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You need to enable JavaScript to run this app. | https://sportspyder.com/mlb/houston-astros/articles/40136876 | 2022-07-21T06:04:43 | en | 0.738227 |
“The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah has weighed in on a bill passed by the House that codifies interracial and gay marriage, saying in Wednesday’s show that Congress should go a step further and make interracial marriage mandatory because “all the babies would be super cute.”
Noah, who is interracial, set up the joke as he often does by making himself look and sound funny — and perhaps even super cute.
“The House has officially passed a bill,” Noah said of Tuesday’s move, “legalizing gay and interracial marriage. Which is a great victory for 1995. Because let’s be honest. It’s really strange to be diving back into this debate that we thought was resolved in 2015, right?
“This is weird that they’re like, ‘We’re doing this now.’ What do you mean, now? What’s next — we’re going to start arguing about that dress again? Is that what we’re doing? ‘Cause it’s over, guys,” Noah said, next to a graphic featuring a 2015 visual-illusion photo that went viral. “It’s over. We decided a long time ago it’s blue and black, alright? And anyone who thinks it’s white and gold is a Nazi.”
The dress on-screen is, of course, white and gold. (Or is it?)
“Yeah, I said it,” Noah said. “Not gonna see those colors — nothing in there.”
Noah then pointed out that 157 Republican House members voted against the bill.
“So you’re on the record now against interracial marriage? Like, look, I know mixed couples have ruined your lives for the past few years,” he said, with the featured graphic now displaying president/vice president photos of Barack Obama/Joe Biden and Joe Biden/Kamala Harris. “But it’s time to let that go.”
Noah said the bill is unlikely to pass the Senate and spotlighted a senator’s remark on the legislation: “We have more priorities than we have time.”
Noah then asked how long it actually takes to answer the questions:
Should gay marriage be legal?
“Yes, boom. Voted, done. That was what, like three seconds, maybe?”
Should interracial marriage be legal?
“Boom, bam. Yes. There. There we go, done. That’s two votes, let’s go again.”
Should interracial marriage be mandatory?
“Uh, this one’s a little bit harder, but, uh, I’m gonna say yeah, let’s do it. All the babies would be super cute. Done. Three votes, we’re in.”
Watch the complete “Daily Show” segment here or at the top of this post. | https://www.thewrap.com/trevor-noah-interracial-marriage-mandatory-cute-babies/ | 2022-07-21T06:04:45 | en | 0.953187 |
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is demanding an explanation from UCLA officials about their move to the Big Ten Conference.
Newsom attended Wednesday's UC Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco. The closed-door meeting was the first since UCLA and Southern California announced on June 30 that the schools would be leaving the Pac-12 Conference for the Big Ten in 2024. USC is a private institution and not part of the UC system.
Newsom — an ex officio member of the Board of Regents — is among others asking how the move will benefit all student-athletes, as well as how to mitigate the financial effects it will cause to UC Berkeley, California's other public university in the Pac 12.
UCLA and UC Berkeley have played each other in football since 1923.
“The first duty of every public university is to the people – especially students,” Newsom said in a statement. “UCLA must clearly explain to the public how this deal will improve the experience for all its student-athletes, will honor its century-old partnership with UC Berkeley, and will preserve the histories, rivalries, and traditions that enrich our communities.”
The UC Board of Regents cannot force UCLA to reverse the decision. In 1991, campus chancellors were delegated authority by the UC Office of the President to execute their own contracts, including intercollegiate athletic agreements.
The regents though could require UCLA pay UC Berkeley an exit fee for leaving the Pac-12 or share TV revenues they will gain from a move to the Big Ten.
UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on June 30 that changes to the landscape of collegiate athletics prompted the move. UCLA's athletic department, which sponsors 23 sports, is facing a $102.8-million deficit with most of that coming the past couple years.
“They’re gonna compete at the highest level in a major elite conference in different time zones, UCLA is always national. But now we have the ability for student athletes to showcase their talent across the country," Jarmond said. "I appreciate the Pac-12. That said, my, my focus first and foremost is our student athletes, and what is best for our student athletes. And when you look at the landscape and how dynamic is changing, the Big Ten was the right move at the right time for us.”
___
More AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25 | https://www.journal-news.com/nation-world/newsom-wants-explanation-from-ucla-about-move-to-big-ten/GCBUEOKFRJGFVFXE2WSADAKN4A/ | 2022-07-21T06:06:40 | en | 0.965919 |
TOKYO (AP) — The Tokyo Olympics survived the COVID-19 postponement, soaring expenses and some public opposition. A year later, the costs and benefits remain as difficult to untangle as the Games were to pull off.
In his speech at the closing ceremony, IOC President Thomas Bach said a major accomplishment of the Games was simply reaching the end.
"We did it," Bach said. "We did it together," he repeated, crediting the athletes, Japanese government officials, and deep-pocketed broadcasters for refashioning the Games despite no fans, disappointed sponsors, and no buzz around the city.
Organizers said the Games would drive tourism, showcase Japan's technological prowess, and create memories similar to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The pandemic erased that.
Japan's goal after the postponement was to get through it, mindful that Beijing was holding the Winter Olympics in China just six months after Tokyo's close. For the International Olympic Committee, it was a priority to get the Games on television and keep big sponsors — the sources of 90% of IOC income — happy.
“I think what the Games meant more than anything else was simply not having to deal with a cancellation,” David Leheny, a political scientist at Japan’s Waseda University, told The Associated Press. “There were no public health disasters associated with it. I do think officials would like to have run a victory lap — if the public had been more enthusiastic about it.”
“If Japan had cancelled," Leheny added, "there would have been a lot of discussion, particularly in the conservative media, about what it meant that we couldn't pull it off."
As a final act before legally dissolving the organizing committee on June 30, President Seiko Hashimoto and CEO Toshiro Muto said the price tag for the Tokyo Games was $13 billion — almost 60% public money. This was twice the estimated cost when the IOC awarded Tokyo the Games, but less than the $25 billion some predicted.
How to judge? Legacy or costly hangover? Is there success to celebrate, or is it simply rejoicing over not having failed?
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government, on the hook for $5.4 billion in Games expenses, has campaigned to persuade the public that a half-dozen new venues have post-Games uses. Typical is a reopening ceremony next week at the canoe-slalom venue, featuring a paddling parade for elementary-school students.
A center dedicated to the LGBTQ community was championed during the Games, and the Paralympics pushed Tokyo to improve accessibility around town.
The city government is holding a 1-year anniversary event Saturday at the $1.4 billion National Stadium to mark the date of the opening ceremony. Athletes, high school and junior high school marching bands, and cheerleaders are to appear.
Tokyo was initially billed as the “Recovery Olympics," but this got little play after the delay. Government officials promised before the postponement that the Games would focus attention on an area of northeastern Japan devastated in 2011 by an earthquake, tsunami, and the meltdown of three nuclear reactors.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency published a survey of 4,000 people, compiled by a government agency, that showed only 29.8% said they were grateful for government reconstruction support. Many in the region believe the Olympics sapped resources from recovery efforts.
“I almost get the impression that the Olympics have come to that very quiet period where people don’t want to talk about it or even think about it,” Aki Tonami, a political economist at Japan’s University of Tsukuba, told AP. “Any analysis of what the Olympics meant is still in the symbolic phase. We don’t really have the capacity or the bandwidth to really dig down for a more long-lasting meaning.”
Kyodo has also reported this week that an executive board member of the organizing committee received $326,000 from a Games sponsor. As a quasi-civil servant, Kyodo said he was not allowed to receive such payments.
The board member, Haruyuki Takahashi, is a former director at Japanese advertising agency Dentsu, Inc, which helped land $3 billion in local sponsorship for the Tokyo Games.
Amid uncertainty, there is one clear legacy. Despite scandals, bloated costs, and lukewarm public support, Japan is pursuing the 2030 Winter Olympics for Sapporo. And it's trying to use the Tokyo Games to drive the bid.
Sapporo places the price tag at $2.6 billion, likely an underestimate since Tokyo expenses were at least twice the initial estimate. And it's impossible to estimate accurately eight years in advance.
“We're already working toward that," Seiko Hashimoto, the head of the Tokyo Games, said last month. “The significance of the Tokyo Games should be communicated thoroughly, otherwise the people in Sapporo and Hokkaido will not support this initiative.”
Sapporo is believed to be the front-running candidate competing with Vancouver and Salt Lake City. Salt Lake officials have suggested they may focus on 2034. The IOC is expected to name the host in May 2023 and IOC President Bach, in an interview with Kyodo, seemed to rule out awarding 2030 and 2034 at the same time.
Neither of the three cities requires citizens to approve the bid in a public referendum, which have consistently been rejected when tied to funding the Olympics.
“Previously, there was no question about whether it was the right thing to do to bring the Olympics to Japan,” Tonami said. “But I think what’s different now is that people are starting to ask if it’s really the right thing to do."
Barbara Holthus, the deputy director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies in Tokyo, worked as a volunteer during the Olympics and got a feel for the street.
“People were so upset that (IOC president) Thomas Bach pushed the Olympics down everybody's throat without consideration for Japanese sentiments,” she said. “And now they want to it again without asking the people of Sapporo, which they would have to do in Germany.”
Holthus, who grew up in Hamburg, Germany, pointed out that in 2015, local voters there turned down a referendum to hold the 2024 Olympics in the northern German city. Like Holthus, IOC President Bach is also a German.
Working as an Olympic volunteer, Holthus said she saw other volunteers decline to wear their uniforms on public transportation as they traveled to the venue during the pandemic. She said volunteers were told to wear the uniforms because there was no provision for storing street clothing at venues, but some didn't want to be identified with Games.
She said it was different recently when volunteers gathered to clean some Tokyo beaches.
"My colleagues last year, lots of them didn't want to be seen in their neighborhood with the uniform on. People were thinking, maybe you'll bring the virus back to the office or into the neighborhood. But at the recent event we were asked to wear our uniform. Of course, not everybody did, but some did — and they were really proud now to wear it. So I think this bad taste of the uniform now is kind of gone."
___
More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
Credit: Uncredited
Credit: Uncredited
Credit: Dan Mullen
Credit: Dan Mullen
Credit: Lee Jin-man
Credit: Lee Jin-man | https://www.journal-news.com/nation-world/tokyo-olympic-aftermath-still-being-untangled-a-year-later/FH7TMHY3XVFYPMF4V6TAV5ECIM/ | 2022-07-21T06:06:47 | en | 0.981564 |
Younger voters are seemingly making up a large voting segment in elections.
In the 2020 elections, 10% more voters from 18 to 29 turned out than in the 2016 presidential election, according to the Center of Information and Research for Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. And Ohio has one of the higher youth voter participation rates in the country.
But what about the generation of future voters?
Many boards of elections and secretaries of state across the country are coming up with ways to actively engage these kids too young to vote, which includes Butler County. The Butler County Board of Elections is asking kids to decorate a downloadable coloring page that will be displayed in the early voting center on Princeton Road in Hamilton.
Though they may be too young to participate in the voting process, they are not too young to be involved, said Butler County Board of Elections Deputy Director Eric Corbin.
“What we’re trying to do before November, and really before October when early voting for the general election starts, is getting a bunch of people to do this so we can fill our hallway with pictures that kids have colored, and that way when they come to early vote they can see the picture,” he said.
Many of the board’s efforts to encourage future voters surround older youth in high school, but this project is designed to excite and engage those whose voting life may be several years off.
“It’s never too early to teach someone about voting,” according to the Center for Tech and Civic Life. “Engaging young people helps prepare the next generation to be civically engaged citizens. And when young people learn about election processes, they are more likely to trust the election system and have faith in their local election officials.”
Corbin said one of the board’s location supervisors shared an idea bout kids voting and had been a part of in another state, “and that’s what got us thinking about it.”
He said they’re trying to get the public to download, color and send the “VOTE” coloring page, “but it will probably be more successful in November.” Corbin and Early Voting Administrator Nicole Unzicker decided on the coloring page as a way to get kids involved, and more ways are likely to be added.
The Center for Tech and Civic Life lists several ways to engage the youth. Some of them include:
Special kids pages: Davis County, Utah, has a page for kids that features downloadable activities, like a campaign poster, an election-oriented word search, and an election-related maze. Bernalillo County, New Mexico has a Civics Education section on its website, which in addition to a downloadable activity book for kids and resources for students, also has resources for parents and educators.
Contests: Some areas across the country have held “I Voted” sticker contests. The city of Fairfax, Va., held a “Future Voter” sticker contest for K-12 students, and the winning sticker design is given to children who come with their parents to the polls on Election Day. Some areas in the country have also hosted essay contests.
Youth outreach leaders: The Rhode Island Secretary of State developed the Rhode Island Civic Fellowship program to allow the youth to engage peers. They develop non-partisan plans to engage millennials. The Georgia Secretary of State did something similar by hosting a “Secure the Vote” challenge via the social media platform TikTok.
Corbin said the future voters, if they are accompanied by their voting parent, can see their artwork on display. Artwork can be dropped off at the Butler County Board of Elections, or deposited in the election drop box in the front of the office at 1802 Princeton Road, Hamilton.
About the Author | https://www.journal-news.com/news/butler-county-provides-way-for-children-to-connect-with-elections/ZBKT47WNPBHCHPKTZUQ27Q7UUQ/ | 2022-07-21T06:06:53 | en | 0.96417 |
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GRAND BLANC, MICH. (WJRT) - The MLB Draft concluded yesterday And Grand Blanc's ace on the mound David Lally Jr. did not have his name called which was a calculated decision.
Lally said he was in talks with the Mets, Dodgers and Astros throughout the draft process and he turned down about a million dollars.
Lally also said he did not want to settle and decided to enroll at Notre Dame where he will spend the next three years of his college baseball career.
"I would hope to get drafted in 2025 or go back to school for another year and then go in 2026," said Lally. | https://www.abc12.com/sports/grand-blancs-david-lally-jr-returns-to-notre-dame-after-mlb-draft-process/article_41e31efc-0887-11ed-a680-9f476b7f764e.html | 2022-07-21T06:10:56 | en | 0.994633 |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal authorities are offering a $5,000 reward for information about the man who allegedly shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker last year in Hollywood and stole two of the pop star’s French bulldogs. He was mistakenly released from custody in April and remains missing.
James Howard Jackson, 19, was one of five people arrested in connection the violent robbery in February 2021. He was facing an attempted murder charge when he was released from Los Angeles County’s jail “due to a clerical error.”
Detectives do not believe that the thieves initially knew the dogs belonged to the pop star, who was in Rome filming a movie at the time. The motive was supposedly the value of the French bulldogs — which can run into the thousands of dollars. The dogs were later returned by a woman who claimed she’d found them; she was later arrested and found to be in a relationship with another suspect’s father.
U.S. Marshals, in a statement Monday, said Jackson should be considered armed and dangerous. The reward is for information that leads to his arrest. Authorities previously said Jackson is a documented gang member but have not provided additional information.
Representatives for Lady Gaga did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
The dog walker, Ryan Fischer, was with Lady Gaga’s three dogs — named Asia, Koji and Gustav — in Hollywood just off the famed Sunset Boulevard when he was attacked.
Video from the doorbell camera of a nearby home shows a white sedan pulling up and two men jumping out. They struggled with Fischer and one pulled a gun and fired a single shot before fleeing with two of the dogs, Koji and Gustav. The video captured Fischer screaming, “Oh, my God! I’ve been shot!” and “Help me!” and “I’m bleeding out from my chest!”
Fischer — who was shot once in the chest with a bullet from a .40-caliber handgun — previously called the violence “a very close call with death” in social media posts.
Lady Gaga offered a $500,000 reward — “no questions asked” — to be reunited with the dogs at the time. It was not immediately clear whether the singer will also contribute toward a reward for Jackson’s arrest.
In April, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment charging Jackson — who was already in custody — with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit a robbery and assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
The move was done “to speed up the legal process” and Jackson was arraigned under a new case number, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement at the time.
“Mr. Jackson was subsequently released from custody by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. We are unsure as to why they did so,” the statement said.
Representatives from the sheriff’s department and the Marshals did not immediately return requests for additional information on Wednesday. | https://www.krqe.com/entertainment-news/5k-reward-for-suspect-in-shooting-of-lady-gagas-dog-walker/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:00 | en | 0.978245 |
FLINT, MICH. (WJRT) -Mott Summer Vibes basketball league have us a good match-up between the Rising Stars and Them Boys.
Former Carman-Ainsworth guard Omari Duncan dominated the game and the got win for the Them Boys 70-60.
FLINT, MICH. (WJRT) -Mott Summer Vibes basketball league have us a good match-up between the Rising Stars and Them Boys.
Former Carman-Ainsworth guard Omari Duncan dominated the game and the got win for the Them Boys 70-60. | https://www.abc12.com/sports/mott-summer-vibes---rising-stars-v-them-boys/article_5ca7f6d8-08a3-11ed-b2b6-8b0382eb7f07.html | 2022-07-21T06:11:02 | en | 0.873583 |
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.krqe.com/entertainment-news/as-recruiters-struggle-air-force-seeks-lift-from-top-gun/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:08 | en | 0.981001 |
With heat and humidity in place, and with a cool front moving in from the west, some thunderstorms fired up across lower Michigan Wednesday afternoon. Some produced gusty winds and small hail. They were fast movers, so the threat of severe weather has already ended. Before the storms developed, some parts of Mid-Michigan touched the 90-degree mark again. Overnight, partly cloudy to fair skies are expected and low temperatures will settle back into the middle, to upper 60s.
We aren’t going to cool off very much behind Wednesday’s cool front. High temperatures Thursday and Friday will continue to range from the upper 80s, to lower 90s. Thursday will feature a good bit of sunshine and a frisky westerly wind. Friday will begin with bright sunshine, but the trend for the afternoon will be for the clouds to increase a little bit. By Friday night, a few isolated showers or sprinkles will be possible.
It looks like we will have a better chance of seeing some rain return to the ABC12 viewing area during the weekend. Just a few brief showers will be possible Saturday, and it looks like the southern parts of the area will have the best chance of seeing some drops. A more widespread helping of rain will make a move across lower Michigan Saturday night and Sunday. We'll Let you know when brighter skies will prevail on ABC12 News. - JR | https://www.abc12.com/weather/forecast/jrs-wednesday-night-weather-report/article_ea036640-08a1-11ed-8b9c-9be14059bb3a.html | 2022-07-21T06:11:08 | en | 0.949802 |
BERLIN (AP) — Dieter Wedel, one of Germany’s best-known TV directors and scriptwriters, has died, a court that was considering a case in which he was accused of sexual assault said Wednesday. He was 82.
The Munich state court said that Wedel died in Hamburg on July 13, German news agency dpa reported. The court had been expected to announce Wednesday whether a case in which he was charged with raping an aspiring actress at a Munich hotel in 1996 would go to trial.
Wedel was best known for a string of successful TV series in the 1990s and early 2000s. He later led an open-air theater festival in Bad Hersfeld, in central Germany.
He was the first prominent figure in the country named when the #MeToo movement targeting alleged sexual abusers in the media and the arts gathered pace in Germany four years ago.
He denied claims by several women that he pressured them for sex, and rejected the rape charges that were filed in March 2021. That case is being closed following his death.
His lawyers said that Wedel died after a long illness, and criticized the media’s reporting on the case, dpa reported. | https://www.krqe.com/entertainment-news/prominent-german-tv-director-who-faced-rape-claim-dies-at-82/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:14 | en | 0.992982 |
NEW YORK (AP) — The trial of R. Kelly’s manager opened Tuesday on charges that he forced the cancellation of a screening of a documentary about the singer’s sexual abuse of women and girls by calling in a threat to the crowded Manhattan theater.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz told jurors that Donnell Russell made a terrifying brief phone call in December 2018 from his Chicago home to the theater, claiming that someone with a gun was planning to fire on the crowd watching Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly” series.
“He knew his words would sabotage the event,” she said.
The phone call prompted an emergency call to police, who ordered an evacuation that forced the cancellation of the premiere, including a live panel discussion that was to include several women featured in the documentary.
“The defendant wanted to keep the women quiet,” Pomerantz said in Manhattan federal court. She added that Russell was motivated by a desire to protect the lucrative career of the Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling songwriter.
Kelly, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison last month, was convicted last year of racketeering and sex trafficking.
Defense attorney Michael Freedman told jurors that they would exonerate Russell if they study the evidence.
Freedman said there were a lot of phone calls to the theater on the day of the screening and jurors will “have to decide what it all means and what, if anything, it proves about my client.”
He said there was no recording of the phone threat so jurors cannot hear the voice that made it. But he added that there was not enough evidence to prove Russell committed a crime.
Adrian Krasniqi, who worked at the 25th Street venue, testified that he received the threatening call less than an hour after a man claiming to be part of Kelly’s legal team called and said the documentary was violating Kelly’s copyright to his name and should not be shown. He said the caller had a low, professional-sounding voice.
Krasniqi said the later call consisted of a deep-voiced man with a “slang tone, like a thug,” saying in a very serious and very blunt manner that “someone had a gun and they were going to shoot up the place.”
On cross examination, Krasniqi said he believed the caller had a Brooklyn accent, which he was familiar with because he lived in Brooklyn. He said he also thought the caller was outdoors when he made the threat.
Pomerantz said Russell demonstrated his guilt in part through his communications with a female co-conspirator who was at the theater at the time.
She said Russell sent the woman a text to say the police may be coming to the theater shortly before they did. And he later asked her to delete the text, although she never did, the prosecutor said.
Pomerantz said phone records to be introduced as evidence will show that Russell called the theater nine times on the day of the screening.
In a separate Kelly-related case, a fan of the performer pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Brooklyn federal court to charges he made threats against prosecutors in Kelly’s sex abuse trial. Court papers cite a video of defendant Christopher Gunn saying, “If Kellz goes down, everybody’s going down.”
A message was left with Gunn’s lawyer seeking comment.
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Associated Press Writer Tom Hays contributed to this story. | https://www.krqe.com/entertainment-news/r-kellys-manager-faces-trial-over-theater-emptying-threat/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:21 | en | 0.984223 |
NEW YORK (AP) — You’ve got to wake up early on a weekend to catch Soledad O’Brien.
Say 4:30 a.m. Saturday in Chicago. Or 5 a.m. on Sunday in New York and Houston. It’s 6:30 a.m. Saturday in Washington, D.C. — almost sleep-in territory.
Those are some of the time slots for “Matter of Fact,” the news show she anchors that has overcome those hours over seven years to establish itself over in the syndicated market. Produced by Hearst Television, “Matter of Fact” is available in 181 markets covering 95 percent of the country.
“People will find you if you’re doing a good job,” O’Brien said, “and they will skip you if you’re not doing a good job.”
“Matter of Fact” averages about 1.08 million viewers each weekend, roughly half the audience for broadcast network panel shows like “Meet the Press” or “This Week,” according to Nielsen company, which measures ratings. That’s down from a pandemic- and election-aided peak of 1.2 million in 2020, but double what it was at the show’s start in 2015.
That’s notable given that the program has no consistent time slot all over the country and, in some places, literally airs in the middle of the night.
O’Brien, formerly of CNN, also contributes to HBO’s “Real Sports,” but most of her time now is spent running her own production company. Her HBO docuseries “Black and Missing” won a Film Independent Spirit Award, and a doc about Rosa Parks recently premiered at the Tribeca film festival.
O’Brien wanted to keep a hand in onscreen television work and, when approached for “Matter of Fact,” met with executive producer Rita Aleman and found that they had similar ideas.
“The mission of the show was always to share voices as diverse as America, slices of life that people should see in order to understand how issues play out across the country,” Aleman said.
Hearst was looking to design a show that included voices not normally heard on network panel shows, where occasionally the same government official will appear on two or three on the same weekend, said Emerson Coleman, Hearst’s senior vice president of programming, who developed the show.
There was also a desire to turn down the volume. The inherent conflict of political shows “makes for good TV, but we have a different approach,” Coleman said.
“I found that I was very underwhelmed by the interviews we were getting,” O’Brien said. “People were talking about policy but not really talking about human beings. So we decided to cut out the middle man.”
To a large extent, “Matter of Fact” is a reported show. Reporter Jessica Gomez visited a hospital in Texas’ Titus County for a story on rural health care. The show profiled Emmanuel Pratt, a MacArthur Foundation fellow who runs an urban redevelopment agency that uses agriculture and carpentry to spur revivals.
O’Brien refers to the show as a “teaching hospital” of news.
“I don’t know that you can go wrong in elevating people who’ve been doing good work in difficult circumstances and giving them a platform,” she said. “I think we don’t do it enough.”
The effort to get closer to communities where “Matter of Fact” is broadcast is reflected in a just-completed project that became more involved as it was ongoing.
Like many news organizations, “Matter of Fact” and the 33-owned Hearst television stations underwent some soul-searching following the George Floyd murder two years ago. They wanted to elevate the concerns of communities that often lacked media attention.
Their idea for a “listening tour” turned into a sprawling, four-part series of programs, each 90-minutes long as shown online and edited down to an hour for television outlets that included the A&E network. The first gave a platform to citizens to talk about bias, the second reflected the opinions of people in the arts and academia. The third, which featured O’Brien’s interview with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor about hate speech, illustrated grassroots efforts at improving relations.
The last program, released for the Juneteenth holiday last month, focused on profiling a new generation of activists. Among those featured were Tarana Burke of the #MeToo movement, Parkland school shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez and gymnast Simone Biles.
“It’s easy to go through the history books and just say, ‘Oh, here’s people everybody knows already,’” O’Brien said. “It was also very important to find people working in a modern-day context, so it wasn’t just a historic look back at civil rights in the 1960s.”
Besides television and online, including weekly “Matter of Fact” episodes, material gathered from the “listening tour” was used in Hearst magazines like Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping and Oprah.
So it’s not primarily insomniacs who see the work.
Hearst executives are always on the lookout for upgrades, television stations that might want to present “Matter of Fact” more in the light of day. O’Brien lets the “suits” worry about that.
“I wouldn’t call them pretty lousy time slots because we have viewers there,” she said. “We would call them challenges that we would love to overcome.” | https://www.krqe.com/entertainment-news/soledad-obrien-show-makes-impression-in-off-hours-time-slot/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:28 | en | 0.96723 |
ATLANTA (AP) — A federal appeals court overturned a lower court ruling and allowed Georgia’s restrictive 2019 abortion law to take effect immediately Wednesday. The decision was expected after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that there is no constitutional right to an abortion.
The law, which had been barred from taking effect, bans most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” is present. Cardiac activity can be detected by ultrasound in cells within an embryo that will eventually become the heart as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, before many pregnancies are detected.
The Georgia law includes exceptions for rape and incest, as long as a police report is filed. It also allows for later abortions when the mother’s life is at risk or a serious medical condition renders a fetus unviable.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a Mississippi case that overturned Roe v. Wade allows the law to take effect. Circuit Court Chief Judge William Pryor wrote that the ruling in that case “makes clear no right to abortion exists under the Constitution, so Georgia may prohibit them.”
The appeals court also rejected arguments that a provision of the law that changes the definition of “natural person” is unconstitutionally vague. The “personhood” provision gives a fetus the same legal rights as people have after birth.
Normally, the ruling wouldn’t take effect for weeks. But the court issued a second order Wednesday allowing the law to take effect immediately.
The National Abortion Federation listed 10 clinics that were providing surgical abortions in Georgia before the ruling. At least one clinic in Savannah had already closed following the Supreme Court ruling.
Andrea Young, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, which sued to challenge the law on behalf of Georgia abortion providers and an advocacy group, said the organization “will continue to fight for abortion rights for the women of Georgia with all of the tools at our disposal.”
The ruling promises to intensify partisan fault lines in Georgia’s high-profile midterm elections for governor and U.S. Senate.
Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, signed the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, or LIFE Act, in 2019. He has avoided saying whether he favors further restrictions, although he at one time staked out an absolutist position that wouldn’t have provided exceptions for rape or incest.
As he looks toward the general election in November against Democrat Stacey Abrams, Kemp has emphasized what his staffers characterize as a broader “life” agenda, noting his support for extending the Medicaid health insurance program to cover poor mothers for a full year after birth. Kemp staffers also question the feasibility of passing a more restrictive law, noting the current law passed by only one vote.
“Since taking office in 2019, our family has committed to serving Georgia in a way that cherishes and values each and every human being, and today’s decision by the 11th Circuit affirms our promise to protect life at all stages,” Kemp said Wednesday.
Abrams said “women are now second-class citizens” and promised to fight to repeal the law if elected. With a legislature even she acknowledges is likely to remain in Republican hands, that could be difficult.
“Today, Kemp achieved his goal: to endanger women, strip away our right to choose, and deny our ability to determine what is best for our bodies,” Abrams said. “In a state where pregnancy is too often fatal, he is proud of denying women the right to make medical decisions for themselves.”
In the Senate contest, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker have for weeks highlighted their differences on abortion.
Campaigning Wednesday ahead of the 11th Circuit ruling, Walker said it’s “a problem” that there’s no national ban, and he’s said previously that “there’s no exception in my mind” that should allow women to terminate pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or those that threaten a woman’s life or health. Still, Walker stopped short of saying he’d vote for a ban in a Republican-controlled Congress.
Warnock, who calls himself a “pro-choice pastor,” said on Twitter that the 11th Circuit decision “allows (Georgia) politicians to take away women’s ability to make their own health care decisions. I will never stop fighting to restore the rights of women to determine and access their own care.”
Throughout the 16-page opinion, Pryor used the term “abortionist” to refer to those who challenged the law. His predecessor as 11th Circuit chief judge, now-Senior Judge Ed Carnes, noted in a 2018 opinion in an Alabama abortion case that some find the term pejorative. He also noted some consider the terms “physicians” and “doctors” inappropriate for people who perform abortions. As a result, he chose to “take a middle course and use the term ‘practitioner,’ except where one of the other terms appears in a quotation,” he wrote.
The term appeared three times in Alito’s majority opinion overturning Roe.
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Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Athens, Georgia, and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed reporting. | https://www.krqe.com/health/appeals-court-says-georgia-abortion-law-should-take-effect/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:34 | en | 0.964145 |
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — Anti-abortion activists from across the U.S. converged in southern New Mexico on Tuesday to protest relocation plans by the Mississippi clinic at the center of the court battle that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, but New Mexico’s governor vowed not to back down from her support for access to abortions.
Democrat Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for reelection, tweeted hours before the protest that access remains legal and safe in her state.
“New Mexicans understand the right to make personal decisions about one’s own reproductive health care — and we won’t go back,” she wrote.
The crowd gathered in triple-digit temperatures in the southern city of Las Cruces, near the location where Jackson Women’s Health Organization plans to open its new clinic next week.
Some held signs that read “Pray to End Abortion” and “Vote Your Values.” They heard from the leader of a local Catholic parish, a university student group and activists from Texas and Mississippi who talked about their experiences shutting down abortion clinics elsewhere.
Terri Herring, president of Mississippi-based group Choose Life, told the crowd about more than two dozen pregnancy centers in her state that have helped mothers who were considering abortion but opted to have their babies instead.
“We need to make this a refuge for women and their children,” she said of New Mexico, before organizers of the rally announced they would open a Guiding Star Project clinic next door to the planned abortion clinic. The facility will provide fertility care, pregnancy and childbirth support services as alternatives to the abortions planned for the former Mississippi clinic next door.
Leah Jacobson, founder and CEO of The Guiding Star Project, told the crowd that the root causes of what is driving women to abortion need to be addressed and that a culture shift is needed to counter what she described as a loss of “bodily autonomy through devices, pills, drugs and surgeries.”
“If we love life, if we want to protect women and children, we need to understand that there is something fundamentally broken about how we are treating motherhood in our culture,” she said, pointing to the lack of maternity leave or breastfeeding spaces, among other challenges. “How about we actually take the needs of women into consideration?”
