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- HICP +7.6% vs +7.6% y/y prelim
The preliminary report can be found here. No change to the initial estimates as German inflation is seen rampaging higher in March with little signs of letting up amid ongoing developments.
The preliminary report can be found here. No change to the initial estimates as German inflation is seen rampaging higher in March with little signs of letting up amid ongoing developments.
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Must Read | https://www.forexlive.com/news/germany-march-final-cpi-73-vs-73-yy-prelim-20220412/ | 2022-04-12T07:15:34Z | forexlive.com | control | https://www.forexlive.com/news/germany-march-final-cpi-73-vs-73-yy-prelim-20220412/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Thirty-six months ago none of us would have believed the upheaval ahead or that the going would be so heavy but when Covid-19 descended the odds were against all of us.
Racing was suspended on March 18, 2020, less than a month ahead of this big calendar event, the Betway Easter Saturday race day. We had hoped to stage behind-closed-doors meetings which would have complied with Scottish Government guidelines but our governing body the British Racing Authority halted all horseracing in the UK that day and the Easter event was one of the first casualties.
Since then we have been able to resume racing and it’s been fantastic to have spectators back. We were also delighted to play a small part in the vaccination programme by running a pop-up NHS Lothian Covid-19 vaccination clinic. But we have so missed the Easter fixture – it’s not only a major event for us racing enthusiasts at Musselburgh but it’s also one of the highlights of the sporting calendar, a major flagship races of the year and part of the Sensational Seven Series.
So we’re thrilled to open our gates once again to spectators for a spectacular race day, not least because it features the prestigious £100,000 Queen's Cup, which received the royal seal of approval from HM The Queen, and is THE race of the day. The monarch, a huge horseracing fan, approved this race title at our Bi-Centenary raceday in 2016 and it’s our biggest race of the year.
Musselburgh Racecourse has always been synonymous with first-class racing and this Easter Saturday around 6,000 racing fans will be enjoying an afternoon of top-quality racing and exciting entertainment with us.
It’s a big family fun day out and we’ve got a whole dedicated kids’ area in the ‘Clip Clop Zone’ with a jam-packed programme of free games, face painting stalls, plus free fairground rides. The Easter Bunny will be visiting for the youngest racegoers and our Mini Queen’s Cup will see children racing on small inflatable ponies in front of the Grandstand.
We’re also hosting a wide range of delicious street food stalls and hope fans will help us celebrate by making a whole day of it.
Hopefully this long-awaited Easter event marks the start of a full calendar and we can look forward to all our usual events throughout the year. The winning post is already in sight…
Sarah Montgomery is Senior Commercial and Operations Manager at Musselburgh Racecourse.
Easter Saturday is part of The Sensational 7 Series - the biggest and best race days across the year and tickets for the race meetings are on sale now with an Advanced Adult offer available to purchase until midnight on the 15th April 2022 to SAVE £5pp. All children aged 17 and under go free, when accompanied by a paying adult. For full range of ticket information please visit www.musselburgh-racecourse.co.uk/tickets/easter-saturday-16-04-2022 | https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/under-starters-orders-for-the-return-of-easter-saturday-races-at-musselburgh-sarah-montgomery-3648976 | 2022-04-12T07:18:02Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/under-starters-orders-for-the-return-of-easter-saturday-races-at-musselburgh-sarah-montgomery-3648976 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Considine decision ‘huge’
The decision to allow Andy Considine to leave the club is one Aberdeen manager Jim Goodwin will “live and die by”, according to Mark Reynolds. The former Dons defender was very surprised of the resolution of the contract talks. He said: "They come at you with something, you go back to them with something and then you meet in the middle or find and amicable way to part company which is the least I think Andy Considine deserves. Something doesn't add up for me. For an Aberdeen support and squad that was crying out for him, to go into next season and say actually we don't need him, it is a huge decision." (Sky Sports)
Hearts legend backs cup win
Jim Jefferies reckons this will be Hearts’ year in the Scottish Cup. The Tynecastle Park side head into the semi-final against Hibs on Saturday with the winners playing Celtic or Rangers. The former Hearts boss believes the fact the team have been getting closer and closer in recent seasons stands them in good stead. He said: “I do genuinely feel this could be Hearts’ year because they have a strong squad and they have belief. Before we won in 1998 we lost to Rangers in two finals — the Scottish Cup and League Cup final in 1996. But if you keep knocking on the door then someone will eventually let you in. That’s the secret." (Scottish Sun)
Postecoglou backed to stay
Kenny Dalglish has backed Ange Postecoglou to lead Celtic into the Champions League next season, even if there is interest in the Australian manager. The club are on track to lift a possible treble having already won the League Cup and in a commanding position in the league. Dalglish said: “I don’t know what other clubs are doing, but if they are looking at him that’s an endorsement of the good job he’s done. But he’s at one of the biggest clubs here. Everybody is different, but it is an attraction for your team to be playing in the Champions League.” (Various)
Davis best Rangers midfielder
Former Rangers star Nacho Novo believes Giovanni van Bronckhorst should be building his team around Steven Davis. The Spaniard was team-mates with the midfielder during the Northern Irishman's first spell at Ibrox and has labelled him the club's “best” midfielder. Novo said: “If it was down to me – he would play every game. He has years left in him. He is fit and dictating games. He is a great player.” (The Scotsman)
VAR cost
The annual cost of VAR in Scottish football is estimated to be £1.4million. With that the SPFL are keen to get a sponsor on board to help bring down the costs of for each club having devised a plan of spreading the outgoing amongst the 12 clubs. The league body are looking to use the final league placings as a barometer with each side charged a percentage of their prize money from where they finish in the league. The champions would pay 16.29 per cent of their winnings, while teams finishing in the bottom two would each pay five per cent. (Daily Mail)
Split fixtures revealed
The Premiership split fixtures were confirmed on Monday afternoon with the Old Firm game scheduled for the second fixture card on Sunday, May 1. It is one of six live games selected by Sky Sports, all of which involve Celtic, with one bottom six encounter possibly selected for the final day of the season. Some matches have had to be reversed to five teams an even 19/19 home and away split. The SPFL said: “We generally aim for the fewest switches possible and try to avoid reversing fixtures that have a key impact on the league title, the race for Europe and the battle to avoid relegation, but this is not always possible. We try to avoid reversing the big city derbies and may also take into account what has happened with the post-split fixtures in previous years.” (The Scotsman) | https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/international/scottish-football-transfer-news-celtic-boss-to-premier-league-played-down-rangers-best-midfielder-revealed-ps14m-var-cost-laid-out-3650288 | 2022-04-12T07:18:51Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/international/scottish-football-transfer-news-celtic-boss-to-premier-league-played-down-rangers-best-midfielder-revealed-ps14m-var-cost-laid-out-3650288 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
- Eurostoxx -1.3%
- Germany DAX -1.7%
- France CAC 40 -1.5%
- UK FTSE -0.8%
- Spain IBEX -1.6%
Equities sentiment has been rather sour since last week and the slump is continuing today with global growth worries plaguing markets in general. S&P 500 futures are down 0.3% so that doesn't help, following a 1.7% drop in the cash market yesterday. | https://www.forexlive.com/news/european-equities-open-the-day-on-a-softer-note-20220412/ | 2022-04-12T07:24:09Z | forexlive.com | control | https://www.forexlive.com/news/european-equities-open-the-day-on-a-softer-note-20220412/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
KYIV, Ukraine — Corpses are now “carpeted through the streets” of Mariupol after Russian troops killed more than 10,000 civilians over the past six weeks in their unsuccessful fight to capture the strategic southern port, the mayor said, while Western powers warned a convoy was on the move for a suspected Russian assault in Ukraine's east.
Mariupol has been the site of some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the 6-week-old war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information on circumstances inside the city.
Speaking by phone Monday with The Associated Press, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko accused Russian forces of having blocked weeks of attempted humanitarian convoys into the city in part to conceal the carnage. Boychenko said the death toll in Mariupol alone could surpass 20,000.
Boychenko also gave new details of allegations by Ukrainian officials that Russian forces have brought mobile cremation equipment to Mariupol to dispose of the corpses of victims of the siege.
Russian forces have taken many bodies to a huge shopping center where there are storage facilities and refrigerators, Boychenko said.
“Mobile crematoriums have arrived in the form of trucks: You open it, and there is a pipe inside and these bodies are burned,” he said.
Boychenko spoke from a location in Ukrainian-controlled territory but outside Mariupol. The mayor said he had several sources for his description of the alleged methodical burning of bodies by Russian forces in the city, but did not further detail the sources of his information.
The discovery of large numbers of apparently executed civilians after Russian forces retreated from cities and towns around the capital, Kyiv, already has prompted widespread condemnation and assertions that Russia is committing war crimes in Ukraine.
U.S. officials also point to further signs Russia's military is gearing up for a major offensive in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, switching its focus after Russian forces failed in their initial drive to capture Kyiv.
Donbas has been torn by fighting between Russian-allied separatists and Ukrainian forces since 2014, and Russia has recognized the separatists' claims of independence. Military strategists say Russian leaders appear to hope local support, logistics and terrain in Donbas favor Russia's larger and better-armed military, potentially allowing Russian troops to gain more territory and weaken Ukraine's fighting forces.
Russia has appointed a seasoned general to lead its renewed push in the eastern Donbas region.
A senior U.S. defense official on Monday described a long Russian convoy now rolling toward the eastern city of Izyum with artillery, aviation and infantry support, as part of redeployment for what appears to be the looming Russian campaign.
More artillery is being deployed near the city of Donetsk, while ground combat units that withdrew from around the Kyiv and Chernihiv areas appear destined for refitting and resupplying before they position in Donbas, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal U.S. military assessments.
With their offensive in many parts of the country thwarted, Russian forces have relied increasingly on bombarding cities — a strategy that has flattened many urban areas and killed thousands of people.
The U.N. children’s agency said nearly two-thirds of all Ukrainian children have fled their homes in the six weeks since Russia’s invasion began. The United Nations has verified 142 children have been killed and 229 injured, though the actual numbers are likely much higher.
Ukrainian authorities accuse Russian forces of committing atrocities, including a massacre in the town of Bucha, outside Kyiv, airstrikes on hospitals and a missile attack that killed at least 57 people last week at a train station.
In Bucha, the work of exhuming bodies from a mass grave in a churchyard resumed.
Galyna Feoktistova waited for hours in the cold and rain in hopes of identifying her 50-year-old son, who was shot and killed more than a month ago, but eventually she went home for some warmth. “He's still there,” her surviving son, Andriy, said.
In Mariupol, about 120,000 civilians are in dire need of food, water, warmth and communications, the mayor said.
Only those residents who have passed the Russian “filtration camps” are released from the city, Boychenko said.
Ukrainian officials say Russian troops are confiscating passports from Ukrainian citizens, then moving them to “filtration camps” in Ukraine’s separatist-controlled east before sending them to distant, economically depressed areas in Russia.
Boychenko said Monday that those who did not pass the “filtering" have been moved to improvised prisons. He said 33,000 people or more have been taken to Russia or separatist territory in Ukraine.
Russian has denied moving people against their will.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Ukrainians that Russia might use chemical weapons in Mariupol. “We take this as seriously as possible,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Monday.
Western leaders warned even before Russian troops moved into Ukraine that Russia could resort to unconventional weapons there, particularly chemical agents.
A Russia-allied separatist official, Eduard Basurin, appeared to urge their use Monday, telling Russian state TV that Russian-backed forces should seize a giant metals plant in Mariupol from Ukrainian forces by first blocking all the exits out of the factory. “And then we’ll use chemical troops to smoke them out of there,” he said.
A Ukrainian regiment, without evidence, also claimed Monday that a drone had dropped a poisonous substance in Mariupol. It indicated there were no serious injuries.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that the U.S. could not confirm the drone report out of Mariupol. But Kirby noted the administration’s persistent concerns “about Russia’s potential to use a variety of riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents, in Ukraine.”
Russian forces will likely try to encircle the Donbas region from the north and the south as well as the east, said retired British Gen. Richard Barrons, co-chair of the U.K.-based strategic consulting firm Universal Defence & Security Solutions.
The ground in that part of Ukraine is flatter, more open and less wooded — so the Ukrainian ambush tactics used around Kiev may be less successful, Barrons said.
“As to the outcome, it’s finely balanced right now,” Barrons said. If the Russians learned from their previous failures, concentrated more force, connected their air force to ground forces better and improved their logistics, he said, “then they might start to overwhelm the Ukrainian positions eventually, although I still think it would be a battle of enormous attrition.”
Questions remain about the ability of depleted and demoralized Russian forces to conquer much ground, after determined Ukrainian defenders repelled their advance on Kyiv.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Monday that Ukraine has already beaten back several assaults by Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions — they make up the Donbas — resulting in the destruction of Russian tanks, vehicles and artillery.
Western military analysts say Russia’s assault increasingly is focusing on an arc of territory stretching from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, in the north, to Kherson in the south.
A residential area in Kharkiv was struck by incoming fire on Monday afternoon. Associated Press journalists saw firefighters putting out the fire and checking for victims following the attack, and saw that at least five people had been killed, including a child.
___
Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Anna reported from Bucha, Ukraine. Associated Press writer Robert Burns in Washington, and AP journalists around the world contributed to this report. | https://www.krem.com/article/news/nation-world/ukraine/russia-ukraine-war-tuesday/507-850004c3-d872-4059-860e-9b201d50dd3d | 2022-04-12T07:36:42Z | krem.com | control | https://www.krem.com/article/news/nation-world/ukraine/russia-ukraine-war-tuesday/507-850004c3-d872-4059-860e-9b201d50dd3d | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
If students, faculty, and staff were not able to receive a copy of the special championship edition of the Kansan at Stauffer-Flint, the print section is still available for purchase through the KU bookstore.
Copies of the special section can be shipped or picked up at the Union. Additionally, the Kansan is distributing the front page of the section in two formats: newspaper print and glossy poster paper.
The Kansan championship special print edition costs $5.00 each, and the front page poster costs $20.00 each. Both costs include shipping and handling if items are delivered.
All proceeds from the special section sales will go towards funding Kansan operations.
We want to thank you all for the support and excitement surrounding this special section celebrating the Jayhawks championship win. We hope this front page section serves as a constant reminder to KU's legacy. | https://www.kansan.com/news/kansan-championship-section-and-front-page-poster-available-for-purchase/article_61967692-b9f7-11ec-93fa-4f847faa1821.html | 2022-04-12T07:39:48Z | kansan.com | control | https://www.kansan.com/news/kansan-championship-section-and-front-page-poster-available-for-purchase/article_61967692-b9f7-11ec-93fa-4f847faa1821.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Kwajalein High School faculty and members of the Ri-Katak student program formed a receiving line to thank their visitor, climate activist and poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner, following a student assembly at the Davye Davis Multi-Purpose Room at Kwajalein High School on U.S. Army Garrison-Kwajalein Atoll March 25, 2022. During her visit to the atoll, Jetñil-Kijiner toured the Ebeye and Kwajalein communities, shared her creative work and delivered student writing workshops. (U.S. Army photo by Jessica Dambruch)
This work, Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner Visits Ebeye, Kwajalein [Image 4 of 4], by Jessica Dambruch, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138213/kathy-jetnil-kijiner-visits-ebeye-kwajalein | 2022-04-12T07:43:21Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138213/kathy-jetnil-kijiner-visits-ebeye-kwajalein | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Yokota spouses enter the rear exit ramp of a C-130J Super Hercules assigned to the 36th Airlift Squadron as part of a Spouse Orientation Flight opportunity at Yokota Air Base, Japan, Feb. 25, 2022. The spouses had the opportunity to fly on the C-130, UH-1N Huey and C-12 Huron as part of the orientation day. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jessica Avallone)
This work, Spouse Orientation Flight [Image 6 of 6], by SSgt Jessica Avallone, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138217/spouse-orientation-flight | 2022-04-12T07:43:46Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138217/spouse-orientation-flight | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The Gathering Spot (TGS) was once again the place to be this evening (4/11/2022) as Atlanta continues to grow exponentially in the Tech world. The 3 powerful men who took the stage represented 3 different facets of Atlanta’s extraordinary Black tech scene. TGS founder Ryan Wilson moderated an engaging conversation with Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens (AKA “The Tech Mayor”) and Babatope ‘Tope” Awotona, founder and CEO of Atlanta based tech unicorn Calendly.
“Unicorn status” is only given to start-ups that get valued at over $1 billion. Calendly was valued at $3 billion when investors put in $350 million last year for a small piece of the company. Awotona started Calendly using his own 401K funds and credit cards and this year they have revenues of over $100 million. He was recently on the cover of Forbes magazine and is one of only two Black people in tech worth over $1 billion.
Ryan Wilson and business partner TK Petersen founded the highly successful Gathering Spot 6 years ago as a private membership club catering to Black culture. TGS features co-working space, event space, a restaurant, etc., and brings together a diverse collection of entrepreneurs, creatives, executives and business professionals. They’ve recently added a club in Washington DC and their new club in Los Angeles opens in a matter of weeks.
Ryan was the moderator and asked questions of both our very popular Mayor and Mr Atowona. The crowd included many from the tech ecosystem including techpreneurs, investors, business coaches and educators. All in attendance received insightful knowledge and lessons they can apply in their business and professional life. | https://rollingout.com/2022/04/11/black-tech-billionaire-joins-atlanta-mayor-dickens-to-share-with-the-community/ | 2022-04-12T08:03:17Z | rollingout.com | control | https://rollingout.com/2022/04/11/black-tech-billionaire-joins-atlanta-mayor-dickens-to-share-with-the-community/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
During their April 7 meeting, the Northampton Borough Council unanimously approved a short-term rental unit ordinance. Under this ordinance, the borough will have the ability to regulate short-term units rented out via sites like Airbnb and Vrbo.
These popular sites have allowed individuals to rent out entire properties or single rooms on a short-term basis and earn passive income. The borough is seeking to address possible issues these rental units may cause while also ensuring that they are monitored for safety.
This new ordinance will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. This will allow the borough to finalize the appropriate paperwork and educate property owners.
In other news, community planner Victor Rodite appeared before council to outline several community development proposals. First, he recommended that the borough apply for a Community Development Block Grant to fund sewer plant updates. He also suggested that the borough look at grant opportunities in 2023 for park surveillance cameras. Rodite also announced that he is looking for grants to support the River Front Garden proposed at Canal Park and traffic improvements at 21st and Main Streets.
Rodite will continue to appear before council to outline his findings and aid them in the grant approval process. Another grant he is exploring would support the future D&L and Nor-Bath Trail connection.
Accessing the Nor-Bath trail, especially as the weather warms, is a priority for residents. In addition to the future connection with the D&L trail, council is exploring additional access points in the community. After unofficial access to the trail was blocked last year, Borough Manager LeRoy Brobst is meeting with the Northampton County Division of Parks and Recreation to see how a safe access point can be created at McKeever Lane.
During the meeting, council also hired a new public works mechanic. Aaron Bortz was interviewed by both the public works crew and the sewer committee, after which time he was recommended for the position. He will start following a drug and alcohol test, as well as a background check.
Finally, council reported on the status of 2022’s rental inspection applications. The final deadline for registering rental units was March 31. The borough had an 86 percent response rate. All property owners who did not submit their applications will receive a late notice and a $25 penalty.
The next Northampton Borough Council meeting will be on April 21, at 7:30 p.m. | https://homenewspa.com/2022/04/11/northampton-borough-council-approves-short-term-rental-ordinance-continues-to-explore-grant-options/ | 2022-04-12T08:07:31Z | wspa.com | control | https://homenewspa.com/2022/04/11/northampton-borough-council-approves-short-term-rental-ordinance-continues-to-explore-grant-options/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
MOXEE, WASH - After six years in the making, the Yakima County hearing examiner approved the land use for a new surf park and RV campground.
People can file an appeal through the county's superior court until May 2nd. After that, the Barreled Surf Park will be fully operational. The park is set to open in spring 2024.
Many residents signed petitions against the surf park. These residents say they are concerned about traffic, noise, property value, and most importantly, water usage.
"I have dreams too, but I would make sure I wouldn't take someone else's dream away to accomplish that dream," said a homeowner of 27 years, Laurie Huber.
Huber said her dream to retire in peace and quiet will be taken away by the nearly 40-acre surf park and recreational area down the road.
"[The surf park will] take everything I loved about this area away from us, our house is paid for, we're remodeling, we planned on retiring in this house," said Huber.
Huber said she's worried the surf park will run her water well dry.
The park's founder, Joey Lawrence, said the park will use some of Roy Farms' existing water supply.
"We're using the same amount of the water for the surf park whether it is there or if it isn't," said Lawrence.
The Department of Ecology approved the surf park's water rights. The 40-page decision states aquifers providing domestic water and agricultural water from Roy Farms are far enough apart to not cause supply issues.
Traffic is another concern among residents. Lawrence said he estimates about 120 cars per hour will travel through on a peak day at peak hour. He said this means on a Saturday in August, not a Tuesday in May.
"[The estimate of 120 cars] was used because we needed to make sure that the road infrastructure could handle us at our most impactful," said Lawrence.
Huber said even 10 or 15 more cars each hour will be a big change to the traffic flow.
With overnight camping, noise is another concern among residents. Lawrence said there will be about 40 acres between the park and the closest resident. He said the park will be built on the far northeastern side of the land.
Lawrence said he's excited to bring more people to the Yakima Valley.
"I think having a world-class surfers resort could be the catalyst that brings a whole lot more fun exciting projects that gets both young and old outside," said Lawrence. | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/yakima/residents-concerned-about-traffic-water-usage-with-approved-surf-park-founder-reassures-neighbors/article_7de63b06-b9d5-11ec-af4f-338ec4067df3.html | 2022-04-12T08:18:14Z | nbcrightnow.com | control | https://www.nbcrightnow.com/yakima/residents-concerned-about-traffic-water-usage-with-approved-surf-park-founder-reassures-neighbors/article_7de63b06-b9d5-11ec-af4f-338ec4067df3.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Pendleton Councilman Jason Evchich announced that the state officials were impressed with the work being done by the Town in consideration of awarding a $500,000 matching Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) for the Town Park project.
According to Evchich, Kate Badgley of New York State Parks, who has become a liaison for the Town to work with New York State Parks, said she was “extremely impressed” with the application and the way the Town residents and visitors “benefited from what we have here now” and she’s looking forward to working with the Town now and in the future.
Evchich broke the project into four parts: a parking lot, asphalt pathways for wheelchair access, the community center, ADA bathrooms and Supermatty’s Waterpark at a Monday night Town Board meeting.
“The only question I have with the community center, the design, (is) I’d like to get a more accurate quote,” Evchich said. “I don’t know if $560,000 from last year is the same. Just from looking at the project, but I didn’t have as much access to that portion.”
Evchich said this wasn’t a “huge issue” but once a contract is drawn and additional costs creep up – the price of asphalt being an example – then more paperwork would have to be submitted.
Part of the news, Evchich said, was that the $200,000 that the Town raised to match the Greenway funding for the community center can be also be used for the CFA matching grant.
At the same time, the New York State Dormitory Authority has granted the Town a $92,000 reimbursement grant to pay for Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant bathrooms.
Pendleton Supervisor Joel Maerten noted that the Town is experiencing multiple grant awards.
“The CFA grant is relatively new, we got that last fall,” Maerten said, also noting the NYSDA grant for bathrooms, as well as a grant for a Salt Storage structure also in the town.
“And the fourth one is the Greenway grant for the community center,” he said. “We got that about a year-and-a-half now. We’ve moved along with the architect, and now the Town Engineer with documents to bring this all together.”
Evchich said that Pendleton is providing something that many families are finding they need. Mason’s Mission is named after his deceased son who lived with a disability and who wanted to play in a playground, but often could not because the playgrounds were not designed with the idea of letting children in wheelchairs and other disabilities also have a share of the fun.
“Not only is it helping residents in Pendleton, it’s helping residents outside Pendleton. It’s a regional thing,” Evchich said. “Then they come here and they go to the coffeehouse, they get a pizza at Fritz (Fred's), or maybe they look to buy a home here! That’s essentially what we’re doing here.” | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/local_news/pendleton-to-use-half-million-grant-to-expand-park/article_46e11dd1-c2c9-5b5d-b42a-f7e86fc9401e.html | 2022-04-12T08:35:32Z | lockportjournal.com | control | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/local_news/pendleton-to-use-half-million-grant-to-expand-park/article_46e11dd1-c2c9-5b5d-b42a-f7e86fc9401e.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A resolution passed in the Royalton town board meeting yesterday authorizing Supervisor Daniel Bragg to send a letter to the town of Lockport in order to assist someone on the border of the two towns.
Scot Snath of Royalton owns property on Akron Road and is looking to build a house there over the summer. No water service is available in the area from Royalton. Snath is asking Lockport to tie his property into the Town of Lockport’s water system.
“The town of Lockport line is right there,” said Bragg. “They have water service right there. We have no water service there, and we don’t have any intentions for the short term, and he wants his house built there.”
Bragg said that Snath has already contacted the town to ask for permission to tie his water into their town’s system, and that Lockport has agreed. The letter being sent out by the town of Royalton is to give permission to Lockport to set up the water system on Royalton’s side of the town border.
“His house will be in Royalton,” said Bragg. “but it’s right where the two towns come together.”
Snath made the initial request to tie his water system to Lockport at a Royalton town board work session earlier this month. | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/local_news/royalton-property-being-tied-to-lockport-water-system/article_211733b0-f7b4-5f6b-9480-8f0136f8bdc6.html | 2022-04-12T08:35:38Z | lockportjournal.com | control | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/local_news/royalton-property-being-tied-to-lockport-water-system/article_211733b0-f7b4-5f6b-9480-8f0136f8bdc6.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The proposal to expand CWM’s hazardous waste landfill in Porter was the topic of a WebEx hearing before the state Siting Board on Monday.
CWM’s Residual Management Unit 1 (RMU1) closed in 2015. The proposed RMU2 application has been in process since 2003.
Department of Environmental Conservation Administrative Law Judge Daniel O’Connell presided over the hearing, which focused solely on economic issues and discussion of the pre-filed testimony of witnesses called by interested parties arguing against the expansion.
Testimony of Nicolas Rockler, Ph.D. was called into question with the admissibility of several items debated by CWM Attorney Jeffrey Kuhn even before cross examination began.
The vast majority of Kuhn’s objections to Rockler’s testimony were overruled by O’Connell, who yielded to arguments from Amy Witryol, party to the proceeding as a citizen activist.
Kuhn called Rockler’s Niagara County unemployment statistics into question and noted the county’s unemployment rate since the closure of RMU1 was the second highest in New York state for counties outside New York City.
Kuhn also called into question statistics from Rockler showing increased economic activity in Lewiston and Porter since the closure of RMU1.
The hearing began at 10 a.m. and continued through the afternoon with Kuhn cross-examining Rockler.
The economic impact hearing will continue at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
The WebEx link for people wishing to watch the proceeding is https://www.dec.ny.gov/enb/20220330_hearings.html . Click on the blue link where it says CWM and keep going. A WebEx download may be required. Attendees are required to enter a user name, which will be visible to panelists, but can enter any name they like, for instance Euell Gibbons or Pete Seeger.
