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Replace stigma with compassion: RISD students reimagine better approaches to drug addiction
PROVIDENCE — Amy Qu spent this spring contemplating a confounding problem: Rhode Island’s opioid crisis.
As a senior studying industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design, Qu listened to people recovering from opioid use disorder, sought out a fentanyl test strip on Kennedy Plaza and heard from the state lawmaker who pushed for the landmark law that sealed Rhode Island’s place as the first state in the nation to allow harm-reduction centers — safe spaces for people to use illegal drugs they purchased under medical supervision.
Qu is part of an innovative studio class at RISD’s Center for Complexity, in which students explore perplexing real-world problems from a design and systems perspective, seeking more compassionate approaches.
More:What's the status of RI's landmark 'safe-injection sites' program? Outreach is underway
More:Record number of Rhode Islanders died from accidental drug overdoses in 2021
Qu, 22, focused on ways to protect users by ensuring a safe drug supply.
“They have that in other countries, but they don’t have that in the U.S.," said Qu, of North Carolina. "Drug users don’t deserve to experience harm or death because of what they are using.”
With that in mind, Qu is reimagining fentanyl test strips, used to test illegal substances for the powerful and widespread synthetic painkiller linked to many overdose deaths. In their current iteration, test strips are flimsy and poorly packaged, with few instructions.
More:A beacon of HOPE amid RI's opioid crisis: Police, addiction specialists team up
'This is a human issue'
Qu has melded test strips seamlessly into concert wristbands to make sure they would be widely distributed at festivals, where drug use is often rampant. A section of the strip doubles as sandpaper so a concertgoer can shave off a small portion of a pill for testing.
“This isn’t a junkie or drug addict issue. This is a human issue,” said Qu, who doesn’t know what professional path she will pursue but is drawn to the intersection of design and public health.
Qu said her interest grew from a podcast she listened to about a man who had lost his brother to an overdose.
“What resonated most was there was a huge societal stigma about drug addiction. It felt like people needed a lot more empathy in these systems,” Qu said.
More:RI Gov. McKee signs legislation allowing safe-injection sites into law
More:Here's what it will take to open 'safe-injection sites' in Rhode Island
Transcending the stigma
Justin W. Cook, founding director of the Center for Complexity, had students consider stigmatization as a force in messaging and the media. People with substance use disorders are often viewed through a lens of moral failing, he said.
“If you treat something as a criminal matter, that really closes off a section of society,” Cook said.
He urged students to conceptualize harm-reduction centers not as sterile, nondescript facilities hidden in strip malls, but as forward-facing meeting places that transcend stigma.
“I think we need to ask what we can do to help drug users regain their agency,” Cook said.
He isn’t naive, he said; he knows organizers will confront the "not in my backyard" sentiment known as NIMBYism. “The challenge is that whoever opens a center will face pushback.”
He expects Rhode Island’s experience with opening safe-consumption sites to be closely watched nationwide. He hopes the students' work can help inform the conversation.
“This is a real opportunity to shape some really important decisions in the state,” Cook said of the students’ work.
Some of Qu’s classmates will be focusing on aspects of the centers’ design for final projects to be presented later this month.
“I hope that we’re able to contribute to a more nuanced narrative about harm reduction,” Cook said.
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https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/rhode-island-school-desigh-students-reimagine-more-humane-approaches-opioid-addiction/9769138002/
| 2022-05-15T07:40:02
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — On the back of a 10th studio album, post-hardcore rock band Dance Gavin Dance was set this spring to kick off a major U.S. tour from their hometown of Sacramento.
On April 13th, days before the tour was set to begin, the band announced the sudden death of longtime bassist, Tim Feerick.
"After he passed, I mean, we were all devastated," bandmate and friend Andrew Wells told ABC10.
Wells said the band considered canceling the tour to grieve.
"I think our fans, they love us enough to know that if we would have canceled the tour and and said 'no, we can't,' they would have understood," Wells said.
Feerick's mother, Bernadette Alaniz, said she was the one who discovered he had died in his Sacramento apartment of a suspected fentanyl overdose.
"When we couldn’t get ahold of him one day we knew something has to be wrong," Alaniz said. "I just wish I could have him back."
After discussion with Feerick's mother, Dance Gavin Dance decided to continue with the tour and dedicate in his memory.
"I know Timothy wouldn’t want them to not play, you know?" Alaniz told ABC10. "They were sweet enough to ask us, is that OK? And we said yeah, go on tour."
Longtime friend of Wells and Dance Gavin Dance Sergio Medina took over on bass on short notice. The band invited Alaniz and other family members to Swanfest in Sacramento on April 23rd, where the tour began. Fans shouted, "Thank you, Tim."
"It was hard not to cry, you know, when people were chanting his name," Alaniz said.
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/remembering-tim-feerick-sacramento-band-dance-gavin-dance/103-333ef5f7-24bb-42ac-b999-9e385e99aabb
| 2022-05-15T08:20:58
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In the Allentown apartment where she was living with her three children, Felicia Cantave noticed leaking from the ceiling in multiple rooms, including one of her son’s and her daughter’s.
After a couple of years of the leaks not being addressed, Cantave said, she decided to stop paying rent in 2021.
As a result, she said, her landlord evicted her, taking the case to court, where he won. Cantave, 11-year-old Amir, 8-year-old Kamron and 1-year-old Kamora were forced to find a new home.
Staying in a hotel, Cantave had to make compromises such as asking people to look after her daughter while she worked as a transportation clerk, or missing work to watch her.
“I was living in a hotel for about six to seven months because no one wanted to rent me because of my eviction,” Cantave said. “It set me back a lot. I didn’t have day care, really too much of anything. My son also said to me something that broke my heart. I will never forget, he said, ‘Mom, I see you working so hard and we went from our big house to this little place. Maybe if I wasn’t here, it’d be easier for you.’ ”
Lehigh County had the fourth most evictions filed in the state in 2021, behind only Philadelphia, Allegheny and Dauphin counties, according to the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. Based on the number of renters per county, the Housing Alliance found, Lehigh ranked No. 3 in the state, behind only Dauphin and York counties. (Northampton County ranked 12th in terms of overall evictions, and seventh in eviction rate).
More than 8,300 tenant-landlord cases have been filed in Lehigh County since August 2020, according to a news release from county Controller Mark Pinsley’s office. Of those cases, more than 2,500 ended in evictions; 120 were won by the tenant. The other cases would have had outcomes such as a settlement or the judge throwing out the case, according to Joshua Siegel, the assistant operations manager for the controller’s office.
Pinsley said those 2,500 eviction cases would translate to about two to three times that number in people being evicted.
Eviction filings and orders rose after the end of multiple eviction moratoriums during the pandemic, the Housing Alliance reported.
Being behind on rent is a big reason for eviction, according to Jessica Reimert, deputy executive director for operations at Community Action Lehigh Valley (formerly the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley), an anti-poverty nonprofit.
In Allentown, rents have increased by over 28% since the start of the pandemic, according to a report by Apartment List. Median monthly rents in Allentown are $1,291 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,605 for a two-bedroom, Apartment List found. Other analyses have found even higher numbers. Rent.com last month reported a one-bedroom apartment in the city costs $1,837 a month, while a two-bedroom apartment costs around $2,193.
Pinsley said the people most affected by evictions are those who have lost a job, especially during the pandemic, such as cashiers and waiters.
ZIP codes with higher percentages of households led by people of color and women with children also correlate with higher eviction filing rates, according to the Housing Alliance data.
Beyond nonpayment, Reimert said, other reasons for evictions include being distracted from paying bills because of mental health issues, not properly taking care of apartment spaces and landlords wanting wealthier tenants who can pay more rent.
Marc Rittle, executive director of New Bethany Ministries in Bethlehem, said wages haven’t kept up with the increased cost of living, including both the cost of housing and necessities like food.
“At times like this, I think you see the wealth gap widening even more,” he said. “The rich truly are getting richer and the poor truly are getting poorer.”
Possible solutions
Solutions that would help decrease eviction rates in the county, according to Reimert, would be more affordable housing and access to mental health services, especially for people with low income and who are dealing with anxiety and depression. Even a normal workday can prevent people from having the time to take off from work and prioritize their mental health, she added.
“[More mental health services] would aid in getting people the ability to keep their jobs … which will then be essential to pay their rent and care for their property,” she said. “The pandemic was hard on everybody and we’re seeing that carry on through the dismantled social situations and people struggling to return to a normal routine.”
Rittle said the main way to stop evictions would be for property owners to stop increasing the price of rent.
“I’m not an economist, but it looks like a bubble where … either everyone is just going to lose their home or property owners are going to have to reduce their rents,” he said.
A few landlords have reached out to Rittle to say they’ve been keeping rents low or won’t evict tenants until finding an alternative solution for them, he said.
Pinsley last year proposed a $1.5 million investment in a “right-to-counsel” program that would provide tenants representation in eviction cases. as well as decreasing service costs in processing evictions.
Pinsley cited a study commissioned by the Philadelphia Bar Association that claimed tenants experienced disruptive displacement 5% of the time when they were legally represented compared with 78% of the time when they weren’t.
James S. Tupitza, a West Chester lawyer who has 50 years of experience in landlord-tenant cases, said tenants having a lawyer present allows their case to be taken much more seriously and provides the tenant knowledge of the law they may not have otherwise.
“A landlord is going to be very experienced in the rules of the road, so to speak, and a tenant is going to have zero experience,” Tupitza said. “So they might be bluffed into something. If you’re going to go play pro baseball, you don’t walk into the field by yourself. You hire a pro baseball player to play the game for you ... because you’re just not going to be able to do it.”
Pinsley proposed getting the money from the American Rescue Plan, the 2021 economic stimulus bill meant to speed up the country’s recovery from the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
“In many cases, if you end up talking to some landlords, I think what you would find is that the landlords would like this as well because ultimately, what they want is their money,” Pinsley said. “They’re not necessarily interested in kicking somebody out so long as they’re getting paid. A lot of the time, the issue with the people who are being displaced is that the rent is 30% or more of their income. So if you get behind on your income when rent is 30% or more of it, you can never catch up.”
The Landlord Association of Pennsylvania didn’t reply to requests for comment.
Lehigh County allocated about $100,000 to Pinsley’s plan in July.
“We wish that we could fund every great idea,” Community and Economic Development Director Frank Kane said. “When that [$100,000] runs out … it’s possible we could entertain the idea of funding more.”
First Call
Creating jobs that can keep up with the rate of inflation in the county would help decrease the number of evictions here, he said.
In the meantime, the county has assisted 3,500 households so far with the $47 million distributed from the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, Kane said.
“That’s exactly the issue,” Pinsley said. “Some of these people will be entitled to money that they can use. It’s possible that these landlords would be paid back, it’s just that there’s a timing issue.”
Pinsley still wants the larger investment, even if it’s over a period time.
“My hope is … we can create enough information so that people put some pressure on the commissioners [so] that they immediately invest about half a million dollars,” he said.
Cantave didn’t attend the court hearing in her eviction. She said she would have if she hadn’t been in a car accident that day.
She said she didn’t have legal representation during her eviction; having it “absolutely” would have helped her case, she said.
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-eviction-representation-20220515-rwxudduh4jahdgznk5wvxxyuhq-story.html
| 2022-05-15T08:48:04
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-eviction-representation-20220515-rwxudduh4jahdgznk5wvxxyuhq-story.html
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Rescued ponies recovering; quilt shop opens in Dighton: Top stories
Before we begin the new week in earnest, we're taking a look back at the week that was, and the stories that led the news with Taunton Daily Gazette readers.
Our top story of the past week was an update on the ponies that were rescued from Berkley, and how they are healing and learning to trust people again.
Other top stories included:
Nurses and other healthcare professionals at Morton Hospital voted this past week to authorize a three-day strike if administrators refuse "to bargain over issues that currently affect their ability to deliver the best possible care to patients." Gazette Reporter Ed Baker takes a look at the issue, here.
Raynham Park has broken ground and begun excavation work for its sports betting facility. Co-owner Chris Carney said work is underway at the former dog track as state lawmakers finalize a bill to legalize sports betting.
The South Coast rail project is back on track these days, with plans to open to riders next spring. The South Coast line means there will be a new train station in East Taunton, among others.
These were the Top 5 stories of the past week, according to Gazette readers:
Rescued Berkley ponies nursed back to health
The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has been taking care of ponies that were rescued from Berkley after allegedly suffering neglect. They've been under MSPCA care since Berkley horse breeder Gary Bolger was charged with 13 counts of animal cruelty by the Animal Rescue League.
They were "quite thin" when they were brought in, according to MSPCA Angell Director of Adoption Services Michael Keiley, but the ponies have been putting weight back on, getting healthier, and learning to trust people again.
On the mend:Rescued Berkley ponies nursed back to health as they learn to trust people again
Somerset resident opens new quilt shop in Dighton
What happens when your hobby gets to be too big for your house?
You start a business, of course!
Tammy Ruggeri, a Somerset quilter and owner of Puddle Jumper Quilts in Dighton, recently held a grand opening for her business, which offers sewing and quilting classes and lessons for all abilities and sells quilting supplies and fabrics. She also offers custom services for hand-stitched memorial items.
Go ahead and explore all of the creative possibilities that Puddle Jumper Quilts has to offer.
'My hobby got too big for the house':Somerset resident opens new quilt shop in Dighton
Should Dighton and Rehoboth K-8 go their separate ways?
A group of Rehoboth parents wants to look into the possibility of making the Dighton-Rehoboth Regional School District a little less regional for grades K-8.
The school district recently queried the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on whether the rules have changed for a school region wanting to make such a change to its regional agreement.
DESE rules have not changed, and there would be some complicated steps to amending the agreement.
It's complicated:Should Dighton and Rehoboth K-8 go their separate ways?
Proposed Taunton cannabis facility will address odor concerns
Boston-based Greater Goods LLC is asking Taunton City Council to approve a special permit for a proposed marijuana cultivation and manufacturing site in Myles Standish Industrial Park. There are no retail shops included in the site plan.
The City Council recently held a public hearing to review Greater Goods' proposal, which has been continued until May 24.
'We want to work with them':Proposed Taunton cannabis facility will address odor concerns
Profile Tavern hopes to become Freetown institution like The Nephews
Five months after The Nephews closed down, a new restaurant, Profile Tavern, has opened in its spot.
Co-owner Jay P. Lanagan says they "have big shoes to fill," but he's hoping the newly-established restaurant will also become a Freetown institution.
'Big shoes to fill':Profile Tavern hopes to become a Freetown institution like The Nephews
The place has undergone some major renovations, and that's not all. See what's on the menu, right here.
Herald News/Taunton Daily Gazette copy editor and digital producer Kristina Fontes can be reached at kfontes@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News and Taunton Daily Gazette today.
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https://www.tauntongazette.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/taunton-top-stories-rescued-ponies-puddle-jumper-quilts-cannabis-odor-dighton-rehoboth-district/9764106002/
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https://www.tauntongazette.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/taunton-top-stories-rescued-ponies-puddle-jumper-quilts-cannabis-odor-dighton-rehoboth-district/9764106002/
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Hours before the scheduled start time, people arrive in their vehicles to a Pontotoc plot for the second most revered Sunday tradition after church: the weekly horse show.
Horse neighs punctuate the festival-like atmosphere as riders saunter to the blue registration tent. It’s a jovial heat, where people set up chairs under tents and women hold umbrellas to block the sun. Loud music and the scent of food on the grill fill the air as fans find spots around the ring, sectioned by red dirt and yellow rope.
That day’s host is A Step Above Horse Riding Club, one of the several all-Black riding clubs peppered throughout Northeast Mississippi. It’s horse business for them, but it’s really an opportunity to meet other people and have a good time, said Darnell Wright, who owns a stable in Verona.
“This is something we love to do. Most of us, we ride a horse before we ride anything else,” Wright said. “It keeps us connected.”
Black cowboys are deeply entrenched in Northeast Mississippi. From the beginning of April to the end of October, different clubs host their own horse shows across the region. Shows are typically held every Sunday, weather permitting. Horse shows, trail rides and banquets are how they create a space that is uniquely Black and southern, forming a community that they hope exists far beyond them.
‘This is just fun’
Many of today’s riders grew up around horses or going to horse shows in their youth.
Unshay Randle, 45, remembers his dad, William Randle, hosting horse shows right by their house. The best, however, are the trail rides. It’s where everyone comes to mingle and does good-natured ribbing.
Some use the trail rides to train, but for Randle, it’s simply a way to unwind. Randle is a Chickasaw County elected constable, sheriff’s deputy, veteran, part-time bricklayer, and owner of Randle’s Body Repair.
“I do police work, so I’m always uptight,” he said. “I’ve got to do this, got to do that, but when I get on the trail ride, it’s like I can relax.”
Trail rides are held a couple times a year when the weather cools. There’s no telling who or what will show up to these events: horses, carriages, trucks, kids on go-karts and 4-wheelers, and tractors to pull hayrides.
Randle began riding horses when he was 8 or 9 years old, and he now competes in and hosts his own horse shows. Often, clubs can form from friends riding horses together. If there are enough of them, they might start their own club, or newcomers may join an established club.
Many smaller clubs came together under the umbrella of a larger group, Northeast Mississippi Riders, of which Randle is president. There’s a stipulation: to join, members have to ride with the club for two years on probation before the club will vote them in. That policy was put in place to separate the committed riders from the casual, Randle said.
A group of younger riders in their 20s formed Ghetto Cowboys, and gave Randle a shirt because they associate with him. On the corner of each is a cowboy hat and boots with wings, and the name “LL Cutter”, aka Willie C. Franklin. The club, where two of his sons are members, all got shirts in Franklin’s memory after his death last year. In the last four or five years, the community has lost several really dynamic cowboys.
The community feels each loss deeply.
“When you get through it, it’s just a big family,” Randle said.
Most years, the group will host an awards banquet — basically a cowboy party celebrating doing shows and working all year. It’s a way to celebrate their community and their love of riding. “We all work every day. We’ve got a full-time job,” Randle said. “This is just fun.”
‘They are the future’
Shantes Pegues is almost a perfect reflection of her father.
Like her dad, Alex Pegues, she’s been riding since she was 6. Throughout her childhood and into adulthood, she attended horse shows and helped out with chores.
“I had to feed horses, clean stalls, help get horses ready to go to the show,” Pegues said.
It was the same for her father, a rider since childhood himself. Alex Pegues is a founding member of A Step Above, a riding club of friends and deacons from various area churches. The group’s been together so long that they don’t remember the exact year it began, though they suspect it’s been about 15.
The group formed with a mission to raise money to help people in the community and create a space for people to come together.
“That’s what we started it for,” he said. “To have something that we as Black folks can go to.”
Originally seen as a very masculine community, Shantes Pegues said her father initially “got a lot of slack” for letting a girl help in the barn when he began bringing her to shows. Not that it bothered him much. His philosophy was, if she loves horses, why not let her be involved.
In hindsight, it was the right call. These days, Shantes Pegues, now an adult with a bachelor’s degree in Animal and Dairy Sciences from Mississippi State, competes against both women and men. And the group is still growing with each and every event. Each show draws all ages, and the club always tries to cater to kids.
“That’s our first priority, giving the kids something to do first,” Alex Pegues said. “They are the future of whatever we’re trying to do.”
‘You’ve got to love it to do it’
Steve Autry’s time riding in horse shows may be over, but his connection to the sport and community is not.
Last year, Autry transformed his land into a horse show ring by filling in ditches, cutting trees, setting up a DJ stand and adding a building.
Between the cost, time and traveling, horse shows have to be about passion.
“You’ve got to love it to do it,” Autry said.
Autry enjoys watching. He made a cowgirl out of his wife, Cheviere Autry of Beloit, Wisconsin, by teaching her to ride. She rides occasionally, though not in shows.
“Later on, I told her I was going to marry her one day,” Autry said.
Cheviere Autry laughed.
“Tell her how long it actually took you to marry me,” she teased.
Autry avoided the question.
The shows Autry hosts on his land draw a different type of family, and a large one at that. Organizers estimated at least 100 registered people attended an April 24 event, though the actual number is likely higher. Some shows have drawn upward of a thousand attendees. Autry mentioned adding lights and parking space on his list of planned improvements.
“Last show we had, they was out in the road,” Autry said.
Autry’s been taking part in horse shows for 20 years. His father didn’t ride, so he took it upon himself to learn when he was 10 years old. He’d go to horse shows with his friends.
These days, Autry no longer rides himself, but works with a rider, Terrell Smith of Shannon.
With walking horses, Autry lives by the motto that it takes the rider and the horse to perform well. With Smith, he’s seen Cash, his 13-year-old horse, perform in ways he hasn’t before.
“The rider makes the difference,” Autry said. “A good rider will beat you on a bad horse.”
Smith, 37, has been showing and riding horses since he was a teen. He even made a living at it for a while, working out deals to break horses for 30 days in exchange for being able to show them.
Smith was glad he was brought up with horse shows. He’s met so many people with a horse, he said. In his youth, Smith was very competitive, taking losses as motivation to work harder. Even now, he still said no one likes to lose, but competing taught him respect and learning to control his temper.
“It kind of sets your mind for the future,” Smith said. “When a person learns to take a loss just as well as a win, they’re about to figure out whatever they’re doing.”
‘Something for our culture’
Jody Glover of West Point is training Black youth to be the next generation of leaders.
“We need something for our culture,” Glover said. “They need someone to spend time with them, someone to tell them they love them and you’re doing good, you’re doing right.”
Glover’s own father figure was a man named Charlie Davis, with whom Glover would farm soybeans, cattle, and other farmwork from 10 to 21 years old. Glover continued helping out even when he got his own job.
Attending horse shows in 2009 inspired him to start Jody’s Stables, based in Houston.
“I wanted to open my own stable, so I went and built me a little barn, and loaned my own horses,” Glover said. “Then kids just started coming around wanting to ride.”
While initially hesitant, Glover began training with parents’ encouragement. Currently, he’s training 10 kids, ages 7 to 17, who ride most weekdays after school.
Two of his youngest riders are brothers Jermanuel Griffin, 7, and Jayden Griffin, 8, of Chickasaw County. They’ve always had an interest in riding, but didn’t have access to horses, said their mother, Latonya Griffin. Since starting, the brothers train nearly daily and compete in nearby shows. They’ve even placed a few times, including at a May 1 show in Shannon.
Every year, Glover takes some of his riders to Greenville for two days to enjoy food on Friday and the big show on Saturday. Jody’s Stables has gone to cities throughout North Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee so far. Competing makes his students eager to learn and improve, Glover said. When they leave school, they want to ride.
“It just excites me for kids this age wanting to come around and learn how to ride, want to get their parents interested in them riding horses,” Glover said. “I didn’t have that growing up.”
It grounds Glover as well. He enjoys seeing his students happy and smiling, especially the youngest ones. The payoff is with his older riders. Rarely idle, many have activities and trades outside of riding.
His oldest riders are William Pickens, whose riding name is June Bug, and Jamal Pulliam, aka J-Boy. Pulliam, 16, began riding three years ago after his friend got into it. His dad always wanted to, so he started riding, he said.
“I didn’t really know much about horses then,” Pulliam said. “I didn’t realize it was going to be this much fun.”
Over the years, Pulliam has improved, placing occasionally, and enjoyed the opportunity to socialize and see other horses. He thinks he might study business and management at Mississippi State University. Asked if he is planning on staying involved with horse shows, he answered with confidence: “Most definitely.”
“That way I can have my own barn,” Pulliam said. “I plan on having about five, six horses.”
‘Nothing better’
The end of a horse show is not definite. Sure, the classes stop showing at a specific time, but the show itself is more than the prize money and the naming of the day’s winners.
It’s kids rushing around and spectators laughing and cheering on a friend’s beer-aided dancing. It’s the man looking dapper in his plaid red button up, khaki pants, black cowboy hat and cowboy boots riding the same ring as the ones in T-shirts with shorts, and the horses re-entering their trailers, ready for home.
The horse shows are something to look forward to every Sunday after church, Smith said. A place to gather, relax and have a bit of fun with a shared community.
“If we weren’t doing this, what would we be doing?” he asked. “I think there’s nothing better.”
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https://www.djournal.com/news/local/something-for-our-culture-black-cowboys-preserve-strong-heritage-in-northeast-mississippi/article_9f7912b2-598e-5f7f-a2b8-41bc4216e05f.html
| 2022-05-15T10:40:15
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https://www.djournal.com/news/local/something-for-our-culture-black-cowboys-preserve-strong-heritage-in-northeast-mississippi/article_9f7912b2-598e-5f7f-a2b8-41bc4216e05f.html
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Sunday’s Billboard Music Awards will include performances by Travis Scott, Ed Sheeran, Becky G and other artists who have enjoyed chart-topping success.
Sean “Diddy” Combs will emcee the show, which is being broadcast live from the MGM Grand Arena and will air live beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC and its Peacock streaming service.
Becky G, who released the album “Esquemas” on Friday, will perform her hit song “MAMIII,” which topped the Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart. Sheeran will deliver a remote performance from Northern Ireland, where he is on tour.
Other acts taking the stage include Scott, who’s nominated in the dance/electronic music category, as well as Miranda Lambert, Meghan Thee Stallion, Morgan Wallen, and Grammy Awards darlings Silk Sonic.
Nominees are determined by Billboard chart rankings and winners are selected based on several criteria, including their album and digital song sales, airplay and streaming success and touring.
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/billboard-music-awards-to-feature-travis-scott-becky-g/
| 2022-05-15T12:36:03
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TURIN, Italy (AP) — Ukrainian band Kalush Orchestra, fresh off its Eurovision victory, released a new music video Sunday of its winning hit “Stefania” that features scenes of war-ravaged Ukraine and women in combat gear, as the annual song contest took on ever more political tones.
The video was released hours after Kalush Orchestra brought Ukraine its third Eurovision win, pulling ahead of Britain in the grand final after the votes from some of the estimated 200 million viewers from 40 participating countries were tallied.
Band members posed for photos and signed autographs outside their Turin hotel Sunday, en route to an interview with Italian host broadcaster RAI. They must return to Ukraine on Monday after being given special permission to leave the country to attend the competition.
Russia was barred from the Eurovision Song Contest this year after its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, a move organizers said was meant to keep politics out of the contest that promotes diversity and friendship among nations.
But politics nevertheless entered into the fray, with Kalush frontman Oleh Psiuk ending his winning performance Sunday night with a plea from the stage: “I ask all of you, please help Ukraine, Mariupol. Help Azovstal right now!” he said, referring to the besieged steel plant in the strategic port city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the victory, saying he hoped Ukraine would be able to host the contest next year and predicting the “victorious chord in the battle with the enemy is not far off.”
“Stefania” was penned by lead singer Psiuk as a tribute to his mother, but since Russia’s invasion it has become an anthem to the motherland, with lyrics that pledge: “I’ll always find my way home, even if all roads are destroyed.”
The new music video features women soldiers carrying children out of bombed-out buildings, greeting children in shelters and leaving them behind as they board trains. The video credits said it was shot in towns that have seen some of the worst destruction of the war, including Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka and Hostomel.
The video was clearly made before the band left Ukraine as it features band members and — presumably — actors performing in the rubble.
“Dedicated to the brave Ukrainian people, to the mothers protecting their children, to all those who gave their lives for our freedom,” it said.
Kalush Orchestra includes folklore experts and mixes traditional folk melodies and contemporary hip hop in a strong defense of Ukrainian culture that has taken on added meaning as Russia has sought falsely to assert that Ukraine’s culture is not unique.
At an early Sunday press conference after the contest, Psiuk in his trademark pink bucket hat said the win was particularly meaningful given the war and the popular support that pushed Ukraine to victory.
“We are here to show that Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian music are alive, and they have their own and very special signature,” Psuik said.
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Winfield reported from Rome.
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/eurovision-win-in-hand-ukraine-band-releases-new-war-video/
| 2022-05-15T12:36:05
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/eurovision-win-in-hand-ukraine-band-releases-new-war-video/
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Rows of pastel painted houseboats bobbing in their berths, the view stretching across the water to the mansions of Tiburon gleaming in the sun, as sailboats drift toward the Golden Gate Bridge — there’s no more iconic image of Sausalito than the postcard-perfect scene at Waldo Point Harbor. People have lived on these docks, occupying some of the most valuable waterfront in the world, for a century. But it was only after World War II that they became a prominent part of the culture here — and, for a long time, part of a violent conflict that encapsulated the ravages of gentrification like nowhere else.
The trouble began when shipbuilders, out of work after the war, took to commandeering abandoned boats as their homes. Most of the increasingly well-heeled residents of Sausalito viewed the rickety vessels as an eyesore, not to mention a rallying point for drifters, artists, bohemians and anarchists. Efforts to “clean up” the docks would spark a decadeslong war over who had rights to the water.
I visited Waldo Point Harbor, where the last vestiges of the community ended up, on a bright April morning. Walking the pretty piers, it's hard to imagine all the lives this place has lived: a lawless floating village, a battleground, an artist's commune. Now, many of the berths here are designated as low-income housing, a hard-won victory for the Gates Cooperation, a sort of union for the residents here.
On A-Dock, I met longtime resident Catherine Lyons-Labate, a proud veteran of the hippie scene. Lyons-Labate arrived on Richardson Bay by accident in 1974 and never left. She invited me aboard her home, a beautiful and airy houseboat with a million-dollar view looking north across the water.
She pulled out “Once Upon a Waterfront,” a collection of historical photographs and essays about the community. As I leafed through the pages, she told me the unlikely tale of her time with Gates Co-op, that included giving birth on an antique ferryboat slated for demolition, sheltering her young family when violence broke out between the police and houseboaters, and leading negotiations that would bring her here, to this peaceful floating suburb.
A waterfront turned war machine
Until the second World War, Sausalito was mostly a bucolic getaway for moneyed San Franciscans. But in 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the picturesque waterfront, 5 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge, was transformed into an almighty war machine.
The houseboats of Richardson Bay were swiftly evicted to make way for a giant 200-acre shipyard. In the next three and half years, the Marinship Corporation built a staggering 93 ships there. At its peak, 20,000 workers toiled around the clock.
The end of the war left thousands of people out of work, the shipyard empty and dozens of boats abandoned. The detritus of war soon became a chaotic floating village for the displaced. As beatniks, and later hippies, headed west, many of them washed up there, too.
“No one probably remembers the first person to cobble something together, get it floating and move in,” writer Jeff Costello wrote in his essay “Sausalito Houseboat War,” “but whoever it was inadvertently began what can be called perhaps a great social experiment, the closest thing to a functioning utopian anarchy the country has ever seen. I do not exaggerate here. It was a real anarchy.”
The collection of cluttered vessels, some barely afloat, grew — rowboats, abandoned military vessels, hollowed-out barges, makeshift structures built from whatever flotsam could be gathered, like tree houses on the water. Some floated in the bay — the “anchor-outs” — while others tied up at unkempt docks and hooked into cobwebs of dangling electrical wires. Many of the docks soon fell into disrepair (as did the boats).
A folkloric hero named Donlon Arques, known as the Godfather of the Sausalito Waterfront, is credited with creating the sometimes-glorious, always-anarchic creative community that grew at Waldo Point. A private man who grew up on the waterfront in the 1920s, Arques himself worked in the shipyard during the war; after the war, he acquired its surplus boats and property and welcomed embattled residents around Richardson Bay onto his docks.
As far back as 1955, county officials tried to get rid of the community at Waldo Point, passing targeted ordinances and harassing the residents. The most common complaint was that the boats discharged raw sewage into the Bay. In 1959, the county attempted to evict 120 boats, but the community fought back. One unnamed houseboater told the San Francisco Chronicle, “We represent one of the last vestiges of the Sausalito that was. The Hill snobs have always fought the Wharf Rats, but I never thought they would go this far.” But that was just the beginning.
