a federal judge wrongfully decided it,’” McClanahan said.
“And in an area like this where there’s not a whole lot of room for him to be right — that’s a very risky move,” McClanahan added.
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CLEVELAND (AP) — A wolf briefly escaped its habitat at an Ohio zoo but was recaptured, and no guests or employees were hurt, authorities said.
Officials at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo said the female Mexican gray wolf “briefly breached its habitat” at about 10:20 a.m. Monday.
Jacqueline Gerling, director of communications at Cleveland Metroparks, said the wolf “was able to access the guest path” for about five minutes. Gerling said staff “acted quickly to establish a perimeter around the wolf” and the animal was secured by the animal care team and reunited with the other wolves.
Gerling said the zoo has five of the wolves and the other members of the pack were secured in an off-exhibit holding area at the time. She said the zoo “takes these incidents very seriously, training for these types of scenarios on a regular basis.”
Gerling said officials are still gathering details on how the animal was able to escape.
The zoo’s website says the Mexican gray wolf, canis lupus baileyi, is the smallest of the gray wolf subspecies — 54 to 66 inches (137 to 167 centimeters) in length from snout to tail and weighing 50 to 90 pounds (22 to 40 kilograms). Their coat is a varied mixture of tan, red, white, and black fur, with darker colors on their head, shoulders and back.
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This story has been corrected to note the day was Monday rather than Sunday.
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LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – Police in Las Vegas said they arrested a woman for reportedly skipping out on a restaurant tab and violating airport rules — but not before she alleged the officers were arresting her for being too good-looking, according to an arrest report.
Officers with the Las Vegas Metro Police Department were called to a Chili’s restaurant in Harry Reid International Airport on Aug. 31 for a report of a woman who had left without paying her bill, the report said.
Police searched for the suspect, but could not find her.
“Soon after, officers working D gates were notified by TSA that [a] female matching that description was observed sleeping near the security checkpoint, hindering their operations,” the report said.
Officers later found the woman in the baggage claim area where she was “belligerent with officers, saying she was being harassed because cops [had] never seen anyone as pretty as her,” police said.
Police later learned that the suspect, identified as Hend Bustami, had a warrant out of Las Vegas Municipal Court.
While officers were arresting her, the woman said “she was going to spit on all [the officers] and that officers were perverts and were trying to rape her because they [had] never seen anyone as good looking,” the report said.
The woman was booked into the Clark County Detention Center. A booking photo was not available.
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Tech that helps keep your kids safe at school
School is where you send your kids to learn essential concepts they’ll use for the rest of their lives. Still, for many, it can be scary to be away from your child for most of the day. Luckily, numerous tech products let you check in on your child throughout the day, keep them healthy and ensure they’re safe. We talked to our tech expert, Jaime Vazquez, to learn more about the best tech to keep your child safe at school.
What you should know about school safety tech
Types of school safety tech
- Location trackers: These devices are an ideal way to keep up with your child’s location. Many require you to be within 30 to 100 feet, but some have unique features that extend their range. For example, Apple’s AirTags can be located hundreds of miles away, so long as they are within Bluetooth range of an iPhone. Thanks to Apple’s “Find My” network, the AirTag can use any iPhone to locate your AirTag.
- Nutritional aids: When your kid is at school, it’s up to them to take care of their health and wellness. Still, it’s natural to wonder if your child is eating nutritional foods or drinking enough water. Luckily, several tech products can help you keep track of your child’s health.
- Online safety products: Nowadays, many kids use tablets and laptops as often as they use pencils and paper. Computers are great for accessing tons of information and keeping up with schoolwork, but the internet isn’t always safe. Online safety products can help your child navigate the internet without fear of getting a virus or oversharing personal information.
- Comfort products: These products are often overlooked but incredibly important. To ensure your kid feels secure and comfortable, you may need to send them to school with something that helps them release nervous energy.
Tech to keep up with your kid’s location
Location trackers let you know your child is still at school. You can use these devices when their school day ends to ensure they come straight home. Additionally, location trackers help your kid find lost items. For example, if they misplace their backpack at school, they can use a tracking device to find it easily.
Per Vazquez, “When considering a location tracker, you should check with your kid’s school to see if they have a specific policy regarding their use. Additionally, it’s important to check with your child to ensure it is OK with them.”
Tech to improve your child’s nutrition
It’s essential that your child stays hydrated throughout the day. Proper hydration is vital for your kid’s overall health, but it also helps them stay focused and improves their cognitive performance. According to the National Institutes of Health, most children get less than 20% of their daily water intake at school. This statistic is alarming, considering most children spend around half their day at school.
Smart water bottles are an excellent way to ensure your kid gets the water they need at school. Many smart bottles sync to your child’s phone, allowing you to track the amount of water they consume each day.
Tech to keep your kids safe online
Since most kids use laptops to do homework, it’s important to consider their safety on your home network. Unsecure networks can allow malicious users to see what your child is doing online. In some cases, these individuals may be able to glean personal information about your kid.
Securing your home network is vital. Many routers offer subscription services that keep your home network safe. They provide weekly reports via email or notifications that tell you what they’ve blocked. Some router subscriptions include ad blockers that can shield your child from unwanted advertising at a young age. The best routers often include parental controls that let you set restrictions on your kid’s devices.
Securing your child’s device is important as well. Ensure your child’s laptop has antivirus software to prevent ransomware and malware.
According to Vazquez, “The most important thing is to talk to your kid about online safety. Ensure they know that the internet isn’t an inherently safe or private place. The most successful ransomware, malware and phishing attacks typically require someone to click the wrong link or mistake a bad actor for someone they know. That is far more likely than your network security failing. Create a culture where it is safe for your kid to ask about anything. If they aren’t sure about something online, they should feel comfortable double-checking it with you.”
School safety products our tech expert recommends
HidrateSpark Pro Smart Water Bottle
This bottle syncs to your child’s phone via Bluetooth, letting you keep track of their daily water intake. It features a “find my bottle” feature, making it easy to find when it gets misplaced. It knows how much you should drink based on your weight and automatically adjusts goals based on the weather and your activity level.
Sold by Amazon
Fidget toys are a great way to help kids stay focused and not distract others. This cube has six fidget features that help your child reduce stress and anxiety. It’s available in six color combinations.
Sold by Amazon
This device can help you keep track of your child’s location. The Apple “Find My” network makes this one of the most reliable trackers. Setup is a breeze.
Sold by Amazon
This pack includes four tile trackers so you can place them in a few of your child’s belongings. They are compatible with Android and iOS devices. You can use these trackers to find your lost phone.
Sold by Amazon
This router can cover up to 2,000 square feet. The optional subscription service includes online threat protection, content filters and an ad blocker.
Sold by Amazon
TP-Link Deco Mesh Wi-Fi System
This system is ideal for homes of all shapes and sizes. It features a top-notch parental-control system that lets you block certain websites and limit internet time for specific devices.
Sold by Amazon
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Kevin Luna 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.
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| 2022-09-21T11:19:27Z
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What is the best milk thistle supplement?
The liver is one of the body’s most critical organs. It protects us from toxins that are around us — heavy metals, chemicals, preservatives and contaminants found in our food, water, air and household products. Over time these toxins, as well as alcohol, medications and protein powders, can damage and overburden your liver.
Milk thistle has been used for naturopathic healing properties for the liver and other parts of the digestive system. There is a wide variety of milk thistle supplements available in different forms and quantities. For its high potency and absorption, the best milk thistle supplement is OmniBiotics Milk Thistle Capsules.
What to know before you buy a milk thistle supplement
What is milk thistle?
Milk thistle is a flowering herb native to Mediterranean countries and related to the ragweed and daisy plant family. Silymarin, an active ingredient in milk thistle, is extracted from the plant seeds for its antioxidant properties.
What is milk thistle used for?
Milk thistle has been used historically to naturally treat symptoms of the digestive system, including the liver and gallbladder. Modern naturopathic applications include cirrhosis, gallbladder conditions, hepatitis and jaundice.
It also has been used in combination with diabetes medication to improve cholesterol in Type 2 diabetics. A National Institutes of Health study indicates that milk thistle improves insulin resistance and decreases blood sugar levels.
Before using milk thistle for any of these purposes, consult your health care provider to ensure there are no interactions with other medications or underlying conditions.
Is milk thistle good for cardiovascular health?
The ability of milk thistle to lower “bad” low-density lipoprotein cholesterol finds a modern use in combining the supplement with statins. Your health care provider should determine if milk thistle is an appropriate supplemental treatment.
What to look for in a milk thistle supplement
Silymarin concentration
Many supplements are manufactured as milk thistle seed extract, but the key to the supplement’s effectiveness is the percentage of silymarin in each dose. Silymarin is the active ingredient in milk thistle that provides health benefits. Check the manufacturer’s label for the amount of bioavailable silymarin in each tablet or liquid dose.
Form
Milk thistle supplements are sold in three forms. Soft-gel capsules and tablets are the most common, but liquid extracts are available for people who struggle with swallowing or prefer faster absorption. All supplements should be stored in a cool, dry space.
Dose
The range of recommended doses varies widely, from 175 to 2,000 milligrams. Most dosages for liver, gallbladder and digestive disorders range from 210 to 600 milligrams of milk thistle.
Allergen-free
Most milk thistle supplements are made without soy, gluten, eggs, nuts, dairy and other known allergies. Check the label for ingredients used in manufacturing.
How much you can expect to spend on a milk thistle supplement
Milk thistle supplement prices are based on their form and quantity. Tablets and capsules, which cost 8-38 cents per dose, are less expensive than liquid extracts, which run 33-40 cents per dose. Supplements with additional herbal ingredients cost more than milk thistle-only products.
Milk thistle supplement FAQ
Are there side effects from milk thistle supplements?
A. Since the milk thistle plant is part of the ragweed and daisy family, anyone with allergies to these plants and marigolds and chrysanthemums should be aware of potential allergic reactions. People with artichoke and kiwi allergies also should take caution.
Anyone taking antibiotics, blood thinners or cholesterol medication should consult their health care provider about potential interactions.
According to the Mayo Clinic, milk thistle can cause digestive upset, itchiness and headache. It also raises estrogen levels and should be avoided by people with breast cancer, uterine cancer and ovarian cancer.
What are the signs of a damaged liver?
A. Most damage to the liver isn’t experienced until liver disease has started. Early-stage liver disease can lead to fatigue, easy bruising, itching and right-side abdominal pain. Advanced disease symptoms are jaundiced eyes and skin, leg swelling, dark urine, pale-colored stools and abdominal pain and distention.
What is the best milk thistle supplement to buy?
Top milk thistle supplement
OmniBiotics Milk Thistle Capsules
What you need to know: These all-natural capsules contain additional silymarin extract to aid in absorption and provide maximum potency.
What you’ll love: Each capsule contains 1,500 milligrams of bioavailable milk thistle extract, intended to support the liver and gallbladder health. Certified organic, the supplement is non-GMO and free of gluten, dairy, nuts, soy, sugar and fillers.
What you should consider: A small number of consumers reported the bottles broke easily.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top milk thistle supplement for the money
Now Foods Extra-Strength Silymarin
What you need to know: This combination supplement of milk thistle, artichoke and dandelion supports liver and gallbladder health.
What you’ll love: With 450 milligrams of silymarin per capsule, this vegetarian formula is powerful and safe. A family-owned manufacturer makes the supplement without soy, nuts, gluten or dairy. It is kosher and non-GMO.
What you should consider: The capsules contain additional filler ingredients.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and iHerb
Worth checking out
Nature’s Answer Milk Thistle Seed Extract
What you need to know: This is a powerful liquid supplement with a super-concentrated 2,000 milligrams of milk thistle seed extract per serving.
What you’ll love: To maximize liver support, the company promises that all botanicals are analyzed for purity and quality to ensure the highest-quality ingredients are used. The extract is non-GMO and free of alcohol and gluten.
What you should consider: A small number of reviewers reported an unpleasant taste.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and iHerb
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Steve Ganger 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.
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| 2022-09-21T11:19:34Z
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Which soft-sided carrier for cats is best?
While it can be challenging to travel with cats, the right carrier makes all the difference. Soft-sided carriers for cats are lighter and easy to store, and some cats find them more comfortable and inviting than hard-sided carriers.
Choosing a carrier that’s the right size for your cat is vital, but you’ll also want to consider factors such as ventilation as well as the number of doors. If you’re looking for a roomy carrier with a great track record, the Petseek Extra-Large Cat Carrier is ideal.
What to know before you buy a soft-sided carrier for cats
Size
A good cat carrier should be large enough for your cat to stand, sit and turn around in. However, it shouldn’t be so large that it’s difficult to carry. Ideally, the longest side of a carrier should be roughly one-and-a-half times the length of your cat, from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail. If the length of the carrier is correct, the width and height are often just right, too.
Doors
Soft cat carriers have zippered access points, or doors, throughout the carrier. Depending on the model, they can have doors on either end, on the side and on the top of the carrier. Most have a combination of these options.
If your cat doesn’t like going in their carrier, the more access points, the better. It will give you options to help get your cat inside. Many find it easier to put cats into their carrier through the top door.
What to look for in a quality soft-sided carrier for cats
Ventilation
Cat carriers need plenty of ventilation to allow for proper airflow, which will ensure your cat stays comfortable. Most soft-sided cat carriers have mesh windows for ventilation on at least three sides, but the more the better.
Handles and carry straps
In addition to carry handles, many soft carriers have shoulder straps as well. Some cat parents find it more comfortable to carry their cat on their shoulder, especially over long distances. Padded straps and handles also increase comfort while carrying your cat.
Airline-approved
If you need a carrier to take your cat on a flight, make sure you choose one that’s airline-approved. Also, check your airline’s rules on bringing a pet on board before you make a purchase.
Collapsible
Some carriers have collapsible frames so they take up less storage space when not in use. In some cases, carriers are tricky to collapse and erect, which can be frustrating.
How much you can expect to spend on a soft-sided carrier for cats
The most affordable soft-sided carriers for cats cost around $20-$30, while the largest and most durable cost as much as $60-$75. This may vary depending on additional features and brand names.
Soft-sided carrier for cats FAQ
Should I cover my cat’s carrier while traveling?
A. Covering a carrier with a blanket or sheet blocks out unfamiliar sights and dampens sounds, which can help cats feel less nervous when traveling. However, it also impedes airflow somewhat, so don’t cover carriers on long journeys or very hot days. It’s best to use a cover made from a breathable material.
How do I make my cat comfortable in a carrier?
A. You can make cats more comfortable in their carriers by adding blankets, small beds or crate pads. Throwing a few treats or some catnip treats works well for some cats, but others are too stressed to take much notice of them.
How long can a cat stay in a carrier?
A. If you’re taking your cat on a long journey, you might be wondering how long they can comfortably stay in a carrier. It’s best not to exceed four to six hours without a break, though this isn’t always possible on long flights. Talk to your veterinarian to make sure they are healthy enough for travel.
What’s the best soft-sided carrier for cats to buy?
Top soft-sided carrier for cats
Petseek Extra-Large Cat Carrier
What you need to know: Thanks to its large size, this carrier is perfect for chunky cats or two felines who don’t mind sharing space.
What you’ll love: The steel frame feels strong and sturdy. It opens on three sides and has clips that go through the zippers to keep doors from opening. You can use the buckles and loops to attach it to a seatbelt or keep it in place during travel.
What you should consider: There’s no support in the base, so it can sag when carrying a heavy cat.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top soft-sided carrier for cats for the money
Henkelion Soft-Sided Cat Carrier
What you need to know: With doors on the end, side and top, you have plenty of ways to get your cat inside.
What you’ll love: It’s well-ventilated, featuring mesh panels on most sides. The side pocket is useful for holding any feline essentials. There’s a cozy machine-washable fleece mat inside and the shoulder strap has padding for extra comfort.
What you should consider: It could be stronger overall — nervous cats could potentially claw and damage the material.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
PetAmi Premium Airline Approved Soft-Sided Pet Travel Carrier
What you need to know: This airline-approved carrier fits most airlines’ requirements for in-cabin travel.
What you’ll love: It’s well-ventilated and has a comfortable removable fleece pad to keep your cat comfy. The door zippers have safety buckles, so they can’t come undone. There’s a zippered pocket on one side and a small side zipper for access to feed, pet or give water to your cat.
