text
string | url
string | crawl_date
timestamp[ns, tz=UTC] | source_domain
string | group
string | id
string | in_blocksbin
int64 | in_noblocksbin
int64 | tag
string | minhash_count
string |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Prince William County officials plan to hold a work session on water quality next month in response to concerns about the proposed PW Digital Gateway.
During its meeting Tuesday, and at the behest of Brentsville Supervisor Jeanine Lawson, the Board of County Supervisors directed county staff to put together the work session.
Lawson requested a presentation from the Fairfax County Water Authority after the agency sent a letter to Prince William County officials last month. The agency is urging the county to conduct a comprehensive study of the potential impacts on water quality in the Occoquan Reservoir from the digital gateway, Comprehensive Plan update and potential expansion of the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District.
Last summer, landowners along Pageland Lane submitted a request to change the land designation of their properties in the Comprehensive Plan from agricultural zoning to technology zoning. The request on 2,100 acres could pave the way for 27.6 million square feet of data centers, nearly as much data center space as is currently in use or under construction in neighboring Loudoun County, the world’s largest concentration of such facilities.
Last month, Kansas-based QTS Realty Trust Inc., which has a data center in the Manassas area, filed the first rezoning request related to the gateway, covering 812 acres of the proposal – or about 40% of the overall project. The company wants to build 7.9 million square feet of data center space on the land.
Meanwhile, the county is conducting a review of the Data Center Opportunity Zone Overlay District and its possible expansion. The district is roughly 10,000 acres designated in 2016 to support data center development by reducing regulatory hurdles.
The Board of Supervisors voted last year to study areas to expand the district along high-transmission power lines. A consultant is examining potential areas to expand the district but will also consider necessary changes to construction standards, the Comprehensive Plan and the zoning ordinance, along with any other effects from data centers.
On top of those two initiatives, the county is updating its Comprehensive Plan and has proposed easing some of the decades-old policies restricting development in rural areas.
The March 21 letter from Fairfax says that the initiatives could have a potential impact on the Occoquan Reservoir, which the agency said supplies drinking water for 800,000 people in Northern Virginia.
“We strongly urge that the review of these Planning initiatives incorporate a rigorous evaluation of the potential impacts to water quality in the Occoquan watershed utilizing the frameworks and tools already established through regional mechanisms to protect the Reservoir as a drinking water supply,” the letter says.
Lawson said the letter was “compelling,” and the county should ask Fairfax Water to provide a presentation about its concerns. “Clean water is critical to the future of our county.”
Chair Ann Wheeler said the county has reached out to the agency and supported holding a work session to include the Fairfax water authority, Prince William County Service Authority, Prince William public works and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
“I think we definitely need to clear up some issues about water,” she said.
The board tentatively planned to hold the work session May 24, depending on the availability of presenters.
The digital gateway dominated public comment at Tuesday’s meeting, with 31 people speaking against it and 15 supporting it.
Stormwater fee increase, school division budget
In other business, the board received a presentation on planned increases to the stormwater management fee as part of the proposed budget for fiscal 2023, which starts July 1.
The budget calls for the rates to increase for the first time since fiscal 2017.
The charge for single-family homes would increase from $39.36 to $44.08. The fees for townhouses, condominiums and apartment buildings would increase from $29.52 to $33.06. For non-residential buildings, the fee would jump from $39.36 to $44.08.
The increased fee would help the county continue to pay for maintenance of stormwater management facilities and drainage systems and for environmental monitoring.
“It gives more flexibility to our watershed people to manage our water supplies,” said Jack Kooyoomjian of the Lake Ridge-Occoquan-Coles Civic Association.
The Prince William School Board also presented its budget request to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
The school division is proposing a $1.4 billion spending plan. The proposal relies on a $559 contribution from the county, which is $50.6 million, or 9.2%, more than the current fiscal year’s allocation.
The fees and school allocation require approval as part of the county’s proposed $1.48 billion operating budget for fiscal 2023. The board is expected to hold a hearing on its advertised tax rates on April 12. The budget is scheduled for adoption by April 26.
|
https://www.insidenova.com/headlines/pw-digital-gateway-water-concerns-acknowledged/article_7b9679fc-b5c4-11ec-99c6-a38774031c15.html
| 2022-04-06T18:21:26Z
|
insidenova.com
|
control
|
https://www.insidenova.com/headlines/pw-digital-gateway-water-concerns-acknowledged/article_7b9679fc-b5c4-11ec-99c6-a38774031c15.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Is there anything lovelier than spring in Virginia? We don’t think so. With the trees budding and the flowers blooming, there’s a sense of “we survived winter!” in the air, and that’s worth celebrating.
So, we are.
Inside our April issue you’ll find features that celebrate local coaches, tutors, bounce parties, and beers on a mission.
Others that celebrate Marines who clean, artists with autism, and a sports team that will steal your heart.
And still others that celebrate great wines, spring cleaning, and the incredible programming the Prince William Public Library offers to help kids with diverse abilities succeed.
We’re honored to celebrate our incredible community and hope you enjoy every page of the April issue. Happy reading!
To pick up additional copies, click here.
|
https://www.insidenova.com/lifestyles/hot-off-the-presses-its-the-april-issue-haymarket-gainesville-lifestyle/article_60770f9a-b4fe-11ec-af3c-87a7ab167a2c.html
| 2022-04-06T18:21:32Z
|
insidenova.com
|
control
|
https://www.insidenova.com/lifestyles/hot-off-the-presses-its-the-april-issue-haymarket-gainesville-lifestyle/article_60770f9a-b4fe-11ec-af3c-87a7ab167a2c.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Gov. Glenn Youngkin has signed two bills extending the state’s “cocktails to go” policy, which allowed bars and restaurants to sell alcoholic beverages for takeout during the pandemic.
On Monday evening, Youngkin signed HB426 and SB254, which will extend cocktails to go until July 1, 2024. The temporary measure was designed to increase “support for hospitality businesses struggling to rebound from the harsh economic impacts of COVID-19,” according to a news release from the governor’s office.
The cocktails to go measure was set to expire on July 1 of this year.
“Virginia’s bars and restaurants can rest a bit easier knowing cocktails to go are here to stay for another two years,” said David Wojnar, senior vice president and head of state public policy for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, in the release.
The Virginia House had passed HB426 on Feb. 2.
Due largely to the economic impact of restrictions on indoor dining during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 35 states have passed measures allowing restaurants and bars to sell cocktails to go as a way to keep revenue coming in.
Restaurants who have struggled economically during the pandemic say the program has allowed them to rehire bartenders and continue relationships with their customers.
Some state lawmakers, however, have been resistant to making the laws permanent, citing public safety as a concern.
At least 35 states have allowed restaurants and bars to sell cocktails to go as a relief measure via executive orders or other temporary measures.
Since the program began, 18 states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws to make it permanent. Twelve states have enacted laws allowing the program to continue on a temporary basis.
Joshua Barlow is a writer, composer, and producer who has worked for CGTN, Atlantic Public Media, and National Public Radio. He lives in Northeast Washington, D.C., where he pays attention to developments in his neighborhood, economic issues, and social justice. Reach him at jbarlow@wtop.com
|
https://www.insidenova.com/lifestyles/virginia-extends-cocktails-to-go-until-2024/article_16ca8f58-b5ca-11ec-94c8-776fad1c8aea.html
| 2022-04-06T18:21:38Z
|
insidenova.com
|
control
|
https://www.insidenova.com/lifestyles/virginia-extends-cocktails-to-go-until-2024/article_16ca8f58-b5ca-11ec-94c8-776fad1c8aea.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Taking advantage of picture-perfect (if slightly chilly) weather, area residents crowded the streets of central Merrifield April 2 and 3 to sample the offerings of the “Art Blooms at Mosaic” festival.
The event, sponsored by the Mosaic District, featured sales of photography, handmade and vintage craft fairs; live music; children’s activities; cooking demonstrations; a farmers’ market; a wide selection of food offerings; and vendors providing beer and wine.
Attendees, some of them with dogs and children in tow, thronged the streets. The Vienna Singing Princesses, dressed in fairy-tale costumes, painted children’s faces in one tent.
The crowd had the opportunity to ogle a pair of flower-bedecked antique red pickup trucks brought in by Merrifield Garden Center.
Fairfax County police also took part in the vehicle display, rolling out a 1993 Ford Crown Victoria police cruiser that the department took out of service in 2005.
Mosaic District, like many places, lost some businesses during the pandemic, but most of the storefronts at the festival had tenants offering an eclectic array of food, products and services.
[Sun Gazette Newspapers provides content to, but otherwise is unaffiliated with, InsideNoVa or Rappahannock Media LLC.]
|
https://www.insidenova.com/news/fairfax/art-festival-draws-a-fun-loving-crowd-to-merrifields-mosaic-district/article_ef037f82-b5c1-11ec-aa3a-d75d0a03af5b.html
| 2022-04-06T18:21:44Z
|
insidenova.com
|
control
|
https://www.insidenova.com/news/fairfax/art-festival-draws-a-fun-loving-crowd-to-merrifields-mosaic-district/article_ef037f82-b5c1-11ec-aa3a-d75d0a03af5b.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
I am aware that there is a shortage of bus drivers in our county, having seen fliers and advertisements in lots of places. I do not know its root cause, but I do know that it affects everyone in our school.
Every day after school, dozens of kids are forced to wait outside for buses to come back and pick them up because there aren’t enough drivers to take them home all at once. I especially see it in my own life because I am a three-sport athlete who has depended on buses to take my team to other schools.
I have dealt with late buses in the past, and it’s never fun. Earlier this month for orchestra assessment at Woodbridge High School, my orchestra had to leave at 1 p.m., before the school day ended, just to get there and wait three hours in a classroom before our assessment. All this because we couldn’t be provided with a bus at the time we needed one.
Additionally, my little sister, a fifth-grader at Ellis Elementary, was recently informed that her fifth-grade field trip, which she had been looking forward to all year, had been canceled. The reason was, once again, lack of bus drivers to support the trip.
This shouldn’t be taken as a complaint; my goal in writing this is to spread awareness of the widespread nature of this situation to the readers. I don’t know why it’s happening, but I can’t imagine that bus drivers get paid that much money, which I would think would be a major cause.
The impacts of a bus driver shortage are already felt at every school, some more than others. If we don’t have an effective plan for hiring drivers, what’s next? What happens if no one wants to be a bus driver? What will we have to change to adapt to that scenario? The answer right now is not to ignore it and just hope it gets better.
– Tyler Hruska, Manassas
Editor's note: Tyler Hruska is a sophomore at Unity Reed High School.
|
https://www.insidenova.com/opinion/letter-bus-driver-shortage-has-many-impacts/article_949a6d50-b5c9-11ec-b1c2-fb3fb5be9415.html
| 2022-04-06T18:21:51Z
|
insidenova.com
|
control
|
https://www.insidenova.com/opinion/letter-bus-driver-shortage-has-many-impacts/article_949a6d50-b5c9-11ec-b1c2-fb3fb5be9415.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
March 29, 2022 is a day that 10 former U.S. permanent residents will always remember as the day they became naturalized U.S. citizens in Poznan, Poland. ASG-POLAND partnered with USCIS to host the naturalization ceremony after conducting citizenship interviews a month prior. On this monumental day nine U.S. Soldiers and one spouse of a U.S. Soldier took the oath to become naturalized U.S. citizens.
"I was an immigrant just like you when i came to this country, so I know what this day means", said Col Jorge Fonseca, ASG-P commander as he addressed the newly naturalized U.S. citizens. The ceremony was the first hosted by ASG-P but according to USCIS, it won't be the last as naturalizations in Poland continue to rise.
This work, USCIS Naturalization Comes to Poznan, Poland, by MAJ DeLancie Horton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/417946/uscis-naturalization-comes-poznan-poland
| 2022-04-06T18:22:21Z
|
dvidshub.net
|
control
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/news/417946/uscis-naturalization-comes-poznan-poland
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
OAKLAND, Calif., April 6 – Microsoft Corp’s LinkedIn boosted subscription revenue by 8% after arming its sales team with artificial intelligence software that not only predicts clients at risk of canceling but also explains how it arrived at its conclusion.
The system, introduced last July and to be described in a LinkedIn blog post on Wednesday, marks a breakthrough in getting AI to “show its work” in a helpful way.
While AI scientists have no problem designing systems that make accurate predictions on all sorts of business outcomes, they are discovering that to make those tools more effective for human operators, the AI may need to explain itself through another algorithm.
The emerging field of “Explainable AI,” or XAI, has spurred big investment in Silicon Valley as startups and cloud giants compete to make opaque software more understandable and has stoked discussion in Washington and Brussels where regulators want to ensure automated decision-making is done fairly and transparently.
AI technology can perpetuate societal biases like those around race, gender and culture. read more Some AI scientists view explanations as a crucial part of mitigating those problematic outcomes.
U.S. consumer protection regulators including the Federal Trade Commission have warned over the last two years that AI that is not explainable could be investigated. The EU next year could pass the Artificial Intelligence Act, a set of comprehensive requirements including that users be able to interpret automated predictions.
Proponents of explainable AI say it has helped increase the effectiveness of AI’s application in fields such as healthcare and sales. Google Cloud (GOOGL.O) sells explainable AI services that, for instance, tell clients trying to sharpen their systems which pixels and soon which training examples mattered most in predicting the subject of a photo.
But critics say the explanations of why AI predicted what it did are too unreliable because the AI technology to interpret the machines is not good enough.
LinkedIn and others developing explainable AI acknowledge that each step in the process – analyzing predictions, generating explanations, confirming their accuracy and making them actionable for users – still has room for improvement.
But after two years of trial and error in a relatively low-stakes application, LinkedIn says its technology has yielded practical value. Its proof is the 8% increase in renewal bookings during the current fiscal year above normally expected growth. LinkedIn declined to specify the benefit in dollars but described it as sizeable.
Before, LinkedIn salespeople relied on their own intuition and some spotty automated alerts about clients’ adoption of services.
Now, the AI quickly handles research and analysis. Dubbed CrystalCandle by LinkedIn, it calls out unnoticed trends and its reasoning helps salespeople hone their tactics to keep at-risk customers on board and pitch others on upgrades.
LinkedIn says explanation-based recommendations have expanded to more than 5,000 of its sales employees spanning recruiting, advertising, marketing and education offerings.
“It has helped experienced salespeople by arming them with specific insights to navigate conversations with prospects. It’s also helped new salespeople dive in right away,” said Parvez Ahammad, LinkedIn’s director of machine learning and head of data science applied research.
To explain or not to explain?
In 2020, LinkedIn had first provided predictions without explanations. A score with about 80% accuracy indicates the likelihood a client soon due for renewal will upgrade, hold steady or cancel.
Salespeople were not fully won over. The team selling LinkedIn’s Talent Solutions recruiting and hiring software were unclear on how to adapt their strategy, especially when the odds of a client not renewing were no better than a coin toss.
Last July, they started seeing a short, auto-generated paragraph that highlights the factors influencing the score.
For instance, the AI decided a customer was likely to upgrade because it grew by 240 workers over the past year and candidates had become 146% more responsive in the last month.
In addition, an index that measures a client’s overall success with LinkedIn recruiting tools surged 25% in the last three months.
Lekha Doshi, LinkedIn’s vice president of global operations, said that based on the explanations sales representatives now direct clients to training, support and services that improve their experience and keep them spending.
But some AI experts question whether explanations are necessary. They could even do harm, engendering a false sense of security in AI or prompting design sacrifices that make predictions less accurate, researchers say.
Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, said people use products such as Tylenol and Google Maps whose inner workings are not neatly understood. In such cases, rigorous testing and monitoring have dispelled most doubts about their efficacy.
Similarly, AI systems overall could be deemed fair even if individual decisions are inscrutable, said Daniel Roy, an associate professor of statistics at University of Toronto.
LinkedIn says an algorithm’s integrity cannot be evaluated without understanding its thinking.
It also maintains that tools like its CrystalCandle could help AI users in other fields. Doctors could learn why AI predicts someone is more at risk of a disease, or people could be told why AI recommended they be denied a credit card.
The hope is that explanations reveal whether a system aligns with concepts and values one wants to promote, said Been Kim, an AI researcher at Google.
“I view interpretability as ultimately enabling a conversation between machines and humans,” she said. “If we truly want to enable human-machine collaboration, we need that.”
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/ai-is-explaining-itself-to-humans-and-its-paying-off/
| 2022-04-06T18:30:06Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/ai-is-explaining-itself-to-humans-and-its-paying-off/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A fruit vendor was grazed by a stray bullet when a gunman opened fire in Upper Manhattan on Tuesday, according to police sources.
The 59-year-old victim was selling fruit from his van on Nagle Avenue near Thayer Street in Fort George, and was about to close up shop when he stepped into the street and briefly chatted with a Jeep driver about exchanging parking spots, the sources said.
Then, the victim reported, he saw a man walk out of a nearby club and open fire around 10 p.m., according to the sources.
The victim said he heard shots and felt pain in his chest area, cops said.
He returned to the sidewalk and ducked behind a parked car as pedestrains fled, police sources said.
Then he crawled back to his van and checked himself for wounds, according to the sources.
He was treated at Harlem Hospital for a graze wound, and listed in stable condition, police said.
No arrests were immediately made.
When reached by phone, a man who identified himself as the victim’s son said the family did not want to speak about the incident.
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/nyc-fruit-vendor-grazed-by-stray-bullet-in-upper-manhattan/
| 2022-04-06T18:31:07Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/nyc-fruit-vendor-grazed-by-stray-bullet-in-upper-manhattan/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A verdict has been reached in accused Sarah Lawrence College sex-cult leader Larry Ray’s trial in Manhattan federal court.
The decision marks the end of a yearslong prosecution launched after the fiend’s tyrannical abuse of a group of young people was exposed in a magazine article.
Ray, 62, will face life in prison if he is convicted.
Throughout the monthlong trial, prosecutors and victims painted Ray as a calculating predator who asserted control over a group of college students and others to enrich himself as the leader of a criminal organization he dubbed “The Ray Family.”
“When his victims were completely subdued, when they were under his control, he committed crimes to get them to pay — extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, obstruction of justice, financial crimes,” Assistant US Attorney Mollie Bracewell told jurors in her closing argument.
“The defendant did all of this for control, for his own greed, and to increase his power, to cement his position in the organized group that he led.”
Ray’s alleged abuse began when he moved into his daughter’s on-campus housing dorm at the prestigious Westchester County college in 2010 after he was sprung from prison in an unrelated case.
Almost immediately, Ray allegedly began grooming his daughter’s friends, wowing them with fantastical tales about his supposed involvement in overseas military operations and his friends in law enforcement and politics, prosecutors said.
In the summer of 2011, a number of the students moved into an Upper East Side one-bedroom apartment with Ray, where his abuse and control over them increased, the feds said.
For nearly the next decade, Ray allegedly extorted his victims and forced one of them into prostitution while laundering the proceeds of the scheme, which totaled millions of dollars.
Federal authorities began investigating Ray after a 2020 New York Magazine article drew the curtain back on his relationship with the former Sarah Lawrence students.
Ray subjected his victims to physical, mental and sexual abuse, prosecutors said at trial. Ray recorded confessions his victims made in which they copped to damaging his property, plotting against him and poisoning him and his family — then used the mea culpas as blackmail.
Ray carried out his criminal enterprise with the help of Isabella Pollok – a former student who became his co-conspirator, the feds alleged.
Ray’s most lucrative scheme was collecting money that victim Claudia Drury earned while working as a prostitute at his direction, she testified at trial.
For about five years, Drury worked seven days a week, meeting monied clients who paid her exorbitant amounts of money in exchange for sex, she said.
Drury turned over about $2.5 million to Ray that she earned while escorting and living in various Manhattan hotels, where she would meet her clients.
When Ray felt threatened that Drury was slipping from his control, he and Pollok confronted her at the Gregory Hotel in Midtown, where he tortured her for hours over the course of a night, prosecutors said.
He ordered her to strip naked, handcuffed her to a chair and tried to suffocate her repeatedly with a plastic bag, Drury told jurors.
“I was terrified. I was trembling. You can’t breathe. You want to breathe a lot. That just makes it much worse,” she testified in March.
Ray also doused Drury’s naked body with water and moved her chair over to an air conditioner in the room, she said.
During the hours-long torture session, Ray and Pollok paused to eat hamburgers they had ordered from a nearby diner, Drury testified.
The torture session was powerful evidence that Ray had committed almost all of the crimes he was charged with, Bracewell told jurors in her closing argument.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this single night of crime tells you almost all you need to know. But, as we will cover and as you have seen, there is so much more,” she said.
Throughout the trial, Ray’s defense team tried to undermine his accusers’ credibility and painted them as a group of “storytellers” who embellished stories about Ray because they were jealous of him or otherwise wanted to damage him.
In her closing argument, Ray lawyer Marne Lenox attacked Drury’s account of the night she was tortured by the defendant, claiming that it never happened.
“There was no assault in the Gregory Hotel. It never happened,” Lenox said.
Ray has been locked up in the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center since his arrest in 2020.
Pollok was subsequently charged for her alleged role in the enterprise and has pleaded not guilty. She’s scheduled to go to trial later this year.
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-trial-for-larry-ray-verdict-reached/
| 2022-04-06T18:31:49Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/sarah-lawrence-sex-cult-trial-for-larry-ray-verdict-reached/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The cold always bothered him anyway.
A UK teen is so deathly allergic to cold that he can’t be outside for more than 15 minutes — even in warm weather — without his skin breaking out into itchy red rashes.
“He can’t be outside for long if it’s cold,” mom Tupney Courtney, 38, told Kennedy News & Media of her son Calum’s unfortunate affliction. “He goes out and has to keep coming back in.”
The 14-year-old from Basildon, Essex, suffers from cold urticaria, a rare skin reaction to even mild cold in which patients develop hives, swelling and even anaphylactic shock.
Calum erupts into hives when the mercury reads less than a balmy 75 degrees, or when his limbs aren’t covered by a blanket while he’s sleeping.
“He breaks out on whatever part of the body is cold,” explained the boy’s distraught mom of the reaction, which occurs after just 15 minutes outside — even if her child dons three layers of clothing.
The mother of two continued, “It starts off like little red dots. It looks like chickenpox. Then they get bigger and join together,” adding that it feels “pinchy” like “stinging nettles, then it gets really itchy.”
And the complications aren’t merely cosmetic: When Calum enters the water, the teen will reportedly get “bright red and says it feels like it’s burning,” or “like he’s going to pass out.” His mother believes these are the early stages of anaphylactic shock, which requires her to warm her son up immediately with hot drinks — a process that takes around 20 minutes to work.
In order to avert disaster, Calum’s parents have to crank the heat high all day and drive the boy 45 minutes to school (all the way up to the gate when it’s raining to prevent his clothes from getting damp). They also have to make sure he’s always wearing a tracksuit to protect his skin.
“You don’t know what reaction he could have. He could have anaphylactic shock. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility; even though he hasn’t, it could happen at any point,” Courtney lamented.
Calum exhibited signs of cold urticaria at 4 years old when he developed welts from “head to toe” while playing outside at his aunt’s wedding.
Initially thinking it was a pollen allergy, the toddler’s parents administered him antihistamines and brought him indoors — which seemed to improve his condition.
However, they quickly realized his affliction was something more sinister after his symptoms returned with a vengeance in winter. “He used to play football at school on a Friday. As it got colder, he’d be wearing a tracksuit and Under Armour and he would still be smothered in lumps all over him,” said Courtney. “It was happening all the time and we started to realize that if his arm was out of the quilt, that would come up in hives, but the rest of him wouldn’t, so we started to see it was the cold.”
Unfortunately, she didn’t get many answers from the doctor, who simply said her son was affected by the cold. He also reiterated the same preventative measures the parents were already taking: sequestering Calum indoors, keeping the heat running on full, etc.
“Doctors suggest a lifestyle change to avoid the cold. OK, we won’t live, we’ll stay indoors, not doing anything or going anywhere,” snarked Courtney.
Urticaria has put a damper on the Courtneys, who have to “think of everything” to keep their son safe.
“If he hurts himself, he can’t have a cold compress,” rued his mother. “He banged his hand at school and they said he needed to go to hospital because his hand had doubled in size. But when I got there, he had a cold compress on it, so as soon as I warmed it up, it went down.”
Not only that, but their poor boy had to quit soccer cold turkey because his whole face swells up if he’s outside for a prolonged period of time.
Courtney says even watching football is a problem. “He likes to watch his brother play football and we take him tracksuits, hot water bottles, blankets, but he has to go and get in the car because his nose swells up and his eyes get further apart,” she said.
While planning their upcoming trip to Turkey — the hottest country the family could find — they had to “book a hotel with an indoor, heated swimming pool” to prevent Calum from catching a killer chill.
“It affects so much. When kids want to go ice skating, when kids want to go swimming, anywhere, to the beach, he can’t go because it’s too risky,” griped his beleaguered mom. “We went to swim with dolphins in Florida and he couldn’t stay in the water.”
Not to mention that due to CU’s obscurity, “it’s a constant battle of trying to prove it to people,” said Courtney.
“People’s first reaction is, ‘Oh yes, I’m allergic to the cold too,'” she said. “They think he’s saying he doesn’t like the cold. It’s so frustrating that no one believes him.”
Finding proper CU specialists, or even effective “cold medicine,” has also proven an uphill battle.
“I want to find a doctor that specializes in CU, which I can’t seem to find,” said Courtney. “We find allergy doctors and dermatologists, but no one specializing in that specific allergy.”
Currently, while there is no cure-all treatment for the condition, doctors say people can mitigate the symptoms with over-the-counter antihistamines including loratadine (Claritin) and cetirizine (Zyrtec), per the Mayo Clinic.
Courtney ultimately hopes to get her son healed enough to where he can play outside “without looking like he’s got a disease.”
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/teen-deathly-allergic-to-cold-he-cant-be-outside/
| 2022-04-06T18:31:55Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/teen-deathly-allergic-to-cold-he-cant-be-outside/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Norfolk, Va. (April 6, 2022) - Lt. Rob Rogers, Military Sealift Command’s (MSC) Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) officer, sings the National Anthem during MSC’s annual SAPR awareness walk. This annual event is held in support of Sexual Assault Awareness Prevention Month (SAAPM) in order to raise awareness and prevention of sexual assault. (U.S. Navy photo by Visual Information Specialist Ryan Carter)
This work, Military Sealift Command SAPR Walk [Image 17 of 17], by Ryan Carter, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129273/military-sealift-command-sapr-walk
| 2022-04-06T18:34:46Z
|
dvidshub.net
|
control
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129273/military-sealift-command-sapr-walk
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Norfolk, Va. (April 6, 2022) - Beverly Hawkins, Military Sealift Command’s (MSC) Sexual Assault Prevention and Response (SAPR) volunteer victim advocate, delivers remarks during MSC’s annual SAPR awareness walk. This annual event is held in support of Sexual Assault Awareness Prevention Month (SAAPM) in order to raise awareness and prevention of sexual assault. (U.S. Navy photo by Visual Information Specialist Ryan Carter)
This work, Military Sealift Command SAPR Walk [Image 17 of 17], by Ryan Carter, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129278/military-sealift-command-sapr-walk
| 2022-04-06T18:35:05Z
|
dvidshub.net
|
control
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129278/military-sealift-command-sapr-walk
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Norfolk, Va. (April 6, 2022) - Rear Adm. Michael Wettlaufer, U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command commander, presents a challenge coin to Virginia Woodward, CEO, Fear 2 Freedom, during MSC’s annual SAPR awareness walk. This annual event is held in support of Sexual Assault Awareness Prevention Month (SAAPM) in order to raise awareness and prevention of sexual assault. (U.S. Navy photo by Visual Information Specialist Ryan Carter)
This work, Military Sealift Command SAPR Walk [Image 17 of 17], by Ryan Carter, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129298/military-sealift-command-sapr-walk
| 2022-04-06T18:36:08Z
|
dvidshub.net
|
control
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129298/military-sealift-command-sapr-walk
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
BOSTON (SHNS) – The state Department of Transportation plans to launch a hiring push in preparation for a slew of maintenance and modernization projects teed up by a new federal infrastructure law, but officials find themselves grappling with a tricky labor challenge.
Unlike many other industries where total employment dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of workers in scientific and construction fields — which are most important to the projects MassDOT hopes to accomplish — increased about 2.5 percent each over the past two years, according to data presented by MassDOT Chief Human Resources Officer Matthew Knosp.
“Those markets actually grew over the last couple of years. This means that overall, some of the candidate pools for many of our engineering and construction positions have become smaller compared to the pools we’re seeing for other sectors,” Knosp said at an audit and finance committee meeting Wednesday.
