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(NEXSTAR) – Nearly 162,000 pounds of select Skippy peanut butter products are being voluntarily recalled because some of the jars may contain small fragments of stainless steel.
Skippy Foods announced the recall Wednesday evening, saying roughly 9,350 cases of three products with specific code dates are affected. The stainless steel fragments are from a piece of manufacturing equipment.
Below is a list of the affected products and their corresponding code dates, which are found on the top of the lid.
According to Skippy, internal detection systems at the manufacturing facility were able to detect the equipment issue. There have not yet been any reports from consumers about fragments found in the peanut butter.
Instead, Skippy said it is voluntarily recalling the affected products “out of an abundance of caution” and to “ensure that consumers are made aware of the issue.”
The company says the recalled peanut butters were sent to 18 states: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.
No other Skippy products are included in this recall.
If you have one of the above products, you are encouraged to return it at the store you purchased it from, contact Skippy Foods Consumer Engagement at 1-866-475-4779, or visit the company’s website. | https://www.ktsm.com/news/local-news/skippy-recalling-peanut-butters-that-may-contain-stainless-steel-fragments/ | 2022-03-31T16:39:12 | en | 0.948304 |
It was the first census after World War II. The baby boom had begun. The Great Migration of Black residents from the Jim Crow South to places like Detroit and Chicago was in full swing. And some industrial cities reached their peak populations before Americans started moving to the suburbs.
Starting Friday, genealogists and historians can get a microscopic look at those sweeping historical trends when individual records on 151 million people from the 1950 census are released.
Researchers view the records as a gold mine, and amateur genealogists see it as a way to fill gaps in family trees, a field of research that has seen dramatic growth in recent years through the popularity of home DNA testing kits.
“This is genealogy heaven when a census is rolled out,” said Matt Menashes, executive director of the National Genealogical Society. “People are waiting anxiously. It’s hard to overstate.”
For privacy reasons, records identifying people by name can’t be made public until 72 years after they are gathered during the once-a-decade U.S. head count. The 1940 records were released a decade ago.
For Wendy Kalman, an amateur genealogist in Atlanta, the 1950 records will help her solidify details about her parents and grandparents and their relatives. She has traced her father's side of the family back to 18th century Ukraine, and her research has put her in touch with previously unknown third and fourth cousins in the U.S. whom she talks to regularly.
“It’s an interesting journey to find out where you are from and the census records help you find information that isn’t always available,” said Kalman, 55. “Family stories aren’t always passed down and the census records give you a snapshot in time. It helps put together a picture.”
Ronnie Willis’ relatives from both sides of his grandparents’ families were itinerant farmers who traveled through Texas and Oklahoma as a blended group throughout the 1930s and 1940s. But they broke into nuclear family units after World War II. Willis hopes the 1950 census records help him piece together what happened to those relatives who settled in other states.
“That will help get me 10 years closer to putting the puzzle together, a little bit,” said Willis, 53, a software company executive who lives in Greenville, South Carolina.
The records released by the National Archives and Records Administration will be indexed into a searchable website. The digitized, handwritten forms have information about household members' names, race, sex, age, address, occupations, hours worked in the previous week, salaries, education levels, marital status and the country in which their parents were born. The website will include a tool allowing users to fix any incorrect names or add missing names.
Claire Kluskens, a digital projects archivist at the National Archives, acknowledged that what will be on the website starting Friday is “a first draft," in which specific people are most likely to be found initially only by searching for whoever was listed as the head of their household.
Two outside genealogical groups, Ancestry and FamilySearch, a division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have teamed up to serve as a quality check on the records by creating their own index separate from the National Archives.
At Ancestry, scores of workers will be ready at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday to start downloading the more than 6.5 million digital images of the census files. The Utah-based company will scan the millions of surveys, using artificial intelligence to decipher sloppy handwriting and converting the information into readable database form.
“We are so excited to dive into the census," said Crista Cowan, corporate genealogist at Ancestry.
Anywhere from 400,000 to 800,000 volunteers across the U.S., under the coordination of FamilySearch, will then double-check the entries with the actual digital images. If the digital record of the 1950 census form says “Wilhelmina" but has been entered as “William" in the index, that will be corrected, said David Rencher, director of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and FamilySearch’s chief genealogy officer.
The effort could take six to nine months, he said.
“We believe we will get better accuracy because we are having humans look at it,” Rencher said.
The new data will flesh out the contours of a dramatically different world.
In 1950, the U.S. had less than half of the 332 million residents it has today. Households were larger, with an average of 3.5 people, compared with 2.6 people per household in 2019. Just 9% of households had someone living alone in 1950, compared with 28% in 2019. Adults were also more likely to be married, with more than two-thirds of adult men and women being married in 1950 compared with less than half of men and women in 2019, said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau.
Elaine Powell is excited because this is the first release in which she will see herself in the census records. The president of the Central Florida Genealogical Society was born in 1946 and grew up in the St. Louis area.
“It’s just exciting. I remember the first time I found my parents in the census, you could hear me whooping and hollering in the library,” Powell said. “It verifies what you have been told by your parents and grandparents."
It can also correct the record left by family lore. After all, as Powell noted, “genealogy, without documentation, is mythology.”
___
Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Gold-mine-of-census-records-being-released-from-17048377.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:13 | en | 0.969373 |
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – Good morning everyone! Happy Thursday!
Well today we are expecting another day in the 70s just like yesterday, but thankfully those winds have finally subsided, expect mostly clear skies and nice calm winds today!☀️
We are only going to warm up and dry up from here so expect beautiful warm weather this weekend!
Tomorrow for your Friday and April Fools Day we are going to warm up even more in the 80s and staying in the 80s throughout your weekend so its definitely feeling like Spring!🌸🌺🌷💐
Which means you can definitely wash those cars this weekend!🧼🧽🚗
Next week however we are expecting another cold front to move in, its not going to cool us down by too much but it is going to bring us even more windy conditions, so expect back to back windy days next week.
Have a terrific Thursday everyone!!😇 | https://www.ktsm.com/news/roxys-thursday-forecast-calm-winds-warmer-temperatures/ | 2022-03-31T16:39:14 | en | 0.969731 |
NEW YORK — Former Vice President Mike Pence has unveiled a new policy platform for Republicans ahead of this year’s midterms elections, offering a framework for candidates — and possibly himself — ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.
Pence’s “Freedom Agenda,” released Thursday, combines traditional Republican goals like increasing American energy production, cutting taxes and rolling back regulations with priorities pursued by former President Donald Trump on issues like trade and immigration. Pence also offers plenty of culture war red meat for the GOP base, pledging, for instance, to save women’s sports by “ensuring that sports competitions are between those who share their God-given gender” and calling for all high school students to pass a civics test.
“Elections are about the future, and I think it’s absolutely essential that, while we do our part to take the fight to the failed policies of the Biden administration and the radical left, at the same time, we want to offer a compelling vision built on our highest American ideals,” Pence said ahead of the plan’s release. “It really is an effort to put in one place the agenda that I think carried us to the White House in 2016, carried two Bush presidencies to the White House and carried Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980.”
Much of the 28-page plan reads like the platform of a presidential campaign, underscoring Pence’s ambitions and providing a clear road map of the themes and policies he is likely to pursue if he moves forward with a 2024 run. While Pence in recent weeks has worked to distance himself from his former boss as he begins to reintroduce himself to voters and develop a political identity of his own, he has also been careful to tie himself to the policies of the Trump-Pence administration, which remain extremely popular among Republican voters.
It’s part of what aides see as Pence’s unique opportunity, as a former talk radio host, congressman and Indiana governor, to merge the traditional conservative movement with Trump’s “Make America Great Again” agenda.
“There is a winning coalition for America that believes in the traditionally conservative values that the vice president has championed through his career,” said Marc Short, co-chair of Advancing American Freedom, the advocacy group Pence launched last year.
Pence’s plan comes as the GOP has been at odds over the wisdom of offering voters a concrete policy agenda ahead of the midterm elections this year. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has been pointedly opposed to such efforts, arguing that Republicans should keep the focus on President Joe Biden, whose popularity has slumped amid the highest inflation in 40 years and the Russian war in Ukraine, and make the election a referendum on him.
The risks came into stark relief last month when Florida Sen. Rick Scott, another potential 2024 contender and the chair of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, unveiled his 11-point plan to “rescue America.” The effort drew immediate criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans, particularly its call for all Americans to “pay some income tax to have skin in the game” — a move that would amount to a tax hike for millions of people who pay no income tax because they earn so little.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have been working on their own “Commitment to America” plan with echoes of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” which Republicans unveiled in 1994 before sweeping the midterms that year.
“For the American public to join with you and support you, first they want to know what will you do,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said at the party’s annual retreat in Jacksonville, Florida, last week.
Candidates on the campaign trail have expressed similar sentiment.
At a Republican Senate primary debate in Ohio on Monday, several of the candidates applauded Scott for his effort, even as they said they disagreed with parts of his plan.
“I’m so sick of Republicans who say, ‘Well, we’re just going to push back against the Biden agenda.’ Well, of course we’re going to do that. But what are we gonna actually do for our voters?” candidate J.D. Vance asked. “There are a lot of problems out there. A lot of very serious problems. And we can’t just sort of stick our flag in the mud and say, ‘We’re against, we’re against, we’re against.’ We gotta be for stuff.”
Pence said that was part of his intention.
“As important as it is for us to criticize and to confront and to be the loyal opposition,” he said, it is “absolutely of equal importance that we offer a positive, compelling vision built on our highest ideals and frankly the successes that we were able to demonstrate during our administration.”
The economic plan unveiled Thursday calls for fast-tracking permits for oil and gas production, expanding drilling on federal lands and offshore and pursuing trade agreements that better protect American workers. On foreign policy, Pence calls on China to “establish a victims compensation and economic recovery fund” for “negligently unleashing and hiding the origins of COVID-19.”
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On immigration, Pence’s agenda sounds much like a Trump press release. It calls on leaders to “oppose all forms of amnesty,” typically defined as a path to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally, and seeks an end to what he calls “chain migration” by limiting family reunification to an immigrant’s nuclear family. It also calls for promoting “the patriotic assimilation of immigrants” and finishing Trump’s border wall.
Under a section dedicated to “protecting American culture,” Pence calls for the promotion of “patriotic education” by ending “radical political indoctrination — including the teaching of anti-American racist ideologies like Critical Race Theory,” which views racism as systemic in the nation’s institutions. There is little to no evidence that critical race theory is being taught to K-12 public school students.
Pence also calls on states and local jurisdictions to require that all high school students pass a test on the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Federalist Papers to graduate. And he seeks limits on mail-in voting and early in-person voting, as well as mandatory voter identification, among other election measures.
The plan comes as Pence has been raising his public profile, making frequent media appearances, headlining political events and delivering policy speeches. He has traveled in recent weeks to South Korea, Israel and the Ukrainian border with Poland, where he greeted fleeing refugees. And he has paid numerous visits to early voting states, including New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina, which he’ll return to next month.
Meanwhile, his advocacy group is spending millions of dollars on ads and filing amicus briefs opposing vaccine mandates and abortion rights, and he’s working on a pair of books in addition to projects with the conservative Heritage Foundation and Young America’s Foundation. | https://www.pilotonline.com/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-pence-gop-agenda-20220331-24xg5zwctnftrpg3lu2tyjw4pm-story.html | 2022-03-31T16:39:15 | en | 0.96858 |
LGBTQ group sues Florida over so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Gay rights advocates sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday to block a new law that forbids classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
The law has catapulted Florida and DeSantis, a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, to the forefront of the country’s culture wars. Critics call it the “Don’t Say Gay” law and argue that its true intent is to marginalize LGBTQ people and their families.
The challenge filed in federal court in Tallahassee on behalf of Equality Florida and Family Equality alleges that the law violates the constitutionally protected rights of free speech, equal protection and due process of students and families.
“This effort to control young minds through state censorship — and to demean LGBTQ lives by denying their reality — is a grave abuse of power,” the lawsuit says.
“The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed that LGBTQ people and their families are at home in our constitutional order. The State of Florida has no right to declare them outcasts, or to treat their allies as outlaws, by punishing schools where someone dares to affirm their identity and dignity,” the lawsuit says.
The law deliberately employs broad terms and invites arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, empowering parents to be roving censors who can sue school boards for damages based on any perceived violation, the lawsuit adds.
The law states: “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Parents would be able to sue districts over violations.
U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona met with LGBTQ students and their family members at a school in Orlando on Thursday, discussing privately how the legislation is affecting their lives. Cardona’s visit was one of several Biden administration events Thursday showing support for the queer community, including a presidential proclamation recognizing Transgender Day of Visibility.
DeSantis and other Republicans have repeatedly described the rules as reasonable, saying children should learn about sexual orientation and gender identity from their parents, not in schools.
“We will make sure that parents can send their kids to school to get an education, not an indoctrination,” the governor said when he signed it into law this week.
Many critics have said the law’s language, particularly the phrases “classroom instruction” and “age appropriate,” could be interpreted so broadly that discussion in any grade could trigger lawsuits, creating a classroom atmosphere where teachers would avoid the subjects entirely.
Intense public backlash followed the bill’s introduction in Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature this year, with the White House, Hollywood celebrities, students, Democrats and LGBTQ advocates condemning the policy. Legal challenges have been expected.
The filing by Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP and the National Center for Lesbian Rights seeks to block the law from taking effect and also names Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran and other education officials as defendants.
“Already, our children have told us that they are afraid that they will not be able to talk about their family at school,” Dan and Brent VanTice, parents of two first-grade students, said in the statement announcing the suit. “We are heartbroken that our children are already feeling isolated and stigmatized by this law.”
Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association union, said the law is politically motivated because elementary schools, especially in kindergarten through third grade, do not teach about these subjects and have state curriculum standards guiding classroom lessons.
The law adds fuel to a persistent feud between DeSantis and Democratic President Joe Biden, who tweeted after DeSantis signed the bill this week that “My Administration will continue to fight for dignity and opportunity for every student and family — in Florida and around the country.” Cardona has said his agency will be monitoring for any federal civil rights violations that result.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wlbt.com/2022/03/31/lgbtq-group-sues-florida-over-so-called-dont-say-gay-law/ | 2022-03-31T16:39:18 | en | 0.963303 |
LONDON (AP) — Climate activist Greta Thunberg has compiled a handbook for tackling the world’s interconnected environmental crises, with contributions from leading scientists and writers.
Penguin Random House announced Thursday that “The Climate Book” will be published in Britain in October.
It contains contributions from more than 100 academics, thinkers and campaigners, including novelists Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh, climate scientist Saleemul Huq and World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The book aims to help readers connect the dots between threats to the climate, environment, sustainability and indigenous populations — among others — and is intended as a guide to understanding and activism.
Contributors including Kenyan environmentalist Wanjira Mathai, Brazilian indigenous activist Sonia Guajajara, French economist Thomas Piketty and Canadian journalist Naomi Klein offer “compelling stories of change, action and resilience,” the publisher said, alongside Thunberg’s own stories of "learning, demonstrating, and uncovering greenwashing around the world.”
“My hope is that this book might be some kind of go-to source for understanding these different, closely interconnected crises,” Thunberg said in a statement.
Chloe Currens, editor at Penguin Press, said it was “a unique book, alive with moral purpose, which aims to change the climate conversation forever.”
Thunberg began skipping classes once a week to protest climate change in 2018, when she was 15, sparking a series of school walkouts that grew into a global youth movement.
Now 19, the Swedish activist has already published a memoir, “Our House Is On Fire” and a collection of speeches, “No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference.”
“The Climate Book” is published Oct. 27 in the U.K. by Allen Lane and in the U.S. in early 2023 by Penguin Press, as well as in countries around the world. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Greta-Thunberg-aims-to-drive-change-with-The-17048508.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:19 | en | 0.947888 |
KYIV, UKRAINE — Russian troops began leaving the Chernobyl nuclear plant after soldiers got “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches at the highly contaminated site, Ukraine’s state power company said Thursday as heavy fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts.
Energoatom, the operator, gave no immediate details on the condition of the troops or how many were affected. But it said the Russians had dug in in the forest inside the exclusion zone around the now-closed plant, the site in 1986 of the world’s worst nuclear disaster.
The troops “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began to prepare to leave, Energoatom said.
The Russians seized the Chernobyl site in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion, raising fears that they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation. The workforce at the site oversees the safe storage of spent fuel rods and the concrete-entombed ruins of the exploded reactor.
The pullout came amid continued fighting and indications that the Kremlin is using talk of de-escalation as cover while regrouping and resupplying its forces and redeploying them for a stepped-up offensive in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is seeing “a buildup of Russian forces for new strikes on the Donbas, and we are preparing for that.”
Meanwhile, a convoy of buses headed to Mariupol in another bid to evacuate people from the besieged port city after the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area. And a new round of talks aimed at stopping the fighting was scheduled for Friday.
The Red Cross said its teams were headed for Mariupol with medical supplies and other relief and hoped to take civilians out of the beleaguered city. Tens of thousands have managed to get out in the past few weeks by way of humanitarian corridors, reducing the city’s population from a prewar 430,000 to an estimated 100,000 as of last week, but other efforts have been thwarted by continued Russian attacks.
At the same time, Russian forces shelled Kyiv suburbs, two days after the Kremlin announced it would significantly scale back operations near both the capital and the northern city of Chernihiv to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry also reported “significant Russian shelling and missile strikes” around Chernihiv. The area’s governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said Russian troops were on the move but may not be withdrawing.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also reported new strikes on Ukrainian fuel stores late Wednesday, and Ukrainian officials said there were artillery barrages in and around the northeastern city of Kharkiv over the past day.
Despite the fighting raging in those areas, the Russian military said it committed to a cease-fire along the route from Mariupol to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 45 buses would be sent to collect civilians who have suffered some of the worst privations of the war.
Food, water and medical supplies have all run low during a weekslong blockade and bombardment of the city. Civilians who have managed to leave have typically done so using private cars, but the number of drivable vehicles left in the city has dwindled and fuel is low.
“It’s desperately important that this operation takes place,” the Red Cross said in a statement. “The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it.”
Talks between Ukraine and Russia were set to resume Friday by video, according to the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamia, six weeks into a bloody war that has seen thousands die and a staggering 4 million Ukrainians flee the country.
But there seemed little faith that the two sides would resolve the conflict any time soon, particularly after the Russian military’s attacks on places where it had offered to dial back.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that conditions weren’t yet “ripe” for a cease-fire in Ukraine and that he wasn’t ready for a meeting with Zelenskyy until negotiators do more work, Italian Premier Mario Draghi said in recounting a telephone conversation he had with the Russian president on Wednesday.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said alliance intelligence indicates that Russia is not scaling back its military operations in Ukraine but is instead repositioning and redeploying forces to join attacks in the Donbas.
“Russia has repeatedly lied about its intentions,” Stoltenberg said, adding that Russia “is trying to regroup, resupply and reinforce its offensive in the Donbas region.” At the same time, he said, pressure is being kept up on Kyiv and other cities, and “we can expect additional offensive actions bringing even more suffering.”
The Donbas is the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014. In the past few days, the Kremlin, in a seeming shift in its war aims, said that its “main goal” now is gaining control of the Donbas, which consists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including Mariupol.
The top rebel leader in Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, issued an order to set up a rival city government for Mariupol, according to Russian state news agencies, in a sign of Russian intent to hold and administer the city.
In the Kyiv suburbs, regional governor Oleksandr Palviuk said on social media that Russian forces shelled Irpin and Makariv and that there were battles around Hostomel. Pavliuk said there were Ukrainian counterattacks and some Russian withdrawals around the suburb of Brovary to the east.
Also, Ukraine’s emergency services said the death toll had risen to 20 in a Russian missile strike Tuesday on a government administration building in the southern city of Mykolaiv.
As Western officials search for clues about what Russia’s next move might be, a top British intelligence official said demoralized Russian soldiers in Ukraine are refusing to carry out orders and sabotaging their equipment and had accidentally shot down their own aircraft.
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In a speech in Australia, Jeremy Fleming, head of the GCHQ electronic spy agency, said Putin had apparently “massively misjudged” the invasion. U.S. intelligence officials have similarly concluded that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the war is going because they are afraid to tell him the truth.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the U.S. is wrong and that “neither the State Department nor the Pentagon possesses the real information about what is happening in the Kremlin.”
In other developments, Putin authorized drafting 134,500 new conscripts starting April 1. The draft is a routine event but comes amid concerns that some draftees could be deployed to Ukraine.
Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu have given assurances that conscripts will not take part in the war in Ukraine. Earlier this month, however, the Russian military admitted that a number of conscripts ended up in Ukraine and were captured there.
Karmanau reported from Lviv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report. | https://www.pilotonline.com/nation-world/ct-aud-nw-ukraine-russia-20220331-hapxi6mntfdrdj3a5gcnnl7y2u-story.html | 2022-03-31T16:39:22 | en | 0.968843 |
Students accidentally served milk cartons filled with sanitizer
CAMDEN COUNTY, N.J. (Gray News) - Health officials in New Jersey are investigating after students at four separate schools were accidentally served milk cartons filled with sanitizer.
The Camden County Health Department reported the Camden Schools Early Childhood Development Center called 911 Wednesday morning after 25 students had ingested an unknown substance with an “antiseptic-like odor.”
None of the children had reportedly gotten sick from the substance but were taken to the hospital as a precaution, according to the school district’s Twitter page.
They also reported they immediately stopped serving the milk once the contamination was discovered.
The health department reported first responders were also called to another early development center, Riletta Twyne Cream Early Childhood Development Center, where more children had reportedly ingested the substance.
Five children from that center were taken to the hospital, and 15 were looked over by doctors on site.
All of the impacted children were discharged by Wednesday afternoon, the health department said, and no illnesses related to the contamination have been reported.
The health department reported at least four schools have been impacted by the contamination, and testing is being conducted.
It was determined an unknown quantity of cartons had been filled with “non-toxic consumable sanitizer,” sealed, and shipped along with the milk typically served to students.
Since the cartons were sealed, the contamination was not discovered until the milk was served to the students.
An initial investigation conducted by the Camden County Hazmat Team reported the substance is used in the manufacturing and packaging of the milk.
The health department said they are in contact with the milk company and are working with them to find and remove all impacted products.
The Camden County School District reported they will stop serving milk until the investigation is complete.
Copyright 2022 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. | https://www.wlbt.com/2022/03/31/students-accidentally-served-milk-cartons-filled-with-sanitizer/ | 2022-03-31T16:39:24 | en | 0.987485 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Military bases with a high risk for sexual assault, harassment and other harmful behaviors often have leaders who don't understand violence prevention, don't make it a priority and focus more on their mission than on their people, a Pentagon review has concluded.
The review studied 20 bases in the United States and Europe, including 18 with some of the more severe problems identified in command climate surveys. It found that the failures were worse in a number of bases in Germany and Spain where key leaders and resources weren't on site. Senior defense officials described the report to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the findings before the review was publicly released.
At Naval Station Rota in Spain, for example, officials said the military mission requirements “were prioritized above and at the expense of the sailors’ well-being.” They said sailors reported bullying, mental health issues, sexual harassment and relationship problems, but often could not seek help due to their mission requirements.
In one location, officials said, they found that young enlisted men were taking steps to help their female peers stay safe by keeping them away from more senior leaders who were harassing them.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the report as part of his effort to strengthen sexual assault and harassment prevention across the forces, identify what programs work and ensure high-risk bases get attention quickly. Austin approved the report, and in a memo obtained by the AP, said it will help the department tailor improvements for bases where needs may vary.
“While we have made progress, we must do more to strengthen the integrated capabilities we have on the ground to prevent sexual assault, harassment, suicide, domestic abuse and other harmful behaviors,” he said.
The report comes nearly two years after Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén went missing from Fort Hood, Texas, and her remains were found two months later. Guillen was killed by a soldier, who her family says sexually harassed her, and who killed himself as police sought to arrest him.
Her death and a number of other crimes, murders and suicides led to heightened scrutiny on assaults and other violence in the military, and to a series of reviews. An independent panel appointed by Austin last year made more than 80 recommendations, including specific changes to improve accountability of leadership, command climate and culture, and victim care and support.
Officials said Austin's goal is to find effective ways to prevent harmful behavior, which includes sexual assault and harassment, suicides and domestic violence. They said this latest report is designed to pinpoint which leadership and other failures contribute to higher instances of such behavior and which prevention programs and other changes actually work.
According to the officials, 16 of the bases were selected because a command climate survey of nearly a million personnel identified problems there, which included things such as binge drinking, toxic leadership, stress, and racial or sexual harassment. While serious problems were identified at these 16 bases, the report looked at a variety of factors for each location and doesn’t specifically characterize them as the worst in the military.
Two other bases were chosen because the survey showed good results, such as high morale, inclusion and good leadership. Two others had a mix of both high-performing and problem units.
The officials said that while in many cases leaders had a genuine desire to prevent violence, there was a “pervasive” misunderstanding of how to do it and they often didn't devote enough personnel or time for it or hold subordinates accountable.
And even if they understood department policies, leaders often didn't recognize when there was a high risk for violence or harmful behavior among their people.
In the United States, the bases surveyed were: Fort Custer, Michigan; Naval Support Activity Sarasota Springs, New York; Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Bliss, Texas; Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia; Marine Corps Base Hawaii; Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California; Dyess Air Force Base, Texas; Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; the Kentucky National Guard; and the Army Reserve base in Fraser, Michigan.
The last two — the Guard and Reserve bases in Kentucky and Michigan — were the ones chosen because they had less risk and more positive command climates.
The overseas bases were: Army Garrison Ansbach, Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfatz Smith Bararcks; Army Garrison Bavaria; Naval Station Rota; Army Garrison Stuttgart; and the Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz, Kaiserslautern. All but Rota are in Germany.
As an example, the report found that at the Kentucky National Guard base leaders believed that their soldiers came first, and their “well-being was part of the mission, not an adjacent effort that was secondary.” In contrast, commanders in at the bases in Germany and Spain “tolerated harmful behaviors” and it was difficult to access resources “due to mission requirements or geographic dispersion of services.”
The report said that the changes proposed by the independent review board will help address the problems. Those improvements include establishing a dedicated prevention workforce, expanded sexual assault prevention and response programs, and better leadership. The budget for 2023 includes funding to hire additional personnel.
The report also recommends that the department establish data to help the military services share prevention and program support information, hold leaders accountable if they don't have healthy command climates. Officials said it's important to ensure that leaders better understand the prevention policies and programs and that service members and employees know where to go to get help.
Officials also said that there will be follow-up visits to the bases by this fall, and that similar site visits and reviews will be done every two years.
Austin is asking military service leaders for implementation plans by early June and said the department will issue more guidelines and policies by early October. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Pentagon-links-leadership-failures-to-violence-at-17048502.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:24 | en | 0.972953 |
DETROIT (AP) — One security guard has been fatally shot and another wounded after a man was told to leave a Detroit health facility.
The shooting was reported about 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Team Wellness Center on the city's eastside, police said.
One security guard was pronounced dead at the scene. The other was in temporary serious condition at a hospital.
A man identified as the suspected shooter failed to complete the facility's intake process and had been asked to leave, police Capt. Conway Petty told reporters.
Petty said the man returned and had some type of confrontation with the security guards before pulling a gun and shooting them. The suspect then fled. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Guard-slain-another-wounded-at-Detroit-health-17048337.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:26 | en | 0.988482 |
Going to the Final Four has always been on Eric Acra’s bucket list.
But there was never a real desire to make it happen.
That changed on Sunday as Acra, the Norfolk Academy boys basketball coach, watched Kansas play Miami in the Midwest Region final.
A day earlier, he watched former Bulldog Mark Williams help lead Duke over Arkansas in the East Region final. On Sunday, David McCormack, another former Bulldog player, was trying to lead the Jayhawks.
“I’m watching the Kansas game, and they weren’t playing their best and were down to Miami at the half,’” Acra said. “Then what was so cool, and I’m being selfish, was to see the first three minutes of the second half, it was the David McCormack show.”
McCormack scored the first five points of the second half and finished with 15 points in 18 minutes, going 6-for-7 from the floor. He also was named to the Midwest Region All-Tournament team.
And Acra is headed to the Final Four.
“I’ve never been,” he said. “It’s always been on my bucket list. It’s now much sweeter because I have a real reason to go because two Bulldogs are in the finals.”
The only other high schools with more former players at the Final Four is Paul VI of Northern Virginia. The Panthers have Duke guards Jeremy Roach and Trevor Keels, North Carolina guard Anthony Harris and Villanova forward Brandon Slater.
“But we’re not a basketball dynasty,” Acra said, referring to Paul VI, which won the VISAA Division I state title in 2018 with those four players. “This makes it that much more cooler.”
McCormack agreed that it was a nice accomplishment.
“It’s really cool, just to have representation from not only the Tidewater area, but the same school,” he said earlier this week. “It just makes me think what would’ve happened if we played (there) at the same time.”
McCormack and Williams become just the seventh and eighth players from South Hampton Roads to play in a Final Four since 2000. They join Kempsville’s Brian Bersticker (North Carolina, 2000), Norcom’s Vernon Macklin (Georgetown, 2007), Atlantic Shores’ Andre Dawkins (Duke, 2010, 2015), Norcom’s Darius Theus (VCU, 2011), Norcom’s Dorian Finney-Smith (Florida, 2014) and DeShawn Corprew, who played at both Cox and Princess Anne (Texas Tech, 2019).
Only Dawkins won a national title when the Blue Devils did it in 2015.
Acra, who is still close to both players, texted Williams and McCormack earlier in the week.
“If you guys make it to the Final Four, I’m coming,” he told both players. “Then both gave me a thumbs up and said, ‘Can’t wait to see you.’ Then gosh darn, they made it. Now I have to figure how to get there.”
Acra and Norfolk Academy athletic director Chad Byler booked flights, hotel rooms and tickets to the game, which went up by more than 50% after North Carolina beat Saint Peter’s to set up a Final Four matchup against rival Duke.
Earlier this week, tickets averaged $998 each for the semifinals, according to ticketing site stubhub.com. The lowest-available ticket Thursday was $282.
Acra wishes he could say he predicted both to get here.
“You want to be this great Nostradamus, but I can’t say that,” he said, laughing. “I knew they had the opportunity to play at the next level. Both chose schools that would get them to that high-level play. And then you go back to their work ethic, both in the classroom and on the court, they put those things together at the right time.”
Neither player graduated from Norfolk Academy or played together in the Bulldogs program.
McCormack arrived in the seventh grade, but he didn’t immediately try out for basketball.
“The first day of tryouts, David went to the swimming pool because his mom said, ‘You’re going to Norfolk Academy to try new things,’” Acra said about his mother, Janine. “Here comes winter season and he goes out for the swim team. Shortly after, the swim coach escorted him down to the gym and all was good in the world.”
McCormack also played football early on but gave it up as he progressed in basketball.
“I still remember when Alabama showed up at Norfolk Academy and offered David a scholarship, even though he wasn’t playing football anymore,” Acra said. “He was 285, close to 290. That in itself is incredible what he’s done to get his body to where he is now (at 250 pounds).”
McCormack, who was Virginia’s No. 2-rated junior, left Norfolk Academy for Oak Hill, one of the nation’s most successful high school basketball programs.
Acra also remembers when Williams came to the school in the first grade.
“I remember when the admissions director came sprinting down the hallway to my classroom,” he said. “He said there’s a 5-foot-5 first-grader who just walked in.”
Williams, the younger brother of former Princess Anne High and Duke star Elizabeth Williams, was rated the No. 23 junior in the country by ESPN and No. 35 by 247Sports. Like McCormack, he decided to transfer before his senior season to IMG Academy in Florida.
Acra wasn’t surprised by either player’s departure.
“Mark hurt his leg in the eighth grade, and in ninth grade, we weren’t sure if he was ready to come back because of health reasons,” he said. “And then David’s junior year was when he left. That would have been really nice to have had both of them that year. It would have been a fun Twin Towers for me. That would have been a whole lot of fun figuring that out. If I would have messed that up, I probably wouldn’t be coaching anymore.”
Acra beams with pride when he talks about both players and what they’ve accomplished.
Both were McDonald’s High School All-Americans.
McCormack is a two-time All-Big 12 selection, including being named Big 12 Most Improved Player in 2021. He’s the fourth-leading scorer at 10.1 per game and second in rebounds (6.8) and blocks (32 total).
Williams, named to the West Region All-Tournament Team, was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year and third-team All-ACC. He is the third-leading scorer (11.3), second in rebounds (7.5) and leads the team — and 12th nationally — with 110 blocks.
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“Then you start looking at the NBA Draft boards, and it gets even wilder,” Acra said about both players, who could be drafted. “I wish I could take credit for it, but these guys put in the effort and the time to get themselves to where they wanted to be. It was all them and their parents.”
So what if Kansas and Duke both win Saturday to reach Monday’s national championship game?
“I can’t. I have to get back to work,” he said. “But who knows, don’t count me totally out. If both win, maybe I can talk to my boss and they’ll give me a day pass. We’ll see. Right now, the plan is to come back Monday morning.”
Larry Rubama, 757-446-2273, larry.rubama@pilotonline.com Follow @LHRubama on Twitter. | https://www.pilotonline.com/sports/college/vp-sp-norfolk-academy-final-four-20220331-dmk6ekyaw5e37e4ctsoyufwqou-story.html | 2022-03-31T16:39:29 | en | 0.981583 |
Ukraine nuclear operator: Russian troops leave Chernobyl
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops were leaving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and heading towards Ukraine’s border with Belarus, the Ukrainian nuclear operator company said.
The operator, Energoatom said that the Russian military was also preparing to leave Slavutych, a nearby city where power plant workers live.
Energoatom also said reports were confirmed that the Russians dug trenches in the Red Forest, the 10-square-kilometer (nearly four-square-mile) area surrounding the Chernobyl plant within the Exclusion Zone, and received “significant doses of radiation.”
The Russian troops “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began to prepare to leave, the operator said. The claim couldn’t be independently verified.
Energoatom said the Russians have signed a document confirming the handover of the Chernobyl plant and stating that the plant’s administration doesn’t have any complaints about the Russian troops who were “guarding” the facility.
“It turns out that the occupiers ‘guarded’ the station for more than five weeks, and even so well that there are no complaints,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. | https://www.wlbt.com/2022/03/31/ukraine-nuclear-operator-russian-troops-leave-chernobyl/ | 2022-03-31T16:39:30 | en | 0.958724 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Thursday that the Justice Department has closed without criminal charges an investigation into political fundraising activity at his former business.
“As I said from the beginning and have maintained throughout this process, I was confident that after a thorough review the Justice Department would find all of my activities to be lawful," DeJoy said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “I have always adhered to the law in my personal and professional life.”
He added that he was “not surprised” that the department had concluded its investigation and that he was “pleased that this episode is over.”
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. But it is standard practice for department officials to reveal to defense lawyers that their investigations have concluded without charges rather than make that announcement themselves. A DeJoy spokesman said DeJoy's lawyer had received that notification from the department.
DeJoy, a wealthy former logistics executive who was appointed postmaster general in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and remains in the position in the Biden administration, confirmed the existence of a Justice Department investigation last June when his spokesman said investigators were examining campaign contributions made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Postmaster-General-says-he-s-been-cleared-in-17048556.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:30 | en | 0.992797 |
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A 15-year-old boy accused of molesting and fatally strangling a 6-year-old northern Indiana girl last year will remain held at a county jail as he awaits trial, a judge says.
The boy's attorneys have argued that their client, who's charged as an adult in the March 2021 death of 6-year-old Grace Ross of New Carlisle, should be held at a juvenile facility away from adults.
They asked a St. Joseph County judge during a Wednesday court hearing to send the teen back to the county's juvenile facility. But the judge repeatedly denied those requests, saying that while the situation was not ideal the juvenile center will not take the young defendant.
The boy's next court hearing is set for May 4. He is currently being held in the St. Joseph County Jail, where he stays in his cell approximately 23 hours a day to avoid contact with adult inmates.
Jeff Kimmell, one of the teen's attorneys, said alternatives, such as moving him to facilities in Allen or LaPorte counties, would negatively impact his ability to represent his client.
“A case of this magnitude, I really need to visit him frequently,” he said.
According to court documents, the boy, then 14, told police a “shadowy man” controlled him and made him strangle Ross after she followed him into a wooded area from the nearby apartment complex where she lived about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Chicago. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Indiana-teen-charged-in-death-of-girl-6-to-17048436.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:32 | en | 0.986734 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-orleans-saints/articles/39005705 | 2022-03-31T16:39:36 | en | 0.738227 |
The James River Association’s guided river trips are back and more expansive than ever.
Connect with the James, which provides guided kayak, canoe and pontoon boat trips in the greater Richmond and Williamsburg areas, offers an opportunity to get out and see the sights while learning about the James River’s wildlife, history and more.
This year, the James River Association has added more options to its tours, including Spanish-speaking trips, biking, hiking and trash cleanups, as well as “increasing accessible programming with several adaptive trips,” according to a news release.
“We are excited to expand our programming and provide new avenues to not only enjoy the James, but give back to it as well,” said Mike Lyden, operation manager for the James River Association.
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Founded in 1976, the James River Association is a non-profit organization that serves as “a guardian and a voice for the James River.” Ticket sales for the program’s trips in the Richmond area help support the organization’s work to promote conservation efforts and protect the river’s health.
Fan favorite trips like guided tours of Powhatan Creek and Four Mile Creek, sunset cruises near downtown Richmond and wildlife tours are also still available.
Tickets and more information can be found at thejamesriver.org/whats-happening/connect-with-the-james/.
Sian Wilkerson, sian.wilkerson@pilotonline.com, 757-342-6616 | https://www.pilotonline.com/virginiagazette/va-vg-jra-river-trips0402-20220331-fyyeina3yrdslh6cdrh2o5gcqy-story.html | 2022-03-31T16:39:36 | en | 0.947069 |
WLBT’s things to know 3/31/22: Missing man with schizophrenia, I-20W to shut down, Tornado storm damage, Runaway girl found dead
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - If you missed a few of the most important headlines and need to play catch up, no worries. WLBT has gathered some of the top stories from our website to get you up to speed.
1. Jackson police searching for missing man with paranoid schizophrenia
The Jackson Police Department is searching for a missing man who has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Cory Montez Smith was last seen on Terry Road wearing a red jacket and black pants. He is on medication that could impair his judgment. If you have any information on the whereabouts of Corey Smith, you are asked to contact Jackson police at 601-960-1234.
2. I-20W at State Street to shut down for 72 hours on April 8
If your daily commute includes I-20 westbound near State Street, expect to find an alternate route beginning at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 8. For 72 hours, the Mississippi Department of Transportation is closing all lanes of I-20 westbound/I-55 southbound at State Street for an emergency repair on the road failing one of the most heavily traveled corridors in the state. The temporary closure will have a major impact on traffic - over 100,000 vehicles frequent the area daily. “We regret the temporary inconvenience the closure will cause, but the repair is necessary to keep the I-20 westbound/I-55 southbound corridor safe and passable in Jackson,” said Brad White, MDOT Executive Director. People who travel from Meridian to Vicksburg on I-20 westbound will be affected the most. It could add about 30 minutes to your drive. Read more here.
3. Damage reported after possible tornadoes touch down in Jackson County
Cleanup efforts are beginning as the sun rises on a night of storms that left several homes damaged in South Mississippi. So far, the most damage reported to WLOX has been found in Jackson County, where multiple unconfirmed tornadoes are believed to have touched down in Vancleave, Wade and Hurley late Wednesday. Many residents were without power and several homes reported downed trees and damaged roofs. However, the roads were all passable and the traffic lights are all working.
4. Runaway girl located in Mississippi has died, police say
A 13-year-old runaway reported missing last week and located Sunday in D’Iberville, Mississippi, has died in an area hospital, according to the Mobile Police Department. The circumstances around the death of Keyanna Sylvester are unclear, police said. The girl reportedly ran away on March 21, was believed to have spent some time in Ocean Springs, Miss., and was seen on March 23 in Moss Point, Miss., before being found in D’Iberville and taken to a hospital. D’Iberville police Capt. Jason King said the girl was at a motel in the city on Thursday and at some point went to an area hospital, although he added that it is uncertain how she died. He told FOX10 News police are waiting for a report by the medical examiner.
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Copyright 2022 WLBT. All rights reserved. | https://www.wlbt.com/2022/03/31/wlbts-things-know-33122/ | 2022-03-31T16:39:36 | en | 0.970123 |
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — After Washington State University freshman Sam Martinez died from alcohol poisoning after a fraternity event in 2019, his parents became determined to prevent similar tragedies.
One of Jolayne Houtz’s and Hector Martinez’s many goals was met Wednesday when Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Sam’s Law Act. The Spokesman-Review reported the measure is named after their son, an Alpha Tau Omega pledge.