What you should consider: It has a wire frame, which doesn’t hold its shape, as well as steel frame options.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Lauren Corona 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.
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| 2022-09-21T11:19:42Z
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Is the Toniebox worth it?
Whether you’re watching a movie, doing homework on a computer or video chatting with grandparents across the country, our daily lives are inundated with screens. While technology is a necessity for everyday life, parents everywhere are searching for small ways they can entertain and educate kids without a screen.
The Toniebox claims to be a screen-free listening experience that encourages kids’ imaginations without the use of overstimulating, flashing screens. Parents can feel comfortable letting their young children operate this music box independently, as it has safe parental settings and tactile play controls perfect for little hands. Plus, its portable design is convenient for taking on the go.
To see whether the Toniebox lives up to its claims, we put it to the test. Here’s what we found.
Testing the Toniebox
We asked a parent to test the Toniebox for several weeks and utilize each feature. While our tester had no prior experience with children’s music or storytelling speakers, their child was familiar with the Toniebox characters and songs.
What is the Toniebox?
According to Tonies, the Toniebox is your lovable storytime friend. It’s a screen-free music and storybook player without flashing lights and unsightly buttons. The soft and squishy cube encourages cuddly playtime and learning.
Unlike a Bluetooth speaker or smart speakers, which have access to thousands of songs and audiobooks, the Toniebox only lets children access specified songs and stories with their favorite Tonie characters. Plus, parents have access to additional control settings in the app, such as maximum volume and access rights. The Toniebox is designed to be a low-tech listening device kids can manage independently while eliminating parental uncertainty and worry.
Toniebox price and where to buy
The Toniebox is available on Amazon. It retails for $99.99.
How to use the Toniebox
The Toniebox requires a quick and straightforward setup to connect to Wi-Fi and the Mytonies app. You’ll need to set up a Mytonies account, which is necessary if you want to create a personalized Creative-Tonie. Setup took us less than 10 minutes from start to finish. The Toniebox has up to seven hours of battery and comes with an easy-on, easy-off charging station.
Controlling the Toniebox is intuitive and kid-friendly. You can increase the volume by pressing the tall rubber ear and decrease it by pressing the shorter ear. Patting the side of the music box will skip a track, while tilting it left or right will rewind and fast-forward. The tactile play controls are suited for children of all ages and offer a sensory experience.
To choose the songs or stories, simply place one of the hand-painted, magnetic characters called Tonies on the top of the cube. For example, a Paw Patrol Tonie plays the show’s theme song and an engaging story, while the Cookie Monster Tonie plays songs children are familiar with from Sesame Street.
When purchasing the Toniebox, you can choose between several different colors or begin with a starter set. Each set comes with its own variety of Tonies that feature between 15-60 minutes of content, and you can also purchase individual Tonies separately. Examples of available Tonies include characters from “The Little Mermaid,” “Pocahontas,” “Toy Story,” “The Lion King” and more. There’s also a Creative-Tonie that allows you to record your own songs or stories.
Toniebox benefits
Aside from a cool aesthetic, we loved how many Tonies there are to choose from and appreciated each figure’s stories and music options. In our experience, the Toniebox is an excellent screen-free entertainment option that will help children learn independence. Parents never have to worry about what their kids are listening to with the control settings included.
Its portability is one of the highlights of the Toniebox and the main reason this device quickly became our favorite toy. Whether our little one was eating breakfast, putting on shoes, playing outside or in the car, the Toniebox went everywhere with them. It doesn’t need Wi-Fi after the initial setup and has a headphone jack for quiet listening with headphones.
You can tell the company created the Toniebox with children in mind. From durability to ease of use, it’s entirely kid-friendly. Our Toniebox even took an accidental tumble outside and survived with no issues.
Toniebox drawbacks
One of the most significant drawbacks is the lack of a Creative-Tonie in the starter set. We recommend choosing a starter set with a Creative-Tonie or purchasing one separately, as it’s an excellent feature. While we think the sound quality is suitable for a children’s speaker, it doesn’t rival a high-end speaker, and we wished the volume went louder.
A few users had trouble connecting it to their specific router. While it wasn’t our experience, it’s something to keep in mind. The Toniebox currently only has Tonies available in English and German, which we feel can be improved. Also, keep in mind that each Tonie has less than an hour of content.
Should you get the Toniebox?
Overall, we believe the Toniebox lives up to its claims of being a screen-free storytelling and music device easy enough for children to operate independently. This cute kids’ speaker is intuitive, fun and grows with your child as their tastes change and mature. Based on our experience, we recommend the Toniebox to anyone with children, especially those looking for screen-free entertainment to encourage children’s independence.
Consider other products
With a subscription to Amazon Kids+ or Spotify Kids, your child can ask Alexa to play their favorite songs or read a soothing bedtime story. Plus, it can do much more, including setting a morning alarm or helping with homework.
Sold by Amazon
This creative audio player uses content cards loaded with audiobooks, educational activities and popular children’s songs. Plus, a grandparent or family member can record their voice on a personalized audio card.
Sold by Amazon
If you’re searching for an excellent screen-free entertainment device, the Jookie Music Player is portable, durable and has up to eight hours of battery life. You can make playlists from Spotify or program your personalized MP3 audio files.
Sold by Amazon
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Bre Richey 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.
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| 2022-09-21T11:19:49Z
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The Philadelphia 76ers have some backup big man help for Joel Embiid.
The Sixers have agreed to a two-year contract with free agent center Montrezl Harrell in a move that will reunite him with coach Doc Rivers, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the deal has not been announced.
Harrell was the NBA Sixth Man of the Year in 2019-2020 when Rivers still coached the Los Angeles Clippers. Harrell averaged 13.1 points and 6.1 rebounds in 71 games last season with the Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets.
The 28-year-old Harrell was a second-round pick in the 2015 draft by the Houston Rockets and will also be reunited in Philadelphia with executive Daryl Morey. He has averaged 12.9 points in 458 games with five teams.
Harrell is expected to be a significant improvement at the backup center spot behind Embiid. The Sixers had been poised to use Paul Reed and Charles Bassey as backups, but Rivers prefers to play veterans. He now has one he knows and is more comfortable with as the Sixers attempt to win their first NBA championship since 1983.
Embiid was the league scoring champion and gutted out the playoffs with torn ligaments in his right thumb, playing with a mask to protect his broken face and the lingering effects of a concussion.
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More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:19:57Z
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Georgia moved up to No. 2 in the first Associated Press college football poll of the regular season, passing Ohio State, after the defending national champions dominated their opener.
Alabama remained No. 1 in the AP Top 25 presented by Regions Bank released Tuesday, receiving 44 of 63 first-place votes from the media panel and 1,552 points.
The Bulldogs narrowed the gap on the Crimson Tide after beating Oregon 49-3 on Saturday. Georgia received 17 first-place votes.
Ohio State slipped to No. 3 and received two first-place votes. Michigan moved up four spots to No. 4.
Clemson dropped a spot to No. 5.
Florida debuted at No. 12 after its thrilling victory at home against Utah on Saturday night. The Utes slipped six spots to No. 13 after the loss.
The rest of the top 10 was Texas A&M at No. 6, followed by Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Baylor and Southern California.
USC is in the top 10 for the first time since the final regular-season poll of 2017, when the Trojans were eighth.
The eighth-ranked Fighting Irish dropped three spots out of the top five after losing 21-10 at Ohio State.
POLL POINTS
Georgia has been ranked No. 1 or 2 in 15 of the last 17 polls, with the other two weeks at No. 3.
Since 2017, Georgia has been ranked No. 2 in the country 13 times and No. 1 nine times, all last season.
From 1981 — the season after Georgia won the national title — to 2016, the Bulldogs were ranked in the top two a total of 10 times.
IN
— Florida’s jump from unranked to No. 12 is the biggest for an unranked team since the first regular-season poll of 2016, when Texas landed at No. 11 and Wisconsin at No. 10 after Week 1 victories.
— No. 24 Tennessee is ranked for the first time under second-year coach Josh Heupel.
OUT
— Oregon’s humbling loss to Georgia sent the Ducks all the way out of the rankings. It’s the first time Oregon has been unranked in a poll for which it was eligible since the last regular-season AP Top 25 of 2020.
— Cincinnati dropped out after losing at Arkansas by a touchdown, its first regular-season loss since late in the 2019 season.
For the Bearcats, who made the College Football Playoff last year, it snapped a run of 45 consecutive poll appearances, which was the fifth-longest active streak in the country.
CONFERENCE CALL
Florida and Tennessee moving into the rankings gives the SEC eight ranked teams, the most for a conference since the SEC had eight three times in 2020.
The record for ranked teams from one conference is 10 by the SEC early in the 2018 season. From 2011-18, the SEC had eight teams ranked in a AP Top 25 a total of 14 times.
SEC — 8 (Nos. 1, 2, 6, 12, 16, 20, 22, 24).
ACC — 5 (Nos. 5, 15, 17, 18, 23).
Big Ten — 4 (Nos. 3, 4, 14, 19).
Big 12 — 3 (Nos. 7, 9, 11).
Pac-12 — 2 (Nos. 10, 13).
Independents — 2 (Nos. 8, 21).
American — 1 (No. 25).
RANKED vs. RANKED
No. 9 Baylor at No. 21 BYU. Future Big 12 matchup.
No. 20 Kentucky at No. 12 Florida. The first time both will be ranked when they play since 2007.
No. 24 Tennessee at No. 17 Pitt. First SEC/ACC ranked nonconference matchup of the season.
___
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
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| 2022-09-21T11:20:04Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Serena Williams, you might have heard, played what’s expected to be her last match at the U.S. Open. Rafael Nadal lost in the fourth round. Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer (more on them later) weren’t even in the tournament.
Those four players dominated, and were the main draws, in tennis for decades, collecting a total of 86 Grand Slam singles titles, each with at least 20. And so, as the quarterfinals began at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday without any member of that quartet present, it made sense to ask: Is this the end of an era?
The 36-year-old Nadal sounded a philosophical note about the topic after he was bounced by 24-year-old American Frances Tiafoe 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Monday.
“Some depart, others come and the world keeps going. It’s a natural cycle,” said Nadal, who noted that his wife is pregnant with their first child and so he isn’t sure when he will play next. “It’s always the same. The same one have been up there several years; others are coming and we will be leaving. It’s logical.”
Folks have been wondering — and, perhaps, worrying — about when someone new would emerge to take on the mantle in both women’s tennis and men’s tennis.
This U.S. Open, whether merely symbolic or truly portentous, offers a glimpse at the current and future states of the game. Of the 16 singles quarterfinalists across the women’s and men’s brackets, 15 never have won so much as one major championship anywhere (the exception is Iga Swiatek, a 21-year-old from Poland who is No. 1 on the WTA Tour and owns two French Open titles).
According to the U.S. Tennis Association, this is the first time in the professional era, which dates to 1968, that its Grand Slam event featured fewer than at least two past major title winners at this stage.
Looking just at the men’s bracket, none of the four quarterfinalists who will play Wednesday — No. 22 seed Tiafoe vs. No. 9 Andrey Rublev, and No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz vs. No. 11 Jannik Sinner — has even reached a major semifinal. Rublev, who turns 25 next month, is the oldest of the bunch.
“It’s cool,” Tiafoe said, “to see a new era.”
And consider: It’s been nearly 20 years since there were zero previous Slam champs in the quarterfinals of a major. That last happened at Wimbledon in 2003. Who won the trophy? Federer, claiming the first of his 20, which shattered the old men’s mark of 14 established by Pete Sampras, and now has been surpassed by Nadal’s 22 and Djokovic’s 21 (as well as Williams’ 23, the most for any tennis player in the pro era).
Federer, 41, hasn’t played since Wimbledon in July 2021 and had a series of operations on his right knee. He is slated to return at an event in Switzerland in October, and says he hopes to play at the All England Club in 2023, but not much is known beyond that about what he has left.
There is no reason to think Djokovic, 35, will not remain a Slam contender for some time — when he can get into the country hosting the tournament, that is. He did not get vaccinated against COVID-19 so he was kicked out of Australia in January and barred from entering the United States, too.
Djokovic and Nadal combined to win this year’s first three major titles and 15 of the past 17 overall. Add in the other member of the so-called Big Three, Federer, and it’s 20 of the last 22. Take it back further, and it’s 63 of 76. The only other men with more than one in that span are Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka, with three apiece.
Federer’s first triumph came less than a year after Sampras won the U.S. Open in what would be his final match.
“Before this generation, we lost another great generation. Obviously, there will not be a Rafa or a Roger or a Serena. We know that. There are always ups and downs. But there were great champions in the past and there will be again. I’m not worried. It’s part of sports. It’s part of life,” said Caroline Garcia, a 28-year-old from France who beat 18-year-old Floridian Coco Gauff 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals on Tuesday night.
“Great champions leave and others arrive,” Garcia said. “You have to give young players the time to get to the top of the game and get mature and everything. The fans have to be ready for a new generation, as well.”
Whether or not TV executives and tournament ticket-sellers agree, that is a popular sentiment among current players: Tennis will be fine.
“Unfortunately for all of us,” Murray said, “the sport moves on.”
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More AP coverage of U.S. Open tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/us-open-tennis-championships and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:20:12Z
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CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago Bears plan to build an enclosed suburban stadium that could host Super Bowls, College Football Playoff games and Final Fours.
The Bears released conceptual illustrations Tuesday of the proposed stadium and entertainment complex that would be built on the site of a former horse racing track in Arlington Heights, Illinois. The Bears said the project could include restaurants, office space, a hotel, fitness center, new parks and open areas as well as “other improvements for the community to enjoy.”
“We envision a multi-purpose entertainment district anchored by a new, best-in-class enclosed stadium, providing Chicagoland with a new home worthy of hosting global events such as the Super Bowl, College Football Playoffs, and Final Four,” the team said in a statement.
The Bears said they would not seek public funding for the stadium if the sale of the 326-acre property is completed and if they decide to move there. But they would seek taxpayer assistance for the rest of the project.
The organization signed a purchase agreement last year for the tract of land that’s about 30 miles northwest of Soldier Field. Bears President and CEO Ted Phillips, who announced last week he will retire after this season, has said a deal likely wouldn’t close until early 2023.
The Bears’ lease at Soldier Field, where the team has played since 1971, runs through 2033.
In July, Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot proposed three options for renovating the stadium. One included enclosing it, and another called for rebuilding both end zones with columns that could support a dome. A third option was to modify it to be a multipurpose facility better suited for soccer.
The Bears said Tuesday they will not consider Soldier Field renovations or explore any other potential stadium sites while they are under contract for the property in Arlington Heights.
“Much remains to be decided, but any decision will be made in the best interests of the Bears long-term future, our fans and the Chicagoland community,” the team said.
Of the three illustrations released Tuesday, one is a map showing the stadium near a highway and commuter rail tracks and the mixed-use district southeast of the stadium. Two other aerial illustrations show the stadium and several other buildings and green spaces.
The Bears did not mention what the seating capacity would be at a new stadium, nor potential costs to construct the stadium or develop the rest of the property. They said construction would create more than 48,000 jobs, as well as $9.4 billion in economic impact for the region and provide $3.9 billion in income to workers.
The Bears estimate the completed project would add 9,750 long-term jobs, $1.4 billion in annual economic impact and $601 million a year in income to workers.
The Bears also said the project would generate $16 million in annual tax revenue, in addition to property taxes for Arlington Heights, $9.8 million for Cook County, and $51.3 million for the State of Illinois — calling the possible development “one of the largest development projects in Illinois state history.”
Soldier Field is owned by the Chicago Park District and underwent a $690 million transformation in 2002 that forced the team to play home games at the University of Illinois and ultimately led to the loss of the stadium’s National Historic Landmark designation.
The interior was demolished, replaced by a flying saucer-like, glass-dominated structure cantilevered over the famous Greek and Romanesque colonnades. The clash of styles drew criticism, and the renovation reduced seating for Bears games to 61,500, lowest in the NFL.
The lakefront location and harsh weather make it difficult to maintain the playing surface, and the often choppy condition has also been a sore spot for players and coaches on the Bears, as well as other teams.
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More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl and https://apnews.com/hub/pro-32 and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-21T11:20:19Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Karen Khachanov stood on court, arms raised, basking in a rowdy crowd’s cheers after reaching his first Grand Slam semifinal at the U.S. Open. Not far away, Nick Kyrgios took out some of his frustration at the so-close-yet-so-far result on a pair of rackets.