The discussion of economic impacts will not include the impact of radioactive soil on CWM property that’s left over from the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works (LOOW). About 710 acres of the 7,500-acre LOOW site is on the CWM property. Remediation of LOOW was announced earlier this month by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Additional hearings on landfill expansion will be scheduled, including one on environment impact. It’s expected the process will be wrapped up in 2023. | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/local_news/state-hosts-hearing-on-cwm-app/article_92a3bff4-3c60-535b-a8c9-894499c3fdb6.html | 2022-04-12T08:35:44Z | lockportjournal.com | control | https://www.lockportjournal.com/news/local_news/state-hosts-hearing-on-cwm-app/article_92a3bff4-3c60-535b-a8c9-894499c3fdb6.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Summer is just around the corner, and warm nights filled with sticky, ice-cream-stained fingers are quickly approaching. Baskin-Robbins gets ahead of the sizzling temperatures with a massive brand relaunch and a tagline that encourages customers to “Seize the Yay.”
The experience agency ChangeUp designed the beloved brand’s new visual identity system which includes a redesigned logo, packaging, and employee uniforms. The new logo takes on a vintage look reminiscent of the brand’s early days, while keeping the trademark “31” within the “BR” monogram. This refresh infuses the brand with a sense of nostalgia that remains contemporary and forward-thinking.
The platform, strategy, and supporting 360 campaign work were developed by 22squared.
Made your bed? That’s a reason to celebrate. Put on pants with actual buttons? There’s another! Legendary ice cream brand, Baskin-Robbins is celebrating the happiness ice cream brings to every moment with a refresh of the iconic brand’s logo, packaging, employee uniforms and tagline encouraging customers to “Seize the Yay” – appreciating every moment, no matter how big or small.
“For more than 75 years, Baskin-Robbins has been the destination for celebrating the moments that matter most. Our new look and manifesto recognize the extraordinary role ice cream has played in our customers’ lives, along with our continued commitment to innovation and creating someone’s next favorite flavor,” said Jerid Grandinetti, Vice President of Marketing and Culinary at Baskin-Robbins. “Small moments that spark joy often get taken for granted. We’re encouraging people to pause and celebrate any moment that brings happiness with Baskin-Robbins.”
To celebrate the rebrand, while paying tribute to its robust heritage, Baskin-Robbins is launching a collection of limited-edition merch – the very first line of branded merchandise for the 77-years young ice cream brand. The exclusive “yay-worthy” items will be available for a limited time, beginning April 18, 2022. The collection includes clothing and other items that will encourage “yay seizing” moments, such as bicycles and skateboards, available exclusively at ShopBaskinRobbins.com.
In the true spirit of “Seizing the Yay,” the confectionary experts at Baskin-Robbins have also developed three new flavors available now, crafted specifically to celebrate every moment – there’s something for every palette:
- Non-Dairy Mint Chocochunk: This brand-new non-dairy flavor is a contemporary take on a well-known classic. Sweet mint meets thick chocolate chunks and a gooey fudge swirl with a melt-in-your-mouth coconutmilk base – it’s sure to be your new favorite “just because” flavor.
- Ube Coconut Swirl: Ube (pronounced “oo-beh”) and coconut flavored ice creams meet vibrant, purple ube-flavored swirls, creating an authentic scoop with hints of sweet vanilla and nuttiness. Made with real ube from the Philippines, this sweet, balanced treat is perfect for ube lovers and ube newbies alike!
- Totally Unwrapped™: An iconic duo of peanut butter and chocolate ice creams packed with fudge-covered pretzels, fudge and caramel covered peanuts, and an ooey-gooey salted caramel swirl. This unforgettable Flavor of the Month is an ode to a classic candy bar with a cool and creamy twist.
For more inspiration on how to “Seize the Yay” at Baskin-Robbins, visit www.BaskinRobbins.com or follow along on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | https://www.printmag.com/branding-identity-design/baskin-robbins-debuts-a-majorly-sweet-brand-relaunch/ | 2022-04-12T08:38:17Z | printmag.com | control | https://www.printmag.com/branding-identity-design/baskin-robbins-debuts-a-majorly-sweet-brand-relaunch/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Today's social media is a dumpster fire, but scientists are building something better from scratch
Prof Chris Bail and his team at the Polarization Lab are creating a social media playground, where researchers can explore the infinite possibilities.
In recent memory, social media seems to have done more to drive us apart than bring us together. Long gone are the days of using Facebook to find new friends at university or checking in on Twitter to keep an eye on the news. Instead, social networks are fast becoming a maddening cacophony where users appear to compete for who can provide the hottest, most extreme take and the prize, for better or worse, is visibility.
But what if we could start again? What if we could build a network that nurtured social media’s best qualities and cut out the bad?
At the Polarization Lab in North Carolina, US, a team of multidisciplinary researchers including social scientists, statisticians and computer scientists, are breaking apart the social media status quo to rebuild it one peer-reviewed brick at a time.
Together they’ve created real social media sites from scratch, in the lab, with real human users, to find out what happens when you play with the rules. Prof Chris Bail, founding director of the lab at Duke University, explains what happened next.
What’s wrong with social media as we know it now?
We've just accepted how social media is now is how it’s always going to be. But the status quo doesn't make a lot of sense. Facebook started as a site that allowed college students to rate each other's physical attractiveness. Instagram was essentially a way to organise alcohol-based gatherings, and was originally called Burbn. TikTok and YouTube were founded to share funny videos. So the question that I think more people should be asking is, why should we accept these platforms that were designed for kind of sophomoric purposes as the status quo, as the inevitable?
Meanwhile, the world is collapsing around us in many ways. Incivility, hatred, outrage have never been higher. There's a variety of evidence that suggests social media is probably contributing to all those things. It's certainly not the only contributor, but there's growing consensus that it's a major player.
[But before we make changes] we need to understand how platforms shape human behaviour. That's what prompted us to say, OK, we need a social media platform for scientific research.
Is your social media site based on any platform in particular, or is it completely new?
We’re building our platform for two purposes. One is to simulate existing platforms, like Twitter and Facebook. When you're exploring interventions that could increase or decrease positive behaviour, if it decreases positive behaviour then it's dangerous to do it in the wild. So, we need a testing ground – in the world of computer science, we call a sandbox. It’s where we start to learn how to play.
But the thing that we're much more excited about is that our site could be used to explore the space of possibilities and social media more systematically.
What possibilities are there?
There are many other models that we could explore. A lot of tech leaders say the point of social media is to connect people, to connect the world. That's Mark Zuckerberg's stated mission for Facebook.
On the one hand, that's admirable. You can massively connect the world in largely positive ways – people in Ukraine can fundraise internationally.
But we don't know what connecting to that many people does to the human brain. The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar famously discovered that we struggle to maintain meaningful relationships with more than 150 people.
Promoting connection ad infinitum might create shallow, meaningless connections instead of the deeper connections that give the kind of social cohesion that sustains civil society.
Can you give me an example of how your social media site has been used?
So there's an interesting debate going on among people who study social media about how anonymity might shape our behaviour. People tend to say things on social media that they would never say in real life, especially when they are anonymous, because there's no consequences. Your readers may have had an experience on social media within anonymous account that was upsetting, maybe even scary.
But there's another side of anonymity that's less well understood, and that is that it provides people with the opportunity to explore ideas outside of peer pressure.
Imagine that I am a Republican in the United States and I see all this evidence that voter fraud didn't happen, or maybe I'm sceptical of former President Trump's claims that voter fraud happened.
If I go on to Twitter and announce my view to my Republican followers, I might get attacked by 'my' people. I might not do it. But if I'm anonymous, I might throw out the idea.
In other words, anonymity gives us the ability to explore unpopular ideas, and allows us to focus more on ideas instead of the identities of the people who are voicing them.
We wanted to know if that could prevent some of the tribalist tendencies that we see on social media.
A lot of social media companies are grappling with this right now. Should we make everybody disclose every detail of their identity, or should they maybe be allowed some degree of anonymity? But we as researchers can't walk into Facebook and say, hey, could we please make 1,200 of your users anonymous for two weeks? Not only is it logistically impossible, it would upset users. It probably couldn't be done with high scientific validity. And it would create a huge PR nightmare for Facebook.
But on our platform, we connected people to talk anonymously about politics – either immigration or gun control – with a member of the other party in an anonymous context.
Half of our research team thought it would be bad and would lead to hateful statements and abusive rhetoric. And there were several conversations on our platform that got so toxic that we had to shut them down.
But the vast majority of conversations were extraordinarily productive. And people actually exhibited less polarisation when they chatted with someone from the other party anonymously.
This is not the end-all be-all study. The implication is not that Facebook should become anonymous tomorrow.
But it raises the question, should platforms create a space for anonymous conversation under carefully controlled settings? Maybe. So that's an example of the type of research we can do.
And it could be used by academics around the world?
The idea is to make a platform that any researcher could alter and then put it on the App Store to do any kind of research. At the Polarization Lab, we're focused on politics, but there are so many other really important issues out there.
I would be elated if our effort got picked up by, say, researchers in public health who are trying to study the impact of social media on mental health, or the impact of social media on vaccine uptake.
Social media’s algorithms are often blamed for the polarisation online.
There's evidence that the algorithms used by social media sites are not up to the task.
Most social media platforms are explicitly designed to spread information as far as possible. So, if you are a software engineer and you're trying to figure out how to spread a message, what you're going to do is look for characteristics of messages that spread really far. Then you train your algorithm to identify and boost messages with those characteristics.
People ask, is the algorithm good or not? Instead, we should be asking: what would a good algorithm look like?
There are a number of ideas that social science could offer about how to design algorithms that would promote better behaviour. One that I'm particularly fond of is an algorithm that, instead of boosting divisive content, boosts unifying content.
Imagine you've got a bunch of Labour voters and a bunch of Conservative voters. Facebook's algorithm boosts the Tories when they say something that appeals to the Tories, right? But there is a lot of content out there that both Conservatives and Labour like. So, why not boost that content? In that way social media could actually optimise for creating consensus instead of creating division.
It could go further than politics. You could do this across racial and ethnic groups, across genders. All of a sudden social media could become this experience of what we all agree on, or all find interesting, important or useful. Instead of this, excuse my language, dumpster fire of outrage and sensationalism that it's become.
But sometimes conversations come out of that fire that are really important, and that wouldn't be held any other way because they might not unite people.
Yeah, absolutely. There are many good examples of this.
The Black Lives Matter movement created the largest ever protest in the United States. So there's really good reason to think that there's a power there.
The question I would ask, taking the long view for a moment, is what has been the impact of these social media campaigns?
When you have massive campaigns that involve many, many people, if it's true that people struggle to maintain meaningful connections with large groups then it follows that most of these large movements are going to die or going to lack the kind of sustained influence that we might like.
If you look at American public opinion of Black Lives Matter, it went from extremely positive to somewhat neutral, and now to slightly negative.
It seems like this kind of research should have been done when social media platforms first started becoming popular…
For a long time, social scientists like me struggled to get a lot of data. Compare us to physicists who have massive particle colliders, or biologists who can look at the entire human genome. We were usually studying a couple dozen people. And that fundamentally limits what kind of questions you can ask.
In some ways, the advent of social media, the mass digitisation of human language and the various digital traces that human beings leave behind meant we were finally able to do really exciting analysis of large groups of people. The great sociologist Duncan Watts said social science had finally found its telescope.
People were calling it the Golden Age of social science. And in some ways it was. Many of us were fortunate enough to get data from places like Facebook and do some foundational research.
The trouble started about four years ago when academic research became deeply embedded in controversies at Facebook and other platforms. Most notable was the Cambridge Analytica case, where a massive amount of data about people was used, largely without their consent, to serve political ends.
The idea that scientific research could give nefarious actors access to potentially really powerful information led tech companies to stop sharing their data [with academics].
So, we don't know much about the world's top social media platforms.
There are foundational questions in the nascent field that we call computational social science – is it video-based? Is it text-based? Is it anonymous or not? – and the significant differences across platforms might be shaping human behaviour in different ways.
This is basically what prompted us to step back and say, well, we have two choices. One is we can wait patiently outside the social media companies and hope for the opportunity to do some research on their platforms. Or, we come up with our own.
About our expert
Prof Chris Bail is a professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. He studies political tribalism, extremism, and social psychology using data from social media and tools from the emerging field of computational social science.Read more:
- Why scientists don’t actually know if social media is bad for you
- Why social media makes us so angry, and what you can do about it
- Trapped – the secret ways social media is built to be addictive (and what you can do to fight back)
- Social networks are built to turn us against each other. Can we fix them?
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Internationally acclaimed Marshallese climate change activist, poet and performance artist Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner made a recent visit to communities on Ebeye and Kwajalein to share her creative work, meet with students and deliver school writing workshops.
Jetñil-Kijiner is known throughout the world for her powerful spoken word poetry. Her work intermingles the urgent call for global action to halt climate change with ruminations on the challenges posed to Marshallese citizens and culture by discrimination and the U.S. nuclear testing legacy.
In 2014, Jetñil-Kijiner delivered “Dear Matafele Peinem,” a poem to her daughter, at the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit. In recent years, she has partnered with video artists and fellow writers to produce numerous creative pieces to accompany her work, traveling to remote locations such as Greenland and the Runit Dome, located on Enewetak Atoll.
In her presentations on Kwajalein, Jetñil-Kijiner shared the poem “Rise,” a video filmed with Greenland’s Aka Niviâna for 350.org. The piece interlinks the lives of women facing climate change with references to customs and legends. The poets are portrayed as sisters from distant islands exchanging symbolic gifts from their homes--the rocks of Greenland for shells carried from Bikini Atoll and Runit Dome.
“We have a custom in the Marshall Islands where, if you visit someone’s island, you don’t show up empty-handed,” Jetñil-Kijiner said in her address to Kwajalein High School Students, about “Rise.” “So, in the video, we are actually demonstrating that.”
A prophetic Marshallese legend of two sisters from the island of Ujae connects climate change with the desire to retain one’s own home in the poem. After learning that her sister has magically turned to stone, her sibling chooses “to be rooted by her sister’s side,” and shares her fate by choice on the edge of the reef.
“Rise” and an earlier piece, “Tell Them,” convey the shared experiences of those whose lives are impacted by climate change and the rising seas. In “Tell Them,” Jetñil-Kijiner poses a passionate declaration: “We are nothing without our islands.”
Now a climate envoy for the RMI, Jetñil-Kijiner’s work on the RMI National Adaptation Plan is making the voices of those communities heard. She elevates the concerns and inputs of traditional leaders and Marshallese citizens into discussion informing the renewal of the Compact of Free Association between the RMI and U.S.
“There is a huge undertaking where we will be doing something called community consultations,” said Jetñil-Kijiner in an interview with The Kwajalein Hourglass. “It’s the biggest climate outreach that the national government has done so far. We’re going to get feedback from vulnerable community members—women, fishermen, weavers; sector-level agencies and college students; and we’re getting perspectives on what they’ve seen, what their thoughts are on climate change, and what adaptation pathways they’d like to see in the future. That’s going to feed into our development strategizing.”
At a Kwajalein High School assembly, Jetñil-Kijiner shared how writing has shaped her life. As a young person, she was compelled by her parents to contribute back to her community and her people. Writing became the key to help her accomplish that goal. It would ultimately fuel her graduate-level work in Hawaii, help her reach global audiences, and later, co-found the Majuro-based non-profit organization, Jo-Jikum. The initiative connects Marshallese youth with opportunities to engage in community-focused climate change activities and education.
“It’s small, but it’s feisty,” Jetñil-Kijiner said of Jo-Jikum. “It’s difficult, as a nonprofit, to stay afloat. … We’re trying to keep turning out projects that help support our youth being involved in these issues.”
The poet credits her mother, former RMI President Hilda Heine, as her major source of inspiration. At KHS, she recalled how Heine had translated her doctoral work from her first language, Marshallese, into English. She shared her pride in her mother’s strength as an educator and leader, and fondly shared Heine’s baffled reaction after accompanying her daughter to a slam poetry reading.
The U.S. Army’s recent climate change strategy is “a really big turning point,” Jetñil-Kijiner said. She hoped the strategic importance of Kwajalein Atoll as a U.S. missile testing site will encourage support for helping address RMI climate change issues.
“Kwajalein will be just as impacted as the outer islands,” Jetñil-Kijiner said. “I think it can only be a good thing. The U.S. Army is a huge contributor to climate change.”
In the days that followed her community readings and student workshops, members of the atoll community expressed their gratitude for the poet’s visit. Her time on the atoll was made possible with support from Kwajalein resident Pamela Sakaio, Sonia Tagoilelagi of the International Organization for Migration and RMI Minister of Education, Sports and Training Kitlang Kabua. Additional support was provided by a Kwajalein School System planning committee and special assistance from teachers, including Christi Cardillo, Greg Vessar and Sarah Scott.
“You made an impact on these students,” Sakaio wrote to Jetñil-Kijiner, of her time on Ebeye. “They were so excited and inspired to see one of their own up there on stage!”
Jetñil-Kijiner had much to say about her visit to Ebeye and the chance to work with the island’s students.
“It was my first visit to Ebeye,” Jetñil-Kijiner said. “I wish I could have stayed longer, to be honest. It was nice to do the tour and see the island for myself. It was cool to meet some of the students and perform for them. This kind of poetry—not all of them will like, but some of them seemed to. That was good. I just wanted to see it. I wanted to be there, physically. I’ve read and heard about Ebeye so much, and how loving the community can be, and how connected they are. I was really looking forward to just being around. I’m hoping to go back again at some point.”
Jetñil-Kijiner hopes the Marshallese youth she met during her visit will be encouraged to try something new to help them give back to their communities someday, she said.
“If you are doing something that people think is ‘weird’ because it’s different, and no one’s done it yet, don’t give up,” she said. “You can still do it. I’m hoping that helps [and] comes through a bit—that you can study something you care about that’s fun and can also find a way to give back to and help our community. … I’m hoping to be accessible to them. I’m just another member of our community. … I just want to be a resource for them.”
This work, Climate Activist Poet Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner Visits Ebeye, Kwajalein, by Jessica Dambruch, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/news/418301/climate-activist-poet-kathy-jetnil-kijiner-visits-ebeye-kwajalein | 2022-04-12T09:06:02Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/news/418301/climate-activist-poet-kathy-jetnil-kijiner-visits-ebeye-kwajalein | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Leaders with 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division discussed suicide prevention methods, crisis escalation and management, and the resources available to Soldiers during the brigade suicide prevention chain teach, Fort Carson, Colorado, March 11, 2022. Suicide prevention training continues to evolve, as leaders seek more effective and holistic solutions to better care for their Soldiers. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Tobias Cukale)
This work, 3ABCT 4ID Suicide Prevention Chain Teach March 2022 [Image 14 of 14], by CPT Tobias Cukale, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138248/3abct-4id-suicide-prevention-chain-teach-march-2022 | 2022-04-12T09:10:50Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138248/3abct-4id-suicide-prevention-chain-teach-march-2022 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Leaders with 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division discussed suicide prevention methods, crisis escalation and management, and the resources available to Soldiers during the brigade suicide prevention chain teach, Fort Carson, Colorado, March 11, 2022. Suicide prevention training continues to evolve, as leaders seek more effective and holistic solutions to better care for their Soldiers. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Tobias Cukale)
This work, 3ABCT 4ID Suicide Prevention Chain Teach March 2022 [Image 14 of 14], by CPT Tobias Cukale, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138249/3abct-4id-suicide-prevention-chain-teach-march-2022 | 2022-04-12T09:10:56Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138249/3abct-4id-suicide-prevention-chain-teach-march-2022 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
1st Sgt. Ryan Meek, with Battle Company, 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, stands before his company before receiving the Armor and Cavalry Leadership Award, Fort Carson, Colorado, April 5, 2022. The Armor and Cavalry Leadership Award is awarded in recognition of leadership excellence within armor and cavalry units each year by the Office of the Chief of Armor. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Tobias Cukale)
This work, 1-66 AR, 3ABCT, 4ID Armor & Cavalry Leadership Award April 2022 [Image 14 of 14], by CPT Tobias Cukale, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138263/1-66-ar-3abct-4id-armor-cavalry-leadership-award-april-2022 | 2022-04-12T09:11:20Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138263/1-66-ar-3abct-4id-armor-cavalry-leadership-award-april-2022 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Capt. Marquis Morris, company commander, and 1st Sgt. Ryan Meek, with Battle Company, 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, receive the Armor and Cavalry Leadership Award for 2021, Fort Carson, Colorado, April 5, 2022. The Armor and Cavalry Leadership Award is awarded in recognition of leadership excellence within armor and cavalry units each year by the Office of the Chief of Armor. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Tobias Cukale)
This work, 1-66 AR, 3ABCT, 4ID Armor & Cavalry Leadership Award April 2022 [Image 14 of 14], by CPT Tobias Cukale, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright. | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138273/1-66-ar-3abct-4id-armor-cavalry-leadership-award-april-2022 | 2022-04-12T09:12:23Z | dvidshub.net | control | https://www.dvidshub.net/image/7138273/1-66-ar-3abct-4id-armor-cavalry-leadership-award-april-2022 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WNBA Draft: Former Blackman standout Jazz Bond taken by Dallas Wings
Former Blackman standout Jazz Bond was drafted in the third round of the WNBA Draft by the Dallas Wings Monday.
The Wings took the 6-foot-4 North Florida forward with the 31st overall pick after obtaining the pick from the Chicago Sky.
Bond averaged 15.1 points and 7.8 rebounds for North Florida this season and finished her career with 1,584 points, 274 blocks and 812 rebounds.
She was part of two Class AAA state championship teams at Blackman (2014-15) and averaged 13.3 points and 9.5 rebounds a game her senior season with the Lady Blaze.
Her former Blackman teammate, Crystal Dangerfield, is also in the WNBA, entering her third season with the Minnesota Lynx.
More:Atlanta Dream select Kentucky guard Rhyne Howard with No. 1 pick in 2022 WNBA draft | https://www.dnj.com/story/sports/high-school/2022/04/12/wnba-draft-blackman-south-florida-standout-jazz-bond-taken-dallas/7286389001/ | 2022-04-12T09:14:00Z | dnj.com | control | https://www.dnj.com/story/sports/high-school/2022/04/12/wnba-draft-blackman-south-florida-standout-jazz-bond-taken-dallas/7286389001/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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Activate your digital account | https://www.dnj.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dnj.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2022%2F04%2F11%2Frutherford-county-mayor-bill-ketron-recycling-trash-plans-murfreesboro%2F7275094001%2F&gnt-tng-s=1 | 2022-04-12T09:16:14Z | dnj.com | control | https://www.dnj.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dnj.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2022%2F04%2F11%2Frutherford-county-mayor-bill-ketron-recycling-trash-plans-murfreesboro%2F7275094001%2F&gnt-tng-s=1 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Formula Drift is always just as much about the driving and battles as it is about connecting with old friends and enjoying the general loud and smoky ambience.
Between the car show, the fellow media folk and the crowd, every FD season opener at Long Beach feels a little like a high school reunion. I always try to remember to smell decent, because it’s like a constant hugging session all weekend. It’s this community that makes drifting special.
I think it’s worth mentioning that I invited some friends who hadn’t ever been to a drift event and, despite them not knowing any of the rules or judging criteria, they were entertained the entire time. It’s undoubtedly the best spectator motorsport.
Compared to other motor racing events, drifting has something extra, and I’d argue you don’t even have to like cars to find it riveting. At an FD round, the visuals are deranged, the smells and sounds are overpowering, and there’s usually beer and pretty girls. So it’s hard not to have a good time, no matter who you are.
The start of the 2022 season was as expected – bumpy and boisterous. Throughout the Top 32 we had a couple of incidents, but during the Top 4 semi-final battle between Fredric Aasbø and Matt Field, there was a drama-filled crash. Before I touch on that, I want to give a little preamble.
Every motorsport comes with unique trials, and clearly it’s not just the guy behind the wheel that wins a battle or a season. Drifting is unique in that most of the drivers started out with a cheap car that they worked on in their garage.
They attended grassroots battles and if their cars broke they had to fix them at home, but they would have weeks or months or even years to do it. In Formula Drift, there’s just minutes to try and get things back into shape after a crash or other technical issue. Drivers obviously have teams to help and sponsors, but the stakes and stress are at maximum volume.
With motorsport in general, it’s important to note that teams with bigger budgets historically end up on top, and people who were born into the sport have a higher success rate – ahem - Formula 1. Formula D is no Formula 1 as far as budgets and politics go, but of course the same sort of pressures and monetary bias does exists.
Racing is expensive and drifting and crashes go hand in hand. Unlike other sports, where your body is really the most important factor, with motorsport the car is nearly as important as the driver. And good cars cost money – a lot of money.
Having said all of that, when an accident happens and your team is essentially self-funded, it’s going to hurt a bit more. On the other side of that, wins feel a lot bigger when you’ve made your way to the top without a large budget to draw from.
Matt Field is one of those guys who came from a normal middle-class family. His dad got him behind the wheel when he was young, so he was raised around cars and racing, but not money.
Matt is the first to tell you he’s fortunate to be raised the way he was and for his sponsor support, but it’s clear he works really really hard for what he has. The last time Speedhunters visited his shop, the Drift Cave, Matt was working 14 hours a day, seven days a week to prepare his car for FD, while also maintaining customer builds. Everything he has he built himself.
Matt’s Corvette was severely damaged in his battle with Fredric; two corners of the car were impacted heavily and the frame rails were left bent. Understandably people were upset. Fredric stopped his car immediately, admitted he had charged too hard in his chase and hadn’t allowed Matt the necessary room to transition – contact that ultimately forced the crash into the wall – and apologized. You can check it out by hitting play above.
I’m sure Matt will get his car going again by FD Road Atlanta in early May, but after every crash there’s time and money, and sweat and tears to deal with.
It’s easy to forget the teams and drivers have complex lives as they flawlessly execute a battle, but the road to where they are is rocky and hiccups can hurt. The Formula Drift 2022 season is bound to be great and I’m excited to follow closely as the championship unfolds.
Sara Ryan
Instagram: pockowokosara
Drifting related stories on Speedhunters | http://www.speedhunters.com/2022/04/battle-for-the-streets-formula-drift-long-beach/ | 2022-04-12T09:16:56Z | speedhunters.com | control | http://www.speedhunters.com/2022/04/battle-for-the-streets-formula-drift-long-beach/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
The White House is seeking to help lessen Americans' medical debt burden, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Monday.
In its latest effort to help people deal with increased costs amid skyrocketing inflation, the White House laid out a four-point plan to help protect consumers. It builds on President Joe Biden's recent executive order on increasing access to affordable health care coverage.
Plagued by low approval ratings, particularly on economic matters, the Biden administration has been rolling out measures aimed at lowering Americans' bills.
Harris began her remarks by noting that some people are contending with the rising cost of living at the same time as they are still trying to pay off hospital bills that resulted from a burst appendix or nasty fall years ago.
"No one in our nation should have to go bankrupt just to get the health care they need," she said.
Officials from several federal agencies spoke of the problems of medical debt, which plagues about one-third of American adults and is the largest source of debt in collections. Black and Hispanic families typically hold more medical debt than White ones, while women and younger folks are also more likely to rack up health care bills. Being behind in bills also prompts some people to avoid seeking additional health care and can affect consumers' ability to buy homes or start small businesses.
"Having medical debt because you were sick or injured should not lower your credit score and make it more difficult to secure the help you need to get out of debt," Harris said. "It's not logical."