Sam’s Law will expand the definition of hazing and create requirements for colleges to provide hazing education and training to students and employees. It also will require colleges to publicly report findings of misconduct by student groups.
“This bill is a solemn reminder that we can and will do more to educate students on the dangers of hazing,” Inslee said.
The law expands the legal definition of hazing to include harmful acts that take place as part of a person’s continued affiliation with a club, athletic team or living group. Current law only covers hazing associated with the initiation process and does not include sports groups. Hazing, on and off campus , will be expressly prohibited in a school’s code of conduct.
Under the law, hazing education will be incorporated into orientation programs all new students are required to attend. Employees will receive annual training on hazing and be required to report suspected incidents. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Inslee-signs-law-intended-to-reduce-hazing-17048415.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:38 | en | 0.962608 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-orleans-saints/articles/39005819 | 2022-03-31T16:39:42 | en | 0.738227 |
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A new strategic plan for South Dakota's six public universities, two university centers and two special schools makes retaining graduates for the state's workforce a priority.
The Board of Regents plan states that South Dakota will add as many as 32,000 new jobs by 2030 with 38% of them requiring a bachelor's or more advanced degree.
That's why the board is focusing on brain drain, or the emigration of graduates taking jobs elsewhere as they enter the workforce. Engaging in discussions on brain drain and its impact to the state's workforce will be critical in the next decade, according to the strategic plan.
Challenges facing the Board of Regents also include the competition for high school graduates in the region, attracting and retaining non-resident students and workforce shortages because of the limited availability of skilled workers.
The plan said there will also be a need to enroll more non-traditional, underserved and non-resident student populations, the Argus Leader reported.
Plan goals have been established for governance, access and affordability, academic excellence, student outcomes, workforce and economic development, financial health and competitiveness.
Each goal has specific initiatives on a timeline from now to 2027, with some already in progress or complete.
The regents plan to set up strategy sessions on enrollment, analyzing new tuition and fee models, decreasing the number of low productivity programs in favor of those that are in high demand, as well as increasing advocacy for student mental health. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Regents-map-out-goals-including-addressing-brain-17048318.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:43 | en | 0.959837 |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge this week denied a temporary restraining order sought by environmental groups that would block grazing in six eastern Oregon pastures.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said the plaintiffs haven’t shown that cattle grazing on the pastures will cause irreparable harm to sage grouse or to rangeland research, The Capital Press reported.
He said continued grazing isn’t likely to irreparably harm the ability of environmental plaintiffs to enjoy undisturbed sagebrush grassland, since the pastures have long been grazed and are rested on a rotating basis.
Any hardship suffered by the environmental nonprofits is also “minimal” compared to the harm that a temporary restraining order would cause Cahill Ranches near Adel, Oregon, which relies on an affected pasture to turn out cattle, the judge said.
“Several families’ livelihoods depend on Cahill, which in turn depends on the ability to use public lands for its livestock operations,” said Simon, noting that the public interest also doesn’t weigh in favor of a temporary restraining order.
Six other ranches are seeking to intervene in the case, which was filed against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management by the nonprofits Oregon Natural Desert Association, Audubon Society of Portland and Defenders of Wildlife.
Aside from seeking the temporary restraining order, the plaintiffs have requested a broader preliminary injunction against grazing on a total of 13 Oregon pastures.
“There are a lot of other places the cattle can go,” Mac Lacy, attorney for the environmental groups said during oral arguments Monday. “The permittees, we believe, have greatly overstated the harm they may suffer.”
Grazing in the 13 pastures must end to allow for research into its impacts on sage grouse habitat, which has already been delayed to the detriment of that species and the environment, he said.
“Economic harm never outweighs irreparable environmental harm,” Lacy said.
Lacy also noted that the plan to stop grazing was enacted seven years ago, while the ranchers were formally notified two years ago.
According to the Oregon Natural Desert Association, grazing must be prohibited in the 13 pastures to allow for research on the sage grouse under a broader 2015 conservation plan for the species across the West, where its populations have been falling for decades.
These 13 “research natural areas” were originally required under a conservation plan developed during the Obama administration but dropped from a revised version enacted by the Trump administration.
A 2019 federal court order in a separate case reinstated the original conservation plan that required grazing to end in the 13 pastures. The environmental groups then sued alleging the federal government has unlawfully failed to implement the livestock-free “research natural areas.”
The BLM counters that it must follow bureaucratic processes before halting grazing within the 13 pastures, such as studying the environmental impacts of building necessary fences to keep cattle out.
“Fences don’t spring into existence at the stroke of a pen,” said Carroll, noting that fences are “not the most environmentally friendly way” to close pastures because of the effects on wildlife and plant species. For that reason, BLM is studying alternative methods. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Judge-refuses-to-block-grazing-in-eastern-Oregon-17048424.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:44 | en | 0.954339 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nfl/new-orleans-saints/articles/39005954 | 2022-03-31T16:39:48 | en | 0.738227 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A House committee will hold a public hearing Monday on a bill to allow the use of medical marijuana in South Carolina.
A small group of House members Thursday made a few changes in the lengthy bill passed in February by the full Senate on a 28-15 vote .
One amendment cleaned up the grammar and a few typos in the bill which senators considered more than 60 changes over seven days of debate. A second change restores some podiatrists with extra training to the list of doctors who can prescribe medical marijuana.
There was little discussion of the bill Thursday. Much of that is expected for the meeting Monday morning by the full House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee.
Sen. Tom Davis, who has fought for medical marijuana for seven years, has said his proposal would be one of the most conservative among the 37 states that have approved medical marijuana, including Mississippi, which signed a bill into law earlier this year.
The proposal specifies the illnesses that could be treated, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism. And the marijuana could be obtained only through specially chosen pharmacies.
Smoking the drug would remain illegal in South Carolina. Instead, patients would have to use oils, salves, patches or vaporizers. Doctors would have to meet patients in person and patients could only get a two-week supply at one time. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/SC-House-committee-sets-public-hearing-on-medical-17048353.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:49 | en | 0.974234 |
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The French medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, says that five of its employees have been released in Nigeria after being kidnapped last month in neighboring Cameroon.
Armed men kidnapped the MSF employees on Feb. 24 from the group’s base in Cameroon’s Far North region in Fotokol, which is near Nigeria and Chad. Those kidnapped and subsequently released include a Senegalese, Chadian and Franco-Ivorian along with their two Cameroon security guards.
The organization said the workers were released Wednesday in Nigeria and have been “taken to a safe place.”
“We are happy to find our colleagues safe and sound,” said the director general of the organization, Stephen Cornish. “We share the deep relief of their parents and loved ones, who were impatiently awaiting this news."
The organization did not give details on the condition of the release.
Cheikh Ndiaye, the uncle of the Senegalese humanitarian who was taking hostages expressed his family’s relief.
”They are free. We were told they are in Nigeria. We rejoice and look forward with great relief to his return among us,” he said.
Islamic extremist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province are known to carry out attacks in this region. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Medical-charity-says-5-abducted-workers-are-freed-17048460.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:50 | en | 0.982833 |
CHICAGO (AP) — Grain futures were lower on Thursday in early trading on the Chicago Board of Trade. Wheat for May was off .25 cent at $10.2975 a bushel; May corn lost 7 cents at $7.3875 a bushel; May oats declined 13.75 cents at $7.2250 a bushel; while May soybeans fell 4 cents at $16.74 a bushel.
Beef and pork lower on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
Apr. live cattle fell .48 cent at $1.3967 a pound; Mar. feeder cattle was off .33 cent at $1.5597 a pound; Apr. lean hogs lost 1.80 cents at $1.0360 a pound. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/business/article/Grains-lower-Livestock-lower-17048393.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:53 | en | 0.936358 |
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BALTIMORE (AP) — A National Security Agency employee has been charged with emailing classified national security information to somebody who wasn't authorized to receive it, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.
Mark Robert Unkenholz, 60, of Hanover, Maryland, was arrested Thursday and scheduled to make his initial court appearance in Baltimore later in the day.
Unkenholz held “top secret” security clearance, giving him access to the information, according to a 26-count indictment. He worked for an NSA office responsible for the agency's engagement with private industry.
The indictment accuses Unkenholz of using his personal email address to send information classified as “secret” and “top secret” to somebody else's private company email addresses on several occasions between February 2018 and June 2020.
The recipient held “top secret” clearance from April 2016 until approximately June 2019, while employed at a company that isn't named in the indictment. However, from July 2019 until approximately January 2021, the person worked for a different company and wasn't authorized to access or receive classified information, the indictment says.
A grand jury indicted Unkenholz on Tuesday on 13 counts of willfully transmitting national defense information and 13 counts of willfully retaining national defense informaton. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Federal sentencing guidelines typically recommend sentences far below the maximum.
Online court records don’t list an attorney for Unkenholz.
The FBI is investigating. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/NSA-employee-charged-with-mishandling-classified-17048473.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:57 | en | 0.968731 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose again this week as the key 30-year loan rate vaulted over 4.5% and attained its highest level since the end of 2018.
Against a backdrop of inflation at a four-decade high, the increases in home loan rates come a few weeks after the Federal Reserve raised by a quarter point its benchmark short-term interest rate — which it had kept near zero since the pandemic recession struck two years ago — to cool the economy. The central bank has signaled potentially up to seven additional rate hikes this year.
The developments mean that mortgage rates likely will continue to rise over the year.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the average rate on the 30-year loan this week rose to 4.67% from 4.42% last week. That’s a sharp contrast from last year’s record-low mortgage rates of around 3%. A year ago, the 30-year rate stood at 3.18%.
The average rate on 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages, popular among those refinancing their homes, jumped to 3.83% from 3.63% last week.
Home prices are up about 15% over the past year and as much as 30% in some cities. Homes available for sale have been in short supply even before the pandemic started two years ago. Now higher prices and rising loan rates will make it even harder for would-be buyers as the spring homebuying season gets underway.
The government reported Thursday that an inflation gauge closely monitored by the Fed jumped 6.4% in February compared with a year earlier, with sharply higher prices for food, gasoline and other necessities squeezing Americans’ finances. That figure was the largest year-over-year rise in 40 years — since January 1982. Excluding volatile prices for food and energy, so-called core inflation increased 5.4% in February from 12 months earlier.
Robust consumer demand has combined with shortages of many goods to fuel the sharpest price jumps in four decades. Measures of inflation will likely worsen in the coming months because Thursday’s report doesn’t reflect the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24. The war has disrupted global oil markets and accelerated prices for wheat, nickel and other key commodities.
Squeezed by inflation, U.S. consumers increased their spending by just 0.2% in February, down from a much larger 2.7% gain in January. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/business/article/Long-term-mortgage-rates-rise-again-30-year-17048487.php | 2022-03-31T16:39:59 | en | 0.974385 |
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DUDLEYVILLE, Ariz. (AP) — A Pinal County sheriff’s deputy responding to a trespassing call and a suspect were shot and wounded in an exchange of gunfire, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The incident occurred Wednesday night in Dudleyville, the office said a brief statement.
According to the statement, the deputy was shot by the suspect when the deputy arrived at the scene and the suspect was shot when the deputy returned fire.
Both were taken to the hospital but no information was released on their injuries or conditions, the statement said.
Office spokesperson Lauren Reimer said Thursday no additional information was immediately available.
Dudleyville is a rural community 49 miles (80 kilometers) north of Tucson. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Sheriff-s-office-Deputy-suspect-exchange-17048406.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:01 | en | 0.974414 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials have revoked the license of a Nevada-based gun manufacturer that was accused of illegally selling guns and went bankrupt but then rebranded itself.
The revocation comes after a lawsuit that alleged the Justice Department didn’t conduct proper oversight before issuing the license.
The decision to revoke the license of JA Industries was spelled out in a court filing late Wednesday as part of the lawsuit brought by Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; and gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The lawsuit alleged that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a law enforcement agency in the Justice Department, awarded the license to JA Industries, renamed from Jimenez Arms, after it violated federal firearms law. The suit also alleged that the company’s guns were contributing to rising violent crime rates in Chicago and Kansas City.
Kansas City and Everytown had sued Jimenez Arms and several gun dealers previously, alleging they contributed to surging gun violence in the Kansas City region by ignoring evidence that guns were being sold illegally in the area. Jimenez Arms filed for bankruptcy about a month after the suit was filed.
That suit contended that Jimenez Arms every year made tens of thousands of cheap handguns that turned up at crime scenes in Kansas City and Chicago “at a rate disproportionate to the company’s market share.”
The plaintiffs alleged in their suit against the ATF that the company’s owner, Paul Jimenez, applied for a new license under the name JA Industries and that it took the ATF less than a month to award the license. The suit alleged that company officials had made false statements to the ATF and had unlawfully shipped guns to a firearms trafficker, which should’ve made the company and its officials ineligible for holding a federal firearms license.
A message seeking comment from JA Industries on Thursday was not immediately returned.
Everytown for Gun Safety heralded the decision to revoke the company's license.
“We can only hope this decision marks the beginning of a new era at ATF, one that is consistent with President Biden’s commitment to holding rogue and reckless members of the gun industry accountable for breaking the law and putting lives in danger,” said John Feinblatt, Everytown's president.
In a statement, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said it was a “bold action to stop the flow of illegal firearms into Kansas City.”
An ATF spokesperson, Erik Longnecker, declined to comment specifically, citing the ongoing case. But he said the agency “revokes Federal firearms licensees who are found to have committed willful violations of the Gun Control Act and have an adverse impact on public safety.” | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Nevada-gun-manufacturer-s-license-is-revoked-17048346.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:03 | en | 0.962427 |
1. “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
2. “The Recovery Agent” by Janet Evanovich (Atria Books)
3. “Run, Rose, Run” by Dolly Parton and James Patterson (Little, Brown)
4. “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)
5. “Verity” by Colleen Hoover (Grand Central Publishing)
6. “A Safe House” by Stuart Woods (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
7. “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Washington Square Press)
8. “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (Avery)
9. “A Sunlit Weapon” by Jacqueline Winspear (Harper)
10. “French Braid” by Anne Tyler (Knopf)
11. “Little Blue Truck’s Springtime” by Alice Schertle (HMH Books for Young Readers)
12. “It’s Not Easy Being a Bunny” by Marilyn Sadler (Random House Books for Young Readers)
13. “The Great Reset” by Glenn Beck (Forefront Books)
14. “The Match” by Harlan Coben (Grand Central Publishing)
15. “Ugly Love” by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)
16. “How to Catch the Easter Bunny” by Adam Wallace (HMH Books for Young Readers)
17. “The Paris Apartment” by Lucy Foley (William Morrow)
18. “November 9” by Colleen Hoover (Atria Books)
19. “Shadows Reel” by C.J. Box (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
20. “Life Force” by Tony Robbins and Peter H. Diamandis (Simon & Schuster)
21. “You, Happier" by Daniel G. Amen (Tyndale House)
22. “Reminders of Him” by Colleen Hoover (Montlake)
23. “Here, There and Everywhere” by Marie Force (HTJB)
24. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar Board Book” by Eric Carle (Philomel)
25. “The Whole Body Reset” by Stephen Perrine (Simon & Schuster) | https://www.lakecountystar.com/entertainment/article/US-Best-Sellers-Books-USAToday-17048569.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:05 | en | 0.786787 |
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LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — A southwest Louisiana prosecutor is relaunching a program to help clear people's criminal records.
Starting Friday, people can apply online to participate in "A New Day,” an expungement and name change program, District Attorney Stephen Dwight said.
Applications will be accepted through May 2 for people hoping to erase convictions, dismissals or acquittals in Calcasieu Parish. Those who have committed violent or sex crimes are not eligible.
“The goal is to help our community members receive job offers, loans and engage in normal everyday successes,” Dwight said Monday in announcing the revival of the program, according to The American Press. “Receiving an expungement can help with so much in someone’s life."
When the program was held in 2019, 127 individuals received a fresh start, said Expungement Process Clerk of Court Monica Winfrey. Without a clean record, it's impossible to get a concealed carry permit, federal housing loan, gaming license or even a student loan, noted Assistant District Attorney Karen McLellan. Nursing school applicants also have to have a clean record and the military won’t admit someone with a conviction, authorities said.
For the first time this year, “A New Day” also will allow qualified adult applicants to change their names.
“This is an amazing program,” said Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Stitch Guillory. “It gives people the opportunity to erase what might have been one bad night, start fresh and new. We’re all human. We’ve all made mistakes. Sometimes it’s just best to forgive and move on.”
In addition to offering an erased record, New Day saves participants from having to pay high court costs and legal fees, noted Mark Judson, of the Southwest Louisiana Law Center,
To be eligible for expungement, any felonies for which applicants have been convicted must have been committed at least 10 years ago, while any misdemeanors must have happened at least five years ago. Applicants must also have completed any sentences and parole, paid all fines and have no pending warrants. Special rules will apply to drunken driving convictions, Judson said. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Southwest-Louisiana-program-to-help-clear-17048301.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:07 | en | 0.962368 |
BLUFFTON, Ohio (AP) — A police officer in Ohio was struck and killed by a fleeing car on Interstate 75 during a high-speed chase through multiple counties Wednesday, authorities said.
The officer, Dominic Francis of the Bluffton police department, was struck around 2:30 a.m. while he was setting up stop sticks, which flatten tires, said Sgt. Brice Nihiser of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The chase had reached speeds up to 120 mph (193 kph).
Three suspects inside the car drove away for a short distance before they jumped out and ran. One was found nearby while a second one was arrested in a stolen car in Elyria, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northeast of Bluffton, Nihiser said.
Authorities were continuing to look for the third suspect.
The search caused schools in the nearby village of Bluffton to cancel classes, and Bluffton University told students to stay in their rooms and advised employees to stay home. I-75 also was shut down while authorities looked through barns, farm fields and around houses.
The chase first began near Marion when authorities saw the car going more than 100 mph and continued across several counties, Nihiser said.
Francis, 41, had been an officer in Bluffton the past nine years, said Police Chief Ryan Burkholder. He also worked as a school teacher, bus driver and as a football and softball coach with Cory-Rawson schools.
“He had a heart of gold,” Burkholder said. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Ohio-officer-killed-trying-to-stop-fleeing-car-on-17048443.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:09 | en | 0.990298 |
It was the first census after World War II. The baby boom had begun. The Great Migration of Black residents from the Jim Crow South to places like Detroit and Chicago was in full swing. And some industrial cities reached their peak populations before Americans started moving to the suburbs.
Starting Friday, genealogists and historians can get a microscopic look at those sweeping historical trends when individual records on 151 million people from the 1950 census are released.
Researchers view the records as a gold mine, and amateur genealogists see it as a way to fill gaps in family trees, a field of research that has seen dramatic growth in recent years through the popularity of home DNA testing kits.
“This is genealogy heaven when a census is rolled out,” said Matt Menashes, executive director of the National Genealogical Society. “People are waiting anxiously. It’s hard to overstate.”
For privacy reasons, records identifying people by name can’t be made public until 72 years after they are gathered during the once-a-decade U.S. head count. The 1940 records were released a decade ago.
For Wendy Kalman, an amateur genealogist in Atlanta, the 1950 records will help her solidify details about her parents and grandparents and their relatives. She has traced her father's side of the family back to 18th century Ukraine, and her research has put her in touch with previously unknown third and fourth cousins in the U.S. whom she talks to regularly.
“It’s an interesting journey to find out where you are from and the census records help you find information that isn’t always available,” said Kalman, 55. “Family stories aren’t always passed down and the census records give you a snapshot in time. It helps put together a picture.”
Ronnie Willis’ relatives from both sides of his grandparents’ families were itinerant farmers who traveled through Texas and Oklahoma as a blended group throughout the 1930s and 1940s. But they broke into nuclear family units after World War II. Willis hopes the 1950 census records help him piece together what happened to those relatives who settled in other states.
“That will help get me 10 years closer to putting the puzzle together, a little bit,” said Willis, 53, a software company executive who lives in Greenville, South Carolina.
The records released by the National Archives and Records Administration will be indexed into a searchable website. The digitized, handwritten forms have information about household members' names, race, sex, age, address, occupations, hours worked in the previous week, salaries, education levels, marital status and the country in which their parents were born. The website will include a tool allowing users to fix any incorrect names or add missing names.
Claire Kluskens, a digital projects archivist at the National Archives, acknowledged that what will be on the website starting Friday is “a first draft," in which specific people are most likely to be found initially only by searching for whoever was listed as the head of their household.