Arques rented out berths along his docks that became known as the Gates Cooperative — named after the six ship launching pads there — as well as vessels and lifeboat hulls, for next to nothing. He welcomed anyone who wanted to come aboard, whether they were artists, out-of-work shipbuilders or returning soldiers.
Newspapers varied in how they described the growing community. One writer at the Marin Independent-Journal described it as a floating artists colony; another called it a “nautical slum.”
To luxury developers eyeing the shoreline from the hills of Sausalito, the outcropping was nothing but untapped potential. To the county, it was an eyesore, a lawless cesspool, full of homes unfit for human habitation. But Arques ignored them all, building a tiny empire of junk — and a paradise for some — on the prettiest corner of the most desirable real estate in America.
Battles and brawls
A few yards from where Lyons-Labate and I talked, the recently built “Otis Redding Dock” marks the former home of one of the most storied boats to ever sail the bay: the Charles Van Damme ferry.
Built over a century ago, the iconic paddle-wheeled ferryboat originally carried cars, cows and people across the bay, and occasionally prisoners to San Quentin. After being decommissioned in the ’50s, it lived a brief life as a floating Chinese restaurant off of Oakland’s Jack London Square.
After the restaurant went bankrupt, the Van Damme was shipped back to the Gates in the middle of the night “complete with meals still on the tables, and a cargo of wine and liquors still on board,” wrote historian Candra Day in “Once Upon a Waterfront.” The Van Damme and a second ferry boat, the Issaquah, became social hubs, communes, restaurants and even a night club in the growing Gates community.
In 1962, the Van Damme briefly housed the infamous Juanita’s Galley, run by notorious and beloved restaurateur Juanita Musson — a woman as famous for fist-fighting patrons and drinking as she was for her breakfasts. The joint was described by actor Glenn Ford as a “round-the-clock jumpin’ ham-’n’-eggery.” Musson was a larger than life figure who always wore a blue muumuu, of which she once said, “No one can tell for sure where the muumuu ends and I begin.” She also had a pet deer named Sissy and other strays she took in over the years, which often wandered freely around the boat.
A year after Juanita’s opened, a brawl between Marin City residents and a San Francisco motorcycle gang broke out in the restaurant. It took 50 cops to end the battle, which was fought with car jacks, furniture and a fishbowl. One member of the motorcycle gang later sued Musson for $250,000, claiming he’d been hit in the head with an ax during the melee. Musson was evicted from the Charles Van Damme later that year for not paying her taxes.
In 1966, a few years after Musson was evicted, the Van Damme became a nightclub named The Ark where, depending on who you talk to, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Otis Redding all played or danced.
Attempts to evict the floating town ramped up in the late ’60s and early ’70s, spearheaded by an ambitious county building inspector named Richard Larson. In 1969, the county announced it would evict 30 boats from Waldo Point, citing them for dumping raw sewage, dangerous electrical hookups, and generally being too dilapidated for safe habitation. According to legend, Larson would sneak onto the docks and quietly attach “Notice to destroy or remove” tags to vessels.
When residents ignored the tags, the authorities took a more aggressive tack, sending law enforcement to force the issue. A flash point of the now-infamous water wars occurred on June 5, 1971, when boats from the Coast Guard and the sheriff’s department arrived at the docks with a plan to tow away five vessels. Officials, including Larson, were met by a hostile armada of canoes, sailboats, rowboats and tugs, all crewed by a veritable army of houseboaters-turned-pirates ready to fight for their way of life.
The authorities did manage to snag one boat, owned by Russell Grisham — while Grisham was still aboard. As Costello tells it in his essay, Grisham “tried to cut the line attached to the tow truck and the cops, seeing the knife, drew their guns.” A photograph of the moment appeared on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle the following day and became an iconic image of the fight.
After the skirmish, the Marin County Board of Supervisors said the engagement had amounted to an “insurrection.” Larson told the supervisors he had not expected “naval engagement.” Supervisors voted in favor of a two-week “cooling-off period,” briefly halting the eviction attempts. Larson later suggested that the two beloved, albeit dilapidated, ferryboats be burned down, as a safety precaution and a drill for the county fire department.
The biggest sticking point over the next decade remained the county’s demand that boats be hooked up to city sewer lines, or install sewage treatment on board. This was hardly viable for residents at the Gates; the marina had no sewage hookup, and few could afford the treatment devices.
Houseboaters regularly pointed out that the many recently arrived moneyed yachts in the harbor were dumping far greater quantities of noxious pollutants into the water without challenge; at least one vowed to a reporter that if the houseboaters lost their claim, they would take the yachtsmen down with them.
Lyons-Labate came to Sausalito in 1974, right in the worst of it. She had hitchhiked across the country to Marin on a whim and had no plans to take up residence. But after losing her wallet, money and identity, the community took her in.
“Someone took me down the dock and introduced me to the neighborhood. It was just this funky wonderful community,” she told me. “And I never left.”
Lyons-Labate has a beaming pride for the community, the parties, the dancing, the artistry and the familial spirit that grew there on the water, but remembers the wars far less fondly. The houseboaters, now activists, installed a siren on the mast on the Charles Van Damme to warn residents of officials approaching by water or land. “If there was police action or bulldozer action, the siren would go off and everyone would come out. It was terrible, the adrenaline,” she told me.
Arques gives up
All the while, developers and townies were applying more and more pressure on the city. After failing to take the residents on directly, the city started going after Arques more directly, hitting him with a litany of fines. “1977 was when the county started fining Arques for it being an eyesore,” Lyons-Labate told me. “Once they started fining him $1,000 a day, he decided he couldn’t deal with it. He was old.” Arques sold the property to the newly formed Waldo Point Harbor Association, which planned to develop the water. “Once he did that, the evictions started happening,” she said.
The battle for the waterfront was not only fought by adults. As journalist Jonah Owen Lamb wrote in his essay “Held Fast: How Renegade 'Squatters' Won Sausalito's Houseboat Wars,” at 8 years old he and his friends would battle the hill kids on the waterfront with water pistols full of urine. “We loathed those hill kids — and their entire families. We had good reason to hate. Our parents had taught us to see them and their kind as our enemy,” he wrote.
In 1977, the developers started advancing onto the water more aggressively. Lamb writes that his parents were involved in a “chaotic melee” when cops trying to clear the boats out maced his mom, and his dad, armed with a knife, was blasted out of the water by a fireboat’s hose.
That was also the year the Van Damme Ferry was tagged for demolition, although the county wouldn’t succeed for another six years.
The houseboaters knew they had to stop any construction until the terms were agreed on their acceptance into whatever was being built. “We were entering a time of prolonged uncertainty, and life as we knew it was over,” Lyons-Labate said.
In 1979, Lyons-Labate gave birth to her daughter on the Issaquah ferry boat, surrounded by members of the community. After that, she avoided direct action in the battles. “I had a little child, so I didn’t go out on the boats and fight the police on the water,” she said. “It was awful.”
Yet another violent battle played out on the water the following year, as developers were finishing up one of the new county-approved luxury piers at Waldo Point. The sheriff’s deputies’ target that day was Gates’ member Pete Redondo’s boat, reported the Ukiah Daily Journal. Deputies and construction workers approached on skiffs to cut the chains mooring Redondo’s floating home. A chaotic battle ensued. “At one point two deputies in jumpsuits, helmets and bulletproof vests boarded a raft and tried to cross the water,” the paper reported. The "small armada of fighting houseboaters" attacked and overturned the deputies’ raft, soaking the cops, to cheers from bystanders. Thirteen arrests were made that day, and Redondo’s boat was lost.
Down on the docks I also met Maria Finn, a more recent resident of the waterfront. She invited me aboard to recount some local lore, under the watchful eye of her truffle-sniffing dog, Flora Jayne. “These guys would fill up buckets of human feces, and when the sheriffs came they’d let them loose on them,” she told me as we walked the docks. “They fought them and they fought them.”
But when bulldozers and pile drivers were brought in to build a new dock, the Gates positioned a red barge on the water in the middle of the night, blocking the new construction indefinitely.
“Every weekend there’d be music and everyone would get on their skiffs and go party on the barge,” Lyons-Labate said. The Red Barge was adorned with the words “Midnight TRO” by the activists, meaning temporary restraining order, and it sat in the mud blocking the developers’ path for two years.
Through all the hardship, Lyons-Labate remembers a loving, communal scene on the ferryboats, where some of the most interesting and creative people in the world would gather to eat and dance through the night. “You could have any kind of party you want,” she said. “So many people would come that the boats would sink, then you’d have water at your ankles and you’d have to tell people to move away. Everybody would come and bring food and dance. It was pretty magical.”
Finn told me there was always an unwritten rule during her time there: If any resident started taking on water, everyone would help out. “Even if they had been feuding for 20 years,” she laughed. “If somebody’s taking on water, everybody helps.”
The final skirmishes
After physically halting the bulldozers, the Gates Cooperative organized and got serious about battling the developers, both legally and in the court of public opinion. They created a newspaper, The Garlic Press, to share political updates. They put on politically motivated puppet shows at “The Snake Theater” on the Charles Van Damme and created a dream journal published every month so residents could share their dreams and fears during a time of existential uncertainty. They also lawyered up.
They couldn’t save the Van Damme, though. She was finally razed into the mud by the Marin supervisors’ bulldozers, on March 1, 1983, with 9 protesters clinging to the deck and two on the smokestack. Two other protesters tried to interfere with the bulldozer. They were all arrested and booked into Marin County jail for civil disobedience.
The quiet part of the county’s plan was said out loud in a story that ran in the papers the day after the Van Damme was destroyed:
“County officials have long been troubled by the congestion of ramshackle houseboats, saying they look like something out of Southeast Asia at the entrance to a gilded suburban community,” the Chronicle wrote, the day after the ferry was destroyed. “Waldo Point Harbor is one trying to build a modern marina at the site for luxury houseboats.”
After many rounds of exhaustingly long and complicated legal battles, the Gates Co-op started to gain support, and cash, from philanthropic organizations like the San Francisco Foundation and pro bono attorneys. In 1992, the legal battle came to an exhaustive end when a jury finally decided the residents could stay in the harbor, if they built a new dock and brought all the residences up to code.
“We won!” Lyons-Labate told me, her face lighting up with a smile. “That never happens!”
“We have never lost sight of our true goal, to secure a corner of this universe for as many of the residents … as was humanly possible,” said Jane Koestel at the time, project coordinator for the Gates Co-op and longtime resident.
The new docks were legally designated low-income housing, much to the dismay of those who kept their multi-million dollar yachts in Richardson Bay. As Finn’s dock was being built, named Charles Van Damme after the ferry, she remembers some of the moneyed houseboaters further out on the water looking on with concern.
“Some of the other houseboats were like, ‘How far is that dock coming out ‘cos I’ve got my hot tub?’ and I’m like, ‘We’re coming out, right into your hot tub, we’re going to use your hot tub for anal sex, everybodies’ saving up their anal sex for your dock.’”
It took 12 long years to build and shift all the houseboats to their new, legal berths. Despite the legal win, many old-timers left the bay; the number of barges in the Gates Co-op dwindled from 115 to 38. Even after the move, it took a long time for the place to become the tidy community it is today.
“We were running 38 houseboats off an extension cord, essentially. If someone plugged in a hair dryer everything would blow,” Finn told me. “Once, I looked down the dock and there was fire shooting out of an electrical box.”
Rob Blakely, an environmental consultant who lived on the docks through the winter of 2004, remembers some dangerous nights when the king tides rolled in.
“Between the parking lot and the boat at the end of the pier it was like 3 or 4 feet deep,” he recounted. “The electrical extension leads would tighten and pop.”
Despite the dangers, Blakely also has fond memories of his winter in the Gates. “I bought a two-person kayak. I’d get home from work, get a couple beers and a bowl, paddle out and look at the city, Tiburon and Alcatraz. It was incredible,” he remembered.
Over the past two decades, Finn has watched the community transform into the clean-cut waterborne neighborhood it is today. As we wandered around the dock together, she ruminated on the curious nature of gentrification, something she knows she herself has been a part of.
“I bought my boat, I painted it, I put flower boxes up,” she told me. “People were not into it. I recognized it as the fear of change.”
As we walked, we passed another new battleground in the war between artists, boatbuilders and the developers who want to turn the waterfront into condos and hotels: a homeless camp.
In an echo of the city’s crackdown in the 1970s, the county had forced many anchor-outs — people who had long lived on boats out in Richardson Bay — off the water and into tents during the COVID-19 pandemic, sending the Army Corps of Engineers’ heavy machinery to crush the boats that had been their homes for years. Earlier this year, the county moved nearly two dozen people living in the muddy camp to a tennis court nearby, building raised platforms to keep the tents from being flooded at high tide.
Remembering the wild ones
Listening to the old-timers and current residents’ tales of the Gates, it’s often hard to know what was true and what was folklore. One thing that always stands out in the stories are the characters, the eccentrics and legends who called the water home, some gone, some still afloat today.
There’s the story of the ex-Navy SEAL who would swim out into the waves when a storm came to “instigate” the angry sea lions for a thrill; the story of a man named Diving Doug who would take kids pigeon hunting with a pitchfork; a local hero, Joe Tate, who rode a tricycle with speakers and a keyboard, led the fight against the developers and swears he watched Otis Redding sittin' on the dock of the bay; and Brownie, a beloved resident who, when the eviction notices were served, moved to Modesto with his 42 cats. And then there are the celebrities who sought shelter on the water: Shel Silverstein, Sammy Hagar, Chronicle cartoonist Phil Frank, Janis Joplin. The list goes on. It seems that for many, if not for the Gates, those wild ones may have never found a home.
Comparing the docks now to the vibrant creative community captured in Lyons-Labate’s old photos, it’s hard to say who really won or lost. But the fact that the surviving members of the Gates were allowed the chance to stay on the water after being attacked in their homes feels rare.
Outside of the wild stories of clashes with the cops and the counterculture explosion that happened down on the bay, everyone also has darker tales of folks lost to the water.
Back on her houseboat, Lyons-Labate showed me a small ceramic model of her old boat, where she raised her family during the tumult. It sits under a widescreen TV in her new space. She told me she has lost some people over the years but doesn’t want to elaborate. “It’s about healing,” she says, “It’s been an incredible adventure.”
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/The-pirates-of-Sausalito-17160156.php
| 2022-05-15T13:30:05
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/The-pirates-of-Sausalito-17160156.php
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There are few things San Francisco loves more than a weird race. Be it with soapbox cars, big wheels or snakes, the city has a mild obsession with the fast and curious, which might be best exemplified by the Bay to Breakers footrace.
Each year since 1912 (not counting 2020 and 2021), thousands of runners have participated in the 12-kilometer dash starting at Howard and Main streets and ending at Ocean Beach. It’s a race, sure, but it’s really more of a party, with most runners putting more effort into building costumes than training to improve their finish time. Like SantaCon, it serves as an excuse to day drink, with the race route turning into a party and many participants testing their alcohol tolerance in addition to endurance.
Recent news about the organizers of Bay to Breakers making donations to controversial politicians and refusing to award nonbinary runners (which was reversed after public outcry) has put its quirky identity into question, but there’s still a strong contingent of participants keeping the original spirit of the event — and today, they’ll be wearing salmon suits.
One of Bay to Breakers' most beloved traditions is the salmon run, in which a contingent of costumed fish literally goes against the stream by running the opposite direction of the race, relishing in the ridiculousness of the concept and collecting high-fives along the way. The idea was started in 1994 by the Cacophony Society, a loose band of absurdists that evolved from the San Francisco Suicide Club.
“The Cacophony Society is a randomly gathered network of free spirits united in the pursuits of experiences beyond the pale of mainstream society. And you may already be a member,” says Michael Mikel, who has been a part of the group since 1986 and co-founded Burning Man.
Although never as extreme as the Suicide Club (they weren’t climbing atop the Golden Gate Bridge to picnic), the Cacophony Society’s street theater antics and absurd traditions are the stuff of legend, with some of their most notable ideas like SantaCon and Burning Man turning into worldwide phenomena. Cacophony Society member Rob Schmitt was part of the team that conceived the first salmon run.
“I saw Bay to Breakers like a major river flowing through the city,” says 56-year-old Schmitt, who was also on the original Burning Man team and lives in what he refers to as “Ukraine Hill.” “I was up in Marin County with this girl, and she’s pointing out that the salmon run up this river every once in a while. Driving back in my car, I was thinking, we should run like salmon.” Although Schmitt had the Eureka moment, he stresses that the run has always been a team effort, and credits Annie Coulter as a co-founder.
The informal group meets at the top of the Hayes Street hill near Alamo Square Park to hand out costumes, then casually jogs against the crowd, stopping at bars along the way. The most ambitious fish eventually end up at the race starting line, where they lay down on the ground in a pile to simulate spawning. Although the whole schtick is a simple gag, it blew people away the first year.
“The first time, people were shocked! ‘You’re going the wrong way!’” says Mikel. “It was just so funny. And then people would expect us, a lot of people doing high-fives. There were a few people that were a little upset; usually that was the more serious runners. Everyone who was dressed up in something outrageous just loved it.”
The original salmon suits were made for $9 each using off-the-roll outdoor carpet from Home Depot and spray paint. The costumes extend high above the wearer’s head, so that incoming runners can see them above the crowd.
Hallie McConlogue, a 55-year-old virtual reality designer, found the event in the early 2000s via the Squid List. After being gifted a squid suit for her first run, she became an unofficial costume maker for the event, creating 60 via assembly line and bringing them to the race to hand out to strangers recruited to join in the upstream antics. She’s sitting this year out due to COVID concerns but is still a big advocate for the idea.
“I just thought it was really, really cool to get cheered and high-fived for being weirder than everybody else,” says McConlogue. “For an extrovert, this is candy on an epic scale. It’s better than performing to 50,000 people, because they’re in your face with all this happiness. I think it’s worth 12 years of therapy for anyone who doesn’t know how to take in acknowledgment for being different or weird.”
Over the years, the ingenuity of the salmon run has left its mark on popular culture, with brands co-opting the concept. Nike reportedly staged its own salmon runner photo shoot for a billboard campaign, and Bacardi re-created the concept during the NYC Marathon for its own commercials. Although some might feel sour or even litigious about gigantic companies profiting off their joke, Schmitt laughed it off.
“The thing is, we’re an art group; we don’t care,” says Schmitt. “We didn’t sue them; we didn’t ask for money. We didn’t care, because we get what we need out of this. We’re not doing it for money; we’re doing it for fun.”
Although it’s hard to imagine someone taking issue with such an innocuous prank, the group has had some pushback over the years, which is usually taken in stride (literally).
“Sometimes, whoever organizes the event tells the security people to get the salmon off the route. They’ve just been told what to do, so basically, we ignore them,” McConlogue says. “But the cops, we do whatever they say. Then walk further down the route and go about our business.”
In addition to just collecting high-fives and having a good laugh, Schmitt hopes that the event will inspire more people to start projects in the same spirit as the Cacophony Society and help keep the weird spirit of San Francisco thriving.
“If somebody sees the salmon running upstream, it puts something in their head to think, oh, I could do something like this. That’s one of the things I love about San Francisco,” Schmitt says.
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/sf-bay-to-breakers-salmon-run-17171524.php
| 2022-05-15T13:30:11
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/sf-bay-to-breakers-salmon-run-17171524.php
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Southwestern Oregon Community College’s popular Geology Lecture Series concludes for the 2021-22 academic year with a talk by Ron Metzger, professor of Earth Sciences at Southwestern with “The Last Lecture? Oribatid Mites, Conodonts and Musings from Nearly Four Decades in the College Classroom.”
The talk will take place on Saturday, May 21, at 7 p.m. in the Hales Center for the Performing Arts on the Coos Bay campus (1988 Newmark Ave.) and also streamed live via Livestream at the College website (https://livestream.com/swocc/geology2021-22).
Metzger earned a bachelor of science degree with honors from St. Lawrence University, and master’s and doctorate degrees in paleontology from the University of Iowa. He has been a member of the Southwestern Oregon Community College faculty since the fall of 1996 and will officially retire in June.
He is a member of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers having served in a variety of leadership roles for the Pacific Northwest Section including president. He has been a workshop leader for Teachers on the Leading Edge and for On The Cutting Edge: NAGT Early Career Geoscience Faculty Workshop.
While at Southwestern he served as Geology Club advisor, Faculty Senate chair and as faculty ex-officio on the College Foundation Board. Over the years, he has given community outreach talks to numerous groups. One of Metzger’s most significant local contributions has been hosting the geology lecture series, bringing prominent scientists to the college to present lectures on cutting edge topics to students and community for over two decades.
Ron also serves on the Jefferson Public Radio Foundation Board and recently retired from the board of the Oregon Coast Music Festival after 20 years of service.
In addition to the speaker, representatives of the Southwestern Foundation, South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, University of Oregon’s Charleston Marine Life Center, Shoreline Education for Awareness and Surfrider Foundation will be present in the Hales Center lobby starting at 6:30 pm to share information regarding their organizations. The representatives will also be available after the lecture.
Lecture Series sponsors include DB Western, Southwestern Foundation, The Mill Casino & Resort, Ocean Discovery Lecture Series, and the American Geophysical Union.
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/geology-lecture-series-presents-the-last-lecture/article_b0a8f596-d15f-11ec-a15a-af26d2ffda1c.html
| 2022-05-15T13:46:03
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/geology-lecture-series-presents-the-last-lecture/article_b0a8f596-d15f-11ec-a15a-af26d2ffda1c.html
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Lockheed Martin holding hiring event, plans to expand F-16 workforce in Greenville
Lockheed Martin is planning to add 300 people to its Greenville workforce this year to help meet the increasing demand for the F-16 Block 70/72 fighter jet being produced here.
The company said in a news release that it will conduct interviews and make hiring decisions at a hiring event from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, at McAlister Square in Greenville.
The hires are in addition to 150 new hires already this year, according to a news release.
Lockheed Martin has about 400 employees working on F-16 production in Greenville, according to Madison Callahan, a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin. About half of those workers are "touch professionals," such as mechanics and technicians, and half provide direct support services such as planning, engineering and quality control, Callahan said in an email.
Lockheed's total Greenville workforce is about 900.
The positions being filled include airframe and powerplant mechanics, avionics technicians and structures mechanics. The jobs come with sign-on bonuses of up to $20,000 and relocation expenses up to $5,000, according to the news release.
The company did not provide a salary range for the new positions. However, Callahan said in an email that Lockheed recently increased hourly pay and salaries for most positions.
More:Here's why you should care about Lockheed Martin's $900 million contract in Greenville
The company announced last October that it would be adding at least 300 jobs to Greenville by the end of the year.
The hiring is driven by demand.
There is a backlog of 128 new F-16 Block 70/72 jets that will be produced in Greenville for five countries: Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Taiwan and one that has not been identified by the company.
There is a potential for another 300 orders for the fighter based on international interest, Callahan said.
Flight tests on the first F-16 Block 70 to be delivered to Bahrain will begin in 2023, with the rate of production increasing during the year. Callahan called the production of the F-16 a "multi-year process that ramps up incrementally."
Lockheed Martin announced in 2017 that it would move production of the F-16 fighter jet to Greenville. Last year, the company announced a $900 million contract with the U.S. Air Force to provide sustainment support and depot-overflow services for F-16s. That contract was expected to create up to 80 jobs at the time.
At Tuesday’s event, interviews and hiring decisions will be made on the same day.
McAlister Square is at 225 S. Pleasantburg Drive.
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https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/greenville/2022/05/15/lockheed-martin-holding-hiring-event-tuesday-may-17-sc-to-build-f-16-fighters/9764260002/
| 2022-05-15T13:55:37
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https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/greenville/2022/05/15/lockheed-martin-holding-hiring-event-tuesday-may-17-sc-to-build-f-16-fighters/9764260002/
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Here's what SC women are saying about the possible end of Roe v. Wade
In coordination with similar rallies held in cities across the nation, more than 500 people gathered in downtown Greenville on Saturday to voice their opinion on either side of the abortion debate.
National coverage:Thousands gather for nationwide 'Bans Off Our Bodies' rallies for abortion rights
Recent reporting:What a possible overturning of Roe v. Wade would mean for South Carolina
This follows the recently-leaked draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court indicating that Roe v. Wade could be overturned and states would be allowed to make individual decisions about abortion.
Here’s what some women shared with The Greenville News.
Timicia Grant
Grant is a mother who strongly believes in a person's right to their autonomy to choose what they do and don't do with their body.
If the court rescinds such rights, "it would be a slippery slope for us losing other rights," Grant said.
"I feel like, in the United States of America, we should be moving forward and not backward," she said. "So, I want to bring attention to this issue, specifically to the Upstate because it is one of the largest growing areas in the entire state, and make sure that these folks know that they have a right to speak on the issues that they believe in — rescinding the decision to their autonomy to choose."
Sydney Gardner
Gardner was part of the counter-protest. She held a sign that read, "the body inside your body is not your body."
"We are counter-protesting because the feminist movement is all about the woman's choice but the child in the womb, the girl in the womb, she doesn't have a choice," she said. "They are stripping away her choices."
Gardner said she rejoiced when she learned about the leaked Supreme Court opinion.
"I rejoiced because this possibly could save so many children's lives," she said. "I was happy about it. I hope it goes through."
Stephanie Baliya
"We're women. We should be able to decide if we have an abortion or not. It's nobody's business but ours," she said. "I think it's totally unfair that in (this) country, guns have more protection, more rights than women."
Eleanor Ascheman
Ascheman said she is pro-life because she believes women deserve better than abortion.
"I think our generation's been fed this lie that women need abortion to be successful, that they can't be a mother and student, or a mother and a businesswoman. I think women are much more capable of that.
"I think we should turn the narrative to say 'how can we empower women to be a mother and.' It shouldn't be either or. They shouldn't have to kill their child to be a success in life."
Ascheman most of the time, when she's talked to women outside of abortion centers, the pregnancy is not the issue.
"It's abusive relationship or money or anything that can be fixed," she said. "You can get new housing, you can get new clothing, you can resolve all of those issues to empower you to have the child. A lot of women just don't know the resources are out there."
Lois Martin
Martin said she was at the rally to represent the young ladies in her life who could not attend, as well as any grandchildren she'll have in the future.
"It's not up to a bunch of middle-aged white politicians to decide what to do with my body," she said. "So, I think if you don't have a safe way for people to choose, they're going to be dying in the back streets like they used to. I don't see why it's so complicated for Washington to understand this.
"It's got to be safe. It has to be safe," Martin said. "We're not pro-abortion. We're pro-life and that includes the lives of the women.
Hayden Laye
Laye said he is the leader of the Abortion-Free Cities campaign in Greenville and their goal is to abolish abortion in Greenville and overturn Roe v. Wade.
"I am a pro-life Democrat and I know that abortion ends the life of a human being and abortion has ended the lives of 63 million human beings in America since Roe v. Wade,' he said. "That is one of the greatest human rights violations in America currently and I want to make sure that that's ended here in Greenville and America."
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https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/south-carolina/2022/05/15/greenville-sc-rally-reproductive-rights-brings-hundreds-downtown/9743956002/
| 2022-05-15T13:55:43
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https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/south-carolina/2022/05/15/greenville-sc-rally-reproductive-rights-brings-hundreds-downtown/9743956002/
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BALTIMORE — Preakness may be a gathering centered around horse racing, but for Baltimore native Lacey Johansson, who has been attending festivities for decades, the hats steal the show.
What to don is key, because Preakness, set for May 21, is not just about being fashionable, but standing out.
“I want to have a hat that no one else has,” Johansson said. “I like to be different and (Preakness is) kind of the one place that I’m very fashion forward. I like to make a statement.”
Social media influencer and Baltimore native Morgan Moses-Allen, who has attended Preakness and also noted the trendsetters, said the event prioritizes the head-turning hat.
“There is something specific to Baltimore about having a certain type of hat, something that stands out, something that’s different,” Moses-Allen, 35, said. “Every time I would go or someone would invite me, it was always a question about your hat, like, ‘What kind of hat are you wearing?’”
And that’s where Ashley Clark comes to the rescue. Clark is the founder, designer and CEO of Soigné Luxury Accessories, headquartered in Fells Point.
“A lot of the time I make hats that I can’t find out there,” the 34-year-old entrepreneur said. “I always say I design for the extraordinary, not the ordinary. There are no plain bagels in my client roster.”
Soigné began as a vivid dream that felt so real it led Clark to drop out of law school. She traveled to France to study the craft, took millinery courses from Hat Academy, and began making hats for friends around 2016.
In 2018, Clark officially launched Soigné and began the business’ transformation from a dream to an award-winning brand that has loyal clients and a reputation for jaw-dropping designs.
“I’ve been lucky my designs have won best hat at all three races (Triple Crown) and I made history in 2019, being the first ever small business-owned, small designer, to win best hat.”
For last year’s Preakness she created a hat for Moses-Allen that featured remote-controlled feather butterflies. The design not only won, but made headlines.
“Morgan’s hat was on the cover of USA Today,” Clark said, describing how she hand-painted feathers to craft the hat and butterflies. “They fluttered on her head.”
The pandemic forced Clark to explore other accessories such as headbands, earmuffs, jewelry and more.
“Hats are the love of my life, honestly,” she said. “All of the other products came about because of COVID. I didn’t want to fire my staff and we had a bunch of fabric and stuff lying around, and we just pivoted. It was like: ‘how can you look good from the neck up in pajamas on a Zoom call during COVID?’”
Clark opened a brick and mortar in Boston in November 2020, but she quickly “outgrew” that location. She previously lived in Baltimore for nine years, where she participated in pageants, worked as an NFL cheerleader and studied in graduate school. When it was time to expand, the CEO knew the area would be an affordable option to grow her business.
“Baltimore plays such a big role in this journey because of the affordability and then there’s horse racing and that niche market,” Clark said. “But people don’t realize that Baltimore has a kaleidoscope of fashion that also inspires me on a daily basis.”
A long-standing Baltimore battle of local aesthetic also influences Clark’s designs.
“There’s this preppy aspect of Baltimore, where there’s women in the county, and it’s very Brooks Brothers, and J. Crew,” she said. “Then you have this sensational street fashion that has so much attitude and flair.”
“And when you combine those two things together, you get this beautiful fashion niche that is the city. And to me, it gives me life and propels me forward,” the designer said.
After gutting the building, Clark opened her Fells Point location on Thames Street last August.
“I was lucky because the location that I’m in used to be a retail store, so it had good bones,” she said.
Those bones have stretched out to a body of work that includes an annual collection of 55 hats plus individual consultations, lifetime client hat blocks (molds of clients’ head shapes and sizes) and custom creations. Soigne’s 2022 hat collection is inspired by billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk recently exploring space, and the regularly trending cryptocurrency conversations.
“The new collection is called Sexual Space Odyssey — it’s the derby on the moon. So think of a lot of lace, a lot of leather, a lot of faux flowers, a lot of taxidermy,” Clark said. “We have parts that move, we have space helmets, we have airplanes where the cockpit lights up on a hat that is wrapped in this sumptuous and boss leather. It’s kind of wild.”
Pieces from her new collection and custom creations will be on full display at the Preakness.
“Morgan’s hat this year is three-feet wide,” Clark said, spilling some of the tea about Moses-Allen’s bright pink Preakness look ahead of Saturday’s big event.
“I’m going to have to turn to walk in the doorways,” Moses-Allen laughed. “It’s also not going to be your traditional hat on your head. It’s more like a structure.”
Clark is also designing Johansson’s 2022 Preakness look, crafting the hat around a jungle theme.
“It’s going to be one of those where it’s over one eye, kind of tilted down with black and white and red colors throughout,” said Johansson, who has been buying Clark’s custom creations since 2018.
The designer also creates complimentary matching accessories with her hat designs. For example, she will offer ideas for a partner’s look such as a coordinating bow tie, lapel pin and handkerchief, all keeping to the same theme.
