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Maintenance window scheduled to begin at February 14th 2200 est. until 0400 est. February 15th
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Pentagon Press Briefing [Image 10 of 11]
Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby holds a press briefing, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C., April 6, 2022. (DoD Photo by U.S. Air Force TSgt. Jack Sanders)
Date Taken:
04.06.2022
Date Posted:
04.06.2022 15:24
Photo ID:
7129511
VIRIN:
220406-D-XI929-1010
Resolution:
8256x5504
Size:
26.88 MB
Location:
WASHINGTON, DC, US
Web Views:
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This work, Pentagon Press Briefing [Image 11 of 11] , by SSgt Jackie Sanders , identified by DVIDS , must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright .
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| 2022-04-06T20:06:02Z
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Col. Robert "Preach" McAllister, 87th Air Base Wing vice commander, stands in front of a KC-10 Extender on April 6, 2022, at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. McAllister reached a historic 5,000 flying hours in the KC-10, more than any other KC-10 pilot to date.
This work, Col. Robert "Preach" McAllister reaches 5,000 flight hours [Image 2 of 2], by A1C Sergio Avalos, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129515/col-robert-preach-mcallister-reaches-5000-flight-hours
| 2022-04-06T20:06:15Z
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ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE,Ga. – Airman 1st Class Marcos Parada, 146th Airlift Wing crew chief from the California Air National Guard, salutes a WC-130J aircraft at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, April 5, 2022, as it leaves for Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. While at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex at Robins AFB, the aircraft received a new glossy gray paint scheme known for its durabilty, longevity and efficiency under harsh weather conditions reminescient of its days prior to 2008. (U.S. Air Force photo by Joseph Mather)
This work, Robins AFB performs historic paint job for 'Hurricane Hunters' [Image 4 of 4], by Joseph Mather, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7129524/robins-afb-performs-historic-paint-job-hurricane-hunters
| 2022-04-06T20:06:46Z
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ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. – Members of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron from Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, depart via a WC-130J aircraft from Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, April 5, 2022. Besides receiving depot level maintenance at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Complex, the aircraft received a new coat of glossy paint, a throwback to its original look prior to 2008, which better held up under the difficult weather conditions the aircraft often flies through. (U.S. Air Force photo by Kisha Foster Johnson)
This work, Robins AFB performs historic paint job for 'Hurricane Hunters' [Image 4 of 4], by Kisha Johnson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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ROCK SPRINGS – Rock Springs residents John and Leslie Jo Gatti are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary this week.
Leslie Jo, a San Antonio, Texas native and Rock Springs native John Gatti exchanged nuptial vows Saturday, April 8, 1972 at the main post chapel in Ft. Sam Houston, TX.
The Rev. George Mackey of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion of Rock Springs officiated. The final blessing was given by Bishop J. Wilson Hunter, former bishop of Wyoming. At the time of their marriage, Bishop Hunter was residing in San Antonio.
The bride, given in marriage by her father, wore a gown of pale ivory silk organza. The bodice was fashioned with a scoop neckline and long Camelot sleeves. Alencon lace motifs re-embroidered with pearls enhanced the bodice and sleeves and accented the flared skirt. Wide border lace marked the hemline which extended to the full chapel train.
Her full-length veil of pale ivory illusion was accented by scattered appliques of Alencon lace and seed pearls and fastened to a seed pearl band. She carried a bouquet of miniature garnet roses, babies’ breath, corn flowers and feathered carnations with ivory streamers.
Chris Weaver, sister of the bride, was maid of honor, and bridal attendants were Rhonda Hillmer and Janie Dullye of San Antonio and Mrs. Ron Miller of Rolla, Mo.
The attendants wore silk jewel tone dresses of garnet, emerald, gold and sapphire, designed like the bride’s gown. Their nosegays and hair-pieces were fashioned of the same flowers that were in the bridal bouquet.
Lt. Joe Dee Gatti of Rock Springs, cousin of the bridegroom, was the best man. Groomsmen were Larry Snider, Terry Humphreys and Wayne Walker. The head usher was Larry Schultz.
For her daughter’s wedding, Mrs. Weaver wore a floor-length gown of pale green silk. Mrs. John Gatti, mother of the bridegroom, chose a floor-length gown of yellow crepe. Mrs. Lester Weaver, grandmother of the bride, wore a gown of pale pink. Mrs. Shore McTee, grandmother of the bridegroom, wore a floor-length gown of pale blue. Both mothers and grandmothers wore corsages of miniature roses.
After the reception, at the Officers Club, the couple went to Las Vegas on their wedding trip.
They made their home in Tooele, Utah where Lt. Gatti was stationed at the Tooele Army Depot.
“We lived all over the world,” said Leslie Jo. “After my two years in the army, I decided to stay home, get involved with local clubs, organizations and take up a few hobbies.”
She likes to read and sow while John likes to hunt and fish.
John spent 24 years in the military. He retired in 1994 and they eventually settled in Rock Springs.
Leslie worked at the Rock Springs Library and continued her education. They’ve contributed to the community as volunteers many times. She has been an active member of the Women’s Club for several years.
They have one daughter, Marianne. She lives in Cheyenne. She plans to take her parents out for a nice 50th wedding anniversary dinner.
According to John, the most important tip to a long happy marriage is to learn how to give and not always take.
“Be tolerant and patient,” he advised.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/rocketminer/golden-anniversary-gattis-celebrate-50-years-of-marriage/article_5ce4b59b-171f-5756-8c9f-14254b7b81b6.html
| 2022-04-06T20:09:53Z
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Surface Force Navy leadership has launched a program focused on helping pregnant Sailors strike a balance between maintaining mission readiness and handling their roles as mothers.
The Artemis program is designed to provide expecting Sailors access to a multitude of helpful resources and teach them Navy administrative skills, allowing them to remain productive in a less physically-demanding environment.
According to Senior Chief Aviation Boatswain’s Mate Phillip Posada, Artemis senior enlisted leader, the program’s participants are assisting Personnel Support Detachment (PSD) San Diego with maintaining records of personnel, military allowances, travel entitlements and deductions for our Surface Fleet.
The program also aims to help maintain physical fitness and give constant support throughout the pregnancy process, allowing these Sailors to return to the fleet prepared and ready to continue their military career.
“Once this pilot program is approved and implemented throughout the Navy, it will open up several opportunities for the Artemis Sailors to be proactive with their career and motherhood, while still being able to serve in the Navy.” said Posada.
The program, named after the Greek goddess of the hunt and childbirth, welcomes pregnant Sailors from different rates and duty stations from around the fleet and teaches them skills that will benefit their careers and help create more well-rounded Sailors for the fleet.
After learning they’re pregnant they will receive orders allowing them to continue being competitive for promotion and having the ability to develop as leaders. They will also do their part in helping take care of other Sailors facing pay, entitlement and other administrative issues.
“A lot of women have to choose between their career and their family,” said Yeoman 1st Class Treysean Bradburn, the leading petty officer of the Artemis Program. “The goal of this program is to provide them with the support and skills which will allow them to continue their careers in the Navy.”
Giving these Sailors essential time to prepare for childbirth, while connecting them to a support network of strong women in coordination with their chain of command empowers them for their journey ahead.
“Our chain of command is really supportive and knowledgeable with giving us information on the proper resources and making sure we're going to the right appointments.”
said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Holly Richardson.
Boatswain’s Mate Seaman Ashanti Cunningham echoed her sentiments.
“Serving in the Navy while being pregnant is hard, but knowing you have other women who are experiencing the same situation as you whom you can reach out to makes it easier.” said Cunningham
The program’s flexibility allows these Sailors to learn and perform a new job while still having the time to learn how to be a mom. They will also have access to a command Chaplain for spiritual and emotional growth, and will work with Naval Medical Center San Diego and Fleet and Family Support Program who will direct them toward the resources they need. These resources include: monthly prenatal breast-feeding classes, monthly prenatal parenting classes, virtual lactation classes, and fitness resources to help them return fit and ready to perform at the highest standards.
“With this program I have a support system while still doing my part for the Navy and the program allows us to learn and make progress within our career,” said Richardson “I think it’s important for women because it allows us to be moms while also preparing us to go back to the fleet.”
Participants receive two-year orders since it typically takes a new mother a year or more to physically recover from the effects of giving birth.
“Being here is a huge stress reliever, especially with the chain of command and how persistent and helpful they are.” said Cunningham.
Balancing the stressors of pregnancy with military duties can be difficult, but by highlighting and supporting women the Navy, this program helps these Sailors shine while allowing them to be the best mothers they can be.
This work, Surface Force Helps Pregnant Sailors Thrive with Artemis Program, by PO3 Stevin Atkins, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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| 2022-04-06T20:10:11Z
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The University of Wyoming track and field team continued a solid start to the outdoor season last Saturday, totaling seven event wins at the Front Range Open in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Wyatt Moore started the day by winning the men’s 100-meter run with a time of 10.82 seconds, while Gabby Drube ran a 12.76 in the 100m to take third for the Cowgirls.
Kiona Gibbs won the women’s 200m in 25.38, with Drube posting a third-place finish. The next Cowboy to win an event was Jaymison Cox, who took the top spot in the 400m in 48.55. Caige McComb finished third in the men’s 110m hurdles in 15.00, while Jaheim Ferguson finished second for the Cowboys in the 400m hurdles with a time of 54.21.
The shot put was the highlight of the day for the Cowboys throwers, with UW sweeping the podium. Nathan Reid had the winning toss at 50-6, followed by Mikey DeRock and Tarique George in second and third, respectively, with throws of 49-4 1/2 and 42-2 3/4. Jordan Christensen was the top finisher for the Cowgirls, taking third with a mark of 42-3/4.
For the second time in as many competitions, Nathan Reid claimed the top spot in the men’s discus, winning the event with a throw of 174-6. Tarique George and Mikey DeRock finished third and fourth, respectively. Cosette Stellern sealed the event sweep for Wyoming on the women’s side, winning the discus with a throw of 160-1. The duo of Addison Henry and Logan DeRock finished in third and fifth, respectively.
Addison Henry added another win in the women’s hammer throw, going 175-11 to earn the top spot. Gulia Lodi took second in the women’s javelin throw with a best throw of 137-5.
Up next for Wyoming is a trip to Boulder, Colorado for the Colorado Invitational, which is set to begin Friday.
Cowgirls fall to Air Force at home
The UW tennis team suffered a home loss to Air Force on Sunday afternoon, dropping the contest 4-2.
The Cowgirls (8-9, 2-2 in Mountain West) fell behind early in the match with a doubles point to the Falcons (14-4, 3-1). Ana Fernandez and Sophie Zehender improved to 6-3 overall and 3-0 in conference play as a duo this spring, as they won 6-3 at No. 2 doubles, but Air Force secured the doubles point after pulling out a 7-6 (7-5) win at the No. 3 position.
In singles play, Wyoming got wins at No. 2 and No. 3 from Zehender and Lucia Malinak, respectively. Zehender moved to 4-0 in Mountain West play and 9-2 in dual action with her 6-4, 6-3 win over Air Force’s Sydney Fitch. Malinak, meanwhile, registered her first conference result of the season in a three-set victory over Alexis Odom. Set scores went 6-4, 4-6 and 6-1, as she improved to 6-4 this spring.
UW will look to rebound this weekend in Las Vegas. The Cowgirls are set to face San Diego State in a neutral-site matchup Saturday at 10:30 a.m., before closing the weekend against UNLV on Sunday at 2 p.m.
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https://www.wyomingnews.com/townnews/sport/uw-delivers-strong-showing-at-front-range-open-copy/article_b1edbe82-df26-5329-8a09-0227764113c5.html
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SPRINGFIELD, Illinois – Growing up in the small town of Kincaid, Illinois, Anthony Mollusky Jr. didn’t have a lot of options.
With only about 1,500 people, the former mining town had hit rough times. Jobs were drying up and the young man was uncertain about his future. So, he joined the Army. It was the beginning of a 32-year journey that would take him across the world and then back to Kincaid. On Sunday, April 3, during a ceremony at the Illinois Military Academy on Camp Lincoln in Springfield, he retired with the highest rank an enlisted Soldier can achieve, command sergeant major.
Command Sgt. Maj. Mollusky’s last assignment was as the Command Sergeant Major of the 108th Special Troops Battalion based in Chicago. Now an information technology expert in the civilian world, Mollusky recalled what it was like as a young man trying to find himself.
“I didn’t really know what I could do by staying in the area and was unsure if college was for me,” said Mollusky. “I didn’t have a lot of information about finances or student loans, but I figured if I ever did decide to attend college, the Army would eventually pay for it.”
Mollusky enlisted into the active Army, serving seven years as a quartermaster and chemical equipment repairer. As the years progressed, he began to desire a change, informing his chain of command that he wanted to work with computers full time. Unable to change his military occupation specialty, he would transition to the Illinois Army National Guard in 1998, where he joined the same unit that his father, Anthony Mollusky Sr., had once served.
“I was about to get out of the Army because I wanted to do something different,” Mollusky said. “I wanted to work on computers and felt that’s where my career was heading. It wasn’t until I was doing my out-processing that they brought up the possibility of me going into the National Guard. That’s how I ended up in the 3637th Maintenance Company, the same unit that my dad had once served in.” But the elder Mollusky didn’t often discuss his military service. “So I didn’t learn a lot of stuff until after he passed away.”
For example, while Mollusky’s father was assigned to what was then called the 3637th Ordnance Company, he would be activated on Oct. 10, 1961 in response to the Berlin Crisis of 1961, sending him to Fort Knox.
Anthony Mollusky Sr. had some personal struggles and would pass away from a heart attack a few months after Mollusky returned to Illinois to transition to the National Guard, leaving behind a lot of unanswered questions.
“During our talks, the Guard never really came up,” Mollusky said. “After he got out of the National Guard, he got a job as a welder, until he was laid off. I think my siblings and I realized that we just had to go out and work hard. I have two older sisters and growing up we all had paper routes. … We knew that we needed to go out and make things happen to be self-sufficient.”
Serving in the Army would allow Mollusky to meet his wife, Michelle, someone he credits with being a tremendous supporter since day one.
“I met her at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1992 and in 1994 we were married,” said Mollusky. “She’s been supportive through everything. Through my deployments and annual trainings, there are times where she’s handled things by herself.”
Mollusky deployed to Iraq from 2007-2008 while assigned to the 3637th Maintenance Company. During that time, Michelle would carry a lot more of the responsibilities of raising their children.
“I grew up a military brat, my father retired as a Chief Warrant Officer (3) so a lot of it was normal for me,” said Michelle, his wife. “The biggest advice I can give is to communicate, even about the little things. It’s been a journey and we’ve both grown through it.”
Mollusky would also deploy to Kuwait in 1991, before meeting his wife.
As a family man and leader in the National Guard, Mollusky isn’t necessarily the strict, stern Command Sergeant Major that people often associate with the rank. Being a father with three children has helped teach him to be patient.
“I tell my kids that things take time,” said Mollusky. “My oldest son is 28 and he works for the Department of Labor. I tell him to be patient and you will be able to move up and excel. My oldest daughter is 23 and has special needs, so I have my wife to support me in helping her. I also have a 19-year old son, who is still trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Things just take time.”
Although Mollusky will now have an opportunity to spend more time with his biological family, his National Guard family will miss his passion for his job and how much he cared for his Soldiers.
“I first met Command Sergeant Major Mollusky when I took command of the 108th Special Troops Battalion,” said Lt. Col. Timothy Johnson. “His passion for Soldier care was clear. He welcomed me with open arms and we immediately became a team. With over 30 years of experience, he brought a lot to the table as my Senior Enlisted Advisor. His long term relationships with Soldiers and families in our units gave him unique insights that as a commander, I didn't have. His frank and candid approach when discussing our Soldiers was invaluable. The thing I'll miss the most about him is his laugh and storytelling. Every drill, trip, and training event was filled with stories about his family and our Soldiers.”
Despite retiring from the Army, Mollusky’s values as a Soldier will continue to carry-over to his everyday life, even though he will no longer wear the uniform.
“I would encapsulate the Army values as simply doing the right thing,” said Mollusky. “As a leader, making sure that you’re looking out for your peers and subordinates. It’s so much more than making sure that Soldiers are in the right uniform for a formation. What I’ll always take away most from being with the STB is being around good people. I’ll remember the great Soldiers and the great job they do.”
This work, Kincaid Man Retires From Army After 32 Years and Rising to Highest Enlisted Rank, by SGT Trenton Fouche, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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NEWPORT, R.I. – Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport recently assisted Massachusetts-based small business Bionet Sonar by underwater testing its new wireless technology called HydroNet at the Narragansett Bay Test Facility for two days in February.
HydroNet is an open, modular and programmable underwater modem that powers an autonomous wireless communications system bringing the internet underwater and empowering the network with artificial intelligence-driven, software-defined technologies.
Its plug-and-play capability with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), and unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) creates a network of mobile assets. Bionet Sonar replaces radio frequency (RF) waves with ultrasonic waves that are secure, long-range, and enable high-speed, real-time monitoring.
Bionet Sonar was able to test HydroNet at Division Newport’s Narragansett Bay Test Facility through a collaboration process with the Northeast Tech Bridge, as part of the Blueswell Incubator Program, a New England-based early-stage blue tech innovator. Senior researcher and Bionet co-founder Dr. Emrecan Demirors was introduced to Division Newport through Blueswell and soon after the company signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Division Newport to conduct the testing.
The Bionet team worked with Dr. Steven Bordonaro, director, Northeast Tech Bridge, and Dillon Fournier, manager of the Narragansett Bay Test Facility, to arrange the testing needed for their technology.
“The Navy and our local team have a wealth of experience testing underwater systems,” Bordonaro said. “We want companies developing technology to be able to leverage this experience. The goal is to advance and field technologies quicker, whether the application is for defense only, or if it also has commercial application.”
“They were really helpful with logistics,” Demirors said about Division Newport’s testing team. “They prepared the moorings and anchors for the modems and provided guidance on the deployments. The team was very helpful, always ready. They made it very easy for us to deploy. With the Navy taking care of the logistics, it was much, much easier. We could focus on the technology itself rather than the logistics.”
For the test, the team deployed two wireless modems that were connected to two Bionet smart buoys, which allowed for interface and computing capabilities. The smart buoys were connected to the company’s server through a secure channel. During the two days of testing, the team was able to collect the data needed to move their project forward.
“The results were fantastic,” Demirors said. “Everything was functioning as it should be.”
The HydroNet project is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer programs, which encourage small businesses to engage in government research and development with the potential for commercialization.
“We are extremely pleased about this partnership with Bionet Sonar,” said Mary Sylvia, Division Newport’s technology partnership officer and deputy director of the Northeast Tech Bridge. “It is an example of how the Northeast Tech Bridge enables our local maritime ecosystem. Using the tech transfer tools that we have available — such as this CRADA — Division Newport has the ability to advance technology of mutual benefit to both the Navy and the partner. The fact that this testing initiated through a Tech Bridge engagement, using our Narragansett Bay Test Facility via a CRADA, and in support of the company’s SBIR award, connects a lot of dots to bring technical capability further.”
The Bionet team would like to return to the Narragansett Bay Test Facility this summer to work on communications techniques to further improve data rates. The company plans to integrate with UUVs, not just fixed nodes but mobile nodes and would like to work on a semi-permanent deployment of a grid of modems – 1 kilometer by 1 kilometer, with nine modems – in order to provide wireless connectivity in that grid to wireless assets.
“The goal this summer is to generate a real underwater network that’s wireless,” Demirors said.
NUWC Division Newport is a shore command of the U.S. Navy within the Naval Sea Systems Command, which engineers, builds and supports America’s fleet of ships and combat systems. NUWC Newport provides research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support for submarines, autonomous underwater systems, undersea offensive and defensive weapons systems, and countermeasures associated with undersea warfare.
NUWC Newport is the oldest warfare center in the country, tracing its heritage to the Naval Torpedo Station established on Goat Island in Newport Harbor in 1869. Commanded by Capt. Chad Hennings, NUWC Newport maintains major detachments in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Andros Island in the Bahamas, as well as test facilities at Seneca Lake and Fisher's Island, New York, Leesburg, Florida, and Dodge Pond, Connecticut.
Join our team! NUWC Division Newport, one of the 20 largest employers in Rhode Island, employs a diverse, highly trained, educated, and skilled workforce. We are continuously looking for engineers, scientists, and other STEM professionals, as well as talented business, finance, logistics and other support experts who wish to be at the forefront of undersea research and development. Please connect with NUWC Division Newport Recruiting at this site- https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NUWC-Newport/Career-Opportunities/ and follow us on LinkedIn @NUWC-Newport and on Facebook @NUWCNewport.
This work, Bionet Sonar tests underwater wireless network at NUWC Division Newport’s Narragansett Bay Test Facility, by Public Affairs Office, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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| 2022-04-06T20:11:07Z
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WESTFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – The Westfield Police are asking residents in the area of Crescent Circle to review outside surveillance cameras for suspects involved in breaking and entering a home Tuesday night.
According to the Westfield Police Department, at around 8:30 p.m. officers were called to a breaking and entering at a home on Crescent Circle when the resident heard someone in her basement. When police arrived, a suspect ran on foot into the woods and a second suspect drove away in a vehicle down the street.
The driver of the vehicle, believed to be a newer white Honda CRV, was a man. Police say the vehicle had a Connecticut license plate, but the plate may have been stolen off of another vehicle.
Police say there is no evidence that the suspects were armed. The Westfield Police used their drone along with the State Police Air Wing, Southwick and State Police K-9s to search for the suspects, but they have not been located or identified.
Residents in the area are being asked to review their exterior cameras for any footage of the suspects or the vehicle. If you have any information, you are asked to contact Detective Mazza at (413)-642-9390 or r.mazza@cityofwestfield.org.
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TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – The Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning concerning potentially contaminated raw oysters that were sent to over a dozen states.
This week, the FDA announced that oysters harvested in parts of Baynes Sound in British Columbia, Canada, were possibly linked to a multi-state norovirus outbreak in the United States. The oysters were shipped to restaurants and retailers in at least 13 states, but possibly more “through further distribution” within the U.S. the FDA writes.
Restaurants or retail outlets in California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Texas and Washington are being advised to dispose of, or return, any oysters harvested in the following locations:
- Baynes Sound: #1407063, #1411206, #278737 in BC 14-8 and #1400036, in BC 14-15
The words “Baynes Sound” will also appear on tags. Further identifying information is available at the FDA’s website.
Restaurant operators and retailers are also being urged to sanitize any surfaces the oysters may have come into contact with.
As of April 4, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had received 91 reports of illnesses linked to the outbreak. It’s possible the actual number of illnesses is much higher, considering many people may not seek treatment. State and local health authorities are also not required to report cases to a national database.
The FDA’s ongoing investigation is working to determine where, exactly, the oysters were served or distributed based on interviews with those who became ill.
Norovirus is currently the most common cause of foodborne illness in the U.S., where it is responsible for approximately 20 million cases each year, the CDC estimates. It is largely contracted by ingesting contaminated food or water, or coming into contact with contaminated surfaces or other infected persons. Symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting, among others, potentially leading to dehydration. Children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems are more likely to experience serious illness or death as a result of infection, although people of any age are still at risk, according to the CDC.
“Anyone who consumes raw shellfish is at risk of contracting norovirus,” the agency notes.
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The FOMC minutes have a knack for making everyone look stupid and that was certainly the case today.
A rout in stocks ensued following some hawkish comments in the report but the move didn't last and eventually reversed. That wasn't nearly enough to erase the day's decline but it was enough to leave both sides feeling uneasy.
Closing levels:
- S&P 500 down 43 points, or 1.0%, to 4481
- Nasdaq -2.2%
- Russell 2000 -1.3%
- DJIA -0.4%
- VIX +1.06 to 22.09
This isn't a great looking candle on the S&P 500 daily chart but it could have been worse.
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Despite efforts from community members, historical and environmental groups to deter them, the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pave the way for Amazon to construct a data center on Route 3 in Stevensburg.
"We have to approve some of theses economic development projects,” said Chairman Gary Deal. "It's not like we're going to approve another down there. We need one that's going to bring in $5-$8 million per year. We need that."
Woodbridge-based development firm Marvell Developments LLC, a subsidiary of Amazon Data Services, submitted a rezoning request for 20420 Germanna Highway - currently the location of Magnolia Equestrian Center LLC - from an A-1 (Agricultural) to LI (Light Industrial) in order to construct two data center buildings, totaling over 400,000-square-feet on approximately 230 acres.
The total number of employees in each building will be approximately 45, but only approximately 32 employees for each will be on the property at any given time.
Employees will be comprised of engineering technicians, data center operators, security personnel and logistics personnel.
Additionally, a six acre electrical substation would also be constructed on site.
Nearly 40 members of the public took to the podium during the board's nearly five hour meeting to outline their concerns and objections to the application’s passage, however, the measure passed with a 4 to 3 vote.
Supervisors Tom Underwood, Paul Bates, David Durr and Deal voted in favor and Supervisors Susan Gugino, Brad Rosenberger and Kathy Campbell voted against it.
"We're here to protect peoples' investments,” Gugino said. "And if they invest in agriculture, knowing that the future plan (Comprehensive Plan) was agriculture...and we let things just go back and forth as we see fit if a couple of dollars are going to end up in our pocket, that is, I feel, abandoning our citizens to the fact that we don't feel their investments are worth protecting."
On March 28, representatives from The Germanna Foundation, American Battlefield Trust, Piedmont Environmental Council and Journey Through Hallowed Ground took members of the public as well as some supervisors on an over two hour tour of Salubria and Hansbrough Ridge in order to outline the impact construction would have on the two historic sites.
“There is room in the county for both data centers and heritage tourism with good planning,” the invitation to the tour read. “The zoning decision will have an indelible impact on our community’s future as well as its history. With so much at stake, we look forward to an outcome that balances all of our community needs.”
Prior to being considered by the board, the Culpeper County Planning Commission on March 9 voted to recommend the denial of a rezoning request in a 5 to 4 vote.
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A Prince William labor group is splintering over the push for collective bargaining in public schools and a letter attacking the county’s School Board.
As of last week, the Prince William Education Association and the county’s School Board were at odds over the process for verifying the signatures from division teachers that PWEA collected to form a collective bargaining unit. The School Board’s process for verifying the signatures would require a review of all supportive union cards by the school division’s administration, something the PWEA says is unacceptable. Instead, PWEA has proposed having a third party verify the cards or having the administration review the cards at a “neutral site” with names withheld.
Last week, an informal working group of unions from Northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland called the Prince William Labor Caucus appeared to weigh in on the disagreement. A letter from the caucus – which was formed in 2020 – was sent to all eight School Board members calling their proposed verification process “tantamount to union busting.” Among the letter’s eight alleged signatories were PWEA President Maggie Hansford, Joe Mirabile of the county’s firefighters union, David Broder of SEIU local representing Fairfax County government employees and Greg Akerman, the Northern Virginia director of the Baltimore-DC Metro Building Trades Council.
But several of those alleged signatories say they don’t support the letter, which reads: “The public sector unions which represent other employee groups in the county did not experience these types of tactics and we believe our educators deserve better.
“We call on the Prince William County Public School Board to accept the thousands of valid signatures the educators have collected and vote yes to adopt collective bargaining for school employees.”
On March 31, Akerman and Stephen Courtien, the president of the Building Trades Council, sent a letter to the School Board disavowing the letter, saying they had no prior knowledge of it and did not agree to sign it.
They said that their association – which represents 22 local construction unions between Northern Virginia and Baltimore – supported the teachers’ efforts for collective bargaining but also had a fruitful working relationship with the school division.
“We do not condone the usage of our signatures or logos on any message without my explicit consent,” Courtien wrote. “While we support the Prince William Education Association in their goal to achieve collective bargaining, we were unaware of the characterization of the School Board members in the letter. The Prince William County School Board has taken great steps to promote trade union apprenticeships and provide pathways to the middle-class for local residents. Superintendent [LaTanya] McDade has been a vocal supporter of career opportunities for students by including partnerships with trade unions in the county’s strategic plan and working diligently to ensure students are prepared for the demands of the 21st century workplace.”
A second alleged signatory of the letter said they too hadn’t agreed to sign it, but they wished to keep their name and organization out of controversy.
Hansford declined to answer whether all the listed signers of the letter had agreed to sign it, or say who had even sent the letter. According to Katie Zaimis, the president of the Prince William Police Association, who said she had agreed ahead of time to sign the letter, Hansford was the one sending it around for signatures.
“The caucus worked on that letter together,” Hansford told InsideNoVa. “Everybody that’s included in our caucus – it was a team effort of writing a letter. I spoke with several of the caucus members after the [March 24] School Board meeting … We worked in a group effort to draft the letter. My understanding is that the draft went out sooner than was planned, and at the end of the day the caucus fully supports collective bargaining, and I stand with the letter from the caucus.”
Yet, in an email to Hansford and Mirabile obtained by InsideNoVa, Akerman said otherwise, asking them to retract the letter in any medium.
“Please clarify with any reporters, media, elected officials, or organization that inquires about the letter that the building trades unions had nothing to do with it,” he wrote. “Finally, please consider my organization fully removed from any activities of the PW Labor Caucus. We will continue to fully support your efforts to achieve collective bargaining. However, we find these actions to be unacceptable.”