Massachusetts expects to receive about $9.5 billion in formula funding over the next five-plus years as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, and state officials say they hope to capitalize on even more money that is available through competitive grant programs.
Gov. Charlie Baker last month filed a $9.7 billion bond bill to help put those dollars to work and catalyze projects to repair highways and bridges, modernize MBTA infrastructure and vehicles, build out the T’s electric bus infrastructure and more.
MassDOT had about 3,500 full-time equivalent employees at the end of fiscal year 2021. Since then, the department has added 122 workers and shed 72 due to attrition, according to a presentation Knosp delivered Wednesday.
The department hopes to hire 81 more workers over the final weeks of fiscal year 2022 and another 160 in fiscal year 2023 to help complete infrastructure law-backed projects, the presentation said. That would bump up MassDOT’s headcount to nearly 300 more FTEs than at the end of FY21.
“We’re looking at this as both a need for a short-term staff-up to deliver on those programs but also a long-term increase in hiring as we look at both the amount of attrition that would come from having a larger staff and one of the things we’ve talked about in the past: we are keenly aware that we have some retirement waves coming,” Knosp said.
Knosp told transportation overseers that MassDOT employees have been heading for the exits at a higher rate over the past two years, though he stressed the department’s attrition rate remains low compared to other employers.
Amid the hiring push, it will be “equally if not more important” for MassDOT to focus on retaining experienced staff, Knosp said.
“We have a lot of key staff who will need to be working closely with our hiring managers to ensure we’re hiring to replace but also training and developing our current workforce to be able to grow into some of those positions as well,” he said. “It’s a big challenge, but I think it’s one we feel we’re well-positioned for.”
While MassDOT’s current hiring campaign responds to an influx of federal funding, the department is not alone grappling with staffing challenges.
The MBTA has been working in recent months to ramp up its bus driver workforce after a shortage prompted temporary service reductions in the winter. In December, officials approved a collective bargaining agreement allowing the agency to offer hiring bonuses in an attempt to attract new workers.
On Tuesday, the T hosted a hiring event advertising openings for more than 300 bus driver positions and offering signing bonuses of up to $4,500.
Private-sector businesses have also widely reported challenges attracting enough workers to fill open job positions. The Baker administration launched a new program in March making grants of $4,000 per employee to defray training costs and encourage employers to look beyond traditional candidate pools.
|
https://www.wwlp.com/news/state-politics/infrastructure-work-running-into-labor-headwinds/
| 2022-04-06T18:40:18Z
|
wwlp.com
|
control
|
https://www.wwlp.com/news/state-politics/infrastructure-work-running-into-labor-headwinds/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The teaser of 'Thrayam', starring Sunny Wayne and Dhyan Sreenivasan who will be seen together onscreen for the first time, is out. There is enough to hint that the movie will be a thriller with a riveting storyline.
It revolves around incidents that take place in the lives of the main characters at night and the low-lighting throughout the film lends an air of mystery to the film, which belongs to the neo-noir genre. The movie, directed by Sanjith Chandrasenan, is produced by Vinayaka Ajith under Ajith Vinayaka films banner. Sunny is introduced as Harry while Dhyan plays Ashique.
Aju Varghese, Dain Davis, Niranj Raju, Rahul Madav and Anarkali Marakkar also play important roles in the film. Chandhu Nath, Karthik Ramakrishnan, Salu Rahim, Gopi Krishna K, Niranjana Anoop are also part of the film.
Arun K Gopinath who scripted 'Gods' Own Country', has written the script for 'Thrayam'. Jiju Sunny has handled the camera for the movie.
The makers are promoting the movie with the tagline 'Either you run the day or the day runs you'
|
https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/04/06/makers-of--thrayam--starring-sunny-wayne--dhyan-sreenivasan-come.amp.html
| 2022-04-06T18:41:49Z
|
onmanorama.com
|
control
|
https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/04/06/makers-of--thrayam--starring-sunny-wayne--dhyan-sreenivasan-come.amp.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The shooting of '@', touted to be the first dark web thriller in Malayalam, has wrapped up. The movie, written and directed by Don Max, who is also a leading contemporary film editor, has been fully shot at Aluva and Chottanikara in Ernakulam. '@' has been produced under the banner of Kochurani Production. Ravi Chandran has cranked the camera for the film while Ishan Dev has composed the music. Editing is by Shameer Mohammed.
Badusha N M is the production controller while Prashanth Narayanan is the art director. Makeup is by Ranjith Ambadi while Rose Regis is the costume designer. Kanalkannan is the action choreographer while Manish Bhargavan is the chief associate of the film.
|
https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/04/06/malayalam-movie--dark-web-thriller-don-max.amp.html
| 2022-04-06T18:42:01Z
|
onmanorama.com
|
control
|
https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/04/06/malayalam-movie--dark-web-thriller-don-max.amp.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Recently, Moderna (MRNA) held its third annual vaccine day, where the company provided an update on its pipeline.
While Moderna is primarily known for the outstanding success of its Covid-19 vaccine, its bulging pipeline consists of 31 vaccines in development, focusing on everything from Covid variants to the seasonal flu, to HIV and herpes.
In fact, following the event, Deutsche Bank’s Emmanuel Papadakis’ main impression is that the company is “throwing the kitchen sink at infectious disease development, complementing the existing respiratory focus with a broad latent virus programme.”
However, it is still early days for most of the candidates and Papadakis is not entirely convinced of the pipeline’s merit yet.
“The event was short on rare disease and oncology updates and did not necessarily convey why probability of success in many of the more difficult (latent) infectious settings will be higher for an mRNA approach (nor did it necessarily convince on unique differentiation vs multiple competitors in most settings),” the analyst explained.
The company also provided an update from the Phase 2 trial of the flu vaccine candidate mRNA1010, which it touted as showing “potential” for superiority over standard flu shots. That said, similar to the trends shown by the Phase 1 data when presented last December, the data was “mixed,” suggesting an overall similar level of effectiveness compared to available flu shots, making it hard to gauge whether Moderna’s offering can trump those already on the market.
As far as the commercial progress of Moderna’s Covid vaccine, following recent orders from Japan and Colombia, Moderna has increased its anticipated revenue in 2022 to $21 billion from the prior $19 billion. However, Papadakis says the FY22 “nudge” on the revenue guide was a “very minor positive given it fell within the existing bracket of FY22 APAs.”
Accordingly, Papadakis signed off with a Hold rating, to go alongside a $155 price target, suggesting shares will stay range-bound for the foreseeable future. (To watch Papadakis’ track record, click here)
There are plenty of analysts sitting on the Moderna fence – 7, in fact – although with the addition of 6 Buys and 1 Sell, the stock qualifies with a Moderate Buy consensus rating. That said, the average price target is a lot more positive than Papadakis’; at $256.55, the figure suggests shares will appreciate ~67% over the coming months. (See Moderna stock forecast on TipRanks)
To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analyst. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/moderna-key-takeaways-from-vaccine-day/
| 2022-04-06T18:42:56Z
|
tipranks.com
|
control
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/moderna-key-takeaways-from-vaccine-day/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Anyone who’s been stuck in a traffic jam for any length of time appreciates the value of the autonomous vehicle. Communications company leader Qualcomm (QCOM) is part of the drive to get us there.
That drive just got a little easier thanks to a new acquisition the company’s making. Between its current line of smartphone-heavy business, and its new potential push into driverless cars, the end result is reason to be bullish on Qualcomm.
The last year for Qualcomm has featured a major upward thrust followed by a slow decline to more “normal” levels. From April 2021 to nearly November, the company held to a fairly tight range between $120 and $150 per share. November saw a substantial upward spike that proved unsustainable, and now the company is back around the $140 range once more.
The latest news might get Qualcomm back up past those spike levels. The company concluded its efforts to acquire Arriver, the self-driving vehicle arm of Veoneer. With Arriver in its fold, Qualcomm will be better able to compete against Intel’s (INTC) Mobileye, currently regarded as a leader in the industry.
Wall Street’s Take
Turning to Wall Street, Qualcomm has a Moderate Buy consensus rating. That’s based on 12 Buys and five Holds assigned in the past three months. The average Qualcomm price target of $216.88 implies 55.7% upside potential.
Analyst price targets range from a low of $185 per share to a high of $250 per share.
Hedge Funds Losing Faith, but Dividends Inspire Hope
Right now, hedge funds are significantly less interested in Qualcomm than they once were. The word from the TipRanks 13-F Tracker shows that, once more, hedge funds have reduced their stake in Qualcomm by about two million shares last quarter.
This is a return to form for hedge fund appraisal of Qualcomm; hedge funds had sold shares in Qualcomm from March 2020 straight on to June 2021. The first increase in hedge fund stakes took place in September 2021, but December 2021’s departure saw a further reduction in stake.
However, for income investors, Qualcomm offers a welcome dividend. Qualcomm’s dividend history shows just what dividend stock investors like to see: a dividend that regularly increases, and has been doing so over the last four years.
Even during 2020 and the worst of the COVID-19 restrictions, Qualcomm maintained, and even raised, its dividend.
Qualcomm Needs Help
Granted, the autonomous vehicle market has been rough for its entrants in the last few years. Even Elon Musk noted that actually getting an autonomous vehicle to market was a “hard problem.”
Given the sheer range and extent of the problems Tesla (TSLA) has seen in that vein, it’s not surprising that actually getting such a car out is proving a taller order than most expect.
Worse yet for Qualcomm, there are signs that smartphones aren’t quite as ubiquitous as they once were. The “dumbphone” is making something of a comeback. “Dumbphones” are basically the cell phones that most had back in the 2000 to around 2010 range.
Dumbphone sales were on track to hit one billion units in 2021, up from just 400 million in 2019. With smartphone sales on the decline, that could mean some trouble for Qualcomm sales going forward.
With that in mind, it’s little surprise that Qualcomm would work to branch out. While the smartphone trade is unlikely to go away, potential weakness therein might prove a limiting factor. If Qualcomm can make good on self-driving cars, having a piece of that market would likely easily make up for smartphone losses.
While Qualcomm will likely have the same level of problem that Musk and Tesla had with self-driving vehicles, Qualcomm is advancing in this field. Qualcomm already had Snapdragon Ride, and Arriver was using Snapdragon Ride chips in its operations for the last several years.
By way of comparison, Nvidia (NVDA) has around $11 billion worth of sales pipeline operations for its DRIVE autonomous vehicle platform. Since Nvidia focuses mainly on premium cars, that leaves a whole range of budget models open for the Qualcomm platform.
Concluding Views
Qualcomm is branching out, and that’s good news for investors. While the exact value of the self-driving car market may be limited until the potential sales pipelines become actual sales numbers, having a stake in a market that most will likely eagerly get in on is worth doing.
Better yet, the numbers look great for Qualcomm as well. With Qualcomm trading significantly under its lowest price targets, there’s plenty of upside potential.
So Qualcomm has a solid position in a currently solid market — smartphones — but also a potentially sound position in a market that will be solid in the future in self-driving cars. That combination makes for a stock worth being bullish about.
Download the TipRanks mobile app now
To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Read full Disclaimer & Disclosure
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/qualcomms-autonomous-vehicle-ambitions-get-a-boost/
| 2022-04-06T18:43:02Z
|
tipranks.com
|
control
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/qualcomms-autonomous-vehicle-ambitions-get-a-boost/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Shares of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) fell 4.5% Tuesday, and continued their slide today, after Wedbush analyst Nick Setyan downgraded the stock from a Buy to a Hold and lowered the price target from $105 to $91, implying an upside potential of 9.7%. Setyan’s price target is the lowest price target on the Street.
The analyst reasoned that while the stock’s current valuation takes into account the risks lying ahead, he sees “no catalysts for the foreseeable future.” Let us look at why Setyan thinks so.
The stock has not fared well recently. Year-to-date, it has tanked 29% as it battles a number of challenges, including unionization efforts, the slowdown in China, store closures, and management uncertainties.
Earlier this week, SBUX’s new CEO, Howard Schultz, outlined his vision for the company. Schultz took over the reins of SBUX as an interim CEO after the previous CEO, Kevin Johnson, stepped down from his position on the 4th of April.
The first step that he stated was the immediate suspension of the coffee retailer’s stock buyback program. The CEO stated his rationale, “This decision will allow us to invest more profit into our people and our stores — the only way to create long-term value for all stakeholders.”
Schultz also pointed out the headwinds for the company, including supply chain constraints, the havoc caused by COVID-19, geopolitical tensions and unrest, and “a racial reckoning and a rising generation which seeks a new accountability for business.”
For analyst Setyan, the cancellation of share repurchases was “a surprise” as the analyst had felt “meaningful ongoing repurchases would cushion the blow from necessary incremental investments as Howard Schultz addressed SBUX’s various headwinds.”
Moreover, the analyst pointed out that with declining visibility into SBUX’s businesses in the U.S. and internationally, and until Schultz “finishes charting what appears to be a more meaningfully new direction for SBUX,” he does not see any new catalysts for the stock.
Setyan is highly convinced that the company’s return to low double-digit growth in EPS in Fiscal Year 2023 is at risk due to the above reasons.
Wall Street’s Take
The rest of the analysts on Wall Street, however, continue to remain cautiously optimistic about the stock, with a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 13 Buys and 10 Holds. The average SBUX stock forecast is $112.95, implying a 36% upside potential from current levels.
Download the TipRanks mobile app now.
To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Read full Disclaimer & Disclosure
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/starbucks-nothing-new-to-serve-up/
| 2022-04-06T18:43:18Z
|
tipranks.com
|
control
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/starbucks-nothing-new-to-serve-up/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Financial services major Visa (NYSE: V) recently announced that the company has entered into a partnership with a consumer authentication services provider, PopID, to launch facial verification payment acceptance in the Middle East region.
Following the news, shares of the company declined almost 1% to close at $226.51 in yesterday’s session. The stock continued its slide today.
With biometrics strongly positioned to play a crucial role in digital payments in the next decade and beyond, Visa’s partnership is expected to provide cardholders with new safe, secure, and innovative ways to pay.
Initially, the diversified global investment company, Dubai Holding, will deploy PopPay at some of its prime locations, which will be followed by the adoption of the payment technology across Dubai Holding’s wider ecosystem.
Further, banks issuing Visa cards will receive an invitation to become part of the platform and provide clients the option to link their facial biometrics to their debit or credit cards to make payments. Moreover, acquiring banks will be offered the opportunity to distribute PopID’s proprietary face pay terminals to brick-and-mortar businesses.
Management Commentary
Head of Visa CEMEA Innovation & Design Akshay Chopra said, “Facial biometric payments are at the forefront of payments innovation, providing cardholders a fast, seamless and most importantly, secure way to authenticate and make a payment.
“From across our partner network, we’ve seen heightened interest in co-creating new facial and biometric payments moments. Through this partnership with PopPay, we are keen to help clients roll out biometric payment capabilities faster and with more success.”
Wall Street’s Take
Recently, Barclays analyst Julian Mitchell reiterated a Buy rating on the stock. The analyst, however, lowered the price target from $265 to $260, which implies an upside potential of 18% from current levels.
The consensus among analysts is a Strong Buy based on 16 Buys and three Holds assigned in the past three months. The average Visa price target of $273.18 implies an upside potential of 23.9% from current levels. Shares have gained 0.7% over the past year.
Hedge Funds’ Confidence
TipRanks’ Hedge Fund Trading Activity tool shows that hedge fund confidence in Visa is currently Very Positive. Moreover, the cumulative change in holdings across the 68 hedge funds that were active in the last quarter was an increase of 12.5 million shares.
Download the TipRanks mobile app now
To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.
Read full Disclaimer & Disclosure
Related News:
Equinix Expands Footprint in Africa
Marathon Digital Dips Despite Positive Bitcoin Production News
Raytheon Technologies Benefits from Russia-Ukraine conflict
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/visa-launches-facial-verification-payments-in-the-middle-east/
| 2022-04-06T18:43:31Z
|
tipranks.com
|
control
|
https://www.tipranks.com/news/visa-launches-facial-verification-payments-in-the-middle-east/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Is there anything lovelier than spring in Virginia? We don’t think so. With the trees budding and the flowers blooming, there’s a sense of “we survived winter!” in the air, and that’s worth celebrating.
So, we are.
Inside our April issue you’ll find features that celebrate local coaches, tutors, bounce parties, and beers on a mission.
Others that celebrate Marines who clean, artists with autism, and a sports team that will steal your heart.
And still others that celebrate great wines, spring cleaning, and the incredible programming the Prince William Public Library offers to help kids with diverse abilities succeed.
We’re honored to celebrate our incredible community and hope you enjoy every page of the April issue. Happy reading!
To pick up additional copies, click here.
|
https://www.insidenova.com/lifestyles/hot-off-the-presses-its-the-april-issue-of-haymarket-gainesville-lifestyle/article_60770f9a-b4fe-11ec-af3c-87a7ab167a2c.html
| 2022-04-06T18:48:12Z
|
insidenova.com
|
control
|
https://www.insidenova.com/lifestyles/hot-off-the-presses-its-the-april-issue-of-haymarket-gainesville-lifestyle/article_60770f9a-b4fe-11ec-af3c-87a7ab167a2c.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Comments from Fed vice-chair Brainard about a more-aggressive pace of hikes and rapid balance sheet rundown (though conditional) sparked a jump in the US dollar yesterday and that sentiment is continuing to percolate today.
That move highlights the intense focus on interest rates and the Fed at the moment and it's why the 2 pm ET FOMC minutes will be an event to watch closely.
Fixed income strategists at BMO write:
The two areas of interest are 1) how close was the Fed to 50 bp last month; the logic for more will be rolled forward to May’s meeting and 2) and details on the pace and composition of reducing SOMA holdings [the Fed's balance sheet]
The market is currently pricing in an 82% chance of a 50 bps hike, up 10 percentage points from pre-Brainard.
On the balance sheet, BMO highlights the risk of "an even more aggressive baseline in terms of how the Committee will endeavor to run own the balance sheet."
Importantly, the minutes are now released at the same time for everyone on the FOMC website rather than via media lockup. That leads to a sloppy, jumbled interpretation as traders race to read the headlines and interpret the overall message. In turn, the underlying meaning and context of comments can be skewed by headlines or a misguided focus.
Ultimately, perception is reality when it comes to things like these so they can extend. In my experience though, market moves on the Fed minutes tend to unravel the following day.
|
https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/fomc-minutes-coming-up-what-to-watch-for-20220406/
| 2022-04-06T18:53:34Z
|
forexlive.com
|
control
|
https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/fomc-minutes-coming-up-what-to-watch-for-20220406/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The Federal Reserve hiked rates by 25 basis points on March 16. The minutes will offer clues on how hotly they debated hiking by 50 basis points along with commentary on the balance sheet rundown.
'Many' participants noted they would have preferred a 50 bps hike
Participants judged appropriate to move to neutral 'expeditiously'
Participants noted that -- depending on developments -- a move to tighter policy stance could be warranted
Participants generally agreed to monthly caps of about $60B for Treasury securities and $35B for MBS
Participants generally agreed that caps could be phased in over a period of three months or modestly longer
All participants underscored the need to remain attentive to the risks of further inflation
Participants generally agreed that after balance sheet runoff well underway, would be appropriate to consider sales of MBS
Many noted that one or more 509 bps increases in the target range could be appropriate at future meetings, particularly if inflation
Inflation
Inflation is defined as a quantitative measure of the rate in which the average price level of goods and services in an economy or country increases over a period of time. It is the rise in the general level of prices where a given currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods.In terms of assessing the strength or currencies, and by extension foreign exchange, inflation or measures of it are extremely influential. Inflation stems from the overall creation of money. This money is measured by the level of the total money supply of a specific currency, for example the US dollar, which is constantly increasing. However, an increase in the money supply does not necessarily mean that there is inflation. What leads to inflation is a faster increase in the money supply in relation to the wealth produced (measured with GDP). As such, this generates pressure of demand on a supply that does not increase at the same rate. The consumer price index then increases, generating inflation.How Does Inflation Affect Forex?The level of inflation has a direct impact on the exchange rate between two currencies on several levels.This includes purchasing power parity, which attempts to compare different purchasing powers of each country according to the general price level. In doing so, this makes it possible to determine the country with the most expensive cost of living.The currency with the higher inflation rate consequently loses value and depreciates, while the currency with the lower inflation rate appreciates on the forex market.Interest rates are also impacted. Inflation rates that are too high push interest rates up, which has the effect of depreciating the currency on foreign exchange. Conversely, inflation that is too low (or deflation) pushes interest rates down, which has the effect of appreciating the currency on the forex market.
Inflation is defined as a quantitative measure of the rate in which the average price level of goods and services in an economy or country increases over a period of time. It is the rise in the general level of prices where a given currency effectively buys less than it did in prior periods.In terms of assessing the strength or currencies, and by extension foreign exchange, inflation or measures of it are extremely influential. Inflation stems from the overall creation of money. This money is measured by the level of the total money supply of a specific currency, for example the US dollar, which is constantly increasing. However, an increase in the money supply does not necessarily mean that there is inflation. What leads to inflation is a faster increase in the money supply in relation to the wealth produced (measured with GDP). As such, this generates pressure of demand on a supply that does not increase at the same rate. The consumer price index then increases, generating inflation.How Does Inflation Affect Forex?The level of inflation has a direct impact on the exchange rate between two currencies on several levels.This includes purchasing power parity, which attempts to compare different purchasing powers of each country according to the general price level. In doing so, this makes it possible to determine the country with the most expensive cost of living.The currency with the higher inflation rate consequently loses value and depreciates, while the currency with the lower inflation rate appreciates on the forex market.Interest rates are also impacted. Inflation rates that are too high push interest rates up, which has the effect of depreciating the currency on foreign exchange. Conversely, inflation that is too low (or deflation) pushes interest rates down, which has the effect of appreciating the currency on the forex market.
Read this Term pressure s remained
Participants agreed Fed was ell placed to begin balance sheet reduction as early as the May FOMC meeting
Several participants judged that the upside risks to inflation from the war were more pronounced than downside growth risks
Full text of the minutes
The knee-jerk was lower in the dollar but there's plenty of here for the dollar bulls. The balance sheet talk was generally in-line with what markets were thinking but the 'many' comment on 50 bps emphasizes the hawkish pressure the Fed is feeling.
ADVERTISEMENT - CONTINUE READING BELOW
|
https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/fomc-minutes-participants-judged-appropriate-to-move-to-neutral-expeditiously-20220406/
| 2022-04-06T18:53:40Z
|
forexlive.com
|
control
|
https://www.forexlive.com/centralbank/fomc-minutes-participants-judged-appropriate-to-move-to-neutral-expeditiously-20220406/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The US dollar initially fell but quickly reversed course and has now surged to the best levels of the day on indications the FOMC won't hesitate to deliver one or more half-point rate hikes.
The commodity currencies are bearing the brunt of the US dollar move as US equities tumble. The S&P 500 is down 1.4% and the Nasdaq down 2.7%, both sliding further after the report's release. EUR/USD is down 20 pips to 1.0881 on the day with the entire fall coming after the minutes.
The comments in the report appear to be teeing up a 50 bps hike on May 4 with market pricing now up to 85% from 82% before the report. But the minutes also highlight the risk of more half-point hikes.
"Many participants noted that one or more 50 basis point increases in the target range could be appropriate at future meetings, particularly if inflation pressures remained elevated or intensified," the text says.
Given higher commodity prices since the Ukraine war and the potential for worsening supply chains on the Shanghai lockdown, upside risks to inflation have likely increased.
In general though, market moves on the FOMC minutes don't last because they reflect older views and data. After an initial surge higher, US Treasury yields have given back some of the rise. Keep an eye on that front.
|
https://www.forexlive.com/news/dollar-jumps-after-fomc-minutes-highlight-the-appetite-for-50-basis-point-rate-hikes-20220406/
| 2022-04-06T18:53:46Z
|
forexlive.com
|
control
|
https://www.forexlive.com/news/dollar-jumps-after-fomc-minutes-highlight-the-appetite-for-50-basis-point-rate-hikes-20220406/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The initial reaction to the Fed minutes seemed to be an unwind of the price action seen over the last couple of days . Overall the minutes were hawkish, but so was Brainard and other members of late.
Initial reactions saw:
USD dipped lower
Yields moved lower
Stocks moved higher
However, as I type some of the moves have already seen some reversal. So that suggests the market is just a bit of a "sell the fact" vs any change in expectations from what is expected.
USDJPY: The USDJPY ticked to a new low for the day below 123.508, but has bounced back and trades at 123.83. It is still below the high for the day at 124.046.
Nasdaq: The Nasdaq moved up close to the intraday high at 14031 (reached 13988.94), but has since moved to a new session low in a quick reversal. The index is back below its 38.2% at 13847.93. The 200 hour moving average at 13698.86 is the next downside target. The index is currently trading down -2.81%.
The S&P index is also trading to a new low. It is currently down -68 points or -1.5% at 4457.52. It's 38.2% retracement level of the last move higher comes in at 4437.65.
|
https://www.forexlive.com/news/initial-reaction-dollar-moves-lower-stocks-higher-yields-lower-20220406/
| 2022-04-06T18:53:59Z
|
forexlive.com
|
control
|
https://www.forexlive.com/news/initial-reaction-dollar-moves-lower-stocks-higher-yields-lower-20220406/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
President Joe Biden will sign the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 on Wednesday.
Congress passed the bill, which requires six-day-a-week mail delivery, in March.
The long-fought postal overhaul has been years in the making.
It comes amid widespread complaints about mail service slowdowns.
Officials have repeatedly warned that without congressional action the Postal Service would run out of cash by 2024.
To improve its finances, the bill would lift unusual budget requirements that have contributed to its red ink. It requires mail carriers to enroll in Medicare when they become eligible. Currently, they receive costly health plans when they retire.
The legislation also eliminates a mandate that forced the agency to pre-fund retiree health benefits, which postal service leaders told Congress was unfair and costly since most government agencies don't have to do that. Those changes are expected to save around $50 billion.
|
https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/biden-to-sign-bill-to-shore-up-the-postal-service
| 2022-04-06T18:55:49Z
|
wtxl.com
|
control
|
https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/biden-to-sign-bill-to-shore-up-the-postal-service
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A first-of-its-kind study is raising concerns about a certain potentially toxic group of chemicals pets may be exposed to.
Researchers from NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine looked at what are called “aromatic amines.”
The chemicals are in dyes used in cosmetics, textiles and plastics we have in our homes.
The researchers found 8 types of chemicals in stool samples they collected from dozens of dogs and cats.
They also found traces of the chemicals in more than 38% of urine samples taken from a separate group of pets.
The chemicals are also found in a common flea control medication called Amitraz.
“There are no regulations. It's because of the fact that it's not known that, you know, the insecticides, like Amitraz, can break down in the body of pets, to produce a cancer-causing chemical. It was not known so studies like this shed light,” said Kurunthachalam Kannan, Ph.D., at NYU Langone Health.
Veterinarians say the benefits of flea medication outweigh the risks.
“There are some natural flea and tick products that can be used both topical oils and orals. They may not be quite as effective as some of the prescribed medications, but there are indeed some they're out there, there are some that are out there actually could be more harmful as well,” said Joshua Lachowicz, a veterinary oncologist at BluePearl.
“Owner education is always going to be key to make sure that they speak with the veterinarian first,” Lachowicz said.
He says another option could be limiting flea products during colder times of the year.
As far as other household products your pets may be exposed to, choosing more natural products with a lower concentration of dyes is an option.
More research is planned into the link between exposure to the chemicals and bladder, thyroid and testicular cancer in pets.
Another veterinarian we spoke with says this underscores the importance of routine screening and talking with your veterinarian about your pet’s health.
|
https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/nyu-study-looks-at-how-household-chemicals-may-affect-pets
| 2022-04-06T18:55:51Z
|
wtxl.com
|
control
|
https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/nyu-study-looks-at-how-household-chemicals-may-affect-pets
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The Great HP Laptop 1-hour Offer! Plus a 1-yr warrant (573 comments). «« » »\nGreet everyone in here! Welcome in The Computer Tail, please get yourself at comfort and continue with enjoywars (The \"One hour or Two for Halo Reqwars \" Thread and other). Also, we might ask here if you want one free Windows License 7 key. There are about (A: So President Joe Biden will sign the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 on Wednesday.
Congress passed the bill, which requires six-day-a-week mail delivery, in March.
The long-fought postal overhaul has been years in the making.
It comes amid widespread complaints about mail service slowdowns.
Officials have repeatedly warned that without congressional action the Postal Service would run out of cash by 2024.
To improve its finances, the bill would lift unusual budget requirements that have contributed to its red ink. It requires mail carriers to enroll in Medicare when they become eligible. Currently, they receive costly health plans when they retire.