Johansson said Clark provides “the whole nine yards,” but that’s not the only reason Soigné hats are perfect for Preakness.
“It’s a long day, so I think the most important part is that it fits,” said Johansson. “It doesn’t move, it stays on your head, you don’t have to worry about it blowing away.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-designer-aims-to-turn-heads-with-preakness-hats/2022/05/15/32d26f24-d44f-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-15T13:56:47
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-designer-aims-to-turn-heads-with-preakness-hats/2022/05/15/32d26f24-d44f-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
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WINCHESTER, Va. — The first people calling 911 on Dec. 26 about a man beating his girlfriend at the Interstate 81 rest stop in Clear Brook were concerned, but calm.
Despite the chaos at the rest stop, which was busy with holiday travelers, Baber and dispatchers Karen Gray and Makennah Slater-Yon stayed cool. Their composure helped paramedics and police respond quickly and safely to the shooting in which all the wounded survived.
The incident began around 9:25 a.m. and ended when Avila fatally shot himself around noon in his car at the roundabout at Airport and Victory roads as a deputy and state trooper approached the car. Police said he was on his way home to Brownsville, Texas, with his girlfriend when they parked at the rest stop.
The dispatchers — officially known as communication officers — were recently honored by the Virginia chapter of the American Public Safety Communications Organization. They won in the team performance in a critical incident category over three other agencies that were nominated.
Baber and Gray tried to get as much information from callers as possible to assist police and make sure it was safe for paramedics to render aid. Questions included:
Who was wounded, where on their body were they hit and where were the victims and were they conscious?
Where was the shooter and what did he look like?
What was the color, make, model and license plate number of the getaway car and where was it headed?
Throughout the ordeal, the dispatchers tried to calm callers who were confused and terrified.
“We have ambulances coming,” Gray told the rest stop manager who had locked one of the wounded men in the Welcome Center with the man’s wife. “Try to keep him awake and talking to you, OK? You stay right there and stay safe. They’re coming.”
The 52-year-old Baber, hired in 1998, supervised the 44-year-old Gray, hired in 2011, and the 22-year-old Slater-Yon, hired in March of last year. It was the first active shooter incident for the three although Baber and Gray have worked officer-involved shootings.
Gray was the primary 911 call-taker that day and answered dozens of calls. Besides taking calls, Baber dispatched paramedics. Slater-Yon, who was still in training, dispatched police. About an hour after the incident began, Tara Vann, operations supervisor, and dispatcher Jessica Gosnell came in to help.
Gray said maintaining perspective helps dispatchers stay cool.
“If I get excited, then they’re going to be more excited,” she said. “I have to remember that this is not my emergency going on, it’s their emergency and in order to get them help, I have to stay calm.”
Baber had to ensure the scene was safe before paramedics could enter it and render aid. She also had to help them find the victims who were in different locations. Baber said the award shows the excellent teamwork at the 911 Center.
Slater-Yon’s role was primarily relaying information to police about where Avila might be. She said she understands the stakes when speaking with a 911 caller during a bad crash, fire or violent crime.
“It is stressful. You’re getting yelled at because they’re scared, but you also have to calm them down so that the firefighters and EMTs and the cops know everything that’s going on,” she said. “Sometimes when they’re in that panic, it’s really hard to get that information, but it’s really rewarding at the end of the day.”
Dispatchers frequently have to go from zero to 100 mph. A typical day can involve giving first aid instructions to a caller who is trying to help someone experiencing a medical emergency. Or speaking to a driver entrapped in their vehicle after a crash. During their downtime, dispatchers often enter information into the National Crime Information Center such as protection orders or search warrant data.
Frederick County Sheriff Lenny Millholland said the good work done during the shooting highlights how dispatchers are the eyes and ears of officers as they respond to an incident. Because they’re behind the scenes, he said dispatchers often don’t get the appreciation they deserve for a stressful job.
“People call and it’s the worst day of their life and the only person they have to talk to is a dispatcher,” Millholland said. “They do a job that the average person can’t handle.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dispatchers-honored-for-handling-of-rest-stop-shooting/2022/05/15/2de5e8b0-d44f-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-15T13:56:53
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dispatchers-honored-for-handling-of-rest-stop-shooting/2022/05/15/2de5e8b0-d44f-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
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CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Miya Mitchell-Bray decided during the groundswell social justice movement of 2020 that it was time to be the change she wanted in her community. Donning a Chesapeake Police Department uniform and badge, Mitchell-Bray recently completed her first year patrolling the streets of the city she calls home.
“With everything going on today in law enforcement, I felt the time was now to join the police department and be the change that I want to see,” Mitchell-Bray said.
Across Hampton Roads, police departments are facing double-digit staffing shortages after the pandemic saw many workers reconsider careers and the social justice movement placed greater scrutiny on law enforcement. But Chesapeake is among those with success recruiting new officers.
Between July 2021 and April 2022, the Chesapeake Police Department hired 41 officers — 37 of whom were new officers and four lateral transfers from neighboring departments. The department’s number of new hires is second in the region only to Virginia Beach, which hired 86 officers between July and February.
RECRUITING GOES BEYOND PAY
To help with recruiting, the Chesapeake Police Department implemented a 5% pay increase for all positions in January. New hires make $45,213 a year, which is bumped up to $50,326 after an officer is certified following graduation from the academy.
But Chesapeake’s recruiting success goes beyond pay, according to department spokesperson Leo Kosinski.
“The competitive pay has helped with getting lateral transfers lately,” Kosinski said. “However, it is more word of mouth from happy officers sharing their experience with others and how the culture of our specific department is different than other departments.”
Mitchell-Bray echoed Kosinski, stating she chose Chesapeake because it was one of the only area departments that works 8-hour shifts instead of 12-hour shifts and has its own academy.
“That was a major decision for me because I have children, and I am the primary parent because my husband is active-duty military,” Mitchell-Bray said.
The process for a new hire to complete the academy and become a certified law enforcement officer averages 4-6 months. The most challenging aspect of recruiting is retaining applicants through that lengthy time frame, saidDupree Foster, recruiter for the Chesapeake Police Department.
“We have less applicants overall but we have more applicants who are looking to make a career out of law enforcement,” Foster said.
To improve the likelihood of making it through the hiring process, Chesapeake police officers meet with applicants on a weekly basis to mentor them and offer mental and physical fitness coaching.
“But we are not looking at lowering our standards just to fill positions,” Foster said. “We need to find people who want to do this for the right reasons, have a decent background and can pass our physical standards as well.”
Prior to entering the academy, Mitchell-Bray stayed in contact with a recruiter and her assigned background investigator, who gave her workout tips and shared personal experiences with her.
“They provided as many answers as they could about the academy experience,” Mitchell-Bray said. “I took their advice, however you are never really ready for the academy of the unknown.”
FINDING THE BEST FIT
As of April, Chesapeake has 43 officer vacancies out of 404 authorized sworn positions — leaving the agency about 11% understaffed. For comparison, the neighboring Norfolk and Portsmouth police departments are both roughly 30% below authorized sworn staffing levels.
Chesapeake is not the only department to see some success recruiting new hires in recent months.
The Hampton Police Division cut its vacancies in half between July 2021 and April 2022, filling 22 of its 44 open positions. Around that time, the division raised base pay for all ranks. The salary for new recruits increased from $38,618 to $43,297 and from $45,213 to $48,800 for certified officers.
To reach a broader swath of potential new hires, the city’s police division partnered with the city’s marketing program to increase its digital outreach footprint, said a Hampton police spokesperson Cpl. Ernest Williams.
A spokesperson with Hampton’s marketing team said the police division’s recruiting information is included in the city’s daily E-newsletter and is shared across the city’s main social media accounts.
“Generally, our reach is more broad across the city and hits different people than the police accounts do,” said Hampton spokesperson Robin McCormick.
Recruiters also regularly go into local schools and colleges and give presentations.
“This is two-fold as it improves the perception of police work with young people and we are simultaneously building a future applicant pool,” Williams said.
Applicants should consider the type of police work they want to get into and make sure they understand whether a specific local police department is the best fit, Williams said.
“For instance, should an applicant express interest in flying a helicopter or participating in a mounted unit, we will certainly try and entice them to re-evaluate their direction because HPD doesn’t have their resources, but we will point them in the right direction if that is the path they wish to utilize,” Williams said.
Mitchell-Bray said she aspires to become a school resource officer, one of more than two dozen specialty units available with the Chesapeake department.
As area police departments clamor for applicants, Mitchell-Bray says potential new hires should remember that a job in law enforcement is not for everyone.
In responding to calls for service since she graduated from the academy in February 2021, Mitchell-Bray has come face to face with some of the same negative perceptions that inspired her to join the department.
“Being a woman of color, I am told I’m a sellout or on the wrong side,” she said. “I used to take it personal, but I had to remember why I chose this profession.”
During her first year on the job, Mitchell-Bray said she found the most important quality to have as a law enforcement officer is integrity.
“A career in law enforcement takes a certain amount of love and compassion for others,” she said. “It is not just about fighting crime. You have to know your neighbors.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-police-attract-recruits-when-every-agency-is-hiring/2022/05/15/3136fe1e-d44f-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-15T13:56:59
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/how-police-attract-recruits-when-every-agency-is-hiring/2022/05/15/3136fe1e-d44f-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
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It might not have been in the cards for Candice Gonzales to become a designer if she hadn’t diligently sat at her grandmother’s side as she was sewing and altering clothes.
Most of the time she would draw as her grandmother hemmed, being the “annoying grandkid” who wanted to be involved in her grandmother’s work, speaking to her in English while her grandmother answered in Spanish.
Unbeknownst to Gonzales at the time, the two were in separate worlds. Her grandmother spent her hours working to support her family while Gonzales was enchanted by her grandmother’s craft.
“I was so fascinated by what she did. I didn’t want to play outside. I wanted to sit by her side and ask a bunch of questions,” Gonzales said.
Her grandmother started off by teaching her how to sew beads in a straight line, then moved on to lace appliques, tracing the pattern with a needle and thread. By the time she was in eighth grade, Gonzales had designed and made her first original dress.
She opened her bridal shop, House of RemiRose, last year in south Phoenix after her instincts called her back to the community where she grew up.
It is the culmination of a vision and familial and cultural legacies.
Those legacies date as far back to Mexico’s earliest roots, she said. When Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men arrived in Mexico in 1519, they were amazed by the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan because of its lushness, ingenuity and advanced infrastructure. For Gonzales, that history signifies a storied tradition of creativity and perseverance.
“Going back to the history of Mexico, our people are creators and that land that we created was one of the most beautiful lands. People didn’t understand how we had running water in places where other people didn’t have running water,” Gonzales said.
“People didn’t understand how we were smart enough to do that. What I like about our culture is that if we put our minds to something, and we say we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it. And I always feel like my word is my bond. That’s just a part of me that I know has come down from generations.”
A family affair
The foundations of House of RemiRose aren’t just about sewing or design. Gonzales gained her business sense helping her paternal grandmother make and sell burritos door to door in south Phoenix. It was a reflection of life as a growing small business in Mexico, where it’s customary to sell food and wares by knocking on doors.
Gonzales' father owned a thrift store and taught her how to reupholster old furniture. It was through their guidance that she learned how to run a business and the value of hard work, she said. That business sense that brought her to draw inspiration from wedding venues in California that were attached to dress shops and hair and makeup artists.
House of RemiRose is nestled in Alborada Village, a wedding venue hidden away from direct view of the bustling Central Avenue that weaves together fairy tale and rustic Arizona vibes with wagon wheels, a carriage and an elegant fountain. Gonzales partnered with her best friend Sierra Garcia, who operates her nail salon on the bottom floor of the boutique, to complete the experience she was looking for to provide brides with everything they need.
Gonzales offers premade and custom wedding dresses, bridal makeup, bridal nails and body contouring. She gave her business the name RemiRose as a tribute to her father, Remigio. Rose was one of the most popular names of 2016, and it had always stood out to her.
Her custom pieces can range from $3,000 to $10,000, but as part of her business strategy, Gonzales wants to break from the “cutthroat” nature of the bridal industry where sellers often compete to lower prices to make a sale.
Instead, she said she’s honest about how much time, material and labor go into a custom piece and suggests dresses already in the shop or, if necessary, another boutique that can accommodate the bride.
It’s a reflection of the integrity her grandmother taught her and her commitment to providing quality products and service, she said.
“That’s how my grandmother is,” Gonzales said. “My grandmother was like, if I did something wrong 10 times. Guess what? We’re redoing it 10 times.
"She believes a lot in quality and she will not show anything beneath her skill level. There’s no way she could put her name on something if it’s not done correctly.”
A grandmother's love
Gonzales’ grandmother, Maria Luisa Flores, is now in her late 60s and is the rock Gonzales leans on. She brings her sewing machine to her grandmother’s house and asks for advice. On recent day, her grandmother told Gonzales to get rid of her manicure because her long nails were slowing down her sewing.
Gonzales' grandmother had fled to El Paso from Chihuahua amidst cartel violence. To Gonzales, she seemed fearful of speaking of her talent, and fearful of failing. Flores didn’t talk of Mexico very often, and Gonzales didn't have many opportunities to visit her grandmother’s home country.
Flores dedicated herself to her work, never really advertising her alteration services and yet drawing clientele from all over the Valley. She worked away through nights when everyone else was asleep so she could focus in silence.
“People would come from Scottsdale and I have no idea how they knew she was there,” Gonzales said. “But they knew she was there on 16th and Baseline. I don’t know how she had so many clients, but she worked so hard to put food on the table.”
Flores ran her business out of her home for 36 years. She said Candice began evolving as a seamstress as she grew up and committed herself to making her own clothes.
"As she got older, she started dedicating herself to it," Flores said. "She always wanted me to make her dresses but I didn't always have time, so she took it up on her own."
Whatever Gonzales needed help with or hadn't learned from her formal schooling, Flores stepped in to show her. When Gonzales opened up her shop, Flores said she felt fulfilled. "Échale ganas," Flores told Gonzales.
"She's very energetic and a fast learner," Flores said. "Anything she puts her mind to, she can do it."
As fate would have it
Everything Flores couldn’t teach Gonzales she learned at the Phoenix Art Institute, where she arrived to her first day of class with a pencil and paper. Her classmates showed up with slick MacBooks.
That’s when she first confronted having to adapt to the digital evolution of the fashion industry. She made it through college with an old laptop that fit her budget. Today she’s proud that she is versed in the new and old school methods of her craft.
“(My grandmother) went to school in Mexico, and I’m going to school in a whole different country, and the difference is so major now because everything is going digital,” Gonzales said. “My grandmother couldn’t teach me that way. So I learned two great ways, I think. The traditional way and the digital aspect of industry.”
Gonzales worked for the Almond Tree Wedding Boutique in north Phoenix just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, “planting the seeds” for her business. As weddings and stores took a hit in the wake of lockdowns, the store had to close.
The owner, Pam Hardy, wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of with the store closing and offered to help find other employment for her staff.
When Gonzales said she wanted to open her own shop, Hardy gave her a year’s worth of dresses left over from the store. That gave her a solid head start when looking for a place to house her vision. She worked with the owners of Alborada Village to switch some of its amenities around so her store could be placed in what had been office space.
The space is part luxury, part mystery and part fantasy with a brilliant white chandelier, soft lights, plush couches and a painting by Gonzales lurking behind her desk that looks out into the sales floor.
Though she has a history working in bridal boutiques and makes wedding dresses now, Gonzales is looking to grow into other aspects of her craft, like alterations and sustainable fast fashion that is comfortable and can withstand repeated use.
She doesn’t want to limit herself to one concept. She hopes to grow her fashion house and show the world her family’s talents that they didn’t always have the opportunity to share.
“I’m very proud of who I am and I’m very proud of the ability that I have,” Gonzales said. “I can’t hide it. My grandmother, she’s in her late 60s now, and I feel like I have to be able to showcase the things that my family hid away. And I know it’s in me. And I know it comes from being Mexican.”
A dream to give back
Ever since she was in school, Gonzales always wanted to be involved in her community, whether it was volunteering or running for class president. These days when she’s not at her shop, she is feeding the homeless and volunteering with Espiritu charter school in south Phoenix.
It was the spirit that drew her back to south Phoenix to open her store, she said. She wanted to bring the passion she had for her culture infused in bridal to her old neighborhood and give future brides in the neighborhood a positive experience that comes from a place of understanding what they need.
Gonzales hopes someday she will be able to donate dresses to women who can’t afford one or work with a company that will buy dresses for those who need one. The process of purchasing a dress is often emotional, she said. Gonzales wants all her clients to feel relaxed and remember that she took care of them during a time that could be intense for some people while making sure they found the dress of their dreams.
Her family didn’t always have the means to take her to the mall or buy her a prom dress, but Gonzales feels thankful for what she gained instead.
“At first it felt like I lost an experience,” she said. “But after a while I realized, who can spend 10 hours a day next to their grandma and learn from them and have it become their trade?”
Megan Taros covers south Phoenix for The Arizona Republic. Have a tip? Reach her at mtaros@gannett.com or on Twitter @megataros. Her coverage is supported by Report for America and a grant from the Vitalyst Health Foundation.
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Shoppers out on a weekend afternoon and a retired police officer working as a security guard were among the 10 shot and killed at a Buffalo supermarket by a white teenager who authorities say was motivated by racial hatred.
Police said Payton Gendron shot, in total, 11 Black people and two white people Saturday in a rampage at the Tops Friendly Market that the 18-year-old broadcast live before surrendering to authorities.
Among the dead was security guard Aaron Salter — a retired Buffalo police officer — who fired multiple shots at the gunman, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Saturday. A bullet hit the gunman's armor, but had no effect. The shooter then killed Salter, before hunting more victims.
Also killed was Ruth Whitfield, 86, the mother of retired Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield who told the Buffalo News that his “mother was a mother to the motherless.”
“She was a blessing to us all,” he added.
Katherine Massey, who had gone to the store to pick up some groceries, also was killed, according to the newspaper.
Photos: Supermarket Mass Shooting in Buffalo, NY
Local
It wasn't immediately clear why the 18-year-old had traveled about 200 miles from his Conklin, New York, to Buffalo and that particular grocery store, located in a predominantly Black neighborhood, but screenshots purporting to be from the Twitch broadcast appear to show a racial epithet scrawled on the rifle used in the attack, as well as the number 14, a likely reference to a white supremacist slogan.
At the earlier news briefing, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia pointedly called the shooting a hate crime.
“This was pure evil. It was (a) straight up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community, outside of the City of Good Neighbors ... coming into our community and trying to inflict that evil upon us,” Garcia said.
Twitch said in a statement that it ended the shooter's transmission “less than two minutes after the violence started.”
The massacre sent shockwaves through an unsettled nation gripped with racial tensions, gun violence and a spate of hate crimes. In the day prior to the shooting, Dallas police said they were investigating a series of shootings in Koreatown as hate crimes. The Buffalo attack came just one month after another mass shooting on a Brooklyn subway train wounded 10 people and just over a year after a mass shooting in a Colorado supermarket killed 10.
The shooter, confronted by police in the store's vestibule, put a rifle to his neck but was convinced to drop it. He was arraigned later Saturday on a murder charge, appearing before a judge in a paper gown.
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that investigators were looking into whether he had posted a manifesto online. The official was not permitted to speak publicly on the matter and did so on the condition of anonymity.
Buffalo police declined to comment on the document, circulated widely online, that purports to outline the attacker’s racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic beliefs, including a desire to drive all people not of European descent from the U.S. It said he drew inspiration the man who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/shoppers-guard-among-10-dead-in-buffalo-supermarket-attack/3688490/
| 2022-05-15T14:17:36
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/shoppers-guard-among-10-dead-in-buffalo-supermarket-attack/3688490/
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Five questions with ... Denny Ray, who builds ponds and keeps the geese away
Denny Ray is the owner and president of Pond Wiser Inc. in North Canton. Originally from Carrolton, he and his wife Kathy live in North Canton.
The Rays, who have two grown children, don't have pets, but they live with two working dogs Vic and Bill used for the goose control component of the business. There also are two office cats named Lily and Pad.
Ray graduated from Carrollton High School and then from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Today, he uses his artistic training and talents designing ponds. He started the business in 1989 under the name Ponds Unlimited.
"We changed our name to Pond Wiser Inc. in 2002 to reflect the added business services such as the goose control and then incorporated in 2007," Ray said. "This is our 33rd season in total."
More:Five questions with ... North Canton children's librarian Jamie Macris
Would you detail what goose control is and why it is important?
Goose control is exactly that. We guarantee control, not elimination.
Because geese are protected, using dogs to control the geese population on a property is safe and effective. The goal is to disrupt their habitat and prohibit them from nesting.
There are several reasons to remove the geese from your property. One, goose feces is toxic. And each goose drops one to three pounds of goose waste daily. Plus, the droppings are slimy and can destroy a lawn or cover a parking area, making it unusable.
Lastly, but probably most important, geese are very aggressive, especially in the spring when they are nesting. A male goose will attack to protect his mate. This is a huge liability for public property and businesses especially.
How did you develop your skills for what you do?
My pond skills were mostly self-taught when I started. I was the first person to install a pond in our area.
There were no courses, and not even books about it. I studied information that was derived from ponds built mostly in the UK, and especially formal cement ponds in England. As the "fad" took off, I was able to find more products and began working with various companies throughout the U.S.
I spent my childhood playing in the woods and coupled with my eye for design and ability to create art, I transferred that knowledge to pond building and repairing.
Once I became state licensed to provide maintenance and offer lake management, I started attending seminars and spent a great deal of time learning from aquatic biologists. I still rely on seminars and biologists 33 years later. I am not a pleasure reader, but give me information about designing or creating something, I will read to learn.
I added to my skills when we bought our first working dog and I learned how to work with him for goose control from his trainer. She gave me my initial training and was just a phone call away whenever I had questions. I was disappointed when I learned she was retiring. She retired around the same time I started looking for a second dog.
We were blessed to find another trainer who continued my training and again is always helpful if I have any questions or concerns. But, remember, these dogs are trained for years, so other than the dog and I getting to know each other, there aren't too many issues. I have to be trained, too.
More:Five questions with ... Alex Dowell, who manages the Repository Grand Parade
What makes the two border collies, Vic and Bill, a good fit for the job of goose control?
Our large pond and lake customers were frequently asking me about how to get the geese off their water and/or property. I began researching and found a few options.
The one that is most popular and effective is the use of specially trained dogs. And for goose control, border collies are the No. 1 choice, mainly because of their stature. Other than man, the only predator to a goose is a wolf/coyote.
If you have ever seen a border collie go into a stance or even when running, their form resembles that of a wolf. And their ability to learn is remarkable.
Vic and I bonded immediately. So just like bringing a new baby home, I had concerns when we purchased Bill. However, the two really complement each other. Vic just had his 12th birthday. Even though he remains healthy, he is slowing down on the long runs and prefers to stay on shore more so than swim.
Bill can't get enough long distance running and he has been in water for over a half-hour working geese.
What is your personal philosophy when working with your two canine partners?
Working with dogs is like working with two highly trained employees. They are intelligent and loyal to me and my company. My philosophy when doing goose control or pond services, or life in general, has always been to do the job to the best of my ability, respect those around me and remain consistent.
More:Five questions with ... drainage specialist Rome Marinelli
Because you work outdoors, would you list some of your favorite hobbies?
Pond Wiser started as a hobby and takes up most of my time. It's a good thing it incorporated many of my hobbies, like being on a boat and fishing.
I have been mechanically inclined since a young age and so I am always tinkering with something. Now, it might be fixing a toy for a grandchild, repairing a pond or working on a vehicle.
Again, so much of my life has been a crossover into my business. I do have a private pilot’s license and have a love of flying.
Editor's note: Five questions with ... is a Sunday feature that showcases a member of the Stark County community. If you'd like to recommend someone to participate, send an email to newsroom@cantonrep.com.
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https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/denny-ray-runs-pond-wiser-which-handles-geese-control/9663601002/
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Tucked away in a meadow just north of Flagstaff sits a memorial rock listed in the National Register of Historic Places commemorating the “Biological Survey of the San Francisco Mountain Region and Desert of the Little Colorado, Arizona.” The study, led by Clinton Hart Merriam, began in late July 1889 and stretched into September.
The biological expedition gave Merriam, then the nation's first chief of the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Division of Entomology, the insight he needed to develop the life zone theory, that climate gradients produced by elevation and latitude influenced the type of vegetation and the kind of animals that would dwell there. His work changed the way scientists viewed the environment and encouraged the development of the then-young field of ecology.
The call of the wild
Merriam always did have an interest in the natural world. He started collecting birds before his teens and noticed patterns regarding the distribution of them. Even though he studied at Yale, earned his medical doctorate at Columbia University and became a surgeon, he continued collecting birds and conversing with naturalists. Back in the day, collecting meant shoot, skin and mount. Over the years Merriam ended up with one of, if not the, greatest collection of mammals of his day.
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When call of the wild got too strong to ignore, Merriam left his thriving medical practice to start a career with the federal government with the thought of nabbing a chance to lead a biological survey of the nation in mind. As his life unfolded, Merriam not only got the chance to do surveys, but he toured Europe’s natural history museums to increase his knowledge, helped found the National Geographic Society and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
A labor of love
Merriam chose the San Francisco Peaks area "because of its southern position, isolation, great altitude and proximity to an arid desert." Despite the meager $600 budget allotted by the government for the expedition, of which Merriam bitterly complained, the crew — Merriam; his wife, Elizabeth; assistant, Vernon Bailey; paleontologist Professor F.H. Knowlton; and ornithologist, herpetologist and zoologist Dr. Leonhard Stejneger — along with assistance from the Riordan brothers made a number of excursions around the area. This included several trips up San Francisco Mountain, a trek across the Painted Desert to the Little Colorado River at Grand Falls, a descent into the Grand Canyon to Tanners Crossing, and side trips to Walnut Canyon and up Kendrick Peak.
These trips would have made a good fit for a survival show. From Merriam’s nocturnal climb out of the Grand Canyon on an injured knee holding a skunk he collected in one hand and his gun in the other to a parched trek across the Painted Desert from Grand Falls to the Hopi Mesa to the swarm of ants that invaded their camp and sullied the spot with foul-smelling formic acid to enduring a pelting from a raging sandstorm.
As a result of this labor of love, the life zone chart was born. Merriam identified seven zones, “each of which may be characterized by the possession of forms of life not found in the others” layered like geological strata in a Grand Canyon cliff. Though Merriam couldn’t apply the zones to the whole continent, his pivotal study laid the groundwork for future studies that conclusively identified the biomes of the world.
Life in the field
The Merriam party camped on a ridge overlooking the historic marker "at Little Spring among big pines, spruces and firs," Vernon Bailey, reported. "It is a grand place and such cold, pure water.” Unlike the muddy sludge the Painted Desert offered that sickened the crew.
The Merriam party discovered many new species of mammals, reptiles and plants. Merriam recorded the tassel-eared Abert's squirrel as characteristic of the area. Later, Merriam and Bailey trapped a dusky shrew near the timberline of the Peaks in late August. The capture was no small feat as the mouse-like critter with a pointed snout has nocturnal habits and only runs an average four inches.
Shrews, it seems, were Bailey’s specialty. During the early years working with Merriam, his boss asked him to collect some shrews. How many, Bailey wondered? Merriam answered as many as he could get. The final count was 60.
The same day the men trapped the dusky shrew, Elizabeth broiled a golden eagle Bailey had killed for dinner and breakfast. Bailey commented, "It was tough+bad+foul smelling." Luckily for Flagstaff’s local raptor, the U.S. enacted the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act in 1940.
If you follow in the footsteps of the Merriam expedition — collecting with only cameras, of course — just be sure to bring plenty of water, quietly observe the animals and certainly don't eat them.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/a-major-piece-of-the-puzzle-the-role-san-francisco-peaks-played-in-establishing-the/article_9b493be0-d301-11ec-8b9e-37ad38536cf3.html
| 2022-05-15T14:45:15
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ROCHESTER, Minn. - Supporters of abortion rights are taking to the streets nationwide as the supreme court considers striking down its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.
Dozens of peaceful protesters gathered here at the Olmsted County Government Center Saturday morning waving signs and chanting “My body, my choice,” in a continuing fight for reproductive rights.
This comes after a leaked majority draft opinion by the supreme court revealed justices could overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that establishes a pregnant woman's constitutional right to have an abortion.
Activists rallied against the prospect of leaving control up to states which could see over 26 of them ban abortion altogether.
Organizer of Rochester for Reproductive Rights, Rachel Meyer, wants to show support for those who want control over their bodies.
“Especially in a reproductive sense where we shouldn't be forced into something like that, if we don't want to. Especially when we have the resources and healthcare to do so.”
Rallygoer Mackenzie Whalen, says they know several victims of sexual assault and it's important women like them have a choice if they become pregnant.
“I can't imagine being forced to bring have a child if you're not ready to bring a child into the world that can't protect them can't care for them,” says Whalen.
This is the second Rochester for Reproductive Rights march held in the Med City over the past year.
The supreme court emphasizes the leaked draft opinion does not represent the final position of any justice. The court could make a ruling as soon as next month.
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https://www.kimt.com/news/local/some-in-rochester-rally-for-reproductive-rights-in-bans-off-our-bodies-march/article_3292c038-d3e4-11ec-873b-eb6524411c67.html
| 2022-05-15T14:45:17
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Two Flagstaff students have been named Flinn Scholars for 2022 recently.
Astrid Bell of Northland Preparatory Academy (NPA) and Mia Osmonbekov of BASIS Flagstaff are among 20 in the state to receive a full ride to one of Arizona’s public universities after they graduate this spring.
“The Flinn Scholars Program, supported by the Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation in partnership with Arizona’s three state universities, covers the cost of tuition, fees, housing, meals and at least two study abroad experiences,” according to a press release.
Both Bell and Osmonbekov are the third student at their school to receive this award.
The 20 Flinn Scholars are among 1,095 applications the program received last year. It is in its 37th year and is meant to recognize high-achieving seniors at Arizona high schools.
“This new class of Flinn Scholars persevered through a pandemic and excelled in the classroom as athletes, volunteers, musicians and school leaders during an incredibly challenging time,” said Anne Lassen, Flinn foundation vice president of scholarship and education initiatives. “The foundation is excited for what lies ahead for this new class of Flinn Scholars as they begin their undergraduate journeys intent on improving our state and world.”
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Mia Osmonbekov
Osmonbekov said she first heard about the scholarship from one of her ninth-grade teachers, and, once she became a senior, thought she might as well apply.
“I didn’t actually expect to get it,” she said, though she was “very excited” to hear she’d won.
“I don’t think I really realized how expensive college was until I started getting financial offers from other places,” she said. “And I was really excited about the study abroad part and staying in Arizona too, because my parents are here. It’s a community I grew up with.”
She’s lived in Flagstaff most of her life and participates in a variety of activities, both in and out of the classrooms.
She’s been competing in chess tournaments across Arizona since she was 9, as her dad is a chess player and has been on the BASIS chess team all four years of high school. She is now team captain and they were regional champions this year.
She’s also done speech and debate since her sophomore year and said it was the extracurricular “that probably changed me the most.”
She mentioned the impromptu speaking event, during which students are given two minutes to prepare a five-minute speech on a random topic. In 11th grade, she placed second in the state division in the category.
“I think that really pushed me out of my comfort zone, because I’m usually not very good at talking to people in front of a room, but that forced me to be able to,” she said. “It’s one of my proudest achievements… . I’m one of those people that really likes to overly prepare for things and overthink things, so impromptu forced me to just take things as they come, at least for the moment.”
She also volunteers as a GED and ESL tutor at the Literacy Center, startin with one-on-one tutoring to help adult learners with their English skills. During the pandemic, she taught intermediate ESL classes over Zoom.