According to Akerman, the caucus is an informal association of labor interests in the county that grew out of the pandemic and the General Assembly’s passage of HB 582 in 2020, which allowed for public sector collective bargaining beginning in 2021. Most recently, the group had worked together to support the county’s firefighters in their push for collective bargaining with the Board of County Supervisors.
Broder, who heads up Fairfax County's government employee union, declined to say whether he had agreed to sign the letter ahead of time, but he told InsideNoVa he fully backed the PWEA’s push for collective bargaining.
“Collective bargaining leads to better services, it leads to better jobs for our communities, and we believe that every single working family deserves a seat at the table with collective bargaining,” Broder told InsideNoVa. “Prince William County has a very clear choice ahead, for both the School Board and the Board of Supervisors.”
On Wednesday night (after InsideNoVa went to press), the School Board was expected to vote on a resolution clarifying that date of hire information will not be required to verify a signature in support of collective bargaining, an issue that had caused some confusion after the board laid out its verification process. Hansford has submitted a sworn affidavit to the School Board saying that PWEA has collected signatures from a majority of the division’s certified non-administrative staff members, including teachers, nurses, counselors, librarians, psychologists, social workers and speech pathologists. The School Board has said that won’t suffice, and that the division needs to verify the legitimacy of the signatures.
Some board members could also try to reopen the verification process adopted at their last meeting in March. School Board Chair Babur Lateef had said division counsel made it clear that the board was not requiring date of hire information but that some in the PWEA were still under the impression that it was.
“It is disappointing that the PWEA has resorted to name-calling and untoward tactics to try to intimidate School Board members,” he said. “I’m happy to know that the trade unions do not share the same characterization of the School Board as the PWEA does. We have had a tremendous relationship working with different trade unions over many years.”
Lateef told InsideNoVa he couldn’t speak for the whole School Board, but so far he thought PWEA had not been acting in good faith in its effort to form a collective bargaining unit with the division.
Ultimately – provided the signatures are verified by a mutually-agreeable process – the board has 120 days to adopt a resolution accepting or denying the collective bargaining unit, after which the board can decide what exactly the unit can negotiate on.
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When the construction dust settles, the orange cones are gone and work crews have relocated to snarl traffic elsewhere after completion of the 495 NEXT Project, the Great Falls Citizens Association hopes an extra-nice-looking bridge will take Georgetown Pike over the Capital Beltway.
In a recent letter to Virginia Department of Transportation Secretary W. Sheppard Miller III, GFCA president William Canis laid out the case for using a “signature” design for the Georgetown Pike replacement bridge and asked for the group to have the chance to work with the design/build contractor regarding those aesthetics.
While in the past, transportation agencies designed highways and their related infrastructure with the idea of moving vehicles efficiently, the Federal Highway Administration (headquartered not far from Georgetown Pike) and state transportation departments in recent decades have focused on “context-sensitive” designs that also “reflect the values, culture, and history of the communities they pass through,” Canis wrote.
This design method “results in built projects that give as much consideration to community needs and values as they do to commuter needs,” the letter read. Maryland, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas have active aesthetic programs for bridges, Canis wrote.
VDOT has built “signature” bridges before, including a span near Virginia Tech in Blacksburg that in 2019 received the Engineering Excellence Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies, Canis wrote.
VDOT now is using a “utilitarian but unattractive,” standard interstate-overpass design for the Georgetown Pike span, the letter read. Building a signature bridge instead would add only 1 or 2 percent to the project’s cost and possibly not even that much if addressed early enough in the process, Canis wrote. Gov. Youngkin, along with VDOT officials and other dignitaries, broke ground March 14 for the 495 NEXT (495 Express Lanes Northern Extension) Project, which will add two high-occupancy-toll lanes in each direction on 2.5 miles of the Beltway between the Dulles Toll Road and George Washington Memorial Parkway.
The privately financed $660 million project will be built by Transurban. Officials hope the new lanes will be ready for use in 2025.
Canis also hit the highlights of Georgetown Pike’s history, including that it had:
• Begun as a trail carved out by grazing bison herds centuries ago.
• Served as a trade route for the Susquehannock and Iroquois Indians in the 1600s and farmers in Virginia’s Piedmont and Shenandoah areas by the late 1700s.
• Been built and operated as a toll road by the Georgetown and Leesburg Pike Co., which in 1813 had received a charter from the U.S. Congress.
• Been purchased in 1934 by Madeira School founder Lucy Madeira Wing, who transferred ownership to the commonwealth of Virginia, which then added the roadway to the state’s highway system.
• Been designated in 1973 as Virginia’s first Scenic and Historic Byway and the following year was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service.
“Importantly, this overpass may be the first practical one to welcome people crossing into Virginia from Maryland with an impactful design highlighting the history and beauty of our state,” Canis wrote.
[Sun Gazette Newspapers provides content to, but otherwise is unaffiliated with, InsideNoVa or Rappahannock Media LLC.]
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♫ “I know a whoopee spot where the gin is cold but the piano's hot!” Your house-warming party will be so memorable; invite me.
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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.
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NEW YORK (AP) — A man who moved into his daughter’s dorm at Sarah Lawrence College and charmed her schoolmates has been convicted of charges that he exploited the close-knit group of friends.
The New York Times reports that Lawrence Ray was convicted Wednesday of all 15 counts, which included extortion, sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.
During his Manhattan trial, jurors heard weeks of testimony from witnesses who said Ray exploited the youngsters for a decade.
In some instances, Ray convinced his alleged victims that they had poisoned him. In exchange, he reportedly made them pay money.
Ray’s lawyers maintained he was victimized by students fabricating stories.
Ray could face up to life in prison. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for September.
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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.
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Anya Taylor-Joy Made Her Own Vodka Perfume for The Queen’s Gambit
How did Anya Taylor-Joy pull off such a stunning performance in The Queen’s Gambit? The answer, it turns out, is partly thanks to her nose. In a new interview with the New York Times, the 25-year-old actor revealed that she’s something of an amateur perfumer; each time she takes on a new role, she gets into character by developing a scent. “I really believe in the job I am doing—to give that person life,” Taylor-Joy said. “It’s important that their voice is different, the way they move is different and that they smell different. Then you’re creating a real person.”
The fragrance she developed for Beth, a glamorously tortured chess whiz with addiction issues, had a surprise ingredient that confirms Taylor-Joy is a nose. “I did rose, some patchouli, sandalwood, pink peppercorn and a few drops of vodka,” she said. “Our girl was going through it.” She sure was, and we may be too Taylor-Joy doesn’t start a fragrance line soon.
The scent that Taylor-Joy crafted for The Northman, an upcoming Robert Eggers film that also stars Nicole Kidman and Björk, is a bit easier to achieve—at least if you happen to live near a coast like the one where they filmed in Ireland. “The character I played is very connected to nature,” she continued. “One of my favorite things about shooting there was how much time I spent outside. I would swim in the Irish Sea. I burned a lot of Irish moss around the house. I smelled like that—Irish moss and sea salt.”
Thanks to Taylor-Joy’s IMDb page, we have a hunch as to what the actor will be concocting next. It isn’t too difficult to guess what the key ingredient will be when she takes on the role of Princess Peach later this year. As for Furiosa, the highly anticipated Mad Max prequel, we wouldn’t be surprised if Taylor-Joy incorporated some actual dirt.
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Meet Wet Leg, the Cheeky Indie Band Behind “Chaise Longue”
A brief audience with the breakout band making bops about growing up and growing jaded.
When Hester Chambers was in middle school, she wrote in her yearbook that she wanted to be one of two things: a tattoo artist—or in a band.
It turned out to be prescient. In late 2020, about a week before Wet Leg, the band she formed in 2019 with her friend Rhian Teasdale, signed to Domino Records, Chambers, 28, inked a water droplet filled in with a smiley face on Teasdale’s leg. They were still convinced the deal could fall through, so the tattoo was a reminder: “Whatever happens, we’ll still keep on doing this—even if Domino do come to their senses and are like, ‘Hah!’” Teasdale, 29, said recently over video chat.
The deal, however, did not fall through. Instead, over the past year—since the release of their first single, the witty, wordplay-dense “Chaise Longue,” last June—Wet Leg has become one of the most talked-about emerging bands on the planet; their forthcoming album (out Friday), one of the most anticipated. With just five singles released, they’ve sold out shows in New York, Los Angeles, and London and performed on most of the major late-night shows. The fashion industry has, notably, taken notice of Wet Leg—Saint Laurent tapped the band to perform at its pre-Oscars party. At a March concert in New York, I saw a cluster of fans in the front row wearing lobster claws, which feature prominently in the music video for “Wet Dream,” the band’s equally sly second single.
Wet Leg, the album, opens with “Being in Love,” a standout that sets the tone for the record. “The world is caving in and I’m kind of struggling,” Teasdale sings over a fuzzed-out guitar, “but I kind of like it ’cause it feels like being in love.” They’ve said they wanted their songs to be fun and funny (“Chaise Longue” features a “Mean Girls” reference and the lyric “on the chaise longue” repeated an incalculable number of times), but the music is also shot through with a strand of disillusionment—a dissatisfaction with the way things are, be it a toxic romance or the simple desire to go home from a party. “I see a past version of myself in the lyrics,” Teasdale said. “It’s like a snapshot in time.”
Wet Leg seemed to emerge fully formed last summer, thanks to their acerbic lyrics and cohesive cottagecore-meets-punk visual aesthetic. Teasdale and Chambers both grew up on the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England (population: 142,296), and studied music at the university there. They each worked on solo music projects after graduating, but by the time they joined up to start Wet Leg, they’d largely abandoned their aspirations of making it as touring musicians. Teasdale had found a new calling as a wardrobe assistant for commercials and music videos; Chambers was working at her family’s jewelry business. Wet Leg was supposed to be a side project, just for fun. “It’s kind of funny,” Teasdale said, “as soon as we stopped trying to make anything out of [our] music, we got really busy with it.”
They began writing “Chaise Longue” in December 2019, just a couple of months before everything shut down. Then, during the height of the pandemic, they found a manager, signed their record contract, and wrote and recorded their album. The lockdowns continued, and Chambers and Teasdale wanted to work on something productive, so they decided to direct, shoot, and edit the music video for “Chaise Longue” themselves. But as the band has taken off, and its members have gotten busier, they’ve ceded some creative control; they directed “Wet Dream” with the help of a small production team, and the most recent video, for “Ur Mum,” was directed by their friend, the musician and artist Lava La Rue. La Rue, 23, attributed part of the specificity of their sound and look to their origins on the Isle of Wight: “There’s something very special that they spent a lot of time on this island,” they said. “That brings a refreshing kind of perspective on their music and their taste.”
Blowing up has presented opportunities; in the fall, Wet Leg will open for Florence and the Machine during a handful of arena shows. But keeping in touch with friends and family back home while they’re on the road has been tough, Teasdale said. So has finding new, trusted collaborators to take over some of the things they’re accustomed to doing themselves.
“It’s a bit of a circus, isn’t it?” she went on. “When we started the band, we didn’t think about interviews and photoshoots and everything that goes along with it. That’s been…” Chambers cut in: “That’s been tough. But one of the best things is that although there’s lots of huge scary stuff, we are not alone. I have Rhi, and we have the band. It’s good support.” Teasdale agreed. “It’s really, really key in keeping it fun.”
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| 2022-04-06T20:36:54Z
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Elle Fanning's Simple Suit is a Lesson in Coded Luxury
While The Girl From Plainville turned Elle Fanning into a Glee-loving, Ann Taylor Loft-wearing murderess, in reality, the actress loves nothing more than a simple, chic silhouette. Over the past few months, with help from her stylist, Samantha McMillen, Fanning has given us a number of enviable, streamlined looks, and her latest outfit seems to be the pinnacle of this turn toward coded luxury.
On Tuesday, Fanning shared a photo on Instagram in a blue suit, a beautifully tailored piece with a subtly cinched waist, and a slight flair of the pant, mimicked in the sleeves. The lapel-less suit, paired with a blue button own shirt underneath, is from The Row spring 2022 ready-to-wear collection, making for the perfect understated aesthetic.
Though there are no logos splashed across the jacket, or shiny details to catch the eye, it’s clear from the fit of this piece that it’s luxurious. While quiet luxury brands like The Row and Brunello Cucinelli are very big among the non-celebrity elite, those in front of the camera usually gravitate toward flashier looks. But Fanning and McMillen have proven quite a few times that they aren’t afraid of subtle glamour, and this has continuously paid off. That’s not to say Fanning doesn’t love a Gucci moment, or a glittering dress for a red carpet, but their ability to balance the two aesthetics makes them one of the most dynamic actress/stylist duos in Hollywood right now.
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| 2022-04-06T20:37:01Z
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Kim Kardashian Takes on Genderless Fashion
Kim Kardashian’s latest Instagram look is made up of two look from emerging queer-designed brands largely unconcerned with the typical gender binary. The 41-year-old mogul shared a series of photos of herself wearing an ensemble that was, at first glance, very Kim: an asymmetrical crocodile-printed corset and jeans that were so distressed, the corset-stitched seams that reached all the way down to her toes were held together by a visible number of threads. Typically femme as the ensemble may have appeared, it in fact came courtesy of two genderless labels: No Sesso and Ludovic de Saint Sernin.
The Paris-based designer behind the latter, who sent the pants down the runway on a man, sums up his namesake label as “for guys and girls, with many pieces designed without one gender in mind.” Pierre Davis, Autumn Randolph, and Arin Hayes take a similar approach with No Sesso—hence why they literally named their label after the Italian phrase for “no gender/no sex.” The corset, which they describe as “crocodile armor,” comes courtesy of their Ghetto Gold couture collection, which made up a part of Jeffrey Deitch’s “Shattered Glass” exhibition at last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach. (Davis, who studied fashion at the Art Institute of Seattle, started off showing her designs art galleries; she went on to become the first openly trans woman to show on the official New York Fashion Week calendar in 2019.)
Kardashian didn’t make any mention of either label, nor her foray into genderless fashion, in her post. “Talk less and say more,” Kardashian captioned her Instagram, which most definitely got her followers talking. “Love this,” Serena Williams wrote, jumping into a comments section filled with fire emojis. Her daughter North West isn’t on the app, but we expect her reaction to the look would be delight at the fact that, for once, her mom wasn’t wearing any black.
Say what you will about Kardashian’s lack of coverage, but her Y2K-inspired ensemble was less revealing than the one de Saint Sernin sent down his spring 2022 runway. It was hardly the collection’s only revealing look: The designer eschewed sewing entirely, instead braiding, knotting, and lacing each piece by hand.
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Simone Ashley Proves Purple is Most Definitely Her Color
Here is a formal request to Simone Ashley’s stylist, Rebecca Corbin-Murray: never put this woman in anything but purple. Yes, the actress looks gorgeous in all colors, but there’s just something about purple on her that pops unlike anything else. Clearly, Shonda Rhimes agreed, as Ashley wore numerous dresses in the hue throughout the second season of Bridgerton. And since her turn as Miss Kate Sharma premiered on Netflix, Ashley has been around town, promoting the show in many chic looks, but her latest purple ensemble absolutely takes the cake.
On Tuesday, Corbin-Murray shared a group of photos of her client in a three-piece set from the Lanvin spring/summer 2022 ready-to-wear collection, specifically the brand’s collab with DC Comics. The look consists of a nappa leather mini skirt with a high slit and a matching oversized blazer. It’s not just the bright color of the set that adds a pop to this outfit, but the printed cartoon Catwoman on the back of the jacket. This imagery is also picked up in the graphic crop top Ashley wore underneath.
If the image on the blazer looks familiar to you, it’s because we just saw it on Julia Fox last month when she wore a dress from the same collection to The Batman premiere. While Fox put her own spin on the design, pairing the dress with a latex bodysuit to amp up the dominatrix vibe, Ashley and Corbin-Murray stayed pretty true to the styling from Bruno Sialelli’s show, pairing the set with impossibly-high purple platform heels. They did, however, decide to ditch the accessories—a beaded choker and little teal bag—to really let the look, and its gorgeous color, speak for itself.
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It sounds pretty great already? But if this game actually gets in front me I might bubble and never recover ? but still this has so much charm, hope u enjoy my friends, this video will go onto one of mine more serious game collect and game talk review episodes very shortly, see you back on it then. Just like my title on video, the idea I have this whole season going was a plan way earlier as of last 7th month... Now a 8 and few m MUSKEGON, Mich. — Muskegon Community College has narrowed down three people to replace their former president.
Names and details about the three candidates can be found below:
According to MCC Gold Hill Associates was hired to conduct the search and yielded 49 candidates. MCC in tandem with Gold Hill Associates narrowed the 49 candidates to 21, then from 21 to 8, and finally 8 to 3.
“This is one of the most diverse pools of presidential candidates that I have ever seen,” said Dr. Preston Pulliams, the Gold Hill Associates president.
From April 13 to April 19, 2022, each of the three candidates will be on campus for a full day of interviews, tours, and meetings. Additionally, the finalists will meet with students, staff, faculty, board members, and college leadership with an open public presentation at 5 p.m. in the Stevenson Center room 1300.
A final decision is for the position is expected in May.
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| 2022-04-06T20:43:27Z
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\\title{\nAn Extension of Einhorn Equally Doped MagNet Method in Matter Space, Dimer Coal Space. {\\color {cyanhue} This is preproof \\pdfminht:0, this draft has had layout for the journal.}\\\\ \\let\\sout\n\n\\page{\\headingfont % {\\rm {\\fontsize{120}{19.0}}}%\n\\let(\\bylength=1)\\normaldpth DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan Supreme Court is being urged to strike down a law that forces people convicted of crimes to pay millions of dollars for the everyday costs of running local courts.
The justices heard arguments Wednesday.
The challenge comes at a key time: The law expires in October, and any decision from the Supreme Court will affect how the Legislature responds.
Critics say it’s unconstitutional for a judge to oversee a criminal case and also have the power to order someone to pay to keep the lights on and the building clean.
From 2018 through 2020, courts collected $108 million statewide, and 75% of that was collected in District Courts.
Those courts handle traffic tickets, drunken driving cases and other misdemeanors.
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| 2022-04-06T20:43:33Z
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'Lifeless' bodies dumped out side Katsina town as terror sweep the Niger north, thousands are traveled and running for the security. More attacks were registered against security forces over Christmas e\nby BOLD WIBA PUBLIC LECTIONAL DEMOCRATHES NOW-AFRO SLAMOCACY\nInnocent and old were reported by Islamo terror swepping and taking peopkles into fear-state after attacks GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The NAACP Grand Rapids branch is calling for transparency from law enforcement following Monday’s deadly officer-involved shooting in Grand Rapids.
The man killed has since been identified as Patrick Lyoya.
RELATED: Man shot, killed by officer during traffic stop in Grand Rapids
Investigators say the officer pulled the 26-year-old over near Griggs and Nelson for a license plate issue.
Lyoya reportedly got out of the car and tried to run.
Police say there was a “lengthy struggle” before the officer shot and killed Lyoya.
The officer was wearing a body camera, but it fell off during the struggle. Police say the footage was able to be recovered and is being reviewed.
MORE: Man identified in Grand Rapids officer-involved shooting
Michigan State Police is handling the investigation.
In a statement Wednesday, the NAACP Grand Rapids Branch president Cle Jackson called for full transparency and cooperation from law enforcement, saying footage of the incident should be released immediately.
Here’s the full statement:
The NAACP Greater Grand Rapids Branch President, officers and executive committee members are demanding full transparency and cooperation from the Grand Rapids Police Department, as well as any other law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation of the deadly shooting of Patrick Lyoya on April 4, 2022.
The public deserves to have the footage released immediately.
The Michigan State Police is the independent investigative agency investigating the incident. Although Chief Eric Winstrom indicates he has no jurisdiction to force the Michigan State Police to release the body camera footage, we have independently confirmed through our partners at the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, that Chief Winstrom and the Grand Rapids Police Department have full jurisdiction and discretion of when to release the body camera footage and they are not obligated to wait until the investigation is completed by the Michigan State Police.
Again, we are demanding the immediate release of any body camera footage or other video surveillance tools used in this incident.
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| 2022-04-06T20:43:39Z
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MICHIGAN — Meijer announced they are ready to provide the second round of COVID-19 booster shots to eligible patients 50 and over alongside those with specific immunocompromising positions.
People interested in scheduling an appointment can do so via texting COVID-19 to 75049 or by visiting clinic.meijer.com.
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| 2022-04-06T20:43:45Z
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PARK TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Troopers in St. Joseph County are searching for a sasquatch.
Michigan State Police say they are investigating after someone stole a 7-foot-tall sasquatch lawn ornament in Park Township.
The sasquatch was stolen from West End Road, near Heimbach Road, on or after March 22.
According to troopers, the lawn ornament is made of sheet metal material, is a rusty brown color, and includes various sharp edges to detail the fur of the sasquatch.
MSP says someone cut the sasquatch lawn ornament away from a steel post with a pair of bolt cutters.
According to state police, a white panel van with dark driver and passenger side windows was seen parked in the area on March 22. The van was also seen turning around in the victim’s driveway before leaving the scene.
Anyone with information about the stolen sasquatch lawn ornament is asked to call the Michigan State Police Marshall Post at (269) 558-0500.
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| 2022-04-06T20:43:57Z
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Formula E, the world's top electric vehicle racing series, returns to the track this weekend with a pair of races in Rome.
The global series is slowly gaining a foothold in the U.S., which hosted a race in nearly every season since Formula E's inception.
This year, the series added its first American-born driver: Oliver Askew. The Florida native came up racing karts as an eight-year-old before switching to cars in his late teens.
"When I first got into the karting, it was more of a father-son hobby," Askew said. "It wasn't until I was 14 or 15 years old that I began to realize I'm getting old quickly, and growing up quickly, and I need to decide what's more important, the schooling or pursuing motorsports."
Askew, now 25, left high school to pursue a career in racing, a move he called a "leap of faith."
It's led to plenty of success.
He won the 2019 Indy Lights series, one of the top development series for race car drivers, which paved the way for his IndyCar debut in 2020.
His move to Formula E this year marks the first time he is racing electric vehicles professionally.
"I just feel like this car suits me and suits my driving style," Askew said. "I'm not saying one is better than the other, or I enjoy one over the other. It's just a different approach and a different fulfillment."
Changing attitudes toward electric vehicles
Formula E's arrival represents a broader shift in attitude toward electric vehicles.
"This technology needed to be pushed and needed to be advanced," said Julia Palle, the sustainability director of Formula E. "The technology around electrification was really the focus."
The competition within Formula E helped spur electric vehicle development over the past decade.
Race day vehicles, which had a top speed of 140 miles per hour from 2014 to 2018, will have a top speed of 200 miles per hour beginning in 2023.
Palle said the gap between consumer electric vehicles and Formula E vehicles is smaller than in other racing series, enabling manufacturers to apply lessons from the race track to the production line.
"Jaguar, from the couple of seasons they were involved, used some of their learnings to develop the I-PACE," Palle said. "That's a car that you and I, if we want to, can go buy tomorrow."
Formula E is also unique for its focus on sustainability, a word which is written into the racing series' mission statement.
Research shows the race cars' carbon footprint accounts for less than one percent of pollution associated with Formula E.
Palle said Formula E leadership is focused on improving sustainability for three main car components.
- Tires. Formula E cars use one tire under all conditions. They are made from recycled material and designed to be recycled when they've outlived their usefulness.
- Batteries. Palle said Formula E partnered with Belgium-based Umicore on a battery recycling program. Over ninety percent of metals, and over sixty percent of lithium, is recovered from every battery.
- Chassis. The carbon fiber from the chassis is recycled using technology once used to recycle rockets and planes. A collection box is available at each race for teams to recycle their broken parts. "It's popular," Palle noted, "especially when there are crashes during tests and races."
A long road ahead
Formula E could get some competition in the near future.
In mid-March, NASCAR's chief operating officer, Steve O'Donnell, said the American stock car racing series is "exploring some opportunities around an exhibition series in" the electric vehicle space, citing interest from manufacturers like Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota.
"It's important for us to explore that space," O'Donnell said. "I think there's a lot of interest from our current partners to be part of that."
"As I understand it, the primary mover is the noise," said Sridhar Lakshmanan, an associate professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a leading voice in the world of vehicle innovation. "They felt that electric vehicle racing would allow them to move racing into the heart of population centers, closer to where people live."
Lakshmanan said one of the biggest challenges in any electric vehicle racing series is making up the power gap with internal combustion counterparts.
The current land-speed record for an electric vehicle is 353 miles per hour, set by Team Vesco Racing in November 2021.
The scorching speed is not quite as fast as the world record speed for an internal combustion engine: 448.7 miles per hour, set by Danny Campbell in 2019.
"The biggest problem they face today is speed," Lakshmanan said. "There are ways to torque motors that can potentially reach those speeds, provided you have batteries with reasonable size that can drive those motors. But that's where the rub is."
Lakshmanan, like Palle, believes competition can spur development in the electric vehicle space, particularly for batteries, but also in the areas of braking, speed, safety and life-cycle cost.
"As people push the boundaries of how fast they can go, how much charge they can store, and how light they are," Lakshmanan said, "performance is going to drive electric vehicles, in some ways, parallel to how performance vehicles drove internal combustion engines."
Fueling development
Racing and automotive innovation have gone hand in hand since the turn of the 20th century, when a young Henry Ford won a "Sweepstakes" race to help fund his fledgling vehicle venture.
Ford's two-cylinder engine traveled at the blistering top speed of seventy-two miles per hour.
"A nobody, some guy from Michigan, manages to pull out a victory in the race," said Matt Anderson, curator at The Henry Ford, an automotive museum in suburban Detroit. "It sets him on the way to ultimately founding the Ford Motor Company in 1903."
A few years later, the first Indianapolis 500 would be the site of another major innovation: The rearview mirror.
Ray Harroun attached rearview mirrors to his car. It's believed to be the first rearview mirror ever used. Harroun's competitors "had the driver, and then had a riding mechanic," Anderson said. "That person would be responsible for operating the car, but also as a pair of eyes in the back of the driver's head to look for other cars coming up behind them."
Harroun won the race.
His rivals were so angry that they put rules in place requiring the use of a riding mechanic.
To Anderson, it's one of many anecdotes that embody the competitive spirit of auto racing.
"You're not going to win a race unless you're willing to explore new ideas and try new things in order to innovate," Anderson said. "There's a strict rule book, but people are always testing the limits of those rules, and seeing how far they can push something."
He believes electric vehicle racing is a natural evolution of the sport.
"We're going to see things like lighter batteries, more efficient motors," Anderson said. "One way or another, electric racing is going to become a thing. It's just going to be necessary. The technology in our production cars is going to move toward electricity, and you can't have a racing series that appears to be behind the times of the cars we're driving out on the street."
Need for speed
Askew, the 25-year-old driver seeking his first Formula E victory in Rome, said the acceleration of a Formula E car would "completely blow people away."
"It does have a lot of low-end torque, and it's very suitable for the street tracks that we go to," Askew said.
For him, the future of Formula E is mostly background noise. His focus is on winning races.
Often, that means thinking less.
"I'm at my best in the car when I'm not thinking at all," Askew said. "When I'm in the zone, as a lot of sports figures call it, and letting my natural body and my instincts take over. My success comes from being in that place."
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| 2022-04-06T20:44:03Z
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The mayor of the besieged port city of Mariupol has put the number of civilians killed there at more than 5,000.
Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to gather evidence of Russian atrocities and braces for what could become a climactic battle for control of the country's industrial east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “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.”
The people of Donbas were ordered to evacuate immediately to avoid an impending Russian attack.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, “Later, people will come under fire.” Vereshchuk said, “and we won’t be able to do anything to help them.”
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| 2022-04-06T20:44:15Z
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Ford (F) is a well-known manufacturer of cars and trucks in the United States. I am bullish on the stock.
Back in March of 2020, when Ford stock was trading at around $4 per share, it felt like the automotive market was about to collapse. Some people weren’t even leaving their houses, not to mention buying brand-new vehicles.
Of course, the Ford share price is significantly higher today than it was at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. If there’s any lesson to be learned here, it’s that contrarian investors should lean into negative sentiment, not run away from it.
Now, two years after Ford stock bottomed out near $4, the sentiment on Wall Street is starting to turn negative again. At times like these, it might feel scary, but it’s a test of whether investors have the internal strength to apply the old principle of “buy low and sell higher.”
So, is Ford stock a buy during these turbulent times?
Ford Stock: Breaking Down the Numbers
Both value seekers and income-focused investors alike should appreciate where Ford stock is right now. After topping out at $25.87 in January – which, admittedly, was too pricey at that time – the stock recently pulled back to a much more reasonable $15 and change.
Sure, some traders might fantasize about getting another chance to buy Ford stock at $4. However, investors should be sensible about their expectations; work with the data that’s there, not the data you wish were there.
Is Ford stock at ~$15 reasonably priced? We can let the numbers guide us here. Currently, Ford’s trailing 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is 3.5. That’s extremely low and suggests that Ford’s share price is quite reasonable given the company’s earnings.
