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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. producer prices surged 10.8% in May from a year earlier, underscoring the ongoing threat to the economy from inflation that shows no sign of slowing.
Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose at slightly slower pace last month than in April, when it jumped 10.9% from a year earlier, and is down from an 11.5% yearly gain in March.
On a monthly basis, producer prices climbed 0.8% in May from April, above the previous month, when they increased 0.4%.
Energy prices, led by gas, rose 5% just in May from April. Another big driver of the price gains last month was a sharp 2.9% increase in the cost of truck freight hauling, a sign that supply chain problems still aren’t fully resolved. Food costs were unchanged.
The figures indicate that rising prices will continue to erode Americans’ paychecks and wreak havoc on household budgets in the coming months. Inflation has created major political headaches for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats and has forced the Federal Reserve into a series of rapid interest rate hikes intended to slow the economy and cool price increases.
On Friday, the government reported that inflation — as measured by the consumer price index — jumped to a new 40-year high of 8.6% in May, a surprise gain that disappointed expectations that price increases might be slowing. Gas and food costs rose sharply, pushed higher by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the costs for rent, new and used cars, medical care, and clothing also rose, evidence that inflation is spreading more broadly through the economy.
The Federal Reserve is expected to hike its short-term interest rate by three-quarters of a point on Wednesday, the largest increase since 1994, as it ramps up its efforts to rein in higher prices.
The producer price data captures inflation at an earlier stage of production and can sometimes signal where consumer prices are headed. It also feeds into the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index.
Strong consumer spending has pushed up demand for a range of goods and services, which has in turn overwhelmed supply chains, creating shortages in some cases and pushing up prices. Greater demand for travel this spring and summer has also sent hotel and airfare prices soaring.
How long that consumer demand will last is a key question for the economy going forward. Millions of Americans have enjoyed solid pay raises in the past year, including lower-income workers at restaurants, hotels, and warehouses.
Consumers also have greater savings than is typically the case from government stimulus checks and because they weren’t able to spend as much on travel and entertainment in the past two years. Those savings are supporting ongoing spending even amid high prices.
Yet prices are rising at a faster pace than wages, on average, suggesting that eventually consumers may have little choice but to pull back on spending.
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| 2022-06-15T02:02:19Z
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25 non-profit and faith based organizations awarded MVP Grants
"This is a long term solution. It's not something that's going to cure violence over night."
MACON, Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— The Community Foundation of Central Georgia awarded its first round of Macon Violence Prevention Grants on Tuesday.
25 non-profit and faith based organizations were chosen by CFCG to help prevent crime in Macon-Bibb County. Darius Maynard is the Program Officer for the foundation, and says the community should see change gradually.
“This is a long term solution, it’s not something that’s going to cure violence over night,” said Maynard.
All organizations combined received more than $800,000 to help implement programs focused on the youth.
“My hope is they’ll be able to engage those members of the community that typically don’t get involved,” he said.
One of the grant recipients is the ‘Next Level Community Development Center.’ Lakesia Toomer is the Executive Director of the center, and says the money will be put to enhancing their ‘Hope Project.’
“They will get one-on-one academic coaching and this is so we can get them to a point where they’re on grade level. Those things are some of the things that causes some of our young people to act out,” said Toomer.
Other organizations selected will implement programs that will focus on literacy, family time, mental health and after school programs.
Jeremy Grissom is the MVP Coordinator who will oversee the organizations and their implementation of the programs.
“My hope is that we’ll see less violence in our community from these organizations being out. Then we’ll add a ton more so that people know there are resources in this community in whatever space it is that they need,” said Grissom.
Throughout the next few months, CFCG will check in periodically to ensure the programs are effective.
To view the full list of grant recipients, click here.
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| 2022-06-15T06:00:35Z
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BCSO addresses protocol of updating residents following shooting incident
The Lake Wildwood neighborhood was much quieter Tuesday afternoon following an incident Monday that resulted in two Bibb County Sheriff's Office investigators being taken to the hospital.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Lake Wildwood neighborhood was much quieter Tuesday afternoon following an incident Monday that resulted in two Bibb County Sheriff’s Office investigators being taken to the hospital.
Resident Sharon Brown says she didn’t expect to come home to so much commotion outside her front door on Monday.
“I saw all of these police vehicles, and I was wondering what was going on,” she said. “Then I got updates to my phone, and I was like, ‘Oh wow, this is pretty scary.'”
The sheriff’s office says undercover investigators were following a gray Dodge Charger down Thomaston Road around 2:45 Monday afternoon when they activated their blue lights to initiate a traffic stop. That’s when someone in the Charger fired shots in their direction.
The investigators weren’t struck by gunfire, but their unmarked car left the road and struck a light pole. The Charger fled down Lamar Road, resulting in a brief manhunt in and around the Lake Wildwood neighborhood.
“As they were approaching the roundabout on Highway 74, they put the lights on for this vehicle to pull over,” Colonel Henderson Carswell said. “Somebody on the passenger side reached out the window and opened fire with a high caliber rifle. That caused them to take evasive action and run off the road, and the other vehicle fled.”
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, Georgia State Patrol and U.S. Marshals Fugitive Tack Force assisted in the search, which ended “pretty quick,” according to Carswell.
Despite multiple requests for information Monday afternoon and evening, the sheriff’s office didn’t confirm the suspects were in custody until early Tuesday morning. The suspects have been identified as 18-year-old Xzaydrian Lewis and a 16-year-old male.
Carswell says “technology and information from people in the community” helped law enforcement apprehend the suspects. One of them was taken into custody at the intersection of Plantation Parkway and Rebel Lane. He couldn’t confirm where the second suspect was taken into custody.
We asked him if there’s a protocol in place to get information out to the public during events like this.
“Normally we would do something like that, but this was so fluid,” he said. “It happened so quickly. By the time we got all the units out there deployed looking for the suspects, we were able to get them in custody pretty quick without having to do all those things. But if it was going to be drawn out, I’m sure we would have gotten the word out … especially to the surrounding community.”
The sheriff’s office added it releases information to the public when it believes the public is in danger but felt Monday’s threat was “more against officers.”
Brown says she made sure her house was secure when she saw the news but that it was unnerving to not receive word about the suspects’ arrests until more than 12 hours later.
“I was just wanting more information,” she said. “I mean we were here in this community, so just let us know what’s going on.”
The sheriff’s office says both investigators involved in the incident were back on the job Tuesday.
“We still have more investigation to do in this case even though we have a couple of suspects in custody,” Carswell said.
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| 2022-06-15T06:00:41Z
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Dangerous heat, strong storms return Wednesday
It was a sweltering day in Middle Georgia with highs warming back to the upper 90s and 100s.
Thankfully some storms pushed in to help cool us off this afternoon, although a few were severe.
Tomorrow will be a bit of a repeat of the day, but with an increase in our heat index.
An Excessive Heat Watch has been issued for much of the area, meaning the maximum heat index may reach 110° for 3+ hours.
Please find a way to stay cool and hydrated tomorrow.
We will be warming to the upper 90s by lunchtime under full sunshine and with high humidity.
Showers and storms will start to pop up during the afternoon/evening and push through the area from east to west.
Once again we could see some severe storms in the area, with main threats being damaging wind gusts, hail, frequent lightning, and heavy rain.
Have a way to get your severe weather warnings tomorrow afternoon.
Showers will be possible each afternoon this week, but expect coverage to be a bit less widespread.
High temps will be staying in the upper 90s through Saturday.
Dry weather is back for the weekend, and much of next week.
Although we will get a small cool down on Sunday, heat is back for next week.
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| 2022-06-15T06:00:47Z
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ICYMI: Stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News Top stories from June 14, 2022 June 14, 2022 Clayton Poulnott, BCSO addresses protocol of updating residents following shooting incident Macon Salvation Army open to public to cool off as temperatures rise 25 non-profit and faith based organizations awarded MVP Grants For other stories you may have missed, click here. FacebookPinterestTwitterLinkedin
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| 2022-06-15T06:00:53Z
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Macon Bacon defeat the Forest City Owls on back-to-back days
Bacon are 7-8 on the season.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — After defeating the Forest City Owls by 15, the Macon Bacon hosted the Owls at Luther Williams Field, looking to repeat that performance.
The Bacon scored first in the bottom of first, but the Owls tied it in the top of the second, 1-1.
The Bacon had a four-run third inning as they took a 5-1 lead.
The Owls scored three unanswered runs, one in the sixth, one in the eighth, and one in the ninth, but their comeback was just short as the Bacon won 5-4.
Bacon now 7-8 on the season and are back in action Thursday hosting the Savannah Bananas.
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| 2022-06-15T06:01:00Z
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Macon-Bibb commissioners considering funding for organization that provides rental, utility assistance to those in need
Macon-Bibb Commissioners are considering a $50,000 grant for Family Advancement Ministries in Macon.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Macon-Bibb Commissioners are considering a $50,000 grant for Family Advancement Ministries in Macon.
The organization provides rental and utility bill assistance to families in need.
Ministry leaders say the money would cover rent and utilities for about four families per month for about six months.
“We want to make sure that we keep our families, and our community as a whole,” Gigi Rolfes said. “We all lose when somebody loses their home. I’s our way of helping our brothers and sisters get through this crisis.”
The commission will meet again next Tuesday, June 21 to vote on final approval for the funding.
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https://www.41nbc.com/macon-bibb-commissioners-considering-funding-for-organization-that-provides-rental-utility-assistance-to-those-in-need/
| 2022-06-15T06:01:06Z
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Piedmont Macon Behavioral Health offers advice on dealing with news of mass shootings
We spoke with Piedmont Macon Behavioral Health about anxiety surrounding mass shootings. Dr. Brian Wright says it's important to go on with your daily life, because while mass shootings are tragic, the likelihood of one happening is low.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — A recent article from the Washington Post states the Gun Violence Archive has already recorded more than 250 mass shootings in the U.S. this year.
We spoke with Piedmont Macon Behavioral Health about anxiety surrounding mass shootings. Dr. Brian Wright says it’s important to go on with your daily life, because while mass shootings are tragic, the likelihood of one happening is low.
“Human beings are just not capable of handling the problems of the entire world,” Dr. Wright said. “So make your world a little smaller. Only focus on today, and it really does help if we’re not bombarded with that danger in front of us. It does reduce our stress response.”
If anxiety surrounding mass shootings is becoming a problem for you, Piedmont Macon recommends turning off the T.V. or logging off social media.
If that doesn’t help, you should reach out to a mental health professional.
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| 2022-06-15T06:01:12Z
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UPDATE: Two teens arrested after investigators injured in crash
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office says 18-year-old Xzaydrian Ja’Won Lewis and a 16-year-old boy were identified as two suspects wanted in connection with Monday’s incident near a west Macon roundabout that resulted in two investigators being sent to the hospital.
UPDATE (6/14 7:08 a.m.) – The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office says 18-year-old Xzaydrian Ja’Won Lewis and a 16-year-old boy were identified as two suspects wanted in connection with Monday’s incident near a west Macon roundabout that resulted in two investigators being sent to the hospital.
UPDATE (5:30 p.m.) – Bibb County Sheriff’s Office investigators in an unmarked car were following a gray Dodge Charger on Thomaston Road Monday afternoon when someone inside the Charger fired shots in the investigators’ direction.
It happened just before 3 p.m.
The investigators went off the road and struck a light pole. Both investigators were taken to Atrium Health Navicent with non-life threatening injuries. They’re now listed in stable condition.
The Charger fled down Lamar Road toward Zebulon Road.
There’s no further information at this time.
Anyone with additional information is urged to call the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office at (478) 751 -7500 or Macon Regional Crimetoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
UPDATE (4:04 p.m.) – An active search is underway for a person who shot at a law enforcement officer Monday afternoon, according to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.
The sheriff’s office says the officer was injured but did not provide an update on their condition.
Several law enforcement vehicles are in the area near the Johnson/Lamar/Lower Thomaston/Thomaston roundabout and also in and around the Lake Wildwood neighborhood.
Witnesses tell us Bibb County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia State Patrol vehicles were spotted in the area Monday afternoon. The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office has also confirmed its involvement in the search.
ORIGINAL STORY:
There is a heavy law enforcement presence in west Macon after a person shot at a deputy Monday afternoon.
That’s according to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, which says the shooting happened near the Johnson/Lamar/Lower Thomaston/Thomaston roundabout.
There’s no info on the suspect yet. The incident is under investigation.
We are working to gather more information.
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| 2022-06-15T06:01:18Z
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Coinbase Global says it plans to cut about 1,100 jobs, or approximately 18% of its global workforce, as part of a restructuring in order to help manage its operating expenses in response to current market conditions.
The cryptocurrency trading platform said in a regulatory filing that it expects to have about 5,000 total employees at the end of its current fiscal quarter on June 30.
The company reported last month that active monthly users fell by 19% in the first quarter amid the decline in crypto values. Cryptocurrencies soared early in the pandemic as ultralow rates encouraged some investors to pile into the riskiest investments. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has tumbled and briefly fell below $21,000 in Asia on Tuesday, down from a peak of $68,990 late last year.
Coinbase estimates that it will incur about $40 million to $45 million in total restructuring expenses, mostly related to employee severance and other termination benefits.
The restructuring plan is anticipated to be substantially complete in the second quarter.
The remote-first company was founded in 2012 and has no headquarters. It went public just over a year ago, in April 2021, by listing its stock directly and skipping the traditional process of hiring underwriters. Shares closed on the first day at around $328. In premarket trading Tuesday, the stock lost 7% to $48.40.
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| 2022-06-15T11:08:38Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. producer prices surged 10.8% in May from a year earlier, underscoring the ongoing threat to the economy from inflation that shows no sign of slowing.
Tuesday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the producer price index — which measures inflation before it reaches consumers — rose at slightly slower pace last month than in April, when it jumped 10.9% from a year earlier, and is down from an 11.5% yearly gain in March.
On a monthly basis, producer prices climbed 0.8% in May from April, above the previous month, when they increased 0.4%.
Energy prices, led by gas, rose 5% just in May from April. Another big driver of the price gains last month was a sharp 2.9% increase in the cost of truck freight hauling, a sign that supply chain problems still aren’t fully resolved. Food costs were unchanged.
The figures indicate that rising prices will continue to erode Americans’ paychecks and wreak havoc on household budgets in the coming months. Inflation has created major political headaches for President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats and has forced the Federal Reserve into a series of rapid interest rate hikes intended to slow the economy and cool price increases.
On Friday, the government reported that inflation — as measured by the consumer price index — jumped to a new 40-year high of 8.6% in May, a surprise gain that disappointed expectations that price increases might be slowing. Gas and food costs rose sharply, pushed higher by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the costs for rent, new and used cars, medical care, and clothing also rose, evidence that inflation is spreading more broadly through the economy.
The Federal Reserve is expected to hike its short-term interest rate by three-quarters of a point on Wednesday, the largest increase since 1994, as it ramps up its efforts to rein in higher prices.
The producer price data captures inflation at an earlier stage of production and can sometimes signal where consumer prices are headed. It also feeds into the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, the personal consumption expenditures price index.
Strong consumer spending has pushed up demand for a range of goods and services, which has in turn overwhelmed supply chains, creating shortages in some cases and pushing up prices. Greater demand for travel this spring and summer has also sent hotel and airfare prices soaring.
How long that consumer demand will last is a key question for the economy going forward. Millions of Americans have enjoyed solid pay raises in the past year, including lower-income workers at restaurants, hotels, and warehouses.
Consumers also have greater savings than is typically the case from government stimulus checks and because they weren’t able to spend as much on travel and entertainment in the past two years. Those savings are supporting ongoing spending even amid high prices.
Yet prices are rising at a faster pace than wages, on average, suggesting that eventually consumers may have little choice but to pull back on spending.
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| 2022-06-15T11:09:36Z
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SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Airline fares have jumped 47% since January and remain higher than they were before the pandemic, which could be leading to a slowdown in the number of seats airlines can sell.
Bookings for flights within the United States fell 2.3% in May compared with April, research firm Adobe Digital Insights said Tuesday. The value of those sales rose 6%, however, to $8.3 billion, because of price increases.
Prices for U.S. flights in May were 30% higher than the same month in 2019 – the fourth straight month in which fares topped pre-pandemic levels. May prices were up 6% over April, according to Adobe, which based numbers on transactions at six of the largest 10 U.S. airlines.
“While some consumers have been able to stomach the higher fares, especially for those who delayed travel plans during the pandemic, the dip in bookings shows that some are rethinking their appetite for getting on a plane,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst for Adobe.
Airfares are among many factors contributing to the highest inflation rate that Americans have seen in 40 years.
Airline officials say demand for travel is strong after two years of the pandemic. As for the prices, they say they need to raise fares to cover surging jet fuel prices.
The number of air travelers in the U.S. has rebounded to nearly 90% of 2019 levels, according to government figures. International travel has lagged domestic travel, but it could get a boost from the Biden administration’s decision to end the requirement to show a negative test for COVID-19 before flying to the U.S.
United Airlines said Monday that searches for international trips increased 7% in the three days after the administration announced it would drop the testing requirement. The airline said many of the searches were for summer travel to Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean.
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| 2022-06-15T11:09:50Z
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WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is expected Wednesday to announce its largest interest rate hike since 1994 — a bigger increase than it had previously signaled and a sign that the central bank is struggling to restrain stubbornly high inflation.
The central bank is considered likely to raise its benchmark short-term rate by three-quarters of a percentage point, far larger than the typical quarter-point increase, to a range of 1.5% to 1.75%. It will also likely forecast additional large rate hikes through the end of the year.
A series of sizeable increases would heighten borrowing costs for consumers and businesses, likely leading to an economic slowdown and raising the risk of a recession. The Fed's previous rate hikes have already had the effect of raising mortgage rates roughly 2 percentage points since the year began and have slowed home sales.
Other central banks around the world are also acting swiftly to try to quell surging inflation, even with their nations at greater risk of recession than the U.S. The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates by a quarter-point in July, its first increase in 11 years. It could announce a larger hike in September if record-high levels of inflation persist.
The global efforts to tighten credit are escalating the risk of a severe downturn in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Last week, the World Bank warned of the threat of “stagflation” — slow growth accompanied by high inflation — around the world.
By the end of 2022, the Fed will have raised its key rate as high as a range of 3.25% to 3.5%, some economists estimate, higher than what was forecast just a few weeks ago. At that level, the rate would likely be well above “neutral,” meaning at a level that would be intended to slow growth. In March, the Fed had forecast that it would raise rates only to a range of 1.75% to 2% by year's end.
After the Fed's last meeting in May, when it raised its benchmark rate by a half-point, Chair Jerome Powell said that similar increases were “on the table” for the central bank's June and July meetings, should the economy “evolve in line with expectations.”
But on Friday, the government reported that year-over-year inflation accelerated unexpectedly in May to 8.6%, the highest such level in four decades. Inflation has spread to nearly every corner of the economy, with costs rising for rents, gas, clothing, medical care, airline fares and clothing.
Also on Friday, a consumer sentiment survey by the University of Michigan found that Americans’ expectations for future inflation are rising. That is a worrisome sign for the Fed, because expectations can become self-fulfilling: If people expect higher inflation in the future, they often change their behavior in ways that increase prices. For example, they may accelerate large purchases before they become more expensive. Doing so can intensify demand and further fuel inflation.
The accelerated series of rate hikes now expected from the Fed will increase the likelihood of a recession in the next year or so.
“I think we’re sort of past the point where a ‘soft landing’ is plausible,” said Aneta Markowska, chief economist at the investment bank Jeffries, referring to the Fed's effort to raise rates enough to slow growth but not so much as to cause a recession. “I think they’re going to have to cause a contraction.”
A key reason why a recession is now likelier is that economists increasingly believe that for the Fed to slow inflation to its 2% target, it will need to sharply reduce consumer spending, wage gains and economic growth. Ultimately, the unemployment rate will almost certainly have to rise — something the Fed hasn't yet forecast but could in updated economic projections it will issue Wednesday.
“When you’re on the highway going 90 miles an hour and you miss your exit, slowing down is not going to help you," Markowska said. "You have to do a U-turn and go back.”
Other central banks are also looking at jumbo rate hikes to combat inflation. In addition to the ECB, the Bank of England has raised rates four times since December to a 13-year high, despite predictions that economic growth will be unchanged in the second quarter. The BOE will hold an interest rate meeting on Thursday.
The 19 European Union countries that use the euro currency endured record inflation of 8.1% last month. The United Kingdom notched a 40-year high of 9% in April. Though debt service costs remain contained for now, rising borrowing costs for indebted governments threatened the eurozone with a breakup in the early part of the last decade.
The exception among major central banks is Japan, whose central bank has kept its ultra-low rates amid inflation that’s weaker than in the U.S. and Europe. That is causing the value of the yen to drop as investors shift money to countries with higher interest rates.
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| 2022-06-15T14:34:05Z
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BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The white gunman accused of killing 10 Black people in a racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket has been charged with federal hate crimes and could face the death penalty, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday.
Payton Gendron was already facing a mandatory life sentence without parole if convicted on previously filed state charges in the May 14 rampage.
Attorney General Merrick Garland was expected to address the federal charges during a visit Wednesday to Buffalo. There, he was scheduled to meet with families of the 10 Black people killed.
The attack, at Tops Friendly Market, also left three survivors — one Black, two white.