White House effort
The administration's actions include having the Department of Health and Human Services evaluate how providers' billing practices impact access and affordability of care and the accrual of medical debt. It will request data from 2,000 providers on their collection efforts, lawsuits against patients, financial assistance offerings and other practices.
For the first time, the agency will weigh this information in its grant-making decisions, publish top-line data and policy recommendations for the public and share potential violations with relevant enforcement agencies.
The No Surprises Act, which bans most unexpected medical charges from out-of-network providers, went into effect in January, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said. It protects patients when they receive emergency care or scheduled treatment from doctors and hospitals that are not in their insurance networks and that they did not choose. Consumers would be responsible only for their in-network cost-sharing in these situations.
Also under the White House plan, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will investigate credit reporting companies and debt collectors that violate patients' and families' rights. It will bolster its consumer education tools aimed at helping Americans navigate medical billing and accessing financial assistance.
The bureau issued a bulletin in January aimed at preventing unlawful medical debt collection and credit reporting. Recent research from the CFPB shows that Americans had racked up $88 billion in medical debt on consumer credit records as of June 2021.
In addition, the White House is providing guidance to federal agencies to eliminate medical debt as an underwriting factor in credit programs, where possible. The US Department of Agriculture will no longer include any recurring medical debts in borrower repayment calculations.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has taken several steps, including finalizing a rule to virtually cease reporting of medical debt for veterans with VA Care bills, according to the White House. And the agency will now make it easier for lower-income veterans to get their VA medical debt forgiven, including streamlining the request process, offering an online application and setting a simple qualifying income threshold.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the department has refunded or canceled about $1 billion in medical copayments for more than 1.5 million veterans. The updated process could help more than half a million additional veterans get relief.
Attorneys at the National Consumer Law Center applauded the measures but also advised the administration to do more.
The advocacy group highlighted HHS' review of whether providers are offering adequate financial aid to struggling uninsured or underinsured patients.
"We have seen too many patients face lawsuits and debt collection from non-profit hospitals when they should have received hospital financial assistance instead," said Jenifer Bosco, staff attorney at the center.
The center also urged the CFPB to require debt collectors to inform consumers about the availability of financial aid and to clarify that medical debt must be treated as disputed if the patient reports that the bill should be covered by insurance. Also, the bureau should bring enforcement actions against debt collectors engaging in abusive practices, said April Kuehnhoff, a center staff attorney.
Credit agencies ease reporting
The White House actions follow a decision last month by the three largest credit reporting agencies -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- to remove nearly 70% of medical debt from consumer credit reports.
Starting July 1, the agencies will no longer include medical debt that went to collections on consumer credit reports once it has been paid off. That will eliminate billions of dollars of debt on consumer records.
In addition, unpaid medical collection debt won't appear on credit reports for the first year, whereas the previous grace period was six months, the three companies said. That will give people more time to work with their health insurers or providers to address the bills.
And starting in the first half of 2023, medical collection debt of less than $500 will no longer be included on credit reports.
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/harris-says-white-house-will-seek-to-ease-americans-medical-debt-burden/article_b566d12e-1153-5950-9f12-e2c9296b0c72.html | 2022-04-12T09:17:22Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/harris-says-white-house-will-seek-to-ease-americans-medical-debt-burden/article_b566d12e-1153-5950-9f12-e2c9296b0c72.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Those are some of the questions on the table in the latest episode of The Steamie, The Scotsman’s politics podcast.
Join political editor Alistair Grant, Westminster correspondent Alexander Brown and political correspondent Hannah Brown as they analyse the row over the tax affairs of Akshata Murty, the Chancellor’s wife, and discuss how it might affect his standing.
Elsewhere, they take a look at the SNP’s relationship with the printed press after the party was accused of excluding newspapers from a local election campaign launch in Glasgow. Is this just how modern politics works?
You can check out the latest episode of The Steamie wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
From next week, episodes of The Steamie will go live every Friday evening. | https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/the-steamie-rishi-sunaks-tax-woes-and-the-snps-relationship-with-newspapers-3650483 | 2022-04-12T09:17:23Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/the-steamie-rishi-sunaks-tax-woes-and-the-snps-relationship-with-newspapers-3650483 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A coalition of thousands of Etsy sellers signaled support for a one-week strike starting on Monday — the same day the online marketplace known for its unique handicrafts will start hiking the fees it charges those who use its platform to earn a living.
An online petition started by Etsy shop owner Kristi Cassidy urging the company to cancel the fee increases — which tick up from 5% to 6.5% starting Monday — has garnered nearly 50,000 signatures. Of those signatories, some 18,500 come from people who have identified as Etsy sellers who support the strike, according to Etsy shop operator and strike participant Mattie Boyd.
"We feel like we deserve a seat at the table," Boyd told CNN Business. "And we hope these demands are met, that's our immediate goal. But, generally, there's got to be some kind of change, where there's some kind of dialogue, or Etsy sellers have some kind of representation where these decisions are being made."
Sellers participating in the strike are putting their shops on "vacation mode" for a week starting Monday, according to Cassidy's petition, a temporary setting that lets users essentially put their Etsy shop on hold for a designated period of time.
Etsy CEO Josh Silverman announced the fee increases in a memo to sellers in late February.
The letter touted Etsy's massive growth over the past two years, boasting how active sellers last year increased their sales by "23% on average compared to 2019, and in 2021 alone, we showed more than 90 million active buyers worldwide that there's an alternative to big-box, automated shopping."
Silverman then announced plans to "make significant investments in marketing, seller tools, and creating a world-class customer experience so we can continue this tremendous growth."
"To support this goal, on April 11 we will increase our current 5% transaction fee to 6.5%," Silverman wrote.
Etsy is the main source of income for Boyd, who operates a shop via the online retailer featuring homemade graphic T-shirts and other "niche" items that Boyd says are "geared towards people who are members of the queer and trans community, and who are also into punk rock and metal."
Demands listed in the petition include canceling the fee increases passed onto sellers; creating a comprehensive plan to crack down on "reseller" shops (people selling mass-produced goods that they have not designed themselves); improve and expedite the support systems for sellers who have had their business disrupted by Etsy's automated tools; end the "Star Seller" program that Etsy uses to rate sellers; and to let sellers opt out of offsite ads for their products.
Boyd said many sellers felt like they weren't given a fair way to give feedback on the sudden fee-hike announcement, which marks the first increase since 2018. While the other demands in the petition are issues Boyd said have been brewing for a while, "I think for a lot of us it was that 30% increase [to fees] that really lit the match," Boyd added.
"The strike officially is meant to go from April 11, today, through April 18," Boyd told CNN Business. "But people are being encouraged to participate for as much time as they feel like they can, and no one's being shamed if they can't do the whole week."
With sellers spread out across the country, Boyd said organizers are using a slew of tech tools to rally together and support each other — including Reddit channels, Discord chats, and Instagram.
Raina Moskowitz, the chief operating officer for Etsy, told CNN Business in a statement via email on Monday that "sellers' success is a top priority for Etsy."
"We are always receptive to seller feedback and, in fact, the new fee structure will enable us to increase our investments in areas outlined in the petition, including marketing, customer support, and removing listings that don't meet our policies," the statement added. "We are committed to providing great value for our 5.3 million sellers so they are able to grow their businesses while keeping Etsy a beloved, trusted, and thriving marketplace."
The seller strike on Etsy notably comes amid a wave of workplace activism seen at a slew of major companies over the past year -- from Starbucks to Amazon. Earlier this month, Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York, voted to form the e-commerce giant's first-ever US labor union in a landmark election. Amazon has since filed an appeal, calling for a do-over of the entire vote.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/some-etsy-sellers-to-strike-as-online-marketplace-hikes-transaction-fees/article_46e3cab7-a9cc-5a4a-ae30-c558c98bccc0.html | 2022-04-12T09:17:28Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/some-etsy-sellers-to-strike-as-online-marketplace-hikes-transaction-fees/article_46e3cab7-a9cc-5a4a-ae30-c558c98bccc0.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Furry friends help make Mercy a better place
Robert Mercer brushes the dog's silky brown ears as he talks about the work that he and Baxter have been doing at Mercy Hospital.
Baxter is an 18-month-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He rides in style, in his own custom cart, through the halls of the hospital, putting smiles on the faces of everyone he greets.
Baxter was the first therapy dog to begin volunteering at Mercy. He started almost a year ago in the hospice and palliative care departments.
The program has since expanded to five dogs who tour the entire hospital. Three more dogs are in training to begin volunteering, and Mercer said that the hospital needs more dogs to join the program.
Rusty, another therapy dog, is a 3-year-old miniature golden doodle. His owner Patsy Hendrickson said Rusty shines interacting with people in the waiting rooms or patients on dialysis or getting infusions — basically anywhere at chair level, where he can reach the people he is trying to greet.
“So each dog has their strengths," Hendrickson said.
That is why Mercer would like to expand the program, so there will be different types of dogs for different situations.
"We can grow the program — be lovely to have a couple dozen teams with big bouncy dogs for the kids, quiet dogs like Baxter for older people," Mercer said.
The hospital is open 24/7, so volunteers can come at any time of day or night according to what fits their schedules.
To volunteer, dogs must not pull on the leash or bark. They must be at least a year old. They also must like meeting new people.
“You know, it’s more personality. Most dogs can be trained to have good manners — and he does get a little excitable at times, but he settles down in a few minutes — I said they have to like meeting people. You cannot train that. They have to enjoy it," Hendrickson said.
Before the dogs start the program, they have to get certified by a national certifying agency. Mercer said at Mercy, they tend to use the Alliance of Therapy Dogs. Handlers also have to go through training with Mercy to learn about privacy laws and issues of that nature.
It might take as long as six months to go through that process.
Hendrickson and Mercer are both retired. Hendrickson said she has always wanted to be a handler for a therapy dog.
“It gives back to the community," Hendrickson said. "I have a friendly dog who loves people. People love dogs, so it does give back to the community, and it’s fun. It really is fun, to see the smiles behind the mask. You can just see the people smiling with their eyes that bring to them while they’re waiting to find out how their loved one’s doing in surgery or kids waiting around they don’t know what’s going to happen to them. He just brings joy to people. He loves it. I love it."
Alex Gladden is a University of Arkansas graduate. She previously reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Jonesboro Sun before joining the Times Record. She can be contacted at agladden@swtimes.com. | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/04/12/furry-friends-help-make-mercy-better-place/7222305001/ | 2022-04-12T09:36:32Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/04/12/furry-friends-help-make-mercy-better-place/7222305001/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Axios-Ipsos poll: Most Americans say COVID is no longer a crisis
Less than one in 10 Americans now describe COVID-19 as a crisis — with about three in four calling it a manageable problem and one in six saying it's no problem at all — according to the latest installment of the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index.
Why it matters: These sentiments — and the public's growing desire to be done with mask mandates and other restrictions — raise significant challenges for public health officials in managing new surges, and could create real political headwinds ahead of the midterms.
Between the lines: Democrats were five times as likely as Republicans to say COVID-19 is a crisis (16% to 3%). Meanwhile, Republicans were 10 times as likely as Democrats to say COVID-19 is not a problem (31% to 3%).
- Here's another way to look at the overall numbers: About twice as large a share of Americans said COVID-19 is "not a problem at all" (17%) than said it is "a serious crisis" (9%).
The big picture: The latest wave of our national survey actually found a slight uptick in people's perceptions of the risks of certain activities, including flying, attending sports events and returning to work. Yet it shows the highest share of Americans visiting friends and family members outside the home — and the lowest rate of social distancing — since the early part of last summer.
- Just half of respondents now support schools requiring students, teachers and administrators to wear masks, down from seven in 10 at the start of the school year.
- The number of respondents who said their employers are requiring them to wear masks dropped by nearly half over the past month, from 39% to 22%.
- 37% of respondents said they've already returned to their normal, pre-COVID lives, a new survey high.
But, but, but: Americans take a much rosier view of the trajectory of infections and illness than federal data shows.
- Clear majorities said that based on what they know or feel about the data "at this moment," they believe their states are experiencing decreasing rates of COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
- CDC data shows a different picture, with cases rising, and hospitalizations and deaths holding steady at low levels.
What they're saying: "People aren't following the COVID case numbers on a daily basis," said Ipsos pollster and senior vice president Chris Jackson. "People see coverage and ... assume the trend line is continuing even if it doesn't."
The intrigue: The survey asked people who haven't yet or don't believe they've yet had COVID why they'd been able to avoid it.
- About two-thirds said it was because they'd been careful and taken precautions, while one in four said they'd simply been "lucky." Another 4% said COVID isn't really present where they live.
- Democrats were the most likely to credit safety precautions (85%) while Republicans were the least likely (68%). Republicans were about twice as likely as Democrats to attribute it to luck (25% vs. 13%).
Methodology: This Axios/Ipsos Poll was conducted April 8-11 by Ipsos' KnowledgePanel®. This poll is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,043 general population adults age 18 or older.
- The margin of sampling error is ±3.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, for results based on the entire sample of adults. | https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-most-americans-say-covid-is-no-longer-a-crisis-6604f7d2-a476-48eb-8e2d-9cb94c425159.html | 2022-04-12T09:36:34Z | axios.com | control | https://www.axios.com/axios-ipsos-poll-most-americans-say-covid-is-no-longer-a-crisis-6604f7d2-a476-48eb-8e2d-9cb94c425159.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Organization looks for volunteers for city cleanup
Keep Fort Smith Beautiful is having a city cleanup April 23 and is seeking volunteers to pick up trash.
People can show up to clean any time between 9 a.m. and noon. The group will initially meet at the farmers market parking lot in downtown Fort Smith, where volunteers can pick up cleaning supplies. They must bring the litter they collect back to the parking lot by noon.
“All we need is people to show up and clean up," said Dusan Stojanovic, a member of the organization's board.
The event is part of a statewide push from Keep Arkansas Beautiful to rid the state of litter. The initiative is called the Great Arkansas Cleanup, and the goal is to sponsor a cleanup in every county in the state, according to a press release.
Keep Fort Smith Beautiful has two cleanups a year, one in the fall and one in the spring, Stojanovic said.
“It’s just to us it’s really about taking the ownership in your community and really making it clean, vibrant, beautiful," Stojanovic said. "Clean and vibrant communities invite people to live here. The more people move and live here the more obviously tax dollars you get. So it’s a slippery slope kind of fallacy but in a way that’s how we see it. So for the betterment of the city and community as a whole, it’s important to have a clean and vibrant community."
In the most recent cleanup, the organization collected about a ton of trash.
"I have taken part in the Great Arkansas Cleanup for several years now, and it has been a very rewarding experience," said David Roberts, a Keep Fort Smith Beautiful board member. "I usually spend an hour or so, working along one of the streets of Fort Smith. When I'm done, looking around at the results is satisfying. Then when I return to the collection site, I get to see how much litter all the other volunteers have picked up - that makes this event so rewarding."
Alex Gladden is a University of Arkansas graduate. She previously reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Jonesboro Sun before joining the Times Record. She can be contacted at agladden@swtimes.com. | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/04/12/organization-looks-volunteers-city-cleanup/7222334001/ | 2022-04-12T09:36:38Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/story/news/2022/04/12/organization-looks-volunteers-city-cleanup/7222334001/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
How Jadon Haselwood is fitting in with Arkansas football after transferring from Oklahoma
FAYETTEVILLE — When a player like Jadon Haselwood enters the transfer portal, a lot of schools come calling.
Haselwood was a five-star prospect out of high school and the top-ranked player in his native Georgia in the class of 2019. The talented wide receiver decided to transfer from Oklahoma in December after head coach Lincoln Riley left for USC. He finished his redshirt sophomore year with 62 receptions for 736 yards and seven touchdowns in his Sooners career.
But while other programs came to him with interest, Haselwood actually reached out to Arkansas. And he didn't reach out to the wide receivers coach, recruiting coordinators or head coach Sam Pittman; he contacted running backs coach Jimmy Smith.
Smith was Haselwood's head coach at Cedar Grove High School in Ellenwood, Georgia, near Atlanta. When Haselwood decided to transfer, he wanted to talk to one of the coaches who knew him best.
"He was kind of like a role model in my life in high school," Haselwood said of Smith. "He kind of grew me up and made me who I am today. I just came to him for advice."
SPRING BALL:Arkansas football working to improve pass rush, find strong defensive end
PRACTICE:Three questions for Sam Pittman, Arkansas Razorbacks football during spring practice so far
QB TO WR? What Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said about QB Malik Hornsby getting reps at receiver
Haselwood said Smith didn't actually push him toward Arkansas. Rather, his former coach helped Haselwood look at his options, and the receiver found his way to Fayetteville on his own.
Smith is entering his second season as Arkansas' running backs coach. He spent 2013-18 at Cedar Grove, then spent 2019 at Georgia State before joining Pittman's staff. He's now coaching another former Cedar Grove player, too, in freshman running back Rashod Dubinion.
Adding Haselwood was a big win for a team looking to avoid a drop-off after the departure of star receiver Treylon Burks for the NFL Draft. Burks, a potential first-round pick, was the center of Arkansas' passing offense, providing some balance to a team that led the SEC in rushing yards.
In Haselwood, Arkansas got a receiver who likens his own game to that of Arizona Cardinals receiver DeAndre Hopkins. Despite dealing with a lingering shoulder injury and running through spring practice in a green no-contact jersey, Haselwood seems to be adjusting to the new offense quickly.
"He’s a fast learner," offensive coordinator Kendal Briles said. "You tell him something one time and he’s got it. He’s an experienced guy, so he’s done it. He’s played at a high level before he got here. You get anything close to him, he catches the football."
Haselwood has played with some big-name quarterbacks including Jalen Hurts, Spencer Rattler and Caleb Williams. Part of his effort to get acclimated to his new offense is getting extra practice with quarterback KJ Jefferson. Haselwood said he and Jefferson would spend their off days throwing together before spring practices started.
"I can't really compare those quarterbacks, you know, they're all different styles, different conferences," Haselwood said. "But I'd say I've played with some great talent, and I'm excited for what's in store for me and KJ."
The burden of replacing Burks doesn't fall squarely on Haselwood's shoulders. In spring practice, senior Warren Thompson and sophomore Ketron Jackson Jr. have been getting first-team work. Backup quarterback Malik Hornsby has also gotten some reps at receiver with the first team. Plus, Arkansas has a running back room crowded with talent that adds another facet to the Razorbacks' offense.
Still, Haselwood knows what Burks meant to Arkansas, and the success the receiver had was part of what drew him to the Razorbacks.
"Of course, Treylon Burks is one of a kind," Haselwood said. "I know everybody expects me to fill his shoes. But like I said, he's one of a kind. So I'm just trying to get in where I fit in and make plays with the team."
Christina Long covers the Arkansas Razorbacks. You can email her at clong@swtimes.com or follow her on Twitter @christinalong00. | https://www.swtimes.com/story/sports/college/2022/04/12/arkansas-football-oklahoma-transfer-jadon-haselwood-fitting-in/9511420002/ | 2022-04-12T09:36:44Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/story/sports/college/2022/04/12/arkansas-football-oklahoma-transfer-jadon-haselwood-fitting-in/9511420002/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Biden's Band-Aid on medical debt
The Biden administration took new steps yesterday to reduce the burden of medical debt — but the moves don't address its underlying causes, and may have unintended consequences.
Why it matters: The vast amount of medical debt in the U.S. is a direct reflection of the fact that many Americans can't afford deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, but also can't forgo needed care.
Driving the news: The actions announced yesterday include a Health and Human Services Department evaluation of providers' billing practices, which could factor in how much federal grant money they get. The administration is also directing all agencies to eliminate medical debt as a factor for participation in credit programs.
- The administration argues that medical debt is a bad predictor of whether someone will pay other bills, since health care often isn't a choice, unlike credit card debt or car loans.
- "No one in our nation should have to go bankrupt just to get the health care they need," Vice President Kamala Harris said yesterday.
- "Having medical debt because you were sick or injured should not lower your credit score and make it more difficult to secure the help you need to get out of debt," she added.
- The administration's actions follow last month's announcement by private credit reporting agencies that they will soon no longer include most medical debt on credit reports.
Between the lines: Health insurance reduces the likelihood of someone receiving a bill they can't pay. That means that increasing the number of people with health coverage or preventing providers from sending patients surprise medical bills for out-of-network care — policy actions touted yesterday by Biden officials — reduce the threat of medical debt.
- But an increasing number of insured Americans can't afford deductibles, copayments or other out-of-pocket costs that are rising with the underlying cost of care.
- More than 40% of households don't have enough liquid assets to pay typical private plan cost-sharing, according to a recent KFF analysis.
Reality check: Taking some of the bite out of medical debt doesn't prevent it from accruing in the first place, and it could have unintended consequences.
- "Policymakers should be cognizant of potential unintended consequences that could undermine some of their goals. Lenders may find ways to proxy for the hidden medical debt or try to avoid consumers likely to have them," said the American Enterprise Institute's Ben Ippolito.
- "These policies may also reduce payment rates, which could affect providers' willingness to treat certain patients," he added.
What they're saying: "Hospitals and health systems do more than any other part of the health care field to support vulnerable patients: Our doors are always open, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay," said Stacey Hughes, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association. "We look forward to learning more about this new initiative from the administration." | https://www.axios.com/biden-medical-debt-health-care-costs-0b928e57-9da2-4e3e-a43a-e69cd76967fc.html | 2022-04-12T09:36:47Z | axios.com | control | https://www.axios.com/biden-medical-debt-health-care-costs-0b928e57-9da2-4e3e-a43a-e69cd76967fc.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Quashing mushy apples and rock-hard pears
A startup's novel sensor device — which measures the gas emitted by fruit as it ripens — is making inroads in ensuring that only peak-ripe produce makes its way to grocery shelves, ideally reducing food waste.
Why it matters: The USDA estimates that 30%-40% of the food supply isn't consumed. IoT sensors from Strella Biotechnology determine which pieces of fruit should be put up for sale and when — making it more likely that consumers will savor them, not toss them.
Driving the news: Strella Biotech, a 3-year-old startup led by science prodigy Katherine Sizov, already works with half the nation's pear- and apple-packing houses, monitoring storerooms to recommend which fruits should be sent to market based on their maturity.
- The company's iPhone-size sensors monitor ethylene, a gas that fruits and vegetables produce.
- Strella has tracked billions of apples and pears, and is starting to work with kiwi fruit as it's shipped to the U.S. from Australia and New Zealand.
- The next frontier: avocados.
In the typical grocery store, "the avocados are either way too hard or way too mushy," says Sizov, who developed the technology as an undergraduate studying molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania.
- "You end up spending two bucks apiece for a whole bag, and then half of them go bad before you even put them away."
- Most farmers rely on intuition and data to select the fruit they send to market, Sizov tells Axios, "but by the time it gets to Costco or Walmart or Target, they're basically getting a black box."
Where it stands: By working with large retailers, Strella has found "that just by changing the order in which they're sending product to the store, and the order in which they're receiving product, we're able to reduce the shrink — or food waste — on the store shelf by up to 50%," Sizov says.
- 92% of consumers pick their grocery store based on the quality of produce, she says — so reducing the amount of "yucky fruit" translates to happier and more loyal customers.
The big picture: The "agtech" sector, which aims to improve crop yields and food quality using technology improvements, has attracted lots of capital.
- Strella is backed by Millennium Technology Value Partners, Mark Cuban, Yamaha Motor Ventures and GV, formerly known as Google Ventures.
How it works: "An apple in a grocery store can be over a year old by the time you eat it," Sizov says. "They're stored in these massive storage rooms, or packing houses."
- A packer has dozens of storage rooms, each filled with millions of pieces of fruit, and they're "playing a little bit of a game show game, where it's like, 'behind which door is the right produce?" Sizov says.
- By putting sensors inside the storage rooms, "we can tell two months in advance of the fruit spoiling in there that it's going to do so."
What's next: Ultimately, Strella aims to use its system to improve the 10 produce items that the USDA says contribute most to food waste, which include apples, pears, avocados, bananas, mangoes and kiwi.
- "One of the main challenges is we’re working with multi-generational farmers and packers and we’re asking them to do something differently, and it takes some time for them to trust that," says Jacob Jordan, co-founder of Strella. | https://www.axios.com/quashing-mushy-apples-and-rock-hard-pears-b7c71f4e-72ae-467a-8b56-093f3060bd59.html | 2022-04-12T09:36:59Z | axios.com | control | https://www.axios.com/quashing-mushy-apples-and-rock-hard-pears-b7c71f4e-72ae-467a-8b56-093f3060bd59.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A modern city starves
Many of Shanghai's 26 million residents are facing food shortages as the Chinese government's strict COVID lockdowns have ground one of biggest and busiest cities in the world to a halt.
Why it matters: Scenes of residents rationing vegetables and begging local officials to allow them to search for food has cast a shadow on the Chinese government's COVID response.
State of play: Shanghai reported more than 26,000 new infections on Sunday, as the number of new daily infections continues to rise despite the city's lockdown, which has lasted more than two weeks.
What's happening: Shanghai residents across the city are scrambling for food, as empty grocery shelves, unreliable government provisions, and strained food delivery services make it hard to secure enough to eat.
- Extreme lockdown conditions and censorship mean journalists can't easily report from the ground, so many Shanghai residents have turned to social media for support, posting photos of their few remaining vegetables and videos of residents demanding that local health authorities allow them to leave their building to look for food.
- “It’s the first time in my life I’ve had to worry about securing food,” the Financial Times quoted one Shanghai-based executive as saying. “Now, I’m worried we’ll run out of milk for our kids.”
- One video posted to Chinese social media platform Weibo showed a drone flying through a Shanghai residential neighborhood, broadcasting to residents to remain in their homes.
Shanghai authorities have also forced children who have tested positive to quarantine separately from their parents if they test negative, a policy that has come under harsh scrutiny after parents spoke out about its devastating consequences.
- One seven year old boy was forced to quarantine away from his mother for one month after they traveled to Shanghai, and has had nightmares ever since, the boy's mother told NPR.
- "Some of the toddlers quarantined with [my son] lost the ability to speak. Another friend's 6-month-old came out with his legs covered in scratches, graffiti on his hands and open sores," she said.
What they're saying: "China's medical system would risk a collapse leading to enormous loss of life if it gives up on epidemic prevention and control," Chinese state news agency Xinhua said.
Between the lines: No matter where they happen, COVID lockdowns may be ineptly implemented, causing major disruptions. But under current conditions in China, politics may be an additional obstacle to a more humane response.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping has signaled that the country must continue its zero-COVID policy, meaning local authorities feel intense pressure to eliminate COVID outbreaks no matter the cost. And it's politically difficult for Xi to admit error and change course, since later this year he will be making a bid to assume a highly unusual third term in office.
The big picture: Despite relatively high vaccination rates, the Chinese population remains vulnerable since they have received Chinese-made vaccines, which have limited efficacy in preventing infections and severe disease.
- Chinese regulators have not approved more effective western-made mRNA vaccines, even though China could easily afford to the purchase them — most likely because leaders in Beijing don't want to be perceived as relying on the West for help. They have, however, approved Pfizer's COVID treatment drug Paxlovid.