Osmonbekov also started the Central Asia Project English initiative in June 2020. She joined with other high-schoolers across the United States to give Zoom lessons on English and help students prepare for the TOEFL exam.
“There’s this problem where, especially during the pandemic, a lot of girls in rural areas didn’t have great access to education, specifically English instruction,” she said of the reason for starting the program. “It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but there it’s a really big deal. If you’re somewhat proficient in English, you can basically get translator jobs, you can go overseas to study. … It's a cool way for me to reconnect with my cultural heritage [Osmonbekov’s parents are from Kyrgyzstan], but also help out other people.
She added: "Accessible education is something I really hope I can advocate for when I’m in college and after college.”
Osmonbekov said she’s “excited that high school’s over, but also a little nervous for the future."
"I don’t really know what college has in store, but I think it’s a normal feeling, it’s not too bad," she said.
Her advice for other high school students was “do what feels right for you and don’t listen to other people’s advice if you don’t like doing it.“
After graduation, Osmonbekov plans to study journalism at Arizona State University. She says she’s “always loved” writing and is considering becoming an investigative journalist or foreign correspondent.
“I’ve gotten more political, gotten more into documentaries in the last couple years, so I thought it’d be really cool to be involved in either of those…. It just sounds really exciting and you get to uncover different things,” she said.
She said her passion for writing started with a lot of reading. Osmonbekov said she enjoys 19th-century literature and that it’s influenced her writing fiction and schoolwork.
One of her favorite books is “Vanity Fair” by William Makepeace Thakeray.
“I just like the satire element, how complex it is. It’s really fun to read,” she said.
She’s also a “Taylor Swift aficionado,” though had trouble choosing a favorite from her albums.
“I love all her albums, I overanalyze all the lyrics, I know too much,” she said.
Her senior project also has to do with literature, analyzing Albert de Morcef’s character arc in "The Count of Monte Cristo."
“I’m arguing that Albert undergoes an epicurean to stoic ethical shift throughout the novel,” she said, though she noted that her definitions of the ethical concepts relied more on the French interpretation than their roots in ancient Greece. "… He evolves from this very pleasure-seeking personality where he’s really reliant on social validation to a more stoic view of the world, which derives inner validation. He puts virtue above everything else later on.”
BASIS senior projects also include two presentations and a related internship. Osmonbekov’s was working with a philosophy professor from Northern Arizona University. She said she chose the topic because of her love for the book since she first read it in middle school.
“It's just really great, it has this overarching plot, but there will be subplots that feed into it,” she said. “The prose is just glorious and wonderful, so I just thought it would be exciting.”
Astrid Bell
Bell said hearing she was named a Flinn Scholar was “really overwhelming.”
“I probably made incoherent noises for about a minute,” she said of hearing the news.
She first learned about the scholarship through a school counselor, though wasn’t sure whether to apply at first because the process was so rigorous.
Bell said she couldn’t have gotten the scholarship without help from her “huge support network.”
“It definitely wasn’t just me alone that got the Flinn Scholarship,” she said. “I have incredibly intelligent and supportive parents that helped me through this process and prepare for interviews and get a blazer that actually fits….. [My little sister is] one of those people that’s really good at staying in the moment, so she was able to keep me grounded and centered, and put everything in perspective. The teachers at school that wrote endless letters of recommendation for me, the counselors that kept me going…. I want to say a huge thank you to all of them.”
She advised other students to try things, even if they don’t seem likely, using this experience as an example.
“Just apply,” she said. “There’s going to be plenty of rejections and they’ll be disappointing for sure, but there’s always the chance you’ll get accepted, and I feel like that’s worth the risk.
Bell plans on attending the University of Arizona after graduating and says the school’s research focus was what appealed to her.
“Undergraduate research is super important to me and UofA has tons of opportunities where even freshmen in their second semester of school can get into the lab, start getting hard lab experience. I want to start doing medical and biomedical research as soon as I can.”
She plans to major in molecular and cellular biology on the premed track and is considering a minor or double major in Spanish.
She said she’s always loved the way science can be seen in the real world and was inspired by her childhood pediatrician.
“From a young age, I idolized her. I was like, ‘I want to do exactly what she does’ and it kind of stuck,” Bell said. “As I grew up, my interests aligned with medicine and I had the chance to shadow her a bunch of times in the past couple years. Seeing what she does, where she interacts with patients and what her life looks like on a day to day basis just feels right for me.”
UofA is also the right distance from home, she said.
“I wanted to have the chance to be far enough away that I can start establishing my own independence and learn how to problem solve without my mom and dad right there, start adulting with safety nets ”
Bell spent her early years and most of high school in Flagstaff, with a three-year break when her family moved to Munich, Germany, for her mother’s job. She attended an international school for seventh through ninth grade.
Bell said she felt the experience gave her a new perspective on both locations, including attending a variety of schools with different approaches to teaching.
“I think a lot of times, it’s easy to get stuck in having your own little bubble, your own little world and forget that the rest of the world exists,” she said. “I think moving abroad was super helpful in opening my eyes and giving me that global perspective that I think I wouldn’t have fully understood otherwise. It's also given me a lot more empathy for people who are different or don’t fit in or even just are new, because I understand exactly what that feels like.”
She’s kept busy in her time at NPA, participating in the anti-racism coalition, raising awareness of mental health in younger students and serving as president of its chapter of the National Honor Society.
Bell has played soccer for as long as she can remember, starting as a 3- or 4-year-old. In addition to being the captain of NPA’s soccer team this year and playing on its team throughout high school, she plays on a traveling soccer team.
She also started a medical club with other NPA students who are interested in the field as their future career. They share resources, Bell said, and are currently all reading “The Unseen Body: A Doctor’s Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy” by Jonathan Reisman.
The club started during the pandemic, which gave them the opportunity to keep up with medical news as it was unfolding.
“Definitely during the pandemic was a time when we were doing a bunch of stuff on what does medical research look like? What does vaccine development look like? ... Obviously it was a global pandemic and it was a really tough time. But it was really cool from a research point of view, where we’re living through a huge event that we don’t just have to learn about through a book. We can see the effects of it; we’re learning about it with the medical and research communities.”
Bell said she was “definitely ready” to finish her time in high school, but she found college “mildly terrifying.”
“I’m definitely super excited to take these next steps and start personalizing my education, such that I'm learning about the things I’m super passionate about,” she said, “...but it definitely also feels really soon.”
Her advice to peers is to “find a balance.”
“It is super important that you're setting up your next steps and that you're getting ready for your future, but equally important are the things that keep you happy, the things that keep you grounded, the things that keep you present,” she said. “Because we are in this moment, even though we’re preparing for the next one.”
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/education/two-flagstaff-students-named-2022-flinn-scholars/article_2a98319c-d30d-11ec-973c-ab1bc5df7083.html
| 2022-05-15T14:45:21
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The Flagstaff Star Chasers -- a new collegiate summer baseball team set to begin play in June -- added some local depth to their roster, garnering a commitment from pitcher Justin Hanson.
Hanson, who graduated from Flagstaff High School in 2021, recently completed his freshman season for the Yavapai Roughriders baseball team, pitching 13 2/3 innings and striking out 28 batters. Looking for a chance to develop his skills and play baseball where he grew up made coming back home for a few months an easy choice.
“I get to play in my local community. It’s obviously pretty hard to get recruited out of Flagstaff, so we’re going to try to help some kids out, get some exposure and just have fun playing baseball,” he said. “It’s a different feeling getting to play for the hometown team. There’s no college baseball in Flagstaff, so this is as high-level as it gets.”
The Star Chasers will play in the Northern Arizona League, with teams all over the state that have recruited solid college baseball players from around the country to play in Arizona. They will also play a road trip in July in Alaska.
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Hanson, who wants to continue to improve in future college baseball seasons, wants to use the summer as an opportunity to make tweaks and try to hone new skills on the mound. That’s the goal for all of the Star Chasers players.
“If it’s a pitcher, they’re working on another pitch, adding velocity or going deeper into games. It’s about that development most importantly,” general manager Randy Barber said.
Hanson added that he’s excited for the challenge of seeing new batters from various levels of college baseball, especially ones in different parts of the country he might not otherwise get to play against collegiately.
“There’s always good talent everywhere you go. There’s always people that are going to give you a hard time, batters that are hard to get out -- which helps my development,” he said.
Beside just playing once again with the word “Flagstaff” on a jersey, Hanson has another opportunity to compete with an old friend in the summer. Gabe Faust, a fellow 2021 Flagstaff High graduate, will be competing on the team as well as he tries to develop his own game.
“When you leave high school you never think you’re going to play with those guys again. So it’s pretty cool to be together and play on the same team again,” Hanson said.
And talent development aside, Hanson and the Star Chasers players will have the chance to give back to local baseball in Flagstaff. There are plans for the team’s players to teach youth players some skills and simply let them awe at the college-level players competing in Flagstaff for the first time.
Barber said such work is key to ingratiating a new team with the community and gaining longtime fans.
“We’re going to Little League fields to work out with teams. On a day-to-day basis we want to work with young kids, because that’s where you start to show the higher level of baseball to the young kids,” Barber said.
The Star Chasers players are set to begin arriving to Flagstaff in early June, with the team’s first-ever home opener set for June 7 against the Havasu Heat. They will primarily play their games at Coconino and Flagstaff High Schools.
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/flagstaff-high-school-graduate-hanson-to-play-with-star-chasers/article_35a92e22-d3aa-11ec-80b5-97f95352e3cb.html
| 2022-05-15T14:45:40
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/flagstaff-high-school-graduate-hanson-to-play-with-star-chasers/article_35a92e22-d3aa-11ec-80b5-97f95352e3cb.html
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South Phoenix group breaks down barriers to health equity and education
A south Phoenix-based organization, Unlimited Potential, has served the surrounding Latino population for nearly 40 years.
Unlimited Potential’s mission focuses on health equity and education while advocating for the needs of underserved individuals within the community.
Barriers including language, poverty, health coverage, legal status and stigma fuel inequalities within the south Phoenix area, according to the group.
Community health workers for the organization complete a mandatory 32-week training program on the prevention of chronic diseases which include cardiovascular health and diabetes. Many of the staff members are bilingual in Spanish and English.
According to leaders at Unlimited Potential, the Latino population is at high-risk for diabetes and high-blood pressure.
Unlimited Potential holds health fairs and other events in south Phoenix
Community health fairs and events are held throughout Phoenix to increase outreach and awareness. Free blood pressure readings and glucose checks are offered to everyone who attends.
These conditions are linked to poor diet and lack of education, executive director, Emma Viera said.
Staff health workers educate members of the community by providing cooking classes and providing fresh produce from the community garden.
English and adult education classes are geared toward the large portion of the population that speaks only Spanish, Viera said.
The majority of the 20,000 individuals that the group serves each year come from low-income families in Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa.
Last year Unlimited Potential received a $10,000 Season for Sharing grant which provided boxes of fresh organic produce to 1,000 families.
The 2021 Season for Sharing campaign raised $1.8 million for 164 Arizona charities. The annual grant-making effort was created in 1993 by The Arizona Republic/azcentral. Since then, more than $72 million has been donated to charities around the state that help struggling children and families, older adults and students and teachers.
“Our community is so appreciative of the support not only financially, but through public awareness,” Viera said.
Donations to Season for Sharing are accepted year-round at sharing.azcentral.com or by texting "SHARING" to 91-999.
Roxanne De La Rosa covers Arizona's nonprofit community. Reach her at rdelarosa@azcentral.com
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2022/05/15/south-phoenix-nonprofit-focuses-health-equity-education/9724964002/
| 2022-05-15T15:00:23
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2022/05/15/south-phoenix-nonprofit-focuses-health-equity-education/9724964002/
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Lincoln Police Capt. Tarvis Banks poses next to a framed photograph of Donnamarie Jones, a former LPD public safety officer at the northwest police station near 27th and Holdrege streets.
JUSTIN WAN, Journal Star
Lincoln Police Capt. Tarvis Banks was recently promoted to captain of the Lincoln Police Department's northwest team.
After the retirement of former Capt. Anthony Butler earlier this month, the Lincoln Police Department will turn to a Lincoln native to run the northwest team.
Tarvis Banks, a Lincoln High School and University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate, officially took his seat in the captain's office at 27th and Holdrege streets Monday, succeeding Butler, who recommended the 37-year-old upon his departure after 35 years on the force.
Banks, who lives in northwest Lincoln with his wife and three kids, said his first priority as captain will be to attend community group meetings and talk with northwest Lincoln businesses in an effort to learn what that area of Lincoln wants and expects from its officers.
"I just want to be very present," Banks said, noting his own recognition in the area and community-based policing are "vitally important" to the department's role in the city.
"Instead of saying, 'Yo, who's the captain of the team?' And they're like, 'I don't know, I've never seen the guy.' I want it to be, 'Oh, yeah, it's Capt. Banks. I saw him last month,' or 'I saw him a couple weeks ago.'"
Banks' promotion marks the latest stop in a rapid ascent for the former SWAT team operator and one-time internal affairs sergeant. After joining the department in 2007, Banks became a sergeant in 2015 and was promoted to captain in 2020.
Now, less than two years later, he's running one of Lincoln's four geographical teams — a job that Assistant Chief Jason Stille described as "highly coveted" and reliant on community policing and visibility."
"It's really about building relationships," Stille said. "Tarvis has done a very good job since being promoted (to captain in 2020) of continuing, having continuous forward progression.
"He's volunteered for other committees and such within the agency. He's put in the work. He continues to be a great ambassador for the agency."
For Banks, the promotion represents a culmination of "timing, a little bit of luck and just the right people noticing my hard work," he said.
"As soon as I got the position of captain, I knew for sure I wanted to be a team captain," Banks said. "(This) was the first thing that came to my mind that I wanted to do, where I wanted to be."
For the department, Banks' promotion represents what has become an anomaly. Upon Butler's retirement, Banks became the highest-ranking Black officer at LPD, the only Black member of the agency's command staff and one of four Black officers at the department.
Still, he will be the third consecutive Black captain to run the northwest precinct, following Butler and former Capt. Genelle Moore, who left the northwest team in 2011 and retired from policing six years later.
"You feel like you do have those shoes to fill, as far as going from Genelle to Butler and now to me," said Banks, who was promoted to captain in October 2020 following a tumultuous summer in which he said he pondered his own future in policing.
"You feel like, 'All right, I'm the next person up' in regards to being a Black captain, especially on this team. It's kinda been the last few — over a decade now."
His arrival as captain of the northwest team will mark the first time Banks has worked in the geographical region on a full-time basis, having spent most of his career patrolling south Lincoln or working at the department's downtown headquarters, first in internal affairs and more recently as a duty command captain.
Banks will supervise policing north of West A Street and Cornhusker Highway and west of North 40th Street after a shake-up of the department's teams in January eliminated the center team and realigned the city into four geographical segments.
That shift moved northwest officers, who previously worked at the department's 10th Street headquarters, to 1501 N. 27th St., the former home of the center team.
"He occupies the same office that I did," said Stille, once the captain of the center team, who relayed the news of Banks' promotion in April.
Banks said he was initially nervous as he walked to Stille's office for the meeting, internally wondering what he did wrong.
"It was kind of random, so I was, like, 'What did I do?'" Banks recalled, laughing.
For his part, Stille said he often forgets what it's like to be on the other side of the desk.
"I would have been, like, 'Uh, oh. Holy smokes,'" Stille said, adding that 99 out of 100 times he requests an officer it's for a commendation or just a conversation. "For me it was no big deal. ... I sort of forgot the impact that might have on calling someone to the principal's office."
Walking out of the meeting, though, Banks felt differently.
"It didn't sink in until a couple hours afterwards, I was, like, 'Oh, man, I'm gonna be the next team captain of the northwest team,'" he said. "And the excitement set in from there."
A Kansas City, Missouri, native, Andrew Wegley joined the Journal Star as breaking news reporter after graduating from Northwest Missouri State University in May 2021.
Courtney Hubbell had nearly finished crossing the road at 9:20 p.m. Tuesday when she was struck by a 2007 Pontiac G6 traveling east through the intersection, according to the state crash report.
The girl told police she met the 19-year-old through social media and invited the man to her house after he posted and said he wanted to play video games with someone, police said in court filings.
Isaac A. Sanchez was charged with third-degree sexual assault of a child and felony child abuse for his alleged role in the incident, which occurred at a central Lincoln apartment April 29, police said.
"Despite legal protections, Nieveen, who suffers from mental illness, will lose her home of nearly 50 years based on today's ruling," Sandra Nieveen's attorney said.
Beau Connely was driving his Subaru Impreza west on U.S. 34 near 210th Road at around 7:50 a.m. Tuesday when he veered across the center line and collided with an eastbound semi, the sheriff's office said.
The man walked to the side of her and grabbed the backpack that was attached to her walker with a carabiner, pulling the bag, the walker and the woman across the porch, police said.
Lincoln Police Capt. Tarvis Banks poses next to a framed photograph of Donnamarie Jones, a former LPD public safety officer at the northwest police station near 27th and Holdrege streets.
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/watch-now-lincoln-native-tarvis-banks-named-captain-of-northwest-police-team/article_180bebbc-86d8-5f40-aa33-7416f78c5094.html
| 2022-05-15T15:24:42
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/watch-now-lincoln-native-tarvis-banks-named-captain-of-northwest-police-team/article_180bebbc-86d8-5f40-aa33-7416f78c5094.html
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Authorities arrested a woman accused of killing two Long Island men working on the engine of a pickup truck on the side of a road Wednesday evening.
Johanna Iovino, 30, was arrested Saturday and charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, police announced. The Lake Ronkonkoma woman is accused causing the crash that killed two men on Express Drive South in Holtsville.
Police said Robert Kehlenbeck and Ryan Walker were working on a 1989 F-150 pickup truck around 5:30 p.m. when Iovino hit them and drove off.
Walker, 37, died immediately following the crash. Kehlenbeck, 46, died days later at Stony Brook University Hospital.
Friends said Walker leaves behind a 13-year-old son.
Attorney information for Iovino was not immediately known. She was scheduled to be arraigned on Saturday.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/2-working-on-pickup-truck-on-long-island-road-left-for-dead-in-hit-and-run-ny-only/3688489/
| 2022-05-15T16:06:26
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/2-working-on-pickup-truck-on-long-island-road-left-for-dead-in-hit-and-run-ny-only/3688489/
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Federal agents interviewed the parents of the teenager accused of shooting and killing 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket and served multiple search warrants, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Payton Gendron’s parents were cooperating with investigators, the official said. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the investigation into the Saturday afternoon shooting publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Federal authorities were still working to confirm the authenticity of a 180-page manifesto that was posted online, which detailed the plot and identified the 18-year-old by name as the gunman, the official said. Authorities say the shooting was motivated by racial hatred.
A preliminary investigation found the suspected gunman had repeatedly visited sites espousing white supremacist ideologies and race-based conspiracy theories and extensively researched the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the man who killed dozens at a summer camp in Norway in 2011, the official said.
It wasn’t immediately clear why the 18-year-old had traveled about 200 miles from his Conklin, New York, to Buffalo and that particular grocery store, but investigators believe he had specifically researched the demographics of the population around the Tops Friendly Market and had been searching for communities with a high number of African American residents, the official said. The market is located in a predominantly Black neighborhood.
“It’s just too much. I’m trying to bear witness but it’s just too much. You can’t even go to the damn store in peace," Buffalo resident Yvonne Woodard told the AP. "It’s just crazy.”
In a Sunday interview with ABC, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said that the gunman had been in town “at least the day before.”
News
“It seems that he had come here to scope out the area, to do a little reconnaissance work on the area before he carried out his just evil, sickening act,” Gramaglia said.
Police said gunman shot, in total, 11 Black people and two white people Saturday in a rampage that the 18-year-old broadcast live before surrendering to authorities. Screenshots purporting to be from the Twitch broadcast appear to show a racial epithet scrawled on the rifle used in the attack, as well as the number 14, a likely reference to a white supremacist slogan.
“We pray for their families. But after we pray — after we get up off of our knees — we’ve got to demand change. We’ve got to demand justice,” state Attorney General Letitia James said an emotional church service in Buffalo on Sunday morning. “This was domestic terrorism, plain and simple.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, called for the tech industry to take responsibility for their role in propagating hate speech in a Sunday interview with ABC.
“The CEOs of those companies need to be held accountable and assure all of us that they’re taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information. How these depraved ideas are fermenting on social media – it’s spreading like a virus now,” she said, adding that a lack of oversight could lead to others emulating the shooter.
President Joe Biden released a statement late Saturday offering prayers for victims' families, thanking first responders and calling for action "to end hate-fueled domestic terrorism."
"Any act of domestic terrorism, including an act perpetrated in the name of a repugnant white nationalist ideology, is antithetical to everything we stand for in America," he said in the statement, acknowledging law enforcement is still working to confirm the motivations behind the shooting. "Hate must have no safe harbor."
Photos: Supermarket Mass Shooting in Buffalo, NY
Buffalo Shooter Manifesto
The shooter appears to have posted an apparent manifesto online late Thursday night, according to NBC News, with details of a planned crime that match exactly Saturday's shooting. It shows a shared birth date and biographical details in common with the suspect.
A senior law enforcement official told NBC News they were aware of the document and were working to confirm the author.
The virulently racist and anti-Semitic tract makes clear the gunman targeted Buffalo because of the size of the city's Black population. It adopts the “great replacement” conspiracy theory that falsely alleges Jews are working to replace white Americans with people of color.
In the document, the author claims that he was radicalized on an extremist 4chan forum while he was “bored” at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. It also makes frequently nods to the white supremacist who killed 51 people in New Zealand in 2019.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/feds-interview-buffalo-supermarket-shooting-suspects-parents/3688554/
| 2022-05-15T16:06:33
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/feds-interview-buffalo-supermarket-shooting-suspects-parents/3688554/
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Residents across South Jersey were awakened to loud booms Sunday, leaving many neighbors wondering what could have caused the early morning noise.
Rest assured, there is an answer.
The booms are coming from a training operation at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Burlington County, the Gibbsboro Police Department said in a Facebook post.
Reports have been coming into NBC10 from both Burlington and Camden counties since around 6:30 a.m.
Some residents said they felt their homes shake.
At the beginning of the month, the joint base released their "May Noise Calendar," which marks Sunday, May 15 as a "high noise" day.
JBMDL said the high noise levels are from heavy crew weapons training and cratering munitions which may include mortar live fire, howitzer fire and cratering charges.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
Police said the noises may be around for a while because the training is going to continue through the month.
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/did-you-hear-it-loud-booms-echo-through-south-jersey/3239612/
| 2022-05-15T16:11:26
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/did-you-hear-it-loud-booms-echo-through-south-jersey/3239612/
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/scout-plants-trees-in-honor-of-young-homicide-victims/3239628/
| 2022-05-15T16:11:33
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/scout-plants-trees-in-honor-of-young-homicide-victims/3239628/
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INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis Department of Public Works plans to close the portion of South Franklin Road on or after Monday, according to a news release.
IDPW crews will close the portion of South Franklin Road between Southeastern and Troy Avenues to replace the bridge over Miller Ditch.
Local access to residents and housing additions will be maintained, IDPW says.
Franklin Road is expected to fully reopen in late August.
Northbound traffic will be diverted using Southeastern Avenue, Northeastern Avenue, Post Road, and East Troy Avenue to rejoin with Franklin Road during the closure.
Southbound traffic is planned to follow East Troy Avenue, Post Road, Northeastern Avenue and Southeastern Avenue.
When the project is complete, the $980,000 superstructure will have wider travel lanes, and a new six foot sidewalk on the bridge’s westside.
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https://www.wishtv.com/local/bridge-replacement-portion-of-south-franklin-road-to-close-monday/
| 2022-05-15T16:12:29
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https://www.wishtv.com/local/bridge-replacement-portion-of-south-franklin-road-to-close-monday/
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The video is shocking enough at the outset. Then it takes an even uglier turn.
Outside Fossil’s Last Stand, a bar in Catasauqua, a woman — identified as bar owner Jackie Harford — climbs into the back of a ride-sharing car, sees the driver and expresses surprise.
“Wow, you’re like a white guy,” she says.
That comment sparks a back-and-forth that has appalled and enraged thousands of people who have seen and shared the video online, where the driver, James W. Bode, posted it after the Friday night incident.
Bode is taken aback by the comment. “Excuse me?” he says.
“You’re like, a normal guy?” Harford says. “You speak English?”
She laughs and pats Bode’s shoulder, but he tells her the comment was inappropriate and orders her out of the car. Then the woman’s male companion joins the conversation. “You’re a f---- a----,” he tells the driver. “I should punch you in the f--- face.”
Bode calls the pair racist. The man responds by calling him “a f---- n-lover.”
Warning: This video contains graphic language.
The video has spread across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and elsewhere, and the fallout has been immediate for Harford. She shut down the bar’s website and Facebook page and deleted her personal page. The bar appeared to be closed Saturday and the phone rang unanswered Sunday. Harford could not otherwise be reached for comment.
Bode, who posted the video to his Facebook page, could not be reached for comment, but in a follow-up post he thanked people who had reached out to him.
“I appreciate it, truly,” he wrote. “But this is the way it should be everywhere, every time. I shouldn’t be “the guy” who did it or said it…we should all be that person. Speak up if you’re uncomfortable with it because it makes them uncomfortable, as they should be.”
In the original post, Bode said he filed a report with Catasauqua police. No one from the department responded to a request for comment.
First Call
On Facebook and Yelp, the review site, people thanked Bode.
“Every white person should watch and learn from your example,” one woman wrote. “Don’t let it go in the name of keeping the peace — call it out.”
People also savaged Harford and the man. He was identified as Harford’s boyfriend but his identity could not be confirmed by The Morning Call.
“Are masks required (at Fossil’s Last Stand) or do customers need to bring their own white hood,” someone wrote on Yelp — one of many comments referring to the Ku Klux Klan.
On Facebook, a Black man posted a video taken early Saturday in which he goes into the bar and asks about the incident.
A man off-camera says it was “a misunderstanding.”
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-fossils-last-stand-owner-video-20220515-cjw6b3hwurhkzerhjorwtrc5ni-story.html
| 2022-05-15T16:25:31
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-fossils-last-stand-owner-video-20220515-cjw6b3hwurhkzerhjorwtrc5ni-story.html
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — For many Christians, Sunday is set aside for church and rest.
For others, that day is Saturday.
Dr. Kip Laxson, pastor of the United Methodist Church in Birmingham, joined CBS 42’s weekend morning news anchor Chloe Vincente to discuss the history of these days of worship.
Dr. Laxson said while some Christians, like Seventh-Day Adventists, worship on Saturdays, the majority go to church on Sunday.
“And that happened because of Easter,” he explained. “As Christianity, early Christianity developed, the original Christians, the first Christians, were Hebrews to begin with and so that’s why throughout the New Testament it’s said many times that Jesus and his disciples went to the temple or went to the synagogue. They were living out their Jewish faith, but as Christianity began to spread throughout the known Roman world at the time and gentiles converted to Christianity, slowly but surely they began to worship on Sundays.”
You can watch our full interview with Dr. Laxson above.
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https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/faith-matters-why-do-christians-worship-on-sunday/
| 2022-05-15T16:26:34
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https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/faith-matters-why-do-christians-worship-on-sunday/
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HAMPTON, Va. — A 29-year-old Virginia man has been charged with second-degree murder in a fatal shooting inside an aerospace company plant, police said.
Officers responded to a call for a shooting at Howmet Aerospace shortly after midnight Saturday. A man was declared dead at the scene, police said in a news release. Police did not immediately release the victim’s identity.
Trower was being held at the Hampton City Jail. It could not be determined Sunday whether he has an attorney.
Howmet Aerospace said in a statement that the shooting was “a tremendous shock” to its employees and “appears to be the result of an outside of work dispute.” The company said it canceled all Saturday and Sunday shifts.
“We have asked all employees not to report for work unless they have been specifically instructed to do so by management,” the statement said. “To assist employees in dealing with this tragedy, counseling will be available to employees as they return to work.”
“Our thoughts go out to the employees and families of this unfortunate tragedy,” the statement said.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/police-arrest-man-in-fatal-shooting-at-aerospace-company/2022/05/15/7dd902f4-d467-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-15T16:59:28
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/police-arrest-man-in-fatal-shooting-at-aerospace-company/2022/05/15/7dd902f4-d467-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
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Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo. People can be divided into three groups: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. Be content with what you’ve got, but make sure you’ve got plenty.
Creditors have better memories than debtors. Don’t bite the hand that has your paycheck in it. Appearances are not everything; it just looks like they are. An ounce of pretension is worth a pound of manure.
Project management is like pushing a wheelbarrow full of frogs to the market. A disagreeable task is its own reward. A good slogan can stop analysis for 50 years. Bureaucracy: a method for transforming energy into solid waste. Rule of Defactualization: information deteriorates upward through bureaucracies. All great discoveries are made by mistake.
A little ignorance can go a long way. Error is often more earnest than truth. An original idea can never emerge from a committee in its original form. Blessed is he who expects no gratitude, for he shall not be disappointed.
People are also reading…
Don’t permit yourself to get between a dog and a lamppost. By the time you have the right answers, no one is asking you questions. Anything is easier to take apart than to put together. Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers.
Even paranoids have enemies.
Always remember to pillage before you burn. Creativity is no substitute for knowing what you are doing. Anything is possible, but nothing is easy. A short line outside a building becomes a long line inside. Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back.
Everything in moderation, including moderation. Adding manpower to a late software product makes it later. Everyone hits a brick wall now and then: The trick is not to do it with your head. A pipe gives a wise man time to think and a fool something to put in his mouth.
Even if the grass is greener on the other side, they, like you, still have to cut it. Anything that doesn’t eat you today is saving you for tomorrow. Easiest way to figure the cost of living: take your income and add 10%. Don’t get lost in the shuffle, shuffle along with the lost.
Anyone can admit they were wrong; the true test is admitting it to someone else. Any wire cut to length will be too short. Everything should be a simple as possible, but no simpler. Any change looks terrible at first. All work and no play will make you a manager.
A well-adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. Those who complain about the way the ball bouncers usually dropped it. Producing a system from a specification is like walking on water; it’s easier if it’s frozen.
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk. Say no, then negotiate. That which cannot be taken apart will fall apart.
According to official figures, 43% of all statistics are inaccurate.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/carpenters-column-advice-i-ve-received-over-the-years/article_5b5e4fda-d305-11ec-96bc-675effe3a824.html
| 2022-05-15T17:30:30
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/carpenters-column-advice-i-ve-received-over-the-years/article_5b5e4fda-d305-11ec-96bc-675effe3a824.html
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100 years ago
1922: The saddest tragedy Flagstaff has had in years occurred early Tuesday morning when Mrs. Hulda Van Zee and her 29-month-old baby boy were burned to death in a fire that totally destroyed their Flagstaff home, and another son, Gilmore, aged 14, was so severely burned that he died at the hospital early the next morning. Four other children had very narrow escapes from death. And woven in the story of the tragedy, making it the more pathetic, is the self-sacrificing heroism of two of the boys of the family, Gilmore, whose death resulted from his splendid bravery in trying to rescue his mother and baby brother, and Alan, 12 years old, who with rare presence of mind, saved his little sister. These boys awakened from a sound sleep to face an imminent and horrible death, gave first thought to others in the little family. The fire broke out shortly before 6:00 o'clock Tuesday morning. A malfunctioning flue is believed to have started the fire.
A man or woman may have all the good intentions in the world toward the hometown, but when he sends his money out of town for something he can buy at home or have a home merchant order for him, he is remiss in civic duty. It is seldom that anyone ever saves enough money ordering from mail order houses to repay him for his trouble. And when it is considered that every dollar sent away goes to enrich some other community at the expense of his own in Flagstaff, the net result negatively impacts the local economy. If during the past five years all the money sent away to mail order houses had been spent in Flagstaff at home this would be a much busier and more prosperous town than it is.