Gendron’s radical, racist worldview and extensive preparation for the attack were laid out in documents he apparently authored and posted online shortly before authorities say he started shooting.
FBI agents executing a search warrant at Gendron’s home the day after the shooting found a note in which he apologized to his family for the shooting and stated that he “had to commit this attack” because he cares “for the future of the White race,” according to an affidavit filed with the criminal complaint.
Gendron signed the note and addressed it to his family, the affidavit said.
Agents at the Conklin, New York home also found a receipt for a candy bar purchased from the supermarket on March 8, the day Gendron said in an online diary he went to scout out the store, as well as hand drawn sketches of the store’s layout, the affidavit said.
The affidavit also includes detailed accounts of Gendron’s plot to attack the store, which he documented in detail in an online diary, and the attack itself, which he live streamed on social media.
In his writings, Gendron embraced a baseless conspiracy theory about a plot to diminish white Americans’ power and “replace” them with people of color, through immigration and other means.
The posts detail months of reconnaissance, demographic research and shooting practice for a bloodbath aimed at scaring everyone who isn’t white and Christian into leaving the country.
Gendron drove more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) from his home in a nearly all-white town near the New York-Pennsylvania border to a predominantly Black part of Buffalo. There, authorities say, he mowed down shoppers and workers using an AR-15-style rifle, wearing body armor to protect himself and livestreaming the carnage from a helmet-mounted camera.
The 18-year-old surrendered to police as he exited the supermarket.
He has pleaded not guilty to a state domestic terrorism charge, including hate-motivated domestic terrorism and murder.
According to the online documents attributed to Gendron, he had scouted out the supermarket in March, drawing maps and even counting up the number of Black people he saw there.
Federal authorities had said they were considering hate crime charges in the killings, which compounded the unabating toll of gun violence in the United States.
Ten days after the attack in Buffalo, another 18-year-old with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers.
Soon after, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed 10 public safety-related bills, including one prohibiting New Yorkers under age 21 from buying semi-automatic rifles and another that revised the state’s “red flag” law, which allows courts to temporarily take away guns from people who might be a threat to themselves or others.
The U.S. Senate followed on June 12 with a bipartisan agreement on more modest federal gun curbs and stepped-up efforts to improve school safety and mental health programs.
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| 2022-06-15T15:40:26Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are rising Wednesday, on track for their first gain in six days, but more turbulence may be on the way as the Federal Reserve prepares to announce how sharply it’s raising interest rates.
The S&P 500 was 1% higher as investors readied for the Fed’s rate hike, which is expected to to be triple the usual amount and the sharpest since 1994. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 176 points, or 0.6%, at 30,541, as of 1:35 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.8% higher.
Perhaps even more important than how much the Fed raises rates by this afternoon, which would be the third hike of the year, is what Chair Jerome Powell says about future increases.
Investments around the world, from bonds to bitcoin, have tumbled this year as high inflation forces the Federal Reserve and other central banks to swiftly remove supports propped underneath markets early in the pandemic. The fear is that too-aggressive hikes in interest rates will force the economy into a recession.
Even if central banks pull off the delicate trick of slowing the economy just enough to stamp out inflation, without a recession, higher interest rates push down on prices for investments regardless. The hardest-hit have been the investments that soared the most in the easy-money era of ultralow interest rates, including high-growth technology stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Treasury yields have shot to their highest levels in more than a decade on expectations for a more aggressive Fed, though they eased on Wednesday. A disappointing report showing that sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly slumped in May from April contributed. So did a weaker-than-expected report on manufacturing in New York state.
The economy is still largely holding up amid a red-hot job market, but it has shown some signs of distress recently. A preliminary reading on consumer sentiment last week, for example, sank to its lowest reading on record due in large part to high gasoline prices.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury pulled back to 3.41% from 3.48% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury, which more closely follows expectations of Fed action, fell to 3.34% from 3.45%.
“The bond market right now is driving the broader market and that will continue” even after Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks this afternoon, said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.
Cryptocurrency prices continued to sink, and bitcoin dropped as low as $20,087.90, nearly 71% below its record of $68,990.90 set late last year. It was down nearly 8% at $20,653.22 in afternoon trading, according to CoinDesk.
Its tumble has worsened as investors ramp up their expectations for how aggressively the Fed will move on interest rates.
A week ago, almost no one was expecting a hike of three-quarters of a percentage point, which is the widespread expectation for this afternoon. But a stunning report on Friday sent shudders through markets when it showed inflation at the consumer level unexpectedly accelerated last month.
It dashed hopes on Wall Street that inflation may have already peaked, and the data seemingly pinned the Federal Reserve into having to get more aggressive. The Fed has gotten criticism for moving too slowly earlier to rein in inflation. Other central banks around the world are also raising interest rates, adding to the pressure.
Japan’s central bank has kept rates near record lows. That has caused the yen to fall to two-decade lows against the U.S. dollar as traders shift capital in search of higher returns.
The war in Ukraine has helped send prices for oil soaring because the region is a major producer of energy. COVID infections in China, meanwhile, have led to the closure of factories and disrupted supply chains.
It all helped pull the S&P 500 down more than 20% from its record set in early January, putting Wall Street into what investors call a bear market.
Markets were more relaxed Wednesday, with stocks climbing across Europe and some of Asia.
Germany’s DAX returned 1.4%, and the French CAC 40 rose 1.3% after the European Central Bank called an unscheduled meeting to address worries that rising interest rates will cause turmoil in the continent’s bond market. The central bank did not give a detailed plan, but it said it would act if needed against “fragmentation” as yields for some European countries’ bonds rise much more than for others.
Stocks in Shanghai gained 0.5% after government data showed Chinese factory activity rebounded in May as anti-virus controls that shut down businesses in Shanghai and other industrial centers eased. Stocks in Seoul and Tokyo, though, fell more than 1%.
___
AP Business Writers Damian J. Troise and Joe McDonald contributed.
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| 2022-06-15T17:58:47Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency is warning that two nonstick and stain-resistant compounds found in drinking water are more dangerous than previously thought — and pose health risks even at levels so low they cannot currently be detected.
The two compounds, known as PFOA and PFOS, have been voluntarily phased out by U.S. manufacturers, but there are a limited number of ongoing uses and the chemicals remain in the environment because they do not degrade over time. The compounds are part of a larger cluster of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS that have been used in consumer products and industry since the 1940s.
The EPA on Wednesday issued nonbinding health advisories that set health risk thresholds for PFOA and PFOS to near zero, replacing 2016 guidelines that had set them at 70 parts per trillion. The chemicals are found in products including cardboard packaging, carpets and firefighting foam
At the same time, the agency is inviting states and territories to apply for $1 billion under the new bipartisan infrastructure law to address PFAS and other contaminants in drinking water. Money can be used for technical assistance, water quality testing, contractor training and installation of centralized treatment, officials said.
Several states have set their own drinking water limits to address PFAS contamination that are far tougher than the federal guidance. The toxic industrial compounds are associated with serious health conditions, including cancer and reduced birth weight.
“People on the front-lines of PFAS contamination have suffered for far too long,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. “That’s why EPA is taking aggressive action as part of a whole-of-government approach to prevent these chemicals from entering the environment and to help protect concerned families from this pervasive challenge.”
PFAS is short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are used in nonstick frying pans, water-repellent sports gear, stain-resistant rugs, cosmetics and countless other consumer products. The chemical bonds are so strong that they don’t degrade or do so only slowly in the environment and remain in a person’s bloodstream indefinitely.
The revised health guidelines are based on new science and consider lifetime exposure to the chemicals, the EPA said. Officials are no longer confident that PFAS levels allowed under the 2016 guidelines “do not have adverse health impacts,” an EPA spokesman said.
While the new guidelines set acceptable risk below levels that can currently be measured, as a practical matter EPA recommends that utilities take action against the chemicals when they reach levels that can be measured — currently about four parts per trillion, a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday night.
The EPA said it expects to propose national drinking water regulations for PFOA and PFOS later this year, with a final rule expected in 2023.
In a related development, the EPA said that for the first time it is issuing final health advisories for two chemicals that are considered replacements for PFOA and PFOS. One group is known as GenX chemicals, while the other is known as PFBS. Health advisories for GenX chemicals were set at 10 parts per trillion, while PFBS was set at 2,000 parts per trillion.
The agency said the new advisories provide technical information that federal, state and local agencies can use to inform actions to address PFAS in drinking water, including water quality monitoring, use of filters and other technologies that reduce PFAS and strategies to reduce exposure to the substances.
Environmental and public health groups hailed the announcement as a good first step. Advocates have long urged action on PFAS after thousands of communities detected PFAS chemicals in their water. PFAS chemicals have been confirmed at nearly 400 military installations and at least 200 million Americans are drinking water contaminated with PFAS, according to the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization.
“EPA had the courage to follow the science. This is a step in the right direction,” said Stel Bailey, co-facilitator of National PFAS Contamination Coalition.
“The science is clear: These chemicals are shockingly toxic at extremely low doses,” added Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He called on the EPA to regulate all PFAS chemicals “with enforceable standards as a single class of chemicals.”
Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group, said the EPA’s announcement “should set off alarm bells for consumers and regulators” alike. She urged the EPA to “move much faster to dramatically reduce exposures to these toxic chemicals.”
The American Chemistry Council, which represents major chemical companies, said in a statement that while it supports development of drinking water standards for PFAS based on the best available science, the EPA’s announcement “reflects a failure of the agency to follow its accepted practice for ensuring the scientific integrity of its process.”
While the advisories are non-binding, “they will have sweeping implications for policies at the state and federal levels,” the group said. “These new levels cannot be achieved with existing treatment technology and, in fact, are below levels that can be reliably detected using existing EPA methods.”
The Chemours Co., a DuPont spinoff that uses so-called GenX chemicals to produce high-performance fluoropolymers used in semiconductors, mobile phones, hospital ventilators and other products, called the EPA’s announcement “fundamentally flawed.”
EPA “disregarded relevant data and issued a health advisory contrary to the agency’s own standards and this administration’s commitment to scientific integrity,” Chemours said in a statement.
The company is “already using state-of-the-art technologies at our sites to abate emissions and remediate historical releases” Chemours said, adding that officials are evaluating next steps, “including potential legal action, to address the EPA’s scientifically unsound action.”
An investigation by the state of North Carolina found that Chemours had discharged GenX from its Fayetteville Works plant into the Cape Fear River for years. EPA chief Regan was the state’s top environmental official when the probe began and led negotiations that resulted in cleanup of the river. Gov. Roy Cooper and his current environmental chief unveiled a three-pronged strategy last week address further efforts to reduce and remedy a broad category of PFAS chemicals in water sources.
Legislation passed by the House would set a national drinking water standard for PFAS and direct the EPA to develop discharge limits for a range of industries suspected of releasing PFAS into the water. The bill has stalled in the Senate.
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| 2022-06-15T17:59:15Z
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STOCKHOLM (AP) — Ikea said Wednesday that it is seeking new owners for its four factories in Russia and to liquidate its product inventory there because of the war in Ukraine.
The world’s biggest furniture brand already had suspended operations at its 17 Russian stores and paused exports and imports involving the country. It also paused operations in Belarus, which is a Russian ally.
“The war in Ukraine has already had a terrible impact on so many people’s lives. It is a human tragedy that is continuing to affect people and communities,” Ikea said in a statement on its website.
“Unfortunately the circumstances have not improved and the devastating war continues,” the flat-pack furnishings retailer said. “Businesses and supply chains across the world have been heavily impacted and we do not see that it is possible to resume operations any time soon.”
The companies that control Ikea operations in Belarus and Russia therefore “have now each decided to enter a new phase to further scale down,” the statement said.
Ikea said imports and exports of products to and from Russia and Belarus will remain stopped, and that the purchase and logistics offices in Moscow and Minsk will close permanently.
Ikea was founded by Swedish entrepreneur Ingvar Kamprad, who turned a small-scale mail order business started on his family’s farm into a furniture empire in 1943 by letting customers piece together his simple and inexpensive furniture themselves.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the Ukraine-Russia war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-06-15T18:00:06Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — Laura Romani, a Chicago-area resident with a background in education and library science, had been thinking of a new career.
“I was at home a couple of years ago reflecting on all the experience I gained and how I wanted to contribute to the Latino community, while also allowing myself to be on my own and make use of my love for books and passion for multilingualism,” she says.
The solution: Start a bookstore. With help from a local grant and stimulus checks that she and her husband received during the pandemic, Romani launched Los Amigos Books, initially as an online store last year and now with a small physical outlet with a bright blue front in Berwyn, Illinois. It focuses on children’s stories in English and Spanish.
“It all goes hand in hand,” Romani says of her decision.
Stores like Romani’s helped contribute to a year of solid growth and greater diversity for the American Booksellers Association, the trade group for independent bookstore owners. According to CEO Allison Hill, the association now has 2,010 members, at 2,547 locations, an increase of more than 300 since Spring 2021. It’s the highest ABA total in years, even though the association in 2020 tightened its rules and permitted only stores which “primarily sell books” (over 50 percent of inventory), as opposed to any stores offering books. The ABA also no longer counts sellers whose memberships are inactive.
Hill attributes some of the rise to owners who delayed renewing their memberships early in 2021, reflecting uncertainty about the pandemic’s impact. But a substantial number of additions, well over 100, are stores that have opened over the past year, dozens of them owned by people from a wider variety of racial and ethnic groups.Those stores range from Libelula Books & Co. in San Diego to Yu and Me Books in New York City’s Chinatown, from Modern Tribe Bookshop in Killeen, Texas, to Socialight Society in Lansing, Michigan.
The ABA has long been predominantly white, with board president Jamie Fiocco acknowledging in June 2020 — after George Floyd’s murder — that the association had not done enough to “break down barriers to membership and service for Black, indigenous and people of color.” Hill cited numerous recent initiatives, including the expansion of its diversity committee, diversifying its board, increased outreach and — for a time — the waiving of membership fees.
“The rise in BIPOC stores is a big change for us,” Hill says.
Like Romani, many new owners had previous careers, or still have them on the side. Sonyah Spencer works as a consultant to help finance The Urban Reader in Charlotte, North Carolina, a store focusing on African American books that she opened in part because of the Black Lives Matters movement and her concern about a rise in book bans. In Locust Grove, Georgia, Erica Atkins was a college teacher and trainer who, while recuperating from surgery, had a vision — a divine one, she believes — that she should open a store, what is now Birdsong Books.
“I have dedicated my life to knowledge sharing,” she says. “Anytime I am having a conversation with someone, I am giving book recommendations.”
In Ossining, New York, Amy Hall is a vice president at Eileen Fisher who says her work in fashion inspired her to open Hudson Valley Books for Humanity. She had been looking through her bookshelves and began thinking about how sustainability in clothing could apply to what she reads. She decided to start a store that would offer mostly used books, and otherwise reflect the economic and ethnic diversity of Ossining.
“I wanted to build a bookstore that welcomed people from all of these different segments of our community,” she said. The new books she keeps in stock focus on social justice and the environment, among other issues.
After initial worries that the pandemic would devastate book sales, publishers have recorded strong profits in the past two years and independent sellers have endured. Hill and others had feared that hundreds of member stores might close in 2020. Instead, around 80 shut down, and only 41 went out of business in 2021.
Independent bookselling is a resilient business, but rarely secure. It has for decades been a story of confronting obstacles — whether the rise of Barnes & Noble “superstores” in the 1990s that helped drive thousands of ABA members out of business, the growing power of Amazon.com, or such recent issues as supply chain delays and price inflation.
Spencer at the Urban Bookstore says higher costs, notably for rent and shipping, have made her struggle to break even. Atkins of Birdsong Books has noticed a big jump in prices for Bibles, with the price of a King James edition increasing by several dollars. At the Changing Hands Bookstores in Arizona, buyer Miranda Myers has noticed several price changes, including for Emily St. John Mandel’s “Sea of Tranquillity,” one of the top literary releases of the spring, and the upcoming Lore Olympus book by Rachel Smythe.
Myers said she was “definitely noticing these price increases happening more and more lately.” At the same time, according to Changing Hands owner Gayle Shanks, sales “are up, way up. We had the best first quarter we’ve ever had in the store’s history and this second quarter is also tracking way up. People seem to be reading more than ever.”
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| 2022-06-15T18:00:13Z
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COVID-19 shots for infants, toddlers and preschoolers in the U.S. have moved a step closer. An advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration gave a thumbs-up to Moderna’s two shots for the littlest kids. The same panel will vote later Wednesday on rival Pfizer's vaccine for children under 5. They are the only age group not yet eligible for vaccination against the coronavirus and many parents have been anxiously waiting to protect their little children. If all the regulatory steps are cleared, shots should be available next week.
Posted at 2:13 PM, Jun 15, 2022
and last updated 2022-06-15 15:13:40-04
(Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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| 2022-06-15T20:30:28Z
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A controversial drainage project, which is the subject of a federal lawsuit and a federal investigation, may have another point of controversy.
The Current has posted a story, based on interviews and public records, indicating that Lafayette Consolidated Government paid much more than market value for their piece of the involved property.
At issue is a project that LCG already has completed in St. Martin Parish, which removed decades-old levees on property partially owned by LCG. St. Martin Parish officials said that LCG did the project in the dark of night, and without permits from either the parish or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. LCG already had filed for a permit at a different location with the Corps; that permit application was withdrawn after St. Martin told the Corps that no parish permits for it would be granted.
The Corps launched an investigation into the project, and issued a cease-and-desist letter. More than a month later, LCG responded to say the project was done properly. A lawsuit was filed by LCG in Lafayette district court, asking a judge to rule that the project was done properly. St. Martin Parish Government already had decided to file suit, but LCG filed suit first, naming St. Martin and the Corps. A short time later, the Corps had the suit moved to federal court.
Last week, the City Council chair asked a series of extremely specific questions regarding this project. Read our story about that here.
The Current already has reported that the work cost more than $3.7 million but was paid through an "as-needed," $390,000 contract. Several people interviewed for that story indicated that the payment may have violated the public bid law.
The Current's most recent story on the project indicates that, when LCG bought their piece of the property in question, the price paid was much higher than the property's worth.
From recordings in the St. Martin Parish courthouse dated March 9, withheld from being filed into the public record an unusually lengthy 16 days after LCG bought the property, a property owner interviewed by The Current learned the other two co-owner groups were each paid $42,000 for their one-third shares. But the land’s total value was set at $42,000, according to a property appraisal The Current obtained through a public records request.
The Current reports that LCG paid $84,000 for two-thirds interest in land that appears to only be worth a total of $42,000. And once the minority discount is applied, the portion LCG bought is worth $21,000. In short, LCG potentially paid four times the market value for this property.
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| 2022-06-15T20:30:59Z
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Atlanta-based Agile Cold Storage to build facility in Macon
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — An Atlanta-based company is working to build its 3rd cold storage warehouse in Macon, as an effort to invest into construction to support domestic and export markets.
The company, Agile Cold Storage LLC, announced the start of construction on their Macon storage facility on June 15th, stating that Phase 1 of the 275,000+ square foot multi-temp facility is targeted to open in the Summer of 2023, with the location being off of Ocmulgee East Industrial Park at 917 Joe Tamplin Industrial Blvd. Agile plans to invest over $150 million in the construction of its new facility over the next 3 years.
Agile’s facility will use automation wherever possible in order to make the workplace more safe for team members, and the management team will work to ensure best practices to allow for reliable, efficient, and flexible receiving, storage, import/export, distribution, and shipping of its customers’ products. The facility is also set to include frozen and deep-freeze temperature zones to make sure products are blast frozen and maintained at the highest levels of quality to industry and government standards.
Agile President and CEO Don Schoenl expressed his excitement to make the investments and be able to create jobs within Georgia, saying that the Southeast is the ideal location for its growing population as well as Macon’s location near the port of Savannah and major interstates.
Macon Mayor Lester Miller had this to say about the announcement: “It’s great to see Georgia-based companies reinvest in their community and create more opportunities for people,” and, “Agile’s investment here is a testament to Georgia’s dominance in the poultry industry and our top-notch logistics network, and I am grateful for their partnership as they ramp up their operations.”
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:11Z
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BS Report: June 15th – The Braves are Burning Up
The Braves are blazing through early summer with a 13 game (so far) winning streak!
The Braves are blazing through early summer with a 13 game (so far) winning streak! Bill Shanks goes over why these wins are so important and who may lead the Braves to another division title.
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:17Z
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Family Dollar on Napier robbed Wednesday morning
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Wednesday morning, the Family Dollar at 3600 Napier Avenue was robbed.
According to the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, the incident took place at 10:16 a.m., when a male suspect entered the store brandishing a firearm, demanding money from the clerk. After taking the money, he fled the store in a van that appeared to be silver. Nobody was injured in the incident.
The suspect is described as having a medium build, standing between 4’11” and 5’2″, wearing a white shirt and blue shorts, and a mask covering his face.
Anyone with information on this man, this vehicle, or this incident is urged to call the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office at 478-751-7500, or Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:23Z
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GEICO celebrates Juneteenth by donating $25,000
The Regional Vice President, Frankie Silva, says it was important for the company to make this donation.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)— GEICO is celebrating Juneteenth a little early by donating $25,000 to the Urban League of Greater Atlanta.
This is the first time GEICO has celebrated Juneteenth, after the pandemic canceled past scheduled celebrations.