Therefore, value hunters should thank their lucky stars for the recent pullback and jump at the chance to buy Ford stock at the current price point.
As for income-focused investors, they’ll be glad to know that Ford pays a forward annual dividend yield of 2.4%. That’s a nice bonus for folks who are prepared to hold Ford stock for the long term.
The Bumpy Road to Recovery
There’s always an excuse not to buy great stocks at low prices. Indeed, some folks are undoubtedly talking themselves out of buying Ford stock now due to the ongoing global microchip shortage.
No one can deny that the chip shortage has caused problems for the automotive industry in general. It’s awfully difficult to meet production schedules when the tech parts just aren’t available.
Turning to Edmunds Executive Director of Insights Jessica Caldwell for insight into this situation, we can feel the disappointment in the air.
“We thought at this point, there would be signs that we would be kind of on that road to recovery, that the second half of 2022 would look a lot better, and it’s starting to feel like that road to recovery is getting pushed back further and further,” Caldwell mused in a recent interview.
Clearly, there’s just no avoiding the chip shortage issue. Even Ford spokesperson Kelli Felker had to admit that there’s a problem, acknowledging, “The global semiconductor shortage continues to affect Ford’s North American plants — along with automakers and other industries around the world.”
Felker made that statement just as Ford announced the hopefully temporary shutdown of its Flat Rock Assembly Plant near Detroit due to the semiconductor shortage.
Embrace the Fear
Great, so now you have a perfect excuse to avoid an investment in Ford stock if you were looking for such an excuse. You can point to the strained supply chains and the Ford assembly plant shutdown and feel good about staying on the sidelines.
However, you could have found equally valid-sounding excuses back in March of 2020, when it felt like the world was collapsing. After all, what better reason is there is to stay out of the stock market than the first global pandemic in a half-century?
Even if you had purchased Ford stock at $6 and then it fell to $4 a couple of years ago, you would still have booked multi-bagger gains simply by holding your shares. At first, though, you would have had to sustain a painful 50% drawdown.
That’s the game contrarian investors play; you’re not trying to time the bottom exactly. That shouldn’t even be a goal. Remember, it’s “time in the markets,” not “timing the markets.”
Wall Street’s Take
Turning to Wall Street, F stock is a Moderate Buy based on seven Buy, six Hold, and two Sell ratings. The average Ford price target is $21.79, implying 42.9% upside potential.
The Takeaway
Do you really believe that the microchip shortage will last forever and that Ford will never get back into full production? If so, then you’re probably letting fear get the best of you.
Instead, you can lean into the fear and place a reasonably safe bet on America’s oldest and most established automaker. Ford stock is trading at a very low valuation multiple, and the company pays a nice dividend, too, so now is a great time to consider a long position.
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
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International Game Technology PLC (IGT) is a global entertainment platform operator offering lottery, gaming, and betting services through specific technologies available in over 100 regulated markets worldwide. While IGT shares are down more than 20% so far this year, given the likelihood of a strong comeback, investors shouldn’t lose confidence in the asset.
Thus, I am bullish on this stock.
Reasons for the Recent General Downward Trend in the Gambling Industry
Energy stocks’ frenzy to take advantage of the surge in oil and gas prices caused by sanctions against Russia hasn’t spared gaming company stocks this year either.
While the industry is down substantially this year, that loss could easily be recouped, as several companies stand poised to lead the recovery once current headwinds ease.
Among the names, International Game Technology PLC will most likely benefit from the bright future of the gambling industry.
Q4 and Full-Year 2021 Results
In the final quarter of 2021, International Game Technology’s GAAP earnings per share and revenue improved compared to the same quarter of 2020.
On a GAAP basis, earnings for the most recent quarter of 2021 were $0.09 per diluted share on total revenue of $1.05 billion versus a net loss of $1.18 per diluted share on total revenue of $885 million for the corresponding quarter of 2020.
GAAP earnings per share missed analysts’ average forecast by $0.26, while revenue exceeded analysts’ average forecast by $31.6 million.
For full-year 2021, revenue, earnings, and cash flow all performed well, the company’s best in the past four years, driven by positive momentum in each business area, including lottery, gaming, and gambling.
According to Vince Sadusky, IGT’s chief executive officer, these items met or exceeded the company’s growth goals.
Revenue grew 31% from $3.1 billion in 2020 to $4.1 billion in 2021.
Global lottery revenue (about 68.3% of total revenue) increased 27.3% year-on-year. Global Gaming’s revenue (roughly 26.8% of total revenue) grew 33% year-over-year. Digital and betting revenue (about 4% of total revenue) grew 44% year-over-year.
Operating income and net income for 2021 were $972 million and $670 million, respectively, compared to a net operating loss of $107 million and a net loss of $839 million in 2020.
The company saw a significant 68.1% increase in operating cash flow to $1 billion, which allowed it to generate a record free cash flow of $771 million, more than double the prior-year level.
IGT’s Financial Position
The strong cash flow generation was coupled with the proceeds (€825 million) from the sale of the Italian B2C gaming and sports betting business. Those two things resulted in a lower net debt of $5.9 billion (down from $7.3 billion at the end of 2020) and a few other wins.
These consist of a lower net debt leverage ratio of 3.5 times (vs. 6.4 times at the end of 2020) and the reintroduction of the quarterly dividend and share buyback program.
While there is still work to be done, as shown by an Altman Z-Score of 0.82 warning of tight spots, these are important signs of improving financial health. For beginners, the Altman Z-Score predicts the probability that a company will go bankrupt within a few years. A value less than or equal to 1.8 indicates distressed zones, so the probability of business failure is high.
However, based on the company’s 12-month outlook and industry growth projections, shareholders can look forward to a stronger balance sheet.
The share price could potentially rally sharply to higher levels as the company pursues its growth plans, while continued strong momentum in the gaming space will create a supportive environment.
Industry and Company Outlook
For the full year 2022, the company forecasts sales of approximately $4.2 billion, while cash flow from operations is expected to be anywhere from $850 million to $1 billion.
According to ResearchAndMarkets.com forecasts reported by PRNewswire on February 24, 2022, the online gambling market, valued at $72.3 billion worldwide in 2021, is expected to grow at nearly 10% annually and in five years to exceed $130 billion.
The main driving factors of market growth are as follows:
• Rapid urbanization coupled with the increasing global adoption of the internet and portable devices, including smartphones, to access online gaming.
• The introduction of legislation and ad hoc technology to encourage transparency and improve the consumer experience should also support growth.
• Sponsorships with prestigious football and racing clubs, as these are expected to continue to attract new users.
• In addition, expected higher consumer spending power and the emergence of bitcoin gambling are expected to boost the market.
IGT’s Growth Strategy
For the near future, International Game Technology PLC aims to grow by entering into or extending agreements with relevant or national gaming operators worldwide.
The most recent long-term agreements worth mentioning are the one signed on March 21 with Singapore Pools Limited, provider of Southeast Asia’s first computer-based lottery, and another signed on March 7 with La Lotería Nacional, Mexico’s national lottery.
Wall Street’s Take
In the past three months, six Wall Street analysts have issued a 12-month price target for IGT. The company has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on five Buys, one Hold, and no Sell ratings.
The average International Game Technology price target is $41.17, implying a 83.1% upside potential.
Valuation and Dividend
Shares are changing hands at $22.5 for a market cap of $4.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 9.7, and a 52-week range of $15.15 to $32.95.
The stock offers a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per common share with the last payment on March 29, which generates a dividend yield of about 3.6%.
Quarterly dividend payments resumed in the final quarter of 2021. In 2020, it was suspended to provide more financial support to the balance sheet during the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusion
Shares have disappointed so far, but not on issues related to the company, which boasts strong profitability while the balance sheet is on its way to getting stronger.
Online gambling activity is experiencing a positive momentum that is expected to continue for years to come.
Once the current headwinds from the Ukraine crisis pass, this stock could make a strong comeback.
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| 2022-04-06T20:44:47Z
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In the weeks since Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon first revealed plans for Terra blockchain to accumulate $10 billion worth of Bitcoin to back its UST stablecoin, the strategy has put the network squarely in the spotlight.
With the ambitious plans already being executed, the blockchain’s native LUNA token has climbed the rankings to reach the 6th most valuable cryptocurrency by market capitalization.
Now at over $30 billion and counting of total value locked (TVL) within decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols atop the Terra blockchain, Terraform Labs has teamed up with LongHash Ventures to encourage ecosystem development and advance related Web3 projects through LongHash’s accelerator program.
As the second-largest DeFi ecosystem behind Ethereum, Terra’s decision to enlist the LongHashX Accelerator comes when it is trying to drive Web3 innovation and adoption to become the preferred destination for decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.
This new LongHashX Accelerator Terra cohort marks the first time an accelerator program has been open to startups and founders constructing within the Terra ecosystem. Applications are now being accepted for the June 2022 accelerator class, and 10 projects will be selected to join the 12-week program.
During this program, selected projects will be eligible to receive up to $500,000 in funding alongside the opportunity to engage with Web3 thought leaders, investors, and founders. The program will focus on six main areas of project development, including community building, fundraising, governance, product strategy and design, tech mentorship, and tokenomics.
Since 2021, when it opened its first fund, LongHash Ventures has built a reputation for partnering with blockchain ecosystems and supporting Web3 protocols through investment, mentoring, and support for teams. Already, it has partnered with Polkadot and Filecoin to achieve similar aims.
According to LongHash Ventures Founding Partner Emma Cui, “We have been very impressed by the protocols and development of the Terra ecosystem, and we are very excited to continue to expand our accelerator partnership model with one of the world’s leading Web3 ecosystems. The collaboration gives us an opportunity to accelerate and invest in the next generation of projects building on Terra.”
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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
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https://www.tipranks.com/news/article/longhashx-accelerator-opens-to-web3-projects/
| 2022-04-06T20:44:50Z
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FORT DRUM, N.Y. (WWTI) — Fort Drum officials have provided details regarding an aircraft crash on April 6.
According to Fort Drum Public Affairs, at approximately 9:38 a.m. on Wednesday, April 6, an RQ-7 Shadow Unmanned Aerial System crashed on the Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield shortly after takeoff.
This aircraft was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division’s 10th Combat Aviation Brigade.
Fort Drum Emergency Services stationed on the airfield rapidly responded to the crash site and extinguished the smaller aircraft that was in flames.
Although the Aircraft was determined a total loss, the RQ-7 Shadow does not carry weapons, there were no fatalities, injuries or damage to facilities as a result of the incident.
10th Mountain Divison Combat Aviation Brigade Commander Colonel Travis McIntosh commented on the crash in the statement below:
The response to this incident was fast, expert and most importantly – safe. I am incredibly grateful to all working on, and behind, the scene to minimize the impact of this incident on our mission and to understand what went wrong on this flight.
Colonel Travis McIntosh, Commander, 10th Combat Aviation Brigade, 10th Mountain Division
The Fort Drum Environmental Compliance team responded to the crash site, completed the required testing, and facilitated the removal of petroleum-contaminated soil for remediation.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation.
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| 2022-04-06T20:50:19Z
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was already moving at an accelerated pace when they scheduled an Oscars postmortem meeting for April 18, ahead of their usual schedule. But seemingly recognizing even more urgency in dealing with sanctions for Will Smith following his violent Oscar night outburst, they’ve moved the meeting up even earlier, to April 8, according to a letter obtained by Variety.
The meeting is explicitly “to address possible sanctions for Will Smith in response to his actions during the Oscars broadcast on March 27,” according to the letter signed by Academy president David Rubin. “Following Mr. Smith’s resignation of his Academy membership on Friday, April 1, suspension or expulsion are no longer a possibility, and the legally prescribed timetable no longer applies. It is in the best interest of all involved for this to be handled in a timely fashion.”
Smith made the surprise announcement last Friday that he would resign from the Academy, adding that he “will accept any further consequences the Board deems appropriate.” Before Smith walked away voluntarily, it seemed likely that a suspension from the Academy would happen, if not outright expulsion; only five people have previously been expelled from the Academy, among them Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein. But, as Rubin alludes to in his letter, the Academy will have to think more creatively if they still want to add additional sanctions—like potentially making his upcoming projects ineligible for Oscar consideration, or banning him from future Oscar ceremonies. There’s no precedent for anything like that, but there’s no precedent for slapping someone at the Oscars either.
The meeting will take place Friday morning at 9 a.m. P.T. among the Academy Board of Governors, which includes Laura Dern, Whoopi Goldberg, Ava DuVernay, and Steven Spielberg among its members.
— For Better or Worse, With One Slap, Will Smith Electrified the Oscars
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— Mark Seliger’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party Portraits
— CODA’s Triumph Revealed What It Takes to Win Best Picture Now—And Why Netflix Lost (Again)
— Oscars 2022: What You Didn’t See on TV
— Sign up for the “Awards Insider” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage.
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:22Z
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Margaret Whigham was a sensation to British society when she arrived from America as a teenager in the 1920s. The daughter of a textile millionaire, she dazzled with her beauty (green eyes, fair skin, red lipstick), devil-may-care social strategy (she double-booked men for the evening), and nouveau riche accoutrement (she was chauffeured to and from school in a Rolls-Royce, skied at St. Moritz, and wore gowns from Norman Hartnell). Her romances were legend. After a teen dalliance with actor David Niven, she dated Pakistani diplomat Aly Khan, millionaire aviator Glen Kidston, publishing heir Max Aitken, and Prince George, Duke of Kent, before settling down for the first of two marriages. And her exploits—as debutante of the year in 1930 and prolific high-society partygoer—earned her international press coverage and a reference in Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top.”
“She was the most photographed woman of her time, of her generation,” says Sarah Phelps, the writer who adapted Margaret’s story for A Very British Scandal, the miniseries coming to the U.S. April 22. “It was like Princess Diana, Kim Kardashian—this globally famous beauty.”
But by the early 1960s, Margaret’s fortunes had reversed on an epic scale. In 1943, she suffered a catastrophic fall that left her with 30 stitches and a broken vertebra, temporarily unable to walk. After ending a first marriage that yielded a son and daughter, she went on a dating streak that ended with a marriage to Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll—securing her family’s formal entry to aristocracy, and access to Inveraray, a proper castle in Scotland.
But Ian Campbell would also be her doom. Margaret would realize her new husband, who was said to be a gambling and alcohol addict, was broke. “He spent the entire war pretty much in a prisoner of war camp, a death camp. He was a bad man before he went in,” says Phelps. “He was a fucking shocker when he came out.”
When A Very British Scandal premieres—with Claire Foy playing the fabulous socialite, and Paul Bettany playing Ian Campbell—it will likely be the first time that modern American audiences learn of the ill-fated socialite. Margaret’s marriage to Ian, and the nasty, heavily publicized breakup that followed—the longest and costliest divorce proceeding in British history at the time—dominate the show’s three episodes. The marriage’s meltdown was such a scorched-earth operation that Phelps says it could have easily carried an entire season of American Crime Story.
With Ian broke and unpredictable, her focus shifted to restoring her husband’s decrepit castle, likely believing it to be an investment in their future. She later discovered that her husband had led her to believe she had legal claim to the property, in reality it would be passed down to Ian’s sons from a prior marriage. According to The Grit in the Pearl, Ian and Margaret’s marriage spiraled into mutual infidelities. Ian had referred to Margaret as Satan. Margaret, meanwhile, allegedly attempted to forge letters claiming that Ian’s sons were illegitimate to discredit their rights of succession and likely so she’d be entitled to Inveraray.
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:28Z
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“When I used to get blue years ago, James Baldwin would say the same thing to me each time: ‘This is the world you have made for yourself, Nina, now you have to live in it,’” the trailblazing musician and civil rights activist Nina Simone muses in the opening lines of her 1992 autobiography, I Put a Spell on You.
Throughout this slight, remarkably placid autobiography (co-written with Stephen Cleary), one sometimes wonders—almost with relief—whether these words are actually the voice of Nina Simone. Could this possibly be the same tortured musical prodigy whose mental illness and irrational actions are brutally and heartbreakingly documented in Alan Light’s 2016 biography What Happened, Miss Simone?—a book inspired by the harrowing 2015 documentary of the same name?
But then, like flashes of lightning, Simone reveals her aching loneliness—her insecurities, her rage, her passion, and her inability to explain her oftentimes hurtful actions. A classically trained pianist who begrudgingly became “the high priestess of soul,” Simone knew people thought she was strange. Still, she found a way to connect and inspire through her extraordinary gifts, leaving behind a body of work which reveals unflinching, universal truths.
“When a person moves to their own kind of clock, spirit, flow, you’re always in congress with yourself. The challenge is, how does the congress around you accept you?” her friend Attallah Shabazz asked Light. “How does royalty stomp around in the mud and still walk with grace? Most people are afraid to be as honest as she lived.”
Carolina Girl
Nina Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933, in the small resort town of Tryon, North Carolina. Her mother, Mary Kate, was a pious and renowned preacher, while her jaunty father, John Divine Waymon, was an entertainer turned entrepreneur who had fallen on hard times due to the Depression.
Simone recounts her family life and the relatively integrated, bucolic Tryon in the most sentimental, emotional, and clear-headed portion of I Put a Spell on You. As Simone recalls, her parents and siblings were considered “exceptional” in both the Black and white communities. Little Eunice became the Waymons’ brightest star at two and a half, when she taught herself to play the family organ. “Momma came into the living room and heard me playing one of her favorite hymns, ’God Be with You Till We Meet Again’ in the key of F. She was so surprised she almost died on the spot,” Simone writes.
Simone shared a special bond with John Divine.One gets the sense her entire life was spent trying to recapture the security she felt with her father, who made her laugh and loved to watch her perform. “Daddy’s favorite was ‘The Darktown Strutters’ Ball,’ and he’d sneak up in the day when Momma was out and get me to play it,” she writes. “He’d sit by the window or outside on the porch, and if he saw Momma coming down the road he’d whistle—the signal for me to switch to a more righteous tune.”
The Prodigy
Simone’s obvious gifts would soon become serious business. Her mother’s employer recognized Simone’s genius and paid for her to take piano lessons with Muriel Massinovitch, an affectionate, tactile woman whom Simone came to see as her “white momma.” After hours spent practicing Bach in Massinovitch’s airy, elegant studio, the two would play duets—“bright funny pieces that came as a welcome relief.”
Simone is at her most relatable describing the loneliness and isolation of a dutiful child prodigy: the punishing hours practicing, the lack of formative friendships, and the pressure of representing her race. To further her protégé’s education, “Miz Mazzy” started the Eunice Waymon Fund, and the entire community of Tryon—Black and white—chipped in. “The direction of my life was determined by their ambitions and their money, and I was promised a future I had no part in choosing,” Simone writes. This direction would include boarding school (where she was valedictorian), Julliard, and then, it was hoped, a spot at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
But the sheltered Simone occasionally, spectacularly found her own voice. In I Put a Spell on You, she recounts a solo recital for her backers at the age of eleven. She was all set to play when she saw her parents being removed from their seats so a white family could take their place. “I …stood up in my starched dress and said if anyone expected to hear me play, they’d better make sure that my family was sitting right there in the front row where I could see them, and to hell with poise and elegance,” she writes. “The day after the recital I walked around feeling as if I had been flayed and every slight, real or imagined, cut me raw. But the skin grew back again a little tougher, a little less innocent, and a little more black.”
An Education
By 1950, Simone was studying at Julliard, and admittedly feeling awkward and out of tune with the glamorous and sophisticated women of Harlem and Brooklyn. She was further alienated when she was rejected by Curtis, which she believed was because of her race (though Light notes there are differing opinions on the reason).
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:34Z
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Perhaps even more than his last many efforts, Michael Bay’s new film brings to mind a child making a toy airplane—or, just as easily, a gravity-defying toy car—go whoosh, whoosh, whoosh around the room. Ambulance (in theaters April 8) swoops and dips and runs roughshod over the laws of physics. It’s not just the titular ambulance that goes zoom. It’s Bay’s camera, too, dancing a mad, Nora Helmer tarantella through Los Angeles, oftentimes buzzing right past the action at hand and arcing up into the sky. Other times the camera seems mere inches from the actors’ faces, gazing up from an ambulance floor or a bullet-riddled sidewalk to take in the fine grain of a visage in distress.
Ambulance is a visual ordeal, but deliberately so. Bay wants us to feel the exhausted tension of his characters—two bank robbers on the run in a stolen ambulance, one EMT hostage working on a wounded cop in the back of the bus. But I think he also wants us to consider Bay himself: his signature glossy, TV-commercial style. His legacy, really.
Characters in Ambulance make reference to The Rock and Bad Boys, Bay’s earliest films and the ones that installed him as a crass, hyper populist poet of the era. But Bay is older now. He’s done some thinking, and he wants to connect that seasoned maturity—and refined filmmaking sensibility—to the verve of his (and some of our) youth.
His new film is just as frenzied as all the rest, but there are precious few leering shots of the backsides of young women, far less chauvinistic bombast and antic humor (though there is still a heap of it). The film’s politics are decidedly pro-cop—in awe of the LAPD’s near-military capabilities—but sensitive to the crooks, too. There’s even a gay supporting character who is only slightly mocked, and who gives it right back to the meatheads doing the teasing. The main female character, the aforementioned EMT, actually has talent and agency and the movie ends on her. This is not your older cousin who downloaded porn from LimeWire’s Michael Bay. This is a director of more discernment. Ambulance is, in its way, prestige Bay.
Of course, Pearl Harbor was supposed to be just that, lo those many years ago—but it came too soon, was too obviously an attempt to make a Titanic of Bay’s own. Twenty years later, Bay offers his signature flare for reappraisal. Was he a genius the whole time?
Ambulance is so fancy it’s adapted from a European film. And it’s got a genuine theater kid in it: Jake Gyllenhaal as one half of a brother duo who coerces the other, played by Yahya Abdul-Matteen (no slouch himself when it comes to prestige), into robbing a downtown Los Angeles bank. Abdul-Matteen’s Will is an unemployed Marine vet whose wife needs an expensive experimental surgery, so his motivation is at least noble. Gyllenhaal’s Danny is decidedly less saintly; I think he just wants the money. Both men are tangling with the legacy of their father, a notorious bank robber and murderer who looms large over the film despite never making an appearance. (I believe he’s dead.) Bay and screenwriter Chris Fedak are going for pathos here. On rare occasion, they achieve it.
The best parts of Ambulance—or, rather, one single, sustained part—are in the chasing, the ambulance careening around the city with police in strategic pursuit. The endless churn of the film is enveloping, the stakes ratcheting up and up to the point that Eiza Gonzalez’s crack EMT Cam performs invasive surgery, guided by doctors on video conferencing, at 60 miles per hour. But a few of the film’s quieter moments register too, small instances of care and detail that add a faint humanist texture to the film. That is certainly a new pose for this director.
It would be easy to get caught up in the majesty of Michael Bay reasserting, and perhaps reintroducing, himself and declare the film some kind of garish masterpiece, much as many of us came close to with Bay’s deliriously lurid Pain & Gain. But those generous interpretations do eventually run up against the concrete wall of Bay’s uglier fetishes and sabotaging impulses. In Ambulance, he gradually loses control of the tight design of the film’s beginning. Action sequences get more unwieldy; characters start screaming more and making worse and worse jokes; the line between cops-and-robbers fun and full-tilt propaganda is badly blurred. And, perhaps most saliently, the chase grows repetitive before stalling out just when we think some kind of mega-climax is on its way. I suppose there is only so much that can be done from within the confines of an ambulance.
Still, it is remarkable what Bay can conjure up with a mere $40 million and some practical effects. Ambulance feels much bigger than its production actually was, a reminder to studios—one hopes, at least—that maximalism needn’t cost $200 million plus however much a green screen goes for. In that way, I hope that Ambulance is a massive hit and begets more like it. Further descendants may come with smarter tweaks, cleverer, more daring riffs. And so on and so on until we are, just maybe, living once again in an action heyday less reliant on digital glare. Help us, Michael Bay. He may be, after all of that, our only hope. Or, at least, our best one.
— Even Before Will Smith, It Was a Strange and Awkward Oscars
— “A Deeply Shocking, Traumatic Event”: The Academy Forcefully Decries Will Smith
— Inside the Vanity Fair Oscar Party
— Marilyn Monroe’s Final Hours: Nuke Fears, Mob Spies, and a Secret Kennedy Visitor
— WeWork’s Adam and Rebekah Neumann: 9 Crazy Real-Life Stories
— Colin Firth and Toni Collette on the New True-Crime Series The Staircase
— Where Did All the Sex Go in Bridgerton Season Two?
— What TV’s Increase in Full-Frontal Male Nudity Really Means
— 15 Oscar-Winning Movies You Can Stream Right Now
— From the Archive: Sandra Bullock, Full of Surprises
— Sign up for the “HWD Daily” newsletter for must-read industry and awards coverage—plus a special weekly edition of “Awards Insider.”
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:40Z
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Everything was going a little too well. It was the mid-1980s, and Tony Hawk, the gangly runt of skateboarding team the Bones Brigade, had finally come into his own as a professional skater. After years of obsessive training, he had become the one to beat on the continental circuit—taking the top spot at skateboarding competitions across California, in Chicago, in Vancouver, setting records and winning thousands of dollars along the way. It got to the point where other skaters could only dream of placing second, because Hawk’s win was a foregone conclusion.
There was just one slight problem: Hawk was miserable.
“I felt like I was losing myself,” Hawk says in the newly released HBO documentary Until the Wheels Fall Off, directed by Sam Jones. It’s a period of his life that’s rarely discussed, in which the then-teenager, only a few years into his career, almost walked away from professional skateboarding for good. The revelation may come as a surprise to cursory fans of Hawk, considering the skating legend—now 53, still shredding—has gone on to become the greatest skateboarder of all time. He’s also played a crucial role in mainstreaming the sport, via video games and creating thousands of skateparks across the country.
But if he had things his way as a teenager, none of that would have happened. As Hawk tells it in the film, he’d grown bored with his “methodical and robotic” performances after becoming the youngest professional skater ever at 14. By 17, he had perfected a skating routine with an array of exciting and varying tricks. He also was so familiar with the circuit that he knew how to perform for certain judges, modulating his skating in order to surprise them. Until the Wheels Falls Off gives way to montage, showing Hawk winning competition after competition, and offering snippets of interviews with other skaters who consistently name-checked him as their toughest competition.
“I didn’t have any peers,” Hawk said, looking back at that time. It’s not a boast, but a fact. No one had managed to surpass him on a technical level. He was so successful that he was able to buy his first house at 17; a 1997 Los Angeles Times profile estimates he was making upwards of $200,000 a year. But Hawk was lonely at the top. Stacy Peralta, founder of the Bones Brigade and the Yoda-like presence in Hawk’s life, describes the young skater as being practically “catatonic.” The film backs up this claim, rustling up archival footage of a young Hawk being interviewed at a competition. He’s talking about how happy he is to be there, but he’s expressionless, dead behind the eyes. The kid who was once thrilled and scared to zoom around empty pools with the older, wilder boys had become a joyless functionary.
The higher Hawk rose, the more taunts he also had to take from other skaters. After Hawk took interest in skating as a kid, his father, Frank, founded the National Skateboard Association, which presided over numerous competitions. “Frank represented authority to Tony’s friends,” fellow skater Christian Hosoi told Sports Illustrated back in 1986. “Skaters had to listen to his dad. You can see what type of position that put Tony in.” That, coupled with the fact that Frank was a bullish, mostly unlikable presence, meant his son got accused of winning by default, as though his father had fixed the competition in his favor.
Hawk was mocked for his tricks as well, called a “clown” skater by traditionalists. “Who’s this little robot kid doing circus tricks with a skateboard?” Hawk said in a 2021 interview with the New York Times, characterizing his reputation at the time. “It was so crushing.” After a few years, all of it combined was enough to make him want to leave professional skating altogether.
Hawk eventually confided in his older brother, who took him to Peralta so he could confess that he wanted to stop competing. Peralta heard him out, then asked Hawk to talk to Rodney Mullen, a fellow skater who had quit competing, but still had love for the sport. He called up Mullen, and the two commiserated over the ways in which competing had become rote. Mullen reminded him that the competition and the form were not the same, easing him away from his perfected routine. He helped Hawk get reinvigorated once again, encouraging his sense of play and creativity.
“Detachment. Freedom. You can breathe,” Mullen says poetically in the documentary, recalling that conversation with Hawk. “We skate with our hearts.”
That was a turning point for the skater, who would go on to become a defining legend of the sport. He’s now an elder statesman of the industry, recently tapped to be a commentator—and, in a way, a skating ambassador—at the 2021 Olympics, where skateboarding made its debut as part of the competition. And despite his stumble in the ‘80s, Hawk didn’t actually retire from competition until 2003. As for skateboarding itself? He never stopped.
— Even Before Will Smith, It Was a Strange and Awkward Oscars
— “A Deeply Shocking, Traumatic Event”: The Academy Forcefully Decries Will Smith
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:46Z
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It’s been nearly a year and a half since the 2020 election. No one has produced any real evidence of the fraud Donald Trump insists plagued the process. And while the special counsel who has spent months and more than half a million taxpayer dollars on an “audit” of the results in Wisconsin has suggested Joe Biden’s victory in the state should be decertified, neither the Republican lawmaker who commissioned the election review nor the special counsel’s own attorney believes that is possible.