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75 years ago
1947: Anyone missing a revolver? The Coconino Sheriff's Office has one that reportedly came from a car in Flagstaff, but no claimants have appeared, and no one has reported one as missing, the Sheriff's Office said Thursday morning. The revolver was in the possession of Walter Hughes and Joseph Deanna, both 20 years old, when they were picked up last week for investigation. Later they reported they had taken the gun from a car in Flagstaff, the same night that they were charged with taking a government pickup truck from a local motel. The truck theft charge resulted in sentences of from 18 months to two years for both men.
The Apache Indian devil dance, one of the most thrilling, spectacular and weird of all Native American Indian ceremonials, will be presented during the Southwest all Indian powwow celebration here. The powwow celebration runs from July 4th to July 6th. The Apache, members of what once was the fiercest of the fighting Indian tribes, have notified the powwow committee that they will be on hand to perform their weird dance each evening during the celebration as part of the daily ceremonial program. More than 600 Indian dancers, representing tribes all over the Southwest, are signing contracts for appearances during the celebration. Dances that will likely be on the evening programs include the Laguna Sunflower dance, the Arapahoe Squat dance, the San Juan Dog dance and several more.
50 years ago
1972: An arrest for driving while under the influence of alcohol early today led a Flagstaff city policeman to a stolen truck and to a second arrest on charges of grand theft. The two sets of charges were filed against Dean Benelli, who was arrested at 1:22 a.m. today by Flagstaff police. Police say that a red and white pickup truck sped east in Flagstaff and when the police got the vehicle stopped, Benelli proved to be the driver. The young man was taken to the police station for a state-required breathalyzer test, through which he registered a reading of .17. The owner of the stolen truck turned out to be a local automobile supply company and the manager told police the truck had been left in the firm's parking lot with a key under the floor mat.
An 18-year-old Flagstaff youth has been arrested on felony charges of possession of marijuana after a Flagstaff police officer reportedly saw him staggering along E. Santa Fe Ave. Sunday afternoon. Patrolman Newell Lewis said he filed the charges against Andre Cordero of Flagstaff after a search of the suspect revealed not only a water pipe, but a baggie of what appeared to be marijuana in his pocket. Lewis said Cordero resisted arrest and had to be forcibly handcuffed. The youth is being held in city jail.
25 years ago
1997: Four more of north America's largest flying birds are now roaming Arizona skies. At 7 a.m. Wednesday, four California condors were released from pens atop the Vermilion cliffs, raising the number of rare birds in the wild in Arizona to nine. The condors hopped out of their pen not far from the north rim of the Grand Canyon, looked around, stretched out their 9-foot wingspans and then took to the air for their maiden flights. The flights were not long, however. The birds have been in captivity for a long time. Their flights have been really short, and they have all been below the rim. The four birds, and five that have not been released yet, were transported to cages atop the 1,000-foot-high cliffs on April 28.
The holiday spirit comes to Flagstaff in May. There are few needs more basic than the need to have a roof over your head. For many, though, that roof is badly made, leaky or just plain not affordable. It is one of the more obvious problems in Flagstaff, with its high rents and low-paying jobs. That's why programs like Christmas in April are so valuable. About 170 volunteers this weekend will hammer, saw, paint and otherwise help to fix up six houses around Flagstaff as part of the program, held in May since Aprils in Flagstaff are so unpredictable. Volunteers will also add showers to the interfaith homeless shelter. Several contractors and local businesses are also contributing money and muscle to the project. The community group’s mission is to fix up homes around town and relies entirely on donations and volunteers.
All events were taken from issues of the Arizona Daily Sun and its predecessors, the Coconino Weekly Sun and the Coconino Sun.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/flagstaff-history-california-condors-were-released-from-pens-atop-vermilion-cliffs/article_0e8b2104-d168-11ec-8cd2-af286e106b4a.html
| 2022-05-15T17:30:37
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/flagstaff-history-california-condors-were-released-from-pens-atop-vermilion-cliffs/article_0e8b2104-d168-11ec-8cd2-af286e106b4a.html
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When something doesn’t feel right with my running, I go through a checklist in my mind.
Was this just a bad workout? Am I injured? Is this what growing old feels like?
It’s sometimes the first one, rarely the second and -- at age 65 -- frequently the third.
However, when something doesn’t feel right with my health, no such processing takes place. I’m sick, needing to rest or see a doctor and running simply doesn’t matter much.
That was the way I felt in January of this year when I went for one of those rapid COVID-19 tests at a clinic near my office. I already had a surplus of symptoms: runny nose, congestion, fatigue, achiness, headache, diarrhea. It added up to testing positive for the virus.
I was more than mildly disappointed. Over the course of nearly two years, I had done everything to avoid contracting the virus. I was vaccinated and boosted. I masked and socially distanced. I didn’t travel. I washed my hands more often than a surgeon. All of that, and I still got it -- or, more accurately, it still got me.
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I began wondering how long I would feel ill and how soon good health would return. I tested again six days later (still positive) and again nine days after that (negative). That stretch of about two weeks wasn’t the worst I had ever felt in my life, but it was the longest I had ever felt sick.
I foolishly tried three walks of about 5 miles apiece during that period, and it became clear that my plans to run a half-marathon in the spring would need to be scrapped. In fact, I didn’t feel up to doing any running until mid-March -- about two months post-diagnosis -- although I managed several walks at a brisk pace during February.
The worst part: I felt alone. Runners I knew hadn’t gotten COVID. And the people I knew who had gotten it weren’t runners.
But I was hardly the only one trying to figure it out.
“COVID has been one of the most difficult things to deal with as a coach,” said Jenna Wrieden, assistant coach for the Flagstaff-based HOKA Northern Arizona Elite pro team.
“There is no one really to turn to yet for medical advice on how to handle [the virus and its effect on an athlete in training]. It is different in terms of severity on how it affects every person. And there is no finite timeline on when an athlete will be 100% back to their normal self.”
Julia Griffey is used to long, challenging efforts when it comes to running, but can't seem …
Julia Griffey and Nick Hauger of NAZ Elite contracted the virus, and for Griffey it wrecked most of her training and racing for a year. Only now is she returning to form, posting a time of 55:53 on April 3 at the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile in Washington, D.C.
It took six weeks before Hauger was cleared by a cardiologist for easy running.
“You really have to let your body drive the ship,” Wrieden said. “If you have symptoms, or are dealing with fatigue, it has suited us to take days off from running more often than not. The recovery period is definitely different for everyone.”
I’m back to running again, and I’m midway through a training plan for a 10K. I received my second booster recently.
I’m done with COVID, and I hope COVID is done with me.
Longtime runner Doug Carroll is the community relations project manager for ADOT in Flagstaff.
Send your running story to coordinating editor Julie Hammonds (runner@juliehammonds.com).
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/high-country-running-i-got-it-or-it-got-me/article_bd3387f0-d3a7-11ec-a136-afb8bab1d48a.html
| 2022-05-15T17:31:32
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/high-country-running-i-got-it-or-it-got-me/article_bd3387f0-d3a7-11ec-a136-afb8bab1d48a.html
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/nbc10-issue/retiring-ray-didinger-looks-back-at-legendary-career/3239697/
| 2022-05-15T17:38:48
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/nbc10-issue/retiring-ray-didinger-looks-back-at-legendary-career/3239697/
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A brazen smash and grab robbery in the middle of the day earned a fast-moving crew at least $100,000 in stolen jewelry.
Wild surveillance video shows four men in masks and hoodies taking sledgehammers and a crow bar to the front window of Golden Square Jewelry off Broadway in downtown Yonkers.
The owner of the small business says the masked suspects waited, plotting the right time to optimal time to strike. He said the thieves waited outside his store until he went next door for a cup of coffee.
In the span of 90 seconds, the four-man team was able to grab high-valued chains and other jewelry from the front of the store before taking off in a dark SUV. At one point in the video, the manager of the store is seen on the other side of the glass trying to fight off the suspects.
Police caught up to the suspects and briefing pursue them until the SUV crashed into a house on Marshall Road. The men tried running, but three were eventually taken into custody.
Investigators have identified the fourth suspect and believe an additional arrest will be made soon.
Police said it's too early to tell if this crew could be connected to other recent jewelry store smash and grabs in the Bronx.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/sledgehammer-swinging-crew-hits-ny-jewelry-store-after-owner-goes-for-coffee/3687960/
| 2022-05-15T17:50:42
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/sledgehammer-swinging-crew-hits-ny-jewelry-store-after-owner-goes-for-coffee/3687960/
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Q. I recently hired a contractor to build a new home. Construction was recently completed, and the house is beautiful. However, there’s been one significant downside. Since the construction’s completion, I’ve been contacted by several of the subcontractors, who have told me that they haven’t been paid in full yet for their work. Consequently, these subcontractors are threatening to record liens against my new dream home. I don’t understand how this happened, especially because I paid the contractor in full. Do I need to pay the subcontractors in order to have them remove their liens?
A. Unfortunately, yes. Idaho law is clear that contractors, subcontractors and suppliers of materials, just to name a few, are among a class of persons who are entitled to record a lien against real property (i.e., land) if they aren’t paid in full for their services. (For the full list of those who can record a lien on land, take a look at Idaho Code Section 45-501.)
What’s more, under the law, it doesn’t matter whether you (the landowner) weren’t the actual person who hired and/or agreed to pay the subcontractors, the material providers, etc. As long as the subcontractor worked on your property, or the material provider furnished materials that they knew were to be used in your construction, then the subcontractor or material provider is entitled by law to record a lien on your land.
In light of the above, you’re probably asking: What can I do to protect myself? First, before construction even begins, make sure that you and your contractor have a signed, written contract.
Second, make sure that before you sign the contract, you understand everything that it says. If you don’t, or even if you’d just like someone to double-check it, hire an attorney.
Third, include a provision or provisions in your contract concerning lien waivers. Essentially, a lien waiver is a written agreement between you and your contractor, the subcontractors, the material providers (or whomever else), that says they (the contractor, subcontractor, etc.) are being paid by you and that they’re waiving their right to record a lien on your property.
An efficient way to accomplish this is to provide that a middleman (usually a bank making a construction loan) be utilized to pay the contractors, subcontractors and materialmen. The property owner (or the bank lender) disburses the money as middleman, in specified amounts, to the contractor, subcontractor or materialmen only at such time as the recipient of the funds signs a lien waiver for the payments through that date.
There’s nothing in the law that requires you to use lien waivers (or to even use a written contract). However, you’ll be in a much better legal position if you do.
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https://www.postregister.com/news/local/its-the-law-what-happens-when-subcontractors-arent-paid/article_a2544fcd-c927-530d-a859-b6030f2f0451.html
| 2022-05-15T17:58:56
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https://www.postregister.com/news/local/its-the-law-what-happens-when-subcontractors-arent-paid/article_a2544fcd-c927-530d-a859-b6030f2f0451.html
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San Francisco runs at a different speed than other cities. It also usually runs in costumes.
Nearly every year since 1912, the city has celebrated Bay to Breakers, a 12-kilometer run that begins at Howard and Main streets and concludes at Ocean Beach. But like most San Francisco traditions, there's a whimsical element involved, with the actual run taking a backseat to antics and partying along the route and a fashion show of costumes. Although the race does award some prizes, Bay to Breakers is more about the spirit than the finish times.
Although seemingly all fun and games, this year's race was mired by a few surprising controversies. The chair of Capstone Event Group, which organizes the race, gave money to divisive political candidates. And initially the organizers refused to give prizes to non-binary racers, a policy which was recanted after widespread blow back.
Regardless of those issues, the event was back in full force after a two year absence, with thousands of runners enjoying the cool, foggy weather.
"I'm thrilled. It feels like things are going back to normal," said runner Zia Martinis, who was born and raised in San Francisco. "Hopefully this isn't a superspreader event, but I've got my mask, I've washed my hands, and if nothing else, I'm going to have some fun."
As usual, there was a healthy contingent of salmon running upstream, as well as standout costumes like a William Wallace wannabe, Care Bears and, of course, nothing at all.
Scroll down to see all the best looks from the 2022 Bay to Breakers race:
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/the-best-costumes-at-Bay-to-Breakers-17171746.php
| 2022-05-15T18:16:48
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/the-best-costumes-at-Bay-to-Breakers-17171746.php
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CANYON COUNTY, Idaho — Idaho State Police is investigating a vehicle collision that happened in Canyon County yesterday around 7:33 p.m.
Police say a 29-year-old man from Melba, was driving with a 25-year-old female passenger, in a Ford F250 and travelling eastbound on Bowmont Road.
A 34-year-old male from Arco was driving with a 28-year-old female passenger, and travelling northbound on Southside Boulevard in a Ford Explorer.
According to police, the driver of the Ford F250 appears to have failed to yield at a stop sign and the vehicles collided.
Both the driver and passenger in the Ford F250 were not wearing seatbelts; the passenger was transported to the hospital by ground ambulance, but the driver was not transported.
The driver and passenger of the Ford Explorer were wearing seatbelts; the passenger was transported to the hospital by ground ambulance, and the driver was transported by air ambulance.
The intersection was blocked for approximately four hours.
Idaho State Police have opened an investigation into the crash.
Watch more Local News:
See the latest news from around the Treasure Valley and the Gem State in our YouTube playlist:
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-state-police-investigating-car-crash-in-canyon-county-idaho/277-7328d44e-6401-4fb9-96ad-e881952ff116
| 2022-05-15T18:34:12
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-state-police-investigating-car-crash-in-canyon-county-idaho/277-7328d44e-6401-4fb9-96ad-e881952ff116
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SPRINGFIELD — An 1856 speech by Abraham Lincoln that impacted the creation of the Republican Party will be the topic Wednesday of an online program sponsored jointly by Looking for Lincoln and the McLean County Museum of History.
The program, which will be live-streamed at 7 p.m. on Looking for Lincoln's YouTube channel and Facebook page, will look at the speech Lincoln gave during a convention in Bloomington, how it came to be known as the "Lost Speech," and how it affected the creation of the Republican Party as one opposed to the expansion of slavery.
It will be led by Bill Kemp, librarian for the McLean County museum for 19 years.
The program is free and reservations are not required. Viewers can submit questions during the event to be answered during a live question-and-answer session to follow.
It also will be recorded for later viewing online.
The Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition is the coordinating entity for the 43-county Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area. Its goal is to enhance the communities and landscapes of central Illinois through recognition and support of their significant natural, cultural and historical legacies.
For more information about the Looking for Lincoln Heritage Coalition and the Abraham Lincoln National Heritage Area, go to lookingforlincoln.org.
🔎 Discovering Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln markers in Central Illinois
A predominantly Black college in central Illinois that saw its enrollment plummet during the COVID-19 pandemic says it has been unable to recover and must close its doors after 157 years. Lincoln College in the community of Lincoln says that it will shut down at the end of this week when the current semester ends. Lincoln College President David Gerlach says $50 million was needed to remain open and the school says its efforts to raise that money fell far short. The school says another factor that contributed to its demise was a cyberattack in December that made it impossible for months to get into systems needed to recruit and retain students.
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/online-program-to-discuss-lincolns-lost-speech-in-bloomington/article_ea85c466-d46a-11ec-bb31-2be9a2c2bc4e.html
| 2022-05-15T18:34:58
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/online-program-to-discuss-lincolns-lost-speech-in-bloomington/article_ea85c466-d46a-11ec-bb31-2be9a2c2bc4e.html
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RI state police search-and-rescue K-9 Ruby euthanized due to untreatable illness
State police K-9 Ruby, the famous search-and-rescue dog who inspired a Netflix movie, was euthanized Friday following a sudden and untreatable illness, the state police announced.
“Today the Rhode Island State Police family is mourning the death of K-9 Ruby,” said Col. Darnell S. Weaver, superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police and Director of the Department of Public Safety, according to a news release. “Her partnership with Corporal [Dan] O’Neil was a special one and their search and rescue work in our K-9 Unit was a great service to the Rhode Islanders who have needed their help. Her award-winning rescue inspired us and we are grateful for her years of service.”
Earlier this year:Rhode Island State Police search dog Ruby has movie made about her life
How much is true?:Netflix's new film features RI and a hero K-9 rescued from a shelter.
Ruby served with the state police for 11 years, handled by O'Neil. She was a mixed breed dog adopted from the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. In addition to her participation in many search and rescue missions, she frequently appeared in schools and at community events.
In late 2017 Ruby successfully located a lost and distressed teenager who was the son of a shelter volunteer who had cared for her as a puppy.
From the archives:The rescued becomes the rescuer
As a result of this rescue, Ruby was named American Humane Hero Dog Search and Rescue Dog of the Year in 2018. Her story was made into the 2022 Netflix move, “Rescued by Ruby.”
Ruby lived with O’Neil and his family. She will be honored privately.
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https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/rhode-island-police-dog-k-9-ruby-euthanized/9785721002/
| 2022-05-15T18:40:01
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https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/rhode-island-police-dog-k-9-ruby-euthanized/9785721002/
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The national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $4.37 on Tuesday, May 10, surpassing the previous record of $4.33 set on March 11, according to AAA. Tuesday’s record was broken on Wednesday, and Wednesday’s record was eclipsed on Thursday when gas prices averaged $4.41 per gallon.
Stacker compiled statistics on gas prices in Fort Worth-Arlington, TX metro area using data from AAA. Gas prices are current as of May 12. State gas tax data is from World Population Review. Two states—Connecticut, Georgia—have temporarily suspended gas taxes to defray costs for consumers while prices are up.
Diesel prices continued their meteoric rise this week, hitting another record high national average of $5.55—up more than 50 cents per gallon from one month ago. Diesel inventories are 23% lower than normal and have been declining since the pandemic began. Experts point to diminished refining capacity, increased demand for trucking fuel, and a rise in diesel exports as reasons for low supply.
You may also like: Free to use gas price widgets
Fort Worth by the numbers
– Gas current price: $4.18
— Texas average: $4.10
— Texas gas tax: $0.20 per gallon (#42 highest among all states)
– Week change: +$0.22 (+5.5%)
– Year change: +$1.34 (+47.2%)
– Historical expensive gas price: $4.18 (5/12/22)
– Diesel current price: $5.29
– Week change: +$0.05 (+1.0%)
– Year change: +$2.41 (+83.6%)
– Historical expensive diesel price: $5.31 (5/10/22)
Metros with the most expensive gas
#1. San Luis Obispo-Atascadero-Paso Robles, CA: $6.06
#2. San Francisco, CA: $6.06
#3. San Rafael, CA: $6.05
Metros with the least expensive gas
#1. Lawton, OK: $3.85
#2. Catoosa-Dade-Walker, GA: $3.88
#3. Dalton, GA: $3.90
States with the highest gas tax per gallon
#1. Pennsylvania: $0.59
#2. California: $0.53
#3. Washington: $0.52
States with the lowest gas tax per gallon
#1. Alaska: $0.0895
#2. Hawaii: $0.16
#3. Virginia: $0.162
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https://cw33.com/news/local/how-gas-prices-have-changed-in-fort-worth-in-the-last-week-4/
| 2022-05-15T18:58:08
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https://cw33.com/news/local/how-gas-prices-have-changed-in-fort-worth-in-the-last-week-4/
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No major injuries reported in Sunday morning crash
Christopher Walker
Wichita Falls Times Record News
Multiple agencies responded to the scene of a rollover accident Sunday.
Wichita Falls First Responders, AMR medics, WF police and Wichita County deputies responded to northbound US 287 at Hammond Road for a single vehicle rollover accident.
More:No major injuries reported in Central Freeway rollover accident
According police, around 6 a.m., the driver of a pickup truck reportedly fell asleep while traveling northbound on US 287. He went off the road, into a ditch, corrected, and rolled his truck several times. An off-duty Clay County deputy saw the accident and called for help. The driver was treated for minor injuries. No one else was in the vehicle. No other injuries were reported.
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https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/no-major-injuries-reported-morning-crash/9785800002/
| 2022-05-15T19:14:12
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https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/no-major-injuries-reported-morning-crash/9785800002/
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Police, Texas Rangers investigate Saturday night shooting in Burkburnett
A Burkburnett man has been arrested after police responded to a shooting in the Family Dollar parking lot Saturday night in Burkburnett.
According to allegations made in the arrest affidavit:
Around 9 p.m., Saturday night, Burkburnett police were sent to the Family Dollar on Avenue D for an individual that had been shot and the suspect fleeing the scene.
An officer stopped a vehicle for reasonable suspicion. During the traffic stop, a man, later identified as Kaden Scott Siegfried, approached the officer and admitted to shooting the victim. Siegfried was detained and transported to the Burkburnett Police Department.
Multiple witnesses at the scene identified Siegfried as the suspect and said Siegfried shot at the victim and fled. Police found blood in the parking lot and remnants of the victim’s clothes.
The detectives and a Texas Ranger conducted a custodial interview with Siegfried. During the interview, Siegfried admitted to seeing the victim in the Family Dollar parking lot and shooting them during a physical altercation.
More:Affidavit reveals new information about Burkburnett shooting death
Siegfried said he assaulted the victim because of a previous altercation between the victim and a family member.
Siegfried said he had a firearm in his hand during the altercation and discharged it, shooting the victim in the back. Siegfried was arrested and charged with Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon. His bond was set at $100,000 by a judge.
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https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/police-and-the-texas-rangers-investigate-saturday-night-shooting-in-burkburnett/9786526002/
| 2022-05-15T19:14:18
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https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/05/15/police-and-the-texas-rangers-investigate-saturday-night-shooting-in-burkburnett/9786526002/
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — It is graduation weekend at the University of Arkansas. However, things look a bit different this year, or at least different than the past two years.
As the COVID-19 pandemic worked its way around the globe, many education institutions shifted to virtual learning and even virtual graduation. Since 2019, this is the first year the University of Arkansas has held an in-person graduation welcoming family and friends to come and join their graduates.
“This is the first one that we’ve had that’s sort of our return to normal, with people in the audience cheering, being able to give hugs to the graduates, being able to pose close together,” said Alena Allen, Interim Dean for the University of Arkansas’ School of Law. “So, this is the first one that feels like 2019.”
However, the return to in-person graduation still had its moments of anxiousness. Yet, once the tune of “Pomp and Circumstance” began to fill Barnhill Arena, faculty, graduates, and the audience settled in for the age-old tradition of moving tassels to the left and walking across the stage to accept diplomas.
“There’s nothing like a graduation. It’s just full of hope and joy and happiness and celebration,” said Allen. “Being able to celebrate, being able to see the smiles, hear the sounds, I think it’s all worth it.”
Multiple graduations were held at the University on Friday and Saturday at Barnhill Arena and Bud Walton Arena. Graduates and their families celebrated the milestone with pictures, hugs, smiles, and laughter.
One new alumni got to spend the Saturday graduating from the Sam M. Walton College of Business before heading to join their family in the audience as they watched his sister walk across the stage for the School of Law.
Matthew Manuel said he breathed a sigh of relief when he knew graduation would be in-person this year, and offered a bit of advice for the next graduating class.
“It goes really quick, so take a moment,” said Manuel. “I feel like I was just a freshman the other day, so, follow your dreams.”
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/graduation-weekend-university-of-arkansas-covid-in-person-fayetteville/527-527e36da-b15e-4998-a977-c510455fc43a
| 2022-05-15T19:14:21
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/graduation-weekend-university-of-arkansas-covid-in-person-fayetteville/527-527e36da-b15e-4998-a977-c510455fc43a
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FORT SMITH, Ark. — The 100th anniversary of the Garrison Avenue Bridge was celebrated on Saturday, May 13, 2022.
The Garrison Avenue Bridge first opened in 1922, nicknamed the Million Dollar Free Bridge. The bridge cost $1 million dollars, paid by Arkansas and Oklahoma, and gave the city of Fort Smith free passage to Oklahoma.
“Almost anybody that's grown up and lived in Fort Smith or any amount of time would know what the Garrison Ave bridge was if you mentioned it it's just a big part of our city,” said Al Whitson, member of the Fort Smith Historical Society.
“At one time it was traveling over into the new Oklahoma, which very short time before that had been Indian territory, and today, we just think of it as a standard passage to head towards that direction to head West out of Fort Smith”
According to historians, residents would take a railway bridge to travel from Fort Smith to Oklahoma. The only issue was the toll charged to take the passage.
The event took place at the Old Frisco Railroad Depot located at 100 Garrison Avenue. Historians, reenactors, and antique auto enthusiasts gathered for the event, parading across the bridge.
“Sometimes we don't realize actually what we have in history until we look back at it or we don't have it anymore,” said Albertson. “Some years ago we had a problem in Fort Smith with the tornado we had to drive to Van Buren just to get to Fort Smith downtown.”
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/historians-celebrate-100th-anniversary-iconic-garrison-bridge-fort-smith-arkansas-million-dollar-free/527-ae839fef-9d77-468d-9601-4d0a25082a3f
| 2022-05-15T19:14:27
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ARKANSAS, USA — Check out these severe weather photos from May 14 and 15.
Severe weather photos - May 14 & 15
RELATED: Isolated storm chances this weekend
ARKANSAS, USA — Check out these severe weather photos from May 14 and 15.
RELATED: Isolated storm chances this weekend
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/severe-weather-photos-may-14-15-hail-storm-golf-size-flooding-goshen-greenwood-fort-smith/527-9adbd215-d70c-4b50-ac90-3424863cef01
| 2022-05-15T19:14:33
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark — Among U.S. research universities, the University of Arkansas ranks 69th for creating knowledge, imparting it to STEM graduates, and bringing discoveries to the market.
The rankings are based on a new report from Bentonville think tank Heartland Forward. Researchers released the 68-page report Thursday (May 12) on the final day of the Heartland Summit in Bentonville.
In the report “Research to Renewal, Advancing University Tech Transfer,” researchers took an in-depth look at the transfer activities of universities across the United States and provided data, insights, and recommendations that will help schools increase their impact on the communities they serve.
DOWNLOAD THE 5NEWS APP
DOWNLOAD FOR IPHONE HERE | DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID HERE
HOW TO ADD THE 5NEWS APP TO YOUR STREAMING DEVICE
ROKU: add the channel from the ROKU store or by searching for KFSM in the Channel Store.
For Fire TV, search for "KFSM" to find the free app to add to your account. Another option for Fire TV is to have the app delivered directly to your Fire TV through Amazon.
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/university-arkansas-69-among-us-public-universities-tech-transfer-economic-return-fayetteville-licenses-options/527-5ee7c747-ea64-48ff-b82e-95140435efc6
| 2022-05-15T19:14:39
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/university-arkansas-69-among-us-public-universities-tech-transfer-economic-return-fayetteville-licenses-options/527-5ee7c747-ea64-48ff-b82e-95140435efc6
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CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — A pair of Southwest Florida ‘vloggers’ driving down Interstate 75 captured a golf practice gone wrong on the side of the road.
Jose and Katherine Rodriguez live in Fort Myers but travel around the country documenting the everyday for their YouTube channel, “SouthernLife.”
The duo was driving down the interstate Friday afternoon during rush hour when their dash cam captured something they haven’t seen before on the side of the road.
“We see this guy on the side of the road literally having a full golf game,” Jose says. “This is like Tiger Woods junior out there, he was doing his thing.”
The dash cam video shows a car pulled to the side of the road and a man in a black polo taking practice swings in the grass just off the interstate.
Rodriguez says the rogue golfer wasn’t just taking practice swings, he was connecting, hitting golf balls near the interstate.
“Who knows what this guy was thinking, it’s just a really dangerous place to do it,” said Rodriguez.
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/15/florida-man-caught-golfing-on-side-of-i-75/
| 2022-05-15T19:15:55
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/15/florida-man-caught-golfing-on-side-of-i-75/
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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portlanders are set to celebrate the life of the late, iconic Mayor J.E. “Bud” Clark Sunday afternoon in Pioneer Courthouse Square.
On Feb. 1, Clark passed away at the age of 90. He took office back in 1985. He also owned the Goose Hollow Inn in Southwest Portland, the tavern that served as headquarters for one of the biggest political upsets in Portland history — when Clark defeated incumbent Mayor Frank Ivancie in 1984.
Clark served two terms until 1992. His crowning achievement is the Oregon Convention Center, built during a recession.
“It gave people confidence (that) the city had a future and there was prosperity ahead,” he said to KOIN 6 News’ Ken Boddie back in 2016.
Boddie is the master of ceremonies for the memorial service Sunday, which is being planned by family, friends, and former colleagues.
Portland Tribune, a KOIN 6 News partner, reports it will include personal remembrances and performances by The Portland Youth Philharmonic, Pink Martini founder Thomas Lauderdale and Kathleen Saadat, the Mel Brown Quartet and the MarchFourth Marching Band as well as a complimentary “Ice Cream Social” from Salt & Straw.
A volunteer cleanup for downtown is also scheduled to precede the service in Clark’s honor.
The event is set to last from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Organizers will livestream it here.
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https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/portland-to-remember-bud-clark-at-memorial-downtown/
| 2022-05-15T19:19:18
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A 69-year-old man died early Friday morning and the MTA bus driver suspected of running him over on a Staten Island road has been pulled from work while officials investigate the fatality, sources said.
The pedestrian was attempting to cross at Platinum Avenue and Forest Hill Road at 4:30 a.m. when the MTA bus struck the man and continued down the road, police and city transportation officials said.
First responders who rushed to the scene found the man unresponsive and pronounced him dead. He was later identified as Patrick Varriale, of Staten Island.
A preliminary investigation by city officials determined the 52-year-old bus driver did not remain at the scene, but was identified a short time later and questioned by authorities.
Sources said video recorded from the bus operating the SIM10 line was turned over to investigators.
“This was a tragic incident in which we are fully cooperating with the NYPD Collision Investigation Squad,” said MTA Bus Company Acting President Frank Annicaro.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/mta-bus-driver-pulled-from-duty-after-deadly-hit-and-run-on-staten-island/3688689/
| 2022-05-15T19:35:12
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/mta-bus-driver-pulled-from-duty-after-deadly-hit-and-run-on-staten-island/3688689/
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A woman is dead after a Sunday morning crash on Elder Creek Road in Sacramento, officials with the Sacramento Police Department say.
Around 6:39 a.m., Sacramento Police officers were called to the area of Florin Perkins Road and Elder Creek Road following reports of a two-vehicle collision.
Officers say they found an adult woman at the scene who had sustained major injuries. According to police, officers attempted to give medical aid to the woman but she was later pronounced dead by crews with the Sacramento Fire Department.
Police detectives say they have responded to the scene for an investigation and have not released any more information on the circumstances surrounding the fatal crash.
Watch More from ABC10:How Dance Gavin Dance and his mother are picking up after Tim Feerick's fentanyl overdose and death
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/woman-dies-crash-elder-creek-road/103-88503d1f-add2-4e70-9bf1-291e0442c6bc
| 2022-05-15T19:44:03
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/woman-dies-crash-elder-creek-road/103-88503d1f-add2-4e70-9bf1-291e0442c6bc
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NORMAL — A minor was sent to the hospital Friday and another was arrested after becoming involved in a fight at Normal Community High School.
Sgt. Jeff Longfellow with the Normal Police Department said officers were called to the high school at 12:22 p.m. Friday for a fight that involved several students. He said a safety monitor and one student intervened in the fight.
In the course of the altercation, he said one minor and the school monitor fell into a desk. Longfellow said a teenage boy was taken to OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington to be treated for injuries to his head and ribs.
That student’s condition was not available Sunday. The police sergeant also said the school monitor was hurt, but did not go to the hospital.
After the fight, Longfellow said there was a verbal argument at the school between a group of family members and friends on both sides, and NPD sent several officers in to help calm people down.