GEICO as a company has partnered with multiple Urban League affiliates. The Regional Vice President, Frankie Silva, says it was important for the company to make this donation.
“The one in Atlanta which is here in our home state you know we want to make sure we provide them with the funds that they need for the resources for their programs. They’ve been a great partner to work with over the years,” said Sullivan.
The Juneteenth event also coincided with GEICO’s ‘We Care Wednesday’. It’s where GEICO associates sell their own goods to raise money for causes they’re passionate about.
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:29Z
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Houston County District Attorney officially sworn in
PERRY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Houston county has a new District Attorney for its judicial circuit district.
District Attorney William Kendall was officially sworn into office on Monday by Governor Brian Kemp. He had been acting as District Attorney since September of last year when George Hartwig stepped from the position.
Kendall has a background in the United States Marine Corp. as well as a law enforcement background, and is looking forward to using those experiences to aid him in his role.
“I think we carry on the mission to serve the people of Houston county.” he said “You know we’re going to keep doing our job. We’re going to worry about the cases we got now. We’re going to worry about our cold cases we got now. We’re going to worry about cold cases and we’re going look into the future of proactive law enforcement efforts.”
Kendall says his focus for his office will continue to be on prosecuting cases and fighting the rise of crime in the community. This is including crimes involving juveniles.
The Houston County Judicial Circuit District Attorney seat will be up of re-election in 2025.
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:35Z
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Houston County students continue to learn during the summer
The two week program gives students an opportunity to learn from courses in T.V., drama, medieval times and fashion.
WARNER ROBINS, Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— School may be out for the summer, but some 4th through 7th grade students in Houston County are still learning.
Dr. Marion Robinson is the Site Coordinator for the ‘Enhancement Program’. He says the program gives students creative freedom in arts.
“They learn throughout the school year and enhance that along with hands on. They know how learning and doing goes together,” said Dr. Marion Robinson.
The two week program gives students an opportunity to learn from courses in T.V., drama, medieval times and fashion. All classes that can potentially lead to picking a hobby or a potential career for many students like Whitney Jones.
Jones is in the T.V. Class, and participating for the second time.
“I like it because it’s just really interesting hearing all these different answers and interviews. It’s just really fun,” said Jones.
For Zachary Garret, his interest lies in the creation of rockets and roller coasters. With this being his first time attending the program, he says it opened his eyes to so much more.
“I have random different dreams and this one inspired me right now so I don’t know which one I’m going to follow, I’m just going to figure it out along the way,” he said.
Dr. Robinson says each year students are unsure of what to expect, but leave wanting more.
“We have a good return rate of students from our parents because they know that this is a great program and they really value the program,” he said.
Over 300 students are taking part in the program. The Houston County School District says it’s looking to expand the program next summer.
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:41Z
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How to beat the heat as high temperatures continue
The recent heat wave across Middle Georgia has brought temperatures into the triple digits.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The recent heat wave across Middle Georgia has brought temperatures into the triple digits.
Dr. John Wood, Emergency Room Medical Director with Atrium Health Navicent, says you need to get ahead of the heat if you’re going to be outside.
“Make sure you’re drinking plenty of water,” he said. “If you’re on medications that dehydrate you, try to stay ahead of that so you don’t get dehydrated in the first place. Wear sunscreen so you don’t get sunburned, and if you’re working outside, take plenty of breaks.”
Workers at Fountain Car Wash are following doctors’ orders by staying hydrated and keeping cool.
Chelsea Clark is in charge of quality control there. She says the car wash has a system in place to make sure everyone gets breaks from the heat.
“The group you see out here today was not out here this morning,” she said. “We switched over at around 2 o’clock just to give everybody a break.”
Clark says management makes sure everyone has tools to stay safe in the heat.
“Making sure everybody has bottles of water on hand,” she said. “They actually gave us cool towels to put on our necks and backs.”
Dr. Wood says heat illness can cause kidney failure, heat stroke and even death. He shared the symptoms of what heat illness can feel like.
“You start getting headaches, dizziness, you can get lightheaded,” he said. “ You start having a lot of muscle cramps, feel like you’re going to pass out. Those are some of the earlier symptoms.”
Dr. Wood says if you feel symptoms of heat exhaustion, you should go inside and cool down. He says you should seek medical attention if your symptoms don’t improve or if they get worse.
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:48Z
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Juneteenth events happening in Middle Georgia
Juneteenth is approaching as Middle Georgians prepare to observe the historic anniversary– read more here to see the ways local agencies are commemorating African American freedom and achievement.
- In Macon, Macon-Bibb County Government offices and courts will be closed on the Monday following Juneteenth, June 20th, to observe the holiday, though emergency services will remain operational. The solid waste convenience center on 11th street will close at 12 p.m. on Sunday and stay closed on Monday, though, waste handled by Ryland Environment will not be affected that week. Macon-Bibb mentions that Commissioners voted in December of 2021 to officially adopt Juneteenth as a county-wide holiday to honor the day that enslaved people in America were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation.
- Also in Macon, Project BAAD and Torchlight Academy & Kwanzaa Cultural Access center will be presenting the 30th Annual Juneteenth Freedom Festival over the span of 2 days, Saturday and Sunday, June 18th and 19th, at Tattnall Square Park. The event is free, though donations are welcome, and there will be artists, music, vendors, food, and much more. For more information, check the flyer below.
- The City of Perry is recognizing Juneteenth with their 2nd Annual Freedom Day Festival on Saturday June 18th, at Rozar Park from noon to 3 p.m. featuring food trucks, vendors, live entertainment, and much more. There are plenty of free activities to enjoy, to learn more– click here to read about it on the City of Perry’s website
- The Peach Activity Committee is also hosting Fort Valley’s 1st Annual Juneteenth Festival on Friday, June 17th from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. in downtown Fort Valley. The committee says there will be plenty of cultural bands, poetry, African dancers, storytelling, artifact displays, vendors, food, and more– including plenty of kids activities like waterslides and arts and crafts.
Are we missing an event? Email us at News@41nbc.com with your event’s information so we can add it to our list!
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| 2022-06-16T01:49:54Z
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Macon Soccer Club hopes to keep kids busy with its 6v6 Summer League
"It gives them something to do during the summer other than just being at home and being on the couch most of the time or on their phone."
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Macon Soccer Club is hosting its 13th annual 6v6 Summer League for rising sixth-graders to outgoing seniors.
“The most important part of your career and your season is the offseason,” said academy director Adrian Juarez. “Summertime is the offseason. Many players go to summer camps here in town or other places. But this league, what it offers is continuity. So they can continue playing all year long for those that desire to do so. And it gives them something to do during the summer other than just being at home and being on the couch most of the time or on their phone.”
So besides keeping kids busy during the summer, how does 6v6 soccer help prepare the student-athletes for their real seasons?
“Our fields are about 60 by 40 yards, so pretty small considering if you look at a high school age kid. So there is a lot of high pressure on the teams. There are a lot of turnovers because teams want the ball really quick and score goals. So it really helps them on sharpening their decision-making skills. Thinking faster, being proactive, so they have to think about what they’re going to do with the ball before they even receive it. So it really helps the game on a different aspect that 11v11 may not cover,” said Juarez.
Giving kids a platform to stay busy and improve is great. But there is one aspect of the game, not just in soccer but in almost all sports, which is currently lacking: referring.
“I believe it’s really parental related and how the referees have been treated lately. The lack of respect sometimes towards referees has driven them away from doing something that they don’t really do because of the money aspect of it. They do it because they want to help the game. Without referees, we can’t play games. So they ask the parents, and I wish they would listen most of the time, is just let the referees referee, let the coaches coach, and let the players play,” said Juarez.
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| 2022-06-16T01:50:00Z
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Man in critical condition after shooting at PioNono car wash Tuesday night
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Tuesday night, an aggravated assault took place at a car wash in the 500 block of PioNono Avenue around 11:23 p.m.
The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office reports that 59 year-old Freddie Crowell was shot at the car wash and walked over to the Macon-Bibb County Fire Station across the street. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance for treatment, where he is now in critical, but stable condition.
Circumstances surrounding the incident are still being investigated, anyone with information is asked to call the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office at 478-751-7500 or Macon Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
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| 2022-06-16T01:50:06Z
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Piedmont Macon hospitals launch new medical records system
Piedmont Macon locations are taking a step to enhance the system's check-in process.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Piedmont Macon locations are taking a step to enhance the system’s check-in process.
The hospital has launched an electronic medical records system known as ‘EPIC’ that allows records to be accessed across all Piedmont facilities.
Patients can access their medical records and even make an appointment from their phone.
You can also speak with a physician and get your questions answered. All you have to do is download the app, called ‘My Chart.’
“EPIC has all the latest technology, not only for keeping track of patients but also running the hospital and ensuring high quality patient care,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. Gary Bernstein said.
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| 2022-06-16T01:50:12Z
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Professionals share tips on how to stay safe in the water this summer
"Having more people ready to respond to emergencies is a great way to reduce the risk of long term water related injury or death."
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)- As the summer continues to bring high temperatures, people will look to get into water.
James Bell is a water safety instructor for Macon-Bibb County Parks and Recreation. He says many water related injuries are due to a persons over estimation of their swimming skills.
“You must wear your life jacket, I’m a certified lifeguard I’m a strong swimmer but anytime I’m on an open body of water boating I’m wearing my life jacket you just don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Bell.
So what about young children and babies? According to Pediatric ER Attendant for Atrium Health Navicent, Jacob Kirkpatrick, a child is ready to begin water safety classes as early as one-year-old. He also says the more people who know CPR, greatly improves the chance of survival if drowning.
“Having more people ready to respond to emergencies is a great way to reduce the risk of long term water related injury or death so the more care givers that you can have that are CPR certified is always a great thing,” said Kirkpatrick.
Bell recommends parents stay away from arm floaties.
“If a child jumps in to the water, the water wings fly right off and down they go so it’s better to wear a life vest or personal flotation device that straps around the body to prevent any kind of issues,” said Bell.
If you’re looking to become CPR certified, visit the American Red Cross website at redcross.org.
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| 2022-06-16T01:50:18Z
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Strong storms to follow hot afternoon
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Temperatures will peak over 100 degrees for much of Middle Georgia this afternoon and thunderstorms are likely this evening.
Today
It was a relatively pleasant morning to kick things off around Middle Georgia today. Heat indices and actual temperatures were identical this morning thanks to drier air that moved in yesterday evening and overnight. It will not stay that way, however. Excessive heat warnings are already in effect across the entire region and will remain in effect until 8:00 PM EDT. Heat indices will eclipse 105° with some spots getting over 110°. Actual highs today will be over 100° for the majority of the region. Wind will be rather calm from the east-northeast, coming in at around 5 mph.
Later this evening (5PM and later) we will see scattered storms fire up. The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has issued a Level 2 “Slight” risk for all 0f Middle Georgia in relation to these storms. There won’t be any actual organization to these storms which basically nullifies any tornado threat. Small to medium sized hail, however, will most certainly be on the table due to strong vertical updrafts. Heavy downpours could bring some strong winds in the form of downbursts as well. These storms will persist into the overnight hours.
Storm activity will likely not slow down right as the sun sets, which is a bit different than normal for this time of year. However, we should begin to see the rain taper off a bit as we head towards midnight. Rain lasting beyond that will be rather light, and all storms will be gone before sunrise tomorrow. Due to the excess moisture heat indices overnight will remain above 80° for most of the region, however spots that see little rain may drop below. Actual lows will be in the mid 70s for most of the region.
Tomorrow
It will be another hot day as highs climb into the upper 90s around the region. A couple of spots may still get up over 100°. Wind will be rather calm from the east-southeast as it comes in at 5 mph. Cloud fields will develop in the afternoon, but overall skies should remain partly sunny. Storm chances will be very isolated, however the northeastern portion of the region could see slightly more organized storm activity than the rest. Storms should also hold off until the evening hours (much like today) as well.
Storm activity will persist during the early overnight hours, but should clear ahead of midnight. Skies after that should be clear as the wind comes in from the south-southeast around 5 mph. Lows will be in the low 70s, and heat indices should be as well.
Friday and Father’s Day Weekend
Friday will be another scorcher with 50+% of Middle Georgia seeing highs over 100°. Heat indices will again mainly hover between 105° and 110°. A few scattered showers and storms look to fire up during the afternoon and evening hours as a very weak “mini cold front” passes through, but they should not persist into the night. Lows will drop into the lower 70s.
Saturday will be the same as Friday in terms of temperatures, however the wind will be a bit more breezy as it comes in from the north-northwest at 7-12 mph. Gusts could reach upwards of 20 mph. This will finally allow for some drier (and slightly cooler) air to move into the region ahead of Father’s Day on Sunday. Overnight skies will be clear as lows drop into the upper 60s and lower 70s.
Father’s Day will be the coolest day of the next 7 as highs reach the low to mid 90s. Heat indices should stay below 100° due to the drier air brought in on Saturday. Storm chances will be negligible. Overnight lows will drop into the mid to upper 60s.
Follow Meteorologist Aaron Lowery on Facebook (Aaron Lowery 41NBC) and Twitter (@ALowWX) for weather updates throughout the day. Also, you can watch his forecasts Monday through Friday on 41NBC News at Daybreak (6-7 a.m.) and 41Today (11 a.m).
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| 2022-06-16T01:50:24Z
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Pedestrians in downtown Opelousas could find the walk a little easier soon - the city received a $200,000 grant to repair the sidewalks there.
This project is set to begin in 3 to 5 months.
“We’re going to be initially addressing the surrounding of courthouse square but referencing what we are talking about today is the side section between Market and Court Street that runs along Landry,” said Mayor Julius Alsandor.
Alsandor says this project will cost between $300,000-400,000.
Chairperson for Downtown Development Lena Charles says the city wants to make downtown Opelousas walking-friendly.
To do so, the sidewalks must be repaired.
“And revitalization first comes with walkability. Those sidewalks are not foot-traffic-friendly, so to speak,” Charles said.
A construction worker who is repairing a business on Landry Street says uneven and cracked sidewalks impacts more than walkability; he says it makes it hard to move with his equipment.
“It’s made me feel really good because I’m doing some work out here and it’s kind of hard to move scaffold right on this sidewalk that’s not quite so even and all messed up and cracked up,” said Loveless Zenon.
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| 2022-06-16T05:42:08Z
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Houston County Sheriff’s Office needs your help in theft case
Investigators believe he committed a theft and Financial Card Fraud at a business on Watson Blvd.
WARNER ROBINS, Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— The Houston County Sheriff’s Office needs your help in a theft case.
Investigators believe this man in the picture below committed a theft and Financial Card Fraud at a business on Watson Blvd.
If you know who this man is, call the Houston County Sheriff’s Office at (478) 542-2125.
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| 2022-06-16T11:37:21Z
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ICYMI: Stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News
Top stories from June 15, 2022
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Professionals share tips on how to stay safe in the water this summer
- For other stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News, click here.
Professionals share tips on how to stay safe in the water this summer
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| 2022-06-16T11:37:27Z
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Macon-Bibb County demolishes old Greyhound bus station
"If we're going to instill economic development in our community, we got to make sure when people get off the interstate that it is a nice pleasant experience."
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)- As part of its continued effort to remove blighted buildings, Macon-Bibb Public Works Department and the Urban Development Authority demolished another building.
This time the county tore down the old Greyhound bus station on Spring Street.
Macon-Bibb Mayor Lester Miller, said the bus station was picked because of its location near the interstate, and the city wanted to make the space available for potential businesses.
“If we’re going to instill economic development in our community, we got to make sure when people get off the interstate that it is a nice pleasant experience for them and this old Greyhound bus station has served its time,” said Mayor Miller.
The Mayor also mentioned plans were already being developed for the empty space, but nothing could be announced until the lot undergoes further cleaning and clearing.
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| 2022-06-16T11:37:33Z
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Macon continues to be a large hub for tennis tournaments
"They just finished the adult state championship where they had probably 1,300 players here and used every available tennis court."
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Macon Area Tennis Association, in conjunction with the United States Tennis Association, hosted a tournament for 14 and under boys and girls featuring draws of 128 players each, with the best players from the southern region states.
“Players are selected off of their national ranking. And so one of our players who just played in the finals, his national ranking is 22,” said MATA’s tournament director Julie Kozyreva. “We host anywhere from level two all the way down to the lowest level, which is our entry-level tournament which is level seven. And it offers opportunities for the players to get more match play to earn those points to move up to those subsequent higher levels and then make it to the big stage.”
Not only do these tournaments help the athletes advance their careers, but with each player traveling with a coach or family, it brings an influx of revenue to the city of Macon.
“We do host all these people, and I don’t think a lot of people in Macon, at least before I got involved in tennis, I didn’t know that we have all these players from the beginner juniors all the way to the adults. They just finished the adult state championship, where they had probably 1,300 players here and used every available tennis court. And hotels sold out, restaurants you probably had longer wait time to wait for your table if you’re a local. But it’s a very important part to increase the economic base of Macon,” said Kozyreva.
But in recent years since COVID-19, the frequency of tournaments has dropped, but new technology has allowed the return of tournaments at a growing scale.
“We did have a ramp down when COVID hit, that we didn’t play any tennis. But fortunately, we had some mitigation measures put in to place where we actually instituted a virtual tournament desk so that the players didn’t have to come up to the tournament desk to check in, to report scores, to get their balls. The balls were left on the court for them, the gates were left open, so they had minimal touch points. And so that’s how we were able to re-open tennis tournaments the safest way. And so we have almost a tennis tournament every month,” said Kozyreva.
The next tournament in Macon will be held from July 29-30 for beginners 10 and under. Head to Macon Area Tennis Association or United States Tennis Association to get involved in tennis.
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| 2022-06-16T11:37:39Z
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Washington County deputies make drug bust during traffic stop
During a search of his vehicle, deputies found 1.4 pounds of methamphetamine, 6.1 pounds of marijuana, ½ pound of MDMA (X) pills, and 9 pounds of illegal tobacco.
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— Washington County Sheriff’s deputies make a drug bust during a traffic stop Tuesday morning.
(Courtesy of Washington County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page)
Deputies pulled over 25-year-old Quinton Rosemond on Breezy Hill Road. They say a subsequent investigation during the stop, revealed Rosemond had a large quantity of illegal substances.
During a search of his vehicle, deputies found 1.4 pounds of methamphetamine, 6.1 pounds of marijuana, ½ pound of MDMA (X) pills, and 9 pounds of illegal tobacco.
Rosemond is charged with Trafficking Methamphetamine, Trafficking Ecstasy, Possession of Marijuana with Intent to Distribute, Possession of Items Prohibited, and Improper Transfer of Tag.
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| 2022-06-16T11:37:45Z
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Severe weather has forced Abbott Nutrition to pause production at a Michigan baby formula factory that had just restarted after being closed for several months.
The facility is closely tied to the recent baby formula shortage.
Production for its EleCare specialty formula has been suspended, but there is enough supply to meet demand until production is restarted, the company said. The company put a priority on ramping up production of the specialty formula for infants with severe food allergies and digestive problems who have few other options for nutrition.
Abbott says it needs to assess damage and re-sanitize the factory after severe thunderstorms and heavy rains swept through southwestern Michigan late Monday. The company didn’t indicate how much damage the factory sustained.
Abbott had restarted the Sturgis, Michigan, factory on June 4 after it had been closed since February due to contamination.
The factory was closed after the Food and Drug Administration began investigating four bacterial infections among infants who consumed powdered formula from the plant. Two of the babies died. The company continues to state that its products have not been directly linked to the infections, which involved different bacterial strains.
FDA inspectors eventually uncovered a host of violations at the plant, including bacterial contamination, a leaky roof and lax safety protocols.
Abbott recalled several leading brands of formula in February, including Similac. That squeezed squeezed supplies that had already been strained by supply chain disruptions and stockpiling during COVID-19 shutdowns.
The company offered no time frame in its statement for when production will resume.
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| 2022-06-16T12:39:20Z
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A Morgan City man has been convicted of attempted murder in a May 2020 shooting.
16th Judicial District Attorney Bo Duhé said that the jury found Troy Watson guilty of attempted second-degree murder in connection with the shooting of a woman who is a relative of his.
The incident started earlier in the day, when the two were arguing and police had to come and separate them. But later that evening when the victim was in bed with her young child, Waston entered the room and shot her point blank in the forehead.
Watson allegedly admitted to shooting the victim, and also allegedly test-fired the gun beforehand to make sure it was working properly.
The victim survived, but was in the hospital for more than a month.
The sentencing range for attempted second degree murder is not less than ten nor more than fifty years at hard labor without benefit of probation, parole, or suspension of sentence.
Sentencing is set before the Honorable Keith R.J. Comeaux on August 23, 2022.
Assistant District Attorneys Craig Colwart and Brady Holtzclaw prosecuted the case.
The case was investigated by the Morgan City Police Department.
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| 2022-06-16T14:50:31Z
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At least 2,000 cattle deaths occurred in the southwestern part of Kansas as high temperatures, humidity, and low winds made it difficult for the cows to stay cool, Kansas Department of Health and Environment Communications Director, Matt Lara, told CNN.
Lara said the number of deaths is representative of the facilities that have contacted the department to assist with the disposal of carcasses.