New Mexico’s Democratic-controlled Legislature supports access, and state lawmakers last year repealed a dormant 1969 law that outlawed most abortion procedures as felonies, ensuring access to abortion even after the Supreme Court rolled back the national guarantee.
Preparations are well underway for the new abortion clinic, with furniture and equipment from Jackson Women’s Health Organization moved from Mississippi, and it is due to open soon.
“We’re just trying to tie up loose ends,” Diane Derzis, owner of Las Cruces Women’s Health Organization, told The Associated Press on Monday.
Derzis said Tuesday’s demonstration against the abortion clinic didn’t bother her since protests have gone for years at other clinics she has owned in Mississippi and elsewhere.
“It’s not a big deal,” she said. “That’s life at an abortion clinic.”
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Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan, in Albuquerque, and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report. | https://www.krqe.com/health/crowd-protests-relocation-of-abortion-clinic-to-new-mexico/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:41 | en | 0.959156 |
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly slipped Thursday as optimism over earnings was tempered by persistent concerns about inflation and the Chinese economy, despite an overnight rally on Wall Street.
Eyes are on the Bank of Japan, set to wrap up a two-day policy meeting, although analysts expect no major changes.
The BOJ has not indicated it will follow the lead of other central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, in raising interest rates to curb inflation. Japan has suffered years of stagnation, when deflation or falling prices was a major problem.
“After the strong showing in Wall Street over the past two days, particularly so for tech stocks, markets may take somewhat of a breather. Lingering caution persists for Chinese equities amid both virus and property sector risks,” Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist at IG in Singapore, said in a commentary.
Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.1% to 27,657.53 in morning trading. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.1% to 6,751.00. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.4% to 2,397.33. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 1.3% to 20,612.10, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% to 3,286.83.
A mid-week rally driven by strong corporate earnings appeared to be losing steam, laden by worries over energy supplies in Europe and slowing growth in China.
“Geopolitical concerns around the Russia/Ukraine conflict continue to weigh on markets as the crisis shows no signs of slowing down. Also weighing on sentiment were reports that Google was pausing new hires for two weeks. This is part of an emerging trend where tech giants are hitting the brakes on hiring,” said Anderson Alves at ActivTrades.
“Inflation concerns, ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and lingering caution over the pandemic are adding fuel to recession fears and weighing on the outlook for companies,” he said in a report.
Wall Street ended Wednesday with gains as investors welcomed another batch of encouraging profit reports from U.S. companies.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% to 3,959.90. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2% to 31,874.84, while the Nasdaq gained 1.6% to 11,897.65. Smaller company stocks also gained ground. The Russell 2000 climbed 1.6% to 1,827.95.
“It’s not exactly the most robust day, but it’s nice to follow up on a day like yesterday,” said Ross Mayfield, investment strategist at Baird. “It feels like over the past couple of months good days have given it all back the very next day.”
Profit reporting season is ramping up, with more types of industries offering details about how high inflation and worries about a possible recession are affecting their customers.
For now, traders appear to be encouraged by what they’re hearing. Companies so far have been mostly topping profit expectations. Nasdaq, the company behind its tech-heavy namesake trading exchange, jumped 6.1% after delivering stronger profit and revenue than Wall Street expected.
Netflix climbed 7.4% higher after it said it lost fewer subscribers during the spring than expected. It’s the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 for the year, though, down by nearly two thirds.
Other tech-oriented companies also made strong gains. Amazon climbed 3.9%, and Nvidia jumped 4.8%.
On the losing end was Baker Hughes, which tumbled 8.3% after it reported weaker results for the spring than analysts expected. Northern Trust fell 4% after its profit fell short of forecasts.
To counter inflation at four-decade highs, the U.S. Federal Reserve has already hiked rates three times this year, by increasing margins each time. When it meets next week, investors say the only question is if it raises its key rate by another 0.75 percentage points or opts for a mega-hike of a full percentage point.
Such increases to rates make borrowing more expensive, which slows the economy. The hope is that the Federal Reserve and other central banks can deftly find the middle ground where the economy slows enough to whip inflation but not enough to cause a recession.
Some parts of the economy are already slowing because of the rate hikes, particularly the housing industry. A report on Wednesday morning showed that sales of previously occupied homes weakened last month by more than economists expected. Higher mortgage rates are dragging on the industry, along with high prices for homes.
In the bond market, the yield on the two-year Treasury, which tends to follow expectations for the Fed’s actions, edged up to 3.25% from 3.24% late Tuesday. The 10-year yield rose to 3.03% from 3.01% late Tuesday.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude shed $1.96 to $102.26 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It shed 86 cents to $99.88 per barrel on Wednesday. Brent crude, the international pricing standard, lost 76 cents to $106.16 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched up to 138.35 Japanese yen from 138.25 yen. The euro cost $1.0206, up from $1.0179.
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AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Alex Veiga contributed.
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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/asian-markets-climb-tracking-profit-driven-gains-on-wall-st/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:47 | en | 0.94838 |
SOMERSET, Mass. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced modest new steps to combat climate change and promised more robust action to come, saying, “This is an emergency and I will look at it that way.”
The president stopped short, though, of declaring a formal climate emergency, which Democrats and environmental groups have been seeking after an influential Democratic senator quashed hopes for sweeping legislation to address global warming. Biden hinted such a step could be coming.
“Let me be clear: Climate change is an emergency,” Biden said. He pledged to use his power as president “to turn these words into formal, official government actions through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that a president possesses.”
When it comes to climate change, he added, “I will not take no for an answer.”
Biden delivered his pledge at a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts. The former Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, is shifting to offshore wind power manufacturing, and Biden chose it as the embodiment of the transition to clean energy that he is seeking but has struggled to realize in the first 18 months of his presidency.
Executive actions announced Wednesday will bolster the domestic offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Mexico and Southeast, as well as spend $2.3 billion to help communities cope with soaring temperatures through programs administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies.
The trip comes as historic temperatures bake Europe and the United States. Wildfires raged in Spain and France, and Britain on Tuesday shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered. At least 100 million Americans face heat advisories in the next few days as cities around the U.S. sweat through more intense and longer-lasting heat waves that scientists blame on global warming.
Calls for a national emergency declaration to address the climate crisis have been rising among activists and Democratic lawmakers after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., last week scuttled talks on a long-delayed legislative package.
Biden said Wednesday the option remains under consideration. “I’m running the traps on the totality of the authority I have,” he told reporters after returning to Washington. “Unless Congress acts in the meantime, I can do more” on climate, he said. “Because not enough is being done now.”
Biden said he’s been told that some of his legislative proposal on climate remains “in play,” but he acknowledged he has not spoken to Manchin.
Gina McCarthy, Biden’s climate adviser, said Biden is not “shying away” from treating climate as an emergency. “The president wants to make sure that we’re doing it right, that we’re laying it out, and that we have the time we need to get this worked out,” she told reporters on Air Force One.
Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who attended Wednesday’s event, said he was “confident that the president is ultimately ready to do whatever it takes in order to deal with this crisis.”
Environmental groups were less hopeful. “The world’s burning up from California to Croatia, and right now Biden’s fighting fire with the trickle from a garden hose,” said Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
An emergency declaration on climate would allow Biden to redirect federal resources to bolster renewable energy programs that would help accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels such as coal and oil. The declaration also could be used as a legal basis to block oil and gas drilling or other projects, although such actions would likely be challenged in court by energy companies or Republican-led states.
Such a declaration would be similar to the one issued by Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who declared a national emergency to build a wall on the southern border when lawmakers refused to allocate money for that effort. A federal appeals court later ruled Trump’s action was illegal.
Some legal scholars said an emergency order on climate could face a similar fate. The Supreme Court last month limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.
Declaring a climate emergency “is a way to get around Congress and specifically Joe Manchin. That’s not what emergency powers are for,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Biden pledged last week to take significant executive actions on climate after months-long discussions between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., came to a standstill. The West Virginia senator cited stubbornly high inflation as the reason for his hesitation, although he has long protected energy interests in his coal- and gas-producing state.
For now, Manchin has said he will only agree to a limited legislative deal on health care and prescription drugs. The White House has indicated it wants Congress to take that deal, and Biden will address the climate issue on his own.
Biden visited the dusty grounds of the former Brayton Point power plant, which closed in 2017 after burning coal for more than five decades. The plant will now make subsea transmission cables to bring power generated by offshore wind to the electrical grid.
A few dozen people listened in the blazing sun as Biden spoke, including McCarthy, members of Congress and Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, a former Massachusetts senator.
A new report says the U.S. and other major carbon-polluting nations are falling short on pledges to fight climate change. Among the 10 biggest carbon emitters, only the European Union has enacted polices close to or consistent with international goals to limit warming to just a few more tenths of a degree Celsius, scientists and experts say.
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Daly reported from Washington. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/biden-to-announce-climate-actions-at-ex-coal-plant-in-mass/ | 2022-07-21T06:11:54 | en | 0.963735 |
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s head office on Wednesday proposed that member states cut their gas use by 15% over the coming months as the bloc braced for a possible full Russian cutoff of natural gas supplies that could add a big chill to the upcoming winter.
While the initial cuts would be voluntary, the Commission also asked for the power to impose mandatory reductions across the bloc in the event of an EU-wide emergency caused by what Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saw as a deliberate attempt by President Vladimir Putin to weaponize gas exports.
“Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon. And therefore, in any event, whether it’s a partial major cutoff of Russian gas or total cutoff of Russian gas, Europe needs to be ready,” von der Leyen said.
EU member states will discuss the measures at an emergency meeting of energy ministers next Tuesday. For them to be approved, national capitals would have to consider yielding some of their powers over energy policy to Brussels.
“We have to be proactive. We have to prepare for a potential full disruption of Russian gas. And this is a likely scenario. That’s what we’ve seen in the past,” von der Leyen said, adding that Kremlin-controlled Gazprom showed scant interest in market forces and instead played a political game to choke off the EU.
Saving 15% on gas use between August and next March will not come all that easy. The European Commission signaled its proposed target would require EU countries as a whole to triple the rationing achieved to date since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started Feb. 24.
“EU-level savings so far have been equal to 5%,” EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson said. “This is clearly not enough.”
Wednesday’s proposal comes at a time when a blog post from the International Monetary Fund has warned about the weaknesses of the 27-nation bloc.
“The partial shutoff of gas deliveries is already affecting European growth, and a full shutdown could be substantially more severe,” the IMFBlog warned. It added that gross domestic product in member nations like Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic could shrink by up to 6%.
Italy, a country already facing serious economic problems, “would also face significant impacts.”
EU economic forecasts last week showed that Russia’s war in Ukraine is expected to wreak havoc with economic recovery for the foreseeable future, with lower annual growth and record-high inflation. The disruptions in Russian energy trade threaten to trigger a recession in the bloc just as it is recovering from a pandemic-induced slump
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU has approved bans on Russian coal and most oil to take effect later this year, but it did not include natural gas because the 27-nation bloc depends on gas to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes. Now, von der Leyen is convinced Putin will cut off gas anyway to try to wreak economic and political havoc in Europe this winter.
“Putin is trying to push us around this winter and this he will dramatically fail if we stick together,” said von der Leyen.
There are fears that the energy crisis will get worse if Moscow does not restart the key Nord Stream pipeline to Germany after scheduled maintenance ends Thursday. And Putin left everyone second-guessing on Wednesday.
The Russian leader questioned the quality of the repair work done on the Nord Stream 1 turbine. “They say that they will return these machines — one, in any case — but in what capacity they will return, what are the technical parameters after leaving this scheduled repair? Maybe they will take it and turn it off at some point, and Nord Stream 1 will stop,” he said.
The aim of von der Leyen’s plans is to ensure essential industries and services like hospitals can function, while others would have to cut back. That could include lowering heat in public buildings and enticing families to use less energy at home.
EU nations and the Commission have gone on a buying spree to diversify its natural gas sources away from Russia, but they are still expected to fall far short of providing businesses and homes with enough energy in the cold months.
Russia has cut off or reduced gas to a dozen EU countries, and there are fears that the energy crisis will get worse if Moscow does not restart a key pipeline to Germany after scheduled maintenance ends Thursday.
The energy squeeze is also reviving decades-old political challenges for Europe. While the EU has gained centralized authority over monetary, trade, antitrust and farm policies, national capitals have jealously guarded their powers over energy matters.
The European Commission has spent decades chipping away at this bastion of national sovereignty, using previous supply disruptions to secure gradual gains in EU clout. The five-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine is now the starkest test of whether member countries are willing to cede more of their energy powers.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, member states did join in common action to help develop and buy vaccines in massive quantities in an unprecedented show of common resolve in the health sector.
“We have learned our lesson from the pandemic. We know that in such kind of a crisis, our worst enemy is fragmentation,” said von der Leyen.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/eu-draws-up-energy-plan-in-case-of-russian-gas-cutoff/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:02 | en | 0.956683 |
NEW YORK (AP) — Donations from Fidelity Charitable climbed 11% to a record $4.8 billion for the first half of 2022, the nation’s largest grantmaker announced Wednesday.
The growth in payouts from Fidelity’s donor-advised funds — which let donors enjoy tax deductions and investment gains on their donations before they give the money away — paints a far sunnier picture about philanthropy than other recent reports.
The Giving USA report released last month found 2021 donations were down 0.7% when adjusted for inflation. That was a sign that the sector is generally struggling to keep pace with increased needs caused by higher prices and global crises like the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
“Individual donors are thoughtful when they contribute to their donor-advised funds, letting the growth of those funds impact their giving,” Fidelity Charitable President Jacob Pruitt told The Associated Press. “They can give more at the end of the day and not only are they giving more, but they’re giving to a variety of different causes.”
Fidelity Charitable donors earmarked more than $128 million in grants to Ukraine aid efforts in the first half of 2022, Pruitt said. Emergency relief organization International Medical Corps saw the number of Fidelity Charitable donors provide them a grant jump more than 1000% compared to the first half of 2021, while chef Jose Andres’ food security nonprofit World Central Kitchen grew more than 500%.
Similarly, Schwab Charitable announced Tuesday that its grants through its donor-advised funds were up 27% to over $4.7 billion in its 2022 fiscal year, which ended on June 30.
Pruitt said Fidelity Charitable has seen some slowing in donations in recent months, but that it’s hard to tell whether that will continue. He said data on the amount of money invested into donor-advised funds in 2022 so far would not be available until the end of the year.
“When the market is down and there is volatility, our donors step up,” he said. “Generosity will continue.”
However, “ Gilded Giving 2022,” a new report on donations released Tuesday by the Institute for Policy Studies, says the increasing popularity of donor-advised funds is distorting philanthropy and the kind of charities that receive money.
Chuck Collins, co-author of the report and the Institute’s director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, said we have entered an era of “top-heavy philanthropy,” where wealthy people dominate charities because the majority of people are struggling economically and are less able to afford to give. He said wealthy people tend to focus on donations to foundations that they control or legacy gifts — large donations to universities and museums that result in buildings being named after them to add to their reputations for generations.
According to the report, donations over $1 million in 2021 went mainly to foundations that the donors controlled, donor-advised funds and colleges and universities. It notes that less than half of American households now donate to charity, down from 68% just 20 years ago.
“The more that wealthy people shape the priorities of philanthropy, the less we see people giving directly to those helping in their communities,” Collins said. “We could see that change with the increase of oversight. We should fix the design flaw.”
Legislation requiring those who use donor-advised funds to finish giving away the money within 15 years in order to maintain their income tax deduction was introduced in the Senate last year by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with the Democrats. Another proposal would let money remain in donor-advised funds for 50 years, but it would not be eligible for an income tax deduction until it is donated.
Fidelity Charitable’s Pruitt said he supports legislation that encourages donors to actively make grants from their donor-advised funds, though he points out that most money in those accounts is already donated within five years.
“The worry,” he said, “is unintended consequences.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/fidelity-charitable-sets-4-8b-record-in-grants-for-6-months/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:09 | en | 0.965921 |
MIAMI (AP) — A jury in Florida has found Tesla just 1% negligent in a fiery crash that killed two teens, for disabling a speed limiter on the electric car.
Tuesday’s verdict placed 90% of the blame on the driver, Barrett Riley, and 9% on his father, James Riley, who brought the lawsuit against Tesla.
It’s the first known case involving a Tesla crash that has gone to trial, said Michael Brooks, acting exective director at the Center for Auto Safety.
Barrett Riley and his friend Edgar Monserrat Martinez were about to graduate from their private school in South Florida when they died in the May 2018 crash near Fort Lauderdale Beach. A backseat passenger was ejected and survived.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined he was driving at 116 mph (186 kph) in a 30 mph (48 kph) zone, and the most likely cause of the crash “was the driver’s loss of control as a result of excessive speed.”
James Riley claimed the crash was “entirely survivable” and that it was the ensuing fire that killed the teenagers, but the judge dismissed his lawsuit’s claim that Tesla designed defective lithium ion batteries that “burst into an uncontrollable and fatal fire” upon impact.
James Riley also said Tesla removed a speed limiter without his permission. He had ordered the instrument installed to prevent his son from driving at more than 85 mph (136 kph).
An investigation found that about a month before the crash, the teen asked workers at Tesla’s Dania Beach dealership to return the car to normal operating mode while it was being serviced.
Tesla denied negligence in disabling the speed limiter. The company argued that the teen’s parents were negligent in allowing him to drive the vehicle “when they were aware of his history of speeding and reckless driving,” according to the judge’s instructions to the jury.
Brooks, at the Center for Auto Safety, said other lawsuits are pending against Tesla involving the vehicle’s autopilot and full self-driving systems.
Jurors recommended awarding the teen’s mother Jenny Riley $6 million for pain and suffering, and $4.5 million to the father, the newspaper reported.
But the apportionment of responsibility means Tesla will only be liable for $105,000, Curt Miner, an attorney representing James Riley, told the South Florida SunSentinel. He did not return an email seeking information on distribution of the jury’s award. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/jury-tesla-just-1-to-blame-for-teen-drivers-fiery-crash/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:15 | en | 0.973502 |
NEW YORK (AP) — When long-haul trucker Deb LaBree sets out on the road to deliver pharmaceuticals, she has strategies to hold down costs. She avoids the West Coast and the Northeast, where diesel prices are highest. She organizes her delivery route to minimize “deadheading” — driving an empty truck in between deliveries.
And if a customer’s load is too far away or they can’t pay more for fuel? She turns the job down.
“It breaks my heart because I either have to say, ‘No, I can’t afford to,’ or ’I can, but you’re going to have to pay some of my fuel to get me there,’ ” LaBree said. “I hate doing both of those things because it’s not the customer’s fault. It’s not our fault.”
The price of diesel fuel has skyrocketed in recent months — much more even than regular gasoline — especially after Russia invaded Ukraine in February. Moscow’s attack led numerous nations to spurn Russian fuel, removing from the market a major source of oil, the main component of diesel fuel, and driving prices drastically up.
For months, motorists have felt the pain of high gasoline prices. Many may not know that they’re also absorbing the impact of much costlier diesel fuel. That’s because the goods consumers buy — from cereal and orange juice to Amazon deliveries of diapers — are delivered by trucks, trains or ships that run on diesel. Those inflated prices are then passed on from company to company until they reach consumers in the form of costlier goods.
“People pay less attention to diesel prices because people aren’t going to the pump and using it,” said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler, a research firm. “But diesel has a more far-reaching impact and is already having a real big impact across the economy.”
Diesel fuel is averaging $5.50 a gallon nationally — up a scorching 68% from a year ago, when it was selling for just $3.27. By comparison, a gallon of regular gasoline is averaging $4.47, up 41% from a year ago.
High gasoline prices have eased somewhat in recent weeks. But diesel has remained chronically high, with American refineries operating near capacity. Unless prices ease, the ripple effects of high diesel fuel could worsen because the costs are deterring some truck companies from accepting jobs unless they can persuade their customers to pay more for fuel.
“There will be more logistical shortages,” said Phil Verleger, a longtime energy economist. “Americans will find more empty shelves and higher prices.”
If they’re not rejecting jobs, many truckers are choosing lighter loads or working longer hours to make up for money lost on fuel, according to interviews with truckers and industry executives. Farmers harvesting hay and planting corn with diesel-fired tractors are absorbing a financial hit. Delivery companies are installing their own fueling pumps to cut costs. Ultimately, consumers are left bearing the burden.
“If you’re a farmer, then your energy costs are higher, and therefore it’s costing more to produce grain, and that’s pushing the price of grain up, and that’s pushing the price of food up,” said Smith, the analyst at Kpler.
Even more than gasoline, high diesel prices are magnifying the costs of goods because the delivery cost has risen so much. Consumer prices soared 9.1% in June compared with 12 months earlier, the government reported last week. The fuel oil portion of the consumer price index nearly doubled from the same time last year.
“Those energy costs are working their way into products, all manner of different consumer products,” Smith noted.
One reason why diesel prices haven’t yet declined as gasoline has is that OPEC nations have slowed their supply of oil, and Middle East oil typically produces more diesel fuel than, say, parts of Texas do. Another factor is that China has reduced its diesel exports, presumably to help achieve its net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goals.
And within the United States, refineries that produce diesel from crude oil are essentially maxed out. The nation has 11 fewer refineries operating today than before the pandemic, according to the American Petroleum Institute. One refinery that had served the East Coast closed after an explosion in 2019 and never re-opened. And some refineries in California are closed for retrofitting to process renewable fuel.
“We use a lot of diesel, probably more than what these refineries can produce,” said Bob Costello, chief economist of the American Trucking Associations.
President Joe Biden’s visit last week to Saudi Arabia was intended, in part, to encourage OPEC to produce more oil, which would mean more diesel fuel globally. Though no major deal was announced, Prince Mohammed bin Salman hinted that Saudi Arabia could potentially produce more oil.
But expecting OPEC to export more oil during high-demand summer months might be unrealistic, said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Tufts University.
“The important thing,” she said, “is to make sure that our allies, together with OPEC, don’t decrease any flows to the market at any junction, especially if we have some kind of disruption.”
Even if American oil and gas producers increase production, tough challenges would remain — namely, finding additional refinery space and then enough pipeline capacity to transport any additional diesel.
In the meantime, some truckers are struggling to adjust while keeping goods moving. Sherri Brumbaugh, who runs a fleet of 90 trucks as head of Garner Trucking, has installed more fuel pumps on-site in Findlay, Ohio, because she can obtain diesel more cheaply than her truckers can on the road.
She also monitors where her drivers are buying fuel to make sure they’re making wise decisions. And she tries to absorb the higher fuel costs herself as much as possible.
But “at some point,” she said, “you’ve got to go to the customer and say, ‘I’ve got to increase this rate.’ ”
Brumbaugh declined to say how much she’s raised rates on her customers, which range from bottled beverage companies to dishwasher manufacturers.
Lately, she said, there’s been less retail freight to haul. “It may be an indication of a recession,” she said. “I hope not.”
Cargo Transporters, which runs 470 trucks and 1,800 trailers, raised its rates, too, and has been turning down some jobs to Florida, where trucks often must return without a load, said Shawn Brown, a company executive. When there’s no cargo on a truck, no one pays the trucking company. But the driver still has to be paid, and fuel is still burned.
“When that trailer’s not loaded and there’s no revenue being generated and a mile is run, we’re eating that,” Brown said.
UPS and FedEx have more than doubled their fuel surcharges on ground deliveries year-over-year, according to calculations by Cowen Research and AFS Logistics.
Farmers also face higher costs. But they can’t easily raise prices, because they often don’t control the price of their goods. Milk and grain prices, for example, are set by the market.
“It’s costing us more for freight to get things delivered to the farm, and it’s costing more to haul things away,” said David Fisher, a dairy farmer in Madrid, New York, who is president of the New York Farm Bureau, which lobbies governments on behalf of farmers. “We’re planting crops and harvesting crops, and the cost of those are going to be higher, but we don’t know if we can recoup those costs.”
To burn less fuel, he’s considered skipping a tillage pass, a maneuver whereby a tractor manipulates soil to enhance crop growth. But doing so would risk having fewer crops to harvest.
A year ago, Fisher was spending $8,000 a week on fuel. This year, he said, the figure reached around $20,000.
“Everybody I talk to has quite a bit of anxiety over these fuel prices,” Fisher said.
Biden has called on Congress and states to suspend their gasoline or diesel taxes for a few months to help alleviate pain for drivers, but Congress appears unwilling to enact a tax holiday. Some states temporarily suspended some taxes on diesel and other motor fuels.
With high diesel prices persisting, LaBree and her husband are working more hours to manage costs. They used to stay on the road for four days and come home to Missouri for three. Now, she said, “we have to stay out for five — sometimes six — days to make up for what we’ve lost from fuel.”
“Most truckers like to think of ourselves as, we’re serving our country, moving goods around to keep America going,” LaBree said. “But at what point are we doing it for free? I can’t run a business that way.” | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/sky-high-diesel-prices-squeeze-truckers-farmers-consumers/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:21 | en | 0.965478 |
A pro-Democratic super PAC is accusing the Federal Election Commission of allowing former President Donald Trump “to continue violating the law” by dragging its feet over a complaint concerning Trump’s teasing of a future White House bid.
In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday and provided in advance to The Associated Press, American Bridge asks a federal judge to compel the commission to take action on its complaint that argues Trump should have been obligated to file a candidacy intent statement within 15 days of receiving contributions or making any expenditure over $5,000.
In March, the group accused Trump of violating federal campaign laws by raising and spending money for a run without officially filing his candidacy — on activities including “payments for events at Trump properties, rallies featuring Mr. Trump … and digital advertising about Mr. Trump’s events and his presumptive 2024 opponent.”
American Bridge is a super political action committee, which means it can raise and spend money but cannot contribute directly to or coordinate with any particular candidate. This group wrote in the lawsuit, filed in Washington, that the commission’s delay is forcing it “to spend more money to level the playing field for a Democratic candidate who has fallen behind against a law-breaking Republican candidate.”
A commission spokesperson on Wednesday declined to comment on the complaint, citing federal law that “requires confidentiality” on enforcement matters until they are resolved.
The FEC has often been criticized as ineffective and slow in handling disputes. The six commissioners — three Democrats and three Republicans — frequently stalemate along party lines, resulting in dismissals of cases.
Last year, the deadlocked commission dropped its inquiry into whether Trump violated campaign finance laws by allegedly instructing his personal lawyer to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to stay quiet before the 2016 election about a sexual relationship they are alleged to have had. In February, the FEC opted not to hold Trump accountable for “soft money” violations that his campaign had previously acknowledged.
American Bridge, in alleging that Trump has already decided to mount a 2024 campaign, has argued the former president “has played footsie” with federal campaign laws, even citing them as reasons for his opaque statements about his intentions. In a recent interview, Trump told New York Magazine that he had already made up his mind about a run, and that the question he was now mulling was whether he’d pull the trigger before or after the November midterm elections.
“Do I go before or after? That will be my big decision,” he said.
Trump aides and allies widely expect him to mount a third presidential run and have been discussing preparations, but they remain divided about when he should make an announcement.
Representatives for Trump didn’t immediately respond to an email message seeking comment Wednesday. Taylor Budowich, a Trump spokesperson, has previously said that American Bridge’s complaint was without merit and accused Democrats of resorting to “cheap gimmicks.”
Because the commission didn’t act on its complaint within 120 days, American Bridge argues that federal election law now permits the group to bring its own civil action against Trump. In addition to giving Trump “a competitive advantage” over potential opponents due to not having to disclose his expenditures, the group argues the commission’s inaction “will only encourage other candidates to evade the requirements of the campaign finance system.”
The process over alleged violations of the “testing the waters” law can take years to unfold. A judge could rule in American Bridge’s favor and order the FEC to take up the complaint. If the commission still didn’t act, American Bridge could sue again, asking a judge to decide the merits of its initial complaint. Similar cases from election cycles past are still winding their way through the courts.
Trump has been teasing the prospect of another run since even before he left office. He has alluded to his plans in nearly every appearance and interview of his post-presidency, telling conservative hosts and Trump-friendly audiences that he is waiting because officially announcing his run would trigger campaign finance laws.
“We may have to run again,” Trump said in South Carolina in March, as he campaigned for two Republican U.S. House candidates. “In 2024, we are going to take back that beautiful, beautiful White House. I wonder who will do that. I wonder. I wonder.”
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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York and Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/suit-faults-fec-for-inaction-on-trumps-teasing-of-2024-run/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:29 | en | 0.972757 |
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government on Wednesday gave the green light to a new nuclear power station that’s expected to generate enough low-carbon electricity to power 6 million homes.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said development consent was granted for the building of the plant, called Sizewell C, on eastern England’s Suffolk coast.
French energy company EDF, which will partly fund the project, has said the plant will generate electricity for at least 60 years and will employ 900 people. The plant will reportedly cost 20 billion pounds ($24 billion).
Authorities say the plant will make a substantial contribution toward Britain’s target of making up to a quarter of the power consumed in the country come from nuclear by 2050.
The U.K. wants to reduce its dependence on imported oil and gas and generate cheaper, cleaner power domestically. The government has said it wants 95% of British electricity to come from low-carbon sources by 2030.
Five of the country’s six existing nuclear plants will be decommissioned within the decade. Sizewell C will be among two new nuclear plants in construction — the other plant, Hinkley C, is expected to open mid-2026 after a series of delays.
Sizewell C has faced opposition from locals and environmental groups, which argue it will damage local nature reserves. Critics have also said nuclear plants are far more expensive and slow to build compared with other renewable energy options.
The campaign group Stop Sizewell C said it will appeal the government’s decision to approve the plant.
“Whether it is the impact on consumers, the massive costs and delays, the outstanding technical questions or the environmental impacts, it remains a bad project and a very bad risk,” the group said. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/uk-government-approves-new-nuclear-power-station/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:36 | en | 0.94899 |
LONDON (AP) — Inflation in the United Kingdom has accelerated to a new 40-year high, driven by rising food and fuel prices that are contributing to a cost-of-living crisis.
Consumer prices rose 9.4% this year through June, up from 9.1% the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The new figure is the highest since 1982, when inflation peaked at 11%.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has boosted food and energy prices around the world, with shipments of oil, natural gas, grain and cooking oil disrupted. That has added to rising prices that began last year as the global economy started to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said Tuesday that the bank is likely to consider raising interest rates by half a percentage point at its next meeting to help control inflation. The bank has raised rates five times since December, with the last increase a quarter-point in June that sent its key rate to 1.25%.
“We have been clear that we see the balance of risks to inflation as on the upside,” Bailey said in a speech. “Here, I would pick out the risks from domestic price and wage setting, and this explains why at the … last meeting we adopted language which made clear that if we see signs of greater persistence of inflation, and price and wage setting would be such signs, we will have to act forcefully.”
The biggest contributor to inflation is the soaring cost of gasoline and diesel fuel, with motor fuel prices jumping 42.3% in the past year. Gasoline cost 184 pence a liter ($8.37 a gallon) in June, the statistics office said.
Food prices rose 9.8% over the year, driven by the rising cost of eggs, dairy products, vegetables and meat.
Consumer prices are soaring worldwide, with U.S. inflation jumping to a new four-decade high in June, at 9.1%, while the 19 countries that use the euro saw it reach 8.6% last month. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/uk-inflation-surges-to-new-40-year-high-of-9-4/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:43 | en | 0.970968 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is putting pressure on Mexico over energy policies that Washington says unfairly favor Mexico’s state-owned electricity and oil companies over American competitors and clean-energy suppliers.
The U.S. is demanding talks to resolve the dispute, starting a process Wednesday that could end in trade sanctions against Mexico.
“We have repeatedly expressed serious concerns about a series of changes in Mexico’s energy policies and their consistency with Mexico’s commitments,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement. She said “U.S. companies continue to face unfair treatment in Mexico.”
Mexico acknowledged Wednesday it had received a similar request for consultations from Canada. Mexico’s Economy Department said because the Canadian request “has certain elements in common” with the U.S. request, Mexico “will seek to maintain a coordinated process with both trading partners.”
