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Science News Roundup: Scientists uncover history of 'ridiculously charming' penguins; Scientists reveal origin of mammal evolution milestone: warm-bloodedness
Researchers on Tuesday offered the most thorough examination to date of the history of penguins dating back to their origins more than 60 million years ago, including identifying a suite of genes crucial in adaptations related to underwater vision, long dives, body temperature regulation, diet and body size. Scientists reveal origin of mammal evolution milestone: warm-bloodedness Scientists have answered a longstanding question about mammalian evolution, examining ear anatomy of living and extinct mammals and their close relatives to determine when warm-bloodedness - a trait integral to the lineage's success - first emerged.
Following is a summary of current science news briefs.
Scientists uncover history of 'ridiculously charming' penguins
The evolution of penguins from their flying seabird ancestors into the flightless denizens of marine environments from frigid Antarctica to the tropical Galapagos Islands is among the wonders of the animal kingdom. Researchers on Tuesday offered the most thorough examination to date of the history of penguins dating back to their origins more than 60 million years ago, including identifying a suite of genes crucial in adaptations related to underwater vision, long dives, body temperature regulation, diet and body size.
Scientists reveal origin of mammal evolution milestone: warm-bloodedness
Scientists have answered a longstanding question about mammalian evolution, examining ear anatomy of living and extinct mammals and their close relatives to determine when warm-bloodedness - a trait integral to the lineage's success - first emerged. Researchers said on Wednesday that the reduced size of inner ear structures called semicircular canals - small, fluid-filled tubes that help in keeping balance - in fossils of mammal forerunners showed that warm-bloodedness, called endothermy, arose roughly 233 million years ago during the Triassic Period.
(With inputs from agencies.)
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- Antarctica | https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/science-environment/2116574-science-news-roundup-scientists-uncover-history-of-ridiculously-charming-penguins-scientists-reveal-origin-of-mammal-evolution-milestone-warm- | 2022-07-20T21:32:20 | en | 0.881101 |
Samira Valdez always knew she wanted to be a mom, but she never imagined her path to motherhood would look how it did.
"It’s just a lot more stress added to what is already very stressful from the start," Valdez said.
Valdez is one of many women who underwent in vitro fertilization, known as IVF, to have children, but Roe v. Wade being overturned has changed a lot for her family.
"I’m feeling a lot more pressure to make decisions that I wasn’t ready to make," Valdez said. "My husband and I are considering doing it very shortly, in the next couple of weeks, doing a consultation with our doctor.”
Valdez and her husband have two embryos left in storage from their first round of IVF. They planned on trying to get pregnant again once their daughter was a little older. In the meantime, their fertility clinic has been keeping those embryos in storage.
That standard now hangs in the balance as abortion restrictions occur across the country. Some patients worry that could pave the way for laws that give embryos legal protection, which might mean routine procedures — from discarding nonviable embryos to unsuccessful implantation — could be criminalized.
It could also prevent doctors from creating as many embryos as possible to increase the chances of pregnancy.
"Our biggest concerns are the ignorance of our lawmakers, and they need to have a partnership with scientific physicians on defining where does life begin," Dr. Samuel E. Brown said.
Dr. Brown runs one of the biggest fertility clinics in Florida. He says he’s been busy taking calls from concerned patients, wondering if their fertility treatments could be altered. He warns that regulation limiting the number of embryos would lengthen the IVF process and make it more costly.
"Any roadblocks or increase in cost for fertility treatment can potentially scare away the insurance payers, where they don’t want to take the burden of that extra cost," Dr. Brown said.
Currently, no changes have been made to IVF in Florida or elsewhere, and most clinics say they’re operating as normal.
But, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said his administration would continue to “expand pro-life protections” post-Roe.
The governor’s office told Newsy, “This pro-life law doesn’t mention IVF at all.” Still, concerned patients point to Ohio — another Republican-run state — where lawmakers proposed a bill that would give rights to "unborn human individuals from the moment of conception" as an example of potential legislation that could affect IVF.
One anti-abortion advocate who has advised abortion legislation says the community isn’t looking to disrupt current IVF treatment.
"I'm willing to say 99.9999% that any legislation that's ever passed that specifically deals with this is going to exempt any type of liability from, you know, from these IVF procedures that were done in the past," Gualberto Garcia Jones, general counsel with The Personhood Alliance, said.
Still, the lack of clarity leaves some experts worried.
"I guess what I fear, in part, is that a zealous prosecutor or zealous resident of Texas or Oklahoma or Idaho who has now a right to sue as an individual for somebody who provides an abortion or aids and abets an abortion will take that definition of person and run with it," Lisa Ikemodo, professor at UC Davis School of Law, said.
Until lawmakers sort out the details, patients like Valdez remain active in the IVF community, offering support to others after enduring a difficult journey before finally having her daughter, Sienna.
"Unfortunately, at 13 weeks, I had a missed miscarriage, most likely due to an abnormal embryo that was transferred," Valdez said. "I'll never forget that pain."
IVF clinics, like Brown Fertility, are eager to work with lawmakers to ensure IVF — which wasn’t around before Roe — remains available to those struggling with infertility.
Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/patients-worry-how-overturning-roe-v-wade-could-affect-ivf | 2022-07-20T21:32:24 | en | 0.974962 |
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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) _ PacWest Bancorp (PACW) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $122.4 million.
The bank, based in Beverly Hills, California, said it had earnings of $1.02 per share.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.07 per share.
The holding company for Pacific Western Bank posted revenue of $384.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $358.3 million, which beat Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $349.6 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PACW at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PACW | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/PacWest-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317986.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:25 | en | 0.945939 |
Record-breaking U.S. heat wave bakes Americans
On Wednesday he ushered a woman into a Salvation Army center for water and a moment of cool air. “I do believe that there aren't enough people who know about the service so they might be missing out on receiving the help that we can provide during this extreme weather,” said Tripari.
- Country:
- United States
Some 100 million Americans from New York City to Las Vegas are under heat warnings this week as temperatures rise well above 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), part of a trend of extreme weather made worse by climate change. New York City temperatures are expected to reach 99 F and temperatures are also expected to break daily records across Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, the National Weather Service (NWS) said on Wednesday.
An NWS advisory for Dallas, Texas, where the high temperature was forecast to reach 112 F (44.4 C), cautioned against strenuous activity in peak heat hours and reminded people to stay hydrated. New York Salvation Army captain and pastor Jack Tripari has been helping people affected by the heat wave. On Wednesday he ushered a woman into a Salvation Army center for water and a moment of cool air.
"I do believe that there aren't enough people who know about the service so they might be missing out on receiving the help that we can provide during this extreme weather," said Tripari. The Brooklyn Bay Ridge Salvation Army cooling center is one of many Salvation Army centers across the country. It operated just a few days in June but this time it's expected to stay open at least until the end of the week, Tripari said.
Sweat dripped from 32-year-old Mako Arroyo's face as he collected garbage from a New York City sidewalk on Wednesday. The Clean Space sanitation worker said he pops inside businesses to cool off occasionally along his one-mile route. "There's nothing else you can do but to stay hydrated. Luckily, on each block there's a store," Arroyo said.
Rose Cowles Fussell's family in Glenmora, Louisiana installed an air conditioner in the dog house for their 15-year-old American bulldog named Boston. They've been freezing milk jugs full of water to toss in the swimming pool. But Wednesday they decided to retreat in hopes of finding cooler climates. "We're out of here," Cowles Fussell told Reuters.
She packed up the car, her husband and two teenagers and the dog and headed on a trip of 750 miles (1,200 km) to Fernandina Beach in the Jacksonville, Florida area. Air pollution presents yet another health risk in the heat. Pollution from the electric grid can more than double when power stations run full tilt to keep air conditioners running.
In New England, carbon dioxide production soared to 123 metric tons per hour just before 8 p.m. EDT on Tuesday. That was more than double the hourly rate earlier in the day of just 58 metric tons, according to estimates by ISO New England, the grid operator for the six-state region. The U.S. heat wave follows conditions in Europe this week that have touched off wildfires and set record temperatures in the kind of weather event that scientists say will become more frequent with climate change.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a modest package of executive actions addressing climate change that included new funding for cooling centers and pushing for new off-shore wind projects in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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DNA tests show 13-year-old not behind wheel in fatal Texas -- NTSB | https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/science-environment/2116577-record-breaking-us-heat-wave-bakes-americans | 2022-07-20T21:32:27 | en | 0.959017 |
We're two years into a crisis that has upended global supply chains.
One of North America's busiest ports and the main throughput from Asia to the U.S. is finding its footing in a new normal.
Gene Seroka is the executive director for the Port of Los Angeles.
"We handled nearly 877,000 20-foot equivalent units, just edging out last year as the busiest June in the port's 115-year history," Seroka said.
It's a dramatically different story from late last year when an overrun port had cargo ships waiting at sea while empty containers stacked up on open terminals.
The number of so-called "empties" is still 8% higher than last year.
"We'll continue to see these heightened levels of empties repositioned as imports remain strong from Asia," Seroka said.
Now another obstacle, as truckers organize work stoppages over a proposed state law that would limit the use of independent contractors, instead requiring drivers like them to be employees of a company.
Many truckers operate independently and would prefer to remain independent.
General Stephen R. Lyons is the White House Envoy on Port and Supply Chain.
"Truckers are so critical to this supply chain. And we've got to make sure that we're setting the conditions to take care of them to the best of our ability," Lyons said.
The port has so far been able to hold off on charging shipping companies that leave containers sitting in the port, a threat that lit a fire under staff-strained shippers last fall.
It's a so-called "dwell fee."
"We're gonna keep every tool in our kit possible to make sure that we leverage and push the cargo and everything we need to do. And if the container dwell fee needs to be there for consideration, it will remain," Seroka said.
But the port is still struggling to get more trains to carry the goods out of southern Los Angeles.
"We now have more than 29,000 rail containers on our docks. That number should be more in the 9,000 unit range. Rail cargo is sitting an average of seven and a half days. This should be two days of dwell time," Seroka said.
Port leaders worry about a national log-jam if rail companies can't get those containers moving more quickly.
"Trust me, this isn't an issue that the rail companies are not working. They are. They have some significant challenges generating some of the capacity they need to generate," Lyons said.
And the clock is ticking as a busy 2022 shows no signs of slowing down.
Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/truck-drivers-at-a-california-seaport-are-protesting-new-state-law | 2022-07-20T21:32:30 | en | 0.966261 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/articles/40134287 | 2022-07-20T21:32:30 | en | 0.738227 |
WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) _ Parke Bancorp Inc. (PKBK) on Wednesday reported net income of $10.7 million in its second quarter.
The Washington Township, New Jersey-based bank said it had earnings of 88 cents per share.
The holding company for Parke Bank posted revenue of $23 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $20.5 million, exceeding Street forecasts.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PKBK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PKBK | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Parke-Bancorp-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317928.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:31 | en | 0.933732 |
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — CSX delivered slightly better profit in the second quarter even though volume was flat and the railroad still struggled to handle all the goods companies wanted to ship because it is having a hard time hiring.
The Jacksonville, Florida-based railroad said its profits grew 5% to $1.18 billion, or 54 cents per share. That's up from $1.17 billion, or 52 cents per share, a year ago. Without a one-time gain on a real estate sale, the railroad earned 50 cents per share.
CEO Jim Foote said CSX hasn't been able to keep up with all the demand for shipments because it needs more employees, but hiring is difficult and attrition has been high.
“We are not alone in facing this problem. The labor market is tight,” Foote said.
But the results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 47 cents per share.
The freight railroad’s revenue jumped 28% to $3.82 billion in the period as CSX increased shipping rates and charged customers more fuel surcharges in response to soaring diesel prices. That topped the $3.64 billion that six analysts surveyed by Zacks predicted.
CSX is one of the nation’s largest railroads, and it operates more than 20,000 miles (35727.44 kilometers) of track in 26 Eastern states and two Canadian provinces after acquiring Pam-Am Railways in the northeastern United States earlier this year.
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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on UNP at https://www.zacks.com/ap/UNP | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/CSX-profit-grows-5-even-with-ongoing-delivery-17318104.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:35 | en | 0.962707 |
Boxing-Fury says he would come out of retirement to face Joshua for free
In June he said he would fight again for 500 million pounds ($600 million). Fury and Joshua appeared to be on a collision course last year until an arbitrator ruled Fury had to fight Deontay Wilder for a third time.
WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury on Wednesday said he would return to the ring to fight Anthony Joshua in their native England provided the bout was free to watch and attend.
Fury (32-0-1) in June said he was "over" boxing but has since changed his tune, saying he would sign the contract immediately to take on Joshua (26-2) provided his terms were met. "The fight has got to be for free," Fury said in an Instagram post.
"Free to air on television and all tickets go for free. No money is to be made off of this British, historic fight if it happens," he said. "There's the terms, I'm in the driving seat, take it or effing leave it."
The Gypsy King knocked out fellow Briton Dillian Whyte in April to retain his title before telling fans he would be sticking to his promise to his wife to retire. In June he said he would fight again for 500 million pounds ($600 million).
Fury and Joshua appeared to be on a collision course last year until an arbitrator ruled Fury had to fight Deontay Wilder for a third time. Joshua lost his WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts when he fell to Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk in London in September, and the pair are set to meet for a rematch in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 20.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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British Sikh historian loans collection for Maharajah Duleep Singh exhibition in UK | https://www.devdiscourse.com/article/sports-games/2116567-boxing-fury-says-he-would-come-out-of-retirement-to-face-joshua-for-free | 2022-07-20T21:32:35 | en | 0.983836 |
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — The National Park Service recently released a new video showing the devastation flooding caused last month at Yellowstone National Park.
On June 12, parts of northern Wyoming and southern Montana experienced historic rainfall and rapid snowmelt, which led to rivers surging over their banks.
The next day, 10,000 visitors were ordered out of the park as the severe flooding washed out bridges and roads.
Portions of the park were closed for some time, but some have since reopened.
The Associated Press reported that hundreds of homes were damaged, but no lives were lost.
Park officials are still assessing the scope and cost of the damage, the AP reported. | https://www.wtxl.com/news/national/yellowstone-national-park-releases-new-video-of-june-flooding | 2022-07-20T21:32:36 | en | 0.984729 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/articles/40134338 | 2022-07-20T21:32:36 | en | 0.738227 |
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Preferred Bank (PFBC) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $28.1 million.
The Los Angeles-based bank said it had earnings of $1.87 per share.
The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.78 per share.
The independent commercial bank posted revenue of $65.2 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $59 million, also topping Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $56.8 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PFBC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PFBC | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Preferred-Bank-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317925.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:37 | en | 0.947791 |
ONTARIO, Calif. (AP) _ CVB Financial Corp. (CVBF) on Wednesday reported second-quarter profit of $59.1 million.
The Ontario, California-based bank said it had earnings of 42 cents per share.
The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 38 cents per share.
The bank holding company posted revenue of $137.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $136.6 million, which also topped Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $129.6 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CVBF at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CVBF | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/CVB-Financial-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318009.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:41 | en | 0.944761 |
INDIANAPOLIS (WTXL) — The NCAA announced Wednesday the next sites for its cross country regional championships.
Florida State University will host the 2024 NCAA South Regional Cross Country Championship meets at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee.
Another big time meet is coming to Tallahassee👊
— Florida State T&F/XC (@FSU_Track) July 20, 2022
Florida State and Apalachee Regional Park will be the host of the 2024 NCAA South Region Championships 🍢#OneTribe pic.twitter.com/ET49IvLPvc
Apalachee Regional Park hosted the 2021 NCAA Cross Country Championships in November.
Apalachee Regional Park is also scheduled to host the 2026 World Athletics Cross Country Championships after a winning bid by the Leon County Government and Visit Tallahassee were confirmed by World Athletics July 14. | https://www.wtxl.com/sports/college-sports/fsu/florida-state-to-host-2024-ncaa-south-regional-cross-country-championships | 2022-07-20T21:32:42 | en | 0.908779 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nba/golden-state-warriors/articles/40134401 | 2022-07-20T21:32:43 | en | 0.738227 |
PROVO, Utah (AP) _ Qualtrics International Inc. (XM) on Wednesday reported a loss of $279.2 million in its second quarter.
The Provo, Utah-based company said it had a loss of 48 cents per share. Losses, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, were 4 cents per share.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was breakeven on a per-share basis.
The developer of application software posted revenue of $356.4 million in the period, surpassing Street forecasts. Eight analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $344.9 million.
For the current quarter ending in October, Qualtrics expects its results to range from a loss of 4 cents per share to a loss of 2 cents per share.
The company said it expects revenue in the range of $358 million to $360 million for the fiscal third quarter.
Qualtrics expects full-year results to range from a loss of 9 cents per share to a loss of 7 cents per share, with revenue ranging from $1.42 billion to $1.43 billion.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on XM at https://www.zacks.com/ap/XM | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Qualtrics-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317947.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:43 | en | 0.949756 |
ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) _ Capital Bancorp, Inc. (CBNK) on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings of $11.5 million.
The Rockville, Maryland-based bank said it had earnings of 80 cents per share.
The company posted revenue of $44.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $43.8 million, topping Street forecasts.
Capital Bancorp shares have dropped 16% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $21.93, a rise of nearly 10% in the last 12 months.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CBNK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CBNK | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Capital-Bancorp-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318052.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:47 | en | 0.937727 |
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Lawton Chiles High School announced Wednesday that Corey Pye will be its next head baseball coach.
He takes over the program from Dick Steed, who retired after the 2022 season as Timberwolves coach.
Steed led Chiles baseball for 13 seasons.
According to Chiles Baseball, Pye previously coached at Tallahassee Community College as the program’s recruiting coordinator and pitching coach.
Pye had assistant coaching stops at South Georgia State College, Brewton-Parker College and has been an assistant coach with the Savannah Bananas of the Coastal Plain League, a college wood bat summer league.
The Timberwolves posted a 20-8 overall record and earned a berth in the FHSAA Class 6A State Baseball tournament last spring. | https://www.wtxl.com/sports/high-school-sports/chiles-high-school-names-corey-pye-head-baseball-coach | 2022-07-20T21:32:48 | en | 0.970835 |
PEORIA, Ill. (AP) _ RLI Corp. (RLI) on Wednesday reported a loss of $2.2 million in its second quarter.
The Peoria, Illinois-based company said it had a loss of 5 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for investment costs, came to $1.49 per share.
The specialty insurance company posted revenue of $213.1 million in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $301.3 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RLI at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RLI | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/RLI-Corp-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317923.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:50 | en | 0.953544 |
YARDLEY, Pa. (AP) _ Crown Holdings Inc. (CCK) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $295 million.
The Yardley, Pennsylvania-based company said it had net income of $2.43 per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, were $2.10 per share.
The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.03 per share.
The packaging company posted revenue of $3.51 billion in the period, also exceeding Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $3.32 billion.
For the current quarter ending in October, Crown expects its per-share earnings to range from $1.75 to $1.85.
The company expects full-year earnings in the range of $7.65 to $7.85 per share.
Crown shares have decreased 15% since the beginning of the year. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $93.83, a drop of roughly 9% in the last 12 months.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on CCK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/CCK | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Crown-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318075.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:53 | en | 0.946416 |
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Rexford Industrial Realty Inc. (REXR) on Wednesday reported a key measure of profitability in its second quarter. The results topped Wall Street expectations.