And yet, Michael Gableman’s absurd inquiry into the 2020 election continues—alarming Democrats, election officials, and democracy advocates, who say Republicans are using the probe to create a veneer of legitimacy around Trump’s voter-fraud lies and to chip away at democratic institutions ahead of the 2022 midterms.
“All the attacks on the free and fair election of 2020 are laying the groundwork for attacks on the 2022 and 2024 elections,” says Ben Wikler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “We’re seeing attacks on the core bedrock of democracy at every level in the state.”
The first months of Gableman’s investigation gave little indication that the special counsel was doing much actual work. More than 750 pages of emails from Gableman and his team showed the supposed auditors spending months discussing ways to avoid public scrutiny and purchasing furniture for their office, which is located in a suburban Milwaukee building that also houses a liposuction clinic and an HVAC contractor. Gableman admitted in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interview in October, months into his investigation, that he did not have “any understanding of how elections work.”
The state’s Republican-led legislature has given Gableman a $676,000 taxpayer-funded budget for the investigation. A former right-wing state Supreme Court justice, he hired a team of partisans, including Andrew Kloster, a former Trump administration staffer, and Ron Heuer, the head of the Wisconsin Voter Alliance, which unsuccessfully attempted to sue then vice president Mike Pence to prevent him from certifying the 2020 election results—a complaint that a federal judge, James Boasberg, tore to shreds as a “risible” effort to undermine the democratic election. (Heuer has also come under scrutiny for reportedly racist Facebook posts, which he said had nothing to do with the election audit.)
This exercise in slapstick drew praise from Trump himself last month after Gableman baselessly claimed that there had been improprieties in how Wisconsin administered the 2020 election and encouraged lawmakers to decertify its results. It echoes a similar partisan audit Arizona Republicans commissioned last year. But it also underscores how Republicans in swing states Biden narrowly won last cycle are weaponizing the former president’s “rigged election” lies in 2022 and beyond. GOP candidates for key offices in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia are running on “big lie” platforms, while Republican-controlled legislatures in those states are using those 2020 conspiracy theories as the basis for voter-restriction laws and bills that would allow lawmakers to exert more control over the election process. In Wisconsin, much of that legislation has failed to become law, thanks to the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers. But Republicans are looking to remove that guardrail in the fall, as a primary field of GOP candidates who have questioned the 2020 results works to defeat him in the 2022 midterm elections.
“Wisconsin Republicans’ circus has long surpassed being a mere embarrassment for our state,” Evers says in a statement to Vanity Fair, noting that “every Republican running for governor has peddled dangerous conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.” “From the beginning, it has never been a serious or functioning effort, it has lacked public accountability and transparency, and it has been a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars. This circus has spread disinformation about our election processes, it has attacked the integrity of our clerks, election administrators, and poll workers, and it has emboldened individuals to harass and demean dedicated public servants."
Gableman was hired in the summer of 2021 by Republican Robin Vos, the Wisconsin Assembly Speaker, to conduct an investigation that would “restore full integrity and trust in elections” and answer the “many questions” that had been raised about the 2020 vote, which he had previously claimed was marred by “irregularities.” Vos produced none of the “indisputable evidence” he claimed existed to back up his allegations, and other reviews—including one by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty—did not find any. “In all likelihood,” WILL’s inquiry found, “more eligible voters cast ballots for Joe Biden than Donald Trump.”
Gableman was an early supporter of Trump’s “rigged election” conspiracy theory: “I don’t think anyone would be here if we all had confidence that this was an honest election,” he said at a Trump rally in Milwaukee on November 7, 2020, hours after networks called the race for Biden.
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:52Z
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Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law is seemingly inspiring conservatives across the nation; Republicans in Ohio introduced a bill Monday that mirrors Florida’s ban on classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation, and to add their own twist, the Ohio bill includes a splash of critical race theory hysteria as well. The bill would ban Ohio public school teachers from using “any curriculum or instructional materials on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade. It would also prohibit teachers of fourth- to 12th-grade students from discussing “sexual orientation or gender identity in any manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” And shoehorned into this anti-LGBTQ+ bill is a ban on all materials that discuss “critical race theory,” “intersectional theory,” and “inherited racial guilt,” (specifically citing Nikole Hannah-Jones’s 1619 Project for The New York Times) and a catchall clause that would forbid the teaching of any “concept that the state board of education defines as divisive or inherently racist.”
“They put teachers in the impossible position of constantly regulating their words and actions,” Christina Collins, Ohio state board of education member, tells Vanity Fair, adding that the bill is an “outright banning of diversity” in Ohio public schools. “Students often turn to their teachers and school counselors for support, especially when exploring issues of self-identity,” she says. “In my opinion, this is the worst possible outcome for LGBTQ+ children specifically: having no one to turn to when they need a trusted adult.”
The bill’s cosponsor, Ohio state representative Mike Loychik, claims that it promotes the use of “unbiased and age-appropriate” curriculum, while cosponsor Jean Schmidt adds that it offers parents “a say in what is taught to their children”—a justification Republicans have also used in defense of Florida’s law. The proposal comes as Republicans nationwide have accelerated an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda at the state level, pushing laws that often target kids. Other states have banned transgender kids from participating in sports teams that align with their gender identities. Ohio House minority leader Allison Russo, a Democrat, condemned Ohio Republicans’ bill as a “disgusting” attempt to “[legitimize] bigotry” in a Tuesday statement. “This to me speaks to the extremism that continues to run rampant in this statehouse, and we cannot continue to grow as a state economically, do right by our Ohio families, if we don’t embrace our diversity and make sure that this state is inclusive for all Ohioans,” Russo said. (Loychik’s and Schmidt’s offices did not immediately respond when contacted for comment.)
Critics are particularly wary of the bill’s vague language. The bill does not detail what kind of materials qualify as “age-” and “developmentally appropriate.” Collins says the “confusing and ambiguous” language places teachers in an impossible bind. “Who gets to define what is age-appropriate?” she asks. The current proposal grants members of the public ostensibly free rein over what constitutes such violations, as they could file complaints against school employees whom they believe violated the law. School officials would then face a hearing over the allegations. Penalties would include license suspensions, or school funding cuts.
Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association (OEA), a lobbying group for Ohio educators, has warned that the bill would “put both teachers and parents in a really tough spot.” DiMauro questioned if it would even allow a teacher to mention the family of a student with gay parents and asked if a teacher could be fired if that student took part in a classroom family-tree project. “Fundamentally these bills are cynical attempts to use race and now sexual orientation and gender identity as wedge issues to cause division and sow conflict and ultimately to score cheap political points,” DiMauro told The Columbus Dispatch. “Legislators that are promoting these kinds of agendas ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
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— The Life and Confessions of Mob Chef David Ruggerio
— Kremlin Keeps Blurring Its Red Line Around Nuclear War
— Calls for Recusals, Resignations, and Even Impeachment: Democrats Escalate Ethics Campaign Around Clarence Thomas
— Two Ukrainian AP Journalists Capture the Most Devastating Moments of War
— Trump: If I Was President I’d Threaten to Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Russia
— What Will Dems Do If Biden Doesn’t Run?
— Orgies, Beheadings, Jewish Space Lasers: Everything Kevin McCarthy Has Had to “Speak” to Republican Lawmakers About
— The Truth Behind Republicans’ Vile Questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson
— From the Archive: Molly Bloom’s House of Cards
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.
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| 2022-04-06T20:56:58Z
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Emboldened by a Supreme Court goon squad that appears poised to overturn or significantly gut Roe v. Wade in the very near future, antiabortion politicians have spent the last year enacting a raft of horrifying laws taking aim at a pregnant person’s right to choose. In Texas, citizen vigilantes have been deputized to enforce a six-week abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape or incest. In Idaho, the family members of rapists have been allowed to sue abortion providers for up to four years after the fact, legislation that even the state’s Republican governor warned will likely retraumatize victims of violent crimes (he of course signed it anyway). Now Oklahoma has passed its own assault on reproductive rights, and somehow it’s worse than everything that came before it.
On Tuesday, Oklahoma lawmakers approved what is essentially a total ban on abortion by a vote of 70–14. The measure, Senate Bill 612, makes performing an abortion at any point during pregnancy, “except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency,” a felony that can result in up to 10 years in prison, plus a fine of $100,000. In other words, while Texas and Idaho have given people a mere six weeks to obtain an abortion—a point at which many women don’t even know they are pregnant—Oklahoma has said nope, that’s too generous. And while the bill says there will be exceptions for someone in the midst of a “medical emergency,” it’s not clear exactly what emergencies would be deemed acceptable. Ectopic pregnancies, for example, are the leading cause of maternal death in the first trimester, but there are biologically illiterate politicians out there who believe they’re just fine.
The bill now heads to the desk of Governor Kevin Stitt, who said in September that he had promised to sign “every piece of pro-life legislation” that came his way.
While outrageous and disturbing in and of itself, the Oklahoma law is even more f--ked up given that it was passed not only to strip pregnant Oklahomans of the right to choose, but to cut off pregnant Texans who have been traveling there for medical care since S.B. 8 went into law. “If allowed to take effect, S.B. 612 would be devastating for both Oklahomans and Texans who continue to seek care in Oklahoma,” a number of reproductive rights groups, including the ACLU of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Call for Reproductive Justice, said in a joint statement. “Nearly half of the patients Oklahoma providers are currently seeing are medical refugees from Texas. Now, Oklahomans could face a future where they would have no place left in their state to go to seek this basic health care.”
Republican state rep. Jim Olsen, the House author of the Oklahoma bill, told The New York Times the measure was passed on the assumption that the Supreme Court is going to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks, which would effectively end the protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade. He added that the bill passed without questions or debate.
Noting how Texas’s abortion ban has withstood court challenges because of its unique enforcement mechanism, Emily Wales, interim president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, told the Times that because the Oklahoma bill “is more in line with the traditional bans that have been blocked in the past,” the group is “fairly confident that, as long as Roe remains the law of the land, there is a path to blocking this.” Unfortunately, it’s not at all clear how long Roe, in fact, will remain “the law of the land.”
— Fox News Hosts Entertained Putin-Friendly Talking Points. Then Their Colleagues Were Killed in Ukraine
— The Life and Confessions of Mob Chef David Ruggerio
— Kremlin Keeps Blurring Its Red Line Around Nuclear War
— Calls for Recusals, Resignations, and Even Impeachment: Democrats Escalate Ethics Campaign Around Clarence Thomas
— Two Ukrainian AP Journalists Capture the Most Devastating Moments of War
— Trump: If I Was President I’d Threaten to Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Russia
— What Will Dems Do If Biden Doesn’t Run?
— Orgies, Beheadings, Jewish Space Lasers: Everything Kevin McCarthy Has Had to “Speak” to Republican Lawmakers About
— The Truth Behind Republicans’ Vile Questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson
— From the Archive: Molly Bloom’s House of Cards
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.
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| 2022-04-06T20:57:04Z
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Just over a week after the Academy Awards, Trumpworld got together for a little film celebration of their own. The venue was not the Dolby Theatre but Mar-a-Lago, where rather than getting jazzed about The Power of the Dog, former President Donald Trump and his allies gathered for the premiere of Rigged: The Zuckerberg Funded Plot to Defeat Donald Trump. This 41-minute documentary—a short-ass movie!—centers around the claim that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hatched an apparently diabolical plot to help Democrats get elected in 2020 by…donating hundreds of millions to get-out-the-vote efforts. “Nothing has animated Trump over the past two years like his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and he seemed particularly ebullient before watching the film,” the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey reported following Tuesday evening's movie premiere. Trump was “saying he was looking forward to its screening more than Citizen Kane, Titanic and Gone with the Wind.”
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With a reported budget of around $500,000, Rigged—which features appearances from Kellyanne Conway and Sen. Ted Cruz—was produced by longtime Trump ally David Bossie, who is president of Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit group with a penchant for producing documentaries on controversial political issues. The film purports to “follow the money” that a Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit gave to states and localities for election assistance, funds aimed at boosting turnout and navigating the logistical and safety challenges posed by voting during a pandemic. That private money was seen as a lifeline for local election offices that had been neglected by the federal government. But Rigged is focused on how “much of the money from the Zuckerberg foundation went to areas where Biden won, and turnout climbed in the 2020 election,” according to the Post, noting that the video “repeatedly referenced how the coronavirus led state officials to change voting laws."
The movie—despite being billed by Breitbart as an “explosive” documentary that “blows the lid off” the Facebook CEO’s effort to elect Joe Biden —“does not accuse Zuckerberg of doing anything illegal,” the Post notes. And while there are many other reasons people might criticize Zuckerberg, the $350 million he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, awarded to nonprofits for election assistance “helped avert a potential disaster where long lines, missing mail and slow counting could have led Trump to further question the integrity of results in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona,” according to NPR. Zuckerberg, as the Post notes, responded to the renewed focus on his donations through a spokesperson, who told Fox News last week that Zuckerberg and his wife “announced their support for this effort well in advance of the election, so this documentary is neither new nor newsworthy” while noting “they also did not participate in the process to determine which jurisdictions received funds.”
Trumpworld framing Zuckerberg as a left-wing operative is a particularly rich line of attack, given the scrutiny the CEO has come under for failing to crack down on pro-Trump misinformation—a lack of intervention seemingly tied to Facebook’s fear of appearing biased against conservatives. And Rigged is ultimately a footnote in Trump’s broader assault on the integrity of the election he still refuses to admit he lost. Many gathered to drink “Trump-branded wine” at Tuesday’s private screening have helped ensure the survival of that lie, not least Bossie himself, who reportedly introduced Trump as the “45th and 47th president of the United States” multiple times. “If we don’t prove what happened in 2020, how can we stop it from happening again,” Bossie said.
As a reminder, Trump’s own Justice Department concluded “what happened in 2020” was a free and fair election, one unaffected by widespread fraud.
— Fox News Hosts Entertained Putin-Friendly Talking Points. Then Their Colleagues Were Killed in Ukraine
— The Life and Confessions of Mob Chef David Ruggerio
— Kremlin Keeps Blurring Its Red Line Around Nuclear War
— Calls for Recusals, Resignations, and Even Impeachment: Democrats Escalate Ethics Campaign Around Clarence Thomas
— Two Ukrainian AP Journalists Capture the Most Devastating Moments of War
— Trump: If I Was President I’d Threaten to Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Russia
— What Will Dems Do If Biden Doesn’t Run?
— Orgies, Beheadings, Jewish Space Lasers: Everything Kevin McCarthy Has Had to “Speak” to Republican Lawmakers About
— The Truth Behind Republicans’ Vile Questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson
— From the Archive: Molly Bloom’s House of Cards
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/report-trumpworld-breaks-out-the-trump-wine-to-watch-conspiratorial-documentary-about-mark-zuckerberg
| 2022-04-06T20:57:10Z
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The United States is toughening its sanctions campaign against Russia amid mounting evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, imposing new penalties on financial institutions and family members of Kremlin officials—including Vladimir Putin’s adult daughters. Maria Putina and Katerina Tikhonova, whom Putin and the Kremlin have kept shrouded in mystery, will be cut off from the U.S. financial system and have their U.S. assets frozen, the White House announced Wednesday. The E.U. has also proposed freezing the pair’s European assets and barring them from traveling in Europe.
“It’s part of the continuation of our efforts to put consequences in place,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday.
“We are targeting the Kremlin, the political and economic elites supporting Putin’s war in Ukraine,” E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also said, per the Wall Street Journal.
Putin rarely speaks about his family and the Kremlin has never identified the two daughters by their last name, as the Journal notes. Putina and Tikhonova are his daughters from his marriage to Lyudmila Putina, which ended in divorce in 2014. Putina, the eldest born in 1985, is an endocrinologist married to Jorrit Faassen, a Dutch businessman. Tikhonova, born in 1986, has worked for Moscow State University and was married to Kirill Shamalov, a Russian businessman whose father is a friend of Putin and a co-owner of Bank Rossiya, an institution that has been crucial to helping Russian elites store their wealth overseas. Tikhonova and Shamalov are said to have split in 2018. Putin acknowleged to Russian state media in 2020 that he has grandchildren who are “very good, sweet.” He said, “I get great pleasure from communicating with them.”
Putin is also rumored to have at least one child, a daughter, with the former Russian Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, and one with an alleged romantic partner, Svetlana Krivonogikh, who was revealed in the Pandora Papers to have purchased a luxury apartment in Monaco through a company created around the time she gave birth to a daughter. The Russian dictator has not publicly acknowledged any children except Putina and Tikhonova.
Others targeted in the new round of U.S. sanctions include the wife and daughter of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and other members of the Russian Security Council. The U.S. also imposed full blocking sanctions on Sberbank and Alfa Bank, Russia’s two largest financial institutions. “As long as Russia continues its brutal assault on Ukraine,” the White House said in a statement Wednesday, “we will stand unified with our allies and partners in imposing additional costs on Russia for its actions.”
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The new sanctions arrive as scenes of Russian atrocities in Ukraine have shocked the globe. The images of mass graves and bodies in the streets, along with reports of summary executions and rape, have intensified calls for Putin to be held accountable. “He is a war criminal,” U.S. President Joe Biden said this week, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin of perpetrating a “genocide” and called on allies to do more to support the country’s defense. (The Kremlin has denied attacking civilians, describing horrific images and reports out of Ukraine as a “hoax.” But Russia’s massacre in Bucha, a recently-liberated suburb near the Ukraine capital of Kyiv, have been confirmed through satellite images and other reporting.)
In imposing its latest economic penalties and restrictions, the U.S. said those it has targeted have enabled the “war machine that President Putin is using to wage this brutal aggression against the Ukrainian people.” Speaking to CNN on Wednesday, State Department Spokesman Ned Price said that the sanctions against Kremlin family members were “not just because of a blood relation,” but because “these are individuals who have profited” from the Putin regime's malign activities. “They are in different ways enabling and empowering senior Russian officials,” Price said, “and they are part and parcel of it.”
— Fox News Hosts Entertained Putin-Friendly Talking Points. Then Their Colleagues Were Killed in Ukraine
— The Life and Confessions of Mob Chef David Ruggerio
— Kremlin Keeps Blurring Its Red Line Around Nuclear War
— Calls for Recusals, Resignations, and Even Impeachment: Democrats Escalate Ethics Campaign Around Clarence Thomas
— Two Ukrainian AP Journalists Capture the Most Devastating Moments of War
— Trump: If I Was President I’d Threaten to Drop a Nuclear Bomb on Russia
— What Will Dems Do If Biden Doesn’t Run?
— Orgies, Beheadings, Jewish Space Lasers: Everything Kevin McCarthy Has Had to “Speak” to Republican Lawmakers About
— The Truth Behind Republicans’ Vile Questioning of Ketanji Brown Jackson
— From the Archive: Molly Bloom’s House of Cards
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.
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The Washington Spirit, D.C.'s national women's soccer team, just sold for a record amount after a months-long ownership battle. It's a story of how sports teams are not a typical business investment.
Copyright 2022 NPR
The Washington Spirit, D.C.'s national women's soccer team, just sold for a record amount after a months-long ownership battle. It's a story of how sports teams are not a typical business investment.
Copyright 2022 NPR
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In rural farming regions, dangerous chemicals from fertilizer have made their way into water sources. For some towns, it takes millions of dollars just to get clean water for a few hundred residents.
Copyright 2022 NPR
In rural farming regions, dangerous chemicals from fertilizer have made their way into water sources. For some towns, it takes millions of dollars just to get clean water for a few hundred residents.
Copyright 2022 NPR
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The Navy Exchange Service Command's (NEXCOM) Navy Clothing and Textile Research Facility has the unique mission of maximizing the quality of life for U.S. Navy Sailors through the development, testing, and evaluation of uniforms and protective clothing.
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A new machine at the New York Public Library can read cracked and broken wax cylinders, and play recordings from regular people not heard in about 100 years. It's one of seven in the world.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
A new machine at the New York Public Library can read cracked and broken wax cylinders, and play recordings from regular people not heard in about 100 years. It's one of seven in the world.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces discusses national security space activities of the Defense Department, including within the U.S. Space Force, National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency with John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, U.S. Space Force Lt. Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, U.S. Space System Command commander, and other agency leaders.
This work, House Committee Talks Space National Security with DoD Leaders , must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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The United States and the European Union are set to impose new sanctions against Russia in retaliation for alleged war crimes in Ukraine after the discovery of civilians apparently tortured and killed as Russians retreated from towns around Kyiv.
This week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s actions amount to genocide.
Here & Now‘s Celeste Headlee speaks with historian Kenneth Davis, author of “Don’t Know Much About History” and most recently, “Strongman: The Rise of Five Dictators and the Fall of Democracy.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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To celebrate National Poetry Month we're introducing listeners to poets competing to be the next National Youth Poet Laureate. First up: Alyssa Gaines, who's the Indianapolis Youth Poet Laureate.
Copyright 2022 NPR
To celebrate National Poetry Month we're introducing listeners to poets competing to be the next National Youth Poet Laureate. First up: Alyssa Gaines, who's the Indianapolis Youth Poet Laureate.
Copyright 2022 NPR
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We look at the fallout from Russian attacks in Borodyanka, a suburb of the Ukrainian capitol of Kyiv. Ukrainian officials accuse Russian forces of indiscriminately attacking civilians there.
Copyright 2022 NPR
We look at the fallout from Russian attacks in Borodyanka, a suburb of the Ukrainian capitol of Kyiv. Ukrainian officials accuse Russian forces of indiscriminately attacking civilians there.
Copyright 2022 NPR
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https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-06/the-view-of-a-kyiv-suburb-where-russian-forces-were-accused-of-attacking-civilians
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Maintenance window scheduled to begin at February 14th 2200 est. until 0400 est. February 15th
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki
Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki
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Updated April 6, 2022 at 4:21 PM ET
A red fox that was captured Tuesday and responsible for biting at least one journalist, a lawmaker and at least seven others has been euthanized, according to health officials in Washington, D.C.
In an email to NPR, the D.C. Department of Health said Wednesday that there were nine confirmed bites by the adult female fox on Capitol Hill and that it had been "humanely euthanized" to ensure rabies testing could be done.
The results of the rabies test are expected later Wednesday, according to DC Health.
"No other foxes were found on the Capitol Hill grounds, but it would not be uncommon to see more as there are many present throughout the District," DC Health said.
The fox was captured at about 3:36 p.m. Tuesday, according to a tweet from the police.
#BREAKING: Captured. pic.twitter.com/LJAn2ZjH9J
— U.S. Capitol Police (@CapitolPolice) April 5, 2022
There were many sightings of the fox Monday night, and "then word came in of roughly six bites and/or nips," a Capitol Police spokesperson told NPR over email Tuesday.
The fox was spotted around the Dirksen Senate Office Building and the Russell Senate Office Building, as well as on the House side of the U.S. Capitol, the police spokesperson told NPR.
"[We] just learned people have seen foxes before, but this recent aggressive behavior is unusual," the spokesperson added.
The following message was sent to House members and staff by the Office of the Sergeant at Arms on Tuesday regarding the fox:
Yesterday, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) received reports of individuals being attacked or bitten by a fox. One encounter was at the Botanic Garden, and a second was on the House side of the Capitol near the building foundation. This morning, USCP received a call about a fox approaching staff near First and C Street NE. There are possibly several fox dens on Capitol Grounds. Animal Control is currently on the grounds seeking to trap and relocate any foxes they find. Foxes are wild animals that are very protective of their dens and territory. Please do not approach any fox you see.
Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., was reportedly bitten by the fox Monday night, according to Punchbowl News. Politico reporter Ximena Bustillo said it bit her Tuesday afternoon.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
That feel when you get bit by a fox leaving Capitol cause that’s of course something I expect in THE MIDDLE OF DC.
— Ximena (@Ximena_Bustillo) April 5, 2022
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Researchers say they have found microplastics — tiny pieces of plastic debris that come as a result of the disposal of industrial waste — deep in the lungs of living humans for the first time.
The research, done at Hull York Medical School in England and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, is the first robust study to identify the plastics in the lungs of living people. The plastics have previously been found in human blood, excrement and in the depths of the ocean.
"Microplastics have previously been found in human cadaver autopsy samples," said Dr. Laura Sadofsky, a senior lecturer in respiratory medicine and the paper's lead author.
"We did not expect to find the highest number of particles in the lower regions of the lungs, or particles of the sizes we found," Sadofsky said.
"This is surprising as the airways are smaller in the lower parts of the lungs, and we would have expected particles of these sizes to be filtered out or trapped before getting this deep into the lungs," Sadofsky added.
In the study, researchers collected lung tissue from surgical procedures on patients as part of their routine medical care.
Researchers identified 12 types of microplastics, which are commonly found in bottles, packaging, clothing and twine, along with other manufacturing processes. The microplastics included polyethylene, nylon and resins.
The study notes an "increasing concern" with the hazards that could come with ingesting and inhaling microplastics.
The world produces about 300 million metric tons of plastic a year and about 80% ends up in landfills and other parts of the environment. Microplastics can range from 10 nanometers — smaller than the human eye can see — to 5 millimeters in diameter, about the size of the eraser on the end of a pencil. The tiny particles can be found floating in the air, in tap or bottled water, and in the sea or soil.
A 2018 study found the plastics in stool samples, after feeding subjects in their regular diet packaged in plastics. And research published last month identified plastic particles in human blood.
"This is proof that we have plastics in our body — and we shouldn't," Dick Vethaak, an ecotoxicologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, told AFP.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
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Which spray mop is best?
Cleaning with a standard mop can be messy and takes a lot of effort. Mops tend to spread water and dirt and disposing of the mop water can be a challenge, too.
If you’re looking for a faster way to clean your floors, you may want to consider a spray mop. Spray mops don’t require any wringing, and the disposable pad absorbs dirt easily. The Rubbermaid Reveal Spray Microfiber Floor Mop is one of the best spray mops out there. It includes three reusable pads and comes with two refillable cleaning solution bottles.
What to know before you buy a spray mop
Electric vs. manual
Spray mops use various power sources, and others don’t require any power at all for operation.
- Electric spray mops either have to be plugged into a power outlet or are battery-operated. Battery-operated mops use replaceable or rechargeable batteries. Make sure to check the product description and user reviews to see how often you need to replace the battery. Also, check how long the charge will last and how long it takes to charge up.
- Manual mops are more common since they cost less for both the manufacturer and the consumer. You only need to pull on the trigger to activate these mops.
Pads
Spray mop pads are either disposable or reusable.
- Disposable pads can be either single- or multi-use. However, most disposable pads tend to be expensive, which may not be a good fit for regular cleaners. If you only clean occasionally or have limited areas to clean, they’re a great solution.
- Reusable pads are a great option for a few reasons. They are better for the environment and usually scrub your floors more effectively than the disposable ones. They come in various sizes and work on all kinds of surfaces.
Reservoir
The reservoir comes in many forms and capacities. Some have refillable bottles that slide into a dispenser, while others have small reservoirs in the mop head. Make sure to find a reservoir that matches how much cleaning you intend to do.
What to look for in a quality spray mop
Compatible surfaces
You can use spray mops on hard floors such as tile, vinyl, laminate and even bamboo. Pay close attention to the product description, so you know what surfaces your mop works best with. Some spray mops use harsher cleaning solutions, which can damage the surface of your floors instead of cleaning them.
Accessories
Many spray mops have helpful accessories, such as specialized mop heads meant to clean specific surfaces or clean certain messes. For example, grout cleaners are a common accessory.
How much you can expect to spend on a spray mop
Basic manual spray mops typically cost $20-$40. Electric or battery-operated spray mops usually cost between $80-$100, though some can cost as much as $150.
Spray mop FAQ
Do I need to use a pre-packaged or brand-matched cleaning solution?
A. That depends on the spray mop. Many brands have refillable solution bottles, so you can use a pre-packaged solution, mix your own or even fill it with plain water. Some mops, including most Swiffer models, require their brand of cleaning solution. However, some spray lines can become clogged if you use an incompatible solution, so check the product description before making a purchase.
Is it easy to clean with a spray mop?
A. Yes, it’s very easy to clean with a spray mop. The included pads are usually highly absorbent and make it easy to clean off stubborn caked-on messes. And having a spray nozzle means you don’t need to continuously wet the floor or move between wetting your mop pad and actually cleaning.
What’s the best spray mop to buy?
Top spray mop
Rubbermaid Reveal Spray Microfiber Floor Mop
What you need to know: This spray mop comes from a trusted brand and is an effective, ecologically friendly pick.
What you’ll love: It comes with three reusable microfiber pads and two 22-ounce refillable solution bottles. The pads are machine-washable and won’t scratch the floor. It’s a manual spray mop, so you’ll need to spray and clean by using the pull trigger.
What you should consider: Some consumers felt the cleaning pads were too thin. A few users also noticed the nozzle became clogged after using their own cleaning solution.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top spray mop for the money
O-Cedar ProMist Max Microfiber Spray Mop
What you need to know: This low-cost spray mop works well for wet and dry cleaning.