- "When China developed its own vaccines, they used that to show the technological progress of China. And now if you switch to a foreign-made vaccine, it's tantamount to admitting that you're not as good as other countries in terms of technological capabilities," Yanzhong Huang, a global health fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNN in December. | https://www.axios.com/shanghai-china-covid-lockdowns-1a3c4bb0-c76d-4a60-bf35-f997dd880ad6.html | 2022-04-12T09:37:05Z | axios.com | control | https://www.axios.com/shanghai-china-covid-lockdowns-1a3c4bb0-c76d-4a60-bf35-f997dd880ad6.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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Activate your digital account | https://www.swtimes.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.swtimes.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fhigh-school%2F2022%2F04%2F12%2Ffort-smith-area-top-performers-high-school-sports-week-april-10-2022%2F7286195001%2F | 2022-04-12T09:40:53Z | swtimes.com | control | https://www.swtimes.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.swtimes.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2Fhigh-school%2F2022%2F04%2F12%2Ffort-smith-area-top-performers-high-school-sports-week-april-10-2022%2F7286195001%2F | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Pictures show police and forensic investigators at scene in Canterbury after two people found injured
Kent Police is currently investigating the incident
Kent Police was called to a road in Canterbury following a report of two people found with injuries on Monday (April 11). Emergency services and forensic investigators have been pictured at the scene.
The force said officers attended a premises in Lower Bridge Street, Canterbury, at around 5.20pm on Monday. The nature of the incident and the severity of the injuries sustained is currently unknown.
Lower Bridge Street was closed between St George's roundabout and Burgate while police enquiries were carried out. South East Coast Ambulance Service also attended the scene, however it is understood the road has since reopened.
READ MORE: Recap of 'major incident' as police find two people injured in Canterbury
See a selection of images below, showing emergency services and forensic investigators at the scene. KentLive has contacted Kent Police for more information on this incident and is awaiting its response. | https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/gallery/pictures-show-police-forensic-investigators-6939821 | 2022-04-12T09:41:50Z | kentlive.news | control | https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/gallery/pictures-show-police-forensic-investigators-6939821 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Two Kent areas will likely be "pushed into poverty" by Rishi Sunak's failure to tackle the cost of living crisis, a new report has suggested. It comes as the Chancellor went ahead with his proposals last week despite pleas from Conservative MPs not to hit wage packets with a 1.25 per cent National Insurance rise.
With many holidaymakers flocking off to foreign hotspots, coastal areas around the UK were already starting to suffer as low paid seasonal work dried up. Young people moving away to find new jobs meant that local economies struggled even more.
But now, the Centre for Progressive Policy has outlined areas likely to suffer the most from this year's soaring prices. Among those are Thanet and Dover in east Kent.
READ MORE: The most dangerous neighbourhoods to live in Kent
Other pinpointed seaside resorts include Great Yarmouth, Hastings, Tendring, Essex, Torbay and the Isle of Wight - all held by Tory MPs, the Mirror reports. Seaports Portsmouth, where one in three jobs are low paid, and Dover - hit by P&O’s sudden sacking of 800 seafarers - are also on the poverty list.
The CPP’s Ben Franklin said: “Our analysis suggests the Chancellor may be forced to reconsider a Universal Credit uplift to really help those hit hardest in places like Hartlepool and Hastings.”
And shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy added: “This new research reveals the inadequacy of the Government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis facing families. We need to get money back into people’s pockets.”
The CPP used indicators such as existing fuel and food poverty, benefit claimant count, joblessness and low pay to come up with a cost of living vulnerability index. That showed that Thanet has more than one in five residents struggling with food bills, one in ten with fuel, a child poverty rate of 34 per cent and 29 per cent not working.
A quarter of those in work in Great Yarmouth are on low pay while one in three children live in poverty. But South Thanet Tory MP Craig Mackinlay, which has Kent seaside resorts Broadstairs and Ramsgate in his constituency, was upbeat on the prospects for his patch.
He said: “Going to Spain is going to be a lot more expensive this year. So tourism here could actually increase what with fuel costs, flight disruption and people getting more used to staycations during the pandemic.”
And at least one seaside town has avoided going into decline as the holiday trade disappeared by diversifying into other areas. Brighton on the south coast is booming thanks to drawing on the skilled labour from its two universities for digital and creative industries.
Sign up to get the latest stories from Kent direct into your inbox here | https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/thanet-dover-pushed-poverty-rishi-6933389 | 2022-04-12T09:42:10Z | kentlive.news | control | https://www.kentlive.news/news/kent-news/thanet-dover-pushed-poverty-rishi-6933389 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Ukraine conflict: Use of chemical weapons “will get a response" from the West says UK defence minister
Defence minister James Heappey has said if chemical weapons are used in Ukraine “then President Putin should know that all possible options are on the table in terms of how the West might respond”
The city’s Azov regiment reported soldiers were left dizzy and unable to breathe after a “poisonous substance of unknown origin” was dropped on them from a Russian drone, according to reports.
It came hours after Mariupol’s mayor said more than 10,000 civilians have died in the Russian siege of his city and the death toll could surpass 20,000 adding that corpses now “carpeted through the streets” of the city.
The south-eastern port city of Mariupol has seen some of the heaviest attacks and civilian suffering in the six-week war, but the land, sea and air assaults by Russian forces fighting to capture it have increasingly limited information on circumstances inside the city.
Britain is increasingly worried that Russia could use white phosphorus munitions in the bombardment of the city.
The UK Ministry of Defence said Russian forces are continuing to pull out of Belarus to support operations in eastern Ukraine, focused on the Donbas region, where Russian-allied separatists have claimed independence.
“Fighting in eastern Ukraine will intensify over the next two to three weeks as Russia continues to refocus its efforts there,” the ministry said in a tweet.
“Russian attacks remain focused on Ukrainian positions near Donetsk and Luhansk with further fighting around Kherson and Mykolaiv and a renewed push toward Kramatorsk.”
Defence minister James Heappey if chemical weapons“are used at all then President Putin should know that all possible options are on the table in terms of how the West might respond.
He said that any response “would certainly be effective, but it would also be well considered”.
The minister told Sky News: “We know that there are reports of the use of chemical weapons. We have not been able to verify those ourselves, and indeed the Ukrainian system, as you’ve seen from President Zelensky, are only referring to the fact that there are reports, they themselves haven’t yet been able to confirm to us that they have been used.”
Mr Heappey added: “These are appalling weapons to even think about using and the fact that they are part of the discussion is deeply sobering. It’s not just the president of the United States, the president of France and our own Prime Minister have also been clear that there are weapons that simply should not be used and if they are used people will be held to account.
“It’s important to recognise that there are all sorts of ways in which these things could be used, from the use of tear gas which is effectively a riot-control measure, all the way through to utterly devastating lethal chemical weapons systems, so I don’t think it’s helpful to be too binary about the situation because these are highly nuanced.
“There are some things that are beyond the pale and the use of chemical weapons will get a response, and all options are on the table for what that response could be.”
The UN reports 4.8 million of Ukraine's 7.5 million children have been displaced since the start of the war. | https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/world/ukraine-conflict-use-of-chemical-weapons-will-get-a-response-from-the-west-says-uk-defence-minister-3650334 | 2022-04-12T09:43:54Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/world/ukraine-conflict-use-of-chemical-weapons-will-get-a-response-from-the-west-says-uk-defence-minister-3650334 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
To the editor -- In response to Jay Grandy's opinion regrading Fox News: I couldn't tell if it was serious or a satire!
Fox's owner, Rupert Murdock, admitted it's not really a news program, but an entertainment show. That's why Tucker Carlson, Hannity, Fox and Friends are NOT held accountable for anything they say on the air; it's purely entertainment with large numbers of viewers being the goal -- all for MONEY!
Presenting facts, telling the truth and disseminating actual news events are not part of their mission statement. That's to keep them from being sued for telling half-truths, outright lies and promoting conspiracy theories.
So, thank you very much, Yakima Herald, for not getting sucked into the rabbit hole -- and remaining the type of journalism that the Yakima Valley can trust!
We love reading the news on our iPads as well as in print! Keep it up!
LYNETTE RODRIGUEZ
Sunnyside | https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/letter-fox-isnt-real-news-its-for-profit-entertainment/article_50817f46-d3fa-5595-9e87-91ab3837f580.html | 2022-04-12T09:52:45Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/letter-fox-isnt-real-news-its-for-profit-entertainment/article_50817f46-d3fa-5595-9e87-91ab3837f580.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
To the editor -- On April 8, I was interested to read a letter claiming the paper to be out of touch with their readers as Fox News shows like "The Five" and "Tucker Carlson" are so highly rated.
Yet, isn't calling these hard right-leaning opinion shows "news" broadcasts the real disconnect?
ULVAR KLEIN
Yakima | https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/letter-maybe-fox-viewers-are-the-ones-who-are-out-of-touch/article_9e0ec569-3b67-5905-9c80-fc16c7803f5e.html | 2022-04-12T09:52:57Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/letter-maybe-fox-viewers-are-the-ones-who-are-out-of-touch/article_9e0ec569-3b67-5905-9c80-fc16c7803f5e.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
In the game of up-the-ante that Republican-controlled states are playing in their zeal to eradicate abortion rights, Oklahoma has taken the lead. Its new law doesn’t bother with heartbeat standards or clever enforcement mechanisms but just says it outright: Any doctor who performs any abortion at any time (other than to save a woman’s life) could face 10 years in prison. This is the oppression that awaits women throughout red-state America should the U.S. Supreme Court dismantle Roe v. Wade.
That landmark 1973 case established the right of women to determine for themselves whether to carry pregnancies to term. As with most rights, this one isn’t absolute. The balance struck by the court allows a woman to end a pregnancy until the fetus could viably live outside the womb — generally, about 24 weeks. After that, states can prohibit the procedure. But the anti-abortion movement has never accepted that compromise, fighting for decades to deny women’s rights to control their own bodies at virtually any point during pregnancy.
Texas’ radical new anti-abortion law circumvents Roe by leaving it to bounty-hunting strangers to enforce the state’s draconian limits via profitable lawsuits. That way, the state itself can’t be said to be enforcing it in contravention of Supreme Court rulings. Astoundingly, the Supreme Court has, so far, let this cynical maneuver stand.
Other states have passed or are considering bills that would outlaw abortion as of the medically irrelevant onset of a fetal heartbeat — which can be as early as six weeks, when the fetus is the size of a pea and some women don’t even yet know they’re pregnant.
Oklahoma’s bill, which Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt has vowed to sign, doesn’t bother with such complex strategies. It states outright that any doctor who performs an abortion at any point is guilty of a felony punishable by a decade in prison and $100,000 in fines. There is an exception in cases where abortion is necessary to save the mother’s life, but no exception in cases of rape or incest.
The law doesn’t even attempt any workarounds to Roe but just blatantly violates it. As such, court challenges will almost inevitably prevent it from going into effect until the Supreme Court rules on this or other pending cases — which is undoubtedly the whole point of the exercise.
Polls have shown for many years that a large majority of Americans support abortion access with reasonable limits.
The movement in red-Legislatures to end that access isn’t based on any shift in that public opinion, but on the fact that today’s Supreme Court sits far to the right of the country, providing an opportunity for the nation’s minority to impose its ideology on the majority.
Make no mistake: Where other red states are trying to work the ball up the field toward that goal, this is a Hail Mary by Oklahoma. | https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/opinion-oklahomas-new-abortion-law-doesnt-even-pretend-to-adhere-to-roe-setting-up-a/article_99a8ce51-daef-5047-9263-87e4ebbb89b6.html | 2022-04-12T09:53:03Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/opinion/opinion-oklahomas-new-abortion-law-doesnt-even-pretend-to-adhere-to-roe-setting-up-a/article_99a8ce51-daef-5047-9263-87e4ebbb89b6.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Good news (say it with me) for now.
Texas hospitals are treating fewer than 1,000 patients with COVID-19 for the first time in two years. According to the Texas Department of State Health Services, hospitalizations totaled 993 on Sunday. The last time COVID-19 patients in Texas numbered less than a thousand was April 4, 2020, before the state’s initial surge in hospitalizations, which rose to nearly 11,000 by late July that year.
“Less than a thousand [hospitalizations] is a good place to be and this is what we’ve kind of been waiting for and watching really closely,” said Chief State Epidemiologist Dr. Jennifer Shuford.
Fewer people are getting severely ill and needing medical care, said Dr. Shuford, because nearly the entire Texas population has now developed at least some immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
“We expect, based on some antibody studies that we’ve done, that about 99% of our population has some antibodies to COVID-19, either from vaccination or from prior infection.”
Other infectious disease experts are also cautiously optimistic that vaccinations, combined with four waves of widespread infections – the most recent of which was driven by the omicron variant – will help minimize future surges in cases and hospitalizations.
“I do think that the antibody seroprevalence does have something to do with the declining severity of the illness that we’re seeing in terms of decreased hospitalizations,” said Dr. Robert Atmar, an infectious disease expert who teaches at Baylor College of Medicine.
Dr. Atmar said while he was not aware of how DSHS estimated Texas’ overall immune response, the high rate is possible, especially if infection rates for the virus have been under reported.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if a large percentage of the population had been infected and/or vaccinated. 99% just seems high, but it’s certainly not unreasonable that that might be the case,” he said.
I’m just some guy on the Internet, and I also think 99% is a little high. I do agree that between our mediocre vaccination rate and our undoubtedly high infection rate that a lot of people have at least some immunity at this point, and that is keeping the rate low for now. To some extent, as I understand it, this is how a pandemic becomes endemic – there’s enough residual immunity out there to keep infection rates modest and generally tamp down on larger outbreaks. But that surely comes with no guarantees, and the next bad mutation could happen at any time. If we’re lucky, that will either be relatively mild or be mostly stopped by vaccinations, but at this point who knows what could happen. I’ll be getting booster #2 in the near future, and you should be getting whichever booster you can if you haven’t already. It’s still your best bet. | http://www.offthekuff.com/wp/?p=104945 | 2022-04-12T09:53:20Z | offthekuff.com | control | http://www.offthekuff.com/wp/?p=104945 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
We live in such strange times.
Commercial traffic at a key South Texas border crossing has stopped after Mexican truckers on Monday blocked north- and southbound lanes on the Mexico side of the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in protest of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to have state troopers inspect northbound commercial vehicles — historically a job done by the federal government.
The bridge connecting Pharr and Reynosa is the busiest trade crossing in the Rio Grande Valley and handles the majority of the produce that crosses into the U.S. from Mexico, including avocados, broccoli, peppers, strawberries and tomatoes. On Monday, with trucks backed up for miles in Reynosa for the fifth day in a row, some produce importers in Texas said they have waited days for their goods to arrive and already had buyers cancel orders.
“One of our customers canceled the order because we didn’t deliver on time,” said Modesto Guerra, sales manager for Sterling Fresh Inc., which imports broccoli from Central Mexico via the Pharr bridge before shipping it to the Midwest and East Coast. “It’s something beyond our control.”
While many companies cross perishable foods in refrigerated trucks, Guerra said the bottlenecks could lead to equipment failures that cause produce and other products to spoil in the heat.
“Those refrigerated units are powered by diesel,” Guerra said. “These trucks are in line and when the diesel runs out they have no way of refueling.”
International bridges elsewhere in the Valley, as well as in Eagle Pass, El Paso and Laredo, have also seen delays, with many commercial products produced in Mexico — like electronics, vehicle parts and medical instruments — also held up.
In response to the Biden administration’s recent announcement that it plans to end Title 42 — a pandemic-era emergency health order that lets federal officials turn away migrants at the border without the chance to request asylum — Abbott on Wednesday ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to increase its inspections of commercial vehicles, which he said drug cartels use to smuggle humans and drugs into the United States.
At times, DPS troopers appear to be checking every commercial vehicle that crosses select international bridges, with each inspection taking between 45 minutes and an hour.
Mexican news outlets reported that about 500 truckers are blocking southbound traffic into Mexico to prevent the entrance of U.S. trucks. Truckers told El Mañana in Reynosa that they had waited three to four days at the international bridge and were running out of fuel while they waited.
One trucker told the news outlet that prior to Abbott’s order, he made two crossings into the U.S. a day. Now, he’d be lucky to have one or two a week given the long delays at the bridges.
“We are losing just as much as them,” he said. “When they start needing more produce, the prices are going to go up.
“No one has told us what the reason for this is or asked what solutions we can come up with together,” he added, saying the blockade will continue until their issues are resolved. “All we know is that it’s an order from the governor of Texas.”
Time to make sure everyone is aware of that. Not just in Texas, but every Democrat around the country needs to pile on this, because it’s going to affect us all. And just out of curiosity, what are those Canadian truckers up to these days? Maybe they could drive down and surround the Governor’s mansion for a few days if they don’t have anything better to do. | http://www.offthekuff.com/wp/?p=104999 | 2022-04-12T09:53:27Z | offthekuff.com | control | http://www.offthekuff.com/wp/?p=104999 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Mumbai: Akshay Kumar-starrer 'Bachchhan Paandey', after its tepid theatrical release, is now gearing up for reaching out to a much wider audience through its OTT release on April 15.
The film will release on Prime Video.
Talking about the film Akshay said, "Bachchhan Paandey is an out-and-out comedy-entertainer and I am quite excited to bring this film to the audiences who've missed out on their dose of entertainment. Filled with a whole lot of action, drama, and comedy, the audiences can enjoy the film from the comfort of their living room now!"
Directed by Farhad Samji and produced by Sajid Nadiadwala, the action-comedy film also features Kriti Sanon, Bobby Deol, Jacqueline Fernandez, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, and others. | https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/04/12/bachchhan-paandey-akshay-kumar-ott-premiere.amp.html | 2022-04-12T10:04:50Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/entertainment/entertainment-news/2022/04/12/bachchhan-paandey-akshay-kumar-ott-premiere.amp.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Maryland lawmakers closed their legislative session late Monday with approval of legislation to strengthen cybersecurity in a year marked by a budget surplus that enabled upgrades to parks, infrastructure, schools and information technology systems, as well as tax relief.
In a year of huge surplus largely due to federal pandemic relief, the General Assembly passed a package of cybersecurity measures and nearly $570 million for information technology upgrades. It comes after Maryland’s health department was hit by a ransomware attack in December that impeded information about health metrics relating to COVID-19.
Lawmakers reached an agreement Monday on raising the legal age of marriage in the state from 15 to 17, with judicial review if there is no parental consent, after years of struggling with the issue. They also approved restrictions on long-lasting chemicals known as PFAS and switching to safer alternatives for firefighting foams.
Democrats, who control the legislature, and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan already had agreed to a bipartisan budget deal. It includes nearly $1.86 billion in tax relief over five years for Maryland retirees, small businesses and low-income families in a year of enormous budget surplus for the state's $58.5 billion budget.
The deal included a tax credit as an incentive for employers and businesses to hire and retain workers from underserved communities. It also includes sales tax exemptions for child care products such as diapers, car seats, and baby bottles, and health products for dental hygiene, diabetic care and medical devices.
Senate President Bill Ferguson, hours before adjournment at midnight, cited bipartisan work in an election year that resulted in major investments in the state.
Investments included about $150 million for state parks to address a maintenance backlog and funding for new parks and upgrades. Lawmakers also approved large investments in mental health initiatives to help in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think that Marylanders should be really proud of the budget that we passed, the investments that we're making, and I think across the board it was truly an historic year," said Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat.
Hogan highlighted the tax relief for retirees that he has been advocating for years as one of the reasons for calling this his best session as governor.
“Look, we’ve stood up and disagreed strongly on different issues, but I think we’ve accomplished a lot together," Hogan said, referring to bipartisan work with Democrats.
Democrats indeed had their disagreements with the term-limited governor, now in his last year in office.
Lawmakers overrode Hogan's veto on Saturday to create a paid family leave insurance program that has been discussed for years in the state. Maryland workers will be able to take up to 12 weeks of partially paid leave to deal with such family issues as having a baby, caring for a sick relative or dealing with a military deployment.
They also overrode the governor's veto of legislation to expand access to abortion in the state. Maryland will end a restriction that only physicians perform abortions, enabling nurse practitioners, nurse midwives and physician assistants with training to perform them.
The General Assembly passed a broad measure aimed at slowing climate change. Hogan said Friday he would let the bill go into law without his signature. The “Climate Solutions Now Act of 2022” speeds up Maryland’s current goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 40% of 2006 levels to 60% by 2031. It also sets a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2045 in the state.
Lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana in July 2023, giving the final decision to voters in November. A measure lawmakers passed to take initial steps toward implementation went into law without Hogan's signature. Licensing and taxing issues will be taken up next year, if voters approve.
Separately, lawmakers passed a bill setting aside $1 million to fund alternative therapies including psychedelics and hyperbaric oxygen therapy for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries in clinical trials.
Lawmakers also approved a bill to invest $400 million in development in the area around FedEx Field Stadium, home to the Washington Commanders football team, though the money would not be used to pay for a new stadium. A companion bill to spend $1.2 billion to upgrade Oriole Park at Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium also was passed. Hogan is scheduled to sign those bills Tuesday.
Legislators and the governor agreed to a new congressional map for the state, after a judge struck down the map approved by lawmakers over Hogan's veto in December as a “product of extreme gerrymandering.” The General Assembly redrew the state's eight U.S. House districts to be more compact, and Hogan signed the measure last week. | https://www.wboc.com/news/maryland-legislature-ends-session-marked-by-budget-surplus/article_20bc889e-ba30-11ec-a3d4-374a0b31898e.html | 2022-04-12T10:10:02Z | wboc.com | control | https://www.wboc.com/news/maryland-legislature-ends-session-marked-by-budget-surplus/article_20bc889e-ba30-11ec-a3d4-374a0b31898e.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Tuesday: Isolated, light showers in the morning, then a mix of sun and clouds in the afternoon. Warmer, with highs in the low to mid 70s. Wind from the west at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Tuesday night: Partly cloudy and mild. Lows in the mid 50s.
Wednesday: Partly cloudy and unseasonably warm. Highs in the mid to upper 70s.
Thursday: Scattered showers, with a few rumbles of thunder possible, mainly in the afternoon and evening. Highs in the mid 70s. Chance of rain 50 percent.
Friday: A few lingering showers in the morning, then partly cloudy. Highs in the upper 60s.
Saturday: Chance of light showers. Highs near 70°F. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Sunday: Chance of light showers. Highs in the low to mid 60s. Chance of rain 20 percent.
Monday: Showers. Highs in the low 60s. Chance of rain 40 percent.
Forecast Discussion:
High pressure has moved off the Carolina coast, which has shifted winds across Delmarva to a more southerly direction, which has meant a much warmer start to the day than on Monday, as we wake up to temperatures in the low 50s.
A weak cold front will approach from the north today, which will keep skies on the cloudier side, especially in the morning. The low levels of the atmosphere are quite dry, so from this front we are only expecting a few very light showers, mostly in the morning. The front will lift back to the north later on Tuesday, and by afternoon we are likely to see the sun peeking through the clouds as afternoon temperatures rise into the low to mid 70s.
High pressure will build in from the west on Wednesday. This means partly to mostly sunny skies across Delmarva, with unseasonably warm temperatures rising into the mid to upper 70s.
A more significant cold front will approach Delmarva on Thursday, and will be the next weather-maker in the near term. As gusty southerly winds crank temperatures into the mid to upper 70s once more, more widespread showers will transit the region through the afternoon and evening. Thunderstorms are not likely, but we can't rule out a rumble of thunder or two.
As the cold front departs to the east on Friday, there is a low chance of a few lingering showers in the morning before skies turn partly cloudy in the afternoon. Temperatures will fall into the upper 60s in the wake of the front.
A deep low that will be located well up into Canada will swing a few impulses of energy through the Mid-Atlantic and Delmarva through Easter weekend. At this point, it looks like we'll only expect a few widely scattered showers, so the weekend isn't looking like a washout.
A more significant rain maker could affect the region by Monday. | https://www.wboc.com/weather/forecast-summary/much-warmer-across-delmarva/article_5b9accd2-ba30-11ec-93ac-173a9f4ec645.html | 2022-04-12T10:10:05Z | wboc.com | control | https://www.wboc.com/weather/forecast-summary/much-warmer-across-delmarva/article_5b9accd2-ba30-11ec-93ac-173a9f4ec645.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
On March 21, China Eastern flight 5735 plunged more than 7,000 feet in a minute — hitting the ground nose first at near supersonic speeds. All 132 people onboard were killed.
Copyright 2022 NPR
On March 21, China Eastern flight 5735 plunged more than 7,000 feet in a minute — hitting the ground nose first at near supersonic speeds. All 132 people onboard were killed.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-12/air-disaster-investigators-from-the-u-s-are-in-china-to-probe-plane-crash | 2022-04-12T10:13:32Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-12/air-disaster-investigators-from-the-u-s-are-in-china-to-probe-plane-crash | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Bogota: Former Colombian captain Freddy Rincon was in a critical condition with severe head injuries after being involved in a car crash in the city of Cali, the clinic where he was being treated said.
Four other people who were in the vehicle that Rincon was driving were also injured following the collision with a bus. The bus driver was also hurt.
"Freddy Eusebio Rincon arrived in hospital this morning with a traumatic brain injury,” the Imbanaco Clinic said in a statement. “His condition is very critical.”
Rincon, 55, was a commanding midfielder who played for Colombian sides Santa Fe and America.
He also had spells with Italian club Napoli and Spain’s Real Madrid.
He captained Brazilian side Corinthians to the first club world championship title in 2000 and he was also part of the golden generation of Colombian players who took the national side to three consecutive World Cups in 1990, 1994 and 1998, alongside players such as Carlos Valderrama and Faustino Asprilla.
He scored 17 goals during his international career and was on the scoresheet against Argentina in a memorable 5-0 World Cup qualifier victory in Buenos Aires in 1993. | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/football/2022/04/12/colombian-great-freddy-rincon-critical-after-car-crash.amp.html | 2022-04-12T10:13:32Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/football/2022/04/12/colombian-great-freddy-rincon-critical-after-car-crash.amp.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Philadelphia has become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its mask mandate for schools, businesses, government buildings and restaurants in response to a new wave of COVID-19 cases.
Copyright 2022 NPR
Philadelphia has become the first major U.S. city to reinstate its mask mandate for schools, businesses, government buildings and restaurants in response to a new wave of COVID-19 cases.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-12/philadelphia-will-reinstate-its-mask-mandate-after-a-rise-in-covid-cases | 2022-04-12T10:14:27Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-12/philadelphia-will-reinstate-its-mask-mandate-after-a-rise-in-covid-cases | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
A new report says more than 50 gig workers were killed by passengers while working for platforms like Uber and DoorDash. Advocates say more needs to be done to protect drivers and their families.
Copyright 2022 NPR
A new report says more than 50 gig workers were killed by passengers while working for platforms like Uber and DoorDash. Advocates say more needs to be done to protect drivers and their families.
Copyright 2022 NPR | https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-12/who-is-responsible-when-a-gig-worker-such-as-an-uber-driver-is-killed-on-the-job | 2022-04-12T10:14:45Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/2022-04-12/who-is-responsible-when-a-gig-worker-such-as-an-uber-driver-is-killed-on-the-job | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
As early as July 24, 2020, Philadelphia police began noticing a pattern: They'd go to make a local arrest of a crime suspect and in the process they'd recover a gun that had officially been bought by one of a handful of people in Georgia.
It went on for months, and by December agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had linked nearly 300 firearms to a group of Atlanta-based 20 something-year-olds who were allegedly acting as middlemen and women, in so-called straw purchases, according to court documents unsealed this week.