First, shortly after the last point of his 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4 loss to Khachanov, Kyrgios cracked his piece of equipment against the ground — once, twice, three, four times. Then, for good measure, Kyrgios grabbed yet another racket out of his bag, reared back and hit that one on the sideline, too.
Kyrgios could not quite follow up his victory over defending champion Daniil Medvedev at Flushing Meadows, bowing out in a high-quality, topsy-turvy quarterfinal that began Tuesday night and concluded more than 3 1/2 hours later at about 1 a.m. Wednesday in Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“It’s just devastating. Like, it’s heartbreaking,” said Kyrgios, a 27-year-old from Australia who was the runner-up at Wimbledon in July. “Pretty much every other tournament during the year is a waste of time, really. You should just run up and show up at a Grand Slam. That’s what you’re remembered by.”
Asked about Kyrgios’ display of disappointment, Khachanov said he saw “rackets were flying,” and added: “I feel the pain for him.”
Early in the match, two spectators were kicked out after one gave the other a haircut in the stands. By the end, the late-staying spectators were pulling for Kyrgios loudly. At one point in the fourth set, chair umpire James Keothavong pleaded: “Once again, ladies and gentlemen: Respect both the players.”
“I was prepared. I was expecting that the crowd would be more for him, that he was the favorite in their eyes,” said the No. 27-seeded Khachanov had been 0-2 in major quarterfinals before this one against No. 23 Kyrgios.
Khachanov will face No. 5 Casper Ruud on Friday for a berth in the championship match.
“I’m really proud of myself,” Khachanov said. “I was really focused from the beginning to the end.”
Both he and Kyrgios are equipped with booming serves, and they combined for 61 aces (31 by Kyrgios). They combined for 138 total winners (75 by Kyrgios).
Two stats that were real difference-makers: Kyrgios made 58 unforced errors, Khachanov 31. And Khachanov saved 7 of 9 break points he faced.
The breakthrough at Wimbledon, and two recent victories over No. 1 Medvedev — including in the fourth round, ending his title defense — made Kyrgios a popular pick to claim his first Grand Slam title at Flushing Meadows.
Khachanov was not allowed to play at Wimbledon this year after the All England Club banned all players from his country, Russia, and Belarus because of the invasion of Ukraine.
Against Kyrgios, he picked up key breaks of serve in the last game of the first and third sets. After the opener, Kyrgios complained of a sore knee and was visited by a trainer.
He did not appear to show any ill effects once play resumed, and broke early in the second.
Kyrgios had a chance to break again at 4-all in the third, but couldn’t convert, flubbing a forehand, then spiked his racket. Two games later, he put a backhand into the net to drop that set, then sat in his changeover chair, dumped his racket and threw a drink, drawing a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct from Keothavong.
Khachanov came within two points of victory while ahead 6-5 as Kyrgios served in the fourth set. Kyrgios held on there and dominated the ensuing tiebreaker to force a fifth.
Then Khachanov broke to begin the last set, soon was up 3-1 and was on his way.
“The deeper you go, the expectations rise up,” he said. “I did a step forward.”
In Wednesday’s quarterfinals, it’ll be No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz vs. No. 11 Jannik Sinner, and No. 9 Andrey Rublev vs. No. 22 Frances Tiafoe.
None of the last eight men in the bracket has won a major title.
Ruud headed into the 2022 season with just one Grand Slam appearance that lasted as far as the fourth round anywhere and was determined to improve his record at the four most important events in tennis.
Then, a day before the Australian Open began in January, he twisted his ankle in practice and needed to withdraw. Hardly ideal. Just look at him now: Ruud is into the semifinals at the U.S. Open and has a shot at moving up to No. 1 in the ATP rankings, following a run to the final at the French Open.
The 23-year-old from Norway — who is coached by his father, former professional player Christian — parlayed what he called “a better start than I ever had before in a match” to a 6-1, 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory over 2021 Wimbledon runner-up Matteo Berrettini on Monday.
“During Paris, something clicked, and I feel like I, this year, have sort of figured out the better way how to play five sets and knowing that it’s very different from playing best-of-three sets. … Sometimes realizing, or knowing, that you can sort of let one set go every once in a while to save some energy for the rest of the sets,” said Ruud, 12-2 in Grand Slam play in 2022. “So I think I matured.”
___
More AP coverage of U.S. Open tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/us-open-tennis-championships and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Harry Maguire has been dropped by Manchester United despite being its club captain and the most expensive defender in soccer history.
The big question now: How will that affect his place in England’s team ahead of the World Cup?
England coach Gareth Southgate has previously said he finds it difficult to select players in his squad if they aren’t featuring for their clubs. And Maguire only has to look at some of his teammates at United — Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Luke Shaw — to see Southgate often has been true to his word.
Maguire could prove to be a different case.
First, Maguire might now be behind Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane in the pecking order of center backs at United but he will still get minutes — perhaps most weeks in the lead-up to the World Cup — because of the team’s involvement in the Europa League, when manager Erik ten Hag will likely rotate. That gives Maguire at least six matches, injury-permitting, if not more should Martinez and Varane have any fitness issues themselves.
Then there’s Southgate’s options at center back, which aren’t plentiful.
There’s John Stones, who isn’t exactly a guaranteed starter at Manchester City given the Premier League champions now have five central defenders in their squad. Conor Coady recently left Wolverhampton, where he had lost his place, to join struggling Everton, and Tyrone Mings was dropped by Aston Villa at the start of the season only to recently regain his place because of injuries.
Crystal Palace’s Marc Guehi and AC Milan’s Fikayo Tomori have been in and out of England’s squads over the past year but neither is currently a player Southgate can rely on.
Maguire, then, might be safe for the time being, especially since he’s been a regular under Southgate during the coach’s England tenure. After all, it was only 14 months ago that Maguire was selected in the team of the tournament for the European Championship by UEFA’s technical observers.
His stock at United has plummeted since then, though, with his last start seeing him look beleaguered in the team’s 4-0 loss at Brentford that sparked a crisis at England’s biggest club. Ten Hag has partnered Varane and Martinez in every game since and United won four in a row, conceding only one goal.
Maguire, who left Leicester for United for 80 million pounds (then $97 million) — a world-record fee for defender — in 2019, was on the bench again in the 3-1 win over Arsenal on Sunday and came on in the 80th minute as a replacement for Martinez. Almost immediately, Maguire collected a yellow card for a clumsy foul, and looked shaky throughout his brief time on the field.
Central defense is suddenly a huge concern for Southgate 10 weeks ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.
Still, expect Maguire’s name to be there when the next England squad is named for Nations League matches against Italy and Germany at the end of the month.
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BRAITHWAITE RESURGES
Leaving Barcelona might have been just what Martin Braithwaite needed to boost his chances of securing a spot in Denmark’s World Cup squad.
The forward signed with Espanyol after being among the players Barcelona let go to make more salary cap room for its new signings.
He debuted with his new club Sunday and scored the winner in a 1-0 victory over Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish league. It was Espanyol’s first victory of the season, and Braithwaite’s first goal in more than a year — since a league game in August 2021.
The 31-year-old forward had appeared in only four matches with the Catalan club since then, the last in March.
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JEERS FOR ALVES
After ending his second spell at Barcelona in the offseason, Dani Alves was asked by Brazil coach Tite to join a team where he could play plenty of minutes ahead of the World Cup.
Well, he’s getting game-time at Pumas in Mexico — but things aren’t exactly going to plan.
The team is next to last in the standings after 12 games and the 39-year-old Alves recently has been jeered by fans for his performance on the field. Alves has yet to win any of the eight games he has played with Pumas, which is trying to win their first league title in 11 years.
“The jeers don´t seem normal or appropriate, we know where they are coming from,” said Pumas coach Andres Lillini, who has used Alves in three different positions in midfield as well as at right back.
Alves was a regular for Brazil in World Cup qualifying and also won the gold medal at last year’s Tokyo Olympics.
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More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:20:42Z
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Trevor Immelman used five of six captain’s picks on Presidents Cup rookies on Tuesday to fill out his International team decimated by defections to Saudi-funded LIV Golf.
The task of beating the Americans, who have lost only one time since the Presidents Cup began in 1994, doesn’t figure to be any easier.
Immelman doesn’t have a 12-man team he would have expected for the Sept. 22-25 matches at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. Five players from the 2019 squad that nearly beat the Americans at Royal Melbourne are now with LIV Golf and no longer eligible.
The most recent batch included British Open champion Cameron Smith — the No. 2 player in the world — and Joaquin Niemann.
But he has players who want to be there, and that’s enough for him.
“These are the 12 players that wanted to be eligible. These are the 12 players that wanted to be on the team. Those are the 12 that I want at the end of the day,” Immelman said Tuesday. “If we’re going to get into some really tough competition here in a couple weeks, I want the guys that are committed, and these are those guys.”
Immelman originally had four picks until so much uncertainty arose about who was joining Greg Norman’s rival league. The only pick with Presidents Cup experience was Si Woo Kim, who played on the 2017 team at Liberty National that lost so badly the matches were nearly clinched before the Sunday singles.
Immelman also took K.H. Lee of South Korea, Cameron Davis of Australia, Christiaan Bezuidenhout of South Africa, Sebastian Munoz of Colombia and big-hitting Taylor Pendrith of Canada.
Pendrith joins former roommate Corey Conners — one of the six qualifiers — in giving Canada two spots on the International team for the first time.
Lee was the only pick from inside the top 50 in the world. Immelman chose not to take Ryan Fox of New Zealand, who is No. 47 in the world and plays on the European tour.
The other qualifiers were Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, Adam Scott of Australia, Tom Kim and Sungjae Im of South Korea, and Mito Pereira of Chile.
Scott will be playing in his 10th Presidents Cup without ever having won. There was a tie in South Africa in 2003 when Scott made his debut. And there was a close call in Melbourne three years ago when the International team built an identity and some momentum under captain Ernie Els.
Now it’s a matter of whether that momentum can extend to U.S. soil amid so much disruption against a U.S. team that is getting deeper by the year. The Americans lost Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau to the rival league, though none was among the leading qualifiers when they left.
Davis Love III makes his six captain’s picks on Wednesday.
“I know now that we have 12 players that are hungry, and we have 12 players that wanted to be there, so we go from here,” Immelman said. “We understand exactly the mountain that we have in front of us — possibly the best American team ever assembled if you look at them on paper.”
The six qualifiers are Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, PGA champion Justin Thomas and Tony Finau. All are among the top 15 in the world.
Matsuyama at No. 16 in the highest-ranked player for the International team.
“Yeah, I don’t really think I have to play the underdog role up,” Immelman said. “I think everybody knows it. Everybody sees it clear as day. Our team has had a lot of adversity thrown at us over the last year or so.”
___
More AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:20:54Z
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Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland took their high-flying scoring acts into Europe as the Champions League returned on Tuesday, while last season’s standout star Karim Benzema limped off with an injury after less than 30 minutes.
Mbappé and Haaland both netted two goals as their respective clubs Paris Saint Germain and Manchester City began their European campaigns with victories, underlining just why those two teams are again among the favorites for the title.
Real Madrid’s chances of defending its crown probably depend largely on having a fully fit Benzema, but the France forward had to come off with an apparent knee injury in the 30th minute against Celtic. Second-half goals from Vinícius Júnior, Luka Modric and Eden Hazard still secured a 3-0 win for the Spanish giant in Glasgow.
Benzema was in a league of his own in the competition last season, netting 15 goals in 12 games to lead Madrid to the title. But Mbappé and Haaland look ready to challenge the Frenchman for the status of Europe’s top striker as they try to lead their clubs to an elusive first Champions League title.
The 23-year-old Mbappé, who has seven goals in five league games so far, scored his double in the first 22 minutes of a 2-1 home win over Juventus to become the youngest player to reach 35 goals in the competition — beating the mark held by teammate Lionel Messi.
The 22-year-old Haaland has 25 goals in 20 Champions League games — also a record — after scoring once in each half of Man City’s 4-0 win at Sevilla. The Norway striker, who has 10 goals in six Premier League games this season, has now netted on his Champions League debut for three clubs — Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund and City.
Also, Dinamo Zagreb upset Chelsea 1-0 at home while Serie A champion AC Milan was held to a 1-1 draw at Salzburg.
MBAPPÉ SINKS JUVE
Mbappé’s opening goal for PSG came after just five minutes following some audacious link-up play from Neymar.
Mbappé played a short pass to the Brazilian before making a run into the area, with Neymar holding onto the ball just long enough before chipping it over a defender and into the path of the France striker, who volleyed it first-time past goalkeeper Mattia Perin.
The second came after he exchanged passes with Achraf Hakimi and beat Perin with another first-time finish. United States midfielder Weston McKennie pulled one back for Juventus in the 53rd, creating a tense finale in Paris.
In the other Group H match, Benfica defeated Maccabi Haifa 2-0.
CHELSEA STRUGGLES
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang couldn’t give Chelsea’s stuttering attack any kind of instant spark as the Blues failed to impress once again following an inconsistent start to the season.
Aubameyang made his Chelsea debut after his move from Barcelona, playing with a face mask to protect his injured jaw, and had one goal ruled out for offside while his teammates repeatedly failed to beat goalkeeper Dominik Livaković.
Instead it was Mislav Oršić who continued his scoring streak against English teams, racing away from Wesley Fofana — another of Chelsea’s marquee signings — to score on a breakaway in the 13th minute.
“It’s an underperformance from us,” said Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, whose team has lost twice in the Premier League already. “We are clearly not there where we need to be. …. At the moment everything is missing.”
Noah Okafor put Salzburg ahead against Milan near the half-hour mark by shooting through the legs of goalkeeper Mike Maignan, but Alexis Saelemaekers equalized before the break.
Rafael Leão then nearly won it for Milan in stoppage time when he had a shot deflected off the post.
U.S. international Sergiño Dest came on in the 57th minute for his Milan debut following his transfer last week from Barcelona, one of six Americans in action on the night.
CITY ROLLS IN SPAIN
Haaland could well be the piece that Man City has been missing as it repeatedly came up short in Europe under Pep Guardiola.
The Norwegian again showed his uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time as he was on hand to steer in a cross from Kevin De Bruyne in the 21st minute and then tapped in a rebound for the third goal in the 67th. Phil Foden and Ruben Dias scored the other goals for City in a dominant performance at Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán.
Also in Group G, Marco Reus took his tally to 22 goals in 57 Champions League matches by opening the scoring in Borussia Dortmund’s 3-0 win over Copenhagen. U.S. international Gio Reyna set up the other two goals for Dortmund, exchanging passes with English teenager Jude Bellingham in a slick move for the third.
HAZARD STEPS UP
If Benzema has to miss significant time for Madrid, Hazard signaled that he may be ready to pick up some of the slack.
The Belgium playmaker — who was on the bench before replacing Benzema — set up the first two goals before scoring the third himself against Celtic. It was his first Champions League goal in 651 days and first in any competition since January.
Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti was hopeful that Benzema will be back soon, though.
“It seems not so serious,” Ancelotti said about the striker’s injury.
Callum McGregor had nearly put Celtic ahead in the first half when he struck a fierce shot against the post in the 21st minute.
In the other Group F game, Maryan Shved scored twice as Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk beat RB Leipzig 4-1. Shakhtar’s domestic season only recently started after a lengthy break because of Russia’s invasion but the team got some help from Leipzig goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi for the first goal.
Gulacsi made the blunder of the evening by giving the ball away to Shved as he stood well outside his own area, giving the midfielder a simple finish into an empty net.
Leipzig leveled with a goal by French defender Mohamed Simakan in the 57th but Shved restored the lead one minute later.
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:02Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Major League Baseball Players Association asked management Tuesday to voluntarily accept the union as the bargaining agent for minor leaguers.
Bruce Meyer, the union’s deputy executive director, sent a letter to MLB Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem that claimed a majority of minor leaguers had signed authorization cards.
The MLBPA, which reached its first collective bargaining agreement for major leaguers in 1968, launched the minor league unionization drive on Aug. 28. Players with minor league contracts, who earn as little as $400 weekly during the six-month season, would become their own bargaining unit within the MLBPA.
If MLB does not voluntarily accept the union, signed cards from 30% of the 5,000 to 6,5000 minor leaguers in the bargaining unit would allow the union to file a petition to the National Labor Relations Board asking for a union authorization election. A majority vote in an election would authorize union representation.
