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TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — General Motors says it will spend $760 million to renovate its transmission factory in Toledo, Ohio, so it can build drive lines for electric vehicles.
It’s the first GM engine or transmission plant to begin the long transition from internal combustion engines to electric vehicles. The company has a goal of making only electric passenger vehicles by 2035.
The move will keep the jobs of about 1,500 hourly and salaried workers at the Toledo plant, which now makes four transmissions used in pickup trucks and many other GM internal combustion vehicles. No new hiring is expected.
“This investment helps build job security for our Toledo team for years to come, and is the next step on our journey to an all-electric future,” Gerald Johnson, executive vice president of global manufacturing for GM, said in a statement Friday.
Electric drive lines take power from the batteries and convert it to motion at the wheels.
The 2.8 million-square-foot Toledo plant, built in 1956, will make drive lines for future electric trucks including the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, along with GMC Hummer EVs.
The announcement Friday at the plant is good news for the workers in Toledo, who have worried about the future of their plant. GM employs about 10,000 workers at engine and transmission factories across the U.S., and their futures are uncertain as the switch to electric vehicles picks up momentum.
“Of course there’s always worry,” said Jeff King, shop chairman for the United Auto Workers union local at the plant. “I think it reflects on the workforce that we have here, the quality of product that we build.”
Most workers gathered for the announcement Friday were happy to hear details that their plant would live on.
“This is great news for our individual plant because we’re going to get a new product,” said worker Kim Hunter Jones of Adrian, Michigan. But she said she’s concerned about workers at other GM engine and transmission plants that don’t yet have assurances that they’ll build electric-vehicle components.
GM’s Johnson, though, said the company wants to bring all of its employees along during the transition. “Our goal is to make sure everybody who is with General Motors today has an opportunity to move into the all-EV future,” he said.
Another worker, Patrice Harris of Toledo, said the announcement means she won’t have to move from her hometown. Other GM workers have been forced to move when their plants closed or didn’t get new products to make.
“It’s a big deal for me because that means I still have work,” she said. “I’m born and raised. I don’t want to relocate.”
Johnson said he suspects the $760 million investment will qualify for some tax incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, but said that hasn’t been worked out yet.
GM says the factory will continue to make transmissions for internal combustion vehicles, as it gradually switches to electric drive lines. Work on the renovation will start this month, with EV component production beginning early in 2024, Johnson said.
GM CEO Mary Barra has pledged to unseat Tesla as the top seller of EVs by the middle of this decade. | https://fox4kc.com/business/ap-business/ap-gm-spending-760m-to-convert-toledo-factory-to-make-ev-parts/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:08 | en | 0.966518 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — World Bank President David Malpass said Friday he won’t resign after coming under criticism for his remarks earlier this week regarding climate change.
At an event sponsored by The New York Times on Tuesday, Malpass wouldn’t answer directly when asked whether the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to global warming. Instead, he said, “I am not a scientist.”
In an interview with Politico Friday, Malpass said he wouldn’t resign, and that he hasn’t been asked to do so by any of the bank’s member governments. He acknowledged he should have done a better job responding to questions on Tuesday, when he was asked to respond to a charge earlier that day from former Vice President Al Gore that he was a “climate denier.”
“When asked, ‘Are you a climate denier?’ I should have said no,” he said.
Malpass also said the World Bank is taking a “forceful leadership” position on climate issues.
“It’s clear that greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are causing climate change,” Malpass said in the Friday interview. “So the task for us, for the world, is to pull together the projects and the funding that actually has an impact.”
Malpass was nominated to the position by former President Donald Trump in 2019, under the longstanding tradition that allows the U.S. to choose the head of the World Bank and European governments to pick the head of the International Monetary Fund. His five-year term ends in April 2024.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that the Biden administration disagrees with Malpass’ comments suggesting climate change is not caused by human activity.
Jean-Pierre did not say whether the administration would seek to remove Malpass, as that would require the approval of other World Bank members.
The Treasury Department “will hold Malpass accountable,” Jean-Pierre said, “and support the many staff working to fight climate change at the World Bank. But again, removal would require a majority of stakeholders.”
Environmentalists have urged that Malpass be pushed out if necessary.
“Climate denialism has no place in a world where millions of people are suffering from the ravages of this crisis,” said Johanna Chao Kreilick, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Malpass should be replaced immediately.”
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Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report. | https://fox4kc.com/business/ap-business/ap-world-bank-president-says-wont-resign-over-climate-remark/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:14 | en | 0.96403 |
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The tattoos on Billie Stafford’s hands — inspired by street art and full of references to her work helping prevent drug-related deaths — have become an indelible memorial to the friend who inked them and the opioid crisis that killed him in April.
As a panel starts considering how to distribute Ohio’s share of multimillion-dollar legal settlements with drugmakers and distributors over the toll of opioids, Stafford is concerned that most of the members don’t bring that same burden of personal loss to their spending recommendations.
“They don’t have to come and write 20 names on a (memorial) wall because everyone’s dying,” said Stafford, whose friend David Seymour died of an overdose and who co-founded a group that supports people addicted to opioids and their loved ones.
Across the U.S., people in recovery and families of those who died from overdoses fear they won’t be heard on the state-level panels recommending or deciding on the use of big pieces of proposed and finalized settlements, which are worth more than $40 billion, according to an Associated Press tally.
The money is seen as crucial to stemming a crisis that deepened amid the coronavirus pandemic, with opioids involved in most of the record 107,000 overdose-related deaths in the U.S. last year.
“If we approach this in a very educated process, we have a real opportunity to move the needle for patients and families for generations to come,” said Dr. Adam Scioli, the medical director at Caron Treatment Centers, which operates in several East Coast areas.
After money from 1990s tobacco settlements went to laying fiber-optic cable, repairing roads and other initiatives that had little to do with public health, the opioid deals were crafted to direct most funds toward combatting the drug crisis.
The settlements list strategies the money can fund, including paying for the overdose reversal drug naloxone; educating children about dangers of opioids; expanding screening and interventions for pregnant women; and helping people get into treatment. State and local governments have leeway, though.
For the people on a mission to stem drug deaths, the details matter. Advocates want to see the money used to make it easier to get treatment, to provide related housing, transportation and other services, and to provide materials to test drug supplies for fentanyl, the synthetic opioid involved in most recent fatal overdoses.
Two advocacy groups are on a monthlong “Mobilize Recovery” national bus tour, partly to push for representation of the recovery community — people in recovery, their families, families of those who died, and those who try to help all of them — in allocation decisions.
“The people closest to the problem are also closest to the solution,” Voices Project founder Ryan Hampton said.
In Ohio, critics say voices of those most impacted aren’t reflected enough on the OneOhio Recovery Foundation board making spending decisions. Only a few of the 29 members have disclosed personal experiences — one identifying as a person in recovery for decades, one as the parent of someone with an addiction, and two who said they knew people with addictions. Most members are government officials. Just one is Black.
“Right now, we have no say-so and no representation as to how this money is going to be used to help us,” said Nathaniel Jordan, executive director of Columbus Kappa Foundation, which works with low-income and Black communities, where opioid overdoses have been increasing.
An advocacy group sued the nonprofit OneOhio foundation in August over concerns about its transparency. OneOhio subsequently said it would voluntarily follow open meetings and public records laws that govern public agencies, though the lawsuit remains pending.
“The Board members are eager to engage the advocacy community and Ohioans whose lives have been impacted by addiction because they know their feedback will improve the Foundation’s work,” OneOhio spokesperson Connie Luck said by email.
The issue is not only who has seats on key committees, but also whether those closest to the crisis have clout.
Nevada included recovery community members such as Debi Nadler on the council advising the state on the more than $300 million it is expected to get.
“My true thought is it’s a dog-and-pony show,” said Nadler, who founded the group Moms Against Drugs after her son died of an overdose.
Terry Kerns, the substance abuse and law enforcement coordinator for the Nevada attorney general’s office, said the group is influenced by people in recovery and those who work with people using drugs — and that some people appointed to seats not set aside for those who have used opioids are also in recovery.
“I feel there’s probably more than adequate representation,” Kerns said.
Advocates say the shifting nature of the opioid crisis with the rise of fentanyl makes it important to listen to people who are using drugs now.
“I’ve been in recovery for years,” said Courtney Allen, the organizing director of the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project, who was appointed to a settlement advisory council in her state. “The substance-use crisis eight years ago was very different from the substance-use crisis today.”
In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers thought Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration didn’t do enough outreach to law enforcement as it made plans for spending $31 million in settlement money for next year. So the GOP-led Joint Committee on Finance this month eliminated proposed funds for family support centers and trimmed other areas to set aside $3 million for public safety agencies to use, including for treatment of jail inmates.
Rep. Mark Born, co-chair of the committee, said public safety workers deal with opioid issues even in far-flung communities not served by treatment facilities. “It’s not just drug arrests,” he said.
Jesse Heffernan, who is in recovery and co-owns an addiction recovery services business, is wary of the changes, which he said were made without the open input and research that went into the original plan.
“When it turns into a partisan issue, communities lose,” he said.
Advocates’ push for clout has changed the situation in some states.
New York officials announced in July that the Opioid Fund Advisory Board would make recommendations on all settlement money after originally indicating the group would not have a say on most of the $240 million-plus expected this year.
Board member Avi Israel, whose son died by suicide after years of addiction, says the group is still meeting too infrequently and not digging into the big decisions. He worries most most money will end up going to state agencies.
“We’re talking about a year before anybody gets any money,” Israel said, noting thousands more could die before programs are launched or expanded.
The chair of the New York board, Albany County mental health commissioner Stephen Giordano, said he expects to have recommendations ready for the Legislature and governor by the Nov. 1 deadline — and that having a report done earlier wouldn’t mean money would go out to service providers sooner.
“I’ve also come to see,” Giordano said, “that not everyone is going to like anything we do.”
___
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Kavish Harjai in Los Angeles also contributed. Hendrickson and Harjai are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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For more AP coverage of the opioid crisis: https://apnews.com/hub/opioids | https://fox4kc.com/health/ap-health/ap-advocates-seek-more-say-in-how-opioid-settlements-are-spent/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:21 | en | 0.970582 |
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PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona can enforce a near-total ban on abortions that has been blocked for nearly 50 years, a judge ruled Friday, meaning clinics statewide will have to stop providing the procedures to avoid the filing of criminal charges against doctors and other medical workers.
The judge lifted a decades-old injunction that blocked enforcement of the law on the books since before Arizona became a state. The only exemption to the ban is if the woman’s life is in jeopardy.
The ruling means the state’s abortions clinics will have to shut down and anyone seeking an abortion will have to go out of state. The ruling takes effect immediately, although an appeal is possible. Planned Parenthood and two other large providers said they were halting abortions.
Abortion providers have been on a roller coaster since the U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing women a constitutional right to an abortion. At first providers shut down operations, then re-opened, and now have to close again.
Planned Parenthood had urged the judge not to allow enforcement, and its president declared that the ruling “takes Arizonans back to living under an archaic, 150-year-old law.”
“This decision is out of step with the will of Arizonans and will cruelly force pregnant people to leave their communities to access abortion,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who had urged the judge to lift the injunction so the ban could be enforced, cheered.
“We applaud the court for upholding the will of the Legislature and providing clarity and uniformity on this important issue,” Brnovich said in a statement. “I have and will continue to protect the most vulnerable Arizonans.”
The ruling comes amid an election season in which Democrats have seized on abortion rights as a potent issue. Sen. Mark Kelly, under a challenge from Republican Blake Masters, said it “will have a devastating impact on the freedom Arizona women have had for decades” to choose an abortion. Democrat Katie Hobbs, who is running for governor, called it the product of a decadeslong attack on reproductive freedom by Republicans that can only be fended off by voters in November.
Masters and Kari Lake, the Republican running against Hobbs, both back abortion restrictions. Their campaigns had no immediate comment.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson ruled more than a month after hearing arguments on Brnovich’s request to lift the injunction.
The near-total abortion ban was enacted decades before Arizona secured statehood in 1912. Prosecutions were halted after the injunction was handed down following the Roe decision. Even so, the Legislature reenacted the law in 1977.
Assistant Attorney General Beau Roysden told Johnson at an Aug. 19 hearing that since Roe has been overruled, the sole reason for the injunction blocking the old law is gone and she should allow it to be enforced. Under that law, anyone convicted of performing a surgical abortion or providing drugs for a medication abortion could face two to five years in prison.
An attorney for Planned Parenthood and its Arizona affiliate argued that allowing the pre-statehood ban to be enforced would render more recent laws regulating abortion meaningless. Instead, she urged the judge to let licensed doctors perform abortions and let the old ban only apply to unlicensed practitioners.
The judge sided with Brnovich, saying that because the injunction was issued in 1973 only because of the Roe decision, it must be lifted in its entirety.
“The Court finds an attempt to reconcile fifty years of legislative activity procedurally improper in the context of the motion and record before it,” Johnson wrote. “While there may be legal questions the parties seek to resolve regarding Arizona statutes on abortion, those questions are not for this Court to decide here.”
In overturning Roe on June 24, the high court said states can regulate abortion as they wish.
A physician who runs a clinic providing abortions said she was dismayed but not surprised by the decision.
“It kind of goes with what I’ve been saying for a while now –- it is the intent of the people who run this state that abortion be illegal here,” Dr. DeShawn Taylor said. “Of course we want to hold onto hope in the back of our minds, but in the front of my mind I have been preparing the entire time for the total ban.”
Republicans control the Legislature, and GOP Gov. Doug Ducey is an abortion opponent who has signed every abortion law that reached his desk for the past eight years.
Johnson, the judge, said Planned Parenthood was free to file a new challenge. But with Arizona’s tough abortion laws and all seven Supreme Court justices appointed by Republicans, the chances of success appear slim.
What’s allowed in each state has shifted as legislatures and courts have acted since Roe was overturned. Before Friday’s ruling, bans on abortion at any point in pregnancy were in place in 12 Republican-led states.
In another state, Wisconsin, clinics have stopped providing abortions amid litigation over whether an 1849 ban is in effect. Georgia bans abortions once fetal cardiac activity can be detected. Florida and Utah have bans that kick in after 15 and 18 weeks gestation, respectively.
The ruling came a day before a new Arizona law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy takes effect. Signed by Ducey in March, the law was enacted in hopes that the Supreme Court would pare back limits on abortion regulations. Instead, it overturned Roe.
Ducey has argued that the new law he signed takes precedence over the pre-statehood law, but he did not send his attorneys to argue that before Johnson.
The old law was first enacted among a set of laws known as the “Howell Code” adopted by 1st Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864. Arizona clinics have been performing about 13,000 abortions a year. | https://fox4kc.com/health/ap-health/ap-arizonas-15-week-abortion-ban-coming-as-other-ban-looms/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:28 | en | 0.969693 |
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — In four days of fiery speeches over war, climate change and the threat of nuclear weapons, one issue felt like an afterthought during this year’s U.N. General Assembly: the coronavirus pandemic.
Masks were often pulled below chins — or not worn at all — and any mention of COVID-19 by world leaders typically came at the tail-end of a long list of grievances.
But on the sidelines of the annual meeting, the pandemic was still very much part of the conversation.
On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gathered with World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell and others to discuss equitable access to COVID vaccines, tests and treatments.
And earlier that day, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield joined leaders from around the globe to mark the progress that has been made to fight COVID-19 — including the more than 620 million vaccine doses to 116 countries and economies that the United States has provided. But she emphasized there is still much work to do.
Tedros noted that the number of deaths around the globe is near its lowest since the pandemic began, and two-thirds of the world’s population is vaccinated. But the encouraging signs mask a deep disparity between wealthy and poor countries.
For instance, only 19% of people living in low-income countries are fully vaccinated compared with 75% in high-income countries. And only 35% of health care workers and 31% of older populations in lower-income countries are fully vaccinated and boosted.
Key to closing those gaps, according to Guterres, is countering misinformation about vaccines and overcoming hesitancy while also increasing testing to snuff out the potential for more variants. The world also needs early warning systems for pandemics and must ensure a well-paid and well-supplied workforce in the health care sector.
“Let’s get it done,” Guterres said. “Let’s end this pandemic once and for all.”
Thomas-Greenfield said that COVID-19 care needs to be shifted from being offered primarily in emergency facilities to integrating it in routine services.
She outlined three new initiatives: a pilot program to be launched in 10 countries to help people get screened for COVID-19 and receive antiviral medications; a $50 million commitment from the U.S to improve access to medical oxygen critical for treating patients with severe cases; and a global clearinghouse to make medical supply chains more resilient, efficient and equitable.
While few would argue that the situation has not improved — and indeed U.S. President Joe Biden recently remarked that the pandemic was over before walking back his comments — no one on Thursday was ready to call it quits.
“A marathon runner does not stop when the finish line comes into view,” Tedros said, and instead runs harder to get to the end.
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For more coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly | https://fox4kc.com/health/ap-health/ap-fight-to-end-virus-pandemic-takes-place-on-uns-sidelines/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:35 | en | 0.959228 |
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HOMEWOOD, Ala. (AP) — To the world, Harper Lee was aloof to the point of being unknowable, an obsessively private person who spent most of her life avoiding the public gaze despite writing one of the best-selling books ever, “To Kill a Mockingbird.” To Wayne Flynt, the Alabama-born author was his friend, Nelle.
Flynt, a longtime Southern historian who became close friends with Nelle Harper Lee late in her life, has written his second book about the author, “Afternoons with Harper Lee,” which was released Thursday with Flynt signing copies at a bookstore in suburban Birmingham.
Based on Flynt’s notes from dozens of visits with Lee over a decade before her death in 2016, the book is like sitting on a porch and hearing tales of Lee’s childhood and family in rural Alabama, her later life in New York and everything in between. That includes the time a grandfather who fought for the Confederacy survived the Battle of Gettysburg despite heavy losses to his Alabama unit, according to Flynt.
“I told her, ‘You know, half the 15th of Alabama was either killed or wounded or captured, and he got away? Is that just luck or the providence of God? What in the world is that?’” Flynt said in an interview with The Associated Press.
“And she said, ‘No, it’s not the providence of God. He could run fast.'”
The public perception of Lee as a hermit is wrong, Flynt, a former history professor at Auburn University, said. No, she didn’t do media interviews and she guarded her privacy zealously, but she also was warm and kind to friends that included a former first lady, Lady Bird Johnson, Flynt said. And Lee was “deeply religious” in a way many people aren’t, he said.
“It’s an attempt to tell the story of the authentic woman, not the marble lady,” Flynt said.
The book also is a tribute to Flynt’s late wife Dartie, who died in 2020. Lee, who suffered a stroke in 2007, seemed to identify with the physical travails of Dartie Flynt, who had Parkinson’s disease, Flynt said.
“I think she tolerated me because she loved Dartie,” he said.
Born in 1926 when the South was still racially segregated by law, Lee grew up in the south Alabama town of Monroeville, the daughter of a lawyer who served as a model for attorney Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a story of race, injustice and the law during the Jim Crow era. The town itself became Maycomb, the book’s setting.
Preferring football, softball, golf and books to small-town social affairs or college sororities, Lee’s well-known desire for privacy may have come in part from a feeling of being different from others growing up around her in the South, Flynt said.
“I think she occupied a world where she felt she was not like other girls,” he said.
A childhood friend of fellow author Truman Capote, Lee was rarely heard from in public after her partly autobiographical “Mockingbird” won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into a hit movie. She mostly lived in an apartment in Manhattan, where it was easier to blend in than back home until the stroke left her partially paralyzed.
Flynt and his late wife knew Lee’s two sisters, and they became close to the author after she returned to Alabama for good following the stroke. They visited her at a rehabilitation center in Birmingham and then at an assisted living home in Monroeville, where she spent years before her death. Lee died just months after the release of her novel “Go Set a Watchman,” which actually was an early version of “Mockingbird.”
The book doesn’t get into the most private aspects of Lee’s life; Flynt said they simply didn’t discuss such things. But it does recount her worsening isolation from deafness and blindness toward the end of her life; her love of gambling; the furor over “Watchman;” and her authorship of a still-unpublished manuscript about a bizarre murder case in central Alabama.
Lee was steeped in literature and religion, Flynt said. She preferred the King James Version of the Bible to all others for its lyrical language, he said, and her favorite authors included Jane Austen and C.S. Lewis.
