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Lee la historia en español aquí.
A Reading man is accused of killing a cab driver who vanished back in August in what authorities described as a possible kidnapping.
Johnny Palaguachi, of Reading, was charged with criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence in the death of Darlyn De La Rosa-Abreu, 30, Reading Police announced Saturday.
Darlyn De La Rosa-Abreu, 30, was last seen picking up a passenger, believed to be Palaguachi, in his taxi on August 8 at 1:41 a.m. and exiting Reading via the Penn Street Bridge.
After months of his disappearance, police said Friday they received evidence which led to the discovery of human remains in the area of Old Church Road, which are believed to be those of De La Rosa-Abreu.
"He was a good man, he always worked very hard," said Edwin González, a relative of Abreu. "He never did anything bad that could make people think he was suspicious."
Police previously said they believed La Rosa-Abreu left the area against his will and his disappearance was considered suspicious.
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/he-was-a-good-boy-reading-man-charged-in-killing-of-taxi-driver/3247011/
| 2022-05-22T01:37:54
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/he-was-a-good-boy-reading-man-charged-in-killing-of-taxi-driver/3247011/
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Delavan High School DELAVAN — Delavan High School graduation will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22, at the school.
Valedictorians are Jenna Adair, Emily Mount, McKealey Klokkenga, Caleb Harper and Claire Schaffner. The salutatorian is Gabriel Hietter.
Jenna Adair, Charlize Ashenbremer, Bryce Bell, MacArthur Briggs, Abigail Brooks, Emily Butler, Kaitlyn Campen Samuel Carl, Ainsley Diver, Caleb Harper, Jordan Hazelman, Gabriel Hietter, Brandon Hilst, Sarah Horn, Landon Horning, Braden Houston, Colton Hull, Lily Hurst, Ashley-Nicole Juerjens, McKealey Klokkenga, Joshua Lake, Zen Lawrence, Ethan Lawson, Grace Liesman, Damien Mason, Emily Mount, Evan Rademaker, Kylie Rassi, Dominick Ratton, Fabian Ryans Jr., Claire Schaffner, Chloe Schaffner, Logan Seals, Allison Seaton, Michael Smyser, Jacelyn Squires, Brett Sundell, Eric Tharp Jr., Sofia Troyer, Emma Turner, Micah Waggoner, Chance Walker and Alicia Williams.
Photos: Leah Marlene's 'American Idol' journey
'American Idol' - May 15
Leah Marlene chats with "American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest during the show on Sunday.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'American Idol' - May 15
Leah Marlene, center, takes a photo with her fellow "American Idol" finalists, as well as judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan, and host Ryan Seacrest.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'American Idol' - May 15
Leah Marlene falls to the ground in shock after she was chosen as one of the final three competitors on this season of "American Idol."
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'American Idol' - May 15
Leah Marlene is hugged by Fritz Hager while Nicolina looks on during the final moments of Sunday's "American Idol" episode. Host Ryan Seacrest, left, had just announced that voters chose Marlene out of those three to move forward.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'American Idol' - May 15
"American Idol" host Ryan Seacrest, from left, poses with top finalists Leah Marlene, Noah Thompson and HunterGirl on Sunday.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'I'll Stand by You' - May 15
Leah Marlene performs "I'll Stand By You" on "American Idol" on Sunday.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'American Idol' - May 15
Leah Marlene interacts with "American Idol" judges after performing "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" by Journey on Sunday.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
'Sanctuary' - May 8
Leah Marlene performs "Sanctuary" to reach the "American Idol" top five on Sunday, May 8.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
'Sanctuary' - May 8
"American Idol" judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie give Leah Marlene a standing ovation on Sunday, May 8.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
'Sanctuary' - May 8
Leah Marlene performs "Sanctuary" to reach the "American Idol" top five on Sunday, May 8.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
'Electric Love'
Leah Marlene interacts with a band member as she performs "Electric Love" on "American Idol" on Sunday.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
'Electric Love'
Leah Marlene belts "Electric Love" by BØRNS, her choice for Sunday's TikTok-themed challenge on "American Idol."
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
Leah Marlene and dad Derry Grehan
Derry Grehan and daughter Leah Marlene, a top seven contestant on "American Idol," pose during a visit to Disneyland last week.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene and dad Derry Grehan
Leah Marlene and dad Derry Grehan laugh during a visit to Disneyland last week. Grehan, lead guitarist for the band Honeymoon Suite, taught his daughter how to play guitar and piano, and also shared a passion for songwriting with her.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene at Disneyland
Leah Marlene is showing during "American Idol" filming for the show's Disney-themed episode.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene and Derek Hough
Leah Marlene poses with celebrity coach Derek Hough during filming for the Disney-themed episode of "American Idol."
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene and Derek Hough
Leah Marlene interacts with celebrity coach Derek Hough during filming for the Disney-themed episode of "American Idol."
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene - May 1
Leah Marlene sings "When She Loved Me" from "Toy Story 2" during "American Idol" on Sunday. The performance paved her way to the show's top seven contestants.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
Leah Marlene and dad Derry Grehan
Leah Marlene and dad Derry Grehan ride a rollercoaster during filming for the Disney-themed episode of "American Idol."
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene - May 1
Leah Marlene performs "When She Loved Me" during "American Idol" on Sunday, May 1.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
Pixar Pier
Leah Marlene poses at Disneyland during filming for the "American Idol" Disney-themed episode. The 20-year-old Normal native told The Pantagraph that she "didn't really grow up on Disney movies, so it was fun to experience the magic."
RICHARD HARBAUGH, ABC
Pixar Pier
Leah Marlene poses at Disneyland during filming for the "American Idol" Disney-themed episode.
RICHARD HARBAUGH, ABC
American Idol - ... Bruno
Nicolina, Leah Marlene, Lady K, HunterGirl and Emyrson Flora perform in the opening for "American Idol" on Sunday.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
Bruno
Emyrson Flora, Christian Guardino and Leah Marlene are shown onstage on "American Idol" on Sunday.
RAYMOND LIU, ABC
Leah Marlene - 'Make You Feel My Love'
Leah Marlene performs "Make You Feel My Love" to reach the "American Idol" top 10 on April 25.
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene - "Happy Together"
Leah Marlene performs "Happy Together" on "American Idol" on April 24.
ERIN MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene - top 11
Leah Marlene reacts to the news that voters chose her to be among the top 11 "American Idol" contestants.
ERIN MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene - April 14
Leah Marlene, shown during her April 18 performance, made it to the top 14 contestants in "American Idol."
ERIC MCCANDLESS, ABC
Leah Marlene - April 17
Leah Marlene performs on "American Idol" on April 17.
CHRISTOPHER WILLARD, ABC
Leah Marlene - Audition
Normal-raised Leah Marlene is shown during her audition for this season's "American Idol" contest.
Provided by American Idol
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/education/delavan-high-school-2022-graduates/article_82044fa2-cd5d-11ec-a62b-a33539f9eedd.html
| 2022-05-22T01:47:02
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/education/delavan-high-school-2022-graduates/article_82044fa2-cd5d-11ec-a62b-a33539f9eedd.html
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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – For the first time animal shelter staff from around Northeast Tennessee came together against a common cause.
About ten regional humane societies and animal shelters got together in King Commons Park to discuss chaining dogs.
Organizers tell us they want better laws to protect animals and make sure they are treated well.
“Unfortunately all of the shelters, we see a lot of animal neglect and animal abuse, and we all want the same thing for the animals in our community,” Executive Director of Washington County-Johnson City Animal Shelter Tammy Davis said.
Many dogs and dog lovers were in attendance enjoying the food trucks and other vendors the event had to offer.
Davis said they plan to hold the anti-chaining event again next year and keep growing it.
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/animal-shelters-hold-first-anti-chaining-event/
| 2022-05-22T01:57:37
| 0
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/animal-shelters-hold-first-anti-chaining-event/
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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) – The Liberty Bell eighth-grade baseball team was welcomed home Saturday with a state championship win.
The baseball team beat out Spring Station Middle School to win the championship.
The Championship was held in Hendersonville, Tennessee and the team was welcomed back at the school in Johnson City around 10 p.m. Saturday.
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/liberty-bell-baseball-team-wins-state-championship/
| 2022-05-22T01:57:43
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/liberty-bell-baseball-team-wins-state-championship/
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UNICOI, Tenn. (WJHL) – On Saturday, people came out to celebrate the community and the beautiful red strawberries that appear this time of year at the annual Wayne Scott Strawberry Festival.
For 19 years the homegrown tradition, has attracted live music, vendors and strawberries in every shape and size.
“This is always a good day for us, nice to see everybody out,” part-owner of Scott’s Strawberries, Steve Scott, said. “It’s a good thing for the town of Unicoi.”
Scott’s family business, and the namesake of the festival, has persevered through decades.
This past year like many farmers, the Scott’s dealt with challenges from supply chain issues to inflation.
“I’ve been in it you know for a living now 43 years since I got out of school, and it’s just changed a lot,” Scott said. “It keeps changing, but you just you know change with it and do what you can.”
On Saturday, the family celebrated another year and another festival alongside thousands attending the homegrown tradition.
“We just wanted to get out and do something, especially after being home for two years,” festivalgoer Donald Feathers said. “We always enjoy coming to the strawberry festival because you know everybody loves strawberries.”
Strawberry shortcake, strawberry cookies and anything strawberry you can think of was on the menu.
If you didn’t make it to the festival, stands across the region will be up for a few more weeks.
“We’ll be picking strawberries into June,” Scott said. “We’ll run out of customers before we run out of strawberries.”
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/unicoi-host-19th-annual-strawberry-festival/
| 2022-05-22T01:57:49
| 1
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https://www.wjhl.com/news/local/unicoi-host-19th-annual-strawberry-festival/
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DACULA, Ga. — There’s the saying you’d give your right arm to help someone you love-- and a Georgia mom is proving that old sentiment true
On the outside, Pamela Bish's son Carter is like most two-year-olds. He's learning to tie his shoes and still enjoys a good pacifier.
But on the inside, his mom said Carter’s a little different
“We knew even before he was born,” she said about her son's kidneys. “Swollen and filled with fluid and pretty much destroyed.”
Bish added that early on Carter started defying odds.
First, he wasn’t supposed to be born alive. Then his parents were told to not hold too much hope.
“He would likely pass away hours after birth," Bish said she was told.
Now he's in his terrific twos. One wouldn't know just looking at him that he's had 11 surgeries since birth.
Bish said those challenges made motherhood different than what she originally anticipated.
PHOTOS: Georgia boy born with kidney failure found the perfect donor: his mom
“To put in catheters, to take out catheters, to clean up infections," she said, even describing life after his hip surgery. “He was in this full-body cast, which was awful.”
Care didn't stop after his surgeries. There was a lot of maintenance to help keep Carter going like dialysis three times a week. Each session lasts about four hours.
“He takes about 10 medications every day," Bish added.
She said she holds him close to help get him through it all. And soon, she's going to do a lot more than hold Carter.
"I can give him a kidney," she said. "I wanted to be the one."
Bish, the person who gave him life wants the chance to save it too.
“That was my dream, that was my prayer, from before he was even born, that I would get to be his donor," she said.
Bish found out she's Carter's perfect match -- which isn't always easy to find. Without hesitation, she agreed to help her son through one more surgery.
“I look back at pictures of him from the NICU and I look at where he is now, and I’m just, it’s just astounding. It’s just unbelievable,” Bish said.
The family, who lives in Dacula, will travel to Atlanta for surgery which is scheduled for July 18.
Because Carter is so young, he may need another kidney transplant in 10 to 20 years. With mom one kidney down, the family jokes his brothers will have to take it from there.
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/pamela-carter-bish-mom-son-dacula-kidney-donor/85-4f7a4e3c-b67c-4a5a-b94a-3bece300d401
| 2022-05-22T02:03:11
| 1
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/pamela-carter-bish-mom-son-dacula-kidney-donor/85-4f7a4e3c-b67c-4a5a-b94a-3bece300d401
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LANCASTER, Pa. — Despite temperatures hovering in the mid-90's for most of Saturday, hundreds of residents made their way to Long's Park for the 69th Annual Lancaster Chicken Barbecue.
Over 300 volunteers worked throughout the day to prepare 15,000 chicken dinners for residents who stopped by the park.
"“We started at 3:30 in the morning, and we’ve been cooking dinners throughout the day," said Doug Price, President of Civitas Lancaster.
The event also acts as a fundraiser. All of the proceeds from the barbecue go towards local nonprofits, and improvements for Long's Park.
"We pay for all the beautification of the park and all of the capital improvement projects," explained Price. "And then some of the money goes towards Blessings of Hope Food Bank and other local charities."
Anna and her husband, Steve, said that they travel from Etters every year for the chicken barbecue. She says the hot weather wasn't going to make them miss out on the event.
"We’ll suffer the weather and still come down regardless," Anna explained. "It’s really good chicken, it’s really good food, and it’s for a good price."
Local residents Kerri and Bailey say the event is a good way to enjoy a meal with friends and family.
"Especially on a really good day just to be outside with friends," said Kerri.
"That was one of the draws to come down here, get some chicken," said Bailey.
Anna added that the event is a good way to bring the community together for a good cause.
"Between the vendors that help out, the people who come out and buy it, and the people that run this, it’s a good thing and everyone benefits," said Anna.
For more information on events at Long's Park, you can visit their website here.
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/annual-lancaster-chicken-bbq-longs-park/521-c00761b0-ab3e-48dd-b600-4b9551707ead
| 2022-05-22T02:09:24
| 1
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/annual-lancaster-chicken-bbq-longs-park/521-c00761b0-ab3e-48dd-b600-4b9551707ead
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Woman airlifted to hospital after leg amputated in boating accident at Lake Pleasant in Arizona
A woman was airlifted to the hospital from Lake Pleasant on Saturday evening after her leg was amputated in a boating accident, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said.
Deputies responded to the "single boat accident" in the north area of Lake Pleasant at approximately 5 p.m.
The woman, who had suffered a leg amputation, was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition. Further details surrounding the incident were not released.
It was unknown whether alcohol was a factor in the accident, the Sheriff's Office said.
An investigation was ongoing.
This accident follows at least four other emergency incidents that took place at Lake Pleasant within the last five weeks.
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/2022/05/21/woman-leg-amputated-boating-accident-lake-pleasant-arizona/9879817002/
| 2022-05-22T02:16:51
| 1
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/peoria-breaking/2022/05/21/woman-leg-amputated-boating-accident-lake-pleasant-arizona/9879817002/
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On July 1, long after the last school bells have gone silent, Steve Joel won't roll up to the Lincoln Public Schools headquarters and take the elevator to his third-floor corner office overlooking O Street.
He'll be at the gym at 8:15 sharp for his morning workout.
Chalk it up to the perks of retirement for the outgoing superintendent who is entering his final days at the helm of a district he’s helped steer for the past 12 years.
“At 5:30 in the morning, it’s too crowded,” said Joel, an early bird by nature. “(8:15) is the perfect time (to work out).”
And for Joel, now is also the perfect time to close the book on a 40-plus-year career in education that included stops in Kansas and then Grand Island, Beatrice and finally Lincoln. To take life a little easier — whether that’s making room for a trip with his wife, hanging out with his grandchildren or just showing up to the gym late.
The last few weeks have gone by in a blur.
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“Everything I’m doing right now, I’m treating it (like) it's the last time I’m doing it,” Joel said last week during a visit to Mickle Middle School. “I try to get there a little bit early, try to stay a little bit late, try to talk to as many people as I can talk to.”
It’s about that final thank you, he says, not to him and his service, but to the district, for allowing him the opportunity to lead its schools since he was hired in 2010. To be a part of what LPS represents.
“There’s some sadness, you know,” he said, “that it’s coming to an end.”
* * *
He calls them pivot points.
Moments when your life changes direction. When someone taps you on the shoulder at the right time.
Like when Steve Joel of Long Island, New York, showed up at Doane College, a freshman on a football scholarship.
“I was a fish out of water,” he said. “My accent was so bad that when they did freshman orientation, I and three or four of the guys from the East Coast had to take remedial speech classes.”
He loved history but didn’t know what to do with it. So his adviser recommended he head over to Crete High School. There was a history teacher there — Larry Starr. Maybe Joel could observe him, the adviser said, see if teaching was for him.
When he showed up, Starr pointed out a group of young men sitting in the back. He was having trouble connecting with the students and wondered if Joel — a young guy like them — could crack their shell.
“I just sat down with them, and we’re starting to talk,” Joel said.
A pivot point.
He went back to his adviser, declared his major in history education.
But he wasn’t without doubts. In his first year at Doane — a college kid with long hair — he gave up playing in a postseason football game and hitched a ride to New York out of homesickness.
He thought about staying home — being a cop in the New York Police Department like his dad and uncles — but he had a change of heart.
Teaching was pulling him back to Nebraska.
So he returned to Crete, finished college, student-taught at Norris. Applied at LPS, but got turned down.
Then he angled for a high school social studies teaching position in Wilber and got the job.
His dad thought Joel would want to come back to the East Coast, become a sergeant in the force — a bachelor’s degree guaranteed as much. What wasn’t appealing about that, his dad wondered?
“I just wanted to try teaching,” Joel said. “And so I did, and I never looked back.”
* * *
Ed Kelley was an old-school guy, the chain-smoking assistant professor in secondary education and administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
When you sat outside his office — as Joel did back in the 1970s — you could see the smoke drifting under the door.
He was there by chance. Joel was looking to get his driver’s education endorsement — to supplement his teaching income — but the person who signed off on the papers was out. So a friend recommended he go to Kelley.
“And he says to me, ‘I’m not interested,’” Joel said. “We don’t need more teachers. We need leaders.”
Kelley went back into his smoke-filled office, only to emerge a few minutes later with a proposal.
“Six o’clock tonight … Duffy’s Tavern.”
So Joel showed up at the O Street bar — along with a few other people looking to enter graduate school. Kelley said he’d sign the driver’s ed papers under one condition: Joel had to enroll in an educational leadership course.
“It was the best class I ever took,” he said. “I told my wife, I said, this leadership thing? I really like it.”
Joel would go on to earn his master’s degree in educational administration at UNL — Kelley was his academic adviser — and become the junior high principal in Wilber.
He later took a principalship in Kansas and got his first shot as a superintendent in Chase, a town where oil flowed freely but money didn’t.
Eventually, he made his way back to Nebraska — to Beatrice, where he helped the district push a crucial bond issue across the finish line, and then Grand Island, where he helped a community come to grips with an immigration raid in 2006 that separated some students from their parents.
“I just remember his response and him mobilizing staff so no kid was left unattended,” said Jennifer Worthington, who served on the Grand Island Public Schools board at the time. “To him, it wasn’t a political issue, it was a matter of let’s take care of these kids.”
Worthington said Joel was instrumental in starting Grand Island’s career pathways program, too.
“He was a very dynamic leader,” she said.
Then in 2009, another pivot point.
The superintendent position opened at Lincoln Public Schools, a district Joel remembers being renowned for its excellence, its one-community, one-district ethos.
The same district, believe it or not, that had turned down a young social studies teacher all those years ago.
“Somebody asked me: ‘What’s your biggest regret?’
"That I didn’t come when I was 45, because I would’ve enjoyed 10 more years here.”
* * *
When longtime LPS superintendent Phil Schoo retired in 2004, the district was looking for a superintendent who could help pass a bond issue and move new school projects forward.
The board landed on Susan Gourley, a superintendent in Washington state, and she did what she was hired to do: Voters approved a $250 million bond issue in 2006. Gourley left after six years at LPS, and now the board was looking for continuity.
It landed on Joel, a veteran of the Nebraska educational scene.
Other school districts are typically “in a churn of leadership,” said longtime board member Ed Zimmer, who was on the board when Joel was hired and helped him transition into the role.
“That’s not been Lincoln’s situation,” he said.
Zimmer knew Joel as a strong advocate for students and schools in Grand Island and soon discovered that when he came to Lincoln, “he was absolutely our guy.”
“I found very quickly he transferred his loyalty absolutely over to Lincoln,” Zimmer recalled. “He was very interested in knowing the board, knowing the individuals, knowing his key leadership team. He spent time with each of us.”
Joel’s tenure was perhaps defined mostly by his response to crises: The district office fire in 2011, the purple penguin controversy — when training materials at LPS concerning gender identity came under scrutiny — and finally the coronavirus pandemic.
“I think probably all superintendents are marked by crisis,” Zimmer said. “That’s the life they lead. Steve really shines in it.”
Marilyn Moore, associate superintendent of instruction at LPS for 25 years, including the last two under Joel, characterizes her former boss in two ways: high-energy and mission-driven.
“He just goes,” she said.
While part of his legacy will be his response to events, Joel also moved the needle on diversity and equity, according to Moore, and stood behind LPS’ “All Means All" motto with fidelity.
“There is no doubt that he puts each student, every student, all students at the top of his list of what he thinks about when he thinks about decisions,” she said.
In Joel’s view, introducing strategic planning to the district when he first arrived will be one of his lasting imprints. Two bonds, new schools and focus programs and The Career Academy, too.
But he leaves in a different environment than when he arrived. Education has turned particularly divisive the past 2½ years, with fights over pandemic restrictions and questions about curriculum.
There will be hundreds of superintendents new to their district next year, Joel pointed out, including his successor, Paul Gausman.
He maintains this is the right time to retire — he’s 66 — even if he feels a sense that he could do just a little bit more.
“I feel like the district’s in much better shape,” he said.
Moore said education leaders have a sense when the moment, the year, is right to move on.
“I think that’s his sense; that this is the right time.”
* * *
He’s on the phone as he ambles into Mickle Middle School. The buzz about the upcoming summer is like a current running through the hallways.
Joel is talking to a fellow superintendent, helping him walk through a problem in his own district.
“I’m happy to do it,” he says.
Just like Ed Kelley, Joel himself has become a mentor and cultivator of leaders. He’s done superintendent consulting work and served on national organizations.
“That development of leaders is something that is special about him,” Worthington said.
It’s work that he hopes to continue in retirement, to keep him busy. He and his wife also have five grandkids to keep them occupied, too.
Tom Osborne even asked him to serve on the statewide TeamMates board.
During last week’s visit to Mickle, Joel — accompanied by Principal Jason Shanahan — visited a social academic instruction group for students who’ve been identified as having strengths ready to be developed.
He also swung by the school gym, where some students were playing spike ball. Joel gave it a shot.
“They waxed me,” he said afterward.
Joel himself returned to the classroom as a teacher this year, filling in along with other district administrators as LPS grappled with a lack of substitutes.
Much has changed since he was teaching social studies in Wilber. Lesson plans, discipline, technology; it’s all different now.
“You've just got to be a special person to be a teacher.”
And the same could be said of a leader, especially a superintendent like Joel, who after closing the book on another school year won’t stop moving.
He’ll be at the gym at 8:15 sharp.
Contact the writer at zhammack@journalstar.com or 402-473-7225. On Twitter @HammackLJS
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/education/i-never-looked-back-lps-superintendent-steve-joel-closing-the-book-on-final-school-year/article_273d07cd-0ef4-589f-b944-c4b4b5b62796.html
| 2022-05-22T02:42:59
| 1
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/education/i-never-looked-back-lps-superintendent-steve-joel-closing-the-book-on-final-school-year/article_273d07cd-0ef4-589f-b944-c4b4b5b62796.html
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Leading up to Tuesday’s primary election, there was much demonstrated effort from the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee to sway voters to what committee leadership viewed as more conservative candidates.
Whether it was through the committee’s surveys sent to candidates, monetary donations or “sample ballots” distributed to county residents, the committee communicated its favorites for the Republican Party. The local committee was rebuked by the state GOP for its donations to candidates, which were in violation of the committee's own bylaws, and the state party successfully sued the county organization over its "sample ballots" which it said were "intentionally designed to deceive voters."
So how did the committee’s endorsed candidates do in their races?
The committee endorsed several eastern Idaho candidates in its sample ballots including Keith Newberry for District 32’s Senate seat; Nicholas Christiansen for District 32 House seat A; Barbara Ehardt for District 33 House seat A; Bryan Scholz for District 33’s Senate seat; Doug Toomer for District 35’s Senate seat; Kevin Andrus for District 35 House seat A and Chad Christensen for District 35 House seat B.
In District 32, none of the committee’s local endorsed candidates in contested races won. Ehardt won in District 33 and Andrus won in District 35.
The committee also donated to Ron Nate’s campaign in District 34, and he lost his race against Britt Raybould.
In statewide races, the committee endorsed Mike Crapo for U.S. senator, Bryan Smith, who is a vice chairman of the BCRCC, for U.S. representative, Dorothy Moon for secretary of state, Branden Durst for superintendent of public instruction, Janice McGeachin for governor, Priscilla Giddings for lieutenant governor and Raul Labrador for attorney general.
All of the statewide candidates lost except for Labrador and Crapo, an incumbent who was first elected in 1999. For contested races that were on Bonneville County ballots, BCRCC-endorsed candidates won just four of 13 races in predominantly Republican eastern Idaho.
The losing statewide candidates also lost in Bonneville County. Idaho Falls hometown candidates Smith and McGeachin secured 31% and 26% of the county’s vote in their respective races. Their opponents, U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson, also of Idaho Falls, and Gov. Brad Little, gained 57% and 59% of the county’s vote, respectively.
McGeachin, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, is one of three Trump endorsed candidates nationally who lost their races, the Idaho Statesman reported Thursday.
Trump has endorsed more than 70 candidates in primary elections and McGeachin's loss was the greatest margin of defeat so far for a Trump-backed candidate. Little received 53% of the statewide vote (148,214) to McGeachin’s 32% (90,682).
In an email to the Post Register, BCRCC Chairman Mark Fuller congratulated the four endorsed candidates who won their races.
"Throughout Idaho, the election was a great victory and many conservative candidates were elected. Congratulations to Raul Labrador, Kevin Andrus and Barbara Ehardt. We have hopes for Bonneville County in future elections," Fuller wrote.
Future endorsements in Republican contested races from the BCRCC are likely to stop and the committee has removed its sample ballots from its Facebook page and website following the May 13 court order that requires the committee to stop endorsing Republican candidates in contested Republican races.
The Idaho GOP sued the committee days before the primary because the sample ballots deceptively made it appear that the state party produced them. The court order prevents the committee from distributing printed material or mailers, social media, phone calls, and advertisements of any kind with endorsements.
“The judge was clear, as are our party rules, county Republican parties cannot make endorsements outside of county elections,” Idaho GOP chairman Tom Luna wrote in a statement about the decision.
Fuller also wrote in his email that "The State Republican Party and Tom Luna wrongfully sued the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee to cancel our voice and prevent us from donating to candidates who support Republican Platform principles."
One group that had a better result for its endorsed candidates was Take Back Idaho, a political action committee that works to combat extremist movements and politicians in Idaho, according to its website. Jim Jones, a former chief justice of the Idaho Supreme Court who sits on Take Back Idaho’s board of directors, has often criticized groups such as the Idaho Freedom Foundation and the Bonneville County Republican Central Committee for their far-right ideology.
In a Wednesday news release, Take Back Idaho applauded voters for rejecting many of the candidates the BCRCC endorsed. Take Back Idaho noted that 30 of its 44 endorsed candidates in constitutional and legislative races won.
“When the Idaho legislature convenes this fall, half of the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s worst dozen cronies will not be returning. That’s a victory for the everyday people of Idaho, and a rebuke of bully lobbyists and their cronies,” the release said.
Wayne Hoffman, the Freedom Foundation’s president, had a different tone from Take Back Idaho in a Thursday column he wrote on the foundation’s website. He wrote that conservatives had a “monumentally successful night” on Tuesday because more conservative Senate candidates won their races.
“The May 2022 primary elections will likely produce the most conservative governing this state has ever seen,” Hoffman wrote.
Several comparatively moderate senators to their opponents who held Senate committee leadership positions lost on Tuesday, including Carl Crabtree in District 7, Jim Woodward in District 1 and Fred Martin in District 15. Other Senate incumbents who lost to far-right challengers are Jim Patrick in District 24, Peter Riggs in District 5, Jeff Agenbroad in District 13 and Robert Blair in District 6.
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https://www.postregister.com/news/local/idaho-primary-analysis-how-did-bonneville-republican-committee-endorsed-candidates-fare/article_cc03d040-f409-5351-99fa-ec416ae6238d.html
| 2022-05-22T03:20:59
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https://www.postregister.com/news/local/idaho-primary-analysis-how-did-bonneville-republican-committee-endorsed-candidates-fare/article_cc03d040-f409-5351-99fa-ec416ae6238d.html
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — One person is in the hospital after being removed from the American River Saturday.
According to the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, the person was removed by rescue boats with the assistance of law enforcement just after 6:30 p.m.
The person was taken to the hospital and is said to be in critical condition.
"As a reminder to our community, wear a life jacket and please be safe on the river!" said Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District in a tweet.
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/american-river-rescue-sacramento/103-4e37a8a2-420c-49cf-8d47-18255ad628f7
| 2022-05-22T03:27:48
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/american-river-rescue-sacramento/103-4e37a8a2-420c-49cf-8d47-18255ad628f7
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HAGERMAN, Idaho — The pastor of the church in Hagerman that caught fire and collapsed Friday night said it is painful to see, but he is staying optimistic for the future.
"This is shocking news to me and I wasn't expecting it, especially when I wasn't able to do anything," Hagerman Christian Center Pastor, Isaac Tellez said.
Tellez is currently in Yucatan, Mexico on a service trip to help build churches, missionary housing and a school. He could only watch videos and look at pictures of the flames that were sent to his phone.
He was alerted about the fire by his nephew who called him on the phone Friday night.
"I said, 'call 911. Make sure everyone is out of the building. Don't worry about anything right now. It's about making sure that no one is hurt,'" Tellez said.
Pastor Tellez said he praises God that no one was injured. He said their main priority at the moment is trying to figure out ways they can continue to hold services and programs. Tellez said the 30-year-old building was also home to Celebrate Recovery, Hagerman Dance Club, bible studies and more programs.
Even during a tragedy, he said the church and its members will get through this.
"Our love is for God, not a building," Tellez said. "Even though that building was used for the glory of God, we will continue to serve our community."
While many of the programs at the church are canceled for the foreseeable future, Hagerman Christian Center will still have a service in its parking lot at 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Tellez said everyone is welcome.
Pastor Tellez said they are waiting to be given the OK to look through the damages and see what exactly was destroyed in the fire. He said insurance will help cover some of the costs of the damages, so he's working on a plan to rebuild and redesign a new church.
"I think it's an opportunity for us to dream again, to plan, to envision and see what God is going to do because what's next is going to be awesome," Tellez said.
He plans to be back in Hagerman Tuesday.
"We will assess what we need to do next, but we're trusting God," Tellez said.
Multiple crews responded to the fire at the church Friday evening. Hagerman Fire Protection District Chief ,Tim Peterson, told KTVB late Friday the fire had impacted 70-75% of the church.
The Idaho State Fire Marshal's Office investigated the church fire Saturday and determined it was caused by a landscaping accident.
"Prior to the structure fire, a member of the congregation was sprucing up the landscaping for Sunday Services with the use of a weed burner and an errant ember smoldered unnoticed at the base of the wooden siding. Evidence at the scene and a series of interviews support this conclusion," the Fire Marshal's Office wrote on Facebook.
The Fire Marshal's Office wants to remind people that whenever they're burning weeds, especially around buildings, to have a hose ready and soak their work area after they are finished. The Office said it's also important to check local weather forecasts before any burning.
Watch more Local News:
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/hagerman-church-plans-rebuild-after-fire/277-984598e0-12a7-4867-80cc-326fd949ef24
| 2022-05-22T03:32:15
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/hagerman-church-plans-rebuild-after-fire/277-984598e0-12a7-4867-80cc-326fd949ef24
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NAMPA, Idaho — People of all ages gathered in Nampa Saturday for the 55th annual Parade America.
The theme of this year's patriotic parade was "Our Great Heritage," and included floats, marching bands, antique cars, and more.
"Parade America is an important tradition in our community and I am so thankful for the volunteers working to make this event possible," Nampa Mayor Debbie Kling said. "Parade America is a special time to honor America's great heritage and our military members."
Saturday's celebration began at 11 a.m. with a flyover to get the parade underway. The Nampa Chamber of Commerce also hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the parade at the Warhawk Air Museum.
Parade America started near Nampa High School at the corner of 12th Avenue Road and Lake Lowell Avenue. Floats followed a route on 12th Avenue Road to 7th Street South, to 16th Avenue South, ending at Holly Street and East Colorado Avenue, near Northwest Nazarene University.