What you’ll love: It uses a reusable and machine-washable cleaning pad. The pads can be used dry for dusting and have scrubbing areas that work especially well on caked-on grime. It’s compatible with all kinds of cleaning solutions and doesn’t require any batteries.
What you should consider: The mop head may detach if you use it with too much force. Some consumers had problems with leaking or clogged spray lines.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Worth checking out
Swiffer WetJet Hardwood and Floor Spray Mop
What you need to know: Swiffer is among the best-selling cleaning brands and offers a high-quality spray mop for its customers.
What you’ll love: It comes with everything you need to get started, including the mop, six heavy-duty mop pads, four standard mop pads, one bottle of cleaning solution and four batteries. The pads use lock strips to absorb grime instead of pushing the dirt around. It works on finished wood, laminate and tile.
What you should consider: It doesn’t use reusable pads and requires a Swiffer-brand WetJet solution. Since it requires batteries to operate, it’s more expensive than other options.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter for useful advice on new products and noteworthy deals.
Jordan 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.
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"Amazon here we come": Biden endorses warehouse unionization efforts
President Biden vocally supported Amazon unionization efforts at the North American Building Trades Union Legislative Conference on Wednesday, calling out the company by name.
Driving the news: Last week, workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted in favor of unionization, marking the first time a union had been formed amongst Amazon workers.
- After the vote, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden was "was glad to see workers ensure their voices are heard with respect to important workplace decisions."
What he's saying: "I created the White House Task Force on worker organization empowerment, to make sure that choice to join a union belongs to workers alone."
- "By the way, Amazon here we come. Watch."
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Piscataway man convicted of exploiting daughter’s college peers after moving into dorm
NEW YORK – A Piscataway man who moved into his daughter’s college dorm and charmed her schoolmates with stories about his wisdom was convicted Wednesday of charges that he exploited the close-knit group, using threats and violence to enrich himself with millions of dollars.
Lawrence Ray, 62, was convicted on all counts following a Manhattan trial where jurors heard weeks of testimony from witnesses who described his psychologically manipulative relationship with young people he first met at Sarah Lawrence College, a small liberal arts school in New York, starting in the fall of 2010. Ray moved into his daughter’s dorm after getting out of prison.
In some instances, Ray convinced his alleged victims that they had poisoned or otherwise harmed him, and that they needed to pay him back, prosecutors said.
One woman testified that she became a sex worker to try to pay reparations to Ray after becoming convinced that she had poisoned him. She said that, over four years, she gave Ray $2.5 million in installments that averaged between $10,000 and $50,000 per week.
Ray’s lawyers maintained he was victimized by former friends who fabricated their stories.
Ray, who has been incarcerated since his early 2020 arrest, did not testify. Twice, the trial was interrupted as he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance for undisclosed illnesses.
Related:How could a dad live on a college campus? Questions grow in Sarah Lawrence sex-cult scandal
Several of the students testified that they were drawn into Ray’s world as he told them stories of his past influence in New York City politics, including his role in ruining the career of former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik after serving as the best man at his wedding years earlier. Ray had, in fact, been a figure in the corruption investigation that derailed Kerik’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Some of the students agreed to live with Ray in the summer of 2011 at a Manhattan one-bedroom apartment, where his sinister side emerged as he started to claim that the students had poisoned and harmed him.
To make amends, they testified, they did what he asked, including turning over money. One man said he gave Ray over $100,000.
Prosecutors said the money was never enough, though. Through threats and violence and videotaped “confessions,” Ray tightened his hold on the young people, including forcing them to work at the North Carolina home of his stepfather for weeks in 2013, they said.
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Retired Summit teacher indicted in sex abuse of six former students
A retired Summit drama teacher and theater director has been indicted on charges of sexually abusing six male former middle school students.
Ronald E. Wells, 70, was indicted last week on 13 counts including one count of aggravated sexual assault, a first-degree crime; two counts of sexual assault, a second-degree crime; four counts of aggravated criminal sexual contact and six counts of endangering the welfare of a child, both third-degree crimes, Union County Prosecutor William A. Daniel and acting Summit Police Chief Steven Zagorski announced.
Wells is currently on pretrial release pending his post-indictment arraignment before Superior Court Judge Robert A. Kirsch scheduled for April 18. If convicted Wells could be sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison on the first-degree offense.
The charges stem from a series of alleged sexual offenses involving six boys, between the ages of 12 and 14, from 2003 to 2017.
Earlier:Former Summit school theater director charged with sexual contact during costume change
In June a former student alleged to Summit police that he had been assaulted by Wells in 2016 in a private area at the Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School, according to Assistant Prosecutor Caroline Lawlor, who is handling the case.
An investigation was conducted by the Summit Police Department and the Union County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit. During the investigation, several other victims, also former students, came forward and notified Summit police about alleged acts involving Wells dating to 2003.
Anyone with information about this or similar incidents involving Wells is urged to contact Summit police Capt. Ryan Peters at 908-277-9380.
Email: srussell@gannettnj.com
Suzanne Russell is a breaking news reporter for MyCentralJersey.com covering crime, courts and other mayhem. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
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Colonia High School to begin air testing amid brain cancer concerns
WOODBRIDGE – The township has approved an emergency contract of $221,350 for an engineering firm to conduct radiological assessments at Colonia High School, following a 1989 graduate's research indicating a possible link between the school and brain tumor cases among former students and staff.
T&M Associates of Middletown and its team of environmentalists are scheduled to begin collecting data at the high school this weekend by placing radon canisters throughout the building to collect indoor air samples, according to township officials. The work will be done in cooperation with Woodbridge Township School District.
"It's too important. We're just doing it," said Mayor John E. McCormac.
The canisters do not pose any danger and do not emit any substance and are routinely used in homes, businesses and schools to collect radon measurements, township officials said. They will remain in place for 14 days before being sent to a lab for analysis.
A report outlining results is expected in about a month, McCormac said.
"I hope the results come back with absolutely nothing," he said.
Ionizing radiation
T&M Associates has already started conducting historic site research to obtain records related to the school's construction in 1967 to today. In addition, T&M and Cabrera Services Inc, a radiological and environmental remediation company, will acquire real time radiation measurements from the interior and exterior of the building as part of an intensive survey of all 28 acres of the Colonia High School property.
"We got the state and federal agencies involved, and we're starting some testing of the grounds and the air this weekend," McCormac said.
The township and school district have had discussions and meetings with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the state Department of Health, the state Department of Environmental Protection and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone’s Office.
Last month McCormac and Superintendent of Schools Joseph Massimino became aware of health-related concerns reported on social media about a potential connection between Colonia High School and graduates who have developed brain tumors.
McCormac said he was very concerned to learn of the possible link.
"It seems like in a little over a 20-year period to have 65 people on a list is somewhat alarming, it's quite alarming," said the mayor, who lives just blocks away from Colonia High School, but added the link only appears to pertain to people who attended or worked at the high school. "But I understand why anyone would be concerned."
NEWS:Piscataway man convicted of exploiting daughter’s college peers after moving into dorm
McCormac said residents are expressing concerns and the township is working to keep everyone updated. He said the site was vacant land until the school was built in 1967, so he believes there is little chance anything was in the ground before then, but if there is anything on site it could have come from fill during the construction phase.
The township has filed an Open Public Records Act request with the state Department of Education to get its files from 55 years ago when the school was built, the mayor said.
In early March, Al Lupiano, 50, of Jamesburg, a 1989 Colonia High School graduate, posted on Facebook that his 44-year-old sister, Angela DeCillis, a 1995 Colonia High School graduate, died in February from a rare, highly aggressive malignant glioma brain tumor on the left side of her brain, that had been diagnosed in August 2021.
The same day his sister was diagnosed, his wife, Michele, a 1991 Colonia High School graduate, was diagnosed with a large acoustic neuroma, a rare brain tumor which is life-threatening if left untreated. In 1999 when Lupiano was 27, he too was diagnosed with a large acoustic neuroma on the left side of his brain.
Both his wife and sister were assigned the same doctor for treatment. Discussions with that doctor about the rarity of three family members all being diagnosed with brain tumors led to Lupiano's quest for more research because radiation exposure is a well-documented cause of brain tumors.
Lupiano began researching to see if other Woodbridge friends and family members had been diagnosed with brain tumors. He initially found 15 people, all Colonia High School graduates from around 1975 to 1995, had them, he said.
Since starting his research, Lupiano said that number has increased to about 90 people, including about 10 who were school staff members, some who worked in the cafeteria and others from the athletic department.
"I don't know what the cause is," Lupiano said.
But he made a promise to his late sister that he would find out.
Email: srussell@gannettnj.com
Suzanne Russell is a breaking news reporter for MyCentralJersey.com covering crime, courts and other mayhem. To get unlimited access, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Axon (Nasdaq: AXON), the global leader in connected public safety technologies, today announced the acquisition of Foundry 45, an industry-leading virtual reality (VR) studio focused on developing immersive training modules for large enterprises. The acquisition, which closed on April 5, 2022, will integrate Foundry 45 into the Axon VR team.
Founded in 2015, Foundry 45 has delivered virtual and augmented reality training applications to global enterprise customers including several Fortune 100 companies. Pushing the boundaries of corporate training for some of the world's most innovative companies, the Foundry 45 team builds exceptional VR experiences geared towards improving productivity, boosting knowledge retention and creating better training outcomes.
"We're thrilled the Foundry 45 team has joined Axon in our mission to Protect Life," says Chris Chin, VP of Immersive Technologies, Axon. "Their team of accomplished enterprise VR training experts are a great addition to Axon and I'm excited to join forces and level-up our public safety training capabilities to make communities safer for all."
Axon's VR team is transforming public safety by making training more accessible, relevant and affordable — with the goal of using new immersive technologies to better prepare officers for real-life situations in the field. Axon's VR products provide virtual reality content that helps officers develop critical thinking, de-escalation techniques and tactical skills across a diverse set of highly realistic scenarios.
Virtual reality is rapidly becoming a game-changing training tool across many industries, and the acquisition of Foundry 45 will help accelerate Axon to deliver innovative skills- and scenario-based training in public safety, and will catalyze Axon's expansion into new growth markets globally.
"I'm exceptionally proud of the work our team has accomplished at Foundry 45," says David Beck, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Foundry 45. "We believe purpose is one of the most important elements of a company and are excited our values align with Axon. By joining their team, we are able to continue to bring our innovative vision and world-class engineers to the table to build products for public good."
Equity inducement awards of an aggregate 29,507 restricted stock units ("RSUs") were granted to two individuals in connection with the acquisition. Of the total amount awarded, 11,438 time-based RSUs will vest in equal annual amounts following the first, second, and third anniversaries of the grant date. 2,820 time-based RSUs will vest two-thirds following the first anniversary and one-third following the second anniversary of the grant date. Additionally, up to 15,249 RSUs will vest based on the attainment of three performance criteria based on content development and sales bookings. All awards are subject to continued service through each vesting date, with the exception of 7,625 time-based RSUs that would accelerate vesting in the event of an involuntary termination without cause.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP represented Axon as legal counsel in this transaction.
Foundry 45 (www.foundry45.com) uses innovative technologies to create better training outcomes for clients. We are a team of technologists and creatives who are driven to build powerful, immersive virtual reality experiences. By leveraging interactive content, we help organizations break the monotony of their current training routines while providing safer, more efficient and engaging employee training solutions. We've delivered hundreds of VR experiences for clients across the country and around the globe, including several Fortune 100 companies.
Axon is a network of devices, apps and people that helps public safety personnel become smarter and safer. With a mission of protecting life, our technologies give customers the confidence, focus and time they need to keep their communities safe. Our products impact every aspect of a public safety officer's day-to-day experience with the goal of helping everyone get home safe.
We work hard for those who put themselves in harm's way for all of us. To date, more than 263,000 lives and countless dollars have been saved with the Axon Network of devices, apps and people. Learn more at www.axon.com or by calling (800) 978-2737. Axon is a global company with headquarters in Scottsdale, Ariz. and global software engineering hub in Seattle, Wash., as well as additional offices in Australia, Canada, Finland, Vietnam, the UK and the Netherlands.
Facebook is a trademark of Facebook, Inc., Morgan, Lewis, & Bockius is a trademark of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius Partnership and Twitter is a trademark of Twitter, Inc. Axon, Axon Network, Protect Life and the Delta Logo are trademarks of Axon Enterprise, Inc., some of which are registered in the US and other countries. For more information, visit www.axon.com/legal. All rights reserved.
- Axon on Twitter: https://twitter.com/axon_us
- Axon on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Axon.ProtectLife/
Please visit http://investor.axon.com, https://www.axon.com/press, www.twitter.com/axon_us and https://www.facebook.com/Axon.ProtectLife/ where Axon discloses information about the company, its financial information and its business.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Corinne Clark
Public Relations Manager
Media ONLY Hotline: (480) 444-4000
Press@Axon.com
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Axon
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Free Fort Collins COVID-19 testing site one of 40 set to close across Colorado
A large COVID-19 testing site in Fort Collins is set to close later this month as Colorado transitions its testing from state-run community sites to more traditional health care settings.
The Timberline Church drive-thru testing site, 2908 S. Timberline Road, will close April 14 — making it one of 40 community sites set to shutter across Colorado this month, according to a news release from the state. The community testing site at Windsor's Eastman Park, 7025 Eastman Park Drive, is set to close April 30.
Community testing sites at Foundations Church in Loveland and the Estes Park Event Complex are not set to close at this time.
Despite these closures, 80 state-run testing sites will remain open in Colorado. Demand for rapid PCR COVID-19 testing was less than 2,500 tests per day, on average, the state said Wednesday. With its remaining 80 testing sites, the state will still be able to give out up to 26,000 tests per day.
COVID case, vaccine rates:Here's where Larimer County stands
Demand for testing has been driven down as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations plummet in Colorado. The state reported 373 daily COVID-19 cases Monday — down from a peak of 19,830 daily cases Jan. 6, according to the state's COVID-19 data.
Statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations hit an all-time low last week when they dipped under 100 — down from a peak of 1,676 COVID-19 patients recorded the week of Jan. 18.
Larimer County also hit a benchmark when it recently dropped to a "low" level on its COVID-19 risk scale. The county reported a seven-day case rate of 80.6 per 100,000 people and a positivity rate of 5.8% on its COVID-19 dashboard Wednesday.
Some good news:Larimer County reports no new COVID-19 outbreaks for first time since summer
Erin Udell reports on news, culture, history and more for the Coloradoan. Contact her at ErinUdell@coloradoan.com. The only way she can keep doing what she does is with your support. If you subscribe, thank you. If not, sign up for a digital subscription to the Coloradoan today.
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https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2022/04/06/free-fort-collins-covid-19-testing-site-one-40-set-close-colorado/9488037002/
| 2022-04-06T21:28:50Z
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And up will come to the cancer
Up will come volcanic ash
Up come sheets of red hot hail
The streets and the blood of my past
Up come the angels of mercy
Up come the children of peace
From all the cities I’ve swallowed
I shall be released
—Marah
DISCLAIMER: By “fucked up” I am alluding to mental illness. This means I’m perpetuating the damaging public and self-stigma surrounding mental illness, a thing I will freely admit because the resulting stereotypes and discrimination are a social knowledge structure I am just now beginning to excavate and plan to examine at length in many other posts.
For most of my adult life, I have harbored the secret fear that I am more fucked up than I realize. I’ve managed to mostly keep this writhing dread a secret, even from myself. It’s something I’ve only somewhat metabolized with the recent Borderline Personality Disorder diagnosis (BPD) and the incredibly astute hindsight that middle-age offers, if you’re paying attention.
Many people I have loved, as well as a fair number of people I have never met, have hit me with spiky assessments of the level of my fucked-upness. Some have raged it at me mid-fight as their spit sprinkled my face; they’ve hotly dispatched it to me within the confines of email and text. Some have shared their judgments behind my back or offered explanations about me in messages to others I never should have read. Armchair analysis has been offered in comments on my blog, social media pages, and various online forums. The method varies, but one constant remains: I always believe them, even while rabidly defending myself to them… and to myself. I swallow their diagnosis like bad medicine and try to forget. But it becomes a part of me, each toxic dose adding to my private narrative: I am fucked up.
Item: I perceived “fucked up” to be a terrible accusation I must defend myself against at all costs, a bad thing I must hide from everyone, including myself, which made me all the more defensive.
More than many times I’ve wondered: How would you know if you’re fucked up? If your brain is the mechanism you utilize to comprehend whether you’re fucked up while simultaneously being the thing that might be fucked up, where does that leave you?
I hail from a long line of Mormons super-skilled at normalizing extremely harmful dogma in their obsessive quest for the best, most perfect life / afterlife. Baskin Robbins has nothin’ on the variety of bizarre flavors manifesting within the lives and families of my pioneer people. I reckon the average Mormon traffics in shame, guilt, secrets, and fucked-uppery as good as or better than the most devout Catholic you know. Catholic guilt? Phffft. Acquaint thyself with Mormon shame.
In all likelihood, fucked up is my norm. My brain is always on high alert. Things feel more scary and stressful to someone with BPD than they do to other people. Our fight-or-flight switch is easily tripped, and once it’s on, it hijacks our rational brain, triggering primitive survival instincts that aren’t always appropriate to the situation at hand.
Normalizing dysfunction is a tough thing for me to admit. My self-concept is that of a scrappy underdog, a hustler who has triumphed in the face of adversity. A feral child running loose amid the scary landscape of a turbulent, neglected childhood who sucked up functional human behavior in consequence of a ferocious reading habit and perfected it via regular imitation of those I admired. A fierce autodidact. The girl who thought her way out of Mormonism, despite a lifetime of brainwashing, then lied her way into her first gig at a local news station and worked her way to the top. If I’m a little fucked up, well, that’s just collateral brain damage, baby.
Item: I could never allow “fucked up” to be conflated with the notion of mentally ill in my mind. “Fucked up,” while not ideal, was a gray, dangerously cool, somewhat acceptable concept. Mentally ill was black and white. Horrifyingly institutional, necessitating heavy meds. Unacceptable!
The funny part is, it’s not just actually being fucked up that freaked me out, it’s the notion of not knowing I’m fucked up in the face of people who do. Essentially, I desperately need you to know that I know I’m fucked up before we can continue here. The idea that you might suspect I’m mentally ill while I have no idea is as difficult to accept as actually being diagnosed with a mental illness.
Item: Because my childhood was lacking, my concept of who I am, or whether or not I’m a good person, is formed by other people’s opinions of me. Which is to say, I am desperate for your validation and live in abject fear of your rejection or abandonment. Disapproval, even that of strangers, maybe even especially that of strangers, sends me spiraling.
“People with BPD often talk about feeling empty, as if there’s a hole or a void inside them. At the extreme, you may feel as if you’re ‘nothing’ or ‘nobody.’ This feeling is uncomfortable, so you may try to fill the void with things like drugs, food, or sex. But nothing feels truly satisfying.”
I have long suspected and sometimes articulated to those closest to me that without consistent adult guidance in my childhood, my personality feels as if it was formed inside a vacuum. There is no me here. Just a collection of traits gleaned from studying human behavior. Cyborgian, artificial intelligence imitating people in an endless quest for human validation. (If you’re familiar with the concept of nonduality in Buddhism you’ll understand why the notion that there is no me here, also known as nonduality or no-self, has been a huge comfort and liberation to me over the past few years. Much more on that later.)
Item: If you can only perceive life through your brain and most people don’t go around yammering about their fucked-upness, preferring to keep it hidden in journals and behind the walls of therapists’ offices, how do you know where you fall on the psychiatric bell curve?
My therapist saw me coming a mile away, I wager. I am obsessed with him grading me on some kind of imagined psychiatric bell curve, constantly asking him to rate specifically where my thoughts and behaviors fall on his scale of normal to super fucked up. He seems annoyingly well-adjusted, has a fancy diploma on his wall along with access to a variety of people seeking therapy for one thing or another, so I figure if anyone knows, it’s him. He says I’m high-functioning. Then again, it’s his job to remain impassive in the face of high-level fuckery so it’s hard to take any of his cool cucumber reactions to my queries and dark admissions to the bank.
I secretly harbor the hope that I am far more well-adjusted than I think I am, that all my obsessing about mental wellness is a sign of very functional behavior. After all, my partner Cory tells me I’m “the most together person” he knows, and Cory is also annoyingly well-adjusted so it seems he would know. Alas, he relies on me for sex so his opinion is a wash and not to be trusted.
Item: I delight in revelations of fucked-upness in others who appear compos mentis. These unfortunate episodes of Schadenfreude put me at ease about my mental speculations. A nicer way of looking at it would be that I find comfort in togetherness, in confirmation that we’re all dealing with the same trials and tribulations.
As if to comfort me directly, the exceptional writer, Rebecca Woolf— whose radically honest, painfully beautiful memoir, All of This, is out in August— recently wrote, “There is nothing in our stories to be ashamed of. That some of us are willing to share vulnerability about our interior lives not because we believe we are special but because we KNOW that our stories are not unique. I know that my experiences are unoriginal which is why it feels so pressing to share them.”
Still. Publicly revealing a mental illness diagnosis feels like handing everyone I know, past friends and lovers as well as internet strangers a grenade. Here ya go! I cordially invite you to pull the pin and toss it at me whenever you’re so inclined. You can officially write me off as a “psycho bitch.” I am lobbing you softballs right over the plate. Hell, I am placing the ball on a tee and offering you a swing. Run, Forrest, ruuun around those bases! This is some easy homerun in a fight with me shit.
“Psycho bitch.”
The phrase is bursting with misogyny. A veritable global phenomenon. In my twenties, nearly every man I met carried a well-rehearsed “psycho bitch ex-girlfriend” story in his back pocket. The dating after divorce world is also teeming with tales of psycho bitch ex-wives. Woe is me stories involving the undeniable cuntiness of exes abound. These stories seldom hold up to close inspection. If, like me, you’ve spent most of your life swaddled in insecurity, you revel in these narratives. She’s crazy, but not me.
We insecure women rarely question the man’s role in the scenario because we don’t want to. We need to be special, the different one who changed everything for him. Psssst. You’re not different. More importantly, neither is he.
TRANSLATION: A “psycho bitch” in his past is a red flag about him as much as— and perhaps even more than— it is for her.
Item: Never trust a man who speaks badly about the mother of his children.
Yet, we women gaslight ourselves and write think pieces on how not to become his “crazy, bitch ex-girlfriend,” which amount to begging men not to be assholes when they break up with us. When men behave badly during a break-up and women respond with reasonable anger, men often retreat, which involves ignoring the woman who understandingly becomes confused, sad, angry. Pro-tip: If he’s ignoring you, move on immediately. Seeking closure is a lie.
Item: The concept and societal obsession with closure at the end of a romantic relationship is a tricky business at best. It’s a feel-good construct that keeps people from moving forward once they realize a relationship has run its course. You don’t need “closure.” No pseudo-kumbaya moment after a break-up lasts. Human emotions are labyrinthian and often unsolvable. Break-ups don’t feel good. They’re messy as hell. They suck. Sometimes you’ll feel okay and other times you’ll feel like shit. It doesn’t mean you need to reach out for clarity via one. More. Conversation. Put the pedal to the metal and some miles in the rearview mirror, my sister.
Psycho bitch from hell stories almost always originate during a rough breakup, and typically absolve any role men play in the demise of a relationship while simultaneously transforming their ex’s pain and confusion into inflated tales of psycho bitchery that lack compassion for the very real women involved. Try for closure if you must, but risk becoming the psycho bitch, an entertaining, always exaggerated story meant to titillate friends, new girlfriends, and wives at the expense of your humanity.
Receiving and revealing a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder feels like unintentionally notarizing all psycho bitch ex stories about me, even as I question whether I was a psycho bitch or a victim of that particular brand of gaslighting in which unenlightened dudes specialize. A feminist paradox if there ever was one.
Post-diagnosis, I’m desperate for the truth of my life, but unless each man is willing to engage in an honest open, unbiased dialogue about our time together, which isn’t a likely scenario but has happened (Hi, Chris!), I suspect any overarching reality is lost to each person’s perspective, which can be especially confusing at a time when my reality feels like sand constantly shifting beneath my unsteady feet. Hey, BPD, heeeey!
My therapist would tell me to stop thinking in black and white, as is my BPD wont, and just be comfortable living in the gray. This means the men were probably assholes a lot of the time and I was probably an overly emotional, defensive woman prone to confusing bursts of anger a lot of the time. I can accept this analysis. A lot of the time.
The diagnosis was devastation and then it was a revelation.
For all of my life, I thought I could think my way out of my perceived brokenness. Intellectualizing the bad things that happened to me or that I caused to happen was a way to make sense of my world. But as much as thinking has been a tool on the path to my liberation, it has also been a weapon of my destruction. You can get caught up in false narratives about yourself or others, negative bias patterns, and other unproductive thought loops that keep you wandering in a lonely wilderness for years. Remember: all tools can be weapons, all weapons can be tools. It’s up to you to use them wisely.
Item: I thought trauma was a specific, horrific event that happened to someone. A singular incident that caused ripples of devastation throughout one’s life, e.g. a soldier experiences war and has flashbacks for the rest of his or her life. It can be that, yes. But what I have also learned is that a generally chaotic childhood — that doesn’t necessarily involve one specific, all-consuming trauma— can cause complex trauma that reshapes the core way you perceive and respond to life experiences. This can cause you to distort your sense of self, make it difficult to control your emotions, and cause relationship challenges. Where one person experiences a situation as no big whoop, someone with BPD may react in ways that do not seem commensurate with the scenario and not even understand why they are overreacting or even that they are overreacting.
Being “fucked up” as a result of a turbulent childhood is a familiar concept to most. Sure, we all have our shit. And that’s generally how I viewed it: Things That Happened a Long Time Ago. I’m an adult now who is smart enough to move on, right?
For all my intellectualizing, it never occurred to me that my experiences as a child permanently altered the way I perceive life. That the very brain I am using to interpret existence is an issue. The fundamental way I view and perceive relationships is not healthy.
Until recently, my impulsive, angry, defensive behavior felt unrelated to the inner workings of my mind. Monica The Intellectual Thinker felt like she had a solid grasp on the whats and the whys of it all— it’s just that sometimes Monica The Emotional Human got just a little out of hand, okay?
The diagnosis has given me an instruction manual. A kind of workaround for the maladaptive social functioning of my brain. I can refer to the symptoms as a kind of experience filter to recognize, understand, and even mitigate emotional overreaction.
Item: I am not fucked up. I have a mental illness, is all!
In much the same way someone on the autism spectrum is forced to recognize blind spots in day-to-day cognition and interpretation of social interactions, I must vigilantly investigate my knee-jerk emotional reactions and evaluate their validity and value. A tricky business when you know your perceiver has been on the fritz since, oh, say, 1983, around the time your parents divorced, your dad upped sticks and settled in a different state, your single mom signed up for food stamps, then largely disappeared from your childhood and you began home-brewing a potent batch of Borderline Personality Disorder to cope.
Aw, sweet 1980s Monica. C’mere to me. Climb up on my lap. Let me hold you tight, softly stroke your hair while rocking you until you feel safe enough to fall asleep. I am here for you and waiting here for you to catch up.
I disappeared from the internet a few years ago. It was necessary. I had it all wrong. I don’t know what right looks like, but what I was doing wasn’t it. Writing about myself on the internet is unmooring, scary. It feels unsafe to me now. Like floating on a raft adrift at sea, exposed to the elements, and there are sure to be sharks! But there is always the wide-open sky of possibility.
After going without it for several years, I realized writing— if authentic and non-performative— is sanity to me. If not sanity, a way to understand, organize, and accept my insanity. Dipping a toe back into the internet ocean is daunting. I feel all loosey-goosey and free-floating.
“And where the words of women are crying to be heard, we must each of us recognize our responsibility to seek those words out, to read them and share them and examine them in their pertinence to our lives.” — Audre Lorde
Falling in love with the most liberated and liberating woman I have ever met— including being mesmerized by her life, thoughts, feelings, perspectives, and even the way she processes her experiences, especially those that others would label negative— prompted the realization that after decades of pretzeling myself into shapes pleasing to men, the component constantly missing from my life is women. Not necessarily on a romantic scale but in everyday life. Sharing experiences, ideas, fears, heartbreaks, and decisions with women on an everyday basis is so crucial, yet so many of us don’t have it, have never had it, and may not ever even know we need it. We have been conditioned to compete, not coven.
It took me four decades and one Rebecca Woolf to realize that the flesh, blood, hearts, and minds of women are the fertile soil in which vulnerability, empathy, compassion, and unconditional acceptance of each other and ourselves can flourish.
Here I am. Recently diagnosed mental illness and all the rest of it, humbly seeking your validation and acceptance while offering you mine. Trust-falling backward into your outstretched arms. Will you catch me?
“It is in our art, our paintings, poems, essays, and books that we begin to reach out to each other,” Adrienne Rich wrote in Of Women Born. “What any writer hopes— and knows— is that others like her, with different training, background, and tools, are putting together other parts of this immense half-buried mosaic in the shape of a women’s face.”
This essay was originally published on Monica Danielle’s blog, A Broad View, a real-time memoir about starting over in mid-life. You can keep up with her work here, or join her community at Substack.