Two outside genealogical groups, Ancestry and FamilySearch, a division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have teamed up to serve as a quality check on the records by creating their own index separate from the National Archives.
At Ancestry, scores of workers will be ready at 12:01 a.m. EDT Friday to start downloading the more than 6.5 million digital images of the census files. The Utah-based company will scan the millions of surveys, using artificial intelligence to decipher sloppy handwriting and converting the information into readable database form.
“We are so excited to dive into the census," said Crista Cowan, corporate genealogist at Ancestry.
Anywhere from 400,000 to 800,000 volunteers across the U.S., under the coordination of FamilySearch, will then double-check the entries with the actual digital images. If the digital record of the 1950 census form says “Wilhelmina" but has been entered as “William" in the index, that will be corrected, said David Rencher, director of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City and FamilySearch’s chief genealogy officer.
The effort could take six to nine months, he said.
“We believe we will get better accuracy because we are having humans look at it,” Rencher said.
The new data will flesh out the contours of a dramatically different world.
In 1950, the U.S. had less than half of the 332 million residents it has today. Households were larger, with an average of 3.5 people, compared with 2.6 people per household in 2019. Just 9% of households had someone living alone in 1950, compared with 28% in 2019. Adults were also more likely to be married, with more than two-thirds of adult men and women being married in 1950 compared with less than half of men and women in 2019, said Marc Perry, a senior demographer at the Census Bureau.
Elaine Powell is excited because this is the first release in which she will see herself in the census records. The president of the Central Florida Genealogical Society was born in 1946 and grew up in the St. Louis area.
“It’s just exciting. I remember the first time I found my parents in the census, you could hear me whooping and hollering in the library,” Powell said. “It verifies what you have been told by your parents and grandparents."
It can also correct the record left by family lore. After all, as Powell noted, “genealogy, without documentation, is mythology.”
___
Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP | https://www.lakecountystar.com/living/article/Gold-mine-of-census-records-being-released-from-17048377.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:12 | en | 0.969373 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Military bases with a high risk for sexual assault, harassment and other harmful behaviors often have leaders who don't understand violence prevention, don't make it a priority and focus more on their mission than on their people, a Pentagon review has concluded.
The review studied 20 bases in the United States and Europe, including 18 with some of the more severe problems identified in command climate surveys. It found that the failures were worse in a number of bases in Germany and Spain where key leaders and resources weren't on site. Senior defense officials described the report to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the findings before the review was publicly released.
At Naval Station Rota in Spain, for example, officials said the military mission requirements “were prioritized above and at the expense of the sailors’ well-being.” They said sailors reported bullying, mental health issues, sexual harassment and relationship problems, but often could not seek help due to their mission requirements.
In one location, officials said, they found that young enlisted men were taking steps to help their female peers stay safe by keeping them away from more senior leaders who were harassing them.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the report as part of his effort to strengthen sexual assault and harassment prevention across the forces, identify what programs work and ensure high-risk bases get attention quickly. Austin approved the report, and in a memo obtained by the AP, said it will help the department tailor improvements for bases where needs may vary.
“While we have made progress, we must do more to strengthen the integrated capabilities we have on the ground to prevent sexual assault, harassment, suicide, domestic abuse and other harmful behaviors,” he said.
The report comes nearly two years after Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén went missing from Fort Hood, Texas, and her remains were found two months later. Guillen was killed by a soldier, who her family says sexually harassed her, and who killed himself as police sought to arrest him.
Her death and a number of other crimes, murders and suicides led to heightened scrutiny on assaults and other violence in the military, and to a series of reviews. An independent panel appointed by Austin last year made more than 80 recommendations, including specific changes to improve accountability of leadership, command climate and culture, and victim care and support.
Officials said Austin's goal is to find effective ways to prevent harmful behavior, which includes sexual assault and harassment, suicides and domestic violence. They said this latest report is designed to pinpoint which leadership and other failures contribute to higher instances of such behavior and which prevention programs and other changes actually work.
According to the officials, 16 of the bases were selected because a command climate survey of nearly a million personnel identified problems there, which included things such as binge drinking, toxic leadership, stress, and racial or sexual harassment. While serious problems were identified at these 16 bases, the report looked at a variety of factors for each location and doesn’t specifically characterize them as the worst in the military.
Two other bases were chosen because the survey showed good results, such as high morale, inclusion and good leadership. Two others had a mix of both high-performing and problem units.
The officials said that while in many cases leaders had a genuine desire to prevent violence, there was a “pervasive” misunderstanding of how to do it and they often didn't devote enough personnel or time for it or hold subordinates accountable.
And even if they understood department policies, leaders often didn't recognize when there was a high risk for violence or harmful behavior among their people.
In the United States, the bases surveyed were: Fort Custer, Michigan; Naval Support Activity Sarasota Springs, New York; Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Bliss, Texas; Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia; Marine Corps Base Hawaii; Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California; Dyess Air Force Base, Texas; Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; the Kentucky National Guard; and the Army Reserve base in Fraser, Michigan.
The last two — the Guard and Reserve bases in Kentucky and Michigan — were the ones chosen because they had less risk and more positive command climates.
The overseas bases were: Army Garrison Ansbach, Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfatz Smith Bararcks; Army Garrison Bavaria; Naval Station Rota; Army Garrison Stuttgart; and the Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz, Kaiserslautern. All but Rota are in Germany.
As an example, the report found that at the Kentucky National Guard base leaders believed that their soldiers came first, and their “well-being was part of the mission, not an adjacent effort that was secondary.” In contrast, commanders in at the bases in Germany and Spain “tolerated harmful behaviors” and it was difficult to access resources “due to mission requirements or geographic dispersion of services.”
The report said that the changes proposed by the independent review board will help address the problems. Those improvements include establishing a dedicated prevention workforce, expanded sexual assault prevention and response programs, and better leadership. The budget for 2023 includes funding to hire additional personnel.
The report also recommends that the department establish data to help the military services share prevention and program support information, hold leaders accountable if they don't have healthy command climates. Officials said it's important to ensure that leaders better understand the prevention policies and programs and that service members and employees know where to go to get help.
Officials also said that there will be follow-up visits to the bases by this fall, and that similar site visits and reviews will be done every two years.
Austin is asking military service leaders for implementation plans by early June and said the department will issue more guidelines and policies by early October. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Pentagon-links-leadership-failures-to-violence-at-17048502.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:15 | en | 0.972953 |
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "All or Nothing Morning" game were:
02-03-04-05-06-09-10-12-13-15-19-23
(two, three, four, five, six, nine, ten, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, nineteen, twenty-three) | https://www.lakecountystar.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-All-or-Nothing-Morning-17048378.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:18 | en | 0.863857 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A proposal to ban transgender students from playing girls’ and women’s sports in public South Carolina high schools and colleges is moving through the state House after stalling twice last year.
Members of the House Education and Public Works Committee didn't comment on the bill before they voted 11-2 Thursday to send the proposal to the chamber floor.
The legislation would require athletes to compete with the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Lawmakers did spend nearly two hours listening to testimony on and discussing the bill Wednesday, with opponents walking out of the meeting about an hour in. The group SC United for Justice and Equality said the walkout was prompted by the bill's supporters using insults and slurs to demonize transgender people.
“I want lawmakers to know that no one and no thing — not even women’s sports — needs to be saved from transgender people," said Wynston Sanders, a leader with the group, in a statement Thursday. “We are simply trying to live authentic, full lives. There are so many more stories about transgender people than the stories about these bills that try to target us and bring us down.”
Democratic lawmakers raised questions about how the legislation would affect situations where South Carolina teams are set to play out-of-state teams with trans athletes, or which teams intersex students would be allowed to be on.
About a dozen states have already passed similar legislation, and transgender athletes have become an issue in midterm campaigns in states like Pennsylvania. But Republicans aren’t in lockstep, with GOP governors in Indiana and Utah vetoing bans in their states.
Two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring such measures around the country as well as the conservative groups supporting them also struggled to cite local instances to The Associated Press last year where participation of trans girls on girls' sports teams caused problems.
South Carolina high school officials have said they consider each case individually and see no need for a ban, a position also held by elected Republican state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman.
Similar legislation is also headed to the Senate floor this year, though some senators have voiced concerns about lawsuits, especially because the Senate bill includes colleges and private schools.
A different House committee twice rejected a sports ban for transgender students last year. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Transgender-athlete-ban-heading-to-S-Carolina-17048389.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:20 | en | 0.969085 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Thursday that the Justice Department has closed without criminal charges an investigation into political fundraising activity at his former business.
“As I said from the beginning and have maintained throughout this process, I was confident that after a thorough review the Justice Department would find all of my activities to be lawful," DeJoy said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “I have always adhered to the law in my personal and professional life.”
He added that he was “not surprised” that the department had concluded its investigation and that he was “pleased that this episode is over.”
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. But it is standard practice for department officials to reveal to defense lawyers that their investigations have concluded without charges rather than make that announcement themselves. A DeJoy spokesman said DeJoy's lawyer had received that notification from the department.
DeJoy, a wealthy former logistics executive who was appointed postmaster general in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and remains in the position in the Biden administration, confirmed the existence of a Justice Department investigation last June when his spokesman said investigators were examining campaign contributions made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Postmaster-General-says-he-s-been-cleared-in-17048556.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:22 | en | 0.992797 |
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Daily 4 Morning" game were:
8-4-7-9, FIREBALL: 4
(eight, four, seven, nine; FIREBALL: four)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Daily 4 Morning" game were:
8-4-7-9, FIREBALL: 4
(eight, four, seven, nine; FIREBALL: four) | https://www.lakecountystar.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-Daily-4-Morning-game-17048380.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:25 | en | 0.837538 |
BERLIN (AP) — The head of the United Nations announced the appointment Thursday of an expert panel led by Canada's former environment minister to scrutinize whether companies' efforts to curb climate change are credible or mere “ greenwashing.”
Recent years have seen an explosion of pledges by businesses — including oil companies — to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to "net zero" amid consumer expectations that corporations bear part of the burden of cutting pollution. But environmental campaigners say many such plans are at best unclear, at worst designed to make companies look good when they are actually fueling global warming.
“Governments have the lion’s share of responsibility to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, adding that this was particularly true for the Group of 20 major emerging and industrialized economies that account for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“But we also urgently need every business, investor, city, state and region to walk the talk on their net-zero promises,” he said.
The 16-member panel will make recommendations before the end of the year on the standards and definitions for setting net-zero targets, how to measure and verify progress, and ways to translate that into international and national regulations.
In addition to examining net-zero pledges by the private sector, it will also scrutinize commitments made by local and regional governments that don't report directly to the U.N.
The panel includes prominent Australian climate scientist Bill Hare, South Africa-based sustainable finance expert Malango Mughogho and the former long-time governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan.
It will be chaired by Catherine McKenna, who was Canada’s minister of environment and climate change from 2015 to 2019.
One outside expert called the creation of the new panel “well overdue,” noting that targets such as “net zero” are interpreted in different ways by companies and officials.
Harry Fearnehough, a policy analyst at the NewClimate Institute, said the think tank had recently reviewed several major companies and found “a number of critical issues with net-zero pledges, many of which are misleading consumers, regulators and shareholders.”
“Clear guidance on what is right, and what not, is welcome,” he said.
A report last month by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that more than three billion people worldwide are already at risk from global warming.
The panel will publish another report next week which is expected to confirm that the world is not on track to meet the goal of capping temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, which was laid down in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
“If we don’t see significant and sustained emissions reductions this decade, the window of opportunity to keep 1.5 alive will be closed -- forever,” said Guterres. “And that will be disaster for everyone.”
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Follow AP's coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/UN-chief-names-panel-to-probe-companies-climate-17048314.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:26 | en | 0.964917 |
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A new strategic plan for South Dakota's six public universities, two university centers and two special schools makes retaining graduates for the state's workforce a priority.
The Board of Regents plan states that South Dakota will add as many as 32,000 new jobs by 2030 with 38% of them requiring a bachelor's or more advanced degree.
That's why the board is focusing on brain drain, or the emigration of graduates taking jobs elsewhere as they enter the workforce. Engaging in discussions on brain drain and its impact to the state's workforce will be critical in the next decade, according to the strategic plan.
Challenges facing the Board of Regents also include the competition for high school graduates in the region, attracting and retaining non-resident students and workforce shortages because of the limited availability of skilled workers.
The plan said there will also be a need to enroll more non-traditional, underserved and non-resident student populations, the Argus Leader reported.
Plan goals have been established for governance, access and affordability, academic excellence, student outcomes, workforce and economic development, financial health and competitiveness.
Each goal has specific initiatives on a timeline from now to 2027, with some already in progress or complete.
The regents plan to set up strategy sessions on enrollment, analyzing new tuition and fee models, decreasing the number of low productivity programs in favor of those that are in high demand, as well as increasing advocacy for student mental health. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Regents-map-out-goals-including-addressing-brain-17048318.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:28 | en | 0.959837 |
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Morning" game were:
2-3-2, FIREBALL: 7
(two, three, two; FIREBALL: seven)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Thursday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Morning" game were:
2-3-2, FIREBALL: 7
(two, three, two; FIREBALL: seven) | https://www.lakecountystar.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-Pick-3-Morning-game-17048379.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:31 | en | 0.872616 |
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops were leaving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and heading towards Ukraine's border with Belarus, the Ukrainian nuclear operator company said.
The operator, Energoatom said that the Russian military was also preparing to leave Slavutych, a nearby city where power plant workers live.
Energoatom also said reports were confirmed that the Russians dug trenches in the Red Forest, the 10-square-kilometer (nearly four-square-mile) area surrounding the Chernobyl plant within the Exclusion Zone, and received “significant doses of radiation.”
The Russian troops “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began to prepare to leave, the operator said. The claim couldn't be independently verified.
Energoatom said the Russians have signed a document confirming the handover of the Chernobyl plant and stating that the plant’s administration doesn’t have any complaints about the Russian troops who were “guarding” the facility.
“It turns out that the occupiers ‘guarded’ the station for more than five weeks, and even so well that there are no complaints,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Ukraine-nuclear-operator-Russian-troops-leave-17048359.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:32 | en | 0.968598 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A House committee will hold a public hearing Monday on a bill to allow the use of medical marijuana in South Carolina.
A small group of House members Thursday made a few changes in the lengthy bill passed in February by the full Senate on a 28-15 vote .
One amendment cleaned up the grammar and a few typos in the bill which senators considered more than 60 changes over seven days of debate. A second change restores some podiatrists with extra training to the list of doctors who can prescribe medical marijuana.
There was little discussion of the bill Thursday. Much of that is expected for the meeting Monday morning by the full House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee.
Sen. Tom Davis, who has fought for medical marijuana for seven years, has said his proposal would be one of the most conservative among the 37 states that have approved medical marijuana, including Mississippi, which signed a bill into law earlier this year.
The proposal specifies the illnesses that could be treated, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism. And the marijuana could be obtained only through specially chosen pharmacies.
Smoking the drug would remain illegal in South Carolina. Instead, patients would have to use oils, salves, patches or vaporizers. Doctors would have to meet patients in person and patients could only get a two-week supply at one time. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/SC-House-committee-sets-public-hearing-on-medical-17048353.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:34 | en | 0.974234 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/mlb/san-francisco-giants/articles/39005892 | 2022-03-31T16:40:36 | en | 0.738227 |
ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) — Police have arrested an 18-year-old Chicago man wanted in last week's fatal shooting of a man and wounding of a girl at a suburban Chicago shopping mall.
Rosemont police said the suspect was taken into custody Wednesday “without incident” in the March 25 shooting that killed Joel Valdes, 20, of Skokie, at the Fashion Outlets of Chicago in Rosemont, just northwest of Chicago.
A second shooting victim, a 15-year-old girl, was treated and released from a hospital, police said.
Authorities did not immediately announce formal charges against the suspect or say when he would be in court.
Rosemont Police Sgt. Joe Balogh also did not disclose details of the suspect's capture, but told the Daily Herald that the man was apprehended by Rosemont officers. A nationwide arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for the suspect.
Police said the shooting occurred near the mall's food court during an argument that escalated into violence. Frightened shoppers ran for cover and the mall was locked down.
Authorities said surveillance video shows the suspect pulling out a weapon and shooting at Valdes, striking him. Valdes was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
After the shooting, the suspected gunman fled in a car with other people, police said. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/18-year-old-arrested-in-fatal-shooting-at-17048311.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:38 | en | 0.983257 |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The mayor of Portland, Oregon, has proposed that the city’s community police oversight committee go on a two-month hiatus to figure out how to fill nearly half of the group’s vacancies and hire more staff.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the idea comes five years after the predecessor of the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing was disbanded due to lack of training for its members, lack of city support and dwindling membership.
Similar problems now affect the the current panel.
The 13-member group has only seven seats filled. There’s a lack of city staff to support or facilitate its meetings. Some members appointed to the group complained of a lack of training before they began their service.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, appearing before the committee Wednesday by video conference, suggested the group “take a breather,” for 60 days to allow Mike Myers, the city’s community safety transition director, to work to hire adequate administrative support staff, provide more rigorous training and find strong facilitators “to make it successful.”
Committee members had mixed reactions.
Member Ann Campbell said taking a 60-day break would be “very, very concerning” due to the “lack of community voices” on police oversight for that period of time.
The committee, she said, “is in a crisis right now.”
Member Zeenab Fowlk said she’s been concerned about “less police engagement” at committee meetings and the lack of facilitators to help guide the group’s work.
Dan Handelman, who attended the meeting as leader of the watchdog group Portland Copwatch, said he’d hate to see the committee stop meeting “just like the other one.”
The committee’s predecessor, the Community Oversight Advisory Board, also was put on a two-month hiatus in 2016 before it was completely disbanded. The city was without community oversight of police reforms for almost two years once the initial board dissolved amid acrimony and an exodus of leaders and members.
In November 2018, this second iteration - the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing - was created and held its first meeting.
The committee is a key part of the settlement agreement reached between the city and U.S. Department of Justice that followed federal investigators’ findings in 2012 that Portland officers too often used excessive force on people suffering from mental illness. It called for significant changes to police policies, training and oversight and was adopted by U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon in 2014.
Former committee co-chair Elliott Young said many of the committee’s challenges are not new.
Young said when he left the committee in August he spoke to the mayor about the problem of retaining and recruiting members and inadequate staff support. “It’s surprising to me there wasn’t a plan in place from back then for improving staffing,” he said.
Sam Adams, a member of Wheeler’s staff who had negotiated the city’s settlement with the Justice Department when he was mayor, told the group that Wheeler will make a decision early next week. Adams said he had recommended the 60-day break for the committee.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Hager said it’s not lost on the U.S Department of Justice that the very same problems that led to the first community board’s failure is plaguing this committee: attrition, lapses in appointing new members, inadequate training and administrative support.
“To have those problems repeat is a serious concern,” he said. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Vacancies-lack-of-staff-vex-Portland-police-17048476.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:39 | en | 0.971805 |
DUDLEYVILLE, Ariz. (AP) — A Pinal County sheriff’s deputy responding to a trespassing call and a suspect were shot and wounded in an exchange of gunfire, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The incident occurred Wednesday night in Dudleyville, the office said a brief statement.
According to the statement, the deputy was shot by the suspect when the deputy arrived at the scene and the suspect was shot when the deputy returned fire.
Both were taken to the hospital but no information was released on their injuries or conditions, the statement said.
Office spokesperson Lauren Reimer said Thursday no additional information was immediately available.
Dudleyville is a rural community 49 miles (80 kilometers) north of Tucson. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Sheriff-s-office-Deputy-suspect-exchange-17048406.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:40 | en | 0.974414 |
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's nuclear operator: Russian troops are leaving Chernobyl nuclear power plant, heading towards Belarus border.
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine's nuclear operator: Russian troops are leaving Chernobyl nuclear power plant, heading towards Belarus border. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Alert-Ukraine-s-nuclear-operator-Russian-troops-17048347.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:44 | en | 0.800233 |
DETROIT (AP) — A building that featured a former movie theater on the outskirts of downtown Detroit will be redeveloped into affordable housing.
The $75 million project at the United Artists Building was announced Thursday by Mayor Mike Duggan and other city leaders.
The nearly 100-year-old building will have 148 apartments and retail and dining space when it opens late next year, the city said.
The 18-story building was designed by Detroit architect C. Howard Crane and opened in 1928. It has been mostly vacant for almost five decades.
Its redevelopment follows a number of other projects where once-vacant structures in Detroit are being reimagined for other uses.