“Minor league players have made it unmistakably clear they want the MLBPA to represent them and are ready to begin collective bargaining in order to positively affect the upcoming season,” MLBPA executive director Tony Clark said in a statement.
The union did not say what percentage of minor leaguers had signed authorization cards.
MLB did not immediately comment on the letter.
Players with major league contracts average more than $4 million and have a $700,000 minimum salary while in the big leagues. Their minimum is $57,200 while on option to the minor leagues, with a first major league contract and $114,100 if a second or later big league contract.
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 on option, 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.
Major League Baseball 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
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:10Z
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Orlando City’s pursuit of its first trophy in the U.S. Open Cup is personal for Benji Michel, who grew up in Orlando and was signed by the Lions as a homegrown player.
“It means everything. I mean, this is why we fight, this is what our job is,” he said. “We don’t just play to play, we want to play to win trophies. And we have an amazing opportunity.”
Major League Soccer’s Lions host United Soccer League upstart Sacramento in the title match of the Open Cup on Wednesday night in Orlando, Florida. Sacramento is looking to become just the second lower-division club to win the championship in a quarter-century.
Orlando City, which joined MLS in 2015, has never won a title. The closest the Lions came was in 2020, when they were runners up in the MLS is Back tournament.
In addition to a trophy, the Open Cup winner also earns a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League.
But it’s about more than just hardware for Michel, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Haiti. A self-described “bad kid,” Michel’s big brother became his legal guardian and set him on a better path, which eventually led back to his hometown.
Michel played at the University of Portland, where he was Freshman of the Year for the West Coast Conference and was named an All-American his final year. He signed a homegrown contract with Orlando ahead of the 2019 season.
“I think I started taking soccer seriously when I was 15. At that age, I got my first college offer. And that was that was pretty good. That’s when I really decided OK, this is what I’m good at, this is what I can do,” he said.
Just last year, the 24-year-old striker got a call up to the senior U.S. national team, but he did not feature in a match.
Orlando defeated the New York Red Bulls 5-1 in the Open Cup semifinals to advance to the title game. After Michel scored Orlando’s final goal, he celebrated with a backflip.
Sacramento advanced 5-4 on penalties after a scoreless draw with Sporting Kansas City in the semifinals. The Republic also downed the San Jose Earthquakes and the LA Galaxy in Open Cup play.
Sac Republic’s appearance in the title match of the tournament, which is more than a century old, is a testament to the team’s perseverance after a tough couple of years.
MLS announced in 2019 that Sacramento would be joining the league this season. But the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the start and the team’s lead investor pulled out. The bid was put on hold, and it appears Las Vegas may have leapfrogged Sacramento as the league’s next possible franchise.
For the Open Cup, Sacramento coach Mark Briggs is keeping his team grounded.
“I think we’d be false to think that they don’t recognize the occasion and they don’t recognize the significance of what we’re walking into tomorrow,” Briggs said on Tuesday. “But it’s important that when they have those feelings, when they have those thoughts, we bring them back to the to being present and we bring them back to understanding the detail of which they need to focus on for tomorrow.”
Michel has started in 12 games for Orlando in MLS play this season. The Lions are above the playoff line in fifth place in the Eastern Conference standings with six games left in the regular season.
Michel’s goal in the semifinals boosted his confidence as he looks toward a more consistent role with his hometown team.
“Everyone has their own path, there’s some that have the ability to come in and start right away and make an impact, and for some it takes some takes a couple games, for some takes a couple of years to make that transition to become a day-in and day-out starter,” he said. “Everyone has their own path. So I believe that this is my path. And every year I’m just going to keep getting better, to prove myself that I am a starter.”
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:17Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Caroline Garcia knows how it can feel to be a teen in tennis getting a ton of attention and outsized expectations, the way Coco Gauff does now.
One big difference: Garcia, now 28, became an overnight sensation more than a decade ago thanks to one particularly noteworthy performance on a big stage — and long before she achieved the sorts of things Gauff has at 18.
On Tuesday night at the U.S. Open, Garcia took charge and never really let Gauff — or the crowd — get fully involved. From the get-go, Garcia played high-stakes tennis and put strokes where she wanted, sometimes right at Gauff’s feet, sometimes well out of reach, and reached the first Grand Slam semifinal of her career with a 6-3, 6-4 victory at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“It kind of got away from me,” said the 12th-seeded Gauff, an American who reached the French Open final in June. “It was all her. … I was striking the ball really clean. You’re playing someone, off the bat, they’re standing on top of the baseline and ripping balls. It’s not easy. ”
Garcia, who is from France, hasn’t ceded a set at Flushing Meadows so far this year and stretched her winning streak to 13 matches overall, solidifying her status as someone playing as well as anyone in women’s tennis at the moment.
“The path is very clear right now,” Garcia said. “Which direction I have to go, under stress, under pressure. I’m just trying to follow this path.”
Back in 2011, still just 17 and ranked 188th, playing in only her second tour-level event, Garcia led Maria Sharapova — who had won three of her five Grand Slam titles by then — 6-3, 4-1 in the second round at Roland Garros. Sharapova wound up taking the last 11 games to win, but Garcia was suddenly on the map.
Sharapova praised her as someone “on her way way up, definitely,” and Andy Murray wrote on Twitter that day: “Girl sharapova is playing is going to be No.1 in world one day caroline garcia, what a player u heard it here 1st.”
Asked recently about that, Garcia laughed and said she’s never talked to Murray about it.
“I was very surprised because, in the end, I still lost the match. But it was a funny moment. … I was pretty much nobody at the time. I’m not going to complain about it, but I was definitely not ready. More importantly, my game was not ready for it,” Garcia said. “I was not able to (play) the same, match after match or week after week. I was trying to manage the pressure that came from it.”
She did get to No. 4 in the rankings in 2018, but finished last season ranked 74th. Now she is projected to rise into the top 10 next week and will face Wimbledon runner-up Ons Jabeur of Tunisia on Thursday with a berth in the U.S. Open final at stake.
Jabeur advanced to her first semifinal in New York with a 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory over the player who beat Serena Williams in the third round, Ajla Tomljanovic.
In the men’s quarterfinals Tuesday, No. 5 Casper Ruud beat No. 13 Matteo Berrettini in straight sets and will play No. 27 Karen Khachanov, who eliminated No. 23 Nick Kyrgios 7-5, 4-6, 7-5, 6-7 (3), 6-4 in a match that finished at about 1 a.m..
In Garcia vs. Gauff, it was 4-0 merely 17 minutes in, as spectators were still filing in. All in all, there was less-vociferous support for Gauff than she heard in her previous victory in Ashe.
During that pretty perfect start, Garcia capped one 17-stroke exchange with a down-the-line forehand winner. She raised her fist and held that pose while looking at her guest box, where her father and coach were on their feet. It was a sequence that would be repeated.
Garcia stood right near the baseline, or inside it, and read Gauff’s serves effectively. Garcia often returned deep enough to seemingly startle Gauff, who rushed some responses. After one of several attempted replies by Gauff settled in the net, she jutted her racket toward the ground, as if to indicate: “Why do these keep landing right there?!”
Gauff ended up double-faulting six times and finished with 24 unforced errors.
Taking balls early off the bounce, Garcia gained the upper hand from the baseline with her crisp strokes. During a brief TV interview on the way from the locker room to the court, Garcia said she hoped to be “more aggressive.”
She certainly was.
With her volleying expertise — she has won two Grand Slam doubles titles with French partner Kristina Mladenovic — Garcia moved forward whenever an opening presented itself. She wound up winning 13 of 16 points when she went to the net.
Gauff occasionally would show a bit of frustration at her play, slapping herself on the thigh or knocking her racket on a courtside towel holder.
She was trying to become the youngest American woman in the U.S. Open semifinals since Serena Williams was 17 when she won her first Grand Slam title in New York in 1999.
Garcia would not allow it.
“Overall I’m super proud of myself … but I’m hungry for more,” Gauff said with a smile. “So maybe next year.”
___
More AP coverage of U.S. Open tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/us-open-tennis-championships and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:24Z
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ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Kody Clemens will never catch his father in career strikeouts. When it comes to their first one, though, the kid has the upper hand.
The Detroit Tigers’ rookie utility player — and son of seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens — caught Shohei Ohtani looking late in Monday night’s 10-0 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.
Mopping up in the eighth inning, Clemens froze last year’s AL MVP with a 68 mph pitch on the outside corner for his first major league strikeout and gave an exuberant strike three call on the mound.
Ohtani hit two home runs earlier — his sixth multi-homer game of the season.
“I’m just trying to get outs, and for it to come like that is obviously super cool,” Clemens said. “He’s the best player in baseball. So it’s a pretty cool moment for me.”
Grinning ear to ear, the 26-year-old Clemens tossed the souvenir ball into the dugout for safe keeping and is hoping to get it signed by the Angels’ two-way star during the final two days of the series.
“It was a wonderful pitch,” Ohtani said through his interpreter.
By far the hardest one of their encounter, too.
Ohtani fouled off a 54 mph delivery from Clemens, took a 57 mph pitch for a ball and then fouled off a 56 mph offering.
“I mean, obviously can’t do it slow enough for Ohtani. Maybe you can throw it slow and slow and slow and then maybe surprise him with a fastball,” Detroit manager A.J. Hinch said. “Big smile on Kody’s face, and Shohei tipped his cap.”
Those were four of the seven slowest pitches Ohtani has faced this season, according to MLB Statcast. The other three were by Tampa Bay outfielder Brett Phillips, including a 53 mph “fastball” during the Angels’ 12-0 victory on May 12, when Reid Detmers threw a no-hitter for Los Angeles.
Clemens was pitching for the third time in the past seven days to save Detroit’s bullpen with the game out of reach. He worked one inning and allowed one run on three hits.
He has pitched six times this season and given up three runs on 10 hits in six innings.
Roger Clemens had 4,672 strikeouts during his 24-year career, third on the all-time list behind Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. The Rocket’s first one came against Cleveland’s Mike Hargrove on May 15, 1984.
“I don’t know how (Kody’s) father would have done against (Ohtani), but he can always say he punched him out,” Hinch said.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:32Z
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So much of the talk about Georgia last year focused on a defense that produced five NFL first-round draft picks.
The Bulldogs’ defense showed no sign of dropping off against No. 11 Oregon, but it was the offense that was front and center statistically in a 49-3 win Sunday.
The No. 3 and defending national champion Bulldogs became the second team in 15 seasons to score a touchdown on its first seven possessions against a ranked opponent.
The seven TD drives ranged from six to 12 plays, the first six under the direction of quarterback Stetson Bennett. Backup Carson Beck was in the game for the seventh. The streak ended when they went three-and-out on their first full series of the fourth quarter.
Last year Ohio State reached the end zone on its first seven drives, all in the first half, against then-No. 9 Michigan State.
BLOCK THAT KICK
FBS kickers have been pretty much automatic on extra points, having converted 577 of 586 this season. Of the nine misses, three were blocked — none bigger than Shyheim Brown’s deflection of Damian Ramos’ try on the final play of Florida State’s 24-23 win over LSU on Sunday.
In the past 20 years, according to Sportradar, no previous one-point game involving an FBS team had ended with the winning team blocking an extra point with no time left in the fourth quarter.
Kickers for Baylor and Akron also had extra-point tries blocked over the weekend.
SCORING EXPLOSION
Appalachian State’s 40 points in the fourth quarter of its 63-61 loss to North Carolina were the most by a team in a quarter since BYU hung 42 on Massachusetts in the second in 2019 and most by a team in a fourth quarter in 20 years, according to Sportradar.
According to Stats Perform, Saturday marked the first time an FBS team scored at least 60 points and lost and an FBS scored fewer than 10 points and won on the same day. Iowa turned a field goal and two safeties into a 7-3 win over South Dakota State.
ROCK CHALK RUN
Kansas heads to West Virginia this week with a shot of confidence from some of its offensive feats, albeit against Tennessee Tech of the Championship Subdivision.
The Jayhawks’ average of 9.9 yards per carry was their highest in a game since at least 2000. Their 297 rushing yards were their most since they had 508 against Rutgers in 2018.
Kansas’ won 56-10, scoring its most points in an opener since 1912 and most in a home game since a 76-39 win over Nebraska in 2007.
RULE OF 70
Wisconsin, in a 38-0 win over Illinois State, was the first FBS team in four years to have a run, pass and interception return of at least 70 yards in the same game.
Braelon Allen’s 96-yard touchdown against Illinois State was the longest run from scrimmage in program history, John Torchio set a school record with a 100-yard interception return and Chimere Dike turned a short pass into a 74-yard gain for the longest completion in quarterback Graham Mertz’s career.
Middle Tennessee was the previous team with 70-yard plays three different ways, doing it against Old Dominion in 2018. No Big Ten team had done it since 2003.
‘AIR’ AIR FORCE
Haaziq Daniels put the air in Air Force on his first pass attempt of the season.
The Falcons, whose triple-option offense has had a run-pass ratio of nearly 90-10 the past two seasons, scored their first touchdown in a 48-17 win over Northern Iowa on Daniels’ 80-yard pass to Dane Kinamon.
Air Force faced third-and-12 from its 20 when Daniels scrambled to his left and threw to Kinamon, who had his defender beat by 5 yards and caught the ball in stride.
It was Air Force’s longest pass since Daniels’ school-record 92-yarder against Colorado State last year.
___
AP Sports Writer Steve Megargee in Wisconsin contributed to this report.
___
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://apnews.com/cfbtop25
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:40Z
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SEATTLE (AP) — This time there were tears, on the court and in the stands. The finality of the situation finally hitting Sue Bird and the thousands that showed up hoping to see her career continue for at least 40 more minutes.
Chelsea Gray was simply too good, sending the Las Vegas Aces to the WNBA Finals by beating the Seattle Storm 97-92 in Game 4 of their WNBA playoffs semifinal series Tuesday night.
It brought an end to Bird’s illustrious career. With it came thanks from fans, tears and one last walk off the court in the same spot where Bird’s career began more than two decades ago.
“Kinda weird. Definitely surreal. I think initially … I felt sad about the season and the game. And I then think as the emotions started to come to the surface that was also what I know deep down in that was my last game,” Bird said.
Gray scored 15 of her 31 points in the fourth quarter and the Aces won the best-of-five series 3-1, all the games tense, pressure-packed and filled with spectacular shot-making. The Aces ended up making more, most notably Gray, who made five of six shots down the stretch and scored 12 of the final 20 points for the Aces.
“I don’t think anyone on planet Earth can guard her,” Seattle coach Noelle Quinn said. “She was unconscious.”
It will be the third Finals appearance in franchise history for Las Vegas. The Aces lost to Seattle in 2020 in the WNBA bubble played in Florida, and the franchise reached the Finals in 2008 while still in San Antonio, losing to Detroit.
“It’s kind of like the girl that beat Serena (Williams). It’s bittersweet,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “I know myself and our staff and team and organization have so much respect for Sue. She’s had a fairytale career, one that kids dream of. She got to live it.”
Breanna Stewart tied the WNBA playoff record with 42 points, just the fifth player to score 40 or more in a postseason game, and Jewell Loyd added 29. But Seattle failed to find a third scorer and the Aces had an answer for every charge Seattle made after Las Vegas surged in front early in the second half.
The Aces will get the spotlight in the Finals. On this night, the aftermath of the result was all about Bird and the conclusion to her two decades as a pillar to the Storm franchise and the WNBA.
Bird stayed on the court after the final buzzer, receiving hugs from the entire Aces roster. She wiped away tears while the crowd cheered and cried along with her, and chanted “Thank you, Sue.”
“I also wanted to kind of have one last moment to say thank you, to soak it all in because in some ways, it is a happy thing,” Bird said. “I’m proud of of everything we’ve accomplished here.”
The oldest player in the league at age 41, Bird started the year thinking she’d retire, but brought finality to the decision midway through the regular season.
Las Vegas spoiled the party in Seattle’s home regular-season finale when Bird was honored by the franchise and the league for her 21 seasons with the team and 19 as a player, missing two seasons with injury.
And it was the Aces that finally eliminated Bird and the Storm after four stressful games filled with big performances.
Bird closes out her career as one of the most decorated players of all-time: four WNBA titles, five Olympic gold medals, two collegiate titles at UConn, the WNBA all-time leader in assists and games played, and recognition as one of the great players during a golden generation for the league.