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https://www.printmag.com/creative-voices/a-broad-view-the-shape-of-a-womans-face/
| 2022-04-06T21:28:50Z
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During today’s episode of The Shanaplan, Akash and I discussed what Frank Gore’s role could look like in the front office with the 49ers. Picture “running backs coach Frank Gore” or “Director of Scouting Frank Gore.” Who is going to tell Gore that the running back he likes isn’t the best option for the team?
Speaking of the draft, everyone loves to select the best player available until it’s not at a position of need. That’s why, in my opinion, the 49ers can ill-afford to wait to draft a safety.
Jaquiski Tartt masked a lot on defense by doing the dirty work last year. The Niners could live in nickel because their safeties were interchangeable. That’s how you win in the NFL. You're not getting off the field if you have a safety who can tackle and make plays in the box but is susceptible in coverage.
It feels like in this draft, pick No. 61 presents the best value for selecting a safety. Could you find somebody in the later rounds? Of course. The odds of that prospect being as complete as a late second-rounder are slim to none.
DeMeco Ryans asked a lot out of his safeties. We saw last season that Talanoa Hufanaga was exposed in coverage. Sometimes, it meant when he was 1-on-1, while other times, Hufanga was a step slow and allowed a deep route.
It’s fair to assume the rookie will improve. But to what extent and if that’ll ever be to the level of Tartt is an entirely new discussion. If the Niners elect to wait on selecting a safety, it’ll be because they believe in the pieces on the roster.
They’re probably asking themselves whether they can get by with Samson Ebukam as their starting edge rusher playing heavy snaps or a combination of Tarvarius Moore, Hufanaga, George Odum, or whichever rookie they end up drafting as the starting safety.
It’s a fascinating discussion that we will have the answer to in just over three weeks. You can listen to the podcast in its entirety below:
Other topics include:
- What Stefon Diggs’ contract means for Deebo Samuel (5:13)
- What’s the biggest mistake the 49ers could make in this draft? (9:38)
- My love for Georgia safety Lewis Cine (23:08)
- Who will win the Masters? (25:54)
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https://www.ninersnation.com/2022/4/6/23013814/49ers-shanaplan-safety-draft-tartt
| 2022-04-06T21:29:29Z
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According to ESPN’s Field Yates, the 49ers hosted free agent edge rusher, Kemoko Turay. Turay, who has a troubling injury history dating back to college, has been productive when he played. He was a second-round pick in 2018 out of Rutgers, so the talent is there.
Turay broke his ankle during Week 5 of the 2019 season and missed the rest of the year. He started the 2020 season on the reserve/PUP list and wasn’t activated until the middle of November.
Turay had his most productive NFL campaign in 2021. Despite playing in just 27% of the Colts’ defensive snaps, he amassed a career-high 5.5 sacks. Over his four-year career, Turay has appeared in 38 games (three starts) and recorded 33 tackles, 29 quarterback hits, 12 sacks, and seven tackles for loss.
Turay is a pass-rush specialist, so perhaps playing in a limited role would keep him healthy. He rushed the passer 173 times last season and had a higher pressure rate than reserves Arden Key and Samson Ebukam did for the Niners.
If Turay passes a physical and checks out medically, this would be a low-risk, medium-reward move for a team that loves to rotate edge rushers and sometimes uses as many as four on the field at once.
It should be worth noting that after May 2, teams are free to sign free agents and not have it count against their compensatory pick formula. So, money, along with that, is a reason the Niners haven’t been in a rush to sign players.
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https://www.ninersnation.com/2022/4/6/23013899/49ers-host-former-colts-edge-rusher-kemoko-turay
| 2022-04-06T21:29:35Z
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BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — A car carrying containers of flammable materials crashed into the gate of the Russian Embassy in the Romanian capital early Wednesday, bursting into flames and killing the driver, police said.
The sedan rammed into the gate at about 6 a.m. Wednesday but did not enter the Bucharest embassy compound.
Video of the aftermath showed the car engulfed in flames as security personnel ran through the area.
According to police, firefighters who arrived at the scene were able to put the fire out but the driver died on the spot.
The case prosecutor who arrived at the scene told reporters that several containers with flammable substances were discovered inside the car, which will be examined by forensics experts. The crash was under investigation and an autopsy will be carried out, the prosecutor, Bogdan Staicu, said.
In a statement after the incident, the Russian embassy said that no employees were injured and expressed condolences to the family of the driver, but also added: “There is no doubt that he committed this act under the influence of an explosion of anti-Russian hysteria in connection with a staged provocation in the city of Bucha.”
Romania’s foreign ministry, however, hit back in a statement saying it “rejects any attribution of context or political significance to this tragic incident” and called on the Russian embassy to “exercise maximum restraint in offering any interpretations,” before investigations are concluded.
Russia’s ambassador to Romania, Valery Kuzmin, told a Russian state-owned television channel that the embassy in Bucharest has “repeatedly” received threats by email, according to the state news agency Tass. “The atmosphere that has been gradually forming here is very tense,” Kuzmin said.
Since the war started Feb. 24, protesters have gathered outside Russia’s embassy in the capital to call an end to the Russian aggression. Romania’s foreign ministry said in its statement that security at the embassy has been bolstered since then. It also said of the civilian killings in Bucha that the “responsibility belongs to Russia.”
Romania, which shares a long land border with Ukraine, has taken in more than 600,000 refugees since Russia invaded its neighbor.
On Tuesday, Romania ordered 10 diplomats from the embassy expelled following a string of expulsions of Russian officials across the 27-nation European Union.
The foreign ministry said the actions of 10 embassy workers, who have been declared persona non grata, “contravene the provisions of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relationships.”
The embassy incident comes days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed Romania’s parliament Monday, when he labeled the slaying of civilians in the town of Bucha a “war crime” and called for tougher sanctions against Russia.
Before Zelenskyy’s address, Romania’s President of the Chamber of Deputies, Marcel Ciolacu, said that the “horrible images” that emerged after Russian troops withdrew from Bucha have “overwhelmed and revolted us all.”
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https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/car-rams-russian-embassy-gate-in-romania-driver-dead/
| 2022-04-06T21:29:42Z
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BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday said images of civilian deaths in the Ukrainian town of Bucha are “deeply disturbing” but that no blame should be apportioned until all facts are known.
Emerging evidence of what appeared to be widespread civilian massacres in the wake of Russian withdrawals from the Kyiv areas may complicate Beijing’s attempts to guide public opinion over the conflict, in which China has refused to criticize Moscow.
China supports all initiatives and measures “conducive to alleviating the humanitarian crisis” in the country, and is “ready to continue to work together with the international community to prevent any harm to civilians,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters at a daily briefing.
“The truth and the cause of the incident must be verified,” Zhao said. “All parties should exercise restraint and avoid unfounded accusations before a conclusion of the investigation is drawn.”
Zhao’s remarks echo those of China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, who earlier called for an investigation, also describing the reports and images of civilian deaths in Bucha as “deeply disturbing.”
“The relevant circumstances and specific causes of the incident should be verified and established,” Zhang said in remarks to the Security Council on Tuesday, adding that, “before the full picture is clear, all sides should exercise restraint and avoid unfounded accusations.”
China has called for talks while refusing to criticize Russia. It opposes economic sanctions on Moscow and blames Washington and NATO for provoking the war and fueling the conflict by sending arms to Ukraine.
The entirely ruling Communist Party-controlled media have largely stuck to a pro-Moscow narrative, including repeating Russian disinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories about issues such as alleged American-Ukrainian bioweapons production.
Zhao repeated China’s objections to sanctions, while accusing the U.S. of having manipulated the situation to “profit from the chaos and make a lot of money.”
“History and reality have proven that sanctions do not bring peace and security, but only bring lose-lose or multiple losses, adding to the already difficult world economy and impacting the existing world economic system,” Zhao said.
The hashtag “China expresses Bucha death incident must be thoroughly investigated” was a trending topic on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, with nearly 30 million views and more than 500 discussions by afternoon Wednesday
Despite the pro-Russian stance of authorities who regularly censor postings, opinions were divided between support for Moscow, demands Russia be held accountable, accusations of untrustworthiness against the West and Ukraine, and calls for an impartial investigation.
“This is merely a play acted out by the Americans and Ukrainian Nazis in an attempt to divert public opinion, but people of the world with eyes and hearts won’t ignore the facts of the U.S. and Ukraine researching bio weapons,” read one posting signed “Understands the Cold War Better Than America.”
The Russian Embassy in Beijing also made use of the platform to reject the accusations, while its Ukrainian counterpart drew attention to “Russian war crimes against civilians in Irpin,” another town where atrocities allegedly occurred.
Prior to the Feb. 24 war, China had dismissed talk of a Russian invasion as “fake news” and U.S. fearmongering. Since then, it has claimed to be holding to an independent, and often contradictory, stance, asserting the sanctity of borders and national sovereignty while refusing to condemn Russian aggression or even use the words “war” and “invasion,” in apparent deference to Moscow.
The Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid published by the Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, sought to balance the competing messages with an editorial Wednesday headlined “’Bucha Incident’ not to be used as pretext for inflaming situation.”
“As long as Russia and Ukraine cannot achieve a cease-fire, humanitarian tragedies will not end,” the paper said.
“However, it is regrettable that after the exposure of the ‘Bucha incident,’ the U.S., the initiator of the Ukraine crisis, has not shown any signs of urging peace and promoting talks, but is ready to exacerbate the Russia-Ukraine tensions and create obstacles to the peace talks between the two sides,” it said.
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https://www.wwlp.com/news/ap-international-news/china-calls-for-probe-into-bucha-killings-assigns-no-blame/
| 2022-04-06T21:29:58Z
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HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s No. 2 official, a staunch supporter of a Beijing-backed crackdown on pro-democracy activists, tendered his resignation on Wednesday to pave the way for his run in the city’s upcoming leadership race.
John Lee, who is the city’s chief secretary for administration, submitted his resignation to Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam, according to a government statement.
“If my resignation is approved by the Central People’s Government, I shall plan to stand for the upcoming chief executive election,” said Lee at a news conference. “Having been in the government for over 40 years, to serve the people of Hong Kong is a glory.”
He said he would elaborate on his “next move” if the Chinese government approves his resignation.
Lee, who is seen as Beijing’s favored candidate for the chief executive position, is a staunch advocate of the city’s national security law, which has been used since 2020 to target pro-democracy activists, supporters and media, diminishing freedoms promised to Hong Kong at Britain’s handover to China in 1997.
His potential leadership of Hong Kong could signal a further tightening of Beijing’s grip on the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
Lam said Monday she would not seek a second term, following a rocky five years punctuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, a crackdown on political freedoms and Beijing’s growing influence over the territory.
Local media, including the leading South China Morning Post newspaper, reported that Lee will be the sole candidate to be endorsed by the Chinese government.
Other candidates tipped by local media as likely contenders include the city’s finance minister, Paul Chan, although he has yet to express an intention to run.
Beijing’s likely endorsement of Lee’s candidacy signals that China is looking for loyalty and an emphasis on national security for Hong Kong, according to Ivan Choy, a senior lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Department of Government and Public Administration.
Compared to previous chief executives, Lee would have much less policy-making experience because he has spent most of his civil service career in the police and overseeing security matters, Choy said.
Given that inexperience, Beijing could “play a more important role” in the city’s local and domestic affairs, he said.
The city’s next leader will be selected on May 8 by an election committee of about 1,500 people, a majority of whom are pro-Beijing.
Hong Kong’s leader is chosen every five years, although the selection process is carefully orchestrated behind the scenes by Beijing.
The four chief executives selected since Hong Kong’s handover to mainland China in 1997 have all been candidates seen as favored by Beijing.
Lee, 64, a former career police officer who rose steadily through the ranks, was named Hong Kong’s chief secretary in June and previously served as Lam’s secretary for security.
He was a key figure in proposing contentious legislation in 2019 that would have allowed suspects in Hong Kong to be extradited to mainland China. He dismissed calls from critics to write safeguards into the bill.
The proposed bill led to massive protests in the city before it was withdrawn, and Lee oversaw a police crackdown on demonstrators during several months of massive anti-government protests in 2019.
After the protests were snuffed out, Lee threw his backing behind the sweeping security law, which was used as justification for the arrests of more than 150 people. It outlaws subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces in the city’s affairs.
Lee, Lam and other Hong Kong and mainland Chinese government officials were sanctioned by the U.S. in 2020 for “undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and restricting the freedom of expression or assembly.”
Nominations for the leadership race began Sunday and continue until April 16, with the committee vote scheduled for May 8.
The leadership race is the first since Hong Kong’s electoral laws were amended last year to ensure that only “patriots” loyal to Beijing can hold office. The changes make it difficult for pro-democracy supporters to run for chief executive.
The new leader takes office on July 1, the day Hong Kong was handed over to China by the British in 1997.
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| 2022-04-06T21:30:21Z
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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 ruined 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 shattered 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, six weeks into the war.
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 battle-damaged forces as much as a month to regroup for a major push on eastern Ukraine.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said that of the more than 5,000 civilians killed during weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting, 210 were children. He said Russian forces bombed hospitals, including one where 50 people burned to death.
Boichenko said more than 90% of the city’s infrastructure has been destroyed. The attacks on the strategic southern city on the Sea of Azov have cut off food, water, fuel and medicine and pulverized homes and businesses.
British defense officials said 160,000 people remained trapped in the city, which had a prewar population of 430,000. A humanitarian relief convoy accompanied by the Red Cross has been trying for days without success to get into the city.
Capturing Mariupol would allow Russia to secure a continuous land corridor to the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014.
In the north, Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of least 410 civilians have been found in towns around Kyiv, victims of what Zelenskyy has portrayed as a Russian campaign of murder, rape, dismemberment and torture. Some victims had apparently been shot at close range. Some were found with their hands bound.
At a cemetery in the town of 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.
Police said they found at least 20 bodies in the Makariv area west of Kyiv. In the village of Andriivka, residents said the Russians arrived in early March and took locals’ phones. Some people were detained, then released. Others met unknown fates. Some described sheltering for weeks in cellars normally used for storing vegetables for winter.
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.
In the Luhansk region of the Donbas, Russian bombardment 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.
Russian forces also attacked a fuel depot and a factory in the Dnipropetrovsk region, just west of the Donbas, authorities said.
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.
In reaction to the alleged atrocities outside Kyiv, the U.S. announced sanctions against Putin’s two adult daughters and said it is toughening penalties against Russian banks. Britain banned investment in Russia and pledged to end its dependence on Russian coal and oil by the end of the year.
The European Union is 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 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
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| 2022-04-06T21:30:29Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Kyiv was a Russian defeat for the ages. The fight started poorly for the invaders and went downhill from there.
When President Vladimir Putin launched his war on Feb. 24 after months of buildup on Ukraine’s borders, he sent hundreds of helicopter-borne commandos — the best of the best of Russia’s “spetsnaz” special forces soldiers — to assault and seize a lightly defended airfield on Kyiv’s doorstep.
Other Russian forces struck elsewhere across Ukraine, including toward the eastern city of Kharkiv as well as in the contested Donbas region and along the Black Sea coast. But as the seat of national power, Kyiv was the main prize. Thus the thrust by elite airborne forces in the war’s opening hours.
But Putin failed to achieve his goal of quickly crushing Ukraine’s outgunned and outnumbered army. The Russians were ill-prepared for Ukrainian resistance, proved incapable of adjusting to setbacks, failed to effectively combine air and land operations, misjudged Ukraine’s ability to defend its skies, and bungled basic military functions like planning and executing the movement of supplies.
“That’s a really bad combination if you want to conquer a country,” said Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel and professor of military history at Ohio State University.
For now at least, Putin’s forces have shifted away from Kyiv, to eastern Ukraine. Ultimately, the Russian leader may achieve some of his objectives. Yet his failure to seize Kyiv will be long remembered — for how it defied prewar expectations and exposed surprising weaknesses in a military thought to be one of the strongest in the world.
“It’s stunning,” said military historian Frederick Kagan of the Institute for the Study of War, who says he knows of no parallel to a major military power like Russia invading a country at the time of its choosing and failing so utterly.
On the first morning of the war, Russian Mi-8 assault helicopters soared south toward Kyiv on a mission to attack Hostomel airfield on the northwest outskirts of the capital. By capturing the airfield, also known as Antonov airport, the Russians planned to establish a base from which to fly in more troops and light armored vehicles within striking distance of the heart of the nation’s largest city.
It didn’t work that way. Several Russian helicopters were reported to be hit by missiles even before they got to Hostomel, and once settled in at the airfield they suffered heavy losses from artillery fire.
An effort to take control of a military airbase in Vasylkiv south of Kyiv also met stiff resistance and reportedly saw several Russian Il-76 heavy-lift transport planes carrying paratroopers downed by Ukrainian defenses.
Although the Russians eventually managed to control Hostomel airfield, the Ukrainians’ fierce resistance in the capital region forced a rethinking of an invasion plan that was based on an expectation the Ukrainians would quickly fold, the West would dither, and Russian forces would have an easy fight.
Air assault missions behind enemy lines, like the one executed at Hostomel, are risky and difficult, as the U.S. Army showed on March 24, 2003, when it sent more than 30 Apache attack helicopters into Iraq from Kuwait to strike an Iraqi Republican Guard division. On their way, the Apaches encountered small arms and anti-aircraft fire that downed one of the helos, damaged others and forced the mission to be aborted. Even so, the U.S. military recovered from that setback and soon captured Baghdad.
The fact that the Hostomel assault by the Russian 45th Guards Special Purpose Airborne Brigade faltered might not stand out in retrospect if the broader Russian effort had improved from that point. But it did not.
The Russians did make small and unsuccessful probes into the heart of Kyiv, and later they tried at great cost to encircle the capital by arcing farther west. Against enormous odds, the Ukrainians held their ground and fought back, stalling the Russians, and put to effective use a wide array of Western arms, including Javelin portable anti-tank weapons, shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and much more.
Last week the Russians abandoned Hostomel airfield as part of a wholesale retreat into Belarus and Russia.
A sidelight of the battle for Kyiv was the widely reported saga of a Russian resupply convoy that stretched dozens of miles along a main roadway toward the capital. It initially seemed to be a worrisome sign for the Ukrainians, but they managed to attack elements of the convoy, which had limited off-road capability and thus eventually dispersed or otherwise became a non-factor in the fight.
“They never really provided a resupply of any value to Russian forces that were assembling around Kyiv, never really came to their aid,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. “The Ukrainians put a stop to that convoy pretty quickly by being very nimble, knocking out bridges, hitting lead vehicles and stopping their movement.”
Mansoor says the Russians underestimated the number of troops they would need and showed “an astonishing inability” to perform basic military functions. They vastly misjudged what it would take to win the battle for Kyiv, he says.
“This was going to be hard even if the Russian army had proven itself to be competent,” he said. “It’s proven itself to be wholly incapable of conducting modern armored warfare.”
Putin was not the only one surprised by his army’s initial failures. U.S. and other Western officials had figured that if the invasion happened, Russia’s seemingly superior forces would slice through Ukraine’s army like a hot knife through butter. They might seize Kyiv in a few days and the whole country in a few weeks, although some analysts did question whether Putin appreciated how much Ukraine’s forces had gained from Western training that intensified after Putin’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and incursion into the Donbas.
On March 25, barely a month after the invasion began, the Russians declared they had achieved their goals in the Kyiv region and would shift focus to the separatist Donbas area in eastern Ukraine. Some suspected a Putin ploy to buy time without giving up his maximalist aims, but within days the Kyiv retreat was in full view.
Putin may yet manage to refocus his war effort on a narrower goal of expanding Russian control in the Donbas and perhaps securing a land corridor from the Donbas to the Crimean Peninsula. But his failure in Kyiv revealed weaknesses that suggest Russia is unlikely to try again soon to take down the national capital.
“I think they learned their lesson,” said Mansoor.
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| 2022-04-06T21:31:44Z
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Of the many interesting aspects of YES’s new game analysts, Carlos Beltran and Cameron Maybin, is this: They both could have been in the Yankees’ dugout instead of the booth.
Beltran and Maybin were under consideration by the team to become coaches under manager Aaron Boone, according to Yankee and YES officials, but Beltran and Maybin both declined the opportunity.
Instead, John Filippelli, YES’s de facto GM as its president of programming and production, consulted with the Yankees’ Brian Cashman about bringing them into the booth.
Despite Cashman’s feelings on the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal in which Beltran was fingered as a key conspirator and in which Maybin was a World Series-winning team member, Cashman not only gave the signal to go forward with the two players, but encouraged it.
“Ultimately, we have to turn the page,” Cashman said. “Carlos is a friend. He was a friend before. And you have to make those decisions in your life.
“Obviously what happened in Houston was not good. It was a blemish on the game, and certainly was very hurtful and impactful to us. But I feel like Carlos is part of the family.”
Cashman also feels that Beltran will be very good.
“He has an ability to impart his wisdom in such an amazing way,” Cashman said.
For Yankees fans, there may still be a scar because of Beltran’s involvement in 2017. If so, Filippelli thinks Beltran will win them over pretty quickly.
“I think some people who don’t want to give him the benefit of the doubt may in fact give him the benefit of the doubt once they hear him,” Filippelli said.
Beltran and Maybin will be part of a new sound on YES and Amazon Prime Video’s 21-game package. It is a new era in Yankees broadcasting.
Ken Singleton, after years of almost retiring, has finally really walked away from the booth. In studio, Buck Showalter left to become the Mets’ manager, a job which was briefly Beltran’s.
Meanwhile, David Cone, who will be one of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” analysts, and Paul O’Neill will each do around 65 games.
Maybin will be on for about 40 and Beltran is scheduled for 36, which Filippelli decided on to match the uniform number Beltran wore. John Flaherty, YES’s Swiss Army knife, will do games and studio.
Michael Kay will be the play-by-player on the vast majority of games, while Ryan Ruocco will pinch hit occasionally.
Beltran, through YES, decided not to talk for this story, as he did not want to be asked more questions about the Astros scandal. Beltran addressed them Monday, however, answering questions with fellow YES employee Kay, on a taped edition of “CenterStage.”
He said the Astros championship is stained and that they were wrong. He still does not understand why he was singled out. His understanding during the investigation was that players were not going to be held accountable.
“Everyone gets immunity except Carlos Beltran? I don’t get it,” Beltran said.
Going into the booth could be an ideal entry point for Beltran back into the game. When discipline was handed down for the Astros scandal, manager A.J. Hinch, bench coach Alex Cora and GM Jeff Luhnow all received one-year suspensions. Hinch, with the Tigers, and Cora, back with the Red Sox, returned as managers. Luhnow has not been welcomed back.
Beltran wasn’t officially suspended by commissioner Rob Manfred, but he was the only player singled out in MLB’s report, causing the Mets to end his managerial reign before his first game.
With YES, Beltran will have an opportunity to step back into the spotlight, show why the Mets hired him and display the acumen that made him a potential future Hall of Famer as a player.
“He’s going to be a manager some day,” Filippelli said. “I don’t think he’s going to be a broadcaster forever, but who knows?”
Beltran will analyze games in English, having grown up in Puerto Rico, where Spanish is the dominant language. This may be the first time this has happened in Yankee broadcasting history.
“I’m not so sure Phil Rizzuto’s first language was English,” Filippelli said.
Maybin, 34, only played 82 games with the Yankees, back in 2019. He is one of those guys, though, who just lit up a clubhouse, even if he wasn’t a star.
Maybin had coaching opportunities, including potentially with the Yankees, but that would defeat the purpose of being home to watch his four kids in their activities, including his oldest, 14-year-old Trent, who is already getting some looks as a top baseball and basketball player.
Maybin hit four home runs in four straight games in June 2019, which made an impression. He also stood out as a potential broadcaster.
At the time, his now-agent Mark Lepselter reached out to see if he would be interested, while Ruocco also spoke to him about possibly being in the booth.
Maybin will not only be doing Yankees games, but he will be on MLB Network and the Cubs’ Marquee Network. In all, he will have more than 100 days on the air.
“How about bringing a new flavor?” Maybin said.
He looks at Nate Burleson, Michael Strahan, Harold Reynolds and Eduardo Perez as broadcasting road models. He’s into media, choosing to put on Kay’s YES show many afternoons in his Asheville, N.C., home.
“My wife gets upset when I watch his show for three hours,” Maybin said.
The questions about the Astros’ scandal will likely fade if Beltran and Maybin are good on the air. They do need to provide answers when asked.
“Did it go too far?” Maybin asked. “Clearly, but at the time I didn’t look at it as they were trying to screw the game.”
From Cashman to Filippelli, the Yankees think that Beltran and Maybin will enhance the game. Now, the fans will decide.
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| 2022-04-06T21:32:49Z
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Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs have the honor of kicking off the new campaign and pits a team building a National League Central dynasty against one embarking upon another rebuilding project.
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MLB Opening Day: The Schedule
- Cubs vs. Brewers, 2:20 p.m.
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| 2022-04-06T21:33:19Z
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A fisherman sailing the Norwegian Sea has found an array of terrifying sea creatures that look like they swam straight out of a horror movie.
Roman Fedortsov, 39, often posts photos of the rare fish he finds while exploring leagues under the sea — but one fish, in particular, became a viral hit.
A photo of the fish, which many commenters have compared to a “baby dragon,” has gone viral, amassing over 22,000 likes on Instagram.
The light pink and silver fish has large cartoon-like eyes on each side of its head, wing-shaped fins and a long, spiked tail.
“Just a quote ‘It’s one thing to chase something nameless, but quite another thing to find it’ – G.F. Lovecraft,” Fedortsov captioned the photo on Instagram to share with his 646,000 followers.
The fish was eventually identified as a chimaera — a cartilaginous fish also known as a “ghost shark” — and it brought a flurry of comments from shocked viewers.
“It looks a little like a newly hatched dragon to me,” said one person in the comments, with another concurring, “Looks like a baby dragon!”
“Looks mythological,” wrote another stunned commenter, echoing others.
“Welp, I think I don’t need to swim in the ocean ever again,” said another decidedly freaked-out onlooker.
After seeing Fedortsov’s other deep-sea finds, many people might agree.
The Murmansk-based Russian fisherman works on a boat searching for cod, haddock and mackerel on commercial trawlers, diving up to 3,000 feet below the surface, the Daily Mail reported.
Many of the fish brought up from the deep water die due to the change in pressure, he said. Fedortsov studied marine science at a university in Murmansk.
He spends the majority of his time sailing in the Barents Sea, off the northern coasts of Russia, which feeds into the Arctic Ocean, but also travels to other parts of the world, including the Atlantic Ocean.
While exploring the deep sea, Fedortsov has found plenty of other bizarre sea creatures that look like everything from aliens to cheeseburgers.
Instagram users were quick to comment on the spooky creatures and have often helped to identify the wild finds. Fedortsov explained to the Daily Mail that he often shares the pictures in hopes of discovering what rare sea monster he found.
People often comment about the strange appearance of many of the creatures, but he said he sees the beauty in all creatures.
“In their own way, all of these creatures are beautiful,” he told the Daily Mail.
“All kinds of fish are beautiful in their own way. I cannot say that they are ‘scary’ or ‘ugly.’ People are very interested in unusual sea creatures,” he said.
And although he has amassed an impressive collection of underwater oddities, hauling them up is actually not a regular occurrence.
“Readers have the impression that with each trawl we bring aboard unusual fish specimens,” the fisherman added. “In fact, this is far from the case. It is a rarity.
“On the other hand, even a famous fish can be photographed so that it will seem to be a ‘monster.'”
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| 2022-04-06T21:33:25Z
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PEMBROKE, Ga. (AP) — After violent storms blamed for killing at least three people, Southerners cleared fallen trees from roadways Wednesday and began cleaning up debris from homes and buildings smashed by suspected tornadoes as forecasters warned more violent weather was likely on the way.
In southeast Georgia, residents of Bryan County had barely begun recovery efforts after a likely tornado touched down Tuesday evening, killing one woman and injuring several other people, when local officials urged them to halt work by mid-afternoon Wednesday and take shelter for the night.
The National Weather Service said another round of tornadoes was possible Wednesday, with heightened risk across a three-state area that included the cities of Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; and Knoxville, Tennessee.
Tuesday’s storms were blamed for killing people in Louisiana and Texas.
Louisiana state police said Gene Latin, a 65-year-old correctional officer, was killed early Tuesday when he crashed into a tree that had fallen across a highway as storms blew through Webster Parish. And in east Texas, 71-year-old W. M. Soloman died when storm winds toppled a tree onto his home in Whitehouse, said Mayor James Wansley.
In Bryan County, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of Savannah, a woman was found dead Tuesday night amid the shredded wreckage of her mobile home in the unincorporated community of Ellabell, said Bryan County Coroner Bill Cox.
“It was just completely ripped to pieces,” Cox said Wednesday. “It’s like it exploded.”
Cox said the dead woman’s husband was taken to a hospital with injuries. He did not give her name, saying relatives were still being notified.
A motorist’s cellphone video taken in Bryan County showed a large funnel cloud crossing Interstate 16 as drivers braked and pulled to the side of the roadway.