The real estate investment trust, based in Los Angeles, said it had funds from operations of $81.7 million, or 49 cents per share, in the period.
The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for funds from operations of 48 cents per share.
Funds from operations is a closely watched measure in the REIT industry. It takes net income and adds back items such as depreciation and amortization.
The company said it had net income of $36.1 million, or 22 cents per share.
The industrial real estate investment trust, based in Los Angeles, posted revenue of $149.1 million in the period.
Rexford Industrial expects full-year funds from operations in the range of $1.87 to $1.90 per share.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on REXR at https://www.zacks.com/ap/REXR | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Rexford-Industrial-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317970.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:56 | en | 0.954646 |
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) _ Eagle Bancorp Inc. (EGBN) on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings of $25.2 million.
The Bethesda, Maryland-based bank said it had earnings of 78 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to $1.20 per share.
The bank holding company posted revenue of $101.2 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $88.5 million, which fell short of Street forecasts.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on EGBN at https://www.zacks.com/ap/EGBN | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Eagle-Bancorp-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317971.php | 2022-07-20T21:32:59 | en | 0.947237 |
LAFOX, Ill. (AP) _ Richardson Electronics Ltd. (RELL) on Wednesday reported profit of $8.3 million in its fiscal fourth quarter.
On a per-share basis, the Lafox, Illinois-based company said it had net income of 59 cents. Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains, were 31 cents per share.
The electronic components and communication products company posted revenue of $61.6 million in the period.
For the year, the company reported profit of $17.9 million, or $1.31 per share. Revenue was reported as $224.6 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RELL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RELL | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Richardson-Electronics-Fiscal-Q4-Earnings-17318036.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:02 | en | 0.952526 |
OAKS, Pa. (AP) _ SEI Investments Co. (SEIC) on Wednesday reported second-quarter profit of $111.3 million.
On a per-share basis, the Oaks, Pennsylvania-based company said it had profit of 81 cents.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 82 cents per share.
The investment management firm posted revenue of $481.7 million in the period, surpassing Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $471.7 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SEIC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/SEIC | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/SEI-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317903.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:04 | en | 0.932085 |
ATLANTA (AP) _ Equifax Inc. (EFX) on Wednesday reported second-quarter profit of $200.6 million.
On a per-share basis, the Atlanta-based company said it had profit of $1.63. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to $2.09 per share.
The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.03 per share.
The credit reporting company posted revenue of $1.32 billion in the period, which met Street forecasts.
For the current quarter ending in October, Equifax expects its per-share earnings to range from $1.60 to $1.70. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had forecast adjusted earnings per share of $2.17.
The company said it expects revenue in the range of $1.21 billion to $1.23 billion for the fiscal third quarter. Analysts surveyed by Zacks had expected revenue of $1.32 billion.
Equifax expects full-year earnings in the range of $7.55 to $7.80 per share, with revenue ranging from $5.07 billion to $5.13 billion.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on EFX at https://www.zacks.com/ap/EFX | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Equifax-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318081.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:06 | en | 0.957968 |
NEWYORK, N.Y. (AP) _ SL Green Realty Corp. (SLG) on Wednesday reported a key measure of profitability in its second quarter. The results topped Wall Street expectations.
The Newyork, New York-based real estate investment trust said it had funds from operations of $128.8 million, or $1.87 per share, in the period.
The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for funds from operations of $1.69 per share.
Funds from operations is a closely watched measure in the REIT industry. It takes net income and adds back items such as depreciation and amortization.
The company said it had a loss of $43.9 million, or 70 cents per share.
The commercial real estate investment trust, based in Newyork, New York, posted revenue of $201.4 million in the period. Its adjusted revenue was $136.5 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SLG at https://www.zacks.com/ap/SLG | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/SL-Green-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317959.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:10 | en | 0.956207 |
PITTSBURGH (AP) _ F.N.B. Corp. (FNB) on Wednesday reported second-quarter profit of $109.1 million.
The Pittsburgh-based bank said it had earnings of 30 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions, were 31 cents per share.
The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 30 cents per share.
The financial holding company posted revenue of $362.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $335.8 million, also exceeding Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $332.8 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on FNB at https://www.zacks.com/ap/FNB | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/F-N-B-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318007.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:12 | en | 0.952291 |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) _ Steel Dynamics Inc. (STLD) on Wednesday reported net income of $1.21 billion in its second quarter.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based company said it had profit of $6.44 per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, were $6.73 per share.
The steel producer and metals recycler posted revenue of $6.21 billion in the period, exceeding Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $6.07 billion.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on STLD at https://www.zacks.com/ap/STLD | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Steel-Dynamics-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318005.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:17 | en | 0.937598 |
CHICAGO (AP) _ First Industrial Realty Trust Inc. (FR) on Wednesday reported a key measure of profitability in its second quarter. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations.
The real estate investment trust, based in Chicago, said it had funds from operations of $75.4 million, or 56 cents per share, in the period.
The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for funds from operations of 53 cents per share.
Funds from operations is a closely watched measure in the REIT industry. It takes net income and adds back items such as depreciation and amortization.
The company said it had net income of $117 million, or 88 cents per share.
The real estate investment trust posted revenue of $130 million in the period, which also topped Street forecasts. Five analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $127.1 million.
First Industrial Realty Trust expects full-year funds from operations in the range of $2.15 to $2.23 per share.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on FR at https://www.zacks.com/ap/FR | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/First-Industrial-Realty-Trust-Q2-Earnings-17317977.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:18 | en | 0.95826 |
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DETROIT (AP) — Tesla's second-quarter profit fell 32% from record levels in the first quarter as supply chain issues and pandemic lockdowns in China slowed production of its electric vehicles.
But the Austin, Texas, company still surprised Wall Street with a $2.26 billion net profit for the quarter. Tesla stuck with a prediction of 50% annual vehicle sales growth over the next few years, but said that depends on the supply chain, equipment capacity and other issues.
The company made a record $3.32 billion in this year's first quarter.
Tesla's sales from April through June fell to 254,000 vehicles, their lowest quarterly level since last fall. But the company predicted record-breaking production in the second half and said that in June it had the highest production month in its history.
Industry analysts had been expecting lower earnings after the lower sales figures and tweets by CEO Elon Musk about laying off 10% of the company's work force due to fears of a recession. In an interview, Musk described new factories in Austin and Berlin as “money furnaces” that were losing billions of dollars because supply chain breakdowns were limiting the number of cars they can produce.
But Tesla exceeded Wall Street expectations from April through June with adjusted earnings of $2.27 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $1.81. Revenue was $16.93 billion, beating estimates of $16.54 billion.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the company's results were “better than feared” for the quarter. The reiteration of the 50% annual sales growth will make bullish investors happy, he wrote in an email.
Tesla shares rose slightly in extended trading Wednesday to $745.23.
The company said it converted 75% of its bitcoin investment to government currency during the quarter, adding $936 million in cash to its balance sheet. It spent $1.5 billion on the investment last year, but it was unclear how much it has lost. Analysts say it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The price of bitcoin has fallen about 50% so far this year. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Tesla-2Q-profit-drops-from-1Q-but-company-beats-17317995.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:23 | en | 0.973731 |
FISHERS, Ind. (AP) _ First Internet Bancorp (INBK) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $9.5 million.
The bank, based in Fishers, Indiana, said it had earnings of 99 cents per share.
The internet bank posted revenue of $40.4 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $30 million, missing Street forecasts.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on INBK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/INBK | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/First-Internet-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318100.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:24 | en | 0.927079 |
DAMARISCOTTA, Maine (AP) _ The First Bancorp Inc. (FNLC) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $10 million.
The bank, based in Damariscotta, Maine, said it had earnings of 91 cents per share.
The bank posted revenue of $25.5 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $22.8 million, topping Street forecasts.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on FNLC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/FNLC | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/The-First-Bancorp-Inc-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318020.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:24 | en | 0.943421 |
Stocks closed higher on Wall Street again Wednesday as more profit reports roll in from U.S. companies.
Profit reporting season is ramping up for big companies, with more types of industries offering details about how high inflation and a possible recession are affecting their customers. A lot is riding on whether they can continue to deliver healthy profits.
On Wednesday:
The S&P 500 rose 23.21 points, or 0.6%, to 3,959.90.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 47.79 points, or 0.2%, to 31,874.84.
The Nasdaq rose 184.50 points, or 1.6%, to 11,897.65.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 28.62 points, or 1.6%, to 1,827.95.
For the week:
The S&P 500 is up 96.74 points, or 2.5%.
The Dow is up 586.58 points, or 1.9%.
The Nasdaq is up 445.23 points, or 3.9%.
The Russell 2000 is up 83.58 points, or 4.8%.
For the year:
The S&P 500 is down 806.28 points, or 16.9%.
The Dow is down 4,463.46 points, or 12.3%.
The Nasdaq is down 3,747.32 points, or 24%.
The Russell 2000 is down 417.36 points, or 18.6%. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/How-major-US-stock-indexes-fared-Wednesday-17317929.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:30 | en | 0.901647 |
DALLAS (AP) _ Triumph Bancorp Inc. (TBK) on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings of $44.2 million.
The bank, based in Dallas, said it had earnings of $1.74 per share. Earnings, adjusted for investment gains and non-recurring gains, came to 87 cents per share.
The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 85 cents per share.
The financial holding company posted revenue of $154.5 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $125.3 million, also topping Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $113.3 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on TBK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/TBK | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Triumph-Bancorp-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317978.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:30 | en | 0.950544 |
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) _ PacWest Bancorp (PACW) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $122.4 million.
The bank, based in Beverly Hills, California, said it had earnings of $1.02 per share.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of six analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.07 per share.
The holding company for Pacific Western Bank posted revenue of $384.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $358.3 million, which beat Street forecasts. Four analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $349.6 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PACW at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PACW | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/PacWest-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317986.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:36 | en | 0.945939 |
United Airlines said Wednesday that it earned $329 million in the second quarter as summer vacationers packed planes, but the results fell far short of Wall Street expectations due largely to soaring fuel prices.
United said strong revenue trends have carried over into the third quarter, with figures indicating higher average fares.
The airline also said it is trimming its schedule in the final six months of the year to avoid the delays and cancellations that have plagued the industry this spring and summer.
Shares of United Airlines Holdings Inc. fell more than 5% in extended trading shortly after the results were released.
“It’s nice to return to profitability, but we must confront three risks that could grow over the next 6-18 months," CEO Scott Kirby said in a statement. He warned about factors causing delays and cancellations, high fuel prices, “and the increasing possibility of a global recession.”
United executives declined further comment until a call with analysts on Thursday.
The second-quarter income reversed a $434 million loss a year earlier but fell far short of the $1.05 billion profit in the second quarter of 2019.
Excluding non-repeating items, Chicago-based United said it earned $1.43 per share. Analysts expected $1.85 per share, according to a survey by FactSet.
Revenue was $12.11 billion, United's best ever in a second quarter and in line with analysts' forecasts. Revenue for each seat flown one mile, a closely watched figure among airlines, rose 24% compared with the same quarter in 2019 — the result of higher average fares.
United predicted that the per-seat figure will rise by 24% to 26% over 2019 in the third quarter. Total revenue will beat 2019 by 11%, the airline said.
Clearly many people are eager to travel after two years of pandemic lockdown, and they don't care if the planes are crowded. The average United flight was 87% full in the April-June quarter, and for trips within the United States, it was just under 90%.
United is curbing flights in an effort to avoid delays and cancellations. The airline cut passenger-carrying capacity by 14.5% in the second quarter, compared with 2019, and plans reductions of 11% in the third quarter and 10% in the fourth. Limiting seats helps drive up fares.
United's costs are also rising. Expenses other than fuel rose 17% on a per-seat basis, at the upper end of United's last forecast before the quarter ended June 30.
The airline paid an average of $4.18 per gallon for fuel, higher than the $4.02 it had predicted. Since the quarter ended, however, spot prices have dropped about 35 cents a gallon or 10%, according to Energy Department figures. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/United-Airlines-2Q-profit-of-329M-misses-Wall-17318047.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:37 | en | 0.96765 |
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — A Washington County man has been sentenced for unlawfully possessing destructive devices, guns, and ammunition. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said Daniel Day, 35, of Argyle, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.
In pleading guilty, Day admitted to having the parts necessary to assemble and create three homemade explosive devices at his home on August 5, 2021. He also admitted to having guns and ammunition at his home, including a submachine gun, a sawed-off shotgun, and a 3D-printed pistol without a serial number.
DOJ said the guns were not registered to Day as required by federal law. Day also had a prior felony conviction that prevented him from having the guns and ammunition. As part of his plea agreement, Day agreed to give up all the bomb-making materials and chemicals, guns, firearm parts, and ammunition.
Day was also been sentenced to serve a three-year term of supervised release after he gets out of prison. | https://www.news10.com/news/crime/washington-county-man-sentenced-for-having-bomb-making-materials-guns/ | 2022-07-20T21:33:37 | en | 0.987593 |
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)— Starting September 1st, a law which defines sensitive locations where concealed carry will not be allowed goes into effect.
It will also enable the state to regulate and standardize training for license applicants.
While questions remain on how the new gun legislation will impact the permitting process, some gun retailers and training centers have posted online that a statewide freeze on pistol permits will also go into effect that day.
When Capitol Correspondent, Jamie DeLine, reached out to those who shared the information to see where they heard of this, she was either hung up on or was simply told they were sharing it from others on social media.
While regulations are being developed by the state, when it comes to the freeze, DeLine was told,
“Neither DCJS nor the State Police have issued any such directive related to pistol permit applications. The granting of pistol permits remains within the purview of local licensing officials.”
The permitting process is run at the county level.
In Rensselaer County the permit process is still business as usual.
“There hasn’t been any stops as far as pistol permits are concerned,” stated Frank Merola, Rensselaer County Clerk. It’s just that that September 1st deadline, things will change after that. We are not sure of the forms, if they are going to change. But there are going to be different criteria someone’s got to meet in order to get a pistol permit. We aren’t sure about the fees, if the fees are going to be different. So we are just waiting to hear. But currently, we are still open for business. We are doing pistol permits every singe day.” | https://www.news10.com/news/fact-check-gun-permits/ | 2022-07-20T21:33:38 | en | 0.973652 |
(The Hill) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last month to overturn the 50-year constitutional right to abortion prompted an outcry from activists who said they were misled during the justice’s confirmation hearings.
Conservative justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who voted to overturn Roe V. Wade in a 5-4 vote, have been accused of misleading the public and members of the Senate about their intentions during their respective confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The calls to impeach the justices for misleading the public have been led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who last month said “there must be consequences” for upending democratic institutions with false statements.
“If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue — without basis, if you read these opinions — rulings that deeply undermine the human civil rights of the majority of Americans, we must see that through,” she said on NBC.
Several other House Democrats have joined in the calls to get answers on whether the justices misled the public about overturning Roe.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), however, said removing a justice is “not realistic” when he was asked if Justice Clarence Thomas should be impeached.
The House can file articles of impeachment for a federal judge with a majority vote, but the Senate must secure a two-thirds majority vote to remove the judge.
As a result, any impeachment effort for a Supreme Court justice would face an uphill battle. Democrats now have 50 Senate seats, but not all 50 of those Democrats would be likely to vote to impeach a Supreme Court justice.
Only one Supreme Court justice has ever been impeached.
In 1805, the House impeached justice Samuel Chase, but the Senate acquitted him.
Chase, a federalist with a “volcanic personality,” was accused of bitter partisan rhetoric, refusing to dismiss biased jurors and of excluding or limiting defense witnesses in at least two cases, according to the Senate’s historical recounting of the event on its website.
The House labeled Chase an “electioneering partizan” and successfully passed articles of impeachment, according to the Senate’s history. But in the Senate, Chase was acquitted on eight articles, which “thereby effectively insulated the judiciary from further congressional attacks based on disapproval of judges’ opinions,” according to the Senate’s website.
Convincing the public and lawmakers that Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch should be removed because of perjury could be difficult because their comments could be interpreted in different ways.
According to Factcheck.org, Gorsuch in his 2017 hearing said Roe was a “precedent” that deserves standing, but also refused to say how he would rule on a case challenging it.
“If it looks like I am giving hints or previews or intimations about how I might rule, I think that is the beginning of the end of the independent judiciary, if judges have to make, effectively, campaign promises for confirmation,” Gorsuch said.
During his confirmation hearing in 2018, Kavanaugh said Roe was an “important precedent” that has been “reaffirmed many times,” including through 1992’s Casey V. Planned Parenthood.
“That makes Casey precedent on precedent. It has been relied on,” Kavanaugh said, according to Factcheck.org.
Kavanaugh also said he would be open to new arguments on any case, adding he has an “open mind” and that a justice should “listen to all arguments.”
Barrett in her 2020 hearing said she would follow the doctrine of stare decisis, which means following a precedent, but also said Roe was not a “super precedent.”
“Scholars across the spectrum say that doesn’t mean that Roe should be overruled, but descriptively, it does mean that it’s not a case that everyone has accepted and doesn’t call for its overruling,” she told the Senate.
Impeachment is typically reserved for perjury, fraud, gross misconduct, conflict of interest or high crimes.
Since 1804, 15 federal judges have been impeached and a majority of them removed from office, with three of them impeached and convicted for perjury.
Alcee L. Hastings, who served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, was impeached and removed in 1989 after he was accused of soliciting a bribe to reduce the sentences of two mobsters. He was also accused of lying and falsifying evidence at the trial.
Judge Walter Nixon on the Southern District of Mississippi was impeached and removed from office in 1989 after he lied to a grand jury about his attempt to influence the prosecution of a business associate’s son.
More recently, Thomas Porteous Jr. on the Eastern District of Louisiana was impeached and removed in 2010 for corrupt conduct and for lying to the Senate and the FBI to obtain a federal judgeship. | https://www.news10.com/news/national/could-congress-impeach-supreme-court-justices-for-perjury/ | 2022-07-20T21:33:39 | en | 0.971105 |
QUOGUE, N.Y. (WPIX) — The body of what appears to be a great white shark, with its jaw open and teeth bared, washed up on a Long Island, New York shore on Wednesday morning, police said.
Officers responded to reports of the dead shark on the Ocean Beaches in Quogue around 9:30 a.m., officials said. The shark, which was around 7-8 feet long, was washed back into the ocean before police could secure the body.
Police have cautioned swimmers and asked people to contact authorities if they spot the shark. Officers in Quogue have been in touch with South Fork Natural History Museum Shark Research and Education Program.
There has been a series of shark sightings at New York beaches this summer. A number of sharks have also bit people.
On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul directed the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, the Department of Environmental Conservation and the State Police to implement heightened patrols. That includes using drones and helicopters to monitor sharks.
“As New Yorkers and visitors alike head to our beautiful Long Island beaches to enjoy the summer, our top priority is their safety,” she said. “We are taking action to expand patrols for sharks and protect beachgoers from potentially dangerous situations. I encourage all New Yorkers to listen to local authorities and take precautions to help ensure safe and responsible beach trips this summer.”
Shark sightings shut down beaches from eastern Queens to central Long Island on Tuesday. Coastal authorities say that the high number of shark sightings means that the systems in place to protect beachgoers are working.