Among the specific issues in dispute is an amendment to Mexican law last year that the United States says gives an unfair edge to electricity produced by Mexico’s state-owned utility Federal Electricity Commission over energy from private companies and over cleaner sources such as wind and solar.
The United States also protests a 2019 regulation that gives only state oil and gas company Petroleos Mexicanos extra time to comply with tougher environmental standards limiting the sulfur allowed in automotive diesel fuel.
The U.S. also accused Mexico of delaying, rejecting or failing to act on private companies’ applications for permits to operate in the energy business and of revoking or suspending existing permits.
“Mexico’s policies have largely cut off U.S. and other investment in the country’s clean energy infrastructure, including significant steps to roll back reforms Mexico previously made to meet its climate goals under the Paris Agreement,” Tai’s office said in a statement.
The Mexican government tried to downplay the controversy, presenting it as an ordinary process between countries.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Wednesday relations with the U.S. government were good and that the dispute was driven by Mexican companies opposed to his administration and who lobby on the issue.
If the two countries cannot reach an agreement after 75 days of talks, the U.S. can request intervention by a dispute resolution panel under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA, that could result in sanctions against Mexico if the United States prevails. The pact, negotiated by President Donald Trump, replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.
“The government of Mexico expresses its willingness to reach a mutually satisfactory solution during the consultation phase,” the Economy Ministry said in a statement.
That ministry, which will lead the negotiations, pointed out that this is the fourth time this mechanism has been used since the free-trade agreement went into effect two years ago. It was first employed by the U.S. against Canada over milk quotas, then by Canada against the U.S. over tariffs on Canadian solar panels. Mexico and Canada used it to challenge the U.S. interpretation of a provision about where auto parts have to originate to qualify for duty-free status under the deal.
López Obrador said there was “no complaint” on the subject during his meeting with U.S. and Mexican businessmen in Washington earlier this month and that he told Biden that Mexico is investing in the update of hydroelectric plants and will create new solar plants in the northern border.
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Verza reported from Mexico City. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/us-demands-talks-on-mexican-energy-policies-it-calls-unfair/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:50 | en | 0.966834 |
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes slowed for the fifth consecutive month in June as higher mortgage rates and rising prices kept many home hunters on the sidelines.
Existing home sales fell 5.4% last month from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.12 million, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday.
That’s lower than the 5.37 million home sales pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Sales fell 14.2% from June last year.
After climbing to a 6.49 million annual rate in January, sales have fallen to the slowest pace since June 2020, near the start of the pandemic, when they were running at an annualized rate of 4.77 million homes. Excluding the pandemic-related slowdown, sales in June were running at the slowest pace since January 2019.
Even as home sales slowed, home prices kept climbing in June. The national median home price jumped 13.4% in June from a year earlier to $416,000. That’s an all-time high according to data going back to 1999, NAR said. Despite the increase, home prices are not climbing as much as they were earlier this year.
“With each passing month it appears price appreciation is less strong than earlier months,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.
The June’s sales report is the late evidence that the housing market, a key driver of economic growth, is slowing as homebuyers grapple with sharply higher mortgage rates than a year ago.
“A combination of higher prices and higher mortgage rates clearly has shifted the dynamics in the housing market,” Yun said. “Home sales will only begin to stabilize once mortgage rates begin to stabilize.”
The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate home loan climbed to 5.51% last week, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. A year ago it averaged 2.88%.
Mortgage rates have been climbing in response to a sharp increase in 10-year Treasury yields, reflecting expectations of higher interest rates overall as the Federal Reserve raises its benchmark rate in a bid to quell the highest inflation in decades.
Even with higher mortgage rates straining affordability, homes that sold didn’t stay on the market for long. On average, homes sold in just 14 days of hitting the market last month, the fastest sales pace tracked by the NAR. It was 16 days in May. Before the pandemic, homes typically sold more than 30 days after being listed for sale.
House hunters able to navigate the impact of higher mortgage rates had a wider selection of homes to choose from last month, at least. The number of properties for sale jumped 9.6% from May to 1.26 million, and rose 2.4% from June last year — the first annual increase in three years, Yun said.
Still, at the current sales pace, the level of for-sale properties amounts to a 3-month supply, the NAR said. That’s up from 2.6 months in May, and 2.5 months a year ago. That’s still short of the 5- to 6-month supply that reflects a more balanced market between buyers and sellers.
Despite the still-tight supply of homes for sale, rising mortgage rates and prices, first-time buyers accounted for 30% of sales last month, NAR said. That’s up from 27% in May, but still low by historical standards, when first-time buyers made up as much as 40% or more of transactions.
Real estate investors and other buyers able to buy a home with just cash, sidestepping the need to rely on financing, accounted for 25% of all sales last month, NAR said. | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/us-home-sales-fell-in-june-as-prices-reach-new-heights/ | 2022-07-21T06:12:58 | en | 0.976293 |
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to force nearly 20 companies that he alleges contaminated the environment with chemicals known as PFAS to reimburse the state for investigations and cleanup efforts.
The lawsuit, filed in Dane County circuit court, names 18 companies as defendants, including 3M Company, Tyco Fire Products LP, and BASF Corporation. The filing alleges the defendants knew or should have known that their products would have a dangerous impact on the public’s health and environment.
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages as well as reimbursement for the costs of investigations, cleanup and remediation.
“To this day, the State continues to take necessary actions to protect its natural resources and its residents from harm caused by PFAS contamination,” the lawsuit states. “The State and its taxpayers will need to spend billions of dollars remediating the dangerous PFAS contamination caused by Defendants’ wrongful, deceptive and tortious conduct.”
3M communications manager Sean Lynch said in a statement the company acted responsibly and will “vigorously defend its record of environmental stewardship.” Roberto Nelson, a spokesman for BASF, said the company doesn’t believe the lawsuit has merit. Tyco spokeswoman Karen Marie Tognarelli said in a statement that the company is working to clean up PFAS contamination and the lawsuit won’t stop it from “doing the right thing and leading on the PFAS clean up.”
PFAS is an abbreviation for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The chemicals were developed as coatings to protect consumer goods from stains, water and corrosion. Nonstick cookware, carpets, outdoor gear and food packaging are among items that contain the chemicals. They also are an ingredient in firefighting foams.
They’re often described as “forever chemicals” because some don’t degrade naturally and are believed to be capable of lingering indefinitely in the environment. Research suggests that they may cause health problems in humans.
PFAS contamination is a widespread problem in Wisconsin. A host of communities, including Marinette, the town of Campbell on French Island, Madison and Wausau have discovered the chemicals in their water.
The state Department of Natural Resources’ policy board adopted limits on PFAS in drinking and surface water in February. The board refused to impose limits for groundwater, leaving the chemicals unregulated in wells.
Kaul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit in Marinette County in March against Johnson Controls and Tyco Fire Productsalleging their firefighting foam led to PFAS contamination in the area. That lawsuit is still pending.
The new filing comes as Kaul faces what could be a bruising reelection bid this fall. Three Republicans — Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, former state Rep. Adam Jarchow and attorney Karen Mueller — are looking to take his job. The GOP primary is Aug. 9 and the general election is Nov. 8.
Tyco’s Tognarelli said in her statement that the lawsuit “appears to be about politics and a fast approaching election more than it is about public health or the environment.” | https://www.krqe.com/news/business/wisconsin-ag-sues-18-companies-over-pfas-contamination/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:05 | en | 0.967891 |
WALTERBORO, S.C. (AP) — Alex Murdaugh pleads not guilty to murdering wife and son, lawyers agree to keep evidence secret amid media attention.
Alex Murdaugh pleads not guilty to murdering wife and son, lawyers agree to keep evidence secret amid media attention
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WALTERBORO, S.C. (AP) — The once-powerful and now disbarred South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he murdered his wife and son 13 months ago, with one of his defense attorneys calling for a speedy trial to clear his name and prod authorities to “go for the real killers.”
Wearing a white face mask beneath his shaved head and ankle chains above shiny leather shoes, the 54-year-old Murdaugh made his first court appearance in Colleton County since being indicted in the murder case last week. Despite his not guilty plea, he agreed to remain jailed without bond.
One of his lawyers, Dick Harpootlian, said the defense team wanted to avoid a bond hearing that might reveal new information about the killings and risk prejudicing potential jurors when the case goes to trial. He also said Murdaugh, already saddled with $7 million in bond on unrelated criminal charges, can’t afford to put up cash for his release pending trial.
Murdaugh has been behind bars since October, charged with financial crimes and several other misdeeds that were uncovered after the killings of his wife Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, at the family’s Colleton County hunting estate in June 2021.
Harpootlian told a judge Wednesday that Murdaugh wants to stand trial within the next three to four months to show that investigators from South Carolina’s State Law Enforcement Division targeted the wrong man.
“He believes that the killer or killers are still at large and this would allow SLED to put this behind them and go for the real killers,” Harpootlian said.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters, a deputy state attorney general, replied that trying the case by January or sooner would be “very aggressive.”
“The evidence in this case is substantial and it all points back to Alex Murdaugh,” Waters said. “There is forensic evidence as well as other evidence of his guilt of these murders.”
Circuit Judge Clifton Newman made no rulings in court other than denying bond for Murdaugh. He said he would issue written orders later on the speedy trial request as well as a request for a gag order to prohibit lawyers and investigators in the case from speaking to news outlets.
Murdaugh is charged with two counts of murder and two counts of possessing a weapon during a violent crime. The indictment alleges that he fatally shot his wife with a rifle and used a shotgun to kill his son.
Authorities have released no evidence of how police linked Murdaugh to the deaths after 13 months of investigation. And the hearing Wednesday provided no clues as to why a man who had no criminal history and was part of a wealthy, well-connected family that dominated the legal community in the tiny town of Hampton might have wanted to kill his own family members.
Authorities have been tight-lipped since the start of the investigation. Last year, they released the late-night 911 call in which Murdaugh reported finding the bodies of his wife and son outside by the dog kennels on his estate. The coroner said both victims had been shot multiple times.
Newman, the judge who presided over Murdaugh’s hearing Wednesday, had previously denied bond for Murdaugh on the financial crimes charges. A different judge later set bond at $7 million but Murdaugh was unable to pay it and has remained in jail. His lawyers have complained several times that the bond was set too high, and said that because of lawsuits and frozen assets Murdaugh couldn’t even afford to buy underwear from the jail store.
If convicted of murder, Murdaugh faces 30 years to life in prison without parole. Under state law, prosecutors could also choose to seek the death penalty because more than one person was killed.
The four new indictments connected to the slayings added to a pile of 80 other charges lodged against Murdaugh by investigators who have scrutinized every part of his life over the past year. No trial dates have been set for any of the cases.
Prosecutors said the once-prominent attorney stole more than $8 million in settlements and other money from clients, committed fraud and lied to police by trying to arrange his own death so his surviving son could collect a $10 million life insurance policy. Murdaugh was also charged last month with co-running a $2 million money laundering and drug ring.
The murder charges and other cases are being prosecuted by the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office because of links Murdaugh has to the local 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office. The office’s jurisdiction includes Colleton County and Hampton County, where Murdaugh’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather were the elected prosecutors for 87 consecutive years. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/alex-murdaugh-pleads-not-guilty-to-murdering-wife-and-son/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:19 | en | 0.985768 |
DELTA, Utah (AP) — The coal plant is closing. In this tiny Utah town surrounded by cattle, alfalfa fields and scrub-lined desert highways, hundreds of workers over the next few years will be laid off — casualties of environmental regulations and competition from cheaper energy sources.
Yet across the street from the coal piles and furnace, beneath dusty fields, another transformation is underway that could play a pivotal role in providing clean energy and replace some of those jobs.
Here in the rural Utah desert, developers plan to create caverns in ancient salt dome formations underground where they hope to store hydrogen fuel at an unprecedented scale. The undertaking is one of several projects that could help determine how big a role hydrogen will play globally in providing reliable, around-the-clock, carbon-free energy in the future.
What sets the project apart from other renewable energy ventures is it’s about seasonal storage more than it’s about producing energy. The salt caves will function like gigantic underground batteries, where energy in the form of hydrogen gas can be stored for when it’s needed.
“The world is watching this project,” said Rob Webster, a co-founder of Magnum Development, one of the companies spearheading the effort. “These technologies haven’t been scaled up to the degree that they will be for this.”
In June, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $504 million loan guarantee to help finance the “Advanced Clean Energy Storage” project — one of its first loans since President Joe Biden revived the Obama-era program known for making loans to Tesla and Solyndra. The support is intended to help convert the site of a 40-year-old coal plant to a facility that burns cleanly-made hydrogen by 2045.
Amid polarizing energy policy debates, the proposal is unique for winning support from a broad coalition that includes the Biden administration, Sen. Mitt Romney and the five other Republicans who make up Utah’s congressional delegation, rural county commissioners and power providers. Biden was set to announce new actions on climate change Wednesday during an event in Massachusetts at a former coal-fired power plant that is shifting to a renewable energy hub.
Renewable energy advocates see the Utah project as a potential way to ensure reliability as more of the electrical grid becomes powered by intermittent renewable energy in the years ahead.
In 2025, the initial fuel for the plant will be a mix of hydrogen and natural gas. It will thereafter transition to running entirely on hydrogen by 2045. Skeptics worry that could be a ploy to prolong the use of fossil fuels for two decades. Others say they support investing in clean, carbon-free hydrogen projects, but worry doing so may actually create demand for “blue” or “gray” hydrogen. Those are names given to hydrogen produced using natural gas.
“Convincing everyone to fill these same pipes and plants with hydrogen instead (of fossil fuels) is a brilliant move for the gas industry,” said Justin Mikula, a fellow focused on energy transition at New Consensus, a think tank.
Unlike carbon capture or gray hydrogen, the project will transition to ultimately not requiring fossil fuels. Chevron in June reversed its plans to invest in the project. Creighton Welch, a company spokesman, said in a statement that it didn’t reach the standards by which the oil and gas giant evaluates its investments in “lower carbon businesses.”
As utilities transition and increasingly rely on intermittent wind and solar, grid operators are confronting new problems, producing excess power in winter and spring and less than needed in summer. The supply-demand imbalance has given rise to fears about potential blackouts and sparked trepidation about weaning further off fossil fuel sources.
This project converts excess wind and solar power to a form that can be stored. Proponents of clean hydrogen hope they can bank energy during seasons when supply outpaces demand and use it when it’s needed in later seasons.
Here’s how it will work: solar and wind will power electrolyzers that split water molecules to create hydrogen. Energy experts call it “green hydrogen” because producing it emits no carbon. Initially, the plant will run on 30% hydrogen and 70% natural gas. It plans to transition to 100% hydrogen by 2045.
When consumers require more power than they can get from renewables, the hydrogen will be piped across the street to the site of the Intermountain Power Plant and burned to power turbines, similar to how coal is used today. That, in theory, makes it a reliable complement to renewables.
Many in rural Delta hope turning the town into a hydrogen epicenter will allow it to avoid the decline afflicting many towns near shuttered coal plants, including the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona.
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But some worry using energy to convert energy — rather than sending it directly to consumers — is costlier than using renewables themselves or fossil fuels like coal.
Though Michael Ducker, Mitsubishi Power’s head of hydrogen infrastructure, acknowledges green hydrogen is costlier than wind, solar, coal or natural gas, he said hydrogen’s price tag shouldn’t be compared to other fuels, but instead to storage technologies like lithium-ion batteries.
For Intermountain Power Agency, the hydrogen plans are the culmination of years of discussions over how to adapt to efforts from the coal plant’s top client — liberal Los Angeles and its department of water and power — to transition away from fossil fuels. Now, resentment toward California is sweeping the Utah community as workers worry about the local impacts of the nation’s energy transition and what it means for their friends, families and careers.
“California can at times be a hiss and a byword around here,” city councilman Nicholas Killpack, one of Delta’s few Democrats, said. “What we I think all recognize is we have to do what the customer wants. Everyone, irrespective of their political opinion, recognizes California doesn’t want coal. Whether we want to sell it to them or not, they’re not going to buy it.”
The coal plant was built in the wake of the 1970s energy crisis primarily to provide energy to growing southern California cities, which purchase most of the coal power to this day. But battles over carbon emissions and the future of coal have pit the states against each other and prompted lawsuits. Laws in California to transition away from fossil fuels have sunk demand for coal and threatened to leave the plant without customers.
In Millard County, a Republican-leaning region where 38% of local property taxes come from the Intermountain Power Plant, two coal plant workers unseated incumbent county commissioners in last month’s Republican primary. The races saw campaign signs plastered throughout town and tapped into angst about the multimillion-dollar plans and how they may transform the job market and rural community’s character.
“People are fine with the concept and the idea of it being built,” Trevor Johnson, one of the GOP primary winners, said, looking from the coal plant’s parking lot toward where the hydrogen facility will be. “It’s just coal power is cheap and provides lots of good jobs. That’s where the hang-up is.”
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/can-green-hydrogen-save-a-coal-town-and-slow-climate-change/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:26 | en | 0.942812 |
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Leaders of Indiana’s Republican-dominated Senate on Wednesday proposed banning abortion with limited exceptions — a move that comes amid a political firestorm over a 10-year-old rape victim who came to the state from neighboring Ohio to end her pregnancy.
The proposal will be taken up during a special legislative session that is scheduled to begin Monday, making Indiana one of the first Republican-run states to debate tighter abortion laws following the U.S. Supreme Court decision last month overturning Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states.
The Indiana proposal would allow exceptions to the ban, such as in cases of rape, incest or to protect a woman’s life.
Republican state Sen. Sue Glick, who is sponsoring the bill, said the proposal would not limit access to emergency contraception known as the morning-after pill or limit doctors from treating miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies.
The bill would prohibit abortions from the time an egg is implanted in a woman’s uterus.
“Being pro-life is not about criminalizing women,” Glick said. “It’s about preserving the dignity of life and helping mothers bring new happy, healthy babies in the world.”
Planned Parenthood’s Indiana affiliate criticized the bill, saying in a news release that “a complete ban on abortion is on its way to Indiana.”
“Even the bill’s limited exemptions would leave providers risking investigations, and even criminalization, making them exceptions in name only,” said the organization, which operates four abortion clinics in the state.
Ohio’s so-called fetal heartbeat law, which bans abortions after cardiac activity can be detected — typically in around the sixth week of pregnancy — led the 10-year-old rape victim to go to Indiana to get a medication-induced abortion on June 30, according to the girl’s doctor.
Indiana Republicans have pushed through numerous anti-abortion laws over the past decade and the vast majority signed a letter in March supporting a special session to further tighten those laws. But legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb had been tightlipped since the Supreme Court decision over whether they would push for a full abortion ban or allow exceptions.
The proposal unveiled Wednesday faces at least a couple of weeks of debate. Republican House Speaker Todd Huston didn’t endorse the bill, saying in a statement that, “Our caucus will take time to review and consider the details of the Senate bill, and continue to listen to thoughts and input from constituents across the state.”
Current Indiana law generally prohibits abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy and tightly restricts it after the 13th week. Nearly 99% of abortions in the state last year took place at 13 weeks or earlier, according to a state Health Department report.
Elsewhere Wednesday, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court and said Georgia’s restrictive 2019 abortion law should be allowed to take effect. The law bans most abortions once a “detectable human heartbeat” is present, though it does include some limited exceptions.
The appeals court also rejected arguments that a “personhood” provision in the law is unconstitutionally vague. The provision grants a fetus the same legal rights that people have after they’re born.
In Michigan, meanwhile, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Wednesday vetoed portions of a state budget proposal that would have sent nearly $20 million in state funding to anti-abortion causes, including groups that run “pregnancy resource centers” focused on persuading pregnant women to give birth.
Before Indiana lawmakers announced their proposal, the leader of the state’s most prominent anti-abortion group told reporters that the group would pressure legislators to advance a bill “that affirms the value of all life including unborn children” while not taking questions on whether any exceptions would be acceptable.
Indiana Right to Life President Mike Fichter said the vast majority of Indiana lawmakers have “campaigned as pro-life, they’ve run multiple election cycles as being pro-life.”
“This is not the time when legislators should be drafting legislation that would appear that Roe versus Wade is still in place,” Fichter said. “Roe is no longer in place. The Roe shield is no longer there.”
The state’s debate comes as an Indiana doctor has been at the center of a political fracas after speaking out about the 10-year-old Ohio rape victim.
A 27-year-old man was charged in Columbus, Ohio, last week with raping the girl, confirming the existence of a case that was initially met with skepticism by some media outlets and Republican politicians. The pushback grew after Democratic President Joe Biden expressed sympathy for the girl during the signing of an executive order aimed at protecting some abortion access.
Indiana Republicans have passed several laws on social issues in recent years that made headlines. In May, they overrode a veto by Holcomb of a bill that banned transgender women and girls from participating in school sports that match their gender identity.
That came seven years after Indiana faced a national uproar over a religious objections lawsigned by then-Gov. Mike Pence that opponents maintained could be used to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The Republican-dominated Legislature quickly made revisions blocking its use as a legal defense for refusing to provide services and preventing the law from overriding local ordinances with LGBTQ protections.
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Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta and AP/Report for America writer Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/indianas-gop-run-legislature-heading-into-abortion-debate/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:34 | en | 0.954736 |
NEW YORK (AP) — Ivana Trump, the 1980s style icon and businesswoman who helped Donald Trump build the empire that put him on a road toward the White House, lived a “beautiful life,” the former president recalled as loved ones paid final respects to her Wednesday.
The ex-president joined all his children, an array of other relatives and friends at a Manhattan church for Ivana Trump’s funeral Mass.
“A very sad day, but at the same time a celebration of a wonderful and beautiful life,” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, before he, former first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron headed to St. Vincent Ferrer Roman Catholic Church, located just a few blocks from Ivana Trump’s home near Central Park.
Ivana and Donald Trump’s three children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric — stood with their father and their families as the gold-toned casket was carried from the church. Eric Trump briefly put an arm around his sister’s shoulders as she held the hand of one of her small children, who clutched a red flower.
Tiffany Trump, the daughter of the former president and his second wife, Marla Maples, also attended the service, as did family friends including Jeanine Pirro, co-host of Fox News’ “The Five,” and Charles Kushner, a real estate developer and the father of Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner. Fashion designer Dennis Basso, a longtime friend of Ivana Trump’s, was also among the mourners.
The Mass was “an elegant, wonderful send-off for Ivana Trump,” another longtime friend, R. Couri Hay, said as he emerged.
Trump’s family announced Thursday that the 73-year-old had died at her home. Authorities said the death was an accident, with blunt impact injuries to her torso as the cause.
Ivana and Donald Trump met in the 1970s and were married from 1977 to 1992. In the 1980s, they were a power couple, and she became well known in her own right, instantly recognizable with her blond hair in an updo and her glamorous look.
Ivana Trump also took part in her husband’s businesses, managing one of his Atlantic City casinos and picking out some of the design elements in New York City’s Trump Tower.
Their very public divorce was ugly, but in recent years, they were friendly. Ivana Trump was an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and said they spoke on a regular basis.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/ivana-trumps-life-to-be-celebrated-at-a-funeral-mass-in-nyc/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:41 | en | 0.988755 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Reps. Elaine Luria and Adam Kinzinger, who will lead questioning in the closing summer hearing of the Jan. 6 committee on Thursday night, are from different parties but agree emphatically on one thing: The investigation into the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is worth sacrificing their political careers.
Luria, a Democrat first elected in 2018, is facing a difficult reelection in a Virginia swing district that was redrawn to be more Republican. Kinzinger, a Republican who’s a pariah to some in his party because of his condemnation of former President Donald Trump, decided not to seek another term in his Illinois district.
The two also are military veterans and have invoked their service oaths as part of their reason for pressing the inquiry. Luria is a Naval Academy graduate who served 20 years, including as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer who commanded 400 crewmembers in the Persian Gulf. Kinzinger flew combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq and remains a lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard.
“You’re going to see the fulfillment of the meaning of the sacred oath that all of us take that have served in government, to preserve and protect the Constitution and the United States,” said Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 2019 to 2020, during Trump’s first impeachment trial.
“But it’s one that — particularly those who serve in the military, like the two of them, and put their lives on the line — take to heart,” Eisen said.
The most prominent and imperiled committee member is Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., the vice chair, who has been unsparing in her criticism of Trump. She was removed by her own party as the No. 3 House Republican and now faces a potentially uphill primary battle for reelection in her deeply red home state.
Cheney’s immediate political fortune, as well as that of Kinzinger and Luria, may provide the most direct answers to larger questions about whether the hearings into the mob attack on Jan. 6, 2021, will chip away at Trump’s continued hold of the national Republican Party. They could also offer clues about whether efforts to fully make public the former president’s responsibility in helping spark the mob attack can be a boon to front-line Democrats during November midterm elections that could otherwise be brutal for their party.
“Mr. Kinzinger and I, who are both veterans leading this committee, I think, as veterans of the military, understand what action looks like in a time of crisis,” Luria told CNN last weekend. She added of Trump’s actions: “I look at it as a dereliction of duty. He didn’t act. He had a duty to act.”
The hearing on Thursday will focus on Trump’s actions as rioters overran the Capitol. Witnesses will describe what occurred during the 187 minutes between when the then-president addressed supporters who had gathered in Washington by imploring, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” and his releasing a video in which he praised the rioters as “very special” while also asking them to disperse.
Luria has said repeatedly that the committee’s work defending American democracy is more important than her prospects for reelection in her district. During an interview last summer, shortly after she was appointed to the committee, Luria also argued that her serving on it bolstered her credibility as a pragmatic moderate in a centrist district.
“I think it’s incredibly important for the American people to understand what happened, why it happened and what we can do to prevent something like that from happening in the future,” Luria said then. While campaigning, she has referred to the insurrection as a dry run, saying such an attack might happen again unless the root causes of the first one are fully exposed — and that voters have expressed gratitude about that effort.
Republican Virginia state Sen. Jen Kiggans, who is trying to unseat Luria in November, said the election won’t be decided by the Jan. 6 committee.
“I have never had a single voter, or person (whose) door I’ve knocked on, or civic league I’ve visited or event I’ve attended, I’ve never had a single person come up to me and say that this is the main issue they’re focused on,” Kiggans said. “On a daily basis, I hear over and over and over again about gas prices and grocery prices and grocery shortages and how much everything is costing them from their home repair projects to their kids’ school supplies to going out to eat at a restaurant.”
Kinzinger has represented his Illinois district since 2013. He voted to impeach Trump and announced last fall that he wasn’t seeking another term in Congress after the Democrat-controlled Illinois Legislature approved new congressional maps that would have forced Kinzinger and another Republican incumbent who has more reliably defended Trump, Rep. Darin LaHood, into a primary matchup.
Still, Kinzinger hasn’t ruled out seeking elective office in the future.
“When you fight for your nation and you fight for people, it makes you believe in something bigger,” Kinzinger said in an interview last summer.
Eisen, a former Obama administration ambassador to the Czech Republic and senior governance studies fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that the political stakes are real for Luria and Kinzinger, adding that “losing an election is never pleasant” but “they all understand that might be a consequence.”
“In some ways, their willingness to take that risk actually enhances the power of the example that they set,” Eisen said. “History’s going to be kind to them. I don’t think any of them will have regrets.”
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Follow AP’s coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings at https://apnews.com/hub/capitol-siege. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/luria-kinzinger-put-careers-on-line-in-jan-6-investigation/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:48 | en | 0.977544 |
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WALTERBORO, SC (AP) — The disbarred South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to murdering his wife and son.
His defense lawyers and prosecutors agreed to keep the evidence secret amid media attention. His defense asked the judge to deny him bond, saying he can’t afford to post it anyway and wants a speedy trial because he feels the killer or killers are still at loose.
The prosecution denied that, telling the judge that all the evidence points to his guilt in the shootings of his wife and son.
Circuit Judge Clifton Newman had previously denied Murdaugh bond after he was charged with stealing money from clients. A different judge later set bond at $7 million but Murdaugh was unable to pay and has remained in jail since October.
His lawyers have complained several times that the bond was set too high, and said that because of lawsuits and frozen assets Murdaugh couldn’t even afford to buy underwear from the jail store.
Murdaugh, 54, was indicted on two counts of murder in the shootings of his wife Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, at the family’s Colleton County hunting estate in June 2021. He also faces more than 80 other charges, including stealing money from clients; running a money laundering and drug ring; and trying to arrange his own death so that his surviving son could receive a $10 million life insurance payout. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/murdaugh-pleads-not-guilty-to-murdering-wife-and-son/ | 2022-07-21T06:13:55 | en | 0.991217 |
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Teachers gave heart-wrenching testimony Wednesday in the penalty trial of Nikolas Cruz, with one recalling how a boy in her Holocaust studies class correctly answered a question seconds before he became one of 17 people murdered during the school shooter’s rampage four years ago.
Ivy Schamis, then a teacher at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was leading students through a discussion about the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany when star swimmer Nick Dworet correctly responded that Adolf Dassler founded the Adidas shoe company. He then added that Dassler’s brother founded the rival Puma brand.
It was then that they heard the initial gunshots in the first-floor hallway of the three-story building, and Cruz began firing his semi-automatic rifle through the glass on her classroom door near where he entered.
“It was really seconds later that the barrel of that AR—15 just ambushed our classroom,” Schamis testified, wiping her eyes with a tissue. “It came right through that glass panel and was just shooting everywhere. It was very loud. Very frightening. I kept thinking about these kids who should not be experiencing this at all.”
She said the students scrambled to find safety behind furniture, but didn’t panic and acted with bravery and maturity as they waited to be rescued. Three students were wounded in her class and two were killed: Dworet and Helena Ramsay, both 17.
When shown their portraits, she began to weep.
“That’s my girl, Helena Ramsay,” she said. “Nicholas Dworet, handsome boy.”
Dworet’s brother Alexander was grazed by a bullet in a classroom across the hall, where three students were killed and several more wounded.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-degree murder for the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre. The jury must decide if the former Stoneman Douglas student should be sentenced to death or life without parole for the nation’s deadliest mass shooting to go before a jury. The trial is expected to last through at least October.
Nine other gunmen who killed at least 17 people died during or immediately after their shootings, either by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 slaying of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.
Schamis’ testimony was followed by that of Ronit Reoven, who was lecturing her advanced psychology class about Sigmund Freud when Cruz started firing into her neighboring classroom, also through the door’s window.
“There were multiple gunshots,” she said. “They were incredibly loud. BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM! I froze for a moment and the students jumped out of their seats. Of course, they were startled and scared.”
Reoven said she and the students crouched on the floor around her desk and wounded students were moaning and crying. She used a blanket that normally covered her coffee machine as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from a boy’s arm. Another boy used a jacket to stanch the bleeding from a girl’s chest. A girl shot in the knee appeared to be stable. But 16-year-old Carmen Schentrup was lying facedown in a pool of blood.
“I knew that she was probably gone,” Reoven said.
On the third floor, Stacey Lippel was teaching creative writing and Ernest Rospierski was supervising study hall when Cruz’s shots on the first floor triggered the fire alarm. Not realizing a shooting was happening below them, they led their students into the hallway to evacuate.
That’s when screaming students began coming back up the stairwell and they could hear gunshots.
Lippel said she and the teacher from the neighboring room, Scott Beigel, quickly reopened their doors and started getting students back inside. It was then that Cruz emerged from the stairwell, “splaying the rifle back and forth, shot after shot after shot,” she said. “It never stopped.”
Lippel said she got inside her room and closed the door, but Beigel was fatally shot.
Beigel’s student, Veronica Steel, testified that his body kept the door from closing, leaving the students in the room fearful Cruz would come inside.
“It was scary. We didn’t know what to do,” she said.
Rospierski’s head and hip were grazed by bullets, but he helped students who had gathered in the alcove outside his classroom flee down a stairwell when Cruz briefly stopped shooting.