In the county seat of Pembroke, large sections of roof got torn off the courthouse and the entryway to a government building across was demolished. The storm destroyed at least 18 homes in the county and left more than 10 others with major damage, according to the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. Several people were injured, said Matthew Kent, a Bryan County government spokesperson.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp toured the destruction Wednesday and said it was fortunate the twister did not stay on the ground very long, or the damage and loss of life would likely have been much worse. Places where it did touch down, he said, got hit hard.
“It is literally total devastation for some homes,” Kemp said. “We walked through a house where there’s no wood left on that house. It’s nothing but a foundation with a water heater sitting there.”
In South Carolina, about a dozen homes were destroyed or heavily damaged Tuesday in rural Allendale County. Tractors and other equipment were flipped and twisted on a number of farms in South Carolina’s least populated county. Other storms caused damage to solar panels near Bowman and flipped vehicles and shopping carts in a Walmart parking lot in Manning.
National Weather Service forecasters planned to survey damage from several possible tornadoes in Georgia and South Carolina, but said that effort could be interrupted by the potential for more storms Wednesday.
In Alabama, the weather service said it was sending survey teams to examine potential tornado damage in the Wetumpka area.
More than 7,000 customers in Texas and more than 3,000 in Georgia remained without power Wednesday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.
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| 2022-04-06T21:33:41Z
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Six huge photographs wreathed in flowers and garlands lined a downtown street in California’s capital city Wednesday, each with a small memorial of bouquets, candles and cards on a stretch of sidewalk dedicated to the six people who were gunned down last weekend in a gang dispute that turned into a mass shooting.
Candlelight vigils, somber press conferences and private moments between friends and family members have been held this week as Sacramento’s downtown community struggled to comprehend the tragedy.
The violence erupted early Sunday when two groups of men connected to gangs began shooting as bars and clubs emptied out at closing time, police said. At least five gunmen sent dozens of rapid-fire gunshots into the streets and patrons fleeing in terror.
Six people were killed and 12 more suffered gunshot wounds, including two brothers who have been arrested in connection with the massacre. At least two people were still hospitalized on Wednesday.
The Sacramento County coroner identified the six people slain as: Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21; Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and De’vazia Turner, 29.
Police on Wednesday said evidence shows there at least five people opened fire in what officials called a gang-related shootout, but have not specified which gangs. Authorities have arrested the two brothers in connection with the shooting but have not disclosed their alleged roles. No one has been yet been charged with homicide.
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.
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“We were just talking about it.”
That’s what Lateef, a barber at University Barbershop in the Vine City neighborhood of Atlanta said when queried about his thoughts onthe Will Smith Oscars slap. It’s been over a week since the incident, but many people are talking about it like it just happened yesterday.
For men, “barbershop talk” is the time to gather around to discuss and debate the hottest topics around the world without judgment. Go to any other barbershop, and Smith and Rock are probably still at the top of the conversation. Lateef told rolling out what his first reaction was when seeing the slap.
“First, I said what the f—,” Lateef said. “I kind of understand all [the] parties involved, but violence obviously ain’t the answer.”
A.J., a regular client at University Barbershop, shared his thoughts as well.
“It’s sad that the whole world had to come together to see two Black men do that,” A.J. said. “For Chris Rock, I think a lot of times as a nation and as people, we get caught up in this whole freedom of speech, but one thing my dad always raised me to believe is you’re going to be held accountable for what comes out of your mouth.”
Many people have taken one side or the other in the Smith-Rock incident, but Lateef says that he thinks both men were wrong in their actions during that night.
“I think Will Smith took advantage of it, and as far as Chris Rock, I feel like as a man he needs to see that somebody is approaching his space and protect himself by any means necessary. Will is bogus, but Chris Rock needs to watch his mouth, obviously.”
On April 5, there were reports that Jada Pinkett Smith said that she wishes Will hadn’t slapped Rock, but the couple agrees that he overreacted.
“At the end of the day, since it’s about protecting each other and protecting Black women, in particular, [Jada] has to be able to protect Will in that situation,” Lateef said. “You got to pull his coattail.”
“At this point, she needs to stay out in front of the cameras,” A.J. said. “Just stop talking. If you want to protect me, stop me from going up there. As my wife, you’ve seen that look on my face when I’m about to do something reckless. Jump up and say ‘honey, it ain’t even worth it right now.’ “
Lateef offered advice to comedians that he hopes will prevent confrontations like this from happening in the future.
“Change up the comedy a little bit and protect each other,” Lateef said. “Everybody protect each other. Don’t use this platform to be knocking each other down.”
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Attorney J. Wyndal Gordon is an author, respected trial attorney, and solo practitioner born in Washington, D.C, and raised in Maryland. Gordon is known as the “warrior lawyer” and has been a frequent legal commentator and contributor for TruTv, CNN, and Headline News (HLN).
Like many of us, Gordon was a virtual witness to the slap heard across the globe and gave his legal opinion.
After seeing the most famous slap in Hollywood occur from one Black man to another, what did you say to yourself?
To me, it was jaw dropping. I was shocked. I was disheartened and at the same time, there was a certain level of understanding that I had for Will Smith. So, my heart went out to both sides for what they were going through. I hoped that they were hugging it out. It really hurt our purpose. These are elite men in our society who regressed back to another place in time in their own lives. They were supposed to have ascended beyond all of it, yet there they were on that day.
Share your initial thoughts.
My first thoughts when I saw it was this is a comedian, he’s telling jokes, he’s ripping almost any and everybody to keep the crowd going and to keep them involved in the show as he’s getting geared up to begin the presentation. In other words, you need someone to keep the party going. I’m sure everyone knew that Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, and all these other folks were hosting and they would be telling jokes. When you’re on the set with a comedian, anyone can become part of the material to make people laugh.
So, there they were, Will Smith and his wife, in one of the biggest moments of their entire career, perhaps even their lives, on this global grand stage, where the world is watching, and then this thing happens. It was truly unfortunate. Because all those actors and entertainers, performers, worked hard just to be able to be in that room amongst one another to celebrate this great traditional award show. They were eclipsed by the slap that was heard around the world.
Now that we’re past the infamous event, how do you currently feel?
I am disappointed for our culture. I was disappointed because Chris Rock was placed in a situation where he looked emasculated. I saw Will Smith display a lack of control that was unattractive and unusual, coming from a person that we’ve all known him to be. He was a person who was peaceful, who wanted nothing more than a world to love and be loved. It was just the perfect storm of certain cascading events that really overshadow all the good things that were taking place on that evening.
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| 2022-04-06T21:34:30Z
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The Los Angeles Lakers have had a disastrous season. Finally, the team has been mercifully eliminated from the playoff picture after the hapless Lakers suffered their seventh consecutive loss on Tuesday, April 5, 2022.
Fans, experts and talk show hosts are all trying to perform mental acrobatics to wrap their brains around how LeBron James and the Lakers deteriorated into a global basketball atrocity after being picked to appear in the NBA Finals before the season started.
One of the super fans of King James, Shannon Sharpe who hosts the sports show “Undisputed,” is bracing himself for the mental beating he’s about to be subjected to by a legion of Lakers’ detractors.
And it begins. Today is going to be a long day 🤦🏾♂️ pic.twitter.com/4zyHdnw6vs
— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) April 6, 2022
A confluence of detrimental factors wreaked havoc on the Lakers’ season before it started and emptied out into a sea of trouble: The roster was horribly constructed and ill-fitting; the Lakers had a porous defense that could not stop even the worst of offenses; constant injuries, particularly to superstar Anthony Davis who missed half the games this year and last; no outside shooters who could complement King James and AD’s offensive firepower; a Western Conference full of contenders who lusted after beating LeBron who remains the game’s biggest star (he received the most votes for the All-Star game again).
The Lakers may have just completed the arguably worst season in team history after losing to the Phoenix Suns 121-110 on Tuesday to fall 17 games below .500 with a record of 31-48. They are 4-17 since the All-Star break for a putrid .190 winning percentage, the worst ever in the Lakers’ storied existence after the halfway point.
Things have been so bad that even Magic Johnson, the most beloved Laker of all time, went on ESPN to place a lot of the blame on King James for choosing to trade for Russell Westbrook, who just completed the worst season of his career. Before the season, the Lakers management was going to trade for superstar Demar DeRozan who is having a career-best year for the Chicago Bulls — and who are, by the way, going to make the playoffs.
But James chose the ultra-expensive Westbrook instead of DeRozan. And acquiring Westbrook prevented the Lakers from keeping key players who play defense and can shoot, two things that Westbrook failed to do this season.
Magic Johnson believes LeBron James deserves some blame for the Lakers picking Russell Westbrook over DeMar DeRozan.
READ: https://t.co/06wWD4wRBO pic.twitter.com/GjLAXPG947
— Complex (@Complex) April 5, 2022
Lakers and LeBron haters are having a field day roasting the team and player for performing so abysmally, especially after King James warned the sports world that his squad would be a contender this year.
LeBron James has now missed the playoffs twice as many times as Michael Jordan.
— BossHogg (@6Hogg6) April 6, 2022
Magic Johnson woke up loving all the drama surrounding the Lakers and Lebron.
😆😂🤣😆😄🤣🤣💥#Lakers #LeBron #ESPN pic.twitter.com/BQF3tmpb03— xMoney17 (@fallensta7) April 6, 2022
Well, that’s all folks #lebron #westbrick #lakers #playoffs #taesworld86 #retweet pic.twitter.com/Ar28aRxKI2
— Taesworld86 (@taesworld86) April 6, 2022
The ENERGY tweet did not age well.
So #LeBron will hang up his feet this summer while the likes of #Spurs attempt a run in the play ins, the same play ins he derided last season.#Lakers #NBA pic.twitter.com/itCL4OVZNB
— Bayano Valy 🇲🇿 (@BayanoValy) April 6, 2022
We ain't spinning this; no alternative narratives will be accepted.
There's no silver linings; there's no he opened a school junk rebuttal…this is forever a #LeBronJames fiasco and it's forever on his record.#Kobe & #LA deserve better than #LeBron's lousy mediocrity. #NBA https://t.co/ZF5DBBQv5t
— Sammy Younan -28- (@mypalsammy) April 6, 2022
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| 2022-04-06T21:34:40Z
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The criminal charges have been announced for Mark Hanneman, the officer who shot and killed 22-year-old Black man Amir Locke – there are none.
Minnesota prosecutors determined to not file criminal charges against Hanneman, as local offices determined the officer was justified in firing his weapon.
“There is insufficient admissible evidence to file criminal charges in this case. Specifically, the State would be unable to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt any of the elements of Minnesota’s use-of-deadly-force statute that authorizes the use of force by Officer Hanneman,” Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman, whose offices reviewed the case, said in a joint statement reported by AP.
Body camera footage released showed officers conducting a no-knock warrant search in the investigation of a local murder. Locke was sleeping on the couch at the time of the search and it appeared he was startled awake when the officers yelled for him to get on the ground. Locke was under a comforter, and the AP reported he was holding a gun at the time officers shot him, later resulting in his death. Locke’s mom, Karen Wells, called it an “execution.”
Despite not filing criminal charges, Ellison and Freeman described Locke’s death as a “tragedy.”
“Amir Locke is a victim,” Ellison and Freeman said. “This tragedy may not have occurred absent the no-knock warrant used in this case.”
Hanneman was hired in 2015 and has received at least three complaints from the public without punishment, the AP reported.
Other notable Black men who have died in Minnesota in recent years include Philando Castile, George Floyd, Daunte Wright and AJ Stewart.
Stewart’s cousin and poet Tongo Eisen-Martin quoted Malcolm X and said everything below Canada is the South, referring to the South’s reputation for being racist to Black people.
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| 2022-04-06T21:34:50Z
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As “the slap” continues to ring loudly in the ears of pop culture, it is now being reported that Jada Pinkett Smith “wishes” that her husband Will Smith had not confronted Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars.
The Girls Trip star is reportedly not angry with her superstar husband, but “wishes he didn’t” get physical and is “in agreement’ that Will Smith “overreacted,” US Weekly reports.
“It was in the heat of the moment and it was him [Will Smith] overreacting. He knows that, she [Jada] knows that. They’re in agreement that he overreacted,” the publication stated.
Pinkett Smith, who first came to fame on “A Different World” sitcom and then even soared higher through the gritty urban classics like Menace II Society and Set it Off, does not exemplify the type of woman who needs others to stand up for her.
“She’s not one of these women that needs protecting. He didn’t need to do what he did, she didn’t need protecting,” US Weekly states. “She’s not a wallflower. She’s a strong woman, an opinionated woman and she can fight her own battles. But she will stand by him.”
As most of the nation is aware by now, Smith stormed the stage during the Oscars to slap Rock after the comedian joked that Pinkett Smith could star in a G.I. Jane sequel due to her shaved head. Pinkett Smith had revealed on her “Red Table Talk” show that she suffers from alopecia, an auto-immune disease that causes massive hair loss.
After returning to his seat, Smith twice roared: “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—ing mouth!”
After the smack, Smith won the Best Actor Oscar for the movie King Richard where he apologized in his teary acceptance speech for his behavior. The Men in Black star later offered his mea culpa to Rock and then resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. He is also the subject of an investigation by the Academy that could lead to suspension or expulsion for an indefinite period of time.
Meanwhile, major movie distributors and steaming services have halted the production of several of Smith’s movie projects, including a biopic on his life and Bad Boys 4.
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The new affordable housing development in Central Florida is expected to include more than 1,300 units.
Disney will work with developer to add creative and innovative touches to make it a special place to live.
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Walt Disney World Resort will earmark nearly 80 acres of land to bring a new affordable housing development to life in southwest Orange County, Florida. This initiative has been in the works for quite some time and builds on The Walt Disney Company's long legacy of bringing positive, lasting change to the communities it calls home – making an important difference locally to address one of the nation's greatest challenges.
This new development, which is still in the early planning stages and subject to appropriate approvals, is expected to include more than 1,300 units and will be constructed by a third-party affordable housing developer on Disney's land near its Central Florida theme parks. The development will offer residents a variety of home choices that are affordable and attainable, located in close proximity to schools and the new and expanding Flamingo Crossings Town Center retail and dining complex. It will offer a variety of amenities to foster a strong community.
Known for building industry-leading theme parks and resort hotels around the world, Disney will engage the developer to bring that same innovation, expertise and attention to detail to this initiative. The development will be available for qualifying applicants from the general public, including Disney cast members.
"We are invested in working together with our community to solve complex issues," said Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World Resort. "The lack of affordable housing is affecting many people across our country, including right here in Central Florida. With this initiative, we're lending a hand to make a real and meaningful impact in our community by tapping into the best of our company's strengths. This is the right opportunity and the right time to take action."
More details about this initiative will be released at a later date as the company continues due diligence work with a prominent affordable housing developer. Disney's initiative will play an important role as leaders in the community – including Orange County Mayor Jerry L. Demings – continue to prioritize finding lasting solutions to affordable housing in Central Florida.
This new initiative in Central Florida will join additional investments Disney is making in affordable housing. Several years ago, Disneyland Resort led an effort to revitalize the Orange County Housing Trust that provides "last mile" funding for affordable housing projects in Anaheim. This made the Buena Esperanza project — a converted studio apartment community for veterans and homeless individuals with mental illness — a reality. In addition to providing them a place to live, the community offers job placement and mental health and wellness support to residents. As a result of Disney's investment a second project, Finamore Place, in Anaheim is under construction with an expected completion date of early summer 2022. It will provide over 100 additional housing units. Disneyland Resort will continue to show support for these and other such worthy endeavors.
These initiatives are among the many ways Disney is strengthening its communities, including hundreds of millions of dollars provided in philanthropic donations to local nonprofits, the Disney VoluntEARS program, contributions to local foodbanks and more. Walt Disney World Resort also recently donated $3 million to important causes in the community, including organizations on the front lines of the affordable housing issue.
For additional details about Disney's community initiatives in Central Florida, please visit DisneyWorldGivesBack.com.
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Walt Disney World Resort
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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
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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.
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| 2022-04-06T21:35:08Z
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ATLANTA – Lexus treated media and urban sophisticates to an evening of luxuriousness by facilitating an intimate drive-in movie experience while celebrating the delectable delights from some of the ATL’s best chefs.
Lexus, which is the quintessential personification of sophistication and class, created an exclusive bastion of comfort dining for reporters and influencers. Guests were only were required to bring their own cars and appetites to Impact Church’s parking lot, which was transformed into a drive-in theater for the evening.
The evening was also an opportunity to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the influential Ice Cube film, Barbershop, which became a blockbuster and launched a franchise (Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Barbershop: The Next Cut and Beauty Shop).
Attendees were met with club bangers by the deejay who was flanked by two Lexus sedans. Once they parked, their palates were pampered with gastronomic greatness from restaurateurs of the African diaspora.
The Iron Mon provided the Caribbean cuisine, Lady & the Beast came strong with the barbecue menu, while Omni Flavas rounded out the trio of food trucks with a fusion of Mexican, Asian and American dishes.
All the drivers and passengers had to do was lay back their seats, tune out the outside noise and enjoy succulent meals.
Bon vivants and fans of these wondrous whips on wheels can track the Lexus Uncorked’s local and national tours via the hashtag #LexusUncorked.
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| 2022-04-06T21:35:11Z
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Serena Williams gave birth to Alexis in September 2017, but she didn’t form a connection with her baby girl until the day she was born.
In a personal essay for Elle, Serena explained: “I was nervous about meeting my baby. Throughout my pregnancy, I’d never felt a connection with her. While I loved being pregnant, I didn’t have that amazing ‘Oh my God, this is my baby’ moment, ever. It’s something people don’t usually talk about, because we’re supposed to be in love from the first second.
“Yes, I was a lioness who would protect her baby at any cost, but I wasn’t gushing over her. I kept waiting to feel like I knew her during pregnancy, but the feeling never came. Some of my mom friends told me they didn’t feel the connection in the womb either, which made me feel better, but still, I longed for it.”
However, Serena’s attitude changed as soon as her daughter was born. The Olympic gold medalist – who is married to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian – shared: “When I finally saw her – and I just knew it was going to be a girl, that was one thing I knew about her before we even had it confirmed – I loved her right away. It wasn’t exactly instantaneous, but it was there, and from that seed, it grew.”
Despite this, Serena’s pregnancy experience was far from straightforward. The tennis legend recalled suffering a coughing fit that led doctors to discover life-threatening blood clots in her body.
“In the US, black women are nearly three times more likely to die during or after childbirth than their white counterparts. Many of these deaths are considered by experts to be preventable. Being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me.”
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| 2022-04-06T21:35:21Z
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ATLANTA, April 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Witherite Law Group, 1-800-TruckWreck, Frank Ski, legendary media personality and philanthropist, and Nina Brown, radio veteran and community advocate, both of The Frank Ski Show with Nina Brown, are joining together to provide meals for Atlanta area families this Easter. Five-hundred $100 Honey Baked Ham gift cards will be provided. The gift cards will be given to families financially impacted by the current state of the economy, including rising gas costs, inflation, the pandemic, and unemployment.
Witherite Law Group, 1-800-TruckWreck, Frank Ski and Nina Brown will host the ham giveaway in person on Friday, April 8, 2022, at Honey Baked Hams, 6175 Old National Highway, Suite 204, Atlanta, GA 30349. The event will start at 6 a.m. and end at 10 a.m. EST. The Easter gift card giveaway is free and open to the public. Registration is not required. Gift cards will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis.
Families across the nation are feeling constrained by the rising cost of groceries and gas, as well as economic hardships caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Witherite Law Group and 1-800-TruckWreck have joined forces with Frank and Nina to support families by offsetting a portion of their Easter holiday meals.
"Food insecurity has been on the rise since early 2000, and today's rising costs make it more difficult for families to access food for quality meals each day. Some are forced to decide between purchasing groceries, medicine or paying for housing each month," said Amy Witherite, founder of Witherite Law Group and 1-800-TruckWreck. "Our goal is to offer some relief to as many families as possible during this Easter holiday."
According to Deloitte, the US economy is on a path to recover from the pandemic, unemployment, and businesses are beginning to profit again, but the war between Russia and Ukraine will drive inflation; therefore, US citizens will continue to be impacted by increased prices for the foreseeable future.
"People need support year-round -- some for reasons completely out of their control. Providing assistance during this difficult time in our country is the least we can do help the members of our community," said Frank Ski, media personality and philanthropist. "I'm honored to partner with Witherite Law Group to help meet this need today and in the future."
ABOUT WITHERITE LAW GROUP
Witherite Law Group is a personal injury law firm founded in 2001 with offices in Atlanta (also serving Columbus and Macon), Dallas, and Fort Worth. The firm's attorneys specialize in helping those injured in a car or truck accident and can be reached by calling 1-800-TruckWreck or 1-800-CarWreck, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
PHOTO/INTERVIEW/B-ROLL OPPORTUNITIES:
The following spokespeople are available for pre-event and/or onsite interviews:
- Amy Witherite - founder, Witherite Law Group
- Frank Ski – public figure and philanthropist
- Nina Brown - radio veteran and community advocate
Please contact Kayla Tucker Adams, KTA Media Group, for interviews and onsite media coverage at info@kaylatuckeradams.com or 214-403-9852.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Witherite Law Group Social Media Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WitheriteLaw
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/witheritelaw/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WitheriteLaw
1-800-TruckWreck Media Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1800TruckWreck/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1800truckwreck/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/1800truckwreck
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Witherite Law Group
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Actors Tika Sumpter and Natasha Rothwell bring much more than laughs in Sonic The Hedgehog 2. Alongside James Marsden as her on-screen husband, the two help Sonic find his way as a young teen by reassuring him that he is not alone. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 is in theaters Friday, April 8.
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Which Intel processor is best?
The central processing unit is one of the most crucial components of a computer. It tells all the other PC bits and pieces how and when to execute instructions. It works with the RAM and graphics card to keep the device running smoothly.
The CPU fits into the motherboard, and gamers generally choose Intel or AMD. If you prefer the former, then the Intel Core i9-10900K Desktop Processor 10 Cores is an excellent choice. It has 10 cores with a maximum clock speed of 5.3 gigahertz.
What to know before you buy an Intel processor
Compatibility with your motherboard
The motherboard in a computer is the base to which all the components connect. The CPU slots into a dedicated space and must therefore be compatible. For example, Intel CPUs will only work when placed into an Intel-compatible motherboard. It is impossible to use an Intel CPU with an AMD-compatible motherboard as the pins and sockets of the CPU are different.
Correct chipset
You must make sure that you use an Intel motherboard with an Intel CPU, but another crucial aspect is the chipset. As technology evolves, CPUs and motherboards use different connection points that aren’t backward compatible. So, for example, you can’t use an Intel 300 Series CPU on a 200 Series motherboard.
Number of cores for what you need
There’s an extensive range of Intel CPUs to choose from, so you must get the right one for your needs. For example, for playing video games or creating digital content, more cores are great for a smoother experience. But you don’t need many cores for general browsing or streaming. The more cores a CPU has, the faster and harder it can work. At the top of Intel’s range are the X-Series and the i9 with 18 and eight cores, respectively.
What to look for in a quality Intel processor
The clock speed is everything
The most straightforward measure of a processor’s performance is clock speed. Measured in gigahertz, it is the equivalent of a vehicle’s top speed measured in miles per hour. The higher the clock speed, the faster it can execute multiple instructions. A clock speed between 4.8 gigahertz and 5.3 gigahertz is more than enough for gaming and content creation.
Hyper-threading
If overclocking is too daunting for you, look for a good-quality Intel processor that features hyper-threading. The technology lets single cores in the CPU handle two or more tasks simultaneously. Hyper-threading is great for multitasking, as it splits physical cores into several virtual ones, taking the load off the entire system.
Overclocking
While some CPUs already have blazingly fast clock speeds, there is always the potential to squeeze a little more out of their processing power. For example, you can overclock a CPU to work faster than Intel recommends through special software. However, it won’t harm the processor if done correctly, and some CPU makers even consider it a selling point.
How much you can expect to spend on an Intel processor
The average price of an Intel processor will depend on the number of cores and the clock speed. Core i7 or i5 chips can retail for $200-$250, while faster and more powerful Core i9 chips can retail for $400-$500.
Intel processor FAQ
Can you put an Intel PC processor in a laptop?
A. No, as the component are vastly different. For example, a CPU for a laptop is much thinner and smaller than a desktop CPU, and the motherboard sockets are incompatible.
Is thermal paste essential?
A. Yes, as without it, the CPU will burn out in minutes. Thermal paste is a thin layer of heat-resistant liquid filling the air gaps between the CPU and the heatsink. The paste squeezes the air out, which would otherwise prevent the CPU from cooling.
What’s the best Intel processor to buy?
Top Intel processor
Intel Core i9-10900K Desktop Processor 10 Cores
What you need to know: Few Intel processors can keep up with the 10900K, as it uses some of the latest available technology.
What you’ll love: What makes this CPU so powerful is that it has a maximum clock speed 5.3 gigahertz through 10 cores. It is compatible with Intel 400 Series chipsets and uses the LGA 1200 socket type. It employs Intel’s Hyper-threading technology to make things run smoother and access files faster with compatible Intel Optane memory.
What you should consider: The base clock speed is set to 3.7 gigahertz, and you can only reach the 5.3 gigahertz through overclocking software.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top Intel processor for the money
Intel Core i7-10700F Desktop Processor 8 Cores
What you need to know: This CPU is perfect if you want to balance an affordable component with power and speed.
What you’ll love: With eight cores able to handle 16 tasks simultaneously, this i7 CPU has a base clock speed of 2.9 gigahertz. If you need extra computing power, it can be overclocked to 4.8 gigahertz. It is compatible with Intel 400 series chipset motherboards and includes a cooler.
What you should consider: The CPU can only be used with an external graphics card, as it doesn’t have graphical capabilities.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Intel Core i7-12700KF Desktop Processor 12 (8P+4E) Cores
What you need to know: This CPU divides the workload between Performance and Efficient cores to get the most out of processes.
What you’ll love: Compatible with 600 Series motherboards, this CPU has a maximum clock speed of 5.0 gigahertz when overclocked from the base speed of 3.8 gigahertz. In addition, it is compatible with DDR5 memory and has eight Performance cores for light working and execution. Furthermore, it engages the four efficient cores for hyper-threading when more power is needed.
What you should consider: The price tag might be a bit steep, but it is excellent value for money.
Where to buy: Sold by B&H Photo
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Charlie Fripp writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
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| 2022-04-06T21:35:35Z
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A Gainesville man has been charged with murdering his own mother on April 4.
Deputies responded to a call about a welfare check, and when they got to the scene, they found a female victim with numerous stab wounds. The victim was identified as Angela Shields, who lived in Gainesville. They found several lacerations on her body from the stabbing.
Authorities say the suspect in the stabbing, Marcus Alfredo Flores, was the victim’s son. Flores was taken into custody on April 5 and charged with felony malice murder and terroristic threats and acts.
It has not yet been released by police what was Flores’ motive in the crime, and it’s still unclear if he was living with his mother at the time.
According to Hall County Jail records, Flores was in jail between March 23, 2021, and Feb. 18, 2022, for a probation violation. Records show he has a probation violation from a 2009 child molestation, where he was accused of touching a girl who was under the age of 16.
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| 2022-04-06T21:35:41Z
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After the leading business magazine, Forbes, released its latest biillionaires list and valued the rapper at $2 billion, a source close to Ye told The Blast that Forbes is trying to “control and diminish him even at the cost of their own integrity.”
They argued the publication only takes into account “revenue from last year,” and fails to mention the “enterprise value of long-term deals that are in place.”
The 44-year-old designer artist – who recenly legally changed his name to Ye – has major brand deals with Adidas and Gap.
Ye placed 1,513 on the Forbes list of billionaires, while his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, 41, made 1,645, jumping a whole 1,000 places from last year, with a net worth of $1.8 billion – thanks to her SKIMS brand, KKW Beauty, mobile game and family’s reality television show.
In first place is Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk, 50, with an estimated net worth of $219 billion.
It’s the first time since 2018 that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos hasn’t topped the list.
The 58-year-old business magnate’s net worth has dropped by $6 billion to $171 billion, as a result of making substantial donations to various charitable causes.
Rihanna has joined the list with her $1.7 billion fortune credited to her lucrative Fenty Beauty cosmetics brand and Savage X Fenty lingerie line, making her the world’s wealthiest female music star.
And Jay-Z’s $1.4 billion – largely from his Roc Nation record label and the sale of streaming service TIDAL and his Armand de Brignac champagne – positioned the 52-year-old hip-hop legend at 2,076.
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| 2022-04-06T21:35:51Z
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Which Samsung laptops are best?
There are so many laptops to choose from today. And with the varying hardware and price points, it can be tricky to sift through your options. Computer electronics companies like Samsung now offer more laptops than ever, which is excellent for budget-conscious buyers and tech enthusiasts alike. However, it may be daunting for those who don’t know what they’re looking for in a laptop.
No matter what activities you’ll use it for, the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro Laptop is a safe bet that offers impressive hardware and tons of storage space.
What to know before you buy a Samsung laptop
Use
How you plan to use your Samsung laptop will determine which one may work best for you. Some users primarily use the internet and don’t require high-performing hardware to complete their tasks. Other people may need top-notch processing power for gaming, video editing or audio production.