The large number of sightings have another benefit – experts say the increase in numbers of sharks is a sign that conservation efforts have succeeded in helping restore ecological balance to the oceans.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | https://www.news10.com/news/national/sharks-body-washes-up-in-long-island-after-sightings-close-beaches/ | 2022-07-20T21:33:39 | en | 0.953892 |
MOREAU, N.Y. (NEWS10) – It’s taken months of resident pushback, information spread and more, and it’s still not done. This week, another turn has been taken in the battle over a proposed fertilizer plant in the town of Moreau.
On Monday night, the Town of Moreau Planning Board made a determination to delay a vote on whether to allow Northeastern Biochar to build its first-ever facility at the largely-vacant Moreau Industrial Park. The board will now have an additional 45 days to review the company’s hundreds of pages of documentation – something pushed for over the course of the last few months by one member of the board.
“I remain deeply concerned that the board has not given due consideration to the impacts of this project on our community,” wrote Moreau Planning Board member Ann Purdue, in part of a 3-page statement that she read to the board and meeting attendees on Monday night. “It is the first of its kind – to be built and operated by a company that has never built or operated a solid waste facility of any kind.”
That’s true. Northeastern Biochar CEO Raymond Apy came to the town of Moreau in late 2021, seeking to found Saratoga Biochar as the second occupant of Moreau Industrial Complex. The plant would intake biosolids – solid waste leftover from work at wastewater treatment plants – from a large swath of the northeast, including parts of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut. Those biosolids would be processed at Saratoga Biochar, and turned into fertilizer to be sold both locally and nationally.
Much community concern has revolved around the use of those biosolids, which can contain harmful PFOA contaminants. In a NEWS10 interview in April, Apy and co-founder Bryce Meeker described some of the steps that the plant would take to safely remove toxins from the biosolid base without harming the environment. The process of drying biosolids creates synthesis gas, which is where PFOAs and sulfur dioxide go. The company says that a process is in place for safely burning that gas.
In her statement to the board on Monday, Purdue raised issue with the plans that had been presented, recalling inconsistencies in plans that were first submitted in late 2021. At that point, some members of the board treated questions over environmental impact as being resolved, pointing to DEC permits which give license to whatever degree of environmental impact Saratoga Biochar would reportedly have. In May, Purdue spoke again.
“I made a motion to rescind the prior SEQR determination based on new information that became evident following the Board’s determination in March. Specifically, the failure of the applicant to disclose on its EAF that it would be permitted to emit up to 100 tons of nitrogen dioxides, that it would store liquid nitrogen on site, that DEC would require higher stacks in order to better disperse air contaminants for the facility, potential fire risks associated with storage of biochar on site. That motion failed,” she wrote.
At that same meeting, Purdue made a second motion to hire an independent expert to research the impact of the site, which was approved. However, in June, other board members spoke against the necessity of the work.
All of that history, summarized on Monday, has led to another 45 days granted for Moreau’s planning board to further research the footprint that the biochar plant could leave. They weren’t alone.
As of Wednesday, Facebook page “Not Moreau” has 385 followers. A Facebook post was made by the page earlier Monday for those planning to attend. It said that attendees would not be given time to speak, but that those attending would be sending a message.
“Not Moreau” page operator Gina LeClair did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. In previous NEWS10 reporting, LeClair, a former Moreau Town Board member, described concerns from neighbors who live on the road that Saratoga Biochar would use for 20 trucks daily to travel. Traffic, questions around PFOA safety and more continue to circulate among members of the community.
“Yeah, it’s a little frustrating, but we’re not going to fight it,” said Apy on Wednesday. “It is what it is. We’re going to work with the town of Moreau in every way that we can to move forward.”
The original proposal revolved around a goal to start construction on Saratoga Biochar sometime this summer. | https://www.news10.com/news/north-country/moreau-delays-biochar-decision-to-review-details/ | 2022-07-20T21:33:41 | en | 0.9701 |
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Rexford Industrial Realty Inc. (REXR) on Wednesday reported a key measure of profitability in its second quarter. The results topped Wall Street expectations.
The real estate investment trust, based in Los Angeles, said it had funds from operations of $81.7 million, or 49 cents per share, in the period.
The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for funds from operations of 48 cents per share.
Funds from operations is a closely watched measure in the REIT industry. It takes net income and adds back items such as depreciation and amortization.
The company said it had net income of $36.1 million, or 22 cents per share.
The industrial real estate investment trust, based in Los Angeles, posted revenue of $149.1 million in the period.
Rexford Industrial expects full-year funds from operations in the range of $1.87 to $1.90 per share.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on REXR at https://www.zacks.com/ap/REXR | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Rexford-Industrial-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317970.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:43 | en | 0.954646 |
CHICAGO (AP) _ United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $329 million.
On a per-share basis, the Chicago-based company said it had profit of $1. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to $1.43 per share.
The results did not meet Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.86 per share.
The airline posted revenue of $12.11 billion in the period, which beat Street forecasts. Twelve analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $12.03 billion.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on UAL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/UAL | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/United-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317985.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:43 | en | 0.934498 |
LAFOX, Ill. (AP) _ Richardson Electronics Ltd. (RELL) on Wednesday reported profit of $8.3 million in its fiscal fourth quarter.
On a per-share basis, the Lafox, Illinois-based company said it had net income of 59 cents. Earnings, adjusted for pretax gains, were 31 cents per share.
The electronic components and communication products company posted revenue of $61.6 million in the period.
For the year, the company reported profit of $17.9 million, or $1.31 per share. Revenue was reported as $224.6 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RELL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RELL | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Richardson-Electronics-Fiscal-Q4-Earnings-17318036.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:49 | en | 0.952526 |
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) _ Valmont Industries Inc. (VMI) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $76.1 million.
The Omaha, Nebraska-based company said it had profit of $3.53 per share. Earnings, adjusted for stock option expense and amortization costs, were $3.70 per share.
The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $3.29 per share.
The infrastructure equipment maker posted revenue of $1.14 billion in the period, also topping Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $992.1 million.
Valmont expects full-year earnings in the range of $13.60 to $14 per share.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on VMI at https://www.zacks.com/ap/VMI | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Valmont-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317950.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:49 | en | 0.940483 |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) _ Steel Dynamics Inc. (STLD) on Wednesday reported net income of $1.21 billion in its second quarter.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana-based company said it had profit of $6.44 per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, were $6.73 per share.
The steel producer and metals recycler posted revenue of $6.21 billion in the period, exceeding Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $6.07 billion.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on STLD at https://www.zacks.com/ap/STLD | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Steel-Dynamics-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318005.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:55 | en | 0.937598 |
ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) _ Wintrust Financial Corp. (WTFC) on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings of $94.5 million.
The Rosemont, Illinois-based bank said it had earnings of $1.49 per share.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.69 per share.
The bank holding company posted revenue of $474.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $440.7 million, also missing Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $446.8 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on WTFC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/WTFC | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/business/article/Wintrust-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318046.php | 2022-07-20T21:33:55 | en | 0.9506 |
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) — The mayor of Highland Park, Illinois, where a gunman opened fire at a Fourth of July parade, testified before Congress Wednesday to call for a ban on assault weapons.
Nancy Rotering said she will “be haunted forever” by the shooting that killed seven people and injured dozens more.
“We were screaming, ‘Run! Shooter!'” she recalled. “Less than a minute is all it took for a person with an assault weapon to shoot 83 rounds into a crowd, forever changing so many lives.”
She and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill, said a ban on assault-style weapons could help prevent future shootings. Duckworth, a veteran of the Iraq War, said assault weapons belong only on the battlefield.
“We don’t have to live this way,” Duckworth said. “We can still hunt, we can still have an armed citizenry. We can do all of that … without weapons of war.”
Republicans argue a ban would not stop killings and would instead only stop law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves “against the horrible spike in violent crime that began two years ago,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said.
He and fellow Republicans say Democrats ought to focus their attention on improving mental health.
“We can’t keep seeing shooter after shooter follow the same predictable path and nobody does anything about it,” Grassley said.
Congress recently passed gun safety legislation putting millions toward that effort, but Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he will also keep pushing for the assault weapons ban. House Democrats are planning to vote on such a ban, but it’s unclear when or if the Senate may do the same.
“I voted for the first assault weapons ban. I’ll do it again,” Durbin said. “America must do better.” | https://www.news10.com/washington/washington-dc/highland-park-mayor-calls-for-assault-weapons-ban/ | 2022-07-20T21:33:57 | en | 0.954895 |
DETROIT (AP) — Tesla's second-quarter profit fell 32% from record levels in the first quarter as supply chain issues and pandemic lockdowns in China slowed production of its electric vehicles.
But the Austin, Texas, company still surprised Wall Street with a $2.26 billion net profit for the quarter. Tesla stuck with a prediction of 50% annual vehicle sales growth over the next few years, but said that depends on the supply chain, equipment capacity and other issues.
The company made a record $3.32 billion in this year's first quarter.
Tesla's sales from April through June fell to 254,000 vehicles, their lowest quarterly level since last fall. But the company predicted record-breaking production in the second half and said that in June it had the highest production month in its history.
Industry analysts had been expecting lower earnings after the lower sales figures and tweets by CEO Elon Musk about laying off 10% of the company's work force due to fears of a recession. In an interview, Musk described new factories in Austin and Berlin as “money furnaces” that were losing billions of dollars because supply chain breakdowns were limiting the number of cars they can produce.
But Tesla exceeded Wall Street expectations from April through June with adjusted earnings of $2.27 per share. Analysts polled by FactSet expected $1.81. Revenue was $16.93 billion, beating estimates of $16.54 billion. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Tesla-2Q-profit-drops-from-1Q-but-company-beats-17317995.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:01 | en | 0.9747 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — When “Top Gun: Maverick” roared into theaters in late May, the Air Force was ready.
The smash hit movie may feature Tom Cruise as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, a hotshot Navy aviator, but to much of the movie-going public, the distinction between Air Force and Navy fighter jets is lost. So Air Force recruiters struggling to meet their enlistment goals took boxes of free mugs and lanyards, and fanned out to movie theaters for the premiere, determined to capitalize on the jet-fueled excitement surrounding the film.
These are tough times for military recruiters. With COVID-19 complicating their work and low unemployment reducing the number of potential recruits, all services are having problems finding young people who want to join and can meet the physical, mental and moral requirements.
The Army especially is struggling. On Tuesday, it said it will cut the total number of soldiers it expects to have in the force over the next two years. If those trends continue, that could present challenges as it tries to meet future national security and warfighting missions.
The situation is somewhat less dire for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Leaders of those branches say they hope to meet or just slightly miss their recruiting goals for this year. But they say they will have to dip into their pool of delayed entry applicants, which will put them behind as they begin the next recruiting year.
So recruiters are offering bigger bonuses and other incentives to those who sign up. And they are seizing on the boost that Hollywood may offer – such as the buzz over the sequel to the 1986 hit “Top Gun.”
“When the original ‘Top Gun’ was released, the Navy and Air Force received a pretty good recruiting bump,” said Maj. Gen. Edward Thomas, head of Air Force Recruiting Service. "Frankly, we hope people get excited all over again about what we do. Whether they want to aim high or fly Navy, we just want them to come join us. We want them to be excited about military service.”
The Air Force said it usually goes into each year with about 25% of its recruiting goal already locked in, but this year will have about half of that. The Navy and Marine Corps often have as much as 50% of their goals at the start of the year, but also will see their percentage slashed.
Gen. Eric Smith, assistant commandant of the Marine Corps., said the Marines are focusing more on retention than recruiting. He said the Marine Corps “will make or come very close to making” its recruiting goals this year, but at the expense of the 2023 pool. And when recruits have less time to prepare before reporting to boot camp, more fail to complete their training, he said.
The situation is more dire for the Army, which a top general says faces “unprecedented challenges” in recruitments.
Gen. Joseph Martin, vice chief of staff for the Army, said the service will have a total force of 466,400 this year, down from the expected 476,000. It could end 2023 with between 445,000 and 452,000 soldiers, depending on how well recruiting and retention go.
With just 2 1/2 months to go in the budget year ending Sept. 30, the Army has met just 50% of its recruiting goal of 60,000 soldiers, and based on those trends will likely miss that goal by nearly 25% as of Oct. 1.
An array of factors has made recruiting more difficult across the services.
Two years of the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered schools and other large public events that the military relies on to meet young people face to face.
The low unemployment rate means fewer people are looking for jobs. Private companies often pay more and are more nimble in responding to a tight labor market by raising salaries. Military salaries vary widely and are determined by Congress.
Across the country, fewer people are familiar with the military. Many do not know anyone who served and do not have bases in their regions. As political and cultural divisions over race, abortion, vaccines and other issues tear through the nation, trust in the government — including the military — has declined.
At the same time, only about 23% of young adults are physically, mentally and morally qualified to serve without receiving some type of waiver. Moral behavior issues include drug use, gang ties or a criminal record.
“We look at it as the toughest recruiting environment that we’ve had in decades,” said Rear Adm. Lex Walker, who heads Navy Recruiting Command. “Companies are also offering great pay, they’re offering sign-on bonuses, help with college. They’re offering many of the same benefits the Navy has historically used to recruit."
One short-term solution is money. The Air Force and Navy commanders both said they had to request more money for bonuses this year as they began to see the recruiting struggle worsen.
For the first time in a decade, the Air Force approved two rounds of additional bonuses this budget year. Last October the service budgeted $17.5 million for enlistment bonuses, but in April service leaders added another $14 million, and in July they put in $7 million more.
The Navy, said Walker, has also increased bonuses by about $100 million. It also has also relaxed some restrictions to make it possible to enlist some who may not have qualified before. He said the Navy expanded its waiver policy for some prior marijuana use and for tattoos — allowing recruits to have visible ones in more places, such as the neck. A new pilot program allows single parents with up to two children over a year old to seek a waiver to enlist as long as the recruits have someone who can care for the children in case of a deployment.
The recruiting officials also said it's crucial to increase the public's awareness of the military and the benefits available for serving. They said recruiters and all members of the military need to get out into their communities, connect with people and tell their stories.
Air Force Sgt. Eric Way did just that at the Regal Cinema in Waterford, Connecticut, during the premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick." Standing in the lobby, surrounded by Air Force swag and banners, he captured the attention of a 22-year-old from Old Lyme, who later told him the movie convinced him that he should enlist.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Gervacio Maldonado, who helped organize the New England recruiting campaign centered on the movie’s premiere, said recruiters spoke to the young man before the film and gave him social media information to contact them later.
It worked. The man has already done his first interview.
Maldonado said the man later told a recruiter that he had been debating the enlistment idea for some time and said that "after watching the movie, that was my tipping point and I want to start the process.” | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/entertainment/article/As-recruiters-struggle-Air-Force-seeks-lift-from-17317601.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:01 | en | 0.981007 |
DAMARISCOTTA, Maine (AP) _ The First Bancorp Inc. (FNLC) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $10 million.
The bank, based in Damariscotta, Maine, said it had earnings of 91 cents per share.
The bank posted revenue of $25.5 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $22.8 million, topping Street forecasts.
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SACRAMENTO (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the California Lottery's "Daily 3 Midday" game were:
3-8-5
(three, eight, five)
SACRAMENTO (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the California Lottery's "Daily 3 Midday" game were:
3-8-5
(three, eight, five) | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-Daily-3-Midday-game-17317924.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:14 | en | 0.931331 |
DALLAS (AP) _ Triumph Bancorp Inc. (TBK) on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings of $44.2 million.
The bank, based in Dallas, said it had earnings of $1.74 per share. Earnings, adjusted for investment gains and non-recurring gains, came to 87 cents per share.
The results beat Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 85 cents per share.
The financial holding company posted revenue of $154.5 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $125.3 million, also topping Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $113.3 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on TBK at https://www.zacks.com/ap/TBK | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Triumph-Bancorp-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317978.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:14 | en | 0.950544 |
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the Illinois Lottery's "LuckyDay Lotto Midday" game were:
13-17-18-23-28
(thirteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-three, twenty-eight)
Estimated jackpot: $750,000
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the Illinois Lottery's "LuckyDay Lotto Midday" game were:
13-17-18-23-28
(thirteen, seventeen, eighteen, twenty-three, twenty-eight)
Estimated jackpot: $750,000 | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-LuckyDay-Lotto-Midday-17317956.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:20 | en | 0.836864 |
United Airlines said Wednesday that it earned $329 million in the second quarter as summer vacationers packed planes, but the results fell far short of Wall Street expectations due largely to soaring fuel prices.
United said strong revenue trends have carried over into the third quarter, with figures indicating higher average fares.
The airline also said it is trimming its schedule in the final six months of the year to avoid the delays and cancellations that have plagued the industry this spring and summer.
Shares of United Airlines Holdings Inc. fell more than 5% in extended trading shortly after the results were released.
“It’s nice to return to profitability, but we must confront three risks that could grow over the next 6-18 months," CEO Scott Kirby said in a statement. He warned about factors causing delays and cancellations, high fuel prices, “and the increasing possibility of a global recession.”
United executives declined further comment until a call with analysts on Thursday.
The second-quarter income reversed a $434 million loss a year earlier but fell far short of the $1.05 billion profit in the second quarter of 2019.
Excluding non-repeating items, Chicago-based United said it earned $1.43 per share. Analysts expected $1.85 per share, according to a survey by FactSet.
Revenue was $12.11 billion, United's best ever in a second quarter and in line with analysts' forecasts. Revenue for each seat flown one mile, a closely watched figure among airlines, rose 24% compared with the same quarter in 2019 — the result of higher average fares.
United predicted that the per-seat figure will rise by 24% to 26% over 2019 in the third quarter. Total revenue will beat 2019 by 11%, the airline said.
Clearly many people are eager to travel after two years of pandemic lockdown, and they don't care if the planes are crowded. The average United flight was 87% full in the April-June quarter, and for trips within the United States, it was just under 90%.
United is curbing flights in an effort to avoid delays and cancellations. The airline cut passenger-carrying capacity by 14.5% in the second quarter, compared with 2019, and plans reductions of 11% in the third quarter and 10% in the fourth. Limiting seats helps drive up fares.
United's costs are also rising. Expenses other than fuel rose 17% on a per-seat basis, at the upper end of United's last forecast before the quarter ended June 30.
The airline paid an average of $4.18 per gallon for fuel, higher than the $4.02 it had predicted. Since the quarter ended, however, spot prices have dropped about 35 cents a gallon or 10%, according to Energy Department figures. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/United-Airlines-2Q-profit-of-329M-misses-Wall-17318047.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:20 | en | 0.96765 |
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the "Pick Four-Midday" game were:
5-1-3-6, Fireball: 2
(five, one, three, six; Fireball: two)
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the "Pick Four-Midday" game were:
5-1-3-6, Fireball: 2
(five, one, three, six; Fireball: two) | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-Pick-Four-Midday-game-17317954.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:26 | en | 0.853919 |
CHICAGO (AP) _ United Airlines Holdings Inc. (UAL) on Wednesday reported second-quarter net income of $329 million.
On a per-share basis, the Chicago-based company said it had profit of $1. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to $1.43 per share.
The results did not meet Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.86 per share.
The airline posted revenue of $12.11 billion in the period, which beat Street forecasts. Twelve analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $12.03 billion.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on UAL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/UAL | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/United-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17317985.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:26 | en | 0.934498 |
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the "Pick Three-Midday" game were:
7-4-6, Fireball: 8
(seven, four, six; Fireball: eight)
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) _ The winning numbers in Wednesday afternoon's drawing of the "Pick Three-Midday" game were:
7-4-6, Fireball: 8
(seven, four, six; Fireball: eight) | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/lottery/article/Winning-numbers-drawn-in-Pick-Three-Midday-game-17317955.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:32 | en | 0.841109 |
ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) _ Wintrust Financial Corp. (WTFC) on Wednesday reported second-quarter earnings of $94.5 million.