An unusual weather event last weekend, where areas of southwestern Kansas saw a 10 to 14-degree increase in temperature and an increase in humidity almost overnight Friday into Saturday, with little wind and lows only falling to around 70 degrees throughout the night-time hours, caused heat stress issues in some cattle in the region, Scarlett Hagins with the Kansas Livestock Association told CNN.
According to Hagins, the sudden change did not allow cattle to acclimate as quickly as needed. "Heat stress is a concern this time of year and producers make every effort to mitigate the situation prior to an extreme heat event by making sure extra water is available, altering feeding schedules and rations if needed, and implementing sprinkler systems," she said.
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™ & © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.
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| 2022-06-16T17:48:48Z
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For the first time in more than two years, guests embarked on a Princess Cruise ship in Australia today. Coral Princess, which arrived in the country last week, welcomed its guests from Brisbane’s new state-of-the-art cruise terminal.
Coral Princess is only the second cruise ship to resume operations in the country. Pacific Explorer, a P&O Australia cruise ship, departed from Sydney with the destination Brisbane on May 31.
Coral Princess Resumes Operations With Two Very Special Guests
The 88,000 gross tons Coral Princess welcomed her first guests onboard in Brisbane since the global pause in operations. Sailing from the Brisbane International Cruise Terminal, the vessel is only the second cruise ship to set sail from an Australian port.
For the past nine days, the ship has been preparing for her voyage, taking on provisions and ensuring that the vessel is ready for the strict COVID-19 measures in Australia. Today, she welcomed the first guests, including two that will stay on board for the next two years.
Jessica and Marty Ansen, a couple from Brisbane, embarked on two years of back-to-back cruising today.
The Ansens have already cruised 31 times with Princess and spent 1,173 days at sea. They had been eagerly awaiting cruising’s return to indulge their love of holidaying on the high seas. From now until August 2024, the couple will sail on an incredible 53 different cruises, including two world cruises.
Jessica and Marty Ansen: “Cruising offers the ultimate holiday experience. You go onboard, you only unpack once, and you have all this amazing entertainment, exceptional food, great company and you can see the world. And, the crew deliver incredible service – that’s why we cruise.”
Cruising Has Significant Impact On Local Economy
Princess Cruises’ senior vice president for Asia Pacific, UK, and Europe, Stuart Allison, said last week the ship’s homeport season in Brisbane was set to inject an estimated AUD 60 million to the Queensland economy in crew and passenger spending, ship supplies, and port charges.
“Queensland will feature front and centre in a new winter program of sailings from Australia, which demonstrates Princess Cruises’ commitment to cruising Down Under and to the local travel agent community. Our focus on Brisbane also reflects the demand for cruise holidays among Queenslanders and the growing interest in domestic cruising.”
Coral Princess will offer guests a wide variety of cruises between July and August from the new cruise terminal. These range in length from 3-day short seacations to longer 12-day cruises along the Australian coastline.
The 91,627 gross tons Coral Princess, which has a capacity for 1970 guests, will have a short break from Brisbane between August and November. During that time the cruise ship will sail a 28-night circumnavigation of Australia. She returns to Brisbane in November, ready for the Australian summer cruise season.
Brisbane Looks Ahead To Busy Summer
The ships sailing from Brisbane now are a prelude to many ships calling to Brisbane during the Australian summer cruise season. From October onwards, the number of cruise ship calls will be increasing significantly.
Pacific Encounter, Carnival Spirit, Coral Princess, Majestic Princess, Noordam, Quantum of the Seas, Seabourn Odyssey, and Celebrity Eclipse have cruises sailing from or calling in Brisbane. While there are only five cruise ship calls in June, this number grows to an expected 22 calls in December.
The good news for guests is that the new Brisbane International Cruise Terminal has officially opened. For years, cruise ships longer than 270m had to call at the Port of Brisbane’s cargo terminals, as they were too large to turn around any further upstream. It did not provide guests with the most welcoming view of Brisbane.
As for Princess Cruises, the company will have three ships sailing in Australia this year, Coral Princess, Majestic Princess, and Grand Princess. Majestic Princess will sail on her first cruise on October 20.
Grand Princess will join the other ships in Australia on November 2, sailing from Sydney on a 2-night seacation to Melbourne.
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| 2022-06-16T18:18:10Z
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Body found in vehicle in Ocmulgee River, reports Bleckley County Sheriff’s Office
COCHRAN, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — A vehicle with a body inside was recovered from the Ocmulgee River at 8:50 a.m. Thursday morning in Bleckley County.
According to a release from the Bleckley County Sheriff’s Office, Deputies responded to Dykes Landing on the Ocmulgee in reference to a vehicle located in the river. While removing the vehicle, Deputies found what appeared to be a body inside of the vehicle.
Criminal investigations and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation are looking into the case now. Agents and Investigators were able to recover a body from the vehicle, which an autopsy will be performed on at the GBI Crime Lab.
More information will be added as it is available, stay with 41NBC for more updates.
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| 2022-06-16T19:44:57Z
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Governor Kemp announces purchase of Megasite in Peach County
(41NBC/WMGT) — Governor Brian Kemp announced the purchase of an over 1,100 acre economic development site between the state of Georgia and the Development Authority of Peach County on Thursday.
According to Kemp’s office, the Peach County Megasite is located adjacent to GA Highway 96 with immediate access to several major metro areas across the south and midwest through I-75. The site is less than 3 hours from the major port of Savannah by truck, and less than 5 hours from the port of Brunswick by rail– which also has access to the site. The site is also a 90 minute drive from the major airport in Atlanta, and 25 minutes from two regional airports.
Governor Kemp had this to say about the purchase:
“Even after announcing the two largest projects in the State’s history back-to-back, we remain focused on attracting key industries and investment by providing the project sites companies need,” and, “It is very encouraging to see a new, fully prepared megasite that will create more high-quality jobs for hardworking Georgians in rural parts of the state. Georgia’s superior infrastructure – including our robust highway system, rail lines, record-setting port, and top-ranked airport – continues to make doing business in the Peach State a competitive choice for companies around the world. I am thankful to Peach County for their partnership on this investment.”
Martin Moseley, Chairman of the Peach County Board of Commissioners, says that the megasite will put Middle Georgia on the map, and is hoping that it will position the area for a significant investment and new jobs.
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| 2022-06-16T19:45:03Z
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Storm chances drop as heat wave continues
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Relief from the heat will be harder to come by today as rain chances drop.
Today
We will see plenty of sun throughout the day today in Middle Georgia. Cloud fields will begin to populate the sky during the lunchtime hours, however today’s rain chances are nowhere close to what yesterday’s were. Our highs today will luckily be cooler; topping off in the upper 90s instead of the lower 100s. And while the Excessive Heat Warning may not be in place for today, a Heat Advisory is in effect until 8:00 PM EDT. Heat indices will still push close to 108°-109° in the hottest spots later today, however, so we are not out of the woods with the heat by any means. There also won’t be much wind today; easterly flow at 4-9 mph will do little to help cool things down.
In terms of storm chances later today, our only opportunities will be a couple of small, isolated storms. Nothing widespread or organized is expected this afternoon, so 90% of Middle Georgia will not see rain. There is no risk for severe weather this afternoon or evening either.
The odds that one of the isolated storms this afternoon persist into tonight is slim but not zero. Once that clears out we will be left with partly cloudy skies until about midnight and then mostly clear from then on. Lows will mainly be in the lower 70s as the winds shift to the south-southeast at 4-8 mph.
Tomorrow
We will be heating up again tomorrow as temperatures will return the triple digits for about half of the region during the afternoon. Heat indices will obviously continue to be in the triple digits with a handful of spots seeing feels like temperatures of 110°+ tomorrow. Luckily our rain chances will escalate in the afternoon and evening as a weak cold front approaches the region. It will bring scattered storms through the evening and overnight hours, shifting the winds to a more westerly flow as it passes through.
Storms could persist into the overnight hours depending on how fast the cold front is moving, however activity should slow after midnight. We will begin to see drier air make its way in as the wind shifts towards the west-northwest at 5-10 mph. Lows will drop into the 70s overnight; how low they get will depend on the timing of the cold front and when the rain stops. The longer the rain persists, the warmer the lows will be.
The Weekend
Saturday will be a relatively pleasant day despite the weather models disagreement on potential high temperatures for the day. Given the fact that the wind will be rather breezy from the north-northwest (10-15 mph gusts 20+), the models calling for highs over 100 will likely be wrong. The north-northwest winds will be bringing in cooler and drier air to the region. Highs around Middle Georgia should mainly be in the mid to upper 90s. Cloud cover will be a bit reduced from the past couple of days as well, making for plenty of sun in the afternoon. Overnight we should see lows return to the upper 60s across the board.
Father’s Day will be the most pleasant day of the next 7 with highs in the low to mid 90s. Storm chances are negligible and cloud cover will likely be at its lowest for the week. Winds will still be somewhat breezy from the northeast at 7-12 mph, adding a cool breeze to help with the heat as well. Humidity will also be down as a result of the drier air that moved in Saturday. Lows will be in the low to mid 60s, bringing on the coolest night in about two weeks.
Follow Meteorologist Aaron Lowery on Facebook (Aaron Lowery 41NBC) and Twitter (@ALowWX) for weather updates throughout the day. Also, you can watch his forecasts Monday through Friday on 41NBC News at Daybreak (6-7 a.m.) and 41Today (11 a.m).
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| 2022-06-16T19:45:09Z
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TRANSYLVANIA CO., NC (WSPA) – Emergency crews are responding to a small plane crash Thursday evening in Transylvania County.
The crash happened in the area of Morgan Mill Road, according to Transylvania County Emergency Management.
The Rosman Fire Department responded to the scene.
The former chief of the Transylvania County Rescue Squad told 7News that at least two people on board were injured and are being flown to hospitals in South Carolina.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
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| 2022-06-17T00:54:41Z
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Alexander IV School building serves a new purpose
“I'm from Macon and it means a lot to me just to see this building restored.”
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)— The 90-year-old building that used to house Alexander School Number IV, found a new purpose. It’s now called Alexander IV Senior Living.
“I’m from Macon and it means a lot to me just to see this building restored,” said Quinton Jones, Executive director for the facility.
Jones says for years, he wondered what the building was going to become, and he’s excited to be a part of the next phase of history for the building.
“To see the transformation, if you ever saw the building beforehand, it’s shocking to see how something that looked like that could turn into this. So we anticipate this building to be here for many years to come to serve many seniors,” he said.
The building was on Historic Macon’s first Fading Five list in 2015. The Macon-Bibb County Land Bank Authority bought the building in 2016, with blight bond funds Macon-Bibb Commissioner Mallory Jones designated for the project. Jones says he’s grateful the building found a new use.
“It could have been something else but I’m glad it’s this,” Commissioner Jones said. “Because it’s a complement and it’s not a big bustling commercial thing that’s going to interrupt the neighborhood. It’s a complement to the neighborhood.”
Rick Dover is the President of Dover Signature Properties, which helped redevelop the property. Dover says when he first saw the building, he had to help preserve its beauty.
“I think when you look at buildings that are on the Fading Five, they’re there for a reason,” Dover said. “They’re there because they’re significant to the history, and the story of the city. I think this is a great example of that and we’re thrilled with how it turned out.”
According to the Executive Director for the facility, they had multiple inquiries before opening in March. As of right now, there are 20 residents living in the facility and more expecting to move in soon.
The assisted living facility has room for up to 73 residents.
Historic Macon is looking for nominations for the 2022 Fading Five list. The nomination deadline is June 30th. You can go to their website for more information.
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| 2022-06-17T02:29:58Z
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Flint Energies offers tips to save on energy bill
The most energy consuming factor is your AC unit, and recommends cleaning it and changing the filter.
WARNER ROBINS. Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— As temperatures increase across Middle Georgia, your energy bill is too. For many Flint Energies customers, they’re feeling the heat of a high energy bill.
“Oh my God it’s been awful, you know it goes from about a month ago, it went from like 200 to almost 500, so it’s rough,” said Dawn Endresen.
Endresen is one of many Flint Energies customers looking for ways to lower the amount of energy her family uses.
“We’re trying to limit the kids from going in and out we’ve put stuff up on the windows.”
Flint Energies says it’s important to keep your thermostat on, and remember to set it to 78 degrees. When you’re not in a room, lights should always be off.
“One benefit that I think is really important is use you’re ceiling fan, that ceiling fan will make you feel about 2 degrees cooler,” said Rod Green.
Green is the Energy Services Manager for Flint Energies. He says the most energy consuming factor is your AC unit, and recommends cleaning it and changing the filter.
“You’re filters are very important it’s basically like the lungs of your system.”
He also recommends using your washer and dryer at night to preserve more energy.
Although the summer like temperatures came sooner than expected, Endresen says she wants other families to also be prepared.
“Right now it’s going to sky rocket, it’s going to be really really high and if it was me, like I said I put stuff up over the windows.”
For more tips on how to save energy click here.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:04Z
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Houston County seniors enjoy a day of carnival games
The carnival began in 2021 as a way to get seniors active.
WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)- Warner Robins Parks and Recreation held its second annual Senior Summer Carnival.
The carnival began in 2021 as a way to get seniors active. After a warm reception, Warner Robins Park and Rec decided to make it an annual event.
“I can come out I can socialize and mingle with people and also it’s just good to get out the house sometimes,” said Warner Robins resident Linda Holmes.
The carnival, held inside the Wellston Center, had many games like ring toss, mini golf, cornhole and a dunk tank.
Senior Recreations Specialists, Lisa Jones, said this carnival is just one way they show appreciation for seniors.
“Staying active is the most important thing and keeping our seniors active because staying at home and not doing anything is not good,” said Jones.
The carnival lasted for three hours. Seniors were able to play any game with a punch card, and were treated to lunch.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:10Z
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North Central Health District reports increase in Covid-19 cases
Houston County is at the top of the list experiencing the highest increase in cases.
MACON, Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— Covid-19 cases in Middle Georgia are increasing, but not hospitalizations.
The North Central Health District is reporting all 13 of its counties are experiencing high levels of Covid-19 transmissions.
Houston County is at the top of the list experiencing the highest increase in cases.
Michael Hokanson, Public Information Officer for the NCHD, says this is a reminder to everyone Covid-19 is still present.
“We’re not seeing those sever outcomes in as many cases which is definitely a good sign, of course we definitely still want to encourage people to take the precautions that they should be taking, especially as we get into summer where people are traveling attending and activities around summer,” said Hokanson.
All 13 health departments are still offering Covid-19 testing and vaccinations.
To make an appointment, click here.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:16Z
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Perry man sentenced for killing his mom, stepdad in 2020
Shoffner was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences with a further ten years of prison time on the knife charges to follow the life sentences.
HOUSTON COUNTY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – A man convicted of killing two people in Perry was sentenced Thursday.
27-year-old Anthony Shoffner Jr., was found guilty of two counts of Malice Murder, two counts of Felony Murder, two counts of Aggravated Assault, and two counts of Possession of a Knife During the Commission of a Felony.
Shoffner was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences with a further ten years of prison time on the knife charges to follow the life sentences. The consecutive life sentences are to be served without the possibility of parole.
According to evidence presented during the 4-day trial, Shoffner, who was living with the Griffin’s, stabbed Rebecca and Kenneth multiple times with a large kitchen chef’s knife.
Testimony established Rebecca suffered 18 sharp force injuries and four stab wounds, including to her neck, upper chest, and the inside of her mouth. Kenneth suffered
23 sharp force injuries with 16 stab wounds, including multiple stab wounds to each side of his neck.
Shoffer was also convicted on charges of attacking a maintenance man with a baseball bat at the Timberwood Apartment complex where Shoffner was living.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:22Z
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Strong storms and intense heat possible Friday
It was another day of record heat in Macon with highs once again reaching 100°.
Tomorrow will be another hot day with highs in the 100s and heat index values over 105°.
A Heat Advisory has been issued for Middle Georgia Friday from 11am-8pm.
Make sure you are staying cool and hydrated Friday as thing start to heat up.
We will be dealing with the same oppressive heat and humidity through most of the day after starting with clear skies.
By late afternoon and evening we will be monitoring a cold front approaching the area.
This front will provide some of the lift needed for showers and storms to begin popping up.
Timing for these storms will be mainly after 3pm.
Once again we will see a chance for severe storms during the afternoon and evening.
Main threats with storms that pop up Friday will be damaging wind gusts, hail, heavy rain, and frequent lightning.
As the cold front moves through the area during the day Saturday, it will bring some drier air and a slight cool down by Sunday.
This front will also be bringing an end to our rain chances through most of next week.
As the dry air settles in on Sunday, our heat index values will actually fall below the actual temperature.
The relief from the intense heat will be short as the upper level high pressure moves back in for next week.
High temps will be warming into the 100s and we can expect more dangerous heat index values as well.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:28Z
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Two people found dead during welfare check at Warner Robins home
WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Warner Robins Police Department was performing a welfare check at 300 Orchard Way Thursday afternoon when officers discovered two deceased people inside the home.
According to WRPD, officers were dispatched after family members requested a welfare check. Officers forced their way into the home to find two elderly female residents deceased, with the manner of death not being determined due to advanced decomposition.
More information will be provided as the investigation continues, stay with 41NBC for updates.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:34Z
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UPDATE: Jury sentences Dubose to death
UPDATE (06/16/2022) — T. Wright Barksdale III, the District Attorney for Jones County and the Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit tells 41NBC that the jury sentenced Ricky Dubose to death Thursday afternoon.
EATONTON, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia prisoner has been found guilty of murder in the killings of two guards during an escape from a prison bus five years ago. A jury deliberated about 90 minutes Monday evening before convicting Ricky Dubose in the June 2017 shooting deaths of Sgt. Christopher Monica and Sgt. Curtis Billue. Now jurors will have to decide whether he should be sentenced to die for the killings. Dubose and Donnie Rowe escaped together and were arrested in Tennessee days later. Rowe was convicted last year of murder in the guards’ death and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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| 2022-06-17T02:30:40Z
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BRESCIA, Italy (AP) — Fine Italian knitwear packed in boxes addressed to retailers in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kursk sit stacked in a Lombardy warehouse awaiting dispatch. Although not subject to sanctions to punish Russia for invading Ukraine, the garments are not likely to ship any time soon.
Missing payments from the Russian retailers who ordered the garments are piling up due to restrictions tied to the banking sector, putting pressure on small fashion producers like D. Exterior, a high-end knitwear company with 50 workers in the northern city of Brescia.
“This is very painful. I have 2 million euros worth of merchandise in the warehouse, and if they cannot pay for it, I will be on my knees,” said D. Exterior owner Nadia Zanola, surveying the warehouse for the brand she founded in 1997 from the knitwear company created by her parents in 1952.
Italy is the largest producer of global luxury goods in the world, making 40% of high-end apparel, footwear and accessories. While Russia generates just about 3% of Italian luxury’s 97 billion euros ($101 billion) in annual revenue, it is a significant slice of business for some of the 80,000 small and medium companies that make up the backbone of Italian fashion, according to industry officials.
“We are talking about eliminating 80% to 100% of revenues for these companies,’’ said Fabio Pietrella, president of the Confartigianato fashion craftsman federation.
Districts producing footwear in the Marche and Veneto regions, and knitwear makers in Umbria and Emilia-Romagna have grown particularly reliant on Russia.
“These are districts that connect the supply chain, and if it is interrupted, not only is the company that closes harmed, but an entire system that help make this country an economic powerhouse,’’ Pietrella said.
The Italian fashion world is best known for luxury houses like Gucci, Versace and Armani, which unveil their menswear collections in Milan this week. And some of the biggest names appear on a list compiled by Yale University professor Jeffrey Sonnenberg of major companies doing business in Russia since the war in Ukraine began.
“There are companies that kept selling to Nazi Germany after the outbreak of World War II — we don’t celebrate them for that,” Sonnenberg said, labeling as “greedy” any enterprise that continues to do business in Russia today.
He also underlined that fashion companies don’t have the grounds to make humanitarian appeals to bypass sanctions, voluntary or otherwise, as has been the case with agricultural firms and pharmaceutical companies.
Among those receiving a failing grade from Sonnenberg is Italy’s Benetton, which in a statement condemned the war but said it would continue its commercial activities in Russia, including longstanding commercial and logistic partnerships and a network of stores that sustain 600 families.
French conglomerate LVMH, meanwhile, has temporarily closed 124 stores in Russia, while continuing to pay its 3,500 employees in Russia. The Spanish group Inditex, which owns the fast-fashion chain Zara, also temporarily closed 502 stores in Russia as well as its online sales, accounting for 8.5% of group pre-tax earnings.
Pietrella fears a sort of Russia-phobia is taking hold that is demonizing business owners for trying to keep up ties with a longer-term vision.
He characterized as a “witch-hunt” criticism of some 40 shoe producers from the Marche region on Italy’s Adriatic coast for traveling to Russia for a trade fair during the war.
European Union sanctions against Russia sharpened after the Ukraine invasion, setting a 300-euro wholesale maximum for each item shipped, taking super-luxury items out of circulation but still targeting the upper-middle class or wealthy Russians.
“Without a doubt, we as the fashion federation have expressed our extreme concern over the aggression in Ukraine,’’ Pietrella said. “From an ethical point of view, it is out of discussion. But we have to think of our companies. Ethics are one thing. The market is another. Workers in a company are paid by the market, not by ethics.”