Surveillance video played for the jury shows that two wounded students, 18-year-old Meadow Pollack and 14-year-old Cara Loughran, remained behind, lying on the floor. Cruz killed them with a second blast. He then killed 17-year-old Joaquin Oliver, who was lying wounded in front of a restroom.
Two students in the fleeing group, 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg and 15-year-old Peter Wang, were hit just before they reached the stairwell door and potential safety. Both died, Wang after Cruz shot him with a second volley.
When jurors eventually get the case, they will vote 17 times, once for each of the victims, on whether to recommend capital punishment.
For each death sentence, the jury must be unanimous or the sentence for that victim is life. The jurors are told that to vote for death, the prosecution’s aggravating circumstances for that victim must, in their judgment, “outweigh” the defense’s mitigators. A juror can also vote for life out of mercy for Cruz. During jury selection, the panelists said under oath that they are capable of voting for either sentence.
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Associated Press reporter Freida Frisaro in Miami contributed to this report. | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/teachers-weep-recalling-students-killed-in-parkland-shooting/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:02 | en | 0.982981 |
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The U.S. Postal Service said it will substantially increase the number of electric-powered vehicles it’s buying to replace its fleet of aging delivery trucks, after the Biden administration and environmental groups said the agency’s initial plan had too few electric vehicles and fell short of the administration’s climate change goals.
The Postal Service now wants 50% of its initial purchase of 50,000 next-generation vehicles to be electric, up from the previous plan for 20% being electric. The first of those should be rolling onto delivery routes next year. It also proposes buying an additional 34,500 commercially available vehicles over two years, officials said. The Postal Service’s fleet currently includes 190,000 local delivery vehicles.
A plan announced in February would have made just 10% of the agency’s next-generation fleet electric. The Environmental Protection Agency said the initial plan by the Postal Service, an independent agency, “underestimates greenhouse gas emissions, fails to consider more environmentally protective feasible alternatives and inadequately considers impacts on communities with environmental justice concerns.”
The new environmental proposal effectively pauses the purchases at 84,500 total vehicles — 40% electric — even as the Postal Service seeks to buy up to 165,000 next-generation vehicles over a decade to replace delivery trucks that went into service between 1987 and 1994. More than 141,000 vehicles in service are the boxy, recognizable Grumman LLV model, which lack safety features like air bags, anti-lock brakes or backup cameras.
Environmentalists have been fighting to reduce the number of gasoline-powered next-generation vehicles the Postal Service will buy. Those will get 14.7 miles per gallon (23.7 kilometers per gallon) without air conditioning, compared to 8.4 mpg (13.5 kpg) for the older vehicles, the Postal Service said.
Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Wednesday he was happy to see the Postal Service committing to more electric vehicles, which he said will reduce operating costs for its fleet over the long run.
“Electric vehicles are the future of the automotive industry and that is why I have been pressing the Postal Service to purchase more of them,” said Peters, D-Mich.
The proposal, to be posted in the Federal Register on Thursday, came after 16 states, environmental groups and a labor union sued to halt purchases of next-generation delivery vehicles under the initial plan that was skewed heavily toward gas-powered trucks.
Future purchases would focus on smaller amounts of vehicles in shorter intervals than the original 10-year environmental analysis, officials said. The goal is to be more responsive to the Postal Service’s evolving operational strategy, technology improvements and changing market conditions, the Postal Service said in a statement. A public hearing on the new proposal will be held next month.
The Postal Service was cleared to place the initial order with the manufacturer, Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense, in late February after announcing it cleared a final administrative hurdle.
But a government watchdog testified in April that the Postal Service relied on false assumptions as it evaluated the original plan.
This comes against a backdrop of U.S. automobile manufacturers expanding the number of electric vehicle models targeting the mainstream market.
Earthjustice, which joined in one of the lawsuits, said the Postal Service is starting to get the message on the need for electric delivery vehicles.
“Ultimately, the entire postal fleet needs to be electrified to deliver clean air in every neighborhood in the country and avoid volatile gas prices,” said Adrian Martinez, senior attorney on Earthjustice’s Right to Zero campaign.
In addition to modern safety equipment, the next-generation delivery vehicles are taller, which makes it easier for postal carriers to grab the packages that make up a greater share of volume. They also have improved ergonomics and climate control.
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Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this story from Washington. Sharp reported from Portland, Maine.
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Follow David Sharp on Twitter at https://twitter.com/@David_Sharp_AP | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/us-postal-service-to-boost-purchases-of-electric-vehicles/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:08 | en | 0.950165 |
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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Facing massive public pressure, Uvalde’s top school official has recommended the firing of the school district police chief who has been blamed for the botched law enforcement response to the elementary school shooting nearly two months ago that killed two teachers and 19 students.
The South Texas city’s school board announced Wednesday that it will consider firing Chief Pete Arredondo at a special meeting Saturday. Arredondo has been accused by state officials of making several critical mistakes during the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.
School officials have previously resisted calls to fire Arredondo. The announcement comes two days after a meeting where the school board members were lambasted for more than three hours by members of the public, who accused them of not implementing basic security at Robb, of not being transparent about what happened and of failing to hold Arredondo to account for his actions.
Confronted with parents’ vociferous demands to fire Arredondo and warnings that his job would be next, Superintendent Hal Harrell said Monday that the police chief was a contract employee who could not be fired at will. The agenda for Saturday’s meeting includes the board discussing the potential firing with its lawyer.
Arredondo, who has been on leave from the district since June 22, has faced blistering criticism since the massacre, most notably for not ordering officers to immediately breach the classroom where an 18-year-old gunman carried out the attack. If fired, Arredondo would become the first officer ousted from his job following the deadliest Texas school shooting in history.
Although nearly 400 officers from various agencies were involved in the police response that took more than an hour to confront and kill the shooter, Arredondo is one of only two known to have faced discipline. His attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move to potentially fire the chief follows the release of a damning 80-page report by a Texas House committee that blamed all levels of law enforcement for a slow and chaotic response. The report found that 376 law enforcement officers massed at the school, with more than half coming from state and federal agencies, but that they “failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety.”
According to the committee, Arredondo told lawmakers he didn’t consider himself the on-scene commander in charge and that his priority was to protect children in other classrooms. The committee report called that decision a “terrible, tragic mistake.”
Body camera footage released by the Uvalde officials shows Arredondo in the hallway trying multiple sets of keys on other classroom doors, but not the one where the massacre took place. The classroom door could not be locked from the inside, but there is no indication officers tried to open the door while the gunman was inside.
“Our thought was: ‘If he comes out, you know, you eliminate the threat,’ correct?” Arredondo told the committee, according to the report. “And just the thought of other children being in other classrooms, my thought was: ‘We can’t let him come back out. If he comes back out, we take him out, or we eliminate the threat.’”
Arredondo, 50, grew up in Uvalde and spent much of his nearly 30-year career in law enforcement in the city. He took the head police job at the school district in 2020 and was sworn in as a member of the City Council in a closed-door ceremony May 31. He resigned from his council seat July 2.
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Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
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The spelling of the police chief’s last name has been corrected in several places in the story.
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More on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting | https://www.krqe.com/news/national/uvalde-schools-looking-to-fire-police-chief-after-shooting/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:15 | en | 0.984164 |
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PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona Republican Party has censured state House Speaker Rusty Bowers after his gripping public testimony to the Jan. 6 panel about Donald Trump’s relentless pressure to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The censure Tuesday night by the state GOP’s executive committee came hours after Trump reiterated his support for Bowers’ opponent in his upcoming Republican primary for state Senate. The former president is scheduled to campaign with his favored candidates on Friday in northern Arizona.
The censure is largely symbolic, but it’s illustrative of the iron grip that Trump continues to have over the Republican Party, even after a mob of his supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to stop Joe Biden from becoming president.
“(Bowers) is no longer a Republican in good standing & we call on Republicans to replace him at the ballot box in the August primary,” Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward tweeted Tuesday.
It’s highly unusual for a state political party to formally take sides in a contested primary, but the Arizona GOP under Ward has not been shy about boosting Trump allies in the internal struggle over the future of the Republican Party. The Arizona Republican Party last year censured other top Republicans who crossed the former president, including Gov. Doug Ducey, Cindy McCain and former Sen. Jeff Flake.
A spokesman for Bowers, Andrew Wilder, did not immediately respond to a phone call and text message seeking comment.
The censure does not specifically mention Bowers’ testimony to the House Jan. 6 committee but characterizes him as hostile to the GOP platform and activists. It cites his efforts to block election bills advanced by Trump allies and his support for a bill banning most employers from discriminating against LGBTQ people, among other measures.
Bowers is term-limited in the House and is running for the state Senate against David Farnsworth, a former Republican senator who echoes Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
Bowers earned national acclaim with his recitation of the pressure he faced from Trump and his allies, including angry and noisy protests outside his home as his adult daughter lay dying inside from an extended illness. Bowers says he supported Trump’s campaign in 2020 but would not help the former president overturn his loss in Arizona.
In his testimony last month, Bowers walked through what started with a Trump phone call on a Sunday after he returned from church. The defeated president laid out a proposal to have the state replace its electors for Biden with others favoring Trump.
“I said, ‘Look, you’re asking me to do something that is counter to my oath, ’” Bowers testified.
Bowers insisted on seeing Trump’s evidence of voter fraud, which he said Trump’s team never produced beyond vague allegations. He recalled Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani later told him, “We’ve got lots of theories; we just don’t have the evidence.”
He took heat for telling The Associated Press before his testimony that he would support Trump if he won the GOP nomination. He has since walked that back, saying he’s even more opposed to Trump after testifying publicly before the Jan. 6 committee. | https://www.krqe.com/news/politics/arizona-gop-censures-rusty-bowers-after-jan-6-testimony/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:22 | en | 0.976969 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Wednesday that he’ll host African leaders for a summit in Washington in mid-December.
The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit will be held Dec. 13-15 and demonstrate a commitment by the U.S. to Africa that Biden described as “enduring.” He said the gathering will “underscore the importance of U.S.-Africa relations and increased cooperation on shared global priorities.”
Biden added that the summit will help foster new economic engagement, reinforce a shared commitment to democracy and human rights, manage the effects of COVID-19 and future pandemics, advance peace and security, respond to climate change, strengthen regional and global health and promote food security.
President Barack Obama held a similar summit in Washington in 2014, when Biden was his vice president. The summit followed Obama’s 2013 trip to Africa.
Biden has not visited Africa since taking office. | https://www.krqe.com/news/politics/biden-to-host-african-leaders-for-dec-summit-in-washington/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:29 | en | 0.949687 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats pushed ahead Wednesday with legislation that would ban certain semi-automatic weapons as they considered their most far-reaching response yet to this summer’s series of mass shootings.
Democrats hope that the 100-page bill moving through the Judiciary Committee will pass the House before the August break. But that is far from assured because some moderates in the party, especially those from swing districts, are wary of a vote on broad gun controls before the November elections — especially when the bill has little chance of becoming law due to opposition in the Senate.
Democrats can afford to lose only four votes if Republicans are united in opposition to the ban. Maine Rep. Jared Golden, who represents a GOP-leaning district, is one of the few Democrats who have indicated a “no” vote.
“I don’t support any version of that,” Golden said. He is joined by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who is also facing a tough reelection race, and has said he doesn’t believe in bans on weapons.
Despite not yet having full support from his caucus, Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., the bill’s lead sponsor, said he is confident he can get the required votes, even if that involves reaching out for Republican support.
“There are more guns than people in this country, more mass shootings than days in the year. This is a uniquely American problem, and assault weapons only magnify the epidemic,” Cicilline said during the committee hearing.
The renewed push comes nearly two decades after Congress allowed similar restrictions to lapse. The original ban passed in 1994, led by then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and outlawed certain semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines. It exempted an estimated 1.5 million of those weapons and 25 million that were already owned by people in the United States.
In the nearly three decades since, mass shootings have become alarmingly frequent, with semi-automatic weapons often used in attacks on schools, workplaces, public spaces, stores, churches and other places where people gather.
“An assault weapon’s only purpose is to kill people efficiently,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY., the committee chairman. “It is time to protect our communities and to ban them once more.”
Republicans said the proposal was an attack on Second Amendment rights.
“Democrats know this legislation will not reduce violent crime or reduce the likelihood of mass shootings, but they are obsessed with attacking law-abiding Americans’ Second Amendment liberties,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the committee. “For over 30 years, the Democrats have been running a propaganda campaign to make people believe that ‘assault weapons’ are a specific class of firearms that no one needs.”
During the hearing, the committee listened to haunting audio of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, during which 17 people were killed and 17 more wounded. Dozens of rapid-fire shots could be heard in the course of just 1 minute and 18 seconds along with the distressed screams of those trying to escape.
The hearing also comes in the wake of a July Fourth shooting at a parade in Highland Park, Illinois, and mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.
Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider whose district represents Highland Park, said that “getting these weapons of war off the streets, at the very least, will reduce the lethality, if not necessarily the frequency, of these just horrific fatalities that have devastated my community.”
Congress last month passed the most significant gun violence measure in decades, mandating background checks for gun buyers age 18 to 21 as well as allocating money for states to enact “red flag” laws.
But the bill fell far short of the steps that President Biden and Democrats say are needed.
“We’re paying for these weapons of war on our streets with the blood of our children sitting in our schools,” said Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., whose 17-year-old son was shot and killed at a gas station in 2012.
Cicilline said that the protection of the Second Amendment is not without limits. He said the Democratic proposal is focused on assault-style rifles, which are not what the majority of guns law-abiding people buy and own.
“Dangerous military weapons that were created to fight on the battlefield and slaughter enemies do not belong in the neighborhoods and schools and movie theaters where we live,” he added.
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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report. | https://www.krqe.com/news/politics/democrats-push-for-1st-semi-automatic-gun-ban-in-20-years/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:36 | en | 0.971954 |
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ATLANTA (AP) — A judge in New York has ordered Rudy Giuliani to appear next month before a special grand jury in Atlanta that’s investigating whether former President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to interfere in the 2020 general election in Georgia.
New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 issued an order directing Giuliani, a Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor, to appear before the special grand jury on Aug. 9 and on any other dates ordered by the court in Atlanta, according to documents filed Wednesday in Fulton County Superior Court.
Giuliani’s lawyer did not immediately return a call and email seeking comment Wednesday.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began her investigation early last year, and a special grand jury with subpoena power was seated in May at her request. In a letter requesting the special grand jury, she said her team was looking into “any coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections in this state.”
Earlier this month, she filed petitions to compel seven Trump associates, including Giuliani and U.S. Sen Lindsey Graham, to testify before the special grand jury.
Because they don’t live in Georgia, she had to use a process that involves getting a judge in the state where they live to order them to appear.
Giuliani had been summoned to appear in court in New York on July 13 to present any reasons why a subpoena should not be issued for him to testify in Atlanta, but he failed to show up for the hearing, Farber wrote in his order.
In a court filing Wednesday, Willis informed the judge overseeing the special grand jury that Giuliani had been served with Farber’s final order instructing him to appear before the special grand jury.
It’s possible that Giuliani could file a motion with the court in Atlanta to try to avoid testifying. Others who have been subpoenaed have already filed challenges seeking to get out of appearing before the special grand jury.
In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identified him as both a personal attorney for Trump and a lead attorney for his campaign.
She wrote that he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani alleged showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers.
Within 24 hours of the hearing on Dec. 3, 2020, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the site. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote.
“There is evidence that (Giuliani’s) appearance and testimony at the hearing was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says. | https://www.krqe.com/news/politics/giuliani-ordered-to-testify-in-georgia-2020-election-probe/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:43 | en | 0.975157 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate unexpectedly launched a new push Wednesday to protect same-sex marriage in federal law after a surprising number of Republicans helped pass landmark legislation in the House. Some GOP senators are already signaling support.
The legislation started as an election-season political effort to confront the new Supreme Court majority after the court overturned abortion access in Roe v. Wade, raising concerns that other rights were at risk. But suddenly it has a shot at becoming law. Pressure is mounting on Republicans to drop their longstanding opposition and join in a bipartisan moment for gay rights.
“This legislation was so important,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said as he opened the chamber Wednesday.
The Democratic leader marveled over the House’s 267-157 tally, with 47 Republicans — almost one-fifth of the GOP lawmakers — voting for the bill late Tuesday.
“I want to bring this bill to the floor,” Schumer said, “and we’re working to get the necessary Senate Republican support to ensure it would pass.”
Political odds are still long for the legislation, the Respect for Marriage Act, which would enshrine same-sex and interracial marriages as protected under federal law. Conservatives, including House GOP leaders, largely opposed the bill, and the vast majority of Republicans voted against it.
But in a sign of shifting political attitudes and a need for an election-year win, some Republicans are signaling there may be an opening. Few Republicans spoke directly against gay marriage during Tuesday’s floor debate in the House. And Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell was notably silent when asked about the bill, saying he would take a look if it comes to the Senate.
“I’m going to delay announcing anything on that issue,” McConnell said, adding he would wait to see if Schumer brings it forward.
President Joe Biden wants Congress to send him the bill to sign as soon as possible.
“This is something that’s personal to the president,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president.
Biden is “a proud champion of the right for people to marry whom they love and is grateful to see bipartisan support for that right,” she said. “He believes it is non-negotiable and that the Senate should act swiftly to get this to the president’s desk. He wants to sign it, so we need this legislation and we urge Congress to move as quickly as possible.”
So far, the legislation has just two Senate Republican co-sponsors, Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina are among others closely watched for possible support.
In all 10 Republican senators would need to join with all Democrats to reach the 60 vote threshold to overcome a GOP filibuster.
“We’re seeing progress on this, and I’ll take progress,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., the bill’s chief sponsor, told reporters at the Capitol.
The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, was doubtful Tuesday, calling the proposed legislation little more than a political message.
Social issues including same-sex marriage and abortion have sprinted to the top of the congressional agenda this summer in reaction to the Supreme Court’s action overturning Roe v. Wade, a stunning ruling that ended the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion access. It set off alarms that other rights conservatives have targeted could be next.
While Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, insisted the Roe v. Wade ruling pertained only to abortion access, it demonstrated the new conservative muscle with three Trump-era justices tipping the court’s balance. A concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, who has gained stature in the new majority, raised questions about gay marriage and other rights.
“We take Justice Thomas — and the extremist movement behind him — at their word,” said Speaker Nancy Pelosi during the House debate. “This is what they intend to do.”
Both Pelosi and Schumer criticized Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who said over the weekend that the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell vs. Hodges decision upholding gay marriage was “clearly wrong.”
The Respect for Marriage Act was rushed to the House floor in an election year with polling showing a majority of Americans favor preserving rights to marry, regardless of sex, gender, race or ethnicity, a long-building shift in modern mores toward inclusion.
A Gallup poll in June showed broad and increasing support for same-sex marriage, with 70% of U.S. adults saying they think such unions should be recognized by law. The poll showed majority support among both Democrats (83%) and Republicans (55%).
Approval of interracial marriage in the U.S. hit a six-decade high at 94% in September, according to Gallup.
McConnell, the Republican leader, is eager to regain control of the Senate, now evenly split 50-50, and his views on whether his party should support or oppose the same-sex marriage protections will almost certainly be viewed through that political lens.
Unlike the abortion issue, where views are deeply held with little room for Congress to find common ground, attitudes toward same-sex continue to evolve and shift among lawmakers.
Incumbent Republican senators seeking to win reelection and GOP candidates running for office may want a chance to support the gay marriage issue that is popular with many voters. Strong Republican-led opposition could be seen as detrimental to the party’s candidates in swing states that McConnell needs to win to regain control.
One Republican hopeful, Joe O’Dea, who is challenging incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado, said he was glad to see the same-sex marriage bill pass in the House.
“You’ve got a lot of politicians in both political parties who spend way too much time trying to tell people how to live their lives. That’s just not me. I live my life. You live yours,” O’Dea said. “Let’s get on with solving the huge challenges facing the American people.”
Still, some vocal leaders in the Republican Party, including Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, both potential presidential candidates, have indicated likely opposition to the legislation.
The Respect for Marriage Act would repeal the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act, which put into federal law the definition of marriage as a heterosexual union between a man and woman. That 1996 law was largely overshadowed by subsequent court rulings, including Obergefell vs. Hodges in 2015, legalizing gay marriage nationwide.
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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Mary Clare Jalonick and Darlene Superville in Washington and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report. | https://www.krqe.com/news/politics/pressure-on-senate-gop-after-same-sex-marriage-passes-house/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:50 | en | 0.963183 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska long has made clear she has no personal craving for the spotlight. Yet on Wednesday, she stood in the U.S. Capitol and made the case for more U.S. air defense systems to block Russian missiles.
She showed America’s most powerful lawmakers stark images of the toll of Russian bombardment of cities on Ukraine’s children – a blood-splattered baby stroller, a small crumpled body.
For Zelenska, spouse of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the appearance capped a week in Washington that marked some of her highest-profile appearances of the five-month war. The visit was also one of the first times most Americans have laid eyes on her.
“We want no more airstrikes. No more missile strikes,” Zelenska told Republicans and Democrats Wednesday, as an overhead screen displayed the war’s youngest victims. “Is this too much to ask for?”
Zelenska, speaking to an audience that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, appeared in the same congressional auditorium where her husband drew standing ovations from lawmakers three weeks into Russia’s invasion. Her husband had spoken by video.
Zelenskyy has won praise from supporters for staying in Kyiv since Russia attacked, speaking nightly by video address. Zelenska and the couple’s two children, meanwhile, went into hiding away from Zelenskyy for security reasons over the first two months of the war.
Zelenska worked as a scriptwriter for her husband, a comedian and actor before he won the presidency in 2019. They married in 2003.
Speaking to “Vogue” magazine the same year her husband was elected, Zelenska said she herself by nature was no teller of jokes, and “a non-public person.”
But as first lady, “I found for myself arguments in favor of publicity. One of them is the opportunity to draw people’s attention to important social issues,” Zelenska said then.
A visit by Jill Biden to western Ukraine in May, when the two first ladies spoke privately and sat alongside displaced children living at a school, marked the start of Zelenska’s emergence from her wartime seclusion. Ukrainian officials said it was Jill Biden who invited Zelenska to come to Washington.
The Ukrainian first lady in Washington has spoken — largely away from reporters — with Jill Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. Agency for International Development head Samantha Power and others.
She received a blue and yellow bouquet of sunflowers and hydrangea from Joe Biden on arrival at the White House for her meeting with the U.S. first lady.
Until Wednesday’s appearance before lawmakers, accounts of Zelenska’s conversations with U.S. officials this week focused on the need for mental health care for Ukrainians dealing with the trauma of the war, and a U.S. offer of rehabilitation assistance for children who’ve lost limbs in the war — humanitarian causes, not strategic or tactical.
But Zelenska also noted in a tweet she had talked with Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, at the White House Tuesday on how “to turn the ‘soft’ power of the first spouses into a powerful and effective tool.”
Her blunt description to lawmakers of the deaths of children turned that soft power into a blunt and forceful instrument.
She showed photographs of a smiling, paint-smeared 4-year-old girl, Liza Dmytrieva, whom the first lady had happened to meet before Christmas.
The screen next showed an overturned baby carriage with blood caking on the sidewalk beneath it, after an airstrike killed the girl and badly injured her mother last week.
“Our family represents the whole world for us, and we do everything to preserve it,” Zelenska said. “We cry when we cannot save it. And we remain completely broken when our world is destroyed by war.”
Another photo showed a girl in a pink headband, shot by Russian soldiers with her family as they tried to flee, and who screamed and cried for two hours in their car before dying herself, Zelenska said.
Another showed three generations — grandmother, mother, baby daughter — killed by a Russian airstrike in the port city of Odesa, Zelenska told lawmakers. Yet another showed a 3-year-old boy, learning how to use a prosthetic limb after another airstrike.
Zelenska noted in passing Wednesday the humanitarian needs of the war. “Maybe you expected from me to speak on those topics,” she told lawmakers, through an interpreter. “But how can I talk on all that when an unprovoked war is being waged on our country?”
Lawmakers and others gave her standing ovations before her speech. But the photos on the screen had some shaking their heads at the scenes. The unsparing account and her direct appeal to lawmakers for more arms, especially more air-defense systems, echoed her husband’s calls throughout the war for more weapons from the U.S. and other allies.
The daily hammering on the U.S. for more support has been effective, but as the war grinds on could risk resentment from government leaders, who as of the start of June have committed $4.6 billion in security assistance for Ukraine.
“We’ve seen from Ukrainian leadership their courage but also their no-nonsense direct appeal and laying out the brutal mentality of Mr. Putin,” Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, said as lawmakers walked out.
Pelosi spoke before Zelenska’s address to describe U.S. lawmakers as “strong supporters of the Ukrainian people and admirers” of Zelenskyy’s and Zelenska’s leadership.
In his nightly video address in Ukraine on the event of his wife’s speech, Zelenskyy said she would be speaking to lawmakers “on behalf of all Ukrainian mothers, all Ukrainian women, and it will be an important address.”
In Kyiv this week, some Ukrainians said they had been following her U.S. visit.
“I treat her with great respect,” said one, Larysa Logvinova, 63, adding, “Oh, I’m going to cry now.”
“She’s the best,” Logvinova said. “She is fragile, intelligent, and says the right things. As for her visit to the USA, I am very positive about it. And I hope that the result of her mission will be that Ukraine will receive additional aid.”
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Arhirova reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. | https://www.krqe.com/news/politics/showing-wars-toll-ukraine-first-lady-appeals-for-more-arms/ | 2022-07-21T06:14:58 | en | 0.968499 |
There are two key points within the life cycle of a vehicle: the introduction of a fully redesigned model and a significant midlife update. If you’re looking to maximize your new vehicle purchase, knowing these timelines can help you make the best decision.
An automaker’s marketing might liberally describe the vehicle as “all-new!” at both points, but it’s important to know the difference. A midlife update typically ushers in appealing styling tweaks or feature updates, but a full redesign introduces wholesale changes to the vehicle. These improvements, which can include better fuel economy, more power or new helpful technology features, can be dramatic.
With this in mind, Edmunds experts have selected five noteworthy redesigned vehicles for 2022 that are worth looking into.
ACURA MDX
Acura’s three-row midsize SUV has been on sale since 2000 and enters a new generation for 2022. The latest MDX boasts eye-catching new exterior styling, additional legroom in all three rows, and improved interior materials. More than before, the MDX comes across as a bona-fide luxury SUV.
Ride and seat comfort are high points for the latest MDX, though Acura’s touchpad interface can be distracting to use while driving. The tech story isn’t all sour, thankfully. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity, a punchy 16-speaker ELS Studio sound system, and USB charging in all three rows are contemporary conveniences. Look to get the MDX Type S as its more powerful engine is worth the extra cost.
Starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price: $49,195
HONDA CIVIC
The Honda Civic is a compact sedan staple with 50 years of refinement. For 2022, the Civic bundles its affordable, efficient and reliable attributes in a more mature body style. Compared to the outgoing Civic’s edgy design, the latest model is modest — some might even say boring. However, the majority of Edmunds experts appreciate the new styling direction.
Inside, the 11th-generation Civic is spacious and well built. Though the base four-cylinder lacks grunt, the available turbocharged engine helps the Civic get up to highway speeds or pass slower traffic with suitable authority. Ride comfort and handling are segment-leading, but road noise levels are elevated at highway speeds. The 2022 Civic is priced higher to start than some competitors, but its excellent fuel economy and compelling standard features feel worth the premium.
Starting MSRP: $23,645
TOYOTA TUNDRA
Since the Tundra entered the full-size pickup truck market in 1999, Toyota has nurtured a growing group of loyal customers. The last-generation Tundra, introduced back in 2007, had started to lag behind competitors, though. This redesigned Tundra touts many improvements, such as smoother ride, a robust base turbocharged V6, and even an available hybrid model that cranks up the power and offers improved fuel economy.
Though Edmunds’ real-world fuel economy results couldn’t match EPA estimates, the new truck does otherwise boast smooth power, an intuitive 14-inch center touchscreen and a full-width power rear window. The changes for 2022 put the Tundra back in the thick of the full-size light-duty pickup discussion.
Starting MSRP: $39,695
SUBARU BRZ
Developed alongside Toyota’s GR86, the Subaru BRZ has become an enthusiast icon in just 10 years. Attainable, lightweight and available with a manual transmission, the BRZ sport coupe is both an entry point for blossoming drivers and a weekend toy for those with a little cash to spare. Redesigned for 2022, the latest BRZ has revised styling, a more powerful engine and an updated interior.
Steering and handling remain sharp, and an improved touchscreen adds convenience. The fun per dollar here is hard to match, far outweighing small complaints about its engine note and sound-system quality. Much the same can also be said about the Toyota GR86. But of the two, we think the BRZ is the better buy.
Starting MSRP: $28,990
HYUNDAI TUCSON
The compact SUV class is fiercely competitive and dominated by the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. But the Hyundai Tucson continues to earn new buyers with its mix of affordability, comfort and convenience. And now there’s the 2022 model that kicks off a new generation with useful tech features, standout styling and a roomy cabin.
Edmunds experts appreciate the new Tucson’s ride comfort and user-friendly tech, though its engine can be sluggish to respond. The 2022 Tucson’s jagged design may split opinions, but standard features and build quality are objectively solid for the price range.
Starting MSRP: $27,095
EDMUNDS SAYS:
If you’re hesitant about choosing a vehicle based on a particular feature or styling trait, waiting for a refresh or redesign could solve those issues. Keep in mind, however, that if you opt for the outgoing model year vehicle before a redesign or refresh, it tends to depreciate at a faster rate than the model that replaces it since the latest body style will usually be more desirable when sold or traded in.
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This story was provided to The Associated Press by the automotive website Edmunds.
Miles Branman is a contributor at Edmunds and is on Twitter | https://www.krqe.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/edmunds-2022s-best-redesigned-rides/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:05 | en | 0.919721 |
NEW YORK (AP) — For the uninitiated, outfitting a college dorm room can be a dizzying experience. Doing it at a time of high inflation can make it even more daunting.
The first step: Meticulously go over what the school allows and provides. If you want a microwave and minifridge, are the energy-saving combo models required? Do you need foam pool noodles to avoid hitting your head under an upper bunk, and if so, might the school provide them? Exactly how thick can a mattress topper be?
“You can see the look of terror on parents’ faces,” said Marianne Szymanski, an independent product researcher who has sent two kids to college. “You know, did I get the right mattress pad? It’s crazy.”
Etsy’s trend expert, Dayna Isom Johnson, said self-expression is top of mind for dorm-bound kids in such things as faux headboards and unique dresser knobs.
“Two of my favorite dorm trends right now are mood-boosting hues that incorporate bright and energetic colors like neon tones, and heritage styles, a nostalgic trend that embodies the traditional collegiate look with items like plaid linens, wood-toned furniture and monograms,” she said.
There’s no end to help out there, from parents swapping tips in social media groups to seasoned college students offering hacks on TikTok.
Some suggestions:
LIGHTING & CHARGING
Dorm rooms have notoriously bad light, and notoriously few electrical outlets in convenient spots. Many schools don’t allow extension cords. For power strips, which are almost always permitted, consider going vertical with a tower that offers surge protection, USB ports and outlets that can accommodate a range of differently shaped plugs.
It may be time to get a three-way charger. Storage carts, headboards and stands with charging capability are plentiful.
Use double-sided tape or hook-and-loop strips to fasten a power strip to the frame of an elevated bed for easy access.
For students so inclined, putting on makeup can be a problem that a lighted makeup mirror can solve. A desk or clip-on lamp is a must for studying. Consider a shared floor lamp. Neon signs are also popular as decorative lighting.
BEDDING & LAUNDRY
Think extra-long twin sheets, mattress protector and thick, cozy mattress pad, but do know some schools don’t allow certain types of gel toppers, Szymanski said. As for all those throw pillows, where do they go when it’s time to sleep? Usually on the perhaps-not-so-clean floor, so maybe buy fewer. Better yet, take along a body pillow.