The Rosemont, Illinois-based bank said it had earnings of $1.49 per share.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.69 per share.
The bank holding company posted revenue of $474.9 million in the period. Its revenue net of interest expense was $440.7 million, also missing Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $446.8 million.
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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on WTFC at https://www.zacks.com/ap/WTFC | https://www.theheraldreview.com/business/article/Wintrust-Q2-Earnings-Snapshot-17318046.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:32 | en | 0.9506 |
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 42-year-old Lincoln man died when someone walked onto his boat at Branched Oak Lake and shot him, prompting four other people to dive in to the water to escape, authorities said.
Benjamin Case died in an apparently targeted shooting Tuesday night, Lancaster County Sheriff Terry Wagner said. The four other people on the boat were not injured, he said.
Case and his friends were inside the boat’s cabin when the man walked onto the boat's deck. Wagner said. Case opened the cabin door and was immediately shot twice with a handgun.
The suspect — who did not fire toward the others — left the lake area in a vehicle, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.
Wagner said it did not appear the suspect took anything from the boat or the victim’s vehicle, which was parked at the lake. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/1-dead-others-dive-into-water-during-shooting-in-17317942.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:38 | en | 0.98783 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Steven Bannon's lawyers tried on Wednesday to establish at his criminal contempt trial that the deadline for the onetime strategist for Donald Trump to appear before the House committee investigating the Capitol riot was flexible as long as the two sides were negotiating terms. But the committee's chief counsel said Bannon was uncooperative so there was no leeway.
Bannon, who was an unofficial adviser to the then-president at the time of insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, is charged with defying a congressional subpoena that sought his records and testimony.
Bannon lawyer Evan Corcoran asked Kristin Amerling, the committee's chief counsel, whether it was common for witnesses to appear before a congressional committee several weeks after the deadline date on a subpoena. Amerling answered “yes,” but added only “when witnesses are cooperating with the committee.”
In Bannon's case, she said he could not be said to have been cooperating in any meaningful way. He was sent a subpoena on Sept. 23, 2021, that ordering him to produce requested documents by Oct. 7 and appear in person before the committee on Oct. 14.
The committee heard nothing from Bannon until after the first deadline had passed, at which point his lawyer sent a letter to the committee stating that Bannon was protected by Trump's claim of executive privilege and would not be providing documents or appearing. The committee responded that Trump's claim was invalid and that Bannon faced a hard deadline of Oct. 14 to come before the committee.
When that deadline passed, the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote Bannon's lawyer on Oct. 15 threatening criminal prosecution.
Bannon was indicted in November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, one month after the Justice Department received the referral. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.
The attack on the subpoena timeline and its validity is one of the few avenues of defense that U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols left Bannon's legal team after a hearing last week. Nichols ruled that major elements of Bannon’s planned defense were irrelevant and could not be introduced in court. The judge said Bannon could not claim he believed he was covered by executive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold confidential information from the courts and the legislative branch, or that the trial was politically motivated or that he was acting on the advice of his lawyers.
Amerling said the committee sought Bannon's testimony and documents because it had information about various contacts he had with Trump and other people in his orbit, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani and extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. She said Bannon ignored multiple notices that he was in danger of facing criminal prosecution by ignoring the committee's requests.
During cross-examination, Corcoran raised questions about Amerling’s ties to a prosecutor in the case and her political affiliation. Amerling acknowledged she is a lifelong Democrat and had known one of the prosecutors for years since they both worked in the office of now-retired Rep. Henry Waxman, a longtime California Democrat. The two also belong to the same book club, mostly made up of former Waxman staffers, Amerling said.
In opening statements this week, Corcoran told the jury that the charges were politically motivated and that Bannon was engaged in good-faith negotiations with the committee when he was charged.
Nichols reiterated Wednesday that Bannon's defense could not address any witnesses in a way that would point to politics as the reasons for his prosecution. Nichols did allow Bannon’s lawyers to ask witnesses about their own biases.
Bannon, 68, was one of the most prominent of the Trump-allied holdouts refusing to testify before the committee. He had argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold confidential information from the courts and the legislative branch.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the Jan. 6 committee hearings at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Bannon-s-team-raises-question-about-House-17318101.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:39 | en | 0.985295 |
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — An environmental group took the first step Wednesday toward filing suit over plans by Alabama Power Co. to leave millions of pounds of coal ash near a riverside within the vast Mobile-Tensaw Delta, which activists say could be devastated by a spill.
The Virginia-based Southern Environmental Law Center sent the utility notice of its intent to sue on behalf of Mobile Baykeeper, an environmental advocacy organization. Baykeeper wants regulators to force the company to take additional steps to protect against a spill of ash, a waste product from burning coal, at the site of its Plant Barry near the Mobile River. Such notices are required under the law before a lawsuit can be filed.
Mobile Baykeeper contends the ash pond contains 21 million pounds (9.5 million kilograms) of coal ash that is polluting groundwater and could wipe out the lush, biologically diverse region should it be breached by heavy flooding, a hurricane or some other disaster.
The company's plan for the coal ash "jeopardizes so much of what makes coastal Alabama special,” Cade Kistler of Mobile Baykeeper said in a statement.
“The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is one of the world’s most important resources, and is vulnerable to increasing floods, severe hurricanes, and rising water levels. Leaving millions of tons of coal ash on the banks of the Mobile River is a disaster waiting to happen," said Kistler.
Alabama Power spokeswoman Beth Thomas said the utility had no comment.
Plant Barry opened in 1965 about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Mobile. With federal regulators imposing tougher rules on storing coal ash, the company has been working for several years to close the roughly 600-acre (243-hectare) pond by drying it out, moving material to a smaller site nearby and covering it with a liner.
The company contends moving the material farther away would pose a hazard in itself.
Environmentalists contend the plan doesn't meet regulations and could result in contamination of the sprawling delta wilderness area north of the port city. Utilities in other states are acting to prevent coal ash spills like one that happened in Tennessee in 2008 and Virginia in 2014, they said.
“Alabama is an outlier when it comes to leaving toxic coal ash in place," Barry Brock, director of Southern Environmental Law Center's Alabama office, said in a statement. “This coal ash should be safely stored in a lined facility away from the river’s edge and out of the groundwater or recycled into cement and concrete, as is being done in other Southeastern states.” | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Environmental-group-plans-suit-over-coal-ash-in-17318084.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:45 | en | 0.956154 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Steven Bannon's lawyers tried on Wednesday to establish at his criminal contempt trial that the deadline for the onetime strategist for Donald Trump to appear before the House committee investigating the Capitol riot was flexible as long as the two sides were negotiating terms. But the committee's chief counsel said Bannon was uncooperative so there was no leeway.
Bannon, who was an unofficial adviser to the then-president at the time of insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, is charged with defying a congressional subpoena that sought his records and testimony.
Bannon lawyer Evan Corcoran asked Kristin Amerling, the committee's chief counsel, whether it was common for witnesses to appear before a congressional committee several weeks after the deadline date on a subpoena. Amerling answered “yes,” but added only “when witnesses are cooperating with the committee.”
In Bannon's case, she said he could not be said to have been cooperating in any meaningful way. He was sent a subpoena on Sept. 23, 2021, that ordering him to produce requested documents by Oct. 7 and appear in person before the committee on Oct. 14.
The committee heard nothing from Bannon until after the first deadline had passed, at which point his lawyer sent a letter to the committee stating that Bannon was protected by Trump's claim of executive privilege and would not be providing documents or appearing. The committee responded that Trump's claim was invalid and that Bannon faced a hard deadline of Oct. 14 to come before the committee.
When that deadline passed, the committee chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., wrote Bannon's lawyer on Oct. 15 threatening criminal prosecution.
Bannon was indicted in November on two counts of criminal contempt of Congress, one month after the Justice Department received the referral. Each count carries a minimum of 30 days of jail and as long as a year behind bars.
The attack on the subpoena timeline and its validity is one of the few avenues of defense that U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols left Bannon's legal team after a hearing last week. Nichols ruled that major elements of Bannon’s planned defense were irrelevant and could not be introduced in court. The judge said Bannon could not claim he believed he was covered by executive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold confidential information from the courts and the legislative branch, or that the trial was politically motivated or that he was acting on the advice of his lawyers.
Amerling said the committee sought Bannon's testimony and documents because it had information about various contacts he had with Trump and other people in his orbit, including lawyer Rudy Giuliani and extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. She said Bannon ignored multiple notices that he was in danger of facing criminal prosecution by ignoring the committee's requests.
During cross-examination, Corcoran raised questions about Amerling’s ties to a prosecutor in the case and her political affiliation. Amerling acknowledged she is a lifelong Democrat and had known one of the prosecutors for years since they both worked in the office of now-retired Rep. Henry Waxman, a longtime California Democrat. The two also belong to the same book club, mostly made up of former Waxman staffers, Amerling said.
In opening statements this week, Corcoran told the jury that the charges were politically motivated and that Bannon was engaged in good-faith negotiations with the committee when he was charged.
Nichols reiterated Wednesday that Bannon's defense could not address any witnesses in a way that would point to politics as the reasons for his prosecution. Nichols did allow Bannon’s lawyers to ask witnesses about their own biases.
Bannon, 68, was one of the most prominent of the Trump-allied holdouts refusing to testify before the committee. He had argued that his testimony was protected by Trump’s claim of executive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold confidential information from the courts and the legislative branch.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the Jan. 6 committee hearings at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Bannon-s-team-raises-question-about-House-17318101.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:51 | en | 0.985295 |
DETROIT (AP) — Two former presidents of the United Auto Workers, each convicted of corruption at the union, were released early from prison after less than a year in custody, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Gary Jones, who was sentenced to 28 months, was released to home confinement in June after roughly nine months in prison, The Detroit News reported. He must wear an electronic tether in Corsicana, Texas.
His predecessor at the UAW, Dennis Williams of Corona, California, was released from prison in March after nine months. He had been sentenced to nearly two years in custody.
Jones and Williams acknowledged they had used union funds for golf trips, expensive meals and stays at California villas.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has discretion to release some people early under a 2018 law. Separately, Jones and Williams would have trimmed their sentences with good behavior.
“Gary Jones was treated the same way as any other federal inmate who met the requirements for release to home confinement under the First Step Act," Jones attorney Bruce Maffeo said. "BOP made its decision based on a number of factors, including Jones’ age, general health, lack of any prior criminal record and his good behavior while incarcerated.”
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit said it wasn't told that Jones and Williams were going to be placed on home confinement.
UAW members from across the U.S. are meeting in Detroit next week to nominate candidates for union leadership. A national election will be held in the fall, a direct result of the government's corruption investigation. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Ex-UAW-execs-convicted-of-corruption-get-out-of-17318066.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:51 | en | 0.984806 |
Love Island is reportedly set to launch a spin-off centuring on the love lives of middle-aged single people searching for love.
According to Mirror Online, the contestants are said to be in their 40s and 50s and will be matched up by their children while on a retreat - with this mature version having the working title “Your Mum, My Dad” that is reported on an undisclosed date in 2023.
A source told The Sun: "Times change and the current generation in their 40s and 50s still care about how they look, are fit and healthy, into fashion and are ready to let their hair down.
READ MORE: Four bombshells enter Love Island villa after brutal dumping
“This show will give those who settled down young a second chance at love while they still feel in their prime.
“And, let’s face it, they know their minds, will be capable of intelligent conversation and are likely to be much more adventurous — all ingredients regular Love Island sometimes lacks.”
This news comes after many years of fans who have called for more diverse body types and age ranges instead of focusing on young, thin and able bodied folk.
In addition, such follows Women's Aid’s response to recent episodes of this year’s series, where they confirmed to have been in talks with Love Island bosses over claims of misogynistic and "controlling" behaviour by some of the male Islanders, such as the 'Mad Movies incident'.
In conversation with Metro Online, the charity said: “"At Women’s Aid we are being tagged into a stream of Twitter posts, with viewers of Love Island highlighting the misogyny and controlling behaviour being shown on screen.
"This is clearly more than talking about any individual contestants, and a programme based around the formation of romantic relationships must have guidelines on what behaviour is acceptable and unacceptable in those relationships.
"We are talking to ITV, and they have shared with us information on their inclusion training, but what appears to be missing is specific information on abusive relationships and an understanding of controlling behaviour in relationships." | https://www.devonlive.com/news/celebs-tv/love-island-reportedly-planning-spin-7360387 | 2022-07-20T21:34:54 | en | 0.966691 |
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — In his first media interview since having a stroke two months ago, Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said Wednesday he is “100% able to run fully and to win" against Republican Mehmet Oz in November.
Fetterman, speaking over video with a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter, disclosed for the first time that he is having lingering, sporadic difficulties with hearing and speaking. But Fetterman, 52, insisted he has “no physical limits,” noted he is working with a speech therapist and said he would not run if he thought he could not endure the demands of a campaign.
“I would never be in this if we were not absolutely, 100% able to run fully and to win — and we believe that we are,” Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, told the newspaper.
Fetterman's health has been a dominant issue in the Senate race since the days before the May 17 primary, when his campaign revealed that he had a stroke. He required surgery to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator, and later disclosed that he also had a serious heart condition.
He has stayed off the campaign trail while he recovers but told the newspaper that he expected to return “very soon” to making public appearances. On Thursday night, he was scheduled to appear in person at a fundraiser with Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania in suburban Philadelphia. The event will not be open to the media.
Democrats and Republicans alike have closely watched Fetterman's recovery. Democratic hopes to maintain — or even expand — their fragile Senate majority hinge on the party’s ability to capture the seat held by Republican Pat Toomey, who is retiring.
Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon and former host of “The Dr. Oz Show," and Republican groups have tried to raise questions about Fetterman's status, posting a fake “Have You Seen This Person?” poster online that shows Fetterman’s face underneath and says, “Last Seen: 05/13/2022.”
Despite Fetterman's absence, he is ahead of the largely self-funded Oz in fundraising. Fetterman had $5.5 million on hand as of June 30, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Oz, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, had $1.1 million on hand.
Fetterman said he walks several miles every day and did not lose any memory as a result of the stroke. In the 20-minute interview with the newspaper, Fetterman used closed-captioning to ensure he did not miss any words, a campaign spokesperson told the Post-Gazette.
Fetterman has been recovering at home but working daily with campaign aides, meeting via video with donors and trolling Oz with viral social media posts emphasizing the doctor's recent move from New Jersey.
___
Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Fetterman-100-able-to-run-for-Pa-Senate-17317861.php | 2022-07-20T21:34:57 | en | 0.978009 |
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — An environmental group took the first step Wednesday toward filing suit over plans by Alabama Power Co. to leave millions of pounds of coal ash near a riverside within the vast Mobile-Tensaw Delta, which activists say could be devastated by a spill.
The Virginia-based Southern Environmental Law Center sent the utility notice of its intent to sue on behalf of Mobile Baykeeper, an environmental advocacy organization. Baykeeper wants regulators to force the company to take additional steps to protect against a spill of ash, a waste product from burning coal, at the site of its Plant Barry near the Mobile River. Such notices are required under the law before a lawsuit can be filed.
Mobile Baykeeper contends the ash pond contains 21 million pounds (9.5 million kilograms) of coal ash that is polluting groundwater and could wipe out the lush, biologically diverse region should it be breached by heavy flooding, a hurricane or some other disaster.
The company's plan for the coal ash "jeopardizes so much of what makes coastal Alabama special,” Cade Kistler of Mobile Baykeeper said in a statement.
“The Mobile-Tensaw Delta is one of the world’s most important resources, and is vulnerable to increasing floods, severe hurricanes, and rising water levels. Leaving millions of tons of coal ash on the banks of the Mobile River is a disaster waiting to happen," said Kistler.
Alabama Power spokeswoman Beth Thomas said the utility had no comment.
Plant Barry opened in 1965 about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Mobile. With federal regulators imposing tougher rules on storing coal ash, the company has been working for several years to close the roughly 600-acre (243-hectare) pond by drying it out, moving material to a smaller site nearby and covering it with a liner.
The company contends moving the material farther away would pose a hazard in itself.
Environmentalists contend the plan doesn't meet regulations and could result in contamination of the sprawling delta wilderness area north of the port city. Utilities in other states are acting to prevent coal ash spills like one that happened in Tennessee in 2008 and Virginia in 2014, they said.
“Alabama is an outlier when it comes to leaving toxic coal ash in place," Barry Brock, director of Southern Environmental Law Center's Alabama office, said in a statement. “This coal ash should be safely stored in a lined facility away from the river’s edge and out of the groundwater or recycled into cement and concrete, as is being done in other Southeastern states.” | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Environmental-group-plans-suit-over-coal-ash-in-17318084.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:03 | en | 0.956154 |
NEW YORK (AP) — India's film industry is one of the most vast and varied in the world — it's really not one but many separate industries, including Bollywood, Tollywood and others — yet few of the country's roughly 2,000 annually produced movies ever make much of a dent with Western audiences.
“We have a long tradition of storytelling in India. We have probably the oldest and most colorful stories,” says director S.S. Rajamouli. “Not being able to travel across borders has been a disappointment.”
That has changed emphatically with Rajamouli's “RRR,” a three-hour Telugu-language action epic that has not only become one of India's biggest hits ever but climbed U.S. box-office charts before finding an even wider audience on Netflix. For nine straight weeks, “RRR" has ranked among the top 10 non-English language films on the streaming service. Dubbed in Hindi and subtitled in 15 different languages, “RRR” is the most popular film from India ever on Netflix, charting among the top 10 films in 62 different countries.
For many, “RRR," based on Hindu mythology and the freedom fighters that fought British colonialism, is their first encounter with Tollywood, the Telugu movie industry, or Indian films, at all. What many have seen is a movie filled to the brim with over-the-top action sequences and sprawling dance numbers, and an energy that today's Hollywood blockbusters seldom match. Motorbikes are juggled. Tigers are thrown. Suspenders prove a surprisingly pliable dancing prop.
“There is never enough for me,” Rajamouli said in a recent interview from Hyderabad in India. “The only thing too much is my producer coming in and saying, ‘We’re crossing our budget. You need to stop somewhere.’ That is the only thing that will stop me. If given a chance, I will go even bigger and wilder, no doubt about it.
"To the brink, and nothing less.”
That go-for-broke style has earned the endorsements of some of Hollywood's blockbuster filmmakers. James Gunn and Scott Derrickson, who have each helmed Marvel movies, have heaped their praise on “RRR" since it began streaming.
The “RRR” success has come while Netflix is reeling from subscriber loss and a stock decline, a downturn that has thrown its movie model into debate. But one less disputable aspect of Netflix's platform is its ability to foster non-English global hits. “RRR” comes in the wake of global series hits like the Korean “Squid Game” and France's “Lupin.” Theatrical-first movies like the South Korean best-picture-winning “Parasite” have already toppled what director Bong Joon Ho has called “the one-inch barrier” of subtitles.