He said the 300-euro limit on sales was a gambit by European politicians that on paper allows trade with Russia despite accompanying bureaucratic and financial hurdles, while also shielding governments from having to provide bailout funds to the industry. He also dismissed as overly facile government suggestions to find alternative markets to Russia.
“If there was another market, we would be there already,’’ Pietrella said.
At D. Exterior, exposure to Russia grew gradually over the years to now represent 35% to 40% of revenue that hit 22 million euros before the pandemic, a stream that is also under new pressure from higher energy and raw material costs.
The company was already delivering its summer collection and taking orders for winter when Russia invaded on Feb. 24. By March, Russian retailers were having trouble making payments.
Not only is Zanola stuck with some 4,000 spring and summer garments that she has little hope of shipping to Russian clients, she said she was contractually required to keep producing the winter orders, risking 100,000 euros in labor and materials costs if those are unable to ship.
Over the years, her Russian clients have proven to be ideal customers, Zanola said. Not only do they pay on time, but they are appreciative of the workmanship in D. Exterior’s knitwear creations.
After working so hard to build up her Russian customer base, she is loathe to give it up and doesn’t see a quick long-term replacement.
“If Russia were Putin, I wouldn’t go there. But since Russia is not only Putin, one hopes that the poor Russians manage to raise themselves up,” she said.
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AP reporter Ciaran Giles contributed from Madrid.
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| 2022-06-17T07:38:33Z
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Former Bibb County Sergeant appeals firing for violating conduct
The report also says she was hungry and had to use the restroom. She says she urinated in a trash bag, tied it up and left it inside the trash can.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)— A former Sergeant is appealing his termination from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, after an internal investigation found him to be at fault for leaving a 14-year-old, who was seven months pregnant at the time, inside of an interrogation room for nearly 24 hours.
According to a report we obtained from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office, two investigators brought the teenage girl and her boyfriend to the Sheriff’s Office Downtown Annex on March 24 at 9:30 a.m.
Her boyfriend was a person of interest in a murder that Omar Sanders was investigating. Sanders claims another deputy retrieved the girl from the interrogation room so he could ask her a few questions, but said he didn’t need her for questioning in the investigation.
Sanders says he tried to contact the girl’s mother and grandmother, but was unsuccessful. Sanders also said he told another deputy she was free to leave.
The report states that he was in and out of the office that day, but thought she left by mid afternoon on March 24. It also states the girl says she knocked on the door every time she heard someone in the hallway.
“Didn’t nobody come there, I ain’t get checked up on. I was talking to the little camera; I don’t know if it was on. I was asking them can I call my momma again. Can I use the restroom? I’m hungry. I was telling them I ain’t fed my baby ever since Thursday, well Wednesday. I been here ever since Thursday morning and I was like I’m hungry, I’m ready to go. I had a meltdown like 3 to 4 times.”
She said she remained calm because she could hear her boyfriend in the next room. She says she heard people saying it was time to go, and then knocked on the door but no one responded.
The report also says she was hungry and had to use the restroom. She says she urinated in a trash bag, tied it up and left it inside the trash can. The girl was in the interrogation room overnight.
She used a chair to try and break down the door, but was unsuccessful, At one point she fell asleep on the floor. When she woke up, she noticed wood was chipping off the door. She then pulled on the wood to create a hole to open the door from the outside.
After getting out of the room, she left the building out of a side door and walked to her cousin’s house on Houston Avenue and Cleveland Street in Macon.
The girl’s mother, Shibrill Blount, apparently showed a text from the day in question to the internal investigator that came from the girl’s cousin. The text message said her daughter showed up to her home at 7 a.m. on March 25.
Video surveillance shows her walking through the parking lot of the Sheriff’s Office Downtown Annex at 7 a.m. on March 25.
We received the termination letter for Sanders. Itstates he violated multiple rules of conduct for the Sheriff’s Office during this incident.
The Sheriff’s Office declined our request for an interview since the situation is going through the appeals process.
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| 2022-06-17T08:17:32Z
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ICYMI: Stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News
Top stories from June 16, 2022
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Former Bibb County Sergeant appeals firing for violating conduct
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North Central Health District reports increase in Covid-19 cases
- For other stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News, click here.
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Jeremy Hunt, Chris West make final public appearance ahead of Tuesday runoff, former opponent files lawsuit
The two candidates vying for the Republican nomination for Georgia's Second Congressional District seat made a final public appearance Thursday ahead of Tuesday's runoff election day. One of their former opponents was there, too.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The two candidates vying for the Republican nomination for Georgia’s Second Congressional District seat made a final public appearance Thursday ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election day.
One of their former opponents was there, too.
Jeremy Hunt and Chris West received the most votes in the May 24 primary, followed by Macon businessman and former Trump administration senior official Wayne Johnson.
Less than three hours before Thursday’s monthly Bibb County GOP meeting, held at Pine Forest Baptist Church on Tucker Road, Johnson filed a civil racketeering lawsuit against Hunt, Fox News and Fox News host Brian Kilmeade.
Johnson says Fox News allowed Hunt an unfair amount of air time leading up to the May 24 primary, which led to increased campaign contributions. The lawsuit claims Hunt, the network and Kilmeade colluded to provide nearly $3 million worth of “free airtime” to Hunt to help ensure his selection as the Republican nominee in the Second Congressional District.
“As a candidate seeking to be the Republican nominee for the 2nd District, I witnessed firsthand the extent to which Washington DC political operatives, along with Fox News, have undertaken to steal our congressional representation,” Johnson said in a statement. “We also include in the filed complaint various actions we believe have been undertaken by U.S. Senator Tom Cotton in fostering unlawful political fundraising.”
While speaking at Thursday’s Bibb County GOP meeting, Hunt accused Johnson and West of conspiring to file the suit because they finished behind him in the May 24 primary. West said he had nothing to do with the suit. Hunt then asked him to condemn it.
That’s when Johnson spoke up from the back of the room.
“I am the one that sued you,” he said. “Not Chris West. I sued you and Fox for fraud, and you can go read the lawsuit.”
“So now we’re going to GOP meetings and having Republicans suing other Republicans?” Hunt asked. “We don’t have time for these games.”
We spoke with Hunt after the meeting.
“It’s just ridiculous that we have Republicans suing other Republicans because they came in third place,” he said. “Wayne Johnson has lost two elections. Now he’s trying to file a lawsuit against me. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous. I think it’s dirty, low, sore loser politics.”
West didn’t join Johnson in filing the lawsuit, but he has raised concerns about Hunt’s candidacy.
“I found that he lived in New Haven, Connecticut early this year,” he said. “So I thought he was a little dishonest with the people here tonight in not saying that he’d been living in New Haven, Connecticut the last couple years and just rented an apartment in Columbus (Georgia) earlier this year solely for the purpose of running for this seat.”
Hunt called that accusation a lie.
“I’m a lifelong Georgian,” he said. “A sixth generation Georgian. My grandmother was born here in Georgia. Her grandparents were freed slaves literally in south Georgia, and my grandmother, just two generations from slavery, went to Fort Valley State University, said, ‘I’m not a victim; I’m going to get my education.'”
West maintains he’s lived and worked in the district his entire life and that he’s the only man who can beat Democrat Sanford Bishop this fall. Bishop has held the seat for 30 years.
“I’ve created a lot of jobs through our company in this district,” he said. “I serve in the military at Robins Air Force Base as an officer in Georgia’s Air National Guard. I love these people. The community here, this is where I’ve grown up and where I live, and I think the way we beat Sanford Bishop is somebody who’s from here, who understands agriculture, and who’s going to be able to win these ag voters that have been reliably voting for Sanford Bishop, and I can do that.”
Election day is Tuesday, June 21.
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| 2022-06-17T08:17:45Z
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Macon Bacon defeat the Savanah Bananas for the first time this season
A nine-run seventh inning propelled the Bacon to a 14-6 victory.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — The Macon Bacon looked to defeat their rivals, the Savannah Bananas, for the first time this season after losing six straight.
The Bananas scored first in the top of the second, but the Bacon took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the frame.
Bananas retied the game at three in the top of the fourth, but once again, the Bacon took a two-run lead at the end of the frame.
Savannah would score three runs in the top of the fifth to take a 6-5 lead.
But in the bottom of the seventh, the Bacon scored nine runs and won their first matchup of the season against their rivals 14-6.
The Bacon are .500 on the season and are back in action tomorrow against the Florence Flamingos.
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| 2022-06-17T08:17:51Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic and Republican senators are at odds over how to keep firearms from dangerous people.
Bargainers are struggling to finalize details of a gun violence compromise in time for their self-imposed deadline of holding votes in Congress next week.
Lawmakers said Thursday they remained divided over how to define abusive dating partners so they could be legally barred from purchasing firearms.
Disagreements were also unresolved over proposals to send money to states that have “red flag” laws that let authorities temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed dangerous by courts, and to other states for their own violence prevention programs.
Sen. John Cornyn warned that the disagreements could sink a bipartisan bill.
"Indecision and delay jeopardize the likelihood of a bill because you can’t write what is undecided and without a bill there is nothing to vote on," the Republican from Texas tweeted.
However, he added that both sides are still talking.
Senate Majority Leader said he would like to vote on a bill next week.
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| 2022-06-17T16:23:42Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic and Republican senators are at odds over how to keep firearms from dangerous people.
Bargainers are struggling to finalize details of a gun violence compromise in time for their self-imposed deadline of holding votes in Congress next week.
Lawmakers said Thursday they remained divided over how to define abusive dating partners so they could be legally barred from purchasing firearms.
Disagreements were also unresolved over proposals to send money to states that have “red flag” laws that let authorities temporarily confiscate guns from people deemed dangerous by courts, and to other states for their own violence prevention programs.
Sen. John Cornyn warned that the disagreements could sink a bipartisan bill.
"Indecision and delay jeopardize the likelihood of a bill because you can’t write what is undecided and without a bill there is nothing to vote on," the Republican from Texas tweeted.
However, he added that both sides are still talking.
Senate Majority Leader said he would like to vote on a bill next week.
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| 2022-06-17T16:41:26Z
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Obi will announce running mate ― LP
Chairman, Labour Party (LP) Barr. Julius Abure has said the candidate for the Vice President slot has been submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in compliance with the electoral timetable.
Abure said the Party would cede the privilege of public announcement o the candidate to the Presidential Candidate, Mr Peter Obi. The Chairman of the party said this to our correspondent, at his office in Abuja.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had in its guidelines published that names of candidates from primaries of political parties must be submitted to the Commission no later than 6 pm, Friday.
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had in a recent media address said “For State elections (Governorship/Deputy Governorship and State Houses of Assembly), the list of candidates shall be uploaded from July 1 to July 15, as already provided in the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2023 General Election already released by the Commission.
“All political parties are required to upload the details of their candidates for each constituency to the INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP).
“All nominations must be uploaded to the portal on/or before the deadlines. The portal will automatically shut down at 6 p.m on Friday (June 17) for national elections and 6 p.m on Friday.”
YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
Revealed! Details Of South-West APC Leaders Meeting With Presidential Aspirants
MORE revelations have emerged about Friday’s meeting held by South-West leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with aspirants from the zone, whose main objective, was on how to avert a crisis that will create a fractured party as it prepares for primary on May 30 and 31, Sunday Tribune has reliably gathered…Obi will announce running mate ― LP
Supreme Court Has Cleared Civil Servants To Participate In Politics, Falana Tells FG
NIGERIAN workers are constitutionally-free to participate in politics, lawyer, Mr Femi Falana has said. He was responding to the warning from the central government to civil servants to stay off politics…Obi will announce running mate ― LP
Battle For New Alaafin Begins As Ruling Houses Insist On Producing Next Oba
SUCCESSION battle for the throne of Alaafin of Oyo has begun in earnest in Oyo kingdom, as interested ruling families have picked up the gauntlet to produce the successor to the late Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III…Obi will announce running mate ― LP
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Father’s Day Luau returns to Macon this weekend
The event is happening on Father's Day at Lake Tobesofkee
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Father’s Day Luau is making a return to Lake Tobesofkee in Macon.
The event is happening on Father’s Day, Sunday June 19th from 8:00am to 8:00pm at Sandy Beach. The address is 6880 Moseley Dixon Road in Macon.
Organizers, Sipp’s Entertainment, say there will be live musical acts, including Just Friends Show Band, Ladies of Interchange, Tony Terry and Mark Lockett. AJ the DJ will serve as emcee.
Tickets are $20 at the gate, and kids 10 and under are $10.
Sipp’s Entertainment says this is a family event and the perfect time to reunite with loved ones.
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| 2022-06-17T20:28:17Z
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Milledgeville community holding weekend event to address youth violence
The “Leaders Against Violence (Youth Pull-Up)” event on June 18th
MILLEDGEVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Church and community leaders in Milledgeville want to help curb youth violence with a weekend event.
The organization “One Up” is hosting the “Leaders Against Violence (Youth Pull-Up)” event on June 18th, from 9am-3pm. The event will be held at Central Georgia Technical College in Baldwin County.
Young people ages 10 to 18 are invited. The event includes entertainers, guest speakers and classes. Topics include hygiene, relationships, sex education, grief, teenage drinking and driving, substance abuse and anger management.
For more information, contact One-Up at the information below:
- Robert Knight @478-808-1450
- Sara Lundy @478-451-7875
- Email oneupoutreach@gmail.com
To register for this event, please use the QR code on the poster or send a text to 478-808-1450 for a registration link.
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| 2022-06-17T20:28:23Z
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SOUTHWEST HARBOR — The Cooper siblings – violinist Thomas and soprano Sarah Joyce – bring classical music to the Wendell Gilley Museum for a special concert in the main gallery on Friday, June 24 at 7 p.m. Surrounded by the carvings of Wendell Gilley and Hank Tyler, the photos of David Speiser, and original paintings by David Sibley, they will perform selections from Louis Beydts’ “Chansons pour les oiseaux” (Songs for the Birds) as part of a wide-ranging repertoire. No fee to attend, but reservations are required at http://www.wendedllgilleymuseum.org/events. The concert also will be livecast.
They will be joined by three members of the Fermata Chamber Soloists, a Boston-based nonprofit organization co-founded by Mr. Cooper that is intent on changing the culture of classical music with experiential, community-oriented events that are fun, intense and informal while retaining the highest level of artistry. In addition to Mr. Cooper they include: cellist Alex Fowler; violist Daniel Orsen; and violinist Jessica Tsang.
Ms. Cooper has been hailed for her “meltingly beautiful” soprano by Opera News. Based in Boston, she performs throughout the United States. Most recently she has performed with Syracuse Opera as Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola and with Tri-Cities Opera as Sally in the new opera Stone Soup, by Joe Illick. This fall she will appear with Opera Ithaca as Anna in a film version of Verdi’s Nabucco and as the Little Zegner daughter in Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up. She is also slated to appear with the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra in a performance of Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
Mr. Cooper has established himself as one of the most dynamic young musicians and leaders of his generation. A three-time winner of New England Conservatory’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship award, he has been hailed as a “stop in your tracks stunner” as a violinist whose playing is “delightfully spirited [with a] rich tone.” As an orchestral player, Cooper is concertmaster of the Du Bois Orchestra of Harvard, a group dedicated to performing works by historically marginalized composers. Additionally, he performs with the Boston Philharmonic, Portland’s Palaver Strings, and the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra. And as a soloist, he has appeared with American orchestras including the Colorado College Festival Orchestra, the Coeur D’Alene Symphony Orchestra, the Credo Baroque Orchestra, the Du Bois Orchestra of Harvard, and the Middlesex Chamber Orchestra among others.
Mr. Fowler, a cellist, has performed with the Community Performances and Partnerships Program as a Musical Storytelling Fellow and as a chamber musician with Boston Symphony Orchestra Prelude Concerts. He is the recipient of the 2019 John Cage Award for Contemporary Performance and the 2020 Spark Award. He currently performs with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and as principal cellist with the DuBois Orchestra.
Mr. Orsen is a violist with a keen interest in culture and intellectual history, currently manifesting itself in “Wagner’s Nightmare” – a year-long exploration of Richard Wagner which will culminate in an album of music “that Wagner would not like,” says Mr. Orsen. “Wagner’s Nightmare” is Daniel’s second collaboration with pianist Pierre-Nicolas Colombat, after their debut recording of Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata. He founded and for two years directed Jamaica Plain Chamber Music, and performs regularly at chamber festivals such as Krzyzowa Music, Taos, Ravinia, and Verbier. He has performed alongside luminaries such as Itzhak Perlman, Eckart Runge, and the Jasper String Quartet. As a soloist he has performed with the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra and Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Ms. Tsang is a Chinese-Canadian violinist born in Hong Kong, and developed a passion for classical music growing up in Toronto. She performs regularly as a soloist, orchestral player, and chamber musician in Italy, China, Canada, and the United States. She is the founding performer of a social platform for musicians called Sparkgig.
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| 2022-06-17T22:29:59Z
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VERESNYA, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian farmer was living a quiet life with the quietest of creatures: snails that she raises for export. Then, skies on the horizon turned flaming red. Russia had launched its invasion and nearby towns were burning.
Olena Avramenko’s village of Veresnya, northwest of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, was quickly occupied by Russian forces. But her snails were too precious to leave.
So she stayed, sheltering in her basement and cooking meals of snails — snail ravioli, fried snails, snails with garlic butter — for herself and the eight other people she took in.
The war’s disruption to exports of grain and other crops from Ukraine that feed the world has captured global attention and sent bread prices soaring across the world. But the production of other, more niche foodstuffs has also been impacted.
Before the war threw Ukrainian life and its economy into a tailspin, farmers and artisans in the country were successfully trying their hands not just with snails but also with oysters, edible frogs, vegetable-based milks, craft beers, cheeses and other products for European markets.
Avramenko and her son, Anton, turned to snail farming five years ago. He sold everything to invest in the business, which at the time was seen as a risky, exotic business in Ukraine. For them, it was an adventure, something new to learn. They exported the snails to Spanish restaurants and Avramenko realized she had found her calling.
“I stayed to protect our farm and home,” she said. “If I hadn’t done it, nothing would have been left.”
In France, where snails are eaten piping hot with oozing garlic butter or mixed into pates, importers had noticed Ukrainian snails making inroads into the market. Exports to the European Union of raw Ukrainian snails more than doubled between 2017 and 2021, from 347 tons to 844 tons.
“But this number could be underestimated,” said Pierre Commere of the French agro-industry group Adepale. “For several years now there has been a long-running crisis in the snail industry. It has become more and more difficult to find snails and prices are rising.”
During the Russian occupation of her village, Avramenko found another calling: taking her mind off the war by dreaming up new recipes for snails when peace returned.
Her son, luckily, was not in Veresnya when the Russian invasion started on Feb. 24 and he couldn’t immediately get back. But Russian soldiers didn’t seem interested in their snails. They did come searching for fuel, smashing a window and asking Avramenko for her keys.
She gently scolded them for breaking and entering. One of them asked her to forgive him.
Russian forces pulled out of Veresnya at the end of March, part of a general withdrawal from the north and around Kyiv to head out for a massive Russian offensive on Ukraine’s east and south, where the fighting still rages. Many villages in the Kyiv area were littered with bodies and international experts are working there to document suspected war crimes.
Her son called the day after the Russian pullout and said they’d get straight back to work. He said because the war delayed the start of the snail-rearing season, their business will at best only break even this year. But he didn’t want their seasonal workers to have no income. And a return to the slow pace of snail farming, he felt, will do everyone some good.
“I was somewhere between fear and collapse when he said that,” Avramenko said. “But it was the right thing to do. You need to do something to overcome the state of shock. If not, you can easily lose your mind.”
___
AP journalist John Leicester in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Jade Le Deley in Paris contributed.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the Ukraine war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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| 2022-06-18T01:53:32Z
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a Trump administration finding that the active ingredient in the weed killer Roundup does not pose a serious health risk and is “not likely” to cause cancer in humans.
The California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to reexamine its 2020 finding that glyphosate did not pose a health risk for people exposed to it by any means — on farms, yards or roadsides or as residue left on food crops.
Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world. Pharmaceutical giant Bayer, which acquired the herbicide’s original producer Monsanto in 2018, is facing thousands of claims from people who say Roundup exposure caused their cancer.
Roundup will remain available for sale. According to an agency spokesman, EPA officials are reviewing the 54-page ruling “and will decide next steps.″ The Supreme Court is also considering whether to hear an appeal from Bayer that could shut down thousands of lawsuits on the cancer claims.
Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Michelle Friedland said EPA’s finding of no risk to human health “was not supported by substantial evidence.” She also ruled that EPA fell short of its obligations under the Endangered Species Act by inadequately examining glyphosate’s impact on animal species and vegetation.
Legal critics said EPA “shirked its duties under the Endangered Species Act. We agree and remand to the agency for further consideration,″ wrote Friedland, a nominee of former President Barack Obama.
The Center for Food Safety, one of the groups that challenged the decision, called Friday’s ruling “a historic victory for farmworkers and the environment.”
The decision “gives voice to those who suffer from glyphosate’s cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” said Amy van Saun, senior attorney with the center.
“EPA’s ‘no cancer’ risk conclusion did not stand up to scrutiny,” she said. “The court agreed that EPA needed to ensure the safety of endangered species before greenlighting glyphosate.”