“For nearly half a century, the United Artists Building has been one of our city’s iconic images of blight and abandonment,” Duggan said. “Today, just like we are doing with Michigan Central Station, Fisher Body 21, Lee Plaza and others, we are giving the United Artists Building new life, and turning blight into beauty."
The project received a $43 million Housing and Urban Development multifamily housing loan, $8.5 million from the Downtown Development Authority, $7 million from the Michigan Strategic Fund and $3 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funding, according to the city. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/Vacant-United-Artists-Building-in-Detroit-to-be-17048451.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:45 | en | 0.970693 |
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — A southwest Louisiana prosecutor is relaunching a program to help clear people's criminal records.
Starting Friday, people can apply online to participate in "A New Day,” an expungement and name change program, District Attorney Stephen Dwight said.
Applications will be accepted through May 2 for people hoping to erase convictions, dismissals or acquittals in Calcasieu Parish. Those who have committed violent or sex crimes are not eligible.
“The goal is to help our community members receive job offers, loans and engage in normal everyday successes,” Dwight said Monday in announcing the revival of the program, according to The American Press. “Receiving an expungement can help with so much in someone’s life."
When the program was held in 2019, 127 individuals received a fresh start, said Expungement Process Clerk of Court Monica Winfrey. Without a clean record, it's impossible to get a concealed carry permit, federal housing loan, gaming license or even a student loan, noted Assistant District Attorney Karen McLellan. Nursing school applicants also have to have a clean record and the military won’t admit someone with a conviction, authorities said.
For the first time this year, “A New Day” also will allow qualified adult applicants to change their names.
“This is an amazing program,” said Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Stitch Guillory. “It gives people the opportunity to erase what might have been one bad night, start fresh and new. We’re all human. We’ve all made mistakes. Sometimes it’s just best to forgive and move on.”
In addition to offering an erased record, New Day saves participants from having to pay high court costs and legal fees, noted Mark Judson, of the Southwest Louisiana Law Center,
To be eligible for expungement, any felonies for which applicants have been convicted must have been committed at least 10 years ago, while any misdemeanors must have happened at least five years ago. Applicants must also have completed any sentences and parole, paid all fines and have no pending warrants. Special rules will apply to drunken driving convictions, Judson said. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Southwest-Louisiana-program-to-help-clear-17048301.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:46 | en | 0.962368 |
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Gov. Beshear appointed eight members Thursday to Kentucky State University's Board of Regents. Nominees include a former Kentucky governor, a former state auditor and several KSU alumni.
KSU, the state’s only public historically Black university, has remained under state oversight since last summer, when concerns about the school’s finances and lawsuits alleging misconduct by campus officials came to a head.
A state report, ordered by Beshear, later found evidence of poor financial management by university leadership.
Last week, the Democratic governor signed legislation that required him to appoint a new board by April 4. The board, which will have to be confirmed by the Senate, is tasked with steering the 136-year-old institution though a financial recovery and an extensive review of departments, programs, faculty and staff.
State lawmakers passed legislation Wednesday that mandated the evaluation. The bill also appropriated an extra $15 million for the school, in addition to the $23 million school officials had requested to stabilize the school’s finances.
If signed into law, the KSU Board of Regents would have the authority to fire any employee, including tenured employees, upon a 30-day notice. The board would also be required to suspend its search for a university president until April 15, 2023.
In a statement, Beshear said he was grateful that a group “of highly qualified individuals, with diverse backgrounds and expertise, has stepped up to serve KSU students, staff and alumni through their work on this board.”
“They are helping ensure the university’s long-term success, and when KSU succeeds, Kentucky succeeds," he added. "As the state’s only public HBCU, this university holds a unique place in our past, present and future, helping make higher education more accessible and inclusive.”
The nominees include:
Ernie Fletcher, a physician and former Republican governor of Kentucky from 2003-2007, who will serve for a term expiring on June 30, 2023.
Edward Hatchett, a former Democratic state auditor from 1995–2003, who will serve for a term ending on June 30, 2025.
Tammi Dukes, an automotive executive and KSU graduate, who will serve for term expiring June 30, 2027.
Charles Moyer, a professor and former dean at the University of Louisville College of Business, who will serve for a term expiring June 30, 2027. Moyer is also a graduate of Howard University.
Michael Adams Jr., a KSU graduate and a vice president at Independence Bank and a managing member of Urban Industries LLC, who will serve for a term expiring June 30, 2024.
Jason Moseley, a head basketball coach at Frederick Douglas High School in Lexington and KSU graduate, who will serve for a term expiring June 30, 2026.
Gerald Patton, a former director of assessment and educational effectiveness at California State University and KSU graduate, who will serve for a term expiring June 30, 2022.
Robert Ramsey, who served as Executive Branch Cabinet secretary during the Fletcher administration, who will also serve for a term expiring June 30, 2022. He is a graduate of Florida A&M University.
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Hudspeth Blackburn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Beshear-names-members-of-Kentucky-State-17048433.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:50 | en | 0.975208 |
CAIRO (AP) — The World Bank has approved an additional $300 million for desperately needed aid for the poorest and most vulnerably households in war-torn Yemen, as well as for helping the country fight the coronavirus pandemic, according to a statement released Thursday.
Humanitarian efforts in Yemen were dealt a blow earlier this month when the United Nations raised only $1.3 billion — less than a third of what the organization had targeted to help the Arab world's poorest country. There are growing fears that the humanitarian needs of Yemen will become overshadowed by Russia's war in Ukraine.
“This additional financing will provide social safety nets and cash transfers to protect poor and vulnerable households across Yemen," said Tania Meyer, World Bank Country Manager for Yemen. "The program will provide immediate relief to households, as well as strengthen their resilience to food insecurity and malnutrition in the future.”
Since 2016, the World Bank has allocated a total of US$2.5 billion to help the Yemeni people. The new grant, which comes from World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries is also expected to help Yemen's response to the coronavirus pandemic, added the statement. So far, more than 2,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Yemen, according to figures reported by Yemeni authorities, though the actual pandemic death toll is believed to be much higher.
Yemen’s brutal war erupted in 2014 after the Houthis seized Sanaa. The Saudi-led coalition entered the war the following year to try restore the internationally recognized government. The conflict has in recent years become a regional proxy war that has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14.500 civilians. It also created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
The majority of Yemen’s roughly 32 million people live in Houthi-held areas. The rebels have for years been implicated in aid theft and withholdings in extortion schemes. More than 161,000 Yemenis are likely to experience famine over the second half of 2022, according to U.N. agencies and aid groups.
Initially, the U.N. had set out to raise $4.27 billion to help alleviate the disaster in Yemen. However, it raised less than one third of that at a pledging conference for Yemen earlier this month. | https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/World-Bank-allocates-300-million-to-help-Yemen-17048392.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:51 | en | 0.967413 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A proposal to ban transgender students from playing girls’ and women’s sports in public South Carolina high schools and colleges is moving through the state House after stalling twice last year.
Members of the House Education and Public Works Committee didn't comment on the bill before they voted 11-2 Thursday to send the proposal to the chamber floor.
The legislation would require athletes to compete with the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Lawmakers did spend nearly two hours listening to testimony on and discussing the bill Wednesday, with opponents walking out of the meeting about an hour in. The group SC United for Justice and Equality said the walkout was prompted by the bill's supporters using insults and slurs to demonize transgender people.
“I want lawmakers to know that no one and no thing — not even women’s sports — needs to be saved from transgender people," said Wynston Sanders, a leader with the group, in a statement Thursday. “We are simply trying to live authentic, full lives. There are so many more stories about transgender people than the stories about these bills that try to target us and bring us down.”
Democratic lawmakers raised questions about how the legislation would affect situations where South Carolina teams are set to play out-of-state teams with trans athletes, or which teams intersex students would be allowed to be on.
About a dozen states have already passed similar legislation, and transgender athletes have become an issue in midterm campaigns in states like Pennsylvania. But Republicans aren’t in lockstep, with GOP governors in Indiana and Utah vetoing bans in their states.
Two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring such measures around the country as well as the conservative groups supporting them also struggled to cite local instances to The Associated Press last year where participation of trans girls on girls' sports teams caused problems.
South Carolina high school officials have said they consider each case individually and see no need for a ban, a position also held by elected Republican state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman.
Similar legislation is also headed to the Senate floor this year, though some senators have voiced concerns about lawsuits, especially because the Senate bill includes colleges and private schools.
A different House committee twice rejected a sports ban for transgender students last year. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Transgender-athlete-ban-heading-to-S-Carolina-17048389.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:52 | en | 0.969085 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director William Burns has tested positive for COVID-19, according to an agency statement Thursday.
The statement said Burns is experiencing mild symptoms and working from home, with plans to return to the office after five days and testing negative. The director is fully vaccinated and boosted.
Burns last met with President Joe Biden on Wednesday morning in a socially distanced meeting where the director wore an N-95 mask. The agency says Burns is not considered a close contact of the president by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards. The nature of the meeting was not disclosed by the CIA.
Biden is not known to have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. Several people in recent weeks have tested positive for the virus shortly after seeing the president, including press secretary Jen Psaki, deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/CIA-director-tests-positive-for-COVID-19-has-17048488.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:56 | en | 0.954808 |
BERLIN (AP) — The head of the United Nations announced the appointment Thursday of an expert panel led by Canada's former environment minister to scrutinize whether companies' efforts to curb climate change are credible or mere “ greenwashing.”
Recent years have seen an explosion of pledges by businesses — including oil companies — to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to "net zero" amid consumer expectations that corporations bear part of the burden of cutting pollution. But environmental campaigners say many such plans are at best unclear, at worst designed to make companies look good when they are actually fueling global warming.
“Governments have the lion’s share of responsibility to achieve net-zero emissions by mid-century,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, adding that this was particularly true for the Group of 20 major emerging and industrialized economies that account for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.
“But we also urgently need every business, investor, city, state and region to walk the talk on their net-zero promises,” he said.
The 16-member panel will make recommendations before the end of the year on the standards and definitions for setting net-zero targets, how to measure and verify progress, and ways to translate that into international and national regulations.
In addition to examining net-zero pledges by the private sector, it will also scrutinize commitments made by local and regional governments that don't report directly to the U.N.
The panel includes prominent Australian climate scientist Bill Hare, South Africa-based sustainable finance expert Malango Mughogho and the former long-time governor of the People’s Bank of China, Zhou Xiaochuan.
It will be chaired by Catherine McKenna, who was Canada’s minister of environment and climate change from 2015 to 2019.
One outside expert called the creation of the new panel “well overdue,” noting that targets such as “net zero” are interpreted in different ways by companies and officials.
Harry Fearnehough, a policy analyst at the NewClimate Institute, said the think tank had recently reviewed several major companies and found “a number of critical issues with net-zero pledges, many of which are misleading consumers, regulators and shareholders.”
“Clear guidance on what is right, and what not, is welcome,” he said.
A report last month by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that more than three billion people worldwide are already at risk from global warming.
The panel will publish another report next week which is expected to confirm that the world is not on track to meet the goal of capping temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, which was laid down in the 2015 Paris climate accord.
“If we don’t see significant and sustained emissions reductions this decade, the window of opportunity to keep 1.5 alive will be closed -- forever,” said Guterres. “And that will be disaster for everyone.”
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Follow AP's coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/UN-chief-names-panel-to-probe-companies-climate-17048314.php | 2022-03-31T16:40:59 | en | 0.964917 |
PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. (AP) — Firefighters from across Tennessee continued working Thursday morning to contain a wildfire near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that spread overnight despite rain from storms that passed through the area, officials said.
The blaze, which began as a brush fire Wednesday morning in the Hatcher Mountain area of Wears Valley, had spread to more than 3,700 acres (1,497 hectares) and had impacted more than 100 structures, Sevier County Mayor Larry Waters said during a press conference. Around 11,000 homes in the area had been evacuated. Three injuries were reported during the blaze, but Waters said no fatalities or missing people had been reported.
He said a coordinated response from emergency personnel, firefighters, forestry officials and others helped mitigate damage in the area.
“This fire could have been much more devastating had we not had this team in place. They were able to, even with the winds and the low humidity, they were able to stay ahead of it as much as possible,” he said.
Officials had warned early Wednesday that warm temperatures, low humidity and strong winds increased the risk of fire danger. Waters said the conditions were similar to those in 2016 when wildfires ravaged the tourism town of Gatlinburg, killing 14 people and damaging or destroying about 2,500 buildings.
Firefighters from more than 70 agencies helped respond to the blaze and many worked through the night in an effort to keep it from spreading. It was only 5% contained, but fire lines drawn overnight helped keep the blaze from spreading into the city of Pigeon Forge, Waters said.
Rain early Thursday from storms passing through did not put the fire out, but officials said it helped the situation and the current weather conditions were more favorable for containing the fire.
Evacuation orders remain in effect until the fire is under control. Schools in the area were closed Thursday as a precaution, officials said.
The fire was in what the state Agriculture Department described as steep and difficult terrain. The cause is still undetermined.
At least three shelters were established for those evacuated, authorities said. More than 100 people stayed overnight at the Pigeon Forge Community Center, Sharon Hudson, executive director of the Eastern Tennessee chapter of the American Red Cross. told the Knoxville News Sentinel.
A line of severe storms packing isolated tornadoes and high winds ripped across the Deep South overnight, killing at least two in the Florida Panhandle, toppling trees and power lines and leaving homes and businesses damaged as the vast weather front raced across several states. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Crews-work-to-contain-wildfire-near-Smoky-17048448.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:03 | en | 0.983194 |
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian troops were leaving the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and heading towards Ukraine's border with Belarus, the Ukrainian nuclear operator company said.
The operator, Energoatom said that the Russian military was also preparing to leave Slavutych, a nearby city where power plant workers live.
Energoatom also said reports were confirmed that the Russians dug trenches in the Red Forest, the 10-square-kilometer (nearly four-square-mile) area surrounding the Chernobyl plant within the Exclusion Zone, and received “significant doses of radiation.”
The Russian troops “panicked at the first sign of illness,” which “showed up very quickly,” and began to prepare to leave, the operator said. The claim couldn't be independently verified.
Energoatom said the Russians have signed a document confirming the handover of the Chernobyl plant and stating that the plant’s administration doesn’t have any complaints about the Russian troops who were “guarding” the facility.
“It turns out that the occupiers ‘guarded’ the station for more than five weeks, and even so well that there are no complaints,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Ukraine-nuclear-operator-Russian-troops-leave-17048359.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:05 | en | 0.968598 |
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Lawyers representing an Ohio doctor accused in multiple hospital deaths wrapped up their case Thursday one day after calling only a single witness.
Dr. William Husel is accused of ordering excessive painkillers for 14 patients in the Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System. He was indicted in cases involving at least 500 micrograms of the powerful painkiller fentanyl.
Prosecutors said ordering such dosages for a nonsurgical situation indicated an intent to end lives. Husel has pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of murder. His attorneys say he was providing comfort care for dying patients, not trying to kill them.
Jurors seated for the trial heard from 53 prosecution witnesses since the trial began Feb. 22, including medical experts, Mount Carmel employees, investigators, and family members of all 14 patients. Prosecutors took five weeks to present their case.
Defense lawyers called a Georgia anesthesiologist on Wednesday to testify that Husel's patients died from their medical conditions and not Husel's actions. The defense rested on Thursday, with closing arguments set for Monday.
Mount Carmel has reached settlements totaling more than $16.7 million over the deaths of at least 17 patients, with more lawsuits pending. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Defense-rests-after-1-day-in-Ohio-doctor-s-murder-17048403.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:09 | en | 0.966267 |
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The appearance by video of the head of Ukrainian soccer, wearing an armored vest from the streets of Kyiv, brought the impact of Russia’s war into the FIFA Congress on Thursday.
“We have regularly received sad news of the deaths of members of the Ukrainian football community,” Andriy Pavelko said in a recorded message to the gathering in Qatar including delegates from Russia.
“They have been killed by the aggressors’ rockets from one of the biggest army in the world. Football has taken a back seat in our country.”
Kyiv hosted the Champions League final only four years ago. Then the soccer world shifted to Russia in 2018 for a World Cup that FIFA President Gianni Infantino still celebrated Thursday as “a great success sportingly and culturally."
“Obviously it did not solve the problems of the world,” Infantino said. “It did not even solve the problems in the region. It did not create a lasting peace.”
Infantino did not mention the man he was filmed juggling a ball with and praising in 2018: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nor did Infantino blame or mention Russia in his speech.
There was a plea to “stop conflicts and wars” generally rather than specifically issuing a direct message to Putin, who awarded Infantino Russia’s Order of Friendship medal after the World Cup. And in the Doha audience was Alexey Sorokin, the chief executive of Russia’s 2018 organizing committee and former member of the FIFA Council.
There was an expression of regret from Sorokin but only that Pavelko “has these emotions” in the video address.
“It is difficult for them, we understand that,” Sorokin said. “But I’m here not to discuss politics or military activities or anything, I am here in the FIFA Congress.”
Russia won’t be in the draw for the World Cup on Friday after being disqualified from playing internationally by FIFA over the war. Ukraine can still qualify but its playoff semifinal against Scotland has been postponed until June with the hope the team will be in a position to return to the field by then.
For now, the priority for Ukraine is protecting the country from Russia as Pavelko told the FIFA Congress.
“Our children have suffered terrible psychological injuries. Perhaps football will help them forget the horrors of war,” he said as sandbags were being placed around a statute behind him in Kyiv. “I believe every word, prayer and action in support of Ukraine and against the war can stop it.
“We have no right to remain silent. Let there be no air-raid alarms in our cities, instead the songs of fans. Let the battles take place not in the streets with weapons but in crowded stadiums in fair football duel and let the spectators in the stands explode when their favorite team scores a goal, not the bombs.”
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More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.expressnews.com/sports/article/Russians-hear-FIFA-Congress-plea-from-Ukraine-to-17048363.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:10 | en | 0.97421 |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The mayor of Portland, Oregon, has proposed that the city’s community police oversight committee go on a two-month hiatus to figure out how to fill nearly half of the group’s vacancies and hire more staff.
The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the idea comes five years after the predecessor of the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing was disbanded due to lack of training for its members, lack of city support and dwindling membership.
Similar problems now affect the the current panel.
The 13-member group has only seven seats filled. There’s a lack of city staff to support or facilitate its meetings. Some members appointed to the group complained of a lack of training before they began their service.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, appearing before the committee Wednesday by video conference, suggested the group “take a breather,” for 60 days to allow Mike Myers, the city’s community safety transition director, to work to hire adequate administrative support staff, provide more rigorous training and find strong facilitators “to make it successful.”
Committee members had mixed reactions.
Member Ann Campbell said taking a 60-day break would be “very, very concerning” due to the “lack of community voices” on police oversight for that period of time.
The committee, she said, “is in a crisis right now.”
Member Zeenab Fowlk said she’s been concerned about “less police engagement” at committee meetings and the lack of facilitators to help guide the group’s work.
Dan Handelman, who attended the meeting as leader of the watchdog group Portland Copwatch, said he’d hate to see the committee stop meeting “just like the other one.”
The committee’s predecessor, the Community Oversight Advisory Board, also was put on a two-month hiatus in 2016 before it was completely disbanded. The city was without community oversight of police reforms for almost two years once the initial board dissolved amid acrimony and an exodus of leaders and members.
In November 2018, this second iteration - the Portland Committee on Community Engaged Policing - was created and held its first meeting.
The committee is a key part of the settlement agreement reached between the city and U.S. Department of Justice that followed federal investigators’ findings in 2012 that Portland officers too often used excessive force on people suffering from mental illness. It called for significant changes to police policies, training and oversight and was adopted by U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon in 2014.
Former committee co-chair Elliott Young said many of the committee’s challenges are not new.
Young said when he left the committee in August he spoke to the mayor about the problem of retaining and recruiting members and inadequate staff support. “It’s surprising to me there wasn’t a plan in place from back then for improving staffing,” he said.
Sam Adams, a member of Wheeler’s staff who had negotiated the city’s settlement with the Justice Department when he was mayor, told the group that Wheeler will make a decision early next week. Adams said he had recommended the 60-day break for the committee.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Hager said it’s not lost on the U.S Department of Justice that the very same problems that led to the first community board’s failure is plaguing this committee: attrition, lapses in appointing new members, inadequate training and administrative support.