“Frankly, I didn’t expect this kind of reception from the West,” says Rajamouli. “In the country and across the Indian diaspora all over the world is what we expected. But the reception from the West was a complete surprise for me. I always thought that Western sensibilities are different from my kind of films. I mostly cater to Eastern or Indian sensibilities.”
But while “RRR” has certain effects-heavy Hollywood characteristics that make it not so dissimilar from a superhero movie, it's deeply engrained in Indian myth and present-day circumstance. “RRR” stands for “Rise Roar Revolt” but it also refers to Rajamouli and his two stars, N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. They're each from movie-star dynasties that have previously been more like rivals. This is Charan and Rao's first film together, which is a little like a meeting of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, if they were also the sons of Marlon Brando and James Dean.
They play real-life Indian revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Rao) who team up in 1920s British-controlled India. In returning to the origins of modern-day India, “RRR” inevitably relates to today's India, where, like in many other countries in recent years, nationalism has been on the rise. Since being elected in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emboldened India's Hindu majority, sometimes at the expense of its Muslim minority.
Rajamouli, 48, has risen as one of the country's biggest name directors over the same time period. He launched his two-part “Baahubali" epic in 2015. Its 2017 sequel ranks as the country's biggest box-office smash. (Both are also streaming on Netflix.) But the political subtext of those films some have found troubling.
“In ‘Baahubali,’ even though it seems to have no connection with the political present, what it foregrounds is a muscular form of Hinduism, which is the worst manifestation of the right-wing nationalism,” says Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, a University of Illinois professor who has written several books on Indian cinema. “Jingoist, nationalistic Hindu machismo. In the story, it’s projected into the mythological past.”
“Baahubali” was a Telugu triumph that signaled that Tollywood in India's South had perhaps surpassed Bollywood as the country's top movie factory. In “RRR,” the most expensive Telugu film ever made with a budget of $72 million, Rajamouli is juggling both Telugu traditions and Bollywood song-and-dance aesthetics in what Mehta considers a Pan-Indian movie. Muslim characters appear, although not in primary roles.
“RRR" in this way may not be so different from American blockbusters. This summer's top film in the U.S., “Top Gun: Maverick,” also doesn't skimp on muscular jingoism. Rajamouli has heard the critics but disagrees with their interpretations.
“I understand that point of view. Sometimes, I feel they’re just being blind,” he says. “Personally, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in god. I don’t believe in any religion. But I understand the power of spiritualism. For me, spiritualism is an emotion. And I write stories filled with emotions.”
Surely, many of the cultural references and connections in “RRR” will sail right over the heads of most Western viewers. But the sheer verve of its filmmaking isn't getting lost in translation — and that may mean more cultural-crossovers for Tollywood and India to come.
"India cinema has had a different life and cycle of its own. If we keep an open mind, we can see this as the arrival of something," says Mehta. “Only time can tell. We’ll have to see if this is actually a new trend and there will be more films like this made. Indian or Telugu cinema might keep it up, or this might be a one-shot thing.”
Rajamouli, meanwhile, is prepping his next highly anticipated film. He's now often asked about whether he'd ever want to make a Hollywood movie or a Marvel one. “RRR,” though, hints more at Western audiences coming to Indian films, than vice versa. And Rajamouli's focus is in making Indian films for India and beyond.
“Because of the success of ‘RRR’ with Western audiences, I am trying to make a film for the entire world, not just India,” says Rajamouli. “But I wouldn’t try to locate Western sensibilities and try to match up and change my story according to that. I think that would never work.”
___
Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Global-success-of-RRR-signals-breakthrough-for-17317789.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:03 | en | 0.965162 |
A Devon mum and her premature baby have finally arrived back in the UK after being stuck in Cyprus. Molly, born to Cullompton couple Bethany and Jan Cleathero, landed in Exeter after being born at just 25 weeks.
Jan set up a fundraiser to help bring his wife and newborn home from the Mediterranean island earlier this month. Bethany and Jan had taken a family holiday to Cyprus in June along with Jan's sister and children. Bethany was six months pregnant at the time and went into labour unexpectedly on June 29 just two hours before their flight home.
After being rushed to hospital, Bethany gave birth to Molly who had to be kept in a special neonatal hospital, having been born so prematurely. Jan had to return home but fundraised in an attempt to bring his wife and baby home as it was set to cost £45,000 to fly Molly to Devon in a mobile neonatal intensive care unit.
Jan's fundraiser eventually raised over £25,000. Speaking a few weeks ago, Jan said: "There are added costs that we aren't aware of. There's Molly's care which we need to fund, the cost of where she is now is around £1,000 per night.
"The quotes we have had from charities and private companies are around £40,000, which will ensure there is sufficient vehicles adequate enough to support her level of care. As a family we will do what we can, I'll sell my van, whatever it takes to get her home and be here with the NHS."
However, charity Lucy Air Ambulance for Children stepped in and today flew Molly home in an intensive care incubator. The jet took off from Larnaca in Cyprus but had to stop to refuel in Zagreb in Croatia as it had to fly at low altitude due to extreme heat. It finally made its onward journey, landing at Exeter Airport this afternoon where Molly was then taken for further treatment at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth.
ITV News reported that Molly's parents were visibly relieved and could be seen hugging on the runway by the plane and ambulance.
Charlotte Young, CEO of the charity said: "The whole of Lucy Air Ambulance for Children yesterday we were so happy, we were on the edges of our seat, tracking the flight, getting updates and seeing how they were.
“We’ve all worked so hard to get to this point. As a charity we get connected to all of our families, every child that we fly we know their story, we stay in touch with them, we know about the siblings and what they like doing.”
Read next:
Torquay's 'condemned' hidden gem beach to rise again from the ashes
'Disgraceful mess' discovered on Dartmoor
Tributes paid to 'beautiful' mum who was 'let down by the system' | https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-family-finally-welcome-home-7360411 | 2022-07-20T21:35:04 | en | 0.987239 |
DETROIT (AP) — Two former presidents of the United Auto Workers, each convicted of corruption at the union, were released early from prison after less than a year in custody, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
Gary Jones, who was sentenced to 28 months, was released to home confinement in June after roughly nine months in prison, The Detroit News reported. He must wear an electronic tether in Corsicana, Texas.
His predecessor at the UAW, Dennis Williams of Corona, California, was released from prison in March after nine months. He had been sentenced to nearly two years in custody.
Jones and Williams acknowledged they had used union funds for golf trips, expensive meals and stays at California villas.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons has discretion to release some people early under a 2018 law. Separately, Jones and Williams would have trimmed their sentences with good behavior.
“Gary Jones was treated the same way as any other federal inmate who met the requirements for release to home confinement under the First Step Act," Jones attorney Bruce Maffeo said. "BOP made its decision based on a number of factors, including Jones’ age, general health, lack of any prior criminal record and his good behavior while incarcerated.”
The U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit said it wasn't told that Jones and Williams were going to be placed on home confinement.
UAW members from across the U.S. are meeting in Detroit next week to nominate candidates for union leadership. A national election will be held in the fall, a direct result of the government's corruption investigation. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Ex-UAW-execs-convicted-of-corruption-get-out-of-17318066.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:09 | en | 0.984806 |
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Wednesday confirmed one of its worst-kept secrets, publicly acknowledging for the first time that it uses unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out attacks.
Israel is a world leader in UAV technology. But until Wednesday, the military censor barred official confirmation of the use of attack drones.
In a statement, the censor’s office said that after a lengthy review, it had concluded that acknowledging the use of the weapons was not a security risk.
“There is no prohibition on publishing the use of attack drones as part of the Israeli military’s operational activity,” it said.
Israel has used drones to attack targets in Gaza for well over a decade, with human rights groups and international media reporting on the practice. Experts say the weapons can be identified based on the explosions, which are much smaller than airstrikes carried out by warplanes, and the buzzing sound of the unmanned aircraft flying overhead. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Israel-acknowledges-use-of-attack-drones-for-1st-17318076.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:09 | en | 0.959158 |
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — In his first media interview since having a stroke two months ago, Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said Wednesday he is “100% able to run fully and to win" against Republican Mehmet Oz in November.
Fetterman, speaking over video with a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter, disclosed for the first time that he is having lingering, sporadic difficulties with hearing and speaking. But Fetterman, 52, insisted he has “no physical limits,” noted he is working with a speech therapist and said he would not run if he thought he could not endure the demands of a campaign.
“I would never be in this if we were not absolutely, 100% able to run fully and to win — and we believe that we are,” Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor, told the newspaper.
Fetterman's health has been a dominant issue in the Senate race since the days before the May 17 primary, when his campaign revealed that he had a stroke. He required surgery to implant a pacemaker with a defibrillator, and later disclosed that he also had a serious heart condition.
He has stayed off the campaign trail while he recovers but told the newspaper that he expected to return “very soon” to making public appearances. On Thursday night, he was scheduled to appear in person at a fundraiser with Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania in suburban Philadelphia. The event will not be open to the media.
Democrats and Republicans alike have closely watched Fetterman's recovery. Democratic hopes to maintain — or even expand — their fragile Senate majority hinge on the party’s ability to capture the seat held by Republican Pat Toomey, who is retiring.
Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon and former host of “The Dr. Oz Show," and Republican groups have tried to raise questions about Fetterman's status, posting a fake “Have You Seen This Person?” poster online that shows Fetterman’s face underneath and says, “Last Seen: 05/13/2022.”
Despite Fetterman's absence, he is ahead of the largely self-funded Oz in fundraising. Fetterman had $5.5 million on hand as of June 30, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Oz, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, had $1.1 million on hand.
Fetterman said he walks several miles every day and did not lose any memory as a result of the stroke. In the 20-minute interview with the newspaper, Fetterman used closed-captioning to ensure he did not miss any words, a campaign spokesperson told the Post-Gazette.
Fetterman has been recovering at home but working daily with campaign aides, meeting via video with donors and trolling Oz with viral social media posts emphasizing the doctor's recent move from New Jersey.
___
Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Fetterman-100-able-to-run-for-Pa-Senate-17317861.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:15 | en | 0.978009 |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal magistrate judge has ordered an attorney suing a private prison firm over an inmate's death to delete certain tweets — one of which describes the company as a “death factory” — and restrict his public commentary going forward.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery Frensley issued the order last week in response to an argument from Tennessee-based CoreCivic that the public posts put the company's right to a fair trial at risk.
Attorney Daniel Horwitz, who is suing the company over the death of an inmate at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, had argued that his posts amounted to constitutionally protected free speech. He said his clients and other inmates at CoreCivic facilities could benefit if public scrutiny leads to changes in their prisons.
The judge agreed with the company.
“Trials are meant to occur in the courtroom, not in the media,” the judge wrote. “While litigation is still pending attorneys should not actively seek out media attention that could disrupt judicial proceedings or interfere with an opposing party’s right to a fair trial.”
The judge wrote that Horwitz’s obligation is “to be an advocate, not an investigative journalist,” and said the attorney could be held in contempt of court if he continues to seek news media attention in the case.
Frensley also determined that Horwitz improperly commented on Twitter about depositions from other CoreCivic cases that he had improperly filed in court. The judge said such actions in the future could result in sanctions, but stopped short of removing them from the court file.
In some of his social media posts, Horwitz wrote that CoreCivic “juices its profit margins by deliberately understaffing facilities and skimping on healthcare” and makes it easier to get drugs in its facilities “than almost anywhere else in America.” In one court filing, the company called Horwitz's posts “extraordinarily vicious in their verbiage,” and wrote, "He is wrong" and in violation of the court rule.
Alongside screenshots of the depositions he posted on Twitter, Horwitz alleged that Trousdale staff at one point banned the Quran, failed to file prison rape reports and had hundreds of critical staffing posts left vacant or not staffed on time during the month of December 2020.
The plaintiff in Horwitz’s lawsuit is G. Marie Newby, the mother of Terry Childress, who died in February 2021 after his cellmate assaulted him, court records show. The lawsuit, blaming low staffing levels, claims correctional officers were not making timely rounds. It seeks $10 million for Newby.
The suit also asks the judge to declare that CoreCivic failed to maintain a constitutionally required level of inmate safety at Trousdale. The facility, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, houses about 2,500 inmates, the most of any Tennessee prison. And it asks for the appointment of an independent monitor to conduct regular unannounced inspections of Trousdale. If the inspector finds that the prison hasn't fixed its “unlawful” problems, the judge should shut the facility down, the suit argues.
The prison has been flagged for problems. Audits conducted by the Tennessee comptroller's office in 2017 and 2020 found understaffing and that officials were not compiling accurate data on inmate deaths, facility lockdowns and use of force by correctional officers. State officials fined CoreCivic more than $2 million for problems at the facility.
CoreCivic has denied all of the lawsuit's allegations.
“We’ve always believed that the court of law, not the court of public opinion, is the appropriate forum to address legal matters, particularly regarding unproven allegations,” said CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin.
Horwitz said he would not comment until an appeal of the judge's ruling — which he called “unconstitutional” — is complete.
In response to CoreCivic's motion to quiet his commentary and remove old tweets, Horwitz has argued that he has “ethical duties and affirmative obligations" to his clients to speak publicly about the case. Horwitz also argued CoreCivic has a public relations team, while his deceased client has only him for an advocate.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in December 2023. Horwitz wrote that it's more likely to end in a settlement. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Judge-limits-lawyer-s-tweets-about-prison-firm-17318110.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:16 | en | 0.976285 |
NEW YORK (AP) — India's film industry is one of the most vast and varied in the world — it's really not one but many separate industries, including Bollywood, Tollywood and others — yet few of the country's roughly 2,000 annually produced movies ever make much of a dent with Western audiences.
“We have a long tradition of storytelling in India. We have probably the oldest and most colorful stories,” says director S.S. Rajamouli. “Not being able to travel across borders has been a disappointment.”
That has changed emphatically with Rajamouli's “RRR,” a three-hour Telugu-language action epic that has not only become one of India's biggest hits ever but climbed U.S. box-office charts before finding an even wider audience on Netflix. For nine straight weeks, “RRR" has ranked among the top 10 non-English language films on the streaming service. Dubbed in Hindi and subtitled in 15 different languages, “RRR” is the most popular film from India ever on Netflix, charting among the top 10 films in 62 different countries.
For many, “RRR," based on Hindu mythology and the freedom fighters that fought British colonialism, is their first encounter with Tollywood, the Telugu movie industry, or Indian films, at all. What many have seen is a movie filled to the brim with over-the-top action sequences and sprawling dance numbers, and an energy that today's Hollywood blockbusters seldom match. Motorbikes are juggled. Tigers are thrown. Suspenders prove a surprisingly pliable dancing prop.
“There is never enough for me,” Rajamouli said in a recent interview from Hyderabad in India. “The only thing too much is my producer coming in and saying, ‘We’re crossing our budget. You need to stop somewhere.’ That is the only thing that will stop me. If given a chance, I will go even bigger and wilder, no doubt about it.
"To the brink, and nothing less.”
That go-for-broke style has earned the endorsements of some of Hollywood's blockbuster filmmakers. James Gunn and Scott Derrickson, who have each helmed Marvel movies, have heaped their praise on “RRR" since it began streaming.
The “RRR” success has come while Netflix is reeling from subscriber loss and a stock decline, a downturn that has thrown its movie model into debate. But one less disputable aspect of Netflix's platform is its ability to foster non-English global hits. “RRR” comes in the wake of global series hits like the Korean “Squid Game” and France's “Lupin.” Theatrical-first movies like the South Korean best-picture-winning “Parasite” have already toppled what director Bong Joon Ho has called “the one-inch barrier” of subtitles.
“Frankly, I didn’t expect this kind of reception from the West,” says Rajamouli. “In the country and across the Indian diaspora all over the world is what we expected. But the reception from the West was a complete surprise for me. I always thought that Western sensibilities are different from my kind of films. I mostly cater to Eastern or Indian sensibilities.”
But while “RRR” has certain effects-heavy Hollywood characteristics that make it not so dissimilar from a superhero movie, it's deeply engrained in Indian myth and present-day circumstance. “RRR” stands for “Rise Roar Revolt” but it also refers to Rajamouli and his two stars, N.T. Rama Rao Jr. and Ram Charan. They're each from movie-star dynasties that have previously been more like rivals. This is Charan and Rao's first film together, which is a little like a meeting of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, if they were also the sons of Marlon Brando and James Dean.
They play real-life Indian revolutionaries Alluri Sitarama Raju (Charan) and Komaram Bheem (Rao) who team up in 1920s British-controlled India. In returning to the origins of modern-day India, “RRR” inevitably relates to today's India, where, like in many other countries in recent years, nationalism has been on the rise. Since being elected in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has emboldened India's Hindu majority, sometimes at the expense of its Muslim minority.
Rajamouli, 48, has risen as one of the country's biggest name directors over the same time period. He launched his two-part “Baahubali" epic in 2015. Its 2017 sequel ranks as the country's biggest box-office smash. (Both are also streaming on Netflix.) But the political subtext of those films some have found troubling.
“In ‘Baahubali,’ even though it seems to have no connection with the political present, what it foregrounds is a muscular form of Hinduism, which is the worst manifestation of the right-wing nationalism,” says Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, a University of Illinois professor who has written several books on Indian cinema. “Jingoist, nationalistic Hindu machismo. In the story, it’s projected into the mythological past.”
“Baahubali” was a Telugu triumph that signaled that Tollywood in India's South had perhaps surpassed Bollywood as the country's top movie factory. In “RRR,” the most expensive Telugu film ever made with a budget of $72 million, Rajamouli is juggling both Telugu traditions and Bollywood song-and-dance aesthetics in what Mehta considers a Pan-Indian movie. Muslim characters appear, although not in primary roles.
“RRR" in this way may not be so different from American blockbusters. This summer's top film in the U.S., “Top Gun: Maverick,” also doesn't skimp on muscular jingoism. Rajamouli has heard the critics but disagrees with their interpretations.
“I understand that point of view. Sometimes, I feel they’re just being blind,” he says. “Personally, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in god. I don’t believe in any religion. But I understand the power of spiritualism. For me, spiritualism is an emotion. And I write stories filled with emotions.”
Surely, many of the cultural references and connections in “RRR” will sail right over the heads of most Western viewers. But the sheer verve of its filmmaking isn't getting lost in translation — and that may mean more cultural-crossovers for Tollywood and India to come.
"India cinema has had a different life and cycle of its own. If we keep an open mind, we can see this as the arrival of something," says Mehta. “Only time can tell. We’ll have to see if this is actually a new trend and there will be more films like this made. Indian or Telugu cinema might keep it up, or this might be a one-shot thing.”
Rajamouli, meanwhile, is prepping his next highly anticipated film. He's now often asked about whether he'd ever want to make a Hollywood movie or a Marvel one. “RRR,” though, hints more at Western audiences coming to Indian films, than vice versa. And Rajamouli's focus is in making Indian films for India and beyond.
“Because of the success of ‘RRR’ with Western audiences, I am trying to make a film for the entire world, not just India,” says Rajamouli. “But I wouldn’t try to locate Western sensibilities and try to match up and change my story according to that. I think that would never work.”
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Global-success-of-RRR-signals-breakthrough-for-17317789.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:22 | en | 0.965162 |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A jury deliberating the case of a Chicago man accused of fatally shooting a Minnesota man in an apparent road-rage incident told a judge Wednesday they cannot reach consensus on a first-degree murder charge.
Jurors say they have reached unanimous agreement on two other counts against Jamal Smith, accused in the July 2021 death of 56-year-old Jay Boughton, of Crystal. Boughton was shot in the head as he drove his son home from a baseball game on Highway 169 in the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth.