"We are having a wonderful day. It's about faith, family, freedom and honoring our military today," Kling told KTVB. "We have such a great community and so many people out to celebrate our nation together."
The annual parade was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ryan Gage, a resident attending the event for the fifth time, told KTVB Parade America highlights who the Nampa community is.
"It's a wonderful tradition. We're excited that its come back," Gage said. "It's really great to see all the floats, all the entries and just a great celebration of who we are as Nampa."
Registration proceeds from the event go to the Nampa Parade America Committee, Inc. to support putting on the parade in future years.
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/nampa-55th-annual-parade-america/277-54e30b83-fa08-4a3c-aa6e-ec90a3e244c6
| 2022-05-22T03:32:21
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/nampa-55th-annual-parade-america/277-54e30b83-fa08-4a3c-aa6e-ec90a3e244c6
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Arizona lottery numbers, May 21
Associated Press
These Arizona lotteries were drawn Saturday:
Pick 3
0-9-7
Fantasy 5
20-23-27-31-33
The Pick
07-11-16-20-28-35
Triple Twist
07-09-23-33-35-38
Estimated jackpot: $280,000
Mega Millions
Estimated jackpot: $143 million
Powerball
14-15-25-52-58, Powerball: 11, Power Play: 2
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2022/05/21/arizona-lottery-numbers-may-21/9881418002/
| 2022-05-22T04:10:04
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2022/05/21/arizona-lottery-numbers-may-21/9881418002/
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TONIGHT: Mostly dry. Temperatures dipping into the upper 60s and low 70s.
SUNDAY: Numerous showers and storms possible from mid morning through the overnight hours. Some storms could produce gusty winds, frequent lightning, and some small hail.
Highs only reach the low 80s due to cloud cover and rain.
THE WEEK AHEAD: Expect several waves of showers and storms Monday through Thursday. Throughout the week, we could see a few storms that produce gusty winds, frequent lightning, and some hail. Widespread severe weather is unlikely. High temperatures won’t come close to 90° due to the rain and cloud cover.
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https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/stormier-pattern-for-the-new-week/
| 2022-05-22T04:24:27
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https://www.cbs42.com/news/local/stormier-pattern-for-the-new-week/
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COPPELL, Texas — Hundreds of people gathered Saturday in support of a North Texas college student working to get back on her feet after a dog attack.
Jacqueline Durand, a 22-year-old University of Texas at Dallas student, made national news after being viciously mauled by two dogs in December 2021, eventually sent home from the hospital nearly two months after that.
A police report detailed the horrific attack, which family said left her with 800 to 1,000 bites on her body.
On Saturday, the Coppell native greeted North Texas officials and hundreds of supporters at a drive-through barbecue fundraiser at Andy Brown Park Central in Coppell.
The fundraiser started with parade of elected officials and supporters carrying "#JacquelineStrong" signs with police and fire units.
"I'm still recovering, but I'm glad I got to make it today," Jacqueline Durand said. "I'm speechless with how many people taking the time out of their days to volunteer and to put this together for me."
Jacqueline Durand's dad, John Durand, said the idea for this fundraiser came from two neighbors who recently came and knocked on their front door.
"They said they just wanted to be part of something special to bring the community together here in Coppell to do something for Jacqueline," John Durand. "We have just been so humbled with the outpouring of their support. The support of our neighbors and the support of the entire Coppell community."
Jacqueline Durand just finished her 16th surgery this week. While she doesn't know how many more surgeries she will need as she is expected to have years of reconstructive surgeries and trauma care, her dad said her positive attitude never wavers.
"What's been so amazing has been the fact that she's been so strong and courageous for us," John Durand said. "We're so grateful that she is with us because that was very much in doubt. We are just so grateful for her attitude and the blessings that we have."
Jacqueline Durand pointed right back to her dad as someone who has given her strength as well.
"We have a special bond. Before and especially after this," she said. "He's been my number one supporter through it all."
Coppell Mayor Wes Mays, city council members and Coppell Police Department members and Coppell Fire Department members all came to the event.
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/coppell-college-student-mauled-by-dog-barbecue-fundraiser/287-93d87e90-2c0b-4d02-8129-348155b698c2
| 2022-05-22T04:26:09
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/coppell-college-student-mauled-by-dog-barbecue-fundraiser/287-93d87e90-2c0b-4d02-8129-348155b698c2
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AUSTIN, Texas — Earlier this week, ERCOT released its summer forecast. State leaders expect record-high energy demand this summer but add they're confident the grid will be able to handle the demand.
Yet, some worry that high temperatures and big power users will put too much pressure on the grid. So now, some of the state's big power users, like cryptocurrency mining facilities, are trying to ease fears.
One cryptocurrency miner in Rockdale, Texas uses at least 400 megawatts of energy. For context, that’s enough to power a large city.
ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas expressed satisfaction with how the unregulated industry has responded to the state's tight grid conditions at different points throughout the month.
"They performed admirably as we would have expected them to," ERCOT Interim CEO Brad Jones said.
“They all worked with ERCOT and in their own way, some of them shut off completely. Some of them curtailed portions of their load at ERCOT’s request. Each miner, it's really specific and it depends on the situation,” said Lee Bratcher, head of the Texas Blockchain Council.
The group represents the bitcoin mining industry in Texas. Bratcher said miners do not have to shut down to help stabilize the grid. But the tighter the grid conditions, the higher the energy prices.
So, if the price is right in their area, miners will shut down and sell power back to ERCOT to help stabilize it. In some cases, like this past weekend, they make thousands of dollars per megawatt-hour.
But miners can't all turn off at once.
“You just want to coordinate that so there's no damage to, to infrastructure, electrical infrastructure. The ERCOT is constantly managing and monitoring the frequency of the grid," Bratcher said.
It's an issue ERCOT's Large Flexible Load Task Force and miners are trying to work to improve, especially with the large facilities being brought on faster than ERCOT said it has ever had to accommodate.
But when conditions get tight, Bratcher said crypto miners will be ready.
“So any way you slice it, they're, they're part of the solution,” he said.
PEOPLE ARE ALSO READING:
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/texas/texas-crypto-miners-summer-power-grid-conditions-ercot-expects-record-demand/269-ca5a6aa9-b4d5-4920-801a-08fa635be481
| 2022-05-22T04:26:15
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/texas/texas-crypto-miners-summer-power-grid-conditions-ercot-expects-record-demand/269-ca5a6aa9-b4d5-4920-801a-08fa635be481
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| 2022-05-22T04:40:52
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/tourists-pack-the-jersey-shore-in-first-summerlike-day-of-the-year/3247081/
| 2022-05-22T04:40:58
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/tourists-pack-the-jersey-shore-in-first-summerlike-day-of-the-year/3247081/
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SEBASTIAN COUNTY, Ark. — Emergency and rescue teams rescued a man who fell from a cliff off Poteau Mountain Road just south of Hartford.
Crews pulled the man up the cliff to safety after he got too close and fell down about 40 feet hitting a branch halfway.
According to the Hartford Police Chief Joey Bolin, someone who was traveling with the man called 911.
Crews who were familiar with the area in southern Sebastian County were quick to locate the man. Multiple agencies joined in tying a rope up the cliff for safety and then pulled the man from the bottom of the cliff using a gurney.
After he was pulled to the top safely and then airlifted to the hospital.
According to the police chief, the man has multiple broken bones but does not believe he has life-threatening injuries.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/emergency-crews-rescue-man-who-fell-from-cliff-in-sebastian-county-poteau-mountain-road-hartford-south/527-6ee85501-cffe-4a27-b69f-eb404d0862fa
| 2022-05-22T05:27:19
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/emergency-crews-rescue-man-who-fell-from-cliff-in-sebastian-county-poteau-mountain-road-hartford-south/527-6ee85501-cffe-4a27-b69f-eb404d0862fa
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SPRINGDALE, Ark. — The Springdale School District added 4 honorary graduates to the 2022 graduating class.
The 4 “super seniors” missed their own graduation in 1956 by joining the armed forces. Air Force Veteran Carl Stults, Army vet Bobby Burke, Air Force vet Charles Leroy Moon and Air Force vet Bob Self, joined the 484 graduating seniors from Springdale High School.
“I took a GED test when I went into the Air Force and at the time, Springdale didn't recognize the GED test,” said Self. “I got a diploma from Little Rock central.”
Self expressed his gratitude for his time in the service, traveling to Hong Kong and the Philippines.
“I don't want people telling me what to do and I'm like okay, I joined the Air Force,” said Self about his thoughts before joining the Air Force. “But about two days after I got there, they were really telling me what to do”
Springdale educators say they found out about the 4 seniors missing their graduations while meeting them at the Wagon Wheel Café in Springdale.
“These guys that whole class they meet I think once a month for lunch,” said Jason Jones. “They are true Springdale Bulldogs, they are all about Springdale.”
The Springdale School District Administration explained that the addition of the “super seniors” was a surprise for students. During the ceremony, educators listed the many accomplishments the 4 had completed such as owning successful businesses, working in the poultry industry, and even raising racehorses. Educators hoped to honor the 4 seniors but also use the moment to learn.
“They're gonna learn honor, they're gonna learn respect, it's just gonna be a special moment for them,” said Jones about the 2022 graduating class.
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/super-seniors-added-to-2022-graduating-class-after-missing-theirs-nearly-70-years-ago/527-8548b854-8f24-42d4-be9b-01e8c7b0c24e
| 2022-05-22T05:27:25
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https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/super-seniors-added-to-2022-graduating-class-after-missing-theirs-nearly-70-years-ago/527-8548b854-8f24-42d4-be9b-01e8c7b0c24e
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2-year-old boy dies after struck by car in Avondale
Haleigh Kochanski
Arizona Republic
A 2-year-old boy died Saturday night in Avondale after being struck by a car in the area of South 109th Avenue and West Davis Lane.
Avondale police responded to the scene at about 7:05 p.m., for an emergency call regarding a 2-year-old boy who was struck by a car.
The boy was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, Avondale police said.
According to police, an investigation was ongoing and no suspects were being sought.
Reach breaking news reporter Haleigh Kochanski at hkochanski@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @HaleighKochans.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/southwest-valley-breaking/2022/05/21/2-year-old-boy-dies-after-being-struck-by-car-in-avondale-police-say/9881808002/
| 2022-05-22T05:54:35
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/southwest-valley-breaking/2022/05/21/2-year-old-boy-dies-after-being-struck-by-car-in-avondale-police-say/9881808002/
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — While there isn't one clear solution for crime, many in Little Rock hope that community conversations are a good place to start.
The Little Rock Racial and Cultural Diversity Commission (RCDC) is diving in deeper in order to make a lasting impact on the city.
While Little Rock community members aren't all violent, the city still has its fair share of violent crime.
With that in mind, city leaders are trying to figure out how to solve that problem.
Tim Campbell is the Ward One Commissioner for the Little Rock RCDC and already has some plans in mind.
"I think when it comes down to problem solving. I think the first step is conversation," said Campbell.
More than a dozen people filled a room inside the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center Saturday.
Each person was there to listen and be a part of the change so many desire.
"It's time to get into the community [and] have a dialogue around what should happen next," Campbell said.
From a retired, and now interim police chief, to those heavily involved in the community, Campbell said he wanted a panel of people from different walks of life to have a transparent and intense solution based discussion.
"Well, we talked a lot on this panel today about being the things that you can't see, [and] it's very hard for our youth to be things that they can't see," Campbell said.
Every child's life is different, and that's something that's understood by city leaders.
Whether you are a parent or a friend of the family, things like teaching kids about financial incentives is something the panelist believe could keep teens busy and away from violence.
That's something Campbell said he missed out on years ago.
"I grew up in in a very tough time and I didn't go through these conversations. My family didn't go through these conversations, the people around me weren't joining these conversations," Campbell said.
The commission said 'Diving Dialogues' is something that started after Courageous Conversations.
That series of events allowed city leaders to discuss ways with the community on how they can tackle violent crime in Little Rock.
"We wanted to continue that discussion, but broaden it to beyond law enforcement to include mentorship [and] financial opportunity," said Sky Brower, Ward Four Commissioner for Little Rock RCDC.
"We've got to get people realizing that we cannot depend on the mayor, or the police chief to solve these problems for us. They need our help," Brower.
He believes that continued conversations will play a key role in ending crime.
"We love our city, we love Little Rock, and we're not going to give it up to violent crime," Brower said.
This was the commissions first 'Diving Dialogues' panel discussion.
They are hoping to do more in the future.
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/little-rock/little-rock-leaders-community-seek-change/91-661723db-177f-43e8-b239-d05bec578377
| 2022-05-22T06:37:52
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/little-rock/little-rock-leaders-community-seek-change/91-661723db-177f-43e8-b239-d05bec578377
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AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — Three cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy who have refused the COVID-19 vaccine will not be commissioned as military officers but will graduate with bachelor's degrees, the academy said Saturday.
Academy spokesman Dean Miller said that a fourth cadet who had refused the vaccine until about a week ago decided to be vaccinated and will graduate and become an Air Force officer.
In a statement, Miller said that while the three will get a degree "they will not be commissioned into the United States Air Force as long as they remain unvaccinated."
He added that a decision on whether to require the three to reimburse the United States for education costs in lieu of service will be made by the secretary of the Air Force.
As of Saturday, the Air Force is the only military academy, so far, where cadets are not being commissioned due to vaccine refusal. All of the more than 1,000 Army cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduated and were commissioned as officers earlier in the day and all were vaccinated.
The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, said Saturday that none of the Navy or Marine Corps seniors there are being prevented from commissioning due to vaccine refusals.
That graduation is later this week, and the Air Force ceremony is Wednesday.
Ahead of that ceremony, the U.S. Air Force Academy Board conducted its standard review of whether this year's class had met all graduation requirements on Friday.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who is the scheduled speaker at the Air Force graduation, last year made the COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for service members, including those at the military academies, saying the vaccine is critical to maintaining military readiness and the health of the force.
Military leaders have argued that troops for decades have been required to get as many as 17 vaccines in order to maintain the health of the force, particularly those deploying overseas. Students arriving at the military academies get a regimen of shots on their first day — such as measles, mumps and rubella — if they aren’t already vaccinated. And they routinely get flu shots in the fall.
Members of Congress, the military and the public have questioned whether the exemption reviews by the military services have been fair. There have been multiple lawsuits filed against the mandate, mainly centering on the fact that very few service members have been granted religious exemptions from the shots.
Until the COVID-19 vaccine, very few military members sought religious exemptions to any vaccines.
Lt. Col. Brian Maguire, an Air Force Academy spokesman, said a week ago that all four of the cadets had been informed of the potential consequences and met with the academy’s superintendent.
He noted then that they still had time before graduation to change their minds — and one did.
The military academies for years have required students under certain circumstances to repay tuition costs if they leave during their junior or senior year. Often those cases involve students with disciplinary issues or similar problems. The costs can be as much as $200,000, or more, and any final decision on repayment is made by the service secretary.
Across the military, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps have discharged as many as 4,000 active duty service members for refusing the vaccine.
Those who flatly refuse the vaccine without seeking an exemption are still being discharged. But the courts have stalled additional discharges of service members who sought religious exemptions.
According to the military, as many as 20,000 service members have asked for religious exemptions. Thousands have been denied.
About 99% of the active duty Navy and 98% of the Air Force, Marine Corps and Army have gotten at least one shot.
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: COVID-19 Coronavirus
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/unvaccinated-air-force-academy-cadets-no-commission/73-689f279c-039d-4c3f-884d-301531c4d57e
| 2022-05-22T06:37:58
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SAN ANTONIO — The baby formula crisis is ripping across the country. In south Texas the inventory is now below 50 percent of normal. So what can parents do and not do if they run out of formula?
THE QUESTION
Is it true that I can substitute goat milk for baby formula?
THE SOURCES
- Rachel Jacob, a registered dietician in the neonatal intensive care unit at University Health System.
- The Food and Drug Administration
THE ANSWER
WHAT WE FOUND
Jacob said, "We do not recommend substituting cows milk or goat's milk or any other alternative. No other than infant formula. And the reason for that is, your cows milking your goat's milk have too many proteins for our babies kidneys to process."
The FDA agrees but also says, "The FDA advises parents and caregivers not to make or feed homemade formula to infants. Homemade infant formula recipes have not been evaluated by the FDA and may lack nutrients vital to an infant's growth."
Jacob says there are other options, including donor breast milk, and says you can switch brands. She told us, "It is it is safe for in most circumstances for babies to switch brands or even, types of formula within that same product line. And even if it's outside of different brands, along with being able to transition to some of the generic brands."
So no, it is not true. You cannot substitute any kind of animal milk for baby formula.
Jacob also says to never dilute your formula because it can affect the nutrient composition that the baby needs, and to contact your pediatrician to see if they have samples of formula if you are running out, or if you have any questions or concerns.
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/verify-no-you-cannot-substitute-animal-milk-for-baby-formula-news/273-5027a5de-f439-4f6a-ac2e-8b06fa27aebe
| 2022-05-22T06:38:04
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/verify-no-you-cannot-substitute-animal-milk-for-baby-formula-news/273-5027a5de-f439-4f6a-ac2e-8b06fa27aebe
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SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Roberta Drury, a 32-year-old woman who was the youngest of the 10 Black people killed at a Buffalo supermarket, was remembered at her funeral Saturday for her love for family and friends, tenacity “and most of all, that smile that could light up a room.”
“Robbie,” as she was called, grew up in the Syracuse area and moved to Buffalo a decade ago to help tend to her brother in his fight against leukemia. She was shot to death May 14 on a trip to buy groceries at the Tops Friendly Market targeted by the white gunman.
“There are no words to fully express the depth and breadth of this tragedy,” Friar Nicholas Spano, parochial vicar of Assumption Church in Syracuse, said during the service. The stately brick church is not far from where Drury grew up in Cicero.
“Last Saturday, May 14, our corner of the world was changed forever,” he said. “Lives ended. Dreams shattered and our state was plunged into mourning.”
Drury's family wrote in her obituary that she “couldn’t walk a few steps without meeting a new friend.”
“Robbie always made a big deal about someone when she saw them, always making sure they felt noticed and loved,” her sister, Amanda, told The Associated Press by text before the service.
The family asked that donations be made to the Buffalo Zoo, a place the sisters enjoyed walking through, Amanda Drury said.
“She was that light that shone through whatever darkness might have been present,” Spano said. He said mourners would remember Drury's “kindness ... love for family and friends, her perseverance, her tenacity, and most of all, that smile that could light up a room.”
Drury is the second shooting victim to be eulogized.
A private service was held Friday for Heyward Patterson, the beloved deacon at a church near the supermarket. More funerals were scheduled throughout the coming week.
Tops was encouraging people to join its stores in a moment of silence to honor the shooting victims Saturday at 2:30 p.m., the approximate time of the attack a week earlier. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown also called for 123 seconds of silence from 2:28 p.m. to 2:31 p.m., followed by the ringing of church bells 13 times throughout the city to honor the 10 people killed and three wounded.
A candlelight vigil was planned at the Buffalo supermarket in the evening.
RELATED:
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/youngest-of-10-buffalo-shooting-victims-being-laid-to-rest-buffalo-mass-shooting/71-3e678486-977e-4ad0-9e41-55d9df1ad1c9
| 2022-05-22T06:38:10
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https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/youngest-of-10-buffalo-shooting-victims-being-laid-to-rest-buffalo-mass-shooting/71-3e678486-977e-4ad0-9e41-55d9df1ad1c9
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On Saturday Washington officially experienced its first 90-degree day of the year, exactly one month before the generally acknowledged start of summer on June 21.
Moreover, by a comfortable, or perhaps uncomfortable three degrees, Saturday dislodged Friday from its brief reign as our hottest day of 2022.
By the same three-degree margin of thermal victory that meant triumph over Friday, Saturday fell short of Washington’s record high for May 21. That was 95 degrees, recorded 88 years ago, in 1934.
Much has changed since then, including methods of coping with Washington heat. A glance at the edition of The Washington Post published the day after the record was set showed that.
A light-hearted editorial suggested that the year’s first spell of warm weather had arrived, and that it was marked one day by the appearance of straw hats, the next day by abandonment of all hats, and the third day by the vanishing of vests.
Meanwhile, at Dulles International Airport, which did not exist in 1934, Saturday’s temperature did reach record territory.
At Dulles, the same 92 degrees that fell short of a record in Washington matched a May 21 record set in 1996.
Of the three official measuring stations in the area, Baltimore appeared to be warmest, with a high of 95.That fell one degree short of the 1934 record for the date. But it nevertheless seemed respectably hot for a day in springtime.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/washington-reaches-the-90s-for-first-time-this-year/2022/05/21/01d8a58a-d965-11ec-a904-5afa7042a688_story.html
| 2022-05-22T07:30:54
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/washington-reaches-the-90s-for-first-time-this-year/2022/05/21/01d8a58a-d965-11ec-a904-5afa7042a688_story.html
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Deborah R. Bauer
May 18, 1949-May 18, 2022
MASON CITY-Deborah R. Bauer, 73, of Mason City, passed away on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, at the University of Minnesota Fairview- East Bank Hospital in Minneapolis. A Funeral Mass will be held on Friday, May 27, 2022, at 10:30 a.m., at Epiphany Parish Holy Family Catholic Church, 722 North Adams, with Rev. Jake Dunne officiating. Interment will be held in Memorial Park Cemetery. The service will be livestreamed on Epiphany Parish's YouTube Page. Memorials may be directed to the Deborah Bauer memorial fund in care of the family. Online condolences may be left for the family at www.majorericksonfuneralhome.com.
Deb was born on May 18, 1949, in Forest City, Iowa to parents John and Mildred (Chodur) Bauer. She grew up in Wesley, Iowa, and graduated from Bishop Garrigan High School in Algona and later attended NIACC.
Deb worked at Mason City Schools for several years, ran a home daycare, and worked at North Iowa Vocational Center, helping young people with disabilities. Deb was very passionate about helping and caring for children and young adults throughout her life.
Deb enjoyed spending time outdoors, camping, cooking, canning, talking on the phone to family and friends, making ceramics and spending time with her grandsons and family. Most notably, Deb loved her family and she was always willing to help others. Deb was an amazing mother, grandmother, sister, aunt and friend with a heart of gold. She will be dearly missed by those who knew her and loved her.
Deb is survived by her daughter, Bethany (James) Bauer-Tindell; three grandsons, Rowen, Nyles, and Edison; seven siblings, Pamela Rayhons (Gene Strassner), Renee (Kevin) Hendrickson, Jeff (Nancy) Bauer, Jason Bauer, Jarrett “Jerry” Bauer, Sharon “Sherrie” Bauer, and Jovian “Jo” Bauer; nieces and nephews, Jacob (Katie) Mertz, Jason (Dena) Mertz, Adam Mertz, Michelle (Juan) Cangas, Bradley Rayhons, Kevin Rayhons, Crystal Bauer, Weston Woltjer, Nathan Ruppelt, Kellie (James) Dumpert, Sarah (Nick) Ortmeier, Rachel (Jesse) Huston, Jason Hendrickson, Kayla Hendrickson, Andrea, Karina, Isaac, Connor, Annie, Ashlee, Gavin, Landon, Cody, Jase and Chloe.
Deb was preceded in death by her parents, John and Mildred Bauer; and nephew, Matthew Bauer.
Arrangements are with Major Erickson Funeral Home & Crematory, 111 N. Pennsylvania Avenue, Mason City, Iowa 50401, 641-423-0924, www.majorericksonfuneralhome.com.
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/deborah-r-bauer/article_1448921f-8a09-58ef-b6c8-fad4eb9525d7.html
| 2022-05-22T07:52:29
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/deborah-r-bauer/article_1448921f-8a09-58ef-b6c8-fad4eb9525d7.html
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Edward V. Stoffer
October 21, 1920-May 20, 2022
BELMOND-Edward V. Stoffer, 101, of Belmond, passed away on Friday, May 20, 2022 at the Rehabilitation Center of Belmond.
Funeral services for Ed Stoffer will be held at 2:00 PM on Saturday, May 28, 2022 at Ewing Funeral Home, 111 Luick's Lane South in Belmond. Burial will take place in the Belmond Cemetery.
Visitation will be held one hour prior to services at the funeral home on Saturday, May 28, 2022.
Edward Virgil, son of Engelke and Mattie (Schmidt) Stoffer, was born on October 21, 1920 on the farm near Alexander. Ed grew up on the family farm and attended school in Alexander. Ed helped on the farm for a few years after school before going to work at General Mills and Central Soya in Belmond. After working there almost 40 years, Ed retired in 1983.
Ed was united in marriage to Irene Thayer at the United Methodist Church parsonage in Belmond on February 9, 1946. The couple made their home in Belmond where they raised their two children, Douglas and Roxy. They were married for 72 years.
In his younger years, Ed enjoyed playing horseshoes with the men's club. He loved hunting, fishing, and playing cards with his family and friends.
After Ed and Irene retired, they enjoyed traveling around the United States in their motorhome. They spent winters in Las Vegas area for a few years. Ed and Irene loved taking fishing trips to Lake Winnie and Cut Foot Sioux in Minnesota.
Ed is survived by his son Douglas (Shirley) Stoffer of Belmond; daughter Roxy (Leon) Rubendall of Sac City; grandchildren Shelly (Chad) Simm, Cheri (Brian) Hewitt, Angela Fischer, and Clay (Jennifer) Stoffer; and great-grandchildren Jordan Fischer, Makenzie Stoffer, Riley Fischer, Joshua Simm, Brady Hewitt, Caden Stoffer, and Carly Fischer.
He is preceded in death by his wife Irene Stoffer in 2018; parents Engle and Mattie Stoffer; brothers Jacob Stoffer and Lester Stoffer; sisters Anne Ellefson and Arlene Pals; sisters-in-law Bobbi Stoffer, Laura Stoffer, Genevieve Smith, Alberta Middleton, and Dorthea Burka; brothers-in-law Harold Ellefson, Robert Pals, George “Coonie” Smith, Richard Middleton, and John Burka; and parents-in-law Claude and Clara Thayer.
Ewing Funeral Home, 111 Luick's Lane South, Belmond, Iowa 50421, 641-444-3248
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/edward-v-stoffer/article_9070626b-136f-5244-8e9f-0d918be3dd1f.html
| 2022-05-22T07:52:35
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Kail A. Christensen
October 16, 1963-March 5, 2022
Kail A. Christensen, 58, of Avon, CO and recently of Clear Lake, IA passed away Saturday, March 5th, 2022.
A “Celebration of Life” ceremony will be held on Saturday, June 11th for family and friends at the Prime and Wine in Mason City, Iowa starting with a social gathering at 5pm, to be followed by a service and dinner.
Kail Alan Christensen was born on October 16th, 1963 in Cresco, Iowa, the son of Larry A. Christensen and Dorothy “Dot” (Carwell) Cagle. He graduated from Paynesville (MN) High School a semester early and backpacked throughout Germany to learn about his heritage, visiting relatives along the way. He then entered Winona State University where he graduated with a business degree and from there never looked back. After college he made his way to Los Angeles and developed NEWS (National Employment Wire Services) Corp, one of the first online employment service companies which he then sold to fulfil his dream to live in the Mountains. With his move to Avon, Colorado, which he called home till his passing, he became involved with personal fitness and was a successful personal trainer as well as taking on real estate investments in Vail, Co. Kail's hands were never idle, he was constantly on the move, creating the next best thing. Through a lot of research and hard work, Kail went on to create the company Believe, which boomed into a multi-functional fundraising organization, impacting countless lives around the world. Growing up in the Midwest, Kail believed in the honor of a handshake and a man's word, however, through his growth in the business world, he was soon taught differently, but he personally never backed down from that ideal.
With Believe came worldwide travel. His adventures soon became monumental, as he met renowned business people and celebrities all over the globe and was able to study and confer with these many great minds. He was always the problem solver and never let “the box” define his solutions. Kail's mind was always busy, plotting his next move, planning the next investment, and he was never afraid to jump. Kail enrolled and completed a Navy Seal training camp, completed a Dale Carnegie class, always trying to improve himself and gain knowledge. He had a passion for the water and scuba-diving, spending time in Maui, as well as a love for the peaceful backdrop of the mountains and being on the ski slopes of Colorado. He spent time assisting his cousin with a Fox television show called “Pinks,” which placed him on the television at times. Kail also fell in love with Vietnam and the people there, making many special friendships.
Kail's family was his foundation; he looked forward to time spent with his mother and sister, niece and nephews, his father, always making sure that every moment counted creating wonderful memories. He cherished his four legged companion, Yukon Cornelius, who was at his side for many years.
Though our hearts ache, Kail had stated many times “I have lived a full life and have gotten to do all I have wanted to do.” We know that Kail was “bigger than life” and his legacy has just begun.
Those left to cherish his memory are his wife Ginelyn(Mandal) Christensen of Maui, HI, mother, Dorothy “Dot” Cagle of Clear Lake, IA; father , Larry (Marcia) Christensen of Mason City, IA; sister Kim Mitchell (David Haas) of Appleton, MN; beloved niece and nephews, Lane(Rachel) Mitchell, Tosh, Reis, and T.J. Mitchell; uncle, Glenn Carwell, Aunt, Marilee Christensen; as well as numerous extended family members and cherished friends.
Preceding him in death are his grandparents, Russ and Tekla Carwell and Chris and Marjorie Christensen; step-father, Wes Cagle; uncle, Eddie Christensen; aunt, Eileen Carwell.
Ward-Van Slyke Colonial Chapel (641) 357-2193. ColonialChapels.com
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/kail-a-christensen/article_d0f8ad7d-321c-5b77-8121-3efbeb4795a5.html
| 2022-05-22T07:52:41
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/kail-a-christensen/article_d0f8ad7d-321c-5b77-8121-3efbeb4795a5.html
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Larry Richard Reynolds
August 20, 1937-May 11, 2022
MASON CITY-Larry Richard Reynolds, 84, died peacefully on Wednesday, May 11, 2022 in his Mason City, IA home.
A Memorial Service will be held 3:00pm on Monday, June 13, 2022 at Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel, 126 3rd St NE Mason City, IA.
Larry was born on August 20, 1937, the son of William and Selma (Findling) Reynolds of Nashua, IA. He was a graduate of Mason City High School. In 1958 Larry married Marjorie Koester. He served our country during the Vietnam War in the Air Force. Larry was honorably discharged as a flight engineer in November of 1975. He then moved to Mason City and became an Insurance Adjuster at Demay Adjustment, he worked there until his retirement in 1990.
One of his most memorial moments is flying President Kennedy in his aircraft while Airforce One was used as a decoy.
In his free time he enjoyed being a member of the VFW, Freedom Bike Rides, Bowling Hall of Fame, and Antique Car Club. He was a part of the Mason City Gun Club.
Those left to cherish memories of Larry are his children, Eugene (Lori) Reynolds, Lonnie (Tammy) Reynolds, Darin (Laura) Reynolds, and Derek (Susan) Reynolds; ex-spouse, Marjorie; grandchildren, Pia, Gage, Chandler, Anastasia, Brenden, Bryan, Jennifer, Alex and Abby; and six great-grandsons.
Larry is preceded in death by his grandson, Brennen Reynolds, as well as his parents.
Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel 126 3rd St NE Mason City 641-423-2372 ColonialChapels.com
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/larry-richard-reynolds/article_fc814804-d8b2-5e6e-a19f-45bd57f017c6.html
| 2022-05-22T07:52:47
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Lucille Ann Varrelmann
December 18, 1948-May 14, 2022
MASON CITY-Lucille Ann Varrelmann, 73, of Mason City, IA, passed away on Saturday, May 14, 2022, at the Muse Norris Hospice Inpatient Unit. A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday, May 24, 2022, at Major Erickson Funeral Home, 111 N Pennsylvania Ave. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service time. inurnment will be held in the Hampton Cemetery. Online condolences may be left for the family at
Lucille Ann Varrelmann was born on December 18, 1948, in Mason City to parents Elmer and Margaret (Borel) Varrelmann. Lucy grew up north of Latimer on the family farm. She graduated from CAL School in 1968. She was a longtime resident of Mason City where she was employed at Mercy Hospital as a housekeeper. She then attended NIACC and obtained her Nurse's Aide certificate. She worked as a Unit Messenger for Nursing Services until she retired.
Lucy was a member of Holy Family Catholic Church, St. Gregory Circle and Catholic Daughters of America. She enjoyed volunteering and helping others.