“To have those problems repeat is a serious concern,” he said. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Vacancies-lack-of-staff-vex-Portland-police-17048476.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:11 | en | 0.971805 |
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Ethiopia’s Supreme Court has upheld the order to release on bail journalist Amir Aman Kiyaro, who has been imprisoned for four months without charges, rejecting a police effort to block his bail.
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed the appeal by police against bail that had been granted by a lower court earlier this week for Kiyaro, an Ethiopian video journalist accredited to The Associated Press. That ruling said Kiyaro should be freed on bail while prosecutors determine whether or not to press charges against him.
The bail of 60,000 Ethiopian birr, about $1,170, has been paid, but Kiyaro remained in custody Thursday while police processed the bail paperwork before his expected release, according to his lawyer.
Kiyaro, 30, was detained on Nov. 28 in Addis Ababa under the country’s war-related state of emergency powers.
Kiyaro is accused of “serving the purposes” of what the government has classified as a terrorist group by interviewing its officials, according to reports by Ethiopian state media, which cited federal police. Local journalist Thomas Engida was arrested at the same time and faces similar charges. Ethiopia's Supreme Court also ruled that Engida should be released on bail.
If the journalists are found guilty of violating Ethiopia’s anti-terrorism law or the state of emergency law, they could face sentences of seven to 15 years behind bars, federal police inspector Tesfaye Olani has told state media.
Despite the granting of bail after four months of police investigation and detention, it still remains uncertain whether prosecutors will proceed to press charges against Kiyaro. The state of emergency was lifted in February as the government cited changing conditions in the deadly conflict between Ethiopian forces and those of the northern Tigray region.
“We are relieved that journalist Amir Aman Kiyaro has again been granted bail," Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, said. "However, Ethiopian authorities continue their investigation against him. We urge the Ethiopian authorities to drop their baseless investigation against Amir, an independent journalist targeted for his work.”
Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders urged Ethiopian authorities to immediately release Kiyaro and Engida and to not press any charges against them. “They should be freed with no further delay and the case be dropped!” said the group in a tweet. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Ethiopia-s-Supreme-Court-upholds-bail-for-17048571.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:15 | en | 0.976366 |
DETROIT (AP) — A building that featured a former movie theater on the outskirts of downtown Detroit will be redeveloped into affordable housing.
The $75 million project at the United Artists Building was announced Thursday by Mayor Mike Duggan and other city leaders.
The nearly 100-year-old building will have 148 apartments and retail and dining space when it opens late next year, the city said.
The 18-story building was designed by Detroit architect C. Howard Crane and opened in 1928. It has been mostly vacant for almost five decades.
Its redevelopment follows a number of other projects where once-vacant structures in Detroit are being reimagined for other uses.
“For nearly half a century, the United Artists Building has been one of our city’s iconic images of blight and abandonment,” Duggan said. “Today, just like we are doing with Michigan Central Station, Fisher Body 21, Lee Plaza and others, we are giving the United Artists Building new life, and turning blight into beauty."
The project received a $43 million Housing and Urban Development multifamily housing loan, $8.5 million from the Downtown Development Authority, $7 million from the Michigan Strategic Fund and $3 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funding, according to the city. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Vacant-United-Artists-Building-in-Detroit-to-be-17048451.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:17 | en | 0.970693 |
NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel says it has hired Caitlyn Jenner as a contributor, with her first appearance set for Thursday on Sean Hannity's program.
Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete, ran an unsuccessful campaign for California governor last year. The network said she'll offer commentary and analysis across various Fox News Media platforms.
“Caitlyn's story is an inspiration to us all,” said Suzanne Scott, Fox News Media CEO. “She is a trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community and her illustrious career spans a variety of fields that will be a tremendous asset for our audience.”
Jenner won the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon in 1976. She later came out as a transgender and identifies as a female.
She said in a statement she was “humbled by this unique opportunity” to speak directly to Fox's audience. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Fox-News-hires-Caitlyn-Jenner-as-contributor-and-17048362.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:21 | en | 0.976018 |
CAIRO (AP) — The World Bank has approved an additional $300 million for desperately needed aid for the poorest and most vulnerably households in war-torn Yemen, as well as for helping the country fight the coronavirus pandemic, according to a statement released Thursday.
Humanitarian efforts in Yemen were dealt a blow earlier this month when the United Nations raised only $1.3 billion — less than a third of what the organization had targeted to help the Arab world's poorest country. There are growing fears that the humanitarian needs of Yemen will become overshadowed by Russia's war in Ukraine.
“This additional financing will provide social safety nets and cash transfers to protect poor and vulnerable households across Yemen," said Tania Meyer, World Bank Country Manager for Yemen. "The program will provide immediate relief to households, as well as strengthen their resilience to food insecurity and malnutrition in the future.”
Since 2016, the World Bank has allocated a total of US$2.5 billion to help the Yemeni people. The new grant, which comes from World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries is also expected to help Yemen's response to the coronavirus pandemic, added the statement. So far, more than 2,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Yemen, according to figures reported by Yemeni authorities, though the actual pandemic death toll is believed to be much higher.
Yemen’s brutal war erupted in 2014 after the Houthis seized Sanaa. The Saudi-led coalition entered the war the following year to try restore the internationally recognized government. The conflict has in recent years become a regional proxy war that has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14.500 civilians. It also created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
The majority of Yemen’s roughly 32 million people live in Houthi-held areas. The rebels have for years been implicated in aid theft and withholdings in extortion schemes. More than 161,000 Yemenis are likely to experience famine over the second half of 2022, according to U.N. agencies and aid groups.
Initially, the U.N. had set out to raise $4.27 billion to help alleviate the disaster in Yemen. However, it raised less than one third of that at a pledging conference for Yemen earlier this month. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/World-Bank-allocates-300-million-to-help-Yemen-17048392.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:23 | en | 0.967413 |
LONDON (AP) — Climate activist Greta Thunberg has compiled a handbook for tackling the world’s interconnected environmental crises, with contributions from leading scientists and writers.
Penguin Random House announced Thursday that “The Climate Book” will be published in Britain in October.
It contains contributions from more than 100 academics, thinkers and campaigners, including novelists Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh, climate scientist Saleemul Huq and World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The book aims to help readers connect the dots between threats to the climate, environment, sustainability and indigenous populations — among others — and is intended as a guide to understanding and activism.
Contributors including Kenyan environmentalist Wanjira Mathai, Brazilian indigenous activist Sonia Guajajara, French economist Thomas Piketty and Canadian journalist Naomi Klein offer “compelling stories of change, action and resilience,” the publisher said, alongside Thunberg’s own stories of "learning, demonstrating, and uncovering greenwashing around the world.”
“My hope is that this book might be some kind of go-to source for understanding these different, closely interconnected crises,” Thunberg said in a statement.
Chloe Currens, editor at Penguin Press, said it was “a unique book, alive with moral purpose, which aims to change the climate conversation forever.”
Thunberg began skipping classes once a week to protest climate change in 2018, when she was 15, sparking a series of school walkouts that grew into a global youth movement.
Now 19, the Swedish activist has already published a memoir, “Our House Is On Fire” and a collection of speeches, “No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference.”
“The Climate Book” is published Oct. 27 in the U.K. by Allen Lane and in the U.S. in early 2023 by Penguin Press, as well as in countries around the world. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Greta-Thunberg-aims-to-drive-change-with-The-17048508.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:27 | en | 0.947888 |
NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel says it has hired Caitlyn Jenner as a contributor, with her first appearance set for Thursday on Sean Hannity's program.
Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete, ran an unsuccessful campaign for California governor last year. The network said she'll offer commentary and analysis across various Fox News Media platforms.
“Caitlyn's story is an inspiration to us all,” said Suzanne Scott, Fox News Media CEO. “She is a trailblazer in the LGBTQ+ community and her illustrious career spans a variety of fields that will be a tremendous asset for our audience.”
Jenner won the Olympic gold medal in the decathlon in 1976. She later came out as a transgender and identifies as a female.
She said in a statement she was “humbled by this unique opportunity” to speak directly to Fox's audience. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/sports/article/Fox-News-hires-Caitlyn-Jenner-as-contributor-and-17048362.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:30 | en | 0.976018 |
DETROIT (AP) — One security guard has been fatally shot and another wounded after a man was told to leave a Detroit health facility.
The shooting was reported about 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Team Wellness Center on the city's eastside, police said.
One security guard was pronounced dead at the scene. The other was in temporary serious condition at a hospital.
A man identified as the suspected shooter failed to complete the facility's intake process and had been asked to leave, police Capt. Conway Petty told reporters.
Petty said the man returned and had some type of confrontation with the security guards before pulling a gun and shooting them. The suspect then fled. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Guard-slain-another-wounded-at-Detroit-health-17048337.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:34 | en | 0.988482 |
DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The appearance by video of the head of Ukrainian soccer, wearing an armored vest from the streets of Kyiv, brought the impact of Russia’s war into the FIFA Congress on Thursday.
“We have regularly received sad news of the deaths of members of the Ukrainian football community,” Andriy Pavelko said in a recorded message to the gathering in Qatar including delegates from Russia.
“They have been killed by the aggressors’ rockets from one of the biggest army in the world. Football has taken a back seat in our country.”
Kyiv hosted the Champions League final only four years ago. Then the soccer world shifted to Russia in 2018 for a World Cup that FIFA President Gianni Infantino still celebrated Thursday as “a great success sportingly and culturally."
“Obviously it did not solve the problems of the world,” Infantino said. “It did not even solve the problems in the region. It did not create a lasting peace.”
Infantino did not mention the man he was filmed juggling a ball with and praising in 2018: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nor did Infantino blame or mention Russia in his speech.
There was a plea to “stop conflicts and wars” generally rather than specifically issuing a direct message to Putin, who awarded Infantino Russia’s Order of Friendship medal after the World Cup. And in the Doha audience was Alexey Sorokin, the chief executive of Russia’s 2018 organizing committee and former member of the FIFA Council.
There was an expression of regret from Sorokin but only that Pavelko “has these emotions” in the video address.
“It is difficult for them, we understand that,” Sorokin said. “But I’m here not to discuss politics or military activities or anything, I am here in the FIFA Congress.”
Russia won’t be in the draw for the World Cup on Friday after being disqualified from playing internationally by FIFA over the war. Ukraine can still qualify but its playoff semifinal against Scotland has been postponed until June with the hope the team will be in a position to return to the field by then.
For now, the priority for Ukraine is protecting the country from Russia as Pavelko told the FIFA Congress.
“Our children have suffered terrible psychological injuries. Perhaps football will help them forget the horrors of war,” he said as sandbags were being placed around a statute behind him in Kyiv. “I believe every word, prayer and action in support of Ukraine and against the war can stop it.
“We have no right to remain silent. Let there be no air-raid alarms in our cities, instead the songs of fans. Let the battles take place not in the streets with weapons but in crowded stadiums in fair football duel and let the spectators in the stands explode when their favorite team scores a goal, not the bombs.”
___
More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.theheraldreview.com/sports/article/Russians-hear-FIFA-Congress-plea-from-Ukraine-to-17048363.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:36 | en | 0.97421 |
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — A 15-year-old boy accused of molesting and fatally strangling a 6-year-old northern Indiana girl last year will remain held at a county jail as he awaits trial, a judge says.
The boy's attorneys have argued that their client, who's charged as an adult in the March 2021 death of 6-year-old Grace Ross of New Carlisle, should be held at a juvenile facility away from adults.
They asked a St. Joseph County judge during a Wednesday court hearing to send the teen back to the county's juvenile facility. But the judge repeatedly denied those requests, saying that while the situation was not ideal the juvenile center will not take the young defendant.
The boy's next court hearing is set for May 4. He is currently being held in the St. Joseph County Jail, where he stays in his cell approximately 23 hours a day to avoid contact with adult inmates.
Jeff Kimmell, one of the teen's attorneys, said alternatives, such as moving him to facilities in Allen or LaPorte counties, would negatively impact his ability to represent his client.
“A case of this magnitude, I really need to visit him frequently,” he said.
According to court documents, the boy, then 14, told police a “shadowy man” controlled him and made him strangle Ross after she followed him into a wooded area from the nearby apartment complex where she lived about 75 miles (120 kilometers) east of Chicago. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Indiana-teen-charged-in-death-of-girl-6-to-17048436.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:40 | en | 0.986734 |
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — After Washington State University freshman Sam Martinez died from alcohol poisoning after a fraternity event in 2019, his parents became determined to prevent similar tragedies.
One of Jolayne Houtz’s and Hector Martinez’s many goals was met Wednesday when Gov. Jay Inslee signed the Sam’s Law Act. The Spokesman-Review reported the measure is named after their son, an Alpha Tau Omega pledge.
Sam’s Law will expand the definition of hazing and create requirements for colleges to provide hazing education and training to students and employees. It also will require colleges to publicly report findings of misconduct by student groups.
“This bill is a solemn reminder that we can and will do more to educate students on the dangers of hazing,” Inslee said.
The law expands the legal definition of hazing to include harmful acts that take place as part of a person’s continued affiliation with a club, athletic team or living group. Current law only covers hazing associated with the initiation process and does not include sports groups. Hazing, on and off campus , will be expressly prohibited in a school’s code of conduct.
Under the law, hazing education will be incorporated into orientation programs all new students are required to attend. Employees will receive annual training on hazing and be required to report suspected incidents. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Inslee-signs-law-intended-to-reduce-hazing-17048415.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:46 | en | 0.962608 |
Senate lawmakers in Mississippi briefly suspended work when weather sirens blared during a tornado warning Wednesday.
Severe storms packing isolated tornadoes and high winds are racing across the Deep South, killing two in the Florida Panhandle and leaving scattered damage to buildings and homes in their path.
In Florida, the Washington County Sheriff's Office said two were killed and two injured when a tornado touched down in the town of Alford, west of Tallahassee.
More than 150,000 homes and businesses between the Gulf Coast and Great Lakes of Florida were without power Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.
A tornado also hit a dorm in Alabama.
The University of Montavallo posted on Facebook saying, “very few people were on campus during the storms.”
One person was hurt.
Police and university officials were assessing the campus for damage.
High winds overturned semitrailers in Louisiana and damaged a hotel in downtown Nashville. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/at-least-two-dead-after-round-of-severe-storms-in-the-south | 2022-03-31T16:41:48 | en | 0.976665 |
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge this week denied a temporary restraining order sought by environmental groups that would block grazing in six eastern Oregon pastures.
U.S. District Judge Michael Simon said the plaintiffs haven’t shown that cattle grazing on the pastures will cause irreparable harm to sage grouse or to rangeland research, The Capital Press reported.
He said continued grazing isn’t likely to irreparably harm the ability of environmental plaintiffs to enjoy undisturbed sagebrush grassland, since the pastures have long been grazed and are rested on a rotating basis.
Any hardship suffered by the environmental nonprofits is also “minimal” compared to the harm that a temporary restraining order would cause Cahill Ranches near Adel, Oregon, which relies on an affected pasture to turn out cattle, the judge said.
“Several families’ livelihoods depend on Cahill, which in turn depends on the ability to use public lands for its livestock operations,” said Simon, noting that the public interest also doesn’t weigh in favor of a temporary restraining order.
Six other ranches are seeking to intervene in the case, which was filed against the U.S. Bureau of Land Management by the nonprofits Oregon Natural Desert Association, Audubon Society of Portland and Defenders of Wildlife.
Aside from seeking the temporary restraining order, the plaintiffs have requested a broader preliminary injunction against grazing on a total of 13 Oregon pastures.
“There are a lot of other places the cattle can go,” Mac Lacy, attorney for the environmental groups said during oral arguments Monday. “The permittees, we believe, have greatly overstated the harm they may suffer.”
Grazing in the 13 pastures must end to allow for research into its impacts on sage grouse habitat, which has already been delayed to the detriment of that species and the environment, he said.
“Economic harm never outweighs irreparable environmental harm,” Lacy said.
Lacy also noted that the plan to stop grazing was enacted seven years ago, while the ranchers were formally notified two years ago.
According to the Oregon Natural Desert Association, grazing must be prohibited in the 13 pastures to allow for research on the sage grouse under a broader 2015 conservation plan for the species across the West, where its populations have been falling for decades.
These 13 “research natural areas” were originally required under a conservation plan developed during the Obama administration but dropped from a revised version enacted by the Trump administration.
A 2019 federal court order in a separate case reinstated the original conservation plan that required grazing to end in the 13 pastures. The environmental groups then sued alleging the federal government has unlawfully failed to implement the livestock-free “research natural areas.”
The BLM counters that it must follow bureaucratic processes before halting grazing within the 13 pastures, such as studying the environmental impacts of building necessary fences to keep cattle out.
“Fences don’t spring into existence at the stroke of a pen,” said Carroll, noting that fences are “not the most environmentally friendly way” to close pastures because of the effects on wildlife and plant species. For that reason, BLM is studying alternative methods. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Judge-refuses-to-block-grazing-in-eastern-Oregon-17048424.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:53 | en | 0.954339 |
TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — TuSimple is a company building and testing autonomous semi-trucks in Tucson. These trucks can successfully navigate side streets, highways and traffic signals, all while responding to surrounding cars. They have around 20 cameras that allow for a 360-degree vision of the road around the vehicle.
“The truck is capable of detecting when vehicles cut in front of it," said Koabi Brooks, Director of Technical Operations. "It will slow down if necessary to create a safe follow distance. It sees when cars are merging on the highway.”
Autonomous trucks could provide a real solution to recent supply chain issues. The American Trucking Association estimates there’s a shortage of 80,000 truck drivers in the United States.
“People were shopping more online, getting more product delivered to their houses," said Lee White, Vice President of Strategy. "What that means is more movement by trucks, there’s been more demand than ever for truck movements.”
In December, TuSimple’s truck became the first fully autonomous and driverless semi on the open road. The company is now accelerating toward commercial use.
“In December we did a technology demo showing the world that driver-out capability is closer than we think," Brooks said. "The path to commercialization is closer than the world thinks.”
People could start seeing semis without drivers in the next few months. This year, Union Pacific will be the first company to use TuSimple’s trucks without drivers to haul freight from Tucson to Phoenix. Other partners like FedEx, DHL, and UPS will use the trucks for commercial shipments starting in 2023.
“We believe autonomous trucking is coming to the industry, we believe it's going to be on our roads in the very near future,” White said.
This story was first reported by Paula Shaheen at KGUN in Tucson, Ariz. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/driverless-semi-trucks-pose-real-solution-to-shortages-supply-chain-issues | 2022-03-31T16:41:54 | en | 0.968327 |
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — The French medical charity Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, says that five of its employees have been released in Nigeria after being kidnapped last month in neighboring Cameroon.
Armed men kidnapped the MSF employees on Feb. 24 from the group’s base in Cameroon’s Far North region in Fotokol, which is near Nigeria and Chad. Those kidnapped and subsequently released include a Senegalese, Chadian and Franco-Ivorian along with their two Cameroon security guards.
The organization said the workers were released Wednesday in Nigeria and have been “taken to a safe place.”
“We are happy to find our colleagues safe and sound,” said the director general of the organization, Stephen Cornish. “We share the deep relief of their parents and loved ones, who were impatiently awaiting this news."
The organization did not give details on the condition of the release.
Cheikh Ndiaye, the uncle of the Senegalese humanitarian who was taking hostages expressed his family’s relief.
”They are free. We were told they are in Nigeria. We rejoice and look forward with great relief to his return among us,” he said.
Islamic extremist groups Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province are known to carry out attacks in this region. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Medical-charity-says-5-abducted-workers-are-freed-17048460.php | 2022-03-31T16:41:59 | en | 0.982833 |
When it comes to heart disease, everyone isn't created equal.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, Hispanics are nearly 25% more likely than non-Hispanic whites to have poorly controlled high blood pressure. Black adults are 40% more likely to have high blood pressure.
Geraldo Rodriguez is originally from Trinidad and Tobago. Now he lives in Pinellas County, Florida. He’ll marvel at the weather and his surroundings— yet he talks less about his health.
At 83 years old, Rodriguez suffers from hypertension and high blood pressure.
“My mother died from high blood pressure,” Rodriguez said.
He is part of a statistic that has reached epidemic proportions. According to a study by the American Heart Association, it’s not just about how a person lives, but where they live may be just as important.
“Cardiovascular disease overall is not just a problem of older people. We've known for a long time that it actually begins to occur much earlier in the course of people's lives out in these communities,” Dr. Kevin Sneed said. “These lower socioeconomic situations leave more segregated opportunities that are lack of opportunity that overall people have. They reveal the worst cardiovascular outcomes later in life.”