Judge Nicole Engisch, after consulting with attorneys, told the jurors to return to the deliberation room and find agreement on the first-degree murder count. She added that she was not trying to rush or pressure them, the Star Tribune reported.
The jury gave a note to the judge saying they “were not sure if further debate will bring us to a consensus” on first-degree murder and wondered if their agreement on second-degree murder and unlawful use of a firearm would stand if they could not break the stalemate.
Boughton's 16-year-old son, Harrison, testified during the first day of trial that Smith's car was speeding and swerving into their lane, so his dad honked and flashed his middle finger. Two other drivers reported Smith's dangerous driving that day, including a Wisconsin motorist who said Smith pulled a gun on him.
Smith, 34, denied seeing Boughton’s car and blamed the shooting on a back seat passenger. His attorneys argue that the state has not presented enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Smith was the shooter. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Jurors-at-impasse-on-1-charge-in-Minnesota-17318027.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:22 | en | 0.97912 |
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — A Kentucky coal company was fined $51,000 for failing to submit court-ordered plans to clean up two polluted West Virginia mine sites.
U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers issued the order Monday against Lexington Coal Company LLC, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. In May, Chambers found the company in contempt for not complying with his previous order to submit a plan to address selenium discharges and other pollution at the sites in Mingo County.
Chambers issued a $1,000 daily fine for a 51-day period covering May 29 to July 18. He said the fine will rise to $1,500 per day if the company does not submit a plan by Aug. 1.
Environmental groups alleged in a 2019 lawsuit that the company was discharging pollutants illegally at its Low Gap Surface Mine No. 2 and No. 10 Mine.
Sierra Club senior attorney Peter Morgan cheered Chambers’ ruling but noted that the coal company may not meet its court-ordered obligations.
“It remains to be seen whether Lexington has the willingness or the ability to comply with the court’s order,” said Peter Morgan, an attorney for the Sierra Club. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Kentucky-coal-firm-fined-over-West-Virginia-mine-17318001.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:28 | en | 0.958475 |
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Wednesday confirmed one of its worst-kept secrets, publicly acknowledging for the first time that it uses unmanned aerial vehicles to carry out attacks.
Israel is a world leader in UAV technology. But until Wednesday, the military censor barred official confirmation of the use of attack drones.
In a statement, the censor’s office said that after a lengthy review, it had concluded that acknowledging the use of the weapons was not a security risk.
“There is no prohibition on publishing the use of attack drones as part of the Israeli military’s operational activity,” it said.
Israel has used drones to attack targets in Gaza for well over a decade, with human rights groups and international media reporting on the practice. Experts say the weapons can be identified based on the explosions, which are much smaller than airstrikes carried out by warplanes, and the buzzing sound of the unmanned aircraft flying overhead. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Israel-acknowledges-use-of-attack-drones-for-1st-17318076.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:28 | en | 0.959158 |
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A federal magistrate judge has ordered an attorney suing a private prison firm over an inmate's death to delete certain tweets — one of which describes the company as a “death factory” — and restrict his public commentary going forward.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffery Frensley issued the order last week in response to an argument from Tennessee-based CoreCivic that the public posts put the company's right to a fair trial at risk.
Attorney Daniel Horwitz, who is suing the company over the death of an inmate at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, had argued that his posts amounted to constitutionally protected free speech. He said his clients and other inmates at CoreCivic facilities could benefit if public scrutiny leads to changes in their prisons.
The judge agreed with the company.
“Trials are meant to occur in the courtroom, not in the media,” the judge wrote. “While litigation is still pending attorneys should not actively seek out media attention that could disrupt judicial proceedings or interfere with an opposing party’s right to a fair trial.”
The judge wrote that Horwitz’s obligation is “to be an advocate, not an investigative journalist,” and said the attorney could be held in contempt of court if he continues to seek news media attention in the case.
Frensley also determined that Horwitz improperly commented on Twitter about depositions from other CoreCivic cases that he had improperly filed in court. The judge said such actions in the future could result in sanctions, but stopped short of removing them from the court file.
In some of his social media posts, Horwitz wrote that CoreCivic “juices its profit margins by deliberately understaffing facilities and skimping on healthcare” and makes it easier to get drugs in its facilities “than almost anywhere else in America.” In one court filing, the company called Horwitz's posts “extraordinarily vicious in their verbiage,” and wrote, "He is wrong" and in violation of the court rule.
Alongside screenshots of the depositions he posted on Twitter, Horwitz alleged that Trousdale staff at one point banned the Quran, failed to file prison rape reports and had hundreds of critical staffing posts left vacant or not staffed on time during the month of December 2020.
The plaintiff in Horwitz’s lawsuit is G. Marie Newby, the mother of Terry Childress, who died in February 2021 after his cellmate assaulted him, court records show. The lawsuit, blaming low staffing levels, claims correctional officers were not making timely rounds. It seeks $10 million for Newby.
The suit also asks the judge to declare that CoreCivic failed to maintain a constitutionally required level of inmate safety at Trousdale. The facility, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Nashville, houses about 2,500 inmates, the most of any Tennessee prison. And it asks for the appointment of an independent monitor to conduct regular unannounced inspections of Trousdale. If the inspector finds that the prison hasn't fixed its “unlawful” problems, the judge should shut the facility down, the suit argues.
The prison has been flagged for problems. Audits conducted by the Tennessee comptroller's office in 2017 and 2020 found understaffing and that officials were not compiling accurate data on inmate deaths, facility lockdowns and use of force by correctional officers. State officials fined CoreCivic more than $2 million for problems at the facility.
CoreCivic has denied all of the lawsuit's allegations.
“We’ve always believed that the court of law, not the court of public opinion, is the appropriate forum to address legal matters, particularly regarding unproven allegations,” said CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin.
Horwitz said he would not comment until an appeal of the judge's ruling — which he called “unconstitutional” — is complete.
In response to CoreCivic's motion to quiet his commentary and remove old tweets, Horwitz has argued that he has “ethical duties and affirmative obligations" to his clients to speak publicly about the case. Horwitz also argued CoreCivic has a public relations team, while his deceased client has only him for an advocate.
The case is scheduled to go to trial in December 2023. Horwitz wrote that it's more likely to end in a settlement. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Judge-limits-lawyer-s-tweets-about-prison-firm-17318110.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:34 | en | 0.976285 |
BOSTON (AP) — A national medical testing company has agreed to pay $16 million to resolve allegations that it submitted claims for payment for medically unnecessary tests to Medicare and other federal health care programs, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Under terms of the settlement, Inform Diagnostics Inc. acknowledged that from 2013 to 2018 it routinely conducted additional tests on biopsy specimens prior to a pathologist’s review and without a determination on whether additional tests were medically necessary, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said.
The company submitted these tests for payment by federal health care programs, prosecutors said.
Inform Diagnostics, formerly Miraca Life Sciences Inc., is based in Irving, Texas, and has lab space in Phoenix and Needham, Massachusetts. Fulgent Genetics agreed to acquire the company in April.
The company said it provides services to about 1,300 clients who represent more than 2,700 physicians.
Inform in a statement said it changed the practices that led to to the settlement four years ago.
“Since that time, Inform has put stringent protocols in place to avoid a reoccurrence of this type of coding procedure," the company said.
The original False Claims Act allegations were brought in a lawsuit filed by a private whistleblower who, under legal provisions, can file an action on behalf of the government and share in any financial recovery — in this case, 17%.
“Laboratories that bill for medically unnecessary tests drain funds from Medicare and other federally funded health care programs,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said. “Prioritizing profit over complying with the law wastes hard-earned taxpayer dollars." | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Medical-company-to-pay-16M-to-resolve-false-17317962.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:34 | en | 0.960769 |
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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — When the shooting began at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Mario Jimenez’s son was in the classroom next door. The 10-year-old saw his teacher and a friend hit by bullets that passed through the wall. Now, Jimenez worries the boy will never again feel secure in a classroom.
“I don’t think these kids are going to feel safe going back to school no matter what they do. They’re supposedly protected by the system, and they know the system failed them,” he said.
In the aftermath of the May shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, poor decisions by law enforcement have attracted widespread criticism, but the Uvalde school system is also taking its share of the blame for basic failures — unlocked doors, a spotty alert system and lax enforcement of rules. Now, incensed parents and politicians want concrete safety solutions as the attack becomes part of a larger conversation about how to prepare students for emergencies without potentially inflicting an emotional toll with active-shooter drills.
An investigative report released Sunday by the Texas Legislature found the district did not treat maintenance issues like broken doors and locks with urgency. For instance, the lock on the door to one of the classrooms where the shooting occurred was known to be faulty, and the House committee concluded the shooter likely entered the room through that unlocked door.
The House committee found “a regrettable culture of noncompliance by school personnel who frequently propped doors open and deliberately circumvented locks” at Robb Elementary. The report said school administrators and district police tacitly condoned the behavior, noting that the school suggested the practice “for the convenience of substitute teachers and others who lacked their own keys.”
At an Uvalde school board meeting this week, parents and families were outraged at the oversights. Jazmin Cazares, whose younger sister Jacklyn was killed, asked what the school district would do to make students feel safe returning.
“How am I supposed to come back here? I’m a senior. How am I supposed to come back to this school?” Cazares asked the school board Monday. “How are you going to make sure I don’t have to spend 77 minutes bleeding out on the school floor like my little sister did?”
At the same meeting, Rachel Martinez declared herself unwilling to send her daughter, Layla, back to school after the armed intruder snuffed out 21 lives — and any confidence she had that Layla would be safe.
“This failure falls on all of you,” Martinez told the board at the three-hour meeting. “When you go home and lock your doors tonight, remember: That shouldn’t be a luxury.”
The vast majority of U.S. school systems conduct lockdowns and active-shooter drills that, in some cases, include simulated gunfire and blood as children crouch quietly out of sight. But the drills are only one part of the equation, according to experts.
Amy Klingman, founder of the Educator’s School Safety Network, said the impulse to double-down on simulations or buy the latest gadgets is understandable, but those responses can be part of larger plans that include enforcing the basics, like locking doors and training staff. Drills can emphasize securing a classroom or quickly evacuating children in a variety of scenarios, such as a parent without legal custody attempting to take a child.
“Why does history keep repeating itself? Because we keep doing the same thing,” Klingman said. “We keep emphasizing only active-shooter response, and we don’t make daily operational safety a part of what we do.”
The Uvalde report exposed another potential flaw: Sounding the alarm too regularly can diminish vigilance and lull schools into a false sense of security.
The school's proximity to the border with Mexico meant frequent lockdowns whenever Border Patrol agents or state police troopers were in the area attempting to apprehend migrants. Between February and May, the school experienced nearly 50 lockdowns or security alerts.
“After a period of time, you would have that diminished expectation of vigilance ... 'Oh, here’s another. We're doing it again,'” said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. Schools with that many alerts might consider a tiered system that distinguishes between threat levels, he said.
But not all employees even received alerts because of poor Wi-Fi or phones that were turned off or in a drawer. Some employees would have had to log in to a computer to get the message, the report found. Others didn't understand how to use the system, said Ben Adams, a Uvalde coach.
"It was introduced to us in a short, 10-minute presentation before school started,” Adams said at the meeting.
Elizabeth Ruiz, the mother of three children in the Uvalde schools, said the students at Robb Elementary did “so many, so, so many” lockdowns this year but believes improving the physical safety of the building — having a single point of entry and requiring scannable identification — would do more than potentially frightening drills.
“Yes, the kids needs to have the drills, but it needs to be more than, ‘Go under a table,’” Ruiz said.
For years, some parents and teachers have warned that the drills are traumatic for students, whose mental health has become even more of a concern on the rebound from COVID-19 disruptions.
“It’s not about trying to scare people straight,” Klingman said. “It’s about doing the right things that make a difference.”
Jimenez worries that continuing to practice active-shooter drills will further traumatize his son and other children who lived through the shooting, “because in their minds they’re probably already thinking, ‘This isn’t going to protect me.’”
Jimenez isn’t impressed by the school district’s plans to fix locks and install cameras. He’d like to see the buildings change to key-card access and for the schools to “hire actual security — people who will do their job.”
He hopes teachers and administrators at schools across the country see what happened in Uvalde and improve security before tragedy strikes again.
“None of the parents here want to send their kids to school,” Jimenez said.
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Thompson reported from Buffalo, N.Y., and Ma reported from San Francisco.
___
The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
___
The Associated Press’ reporting around issues of race and ethnicity is supported in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Outcry-after-Uvalde-focuses-on-school-failures-17318013.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:40 | en | 0.970444 |
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A jury deliberating the case of a Chicago man accused of fatally shooting a Minnesota man in an apparent road-rage incident told a judge Wednesday they cannot reach consensus on a first-degree murder charge.
Jurors say they have reached unanimous agreement on two other counts against Jamal Smith, accused in the July 2021 death of 56-year-old Jay Boughton, of Crystal. Boughton was shot in the head as he drove his son home from a baseball game on Highway 169 in the Minneapolis suburb of Plymouth.
Judge Nicole Engisch, after consulting with attorneys, told the jurors to return to the deliberation room and find agreement on the first-degree murder count. She added that she was not trying to rush or pressure them, the Star Tribune reported.
The jury gave a note to the judge saying they “were not sure if further debate will bring us to a consensus” on first-degree murder and wondered if their agreement on second-degree murder and unlawful use of a firearm would stand if they could not break the stalemate.
Boughton's 16-year-old son, Harrison, testified during the first day of trial that Smith's car was speeding and swerving into their lane, so his dad honked and flashed his middle finger. Two other drivers reported Smith's dangerous driving that day, including a Wisconsin motorist who said Smith pulled a gun on him.
Smith, 34, denied seeing Boughton’s car and blamed the shooting on a back seat passenger. His attorneys argue that the state has not presented enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Smith was the shooter. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Jurors-at-impasse-on-1-charge-in-Minnesota-17318027.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:40 | en | 0.97912 |
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gov. Mike Parson and first lady Teresa Parson will travel to Germany and the Netherlands next week for a trade mission to promote Missouri businesses and trade.
Missouri exported nearly $679 million in goods to Germany last year and more than $223 million to the Netherlands, according to the governor's office.
The trip will include stops in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, Germany, as well as Amsterdam and the Hague, Netherlands, where the governor will meet with government officials, diplomats and business leaders to promote Missouri.
The trip is funded by the Hawthorn Foundation, a Missouri nonprofit organization. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Parson-to-travel-to-Netherlands-Germany-to-17317975.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:46 | en | 0.949776 |
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (AP) — A Kentucky coal company was fined $51,000 for failing to submit court-ordered plans to clean up two polluted West Virginia mine sites.
U.S. District Judge Robert Chambers issued the order Monday against Lexington Coal Company LLC, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported. In May, Chambers found the company in contempt for not complying with his previous order to submit a plan to address selenium discharges and other pollution at the sites in Mingo County.
Chambers issued a $1,000 daily fine for a 51-day period covering May 29 to July 18. He said the fine will rise to $1,500 per day if the company does not submit a plan by Aug. 1.
Environmental groups alleged in a 2019 lawsuit that the company was discharging pollutants illegally at its Low Gap Surface Mine No. 2 and No. 10 Mine.
Sierra Club senior attorney Peter Morgan cheered Chambers’ ruling but noted that the coal company may not meet its court-ordered obligations.
“It remains to be seen whether Lexington has the willingness or the ability to comply with the court’s order,” said Peter Morgan, an attorney for the Sierra Club. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Kentucky-coal-firm-fined-over-West-Virginia-mine-17318001.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:46 | en | 0.958475 |
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A staffing agency and a military contractor have agreed to pay $350,000 to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit over the behavior of a man who worked as a Mississippi shipyard supervisor against women who worked on a cleaning crew.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the settlement in a news release Monday, the same day a consent decree in the case was filed in U.S. District Court in southern Mississippi.
“Employers, including staffing agencies, are obligated to protect their employees from a sexually hostile work environment and to protect them from retaliation once they report harassment," Marsha Rucker, a regional attorney for the EEOC, said in the news release.
The federal agency sued staffing agency NSC Technologies and shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Inc. last year over incidents that occurred from September 2017 to May 2018.
The suit originally was filed in federal court in Alabama, and the case was moved early this year to Mississippi. Ingalls Shipbuilding is in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Huntington Ingalls Industries is the largest military shipbuilding company in the nation, and NSC Technologies is a staff contracting company. Both are based in Virginia.
The lawsuit accused Huntington Ingalls Industries and NSC Technologies of ignoring pleas for help from women on a cleaning crew who said a supervisor employed by Huntington Ingalls assaulted them, coerced one of them into having sex and had “an ongoing sexual relationship” with another woman, which included demands for specific acts.
NSC had sent the cleaning crew to work at the shipyard. The Huntington Ingalls employee was a superintendent on a Coast Guard ship at the yard in Pascagoula.
The news release said the man “made sexual comments to female employees, engaged in lewd acts in front of them, threatened to terminate them if they did not acquiesce to his sexual advances and sexually assaulted two female employees.”
Two women reported the sexual harassment to their supervisors at NSC and made a complaint on a Huntington Ingalls hotline. After that, the ship superintendent “terminated one female employee who refused his advances, prompted another to quit out of fear he would assault her and threatened to kill a third female employee after she reported his assaults,” the news release said.
The consent decree requires the two companies to review their policies against discrimination and retaliation and to revise them, if necessary. The policies must contain clear definitions of sexual harassment and retaliation and a statement about the consequences of violating the policies. The companies also must train their employees against discrimination and retaliation. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Shipbuilder-staffing-agency-settle-sex-17318017.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:52 | en | 0.970666 |
BOSTON (AP) — A national medical testing company has agreed to pay $16 million to resolve allegations that it submitted claims for payment for medically unnecessary tests to Medicare and other federal health care programs, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
Under terms of the settlement, Inform Diagnostics Inc. acknowledged that from 2013 to 2018 it routinely conducted additional tests on biopsy specimens prior to a pathologist’s review and without a determination on whether additional tests were medically necessary, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston said.
The company submitted these tests for payment by federal health care programs, prosecutors said.
Inform Diagnostics, formerly Miraca Life Sciences Inc., is based in Irving, Texas, and has lab space in Phoenix and Needham, Massachusetts. Fulgent Genetics agreed to acquire the company in April.
The company said it provides services to about 1,300 clients who represent more than 2,700 physicians.
Inform in a statement said it changed the practices that led to to the settlement four years ago.
“Since that time, Inform has put stringent protocols in place to avoid a reoccurrence of this type of coding procedure," the company said.
The original False Claims Act allegations were brought in a lawsuit filed by a private whistleblower who, under legal provisions, can file an action on behalf of the government and share in any financial recovery — in this case, 17%.
“Laboratories that bill for medically unnecessary tests drain funds from Medicare and other federally funded health care programs,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said. “Prioritizing profit over complying with the law wastes hard-earned taxpayer dollars." | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Medical-company-to-pay-16M-to-resolve-false-17317962.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:52 | en | 0.960769 |
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — The U.S. State Department has named 60 current and former officials, as well as some corporate figures, in its latest list of people suspected of corruption or undermining democracy in four Central American countries.
This year’s list especially focused on politicians, judges and others suspected of working to stack courts in Guatemala and the judges and prosecutors involved in cases against opposition political figures in Nicaragua in the runup to that country’s presidential election last year.