Buying two or three sets of sheets does mean using up some already limited storage, but students not terribly laundry-responsible won’t go into crisis when the dirties pile up. And if beds are elevated for storage, get curtains to cover the clutter.
What type of laundry hamper to get is a hot topic, and depends on how far from the room the washers and dryers live. There are rolling hampers, compact mesh hampers and all manner of bags. For trekking up and down stairs, huge laundry backpacks (some with padded shoulder straps) are perfect.
A hack: Invest in a clothing steamer or wrinkle release fabric spray rather than an iron.
SHELVING & HOOKS
Extending storage with shelving is a dorm-size jigsaw puzzle. Is there room for over-the-bed shelving? Does the school permit hutches on top of desks, or provide them?
Pro tip: Not a great idea to swap sturdy shelving for an over-the-toilet bathroom version that might not be able to handle something heavy, like a microwave. Also, if a bed will be elevated but not all the way up, a tall bedside stand with extra shelves or drawers might be useful.
Ask the school: Can shelving or stands of any kind be placed in front of windows?
And remember those locker shelves from high school? Use them to extend space in a nightstand or desk.
Those Command stick-on hooks? Bring oh so many, along with the removable poster strips made not to damage walls. Also pick up a couple of over-the-door hangers for bags, coats, robes and hoodies.
CLOSETS & OTHER STORAGE
For the closet, consider sturdy vertical hanger extenders and hanging shoe and clothing storage. Yes, such storage takes up space and adds weight. Can an extra rod be installed?
Storage cubes can triple as seating and step stool, as opposed to a decorative pouf that is simply pretty and comfy.
Under-bed or in-closet storage drawers are essential, along with extra baskets, or at least a bowl for random, easily lost smaller items. Medium plastic baskets for scarves, socks and the like can be used on the top closet shelf.
CLEANING & COOLING
Vacuum cleaners are often available, but they’re usually heavy and must be lugged back and forth. Szymanski has a hack for that. Not your run-of-the-mill portable vacuum but an ultra-mini handheld and battery-operated version called the Ayla. It’s tube-like and just 11 inches tall.
Some students recommend a duster with cling power, along with a dehumidifier or air purifier.
Portable fans are tiny but mighty. Woozoo, a cult favorite, makes oscillating and remote-controlled versions.
Another Szymanski hack: A roll of Rakot75 towels for cleaning. They’re 100% bamboo, come in a 75-count roll, and each sheet can be reused up to six months. Just rinse and reuse.
Don’t forget small trash cans for the bathroom and sleeping area, after coordinating with roommates, of course, on this and other shared items.
DECOR & STYLE
Style is everything for some dorm dwellers.
“People really take pride and they really strive for a sophisticated, grown-up space,” said Adar Kirkham, a DIY designer and star of the new digital series “Freestyled” on HGTV.com. “It’s now considered cool to decorate your room.”
The pros are mixed on whether removable, peel-and-stick wallpaper is a good idea. Some schools may not allow it and it might not adhere to textured walls. Kirkham suggests using it to decorate desk drawers or other storage units.
Some kids bring along decorative mirrors to hang, rather than the usual all-body vertical kind, or they hang strings of twinkle lights.
The site Dormify.com is full of design inspiration and products. This year’s freshmen are more confident than last year’s about personalizing their dorm room, said Amanda Zuckerman, Dormify’s co-founder and CEO.
“More saturation and color is really popular, so bringing in bright pink, bright orange, bright green and turquoise,” she said.
According to Pinterest, searches are up for hippy and preppy dorm styles.
“People are increasingly searching for things like funky mirror ideas, which have tripled since last year. Indoor plant styling is also on the rise. Searching for preppy dorm room has increased 80%. Pink and blue are some really strong colors for that preppy aesthetic,” said Pinterest’s data insights lead Swasti Sarna.
BATHROOM & MISCELLANEOUS
Consider getting some scented Steripod toothbrush protectors. Dorms are dusty. Bathrooms get gross. Toothbrushes might have to be toted around. It should be changed every three months.
Bathrooms are often shared, and stuff gets mixed up. An organizer is essential. Pro tip from the trenches: Use an over-the-door organizer for bathroom stuff. Dormify sells one with a small face mirror built in.
Kirkham suggests a rolling bathroom caddy with just the essentials for quick trips in and out.
Minifridge tip: If allowed leeway on what kind to use, pick one with a separate freezer compartment. It might just guard against freezing food below. Some kids forgo the freezer completely to get more fridge space.
Kirkham, whose show premieres July 24, suggests a minifridge stand that elevates the unit and includes additional storage.
“Everything in a dorm room has to have multiple functions,” she said.
A small, portable, battery-operated blender could be useful. It doesn’t take up a lot of space and it helps students eat healthy options stored in room fridges. Szymanski likes the Blendi.
A tool kit comes in handy, as does a first aid kit. To help elevate a bed, Szymanski said, bring along a rubber mallet.
And rather than a bedside canvas caddy, try an attachable bunk bed tray table. It can hold a drink, a phone and more.
Last but not least: a permanent marker good for labeling fabric as well as plastic.
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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie | https://www.krqe.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/from-the-college-dorm-trenches-what-to-bring-leave-at-home/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:12 | en | 0.930365 |
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Fewer manatee deaths have been recorded so far this year in Florida compared to the record-setting numbers in 2021, but wildlife officials cautioned Wednesday that chronic starvation remains a dire and ongoing threat to the marine mammals.
Between Jan. 1 and July 15, about 631 manatee deaths have been confirmed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. That compares with 864 during the same period last year, when a record number of manatees died mainly from a lack of seagrass food, which was decimated by water pollution. The five-year average of manatee deaths in that time frame is 481.
Despite some glimmers of hope, wildlife officials said during a news conference Wednesday that manatees continue to face dwindling food options and many survivors have been severely weakened by malnutrition, which leaves them more vulnerable once cold weather sets in.
How manatees fare this summer when more food is available will determine how they survive in winter, said Martine de Wit, a veterinarian overseeing necropsies and coordinating rescues of ill manatees for the state wildlife commission.
“There is not enough high-quality food for the animals,” de Wit said, showing slides of necropsied animals with severe internal damage from starvation. “It’s going to be long lasting. It’s going to be years before you can measure the real effect.”
Manatees, the large, round-tailed mammals also known as sea cows, were already listed as a threatened species when the unprecedented die-off became apparent about a year ago. The main cause is pollution from agriculture, septic tanks, urban runoff and other sources that is killing the coastal seagrass on which the marine mammals rely.
That led to an experimental feeding program last year in which more than 202,000 pounds (91,600 kilograms) of lettuce funded mainly by donations was fed to manatees that traditionally gather during winter in the warm waters near a power plant on Florida’s east coast. Officials say they are still studying the impact of that feeding program and weighing whether to do it again as temperatures drop this winter.
“Did it have an effect? I’d like to think that it did,” said Tom Reinert, a regional director for the wildlife commission. “We’re working day in and day out to make sure we’re prepared for next winter.”
There are about 7,500 manatees in the wild in Florida, according to wildlife commission figures. They have long struggled to coexist with humans. Seagrass-killing pollution and boat strikes are now the main threats facing the beloved creatures.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently agreed in a court settlement to publish a proposed manatee critical habitat revision by September 2024. The agreement came in a long-running court case involving the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the Save the Manatee Club.
The rule would bring enhanced federal scrutiny to projects that might affect the manatee in waterways in which the marine mammals are known to concentrate, such as the Indian River Lagoon on Florida’s east coast. In addition, the state is spending $8.5 million on a variety of manatee projects, such as restoration of seagrass and improvements in water quality.
Anyone who sees a sick or dead manatee should call the wildlife commission hotline at at 888-404-FWCC (888-404-3922). | https://www.krqe.com/news/top-stories/ap-top-headlines/officials-starvation-threat-not-over-for-florida-manatees/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:20 | en | 0.960003 |
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Battered by heavy winds, firefighters in Greece struggled to contain new fires Wednesday around the capital of Athens while other countries in southern Europe took stock of the damage caused during the latest severe heat wave and prepared for the return of scorching temperatures. Two new fires broke out west of Athens following a round-the-clock effort to halt a blaze in the outskirts of the city that had swept through inhabited areas and forced the evacuation of hundreds of residents. “Given the conditions created by climate change, we have new fires expanding,” Greece’s Civil Protection and Climate Change Minister Christos Stylianides said. “The conditions we are operating under are extremely adverse. Wind gusts have exceeded 110 kilometers per hour (68 mph) in some areas.” Fires were burning across southern Europe on Wednesday, but authorities in France, Spain and Portugal all reported improved conditions with a respite from the severe heat. French President Emmanuel Macron visited the country’s worst-hit Gironde region, in the southwest, meeting with firefighters who have been battling the flames for a week. French firefighters created huge firebreaks through threatened forests, using heavy machinery to tear out trees and roots, leaving large barren strips to stop the fires.
“You have saved lives,” Macron said, shaking hands with a group of firefighters lined up at the regional fire department.
The leader of the Gironde fire brigade, Marc Vermeulen, briefed the president on their formidable efforts to contain the blaze.
“We have never seen anything like this before,” he said, noting that 20-year-old pine trees were “exploding in the extreme heat.”
Greece has avoided the heat wave that hit countries in western Europe, including the U.K., this week, but fire officials say this summer’s hot and dry conditions, which have lasted for weeks, as well as longer-term temperature increases have increased the overall risk of forest fires. At least two people were hospitalized in the Greek capital with breathing problems and minor burns. Helicopters scooped up water pumped into outdoor tanks near homes on hillside suburbs before flying back into thick smoke to make the water drops.
Cooler weather gave firefighters in Spain and Portugal some respite but temperatures are forecast to rise back to 40 degrees Celsius (104 F) in the coming days.
Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said more frequent and more extreme heat waves were an inevitable consequence of climate change. “In the future, these kinds of heat waves are going to be normal. We will see stronger extremes. We have pumped so much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that the negative trend will continue for decades,” Taalas said. “I hope that this will be a wake-up call for governments.” The European Union’s 27 nations have been pooling resources this summer to cope with the scale of the fires. European Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic was in Slovenia, where an Italian water-dropping plane and a helicopter from Austria have joined army and firefighters struggling to contain a fire in the Kras area which has rapidly spread over from neighboring Italy. On the Italian side, homes were evacuated and part of a major highway was closed. Dry vegetation was helping to fuel the flames as northern Italy’s worst drought in decades drags on. Another fire burned in Tuscany, in the province of Lucca, Italian state radio said. In Spain, a spate of blazes in Spain’s northwestern Galicia region has burned 85 houses and forced the evacuation of 1,400 people. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez visited the area late Tuesday and warned of “hard days ahead here in Galicia and the rest of Spain.”
Portugal’s health ministry says between July 7-18 the country’s excess mortality rate was 1,065 deaths, with officials blaming the heat wave for the spike and saying more heat deaths are likely in coming days as high temperatures return.
___ Surk reported from Nice, France. Lefteris Pitarakis in Drafi, Greece; Raquel Redondo in Madrid; Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal; John Leicester in Paris, Jovana Gec in Belgrade and Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed.
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Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/as-fires-ease-in-southern-europe-blaze-hits-greek-capital/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:28 | en | 0.960866 |
BERLIN (AP) — Europe faced an energy crisis even before the Nord Stream 1 pipeline from Russia to Germany went offline for regular maintenance.
While there were signals that at least some gas was likely to flow Thursday, it was still uncertain and government officials braced for the possibility that the key pipeline won’t restart as scheduled. They say Russian President Vladimir Putin is using energy for political leverage in his confrontation with the European Union over Ukraine.
Russia has already slashed Europe’s flows of natural gas used to power factories, generate electricity and heat homes in the winter, and Putin warns they could keep dwindling. The deliveries through Nord Stream 1 were cut by 60% before repairs began.
Even if the pipeline restarts at reduced levels, Europe will struggle to keep homes warm and industry humming this winter.
Here are key things to know about the energy crisis:
DID RUSSIA CUT OFF GAS TO EUROPE?
It has reduced supplies significantly. Even before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was not selling gas on the short-term spot market. After the EU imposed drastic sanctions on Russia’s banks and companies and started sending weapons to Ukraine, Russian cut off gas to six member countries and reduced supplies to six more.
Flows into Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, through Nord Stream 1 were dialed back by two-thirds, with Russia blaming a part that was sent to Canada for maintenance and not returned due to sanctions. European leaders rejected that claim, saying it was a political gambit in retaliation for sanctions.
It has left the 27-member EU scrambling to fill gas storage ahead of winter, when demand rises and utility companies draw down their reserves to keep homes warm and power plants running.
The EU’s goal is to use less gas now to build storage for winter. Europe’s gas reserves are only 65% full, compared with a goal of 80% by Nov. 1.
WHY IS RUSSIAN NATURAL GAS SO IMPORTANT?
Russia supplied some 40% of Europe’s natural gas before the war. That has dropped to around 15%, sending prices through the roof and straining energy-intensive industries.
Gas is used across a range of processes that most people never see — to forge steel to make cars, make glass bottles and pasteurize milk and cheese.
Companies warn that they often can’t switch overnight to other energy sources such as fuel oil or electricity to produce heat. In some cases, equipment that holds molten metal or glass is ruined if the heat is turned off.
High energy prices are already threatening to cause a recession in Europe through record inflation, with consumers having less to spend as costs rise for food, fuel and utilities. A complete cutoff could deal an even heavier blow to an already troubled economy.
WHAT IS THE NORD STREAM 1 PIPELINE?
It is the major European natural gas pipeline that runs under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany and is Germany’s main source of Russian gas.
The head of Germany’s network regulator, Klaus Mueller, tweeted that Russian state-owned Gazprom had notified plans to deliver some 530 gigawatt hours’ worth of gas through Nord Stream 1 on Thursday — about 30% of the pipeline’s capacity, and down from roughly 800 gigawatt hours it had notified hours earlier. He noted that “further changes are possible.”
In the days leading up to the closure for maintenance, gas supplies ran at about 700 gigawatt hours per day.
Analysts at Rystad Energy said that if Nord Stream 1 does stay dormant, Europe would reach only about 65% of its storage capacity, creating a real risk that gas would run out during the heating season.
Three other pipelines bring Russian gas to Europe, but one through Poland and Belarus has been shut down. Another, through Ukraine and Slovakia, is still bringing reduced amounts of gas despite the fighting, as is one through Turkey into Bulgaria.
WHAT’S PUTIN’S GAME?
Although Russia’s oil and gas exporters are selling less energy, spiking prices mean Putin’s earnings have actually increased, according to the International Energy Agency. Since the invasion, Russia’s revenue from exporting oil and gas to Europe has doubled over the average from recent years, to $95 billion, the Paris-based IEA said.
The increase in Russia’s energy revenue in just the last five months is three times what it typically makes by exporting gas to Europe over an entire winter.
So Putin has cash in hand and may calculate that painful utility bills and an energy recession could undermine public support for Ukraine in Europe and increase sentiment for a negotiated settlement in his favor.
“Based on what we have seen over the past year, it would be unwise to exclude the possibility that Russia could decide to forgo the revenue it gets from exporting gas to Europe in order to gain political leverage,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said.
Indeed, Putin said the amount of gas pumped through Nord Stream 1 will fall further from 60 million to 30 million cubic meters a day, or about one-fifth of its capacity, if the turbine that was sent to Canada for repairs isn’t quickly replaced. Canada has said it has sent back the part, but Germany has declined to say where it is.
“Our partners are trying to shift the blame for the mistakes they made to Russia and Gazprom, but it’s absolutely unfounded,” Putin told Russian reporters Tuesday during talks in Tehran with the leaders of Iran and Turkey.
WHAT CAN EUROPE DO?
The EU has turned to more-expensive liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which comes by ship from places like the U.S. and Qatar. Germany is fast-tracking construction of LNG import terminals on its North Sea coast, but that will take years. The first of four floating reception terminals is to come online later this year.
But LNG alone can’t make up the gap. The world’s LNG export facilities are running at full capacity amid tight energy markets, and there’s no more gas to be had. An explosion at a U.S. terminal in Freeport, Texas, that sent most of its gas to Europe took 2.5% of Europe’s supply offline overnight.
Conservation and other energy sources are key. For example, Germany is running coal plants longer, creating a gas auction system intended to encourage conservation, and resetting thermostats in public buildings.
The European Union on Wednesday proposed that member states voluntarily cut their gas use by 15% over the coming months. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, is seeking the power to impose mandatory reductions across the bloc if there’s a risk of a severe gas shortage or an exceptionally high demand.
EU member states will discuss the measures at an emergency meeting of energy ministers next Tuesday.
Countries have been scrambling to secure alternative energy supplies, with leaders of Italy, France and the European Union sealing deals with their counterparts in Algeria, Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates this week.
COULD PEOPLE FREEZE THIS WINTER?
It’s unlikely homes, schools and hospitals will lose heat because governments are required to impose rationing first on businesses. The German government also could allow gas suppliers to immediately pass on increases to customers.
The choices could include torpedoing industry and/or socking consumers with even higher bills.
If Nord Stream 1 resumes at reduced levels, Europe would need to save 12 billion cubic meters of gas, the equivalent of 120 LNG tankers, to fill its storage levels by winter. The IEA recommends European countries step up campaigns people to conserve at home and plan to share gas in an emergency.
A total cutoff would mean even more need to conserve. And time is getting short.
“European leaders need to be preparing for this possibility now to avoid the potential damage that would result from a disjointed and destabilizing response,” Birol said. “This winter could become a historic test of European solidarity — one it cannot afford to fail — with implications far beyond the energy sector.” | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/explainer-can-europe-live-without-russian-natural-gas/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:34 | en | 0.964145 |
HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s annual book fair kicked off Wednesday, with several publishers of political books prevented from taking part in the fair and others saying they had to be cautious about what they exhibited.
The fair’s main organizer, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, said it did not screen the books for sale at the fair. But Hong Kong authorities have tightened controls on freedom of expression and arrested dozens of pro-democracy activists after a tough national security law took effect in 2020, and the council stressed that exhibitors must abide by the law.
Independent publisher Hillway Culture, which publishes books on Hong Kong and political events, was among those not allowed to participate. Another publisher, One of a Kind, which has published several books about 2019 protests in the city, was another.
Publishers are having a tough time given the impact of the pandemic on the city’s economy and concerns over censorship and rejection of independent publishers, said Kaying Wong, a guest curator at The House of Hong Kong Literature, the city’s largest literary organization.
“It’s surely not an easy job for us to set up a booth in the book fair and be selected (to exhibit),” Wong said.
The book fair is one of the largest in Asia. In past years, it was known for exhibiting a variety of books, including politically sensitive ones and those banned on the communist-ruled Chinese mainland.
In 2020, the city postponed the fair several times due to the pandemic. The event finally was held in person last June after a one-year hiatus. This year’s book fair runs from Wednesday until Tuesday, July 26.
Novelist Gabriel Tsang, who works with publisher Spicy Fish Cultural Production Limited, said writers have to consider whether they can get published in the current environment.
“I guess many writers have their own intentions … and they have to think a lot about whether they can have work published. They may use some allegory or use many rhetoric skills, rather than directly expressing what they wanted to express originally,” he said.
Last year, complaints were lodged against Hillway Culture, one of the publishers rejected this year, for exhibiting politically sensitive books that could be seen as violating the national security law.
“Last year, we had (exhibited) political books in the book fair and this was also the case for another publisher that was banned,” said Raymond Yeung, Hillway Culture’s founder. He was one of the few publishers allowed to exhibit political books about Hong Kong at last year’s book fair.
Yeung attempted to set up an independent book fair as an alternative to the main fair earlier this month but had to cancel that after the landlord of the venue accused Hillway of violating its tenancy contract by subletting its space to other publishers.
The authorities ought to be clearer and more transparent about what kinds of activities are allowed, said Hui Ching, research director of the policy think tank Hong Kong Zhi Ming Institute.
“If there’s no transparency, it’s reasonable for citizen to suspect their rights being deprived,” Hui said.
Visitors still value the fair as an opportunity to browse and purchase a wide range of books.
“I read as a habit and today I’ve come to look for some Chinese novels and short stories that I’m interested in,” said Grace Ng, a 22-year-old university student who visited the fair with her boyfriend.
Ng usually attends the annual fair and said this year’s appeared somewhat subdued. “It’s not as crowded now as before the pandemic,” she said. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/hong-kong-book-fair-kicks-off-with-fewer-political-books/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:41 | en | 0.981456 |
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi’s offer to resign has sent unsettling ripples through financial markets, bringing back bad memories of Europe’s debt crisis a decade ago and complicating the European Central Bank’s job as it raises interest rates for the first time in 11 years to combat record inflation.
Draghi, a former ECB president, has pushed policies meant to keep Italy’s high levels of debt manageable and boost growth in Europe’s third-largest economy. He suggested Wednesday that he was open to staying in power, but the threat of political changes as borrowing costs increase have raised concerns that the 19-country eurozone could head into another crisis.
It’s a headache for the ECB as it seeks to return interest rates from sub-zero to more normal levels starting Thursday — without setting off bond-market chaos in a country with debt at 150% of economic output. The ECB has said it will raise rates a quarter-percentage point, though some analysts aren’t ruling out a half-point increase.
The Frankfurt-based ECB will join the U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England and other central banks worldwide that have already raised rates several times to tame runaway inflation. But the ECB doesn’t want jittery markets sending up the borrowing costs of some euro member countries beyond what’s justified by their economic strength.
The bank’s task is already hard enough with predictions growing of a recession next year due to exorbitant oil and natural gas prices fueled by the war in Ukraine.
So along with the rate increase, ECB President Christine Lagarde is expected to announce a financial backstop aimed at capping borrowing costs for governments and companies in eurozone countries that are less financially solid than the others.
It’s a hassle unique to the ECB because it oversees 19 countries that are in different financial shape but use one currency, which has plunged to its lowest level against the dollar in 20 years.
“The Fed and the Bank of England don’t have this problem,” said Maria Demertzis, interim director of the Bruegel think tank in Brussels. “The borrowing costs for each country when they issue debt is different, because the underlying outlook is different.”
The ECB’s goal is to avoid a replay of 2011 to 2012, when Italy’s borrowing costs spiked to around 7%, driven by a so-called bond-market death spiral, where rising borrowing costs raise fears a government won’t repay their debt, in turn raising borrowing costs even higher.
The vicious circle was broken by Draghi pledging as ECB chief to “do whatever it takes” to preserve the euro, followed with a promise that the bank would buy the bonds of countries facing excessive borrowing costs if needed. That backstop calmed the market so well that it never had to be used. But it came with tough conditions that might make it unappealing to governments.
The ECB’s new backstop will have conditions but probably less onerous ones. It would consist of a promise to buy an indebted country’s bonds, which drives down borrowing costs if market interest rates rise to unjustified levels.
In recent days, borrowing costs for Italy and other less financially solid eurozone countries such as Spain and Portugal have risen compared with financially solid Germany, the benchmark.
Italian 10-year bonds now yield 3.4%, about 2.2% higher than their German equivalent. Italy’s borrowing costs are not excessive at that level, but the idea is to keep them that way because market sentiment can turn suddenly.
Demertzis said that as interest rates go up, they’re transmitted differently to the borrowing costs of each country.
“So now that we are in the part of the interest rate cycle where rates are going to have to go up, the problem is that borrowing costs will accelerate for Italy and will not accelerate for Germany,” she said.
If Italy can’t borrow affordably, it could turn to the eurozone’s bailout fund, but it would be much harder to rescue than Greece was a decade ago because Italy is much bigger.
The trick for the ECB will be to reassure markets while not encouraging reckless spending by governments or violating legal restrictions on directly financing governments.
“Any sense that the ECB is dragging its feet, or that the final outcome won’t be effective enough, will see fragmentation concerns rush back onto the agenda, fanning the flames of an altogether more worrying fall in the euro,” wrote Neal Shearing, chief economist at Capital Economics.
“Ten years after Draghi’s pledge to do whatever it takes, Christine Lagarde risks repeating history. She must avoid drifting into another crisis that would ultimately require her to make a similar pledge to her predecessor,” he said in an analyst note.
Italy’s political crisis, playing out in Parliament after the president rejected Draghi’s offer to resign over a divide in the coalition government, follows 17 months of relative stability. Draghi rolled out an ambitious pandemic recovery program aimed at improving long-term economic growth — the real answer to keeping Italy’s debt manageable.
The 190 billion-euro plan backed by common EU borrowing will add some debt but is intended to more than make up for it because strong growth shrinks the size of debt relative to the economy.
Italy’s debt, second highest in the eurozone after Greece, fell 4.5% in 2021 because of the country’s strong growth rebound.
Greek debt is less of an issue, Demertzis said, because it’s mostly owed to public institutions after Greece’s three bailouts during the debt crisis — and therefore isn’t exposed to market selloffs.
Draghi’s government has begun passing recovery proposals like digitizing and improving government services and streamlining a cumbersome legal system criticized for years as a drag on businesses. It also plans to increase day-care slots so more women can enter the labor force, accelerate the transition to renewable energy and extend high-speed rail and internet to more areas of the country.
But if Draghi’s coalition breaks apart and is replaced by a government less committed to pressing ahead with the reforms, markets could begin to doubt its prospects for economic growth. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/italy-political-turmoil-a-headache-for-europes-central-bank/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:48 | en | 0.960269 |
CAIRO (AP) — Libya resumed oil exports Wednesday, ending a hiatus that lasted months.
The resumption came after the country restarted production at oil fields following the firing of the chairman of the state-run oil corporation by one of the country’s rival governments.
A Malta-flagged tanker, Matala, docked at the al-Sidra terminal to ship one million barrels of crude oil, the new leadership of the National Oil Corporation said. The vessel will then head to Italy, it said.
Two other tankers, the Marshall Islands-flagged Nissos Sifnos and the Liberia-flagged Crudemed, were scheduled to ship 1.6 million barrels Wednesday from the terminals of Zueitina Ras Lanuf, according to the NOC.
Last week, the NOC lifted a force majeure which was declared in April at several oil facilities after tribal leaders, aligned with powerful commander Khalifa Hifter, shut them down. The force of majeure is a legal maneuver that enables a company to get out of its contract obligations because of extraordinary circumstances.
Production was resumed Tuesday at several fields including the Sharara, the county’s largest, after three months of closure, the NOC announced.
Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, prime minister of the the Tripoli-based government, announced last week the sacking of Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of the NOC. He appointed Farhat Bengdara, a former governor of Libya’s central bank, to head the crucial oil company.
The move was rejected by Sanalla, who said Dbeibah’s government lacked legitimacy.
NOC’s new chairman, Bengdara, became known for his strong ties with the United Arab Emirates and Hifter, whose forces control the country’s eastern and much of southern areas.
His appointment was seen as a move by Dbeibah to gain control over oil revenues and gain the support of Hifter in his rivalry with Bashagha.
Libya is now ruled by two rival administrations, Dbeibah’s government in Tripoli and the government of Fathi Bashagha, who was appointed as prime minister by the east-based parliament in February and is now based in the city of Sirte.
The North African country has been wrecked by conflict since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising turned civil war toppled and later killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The country’s prized light crude has long been a feature of Libya’s conflict, with rival militias and foreign powers jostling for control of Africa’s largest oil reserves.
Tribal leaders, aligned with Hifter, in April shut down oil facilities, including the country’s largest oil field and major terminals, likely to deprive Dbeibah’s from funds.
The closures caused Libya’s daily output of oil to drop by two-thirds. The country’s production was at 1.2 billion barrels a day earlier this year.
The shutdown had come amid skyrocketing oil prices following the Russian war in Ukraine It also exacerbated the country’s electricity shortages and sparked protests, including one that resulted in the storming of the east-based parliament in Tobruk. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/libya-says-oil-export-resumed-amid-power-struggle/ | 2022-07-21T06:15:55 | en | 0.968039 |
LONDON (AP) — Fans of Liz Truss think she is the new Iron Lady.
Britain’s foreign secretary is one of the two final contenders to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and prime minister. Some 180,000 party members will be asked to choose either Truss or former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, with the winner set to be announced Sept. 5.
If Truss wins, she would become Britain’s third female prime minister. She has forged her image in homage to the first, Margaret Thatcher.
Truss has posed in a British Army tank in Eastern Europe, evoking an image of Thatcher during the Cold War. In a televised leadership debate this week, Britain’s top diplomat sported a pussy-bow blouse eerily similar to one the late prime minister used to wear.
Truss, 46, is a favorite among many Conservatives, who revere Thatcher above all other leaders. Critics say it’s an empty homage and believe Truss lacks the gravitas to lead the country amid economic turbulence and a European war.
As foreign secretary, Truss has been front and center in Britain’s support for Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia over the invasion of its neighbor. She also has figured prominently in the U.K.’s feud with the European Union over post-Brexit trade arrangements.
Her pugnacious approach — along with her promises to slash taxes and boost defense spending — have made her the favorite of the party’s strongly euroskeptic right wing.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Truss said she was “the only person who can deliver the change we need on the economy — in line with true Conservative principles — and the only person capable of stepping up and leading the response to Ukraine and the increased security threat that the free world faces.”
But opponents criticize her as a dogmatist and a wooden public speaker, and note that she has not always been a true-blue Tory.
Born in Oxford in 1975, Truss is the daughter of a math professor and a nurse who took her on anti-nuclear and anti-Thatcher protests as a child, where she recalled shouting: “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie — out, out out!”
Truss attended a public high school in Leeds, northern England, and then studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, where she briefly belonged to the centrist Liberal Democrats and called for the abolition of the monarchy.
She worked as an economist for energy giant Shell and telecommunications firm Cable and Wireless, and for a right-of-center think tank while becoming involved in Conservative politics and espousing free-market Thatcherite views. She ran unsuccessfully for Parliament twice before being elected to represent the eastern England seat of Southwest Norfolk in 2010.
Truss is married to Hugh O’Leary, with whom she has two teenage daughters.
In Britain’s 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union, Truss backed the losing “remain” side. But she has served in Johnson’s staunchly pro-Brexit government as trade secretary and then foreign secretary, and has won the support of the Conservative Party’s most fervent Brexiteers.
Her record as foreign secretary has drawn mixed reviews. Many praise her firm response to the invasion of Ukraine, and she secured the release of two British nationals jailed in Iran where her predecessors had failed. But EU leaders and officials hoping she would bring a softer tone to the U.K.’s relations with the bloc have been disappointed.
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, says the fact that euroskeptics adore Truss, while suspecting Sunak of pro-EU views — despite that fact that he backed “leave” in the referendum — shows the importance of image over substance in politics.
“His image doesn’t fit that of a Brexiteer whereas hers does,” Bale said. “There’s a kind of presumption that if you’re a bit of a smoothiechops who moves easily in international circles you must be a remainer, and if you’re someone who tells it like it is to Johnny Foreigner then you’re obviously a (true) Brexiteer.”
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Follow all of AP’s coverage of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/boris-johnson | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/liz-truss-a-margaret-thatcher-fan-at-uks-diplomatic-helm/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:03 | en | 0.960496 |
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s prime minister was elected president Wednesday by lawmakers who opted for a seasoned, veteran leader to lead the country out of economic collapse, despite widespread public opposition.
Ranil Wickremesinghe, an ally of ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa whose term he is finishing after he fled the country and resigned, urged fellow lawmakers to unite in saving the nation.
“People are not expecting the old politics from us, they expect us to work together,” he told Parliament.
But he is a divisive figure, unpopular among a public fed up with shortages of food, fuel and medicine, and critics question whether he can muster the political heft and public support to get the job done.
Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister by Rajapaksa in May after angry protests forced Rajapaksa’s brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to step down and seek refuge in a naval base. Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled Sri Lanka earlier this month, submitting his resignation by email, and Wickremesinghe became acting president ahead of Wednesday’s vote, as well as prime minister and finance minister.