A grand jury indictment filed with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania last month alleges that Fredrick Norman, an Atlanta hip hop artist who goes by Slowkey Fred, recruited four other people to help him purchase firearms from federally licensed firearm dealers in Georgia.
According to court documents, Norman bought 146 guns between May and November of that year; Brianna Walker purchased at least 40 firearms from June through November; Stephen Norman, purchased at least 13 firearms from September to October; and Charles O'Bannon, bought at least 61 firearms in the months between August and November.
The U.S. District Attorney's office in Philadelphia said those weapons were all sold for about $116,000 to a half dozen buyers who transported the guns to the city, then re-sold them on the blackmarket. The indictment identifies cousins Edwin Burgos and Kenneth Burgos, as the alleged brokers behind those sales, often to convicted felons.
According to the charges, ATF officials say the guns started showing up at crime scenes around the city within days or weeks of their official purchase hundreds of miles away.
"That's always a red flag," Robert Cucinotta, a spokesman for the Philadelphia ATF office told NPR. "We call it a 'time-to-crime' or a 'time-to-recovery' period, and when it's that short, it's a good indicator that guns are being trafficked."
In an interview with the NBC affiliate in Atlanta, Fredrick Norman said he's never been to Philadelphia and that he couldn't "speak on" the charges.
"I was just living life at that moment, so I can't really share details of how I got to where I'm at," he said.
But Norman did remark on how easy it is to buy a gun in Georgia. He said he attended his first gun show in 2020, adding that, "The process threw me off."
"You walk in and there's a police officer sitting at the front. They don't check for I.D. or carry licensee, or if you're a felon."
On Monday, U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams, said in a statement that her office has vowed to "do all we could to stop the violence ravaging our city and support the Philadelphia Police Department in its work."
Philadelphia experienced record-high gun violence in 2021 and data from the police department, reflects there have been 127 homicides in the city as of April, outpacing last year's bloody streak.
In all, ATF agents say discovered more than 4,000 rounds of ammunition at an apartment raided in Georgia, as well as with 183 empty gun boxes.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/2022-04-12/prosecutors-say-a-smuggling-ring-moved-nearly-300-guns-from-atlanta-to-philadelphia | 2022-04-12T10:15:18Z | klcc.org | control | https://www.klcc.org/npr-news/2022-04-12/prosecutors-say-a-smuggling-ring-moved-nearly-300-guns-from-atlanta-to-philadelphia | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
- Prior 95.7
US small business sentiment declines as inflation worries continue to mount. The share of business owners reporting that inflation was their single most important problem was the largest since 1981, some 31% - up 5 points from February. The share of owners raising average selling prices also increased 4 points to 72% in March - a record high. NFIB noted that price increases were seen across all industries. | https://www.forexlive.com/news/us-march-nfib-small-business-optimism-index-932-vs-957-prior-20220412/ | 2022-04-12T10:18:01Z | forexlive.com | control | https://www.forexlive.com/news/us-march-nfib-small-business-optimism-index-932-vs-957-prior-20220412/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
(WWLP) – New drone footage shows what remains of a Ukrainian theater that was being used as a bomb shelter and was targeted by Russian shelling.
Local officials in the southern Ukrainian city estimate around 300 people were killed in the bombing. Russia has denied bombing the theater.
Over a month of Russian bombardment has devastated the city and trapped tens of thousands of residents without power and with few supplies. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/drone-footage-shows-the-ruins-of-a-ukrainian-theater/ | 2022-04-12T10:21:53Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/drone-footage-shows-the-ruins-of-a-ukrainian-theater/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
CLARKSBURG, Mass. (WWLP) – The State Police Air Wing helped locate a man who ran from a motor vehicle crash on Friday afternoon.
Troopers were called to East Road in Clarksburg to search for a driver of a pickup truck who ran into the woods after being involved in a crash with another vehicle.
The State Police Air Wing used the aircraft’s Infrared camera to locate the 68-year-old Clarksburg man hiding in the woods. The man suffered minor injuries when he ran into the woods. No word on what charges he is facing. | https://www.wwlp.com/news/state-police-air-wing-search-for-suspect-of-a-motor-vehicle-crash-in-clarksburg/ | 2022-04-12T10:22:05Z | wwlp.com | control | https://www.wwlp.com/news/state-police-air-wing-search-for-suspect-of-a-motor-vehicle-crash-in-clarksburg/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
BBC Music | Ravinia Festival Listings Advertisement feature Ravinia Festival is back with Chicago Symphony Orchestra in their summer residency North America's oldest outdoor music festival announces programming for summer 2022 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The internationally renowned Ravinia Festival welcomes guests back this year to enjoy its summer lineup of more than 100 concerts running from 20 May to 18 September. At the enchanting Highland Park, Illinois, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will once again perform a six-week summer residency. This will feature 15 programmes, 7 of them led by Marin Alsop, chief conductor of the Ravinia Festival. All concerts listed below can be booked from 4 May, so take a look at what’s coming up! Purchase tickets here 15 July, 8:00pm Opening night for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra features accomplished pianist Stewart Goodyear in works by Julia Perry, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky joined by Marin Alsop. Goodyear has performed alongside and been commissioned by many of the major orchestras and chamber music organisations around the world. Book now 16 July, 7.30pm The Marcus Roberts Trio presents Rhapsody in D with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This jazz/classical programme showcases esteemed pianist and composer Marcus Roberts along with Marin Alsop conducting Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony. Book now 17 July, 5.00pm Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra take their audience on a mountainous journey from the comfort of their picnic blankets with Alpine and Pastoral Symphonies. This performance includes Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony and Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony. The show also features projected images to conjure up the ambience of the pastoral landscape. Book now 22 July, 8.00pm The Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop will be performing A German Requiem, considered some of Brahms’s most evocative music. They will also be joined by the Chicago Symphony Chorus alongside the exceptional soprano Yeree Suh and baritone Matthias Goerne. Book now 24 July, 6.00pm The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be joined by the Tony and Grammy Award-winning vocalist, songwriter and actor Leslie Odom Jr. for an evening filled with his signature Broadway, film and original music. This performance is a part of the annual Gala fundraiser event for Ravinia's Reach Teach Play education programme. Benefactor tickets include premium concert seating, pre-concert cocktails and dinner. Book now 29 July, 8.00pm Current Taki Alsop conducting fellow Anna Duczmal-Mróz and alumnae Laura Jackson and Jeri Lynne Johnson will make their Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. They are joining Marin Alsop in a programme featuring Michael Daugherty’s Time Machine (for three conductors) and Chicago Symphony Orchestra resident composer Jessie Montgomery’s Source Code. This performance is a part of the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship 20th Anniversary Celebration. Book now 30 July, 7.30pm The Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Chorus are to perform Leonard Bernstein’s ‘Kaddish’ Symphony, a work examining the essential, eternal questions of humanity. This performance is a part of the festival's Breaking Barriers series, a new programme that celebrates the diverse artists and leaders in the vanguard of classical music today and for future generations. Book now 3 August, 8.00pm Conductor-pianist Wayne Marshall joins the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to perform a tribute to American theatre with a suite from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. This will be Marshall’s Ravinia and Chicago Symphony Orchestra debuts. Book now 5 August, 8.00pm As a part of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s residency, they will be joined by Carlos Miguel Prieto, considered the leading Mexican conductor. Prieto is joined by award-winning pianist Conrad Tao for a spellbinding performance, Invenciones de México y Vasco. This will feature the regional premiere of Téenek by Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz and Tao’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut performance of Basque-inspired music. Book now 7 August, 5.00pm Conceived by actor and director Rob Lindley, this performance is a celebration of the letters, mentorship, and music of Stephen Sondheim, regarded as one of the most important figures in 20th-century musical theatre. Lindley honours the legacy of the Broadway legend alongside Brian Stokes Mitchell, Heather Headley, Alexandra Billings, and more featured vocalists in an uplifting performance. Book now 11 August, 7.00pm - 13 August, 1.00pm Mozart's dramma giocoso Don Giovanni conducted by James Conlon stars baritone Lucas Meachem as the devilish Don and bass-baritone Craig Colclough as Leporello. This performance will also feature soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Donna Anna in her Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Ravinia debuts. Book now 12 August, 7.00pm - 14 August, 1.00pm The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be joined by conductor James Conlon for Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, a story of jealousy and subversion in ancient Rome. This version features tenor Matthew Polenzani as Tito and soprano Guangqun Yu as Vitellia, making her Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Ravinia debuts. Book now 18 August, 8.00pm The Chicago Symphony Orchestra will be accompanied by conductor Peter Oundjian and violinist Itzhak Perlman for a programme including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade for Orchestra, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (in Maurice Ravel’s inimitable orchestration). Book now 19 August, 8.00pm Relive family favourites from The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Little Shop of Horrors in a special salute to the musical mastermind of the Disney renaissance, Alan Menken. Book now 21 August, 5.00pm Join guest conductor Emil de Cou for Ravinia's annual all-Tchaikovsky event, with violinist Inmo Yang making his Chicago Symphony Orchestra debut. This performance is to feature the 1812 Overture with cannons, as well as the ‘Battle of Poltava’ and ‘Cossack Dance’ (Hopak) from Mazeppa. Book now Learn more about the Chicago Symphony Orchestra summer residency at Ravinia here | https://www.classical-music.com/raviana-music-festival/ | 2022-04-12T10:29:44Z | classical-music.com | control | https://www.classical-music.com/raviana-music-festival/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
For the first time in a couple of years, Vienna Little League will hold an opening-day ceremony, scheduled for Saturday morning April 16 at 9 a.m. at the league’s Yeonas Park complex.
The ceremony has not been held the last couple of years at the regular time because of the pandemic. The event will include ceremonial first pitches; a few opening-day remarks from various guests; the introduction of former Vienna Little Leaguers, who now play for local high school teams; and a few other recognitions and announcements.
Many Little League teams of various age groups also will be on hand.
Vienna Little League hosted last summer’s Major All-Stars state tournament at Yeonas Park. | https://www.insidenova.com/sports/vienna-little-league-to-hold-opening-day/article_adc5af02-b9fb-11ec-a61e-a39b7191f0c9.html | 2022-04-12T10:33:03Z | insidenova.com | control | https://www.insidenova.com/sports/vienna-little-league-to-hold-opening-day/article_adc5af02-b9fb-11ec-a61e-a39b7191f0c9.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Yorktown High School standout junior golfer Benjamin Newfield has decided to play at the next level at Division I Davidson College in North Carolina.
Newfield has been a top finisher in district, region and state tournaments his first three seasons at Yorktown. As a freshman, Newfield won the Virginia High School League’s Class 6 individual state championship. He finished third as a sophomore and tied for 12th as a junior.
This past season, Newfield helped the Yorktown team finish second in the Liberty District and 6D North Region tournaments, then sixth in the state.
“He had a lot of opportunities and offers to play at different colleges. He fell in love with Davidson and made the decision to go there,” Yorktown coach Chris Williams said. | https://www.insidenova.com/sports/yorktown-golfer-chooses-davidson/article_55989650-b9fb-11ec-b826-33145d3c610b.html | 2022-04-12T10:33:07Z | insidenova.com | control | https://www.insidenova.com/sports/yorktown-golfer-chooses-davidson/article_55989650-b9fb-11ec-b826-33145d3c610b.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Let’s talk about very hungry caterpillars.
In Kansas and Missouri, they face an increasingly difficult time finding things to eat. That’s making it ever harder for butterflies and moths to survive.
Their populations are shrinking, especially in the Midwest, and the birds that eat them are disappearing, too.
The invasive Callery pear trees (also known as Bradford pears, Cleveland pears, etc.) spreading like weeds across Kansas and Missouri don’t get all the blame — not by a longshot.
And yet these ornamental trees with the white springtime blossoms and a pungent smell pose a significant problem. Stopping them from continuing to choke out native flowers, shrubs and trees would bring back food for wildlife.
This month, if you help with the effort, you can get a free native tree.
The ‘desert’ effect
From the outside, a grove of rogue pears looks pretty. In spring, flowers cloak their branches. In fall, red leaves cover the branches.
But when Kansas forester Ryan Armbrust pushes his way into one of those groves, he finds something despairing beneath the dense canopy: neither prairie nor woodland nor much to support the natural food chain.
“You’ll have bare ground,” Armbrust said. “A few straggling bits of grass that are still trying to hang on.”
And as the trademark flowers, shrubs and trees of the Midwest get crowded out, the animals do, too.
“This becomes essentially a desert,” he said. “There’s nothing under there. You’re not going to have any wildlife really. … You’re not going to have many insects.”
Here’s an easy way to measure the scope of the loss when invasive plants win out: Butterflies and moths.
A single oak tree growing in Kansas City offers a tasty meal to more than 400 species of butterflies and moths in their caterpillar phase of life.
A wild plum bush supports more than 300 species. A goldenrod plant, about 100.
They are all native to the region.
But Callery pears, like many ornamental plants that escaped from gardens into the wild, are more or less inedible to the caterpillars of North America.
Scientists who take the time to search these trees for insects don’t find much. Entomologist Doug Tallamy wrote last year that he has found just one caterpillar species on them.
Tallamy and his students at the University of Delaware studied what might at first glance appear to be wild areas, but were actually overgrown with invasives such as Callery pear and bush honeysuckle (another invasive plant taking over parts of Kansas and Missouri). They compared them to natural areas dominated by native plants.
The spaces overrun with invasives had lost more than 90% of their caterpillar populations. That’s a huge hit to butterfly and moth populations. And, to birds.
The vast majority of songbirds have to feed their chicks soft insects — primarily caterpillars. A single nest of chickadees eats several thousand caterpillars, Tallamy says.
That’s just one reason that biologists, foresters and even state and county governments are desperate to kill off the trees.
Photos show the rapid spread
Check out these images compiled by Armbrust, who coordinates rural forestry at the Kansas Forest Service. These show just how fast the pears are spreading across the state and beating out local trees, shrubs and wildflowers.
Yet rural landowners, foresters and conservation agencies can’t use the same techniques they do for fighting other rogue trees: fire and blades. If you burn a field full of Callery pears, they survive it. If you mow down the saplings and chop down the bigger ones, they simply grow back.
The only remedy is to poison the offenders by hand, for example by cutting them down and applying weed killer or tree killer to their stumps.
Johnson County is doing just that.
Workers at Johnson County Park and Recreation District have removed hundreds of Callery pear trees and countless more saplings infesting Shawnee Mission Park.
Their work isn’t done. Each spring, they scour this 1,700-acre park — the most visited park in Kansas — when blooms make the pears more easily visible. They chop the trees down and apply herbicide carefully, to avoid killing nearby native plants.
“It’s really important for people to understand that these ornamental trees don’t stay in your front yard,” said Matt Garrett, the agency’s field biologist. “It’s affecting everything around you.”
Trading good trees for bad ones
This month, nearly 1,000 people in Missouri and Kansas can get a free native tree — about 4 or 5 feet tall — in return for killing a Callery pear on their property.
The program started in parts of Missouri, led by the Missouri Invasive Plant Council, and grew to include the Kansas City metro.
Whether you live in Kansas or Missouri, you can sign up here, then chop down a Callery pear and submit a photo of yourself standing next to it. Those who do can choose among a variety of native trees, such as serviceberry, river birch, green hawthorn and chinkapin oak, and pick it up at a participating site.
In Missouri, Fedex is paying for the replacement trees. In Kansas, Johnson County Park & Recreation District is.
Yes, even 1,000 dead Callery pears are a drop in the bucket compared to the number of these trees that are growing across those two states. But part of the goal is simply to spread the word about the havoc that the trees wreak.
After all, many nurseries and big-box stores such as Lowe’s continue to sell them.
Callery trees (Pyrus calleryana) come from Asia, and the ones sold in the U.S. go by many names: including Bradford, Cleveland and Chanticleer.
Plant breeders never intended for the trees to spread on this continent. In fact, they thought it couldn’t happen. They sold sterile cultivars.
Homeowners snapped up the trees to adorn yards. Cities and developers planted row after row of them for their spring flowers and autumn colors.
Then — cue the “Jurassic Park” music — things went very wrong.
Although each cultivar (Bradford, etc.) couldn’t reproduce among its own kind, it turned out the supposedly sterile trees were mightily prolific once the various cultivars came into contact with each other and cross-pollinated.
Armbrust started spotting saplings in ditches and natural areas more than a decade ago. In 2020, the Kansas Forest Service began mapping out how far the tree has spread in Kansas.
“When you started to look, and you trained your eye to see it,” he said, “you kind of had that moment of, ‘Oh my goodness, this stuff is everywhere! What are we going to do?’”
The trees now grow wild in at least half of Kansas counties, and maybe more. The Kansas Forest Service isn’t done looking.
Ironically, adult birds eat Callery pear fruit in the fall, and this helps spread the very trees that erode the caterpillar populations that the birds need to feed their chicks.
Tips for killing a Callery pear:
- Mowing won’t do the trick. If you mow down a sapling, it just sprouts back with more stems or trunks.
- Option one: Go after the trunk. Cut down the tree and, within 20 minutes, treat it with an herbicide such as Tordon or glyphosate-based weedkillers such as Roundup.
- Option two: Go after the leaves. You can spray herbicide on them and cut down the tree after it dies.
- Read more details on the above options before starting. Or watch this video discussing removal methods and herbicides.
You can also learn about some of the native alternatives to callery pears here. | https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-04-12/in-johnson-county-biologists-are-poisoning-trees-to-save-birds-and-butterflies | 2022-04-12T10:39:33Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-04-12/in-johnson-county-biologists-are-poisoning-trees-to-save-birds-and-butterflies | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Terrell Robinson has served 12 years in a Missouri prison for a parole violation that he says officials have never made clear to him — much less given him a chance to explain.
Last month, the MacArthur Justice Center filed a petition asking for his immediate release. The suit says Robinson’s parole was illegally revoked in 2007 because his arrest denied him the right to counsel and violated his due process rights.
“As lawyers who have litigated these issues for years and are familiar with the process, we could not decipher why his parole was revoked, and why he was sent back to prison,” Amy Breihan, co-director of the MacArthur Justice Center, said on Friday’s St. Louis on the Air.
Robinson’s case is just one example of unfair revocations by Missouri's Parole Board, Breihan said. Thousands more exist — and some people in prison because of them may not even know it.
“Mr. Robinson's case is a textbook example of the deficiencies in the parole revocation system and why they matter,” Breihan said. “They separate a husband and wife. They separate parents from children, and they disrupt communities.”
Thanks to a class-action lawsuit from the nonprofit civil rights law firm, a federal judge determined in 2020 that the state’s parole system was unconstitutional and regularly violates people’s right to due process. The suit said the Missouri Department of Corrections has “created a procedural vortex from which people on parole cannot escape and are at continual risk of being rearrested and reentered into the prison system.”
The state admitted wrongdoing, yet continues to appeal U.S. District Judge Stephen Bough’s ruling. In the meantime, 3,000 to 7,000 parolees in Missouri are sent back to prison every year for technical violations.
Robinson had little experience with the justice system when he was arrested at 17 and charged as an adult with first-degree assault on a police officer and first-degree robbery. A judge sentenced him to 50 years in prison.
After serving 21 years, he was granted parole. Robinson started attending Vatterott College to learn to repair heating and cooling units and helped teach youth boxing at a local gym. But his parole was revoked less than two years after his release. Robinson was arrested twice, but all charges were dismissed. He also acknowledged testing positive for alcohol and marijuana. He was ordered to enter electronic alcohol monitoring — but before he could comply, he was arrested and sent back to prison.
“At the end of the day, I drank a beer and I smoked marijuana,” Robinson said. “Was that germane to get a violation? Yes, but nobody has been able to tell me that this is exactly what I'm violating for.”
Since Robinson’s reincarceration, he’s been denied parole four times.
“I’m being denied for something that I have no knowledge of how to get on top of or how to rectify,” Robinson said. “What is it that I need to bring to the table? Because a parole violation is a parole violation. It happens. But 12 years? I’m thinking that's unconscionable to the average person. I mean, when does the healing process begin?”
Up to 50% of parolees returned to prison every year in Missouri are sent back on technical violations, Breihan said, rather than a new sentence.
“It's a huge driver of mass incarceration, especially when these are for things that are minor that don't harm anybody,” Breihan said.
Robinson’s wife, Lawanda, visits him twice a week at the Eastern Correctional Center in Bonne Terre. While the prison’s strict visitation rules ban hugs and embraces, she finds conversation can be just as intimate.
“I made a vow,” Lawanda said. “Whatever it takes to keep my family together.”
Robinson has been locked up for a majority of his daughter Cherrell’s life. She said her dad’s absence has made her angry. Now, that anger has seeped into her children and resulted in generational trauma.
“Every time I would get mad, I would be like, ‘I can’t wait until my daddy gets home,’” she said. “And I’m still saying the same thing to this day, at 35 years old.”
She worries about her 5-year-old son, Amir, because she recognizes her anger in him.
“I don't want him to be like my dad and make one wrong decision,” she said. “Somebody might piss him off in some way and he’ll retaliate. Now he's in jail for the rest of his life. I have to tell him, ‘You're a Black boy. You have dreads. It's very important to control your anger.’ But how can I teach my kids how to control that if I haven't fully grasped it?”
In her view, her dad has served his time.
“We’re still looking at the justice system to protect and serve. Who are they protecting?” Cherrell asked. “I don't understand how a man could serve 21 years in jail and has to come back to fight for his life once more.”
Cherrell now lives in Florida but was visiting St. Louis on Friday. Later that day, she and her mother were planning to drive to Bonne Terre to see her dad. They said it would be the family’s first time together. Since Terrell has been incarcerated, he’s never had the opportunity to be in the same room as his wife, daughter and grandkids all at once.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Emily Woodbury, Kayla Drake, Danny Wicentowski and Alex Heuer. Jane Mather-Glass is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
Copyright 2022 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio. | https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-04-12/missouri-has-sent-thousands-back-to-prison-for-minor-parole-violations-terrell-robinson-is-one | 2022-04-12T10:39:39Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-04-12/missouri-has-sent-thousands-back-to-prison-for-minor-parole-violations-terrell-robinson-is-one | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Researchers have known for decades that lead poisoning can cause developmental delays and learning problems in children, even at low levels. And yet, lead still lingers around many Midwest households, leaving families to deal with the acute and long-term impacts of exposure to the neurotoxin. The Midwest Newsroom's Niara Savage and Allison Kite report.
A deadly strain of bird flu is spreading across the country. So far, more than 22 million commercial and backyard birds have died from illness or have been killed to stop the spread — including more than 400,000 in Missouri. As Harvest Public Media’s Katie Peikes reports, most of the affected flocks are commercial, but backyard flocks are no less susceptible.
Contact the show at news@kcur.org. Follow KCUR on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news.
Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Byron Love with Trevor Grandin and edited by Gabe Rosenberg and Lisa Rodriguez.
You can support Kansas City Today by becoming a KCUR member: kcur.org/donate | https://www.kcur.org/podcast/kansas-city-today/2022-04-12/my-kid-is-lead-poisoned | 2022-04-12T10:39:45Z | kcur.org | control | https://www.kcur.org/podcast/kansas-city-today/2022-04-12/my-kid-is-lead-poisoned | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Detectives have confirmed two deaths after forensic investigators were spotted at a tattoo shop. Emergency services descended on Canterbury on Monday evening (April 11) following a report of two people found with injuries.
Kent Police have now said a 54-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman were both pronounced dead at the scene. The incident took place at Goth Ink on Lower Bridge Street.
Eyewitnesses in the area reported seeing at least eight police vehicles and four ambulances in the area. Pictures from the scene also showed forensic investigators in white uniforms with equipment, gathering evidence.
Read more: Police rush to Canterbury after two people found injured
A statement from Kent Police said: "Detectives from the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate are investigating the deaths of two people in Canterbury. At 5.19pm on Monday 11 April 2022, officers attended an address in Lower Bridge Street, where a 54-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman, who were known to each other, were pronounced deceased at the scene.
"Enquiries into the circumstances surrounding the incident are ongoing. However, officers are not currently looking for anyone else in connection with the investigation".
Find out how you can get more breaking news from KentLive straight to your inbox for free HERE. | https://www.kentlive.news/news/man-woman-dead-canterbury-tattoo-6940595 | 2022-04-12T10:42:23Z | kentlive.news | control | https://www.kentlive.news/news/man-woman-dead-canterbury-tattoo-6940595 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Murder charge over self-induced abortion dismissed in Texas
DALLAS (AP) — A Texas judge formally dismissing a murder charge Monday against a 26-year-old woman over a self-induced abortion did not quiet outrage or questions surrounding the case, including why prosecutors ever brought it to a grand jury.
A woman who ends her own pregnancy cannot be charged with a crime under Texas law. Officials in rural Starr County, along the U.S.-Mexico border, have not released details about why they decided to pursue a case against Lizelle Herrera after being contacted by a hospital.
“There should have been no reason for a report to have been made. There should have been no reason for a criminal investigation to take place,” said Farah Diaz-Tello, senior counsel and legal director at If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice.
News of Herrera’s arrest on Thursday raised alarms for abortion rights advocates, and sparked people to gather in protest outside the jail where she was being held on $500,000 bond. Her March 30 indictment alleges she “intentionally and knowingly” caused the death of “an individual ... by a self-induced abortion” in early January.
Authorities have not described what exactly Herrera allegedly did, and it wasn’t clear if she was accused of giving herself an abortion or assisting in someone else’s self-induced abortion.
An attorney for Herrera, who was released from jail Saturday after posting bond, did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.
Starr County District Attorney Gocha Allen Ramirez said in a Sunday statement that he would file the motion to dismiss the charge, saying, “it is clear that Ms. Herrera cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her.”
But he did not explain why the case was presented to a grand jury, nor did he reply Monday to an email from AP seeking additional information. A woman who answered the phone at his office said Sunday’s statement was “the only thing he’s going to say on the subject” and hung up before identifying herself.
“These were choices that did not have to be made because losing a pregnancy or ending a pregnancy or self-managing an abortion is not a crime in the state of Texas,” Diaz-Tello said.
Texas last year passed a law known as Senate Bill 8, or SB8, that bans abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy. The law leaves enforcement to private citizens who can sue doctors or anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.
Another new Texas law prohibits doctors and clinics from prescribing abortion-inducing medications after seven weeks and prohibits the delivery of the pills by mail.
Neither law authorizes any action against the woman who ends her pregnancy, Diaz-Tello said.
“The problem is, though, when you have this heightened situation of suspicion and fear and the chilling effect that this all creates, that is going to make it much more likely that health care providers are going to improperly err on the side of reporting — err on the side of violating their patient’s confidentiality and bringing in law enforcement,” Diaz-Tello said.
Diaz-Tello said actions taken by the hospital and law enforcement in this case could lead women to be fearful of seeking health care after an abortion.
Joanna Grossman, professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in Dallas, said SB8 could be “indirectly playing a lot of roles here.” For one, there has been an increase since SB8 in women going online to get abortion pills, she said.
Also, she said, the law sends a message “that there’s just a war on abortion.”