She’ll also take into retirement the definition of being a floor leader and ultimately a winner. But she wasn’t able to add a fifth title to that resume. Bird finished her final game with eight points and eight assists.
“As sad as it is that we’re we’re not having the ability to compete for a championship, I think what’s more devastating … is just the fact that we’re no longer going to be on the court with Sue,” Stewart said.
Gray was the biggest thorn for Seattle with her clutch shooting often late in the shot clock. Seattle pulled even at 67-all, only to have Gray hit a 3 as the shot clock expired.
Gray scored consecutive buckets later in the fourth to keep the Aces ahead, but her miss and Gabby Williams’ three-point play gave Seattle an 83-82 lead with 2:40 left.
That was Seattle’s last lead.
Wilson’s three-point play put the Aces back ahead 85-83 and Gray wouldn’t miss, her jumper with 30 seconds left giving the Aces a 92-87 lead. Wilson finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds. Gray finished as the first player in WNBA playoff history with 30 points and 10 assists in a game.
“When Chelsea is rocking and rolling my biggest thing is just getting the hell out of her way,” Wilson said. “At the end of the day, you just got to get out of the way and let people rock.”
OTHER RETIREMENT
Tuesday was also the final game for Seattle’s Briann January after 14 seasons in the league. January played for four teams with most of her career spent in Indiana.
RECORD HALF
Stewart’s 26 points in the first half was the most in the first half of a playoff game, topping the 24 points Angel McCoughtry had in the first half for Atlanta against Minnesota in 2011. McCoughtry finished that game with 38.
UP NEXT
Las Vegas will host either Connecticut or Chicago in Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Sunday.
___
More WNBA playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-playoffs and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:48Z
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UNCASVILLE, Conn. (AP) — With their season on the line, Alyssa Thomas and the Connecticut Sun took it right to Chicago and forced a decisive Game 5 in their WNBA semifinals series against the Sky.
DeWanna Bonner and Courtney Williams each scored 19 points to help the Sun rout the Sky 104-80 on Tuesday night. Thomas added 17 points for Connecticut, which will travel to the second-seeded Sky for the winner-take-all WNBA playoffs game on Thursday night.
“Some games like tonight we get to feeling good, and the basket looks a little bigger. Tonight we just made shots,” Williams said. “Whatever team comes out and puts the ball in the basket is going to win.”
It’s the second consecutive playoff series for each team that has gone the distance. Both Chicago and Connecticut had to go on the road in the third game of their opening-round series and win to reach the semifinals because of the new playoff format that saw the higher seeded team host the first two games of that best-of-three set.
“It’s going to come down to who plays better for two hours,” Connecticut coach Curt Miller said. “We’ve won some tough road games. We have a team that grinds and has grit and that’s the kind of toughness you need to pull off a road win in a big game.”
Miller has been saying the entire series his team would have to make the game “messy” to beat the Sky. Getting into a high-scoring game wouldn’t benefit the Sun.
“So much for messy. That wasn’t messy,” Miller said. “A huge win and sending it back to Chicago for Game 5.”
That wasn’t the case Tuesday, as the Sun raced to a 22-6 lead, scoring 10 of the first 12 points. Thomas was a big reason why with seven points, four rebounds and two assists in the first five minutes. The All-Star forward had six points total in Game 3 and seven in Game 2 — both Connecticut losses.
“We put an emphasis on the first quarter. It’s something we talked about,” Williams said. “This series has been told by what happened in the first quarter.”
The Sky got back within eight by the end of the first quarter, but couldn’t get much closer as Connecticut had an answer for every Chicago run — thanks to Thomas, Bonner and Jonquel Jones. The trio helped the Sun outscore the Sky 66-34 in the lane.
“Big response by our team and the starting group that set the tone early with the aggressiveness at both ends of the floor,” Miller said. “We talked this entire time how this is going to be a points in the paint series for us. That was an impressive performance of points in the paint.”
Chicago got within 38-33 midway through the second quarter before the Sun went on a 15-5 run to restore the double-digit advantage. DiJonai Carrington had five points during the burst that was capped by Thomas’ layup with 1:01 left in the half.
Candace Parker, who had been stellar in the first three games of the series, scored her first points of the game on a 3-pointer 16 seconds later that got the Sky within 53-41. Connecticut scored the final five points, including a layup just before the buzzer by Carrington that made it 58-41 at the break.
“I think the first thing we have to do is clean up some stuff,” Chicago coach James Wade said. “We’ll be better next game.”
Williams was the spark in the third quarter, helping the Sun stave off any Sky run. Her teammates were looking for her when Chicago would come double them, and Williams was left open for layups. She had 10 points in the third quarter.
“There were too many details we missed,” Allie Quigley said. “Not doing what we were supposed to do. We missed people behind us. There were too many moments where we weren’t there and ready. We weren’t focused.”
Kahleah Copper scored 16 points and Emma Meesseman added 14 for the Sky. Parker had 11 points and nine rebounds.
AWARD WINNER:
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert honored Sun forward Brionna Jones before the game with the league’s Sixth Person of the Year award. Jones received 53 of the 56 votes from a national media panel. It’s the first time Jones has won the award.
RECORD BREAKER
Parker moved into first all-time on the career playoff rebound list, passing Tamika Catchings. Parker now has 600 in her career. Catchings had 598.
“Great accomplishment. Goes to show her level of greatness she’s had for her career,” Wade said. “Something you can’t take for granted. Even in the loss, its tough to celebrate those types of things, but we have to acknowledge it.”
TIP-INS:
The Sky are trying to be the first team to repeat as champions since Los Angeles did it in 2001-02. Six other defending champions reached the finals since then, but all lost in that round. … The UConn women’s basketball team was in attendance, sitting a few row up from the Chicago Sky bench. … Bonner moved into seventh on the all-time postseason scoring list in WNBA history.
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More WNBA playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-playoffs and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:21:56Z
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PITTSBURGH (AP) — Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett and Mason Rudolph all impressed Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin during the preseason with their respective accuracy.
If only the same could be said for whoever put together the team’s initial depth chart for the 2022 season.
While Tomlin announced Trubisky as the starter on Tuesday — a move telegraphed a day prior when Trubisky’s teammates voted him one of five captains for 2022 and the depth chart placed Trubisky’s name at the top — it will be Pickett and not Rudolph who will serve as Trubisky’s backup on Sunday when the Steelers open at defending AFC champion Cincinnati.
The chart released on Monday had Rudolph listed as the No. 2 before being corrected shortly before Tomlin spoke on Tuesday. Entering his 16th season, Tomlin laughed off the mix-up as a clerical error.
“The cut-and-paste component was the cut-and-paste component,” Tomlin said with a smile. “ I know you were hoping for a little bit more colorful explanation, but it is what it is.”
Tomlin and the Steelers are optimistic the depth chart won’t require much editing in the coming weeks following a solid preseason by Trubisky in which the 28-year-old gave the coaching staff little reason to consider turning to Pickett, the 20th overall pick in the draft, or Rudolph, who is now in his fifth season with the club.
“We’re just really comfortable with what Mitch has shown us,” Tomlin said. “He’s a guy that came to us with franchise quarterback experience if you will. He’s comfortable in those shoes.”
Trubisky has certainly acted the part over the past six months, immediately embracing his fresh start after spending 2021 backing up Josh Allen in Buffalo following four turbulent seasons in Chicago. He reached out to his new teammates shortly after signing an incentive-laden two-year contract in March, hosted skill position players at his house in Miami and hardly seemed bothered by the team’s decision to draft Pickett in late April.
And for all of the issues that cropped up during Trubisky’s tenure in Chicago — some of them well out of his control — he had a 29-21 record as a starter and twice led the Bears to the playoffs, all things that made Trubisky “very attractive” to a team that has been a postseason fixture for the majority of the past 50 years.
Pickett did his best to apply pressure, playing well during the preseason on his way to supplanting Rudolph as the No. 2.
Tomlin said Pickett’s learning curve accelerated during exhibition games, where he passed for 261 yards and three touchdowns without throwing an interception.
“I thought that he grew and grew at a really fast pace once we got in the stadiums,” Tomlin said. “And I also think it’s reasonable to expect that growth and development to continue as we push into the regular season.”
That development won’t include — at least at the moment — having Pickett on the field in certain packages, something other teams like San Francisco have done with rookie first-round quarterbacks.
At least Pickett will be in uniform. Rudolph — who is 8-5 as a starter — will be inactive after Tomlin said the team will not dress a third quarterback. Tomlin made it a point to praise Rudolph’s professionalism during the process and said the play of Rudolph, Pickett and Trubisky over the past six weeks helped a young offense get up to speed quickly.
“I thought all three of our quarterbacks represented themselves, us really, well through this process,” he said. “I thought they made plays. I thought they moved their units. I thought they took care of the football. So that made the (final decision) a challenging one.”
NOTE: Tomlin declined to offer specifics when asked if Pro Bowl WR Diontae Johnson (left shoulder) would be available for the opener. Johnson injured the shoulder while making a catch in the preseason finale against Detroit on Aug. 28.
___
More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:03Z
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Representatives for the men’s and women’s U.S. national teams on Tuesday signed their historic collective bargaining agreements with U.S. Soccer, formally closing a long and sometimes acrimonious fight over equal pay.
The federation announced in May that it had struck separate agreements with the players’ unions on contracts that run through 2028. The new contracts include identical pay structures for appearances and tournament victories, revenue sharing and equitable distribution of World Cup prize money.
A signing ceremony was held following the women’s friendly match against Nigeria at Audi Field in Washington, with Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh among those on hand.
“I have to give a lot of credit to everyone involved, the women’s national team and their PA (players’ association), the men’s national team and their PA, and everyone at U.S. Soccer. There were so many people that helped, that worked together to make this happen,” said U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone, herself a former national team player. “And it wouldn’t get pushed over the line without the men jumping in and being on board with equal pay.”
After years of struggling for equitable pay and treatment, The U.S. women filed a federal gender discrimination against U.S. Soccer in 2019. The lawsuit drew international attention, prompting fans to chant “Equal Pay!” when the United States won the Women’s World Cup final in France.
In February, the two sides settled the lawsuit, with U.S. Soccer agreeing to pay the women $24 million. But the settlement was contingent on reaching new labor agreements with both teams.
The men had been playing under the terms of a CBA that expired in December 2018. The women’s CBA expired at the end of March, but talks continued after the lawsuit was settled.
The sticking point in negotiations was World Cup prize money, which is based on how far a team advances in soccer’s most prestigious tournament. While the U.S. women have been successful on the international stage with back-to-back World Cup titles, differences in FIFA prize money meant they took home far less than the men’s winners. American women received a $110,000 bonus for winning the 2019 World Cup; the U.S. men would have received $407,000 had they won in 2018.
The unions agreed to pool FIFA’s payments for the men’s World Cup later this year and next year’s Women’s World Cup, as well as for the 2026 and 2027 tournaments.
Because the men’s national team players are currently in league play, the CBA was signed by USNSTPA Executive Director Mark Levinstein. Women’s players Crystal Dunn, Becky Sauerbrunn and Sam Mewis also signed, along with USWNTPA Executive Director Becca Roux.
Sauerbrunn addressed the crowd.
“I want to thank all of you guys for the support, all the social media posts, the messages of support, the chants of `Equal Pay’ at really funny times, showing up at our games. You guys make the difference and you are truly, truly the best fans in the world,” she said.
Former players Kristine Lilly, Briana Scurry and Lori Lindsey also attended the on-field ceremony after the U.S. defeated Nigeria 2-1.
With the CBAs accepted, a federal judge in August gave preliminary approval approved the settlement. A hearing to finalize it is set for December.
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:11Z
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BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — LSU has emerged from a disappointing season opener trying to address a slew of costly miscues in the Tigers’ one-point loss to Florida State.
The game marked an inauspicious debut for coach Brian Kelly, given his professed emphasis on organization and getting the details right.
“Coming off a difficult loss, you can imagine there’s a lot of emotion,” Kelly said Tuesday as the Tigers (0-1) prepared to host Southern (1-0) in the first meeting of the two Baton Rouge institutions.
“There’s so many things that I could stand here in front of you (and say) that in Week 1, we want to do better,” Kelly said. “I could touch upon every single aspect of the game.
“But I think we have to be careful not to say that this defines anything about this football team other than what they displayed,” Kelly continued. “They displayed grit. And they displayed character. … Was it pretty football all the time? No, it was not. But they’re accountable. Our coaches are accountable. I’m accountable.”
The lowlights of Sunday’s 24-23 loss included two fumbled punts by receiver Malik Nabers, a blocked field goal, a blocked extra point that could have tied the game at the end of regulation, a bad snap that went for a 14-yard loss on second-and-goal from the 5, and a third-down incomplete pass near the end zone that glanced off the torso of top receiver Kayshon Boutte, who wasn’t looking for the ball.
Boutte, a preseason Biletnikoff Award candidate, could be seen stewing on the sideline while quarterback Jayden Daniels tried to speak with him, a potentially troubling sign that Kelly said he has addressed.
“His standard is so high. And, obviously, it was a difficult day for him. It wasn’t his best. But he’s going to have great games,” Kelly said, describing Boutte as the “least” of the offense’s concerns.
Boutte had just two catches for 20 yards. He also was unable to maintain control of a contested pass near the back of the end zone. And it’s not often that Boutte’s lack of production becomes a story line, Kelly noted.
“He’s a young man who hasn’t been in this situation before and he needs some guidance,” Kelly said. “We worked on some things that will help him handle the scrutiny. And quite frankly, the scrutiny was strong.”
Meanwhile, Kelly blamed himself for Nabers’ second muffed punt, which could have cost the Tigers their last chance to tie the game had the Seminoles not subsequently fumbled themselves, setting up a dramatic, 99-yard LSU TD drive in the final 1:20.
“It was my decision to stick with Malik,” Kelly said. “I felt like he’s an elite athlete, he’s confident and I wanted to show that confidence in him.”
Protection up front was an issue, not only on the blocked kicks, but also in the running and passing games.
The Tigers entered the game lacking experience across the line. No current LSU offensive lineman has more starts for the Tigers than Cam Wire, who had four prior to the opener. Garrett Dellinger was starting at center for the first time in his career after switching positions in the offseason.
While Daniels rushed for 114 yards, most of that came on scrambles. The rest of the team combined for just 39 yards rushing.
“Obviously, the run game has to continue to grow,” Kelly said, noting how the running backs reads have to be in synch with the blocking of linemen, tight ends and receivers. “We’ve got to get all those pieces working together.”
Daniels, who was sacked four times, had little time to throw until the latter part of the fourth quarter, when the Seminoles dropped into a conservative, “prevent” defense.
Kelly said that pass blockers are still developing an “awareness” of where and when they can and should help one another.
That improves “when you get a group of guys that are playing together for a while,” Kelly said. “Certainly, we lack a little bit of that right now.”
Defensively, LSU will have to adjust to the loss of defensive end Maason Smith, who tore his left anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) when his knee buckled as he came down from a celebratory hop following a teammate’s tackle.
“Obviously, we’re crushed for him because he was celebrating for a teammate,” Kelly said. “He’s a great player. You’re going to miss great players.”
On the whole, Kelly said, the Tigers deserved criticism for their opening showing.
“It’s a high-profile program,” Kelly said. “I’m not up here to make excuses for our guys. … We should be critical of our coaching and of our play. Critical analysis is going to get us better.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:18Z
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The chance of the scattered thunderstorm will stay in the forecast Wednesday. We will likely take a break from the rain threat Thursday and Friday with more rain to possibly return Saturday. The coolest air in months is possible next week.
The threat of rain continues: Much of the ArkLaTex stayed dry on Labor Day with scattered showers and thunderstorms. We have seen a few areas of rain develop around the area today. Futurecast shows that the threat of scattered showers or thunderstorms will linger through Wednesday. Expect today’s rain to end this evening. New areas of rain could develop late Tuesday night over parts of the area. The coverage of the rain will likely increase some Wednesday before ending Wednesday evening. We will likely see a drier weather picture on both Thursday and Friday with a mix of sunshine and clouds. Rain will likely return to parts of the ArkLaTex on Saturday.
How much more rain? Futurecast shows that rainfall will be rather limited for most of the area as most locations will receive less than ¼” of rain. We will likely see scattered areas of heavier totals that could be in the ½ to 1” range. It looks like the best chance of seeing the heavier rain will be over East Texas and Northwest Louisiana.