He then quickly declared a state of emergency after protesters stormed the presidential palace and several other government buildings last week. That gave him broad powers to act in the interest of public security and order, enabling the authorities to carry out searches and detain people. Wickremesinghe was also empowered to change or suspend any law.
At 73, Wickremesinghe has had six terms as prime minister. Rajapaksa chose him as he tried to restore Sri Lanka’s credibility after it stopped making payments on its $51 billion in foreign debt.
As protests raged, he became the public face of the crisis, delivering weekly addresses in Parliament, raising taxes and pledging to overhaul a government that had increasingly concentrated power under the presidency, helping to tip the country into crisis. He has been leading negotiations on a bailout package with the International Monetary Fund.
Opponents have accused Wickremesinghe of protecting the Rajapaksa family, who are widely blamed for leading the nation into ruin, from allegations of corruption and other wrongdoing.
Just days before lawmakers elected him president, protesters took over Wickremesinghe’s office compound demanding that he resign. His private residence was burned down.
Wickremesinghe’s win on Wednesday was a vindication after a humiliating 2020 electoral defeat for his United National Party — one of the country’s main and oldest parties — that left him its sole lawmaker. With support from Rajapaksa’s ruling party, he netted 134 votes, far more than runner-up Dullas Alahapperuma, a former government minister backed by the opposition. He won 82 votes.
Ahead of the vote, few lawmakers had publicly said they would vote for Wickremesinghe given the widespread public hostility against him — but dozens loyal to Rajapaksa had been expected to back him because he had assured them he would severely punish protesters who had attacked politicians’ homes during the unrest.
Born into a wealthy, politically active family whose fortune was made in timber and the media, Wickremesinghe has served as a lawmaker for 45 years. His reputation suffered during a previous stint as prime minister in a difficult power-sharing arrangement with then-President Maithripala Sirisena. A communication breakdown between them was blamed for intelligence lapses that led to a terror attack in 2019 that devastated tourism even before the catastrophic blow from the pandemic.
He earned a law degree from the University of Colombo and practiced as a lawyer before entering politics in 1977, becoming the youngest lawmaker at the time. He was first appointed prime minister in 1993 and also was an opposition leader for more than a decade.
Wickremesinghe has generally kept details of his private life under wraps. He is married to Maitree Wickremesinghe, a professor and expert on gender and women’s studies. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/new-sri-lankan-president-divisive-choice-for-fixing-crisis/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:10 | en | 0.982875 |
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Environmental criminals in the Brazilian Amazon destroyed public rainforests equal the size of El Salvador over the past six years, yet the Federal Police — the Brazilian version of the FBI — carried out only seven operations aimed at this massive loss, according to a new study.
The destruction took place in state and federal forests that are “unallocated,” meaning they do not have a designated use the way national parks and Indigenous territories do. According to official data, the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has about 580,000 square kilometers (224,000 square miles) of forests in this category, or an area almost the size of Ukraine.
As Brazil has repeatedly legalized such invasions, these public forests have become the main target for criminals who illegally seize land.
The study, from Igarapé Institute, a Brazilian think tank, analyzed 302 environmental crime raids carried out by the Federal Police in the Amazon between 2016 and 2021. Only 2% targeted people illegally seizing undesignated public lands.
The report says the lack of enforcement likely stems from the weak legal protection of these areas, in other words, the same problem that draws the illegal activity. Environmentalists have long pressed the federal government to turn these unallocated public forests into protected areas.
Since Brazil’s return to democratic rule in 1985 after two decades of military rule, most successive governments have made moves to extend the legal protection, and today about 47% of the Amazon lies within protected areas, according to official data. Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, however, has repeatedly said the country has too many protected areas and stalled this decades-long policy.
In 2016, some 2240 square kilometers (865 square miles) of unallocated public land were illegally deforested. Last year, it reached almost double that amount. Over six years, the accumulated loss has reached some 18,500 square kilometers (7,100 square miles), according to Amazon Environmental Research Institute, or IPAM, based on official data.
Deforestation is increasingly taking place on these lands in particular. In 2016, they made up 31% of all illegally-felled forest. Last year, they reached 36%.
Almost half of Brazil’s climate pollution comes from deforestation, according to an annual study from the Brazilian nonprofit network Climate Observatory. The destruction is so vast that the eastern Amazon has ceased to be a carbon sink, or absorber, for the Earth and has converted into a carbon source, according to a study published in 2021 in the journal Nature.
Igarape divides environmental crime in the Amazon into four major illicit or tainted activities: theft of public land; illegal logging; illegal mining; and deforestation linked to agriculture and cattle farming.
The enforcement operations were spread over many locations, 846, because most investigated deep into illegal supply chains. Nearly half were in protected areas, such as the Yanomami Indigenous Territory, which, despite a heavier police presence, suffers a growing invasion by thousands of illegal gold miners.
The Igarape study also pointed to an extensive “regional ecosystem of crime,” since the police operations took place in 24 of Brazil’s 27 states plus 8 cities in neighboring countries. “Environmental crime stems from illicit economies that access consumer markets and financing outside the Amazon,” the report says.
The Federal Police didn’t respond to an Associated Press email seeking comment about its strategy in the Amazon.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/report-brazil-authorities-turn-blind-eye-to-deforestation/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:17 | en | 0.957218 |
LONDON (AP) — Rishi Sunak was seen as Boris Johnson’s natural heir, until he turned on the prime minister who put him in charge of Britain’s economy.
The former Treasury chief, who quit earlier this month after questioning Johnson’s competence and ethics, is one of the two final contenders to replace Johnson as Conservative Party leader and prime minister — but he faces fierce opposition from Johnson and his allies, who consider him a turncoat.
Either Sunak or Liz Truss, who has led the U.K.’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as foreign secretary, will be chosen in a ballot of 180,000 Conservative members to be the party’s new leader. The winner will be announced Sept. 5 and will automatically become Britain’s new prime minister.
At 42, Sunak would be the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years and the country’s first South Asian leader.
Sunak was born in Southampton, on England’s south coast, in 1980 to Indian parents who were both born in East Africa. He grew up in a middle-class family, his father a family doctor and his mother a pharmacist. He has described how his parents saved to pay for a private education, and he attended Winchester College, one of Britain’s toniest and most expensive boarding schools.
There, he mingled with the elite. Rivals recently dug up a clip from a 2001 TV documentary about the class system in which the 21-year-old Sunak said he had “friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper class, I have friends who are, you know, working class — well, not working class.”
After high school Sunak studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University — the degree of choice for future prime ministers — then got an MBA at Stanford University.
He worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs and as a hedge fund manager and lived in the U.S., where he met his wife, Akshata Murty. They have two daughters.
Returning to Britain, Sunak was elected to Parliament for the safe Tory seat of Richmond, in Yorkshire, in 2015 and served in several junior ministerial posts before being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Johnson early in 2020, just before the pandemic hit.
An instinctive low-tax politician who idolizes former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he nonetheless forked out billions in government money to keep people and businesses afloat during the pandemic.
His furlough program, which paid the salaries of millions of workers when they were temporarily laid off, made him the most popular member of the government — a status “Dishy Rishi” burnished with slick social media messages that stressed his own brand more than the government’s.
Sunak’s sure-footedness has wobbled over the years. Critics said a campaign to get people to eat in restaurants after lockdown restrictions were eased in the summer of 2020 contributed to another wave of COVID-19.
He also has faced questions about his wealth and finances. His wife is the daughter of the billionaire founder of Indian tech giant Infosys, and the couple is worth 730 million pounds ($877 million), according to the Sunday Times Rich list. In April it emerged that Murty did not pay U.K. tax on her overseas income.
The status was legal but it looked bad at a time when Sunak was raising the taxes of millions of Britons. Sunak also was criticized for holding onto his American Green Card — which signifies an intent to settle in the U.S. — for two years after he became Britain’s finance minister. Sunak was cleared of wrongdoing, but the revelations still hurt.
Sunak also was fined by police, along with Johnson and more than 80 others, for attending a party in the prime minister’s office in 2020 that broke coronavirus lockdown rules. He said he had attended inadvertently and briefly.
Sunak’s leadership campaign has been the most professional of any contender, from a slick launch video to a coterie of aides to marshal support.
He has depicted himself as the candidate of grown-up decisions and fiscal probity, calling rivals’ tax-cutting plans reckless and vowing to get inflation under control. He frequently mentions his political idol, Thatcher, but has nonetheless been cast by rivals as a left-wing, tax-and-spend politician, and has been subjected to mudslinging by Johnson’s allies.
Sunak is a popular candidate among Tory lawmakers, but now must win over the wider party, where his slick image could be an asset, or a liability.
Steven Fielding, professor of political history at the University of Nottingham, says Sunak “has got the demeanor of a daytime chat show host.”
“He’s plausible, he’s glib,” Fielding said. “He’s very like (former Prime Minister) David Cameron in that regard. He’s plausible, and yet somehow you think you’re being lied to.”
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This version corrects the number of people fined over “partygate” to more than 80, not 50.
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Follow all of AP’s coverage of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/boris-johnson | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/rishi-sunak-heir-apparent-who-ran-afoul-of-boris-johnson/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:24 | en | 0.978868 |
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Egypt and Serbia on Wednesday agreed to boost political, economic and other cooperation as the two countries look for ways to deal with the global impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was in Serbia on a three-day visit this week — the first in more than three decades by an Egyptian president. His host, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, said the visit had a “historic character.”
“It will bring so much in the future,” Vucic said at a joint press conference with Sissi. “This is just a beginning.”
The two leaders signed a partnership declaration, Vucic awarded el-Sissi a state decoration and announced plans for a free trade agreement by the end of the year. A business forum was held as officials signed a series of deals focusing on fields of cooperation.
“Both our countries should cooperate for better economies in relation to the global events,” said el-Sissi. “Egypt expects stronger cooperation in all fields.”
Vucic said Serbia will export grain, primarily wheat, to Egypt, which has been hit hard by the price hikes caused by the war in Ukraine. Egypt is among the world’s largest importers of wheat, with much of that from now-blocked Ukrainian ports.
Serbia, a candidate country for European Union membership, has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia and has maintained friendly relations with Moscow despite the war. Both leaders said the war in Ukraine was among the topics discussed at their meeting Wednesday.
“Egypt is a country that wishes to see everything resolved peacefully and through agreements,” said el-Sissi, who met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Saudi Arabia last week.
El-Sissi and Vucic also evoked during their press conference the decades-old ties of Belgrade and Cairo as founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement of nations outside the opposed blocs during the time of Cold War divisions. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/serbia-egypt-agree-to-boost-cooperation-amid-war-in-ukraine/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:32 | en | 0.974366 |
LJUBLJANA, Slovenia (AP) — Slovenia will hold a presidential election on Oct. 23 to choose a successor to centrist President Borut Pahor, who has been in office for 10 years, authorities said Wednesday.
If no candidate wins more than half of the ballots in the first round, a runoff between the top two will be held three weeks later.
Already, several people have said they would run for the presidency, including two female contenders who have been polling strongly — independent lawyer Natasa Pirc Musar and ruling liberal party candidate Marta Kos.
Also expected to run is former foreign minister Anze Logar, a candidate of right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa.
If a woman wins she will become the first female president of the country since Slovenia became an independent nation in 1991 after splitting from the former Yugoslavia.
Pirc Musar has led the polls, with many in Slovenia feeling she could help bridge a divide between the right and left. She is also well known for representing Slovenia-born U.S. former first lady Melania Trump in some legal cases in her home country.
Marta Kos is from the liberal Freedom Movement, which runs the current Slovenian government after winning an election in April. The liberals ousted Jansa’s government, which during his term pushed the traditionally moderate European Union nation toward right-wing populism.
Pahor, who also served previously as prime minister, has sought to stoke political unity. He is banned from running again after two full terms.
While the presidency is largely ceremonial in Slovenia, the president still is seen as a person of authority in the Alpine country of 2 million people. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/slovenia-to-hold-a-presidential-election-on-oct-23/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:39 | en | 0.982687 |
MADRID (AP) — When José Antonio González started his afternoon shift sweeping the streets of Madrid, the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) amid a heat wave gripping Spain.
After a long time without a job, González couldn’t afford to pass up a one-month summer contract to sweep the city, where he lived in a working-class neighborhood. Three hours later, the 60-year-old collapsed with heat stroke and was found lying in the street he was cleaning.
An ambulance took the father of two to the hospital, where he died on Saturday.
His death is driving a debate in Spain about the need to adapt labor arrangements to climate change. The poorest in society, often the elderly and the low-paid such as construction workers and delivery riders for whom heat stress is a workplace hazard, have long been identified as being at a disadvantage in attempts to adjust to rising temperatures.
“It’s obvious that social inequalities play a part” in how much people suffer during heat waves, says Júlio Díaz of Spain’s Carlos III Health Institute.
“Enduring a heat wave in an air-conditioned house with a swimming pool is not the same as five people in the same room with a window as the only source of fresh air,” he told Spanish public broadcaster RTVE.
The recent torrid weather in Europe, which has seen a spike in the number and size of wildfires, is forcing the issue to the forefront.
France has already taken some steps to alleviate heat inequality after a 2003 heat wave caused 15,000 heat-related deaths, many of them older people left in city apartments and retirement homes without air conditioning.
Ahead of France’s latest heat wave, which set some record temperatures this week, the government reminded employers of their legal obligation to protect workers in extreme heat. That includes free drinking water, ventilation and, if possible, changing working hours and providing extra breaks.
And as Britain prepared for this week’s heat wave, which saw temperatures hit a national record of 40.3 degrees Celsius (104.5 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday, labor unions urged the government to impose maximum workplace temperatures for the first time. Many homes, small businesses and even public buildings in Britain do not have air-conditioning.
Unite, the country’s biggest union, is pushing for a maximum workplace temperature of 27 C (80.6 F) for “strenuous’’ jobs and 30 C (86 F) for sedentary jobs. The union also says employers should be required to take steps to reduce indoor temperatures and impose strict protections for outdoor workers whenever temperatures reach 24 C (75.2 F).
“As the climate changes, it is vital that health and safety law is updated in line with the serious challenges this presents for workers,” said Rob Miguel, Unite’s national adviser on health and safety.
In Madrid, González’s 21-year-old son, Miguel Ángel, says his father, days before he died, had searched on the internet for “how to deal with heat stroke.” The evening before he died, he had arrived home from his cleaning shift gasping for air.
Scientists say the worsening of pre-existing illnesses, not heat strokes themselves, are the main cause of deaths linked to the high temperatures.
The Carlos III Health Institute estimates that 150 deaths in Spain were somehow linked to the heat wave on the day that González died. The following day, the institute attributed 169 deaths to the heat, bringing a total of 679 cases during just the first week of the heat wave.
Ramming home the danger, another Madrid street sweeper was hospitalized with heat stroke on Tuesday.
In places accustomed to high temperatures, such as Spain’s southern Andalusia region, construction workers already work only morning hours during the summer.
Three days after González’s death, Madrid officials agreed with labor groups that street cleaners could postpone their afternoon shift and work instead amid cooler evening temperatures.
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Hatton contributed from Lisbon, Portugal. John Leicester in Le Pecq, France and Danica Kirka in London contributed.
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/spanish-workers-death-shows-need-to-adapt-to-climate-change/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:46 | en | 0.960289 |
ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Mario Draghi won a confidence vote Wednesday in the Senate, but it was a hollow victory after three of his key coalition allies boycotted the voting, virtually dooming any prospects for his unity government’s survival.
The vote Wednesday went 95-38 in the favor of Draghi’s government in the 315-member Senate, after lawmakers deserted the roll call in droves.
“In these days of folly, Parliament decides to go against Italy,’’ tweeted Enrico Letta, a former premier who leads the Democratic Party, the only large party in the ruling coalition to back Draghi in the confidence vote. “Italians will show themselves at the ballot box to be wiser than their representatives.”
The rapid unraveling of Draghi’s 17-month-old coalition could prompt President Sergio Mattarella to dissolve Parliament, opening the path to holding an early election as soon as late September. .
Coalition turmoil prompted Draghi last week to offer his resignation, but Mattarella rejected the bid and asked the premier to take his case to Parliament. After hours of debate Wednesday on his fate, Draghi asked the Senate to vote on a confidence measure calling on him to keep on governing. But his national unity government’s staying power dramatically fell apart.
Just before the vote, representatives of the populist 5-Star Movement, the conservative forces of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia party and right-wing senators from Matteo Salvini’s League party announced they would skip the roll call.
The coalition’s implosion came despite an unprecedented outpouring of sentiment by ordinary Italians in the last few days appealing for Draghi to keep on governing, amid soaring inflation, high energy costs and a surge in pandemic infections.
The former European Central Bank chief — considered by financial markets to be a guarantor of fiscal stability in Italy — had challenged his coalition partners to recommit to a unity pact.
“Are you ready? Are you ready to rebuild this pact? Are you ready?” Draghi thundered. “You don’t have to give the answer to me. You have to give it to all Italians.”
Assuming Draghi tenders his resignation again, Mattarella could hold a round of consultations with party leaders before deciding his next move.
The president could see if parties might agree to a short-lived, limited government by a non-political figure, like the current finance minister, to help ensure that lawmakers could pass the annual budget, whose first draft is due in mid-October. But with a raft of Italian parties already proclaiming themselves ready for an early election, that appeared unlikely.
Opinion polls of voters have indicated neck-to-neck percentages for Letta and Giorgia Meloni, who leads the far-right Brothers of Italy party, the main opposition party now. If Meloni stays teamed up with her traditional allies, Salvini and Berlusconi, in an election alliance, she stands a good chance of clinching her goal of becoming Italy’s first female premier.
Letta’s Democrats had been counting on an election alliance with the 5-Stars, but the split over the confidence vote makes that difficult.
“Nothing will be the same tomorrow, as political parties go,” said Matteo Renzi, another former premier who leads a centrist party that voted for Draghi.
In recent weeks, Draghi was bombarded with ultimatums from 5-Star leader Giuseppe Conte, his predecessor in the premiership. The populists have criticized Italian military help for Ukraine, as did Salvini. That prompted one lawmaker last week to describe Draghi’s impending departure as “a gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Draghi has also pressed efforts to slash Italy’s dependence on Russian gas, including forging agreements with Algeria, which he visited this week. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/stay-or-go-italys-premier-to-brief-parliament-on-crisis/ | 2022-07-21T06:16:53 | en | 0.968104 |
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Conservative Party on Wednesday chose former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss — a fiscal moderate and a low-tax crusader — as the two finalists in a party election to replace departing Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The result came just after the divisive, unrepentant Johnson, who has plunged his party into turmoil, ended his final appearance in Parliament as prime minister with the words “Hasta la vista, baby.”
Sunak and Truss came first and second respectively in a secret vote by Conservative lawmakers. Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt came in third and was eliminated.
The race, which has already produced bitter Conservative infighting, pits Sunak, who steered Britain’s economy through the pandemic before quitting Johnson’s government this month, against Truss, who has led the U.K.’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The two contenders will spend the next few weeks campaigning for the votes of about 180,000 Conservative Party members around the country, who will vote by postal or online ballot. The winner of the party leadership vote will be announced Sept. 5 and will automatically become Britain’s next prime minister.
Sunak won all four rounds of elimination votes by lawmakers, but is less popular with the party’s grassroots, partly because of his previous job as Britain’s chief taxman.
Truss, who has taken a tough line against Russian President Vladimir Putin — and with the European Union — is a favorite of the Conservatives’ right wing.
Truss said if she becomes prime minister “I would hit the ground running from day one, unite the party and govern in line with Conservative values.”
Sunak’s campaign said “the choice for members is very simple: who is the best person to beat Labour at the next election? The evidence shows that’s Rishi.”
The winner of the Tory contest will not have to face British voters until 2024, unless they choose to call an early general election.
The campaign has already exposed deep divisions in the Conservative Party at the end of Johnson’s scandal-tarnished three-year reign. Truss has branded Sunak a “socialist” for raising taxes in response to the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Sunak has hit back, saying that rivals including Truss were peddling economic “fairy tales” to British voters as the country faces soaring inflation and economic turbulence.
Johnson allies have been accused of lobbying against Sunak, whose resignation helped bring the prime minister down, and in favor of Truss, who remained loyal. That impression was cemented Wednesday when Johnson said his advice to his successor would be not always to listen to the Treasury.
All the contenders —- there were 11 to start — sought to distance themselves from Johnson, whose term in office began boldly in 2019 with a vow to “get Brexit done” and a resounding election victory, but is now ending in disgrace.
Johnson quit July 7 but remains caretaker leader until the party elects his successor.
On Wednesday, he faced derisive opposition politicians and weary Conservatives at his last Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons, which adjourns for the summer on Thursday.
It was a downbeat departure, with supportive Conservative lawmakers lobbing praise and opposition politicians offering variations on “good riddance.”
Johnson extolled what he called his accomplishments — leading Britain out of the EU and through COVID-19, and supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion — and declared: “Mission largely accomplished, for now,” before departing with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “hasta la vista” catchphrase from “Terminator 2.”
Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer said: “I will miss the delusion.”
Johnson clung to office through months of scandals over his finances and his judgment, refusing to resign when he was fined by police over government parties that broke COVID-19 lockdown rules. He finally quit after one scandal too many — appointing a politician accused of sexual misconduct — drove his ministers to resign en masse.
Despite remaining prime minister, he has largely disappeared from the scene, even as Britain faces a summer cost-of-living crisis and labor discontent as inflation hits 9.4%.
Johnson did not attend any government emergency meetings about the heat wave that brought record temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) to Britain this week. Last week he took a ride in a Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jet, with “Top Gun”-style footage released by his office, then threw a weekend party at Chequers, the country house that comes with the prime minister’s job.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan accused Johnson of wanting to “become Tom Cruise” and urged him to resign immediately.
“We need a full-time prime minister looking after our country rather than somebody who’s checked out,” Khan said.
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Follow all of AP’s coverage of British politics at https://apnews.com/hub/boris-johnson | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/uk-conservatives-picking-final-2-in-race-to-replace-johnson/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:01 | en | 0.973599 |
LONDON (AP) — Britain’s record-breaking heatwave has spurred calls for the government to speed up efforts to adapt to a changing climate, especially after wildfires created the busiest day for London firefighters since bombs rained down on the city during World War II.
The country got a break Wednesday from the dry, hot weather that is gripping much of Europe as cooler air moved in from the west. Forecasters predict London will reach a high of 26 degrees Celsius (79 Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, down from the national record 40.3 C (104.4 F) set Tuesday at Coningsby in eastern England.
Even so, travel was disrupted for a third day as rail operators repaired damage caused by the heat, and firefighters continue to mop up hotspots at the scene of Tuesday’s fires.
Britain needs to prepare for similar heatwaves in the future because manmade carbon emissions have already changed the climate, said Professor Stephen Belcher, chief scientist at the Met Office, the U.K.’s national weather service. Only aggressive emissions reductions will reduce the frequency of such events, he said.
“Everything is still to play for, but we should adapt to the kind of events we saw yesterday as an occasional extreme event,” Baker told the BBC.
Climate scientists have been surprised by the speed at which temperatures in Britain have risen in recent years and the widespread area affected by this week’s event. Thirty-four locations around the U.K. on Tuesday broke the country’s previous record-high temperature of 37.8 C (100 F), set in 2019.
The weather walloped a country where few homes, schools or small businesses have air conditioning and infrastructure such as railroads, highways and airports aren’t designed to cope with such temperatures. Thirteen people, including seven teenage boys, are believed to have died trying to cool off after getting into difficulty in rivers, reservoirs and lakes.
Fifteen fire departments declared major incidents as more than 60 properties around the country were destroyed on Tuesday, Cabinet Office Minister Kit Malthouse told the House of Commons.
One of the biggest fires was in Wennington, a village on the eastern outskirts of London, where a row of houses was destroyed by flames that raced through tinder-dry fields nearby. Resident Tim Stock said he and his wife fled after the house next door caught fire and the blaze rapidly spread.
“It was like a war zone,” he said. “Down the actual main road, all the windows had exploded out, all the roofs had caved, it was like a scene from the Blitz.”
The London Fire Brigade received 2,600 calls Tuesday, compared with the normal figure of about 350, Mayor Sadiq Khan said, adding that it was the department’s busiest day since the World War II. Despite lower temperatures on Wednesday, the fire danger remains high because hot, dry weather has parched grasslands around the city, Khan said.
“Once it catches fire it spreads incredibly fast, like wildfires like you see in movies or in fires in California or in parts of France,” Khan told the BBC.
Phil Gerigan, leader of the National Fire Chiefs Council’s resilience group, said wildfires are an emerging threat tied to climate change that is stretching the capacity of fire departments. Britain may need to expand its capacity to fight wildfires, adding more aerial tankers and helicopters, he told the BBC.
“As we look towards the future, it’s certainly something that the U.K. government and fire and rescue services need to consider,” he said. “Have we got the capability, the assets, to be able to meet what is a significantly emerging demand?”
Wildfires continue to spread destruction in other parts of Europe. Nearly 500 firefighters struggled to contain a large wildfire that threatened hillside suburbs outside Athens for a second day as fires burned across a southern swath of the continent.
A respite from the severe heat helped improve conditions in France, Spain and Portugal, countries that have battled blazes for days.
Britain’s travel network also suffered during the hot weather, with Luton Airport briefly shut down by a heat-damaged runway and trains forced to run at reduced speeds because of concerns the heat would warp rails or interrupt power supplies.
Some disruptions remained Wednesday as crews worked to repair power lines and signaling equipment damaged by fire. Passengers were advised to check before traveling and only travel when necessary.
Among those struggling was Lee Ball, 46, who was trying to travel with his wife, Libby, and 10-year-old daughter, Amelie, from Worcestershire to London to get to Brussels for an Ed Sheeran concert. Their train was cancelled with less than 30 minutes notice, so they drove to another station — and waited.
“I’ve been up since 4:30 a.m., anxious, trying to get an answer from anywhere we can,’’ he said.
Communication from the train companies has been “appalling,” he said.
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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/uk-weather-turmoil-disrupts-train-travel-for-3rd-day/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:02 | en | 0.974444 |
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces on Wednesday damaged a bridge that is key to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, where Russia’s foreign minister said Moscow will consolidate its territorial gains.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told state-controlled RT television and the RIA Novosti news agency that Russia plans to retain control over broader areas beyond eastern Ukraine, including the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south, and will make more gains elsewhere.
Lavrov’s remarks and the Ukrainian missile attack on the strategically important Kherson region bridge indicated the nearly five-month war could broaden after unfolding mostly in eastern Ukraine since April.
Russia’s top diplomat noted that when Russia and Ukraine in March discussed a possible deal to end the fighting, “Our readiness to accept the Ukrainian proposal was based on the geography of March 2022.”
“Now it’s a different geography,” Lavrov said, repeating Moscow’s claims that the United States and Britain were encouraging Ukraine to expand the hostilities.
With Western countries providing Ukraine with longer-range weapons, Lavrov said Russia’s “geographical tasks will be pushed even further from the current line because we cannot allow the part of Ukraine under control of Zelenskyy or whoever comes to succeed him, to have weapons that will pose a direct threat to our territory and the territories of those republics that have declared their independence.”
Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and quickly seized territory, but withdrew from the capital region and north to concentrate on seizing Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, which pro-Moscow separatists have partly controlled since 2014.
As Russian forces captured more of the two provinces, which together make up Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region, Ukrainian officials planned a counter-offensive to retake Russian-occupied areas in the south.
The Ukrainian strike on the Dnipro River bridge, the second in as many days, appeared intended to loosen Russia’s grip on the southern Kherson region.
Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of a temporary, Russian-installed administration running the region, said the Ukrainian military struck the Antonivskyi Bridge using U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers. The 1.4-kilometer (0.9-mile) bridge is the main river crossing in the Kherson region, and the Russian military uses it to supply its forces. Stremousov said that because of the bridge damage, pontoons would be constructed over the river, also known as the Dnieper.
The head of the Moscow-appointed Kherson administration, Vladimir Saldo, said cars could continue driving across the bridge but trucks couldn’t and instead could use a dam 80 kilometers (50 miles) away.
Early in the war, Russian troops overran the Kherson region just north of the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. They have faced Ukrainian counterattacks, but have largely held their ground.
Kherson — site of ship-building at the confluence of the Dnipro River and Black Sea — is one of several areas a U.S. government spokesman said Russia is trying to take over.
White House national security council spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday that U.S. intelligence officials have evidence that Russia wants to annex Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and all of the Donbas through referendums, as soon as September.
In Zaporizhzhia, Russian-installed authorities claimed Wednesday that Ukraine’s military had used drones to attack the local nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest. Vladimir Rogov, a local Moscow-appointed official, said three Ukrainian attack drones had hit the plant’s territory with explosives but not its reactor area. All normal operations continued, and no release of radiation was detected, he said. Russia’s state news agency Tass reported 11 plant workers were injured, four seriously. The news agency later quoted a Russian military official as saying the attack had occurred Monday.
Ukrainian authorities, who have over the past months reported Russian missiles almost hitting the plant, did not immediately comment on the report.
The bulk of Russia’s forces are fighting in the Donbas, where they have made slow gains facing Ukrainian resistance. The Russian military has used long-range missiles to strike targets across Ukraine, killing hundreds of civilians.
Ukraine’s presidential office said at least 13 civilians were killed and 40 wounded in Russian shelling across the country in a 24-hour period between Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Wednesday, at least three more people died when Russia bombarded the northeastern city of Kharkiv with Hurricane salvo rocket systems. The victims, who were waiting at a bus stop, included a 69-year-old man, his wife and a 13-year-old boy.
The boy’s 15-year-old sister was injured, according to the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office. Video showed the boy’s father, apparently in a state of shock, praying above his son’s uncovered body and holding his hand.
Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of launching cross-border attacks. Another such report came Wednesday, when Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had fired on two Russian border villages.
Most villagers were previously evacuated under a state of emergency, but Gladkov said the latest attack killed a man, and damaged homes and a village club.
In other developments Wednesday:
— An Associated Press investigation has found that many refugees from Ukraine are forced to embark on a surreal trip into Russia, subjected along the way to human rights abuses, stripped of documents and left confused and lost about where they are.
—U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that Ukraine has been using U.S-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers effectively and would provide four more, bringing the total to 16. The truck-mounted HIMARS launchers fire GPS-guided missiles that can reach targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away.
— Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, appealed to American lawmakers during a speech at the U.S. Capitol for more air defense systems to protect her country’s skies. In her unsparing Capitol address, Zelenska shared images of blood-stained baby strollers and small crumpled bodies left after Russian missile attacks.
— The European Union’s head office proposed that member states cut their natural gas use by 15% over the coming months to ensure that any full Russian cutoff of natural gas supplies will not cause unmanageable winter disruptions. While the initial cuts would be voluntary, the European Commission also asked for the power to impose mandatory reductions across the bloc in the event of a severe gas shortage or exceptionally high demand.
Zelenskyy, in a Wednesday night video address, said Europe should have reduced its dependence on Russian gas previously. “If our position had been listened to earlier,” he said, “we would not have had to look for emergency ways to fill the deficit that Russia is artificially creating on the European market.”
— In a sign of the crippling economic impact of the war, the Ukrainian government said it would ask investors to allow the country to postpone foreign debt payments for two years. Leaders of a group of creditors said they agreed to the delay and urged bondholders to do the same.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/ukrainian-forces-strike-key-bridge-in-russia-occupied-south/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:09 | en | 0.964603 |
SERRASTRETTA, Italy (AP) — From a rustic, tiny synagogue she fashioned from her family’s ancestral home in this mountain village, an American rabbi is keeping a promise made to her Italian-born father: reconnect people in this southern region of Calabria to their Jewish roots, links nearly severed five centuries ago when the Inquisition forced Jews to convert to Christianity.
In the process, Rabbi Barbara Aiello is also helping to revive Serrastretta, one of many small southern towns struggling with dwindling population, as young people leave in droves to find work and where each year deaths far outnumber births.