Longfellow said a teenage boy was arrested for felony aggravated battery, but was not detained.
McLean County Unit 5 spokesperson Dayna Brown provided The Pantagraph on Sunday with a copy of a letter sent Friday to parents regarding the incident.
The statement said several students became involved in a physical altercation, and staff needed to clear out common areas. That led to students being held an extra few minutes in classrooms, the cafeteria and the instructional media center.
"The safety of our students is our top priority and we greatly appreciate our students and staff who were cooperative during this incident," the message continued.
No further information was available Sunday.
What you missed this week in notable Central Illinois crimes and court cases
This week's local crime and court updates from The Pantagraph.
A discharge hearing is scheduled for August to review evidence in a case charging a 12-year-old boy with murder and arson in a 2019 fatal fire in Goodfield.
He is charged with one count of indecent solicitation of a child (Class 2 felony).
Nearly a year after passage of a law named for 2-year-old Ta'Naja Barnes, who died of neglect in February 2019, a state auditor found that DCFS has yet to implement it.
Nearly a year after passage of a law named for 2-year-old Ta'Naja Barnes, who died of neglect in February 2019, a state auditor found that DCFS has yet to implement it.
The Four Corner Hustlers are among Chicago’s oldest and most notorious gangs, one that for decades ruled the drug trade on the West Side by robbing competitors, killing rivals and terrorizing the community.
A northern Illinois man convicted of murder in the 2021 shooting death of a teen he spotted in his car a few days after he reported it stolen has been sentenced to 21 years in prison, prosecutors announced on Thursday.
A McLean County judge will rule within 60 days which material can be presented at a hearing for Barton McNeil, who is seeking exoneration from his 1999 conviction in his 3-year-old daughter's murder.
It's not the first time Decatur car dealer says he's had a brush with murder.
It's not the first time Decatur car dealer says he's had a brush with murder.
A jury convicted a suburban Chicago woman of involuntary manslaughter Tuesday for failing to give her son the medical care he required after a heart transplant.
The suspect had briefly held hostages inside the Fifth Third Bank branch in Romeoville but had released them before the shooting, police said.
Curtis W. Marcum, 37, is charged with one count of unlawful delivery of methamphetamine (Class 2 felony).
A Chicago man who posted online to urge others to join massive crowds that were looting downtown businesses in the summer of 2020 was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison Tuesday.
The bill also reauthorizes a witness protection program with $30 million set aside for it in the upcoming state budget. The program had been neglected for years by lawmakers who failed to earmark funding.
An arraignment is scheduled for May 27.
An arraignment is scheduled for May 27.
R. Kelly’s federal trial in Chicago is set to kick off in August after a judge on Tuesday denied a request to postpone it by three months.
Police encourage anyone with information to contact Det. Jesse Lanphear at 309-434-2369 or jlanphear@cityblm.org.
Bloomington police are seeking information about a shooting Monday morning in the 1200 block of Orchard Road. No injuries have been reported.
A Decatur man remains jailed in McLean County on child pornography charges.
A missing Hoopeston man, who escaped from a hospital transport along Interstate 39 near Minonk last week, has been located in Tennessee.
Clearview is also agreeing to stop making its database available to Illinois state government and local police departments for five years.
Clearview is also agreeing to stop making its database available to Illinois state government and local police departments for five years.
They came together as a collective to say: “Stop it, do something, and do it now.”
This Sunday, the women hope to have brunch together with at least 100 others who lost children to gun violence or COVID-19. Other attendees might also have lost mothers to violence or the virus.
A Frankfort woman was sentenced to a year in federal prison after pleading guilty to embezzling more than $650,000 from a national student organization working to improve minority representation in the pharmacy industry, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago.
A Tinley Park man feared his 17-year-old daughter was hiding secrets from him and no longer loved him before he "went out of control" and severely beat her, according to a court document outlining details in the death of the girl, Mia Maro.
The remains found on March 21 near Mount Vernon in Jefferson County belonged to 20-year-old Keriaye M. Winfrey of Indianapolis, the county sheriff's office said.
A suburban Chicago man has been charged with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment, nearly a year after his 1-month-old son died of fentanyl poisoning.
Illinois State Police are asking the public to contact the agency if they have information on Javier Aguirre, who escaped from a hospital transport van late Wednesday night along I-39 near Minonk.
Fire officials said diligent work by volunteer crews helped save half of a shop from burning down near Carlock.
Contact Brendan Denison at (309) 820-3238. Follow Brendan Denison on Twitter: @BrendanDenison
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/minor-hurt-another-arrested-after-friday-fight-at-normal-community-high/article_b515c92c-d472-11ec-b9d1-cb7a7c20a426.html
| 2022-05-15T20:16:30
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/minor-hurt-another-arrested-after-friday-fight-at-normal-community-high/article_b515c92c-d472-11ec-b9d1-cb7a7c20a426.html
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Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who is running in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, said he had a stroke on Friday and remains in the hospital.
Fetterman said he hadn’t been feeling well and ignored symptoms but his wife, Gisele, insisted he go to the hospital.
“Gisele insisted, and as usual, she was right. I hadn’t been feeling well, but was so focused on the campaign that I ignored the signs and just kept going,” he said. “On Friday it finally caught up with me.”
Fetterman said the stroke was caused by his heart being in atrial fibrillation and throwing a clot that went to his brain. Doctors at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital were able to remove the clot and reverse the stroke, he said. They also got his heart rhythm under control.
”The good news is I’m feeling much better, and the doctors tell me I didn’t suffer any cognitive damage,” the statement said. “I’m well on my way to a full recovery. So I have a lot to be thankful for. They’re keeping me here for now for observation, but I should be out of here sometime soon.”
Fetterman said doctors told him he will be able to return to the campaign trail after resting.
“But our campaign isn’t slowing down one bit, and we are still on track to win this primary on Tuesday, and flip this Senate seat in November. Thanks for all the support, and please get out there and vote.”
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-fetterman-stroke-statement-20220515-tqy2crwotvdx7otjavtqbtlbr4-story.html
| 2022-05-15T20:27:47
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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Activists for Palestinian rights are marching through downtown Portland Sunday afternoon on the 74th anniversary of Al Nakba.
Al Nakba, which translates to “the catastrophe,” refers to the destruction of several hundred Palestinian cities and mass displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes during the Palestine War in 1948. Protests on Al Nakba Day are held every year around the world on May 15.
A student group at Portland State University, Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights, organized the event downtown, held just days after renowned Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot and killed during an Israeli raid in the West Bank.
Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American, was a well-known reporter who covered Palestine for generations. Palestinians and witnesses blamed Israeli forces for her death.
As reported by the Associated Press, tensions reached a boiling point during her funeral procession in Jerusalem Friday when Israeli riot police pushed and beat pallbearers causing them to briefly drop the casket.
According to a flier released ahead of the event Sunday, organizers said they are showing support for “Palestinian people defending their homeland.”
Participants met at the Salmon Springs Fountain around noon and are set to march to a rally held at the South Park Blocks.
The rally will feature music and is slated to begin at 2 p.m.
KOIN 6 News’ Zaina Kahuk contributed to this article.
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https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/students-palestinian-rights-activists-to-march-on-74th-anniversary-of-al-nakba/
| 2022-05-15T21:08:05
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https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/students-palestinian-rights-activists-to-march-on-74th-anniversary-of-al-nakba/
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WASHINGTON — Under the shadow of the Capitol and the National Monument, thousands of local, state and federal law enforcement officers gathered Friday evening with families whose loved ones died in the line of duty to honor them in an annual candlelight vigil.
Every year, names of officers killed in the line of duty are engraved on the walls of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. Those names were read Friday to memorialize their sacrifice.
This was the 34th Annual Candle Light Vigil on the Mall, and the 16th year for the families of Master Police Officer Michael Garbarino and Detective Vicky Armel, two Fairfax County Police officers who were tragically killed when a carjacker opened fire on them on May 8, 2006.
“It’s just a yearly tradition for us. My dad’s name was inscribed on the wall in 2007 after he passed in 2006 and it’s just become a fixture of our lives every year, every May this is where we are representing his sacrifice and the sacrifice of everyone else on the wall,” Natalie Garbarino said.
The Garbarino family said families of fallen officers are extensions of their family. Tragically, every year new family members join the family they never asked for. Those people are called survivors. Survivors are escorted to their seats with roses and a designated escort in a solemn tribute to their loved ones.
“It’s sadness in a way because I remember, especially for the first-year survivors being in their position, I remember how we felt that first year and I have such empathy for them, and I know exactly what they’re going through. It’s painful for me personally to see them,” Suzanne Garbarino said.
While it’s a sadness, there is hope both the Garbarino and Armel families said they feel knowing the sacrifices of fall law enforcement officers aren’t forgotten, as they stand alongside officers from Fairfax County Police.
“I miss my sister, I mean it’s heartbreaking coming here but then you remember her and her sacrifice,” Sandy Munday, Vicky Armel’s sister said. “It’s sad but it’s special. Crying on outside happy on the inside because she’s not forgotten. They say gone not forgotten and they mean that.”
May 11-17 is National Police Week. There are events being held across the District throughout the weekend.
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/candle-light-vigil-for-officers-killed-in-line-of-duty/65-5092a2e5-a38b-41a1-914b-55b3e3798c19
| 2022-05-15T21:12:59
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ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) – Pickle ball players gathered in Elizabethton today for a lesson.
Gigi LeMaster, a six-time US Open champion and 2021 Pickleball Hall of fame inductee, coached a two-day clinic at the Elizabethton Parks and Recreation Center, according to a release from the city.
Everyone from beginners to advanced players was welcome to participate. Lessons focused on footwork, paddle position, net game, return, third shots and volleys.
“To have her in Elizabethton, holding this clinic for us, is an incredible opportunity and we can’t thank her enough for sharing her knowledge and talents with our community,” said Mike Maines, Parks and Recreation Director.
The Pickleball program in Elizabethton launched last July and organizers are excited to have professional coaching players.
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/elizabethton-pickleball-league-welcomes-hall-of-fame-inductee-for-lessons/
| 2022-05-15T21:26:39
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/elizabethton-pickleball-league-welcomes-hall-of-fame-inductee-for-lessons/
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BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) – The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office will be holding a memorial service to honor fallen officers.
May 15 is also known as National Peace Officers Memorial Day, a day meant to honor those who have lost their lives in the line of duty. President John F. Kennedy signed a proclamation in 1962 officially creating the day of remembrance.
National Police Week is also observed from May 11 through 17.
To honor this, the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office will be holding a memorial service to remember fallen officers and their families.
Twelve officers and one constable have lost their lives in the line of duty while with the sheriff’s office.
The service will be held on Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the sheriff’s office.
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/sullivan-co-sheriffs-office-to-hold-memorial-service-for-fallen-officers/
| 2022-05-15T21:26:45
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/sullivan-co-sheriffs-office-to-hold-memorial-service-for-fallen-officers/
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Mars Wrigley Confectionery US, LLC announced a recall of several varieties of Skittles, Starbursts and Life Savers because a thin metal strand may potentially be found in the candies or bags.
The company announced the recall on Friday according to a statement posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website.
“We received reports from consumers alerting us to this matter and are not aware of any illnesses to date,” the statement said.
They “will work with retailers to remove recalled products from store shelves,” the statement from Mars Wrigley Confectionery said on the FDA website. “If consumers believe they have purchased a recalled item, they should dispose of the product and not consume it.”
A 10-digit manufacturing code can be found on the back of the recalled products where the first three digit numbers will alert consumers of the affected product.
A few examples of the recalled products include:
- Starburst Gummies Original Share Size 3.5 ounces
- Starburst Gummies Original Peg Pack 5.8 ounces
- Life Savers Gummies Five Flavor Peg Pack 7.0 ounces, 3.22 ounces
- Life Savers Wild Berries Gummies Peg Pack 7.0 ounces
- Skittles Gummies Original Stand Up Pouch 12 ounces
- Skittles Sour Gummies Peg Pack 5.8 ounces
The rest of the varieties as well as the codes for the recalled products can found on the FDA website.
“We received reports from consumers alerting us to this matter and are not aware of any illnesses to date,” the company said in the news release.
Customers with inquiries can contact the company by calling 1-800-651-2564 or visit the company’s website at www.mars.com.
About the Author
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https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/skittles-starbursts-and-life-savers-candies-recalled/S2G6ZU7GSJEB3FX6GWTOQPNOIE/
| 2022-05-15T21:29:23
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https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/skittles-starbursts-and-life-savers-candies-recalled/S2G6ZU7GSJEB3FX6GWTOQPNOIE/
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The Maryland Board of Public Works on Wednesday approved the sale of the Spring Grove Hospital Center’s 175-acre campus in Catonsville to the University of Maryland Baltimore County for a nominal $1, despite concerns from mental health groups that the state lacks detailed plans to replace services provided by the centuries-old psychiatric facility.
The university’s retiring president, Freeman A. Hrabowski III, told state officials that acquiring the sprawling property neighboring UMBC’s campus has been an ambition of his for three decades. Hrabowski said the university has no plans yet for the property, which it will lease back to the state for years to come.
The psychiatric hospital, the largest in the state’s system with 375 patient beds, will continue operating but will be closed eventually under the deal and a master facilities plan released last year by the Maryland Department of Health, which owns and runs the facility. For now, though, the health department will lease the property back from UMBC for 10 years with options to extend it up to 10 years more.
Mental health advocacy groups and labor unions representing the hospital’s roughly 800 staffers objected to the sale at Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting in Annapolis, complaining that the state health department had not consulted with them and that the agency lacks detailed plans on how to replace Spring Grove’s much-needed beds and services.
The state has struggled for years with a lack of psychiatric facilities and services, particularly for people facing criminal charges or held in state prisons, and courts have ruled repeatedly that lengthy delays and waitlists for court-ordered mental health evaluations or treatments violate the law.
Maryland Health Secretary Dennis Schrader said plans to replace Spring Grove will be developed over the next decade or two, but that selling the property amounted to an “action-oriented plan” to move forward. The department’s 2021 facilities master plan calls for patients to be transferred out of Spring Grove beginning in 2032 but does not detail where they would go.
The master plan noted that the Spring Grove Hospital Center complex is dilapidated and outdated, with some buildings dating to the early 1800s, and that replacing or renovating the facility to meet adequate modern standards would be “cost-prohibitive.”
Gov. Larry Hogan (R), whose administration proposed the sale, voted in favor of the transfer. So did state Treasurer Dereck E. Davis, a Democrat appointed by the General Assembly.
Democratic Comptroller Peter Franchot attempted to delay the sale and cast the lone vote opposing the move. Franchot, a candidate for governor, said he was baffled by the outgoing Hogan administration’s sudden rush to transfer the property and questioned the administration’s appraisal of the sprawling property as worthless. The 175-acre campus, just off Interstate 695, includes significant swaths of undeveloped land that have long been coveted by developers.
Nelson Reichart, deputy secretary for the state Department of General Services, said staff appraisers pegged the land value at $20 million based on “comparable sales in the area.” But Reichart said estimated costs to deal with issues on the land — $70 million to demolish most of the campus buildings, another $48 million for required renovations for historically protected structures and about $14 million to deal with stormwater issues — wiped out any actual value.
The state did not seek a second outside appraisal, Reichart said, because officials felt confident others would reach similar conclusions.
Franchot also noted that transferring the property essentially locked in plans to shutter the hospital and said he didn’t understand why the Hogan administration couldn’t delay the transfer until meeting with mental health advocates and community groups or devise more specific plans for replacing Spring Grove’s services.
House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) voiced support for the sale in a statement after its approval.
“The future of the Spring Grove property has been debated for 20 years. I’m pleased to see this property finally being transferred to a trusted community partner like UMBC,” Jones said. “Our commitment to the Spring Grove Hospital and its employees remains strong, and I’m confident in their shared future.”
Lori Doyle, director of public policy for the Community Behavioral Health Association of Maryland, agreed that Spring Grove Hospital has badly deteriorated and needs to be renovated or replaced. But Doyle said the Hogan administration plan for the property “kicks the decrepit can down the road for another 10 years” by leaving the hospital open indefinitely.
Dan Martin, senior director of public policy for the Mental Health Association of Maryland, said Spring Grove has been “crumbling for decades” and that the state should have gone to work years ago replacing or improving facilities instead of allowing conditions for patients and staff members to become “completely unacceptable.”
But Martin said neither his group nor other mental health advocacy organizations were consulted on the decision to sell the campus and that they likewise objected to the sale without clear plans for how the state will provide the same services elsewhere.
“There haven’t been any … vacant beds for decades, and there are no plans to create vacant beds,” said Rosemary Wertz of AFT-Healthcare Maryland, a labor union that represents doctors and many other health-care professionals at the hospital.
Wertz called the sale a “premature decision” without a “detailed plan of action to take care of these patients.”
Public-sector union AFSCME Council 3, which represents much of the staff at Spring Grove, also objected to the sale, contending it “functionally expedites the closure of the largest state psychiatric hospital in Maryland.”
Critics of the move to approve Spring Grove’s sale to UMBC all stressed on Wednesday that they supported the university and saw it as a promising new steward for the sprawling property.
Schrader said that selling the Spring Grove Hospital property is “not the end of the process, but the very beginning” of a years-long effort to replace the facility’s mental health services. Schrader acknowledged he likely will leave office by the beginning of next year — Hogan is term-limited and not running for reelection — but said “we can get a lot of work done in the next eight months.”
— Baltimore Sun
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/hospital-sale-to-umbc-for-1-is-approved/2022/05/15/e4fd84cc-d274-11ec-a3af-4b2b966cdb12_story.html
| 2022-05-15T21:29:24
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TONIGHT: Additional showers and storms are likely, as a weakening squall line approaches the northwestern part of the state tonight. While widespread severe storms are unlikely, a few storms with heavy rain, gusty winds, and small hail are possible west of I-65 overnight. Lows again drop into the low to mid 60s.
MONDAY: A weak front will push across the state Monday. This will bring a few additional isolated showers and storms. Best chances to see a downpour is east of I-65 but any one spot could see a storm. Temperatures will drop a tad Monday, but the cooler weather won’t last long with hot and dry weather on the way by the second half of the work week.
TUESDAY-FRIDAY: Our rain chances shut down with drier air moving into the state for the rest of the work-week, and temperatures climb even higher than they did last week. Widespread 90s are likely through the second half of the week, with some spots climbing into the mid to upper 90s! No rain is expected Tuesday through Friday.
THE WEEKEND: Scattered showers and thunderstorms return to the forecast as moisture returns to the state and a cold front pushes through. That front means we deal with storms Saturday, a few lingering downpours in the first half of Sunday, but we also see some cooler air move into Central Alabama. Highs will struggle to reach the 80s to kick off next week!
Be sure to follow the CBS 42 Storm Team:
Follow Us on Facebook: Chief Meteorologist Ashley Gann, Meteorologist Dave Nussbaum, Meteorologist Michael Haynes and Meteorologist Alex Puckett
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| 2022-05-15T21:40:18
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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — A homicide investigation is underway after a 38-year-old Warrior man was shot and killed Saturday night while driving on I-59 South.
According to Truman Fitzgerald with the Birmingham Police Department, officers responded after a vehicle crashed into the median on I-20/59 South off Arkadelphia Road. Inside the car, officers found Justin Andrew Snow suffering from a single gunshot wound.
First responders arrived and pronounced Snow dead at the scene.
Fitzgerald believes the victim was traveling from the “downtown area” going southbound before the shooting occurred.
At this time there are no suspects in custody. Birmingham Police detectives are asking drivers with dashcam footage of their travel in the area between 7:15 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. to come forward.
Anyone with information pertaining to this case is asked to contact BPD at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
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| 2022-05-15T21:40:24
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Britney Spears says she has lost a baby early in her pregnancy.
Spears announced the loss on Instagram Saturday in a joint postwith her partner, Sam Asghari. The pop superstar, who gained her freedom from a court conservatorship that controlled her life for more than a decade,said in April that she was expecting a child with Asghari.
“It is with deepest sadness we have to announce that we have lost our miracle baby early in the pregnancy. This is a devastating time for any parent,” the post said. “Perhaps we should have waited to announce until we were further along however we were overly excited to share the good news.”
“Our love for each other is our strength,” the post said. “We will continue trying to expand our beautiful family.”
The 40-year-old Spears has said she longed for a baby with the 28-year-old Asghari, a personal trainer, but also said the nearly 14-year-long conservatorship that ended last year forced her to remain on birth control.
The two met on the set of her “Slumber Party” video in 2016.
Spears has two sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline.
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| 2022-05-15T21:52:49
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ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (WJHL) – Members of the Elizabethton community came out to enjoy the weather and some art in the park on Sunday.
The City of Elizabethton Parks and Rec Department hosted Chalk Art in the Park. The event took place from 2 to 5 p.m. and guests were encouraged to turn imperfections in sidewalks, basketball courts or anywhere else into temporary works of art, according to a Facebook post.
‘Art in the Park’ is part of a series of events that will be held on the third Sunday of every month at a different park in the City of Elizabethton. Sunday’s session was held at Walter Curtis Park.
The event’s organizer says that participating in art projects is very beneficial no matter your age.
“Especially for our young people it helps their brain development and so we want to encourage them to do the arts, but also when you’re older you know you get busy and you think oh I don’t have time for that or whatever the case may be. We’re giving you the opportunity to get out and play and be a kid again, so come and join us,” said Nash Acuna, president of Elizabethton Arts on Cultural Alliance.
For more information, you can visit the organization’s website.
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BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
Across the country, in big cities, small towns and rural expanses, thieves are targeting auto parts — with a prime focus on catalytic converters.
The catalytic devices convert pollutants from motor vehicle engines into less-toxic emissions. They are stolen and sold to metal recyclers or in some instances body shops in need of auto parts.
The converters, also known as CATs, can fetch anywhere between $50 and $1,400, according to police departments and insurance agencies across the country.
“They are targeting the metals in the mufflers which they can sell to a metal scrap dealer, for around $200 to $400. They work fast, and can steal the item in less than two minutes. We have not caught any of the suspects but suspect they are a traveling group,” said Lieutenant Mike Budreau with the Medford Police Department in southern Oregon.
The city of more than 85,000 people saw 37 catalytic converter thefts in 2021 and nine so far this year, Budreau said.
Medford is not alone.
In the Treasure Valley, catalytic converter theft is also on the rise.
The Boise Police Department said that reported catalytic converter thefts rose from 12 in 2019 to 88 in 2021. This year, there have been 66 reports tallied by the BPD, according to department spokesperson Haley Williams.
The Nampa Police Department said there have been approximately 148 reported thefts from August 2021 to April 2022.
That figure also marks an increase in the city, according to Sgt. Mike Phillips. He added that there have likely been more because “Some victims don’t report, and other victims don’t know they have been the victim yet.”
A spokesperson from the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office estimated that “over the past two years, there have been about an 800% increase in catalytic converter thefts.”
On a national scale, it’s significant as well. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau, which tracks crimes reported to insurance companies, the number of reported catalytic converter thefts raced from roughly 1,300 in 2018 to more than 52,000 in 2021.
Higher costs of metals because of inflation can help fetch more money from recyclers for thieves. Shortages of auto parts because of the impacts of the pandemic and supply chain problems could be driving some illegal demand for converters, law enforcement officials said. COVID-19 shutdowns in China, inflation in the U.S. and unpredictable demand have hampered automotive supply chains worldwide — including for parts.
Gone in 60 seconds
The Canyon County Sheriff’s Office said that thieves typically target vehicles with higher ground clearance, because converters are faster to pull and easier to reach.
“They also target businesses with a fleet of vehicles where they have access to multiple vehicles at a time,” Joe Decker, a spokesperson with the county, wrote in an email.
Patrick Orr, a spokesperson with the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, said that bigger pickup trucks – which are easier to get under and may have larger converters – seem to be targeted the most. He added, however, that thieves have stolen catalytic converters from all kinds of cars and trucks.
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office, which has also reported an increase in CAT theft over the past year, said that thieves use reciprocating saws – power tools commonly known as sawzalls – when going under cars and trucks to cut through and get to the converter.
“It seems to take anywhere from 30-to-90 seconds for thieves to cut through the metals and remove the converters,” Orr wrote in an email.
Sgt. Phillips, with Nampa Police, said with the right equipment and on certain vehicles, it can take individuals 30-45 seconds to steal a converter.
Williams, with the BPD, said that thieves can sell the converters to recyclers without providing identification.
Local law enforcement agencies said that thieves can pocket hundreds of dollars for a stolen converter.
The number can exceed $1,000 for a converter taken from a hybrid vehicle.
Nampa Police said the rise in catalytic converter theft in the city stems from individuals trading them for drugs or drug money.
“There are crooked crooks who turn a blind eye and buy these converters, even though they know they are more than likely stolen,” Sgt. Phillips said. “Those buying the converters are making lots of money.
“The people buying them pay the thief a low price, and then turn around and sell them to a smelter and get paid very well,” his email continued.
The Cheyenne Police Department in Wyoming saw 116 converter thefts in 2021 and 19 so far this year. Thieves can target commercial and personal vehicles.
“This criminal activity can take place during the day or at night. Thieves will crawl underneath the vehicle and cut the converter out with a saw,” said Detective Bureau Lieutenant Adam DeBall with the Cheyenne PD. “In most cases, you won’t know this has happened until you start your car. When you press the gas pedal, you may hear a loud noise.”
Law enforcement in Wyoming, Oregon and other states are also working with recycling centers to combat the theft rings but are making a limited number of arrests. Similar efforts have been previously undertaken with copper thefts, with varying degrees of success.
Orr, with Ada County Sheriff's Office, said that local scrap yards have been cooperative with the agency on local investigations and that “it is possible thieves are taking the stolen converters out of state.”
Replacing a stolen catalytic converter is not cheap. It can cost anywhere from $1,000-$2,000, according to local sheriff's offices.
Tips on theft prevention
Treasure Valley law enforcement agencies have a variety of tips to avoid CAT theft.
“It is almost impossible for law enforcement to tie a specific converter to a specific vehicle, to the subject who stole it, to the recycling company it was sold to,” Decker wrote. “The best thing to do is make your converter harder to steal and easier to identify if it does get stolen.”
Decker suggested including painting or engraving the converter with a unique marking to make it more identifiable, monitoring vehicles with video cameras or alarms, and parking vehicles where their exhausts are difficult to access, such as near a fence or wall.
He also suggested that people install an anti-theft device such as a shield, cage or welded cables around their converter.
Orr said attaching a skid plate to the bottom of a vehicle can be effective.
Nampa Police Sgt. Philips said residents should keep an eye out for suspicious activity in the community.
“We have had several of these thefts occur in broad daylight, in parking lots,” he wrote. “Everyone needs to help keep an eye and ear out for suspicious activity and noises.”
He added that people should not approach or try to apprehend a thief.
“We do not know if they are armed and what they might do,” he wrote.
Williams said that people should park in a garage if possible, and also in well-lit and high-traffic areas.
The boom in CAT thefts across the country has also spawned a cottage industry of anti-theft products that car dealers, fleet owners and consumers can use to lock the emissions devices.
A variety of companies offer locking devices aimed at discouraging catalytic crooks. Some require installation by an auto mechanic.
- In Texas, a company called Converter Guard offers an etching set and will put a car’s CAT into a national database for $249. If the CAT is stolen, the company promises to pay up to $2,500 in replacement costs.
- New York state officials have also launched a new etching and registration effort with the car dealers with police (including the New York City Police Department) to tag and track stolen converters. Parts of New York have seen a 200% increase in thefts of the emissions control device.
“The sharp increase in the number of catalytic converters being stolen across the country has police and legislators searching for a way to curb the thefts,” said Nichole Soriano, regional director for Travelers Insurance Co. and chair of the New York Anti Car Theft and Fraud Association at May 6 announcement of the tagging effort.
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
Watch more Local News:
See the latest news from around the Treasure Valley and the Gem State in our YouTube playlist:
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-press/cat-burglars-catalytic-converter-theft-on-the-rise-in-treasure-valley-and-nationwide/277-07530188-3037-4140-a7bd-00521633ad91
| 2022-05-15T22:03:04
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BOISE, Idaho — It's almost here, primary election day is May 17th across Idaho.
Idahoans across the state know we are deep in campaign crunch-time. Seems every time you turn on your tv or radio those political ads air one after another, after another. That's one way for candidates to get their message out, another is through debates.
Debates have been a longstanding tradition in politics, a way for candidates to contrast themselves with their opponents and lay out their positions on the key issues of the day.
More importantly, it gives voters a crucial opportunity to see the differences and hear the policy stances so they can make an informed decision.
This year, a few debates were canceled because candidates declined invitations to participate.
KTVB hosted two debates this campaign season for hotly contested races. One for the superintendent of public instruction, the other for the Secretary of State, which we are focusing on this week.
The Secretary of State is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of the Idaho government. The Secretary is responsible for running the state's elections, publishing state documents, licensing businesses, and other business services. They also sit on the state land board, they serve four-year terms.
The winner of the Republican primary will face Democratic candidate Shawn Keenan in the November general election.
The Republican candidates are State Senator Mary Souza of Coeur d'Alene. She is serving her fourth term in the state senate.
State Representative Dorothy Moon, of Stanley, is serving her 3rd term in the state house of representatives.
Phil McGrane has been the Ada County Clerk since 2019. He served as Chief Deputy Clerk from 2010-2019.
Debates are a chance for candidates to contrast themselves with their opponents, in this week’s episode we hear from the GOP candidates for secretary of state about where they stand on the issue.
Watch More 'Viewpoint':
See every episode in our YouTube playlist:
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/viewpoint/viewpoint-idaho-republican-candidates-secretary-state-debate-major-issues-heading-into-election-day/277-54dc2962-40ec-4872-8246-97478c891951
| 2022-05-15T22:03:10
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Hiker still missing after reporting he was lost on Mingus Mountain Friday
The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office says a Prescott Valley hiker is still missing after he was last seen in Wood Chute trailhead on Mingus Mountain Friday morning.
The missing hiker has been identified as Donald Hayes, 74, who called his wife Friday afternoon to say he and his dog, Ranger, were lost.
According to Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, Forest Patrol was able to contact Hayes on Friday around 2 p.m. on his cell phone. Hayes said he did not want to wait for a rescue and he was "continuing down a ravine."
Hayes also told Forest Patrol he was moving northwest and could see Williamson Valley. He notified rescue services he still had food and water and was turning off his phone to save the battery.
"There has been no further communication with him, and efforts to use GPS through his cell phone have been unsuccessful," said Yavapai County Sheriff's Office in a statement.
Hayes is described as a white male with "salt and pepper" hair. He has green eyes and is 6 feet tall. He was last seen wearing nylon beige pants, a grey sweatshirt, white t-shirt and a white visor.
Ranger is a black and white Labrador.
Various search and rescue efforts have been launched since Friday, including YCSO Backcountry Search and Rescue, search dogs, the Sheriff's Volunteer OHV Unit, a Jeep posse, along with a Department of Public Safety Ranger helicopter. Hayes and Ranger have not been found.
On Saturday morning, a thermal drone flight was used to try to locate Hayes and the Department of Public Safety conducted a Forward Looked Infrared search by air. Neither attempt produced any results.
Yavapai County Sheriff's Office said that rescue efforts will continue on Sunday by foot, in vehicles and in the air.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Yavapai County Sheriff's Office at (928)-771-3260.
Reach breaking news reporter Haleigh Kochanski at hkochanski@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @HaleighKochans.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2022/05/15/hiker-missing-after-reporting-he-lost-mingus-mountain-friday/9787138002/
| 2022-05-15T22:11:11
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FORT MYERS, Fla. — Multiple fire units responded to a 15-acre brush fire that ignited near the Southwest Florida International Airport (RSW) this afternoon.