Little change in daytime temperatures: Highs Tuesday have climbed into the upper 80s to lower 90s over most of the area. Thanks to more clouds and rain, Wednesday’s temperatures should be similar to Tuesday’s as most of the ArkLaTex will see highs in the upper 80s to lower 90s. These temperatures are a few degrees below normal for this time of year.
Is drier air finally on the way? The long-range weather picture is finally showing that a surge of drier air could invade the ArkLaTex next week. If things play out as models now indicate, we could consequently see some of the coolest air in our area in nearly three months as overnight lows could dip into the low to middle 60s. We likely won’t see much change in daytime temperatures as highs will stay in the mid to upper 80s through all of next week.
Get daily forecasts and exclusive severe weather details on storms as they approach your area by downloading the Arklatex Weather Authority app now available in the App Store and Google Play
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:24Z
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by: Todd Warren Posted: Sep 6, 2022 / 05:30 PM CDT Updated: Sep 6, 2022 / 05:34 PM CDT SHARE Madelynn-Grace Blake, a third-grader at Word of God Academy tells us about some rain tomorrow and a ‘half-n-half’ weekend.
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:31Z
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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – If you’ve been enjoying the warm weather with a chance of daily thunderstorms we will continue in this pattern for another 48 hours. Drier air will return Thursday and Friday, but a few storms may pass through the region again over the weekend.
Warm with a chance of storms today: An area of low pressure remains close to the ArkLaTex today and this will be the weather factor that keeps the chance of scattered storms going. While we may have a few isolated showers and storms this morning in northeast Texas, we will have to wait for the warm air and humidity to build to trigger a better chance of storms this afternoon.
Thunderstorms are not expected to be severe but may bring lightning and an occasional strong wind gust. The coverage of the rain will not be too impressive, and scattered sunshine will warm our high temperatures into the upper 80s and low 90s. This remains near or just a degree or two below average for the date. Wind will remain very light, out of the southwest at 5 miles per hour.
Scattered storms continue tomorrow: A weak frontal boundary will pass through the ArkLaTex Wednesday so we may have a slightly higher chance for scattered storms tomorrow, especially during the afternoon. An increase in cloud cover bringing otherwise mostly cloudy skies will bring highs in the upper 80s.
Dry air will arrive in the ArkLaTex Thursday bringing partly cloudy and dry weather to most areas Thursday and Friday.
Scattered weekend storms: A surge in Gulf air will arrive Saturday bringing scattered storms to begin the weekend. The weekend is not going to be a washout with drier air ending the rain in most areas Sunday.
Rainfall accumulations through Friday will average half an inch to 1-inch of rain across the ArkLaTex.
Get exclusive severe weather details on storms as they approach your area by downloading the Arklatex Weather Authority app, now available in the App Store and Google Play
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:39Z
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A new California rule could pave the way for more affordable—and more efficient—EV charging.
As reported by Canary Media (via ChargedEVs), the California Public Utilities Commission recently approved a new rule requiring the state’s three largest utilities to let EV chargers measure the amount of energy they’re using.
Many home chargers already have metering capability, but without the requirement to use it utilities were forcing customers to install separate meters at their own expense. In addition to being redundant, this could cost up to $2,000, according to a figure quoted by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the state’s largest utility.
So while California has required time-of-use rates that could incentivize EV owners to charge during off-peak times, that has been cost-prohibitive to some homeowners until now. But with chargers showing how much power is being used in real time, customers can take advantage of those time-of-use rates without having to spend extra money on a second meter.
The potential benefits aren’t just financial. Time-of-use charging is a key technology that will help enable the increased electricity load from EVs to make the grid cleaner, not dirtier. The decision will also help prevent grid concerns, such as what California has faced this weekend, because incentivized off-peak charging will help reduce the load on the grid.
And, as the percentage of EVs in the fleet ramps up, and as public charging becomes more widely available, it could be argued that smart charging is more important than fast charging.
By charging slowly, outside of peak hours, EV drivers still get the energy they need with fewer necessary upgrades to grid infrastructure. With the new rule in place, California could soon tap into smart charging’s true potential.
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- Buick offers dealer buyouts in advance of EV remake for GM brand
- Rivian electric trucks can level up with Camp mode feature, part of latest OTA update
- Does Toyota’s plan to convert engine plants into battery factories signal a stronger EV shift?
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| 2022-09-21T11:22:55Z
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It took 15 years for the third-generation Toyota Tundra to arrive and throughout my time with it, one question kept recurring: “Is this the best they could do?”
With a new luxury Capstone trim, a powerful hybrid powertrain, an in-your-face design, and innovative features, the 2022 Toyota Tundra isn’t a bad truck.
It just feels like a massive missed opportunity. Toyota could’ve come out swinging with a segment-busting product like the A-BAT hybrid pickup concept from 2007, but it played follow the Ford F-150 leader instead. Nobody wins by following.
I spent a week picking up supplies at the local fleet supply store, towing boats, and hauling kids on a road trip to figure out where the 2022 Toyota Tundra fits in the truckosphere. The answer is murky, especially in the $75,000 Capstone trim.
Going hybrid
A hybrid Tundra was long overdue for the company that made its modern-day reputation on the back of a fuel-sipping Prius. But instead of punching a hole in the market and delivering a truck with incredible fuel efficiency, Toyota aimed for power in an attempt to best the competition. Numbers on paper aren’t the same as reality.
The top-shelf Capstone trim atop the Tundra lineup pairs a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 and hybrid system to produce 427 hp and 583 lb-ft of torque. On paper this powertrain is the most powerful option in a light-duty pickup truck this side of a Ford F-150 Raptor R or Ram 1500 TRX, but it doesn’t feel as powerful. The hybrid system operates seamlessly and in the background, unlike the hybrid system in the F-150 with its clunky 1-2 and 2-3 shifts and hybrid power handoffs. Even when unloaded mashing the go pedal doesn’t provide the same forward grunt found in the F-150 Hybrid with its 400 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque, or even the outgoing high-out twin-turbo V-6 previously available in the F-150 Limited with 450 hp and 510 lb-ft of torque.
Four-wheel drive is standard on the $75,925 Capstone model, but despite the luxury model’s large price its four-wheel-drive system is an ancient part-time system. No full-time system is available on any Tundra, though Capstone models feature an automatic limited-slip rear differential.
The big power numbers on paper went for gold at the sacrifice of fuel economy. The hybrid Tundra horse-trades fuel economy ratings with the non-hybrid variant. Hybrid models carry EPA ratings of 19 mpg city, 22 highway, 20 combined while non-hybrids are rated at 17/23/19 mpg. In reality I saw a sad 15.1 mpg in (a rather short) 40 miles of mixed suburban driving according to the trip computer. Falling short of EPA ratings, again, the Tundra averaged 19.4 mpg over the course of 203 highway miles. With the boat (towing is an extremely inefficient activity) the truck averaged 9.4 mpg over 158 miles. None of these real-world numbers are markedly better than a V-8-powered truck from the competition, though they are better than the outgoing 5.7-liter V-8 in the second-generation Tundra, which at times would average just 14 mpg on the highway unloaded.
As disappointing as the hybrid powertrain is, the 10-speed automatic transmission delights. Regardless of whether its stop-and-go traffic, highway cruising, or towing 5,000 lb, the Toyota-built unit snaps off quick, clean shifts. This might be the best transmission available today in a light-duty pickup truck. The programming never allows the transmission to get lost in all the gears.
Hooking up the boat
The act of physically hooking a boat up to the Tundra is reasonably simple thanks to the gigantic screen and multiple camera angles. Once the boat and trailer combo is attached to the rear of the Tundra, there’s the ability to input a few key details such as number of axles on the trailer, type of hookup used (i.e. hitch), and brake type (i.e. electric brakes or surge). This information can be saved in a profile, and then the truck can do its own analysis about the trailer’s length within the first few feet of driving. It then integrates the trailer with the truck’s blind-spot monitors to take into account the extra length. It worked flawlessly and was much simpler than Ford’s input system for trailer information.
With a 5,000-lb fiberglass walleye boat and dual-axle trailer hooked to it, however, the motivation at speed was downright disappointing despite the load checking in well under the Capstone’s 10,340-lb max towing capacity. Two front-seat occupants and a 19-lb road bike in the bed also didn’t even touch the 1,485-lb max payload capacity. Passing isn’t an issue, but where the high-output twin-turbo V-6 in the last F-150 would lunge forward as if the same boat and trailer didn’t exist, no Tundra driver will ever forget there’s a trailer hooked to this thing. This doesn’t feel like 583 lb-ft of torque. And while the Capstone’s rear air shocks will self-level the suspension so it doesn’t sag, the trailer lash is present at all times unlike with an F-150.
The safety systems demand the driver be buckled during low-speed reverse maneuvers; otherwise, a chime constantly dings. Having a seat belt on makes backing up much less comfortable and in certain situations difficult. Tow mode or hooking up a trailer with the 7-pin light and brake connection does not disable safety systems such as reverse automatic emergency braking. Instead, the driver has to manually turn off the systems by digging through the menus in the gauge cluster. Should someone forget this step it will inevitably lead to the truck slamming on the brakes while reversing a trailer, which could severely hurt someone in the boat at the launch.
Attracting glares or stares?
The second-generation Tundra blended in, but no one will accuse the third-generation of doing the same. With a bold exterior design there’s no missing the Tundra going down the road.
While not for everyone, the design is distinctive. The massive grille is a bit much, but the sculpted headlights with multi-element LED units, big bumper end caps, and centrally-mounted fog lights that border on driving lights are all attractive. The vertical LED talilights feature sequential turn signals. The sculpted hood and fenders give the truck a punched-out look without adding actual width.
Unlike every other light-duty pickup on the market, the Tundra retains its short bed sidewalls that make it possible for someone to reach over into the bed to grab things. The shorter bed walls also make for a lower tailgate height when open, which translates to a lower lift-over height for loading cargo into the bed. The bed is now made of a resin composite instead of steel, which means it won’t rust, though other bits on the truck still can.
In a “I can’t believe Ford didn’t think of that” truck innovation, Toyota installed an electric tailgate release that can be bumped with an elbow while carrying something with both arms next to the driver-side taillight. Clutch.
But just like with Ram and Nissan, the rear bumper step continues to be a drop-down step. At least on the Capstone model it’s automatic and power operated. General Motors’ corner bumper steps are a much better idea.
Capstone models class up the Tundra with a satin silver grille, chrome side mirror caps, chrome trim, and attractive 22-inch wheels.
White was a bad choice
Every Tundra Capstone features a two-tone white and black black leather interior. A lot of touch-heavy surfaces including the seat backs, front center armrests, door uppers, and door pulls along with part of the dashboard are covered in white leather.
On day one it probably looked nice. Upon hooking up a boat and fiddling with the receiver for the hitch I found myself looking at the interior wondering, how in the world was I going to shut the door without ruining the white leather with my dirty hands? White isn’t a practical leather color for a pickup truck.
The massive 14.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system’s interface is easy to navigate and is augmented by hard buttons, but it lacks the ability to split the screen. When Apple CarPlay is pulled up it overtakes the entire system, and nobody needs that much Apple CarPlay.
While comfortable for five passengers, the interior packaging is compromised. The front seat occupants’ view of the road is hindered by a short windshield. This is due to a high front cowl and tall dashboard to give the Tundra its imposing look inside and out. It’s the opposite of the terrific view from the front seat of a Ram 1500 or a Ford F-150. The rear seat, which has plenty of knee, foot, and leg room, is stadium-style with the hybrid battery pack mounted beneath the seat bottom. This places the rear seat occupant higher than those in front for a weird view, and those over 6 feet tall will either run out of head room or feel as if they’re sitting on a perch.
While overall the interior feels hollow and cheap with nice materials providing a thin veneer, the gear selector is an odd high point. The beefy console-mounted shifter doesn’t wiggle like the unit in the Ford F-150, and isn’t a rotary design like most Ram 1500s. It’s instantly my new favorite shifter in a light-duty pickup truck with solid, satisfying action as it clicks into place.
Toyota continues to offer an electronic rear window that slides down into the back of the cab. It’s useful when backing up and trying to communicate with someone. It’s a truly delightful feature that only the Tundra offers.
Fails to change the game
The $75,925 Tundra Capstone is a tough sell against the nicer Ram 1500 Limited or Ford F-150 Limited.
But with a composite bed that’s easier to access than the competition, distinctive design, and neat touches like the sliding rear window and bump release for the tailgate, the Tundra might just be worth considering in a less expensive trim.
Related Articles
- Toyota commits additional $2.5B for new US battery plant
- Review: 2022 Lincoln Navigator’s Activeglide system cruises into second place
- Preview: 2022 Toyota Tundra arrives with new platform, V-6 power, rear coil springs, and $37,645 price tag
- Review: 2022 Bugatti Chiron Super Sport hyperactivates the hypercar experience
- Toyota BZ3 is a Corolla-size electric sedan coming to challenge the Model 3
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| 2022-09-21T11:23:02Z
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To mark the Cayenne’s 20th anniversary, Porsche is looking back at key moments in the SUV’s development. This time, it’s focusing on the rally-bred Cayenne S Transsyberia.
To showcase the then-new Cayenne’s off-road capability, Porsche entered the 2006 Rally Transsyberia, which sent competitors on a 6,000-mile-plus odyssey from Berlin to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, via Moscow, Irkutsk, and Lake Baikal in Russia. A pair of Cayenne S models made a one-two finish that year, with the winning Cayenne co-driven by Porsche engineer Jürgen Kern, who had worked on the first-generation Cayenne’s development.
The race vehicles were mostly stock, the main changes being different tires, underbody protection, snorkels, winches, and auxiliary lights. They also had a locking differential and off-road air-suspension with specific tuning, which were factory options at the time.
This success encouraged Porsche to set up a customer-racing program. The automaker built 26 Cayenne S Transsyberia racers for use by privateer teams in the 2007 Transsyberia rally on an abbreviated route from Moscow to Ulaanbaatar.
These vehicles were more extensively modified, sporting roll cages, reinforced wishbones, and shorter axle ratios to improve acceleration. The Transsyberia racers also got more extensive waterproofing than stock Cayennes, enabling a wading depth of 29.5 inches with the air suspension at its highest setting.
The 4.8-liter V-8 was stock, but by 2007 the Cayenne had received a power boost to 379 hp and 369 lb-ft of torque, up from the previous 335 hp and 308 lb-ft. The Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control active anti-roll system had also been added by that time.
Porsche continued to dominate the event. In 2007, Cayennes swept the podium and took seven of the top 10 places. The same fleet of vehicles was also used in 2008, locking out all but seventh place among the top 10 finishers.
With its point proven, Porsche shifted focus to building a road-going special edition to commemorate the Cayenne’s rallying success. Launched in 2009 as a 2010 model, it had the engine from the Cayenne GTS and thus actually had more power than the racers, at 400 hp. It also came standard with a 6-speed manual transmission, with which it could do 0-62 mph in 6.1 seconds (a Tiptronic automatic gearbox was also available).
Off-road lights and special color schemes replicated the look of the rally cars. Just 285 were built, making the special edition more common than the rally versions but still quite rare. Porsche hasn’t built anything like it since.
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- Feisty 2023 Toyota GR Corolla starts at $36,995
- Specialty Vehicle Engineering gives the 2023 Tahoe and Suburban the Yenko/SC treatment
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| 2022-09-21T11:23:10Z
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Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen wowed the home crowd on Sunday with a thrilling victory at the 2022 Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix, held at the historic Circuit Zandvoort.
Mercedes-Benz AMG’s Lewis Hamilton was in the lead spot in the final laps but Verstappen took advantage of a late safety car period to switch to soft tires, and in a move that mirrored his championship-winning race in Abu Dhabi last season was able to pass the Mercedes driver, who had stayed out on older medium tires.
Hamilton was also passed by fellow Mercedes driver George Russell, who finished four seconds after Verstappen in second, as well as by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who finished 10 seconds after the winner in third. Hamilton claimed fourth in the end while Red Bull’s Sergio Perez rounded out the top five.
Verstappen started the race on pole and comfortably led until the midway point when Hamilton pulled into the front. Verstappen seemed to be incapable of reclaiming the lead but the trajectory soon changed, first when AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda suffered car trouble on lap 48, requiring the virtual safety car to be called.