“When she died, on her ottoman in her little two rooms, was the complete anthology of all of C.S. Lewis’ books. It must have weighed 50 pounds,” he said.
“Afternoons With Harper Lee” is a followup to Flynt’s “Mockingbird Songs: My Friendship with Harper Lee.” While the first book was based on letters between the two, the new book is more meandering and conversational than the first in the tradition of Southern storytelling.
“The letters are lifeless compared to the stories,” he said. | https://fox4kc.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-book-shows-personal-side-of-mockingbird-author-harper-lee/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:41 | en | 0.982235 |
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MILAN (AP) — The Milan runway was all about transformation on Friday, the third day of Milan Fashion Week mostly womenswear previews for next spring and summer.
Sometimes it was about inner transformation, like at Gucci, sometimes about upgrading your style game, like at Sunnei, and sometimes it was about brand transformation, like at Missoni. Stella Jean and
Some highlights from Friday’s shows.
GUCCI’S TWINSBURG
Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele constructed a true parallel universe on the Milan runway with a surprise theatrical reveal.
For his Spring-Summer 2022-23 collection dubbed ‘’Twinsburg,’’ Michele staged side-by-side shows inside the Gucci Hub, each unbeknownst to the other, until a wall lifted, revealing twins in identical looks in synchronic stride.
For the final walkthrough, the 68 sets of twins met in the center, grasping hands and reuniting for the final walkthrough.
The reveal was so powerful, so unexpected, that normally jaded fashionistas could be heard confessing after that they had been brought to tears.
“I was crying too. I don’t really know why,’’ Michele said backstage. “I don’t cry often but maybe it was appropriate at the end for me to cry because it was very intense.”
“I think it is much more complex doing this job now. There are times when I ask myself, why am I doing this? Somebody is talking about nuclear war. Politics is a catastrophe. The situation on the planet is a disaster,’’ Michele added. “But as human beings the only weapon we have is to imagine something else, and to make it happen.’’
Michele said that the show was an exploration of our own inner selves, and the reveal that we harbor sort of inner-twin, who might hold us back or spur us on.
His idea of ‘’the other’’ was shaped by an unusual family arrangement growing up believing he had two mothers: his own genetic mother and her twin sister. He called both ‘’mamma,’’ as they raised their families neighboring apartments because they couldn’t bear to be apart. He said he only started to understand the difference at age 7, when his aunt died.
“I had two moms, because we all lived together, so I really appreciated what taking care of the other means,’’ he said.
Michele said presenting his collection in duplicate gave more power to the garments, each of which was styled to the eclectic standard that Michele has set to great global success.
They included a suit with trousers that appeared to be held together by garters, revealing the upper thigh, a part of he male physic rarely seen in formal dressing. Quilted floral jackets and trousers were a genderless affair. A gorgeous silken embroidered robe was pleated in the back with a trailing train. Looks were accessorized with new face jewelry with metallic fringe, also seen on sunglasses.
The notion of an evil twin was represented on the runway by motifs from the 1980s movie ‘’Gremlins,’’ in which the creatures transform to become naughty. Appearing as stuffed accessories, patches and prints, the Gremlins were meant to underline “the fear of your evil-self,’’ Michele said.
Michele emblazoned the word “Fuori!!!” on some garments in an homage to an Italian gay rights organization that was founded in 1971. Michele has spoken in the past about Italy’s failure to pass landmark legislation that would criminalize hate crimes against gays, women and the disabled, and he indicated concern over forecasts that a far-right party is forecast to dominate Italy’s parliamentary elections on Sunday.
“The elections clearly show that freedoms are being eroded little by little,’’ he said. “There was a time when we were achieving a lot. It is very complicated.”
SUNNEI’S ALTER-EGO
The designers behind the Milan sensation, Sunnei, played with the idea of transformation, using twins to portray alter-egos.
One by one, models in street clothes descended from the stands, pushing their way onto the runway, then walking through a revolving door, through which returned their twin, spiffed up in a new Sunnei look.
Designers Loris Messina and Simone Rizzo seemed to be telling a youthful audience of hoodie-loving street dressers how to up their game, style-wise.
So one with a sleeveless sweatshirt and jeans was transformed into a striped green and blue shirt, worn with loose white shorts. A young woman in black T-shirt and jeans returned as an alter-ego in a long royal blue coat with white satin collar and cuffs. A pair Khaki trousers and a gray shirt disappeared behind the door, and out popped a loose-fitting lime green top with gathered pants, a sort of urban track suit.
VERSACE’S GOTHIC GODDESSES
Gigi Hadid wore a dark hoodie dress with a high slink factor. Her sister, Bella, was an unblushing bride in deep purple lace corset and crinkled satin skirt. Emily Ratajkowski wore a leather micro-mini with a tough biker jacket and studded handbag. And Paris Hilton out-strutted them all in a shimmery fuchsia mini-dress, stepping high in silver heeled pumps.
Forget muses. These were Donatella Versace’s dark gothic goddesses, representing a collection that conveyed female power in a way only Versace can.
“I have always loved a rebel,’’ Versace said in show notes. “A woman who is confidence, smart and a little bit of a diva.”
Shiny hoodies plunged into belly-button deep cowls, wrapped in a shaggy, fur-like jackets from upcycled chiffon and lace. Flowing chiffon dresses were slit high and wore over satiny trousers, the Versace logo fluttering on the long, trailing skirt. Sheer black dresses featured skin-baring cutouts. Fringe cascaded from jackets, dresses and trousers. The color palette was decidedly dark, rooted in purples and blacks, with some flashes of red, lime and fuchsia.
The show conveyed a strong sense of female ritual as models traversed a runway lit with dark candles and lined with stained glass windows with the Versace medusa head, before exiting through glass-enclosed spaces where bathrobe-clad men lounged on gilded chairs amid purple columns, underlining a shift in the power dynamic.
STELLA JEAN CELEBRATES DIVERSITY IN ITALY
Haitian-Italian designer Stella Jean returned to the Milan runway after a two-year hiatus with a tour-de-force that highlighted the talents of 10 new designers of color whose design history is tied to Italy.
Jean pledged in 2020 not to show during Milan Fashion Week until she was not the only Black designer. The We are Made in Italy movement she founded with Black American designer Edward Buchanan and Afro Fashion Week Milano founder Michelle Ngomno ensured she would not be.
Buchanan opened the show with jersey knitwear with a denim feel from his Sansonvino 6 line, followed by capsule collections by the latest group of Fabulous Five group of WAMI designers, and Stella Jean’s creations combining Italian tailoring with artisanal references she sources around the globe.
Each of the new WAMI designers share a connection with Italy, either through family or by relocating to study or work here.
Italian-Indian designer Eileen Claudia Akbaraly showed her Made for a Woman brand that makes ethically sourced raffia garments and accessories from Madagascar. New York-based designer Akila Stewart founded the FATRA bag brand that works with reused plastic waste. India-born Neha Poorswani designs shoes under the name “Runway Reinvented.” Vietnamese designer Phang Dang Hoang’s apparel line mixes Asian and Western cultures, and Korean designer Kim Gaeun’s “Villain” brand combines elements of traditional Korean costumes mixed with modern hip-hop culture.
“There are so many Italians who are not Italians, who are immigrants who feel Italian. I think that is so beautiful,’’ Stewart said.
The show closed on a celebratory note, with the models, designers and activists gathered on the runway, clapping and swaying to Cynthia Erivo’s song “Stand Up.”
Jean implored Italians in the crowd to vote during Sunday’s parliamentary elections, casting an optimistic tone despite projections that a far-right and anti-migrant parties are likely to win.
“Do not be afraid on Sunday, Sept. 25. Our situation won’t get worse. We must trust our country,’’ she said.
MISSONI TRANSFORMED
The storied family-run Missoni fashion house took a fresh turn with a new creative director who looked into the archives for clues how to make brand’s fine knitwear relevant for a new generation.
A star-studded front row signaled the target audience: performer Paris Jackson, US actor Madison Bailey, model and social media influencer Maddie White and Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio.
Creative director Filippo Grazioli’s youthful silhouette drew on mini-skirts with deep-V slits over bodysuits and sheer dresses with pretty sequins over zig-zag culotte panties.
Models brazenly walked the runway bra-less through sheer tops, moments that Grazioli said was a tribute to brand founder Rosita Missoni’s decision to send models down a Florence runway in 1966 Missoni was thereby exiled to Milan, its runway home ever since.
The looks featured oversized zig-zags as well as less-familiar geometric patterns from the archives. Shoes for the season were lucite platform heels with wrap around. The looks were complemented with flat silver jewelry.
Not all of the pieces adhered strictly to the Missoni knitwear ethos, including sequin-sprinkled ballet skirts and long sheer dresses, like the one Paris Jackson wore with black-and-white zig-zag culottes.
Marking the transition, Missoni employees were took up half the seats in Bocconi’s subterranean atrium, while students from the Milanese business school watched from above through plate-glass windows above. | https://fox4kc.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-in-milan-gucci-sunnei-and-missoni-focus-on-transformation/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:48 | en | 0.958829 |
Artemis I launch attempt called off due to Tropical Storm Ian
The Artemis launch attempt planned for Sept. 27 has been called off due to Tropical Storm Ian, which is forecast to hit Florida as a major hurricane next week.
NASA announced the move Saturday, saying that crews are preparing for rollback. The final decision will be made on Sunday "to allow for additional data gathering and analysis," NASA said.
The 322-foot rocket can withstand gusts of 85 mph at the pad, but only 46 mph once it’s on the move.
NASA said the agency is continuing to watch the latest from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Space Force, and the National Hurricane Center.
If they decide that the Artemis 1 SLS stack needs to be rolled back into the vehicle assembly building, it’ll take three days.
Two launch attempts of the moon rocket have recently been scrubbed due to a leaking issue while tanking.
NASA has just one last chance to launch the rocket on Oct. 2 before a two-week blackout period begins. The next launch period would open Oct. 17.
Astronauts would climb aboard for the second test flight around the moon in 2024. The third mission, targeted for 2025, would see a pair of astronauts landing on the moon.
The Associated Press contributed to this report | https://www.wxii12.com/article/artemis-launch-tropical-storm-ian/41366003 | 2022-09-24T16:32:52 | en | 0.962044 |
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico has granted funds to pay for possible prosecutions connected to last year’s fatal film-set shooting of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported Thursday.
The state Board of Finance greenlit more than $317,000 to cover the cost of investigating potential charges in the shooting on the set of “Rust” outside Santa Fe.
First Judicial District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies made an emergency request for the funds to go toward a special prosecutor, special investigator, several experts and other personnel.
As many as four people could face charges, according to a copy of the request obtained by the newspaper, though Carmack-Altwies did not say anyone definitely would.
“One of the possible defendants is well known movie actor Alec Baldwin,” she stated.
When reached for comment by the newspaper, she declined to say which crew members or cast could face charges. The possible charges her office is looking at range from homicide to violations of state gun statutes.
Carmack-Altwies said she is expecting to receive the final investigation report from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office soon.
Baldwin was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when it went off on Oct. 21, killing her and wounding the director, Joel Souza. They had been inside a small church during setup for filming a scene.
Baldwin has said the gun went off accidentally and that he did not pull the trigger. But a recent FBI forensic report found the weapon could not not have fired unless someone pulled the trigger.
The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has been named in several lawsuits, including a wrongful death claim filed by Hutchins’ family. | https://fox4kc.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-new-mexico-allows-funds-for-prosecutions-in-rust-shooting/ | 2022-09-24T16:32:55 | en | 0.979021 |
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Louise Fletcher, a late-blooming star whose riveting performance as the cruel and calculating Nurse Ratched in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” set a new standard for screen villains and won her an Academy Award, has died at age 88.
Fletcher died in her sleep surrounded by family at her home in Montdurausse, France, her agent David Shaul told The Associated Press on Friday. No cause was given.
After putting her career on hold for years to raise her children, Fletcher was in her early 40s and little known when chosen for the role opposite Jack Nicholson in the 1975 film by director Milos Forman, who had admired her work the year before in director Robert Altman’s “Thieves Like Us.” At the time, she didn’t know that many other prominent stars, including Anne Bancroft, Ellen Burstyn and Angela Lansbury, had turned it down.
“I was the last person cast,” she recalled in a 2004 interview. “It wasn’t until we were halfway through shooting that I realized the part had been offered to other actresses who didn’t want to appear so horrible on the screen.”
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” went on to become the first film since 1934′s “It Happened One Night” to win best picture, best director, best actor, best actress and best screenplay.
Clutching her Oscar at the 1976 ceremony, Fletcher told the audience, “It looks as though you all hated me.”
She then addressed her deaf parents in Birmingham, Alabama, talking and using sign language: “I want to thank you for teaching me to have a dream. You are seeing my dream come true.”
A moment of silence was followed by thunderous applause.
Later that night, Forman made the wry comment to Fletcher and her co-star, Jack Nicholson: “Now we all will make tremendous flops.”
In the short run, at least, he was right.
Forman next directed “Hair,” the movie version of the hit Broadway musical that failed to capture the appeal of the stage version. Nicholson directed and starred in “Goin’ South,” generally regarded as one of his worst films. Fletcher signed on for “Exorcist II: The Heretic,” a misconceived sequel to the landmark original.
Far more than her male peers, Fletcher was hampered by her age in finding major roles in Hollywood. Still, she worked continuously for most of the rest of her life. Her post-“Cuckoo’s Nest” films included “Mama Dracula,” “Dead Kids” and “The Boy Who Could Fly.”
She was nominated for Emmys for her guest roles on the TV series “Joan of Arcadia” and “Picket Fences,” and had a recurring role as Bajoran religious leader Kai Winn Adami in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” She played the mother of musical duo Carpenters in 1989’s “The Karen Carpenter Story.”
Fletcher’s career was also hampered by her height. At 5-feet-10, she would often be dismissed from an audition immediately because she was taller than her leading man.
Fletcher had moved to Los Angeles to launch her acting career soon after graduating from North Carolina State University.
Working as a doctor’s receptionist by day and studying at night with noted actor and teacher Jeff Corey, she began getting one-day jobs on such TV series as “Wagon Train,” “77 Sunset Strip” and “The Untouchables.”
Fletcher married producer Jerry Bick in the early 1960s and gave birth to two sons in quick succession. She decided to put her career on hold to be a stay-at-home mother and didn’t work for 11 years.
“I made the choice to stop working, but I didn’t see it as a choice,” she said in the 2004 interview. “I felt compelled to stay at home.”
She divorced Bick in 1977 and he died in 2004.
In “Cuckoo’s Nest,” based on the novel Ken Kesey wrote while taking part in an experimental LSD program, Nicholson’s character, R.P. McMurphy, is a swaggering, small-time criminal who feigns insanity to get transferred from prison to a mental institution where he won’t have to work so hard.
Once institutionalized, McMurphy discovers his mental ward is run by Fletcher’s cold, imposing Nurse Mildred Ratched, who keeps her patients tightly under her thumb. As the two clash, McMurphy all but takes over the ward with his bravado, leading to stiff punishment from Ratched and the institution, where she restores order.
The character was so memorable she would become the basis for a Netflix series, “Ratched,” 45 years later.
Estelle Louise Fletcher was born the second of four children on July 22, 1934, in Birmingham. Her mother was born deaf and her father was a traveling Episcopal minister who lost his hearing when struck by lightning at age 4.
“It was like having parents who are immigrants who don’t speak your language,” she said in 1982.
The Fletcher children were helped by their aunt, with whom they lived in Bryant, Texas, for a year. She taught them reading, writing and speaking, as well as how to sing and dance.
It was those latter studies that convinced Fletcher she wanted to act. She was further inspired, she once said, when she saw the movie “Lady in the Dark” with Ginger Rogers.
That and other films, Fletcher said, taught her “your dream could become real life if you wanted it bad enough.”
“I knew from the movies,” she would say, “that I wouldn’t have to stay in Birmingham and be like everyone else.”
Fletcher’s death was first reported by Deadline.
She is survived by her two sons, John and Andrew Bick.
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The late AP Entertainment Writer Bob Thomas contributed biographical material to this report.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton | https://fox4kc.com/news/entertainment/ap-entertainment/ap-oscar-winning-cuckoos-nest-actor-louise-fletcher-dies/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:02 | en | 0.987745 |
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The fate of Belarus and Ukraine are “interconnected,” and both countries must fight together to safeguard their very existence because Russia doesn’t view them as independent sovereign states, Belarus’ opposition leader said Friday.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who fled to Lithuania after Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in disputed August 2020 elections that many thought she won, said in an interview with The Associated Press that “there will be no free Belarus without free Ukraine.”
As long as Russian President Vladimir Putin is in power, she said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, there will be constant security threats to Ukraine — and to Belarus’ western border.
Tsikhanouskaya said neither country wants to be part of another Russian empire.
“So Belarus is part of this problem and this problem, this crisis, has to be solved in this context,” said.
Lukashenko had to support Russia after its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, she said, because Putin supported him after the 2020 contentious elections that sparked mass anti-government protests against the official election results that gave him a sixth term with 80% of the vote. Many Belarusians and international observers denounced the results as a sham.
Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has used Belarus as a staging ground to send troops into its smaller neighbor, and Moscow and Minsk have maintained close military ties.
Lukashenko, who has been president since 1994, said last month that Belarus’ warplanes have been modified to carry nuclear weapons in line with its agreement with Russia. And he warned the United States and its allies against carrying out a “provocation” against Belarus, saying “targets have been selected” for retaliation.
Tsikhanouskaya said the war in Ukraine was “extremely unexpected” and some Belarusians are especially opposed to the war “against Ukrainians, our brothers and sisters.”
More than two years since fleeing to Lithuania, Tsikhanouskaya said the opposition has notched “a lot of achievements” — first and foremost that “people are not giving up” despite the Lukashenko regime’s “terror and repression” and its imprisonment of more than a thousand political prisoners, including her own husband.
The opposition has “managed to build a coalition of democratic countries who are fighting alongside with us, fighting this regime, creating multiple points of pressure,” she said.
There are now six packages of sanctions, pushed for by the opposition, against the Lukashenko regime. The sanctions have put stress and pressure on the president, making him focus solely on remaining in power instead of what’s best for the country, she said.
But Tsikhanouskaya said Lukashenko and his followers are adept at circumventing sanctions, using third parties. One way to prevent this is having the European Union follow the United States and impose secondary sanctions, she said.
She urged the international community to both keep up pressure against Lukashenko — suggesting new sanctions on Belarus’ exports of wood, potash and steel — and help Belarusian civil society, including human rights defenders, “people of culture, politicians who are fighting with this regime so as to have the energy to continue.”
Thousands of people have been imprisoned since Feb. 24 for opposing the war in Ukraine, she said, praising saboteurs who disrupted rail traffic heading from Russia to Ukraine through Belarus and who sent information about shipments to the Ukrainian military, an act that risked the death penalty.
“People are scared, of course,” Tsikhanouskaya said. “We live like in a gulag actually in Belarus, but people have this energy to continue.”
The opposition has organized something like a government in exile, Tsikhanouskaya said. Thanks to technology, she said she can communicate with people in Belarus, and now they are staying “in safe mode,” ready for a “new wave of revolution when the moment comes.”
She predicted that there will be a “window of opportunity” for the Belarus people, likely connected with victory in Ukraine, but nobody knows how long it will take.
“Our task is not to be exhausted when the time comes, to have this energy, to continue to have this mobilization plan, transitional plan,” Tsikhanouskaya said, “and we hope it will not take too long because time is very important for Ukrainians, time is very important for our political prisoners, and time is important actually for the world,” she said.
Tsikhanouskaya stepped in to lead the opposition after her husband, Siarhei Tsikhanouski, was arrested two days after he declared his candidacy for the 2020 presidential election. The popular video blogger and activist known for his anti-Lukashenko slogan “Stop the cockroach” was sentenced last December to 18 years in prison on charges widely seen as politically motivated.
She said her husband has been in a tiny punishment cell for more than a month, adding that conditions for political prisoners are far worse than for ordinary criminals. She fears for him and for thousands of other political prisoners as winter approaches as the temperature inside their cells is no warmer than the outdoors.
Tsikhanouskaya said she came to the annual meeting of world leaders to give voice to the people “who are fighting the dictatorship” and to urge that Lukashenko be held accountable for his crimes.