Besides the chatter of visitors who come to her synagogue, curious to learn about Judaism in predominantly Catholic Italy, the laughter of newly arrived children resounds in the town. This spring, the rabbi helped bring Ukrainian refugees, including some with Jewish roots, to live here for now, and — Serrastretta’s mayor hopes — maybe permanently.
On a small wooden table near the synagogue’s entrance sits a yellowed family portrait. In the photograph, is the rabbi’s father, Antonio Abramo Aiello, as a child. Born in Serrastretta, he was studying for his bar mitzvah, the rabbi said, but before that religious coming-of-age ritual could take place, the young Aiello left with his family for the United States in 1923.
His daughter, Barbara, would be born in Pittsburgh and ordained a rabbi at the Rabbinical Seminary International in New York at age 51. Her synagogue is a recognized affiliate of the Reconstructionist movement, a small branch of American Judaism.
Before studying to become a rabbi, Aiello taught special needs children for many years, creating a puppet show to help teach kids about tolerance. After being ordained, she served at a synagogue in Florida for a few years before moving to Italy, where she first worked as a rabbi in Milan from 2004-2005. Then she realized her passion in serving as a rabbi in her late father’s native town.
When visitors arrive from abroad for ceremonies at her synagogue, Rabbi Aiello, who is 74, shows them the house in what had been the Jewish quarter in the nearby city of Lamezia Terme, where her father had been learning about his Jewish faith.
She points out a plaque which reads: “In this quarter was active an industrious community” of Jews from the 13th till the 16th centuries.
One recent summer evening, as Aiello, who wears a yarmulke and necklace with a small Star of David, walked by en route to the ancient neighborhood, a local resident, Emilio Fulvo, 73, leaped up from a bench to greet her. When he was 15, Fulvo recounted, genealogical research discovered that his family has Jewish roots.
Learning about his background “made me feel free,” Fulvo said. “I knew something was missing” while raised as a Catholic in southern Italy.
Families like his are known as B’nai Anusim, descendants, of “those who were forced to accept Christian baptism and to publicly renounce their Judaism,’’ the rabbi said.
In her family, “legends were passed along that we were Jews, and we were expelled from Spain in 1492,” as the Inquisition gathered steam, Aiello said. Eventually, the Aiellos made their way to the southern end of the Apennine mountains, where Serrastretta sits, perched atop a road winding through slopes thickly forested with beech, pine and chestnut trees.
The remoteness of many villages in Calabria, coupled with Italians’ tendencies to live in the same places for generations and the strength of oral traditions, helped keep alive what Roque Pugliese, a Jew in Calabria, calls the “spark of Judaism” even among those who don’t realize they have Jewish heritage.
A physician who emigrated from Argentina, Pugliese recalled once hearing residents of a care home in Calabria sing an ancient song about Passover, softly, as if afraid to be overheard.
On a stone wall along a walkway that leads to Aiello’s home and synagogue is a Star of David.
On a recent Friday afternoon, she set out a bowl of cherries and a tray of miniature pastries for those coming for a bat mitzvah sought by the Blum family of Parkland, Florida. They chose Aiello despite the great distance because, before becoming a rabbi, she had worked as a special needs educator, and their daughter, Mia, has autism.
Pushing a child’s stroller up the steep street that leads to the synagogue was Vira, one of five Ukrainian mothers, who, with nine children among them, were brought to Serrastretta thanks to efforts by Aiello and logistical help from a Serrastretta native. Transportation and housing costs have been paid by donors, most of them Jewish, in Britain, the United States, Australia and Canada, the rabbi said.
Two of the women have since returned to Ukraine, including the wife of an Orthodox Christian priest. But Vira, who asked that her surname not be published because her husband, still in Ukraine, works for a government ministry, said she is considering settling in Serrastretta.
“The first thing is my son, my only son, his life, his future, his safety,’’ Vira said of 2½-year-old Platon. “Barbara invited us to a safe place. It was like really a miracle.”
Vira is also grateful for the opportunity to learn about Judaism. Her grandmother, born in Crimea, is Jewish. But her father, a Russian, would take her to church, so she had never gone to a Jewish house of worship, she said. Aiello “invited me to a bar mitzvah. It was a very beautiful experience that she opened her house to me.”
The rabbi said she tells those curious about their past to “embrace those (traditions) that make sense to you — embrace all, embrace some, but understand that you were once Jewish (in your family) and we can connect you, reconnect you, if you so choose.”
Mayor Antonio Muracca hopes at least some Ukrainians stay. “These guests have created in a certain sense more vitality in our town,’’ he said. Serrastretta has seen “a shocking depopulation,″ the mayor said. “There are so many old people, few children.”
The town’s population shrank from 4,000 in 2001 to 2,900 in 2020.
Serrastretta was long called “the city of chairs,’’ because generations of artisans handcrafted furniture from beech wood with seats fashioned from woven reeds. But demand for cheaper, mass-produced furniture decimated the trade.
Serrastretta’s parish pastor, the Rev. Luigi Iuliano, invited Aiello to read a Psalm at Easter vigil services in April. With the rabbi there is no “competition, jealousy.”
“We brought the First Communion kids to show them the Torah, the synagogue, to become aware that our faith in a certain way comes from the Hebrew faith,’’ said Iuliano, a Serrastretta native.
Aiello, who describes herself as the first female rabbi in Italy and who runs Calabria’s only synagogue, relies on destination weddings and bat and bar mitzvahs to boost her synagogue’s finances.
She is cut off from funding that derives from taxpayer donations in Italy. The Italian government only recognizes the Orthodox Jewish communities in Italy, whose official members number about 23,000, nearly half of those living in Rome and barely 200 living in southern Italy.
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This version corrects that her synagogue is recognized by the Reconstructionist movement, and Aiello describes herself as the first female rabbi in Italy.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. | https://www.krqe.com/news/world/us-rabbi-reviving-jewish-roots-in-her-familys-italian-town/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:17 | en | 0.978385 |
Treat grandparents with these unique gifts
Grandparents play a crucial role in our lives, which is why finding a gift just as special as they are is important.
While gifts that cater to their interests and hobbies are always big hits, consider sentimental or practical gifts if you’re open to exploring other options. Experiential gifts have risen in popularity as well, since new memories are gifts that keep on giving.
Popular types of gifts for grandparents
Sentimental
Sentimental gifts speak to the heart and celebrate a special connection or memory. Younger kids often give grandparents handmade gifts, like cards or artwork. On the other hand, older kids and adults may give more intricate handmade items, such as paintings, photo collages or knitted scarves.
If you’re not comfortable creating a gift, hire a professional to execute your vision. Many online sites, such as Etsy, have independent online shops hosted by artisans and craftspeople who create personalized goods. This fleece throw is customizable with full-color photos and text.
Practical
Practical gifts might not sound glamorous but you may use them more than any other gift. To some extent, finding the right one involves finding the solution to a common problem.
For example, the grandparent who likes reading in bed but props their books on pillows, may appreciate a lap book stand.
Experiential
Experiential gifts treat recipients to special trips, events or treatments. Some of the most popular options include salon gift certificates, cruises and theater or concert tickets. While you can’t wrap these gifts like others, they create new, happy memories.
Subscriptions are fantastic gift options as they provide ongoing experiences for recipients. For instance, a gift card to WineAccess lets recipients select international wines from the company’s expertly curated selection. For more information on wine clubs like WineAccess, visit the BestReviews buying guide.
Group vs. individual gifting
Group gifting for grandparents
It’s common for family members from more than one generation to pool money together for grandparent gifts. It’s an inclusive, budget-friendly approach to purchasing high-ticket options such as new appliances or trips. From a minimalist perspective, a group gift is one way to eliminate clutter, especially for grandparents who have recently downsized.
One of the drawbacks of group gifting, however, is coordinating the gift itself. Besides collecting money, someone needs to oversee purchasing the gift, ironing out delivery details and wrapping it.
Individual gifting for grandparents
Many people are partial to giving grandparents gifts individually because they can work within their budget and schedule to find the right one. It’s considerably less complicated than coordinating a group gift, plus you’ll have complete control over all aspects of the present, right down to wrapping paper.
While it’s convenient for several reasons, some people feel individual gifting isn’t ideal for every situation. For example, if you’ve already committed to participating in a group gift, it may be considered poor etiquette to give an extra gift on your own.
12 best gifts for grandparents
Tablet
The Fire HD 10 offers a seamless, user-friendly experience from web browsing to streaming to video chatting. The tablet provides instant access to Alexa and has a long-lasting battery.
Sold by Amazon
Carry-on luggage
This rugged Samsonite spinner is a popular carry-on that is also suitable for overnight trips or long weekends. It has a high internal and external organization level, including a padded laptop compartment and an outer stash pocket.
Sold by Amazon
Audible membership
An Audible membership unlocks a complete listening catalog featuring audiobooks, podcasts and originals. Subscribers can listen on any device with the Audible app.
Sold by Amazon
Family tree
This handmade family tree offers a creative glimpse at ancestry. It’s carved into natural wood from an experienced artisan and displays up to six generations of family members.
Sold by Etsy
Photo album
Instead of keeping photos in a shoebox, place them inside this premium album. Each page holds three horizontal and two vertical pictures. The pages are made with acid-free material to preserve photo quality.
Sold by Amazon
Bluetooth record player
Victrola Vintage 3-Speed Bluetooth Record Player
This portable Victrola is a genuinely nostalgic gift with its vintage details. The three-speed player delivers rich sound quality and doubles as a Bluetooth speaker for easy music streaming.
Sold by Amazon
Digital photo frame
Nixplay 10.1-Inch Smart Digital Picture Frame
This Alexa-enabled digital photo frame lets you share or view images and videos instantly through the Nixplay app. The device even lets users create playlists with their favorite photo montages.
Sold by Amazon
Robotic vacuum
iRobot Roomba 694 Robotic Vacuum
Take the hard work out of everyday cleaning with this efficient robotic vacuum, both voice and app-controlled. It has a three-stage cleaning system to lift dirt and debris from most floor types.
Sold by Amazon
Heated blanket
A popular self-care gift, this heated throw helps you relax or drift off into dreamland. The throw, made of Sherpa fleece, has five heat settings and a machine-washable cover.
Sold by Amazon
Whiskey stones
Cool Stones Whiskey Stone Gift Set
This attractive whiskey stone gift set comes in a velour-lined wooden box that is nothing short of presentation worthy. It includes a pair of glasses, coasters and eight stones.
Sold by Amazon
Personalized artwork
Ideal for grandparents who live farther away, this charming art print features the silhouettes of two states joined by a heart. It’s customizable with names and comes in the choice of four background colors.
Sold by Etsy
Indoor garden
AeroGarden Harvest Indoor Hydroponic Garden
Cultivate a modest herb garden indoors with this hydroponic garden. It comes with a seed starter kit and grows up to six plants at a time.
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/12-best-gifts-for-grandparents/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:24 | en | 0.918103 |
Finding the best anniversary gifts for him
There’s nothing better than seeing your partner’s face light up when they open a gift from you, and choosing that perfect gift always feels a little more important when honoring a milestone. Anniversaries are a time of celebrating the past and looking toward the future. Whether it’s your first or fiftieth anniversary, a thoughtful gift is a great way to show your partner appreciation for the years behind and excitement for the years to come.
Best anniversary gifts for him
Sometimes shopping for gifts for him can be a little tricky, but no matter your price range, there are many unique gifts available that are sure to make your partner smile. If you want something simple to send to their office on the day of your anniversary, check out our BestReviews gift baskets buying guide.
Gifts under $100
This cocktail smoker takes your partner’s mixology to the next level. The smoker is easy to use and fits right on the top of your favorite glass. You fill the mesh net with smoking chips and apply a flame. The result is a smooth, smoke-infused cocktail. Some more expensive versions of this smoker come with a torch.
Sold by Uncommon Goods
Take Your Pick Guitar Pick Set
If your partner loves to play the guitar, this set of pewter guitar picks is a fun gift idea and will make them think of you every time they play. Inscribed on the face of the picks are messages like “I Pick You” and “Don’t Fret.” They come in a custom wooden holder that allows for display.
Sold by Uncommon Goods
Mr. Beer Complete Beer Making Starter Kit
This fun kit gives the gift of the experience brewing of your own beer. A hopped malt extract makes it possible to get a batch ready to go in about 30 minutes, and it only takes 1 or 2 weeks for the batch to be ready to drink. The kit comes with everything you need, including bottles.
Sold by Amazon
TYIAUS Percussion Massager Gun
If you’re looking for a gift for an active partner, this massager gun can help relieve their aches and pains. Great for use after a long run or heavy weight lifting session, it penetrates deep into muscle tissue to improve blood flow, flexibility and motion. The rechargeable battery has 4-6 hours of working time and can be fully charged in 3-4 hours.
Sold by Amazon
Harry’s Shave Club Subscription
A subscription to Harry’s Shave Club makes a great gift for a guy who likes a pampered shave without too much hassle. Different volume shave kits are available and include a handle, blades and shaving gel.
Sold by Harry’s
Stanley Adventure Easy Carry 16-Quart Outdoor Cooler
For a partner who’s the adventuring type, this cooler will keep their drinks and food cold on all their travels. It comes in either green or white and has a 21-can capacity. For longer trips, this cooler can keep food cold for over a day.
Sold by Backcountry
Gifts for $100-$300
Waterford Barware Lismore Double Old Fashioned Glasses
For the partner who loves to drink their Old-Fashioneds in style, these glasses are made from beautiful Waterford crystal. The glasses come in a set of two and each hold 12 ounces. They’re perfect for a casual evening cocktail or fancy dinner party.
Sold by Amazon
Personalized Movie Marquee Photo Print
This photo print is a fun way for a movie-lover to celebrate your anniversary. Your love story is highlighted on a personalized image of a movie marquee. You customize the names, date and movie title. You can also choose which color styling you want from black and white, color or sepia. You can purchase this print with or without the frame.
Sold by Uncommon Goods
Nespresso by Breville Essenza Mini Espresso Machine
If your partner can’t live without their espresso, this is the machine for them. It’s compact, stylish and easy to use. It has an adjustable cup size, and the machine preheats the water in a mere 25 seconds for a quick brew. To save energy, it shuts off automatically after 9 minutes. A milk frother and 14 capsules are included.
Sold by Amazon and Sur La Table
Cuisinart Soft Serve Ice Cream Maker
For a fun ice cream date, this ice cream maker can bring date night to your living room. It’s easy to use and has built-in containers that hold your favorite toppings. It produces 1.5 quarts of soft serve ice cream in 20 minutes.
Sold by Amazon
Gifts $300 and over
If your partner loves to grill but hates the mess, this electric grill from Phillips is a great gift. Infrared technology heats the grill quickly and maintains a constant, even temperature. It produces 80% less smoke than other indoor grills, has a drip tray to collect grease and has reflectors to ensure meat browns on all sides.
Sold by Sur La Table
If your partner likes to listen to music wherever they go, this smart speaker from Sonos will serve them well. It’s waterproof and drop-resistant and works well indoors or outdoors. The speaker is compatible with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and can be controlled by your voice, as Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are built-in.
Sold by Sonos
You can’t do better than this iPad Pro for your technology-obsessed partner. Its 12.9-inch screen has a brilliant liquid Retina XDR display. The battery will last all day, and the camera allows for excellent-quality photos.
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/best-anniversary-gifts-for-him/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:31 | en | 0.912927 |
Which Tiki cat food is best?
You want to feed your cats well to keep them happy and healthy, but it isn’t always clear which food is best. Tiki cat food is known for its high protein, low carbohydrates and quality ingredients, making it an ideal choice for your feline friends.
You’ll still need to decide between wet and dry foods and a range of formulas while also considering your cats’ needs. For example, if you’re looking for quality wet food, Tiki Cat Aloha Friends Grain-Free Wet Cat Food is a top pick.
What to know before you buy Tiki cat food
Wet vs. dry
Tiki makes both wet cat food and dry cat food, so you’ll need to work out which is best for the cats in your life.
- Wet food: The high moisture content in wet food helps avoid kidney problems in cats that don’t drink much water. Some picky cats find it more palatable than dry food and tend to contain fewer carbs and fillers. However, it’s pricier to feed and will turn rancid if your cat doesn’t eat it quickly enough.
- Dry food: Dry food is less messy to feed than wet food and is stable at room temperature, which is great for cats who pick at their food throughout the day. However, it’s usually heavier in carbohydrates, and not all cats will eat it.
Texture
Some cats have a strong texture preference when it comes to wet food, while others will eat anything.
- Mousse: Smooth and light, this is a great choice for older or picky cats who will otherwise choose their favorite bits and leave the rest.
- Pate: This is similar to mousse but with a slightly thicker consistency which some cats prefer.
- Chunks: These foods contain medium-sized chunks of meat in broth, gravy or jelly. Many cats prefer chunky foods over those blended to a homogeneous consistency, but some will only eat the bits they like best.
Dietary needs
Certain cats may have particular dietary needs that it’s essential to consider when choose the right food. While Tiki doesn’t make veterinary formulas, it does make certain tailored formulas. For instance, you can find formulas to suit senior cats, kittens and cats who are overweight or have trouble maintaining a healthy weight.
What to look for in quality Tiki cat food
Flavors
You can find Tiki foods containing seafood, poultry and other meats in various flavors. You’ll already know if your cat strongly prefers some ingredients over others, so you can choose accordingly. Otherwise, consider a variety pack so your cat can try a few flavors.
Grain-free
As obligate carnivores, cats don’t need grains in their diets. Rather, they thrive on food predominantly made from animal protein. Also, avoid food that’s high in starches, such as potatoes.
Free from artificial flavors and preservatives
There’s no need for artificial flavors or preservatives in quality cat food, so avoid any formulas that contain them.
How much you can expect to spend on Tiki cat food
Tiki Cat dry food costs roughly $6-$8 per pound, while its wet food costs around $1-$2 per can or pouch. Prices vary depending on package size and recipe.
Tiki cat food FAQ
Is Tiki cat food good?
A. Although this is somewhat subjective, it’s generally considered quality food. It’s high in protein and avoids unnecessary grains and excessive quantities of carbohydrates, which aligns with cats’ natural diets.
It uses carefully selected products, such as wild-caught seafood and non-GMO ingredients. However, not all cats thrive on all foods, so you may need to try it out and see if it’s right for your feline friend.
How do I switch to Tiki cat food?
A. A gradual switch avoids the digestive issues that can arise from changing from one food to another overnight. Start by replacing 25% of your cat’s old food with new food for the next three to four days. Then increase the ratio to 50% new food and 50% old food for another few days, followed by 75% new food and 25% old food for another three to four days. At this point, you can start exclusively feeding the new food.
What’s the best Tiki cat food to buy?
Top Tiki cat food
Tiki Cat Aloha Friends Grain-Free Wet Cat Food
What you need to know: This wet food consists of chunky seafood pieces in broth and appeals to a wide range of cats.
What you’ll love: It’s protein-packed and nutrient-rich with wild-caught tuna as the first ingredient. The added pumpkin is great for digestive regularity. You can choose from several seafood recipes or a variety pack.
What you should consider: A handful of buyers report receiving damaged cans.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Chewy
Top Tiki cat food for the money
Tiki Cat Born Carnivore Herring and Salmon Dry Cat Food
What you need to know: Great for free feeding, it’s lower in carbohydrates than most dry cat foods.
What you’ll love: It contains 42% protein and plenty of gentle fiber for digestive health. It’s made from entirely non-GMO ingredients. Herring is the first ingredient and it’s rich in omega fatty acids for heart health.
What you should consider: It has a strong scent, which many cats like but their humans may not.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Chewy
Worth checking out
Tiki Cat Velvet Mousse Wet Food
What you need to know: With its soft, mousse consistency, it’s great for kittens, senior cats and picky eaters.
What you’ll love: You can choose from various recipes, including formulas designed for kittens and older adult cats. It has a high moisture content of 80%, which is great for cats that won’t drink much water.
What you should consider: The packets can be messy to open if you don’t do so carefully.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Chewy
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Lauren Corona writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/best-tiki-cat-food/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:38 | en | 0.944407 |
What are the best Maui Babe products?
Maui Babe is a Hawaiian brand that creates suntan lotions and various skin care products. Founded in 1996 by Joe Rossi in a tiny basement, the products became popular on the island of Maui and are now internationally sold. If you’re looking for a suntan lotion that will give a natural, long-lasting glow, the Maui Babe Browning Lotion is a fantastic choice.
What to know before you buy a Maui Babe product
Tan accelerator
Maui Babe browning lotions are not stains, bronzers or self-tanners. They are natural tan enhancers activated by the sun. This means the formula is made to absorb into your skin and quicken the natural tanning process under the sun (or in a tanning bed). The lotion is also buildable and made for all skin types and tones. You can create a tan as dark or light as you want.
Family-owned business
Created by Joe Rossi from a secret family recipe, the family-owned and operated business continues to build on its success and create products according to the growing needs of its users.
Appropriate use
Maui Babe tanning lotions are mainly made for use under the sun. Due to strong demand, the company also created a browning lotion for tanning beds. Be sure to use the correct product for each situation to receive the maximum benefits of the different products.
For outdoor use, be sure to apply sunscreen before using the browning lotions. This ensures that your skin is protected from the UV rays of the sun while you’re getting your tan.
Water resistance
The browning lotions are water-resistant, however, they are not waterproof. This means that if you swim for longer periods (about 15 minutes or more), your tan might get washed away. To avoid this, make sure to reapply the product after a long swimming session to maintain your tan.
What to look for in a quality Maui Babe product
Natural ingredients
The family recipe used in Maui Babe products contains powerful, natural ingredients such as:
- Kukui nut oil
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin A
- Coffee plant extract
- Aloe vera
These ingredients are known to nourish the skin and moisturize.
Natural-looking results
Maui Babe products are high quality and should not leave you with a dull or unnatural-looking brown or orange color. When applied properly, your skin has a natural glow and radiance. The ingredients are also known to improve the appearance of your skin by moisturizing, strengthening and preventing it from any dryness or flakiness.
Effective with sun protection
The brand recommends applying sunscreen before using tan enhancers. This will not affect the darkness or efficacy of your tan, as it claims to hold your tan no matter what strength of sun protection you use. This means that you can use SPF 15 or SPF 100, and it won’t make a difference to the tan you want.
How much you can expect to spend on Maui Babe products
Maui Babe products start from as low as $6-$35 for single products and up to $54 for gift sets.
Maui Babe products FAQ
Can I use the browning lotion on my face?
A. Yes, you can use browning lotion on the face. Make sure to patch test if you have sensitive skin.
Do the browning lotions stain?
A. The browning lotions can rub off on other items but shouldn’t leave a permanent stain. To avoid staining, quickly rinse the product off the items it touches or use a stain remover.
I have light skin and no base tan, what product should I use?
A. The browning lotion with coconut oil is most suited for light skin, as it allows a tan to build gradually.
What’s the best Maui Babe product to buy?
Top Maui Babe product
What you need to know: This natural browning lotion allows you to get a real tan, activated by the sun, and it’s suitable for all skin types.
What you’ll love: This rich, natural formula contains ingredients that help deepen your tan while protecting and moisturizing your skin. It is long-lasting, easy to apply and gives a glowy, sun-kissed finish without leaving any streaks. The lotion also has a sweet, pleasant smell.
What you should consider: Because this lotion is activated by the sun, you must monitor your time in the sun to avoid burning.
Where to buy: Sold by Ulta Beauty and Amazon
Top Maui Babe product for the money
Maui Babe After Browning Lotion Tan Enhancer And Healer
What you need to know: This is a soothing, enhancing lotion made with rich, natural oils that support tanned skin.
What you’ll love: Non-greasy and easy to apply, this tan enhancer helps keep and maintain your tan for longer periods. It nourishes your skin and makes the tan deeper while softening the skin and preventing peeling and dryness.
What you should consider: This lotion may not be suitable for sensitive skin. You can do a patch test to check if it will irritate your skin or not.
Where to buy: Sold by Ulta Beauty
Worth checking out
Maui Babe Browning Lotion Tanning Salon Formula
What you need to know: This browning lotion is made with sunflower oil and is safe to use in tanning beds.
What you’ll love: Usable in tanning beds or outside in the sun, this formula provides a dark, long-lasting tan and works quickly for all skin types. It contains natural ingredients that provide an even glow while protecting and nourishing your skin.
What you should consider: Some people find this formula too greasy, and it may stain clothes worn immediately after application.
Where to buy: Sold by Ulta Beauty and Amazon
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Nentapmun Gomwalk writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/beauty-personal-care-br/sun-tanning-br/best-maui-babe-product/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:45 | en | 0.926263 |
The most comfortable gaming chairs to support every playing style
A solid gaming chair is pivotal if you’re going to spend long hours in front of your gaming rig. Not only does it keep you comfortable and focused, but quality ergonomics can prevent you from developing back and neck issues over time.
While good gaming chairs can be pretty expensive, they’re worth it for the support. A basic office chair may work fine in the beginning, but if you’re upgrading your gaming setup, this piece shouldn’t be overlooked. Read on to find the best gaming chairs for your gaming style.
Gaming chair considerations
Comfort
The entire point of upgrading to a gaming chair is to be more comfortable while you play. Chairs with good padding, particularly breathable memory foam, are soft and supportive for hours at a time. Some chairs come with additional lumbar support and headrests, though some gamers find them more inconvenient than anything else. Most gaming chairs recline at least 90 degrees, while cheaper ones may be limited in their range of motion. More expensive ones can recline up to 180 degrees. If you’re a gamer who likes to kick back and relax, it may be worth it to invest in these extra features.
Adjustability
Just because a chair is suited for a certain playing style doesn’t automatically make it perfect for every gamer. That’s why the best gaming chairs are highly adjustable. Most armrests can be raised or lowered, as can the seat itself. Customizable ergonomics are another factor to consider, especially if you game for a living. Many gaming chairs have adjustable lumbar support, such as a movable back and headrests. The depth of your seat can also affect your long-term comfort, so you might want to check those specs as well.
Price
Gaming chairs can range from $80 to over $300. Lower-end chairs tend to be pretty similar to office chairs, reclining only slightly and offering limited adjustability. If you’re a serious hobbyist or a career gamer, the additional support and adjustability of higher-end chairs are worth the additional cost.
Best gaming chair for streamers
This is one of the most adjustable gaming chairs available. It’s made to last, with fade-resistant high-density foam cushions and a heavy metal frame. It tilts back a full 180 degrees for when you want to capture that extreme reaction for your fans.
This chair has a memory foam cushion and an extendable footrest. You can remove the headrest if it doesn’t work for you, but it does have a great, built-in USB-powered massager. You can raise or lower the armrests to get in just the right position.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chair for FPS gamers
This chair has a tilt-locking mechanism to keep you perfectly in place while you’re playing a first-person shooter, or FPS. This and the extra padded armrests make this chair great for FPS players. It also has a thick headrest and lumbar support for comfortable all-day play. It’s height-adjustable and tilts back up to 150 degrees for taking a break from your screen. The rubber wheels make it easy to move and make quick adjustments during gameplay.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chairs for racing gamers
Openwheeler Advanced Racing Seat
If racing games are your main focus, then look no further for the perfect chair. This setup is designed like an actual racing seat, but with added support for your back, neck and shoulders. The gear shifter can be applied to either side of the chair. It’s available in six colors, so it will fit in perfectly at any desk or rec room set up. While it’s compatible with most consoles, the additional features won’t benefit PC gamers. It’s incredibly stable and extremely adjustable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with a racing wheel, but it is compatible with other wheelsets.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chair for living room gamers
GTRACING Gaming Chair with speakers
If you’re playing away from a desk, such as on a console and TV, your requirements will be different from those of PC gamers. Many gamers enjoy floor gaming chairs; if this is you, check out this list from BestReviews. While these are fun, they’re not especially supportive.
Consider the GTRACING gaming chair with speakers instead. When you’re not close enough to your setup to plug in headphones, you can miss a lot of important auditory cues. This chair takes care of that issue with speakers built into the headset. You will need to get an additional Bluetooth adapter to make it easier to connect your gaming device, however. This chair comes in five colors, has a 360-degree swivel and fully reclines. The thickly padded seat will support you for hours of gameplay.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chair for all-day gamers
ZEANUS Racing Style Massage Gaming Chair
This massage gaming chair has a high backrest that’s designed to care for your spine and neck. It has soft, high-quality leather and an adjustable recliner so you can catch a nap in between working and gaming. There’s even a footrest for kicking back and watching streams or conserving your energy on busy workdays.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chair for all types of gamers
This gaming chair is inspired by the interior design of racecars, and it shows. Not only is this chair sleek, but it’s incredibly supportive. It features soft and thick foam for maximum breathability and comfort. The armrests, while not padded, are adjustable. It reclines up to 35 degrees and is supported by a steel core. It comes in several colors to match any gaming setup. The great materials and customization make it an excellent choice for any type of gamer.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chairs for gamers who prioritize comfort
Powerstone Gaming Recliner Massage Sofa
This is a great choice for gamers who truly love gaming as a way to relax. Not only is it a massage chair, but it has a cup holder and an extendable footrest as well. It even has a side pouch where you can store controllers or headsets. The cushions are spongy and breathable, so you won’t overheat even in serious matches. The 360-degree swivel and headrest let you enjoy your game from any angle. Best of all, this chair reclines up to 140 degrees and has eight massage modes.
Sold by Amazon
Best gaming chairs for budget gamers
BestOffice Ergonomic PC Gaming Chair
This chair is a comfy and supportive option for a relatively low price. While it doesn’t recline very far, it has a 360-degree swivel and is height-adjustable. If you want to stay upright and focused, you can lock the back in place as well. It’s a great way to quickly and easily upgrade your gaming and home office setup on a budget.
Sold by Amazon
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Anabelle Weissinger writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/gaming-accessories-br/the-best-gaming-chair-for-every-type-of-gamer/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:51 | en | 0.939765 |
What are the best accessories for reading on a tablet?
Tablets are a popular way to read, but not all tablets are exclusively designed for reading. For those who often use their tablets for reading, there are many accessories available that can make the tablet reading experience more convenient and enjoyable.
Best tablet accessories
There are several ways to make tablet reading easy and safe with your device. Using a tablet case adds durability, waterproofing, scratch-proofing and other protective measures to your device.
Tablets can be heavy to hold in traditional reading positions. Tablet stands can position your tablet upright on a surface, taking the weight off your arms.
If you use your tablet to read for extended periods of time, blue light-filtering glasses or screens can make the time you spend reading on your tablet easier on your eyes.
Tablet charging and adapter sets can make sure you never run out of battery power. Having a long charging cable and fast charging port can ensure your tablet is always ready to go.
Top tablet cases
Top tablet case for iPad
ESR Sentry Protective Case with Stand
What you need to know: A great overall tablet case made of durable materials with several features that give it versatile functionality.
What you’ll love: It’s drop- and scratch-resistant, has a stand with nine possible angles and can be mounted on magnetic surfaces.
What you should consider: Some customers have reported the case is heavier than desired.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top waterproof case
What you need to know: A highly rated waterproof tablet case that fits devices up to 10.2 inches.
What you’ll love: Not only does this case protect your tablet from damage in up to 98 feet of water, it has extra space for your credit cards, ID and cash.
What you should consider: The screen is less sensitive while inside the case, making the touchscreen more difficult to use.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top case for the money
What you need to know: This is a slim, lightweight case for those looking for basic protection.
What you’ll love: This case can wake or sleep your device by being opened or closed and doesn’t need to be removed for charging. It has versions for Apple, Samsung and Amazon tablets, among others.
What you should consider: This case provides no screen protection.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top blue light-filtering protection
Top blue light-filtering screen protector
What you need to know: This screen protector available for multiple devices reduces blue light by 35%, provides privacy and protects the screen from scratches.
What you’ll love: The feel of the protector is smooth and doesn’t reduce the sensitivity of the touchscreen. Available models for Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google products.