While EPA has said it has not found evidence of cancer risk f rom glyphosate, California and other states have listed it as a cancer risk and local governments across the country have restricted its use. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified the chemical as “probably carcinogenic.”
Bayer announced last year it is removing glyphosate from the U.S. residential lawn-and-garden marketplace, effective as early as 2023.
Bayer said in a statement Friday night that EPA’s 2020 conclusion “was based on a rigorous assessment of the extensive body of science spanning more than 40 years.” The company believes that EPA “will continue to conclude, as it and other regulators have consistently concluded for more than four decades, that glyphosate-based herbicides can be used safely and are not carcinogenic,” the statement said.
Last year, Bayer set aside $4.5 billion to deal with the claims that glyphosate causes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of cancer. The company had previously taken a charge of nearly $10 billion for earlier rounds of litigation.
“EPA’s failure to act on the science, as detailed in the litigation, has real-world adverse health consequences for farmworkers, the public and ecosystems,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a plaintiff in the case. “Because of this lawsuit, the agency’s obstruction of the regulatory process will not be allowed to stand.”
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| 2022-06-18T01:54:01Z
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TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that the government is not liable for the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, dismissing thousands of evacuees’ demands that the state, not just the utility, pay compensation for damage to their lives.
The ruling was the first by the top court on government responsibility for the Fukushima disaster in four compensation lawsuits filed by about 3,700 Fukushima residents.
The four-judge bench headed by Hiroyuki Kanno said the government cannot be held liable because the damage from a massive tsunami that hit the plant could not have been prevented even if the industry minister had used his regulatory authority and ordered the utility to enhance a seawall based on a tsunami estimate at that time.
The ruling, which reversed three of the four high-court decisions that declared the government responsible, could affect about 30 similar lawsuits pending across the country.
Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant melted after a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit on March 11, 2011, releasing massive amounts of radiation in the area and displacing more than 160,000 people at one point.
The plaintiffs in the four lawsuits, many of whom are still displaced in and outside of Fukushima, demanded compensation for the loss of livelihoods and communities because of the disaster.
Seiju Nanbara, who joined the lawsuit two years after he evacuated from his home in Minamisoma, just north of the wrecked plant, to Chiba, said he and other plaintiffs who heard the ruling in the courtroom were speechless because they were so disappointed.
“The ruling only looked at the government, not us,” said Nanbara, 62. “I don’t think the judges understood, or even tried to understand our pain.”
“The ruling is absolutely unacceptable,” said the chief lawyer, Izutaro Managi, as he rushed from the courtroom to share the decision with plaintiffs and their supporters who waited outside. “The court did not squarely face or respond to the questions we raised.”
He said the ruling failed to adequately address the key question of whether the disaster was foreseeable and could have been avoided had the government taken appropriate steps.
Hundreds of plaintiffs and their supporters outside the court showed anger and disappointment, but many said they will continue their fight in the pending cases.
“We must not let this ruling affect the pending lawsuits,” Managi said.
The cases against the government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings were originally filed separately in Fukushima and three other prefectures — Gunma, Chiba and Ehime — where the plaintiffs evacuated.
Currently, only TEPCO is obliged to cover damages totaling over 1.4 billion yen ($10 million) for the plaintiffs in the four lawsuits.
In a statement after the ruling, TEPCO President Tomoaki Kobayakawa apologized again to those affected by the disaster and vowed to ensure it will never be repeated. He pledged to fully fulfill the company’s responsibility to decommission the plant, reconstruct Fukushima and provide compensation.
Chief government spokesperson Hirokazu Matsuno said it will continue to “stay close to the evacuees and do its utmost for Fukushima’s reconstruction.”
The government has pushed decontamination of affected areas and the reopening of no-go zones, and has urged evacuees to return to their homes while cutting back support for them. The government-set compensation scheme, which is based on distance from the plant and radiation levels, has triggered divisions and discrimination among communities.
The dispute centers on whether the government could have foreseen the risk of a massive tsunami, and whether the accident could have been averted if the government had ordered the utility to take precautions.
The case also focused on the reliability of a long-term assessment of seismic activity released by a government panel in 2002, nine years before the accident. The government argued that the report was not reliable and the accident was unavoidable.
The plaintiffs said the tsunami assessment was credible and the government should have used it as a basis for ordering the utility to take prevention measures which they said could have avoided the disaster.
A Tokyo District Court ruling in 2019 found three former TEPCO executives not guilty in a criminal case, saying they could not have foreseen the massive tsunami. An appeal ruling is expected in January.
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| 2022-06-18T01:54:30Z
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GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP) — Horse races are regularly held in only two spots in Nebraska, and the tracks in Grand Island and Columbus are usually pretty quiet apart from the rumble of thoroughbreds that stomp past the half-empty grandstands.
Suddenly, though, communities throughout the state are clamoring to revive mothballed tracks and build new ones.
Why the surge in interest in a sport that for decades has waned throughout the country?
In a word, casinos.
“All of a sudden you have a bunch of communities who don’t give a darn about horses saying, ‘Hey, we love horses!’” said Pat Loontjer, director of the anti-casino group Gambling with the Good Life.
Indeed, gambling can take a circuitous route when it finally breaks into a market from which it’s been shut out. In Nebraska, to get gaming options they want, people are being given something they don’t want — more racing — at a cost of untold millions. And many operators that provide casino games could be excluded from the action.
Forty six states have either commercial or Native American casinos, generating more than $30 billion in annual revenue. But Nebraska has only five tiny tribal casinos in isolated areas, and gambling proponents have complained for years about all the tax revenue lost as Omaha-area gamblers pour across the Missouri River to gamble in neighboring Iowa.
After repeated failures in the Nebraska Legislature, backers won approval in 2020 of ballot initiatives legalizing private gambling. But they added the quirk that casinos could only open at spots with state-sanctioned horse tracks. Suddenly, the hottest real estate in the state is at the six qualifying tracks, four of which now offer only one live race a year. Five other Nebraska cities also have pitched plans for new horse tracks.
For an industry that for years has struggled to attract any interest, the sudden embrace of the sport has led to plenty of eye-rolling and more serious concerns about even finding enough jockeys, exercise riders and veterinarians to hold races, never mind whether spectators will actually show up.
Nationally, the sport has been in decline for decades. The number of race days has fallen by almost 40% in the last 20 years. Omaha’s once-popular Ak-Sar-Ben (“Nebraska” spelled backwards) racetrack closed in 1995. Given that, proposals for nearly a dozen tracks has annoyed even some racing supporters.
“They could have done this five years ago, but they had zero interest,” said Lynne McNally, executive director of the Nebraska Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, which owns Omaha’s only licensed track. “They couldn’t care less about racing.”
So many groups have proposed tracks in Nebraska that legislators approved a moratorium on new developments until studies determine how many tracks could reasonably operate. Two proposals unveiled so far would each spend $220 million to update and improve a little-used track and add a casino and hotel.
Lance Morgan, whose company Ho-Chunk Inc., spent $7.5 million to bankroll the initiative campaign, acknowledged the track requirement was included in part to fend off competitors.
Ho-Chunk, a Nebraska-based offshoot of the Winnebago Tribe, cut a deal with the Nebraska Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, to share proceeds from a new casino opening at the association’s licensed tracks in Omaha and Lincoln. Meanwhile, casino operators without tracks will be frozen out.
“If we’re going to spend that money” on the ballot initiative, “we want to be the entity that’s most likely to have casinos,” said Morgan.
Nebraska is one of just four states that have legally tied casinos to horse racing tracks, said Christopher Browne, a spokesman for the American Gaming Association. Other states attached different conditions, such as operating on riverboats, but most were eventually lifted. The Nebraska measure is enshrined in the state constitution so changes would be difficult.
Some who raise and race horses in Nebraska said they hope casinos can bring larger crowds back to their sport.
“Without the casino gaming, I don’t know if we could have survived much longer,” said Garald “Wally” Wollesen, a racehorse owner.
Chris Kotulak, the CEO of Fonner Park in Grand Island, said his track manages to hold 40 race days over four months by offering more “minor league” races with modest purses compared to those in other states.
But Kotulak said he’s worried there won’t be enough workers if more tracks offer races.
“We don’t have enough infrastructure right now,” he said. “To think that we can have half a dozen more race tracks, or even two more … where are these people going to come from?”
Anything that helps the sport is OK with Jay Helzer, who sat by himself and watched the races on a chilly day recently in mostly empty bleachers at Fonner Park. Helzer, 76, said he supported the 2020 ballot measure.
“It’s sure not going to hurt anything,” Helzer said, gesturing to rows of open seats all around him. “Here we are, a Friday afternoon, and there’s hardly anybody here.”
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Follow Grant Schulte on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GrantSchulte
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| 2022-06-18T01:54:37Z
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HAWTHORNE, Calif. (AP) — SpaceX, the rocket ship company run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has fired several employees involved in an open letter that blasted the colorful billionaire for his behavior, according to media reports.
The reports published Friday cited an email from Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president, saying the company had terminated employees who put together and circulated the letter. The letter writers denounced Musk for actions that they said are a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks.”
The New York Times was the first outlet to report the purge, based on information from three employees familiar with the situation. The employees were not named.
It’s unclear how many SpaceX workers lost their jobs, but Shotwell left no doubt that the company believed they had crossed an unacceptable line.
“The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” Shotwell wrote in her email, according to the Times . “”We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”
The firings occurred Thursday — the same day Musk addressed Twitter employees for the first time about his $44 billion deal to add that social media service to his business empire. The purchase is in limbo while Musk tries to determine whether Twitter has been concealing the number of fake accounts on its platform.
As the Twitter drama unfolded, another report emerged t hat Musk had paid $250,000 to a flight attendant to quash a potential sexual harassment lawsuit against him. Musk denied the sexual harassment allegations, and Shotwell last month sent out an email to SpaceX employees saying she believe the accusations were false.
In recent weeks, Musk has also crudely mocked the looks of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Twitter and posted a poop emoji during an online discussion with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
The open letter from SpaceX employees criticizing Musk asserted that some of his tweets sent out to his 98 million followers cast the company in a poor light.
“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the open letter said. “It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.”
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Dry weather returns for the weekend
We have been dealing with strong storms for most of the evening across Middle Georgia, but soon many of us will be staying dry and clear.
A cold front is slowly pushing south this evening, and should be through the area by tomorrow morning.
Behind the front we will see clear skies and dry air as well as breezy conditions.
Unfortunately the front won’t be bringing cooler temps for Saturday.
Dry air will have fully settled in for Father’s Day, meaning humidity will be low for this time of year.
We will also see a small cool down into the mid 90s with plenty of sunshine.
This will be the best day of the next week, so hopefully you get to enjoy it.
The break from the intense heat will be short and by Tuesday we will see our highs warm back into the 100s.
More extreme heat is on the way for the rest of the week with dry weather through Thursday.
By Friday we will see our next chance of showers and storms.
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| 2022-06-18T02:37:59Z
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Freedom Georgia Initiative celebrates Juneteenth in Wilkinson County
Families from across the United States are in rural Wilkinson County this weekend to celebrate Juneteenth.
TOOMSBORO, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — Families from across the United States are in rural Wilkinson County this weekend to celebrate Juneteenth.
The Freedom Georgia Initiative is hosting the Juneteenth Campout on its more than 500-acre property.
For Eric Wilson, Juneteenth is a time to come together and celebrate freedom.
“Even though we’re coming from all over, we’re still family, so I’m coming from Detroit, people are coming from all parts of the country,” he said.
Wilson, like many others, is attending the campout for the first time.
“This location is so important, because this is freedom,” he said. “This is where we plan to build a community for us by us,” Freedom Georgia Initiative CEO Laura Cooper said.
Cooper says she bought the land in 2020 with the goal of creating a community for people like her.
She says the campout allows her to give people new experiences.
“Us as a Black culture having an opportunity to celebrate a day that’s just for us,” she said of the campout.
The campout, which started Friday, ends Sunday at noon.
Families will participate in workshops, yoga and see live performances.
“I really just feel compelled to freedom and wanted to go ahead and participate,” Wilson said. “I’d love to come down and maybe one day build a house, so we’ll see what happens.”
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| 2022-06-18T02:38:05Z
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ICYMI: Stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News
Top stories from June 17, 2022
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UPDATE: Two people found dead during welfare check at Warner Robins home
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Milledgeville community holding weekend event to address youth violence
- For other stories you may have missed on 41NBC News today, click here.
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| 2022-06-18T02:38:11Z
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New small businesses opening despite rising costs
With costs rising for food, gas, and other necessities, it might seem crazy to open a business right now, but that's not stopping some people.
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — With costs rising for food, gas, and other necessities, it might seem crazy to open a business right now.
Oh Honey is the newest business on the block in Ingleside Village in Macon.
Owner Adriana Horton spent several years working in corporate bakeries and coffee shops. Eventually, she decided to open her own bakery. After going through several phases of her business, she came up with the idea for Oh Honey in the space next door to Society Garden.
“This could be a fun place for people to come and hang out,” she said. “To be a very different café than what most of Macon has to offer.”
Horton says even though she spent time working in corporate bakeries and coffee shops, she wanted to fully understand the ins and outs of owning a business.
“I did take a start smart class with the Small Business Development Center,” she said. “Also I reached out to an attorney to help me get everything sorted.”
Charise Stephens, Director for Macon-Bibb’s Office of Small Business Affairs, says small businesses are the life of the community. She encourages anyone looking to open a small business in Macon to utilize her office, but says they should also do market research.
“Look at who your competition is, look at your overhead,” Stephens said. “Because not only do we want small businesses to start, but we want them to be sustainable. We want them here for longevity.”
Horton says small businesses are important, because they show the uniqueness of a community.
“We can see what our community has to offer and not just what a chain might have to offer,” she said.
Stephens says there are plenty of opportunities for people to open a new small business. She says small business ownership can help bring people out of poverty.
“We have a high level of poverty here in Macon-Bibb County,” Stephens said. “One solution is people taking their God-given talents, so things they like, and putting in the work to start their own small businesses.”
If you are looking for help with your small business, you can visit the Office of Small Business Affairs. It’s located on the second floor of the Macon-Bibb County Government Center on Poplar Street.
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| 2022-06-18T02:38:17Z
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An Iowa woman’s view of her world was slowly going away because of blurry, cloudy vision caused by Fuchs’ dystrophy. But thanks to the work of the Lions Clubs of Iowa, she can see all things clearly now. Ann Sterling brings us this woman’s incredible journey.
For more information, click here.
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| 2022-06-18T03:39:01Z
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REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday he plans to talk to Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon as he considers whether to lift some Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods.
Biden did not say when they might speak, but suggested he was getting closer to making a decision about the fate of the economic penalties.
“I’m in the process of making up my mind,” Biden told reporters in a brief exchange after a bike ride near his beach home in Delaware.
National security and economic aides are in the process of completing a review of the U.S. tariff policy and making recommendations to the president.
The tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump applied a 25% duty on billions of dollars of Chinese products. The penalties were intended to reduce the U.S. trade deficit and force China to adopt fairer practices.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen recently called for eliminating some of those tariffs as a way to fight inflation in the United States. Others in the Biden administration, i ncluding U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, have raised concerns about easing tariffs when China has not upheld its agreements on purchasing U.S. products.
She said she saw the tariffs as “a tool in the economic policy toolbox” that could be considered, but alongside “a lot of other tools at our disposal.”
“What is of the utmost importance for us is to ensure that this medium-term strategic realignment that we know we need to accomplish is something that we are able to accomplish, and that nothing that we do in the short term undermines that larger goal,” Tai told The Associated Press in an interview last month.
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| 2022-06-18T16:57:41Z
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NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Breakaway Turkish Cypriots on ethnically-divided Cyprus must do their share in stemming migrant arrivals, a senior European Union official said Saturday, as the number of asylum-seekers has shot up significantly so far this year,
European Commission Vice President Margharitis Schinas said that Turkish Cypriot authorities should also be held accountable for curbing migrant arrivals.
“We won’t let the Turkish Cypriot community to consider itself neutral in what is going on,” Schinas said after visiting upgraded facilities at the Pournara migrant reception camp outside the capital. “They must also assume their share of responsibility and we’ll find a way to remind them.”
Cyprus was split along ethnic lines in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup aimed at union with Greece. Cypriot government authorities say the overwhelming majority of migrant arrivals occurs via Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot north through a loosely regulated student visa system.
Thousands then cross a porous U.N.-controlled buffer zone to seek asylum in the Greek Cypriot south where the internationally recognized government is seated. Although Turkish Cypriots receive EU funding, only the south enjoys full membership benefits.
Schinas said EU Commissioner Elisa Ferreira will hold contacts in Cyprus in July to explore ways of best handling the issue. He also said Turkey has demonstrated a willingness to help ease the number of migrants arriving in Cyprus.
Cyprus Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said the number of asylum-seekers doubled to 10,000 in the first five months of this year compared to the same period in 2021, repeating that they make up an EU high of 5% of Cyprus’ 915,000-strong population in the south.
He said that Cypriot authorities are working with the EU to facilitate the return of asylum-seekers whose claims have been rejected as well as more funding from the 27 member-nation bloc to the tune of 72 million euros to build a new migrant reception center.
Although overcrowding at the Pournara center has been greatly alleviated in recent months, a 27-year-old Nigerian, Miracle Chidiebera, said there’s still plenty of anger among migrants over what he said is a chronic lack of water, poor food and congested facilities.
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Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
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| 2022-06-18T16:58:03Z
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M State alumna Laura Quaintance grew up in a family of proud Spartans.
Her father, Rick Odden, was an assistant men’s basketball coach and worked alongside legendary Spartan coach Dave Retzlaff for almost two decades. When he eventually retired from his full-time job at Pebble Lake Golf Course, he joined the faculty as a community expert and taught courses in turfgrass management. His sister, Penny, and mother, Harriet, also attended the community college.
When it came time to choose a college, Quaintance says the decision to attend M State Fergus Falls was easy.
“I have such fond memories of the incredible students there and the family-like connections they had with the college and community,” she says. “It was a no-brainer to continue on to college in Fergus Falls.”
Finding inspiration in music
While enrolled at the community college, Quaintance studied liberal arts and music, a choice influenced by the passion she’s always had for music. As a student at Fergus Falls High School, Quaintance took voice lessons from M State vocal music instructor Teresa Ashworth, so she was excited for the opportunity to continue learning from Ashworth as a community college student. She’ll always be grateful for that opportunity.
“She pushed me to be the best I could be and improved my musical skills so much,” Quaintance says. “Her ability to see potential in me as a future musician and music educator and support me along that journey was invaluable.”
Ashworth’s guidance and support profoundly impacted Quaintance’s academic and professional careers. She graduated from M State in 2004, earning an Associate of Arts degree in Liberal Arts with a focus in Vocal Music, then completed a Bachelor of Science degree in K-12 Vocal Education from Minnesota State University Moorhead. In 2011 she enrolled at North Dakota State University to complete her Master of Music degree.
Returning to her roots
After completing her education, Quaintance began her career in rural education. She took a position in Milaca, where she taught 6th-12th grade choir for 11 years, then had the opportunity to return to Fergus Falls to join the M State faculty as director of choral music. Her family still lives in the area, including her sister and fellow Spartan alumna, so the move felt more than right. Being back at the community college has been better than she ever imagined.
“I love that I have come back to the school to see that the foundation of care and success is still what matters to faculty members today,” she says. “One of the joys of my work is directing the Chamber Chorale, where I get to collaborate with adults and students to make music and share it with our community.
“I don’t take for granted what an immeasurable asset that is to our area — the connection our students have and the ability to be mentored by retired and still active educators, professionals and musicians in the area.”
As part of the music department, Quaintance hopes to have the same impact on her students that Ashworth had on her.
“She is a legend in M State Fergus Falls music history, and I can only hope to serve my students in the ways she taught me so well,” Quaintance says. “To this day, she is someone I go to for advice, encouragement and understanding in the music education world.”
For those considering attending M State Fergus Falls, Quaintance can’t recommend it enough. “It was the best choice I made for college. The friendships I made, the career decisions it led me to and the successful opportunities it posed for me were one of a kind,” she says. “Community college should be something everyone seriously considers. It is truly the best first step into your future!”
Interested in attending M State Fergus Falls? Visit the campus website to learn more or check out the scholarships available through Fergus Area College Foundation.
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| 2022-06-18T23:57:15Z
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BANGKOK (AP) — As the United States marks only the second federally recognized Juneteenth, Black Americans living overseas have embraced the holiday as a day of reflection and an opportunity to educate people in their host countries on Black history.
President Joe Biden moved quickly last year to federally recognize the day Black Americans have been celebrating since the last enslaved people were told they were free in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
In Liberia, Saqar Ahhah Ahershu, 45, from Jersey City, N.J., is organizing the country’s first “Journey Home Festival.”
“Because this is part of that hidden African American history that still hasn’t been completely unpacked,” he said in Monrovia.
Liberia, Africa’s oldest independent republic, was founded by freed slaves repatriated to West Africa from the United States in 1822, exactly 200 years ago this year. This weekend’s event will include a trip to Providence Island, where former slaves settled before moving into what is now mainland Monrovia.
While there are no official statistics tracking Black Americans moving abroad, many are discussing it more openly after the police killing of George Floyd. In the aftermath, many African Americans saw the U.S. “from the outside in” and made up their minds not to return.
Tashina Ferguson, a 26-year-old debate coach, was living in New York at the time of Eric Garner’s death.