She said she really understands the importance of focusing on Ukraine, “but we don’t have to forget the role of Belarus in this regional crisis, and we don’t have to forget about the people in Belarus who are also fighting and are also suffering because of the war and because of the dictator ruling our country.”
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Edith M. Lederer is chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press and has been covering international affairs for more than half a century. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly. | https://fox4kc.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-belarus-opposition-says-fate-of-country-ukraine-intertwined/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:09 | en | 0.974209 |
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BANGKOK (AP) — A Chinese scientific ship bristling with surveillance equipment docked in a Sri Lankan port. Hundreds of fishing boats anchored for months at a time among disputed islands in the South China Sea. And ocean-going ferries, built to be capable of carrying heavy vehicles and large loads of people.
All are ostensibly civilian ships, but experts and uneasy regional governments say they are part of a Chinese civil-military fusion strategy, little concealed by Beijing, that enhances its maritime capabilities.
China’s navy is already the world’s largest by ship count, and has been rapidly building new warships as part of a wider military expansion. It launched its first domestically designed and built aircraft carrier in June, and at least five new destroyers are on the way soon.
The buildup comes as Beijing attempts to exert broader influence in the region. It is increasing its military activities around the self-governing island of Taiwan, seeking new security agreements with Pacific islands and building artificial islands in disputed waters to fortify its territorial claims in the South China Sea, which the U.S. and its allies have challenged.
The civilian vessels do more than just augment the raw numbers of ships, performing tasks that would be difficult for the military to carry out.
In the South China Sea’s Spratly Islands, for example, China pays commercial trawlers more than they can make by fishing simply to drop anchor for a minimum of 280 days a year to support Beijing’s claim to the disputed archipelago, said Gregory Poling, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
“China is able to use nominally civilian vessels that are clearly state directed, state paid to eat away the sovereignty of its neighbors, but then plausibly deny that the state is responsible,” he said.
China has been using civilian fishing trawlers for military purposes for decades, but has significantly increased the numbers recently with the creation of a “Spratly Backbone Fleet” out of a government subsidy program begun under President Xi Jinping, which helps cover building new vessels, among other things.
Those ships “largely appeared almost overnight” after China constructed port infrastructure a few years ago on the artificial islands it built in the Spratlys that could be used for resupply, Poling said.
Now there are about 300 to 400 vessels deployed there at any given time, he said.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and others also have claims to the Spratly Islands, which sit in a productive fishing area and important shipping lane, and are thought to hold untapped reserves of natural gas and oil.
But the Chinese ships deter other trawlers from fishing in the area, and have been slowly displacing them from the grounds, with little that governments can do, said Jay Batongbacal, who heads the University of the Philippines’ Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.
“Because they are ostensibly civilian fishing vessels, navies’ ships are unable to deal with them lest China accuse the Philippines of provoking an incident and using force against civilians,” he said. “They take advantage of perceived ‘grey zones’ below the threshold for triggering a self-defense response.”
In one highly publicized incident, a steel Chinese trawler in 2019 rammed and sank a wooden-hulled Filipino boat at anchor northeast of the Spratly Islands, abandoning its crew to be rescued later by a Vietnamese fishing boat. Despite a diplomatic protest from the Philippines, China denied the incident was intentional, calling it an “accidental collision.”
In addition to about 800 to 1,000 commercial fishing boats in the Spratly fleet, China has approximately 200 other vessels as part of a professional maritime militia, according to a November study co-authored by Poling based on an analysis of official Chinese reports, satellite imagery and other sources.
The professional militia is better equipped, with trained crews and under direct state control, and is used for more aggressive operations such as harassing foreign oil and gas operations, Poling said.
In the event of a conflict, China’s use of civilian vessels would complicate the rules of engagement, he said.
“You don’t want to treat every Chinese fishing boat as if it were an armed combatant, but, in fact, some of them may well be armed combatants,” Poling said.
China has also been deploying civilian research vessels for military-related tasks in areas where its navy would be unable to operate without provoking a response, said Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence company Janes.
“If you deploy grey hull vessels, your adversary may also deploy a grey hull vessel as a reciprocal measure, so that makes it more dangerous for everyone,” he said, referring to the typical color of military ships. “So to avoid this, China has been deploying white hull vessels — to reinforce its presence without escalating things.”
There are also many Western export controls prohibiting sensitive technology from being sent to China for military use, which China is able to bypass by building such civilian ships, even though “in everything but name they’re military,” Rahmat said.
The autonomously piloted Zhu Hai Yun is believed to be one such ship, capable of launching airborne, surface and underwater drones “to carry out marine scientific research,” according to the Chinese state-run Global Times.
The ship, which completed its first autonomous sea trial in June, could also create military maps of the South China Sea floor, including important submarine lanes around Taiwan, Rahmat said.
“China has been increasing its submarine deterrent patrols, and in order to ensure it can do this it needs to map the underwater terrain,” he said.
China’s methods drew the ire of regional rival India last month when it sought to dock the Yuan Wang 5 in Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port, not far from India’s southeast coast, for refueling at a time that New Delhi was preparing to test a new missile.
The vessel is officially a scientific research ship equipped with sensors that can be used to track satellites, but the same equipment can be used to gather data on a missile launch.
Sri Lanka, in the midst of an economic crisis and heavily reliant on aid from India, initially declined to allow the ship to dock over India’s concerns.
But China operates the Hambantota Port, having been granted a 99-year lease on the facility — built with Chinese money — after Sri Lanka defaulted on loans in 2017. After high-level consultations with Beijing, Sri Lankan authorities backtracked and allowed the Yuan Wang 5 to dock from Aug. 16 to Aug. 22.
On Aug. 23, India successfully tested its new surface-to-air missile designed to defend a ship from close-range aerial threats.
“I suspect the launch was delayed until the Chinese spy ship was gone,” Rahmat said.
China hasn’t tried to disguise its military use of civilian ocean-going ferries, which have had to meet defense standards since 2016 allowing them to accommodate military vehicles like tanks, said Mike Dahm, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer who has written on the topic for the U.S. Naval War College China Maritime Studies Institute.
Slickly produced state television videos showing trainloads of military vehicles and troops boarding the vessels and heading to sea, stating openly they are testing “how to use civilian transportation resources to execute military tasks.” The latest such exercise wrapped up earlier this month.
This could be meant to intimidate Taiwan, which China claims as its own and has not ruled out attempting to take by force, and also dovetails with the Chinese government’s message that the public is contributing to national security, Dahm said.
China at the moment does not possess enough amphibious craft to transport the number of troops needed 160 kilometers (100 miles) across the Taiwan Strait for a potential beach landing on the island, and the ferries could be a stopgap measure should a crisis prompt China to decide to invade, Rahmat said.
China also may not want to take on the expense of building and maintaining a “huge amphibious armada” for an indeterminate period of time, Dahm said.
Military amphibious craft are built to land troops and vehicles on a beach, whereas ferries provide port-to-port movement, which would mean they would only be effective if China can capture Taiwanese ports in serviceable condition, Dahm said.
Still, in a crisis, China’s People’s Liberation Army could attempt a chancy gambit like offloading amphibious vehicles from the ferries at sea or using floating causeways, Dahm said.
“There is always the possibility that the PLA could commit to a high-risk operation against Taiwan with the possibility of losing a large number of civilian ships,” he said.
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Associated Press writers Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, and Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this story. | https://fox4kc.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-china-using-civilian-ships-to-enhance-navy-capability-reach/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:16 | en | 0.962504 |
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Every September, the New York City police barricades go up around U.N. headquarters in midtown Manhattan, demarcating a temporary multinational fiefdom and inadvertently annexing peripheral businesses and residence towers.
“Oh, it’s terrible,” Hillary Lee, the owner of Belleclaire Cleaners, softly moans when asked how business fares during the U.N. General Assembly’s high-level meeting.
Her dry-cleaning-and-tailoring shop is tantalizingly close to the outside world, just steps beyond the gates. Despite the proximity, she often finds herself wheeling a laundry-laden cart for blocks to deliver it to customers who aren’t permitted to idle on the pavement on the other side.
“It’s their work; it’s my work,” says Lee, who has owned the shop for four years and doesn’t hold a grudge over the security.
“But the problem is, a lot of my customers, they are really very angry. Very, very angry, they are,” she adds, jokingly mimicking their frustrations.
Residents are advised to carry identification cards and bills bearing their name and address to get past the NYPD booths. The friction at the checkpoints tends to ease as the week wears on and officers and denizens alike become familiar to one another.
“It’s a balance we strike each year because our plans are focused on minimizing, as much as possible, the impact all of this will have on New Yorkers,” NYPD Chief of Department Kenneth Corey said at a press conference last week.
Lee says she does end up adding a few U.N. visitors to her clientele, but she’s not inclined to make money off them. She lets them pay what they want; fixing the hem on a pant leg might normally cost $8-10, but she’ll take $5.
The week may be painful, but the visitors are nice, she says: “I try to help.”
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Follow Mallika Sen on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mallikavsen. For more coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly | https://fox4kc.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-glimpses-threading-the-needle-at-the-un-perimeters-edge/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:23 | en | 0.951133 |
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NEW YORK (AP) — Looking to “reintroduce the Philippines” to the world, new President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ambitious plans for his nation on the international stage and at home — if, that is, the twin specters of pandemic and climate change can be overcome or at least managed.
And if he can surmount the legacies of two people: his predecessor, and his father.
He also wants to strengthen ties with both the United States and China — a delicate balancing act for the Southeast Asian nation — and, like many of his fellow leaders at the United Nations this week, called on the countries that have caused global warming to help less wealthy nations counteract its effects.
Marcos, swept into office this spring, is already drawing distinctions both subtle and obvious between himself and his voluble predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who alienated many international partners with his violent approach to fighting drug trafficking and the coarse rhetoric he used to galvanize supporters.
Asked if Duterte went too far with his lethal drug crackdown, Marcos redirected the criticism toward those who carried out the plan.
“His people went too far sometimes,” Marcos told The Associated Press on Friday. “We have seen many cases where policemen, other operatives, some were just shady characters that we didn’t quite know where they came from and who they were working for. But now we’ve gone after them.”
Marcos, 65, sat for a wide-ranging interview in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual leaders’ meeting. Three months into his administration, he seemed energetic and enthusiastic — and eager to project his vision for the nation beyond its borders.
On Thursday, he met with U.S. President Joe Biden in a bid to strengthen the sometimes complicated ties that have ebbed and flowed between the two nations since the Philippines spent four decades as an American colony in the early 20th century.
“There have been bits and pieces where they were not perhaps ideal,” Marcos said. “But in the end, that overall trajectory has been to strengthen and strengthen and strengthen our relationship.”
In addition to Duterte, Marcos also must draw distinctions between himself and the most iconic figure in the Philippines’ public sphere: his late father, whose name he shares. Ferdinand Marcos Sr., hero to some and plundering dictator to others, ruled from the 1960s to the 1980s, including a tumultuous period of martial law and repression. He made the family reputation an indelible part of Filipino history.
Addressing the family legacy directly is something the son has been loath to do, at least explicitly, though he vehemently rejects use of the term “dictator” to describe his father’s rule. To him, the political baggage of his parents is a remnant of the past.
“I did not indulge in any of that political back-and-forth concerning the Marcos family,” he said. “All I spoke about was, ‘What are we going to do to get into a better place?’ And people responded.”
Engaging, he said, would have simply been a retread — and an unnecessary one. “It doesn’t help. It doesn’t change anything,” he said. “So what’s the point?”
The elder Marcos placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972, a year before his term was to expire. He padlocked Congress and newspaper offices, ordered the arrest of political opponents and activists and ruled by decree. Thousands of Filipinos disappeared under his rule; some have never been accounted for.
When it comes to his predecessor, Marcos treads a nuanced political line as well. Distinguishing himself from Duterte’s in-your-face rule can benefit him at home and internationally, but Duterte’s popularity helped catapult him into office, and the former president’s daughter Sara is Marcos’ vice president.
The extrajudicial killings associated with Duterte’s yearslong crackdown provoked calls that his administration should be investigated from the outside, and he vowed not to rejoin the International Criminal Court — a precept that Marcos agrees with. After all, Marcos asked, why should a country with a functioning legal system be judged from elsewhere?
“We have a judiciary. It’s not perfect,” he said. “I do not understand why we need an outside adjudicator to tell us how to investigate, who to investigate, how to go about it.”
Marcos cast the coronavirus pandemic as many other leaders have — as a balancing act between keeping people safe and making sure life can push forward.
“We took a very extreme position in the Philippines, and we eventually had the longest lockdown in any country in the world,” he said. “That was the choice of the previous government. And now, we are now coming out of it.”
In recent days, he has both removed a national mandate to wear masks outdoors and extended a “state of calamity” — something he said he didn’t necessarily want to do, but keeping the declaration in place allows more people to continue getting help.
“It’s not very encouraging when people look at your country and they see, ‘Well, it’s under a state of calamity.’ That’s not good for tourists. It’s not good for visitors. It’s not good for business,” Marcos said.
Encouraging ties with China, particularly given Beijing’s aggressive maritime policies, might be a daunting prospect for a nation so closely and historically aligned with the United States. But, Marcos says, it’s possible — and necessary.
“It is a very fine line that we have to tread in the Philippines,” the president said. “We do not subscribe to the old Cold War ‘spheres of influence.’ … So it’s really guided by national interest, number one. And second, the maintenance of peace.”
Peace comes in many flavors. Last week, Marcos traveled to the southern part of the nation — a predominantly Muslim area of a predominantly Catholic country — to express support for a multiyear effort to help a onetime rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, give up their guns and govern their autonomous region effectively.
While Moro has come into the government fold, smaller militant groups including the violent Abu Sayyaf have continued to fight the government and wage sporadic attacks, especially in impoverished rural regions with weak law enforcement. Marcos dismissed Abu Sayyaf as a group that no longer has a cause other than “banditry.”
“I don’t believe they are a movement anymore. They are not fighting for anything,” Marcos said. “They are just criminals.”
Marcos did not specify precisely why the Philippines needed to be reintroduced, though the country’s image took a hit from 2016 to 2022 under the Duterte administration.
“The purpose, really, that I have brought to this visit here in New York … has been to try to reintroduce the Philippines to our American friends, both in the private sector and in the public sector,” he said.
And after the pandemic truly ends, he said, the nation needs to find a fruitful path and follow it.
“We have to position ourselves. We have to be clever about forecasting, being a bit prescient,” he said.
“We do not want to return to whatever it is we were doing pre-pandemic,” Marcos said. “We want to be able to be involved and be a vital part of the new global economy, of the new global political situation.”
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Ted Anthony, AP’s director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation, was Asia-Pacific news director from 2014 to 2018, based in Bangkok. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted and, for more AP coverage of the UNGA, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly | https://fox4kc.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-the-ap-interview-marcos-wants-to-reintroduce-philippines/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:30 | en | 0.974404 |
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Flooding likely worsened by climate change has submerged one-third of Pakistan’s territory and left 33 million of its people scrambling to survive, according to Pakistan’s prime minister, who says he came to the United Nations this year to tell the world that “tomorrow, this tragedy can fall on some other country.”
In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, Shahbaz Sharif exhorted world leaders gathered for their annual meeting at the General Assembly to stand together and raise resources “to build resilient infrastructure, to build adaptation, so that our future generations are saved.”
The initial estimate of losses to the economy as a result of the three-month flooding disaster is $30 billion, Sharif said, and he asked U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday to hold a donors’ conference quickly. The U.N. chief agreed, Sharif said.
“Thousands of kilometers of roads have been smashed, washed away — railway bridges, railway track, communications, underpasses, transport. All this requires funds,” Sharif said. “We need funds to provide livelihood to our people.”
Sharif, the brother of ousted former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, took office in April after a week of turmoil in Pakistan. He replaced Imran Khan, a cricket star turned politician who was one of the country’s highest-profile leaders of the past generation and retains broad influence. Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote after 3½ years in office.
While climate change likely increased rainfall by up to 50% late last month in two southern Pakistan provinces, global warming wasn’t the biggest cause of the country’s catastrophic flooding, according to a new scientific analysis. Pakistan’s overall vulnerability, including people living in harm’s way, was the chief factor.
But human-caused climate change “also plays a really important role here,” study senior author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London. said earlier this month.
Whatever the case, Sharif said the impact on his country is immense. More than 1,600 people have died, including hundreds of children. Crops on 4 million acres have been washed away. Millions of houses have been damaged or completely destroyed, and life savings have disappeared in the devastating floods triggered by monsoon rains.
Framing Pakistan as a victim of climate change worsened by other nations’ actions, Sharif said Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of the carbon emissions that cause global warming. “We are,” the prime minister said, “a victim of something we have nothing to do with.”
He echoed the sentiments Friday afternoon when addressing fellow leaders at the General Assembly, telling them that other places were next. “One thing is very clear,” he said. “What happened in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan.”
MONEY AND FOOD
Even before the floods began in mid-June, Pakistan was facing serious challenges from grain shortages and skyrocketing crude oil prices sparked mainly by Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and the war that has followed. Sharif said skyrocketing prices have put the import of oil “beyond our capacity,” and — with the damage and destruction from the massive flooding — solutions have become “extremely difficult.”
Pakistan may have to import about a million tons of wheat because of the destruction of farmland. He said it could come from Russia, but the country is open to other offers. The country also needs fertilizer because factories involved in their production are closed.
Sharif said the country has “a very robust, transparent mechanism already in place” to ensure that all aid items are delivered to people in need. In addition, he said, “I will ensure third-party audit of every penny through international well-reputed companies.”
The Pakistani leader said he met top officials from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and appealed for a moratorium on loan repayments and deferment of other conditions until the flood situation improves.
“They sounded very supportive,” Sharif said, but he stressed that a delay “can spell huge consequences” — both for the economy and for the Pakistani people.
RELATIONS WITH NEIGHBORS
One dimension of grain purchases taps into one of Pakistan’s most existential issues — its relationship with neighboring India.
Would Pakistan consider buying grain from India if needed? Sharif said that notion is impeded by “a legal bottleneck” — Kashmir, the Himalayan territory claimed by both countries but divided between them. It has been at the center of two of the four wars India has fought with Pakistan and China.
“India is a neighbor, and Pakistan would very much like to live like a peaceful neighbor with India,” Sharif said. “But that has certain prerequisites. India has to understand that unless and until the burning issue of Kashmir is resolved through peaceful talks … like peaceful neighbors, with the sincerity of purpose, we will not be able to live in peace.”
“And that is a great shame and embarrassment,” he said. “Because in this day and age, we need our resources to feed our people, to educate them, to provide job opportunities, to provide health opportunities. India can’t afford to spend money on buying ammunition and defense equipment. Nor can Pakistan.”
On the other side of Pakistan, to the west, sits Afghanistan — a place that shares geography, strategic interests and much ethnic heritage with Sharif’s nation. Sharif said its Taliban rulers, who have been in power for a year, have “a golden opportunity to ensure peace and progress” for the people by adhering to the Doha Agreement, which the nation’s previous, more internationally minded government signed in February 2020 with former U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration.
The Taliban should provide equal opportunities including education through college for girls, job opportunities for women, respect for human rights, and for that Afghan assets should be unfrozen, the prime minister said.
The Doha Agreement called for the United States to withdraw its forces, which current President Joe Biden did in a chaotic pullout as the Taliban were taking over the country in August 2021. The pact stipulated commitments the Taliban were expected to make to prevent terrorism, including obligations to renounce al-Qaida and prevent Afghan soil from being used to plot attacks on the U.S. or its allies as it was before 9/11.
If the Taliban signed the agreement, Sharif said, “they must respect it.”
“This is what law-abiding, peace-loving international community, including myself, expect from them,” he said. “And let’s work together in that direction.”
US-PAKISTANI RELATIONS
Relations between Pakistan and the United States have vacillated between strong and tenuous for more than a generation. After 9/11, the two were allies against extremism even as, many asserted, elements within Pakistan’s army and government were encouraging it.
Today, former prime minister Khan’s anti-American rhetoric of recent years has fueled anger at the United States in Pakistan and created some setbacks in ties.
In the interview, Sharif said his government wants “good, warm relations” with the United States and wants to work with Biden to “remove any kind of misunderstanding and confusion.”