Then it was Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas who came to a stop on lap 55, which brought out the yellow flags. One lap later, the safety car was deployed, and Verstappen moved in for the softs under the final caution. The safety car left the track at the end of lap 60 and with better pace from his soft tires, Verstappen easily passed Hamilton to retake the lead and the win.
Meanwhile at Ferrari, there was frustration for Carlos Sainz who was delayed during his pit stop when one of the tires wasn’t ready for the change. Sainz ended up losing roughly nine seconds and multiple positions.
Then in a second stop, Sainz had to slow down to avoid some McLaren pit crew ahead of him, which then held up Alpine’s Fernando Alonso. The incident was deemed to be an unsafe release and Sainz was given a 5-second penalty as a result. He ended up finishing the race in fifth, but the penalty dropped him back to eighth.
Verstappen now has a commanding lead in the 2022 Drivers’ Championship thanks to a total tally of 310 points, versus an equal 201 points for both Perez and Leclerc. In the Constructors’ Championship, Red Bull leads with 511 points. Ferrari is second with 376 points and Mercedes is third with 346 points. The next race on the calendar is the Italian Grand Prix scheduled for this weekend.
Below are the full results from the 2022 Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix:
1) Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
2) George Russell, Mercedes-Benz AMG +4.071 seconds
3) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari +10.929 seconds
4) Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-Benz AMG +13.016 seconds
5) Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing +18.168 seconds
6) Fernando Alonso, Alpine +18.754 seconds
7) Lando Norris, McLaren +19.306 seconds
8) Carlos Sainz, Ferrari +20.916 seconds
9) Esteban Ocon, Alpine +21.117 seconds
10) Lance Stroll, Aston Martin +22.459 seconds
11) Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri +27.009 seconds
12) Alexander Albon, Williams +30.390 seconds
13) Mick Schumacher, Haas +32.995 seconds
14) Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin +36.007 seconds
15) Kevin Magnussen, Haas +36.869 seconds
16) Zhou Guanyu, Alfa Romeo +37.320 seconds
17) Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren +37.764 seconds
18) Nicholas Latifi, Williams +1 lap
NC) Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo – DNF
NC) Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri – DNF
Related Articles
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- Alfa Romeo F1 team creates its own docuseries
- 2022 F1 Dutch Grand Prix preview: Racing among the dunes
- Audi RS Q E-Tron E2 rally car evolves for Dakar
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| 2022-09-21T11:23:18Z
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VENICE, Italy (AP) — Harry Styles already has an enviable acting resume for a newcomer, from Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk” to the upcoming “Don’t Worry Darling” and “My Policeman.” But the pop star said Monday at the Venice International Film Festival that, with acting, he often feels as if he has “no idea what I’m doing.”
Styles’ arrival on the Lido, where “Don’t Worry Darling” is having its world premiere Monday night, has been one of the most anticipated events of a festival full of stars. At a press conference before the premiere, Styles was peppered with questions about his fans, his career and whether or not he would work with director Olivia Wilde again — neither of which he answered.
In “Don’t Worry Darling,” Styles plays Jack, who works for the mysterious Victory Project, run by Chris Pine’s charismatic cult-like leader, in a mid-century-styled experimental community. Florence Pugh plays Jack’s wife Alice, who gets every comfort in the world in exchange for not asking questions. But soon, she starts to see cracks in the veneer.
“I think it’s fun to get to play in worlds that aren’t necessarily your own. This world that is supposedly so perfect, it’s really fun to play pretend in there,” Styles said. “There wasn’t too much acting.”
Styles took several days off from his Madison Square Garden appearances to attend the “ Don’t Worry Darling ” premiere in Venice, with Wilde and co-stars Pine and Gemma Chan. But though he juggles two high-profile careers in the arts, he said he doesn’t see many parallels between music and acting.
“Personally I find them to be kind of opposite in a lot of ways. I think making music is a really personal thing,” Styles said. “There’s aspects of acting where you’re drawing from experiences you’ve had but for the most part you’re pretending to play someone else. I think that’s what I find the most fun about it: playing pretend.”
He added: “I think the fun part is you never know what you’re doing. Music I’ve done for longer, but what I like about acting is I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Fans were already gathering in front of the theater early Monday to get a prime perch in front of the red carpet for the premiere, hours in advance. Many had personal stories about how Styles’ music impacted their lives.
“I’m incredibly grateful to the people who’ve supported me in my life and the fans in particular have always provided me with a place to be myself and feel comfortable doing so and express myself,” he said about what it’s like to mean so much to so many people. “I would like to hope I can give that space back to them.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr
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For more on the Venice Film Festival, visit: www.apnews.com/VeniceFilmFestival
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| 2022-09-21T11:23:47Z
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LONDON (AP) — Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has made her first speech in Britain since she and Prince Harry quit as working royals two years ago.
Delivering a keynote speech to the One Young World summit on Monday, Meghan spoke of her self-doubt as “the girl from Suits” when she attended the same youth event in 2014 alongside world leaders and humanitarian activists.
The duchess, formerly known as Meghan Markle, was best known for her acting role in the TV drama “Suits” before she married Harry.
“I was allowed in, to pull up a seat at the table,” Meghan told about 2,000 young people gathered in Manchester, England. “I was so overwhelmed by this experience, I think I even saved my little paper place-marker with my name on it.”
“Just proof — proof that I was there, proof that I belonged, because the truth was, I wasn’t sure that I belonged,” she said.
Meghan and Harry stepped down as senior royals and moved to the U.S. in 2020. They were in the U.K. for the first time since Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in June, when the couple appeared briefly at a thanksgiving service.
They travelled to the Manchester event by train from London. Their next stop is Germany, where they will attend an event Tuesday counting down to the Invictus Games 2023, before returning to London where Harry will deliver a speech at a charity ceremony on Thursday.
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| 2022-09-21T11:23:54Z
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Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.
MOVIES
— A race between two “Pinocchio” films begins with Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation ahead of Guillermo del Toro’s by a nose. On Thursday, Zemeckis’ animated fantasy of the classic Italian fable will premiere on Disney+. Next month, Del Toro’s stop-motion “Pinocchio” will debut at the London Film Festival and eventually land on Netflix on Dec. 9. For now, we have Zemeckis’ take on the old tale with Tom Hanks as the voice of Geppetto and Cynthia Erivo as the Blue Fairy.
— A trio of the summer’s biggest box-office hits are landing on streaming platforms. On Thursday, Taika Waititi’s whimsically deconstructive “Thor: Love and Thunder” arrives on Disney+. The 29th film in the Marvel cinematic universe, and possibly the Marvel movie most distinctively the work of its filmmaker, “Love and Thunder” follows-up Waititi’s “Thor: Ragnarok.” In his review the AP’s Mark Kennedy wrote: “If you thought that was bananas filmmaking, its sequel is the whole fruit basket.”
— “Jurassic World: Dominion” (Peacock) and “Elvis” (HBO Max) are also streaming. Colin Trevorrow’s “Dominion,” which has nearly grossed $1 billion at the box office, is available in both its theatrical cut and and an extended edition with 14 more minutes and an alternative ending. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr praised some of its sequences but called the sixth film in the franchise “a chaotic mishmash on an epic scale.” Baz Luhrmann’s carnivalesque Elvis Presley biopic, starring breakthrough actor Austin Butler and Tom Hanks, also doesn’t skimp on scale. In her review, Bahr called it “gloriously messy — a maximalist opera of contradictions, styles, truths, myths, memories and headlines.”
— AP Film Writer Jake Coyle
MUSIC
— John Legend isn’t taking the easy route with his eighth studio album. “Legend” is a massive 24-song double album with the new EGOT honoree collaborating with Rick Ross, Jazmine Sullivan, Jada Kingdom, Rapsody, Ledisi, Jhene Aiko, Ty Dolla $ign and more. Initial singles on the Friday release point to a light, dance beat: The super-sexy, sticky “Honey” with Muni Long, the funky “Dope” with rapper JID and the retro, roller disco jam “All She Wanna Do” featuring Saweetie, with one of the cutest videos ever as the two performers surprise auditioning dancers.
— Now for something a little different: Kane Brown’s third studio album, “Different Man,” is out Friday. It will feature 17 songs, including singles “Like I Love Country Music,” “Whiskey Sour,” “One Mississippi,” “Leave You Alone” and “Grand,” an expertly crafted hip-hop-country melding with happy lyrics: “Remember when I couldn’t stand it?/Now I got the posture.” Look for two duets — “Different Man,” with Blake Shelton and Brown’s wife, Katelyn, on “Thank God.” “Different Man” represents the first time Brown co-produced one of his albums.
— With “Nut,” KT Tunstall finishes a trilogy of albums she began recording and releasing in 2016 with “Kin” and then “Wax.” The trio explore the three existential parts of ourselves, first the spirit, then the body and now with “Nut,” the mind. One of the singles from the new album, “I Am The Pilot,” is a terrific synth-driven tune that nicely represents what she wanted to do with a mind-orientated album: lean into rhythm. The Scottish Tunstall burst onto the music scene in 2004 with her multi-platinum debut, “Eye to the Telescope,” which spawned the global hits “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” and “Suddenly I See.”
— Ozzy Osbourne has tapped some of the best guitarists on the planet for his latest solo album, “Patient Number 9” — guys like Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Mike McCready, Zakk Wylde and former Black Sabbath band member Tony Iommi. Beck lends his axe skills for the rocking title track, in which Ozzy sings: “If there’s a God, why’d he let the Devil do his work on me?/If there’s a God, what am I doing here?” Others aboard for this Ozzfest are Red Hot Chilli Pepper drummer Chad Smith, Metallica’s Rob Trujillo, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and Foo Fighters’ late drummer Taylor Hawkins.
— AP Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy
TELEVISION
— Adventure athletes are the stars of “Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin,” debuting Monday, on the National Geographic channel (on Disney+ starting Wednesday, Sept. 7.) The 10-part series details the risks, rewards and mindset of such athlete, kicking off with back-to-back episodes on rock climber Alex Honnold of “Free Solo” documentary fame and big mountain skier Angel Collinson. Filmmaker Jimmy Chin, a pro climber and skier who’s featured in an episode, is executive producer with E. Chai Vasarhelyi. They directed the Oscar-winning “Free Solo.”
— Catherine de Medici, the Italian-born, 16th-century French queen with a fierce reputation, owns the spotlight in Starz’ edgy “The Serpent Queen.” Samantha Morton (“The Walking Dead”) stars as the adult Catherine, with Liv Hill seen in flashbacks as the teenager destined to become the wife of one French king and the influence-wielding mother of three others. Colm Meaney, Kiruna Stamell and Rupert Everett are part of the ensemble cast of the eight-part series debuting Sunday, Sept. 11, on Starz’s streaming platforms (and on the Starz channel).
— Susan Sarandon and Trace Adkins play country music royalty in Fox’s new drama “Monarch, ” but their dynasty is in danger of toppling. Anna Friel, Joshua Sasse and Beth Ditto co-star as the couple’s offspring, with an impressive back-up chorus dropping in: Shania Twain, Martina McBride, Little Big Town and Tanya Tucker are among the guest stars on the series debuting Sunday after Fox’s NFL telecast. “Monarch” settles into its regular 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday slot beginning Sept. 20.
— AP Television Writer Lynn Elber
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Catch up on AP’s entertainment coverage here: https://apnews.com/apf-entertainment.
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| 2022-09-21T11:24:02Z
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Russia imposed personal sanctions Monday on 25 Americans, including actors Sean Penn and Ben Stiller, in response to U.S. sanctions against Russians stemming from the conflict in Ukraine.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was on the new sanctions list, as were several American senators: Mark Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Mike Rounds of South Dakota, Rick Scott of Florida, and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the group, which also included business leaders, academics and government officials, would be banned permanently from entering Russia.
Previous rounds of Russian sanctions against Americans have included President Joe Biden and members of his family, as well as lawmakers and business leaders. The U.S. has sanctioned numerous Russians, including government officials and business people.
Penn and Stiller have been outspoken critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Penn is an activist involved in relief work, among other causes. Stiller is a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Just days after being insulted on television by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, country music star Maren Morris has managed to turn the insult into some big bucks for transgender organizations.
The clash began after Morris criticized comments made by country singer Jason Aldean’s wife, Brittany Kerr Aldean, regarding gender-affirming care for trans children.
Days after his wife’s comments, the country singer was dropped by his longtime PR firm, although the firm declined to specify why Aldean was dropped.
While discussing the exchange on his television show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Fox News host labeled Morris as a “lunatic country music person.”
Morris made light of the situation on her social media, and shortly after announced that she would be selling T-shirts with Carlson’s quote on the front, alongside the Peer Support and Crisis Hotline for trans youth, to give back to the transgender community.
“All proceeds will be split between TransLifeline and the GLAAD Transgender Media Program,” said Morris in a tweet.
Just 24 hours after announcing that the shirts were on sale, Morris posted that over $100,000 worth of the T-shirts had been purchased.
“Over $100K raised,” said Morris in a tweet, “Have a great Labor Day weekend, lunatics.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:24:17Z
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SIBLEY, La. (KTAL/KMSS)-The first Little Free Pantry Louisiana comes to Sibley, La. and Lynn got a chance to highlight Something Good in the community with the founder, Ethan Jeffus.
Ethan Jeffus started helping others before he was old enough to drive. Jeffus has a passion for helping others, and even so, his grandmother would drive him around to volunteer at different places in need.
He is known for his annual warming elders’ tootsies sock drive. He was named a Louisiana ambassador by Louisiana Lt. Governor Billy Nungesser for promoting the beautification of the state and he has volunteered at a multitude of food banks.
Jeffus has started Little Free Pantry Louisiana. One of the first boxes was placed in Sibley, La. near the town hall. His grandmother lived in Sibley, a place close to his heart, and recognized they did not have a food bank or pantry of any kind.
Ethan hopes to establish more little free pantries currently, there are some located in south Louisiana. He works to collect food, and the public is encouraged to place items in the box for those in need.
Anyone can utilize the food in the box, if you are in need head over to the box and take what you need.
If you are interested in setting up a box in your city or need more information, see the below, and visit Ethan Jeffus online.
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| 2022-09-21T11:24:24Z
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(NEXSTAR) — A mint-condition Mickey Mantle baseball card recently sold for $12.6 million, becoming the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia on record. It broke the previous record set in early August during a private sale when a Honus Wagner card went for $7.25 million. A Wagner card set the record before that in August 2021, selling for $6.6 million.
It’s no secret that baseball cards – and sports memorabilia – have become a booming business over the last few years. In some cases, the trading card market has become so hot and the desire so great that retailers like Target had to restrict access to their trading card department.
During the first half of 2021 alone, eBay reported $2 billion in trading card transactions occurred on its site, with an average of one sports trading card being purchased every second.
But what is it that has caused the aforementioned Mantle and Wagner cards to sell for a cumulative $26.45 million?
Well, it’s all in the cards.
Wagner and Mantle are part of a trio of card sets considered the most desirable in sports collecting, Mike Provenzale, a production manager with Heritage Auctions told Nexstar. Those sets are the 1909 T206, the 1933 Goudey set, and the 1952 Topps set.
The 1909 T206
The first, the 1909 T206 set, was found in cigarette and tobacco packs from the American Tobacco Company. Notably small compared to modern cards, Provenzale referred to the run of cards as the “first landmark set.”
“That one is all about rarity,” he said, referring specifically to the Wagner card from that set. Only about 60 cards are known to exist, and “most of them are in horrible condition.”
Wagner is widely revered as one of the greatest players of all time. He was a shortstop who played primarily with the Pittsburgh Pirates during his 21 seasons and was among the first five players inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936.
Now, 105 years since Wagner took the field, his T206 cards are bringing in millions of dollars at auctions. Due to their rarity, cards graded authentic – meaning they’re in worse condition than what is covered on the traditional one-to-10 scale – still have the potential to sell for millions of dollars.
The rarity surrounding Wagner’s card is often attributed to two stories, according to Provenzale. One is that Wagner, though a heavy tobacco user himself, didn’t want his card to be used to promote tobacco use among children. The other is that he wanted to be compensated for the company’s use of his image, an unusual request in the early 1900s. It’s still unclear why exactly Wagner cards are so hard to find.