The legislation also eliminates a mandate that forced the agency to pre-fund retiree health benefits, which postal service leaders told Congress was unfair and costly since most government agencies don't have to do that. Those changes are expected to save around $50 billion.
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/biden-to-sign-bill-to-shore-up-the-postal-service
| 2022-04-06T18:59:18Z
|
fox17online.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/biden-to-sign-bill-to-shore-up-the-postal-service
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Inside Out Dance Ensemble returns to MCCC stage
After a two-year, pandemic-induced hiatus, the Inside Out Dance Ensemble is back on the stage.
The Monroe County Community College-based dance company will perform “Access” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday at Meyer Theater, La-Z-Boy Center at MCCC, 1555 S. Raisinville Rd.
General admission tickets are $12 each. Seating is limited. Masks are currently optional, but recommended. For tickets, visit https://www.monroeccc.edu/events.
While the IODE performed to small audiences and virtually during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, "Access" is the company's first full-audience stage show since 2019.
“Our ‘Scrapbook’ concert commemorating our 10th-anniversary as an organized ensemble was scrapped in 2020,” said IODE Director Kellie Lajiness.
The spring performance also was canceled in 2021. This year’s program conveys the relief of returning to normal.
“We kept saying to ourselves (during lockdowns), ‘if only we had access to the studio. If only we could have access to the stage.’ Since the word ‘access’ kept coming up after feeling so prohibited, it seemed fitting to utilize it for our concert title,” Lajiness said.
“Access” includes 12 dance and musical numbers in two acts.
“Ten of those pieces are brand-new," Lajiness said. "The opening and closing pieces are from the ensemble’s existing repertoire that have been reimagined for this year’s performers. This concert will also include dance interpretations of winning poetry from the MCCC’s Writing Fellows Competition."
Dancing will be the Inside Out Dance Ensemble, the IODE Junior Company and Destination Tap Collective. Members of the ensemble are Claire Bacarella, Elisabeth Brockman, Autumn Hensley, Ashley Redfern, Kara Walker and understudy Madison Tallerico. Maysie Burns is a member of the IODE Junior Company. Autumn Hensley and Kelli Plumb are in Destination Tap Collective.
Several dances are duos. Elisabeth, Autumn and Ashley will dance solos. Claire will perform a ballet solo.
“Claire is one of our newest members, joining IODE this past January. It has been fun choreographing a whimsical ballet solo for her. She is just charming,” Lajiness said.
Kevin R. Daniels will perform live music for several of the numbers.
“I am thrilled that my friend and colleague Kevin R. Daniels will be joining us on folk guitar and ukulele,” Lajiness said. “Kevin’s vocal renditions are heartfelt and range from personal and intimate choices to fun storytelling adventures.”
Daniels will perform the opening number, “Here Comes the Sun.”
“This piece has been in our repertoire since 2013, when it was exclusively chosen and performed with Kevin at the MCCC Collage Concert," Lajiness said. "It is very near and dear to us, along with his rendition of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ which has become a fan favorite amongst our collaborative projects. This year he is including one of his original songs titled ‘Keepitogether.’ It will be a song message and prayer to the people of Ukraine. Kevin will also perform ‘Hallelujah,’ ‘Picture in a Frame’ and ‘Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.’”
Props also will have a part in “Access.”
Elisabeth will use props for a solo dance based on her own original poem, “The Loud One,” which earned honors at this year’s MCCC Writing Fellows Poetry Competition.
“She utilizes a white box throughout this dance interpretation which represents very personal and text within her poem,” Lajiness said.
Top hats and canes make an appearance in “Invitation to Dance,” a tap duet by Autumn and Kelli. Masquerade masks are part of Autumn's contemporary tap solo called “Masks Optional.”
“She wanted to utilize a masquerade-style mask on a stick to match the mysterious music by Cirque de Soleil called ‘Steel Dream,’” Lajiness said.
Lajiness will debut her new choreography in “Framework.”
“It’s a contemporary dance meant to debut in 2020," she said. "It uses a large black picture frame as well as four separate sections from an exact replica. It is danced by Claire, Elisabeth, Autumn and Ashley. They use the physical edges of the four frame sections to outline, define and reconfigure both their personal and shared space. An easel is used as a set piece and central location for the frame.”
Lajiness and her dancers were creative during COVID.
“The dancers and I would chat on the phone, meet via Zoom or when allowed, outdoors for site-specific work responding to the environment," she said. "When restrictions were lifted in outdoor spaces, we danced in area garden sites, dancers' yards or family properties that offered ample space with an interesting tableau, foliage colors, architecture. Receiving random applause from a passer-by fed our souls. We often videotaped these adventures and have some beautiful action shots taken by Helen Robinette as a result. The return to studio space was an extremely long haul," LWe are just so grateful to be given 'access' to the stage. It is a gift we value beyond words."
|
https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/2022/04/06/inside-out-dance-ensemble-returns-mccc-stage/9467455002/
| 2022-04-06T19:00:34Z
|
monroenews.com
|
control
|
https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/2022/04/06/inside-out-dance-ensemble-returns-mccc-stage/9467455002/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Monroe Clerk-Treasurer Michelle LaVoy to host mobile clerk's office events
City of Monroe Clerk-Treasurer Michelle LaVoy will be out in the community this spring and summer to answer questions about how the recent, statewide redistricting will affect city voters.
During Monday night's Monroe City Council meeting, LaVoy announced that she will soon launch a mobile clerk's office program. She will have copies of the recently unveiled maps showing the new districts in the state and federal governments and will be on hand to answer any questions regarding the topic.
LaVoy said the goal of this program is to make it easier for city residents to obtain answers to their questions regarding the redistricting. Exact times and locations for the mobile clerk's office sessions will be announced at a later date, with residents invited to visit the city's website or Facebook page for the latest information.
LaVoy said she intends to set up shop at several local coffee shops as well as the Opportunity Center at ALCC. She also has been in conversation with Oaks of Righteousness to see if they have any interest in hosting her for one or more of these sessions.
"We are a small community, and it's the perception that it's easy for people to come to (Monroe) City Hall and get their questions answered," LaVoy said. "But I don't always think that's the case, for a variety of reasons. So I thought I'll start this project, and it seems like the perfect topic to go where people are and see if I can answer their questions. I don't want coming into city hall, or having to get on a computer and try to understand (the redistricting) to be a barrier to them understanding where they reside, in terms of the House districts, because it's new and confusing.
"I have to think about it when I say it, and I work with everyday."
In 2018, Michigan voters approved a ballot measure to create an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. After the census is conducted every 10 years, legislative districts are redrawn to reflect changing population trends.
The ballot initiative shifted the responsibility of redrawing those districts from the Legislature and governor to the commission, which includes private citizens of both major parties and Independents.
In the Legislature, Monroe County residents were previously represented by two districts. The new maps now break the county into four separate districts, lumping communities into districts that include municipalities in neighboring Lenawee, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.
During Monday's council meeting, LaVoy briefly outlined how the city of Monroe has been affected by the redistricting. The only major change is at the state House of Representatives level, where City Precincts 1, 2, 3 South and North, 4 and 5 will be in House District 30, and Precinct 6 will fall within District 29.
Prior to this most recent redistricting, the entire city fell within one House district. LaVoy said she's unsure of when, if ever, the city has previously been split between two House districts.
"Essentially all of the districts, due to redistricting, are staying the same in Monroe, except for the House district," she said. "The numbers are changing, but the lines are not changing. The county commissioner districts, those are remaining the same, we're still in county commissioner districts 5 and 6. The Senate district, while the number is changed, the city of Monroe is still entirely encapsulated in one Senate district. The House districts are where things change a little bit..."
LaVoy noted one hiccup within the city regarding this redistricting: The Oasis at Monroe Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center at 1215 N. Telegraph Road has been placed in the wrong House district. LaVoy said that while there are only a few voters registered at the location due to the transient nature of its population, she is committed to serving them and ensuring they receive the right ballot when it comes time for the next election.
"That address currently resides in Precinct 6 and should be in House District 29," LaVoy explained. "...For some reason, 1215 N. Telegraph looked to the redistricting commission and whoever fed them the maps as if it were in Precinct 5. I further discovered that it appears to the state of Michigan as if the building itself is further split between two House districts. I'm working on that, I've had wonderful assistance from (GIS Asset Management Specialist Kimberly Rieger). ... It's a transient population, we don't have many voters in there so it's very manageable for the clerk's office, we can at some point petition to have them put in the right House district — and when I say right, I mean right based on the maps — but that's at a point in the future."
LaVoy reiterated that she is committed to answering any and all resident questions regarding the redistricting, which is why she is attempting to meet them where they are — literally — in order to best serve them. If the program is well received by residents, the clerk-treasurer said she hopes to continue and expand it to answer any and all questions related to the operations of her office.
"I just want to be available for the residents," LaVoy said.
|
https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/local/2022/04/06/lavoy-host-mobile-clerks-office-events/9469657002/
| 2022-04-06T19:00:40Z
|
monroenews.com
|
control
|
https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/local/2022/04/06/lavoy-host-mobile-clerks-office-events/9469657002/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Monroe reviews proposal for public mural installation project
A proposal for a public art mural installation project received an enthusiastic response Monday from the Monroe City Council.
Woodrow (Woody) Hoffer and City of Monroe Director of Economic and Community Development Mark Cochran presented the PLNTING SEEDS proposal to the council at its meeting Monday. Conceived by Hoffer and Monroe County Opportunity Program Executive Director Stephanie Zorn Kasprzak, the program involves five murals, four of which would be installed at locations in the city and a fifth that would be at the Monroe Public Schools Administration Building in Frenchtown Township.
The city murals would be at Orchard Center High School, Tiffany's Pizza, Monroe Beer Cooler and the Opportunity Center at ALCC. The murals at the MPS Administration Building, Orchard Center High School, Tiffany's Pizza and Monroe Beer Cooler would be painted on the sides of the respective buildings by celebrated artists from the Detroit area, while the mural at the Opportunity Center would be a paint-by-numbers mural overseen by local artist Amy Arnold and painted on a walkway adjacent to the building by members of the community.
Cochran said the city has been in discussion with Hoffer and Kasprzak about the project since before Christmas. While there are some logistical details still to be finalized before PLNTING SEEDS is officially approved by the city, the plan is to begin the installation of the murals in conjunction with the dedication of the sharing garden at the Opportunity Center on June 18 and conclude the initiative with a block party on July 16.
"I think this is an exciting opportunity to approach for the city, to approach this in sort of a new manner, a fresh manner, than what we've done in the past," Cochran said. "I appreciate that Woody and Stephanie reached out to the city trying to partner with us and find a way ... to come up with a defined program structure, a defined program, while identifying several sites this year and how to carry this forward."
Hoffer said the inspiration for this project was the mural that was installed last summer inside the gymnasium at the Opportunity Center. He said the success of that project "kind of launched the conversation between Stephanie and I about what we do next, how do we continue bringing and highlighting art and culture in our community."
"That's where PLNTING SEEDS was developed," Hoffer explained. "It's really about cultivating growth and empowerment through art, culture and community. What this initiative is is a collaboration between myself, the Monroe County Opportunity Program, as well as the Opportunity Center and the greater community of Monroe.
"It's really designed be the seed of an arts-based, creative revitalization through the community, emphasizing diversity and inclusivity while cultivating growth, empowerment and inspiration for residents and visitors alike."
City officials will get a chance to review mockups of the planned murals before installation begins, but the hope is to keep them out of the community eye so as to preserve the surprise. The city will also have to work with organizers on an agreement that prevents the murals from violating the city's sign ordinance and determine who will be responsible for maintenance of the murals.
But both administration and council expressed optimism Monday that these logistical hurdles can be overcome.
"We know that murals and public art do bring a sense of quality of life and community pride, culture and enhancing the arts community within areas and communities in which they thrive," Cochran said.
While the council was three members short Monday — Councilmen Brian Lamour and Andrew Felder and Councilwoman Paula Whitman were excused absences — the council members in attendance expressed excitement for the project.
"I think this is wonderful," said Councilwoman Deb Staelgraeve. "I think this is fantastic. ... I look forward to seeing this, absolutely."
"It sounds like a nice program," Councilwoman Kellie Vining said. "I look forward to seeing how this goes."
|
https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/local/2022/04/06/monroe-reviews-proposal-public-mural-installation-project/9469363002/
| 2022-04-06T19:00:46Z
|
monroenews.com
|
control
|
https://www.monroenews.com/story/news/local/2022/04/06/monroe-reviews-proposal-public-mural-installation-project/9469363002/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
McALLEN, Texas (Border Report) — Former Cameron County Commissioner Daniel Sanchez on Wednesday announced he would run as a Democrat in the special election to fill an open seat for Texas’ 34th Congressional District on the South Texas border.
Gov. Greg Abbott last week announced a special election would be held June 14 to fill the seat vacated by U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela Jr., a Democrat who stepped down on March 31 after serving five terms in Congress.
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who represents Texas’ District 15, has won the Democratic nomination to run in District 34 in the fall but he told Border Report that he would not leave his current seat to run if a special election was called. He is switching districts after the Republican-led Texas Legislature redistricted the South Texas voter map, moving his McAllen home from District 15 into District 34.
“We have a Democrat that will run and win that district and finish the year in the event that happens,” Gonzalez said last month.
Sanchez says he is endorsed by Gonzalez, and Vela. He says he will run to keep a leader in place for South Texas.
“When Congressman Filemon Vela retired last week from the U.S. House of Representatives, immediately vacating his position, I knew I had to be there for my community and for the Vela family. The people of South Texas need a strong leader who will be an advocate for them in Washington, D.C., while not missing a beat,” Sanchez said in a statement.
Sanchez, who is from Harlingen, Texas, has been an assistant district attorney in Cameron County, justice of the peace, and served as a judge until 2010. He was elected as county commissioner for Precinct 4 in 2011 and served through 2016.
If elected June 14, he would only represent District 34 in Congress until January 23 when the winner of the general election will take over the position.
Mayra Flores is running as the Republican nominee for District 34 and she has said she also will run in the special election.
|
https://www.wwlp.com/border-report-tour/former-south-texas-judge-announces-run-in-special-election-for-open-congressional-seat/
| 2022-04-06T19:01:38Z
|
wwlp.com
|
control
|
https://www.wwlp.com/border-report-tour/former-south-texas-judge-announces-run-in-special-election-for-open-congressional-seat/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
This content is only available to subscribers.
Support Local Journalism
$1 for 6 Months.
Your subscription supports:
Are you a subscriber with digital access?
Sign in to your accountAre you a subscriber without digital access?
Activate your digital accountAre you a subscriber without digital access?
Activate your digital accountThis content is only available to subscribers.
Support Local Journalism
$1 for 6 Months.
Your subscription supports:
Are you a subscriber with digital access?
Sign in to your accountAre you a subscriber without digital access?
Activate your digital account
|
https://www.monroenews.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.monroenews.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2F2022%2F04%2F06%2Fgirls-basketball-versatile-senior-class-dominates-regions-statistical-leaders%2F9468815002%2F
| 2022-04-06T19:04:54Z
|
monroenews.com
|
control
|
https://www.monroenews.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.monroenews.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2F2022%2F04%2F06%2Fgirls-basketball-versatile-senior-class-dominates-regions-statistical-leaders%2F9468815002%2F
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Republicans are demanding that 51 former intelligence operatives divulge information about their 2020 statement that documents from Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation — with a senior GOP aide telling The Post that the ex-spies should expect subpoenas next year if they fail to comply.
All 19 Republicans on the panel signed a letter to the intelligence community stalwarts demanding records on their claim that the laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” — a statement which helped the Biden campaign discourage pre-election coverage of emails linking Joe Biden to his son’s business ventures in China and Ukraine.
Documents from the laptop were belatedly verified in the past month by the Washington Post and New York Times as a federal investigation into the first son over possible tax fraud, money laundering and foreign lobbying crimes heats up.
“We now know from subsequent reporting that the New York Post’s article about Hunter Biden was not, as you and your co-signatories alleged, part of a ‘Russian information operation’,” the GOP letter says. “This belated verification of the Post’s reporting raises fresh questions about the public statement you signed in October 2020.”
The letter signed by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), Mike Johnson (R-La.) and others demands that the ex-intelligence operatives — including former CIA directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta and Michael Hayden, as well as ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — “identify all people with whom you communicated about the inception, drafting, editing, signing, publishing, or promotion” of the statement and provide “all documents and communications referring or relating to” that effort.
“Although this statement acknowledged that you had seen no actual ‘evidence’ of Russian involvement with respect to the publication of Hunter Biden’s emails, you nonetheless conveyed a ‘deep suspicio[n] that the Russian government played a significant role in the case.’ Later in the statement, you went further to state a ‘view’—not merely a suspicion anymore—’that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue,'” the letter recounts.
“At best, the public statement was a reckless attempt by you and your co-signatories to erroneously opine about purported election interference. At worse—and more likely—the public statement was a deliberate and coordinated effort to mislead the American people about information relevant to the 2020 presidential election by invoking your national security experience to falsely suggest that the allegations about Hunter Biden were not based in fact.”
Democrats currently control the House of Representatives, but Republicans are favored to win the November midterm elections, which would allow them to wield subpoena powers next year that can compel potential witnesses in any congressional investigation to produce documents and submit to questioning.
A senior GOP aide told The Post that “these intelligence officials have a choice: either cooperate now, or face the consequences when Republicans take the majority next year.”
“If they have nothing to hide, it shouldn’t be hard for them to work with the committee,” the source said.
The Post’s initial October 2020 bombshell based on the trove of Hunter Biden emails revealed that Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, emailed Hunter in 2015 to thank him for the chance to meet his father — directly contradicting Biden’s 2019 claim that he’d “never spoken” with his son about “his overseas business dealings.”
Hunter Biden was paid a reported $1 million per year to serve on Burisma’s board while his vice president dad led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
The Biden campaign vaguely denied that the meeting occurred, saying, “[W]e have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.” Twitter banned sharing of The Post’s article and locked The Post out of its accounts, and Facebook squelched circulation of the story.
Photos and emails subsequently reported by The Post indicate Joe Biden attended a 2015 dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano with a group of his son’s associates — including Pozharskyi, a trio of Kazakhs and Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, ex-Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Baturina is Russia’s richest woman and a 2020 report from Republican-led Senate committees alleges that in 2014 she paid $3.5 million to a firm associated with Hunter Biden.
A second October 2020 bombshell from The Post described communications about Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden’s business venture with the company CEFC China Energy. A May 13, 2017, email recovered from the laptop said the “big guy” would get a 10 percent equity stake in a corporate entity established with CEFC.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski alleges that he met with Joe Biden to discuss the CEFC venture on May 2, 2017, and that the president was the “big guy.”
The first son recently paid off a tax bill of more than $1 million in a bid to avoid prosecution, the Times reported last month. The Washington Post reported that Hunter and Jim Biden received $4.8 million from CEFC in 2017 and 2018.
The letter issued Wednesday by House Judiciary Committee Republicans accuses the former intelligence officials of wrongfully giving Biden cover ahead of the election.
“The concerted effort to suppress public dissemination of the serious allegations about Hunter Biden and the Biden family, as first reported in October 2020 by the New York Post, was a grave disservice to American citizens’ informed participation in our democracy,” the letter says.
“Your public statement was consistent with a broader effort to minimize and censor the New York Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden and the Biden family. National news organizations called the allegations about Hunter Biden ‘dubious’ and a ‘non-scandal’; CBS News reporter Leslie Stahl said the allegations ‘can’t be verified’; and NPR called it a ‘waste … of time’ and a ‘pure distraction.’
“Separately, Twitter and Facebook restricted access to the New York Post’s reporting about Hunter Biden, with Twitter locking the Post’s account and Facebook deferring to a so-called independent fact-check that never occurred. These efforts likely affected public awareness of the serious allegations surrounding the Biden family in the crucial weeks before the 2020 election.”
The Republicans added: “Your public statement served as a basis for Democrat operatives to try to delegitimize the scandalous allegations about Hunter Biden and the Biden family. On the same day as your statement, Politico published a story about the statement, with the conclusive headline, ‘Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.’ … Fifteen minutes after Politico published its story, Jen Psaki, who now serves as Press Secretary to the President, tweeted a link to the Politico story. The Biden campaign repeatedly cited your statement to dismiss the allegations against Hunter Biden. During the final presidential debate, Vice President Biden also dismissed concerns about Hunter Biden’s international business dealings as part of a ‘Russian plan.'”
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield last week insisted that Biden told the truth at that final debate when he claimed that his son didn’t make money in China. Psaki said at a briefing Tuesday that the president maintains that he never spoke with his son about his overseas business deals.
Most of the 51 intelligence veterans didn’t respond to recent requests for comment from The Post. Clapper, the former intelligence director, was one of the few to comment, saying, “Yes, I stand by the statement made AT THE TIME, and would call attention to its 5th paragraph. I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate.”
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/gop-demands-experts-who-dismissed-hunter-biden-laptop-fess-up/
| 2022-04-06T19:14:23Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/gop-demands-experts-who-dismissed-hunter-biden-laptop-fess-up/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
ST. LOUIS (KTVI) — A 63-year-old St. Louis woman has died less than a month after having hot oil dumped on her.
According to a spokesperson for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, the attack happened just after midnight on March 7 at an assisted-living facility located in the Walnut Park East neighborhood.
The woman, identified as Doren Davis, was rushed to a local hospital to be treated for severe burns. Officers learned Davis and the suspect in the incident were roommates.
Police said the roommate told officers she was upset with Davis over a personal matter and admitted to pouring hot cooking oil on Davis.
Davis died of her injuries Sunday. The St. Louis Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the manner of death as a homicide.
The roommate was arrested the day of the attack and remains in custody with the Missouri Department of Corrections.
|
https://www.wwlp.com/news/63-year-old-dies-after-being-doused-with-hot-oil/
| 2022-04-06T19:23:42Z
|
wwlp.com
|
control
|
https://www.wwlp.com/news/63-year-old-dies-after-being-doused-with-hot-oil/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — While many Americans are trying to move on with their lives after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. health officials are debating the best way to use vaccines to stay ahead of the coronavirus.
A panel of U.S. vaccine experts was meeting Wednesday to discuss key questions for future COVID-19 booster campaigns. The Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisers won’t make any binding decisions, but they could help shape the government’s approach for years to come.
FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told reporters last week that it wouldn’t be surprising if the agency authorized another booster dose in the fall to protect most Americans against the latest coronavirus mutations. He opened Wednesday’s meeting by cautioning that waning vaccine protection, new variants and colder weather later this year could raise the risk of more surges.
“All that taken together makes us conclude that a general discussion of booster vaccination against COVID-19 is warranted at this time so that we can potentially intervene,” Marks said.
Some of the key questions for the panel:
HOW SHOULD THE U.S. DECIDE WHEN TO LAUNCH FUTURE ROUNDS OF BOOSTER SHOTS? WHO SHOULD GET THEM?
The panel heard presentations from government health officials and independent researchers that underscored the challenges of predicting what the virus will do.
Trevor Bedford, a disease modeler with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said a major new strain like omicron could emerge anywhere from every 1.5 years to once a decade, based on currently available data. Given that unpredictability, researchers will need methods to quickly determine whether current vaccines work against emerging variants.
Last week, the FDA authorized an extra Pfizer or Moderna shot for anyone 50 or older and for some younger people with severely weakened immune systems. It’s an effort to get ahead of another possible surge.
Only about half of Americans eligible for a third shot have gotten one. And some independent experts disagree about the need for even that additional protection in healthy individuals, due to limited evidence of the benefit or how long it might last.
The last U.S. wave was driven by the omicron variant. During that surge, two vaccine doses were nearly 80% effective against needing a breathing machine or death — and a booster pushed that protection to 94%, federal scientists have reported.
COVID-19 cases have dropped to low levels in the U.S., but health officials are warily watching an omicron sibling that now accounts for most cases.
WHAT’S THE PROCESS FOR UPDATING VACCINES TO ADDRESS NEW VARIANTS?
All the COVID-19 vaccines now used in the U.S. are based on the original coronavirus version that emerged in late 2019. Updating the vaccines will be a complex task, requiring coordination between the FDA, manufacturers and global health authorities.
In response to panel questions, a representative for the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority laid out the narrow window that manufacturers would face to reformulate, study and mass produce an updated vaccine by September.
“If you’re not on your way to a clinical trial by the beginning of May I think it’s going to be very difficult to have enough product across manufacturers to meet demand,” said Robert Johnson, deputy assistant secretary of BARDA.
The timeline for updating annual flu vaccines offers one possible model, and the FDA panel was expected to discuss the strengths and weakness of adopting such an approach.
Twice a year, World Health Organization experts recommend updates to flu vaccines to target emerging strains. The FDA then brings those recommendations to its own vaccine panel, which votes on whether they make sense for the U.S., setting the stage for manufacturers to tweak their shots and begin mass production.
But COVID-19 hasn’t yet fallen into a predictable pattern like the flu. And vaccine manufacturers will likely need more time to conduct additional studies of their COVID-19 vaccines, which don’t have the same decades-long record of safety and effectiveness as flu shots.
|
https://www.wpri.com/health/coronavirus/us-experts-discuss-covid-boosters-for-the-fall-and-beyond/
| 2022-04-06T19:25:56Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/health/coronavirus/us-experts-discuss-covid-boosters-for-the-fall-and-beyond/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
(e.g. yourname@email.com)
Remember me
Forgot Password?
Add the following CSS to the header block of your HTML document.Then add the mark-up below to the body block of the same document.
Doorstep statement by the Croatian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gordan Grlić Radman at the meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Brussels on 6 April 2022.
No keywords found.
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/837937/doorstep-statement-croatian-minister-foreign-affairs-meeting-nato-ministers-foreign-affairs-6-april
| 2022-04-06T19:26:47Z
|
dvidshub.net
|
control
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/video/837937/doorstep-statement-croatian-minister-foreign-affairs-meeting-nato-ministers-foreign-affairs-6-april
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Host Celeste Headlee speaks with Sara Alfageeh and Nadia Shammas, co-authors of the new fantasy graphic novel “Squire” about a young girl who dreams of becoming a knight.
Book excerpt: ‘Squire’
By Nadia Shammas and Sara Alfageeh
Art by Sara Alfageeh, courtesy of Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/graphic-novel-squire-uses-fantasy-to-explore-themes-of-racism-and-oppression
| 2022-04-06T19:30:15Z
|
klcc.org
|
control
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/graphic-novel-squire-uses-fantasy-to-explore-themes-of-racism-and-oppression
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A group of native Spanish speakers and educators has created a program to teach Spanish in their community and create more job opportunities for their peers who typically face barriers in the workplace.
Alexis Marshall of WPLN reports.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/nashvilles-voces-program-helps-students-connect-with-their-spanish-speaking-neighbors
| 2022-04-06T19:30:27Z
|
klcc.org
|
control
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/nashvilles-voces-program-helps-students-connect-with-their-spanish-speaking-neighbors
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
There are currently no rules for taking off or landing a drone at a state park in Oregon. Individual state parks can, however, restrict operating a drone in certain areas or at certain times of the year to protect public safety or wildlife, such as nesting bald eagles and western snowy plovers. But now that’s changing. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is in the process of drafting new rules for operating drones within state parks and along the coast, which could be finalized as early as June. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is accepting public comment on their proposed rules for the takeoff and landing of drones until April 15. You can submit a public comment online or send an email to OPRD.publiccomment@oregon.gov.
Joining us to share more about the proposed rules and what’s at stake are Chris Havel, associate director of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, and Kenji Sugahara, a drone pilot, lawyer and the president and CEO of the Drone Service Providers Alliance, a national organization that advocates on behalf of commercial drone pilots.
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show, or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook or Twitter, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.
Copyright 2022 Oregon Public Broadcasting. To see more, visit Oregon Public Broadcasting.
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/new-rules-for-drones-in-oregon-state-parks-could-come-this-summer
| 2022-04-06T19:30:34Z
|
klcc.org
|
control
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/new-rules-for-drones-in-oregon-state-parks-could-come-this-summer
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
The population of Poland’s second-largest city, Krakow, has grown 20% in the last month as 150,000 displaced Ukrainians have arrived seeking housing, jobs and schools.
NPR’s Joanna Kakissis reports from Krakow.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/polish-cities-scramble-to-find-housing-jobs-for-displaced-ukrainians
| 2022-04-06T19:30:40Z
|
klcc.org
|
control
|
https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/polish-cities-scramble-to-find-housing-jobs-for-displaced-ukrainians
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Courtesy of the Broad Art Foundation
Apr 6, 2022
Courtesy of the Broad Art Foundation
Takashi Murakami is one of the most prominent Japanese artists alive today.