In careful language that reflected his efforts to balance international and domestic constituencies, he sought to distance himself from Khan’s approach — and to reaffirm and restore the kind of ties that he said the people he represents would want.
“What the previous government did, in this behalf, was most uncalled for, was detrimental to Pakistan’s sovereign interests,” Sharif said. “It was definitely not in line with what ordinary Pakistanis would believe and expect.”
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Edith M. Lederer is chief U.N. correspondent for The Associated Press and has been covering international affairs for more than half a century. For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit (https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly.)(https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly.) | https://fox4kc.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-the-ap-interview-pakistani-leader-details-flood-devastation/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:36 | en | 0.971066 |
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday ramped up its diplomatic efforts to press China to end provocative actions against Taiwan and warned it about any active support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made both cases in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart on Friday in a meeting on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly in New York, according to U.S. officials. The session was one of the few that Blinken kept on his schedule after the death of his father on Thursday.
The officials wouldn’t describe the Chinese response, but said Foreign Minister Wang Yi was receptive to the messages and that the two men discussed the need “to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the U.S.-China relationship, especially during times of tension.”
The talks between Blinken and Wang come amid a period of intense tensions on both issues and ahead of an expected meeting in November between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. Biden’s recent comments about Taiwan and China’s tacit support for the war in Ukraine are just two of the latest irritants in relations between Washington and Beijing.
State Department spokesman Ned Price said Blinken had affirmed to Wang the administration’s commitment to “maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” despite Biden’s assertion earlier this week that the U.S. would send troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
China regards the self-governed island of Taiwan as its sovereign territory, has not ruled out force to reunify it with the mainland and has in recent months stepped up military activity in the area. That activity is at least partially in response to high-level U.S. congressional visits to Taipei, including by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and stepped-up American arms sales.
Blinken “stressed that preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is critical to regional and global security and prosperity,” Price said in a statement. It added that the U.S. remains committed to its “one-China policy” which does not support Taiwanese independence.
On Russia, U.S. officials said Blinken underscored the damage that would be done to the Sino-U.S. relationship should Beijing take a more active role in supporting the war in Ukraine. U.S. officials have said they are cautiously optimistic about recent comments from Chinese leaders about their concerns over the war and its consequences, and Blinken wanted to drive the point home.
Blinken “highlighted the implications if the PRC were to provide support to Moscow’s invasion of a sovereign state,” Price said in the statement. “PRC” refers to China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China.
The U.S.-China relationship has become increasingly fraught in recent years over multiple issues, including the persecution of Muslims and ethnic minorities in China’s western Xinjiang region, clampdowns on dissent in Tibet and Hong Kong, aggressive Chinese actions in the South China Sea and against Taiwan, and the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nonetheless, Price said the U.S. continues to be “open to cooperating with the PRC where our interests intersect.” One area the U.S. hopes to continue coordination is on climate change.
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For more AP coverage of the U.N. General Assembly, visit https://apnews.com/hub/united-nations-general-assembly | https://fox4kc.com/news/international/ap-international/ap-us-steps-up-diplomatic-efforts-with-china-on-taiwan-russia/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:43 | en | 0.959265 |
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DENVER (AP) —
A Black man died after a police encounter in a Denver suburb in 2019 because he was injected with a powerful sedative after being forcibly restrained, according to an amended autopsy report publicly released Friday.
Despite the finding, the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was still listed as undetermined, not a homicide, the report shows. McClain was put in a neck hold and injected with ketamine after being stopped by police in Aurora for “being suspicious.” He was unarmed.
The original autopsy report that was written soon after his death in August 2019 did not reach a conclusion about how he died or what type of death is was, such as if it was natural, accidental or a homicide. That was a major reason why prosecutors initially decided not to pursue charges.
But a state grand jury last year indicted three officers and two paramedics on manslaughter and reckless homicide charges in McClain’s death after the case drew renewed attention following the killing of George Floyd in 2020. It became a rallying cry during the national reckoning over racism and police brutality.
The five accused have not yet entered pleas and their lawyers have not commented publicly on the charges.
In the updated report, completed in July 2021, Dr. Stephen Cina, a pathologist, concluded that the ketamine dosage given to McClain, which was higher than recommended for someone his size, “was too much for this individual and it resulted in an overdose, even though his blood ketamine level was consistent with a ‘therapeutic’ blood concentration.”
He said he could not rule out that changes in McClain’s blood chemistry, like an increase in lactic acid, due to his exertion while being restrained by police contributed to his death but concluded there was no evidence that injuries inflicted by police caused his death.
“I believe that Mr. McClain would most likely be alive but for the administration of ketamine,” said Cina, who noted that body camera footage shows McClain becoming “extremely sedated” within a few minutes of being given the drug.
Cina acknowledged that other reasonable pathologists with different experience and training may have labeled such a death, while in police custody, as a homicide or accident, but that he believes the appropriate classification is undetermined.
Qusair Mohamedbhai, attorney for McClain’s mother, Sheneen McClain, declined a request for comment.
Dr. Carl Wigren, a forensic pathologist in Washington state, questioned the report’s focus on ketamine, saying all the available evidence — including a highly critical independent review of McClain’s death commissioned by Aurora last year — point to McClain dying as a result of compressional asphyxia, a type of suffocation, from officers putting pressure on his body while restraining him. He was struck by one passage in the city’s review citing the ambulance company’s report that its crew found McClain lying on the ground on his stomach, his arms handcuffed behind his back, his torso and legs held down, with at least three officers on top of him.
That scene was not captured on body camera footage, the report said, but much of what happened between police was not because the officers’ cameras came off soon after McClain was approached. The cameras did continue to record where they fell and captured people talking.
Just because McClain, who said he couldn’t breathe, could be heard making some statements on the footage, does not mean he was able to fully breathe, Wigren said. Ketamine, which slows breathing, could have just exacerbated McClain’s condition, but Wigren does not think it caused his death.
However, another pathologist, Dr. Deborah G. Johnson of Colorado, said McClain’s quick reaction to ketamine suggests that it was a cause of McClain’s death, but she said its use cannot be separated from the impact that the police restraint may have had. McClain may have had trouble breathing because of the restraint and having less oxygen in your system would make the sedative take effect more quickly, she said.
Both thought the death could have been labeled as a homicide — a death caused by the actions of other people — which they pointed out is a separate judgment from deciding whether someone should be prosecuted with a crime for causing it.
McClain got an overdose of ketamine, Johnson said, noting that the paramedics were working at night when it is hard to judge someone’s weight.
“Was that a mistake to send someone to prison for? I don’t think so,” she said.
The updated autopsy was released Friday under a court order in a lawsuit brought by Colorado Public Radio, joined by other media organizations including The Associated Press. Colorado Public Radio sued the coroner to release the report after learning it had been updated, arguing that it should be made available under the state’s public records law.
Coroner Monica Broncucia-Jordan said she could not release it because it contained confidential grand jury information and that releasing it would violate the oath she made not to share it when she obtained it last year.
But Adams County District Judge Kyle Seedorf ordered the coroner to release the updated report by Friday, and a Denver judge who oversees state grand jury proceedings, Christopher Baumann, ruled Thursday that grand jury information did not have be redacted from the updated report.
Cina noted that the report was updated based on extensive body camera footage, witness statements and records that he did not have at the time of the original autopsy report, which were not made available to the coroner’s office at all or in their entirety before. Last year, Cina and Broncucia-Jordan received some material that was made available to the grand jury last year, according to court documents, but they did not say what exactly that material was.
McClain’s death fueled renewed scrutiny about the use of the ketamine and led Colorado’s health department to issue a new rule limiting when emergency workers can use it.
Last year, the city of Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to settle a lawsuit brought by McClain’s parents. The lawsuit alleged the force officers used against McClain and his struggle to survive it dramatically increased the amount of lactic acid in his system, leading to his death, possibly along with the large dose of ketamine he was given.
The outside investigation commissioned by the city faulted the police probe into McClain’s arrest for not pressing for answers about how officers treated him. It found there was no evidence justifying officers’ decision to stop McClain, who had been reported as suspicious because he was wearing a ski mask as he walked down the street waving his hands. He was not accused of breaking any law.
Police reform activist Candice Bailey had mixed emotions about seeing the amended autopsy.
“I do believe that it does get us a step closer to anything that is a semblance of justice,” said Bailey, an activist in the city of Aurora who has led demonstrations over the death of McClain.
But Bailey added that she is “extremely saddened that there is still a controversy around whether or not the EMTs and officers should be held responsible for what they did, and as to whether or not this was actually murder.”
___
Associated Press reporter Jesse Bedayn contribute to this report. Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-amended-autopsy-black-man-died-due-to-sedative-restraint/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:50 | en | 0.983778 |
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NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s mayor says he plans to erect hangar-sized tents as temporary shelter for thousands of international migrants who have been bused into the Big Apple as part of a campaign by Republican governors to disrupt federal border policies.
The tents are among an array of options — from using cruise ships to summer camps — the city is considering as it struggles to find housing for an estimated 13,000 migrants who have wound up in New York after being bused north from border towns in Texas and Arizona.
“This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement Thursday.
New York City’s huge system of homeless shelters has been straining to accommodate the unexpected new flow of migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
In Arizona and Texas, officials have loading people on buses for free trips to Washington and New York City. More recently, Florida, which has a Republican governor running for reelection, flew migrants — at public cost — to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
Adams said the city had opened 23 emergency shelters — and was considering 38 more — to handle the people bused into the city since May. The city also recently opened a new, multimillion dollar intake center to help the newcomers quickly get settled.
The first tent has been proposed for a remote corner of the Bronx, a parking lot at a popular city beach on Long Island Sound where public transportation is limited. Officials are looking into other areas.
A rendering of the likely design of the facility, released by the city, showed rows and rows of cots. Presumably, the tent would be heated, as autumn nights in the city can be quite cool, but the city released few details.
City officials said these facilities — which they call “humanitarian emergency response and relief centers — would only house migrants for up to four days while the city arranged other types of shelter.
Immigration advocates said the plan was not well thought out.
“While we recognize there is urgency in meeting the very real needs of asylum seeking families while our shelter system remains over-burdened, we believe that any effort to open a temporary relief camp at Orchard Beach is ridiculous and likely to cause more harm than good, especially as the fall turns into winter,” said Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.
“We fear that what was meant to be a temporary solution will become an inadequate permanent one,” he said.
Groups advocating for the homeless said they were reserving judgment.
“We just don’t have enough detail to about what their plan is to form an opinion,” said Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society. “If the goal here is to sort of quickly assess what people need and get them connected to services that will help them, then that will be great.”
But he said the proposal has yet to be fleshed out.
“All we know, is a location, and a picture of a big tent,” he said. “We don’t know what’s going to be in it — or who.”
In a joint statement, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said it was working with city officials to come up with “a viable solution that satisfies New York’s legal and moral obligation to provide safe and adequate shelter to all who seek it, including asylum seekers.”
Earlier this month, Adams had floated the idea of housing hundreds of migrants on cruise ships.
Critics pounced on that idea, saying he needs to offer more lasting solutions to a problem that has long vexed the city: How to find permanent shelter for the city’s unhoused — not just new migrants but for the considerable population of the homeless.
Overall, the number of people staying nightly in New York City’s homeless shelters had fallen in recent years, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That led city officials to reduce shelter capacity, leaving the system unprepared for the sudden surge in people needing help. | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-as-shelters-fill-nyc-weighs-tents-to-house-migrants/ | 2022-09-24T16:33:57 | en | 0.970837 |
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BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho judge has banned cameras from the courtroom in the high-profile triple murder case against a mother and her new husband, saying he fears the images could prevent a fair trial.
Seventh District Judge Steven Boyce made the ruling on Friday, saying that news organizations will no longer be able to shoot still photography or videos inside the courtroom in the criminal case of Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell. The couple are charged with conspiring to kill Lori Vallow Daybell’s two youngest children and Chad Daybell’s late former wife, and the strange details of the case have drawn attention from around the world.
Both Vallow Daybell and Daybell have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a potential death penalty.
Late last month, Vallow Daybell’s attorneys asked the judge to ban cameras from the courtroom. They contended that one news organization abused the privilege by repeatedly zooming in on Vallow Daybell’s face during an Aug. 16 hearing. The attorneys, Jim Archibald and John Thomas, also claimed the cameras and microphones could potentially be used to overhear private conversations or to view private notes on the defense table, though they did not suggest that the equipment had ever actually been used in that way.
A coalition of more than 30 news organizations including The Associated Press asked the judge to reject the defense attorneys’ motion.
Steve Wright, the attorney for the news coalition led by EastIdahoNews.com, told the judge that banning cameras would not stop the widespread public interest in the case but instead prevent people from seeing the most accurate depiction of the proceedings. The news organizations also noted that the coverage was done to inform members of the public, most of whom are unable to attend in person.
Wright told the judge that banning cameras completely would be a “vast overreaction,” but acknowledged that the judge had the authority to limit the visual coverage as he saw fit.
The prosecuting attorney in the case, meanwhile, sided with the defense and said the cameras should be banned. Prosecuting attorney Rob Wood said the news coverage could make it hard for the court to find an impartial jury when the case goes to trial next year.
In his ruling, Boyce said there was no indication that the news organizations had ever violated the court orders that allowed cameras in the courtroom.
“The presence of media during the hearings has in no way interrupted those proceedings, and attending media have been respectful and professional,” Boyce wrote in the ruling. Still, the judge said, the concerns raised by the defense attorneys are “well founded.”
Boyce said he has had to proactively avoid viewing the news coverage of the case because it is routinely part of local and sometimes national news. He noted that he has already decided to move the trial across the state to Ada County in hopes of improving the chances of finding impartial jurors.
He said the camera ban would continue even after the jurors for the trial are selected — even though jurors are always admonished not to discuss or consume any news coverage about the case they are working on. Visual news coverage could also taint potential witnesses and stress out the attorneys involved in the case, he said, “knowing their every expression, utterance and appearance will be captured and circulated without their control in perpetuity.”
That pressure could interfere with the “fair administration of justice,” Boyce said.
Idaho law enforcement officers started investigating Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell in November 2019 after extended family members reported her two youngest children, Joshua “JJ” Vallow and Tylee Ryan, were missing. At the time, JJ Vallow was 7 years old and Tylee Ryan was nearing her 17th birthday.
Chad and Lori Vallow Daybell had married just two weeks after his previous wife, Tammy Daybell, died unexpectedly. The children’s bodies were later found buried on Chad Daybell’s property in rural eastern Idaho.
The couple was eventually charged with murder, conspiracy and grand theft in connection with the deaths of the children and Daybell’s late wife. They have pleaded not guilty and could face the death penalty if convicted.
Prosecutors say the couple promoted unusual religious beliefs to further the alleged murder conspiracies. Lori Vallow Daybell’s former husband, who died while the two were estranged, said in divorce documents that Vallow Daybell believed she was a god-like figure responsible for ushering in the apocalyptical end times. Chad Daybell wrote doomsday-focused fiction books and recorded podcasts about preparing for the apocalypse.
Friends of the couple told law enforcement investigators the pair believed people could be taken over by dark spirits, and that Vallow Daybell referred to her children as “zombies,” which was a term they used to describe those who were possessed.
Vallow Daybell is also charged with conspiracy to commit murder in Arizona in connection with the death of her previous husband. Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Lori Daybell’s brother, Alex Cox, who said it was self-defense. Cox later died of what police said was natural causes.
The Arizona legal proceedings are on hold while the Idaho case is underway and Vallow Daybell has not been scheduled to make a plea in the Arizona case. | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-judge-bans-cameras-from-idaho-moms-triple-murder-case/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:03 | en | 0.982966 |
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A man accused of killing six people and injuring dozens of others by driving an SUV through a Christmas parade in Wisconsin last year wants to represent himself in a trial that is scheduled to begin in a little more than a week.
Darrell Brooks Jr.’s public defender, Jeremy Perri, filed a motion in Waukesha County Circuit Court on Thursday requesting that he and assistant public defender Anna Kees be taken off the case because Brooks wants to represent himself.
A hearing on the motion is scheduled for Tuesday. It’s not clear what impact the motion, if granted by Judge Jennifer Dorow, might have on the Oct. 3 start date for Brooks’ trial on six homicide counts and about 70 other charges. Four weeks were set aside for the trial.
The motion is the latest development in a case that has seen some twists and turns. Brooks changed his not guilty plea in June to not guilty by reason of mental disease and defect, but two weeks ago withdrew the insanity defense.
When questioned by Dorrow, Brooks offered little explanation, saying, “I have my own reasons why.” He confirmed he discussed the change with his attorneys.
According to a criminal complaint, Brooks drove his SUV into the parade in Waukesha on Nov. 21. Witnesses said he was swerving and appeared to be intentionally trying to hit people. He was arrested minutes later as he stood on the porch of a nearby house asking the homeowner to help him call a ride.
Police said he had fled the scene of a domestic disturbance when he turned into the parade, although officers were not pursuing him at the time.
Last month, Dorow refused a defense motion to have the case against Brooks dismissed because of a July search of the defendant’s jail cell. Investigators and prosecutors were looking for information related to Brooks’ recent decision to change his plea.
At one point during the motions hearing, Waukesha County District Attorney Susan Opper asked the judge to note that Brooks appeared to have been sleeping during the proceeding. Dorow ordered a break and when the parties returned to the courtroom, Brooks lashed out and yelled at the judge before he was surrounded by three deputies and taken from the courtroom. | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-man-wants-to-defend-himself-in-fatal-wisconsin-parade-attack/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:10 | en | 0.985389 |
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FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A Texas city has settled a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a Black mother after she and her daughter were wrestled to the ground and arrested by a white police officer following a dispute with a neighbor.
Jacqueline Craig and one of her daughters were wrestled to the ground and had a stun gun pointed at them by Fort Worth officer William Martin in December 2016. Another of Craig’s daughters, who filmed the incident on her cellphone, was also arrested.
Charges against all three were later dropped. Martin served a 10-day suspension for violating departmental policies.
The city agreed to settle the lawsuit for $150,000, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported Friday. The settlement is pending City Council approval.
As part of the settlement, the city admits no other fault and there are no other requirements, a Fort Worth spokesperson said.
Craig has alleged the neighbor grabbed and choked her young son after seeing him litter. Craig and the neighbor both called police.
Video of the arrests, which was posted on Facebook and viewed more than a million times, raised accusations of racism.
Mayor Pro Tem Gyna Bivens told the newspaper she was glad the lawsuit was settled.
“This put a big weight on her. It put a big weight on the city, and I hope the settlement is enough for everyone to feel refreshed and ready to move forward,” Bivens said. | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-mother-settles-lawsuit-over-texas-arrest-captured-on-video/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:17 | en | 0.990131 |
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HOUSTON (AP) — A NASA researcher and Texas A&M University professor pleaded guilty to charges related to hiding his ties to a university created by the Chinese government while accepting federal grant money.
Zhengdong Cheng pleaded guilty to two counts — violation of NASA regulations and falsifying official documents — during a hearing in Houston federal court on Thursday.
Cheng’s conviction was part of a program called the China Initiative, which was first started under the Trump administration. But in February, the Justice Department abandoned the program after complaints it chilled academic collaboration and contributed to anti-Asian bias. The department had also endured high-profile setbacks in individual prosecutions, resulting in the dismissal of multiple criminal cases against academic researchers in the last year. The Justice Department said it planned to impose a higher bar for such prosecutions.
Cheng had originally been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy and false statements when he was arrested in August 2020. But he pleaded guilty to the new charges as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sentenced Cheng to the time he had already served during his pretrial incarceration — about 13 months.
Cheng also agreed to pay restitution of $86,876 and pay a fine of $20,000.
Philip Hilder, Cheng’s attorney said the professor was “relieved that this unfortunate chapter of his life is behind.”
But Hilder was critical of the China Initiative program, saying while its original purpose was “to fight economic espionage … that was not the case in his matter.”
“The China Initiative … has now been phased out as a Justice Department priority. The overall mission stays the same, to ferret out economic espionage, but the focus is to target wrongdoers by their deeds and not by their ethnicity,” Hilder said.
Prosecutors accused Cheng, who was hired by Texas A&M in 2004, of concealing his work in China even as his team of researchers received nearly $750,000 in grant money for space research. NASA is restricted from using funds for any collaboration or coordination with China, Chinese institutions or any Chinese-owned company.