“It certainly changed access but it’s also I think just changed the whole context in which people evaluate abortion care,” Grossman said.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.witn.com/2022/04/12/murder-charge-over-self-induced-abortion-dismissed-texas/ | 2022-04-12T10:42:28Z | witn.com | control | https://www.witn.com/2022/04/12/murder-charge-over-self-induced-abortion-dismissed-texas/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Good morning, we’ll continue to have rain chances for the next three days, so it’s a good idea to have your raincoat handy. Today will have scattered showers/storms again. Today’s timing will mainly be for the morning into the early afternoon with cloudy to mostly cloudy skies. Clouds should partially clear later in the day, and it’ll warm to 75-80 for most. Overnight, clouds will increase with mild lows in the upper 50s to low 60s.
Wednesday will be warm, reaching around 80. It’ll also be mostly cloudy overall with scattered showers/storms. Then, the period to watch will be Wednesday night into Thursday morning. As a line of rain and storms associated with a cold front will pass our area. A few of these storms may become strong to severe. The primary threats now look to be gusty wind and heavy rainfall. The timing and details are still fluctuating, but keep an eye on those overnight hours. Rain should wrap up around sunrise on Thursday morning, so if you’re not an early riser, Thursday’s weather won’t be bad. The daylight hours will have decreasing clouds with comfortable highs in the low 70s. Then, Friday will have a mix of sun and clouds with highs in the mid-70s. | https://www.local3news.com/local-news/scattered-showers-and-storms-continue-for-tuesday/article_7003a73a-ba39-11ec-8067-6b1b3873146f.html | 2022-04-12T10:50:20Z | local3news.com | control | https://www.local3news.com/local-news/scattered-showers-and-storms-continue-for-tuesday/article_7003a73a-ba39-11ec-8067-6b1b3873146f.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
President Joe Biden on Tuesday will announce new steps his administration is taking to address rising gasoline prices across the country, including emergency measures to expand biofuel sales, countering rising energy prices amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The President is slated to announce that the Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver permitting year-round sales of E15 gasoline, which contains a 15% ethanol blend, on a trip to Menlo, Iowa, where he'll visit POET Bioprocessing, a biofuels plant that specializes in the creation of bioethanol.
The sale of E15 gasoline is usually prohibited from June to mid-September because of air quality concerns. Under former President Donald Trump, the EPA issued an order allowing permanent year-round sales of the biofuel blend in 2019, but the order was overturned last year by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
Biden's announcement, a senior administration official said, "is distinct from" his predecessor's efforts to expand ethanol sales in that it's "based on the current circumstance, which is a fuel supply emergency."
Per White House estimates, E15 sales could save consumers 10 cents per gallon on average, while reducing reliance on foreign fuels. As part of Tuesday's announcement, the EPA will also take steps to facilitate the expanded use of the biofuel, including outreach to states and modifications to E15 fuel pump labeling at gas stations across the country.
During Monday's news briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki signaled that suspending the summer ban on gasoline with higher blends of ethanol was on "the menu of options" the administration was considering "to ensure that the supply in the market meets the demand, thus bringing the price down."
The move follows Biden's announcement last month of a historic release of oil from US reserves, including 1 million barrels a day from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the next six months as part of a "wartime bridge" to increased oil production as US and global oil efforts ramp back up after the coronavirus pandemic.
"The President believes that the actions of a dictator half a world away should not impact what families pay at the pump here at home," the White House said in a fact sheet announcing the action that was shared with CNN. "Today's actions also reinforce the Biden-Harris Administration's goal of achieving real energy independence and commitment to a long-term strategy to spur smart development and adoption of sustainable, homegrown fuels."
Still, the administration is stopping short of sanctioning Russian energy exports, with the senior official instead pointing to "a set of actions that we think have generated severe impact on the Russian economy."
"We've also in the United States, through the President's action and with support on a bipartisan basis, banned all energy imports from Russia to the United States. We understand that other countries are in a different position. We are obviously in a strong position -- as a net energy exporter -- to do that, though it did have real, real effects and price impacts the President has now been working to mitigate," the official told reporters Monday.
The official continued: "But we have taken a strong set of steps when it comes to the effects on the Russian economy, and we're going to continue to work with our partners and allies, as we have, to continue building on that."
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/biden-will-announce-emergency-waiver-on-summer-ethanol-ban-to-combat-rising-gas-prices/article_6e8c33a8-e76c-5388-b093-5e7ab2337722.html | 2022-04-12T10:50:26Z | local3news.com | control | https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/biden-will-announce-emergency-waiver-on-summer-ethanol-ban-to-combat-rising-gas-prices/article_6e8c33a8-e76c-5388-b093-5e7ab2337722.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
An Idaho judge ruled Monday that Lori Vallow is mentally fit to stand trial on charges related to the deaths of her two children, according to court documents.
Vallow is "restored to competency and is fit to proceed," Judge Steven W. Boyce said in his order.
Vallow and her husband Chad Daybell were indicted on murder charges in May 2021 in the deaths of Vallow's children, Tylee Ryan, 17, and Joshua "JJ" Vallow, 7.
Daybell pleaded not guilty to the charges, but after a court ordered psychological evaluation, Lori Vallow was declared "not competent to proceed."
Tylee and JJ had gone missing in September 2019 and Vallow and Daybell married two months later.
In June 2020, law enforcement officials found the remains of the children on Daybell's property in Fremont County, Idaho.
Monday's order said Vallow would be transferred from the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and remanded to the custody of the Fremont County Sheriff before her arraignment April 19.
Charges over former spouses' deaths
Daybell and Vallow also each face charges related to the deaths of their former spouses.
Daybell is charged with murdering his ex-wife, Tammy, who was initially believed to have died in her sleep in October 2019, less than three weeks before he married Vallow. He has pleaded not guilty.
Vallow is facing a charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in Tammy Daybell's death.
Vallow has also been charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of her former husband, Charles Vallow, who was fatally shot in July 2019.
According to a probable cause statement released by police in Chandler, Arizona, in July 2021, Lori's brother, Alexander Cox, called 911 on July 11, 2019, to report he had shot and killed his former brother-in-law,
Cox told investigators he acted in self-defense after a physical altercation with Charles Vallow, police said. Cox died in December 2019, according to prosecutors.
Police said in the statement that Lori Vallow had discovered her former husband was planning an intervention over fears for his children's safety and his death was premeditated.
According to the statement, Lori Vallow had "radical beliefs" including that she was an "exalted Goddess" and that she and Daybell were "directed to lead 144,000 people in preparing for the end of the world."
Daybell has not been charged in Charles Vallow's death.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/idaho-judge-rules-lori-vallow-is-mentally-fit-to-stand-trial-on-charges-related-to/article_1502ffaf-849e-5e83-aa07-3b75e581de58.html | 2022-04-12T10:51:09Z | local3news.com | control | https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/idaho-judge-rules-lori-vallow-is-mentally-fit-to-stand-trial-on-charges-related-to/article_1502ffaf-849e-5e83-aa07-3b75e581de58.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt on Tuesday will sign a bill into law that makes performing an abortion illegal in the state, with an exception only in the case of a medical emergency.
Senate Bill 612, which cleared the state Senate last year and the House earlier this month, will make performing an abortion or attempting to perform one a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or a maximum of 10 years in state prison, or both. The law does not provide exceptions in cases of rape and incest.
Under the measure, the woman would not be criminally charged or convicted for the death of her "unborn child." The legislation does not prohibit the use, sale, prescription or administration of contraceptives.
Stitt will be joined at the signing ceremony Tuesday by members of the state legislature, faith leaders and a number of anti-abortion groups "in support of protecting lives of unborn children in Oklahoma," the governor's office said in a statement.
Stitt's signature on the legislation will make Oklahoma the latest Republican-led state to approve new restrictions on abortion access in recent weeks. Last month, Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law a ban on most abortions in the state after 15 weeks, similar to a Mississippi law that's before the US Supreme Court, and South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has signed legislation that further restricts access to medication abortions in the state.
In Idaho, the state Supreme Court temporarily blocked legislation recently signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little that was modeled after Texas' law that bans abortions after about six weeks. Idaho had become the first state to follow the controversial Texas statute that allows private citizens to enforce the restrictions with lawsuits.
Oklahoma Republican state Rep. Jim Olsen, SB 612's principal House author, previously told CNN that he believes "rape and incest is a horrible crime" and though the baby is conceived in a "horrible situation" that it "still has a right to life."
"The baby should not be liable for the sins of the father," he said. "It's still a life."
The bill was decried by abortion rights proponents throughout the legislative process, including the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which said last week that the law "would be devastating" for Oklahomans and also Texans, who make up nearly half of the patients who seek abortion care in Oklahoma.
"Now, Oklahomans could face a future where they would have no place left in their state to go to seek this basic health care," the group said in a news release.
The Oklahoma state Senate is also considering legislation, House Bill 4327, modeled after the controversial Texas law. That bill would ban most abortions at any point in pregnancy and allow private citizens to enforce the law through civil litigation.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/oklahoma-governor-to-sign-near-total-ban-on-abortion-into-law-tuesday/article_e3727fc7-6942-58d3-978a-43b5ff2569f8.html | 2022-04-12T10:51:15Z | local3news.com | control | https://www.local3news.com/regional-national/oklahoma-governor-to-sign-near-total-ban-on-abortion-into-law-tuesday/article_e3727fc7-6942-58d3-978a-43b5ff2569f8.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
In the last eight quarters of lacrosse, Marquette Golden Eagles men’s lacrosse has scored 39 goals. They set a season high for goals scored against Providence, and then came back seven days later and beat it, recording 20 goals for the first time in program history in their 23-13 win over St. John’s.
Two games, 39 goals. Dang near 20 goals a game.
The eight previous games? 79. Less than 10 an outing.
I choose to believe that this is more about Marquette than it is about the Friars or the Red Storm. I choose to believe that Marquette has figured something out about themselves as the season starts coming into the home stretch.
Do I choose to believe this because it’s possible that each of MU’s final four opponents of the season will be ranked in the Inside Lacrosse top 20 poll when the game happens? Seeing as three of them are in the poll right now and the fourth is the unofficial #25 team in the country after being ranked last week?
I’m not going say that’s the only reason why I hope Marquette’s offense has gotten on track, but it’ll definitely be helpful if that’s the case.
The good news about playing all of these teams at the end of the season is the exact order involved. Tuesday’s game is, for Marquette’s purposes, pointless in the big picture. The Golden Eagles are not an NCAA tournament team, not unless they win the Big East tournament in a couple of weeks. To do that, they have to get into the conference tournament, and that’s going to require winning at least one of their final three games against those aforementioned ranked foes.
Tuesday’s game is a non-conference game. It’s going to have zero impact on whether or note Marquette finishes in the top four in the Big East. It is, however, going to give the Golden Eagles a chance to play against a top 20 opponent and get ramped up for what they’re going to have to deal with in each of the final three games of the season with absolutely zero risk involved. Win, hey, neat, that’s awesome, first ever win over Notre Dame.... but now you have to do that again in a game that matters. Lose, hey, okay, let’s see what we need to learn from that in order to go out and win at least one of these final three Big East games.
Big opportunity, very low risk. That’s the best kind of way to go about these things. Let’s see what happens, shall we?
Game #11: vs #10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish (4-4)
Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2022
Time: 4pm Central
Location: Andy Glockner Memorial Bubble, Valley Fields, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Streaming: Marquette Athletics on YouTube
Live Stats: Sidearm Stats
Twitter Updates: @MarquetteMLax
Marquette is 0-9 all time against Notre Dame, including a 15-9 loss in the first round of the 2017 NCAA tournament. The only season that didn’t have a meeting between the two sides was the 2020 campaign due to the early end to the season. This will be only the third trip to Milwaukee for Notre Dame, and just the second to Valley Fields. Three games in program history, including the most recent game in Milwaukee, have been decided by just one goal.
So, let’s just address the elephant in the room: Notre Dame is ranked in the top 10 at .500 on the year because 1) they started out the year at #5, and 2) they have quality losses: 16-11 against then-#3 Georgetown, 11-9 against then-#1 Maryland, 14-11 on the road against Ohio State, and 12-8 at then-#3 Virginia. The current Inside Lacrosse rankings for all three? #2, #1, #9, and #6. You can see why the voters are giving them the benefit of the doubt.
However, at some point, they have to start proving something. Had they lost at Duke this past weekend, I suspect that they would be out of the top 20. They had dipped to #13 because wins over Detroit Mercy, Michigan, and Syracuse just aren’t really enough to hold a voter’s attention, but they beat the then-ranked #15 Blue Devils, 16-15, in Durham. Finally, proof that they deserve that ranking by way of what they’ve accomplished on the field when the horn sounds.
I phrase it that way, because the Irish are a good ballclub, they just haven’t been beating really good teams. Lacrosse Reference has them at #10 in offensive efficiency, #15 on the defensive end, and #13 in overall team strength. If we were ranking teams purely on how they play, then ND is clearly a top 20 team. By way of results?? Well, the voters think they are, but there’s definitely a case to go in the other direction at this point.
On one hand, Marquette is going to have their hands full trying to defend all of Notre Dame’s shooters. On the other hand, if MU’s defense doesn’t take Pat Kavanagh out of sequence, it’s going to be a long day for the Golden Eagles. Notre Dame has five guys who have tallied at least 12 goals so far this season, led by 17 from Kavanagh. He might not be the most dangerous shooter, as Jake Taylor played in the opener, missed the next five games, and then came back for Syracuse and Duke the last two Saturdays..... and he has 12 goals in just three games. Now, part of that is because Taylor punched Syracuse right in the face for eight goals in their 22-6 win, but two markers each in the other two games is nothing to sneeze at.
That’s just the goal scoring. Pat Kavanagh is what makes the Irish offense go, as he has 23 assists on the season to get him to a team high 40 points through eight games. To put it another way: He’s averaging nearly three assists a game, and that’s pushing him to average five points a game right on the button. If it weren’t for Eric Dobson’s 12 goals and nine assists to get to 21 on the year, Kavanagh would have twice as many points as anyone else on the Notre Dame roster. He is a dangerous stick wizard, and he can not be allowed to have the ball much less do anything interesting with it.
Liam Entenmann has played all but 34 minutes in the net for the Irish this year, so there’s no reason to expect anyone else on Tuesday afternoon. He’s stopping a voracious 53.9% of shots on goal this season, which is pretty neat. Combine that with his field defense in front of him — teams shoot just .268 overall against the Irish — and Entenmann is posting a goals-against average of just 11.06 per 60 minutes. I don’t know about you, but I’m liking the fact that Marquette’s offense has found an extra gear in the past two games a lot more than I already was right now. | https://www.anonymouseagle.com/2022/4/11/23021423/marquette-golden-eagles-mens-lacrosse-preview-notre-dame-fighting-irish-kavanagh | 2022-04-12T10:59:47Z | anonymouseagle.com | control | https://www.anonymouseagle.com/2022/4/11/23021423/marquette-golden-eagles-mens-lacrosse-preview-notre-dame-fighting-irish-kavanagh | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Fast bowler James Anderson said he has not heard from the England set-up since being controversially dropped from the squad but expects to hear from them after a new coach and director of cricket has been appointed.
Anderson and Stuart Broad, England's all-time leading Test wicket-takers with 1,177 victims between them, were left out of the 16-man squad for the three-Test tour of the West Indies in March.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had a string of high-profile departures following the 4-0 Ashes drubbing in Australia including director of cricket Ashley Giles, head coach Chris Silverwood and batting coach Graham Thorpe.
"After an Ashes defeat everything comes under scrutiny," Anderson told British media on Monday. "There's lots going on, people losing their jobs and stuff. I would have loved a sit-down, face-to-face, but obviously that's not always possible.
"I would have loved more than a five-minute phone call ...
"It's difficult because there is no one in those positions yet, there is an interim director of cricket and interim head coach. With stuff up in the air like that, I would expect to hear something once those positions are filled."
England captain Joe Root said in the wake of the defeat to the West Indies that there had been "big improvements" in the team's attitude. Anderson said he had not heard Root's comments but rejected suggestions that he was difficult to captain.
"I've done what I did for quite a long period of time, I feel like I know what I'm doing," he said.
"I don't think I'm extremely stubborn. I will take advice and feedback from people. You'd have to ask Joe what he means by that."
The 39-year-old said he had "stopped trying to make sense" of being axed and would focus on taking as many wickets as he can for Lancashire in their 2022 County Championship campaign to give himself the best possible chance of an England recall.
"If the England call doesn't come, I will still play here this season," he added. "I have never looked too far ahead in my career. It's always game by game, series by series, season by season." | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/04/12/anderson-rejects-suggestions-that-he-is-difficult-to-captain.html | 2022-04-12T11:01:44Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/04/12/anderson-rejects-suggestions-that-he-is-difficult-to-captain.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Mumbai: Gujarat Titans skipper Hardik Pandya's outburst at team-mate and senior Indian pacer Mohammed Shami after the latter did not go all out to take a catch in Monday night's IPL game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) has not gone down well with the cricket fans.
A measured half-century from captain Kane Williamson, after their bowlers had applied the brakes in the last five overs, sealed SRH's eight-wicket win over Gujarat Titans at the D Y Patil Stadium.
It was in the 13th over being bowled by Pandya that the Titans skipper shouted at Shami after the latter apparently did not go all out to take a catch offered by Rahul Tripathi. Before that, Williamson had hit Pandya for back-to-back maximums off the second and third ball of the over.
The Titans had an opportunity to dismiss the New Zealander's partner Tripathi off the last ball of the over when the 31-year-old batter's upper cut went horribly wrong and flew towards deep third man.
Shami, posted in the deep, could have latched on to the catch had he moved forward. Instead, the veteran moved back a couple of steps and collected the ball on first bounce. Already clobbered for two sixes by Williamson in the over, Pandya vent his anger at Shami.
A fan called Pandya a terrible skipper, tweeting, "Dear Hardik, you are a terrible captain. Stop taking it out on your teammates, particularly someone as senior as Shami," while another fan wrote "@hardikpandya7 shouting at the #mohammedshami is disgraceful what Shami has done for #Indianteam is commendable and #Hardik has not even done half of it. #shameful #HardikPandya."
Another fan wrote, "Hardik Pandya doesn't deserve to be the Captain of any team one who doesn't know how to speak to the team members and that too a senior player shouldn't be the Captain you do not win all games Cricket is a gentleman game pls note @hardikpandya7." | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/04/12/hardik-pandya-roasted-on-social-media-for-screaming-at-shami.html | 2022-04-12T11:01:57Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/04/12/hardik-pandya-roasted-on-social-media-for-screaming-at-shami.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Navi Mumbai: All-rounder Washington Sundar is likely to miss at least the next two IPL matches for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) after suffering a split webbing on his bowling hand, head coach Tom Moody has said.
A disciplined bowling effort followed by skipper Kane Williamson's half-century helped SRH beat Gujarat Titans by eight wickets at the D Y Patil Stadium on Monday night.
During the match, however, Sundar got injured and couldn't bowl his full quota of overs. His three wicketless overs - two of which were in the powerplay - went for just 14 runs.
"Washington has torn the webbing in his right hand, between his thumb and first finger. We must monitor that over the next two-three days. Hopefully, it isn't a significant blow. I'd imagine it'd take probably a week or so to settle down," SRH coach Moody said after the win.
In their next two outings, SRH will take on Kolkata Knight Riders and Punjab Kings on Friday and Sunday, respectively.
Playing for a team that is thin on spin bowling, Sundar has been the lone specialist tweaker for SRH so far this season.
Since giving away 47 runs in his three wicketless overs against Rajasthan Royals in his team's opener, Sundar has picked up 4 /63 from 11 overs.
Laid low by injury and illness over the last few months. Sundar had missed India's three T20Is against the West Indies in February after suffering a hamstring injury while fielding during the third ODI in Ahmedabad.
He had also missed the second half of IPL in the UAE last year after hurting his finger.
Meanwhile, the injury to batter Rahul Tripathi, which forced him to retire hurt midway through their chase against the Titans, isn't a serious one.
After falling on the ground right after hitting a six, he needed medical attention.
"He's fine, he's just getting cramped," Moody said. | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/04/12/sundar-likely-to-miss-at-least-next-two-matches-for-srh.amp.html | 2022-04-12T11:02:03Z | onmanorama.com | control | https://www.onmanorama.com/sports/cricket/2022/04/12/sundar-likely-to-miss-at-least-next-two-matches-for-srh.amp.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Data from Public Health Scotland (PHS) shows 955 patients spent more than 12 hours in an accident and emergency department in the week ending April 3, down from 1,022 people the week before.
The Scottish Government aims to ensure 95% of people who attend A&E are seen and subsequently discharged or admitted to hospital within 12 hours.
In the week to April 3, 68% of 24,575 attendances at A&E services were seen and subsequently admitted, transferred or discharged within four hours.
This was down from 68.4% of attendances the previous week.
The figures showed that 2,483 patients spent more than eight hours in an A&E department, down from 2,627 patients the week before, while 7,867 waited more than four hours, down from 7,973.
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane MSP said: “It’s totally unacceptable that almost a third of patients are having to wait four hours or more to be seen.
“The Health Secretary can’t continue to rely on his woefully-inadequate Covid Recovery Plan when this spiralling crisis is causing ever more lives to be needlessly lost despite the heroic efforts of overwhelmed NHS staff.
“The Royal College of Emergency Medicine could not have been clearer last week when they spelled out how dangerous and unsustainable the situation is on Scotland’s A&E wards.
“They, and the public, are crying out for an action plan from Humza Yousaf now – but his silence is deafening.”
Scottish Labour Health spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said A&E is getting “stuck in a state of permanent crisis”.
She said: “We desperately need real leadership from the government, but the Health Secretary spends more time commenting on the crisis than fixing it.
“We need urgent action to end delayed discharge and increase the number of hospital beds which will help to get A&E back on its feet and save lives.”
Scotland has recorded 4,266 cases of coronavirus but no deaths in the past 24 hours, according to latest figures.
PHS data on Monday showed that 2,148 people were in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19, with 21 in intensive care. | https://www.scotsman.com/health/drop-in-number-of-patients-waiting-more-than-12-hours-in-ae-3650657 | 2022-04-12T11:10:06Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.scotsman.com/health/drop-in-number-of-patients-waiting-more-than-12-hours-in-ae-3650657 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Atlanta weighs in on Mayor Dickens' first 100 days
Atlanta’s 61st mayor is celebrating 100 days in office today.
The big picture: Mayor Andre Dickens took office as the city was facing the spectre of de-annexation of Buckhead. After aggressively courting state lawmakers, he stopped that movement for the year.
Exclusive: A March poll of Atlanta voters obtained by Axios pegged Dickens' approval rating at 68%. Plus, 82% of respondents rejected Buckhead cityhood.
- The poll was commissioned by an outside group and conducted by Dickens' pollster, 20-20 Insight.
What they’re saying: Former City Council President Felicia Moore, who challenged Dickens in the mayoral election, said he’s “certainly done a great job out of the gate.”
- “He’s showing up and getting out there,” she said, calling his success in tamping down the Buckhead cityhood movement “a feather in the cap.”
City Councilmember Amir Farokhi tells Axios that Dickens has “hit the ground running.”
- “He’s brought the city together in ways that I think we were all hungry for,” he said, pointing out that didn't just apply to Buckhead. He said concerns highlighted by some Buckhead residents are citywide issues that should not to be taken lightly.
Context: Dickens has introduced such “creative solutions” as the midnight basketball pilot program to address problems like young people engaging in criminal activity, Clark Atlanta University political science professor Tammy Greer tells Axios. He’s also operating as a “collaborator,” she said.
- Greer called the mayor a “collaborator.” One example of that is a new Repeat Offender Tracking Unit set up between the Atlanta Police Department, Fulton County District Attorney and others.
- He started a City Hall division to focus on nightlife and re-upped the Pothole Posse to fix Atlanta’s roads.
State of play: Greer said she’s watching how the administration handles the city's tougher issues, including the deteriorating Forest Cove apartment complex, from which the city has promised to relocate residents by the summer, according to WABE News.
- “I’m interested in actually seeing the so-called affordable housing units,” she said of a promised protection and expansion of affordable housing. “I’m looking forward to those types of meat and potato items to see how that gets through City Council.”
City Council President Doug Shipman tells Axios that Dickens has shown he’s engaged and interested in building good relationships with members of the council.
- “It was very clear that residents wanted to see people trying to figure out solutions and not fighting, and I think that's what you've seen over the first 100 days,” he said.
What we’re watching: Shipman says residents expect Dickens to address important issues.
- “There's a fair bit of optimism that they feel like good initial moves have been made, but there's no question that folks are still wanting to see city services being delivered better, public safety improving and overall thinking about how we’ll grow,” he said.
Farokhi said Atlanta is still facing the same complex policy problems that demand “sometimes hard decisions to which there’s no easy pathway.” But, Dickens has done “a really good job of building trust with council members” and “setting the table” for the future, Farokhi added
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New bike rental and delivery service launches
When local engineer Jon Busch travels to Arizona, he rents bikes that are delivered straight to the area's trails for him to enjoy.
- That got him thinking — why not try this in Columbus?
Riding the news: Busch is launching Cycle Ohio Outdoors, a weekend bike rental and delivery service he plans to operate in his spare time.
- He's waited for the weather to cooperate to get started and hopes to rent out the first bikes this weekend.
How it works: Cyclists call his number during available hours — Friday at noon through Sunday at 8pm — to have a bike delivered to any Central Ohio trail.
- Customers pay for delivery and an hourly riding rate. Helmets are included.
- Busch forgoes the delivery fee for bikes picked up from Scioto Woods Park in western Columbus.
Details: Cycle Ohio Outdoors has six hybrid bikes to start, each a mix between a specialized mountain bike and a traditional road model.
- He plans to eventually feature pro mountain bikes and a range of children's bikes.
What they're saying: "I'm a pretty outdoorsy person all around," Busch tells Axios. "I did ultramarathons in college. I've been into bikes pretty much my whole life."
- His dream for Cycle Ohio Outdoors is to spread the love of trail riding to more people by making it accessible to those who don't own bikes.
Busch's favorite rides: The Olentangy River Trail connecting Worthington to downtown Columbus, the scenic Alum Creek Trail cutting through eastern Columbus and the Blacklick Creek Greenway Trail spanning several parks between Reynoldsburg and Groveport.
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Ohio's political gender gap starts at local level
Ohio trails the rest of the country when it comes to the percentage of women elected to local offices.
Why it matters: The gender gap recorded in Ohio cities helps contribute to the ongoing disparity in high-profile political offices. Local offices serve as springboards to higher political positions in Columbus and Washington D.C.
- Without the experience and connections gained at the municipal level, women have a tougher path to becoming a state lawmaker, governor or congressperson.
Methodology: Researchers with Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics tracked the number of women serving as mayors and city council members in cities with at least 10,000 residents.
By the numbers: Women make up just 27% of officeholders in these 237 qualifying Ohio cities.
- Ohio ranks No. 40 in the country, lagging behind states like Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
The big picture: We reported last month that women hold 31% of the 132 seats in the Ohio Statehouse, including just five of 17 leadership positions.
- Two such legislative leaders, Sen. Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) and Rep. Cindy Abrams (R-Harrison) both started out as city council members in their respective hometowns.
- As did U.S. Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Cleveland), one of three Ohio women serving in Congress.
State of play: In 2017, a group of women founded The Matriots Ohio Political Action Committee in response to the underrepresentation of women in Ohio politics.
- It recruits women (primarily Democrats) to campaign for local and state office.
The group's only endorsement of the 2022 election cycle thus far is Nan Whaley, a Democratic candidate for governor who previously served as mayor of Dayton.