The exhibition includes 18 pieces and immersive installations that showcase some of the Japanese artist’s most recognizable works and his signature dreamy, anime-inspired style.
One of the most popular contemporary artists alive, Takashi Murakami has been hailed as Japan’s modern incarnation of Andy Warhol. Thanks to his psychedelic motifs, super-saturated color palette, and infatuation with all things “otaku,” Murakami has garnered an international cult following and is a favorite among celebrities like Justin Bieber and Kanye West—Ye’s third studio album, Graduation, was even designed by Murakami. Soon, visitors will be able get a taste of his trippy, anime-esque world that blends the line between pop culture and fine art at Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, which is set to debut at the Broad in Los Angeles on May 21 and will run until September 25.
Stepping on the Tale of a Rainbow will be Murakami’s first exhibit dedicated solely to his work at the museum and will comprise 18 pieces—including a few immersive experiences. At the exhibit, you can expect to see some of his most well-known installations like 100 Arhats (2013) and In the Land of the Dead, Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow (2014), which are 32-feet wide and 82-feet wide, respectively. General admission to the Broad is free, but there is a special exhibition fee of $18 for this show.
ADVERTISEMENT
Though his artwork seems almost childlike at times—with his paintings and figurines of smiling flowers and blooming mushrooms—Murakami’s work delves into some truly deep and complex subjects like the reconstruction of postwar Japan, the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the effects of globalization, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The common thread that ties his work together? How people respond to times of crisis.
“Artworks in these exhibitions speak to recovery, resistance, and even beauty in the face of deep social and environmental upheaval,” Joanne Heyler, the Broad’s founding director, said in a press release. “By re-visiting some of his most beloved and well-known works . . . the logic of Murakami’s work in Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow [the exhibit] offers an inspiring sense of continuity and history, and beauty during times of trouble.”
Murakami often attributes his unique style of art (which he considers a distinct genre that he’s dubbed “superflat”), to his childhood growing up in Itabashi City, a district of Tokyo. During World War II, the town was supposed to be a target for American bombers carrying nuclear payloads, but there was too much cloud cover to choose a target on the day of the attack. His art walks a fine line between celebrating and critiquing Japanese and Western consumerist cultures and the symbiotic relationship between the two. Murakami will sometimes even paint and sculpt himself into his artwork with his alter ego, Mr. DOB, which is loosely inspired by Mickey Mouse, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Doraemon, a popular robot/cat anime character.
ADVERTISEMENT
Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow will be shown in conjunction with another exhibit, This Is Not America’s Flag, which explores the power of symbolism, the relationship between modern America and the country’s painful past, and the complexities of contemporary American identity with the works of 20 artists, including names like Chicana photographer Laura Aguilar and Brooklyn-based painter Jeffrey Gibson. The collection of art seeks to both celebrate the flag as a symbol of America and American ideals, as well as its ability to epitomize the injustices and inequalities experienced by people of color and other minority groups within the country. Admission to This Is Not America’s Flag is included with a ticket to Stepping on the Tale of a Rainbow. Together, the two exhibitions offer visitors plenty of fodder to muse on the intricacies of national pride, identity, and history.
>> Next: “Diego Rivera’s America” Will Debut at SFMOMA in July
Sign up for the Daily Wander newsletter for expert travel inspiration and tips
Please enter a valid email address.
Read our privacy policy
|
https://www.afar.com/magazine/a-takashi-murakami-exhibit-will-come-to-the-broad-in-may
| 2022-04-06T19:31:32Z
|
afar.com
|
control
|
https://www.afar.com/magazine/a-takashi-murakami-exhibit-will-come-to-the-broad-in-may
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Apr 6, 2022
Photo by Shutterstock
The U.S. will not yet be joining other countries that have dropped the COVID testing requirement for travel.
The White House update comes amid mounting pressure to drop the testing requirement along with the federal airline mask mandate.
Back in January 2021, the Biden administration put in place a COVID test requirement for all travelers entering the United States, vaccinated or not. This past December, amid the Omicron-fueled surge of COVID cases, the requirement became even more stringent when people were asked to obtain a negative COVID test result within one day of departure (versus three).
International travelers might be wondering if the testing requirement will ever end, especially in the wake of news that Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and Australia have scrapped their testing rules for vaccinated travelers. Will the U.S. follow suit? The White House responded this week with a resounding “not yet.”
When asked during an April 5 press briefing if the U.S. has plans to change the international testing requirement, Jeff Zients, who serves as President Biden’s COVID-19 coordinator, answered, “No, there are no plans to change the international travel requirements at this point.”
That news may come as a disappointment to travelers—60 percent of which want the COVID-19 testing requirement for inbound international travelers to be removed, according to a new survey released by travel app TripIt from Concur. TripIt surveyed more than 700 of its U.S.-based users this month and found that 44 percent would be more likely to travel if the requirement was dropped.
ADVERTISEMENT
The majority of respondents are also ready for masks to come off on airplanes—54 percent said they want the federal mask mandate to expire, while 30 percent hope it will be further extended (16 percent didn’t have a preference either way).
Zients did not respond as to whether there was any update on the federal mask mandate for airplanes and public transit, set to expire on April 18. Last month, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced it had extended the federal transportation mask mandate.
“During that time, CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor,” TSA said in a March 10 statement—hinting at the possibility that the mask restrictions will, in fact, be eased or at least adjusted after April 18.
On March 23, the top executives at the nation’s leading airlines sent a letter to President Biden urging the administration to drop the international testing requirement and the federal transportation mask mandate.
“Much has changed since these measures were imposed and they no longer make sense in the current public health context,” read the letter, which was signed by the CEOs of Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue, Southwest, and United.
“The predeparture test requirement, imposed to slow the introduction of variants into the U.S., has outlived its utility and stymies the return of international travel,” the letter stated. “It is critical to recognize that the burden of enforcing both the mask and predeparture testing requirements has fallen on our employees for two years now. This is not a function they are trained to perform and subjects them to daily challenges by frustrated customers.”
ADVERTISEMENT
While Zients’s response suggests that the international requirement remains in place for the foreseeable future, it’s worth noting that his tenure with the Biden administration is slated to end this month; he is being succeeded by Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. It remains to be seen how and whether Dr. Jha will steer travel-related health policy as he joins the White House COVID-19 task force.
For now, all international arrivals, vaccinated or not, continue to need a negative COVID result (via PCR, antigen, or approved home or self tests) no more than one calendar day before flying to the United States. All foreign nationals entering the United States must also be vaccinated.
Sign up for the Daily Wander newsletter for expert travel inspiration and tips
Please enter a valid email address.
Read our privacy policy
|
https://www.afar.com/magazine/you-still-need-a-covid-test-to-enter-the-us
| 2022-04-06T19:31:38Z
|
afar.com
|
control
|
https://www.afar.com/magazine/you-still-need-a-covid-test-to-enter-the-us
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
BALTIMORE– The Maryland Board of Public Works on Wednesday approved more than $23 million in grants and loans to reduce water pollution and save energy. The board is composed of Gov. Larry Hogan, Treasurer Dereck E. Davis and Comptroller Peter Franchot.
"These are smart investments to protect public health and the environment,” said Maryland Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles. “Moving ahead with the Piscataway sewage treatment plant bio-energy project and upgrading sewer and wastewater treatment systems will help us to green and grow the state’s economy and lead in the race to protect and restore Chesapeake Bay watersheds.”
The following projects were approved:
Piscataway Wastewater Treatment Plant Bio-Energy project – Prince George’s County
A $15 million Water Quality State Revolving Loan Fund loan to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, in addition to previous loans of more than $128 million and a previous $3 million Energy Water Infrastructure Program grant, will help fund the design and construction of bio-energy facilities at the Piscataway Wastewater Treatment Plant, which will receive sludge from other WSSC wastewater treatment plants. The project will include a process to precondition sludge prior to anaerobic digestion, an anaerobic digestion facility and a facility to produce dewatered “Class A biosolids,” which can be beneficially reused as fertilizer on farms and sold to home gardeners. Also, a combined heat and power facility will be built to capture the biogas from the digestion to produce steam and electricity for the plant. Odor control, process water treatment, generators, and boilers are also included in the project. The project will recover renewable energy and reduce energy, chemical and sludge disposal costs. Energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy and biogas can help the Chesapeake Bay by reducing nitrogen pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. The project will be constructed in accordance with coastal and non-coastal resiliency guidelines developed as part of the Coast Smart Program to reduce climate change risks to such projects.
WSSC Sewer Basin Reconstruction Program —Prince George’s County
Bay Restoration Fund grants totaling $7,747,811 to the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission will help fund a broad program to repair, replace and rehabilitate sewers and manholes on or near state, local and county road right-of-ways throughout Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.
These grants are for improvements in the Beaverdam Sewer Basin, the Northwest Sewer Basin, the Parkway Sewer Basin and the Piscataway Sewer Basin, all in Prince George’s County. These projects are consistent with Maryland's climate change adaptation and resiliency objectives through the reduction of runoff that is exacerbated by increased precipitation or flooding events.
Rock Hall Wastewater Treatment Plant Enhanced Nutrient Removal Upgrade project – Kent County
A $637,000 Bay Restoration Fund grant to the Town of Rock Hall will help fund the design of an Enhanced Nutrient Removal upgrade of the town’s wastewater treatment plant. After the upgrade, the facility will reduce its nitrogen discharge by 83% and its phosphorus discharge by 70%, significantly reducing the amount of nutrients to Gray’s Inn Creek and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay. Excessive amounts of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus lead to lowered levels of oxygen needed to support aquatic life in waterways, including the Chesapeake Bay. ENR upgrades of wastewater treatment plants are a critical component of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay restoration plan. This project will be constructed in accordance with coastal and non-coastal resiliency guidelines developed as part of the Coast Smart Program to reduce climate change risks to such projects.
|
https://www.wboc.com/news/md-board-of-public-works-approves-funding-for-clean-water-chesapeake-bay/article_8c724360-b5c3-11ec-befc-33aef0157a97.html
| 2022-04-06T19:35:19Z
|
wboc.com
|
control
|
https://www.wboc.com/news/md-board-of-public-works-approves-funding-for-clean-water-chesapeake-bay/article_8c724360-b5c3-11ec-befc-33aef0157a97.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
It's a problem many university leaders are scrambling to find answers for — lower enrollment in higher education. The trend is happening across the country, and the state of Michigan is no different.
The decline in numbers started well before the pandemic. The Michigan Associate of State Universities released its Enrollment Report for Fall 2021, which tracks data all the way back to 2012.
On Page 4 of the report, MASU outlines the total headcount for all 15 universities every single year. All but three of them — University of Michigan, Michigan State and Michigan Technological University — are on a downward trajectory.
Two of the universities with the biggest enrollment declines are Western Michigan and Central Michigan. WMU saw a 24% decrease over the last 10 years. CMU saw a staggering 44.5% decrease in the span, the largest in the state.
A group of CMU students co-authored a letter in the campus newspaper, saying they're worried the university won't be around in the next 10 years. CMU already had to shut down four residence halls for the next fall semester.
Jennifer DeHaemers, the school's Vice President of Student Recruitment and Retention, said CMU failed to make any changes, even after they recognized the trend:
“When enrollments reached a peak around 2010, a general sense of complacency overtook some areas of the university, creating a sense of satisfaction with outdated technology and leading to a failure to employ new and updated best practices of recruiting."
In that same statement provided to FOX 17 Wednesday, DeHaemers outlined some of the short and long term plans to reverse the narrative.
“We are making, and implementing, both short- and long-range plans to help us grow, address these challenges, and create new opportunities for CMU. Tactics we are using to help reverse the enrollment trend include training admissions staff how to approach recruiting conversations from a sales and marketing approach, implementing accountability metrics and setting specific weekly goals for the number of deposits by prospective undergraduate students, reinstating our student call center for peer-to-peer conversations with prospective undergraduate students, implementing a new peer mentoring program, and holding ‘get to know CMU’ events across the state and in strategic recruiting areas in Toledo and Chicago.”
While most universities are seeing a decline in enrollment, the opposite trend is happening at community colleges in the area.
READ MORE: GRCC officials say state programs helped enrollment numbers increase by 4.4%
Grand Rapids Community College had a 4.4% increase from Fall 2020 to Fall 2021. Kalamazoo Valley Community College saw a whopping 49.6% increase in enrollment from 2020 to 2021.
FOX 17 reached out to KVCC to learn more but have not heard back.
As for GRCC, officials told FOX 17 in September they credit the jump to lower tuition costs thanks to state and local programs.
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/michigan/michigan-universities-seeing-decline-in-enrollment-while-numbers-increase-at-community-colleges
| 2022-04-06T19:35:47Z
|
fox17online.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/local-news/michigan/michigan-universities-seeing-decline-in-enrollment-while-numbers-increase-at-community-colleges
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
DENVER, Colo. — The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill to decriminalize marijuana across the country, but as it sits in the Senate awaiting a vote, the legislation is bringing up deeper conversations about Americans’ rights to use marijuana.
The drug is legal, in some form, in 38 states. But even where it’s legal, some companies have fired their employees for using it.
There is now a push to allow some employees to use marijuana in their off time, but protecting both workplace safety and employees’ rights is a tough balance.
Brandon Coats lost his job for using medical marijuana in a state where it is legal.
Coats, a quadriplegic, used marijuana nightly to help ease muscle spasms. He was in a car accident at age 16.
"When I use marijuana, it calms it down, like a lot, very significantly,” said Coats.
Despite planning for a more labor-intensive job, he was able to find a job he enjoyed, working at a call center for nearly a decade.
“I never had a bad performance appraisal. I was in the top 5% of call times,” said Coats.
But, a random drug test at work pulled his life off track yet again.
“My supervisors, managers, they're like, yeah, he does a good job. They were on my side and everything. But I come in on a Monday, and I have a swipe thing that opens the door for me, and it didn't work,” said Coats.
Brandon was fired for failing the drug test. He sued his employer, and the case went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court. The court ruled against him.
“They came up to the conclusion that because it's unlawful federally, that it's unlawful and they're not going to support it, even though we legislated a law and passed it,” said Coats. “It doesn't make any sense to me.”
That case was eight years ago, but Coats hasn’t gotten a job since.
“Once they find that out, they don't want to hire me anymore. It's mostly anger and frustration. A lot of frustration. You know, uh, it's hard to get a job.”
That’s why he’s now helping community leaders and legislators change the laws in Colorado to protect employees using marijuana.
It’s a movement that’s slowly growing across the country.
“Our focus is on representing the responsible adult marijuana consumers, and this is arguably their number one issue,” said Paul Armentano, the deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
This year, states like Illinois and cities like St. Louis are debating laws to end employee drug screenings to get a job, and they would allow employees to use marijuana outside of work.
Colorado introduced a similar bill that also would’ve allowed medical marijuana patients to medicate on the job, but that’s now tabled for further study.
Only 21 states protect employees from losing their jobs for using medical marijuana. Five states protect recreational use.
“Those individuals who use cannabis off the job, are just as productive, they are just as likely to show up at work, they are just as likely to be absent from work as individuals who choose or elect not to use cannabis,” said Armentano.
Still, many employers say this is too big of a risk to take on. Loren Furman runs the Colorado Chamber of Commerce and said this would hurt multiple industries.
“Every company, from aerospace to mining companies, to utility companies, to healthcare companies, hospitals— any employer is always going to be concerned about any litigation among employees against they themselves. You know, that's why we've always recommended that there be zero-tolerance policies in place,” said Furman.
“All of us want a safe and productive workplace. I don't think anybody is on different sides of that particular issue. The question is, how do we accomplish that goal?” said Armentano.
Cannabis advocates agree and that could mean exempting certain jobs from the protections— such as hands-on jobs in transportation or health care.
“It is a choice just like using alcohol just like using other substances. And no one should be taken away from employment because of their choices,” said Shannon Donnelly, a professor of cannabis in the school of hospitality at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.
“There is nothing that prevents an employer from allowing this if they want to allow it on the job site, nothing is preventing that,” said Furman. For that reason, she believes legislation is not necessary and individual businesses can decide if they want to allow employees to use marijuana.
Some argue these protections could bring more people into the job market than ever before.
“By taking away things like adverse reactions for testing positive for marijuana, we might have people trying for much different jobs that they weren't trying for in the past,” said Donnelly.
For Coats, he is stuck waiting for that day to come.
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/advocates-want-legal-protections-for-workers-who-use-marijuana-off-the-clock
| 2022-04-06T19:35:53Z
|
fox17online.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/advocates-want-legal-protections-for-workers-who-use-marijuana-off-the-clock
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Linda Fagan could become the first woman to head the U.S. Coast Guard.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced on Twitter the nomination of Fagan, saying his administration "is committed to seeing more qualified women at the highest levels of command and making sure women can succeed and thrive throughout their military careers."
My Administration is committed to seeing more qualified women at the highest levels of command and making sure women can succeed and thrive throughout their military careers.
— President Biden (@POTUS) April 5, 2022
If confirmed, Fagan would become the first woman to lead the U.S. armed forces.
According to the U.S. Coast Guard, Fagan has spent 36 years with the branch working on all seven continents, and is currently the vice commandant.
It appears she's getting support from both Republicans and Democrats.
On Twitter, the Republican Senate Commerce said that Biden "finally nominated an outstanding leader."
Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, who chairs the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, also praised Biden's nomination.
The current commandant is set to retire on May 31.
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/president-biden-nominates-first-woman-to-lead-u-s-military-branch
| 2022-04-06T19:36:06Z
|
fox17online.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/president-biden-nominates-first-woman-to-lead-u-s-military-branch
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Home/Entertaimnt/Watch CMovIe Rental, Free online 122 Min Without Reddia For all our friends who are into making soap to help reduce influx for chemical-heavy soap or you' are interested with this soap made of plant as one your option you probably also aware that sometimes we get our natural oil too strong to our taste to blink our tongue it means either our blessed soap are going on stage when they were not quite good for bath-living we will feel they smelly with bad stale,\nThe key idea about of our soap blink A 2-year-old boy shot and killed a 4-year-old girl inside a car in Pennsylvania, authorities said.
According to the Chester Police Department, the boy was handling the gun in a parked car at a gas station when it went off.
The children's father was reportedly filling up the vehicle with gas at the time.
Police said the 4-year-old was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the two children were siblings.
In a statement to the publication, the Delaware County District Attorney said he was "heartbroken" by the incident, which is under investigation.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit group that advocates for gun control measures, there have been 51 unintentional shootings by children in 2022. They have resulted in 17 deaths and 38 injuries, the organization says.
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/toddler-fatally-shoots-4-year-old-at-gas-station-in-pennsylvania
| 2022-04-06T19:36:12Z
|
fox17online.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox17online.com/news/national/toddler-fatally-shoots-4-year-old-at-gas-station-in-pennsylvania
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
TOKYO (AP) — A #MeToo crisis is raging in the Japanese film industry.
A petition signed by top names, including Cannes’ Palme d’Or-winning Hirokazu Kore-eda, Cannes Jury Prize winner Koji Fukada and “Under the Sky” director Miwa Nishikawa, expresses outrage over sexual abuse.
“These acts are unforgivable,” the statement said, calling for such acts to stop.
The outburst comes after the premiere of two films directed by Hideo Sakaki, “Mitsugetsu” and “Hazard Lamp,” was suddenly canceled after a Japanese magazine, Shukan Bunshun, reported allegations of sexual violence from several women.
His production company denounced sexual abuse and announced Sakaki had departed. Sakaki has apologized in a statement to fans and co-workers for the cancellations, while noting inaccuracies in the report, which he didn’t specify.
Actor Houka Kinoshita has paused his career after two women accused him of demanding sex against their will a decade ago. A TV drama series aired earlier this week with all his scenes cut.
“I cannot appear before you and continue with my entertainment work after what I have done, and I will be taking a leave for an indefinite period,” Kinoshita said in a statement.
Allegations have been made, too, against Shion Sono, a director who’s been honored at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Sono, who directed “Himizu” and “Cold Fish,” apologized but stopped short of acknowledging guilt, and instead vowed to take “some kind of action” against Shukan Josei, the magazine that reported allegations he had sexually abused several women.
“I would like to reexamine my ways, taking to heart the lack of awareness I have shown as a director, and for those working around me,” Sono said in a statement this week through his office.
“But there are many assertions in the report that go contrary to the facts.”
It may not be shocking that #MeToo is rampant in a nation ranking at No. 120 in gender equality, far behind other Group of Seven industrialized nations, according to a study by the World Economic Forum.
Still, the timing, coming when “Drive My Car,” directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, just won its first Oscar for Japan in 13 years, couldn’t be more tragic.
The directors signing the petition and others say the problem is a longtime, open secret in the filmmaking world. What’s changing is that victims are speaking up, rather than suffering in silence.
When movie jobs are so competitive to start with, including assistant directing, editing, costuming, translating, producing, not just acting, the problem runs deep.
The statement by Kore-eda and other directors decrying sexual assaults stressed films cannot be made alone and required a team.
That means empowered people must respect everyone as partners, the directors said.
“We directors, regardless of individual abilities or personalities, especially, must unfailingly realize that our position of directing other people inherently carries with it a deep violence, and there lies that potential making it too easy for us to victimize others because of our overwhelming power,” they said.
___
Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/entertainment-news/famed-directors-denounce-sexual-abuse-in-japanese-filmmaking/
| 2022-04-06T19:42:21Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/entertainment-news/famed-directors-denounce-sexual-abuse-in-japanese-filmmaking/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Elgin man gets 5 years in prison for sexually abusing child
KANE COUNTY, Ill. - An Elgin man was sentenced to five years in prison for sexually abusing a child and attempting to sexually abuse a second person between 2015 and 2016.
Jacob Headtke, 32, was found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child in June 2021 by a jury, the Kane County state's attorney's office said.
Prosecutors presented evidence that Headtke sexually abused the child who was younger than 13 between October 2015 and June 2016, the state's attorney's office said. Headtke knew the victim, according to prosecutors.
DOWNLOAD THE FOX 32 CHICAGO APP FOR BREAKING NEWS ALERTS
After being found guilty, Headtke pleaded guilty for attempting to sexually abuse a second victim, who he also knew. He was sentenced to three years in prison for that offense.
Jacob Headtke, 32. (Kane County state’s attorney’s office)
Headtke will serve both sentences concurrently.
"The victims in this case bravely came forward years ago to stop the defendant from hurting other children. They persevered through a lengthy legal process, faced their abuser in court and testified about how he sexually abused them. Justice has been served and the defendant will now serve prison time for his vile and criminal acts," said Kane County Assistant State's Attorneys David Belshan.
In addition to his prison sentence, Headtke must register as a sex offender for life, the state's attorney's office said.
Advertisement
He will receive credit for 258 days served in the Kane County Jail.
|
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/elgin-man-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-sexually-abusing-child
| 2022-04-06T19:42:23Z
|
fox32chicago.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/elgin-man-gets-5-years-in-prison-for-sexually-abusing-child
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Missing woman last seen at O'Hare Airport terminal
CHICAGO - Police are asking for the public's help in locating a woman who was last seen Tuesday at an O'Hare Airport terminal.
Deborah Baker, 65, was reported missing Tuesday from Terminal 1 at O'Hare Airport, according to a CPD missing person alert.
Baker is described as 5-foot-10, 100 pounds with brown eyes and brownish-gray hair.
She was last seen wearing a black hoodie, black pants and a black hat.
Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to called Area Five detectives at (312) 746-6554.
Advertisement
|
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/missing-woman-last-seen-at-ohare-airport-terminal
| 2022-04-06T19:42:42Z
|
fox32chicago.com
|
control
|
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/missing-woman-last-seen-at-ohare-airport-terminal
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Jesus Aguilar and the Miami Marlins reached agreement Tuesday on a one-year contract that guarantees him $7.5 million.
The 31-year-old first baseman will get a $7.3 million salary this season. The deal includes a mutual option for 2023 with a $200,000 buyout.
Aguilar hit 22 home runs with 93 RBIs and batted .261 for the Marlins last year.
An All-Star with Milwaukee in 2018, Aguilar was traded to Tampa Bay in July 2019 and was acquired by the Marlins after that season.
Aguilar made his major league debut with Cleveland in 2014. In parts of eight seasons, he’s hit 93 home runs and has a career .260 batting average.
—
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/mlb/aguilar-marlins-agree-on-1-year-7-5-million-contract/
| 2022-04-06T19:42:50Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/mlb/aguilar-marlins-agree-on-1-year-7-5-million-contract/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Boris Johnson opposes trans women competing in women's sports
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday that he does not believe transgender women should be able to compete in women's sports.
Driving the news: "Maybe that's a controversial thing, but it just seems to be sensible," Johnson said.
Between the lines: The idea that it's unfair for cisgender women and girls to compete against trans athletes who were assigned male at birth has taken hold in conservative circles in the U.S. and abroad.
What he's saying: "I also happen to think that women should have spaces ... which are dedicated to women. That's as far as my thinking has developed on this issue. If that puts me in conflict with some others, then we got to work it all out," Johnson said.
- "That doesn't mean that I'm not immensely sympathetic to people who want to change gender, to transition, and it's vital that we give people the maximum possible love and support in making those decisions, but these are complex issues."
The big picture: Johnson's comments come shortly after the U.K. stripped out protections for transgender people from a proposed law to ban conversion therapy, which is therapy that aims to push people toward heterosexuality and traditional gender identities.
- It also comes amid a push in a number of U.S. states to prevent transgender youth from playing on sports teams or being able to access affirming health care.
|
https://www.axios.com/boris-johnson-trans-women-sports-f301cfae-09f5-4352-92b4-b1cf50397e33.html
| 2022-04-06T19:43:05Z
|
axios.com
|
control
|
https://www.axios.com/boris-johnson-trans-women-sports-f301cfae-09f5-4352-92b4-b1cf50397e33.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
NEW YORK (AP)In a move that ends a tradition dating more than 150 years, Major League Baseball approved the use of an electronic device for catchers to signal pitches in an effort to eliminate sign stealing and speed games.
Since the beginning of baseball in the 19th century, catchers had used their fingers to signal the type of pitch and its intended location.
As video at balllparks increased in the 21st century, so did sign stealing – and worries about how teams were trying to swipe signals. The Houston Astros were penalized for using a camera and banging a trash can to alert their batters to pitch types during their run to the 2017 World Series title.
”It basically eliminates all need to create a sign system, for a catcher giving signs,” MLB chief operations and strategy officer Chris Marinak said Tuesday. ”You literally just press a button and it delivers the pitch call to the pitcher. And what we’ve seen so far, it really improves pace of game.”
Some teams tried the system in spring training, with manager Tony La Russa of the Chicago White Sox and Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees among those saying they liked what they saw.
Yankees catcher Kyle Higashioka used it a couple times this spring training, including Tuesday with pitcher Michael King against Detroit in New York’s final exhibition game.
”There’s still some stuff we’ve got to work through, but I mean the fail safe is always just give signs. So, that’s always there when we need it. We’re just working out all the kinks right now. If we run into stumbling blocks in-game, we can always give signs. I’m not too worried about it being confusing,” he said.
”I like it. At first today I gave signs to King because I didn’t have a chance to talk to him about it, so I started getting all messed up with it. So I just decided to give signs, and that worked fine,” he said.
MLB is providing each team with three transmitters, 10 receivers and a charging case for the PitchCom Pitcher Catcher Communication Device. It is available in English and Spanish.
”A maximum of five receivers and one transmitter may be in any use at any given time,” MLB wrote in a five-page memorandum Tuesday to general managers, assistant GMs, managers and equipment managers, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
A catcher has nine choices on his wristband device: ”four seam high inside, curve hi middle, slider hi outside, change mid inside, sinker middle, cutter mid out, splitter low inside, knuckle lo middle, two seam low outside.”
A thin band tucked inside a cap allows the audio to be heard at an adjustable level, envisioned to be used by pitchers, second baseman, shortstops and center fielders.
”When changing pitchers, the manager shall provide a receiver to the replacement pitcher,” the memo said.
Receivers and transmitters can be used only on the field and may not be operated during games in clubhouses, dugouts or bullpens.
”Signals communicated via PitchCom may only be given by the catcher in the game. Signals may not be sent from the dugout, bullpen, a different player in the field, or anywhere else,” the memo said. ”Clubs are responsible for their PitchCom devices. Any club that loses a transmitter or receiver will be charged a replacement fee of $5,000 per unit.”
Marinak said about half of the 30 MLB clubs had expressed interest.
”I’m not sure that every team will use it,” Marinak said during MLB’s third annual innovation and fan engagement showcase. ”I think this is a kind of a personal preference kind of thing.”
Union head Tony Clark pointed out the devices are not mandatory.