But, prosecutors say, Cheng violated those restrictions by maintaining multiple undisclosed associations with China, including serving as director of a soft matter institute at a technology university in Guangdong, China, that was established by China’s Ministry of Education.
“Texas A&M and the Texas A&M System take security very seriously, and we constantly are on the look-out for vulnerabilities, especially when national security is involved,” John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said in a statement Friday. “We will continue to work with our federal partners to keep our intellectual property secure and out of the hands of foreign governments who seek to do us harm.”
Cheng was fired from Texas A&M shortly after his arrest. Texas A&M is located about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northwest of Houston.
Hilder said Cheng loves academia but is evaluating his options on what he does next.
“He’s a proud, loyal United States citizen and he looks forward to getting back to being a productive member of our society,” Hilder said.
In a tweet Friday, FBI Houston Special Agent in Charge James Smith said his agency “prioritizes investigating threats to academia as part of our commitment to preventing intellectual property theft at U.S. research institutions and companies.”
In February, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen told reporters he believed the initiative was prompted by genuine national security concerns. He said he did not believe investigators had targeted professors on the basis of ethnicity, but he also said he had to be responsive to concerns he heard, including from Asian American groups.
___
Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at https://twitter.com/juanlozano70 | https://fox4kc.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-professor-nasa-researcher-pleads-guilty-in-china-ties-case/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:24 | en | 0.980277 |
PHOENIX (AP) — A federal judge has rejected an effort by Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and her husband to block a subpoena of their phone records issued by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa issued late Thursday said none of the reasons the Wards cited for blocking the congressional demand passed legal muster. She noted that Congress is generally immune from lawsuits, and none of the exemptions applied to the Wards’ case.
Their attorneys appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday. Ward did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a request for comment from the committee was also not immediately returned.
The House committee is seeking phone records from just before the November 2020 election to Jan. 31, 2021. That would include a period where Ward was pushing for former President Donald Trump’s election defeat to be overturned and while Congress was set to certify the results.
Kelli Ward and Michael Ward were presidential electors who would have voted for Trump in the Electoral College had he won Arizona. Both signed a document falsely claiming they were Arizona’s true electors, despite Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the state.
The Wards argued the subpoena should be quashed because it violated their First Amendment rights, violated House rules and exceeded the authority of the Jan. 6 committee. Humetewa rejected each argument in turn, and noted that the federal appeals court in Washington has rejected similar arguments raised by Trump during his unsuccessful effort to block a committee subpoena. The U.S. Supreme Court let those rulings stand.
Ward and her husband, who are both physicians, also argued that turning over their phone records could compromise the private health information of their patients. But Humetewa said the records are being sought from a phone provider not covered by health care privacy laws. She did encourage the Wards and congressional investigators to discuss how to protect any patient information that might be revealed.
Kelli Ward is a staunch Trump ally who has aggressively promoted the false claim that the election was stolen from him. In the days after the election, she pressured Republicans on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to investigate unsupported claims of fraud before election results were certified, according to text messages released by the county. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-arizona-gop-chairs-try-to-quash-jan-6-panel-subpoena-fails/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:31 | en | 0.980256 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a Washington mystery that no one seems able to unravel. The Supreme Court apparently still hasn’t found the person who leaked a draft of the court’s major abortion decision earlier this year.
In a television interview airing this weekend, retired Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who left the court in June when the justices began their summer break, says he hasn’t heard that the person’s identity has been determined.
Breyer, 84, was speaking with CNN anchor Chris Wallace. According to a transcript provided by the network, Wallace asked about the leak, which happened in May: “Within 24 hours the chief justice ordered an investigation of the leaker. Have they found him or her?”
“Not to my knowledge, but … I’m not privy to it,” Breyer responds. Wallace presses: “So in those months since, the chief justice never said, ‘Hey, we got our man or woman?’”
“To my knowledge, no,” again responded Breyer, who despite being retired maintains an office at the Supreme Court. The interview is to air Sunday on “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace?”
Other justices have also suggested recently that the identity of the leaker remains unknown to the court. At a conference in Colorado this month Justice Neil Gorsuch said it is “terribly important” to identify the leaker and he is expecting a report on the progress of the investigation, “I hope soon.” Justice Elena Kagan also said recently she does not know if the investigation Roberts ordered has determined the source of the leak.
Breyer, a liberal appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton, also spoke on a range of other topics with Wallace.
He was a about Virginia Thomas, a conservative activist and the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, and her involvement in helping former President Donald Trump try to overturn his election defeat. Thomas has faced criticism for texting with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and contacting lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin in the weeks after the election. She recently agreed to participate in a voluntary interview with the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“I strongly believe that women who are wise, including wives of Supreme Court justices, have to make the decisions about how to lead their lives, careers, what kind of career etc., for themselves. So on this sort of issue, I understand where you’re going, but I’m not going there. … I’m not going to criticize Ginni Thomas, whom I like. I’m not going to criticize Clarence whom I like. And there we are,” Breyer said.
Breyer, who watched his liberal colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opt not to retire when President Barack Obama could have named a like-minded replacement, said he would miss being on the court but that it was time to leave. Ginsburg died near the end of former President Donald Trump’s term, and he named the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barret to replace her. Barrett was confirmed just days before the presidential election that ousted Trump from office.
“I’ve done this for a long time. Other people should have a chance. The world does change. And we don’t know, frankly, what would happen, if I just stayed there and stayed there. How long would I have to stay there? … I owe loyalty to the court, which means don’t muck things up. Do things in a regular order,” Breyer said. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-breyer-supreme-court-leaker-still-appears-to-be-a-mystery/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:38 | en | 0.973476 |
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom will travel to Texas on Saturday, venturing into the territory of one of his chief political foils while seeking to boost his own profile amid a noncompetitive reelection campaign back home.
Newsom is on his way to an easy victory for a second term as governor of the nation’s most populous state, facing a little known and underfunded Republican challenger one year after defeating a recall attempt.
With little pressure at home, Newsom has been looking elsewhere to spend some of the $23 million he has in his campaign account. So far, he has bought TV ads in Florida urging people to move to California, newspaper ads in Texas decrying the state’s lax gun laws, and billboards in seven conservative states — including Texas — urging women to come to California if they need an abortion.
Now, Newsom is scheduled to speak at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas, billed as a talk “on what the nation’s most populous state can teach the other 49 — including (Texas).”
Newsom’s actions come after he blamed his own political party for being too soft, urging them to stand up more firmly in light of recent conservative victories at the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned federal abortion protections and loosened restrictions on guns.
“Our donors are asking for more of that,” Newsom told reporters last week when asked if his attention on other states signaled he wasn’t taking his reelection campaign seriously. “The people in the state of California are asking for more leadership in this space.”
Newsom spent most of this week in New York City, speaking at various climate change conferences while taking time to poke conservative governors he says are “doubling down on stupid.” He specifically called out Texas republican Gov. Greg Abbot on Tuesday during a brief interview at the Clinton Global Initiative, saying he and other Republican governors are “as dumb as they want to (be).”
Last week, Newsom asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Abbot and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tor transporting migrants to other states, something Newsom called “disgraceful.” DeSantis dismissed Newsom’s request at a news conference, saying Newsom’s “hair gel is interfering with his brain function.”
Newsom fired back on Twitter, challenging DeSantis to a debate, declaring: “I’ll bring my hair gel. You bring your hairspray.”
Nationally, Democratic President Joe Biden has been less vocal in these political battles, creating an opening for someone like Newsom to step in and take on the Republican Party’s most vocal leaders, said Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of governmental Studies at the University of California-Berkeley.
“(Biden) is less out there in a lot of ways than many presidents have been,” Schickler said. “It creates a kind of vacuum where ambitious Democrats who want to be in the national conversation have that kind of space to maybe say things they want Biden to say that he doesn’t feel is either appropriate as president to say or just not his style to do.”
Newsom’s aggressiveness could end up helping Abbott, who is locked in a more competitive race with former Congressman Beto O’Rourke. Kenneth Grasso, a political science professor at Texas State University, said there has been concern among some in the Republican Party that Abbott is “not conservative enough.” Newsom’s attacks against Abbott “only helps him with those people,” Grasso said.
“If you stress that they’re right-wingers, you call them extremists, using that kind of language, all you are going to do is enhance their popularity in their own base,” he said.
Despite that risk, Texas Democrats seem to be welcoming Newsom’s attention.
“I like this guy,” Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa said of Newsom. “I like the way he’s showing the contrast between what y’all do in California and what the narrow-minded, extremist positions that occur here in the state of Texas.” | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-california-governor-travels-to-texas-amid-feud-with-gop/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:45 | en | 0.972637 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — “God bless you, let’s have some music,” said Elton John.
With that, the White House South Lawn was transformed into a musical lovefest Friday night as John played a farewell gig to honor everyday “heroes” like teachers, nurses and AIDS activists. But as it turns out, the event was also to honor the 75-year-old British songwriter — President Joe Biden surprised him with the National Humanities Medal for being a “tidal wave” who helped people rise up for justice.
John seemed almost overcome by the accolades, telling the audience of 2,000 people: “I don’t know what to say. … I don’t know how to take a compliment very well but it’s wonderful to be here amongst so many people who have helped my AIDS foundation and my heroes, that ones that work day to day on the front line.”
He said he’d played some beautiful venues before, but the stage in front of the White House, beneath a massive open-air tent on a perfect autumn night, was “probably the icing on the cake.”
He kicked off the show with “Your Song,” his first big international hit.
The intimate guest list included teachers, nurses, frontline workers and LGBTQ advocates, plus former first lady Laura Bush, civil rights advocate Ruby Bridges, education activist Malala Yousafzai and Jeanne White-Ginder, an AIDS activist and mother of Ryan White, who died from AIDS-related complications in 1990.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden talked about the British singer’s activism, the power of his music and his all-around goodness. The event was dreamed up and paid for by A+E and the History Channel.
“Seamus Heaney once wrote, and I quote, ’Once in a lifetime, the longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme,” Biden said. “Throughout his incredible career, Sir Elton John has been that tidal wave, a tidal wave to help people rise up and make hope and history rhyme.”
The night, in fact, was called “A Night When Hope and History Rhyme,” a reference to the poem Biden quoted by Ireland’s Heaney.
Sir Elton — he was knighted in 1998 by Queen Elizabeth II — has sold over 300 million records worldwide, played over 4,000 shows in 80 countries and recorded one of the best-selling singles of all time, his 1997 reworking of “Candle In The Wind” to eulogize Princess Diana, which sold 33 million copies.
John punctuated the hits Friday with emotional tidbits of his history, including a shoutout to Laura Bush and former president George W. Bush for his administration’s emergency plan for AIDS relief, and a story of how a dying Ryan White and his mother pushed him into advocacy in the first place, and helped him get sober.
“I wouldn’t be here talking tonight,” he said. “They saved my life.”
He then dedicated “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” to Ryan.
Despite the presence of plenty of lawmakers, the political speak was kept to a minimum, except for when John said, “I just wish America would be more bipartisan on everything.”
It was his first White House gig since he performed with Stevie Wonder at a state dinner in 1998 honoring British Prime Minister Tony Blair. John is on a farewell tour that began in July after performing for more than 50 years.
The show came together after A+E Networks and the History Channel asked the White House and John if they’d be up for a collaboration honoring “everyday history-makers” as well as John himself.
It’s not clear whether the show will be broadcast. John has worked with A+E in the past on his global HIV/AIDS charity, the Elton John Foundation, which has raised more than $525 million to combat the virus around the world.
John is sticking around to play a sold-out show at Nationals Park Saturday.
The president and first lady are big fans. Biden wrote in a 2017 memoir about singing “Crocodile Rock” to his two young boys as he drove them to school, and again later to son Beau before he died of cancer at age 46.
“I started singing the lyrics to Beau, quietly, so just the two of us could hear it,” Biden wrote. “Beau didn’t open his eyes, but I could see through my own tears that he was smiling.”
John played the song Friday, saying someone told him Biden used to sing it to his little boys. “I can’t imagine him singin’ it,” John quipped before suggesting the president come up on stage. He did not. But the whole crowd did do the “La-La-Las” from their seats.
Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, was also a fan of John. He tried to get John to perform at his 2017 inauguration but John declined, saying he didn’t think it was appropriate for a Brit to play at the swearing-in of an American president.
The White House insisted Friday’s show wasn’t an effort to troll Trump, who has praised John in his books and has often featured John’s music — including “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer” — in his pre-rally playlists over the years. Trump nicknamed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “rocket man” for his record of test-firing missiles.
John played both Friday, to thunderous applause. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-elton-john-playing-white-house-lawn-as-part-of-farewell-tour/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:52 | en | 0.982876 |
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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In-person voting for the midterm elections opened Friday in Minnesota, South Dakota, Virginia and Wyoming, kicking off a six-week sprint to Election Day in a landscape that has changed much since the pandemic drove a shift to mail balloting in the 2020 presidential contest.
Twenty people voted in the first hour as Minneapolis opened its early voting center, taking advantage of generous rules that election officials credit with making Minnesota a perennial leader in voter turnout. First in when the doors opened was Conrad Zbikowski, a 29-year-old communications and digital consultant who said he has voted early since at least 2017.
“I like to vote early because you never know what might happen on Election Day,” said Zbikowski, displaying his civic pride with a T-shirt that bore the sailboat logo of the City of Lakes. “You might get sick, you might get COVID, you might get in a car crash, there’s many things that can happen. But what you do have control over is being able to vote early and getting that ballot in.”
The start of in-person voting comes as the nation continues to grapple with the fallout from nearly two years of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump due to widespread fraud and manipulation of voting machines. Those conspiracy theories, promoted by a constellation of Trump allies in the campaign, on social media and at conferences held across the country, have taken a toll on public confidence in U.S. elections.
They’ve also led to tightening of rules that govern mail ballots in several Republican-led states as well as an exodus of experienced election workers, who have faced an onslaught of harassment and threats since the 2020 election.
But nearly two years since that election, no evidence has emerged to suggest widespread fraud or manipulation while reviews in state after state have upheld the results showing President Joe Biden won.
Saturday also is the deadline by which election officials must send ballots to their military and overseas voters. North Carolina started mailing out absentee ballots Sept. 9.
Early in-person voting is offered in 46 states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. States may use different ways to describe it, with some calling it in-person absentee voting or advanced voting. In some cases, it mirrors Election Day voting with polling locations equipped with poll workers and voting machines. Elsewhere, it involves voters requesting, completing and submitting an absentee ballot in person at their local election office.
Early voting periods vary by state, with some offering as few as three days and others extending to 46 days. The average is 23 days, according to the conference of legislatures.
This year, voting will unfold in a much different environment than two years ago, when the coronavirus prompted a major increase in the use of mail ballots as voters sought to avoid crowded polling places. States adopted policies to promote mail voting, with a few states opting to send mail ballots to all registered voters and others expanding the use of drop boxes.
While some have made those changes permanent, others have rolled back them back. For instance, Georgia will have fewer drop boxes this year and has added ID requirements to mail ballots under legislation pushed by Republican state lawmakers.
In Wyoming, a steady stream of voters filed into the lone early polling place in Cheyenne, which offered a refuge from winds that toppled a “Vote Here” sign. About 60 people had voted there by midday, Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee said.
“It’s less people and we don’t have to worry,” said one early voter, Brent Dolence of Cheyenne. “Things move faster and you don’t have to wait so much.”
Unlike elsewhere in the U.S., poll workers in Laramie County haven’t been subjected to threats and harassment, Lee said, but they’ve received plenty of questions from voters about machines and the county’s lone ballot drop box.
“They’re really looking at things and asking questions,” Lee said. “In a good way. You know, wanting information. They’re curious.”
Minnesota’s ballot includes races for governor and other statewide offices, with control of the Legislature at stake, too.
Zbikowski declined to say for whom he voted. But he said he doesn’t take the right to vote for granted, given that his family came to America from Russia when it didn’t have free elections. As a part-time poll worker — he was off-duty Friday— he said he’s seen Minnesota’s safeguards firsthand and has full confidence in the integrity of the process.
Other early voters included first-timers Ronald Johnson and his wife, Judith Weyl, who voted on Election Day in 2020. They both said they voted a straight Democratic ticket.
“It just feels like this election is so important, life is so busy, I just wanted to have closure on this as quickly as possible,” Johnson said.
Johnson, a 74-year-old mental health counselor, said he wanted to support candidates who will preserve a Minnesota election system that he said has integrity.
He said he “absolutely” supports the state’s chief elections officer, Secretary of State Steve Simon, over GOP challenger Kim Crockett, who has called the 2020 election a “train wreck” and has advocated for a return to voting mostly on Election Day. Simon, in contrast, calls the 2020 election “fundamentally fair, honest, accurate and secure,” and defends the changes that he oversaw to make voting safer in the pandemic.
“We really care about protecting democracy,” said Weyl, 73.
Aaron Bommarito, a 48-year-old teacher who also said he voted a straight Democratic ticket, said he has no concerns about his votes being counted properly and has “absolute confidence in the system.” He said voting early was a spur-of-the moment decision. He just happened to be driving by the voting center and seized the moment.
“I dropped my two kids off at school, and the ‘Vote Here’ sign was the next thing I saw,” he said.
___
Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press reporter Mead Gruver contributed to this story from Cheyenne, Wyoming. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-in-person-voting-starts-in-minnesota-3-other-early-states/ | 2022-09-24T16:34:58 | en | 0.976147 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — First lady Jill Biden paid tribute Friday to Jacqueline Kennedy, a predecessor 60 years ago, for her pivotal role in preventing the teardown of historic buildings on iconic Lafayette Square near the White House.
Biden helped the White House Historical Association, an organization that Kennedy helped spearhead, unveil a medallion of the former first lady, designed by American artist Chas Fagan in front of the association’s office on the square.
The wife of President John F. Kennedy is widely credited with ushering in an emphasis on historic preservation at the White House during her 1,036 days as first lady. She played a critical role in saving some of Lafayette Square’s buildings from the wrecking ball.
The square, just north of the White House, over the years has become a gathering place for protesters, from suffragists in the early 20th century to Vietnam demonstrators in the 1960s to Americans speaking out for policing reform in 2020.
In quieter daily times, it is a city oasis for tourists and for office workers on lunch breaks.
The bas relief of Kennedy sits in a new garden at the front of the association’s office, known as Decatur House. It includes one of her best-known quotations: “The White House belongs to the American people.”
Jill Biden, the wife of President Joe Biden, said Kennedy worked to save the park and surrounding historic townhouses “because we all deserve to experience our rich history, the full, complex and beautiful story of who we are.”
“Together, we are opening the doors of the people’s house wider and wider to welcome all those who are part of this nation,” she said.
Jacqueline Kennedy was an outspoken and effective critic of a plan in the early 1960s for a massive new modern office building to be constructed on the square. The project would have led to several 19th century row houses bordering the park being razed.
Her husband and the Commission on Fine Arts in 1961 agreed on a design for the new office building, but a local civic group, known as the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, staunchly opposed the idea.
The activists argued that the new office building should be located behind the 19th century row houses, and that two taller and more recent office buildings should be demolished. Members of the committee presented their plan to the president, published their views in the newspaper, and even corresponded with Jacqueline Kennedy’s mother, according to the National Park Service.
The first lady let her husband know that she wasn’t a fan of what was being proposed for the square, writing that it would be “the most unsuitable, violently modern building which would be a jarring note on the square.”
Her husband listened.
In 1962, President Kennedy hired the architect John Carl Warnecke to find a better solution. Warnecke began with a historical study of the square, paying more attention to context than previous architects, according to the National Park Service.
In the end, the new federal offices were built behind the historic row houses on the square, and in 1970 Lafayette Square was designated as a National Historic Landmark District. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-jill-biden-honors-jacqueline-kennedys-preservation-legacy/ | 2022-09-24T16:35:05 | en | 0.973562 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s bid to block a major U.S. sugar manufacturer from acquiring its rival, clearing the way for the acquisition to proceed.
The ruling, handed down Friday by a federal judge in Wilmington, Delaware, comes months after the Justice Department sued to try to halt the deal between U.S. Sugar and Imperial Sugar Company, one of the largest sugar refiners in the nation. The government had argued that allowing the acquisition to go through would be harmful to consumers and anticompetitive.