The fire had no impact on aircraft operations, according to RSW officials. The fire is fully contained at this time.
Mutual aid was provided by San Carlos, Bonita, South Trail, Forestry, Estero Fire, and our teams.
Count on NBC2 to provide updates on the fire throughout the day.
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| 2022-05-15T22:25:05
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WASHINGTON D.C. — Cape Coral Police Department (CCPD) officers traveled to Washington D.C. this week for National Police Week.
Today CCPD celebrates National Peace Officers Day!
Cape Coral Police Department officers traveled to Washington D.C. for National Police Week. March 15th is National Peace Officers Day 🚔👮🏼👮🏻♂️👮🏾♀️🚓
— Cape Coral Police (@CapePD) May 15, 2022
This week we remember the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice. We thank them for their service and will never forget. 🌹🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/5WABSIzcVU
We thank officers all around the country for their service and their sacrifices will never be forgotten.
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Hundreds of people gathered at the state Capitol for the second time this month to defend abortion rights, two weeks after a Supreme Court draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade was leaked.
The protesters rallied Sunday afternoon on the north side of the Capitol, holding signs and chanting as cars drove down K Street.
Gina Frank, organizing director for the Nebraska Democratic Party, was among the crowd.
"I’m here today standing up for people’s bodily autonomy, people’s reproductive freedom and the ability of people to make their own health care choices," she said.
Frank has been attending rallies in support of abortion rights since about 2016, but said she had no strong opinions on the issue before she had her own child.
“My pregnancy was really easy, but even that is still really hard. Even an uncomplicated pregnancy was really hard on my body and my mental health for a very wanted baby," Frank said. "I can’t imagine putting myself into the shoes of somebody who has been raped or is a victim of incest having to carry that fetus, that baby for 10 months. It’s a human-rights abuse.”
People are also reading…
Hundreds showed up to a similar rally in downtown Omaha on Saturday, one of many that took place across the country over the weekend in support of abortion rights.
Those in attendance in Lincoln on Sunday heard from state Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, who is running on the Democratic ticket to represent Nebraska's 1st Congressional District.
"I have fought for this for so long. My mom fought for this. So many people have fought for this," she said. "We have to get people out and up in arms to recognize that it is time for women, men and families to speak up, care for each other and recognize that we are in control of ourselves, not the government."
The Lincoln-based senator also urged people to use their right to vote in the special election for the 1st District seat on June 28, where Pansing Brooks will face off against Republican nominee Mike Flood.
"This is just the beginning. We cannot be silent."
Contact the writer at zhammack@journalstar.com or 402-473-7225. On Twitter @HammackLJS
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/watch-now-protesters-gather-at-capitol-again-to-defend-abortion-rights/article_63d6a5a8-2e13-5d26-ab5f-e59c49d4db14.html
| 2022-05-15T22:40:47
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Social platforms have learned to remove violent videos of extremist shootings more quickly over the past few years. It's just not clear they're moving quickly enough.
Police say that when a white gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others — most of them Black — in a “racially motivated violent extremist” shooting in Buffalo Saturday, he livestreamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. It didn’t stay there long; a Twitch spokesperson said it removed the video in less than two minutes.
That's considerably faster than the 17 minutes Facebook needed to take down a similar video streamed by a self-described white supremacist who killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in 2019. But versions of the Buffalo shooting video still quickly spread to other platforms, and they haven't always disappeared quickly.
In April, Twitter enacted a new policy on “perpetrators of violent attacks” to remove accounts maintained by “individual perpetrators of terrorist, violent extremist, or mass violent attacks,” along with tweets and other material produced by perpetrators of such attacks. On Sunday, though, clips of the video were still circulating on the platform.
One clip purporting to display a first-person view of the gunman moving through a supermarket firing at people was posted to Twitter at 8:12 a.m. Pacific time, and was still viewable more than four hours later.
Twitter said Sunday it was working to remove material related to the shooting that violates its rules. But the company added that when people share media to condemn it or provide context, sharing videos and other material from the shooter may not be a rules violation. In these cases, Twitter said it covers images or videos with a “sensitive material" cover that users have to click through in order to view them.
At a news conference following the attack, New York Gov, Kathy Hochul said social media companies must be more vigilant in monitoring what happens on their platforms and found it inexcusable the livestream wasn't taken down “within a second.”
News
“The CEOs of those companies need to be held accountable and assure all of us that they’re taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information,” Hochul said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “How these depraved ideas are fermenting on social media – it’s spreading like a virus now.”
Hochul said she holds companies responsible for “fomenting” racist views. “People are sharing these ideas. They’re sharing videos of other attacks. And they’re all copycat. They all want to be the next great white hope that’s going to inspire the next attack,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that investigators were also looking into a diatribe the gunman posted online, which purports to outline the attacker’s racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic beliefs, including a desire to drive all people not of European descent from the U.S.
Police said the suspected gunman, identified as Payton Gendron, of Conklin, New York, shot 11 Black and two white victims in a Buffalo supermarket, echoing a deadly attack in a German synagogue that was also streamed on Twitch in October 2019..
Twitch is popular among video game players and has played a key role in boosting the spread of esports. A company spokesperson said the company has a “zero-tolerance policy” against violence. So far, the company hasn’t revealed details around the user page or the livestream, including how many people were watching it. The spokesperson said the company has taken the account offline and is monitoring any others who might rebroadcast the video.
In Europe, a senior European Union official with oversight of digital affairs for the 27-nation bloc said Sunday that the livestreaming on Twitch showed the need for administrators to continue working with online platforms so that any future broadcasts of killings can be quickly shut down.
But Margrethe Vestager, who is an executive vice-president of the European Commission, also said it would be a stiff challenge to stamp out such broadcasts completely.
“It’s really difficult to make sure that it’s completely waterproof, to make sure that this will never happen and that people will be closed down the second they would start a thing like that. Because there’s a lot of livestreaming which, of course, is 100% legitimate,” she said an interview with The Associated Press.
“The platforms have done a lot to get to the root of this. They are not there yet,” she added. “But they keep working and we will keep working.”
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said Sunday that it quickly designated the shooting as a “terrorist attack” on Saturday, which triggered an internal process that identifies the suspect’s account, as well as copies of his writings and any copy of or link to video of his attack.
The company said it has removed the video of the shooting from the platform and added that instances of it still being shared are through links to streaming sites. These links, in turn, are blocked and “blackholed” by the company, meaning they can't be uploaded again.
But new links created as people upload copies to outside sites would have to be individually blocked in a game of cat and mouse — unless the company choses to block an entire streaming site from its platform, which is unlikely.
Jared Holt, a resident fellow at Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, said live-content moderation continues to be a big challenge for companies. He noted Twitch's response time was good and the company was smart to watch their platform for potential re-uploads.
“It would behoove other video hosting platforms to also be aware of this content to the extent that it may have been recorded - may also be republished on their own products,” Holt said.
__
AP technology reporter Barbara Ortutay contributed to this story from Oakland, Calif.; AP reporter John Leicester contributed from Paris.
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HAMPTON, Va. — The father of a missing 4-year-old Virginia boy has made a third request to be released on bond on child neglect charges unrelated to the boy’s disappearance.
The Daily Press reports that Bigsby’s attorney, Amina Mathena-Willard, filed a motion with the Hampton Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office to reconsider bond. Two earlier requests were denied.
When reached by email by the newspaper Sunday, Matheny-Willard declined to comment on the motion.
Matheny-Willard sent notice of an intent to file suit against Hampton city officials earlier this month. The notice accused officials of obstruction of justice and potential jury tampering.
The letter called for Hampton Police Chief Mark Talbot to publicly retract his statements about the Bigsby family and apologize. In the early days of the search for Codi, Talbot said the timelines given by Codi’s parents were unreliable.
The city responded in a letter last week and said the chief’s comments would not be retracted and he would not apologize.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/father-of-missing-boy-requests-bond-on-child-neglect-charges/2022/05/15/d4ef052c-d49c-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-15T23:05:19
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/father-of-missing-boy-requests-bond-on-child-neglect-charges/2022/05/15/d4ef052c-d49c-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
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NORFOLK, Va. — A professor whose research on pedophilia created a stir at Old Dominion University in Virginia has landed a new job with Johns Hopkins University’s Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that The Moore Center announced last week that Walker, who uses the pronoun they, would be joining the center as a postdoctoral fellow.
The center said in a series of tweets that it was excited to welcome Walker and they would be working on research and new projects to develop a “comprehensive public health approach to addressing child sexual abuse and effective prevention programs.”
On its website, the center says it works “to change the way the world thinks about child sexual abuse, from inevitable to preventable.”
In the series of tweets, the center referred to Walker as “a leader in the field of perpetration prevention research.”
Walker, who was an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice, faced violent threats and more than 15,500 people signed an online petition calling for their removal from ODU in the fall. That came after a controversial interview about their book, “A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.” The book focused on people who do not act on their sexual attraction to children and strategies to prevent them from acting on the attraction.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/professor-gets-new-job-after-pedophilia-research-caused-stir/2022/05/15/d47a1730-d49c-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-15T23:05:25
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CITRUS HEIGHTS, Calif. — Three people were injured after a stabbing early Sunday morning in Citrus Heights, officials with the Citrus Heights Police Department say.
Around 4:30 a.m. Sunday, Citrus Heights Police received 911 calls reporting a stabbing in front of a business in the 6100 block of Auburn Boulevard in Citrus Heights.
According to police, a 16-year-old, a 17-year-old and an adult were stabbed multiple times and were taken to an area hospital where officers say they are receiving treatment.
Police believe the stabbing happened after an argument between two people.
The suspect has been described by police as a skinny, six-foot-tall, white or Hispanic man with facial hair and a short haircut.
Those with information on the triple stabbing are asked to call police at 916-727-5524 or the Sacramento Valley Crime Stoppers at 916-443-4357.
Watch More from ABC10: How Dance Gavin Dance and his mother are picking up after Tim Feerick's fentanyl overdose and death
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/citrus-heights/triple-stabbing-citrus-heights/103-006f384f-0b42-4d5d-a534-d0d5f06423aa
| 2022-05-15T23:08:12
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Anders Albertson wins Visit Knoxville Open on Korn Ferry Tour by one shot
Anders Albertson won for the second time in his career on the Korn Ferry Tour with a one-shot victory at the Visit Knoxville Open on Sunday.
Albertson shot a 3-under-par 67 in the final round and was 20 under for the four rounds at Holston Hills. He led or co-led after every round.
And it was decided on the par-5 No. 18. After Carl Yuan made an 11-foot birdie to go to 19 under, Albertson calmly sank a 3-footer for a birdie and the win.
The 28-year-old Albertson earned his first PGA Tour card for the 2018-19 season after finishing No. 8 on the Korn Ferry Tour. The former Georgia Tech golfer entered the Visit Knoxville Open in 52nd place with 203.8 points but will jump to ninth with the victory. He also won $135,000.
2021:Greyson Sigg rallies to win Visit Knoxville Open at Holston Hills, his first professional victory
More:Knoxville Biz Ticker: Simmons Bank signs sponsorship agreements with professional golfers
"It's a surreal feeling," said Albertson, who had 21 birdies and only one bogey. "Trying to get words. It was just a lot of fun to be out there ... been a special week, staying with one of my best friends from college (Bo Andrews, assistant men's golf coach at Tennessee). Got some good advice about the course, some home cooked meals. It's been awesome from start to finish."
Albertson's first-round 62 helped him hold the lead through three rounds, the first time in his professional career, including 121 Korn Ferry starts. He started the round one shot ahead of Yaun.
Yaun had taken the lead but a bogey on 14 and a birdie on the same hole by Albertson created a tie. Yaun proceeded to bogey the 15th to give the lead back to Albertson, who birdied the same hole for a two-shot.
“The biggest thing for me is bringing all my focus and strength to play the course and not who I'm playing with,” Albertson said. “It doesn't matter, I'm not afraid of making a mistake, I'm not afraid of losing anything, I'm not afraid of hitting a bad shot, I'm not afraid of anything, I'm going to accept whatever happens and continue to attack the course."
Yaun finished second with a 67. MJ Daffue was third, two shots back, after shooting a 66 on Sunday.
Albertson had not won since the Memorial Health Championship in 2018. His previous best finish this season was tied for fourth at the Lake Charles Championship.
Yaun, who already was the Korn Ferry Tour points leader, widened his lead and is in great position to earn a PGA Tour card for the first time.
After a first-round 68, Yaun improved with a 65 on Friday and a career-low 62 on Saturday. A former collegiate golfer at Washington, Yaun represented China in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Yaun won the Chitimacha Louisiana Open in a playoff on March 20 on his 25th birthday. He also tied for second at The Panama Championship and tied for third at The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic.
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https://www.knoxnews.com/story/sports/local/2022/05/15/anders-albertson-won-visit-knoxville-open-korn-ferry-tour-one-shot/9784984002/
| 2022-05-15T23:08:56
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https://www.knoxnews.com/story/sports/local/2022/05/15/anders-albertson-won-visit-knoxville-open-korn-ferry-tour-one-shot/9784984002/
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WASHINGTON — Gov. Greg Abbott’s use of COVID-19 relief dollars to support his border security mission has come under scrutiny in Washington this week as questions grow about whether it’s the proper use of the federal funds.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s inspector general opened an inquiry into the spending on Tuesday, the Washington Post reported. The action came a day after a group of Texas Democrats in the U.S. House called on U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to investigate.
Those steps followed a Post analysis of money intended to combat the effects of the pandemic, showing that Texas “leaders rerouted public health and safety funds to their border operations, while relying on federal pandemic funds to replace some of the money.”
Those border operations included Operation Lone Star, a state border security program that Abbott launched in March 2021 to deal with increased border crossings. The initiative involves the deployment of the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Military Department to the border. Abbott has used state resources to patrol the border, build border barriers and arrest migrants for trespassing on private land and then turn them over to immigration authorities.
The state has spent around $4 billion on the operations; the Post has reported that around $1 billion in coronavirus aid was used.
The money came from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, better known as the CARES Act, which had a key provision to support the medical response to the pandemic.
“In exercise of that responsibility … we are currently conducting a review of Texas’s uses of [Coronavirus Relief Fund] monies,” Richard K. Delmar, the U.S. Treasury Department’s deputy inspector general, said to the Washington Post.
He also indicated he had not ruled out a “recoupment of the money.”
Abbott’s spokesperson asserted that the spending was proper.
“Here in Texas, we have worked with the legislature to allocate federal funds in a manner that adheres to federal guidance,” Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “Between legislative sessions, in the event of a disaster, there are mechanisms to re-allocate state dollars if necessary to respond to the disaster—and we have had to use $4 billion of state dollars for Operation Lone Star to do the federal government’s job.”
“Rather than attacking Texas for responding to their border disaster that they have created and escalated in the last year, President Biden and Democrats in Congress need to stop playing politics and do their jobs to secure our border,” she added.
Texas Democratic U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and Veronica Escobar of El Paso spearheaded the letter to Yellen asking for her department to investigate the matter.
“It is negligent and irresponsible for Governor [Abbott] to direct additional funding to Operation Lone Star, especially if the funding in question was intended to help Texans rebuild from the pandemic,” the Texas Democrats wrote.
U.S. Reps. Colin Allred of Dallas, Lloyd Doggett of Austin, Marc Veasey of Fort Worth and Sylvia R. Garcia, Al Green, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher and Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston joined in signing the letter.
“As you continue your oversight of the Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds, we urge you to ensure all states are using these crucial funds for the reasons they were meant to be used,” they continued. “Governor Abbott must not be allowed to use federal coronavirus relief funds to further his political theater at the expense of Texas families.”
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/feds-investigate-abbott-border-mission/285-88328099-7872-4d11-9d13-f3d43ed474af
| 2022-05-15T23:17:23
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/feds-investigate-abbott-border-mission/285-88328099-7872-4d11-9d13-f3d43ed474af
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NORMAL — The Class of 2022 continues “to give us hope for the future,” said University High School Principal Andrea Markert at Sunday commencement ceremonies.
From Braden Auditorium in the Illinois State University Bone Student Center, Markert gave welcoming comments to high school graduates and families that touched on the disruptions of COVID and the efforts by families and staff to adapt.
“Our world is in good hands,” said Markert.
She also read out a list of the professions graduates want to enter, which ranged from accountants and actuarial scientists to wildlife and fishery managers.
And that’s only from those who’ve found their field. However, the principal continued, what’s more important is how the class is comprised of kind-hearted, empathetic good people. She added they include social justice warriors determined to make sure all are treated equally.
Markert urged graduates to “remember what it means to be a pioneer.”
She explained: “A pioneer is someone who sees what could be, and is willing to be an innovator and try new things. A pioneer pushes boundaries. A pioneer prepares the way for others to follow. Pioneers are independent thinkers, adventurous and creative. Pioneers aren't afraid to fail because failure teaches us, helps us grow and helps us to succeed.”
Markert concluded U-High graduates will always remain pioneers.
The principal’s comments were preceded by Student Body President Nicholas Leonard, who said the beauty of high school is seen through their ability to transform themselves into mature, intellectual, highly-respected young adults.
He encouraged graduates to pick up a summer job, but to not miss out on opportunities to make memories with friends that will last a lifetime.
Another student speaker was Ian Kelly, who mentioned the impact made by instructors who taught them resonating lessons, and helped them foster a love of a subject.
Kelly said he first got involved with speech and debate to rein his anxiety with talking to others. That ended up being extremely helpful for his future career goals. He also said a speech he gave on the mistreatment of neurodivergent students earned sixth place at state finals.
Emma Gilbert also spoke at the event, and noted several U-High traditions that helped her made friends and cherished memories. She said her parents, who are teachers, told her to try her hardest at school and the outcome will be OK.
However, she said she’s not always proud of that outcome. In October 2020, she said chose to admit herself to a mental hospital for suicidal thoughts. Gilbert said there are some at U-High who don’t believe in mental illness, but she asserted “it’s real and it affects everything.”
While getting care, she said she learned how to prioritize her time, take care of body and mind, and appreciate the people and things around her.
Gilbert said the principal told her to take her time, do what she can do to get better, “and we will be here when you come back.”
“And that meant everything to me,” she said.
Comprehensive education
Following the ceremony, graduate Jade Carthans told The Pantagraph that she’s ready for the next step. For her, that’s studying robotics engineering technology at Purdue University.
When she came to to U-High, she said she was an introvert. And now, she said she knows she can be extroverted and introverted.
“You can’t limit yourself to whatever identities you think you are,” she said. “When you come to high school, you can be whatever you want.”
Before the ceremony, father Rajendra Joshi said U-High is a great school because it takes a holistic approach to education. That includes extracurriculars like sports and music.
His daughter Priya Joshi, who played French horn and piano in U-High’s band, will attend Washington University in St. Louis.
Father Todd Bossard was another proud father on Sunday. He said his daughter, Hayley, was working nearly 24/7 to excel in her studies and at competitive dance.
And, she pulled through the typical challenges of high school, in addition to her mother being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Mr. Bossard said. Angela Bossard was present for the graduation ceremony.
Hayley Bossard is headed to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he said, majoring in biology on track for pre-med.
Bossard believes his daughter will rise up to her next challenges in life.
Carnival springs into action Thursday at Eastland Mall
Warm weather on Thursday didn't keep families and thrill seekers from making the most of the Spring Fling Carnival's opening night at Eastland Mall in Bloomington. Rides and games for all ages brought joyous shouts and good times to attendees.
The carnival continues through the weekend. Tickets start off at $1.50 each, $25 for 20, $60 for 50 tickets or unlimited rides for $27, according to the event's social media page.
Hours are 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, 2 to 11 p.m. Saturday and 2 to 9 p.m. Sunday.
Contact Brendan Denison at (309) 820-3238. Follow Brendan Denison on Twitter: @BrendanDenison
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/education/graduating-u-high-pioneers-look-ahead-to-the-future/article_df9c4aaa-d499-11ec-81ea-2ba828f44879.html
| 2022-05-15T23:38:25
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/education/graduating-u-high-pioneers-look-ahead-to-the-future/article_df9c4aaa-d499-11ec-81ea-2ba828f44879.html
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FORT SMITH, Ark. — The Sebastian County Sheriff's Office (SCSO) is partnering with the Fort Smith Police Department (FSPD) to host a candlelight vigil and memorial service in honor of all law enforcement officers that have lost their lives in the line of duty in Sebastian County.
The memorial service will be honoring all law enforcement officers, troopers, and deputies.
The agencies that have lost members in the line of duty in Sebastian County include:
- Sebastian County Sheriff’s Office
- Fort Smith Police Department
- Barling Police Department
- Arkansas State Police
The agency heads will read the names of the fallen heroes during the ceremony.
National Police Week is May 11-17 this year. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy declared May 15 as National Peace Officer’s Memorial Day. Whatever week May 15 falls into, is considered National Police Week.
The event will be held on Monday, May 16 at 8 p.m. at the plaza of the Sebastian County Courts Building located at 901 B Street South.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/sebastian-county-law-enforcement-memorial-service-to-be-held-fort-smith-fallen-officers-fort-smith-barling/527-8771b621-aa38-4614-88ef-d70f69a502db
| 2022-05-16T00:05:31
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/sebastian-county-law-enforcement-memorial-service-to-be-held-fort-smith-fallen-officers-fort-smith-barling/527-8771b621-aa38-4614-88ef-d70f69a502db
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BALTIMORE — A $16,000 reward is being offered for information on the people responsible for a drive-by shooting in Baltimore that killed a pregnant woman and her fiance.
Yahmell Montague and Angel Morgan Heather Smith were shot and killed Thursday night in east Baltimore as they sat in a car.
Police Commissioner Michael Harrison said the man was in the driver’s seat and the woman was a passenger when another car pulled up next to them as they parked. The driver of the other car got out and fired while someone else fired from the passenger window, Harrison said.
They were taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where they died. Smith gave birth to her child and died a short time later, police said.
Police said the newborn baby is in critical condition.
Anyone with any information is asked to call police.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/reward-offered-in-shooting-that-killed-pregnant-woman/2022/05/15/660a2a0c-d4a5-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
| 2022-05-16T00:36:48
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/reward-offered-in-shooting-that-killed-pregnant-woman/2022/05/15/660a2a0c-d4a5-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html
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A pregnant woman and a man are both fighting for their lives following a double shooting in Philadelphia on Sunday.
The 33-year-old woman and 23-year-old man were on the 3500 block of North 18th Street when a gunman opened fire.
The woman was shot once in the left thigh while the man was shot once in the chest and once in the back.
Both victims were taken to Temple University Hospital and are both in critical condition.
Police confirmed with NBC10 the woman is pregnant. They have not yet determined how far along she is or the condition of her unborn child.
No arrests have been made and police have not released information on any suspects.
The incident occurred two days after a pregnant woman was shot in West Philadelphia.
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/gunman-shoots-pregnant-woman-and-man-in-philadelphia/3239929/
| 2022-05-16T00:45:25
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When 18-year-old drummer Kai Neukermans went to a Pearl Jam show at the Forum in Inglewood earlier this month, he watched as frontman Eddie Vedder took a sheet of paper from someone in the crowd that had been scribbled with a list of song suggestions, including “Mind Your Manners” from their 2013 record “Lightning Bolt.”
But the Bay Area high school student never imagined that he would be on stage playing the same song with the legendary Seattle grunge band at the Oakland Arena nearly a week later, when he was asked to fill in for Matt Cameron, who tested positive for COVID and had to sit the gig out.
“He hasn’t graduated high school yet. This is the year, right?” Vedder said before waving Neukermans on and introducing him to the crowd. “Everybody, this is Kai. Kai, this is everybody!”
The teenager, who is on the cusp of graduating from Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, took his place behind the brass Ludwig Vistalite drum kit and stared out at the sea of about 20,000 people. Four years ago, he had formed his own band, The Alive, with his brother Manoa Neukermans, 14, who plays bass, and friend Bastian Evans, 17, who is the vocalist and guitarist. Together, they had performed at surf shops, skate ramps, and a number of festivals, including Lollapalooza Chile and Shaky Knees in Atlanta.
But he’d never played a show quite like this.
“It was surreal, the amount of people that were there,” he told SFGATE on Sunday afternoon. “The arena lit up and everyone was screaming.”
Brushing his hair out of his face, he counted off the band and hoped for the best.
Neukermans said that text messages from his friends started to roll in on Thursday night — they had been at Pearl Jam’s first of two shows in Oakland and, upon hearing the news that Cameron was sick, encouraged him to try and get in touch with the band.
It certainly helped that he knew Vedder’s 17-year-old daughter, Olivia, whom he had met while playing at Ohana Music Festival in Dana Point a year earlier. But when he texted her, she said that Josh Klinghoffer, the former guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers who is currently on tour with Pearl Jam, was subbing in for Cameron.
“I went to bed and kind of forgot about it,” Neukermans said.
Around noon the next day, when he was at school, he received another text from Olivia, who said the band was taking submissions from prospective drummers and told him to send her a video of him playing one of Pearl Jam’s songs.
“It’s worth a shot,” she said.
Jumping at the opportunity, he left school and headed straight to Green Room Music in Pacifica, where he met up with his drum teacher to practice.
“I had a statistics test in my next period class, which I’m not doing very well in, but I’m sure they’ll let me take it next week,” Neukermans said.
All he could think about was “Mind Your Manners,” which he listened to on repeat for a couple of hours, recording take after take until he felt that one was good enough to submit. Not long after, he got a call from Pearl Jam’s manager, Smitty: he was in.
“I called my dad and he told me that he felt like he was having a heart attack,” he said.
When Neukermans arrived at the stadium, he was asked to take a COVID test and join Pearl Jam for a sound check.
“There was a little rehearsal room that me and the whole band practiced in before the show,” he said. “They were having so much fun. It was trippy to see them all.”
Once the show was underway, Neukermans waited with his younger brother on the side of the stage. He was told he’d be playing one song, and when the time came, he couldn’t help but feel the pressure was on.
“My heart skipped a beat and I was scared for a second,” he said. “But I was confident that I could pull it off because I had practiced a lot.”
Three minutes and a lifetime later, his time in the spotlight was over — but he killed it. Vedder triumphantly held up Neukermans' hand and had him take a bow with the rest of the band. Later that evening, as he exited the arena, he said people in the crowd approached him for pictures and congratulated him.
“That was the drummer!” some of them yelled.
Since then, it’s been non-stop phone calls from radio stations, news outlets, friends and family, Neukermans said. He was also asked to write a guest column for Riff Magazine about the experience.
“It all happened so quickly,” said Neukermans. “I’m super grateful.”
He’s currently working on some new songs with The Alive and said they hope to release an EP soon. Their next gig is at Bottle Rock in Napa.
But first, Neukermans said he has to attend his high school graduation in a couple of weeks — and maybe take that statistics test.
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Bay-Area-teen-plays-with-Pearl-Jam-in-Oakland-17174866.php
| 2022-05-16T01:53:35
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https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/Bay-Area-teen-plays-with-Pearl-Jam-in-Oakland-17174866.php
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Inmates get GEDs, associate degree at Saguaro Correctional Center graduation ceremony
12 PHOTOS
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https://www.azcentral.com/picture-gallery/news/local/arizona/2022/05/16/photos-inmate-graduation-ceremony-saguaro-correctional-center/9755484002/
| 2022-05-16T02:02:05
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'This is only just a stepping stone': Saguaro Correctional Center graduates class of 2022
Graduation at Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy was a small, but monumental ceremony for the students, teachers and staff involved.
On Thursday, 27 inmates were celebrated for their achievements in education. Each was awarded either their high school degree, associate's degree or vocational certification in a ceremony filled with music and applause.
More than 30 people, including staff and teachers, waited for the graduates to come in the visitation room, which was decorated for the celebration. As the graduates walked in, a group of inmates played music.
Six of them wore blue cap and gowns, a signal they were receiving their GED degree, one was wearing a black cap and gown meaning he was receiving his associate's degree. The others wore jumpsuits.
“I'm pretty excited. Pretty nervous. It's a little bit overwhelming,” Caven King said, standing in the lone black cap and gown.
Deborah Powell, assistant warden of programming at Saguaro said inmates can complete a vocational certification, pursue their GED if they don’t have one or to look at opportunities to get funds for a college education. Once they complete their studies, the center has combined graduation for all the degrees. Powell said they can have two or four ceremonies each year.
“I think with anything that we do in life, that reward at the end is just something that sticks with us,” Powell said. “And it's an accomplishment. It's our way of acknowledging the hard work that they put in.”
King, who completed his business administration degree in three years, said he studied for about three hours each day. There was always a deadline or test coming up. However, he said not having people around who knew the subjects he was studying could be challenging sometimes.
“I would have to, like, email my mom or email my sister and I'd have to wait for them to respond. And hopefully they knew what I what I was trying to say,” King said.
During the ceremony, King was called to the front as the only college graduate in this group.
Those who earned their certificates in vocational electrical and vocational persevere, which is for computer coding, stood up and everyone else clapped. Then the GED graduates were called one by one to the front to receive their diplomas.
Powell said the education helps inmates become more confident and gives them the tools to contribute to communities when they get out.
“Once they realize that they can start accomplishing those goals, they look at bigger goals, and that's what this does for them,” Powell said. “And when they come in and they pass one test, then they go on to the next test, they pass that, you can see that person become a better person, and they, because they become confident in themselves and they make better decisions while they're in here.”
During the ceremony, warden Shawn Wead addressed the graduates and said this is the aspect of incarceration that can help them get off a criminal path and realize what they can accomplish when they put their minds toward a goal.
“When it comes to your GED or your vocational certification, I want you to look back at this day and say, ‘I meant to do that,’ because you were intentional about what you wanted to accomplish,” Wead said.
Graduates: Education is 'something I'm going to keep pursuing'
John Kawewehi earned his GED and was elected to give a speech. In the speech, he thanked the teachers, tutors and staff who helped him make his degree possible. He said his self-confidence and self-worth were “tremendously” improved as a result of this accomplishment.
“Yesterday I was a child and prided myself in all the wrong things in life, I didn't have a clue what I wanted or which direction to walk. Slowly, but surely I found myself hitting rock bottom,” Kawewehi said in the speech. “It was only then, in the depths of my solitude, that I realized that I wanted better for myself and that I was capable of anything.”
After making people in the room laugh by accidentally cursing mid-speech, Kawewehi thanked those who helped him, were patient with him and said they made him feel like a human being.
“I'm proud to say that today I stand before you as a man driven on the continuation to a successful future,” Kawewehi said.
King also talked about the future and said he said he plans to continue his education with a bachelor’s in business administration and some day he hopes to work for somebody or be a manager at a company or restaurant.
By the end of the ceremony, the graduates turned their tassels from one side to another, which King described as a “cool” moment. After the graduation ended, they took group pictures and prepared for their reception which included food and more music to celebrate.
Despite the challenges of earning a degree, King said he feels the effort was worth it and said he was excited to see his hard work pay off.
“It's definitely worth, it's definitely something I'm going to keep pursuing," King said. "This is only just a stepping stone to where I want to get, like eventually I want to get my masters. And so this feels good ... it encouraged me and rewarded me to keep going even further.”
Reach breaking news reporter Angela Cordoba Perez at Angela.CordobaPerez@Gannett.com or on Twitter @AngelaCordobaP.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/pinal/2022/05/16/saguaro-correctional-center-celebrates-graduation-27-inmates/9737881002/
| 2022-05-16T02:02:11
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/pinal/2022/05/16/saguaro-correctional-center-celebrates-graduation-27-inmates/9737881002/
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BUFFALO, N.Y. — One of the first victims from the mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on Saturday to be publicly identified, was Aaron Salter Jr.
He was a retired Buffalo Police Officer who worked at the store as an armed security guard.
He is also being hailed as a hero, who died while trying to save others.
"In my heart and in my mind Aaron was a hero," said Kimberly Beaty, of her friend and former colleague who was among the ten people killed in the massacre.