The 1933 Goudey Gum set
While Wagner’s era of baseball cards were used to promote tobacco products, the 1933 Goudey set relied on a different product – gum. The Goudey Gum Company set out to create “a really incredible line” of cards to advertise their product, Provenzale explained. And while they accomplished their goal, making “one of the most aesthetically pleasing sets,” poor timing nearly hampered their success.
The set was released amid the Great Depression. But for just one cent, they could purchase a piece of Goudey Gum and get with it a baseball card. It worked – between 1932 and 1933, the company’s profits are said to have tripled, Provenzale said.
Some of the most well-known players, specifically Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, can be found in the 1933 Goudey set. Another, Hall of Famer Nap Lajoie, was said to be card number 106 in the set. But, in another brilliant marketing ploy by Goudey Gum, you could only get his card if you sent a letter to the company asking for it.
Ruth and Gehrig are valuable, but Lajoie carries a special worth. The majority of his cards carry a paperclip imprint on the top after being attached to the letter, according to Provenzale. A Lajoie card recently sold during a Heritage Auction went for $114,000. In 2019, a worn and tattered Ruth card from this set sold for just over $4,000. While cheaper in comparison to the Wagner and Mantle cards mentioned before, this card was graded as authentic.
The 1952 Topps set
Nearly two decades after Goudey Gum, the 1952 Topps set hit the market. These cards were the first that looked like the cards we’re now familiar with – the size normalized, stats were added to the back, and facsimile signatures were added to the front.
In addition to Mantle, considered the most popular of the 1952 Topps set, other cards include Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson. Mays and Robinson are valuable, Provenzale explained, but Mantle leads the pack.
This is largely due to how cards were released. At the time, cards were released in series. One-fifth of the cards were released before the season, a second round was released at the start, and so on through the season.
Mantle, a New York Yankee and “the face of 50s baseball,” was card number 311, Provenzale said. That put him in the final series but, because of production delays, that series wasn’t released until after the season had ended (and after the Yankees beat the then-Boston Dodgers in the World Series). The final round of cards didn’t sell well and most sat in a warehouse for over a decade.
The remaining cards from the series, including Mantle’s, were then loaded onto a barge and dumped into the Atlantic Ocean, according to Provenzale. Still, more examples of Mantle’s card are known to exist than Wagner’s.
What about error cards?
There is a particular subset of cards that many collectors thought would be incredibly valuable – those with an error.
“But, that isn’t always the case,” Provenzale explained. One of the most well-known error cards is that of Cal Ripken’s brother, Billy Ripken. He was initially photographed holding a bat that had an obscene phrase written on the bottom of the bat that went unnoticed at first. After Topps discovered the error, the original cards were pulled off the market and replaced with an edited version. Cards that aren’t edited can go for a couple hundred dollars, according to Provenzale.
Some error cards are lucky enough to be worth more than three figures. Provenzale noted another from the 1909 T206 set, Sherry Magie. When the cards were printed, they misspelled his name as ‘Maggie.’ Being that the card is unique and from one of the most iconic card sets, Provenzale said it could “do high five figures.”
What’s next?
But what about today’s market? Is there a card today that will be the next Honus Wagner or Mickey Mantle?
It’s possible. Previously, many cards were mass-produced, especially in the 1980s and 1990s, Provenzale explained. Manufacturers have created their own rarity, sometimes making cards known as ‘one to one,’ meaning they’re the only one available.
“Those one-of-one cards do sell for six and seven figures, even though it’s just manufactured rarity,” Provenzale said. Rookie cards can be largely valuable as collectors “love the book ends,” or those from the beginning and end of a player’s career.
If you have any of the previously mentioned cards, or your own set you feel could be of value, it’s important to do your research before rushing to sell. Experts at your local card shop or sports memorabilia store can help appraise your item, as can those with auction houses like Heritage Auctions.
Be wary of where you’re selling, though. Some shops may offer you less than what the card is worth in order to make a profit on it. Other outlets, like auction houses, where the percentage they keep is based on how much your card or item sells for. Online retailers like eBay, which has its own service to prove authenticity, will work in the same fashion.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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| 2022-09-21T11:24:32Z
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BEIJING (AP) — China has locked down 65 million of its citizens under tough COVID-19 restrictions and is discouraging domestic travel during upcoming national holidays.
Across the country, 33 cities including seven provincial capitals are under full or partial lockdown covering more than 65 million people, according to a tally published late Sunday by the Chinese business magazine Caixin.
It said that outbreaks have been reported in 103 cities, the highest since the early days of the pandemic in early 2020.
Despite a relatively low number of infections, authorities have adhered to a “zero-COVID” policy requiring lockdowns, quarantines and the confining of people suspected of being in close contact with any confirmed case.
China recorded 1,552 new cases in the latest 24-hour period across a nation of 1.4 billion people, the National Health Commission reported Monday.
Most of the 21 million people in the southwestern city of Chengdu are confined to their apartments or residential complexes, while in the eastern port city of Tianjin, classes have ben moved online after 14 new cases were reported, all but two showing no symptoms.
Chengdu lifted the lockdown for about 1 million people in Qionglai city and Xinjin district, two areas in its southwest. Three more rounds of mass testing are being held through Wednesday. and schools remain closed with all classes online.
Sept. 10-12 is China’s mid-autumn festival, the country’s second-most important holiday after the Lunar New Year. The anti-virus measures have taken a major toll on the economy, travel and society in general, but China’s ruling Communist Party says they are necessary to prevent a wider spread of the virus, first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
The fear of being caught in a lockdown or sent to a quarantine facility for even being in proximity with a person who tested positive has severely constrained people’s work, socializing and travel habits.
Since the outbreak began, China has placed tens of millions of people under lockdowns that have been strictly enforced, sometimes preventing residents from obtaining food, health care and basic necessities.
A more than five-week closure of Shanghai, China’s largest city and key financial hub, in the spring upended the local economy, prompted protests and led to an exodus of foreign residents.
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| 2022-09-21T11:24:39Z
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — In 2020, there were 546 opioid overdose deaths in the state of Arkansas, according to the CDC.
Naloxone (Narcan) is a medication designed to reverse an opioid overdose, and the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy and the Arkansas Pharmacists Association have worked together to prepare a naloxone protocol to make the medication more readily available. Some Arkansans are eligible to order naloxone online for mail-based distribution. People may also text 479-222-0532 to receive a free naloxone kit.
Sgt. Murphy of the Fayetteville Police Department says that all of the city’s officers now carry Narcan.
Pharmacists can also provide it without a prescription, and it is often covered by insurance. A list of additional resources can be found here.
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| 2022-09-21T11:24:54Z
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Former Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Charlie Dent on Saturday said former President Trump’s speech at a rally on Saturday night in the Keystone State was a “major gift” for Democrats.
“Most Republican candidates don’t want anything to do with Donald Trump in this general election. They want this to be about Joe Biden and the Democrats, but to the extent Trump inserts himself into this conversation, he’s giving the Democrats a major gift right now,” Dent said on CNN.
The Wilkes-Barre, Pa., rally was billed as support for Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano — but it was also Trump’s first after the FBI executed a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago residence and recovered classified documents kept after the end of his presidential term.
“I am not so sure that the former President Trump did anyone any good with that speech tonight. Just by showing up in Pennsylvania, he is making the election much more about himself,” Dent said.
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and TV personality, has been falling behind Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the state’s Senate race, per recent polling.
“Mehmet Oz I don’t think wants to be anywhere near Donald Trump in this fall election. It doesn’t do him any good. He needs to win swing voters and independents and some Democrats, and it’s hard to do that when Trump is really just playing and pandering to the base,” Dent said.
Trump during the rally lambasted the FBI for the Mar-a-Lago search, knocking it as “one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history.”
In the wake of criticisms from Trump and his supporters, FBI agents have weathered an uptick in attacks against law enforcement.
Dent on Saturday pushed back against the outrage.
“If any member of Congress absconded with classified material, I can assure you that a G-man, somebody from the FBI, would have showed up at their homes and demanded that they return that information,” Dent said.
Dent represented Pennsylvania in Congress from 2005 until his retirement in 2018. He’s now a political commentator for CNN.
Dent and a group of former Pennsylvania Republican officials endorsed Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro over their party’s nominee, Mastriano, in the gubernatorial election. Dent has called Mastriano “an extremist who is a threat to the rule of law and the constitutional order.”
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| 2022-09-21T11:25:00Z
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BEIJING (AP) — Authorities in southwestern China’s Chengdu have maintained strict COVID-19 lockdown measures on the city of 21 million despite a major earthquake that killed at least 65 people in outlying areas.
Footage circulating online Tuesday showed workers wearing top-to-bottom protective gear preventing residents of apartment buildings from exiting through locked lobby doors following Monday’s 6.8 magnitude quake centered in the surrounding province of Sichuan.
Buildings in Chengdu and other parts of western China were shaken by the quake. No damage was reported in the city. The quake struck a mountainous area in Luding county, which sits on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau roughly 200 kilometers (125 miles) from Chengdu, where tectonic plates grind up against each other.
Despite only recording a handful of cases, Chengdu’s lockdown is the most severe since China’s largest city of Shanghai was placed in isolation over the summer, prompting rare protests in person and online.
In all, 65 million Chinese in 33 cities including including seven provincial capitals are currently under varying levels of lockdown while the government is discouraging domestic travel during upcoming national holidays.
Outbreaks have been reported in 103 cities, the highest since the early days of the pandemic in early 2020.
Most Chengdu residents are confined to their apartments or residential complexes. In the eastern port city of Tianjin, classes were moved online after a handful of new cases were reported.
China’s authoritarian Communist political system demands strict adherence to measures dictated by the central leadership overwhelmingly dominated by party leader Xi Jinping.
Local leaders, including Sichuan’s recently appointed provincial party secretary, are often parachuted in from Beijing with little knowledge of local conditions and a firm mandate to carry out Xi’s dictates.
The ruthless and often chaotic enforcement of the Shanghai lockdown led to widespread complaints over shortages of food, medication and access to health care. In a sign of how little has changed, at least one district in Chengdu has banned even the ordering of takeout meals and coffee, according to a notice posted on the internet.
China has stuck to its hard-line “zero-COVID” policy of compulsory testing, lockdowns, quarantines and masking despite advice from the World Health Organization and moves by most other countries to open up again since the virus was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.
China on Tuesday reported 1,499 new cases of local infection, most of them asymptomatic. Sichuan accounted for 138 of that total figure.
The quake knocked out power and damaged buildings in the historic mountain town of Moxi in the Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Garze, where 37 people were killed. Tents were erected for more than 50,000 people being moved from homes made unsafe by the quake, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
State broadcaster CCTV showed rescue crews pulling a woman who appeared uninjured from a collapsed home in Moxi, where many of the buildings are constructed from wood and brick. Around 150 people were reported with varying degrees of injuries.
Another 28 people were killed in neighboring Shimian county on the outskirts of the city of Ya’an. State media reported 248 people injured, mainly in Moxi, and another 16 people missing.
Three of the dead were workers at the Hailuogou Scenic Area, a glacier and forest nature reserve.
Along with the deaths, authorities reported landslides that damaged homes, caused power interruptions and stranded people behind a newly created lake. One landslide blocked a rural highway, leaving it strewn with boulders.
The earthquake and lockdown follow a heat wave and drought that led to water shortages and power cuts due to Sichuan’s reliance on hydropower.
China’s deadliest earthquake in recent years was a 7.9 magnitude quake in 2008 that killed nearly 90,000 people in Sichuan. The temblor devastated towns, schools and rural communities outside Chengdu, leading to a years-long effort to rebuild with more resistant materials.
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| 2022-09-21T11:25:07Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In a legal victory for former President Donald Trump, a federal judge on Monday granted his request for a special master to review documents seized by the FBI from his Florida home and temporarily halted the Justice Department’s use of the records for investigative purposes.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon authorizes an outside legal expert to review the records taken during the Aug. 8 search and to weed out from the rest of the investigation any that might be protected by claims of attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. Some of those records may ultimately be returned to Trump, but the judge put off a ruling on that question.
The order came despite the strenuous objections of the Justice Department, which said a special master was not necessary in part because officials had already completed their review of potentially privileged documents. The department said Monday that it was reviewing the decision but did not indicate if and when it might appeal.
The order almost certainly slows the pace of the department’s investigation into the presence of top-secret information at Mar-a-Lago, particularly given the judge’s directive that the Justice Department may not for the moment use any of the seized materials as part of its investigation into the storage of government secrets at the Florida property. The injunction is in place until the yet-to-be-named special master completes his or her work or until “further court order.”
“The Court is mindful that restraints on criminal prosecutions are disfavored but finds that these unprecedented circumstances call for a brief pause to allow for neutral, third-party review to ensure a just process with adequate safeguards,” Cannon, a Trump appointee, wrote in her 24-page order.
Even so, it is not clear that the decision will present a long-term impediment to the investigation’s progress or significantly affect investigative decisions or the ultimate outcome of the probe. And a separate assessment by the U.S. intelligence community of the risk posed by the apparent mishandling of classified records will continue under the judge’s order.
“While this is a victory for the former President, it is by no means an overwhelming win for him,” David Weinstein, a Florida criminal defense lawyer, and former Justice Department prosecutor, said in an email. “While it is a setback for the government, it is also not a devastating loss for them.”
He noted, for instance, that the judge did not immediately order the seized documents returned to Trump or suppress any of the evidence.
Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said Monday that “the United States is examining the opinion and will consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation.” A lawyer for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
The department and Trump’s lawyers are to submit by Friday a list of proposed special master candidates.
FBI agents in August seized roughly 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items from Mar-a-Lago as part of a criminal investigation into the retention of national defense information there, as well as into efforts to obstruct the probe. About 100 of the documents contained classification markings.
Trump’s lawyers had argued that a special master, usually an outside lawyer or former judge, was necessary to ensure an independent review of records taken during the search and so that any personal information or documents could be filtered out and returned to Trump.
In this case, the seized records “include medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information,” the judge’s order said.
Cannon said it was too soon to know whether Trump will be entitled to the return of any of the records, but “for now, the circumstances surrounding the seizure in this case and the associated need for adequate procedural safeguards are sufficiently compelling to at least get Plaintiff past the courthouse doors.”
She also said she found persuasive his lawyers’ arguments that he faced potentially “irreparable injury” by being denied access to records that might be of significant personal interest to him. She said the investigative process had, so far, been “closed off” to him.
“As a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own,” Cannon wrote. “A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude.”
The Justice Department had argued against the appointment, saying it was unnecessary because it had already reviewed potentially privileged documents and identified a limited subset that could be covered by attorney-client privilege.
The department had been using a separate “privilege review team” for that work, but Cannon cited at least two instances in which members of the investigative team were “exposed” to potentially privileged material, something she said raised questions about the adequacy of the process.
The department had also said Trump was not entitled to the return of any of the presidential records that were taken since he is no longer president, and the documents, therefore, do not belong to him. And personal items that were recovered were commingled with classified information, giving them potential evidentiary value, the department said.
Though prosecutors had argued that Trump, as a former president, had no legal basis to assert executive privilege over the documents, the judge said he was entitled to raise it as a concern and permitted the special master to look for records that might be covered by that privilege.
“The major sticking point, I think, is that the executive privilege documents were included” in the judge’s decision, said Florida criminal defense lawyer Richard Serafini, a former Justice Department prosecutor.
Cannon, who was nominated by Trump in 2020, had signaled last month that she was inclined to appoint a special master and did so again during arguments last week, asking at one point, “Ultimately, what is the harm in the appointment of a special master to sort through these issues without creating undue delay?”
____
Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter.
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| 2022-09-21T11:25:15Z
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SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Crews are checking on the small aircraft that made an emergency landing early Monday afternoon in a cotton field north of the Shreveport Downtown Airport.
It happened just after noon in the 4000 block of George Road between Dixie Shreveport Rd. and the Red River. According to the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, it is a single-engine aircraft with a solo pilot on board and no passengers. The pilot was not injured, and the aircraft was not seriously damaged.
The small, fixed-wing aircraft is a 1939 Aeronca 65-C, known as the Spirit of Haughton.
It is not clear yet what forced the pilot to bring the plane down in the field, but CPSO says crews are working to check the plane and they plan to fly it out of the field as soon as it is in working condition.
📲 Download the KTAL NBC 6 News app to stay updated on the go.
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💻 Find today’s top stories from Shreveport-Bossier and across the ArkLaTex on KTALNews.com.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
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| 2022-09-21T11:25:22Z
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