U.S. Sugar has argued that the acquisition will increase production and distribution of refined sugar and provide a more secure supply.
The ruling was a blow for the Justice Department as it pushes forward with aggressive enforcement of federal antitrust laws that officials say aim to ensure a fair and competitive market. The Justice Department could appeal the decision and said it was reviewing the judge’s ruling.
“We are disappointed in the court’s decision not to block this merger, which would combine the world’s largest sugar cane refiner with one of its primary competitors in the Southeastern United States and increase reliance on foreign imports,” Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter said. “Further consolidation in the market for this important kitchen staple will have real-world consequences for millions of Americans.”
U.S. Sugar said in a statement that it was “pleased that today’s court ruling will allow our acquisition of Imperial Sugar to proceed as planned, enabling us to increase our sugar production, enhance the local Georgia economy and benefit our employees and customers.”
The Justice Department has said U.S. Sugar, which operates a large refinery in Florida, sells all of its sugar through a marketing cooperative known as the United Sugars Corporation. Imperial Sugar operates a refinery in Savannah, Georgia, and a sugar transfer and liquidation facility in Ludlow, Kentucky.
The companies announced the acquisition in March, saying that it would return Imperial Sugar to all-American ownership. Imperial Sugar is a subsidiary of Louis Dreyfus Company, which is headquartered in the Netherlands. The Justice Department says Imperial Sugar’s revenues were over $700 million in 2020. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-judge-reject-justice-dept-s-bid-to-stop-sugar-merger/ | 2022-09-24T16:35:12 | en | 0.968836 |
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WASHINGTON (AP) — An Iowa man was convicted Friday of charges that he led a crowd of rioters in chasing a U.S. Capitol police officer up a staircase and accosting other officers guarding the Senate, one of the most harrowing scenes of the mob’s attack that day.
A federal jury deliberated for roughly four hours before convicting Douglas Jensen of felony charges that he obstructed Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021, and that he assaulted or interfered with police officers during the siege.
Jensen was convicted on all counts, including a charge that he engaged in disorderly conduct inside the Capitol while carrying a folding knife in his pocket.
During the trial’s closing arguments, a prosecutor accused Jensen of “weaponizing” rioters by taking the lead in chasing Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up a staircase. A reporter’s video of the confrontation went viral.
“The defendant wasn’t just leading the mob. He was weaponizing it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hava Mirell told jurors. “He knew he had the numbers, and he was willing to use them.”
Jensen, a construction worker from Des Moines, Iowa, was wearing a T-shirt with a large “Q” expressing his adherence to the QAnon conspiracy theory. One of the most memorable images from the Jan. 6 attack captured Jensen with his arms extended as he confronted a line of police officers near the Senate chambers.
“Go arrest the vice president,” Jensen told one of the officers, according to prosecutors.
QAnon has centered on the baseless belief that former President Donald Trump was secretly fighting a Satan-worshipping cabal of “deep state” enemies, prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites. Jensen believed the conspiracy theory’s apocalyptic prophesy that “The Storm” was coming and would usher in mass arrests and executions of Trump’s foes, including Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence was presiding over the Senate on Jan. 6 as a joint session of Congress was convened to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory. Before the riot, Trump and his allies spread the falsehood that Pence somehow could have overturned the election results.
After scaling the outer walls of the Capitol, Jensen climbed through a broken window to enter the building. Prosecutors said Jensen learned from a friend’s text message that Pence was about to certify the election results.
“That’s all about to change,” Jensen replied.
Jensen didn’t testify at his trial, which started Tuesday. Goodman was a key witness for prosecutors.
Before running upstairs, Goodman approached Jensen and other rioters with his hand on his gun. Fearing for his life, Goodman retreated upstairs and found backup from other officers guarding an entrance to the Senate, where senators were being evacuated, according to prosecutors.
At least 880 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. About 400 of them have pleaded guilty. Juries have convicted eight Capitol riot defendants after trials. None of the defendants who had jury trials was acquitted of any charges.
Sentences for the rioters have ranged from probation for low-level misdemeanor offenses to 10 years in prison for a man who used a metal flagpole to assault an officer. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-jurors-deliberating-in-qanon-followers-capitol-riot-trial/ | 2022-09-24T16:35:19 | en | 0.976752 |
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LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The Republican candidate for Michigan governor on Friday compared Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s policies to the 2020 plot to kidnap the Democratic incumbent, remarks that Democrats criticized as making light of a serious and dangerous crime.
Tudor Dixon referred to the kidnapping plot at two separate events.
“Sad thing is, Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon told a crowd at an event in Troy while speaking about the need to cut business regulations. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage.”
At an event later Friday, Dixon referenced an appearance Whitmer made with President Joe Biden at the Detroit Auto Show.
“I’ll tell you the look on her face, she was like: ‘Oh my gosh this is happening. I’d rather be kidnapped by the FBI,’” Dixon said.
Two men were convicted last month of plotting to kidnap Whitmer because they were angry about pandemic-related restrictions she imposed. Prosecutors said they were part of a group who conspired to abduct Whitmer at her vacation home and to blow up a bridge to disrupt police so they wouldn’t be caught. The FBI said it broke up the plot before it could occur.
The jury’s conviction came in a second trial against the two men, Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox. At an earlier trial, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict, while two other men were acquitted. Their lawyers argued the men were big talkers who were set up by the FBI and said there was no actual plot.
The Democratic Governors Association called Dixon’s comments “utterly disqualifying for the role of Michigan governor,” while Whitmer’s campaign criticized Dixon for “dangerous rhetoric.”
“Threats of violence are no laughing matter, and the fact that Dixon spent the day making joke after joke about it shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office,” Whitmer campaign spokeswoman Maeve Coyle tweeted.
Dixon was endorsed by former President Donald Trump during the GOP primary and is now trailing Whitmer in fundraising and support. She campaigned Friday with Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., who called the conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer “the fake kidnap plot orchestrated by the FBI.”
Dixon criticized the media for not reporting on what she called attacks against her during Biden’s recent visit, saying he “called me all kinds of names and put my life in danger.”
___
Burnett reported from Chicago. ___
Joey Cappelletti is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-michigan-governor-hopeful-makes-light-of-whitmer-kidnap-plot/ | 2022-09-24T16:35:26 | en | 0.978526 |
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HOLLAND, Ohio (AP) — Republican J.R. Majewski insisted Friday that he would stay in the race for a competitive northwest Ohio congressional seat after The Associated Press reported earlier this week that he misrepresented key elements of his Air Force service.
“I flew into combat zones often, specifically in Afghanistan, and I served my country proud,” Majewski said at a news conference.
The comments came amid growing fallout for Majewski, who repeatedly said he deployed to Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, but instead served a six-month stint loading and unloading planes while based in Qatar, according to records obtained by the AP through a public records request.
The House Republican campaign arm on Thursday cancelled nearly $1 million in advertising that it had planned to spend on Majewski’s behalf, a sign that the GOP was effectively giving up hope of unseating longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur in a district that was recently redrawn to favor Republicans. Meanwhile, advocates for veterans questioned why Majewski has declined to offer proof, or even describe forays he made into Afghanistan.
Throughout his campaign, Majewski has repeatedly said he was a combat veteran who served a tour of duty under “tough” circumstances in Afghanistan, where by his account he once went over 40 days without a shower due to a lack of running water.
His latest remarks amounted to a far less robust description of what he says he did in the country. Majewski previously said he was deployed to the country, a term which refers to orders assigning servicemembers to a specific base or location.
On Friday he said his service involved flying in and out of Afghanistan from Qatar, but declined to offer additional details or proof because he said it was “classified.”
While based in Qatar, Majewski would land at other air bases to transfer military passengers, medics and supplies, his campaign previously said. The campaign did not answer repeated and direct questions from the AP before the story was published Wednesday about whether he was ever in Afghanistan.
They also gave no indication that he couldn’t discuss his service because it was “classified,” as Majewski said.
“I was in multiple bases in Afghanistan and the time frame is clear, in 2002,” Majewski said Friday. “We flew in and out of the area of responsibility multiple times. It’s almost impossible for me to tell you where I was and on what day. That’s why my orders are listed as a classified location.”
Experts contacted by the AP say it is possible that Majewski may have entered the country. They also say Majewski is well positioned to prove it, though Majewski’s campaign declined to do so Friday.
“It was hardly a secret that we were operating in Afghanistan,” said Don Christensen, a retired colonel and former military judge who once served as the Air Force’s chief prosecutor. “It would be pretty easy for him to find a supervisor or coworker that could verify if he was actually there. His (enlisted performance report) would have been signed by his supervisor most likely. That person would know if this was true.”
Scott Taylor, a former Navy SEAL sniper and Republican who represented Virginia in Congress, said he doesn’t understand why Majewski’s campaign refused to explain whether or not he ever went to Afghanistan earlier this week.
“Is it possible he went on some night flight to Afghanistan to drop off supplies? Yes it is possible,” said Taylor, who was injured in a combat operation in Ramadi, Iraq, and had to be evacuated. “But again, he should have answered those questions right away.”
The experts said the discussion about whether he did or did not enter Afghanistan also obscures the broader picture: Majewski for months has presented himself as a combat veteran who deployed to Afghanistan, descriptors that indicate he came under hostile fire while stationed in the country.
The term “combat veteran” can evoke images of soldiers storming a beachhead or finding refuge during a firefight. But under the laws and regulations of the U.S. government, facing live fire has little to do with someone earning the title.
During the Persian Gulf War, then-President George H.W. Bush designated, for the first time, countries used as combat support areas as combat zones despite the low risk of American service members ever facing hostilities. That helped veterans receive a favorable tax status. Qatar, which is now home to the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, was among the countries that received the designation under Bush’s executive order — a status that remains in effect today.
Majewski’s campaign previously said he calls himself a combat veteran because the place he operated out of — Qatar — is recognized as a combat zone. His military records state he has not received a combat medal.
“Everybody plays a role. But you have to be proud of what your contribution was and not try to step on someone else’s,” said Taylor, the former congressman and Navy SEAL. “Barring him giving some evidence and filing a petition to get a combat ribbon, he’s not a combat veteran.”
Majewski’s campaign has released several documents on social media that they say either back up his claims or refute parts of the AP’s story. None of them address whether or not he was in Afghanistan.
One document from February 2003, when he was still enlisted in the Air Force, indicated Majewski was eligible to reenlist. However, the AP reported that when Majewski was discharged several months later, his paperwork indicated he was “considered but not selected for reenlistment.”
He also claimed that he provided the AP with a picture that shows him in Afghanistan. The picture, which is also on his campaign website, shows a group in fatigues who are inside what appears to be a shelter, but does not include any indicators of where it was taken. | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-ohio-republican-stays-in-campaign-amid-scrutiny-of-service/ | 2022-09-24T16:35:32 | en | 0.985991 |
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ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s secretary of state on Friday announced plans to replace election equipment in one county following “unauthorized access” to the equipment that happened two months after the 2020 election.
A computer forensics team hired by allies of then-President Donald Trump traveled to Coffee County, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta, on Jan. 7, 2021. A company representative has said they made complete copies of the election management system server and other election system components. Later that month, two men who have been involved in efforts to discredit the 2020 election results also spent hours inside the elections office with access to the equipment.
Trump and his supporters pushed false claims about certain voting machines after he lost his bid for reelection. Authorities have said there was no evidence of widespread problems with voting equipment.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said an investigation into the unauthorized access to the equipment by former Coffee County election officials continues.
“Anyone who broke the law should be punished to its full extent,” Raffensperger said in a news release. “But the current election officials in Coffee County have to move forward with the 2022 election, and they should be able to do so without this distraction.”
Footage from security cameras shows “former election officials in Coffee County permitting access by unauthorized individuals to equipment that under Georgia law should have been secured,” the release said. The footage was produced in response to subpoenas issued by plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit against state election officials that claims the state’s touchscreen voting machines aren’t secure.
The county’s election management server and central scanner workstation were previously replaced in June 2021, officials have said. The county will receive 100 new touchscreen voting machines, 100 printers, 10 precinct scanners, 21 tablets used to check in voters and new flash cards and thumb drives to be installed and tested before early voting begins next month.
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, a plaintiff in the voting machine lawsuit, said the election management server and central scanner workstation should also be replaced. She said that’s because they were used with the other potentially contaminated equipment in elections since their replacement last year.
Separately, election officials in the state’s most populous county, in and around Atlanta, said Friday that they had fired a worker after learning that “personally identifiable information was shared with an individual outside the organization,” news outlets reported.
“The individual responsible for the incident no longer works with Fulton County,” the county said in a news release. “Fulton County is committed to the safety and security of all citizens and employees. Each individual affected by this incident will be notified and will receive credit monitoring services.” | https://fox4kc.com/politics/ap-politics/ap-voting-equipment-to-be-replaced-after-unauthorized-access/ | 2022-09-24T16:35:39 | en | 0.975885 |
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — An approaching storm threatens to delay NASA’s next launch attempt for its new moon rocket, already grounded for weeks by fuel leaks.
A tropical depression in the southern Caribbean is moving toward Florida and could become a major hurricane.
Managers on Friday declared that the rocket is now ready to blast off on its first test flight, after overcoming more hydrogen leaks during a fueling test earlier in the week. It will be the first time a crew capsule orbits the moon in 50 years; the spacecraft will carry mannequins but no astronauts.
Teams will keep monitoring the forecast and decide no later than Saturday whether to not only delay the test flight, but haul the rocket off the pad and back to the hangar. It’s unclear when the next launch attempt would be — whether October or even November — if the rocket must seek shelter indoors.
The preference is to remain at the launch pad and try for a Tuesday liftoff, “but there are still some uncertainties in the forecast,” said NASA’s Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems.
It takes three days of preparations to get the rocket back into Kennedy Space Center’s mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building, a 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) trip lasting several hours.
“I don’t think we’re cutting it close,” Whitmeyer told reporters. “We’re just taking it a step at a time.”
The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket can withstand gusts of 85 mph (137 kph) at the pad, but only 46 mph (74 kph) once it’s on the move.
This would be the third launch attempt for the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA. Fuel leaks and other technical problems scrapped the first two tries, in late August and early September.
Although hydrogen fuel seeped past newly installed seals during Wednesday’s dress rehearsal, the launch team got the leakage down to acceptable levels by slowing the flow and reducing the pressure in the lines. That gave the launch team the confidence to proceed with a Tuesday launch attempt, officials said.
Managers said that the 30-year space shuttle program also saw plenty of hydrogen fuel leaks and hurricane-related rollbacks. The moon rocket’s main engines are actually upgraded versions of what flew on shuttles.
Also, the Space Force has extended the certification of on-board batteries that are part of the flight safety system — at least through the beginning of October.
NASA has just two chances to launch the rocket — Tuesday and Oct. 2 — before a two-week blackout period begins. The next launch period would open Oct. 17.
Astronauts would climb aboard for the second test flight around the moon in 2024. The third mission, targeted for 2025, would see a pair of astronauts landing on the moon.
___
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Albert Pujols hit his 699th career home run on Friday night, continuing his remarkable run toward history in his final season.
The 42-year-old St. Louis Cardinals slugger went deep to the left-field pavilion off Los Angeles Dodgers lefty Andrew Heaney on a 1-2 pitch with one out in the third inning. The ball traveled 434 feet and landed several rows up. Pujols received a standing ovation from the crowd at Dodger Stadium.
Pujols is trying to become the fourth major leaguer to reach 700 homers, following Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714).
Pujols hit his 20th home run of the year, including 13 since the start of August. He is retiring at the end of the season.
The homer gave the Cardinals a 2-0 lead.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Motorcyclists, police, and community members spent Saturday morning taking part in this year's 14th annual Ride of Life.
A police escort led the way as hundreds of bikers rode through the streets, going through neighbors impacted by violence. The family of two brothers murdered 97 days apart was expected to be one of many families impacted by violence taking part in Saturday event.
The event is organized through a partnership between NEFL Bikers and M.A.D. D.A.D.S. with the goal of raising violent crime awareness and remembering past victims. According to Donald Foy, president of MAD DADS, this event started when a group of bikers came to him looking for a way to get involved in the community.
The goal is to get criminals off the street and encourage those in the community to break the code of silence.
“The community doesn’t feel that anybody cares about them. We asked them to break the code of silence, but no body steps up with that. So this ride is to touch their hearts, to let them know that someone does care about them," Donald Foy, president of MAD DADS , said.
The ride started at Baymeadows Road, with participants meeting at Harley Davidson before heading off into neighborhoods around our area, passing by past crime scenes and areas that have been impacted by crime.
“We’re asking that the community be out and wave at us, to show that you care and that you understand that the bicyclists are coming to you to say that we care about you." Foy said.
Registration started Saturday morning around 9:30am, the cost was $20 to participate, and the ride started at 11am .
A luncheon was held after the ride. | https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/community/ride-for-peace-jacksonville/77-76845528-e2dc-4a21-a3d3-8946ad2714e3 | 2022-09-24T16:35:58 | en | 0.983349 |
The governing body for Formula One on Friday said IndyCar star Colton Herta will not be granted the Super License the American needs to join the F1 grid next season.
“The FIA confirms that an enquiry was made via the appropriate channels that led to the FIA confirming that the driver Colton Herta does not have the required number of points to be granted an FIA Super Licence,” the FIA said in a statement.
The FIA decision was not a surprise.
Red Bull was interested in the 22-year-old Californian and considering giving Herta a seat at AlphaTauri, its junior team. AlphaTauri has already said that Pierre Gasly will return next season and Yuki Tsunoda received a contract extension earlier this week.
However, AlphaTauri has acknowledged it would release Gasly, who is apparently wanted at Alpine, but only if it had a compelling driver such as Herta to put in the car. F1 has not had an American on the grid since Alexander Rossi in 2015, but Herta did not particularly want the FIA to make an exception to the licensing system to get him a seat.
At issue is how the FIA rates IndyCar, a series it does not govern. The points it awards to IndyCar drivers rank somewhere between F2 and F3, the two junior feeder series into F1.
IndyCar drivers have criticized the system in defense of Herta and the intense, close racing of their own highly competitive series. Herta has won seven IndyCar races, is the youngest winner in series history and has four starts in the Indianapolis 500. He qualified on the front row in 2021 and finished a career-best eighth in 2020.
Rossi, who has spent the last four seasons as Herta’s teammate at Andretti Autosport, lashed out this week because “I’m so sick and tired of this back and forth” regarding the licensing.
“The whole premise of it was to keep people from buying their way into F1 and allowing talent to be the motivating factor,” Rossi wrote on social media. “That’s great. We all agree Colton has the talent and capability to be in F1. That’s also great and he should get that opportunity if it’s offered to him. Period.
“Motorsport still remains as the most high profile sport in the world where money can outweigh talent. What is disappointing and in my opinion, the fundamental problem, is that the sporting element so often took a backseat to the business side that here had to be a method put in place in order for certain teams to stop taking drivers solely based on their financial backing.”
Rossi added those decisions “whether out of greed or necessity, is what cost Colton the opportunity to make the decision for himself as to if he wanted to alter career paths and race in F1. Not points on a license.”
The system favors drivers who compete in FIA-sanctioned series. For example, Linus Lundqvist earned his Super License by winning the Indy Lights championship.
Lundqvist’s required points come via the 15 he earned for the Lights title, 10 points for finishing third in Lights last year and his 2020 victory in the FIA-governed Formula Regional Americas Championship, which earned him 18 points.
That gave the 23-year-old Swede a total of 43 points, three more than needed for the license.
Herta, meanwhile, ended the IndyCar season with 32 points. He can still earn a Super License by picking up one point for any free practice sessions he runs this year; McLaren holds his F1 rights and could put him in a car. Herta could also potentially run in an FIA-sanctioned winter series to pick up some points.
Michael Andretti, who has petitioned the FIA to expand its grid to add two cars for him to launch a team, said he never bothered to explore potential replacements for Herta on the IndyCar team because he was confident the Super License request would be rejected.
Andretti has been met by severe resistance from existing F1 teams and even F1 itself in his hope to add an 11th team. Andretti could still get on the grid by purchasing an existing team and he’d like to build his program around Herta, who is under contract in IndyCar to Andretti through 2023.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Ledow the Magician and Ed Tucker of Retrorama Collectibles joined the GMJ crew for a magical show on Saturday morning.