”It was important to ensure the flexibility for players to use – or not use – the technology at their own discretion,” the former All-Star first baseman said in a statement. ”The guys on the field are in the best position to make decisions as individuals about whether it’s right for them.”
Players may not longer watch in-game video replays on clubhouse televisions but may review video only on iPads controlled by the MLB office. The video will be updated only at the end of each half-inning and players can go back and replay, but may not see content during a half-inning in progress.
”Players don’t have access to any technology that’s above and beyond what we’re offering in terms of in-game video,” Marinak said. ”We also monitor all the transmission of traffic so that we understand what content is being delivered to the iPad.”
The new system of umpires having microphones to explain video reviews to fans began with an exhibition game at Dodger Stadium on Monday night. MLB also is now taking in video from 104 of 120 minor league ballparks
The automated ball/strike system of computer plate umpires will be used at 10 Triple-A West parks, Charlotte in Triple-A East and Low-A Southeast. MLB intends to illustrate the calls on stadium scoreboards.
Pitch clocks will be used at all minor league stadiums, likely a prelude to their installation at big league ballparks for 2023.
MLB showed off its new 1,400-square foot replay operations center in midtown Manhattan, which opened just as COVID-19 struck in 2020 and replaced a 900-square foot facility in SoHo that had been used since 2014.
There are 90 46-inch professional monitors and 60 24-inch touchscreen monitors in the 31 x 29-foot room, with three desks with six screens behind them for supervisors and administrators, then two more rows with technicians.
MLB takes in 18 cameras from each ballpark showing 60 frames per second plus up to four high-speed cameras as fast as 360-480 frames per second, according to Chris Zagorski, vice president of replay operations and technology.
There is a backup replay center in San Francisco, in case of a power outage in New York. For special event games such as in Dyersville, Iowa, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and London, a replay room is set up on site.
Marinak said that fans using the MLB Ballpark app to enter stadiums with electronic tickets rose from 3% in 2017 to 19% in 2019 to 56% in 2021.
MLB also said the earliest helmet advertisements would begin appearing would be during the 2022 postseason. Players agreed last month to uniform and helmet ads, and the jersey ads will not start until 2023 at the earliest.
—
AP freelance writer Mark Didtler contributed to this report.
—
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/mlb/sign-of-times-mlb-gives-ok-to-electronic-pitch-calling-2/
| 2022-04-06T19:43:32Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/mlb/sign-of-times-mlb-gives-ok-to-electronic-pitch-calling-2/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
NEW YORK (AP) — In a move that ends a tradition dating more than 150 years, Major League Baseball approved the use of an electronic device for catchers to signal pitches in an effort to eliminate sign stealing and speed games.
Since the beginning of baseball in the 19th century, catchers had used their fingers to signal the type of pitch and its intended location.
As video at balllparks increased in the 21st century, so did sign stealing — and worries about how teams were trying to swipe signals. The Houston Astros were penalized for using a camera and banging a trash can to alert their batters to pitch types during their run to the 2017 World Series title.
“It basically eliminates all need to create a sign system, for a catcher giving signs,” MLB chief operations and strategy officer Chris Marinak said Tuesday. “You literally just press a button and it delivers the pitch call to the pitcher. And what we’ve seen so far, it really improves pace of game.”
Some teams tried the system in spring training, with manager Tony La Russa of the Chicago White Sox and Aaron Boone of the New York Yankees among those saying they liked what they saw.
MLB is providing each team with three transmitters, 10 receivers and a charging case for the PitchCom Pitcher Catcher Communication Device.
“A maximum of five receivers and one transmitter may be in any use at any given time,” MLB wrote in a five-page memorandum Tuesday to general managers, assistant GMs, managers and equipment managers, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press.
A catcher has nine choices on his wristband device: “four seam high inside, curve hi middle, slider hi outside, change mid inside, sinker middle, cutter mid out, splitter low inside, knuckle lo middle, two seam low outside.”
A thin band tucked inside a cap allows the audio to be heard at an adjustable level, envisioned to be used by pitchers, second baseman, shortstops and center fielders.
“When changing pitchers, the manager shall provide a receiver to the replacement pitcher,” the memo said.
Receivers and transmitters can be used only on the field and may not be operated during games in clubhouses, dugouts or bullpens.
“Signals communicated via PitchCom may only be given by the catcher in the game. Signals may not be sent from the dugout, bullpen, a different player in the field, or anywhere else,” the memo said. “Clubs are responsible for their PitchCom devices. Any club that loses a transmitter or receiver will be charged a replacement fee of $5,000 per unit.”
Marinak said about half of the 30 MLB clubs had expressed interest.
“I’m not sure that every team will use it,” Marinak said during MLB’s third annual innovation and fan engagement showcase. “I think this is a kind of a personal preference kind of thing.”
Players may not longer watch in-game video replays on clubhouse televisions but may review video only on iPads controlled by the MLB office. The video will be updated only at the end of each half-inning and players can go back and replay, but may not see content during a half-inning in progress.
“Players don’t have access to any technology that’s above and beyond what we’re offering in terms of in-game video,” Marinak said. “We also monitor all the transmission of traffic so that we understand what content is being delivered to the iPad.”
The new system of umpires having microphones to explain video reviews to fans began with an exhibition game at Dodger Stadium on Monday night. MLB also is now taking in video from 104 of 120 minor league ballparks
The automated ball/strike system of computer plate umpires will be used at 10 Triple-A West parks, Charlotte in Triple-A East and Low-A Southeast. MLB intends to illustrate the calls on stadium scoreboards.
Pitch clocks will be used at all minor league stadiums, likely a prelude to their installation at big league ballparks for 2023.
MLB showed off its new 1,400-square foot replay operations center in midtown Manhattan, which opened just as COVID-19 struck in 2020 and replaced a 900-square foot facility in SoHo that had been used since 2014.
There are 90 46-inch professional monitors and 60 24-inch touchscreen monitors in the 31 x 29-foot room, with three desks with six screens behind them for supervisors and administrators, then two more rows with technicians.
MLB takes in 18 cameras from each ballpark showing 60 frames per second plus up to four high-speed cameras as fast as 360-480 frames per second, according to Chris Zagorski, vice president of replay operations and technology.
There is a backup replay center in San Francisco, in case of a power outage in New York. For special event games such as in Dyersville, Iowa, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and London, a replay room is set up on site.
Marinak said that fans using the MLB Ballpark app to enter stadiums with electronic tickets rose from 3% in 2017 to 19% in 2019 to 56% in 2021.
___
More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/ap-top-headlines/sign-of-times-mlb-gives-ok-to-electronic-pitch-calling/
| 2022-04-06T19:44:43Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/ap-top-headlines/sign-of-times-mlb-gives-ok-to-electronic-pitch-calling/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
NEW YORK (AP) — The new CEO of Hertz says he’s working to fix a glitch in the rental-car giant’s systems that has led to some of its customers being wrongly accused of stealing cars they had rented.
Stephen Scherr, who took over as CEO on Feb. 28, said the company has changed its practices to fix problems that have occurred when cars were reported stolen but the transaction was improperly recorded in Hertz’s system.
“This is among the first things that I have started to look to take care of and deal with in the first 30 days I’ve been at the company,” Scherr told CNBC on Monday. “It is not acceptable to Hertz to have any customer … caught up in some of what has happened.”
Some Hertz customers have said they were arrested and jailed because the company accused them of stealing cars that they had paid to rent and in some cases had returned long before their arrest.
It’s not clear how many people are affected. More than 200 customers asked a federal judge in Delaware to Hertz to disclose records about erroneous theft reports, and the judge ruled in the renters’ favor in February.
Scherr said the false reports involve several hundred customers out of Hertz’s 15 million annual transactions, but lawyers for the customers say the number is more like 8,000.
“We have changed our policies to avoid the possibility of this happening again,” Scherr said. “No one customer should be put through that.”
Scherr said that in some cases, vehicles have been reported as stolen, the report was withdrawn when the vehicle was found, “but that rescission wasn’t recognized.”
The CEO of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. appeared on CNBC to tout a plan to buy up to 65,000 electric vehicles over five years. The Estero, Florida-based company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020, as it struggled under heavy debt and a drop in travel caused by the pandemic. It operates Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty car-rental brands.
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/business/ceo-of-rental-giant-hertz-vows-to-fix-false-theft-reports/
| 2022-04-06T19:45:04Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/business/ceo-of-rental-giant-hertz-vows-to-fix-false-theft-reports/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Capitol Hill has a fox problem. And that’s not the lead-in to a joke.
Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., learned firsthand Monday evening while walking to the Capitol for votes. Now he’s undergoing a series of four rabies shots out of an abundance of caution.
Bera said he felt something lunge at him from behind as he walked near one of the Senate office buildings. He turned and used his umbrella to fend off what he thought would be a small dog, but he soon realized he was tangling with a fox.
Bera said the encounter lasted about 15 seconds. A bystander yelled to alert others and the fox fled as U.S. Capitol Police officers ran up on the scene. A medical doctor, Bera looked for puncture wounds. He didn’t see evidence of any, but there was some abrasion, so he consulted the Capitol physician, who told him not to take any chances and to get treated.
He said he went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after votes for the first of a series of four shots.
“I would say it’s the most unusual day on the Hill in 10 years,” Bera said of his experience.
Of course, there were many joking references to Fox News at the Capitol on Tuesday. But the House Sergeant at Arms was serious when telling lawmakers and their staffs Tuesday afternoon that there had been multiple recent fox encounters and that the animals should not be approached.
The warning noted that there are possibly several fox dens on the Capitol grounds and that animal control personnel would be seeking to trap and locate any that they find.
In at least one case, they were successful. Capitol Police tweeted pictures of one fox safely captured in a cage.
Bera harbored no ill will toward the culprit.
“Hopefully, the animal can be relocated,” he said.
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/politics/fox-bites-man-putting-capitol-hill-on-high-alert/
| 2022-04-06T19:46:36Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/politics/fox-bites-man-putting-capitol-hill-on-high-alert/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP)Former Minnesota Vikings defensive lineman Doug Sutherland, a member of the Purple People Eaters, has died. He was 73.
The team released a statement saying Sutherland died Tuesday, but did not provide a cause of death.
”Doug Sutherland was one of our proudest legends,” Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and Owner/President Mark Wilf said in a joint statement. ”His humble nature did not allow for him to talk much about his own playing career, but Doug was a key member of some of the best defenses in NFL history and three Super Bowl teams. Doug was also the consummate teammate after football. He was one of the most active members of Vikings legends events and didn’t miss a chance to help out at a community event or lend a hand where needed. Our thoughts are with Doug’s friends and family.”
Sutherland played 12 seasons in the NFL from 1970-81 with New Orleans, Minnesota and Seattle. Drafted by the Saints in the 14th round, he was traded to the Vikings the following season and played 10 years in Minnesota. Sutherland registered 29 sacks in 164 career games.
Sutherland replaced defensive tackle Gary Larsen after he retired, and became part of a feared defensive line that featured Pro Football Hall of Famers Alan Page and Carl Eller, and Jim Marshall.
—
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP-NFL
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/nfl/former-vikings-defensive-lineman-doug-sutherland-dies-at-73/
| 2022-04-06T19:47:12Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/nfl/former-vikings-defensive-lineman-doug-sutherland-dies-at-73/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Which light blue comforter is best?
Everyone sleeps differently, and everyone desires different bedding to satisfy those sleeping needs. Comforters are among the best toppers available, thanks to a huge variety of designs that can improve anyone’s sleep. Light blue comforters have the added benefit of providing a soothing appearance — or maybe you just like the color.
The best light blue comforter comes in the Bedsure Light Blue Comforter Set. It includes every piece of bedding you need to set up your bed at an excellent price.
What to know before you buy a light blue comforter
Size
Like all bedding, comforters follow the usual size guidelines — twin, full, king, etc. Should your bed be an awkward or irregular size or should you struggle to find an appropriately sized comforter for other reasons, choose one that’s larger than your bed rather than smaller.
Fill power
Fill power is a measurement of how much space one ounce of fill takes up. The higher the power, the fluffier and warmer the comforter.
- Sub-400: These are are minimally soft, ultra-lightweight and cool.
- 400-600: These are soft, lightweight and warm enough for most seasons and climates.
- 600-800: These are soft, medium-weight and warm enough for cool seasons and climates.
- 800-plus: These are plush and fluffy, heavyweight and built for cold temperatures.
What to look for in a quality light blue comforter
Shell material
The shell material affects the comforter’s softness and breathability. The best use natural fibers.
- Cotton is soft and breathable, and it helps wick moisture away from the body.
- Cotton-mixed, usually with polyester as the mix, is the cheapest and least comfortable.
- Wool is best for cold climates as it’s excellent at retaining body heat.
- Silk is the hypoallergenic choice. It’s also soft, breathable and cool — but not cold.
Fill material
Comforters typically use duck or goose down plus some down cluster as stuffing, but down alternatives are also popular.
- Duck down is the affordable choice. It’s effective but less fluffy than goose down.
- Goose down is the most common choice. It’s fluffy and warm.
- Down cluster comes from underneath the main feathers of ducks and geese and provides the most warmth. The amount of cluster used is typically given in percentages, with higher numbers equaling higher-quality comforters.
- Alternatives, such as gel or other artificial fibers, are the hypoallergenic choice. They can be just as fluffy and warm as animal down.
Thread count
Thread count is a measurement of how many stitches a comforter has per square inch. The higher the count, the softer but firmer it feels and the better it contains its fill.
- Sub-500: These are for the budget-conscious, but still effective.
- 500-1,000: These are affordable and comfortable.
- 1,000-plus: These are the priciest, softest options.
How much you can expect to spend on a light blue comforter
Good-quality budget light blue comforters can cost as little as $40 while the most expensive comforters start around $250 and reach or exceed $500. Most can be found for $75-$200.
Light blue comforter FAQ
Which should I prioritize, thread count or fill power?
A. Both, really, unless you care more about sleeping temperature or softness. If you do, prioritize thread count for softness and fill power for sleeping temperature.
What’s the most important comforter feature for fighting allergies?
A. How easy it is to wash. Dust mites and other allergens gravitate to your mattress no matter what it’s made of, so being able to wash your comforter easily and regularly is paramount. Look for one that’s machine-washable and -dryable. That said, choosing a comforter filled with a hypoallergenic down alternative helps, too.
How do I wash a light blue comforter?
A. That depends on your comforter. Most can be machine-washed, though they’ll need to be washed individually and according to their instructions. Those that are machine-washable aren’t always machine-dryable and will need to air-dry instead. Some comforters are dry-clean-only. The instructions for a given comforter should be printed on its tag.
What’s the best light blue comforter to buy?
Top light blue comforter
Bedsure Light Blue Comforter Set
What you need to know: This set is luxurious and affordable.
What you’ll love: It includes the comforter, a flat and fitted sheet, a bed skirt, two pillowcases and two pillow shams, plus it’s available in all common sizes. Everything is machine-washable. The comforter is medium weight and quilted to prevent the fill from clumping.
What you should consider: Some consumers did not receive the color or the size they ordered, and some others received dirty sets. There are few complaints about the comforter, but the sheets are thin.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top light blue comforter for the money
Amazon Basics Ultra-Soft Micromink Sherpa Comforter Bed Set
What you need to know: The comforter is reversible — one side is light blue micro-mink and polyester, the other white faux-Sherpa fleece.
What you’ll love: The set includes the comforter and two pillow shams. Everything is machine-washable. The box stitching helps keep the fill in place during sleep and washing.
What you should consider: It’s only available in three sizes. Some consumers received dirty comforters and shams with broken zippers. Others reported the sizing to be off.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
What you need to know: This is another great budget option from a U.S.-based company.
What you’ll love: This set includes the comforter and one matching pillow sham. It uses box stitching to keep the fill in place, and the fill is a hypoallergenic down alternative. It is machine-washable and has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
What you should consider: The light blue option is only available in the twin/twin XL combo size. Some consumers had issues with seams coming undone after washing.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter for useful advice on new products and noteworthy deals.
Jordan C. Woika writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/bedding-br/best-light-blue-comforter/
| 2022-04-06T19:47:54Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/bedding-br/best-light-blue-comforter/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Country
United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
|
https://www.kitv.com/news/coronavirus/3-new-covid-related-deaths-1-194-new-infections-recorded-in-hawaii-doh-reports/article_0fe555a0-b5da-11ec-bae8-8b58045bbaf9.html
| 2022-04-06T19:48:57Z
|
kitv.com
|
control
|
https://www.kitv.com/news/coronavirus/3-new-covid-related-deaths-1-194-new-infections-recorded-in-hawaii-doh-reports/article_0fe555a0-b5da-11ec-bae8-8b58045bbaf9.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Country
United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
|
https://www.kitv.com/news/local/navy-commanding-officer-overseeing-red-hill-facility-relieved-of-duty/article_d4e624ba-b53a-11ec-84cf-2b5b83f5faf7.html
| 2022-04-06T19:49:04Z
|
kitv.com
|
control
|
https://www.kitv.com/news/local/navy-commanding-officer-overseeing-red-hill-facility-relieved-of-duty/article_d4e624ba-b53a-11ec-84cf-2b5b83f5faf7.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
CHICAGO (AP)Chicago Bulls point guard Lonzo Ball experienced another setback in his recovery from surgery for a torn meniscus in his left knee, raising more doubt about whether he will play again this season.
Ball felt some discomfort after he tried to ramp up activities again following a 10-day pause, coach Billy Donovan said Tuesday.
”It’s disappointing from the standpoint you were hoping that the time that he had off could help him kind of maybe propel going forward and do a little bit more,” he said. ”But that certainly hasn’t been the case.”
Donovan said the next step will probably be a ”meeting of the minds” in the next day or two. And the possibility of Ball missing the remainder of the season is ”on the table.”
Ball has not played since Jan. 14. He was a big reason why the Bulls led the Eastern Conference for part of the season, averaging 13 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.1 assists after coming from New Orleans last summer in a sign-and-trade deal.
Chicago was fifth in the Eastern Conference at 45-33 entering Tuesday’s game against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks.
The Bulls held out two-time All-Star Zach LaVine because of ongoing soreness in his left knee.
—
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba and https://twitter.com/AP-Sport
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/nba/bulls-ball-suffers-setback-in-recovery-from-knee-surgery/
| 2022-04-06T19:49:03Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/nba/bulls-ball-suffers-setback-in-recovery-from-knee-surgery/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Country
United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary
People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe
|
https://www.kitv.com/news/local/north-shore-school-rallies-to-save-music-an-art-classes/article_45a47684-b586-11ec-94af-5f9c314458c2.html
| 2022-04-06T19:49:10Z
|
kitv.com
|
control
|
https://www.kitv.com/news/local/north-shore-school-rallies-to-save-music-an-art-classes/article_45a47684-b586-11ec-94af-5f9c314458c2.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)Jaylen Hoard had career highs of 24 points and 21 rebounds to help the Oklahoma City Thunder top the Portland Trail Blazers 98-94 on Tuesday night.
Hoard, who plays for the Thunder’s G-League affiliate, signed a 10-day NBA contract on April 1 and had 11 points and a career-high 20 rebounds that night against Detroit.
He took it up a notch against Portland, posting just the seventh game of at least 20 points and 20 rebounds for a Thunder player. He got water dumped on his head during the initial television postgame interview.
”It was special,” Hoard said. ”Just seeing the guys are happy for me — felt really good about it.”
He got Portland coach Chauncey Billups’ attention.
”That Jaylen Hoard kid — he played his behind off, man,” Billups said. ”We couldn’t do anything about him the entire night, the entire game. He took advantage of everybody that was in front of him. You’ve got to give him credit.”
Isaiah Roby had 18 points and a career-high six steals, Georgios Kalaitzakis scored 17 points and Olivier Sarr had 10 points and 12 rebounds in Oklahoma City’s home finale.
The Thunder improved to 4-0 against the Trail Blazers this season.
Keon Johnson scored 18 points and Greg Brown III and Ben McLemore each had 17 for Portland, which lost its eighth straight after leading by 19 at one point.
”Momentum is everything in this league, and the minute you let off the gas or become a little complacent, a team can take advantage of you,” Billups said. ”You’ve got a lot of hungry guys out there on their team that’s in similar position to our guys. They don’t get a chance to play that much. So when they do, they want to take advantage of it, and they were just hungrier than we were in the fourth quarter.”
The Trail Blazers led 82-67 heading into the fourth quarter, but Oklahoma City held Portland to 12 points on 5-for-19 shooting in the final 12 minutes.
”I mean, impressive effort on those guys’ part,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. ”Played a lot of minutes, grinded that one out, and I thought the best defense we played all night came at the last part of the game.”
Both teams sat their key players. Both have records among the league’s worst and neither is in the playoff hunt.
Portland led 54-48 at halftime. Brown led the way with 12 points. Oklahoma City trailed despite shooting 51% in the first half.
The Thunder made eight of their first 11 shots in the final quarter. Portland’s Brown was called for a Flagrant 1 with 5:29 left in the fourth, and Sarr made both free throws to cut Portland’s lead to 92-88. Roby’s stepback 3-pointer cut Portland’s lead to 92-91, then Zavier Simpson’s reverse layup put the Thunder ahead for good.
”I played probably 10 different guys in that quarter just trying to find it, trying to find a rhythm,” Billups said. ”And we just struggled, man. We just struggled.”
TIP-INS
Trail Blazers: Former Thunder coach Scott Brooks is an assistant for Portland. He was shown on the big screen late in the first quarter, and it drew a cheer from the crowd. Brooks led the Thunder to the 2012 NBA Finals. … G Kris Dunn had seven points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
Thunder: The Thunder started Kalaitzakis and Simpson. The Thunder announced Tuesday that both signed 10-day contracts via the NBA’s Hardship Allowance. Kalaitzakis hurt his right leg in the fourth quarter and did not return. Simpson finished with 10 points and five assists.
STAT LINES
Oklahoma City’s Lindy Waters III played just four minutes, but scored eight points as a reserve before going to the bench for good. He made 2 of 3 3-pointers and both of his free throws.
MR. BIG SHOT
Carson Whisler, a 21-year-old from Norman, Oklahoma, banked in the MidFirst Bank halfcourt shotfor $20,000.
UP NEXT
Trail Blazers: At the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday.
Thunder: At the Utah Jazz on Wednesday.
—
Follow Cliff Brunt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CliffBruntAP
—
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/nba/hoards-24-points-21-rebounds-lift-thunder-past-portland/
| 2022-04-06T19:49:25Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/nba/hoards-24-points-21-rebounds-lift-thunder-past-portland/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
SANDPOINT, Idaho — The Beach Boys will bring their "Sixty Years of the Sounds of Summer" tour to the Festival at Sandpoint on Aug. 4, 2022.
Beach Boys fans will be able to enjoy the band performing at the 39th Annual Festival at Sandpoint. The festival takes place from July 28 to Aug. 7 in an intimate venue at War Memorial Field in Sandpoint.
The Beach Boys have become an American icon to fans around the world. The band's first hit, "Surfin", in 1961, has become the eternal anthem of American youth.
The Beach Boys have sold more than 100 million records worldwide and have received more than 33 RIAA Platinum and Gold record awards. The Beach Boys have been touring for more than five decades and performed in more concerts than any major rock band in history.
Fans will be able to enjoy the band's hit sounds like "God Only Knows," "Good Vibrations," "Surf's Up," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," and the band's newly remastered versions of "Sunflower" and "Surf's Up."
The band will play on Thursday, Aug. 4 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the festival are on sale at www.festivalatsandpoint.com. Prices for the show are $69.95 and tickets are open to all ages.
The festival announces the band was coming to the festival in a social media post on their Facebook page on Wednesday morning.
|
https://www.krem.com/article/entertainment/events/beach-boys-sandpoint/293-c457dafb-8e98-4c04-b206-b25907f7eca1
| 2022-04-06T19:49:27Z
|
krem.com
|
control
|
https://www.krem.com/article/entertainment/events/beach-boys-sandpoint/293-c457dafb-8e98-4c04-b206-b25907f7eca1
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP)The Cleveland Cavaliers gave up 120 points to one of the NBA’s most offensively challenged teams Tuesday night and took a loss that locked them into the Eastern Conference play-in tournament.
Mo Bamba had 20 points and 12 rebounds, Ignas Brazdeikis scored 20 off the bench and the Orlando Magic beat the Cavaliers 120-115 to stop a six-game losing streak.
”It was a game that obviously had a lot of implications and we just got out-competed,” said Kevin Love, who had 17 points and 13 rebounds for Cleveland. ”We definitely need a better effort than we had tonight. We let their record, and who they have out, dictate how we played.”
Moritz Wagner scored 10 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter for the Magic, who shot 50.5% from the field after coming into the game ranked 28th in the NBA in shooting (43.2%).
”There is no overlooking in this league,” said Cavaliers coach J.B. Bickerstaff. ”Tonight, time and time again, they outworked us. Give them credit, but it’s disappointing. We didn’t get the job done. We didn’t show the fight that we needed to show.”
Darius Garland had 27 points and 10 assists, and Lauri Markkanen added 25 points for the injury-riddled Cavaliers, who have dropped eight of 10 and can no longer move up to sixth place in the East. Cleveland is trying to cling to seventh, the top spot in the play-in tournament, with two regular-season games remaining – against Brooklyn and Milwaukee.
”There’s 82 games in the season, and it’s going to happen,” Bickerstaff said. ”We just picked the wrong time for it to happen.”
Markkanen, who had 17 points before halftime, scored the final five of the first half to leave the Cavaliers with a 61-59 lead at the break.
Markelle Fultz, who finished with 16 points and six assists in his first start of the season, rallied the Magic in the third quarter.
”My goal was to try to get us off to the best start. We actually didn’t start off that good, but we made a run back into it,” Fultz said. ”It’s a game of runs, and we did a good job of sticking with it tonight. As the game went on we got a little better at both ends.”
Wagner scored seven straight points early in the fourth, starting with a midcourt steal and dunk and ending with a 3-pointer to put Orlando up 103-95 with 7:17 remaining.
Garland led a furious late comeback bid and Markkanen could have tied it with a 3-pointer in the final minute, but he missed.
”That was not us,” Markkanen said. ”We can’t wait until the fourth quarter to try to make a comeback. A very disappointing loss offensively and defensively.”
Bamba hit all five of his 3-point shots in the first 10 minutes to help Orlando quickly erase Cleveland’s 14-3 game-opening burst, the Cavaliers’ biggest lead of the game.
TIP-INS
Cavaliers: C Evan Mobley missed his fifth straight game with a sprained ankle. He will practice Thursday and be re-evaluated. … All-Star C Jarrett Allen missed his 16th game with a broken finger. … Garland has scored 22 or more points in 14 of his last 16 games. … Bickerstaff was fined $15,000 on Monday by the NBA for criticizing officials after Sunday’s game.
Magic: The bench outscored Cleveland’s reserves 66-37. … F Franz Wagner, who missed his first game of the season Sunday after starting 78 straight, started and played seven minutes before leaving with a sprained right ankle. … Fultz started his first game since tearing his ACL on Jan. 6, 2021. … G Cole Anthony did not play after re-injuring his toe Sunday night. … F Wendell Carter Jr. (sprained left wrist) missed a fourth straight game. … The Magic are 59-59 all-time against Cleveland.
UP NEXT
Cavaliers: Play at Brooklyn on Friday night.
Magic: Play at Charlotte on Thursday night.
—
More AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/nba/magic-break-6-game-losing-streak-beat-cavaliers-120-115/
| 2022-04-06T19:49:47Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/nba/magic-break-6-game-losing-streak-beat-cavaliers-120-115/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
PHILADELPHIA (AP)La Salle hired former Penn and Temple coach Fran Dunphy on Tuesday to take over the sagging men’s basketball program that he led to some of its greatest seasons as a guard in the 1960s.
The 73-year-old Dunphy went 580-325 as head coach and led his teams to 17 NCAA Tournaments. He was at Temple from 2006-19 and coached Penn from 1989-2006.
Dunphy is ingrained in the Philly hoops fabric like few in the city’s storied history. He played basketball at Philly high schools and went to games at the Palestra as a kid. He was co-captain under Tom Gola at La Salle, earned a master’s degree at Villanova and won 10 Ivy League titles in 17 seasons at Penn.
”La Salle has given me so much over the years,” Dunphy said. ”It gave me a chance to be a a part of multiple teams as a student-athlete, an opportunity to form lifelong friendships, and helped mold me into the man I am today. I can’t wait to work with the young men on the team, reintroduce myself to the campus community, and to help my alma mater any way I can.”
Dunphy succeeded Hall of Famer John Chaney and led the Owls to some of their biggest upsets, including wins over No. 3 Villanova in 2009, No. 5 Duke in 2012, No. 3 Syracuse in 2012, No. 10 Kansas in 2014 and No. 8 SMU in 2016.