She learned to sew at a young age and became an accomplished seamstress. Later she discovered the joy of quilting. Those of who had seen her quilts admired her skill. She belongs to the Quilting Club of Clear Lake and the sewing center at Willowbrook Mall.
Lucy is survived by her many cousins and her roommate Delores Olen.
She was preceded in death by her parents.
Arrangements are with Major Erickson Funeral Home & Crematory, 111 N. Pennsylvania Avenue, Mason City, Iowa 50401, 641-423-0924, www.majorericksonfuneralhome.com.
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/lucille-ann-varrelmann/article_73d842c9-78ce-5b9d-b5d9-b0684400ad48.html
| 2022-05-22T07:52:53
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/lucille-ann-varrelmann/article_73d842c9-78ce-5b9d-b5d9-b0684400ad48.html
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Mary Ann Mott
May 26, 1930-January 29, 2022
Mary Ann Mott, age 91, of Tyler, Minnesota, formerly of Mason City, Iowa, died peacefully surrounded by family members on Saturday, January 29, 2022, at the Avera Sunrise Manor Nursing Home in Tyler. A celebration of life will be held on Thursday, May 26, 2022, at 2:00 PM in the Wayside Chapel of the United Methodist Church, 119 S. Georgia Ave., Mason City, Iowa. In lieu of flowers, family requests any memorials be made to UMC Advance Special Missions #3021586, thru the United Methodist Church in Mason City, Iowa (this mission supports agriculture in Congo, Africa) or to KCMR Radio Station in Mason City, Iowa. Arrangements have been entrusted to the Hartquist Funeral Home – Tyler Chapel. To sign an online registry please visit www.hartquistfuneral.com.
Mary Ann Mott was born to William and Bernetta Burger on May 26, 1930, in Sioux City, Iowa. Mary Ann, her brothers and parents spent many enjoyable days swimming, fishing, and picnicking at Clear Lake and many other North Iowa and Minnesota parks and lakes. She attended Mason City schools, graduating in 1948. She attended college at the University of Iowa and was a very talented artist. She married Martin (John) Faktor August 4, 1950. As a military wife, she traveled throughout the United States and to Morocco, Africa, while raising their five children. They divorced in 1963.
On February 14, 1969, she was united in marriage to Leroy Mott, creating a blended family of Leroy's two adult children and Mary's five school aged children. Leroy was a very loving, patient, kind, caring and generous husband/father. Together they enjoyed square dancing, gardening, camping and fishing with the kids throughout the United States and Canada. There were many great fishing trips.
Mary Ann was a dedicated and loving Caregiver to her parents and husband for many years. Mary Ann loved her music and worked as a DJ at KCMR radio station for 30 years. Mary Ann was diagnosed with Parkinson's/Dementia 2010. She and her family fought and struggled against this brutal disease as she very slowly slipped away. Mary Ann received “her ticket” January 29, 2022, at the age of 91 years, eight months, and three days.
She was an active member of the United Methodist Church and for many years served as a Girl Scout Leader. Mary Ann instilled strong moral values, leading by example, to her children and grandchildren. She kept an immaculate house and was the original minimalist. She was a talented seamstress making many outfits for her children and herself. She had a great sense of humor and quick sarcasm. She was encouraging and supportive of her children's activities, guiding them to become independent, responsible adults.
Mary Ann is survived by her children, Gary (Carolyn) Mott of Mason City, IA, Judy Freed of Te Awamutu, New Zealand, Jo Ann McDougle of Cedar Falls, IA, Rick Faktor of Tacoma, WA, Denise (Denny) Sturges of St. Ansgar, IA, Peggy (Cal) Dunblazier of Tyler, MN, and Jay (Sue) Mott of San Diego, CA; 17 Grandchildren; 39 Great Grandchildren; 3 Great Great Grandchildren; brother, Bernie (Ann) Burger of Orange, CA; former sister-in-law, Mary Dalton of St. Charles , MO; 13 nieces and 8 nephews; and her beloved cat Holly. She was preceded in death by her parents; husband; brother, BJ Burger; sister-in-law, Carol (Babcock) Burger; and great grandchildren, Matthew and Oliver George.
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/mary-ann-mott/article_89739405-6326-51b9-b63a-647ce50de9aa.html
| 2022-05-22T07:53:00
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/mary-ann-mott/article_89739405-6326-51b9-b63a-647ce50de9aa.html
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Michael Walter Walker
May 27, 1941-May 1, 2022
MASON CITY-Michael Walter Walker, 80 of Mason City passed Sunday, May 1, 2022 at MercyOne North Iowa Hospice in Mason City.
Michael Walter Walker was born May 27, 1941 in Chicago, IL son of Arden and Fern (Leggett) Walker. He grew up in Cedar Rapids, earning his GED. Soon after he joined the United States Navy, where he served honorably and was stationed on the Radford, in Hawaii, when they rang in Hawaii as the 50th state. He married JoEllen Rehder and together had three children, Michael “Micky”, Diana and Patrick. Though the couple later divorced, they stayed good friends throughout the years. For many years Michael owned Petroleum Jobbers Supply, which eventually brought him to Mason City. Here he met the love of his life, Jean (Walkner) Tagesen. The couple was married on June 11, 1983 at the family home, and two families became one.
His compassionate, kind hearted, humorous nature will be missed by all who loved him.
He is survived by his beloved wife, Jean; children, Michael “Micky” Walker, Diana Lane and Patrick (Trish Kitzmann) Walker; step-children Michael “Micky” (Dania) Tagesen, Jr. and Amy Rippentrop; grandchildren, Trevor Lane, Caleb Rippentrop and Sofia Tagesen; sisters-in-law, Rouline (Harold) Bergman, Lisa (Chris) Hansen, Carla (Tom) Rhinehart; cherished cousins who taught him how to care for himself and others, especially women: Linda (Jim) Jenkins, Sue Gorman, Eleanore “Tuttie” Wroblewski, and Mary Tschantz; as well as numerous nieces, nephews and other extended family.
Preceding him in death are his parents and a cousin, Michael Gorman.
The family would like to extend their most sincere appreciation to Hospice of North Iowa for their dedication and attention to Michael's care. Especially the Hospice Inpatient nurses, Dr. Sajadian, Rob, Vicky and Kimberly, whose connections became much more like family. Thank you.
Hogan-Bremer-Moore Colonial Chapel. 641-423-2372. ColonialChapels.com
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/michael-walter-walker/article_9389b373-52aa-5867-9410-3de7eb627c82.html
| 2022-05-22T07:53:06
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/michael-walter-walker/article_9389b373-52aa-5867-9410-3de7eb627c82.html
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Richard (Mike/R.A.) Andrew Wold
April 30, 1932-May 11, 2022
Richard (Mike/R.A.) Andrew Wold, 90, of Saint Ansgar passed away on May 11 at the St. Ansgar Good Samaritan Center.
Funeral service will be Saturday, May 28, 2022 at 10:30 a.m. at St. Peter Lutheran Church, Toeterville with Rev. Lance Kittleson officiating. Burial afterward at First Lutheran Cemetery, St. Ansgar. Visitation is scheduled for Friday, May 27 from 5 to 7 p.m. at St. Peter Lutheran Church.
R.A. was born on April 30, 1932 in Osage to Waldo and Mildred (Weber) Wold. He was baptized and confirmed at First Lutheran Church in Saint Ansgar.
In his youth R.A. worked for local farmer, Art Tessman. Following graduation from St. Ansgar High School in 1950, he worked for H.L. McKinley & Sons dealership. In 1952 R.A. enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in San Diego at the Naval Air Station North Island. He served on the USS Kearsarge assault ship. During his military service he obtained the rank of Aviation Metalsmith 2nd Class and worked with the North Island Fire Department. After four years and an honorable discharge, R.A. returned to St. Ansgar and worked with his father in their service station until Waldo's death in August of 1958.
R.A. was united in marriage to Janet Darlene Anderson on September 21,1958 at Mona Lutheran Church. They were blessed with five children: Michael, Kelvin, Ivan, Dana and Sonja.
The couple purchased Wold's Service from his mother in October of 1958. Day or night and regardless of weather, R.A. and Janet always made customers a priority whether it was car repair, towing, farm tire repair or wheel business. Their values and ethics were passed along and continue as their family and dedicated and talented crew of past and current employees have helped grow the business from a local service station to a major manufacturer and distributor of agricultural wheels.
R.A. was proud of his hometown and would love to talk about its history and people. He and Janet were actively involved in many community projects. He was a member of First Lutheran Church, the American Legion and the St. Ansgar Volunteer Fire Department.
R.A. is survived by his wife Janet; three sons Kelvin (Lisa), Ivan (Melinda) and Dana all of St. Ansgar; and daughter Sonja (Scott) of Denver, IA.
He felt blessed to be surrounded by many grandchildren and their families; Toni Kreitzer, Michelle Hills and Jess White (Michael's children); Allison, Ryan, Erika and Abigail Wold (Kelvin's children); Hanna and Sophia Wold (Ivan's children); Courtney Dryer, Michael and Sarah Steege (Sonja's children). He is also survived by seven great grandchildren, his sister Karen Ketelsen of Osage and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by their son Michael; his parents Waldo and Mildred Wold; and his grandparents Margaret and Andrew Wold and George and Mamie Weber.
R.A. was a firm believer in giving back to his community and to those in need. Memorials may be directed to the Wold Family Foundation, PO Box 129, St. Ansgar, IA 50472.
Schroeder Funeral Homes, St. Ansgar, 641-713-4920, www.schroederfuneralhomes.com.
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/richard-mike-r-a-andrew-wold/article_e893ea25-a0b5-530e-a99f-ccaa96a464db.html
| 2022-05-22T07:53:09
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/obituaries/richard-mike-r-a-andrew-wold/article_e893ea25-a0b5-530e-a99f-ccaa96a464db.html
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SEATTLE — Saturday marked the first match of Seattle’s newest men's semi-professional soccer team, Ballard FC. The franchise hopes to make an impact on and off the pitch during their inaugural season, and for seasons to come.
"It's not just a couple of us at Ballard FC, it's businesses, non-profits and fans rallying together to make this truly special," said Sam Zisette, co-founder of Ballard FC.
Zisette is one of the founders of this grass-roots club, that came to be in just the past year. His love for soccer and Ballard runs deep, having graduated from Ballard High School back in 2012.
"I was on this pitch playing for Ballard High School and now fast forward and I'm here helping create Ballard FC and putting on our first match," said Zisette.
Ballard FC's home turf is just south of the Ballard bridge at Interbay Stadium, and if you can't catch a game in person, all you'll have to do is cross the bridge. Thereyou'll find Adam Robbings, the co-owner of Ballard’s own Reuben Brew's, which is the club's main sponsor and will also showcase every Ballard FC game.
“We're in the community, we live in the community, we work in the community, our kids go to school in the community and so it's really important to us to support community organizations,” said Robbings.
Just like the team's slogan, “Up the Bridges,” this club hopes it will lift the spirits of the community and inspire fans to achieve their goals.
"Not just young soccer players, but young community members, to see how generous, how kind and how amazing this community is and for them to be inspire and grow their love the community and ultimately grow their love for soccer," said Zisette.
Saturday's match was sold out with more than a thousand fans in the stands.
The final score against Lane United FC was 5-1 in favor of Ballard FC.
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https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/ballard-fc-founded-by-two-locals-kicks-off-inaugural-usl-league-2-season/281-cd6ebc3f-c164-4825-90ad-91c8f7475a79
| 2022-05-22T08:25:57
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https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/seattle/ballard-fc-founded-by-two-locals-kicks-off-inaugural-usl-league-2-season/281-cd6ebc3f-c164-4825-90ad-91c8f7475a79
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The story of how the small Shelby County city of Sidney landed the biggest foreign commercial investment in Ohio history began with a request for information.
Codenamed “Project Greenleaf,” the effort started with an email from JobsOhio to James Hill, executive director of the Sidney-Shelby Economic Partnership on April 23, 2021. It concerned a site selection consultant representing an anonymous company that needed information on available locations — enough information to fill more than 700 fields in an Excel spreadsheet.
It was the “most in-depth” information request Hill had ever seen.
The consultant wanted the information in six days.
Hill knew that the response to Project Greenleaf had to be complete. Companies can push a proposal aside if questions are left unanswered.
“With a deadline looming like that, you almost have to drop everything off your schedule in order to get it done,” Hill recalled in an interview more than a year after receiving that email. ”That’s part of the business we’re in.”
The company is anonymous no more. Semcorp, a Shanghai, China-based producer of electric vehicle battery components, announced plans this month to invest $916 million in a Sidney manufacturing complex.
With 1,200 workers expected by the year 2025, the facility will make separator film for lithium-ion batteries. Semcorp, the trade name of Yunnan Energy New Material Co., says it is the world’s largest maker of such film, a key component in those batteries.
When the company came calling, Sidney was ready. Its land in a local business park — the Sidney Industrial Park at West Millcreek and Kuther Road — had been “authenticated” through the JobsOhio’s SiteOhio program in 2021.
That authentication meant the land was recognized as “one of the elite sites in Ohio,” shovel-ready and certified “at the highest level,” Hill said. Due diligence had been completed, water, sewer, electric and gas capacity were ready, and there was plenty of land to boot.
Semcorp will purchase about 250 acres, but the initial phase will not require all that acreage.
“That will leave adequate land for future expansions,” Hill said.
Today, JobsOhio has just 20 sites authenticated at that level, said Andrew Bowsher, Sidney city manager.
“Ours just happened to be at the sweet spot of having all the components together,” Bowsher said.
Although all involved were confident, there was probably no single magic moment when those representing Sidney and Ohio knew they had landed Semcorp, which at the time was also considering sites in New York and Texas.
Bowsher and Hill said four or five other prospective users were also exploring the Sidney site, and those companies had their own particular needs, site visits, questions and schedules.
Bowsher called the process “a blur.”
“I think probably for all of us, I think it was almost too good to be true,” he said. “You don’t try to focus on those numbers” of possible new jobs.
There are a number of companies in the electric vehicle sector today searching for sites to start production as soon as possible. Some have been looking at Sidney, Hill and Bowsher said.
“We were confident that one of those deals was going to land, for sure,” Hill said.
But there was a feeling that Semcorp was going to “cross the line first,” he said.
A family business
“Ohio was not on anyone’s radar when we started this,” James Shih, Semcorp group vice president of global projects, told the Dayton Daily News.
Semcorp was founded in the late 1990s by two brothers, Paul Lee and Tony Li. They immigrated to the United States in the late 1980s, settling in rural Port Lavaca, Texas, at a plastics factory. Lee is Shih’s father-in-law.
After a return to China, the brothers’ first battery separator film production site opened in Shanghai in 2010.
Lithium ion battery separator film, one of four primary components in all lithium ion batteries, will be the product at Semcorp’s Sidney plant.
To oversimplify greatly, in lithium ion batteries, ions travel from one electrode to another electrode. The film sits between electrodes, where lithium ions congregate, preventing a short-circuit and possible fires, Shih said.
The film is essentially a thin plastic material.
Customer demand brought Semcorp to Ohio. Its customers want the company to localize supply chains, especially in light of COVID-19 complications, tariffs and overseas supply challenges.
Tariffs alone add more than 30% to Semcorp’s costs.
“It’s a big problem,” Shih said. “That’s why from a financial perspective, it makes sense to build a plant outside of China, so we don’t have to deal with the tariffs.”
Company leaders have discussed an American plant for several years, and site selection started in earnest in the spring of 2021. That’s when Semcorp engaged with a consultant, starting with a list of eight states.
At first, that consultant was in the driver’s seat, Shih said.
The company’s first priorities were shovel-readiness, with utility hook-ups and capacity ready to go. Also a concern: Labor availability, with an ample population of workers able to commute to the plant, as well as a history of and appreciation for manufacturing.
“That actually narrowed down our choices quite a bit,” Shih said.
In Ohio, company leaders were encouraged to see that there were “generations” of people working in manufacturing or supporting the field.
In an interview, Shih dwelled on his 2021 visit to the Upper Valley Career Center in Piqua.
“We were very impressed by all the workshops, all the machinery they have and the way they encouraged kids who might want to work with their hands or who were interested in trade professions,” Shih said. “That was very, very encouraging.
“This is not just something Ohio talks about. They’re actually doing it.”
Jason Haak, superintendent at Upper Valley Career Center, said Semcorp actually asked for two visits.
The fact that the company sought a second visit, “that said that was definitely something that caught their eye.”
Semcorp officials seemed to be interested in where the center’s students live, the fact that the school educates students from Miami and Shelby counties.
They were especially interested in the center’s ability to tailor training to an individual company’s needs.
“I think it shows we have an emphasis on the skilled trades in this area,” Haak said.
Company leaders also spoke with Jeff Liu, a former Fuyao Glass America executive who had overseen Fuyao’s Moraine plant since the fall of 2016. Semcorp introduced Liu earlier this month as the chief executive of its Sidney facility.
Semcorp leaders were familiar with fellow Chinese manufacturer Fuyao and its story, but they wanted to get a better feel for how a big Chinese company operated in this region.
The Sidney plant groundbreaking will happen in late summer or early fall this year.
Feng shui and local incentives
An online meeting with company officials happened early in the process with in-person visits by Semcorp officials in June and December.
“That final visit, I would say that was key,” Bowsher said.
Site geography seemed to work right away.
“They really loved the pond that was in the middle of the site,” Bowsher said . “I think they really saw some feng shui, and I think they saw it as a great amenity, not only for the site but also for their employees.”
Feng shui is the ancient Chinese practice of arranging components or pieces to achieve harmony and balance.
Other factors were at work, including state and local incentives. In 2026, when plant operations are expected to be fully online, Semcorp is set to get a tax credit of up to $1.5 million, Bowsher said.
The company will also receive a 75% tax abatement through Sidney’s citywide enterprise zone for 15 years, and the Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved tax credits in March worth an estimated $22.7 million.
Semcorp’s annual payroll in the first phase of the project is expected to reach $74 million.
An incentives agreement has been approved by Sidney City Schools, Upper Valley Career Center and Sidney City Council. The estimated tax abatement for the company over 15 years is $31,633,875, according to the Sidney Daily News.
The Sidney school district will likely receive about $430,000 per year for 15 years from the project, Bowsher said.
The company will also receive a high water user discount.
About the Author
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https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/how-a-small-town-won-ohios-biggest-foreign-investment/YCQQ2QIF5BBIFKFPB7JACUVI5M/
| 2022-05-22T08:37:28
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https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/how-a-small-town-won-ohios-biggest-foreign-investment/YCQQ2QIF5BBIFKFPB7JACUVI5M/
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After a long pandemic-induced hiatus from live theater, Little Theatre on the Bay presents a USO-style “Tribute to Veterans” Show over Memorial Day weekend at the historic Liberty Theatre in North Bend. The band is led by guitarist Fred Corbett, along with Mark Isenhart, Becky Bell-Greenstreet, Steve Krajcir and Kevin Dean. They will accompany both soloists and a chorus of community singers, ranging in age from late '20s to early '80s, many of whom have participated in this USO show since it started in 2016.
Tap your toes to patriotic and familiar songs from the 1940s, '50s and early '60s. Jill Hayner-Thompson is the emcee of this family-friendly “Tribute to our veterans.”
Director Josie Reid said “this show is styled after the ‘USO Canteens’ which entertained servicemen in World War II. The show has been well received in the past by grateful veterans and their families, and patrons are invited to wear their service caps or jackets emblazoned with their branch of military.” Patriotic songs will feature solos, group numbers, sing-alongs and even a comedy song.
Little Theatre on the Bay wants to recognize its patrons and sponsors for their generous support by offering this show free of charge, as a thank-you to our community and honor all the men and women who serve to protect the country.
This is a “feel good” show which will have you smiling along as the music entertains you on stage. The show dates are May 27 at 7 p.m. and May 28 and 29 at 2 p.m. The doors open one hour prior to the show.
Sponsors include Three Rivers Casino and Resort, Russ Clark State Farm Insurance, Coos Bay Toyota and BnT Promotions.
Tickets can be secured at website: www.thelibertytheatre.org, or at the box office located at 2100 Sherman Avenue, open on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and one hour before show, or call the theater at 541-756-4336.
A hearing loop system has been installed which will help those with hearing loss enjoy the shows and hear dialogue better. The theater also has a new LED lighting system which brightens up the stage.
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/little-theatre-on-the-bay-to-present-free-veterans-show/article_2781a930-d79e-11ec-80db-b7032e84c78a.html
| 2022-05-22T09:32:18
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/little-theatre-on-the-bay-to-present-free-veterans-show/article_2781a930-d79e-11ec-80db-b7032e84c78a.html
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Cedarville University is preparing to roll out a new online master’s degree program that will fill the gaps in theological training for local ministries. The school also will open a new residence hall in the fall.
The new Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree, offered entirely online, is designed to fill the gap between theological seminaries and nontraditional students looking to enter ministry later in life.
“We’ve seen an increase in Protestant churches training pastors in-house,” said Trent Rogers, assistant professor of New Testament and Greek. “It’s not just 18 and 20-year-olds feeling a call to ministry; some have already had a career. But the transition into ministry can be challenging with a traditional seminary model. Churches have tried to meet the need of that, but what some organizations have realized is Cedarville is well-equipped to deliver practical theology training.”
Pending external approval, the program will train ministry leaders in biblical knowledge, theology, and applied skills, including 15 hours of applied ministry training on-site. One track will allow students who are already receiving training in a partnering ministry, while the other is focused on general studies.
“There’s been overwhelming initial interest from prospective students and prospective partners,” Rogers said. “We want to make sure people going into ministry receive good training. But I do think that seminaries and graduate schools need to be thinking strategically in innovative ways in how they might partner with churches to train the next generation of pastors well.”
The private, Christian university has secured commitments totaling $105.4 million as part of the One Thousand Days campaign. The fundraising effort is the largest in the university’s history. Of their $125 million goal, $92.5 million will be used to construct new university facilities, including a welcome center and the $38 million Lorne D. Sharnberg Business Center, expected to break ground this fall.
The Dr. Duane Wood women’s residence hall will house between 108 and 120 women. Located on the west end of the present Johnson and St. Clair residence halls, the residence hall is slated to open in August, and is one of the projects funded through the university’s One Thousand Days campaign.
Wood, a longtime Cedarville administrator and graduate professor, passed away in December 2019. He led the development of Cedarville’s school of engineering and computer science, paved the way for a school of pharmacy, and was instrumental in implementing the industrial and innovative design program, in partnership with the International Center for Creativity in Columbus. He also oversaw Cedarville’s foray into graduate programs.
Cedarville recently completed an expansion to the Callan Athletic Center that houses the developing physician assistant program and the Master of Athletic Training program, including a varsity weight room, meeting space, and athletic department offices.
Cedarville’s 2022 graduating class, 774 undergraduates and 150 graduate students, is a record number for the university.
About the Author
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https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/cedarville-university-to-add-new-masters-degree-residence-hall/R63IMCHYANG45HZMBJ26M3PMWU/
| 2022-05-22T09:39:18
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https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/local/cedarville-university-to-add-new-masters-degree-residence-hall/R63IMCHYANG45HZMBJ26M3PMWU/
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Five questions with ... Lynn Shimko, co-creator of 720 Market
Lynn Shimko is the co-creator and organizer for the local 720 Events (720 Market, Sidestreet MKTS, BAR B*Q MKT). She created the concept with her husband David.
She and her husband live in and have raised their family in North Canton. They have a daughter, Hannah Costanzo, and son-in-law Paul. Hannah is a Kent State University grad working in marketing in Cleveland. Shimko said Hannah is their touch base for all things 720 Market and helps behind the scenes and on market days.
They also have two sons, Kevin, a University of Cincinnati grad who is a software engineer working in Cincinnati area; and Steven, a University of Akron grad and mechanical engineer working in Orrville. Steven helps on the market days.
"We just lost our beloved rescue shepherd mix Buddy one year ago," Shimko said. "But we do enjoy grand puppies and grand kitties.”
Lynn and David Shimko are graduates of Jackson High School. She also has a bachelor's degree in graphic design from Kent State University with minor studies in printmaking and drawing.
More:Five questions with ... Megan Conkle, director of housing at YWCA of Canton
"I started my career working as an art director and graphic designer at ad agencies and moved on to starting my own freelance graphic design business (in home studio) to be a stay-at-home-working mom," Shimko said.
The idea for 720 Market started in 2015 during a drive to Cincinnati.
"We are always brainstorming the 'next great project' and were considering taking some of our own creative works to sell in art shows," she said. "The more we talked, we decided that there really wasn’t 'that place' around for the type of event we would want to sell at. We also visit public markets in our travels and made plans for the dream market that we would want to attend.
"We were aware of all the North Canton city lots sitting empty on weekends and started pitching our idea around town. The name came from North Canton’s unique ZIP code (44720)."
More:Five questions with ... Denny Ray, who builds ponds and keeps the geese away
Describe your vision for the 720 Market since its inception?
Noticing a need for a creative, arts-driven community event in our town, our vision was to showcase artists and local businesses as part of a unique guest experience. We knew the marketing would be important and came up with creative branding for the event incorporating the unique 720 name and tag lines: "an open-air, city affair" featuring "makers, bakers, brewers and growers."
The plan to move from place to place was also important to us. We wanted to showcase the venues as much as the small businesses. The idea was "acting like a tourist in your own backyard" seeing places in a new way. This led to our "a destination market" branding.
Local brewers (coffee and craft beer), food trucks and live music were also important to our vision and the vibe we were looking for.
What does it mean to you personally to be able to help so many small business owners, artists, craftsmen and makers?
We are proud of the work of the 720. We have so many vendor stories from 720. Many businesses had their startup with us, many have grown to brick and mortars, as well.
Some have grown to sell on the national scale. 720 also helps local businesses at places we set up. Visitors will stop in on market day and also make plans to return to places they didn't know were there. Our 720 "Sidestreet MKTS" at Oakwood Square is another great example of that.
We work with really great and talented people. We always tell our vendors that they make 720 look so good.
What has surprised you the most about all of the people you have met through the markets?
We are always amazed at the motivation and drive of our vendors — what it takes to do what they do every weekend. The talent for their product and display; creating mobile stores with their brand. Being friendly and engaging with others is also a big part of what they do and what our guests look forward to each market.
No surprise, but we also have met the nicest guests at our events. We are always approached and thanked for "bringing something like this to the community."
Over and over, we hear from vendors (many travel here from Cleveland or Columbus while others live right down the street) that we have the nicest guests and that the 720 has the best vibe. It's a fun place to be a vendor.
How do you find time to relax with family and friends?
Many of our family and friends are volunteers on market day. They see the work that goes into our events, but they also know we work hard and play harder.
Relaxing activities for us include exploring Ohio and neighboring states for weekend getaways or day trips. Hiking and biking trails. Visiting breweries, museums and checking out local art.
We enjoy whatever makes an area unique. Also enjoy year-round tennis, gardening and our summer patio.
What are two or three things about you that might surprise people?
One is that I have owned my own graphic design business for over 28 years (ShimkoDesign). Work has included: branding and design for all 91 Restaurant Group concepts, packaging for Harry London Chocolates, design support for Pro Football Hall of Fame, Allen Schulman & Associates, Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce, Rea CPA to name a few.
Two is that the 720 Market is a two-person operation with lots of help from family and friends on market day. It is sometimes perceived as a large organization rather than the small local family business it is.
Three is that Dave and I have been recruited by ArtsInStark to plan, organize and re-brand First Fridays in Downtown Canton for 2022. Keep watching!
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/2022/05/22/lynn-shimko-co-created-720-market-stark-county-five-questions-with/9733849002/
| 2022-05-22T10:29:39
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Refuge of Hope resumes full services, adds Community Care Center
CANTON – Refuge of Hope, a ministry that provides free hot meals to the public and an emergency shelter for homeless men, has added a Community Care Center and new partners to expand its services.
The new center enables Refuge of Hope to provide additional services, including a clothing ministry where people are able to select seasonal clothing, personal hygiene items, linens and small household items.
More:Refuge of Hope expanding site, services
“We are exceedingly thankful to our many generous donors who helped make Refuge of Hope’s dream of a second facility, the Community Care Center, become a reality," said ministry CEO Dwayne Wykoff.
Prior to the pandemic, the ministry at 715 Second St. NE served eight hot meals a week in its 165-seat dining area and housed 35 men at its newest facility, which opened in 2019.
At the height of the pandemic, brown-bag meals were distributed on a carryout basis. The ministry's 300 volunteers weren't permitted in the building.
"We are now open to accept donations and our clothing giveaway is serving the public," said Jo Ann Carpenter, director of development.
Urban Ark, founded by the former Trinity Lutheran Church, has moved into the building and is combining a Tuesday lunch, food pantry and clothing giveaway starting May 31.
Beginning June 8, First Lutheran Church, which served lunch two Wednesdays a month, will move those meals to the Refuge of Hope. This will enable the ministry to provide an additional two to three lunches a month.
Carpenter said the new arrangement will help close the meal gap caused by the closing of Canton Calvary Mission earlier this year.
Also in June, Refuge of Hope will open its medical clinic, LifeCare for the Insured and Faithful Servants, to serve the uninsured. The ministry currently operates a smaller clinic that includes telemedicine services.
"Our goal is to provide a dignified atmosphere where men, women, and children will have a variety of options from which to choose," Wykoff said. "Like all other services provided by Refuge of Hope, all clothing and other items are all free."
Refuge of Hope will host a grand opening and tour on June 20 during the lunch hour. To learn more call 330-453-1785, or visit https://www.refugeofhope.org/ or on Facebook.
Reach Charita at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com
On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
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https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2022/05/22/new-center-enables-canton-homeless-shelter-offer-more-services/9812000002/
| 2022-05-22T10:29:45
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https://www.cantonrep.com/story/news/local/canton/2022/05/22/new-center-enables-canton-homeless-shelter-offer-more-services/9812000002/
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Wichita Falls police investigate city's second homicide of the weekend
Police discovered a gunshot victim early Sunday morning and began investigating the city’s second homicide of the weekend
According to WFPD crimes against persons detective Sgt. Brian Sheehan:
Shortly after 2 a.m. first responders and police answered a medical call in the 1000 block of Covington Street. They found a man in a pickup dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the chest.
The truck was found partially parked in a driveway and yard. Police are interviewing possible witnesses and have a warrant to search the area where the truck was found. Sheehan said they know who the victim is but are waiting until the next of kin is notified before they release his name. The victim’s body will be sent for autopsy.
This is the second homicide this weekend. According to a previous Times Record News report, shortly after noon Saturday, police responded to a check welfare call on Brown Street where they found 23-year-old Zachary Wood murdered.
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https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/05/22/wichita-falls-police-investigate-citys-second-homicide-weekend/9882796002/
| 2022-05-22T10:33:59
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https://www.timesrecordnews.com/story/news/local/2022/05/22/wichita-falls-police-investigate-citys-second-homicide-weekend/9882796002/
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Votes in the U.S. House
HR 7688: Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act
Voting 217 for and 207 against, the House on Thursday passed a bill to protect consumers from price-gouging of consumer fuels, and for other purposes.
Yes: Madeleine Dean, D-4th (Montgomery, parts of Berks); Susan Wild, D-7th (Lehigh, Northampton, parts of Monroe); Matt Cartwright, D-8th (most of Monroe)
No: Brian Fitzpatrick, R-1st (Bucks, parts of Montgomery and Philadelphia)Dan Meuser, R-9th (Schuylkill, parts of Carbon and Berks).
S2102: SERVICE Act of 2021
Voting 418 for and 0 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that expands eligibility for Veterans Health Administration mammography screenings to veterans who served in certain locations during specified periods, including those who were exposed to toxic substances at such locations.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
S2533: Making Advances in Mammography and Medical Options for Veterans Act
Voting 419 for and 0 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that addresses the Department of Veterans Affairs provision of mammograms and breast cancer treatment.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
S4089: Veterans Rapid Retraining Assistance Program Restoration and Recovery Act of 2022
Voting 401 for and 17 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that prohibits the Department of Veterans Affairs from charging any entitlement to retraining assistance under the Veteran Rapid Retraining Assistance Program in situations where an individual was unable to complete a course or program as a result of the closure of an educational institution or the disapproval of a program by the state approving agency or the VA.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 2724: VA Peer Support Enhancement for MST Survivors Act
Voting 420 for and 0 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that each individual who files a claim relating to military sexual trauma is assigned a peer support specialist during the claims process, unless the individual elects to not have such support.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6943: Public Safety Officer Support Act of 2022
Voting 402 for and 17 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that extends death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits Program to certain public safety officers and survivors of public safety officers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or acute stress disorder following a stressful situation while on duty.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 2992: TBI and PTSD Law Enforcement Training Act
Voting 400 for and 21 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that requires the Bureau of Justice Assistance to consult with relevant agencies to establish crisis intervention training tools for first responders.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 350: Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022
Voting 222 for and 203 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that establishes new requirements to expand the availability of information on domestic terrorism, as well as the relationship between domestic terrorism and hate crimes.