Samsung Chromebooks vs. notebooks
If you don’t need performance hardware in your laptop, a Chromebook is an excellent option. Samsung’s Chromebooks are a series of affordable, net-based laptop options. While most Samsung laptops include a Windows operating system, Chromebooks have the simplified, internet-oriented Chrome OS. These laptops don’t work as well for performance tasks compared to Samsung’s other high-end notebooks.
Other features
While design isn’t usually the first priority for most buyers, Samsung laptops also come in various styles. You can find them in a range of colors and sizes, and the overall size of a laptop may affect other factors, like its screen, keyboard and hardware orientation. High-performing laptops are usually bigger than budget-friendly netbook options.
What to look for in a quality Samsung laptop
Screen
Samsung’s laptops often vary in screen size. Common screen sizes for Samsung’s laptops range from 13 inches to 16 inches, but most buyers who do editing and other visually-intensive tasks prefer larger screens. You can find several Samsung laptops featuring a two-in-one configuration, meaning they have a touchscreen, and you can use them as a tablet in addition to a laptop.
Processor
The most important piece of hardware in a computer is its processor or its central processing unit (CPU.) A CPU is much like the computer’s brain, which manages all the tasks you perform on your laptop and allocates the hardware needed to fulfill those tasks. Intel and AMD make processors. A processor’s overall speed is measured in gigahertz, with higher numbers representing faster CPUs.
Random access memory
A computer’s random access memory (RAM) refers to the temporary storage that remains in the background while you perform various activities. RAM comes in increments of 2 gigabytes, and computers with more RAM will perform more quickly.
Battery life
Laptop battery life is important to many buyers, especially those who plan to take their computers on the go. Most laptop batteries last between 6-18 hours on a single charge. However, it’s also worth noting that some laptops may not live as long since battery life depends on usage and age.
Storage
Another important aspect of a good Samsung laptop is its storage capacity. Those working with large files should consider laptops with 256GB or 512GB of storage. However, if you have a laptop that saves files on the internet, like the Chromebook, you may not need as much space. In this instance, you may be able to make use of laptops with as little as 64GB.
How much you can expect to spend on a Samsung laptop
Samsung laptops vary in price depending on size, storage and additional features. The company’s cheapest laptops cost as low as $120. However, most Samsung laptops will range from $300-$1,600.
Samsung laptop FAQ
Do Samsung laptops have good battery life?
A. Samsung’s laptops have a wide range of battery life options, lasting from 8 hours to as many as 18. Most batteries tend to top out at around 17-18 hours, so you can expect your Samsung laptop to keep up with the industry standard.
Are Samsung laptops good for gaming?
A. While you can use some Samsung laptops for gaming, it might be worth upgrading to brands with dedicated gaming laptops such as Asus, Acer, Alienware or Razer. Most of Samsung’s laptops include integrated graphics chipsets, which is a step down in performance from graphics cards.
What’s the best Samsung laptop to buy?
Top Samsung laptop
Samsung Galaxy Book Pro Laptop With Windows 11 15.6-Inch Screen
What you need to know: This powerful laptop comes with a vivid 15.6-inch AMOLED screen and powerful hardware that’s suitable for an array of high-performance tasks.
What you’ll love: This Samsung laptop includes an Intel i7 processor and 16GB of RAM for smooth performance. It also has around 17 hours of battery life and includes 512GB of SSD storage, making it great for those dealing in large files and working on the go.
What you should consider: This laptop doesn’t include a touchscreen.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top Samsung laptop for the money
Samsung Chromebook 4 With Chrome OS and 15.6-Inch Screen
What you need to know: This laptop is perfect for users who only intend on using a few applications and the internet. It features a sleek, lightweight design, a touchscreen and Chrome OS.
What you’ll love: With 6GB of RAM and 64GB of memory, this computer is perfect for web use and simple tasks. It has a battery life of up to 10 hours per charge and you can use voice commands through Google Assistant.
What you should consider: This laptop isn’t as fast as some of Samsung’s other laptops and doesn’t have very much storage.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Worth checking out
Samsung Galaxy 2-in-1 Chromebook With Chrome OS and 13.3-Inch Screen
What you need to know: This Samsung laptop is a high-end two-in-one Chromebook offering fingerprint security, a stylus and a responsive touchscreen.
What you’ll love: It includes a 13.3-inch screen that’s unmatched at this price point. It also includes 256GB of storage. Its two-in-one design lets users fold a full 180 degrees and use the touchscreen at the preferred angle. Buyers can buy this laptop in red or gray.
What you should consider: This laptop only includes about eight hours of battery life.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Peter McGuthrie writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved.
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Which Dyna-Glo grills are best?
Flipping burgers, turning sausages and charring steaks in the backyard on a warm summer day is a quintessential activity for homeowners. With so many brands available, it can be challenging to pick a quality grill. Dyna-Glo grills stand among the better options, no matter what power source or size profile you need.
The best Dyna-Glo grill is the Dyna-Glo Signature Series Barrel Charcoal Grill And Side Firebox. It offers plenty of cooking space and can serve as a smoker for your next 12-hour brisket cooking session.
What to know before you buy a Dyna-Glo grill
Charcoal Dyna-Glo grills
Charcoal is the classical grill fuel type. It imparts a unique flavor to your food based on a given charcoal’s wood source that can’t be replicated with special techniques on non-charcoal grills. It takes time to prepare charcoal for grilling and much longer to get up to your intended temperature once prepared. It requires more cleaning than gas grills. It’s the cheapest type of grill but has the most expensive fuel type.
Gas Dyna-Glo grills
Gas Dyna-Glo grills are fueled by either propane or natural gas. Both sources heat faster and more evenly than charcoal, plus both fuels are cheaper. However, the grills have a higher entry cost.
- Propane grills are more common than natural grills. Propane is more expensive but requires no special hookups — just hook up your bottle and grill. Some propane grills can be converted to use natural gas.
- Natural grills are less common as they require a home with a natural gas line. Installation can be expensive as most homeowners don’t have the experience to safely install them on their own. However, they are the cheapest to own in the long term.
What to look for in a quality Dyna-Glo grill
British Thermal Units
The most common measure of a Dyna-Glo gas grill’s heating ability is given in BTUs. The higher the BTUs, the hotter the grill can get. Some have 10,000 or less, others can have up to or more than 100,000.
Cooking surface area
The cooking surface area is given in square inches. A higher surface area can feed more people at once, but requires more fuel to heat, so it’s recommended to buy a grill with just enough area to feed your family. One person requires 75-100 square inches. Dyna-Glo grills can have cooking surface areas between 300-800 square inches.
Side tables
Side tables don’t seem like a necessity until you try grilling without one or two. Imagine holding plates of raw and cooked food while opening and closing a grill top and using various accessories to move raw, cooking and cooked food between those plates and the grill with only two hands.
How much you can expect to spend on a Dyna-Glo grill
The most basic Dyna-Glo grills typically cost $150-$200. More involved or larger grills usually cost $250-$350. The very best usually cost $350-$550.
Dyna-Glo grill FAQ
How good a brand is Dyna-Glo?
A. Dyna-Glo is an old brand — they’ve been manufacturing grills for over 100 years. Their warranties usually last about five years, with their grills tending to last roughly that length of time or longer with good maintenance. They do have some issues with rusting across the brand. When all is said and done, Dyna-Glo is a good-quality midrange grill brand.
How do I clean my Dyna-Glo grill?
A. There are a few steps to keeping a Dyno-Glo grill clean. The simplest is to let your grill run at maximum temperature for a few minutes after you’re done cooking to turn any food remnants to ash. Then let the grill completely cool before finely cleaning the grill grates. If the grates aren’t removable, scrub them in the grate with a bristle brush. If they are removable, you can let them soak in a solution of warm water and dish soap before wiping them clean and thoroughly drying them. You’ll also need to remove and empty out any drip pans and ash traps, giving those a good scrub too if they seem like they need it.
What’s the best Dyna-Glo grill to buy?
Top Dyna-Glo grill
Dyna-Glo Signature Series Barrel Charcoal Grill and Side Firebox
What you need to know: This top model serves as both a grill and a smoker.
What you’ll love: It has 730 square inches of cooking space. It has porcelain-enameled cook grates and a removable side ash pan, both of which make cleaning easy. It has cool-touch handles and an analog temperature gauge. Amazon offers expert assembly and a cover for an extra fee.
What you should consider: Some consumers had issues with smoke leaking out, which can greatly affect cooking effectiveness depending on the leak’s severity.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Top Dyna-Glo grill for the money
Dyna-Glo Three-Burner Open Cart Propane Gas Grill
What you need to know: This low-cost option is perfect for small families.
What you’ll love: It has a 139-square-inch cooking rack. It has wheels and weighs 47.4 pounds for moderately easy repositioning. It has a porcelain coating over most of its sections and a removable grease cup for easy cleaning. It has two side tables. It’s available in three colors.
What you should consider: Some consumers felt the construction was flimsy. It doesn’t offer enough cooking space to service a family-and-friends gathering.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Worth checking out
Dyna-Glo Heavy-Duty Stainless Charcoal Grill
What you need to know: This pick is perfect for serious grill masters and large families.
What you’ll love: The charcoal tray and flue are adjustable for fine-tuning heat levels. It has a temperature gauge. It has three porcelain-enameled cooking grates and 686 total square inches of cooking space. It has two side tables and an underbody wire storage rack.
What you should consider: Some consumers had durability issues, including easily dented lids, and a few reported buildups of rust.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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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.
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The products and services mentioned below were selected independent of sales and advertising. However, Simplemost may receive a small commission from the purchase of any products or services through an affiliate link to the retailer's website.
Easter is quickly approaching, and if you haven’t figured out what you’ll be serving for dessert yet, we have a fun recipe that is sure to delight all of your Easter guests.
These Easter Egg Cake Balls from Pillsbury are similar to cake pops — just in Easter egg form. They require 30 minutes of prep time, around 35 minutes in the oven and some time at the end for decorating. These eggs are decorated like sugar cookies, so along with being a delicious treat, they are fun for kids to decorate.
You’ll need a box of cake mix (plus the ingredients required for making the cake), frosting, a variety of candy melt colors and any other toppings you want, like sprinkles and sanding sugar. Once the cake is baked, you’ll crumble it into a bowl and mix it until it is broken up into fine crumbs, and then blend the crumbs with frosting. Then, form the mixture into Easter egg shapes and put them in the freezer. Once they’ve hardened, dip them into candy melts and decorate.
You can see the full Easter Egg Cake Balls recipe below.
Easter Egg Cake Balls
Ingredients:
1 package Pillsbury Moist Supreme Strawberry Flavored Premium Cake Mix (plus ingredients to prepare cake mix)
1 tub Pillsbury Funfetti Vanilla Flavored Frosting
Pink, blue, green and yellow candy melts
Other decorations, such as sprinkles and sanding sugar
Directions:
Set oven to 350 F. Line a 15-inch-by-10-inch baking pan with wax paper (this will be used later for freezing the cake balls).
In a large bowl, beat strawberry cake mix, water, oil and eggs per package instructions. Pour batter into 9-inch-by-13-inch cake pan and bake for 34-38 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool completely.
Crumble cooled cake into extra-large bowl. Beat with mixer on medium speed until fine crumbs, about 2 minutes. Spoon the frosting over the crumbs. Beat until evenly blended. Cover and freeze 30 minutes.
Roll cake mixture into 1.5-inch Easter egg shapes. Place on prepared baking pan. Cover and freeze at least 1 hour.
Melt two of the candy melt colors, separately, with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil on low power in the microwave until the candy is just melted. Candy should not get too hot.
Remove cake pops from freezer. Dip a cake pop into the candy melt. For half of the cake pops, immediately decorate with sprinkles. For the remaining cake pops, melt the other candy melt colors in the microwave. Pour the melted candy coating into a piping bag or plastic bag with the tip cut off. Pipe on dots, lines and squiggles for decorations. While this coating is still wet, cover it with sanding sugar.
Repeat to make remaining cake pops. If candy melts thicken, briefly reheat and stir until smooth. Serve cake pops at room temperature.
If these Easter Egg Cake Balls have too many steps for you, Pillsbury has a few other Easter recipes that are a bit easier, like these adorable Easter Chick Cupcakes and this Easter trifle that calls for simply layering cake pieces, fruit and whipped cream in a large trifle bowl.
You can also try your hand at colorful Rice Krispies treat Easter eggs (which are just as easy as traditional Rice Krispies treats), this Easter toffee bark, Easter egg popcorn balls or this Oreo Easter dirt cake that looks like a garden full of carrots.
Even easier, Amazon sells Easter cake toppers that turn any dessert into a celebration, like this adorable bunny face and ears or these tiny sugar carrots that can top a cake or cupcakes. Target even has bunny house cookie kits that you put together just like a gingerbread house for only $7.99 — no baking required!
Will you be doing some Easter baking this year?
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
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| 2022-04-06T21:42:29Z
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Kit Kat’s newest limited-edition flavor is giving us all an excuse to start our day with chocolate!
The brand’s new Blueberry Muffin flavor captures the taste of the baked good by pairing notes of freshly cooked blueberries with a cake batter-like muffin flavor. This new flavor features blueberry muffin-flavored creme wrapped around Kit Kat crispy wafers, all with graham cookie pieces folded right into the bar.
“Our product creators have such passion for deciding which flavor Kit Kat should take on next and making sure it delivers for our fans,” Dan Williard, brand manager of Kit Kat, said in a press release. “Kit Kat Blueberry Muffin has already become one of our favorites; it has all the taste of a freshly baked blueberry muffin, but no baking required!”
The bakery-inspired treat will be available at retailers nationwide beginning this April, while supplies last. You’ll find find the limited-edition flavor in a 1.5-ounce standard bar, 3-ounce king bar and 0.49-ounce snack size.
Believe it or not, this is actually not the first Kit Kat inspired by a beloved bakery item. The brand celebrated everyone’s birthday with Birthday Cake Kit Kats in 2020, followed by Apple Pie and Key Lime Pie in 2021. Pumpkin Pie Kit Kats also make a return every fall.
Other Kit Kat flavors have included Duos Mint + Dark Chocolate, Duos Mocha + Chocolate for coffee fans, Raspberry + Crème and Duos Strawberry + Dark Chocolate.
The new Kit Kats are also not the only thing Hershey has been up to lately. Along with making it even easier to get your Reese’s fill with new stackable Reese’s Pantry Packs designed to fit right in your cupboard, they’ve also announced a new Cadbury bunny for Easter 2022.
Voters chose therapy dog Annie Rose from Ohio as the winner of the Cadbury Bunny Tryouts. In addition to starring in the 2022 Cadbury Clucking Bunny commercial, Annie Rose took home a $5,000 cash prize, and the brand donated $20,000 to The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
If you’ll be adding the Blueberry Kit Kats to your must-try list, you may also like this recipe for blueberry cookies or this blueberry-lemon ricotta pound cake.
You can also buy blueberry Cheerios for more of the flavor at breakfast, or make your own blueberry muffins or blueberry pancakes with mixes like this muffin mix from Betty Crocker or this pancake mix from from Krusteaz.
Are you a blueberry fan?
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. (WWLP)– The Census Bureau and National Center for Health Statistics has released recent data analysis of fertility rates from 1990-2019.
The fertility rate has remained stable but the data shows that the age when American women are having babies has changed. The numbers show that fertility rates of women ages 20-24 declined by 43%, while those of women ages 35-39 increased by 67%.
Analysis also found that births in the United States dropped from about 4.1 million to 3.7 million from 1990 to 2019. The exception was a mini-baby boom in the early 2000’s.
There are many factors that can cause deviations in the birth rates. In the 20th Century two world wars, economic depressions and recessions, and pandemics led to lower births during those time periods, but economic recovery saw an increase in births.
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Another warm one across Acadiana today, but a cold front will sweep through this evening.
Winds will be picking up out of the NNW behind the boundary.
Turning cooler as we see overnight lows dropping into the upper 40s to lower 50s as skies clear.
Beautiful spring weather on the way Thursday.
Expect plenty of sunshine as highs settle into the lower 70s.
Breezy northwesterly winds into the afternoon at around 15-20 mph.
Even chillier Thursday night/Friday morning with lows in the mid-40s.
Another beauty out there Friday as temperatures struggle to reach the lower 70s.
Winds will remain breezy out of the northwest.
We'll keep the nice weather weather going into the weekend.
Our mornings will remain cool to chilly.
Warmer afternoons as highs push the upper 70s both Saturday and Sunday.
Back to the 80s heading into next week, and with that, we'll see the return of some scattered rain chances.
Have a great rest of the week!
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| 2022-04-06T21:42:31Z
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The person of interest in the disappearance of Ella Goodie will be extradited back to Louisiana.
Brandon Francisco appeared in the 5th Judicial Circuit Court in St. Joseph, Missouri on Wednesday.
It was ruled that Francisco will be extradited back to Louisiana on April 15, 2022.
Brandon Francisco is believed to have been the last person to see Ella Goodie who has not been seen since March 9, 2022.
Family members say Goodie was giving Francisco a ride to Houston.
Her SUV was found last week, but still no sign of the missing Scott woman.
Related Stories:
LSP: Ella Goodie's vehicle located in Missouri
State Police seeking assistance in locating Ella Goodie and her vehicle
Person of interest in disappearance of Ella Goodie arrested in Missouri by US Marshals
Search efforts increase for missing Scott woman
Local activist group postpones search for missing Scott woman
Police in Scott seek missing person
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Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
To reach the newsroom or report a typo/correction, click HERE.
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| 2022-04-06T21:42:33Z
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Formula E, the world's top electric vehicle racing series, returns to the track this weekend with a pair of races in Rome.
The global series is slowly gaining a foothold in the U.S., which hosted a race in nearly every season since Formula E's inception.
This year, the series added its first American-born driver: Oliver Askew. The Florida native came up racing karts as an eight-year-old before switching to cars in his late teens.
"When I first got into the karting, it was more of a father-son hobby," Askew said. "It wasn't until I was 14 or 15 years old that I began to realize I'm getting old quickly, and growing up quickly, and I need to decide what's more important, the schooling or pursuing motorsports."
Askew, now 25, left high school to pursue a career in racing, a move he called a "leap of faith."
It's led to plenty of success.
He won the 2019 Indy Lights series, one of the top development series for race car drivers, which paved the way for his IndyCar debut in 2020.
His move to Formula E this year marks the first time he is racing electric vehicles professionally.
"I just feel like this car suits me and suits my driving style," Askew said. "I'm not saying one is better than the other, or I enjoy one over the other. It's just a different approach and a different fulfillment."
Changing attitudes toward electric vehicles
Formula E's arrival represents a broader shift in attitude toward electric vehicles.
"This technology needed to be pushed and needed to be advanced," said Julia Palle, the sustainability director of Formula E. "The technology around electrification was really the focus."
The competition within Formula E helped spur electric vehicle development over the past decade.
Race day vehicles, which had a top speed of 140 miles per hour from 2014 to 2018, will have a top speed of 200 miles per hour beginning in 2023.
Palle said the gap between consumer electric vehicles and Formula E vehicles is smaller than in other racing series, enabling manufacturers to apply lessons from the race track to the production line.
"Jaguar, from the couple of seasons they were involved, used some of their learnings to develop the I-PACE," Palle said. "That's a car that you and I, if we want to, can go buy tomorrow."
Formula E is also unique for its focus on sustainability, a word which is written into the racing series' mission statement.
Research shows the race cars' carbon footprint accounts for less than one percent of pollution associated with Formula E.
Palle said Formula E leadership is focused on improving sustainability for three main car components.
- Tires. Formula E cars use one tire under all conditions. They are made from recycled material and designed to be recycled when they've outlived their usefulness.
- Batteries. Palle said Formula E partnered with Belgium-based Umicore on a battery recycling program. Over ninety percent of metals, and over sixty percent of lithium, is recovered from every battery.
- Chassis. The carbon fiber from the chassis is recycled using technology once used to recycle rockets and planes. A collection box is available at each race for teams to recycle their broken parts. "It's popular," Palle noted, "especially when there are crashes during tests and races."
A long road ahead
Formula E could get some competition in the near future.
In mid-March, NASCAR's chief operating officer, Steve O'Donnell, said the American stock car racing series is "exploring some opportunities around an exhibition series in" the electric vehicle space, citing interest from manufacturers like Ford, Chevrolet and Toyota.
"It's important for us to explore that space," O'Donnell said. "I think there's a lot of interest from our current partners to be part of that."
"As I understand it, the primary mover is the noise," said Sridhar Lakshmanan, an associate professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn and a leading voice in the world of vehicle innovation. "They felt that electric vehicle racing would allow them to move racing into the heart of population centers, closer to where people live."
Lakshmanan said one of the biggest challenges in any electric vehicle racing series is making up the power gap with internal combustion counterparts.
The current land-speed record for an electric vehicle is 353 miles per hour, set by Team Vesco Racing in November 2021.
The scorching speed is not quite as fast as the world record speed for an internal combustion engine: 448.7 miles per hour, set by Danny Campbell in 2019.
"The biggest problem they face today is speed," Lakshmanan said. "There are ways to torque motors that can potentially reach those speeds, provided you have batteries with reasonable size that can drive those motors. But that's where the rub is."
Lakshmanan, like Palle, believes competition can spur development in the electric vehicle space, particularly for batteries, but also in the areas of braking, speed, safety and life-cycle cost.
"As people push the boundaries of how fast they can go, how much charge they can store, and how light they are," Lakshmanan said, "performance is going to drive electric vehicles, in some ways, parallel to how performance vehicles drove internal combustion engines."
Fueling development
Racing and automotive innovation have gone hand in hand since the turn of the 20th century, when a young Henry Ford won a "Sweepstakes" race to help fund his fledgling vehicle venture.
Ford's two-cylinder engine traveled at the blistering top speed of seventy-two miles per hour.
"A nobody, some guy from Michigan, manages to pull out a victory in the race," said Matt Anderson, curator at The Henry Ford, an automotive museum in suburban Detroit. "It sets him on the way to ultimately founding the Ford Motor Company in 1903."
A few years later, the first Indianapolis 500 would be the site of another major innovation: The rearview mirror.
Ray Harroun attached rearview mirrors to his car. It's believed to be the first rearview mirror ever used. Harroun's competitors "had the driver, and then had a riding mechanic," Anderson said. "That person would be responsible for operating the car, but also as a pair of eyes in the back of the driver's head to look for other cars coming up behind them."
Harroun won the race.
His rivals were so angry that they put rules in place requiring the use of a riding mechanic.
To Anderson, it's one of many anecdotes that embody the competitive spirit of auto racing.
"You're not going to win a race unless you're willing to explore new ideas and try new things in order to innovate," Anderson said. "There's a strict rule book, but people are always testing the limits of those rules, and seeing how far they can push something."
He believes electric vehicle racing is a natural evolution of the sport.
"We're going to see things like lighter batteries, more efficient motors," Anderson said. "One way or another, electric racing is going to become a thing. It's just going to be necessary. The technology in our production cars is going to move toward electricity, and you can't have a racing series that appears to be behind the times of the cars we're driving out on the street."
Need for speed
Askew, the 25-year-old driver seeking his first Formula E victory in Rome, said the acceleration of a Formula E car would "completely blow people away."
"It does have a lot of low-end torque, and it's very suitable for the street tracks that we go to," Askew said.
For him, the future of Formula E is mostly background noise. His focus is on winning races.
Often, that means thinking less.
"I'm at my best in the car when I'm not thinking at all," Askew said. "When I'm in the zone, as a lot of sports figures call it, and letting my natural body and my instincts take over. My success comes from being in that place."
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El Monte foundation launches program to streamline students’ path to college
The effort includes distributing 13,000 booklets to all pre-kindergarten to eighth-grade students in the El Monte City and Mountain View school districts.
The El Monte Promise Foundation Wednesday, April 6 launched a program to create a seamless cradle-to-college pathway for students in the greater El Monte and South El Monte area.
Called “Roadmap to College,” the effort includes distributing 13,000 booklets to all pre-kindergarten to eighth-grade students in the El Monte City and Mountain View school districts.
El Monte School District superintendent Dr. Edward Zuniga talks about the roadmap to college booklets to CherryLee elementary students that will be available to all PreK to 8th grade students in El Monte and Mountain View school districts in the city of El Monte, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by Alex Gallardo, Contributing Photographer)
Mountain View School District board member Cindy Wu talks about the roadmap to college booklets to CherryLee elementary students that will be available to all PreK to 8th grade students in El Monte and Mountain View school districts in the city of El Monte, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by Alex Gallardo, Contributing Photographer)
El Monte Promise Foundation board members pass out graduation caps and roadmap to college booklets to CherryLee elementary students that will be available to all PreK to 8th grade students in El Monte and Mountain View school districts in the city of El Monte, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by Alex Gallardo, Contributing Photographer)
El Monte Promise Foundation executive director Jennifer Cobian talks about the roadmap to college booklets to CherryLee elementary students that will be available to all PreK to 8th grade students in El Monte and Mountain View school districts in the city of El Monte, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by Alex Gallardo, Contributing Photographer)
CherryLee elementary students celebrate during the distribution of roadmap to college booklets for all PreK to 8th grade students in the El Monte and Mountain View school districts in the city of El Monte, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by Alex Gallardo, Contributing Photographer)
El Monte Promise Foundation board member Jerry Velasco celebrates with CherryLee elementary students during the distribution of roadmap to college booklets for all PreK to 8th grade students in the El Monte and Mountain View school districts in the city of El Monte, on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. (Photo by Alex Gallardo, Contributing Photographer)
“We are proud to share this new resource to help all our students and families. We want all children to see that higher education is accessible to them, and to offer parents a how-to guide to get there,” Jennifer Cobian, executive director of El Monte Promise Foundation, said in a release.
“Our goal is to have these Roadmaps inspire collaborative action to encourage students’ academic achievement and life-long success,” Cobian said.
The books have college readiness indicators tailored for each specific grade level. The Roadmaps are tangible tools that highlight ways that students, parents, and other stakeholders can support college pathways at home and in the community.
Along with the Roadmap to College, the foundation supports students and their families by providing workshops covering topics that range from gaining financial literacy, budgeting for higher education, and building credit.
It also operates the Scholars Savings Program where parents and guardians can open a 529 college savings account for their child to begin saving for the expenses that often make higher education especially difficult for economically disadvantaged families.
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Los Angeles County could add 72,000 to 113,000 units to its housing supply by converting underused hotels, offices and other commercial buildings into apartments, a new study found.
That would represent 9%-14% of the county’s state-mandated housing goal for late 2029.
But such “adaptive reuse” would work best for hotel conversions, and most of those new units would have to be studio apartments to make financial sense, according to a RAND Corp. study released Wednesday, April 6.
In all, the county has about 2,300 underused hotels, office buildings and retail centers available for such conversions, the study found.
“Repurposing commercial buildings to help address Los Angeles County’s housing shortage is a compelling idea, but the economics and logistics of such projects are complex,” RAND economist Jason Ward, the study’s lead author, said in a statement. “Significant incentives for the conversion of these properties … may be needed to realize the full potential of adaptive reuse.”
State and local governments have been looking at hotel and office conversions in recent years as a way to address California’s housing shortage.
During the pandemic, California launched Project Homekey and its predecessor, Project Roomkey, to get homeless people off the streets. In early 2021, two L.A. County supervisors called for a study to develop a list of potential home conversion sites.
Read more: Expanding Project Roomkey to shelter homeless Angelenos ‘unfeasible,’ LA county officials say
And the city of L.A. took action as far back as 1999, adopting an ordinance to streamline the redevelopment of scores of vacant downtown buildings, the report said. As a result, about 12,000 of 37,000 new downtown housing units were created through building conversions.
“Housing production in (downtown) L.A. has been one of the few success stories in Los Angeles’ quest to increase the stock of housing over the past three decades,” the Santa Monica-based nonprofit research organization said.
Home conversions also can reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming and lower development costs by cutting labor and materials used in home development.
So, it begs the question, why not do a lot more of that?
A state housing program requires L.A. to boost homebuilding to an average of 57,000 units per year this decade, vs. an average of 8,800 in the last decade.
The answer, the study said, “is a complex issue.”
The practicality of using office or retail properties depends on area-specific real estate prices and whether the homes produced are studios vs. one- to two-bedroom units. Studios – smaller apartments with one room and a bathroom — are more cost-effective than larger apartments.
Other factors affecting feasibility include the building’s size, construction type, floor layout and condition.
Hotels are more cost-effective than offices for home conversions, the study found – again, mainly for studio apartments.
Yet, office buildings are more plentiful than hotels in the most desirable areas. But conversion can be cheaper than new construction.
And there are social benefits that make conversions worthwhile. “Nonfiscal factors” include access to jobs and public transit, increased housing affordability and reducing housing segregation.
Local governments should provide subsidies to encourage such redevelopment. And they need to adopt new laws to increase incentives by increasing allowable density, adopting alternative building codes and streamlining the approval process for building permits.
“Policymakers and other stakeholders involved in the debate over housing policy have become increasingly interested in a more holistic view of the criteria that should guide such policy,” the study said. “Residential (conversions) may yet play a meaningful role in meeting the significant need for new, affordable housing in the region.”
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| 2022-04-06T21:45:38Z
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