The lone blemish on Dunphy’s career is his lack of success in the NCAA Tournament. The Owls won only two games while the Quakers had one in 10 trips.
Dunphy was a member of the 1968-69 LaSalle team that was coached by Gola. The team finished that season 23-1 and ranked second in the final Associated Press Top 25 Poll. As a senior, Dunphy averaged 18.6 points per game and also led La Salle in assists.
La Salle fired Ashley Howard last month after four seasons and a 45-71 record.
—
More AP college basketball: https://collegebasketball.ap.org ; https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 and https://www.podcastone.com/ap-sports-special-events
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/ncaa-basketball/la-salle-hires-former-penn-temple-coach-fran-dunphy/
| 2022-04-06T19:50:30Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/ncaa-basketball/la-salle-hires-former-penn-temple-coach-fran-dunphy/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP)Harvard’s women’s basketball program is set to begin a new era.
On Tuesday, the school announced the hiring of Carrie Moore as head coach, making her just the second person to hold that post in the past four decades. She replaces Kathy Delaney-Smith, who retired last month after 40 years, an Ivy League-record 630 victories, 11 conference championship and six trips to the NCAA Tournament.
Moore arrives in Cambridge after spending this past season as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Michigan, where she helped the Wolverines end the regular season ranked 12th in the Associated Press Top 25 and reach the Elite 8 round of the NCAA Tournament.
Prior to that she spent two seasons at North Carolina in the same role. She also was an assistant at Princeton (2016-2019) and Creighton (2010-2015).
Moore called the opportunity humbling.
”A very special thank you to coach Kathy Delaney-Smith for building such a tremendous foundation here and for your long history of fighting for women,” Moore said in a statement. ”Congratulations on your retirement. I am absolutely thrilled to lead these incredible young women and move this program forward. I can’t wait to get started.”
—
More AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/ncaa-basketball/moore-tapped-to-replace-longtime-harvard-womens-hoops-coach/
| 2022-04-06T19:50:44Z
|
siouxlandproud.com
|
control
|
https://www.siouxlandproud.com/sports/ncaa-basketball/moore-tapped-to-replace-longtime-harvard-womens-hoops-coach/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
By the time you read this I’ll already be married.
While California was fixated on the apparently Earth-shattering moment when Will Smith’s hand met Chris Rock’s face at the Oscars, I was dealing with real life, like putting the finishing touches on a wedding.
Of course the vast majority of people dissecting the Slap Heard ‘Round The World are not concerned with or even aware of my wedding, nor should they be.
But there’s something about big personal events that show how trivial and unimportant so many alleged big deals actually are.
I’m writing to you from the past due to this paper’s publishing schedule. But to those of you reading bright and early Sunday morning, my wife and I have been married for not even 24 hours.
My wife. Feels weird to write. A year ago, this would have been unimaginable.
I’m 42. I’ve never been married. My longest relationship was 18 months and that was over a decade ago.
In my head at times maybe I liked the idea of getting married, but in reality many more times I was repelled by commitment. I just couldn’t handle it.
The permanence of marriage was always so terrifying and I was plagued by doubt. Is she really the one? How do I know what I will want in twenty years? What if we get married and realize we can’t stand each other?
And that’s what I’m willing to admit in public. In private, I was consumed by fears I refuse to write because I think they will make me look bad.
Because they probably would make me look bad.
Because they show how utterly self centered and shallow I am and I prefer to think of myself as a good person.
Which is to say I really want you, Dear Reader, to think of me as a good person.
Because as much as I want to project the portrait of someone brave who doesn’t depend on the validation of others, I’m actually very concerned with what other people think of me.
I’m probably not unique, I’m sure others struggle with the same issues – but we’ll never know unless we are honest about who we are.
In the past, my insecurities always slammed the door closed on relationships. No one ever stood a chance.
I’d like to think I’ve changed some as a person, which has allowed me to take this giant step in life. But with her, there is something different. We work well together.
With her, all I see are possibilities.
After a few dates, I could see myself marrying her.
After a few dates, I could see living with her. Growing old with her. Being completely vulnerable with her. Traveling the world with her.
After a few dates, I could see myself raising a family with her.
And that’s because after a few dates she was pregnant.
The pregnancy was obviously unplanned.
We had even been trying not to fall into old traps and tried to remain chaste. but we clearly weren’t very good at it — perhaps I should have said “chaste” more often, since its mere utterance sucks the passion out of the room.
If I had a tough time committing to a relationship, the thought of having a kid was inconceivable.
And yet, just before Christmas I learned I was going to have a child with a woman I barely knew. But instead of it being the nightmare I’d always expected, it was actually exciting.
Like I said, there’s something different about her.
But there’s something different about me too: God.
Over the past year, I’ve become a homeowner, fallen in love, gotten married, found out I was going to be a father and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.
I believe it is only through the latter am I even able to receive and appreciate the former.
You might be thinking: “How well were you two following Jesus when she got pregnant?”
Poorly! But so what? Living a Christ-centered life isn’t about being perfect. I say that as an acknowledgement of my own humanity, not to justify future sinful behavior.
My aim here is not to deliver a sermon, but merely to announce the Good News, if you will.
My life has proven to me that only when my heart turns to God is lasting joy possible.
Sure, it’s easy to love God when good things are happening. But as it is written: “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
To me that means life happens whether I believe in God or not, but following Him gives me a way to enjoy the good times and walk through the bad times.
Because of God, my wife’s needs and wants are more important to me than my own, as are my baby’s. Society may disagree, but trust me: I’ve put myself first my whole life and it sucks.
This means that sometimes I might have to worry about something other than Oscars drama, but I’ll be focused on what matters most.
Matt Fleming is a Southern California News Group columnist. Follow him on Twitter @FlemingWords
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/04/it-happened-i-got-married/
| 2022-04-06T19:52:21Z
|
pasadenastarnews.com
|
control
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/04/it-happened-i-got-married/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Latest Videos
More VideosLatest News
More News-
Pliskova grabs first win of the year in Charleston; Keys, Pegula…
2022 Charleston -
'I want to be in the Top 5': Ons Jabeur working hard to achieve her…
2022 Charleston -
Zheng Qinwen beats former champ Stephens in Charleston
2022 Charleston -
Leylah Fernandez on family, yoga and her drive to make the Top 10
2022 Charleston
|
https://www.wtatennis.com/videos/2564992/charleston-former-champ-keys-eases-past-eikeri-into-r3
| 2022-04-06T19:56:28Z
|
wtatennis.com
|
control
|
https://www.wtatennis.com/videos/2564992/charleston-former-champ-keys-eases-past-eikeri-into-r3
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
PARIS (AP) — French financial prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into suspected tax fraud by American management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
The national financial prosecutor’s office said Wednesday the investigation was launched last week for alleged “money-laundering aggravated by tax fraud.”
A report by the French Senate issued last month said McKinsey had not paid corporate profit taxes in the country since at least 2011. The report also questioned the government’s use of private consultants.
The so-called “McKinsey Affair” hasprompted criticism from President Emmanuel Macron’s rivalsand is dogging him at campaign stops ahead of the first round of voting in France’s presidential election vote on Sunday.
The report of the Senate, where opposition conservatives hold a majority, found that state spending on consulting contracts doubled in the past three years despite mixed results and the potential for conflicts of interest.
Dozens of private companies have provided consulting, including giants like Ireland-based multinational Accenture and French group Capgemini.
The report alleged that McKinsey used a system of “tax optimization” through its Delaware-based parent company.
McKinsey issued a statement saying it “respects French tax rules that apply to it” and defending its work in France.
The American company was notably hired to advise the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and other policies.
|
https://www.wpri.com/business-news/french-prosecutors-to-probe-mckinsey-over-alleged-tax-fraud/
| 2022-04-06T19:56:55Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/business-news/french-prosecutors-to-probe-mckinsey-over-alleged-tax-fraud/
| 0
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
|
40
|
PARIS (AP) — French financial prosecutors have opened a preliminary investigation into suspected tax fraud by American management consulting firm McKinsey & Company.
The national financial prosecutor’s office said Wednesday the investigation was launched last week for alleged “money-laundering aggravated by tax fraud.”
A report by the French Senate issued last month said McKinsey had not paid corporate profit taxes in the country since at least 2011. The report also questioned the government’s use of private consultants.
The so-called “McKinsey Affair” hasprompted criticism from President Emmanuel Macron’s rivalsand is dogging him at campaign stops ahead of the first round of voting in France’s presidential election vote on Sunday.
The report of the Senate, where opposition conservatives hold a majority, found that state spending on consulting contracts doubled in the past three years despite mixed results and the potential for conflicts of interest.
Dozens of private companies have provided consulting, including giants like Ireland-based multinational Accenture and French group Capgemini.
The report alleged that McKinsey used a system of “tax optimization” through its Delaware-based parent company.
McKinsey issued a statement saying it “respects French tax rules that apply to it” and defending its work in France.
The American company was notably hired to advise the French government on its COVID-19 vaccination campaign and other policies.
|
https://www.wpri.com/business-news/french-prosecutors-to-probe-mckinsey-over-alleged-tax-fraud/
| 2022-04-06T19:56:55Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/business-news/french-prosecutors-to-probe-mckinsey-over-alleged-tax-fraud/
| 1
| 0
|
green-iguana-35
|
40
|
UNDATED– Blood Bank of Delmarva is partnering with Global Blood Fund to support their efforts in Ukraine. Through April, presenting donors can register their interest and BBD will donate $1 to GBF’s efforts to support Ukrainian refugees looking for a new home across the United Kingdom, Canada and the U.S.
“This campaign just began and already we have received a tremendous response -- our donors show up not just for their neighbors, but for the people around the world who need help,” said Patty Killeen, senior executive director of Blood Bank of Delmarva. “We’re proud to work with Global Blood Fund and to help support Ukrainian refugees in need of sanctuary.”
GBF is a charity dedicated to reducing worldwide inequities in blood safety and sufficiency. They are partnering with blood centers around the country to support Ukrainian people fleeing war.
"The terrible situation in Ukraine means that millions of its citizens are displaced and in need of a new home. We are grateful to Blood Bank of Delmarva and to its blood donors for supporting our initiative to help Ukrainians find safe refuge,” said Gavin Evans, executive director at Global Blood Fund.
Donors can visit delmarvablood.org/ukraine, where they can sign up to donate and confirm they want their donation to count towards the charitable proceeds.
To make an appointment at a blood drive near you, donors can call 1-800-933-2566 or visit delmarvablood.org/ukraine.
Donating blood is safe, and we have taken extra precautions to help prevent the person-to-person spread of COVID-19. As always, people are not eligible to donate if they’re experiencing a cold, sore throat, respiratory infection or flu-like symptoms. Additional information on donor eligibility and COVID-19 precautions is available here.
|
https://www.wboc.com/news/blood-bank-of-delmarva-to-donate-1-per-donor-to-support-ukrainian-refugees/article_4655b540-b5c5-11ec-b782-63426581dcec.html
| 2022-04-06T19:57:02Z
|
wboc.com
|
control
|
https://www.wboc.com/news/blood-bank-of-delmarva-to-donate-1-per-donor-to-support-ukrainian-refugees/article_4655b540-b5c5-11ec-b782-63426581dcec.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Former Yakima City Council candidate Garth Patrick McKinney’s court proceedings are on hold while his mental health is examined.
McKinney, at the request of his attorney, has been ordered to undergo an evaluation to determine if he is competent to stand trial on charges of third-degree assault, second-degree assault and third-degree malicious mischief stemming from two incidents in the past year. The order was approved Friday, with a follow-up hearing on the results scheduled for May 25.
“The defense attorney has been provided multiple reports of the defendant acting irrationally in prior contacts with police,” according to court documents. “Further, the defendant does not appear capable of distinguishing delusions from reality.”
McKinney, 29, was charged with second-degree assault and malicious mischief in connection with a 2021 incident. In that case, McKinney is accused of throwing his motorcycle helmet through the window of an apartment and pointing a gun at two people. McKinney disputed the police account.
In July, McKinney called police alleging that people were trying to break into his home and were harassing him, but police said, after reviewing surveillance video, there was no evidence to support McKinney’s claims.
On Jan. 2, McKinney was arrested at the Oxford Suites, where a woman told police that McKinney, whom she said was armed with knives, was having “a mental episode” and threatening to break her hand, according to court documents. McKinney said the woman was refusing to let him leave with their child, court documents said.
During the incident, McKinney tried to push an officer away with one hand while keeping the other hand near his knives, court documents said.
While out on $10,000 bail on that case, McKinney was arrested by police Feb. 25 following a three-hour standoff at a house in the 1500 block of West Lincoln Avenue. He was booked into the Yakima County jail on suspicion of fourth-degree assault, exposing a child to domestic violence and obstructing police, according to jail records.
McKinney was a candidate for City Council in 2021, but was eliminated in the primary for the District 6 seat, which Matt Brown won in November.
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/former-yakima-candidate-garth-mckinney-ordered-to-undergo-mental-competency-evaluation/article_76f88cd8-7691-52da-9065-5da5d4b46da6.html
| 2022-04-06T19:57:02Z
|
yakimaherald.com
|
control
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/former-yakima-candidate-garth-mckinney-ordered-to-undergo-mental-competency-evaluation/article_76f88cd8-7691-52da-9065-5da5d4b46da6.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A 25-year-old Yakima man has been charged with second-degree murder in connection with a fatal shooting on South Eighth Street in February.
Vincent Luis Mora-Worthington also was charged with drive-by shooting Tuesday in Yakima County Superior Court. He is accused of killing Gerald Steven Moore, 71, outside his home in the 1000 block of South Eighth Street on Feb. 16, 2022.
Neighbors said they heard gunshots and found Moore lying in the driveway around 7:42 p.m., and he was pronounced dead at the scene, with an autopsy finding he had been shot to death.
Video from the area showed a car pull into the common driveway by Moore’s home and, after turning around and bumping a fence post, the driver shot Moore twice when he came out of his home, according to court documents.
A Yakima police officer spotted a car that matched the description of the suspect vehicle around 1:25 p.m. Feb. 22, and chased it until the car crashed at 20th Avenue and River Road, court documents said. The driver of the car fled, but police were able to trace the car back to an apartment where they found Mora-Worthington and arrested him for eluding and hit-and-run.
Officers searching the car found a shell casing near the car’s windshield wiper that matched one found at the scene of Moore’s killing, the affidavit said. Police also found a .38-caliber revolver in a safe in the car’s trunk along with 100 pills believed to be fentanyl and ammunition, as well as items in the car linking it to the Mora-Worthington, the documents said.
Court documents show that Mora-Worthington has prior convictions for first- and second-degree assault, and is barred from having a firearm, the affidavit said.
Detectives said recordings of Mora-Worthington’s jail phone calls and messages showed he knew facts about the crime that were not public knowledge. He also received a message from someone telling him to hide and clean his car, court documents said.
Mora-Worthington is being held in the Yakima County jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
Moore’s killing was one of five homicides in the city this year, and six in the county.
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/homicide/suspect-charged-in-south-eighth-street-homicide/article_452462d4-f3a9-59ce-b83b-c4d3ce0f5179.html
| 2022-04-06T19:57:08Z
|
yakimaherald.com
|
control
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/crime_and_courts/homicide/suspect-charged-in-south-eighth-street-homicide/article_452462d4-f3a9-59ce-b83b-c4d3ce0f5179.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
BALTIMORE— Maryland’s casinos brought in $170.6 million in gaming revenue in March, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission said Wednesday.
Officials said it is the fourth-best single-month figure in the history of Maryland's casino program. It is an increase of $966,000, less than 1 percent compared to March 2021, which is when COVID-19 capacity restrictions were lifted.
More than $71.9 million of those revenues, or roughly 40%, were contributed to the state’s coffers.
The state’s six casinos generated more than $52.3 million for Maryland’s Education Trust Fund (ETF), which is $700,000 more than the ETF contributions during the same period last year, according to the gaming commission.
Leading the way with casino revenues was MGM National Harbor, which generated $67.7 million.
Next up was Live! Casino & Hotel with $62 million in revenues, and coming in third was Horseshoe Casino with $18.8 million.
Hollywood Casino ($8.4 million), Ocean Downs Casino ($7.7 million) and Rocky Gap Casino ($5.6) million combined to generate the rest of gaming revenues last month.
|
https://www.wboc.com/news/maryland-casinos-generate-170m-in-revenue-in-march/article_0fd88c56-b5cd-11ec-a0a9-37932e3a6544.html
| 2022-04-06T19:57:08Z
|
wboc.com
|
control
|
https://www.wboc.com/news/maryland-casinos-generate-170m-in-revenue-in-march/article_0fd88c56-b5cd-11ec-a0a9-37932e3a6544.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
ECHO SYSTEM TIMBER SALE, King County — When it fell into this rich soil and sprouted, Washington was not yet a state. The seedling sank its root deep, and grew taller and taller as its first century of life rolled right on into another, now within earshot of Interstate 90.
Alan Mainwaring, wildlife biologist for the Washington Department of Natural Resources, ran a tape around the tree’s mighty trunk and measured nearly 54 inches. The tree talked back, its wood squeaking, as he drove a borer into the tree and withdrew a slender core, then counted its rings. At about 144 years old and 190 feet high, this Douglas fir sized up as prime timber on state lands that normally could be cut and sold for lumber.
But under a new policy announced Wednesday by Hilary Franz, Washington Commissioner of Public Lands, this fir will instead be preserved, as part of the state’s new, 10,000 acre “carbon reserve.”
The state intends to lease the trees as carbon credits to emitters of greenhouse gasses that cause global warming.
Money from the sales in these forests will compensate beneficiaries of state trust lands, including the state school construction fund, and money for hospital districts, library districts and more.
The 10,000 acres would be only a small portion of the state’s forested trust lands, just 0.5%. But as climate change threatens the planet, these trees are more valuable living than as lumber, said Franz, who announced the carbon reserve at a news conference at the State Capitol Forest on Wednesday.
Sequestering carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas, in trees which use it as food to grow, helps blunt the worst effects of climate change. Globally, forests absorb about a third of all the carbon emissions annually from the burning of fossil fuels.
As scientists increasingly warn climate change threatens the planet, “I have a big belief that with climate change here, we need to save our forests to truly save ourselves,” Franz said
“The most sustainable environmental thing we can do is increase the number of acres of land in forests, both natural and working forests, and we have very, very little time left to save both.”
Franz said the new carbon reserve is the result of a commitment she made a year ago to step back from harvest of the state’s older forests to assess their value for biodiversity, climate and more.
The DNR has come under increasing criticism for harvest of such trees. that are not protected under its old-growth policy but nonetheless have high ecological value.
The reserve is being phased in. A total of 3,750 acres is being set aside now, with the balance yet to be identified for preservation in phase two. Under a commissioner’s order, 10,000 acres in all will be set aside in areas available for lease only for the purposes of carbon storage, and generating revenue for state trust beneficiaries through carbon markets.
The program in Washington is launching with protection of forests in Whatcom, Thurston, King and Grays Harbor counties.
DNR trust lands generate about $180 million a year for schools and counties across the state.
By diversifying revenue streams beyond harvest to include carbon leases, the trusts could actually come out ahead, with revenues generated with greater financial stability and certainty, Franz said.
She predicted the carbon leases would generate tens of millions of dollars for schools, colleges and local services that state trust lands support.
Forests may be selected for the reserve for a range of reasons, including significant concentration of biodiversity; presence of rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems and habitats; watershed protection and erosion control; and resources or areas fundamental to basic needs and cultural identities of Indigenous people and local communities.
In that way, the new policy provides a broader palette for conservation beyond just the age of a tree.
The policy already is drawing strong reactions.
Peter Goldman, director and managing attorney of the nonprofit Washington Forest Law Center, called the reserve “green lipstick on a pig” because it sets some state lands aside for conservation while other state legacy forests are still being cut down.
“It’s great, who could be against it,” he said of the reserve. “But is she just trying to pour cold water on the political heat she is taking on these sales?”
He also doubted if the carbon markets will pay enough to really make the trusts whole.
He and others said they were surprised by the policy because Conservation Northwest, the Washington Environmental Council and other plaintiffs have taken a lawsuit all the way to the State Supreme Court to argue the DNR has the authority to consider values beyond dollars when determining management of state lands not only for trust beneficiaries, but for all the people of Washington. A decision on the case is expected any time.
Rachel Baker, forest program director for the WEC, said the carbon project shows it is both possible and necessary to manage state forest lands for multiple benefits, “like we have been saying all along.
“We welcome DNR taking this step forward.”
However that step is small, she noted: 10,000 acres is about 0.5% of DNR’s forested trust lands. “It’s a good thing, but it leaves us interested in what DNR is doing with the remaining 1.99 million acres,” Baker said. “We would love to see DNR use this as a jumping off point and managing state lands holistically for climate.”
In a statement released Tuesday night, Travis Joseph of the American Forest Resource Council, a forest industry trade association, said the reserve is too much in addition to other policies already in place to conserve forests that put nearly half of DNR trust lands in Western Washington off-limits to harvest.
“We are concerned that Commissioner Franz is moving forward with no analysis or recognition of the consequences to link the future of the Department, Washington’s forest workers … and our public forests to complex and controversial financial markets with uncertain environmental outcomes,” Joseph stated.
As the people carry on, so do the trees.
The big Douglas fir on the Echo System sale is hitting its stride as it surges into its second century — just the beginning for a magnificent species such as Doug fir, which can live 800 years or longer, Mainwaring noted.
This forest sprouted after a fire in 1790. It was logged in 1850 by hand, with the logs dragged out by teams of oxen. Lots of trees were left behind — and today many have reached massive size.
All around the forest are giant trees, some sprouted from the stumps of the forest blackened in that fire. It’s a place rich with wildlife.
A trunk was bare in the spot where a black tailed deer had recently rubbed the velvet off its antler. Trees were chiseled by woodpeckers seeking grubs, the wood chips in a yellow scatter all over the ground. The canopy was growing into the cover favored by flying squirrels.
Fallen logs and blowdown were rotting into the debris that feeds the soil and next generation of trees. The understory was a tangle of salal, huckleberry and ferns. Spring’s first trillium shone white in the shadowy forest floor.
It’s not an old-growth forest. “We cut too much old growth,” Mainwaring said. In many places, “This is the best of what we’ve got left.”
He packed up his coring equipment, and gave the tree’s thick, mossy bark a pat as he headed out of the woods. “You are just a youngster,” he said. “No offense, you are beautiful. But still, just a young tree.”
That now, will get to become old.
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/northwest/wa-to-preserve-10-000-acres-of-trees-to-sell-as-carbon-credits-to-polluters/article_5b92c9e4-8bf2-562f-bcd1-3ebf577ad506.html
| 2022-04-06T19:57:14Z
|
yakimaherald.com
|
control
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/northwest/wa-to-preserve-10-000-acres-of-trees-to-sell-as-carbon-credits-to-polluters/article_5b92c9e4-8bf2-562f-bcd1-3ebf577ad506.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Brody Mills remembers attending West Valley’s baseball camp during spring break when he was in elementary school and now it’s his turn to give back this week.
Listen up well, kids. This multi-tool junior knows what he’s talking about and demonstrated all of it on Tuesday.
Despite a chilling, hard wind that confronted him each time he squared his shoulders on the left side of the mound, Mills threw five scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and was 3-for-4 with a double and three RBI as the Rams came off their bye week with a 10-2 victory over Sunnyside to start their CBBN series with the Grizzlies.
“I’ve been working with the pitchers at camp, talking about mechanics and pick-off throws and different things,” said the 6-foot-1 lefty and Arizona State commit. “It’s always fun but it sure has been cold and windy this week.”
There was, in fact, a dusting of snow on the field Tuesday morning. And while conditions warmed up by the afternoon and the sun was out, that classic West Valley wind barreling over the orchards was raw and disruptive.
But for Mills, not so much.
“On days like this I think the hitters struggle more because it’s hard to loosen up and feel good up there,” he said. “For a pitcher the wind can cause a little added movement and I felt that. It was a good day because my control was there and I didn’t walk very many. I threw a lot of strikes.”
Indeed he did, fanning six batters the first time through Sunnyside’s lineup. After an infield single with two outs in the fourth, Mills got three of the next four outs via strikeout to close out his impressive day. He walked one.
“Brady threw well today and we swung it early,” assessed West Valley coach Ryan Johnson. “There were times it felt like we took our foot off the gas and didn’t take advantage of having guys in scoring position. But overall a good game for us.”
The top of West Valley’s underclass-driven lineup was plenty productive. Leadoff hitter and third baseman Jackson May had two hits and two runs scored, veteran shortstop and No. 2 hitter Drew Johnson had two hits with a triple, stolen base, two runs and RBI in his first two at-bats and then came Mills, who drove in runs with each of his first three at-bats.
John Sullivan, one of five juniors in the lineup, was 3-for-4 with two RBI and pitched the sixth and seventh.
“That bye week is a long stretch without games (10 days), especially when we need those now,” the coach said. “But in the past we’ve had the bye week at the end and I’m glad we don’t have that this season. We want to built consistency and momentum this month and hopefully get ready to make a run.”
Ranked No. 8 in the WIAA’s first Class 4A state RPI rankings this week, West Valley improved to 3-1 in the CBBN and 5-1 for the season. The Rams will finish this three-game series with a doubleheader at Sunnyside on Friday.
Sunnyside=000=002=0=—=2=2=1
West Valley=202=303=x=—=10=13=1
Navarro, Yanez (6), Mungia (6) and Arteaga; Mills, Sullivan (6) and Hannon-Renteria.
Highlights: Brody Mills (WV) 5 IP, 1 hit, 1 BB, 10 K, 3-4, 2b, 3 RBI; John Sullivan (WV) 3-4, run, sb, 2 RBI; Jackson May (WV) 2-4, 2 runs; Drew Johnson (WV) 2-5, 3b, sb, 2 runs, RBI; Diego Arteaga (S) 2-2, sb, RBI.
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/prep_sports/west-valleys-brody-mills-fans-10-over-five-innings-in-10-2-win-over-sunnyside/article_7ba501e4-5f0d-5575-b41c-3713092e74e0.html
| 2022-04-06T19:57:21Z
|
yakimaherald.com
|
control
|
https://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/prep_sports/west-valleys-brody-mills-fans-10-over-five-innings-in-10-2-win-over-sunnyside/article_7ba501e4-5f0d-5575-b41c-3713092e74e0.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Investigators with the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the suspect or suspects wanted in connection with an August homicide in Arnaudville, LA.
Deputies say in the early morning hours of August 14, 2021, following a night out in Downtown Lafayette, Javion Livings, 19, arrived at his residence in the 1000 block of Kennedy Drive in Arnaudville, LA, at around 3:00 a.m.
Shortly after, at 3:57 a.m., Javion sustained fatal injuries when unknown individuals shot multiple rounds into his residence. Following the shooting, two men were seen running from the area.
If you have any information in reference to this shooting or know the identity of the suspects wanted in connection with this homicide, please contact St. Martin Crime Stoppers by calling (337) 441-3030, or via the free P3 Tips App.
All tipsters remain anonymous.
------------------------------------------------------------
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
To reach the newsroom or report a typo/correction, click HERE.
Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox. Select from these options: Breaking News, Evening News Headlines, Latest COVID-19 Headlines, Morning News Headlines, Special Offers
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-martin-parish/st-martin-parish-crime-stoppers-seeking-information-in-august-2021-fatal-shooting
| 2022-04-06T19:58:45Z
|
katc.com
|
control
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-martin-parish/st-martin-parish-crime-stoppers-seeking-information-in-august-2021-fatal-shooting
| 0
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
|
2
|
Investigators with the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the suspect or suspects wanted in connection with an August homicide in Arnaudville, LA.
Deputies say in the early morning hours of August 14, 2021, following a night out in Downtown Lafayette, Javion Livings, 19, arrived at his residence in the 1000 block of Kennedy Drive in Arnaudville, LA, at around 3:00 a.m.
Shortly after, at 3:57 a.m., Javion sustained fatal injuries when unknown individuals shot multiple rounds into his residence. Following the shooting, two men were seen running from the area.
If you have any information in reference to this shooting or know the identity of the suspects wanted in connection with this homicide, please contact St. Martin Crime Stoppers by calling (337) 441-3030, or via the free P3 Tips App.
All tipsters remain anonymous.
------------------------------------------------------------
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
To reach the newsroom or report a typo/correction, click HERE.
Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox. Select from these options: Breaking News, Evening News Headlines, Latest COVID-19 Headlines, Morning News Headlines, Special Offers
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-martin-parish/st-martin-parish-crime-stoppers-seeking-information-in-august-2021-fatal-shooting
| 2022-04-06T19:58:45Z
|
katc.com
|
control
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-martin-parish/st-martin-parish-crime-stoppers-seeking-information-in-august-2021-fatal-shooting
| 1
| 0
|
green-iguana-35
|
2
|
A Morgan City man has been arrested and booked on numerous child sex charges.
Johnell Thomas, 52, was booked Wednesday with two counts of first-degree rape, five counts sexual battery, five counts oral sexual battery, five counts indecent behavior with juveniles and 15 counts aggravated crime against nature.
After an investigation, warrants were obtained for Thomas and he was arrested Wednesday morning in the Leona Street area. He was booked into the Morgan City Jail.
The investigation is ongoing, and police are asking anyone who may have information too call Morgan City Detectives at 985.380.4605.
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-mary-parish/morgan-city-man-accused-of-multiple-child-sex-crimes
| 2022-04-06T19:58:51Z
|
katc.com
|
control
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-mary-parish/morgan-city-man-accused-of-multiple-child-sex-crimes
| 0
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A Morgan City man has been arrested and booked on numerous child sex charges.
Johnell Thomas, 52, was booked Wednesday with two counts of first-degree rape, five counts sexual battery, five counts oral sexual battery, five counts indecent behavior with juveniles and 15 counts aggravated crime against nature.
After an investigation, warrants were obtained for Thomas and he was arrested Wednesday morning in the Leona Street area. He was booked into the Morgan City Jail.
The investigation is ongoing, and police are asking anyone who may have information too call Morgan City Detectives at 985.380.4605.
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-mary-parish/morgan-city-man-accused-of-multiple-child-sex-crimes
| 2022-04-06T19:58:51Z
|
katc.com
|
control
|
https://www.katc.com/news/st-mary-parish/morgan-city-man-accused-of-multiple-child-sex-crimes
| 1
| 0
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Council president Charles Michel said on Wednesday that European Union countries should think about ways to offer asylum to Russian soldiers willing to desert Ukraine battlefields.
During an address to the the European Parliament, Michel expressed his “outrage at crimes against humanity, against innocent civilians in Bucha and in many other cities,” then called on Russian soldiers to disobey orders.
Michel referred to the town outside of Kyiv where graphic evidence of killings and torture has emerged following the withdrawal of Russian forces. He said he wanted to deliver a message to Russian soldiers waging the war started by Moscow against its neighbor on Feb. 24.
“If you want no part in killing your Ukrainian brothers and sisters, if you don’t want to be a criminal, drop your arms, stop fighting, leave the battlefield,” said Michel, who represents the bloc’s governments.
Endorsing an idea previously circulated by some EU lawmakers, Michel added that granting asylum to Russian deserters is “a valuable idea that should be pursued.”
A day after the European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — proposed a ban on coal imports from Russia as part of a fifth round of sanctions, Michel said the bloc should keep up the pressure on the Kremlin.
“The new package includes a ban on coal imports,” Michel said. “I think that measures on oil, and even gas, will also be needed, sooner or later.”
The European Commission said the proposed ban on coal imports is worth 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) per year, and that the EU has already started working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports.
A consensus among the 27 EU countries on targeting gas, the fuel used to generate electricity and heat homes, would be difficult to secure amid opposition from gas-dependent members like Germany, the bloc’s largest economy.
The new package of measures proposed by the commission also includes sanctions on more individuals and four key Russian banks, among them VTB, the second-largest Russian bank. The bloc also would ban Russian vessels and Russian-operated vessels from EU ports. Further targeted export bans, worth 10 billion euros, in sectors covering quantum computers, advanced semiconductors, sensitive machinery and transportation equipment also were proposed.
The package must be adopted unanimously by all 27 EU countries.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the war at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/eu-council-head-suggests-giving-asylum-to-russian-deserters/
| 2022-04-06T19:59:06Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/eu-council-head-suggests-giving-asylum-to-russian-deserters/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The mother of a Black man who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police who were serving a no-knock warrant spoke angrily about the officer who killed her son, after prosecutors announced he would not be charged, telling him: “You are guilty.”
Karen Wells’ 22-year-old son, Amir Locke, died in February as police were executing a warrant in a downtown Minneapolis apartment. Prosecutors in Minnesota said Wednesday that Officer Mark Hanneman was justified in firing his weapon, determining that body camera video showed that Locke had pointed a gun at the officer.
Wells, appearing in New York with attorney Ben Crump and civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton, called her son’s death “not fair.” And she directed her anger at Hanneman, who wasn’t at the news conference, telling him the case “is not over” and vowing to keep up pressure on Minneapolis city leaders.
“In the eyes of me … you are guilty. I am not going to give up. Continue to have your restless nights, because I know you do,” she said.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota prosecutors declined to file charges Wednesday against a Minneapolis police SWAT team officer who fatally shot Amir Locke while executing an early morning no-knock search warrant in a downtown apartment in February.
Locke, 22, who was Black, was staying on a couch in the apartment when authorities entered it on Feb. 2 without knocking as part of an investigation into a homicide in neighboring St. Paul.
Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman, whose offices reviewed the case, said that after reviewing all of the evidence, they determined that Officer Mark Hanneman was justified in firing his weapon. They said at a news conference that Hanneman’s body camera footage shows that Locke pointed his gun at the officer.
Locke’s parents have said that from what they saw in another officer’s body camera footage that was released soon after the shooting, it appeared that their son was startled awake. His mother, Karen Wells, has called his death “an execution.” Through their attorneys, they said they were “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
Locke, who was not named in the warrant, was shot seconds after he displayed a gun. The body camera footage shows that Locke was holding a gun before he was shot.
Ellison and Freeman said Locke might never have been shot if not for the no-knock warrant. But they said there was insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hanneman violated any of the legal elements of the state statute governing when police can use deadly force.
“It would be unethical for us to file charges in a case in which we know that we will not able to prevail because the law does not support the charges,” Ellison said.
Locke’s death came as three former Minneapolis police officers were on trial in federal court in St. Paul in George Floyd’s killing. It sparked protests and a reexamination of no-knock search warrants. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced an immediate moratorium on such warrants, and on Tuesday, he formalized a new policy that will take effect Friday requiring officers to knock and wait before entering a residence. Some lawmakers also have been pushing for a statewide ban on no-knock warrants, except in rare circumstances.
Locke’s family was angry that police initially described him as a suspect, which police later said was a mistake.
“Amir was not a suspect. Our investigation found no evidence that he had any role in the homicide investigation that brought the police to his door at 6:48 on Feb. 2,” Ellison said. “Amir was a victim. He never should have been called a suspect.”
In their applications for search warrants of the Minneapolis apartment and other locations, authorities said a no-knock warrant was necessary to protect the public and officers as they looked for guns, drugs and clothing worn by people suspected in a violent killing. Authorities asked that officers be allowed to conduct the search without knocking, and outside the hours of 7 a.m. and 8 p.m., because the suspects being sought in the Jan. 10 killing of Otis Elder had a history of violence.
Locke was killed seconds after the SWAT team entered the apartment where his family said he was staying. Body camera video shows an officer using a key to unlock the door and enter, followed by at least four officers in uniform and protective vests, time-stamped at about 6:48 a.m. As they enter, they repeatedly shout, “Police, search warrant!” They also shout “Hands!” and “Get on the ground!”
The video shows an officer kicking a sectional sofa, and Locke is seen wrapped in a comforter, holding a pistol. Three shots are heard and the video ends.
Ellison and Freeman said they had a long conversation with Locke’s parents on Wednesday before they announced that they wouldn’t file charges.
“They, like us, are very frustrated with no-knock warrants. They, like us, believe that if a no-knock warrant hadn’t been used Amir Locke might well be here today,” Freeman said, declining to give further details about their reaction.
The Locke family’s statement said they and their legal team are “firmly committed to their continued fight for justice in the civil court system, in fiercely advocating for the passage of local and national legislation, and taking every other step necessary to ensure accountability for all those responsible for needlessly cutting Amir’s life far too short.”
Ellison would not confirm statements by Locke’s family that he had a permit to carry a gun. He said it “wasn’t relevant” to his and Freeman’s analysis and didn’t impact their decision, given that Locke was in a home and legally possessed the gun because he wasn’t legally barred from having one.
Although Locke was not named in the warrant, his 17-year-old cousin, Mekhi Camden Speed, was named and has been charged with two counts of second-degree murder in Elder’s killing.
The search warrants were carried out as part of an investigation into Elder’s death. Elder, a 38-year-old father, was found shot and laying in the street in what police believe was an apparent robbery. Drugs and money were found in Elder’s SUV, according to court documents.
The police department hired Hanneman in 2015. City records show there were three complaints made about him and that all were closed without him being disciplined, but they give no details. Data on the website of the citizen group Communities United Against Police Brutality shows a fourth complaint, in 2018, that remains open. No details were given.
___
Associated Press writer Amy Forliti contributed.
___
Find AP’s full coverage of the death of Amir Locke at: https://apnews.com/hub/amir-locke
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/no-charges-filed-in-no-knock-warrant-killing-of-amir-locke/
| 2022-04-06T20:00:35Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/no-charges-filed-in-no-knock-warrant-killing-of-amir-locke/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
By MATTHEW DALY
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats on Wednesday accused oil companies of “ripping off the American people” and putting profits before production as Americans suffer from ever-increasing gasoline prices amid the war in Ukraine.
“At a time of record profits, Big Oil is refusing to increase production to provide the American people some much needed relief at the gas pump,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Oil executives, testifying before Congress for the second time in six months, responded that oil is a global market and that oil companies don’t dictate prices.
“We do not control the market price of crude oil or natural gas, nor of refined products like gasoline and diesel fuel, and we have no tolerance for price gouging,” said Chevron CEO Michael Wirth.
The hearing comes as President Joe Biden has ordered the release of 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve for six months in a bid to control energy prices that have spiked as the United States and allies have imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The national average gas price was $4.16 a gallon for regular on Wednesday, up from $2.87 a year ago, according to AAA.
Biden and other Democrats have blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin and the U.S. oil industry for the increase, citing reports that oil companies have made record profits in recent months as prices have risen following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This is the Biden price hike,” countered Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, the committee’s top Republican.
Noting that prices were increasing before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, McMorris Rodgers said Americans “are too smart and have not fallen for this” claim by Biden and other Democrats. She called the hearing “purely political.”
ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said Exxon has halted investments in Russia and is withdrawing from operations there. The company is increasing production in the United States, Woods said, including in the oil-rich Permian Basin in New Mexico and Texas. Exxon also is increasing production outside the U.S., including “a world-class development in Guyana,” Woods said.
Under questioning from Pallone, Woods and other CEOs said oil companies have no plans to halt payments of dividends to stockholders or to restrict stock buybacks that have enriched shareholders and company executives. The six companies at the hearing recorded $77 billion in profits last year, they told Pallone.
Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash., said gas prices are close to $5 per gallon in her Seattle-area district. Her constituents “are mad, and they should be,” she said, citing the record profits oil companies are reaping.
“This feels like gouging. It even feels like profiteering,” Schrier said. Prices at the pump have not gone down in recent weeks along with crude oil prices, she and other Democrats noted.
At a time of war and high prices, “oil companies should not be sending profits back to shareholders,” she said, urging oil executives to restore production to pre-pandemic levels.
Wirth, the Chevron CEO, said his company produced a record amount of oil in 2021, while also making sure to “return value to shareholders” through higher dividends and stock buybacks.
“They’re not mutually exclusive. We can do both,” he said.
Biden has called on Congress to impose financial penalties on companies that lease public lands but don’t produce oil, a request that so far has been ignored. Biden also invoked the Defense Production Act to encourage mining of critical minerals for batteries in electric vehicles, part of a broader push to reduce use of fossil fuels and address climate change.
“The bottom line is if we want lower gas prices we need to have more oil supply right now,” Biden said last week in announcing the release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. “This is a moment of consequence and peril for the world and pain at the pump for American families.”
Higher prices have hurt Biden’s approval domestically and added billions of oil-export dollars to the Russian government as it wages war on Ukraine.
The release of oil from the U.S. stockpile could reduce oil prices, although Biden has twice ordered releases from the reserves without causing a meaningful shift in oil markets. Biden said last week he expects gasoline prices could drop “fairly significantly.”
Oil companies have pledged to boost domestic production, but it is growing slowly. Executives point to supply chain and labor constraints as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as investor demands for returns. They have called for more federal permits to allow additional leases.
Besides Exxon and Chevron, other companies represented at the hearing were Shell, BP, Pioneer Natural Resources and Devon Energy.
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/06/democrats-accuse-oil-companies-of-rip-off-on-gas-prices/
| 2022-04-06T20:01:10Z
|
pasadenastarnews.com
|
control
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/06/democrats-accuse-oil-companies-of-rip-off-on-gas-prices/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
By ADAM SCHRECK and ANDREA ROSA
ANDRIIVKA, Ukraine (AP) — The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol put the number of civilians killed there at more than 5,000 Wednesday, as Ukraine collected evidence of Russian atrocities on the outskirts of Kyiv and braced for what could become a climactic battle for control of the country’s industrial east.
Ukrainian authorities continued gathering up the dead in ruined towns outside the capital amid telltale signs Moscow’s troops killed civilians indiscriminately before retreating over the past several days.
In other developments, the U.S. and its Western allies moved to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin over what they branded war crimes.
And Russia completed the pullout of all of its estimated 24,000 or more troops from the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas in the north, sending them into Belarus or Russia to resupply and reorganize, a U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow is now marshaling reinforcements and trying to push deeper into the country’s east, where the Kremlin has said its goal is to “liberate” the Donbas, Ukraine’s mostly Russian-speaking industrial heartland.
“The fate of our land and of our people is being decided. We know what we are fighting for. And we will do everything to win,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian authorities urged people living in the Donbas to evacuate now, ahead of an impending Russian offensive, while there is still time.
“Later, people will come under fire,” Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
A Western official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence estimates, said it will take Russia’s damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine. Almost a quarter of its battalion tactical groups in the country have been rendered “non-combat-effective” and have either withdrawn or merged with other units, the official said.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. He said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Boichenko said that more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The punishing attacks on the strategic port on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian-relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying without success to get into the city since Friday.
Capturing the city would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Meanwhile, in the scarred and silent streets of Bucha and other towns around Ukraine’s capital where Russian forces withdrew, investigators sought to document what appeared to be widespread killings of civilians. Some victims had evidently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound or their flesh burned.
At a cemetery in Bucha, workers began to load more than 60 bodies apparently collected over the past few days into a grocery shipping truck for transport to a facility for further investigation.
More bodies were yet to be collected in Bucha. The Associated Press saw two in a house in a silent neighborhood. From time to time there was the muffled boom of workers clearing the town of mines and other unexploded ordnance.
In Andriivka, a village about 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of Kyiv, two police officers from the nearby town of Makariv came Tuesday to identify a man whose body was in a field beside tank tracks. Officers found 20 bodies in the Makariv area, Capt. Alla Pustova said.
Andriivka residents said the Russians arrived in early March and took locals’ phones. Some people were detained, then released. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables for winter.
With the sixth week of the war drawing to a close, the soldiers were gone, and Russian armored personnel carriers, a tank and other vehicles sat destroyed on both ends of the road running through the village. Several buildings were reduced to mounds of bricks and corrugated metal. Residents struggled without heat, electricity or cooking gas.
“First we were scared, now we are hysterical,” said Valentyna Klymenko, 64. She said she, her husband and two neighbors weathered the siege by sleeping on stacks of potatoes covered with a mattress and blankets. “We didn’t cry at first. Now we are crying.”
To the north of the village, in the town of Borodyanka, rescue workers combed through the rubble of apartment blocks, looking for bodies. Mine-disposal units worked nearby.
The Kremlin has insisted its troops have committed no war crimes, charging that the images out of Bucha were staged by the Ukrainians.
Thwarted in their efforts to swiftly take the capital, increasing numbers of President Vladimir Putin’s troops, along with mercenaries, have been reported moving into the Donbas.
At least five people were killed by Russian shelling Wednesday in the Donbas’ Donetsk region, according to Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko, who urged civilians to leave for safer areas.
Russian forces also attacked a fuel depot and a factory in the Dnipropetrovsk region, just west of the Donbas, authorities said. In the Luhansk region, which is part of the Donbas, And Russian shelling set fire to at least 10 multi-story buildings and a mall in the town of Sievierodonetsk, the regional governor reported. There was no immediate word on deaths or injuries.
Ukrainian forces have been fighting Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas since 2014. Ahead of its Feb. 24 invasion, Moscow recognized the Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states.
Ukrainian authorities have said the bodies of at least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv, and Associated Press journalists in Bucha counted dozens of corpses in civilian clothes and interviewed Ukrainians who told of witnessing atrocities.
In a video address Tuesday to the U.N. Security Council, Zelenskyy said that civilians had been raped, tortured, shot in the back of the head, thrown down wells, blown up with grenades in their apartments and crushed to death by tanks while in cars.
In reaction to the alleged atrocities, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The European Union was also expected to take additional punitive measures, including an embargo on coal.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, the aid group Doctors without Borders said its staff witnessed an attack Monday on a cancer hospital in a residential district of the southern city of Mykolaiv. The group said it was the third known strike in recent days on a hospital in the port city, whose capture is key to giving Russia control of the Black Sea coast.
It said it had no overall death toll, but its team saw one body.
___
Oleksandr Stashevskyi and Cara Anna in Bucha, Ukraine, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Yuras Karmanau in Lviv, Ukraine, and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/06/mariupols-dead-put-at-5000-as-ukraine-braces-in-the-east/
| 2022-04-06T20:01:22Z
|
pasadenastarnews.com
|
control
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/06/mariupols-dead-put-at-5000-as-ukraine-braces-in-the-east/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL BALSAMO
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has charged a Russian oligarch linked to the Kremlin with violating U.S. government sanctions, and disrupted a cybercrime operation that was launched by a Russian military intelligence agency, officials said Wednesday.
The actions came as the Justice Department said it was accelerating efforts to track down illicit Russian assets and as U.S. prosecutors helped European counterparts gather evidence on potential war crimes committed by Russia during its war on Ukraine.
FBI and Justice Department officials announced the moves on the same day that the U.S. separately revealed sanctions against the two adult daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin and sanctions that blocked two key Russian banks.
“We have our eyes on every yacht and jet. We have our eyes on every piece of art and real estate purchased with dirty money and on every bitcoin wallet filled with proceeds of theft and other crimes,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, adding that “our goal is to ensure that sanctioned Russian oligarchs and cyber criminals will not find safe haven.”
The indictment against Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian media baron and founder of Russian Orthodox news channel Tsargrad TV, is the first of an oligarch since Russia’s war with Ukraine began in February. Malofeyev has trumpeted the invasion as a “holy war” and has supported Russia-aligned separatist groups in Ukraine.
He was sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2014 for financing Russians promoting separatism in Crimea. Though those sanctions barred him from doing business with U.S. citizens, prosecutors say Malofeyev evaded those restrictions by hiring an American television producer to work for him in television networks in Russia and Greece and enlisted his help in trying to acquire a TV network in Bulgaria. It was all part of an effort to spread pro-Russia propaganda throughout Europe, the Justice Department said.
Jack Hanick, a former CNBC and Fox News employee, was arrested last month for his work as a television producer for Malofeyev. That case is pending.
Malofeyev is not in custody and is believed to be in Russia. It was not immediately clear if he had a lawyer to speak on his behalf. The two sanctions charges each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The Justice Department said it is seeking the seizure of a $10 million investment that Malofeyev had illegally transferred to a business associate in Greece.
Federal authorities also announced that they had taken down a botnet — a network of hijacked computers typically used for malicious activity — that was controlled by the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU. The botnet, which in this case involved thousands of infected network hardware devices, was dismantled before it could do harm, said FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Wednesday’s announcements came two days after U.S. officials seized a huge yacht in Spain belonging to a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, with close ties to Russian President Putin.
After the war began, the Justice Department set up a task force to enforce sanctions against Russian oligarchs and target ill-gotten proceeds.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday that Justice Department prosecutors were also helping international efforts to uncover potential war crimes committed by Russia. U.S. officials have met with European prosecutors to develop a plan for gathering evidence, he said.
“We have seen the dead bodies of civilians, some with bound hands, scattered in the streets. We have seen the mass graves. We have seen the bombed hospital, theater, and residential apartment buildings,” Garland said. “The world sees what is happening in Ukraine. The Justice Department sees what is happening in Ukraine.
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/06/us-charges-russian-oligarch-dismantles-cybercrime-operation/
| 2022-04-06T20:01:46Z
|
pasadenastarnews.com
|
control
|
https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2022/04/06/us-charges-russian-oligarch-dismantles-cybercrime-operation/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
A serial arsonist with nearly 80 prior arrests was busted and released twice this week for setting fires in Midtown — including once in Penn Station, according to cops and police sources.
Armando Calderon, 66, set the contents of a trash can ablaze at the corner of West 31st Street and Eighth Avenue on Monday night, authorities said.
He was arrested and charged with arson, but released on a desk appearance ticket, police said.
Calderon was back in action Tuesday morning — when he set a fire inside another garbage can inside Penn Station, police said.
Once again, he was charged with arson, only to be issued another desk appearance ticket, cops said.
Calderon has at least 78 prior unsealed arrests dating back to 1982 — most for criminal mischief and arson in the confines of the Midtown South Precinct, the sources said.
He doesn’t have any open cases, according to a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Most recently, in December 2021, he had 10 misdemeanor cases dismissed — over an assistant district attorney’s objection — after he was found unfit to stand trial, a DA’s office spokeswoman said.
The cases, all misdemeanors, included arsons, sale or possession of bent MetroCards, and one public lewdness incident, according to the spokeswoman.
The address Calderon provided to police is 390 Ninth Ave., the location of the former James A. Farley Post Office.
He was busted back in March 2012 for allegedly setting 15 trash cans ablaze in Midtown — and told fire marshals he did it because he was homeless and angry about his circumstances, the New York Times reported at the time.
Calderon served about five months behind bars in connection to those arsons, the Times later reported.
The DA’s office did not immediately provide information on that case.
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/serial-arsonist-busted-twice-this-week-for-nyc-fires/
| 2022-04-06T20:01:59Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/serial-arsonist-busted-twice-this-week-for-nyc-fires/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A father of four. A best friend with a positive personality. A vivacious partygoer. The six people who were killed in a mass shooting in California’s capital city are being remembered by their friends and family as police worked to piece together what happened when two groups of men connected to gangs opened fire over the weekend.
Dozens of rapid-fire gunshots rang out early Sunday in the crowded streets of Sacramento, leaving three women and three men dead and another 12 people wounded. Two of the 12 people wounded are suspects connected to the bloodshed, police said.
Police on Wednesday said evidence shows there were at least five people firing in the gang-related shootout. Authorities have arrested the two brothers in connection but have not disclosed what their alleged roles were in the shooting.
Smiley Martin, 27, was arrested while hospitalized with serious injuries from the gunfire, Sacramento police said Tuesday morning. When his condition improves enough for him to be jailed, he will be booked for possession of a firearm by a prohibited person and possession of a machine gun.
On Monday, authorities booked Dandrae Martin, 26, as a “related suspect” on charges of assault with a deadly weapon and being a convict carrying a loaded gun. He appeared in court briefly Tuesday and remains held in jail without bail.
Defense lawyer Linda Parisi said Tuesday that an effort to seek Dandrae Martin’s release on bail will depend on whether prosecutors bring stiffer charges.
Few details about the shooting investigation have been made public as police comb through evidence gathered from what Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester called a complex crime scene. Witnesses have submitted more than 170 videos and photos taken during and shortly after the shooting.
On Wednesday, small memorials with candles, balloons and flowers remained near the crime scene on the outskirts of the city’s main entertainment district that occurred as bars and nightclubs were closing.
The Sacramento County coroner released the identities of the six people killed. They were Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21; Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and De’vazia Turner, 29.
DE’VAZIA TURNER
Turner had four young children, including a 3-year-old daughter named Penelope with sticky fingers. But his bright yellow Mercedes CLS was always clean.
Born and raised in Sacramento, Turner played football from a young age until a knee injury slowed him down. He worked as a manager for an inventory company, keeping a close eye on things his mother might like and letting her know when they would go on sale.
“He was a protector,” his mother, Penelope Scott, said. “Raising him as a single mom, you know, he took the role of being the man of the house. He took care of everything.”
He worked out with his dad, Frank Turner, five days a week. When they weren’t pumping iron, they were probably talking about cars. They both had old Buicks — Turner’s was a 1973 while his dad’s was a 1970 — and Turner had big plans for his. He had just ordered a new stereo and a steering wheel with a cherry wood finish.
Frank Turner said he plans to finish his son’s car, including painting it to include images of De’vazia’s face for his kids to see.
“I want them to see their daddy when they see that car,” Frank Turner said.
De’vazia Turner had visited his mother on Saturday, eating leftover pork chops and taking a shower before briefly falling asleep on her couch. When he woke up, he said he was going out — a rarity for him, because he works so much, Scott said.
Scott woke up at around 1 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. She was looking at her phone when she got a call that her son had been killed.
“Your kids are supposed to bury you. You’re not supposed to do that,” she said. “I’m grateful that he has a legacy with his children. However, you know, he’s 29. He didn’t make it to 30.”
The last time Frank Turner saw his son was at the auto shop where they were working on their cars. After his son’s death, a friend called Frank Turner and told him the shop’s security cameras had picked up their conversation.
He watched the video — a father and son spending time together on something they loved — and he cried.
JOHNTAYA ALEXANDER
Alexander was just shy of turning 22 when she was killed, her father told the Los Angeles Times. Her birthday was at the end of the month.
She hoped to become a social worker who worked with children and was a doting aunt to her nieces and nephews, John Alexander told the newspaper.
His daughter’s name was a combination of his own and his older sister’s, he told the Times.
“She was just beginning her life,” he told the newspaper, sobbing. “Stop all this senseless shooting.”
MELINDA DAVIS
Davis was a “very sassy lady” who lived on the streets of Sacramento near the shooting site, The Sacramento Bee reported.
Shawn Peter, a guide with the Downtown Sacramento Partnership who had known Davis for 15 years, told the newspaper that she had been homeless and lived in the area on and off for a decade.
Officials had helped her find housing before the pandemic began but she had returned to the downtown business district in recent months, Peter said. A small bouquet of purple roses with a note saying “Melinda Rest In Peace” was left on the street in her memory.
“Melinda was a very eccentric individual, a very sassy lady,” he told the newspaper. “This was her world, 24/7.”
Davis was a periodic guest at Maryhouse, a daytime center for women and children experiencing homelessness, from 2016 to 2018, director Shannon Stevens said in an email to The Associated Press. Stevens recalled her as kind but someone who did not do well in crowds. She was seeking housing services at the time.
“This was a space she came to find respite from the trauma of living on the streets of our city,” Sacramento Loaves & Fishes, which runs the Maryhouse program, said in a statement.
A memorial for Davis near the shooting site featured a card with messages, including one that said, “Melinda, we’re sorry Sacramento failed you. You deserved better.”
SERGIO HARRIS
Described by family members as the life of the party, Harris was a frequent presence at the London nightclub, which is near the shooting scene.
“My son was a very vivacious young man,” his mother, Pamela Harris, told KCRA-TV. “Fun to be around, liked to party, smiling all the time. Don’t bother people. For this to happen is crazy. I’m just to the point right now, I don’t know what to do. I don’t even feel like this is real. I feel like this is a dream.”
His family members congregated at the crime scene Sunday after they hadn’t heard from him for hours. Later that day, Harris was the first victim publicly identified by the coroner.
“This is a sad and terrible act of violence that took the lives of many,” his wife, Leticia Harris, told KCRA-TV. “I want answers so I can have closure for my children.”
YAMILE MARTINEZ-ANDRADE
Martinez-Andrade was killed in front of her best friend, according to KXTV-TV.
She was described as someone who “brought light to the room,” the station reported, and had a positive outlook.
“There was never a dull moment with her. She has a beautiful heart and a beautiful mind. Everyone misses her so much,” her best friend, who was not named, told KXTV-TV.
JOSHUA HOYE-LUCCHESI
Hoye-Lucchesi was born and raised in Sacramento and his survivors include his mother, his girlfriend and six young children,KCRA 3 reported.
“I never wanted kids, and if I said if I was to have a kid, I just wanted a boy. And I was blessed with a boy,” Sherilyn Hoye told the TV station.
Hoye-Lucchesi’s girlfriend called Hoye at 2:45 a.m. to tell her the tragic news. She later saw painful images on social media.
“It was a post of my son on the ground dead. It was sent to me through Instagram. My son was lying on the ground dead,” Hoye told KCRA.