Yes: Dean, Wild, Cartwright
No: Fitzpatrick, Meuser
HR 7790: Infant Formula Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022
Voting 202 for and 218 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that provides $28 million in emergency supplemental appropriations to address the shortage of infant formula in the United States.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright
No: Meuser
HR 7791: Access to Baby Formula Act of 2022
Voting 414 for and 9 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that authorizes the Department of Agriculture to take certain actions to address emergencies, disasters, and supply chain disruptions (particularly the shortage of infant formula in the United States) affecting participants of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6064: Military sexual trauma: Voting 414 for and 2 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to seek to enter into an agreement with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct a comprehensive review of VA medical examinations provided to individuals who submit claims for compensation for a service-connected disability related to military sexual trauma.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6961: Dignity for MST Survivors Act
Voting 405 for and 12 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that modifies communications and procedures for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Board of Veterans’ Appeals regarding claims for compensation based on military sexual trauma experienced by veterans.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 7335: MST Claims Coordination Act
Voting 417 for and 0 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that modifies the Department of Veterans Affairs claims process for claims related to military sexual trauma.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 5738: Lactation Spaces for Veteran Moms Act
Voting 420 for and 0 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that requires the Department of Veterans Affairs to ensure that each of its medical centers contains a hygienic lactation space that is not a bathroom and meets other specifications (e.g., must be easy to locate).
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HRes.1125: Condemning rising antisemitism.
Voting 420 for and 1 against, the House on Wednesday passed a resolution that calls on elected officials, faith leaders, and civil society leaders to condemn anti-Semitism in all forms. It also calls for renewed efforts to combat anti-Semitism domestically, globally, and online.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6531: Targeting Resources to Communities in Need Act of 2022
Voting 258 for and 165 against the House on Wednesday passed a bill that addresses funding for areas of persistent poverty.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright,
No: Meuser
HR 6376: Student Veteran Work Study Modernization Act
Voting 370 for and 43 against, the House on Wednesday passed a bill that expands eligibility for a Department of Veterans Affairs work-study allowance to individuals who are pursuing programs of rehabilitation, education, or training on at least a half-time basis.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
S2687: Strengthening Oversight for Veterans Act of 2021
Voting 404 for and 6 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that gives the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General the authority to subpoena the attendance and testimony of witnesses as necessary to carry out the duties of the office.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6604: Veterans Eligible to Transfer School (VETS) Credit Act
Voting 412 for and 1 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that addresses eligibility for Department of Veterans Affairs educational assistance for individuals who are transferring credits due to the closure or disapproval of a program of education.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 5754: Patient Advocate Tracker Act
Voting 411 for and 1 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that requires the Office of Patient Advocacy within the Veterans Health Administration to establish an information technology system that allows veterans or their representatives to electronically file a complaint with a patient advocate and review the status of a filed complaint.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 7500: Fiscal Year 2022 Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Authorization Act
Voting 402 for and 2 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that authorizes the Department of Veterans Affairs to carry out specified major medical facility projects during FY2022. The bill also indicates the maximum amount that can be spent on each project.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6868: Cybersecurity Grants for Schools Act of 2022
Voting 383 for and 30 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that allows the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to award grants or other financial assistance for cybersecurity and infrastructure security education and training programs at the elementary and secondary education levels.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 6873: Bombing Prevention Act of 2022
Voting 388 for and 26 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that establishes within the Department of Homeland Security an Office for Bombing Prevention. The office shall advise DHS on matters related to terrorist explosive threats and attacks in the United States, coordinate DHS efforts to counter such threats and attacks, and take other specified steps, including promoting security awareness.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
S2520: State and Local Government Cybersecurity Act of 2021
Voting 404 for and 14 against, the House on Tuesday passed a bill that provides for collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and state, local, tribal, and territorial governments, as well as corporations, associations, and the general public, regarding cybersecurity.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright, Meuser
HR 7309: Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2022
Voting 220 for and 196 against, the House passed a bill to reauthorize the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright,
No: Meuser
HR 5658: DHS Roles and Responsibilities in Cyber Space Act
Voting 313 for and 105 against, the House on Monday passed a bill that requires the Department of Homeland Security to report on its roles and responsibilities, as well as those of its components, for responding to cyber incidents. DHS must coordinate with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on the report.
Yes: Fitzpatrick, Dean, Wild, Cartwright,
No: Meuser
VOTES IN THE U.S. SENATE
HR 7691: Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2022
Voting 86 for and 11 against, the Senate on Thursday passed a bill that provides $40.1 billion in FY2022 emergency supplemental appropriations for activities to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The bill provides appropriations to several federal departments and agencies.
Yes: Bob Casey, D; Pat Toomey, R
Christopher Joseph Lowman, Department of Defense
Voting 94 for and 1 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Christopher Joseph Lowman, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Yes: Casey, Toomey
Sunshine Suzanne Sykes, The Judiciary
Voting 51 for and 45 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Sunshine Suzanne Sykes, of California, to be United States District Judge for the Central District of California.
Yes: Casey
No: Toomey
Trina L. Thompson, The Judiciary
Voting 51 for and 44 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Trina L. Thompson, of California, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of California.
Yes: Casey
No: Toomey
Elizabeth Schoff Watson , Department of Labor
Voting 50 of and 45 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Elizabeth Schoff Watson, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Secretary of Labor.
Yes: Casey
No: Toomey
Barbara A. Leaf, Department of State
First Call
Voting 54 for and 44 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Barbara A. Leaf, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Near Eastern Affairs).
Yes: Casey
No: Toomey
Jennifer Louise Rochon, The Judiciary
Voting 51 for and 47 against, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Jennifer Louise Rochon, of New York, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, vice George B. Daniels, retired.
Yes: Casey
No: Toomey
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-how-they-voted-0522-20220522-7dk24ut7qbg6nbz25wvana7xpq-story.html
| 2022-05-22T10:44:33
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-how-they-voted-0522-20220522-7dk24ut7qbg6nbz25wvana7xpq-story.html
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Nurses OK strike; Drag Queen Story Hour a big hit at Taunton library: Our 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 this past week was about nearly 400 nurses and healthcare professionals at Morton Hospital voting overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if administrators refuse "to bargain over issues that currently affect their ability to deliver the best possible care to patients."
Other top stories included:
The Taunton Daily Gazette All-Scholastics swim team, represented by outstanding athletes from around Greater Taunton, including Bridgewater Raynham's Jessie McNeil, who was the swimmer of the year. Meet the entire team, right here.
As the real estate market remains competitive around Taunton and beyond, the top-selling homes in our area continue to come with big price tags. In the latest Greater Taunton real estate report, good-sized homes in two of Taunton's relatively new developments recently sold for close to $700,000 each. Check out those properties, as well as all of the other recent top-sellers.
These were the Top 5 stories of the past week, according to Gazette readers:
'The nurses have had it': Morton Hospital healthcare workers authorize three-day strike
Nurses and healthcare professionals at Morton Hospital voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, should negotiations with Steward deteriorate.
Massachusetts Nurses Association communications director David Schildmeier said the healthcare workers' strike authorization on May 11 empowers their union's negotiating committee to "achieve a fair settlement."
"The goal here is not to strike..," he said. "There was a 98% vote for the strike authorization. The nurses have had it."
Gazette Reporter Ed Baker has the story here.
'The nurses have had it':Morton Hospital healthcare workers authorize three-day strike
Taunton woman charged in ‘unprovoked stabbing’ near Morton Hospital declared fit for trial
A pre-trial hearing will be held at Taunton District Court on June 22 for a woman charged with an "unprovoked stabbing" of a Morton Hospital employee on Sept. 21, 2021.
Taunton District Court Judge Michael Brennan ruled on April 20 that Victoria Disharoon, 28, of Taunton, is “competent to go on trial,” following a seven-month competency and criminal responsibility evaluation.
The latest trial updates, and an examination of the incident, can be found here.
Pre-trial hearing set:Woman charged in ‘unprovoked stabbing’ near Morton Hospital declared fit for trial
Suspect in homophobic attack on Taunton man cleared
Michael Lee Cates, of Brockton, the lead suspect in a homophobic attack against a Taunton man, who had been charged with assault and battery with serious bodily injury, assault and battery with intent to intimidate, and a civil rights violation, was found not guilty by a jury.
All three charges stemmed from a June 29, 2020, incident where the victim, Tom Anderson, while outside the front of his home on Danforth Street with his husband, Jacob, was violently attacked by an assailant.
Gazette Reporter Daniel Schemer examines how the case played out in court.
Jury delivers verdict:Suspect in homophobic attack on Taunton man cleared — how the case played out in court
First-ever Drag Queen Story Hour a 'resounding success' at Taunton Public Library
The Taunton Public Library recently held its first ever Drag Queen Story Hour, and it was a big hit.
Families filled the lower auditorium of the library for the event, and drag queen Monica Moore read three stories to the kids, all about diversity, inclusion, and individuality.
The event was such a success that there will be more like it in the future.
A hit with local families:First-ever Drag Queen Story Hour a 'resounding success' at Taunton Public Library
Ex-Taunton mayor Robert Nunes retiring after 40 years in government
Robert Nunes, town manager of Middleboro since 2014 and Taunton's longest-tenured mayor, has announced that he will be retiring later this year, after a 40-year career in government.
He looks at his tenure in Middleboro as "mission accomplished" and feels that the time is right to retire.
Recently, he spoke with the Gazette about his decision, and reflected on his years of public service.
'Mission accomplished':Ex-Taunton mayor Robert Nunes retiring after 40 years in government
Taunton Daily Gazette/Herald News 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/2022/05/22/taunton-top-news-stories-nurse-strike-drag-queen-story-hour/9858263002/
| 2022-05-22T10:52:01
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https://www.tauntongazette.com/story/news/local/2022/05/22/taunton-top-news-stories-nurse-strike-drag-queen-story-hour/9858263002/
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LeRoy High School LEROY — LeRoy High School graduation will be at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22.
Students with summa cum laude honors include Tyler Carlson, Jasmine Conn, Porter Conn, Paige Cooper, Calvin Crawford, Madison Hamilton, Carson Houser, Brayden Mara, Haden McKenzie, Gavin Melton, Kelsey Nava, Luke Stuepfert, Callie Warlow and Matt Williamson. Students with magna cum laude honors include Amelia Creech, Karlee Eastham, Tanner Holoch, Ian Johnson, Nick Payne and Alex Stuepfert.
Logan Ashworth, Tyler Carlson, Brian Clapp, Joshua Coe Jr., Devyn Collier, Jasmine Conn, Porter Conn, Paige Cooper, Nicholas Cornwell, Calvin Crawford, Amelia Creech, Zoey Dodge, Karlee Eastham
Kathryn Garee, Macy Gerth, Kamryn Graves, Kelsey Graves, Madison Hamilton, Brody Hanafin, Tanner Holoch, Carson Houser, Ian Johnson, Michael Kennedy
Brady Lamont, Walker Lee, Mark Lohnes, Brayden Mara, Haden McKenzie, Gavin Melton, Jillian Mohr, Kylie Mullis, Kelsey Nava, Jacob Oliver, Nicholas Payne, Eliza Pinjolli
Jada Reynolds, Blake Roundtree, Donovan Satchwell, Ronald Smith, Gavin Storm, Alexander Stueperft, Luke Stueperft, Abigail Toohill, Kathryn Toohill, Thomas Toohill, Jaide Umstattd, Callie Warlow and Matthew Williamson.
Photos: 'American Idol' finalist Leah Marlene returns to Normal for concert, parade
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene reacts to the crowd at a parade in her honor Tuesday, May, 17, 2022, in uptown Normal.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene waves to the crowd at a parade in her honor Tuesday, May, 17, 2022, in uptown Normal.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene is honored with a proclamation from Normal Mayor Chris Koos, who declared May 17, 2022, to be "Leah Marlene Day" for the town.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
A crowd gathers for "American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene's concert Tuesday, May 17, 2022, in uptown Normal.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
The crowd reacts to "American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene during her concert Tuesday, May 17, 2022, in uptown Normal.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
The crowd reacts to "American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene during her concert Tuesday, May 17, 2022, in uptown Normal.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
Leah Marlene waves to the crowd after Normal Mayor Chris Koos declared Leah Marlene Day on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
The crowd reacts to "American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene at her concert Tuesday, May 17, 2022, in uptown Normal.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
Leah Marlene performs during a concert in uptown Normal on Tuesday, May 17, 2022, as part of filming for "American Idol," where she is competing against two other finalists for the top spot.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene looks at the audience who gathered in uptown Normal to watch her being honored by Normal Mayor Chris Koos on Tuesday, May 17, 2022.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene appeared in uptown Normal on Tuesday for a parade and free concert.
CLAY JACKSON, THE PANTAGRAPH
Leah Marlene plays for a live audience Tuesday night at a free concert in Uptown Normal just two days after she became one of the top 3 performers in this season's American Idol contest.
Brendan Denison
From left, Paula and Eva Williamson and Jackie Reese, all of Tilton, hold up signs expressing their support for Leah Marlene before a free concert Tuesday in Normal.
Brendan Denison
Crowds fill North Street in Uptown Normal Tuesday evening for a free Leah Marlene homecoming concert.
Brendan Denison
Hannah Hinthorn, 12, of Bloomington holds a sign asking for "American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene's signature with Linda Jackson, right, before Marlene's concert Tuesday in Normal.
Brendan Denison
Livi Blade, 10, of Bloomington, left, and family friend Nicki Green pose for a photo in advance of Leah Marlene's parade and concert Tuesday in Normal.
Brendan Denison
"American Idol" finalist Leah Marlene, right, takes in the crowd on Tuesday before Normal Mayor Chris Koos, left, officially declares Tuesday, May 17, 2022, to be Leah Marlene Day following a parade in uptown Normal.
Brendan Denison
From left, Jeremy, Jennifer and Julia Rady brush up on coverage of Leah Marlene's homecoming plans in Tuesday's Pantagraph prior to Marlene's appearance at Uptown Circle in Normal. The trio traveled from Mukwonago, Wisconsin, on Tuesday to see Marlene's free show.
Brendan Denison
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| 2022-05-22T12:22:33
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/several-killed-in-night-of-gun-violence-in-philadelphia/3247185/
| 2022-05-22T12:31:30
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In 2019, there were over 70,000 water rescues, according to the United States Lifesaving Association, and the waters of Clear Lake were no exception.
The Clear Lake Fire Department responds to roughly 10 water and ice rescues a year, between falling into the water, boat collisions and other incidents.
In responding to such incidents, the department adheres to a strict protocol in order to best protect the safety of the victim as well as the safety of the responders. As part of their training, all department volunteers receive basic water rescue instruction, while about three-fourths of the group get more intensive training.
After an incident is reported, the Clear Lake firefighters receive dispatch messages describing the location and situation on their pagers. The volunteers rush to the station and determine who, if needed, will get into the water.
Upon arrival, the fire department questions witnesses to try to best determine the exact last-seen location; they sometimes rely on the police department to resolve this for them.
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“The challenge is sometimes people’s ability to judge distances over water; most of the time, they think they are a lot closer than they really are,” said Fire Chief Doug Meyers. “It’s critical for a first responder to know ‘this is where they went in the water, and ‘this is where we lost sight of them,’” said Captain Jim Finstad. Even determining where the incident occurred in correlation to objects and buildings onshore can prove essential for a rescue.
According to Iowa boating laws, every boat must have a throwable life jacket. Finstad expresses the importance of throwing one to someone who has gone overboard and wearing a lifejacket if out on the water by oneself. “If you’re wearing a lifejacket, a lot of the problems go away by themselves,” Finstad said.
Every rescue requires a minimum of four to six firefighters, and everyone has a distinct role. One individual is assigned as the driver, both on the road and the water or ice. And the remaining crew members are explicitly designated for getting into the water or onto the ice. Incident commanders oversee the entire rescue to ensure the crew’s safety and use of proper techniques.
In the winter, the designated water rescuers wear cold-water emersion suits. These are heavy, buoyant, water-proof nylon suits with a thermal liner including built-in gloves, boots and hoods for protection. The suits also feature reflective trim, useful for night rescues, and a harness to tether a rope to.
When the rescue team reaches the victim(s), their first step is to help talk the person through getting out of the water by themselves. If this does not work, then the next step would is to try to get them out through the use of rope. The last option is for a rescuer to enter the water to save the victim.
Meyers noted the safety of the rescuers is also important, which is why entering the water is the last thing they do.
According to Meyers, if a victim has already been in the winter water for 20-30 minutes upon the rescue team’s arrival, they will likely have to get into the water to save them immediately.
Responders who do not get into the water stay on the lookout for additional victims, to better direct water rescuers to their location. They also gather additional gear needed for the next set of rescuers to take.
Depending on the time of year, once the victim is out of the water, the rescue team uses flat-bottom boats, sleds or ATVs to get them to shore to be treated by EMS.
With winter just behind us and the summer creeping up, Meyers reflected on some year-round safety tips for those planning to head to the water or ice.
For ice activities, Meyers reminds people that ice conditions are constantly changing and that a snowmobiling path may be acceptable one day but dangerous the next. “Ice conditions change daily,” Meyers said. “Everybody thinks, ‘20 degrees out, the ice is fine,’ well that’s not always the case.” He suggests talking to local ice fishers about the conditions and bringing equipment along when going on the ice, including a phone, flotation device and ice picks.
Those who fall into the water must stay as calm as possible and get to the ice's edge. Once at the border, one should drive ice picks into the ice while kicking their feet to hoist themselves out. Meyers claims that standing up as soon as one gets out of the water can cause one to fall back into the water or break through the ice. Instead, one should roll on their side away from the edge until they are about 20 feet away before standing up. Then they need to quickly get to shore and remove their wet clothes before hypothermia sets in.
Meyers recommends learning how to swim well and always letting someone else know where they will be. If someone should witnesses a person fall into the water, it is important not to dive in after them, but to be a calm resource to coach them out of the water. They should look for objects the victim can grab onto and remind them to kick their feet. Staying calm is key.
Kaylee Schuermann is a reporter for the Globe Gazette, covering community interest stories in Clear Lake, Garner and Forest City. Follow her on Twitter: @KPSchuermann
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/all-things-water-safety-clear-lake-fire-department-offers-insight/article_6fd3b117-516f-57ea-83e4-50e3bf47ebc0.html
| 2022-05-22T12:35:38
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https://globegazette.com/news/local/all-things-water-safety-clear-lake-fire-department-offers-insight/article_6fd3b117-516f-57ea-83e4-50e3bf47ebc0.html
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U.S. Senator Ron Wyden this week joined colleagues from both parties in urging federal officials to establish a special pay rate for federal wildland firefighters in Oregon and nationwide that would address urgent staffing shortages in the wildland firefighting workforce.
“As the 2022 fire season begins, we urge you to take necessary steps to avert critical staffing shortages in the wildland firefighting workforce,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter to Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Office of Personnel Management Director Kiran Ahuja. “By using existing authority to establish a special pay rate for federal wildland firefighters, we can directly address the recruitment and retention crisis, and ensure that the pending “wildland firefighter” occupational series reflects the professional capabilities of our wildland firefighters.”
The lawmakers’ May 10 letter noted how years of low pay and other issues have hollowed out the federal wildland firefighting workforce to the point that fire officials last year could not fill an unprecedented 1,800 interagency requests for wildland firefighting crews, and more than 1,900 requests for fire engines.
“This is an urgent threat to natural resources, public safety, and taxpayer dollars, as the Federal Government pays a premium to contract and borrow firefighting resources from state and local authorities when federal resources are unavailable,” they wrote. “The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must use its authority to stop further attrition in the wildland firefighting workforce. OPM has the authority for special pay rates to address staffing problems caused by significantly higher non-Federal pay rates, the remoteness of the area or location involved, the undesirability of the working conditions or nature of the work involved, and any other circumstances OPM considers appropriate. All these criteria appear applicable in this case.”
In addition to Wyden, other senators signing the bipartisan letter led by U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) are U.S. Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), Jon Tester (D-MT), Steve Daines (R-MT), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Alex Padilla (D-CA), James E. Risch (R-ID), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Jackie Rosen (D-NV), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Mitt Romney (R-UT). Thirteen House lawmakers also signed the letter.
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It wasn’t an assignment the flight crews at the Navy Fighter Weapons School were expecting.
For many in the close-knit community of pilots and radar intercept officers, it was something they would normally scoff at.
But with the blessing of the Chief of Naval Operations, a movie was being made about the hot-shot aviators of Fightertown USA, and someone needed to take a young actor named Tom Cruise out on the town and tell him what Top Gun was all about.
The mission fell to Lt. Walter E. Carter Jr., known to his fellow naval aviators as Slapshot, and Bob Schrader, another radar intercept officer — “backseaters” on the F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats flown by the best of the best.
“I was the low man on the totem pole,” said Slapshot, now known as University of Nebraska President Ted Carter, “so they said ‘Go out and meet Tom Cruise, get him really drunk, and then we’re going to throw him in the swimming pool the next day so we can show him how hard this is.'"
University of Nebraska President Ted Carter (left), an alum of the U.S. Naval Academy, also graduated from Navy Fighter Weapons School, which is what the movie "Top Gun" was based on.
COURTESY PHOTO
So Carter, who had arrived in Miramar, California, in February 1985 after a deployment on the USS Midway in the Sea of Japan, did as he was ordered, taking the Hollywood superstar to the bar with the goal of plying him with booze.
But Cruise, who was emerging as a bankable star and would go on to become one of the most recognizable people in the world, was nothing like Carter expected.
He was a “nice guy, not cocky at all,” Carter said in a Zoom interview last week, and was interested in “what we do and why we do it, why we love doing it and why we didn’t get paid more.
“Then, he jumped in the pool the next day and did great,” added Carter. “He did fine all the way through.”
The conversation came at the early stages of production for the movie that would become “Top Gun,” a box office smash — it was the highest-grossing movie of 1986 when it was released — and a pop culture mainstay for decades.
A long-awaited sequel — "Top Gun: Maverick" — will debut in theaters Tuesday, and begin showing on screens Friday in Lincoln.
Carter said while fictional, the original movie captured the speed and intensity of flying an F-14 Tomcat, as well as the swagger of the kind of people who willingly hop into a cockpit and put their lives on the line.
The attitudes of the flight crews as depicted in the movie are real, Carter said, and worn like armor by the real pilots and backseaters against the inherent risks and dangers of flying jets.
Other details that made it into the movie also show the work done by the actors and others involved, he added.
“The idea of having your mask off when you’re flying, how to walk in your flight gear, how to carry your flight bag,” Carter explained, “they spent hours teaching the actors how to do that, and they got it right. That part was exactly spot-on.”
Carter’s own path to Top Gun — a story he seldom speaks about publicly — involves a flight that itself could have been a scene in the movie.
At the height of the Cold War, as a 24-year-old radar intercept officer, or RIO, in charge of weapon systems and radar, Carter flew missions to intercept Soviet airplanes to ensure they weren’t on attack runs against the Midway, a U.S. aircraft carrier, off the coast of Japan.
University of Nebraska President Ted Carter spent five weeks training at Navy Fighter Weapons School, also known by its nickname Top Gun.
COURTESY PHOTO
“I was in the backseat of an F-4 Phantom being flown by a Vietnam-era fighter pilot named (Lt. Commander) Vance Toalson — his call sign was Steamer,” Carter said.
The plane and the aircraft carrier were fine, but the choppy waters in the Sea of Japan were causing the Midway to pitch 30 feet up and down, creating all but impossible landing conditions.
“We went around 13 times trying to land,” Carter said. “We refueled four times with the airborne tankers. If we wouldn’t have landed the 13th time, we would have ejected because we were out of fuel.”
On their final run, the Phantom and the Midway synchronized and Steamer put the fighter onto the deck and into the arresting gear to bring it to a stop.
Carter jumped out of the plane excited: “This is the coolest thing ever,” he recalled, but Toalson, a veteran aviator, was shook by the experience.
Over “medicinal whiskey” in the ready room with high-ranking officers, Toalson told Carter he thought the pair were close to having to eject into the frigid waters and wait to be fished out by a helicopter.
“‘Kid, we could have died,’” Carter remembers Toalson telling him. But Carter’s cool nature under a stressful situation had earned the veteran aviator’s respect, and he recommended the squadron send Slapshot to Top Gun.
University of Nebraska President Ted Carter (right) graduated from Navy Fighter Weapons School, which is what the cult classic "Top Gun" was based on.
COURTESY PHOTO
Four months later, in February 1985, Carter was in San Diego, learning how to engage in air-to-air combat in an intensive program that required twice-daily flights, plus hours of pre-briefings and debriefs, classes and homework.
Carter said the most valuable experience imparted at Top Gun during the five-week course, where he flew with Lt. Rory “Wily” Banks, was the importance of teaching and learning, which changed the trajectory of his life.
There’s no Top Gun trophy, per se — another layer of conflict invented by Hollywood for the movie — but instructors select a student to brief for a final exercise, a strike event consisting of 16 fighters, 24 bogeys and other planes requiring an excruciating amount of planning.
Carter was selected to give that briefing before he graduated in March 1985.
The lessons learned over the course of the five weeks he spent at Miramar culminated 14 years later during the war in Kosovo, when he led a section of fighters “through the popcorn popper” of anti-aircraft artillery and missiles to deliver a strike on a fuel depot.
“Everything I learned in Top Gun came together in that one combat mission,” Carter said, which required the planes to lock onto the target for 12 seconds before peeling away using a high-speed maneuver.
University of Nebraska President Ted Carter (left), an alum of the U.S. Naval Academy, flew with Lt. Rory “Wily” Bank during his Top Gun training.
COURTESY PHOTO
A missile flew between planes during the run, but everybody made it home safe, he added. For his “superb airmanship, courage under fire, and steadfast devotion of duty,” Carter earned the Distinguished Flying Cross.
“It was a little bit later in life than what’s depicted in the movie,” Carter said, referring to the scene where Top Gun aviators are deployed at their graduation ceremony, “but I’m grateful I had that experience.”
Carter didn’t attend the premier for "Top Gun" in 1986. Rather, he saw the movie in a Maryland theater with his wife, Lynda, when his tour in Japan had ended.
“We walked out of there going, ‘Wow, that’s going to be a hit,’” he said.
Three months later, when the Carters returned to Miramar, the movie was continuing to play before sell-out audiences, but at the Navy Fighter Weapons School, "Top Gun" had become somewhat taboo.
Tom Cruise as Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in "Top Gun: Maverick."
Paramount Pictures
“You were not allowed to use a line from the movie, as cult-like as it had become,” Carter said. “If you did, you paid money to be going on the bar on Friday night.”
Carter said he and others in the aviation community, while following along with the new code of silence, also saw the bigger picture.
The movie's popularity attracted thousands of men and women to the military, and aviation in particular, making it an effective recruiting tool for several branches.
With the new movie set to come out 36 years after the original, Carter said he has had the chance to be involved with production at a distance.
He met actor Glen Powell, who will portray "Hangman" in the new film, at a 50th anniversary event for Top Gun in San Diego in 2019, and said the two are regularly in touch.
But he has purposely stayed away from any premieres or sneak peeks, preferring instead to relive the experience from 36 years ago.
"I've had some opportunities, and I know some of the script, but I want to see it like everybody else," Carter said. "My wife and I will see it in a theater just like we saw the original."
100 best films of all time, according to critics
100 best films of all time, according to critics
For more than a century, there have been movies, and people paid to review them. The first film critic, W.G. Faulkner, began churning out weekly reviews in January 1912 .
Since then, movie criticism has retained countless core consistencies while evolving to keep pace with the medium itself. During this time, the two respective arenas have developed what some might call a symbiotic relationship. Movies often, but not always, depend on solid reviews to succeed, and movie critics rely on the emergence of new films to keep their jobs.
Furthermore, there have been periods of history during which the exchange of ideas between critics and artists have spawned new conventions or artistic movements. For example, the French film magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma—where both François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard worked as writers—played a vital role in the creation of French New Wave Cinema, which subsequently influenced a legion of auteurs. Meanwhile, there have also emerged a handful of famous critics over the decades, including Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert, whose unique interpretations of classic films have occasionally been heralded as works of art unto themselves.
Opinions are everywhere nowadays, but film critics still hold a certain amount of sway over how works are perceived. That might have people wondering: what are the best movies of all time according to critics? For the answer, Stacker gathered data from Metacritic (as of March 16, 2021), where movies are scored based on their aggregate critical reception. Movies not yet released to the public were not included.
Counting down from #100, here are the best films of all time, according to the critics.
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British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
#100. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
- Director: Peter Jackson
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 201 minutes
The last film in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy won 11 Academy Awards, the third movie ever to do so, along with “Titanic” and “Ben-Hur.” It is the most Oscar-nominated movie in history to win in every single one of its nomination categories.
New Line Cinema
#99. Chimes at Midnight (1967)
- Director: Orson Welles
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 119 minutes
Orson Welles not only directs but stars as the Shakespearean character Sir John Falstaff, drawing from the plays “Henry IV,” “Henry V,” “Richard II,” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” It was based on a play Welles wrote called “Five Kings,” which flopped on its opening night in New York City in 1939.
Internacional Films
#98. Lady Bird (2017)
- Director: Greta Gerwig
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 94 minutes
After starring in a string of popular indie films, actress Greta Gerwig wrote and directed this comedy-drama about a teenage girl who comes of age in Sacramento, California, in the early 2000s. Featuring powerhouse performances from actresses Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf, the movie immediately distinguished itself as being the best-reviewed film in the history of Rotten Tomatoes .
Scott Rudin Productions
#97. We Were Here (2011)
- Directors: Bill Weber, David Weissman
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 90 minutes
In the early 1980s, San Francisco’s flourishing gay community was devastated by the AIDS epidemic, which delivered unfathomable amounts of suffering and loss. Revisiting those early days by way of interviews and footage, this 2011 documentary chronicles the immediate impact of the crisis and shows how the community united while taking on a tragedy of calamitous proportion.
Wiessman Projects
#96. The Gunfighter (1950)
- Director: Henry King
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 85 minutes
The premise of a gunslinger coming out of retirement might be cliché by today’s standards, but it was quite fresh when this Western debuted in 1950, making “The Gunfighter” a trailblazer of sorts. Furthermore, the movie’s reflective and psychological approach helped pave the way for similar and more successful fare like “High Noon.” In the film, a famous desperado (Gregory Peck) straps up the six-shooter for one final showdown, as he squares off against vengeful cowboys.
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Twentieth Century Fox
#95. Apocalypse Now (1979)
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 153 minutes
When making his iconic Vietnam War movie, 1979’s “Apocalypse Now,” director Francis Ford Coppola endured many psychological and physical setbacks . Over two decades passed before he revisited the film, releasing this unabridged, digitally restored version in 2001, which included a host of previously cut scenes. Meanwhile, the original story remained intact. It’s about a soldier (Martin Sheen) who’s sent into the heart of the Cambodian jungle to assassinate a rogue colonel (Marlon Brando ).
Zoetrope Studios
#94. The Apartment (1960)
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 125 minutes
The comedy stars Jack Lemmon as an insurance company employee who lets the firm’s bigwigs use his Manhattan apartment for their trysts in hopes of getting a promotion. Fred MacMurray plays his boss, who is having an affair with an elevator operator played by Shirley MacLaine. During a break from filming, MacLaine made an uncredited cameo appearance in “Ocean’s 11,” which starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and the rest of the Rat Pack.
The Mirisch Corporation
#93. Meet Me in St. Louis (1945)
- Director: Vincente Minnelli
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 113 minutes
Judy Garland leads the cast of the popular family musical. Margaret O’Brien, who was 7, plays her little sister and was given a special Academy Award for outstanding child actress. Director Vincente Minnelli and Garland met while making the movie and later were married.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
#92. Schindler's List (1993)
- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 195 minutes
In the early 1990s, Steven Spielberg released one of his most personal and sophisticated films to date, about German industrialist Oskar Schindler (played by Liam Neeson) who became an unlikely savior to over 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Critics noted how the film represented a major step up for the director in virtually every regard. Proving just how pure Spielberg’s intentions were, he refused a salary when making the movie and donated his profits to a charitable foundation.