From what police have said thus far, when the accused gunman in the shootings, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, made his way through the store wearing bulletproof armor and firing rounds from a semi-automatic rifle Salter, armed with a pistol, valiantly engaged the threat.
"We have evidence that he (Salter) struck him at least one time and that unfortunately had no effect," said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia, who said Salter died during the exchange.
He Would Lay Down His Life
"It's just a big shock to me and I feel very sick over it," said Scott Escobar, a retired Buffalo Police Officer who worked alongside Salter for several years in the BPD Traffic Division.
Escobar noted that Salter, as a police officer for 30 years before his retirement in 2022, spent his career trying to protect others.
So it came as no shock to him that Salter spent his last moments on earth doing the same thing.
"Aaron was a great individual and I know in his heart he wanted to save as many people as he could and it didn't surprise me to hear he engaged the guy right away and tried to stop him...he was the kind of guy that would lay down his life like that and protect his community," Escobar said.
"Surviving a job in law enforcement and making it to retirement is a big deal for you and your family because they expect you can ride it out now and enjoy your life," said Beaty, who retired from the police department as Deputy Commissioner and is currently Director of Campus Safety at Canisius College. "And then you have people who want to continue to work in the spirit of their community and that's what Aaron Salter was doing."
"He helped so many people n this community," said Thomas Whitt, who described himself as a regular customer at the store where he got to know Salter. His voice filled with grief, Whitt continued, "...to have him gunned down like this?... Oh my God..."
"We suffered a tremendous, tremendous loss yesterday …and it's heartbreaking," said Beaty, before turning away momentarily to collect herself.
2 On Your Side did attempt to speak with Salter's family, but we were told that they are not granting interviews at this time.
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/security-guard-murdered-in-buffalo-mass-shooting-hailed-as-a-hero-for-trying-to-stop-the-gunman/71-ba2400e1-8e04-4c78-be53-80ac484ce7d5
| 2022-05-16T02:10:52
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/security-guard-murdered-in-buffalo-mass-shooting-hailed-as-a-hero-for-trying-to-stop-the-gunman/71-ba2400e1-8e04-4c78-be53-80ac484ce7d5
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Man and woman found dead from gunshot wounds at Phoenix home
Haleigh Kochanski
Arizona Republic
The Phoenix Police Department says two people are dead after a shooting at a home near Eighth Avenue and Thomas Road on Sunday morning.
Officers arrived on the scene around 9:30 a.m. where they discovered a man and a woman dead, with gunshot wounds.
The victims were identified as Mary Ousley, 68, and Bobby Ousley, 57.
According to police, preliminary evidence suggests that Bobby shot Mary and then shot himself.
An investigation is ongoing.
Reach breaking news reporter Haleigh Kochanski at hkochanski@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @HaleighKochans.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2022/05/15/two-people-dead-after-shooting-phoenix-home/9789207002/
| 2022-05-16T02:15:02
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2022/05/15/two-people-dead-after-shooting-phoenix-home/9789207002/
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This is a developing story that will be updated.
Normal native Leah Marlene advanced to the "American Idol" finale, earning a hometown visit to take place Tuesday as part of filming for the show.
The 20-year-old singer-songwriter performed "I'll Stand By You," as covered by past "Idol" winner Carrie Underwood, and "Separate Ways" by Journey. Voters chose her as one of three contestants to move on to the final round.
Judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan reacted positively to her performances — as did a wildly enthusiastic crowd of supporters who gathered for a watch party at Normal West High School. Marlene graduated from Normal West in 2019.
Richie told Marlene after her final performance that she, like the others who had reached the top five, would be able to find a future in the music industry.
"Your career is sitting in front of you, my dear," he said. "Enjoy this ride."
Details for her hometown visit were not yet final Sunday night, but it is expected to include a parade and free concert.
Underwood appeared as a celebrity coach in the first half of the episode, interacting with each artist in video clips shown before the performances. Marlene and the Grammy-winning country superstar sang part of the song together, with Marlene echoing Underwood.
Perry told Marlene after the performance that she had changed the song from a ballad to "like, a drama ballad."
"Did you just reinvent that song?" Perry said. "... It was like I was hearing it for the first time."
Earlier in the day, Marlene took to social media to thank her fans for the experience.
"Before it all gets started, I just wanted to come on here and thank you from the bottom of my heart that I even get to do another show tonight," she said in a video posted on Instagram. "I'm so excited for these songs. I'm so incredibly grateful that I get that I just get to do this again.
"Obviously it's easy to stress about the outcome of anything, but I trust that's what meant to be will be, and I'm just going to go out there and give it my all tonight."
Marlene grew up in Normal with a childhood heavily influenced by music — her father is Derry Grehan, lead guitarist of Canadian rock band Honeymoon Suite — and got her start performing in uptown Normal by the age of 9. Events like the Sugar Creek Arts Festival and the Sweet Corn Circus offered her an early spotlight.
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/leah-marlene-advances-to-american-idol-finale/article_67e124e4-d495-11ec-b9bc-53fe366d1f47.html
| 2022-05-16T02:53:59
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/leah-marlene-advances-to-american-idol-finale/article_67e124e4-d495-11ec-b9bc-53fe366d1f47.html
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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – Former NFL Player Tim Tebow spoke at Freedom Hall Sunday, sharing a message of finding hope, faith and a purpose for life with local teens.
It marked Tebow’s first visit to East Tennessee in a while, but he said he was excited to be back.
“My brother played at Carson-Newman not far from here,” Tebow said. “Just grateful to be back, not just because it’s amazing people, but hopefully because we can have an impact and really encourage a lot of youth.”
Tebow drew a crowd of about 4,000, including Johnson City resident Sander Jones.
“I’ve always been a big fan of Tim Tebow, played football most of my life, just honestly wanted to hear him and see the message that he has,” Jones said.
Organizer of the event, T.R. Dunn works with teenagers through the organization 4thirTEEN.
Dunn said seven students were lost to suicide in our region over the past several months.
He said bringing Tebow to Johnson City to share his message of hope with students is right out of a dream, actually his wife’s dream to be exact.
“Me and Tim Tebow were onstage and the arena was packed, and there were young people just excited and just they were weeping, and just encouraging one another,” Dunn said. “When she woke up, she began to get on his social media accounts.”
That’s how Tebow learned of the event and knew he just had to be there and try to make an impact on those who would listen.
“Hopefully they just take away how much worth and value every single one of them has,” Tebow said. “How loved they are by so many people that made this happen, but importantly how much they’re loved by the God of this universe.”
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/former-football-star-tim-tebow-speaks-at-freedom-hall/
| 2022-05-16T03:49:42
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/former-football-star-tim-tebow-speaks-at-freedom-hall/
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BOISE, Idaho — This story originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
In May 1887, a group of Chinese miners based in Lewiston sailed 65 miles upstream on the Snake River.
They camped in Hells Canyon, hoping to find gold and escape anti-Chinese sentiment, according to History.com. But a gang of seven white horse thieves murdered all of the laborers, 31 to 34 men.
Three of the thieves fled after one of them confessed and agreed to testify against the group. But despite the testimony, an Oregon jury declared the group not guilty.
The area, now known as Chinese Massacre Cove, contains a granite memorial.
“No one was held accountable,” the memorial said.
The Gem State, like many western states, has a troubling past with anti-Asian sentiment.
For example, Idaho took part in incarcerating Japanese-Americans in Minidoka during World War II.
Even today, some Asian-Americans have said they experienced anti-Asian hate in Idaho, though others say they haven’t.
But the Treasure Valley, and even the whole state, is filled with the contributions and impact of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders.
For example, the Owyhee Mountains that many residents see every day from Interstate 84 are named after Hawaiians. Owyhee and Hawaii are two different spellings for the same word, according to the Idaho State Historical Society, an example of how Idaho history and culture are tied to Asian American and Pacific Islander history and culture.
“Their contributions to society, their contributions to all facets of life, fashion, food, culture, the arts, is so influential, historically and currently that it is good to celebrate,” said Palina Louangketh, a former refugee from Laos.
Louangketh is also an adjunct faculty member at Boise State University and the executive director and founder of the Idaho Museum of International Diaspora.
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander month, so the Idaho Press has put together a (non-exhaustive) look at the history of AAPI people in the Gem State.
Cars rumbled past the Chinese Odd Fellows Building on a recent Monday, one of the last surviving remnants of what was once a sizable Chinatown in downtown Boise.
The building, rectangular with a solid red overhang, sits directly across from the parking lot of Trader Joe’s, Mod Pizza, Chipotle and Panda Express near the corner of Capitol Boulevard and Front Street. Behind the half-opened blinds on the first story is what appears to be a conference room.
“Front Street west of Seventh, the core of Chinatown, was cleared for urban renewal in the 1960s,” according to an Idaho State Historical Society inventory sheet.
Other buildings in Chinatown included the “very attractive” Moon Wahsoon building, according to the inventory sheet.
Boise also surrounds Garden City, named for the gardens raised by Chinese immigrants living in the area. The name of Chinden Boulevard, which runs through, is a combination of the words China and Garden.
As of 2021, 1.6% of Idahoans identified as Asian alone and .2% identified as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
But by 1870, Asian people made up almost 30% of the Idaho territory’s population.
In the 1860s, gold discoveries began drawing Chinese people to Idaho as miners or support services, according to the University of Idaho. Many later worked on railroads, though others were in professions like medicine or hospitality.
Pierce, Placerville and Idaho City, all early boom towns, had large Chinese populations, according to a 2006 Idaho State Historical Society newsletter.
By the 1890s, Japanese people started coming to Idaho, mainly working in railroads and agriculture, according to the University of Idaho. A Filipino boy attended school in Boise in 1902.
The discoveries of gold began pulling people from Asia, though mostly from China. However, there was also a push out of China.
The British had brought their global capitalism to China which disrupted local traditions and land ownership systems, said Jeff Kyong-McClain, director of the Idaho Asia Institute and associate professor of history at the University of Idaho.
Many Chinese people sought after America not necessarily as a new place to live but as a different place to earn some money with new economic possibilities.
Because of the Civil War, the 14th Amendment gave American-born individuals citizenship. More Asian people started giving birth on U.S. soil, and others started to view the United States as not just a place to work but as a place to stay.
“You get at that moment a transition,” Kyong-McClain said. “This is now their home, they’re not going back to China, they’re not going back to Japan. You really get more even clearly, this creation of an Asian American identity.”
Since she moved to Idaho in 2012, Meichun Lin has seen more and more Asian people. Lin, a committee member for the Idaho Chinese Organization, said it’s important to recognize AAPI month because Idaho embraces all different cultures.
“Our kids, this is going to be their home. Because for me probably, this is my second home because I am a first generation immigrant,” Lin said.
Lin, who moved from China’s Guangdong province, was surprised to find when she moved here that Chinese people were early pioneers in the state.
“A lot of the Chinese people, they’re from my hometown, the Cantonese area,” Lin said. “I was just shocked that my ancestors actually lived here long before many other people.”
The history of Chinese people should be taught in schools, Lin said.
A stain on the state’s history
Asian and Asian American people have faced racist sentiments and laws, both nationally and in the state.
In 1890, some Chinese individuals in the Elk City mining district sued white claim jumpers who “forced them off their Moose Creek workings,” according to the Lewiston Tribune. The Chinese individuals had purchased the claims years before but an Idaho judge ruled “Chinese have no rights” on mining lands in the United States.
In 1891, the first legislature of the new State of Idaho prohibited people who were Chinese but not born in the United States from buying or owning property.
In the 1890s, a Chinese man died near the summit of a mountain near Pocatello. Until 2001, the mountain was referred to as by a racist slur. Today, it’s called Chinese Peak.
But discrimination was not limited to just Chinese people.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066. The order authorized the detention of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. The camps often had poor conditions. The federal government has since apologized.
Though many Idahoans are aware of the Minidoka War Relocation Center, the Gem State actually had another internment camp known as the Kooskia Internment Camp.
This lesser-known detention facility was unique in that its inmates volunteered to go live there and received wages for working, according to the University of Idaho. Most of the internees worked on constructing part of Highway 12 between Lewiston and Missoula, Montana.
Many Japanese-Americans in Minidoka were from Seattle and Bainbridge Island, Washington, and Alaska, California, and Oregon, according to Friends of Minidoka, a nonprofit that works on historic preservation.
At its peak, the center’s population was over 9,300, making it the state’s eighth-largest city.
Around 1,000 people interned in the center enlisted in the military, and 73 soldiers whose families were incarcerated at Minidoka died fighting for the United States. The families, because they were interned, could not attend the funerals.
Katie Niemann, president of the Boise Valley Japanese American Citizens League, is a third-generation Japanese American Citizens League president. She was born and raised in Boise.
Her grandmother was incarcerated in Minidoka at age 16 and resettled eventually in Idaho after she got out, Niemann said. Her grandmother had brothers that fought in the war, but she stayed at camp with her parents.
“She never talked about it,” Niemann said.
A lot of people don't realize that Japanese internment happened in Idaho, she said.
"It did happen and it could still happen if we’re not careful,” Niemann said. “We just have to be vigilant and watch out for everybody’s rights.”
After the camps, many Japanese individuals faced discrimination, including Niemann’s grandmother.
Her grandmother resettled in the Caldwell area, and would have to find Asian hairstylists to do her hair. A lot of banks wouldn’t bank with Asian individuals, Niemann said.
There are still things Niemann would like to see in Boise, like a Japanese town, but she’s optimistic for the future.
“I feel like Boise is growing and so is the Asian American population,” Niemann said. “I think the opportunities for Asian Americans will grow in Boise as the population gets bigger. I think that’s really exciting.”
'A sense of community'
Many early Asian immigrants helped build Idaho, and more recent Asian Idahoans have contributed to the culture and economy of the state. Some, like the three Asian women who have served in the state Legislature, have contributed to politics and government.
These people range from Louangketh, the former refugee from Laos who started the Idaho Museum of International Diaspora to Yvonne Shen, a 14-year-old Boisean who started the Idaho Asian American Pacific Islander Youth Alliance.
For Louangketh, part of celebrating heritage is preserving culture.
She left Laos in November 1979 and arrived in Boise in October 1981. In the intermediary years, she was in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines. Louangketh started kindergarten in Boise.
“In comparison to the other more Asian-populated states … growing up in Idaho Asian, it was unique because there weren’t a lot of diversity,” Louangketh said. “We were then such a rural state. It just felt a little bit isolated.”
Louangketh’s only connections to other Asians were within her own refugee Asian community, including people from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. The Lao community, a few hundred strong, is very close and has its own Buddhist temple and cultural center in Nampa.
Over the years, there’s been more diversity, she said, and more access to cultural resources.
But there’s still room for improvement, for example when it comes to diverse restaurants.
“We’re still growing,” Louangketh said. “Food is huge. People need to be able to connect with their cultural foods. It provides that level of comfort.”
Yvonne Shen's parents are from Shanghai. The couple immigrated to the United States in the early 2000s after her dad got a job at Micron.
“For me, growing up, especially in Boise, there is a sense of community within specifically Chinese people,” Shen said. “That’s just how I’ve been raised — we had parties where everyone would come together, eat food, so within our community, it’s been a very positive experience.”
It hasn’t been all good though. Growing up, Shen would feel self-conscious because her homemade lunches smelled differently than other kid’s food. And at the beginning of the pandemic, she experienced verbal racism.
But Shen has been able to make a difference in the community, holding protests and vigils when anti-Asian hate crimes started to rise.
“Being Asian is part of your identity,” Shen said. “Heritage month is just a way for us to recognize that and celebrate it.”
This story originally appeared in the Idaho Press. Read more at IdahoPress.com
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-press/asian-americans-pacific-islanders-idaho-brief-history/277-29a97455-91b0-4c4e-a228-31ab0e46f6c7
| 2022-05-16T03:51:06
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-press/asian-americans-pacific-islanders-idaho-brief-history/277-29a97455-91b0-4c4e-a228-31ab0e46f6c7
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BUFFALO, N.Y. — One of the first victims from the mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on Saturday to be publicly identified, was Aaron Salter Jr.
He was a retired Buffalo Police Officer who worked at the store as an armed security guard.
He is also being hailed as a hero, who died while trying to save others.
"In my heart and in my mind Aaron was a hero," said Kimberly Beaty, of her friend and former colleague who was among the ten people killed in the massacre.
From what police have said thus far, when the accused gunman in the shootings, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, made his way through the store wearing bulletproof armor and firing rounds from a semi-automatic rifle Salter, armed with a pistol, valiantly engaged the threat.
"We have evidence that he (Salter) struck him at least one time and that unfortunately had no effect," said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia, who said Salter died during the exchange.
He Would Lay Down His Life
"It's just a big shock to me and I feel very sick over it," said Scott Escobar, a retired Buffalo Police Officer who worked alongside Salter for several years in the BPD Traffic Division.
Escobar noted that Salter, as a police officer for 30 years before his retirement in 2022, spent his career trying to protect others.
So it came as no shock to him that Salter spent his last moments on earth doing the same thing.
"Aaron was a great individual and I know in his heart he wanted to save as many people as he could and it didn't surprise me to hear he engaged the guy right away and tried to stop him...he was the kind of guy that would lay down his life like that and protect his community," Escobar said.
"Surviving a job in law enforcement and making it to retirement is a big deal for you and your family because they expect you can ride it out now and enjoy your life," said Beaty, who retired from the police department as Deputy Commissioner and is currently Director of Campus Safety at Canisius College. "And then you have people who want to continue to work in the spirit of their community and that's what Aaron Salter was doing."
"He helped so many people n this community," said Thomas Whitt, who described himself as a regular customer at the store where he got to know Salter. His voice filled with grief, Whitt continued, "...to have him gunned down like this?... Oh my God..."
"We suffered a tremendous, tremendous loss yesterday …and it's heartbreaking," said Beaty, before turning away momentarily to collect herself.
2 On Your Side did attempt to speak with Salter's family, but we were told that they are not granting interviews at this time.
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/security-guard-murdered-in-buffalo-mass-shooting-hailed-as-a-hero-for-trying-to-stop-the-gunman/71-ba2400e1-8e04-4c78-be53-80ac484ce7d5
| 2022-05-16T03:58:22
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/security-guard-murdered-in-buffalo-mass-shooting-hailed-as-a-hero-for-trying-to-stop-the-gunman/71-ba2400e1-8e04-4c78-be53-80ac484ce7d5
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A dog attack is being investigated in Brooklyn after one of the animals bit an officer on the head, the NYPD said Sunday.
The evening attack happened on Neptune Avenue in Seagate. Neighbors said the dogs are sweet and couldn't believe either would bite anyone.
Two officers were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment.
Police said at one point in the attack shots were fired at two pit bulls, but their conditions weren't immediately known Sunday night.
The investigation is ongoing.
Copyright NBC New York
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-dogs-fired-upon-after-biting-cop-in-head-nypd/3689003/
| 2022-05-16T04:03:58
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/brooklyn-dogs-fired-upon-after-biting-cop-in-head-nypd/3689003/
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A disturbing case in Brooklyn has police investigating the death of a 9-year-old girl found in her home with trauma to her body, authorities said.
Neighbors in of the Crown Heights block where the girl lived said they smelled a foul odor from the home before police arrived. The community was in shock after learning the little girl they would see walk to school with her older sister was found dead.
The NYPD said 9-year-old Shalom Guifarro was discovered around 1 p.m. off Lincoln Place. She was unresponsive and had "trauma to her body," a preliminary report from police said.
Police said her mother called 911 in the morning, and was taken to the precinct for questioning after officers visited the home.
Bart Hubbach, who owns the restaurant downstairs, said his employees smelled the odor Sunday morning and called police to have it checked out before officers arrived that afternoon.
"The girls were very polite, very well mannered. I feel bad because the mom was kind of a nightmare. She was always yelling," Hubbah said.
Other neighbors describe the girls as respectful, smart and sweet, and said their mother was a good parent but could be very strict.
News
A medical examiner will determine the girl's cause of death. As of Sunday evening, it was unclear how the she died.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-mother-questioned-in-9-year-old-daughters-mysterious-death-ny-only/3689002/
| 2022-05-16T04:03:58
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-mother-questioned-in-9-year-old-daughters-mysterious-death-ny-only/3689002/
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18-year-old missing after 'possibly drowning' at Lake Pleasant
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office says an 18-year-old is missing after "possibly drowning" near Sunset Ridge at Lake Pleasant on Sunday night.
Deputies responded to the area around 5 p.m. where they learned that an 18-year-old male was swimming, went under and didn't resurface.
Divers with Maricopa County Sheriff's Office were unable to recover the body of the missing swimmer Sunday night.
Deaths at Lake Pleasant
There have been three deaths within a short timeframe at Lake Pleasant.
On May 8, Rosario Benitez, 83, died after she was thrown from a boat at Lake Pleasant.
On April 24, the body of Neria Aranbayev, 20, was recovered after he went underwater and never resurfaced in the Agua Fria area at Lake Pleasant. Deputies also found the body of a man who was swimming at Lake Pleasant and didn't resurface on May 2.
Reach breaking news reporter Haleigh Kochanski at hkochanski@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @HaleighKochans.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/peoria-breaking/2022/05/15/teenager-missing-after-possibly-drowning-lake-pleasant/9789679002/
| 2022-05-16T04:08:27
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/peoria-breaking/2022/05/15/teenager-missing-after-possibly-drowning-lake-pleasant/9789679002/
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US 60 eastbound lanes reopen a week after water main break, westbound lanes remain closed
The Arizona Department of Transportation says that the city of Tempe has reopened the eastbound lanes of US 60 between Interstate 10 and McClintock Drive Sunday evening after work to repair pavement damaged by a water main break last week.
Eastbound US 60 reopened at approximately 5 p.m. Sunday.
According to the city of Tempe, the eastbound US 60 off-ramp at McClintock Drive will remain temporarily closed due to equipment staged in the area.
Westbound US 60 remains closed between Loop 101 and McClintock Drive as crews continue to reconstruct the freeway near the McClintock overpass. The westbound US 60 on-ramp at McClintock Drive is open and drivers can also use westbound on-ramps at Rural Road and Mill Avenue.
Traffic on westbound US 60 approaching the closure is being detoured to north- or southbound Loop 101. Drivers traveling north on Loop 101 can then use westbound Loop 202 toward Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport or the downtown Phoenix area. Travelers on southbound Loop 101 can use westbound Loop 202 in the Chandler area to connect with I-10, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
"At this time, there is not a confirmed cause of the May 7 water main break," said the city of Tempe in a statement. "The water line will be fully evaluated to determine the possible cause of the break, but the city will offer no speculation or premature conclusions about the cause."
The break in the 24-inch steel cylinder water transmission line is behind a retaining wall near the top of the McClintock Drive westbound off-ramp.
Restrictions on and near the McClintock Drive overpass are due to repair work on the water line. About 34,000 square feet of the old roadway has been demolished and removed. The material removed will be used by the Arizona Department of Transportation for "backfill for other projects."
Reach breaking news reporter Haleigh Kochanski at hkochanski@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @HaleighKochans.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2022/05/15/us-60-eastbound-lanes-reopen-westbound-lanes-still-closed/9789041002/
| 2022-05-16T04:08:33
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2022/05/15/us-60-eastbound-lanes-reopen-westbound-lanes-still-closed/9789041002/
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FORT SMITH, Ark. — During what many considered another trying year, the Fort Smith Police Department managed to accomplish many positives, included the addition of mental health support, Police Chief Danny Baker told the Fort Smith Board of Directors during his recent annual report.
Early in 2021, the department became the first agency in Arkansas with a co-response Crisis Intervention Unit.
“That is, we were able to obtain grant funding (a portion of the almost $200,000 in grants received for 2021) for a mental health professional to accompany our CIU-trained officers to ensure individuals experiencing a crisis have the support they need following critical incidents. Our officers’ commitment to de-escalation was demonstrated day-in and day-out with 1,235 hours of Crisis Intervention Training logged,” Baker said in his report on Tuesday (May 10).
To read more about this story please visit our content partner, Talk Business & Politics.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/fort-smith-police-chief-touts-crisis-response-efforts-budget-savings-intervention-board-directors-mental-health/527-8014484e-55a5-4ee7-851e-621f8eb4b2e1
| 2022-05-16T04:16:34
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/fort-smith-police-chief-touts-crisis-response-efforts-budget-savings-intervention-board-directors-mental-health/527-8014484e-55a5-4ee7-851e-621f8eb4b2e1
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CLARKSVILLE, Ark. — Sunday, May 15 is National Peace Officer Memorial Day and kicks off National Police Week.
In Johnson County, the holiday means something more.
“The reality is there are heartbeats behind those badges, behind those vests. There are families that wait behind closed doors every night just waiting to hear the sound of that Velcro as it comes off and those vests drop,” said Lieutenant Brent Scott of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
Sadly, for the community of Johnson County, the lives of families and fellow officers have forever been changed as three of their own never made it home.
“Unfortunately, of course, we have three former law enforcement officers that lost their lives in the line of duty,” said Johnson County Sheriff Jimmy Stephens.
Former Sheriff John Powers, Drug Task Force Director Larry Johnson, and, most recently, Reserve Deputy Sonny Smith all gave their lives protecting where they called home.
Sunday was a time for families to come together and remember the lives of those lost. But it was also the anniversary of the death of Deputy Smith.
“The community as a whole still has a wound that has yet to really heal,” said Scott.
However, the service was just a small step to honoring the lives of the fallen officers here at home, but across the nation.
National Peace Officer Memorial Day was enacted during the Kennedy Administration. On this day, May 15th, the names of officers who perished in the line of duty during the previous year are etched in stone at the National Law Enforcement Memorial.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/johnson-county-remembers-the-lives-of-three-fallen-law-enforcement-officers/527-4b7580c6-47e6-49d7-ad24-260f2becd32a
| 2022-05-16T04:16:40
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/johnson-county-remembers-the-lives-of-three-fallen-law-enforcement-officers/527-4b7580c6-47e6-49d7-ad24-260f2becd32a
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COLLIN COUNTY, Texas — For most people, their connection to food is simply through purchasing and consumption. Food inflation at the grocery store is a topic that dominates the news because it affects more people.
But there is a large portion of growers, product suppliers, transporters, retail and restaurants directly affected by sky-high inflation.
Jeff Bednar at Profound Microfarms in Lucas specializes in variety. His sustainable farm uses techniques like hydroponics to grow hundreds of rare culinary herbs, microgreens, edible flowers and leafy greens. He delivers to over 60 restaurants across North Texas twice a week and delivers to private homes.
"As a farmer we need to have inputs or we don't have outputs. That's where a lot of the concerns are now," said Bednar.
He, like many, is not immune to inflation. The rising costs on the farm are a direct reflection of rising prices at the grocery stores.
The cost of food rose nationally 0.9% from March, according to the latest release of data of the Consumer Price Index. That makes it the 17th consecutive month the food index went up.
"The thought of families not having easy access to that nutrition is heartbreaking," said Erica Yaeger, chief external affairs officer at North Texas Food Bank.
Inflation and rising prices have had an impact on buying power, especially for families that are food insecure.
Yaeger tells WFAA there are 800,000 people in North Texas covering 13 counties who face food insecurity.
The North Texas Food Bank was making 7.3 million meals a month before COVID, 10.5 million meals during COVID and now on pace to serve 12 million meals, likely from inflation.
"We've determined that the impact of inflation alone on food purchase costs is 800,000 alone for this year," said Yaeger.
At the North Texas Food Bank what's not donated is purchased. And now due to inflation, items are being purchased at a much higher rate. Yaeger says fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy, protein and kid snacks are very hard to find now.
Farmer Jeff Bednar knows all about high rates because on his end labor costs, seed costs and utilities have skyrocketed. He says fertilizer suppliers have asked growers to stock up or use sparingly.
"A lot of the phosphorus is coming from Russia and that's for the world," said Bednar.
And then there are the costs to a farmer that consumers don't normally think about. The styrofoam rafts the plants grow in went from $9 to $22 each.
The plastic clam shells used for packaging were 25 cents and are now a dollar. Bednar tells WFAA he has not raised his prices for restaurants and home deliveries since 2017.
He understands he's taking a hit and hoping to make up for it in volume. He says his lower prices are making him competitive in the market.
"I never met another farmer who got in this game to get rich," said Bednar.
The Food Bank is also having to make tough decisions. With donor fatigue and product substitutes, food banks are constantly having to manage books and operations to meet the demand.
"We've had to replace peaches on our shelves with canned pears that we can get for a little less expensive," said Yaeger.
Whether you're a farmer or a consumer or something in between, inflation has a stranglehold. The real question is, when will it let go?
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/farmers-food-banks-consumers-inflation-taking-toll/287-23e58d2d-14ba-42a8-8332-5ff50562bf0d
| 2022-05-16T05:15:21
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/farmers-food-banks-consumers-inflation-taking-toll/287-23e58d2d-14ba-42a8-8332-5ff50562bf0d
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FORNEY, Texas — A doorbell camera captured a young boy walking up to a family's house in Forney and hitting their front door with a whip last week, and the video got widespread attention over the weekend.
Authorities said the boy's intentions were to confront a classmate, and that there's been a "bullying issue" between the two children.
The family of the girl, who is Black, called the incident with the boy, who is white, a "racial issue."
“We know the history of the whip," said the girl's father, Dezerrea Nash. "This is a racial issue. He comes to the door with a whip."
No one was injured during the Thursday incident, but the boy's father was later arrested after his gun accidentally discharged while he argued with the girl's family, officials said.
The girl's family posted videos of both incidents -- the boy whipping their door, and then their interaction with the boy's father, they said -- and the footage began to receive attention in the following days, getting tens of thousands of views on social media.
On Sunday, the girl's mother, Carissa Nash, told WFAA how the incident unfolded Thursday afternoon on Cross Cut Drive in Forney.
Nash said it began with a knock on her front door.
“I look at my doorbell camera before going to the door, and I see it’s a little kid,” Nash said.
The child was her 9-year-old neighbor with a whip in his hand, she said.
Nash's video showed the boy hit their door with the whip. Then, after a second whip on the door, Nash can be heard opening the door and telling the boy to leave.
“Little boy, you better get your [expletive] off my porch, beating on my door like this," Nash told him, according to her video. "I will call the police. You need to leave. Don't you ever beat on my [expletive] door like this. Go."
The boy then turned and walked away.
The next video Nash posted was of her husband, Dezerrea Nash, who said he went to the boy's father's home to get answers.
On the video, Dezerrea Nash can be heard telling a man, "I'm coming to have a conversation with you, sir. Your son. I'm going to show you the video."
The man said the Nashes were "accusing my son," according to the video, and the man told them to leave.
They responded, "We're showing you the video."
Dezerrea Nash also told the man that there was a "huge scratch on our car."
Seconds later, the sound of a gun could be heard going off from near the man at the door.
Jason Johnson, the Kaufman County Precinct 2 constable, identified that man as Bryan Brunson.
Johnson said Brunson had a gun in his right hand, and that the gun went off, firing in the direction of his daughter, who was standing behind him.
Brunson was later arrested on a charge of deadly conduct, Johnson said.
WFAA reached out to Brunson, who had posted bond and was released from jail, speaking to him briefly on the phone. Brunson said he had retained an attorney and that there was more to the story.
Johnson said the incident started when the two kids were walking home from school together.
“There have been several interactions between them at different times and locations,” Johnson said.
More information about those interactions was not released.
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/texas-video-boy-hitting-forney-family-door-whip-father-arrested-gun-goes-off/287-85ed6ab7-c239-4739-a64c-e61d5cea9b4f
| 2022-05-16T05:15:27
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/texas-video-boy-hitting-forney-family-door-whip-father-arrested-gun-goes-off/287-85ed6ab7-c239-4739-a64c-e61d5cea9b4f
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