In between magic tricks, the duo promoted the The Retrorama Collectibles 10th Anniversary Bash. The event is on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Ramada Conference Center in Mandarin, 3130 Hartley Road. General admission and parking is free.
The show will feature a great selection of GI Joe, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Lego, Funko Pops, Star Wars, Star trek, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, Monsters, and a whole lot more.
There will be special performances and displays throughout the bash.
Retrorama Collectibles is a Jacksonville based organization dedicated to bringing North Florida the best collectibles shows possible. | https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/local/ledow-the-magician-joins-the-gmj-crew/77-6429d26b-2b36-44b4-a0dc-fde4d718c525 | 2022-09-24T16:36:04 | en | 0.88197 |
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fans looking to watch Aaron Judge’s pursuit of the AL home run record or Albert Pujols chase 700 homers live Friday night will need to it via streaming.
Apple TV+ has exclusive coverage of both games as part of its “Friday Night Baseball” package. The games were selected and announced in early August.
When games air nationally, it also means other networks can’t do live cut-ins. ESPN and MLB Network did that earlier in the week when games were only available on the team’s regional networks.
Fans can access both games Friday night on Apple TV+ for free and without the need for a subscription. The Apple TV app is on all Apple devices and can also be accessed on smart TVs, gaming consoles, and cable boxes.
This is the first season of Apple’s deal with Major League Baseball, which is part of a trend of leagues partnering with streaming platforms for a package of games.
Judge is at 60 homers as the New York Yankees host the Boston Red Sox. His next homer would tie him with Roger Maris for the AL record. Maris hit 61 for the Yankees in 1961.
Pujols’ St. Louis Cardinals visit the Los Angeles Dodgers. Pujols needs two to become the fourth player to reach the 700 home run milestone, but has not gone deep in his last six games.
Pujols played most of last season with the Dodgers after being released by the Los Angeles Angels. Of the 12 homers he hit for the Dodgers last season, eight came at Dodger Stadium.
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NEW YORK (AP) — It’s only been a few days since Aaron Judge went deep. It just feels like more, with history hanging on his every swing.
Judge was held without a home run for the third straight game, keeping him at 60 for the season and one shy of Roger Maris’ American League record, but the New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox 5-4 on Friday night.
“He’s getting off the right swings. He’s making good swing decisions. It’s going to come,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “But it is a peek behind just how great a player he is, to that when he doesn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark, he’s still impacting us in a big way.”
Jose Trevino singled home the tiebreaking run with two outs in the eighth inning, and the first-place Yankees reduced their magic number to four for clinching the AL East title. They’ve won five games in a row and nine of 11.
With four of Maris’ children in the ballpark again, Judge went 1 for 4 with a sharp single. He struck out twice and lofted a high fly to left field that excited the sellout crowd of 47,346 for a second or two.
Since connecting for No. 60 on Tuesday night against Pittsburgh, the closest Judge has come to matching Maris’ 1961 mark was a 404-foot drive caught right in front of the center field fence Thursday.
“He’s just missed two the last two nights,” Boone said.
The slugger has two games left to catch Maris on New York’s current homestand — Saturday afternoon and Sunday night versus the rival Red Sox. After that, the Yankees head to Toronto and have just three home games remaining: Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 against Baltimore.
One night after the Yankees wrapped up their sixth consecutive playoff berth, Boone and ace Gerrit Cole were ejected in a sixth-inning spat with plate umpire Brian Knight.
Pinch-hitter Harrison Bader drew a two-out walk in the eighth and was credited with a stolen base when a wild pickoff attempt by Matt Strahm (3-4) allowed him to reach third.
Trevino singled to center on the next pitch.
Jonathan Loáisiga (2-3) pitched two scoreless innings, working around a pair of one-out singles in the ninth.
Alex Verdugo tied it for Boston with a three-run homer in the sixth. Tommy Pham also went deep against Cole, who has served up 31 long balls this season — most in the American League.
Verdugo sent a 100 mph fastball into the Yankees’ bullpen in right-center, one pitch after Cole thought he had an inning-ending strikeout. The right-hander dropped his head and bent over behind the mound as Verdugo took a slow trot around the bases.
After the inning, Cole pointed angrily at Knight and was ejected for the first time in his career — although the five-time All-Star was probably done for the night anyway after 103 pitches.
“It wasn’t even close,” Verdugo said. “He wants to steal every pitch. He wants his catcher to steal it.”
Boone joined the argument and was tossed for the 24th time as a manager — and career-high seventh this season.
“The damage there late is personally tough to swallow,” Cole said. “I think that we made some good strides today and I thought that overall I threw the ball well. It’s obviously just an emotional moment.”
Batting in front of Judge, No. 9 hitter Aaron Hicks launched his 100th major league homer and added an RBI single. Gleyber Torres gave New York a 4-1 lead with a two-run double off starter Rich Hill in the fifth.
The 42-year-old Hill retired Judge all three times they squared off, including two strikeouts.
“Obviously, there’s history on the line and he’s having an incredible season,” Hill said. “From a pitcher’s standpoint and a competitive standpoint, you want to face the best and you want to challenge the best.”
STAYING CONSISTENT
Judge laced a hard single in the seventh and has reached base safely in a season-high 22 consecutive games.
“With obviously all the noise around this and the excitement around this, understandably, he’s still going out there and just putting together good at-bat after good at-bat,” Boone said.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Red Sox: RHP Nathan Eovaldi (shoulder inflammation) allowed three runs over three innings in a rehab start for Triple-A Worcester, throwing 57 pitches. He has been sidelined since Aug. 19 but hopes to return before the season ends. … All-Star SS Xander Bogaerts was rested. He is batting .314 and began the night second in the AL to Judge (who dropped a point to .315). Bogaerts could be the biggest obstacle between the Yankees slugger and a Triple Crown. … INF Christian Arroyo rejoined the team after a bout with the flu.
Yankees: 1B Anthony Rizzo was rested. … INF DJ LeMahieu (toe inflammation) has been taking batting practice and it’s possible he could come off the injured list next week in Toronto.
UP NEXT
Red Sox RHP Nick Pivetta (10-11, 4.35 ERA) starts Saturday against Domingo Germán (2-3, 3.12), who has pitched only 2 2/3 innings since Sept. 7.
Judge is 5 for 11 (.455) in his career against Pivetta with two home runs — both this season (No. 32 on July 16 and No. 56 on Sept. 13). Pivetta has an 8.78 ERA in seven career outings versus New York and is 0-3 with an 11.57 ERA over three starts at Yankee Stadium.
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LONDON (AP) — A protester lit a portion of the court and his arm on fire during a match at the Laver Cup tennis event Friday, hours before Roger Federer was scheduled to play for the final time before retiring.
The episode briefly delayed the action at the start of the second set of Stefanos Tsitsipas’ 6-2, 6-1 victory for Team Europe over Diego Schwartzman of Team World at the O2 Arena.
The activist, carrying a lighter and wearing a white T-shirt with a message about private jets, made his way onto the black court and sat down near the net. The person eventually was carried away by security guards.
“It came out of nowhere. … I never had an incident like this happen on court,” Tsitsipas, the runner-up at the 2021 French Open, said afterward. “I hope he’s all right.”
Tsitsipas spoke to the chair umpire to make sure it would be safe to continue to play and asked that a mark left on the court be cleaned up.
The protester “has been arrested and the situation is being handled by the police,” Laver Cup organizers said in a statement.
Federer, a 20-time Grand Slam champion, was slated to compete hours later Friday, teaming up with longtime rival Rafael Nadal in a doubles match.
The 41-year-old Federer hasn’t played an official match since Wimbledon in July 2021 and is ending his playing career after a series of operations on his right knee.
There have been other instances of high-profile tennis matches being interrupted in recent years, including during the 2009 final at Roland Roland Garros, when a man went up to Federer and tried to put a hat on his head.
At this year’s French Open, in June, a protester wearing a T-shirt with the message “We have 1028 days left” interrupted the men’s semifinal between Casper Ruud and 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic by attaching herself to the net with metal wires and glue and kneeling on the court.
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Seattle Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez, a leading candidate for the AL Rookie of the Year award, was put on the 10-day injured list Friday because of a lower back strain.
The move came with Seattle holding the third and final wild-card spot, a half-game behind Tampa Bay and four games ahead of Baltimore. Outfielder Taylor Trammell was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma.
Rodriguez left Thursday’s win at Oakland in the first inning after experiencing back tightness. The 21-year-old leads rookies in home runs (27), runs scored (81), and total bases (251), and is second in RBIs (73) and stolen bases (25). He was the only rookie to be chosen an All-Star this season.
Rodriguez was replaced in center field by Jarred Kelenic for Seattle’s game at Kansas City. Third baseman J.P. Crawford took Rodriguez’s accustomed leadoff spot in the batting order.
“I was anticipating more of (Kelenic’s) reps would come on the corners, but with Julio out now, he’ll be playing in center field,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said. “We’re going to let him run with it.”
Trammell has played 41 games for Seattle this year, batting .208 with four home runs and 10 RBIs. He was hitting .333 with five homers and 12 RBIs in 22 games for Tacoma.
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CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Max Homa never felt more energized over a big putt on a Friday, perhaps because he never had so many people who shared in the celebration.
This is why making the Presidents Cup was the top of his wish list this year, and his latest afternoon heroics at Quail Hollow exceeded expectations.
The final fourballs match was all square with two holes to play, the green surrounded by American players and caddies, captains and their red carts. Homa stepped toward the hole and slammed his fist when he made a 12-foot birdie putt for a 1-up lead.
And then it got even better. Taylor Pendrith was clutch with a 15-foot birdie putt as the Internationals tried to scratch out a third tie. Homa stepped up and delivered again with another 12-foot birdie putt for the win.
The matches felt closer. The outcome was not. Homa’s big putts at the end allowed the Americans to win another session by a 4-1 margin, stretching the lead to 8-2.
“It was pretty surreal,” said Homa, who improved to 2-0 in his debut. “The atmosphere out there is insane. There’s so many people you can feel them on the back of your neck.”
Quail Hollow was packed with 40,000 fans on a gorgeous autumn day, with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush among those at the course.
In five matches that covered 87 holes, the players combined for 67 birdies and three eagles, and three matches went the distance.
All the International team could manage were two halves. What it faces now is a task even more monumental against a U.S. team that looks well on its way to a ninth straight win in this lopsided affair.
“We feel like we’ve played some pretty good golf, some solid golf tee-to-green, particularly the last couple of days,” International captain Trevor Immelman said. “But we have absolutely been out-putted. No doubt about it.”
He was with that final match as Homa and Billy Horschel dropped key putts down the stretch. And when Pendrith dropped his birdie on the last and it look like he and Corey Conners might escape with a half-point, Homa was just as clutch.
“I was nervous as could be over that putt, but it was fun,” Homa said. “I was telling my wife, when we talk about things money can’t buy, money cannot buy that feeling. And that was something that I will remember forever, and I will tell anybody who ever wants to hear about it how that felt.”
For the second straight time on home soil, the powerful American team goes into a double session on Saturday with a mathematical chance to win the cup.
There are four matches of foursomes and fourballs, and the Americans would have to win seven of them and halve the other to clinch the cup. That sounds unlikely, except for who they have and how they’re playing.
The International teams led in one match — Mito Pereira and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, for a total of five holes — that ended in a halve with Cameron Young and Kevin Kisner.
Over two days and 10 matches, International teams have had a lead for only 10 of the 170 holes that have been played.
The 12 Americans are among the top 25 in the world and most of the are playing like it. The International team was cobbled together at the last minute with more defections to Saudi-funded LIV Golf run by Greg Norman, a former Presidents Cup captain.
Norman sent out a tweet wishing the International team well, accompanied by a photo of the team from its lone win in 1998. “Outside of all this angst — golf is golf, competition is competition; something every golfer thrives on.”
One of replies was from Immelman: “LOL.”
“I pretty much say it exactly as I’m thinking it,” Immelman said. “What I said was exactly what I was doing when I read that tweet. I was laughing out loud.”
The strength of the American team came from a pair of dynamic partnerships. Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele were 5-up at the turn and easily held on for a 3-and-2 win over Hideki Matsuyama and Tom Kim.
Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas improved to 6-2 as a team in Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup matches, leading from the fourth hole in a 2-and-1 victory over the Australian pair of Adam Scott and Cameron Davis.
As usual, Spieth and Thomas were far from dull.
They were 2 up with five holes to play when Thomas hit 6-iron that came inches away from an ace on the par-3 14th over water to a back pin for birdie. And right when it looked as though the International side might get closer, Spieth was up to his tricks.
His approach on the 15th was headed for the stream when it hit the rocks and caromed over the green into the rough. He chipped 15 feet by, and then made the putt to halve the hole.
The Spieth-Thomas and Cantlay-Schauffele teams, formed as much by friendship as their games, are 2-0 this week and are tough to beat no matter whom the International team sends out against them.
The passion came from the Presidents Cup rookies.
Horschel hasn’t played for his country since the 2007 Walker Cup and said he felt like vomiting for three hours ahead of his match. For Homa, it was the second straight day he was in the final match, and both made it to the 18th green with a big audience outside and inside the ropes.
“It’s surreal to have 10 of the best golfers I’ve ever seen in my life watching you and you’ve got to help them,” Homa said. “It’s a heavy weight. But it’s also really fun.”
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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — In speech after speech, world leaders dwelled on the topic consuming this year’s U.N. General Assembly meeting: Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A few, like Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, prodded the world not to forget everything else.
He, too, was quick to bring up the biggest military confrontation in Europe since World War II. But he wasn’t there to discuss the conflict itself, nor its disruption of food, fuel and fertilizer markets.
“The ongoing war in Ukraine is making it more difficult,” Buhari lamented, “to tackle the perennial issues that feature each year in the deliberations of this assembly.”
He went on to name a few: inequality, nuclear disarmament, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the more than 1 million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar who have been living in limbo for years in Bangladesh.
In an environment where words are parsed, confrontations are calibrated and worry is acute that the war and its wider effects could worsen, no one dismissed the importance of the conflict. But comments such as Buhari’s quietly spoke to a certain unease, sometimes bordering on frustration, about the international community’s absorption in Ukraine.
Those murmurs are audible enough that the United States’ U.N. ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, made a point of previewing Washington’s plans to address climate change, food insecurity, health and other issues during the diplomatic community’s premier annual gathering.
“Other countries have expressed a concern that as we focus on Ukraine, we are not paying attention to what is happening in other crises around the world,” she said, vowing that it wasn’t so. Still, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken complained at a Security Council meeting days later that Russia’s invasion is distracting the U.N. from working on other important matters.
In many years at the assembly, there’s a hot spot or news development that takes up a lot of diplomatic oxygen. As former U.N. official Jan Egeland puts it, “the world manages to focus on one crisis at a time.”
“But I cannot, in these many years as a humanitarian worker or a diplomat, remember any time when the focus was so strongly on one conflict only while the world was falling apart elsewhere,” Egeland, now secretary-general of an international aid group called the Norwegian Refugee Council, said in a phone interview.
Certainly, no one was surprised by the attention devoted to a conflict with Cold War echoes, oblique nuclear threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin, shelling that has endangered the continent’s largest atomic power plant, and far-reaching economic effects. The urgency only intensified during the weeklong meeting as Russia mobilized some of its military reserves.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland — on Ukraine’s doorstep — stressed in his speech that “we mustn’t show any ‘war fatigue’” regarding the conflict. But he also noted that a recent trip to Africa left him pondering how the West has treated other conflicts.
“Were we equally resolute during the tragedies of Syria, Libya, Yemen?” he asked himself, and the assembly. And didn’t the West return to “business as usual” after wars in Congo and the Horn of Africa?
“While condemning the invasion of Ukraine,” Duda added, “do we give equal weight to fighting mercenaries who seek to destabilize the Sahel and threaten many other states in Africa?”
He isn’t the only one asking.
Over seven months of war, there have been pointed observations from some quarters about how quickly and extensively wealthy and powerful nations mobilized money, military aid, General Assembly votes to support Ukraine and offer refuge to its residents, compared to the global response to some other conflicts.
South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor last month told reporters – and the visiting Blinken — that while the war is awful, “we should be equally concerned at what is happening to the people of Palestine as we are with what is happening to the people of Ukraine.”
At the General Assembly, she added that, from South Africa’s vantage point, “our greatest global challenges are poverty, inequality, joblessness and a feeling of being entirely ignored and excluded.”
Tuvalu’s prime minister, Kausea Natano, said in an interview on the assembly’s sidelines that the war shouldn’t “be an excuse” for countries to ignore their financial commitments to a top priority for his island nation: fighting climate change. Part of Bolivian President Luis Arce’s speech compared the untold billions of dollars spent on fighting in Ukraine in a matter of months to the $11 billion committed to the U.N.-sponsored Green Climate Fund over more than a decade.
To be sure, most leaders made time for issues beyond Ukraine in their allotted, if not always enforced, 15 minutes at the mic. And some mentioned the war only in passing, or not at all.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro devoted his time to lambasting capitalism, consumerism and the U.S.-led war on drugs, particularly its focus on coca plant eradication. Krygyz President Sadyr Zhaparov, whose country has close ties to Russia, homed in on his homeland’s border dispute with Tajikistan. Jordan’s King Abdullah II briefly mentioned the war’s effects on food supplies, then moved on to sustainable economic growth, Syrian refugees and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ukraine is undeniably a dominant concern for the European Union. But foreign policy chief Josep Borrell insisted the bloc hasn’t lost sight of other problems.
“It’s not a question of choosing between Ukraine and the others. We can do all at the same time,” he said on the eve of the assembly.
Yet diplomatic attention and time are precious, sought-after resources. So, too, the will and money to help.
U.N. humanitarian office figures show that governments and private organizations have put up about $3.7 billion to aid Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees this year. About $2 billion has been raised for war-torn Yemen, where the U.N. says over 17 million people are struggling with acute hunger.
And those are big campaigns. Just $428 million has been raised for Myanmar and for the Rohingya in Bangladesh.
Egeland’s organization helps uprooted people around the world, including in Ukraine. But he feels an “urgent need to get attention to absolute freefalls elsewhere.”
“It didn’t get better in Congo or in Yemen or in Myanmar or in Venezuela because it got so much worse in Europe, in and around Ukraine,” Egeland said. “We need to fight for those who are starving in the shadows of this horrific war in Ukraine.”
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Associated Press writers Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, and Aya Batrawy and Pia Sarkar at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols hit his 700th home run on Friday night, connecting for his second drive of the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers and becoming the fourth player to reach the milestone in major league history.
With the drive in the final days of his last big league season, the 42-year-old Pujols joined Barry Bonds (762 homers), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714) in one of baseball’s most exclusive clubs.
A man wearing a blue Dodgers shirt with Hideo Nomo’s No. 16 on the back snagged the 700th homer ball. He was whisked under the stands as he clutched a black glove containing the historic souvenir ball to his chest. Prolonged negotiations went on before the man was escorted out of Dodger Stadium flanked by 10 security personnel and into a waiting SUV.
Showing the pop from his younger, dominant days, the 42-year-old Pujols hit No. 699 in the third inning, then launched No. 700 in the fourth.
A 37-year-old Los Angeles man, Cesar Soriano, snagged No. 699. He turned the ball over to security after being told he could meet Pujols.
The Cardinals routed the NL West champion Dodgers 11-0.
It’s been a remarkable and resurgent run for Pujols. This was his 14th home run since the start of August for the NL Central-leading Cardinals, and his 21st of the season.
Fairly recently, many considered him a long shot to reach 700 this season. He went into August batting only .235 with just seven home runs.
But with two long shots on this evening, he made his mark.
Pujols’ historic homer was a three-run shot against Dodgers reliever Phil Bickford. The ball landed in the first couple rows of the left-field pavilion, the same location his two-run shot touched down the previous inning off left-hander Andrew Heaney.
He jogged around the bases smiling all the way. After crossing the plate and pointing his fingers skyward, Pujols went over to greet fellow Dominican and former Dodgers star Adrian Beltre. They high-fived through the protective netting.
Then he was off to the Cardinals dugout, getting hugs and congratulations every step of the way.