Universal Pictures
#91. Sideways (2004)
- Director: Alexander Payne
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 126 minutes
Despite its understated premise, this 2004 comedy-drama from Alexander Payne was a veritable phenomenon upon its release and had a discernible effect on the wine industry at large. Based on a novel, the film follows two close friends (Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church) as they travel through wine country, encountering romance and excessive amounts of alcohol along the way. Winner of Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards, the movie earned rave reviews and over $100 million at the box office .
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Fox Searchlight Pictures
#90. Inside Out (2015)
- Directors: Pete Docter, Ronaldo Del Carmen
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 94 minutes
This inventive Pixar movie goes where no animated adventure has gone before: inside the mind of a young girl named Riley. That’s where viewers are introduced to Riley’s personified emotions, specifically joy, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust. When Riley’s family moves to a new city, her emotions must likewise learn to navigate entirely new terrain. Featured in the film are voices from a range of comedic talents, including Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, and Mindy Kaling, among others.
Pixar Animation Studios
#89. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 108 minutes
In this 1943 thriller, “master of suspense” Alfred Hitchcock tells the story of young Charlotte 'Charlie' Newton (Teresa Wright) who gets a surprise visit from her Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten). When Uncle Charlie starts to exhibit some abnormal behavior, Charlotte begins to wonder if he’s actually a con artist and potential murderer.
Universal Pictures
#88. Amazing Grace (2018)
- Directors: Alan Elliott, Sydney Pollack
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 87 minutes
The performance of Aretha Franklin recording a gospel album was shot over two days in 1972 at the New Bethel Baptist Church in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Because director Sydney Pollack failed to use clapper boards to synchronize the film’s video and audio, the footage originally could not be used. It was not until many years later that Alan Elliott found a way to sync the film and the sound. Appearing briefly are Rolling Stones’ musicians Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts who stopped by to hear Franklin sing.
40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks
#87. The Wild Child (1970)
- Director: François Truffaut
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 83 minutes
Francois Truffaut directs and appears in the story of a feral boy found living among wolves in a forest. The French director plays a doctor who tries to teach and care for the child. The film is based on the true story of a boy found in 19th-century France who was given the name Victor and known as the “Wild Boy of Aveyron.” The real-life Dr. Jean Itard was chief physician at the National Institution for Deaf-Mutes, and his work was influential in the development of the Montessori teaching method.
Les Artistes Associés
#86. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
- Director: Isao Takahata
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 89 minutes
The animated film from Japan features a young boy and girl struggling to survive in the last days of World War II. It was based on a novel of the same name by Akiyuki Nosaka. Nosaka’s book was inspired by the lives of the author and his younger sister, who died of malnutrition during the war in Japan.
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Shinchosha Company
#85. The Irishman (2019)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 209 minutes
The 3.5-hour epic stars Robert de Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Pesci, all veterans of Martin Scorcese’s acclaimed mob movies, as well as Al Pacino, who had not worked with Scorcese before. The movie used “digital de-aging” techniques to portray the older characters as several decades younger. Nominated for 10 Oscars, it won none.
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56 Ridge Productions
#84. Mr. Turner (2014)
- Director: Mike Leigh
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 150 minutes
Proving that audiences and critics don’t always see eye to eye, this 2014 biographical drama from Mike Leigh is almost universally heralded by professional reviewers but completely hit or miss among general moviegoers. Chronicled in the film are the life and times of eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner, played by Timothy Spall. Haunted by the death of his father and in possession of great talent, Turner engages in a range of controversial exploits, often to the disapproval of others.
Simon Mein
#83. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
- Director: John Frankenheimer
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 126 minutes
Frank Sinatra stars in this 1962 thriller about a former POW who’s brainwashed into becoming a political assassin. Released at the height of the Cold War, the film kicked off what’s now known as Frankenheimer’s “paranoia trilogy. ” It opened to solid reviews but underperformed at the box office . In the time since, however, “The Manchurian Candidate” has garnered appreciation among a wider audience, and the film was even remade in 2004.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
#82. Pulp Fiction (1994)
- Director: Quentin Tarantino
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 154 minutes
1992’s “Reservoir Dogs” might have put director Quentin Tarantino on the cultural map, but it was this 1994 masterpiece that made him a worldwide phenom. Weaving multiple Los Angeles-based storylines together in brilliant fashion, the film brings its viewers into Tarantino’s fully realized world of grit, violence, and wicked comedy. Indeed, between the iconic dialogue, the unconventional narrative, the distinct aesthetic, the killer soundtrack, the memorable characters, and the bevy of classic scenes, “Pulp Fiction” remains as vital now as it was upon its debut.
Miramax
#81. Taxi Driver (1976)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 114 minutes
One of director Martin Scorsese’s earliest feature films is also one of his best. That film is 1976’s “Taxi Driver,” and it stars Robert De Niro as Vietnam War veteran-turned-cabbie Travis Bickle. While cruising New York City at night, Bickle becomes increasingly disgusted with the filth that surrounds him, and he slowly descends into madness. Eventually, he emerges as a gun-toting madman, with multiple targets in sight.
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Columbia Pictures
#80. 45 Years (2015)
- Director: Andrew Haigh
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 95 minutes
True to its name, this 2015 drama centers on a couple who have been married for 45 years. As they plan to celebrate their upcoming anniversary, the husband (Tom Courtenay) gets word his first love—who disappeared decades ago—has been found dead in a melting glacier. The news has a discernible effect on the husband and causes him to act strangely, which consequently prompts his wife (Charlotte Rampling) to re-examine the man she thought she knew so well.
BFI Film Fund
#79. The Searchers (1956)
- Director: John Ford
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 119 minutes
John Wayne is a Confederate Army veteran who spends years obsessively tracking down the Comanches who kidnapped his niece, killed her family, and set their home on fire. The film has come under criticism for its racist views of American Indians. Wayne and director John Ford worked together on more than a dozen movies.
C.V. Whitney Pictures
#78. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
- Director: John Ford
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 123 minutes
As far as the residents of Shinbone are concerned, the man who shot ruthless outlaw Liberty Valance was Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart), who went on to become a senator. However, when Stoddard comes back into town years later, he reveals he might not have been the shooter after all. As it turns out, Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) is the film’s real hero.
Paramount Pictures
#77. Dunkirk (2017)
- Director: Christopher Nolan
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 106 minutes
Director Christopher Nolan’s gripping World War II drama recounts the Battle of Dunkirk when hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were forced to evacuate a French coastal town as the German enemy closed in. From the first scene to the last, the film delivers a pulse-pounding ride, pitting various soldiers against what seems to be their inevitable demise. Some journalists criticized the film for its supposed inaccuracies , but critics and audiences definitely didn’t mind.
Warner Bros.
#76. Amour (2012)
- Director: Michael Haneke
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 127 minutes
Controversial director Michael Haneke puts a couple’s decades-long marriage to the test in this slow-moving, intricate work. Specifically, the movie centers on a pair of retired school teachers, whose loving marriage is manifested by a series of daily rituals. After the wife suffers a massive stroke, her condition deteriorates to the point that she’s no longer recognizable as the person she once was. Consequently, the husband must struggle with a range of emotions while acting as her loyal caretaker.
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Les Films du Losange
#75. Before Midnight (2013)
- Director: Richard Linklater
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 109 minutes
Richard Linklater’s heralded “Before” Trilogy began in 1995 with “Before Sunrise," and culminated with this 2013 effort. After dallying with romance during their previous encounters, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) have finally tied the knot, and by the time “Before Midnight” begins, they’re going on nine years of marriage. As they and their two daughters vacation in Greece, however, cracks begin to show in the relationship, forcing the couple to once again evaluate a range of emotions and ideas.
Sony Pictures Classics
#74. Carol (2015)
- Director: Todd Haynes
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 118 minutes
Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, this quiet film from Todd Haynes stars Cate Blanchett as Carol, a gay housewife trapped in a loveless marriage. After sparks fly between her and a young woman (Rooney Mara), the two find themselves breaking free from the conventions of their time. Kyle Chandler and Sarah Paulson co-star.
Wilson Webb
#73. WALL-E (2008)
- Director: Andrew Stanton
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 98 minutes
Set in the distant (or not-so-distant ) future—where Earth has become uninhabitable—this 2008 Pixar feature follows the adventures of a lovable, trash-collecting robot. After boarding a massive spaceship, the robot discovers that humanity hasn’t exactly learned from its previous mistakes. Due to its somewhat bleak vision and an extended opening segment that’s virtually absent of dialogue, “WALL-E” is unlike any other film in Pixar’s catalogue. That said, it was still widely praised and financially successful—just like most of the studio’s output.
Sony Pictures Classics
#72. A Separation (2011)
- Director: Asghar Farhadi
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 123 minutes
Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, this 2011 Iranian drama finds a married couple in the midst of a crisis. Specifically, the wife seeks a divorce and a better life abroad for her and her daughter, while the husband insists the family stay together in Iran and take care of his sickly father. As the dispute unfolds, the country’s own societal norms are put under the microscope. In addition to wildly positive reviews , “A Separation” received a slew of major awards, including an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Sony Pictures Classics
#71. Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
- Director: Kathryn Bigelow
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 157 minutes
This taut dramatic thriller depicts the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden in the wake of 9/11, which eventually led to the terrorist’s assassination. At the heart of the investigation is a CIA operative named Maya, played to perfection by Jessica Chastain. Overcoming a range of political obstacles, Maya stays the course throughout the entire film and ultimately makes the final call as to bin Laden’s whereabouts.
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Jonathon Olley
#70. Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
- Director: Otto Preminger
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 160 minutes
A lawyer played by James Stewart comes out of retirement to defend a U.S. Army lieutenant accused of murdering a man (Ben Gazzara) who allegedly raped his wife (Lee Remick). George C. Scott plays the prosecutor in the story riddled with secrets. Jayne Mansfield turned down Remick’s part, and Gregory Peck was considered for the lead. The role of the judge was offered to Burl Ives and Spencer Tracy but in the end was played by Joseph N. Welch, a real-life lawyer who represented the U.S. Army in the 1954 anti-Communist Army-McCarthy hearings. He never memorized his lines and instead read them off a teleprompter, and it was his only movie role.
Otto Preminger Film
#69. The Hurt Locker (2009)
- Director: Kathryn Bigelow
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 131 minutes
Set during the Iraq War, this taut war drama follows a bomb squad maverick Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) as he dismantles various explosives. Winner of Best Picture at the Academy Awards, the film is sustained by a near-constant sense of dread, as it seems like James’ life could vaporize at any given moment. Many veterans have taken the movie to task over its reported exaggerations but watching it makes for a genuinely gripping experience nevertheless.
Jonathan Olley
#68. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938)
- Directors: Ben Sharpsteen, David Hand, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Wilfred Jackson, William Cottrell
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 83 minutes
Walt Disney’s legacy might have started with a mouse named Mickey, but it was this 1938 animated feature that kicked off the studio’s cinematic streak. Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, the movie follows Snow White as she flees from an evil queen and seeks shelter with a group of highly personable dwarfs. At one point during production, Disney mortgaged his own house to secure more financing . Needless to say, the effort paid off handsomely, especially in the long run .
Disney
#67. Collective (2020)
- Director: Alexander Nanau
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 109 minutes
A determined group of journalists, activists, and victims takes on corruption and fraud in Romania following a devastating nightclub fire that killed 27 people and injured 180. Dozens of burn victims died in the months that followed from infections they acquired while hospitalized. Former President Barack Obama listed the documentary as one of his favorite films in 2020.
Alexander Nanau Production
#66. Double Indemnity (1944)
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 107 minutes
In this noirish thriller from Billy Wilder, an insurance agent (Fred MacMurray) gets lured into a murderous scheme by his client’s wife (Barbara Stanwyck). Not only do the pair plot the murder of the woman’s husband, but thanks to a double indemnity clause in the victim’s insurance plan, they hope to walk away with twice the fortune. When adapting James M. Cain’s novel for the big screen, Wilder brought mystery legend Raymond Chandler on board as a co-writer, though the two men reportedly hated working with one another . Nevertheless, the script would go on to receive an Oscar nomination, while the film endures to this day as a genuine classic.
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Paramount Pictures
#65. Woodstock (1970)
- Director: Michael Wadleigh
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 184 minutes
The film capturing Woodstock , the three-day musical festival in 1969 that came to define a generation, won an Academy Award for Best Documentary, Features. It has a treasure trove of performances by The Who, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Santana, and more, with interviews and footage from the iconic site in Bethel, New York.
Wadleigh-Maurice
#64. I Am Not Your Negro (2016)
- Director: Raoul Peck
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 93 minutes
Using an unfinished novel by writer and social critic James Baldwin as its foundation, this award-winning documentary explores the history of race in America. Against a harrowing tapestry of archival footage, actor Samuel L. Jackson reads excerpts from “Remember This House,” Baldwin’s intended tribute to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evers. Interspersed throughout are interviews with Baldwin himself, whose words continue to emanate with poignancy to this day.
Arte France
#63. Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
- Director: Céline Sciamma
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 122 minutes
Set in 18th-century France, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” tells the story of the relationship that develops between an aristocratic bride-to-be and a young woman commissioned to paint her wedding portrait. The film has only brief lines of dialogue by men, and it has no musical score.
Lilies Films
#62. My Fair Lady (1964)
- Director: George Cukor
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 170 minutes
The musical classic stars Sir Rex Harrison as Professor Henry Higgins whose task is to transform a Cockney working-class girl—Eliza Doolittle played by Audrey Hepburn—into a presentable member of high society. Actors James Cagney, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Peter O'Toole, and Sir Michael Redgrave all were considered for the male lead before Harrison, who played Higgins on Broadway, was selected. Hepburn took lessons with a vocal coach and expected to do her own singing, but in the end most of her numbers were dubbed.
Warner Bros.
#61. The Social Network (2010)
- Director: David Fincher
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 120 minutes
Inspired by Ben Mezrich’s national bestseller, “The Accidental Billionaires,” this dark 2010 drama recounts the creation of Facebook, with Jesse Eisenberg starring as Mark Zuckerberg. While screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher definitely take some creative liberties, the result is a thoroughly compelling work about a brilliant misfit who ironically establishes the world’s most ubiquitous social network.
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Merrick Morton
#60. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
- Director: James Whale
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 75 minutes
The sequel to the 1931 film, “Frankenstein,” features Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley and as the iconic Bride with stitches on her face and silver streaks in her towering shock of hair, and Boris Karloff as the Monster. Their makeup reportedly took several hours to apply each day, and Lanchester used stilts that made her 7 feet tall.
Universal Pictures
#59. Toy Story (1995)
- Director: John Lasseter
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 81 minutes
The modern era of computer animation arguably begins with this original classic from 1995. In “Toy Story,” a cowboy named Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) gets a little jealous when his owner, Andy, starts playing with a killer new toy named Buzz Lightyear (voiced by Tim Allen). Eventually, the two learn to get along, paving the way for a string of adventures that are still going to this day.
Pixar Animation Studios
#58. Small Axe: Lovers Rock (2020)
- Director: Steve McQueen
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 68 minutes
The film is a segment in the five-part “Small Axe” series that looks at the life of West Indians in London over the course of a decade. It was chosen for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it premiered at the virtual New York Film Festival.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
#57. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
- Directors: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 84 minutes
Disney was in the midst of a substantial comeback when it released this animated smash hit in 1991, about a cursed prince who’s doomed to exist as a beast, lest he finds true love and breaks the spell. While the movie is an indisputable classic with near-universal acclaim to show for it, some folks feel it conveys a bad message about tolerating unacceptable behavior . Of course, most would agree it’s a movie about learning to love someone for whom they are, and not for whom they appear to be.
Walt Disney Pictures
#56. Spirited Away (2002)
- Director: Hayao Miyazaki
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 125 minutes
In the annals of animated cinema, Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki is an absolute legend, with a bevy of renowned features to his name. Standing out from the pack is this acclaimed effort from 2002, which follows a young girl into a fantasy world run by all sorts of mystical beings, where humans are turned into beasts. Winner of Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, the movie combines Miyazaki’s distinct visual style with a truly compelling story to downright masterful effect.
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Tokuma Shoten
#55. Fantasia (1940)
- Directors: Ben Sharpsteen, Bill Roberts, David Hand, Ford Beebe Jr., Hamilton Luske, James Algar, Jim Handley, Norman Ferguson, Paul Satterfield, Samuel Armstrong, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 125 minutes
The animated collection of works of classical music won an honorary Academy Award for its creation of visualized music and for advancing the use of sound in motion pictures. Accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the stories include “Night on Bald Mountain” and Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer's Apprentice.” The film’s creators considered, but abandoned, the idea of spraying scents into theaters such as jasmine for the “Waltz of the Flowers” segment and incense for “Ave Maria.”
Walt Disney Production
#54. Gravity (2013)
- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 91 minutes
Before wowing critics with 2018’s “Roma,” director Alfonso Cuarón unleashed “Gravity” in 2013. The film is about two astronauts (Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) who must fight for survival after their shuttle gets destroyed. By capitalizing on the latest 3D technology, the film brought viewers along for the ride, proverbially speaking. Between that and the engaging narrative, the movie earned heaping amounts of critical acclaim and over $700 million at the box office .
Warner Bros.
#53. The Lady Eve (1941)
- Director: Preston Sturges
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 94 minutes
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, and William Demarest, “The Lady Eve” depicts a trio of hustlers who target a wealthy brewery heir on board an ocean liner. The film is a classic example of director Preston Sturges’ use of quick, comical dialogue, a lively supporting cast, and bustling, energetic scenes.
Paramount Pictures
#52. Mean Streets (1973)
- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 112 minutes
This gritty 1973 movie wasn’t director Martin Scorsese’s first film, but it might as well have been. Made on a shoestring budget of just $500,000 (half of which reportedly went toward the soundtrack ), “Mean Streets” follows a small-time criminal named Charlie (Harvey Keitel) who struggles to reconcile his moral inclinations with his dangerous lifestyle. This film not only marked the first of many collaborations between Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro, but it furthermore cemented their respective statuses as veritable cinematic forces.
Warner Bros.
#51. Children of Paradise (1945)
- Director: Marcel Carné
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 190 minutes
The story of a 20th-century courtesan and her admirers was filmed during the Nazi occupation of France. Working on its crew were many members of the French resistance, and the production designer and composer, who were Jewish, had to work in secret and participate through intermediaries.
Société Nouvelle Pathé Cinéma
#50. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
- Director: John Ford
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 129 minutes
John Steinbeck’s epic novel—about a Midwestern family that migrates to California during the Great Depression—leapt onto the big screen with this 1940 adaptation. The New York Times movie critic Frank Nugent wrote such an expert review of the work that he was subsequently hired by Fox Studios as a script-doctor . The film also won John Ford an Academy Award for Best Director.
Twentieth Century Fox
#49. Don't Look Now (1973)
- Director: Nicolas Roeg
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 110 minutes
A married couple played by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland are mourning the death of their daughter when they meet a psychic in Venice who says she can see their lost child. The two leads met initially on the set, and the first scene they shot was the film’s well-known sex scene. The scene was removed by censors when the movie was released in Ireland, and it had to be cut by nine frames, which was less than a half second, to avoid being rated X in the United States.
Casey Productions
#48. Rocks (2021)
- Director: Sarah Gavron
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 93 minutes
“Rocks” is the story of a teenage girl and her brother struggling to survive on the streets of London after being abandoned by their mother. Written by Nigerian British playwright and screenwriter Theresa Ikoko and film and television writer Claire Wilson, the movie was made with a mostly female crew.
Fable Pictures
#47. Parasite (2019)
- Director: Bong Joon-ho
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 132 minutes
“Parasite” depicts the intersection of a poor family living in a squalid basement with members of a wealthy family living in a mansion in Seoul. Made with subtitles, it was the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It also won Oscars for best director and for best original screenplay.
Barunson E&A
#46. Ratatouille (2007)
- Director: Brad Bird
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 111 minutes
The legendary Brad Bird co-wrote and co-directed this Pixar classic, about an epicurean rat named Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who puts his cooking skills to the test in the kitchen of a French restaurant. To avoid exposure, Remy hides inside the hat of a bumbling kitchen worker and controls the worker’s movements by pulling on his hair. Not only was this animated flick a huge hit with critics , but it features an elitist food critic in a prominent role.
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Pixar Animation Studios
#45. Nashville (1975)
- Director: Robert Altman
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 160 minutes
The ensemble cast of “Nashville” features Karen Black, Ned Beatty, Lily Tomlin, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, and Henry Gibson. The songs were written and performed by the actors themselves, and Carradine’s “I’m Easy” won an Oscar and a Golden Globe. The movie was nominated for a record 11 Globe awards, including acting nods to Chaplin, Gibson, Tomlin, Ronee Blakley, and Barbara Harris.
ABC Entertainment
#44. Killer of Sheep (2007)
- Director: Charles Burnett
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 80 minutes
Primarily shot by writer/director Charles Burnett in 1972 and 1973, this compelling drama wasn’t released to the public until 2007, since that was how long it took to clear all the music rights . Brimming with both vision and relevancy, the film centers on an African American slaughterhouse worker who experiences dissatisfaction in both his professional and personal life. Told through a series of episodic events, the movie pits its protagonist against a host of obstacles and temptations, with all the action taking place in L.A.’s Watts neighborhood.
Milestone Films
#43. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
- Director: Steve McQueen
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 134 minutes
Author Solomon Northup’s memoir provided the basis for this historical drama from Steve McQueen. In the film, Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is enjoying life as a free man up North, until he’s abducted by criminals and sold into slavery down South. What follows over the course of 12 years is nothing short of tragic, as Northup and his peers suffer a range of abuses at the hands of an alcoholic slave owner (Michael Fassbender). The movie won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Jaap Buitendijk
#42. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
- Director: John Huston
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 100 minutes
In this 1941 mystery, Humphrey Bogart plays private detective Sam Spade, one of his most iconic roles. In the film, Spade must navigate through a treacherous maze of murder and betrayal, as he searches high and low for a priceless missing statue, the Maltese Falcon. Along the way, he crosses paths with three dangerous criminals and one devious dame.
Warner Bros.
#41. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 137 minutes
Some thoroughly haunting theme music sets the tone for this bone-chilling horror flick from Roman Polanski, in which a woman gets mysteriously impregnated. She soon finds herself in the midst of a terrifying conspiracy. Starring as Rosemary is actress Mia Farrow, who brings the ideal amount of innocence and fear to the role. As a series of ghastly events unfolds, Rosemary begins to wonder if she’s carrying the spawn of Satan himself.
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Paramount Pictures
#40. Manchester by the Sea (2016)
- Director: Kenneth Lonergan
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 137 minutes
Modern dramas don’t get much more depressing than this one from 2016. The film is about a traumatized handyman named Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) who’s asked to look after his nephew after his brother dies. Haunted by his past mistakes, Lee struggles to fulfill his parental duties or even forge a connection with his newfound housemate. However, he ends up wallowing in remorse instead. Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler co-star.
Amazon Studios
#39. 12 Angry Men (1957)
- Director: Sidney Lumet
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 96 minutes
Writer Reginald Rose adapted his own award-winning teleplay when he penned the script for this taut drama about 12 jurors who argue over the fate of a suspected murderer. Initially, every juror except Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) finds the defendant to be guilty. However, as Juror 8 breaks down the evidence, he slowly steers the verdict toward innocence. In the process, the respective prejudices of his peers come to the surface, vicariously causing all the more tension inside the room. Sidney Lumet directed.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
#38. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
- Director: Ernst Lubitsch
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 99 minutes
Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart play two sparring employees at a gift shop unaware that they are one another’s anonymous pen pals who are falling in love. The movie was the basis for the 1998 film “You’ve Got Mail,” in which the bookstore owned by Meg Ryan’s character is called The Shop Around The Corner.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
#37. Quo vadis, Aida? (2021)
- Director: Jasmila Žbanić
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 101 minutes
Set in Bosnia in 1995, “Quo vadis, Aida?” tells the story of a United Nations translator whose family seeks refuge when the Serbian army takes over their town of Srebrenica and commits mass slaughter. Director and writer Jasmila Žbanić lived in Sarajevo during the Serbian siege. The film was submitted by Bosnia and Herzegovina in the International Feature Film category of the Academy Awards.
Coop99 Filmproduktion
#36. Ran (1985)
- Director: Akira Kurosawa
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 162 minutes
From influential filmmaker Akira Kurosawa comes this 1985 epic, which sets Shakespeare’s “King Lear” in Medieval Japan. After a warlord decides to leave his fiefdom to his three sons, the sons square off against one another over rights to the land. Kurosawa was 75 years old and in poor health when he made the film. For those reasons and more, critic Roger Ebert wondered if “Ran” was as inspired by the director’s own life as it was Shakespeare’s famous play.
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Greenwich Film Productions
#35. Roma (2018)
- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 135 minutes
Winner of the Golden Lion Award at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” takes place in the early 1970s and depicts a year in the life of a middle-class family in Mexico City. Cuarón based the black-and-white film on his own childhood experiences , making this project arguably his most personal one to date. According to critics , it’s also one of his best.
Esperanto Filmaj
#34. Dumbo (1941)
- Directors: Ben Sharpsteen, Bill Roberts, Jack Kinney, John Elliotte, Norman Ferguson, Samuel Armstrong, Wilfred Jackson
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 64 minutes
“Dumbo” is the beloved story of a baby elephant ridiculed for his giant ears. It was Disney’s most financially successful movie at the time, following the costly productions of “Pinocchio” and “Fantasia.” Cels from the movie are extremely rare. Most were fragile and were destroyed.
Walt Disney Productions
#33. American Graffiti (1973)
- Director: George Lucas
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 110 minutes
George Lucas might be best known today as the man behind “Star Wars,” but in 1973, he released this nostalgic comedy, which couldn’t have been more different from the famous space opera in terms of tone and narrative. Set in the early 1960s, the movie follows a bunch of high school graduates as they cruise around town for one last time before heading off to college. Bringing their adventures to life is a range of comic exchanges and an endlessly listenable soundtrack of classic oldies. Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and young Harrison Ford star.
Universal Pictures
#32. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
- Director: Elia Kazan
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 122 minutes
One of just two films in history to win three Academy Awards for acting , this 1951 adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play centers on the contemptuous relationship between Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) and her brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando). As the two continuously butt heads while living under the same roof, Blanche’s mysterious and troubled past comes back to haunt her. Meanwhile, Stanley’s wife, Stella (Kim Hunter), finds herself stuck in the middle of the ongoing battle.
Warner Bros.
#31. Battleship Potemkin (1926)
- Director: Sergei M. Eisenstein
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 75 minutes
In honor of the Russian Revolution, “Battleship Potemkin” tells of sailors in the Imperial Russian Navy staging a mutiny. Its famed sequence on the Potemkin Stairs shows a massacre of unarmed civilians. When Joseph Stalin came to power in the Soviet Union, the film’s written introduction by Leon Trotsky was replaced by a Vladimir Lenin quote. The famed glorification of rebellion originally was banned in France, England, and in the United States.
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Goskino
#30. Psycho (1960)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 109 minutes
More than just a groundbreaking horror film, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” changed the face of cinema itself . Experimental for its time, the movie opens in a small town, where a dissatisfied bank employee (Janet Leigh) decides to take off with a bag full of money. However, what at first appears to be a compelling thriller turns into something far more sinister when the woman stops for the night at Bates Motel. There, she crosses paths with a lunatic named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), and the film itself abruptly changes course, to say the least.
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Shamley Productions
#29. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008)
- Director: Cristian Mungiu
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 113 minutes
Set in 1980s Romania—where a communist regime has ruled birth control illegal and second-term abortion a crime punishable by death—this bleak social drama follows Găbița as she tries to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Given her lack of options, Găbița and a friend visit a male abortionist, who expects sexual favors in return. Thanks to its claustrophobic premise and minimalist style, the film whizzes by at the pace of a white-knuckle thriller. It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, among numerous other awards.
Mobra Films
#28. Gone with the Wind (1940)
- Directors: George Cukor, Sam Wood, Victor Fleming
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 238 minutes
“Gone with the Wind” chronicles the life of a spoiled Southerner named Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) during the respective Civil War and Reconstruction eras. As Scarlett deals with a range of personal tragedies, she and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) engage in an ill-fated romance.
New Line Cinemas
#27. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
- Director: Stanley Kubrick
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 95 minutes
Stanley Kubrick makes his first and only appearance on this list with this 1964 dark comedy. Starring Peter Sellers in three separate roles, the movie brings modernity’s worst nightmare to life, as it builds toward a nuclear showdown between the world’s foremost powers. Of course, “Dr. Strangelove” would be that much funnier were it not so prescient, even decades after its release.
Columbia Pictures
#26. The Third Man (1949)
- Director: Carol Reed
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 104 minutes
Author Graham Greene adapted his own novel when writing the screenplay for this 1949 film noir. It stars Joseph Cotten as pulp novelist Holly Martins who travels to post-war Vienna at the request of his friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles). By the time Martins arrives, he’s shocked to discover that Harry has been killed in a mysterious traffic accident. Or has he?
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London Film Productions
#25. My Left Foot (1990)
- Director: Jim Sheridan
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 103 minutes
One of legendary actor Daniel Day-Lewis' quality performances is his turn as Christy Brown in this biographical film from Jim Sheridan. Afflicted with cerebral palsy, Brown learns to paint and write using only his left foot, becoming a successful artist in the process. To prepare for the role, Day-Lewis spent eight weeks at a cerebral palsy clinic in Dublin , where he learned how to paint and write using just his left foot. It’s also been reported the actor stayed in character throughout the entire shoot, never once getting up out of his wheelchair.
Ferndale Films
#24. The Wild Bunch (1969)
- Director: Sam Peckinpah
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 135 minutes
Starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine, “The Wild Bunch” centers on a pack of aging Western outlaws taking on a final job in Mexico. Because it was so violent, it almost was given an X rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, which settled instead on an R rating. The making of the movie used more than 90,000 rounds of blank ammunition. The soldiers in the film’s climactic shootout were members of the Mexican Army hired as film extras.
Warner Bros./Seven Arts
#23. Jules and Jim (1962)
- Director: François Truffaut
- Metascore: 97
- Runtime: 105 minutes
The French New Wave masterpiece stars Jeanne Moreau at the center of a love triangle, and the relationship of the three—Oskar Werner as Jules and Henri Serre as Jim—over 25 years. The French movie actress pitched in to help the financially strapped production, contributing her own money and lending her Rolls Royce for carrying props.
Les Films du Carross
#22. All About Eve (1950)
- Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 138 minutes
Despite being several decades old, this heralded drama simply oozes with perennial primacy, putting show business in its crosshairs and hitting the target with a bulls-eye. In the film, an obsessive actress named Eve (Anne Baxter) finagles her way into a Broadway theater company, where she comes face to face with her supposed idol, Margo (Bette Davis). As it turns out, however, Eve doesn’t plan to worship Margo as much as she plans to replace her. “All About Eve” is among the most Oscar-nominated films in history .
Twentieth Century Fox
#21. Rashomon (1951)
- Director: Akira Kurosawa
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 88 minutes
The highly acclaimed “Rashomon” centers on a rape and murder as recounted by different people—a priest, a bandit, a victim, a woodcutter, and the ghost of a samurai. The title of the film has come to be used to describe different accounts or perspectives of an event. Winning top honors at the Venice Film Festival, it is considered to have been director Akira Kurosawa’s breakthrough onto the international film scene.
Daiei
#20. Hoop Dreams (1994)
- Director: Steve James
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 170 minutes
One of the most acclaimed documentaries of all time, 1994’s “Hoop Dreams” follows two high school basketball players from inner-city Chicago as they come up against various challenges in pursuit of their goals. Were this a Hollywood film, it would probably have a happier ending. Instead, it’s an utterly engaging snapshot of American life in its triumphs and failures alike.
New Line Cinemas
#19. North by Northwest (1959)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 136 minutes
The modern-day action genre might have well begun with this 1959 spy thriller from Alfred Hitchcock. It stars Cary Grant as a New York ad exec named Roger Thornhill who gets mistaken for a wanted spy and framed for murder. To clear his name, Thornhill embarks on an adventure of epic proportion, paving the way for a deadly showdown on Mount Rushmore.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
#18. Some Like It Hot (1959)
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 121 minutes
This timeless comedy takes place in 1929 and finds two Chicago musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) on the run after they witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. To stay hidden, the musicians disguise themselves as women and join an all-female band. Featured in the band is singer and ukulele player Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), for whom one of the musicians develops an affection. Hilarity of the highest caliber ensues.