The list was provided to the U.S. Congress in compliance with legislation pushed two years ago by then-U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel. Those listed generally become ineligible for admission to the United States and have their visas revoked.
“The United States is committed to partnering with the people of Central America to strengthen democracy, improve rule of law, and combat corruption,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday. “These individuals, through their significant corruption, efforts to obstruct investigations into corruption, and undermining of democratic processes and institutions, weaken the ability of governments in the region to respond to the needs of their citizens, contributing to irregular migration and destabilizing societies.”
The new list also named former officials in previous administrations in Honduras, such as Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla Valladares, the ex-director of the National Police who was extradited to the United States in May to face drug trafficking charges.
Former and current officials in El Salvador made the list, including President Nayib Bukele’s press secretary and the president’s legal adviser, who allegedly masterminded the removal of five Supreme Court magistrates and the attorney general.
While required by Congress, the annual listing of corrupt actors or those threatening democracy align with Biden administration policies giving more weight to those issues. That shift from the Trump administration, which focused relations with those countries more narrowly on controlling immigration has led to more tense relationships in the region.
Guatemala President Alejandro Giammattei has been dismissive of U.S. officials’ criticism of his attorney general and what they see as a backsliding in Guatemala on battling corruption. The list includes the country’s new special prosecutor against impunity who is accused of obstructing corruption investigations.
A number of the Guatemalans, including two Supreme Court magistrates, were allegedly involved in a scheme to stack the Supreme and Appellate Courts with corrupt judges, according to the State Department report.
The Biden administration has also clashed with El Salvador’s Bukele, expressing concerns that his tightening grip on power is weakening the country’s democracy.
Also among those named is leader of Bukele’s party in the Legislative Assembly. Christian Reynaldo Guevara Guadron made the list for undermining “democratic processes or institutions when he introduced a Gang Prohibition Law that will punish with up to 15 years in prison the dissemination of gang messages in the media, considered by many observers to be a clear attempt to censor the media.”
Presidential press secretary José Ernesto Sanabria was accused of “using his position and wielding Bukele’s influence to inappropriately pressure officials in opposition political parties to resign on threat of being charged with criminal offenses.”
Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega arrested dozens of opposition figures in the run-up to last November’s presidential elections, including six likely challengers.
The list includes nearly two dozen Nicaraguan prosecutors and judges who participated in those cases and are now accused by the U.S. government of undermining democratic processes. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/US-publishes-list-of-alleged-bad-actors-in-17318122.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:58 | en | 0.963847 |
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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — When the shooting began at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Mario Jimenez’s son was in the classroom next door. The 10-year-old saw his teacher and a friend hit by bullets that passed through the wall. Now, Jimenez worries the boy will never again feel secure in a classroom.
“I don’t think these kids are going to feel safe going back to school no matter what they do. They’re supposedly protected by the system, and they know the system failed them,” he said.
In the aftermath of the May shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, poor decisions by law enforcement have attracted widespread criticism, but the Uvalde school system is also taking its share of the blame for basic failures — unlocked doors, a spotty alert system and lax enforcement of rules. Now, incensed parents and politicians want concrete safety solutions as the attack becomes part of a larger conversation about how to prepare students for emergencies without potentially inflicting an emotional toll with active-shooter drills.
An investigative report released Sunday by the Texas Legislature found the district did not treat maintenance issues like broken doors and locks with urgency. For instance, the lock on the door to one of the classrooms where the shooting occurred was known to be faulty, and the House committee concluded the shooter likely entered the room through that unlocked door.
The House committee found “a regrettable culture of noncompliance by school personnel who frequently propped doors open and deliberately circumvented locks” at Robb Elementary. The report said school administrators and district police tacitly condoned the behavior, noting that the school suggested the practice “for the convenience of substitute teachers and others who lacked their own keys.”
At an Uvalde school board meeting this week, parents and families were outraged at the oversights. Jazmin Cazares, whose younger sister Jacklyn was killed, asked what the school district would do to make students feel safe returning.
“How am I supposed to come back here? I’m a senior. How am I supposed to come back to this school?” Cazares asked the school board Monday. “How are you going to make sure I don’t have to spend 77 minutes bleeding out on the school floor like my little sister did?”
At the same meeting, Rachel Martinez declared herself unwilling to send her daughter, Layla, back to school after the armed intruder snuffed out 21 lives — and any confidence she had that Layla would be safe.
“This failure falls on all of you,” Martinez told the board at the three-hour meeting. “When you go home and lock your doors tonight, remember: That shouldn’t be a luxury.”
The vast majority of U.S. school systems conduct lockdowns and active-shooter drills that, in some cases, include simulated gunfire and blood as children crouch quietly out of sight. But the drills are only one part of the equation, according to experts.
Amy Klingman, founder of the Educator’s School Safety Network, said the impulse to double-down on simulations or buy the latest gadgets is understandable, but those responses can be part of larger plans that include enforcing the basics, like locking doors and training staff. Drills can emphasize securing a classroom or quickly evacuating children in a variety of scenarios, such as a parent without legal custody attempting to take a child.
“Why does history keep repeating itself? Because we keep doing the same thing,” Klingman said. “We keep emphasizing only active-shooter response, and we don’t make daily operational safety a part of what we do.”
The Uvalde report exposed another potential flaw: Sounding the alarm too regularly can diminish vigilance and lull schools into a false sense of security.
The school's proximity to the border with Mexico meant frequent lockdowns whenever Border Patrol agents or state police troopers were in the area attempting to apprehend migrants. Between February and May, the school experienced nearly 50 lockdowns or security alerts.
“After a period of time, you would have that diminished expectation of vigilance ... 'Oh, here’s another. We're doing it again,'” said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. Schools with that many alerts might consider a tiered system that distinguishes between threat levels, he said.
But not all employees even received alerts because of poor Wi-Fi or phones that were turned off or in a drawer. Some employees would have had to log in to a computer to get the message, the report found. Others didn't understand how to use the system, said Ben Adams, a Uvalde coach.
"It was introduced to us in a short, 10-minute presentation before school started,” Adams said at the meeting.
Elizabeth Ruiz, the mother of three children in the Uvalde schools, said the students at Robb Elementary did “so many, so, so many” lockdowns this year but believes improving the physical safety of the building — having a single point of entry and requiring scannable identification — would do more than potentially frightening drills.
“Yes, the kids needs to have the drills, but it needs to be more than, ‘Go under a table,’” Ruiz said.
For years, some parents and teachers have warned that the drills are traumatic for students, whose mental health has become even more of a concern on the rebound from COVID-19 disruptions.
“It’s not about trying to scare people straight,” Klingman said. “It’s about doing the right things that make a difference.”
Jimenez worries that continuing to practice active-shooter drills will further traumatize his son and other children who lived through the shooting, “because in their minds they’re probably already thinking, ‘This isn’t going to protect me.’”
Jimenez isn’t impressed by the school district’s plans to fix locks and install cameras. He’d like to see the buildings change to key-card access and for the schools to “hire actual security — people who will do their job.”
He hopes teachers and administrators at schools across the country see what happened in Uvalde and improve security before tragedy strikes again.
“None of the parents here want to send their kids to school,” Jimenez said.
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Thompson reported from Buffalo, N.Y., and Ma reported from San Francisco.
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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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The Associated Press’ reporting around issues of race and ethnicity is supported in part by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Outcry-after-Uvalde-focuses-on-school-failures-17318013.php | 2022-07-20T21:35:58 | en | 0.970444 |
LOS ANGELES (AP and KTSM) — Ty France was the Pacific Coast League MVP in 2019 when he was a member of the El Paso Chihuahuas, also winning MVP of the Triple-A All-Star Game that year.
Three years later, France played in his first Major League Baseball All-Star Game as a member of the Seattle Mariners, helping the American League to a 3-2 win over the National League at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night.
France got one at-bat, striking out in the eighth inning. He is the first Chihuahuas player to come through El Paso on their rise up through the ranks of the minor leagues to make an All-Star Game appearance.
“This is surreal. My first All-Star Game in my hometown, it finally hit me when I walked up those stairs seeing everyone. It’s pretty cool,” France told MLB Network before the game.
France was an All-Star replacement for Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout, who was injured. On the season, France is hitting .308 with 11 home runs and 49 RBI for a Seattle team that has won 14 straight games.
As for the rest of the game, Giancarlo Stanton homered into an especially sweet spot in his Dodger Stadium homecoming at the All-Star Game, putting his name alongside some of the sluggers he loved watching from the left field seats as a kid.
Byron Buxton followed with another drive and the American League won its ninth straight Midsummer Classic, beating the National League 3-2 on Tuesday night.
AL manager Dusty Baker reminded his team of the winning streak before the game.
“We had to hold it down for him and keep it going,” Stanton said.
Fans rooting for a tie score after nine innings so they could see a first-time home run derby decide the winner instead of extra innings didn’t get their wish.
Instead, the back-to-back homers in the fourth inning were the difference as the AL boosted its overall edge to 47-43-2.
Facing 11-game winner Tony Gonsolin of the Dodgers, Stanton’s impressive 457-foot, two-run shot landed in the left-field pavilion.
“He smokes them,” NL manager Brian Snitker said. “Big, strong kid.”
Stanton and his father, Mike, would sit out there after buying tickets off scalpers for whatever price they could afford.
“My Pops took me to my first Dodger game, showed me how to have love for this game and now we’re here,” the New York Yankees slugger said. “Look at us, it’s just incredible.”
Despite his love for the home team, Stanton thrilled at seeing the visiting sluggers.
“It was really the big boppers when they came into town,” he said. “I wanted to see (Mark) McGwire, (Sammy) Sosa and (Barry) Bonds, even if it was two at-bats. All that wraps around full circle.”
Stanton was chosen the game’s MVP, receiving a glass bat engraved with his name from two-time MVP Steve Garvey and Billie Jean King, part of the Dodgers ownership.
“It hasn’t fully sank in,” he said. “It’s going to be an amazing memory for all of our lives.”
The homer ended Stanton’s career 0 for 7 skid in the game and at 111.2 mph, it was the hardest-hit homer in an All-Star Game tracked by Statcast. Also scoring was José Ramírez, tying the game 2-all.
Four pitches later, Buxton went deep to give the AL a 3-2 lead against a clearly frustrated Gonsolin, who took the loss.
Nine-time All-Star Clayton Kershaw got the first start of his career for the NL in his home ballpark, with the Dodgers hosting for the first time since 1980. Los Angeles Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani got the game’s first hit on Kershaw’s first pitch.
Framber Valdez of Houston got the win, tossing a scoreless third inning.
AL starter Shane McClanahan of Tampa Bay gave up two runs and four hits. The first-time All-Star, who owns an MLB-leading 1.71 ERA, had allowed four hits or fewer in his last seven starts.
McClanahan combined with 10 other pitchers on the five-hitter. Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase put on quite a show, striking out the side in the ninth to earn the save.
Austin Riley’s single in the eighth was the NL’s only hit after the first inning.
Ohtani led off for the AL as the designated hitter. Interviewed moments before the start, the Japanese superstar said, in English, he was going to swing. He cracked a 91-mph fastball into center field on the first pitch.
“I was definitely swinging a hundred percent,” Ohtani later said through a translator. “Kershaw has really good command.”
His hit snapped an 0 for 8 streak as a hitter against Kershaw. Last year, Ohtani was the starting pitcher and led off as the DH in the AL’s 5-2 win at Denver. He didn’t pitch this year so he can start Friday in the Angels’ first game after the break at Atlanta.
“I mean, you can’t throw the first pitch of an All-Star Game as a breaking ball,” Kershaw said. “You kind of had to give him a heater there, I think just for everything. Had to do it.”
But the three-time NL Cy Young Award winner had the last word. Kershaw fired a pickoff throw to first that caught Ohtani off the bag.
“Honestly, I didn’t know quite know what to throw yet. Sometimes I throw over there for a second to be convicted with the pitch,” Kershaw said. “I wasn’t trying to pick him off. I was trying to delay the game for a bit, but it worked out.”
Then the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, who leads the majors in home runs, went down swinging. After Rafael Devers walked, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. grounded into a fielder’s choice, and Kershaw walked off to applause from the appreciative crowd.
“I tried to take a minute at the beginning to take it all in and look around, which I usually never do,” Kershaw said. “It kind of calmed everything down for me and then I had a lot of fun.”
The NL wasted no time in taking its first 2-0 lead in 10 years. Styling in yellow spikes and alternate yellow and red sleeves, Ronald Acuña Jr. led off the bottom of the first with a ground-rule double to left and scored on Mookie Betts’ single. Paul Goldschmidt hit a solo homer with two outs.
In between runs, Guardians second baseman Andrés Giménez made a defensive stop on Manny Machado and followed with a dazzling behind-the-back toss to shortstop Tim Anderson, who threw to first to complete the double play.
A sellout crowd of 52,518 filled Dodger Stadium two years after the third-oldest ballpark in the majors was supposed to host before the game was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
HERE’S TO YOU, MS. ROBINSON
Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts, with all of the other All-Stars bunched behind him, led the crowd in sending out 100th birthday wishes to Rachel Robinson. On his 1-2-3 count, the crowd and players shouted “Happy birthday, Rachel!” The widow of Jackie Robinson didn’t travel from her home in Connecticut. She visited Dodger Stadium in April on Jackie Robinson Day to mark the 75th anniversary of her husband breaking baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Jackie Robinson’s achievement was honored with on-field comments by Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington and a presentation on the video boards.
FIRST PITCH
Backed by a mariachi band, Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela tossed out the ceremonial first pitch. Fittingly, first-time All-Star Alejandro Kirk of Toronto served as catcher. Kirk and Valenzuela were both born in Mexico. Fernandomania gripped the Dodgers in 1981, when the left-hander won Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award in helping LA win the World Series.
FASHION CRITICS
The reviews were mostly negative for the second straight year on the All-Star uniforms. The AL wore dark gray uniforms that blended into the plate umpire’s black shirt and dark gray pants. The NL wore all-white uniforms. Both had gold lettering. Fans were critical on social media, with “atrocious” a frequent critique. Last year, MLB went away from wearing traditional jerseys, which met with heavy online criticism.
MIC’ED UP MANOAH
Alek Manoah, Toronto’s expressive right-hander, wore a microphone and earpiece while pitching the second inning, engaging in an entertaining conversation with Fox analyst and Hall of Famer John Smoltz. “How hard am I throwing?” Manoah asked early. He also sought scouting reports on Joc Pederson and Acuña Jr. Manoah did fine, striking out three and also plunking Jeff McNeil with a pitch. A lot of players were mic’ed up. Fans heard Judge and Stanton talking back and forth while playing the outfield, and Yankees batterymates Nestor Cortes and Jose Trevino talking while working together.
THE SHIFT IS STILL ON
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman batted in the third to the now familiar chants of “Freddie! Freddie!” Even in the exhibition game, an extreme shift was on and he was thrown out from right field. Home Run Derby champion Juan Soto got thrown out by the third baseman playing much closer to second base to end the fifth. Next season, the shift is likely going away in the majors.
TAKING IT EASY
Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers for 67 years before retiring in 2016, watched the game from his Los Angeles home. The Bronx-born 94-year-old began calling games when the franchise was located in Brooklyn and followed the team out West ahead of the 1958 season.
UP NEXT
The regular season resumes with six games on Thursday, including Stanton, Judge and the Yankees playing a doubleheader at Houston. The Yankees own the best record in the majors at 64-28. Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Baker’s Astros have the second-best mark in the AL at 59-32.
“I just regret that we have to play him a doubleheader on Thursday,” Baker said. “But for today, we’re on the same side.”
Also, it will be Freeman, Betts, Trea Turner and the Dodgers, topping the NL at 60-30, hosting the Giants.
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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports | https://www.ktsm.com/baseball/chihuahuas/stanton-buxton-hrs-lead-al-over-nl-for-9th-straight-asg-win/ | 2022-07-20T21:36:04 | en | 0.970805 |
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Gov. Mike Parson and first lady Teresa Parson will travel to Germany and the Netherlands next week for a trade mission to promote Missouri businesses and trade.
Missouri exported nearly $679 million in goods to Germany last year and more than $223 million to the Netherlands, according to the governor's office.
The trip will include stops in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, Germany, as well as Amsterdam and the Hague, Netherlands, where the governor will meet with government officials, diplomats and business leaders to promote Missouri.
The trip is funded by the Hawthorn Foundation, a Missouri nonprofit organization. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Parson-to-travel-to-Netherlands-Germany-to-17317975.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:04 | en | 0.949776 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and allies committed more rocket systems, ammunition and other military aid to Ukraine Wednesday, as American defense leaders said they see the war to block Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region grinding on for some time.
Speaking at the close of a virtual meeting with about 50 defense leaders from around the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it will be “hard work” to keep allies and partners all committed to the war effort as the months drag on.
“We’re pushing hard to maintain and intensify the momentum of donations,” Austin said. “This will be an area of focus for the foreseeable future, as it should be, in terms of how long our allies and partners will remain committed ... There’s no question that this will always be hard work making sure that we maintain unity.”
Officials have been reluctant to say how long the war may last, but Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested it could be a long slog.
“We have a very serious grinding war of attrition going on in the Donbas. And unless there’s a breakthrough on either side — which right now the analysts don’t think is particularly likely in the near term — it will probably continue as a grinding war of attrition for a period of time until both sides see an alternative way out of this, perhaps through negotiation or something like that.”
Officials said Wednesday that the U.S. will send Ukraine four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and precision-guided rockets for them, as well as additional artillery rounds. A more detailed announcement is expected later this week.
The aid comes as Russian forces try to solidify gains in the two provinces in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, Donetsk and Luhansk, while also expanding attacks into other areas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled RT television and the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia has expanded its “special military operation” from the Donbas to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and other captured territories.
Austin said Lavrov's comments come as no surprise to allies who have known Russia has greater ambitions in capturing Ukraine.
But Ukrainian troops have been using the HIMARS to strike Russian logistics nodes and command and control centers, including behind the front lines to disrupt supply chains. And on Wednesday they struck and damaged a bridge that is key to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, where Lavrov said Moscow is trying to consolidate its territorial gains.
Milley said the Ukrainian strikes are “steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression.”
He said that, due to Ukraine's resistance, Russia has been able to gain just six to 10 miles of ground in the Donbas over the past 90 days, with “tens of thousands of artillery rounds” fired in each 24-hour period. And he said he does not believe that the Donbas region has been lost to Russia.
“It’s not lost yet. The Ukrainians are making the Russians pay for every inch of territory that they gain and advances are measured in literally hundreds of meters,” Milley said.
The issue going forward, he said, will be the amount of HIMARS rockets and other ammunition expended by the Ukraine forces. The U.S. has been sending thousands of rounds, taking them from American military stockpiles, and raising questions about how long that will last and at what point there may be a risk to U.S. military readiness.
“We are looking at all of that very, very carefully,” Milley said. “We think we’re okay right now as we project forward into the next month or two or three, we think we’re going to be okay.”
The U.S. has already provided more than $7 billion in aid to Ukraine since the war began in late February. Austin said that during the defense meeting, there was also discussion about how to ensure that Ukraine is able to maintain and repair the weapons systems into the future.