Pujols received a prolonged standing ovation from the crowd — he finished out last season while playing for the Dodgers. He took a curtain call, raising his cap in acknowledgment.
The crowd of 50,041 chanted “Pujols! Pujols!” They finally sat down after being on their feet in anticipation of seeing history.
His 700th homer gave him a couple of other nice, round numbers, too — he has hit 500 home runs off right-handers and 200 off lefties.
Pujols connected twice on the same night New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge remained on deck for home run history. He remained at 60 homers, just short of tying Roger Maris’ AL mark of 61 in 1961, in a win at Yankee Stadium.
Pujols’ two bops gave the Cardinals a 5-0 lead, with all the runs coming courtesy of his big bat.
The Cardinals extended their lead to 8-0 in the fifth on Dylan Carlson’s RBI double and Lars Nootbaar’s two-run homer. They added two more runs in the seventh on Juan Yepez’s solo shot and Nootbaar’s RBI single.
Pujols struck out swinging in his first at-bat against Heaney and grounded out to short in the sixth. He was replaced in the eighth by pinch-hitter Alec Burleson, who homered.
José Quintana (6-6) got the victory. He scattered five hits over 6 2/3 innings and struck out six. Heaney (3-3) took the loss.
Pujols snapped a tie with Alex Rodriguez for fourth on the career list when he hit career homer No. 697 against Pittsburgh on Sept. 11.
The three-time NL MVP was batting .189 on July 4. But he started to find his stroke in August, swatting seven homers in one 10-game stretch that helped St. Louis pull away in the division race.
“I know that early in the year … I obviously wanted better results,” Pujols said after he homered in a 1-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 22. “But I felt like I was hitting the ball hard. Sometimes this game is going to take more away from you than the game (is) giving you back.
“So I think at the end of the day you have to be positive and just stay focused and trust your work. That’s something that I’ve done all the time.”
Pujols has enjoyed a productive season after returning to St. Louis in March for a $2.5 million, one-year contract. It’s his highest total since he hit 23 homers for the Angels in 2019.
He plans to retire when the season ends.
Pujols also began his career in St. Louis. He was selected by the Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1999 amateur draft and won the 2001 NL Rookie of the Year award.
The Dominican Republic native hit at least .300 with at least 30 homers and 100 RBIs in each of his first 10 seasons. He helped the Cardinals to World Series titles in 2006 and 2011.
He set a career high with 49 homers in 2006 — one of seven seasons with at least 40 homers. He led the majors with 47 homers in 2009 and topped the NL with 42 in 2010.
Pujols left St. Louis in free agency in December 2011, signing a $240 million, 10-year contract with the Angels. He was waived by the Angels in May 2021, and then joined the Dodgers and hit 12 homers and drove in 38 runs in 85 games.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Dodgers: All-Star RHP Tony Gonsolin (forearm) will throw two innings in a rehab assignment Tuesday for Triple-A Oklahoma City. … LHP David Price (wrist) will throw to live hitters again in a couple days.
HONORING ALBERT AND YADI
The Dodgers honored Cardinals teammates Pujols and catcher Yadier Molina, both of whom are retiring at season’s end.
The players were greeted by a standing ovation when they strode to home plate before the game. Their career highlights were shown on the stadium’s big screens.
Both players were presented with white golf bags before Pujols took the mic and thanked his former teammates and fans for treating him well during his lone season in LA last year.
UP NEXT
Cardinals: LHP Jordan Montgomery (8-5, 3.26 ERA) makes his second road start with the team since coming from the Yankees. He tossed a one-hit shutout in his other one against the Chicago Cubs on Aug. 22 in a 1-0 victory.
Dodgers: LHP Clayton Kershaw (9-3, 2.39) makes his 20th start of the season. He has 117 strikeouts in 109 1/3 innings.
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AP freelance writer Jolene Latimer contributed to this report.
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SAN DIEGO (AP) — A fugitive defense contractor nicknamed “Fat Leonard” who claims to have incriminating sex photos of U.S. Navy brass could become the latest bargaining chip in Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s efforts to win official recognition from the Biden administration, according to experts.
But it’s unclear how hard the U.S. government will fight for the return of Leonard Glenn Francis, the Malaysian owner of a ship servicing company in Southeast Asia who is the central character in one of the largest bribery scandals in Pentagon history.
He fled home custody in San Diego on Sept. 4 and was arrested by Venezuelan police Tuesday attempting to board a flight at the Simon Bolivar International Airport outside Caracas. Francis had his first court appearance Thursday, according to a law enforcement official in Venezuela who spoke Friday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss judicial proceedings.
The official, who had been briefed on the case, said now it is up to the United States to make the next move. U.S. authorities have 30 days to formally request his extradition, something that the official viewed as unlikely given that the Biden administration recognizes opposition leader Juan Guaido — not Maduro — as the country’s legitimate ruler.
Venezuela and the United States have an extradition agreement but it’s not clear if U.S. authorities have made a formal request. In an email, a Department of Justice spokesperson said the agency does not comment on extradition-related matters. Even under normal circumstances, extraditions can take many months or even years to complete.
The Biden administration doesn’t officially recognize Maduro’s socialist government, has no embassy in Venezuela and has imposed crushing sanctions on the country that have further embittered relations.
U.S. indictments against Maduro and several members of his inner circle on narco-terrorism or money laundering charges has been a major irritant between the countries. The most serious case involves businessman Alex Saab, who was apprehended on a U.S. warrant in 2020 while making a fuel stop in Cape Verde en route to Iran. Maduro considers Saab a Venezuelan diplomat and has spared no effort fighting to bring him back.
“I have no doubt the Venezuelans will make hay of (Francis’ arrest), especially because they have felt the effects of the long arm of the U.S. justice system,” said David Smilde, a longtime expert on Venezuela who teaches at Tulane University.
Francis is the mastermind of a huge bribery scheme that ensnared dozens of Navy officials. Francis admitted to wooing them with sex parties in Asia in exchange for classified information on Navy ship routes that he used to benefit his Singapore-based company.
Francis pleaded guilty in 2015 and faced up to 25 years in prison. While awaiting sentencing, he was given home confinement in San Diego to receive medical care. He provided information to U.S. prosecutors that secured the convictions of 33 of 34 defendants.
But with the case nearing its end and his sentencing hearing just weeks away, he cut off his ankle monitor and disappeared across the border into Mexico. Venezuelan authorities say he then went to Cuba and then Venezuela, and was planning to go to Russia when he was apprehended.
In his heyday, the towering man with a wide girth and gregarious personality wielded huge influence as a main point of contact for U.S. Navy ships across Asia. His family’s ship servicing business, Singapore-based Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd. or GDMA, supplied food, water and fuel to vessels for decades.
He plied officers with Kobe beef, expensive cigars, concert tickets and sex parties at luxury hotels from Thailand to the Philippines. In exchange, commanders went as far as steering their ships, mostly from the Navy’s 7th Fleet, to ports he controlled so he could cover up as much as $35 million in fake charges.
It’s unclear what information, if any, Francis has that could bring further embarrassment to the U.S. Navy. Still, Smilde said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Francis pop up in a Venezuelan-government produced confession video hinting that he has more salacious details.
“I’m sure the Venezuelans would delight in that,” he said.
Neither U.S. nor Venezuelan officials have released details about how Francis spent his time on the run or what he planned to do in Russia, but his travels to three countries in a period of two weeks indicate he had access to money and other help.
It’s unclear if Francis had contacts in Russia offering to protect him, and if he did, what they wanted in return. Francis bragged about still holding compromising photos and videos of Navy officials.
“What really worried the United States the most was these officers being corrupted by me, that they would be corruptible by the foreign powers,” Francis said in an interview with podcaster Tom Wright, who created a nine-part series on the case last year.
Jason Forge, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego involved in high-profile extradition cases out of Mexico, said Francis may try to convince Venezuela that he’s got something to offer, but Forge doubts he truly does. Francis, who was put under house arrest after undergoing surgeries, according to court documents, also has been a costly prisoner because of his failing health.
“Even assuming he has embarrassing photos and videos of various naval officers, unless they’re of Hunter Biden at one of the parties, I just don’t see the U.S. caring,” he said, referring to Biden’s son.
U.S. officials point out that Venezuela doesn’t appear to have stopped Francis on his way into the country and could easily deport him on their own without any judicial proceeding.
_____
Goodman reported from Miami. | https://fox4kc.com/top-headlines/ap-top-headlines/ap-fat-leonard-may-be-venezuela-bargaining-chip-experts-say/ | 2022-09-24T16:36:49 | en | 0.970496 |
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HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — Fiona washed houses into the sea, tore the roofs off others and knocked out power to the vast majority of two Canadian provinces Saturday as it made landfall as a big, powerful post-tropical cyclone.
Fiona transformed from a hurricane into a post-tropical storm late Friday, but it still had hurricane-strength winds and brought drenching rains and huge waves. There was no immediate confirmation of fatalities or injures.
Ocean waves pounded the town of Channel-Port Aux Basques on the southern coast of Newfoundland, where entire structures were washed into the sea. Mayor Brian Button said Saturday over social media that people were being evacuated to high ground as winds knocked down power lines.
“We’ve already had houses … that are washed away,” he said.
Button said anybody who has been told to leave their home needs to leave.
“I’m seeing homes in the ocean. I’m seeing rubble floating all over the place. It’s complete and utter destruction. There’s an apartment that is gone, that is literally just rubble,” said René J. Roy, a resident of Channel-Port Aux Basques and chief editor at Wreckhouse Press, said in a phone interview.
Roy estimated between eight to 12 houses and buildings have washed into the sea.
“It’s quite terrifying. I’m seeing coastal erosion. I see a house dangling out in the middle of air,” Roy said.
Jolene Garland, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Newfoundland and Labrador, said a woman was safe after being “tossed into the water as her home collapsed” in the Channel-Port Aux Basques area. She said authorities received a report of another individual being swept out to sea but conditions were too dangerous to immediately confirm or respond.
Garland described extreme weather conditions along the southwest coast of Newfoundland that included “high winds, high waves, flooding and electrical fires.” Multiple structures have been destroyed by high seas, she said
The Royal Canadian Police said the town of 4,000 is in a state of emergency as authorities deal with multiple electrical fires and residential flooding.
More than 415,000 Nova Scotia Power customers — about 80% of the province of almost 1 million — were affected by outages Saturday morning. Over 82,000 customers in the province of Prince Edward Island, almost the entire province, were also without power, while NB Power in New Brunswick reported 44,329 were without electricity.
The fast-moving Fiona made Nova Scotia landfall before dawn Saturday, with its power down from the Category 4 strength it had early Friday when passing by Bermuda, though officials there reported no serious damage.
The Canadian Hurricane Centre tweeted early Saturday that Fiona has the lowest pressure ever recorded for a storm making landfall in Canada. Forecasters had warned it could be the one of the most powerful storms to hit the country.
A state of local emergency has also been declared by the mayor and council of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality amid widespread power outages, road closures and damage to homes.
“There are homes that have been significantly damaged due to downed trees, big old trees falling down and causing significant damage. We’re also seeing houses that their roofs have completely torn off, windows breaking in. There is a huge amount of debris in the roadways,” Amanda McDougall, mayor of Cape Breton Regional Municipality, told The Associated Press
“There is a lot of damage to belongings and structures but no injuries to people as of this point. Again we’re still in the midst of this,” she said. “It’s still terrifying. I’m just sitting here in my living room and it feels like the patio doors are going to break in with those big gusts.”
McDougall said the shelter they opened was full overnight and they will look to open more.
The federal Public Safety ministry advised against all non-essential travel by car.
A hurricane watch was issued for coastal expanses of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided to delay his trip to Japan for the funeral for assassinated former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“We of course hope there won’t be much needed, but we feel there probably will be,” Trudeau said. “Listen to the instructions of local authorities and hang in there for the next 24 hours.”
The U.S. hurricane center said Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph) Saturday. It was moving across the Golf of St. Lawrence.
Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 115 miles (185 kilometers) from the center and tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 405 miles (650 kilometers).
Hurricanes in Canada are somewhat rare, in part because once the storms reach colder waters, they lose their main source of energy. But post-tropical cyclones still can have hurricane-strength winds, although they have a cold core and no visible eye. They also often lose their symmetric form and more resemble a comma.
“Just an incredibly strong storm as it made landfall. And even as it moves away it is continuing to affect the region for several more hours today,” said Ian Hubbard, meteorologist for the Canadian Hurricane Centre in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, said Saturday morning.
Hubbard said he lost power at his house and had to drive the long way to work because bridges have been closed. He said there are downed trees and signs in the Halifax area.
In Sydney, Nova Scotia, the largest city in Cape Breton, about 20 people have taken refuge at the Centre 200 sports and entertainment facility, said Christina Lamey, a spokeswoman for the region.
Arlene and Robert Grafilo fled to Centre 200 with their children after a massive tree fell on their duplex apartment.
“We heard a lot of noise outside and then we realized that there are a lot of cracks in the house and we looked outside and saw the tree had fallen,” said Arlene Grafilo, 43, as her children — ages 3 and 10 — played in a waiting area set up by the Red Cross.
“We were trapped and we couldn’t open the doors and the windows, so that’s when we decided to call 911. The children were scared,” she said, adding firefighters eventually rescued them.
Bob Robichaud, Warning Preparedness Meteorologist for the Canadian Hurricane Centre, said Fiona was shaping up to be a bigger storm system than Hurricane Juan, which caused extensive damage to the Halifax area in 2003.
He added that Fiona is about the same size as post-tropical storm Dorian in 2019. “But it is stronger than Dorian was,” he said.
Authorities in Nova Scotia also sent an emergency alert to phones warning of Fiona’s arrival and urging people to say inside, avoid the shore, charge devices and have enough supplies for at least 72 hours.
Fiona so far has been blamed for at least five deaths — two in Puerto Rico, two in the Dominican Republic and one in the French island of Guadeloupe.
Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center said newly formed Tropical Storm Ian in the Caribbean was expected to keep strengthening and hit Cuba early Tuesday as a hurricane and then hit southern Florida early Wednesday.
It was centered about 270 miles (435 kilometers) southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. It had maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 15 mph (24 kph). A hurricane watch was issued for the Cayman Islands.
___
Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto and Morgan Lee in Ventura, California contributed to this report. | https://fox4kc.com/top-headlines/ap-top-headlines/ap-fiona-rushes-at-atlantic-canada-with-strong-rains-and-wind/ | 2022-09-24T16:36:56 | en | 0.976729 |
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ATLANTA (AP) — The tale of breached voting equipment in one of the country’s most important political battleground states involves a bail bondsman, a prominent attorney tied to former President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and a cast of characters from a rural county that rarely draws notice from outsiders.
How they all came together and what it could mean for the security of voting in the upcoming midterm elections are questions tangled up in a lawsuit and state investigations that have prompted calls to ditch the machines altogether.
Details of the unauthorized access of sensitive voting equipment in Coffee County, Georgia, became public last month when documents and emails revealed the involvement of high-profile Trump supporters. That’s also when it caught the attention of an Atlanta-based prosecutor who is leading a separate investigation of Trump’s efforts to undo his loss in the state.
Since then, revelations about what happened in the county of 43,000 people have raised questions about whether the Dominion Voting Systems machines used in Georgia have been compromised.
The public disclosure of the breach began with a rambling phone call from an Atlanta-area bail bondsman to the head of an election security advocacy group involved in a long-running lawsuit targeting the state’s voting machines.
According to a recording filed in court earlier this year, the bail bondsman said he’d chartered a jet and was with a computer forensics team at the Coffee County elections office when they “imaged every hard drive of every piece of equipment.”
That happened on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and two days after a runoff election in which Democrats swept both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate seats.
The trip to Coffee County, about 200 miles south of Atlanta, to copy data and software from elections equipment was directed by attorney Sidney Powell and other Trump allies, according to deposition testimony and documents produced in response to subpoenas.
Later that month, security camera footage shows, two men who have participated in efforts to question the results of the 2020 election in several states spent days going in and out of the Coffee County elections office.
The footage also shows local election and Republican Party officials welcoming the visitors and allowing them access to the election equipment. The video seems to contradict statements some of the officials made about their apparent involvement.
The new information has made Coffee County, where Trump won nearly 70% of the vote two years ago, a focal point of concerns over the security of voting machines. While there is no evidence of widespread problems with voting equipment in 2020, some Trump supporters have spread false information about machines and the election outcome.
Election security experts and activists fear state election officials haven’t acted fast enough in the face of what they see as a real threat.
The copying of the software and its availability for download means potential bad actors could build exact copies of the Dominion system to test different types of attacks, said University of California, Berkeley computer scientist Philip Stark, an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the voting machines lawsuit.
“This is like bank robbers having an exact replica of the vault that they’re trying to break into,” he said.
Stark said the risks could be minimized by using hand-marked paper ballots and rigorous audits. Dominion says its equipment remains secure.
Marilyn Marks, executive director of the Coalition for Good Governance, the group that sued over the state’s voting machines, said the state has been slow to investigate. She was on the receiving end of the phone call from the bail bondsman.
The state, she said, has been “repeatedly looking the other way when faced with flashing red lights of serious voting system security problems.”
State officials say they’re confident the election system is safe. All Coffee County election equipment that wasn’t already replaced will be swapped out before early voting begins next month, the secretary of state’s office said Friday.
State officials also noted they were deluged by false claims after the 2020 election.
“In retrospect, you can say, well what about this, this and this,” said Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office. “In real time, no, there was no reason to think that.”
In late January 2021, a few weeks after the computer forensics team visited, security video shows a secretary of state’s office investigator arriving at the Coffee County elections office. He and the elections supervisor walk into the room that houses the election management system server. Seconds later, Jeff Lenberg, who has been identified by Michigan authorities as being part of an effort to gain access to voting machines there, is seen walking out of that room.
Asked whether Lenberg’s presence in the room with sensitive election equipment raised concerns for the investigator, secretary of state’s office spokesperson Mike Hassinger said the investigator was looking into an unrelated matter and didn’t know who Lenberg was.
Security video also showed another man, Doug Logan, at the office in mid-January. Logan founded a company called Cyber Ninjas, which led a discredited review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona. In May 2021, Coffee County’s new elections supervisor raised concerns with the secretary of state’s office after finding Logan’s business card by a computer. The election supervisor’s concerns were referred to an investigator, but he testified that no one ever contacted him.
Hassinger said the secretary of state’s office responds to allegations when they are raised but that “information about unauthorized access to Coffee County’s election equipment has been kept hidden” by local officials and others.
Much of what is known was uncovered through documents, security camera video and depositions produced in response to subpoenas in the lawsuit filed by individual voters and the election security advocacy group. The suit alleges Georgia’s touchscreen voting machines are not secure and seeks to force the state to use hand-marked paper ballots instead.
The recently produced evidence of a breach wasn’t the first sign of problems in Coffee County, which caused headaches for state election officials in the hectic weeks following the 2020 election. It’s likely that turmoil helped open the door for Trump’s allies.
In early December 2020, the county elections board declined to certify the results of a machine recount requested by Trump, saying the election system had produced inaccurate results. A video posted online days later showed the former county elections supervisor saying the elections software could be manipulated; as she spoke, the password to the county election management system server was visible on a note stuck to her computer.
At the end of December, Cathy Latham, the Coffee County Republican Party chair who also was a fake elector for Trump, appeared at a state legislative committee hearing and made further claims that the voting machines were unreliable.
Within days of that hearing, Latham said, she was contacted by Scott Hall, the bail bondsman, who had been a Republican observer during an election recount. Latham testified in a deposition that Hall asked her to connect him with the Coffee County elections supervisor (who later was accused of falsifying timesheets and forced to resign).
A few days later, on Jan. 7, Hall met with a computer forensics team from data solutions firm SullivanStrickler at the Coffee County elections office. The team copied the data and software on the election management system server and other voting system components, a company executive said in a deposition. The company said it believed its clients had the necessary permission.
Invoices show the data firm billed Powell $26,000 for the day’s work.
“Everything went smoothly yesterday with the Coffee County collection,” the firm’s chief operating officer wrote to Powell in an email. “Everyone involved was extremely helpful.” | https://fox4kc.com/top-headlines/ap-top-headlines/ap-georgia-voting-equipment-breach-at-center-of-tangled-tale/ | 2022-09-24T16:37:02 | en | 0.972025 |
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