Ashton Productions
#17. Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
- Director: Guillermo del Toro
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 118 minutes
This Mexican/Spanish film finds director Guillermo del Toro in top form. The film represents a formidable blend of fantasy, history, and drama. Set in 1944 Francoist Spain, the movie centers on a bookish young girl named Ofelia who’s forced to move in with her sadistic stepfather, an army captain. Still mourning the loss of her real father, Ofelia escapes into a fantastical labyrinth, where she’s told by a magical faun that she’s of royal descent. However, before Ofelia can fulfill her destiny, she must complete three gruesome tasks. Awash with inventive creatures and stunning set pieces, the film won three Academy Awards, including best makeup and best production design.
New Line Cinemas
#16. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
- Director: John Huston
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 126 minutes
A quintessential movie about greed-fueled paranoia, this 1948 film stars Humphrey Bogart as Fred Dobbs, a down-on-his-luck American looking for work in Mexico. After catching word of buried gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains, Dobbs, his friend, and a prospector take off in search of the fortune. By overcoming a string of obstacles, the men finally get their hands on the gold, but they soon start to turn on one another.
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Warner Bros.
#15. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 96 minutes
In “The Lady Vanishes,” a young woman searches for an older English governess she is convinced she met on board a European train delayed by an avalanche. The mystery deepens as others on board claim not to have seen her. Director Alfred Hitchcock makes his brief trademark cameo as a man smoking in Victoria Station.
Gainsborough Pictures
#14. Touch of Evil (1958)
- Director: Orson Welles
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 95 minutes
Orson Welles’ best film (according to the critics) not called “Citizen Kane” is 1958’s “Touch of Evil,” about murder and corruption in a small Mexican border town. Thanks to its dark and somewhat nightmarish atmosphere, the film deftly retains a sinister vibe from open to close. A domestic box office disappointment upon its initial release, “Touch of Evil” now ranks among the greatest films ever made. It stars Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, and Welles himself.
Universal Pictures
#13. Pinocchio (1940)
- Directors: Ben Sharpsteen, Bill Roberts, Hamilton Luske, Jack Kinney, Norman Ferguson, T. Hee, Wilfred Jackson
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 88 minutes
The childhood favorite tells the tale of the little wooden puppet created by the woodworker Geppetto. It won two Oscars—one for best original song, which was “When You Wish Upon a Star,” and one for best original score. The expected budget for the film was $500,000, but it cost five times that amount to complete, and it was one of the most costly films of its time.
Walt Disney Animation Studios
#12. Intolerance (1916)
- Director: D.W. Griffith
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 197 minutes
The silent classic starring Lillian Gish visits four historical eras—ancient Babylon, Judea, 16th-century France, and early 20th-century America—where characters suffered under stifling social and political beliefs and systems. D.W. Griffith made the movie a year after his epic “The Birth of a Nation” was met with criticism over its racism and its sympathetic attitudes toward the institutions of slavery, white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan.
Triangle Film Corporation
#11. Moonlight (2016)
- Director: Barry Jenkins
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 111 minutes
The debut feature film from writer/director Barry Jenkins, 2016’s “Moonlight” takes place in Miami and chronicles three separate time periods in the life of an African American gay man named Chiron. Growing up in a broken home, Chiron falls under the wing of a local drug dealer (Mahershala Ali). Later in life, Chiron becomes a drug dealer himself, all while still coming to terms with his sexuality. The film won many awards, including Best Picture at the 2017 Oscars.
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A24
#10. City Lights (1931)
- Director: Charles Chaplin
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 87 minutes
Director and star Charlie Chaplin thought about making the silent “City Lights” a talkie but opted not to do so. It has music and sound effects but no speaking. It features some of the comic artist’s best scenes as the Little Tramp in a boxing match, dodging a parade of elephants, and, after swallowing a whistle, being followed by a pack of dogs. It was one of Chaplin’s most successful films, financially and with critics, and is said to have been his favorite.
Charles Chaplin Productions
#9. Singin' in the Rain (1952)
- Directors: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 103 minutes
Hollywood legend Gene Kelly co-directed, choreographed, and starred in this wildly popular musical, which is widely considered the greatest of its kind . Set during the rise of talkies, the film finds the members of a production company struggling to keep pace with the industry changes. Featured in the film is an iconic song-and-dance number, during which Gene Kelly literally sings in the rain. Both critics and audiences love it.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
#8. Notorious (1946)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 101 minutes
Alfred Hitchcock is back on the list with this noirish thriller starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. In the film, Bergman plays Alicia Huberman, a German woman who’s sent undercover to spy on the Nazis. But how far will she go to earn their trust? Noted French critic and filmmaker (and major Hitchcock fan) François Truffaut called “Notorious” a personal favorite, referring to it as the “very quintessence of Hitchcock.”
RKO Radio Pictures
#7. Vertigo (1958)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 128 minutes
Overlooked upon its initial release, Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” has since been reappraised and is now considered one of the greatest films ever made. It stars James Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson, a retired police detective who suffers from an irrational fear of heights. After being hired to follow a man’s wife (Kim Novak) around San Francisco, Ferguson becomes ensnared in a murderous plot. As the mystery unravels, he’s forced to confront his innermost desires and fears.
Universal Studios
#6. Three Colors: Red (1994)
- Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 99 minutes
The final installment in Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Three Colours” trilogy is also the Polish director’s final film. Blending elements of drama, romance, mystery, philosophy, and comedy, the movie takes place in Geneva, Switzerland. The film stars actress Irène Jacob as a model named Valentine. After discovering that her neighbor has a keen habit of eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, Valentine grapples with the moral implications and confronts secrets from her own past.
You may also like: Movie trivia for the top 100 films of all time
MK2 Productions
#5. Boyhood (2014)
- Director: Richard Linklater
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 165 minutes
While audiences really liked this Richard Linklater film, the critics absolutely adored it. Shot over the course of several years, the movie depicts the exploits of its protagonist, Mason (Ellar Coltrane), as he goes from a young boy to a young college student. Like a number of Linklater’s films, this one gets its message across through a series of naturalistic scenes, which don’t build up as much as they flow together. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke co-star.
IFC Films
#4. Casablanca (1943)
- Director: Michael Curtiz
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 102 minutes
According to legions of critics, this 1943 classic features one of the best screenplays ever written , and that’s just one among its many charms. Giving all that catchy dialogue its due is a cast full of talented actors and actresses, including Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. In the film, Bogart plays Rick Blaine, a club owner in Casablanca, who helps refugees obtain passage to America as they flee from the Nazis. As if Blaine’s life wasn’t complicated enough, his former lover, Ilsa Lund (Bergman), shows up seeking help for her husband. What ensues is the stuff that cinematic legacies are made of.
Warner Bros.
#3. Rear Window (1954)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 112 minutes
A pure exercise in suspense, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” stars James Stewart as photographer L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, who gets confined to a wheelchair after breaking his leg in an accident. Armed with a camera and his own insatiable curiosity, Jefferies starts to spy on his neighbors through his apartment window. At first, his habit seems harmless enough, until he thinks he witnessed one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) committing murder. Grace Kelly co-stars.
Alfred J. Hitchcock Productions
#2. The Godfather (1972)
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 175 minutes
Between its tremendous IMDb rating and flawless Metacritic score , 1972’s “The Godfather” endures as the perfect film among seasoned critics and casual moviegoers alike. It’s no wonder that famous critic Pauline Kael described it as coming “out of a merger of commerce and art." Based on the bestselling novel by Mario Puzo, the movie chronicles the ongoing exploits of the Corleone crime family, one of America’s most powerful underworld organizations. As the family’s esteemed patriarch (Marlon Brando) looks to transfer control, the youngest scion (Al Pacino) steps up to fill the void.
Paramount Pictures
#1. Citizen Kane (1941)
- Director: Orson Welles
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 119 minutes
Marking Orson Welles’ auspicious feature debut, “Citizen Kane” tells the story of its title character (played by Welles), a newspaper magnate whose rise to power comes at the cost of his own humanity. In the opinion of Roger Ebert, it’s the greatest movie ever made , though he’s far from the only critic to feel that way . Accordingly, the film hosts a dizzying array of groundbreaking elements, from the creative camerawork to the unconventional narrative to everything in between. More than a mere masterpiece, “Citizen Kane” is a historic work of art, which will continue to impress critics for decades, if not centuries, to come.
You may also like: Oscar Best Picture-winners from worst to first
RKO Radio Pictures
100 best films of all time, according to critics
For more than a century, there have been movies, and people paid to review them. The first film critic, W.G. Faulkner, began churning out weekly reviews in January 1912 .
Since then, movie criticism has retained countless core consistencies while evolving to keep pace with the medium itself. During this time, the two respective arenas have developed what some might call a symbiotic relationship. Movies often, but not always, depend on solid reviews to succeed, and movie critics rely on the emergence of new films to keep their jobs.
Furthermore, there have been periods of history during which the exchange of ideas between critics and artists have spawned new conventions or artistic movements. For example, the French film magazine, Cahiers du Cinéma—where both François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard worked as writers—played a vital role in the creation of French New Wave Cinema, which subsequently influenced a legion of auteurs. Meanwhile, there have also emerged a handful of famous critics over the decades, including Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert, whose unique interpretations of classic films have occasionally been heralded as works of art unto themselves.
Opinions are everywhere nowadays, but film critics still hold a certain amount of sway over how works are perceived. That might have people wondering: what are the best movies of all time according to critics? For the answer, Stacker gathered data from Metacritic (as of March 16, 2021), where movies are scored based on their aggregate critical reception. Movies not yet released to the public were not included.
Counting down from #100, here are the best films of all time, according to the critics.
You may also like: The best streaming services in 2021
Silver Screen Collection // Getty Images
#18. Some Like It Hot (1959)
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 121 minutes
This timeless comedy takes place in 1929 and finds two Chicago musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) on the run after they witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. To stay hidden, the musicians disguise themselves as women and join an all-female band. Featured in the band is singer and ukulele player Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe), for whom one of the musicians develops an affection. Hilarity of the highest caliber ensues.
Ashton Productions
#3. Rear Window (1954)
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Metascore: 100
- Runtime: 112 minutes
A pure exercise in suspense, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” stars James Stewart as photographer L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies, who gets confined to a wheelchair after breaking his leg in an accident. Armed with a camera and his own insatiable curiosity, Jefferies starts to spy on his neighbors through his apartment window. At first, his habit seems harmless enough, until he thinks he witnessed one of his neighbors (Raymond Burr) committing murder. Grace Kelly co-stars.
Silver Screen Collection // Getty Images
Reach the writer at 402-473-7120 or cdunker@journalstar.com .
On Twitter @ChrisDunkerLJS
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BALTIMORE — Rebecca Stern gets anxious in loud spaces and struggles to communicate and socialize. The 26-year-old, who has autism, said she hopes to create characters who look and sound like her.
Stephen Church Jr., 16, said there aren’t nearly enough Black cartoonists telling the stories of Black culture. While there are high profile exceptions — the Oscar-winning “Soul” was directed by Kemp Powers and the recent Netflix show “Karma’s World” was executive produced by rapper Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges, critics say it’s not enough.
All three artists now have a shot at developing a show with Cartoon Networks Studios and former Baltimore Ravens defensive lineman Trevor Pryce’s Baltimore-based studio Outlook Visual Effects. They are among six participants in a program designed to identify, develop and showcase the work of underrepresented and undiscovered artists.
The six participants will be narrowed down to three and then to one. Cartoon Network will pick a finalist, whose project will be produced by OVFX, as Pryce’s studio is known. No air date has been set yet.
Stern, who grew up in Columbia, now lives in the Tuscany-Canterbury area in North Baltimore. She earned an animation degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2019 and since then has struggled to find work.
“It’s been difficult to find people to work with me, so when (Pryce) asked me to do this project, I immediately said ‘Yes,’” she said.
Stern began working on her craft about the age of 3 because her mother, Sheri Dunn, and grandmother, Bella, who are both deceased, were artists.
“My mother is my biggest inspiration of all time,” she said. “She was very accepting (of) the way that I am.”
While Stern was circumspect about her project, she said the main character is a young child with autism.
“Please be patient with us. Please accept us,” she said. “We are the same as you. We want to be like you, and we should work together.”
Kathin is a Silver Spring native and a 2010 graduate of Montgomery Blair High School. Six years later, she earned an animation degree from Columbus College of Art & Design in Ohio.
Prior to joining OVFX three years ago as a character animator, she worked at the University of Maryland, University College (now known as University of Maryland Global Campus), in the commencement department.
Her project is called “Beyond the Stars” and tells the story of a little girl who goes to a kingdom of constellations when she falls asleep. Kathin, who has been passionate about animation since she was 6-years-old, said she didn’t see many Black female lead characters on cartoons that she could look up to while growing up.
“It’s always important to have that one person in the room with you to be like, ‘Well, let me tell you about my experience,’” she said “Because otherwise it would just be making guesses and go in based off maybe your one gay friend or Black friend, trying to make their experience the only experience of what story you tell.”
Church is excited to tell stories about his community.
“I don’t think there’ll ever be too many or enough because I feel like Black people have so many experiences — so many different experiences to share that haven’t been heard in hundreds of years because of the places we were put in,” he said. “Our voices aren’t always heard first.”
Church, a Randallstown native, is a friend of the Pryce family. He’s a sophomore at the Park School of Baltimore in Pikesville. His project is called “Party Poopers” and involves crime fighting as well as monsters who crash parties.
He’s a rapper, writer and designer. His goal is to attend a liberal arts college in California or New York, and probably study something artistic. Church, whose stage name is $armie (pronounced Sarmie), recently released an EP called “Prep.” He also owns a streetwear clothing line named Phart.
“I like to work on a lot of creative things at once because you never know what’s gonna be the one that works out,” he said.
Sam Register, president of Cartoon Network Studios and Warner Bros. Animation, said in a news release that uplifting “original and diverse creative voices” is one of Cartoon Network’s top priorities.
“Outlook Company’s mission to work with artists from underrepresented communities makes them a perfect partner and I look forward to the work ahead with Trevor and the amazing group of creators he has assembled,” Register said.
Pryce said he believes in all the projects.
“Some of the ideas, even if they’re not picked, other people (at other networks) want to see them,” he said.
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ROANOKE, Va. — Quinton Cruse and April Ragan drank beer and sulked by a downtown Roanoke bridge the morning of May 5, dispirited by the difficulty of moving from the streets into Section 8 housing.
They never got the apartment. But life did them one better.
Unknown to Cruse, three members of his family who hadn’t seen him in more than 20 years were driving toward the city to reunite at that hour. They learned his whereabouts from Roanoke Times coverage of homeless people camping downtown and from the reporter who wrote it last year.
As reported, Cruse, 58, and Ragan, 34, met last year at the Greyhound bus station and lived together in his tent near the Taubman Museum of Art. She became pregnant. He was shown in a photo with a black cast over a knife cut to his arm received in a fight.
For his part, Cruse would later say that he didn’t think his family wanted contact with him, citing “the way I’ve been living.” He lived on the streets of Roanoke or in a jail cell since his marriage ended in 2009, he said. Multiple drinking in public and trespassing charges appear on his online court record.
Ragan marked three years as a homeless person this year, an odyssey that began with the death of her grandmother with whom she shared a home, she said, and has been summoned to court on multiple alcohol-related charges, online records show.
Family members wondered before visiting Roanoke whether Cruse would welcome them after years of estrangement. They had no idea where he was, much less the knowledge that he was homeless, before discovering the mention of him in the newspaper.
A car with three women parked on Campbell Avenue at almost the same moment that Cruse and his girlfriend stepped out of the Blue Ridge Legal Services, where they had gone for advice on getting a joint apartment. They wore baby blue T-shirts from a homeless assistance program that said “LOVE” in oversized white letters. Their dog Lilly, one reason they did not live in a homeless shelter, walked close beside them.
Yolanda Cruse, 39, a grocery store manager from Alexandria and Cruse’s niece, spoke first.
“How you doing? How are you? Do you know who I am?” she told Cruse.
“I remember your face,” Cruse replied. Cruse’s sister, Bernita Hargrove, 59, a caregiver from Alexandria, introduced herself.
But Cruse did not appear to grasp who they were. He nodded politely and quietly asked, “how you?”
Yolanda Cruse looked her uncle in the eye, repeated her name and then he reacted. “Oh!,” he said, throwing out his arms for a hug. “I missed you so much.”
“We missed you so much,” his niece replied.
Tears fell.
Cruse also had children. His first-born, daughter, Sierra Agurs, 34, a property manager from Silver Spring, Maryland, stood a few feet away. Adopted soon after birth, she had never met her father, though they had talked by phone when she was a teenager and she had seen pictures of him, she said. Based on those images and one provided by the reporter, she had become sure he was in Roanoke and had initiated the trip. “I was extremely nervous,” she said later. “Too nervous to look his way.”
Cruz turned and walked away upon seeing her. He took a moment for himself before walking back with his head hung low and leaning in for a hug.
Introductions completed, the four laughed and bantered as Cruse heard the latest on his large extended family — about 50 people in the Alexandria area — living and dead.
“Who else died?” Cruse asked.
“Your daddy died?” his sister told him.
“My daddy died?” Cruse said. He appeared stunned but, soon, he was handed a phone with a call in-progress to his nephew. He soon traded that phone for another and spoke to his brother.
“I don’t even recognize my family, that’s how far gone I am,” Cruse said into the phone. “I won’t lose you again.”
Cruse hung up and looked elated.
“I still got a family!” Cruse exclaimed.
Everybody went to lunch. Cruse chose shrimp fried rice at the City Market building, a favorite he seldom had the money for.
The struggles of homelessness had been immense, the couple said.
The city, acting at the request of downtown residents and businesses, banned tents on sidewalks in January. Cruse and Ragan slept in such locations as an alcove of the Market Square Walkway; the rear dock of the former Roanoke Times press building; and the porch of a vacant house in southwest. Police shooed them often from the walkway, but the owner of the home with the porch let them use it on the condition they cleaned up afterward, they said.
They recently spent multiple nights on a secluded concrete floor behind the press building protected only by sheet of cardboard, sleeping bag and blankets. They spread their gear out in an adjacent outdoor seating plaza: a tent, backpacks and two shopping carts. One cart helped tote around a 30-pound bag of dry food they kept for the dog, Ragan said.
They said they often split a beer for breakfast and ate most of their meals at the Roanoke Rescue Mission or RAM House. Cruse from time to time collected a few bucks by panhandling from traffic with a sign that read: “HOMELESS ... HARD TIMES ... Please Help.”
Despite the presence of their dog, the couple had several run-ins with others.
She requires an anti-seizure medicine that the couple said makes her sleep hard for several hours, day or night. One time Cruse stepped away to relieve himself while she slept and returned to find their backpack with their cellphone gone.
Another time when Cruse was away, but Ragan was awake, a man tried to rape her, she said. An angry Cruse confronted the alleged attacker at a later time, a fight broke out and Cruse was knifed in the arm. A bloodied Cruse didn’t want to go to the hospital but passed out. An ambulance took him for treatment, but the arm is useless today, he said.
“I can’t write my name,” he said. He expressed hope of receiving disability benefits.
Some time after the knife fight, Ragan started bleeding non-stop, went to the hospital and learned that she had had a miscarriage, they said. She attributed the loss of the baby to stress. Cruse cries when he talks about the incident, which he said involved doctors showing him a small pink fetus that had been in her body.
“Didn’t get to name the baby, didn’t give us no funeral,” he said.
Agurs said she had “pretty much done it all” to find her dad, including years of online searches by her and other family members. The trail had gone cold in Louisiana, where he spent time in prison, they said, and they did not have a reason to check court records in Roanoke.
Yolanda Cruse recounted that, in early May, she was thinking about Cruse and decided to again Google his name. “We’ve been doing this for a while but nothing ever pops up,” she said.
This time was different.
After the meal at the market building ended, they said goodbyes. Another group from Alexandria was due back in a few days with plans to pick up Cruse and Ragan and take them to a new life with his family.
“She wants a new beginning and I do, too,” Cruse said. A few days later, she had changed her mind about joining him, but he was trying to get her to change her mind back.
Agurs reflected on finding her father.
“I over thought so many scenarios over the years on how this day would play out if it ever happened and, when it did, man, was it better than all of my imaginations,” she wrote in a text. “Once I made eye contact with him and we hugged ... the feeling is still indescribable. I instantly felt whole from the depths of my soul. I felt a large amount of our pain, a pain I thought was solely my own for two decades, had been healed. I felt safe. I felt loved. This was truly one of the best days of my life.”
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FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Ray Chung can’t stop creating.
“I thought it might be a nice way of entertaining children and providing them with a glimpse of life in the country to which they might not otherwise have had exposure,” Chung, a Fredericksburg orthopedic hand surgeon said. “Putting the pieces together, I wondered what would happen if Mukha ended up at a steeplechase race.”
Released on April 11 and published by Belle Isle Books of Richmond, “Off to the Races With Mukha the Dingo” is 40 pages, and Chung said it’s not only fun for children 2 and older, but it also provides several life lessons sandwiched between colorful illustrations by Boston-based artist Emily Hurst Pritchett.
“The book was meant originally as kind of an entertaining book, just more of a fun thing highlighting some facets of life in Central Virginia,” Chung said.
Chung calls his new children’s book a true “resilience story” that includes many of the challenges Chung himself faced early in his life.
“I really didn’t have a good feeling about asking for help,” Chung said. “It kind of sounds strange, but I guess one of the story lessons is: It’s OK to ask for help.”
Chung, who practices at the Orthopedic Specialty Clinic, which will soon merge with Mary Washington Orthopedics, said his book centers around the innocent adventures and good fortunes of his Carolina dog Mukha, who died in 2020.
“After Mukha’s unexpected passing, (writing the book) took on special meaning as a way to memorialize her,” Chung said.
Chung said he chose a country steeplechase horse race and the people and events that surround it as the primary setting for the story. Chung said these type of events are not uncommon near his rural home in the Piedmont region of the state, or at any country setting across America where horses can be found.
Steeplechase racing pits horses against a number of obstacles along the route, such as fences, water or ditches. Before making its way to America, the event first gained popularity in Ireland in the 18th century, when riders relied on church steeples as points of reference along a route.
The book’s story begins when Mukha jumps into the bed of the family pickup truck and wonders where her family is going after seeing large coolers and a number of folding tables and chairs stuffed into the truck’s bed, but Mukha’s daydreaming is quickly cut short when the family piles into the truck and drives off.
The truck eventually makes it to the race site, where Mukha sees many people gathered, including “ladies in lovely hats and men wearing tweed jackets,” but a bump in the road abruptly knocks the dog out of the truck into a soft pile of leaves. As Mukha begins running to catch up with her family, she sees a “no dogs allowed” sign posted on the fairgrounds so she takes cover, worried she may end up in “dog jail” if caught, all the while wondering where her lost family might be.
Mukha believes a pack of terriers running together on a nearby racetrack might know her family’s whereabouts, so she jumps into the race, only to be ignored by the dogs who are too busy trying to cross the finish line. As Mukha crosses the finish line, the announcer tells the crowd, “Attention, everyone. The winner of the terrier race finals is … A dingo? Was that a dingo?”
Mukha then finds herself helping a man who is struggling carrying supplies and a cooler, but she runs away after helping the man who exclaims, “I think that was a dingo.”
Later, as Mukha grows hungry and attempts to grab a snack from a nearby food table, she ends up saving a tray of food from falling off the table and a human thanks her as the people at the fairgrounds ask, “Was that a dingo?” as Mukha runs off to win the woman’s hat contest.
Mukha eventually finds her family during the grand finale steeplechase race, but not before picking up a couple of first-place awards and getting recognition from race officials.
“We also have it on good authority that your dingo was quite helpful to attendees throughout the day, and she set a good example for these children,” the race official told Mukha’s family.
Joan Evans of Culpeper recently read the book for her three grandchildren, ages 10, 7 and 6. Evans believes Chung did a great job telling a “wonderful story” that held her grandchildren’s attention the entire 40 pages.
“It’s delightful. I loved the book,” Evans said. “The fourth grader, you’d think a picture book wouldn’t keep their attention, but it did. He really enjoyed it. It’s a good book for all ages.”
As for his future as an author, Chung said he has a collection of written work featuring Mukha and her siblings that highlights their adventures in and around their country home. He believes he has enough material on hand to get creative at writing again.
“I would like to have them published as well,” Chung said.
Paperback versions of “Off to the Races with Mukha the Dingo” are available online for $13.95, while hardback copies are selling for $24.95.
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CANNES, France (AP) — Most in the film industry thought Ethan Coen was done with making movies. Ethan did, too.
But on Sunday, Coen will premiere his first documentary, “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind,” at the Cannes Film Festival, a movie that was unknown until last month’s festival lineup announcement. The film, which A24 will distribute later this year, is a blistering portrait of the rock ‘n’ roll and country legend, made almost entirely with archival footage, with riveting extended performances instead of talking heads.
It’s Coen’s first film without his brother Joel, with whom he for three decades formed one of the movies’ most cohesive and unshakable partnerships. But they have lately gone separate ways; last year, Joel made “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” a movie he suggested his brother would never have been interested in. Ethan is now also prepping with his wife, the editor Tricia Cooke (who cut many of the Coens’ films as well as “Trouble in Mind”), a lesbian road-trip sex comedy they wrote together 15 years ago.
“Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind” started with their longtime collaborator T-Bone Burnett, who in 2019 recorded a gospel album with the 86-year-old Lewis. The film, as Coen and Cooke noted in an interview ahead of their Cannes premiere, touches on some of the more complicated parts of Lewis’s legacy. (He married his 13-year-old cousin in his early 20s, Lewis’ then third marriage.) But it mostly brings alive the staggering force of the musical dynamo behind “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Great Balls of Fire” and “Me and Bobby McGee.”
___
AP: Many thought you, Ethan, were no longer interested in moviemaking. What changed?
COEN: What changed is I started getting bored. I was with Trish in New York at the beginning of the lockdown. So, you know, it was all a little scary and claustrophobic. And T-Bone Burnett, our friend of many years, approached us — actually, more Trish than me — to ask if we wanted to make this movie basically on archival footage. We could do it at home.
COOKE: It was like a home movie project. We’re both huge fans of his music. I had some issues with other parts of Jerry Lee’s life. I was like, “I don’t know if I want to touch that.” But it ended up being a lot of fun. Honestly, T-Bone came to us like two weeks into the pandemic, so it was a life saver.
AP: Ethan, what was it that had sapped your desire to make movies?
COEN: Oh, nothing happened, certainly nothing dramatic. You start out when you’re a kid and you want to make a movie. Everything’s enthusiasm and gung-ho, let’s go make a movie. And the first movie is just loads of fun. And then the second movie is loads of fun, almost as much fun as the first. And after 30 years, not that it’s no fun, but it’s more of a job than it had been. Joel kind of felt the same way but not to the extent that I did. It’s an inevitable by-product of aging. And the last two movies we made, me and Joel together, were really difficult in terms of production. I mean, really difficult. So if you don’t have to do it, you go at a certain point: Why am I doing this?
COOKE: Too many Westerns.
COEN: It was just getting a little old and difficult.
AP: When you say “difficult,” did it have to do with the ecosystem of the industry?
COEN: Not at all, though that’s obviously changed from beyond recognition from where we started at. But, no, it was the production experience and having been doing it for — I don’t know how many years, maybe 35 years. It was the experience of making a movie. More of a grind and less fun.
AP: Has something switched back for you then, since you’re preparing to make a film together this summer?
COEN: Again, it’s all kind of circumstance. We finished this one quite a while ago and we were still sitting around. We had this old script and we thought, “Oh, we should do that. That would be fun.” That’s the movie we’re preparing.
COOKE: I don’t want to speak for Ethan, but I know for myself, at some point, I stopped cutting, pretty much, because my priorities changed. And now our kids are grown and we still get along and have fun making things together. Joel and Ethan, we had written a few of these things, and they were always like, “We’ll put them in a drawer. The kids will find them one day.” Now we’re here like, OK, let’s do that. Let’s open up that drawer and see if someone wants to make this movie.
AP: Do you expect, Ethan, that you and Joel will continue to go your separate ways in moviemaking?
COEN: Oh, I don’t know. Going our own separate ways sounds like it suggests it might be final. But none of this stuff happened definitively. None of the decisions are definitive. We might make another movie. I don’t know what my next movie is going to be after this. The pandemic happened. I turned into a big baby and got bored and quit, and then the pandemic happened. Then other stuff happens and who knows?
AP: Did you always conceive of “Trouble in Mind” as archival-based, no talking heads?
COEN: The movie has a history preceding our involvement. It was originally conceived as being more on the gospel session T-Bone produced with Jerry Lee in 2019. Along the way, they compiled a lot of archival footage. The archival footage kept piling up. It seemed to make more sense to make it about Jerry Lee than this particular session. We pushed it maybe even further that way.
COOKE: When T-Bone brought it to us initially he described what he wanted as a tone poem. I don’t think we did that. (laughs)
COEN: Yeah, that sounds a little fruity.
COOKE: But we did from the beginning not want just a bunch of talking heads, especially if they weren’t Jerry Lee’s.
COEN: T-Bone was explicit about wanting the movie to start with that performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” of “She Woke Me Up to Say Goodbye.” And he wanted it to finish with “Another Place, Another Time.” And we went “Oh (expletive), that’s great.” He said the whole performances. We said, “Oh, great. So you’re talking about, like, a good movie.”
AP: You each have worked overwhelmingly in fiction film. Had you often pondered making a documentary? Do you watch a lot of docs?
COOKE: I had made a short documentary years ago called “Where the Girls Are” on the Dinah Shore golf tournament. In general, we both love documentaries. Frederick Wiseman and the Maysles and Pennebaker and Barbara Kopple. All of those older documentarians.
COEN: Why are they all old?
COOKE: We’re old.
COEN: Did you see the Beatles documentary? That was fantastic. Goddamn.
AP: The more distance we get from the films and music of mid-century America, the more it seems to me that was such a fertile period of creation that will never be repeated. Like: Wherever Jerry Lee Lewis came from is not a place anyone comes from anymore.
COEN: I totally agree. It’s like, yeah, it’s all gone now.
COOKE: Things aren’t discovered the same way. For Jerry Lee, when he was young, going to a blues club was nothing he had access to before and it became this incredible passion. Everything now is so large, so global — not that that’s necessarily a bad thing — but it doesn’t feel like it has the same passion as it did in the ‘30s, ’40s, ’50s.
AP: When you see him performing, his arms going up and down like pistons, he’s such a dynamo that you can’t help wondering where that energy came from.
COEN: Musicians are freaks. I mean it in the best possible way.
COOKE: He talks about the Pentecostal Church. It’s almost like he’s overcome with this passion for playing. I just remember being mesmerized when we first started watching the footage.
COEN: Sifting through the archival footage was a once-in-a-lifetime blessing but also a curse. Because he did his share of (expletive) stuff, too.
AP: What’s your personal thresholds in the behavior of an artist and the art they make? “Trouble in Mind” pointedly doesn’t seek to cast judgment.
COEN: If it’s a good movie, that’s why it’s good. What are we supposed to make of that? Right. That’s a permitted question. That’s what makes the movie interesting. How do you put that magnetic performer together with that flawed person? It’s kind of like — I mean none of the Beatles married their 13-year-old cousin — but it’s kind of like the Beatles movie and why it’s so thrilling. You go: Wow. These are both huge cultural figures and smaller-than-life human beings. That’s what’s mind blowing.
Jerry Lee is much the same. I don’t think any sane person is going to ask to embargo the music because his character had certain flaws. Who imposes that choice? All glory to T-Bone for presenting us with the opportunity and saying that it’s going to be about Jerry Lee, about this musician, and it’s not going to be about talking heads telling us what to think about Jerry Lee or about us editorializing, telling the audience what to think about Jerry Lee. All of those things are not recipes for making a good movie and no service to Jerry.
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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For more Cannes Film Festival coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/ethan-coen-on-his-jerry-lee-lewis-doc-and-filmmaking-return/
| 2022-05-22T13:45:28
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/ethan-coen-on-his-jerry-lee-lewis-doc-and-filmmaking-return/
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Kravis wedding train has rolled into Italy.
After a Las Vegas practice wedding (no marriage license) with an Elvis impersonator officiating, followed by a small ceremony (with license) in Santa Barbara, California, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker stepped out Friday in the jet set playground of Portofino, a fishing village known for its multicolored houses and crystalline green water on the Italian Riviera coast.