- Ohio voters have never elected a woman as governor.
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Denver airport ranks as the 3rd busiest in the world
Denver International Airport is even busier than you realize.
What's new: Denver's airport ranked No. 3 nationwide in 2020 — but in 2021, the transit hub jumped to a new level, becoming the third busiest in the world with 58.8 million passengers.
By the numbers: DIA's growth in recent years is exponential. It ranked 19th busiest in the world in 2017 and 2018, and eighth in 2020.
- Last year, only the Atlanta and Dallas airports saw more traffic, according to preliminary data from Airports Council International.
Yes, but: Passenger traffic in 2021 still didn't recover to pre-pandemic levels. Denver saw 15% fewer travelers in 2021 compared to 2019; but it's beginning to turn.
- This February was the first month since the pandemic that DIA saw a monthly increase compared to 2019.
Between the lines: The airport's geographic position makes it an ideal connection point for domestic air travel.
- "Despite the challenges, [DIA] has shown resiliency through the pandemic and has proven why Denver is such an important hub for our airline partners," said airport CEO Phil Washington in a statement.
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Pennsylvania sees an increase in statehouse reporters
Pennsylvania is one of 31 states that saw a recent rise in statehouse reporters, a new Pew Research Center study found.
Why it matters: Statehouses are the epicenter of key policy debates, and the decisions in Harrisburg have major implications for the economy, education, residents and beyond.
State of play: Pennsylvania went from having 41 total statehouse reports in 2014 to 47 this year. Of that 47, 28 are full-time reporters.
Between the lines: New nonprofit outlets are driving the gains in Pennsylvania and nationwide, offsetting dwindling newspapers.
- The report mentioned Spotlight PA as well as States Newsroom, whose local affiliate is Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
Zoom out: Nationally, the number of journalists covering statehouses has grown by 11% compared to eight years ago.
- Newspapers declined the most but still makes up the largest sector.
Of note: Pew researchers conducted a census of reporters covering all 50 states and interviewed reporters, editors, legislative staff and industry experts.
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Living our flantasy at Flan Factory
We challenge you to find a better, wider variety of flan in Tampa Bay than at Flan Factory in Ybor.
- We wanted to keep it our secret after grabbing lunch with our friend Dalia Colón there, but we couldn't keep quiet.
The showstopper: A non-flan item, Timba aka flash-fried chunks of queso blanco with house-made guava dip that taste like the best hug you've ever had.
- Owner José Palau told us he's been serving up about 100 lbs of the cheese each week for the year and a half he's been open.
Background: Palau started selling flan in flavors ranging from Reeses to strawberry milk at local markets in 2016 before deciding they needed their own venue.
- We tried a creamy pistachio, a surprisingly pleasant cinnamon apple that didn't taste artificial and our favorite, the guava flavor, which had a really nice fruity taste without being overpowering.
- There are eight standard flavors, including Nutella and coconut, plus a rotating selection of "bonus" flavors that change weekly.
Overall: A flantastic lunch spot.
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Democrat Nikki Fried announces plan to end Florida's housing crisis
In her campaign to become Florida's governor, Nikki Fried unveiled an aggressive plan to attack the state's affordable housing crisis that includes halting rent hikes and turning empty hotels and motels into emergency housing.
Driving the news: Fried, a Democrat and the state's commissioner of agriculture, detailed the plan Monday in Miami, the first stop on a campaign tour through six Florida cities over the next two weeks.
Why it matters: Rent and housing prices have skyrocketed in the past two years, driving middle class and poor residents out of the housing market.
Details: Fried told the Miami Herald that if elected she would declare a housing state of emergency, and:
- Veto bills that divert money from the state's Sadowski funds for affordable housing.
- Create a task force to address affordability.
- Expand homestead exemptions from up to $50,000 to up to $100,000.
- Offer other property tax exemptions for homeowners who only have one home.
- Repeal a state law that prohibits local governments from imposing rent control.
What they're saying: “YIMBY Tampa applauds Nikki Fried for being the first candidate to announce a platform on what should be the defining issue for Floridians in our upcoming gubernatorial election,” Nathan Hagen, co-leader of YIMBY Tampa, tells Axios.
Yes, but: It’s not enough, he said. "Housing is a human right, and we need to find solutions which preserve access to it during an emergency, as we do with food, water, and other essentials."
The other side: "Florida Democrats like Fried suddenly wanting to offer solutions to a problem their own party's reckless policies created is the exact kind of gaslighting that will lose them the election in November," Joanna Rodriguez, spokesperson for the Republican Governors Association, told Axios.
- She added that Gov. Ron DeSantis last year proposed the state's largest funding allocation for low-income and workforce housing in over a decade.
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Explainer: Why Marc Lore takes his shoes off at Wolves games
A new tradition at Target Center has fans taking their shoes off at the end of games, once the Wolves have secured a victory.
How it started: Karl-Anthony Towns scored 60 points in a March game and took his shoes off after he was pulled from the floor, according to Fox 9. Taking his sneakers off signified his work was done.
- Marc Lore — who is in the process of buying the Wolves with Alex Rodriguez — began doing the same thing at the end of games. Now fans follow his lead.
- WCCO Radio host Vineeta Sawkar joined in on the fun, but fellow host at the station Henry Lake is not a fan.
The bottom lime: Let's hope we see Lore's socks Tuesday night, when the Wolves take on the L.A. Clippers.
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New Smithsonian exhibit examines the erasure of Barry Farm-Hillsdale
In 2019, the last remnants of the Barry Farm-Hillsdale settlement, a post-Civil War Black community established by the Freedmen’s Bureau southeast of the Anacostia River, was demolished to make way for new development.
Driving the news: A new virtual Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum exhibit, "We Shall Not Be Moved," asks visitors to investigate what happened to the once-vibrant community.
Why it matters: The destruction of Barry Farm-Hillsdale isn’t a unique story; countless other Black communities across the U.S. are vanishing to make way for commercial districts and housing.
Now, following 2020's racial reckoning, these communities are re-examining those racist policies that forced Black residents out.
- “It’s not one case. There were many more African American neighborhoods that were destroyed especially by the building of highways through them,” museum curator Alcione M. Amos tells Axios.
- In Fairfax County, residents of Gum Springs last year fought the widening of Richmond Highway, which residents say will erase a historic Black community.
Details: The new exhibit, which is based on a book by Amos, seeks to “change the perception of the history,” of Barry Farm-Hillsdale, he tells Axios.
Amos says the exhibit tells the story of independence and resilience.
- For example, the Barry family, for which the neighborhood is originally named, owned much of the land in the area, Amos explains. However, the family owned enslaved people, so residents successfully pushed to get an act passed in 1873 to rename the neighborhood “Hillsdale.” But the name never appeared on official maps.
As the exhibit outlines, residents of the neighborhood advocated for voting rights for women, fought for essential services including running water, and integrated the Anacostia Pool — but not without significant effort and continued discrimination.
- In the late 1800s and into the 1900s, the loss of land, displacement, and redevelopment began to chip away at the settlement.
The big picture: The interactive exhibit, which includes spoken testimony, maps, and photos, invites visitors to decide what they think was the turning point in the vanishing of this historic settlement and to weigh in on what’s happening in their own community.
What they’re saying: “You can’t erase history. History is important. It’s important to have an awareness of your own neighborhood and what needs to be protected,” Amos says.
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National Urban League's dire democracy warning
The National Urban League's 2022 State of Black America report alleges a plot by some lawmakers, consultants and violent extremists to "disenfranchise, delude, manipulate and intimidate American voters and establish a one-party rule" that works against the interests of Black and brown voters.
The big picture: The 46th edition of the group's annual report, released Tuesday morning, warns voter suppression and growing income inequality could precipitate the collapse of democracy in the U.S. It warns that "political forces have launched an all-out assault on voting rights that disproportionately affects the communities that we serve."
- "Democracy is under siege, and there's a plot to destroy American democracy," National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial told reporters on a call ahead of the release.
How we got here: The report says former President Trump spread misinformation and sowed doubt about the 2020 presidential election, inspiring and giving cover for GOP-controlled state legislatures to pursue even more voting restrictions.
- But it said the modern-day effort has been building since the 2008 election swept Barack Obama into the White House, and that it accelerated after the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision in 2013 gutted critical provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
- State legislatures have been restricting voting access in districts with large populations of Black Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. The report uses data from the Brennan Center for Justice to make its case.
By the numbers: The report's Equality Index of Black America remained relatively stagnant this year, at 73.9%. That measure estimates the share of the pie Black Americans get compared to white Americans around economic status, health, education, social justice, and civic engagement.
- Black men’s median weekly earnings decreased from 73% to 72% of white men over a year, and the homeownership rate gap also widened, the report found.
The bottom line: As long as an overhaul of voting rights legislation remains stuck in Congress, the report urges people of color to focus on five steps: Checking registration status, knowing your state's voter ID laws, knowing where to vote, making a plan to vote and voting in every election. | https://www.axios.com/national-urban-league-report-black-america-e22b4fd3-e0c1-4fc0-82a1-19bf29ce72e9.html | 2022-04-12T11:12:32Z | axios.com | control | https://www.axios.com/national-urban-league-report-black-america-e22b4fd3-e0c1-4fc0-82a1-19bf29ce72e9.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Their courage and determination to fight the Russian warmongers is inspiring and, perhaps more so, is the example of their president Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been an absolute revelation. He has remained in their midst, he has given energetic support to his troops and civilians alike and has garnered backing from practically every nation in the western world.
It set me thinking as to how we Scots would react in a similar predicament when we have an SNP First Minister who has split our nation in two and is determined, no matter the consequences, to drag 50 per cent of our people down a path they do not want to go for a messianic, unrealistic idea of splitting us away from Great Britain.
We'd be in a “life or death” quagmire, being outside Nato (the SNP's stated ambition) and nuclear free (same), similar to Ukraine, just not patriotic thanks to divisions caused by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, whose word would lack sincerity judged on her past evasiveness.
Stan Hogarth, Strathaven, South Lanarkshire
Leading role
Having watched many of President Zelensky’s speeches and interviews, it’s hard not to conclude that playing a president in a TV programme is by far a better training ground for the role than the usual political route taken by other national leaders. Any plans for a UK TV series?
Richard Perry, Burntisland, Fife
Land of hope
Here are some facts that undermine the assertions in Les Reid’s letter of 11 April. There is a Scotland/England border, which was established in the 1237 Treaty of York, and has remained broadly unchanged. It demarcates two legal jurisdictions, and the separate Law Societies of Scotland and of England (and Wales) exist because of this border.
The Office for National Statistics gives the land masses of England and Scotland as 50,301 and 30,090 square miles respectively, so Scotland’s “independent stage” would hardly be small. Scotland has a population similar to that of Norway, Finland and Denmark, and, like these medium-size countries, would join “a united response” to climate change. Whitelee Wind Farm will still produce renewable energy in an independent Scotland.
Les Reid does not define Scotland’s deficit – or source his claim that Scotland spends far more than it raises in tax. In contrast, Professor David Simpson, Founding Director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, stated on 22 January 2022 the following. “Everywhere else in the world, including the UK, the term ’fiscal deficit’ means a shortfall in the revenue of a Government compared to its expenditure. If Scotland’s fiscal balance was compiled according to recognised standards of national accounting, then the expenditure side of the balance would show expenditure by the Scottish Government. Since the Scottish Government is obliged by the devolution settlement always to balance its budget, Scotland’s fiscal deficit in the proper sense of that term is zero every year.”
E Campbell, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire
Facts unmasked?
Neil Anderson claims mask wearing is “a proven protection against Covid” (Letters, 11 April). I am wondering where he is getting his information from. A Belgian 2021 study examined the accumulation of bacteria on masks, determined the best cleaning routine and surveyed wearers on their mask habits. Here are some of their results.
After four hours of use 43 per cent of bacterial colonies on the masks were resistant to widely-used antibiotics.
The best mask cleaning methods were boiling, ironing with a steam iron or washing at 60 degrees C with detergent. Cleaning should be done daily as a minimum.
In a survey of 25,000 participants only 21 per cent of respondents reported cleaning their cotton face masks daily, 27 per cent washed them weekly and 6 per cent never washed them at all. Only 8 per cent of surgical mask users threw them away after each use, and 15 per cent only threw them away if they were visibly damaged or dirty. Some 36 per cent had a health complaint when wearing a mask.
Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland
Rishi rich
Someone should tell Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak there's more to ethical behaviour and integrity than following the rules : obviously, following the rules is the least we can expect of someone in his government position, but I think we should be able to expect quite a bit more.
Steve Hayes, Leven, Fife
Bunny old world
We know that Easter derives its name from Spring goddess Eostre and involves many different images of rebirth, including an egg-laying bunny! Christian religious believers engage with the spirit of the season by celebrating the Jesus resurrection story.
In October Greg Knight MP pressed the UK government to implement the Easter Act 1928 and fix the date of the Easter public holidays. Despite the fact this would allow better planning for children, families and businesses, the government did not think it would be “suitable” to fix the dates “without input and agreement from the Church (of England) or other Christian Bodies”.
The religious minority interpretation of the festival is quite legitimate but the ancient dispute about its liturgical date should not be privileged at the expense of working families.
Neil Barber, Edinburgh Secular Society
Deluded vision
They’re at it again. Edinburgh Council has a grand plan for getting us all to abandon our cars and “walk, wheel and cycle” around the city. They aim to create on George IV Bridge the kind of massive snarl-up that has been perpetrated in Forrest Road. I’m not sure how many cyclists used the dedicated cycle lanes when they were in force on George IV Bridge, but cyclists will now have a segregated track all to themselves.
The artist’s impression I have seen of the plan shows pavement, two-way cycle track and then a track with the occasional bench to support the weary traveller who is trying to cross the road. Only after that is there actual road, and then another pavement. The area of road is totally unrealistic: it has a smooth and uniform surface without the many patches and potholes to which the long-suffering public is now accustomed. It also shows people waiting at a bus stop that the council took out of use many months ago.
I wouldn’t dream of taking my car into town now, but I do travel into town by bus. It is the bus service that will pay the price for this harebrained scheme – and that means drivers as well as passengers. Edinburgh is a city of narrow streets and many buses. The council’s plans to anathematise cars, privilege cyclists and reduce road capacity is also a direct attack on those who use public transport. Bus journey times are lengthening because the infrastructure works against public transport.
This may or may not be the council’s objective; after all, they favour “walking, wheeling and cycling”, with no mention of public transport. The message is: you had better be young and fit if you want to get around central Edinburgh.
Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh
Help Nicaragua
Politicians and media are currently correctly occupied by the invasion of Ukraine by the Czar Putin's regime.
However, this April marks the fourth year since more than 300 Nicaraguan civilian people were shot and killed by the Ortega/Murillo government police and their paramilitary supporters. This is more obviously relevant when you realise that the Ortega regime is one of the few that supports the Putin regime.
There are currently 181 political prisoners in Nicaragua a country with a population size similar to Scotland. In February this year, one prisoner, 73-year-old Hugo Torres, died in captivity when denied medical treatment for chronic ailments.
We should tell our Westminster MPs to put pressure on the Foreign and Commonwealth office to increase sanctions against Ortega's repressive regime so it stops killing Nicaraguan peasants and workers.
Norman Lockhart, Scottish Borders
Power preserved
Steuart Campbell wonders what happens when the tides turn and there is no electricity being generated (Letters, 8 April).
Well, the batteries having been charged up, the electricity continues to flow to the grid. The same applies to solar and wind generated power, also; for that matter, motor cars go for some distance after a charge.
Sandy Philip, Edinburgh
Power to people
When will the Greens and the engineering and technically challenged critics realise that you just cannot close all fossil-fuelled power stations, without a viable replacement.
A phased strategy is required to keep bills down and for everyone to continue to enjoy a reliable and secure power supply. In recognising this fact we should all be supporting the efficient combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) gas-fired power stations which are 60 per cent less polluting than their coal cousins, and this interim strategy should include tidal and hydro generation schemes.
If fracking is introduced then there is absolutely no reason why your energy bill should not tumble – let your voice be heard, dear reader, and lobby your political representative.
Finally, it is utter folly to continue with wind, solar and nuclear fission, but why is government keeping very quiet about the potential of electricity from space and that of nuclear fusion, the Holy Grail of power production?
Dave Haskell, Cardigan, Ceredigion
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Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers. If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription. Click on this link for more information. | https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/letters/readers-letters-if-only-scotland-had-a-leader-like-volodymyr-zelensky-3650042 | 2022-04-12T11:12:58Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/letters/readers-letters-if-only-scotland-had-a-leader-like-volodymyr-zelensky-3650042 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Emergency services attended the scene at Kinghorn Beach in Burntisland just before 10am.
Mr Elder, from the Saline area, was recovered from the water but died shortly after.
The family of the 45-year-old have asked for privacy but said: “Les was a much loved family man and will be missed by everyone who knew him.”
A report has been sent to the Procurator Fiscal. | https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/les-elder-scuba-diver-who-died-in-firth-of-forth-described-as-much-loved-family-man-who-will-be-missed-3650770 | 2022-04-12T11:13:11Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/les-elder-scuba-diver-who-died-in-firth-of-forth-described-as-much-loved-family-man-who-will-be-missed-3650770 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Carrie Underwood and Jason Aldean were the big winners at the CMT music awards.
Underwood and Aldean won video of the year and collaborative video of the year Monday night for their duet "If I Didn't Love You" on the show from Nashville, Tennessee that uses fan votes to honor the best in country music videos.
The Judds reunited on the show for their first major awards show performance in more than two decades.
Kelsea Ballerini, who was scheduled to co-host the show with Anthony Mackie before testing positive for COVID-19, hosted segments of the show from home and moved her performance to her backyard. | https://www.fox17online.com/entertainment/carrie-underwood-jason-aldean-win-big-at-cmt-music-awards | 2022-04-12T11:13:58Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/entertainment/carrie-underwood-jason-aldean-win-big-at-cmt-music-awards | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is visiting corn-rich Iowa to announce he’ll suspend a federal rule preventing the sale of higher ethanol blend gasoline in the summer.
Biden's administration is intensifying its efforts to tamp down prices at the pump that have spiked during Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Most gasoline sold in the U.S. is blended with 10% ethanol. The Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver to allow widespread sale of 15% ethanol blend that's usually prohibited between June 1 and Sept. 15 because of concerns it adds to smog in high temperatures.
The Biden administration says the move will save drivers an average of 10 cents per gallon at 2,300 gas stations. | https://www.fox17online.com/news/national-politics/biden-waiving-ethanol-rule-in-bid-to-lower-gasoline-prices | 2022-04-12T11:14:16Z | fox17online.com | control | https://www.fox17online.com/news/national-politics/biden-waiving-ethanol-rule-in-bid-to-lower-gasoline-prices | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
2022 WTA Debutantes
Welcome to the tour: All of 2022's WTA debutantes
Nine players have competed in a Hologic WTA Tour main draw for the first time in 2022 so far, including junior No.4 Brenda Fruhvirtova and Bogota quarterfinalist Elina Avanesyan.
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2022 Bogota | https://www.wtatennis.com/photos/2573429/welcome-to-the-tour-all-of-2022-s-wta-debutantes | 2022-04-12T11:16:51Z | wtatennis.com | control | https://www.wtatennis.com/photos/2573429/welcome-to-the-tour-all-of-2022-s-wta-debutantes | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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The White House is seeking to help lessen Americans' medical debt burden, Vice President Kamala Harris announced Monday.
In its latest effort to help people deal with increased costs amid skyrocketing inflation, the White House laid out a four-point plan to help protect consumers. It builds on President Joe Biden's recent executive order on increasing access to affordable health care coverage.
Plagued by low approval ratings, particularly on economic matters, the Biden administration has been rolling out measures aimed at lowering Americans' bills.
Harris began her remarks by noting that some people are contending with the rising cost of living at the same time as they are still trying to pay off hospital bills that resulted from a burst appendix or nasty fall years ago.
"No one in our nation should have to go bankrupt just to get the health care they need," she said.
Officials from several federal agencies spoke of the problems of medical debt, which plagues about one-third of American adults and is the largest source of debt in collections. Black and Hispanic families typically hold more medical debt than White ones, while women and younger folks are also more likely to rack up health care bills. Being behind in bills also prompts some people to avoid seeking additional health care and can affect consumers' ability to buy homes or start small businesses.
"Having medical debt because you were sick or injured should not lower your credit score and make it more difficult to secure the help you need to get out of debt," Harris said. "It's not logical."
White House effort
The administration's actions include having the Department of Health and Human Services evaluate how providers' billing practices impact access and affordability of care and the accrual of medical debt. It will request data from 2,000 providers on their collection efforts, lawsuits against patients, financial assistance offerings and other practices.
For the first time, the agency will weigh this information in its grant-making decisions, publish top-line data and policy recommendations for the public and share potential violations with relevant enforcement agencies.
The No Surprises Act, which bans most unexpected medical charges from out-of-network providers, went into effect in January, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said. It protects patients when they receive emergency care or scheduled treatment from doctors and hospitals that are not in their insurance networks and that they did not choose. Consumers would be responsible only for their in-network cost-sharing in these situations.
Also under the White House plan, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will investigate credit reporting companies and debt collectors that violate patients' and families' rights. It will bolster its consumer education tools aimed at helping Americans navigate medical billing and accessing financial assistance.
The bureau issued a bulletin in January aimed at preventing unlawful medical debt collection and credit reporting. Recent research from the CFPB shows that Americans had racked up $88 billion in medical debt on consumer credit records as of June 2021.
In addition, the White House is providing guidance to federal agencies to eliminate medical debt as an underwriting factor in credit programs, where possible. The US Department of Agriculture will no longer include any recurring medical debts in borrower repayment calculations.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has taken several steps, including finalizing a rule to virtually cease reporting of medical debt for veterans with VA Care bills, according to the White House. And the agency will now make it easier for lower-income veterans to get their VA medical debt forgiven, including streamlining the request process, offering an online application and setting a simple qualifying income threshold.
Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the department has refunded or canceled about $1 billion in medical copayments for more than 1.5 million veterans. The updated process could help more than half a million additional veterans get relief.
Attorneys at the National Consumer Law Center applauded the measures but also advised the administration to do more.
The advocacy group highlighted HHS' review of whether providers are offering adequate financial aid to struggling uninsured or underinsured patients.
"We have seen too many patients face lawsuits and debt collection from non-profit hospitals when they should have received hospital financial assistance instead," said Jenifer Bosco, staff attorney at the center.
The center also urged the CFPB to require debt collectors to inform consumers about the availability of financial aid and to clarify that medical debt must be treated as disputed if the patient reports that the bill should be covered by insurance. Also, the bureau should bring enforcement actions against debt collectors engaging in abusive practices, said April Kuehnhoff, a center staff attorney.
Credit agencies ease reporting
The White House actions follow a decision last month by the three largest credit reporting agencies -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- to remove nearly 70% of medical debt from consumer credit reports.
Starting July 1, the agencies will no longer include medical debt that went to collections on consumer credit reports once it has been paid off. That will eliminate billions of dollars of debt on consumer records.
In addition, unpaid medical collection debt won't appear on credit reports for the first year, whereas the previous grace period was six months, the three companies said. That will give people more time to work with their health insurers or providers to address the bills.
And starting in the first half of 2023, medical collection debt of less than $500 will no longer be included on credit reports.
This story has been updated with additional information.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/harris-says-white-house-will-seek-to-ease-americans-medical-debt-burden/article_b566d12e-1153-5950-9f12-e2c9296b0c72.html | 2022-04-12T11:27:25Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/news/national/harris-says-white-house-will-seek-to-ease-americans-medical-debt-burden/article_b566d12e-1153-5950-9f12-e2c9296b0c72.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Tuesday weather forecast Paul Drewes Apr 11, 2022 1 hr ago 0 Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save We will have another day of typical trade wind weather.That means a few showers carried in by the trade winds for windward and mauka sections, especially overnight and in the morning.Expect easterly trade winds of 10-20 mph.Leeward sides will be mostly dry, and see sunny skies. While windward sections will be partly cloudy.But it will be a warm one for those sunnier spots. Leeward sides will have afternoon high temperatures into the mid to even upper 80s.Afternoon temperatures will warm up into the low 80s for windward spots. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Save More From KITV 4 Island News Video High Surf Advisory NW Shores Updated Jan 12, 2022 Local Tuesday Evening Weather: March 29, 2022 Updated Mar 29, 2022 Video Thursday Forecast Updated Mar 2, 2022 Local Friday Weather: Trade winds and sun to end to the week. Updated Dec 9, 2021 Local Christmas Eve: Trade winds with mostly sunny skies. Updated Dec 23, 2021 Video High Surf Warning Updated Feb 25, 2022 Recommended for you | https://www.kitv.com/weather/forecast/tuesday-weather-forecast/article_bdd86002-ba40-11ec-b435-6b9849cf94d4.html | 2022-04-12T11:27:28Z | kitv.com | control | https://www.kitv.com/weather/forecast/tuesday-weather-forecast/article_bdd86002-ba40-11ec-b435-6b9849cf94d4.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Men Are Less Religious in Countries With More Gender Equality, Shows Study
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Many Indians have grown up hearing things like “Pati parmeshwar hota hai” (your husband is your god), so it is hardly a revelation to learn that men are more religious in countries with poor gender equality. A new sex-based global analysis seeks to understand how religiousness among men and low levels of gender equality are interlinked with each other.
Their conclusion: men’s motivation to be more religious may have something to do with their individual mating goals. That is if the prevailing religious notions of sexuality and reproduction fit in with a man’s goals — in terms of the rules he’d prefer to establish within his marriage, or how he’d like to approach reproduction, among others — he may choose to be more religious.
Published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, the study analyzed data from 125 countries in two tranches. It found that country-level gender equality was negatively associated with religiousness among men — basically, men were found to be more religious in countries that are less equal in terms of gender.
“One of my interests is how people use religion to advance their goals, and often these goals are related to mating… [A]ttitudes about family and sexuality — e.g., opposition to sexual promiscuity — are pretty consistent predictors of religiousness across cultures, and some evidence suggests that people are drawn to religion, in part, because it advances their goals in this way,” Jordan Moon, first author of the study and Ph.D. candidate at Arizona State University, explained.
Related on The Swaddle:
Explaining Dhat Syndrome: Why Young Indian Men Are So Afraid of Losing Their Semen
“Religion isn’t just some symbolic thing, but actually has a lot of mundane functions… So it shouldn’t be surprising that people turn to religion when they have certain needs,” Moon added.
According to the study, it may be the patriarchal aspects of religion that may draw men to religion. And “if gender equality makes it more difficult to enforce these rituals or norms, religion might be less appealing to men (relative to women) in societies with greater gender equality.”
Interestingly, the researchers found that women were more religious than men in most cultures. But at the same time, Moon also noted that being patriarchal, organized religions mostly tend to benefit men. And they often do so at the cost of women — through “rituals or norms that restrict or punish women more than men.”
“Our logic in this research was that, if the patriarchal aspects of religion are part of what draws men to religion (or how they use religion to help achieve their goals), and if gender equality makes it more difficult to enforce these rituals or norms, religion might be less appealing to men (relative to women) in societies with greater gender equality,” Moon added.