A memorial with white and blue balloons, candles and two empty bottles of Hennessy was left a block from the shooting in honor of Hoye-Lucchesi. On the ground, someone wrote “Josh” in what appeared to be blue paint.
“I love and miss you. Foreva n my heart!” someone wrote in black marker on a white balloon shaped like a star. “Things will never be the same,” read another balloon.
___
Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Writer Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento contributed to this report.
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/the-6-lives-lost-in-the-sacramento-mass-shooting-2/
| 2022-04-06T20:01:58Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/the-6-lives-lost-in-the-sacramento-mass-shooting-2/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly will vote Thursday on whether to suspend Russia from the U.N.’s premiere human rights body. The move was initiated by the United States in response to the discovery of hundreds of bodies after Russian troops withdrew from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, sparking calls for its forces to be tried for war crimes.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the call for Russia to be stripped of its seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council in the wake of videos and photos of streets in the town of Bucha strewn with corpses of what appeared to be civilians. The videos and reporting from the town have sparked global revulsion and calls for tougher sanctions on Russia, which has vehemently denied responsibility.
“We believe that the members of the Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine, and we believe that Russia needs to be held accountable,” Thomas-Greenfield said Monday. “Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council is a farce.”
General Assembly spokeswoman Paulina Kubiak said Wednesday the assembly’s emergency special session on Ukraine will resume at 10am EDT on Thursday when the resolution “to suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of the Russian Federation” will be put to a vote.
While the Human Rights Council is based in Geneva, its members are elected by the 193-nation General Assembly for three-year terms. The March 2006 resolution that established the Human Rights Council states that the assembly may suspend membership rights of a country “that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
The brief resolution to be voted on expresses “grave concern at the ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, particularly at the reports of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian Federation, including gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights.”
To be approved, the resolution requires a two-thirds majority of assembly members that vote “yes” or “no.” Abstentions don’t count.
The General Assembly voted 140-5 with 38 abstentions on March 24 on a resolution blaming Russia for the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and urging an immediate cease-fire and protection for millions of civilians and the homes, schools and hospitals critical to their survival.
The vote was almost exactly the same as for the March 2 resolution the assembly adopted demanding an immediate Russian cease-fire, withdrawal of all its forces and protection for all civilians. That vote was 141-5 with 35 abstentions.
Thomas-Greenfield said Monday that her message to the 140 members who voted in favor of those two resolutions to support Russia’s suspension from the Human Rights Council is simple: “The images out of Bucha and devastation across Ukraine require us now to match our words with action.”
“We cannot let a member state that is subverting every principle we hold dear to continue to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council,” she said.
Russia’s ambassador in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, called the U.S. action “unfounded and purely emotional bravado that looks good on camera — just how the U.S. likes it.”
“Washington exploits the Ukrainian crisis for its own benefit in an attempt either to exclude or suspend Russia from international organizations,” Gatilov said, in comments relayed by a Russian diplomatic mission spokesman.
Russia and the other four veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — Britain, China, France, and the United States — all currently have seats on the Human Rights Council, which the U.S. rejoined this year.
The only country to have its membership rights stripped at the council was Libya in 2011, when upheaval in the North African country brought down longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi, said council spokesman Rolando Gomez.
No permanent member of the Security Council has ever had its membership revoked from any U.N. body.
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/un-to-vote-thursday-on-suspending-russia-from-rights-council/
| 2022-04-06T20:02:05Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/un-to-vote-thursday-on-suspending-russia-from-rights-council/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
TikTok is set to take center stage.
The popular social media platform has ordered its first-ever fully funded musical, which is set to be streamed through the app in April, according to Variety.
The musical, titled “For you, Paige,” will be helmed by Daniel Mertzlufft — the creative force behind the viral “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical,” which debuted on Jan. 1, 2021.
“For you, Paige” was inspired by real-life content creators and features all original music written by Mertzlufft and several others, and orchestrations by Macy Schmidt.
The musical follows Landon, an up-and-coming TikTok creator, who is thrust into the spotlight after a song he debuts goes viral. He ends up leaving his friends behind after landing a gig transforming the song into a full-fledged musical and learning that he can’t do everything alone.
Mertzlufft, who has been working on the show since January of this year, has been documenting the creative process behind “For You, Paige” on his TikTok, giving users a unique behind-the-scenes look at how the musical is made.
The cast of “For you, Paige” will feature all content creators and will be livestreamed on the official TikTok account from a Broadway theater on April 14, 2022, at 7 p.m.
Mertzlufft’s previous work, “Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical,” became an instant internet sensation. Based on the song “Remy the Ratatouille” by Emily Jacobson, it raised a resounding $1.9 million for the Actors Fund during the COVID-19 pandemic and featured Broadway stars such as Adam Lambert, Tituss Burgess and Wayne Brady.
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/tiktok-to-fund-its-first-ever-broadway-musical/
| 2022-04-06T20:02:23Z
|
nypost.com
|
control
|
https://nypost.com/2022/04/06/tiktok-to-fund-its-first-ever-broadway-musical/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Which twin comforter set is best?
There’s nothing better for a good night’s sleep than having soft sheets, a warm comforter and matching pillow shams, but it can be quite expensive if you buy all those items separately. To save money, opt for a comforter set instead.
The best twin-size comforter set is the Lacoste Meribel Twin/TwinXL Cotton Bedding Set. It includes the comforter and one sham, has an attractive multicolor striped design and is made from ultra-soft cotton.
What to know before you buy a twin comforter set
What’s included
Twin comforter sets can include a variety of items. The basics that all comforter sets include are the comforter and one pillow sham, with some sets including an extra sham. The rest of the possible inclusions are one or two pillowcases, a fitted and flat sheet and a bed skirt. It’s important to note that the number of items included in a set has less effect on the overall cost than the quality of said items.
Types of toppers
“Comforter set” is occasionally used as a catch-all term for any bedding set with a topper — other toppers being either a duvet or a quilt.
- Comforters have a thick layer of filling, making them heavy and warm. That said, they also come in lightly or extra-heavy filled versions for less or greater warmth, respectively.
- Duvets are really two pieces: the duvet and a duvet cover that’s removed for washing. They’re usually much fluffier than a comforter, and a duvet is filled with goose down or down alternative.
- Quilts are also filled, but here the similarities end. They’re thin and usually made by stitching multiple pieces of fabric together in endless arrays of designs rather than using a simple shell material.
What to look for in a quality twin comforter set
External materials
Comforter sets are typically constructed of the same external material for each included piece, with the two most common being cotton and microfiber.
- Cotton is soft, warm and breathable. There are many types of cotton, including the popular Egyptian cotton, each with its own unique positive and negative twists. It can be expensive, so it’s sometimes mixed with synthetics like polyester.
- Microfiber is a type of weave made from synthetic fibers such as polyester. Due to the tiny fiber lengths, it becomes far softer than standard length synthetic fibers. However, it has breathability issues.
Fill material
The topper may be stuffed with either natural or synthetic down.
- Natural down comes from either ducks or geese. It’s lightweight, even when stuffed to the max, and naturally warm.
- Synthetic down can be made from a variety of materials, though polyester and gel fibers are most common. It may be a little heavier and isn’t quite as warm, but it’s better for those with allergies.
How much you can expect to spend on a twin comforter set
Twin comforter sets cost roughly $50-$100, though there are a surprising amount of quality sets for $30-$50. Higher-end sets come in around $150 or a bit more.
Twin comforter set FAQ
How do I clean a twin comforter set?
A. The specifics depend on what’s included in your set and how it’s constructed. Generally speaking, wash any sheets and shams that may be included separately from your comforter, which should always be washed alone. The sheets and shams should be machine-washable and -dryable, but there are exceptions. The comforter might be machine-washable, but a fair few require dry cleaning. Of the machine-washable comforters, it’s a toss-up if they’ll be safe to machine-dry. The exact instructions for everything included should be located on each piece’s tag.
Do I really need a pillow sham?
A. No. Pillow shams are just a way to spice up the look of your bed and bedroom and increase the value of a comforter set. Many people prefer not to use them for various reasons, including disliking the look or wanting to limit how much bedding they need to wash. Having a set of matching pillowcases for your regular sleep pillows is more than enough.
What’s the best twin comforter set to buy?
Top twin comforter set
Lacoste Meribel Twin/TwinXL Cotton Bedding Set
What you need to know: This set is beautiful and comes from a top brand.
What you’ll love: The design is a striking mix of colors mixed into solid and striped sections, and it’s reversible so you never have to worry about which side is up. It’s made of cotton with a brushed twill weave and a thread count of 220.
What you should consider: It’s expensive — more so considering it only includes the comforter and one pillow sham. Some consumers had issues with the fill clumping after a wash.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Wayfair
Top twin comforter set for the money
Amazon Basics Ultra-Soft Micromink Sherpa Comforter Bed Set
What you need to know: This set somehow feels softer when you factor in the price.
What you’ll love: This set includes the comforter plus one pillow sham and it comes in more than 20 designs. It’s reversible with a patterned micromink side and a white fluffed-up sherpa fleece side. Box stitching on the comforter keeps the fill in place.
What you should consider: Some consumers received colors that didn’t match the images. Others received dirty comforters or shams with rips in the body or tearing seams.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Elegant Comfort Six-Piece Bed-In-A-Bag Comforter Set
What you need to know: This set throws in some sheets with the comforter and sham.
What you’ll love: This set includes the comforter, a pillow sham and a pillowcase, a fitted and flat sheet and a bed skirt. The fitted sheet has pockets near the top on both sides for keeping your phone and others goods nearby. It comes in nine colors.
What you should consider: Some consumers were unhappy with the thickness of the sheets. Others reported rips after machine-washing, and it shouldn’t be machine-dried at all.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter for useful advice on new products and noteworthy deals.
Jordan C. Woika writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
|
https://www.wpri.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/bedding-br/best-twin-comforter-set/
| 2022-04-06T20:03:01Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/bedding-br/best-twin-comforter-set/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Which rustic shower curtain is best?
From the country cottage to the backwoods hunting lodge, rustic homes are all about authentic, humble living. Redecorating your house to look like a log cabin may prove a tall order, but there are other clever ways to evoke this down-to-earth aesthetic. One overlooked accent that’s affordable and easy to change up is your shower curtain.
With the right design, you can soften the look of any modern bathroom. The Lush Decor Button Shower Curtain is the best shower curtain to complete your rustic sanctuary.
What to know before you buy a rustic shower curtain
Aesthetics of rustic decor
Rustic decor is all about creativity, especially because it’s inspired by frontier and country living. After all, living off the land meant making the most of what you could find. For this reason, you will see a lot of natural materials in rustic homes, such as raw-finish woods, wrought or cast-iron, animal skins and knits or canvas.
Rustic bathrooms
You don’t have to turn your bathroom into an old-fashioned outhouse to get a more rustic vibe. But looking to the past can be a great source of inspiration. Consider the big picture and the finer details when shopping for your bathroom. Antiques capture the generational qualities of rustic furniture and old-fashioned toiletries, such as ivory safety razors and horsehair brushes, really enhance the farmhouse aesthetic.
Rustic qualities in a shower curtain
A shower curtain can feel rustic in a few ways. If you want something a little more subtle, look for materials that enhance the aesthetic without overdoing it. A billowy linen curtain with large buttons can evoke the homespun feel of rustic decor.
If you want to take a more obvious approach, shower curtains with prints are your best bet. These can simulate the appearance of slatted wooden doors or depict nature scenes that remind guests of life out in the country.
Solid color vs. patterned
Achieving that rustic look with your shower curtain can also be a matter of color modulation. While beige feels like a no-brainer, rust oranges or reds and sage greens pair beautifully with rustic materials. If you’re after patterns, look for vintage floral motifs.
What to look for in a quality rustic shower curtain
Material
Shower curtains are made from any number of materials. Whichever one you choose will have different durability, feel and cost.
- Cotton is thick, luxurious and looks natural in a rustic home. You’ll need a liner because it’s not waterproof. This material is also the most expensive.
- Vinyl is the cheapest option. Made from PVC or non-toxic EVA, this plastic option is completely waterproof. However, it won’t last as long as fabrics.
- Polyester offers the best of both worlds. It’s water-resistant but textured like cotton. However, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one that looks completely natural, like cotton.
Size
Shower curtains come in many sizes, so make sure you find one that’s right for your tub or shower.
- Standard: The typical shower curtain is approximately 72 inches by 72 inches. This size will cover one long edge of the standard bathtub.
- Extra-wide: For freestanding bathtubs, such as a claw-foot, you need an extra-wide shower curtain. These extend up to 180 inches to wrap around any additionally exposed sides.
- Extra-long: Contemporary buildings with high ceilings can place your shower curtain up higher, which reduces splash coverage. Extra-long curtains add another foot or two to account for tall showers.
- Narrow: If you have a stall shower, a standard shower curtain will bunch up. Narrow curtains halve the width to about 36 inches, so you don’t have to sacrifice precious space in an already-small bathroom.
Installation
Shower curtains have small reinforced holes, or grommets, sewn into their top quarter-panel. If your grommets are big enough, you can slide the curtain directly onto the rod. This is the easiest method but can lead to bunching. On the other hand, shower hooks may be a little more difficult to install, but they let you pull your curtain completely taught. They’re also a fun opportunity for some decorative flair.
How much you can expect to spend on a rustic shower curtain
Vinyl shower curtains are the best budget option and usually cost $5-$20. If you want something a little more substantial, you can find a quality polyester curtain for $25-$60, or a premium cotton one for $80-$120.
Rustic shower curtain FAQ
How do I care for my shower curtain?
A. Most shower curtains are machine-wash friendly. For cotton and polyester, you’ll want to do this once a month. Vinyl is a little easier to care for since you can just spray and wipe it down with a household cleaner. In addition to washing, make sure to ventilate your bathroom after showering to air out any excess moisture.
Do I need a shower curtain liner?
A. Liners provide a protective barrier from mold, mildew and soap scum. Cotton will need a liner because it’s not water-resistant. Liners will also boost the longevity of your vinyl or polyester curtain.
What’s the best rustic shower curtain to buy?
Top rustic shower curtain
Lush Decor Button Shower Curtain
What you need to know: The pleated, duo-tone construction of this shower curtain gives it a homemade look.
What you’ll love: With two canvas-colored panels separated by ivory buttons, this shower curtain looks almost handmade. The curtain is made from a sturdy, soft cotton-linen blend for a spa-like feel every time you shower.
What you should consider: It only comes in 72 inches by 72 inches.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top rustic shower curtain for the money
Gibelle Rustic Wood Shower Curtain
What you need to know: If you’ve ever wanted a sliding barn door in your bathroom, but renovation is out of the question, this curtain is the next best thing.
What you’ll love: Gibelle offers a range of faux-wood-door prints to bring that quintessentially rustic look of weathered wood into your bathroom. Each is made from polyester and attaches to your curtain rod via hooks. These curtains also have an array of sizes from narrow to extra-long and extra-wide.
What you should consider: This curtain might be a little too busy if you already have a well-decorated bathroom.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Simple Comfort Abigail Traditional Hydrangea Floral-Print Shower Curtain
What you need to know: When it comes to country-home style, you can’t go wrong with a traditional floral print.
What you’ll love: The hydrangeas are colored in a subtle palette, similar to prairie dresses and hand-crafted tapestries. The polyester-cotton blend is also available as window dressing to match around the house.
What you should consider: You will need a liner with this curtain. It’s also only available in standard sizing.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter for useful advice on new products and noteworthy deals.
Karl Daum writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
|
https://www.wpri.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/shower-accessories-br/best-rustic-shower-curtain/
| 2022-04-06T20:03:07Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/reviews/br/bed-bath-br/shower-accessories-br/best-rustic-shower-curtain/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Which Yaktrax are best?
Whether you’re enjoying a snowy hike in the mountains or simply walking to and from work in icy conditions, you’re going to need a pair of Yaktrax to prevent you from slipping. These innovative accessories use steel cleats attached to a rubber webbing that wraps around the outside of your boots. They offer a level of stability that regular shoes cannot.
The best pair are the Yaktrax Pro Traction Cleats which are great for ice and packed snow. With this set, you can safely walk, run or work in wet and icy conditions.
What to know before you buy Yaktrax
Ice cleats throughout history
The earliest version of ice cleats can be found in Sweden around 800 A.D. The Vikings used cleats strapped to their shoes for added traction while exploring ancient Scandinavia. In the area of Maine, the first settlers to America used metal ice cleats to navigate the icy terrain. In the 1800s, log runners put spikes on their boots to run across wet logs floating down the river. Today’s ice cleats can be traced back to two British mountain climbers who developed the wraparound strap system with cleats on the bottom.
Yaktrax cleat types
There are three designations for Yaktrax straps: Walk, Run and Pro. Each style incorporates different types of cleats for different uses. The Pro straps use shaped-edge steel coils. The durable rubber webbing crisscrosses on the base of the shoe with steel coils that wrap around them. This provides great all-around security while walking and jogging on snow and ice. The Run straps use spike plates with small steel spikes. This gives you more flexibility while running. The Walk series utilizes the same wraparound rubber webbing as the Pro, but there are rotating diamond-shaped beads on the bottom.
Yaktrax uses
Hiking is one of the most common outdoor activities to use Yaktrax. While most hiking is done in the summer, some enjoy winter hiking. In this case, you’ll need a set of spiked cleats to prevent you from falling when you encounter icy surfaces. Yaktrax also works on everyday shoes like sneakers and formal shoes. This way you can safely walk home from work without the fear of slipping. Some Yaktrax even attach to ski boots so you can wear them on the slopes.
What to look for in quality Yaktrax
Performance strap
On the lower end of the quality spectrum, you’ll find boot spikes that use rubber webbing only. This means it wraps around the base of the shoe then moves up over the nose. While this is fairly secure, you can expect it to slip and slide in the worst conditions. The performance strap that Yaktrax uses on its Pro and Run cleats is a Velcro strap that goes over the shoe’s nose. This helps keep the cleats from slipping out of place when they get overly saturated with water and snow.
Replaceable plates
Cleats can only take some much abuse. Harsh temperatures, hard ice and the occasional walk across concrete all contribute to their wear and tear. For Yaktrax’s Run cleats they come with a pair of replaceable plates. There are two plates on each shoe and each plate has three steel spikes on them. Once the spikes wear down and become too rounded to hold their traction, you can replace them with a fresh pair without having to buy a full set of Yaktrax.
Diamond grip spikes
Another innovative part of Yaktrax products is their Diamond Grip system. Many spike users complain that it’s difficult to walk on concrete, rock or dirt surfaces while they’re strapped to your shoes. Yaktrax has solved this issue with their Diamond Grip spikes which rotate as you walk. Each spike is wrapped around a wire so it swivels as it hits the surface. The sharp edges still provide plenty of footing so you can safely transition from rock to ice.
How much you can expect to spend on Yaktrax
Yaktrax cost between $29-$37.
Yaktrax FAQ
Do you need to order a size up for Yaktrax to fit your boots?
A. Yaktrax are designed to fit over the top of your boots. Pay attention to the sizing chart, as it will list which standard shoe sizes the cleats are made for.
Which Yaktrax are the longest lasting?
A. Some reviewers say the Runner Yaktrax are the most durable because they are designed with more flexibility and performance features.
What are the best Yaktrax to buy?
Top Yaktrax
What you need to know: These all-around cleats let you safely walk or run on ice and rock without the need for spikes.
What you’ll love: They come with rounded coil cleats that have a shaped edge for added traction. Each coil is wrapped around durable rubber webbing that crisscrosses on the bottom of your shoe. It comes with a performance strap on top for the most secure fit even in the worst conditions.
What you should consider: They may become damaged if you walk on concrete.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top Yaktrax for the money
What you need to know: These performance-focused cleats are meant for running on snow and ice.
What you’ll love: They come with a flexible, yet sturdy rubber frame that wraps up to the base of the shoe’s tongue. There’s a performance strap and two Velcro straps that go over the top of the shoe. The 3-millimeter shoe spikes are enough to keep your toe traction alongside the steel coil on the heel. The spike plates are replaceable.
What you should consider: Some reviewers said they are sized small.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Yaktrax Diamond Grip All-Surface Traction Cleats
What you need to know: The Diamond Grip cleats have an all-purpose function with high-quality diamond-shaped tips.
What you’ll love: The cleats are made for safe ice walking thanks to the Diamond Beads, tough rubber slings and zinc-coated grommets. Each bead moves separately to help prevent snow from accumulating between the webbing. They come in five sizes from small to XXL.
What you should consider: Some reviewers said the cable holding the beads can become rusty.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter for useful advice on new products and noteworthy deals.
Jordan Beliles writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
|
https://www.wpri.com/reviews/br/camping-outdoors-br/best-yaktrax/
| 2022-04-06T20:03:15Z
|
wpri.com
|
control
|
https://www.wpri.com/reviews/br/camping-outdoors-br/best-yaktrax/
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
KENNEWICK, Wash. - The Royal Family Fairy Tale Ball will soon make a big return to the Tri-Cities, giving kids a chance to meet their favorite characters in support of local foster families.
In the video above, Royal Family KIDS Founder and Event Coordinator, Chris Mayfield, shares what all the event entails on Wake Up Northwest with the help of three special guests: Cinderella's stepsisters, Drizella and Anastasia, and Rapunzel's Mother Gothel.
From character meet-and-greets to live performances and auctions, the event provides a magical experience for local families. All proceeds benefit the Royal Family KIDS organization, helping to fund the resident Summer Camp, Monthly Club and Mentoring Program for foster children in the area.
The Royal Family Fairy Tale Ball is on Saturday, April 16th from 1:00-3:30 p.m. at the Numerica Pavilion in Kennewick. Doors open at 12:30 p.m.
Tickets are available for purchase on the event website. More information and photos leading up to the event can be found on the Royal Family Ball Facebook page.
The Numerica Pavilion is located at 2901 Southridge Blvd. in Kennewick.
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/building-blocks-of-the-future/royal-family-fairy-tale-ball-returns-bringing-heroes-and-villains-to-kennewick-to-support-foster/article_db52e088-b5c4-11ec-a037-8b2c489e93bb.html
| 2022-04-06T20:03:47Z
|
nbcrightnow.com
|
control
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/building-blocks-of-the-future/royal-family-fairy-tale-ball-returns-bringing-heroes-and-villains-to-kennewick-to-support-foster/article_db52e088-b5c4-11ec-a037-8b2c489e93bb.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
KENNEWICK, Wash. - Football Season is right around the corner and the youth teams are in the process of getting ready to continue or begin a new sport.
But, when it comes to tackle football, many parents can have that misconception that it's one of the top full contact sports that causes concussions in kids.
The Junior Riverhawks Youth Football Organization's coach, Rueben Godino, says it's all about safety and the way a coach trains with the kids.
Coach Reuben says parents can't enroll their kids into tackle football until they're in third grade. They teach kids how to properly and safely play on the field before they can transition into tackle football.
"Kids can get a concussion from skateboarding, riding a bike, from walking and falling... it all goes down to coaching and teaching the kids the fundamentals of football," he explained.
The president of the organization, Karen Fancy-Godino, says they're dedicated to teaching these kids how to stay safe on the field.
"It's through these certifications we take and extra classes that we know how to mentally prepare our kids and football isn't just the physical aspect of it either. It's a tough sport...any sport is but I think with football you have to be a part of the team because if you don't do your part on that team...anything could happen," said Fancy-Godino.
She also explained that kids can start off by playing seven-on-seven, which is a passing league that prepares kids to take the next step into tackle football.
This option gives kids and parents a small peek of what the sport is like and the kids get a few weeks to get used to the gear and helmets.
Coach Rueben says he's seen kids develop discipline and life-long skills after being a sports coach for over 20 years.
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/safety-in-kids-youth-tackle-football/article_0f80b852-b5ad-11ec-acdd-67e9e98d4e18.html
| 2022-04-06T20:03:53Z
|
nbcrightnow.com
|
control
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/news/safety-in-kids-youth-tackle-football/article_0f80b852-b5ad-11ec-acdd-67e9e98d4e18.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
PENDLETON, Ore. -
The Pendleton Round-Up and Happy Canyon Hall of Fame announces the winners of the Battle of the Bars' Pendleton Whiskey cocktail battle and the event's first-ever cornhole tournament.
The Hall of Fame says 600 people attended the event after it's two year break during the pandemic.
The Hall of Fame says the Prodigal Son Pub & Brewery's drink "The Whiskey Bent" won the Battle of the Bars by three votes.
Other participating bars who competed for best Pendleton Whisky drink included The Pendleton Catering Company, Rainbow Café, Mac’s Bar & Grill, Electric Sundown, Helix Market & Pub, Virgil’s at Cimmiyotti’s, Backfire Station and Cadillac Jack’s Saloon.
The Hall of Fame says the cornhole competition winners in the upper division of the 35 teams is Noel and Reuben Orozco.
The first place winners of the lower division are Anthony Huntington and Shawn Yegger.
Battle of the Bars is one of the largest fundraisers of the year for the Pendleton Round-Up & Happy Canyon Hall of Fame, which operates on membership fees, donations, grants and fundraisers, as well as the generous time commitment of volunteers.
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/regional/the-pendleton-round-up-happy-canyon-hall-of-fame-announces-battle-of-the-bars-and/article_1a5ab902-b5c7-11ec-a962-97a74244f4d9.html
| 2022-04-06T20:03:59Z
|
nbcrightnow.com
|
control
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/regional/the-pendleton-round-up-happy-canyon-hall-of-fame-announces-battle-of-the-bars-and/article_1a5ab902-b5c7-11ec-a962-97a74244f4d9.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
PASCO, Wash. -
The Tri-Cities Airport has earned the Global Biorisk Advisory Council STAR accreditation for cleaning and safety.
The GBAC STAR is given to the Tri-Cities Airport (PSC) for maintaining 20 different health and safety elements.
These health and safety guidelines range from standard operating procedures and risk assessment strategies to personal protective equipment and emergency preparedness and response measures.
PSC says it earned the accreditation by proving it has implemented best practices to prepare for, respond to and recover from outbreaks and pandemics.
“Earning this accreditation shows that the staff at PSC is taking all of the necessary actions for cleaning and disinfecting our facilities as well as helping to prevent the spread of infectious diseases,” said Buck Taft, Director of Tri-Cities Airport. “Keeping our airport clean and safe for our travelers and employees continues to be our top priority as air travel resumes across the country.”
When the pandemic began, PSC says it was quick to follow guidelines, implement masks, recommend social distancing and frequently clean high-touch public areas.
Now, the GBAC STAR™ accreditation demonstrates to facility visitors and employees that PSC continues to prioritize occupant safety and has the necessary procedures in place to handle bio-risks like the novel coronavirus.
More information about the GBAC STAR accreditation can be found here.
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/regional/tri-cities-airport-earns-international-cleaning-and-safety-accreditation/article_46252454-b5be-11ec-b2d5-8bb29259f8ca.html
| 2022-04-06T20:04:05Z
|
nbcrightnow.com
|
control
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/regional/tri-cities-airport-earns-international-cleaning-and-safety-accreditation/article_46252454-b5be-11ec-b2d5-8bb29259f8ca.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
RICHLAND, Wash. -
Todd's Treats will be donating a portion of its retail for the entire year to the Columbia Basin Veterans Center.
Owner of Todd's Treats, Todd Eller says there will not be an increase to any of the products sold so the customer wont be paying extra for the donations.
Eller says the cost of ingredients has skyrocketed but he does not want to make the customers pay more for the same treats.
Todd's Treats is having its first pop-up sale at Wood's Nursery on 2615 Van Giesen St. in Richland.
The sale will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. every Saturday until Mother's Day.
Then Todd's Treats will be at the Richland Farmer's Market from June through October.
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/tricities/todds-treats-donating-a-portion-of-its-retail-sales-for-all-of-2022/article_9c41b9fa-b5ce-11ec-aca4-2b3b28f376cc.html
| 2022-04-06T20:04:11Z
|
nbcrightnow.com
|
control
|
https://www.nbcrightnow.com/tricities/todds-treats-donating-a-portion-of-its-retail-sales-for-all-of-2022/article_9c41b9fa-b5ce-11ec-aca4-2b3b28f376cc.html
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Maintenance window scheduled to begin at February 14th 2200 est. until 0400 est. February 15th
April 2022: National Financial Capability Month
A graphic of the National Financial Capability Month workshops, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, April 6, 2022. (Courtesy graphic)
PUBLIC DOMAIN
This work, April 2022: National Financial Capability Month, by A1C Sarah Williams, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129509/april-2022-national-financial-capability-month
| 2022-04-06T20:05:50Z
|
dvidshub.net
|
control
|
https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129509/april-2022-national-financial-capability-month
| 1
| 1
|
green-iguana-35
| null |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.