The study found where a person calls home from ages 18 to 30, and how diverse the home is, may have a strong impact on their heart health. It found racially segregated neighborhoods often have less access to health care, fewer grocery stores providing healthy food options, and fewer safe spaces for recreation. They bring more stress, driving unhealthy coping behaviors like poor eating habits that increase the risk for heart disease.
Geraldo has to pay for a bus service to get to the nearest grocery store. He is on a fixed income which makes spending money to purchase healthy food.
By knowing which neighborhoods need help means knowing how to target that help. The American Heart Association is visiting food banks and talking about nutrition. They’re educating youth about heart risks. And most of all, they’re facilitating the necessary medical attention so many don’t receive. Their hope is to catch heart disease early and break the cycle.
“Our quest right now is to really erase the difference in terms of cardiovascular challenges between African American communities, our Latino communities and even some of the Asian communities that we're beginning to reach out to right now to get to a point where there is no difference at all as we're continuing to lower the number for everybody,” Dr. Sneed said. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/leveling-the-playing-field-in-dealing-with-heart-health | 2022-03-31T16:42:00 | en | 0.96886 |
SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Three men suspected of being part of an international drug smuggling ring were arrested in North Macedonia, where police seized about 150 kilograms (330 pounds) of marijuana believed destined for Turkey, authorities said Thursday.
Police said the drugs, with an estimated street value of half a million euros ($554,000) were found packed in plastic bags in the trunk of a car parked outside a restaurant in the eastern town of Shtip late Wednesday.
The three men, two of them Kosovo citizens and the third a Macedonian national, were arrested following a brief chase, police said in a statement. Authorities were searching for a Turkish truck driver whom police suspect was planning to take over the drug shipment.
If charged and convicted, the three men face a minimum of five years in prison.
Police said they also cracked a Macedonian-Bulgarian drug smuggling group on Wednesday, in cooperation with neighboring Bulgaria's department for organized crime and the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center.
Four men, two of them Macedonian nationals, were arrested in that case, and police seized several kilograms (pounds) of amphetamines and other chemicals during searches of their homes.
North Macedonia is at the crossroads of drug trafficking routes, and drug seizures are common there.
Last year, authorities said they disrupted two international drug smuggling groups in several separate operations that led to the arrests of 13 people and the seizure of more than 700 kilograms (1,543 pounds) of marijuana. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/N-Macedonia-Police-seize-150-kg-marijuana-17048570.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:05 | en | 0.977772 |
NASA says they captured a massive solar flare erupting from the sun.
In a blog post, the space agency said the solar flare occurred Wednesday, peaking at 1:35 p.m. EST.
The incredible moment was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is always watching the sun.
The burst was powerful enough to cause a short-wave radio blackout in some areas.
Some airplane pilots, boat captains, and ham radio operators may have noticed the disturbance.
Nasa classified the event as an x-class flare.
More powerful solar flares can pose dangers to satellites, power lines, and even astronauts in space. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/nasa-captures-intense-solar-flare-erupting-from-the-sun | 2022-03-31T16:42:06 | en | 0.95007 |
The United Nations has appointed a commission to investigate possible war crimes in Ukraine.
Three human rights experts were appointed to the independent panel.
The team will look at all accusations of international humanitarian law violations.
The panel will interview witnesses and collect evidence, including forensic material, before presenting its findings in September.
Ukrainian leaders have accused Russian military forces of targeting and killing civilians, but Moscow has denied those claims.
The International Criminal Court, the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, as well as ten countries have started investigations into the war in Ukraine.
The UN has reported nearly 1,200 civilians have been killed since Russia began its invasion.
However, the toll is likely much higher, according to UN officials. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/russia-ukraine-conflict/un-creates-investigative-panel-to-investigate-war-crimes-in-ukraine | 2022-03-31T16:42:08 | en | 0.975769 |
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Thursday that he will not support Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Republican senator's decision is not unexpected. During Jackson's confirmation hearing, Graham was among the Republicans who were vocal in their criticism of Jackson's sentencing of child porn offenders.
"If you're on the internet trolling for images of children and sexual exploitation. So, so you don't think that's a bad thing, I think that's a horrible thing," Graham said as he continually cut off Jackson as she attempted to explain how she sentences people.
Graham claimed Thursday that Jackson lacks "steady judicial philosophy."
Despite his decision to vote no on her confirmation, Graham praised Jackson on a personal level.
"I find Judge Jackson to be a person of exceptionally good character, respected by her peers, and someone who has worked hard to achieve her current position," he said.
Most Republicans are expected to oppose Jackson's nomination. However, she will get support from at least one member of the GOP.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Wednesday that she will vote to confirm Jackson.
If confirmed by the full Senate, Jackson will become the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/sen-lindsay-graham-to-oppose-judge-jacksons-nomination-to-supreme-court | 2022-03-31T16:42:08 | en | 0.981077 |
Tornadoes are touching down in areas that historically don’t commonly see them, now research is showing that Tornado Alley may be shifting, and scientists are trying to figure out why.
Neighborhoods in Round Rock, Texas have houses that have been destroyed after a tornado caused an estimated $32 million in damages.
“I heard a loud bang and crash,” said Linda Stevens, who has lived in Round Rock since 1993. “I went and got a couple cushions and made my way to the bathroom to get into the tub when all the noise suddenly stopped. I came outside and opened the front door, and it was a total disaster everywhere.”
Stevens is forced to stay in an apartment.
“Everything has to be moved out, and that’s what we’re doing today,” Stevens said. “I have never seen a tornado here. I feel like things are getting worse. We hear more and more about these weather disasters; they seem to be going to areas that just don’t generally have that.”
While Round Rock is just on the edge of Tornado Alley, the National Weather Service in Austin and San Antonio said that they aren’t necessarily rare, but they are very uncommon in that area.
“The number of tornadoes in this area varies from year-to-year,” said Jason Runyen, with the NWS. “Some years, we only get a few and others we can get a couple dozen.”
The tornadoes are sparking concern of Tornado Alley shifting, or as Runyen would describe it as the original Tornado Alley slowing down in frequencies while the southeast is ramping up.
“Traditionally, we have tornado alley in the central plains, and another cluster of tornadoes form over the mid and deep south,” Runyen said.
Research by the NOAA shows that more tornadoes have been turning up in the southeast in the last 15 years. A map shows that frequencies of tornadoes have been declining in Tornado Alley while there have been higher frequencies of tornadoes in the southeast.
“Is there a link to climate change? That’s what is being debated right now,” Runyen said. “And if climate change has to do with it, what degree is it playing a role? There is more distribution of tornadoes in the deep south and those are the factors that are being debated right now.”
According to atmospheric scientists from Purdue University, not only are the frequencies in the southeast increasing, but the studies have shown that they are more destructive. The research also explained that the dry air predominantly in the west triggers moist air and severe storms in the east causing Tornado Alley to shift.
The NWS is now warning those living in the southeast to prepare accordingly.
“If you’re moving to that area, you’d ought to think about tornado shelters,” Runyen said. “If you’re building a new home, build on that has been reinforced with a safe room in the home. Those are some things people can think about.” | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/the-shift-in-tornado-alley | 2022-03-31T16:42:09 | en | 0.977886 |
A National Security Agency employee has been charged with emailing classified national security information to somebody who wasn't authorized to receive it, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday.
Mark Robert Unkenholz, 60, of Hanover, Maryland, was arrested Thursday and scheduled to make his initial court appearance in Baltimore later in the day.
Unkenholz held “top secret” security clearance, giving him access to the information, according to a 26-count indictment. He worked for an NSA office responsible for the agency's engagement with private industry.
The indictment accuses Unkenholz of using his personal email address to send information classified as “secret” and “top secret” to somebody else's private company email addresses on several occasions between February 2018 and June 2020.
The recipient held “top secret” clearance from April 2016 until approximately June 2019, while employed at a company that isn't named in the indictment. However, from July 2019 until approximately January 2021, the person worked for a different company and wasn't authorized to access or receive classified information, the indictment says.
A grand jury indicted Unkenholz on Tuesday on 13 counts of willfully transmitting national defense information and 13 counts of willfully retaining national defense informaton. Each count carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. Federal sentencing guidelines typically recommend sentences far below the maximum.
Online court records don’t list an attorney for Unkenholz.
The FBI is investigating.
The case against Unkenholz is the latest prosecution from federal authorities in Maryland, home to some of the most secretive government agencies, alleging mishandling or improper storage of classified materials.
One of the more prominent federal cases involved Harold Martin, a former NSA contractor who was charged in 2016 with storing reams of classified records in his Maryland home, car and shed. The information spanned from the mid-1990s to the present and included personal details of government employees and “top secret” email chains, handwritten notes describing the NSA’s classified computer infrastructure, and descriptions of classified technical operations. He was sentenced in 2019 to nine years in prison.
___
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed from Washington, D.C. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/NSA-employee-charged-with-mishandling-classified-17048473.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:11 | en | 0.964902 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials have revoked the license of a Nevada-based gun manufacturer that was accused of illegally selling guns and went bankrupt but then rebranded itself.
The revocation comes after a lawsuit that alleged the Justice Department didn’t conduct proper oversight before issuing the license.
The decision to revoke the license of JA Industries was spelled out in a court filing late Wednesday as part of the lawsuit brought by Illinois; Kansas City, Missouri; and gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.
The lawsuit alleged that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a law enforcement agency in the Justice Department, awarded the license to JA Industries, renamed from Jimenez Arms, after it violated federal firearms law. The suit also alleged that the company’s guns were contributing to rising violent crime rates in Chicago and Kansas City.
Kansas City and Everytown had sued Jimenez Arms and several gun dealers previously, alleging they contributed to surging gun violence in the Kansas City region by ignoring evidence that guns were being sold illegally in the area. Jimenez Arms filed for bankruptcy about a month after the suit was filed.
That suit contended that Jimenez Arms every year made tens of thousands of cheap handguns that turned up at crime scenes in Kansas City and Chicago “at a rate disproportionate to the company’s market share.”
The plaintiffs alleged in their suit against the ATF that the company’s owner, Paul Jimenez, applied for a new license under the name JA Industries and that it took the ATF less than a month to award the license. The suit alleged that company officials had made false statements to the ATF and had unlawfully shipped guns to a firearms trafficker, which should’ve made the company and its officials ineligible for holding a federal firearms license.
A message seeking comment from JA Industries on Thursday was not immediately returned.
Everytown for Gun Safety heralded the decision to revoke the company's license.
“We can only hope this decision marks the beginning of a new era at ATF, one that is consistent with President Biden’s commitment to holding rogue and reckless members of the gun industry accountable for breaking the law and putting lives in danger,” said John Feinblatt, Everytown's president.
In a statement, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said it was a “bold action to stop the flow of illegal firearms into Kansas City.”
An ATF spokesperson, Erik Longnecker, declined to comment specifically, citing the ongoing case. But he said the agency “revokes Federal firearms licensees who are found to have committed willful violations of the Gun Control Act and have an adverse impact on public safety.” | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Nevada-gun-manufacturer-s-license-is-revoked-17048346.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:17 | en | 0.962427 |
BLUFFTON, Ohio (AP) — A police officer in Ohio was struck and killed by a fleeing car on Interstate 75 during a high-speed chase through multiple counties Wednesday, authorities said.
The officer, Dominic Francis of the Bluffton police department, was struck around 2:30 a.m. while he was setting up stop sticks, which flatten tires, said Sgt. Brice Nihiser of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The chase had reached speeds up to 120 mph (193 kph).
Three suspects inside the car drove away for a short distance before they jumped out and ran. One was found nearby while a second one was arrested in a stolen car in Elyria, about 100 miles (161 kilometers) northeast of Bluffton, Nihiser said.
Authorities were continuing to look for the third suspect.
The search caused schools in the nearby village of Bluffton to cancel classes, and Bluffton University told students to stay in their rooms and advised employees to stay home. I-75 also was shut down while authorities looked through barns, farm fields and around houses.
The chase first began near Marion when authorities saw the car going more than 100 mph and continued across several counties, Nihiser said.
Francis, 41, had been an officer in Bluffton the past nine years, said Police Chief Ryan Burkholder. He also worked as a school teacher, bus driver and as a football and softball coach with Cory-Rawson schools.
“He had a heart of gold,” Burkholder said. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Ohio-officer-killed-trying-to-stop-fleeing-car-on-17048443.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:24 | en | 0.990298 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Military bases with a high risk for sexual assault, harassment and other harmful behaviors often have leaders who don't understand violence prevention, don't make it a priority and focus more on their mission than on their people, a Pentagon review has concluded.
The review studied 20 bases in the United States and Europe, including 18 with some of the more severe problems identified in command climate surveys. It found that the failures were worse in a number of bases in Germany and Spain where key leaders and resources weren't on site. Senior defense officials described the report to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the findings before the review was publicly released.
At Naval Station Rota in Spain, for example, officials said the military mission requirements “were prioritized above and at the expense of the sailors’ well-being.” They said sailors reported bullying, mental health issues, sexual harassment and relationship problems, but often could not seek help due to their mission requirements.
In one location, officials said, they found that young enlisted men were taking steps to help their female peers stay safe by keeping them away from more senior leaders who were harassing them.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the report as part of his effort to strengthen sexual assault and harassment prevention across the forces, identify what programs work and ensure high-risk bases get attention quickly. Austin approved the report, and in a memo obtained by the AP, said it will help the department tailor improvements for bases where needs may vary.
“While we have made progress, we must do more to strengthen the integrated capabilities we have on the ground to prevent sexual assault, harassment, suicide, domestic abuse and other harmful behaviors,” he said.
The report comes nearly two years after Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén went missing from Fort Hood, Texas, and her remains were found two months later. Guillen was killed by a soldier, who her family says sexually harassed her, and who killed himself as police sought to arrest him.
Her death and a number of other crimes, murders and suicides led to heightened scrutiny on assaults and other violence in the military, and to a series of reviews. An independent panel appointed by Austin last year made more than 80 recommendations, including specific changes to improve accountability of leadership, command climate and culture, and victim care and support.
Officials said Austin's goal is to find effective ways to prevent harmful behavior, which includes sexual assault and harassment, suicides and domestic violence. They said this latest report is designed to pinpoint which leadership and other failures contribute to higher instances of such behavior and which prevention programs and other changes actually work.
According to the officials, 16 of the bases were selected because a command climate survey of nearly a million personnel identified problems there, which included things such as binge drinking, toxic leadership, stress, and racial or sexual harassment. While serious problems were identified at these 16 bases, the report looked at a variety of factors for each location and doesn’t specifically characterize them as the worst in the military.
Two other bases were chosen because the survey showed good results, such as high morale, inclusion and good leadership. Two others had a mix of both high-performing and problem units.
The officials said that while in many cases leaders had a genuine desire to prevent violence, there was a “pervasive” misunderstanding of how to do it and they often didn't devote enough personnel or time for it or hold subordinates accountable.
And even if they understood department policies, leaders often didn't recognize when there was a high risk for violence or harmful behavior among their people.
In the United States, the bases surveyed were: Fort Custer, Michigan; Naval Support Activity Sarasota Springs, New York; Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Bliss, Texas; Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia; Marine Corps Base Hawaii; Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California; Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California; Dyess Air Force Base, Texas; Vandenberg Space Force Base, California; the Kentucky National Guard; and the Army Reserve base in Fraser, Michigan.
The last two — the Guard and Reserve bases in Kentucky and Michigan — were the ones chosen because they had less risk and more positive command climates.
The overseas bases were: Army Garrison Ansbach, Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfatz Smith Bararcks; Army Garrison Bavaria; Naval Station Rota; Army Garrison Stuttgart; and the Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz, Kaiserslautern. All but Rota are in Germany.
As an example, the report found that at the Kentucky National Guard base leaders believed that their soldiers came first, and their “well-being was part of the mission, not an adjacent effort that was secondary.” In contrast, commanders in at the bases in Germany and Spain “tolerated harmful behaviors” and it was difficult to access resources “due to mission requirements or geographic dispersion of services.”
The report said that the changes proposed by the independent review board will help address the problems. Those improvements include establishing a dedicated prevention workforce, expanded sexual assault prevention and response programs, and better leadership. The budget for 2023 includes funding to hire additional personnel.
The report also recommends that the department establish data to help the military services share prevention and program support information, hold leaders accountable if they don't have healthy command climates. Officials said it's important to ensure that leaders better understand the prevention policies and programs and that service members and employees know where to go to get help.
Officials also said that there will be follow-up visits to the bases by this fall, and that similar site visits and reviews will be done every two years.
Austin is asking military service leaders for implementation plans by early June and said the department will issue more guidelines and policies by early October. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Pentagon-links-leadership-failures-to-violence-at-17048502.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:30 | en | 0.972953 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said Thursday that the Justice Department has closed without criminal charges an investigation into political fundraising activity at his former business.
“As I said from the beginning and have maintained throughout this process, I was confident that after a thorough review the Justice Department would find all of my activities to be lawful," DeJoy said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “I have always adhered to the law in my personal and professional life.”
He added that he was “not surprised” that the department had concluded its investigation and that he was “pleased that this episode is over.”
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately return a message seeking comment. But it is standard practice for department officials to reveal to defense lawyers that their investigations have concluded without charges rather than make that announcement themselves. A DeJoy spokesman said DeJoy's lawyer had received that notification from the department.
DeJoy, a wealthy former logistics executive who was appointed postmaster general in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and remains in the position in the Biden administration, confirmed the existence of a Justice Department investigation last June when his spokesman said investigators were examining campaign contributions made by employees who worked for him when he was in the private sector. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Postmaster-General-says-he-s-been-cleared-in-17048556.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:36 | en | 0.992797 |
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A new strategic plan for South Dakota's six public universities, two university centers and two special schools makes retaining graduates for the state's workforce a priority.
The Board of Regents plan states that South Dakota will add as many as 32,000 new jobs by 2030 with 38% of them requiring a bachelor's or more advanced degree.
That's why the board is focusing on brain drain, or the emigration of graduates taking jobs elsewhere as they enter the workforce. Engaging in discussions on brain drain and its impact to the state's workforce will be critical in the next decade, according to the strategic plan.
Challenges facing the Board of Regents also include the competition for high school graduates in the region, attracting and retaining non-resident students and workforce shortages because of the limited availability of skilled workers.
The plan said there will also be a need to enroll more non-traditional, underserved and non-resident student populations, the Argus Leader reported.
Plan goals have been established for governance, access and affordability, academic excellence, student outcomes, workforce and economic development, financial health and competitiveness.
Each goal has specific initiatives on a timeline from now to 2027, with some already in progress or complete.
The regents plan to set up strategy sessions on enrollment, analyzing new tuition and fee models, decreasing the number of low productivity programs in favor of those that are in high demand, as well as increasing advocacy for student mental health. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Regents-map-out-goals-including-addressing-brain-17048318.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:42 | en | 0.959837 |
Mike Tirico, Curtis Strange, Steve Melnyk and Suzy Whaley join broadcast team for SiriusXM's exclusive audio coverage of the Masters, April 7-10
SiriusXM listeners will get first-ever live radio broadcasts of Augusta National Women's Amateur on April 2 and the Masters Par 3 Contest on April 6
Harold Varner III debuts his new SiriusXM show from Augusta, Ga. on April 4
NEW YORK, March 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- SiriusXM, the exclusive audio broadcaster of the Masters Tournament, today announced expanded broadcast plans for Masters week, April 2-10.
"The Masters is always such a special event, and we are excited to deliver an exceptional level of coverage to our listeners again this year," said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM's President and Chief Content Officer. "We've added several distinguished voices to our play-by-play team, expanded our coverage to include the Augusta National Women's Amateur and Par 3 Contest, and will present multiple shows hosted by players competing this year and those who have won in years past. Our subscribers will get an unparalleled perspective on the Masters before, during and after the Tournament."
Masters week on SiriusXM programming is available on channel 92 on SiriusXM radios. Subscribers can also listen with the SXM App (siriusxm.us/SXMPGATourRadio), and with Amazon Alexa, the Google Assistant or however they stream at home. Streaming access is included with all of SiriusXM's trials and most popular plans.
Live Masters Play-by-Play
SiriusXM's live Tournament coverage will air each day – Thursday, April 7, through Sunday, April 10 – starting at 2 pm ET and running through the completion of play. Additionally, each day before the broadcast begins at 2 pm, SiriusXM will provide live look-in coverage of featured groups during its programming in the morning and early afternoon.