She moved to South Korea in 2019 and will celebrate Juneteenth on Sunday with a group of drag performers at a fundraising brunch for the Marsha P. Johnson Institute.
She has mixed feeling about the newest federal holiday.
“The commerciality of Juneteenth has become this like whole, ‘Put it on a T-shirt, put it on ice cream tubs’ type of thing,” she said. “But as a Black person within the Black community I’m like, ‘Yeah, let’s celebrate us.’”
She said that only a powerful change would make her consider returning to the U.S.
Chrishan Wright in New Jersey regularly speaks with Black Americans who plan to or already have made the move abroad.
Wright, 47, hosts a podcast “Blaxit Global” and said many of her guests are tired of the U.S.
“They’ve done all the things to achieve what is supposed to be the American dream, and that yardstick keeps moving. They don’t feel like they’re on solid ground in terms of being able to retire comfortably or pay off student debt or just cover their bills.”
Wright plans to move in 2023 to Portugal. Through her podcast, she already knows of Juneteenth celebrations this weekend in Lisbon, the capital.
In some places with larger populations of Black Americans, Juneteenth is already part of the program.
LaTonya Whitaker, from Mississippi, has lived in Japan for 17 years. She is executive director of Legacy Foundation Japan, which hosted a Juneteenth gathering of about 300 people at the ritzy Tokyo American Club on Saturday.
She and her husband David didn’t plan to live in Japan.
Like Whitaker, many Black Americans at the Juneteenth event came to Japan almost by coincidence, as Christian missionaries or Peace Corps volunteers. But they made Japan their home.
She now wants to raise their son there because she worries about gun violence in the U.S.
“I realized we really need a community,” said Whitaker.
Michael Williams teaches African American history at Temple University in Tokyo and left the U.S. when he was 22. He’s now 66 and had lived abroad for much of his adult life, but returned to the U.S. for graduate school in Boston and Baltimore.
America has changed so much, he feels like a tourist when he visits, he laughed.
Williams said he knows about Juneteenth from teaching history.
“I would always end my presentations that hopefully, someday, this would be a national holiday. And so now it is, and it feels great,” he said.
In Taipei, Toi Windham and Casey Abbott Payne are holding multiple events to celebrate Juneteenth. The two, part of Black Lives Matter Taiwan, are hosting performances by Black artists and musicians.
Both have celebrated with their families long before it was a federal holiday.
Windham has lived in Taiwan for five years, and had always celebrated Juneteenth growing up in Texas. For her, it’s an opportunity to educate people about a different part of American culture, even the darker parts.
“A lot of people tend to enjoy hip-hop culture and the attire and certain parts of our culture, but I feel like it’s important to acknowledge all parts of Black culture,” she said.
Payne, an organizer, has lived in Taiwan for 11 years and said he also celebrated Juneteenth growing up in Milwaukee, which has one of the oldest celebrations nationwide.
“As a kid, I remember the street being lined with street vendors, and there’s music going on and there’d be the Juneteenth parade rolling through,” he said.
Still for others, the day is a chance to joyfully kick back and rest.
In Bangkok, a group called Ebony Expats organized a silent movie screening, a bike ride in a nature reserve and a dinner for at a Jamaican restaurant serving jerk chicken and pumpkin soup.
Restaurant owner Collin Clifford McKoy served 20 years in the U.S. Army before eventually opening his restaurant during the pandemic in Thailand. He said the Juneteenth holiday is a chance for Black people to share their culture while being so far from home, American or not.
“Overall, it’s about coming together regardless of where we are, and it tells how much blood runs deep as a community to come together and enjoy ourselves,” he said.
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Associated press writers Huizhong Wu in Taipei, Taiwan, Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal and Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, contributed to this report.
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| 2022-06-19T16:27:00Z
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Six most wanted cultists have been arrested by the Police in Sagamu and its environs in Ogun State.
They were said to have been involved in various cult clashes that had led to the death of not less than four persons.
The State Police Public Relations Officer, Abimbola Oyeyemi, named Rafiu Osokoya; Azeez Abiola; Ogunsanwo Waheed; Toheeb Ayodele; Kolawole Adegbenro and Azeez Taiwo as those arrested.
Abimbola said they were arrested following an information received by CSP Shobiyi Oluwatosin led anti-cultists unit, that the cultists were holding a nocturnal meeting along Ayepe/Odogbolu area.
Tribune Online gathered that Sagamu and its environs had been under the siege of the cultists in the last one week.
They were said to be planning on how to unleash another round of terror in the town.
The PPRO said, upon the information, the team moved to the area where the suspects were rounded up, but some of them escaped.
“On interrogation, the suspects confessed belonging to the dreaded Eiye cult group who had been causing confusion in shagamu since the beginning of this year.
“They confessed to killing of one Animashaun in Shagamu and another person simply identified as Ekwe also in Sabo area of the town.
“They further confessed that their group was responsible for the death of one Adigun and Elewure both of whom were killed at Isote area of the town early this year during one of their nefarious operation.”
Oyeyemi said the State Police Commissioner, CP Lanre Bankole, directed that the suspects be prosecuted.
The CP was said to have commended the team for a well done job ordered a massive manhunt for the remaining members of the gang.
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MORE revelations have emerged about Friday’s meeting held by South-West leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with aspirants from the zone, whose main objective, was on how to avert a crisis that will create a fractured party as it prepares for primary on May 30 and 31, Sunday Tribune has reliably gathered… Police nab six wanted cultists in Sagamu…
Supreme Court Has Cleared Civil Servants To Participate In Politics, Falana Tells FG
NIGERIAN workers are constitutionally-free to participate in politics, lawyer, Mr Femi Falana has said. He was responding to the warning from the central government to civil servants to stay off politics… Police nab six wanted cultists in Sagamu…
Battle For New Alaafin Begins As Ruling Houses Insist On Producing Next Oba
SUCCESSION battle for the throne of Alaafin of Oyo has begun in earnest in Oyo kingdom, as interested ruling families have picked up the gauntlet to produce the successor to the late Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III…
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| 2022-06-19T18:43:02Z
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Homeland and national security officials are worried about how Russia could significantly exploit US divisions over the November midterms, considering scenarios like Russia staging smaller hacks of local election authorities -- done with the deliberate purpose of being noticed -- and then using that to seed more conspiracies about the integrity of American elections.
These efforts, the officials said, would be designed to dovetail with the false doubts about the 2020 presidential election spread by former President Donald Trump and many of his allies.
The five current and former US officials who spoke to CNN stressed that such a scenario remains hypothetical.
Although US elections have become more secure in recent years, officials say that an atmosphere of distrust in America's elections, coupled with the sheer number of local election systems, means there's no way to truly be ready for such a convergence of Russian asymmetric warfare techniques.
Administration officials agree with local election officials that the problem goes beyond inevitable security shortfalls. Current and former officials say little has been done to inform, let alone convince, American voters that Russia is trying to attack US elections again.
That's creating a battle for public perceptions of the security of elections, which often don't mirror the reality of how secure they are.
"If something small happens, it will feed into the mania and chaos, and all of a sudden people will think all the elections are completely insecure," said Nicole Tisdale, who until April was the legislative affairs director at the National Security Council and previously served as the director for cybersecurity and counterintelligence with the House Homeland Security Committee.
"It's not about fixing a small problem so that it doesn't become a bigger problem. It's about what happens when folks feel there's been any leak in the boat, and folks thinking that the whole thing could sink," Tisdale said.
An example of how officials believe the threat could play out: Russian hackers breach a local county voter registration system, making sure to get detected. They would then post information and proudly take responsibility rather than blame third-party hackers, as they did in 2016. Then, other Kremlin-backed forces would amplify the problems on Facebook and Twitter, aiming to churn up angry -- and violent -- reactions.
"Russia doesn't have to do anything in advance of the election -- just observe where operational challenges occur and use that issue to exploit the subsequent distrust and division," said one US official involved in election security. "The asymmetrical advantage is astounding."
It likely wouldn't take much to further undermine faith in American elections -- as this month's public hearings of the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol have shown.
Adrienne Ray, the elections supervisor and registrar in highly competitive Peach County, Georgia, said she feels under siege, trying to keep her systems from being at the center of a story about international espionage. In the meantime, she relies on her IT guy, while taking online classes about election security offered by the Georgia secretary of state's office.
"I'm not a whiz at what these people could do," Ray said. "But we try our best to be as secure as possible. ... Do I know if I'm getting everything I need to know? I don't know."
Russian efforts capitalizing on American divisions
Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis warned that Russia will "likely" look to depress voting and "probably" try to undermine the November midterms in revenge for the American-led response to the invasion of Ukraine, according to a newly declassified DHS report obtained by CNN.
"We expect Russian interference in the upcoming 2022 midterm elections, as Russia views this activity as an equitable response to perceived actions by Washington and an opportunity to both undermine US global standing and influence US decision-making," states the report, titled "Key Threats to the Homeland Through 2022."
Russian attempts to interfere with and undermine American elections have been happening for almost a decade, but the evolution has US officials on edge. Most of the hacking that was tracked in 2016 was probing, looking for openings. Disinformation efforts were still rudimentary, elevating a few voices spouting racial divisions and disappointment in their candidates losing. But those efforts now more often use a wide array of avenues to play off divisions within the US about immigration, Covid-19 restrictions and 2020 election conspiracies. Meanwhile, intelligence officials say the disinformation methods have become broader and more sophisticated, as have the attempts to combine them.
Explaining Russian interference and the ways in which those efforts look to play off current divisions, officials argue, would be essential to both understanding and withstanding the threat -- but just doing so often runs up against the hyperpartisan reality.
"It's sometimes difficult to even discuss mitigation activities because of the political environment in Washington," said John Cohen, who until last month served as the acting undersecretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security. "There are foreign nations like Russia who are seeking to destabilize and weaken the United States, and they do that by pushing out information meant to exacerbate the social fractures of our society."
Local election offices have stepped up their own security, but it's not clear that will be enough.
In small-but-competitive Sauk County, Wisconsin, results received into the main clerk's office are then verified by phone calls to officials at each polling place, followed by a full canvas to make sure the numbers and records match up. Equipment is kept locked up and under video surveillance. None of the machines are connected to the internet, and two-factor authentication is required even to get into employee desktops.
"This is way different from when I started, that's for sure," said Becky Evert, the Sauk County clerk, reflecting on how she's had to respond to the threat of Russian hacking.
Evert said that she's confident that any breach would be caught but that she hadn't considered what it would mean if the intention was to get caught. Some funding for new security came from the state, but she said she hasn't been directly in touch with the federal government.
In Philadelphia, the city has disconnected its election management system from the internet and met with state and federal authorities running "tabletop" exercises to iron out communications and plans for what to do if they detect a breach -- including trying to wrap their heads around what to do if the breach is meant to be detected.
"I've had to become sort of an expert in election security, cybersecurity, GIS (geographic information system) mapping, social mapping, physical security, I know more information about things that I never thought I'd know anything about," said Lisa Deeley, a Philadelphia city commissioner, calling threats the "scary and unpleasant" part of her job. "Unfortunately, this is the world of elections today."
"If there was some kind of breach, the city and the state and the federal government would all align and give us the defense that we needed," Deeley said, while adding, "With elections, there's always a need for more funding and more resources."
Growing concern about elections as November approaches
The DHS intelligence assessment of current threats obtained by CNN states that Russia remains a top threat "particularly in response to international pressure following its unprovoked attack on Ukraine."
The DHS assessment also includes threats from China and Iran, though they are not primarily election-related. The China threats listed include cyber-espionage, predatory economic activity and influence campaigns to promote Beijing's interests. The Iran threats include cyber-threats to critical networks and "stoking divisions within the United States and creating pressure on Washington to change its policy on Iran," as well as more conventional terrorist attacks via Hezbollah or other proxies.
The threat assessment from Russia is different, however. Whether by dissuading Americans from voting, convincing them the votes are crooked or just making them lose faith in the candidates and institutions involved, "Moscow's overarching objective is to undermine the US electoral process and weaken the United States through social and political discord, division, and distraction," the report states.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin accelerated toward his invasion of Ukraine in February, officials from DHS and other agencies began meeting daily to discuss potential threats and responses. Election security was one of the topics from the start, though at that point -- with November many months away -- they focused mostly on more immediate possible vulnerabilities around power grids and banking systems.
"People believe that this is one of these ways in which Putin potentially gets back at us without triggering a kinetic response of some kind. There's a lot of concerns that if he were to try to punch back at us for supporting Ukraine, this is one of the ways he'd do it," said an administration official familiar with the internal discussions.
Those meetings have grown less frequent, but the concerns around elections have grown, as November has gotten closer and the Russian quagmire in Ukraine has continued.
The alert has remained high within the White House and among the members of the interagency election security group created in the Biden administration, even as they've struggled with what to do. White House officials are aware that any attempt by President Joe Biden to speak about disinformation or Russian hacking would immediately be seen as political, as would most efforts by the federal government to fell local authorities how to administer elections.
"The federal government is still trying to figure out how to bring together all of the capabilities it has to engage in a comprehensive manner," Cohen said.
A National Security Council spokesperson declined comment.
Though national security officials did not initially believe that Putin was moving on Ukraine with the intention of creating problems geared toward the US midterms -- either through driving up gas prices or sowing a general sense of chaos -- as the crisis escalated, according to two officials, the intelligence became increasingly concerned that the American response would convince Putin that the 2022 elections were a legitimate and high-priority target.
After an atmosphere of distrust during the 2016 election, federal, state and local officials have worked more closely to share threat intelligence and drill for cyber and physical threats, observers say. That work includes helping move state and local offices to the ".gov" internet domain, which makes it easier to identify official sources of information on elections, and federal vulnerability assessments for election-related computer systems. According to the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice, an estimated 93% of votes cast in the 2020 election had a paper record -- up from 82% in 2016 -- serving as an important check against potential tampering.
Reviewing some of the information that led to the DHS report, the department's intelligence officials have briefed state and local election authorities about threats in recent months. DHS last year hired former Washington state Secretary of State Kim Wyman, a Republican, as a top elections security official, and she's already been to 17 states promoting the department's services.
Sometimes, though, the efforts amount to sending around best practices guides and hoping election officials pay attention.
A Homeland Security spokesperson noted the regular collaboration with the intelligence community in tracking threats, and the department's role in sharing that with the full range of election administrations.
Since Alejandro Mayorkas took over as DHS secretary at the beginning of the Biden administration, the spokesperson said, "DHS has enhanced operational collaboration with partners across every level of government, including by sharing timely and actionable information and intelligence regarding the threat environment to protect communities across our country."
Secretary of state offices in Michigan and Colorado both said they are continually working to protect their election systems, including working with federal partners, but a spokesperson for the Colorado office noted that it has only heard "generic, not specific to elections, warnings about the potential for Russia to seek to disrupt their adversaries while they are engaged on the Ukraine front."
The concerns remain high across government. Recently, 17 Democratic senators signed a letter, addressed to the secretaries of defense and homeland security, as well as the directors of the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency, asking what was being done to protect the "ripe target" of the midterm elections.
"As we witness an alarming increase in Russian disinformation campaigns following Putin's invasion of Ukraine, we must remain vigilant in protecting our elections from potential malign influence operations," Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who spearheaded the letter, told CNN.
The-CNN-Wire
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| 2022-06-19T22:37:48Z
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An Egg ‘Inside’ Another Dinosaur Egg Was Found in Madhya Pradesh
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It was, apparently, a field trip by a research team of the Delhi University (DU) that led to a “first-of-kind find in fossil history.” In the district of Dhar in Madhya Pradesh, the researchers discovered an “abnormal” dinosaur egg — with its peculiarity attributed to the fact that it was an egg inside another egg.
This Russian doll-esque dinosaur egg, though, isn’t just an intriguing bit of information that currently stands out among the crisis fatigue-inducing news, only to be buried by the next Met Gala, Cannes, or celebrity wedding. While the highly-fleeting, ever-transient public interest in the discovery may indeed wane, its impact on the scientific understanding of how the mighty dinosaurs reproduced probably won’t — especially due to the implications of the discovery that the researchers highlighted in their paper that was published in the journal Scientific Reports this month.
“The new pathological egg is a rare and important find as no ovum-in-ovo egg was found in reptiles until now,” said co-author Guntupalli V.R. Prasad from the department of geology at DU, explaining that the discovery “brings out significant information on whether dinosaurs had a reproductive biology similar to that of turtles and lizards or their immediate cousins… birds.”
In the past, the reproductive function of dinosaurs was, reportedly, likened to that of turtles — alongside other reptiles, like lizards. However, until now, just like scientists hadn’t ever come across an egg-in-egg in dinosaur fossils, they hadn’t observed the phenomenon in reptiles either.
Interestingly, the phenomenon has been observed in another set of animals: birds. “Forget unboxing videos. An egg-opening video caught the internet’s attention with a bizarre secret,” CNET reported in February 2017, elaborating that, “[A] YouTube user… posted a fascinating video over the weekend showing a giant mutant chicken egg. The lumpy-looking creation dwarfs a normal egg. When cracked open, the egg reveals a yolk and another fully formed egg inside. That smaller egg also contains a regular yolk and white.”
Related on The Swaddle:
Fossil Footprints Found In South Korea Show Ancient Crocodile May Have Run on Two Legs
A process called “counter-peristalsis contraction” — which, albeit rare, isn’t unprecedented — is believed to drive the formation of an egg within another egg in birds. It occurs when a fully-formed egg starts to travel backward in a hen’s reproductive system, becoming embedded into another egg that’s still being formed. What ends up happening, then, is that the second egg forms around the first. Evidently, it’s a rare phenomenon in dinosaurs, too — given that only one egg from the large number of titanosaurid sauropod nests discovered by the researchers was an egg-in-egg.
What the present discovery, then, holds is insights into evolution itself. In more specific terms, it has made the scientific community wonder whether dinosaurs — considered a “group of reptiles” — had evolved to reproduce like birds.
But this isn’t the first time dinosaurs have been compared with birds. Sample this article from last year: “People often say that birds are related to dinosaurs, but that’s really not true – birds aren’t related to dinosaurs… they are dinosaurs! About 65 million years ago, a huge extinction wiped out all dinosaur groups except for one. That group of dinosaurs went on to become all the birds we see today.” In fact, chickens and ostriches are believed to be the closest living relatives of Tyrannosaurus rex.
With our curiosity in dinosaurs thus piquing, one might find themselves hoping for Christopher Nolan to direct Eggception next. Perhaps, it’ll shed more light on the phenomenon; unless, of course, it ends up needlessly complicating the process in an unfortunate Tenet-esque manner — leaving it up to the scientific fraternity to enlighten us through even more complicated jargon.
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| 2022-06-20T10:07:41Z
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LONDON (AP) — Unions and train companies in Britain are set to hold last-minute talks Monday amid fading hopes of averting the country’s biggest rail strikes for decades.
Up to 40,000 cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers and station staff are due to walk out for three days this week, on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, in a dispute over pay and job security at a time of soaring inflation.
The strike is expected to shut down the rail network across the country, with London Underground subway services also hit by a walkout on Tuesday.
Millions of people in Britain, like those across Europe, are seeing their cost of living soar. Salaries have not kept pace with inflation, which has hit 9% and is forecast to rise further, as Russia’s war in Ukraine squeezes supplies of energy and food staples including wheat. Prices were already rising before the war, as the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic fueled strong consumer demand.
At the same time, U.K. passenger numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels and train companies are seeking to cut costs and staffing.
Talks on resolving the dispute have faltered, and unions are calling on the government to get involved. They accuse Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative administration of standing on the sidelines so it can blame unions, and the left-of-center opposition Labour Party, for the disruption.
Unions say the government, which sets the rules for train companies and owns infrastructure operator Network Rail, has not given the firms enough flexibility to offer a substantial pay increase.
Treasury minister Simon Clarke said “this is a matter between the employers — the train operating companies and Network Rail — and the trade unions.”
He said workers should get “a sensible pay increase,” but that too big a raise would spark a wage-price spiral driving inflation even higher.
Rail, Maritime and Transport Union General Secretary Mick Lynch said he expected other sectors to strike later this year.
“I think there are going to be many unions that are balloting across the country because people can’t take it anymore,” he told Sky News. “We’ve got people doing full-time jobs who are having to take state benefits and use food banks. That is a national disgrace.”
Compounding the travel misery in the U.K., Heathrow Airport said it was asking airlines flying from Terminals 2 and 3 to cut 10% of flights on Monday. The request came after reports emerged Friday of a huge backlog of baggage at the London airport.
Several European airports have scrapped flights in an attempt to reduce delays. Budget airline easyJet said Monday it was “consolidating” flights because of “operational issues” at airports including London Gatwick and Amsterdam’s Schiphol, which have both cut the number of flights they will handle over the summer. EasyJet didn’t say how many flights would be affected.
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| 2022-06-20T14:43:04Z
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Last week, the Duke of Cambridge was spotted undercover in central London, distributing copies of The Big Issue - a street newspaper sold by struggling individuals in order to lift themselves out of poverty. Despite attempting to be discreet about his new role, the prince was soon spotted by a number of passers-by who took pictures and spoke to him at length. Now, a special edition of the magazine to mark Prince William's 40th birthday tells the full story of what happened when the duke took to the streets to sell the publication.