Related on The Swaddle:
Disrespecting Indian Values, Mocking Men Among Reasons People Find an Ad Offensive: Survey
That religion is used to oppress women is more of a fact than a mere theory. A study cited by the World Economic Forum noted that in, at least, 50 countries women are harassed for violating dress codes that are rooted in religious beliefs. Reports have also noted religious undertones in the ongoing “debate” around abortion rights in Texas, where women are fighting for the right to control what happens to their bodies.
However, the researchers neither found nor asserted a causal relationship between poorer gender equality in a culture and greater religiousness among its men. As such, the findings may make one wonder whether a culture’s reliance on religious beliefs may have a role to play in preventing a country from achieving greater gender equality. Moon thinks that’s plausible: “I would bet the effects go both ways — people make decisions about their beliefs within these different cultural contexts and the actions of citizens also influence a country’s gender equality.”
Nonetheless, even if the religiousness of a culture impacted its gender equality, a fall in the religiousness might not necessarily — or as simply — give an impetus to equality between the sexes. According to Moon, that’s due to the very nature of religions, “Religions are often constrained by the broader cultural context… Beliefs and rituals must be palatable to enough people to thrive, so I suspect that religions will often make changes to remain appealing to as many people as possible.”
Basically, religions will find a way to thrive by making themselves more appealing to the evolving collective consciousness of any society. At the same time, people who think that religion can further their interests — be it in terms of mating, controlling their partners, or simply making social, financial, or political gains — will continue to conform to religious beliefs. | https://theswaddle.com/men-are-less-religious-in-countries-with-more-gender-equality-shows-study/ | 2022-04-12T11:31:43Z | theswaddle.com | control | https://theswaddle.com/men-are-less-religious-in-countries-with-more-gender-equality-shows-study/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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CHEYENNE – Three Cheyenne American Legion Post 6 seniors signed letters of intent to continue their careers in college Monday night.
First baseman Zack Costopoulos inked with Howard College, which is a two-year school in Big Spring, Texas. Outfielder Dominic Lopez signed with Luna Community College of Las Vegas, New Mexico. Outfielder and pitcher Julian Romero signed with the University of Jamestown, which is a National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics member in Jamestown, North Dakota.
Costopoulos had no shortage of suitors after a season in which he led the Sixers in batting average (.410), hits (111), doubles (31), home runs (10) and RBI (110). His RBIs total is a program record.
“(Howard has) a really good record of sending kids off to (NCAA Division I) schools and pro ball,” Costopoulos said. “I have a really good connection with head coach Jack Giese and assistant Scottie Barnum were really welcoming and made me feel like I was already a Hawk when I was down there.
“I went to watch them play a couple games, and they were squeeze bunting with runners on first and third. It was really intense, high-level stuff. They were throwing behind runners, getting into plus-counts and being aggressive. I really liked that.”
Costopoulos has posted a .335 batting averaged (173 for 517) with 44 doubles, 10 triples, 15 home runs and 170 RBI in 183 career games over three seasons.
“He made a big jump from his sophomore year to his junior year, and he’s made another big jump going into this year,” Cheyenne manager Ty Lain said. “He’s the best hitter in American Legion baseball in the country. I really think he’ll step into the middle of Howard’s order and be a double-digit home run guy.
“He’s had five home runs in five spring games so far. He’s a force to be reckoned with at the plate, and Howard is going to be happy they’ve got him.”
Lopez and Luna’s coaches got an up close look at each other when Lopez and WYCO Select squared off with Luna during a fall tournament. Lopez later visited Luna’s campus.
“You can tell they’re all like brothers. I saw their pitchers down in the bullpen really getting on each other like brothers, and I liked that,” Lopez said. “It really reminded me of how Post 6 is. That’s the kind of program I want to be a part of.
“They’re really hard-nosed players, and they don’t take plays off. They’re always worried about the pitch that’s right in front of them.”
Lopez has posted a .302 (177 for 578) career batting average with 33 doubles, 11 triples, one home run and 116 RBI in 191 games across three seasons. Last summer, Lopez batted .342 (90 for 263) with 18 doubles, two triples, a home run and 53 RBI.
“He’s a big, physical athlete with the ability to hit the ball gap-to-gap,” Lain said. “He’s an interesting combination of size, speed and power. He throws the ball really well, and is about as tough as you’re going to get when it comes to competing and handling big moments.”
Romero was a solid role player, who came on strong late in the season as a sophomore. He became a regular in the lineup last summer, and produced as such, batting .314 (74 for 236) with 15 doubles and 58 RBI in 75 games. For his career, Romero has batted .317 (105 for 331) with 18 doubles and 80 RBI in 113 games.
He also has posted a 4-3 record on the pitcher’s mound, with a 3.14 earned-run average and 1.44 WHIP across 55-2/3 innings. The left-hander also has two saves and 71 strikeouts against just 30 career walks.
Romero expects to primarily play outfield at Jamestown, but his coaches haven’t ruled out pitching.
“The coaches have a good structure that helps all their kids be successful,” Romero said. “Their facilities are pretty nice. I liked it there and I know the coaches are going to push me to be the best player I can be.
“They didn’t talk to me about pitching, but said I’d have the chance to earn that spot.”
The speedy Romero has yet to hit a triple in his Post 6 career, but there’s a good reason for that, Lain said.
“He really excels at hitting the ball to left field, so a lot of balls he hits would be triples if he pulled them to right field,” the skipper said. “He puts together tough, quality at-bats every at-bat. He’s able to find a lot of barrels, and he’s a smooth, athletic with good range and a sneaky-good arm.
“He’s a complete player and a great competitor.” | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/other_sports/baseball/cheyenne_post_6/three-sixers-will-play-college-baseball/article_165e9577-9c7b-57cb-b6ce-19f8f9d98bfc.html | 2022-04-12T11:33:49Z | wyomingnews.com | control | https://www.wyomingnews.com/wyosports/other_sports/baseball/cheyenne_post_6/three-sixers-will-play-college-baseball/article_165e9577-9c7b-57cb-b6ce-19f8f9d98bfc.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Loni Davis is one of two bus drivers working at the Mt. Adams School District. The mother of four has two kids enrolled in the district, which serves eight regular bus routes and has 825 students enrolled this year.
A fully staffed transportation team would include seven or eight drivers, according to Chad Crawford, the district’s business manager. One additional driver is on leave. The district has had to switch to remote learning a few times since the start of 2022 due to its driver shortage.
Mt. Adams has three openings for bus drivers, according to its online jobs page. The job description calls for a commercial driver’s license and a bus driver certificate. Nearly every other district in Yakima County also had openings for regular or substitute bus drivers, as of Monday morning.
Davis is highly active in the district. In addition to driving, she also helps in food service and with lunch supervision, supervises home games and chaperones school trips. During Halloween she dressed up as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters” and ran around campus just to bring a smile to students’ faces.
Here are some questions and answers with Davis. Some of the answers have been shortened slightly:
What does a typical day on the job look like for you?
Since I have to do a double route, I usually come in, I get the bus ready, and I go out and I do Route Four first. I’ve been averaging about 6:50 (a.m.) in the morning that I get here at the high school. I drop off all of them, including my elementary kids. I drop them all off and then I go out and I do Route Two, bring them all in. Then come back here at the bus garage.
I usually start pre-tripping for my next bus. Then I head back down to Harrah Elementary to pick up the preschoolers. I take the preschoolers home. I come back to the White Swan (High School) campus, and I go help out lunch supervision for an hour. I get back in the SpEd (special education) bus and then I take one more student home.
I come back and I have another little break between those routes. And then I do the first part of my afternoon route where I go and cover Route Two first. My Route Four kids have been really affected because their pick-up time is an hour earlier and then their drop-off time is like an hour and a half later than what it used to be.
Three days a week our mechanic will take half of my Route Four kids and run them home and then I take the other half. Wednesdays and Fridays, I do both routes by myself.
How did you get your start as a driver in the district?
I started out driving a truck. I loved it, but I was missing out on everything with my kids. I decided to just be a house mom for a couple of years. And then they started going back to school. That’s when I finally decided to start looking for another job and go back. And I come out here, subbed for a month, and I just fell in love with it. I can come in having a really bad day, and by the end of my route I had forgotten what made my day bad.
What is your favorite part of your job?
It’s definitely how the kids are, when they start playing around or when they’re doing karaoke, or I take them on their trips. If you really, truly want to know how your kids are, ask their bus driver. Because as a driver, they don’t think that I know their conversations that they’re having. And it cracks me up!
How does being a school bus driver change the way you view this community?
It definitely opens up your eyes to a lot of the kids and what’s happening in their families. When I first started, I got pre-warned that I was going to have nothing but issues with some of these kids. And once I got to know them and they got to know me, they actually opened up and would vent to me about their day. And it just boiled down to they just wanted somebody to listen to them. Nobody was taking that time to just listen to them. | https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/education/q-a-loni-davis-enjoys-the-ride-as-one-of-mt-adams-few-school-bus/article_3f7095ce-f361-56fa-ab6e-aee7e3561632.html | 2022-04-12T11:41:18Z | yakimaherald.com | control | https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local/education/q-a-loni-davis-enjoys-the-ride-as-one-of-mt-adams-few-school-bus/article_3f7095ce-f361-56fa-ab6e-aee7e3561632.html | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Pet Food Manufacturers' Association (PFMA) chiefs say this means that the UK now has 17 million pet-owning homes, with the majority owning either a cat or a dog – or both.
There are now around 12million pet cats in the UK, comprising a range of popular breeds.
Several studies have indicated that owning a pet has led to an improvement in mental health for people hit by Covid restrictions.
Of course, once you’ve decided to add feline friend to your family, there’s the tricky business of what to call your new ball of fur.
Insurance company GoCompare has carried out some research into the most popular cat names chosen over the pandemic.
Here are the top 10.
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If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription. | https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/lifestyle/family-and-parenting/cat-names-here-are-the-uks-10-most-popular-names-for-adorable-kittens-3307251 | 2022-04-12T11:44:52Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/lifestyle/family-and-parenting/cat-names-here-are-the-uks-10-most-popular-names-for-adorable-kittens-3307251 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An area at the U.S. government’s nuclear waste repository in southeastern New Mexico was evacuated over the weekend after workers handling a shipping container discovered a small amount of radioactive liquid inside it.
There was no indication of airborne contamination and testing of workers’ hands and feet turned up no contamination after the discovery was made late Saturday in a bay where containers are processed before being taken underground for disposal, officials said in a statement issued late Saturday.
“The event at the site has been secured. There is no risk of radiological release and there is no risk to the public or the environment,” plant officials said in the statement.
Officials confirmed Monday that the shipment was packed and sent from Idaho National Laboratory, but investigators were trying to determine the source of the liquid found inside the container, said Bobby St. John, a spokesperson for the contractor that manages the repository for the federal government.
The waste containers were securely placed back into the special shipping container, St. John said.
“We have written processes and protocols in place for this type of situation and all protocols were followed,” he said in an email to The Associated Press. “Additionally, the (contact-handled waste) bay is designed to contain radiological contaminants in order to protect the workforce, surrounding ecology and the local community.”
The repository is the backbone of a multibillion-dollar cleanup program that involves tons of Cold War-era waste from federal labs and defense-related sites around the country.
The waste — remnants of decades of nuclear research and bomb making — typically consists of lab coats, gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements.
Independent federal investigators last month raised concerns about whether cost overruns and missed construction deadlines will continue at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
A multimillion-dollar project is underway at the underground facility to install a new ventilation system so that full operations can resume, following a radiation leak in 2014 that forced the repository’s closure for nearly three years and led to major policy overhauls.
The container that caused that release had been inappropriately packed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico.
Operations had to be reduced after the waste plant reopened in 2017 because areas of the facility were contaminated and airflow needed for mining and disposal operations was limited.
It was unclear Monday whether operations had resumed in the area where shipments are processed. St. John said only that the shipping container with the radioactive liquid was placed in a “safe configuration, pending results of the investigation and resulting mitigation actions.”
The repository was carved out of an ancient salt formation about a half-mile (0.8 kilometer) below the ground because officials say that the shifting salt will eventually entomb the radioactive waste.
Its current footprint includes eight sections, which the U.S. Energy Department estimates will be filled in 2025.
State regulators are weighing a permit change that some critics have said could lead to expanded repository operations. A decision is expected later this year. | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/discovery-of-radioactive-liquid-pauses-work-at-us-nuke-dump/ | 2022-04-12T11:46:00Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/discovery-of-radioactive-liquid-pauses-work-at-us-nuke-dump/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal jury convicted a former Virginia police officer of storming the U.S. Capitol with another off-duty officer to obstruct Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory.
Jurors on Monday convicted former Rocky Mount police officer Thomas Robertsonof all six counts he faced stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, including charges that he interfered with police officers at the Capitol and that he entered a restricted area with a dangerous weapon, a large wooden stick.
His sentencing hearing wasn’t immediately scheduled.
Robertson’s jury trial was the second among hundreds of Capitol riot cases. The first ended last month with jurors convicting a Texas man, Guy Reffitt, of all five counts in his indictment.
Robertson didn’t testify at his trial, which started last Tuesday. Jurors deliberated for several hours over two days before reaching their unanimous verdict.
One juror, who spoke to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity, said as she left the courthouse, “I think the government made a really compelling case and the evidence was fairly overwhelming.”
Defense attorney Mark Rollins said Robertson will appeal the jury’s verdict. “While Mr. Robertson disagrees with the jury’s decision, he respects the rule of law,” Rollins said in a statement.
A key witness for prosecutors in his case was Jacob Fracker, who also served on the Rocky Mount police force and viewed Robertson as a mentor and father figure. Fracker was scheduled to be tried alongside Robertson before he pleaded guilty last month to a conspiracy charge and agreed to cooperate with authorities. Fracker testified Thursday that he had hoped the mob that attacked the Capitol could overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Robertson was charged with six counts: obstruction of Congress, interfering with officers during a civil disorder, entering a restricted area while carrying a dangerous weapon, disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted area while carrying a dangerous weapon, disorderly or disruptive conduct inside the Capitol building, and obstruction. The last charge stems from his alleged post-riot destruction of cellphones belonging to him and Fracker.
During the trial’s closing arguments Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Risa Berkower said Robertson went to Washington and joined a “violent vigilante mob” because he believed the election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump. He used the wooden stick to interfere with outnumbered police before he joined the crowd pouring into the Capitol, she said.
“The defendant did all this because he wanted to overturn the election,” Berkower said.
Rollins conceded that Robertson broke the law when he entered the Capitol during the riot. He encouraged jurors to convict Robertson of misdemeanor offenses but urged them to acquit Robertson of felony charges that he used the stick as a dangerous weapon and that he intended to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote.
“There were no plans to go down there and say, ‘I’m going to stop Congress from doing this vote,’” Rollins said.
Fracker testified that he initially believed that he was merely trespassing when he entered the Capitol building. However, he ultimately pleaded guilty to conspiring with Robertson to obstruct Congress.
Under cross-examination by Rollins, Fracker said he didn’t have a “verbal agreement” with anybody to obstruct the joint session of Congress. Fracker said he believed everybody in the mob “pretty much had the same goal” and didn’t need for it to be “said out loud.”
Robertson and Fracker drove with a neighbor to Washington on the morning of Jan. 6. Robertson brought three gas masks for them to use, according to prosecutors.
After listening to speeches near the Washington Monument, Fracker, Robertson and the neighbor walked toward the Capitol, donned the gas masks and joined the growing mob, prosecutors said. Robertson stopped to help his neighbor, who was having trouble breathing. Fracker broke off and entered the building before Robertson, but they reunited inside the Capitol.
Defense attorney Camille Wagner told jurors that Robertson only went into the Capitol because he wanted to retrieve Fracker, who entered the Capitol a few minutes before Robertson. Wagner said the U.S. Army veteran was using the stick to help him walk because he has a limp from getting shot in the right thigh while working as a private contractor for the U.S. Defense Department in Afghanistan in 2011.
Jurors saw some of Robertson’s vitriolic posts on social media before and after the Capitol riot. In a Facebook post on Nov. 7, 2020, Robertson said “being disenfranchised by fraud is my hard line.”
“I’ve spent most of my adult life fighting a counter insurgency. (I’m) about to become part of one, and a very effective one,” he wrote.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Aloi told jurors that Robertson was charged for his actions, not his political beliefs. Wagner also said Robertson should be judged by his actions, not his words.
The town fired Robertson and Fracker after the riot. Rocky Mount is about 25 miles south of Roanoke and has roughly 5,000 residents.
Robertson has been jailed since Cooper ruled in July that he violated the terms of his pretrial release by possessing firearms.
More than 770 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the riot. Over 250 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors.
Robertson’s trial is one of four so far for Capitol riot defendants. Two others had their cases decided by bench trials before the same judge.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden convicted New Mexico elected official Couy Griffin last month of illegally entering restricted Capitol grounds but acquitted him of engaging in disorderly conduct. On Wednesday, McFadden acquitted another New Mexico man, Matthew Martin, of all four charges that he faced. | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/ex-officer-convicted-of-storming-capitol-to-disrupt-congress/ | 2022-04-12T11:46:07Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/ex-officer-convicted-of-storming-capitol-to-disrupt-congress/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Farms that rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake on the California-Oregon border, along with a Native American tribe fighting to protect fragile salmon, will both receive extremely limited amounts of water this summer as a historic drought and record-low reservoir levels drag on in the U.S. West.
More than 1,000 farmers and ranchers who draw water from a 257-mile-long (407-kilometer) river that flows from the Upper Klamath Lake to the Pacific Ocean will have access to roughly one-seventh the amount they could get in a wetter year, a federal agency announced Monday. Downstream salmon will receive about half the water they’d get if the reservoir was full.
It’s the third year in a row that severe drought has impacted farmers, fish and tribes in a region where there’s not enough water to satisfy competing demands. Last year, no water at all flowed through the Klamath Reclamation Project’s main irrigation canal, and thousands of downstream juvenile salmon died without reservoir releases to support the Klamath River’s health.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the irrigation project, announced $15 million in relief for affected farmers and $5 million for Native American tribes as a result of its decision and warned farmers not to take water beyond what was ordered or risk further irrigation reductions and legal action. The agency decides the allocations each year, taking into account court rulings that require certain lake levels to support two federally endangered fish species.
Across the American West, a 22-year megadrought deepened so much last year that the region is now in the driest spell in at least 1,200 years — a worst-case climate change scenario playing out in real time, a study found last month.
Inflow to the Upper Klamath Lake is at a record lows, water managers said, and water allocations could drop further if drought conditions worsen this summer.
“We wish we had better news today. Obviously there are no winners in this critical year as all interests are suffering — fisheries, farmers tribes and waterfowl alike — but given the current hydrology that we have to work with, we did the best job we could,” said Ernest Conant, the bureau’s regional director.
Irrigators reacted with shock and anger to the news and said they weren’t sure they could survive another growing season without adequate water supplies. The amount of water available is less than 15% of what the farmers need, said Ben DuVal, president of the Klamath Water Users Association, who operates a farm in Tulelake, California.
“We have 170,000 acres (68,800 hectares) that could be irrigated this year, and we’re ready to get to work,” he said. “On a single acre, we can produce over 50,000 pounds (22,700 kilograms) of potatoes, or 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of wheat. This year, most of that land will not produce any food because the government is denying water for irrigation.”
Klamath River water that is dammed in the Upper Klamath Lake is the linchpin of the nearly 200,000-acre (80,940-hectare) Klamath Reclamation Project, a major agricultural powerhouse of more than 1,000 farms and ranches. Today, farmers there grow everything from mint to alfalfa to potatoes that go to In ’N Out Burger, Frito-Lay and Kettle Foods.
But the reservoir water is also source of conflict among competing demands, and amid historic drought in the carefully managed river basin there hasn’t been enough water to go around in recent years. Before 2020, the last time water allocations reached such a boiling point in the Klamath Basin was in 2001, when the U.S. government sent federal marshals to the area during a drought year and farmers threatened to breach the head gates.
Under the law, the lake’s water must be kept at a certain level to protect its sucker fish, a key species to the heritage of the Klamath Tribes in southern Oregon. This year’s water decision order irrigators to keep the lake’s water above a certain level for sucker fish spawning in April and May and then at a different level for the remainder of the summer — but even at those levels, the lake will not meet federally mandated minimums for the spring months.
Farmers can start drawing the limited water on Friday.
But federally threatened coho salmon that live in the lower Klamath River, below the reservoir, also need pulses of water from the lake to keep at bay a deadly parasite that thrives in warm and slow-moving water. The salmon are revered by the Yurok Tribe, California’s second-largest Native American tribe.
One so-called “flushing flow” of water that’s about half the normal amount — and half what farmers will get — will be released Friday also.
Yurok Vice Chairman Frankie Myers said the fact that salmon, sucker fish and waterfowl are competing for the region’s water was a “direct sign of the ecological collapse brought by water withdrawals.” He said the Yurok would never stop working to save the salmon.
“Although we are gratified that the river is afforded minimal protections under this plan, it is no time for celebration. Salmon runs will continue to suffer under these conditions, and as climate change intensifies, such protections will become increasingly important,” Myers said.
The slashed water allocations to the Klamath Reclamation Project also will impact two national wildlife refuges in the region that are replenished with irrigation runoff. The refuges host tens of thousands of migratory birds along the Pacific Flyway. Last year, environmentalists and farmers used pumps to combine water from two stagnant wetlands into one deeper one to prevent another outbreak of avian botulism like the one that killed 50,000 ducks in 2020.
Hundreds of domestic wells impacted by the increased groundwater pumping have also gone dry since late last summer. | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/farms-fish-on-dry-california-oregon-border-see-scant-water/ | 2022-04-12T11:46:30Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/farms-fish-on-dry-california-oregon-border-see-scant-water/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
NEW DELHI (AP) — An unusually early heat wave brought more extreme temperatures Monday to a large swath of India’s northwest, raising concerns that such weather conditions could become typical.
The India Meteorological Department forecast that the temperature in New Delhi would reach 41.8 degrees Celsius (107.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, nearly eight degrees above normal.
The weather agency declares a heat wave when the temperature is at least 4.5 C (8 F) above average.
The main summer months — April, May and June — are always excruciatingly hot in most parts of India before monsoon rains bring cooler temperatures. But the heat wave has arrived early and grown particularly intense in the past decade, killing hundreds every year.
During heat waves, the country usually also suffers severe water shortages with tens of millions of its 1.4 billion people lacking running water.
Extreme temperatures have struck large parts of northern and western India in the last week, with Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi among the worst hit. Higher temperatures also were felt in relatively cooler Indian-controlled Kashmir in the Himalayas, where many Indians go to escape the summer heat.
Already this year, India has recorded its warmest March since 1901.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that heat waves and humidity-related heat stress will intensify in South Asia, and scientists who study climate change say Indians can expect more of the same hot temperatures in the coming years.
Vimal Mishra, an expert at the Indian Institute of Technology’s Water and Climate Lab, said the number of Indian states hit by heat waves has grown in recent years, as extreme temperatures become more frequent and intense.
“If you are looking for the clearest signal of climate change in India, then heat waves are a classic example. They are unavoidable and will occur more frequently,” Mishra said.
Heat waves are especially dangerous for daily wage workers, rickshaw drivers, street vendors and the homeless, many of whom have to work outside in hot conditions and are at the greatest risk of heat exhaustion and heatstroke.
India’s worst heat wave since 1992 was in 2015, when at least 2,081 people died. | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/indias-northwest-reels-under-unusual-early-heat-wave/ | 2022-04-12T11:46:52Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/indias-northwest-reels-under-unusual-early-heat-wave/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
Aldi shoppers praise this £35 Specialbuy after Martin Lewis energy bills tip
Aldi customers have praised the supermarket for its £35 Specialbuy after advice from Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis.
The ITV finance expert offered tips on how to stay warm without turning the heating on as energy bills soar.
Martin suggested purchasing items like heated USB gloves and electric blankets, with the aim that people can heat themselves instead of their homes.
The Manchester Evening News reports that Aldi shoppers have discovered a £35 Specialbuy that helps them use the Money Saving Expert’s advice.
What is the hack?
Posting on the Extreme Couponing and Bargains Facebook group, Barbara Mann shared a picture of a £35 heated throw with sleeves bought from Aldi.
She wrote: "After Martin Lewis recommendations for keeping warm and using electric blankets if you only need to be warm in one room...bingo. £35 Aldi."
The post has been commented on more than 5,000 times.
Responding, Emma Sherman said: "I have this and absolutely love it! It's amazing also for when I have a fibro flare up!"
Lisa Harrop said: "I bought this for my hubby in February I have used it a couple of times at night or when ill and it's really warm without being plugged in."
Unfortunately, the blankets are out of stock on the Aldi website, but you might be able to find one in the local store. | https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/read-this/aldi-shoppers-praise-this-ps35-specialbuy-after-martin-lewis-energy-bills-tip-3650817 | 2022-04-12T11:47:39Z | scotsman.com | control | https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/read-this/aldi-shoppers-praise-this-ps35-specialbuy-after-martin-lewis-energy-bills-tip-3650817 | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota House is set to decide Tuesday whether Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg should be impeached for his conduct before and after he struck and killed a pedestrian on the shoulder of a highway.
Troopers have said Ravnsborg was distracted before the September 2020 crash that killed 55-year-old Joseph Boever. Ravnsborg initially told authorities he thought he had struck a deer or other large animal. He went back the next day and found Boever’s body.
Opponents of impeachment say Ravnsborg need not be held accountable by the House because he wasn’t on the job when the crash happened. He had been driving back from a Republican fundraiser.
Ravnsborg has cast Boever’s death as a tragic accident. He pleaded no contestlast year to a pair of traffic misdemeanors, including making an illegal lane change.
An investigation committee from the Republican-controlled House votedagainst recommending impeachment after arguments that Ravnsborg’s actions were not part of his official duties. Republican Gov. Kristi Noem has pushed for impeachment, saying Ravnsborg lied to investigators.
The Highway Patrol concluded that Ravnsborg’s car crossed completely onto the highway shoulder before hitting Boever, and criminal investigators said later that they didn’t believe some of Ravnsborg’s statements.
Republican Rep. Will Mortenson, of Pierre, brought articles of impeachment against Ravnsborg more than a year ago. He did not return phone messages left Monday by The Associated Press.
Last week, at the request of Republican Rep. Tim Goodwin, of Rapid City, about 30 lawmakers took in a presentation by two Highway Patrol troopersoutlining details of the investigation.
Goodwin said it raised doubts about the committee’s recommendation. House Speaker Spencer Gosch, who chaired the committee, called it a sales pitch. Gosch did not respond to phone messages Monday.
While it’s unclear whether the presentation would have any effect on the impeachment vote, Noem’s spokesman referenced it Monday to sum up the feelings in the governor’s office.
“The troopers’ presentation speaks better than I ever could,” Ian Fury said.
Democrat House Minority Leader Jamie Smith, a member of the impeachment investigation committee, said the troopers helped with unanswered questions, but he doesn’t believe they will change any minds. He expects Tuesday’s floor debate to last a couple of hours before the vote.
“As a member of the committee, I said I believed there were grounds for impeachment and I will stay with that,” Smith said. | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/south-dakota-house-to-vote-on-impeaching-attorney-general/ | 2022-04-12T11:48:00Z | wpri.com | control | https://www.wpri.com/news/us-and-world/south-dakota-house-to-vote-on-impeaching-attorney-general/ | 1 | 1 | green-iguana-35 | null |
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