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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/US-sending-more-military-aid-to-Ukraine-as-war-17318006.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:04 | en | 0.970022 |
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — A staffing agency and a military contractor have agreed to pay $350,000 to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit over the behavior of a man who worked as a Mississippi shipyard supervisor against women who worked on a cleaning crew.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the settlement in a news release Monday, the same day a consent decree in the case was filed in U.S. District Court in southern Mississippi.
“Employers, including staffing agencies, are obligated to protect their employees from a sexually hostile work environment and to protect them from retaliation once they report harassment," Marsha Rucker, a regional attorney for the EEOC, said in the news release.
The federal agency sued staffing agency NSC Technologies and shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Inc. last year over incidents that occurred from September 2017 to May 2018.
The suit originally was filed in federal court in Alabama, and the case was moved early this year to Mississippi. Ingalls Shipbuilding is in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Huntington Ingalls Industries is the largest military shipbuilding company in the nation, and NSC Technologies is a staff contracting company. Both are based in Virginia.
The lawsuit accused Huntington Ingalls Industries and NSC Technologies of ignoring pleas for help from women on a cleaning crew who said a supervisor employed by Huntington Ingalls assaulted them, coerced one of them into having sex and had “an ongoing sexual relationship” with another woman, which included demands for specific acts.
NSC had sent the cleaning crew to work at the shipyard. The Huntington Ingalls employee was a superintendent on a Coast Guard ship at the yard in Pascagoula.
The news release said the man “made sexual comments to female employees, engaged in lewd acts in front of them, threatened to terminate them if they did not acquiesce to his sexual advances and sexually assaulted two female employees.”
Two women reported the sexual harassment to their supervisors at NSC and made a complaint on a Huntington Ingalls hotline. After that, the ship superintendent “terminated one female employee who refused his advances, prompted another to quit out of fear he would assault her and threatened to kill a third female employee after she reported his assaults,” the news release said.
The consent decree requires the two companies to review their policies against discrimination and retaliation and to revise them, if necessary. The policies must contain clear definitions of sexual harassment and retaliation and a statement about the consequences of violating the policies. The companies also must train their employees against discrimination and retaliation. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Shipbuilder-staffing-agency-settle-sex-17318017.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:05 | en | 0.970666 |
HONOLULU (AP) — The National Science Foundation said Tuesday it plans to conduct a study to evaluate the environmental effects of building one of the world’s largest optical telescopes on sites selected in Hawaii and Spain’s Canary Islands.
The agency published a notice in the Federal Register of its intentions to prepare an environmental impact statement for the $2.65 billion Thirty Meter Telescope.
The telescope’s supporters have pursued plans to build it on their preferred site on the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest mountain and one of the world’s best locations for viewing the night sky, for over a decade. But there is strong opposition from Native Hawaiians who consider the mountain’s summit sacred.
The National Science Foundation plans to host four meetings on the Big Island of Hawaii in August. It said it won’t decide on whether to fund the telescope until after it considers public input, the environmental review, the project’s technical readiness and other factors.
Protesters blocked construction crews in 2015 and 2019, saying building a new telescope there would further defile a site that they say has already been harmed by a dozen other observatories.
The TMT International Observatory, the international consortium of scientists behind the project, has selected the Spanish island of La Palma off Africa’s western coast as an alternate if it cannot build in Hawaii.
The group completed an environmental study in 2010 that was mandated by Hawaii law for construction on Mauna Kea.
The National Science Foundation must conduct a new study under U.S. law to invest in the project because it is part of the federal government.
A report from the U.S. astronomy community last year said TMT planned to obtain 30% of the project’s estimated construction costs, or $800 million, from the U.S. government.
TMT is a partnership between the California Institute of Technology, the University of California and government-backed research institutions in Canada, China, India and Japan.
Robert P. Kirshner, TMT’s executive director, said in an emailed statement that federal funding will provide the entire U.S. astronomy community with access to the observatory.
“This ensures that the TMT tests the best ideas and does the most important observations to contribute to understanding where we are in the universe and how it works,” he said.
Telescope opponents criticized the new study, saying it will force them take time away from their lives again to give their views about the project, said Kealoha Pisciotta.
“Why don’t people accept our ‘no’ for the answer?” said Pisciotta, who is a spokesperson for the groups Mauna Kea Hui and Mauna Kea Aina Hou that oppose the project.
In October, the U.S. astronomy community said in a report that the National Science Foundation should invest in at least one or two of a new class of observatories called Extremely Large Telescopes being planned by U.S. institutions.
TMT would cover the skies from the Northern Hemisphere. The Giant Magellan Telescope project, to be built in Chile, would observe the universe from the Southern Hemisphere.
U.S. astronomers included this recommendation in their once-in-a-decade analysis of their priorities and goals called the Pathways to Discovery in Astronomy and Astrophysics for the 2020s.
The report said the success of at least one of these two projects — TMT or Magellan — was a critical priority due to their “transformative scientific potential.” It concluded that having at least one was “absolutely essential” for the U.S. to remain a leader in ground-based astronomy.
When the U.S. government invests in a telescope, U.S.-based astronomers get a share of the viewing time regardless of where in the world it is built.
The European Southern Observatory, which is run by 16 European nations and partners with Chile and Australia, has already started building its own Extremely Large Telescope in Chile. It’s expected to start observations in 2027. | https://www.ktsm.com/hooked-on-science/ap-science/us-environmental-study-launched-for-thirty-meter-telescope/ | 2022-07-20T21:36:10 | en | 0.946806 |
DENVER (AP) — Dozens of people walked past white crosses adorned with photos of the victims and scribbled notes from loved ones to mark the 10th anniversary of the Aurora theater shooting.
On July 20, 2012, gunman James Homes killed 12 people and injured 70 others at the midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises." The vigil, which started late Tuesday night at a park that includes a memorial to the victims, included their family members and survivors, KUSA-TV reported.
“I close my eyes and I’m there. What I remember from that night, I remember everything very clearly. It’s one of those things it never goes away,” said John Eisel.
The vigil came as mass shootings continue to devastate communities across the country, including a gunman’s rampage in Highland Park, Illinois, on July 4 which killed six people.
At the event, first responders drove past the crowds to cheers, while victim Alex Sullivan’s loved ones sang Happy 37th Birthday at his memorial. Sullivan was celebrating his 27th birthday at the movie theater when he was killed.
The 7/20 Memorial Foundation planned more remembrance events on Saturday, including a reflection ceremony with speeches from survivors. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Vigil-held-for-10th-anniversary-of-Aurora-theater-17318026.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:11 | en | 0.967658 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and allies committed more rocket systems, ammunition and other military aid to Ukraine Wednesday, as American defense leaders said they see the war to block Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region grinding on for some time.
Speaking at the close of a virtual meeting with about 50 defense leaders from around the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it will be “hard work” to keep allies and partners all committed to the war effort as the months drag on.
“We’re pushing hard to maintain and intensify the momentum of donations,” Austin said. “This will be an area of focus for the foreseeable future, as it should be, in terms of how long our allies and partners will remain committed ... There’s no question that this will always be hard work making sure that we maintain unity.”
Officials have been reluctant to say how long the war may last, but Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested it could be a long slog.
“We have a very serious grinding war of attrition going on in the Donbas. And unless there’s a breakthrough on either side — which right now the analysts don’t think is particularly likely in the near term — it will probably continue as a grinding war of attrition for a period of time until both sides see an alternative way out of this, perhaps through negotiation or something like that.”
Officials said Wednesday that the U.S. will send Ukraine four more High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and precision-guided rockets for them, as well as additional artillery rounds. A more detailed announcement is expected later this week.
The aid comes as Russian forces try to solidify gains in the two provinces in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, Donetsk and Luhansk, while also expanding attacks into other areas. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled RT television and the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia has expanded its “special military operation” from the Donbas to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and other captured territories.
Austin said Lavrov's comments come as no surprise to allies who have known Russia has greater ambitions in capturing Ukraine.
But Ukrainian troops have been using the HIMARS to strike Russian logistics nodes and command and control centers, including behind the front lines to disrupt supply chains. And on Wednesday they struck and damaged a bridge that is key to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, where Lavrov said Moscow is trying to consolidate its territorial gains.
Milley said the Ukrainian strikes are “steadily degrading the Russian ability to supply their troops, command and control their forces, and carry out their illegal war of aggression.”
He said that, due to Ukraine's resistance, Russia has been able to gain just six to 10 miles of ground in the Donbas over the past 90 days, with “tens of thousands of artillery rounds” fired in each 24-hour period. And he said he does not believe that the Donbas region has been lost to Russia.
“It’s not lost yet. The Ukrainians are making the Russians pay for every inch of territory that they gain and advances are measured in literally hundreds of meters,” Milley said.
The issue going forward, he said, will be the amount of HIMARS rockets and other ammunition expended by the Ukraine forces. The U.S. has been sending thousands of rounds, taking them from American military stockpiles, and raising questions about how long that will last and at what point there may be a risk to U.S. military readiness.
“We are looking at all of that very, very carefully,” Milley said. “We think we’re okay right now as we project forward into the next month or two or three, we think we’re going to be okay.”
The U.S. has already provided more than $7 billion in aid to Ukraine since the war began in late February. Austin said that during the defense meeting, there was also discussion about how to ensure that Ukraine is able to maintain and repair the weapons systems into the future.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/US-sending-more-military-aid-to-Ukraine-as-war-17318006.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:11 | en | 0.970022 |
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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Democrats regained hold of Washington’s secretary of state office for the first time in more than five decades when Sen. Steve Hobbs was sworn into the position last November, following an appointment by Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee to fill the seat.
Now, Hobbs faces challengers - including several Republicans and a long-serving elections official from Pierce County who is running as a non-partisan - as he attempts to hang on to the office for the remaining two years of former Republican Secretary of State Kim Wyman’s four-year term.
Wyman was the fifth consecutive GOP secretary of state in Washington dating back to 1965, but left for a key election security job in the Biden administration.
In addition to being the state’s chief elections officer, the secretary of state also serves as chief corporations officer and supervisor of the state archives and state library.
Ballots were mailed to the state’s nearly 4.8 million voters last week for the Aug. 2 primary. Under the state’s primary system, the top two vote getters advance to the general election in November, regardless of party.
Hobbs has raised the most among the candidates for the race to date, more than $403,000, followed by Pierce County auditor Julie Anderson, who has raised nearly $170,000. Among the Republicans in the race, former Sen. Mark Miloscia – who is now head of the conservative Family Policy Institute – has raised the most, more than $59,000. Tamborine Borrelli – an “America First” candidate who was fined by the state Supreme Court last month for making legally meritless claims alleging widespread voter fraud — has raised nearly $48,000 and Sen. Keith Wagoner – who has been endorsed by former Secretary of State Sam Reed – has raised about $38,000. Both skipped a recent televised forum hosted by the League of Women Voters.
During that forum, Hobbs pointed to his experience as a Washington National Guard lieutenant and the months he's already spent in the office as why he's best positioned to address issues ranging from cybersecurity concerns to election misinformation and disinformation.
“No other candidate except for me has the experience to combat these issues,” he said.
Anderson, who has been Pierce County auditor for the past 12 years, noted that she’s led Pierce County’s elections team through three presidential elections and has managed hundreds of elections.
“The hyperpolarization that’s so painful in our country right now and in Washington state is only going to get worse,” she said on why she’s running as a non-partisan. “We don’t need political parties in the secretary of state’s office calling balls and strikes at home plate.”
Miloscia said that he wants more audits of the system, saying that "the voters have lost confidence in what we’re doing.”
There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Washington state, and Wyman, the former Republican secretary of state, regularly touted the safety and security of the vote-by-mail system. | https://www.theheraldreview.com/news/article/Washington-s-secretary-of-state-draws-several-17318040.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:17 | en | 0.972274 |
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The local economic development agency that worked with Georgia officials in recruiting Hyundai Motor Group to build a $5.5 billion electric car plant near Savannah approved its portions of the deal Tuesday, though details of tax breaks and other incentives have yet to be disclosed.
The joint development authority that voted to enter the deal represents four southeast Georgia counties that will give up hundreds of millions in taxes in exchange for at least 8,100 jobs Hyundai has promised to create. Officials said they won’t release details of the incentives package until the state and Hyundai finalize the deal, possibly later this week.
“I think it’s very fair, I think it’s very equitable,” Trip Tollison, who heads the Savannah Economic Development Authority, said of the deal. “I think it represents what the region needs to make the company — the folks moving here with all the jobs — successful.”
Republican Gov. Bryan Kemp called the project the largest economic development deal in Georgia’s history when it was announced two months ago in Bryan County, where Hyundai plans to build the company’s first U.S. plant dedicated to electric vehicles. The automaker plans to start construction next year and begin producing up to 300,000 vehicles per year in 2025.
State officials have said that the incentive package would be similar to the $1.5 billion in tax breaks and spending given to Rivian Automotive, which is planning an electric vehicle factory east of Atlanta.
The top item in that Rivian package was $700 million in property taxes waived by local governments over 25 years. The company agreed to make $300 million in payments in lieu of taxes starting in 2023. The Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority voted Tuesday on how money from Hyundai’s payments in lieu of taxes would be shared, but did not release how much projected tax revenues are being waived or how much Hyundai will pay.
Tollison, who works with the joint development authority, said Bryan, Bulloch, Chatham and Effingham counties must still approve the revenue-sharing agreement. He said Bryan County would get the majority of the money, but that other counties would share in revenue because they are putting up money to buy land and build roads, and also will see growth from the deal.
One major benefit for Hyundai will be an income tax credit worth an estimated $213 million. That’s based on the credit of $5,250 per job over five years that Georgia offers for its largest development projects. If Hyundai didn’t owe that much state corporate income tax, Georgia would instead give the company personal income taxes collected from Hyundai workers.
Hyundai is also likely to save hundreds of millions of dollars from sales tax exemptions on machinery and construction materials.
State and local officials already spent $61 million to buy 2,200 acres (890 hectares) for the project site in Bryan County. The partners later bought another 700 acres (283 hectares) but haven’t disclosed how much the additional land cost. The authority approved a $65.7 million contract Tuesday to clear the land. It also approved a contract to design an entrance road.
Kia, another subsidiary of the Hyundai Motor Group, got more than $450 million in incentives for its plant in West Point, southwest of Atlanta. Georgia has promised SK Innovation $300 million in incentives for a $2.6 billion, 2,600-worker battery plant that the Korean company is building northeast of Atlanta.
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Amy reported from Atlanta. | https://www.ktsm.com/news/business/ap-business/deal-for-5-5b-hyundai-plant-in-georgia-nears-final-approval/ | 2022-07-20T21:36:17 | en | 0.962456 |
You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/nba/los-angeles-clippers/articles/40131808 | 2022-07-20T21:36:21 | en | 0.738227 |
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ATLANTA (AP) — It's no easy task to live with expectations at the top of the Southeastern Conference.
Alabama's 2021 season has been described as a disappointment even though the Crimson Tide won the SEC title and played in the national championship game.
Georgia won its first national championship since 1980 by beating Alabama. After having 15 players selected in the NFL draft, including three defensive linemen, Georgia now faces criticisms that its time at the top will be only a one-year stay.
The Bulldogs are viewed as underdogs to the Tide in this year's SEC race. Alabama, Ohio State and possibly others are more popular picks in early national championship projections.
Coach Kirby Smart said Wednesday he doesn't worry about his Bulldogs getting complacent.
“I don’t think any of our guys would rest on the laurels because we don’t really have a lot of guys that have laurels to rest on,” Smart said at the SEC Media Days. “I think that’s the biggest thing because everybody keeps bringing up you won a national championship, so do you worry about complacency. Well the guys who won it, they’re mostly in NFL camps, so there’s a lot of hungry guys on our team.”
Alabama standout linebacker Will Anderson says just winning the SEC title last season wasn't enough.
“The biggest goal of our team is always to win a national championship and we didn’t meet that goal last year,” Anderson said Tuesday. “So that season was not the successful season that we wanted, because all the blood, sweat and tears we put in, all the hard work, all the long meetings — is to get to the national championship and win it. And we got there and didn’t finish the way we wanted to finish."
If Smart's read on his new starters' motivation is correct, the Bulldogs' hunger is most prominent on defense. There were five Georgia defensive players selected in the first round of the NFL draft, including defensive end Travon Walker as the No. 1 overall pick by Jacksonville. Three more defensive players were picked later in the draft.
Georgia linebacker Nolan Smith said he attended Walker's draft party and wasn't worried about the impact of the draft on this season's defense.
“It made me really happy, seeing all my friends realize their dreams,” Smith said. “There’s nothing more that a friend should ask for than to see your other friends be successful.”
Including LSU in 2019, Alabama in 2020 and Georgia, the SEC has had three different teams win the last three national championships. That can provide encouragement for coaches trying to build championship programs, including first-year Florida coach Billy Napier.
“I think we’re all aware if you can win your division, the championship here, you can be a national championship contender,” Napier said. “The path, it’s been proven. ... We’re consumed with Florida right now. We’ve got a lot of grass to mow, right? It’s our grass, not anybody else’s. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Georgia has won the SEC East four of the last five years and is 27-2 in the division since 2017.
“I think we're all aware there's a large gap between Georgia and No. 2, and we're working on closing that,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said.
Florida finished 6-7 overall, including 2-6 in the SEC, in 2021, leading to Dan Mullen's firing. Even so, Florida finished first in the East in 2020 and linebacker Ventrell Miller insists the Gators can return to the top.
“How big is the gap?" Miller asked Wednesday. "I don’t feel like there’s no gap.
“We’re the University of Florida. I feel like we had a bad season last year but we’re moving on, and I feel like this season is going to be a great season.”
The 33-18 loss to Georgia provides ample motivation for Alabama, including its Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Bryce Young.
“Coming up short obviously is really tough,” Young said. “It stings a lot. Obviously it hurt a lot losing. It’s something that we carry as fuel to the fire this offseason. It’s something that’s been fueling us, something that’s been pushing us. No one wants to feel like we felt last year, so we’re doing everything in our power to give ourselves the best chance to have the circumstances that we want to have.”
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More AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/college-football and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25. Sign up for the AP’s college football newsletter: https://apnews.com/cfbtop25 | https://www.theheraldreview.com/sports/article/Georgia-Alabama-coping-with-high-expectations-at-17317888.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:23 | en | 0.974584 |
DENVER (AP) — Dozens of people walked past white crosses adorned with photos of the victims and scribbled notes from loved ones to mark the 10th anniversary of the Aurora theater shooting.
On July 20, 2012, gunman James Homes killed 12 people and injured 70 others at the midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises." The vigil, which started late Tuesday night at a park that includes a memorial to the victims, included their family members and survivors, KUSA-TV reported.
“I close my eyes and I’m there. What I remember from that night, I remember everything very clearly. It’s one of those things it never goes away,” said John Eisel.
The vigil came as mass shootings continue to devastate communities across the country, including a gunman’s rampage in Highland Park, Illinois, on July 4 which killed six people.
At the event, first responders drove past the crowds to cheers, while victim Alex Sullivan’s loved ones sang Happy 37th Birthday at his memorial. Sullivan was celebrating his 27th birthday at the movie theater when he was killed.
The 7/20 Memorial Foundation planned more remembrance events on Saturday, including a reflection ceremony with speeches from survivors. | https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Vigil-held-for-10th-anniversary-of-Aurora-theater-17318026.php | 2022-07-20T21:36:23 | en | 0.967658 |
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