Photographers snapped the couple, along with the rest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan, as they arrived for dinner clad in Dolce & Gabbana. Notably absent was Scott Disick, the father of Kourtney’s three children. They took to the streets again Saturday on their way to lunch, Kourtney in a veil and short black dress emblazoned with a likeness of the Virgin Mary.
The wedding was to be held at some point over the weekend at the rented Castello Brown, a castle built in the Middle Ages overlooking the Gulf of Portofino, according to TMZ.
The reality star, 43, and the Blink-182 drummer, 46, are known for their PDA and didn’t disappoint in Portofino, where they were seen Friday on a boat sharing a kiss in the abundant sun — she in a T-shirt of her beau’s band and he in his favorite style condition: shirtless with his multiple tattoos on display.
On their way to dinner, “momager” Kris Kardashian was in a black dress on the arm of Guilherme Siqueira, a brand ambassador for Dolce & Gabbana. With sis Kim’s eldest child, North West, and her own daughter, Penelope Disick, at her sides, Kourtney wore a sheer corseted red gown and matching furry stole. Barker? Shirtless under a black suit as he walked with daughter Alabama.
The third wedding round was to include family and a small circle of close friends, with a larger reception planned later in Los Angeles, according to reports.
Barker and the oldest Kardashian sister went Instagram official with their relationship early last year. He popped the question in October, beachside with a ring of red roses and white candles at a Montecito, California, hotel. Last month, just hours after the Grammys, word of a Las Vegas wedding spread quickly, though no marriage license could be found. Kourtney later clarified they couldn’t get one in the wee hours but went ahead with a drunken practice run.
In Santa Barbara, they posted photos after making it legal at the courthouse May 15, the bride in a short white dress with veil and the groom in black, his coat buttoned up for a change. Travis’ father, Randy Barker, and Kourtney’s grandmother, Mary Jo “MJ” Campbell, were in attendance.
Kourtney didn’t marry Disick. Barker has been married twice. His first marriage, to Melissa Kennedy, lasted nine months. His last divorce, from Shanna Moakler, came in 2008. They wed in 2004 and share two teen kids, Alabama and son Landon. Barker is also close with his 23-year-old stepdaughter, Atiana De La Hoya, from Moakler’s previous relationship with former boxer Oscar De La Hoya.
The Kardashians ended their long-running “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” on E! last year and decamped to Hulu for a new iteration, “The Kardashians,” which debuted in April.
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Find Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/the-kardashians-take-portofino-for-kourtney-travis-wedding/
| 2022-05-22T13:45:35
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CANNES, France (AP) — It’s taken a lot of time and a good deal of yearning for Australian director George Miller to make “Three Thousand Years of Longing, ” his long-awaited follow-up to “Mad Max: Fury Road.”
Miller premiered “Three Thousand Years of Longing” over the weekend at the Cannes Film Festival, the culmination of a journey that began 20 years ago when Miller first read the A. S. Byatt story upon which the film is based, “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye.”
But it was only when frictions over the profits from “Fury Road” — Miller’s operatic action opus — opened a window that the time came for “Three Thousand Years of Longing.”
“After we wrote it, it was really a question of when to do it,” Miller said alongside his stars, Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton, shortly before the film’s premiere in Cannes. “It was lucky, actually. We got into litigation with Warner Bros. on ‘Fury Road’ and it meant that, hey, we can bring this to the fore.”
The unveiling of “Three Thousand Years of Longing” had most Cannes festivalgoers on the edge of theirs seats. What would Miller conjure up this time? Could the 77-year-old filmmaker match the propulsive thrill of “Mad Max: Fury Road”?
That film, which Miller is preparing to revisit with the prequel “Furiosa,” made its blistering premiere in Cannes seven years ago on its way to an armful of Oscars, $374 million in box office receipts and a place on plenty of best-century lists.
The answer, it turns out, is a singular blend of fantasy epic and chamber-piece drama that goes to the heart of Miller’s own feelings about storytelling. The film, which MGM will release on Aug. 31, was scripted by Miller and his daughter, first-time screenwriter Augusta Gore. In it, Swinton plays a narratologist named Alithea Binnie who is visiting Turkey for a conference on how science has replaced mythology.
After Alithea buys an old bottle at the Grand Bazaar and scrubs it in her hotel sink, a wish-granting djinn (Elba) appears, filling up the room. A lengthy and intimate conversation ensues, in which he tells her about his previous masters throughout the last 3,000 years. Using computer-generated imagery, Miller blends mythology and modern world in a contemplative, history-spanning fairy tale that resolutely believes in magic.
“There are some people who are great storytellers, who can do it as a performance,” Miller says. “I know that I struggle with that. I can’t get up and tell a spontaneous story well. But I can do it in the ultra-slow motion of telling a movie, where I think about every nuance, every rhythm of it.”
Miller teamed up again with many of his “Fury Road” collaborators, including cinematographer John Seale, editor Margaret Sixel and composer Tom Holkenborg. But the director sensed that in some ways “Three Thousand Years of Longing” was the “anti-Mad Max” — talkative where “Fury Road” was wordless, spread across eons rather than in real time.
Reactions have been mixed to “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” but few have questioned its ambition or its uniqueness.
And for all the eras it spans, the movie reaches right up to today. The pandemic is seen late in the film in scenes where background actors are wearing masks. The film’s production was also dramatically shaped by the pandemic. Miller shifted from shooting in a series of international locations to relying on CGI and his native Australia for the bulk of the film.
“When we started talking about this film, it felt very right,” Swinton says. “But now, this year, it’s even more. And I imagine it will be even more the next. That instinct of yours for on the wind, that’s going to run and run. That’s like a seed that one plants.”
To Miller, “Three Thousand Years of Longing” doesn’t just lead up to now — it goes beyond.
“It’s a very pertinent story,” says Miller. “It’s like a metal detector or a Geiger counter, when something really activates it. You go: ‘Oh, there’s a rich seam in here somewhere.’”
“Time will tell if it has enough stuff going in it that other people respond to it. You hope that the story becomes someone else’s and belongs to everyone,” he said.
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
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For more Cannes Film Festival coverage, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/cannes-film-festival
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https://www.cbs42.com/local/veering-from-mad-max-george-miller-debuts-3000-years/
| 2022-05-22T13:45:42
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Senior Tirza Rodriquez is “very excited” for her upcoming graduation from Northland Preparatory Academy.
“I’m ready to be done with high school and move on,” she said.
After she graduates, she will be headed to Arizona State University to study nursing.
“My whole life, I’ve really loved nursing and I’ve wanted to be a part of the medical field,” she said. “I think nursing is a good balance for me because I get the patient interaction as well as studying medicine and helping people.”
Her favorite class at NPA is sports medicine. She said she liked the hands-on aspect of the course, which had taught her how to spine board and wrap an ankle and includes CPR and first aid certification.
“I’ve learned a lot of lessons that are medical, but are also good for daily use and are just very helpful,” she said.
For an eventual career, Rodriquez is considering being a travel nurse (“something with NICU or labor and delivery”) or making first responder trips around the world through Doctors Without Borders or a similar organization.
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“I’ve always wanted to travel the world and go different places,” she said. “I have grown up in the church, so I have gone on mission trips -- like we built houses in Mexico over spring break -- but I never wanted to go on a trip where it was like no needed skills. ... I always wanted to have a skill to give to other people and share and contribute to society."
Rodriquez described herself as “very independent” and said she was ready to move somewhere new after spending her entire life in Flagstaff.
“I do love Flagstaff, but I’m just ready for a change,” she said. “I think it’ll be good.”
What she finds most exciting about college is a “different pace of life.”
“It’s a new chapter of my life and it’s a little different, but I still am not just completely on my own and I have a little bit of structure,” she said.
She said she will miss her hometown and its mountains, especially since “it’s hard to snowboard in Phoenix.”
Rodriquez has attended NPA since sixth grade. She’s been on the school’s softball and volleyball team all four years and has earlier experience with both sports. She started ballet about 14 years ago as part of a preschool dance class and now does “a mix of jazz and ballet” through NPA.
She's also a member of the National Honors Society and is involved in student government. She has been in student council since sophomore year and is currently the senior class president.
“I know how high school can feel kind of isolating, and not really like you are that important and I just wanted everyone to feel like they had a space that they could be themselves, a space that they could enjoy life in and just have a good time and feel like they were a part of the senior class,” she said of her reason for running for the position.
In her free time, she loves to snowboard, first getting into the sport after watching her mom and brother.
“One day, I went up and decided that I wanted to try,” she said. “I fell in love with it.”
Something Rodriquez said she’ll take away from her time in high school is that “life's what you make of it.”
“Some things that seem really big in the moment are not actually going to be that big of a thing in the future,” she said. “So just enjoy the time that you have and the moments you’re in, no matter how small they seem.”
NPA’s graduation is scheduled to take place from 2 to 4:30 p.m. on Thursday at Northern Arizona University’s Ardrey Auditorium, located at 1115 Knoles Drive. More information can be found at northlandprep.org.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/education/high-school-graduate-spotlight-tirza-rodriquez/article_36758e9c-d790-11ec-9bf0-93700b2b0275.html
| 2022-05-22T14:02:55
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There’s an air of suspense hanging over the new Canyon Coaster Adventure Park in Williams. It starts with a sign by the front entrance — “Bar Coming Soon!” — and continues up the steps by the ticket booth. The guardrails stand at attention, eager to accept a crowd much larger than the few people that trickle in on a Thursday afternoon.
TV screens on the outdoor patio are dark and dormant, ready to stream live video feeds from throughout the park. The exterior wood paneling of the central building has a fresh-cut color that longs for a little weather. Staff, too, are poised and expectant of the seasons to come. They welcome guests to the loading platform of the main attraction — The Canyon Coaster.
The Canyon Coaster is technically an “alpine coaster” — distinct from traditional roller coasters for its sled-like seating, hand brakes and low-to-the-ground track. It’s a ride that was invented in Germany, designed to take advantage of existing topography rather than an elevated structure.
It gains ample height — about 1,200 feet — by climbing into the steep, pine-laden hillside at the back end of the park. From the crest you can see all of Williams and a stretch of the high plains that span between the town and the Grand Canyon.
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It’s quiet up there. The coaster rails clink lightly. It’s a whisper compared to the noise of true roller coaster. The metallic patter clicks like a countdown. Clink. Clink. Clink.
And then it drops. A slow glide around a curved rail. Then speed. More. More. The sled whips through the pines. With the hand brakes wide open, the coaster can reach a speed of about 27 mph. But it feels much, much faster. The ground rushes just below the rail. The trees seem close enough to touch. Then arcing through the sky, the whole park turns below. For a little under two minutes, the coaster whisks riders on a snaking route before settling back at the platform.
“Did you enjoy the ride?” one of the attendants asks.
Maybe the attendant is Izayah Cooper, come to the adventure park staff from active duty with the National Guard.
Cooper says the experience is “180 degrees from what" he's used to.
“Everyone that you deal with is always having a good time. Just boosts the attitude of town," he said.
Or maybe you’ll be helped by Robyn Bagby, former military subcontractor who now wears a relaxed smile when she excitedly asks ,“Who likes to go fast?”
Bagby is also pleased to be on the park staff. It’s a good gig, she says — 40 hours a week, decent pay and “it’s fun.” She can’t stress that last part enough.
“Positivity. Laughter. Happiness,” said Bagby. “Something like, ‘Yay, we can have fun and we don’t have to drive eight hours to go.' We have it all right here.”
“I just like the idea that the community enjoys it,” she said.
Community enjoyment (and of course tourist attraction) is the point of the park, said Pat Follet, general manager.
When the Canyon Coaster Adventure Park first opened, Follet said, raised funds went to the Williams High School athletic department by offering a steep local discount — $5 admission for residents of Williams and Ash Fork.
“I rode it probably 30, 40 times,” said Braden Whitney, operator of El Rancho Motel, which sits right across the street from the Canyon Coaster.
The park already includes a bar, restaurant, tube slide and of course the coaster, but Whitney is excited for what comes next.
“They’re building mini golf and I think a ropes course next,” he said. “I love golfing, so I'll be over there playing mini golf to practice my putting.”
Aside from the anticipation of new attractions and a tighter short game, Whitney has high hopes that the Canyon Coaster Adventure Park will do for Williams what no business has done before.
“Hopefully [local businesses] won’t have to lay off so many people in the winter,” he said.
Historically, Williams becomes a ghost town in winter.
Summer travelers taper off and “The Gateway to the Grand Canyon” can struggle to make ends meet without the influx of tourist dollars. Hotels, motels and restaurants all have to cut staff. At nearby Historic Brewing, Brian Pluma reported that they have to let got two-thirds of the bottle room staff in the winter.
“We usually run with about 15 servers or front-of-house crew, but during the winter we’ll run with four,” Pluma said. “There’s just not enough business.”
Among the working people of Williams, an optimistic eye is turned to Canyon Coaster Adventure Park. With wintertime attractions such as a snowplay and tubing hill, alpine coaster, hot food and beer around the fire pit, the park seems positioned to be the missing piece that Williams needs.
“We’ll have thousands of people, especially in winter,” Follet said. “Economically, it’s going to be a huge boost. It’ll add one more day to somebody’s stay when they visit town.”
Follet has reason to be confident. Two of the park owners — Bruce and Kim Voigt — have successfully created similar attractions in Big Bear, California. They own the Alpine Slide at Magic Mountain as well as Big Bear Snowplay. For their contributions to the community, the Voigts were awarded the 2018 Big Bear Chamber of Commerce Summit Award.
“There’s 40 years of experience brought from Big Bear to here,” Follet said. “They know what they’re doing.”
Follet expects that the adventure park will receive “overflow” from wintertime tourists in Flagstaff as well attract guests of its own. For those passing through Williams, the park is hard to miss. Its placement on the western edge of town means that anyone getting on Interstate 40 to Flagstaff will have to pass by the intrigue of its coiling coaster rails.
That was enough to stop Mike and Shannon Alban from north Florida.
“We were just passing through on our way to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon,” Mike said while he and his wife trotted up to the entrance. “Saw it on the side of the road.”
“I’m surprised we haven’t had more wrecks out there,” joked Follet. “People just slow down and stop when they see the coaster.”
The park’s capacity as a roadside attraction will also be augmented in winter, when, Follet said, they will be making snow for the tubing hill.
“You're going to see this big white dot from the freeway,” Follet said. “Snow is like a magnet for people.”
Follet is hoping for a boom over Memorial Day.
“We had really good numbers last weekend,” he said, but there’s been an “absolutely huge” amount of money invested into building the park.
There’s still a lot of ground to make up.
“Bruce is counting nickels,” Follet said.
For Follet, the park’s 50 employees and the workers in Williams hoping to hold winter jobs, the suspense is real. The Canyon Coaster Adventure Park has taken on a weight in the Williams community, and already people are looking to it as the stabilizing leg in what Follet calls “the trifecta” of local attractions.
“You’ve got Bearizona, Grand Canyon Railway and now us,” Follet said. “That’s what we’re pinning our hopes on.”
For more information on the Canyon Coaster Adventure Park visit canyoncoasteradventurepark.com.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/high-hopes-for-canyon-coaster-adventure-park-in-williams/article_d97f892a-d88b-11ec-92c9-2f34769a3173.html
| 2022-05-22T14:03:01
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/high-hopes-for-canyon-coaster-adventure-park-in-williams/article_d97f892a-d88b-11ec-92c9-2f34769a3173.html
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Coconino County and the cities of Flagstaff and Sedona have partnered with the nonprofit Solar United Neighbors (SUN) to launch a second solar co-op in northern Arizona.
The co-op is a free-to-join, no-obligation collective that educates members about residential solar installation and uses group leverage to purchase individual solar systems at a competitive rate. The co-op will be open to new members through June 30.
The co-op works through a fairly straightforward process. Members receive free education on residential solar systems and financing from SUN. Once the co-op has about 30 members, SUN solicits proposals from solar installers in the area. A committee of co-op members then selects a company to install everyone’s systems at a group rate.
From there, the installer works with co-op members directly to develop site-specific plans and an installation schedule. Joining the co-op doesn’t commit members to going solar, but it does give them the opportunity to learn and access the negotiated groups rates.
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The last northern Arizona solar co-op was “a great first step forward” for the City of Flagstaff’s carbon neutrality goals, said Nicole Antonopoulos, sustainability director for the city. Antonopoulos said Flagstaff’s sustainability program identified a need for 10 megawatts of clean energy in order to reach carbon neutrality goals. The 83 households that installed solar systems through the last co-op are now generating about 640 kilo-watts — roughly 6% of the city’s 10 megawatt goal.
According to Antonopoulos, those that participated in the co-op were able to negotiate a roughly 20% discount on solar systems from Flagstaff installer Rooftop Solar.
“Co-ops like this are a powerful tool to advance residential solar at a bulk purchase price,” Antonopoulos said.
Flagstaff resident Kevin Brown got his 24-panel, 8.4-kilowatt system through membership in the last northern Arizona solar co-op. A former school teacher and administrator, Brown said that investing in clean energy is a necessary step for the health of our planet that lacks top-down political will.
“The co-op is great for a bottom-up grassroots approach,” Brown said. “The more people that install solar, the more it becomes politically viable.”
For Brown, the process of working with the co-op and Rooftop Solar was highly personalized to his needs. He said that the installer spent time with him evaluating the most effective and attractive placement for his panels and was willing to work with him and his values. For example, they explored the option of some ground based panels that would have benefited from the removal of a tree.
“But there was an owl that likes to roost there,” Brown said. “So, we decided that wouldn’t work.”
Brown is also excited to report that with his new solar panels, he is able to produce enough energy to sell it back to Arizona Public Services (APS).
Last month, his electric bill was a credit of $63.
“We're delighted to be saving money on our electric bills and to make a positive ecological difference,” Brown said.
Solar energy makes “complete sense” for Arizonans, said Bret Fanshaw, Arizona program director for SUN. “Anybody that lives here knows how much sun we get.”
SUN has hosted 10 solar co-ops in Arizona since 2019. According to the groups estimates, the 289 homes and businesses that now have solar panels because of co-ops represent more than 2 megawatts of solar power, $6.5 million in local solar spending and more than 400,00 metric tons of lifetime carbon offsets. That’s about as much carbon as 18 million trees can sequester in a year.
The cost of solar is also on the decline. A decade ago, the average 6 kilowatt-per-hour system would have cost more than $50,000. Now, a similar system probably ranges between $16,000 and $20,000 -- not including the discounts possible through co-ops and federal tax credits.
“Now is a particularly great time to go solar,” wrote SUN in a release about the new co-op. “The federal tax credit for solar is supposed to lower at the end of this year. That means going solar in the next couple of months will ensure homeowners save the maximum amount, while next year those savings may decrease.”
Currently, the federal tax credit for solar installations and other renewable energy systems is at 26%. That number is set to drop to 22% in 2023.
The co-op has 35 members currently signed up.
A free virtual information meeting is planned for Tuesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Individuals interested in going solar can sign up for the co-op or the upcoming information session at the co-op web page solarunitedneighbors.org/naz2022.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/solar-co-op-cuts-costs-with-collective-bargaining/article_0466bbda-d7ac-11ec-8cb0-0364219f6cd4.html
| 2022-05-22T14:03:07
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/solar-co-op-cuts-costs-with-collective-bargaining/article_0466bbda-d7ac-11ec-8cb0-0364219f6cd4.html
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In May 2009, when the Arizona Daily Sun published the very first High Country Running column, I was living in Phoenix. I had started running a few years earlier at the encouragement of my chiropractor.
A runner himself, he said running would be good for my “bad” back. Tentative, nervous about getting hurt, I tried it, exploring the alleys in my suburb.
My neighbors kept not just dogs in their backyards, but also chickens, horses and sheep. The enchantment of discovery kept me moving, and eventually I told my chiropractor he’d been right.
After I moved to Flagstaff in 2010, I continued to run. High Country Running, with editor Karen London in charge, had just turned a year old. Columnists in the first year included Jack Daniels, Vince Sherry, Neil Weintraub, Greg McMillan and Mike Smith; a who’s who of our running world.
I started reading the column in 2011. It introduced me to elite racers who train here and to other runners just like me. It consistently made running at high elevation seem fun, a fact I appreciated when I struggled to stay motivated.
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In 2013, Myles Schrag replaced London as the coordinating editor, and the column kept going strong. Readers heard from local heroes such as Nat White, Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, Abe Springer, Sarah Wagner and many more.
In one column, Schrag wrote, “The variety of voices is what gives HCR its best quality—it’s a montage of stories that collectively make up our singular running community.”
In 2015, I joined Team Run Flagstaff and the Flagstaff Trail Divas. I felt very much a part of the running community, and I read High Country Running -- that montage of stories -- to keep tabs on friends and stay up on the latest news.
In 2017, I read Schrag’s column describing a book idea that would celebrate Flagstaff’s participation in the Imogene Pass Run. That’s the day High Country Running truly changed my life. I wrote to offer my help with editing. In September 2019, he and I -- and more than 70 members of this very running community -- published “To Imogene, a Flagstaff Love Letter.”
By then, I’d become coordinating editor of this column. Schrag handed me the position in 2018, and I’ve enjoyed it ever since. It’s an honor to take part in the high country running community in this direct way.
Looking back at this list, I’m astounded by how powerfully this weekly column has impacted my life. I hope it’s entertained and informed you, too. That’s why it exists: to offer runners a regular space where you can share stories and news, and celebrate this community and what it can offer.
If you’ve written one of these columns in the past 13 years, thank you! Send me another. If you haven’t seen your name in this space yet, 2022 is your year. Write 500 words and send them my way. I can be reached anytime at runner@juliehammonds.com.
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/high-country-running-how-high-country-running-changed-my-life/article_7c9c1cbe-d926-11ec-bbef-ffac61a8735f.html
| 2022-05-22T14:03:13
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/high-country-running-how-high-country-running-changed-my-life/article_7c9c1cbe-d926-11ec-bbef-ffac61a8735f.html
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When Caliah King-Valdez took her first gymnastics class at age 5, she just liked the idea of rolling and jumping around, hitting the trampoline and doing all the things any typical kid her age might enjoy.
Now, years later, she and her family have begun to make the sport a major part of their lives. Her parents, Lauren King and Chris Valdez, took her into home school -- King now shares duties as both mother and teacher -- and their daughter, now 11 years old, trains about 25 hours each week to compete in gymnastics at a high level.
“It was just a first-time thing when I started, and I wanted to do better at it,” King-Valdez said. “The last couple years I did even more, and I just feel like I love the sport. It’s very fun to do the flying things.”
King-Valdez competed in the 2022 USA Gymnastics Region 1 Level 6-7, the highest level of competition for her age, beginning on April 29 in Salt Lake City. She earned an overall score of 38.100 in four events, good for 10th place in a loaded group of athletes from around the Southwest. To get there, she had to compete through a slew of local and state meets.
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“It’s very fun to do all these competitions. State was really fun, probably my favorite. But regionals was fun, too,” King-Valdez said. “I made lots of friends, and there were some coaches who were very nice and helped me.”
King-Valdez also competed in the Talent Opportunity Program (TOPs) in Indianapolis at age 10 in July of 2021, the lone Flagstaff-area participant competing against the nation’s best gymnasts of that age. The competition, which she entered alongside coach Bernie Rede, is one of the elite meets in all of junior gymnastics. She barely missed the cut for the second round.
King said seeing her daughter do so well and show such dedication to improving in gymnastics has been rewarding.
“It’s been mind-blowing for me as a mom. To be 11 and accomplish all this -- going to state, going to regionals, making the team -- was by far the coolest thing as a parent to see,” King said.
She added that the high level of athletes her daughter competes against at the elite meets is inspiring. But to be just as good as the others, while coming from Flagstaff, makes her proud.
“The bigger cities have the advantages, but for her to be in a small hometown and hear people say, ‘Wow,’ like it’s awesome to see a girl make that, especially being from somewhere like Flagstaff,” King said.
Despite the spring season over, King-Valdez is still training just as much. The next official season begins in January. She will hope to do just as well at age 12 at Level 8 as she has recently, with even bigger goals in the future.
It just will take more dedication than she needed in kindergarten to jump around a couple times a week.
“I want to keep getting better. I want to go to college and go to the Olympics some day if I work hard at it,” King-Valdez said.
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/local-gymnast-king-valdez-has-high-goals-for-future/article_8616fcea-d927-11ec-b579-477121feae72.html
| 2022-05-22T14:03:19
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https://azdailysun.com/sports/local/local-gymnast-king-valdez-has-high-goals-for-future/article_8616fcea-d927-11ec-b579-477121feae72.html
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/at-least-4-people-shot-killed-in-philly-overnight/3247302/
| 2022-05-22T14:55:18
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/at-least-4-people-shot-killed-in-philly-overnight/3247302/
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At least four people were killed in separate shootings as gun violence erupted in Philadelphia and at least one surrounding community Saturday night into Sunday morning.
Around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, a man in his 30s was shot along North 20th Street, near 72nd Avenue, in Philadelphia's West Oak Lane neighborhood. Police said the man died a short time later at the hospital.
A man believed to be in his 20s was shot and killed sometime before 2 a.m. Sunday along Hill Creek Circle in the Hill Creek housing complex in Philadelphia's Crescentville neighborhood.
Around 4 a.m., a person was shot and killed during an attempted robbery at a store near North 22nd and Diamond streets in North Philadelphia, Philadelphia police said. The store windows were shattered by bullets.
Then, sometime around 6 a.m., a man was shot and killed near North 11th Street and Rising Sun Avenue in North Philadelphia.
Entering Sunday, there had been at least 180 homicides so far this year in Philadelphia. That's down 10% from the same time last year, which wound up being the deadliest on record in Philadelphia.
Besides the deadly shootings, gun violence also struck at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia where at least three people were shot around 10 p.m. Saturday near the waterfront attractions like the Blue Cross RiverRink. The ages and conditions of those involved weren't known.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
Philadelphia police have yet to reveal details on motives, suspects or identities for any of the shootings.
There was also a shooting overnight outside of 7-Elevan store on Garrett Road in neighboring Upper Darby, Delaware County, around 8 p.m. Saturday, authorities said. That person's condition wasn't known.
This story is developing. NBC10 hopes to gather more information during the day.
There are additional resources for people or communities that have endured gun violence in Philadelphia. Further information can be found here.
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/philadelphia-homicides-shooting-gun-violence/3247201/
| 2022-05-22T14:55:24
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https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/philadelphia-homicides-shooting-gun-violence/3247201/
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A suspect scaling apartment building balconies in the middle of the night broke into a third floor unit and stabbed a Queens man to death, police said.
The intruder surprised a couple in the top-floor apartment, entering through a balcony window around 2 a.m. Sunday, according to authorities.
Police said the wife sleeping inside was startled awake and managed to get away, but her husband was not so lucky. The 35-year-old suspect allegedly stabbed the man multiple times with a sharp object.
Then the suspect tried to make his escape. Police said he fled and jumped down to the second-floor balcony and tried to enter that apartment as well, but the people inside called 911.
When police arrived, the alleged killer was scaling down the building again. Officers deployed a taser and took the man into custody.
Investigators were working to determine a motive for the intruder's bizarre deadly break-in.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/balcony-burglar-breaks-into-nyc-apartment-stabs-husband-to-death-nypd/3699790/
| 2022-05-22T15:16:45
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/balcony-burglar-breaks-into-nyc-apartment-stabs-husband-to-death-nypd/3699790/
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Three women riding in the backseat of a car on Long Island were killed late Saturday in a suspected drunk driving crash.
Authorities rushed to the New Hyde Park crash site shortly after 11 p.m. when the driver of a Mercedes-Benz smashed into a Lincoln Town Car with six people inside.
Police found mangled cars and multiple victims on the Jericho Turnpike. Three women were declared dead at the scene.
The two other passengers and driver of the Lincoln were taken to a local hospital.
Dante Lennon, the 22-year-old driver of the Mercedes, is facing charges of vehicular manslaughter and driving while intoxicated. He was arrested and taken to a hospital to be treated for injuries sustained in the crash.
Police said Lennon will be arraigned as soon as medically possible. Attorney information for the Freeport man was not immediately known.
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/drunk-driver-kills-3-women-in-late-night-long-island-crash-police-ny-only/3699812/
| 2022-05-22T15:17:25
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https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/drunk-driver-kills-3-women-in-late-night-long-island-crash-police-ny-only/3699812/
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PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. — A 59-year-old man is in critical condition after being hit by an SUV while trying to turn onto Cochran Boulevard with his bicycle.
According to Florida Highway Patrol, the SUV hit the victim from behind sending them to the westbound travel lane of Cochran Boulevard.
According to the report, the victim was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The driver of the SUV has been identified as a 27-year-old Port Charlotte man, according to FHP.
The crash remains under investigation at this time.
Count on NBC-2 to provide updates as the story develops.
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/22/bicyclist-in-critical-condition-after-being-hit-by-suv-in-port-charlotte/
| 2022-05-22T15:19:17
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/22/bicyclist-in-critical-condition-after-being-hit-by-suv-in-port-charlotte/
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CAPE CORAL, Fla. — Neighbors in one Cape Coral neighborhood say they’re keeping an eye out for a pick up truck caught on camera driving through an empty lot that’s bustling with gopher tortoise burrows.
A neighbor’s Ring camera caught a truck driving through the lot at 1019 Tropicana Pkwy West in Cape Coral last week and they say this isn’t the first time they’ve been caught doing it.
Anne Marien Faraminan lives directly next to the lot littered with at least 10 marked gopher tortoise burrows. She says she’s saved a gopher tortoise hit on the street but watching someone drive through the clearly marked lot makes her angry.
“I think it’s horrible. In these two lots we have a lot of wildlife activity,” Faraminan said. “You’re putting everything in danger. The wildlife, the kids in the area, the animals.”
After viewing the video, the FWC says the driver is potentially violating the law by not taking all necessary precautions to avoid impacting gopher tortoises and their burrows.
Cheryl Anderson is a Board Member at the Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife. She says both the tortoises and their burrows are protected by law.
The rules are that you have to be 33 feet away from a gopher tortoise burrow to do any kind of digging, driving. There’s a five thousand dollar fee for handling these animals,” Anderson said.
Neighbors say they aren’t sure who drives the truck but they believe the person may live on one of the streets behind the lot. They say they’ll keep an out for that truck and are ready to call the authorities if the truck comes through the lot again.
“There’s no need to pass over anyone’s lot. Even if it’s an empty lot,” said Faraminan.
If you see someone tampering with a gopher tortoise or its burrow, you’re encouraged to call the FWC.
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/22/truck-drives-over-lot-littered-with-gopher-tortoise-burrows/
| 2022-05-22T15:19:23
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/22/truck-drives-over-lot-littered-with-gopher-tortoise-burrows/
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The Coos County Friends of Public Health honored Public Health Super Stars on Tuesday, May 10, at their 14th annual Recognition Luncheon.
The awards were presented to individuals and groups who have shown outstanding dedication to improving health in Coos County.
The first two people recognized were people from Coos County’s history. Coos County had the first public health department in Oregon starting in September 1922. That means that Coos Health & Wellness is celebrating its 100th year as a county public health department. Elizabeth Campbell Bickford, RN, and Everett Mingus, MD, were instrumental in getting the health department established in September of 1922.
Pam de Jong played the role of Elizabeth Campbell Bickford, who was the county health nurse, telling the attendees how she travelled by boat, horse and log train to all of the towns and over 90 schools throughout the county.
Eric Gleason played the role of Dr. Everett Mingus, who was the county health officer who found the funding to help pay for the establishment of the health department. He talked about health conditions and challenges.
The award presentation to the historical characters was followed by recognition of groups and individuals who provided outstanding assistance in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Coquille Indian Tribe was recognized first, for having delivered 7,000 vaccines to the broad Coos County. The Coquille tribe had access to vaccines before other groups, and drew from its culture of potlatch to share those vaccines with the broad Coos County community. Tribal chair, Brenda Meade accepted the award on behalf of the tribe.
Bay Cities Ambulance was recognized next, for their role in the COVID response by providing community rapid testing in various locations in Coos County and for handling vaccines in long term care facilities and for seniors at their residences. They also provided an ambulance and responders at the COVID vaccine clinics. Daisy Zimmerman accepted the award for Bay Cities Ambulance.
The Coos Bay Fire Department was recognized for not only providing their fire station as a venue for drive through vaccine clinics, but also for providing assistance with intake and registration. Their facilities provided an ideal setting for these clinics. Fire chief Mark Anderson accepted the award.
The next group of awards went to individuals who provided COVID response assistance as volunteers for the Medical Reserve Corps or employees of Coos Health & Wellness.