The duke wrote exclusively for the issue, revealing to readers why he wanted to don a Big Issue tabard and find out more about the experiences of the magazine's vendors.
The prince wrote: 'I was 11 when I first visited a homeless shelter with my mother, who in her own inimitable style was determined to shine a light on an overlooked, misunderstood problem. In the 30-odd years since, I’ve seen countless projects in this space grow from strength to strength, including charities of which I have had the honour of being patron. New initiatives have been launched up and down the country – some have worked, some have not. But The Big Issue, perhaps now the most immediately recognisable of these organisations, has undeniably had an impact.
He continued: ‘I wanted to experience the other side and see what it was like to be a Big Issue vendor. My time was truly eye-opening. I have always believed in using my platform to help tell those stories and to bring attention and action to those who are struggling. I plan to do that now I’m turning 40, even more than I have in the past. So, for my part, I commit to continue doing what I can to shine a spotlight on this solvable issue not just today, but in the months and years to come.’
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| 2022-06-20T17:37:53Z
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Fatal accident on Rivoli Drive
MACON-BIBB, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) —The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a traffic collision that occurred at Sunday at 9:42 p.m. on Rivoli Drive.
It was reported that a Toyota Camry, driven by 37-year-old Sam Ha of Macon, was traveling south on Rivoli Drive near Charter Lane when it went off the roadway striking a power pole. Ha was pronounced deceased on scene. No one else was injured during the incident.
The traffic collision is still under investigation. Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact the Bibb Sheriff’s Office at 478-751-7500.
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| 2022-06-20T18:29:41Z
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Gordon asks residents to conserve water
GORDON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)- The city of Gordon is asking residents to conserve water.
Leaders in the Wilkinson County city say one of the wells in the city has having problems, and they’re left with only one working well.
They’re asking residents to avoid any unnecessary watering outside.
According to a news release, they hope to have the issue repaired soon.
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| 2022-06-20T18:29:47Z
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Hotter conditions return following Father’s Day weekend
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Temperatures are heating back up following a weak cold front that came through this past Saturday.
Today
The morning was rather cool and dry around Middle Georgia to kick things off today. Temperatures were mainly in the lower 60s, however a couple of locations managed to drop into the upper 50s. The cool conditions are not going to last, however. More of that summer heat is on its way as we go through the last full week of June. Today will start that as highs climb into the low to mid 90s around Middle Georgia. Cloud cover will increase a bit later this afternoon, primarily with upper level cirrus clouds but a few cloud fields will build in as well. There will not be as many mid or lower level clouds due to the reduction in humidity from Saturday’s cold front. That drop in humidity will also reduce the sticky feel outside. Today’s wind is rather gentle from the east at around 5 mph. No rain is expected this afternoon or evening.
Tonight the majority of the clouds from the afternoon will clear out, giving us mostly clear skies heading into tomorrow morning. Lows will drop into the mid to upper 60s around the region. Overnight winds will be variable (but generally southerly) at about 5 mph. No rain is expected overnight.
Tomorrow
The extreme heat will begin to return again tomorrow as many Middle Georgia locations see their highs return to the lower 100s. The rest of the region will see highs in the upper 90s. Winds will come from the north-northwest at around 5-10 mph, however they won’t to much to help beat the heat. The good news is the humidity will still be a bit lower which should keep the heat indices down (or about the same as the actual temperature). Cloud fields will still develop in the afternoon to some degree along with a decent presence of upper level clouds. Once again rain is not anticipated during the afternoon or evening hours.
Tomorrow night we should see clear skies after the sun sets. The wind will be rather gentle from the north, coming in at around 5 mph. Lows will drop into the upper 60s and lower 70s.
Wednesday and Beyond
Triple digit highs should return to Middle Georgia across the board by Wednesday. Some spots could see temperatures climb as high as 106°-107° in the afternoon. Fortunately the reduced humidity trend will carry into Wednesday which should keep heat indices below 110°. No rain is expected and clouds will be limited to afternoon cloud fields and high level cirrus clouds. Lows will drop into the low to mid 70s.
Triple digit highs across the board will continue into Thursday afternoon. We could potentially see a pop up shower or two come Thursday, however most of the region will see no rain. Lows will be in the low to mid 70s again.
We will see a mix of upper 90s and triple digits come Friday with a 20% chance for an isolated shower or storm in the afternoon and evening. The humidity is expected to continue to rise into the weekend.
Follow Meteorologist Aaron Lowery on Facebook (Aaron Lowery 41NBC) and Twitter (@ALowWX) for weather updates throughout the day. Also, you can watch his forecasts Monday through Friday on 41NBC News at Daybreak (6-7 a.m.) and 41Today (11 a.m).
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| 2022-06-20T18:29:54Z
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NEW YORK (AP) — A college basketball player was killed and eight other people were wounded Monday in an early-morning shooting at a gathering in Harlem, New York City police said.
Officers responded around 12:40 a.m. to reports of a shooting on a footpath along FDR Drive and found several people wounded. Other victims went to hospitals on their own, officials said.
Darius Lee, a 21-year-old senior at Houston Baptist University in Texas, was killed, the university said. He grew up in Harlem, attended St. Raymond High School for Boys in the Bronx and was back home for summer break.
The wounded included six other males and two females, police said.
“This Father’s Day weekend is a weekend where people were supposed to be able to enjoy themselves with their families,” NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said at a news conference.
The investigation was ongoing Monday and police didn’t immediately have details about the gathering, possible suspects or what may have led to the shooting.
A gun was recovered from the scene, police said.
The New York Daily News reported that the gathering was a cookout organized by Harlem rapper Rich Rhymer, who posted invitations on his Instagram account. He noted that his two prior cookouts had been free of violence and wrote: “LETS GO FOR A 3PEAT.”
Lee, a guard and forward, played basketball at a community college in New York’s Sullivan County before enrolling at Houston Baptist University. He was scheduled to graduate in December with a bachelor’s degree in sports management, the university said.
Lee was recently named the university’s Male Student-Athlete of the Year. He led the team in scoring and rebounding last season, and finished sixth in the nation in steals per game, earning a second team All-Southland Conference selection.
Houston Baptist Coach Ron Cottrell described Lee as a “remarkable young man” and a “joy to coach.”
“We are in shock and cannot wrap our heads around this news,” Cottrell said in a statement posted on the university’s website. “My heart breaks for his mom, his sister and his entire family, and for our basketball team… As great of a basketball player as he was, he was an even better person.”
The shooting comes amid national concern over gun violence and as the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to strike down a law that makes it difficult to legally carry a handgun in New York.
Shootings are down 11% so far this year in New York City, compared to last year. Murders are down 12% but are still at their second-highest level since 2012.
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| 2022-06-21T05:48:43Z
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BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — As Colombia’s voters put aside a longtime antipathy to leftists and chose one as their new president, they also carved out another milestone — electing the country’s first Black vice president.
When former leftist rebel Gustavo Petro takes office as president on Aug. 7, a key player in his administration will be Francia Marquez, his running mate in Sunday’s runoff election.
Marquez is an environmental activist from La Toma, a remote village surrounded by mountains where she first organized campaigns against a hydroelectric project and then challenged wildcat gold miners who were invading collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands.
The politician has faced numerous death threats for her environmental work and has emerged as a powerful spokeswoman for Black Colombians and other marginalized communities.
“She’s completely different than any another person that’s ever had a vice presidency in Colombia,” said Gimena Sanchez, the Andes director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.
“She comes from a rural area, she comes from the perspective of a campesino woman and from the perspective of areas of Colombia that have been affected by armed conflict for many years. Most politicians in Colombia who have held the presidency have not lived in the way she has,” Sanchez said.
She said Marquez will likely be given the mandate to work on gender issues as well as policies affecting the nation’s Afro-Colombian population.
In several interviews. Petro has discussed creating a Ministry of Equality, which would be headed by Marquez and would work across several sectors of the economy on issues like reducing gender inequalities and tackling disparities faced by ethnic minorities.
Marquez said Sunday that part of her mission as vice president will be to reduce inequality.
“This will be a government for those with calluses on their hands. We are here to promote social justice and to help women eradicate the patriarchy,” she said on stage while celebrating the election results with thousands of supporters at a popular concert venue.
Marquez grew up in a small home built by her family and had a daughter when she was 16, whom she raised on her own. To support her daughter, Marquez cleaned homes in the nearby city of Cali and also worked at a restaurant while studying for a law degree.
She was awarded the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize for her successful efforts to remove gold miners from the collectively owned Afro-Colombian lands around her village.
Marquez entered the presidential race last year as a candidate for the Democratic Pole party, though she lost out in an inter-party consultation in March to Gustavo Petro. But she gained national recognition during the primaries and received 700,000 votes, topping most veteran politicians.
In speeches calling for Colombia to confront racism and gender inequalities and to ensure basic rights for the poor, Marquez energized rural voters who have suffered from the country’s long armed conflict as well as young people and women in urban areas.
“All of us who work with her now believe in the power of women,” said Vivian Tibaque, a community leader in Bogota who worked on Marquez’s campaign. “We believe we can also defend out rights like Francia has defended hers.”
Political analysts said Marquez contributed to Petro’s campaign by reaching out to voters who felt excluded by the political system but did not trust the leftist parties that Petro, a former member of a rebel group, has been a part of throughout much of his career.
They said her presence on Petro’s ticket also motivated Afro-Colombian voters along the Pacific coast, where Petro won by big margins Sunday even as he barely won the contest by three percentage points.
“I don’t think Petro could’ve won the presidency without her.” Sanchez said. “There is a lot of distrust and suspicion towards the left in Colombia, partly because a lot of the left has been armed at some point in time.”
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| 2022-06-21T05:48:50Z
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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Multiple police officers stood in a hallway at Robb Elementary School armed with rifles and at least one ballistic shield within 19 minutes of a gunman arriving at the campus, according to documents reviewed by the Austin American-Statesman, a devastating new revelation deepening questions about why police didn’t act faster to stop the shooter who killed 19 children and two teachers last month.
The series of revelations, which began the same week as the May 24 mass killing, has left the impression of a bumbling law enforcement response.
The newspaper cited documents, including school surveillance and police body camera video, from unidentified investigators of the May 24 massacre. The information is to be presented to a public Texas Senate hearing in Austin on Tuesday. Investigators say the latest information indicates officers had more than enough firepower and protection to take down the gunman long before they finally did, the newspaper reported.
The timeline the American-Statesman reported from the documents included footage from inside the school that showed the 18-year-old gunman casually entering a rear door at 11:33 a.m., walking to a classroom and immediately spraying gunfire before barricading himself. Video showed 11 officers entering the school three minutes later, the newspaper reported.
School district police Chief Pete Arredondo called the Uvalde Police Department landline and reported that their suspect had “shot a lot” with an AR-15-style rifle and outgunned the officers at the school, who he said were armed only with pistols, the newspaper reported.
Four minutes later, at 11:44 a.m., body camera video recorded the sound of more gunshots. At 11:52 a.m., the first ballistic shield arrived as officers grew impatient to act. Arredondo struggled to find a key to the classroom door even though no one is believed to have tried opening the door, the newspaper reported.
Another officer with a ballistic shield arrived at 12:03 p.m., and another came with a shield two minutes later. About 30 minutes before officers finally breached the classroom door at 12:50 p.m., Arredondo is heard wondering aloud if the gunman could be shot through a window. Only at 12:46 p.m. did Arredondo tell the tactical team members to breach the door when ready, the newspaper reported.
Delays in the law enforcement response have been the focus of the federal, state and local investigation of the massacre and its aftermath. Questioned about the law enforcement response began days after the massacre. Col. Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said on May 27 that Arredondo made “the wrong decision” when he chose not to storm the classroom for more than 70 minutes, even as trapped fourth graders inside two classrooms were desperately calling 911 for help.
Another legislative committee completed two days of scheduled closed-door hearings in Uvalde on Tuesday into those delays.
State Rep. Dustin Burrows, who is chairing the committee investigating the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, had said at the start of the day’s session that the panel would hear more witness testimony from the Uvalde Police Department, as well as from another officer from the school district police and a member of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
After Burrows’ opening statements during the committee hearing in Uvalde, the committee went into executive session, blocking the public from hearing witness testimony. Burrows did not immediately emerge from the executive session Monday afternoon to make a statement on the day’s testimony.
Burrows said that testimony would continue on Tuesday in Austin. He said he hoped to provide information on when at least a preliminary report would be released to the public.
___
Find more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting
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| 2022-06-21T05:49:04Z
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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Thousands of students from state universities marched in Sri Lanka’s capital on Monday to demand the president and prime minister resign over an economic crisis that has caused severe shortages of essential supplies and disrupted people’s livelihoods and education.
The students say President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is responsible for the economic crisis, the worst since independence in 1948, and that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over the position a little more than a month ago promising to end shortages, has not delivered on his pledges.
Sri Lanka is nearly bankrupt and has suspended repayment of $7 billion in foreign debt due this year. It must also pay back more than $5 billion every year until 2026. Its foreign reserves are nearly gone and it is unable to import food, fuel, cooking gas and medicines. A lack of fuel to run power stations has resulted in long daily power cuts.
In recent months people have been forced to stand in long lines to buy fuel and gas, and the country has survived mostly on credit lines extended by neighboring India to buy fuel and other essentials.
With that credit also running out, authorities have shut schools and instructed teachers to teach online, and have asked non-essential government employees to work from home for one week to preserve limited stocks of fuel.
Officials from the International Monetary Fund are currently in Sri Lanka to discuss a bailout package.
Monthslong protests have nearly dismantled the Rajapaksa political dynasty that has ruled Sri Lanka for most of the past two decades.
One of Rajapaksa’s brothers resigned as prime minister last month, and two other brothers and a nephew quit their Cabinet posts earlier.
President Rajapaksa has admitted he did not take steps to forestall the economic collapse early enough, but has refused to leave office. It is nearly impossible to oust a president under the constitution unless he resigns on his own accord.
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| 2022-06-21T05:49:18Z
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One killed two others injured in Mason St. shooting
MACON-BIBB COUNTY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) —The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a shooting that happened in the 2300 block of Mason Street just after 11:00 p.m. Monday night.
Deputies responded to the 2300 block of Mason Street and found a 16-year-old male unresponsive at a vacant lot. He was pronounced deceased on scene by Deputy Coroner Miley. It was reported that there had been a gathering in the vacant lot and during the gathering a dispute started and shots were fired by multiple people. A 30-year-old female and a 29-year-old male were also injured during the incident. Both the female and the male were taken to the Atrium Health Navicent and are listed in stable condition. No one else was injured.
This incident is still under investigation anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact the Bibb Sheriff’s Office at 478-751 -7500 or Macon Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
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| 2022-06-21T12:45:46Z
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17-year-old killed in vehicle crash in Kathleen
The crash happened around 5:20 Monday evening
KATHLEEN, Georgia (41NBC/ WMGT) – A 17-year-old female is dead and two others are injured in a rollover crash in Houston County.
Coroner James Williams say he responded to a crash around 5:20 Monday evening along the 100 block of Woodard Road, near Moody Road.
Williams says two people inside the vehicle were transported to the hospital. He pronounced the 17-year-old dead at the scene.
According to Williams, the Houston County Sheriff’s Office is handling the investigation and working to notify next of kin.
No other vehicles were involved in the fatal crash.
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| 2022-06-21T12:45:52Z
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Family Dollar robbed
MACON-BIBB COUNTY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) —The Bibb County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a commercial armed robbery that took place just after 9:00 p.m. Monday at the Family Dollar, located at 2035 Shurling Drive.
It was reported that two males entered the store with guns. They demanded money from the clerk. After getting an undisclosed amount of money they fled the store. No one was injured during this incident.
The suspects were completely covered in dark clothes with masks.
Anyone with information is urged to call the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office at 478-751-7500, or Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 1-877-68CRIME.
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| 2022-06-21T12:45:58Z
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Check for expired PPE as new COVID wave approaches
Health experts want to make sure you're prepared and throw out expired PPE.
MACON, Georgia(41NBC/WMGT)— Just like food products and medicine, your disposable masks purchased during the pandemic have an expiration date.
Bryan Scott, a pharmacist at Scott’s Pharmacy in Macon, says it is extremely important to check those expiration dates if you stocked up in 2020. He describes why it’s important to ensure your PPE is not expired.
“It’s not something that’s going to hurt you as if you might take some expired medication that does different things,” said Scott. “A glove is not going to hurt you, but it just may not be as effective.”
Scott says many people don’t know that a mask can expire. He tells his customers to always check the expiration date. And depending on who uses the mask, determines how well you want your mask to work.
“If you’re a health care professional you’re in contact with people who have Covid-19 obviously you need that mask to be a lot more better than if you’re just going through the mall and you might be around some people,” said Scott.
According to the North Central Health District all PPE should have expiration dates.
The NCHD says you don’t have to worry about buying expired PPE from pharmacies, because they ensure products are not expired.
“Some of those might not be held within the same standard that more professional level medical equipment might be at so it’s important to know exactly when items will expire,” said Michael Hokanson, the Public Information Officer for the NCHD.
Hokanson says you should also check your at-home Covid-19 test kits.
“You should read the instructions carefully, and part of that includes knowing whether or not the text is still valid or if it’s an expired piece of medical trash at that point.”
If your PPE did not have an expiration date, Scott says you should throw it our after two years.
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| 2022-06-21T12:46:04Z
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Crews repairing major hole on Log Cabin Drive
MWA reported a water main break in the area Friday evening
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – A portion of Log Cabin Drive is closed as crews fill and repair a major hole in the road.
The Macon Water Authority says there was a water main break in the area Friday evening. A portion of the road near the bridge failed, and that that caused a big hole.
County Engineer Charles Brooks say the bridge is structurally sound. Crews spent the weekend isolating the break and restoring water services to the area.
Crews will start refilling the hole Tuesday.
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| 2022-06-21T12:46:10Z
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ICYMI: Stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News Top stories from June 20, 2022 June 20, 2022 Clayton Poulnott, Check for expired PPE as new COVID wave approaches Runoff election for MWA chairman happening Tuesday Crews repairing major hole on Log Cabin Drive For other stories you may have missed today on 41NBC News, click here. FacebookPinterestTwitterLinkedin
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| 2022-06-21T12:46:16Z
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One arrested, another suspect wanted in deadly Washington County shooting
Investigators are still searching for 24-year-old Brian “BJ” Rozier, of East Dublin.
SANDERSVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Washington County Sheriff’s Office makes an arrest in connection to a deadly Memorial Day shooting at a block party, but the search is still on for a second suspect.
Deputies arrested 22-year-old Ryan Rozier of East Dublin. He is charged with Possession of firearm by a first offender probationer and Felony Probation Violation.
Investigators are still searching for 24-year-old Brian “BJ” Rozier, of East Dublin. Brian Rozier is wanted on Malice Murder charges. According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, he is considered armed and dangerous.
The deadly shooting happened on May 29th at an ’80’s vs 90’s Freak Nik” block party at the Larry Mitchell Ball Park in Washington County. Deputies responded to the scene around 9:30pm Sunday. And they found 17-year-old William Lowery of Louisville and 30-year-old Christopher Dunn of Wrightsville shot. Both victims were sent to the emergency room and later died from their injuries.
Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Georgia Bureau of Investigation Region 12 Office are following leads and tips. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Brian Rozier is asked to contact our office at 478-552-0911 or GBI at 478-374-6988.
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| 2022-06-21T12:46:22Z
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Runoff election for MWA chairman happening Tuesday
MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT)— Runoff elections are happening across the state Tuesday. This includes the race for Macon Water Authority chairman in Macon-Bibb County. During the May election, no candidate got more than 50% of the vote. So the two candidates are preparing to face off on Tuesday, June 21st.
The two candidates in the running are Desmond Brown and Gary Bechtel.
Bechtel received 47% of the vote in may. He previously served as a Macon Bibb County Commissioner, and he served on the Macon Water Authority as a County Appointee for a year. He also says his business experience will be a plus if elected to the role.
“I want to make certain that we do a good job with storm water. South Bibb has had a lot of problems with flooding, that’s our priority,” Bechtel explained. “We need long term plans to expand our sewer service, and we need to evaluate our infrastructure.”
Bechtel believes he’s the right person for the job compared to his opponent.
“It’s a very very clear choice. Do you want ethical leadership? Or do you want someone who will more than likely take advantage of this position? Like he did with his district position,” Bechtel said.
What Bechtel is referring to is Brown’s arrest back in February when he was held in contempt of Superior Court in a civil case. He also faced an investigation in January while serving as a Macon Water Authority District 2 Board Member for a conflict of interest.
We asked Brown for a response to those issues and he believes voters see past them.
“The people in District 2 are saying they don’t believe the banana news media and that’s why they voted for me. I’m thankful, and I’m excited for the people I represented in District 2 because they know me,” Brown said.
Brown received 30% of the vote in May. He says his focus is improving the Water Authority labor force, adjusting storm water fees, and upgrading infrastructure.
“I have been blowing the whistle about needing infrastructure repairs especially on Log Cabin Drive that just happened,” Brown said. “So please look at my experience, look at my ability to find the problems, and give solutions.”
Early voting for this election ended on Friday. Your last day to vote is on Tuesday. Polls open at 7 A.M. and close at 7 P.M.
To check your registration status and your precinct, you can go to the Georgia Secretary of State My Voter Page.
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| 2022-06-21T12:46:34Z
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