Several new acclaimed voices join the SiriusXM broadcast team this year. Mike Tirico will be the lead play-by-play voice from 4 pm ET through the conclusion of play each day. World Golf Hall of Fame member Curtis Strange will be the lead analyst for the Saturday and Sunday rounds. Steve Melnyk will be the lead analyst for the Thursday and Friday rounds. Suzy Whaley joins the team as an on-course reporter.
Returning SiriusXM voices include Taylor Zarzour, who will handle lead play-by-play duties from 2 to 4 pm ET each broadcast day, as well as Fred Albers, Mark Carnevale, Brian Katrek, John Maginnes, Chantel McCabe, Jim McLean, Carl Paulson and Jason Sobel.
Masters Par 3 Contest
SiriusXM will provide live coverage of the 2022 Masters Par 3 Contest on Wednesday, April 6 (2 - 5 pm ET), which will be the first time the event airs on national radio. Taylor Zarzour will host the coverage alongside World Golf Hall of Fame member Hale Irwin. David Marr III will conduct interviews with competitors.
Augusta National Women's Amateur
Suzy Whaley, a trailblazer in her career as a player, golf executive and instructor, will be the analyst for SiriusXM's live coverage of the final round of the Augusta National Women's Amateur on Saturday, April 2 (noon – 3 pm ET). This will be the first-ever live radio broadcast of this event. David Marr III will host the coverage alongside Whaley.
Exclusive SiriusXM Masters week programming
Masters Radio on SiriusXM will feature comprehensive pre- and post-round coverage, as well as several specials airing throughout the week.
- Thursday through Sunday, Chantel McCabe will anchor the coverage from 10 am to 2 pm ET each day. McCabe will provide play-by-play of featured groups on the course, with Carl Paulson as the analyst and Fred Albers reporting from inside the ropes. SiriusXM's pre-round coverage will also feature renowned swing coach Jim McLean reporting live from the Tournament Practice Area at Augusta National each day.
- David Marr III and Greg DuCharme will start off SiriusXM's Masters pre-round coverage Thursday and Friday at 8 am ET. Hale Irwin, who has seven top-10 finishes in the Masters, will co-host with Marr and DuCharme on Thursday. Dave Stockton, who tied for second in the 1974 Masters, co-hosts on Friday.
- Immediately following each round, listeners will hear a three-hour postgame show, hosted by Drew Stoltz and Jason Sobel, that will recap the day's play.
- On Thursday, SiriusXM will have live coverage of the Honorary Starters Ceremony and the opening tee shots of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson. The introduction of the Honorary Starters and their tee shots historically precede the first tee time of the Tournament's first competitive round, signaling the official beginning of Masters competition.
- PGA Tour pro Jason Kokrak, who will be competing in this year's Tournament, will host his show, Crushing It with Kokrak, on Monday at 8 pm ET.
- PGA Tour pro Harold Varner III will debut his new SiriusXM show, The HV3 Show, on Monday night at 9 pm ET alongside co-host Taylor Zarzour. Varner, who is ranked among the top 50 golfers in the world, will be competing in his first Masters this year. The HV3 Show will air regularly during the year.
- 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples and George Downing will host a new episode of The Fred Couples Show on Tuesday at 3 pm ET.
Listeners will hear regularly scheduled shows hosted by Taylor Zarzour, Michael Breed and Greg DuCharme, Carl Paulson and Dennis Paulson, Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz, Michael Collins and Jason Sobel, Brian Katrek and John Maginnes, Gary McCord, David Feherty, Kraig Kann and Chantel McCabe throughout the week.
Masters History Specials
SiriusXM's annual Masters history special will debut Friday, April 1, at 8 pm ET and be available throughout Masters week on the SXM App. This year's special will celebrate the anniversaries of memorable Masters moments including Tiger Woods' monumental victory at the 1997 Masters and Hideki Matsuyama's historic victory at Augusta National last year. Listeners will hear commentary from Masters champions Ben Crenshaw and Fred Couples, broadcaster Jim Nantz and others.
For more information, visit masters.com or follow @TheMasters on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
About SiriusXM
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) is the leading audio entertainment company in North America, and the premier programmer and platform for subscription and digital advertising-supported audio products. SiriusXM's platforms collectively reach approximately 150 million listeners, the largest digital audio audience across paid and free tiers in North America, and deliver music, sports, talk, news, comedy, entertainment and podcasts. Pandora, a subsidiary of SiriusXM, is the largest ad-supported audio entertainment streaming service in the U.S. SiriusXM's subsidiaries Stitcher, Simplecast and AdsWizz make it a leader in podcast hosting, production, distribution, analytics and monetization. The Company's advertising sales arm, SXM Media, leverages its scale, cross-platform sales organization, and ad tech capabilities to deliver results for audio creators and advertisers. SiriusXM, through Sirius XM Canada Holdings, Inc., also offers satellite radio and audio entertainment in Canada. In addition to its audio entertainment businesses, SiriusXM offers connected vehicle services to automakers. For more about SiriusXM, please go to: www.siriusxm.com.
Source: SiriusXM
Media contacts:
Andrew FitzPatrick, [email protected]
Kevin Bruns, [email protected]
SOURCE Sirius XM Holdings Inc. | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2022-masters-tournament-coverage-live-on-siriusxm-301514047.html | 2022-03-31T16:42:47 | en | 0.926782 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A House committee will hold a public hearing Monday on a bill to allow the use of medical marijuana in South Carolina.
A small group of House members Thursday made a few changes in the lengthy bill passed in February by the full Senate on a 28-15 vote .
One amendment cleaned up the grammar and a few typos in the bill which senators considered more than 60 changes over seven days of debate. A second change restores some podiatrists with extra training to the list of doctors who can prescribe medical marijuana.
There was little discussion of the bill Thursday. Much of that is expected for the meeting Monday morning by the full House Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee.
Sen. Tom Davis, who has fought for medical marijuana for seven years, has said his proposal would be one of the most conservative among the 37 states that have approved medical marijuana, including Mississippi, which signed a bill into law earlier this year.
The proposal specifies the illnesses that could be treated, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, sickle cell anemia and autism. And the marijuana could be obtained only through specially chosen pharmacies.
Smoking the drug would remain illegal in South Carolina. Instead, patients would have to use oils, salves, patches or vaporizers. Doctors would have to meet patients in person and patients could only get a two-week supply at one time. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/SC-House-committee-sets-public-hearing-on-medical-17048353.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:49 | en | 0.974234 |
Ally Home announces expansion into Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia
Ally, a top 25 bank in the retail lending space, continues to expand its modern digital mortgage experience nationwide
CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ally Home, the residential mortgage lending arm of Ally Bank, has expanded its services into Massachusetts, Vermont and Virginia as the company continues to execute against plans to bring its modern digital mortgage experience to consumers in all 50 U.S. states.
Currently available in 46 states and the District of Columbia, Ally – a top 25 bank in the retail lending space in the U.S., based on the Federal Reserve Statistical Release – also plans to complete Ally Home's nationwide rollout by adding service in Hawaii and New Hampshire this spring, followed by Nevada and New York by the end of the year.
"The past few years have brought unprecedented challenges for prospective homebuyers as they continue to navigate an especially competitive housing market, making speed and simplicity in the mortgage process more important than ever before," said Glenn Brunker, president of Ally Home. "Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or a borrower with existing equity, purchasing a new home is an incredible milestone. Ally's goal is to make the process as enjoyable and straightforward as possible with a modern, fast and digital-first experience that will now help more customers nationwide purchase the home of their dreams."
Ally Home delivers a modern mortgage experience that simplifies buying and refinancing through a digital-only platform that, unlike most big banks and lenders, boasts no lender fees (i.e. no application, origination, processing or underwriting fees), pre-approval in just minutes and personalized support from a team of home loan experts.
As Ally Home continues to expand throughout the U.S., these benefits will become available to consumers across the country looking for fixed- or adjustable-rate mortgages, jumbo loans and mortgage refinancing.
About Ally Financial
Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE: ALLY) is a digital financial services company committed to its promise to "Do It Right" for its consumer, commercial and corporate customers. Ally is composed of an industry-leading independent auto finance and insurance operation, an award-winning digital direct bank (Ally Bank, Member FDIC and Equal Housing Lender, which offers mortgage lending, point-of-sale personal lending, and a variety of deposit and other banking products), a consumer credit card business, a corporate finance business for equity sponsors and middle-market companies, and securities brokerage and investment advisory services. Our brand conviction is that we are all better off with an ally, and our focus is on helping our customers achieve their strongest financial well-being, a notion personalized to what is important to them. For more information, please visit www.ally.com and follow @allyfinancial.
For more information and disclosures about Ally, visit https://www.ally.com/#disclosures.
For further images and news on Ally, please visit http://media.ally.com.
Contact:
Alex Moore
[email protected]
SOURCE Ally Financial | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ally-home-announces-expansion-into-massachusetts-vermont-and-virginia-301513799.html | 2022-03-31T16:42:53 | en | 0.942915 |
DUDLEYVILLE, Ariz. (AP) — A Pinal County sheriff’s deputy responding to a trespassing call and a suspect were shot and wounded in an exchange of gunfire, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The incident occurred Wednesday night in Dudleyville, the office said a brief statement.
According to the statement, the deputy was shot by the suspect when the deputy arrived at the scene and the suspect was shot when the deputy returned fire.
Both were taken to the hospital but no information was released on their injuries or conditions, the statement said.
Office spokesperson Lauren Reimer said Thursday no additional information was immediately available.
Dudleyville is a rural community 49 miles (80 kilometers) north of Tucson. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Sheriff-s-office-Deputy-suspect-exchange-17048406.php | 2022-03-31T16:42:55 | en | 0.974414 |
ANGEL CITY FOOTBALL CLUB PARTNERS WITH VENUETIZE TO LAUNCH MOBILE APP FOCUSED ON FOSTERING A CONNECTED FAN COMMUNITY
LOS ANGELES and TAMPA, Fla., March 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Angel City FC (ACFC), Los Angeles' professional women's soccer team set to take the pitch this Spring, has partnered with Venuetize, the leaders in mobile-first and advanced payment technology, to deliver an innovative way for fans to engage with the ACFC community through a dedicated mobile app.
The mobile application – which is now available in the App Store and Google Play Store – features a community chat function that enables Season Ticket Holders and Supporters to connect with one another in-venue or at home, a first for Venuetize. Other features will include an integration with Ticketmaster for Mobile Ticketing, Team and Event News, Community Updates, and the ability to access the Team Store to purchase merchandise. Users will also be able to tune in to Spotify playlists from their favorite ACFC players.
The second phase of the mobile application, launching ahead of their first match at Banc of California Stadium, Angel City's home pitch, will host gameday and team-focused features such as Rosters, Player Profiles, Schedule, Live Stats, and Results as part of their NWSL/OPTA integration. Venuetize's e-commerce capabilities will also allow fans to use their phones for mobile ordering and mobile payments at the stadium.
"It became evident in our first meeting that Venuetize was the right partner to build our mobile experience. They understood our need to build a fan-engagement app that combines utility, commerce, and community that also allows us to interact with our fans in a way that is uniquely Angel City," said ACFC Founder and President Julie Uhrman. "Our ACFC supporter community is a direct extension of our team, and we are building this app with them in mind, getting their feedback and direction throughout the process. In addition to helping our fans stay up to date with ACFC news, they will learn about our players and games, purchase tickets, and buy merch. Most importantly for ACFC, the app will allow our community to chat directly with each other, allowing our fans to self-organize, and thus build a stronger bond united around all things Angel City."
"The new Angel City FC mobile application is a unique experience that best represents the club's diverse and passionate fan base," said DC Ramsey, Vice President of Marketing at Venuetize. "We are thrilled to be working with Angel City FC, who works with us to try new technologies, like the chat functionality that is a first in our space. We are proud to have helped Angel City FC deliver a mobile experience that prides itself on a sense of community, and we hope to showcase new and innovative solutions for the club as our partnership continues to grow."
ABOUT VENUETIZE
Venuetize is the leading mobile technology and advanced e-commerce platform for the sports, hospitality, and entertainment industries. The company's proven platform (PaaS) connects technology ecosystems, facilitates e-commerce, and delivers cutting-edge mobile-first experiences. With 185+ third-party integrations and counting, Venuetize provides unmatched flexibility to create an easier, safer, and more enjoyable experience for guests. Founded in 2014, Venuetize works with professional sports teams, stadiums and arenas, casinos, entertainment districts, and shopping destinations across the globe. For more information, visit http://www.venuetize.com/.
ABOUT ANGEL CITY FOOTBALL CLUB
Angel City Football Club (ACFC), the 11th member of the National Women's Soccer League, will take the pitch in Spring 2022 and call Banc of California Stadium in downtown Los Angeles their home. The team is founded by Academy Award-winning actress and activist Natalie Portman, technology venture capitalist Kara Nortman, media and gaming entrepreneur Julie Uhrman, and Seven Seven Six founder and former Executive Chair of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian. Former England Women's National Team forward Eniola Aluko leads the team as Sporting Director, and Freya Coombe is the team's Head Coach.
Learn more about ACFC at www.angelcity.com and follow the team on social media @weareangelcity. Season tickets start at $180 for 12 home games, and group deposits are now on sale at https://angelcity.com/tickets.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
VENUETIZE
DC Ramsey, [email protected]
Rebecca Kronovet, [email protected]
ANGEL CITY FOOTBALL CLUB
Stephanie Rudnick, [email protected]
Lisa Milner Goldberg, [email protected]
Amy Chastain, [email protected]
SOURCE Venuetize | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/angel-city-football-club-partners-with-venuetize-to-launch-mobile-app-focused-on-fostering-a-connected-fan-community-301513899.html | 2022-03-31T16:42:59 | en | 0.934911 |
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A proposal to ban transgender students from playing girls’ and women’s sports in public South Carolina high schools and colleges is moving through the state House after stalling twice last year.
Members of the House Education and Public Works Committee didn't comment on the bill before they voted 11-2 Thursday to send the proposal to the chamber floor.
The legislation would require athletes to compete with the gender listed on their birth certificates.
Lawmakers did spend nearly two hours listening to testimony on and discussing the bill Wednesday, with opponents walking out of the meeting about an hour in. The group SC United for Justice and Equality said the walkout was prompted by the bill's supporters using insults and slurs to demonize transgender people.
“I want lawmakers to know that no one and no thing — not even women’s sports — needs to be saved from transgender people," said Wynston Sanders, a leader with the group, in a statement Thursday. “We are simply trying to live authentic, full lives. There are so many more stories about transgender people than the stories about these bills that try to target us and bring us down.”
Democratic lawmakers raised questions about how the legislation would affect situations where South Carolina teams are set to play out-of-state teams with trans athletes, or which teams intersex students would be allowed to be on.
About a dozen states have already passed similar legislation, and transgender athletes have become an issue in midterm campaigns in states like Pennsylvania. But Republicans aren’t in lockstep, with GOP governors in Indiana and Utah vetoing bans in their states.
Two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring such measures around the country as well as the conservative groups supporting them also struggled to cite local instances to The Associated Press last year where participation of trans girls on girls' sports teams caused problems.
South Carolina high school officials have said they consider each case individually and see no need for a ban, a position also held by elected Republican state Education Superintendent Molly Spearman.
Similar legislation is also headed to the Senate floor this year, though some senators have voiced concerns about lawsuits, especially because the Senate bill includes colleges and private schools.
A different House committee twice rejected a sports ban for transgender students last year. | https://www.lakecountystar.com/news/article/Transgender-athlete-ban-heading-to-S-Carolina-17048389.php | 2022-03-31T16:43:01 | en | 0.969085 |
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 30, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Anixa Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANIX), a biotechnology company focused on the treatment and prevention of cancer and infectious diseases, today announced the initiation of a Phase 1 trial evaluating its novel chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy in ovarian cancer. The CAR-T approach used for Anixa's therapy is known as chimeric endocrine receptor T-cell (CER-T) since the target of the engineered T-cells is an endocrine receptor. The Phase 1 trial at Moffitt Cancer Center will evaluate the safety and efficacy of Anixa's therapy in patients with ovarian cancer. Anixa holds an exclusive, worldwide license for the technology, which was developed at the Wistar Institute.
While CAR-T therapy has shown efficacy in some hematological tumors, reproducing the same results with solid tumors, such as ovarian cancer, has proven challenging. One of the reasons for this difficulty is that effective CAR-T therapy needs a specific antigen to recognize that is only present on target cancer cells in order to avoid negatively affecting healthy cells. The CER-T therapy being evaluated in Anixa's Phase 1 study differs from traditional CAR-T in that it targets the follicle stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR), which research indicates is exclusively expressed on ovarian cells in healthy adult females.
"We are thrilled to have partnered with world-class scientists at Moffitt Cancer Center to advance our CER-T platform and feel that this partnership provides a critical opportunity to make a significant impact on the treatment of solid tumors," said Dr. Amit Kumar, President, CEO and Chairman of Anixa Biosciences. "We strongly believe that our unique targeting approach differentiates our CER-T platform from traditional CAR-T approaches and that CER-T has potential to work in solid tumors where other therapies have failed."
Jose R. Conejo-Garcia, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Immunology at Moffitt Cancer Center and co-inventor of the CER-T technology, added, "CAR-T therapies are rapidly becoming an important player in cancer therapy, and our lab has developed a technology that has the potential to target tumors by using an existing biological mechanism that is well understood. If our CER-T approach is successful, it could serve as a model for future targeted CAR-T therapies in other cancer types. The goal in cancer therapy has always been to kill cancer cells with limited damage to healthy tissue, and we look forward to seeing how this CER-T therapy may be able to accomplish that in solid tumors, which have historically proven challenging to eradicate with cell therapy."
Robert Wenham, M.D., MS, FACOG, FACS, the trial's lead investigator and Chair of the Department of Gynecologic Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center, added, "There are limited treatment options for recurrent, chemo-resistant ovarian cancer, and this platform holds immense promise to change that. I am hopeful that this program represents a unique opportunity for us to potentially make a truly game-changing impact for patients with ovarian cancer and other solid tumors."
About Anixa's CER-T Approach (Follicle Stimulating Hormone Receptor-Mediated CAR-T technology)
Anixa's chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) technology approach is an autologous cell therapy comprised of engineered T-cells that target the follicle stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR). FSHR is found at immunologically relevant levels exclusively on the granulosa cells of the ovaries. Since the target is a hormone (chimeric endocrine) receptor, and the target-binding domain is derived from its natural ligand, this technology is known as CER-T (chimeric endocrine receptor T-cell) therapy, a new type of CAR-T.
About Anixa Biosciences, Inc.
Anixa is a clinical-stage biotechnology company with a number of programs addressing cancer and infectious disease. Anixa's portfolio of therapeutics includes a cancer immunotherapy program being developed in collaboration with Moffitt Cancer Center, which uses a novel type of CAR-T, known as chimeric endocrine receptor T-cell (CER-T) technology, and, with partner MolGenie GmbH, a COVID-19 program focused on compounds targeting the Mpro enzyme of SARS-CoV-2, which is largely conserved across all recently identified variants like Delta and Omicron. The company's vaccine portfolio includes a novel vaccine being developed in collaboration with Cleveland Clinic to prevent breast cancer – specifically triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most lethal form of the disease – as well as a vaccine to prevent ovarian cancer. These vaccine technologies focus on immunizing against "retired" proteins that have been found to be expressed in certain forms of cancer. Anixa's unique business model of partnering with world-renowned research institutions on clinical development allows the company to continually examine emerging technologies in complementary fields for further development and commercialization. To learn more, visit www.anixa.com or follow Anixa on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements that are not historical fact may be considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not statements of historical facts, but rather reflect Anixa's current expectations concerning future events and results. We generally use the words "believes," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," "likely," "will" and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements, including those concerning our expectations, involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control, which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and factors include, but are not limited to, those factors set forth in "Item 1A - Risk Factors" and other sections of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K as well as in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. You are cautioned not to unduly rely on such forward-looking statements when evaluating the information presented in this press release.
Contacts
Company Contact:
Mike Catelani
Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer
[email protected]
408-708-9808
Media:
Slavena Salve Nissan, M.D.
LifeSci Communications
[email protected]
718-483-4440
Investors:
Eric Ribner
LifeSci Advisors, LLC
[email protected]
646-751-4363
SOURCE Anixa Biosciences, Inc. | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/anixa-biosciences-announces-the-initiation-of-its-ovarian-cancer-car-t-phase-1-trial-at-moffitt-cancer-center-301514042.html | 2022-03-31T16:43:05 | en | 0.936472 |
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