What you should consider: The price point on this protector is high.
Where to buy: Sold by Staples
Top blue light-filtering glasses
AOMASTE Blue Light-Blocking Glasses
What you need to know: These highly rated glasses for men and women protect your eyes from prolonged use of screens.
What you’ll love: The stylish, comfortable frames come with a 100% 30-day money-back guarantee.
What you should consider: Some customers have reported that the frames are fragile.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top tablet stands
Top tablet stand
Lamicall Adjustable Tablet Stand
What you need to know: This tablet stand is lightweight and sturdy for easy reading.
What you’ll love: This stand is compatible with most tablets and supports vertical or horizontal viewing.
What you should consider: Some purchasers report the case must be removed to fit some devices.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top tablet stand for the money
Amazon Basics Adjustable Tablet Holder Stand
What you need to know: This is a good all-around tablet stand at an affordable price.
What you’ll love: This stand is compatible with most devices even while inside the case and is easily portable.
What you should consider: It can be difficult to adjust the angle.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top tablet stand for comfort
What you need to know: This stand is comfy and holds up a variety of tablets.
What you’ll love: You’ll love this tablet’s soft and washable surface.
What you should consider: You have to be careful not to tilt the stand while your device is in use, because the device can slip off.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top charging accessories
Top basic charging cord
Amazon 5-Foot USB to Micro-USB Cable
What you need to know: This cable is compatible with Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers.
What you’ll love: Convenient in length, this cable is perfect for charging on airplanes or beside your bed.
What you should consider: Some purchasers have complained about the longevity of this cable.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Top fast charger
What you need to know: This is a high-quality charger with dual charging ports.
What you’ll love: With this charger, you can charge two devices without a reduction in charging speed.
What you should consider: Some purchasers have reported that the device tips too easily out of the outlet.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Morgan Freeman writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/tablets-accessories-br/best-tablet-accessories-for-reading/ | 2022-07-21T06:17:59 | en | 0.924569 |
EL PASO, TX (KTSM) – The El Paso Downtown Lions Club and Moms on Board (MOB) have partnered in a Back-to-School Event to help families get ready for school.
El Paso Downtown Lions will host the School Uniform Swap at the event. Families should turn in gently used school Uniforms to any of the six locations from now until July 20. Families will receive a voucher and return on July 23 to receive the new sizes of used uniforms (provided the new sizes are turned in).
First 400 families will receive free backpacks provided by the Hospitals of Providence, free school supplies, free haircuts, interactive educational STEM Zone provided by Amazon and Marathon, along with food trucks.
Who: All school Districts and Charter Schools. All ages.
Date of Event: July 23, 2022 Turn in uniforms now!
Location: Pavilion at Ascarate Park
Time: 9 a.m. to noon
HOW TO SWAP
- Gather your gently used uniforms
- Take them to one of the locations below
- Get a VOUCHER at one of the locations
- Take VOUCHER to Back-to-School Event and receive new sizes
SIX DROP OFF LOCATIONS
- Fred and Maria Loya Family YMCA, 2044 Trawood Dr., El Paso, TX. 79935
- Flying Colors Daycare, 10080 Dyer Street, El Paso, TX 79924
- Flying Colors Daycare, 11440 Montwood Drive, El Paso, TX 79936
- Bowling Family YMCA, 5509 Will Ruth Ave., El Paso, TX. 79924
- Flying Colors Daycare, 600 East Redd Road, El Paso, TX 79912
- Westside Family YMCA, 7145 N. Mesa, El Paso, TX. 79912
For local and breaking news, sports, weather alerts, videos, and more, download the FREE KTSM 9 News App from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
- Exclusive 9 day forecast: El Paso has seen the hottest temperature so far this year
- Walmart Wellness Day offers a start to improving personal health
- Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award accepting nominations
- Lions Club and Moms on Board partner for School Uniform Swap
- Things go from bad to worse for man forced out on an eviction notice
- “Heightened police presence” for LCPS as they return to the classroom | https://www.ktsm.com/local/el-paso-news/lions-club-and-moms-on-board-partner-for-school-uniform-swap/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:02 | en | 0.877477 |
What are the closest competitors to Amazon’s brand-new Fire 7 tablet?
Amazon recently launched its upgraded 2022 Amazon Fire 7 tablet, which offers improvements upon its previous entry-level model from 2019. While it continues to be one of the most affordable compact tablets on the market and a beloved option for those who want to remain within Amazon’s custom Fire OS 8 interface, it has a fair share of limitations.
If you’re not attached to Amazon’s specialized operating system and are willing to spend a little more on better features, superior choices are available. Check out these compact tablets, which are legitimate competitors to Amazon’s brand-new Fire 7 tablet.
How to choose a tablet
Consider your primary uses
Choosing a tablet is personal and based on a person’s individual needs, which is why it’s challenging to pinpoint the best tablet. For instance, a person using their tablet to research and take notes at school has different needs than a parent buying a tablet for their kids to play games and watch movies. So, before choosing a tablet, consider your primary uses. Do you want a tablet for traveling to watch movies and play games, or do you need a tablet with extraordinary photo editing skills to use for work? Or, if you want to connect a keyboard, ensure that the tablet has Bluetooth.
Compare operating systems
Operating systems are one of the trickiest features of a tablet. The four main tablets and operating systems include the iPads that run Apple iOS, while Android, Windows and Fire devices run Amazon’s custom Fire OS.
While it may not seem like a big deal for some, operating systems determine what apps you can get or if your tablet will sync with your phone. For example, an iPad will seamlessly integrate with all your other Apple devices since they have the same OS. Also, because Fire tablets run on Fire OS, they can’t get all Apps, such as Google Play. So, choose a tablet with an operating system that you like and aligns with your needs.
Weigh pros and cons
The tried and true pros and cons list is helpful when choosing a tablet, but make sure it’s personalized to your needs. For example, while someone may put the Fire 7 tablet’s 7-inch display screen in the pro tab, you may want something bigger and consider the small screen a negative. Or, if you’re looking for a simple tablet, you may appreciate the Amazon’s new Fire 7 tablet.
Alternatives to Amazon’s new Fire 7 tablet
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0″ Tablet
This tablet has a slightly bigger display screen at eight inches but is light enough to carry around and thin enough to operate with one hand. It’s designed with a 16-to-10 screen ratio to offer maximum viewing in both landscape and portrait, has powerful dual speakers for big sound and carries a long battery life, so you don’t have to remember your charger.
Sold by Amazon
Lenovo Tab M7 3rd Gen 7″ HD Tablet
If you look purely at specs, this Lenovo tablet is a legitimate alternative to the Fire 7 tablet, including display size and RAM. It also features Google entertainment apps, a noticeably fast performance boost, a faster-charging battery and seamless integration with your smartphone or PC. It’s also kid-approved, thanks to its Google Kids Space, which offers thousands of age-appropriate apps, games and movies.
Sold by Amazon
You can’t make a list of legitimate alternatives and not include the impressive iPad mini. While it’s an upfront investment, the number of upgraded features separates it from competitors. The iPad mini has WiFi and cellular data, is available in a 256GB option, has superfast downloads and high-quality streaming using 5G and records video in 4K.
Sold by Amazon
The Microsoft Surface Go is an excellent option for anyone who wants a laptop’s performance with a tablet’s portability. It features a 10.5-inch display screen with high-quality front and rear-facing cameras that take crisp photos and make clear calls. The battery lasts up to 10 hours and comes with an adjustable kickstand.
Sold by Amazon
Those looking for versatility in a tablet should look no further than this iPad, with its gorgeous 10.2-inch display, A13 Bionic chip and all-day battery life. It features WiFi and Gigabit-class LTE for faster uploads or streaming on the road or at home. Plus, it also has a 12MP ultra-wide front camera and 8MP back camera for crisp and vivid images or video.
Sold by Amazon
With an included S-pen that magnetically attaches to this tablet, it’s never been easier to write notes, practice illustration or edit photos. You can sync up multiple devices or use it as a hotspot. Plus, its slim design and large screen are ideal for taking on the go, and the 12-hour battery lasts all day.
Sold by Amazon
If you love the features of the new Fire 7 and are hoping to stay within Amazon’s specialized operating system but aren’t impressed with the display size, the Fire 8 offers a larger screen. It’s still an affordable option and has a slightly longer battery life. It’s also available in several colors.
Sold by Amazon
Dragon Touch Notepad K10 Tablet
This tablet is an affordable option that runs on the Android 9 Pie operating system. While it has 32GB of built-in storage, it also supports a micro SD card to expand storage space. It features a 10.1-inch display screen and dual cameras on the front and rear.
Sold by Amazon
Don’t forget about the kids! If you’re considering a tablet primarily for toddlers or elementary-aged children, consider the Fire 10 Kids Tablet. While it’s more expensive, it comes with a durable case, comprehensive parental controls and a free year subscription to Amazon Kids+, which offers thousands of games, books, movies and apps.
Sold by Amazon
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/electronics-br/tablets-accessories-br/these-compact-tablets-are-legitimate-competitors-to-amazons-brand-new-fire-7-tablet/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:06 | en | 0.930672 |
EL PASO, TX (KTSM) – When a disaster strikes the Lone Star State, individuals respond with willingness to donate and to volunteer, but it takes the organization and coordination of nonprofits, government, and community groups to funnel those resources and create a meaningful impact in disaster response.
Through July 29, you can nominate an organization for the statewide Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award. This award recognizes organizations, local governing bodies, and other entities that do an exceptional job of utilizing volunteers to meet the needs of Texas communities during all phases of disaster – mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
Awardees exemplify communication, coordination and collaboration and are a model for disaster volunteerism in Texas.The Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award is part of the 39th Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards.
The Governor’s Volunteer Awards introduced the Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award in 2021. Somebody Cares America was the award recipient in the first year. During times of disaster, Somebody Cares America (SCA) mobilizes local churches and partner organizations to serve communities by providing financial and material resources along with training, manpower, leadership, and expertise. Following Winter Storm Uri, SCA distributed plumbing supplies and provided nearly $100,000 in community grants to address problems created by the freezing cold.
To address the COVID-19 pandemic, SCA also supplied thousands of N-95 masks to first responders, medical professionals throughout the state. In Houston, SCA also distributed $280,000 in funding and in-kind gifts through dozens of partner churches and ministries to assist with financial hardships.
Link to nomination form can be found HERE
Nominations will close Friday July 29, 2022. Awardees will be honored during next year’s Global Volunteer Month in April 2023 at an evening reception at the Governor’s Mansion. For more information visit onestarfoundation.org/governors-volunteer-awards.
For local and breaking news, sports, weather alerts, videos, and more, download the FREE KTSM 9 News App from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
- Exclusive 9 day forecast: El Paso has seen the hottest temperature so far this year
- Walmart Wellness Day offers a start to improving personal health
- Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award accepting nominations
- Lions Club and Moms on Board partner for School Uniform Swap
- Things go from bad to worse for man forced out on an eviction notice
- “Heightened police presence” for LCPS as they return to the classroom | https://www.ktsm.com/news/excellence-in-disaster-volunteerism-award-accepting-nominations/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:08 | en | 0.930647 |
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What is the best massage gun?
If you love getting a massage but don’t love the cost of regularly visiting a professional, purchasing a massage gun for personal use is the next best thing. This product takes the effort out of working your deep tissue or knotted areas, bringing you instant relief. The area of the body and frequency of discomfort can factor into the type of massage gun you need. Ultimately, you’ll want to find a massage gun that is convenient and feels good to use on your target areas.
How to use a massage gun
Massage guns are a great way to relieve sore muscles, but you can do more damage than good if you use them incorrectly. If you have never used a massage gun before, consider this process before pressing it to your skin.
- Turn it on: Hold the gun out and away from the skin to be sure it is functioning before use.
- Turn it down: Massage guns have levels of intensity that can be adjusted. Be sure your massager is at its lowest setting before using it.
- Test it out: Press the massager to your skin to feel how it gets to your muscles. Target your sore areas and rub the massager along the muscle.
- Breathe: Remember to breathe and relax the muscles as you use the massager. Adjust the intensity and pressure you are putting on it if needed.
Reasons to use a massage gun on your muscles
Most people are looking for relief from pain or discomfort in the muscles, but there are a few uses for your massage gun.
Activation
You can use the massage gun to activate your muscles before a workout. Organize and target the muscles about to be used in your workout plan whether they be on the upper body, core or lower body. Spend 30 seconds using the gun on each group of muscles you plan to target before your workout.
Reactivation
If your muscles are feeling tired during your workout, you can reactivate them using your massage gun. Stop your workout and zap your muscles with the massage gun for 15 seconds. It gives your muscles the boost needed to finish out strong.
Recovery and relief
After a hard workout, massage guns help your muscles recover quicker. Use the gun to massage each sore muscle used in your workout that day. You can spend two minutes rolling the massager around the muscle before switching to another. Give each muscle one or two hours before massaging them again.
How to choose a massage gun
Massage guns are not all made equally and your purpose can determine what you want to use. Before you buy a massage gun, consider the features you value most.
Battery life
If you are taking your massage gun to the gym and back it should have good battery life. Quality massage guns can be used for at least an hour without needing to be recharged. If you have an extra battery, you can alternate them out while the other charges and not have to miss a beat of your cool-down.
Noise level
The advancements of today’s technology provide us with much quieter electronics. Although your massager might make some noise when turned on, it doesn’t have to disrupt the gym. Select one that had noise minimizing technology to bring down the volume during use.
Power
Sore muscles need a lot of strength to prevent tightness. Your massage gun should be powerful enough to penetrate under the muscle tissue and work out any knots that may have developed. The power can be measured by the rpm or revolutions per minute with most guns ranging from 2,000-3,200 rpm. A higher rpm is beneficial to severe tightness or knots deep under the muscle.
Durability and portability
Massage guns are typically used after a tough workout and thrown in a bag with other gym supplies. You want your massage gun to fit in your gym bag and travel well with you. The massager you purchase should be able to withstand plenty of use and a possible drop or two.
Attachments
Most massage guns are equipped with the smooth round ball but others include additional attachments you can use. These alternate massager heads can specifically target smaller areas of the body for maximum relief. There are fork-prong attachments, flat head attachments and smaller, pointed attachments.
What you need to buy for massage gun use
This is the fourth generation of deep tissue massage guns by this brand. It is used for muscle recovery and to release stress or tension.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon and Therabody
iReliev Percussion Massage Gun
This massage has three levels of intensity that can be adjusted with a button. It lasts up to six hours and has four attachment heads to improve your experience.
Where to buy: Sold by iReliev and Amazon
This is a portable, powerful, handheld massage gun that travels easily with you from home to the gym. It is rechargeable and comes in four colors.
Where to buy: Sold by Therabody and Amazon
iReliev Percussion Massage Gun
This massage system has three levels of intensity that can be adjusted with a button. It lasts up to six hours and has four attachment heads to improve your experience.
Where to buy: Sold by iReliev and Amazon
This massage oil warms up in your hands to assist in the relief of sore muscles. It is paraben free and lasts a long time when properly stored.
Where to buy: Sold by iHerb and Amazon
Dr. Teal’s Epsom Salt Soaking Solution
This is a pack of two types of Epsom salt to soothe muscles before or after a massage. Mix a potion in a warm water bath for a full-body experience.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
Artnaturals Aromatherapy Top-6 Essential Oil Set
Pure 100% therapeutic-grade essential oils for muscular relief. The oils assist in soothing muscle pains when a few drops are released in a bath or blended with a carrier agent and massaged into the skin.
Where to buy: Sold by Amazon
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Erica Redding writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/health-wellness-br/massage-relaxation-br/how-to-choose-the-best-massage-gun-for-your-needs/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:13 | en | 0.935283 |
EL PASO, TX (KTSM) – On Wednesday, July 20, 2022, the El Paso County Constable’s Office arrested 32-year-old John Daniel Brown after proceeding to execute a writ of possession (eviction) when they discovered controlled substances in the home.
Upon arrival, at the 10200 block of Kenworthy, constables say they got into a brief altercation with Brown. He was shortly detained and later constables found suspicious items inside Brown’s home. Constables requested help from El Paso Police Department Bomb Squad units. The suspicious items were removed by the bomb squad.
A writ of possession is a court order that allows a landlord to take back their property by force. If the tenant doesn’t move within a set number of days, the tenant’s property will be removed from the premises by law enforcement.
Constables arrested Brown on charges of resisting arrest and possession of a controlled substance over 4 grams (methamphetamine). Constable Danny Zamora stated that there is no active threat to the neighborhood in reference to the suspicious items that were located.
Offense 1: resisting arrest, Search, or Transport – $2,000 Bond
Offense 2: possession of controlled substance -$7,000 Bond
For local and breaking news, sports, weather alerts, videos, and more, download the FREE KTSM 9 News App from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
- Exclusive 9 day forecast: El Paso has seen the hottest temperature so far this year
- Walmart Wellness Day offers a start to improving personal health
- Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award accepting nominations
- Lions Club and Moms on Board partner for School Uniform Swap
- Things go from bad to worse for man forced out on an eviction notice
- “Heightened police presence” for LCPS as they return to the classroom | https://www.ktsm.com/news/things-go-from-bad-to-worse-for-man-forced-out-on-an-eviction-notice/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:14 | en | 0.925838 |
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EL PASO, TX (KTSM) – Walmart is inviting communities to its Walmart Wellness Day on Saturday, July 23 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., where customers can receive free glucose, cholesterol, BMI and blood pressure screenings as well as affordable immunizations like tetanus, hepatitis, HPV, COVID-19 and more at pharmacies nationwide.
Walmart Wellness Day encourages families to get healthy and stay on a healthy track by helping them know their numbers and then seek care to improve their healthy lifestyles. Knowing your numbers is just a start but additional, helpful information allows you to make decisions and track your health improvement. Walmart Wellness Day is also a great time for customers to learn about our health and wellness offerings and solutions.
More than 4,600 Walmart pharmacies across the country will host Walmart Wellness Day events from 10 a.m. – 2p.m. local time on July 23.
Select stores will also feature vision screenings to make it even easier for customers to access the resources they need. Walmart Wellness Day events will feature the following health resources, administered by qualified pharmacy and Vision Center teams:
- Free health screenings, including glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, body mass index and vision screenings (select locations)
- Affordable immunizations, including pneumonia, tetanus, HPV, measles, mumps, rubella (MMR), varicella (chicken pox/shingles), whooping cough (TDAP), Hep A & B and more
- No cost to patient COVID-19 vaccines
- Wellness resources + opportunity to talk with pharmacists
Looking for options on how to pay for your back to school purchases? Use Affirm to buy now and pay overtime on all eligible items in Walmart Vision Centers. What is Affirm? Affirm is a flexible and transparent alternative to credit cards and other pay-over-time options that never charges any late or hidden fees. By selecting Affirm at checkout, eligible customers can finance purchases ranging from $144-$2000 over 3-24 months (rates from 10-30% APR), providing flexibility and choice with how and when you want to pay.
Payment options through Affirm are subject to eligibility, may not be available in all states, and are provided by these lending partners: affirm.com/lenders. CA residents: Loans by Affirm Loan Services, LLC are made or arranged pursuant to a California Finance Lenders Law license.
Since 2014, Walmart pharmacies have hosted Walmart Wellness Days, contributing more than 4.7 million free health screenings for customers. More than 4,000 Walmart stores are in medically underserved areas, which means Walmart is often the first stop for health care in these rural and underserved communities. To find a free event in your neighborhood, visit Walmart.com/wellnesshub.
For local and breaking news, sports, weather alerts, videos, and more, download the FREE KTSM 9 News App from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
- Exclusive 9 day forecast: El Paso has seen the hottest temperature so far this year
- Walmart Wellness Day offers a start to improving personal health
- Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award accepting nominations
- Lions Club and Moms on Board partner for School Uniform Swap
- Things go from bad to worse for man forced out on an eviction notice
- “Heightened police presence” for LCPS as they return to the classroom | https://www.ktsm.com/news/walmart-wellness-day-offers-a-start-to-improving-personal-health/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:20 | en | 0.926075 |
Which bookends should I get?
Some well-placed bookends can go a long way in both organizing a shelving unit and highlighting the aesthetic you want for the space. They should be sturdy enough to function, but don’t overlook the decorative opportunities here. Bookends are a perfect accent for a library or living room and can help you redefine a room’s entire look without having to update the walls or furniture. Which bookends you want depends on what style you are going for, and while there are a ton of aesthetics to choose from, there are just as many bookends out there to achieve these diverse and diverting looks.
Modern bookends
SRIWATANA Decorative Metal Black Bookends
Available in sets of two or four, these powder-coated black metal bookends feature an abstract geometric design. The base won’t slip and the design has an unexpected three-dimensional element that makes these bookends unique compared to similar items.
Sold by Amazon
Officemate Heavy Weighted Steel Black Bookends
These 10-inch non-skid bookends are rounded in shape with a basic yet sensible style. They are extra strong for holding up a lot of weight without damaging bookshelves.
Fasmov Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Man Bookends
For a sleek, striking look, there is this pair of shiny stainless steel bookends designed to look like men holding up the books with their hands. These bookends stand 7.5 inches tall and have non-skid bases.
Sold by Amazon
Mid-century modern bookends
RockParadise Natural Agate Geode Bookend Pair
These handcrafted bookends are made from real agate geodes and with blue-gray and white tones within a brown exterior. Since they are handmade, style patterns and shapes may vary.
Sold by Etsy
Muso Wood Bookends for Shelves
These beautiful walnut bookends are oval in shape and come in pairs. They stand 5.51 inches tall and have a polished finish.
Sold by Amazon
AMOYSTONE Decorative White Agate Bookends
This set comes with two broken quartz geodes atop a faux marble base with gold-toned accents. They stand 10.8 inches tall and look great, but they are not designed to hold heavy loads.
Sold by Amazon
Minimalist bookends
Spectrum Diversified Elements Minimalist Bookends
These simple arc-shaped steel bookends come in sets of two in black or white and small or large. They are 7.5 inches tall and utilize an open design that makes it easy to see the books behind them.
Sold by Amazon
Amazing Abby Acrylic L-Shape Heavy-Duty Bookends
This set comes with four clear acrylic bookends that stand 7.2 inches tall and provide simple assistance for any bookshelf. The acrylic is completely see-through and has a smooth finish.
Sold by Amazon
CedarwoodCreekCo Ombré Concrete Bookends
This set comes with two heavy, sturdy hand-poured concrete bookends in gray and white. Each one is 5.75 inches tall and has a felt-lined base to protect surfaces.
Sold by Etsy
Industrial bookends
MyGift Industrial Pipe & Gray Wood 6-Inch Metal Bookends
This pair of bookends stand 6.1 inches in height and feature polished metal pipe detailing with gray painted wood bases. They can be used separately or together and provide the space with an urban feel.
ATPIEN Rustic Wooden Bookends for Heavy Books
These solid wood bookends have a metal base plate which helps to keep books in place. They come in pairs.
Sold by Amazon
Cottage/farmhouse bookends
This cream-colored whitewashed mango wood bookend is 8.5 inches tall and carved in an elegant curling design. Please note that these are sold individually, so you’ll need to order two for a pair.
Sold by Amazon
MyGift Dark Brown Vintage Cast Iron Elk Head & Antlers Bookends
This set comes with two vintage-inspired cast iron elk head busts in brown, complete with antlers to really sell that rustic look. Each bookend is about 8 inches tall.
robinseggvintageNC Bird Figurines Set of Bookends
This set comes with two matching handcrafted shabby-chic plaster birds on whitewashed wood bases. The birds are white and the bases are available in over a dozen colors.
Sold by Etsy
Coastal bookends
World of Wonders Elegant Angelfish Bookend Set
This set features beautifully painted “kissing” angelfish with a coral reef motif. The bookends are 7.5 inches tall and constructed from resin in white and yellow.
Creative Co-Op Mermaid Shaped Resin Bookends
This set of two features one bookend that looks like a mermaid’s tail and one that looks like the mermaid’s body. Each bookend is made of resin and painted white, standing about 8.5 inches tall.
Sold by Amazon
UniqueCoastalDesigns Nautical Sea Shell Bookends
These handmade bookends feature an array of seashells on a faux sand base. Each piece stands about 7 inches tall and has a hefty weight to it.
Sold by Etsy
Gothic bookends
This set of two matching bookends features a painted raven standing on a skull, which sits atop a red book. Each piece is made from durable polyresin and stands 7.5 inches tall.
Sold by Amazon
Ebros Gothic Growling Werewolves Bookends
This pair of sturdy matching bookends feature growling werewolves standing atop a pile of skulls and bones. Each is constructed from polyresin that is painted to look like old stone.
Sold by Amazon
Vintage-inspired bookends
Creative Co-op Distressed Fleur de Lis Shaped Iron Bookends
This set comes with a pair of matching textured Fleur de Lis iron bookends in either antique gold or bronze. They are tall and elegant but sturdy enough to stay securely in place.
Sold by Amazon
Bellaa Vintage Camera Bookends
This set features two black polystone bookends, each of which is designed to look like half of an old-fashioned motion picture camera. They stand about 8 inches tall and are nice and heavy.
Sold by Amazon
Roman Store Airplane Pewter Finish Bookends
Here is a pair of matching polyresin bookends with pewter finished antique airplane figures. Each has a brown base and is about 8 inches tall.
Sold by Amazon
Book-lover bookends
BookendsStore The Lord of the Rings Bookends
These handmade bookends are made from plywood and feature a beautiful silhouette of the entire fellowship from J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The set is available in seven colors.
Sold by Etsy
WoodenStork Alice Literary Bookends
This pair of bookends is handmade from birch plywood and designed in great detail to feature characters and phrases from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Sold by Etsy
KnobCreeekMetalArts Redrum Bookends
This solid steel set features two red bookends. One says “red” and the other says “rum” and is inspired by Stephen’s King’s The Shining.
Sold by Etsy
Need some new shelving to match your new bookends? Check out the full bookshelf buying guide at BestReviews.
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Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/home-br/decor-br/the-best-bookends-for-every-aesthetic/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:20 | en | 0.915403 |
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EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – El Paso set new records Wednesday afternoon as temperatures reached 108°.
This would mark the hottest day so far this year.
A high pressure system will continue to shift west, allowing for temperatures to slowly cool, although we still expect triple digits for the next few days.
This will allow for moisture to move back into our area, producing the possibility of isolated storms every single day this week.
Make sure to stay safe and updated with KTSM 9 News on air and online.
Latest Headlines:
- Exclusive 9 day forecast: El Paso has seen the hottest temperature so far this year
- Walmart Wellness Day offers a start to improving personal health
- Excellence in Disaster Volunteerism Award accepting nominations
- Lions Club and Moms on Board partner for School Uniform Swap
- Things go from bad to worse for man forced out on an eviction notice
- “Heightened police presence” for LCPS as they return to the classroom
For local and breaking news, sports, weather alerts, videos, and more, download the FREE KTSM 9 News App from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. | https://www.ktsm.com/weather/exclusive-9-day-forecast-el-paso-has-seen-the-hottest-temperature-so-far-this-year/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:26 | en | 0.89561 |
The best garage door opener
Motorized garage door openers were introduced in 1926 to facilitate easy, convenient access to your garage and also to provide added security to your home. Since then, they have evolved to use several different mechanisms and functions. For example, some garage door openers are more powerful than others, and some are notably quieter. They often incorporate additional security measures such as door sensors, deadbolts and alarms. Many modern units work with companion phone apps or smart controllers that wirelessly operate features such as intercoms, lighting and remote locking.
Types of garage door opener
Garage door openers commonly use one of five mechanism types. Four of these are driven by a power unit that hangs from the ceiling of the garage. This typically moves a trolley along a track, which pulls the top of the garage door up and over on rails. Their main differences lie in the way that the trolley is maneuvered.
- Chain-drive systems are usually more affordable and use a chain, like those on a bicycle, to pull the trolley backward and forward. Belt-drive systems are similar but use a rubber belt instead of a chain, making their operation quieter.
- Screw-drive systems use a rotating, threaded shaft to wind the trolley back and forth.
- Direct-drive systems have a motorized trolley that drives itself along the track. Screw-drive and direct-drive systems are generally the quietest mechanisms out of the five.
- Jackshaft openers use a different mechanism and have recently started to become popular for residential use. These are highly secure, wall-mounted units that free up ceiling space but incorporate a more complicated design. They are strong, often employing computerized deadbolts for extra security, but they can be noisy when in use. You can find a selection of the best garage door openers in the BestReviews buyer’s guide.
Garage door opener features
Modern garage door openers have joined the Internet of Things by incorporating mobile apps. These expand upon their basic functionality by using Wi-Fi, cellular or Bluetooth technology to remotely program, operate and monitor your garage door. These functions can often be deployed using virtual assistants such as Siri, Google Nest or Alexa, making them compatible with your home’s existing AI.
Video cameras
These add an extra element of security to your garage space and can be activated using sensors or via the door opener’s companion app. They are usually incorporated into the body of the power unit and may combine with external cameras for inside and outside monitoring.
Two-way intercom
This can be useful for communicating with unfamiliar visitors or alerting intruders that you are aware of their presence. However, you’re far more likely to use a two-way intercom to tell a loved one to come in from the yard when lunch is served.
LED lighting
Some garage door openers incorporate high-power LED lights that illuminate your entire garage space. These carry the additional benefits of being low on energy consumption and very long-lasting.
Smart locks
These allow you to remotely lock or unlock your garage door. This is handy for granting access to delivery services, or for letting friends and family enter the house. They also instill peace of mind by assuring you that your door is secure from intruders long after lights out.
What’s the best garage door opener to buy?
This belt-driven unit comprises a 1080p motion-activated camera with a night vision lens and corner-to-corner lighting. It is notable for its smooth and quiet performance, which makes it well suited to houses with built-in garages.
Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
The Genie QuietLift runs on DC power, making it much quieter than AC-powered units. It has a tough, steel-reinforced belt that can lift doors of up to 500 pounds in weight and 7 feet in height. Accessories include a wireless keypad and wall console.
Sold by Amazon
This Chamberlain door opener boasts extremely strong encryption, with over 100 billion possible codes. Its myQ app makes setup and operation very easy, and it comes with two remote controls and a wireless keypad.
Sold by Amazon
This Liftmaster garage door opener works with a jackshaft system, which saves on ceiling space. It uses the brand’s powerful P3 motors, making it a good choice for heavier doors. However, it is not compatible with all types of mechanisms, such as roll-up doors or low-headroom tracks.
Sold by Amazon
This affordable model from Skylink is simple but effective, with a chain-drive mechanism and a bright 12-watt LED lamp. It has a soft start and stop operation to prevent excessive noise.
Sold by Amazon
This belt-driven Craftsman garage door opener is a good choice for those who don’t want too many bells and whistles. It has no companion app; however, it does include a wireless keypad, a three-button remote and a dual-function wall control.
Sold by Amazon
The moderately priced BeamUp Workhorse is a strong and durable solution with a chain-drive operation and built-in LED lighting. There are a number of instructional resources available to assist with installation and maintenance.
Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
Chamberlain RJ020 Wall Mounted
This direct-drive model by Chamberlain is wall-mounted and can be installed on either side of the garage door. Its smart operation works with IFTTT, Google Assistant and Wink, and it comes with a host of accessories, including auto-lock deadbolts, safety sensors and a three-button remote.
Sold by Amazon and Home Depot
This Genie model can handle tougher tasks, with the capacity to lift sectional doors of up to 850 pounds in weight, and 14 feet in height. Despite this, it is one of the most compact wall-mounted models currently available. Notable features include battery backup, an automatic door lock, a companion app and a wireless console.
Sold by Amazon
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Luke Mitchell writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.
Copyright 2022 BestReviews, a Nexstar company. All rights reserved. | https://www.krqe.com/reviews/br/home-br/home-improvement-br/which-garage-door-openers-should-i-get/ | 2022-07-21T06:18:27 | en | 0.950386 |
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