Reneé Menkens and Kat Burgess were Medical Reserve Corps volunteers who were key to making the drive through vaccine clinics work in multiple Coos County locations and aboard ships for over 300 foreign sailors. They were recognized for their extensive contributions to Public Health, even beyond the COVID response.
Lena Hawtin, from Coos Health & Wellness was recognized for her work at the vaccine clinics as well as for her role in managing the COVID vaccine for the county and helping supervise and assisting the COVID investigators and tracers.
Kelsey Orr and Becky Fairhurst were recognized for their accomplishments in contact tracing to slow the spread of the pandemic. They put in long hours in investigating cases and were frequently mentioned by the Oregon Health Authority as some of the best investigators in Oregon. They were also recognized for volunteering at the vaccination clinics.
Other ‘Super Stars’ were recognized for their ‘non-pandemic’ contributions to public health.
John Lemos was recognized for his work at the Kids HOPE center. He volunteered hours of his time in helping accomplish the center’s mission of reducing child abuse through community awareness, intervention, and to provide support for healing and victim justice. HOPE is an acronym for “Healing, Outreach, Prevention, and Education”. John also is a volunteer co-facilitator in the Kid’s HOPE center Darkness to Light curriculum.
Stephanie Polizzi, of the OSU Extension, was recognized for her tireless work in improving nutrition. Stephanie leads a nutrition education crusade that starts with extensive research to support educational material (which she also creates), and then concludes with the implementation of the training, including training health coaches to extend the training reach.
Alissa Pruess was recognized for her work in several areas. She has studied and developed plans for addressing the health needs of homeless mothers and children. She has also developed resources to support reproductive health. Her research helped identify health gaps and needs, and she has created tools to fill those gaps. Recently she designed The Sex Talk Website (thecoossextalk.org) to make reliable and accurate sex education available to the community. Alissa is also active in other areas, and is the new president of the Zonta Club.
Barbara Van Slyke was recognized for being the driving force behind the establishment of the Waterfall Clinic. As a nurse at Bay Area Hospital, she realized that there was no neighborhood health clinic for low income or homeless people in Coos County. She started by treating patients at a table at the Gospel Mission in Empire, and that care grew into the Waterfall Clinic. Barbara served on their board until 2014, and continued nursing at the Bay area Cancer Center until 2020.
More than 80 people attended the recognition celebration at the Black Market Gourmet.
The Coos County Friends of Public Health’s mission is to promote public health in Coos County through enhancement of local public health services, through fundraising, education, advocacy and volunteering.
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/coos-county-friends-of-public-health-honors-super-stars/article_e7a8b80e-d79c-11ec-9dee-5381d7f098fa.html
| 2022-05-22T15:29:24
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/coos-county-friends-of-public-health-honors-super-stars/article_e7a8b80e-d79c-11ec-9dee-5381d7f098fa.html
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A bond package to fund a new library and 9-1-1 call center at John Topits Park went down to defeat during the primary election Tuesday.
The $20 million bond package was proposed to build a new library and add the 9-1-1 call center. The Coos Bay City Council proposed the bond, saying the existing library downtown is falling apart and the city is obligated to have a library facility in Coos Bay. The city spent years looking for a location before deciding on Topits Park, near the middle lake.
With 2,169 ballots counted, 1,324 voters, or 61.04%, voted against the bond package while 845 voters, or 38.96%, voted in favor of it.
While no one was available to speak after results were released Tuesday, both Mayor Joe Benetti and City Manager Rodger Craddock said if the bond vote failed, the city would have to look for new ways to fund construction of the library.
In a race too close to call, a bond package to fund repairs in the North Bend School District is also behind, but the margin is razor thin. with 2,483 ballots counted, 1,251 voters cast ballots against the bond while 1,232 voters have cast ballots in favor of the bond.
The vote is the second time in two years the North Bend School District has asked voters to approve a bond. The first bond was voted down, so the school board came back with a smaller bond that would not have increased the tax rate.
With enough votes still outstanding, the outcome of the vote has not been finalized.
A proposal to authorize a short-term lodging tax in Charleston passed handily. With 9,470 votes counted, 5,624 ballots, or 59.39%, were cast in support of the tax while 3,846 votes, or 40.61%, were cast against it.
The passage will impose a 9.5% tax on hotel and other short-term rentals in Charleston and Cape Arago. The money will allow Charleston to create a convention and visitors bureau and will also increase security and clean-up efforts in Charleston.
Final results will not be known for a week as state law allows ballots mailed by today to be counted up to seven days after the election.
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/library-bond-falls-nb-schools-too-close-to-call/article_fa64acc0-d79a-11ec-8a46-7ff7ae744009.html
| 2022-05-22T15:29:31
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https://theworldlink.com/news/local/library-bond-falls-nb-schools-too-close-to-call/article_fa64acc0-d79a-11ec-8a46-7ff7ae744009.html
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For the second day in a row, Lincoln Police are investigating gun violence that in Sunday's case left two men dead and a third hospitalized.
Police were called to the area of 30th and P streets at 2:20 a.m. Sunday by a man who said he had been shot. Officers discovered two shooting victims inside a residence, a 26-year-old and 42-year-old who both died, police said in a post to social media.
A third shooting victim, a 19-year-old man, showed up at a Lincoln hospital shortly after the original 911 call and is reported in serious but stable condition.
No suspects are in custody, but police said that based on their initial investigation, they "believe this to be an isolated incident" and said there is no ongoing threat to the public.
Early Saturday morning, three people were injured in a shooting outside a bar in the 1100 block of O Street. No arrests have been reported in that case, where police believe there is a connection between the victims and a suspect.
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And on Thursday morning, Lincoln recorded its first homicide of the year. Police said Henry Lee Jones, 57, was killed in a fight outside his home on the 2800 block of F street.
Police reported three arrests in connection to Jones' death, including 32-year-old Derrick Pearson and 31-year-old Briana Jelinek — both on suspicion of manslaughter and use of a weapon to commit a felony.
Officers arrested a third person, 25-year-old Micah Berggren, on suspicion of second-degree assault and use of a weapon to commit a felony.
Police have said they believe there was some connection between Jones and his alleged attackers.
Anyone with information on the investigations is asked to contact police at 402-441-6000 or provide a tip through Crime Stoppers at 402-475-3600.
Tom Casady's list of the 10 most infamous crimes in Lincoln history
Crimes of the times
This is simply one man’s perspective from the early 21st century (first written in 2010). I had to make a decision about crimes that occurred at locations that are inside the city today, but were outside our corporate limits at the time they occurred. I chose the latter.
Before beginning, though, I have to deal with three crimes that stand apart: the murders of three police officers in Lincoln. I’m not quite sure how to place them in a list. They all had huge impacts on the community, and on the police department in particular. Because these are my colleagues, I deal with them separately and in chronological order.
Patrolman Marion Francis Marshall
Shot in the shadow of the new Nebraska State Capital, Gov. Charles Bryan came to his aid and summoned additional help.
Lt. Frank Soukup
Marion Marshall was technically not a Lincoln police officer, so Lt. Soukup was actually the first Lincoln police officer killed on duty. One of his colleagues who was present at the motel and involved in the gunbattle, Paul Jacobsen, went on to enjoy a long career and command rank at LPD, influencing many young charges (like me) and leaving his mark on the culture of the agency.
Lt. Paul Whitehead
In the space of a few months, three LPD officers died in the line of duty. Frank Soukup had been murdered, and George Welter had died in a motorcycle crash. Paul Whitehead's partner, Paul Merritt, went on to command rank, and like Paul Jacobsen left an indelible mark at LPD and the community.
No. 1: Starkweather
The subject of several thinly disguised movie plots and a Springsteen album, the Starkweather murders are clearly the most infamous crime in Lincoln’s history — so far. One of the first mass murderers of the mass media age, six of Charles Starkweather’s 11 victims were killed inside the city of Lincoln, and the first was just on the outskirts of town. I didn’t live in Lincoln at the time, but my wife was a first-grader at Riley Elementary School and has vivid memories of the city gripped by fear in the days between the discovery of the Bartlett murders and Starkweather’s capture in Wyoming.
The case caused quite an uproar. There was intense criticism of the police department and sheriff’s office for not capturing Starkweather earlier in the week after the discovery of the Bartletts' bodies. Ultimately, Mayor Bennett Martin and the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners retained a retired FBI agent, Harold G. Robinson, to investigate the performance of local law enforcement. His report essentially exonerated the local law officers and made a few vanilla recommendations for improving inter-agency communication and training.
Now I know that many readers are mumbling to themselves “how obvious.” Hold your horses, though. It’s not quite as obvious as you might think. I had two experiences that drove this fact home to me. The first was a visit by a small group of journalism students. Only one member of the class had any idea, and her idea was pretty vague. You need to remember that the Starkweather murders were in 1957 and 1958 — before the parents of many college students were even born.
The second experience was a visit by a Cub Scout den. I was giving the kids a tour of the police station one evening. We were in the front lobby waiting for everyone to arrive. As I entertained the boys, I told the moms and dads that they might enjoy looking in the corner of the Sheriff’s Office display case to see the contents of Starkweather’s wallet — discovered a couple of years ago locked up in the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office safe. After a few minutes, one of the confused fathers asked me who Starkweather was, and why it was significant.
No. 2: Lincoln National Bank
On the morning of Sept. 17, 1930, a dark blue Buick carrying six men pulled up in front of the Lincoln National Bank at the northwest corner of 12th and O streets. Five of the men entered the bank, while a sixth stood outside by the Buick, cradling a machine gun. Observing the unusual events, a passerby called the police. The officer who responded, Forrest Shappaugh, was casually instructed by the machine-gun-toting lookout to just keep going, which he wisely did. Returning with reinforcements, he found that the robbers had already made good on their getaway, netting $2.7 million in cash and negotiable securities.
Ultimately, three of the six suspects were arrested. Tommy O’Connor and Howard Lee were convicted and sentenced. Jack Britt was tried twice but not convicted by a hung jury. Gus Winkeler, a member of Al Capone’s gang, winged a deal with County Attorney Max Towle to avoid prosecution in exchange for orchestrating the recovery of $600,000 in bearer bonds. The following year, Winkeler was murdered in Chicago, the victim of a gangland slaying. The final two robbers were never identified.
The Lincoln National Bank robbery stood as the largest cash bank robbery in the United States for many decades. It precipitated major changes at the Lincoln Police Department. Chief Peter Johnstone was rapidly “retired” after the robbery, the department’s fleet was upgraded to add the first official patrol cars, the full force was armed and a shotgun squad was organized. Forty-four years later when I was hired at LPD, the echo of the Lincoln National Bank robbery was still evident in daily bank opening details, and in the Thomspon submachine guns and Reising rifles that detectives grabbed whenever the robbery alarm sounded at headquarters.
No. 3: The Last Posse
My first inkling about this crime came when I was the chief deputy sheriff. One of my interns, a young man named Ron Boden (who became a veteran deputy sheriff), had been doing some research on Lancaster County’s only known lynching, in 1884. I came across a reference in the biography of the sheriff at the time, Sam Melick, to the murder of the Nebraska Penitentiary warden and subsequent prison break. Melick had been appointed interim warden after the murder and instituted several reforms.
Several years later, a colleague, Sgt. Geoff Marti, loaned me a great book, Gale Christianson’s "Last Posse," that told the story of the 1912 prison break in gory, haunting and glorious detail.
To make a long story short, convict Shorty Gray and his co-conspirators shot and killed Warden James Delahunty, a deputy warden and a guard on Wednesday, March 13, 1912. They then made their break — right into the teeth of a brutal Nebraska spring blizzard. Over the course to the next few days, a posse pursued. During the pursuit, the escapees carjacked a young farmer with his team and wagon. As the posse closed in, a gunfight broke out and the hostage was shot and killed in the exchange, along with two of the three escapees.
There was plenty of anger among the locals in the Gretna-Springfield vicinity about the death of their native son, and a controversy raged over the law enforcement tactics that brought about his demise. Lancaster County Sheriff Gus Hyers was not unsullied by the inquiry, although it appears from my prospect a century later that the fog of war led to the tragedy.
Christianson, a professor of history at Indiana State University who died earlier this year, notes the following on the flyleaf:
“For anyone living west of the Mississippi in 1912, the biggest news that fateful year was a violent escape from the Nebraska state penitentiary planned and carried out by a trio of notorious robbers and safe blowers.”
Bigger news on half the continent than the sinking of the Titanic during the same year would certainly qualify this murder-escape as one of the most infamous Lincoln crimes in history.
No. 4: Rock Island wreck
The Aug. 10, 1894, wreck of a Rock Island train on the southwest outskirts of Lincoln was almost lost in the mist of time until it was resurrected in the public consciousness by author Joel Williams, who came across the story while conducting research for his historical novel, "Barrelhouse Boys."
The wreck was determined to be the result of sabotage to the tracks, perhaps an attempt to derail the train as a prelude to robbery. Eleven people died in the crash and ensuing fire, making this a mass murder, to be sure. G.W. Davis was arrested and convicted of the crime but later received a full pardon. The story was told in greater detail earlier this year by the Lincoln Journal Star.
A historical marker is along the Rock Island Trail in Wilderness Park, accessible only by foot or bike from the nearest trail access points about a half-mile away at Old Cheney Road on the north, or 14th Street on the south.
Here’s the big question that remains unanswered: Was there really significant evidence to prove that George Washington Davis committed the crime, or was he just a convenient scapegoat? The fact that he received a gubernatorial pardon 10 years later leads me to believe that the evidence must have been unusually weak. If he was railroaded, then my second question is this: who really pried loose the tracks with the 40-pound crowbar found at the scene?
No. 5: Commonwealth
On Nov. 1, 1983, the doors to Nebraska’s largest industrial savings and loan company were closed and Commonwealth was declared insolvent. The 6,700 depositors with $65 million at stake would never be fully compensated for their loss, ultimately receiving about 59 cents on the dollar for their deposits, which they all mistakenly believed were insured up to $30,000 through the Nebraska Depository Insurance Guaranty Corporation, which was essentially an insurance pool with assets of only $3 million.
The case dominated Nebraska news for months. The investigation ultimately led to the conviction of three members of the prominent Lincoln family that owned the institution, the resignation of the director of the State Department of Banking and the impeachment of the Nebraska attorney general and the suspension of his license to practice law. State and federal litigation arising from the failure of Commonwealth drug on for years.
At the Lincoln Police Department, the Commonwealth failure led to the formation of a specialized white-collar crime detail, now known as the Technical Investigations Unit. At the time, municipal police departments in the United States had virtually no capacity for investigating financial crime and fraud of this magnitude, and we quickly became well known for our expertise in this area. The early experience served LPD very well in the ensuring years.
No. 6: Candice Harms
Candi Harms never came home from visiting her boyfriend on Sept. 22, 1992. Her parents reported her as a missing person the following morning, and her car was found abandoned in a cornfield north of Lincoln later in the day. Weeks went by before her remains were found southeast of Lincoln.
Scott Barney and Roger Bjorklund were convicted in her abduction and murder. Barney is in prison serving a life term. Bjorklund died in prison in 2001. Intense media attention surrounded the lengthy trial of Roger Bjorklund, for which a jury was brought in from Cheyenne County as an alternative to a change of venue. I have no doubt that the trial was a life-changing event for a group of good citizens from Sidney, who did their civic duty.
I was the Lancaster County sheriff at the time, involved both in the investigation and in the trial security. It was at about this time that the cellular telephone was becoming a consumer product, and I have often thought that this brutal crime probably spurred a lot of purchases. During my career, this is probably the second-most-prominent Lincoln crime in terms of the sheer volume of media coverage.
No. 7: Jon Simpson and Jacob Surber
A parent’s worst nightmare unfolded in September 1975 when these two boys, ages 12 and 13, failed to return from the Nebraska State Fair. The boys were the victims of abduction and murder. The case was similar to a string of other murders of young boys in the Midwest, and many thought that these cases were related -- the work of a serial killer. Although an arrest was made in the case here in Lincoln, the charges were eventually dismissed. William Guatney was released and has since died.
No. 8: John Sheedy
Saloon and gambling house owner John Sheedy was gunned down outside his home at 1211 P St. in January 1891. The case of Sheedy, prominent in Lincoln’s demiworld, became the talk of the town when his wife, Mary, and her alleged lover and accomplice, Monday McFarland, were arrested. Both were acquitted at trial. The Sheedy murder is chronicled in a great interactive multimedia website, Gilded Age Plains City, an online version that builds upon an article published in 2001 by Timothy Mahoney of the University of Nebraska.
No. 9: Patricia McGarry and Catherine Brooks
The bodies of these two friends were found in a Northeast Lincoln duplex in August 1977. Their murderer, Robert E. Williams, was the subject of a massive Midwest manhunt during the following week. Before his capture, he committed a third murder in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, and raped, shot and left for dead a victim who survived in Minnesota. He is the last man to be executed in Nebraska, sent to the electric chair in 1997.
No. 10: Judge William M. Morning
District Court Judge William Morning was murdered in February 1924. He was shot on the bench by an unhappy litigant in a divorce case. His court reporter, Minor Bacon, was also shot, but a notebook in his breast pocket deflected the bullet and saved his life.
Many other crimes
Choosing Lincoln's 10 most infamous crimes was a challenge. Although the top two were easy, the picture quickly became clouded. We tend, of course, to forget our history rather quickly. Many of the crimes I felt were among the most significant are barely remembered today, if not completely forgotten.
Some readers will take issue with my list. In choosing 10, here are the others I considered, in no particular order. They are all murders:
-- Mary O'Shea
-- Nancy Parker
-- Charles Mulholland
-- Victoria Lamm and Janet Mesner
-- Martina McMenamin
-- Regina Bos (presumably murdered)
-- Patty Webb
-- Marianne Mitzner
I also thought about the five murder-suicides in which a mother or father killed multiple family members before taking their own life. Though tragic, these crimes did not command the same kind of attention as the others, perhaps because there was no lengthy investigation, no tantalizing whodunit, no stranger-killer, nor any of the details that come out in the coverage of a major trial.
Reach the writer at 402-473-2657 or jebbers@journalstar.com
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/two-men-dead-after-lincoln-police-respond-to-overnight-shooting/article_ba29b875-36ee-59d4-ab50-5e1bd143a03a.html
| 2022-05-22T15:37:00
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/two-men-dead-after-lincoln-police-respond-to-overnight-shooting/article_ba29b875-36ee-59d4-ab50-5e1bd143a03a.html
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Miki Esposito — the first woman to head Lincoln's public works department and who later became a senior policy adviser to the mayor — has left Nebraska for a new challenge.
On Friday, she started her new job: As Los Angeles County’s assistant director of public works, one of the largest municipal public works agencies in the country.
The opportunity — to help run a department that employs 4,000 people, serves 10 million residents, covers 400 square miles, 88 incorporated cities, including Los Angeles, and hundreds of unincorporated communities — was too hard to pass up.
She ignores most job opportunities that arise through a professional organization she's a part of, but this one she couldn't.
"I love a challenge and am always looking to be challenged. I'm a competitor by nature ... and I want to make maximum impact. If it's hard and purposeful, I want to do that."
The decision was also personal: She grew up in southern California, and often competed in soccer, volleyball and softball in the LA area. She spent the first eight years of her life in Hawaii, still has a lot of extended family there, and in California her family developed a large network of Polynesian friends.
"This is my home state," she said. "It's been a place I've always been comfortable. ... I will have to wrap my head around how big it is, but it's a place I am familiar with and really love. I'm reaching back to where my roots are. ... This is a place I can experience my culture fully and I'm reaching for that too, so it's both professional and personal."
Her last day with the city was May 6.
Esposito, who graduated from high school in Oceanside, California, in 1990, has been in the Midwest since college, when she came to Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, on a volleyball scholarship. She earned her undergraduate degree in biology and a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, in 2002.
In 2012, when then-Mayor Chris Beutler hired Esposito to head the public works department, now called Lincoln Transportation and Utilities, she was also the first non-engineer to lead the city’s largest department.
The agency is responsible for street construction and repair, and oversees traffic operations, bus service, the water system, wastewater and solid waste systems and watershed management.
At the time, Beutler said Esposito’s problem-solving skills and her ability to work with people was more important than being an engineer. Liz Elliott, her successor, also is an attorney, not an engineer.
Esposito had worked with engineers for several years before she became head of the department, first as an attorney with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and later as part of the city attorney’s staff, representing public works.
During her time as public works director, she led the development of a comprehensive water management plan and the 2040 solid waste plan, the completion of the Antelope Valley Project, the conversion of the StarTran fleet to alternative fuels, and the wastewater system’s biogas-to-fuel project.
In 2019, Esposito left the city to become marketing director for Olsson, a Lincoln-based engineering firm where consultants assist cities with many of the same issues Lincoln faces.
The following year, Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird hired Esposito as a senior policy adviser to lead the implementation of the climate action plan, also known as the Resilient Lincoln initiative. Her job for the next two years was to lead community engagement, review and feedback of what was initially a draft plan.
The City Council adopted the Climate Action Plan in March 2021.
“Miki’s knowledge and experience, combined with her passion for driving forward climate-smart solutions, significantly advanced my administration’s Resilient Lincoln initiative," Gaylor Baird said.
Jennifer Williams, the mayor’s chief of staff, said they will name a new adviser to head the Resilient Lincoln initiative, but the timing for posting the opening hasn’t been determined.
During her time as an adviser, getting the Climate Action Plan passed was a big accomplishment, Esposito said, including getting buy-in from much of the community. Since it passed, she said, the city has initiated 24 of the goals from the plan.
Gaylor-Baird noted Esposito's work to help the city begin reducing local greenhouse gas emissions, and her work to help identify a second source of water.
In her new job, Esposito will be one of two assistant directors, under the director and chief deputy. She will oversee development services, construction management and emergency services, coordinating with other cities and regional authorities.
Her new job, she said, wouldn't have happened without her experiences in Lincoln, where she built her career, which makes the move bittersweet.
"It's just a very special place to me and I'm so grateful for the service I've been able to provide," she said. "For me, it's a new chapter, but Lincoln will always be a part of the story. I’m carrying it with me."
Margaret Reist is a recovering education reporter now writing about local and county government and the people who live in the city where she was born and raised.
An agreement will allow Lincoln police to use state facial recognition software to help identify possible suspects, a practice that concerns civil liberties groups.
Debate during a three-hour hearing Monday about the plan's efficacy pitted supporters worried about the economic and social impact of idleness against opponents concerned the plans wide-ranging proposals commit the city to costly measures and taxing regulations.
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/former-ltu-head-adviser-for-mayors-climate-action-plan-takes-job-in-la/article_a102d766-cac7-5587-98ec-eadcdd1849da.html
| 2022-05-22T15:37:06
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/former-ltu-head-adviser-for-mayors-climate-action-plan-takes-job-in-la/article_a102d766-cac7-5587-98ec-eadcdd1849da.html
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Ask Maya Patel why she decided to become a doctor and she’ll talk about her family.
She’ll talk about her grandfather, a charismatic man who would bring hot lunches to her at middle school. She’ll describe her grandmother, a devoted spiritual matriarch who would pick flowers from the garden and bring them inside for her prayers every day.
She might mention her mom, a pharmacist, and her dad, a physician, though for a while Patel wasn’t sure she wanted to stay with the family tradition. But then she’ll explain how watching her grandparents face medical challenges helped her realize that she wanted to go into medicine herself.
“You really get to know and build relationships with your care team,” said Patel, who juggled the demands of high school, college and medical school while taking care of her grandparents alongside the rest of her family. “It was (those relationships) that I really wanted to be a part of. And that, I think, is such a privilege.”
Now she’s becoming part of the medical community, just as she hoped. On May 9, her grandparents, Bhaichand Dholakia, 99, and Pushpaben Dholakia, 92, waited at home to celebrate, watching a live stream as she graduated from medical school at the University of Arizona.
It’s a bittersweet moment for the family: In a few months, Patel will leave Arizona for the first time to start her residency at Emory University in Atlanta. She’ll join her sister Nirali, who is in dermatology at Emory, but will leave behind her parents and “second parents” who helped her discover her passion.
She says it will be hard to leave her grandparents, especially knowing their ages, but wants to carry the lessons they’ve taught her as she prepares to treat patients of her own.
“I've really become who I am because of growing up with them,” she said.
A family journey, in sickness and in health
Patel’s grandfather Bhaichand started his career as a lawyer in Uganda. After Idi Amin, the military dictator of the country at the time, expelled thousands of Asians, Bhaichand, his wife and three children, including Maya's mother, Monal Patel, were sent to England as refugees.
Since Bhaichand had earned his law degree in England, he was allowed to practice in any British colony, so they left England and he continued his career as a magistrate, or judicial official, in the southeastern African country Malawi. In 1985, he and his family migrated to America. In 1996, Bhaichand and Pushpaben moved in with Maya’s family in Arizona to help with child care while Maya’s parents worked.
Maya and Monal both describe Bhaichand as a dynamic personality. Maya says he loved spending time with her and her cousins. They would all hang out in the pool, and he helped Maya learn to swim.
And he had a penchant for cheese. “He always fed us cheddar cheese. I don't know why. That's a vivid memory, but I love cheddar cheese, still, to this day,” said Maya, laughing.
Maya’s grandmother, too, was an important part of her childhood, a “master chef” and devout Hindu.
“I'd see her sitting cross-legged on the floor and praying to her gods and doing those rituals, always burning incense," Maya said. "And it's just so vivid in my mind.”
So when Bhaichand and Pushpaben started experiencing declines in their health, it wasn’t easy for the family. During the years Maya was in high school and college, her grandmother lost her ability to walk. That was a turning point.
Though Maya had been exposed to health care before, through her parents, it wasn’t until she met her grandmother’s care team that she realized what an impact medical professionals could have.
“(My grandmother) had multiple surgeries. She was in rehab hospitals all the time … I saw my grandma lose a lot of her function and her quality of life went down,” she said. “But even through all of that, and even through us accepting what the new reality was going to look like, it was her physicians and her nurses and her care team that grounded us and helped us through such a vulnerable and difficult time.”
Maya’s grandfather, too, had several health hurdles over the years. At one point, Bhaichand got sick while Monal was out of town. Maya and Monal’s nephew Nikhil took Bhaichand to the hospital. By that point, Monal says, Maya was a natural at helping him get the care he needed.
“(Maya) was such a trooper taking care of him. It took me a day to get back, but (she and Nikhil) were the ones who were running the show, actually,” Monal said.
In recent years, Bhaichand has started to show significant progressions of Alzheimer’s disease, and Maya says he isn’t the same person now that he was when she started medical school. But she cherishes her memories of his bright personality, even when he or Pushpaben were in the hospital.
“I didn't see (my grandparents) always express love all the time. But any time one of them was at a hospital, it was like the other one was the most doting,” she said. “My grandpa would sing poems to (Pushpaben) at her bedside, these loving poems.”
Navigating medical school and family life, in a pandemic
Though medical school is notoriously difficult, Maya says the most difficult part for her was balancing her family life with her studies.
“The hardest part was knowing that (my grandparents were declining) and not always being able to maximize my time (at home while) … studying and being in the hospital and having other outlets like friends and hobbies,” she said.
Whenever she was at home, Maya helped her grandparents continue doing what they loved.
“The ritual remains, but it was just different in a way,” she said. “Now when (my grandmother) cooks, she still sits in her chair and she still cooks at the stove. But she'll ask, ‘Can you see if it's boiled?' Because she can't herself. So it’s amazing how a lot of their hobbies and interests have remained the same. It’s just as they've aged, they’ve had to rely on us.”
Then came the pandemic. Maya was quarantined with her medical school roommates for a while before she cautiously returned to caretaking at home.
“It was just a really scary experience, going through a pandemic with 90-something-year-old grandparents,” she said. “We were very, very protective of them. And I think it was difficult for them because they love seeing our family. They love when our family comes into town. And for a period of months, we really didn't have anyone coming to the house.”
Unfortunately, Maya says, she, her sister and her grandparents ended up contracting COVID-19. No one was hospitalized, but she says the experience reminded her not to take human connection for granted.
“It teaches you to appreciate the people around you more,” she said. “I made sure to call families all the time when I was in the hospital (who couldn’t) be there for their patients.”
It’s something she says was unifying for her class of future physicians more broadly.
“For my class, knowing that we've gone through kind of a really difficult experience, it's brought us together,” Maya said. “It's almost like bonding through a difficult situation. I think we're even closer and more supportive of each other than we would have been.”
Preparing to serve
On graduation day, as the bagpipe players warmed up in the hallway of the Virginia G. Piper auditorium, Maya joined her classmates to prepare for their procession through downtown Phoenix.
As her friends took selfies in their regalia and stuffed cold packs into their gowns, Maya fastened a belt to her waist, a support to help her carry the Class of 2022 flag. Her freshman year, Maya was elected as one of two class representatives and had been designated as a flagbearer for graduation.
The flag dwarfed her tiny frame, but she was ready to carry it. Earlier that day, she shared masala chai with her family, and got ready with her mom and sister.
At a dinner the night before, her family members had called her “Dr. Maya Patel” for the first time — a “surreal” moment, she said.
“I've never not been a student, really. (But) graduating isn't kind of a one-person accomplishment. So many people play a role in helping graduates get to this point. I think for all of us, it's a testament to the amount of time and discipline and dedication that we had from everyone in our life,” she said.
It’s a dedication that was palpable as Maya translated for her grandparents in a video chat with the Republic. Maya, Monal and Pushpaben all teared up as Maya talked about leaving. Pushpaben was emotional. “She said when she thinks about me going to Atlanta, she always cries,” Maya said.
Though Maya says she will miss the mountains and Mexican food of her native Arizona, she’s looking forward to the journey ahead in Georgia. She isn’t totally set on her speciality yet, but she knows she wants to do something focused on adult and elderly populations. Internal medicine will be the focus of her residency.
Just as she saw physicians serving as the primary point of contact for her family, she wants to do the same for others in the future. That, she says, is a goal rooted in her upbringing.
“I feel so lucky because I feel like family has always been such an important part of my life and in Indian culture in general,” Maya said. “We’ve always been raised as a really tight-knit family.”
Independent coverage of bioscience in Arizona is supported by a grant from the Flinn Foundation.
Melina Walling is a bioscience reporter who covers COVID-19, health, technology, agriculture and the environment. You can contact her via email at mwalling@gannett.com, or on Twitter @MelinaWalling.
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https://www.azcentral.com/mosaic-story/news/local/arizona-people/2022/05/22/she-chose-medicine-because-her-grandparents-now-shell-heal-others/9681638002/
| 2022-05-22T15:46:50
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I never really understood my father. Yes, his use of the word “no” was pretty straightforward. I could ignore it at my peril. Other things he said to me, however, were open to interpretation. He was a country boy who expressed himself in ways that didn’t really have any context for me.
Hog heaven, for example, was how he described the place where I preferred to spend most of my youth: stretched out on the couch with the drapes closed and the swamp cooler on high, watching Tarzan movies on television, with a platter of jam sandwiches and a big glass of milk within easy reach. “Aren’t you in hog heaven,” he’d say coming inside after working in the blazing sun.
My dad liked to “get up with the chickens,” and was always as busy as “a one-armed paper hanger,” or “a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.” I preferred a different pace — start slow and taper off — with frequent water breaks, and a nap. Instead, he would set me to a task. Hoeing the weeds in the alley along the chain-link fence was a favorite of his.
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I confess my hoeing lacked a certain je ne sais quoi. Invariably, a couple of buddies would amble down the alley, bat and ball in hand. Dad would peer over the fence and say, “One boy is a boy, two boys are half a boy, and three boys are no boy at all.” My friends would hurry off, shaking their heads and casting pitiful glances back at me. He would survey my progress and proclaim the chore was taking me “longer than a week in bed.” All I could think of was the luxury a week in bed implied, especially if Mom kept the jelly sandwiches coming and moved the television into my room.
Dad limited my assistance to simple farm implements. Power tools remained solely within his purview, because, as he liked to say, I could “wreck an anvil.” Patently unfair. We didn’t even own an anvil.
The tall hog at the trough, tighter than Dick’s hatband, slicker than snot on a doorknob, colder than a well-digger’s posterior in the Yukon, he kept the idioms coming and kept me, the idiot, confused. A tall hog? We don’t own a hog. Who was Dick and what did his hat have to do with the cheap so-and-so at the hardware store? Ewww. And why don’t well-diggers wear warm pants in the Yukon?
And these are the ones suitable for a family newspaper. He appreciated euphemism and innuendo, but preferred the raw carnality of language, the way a lexicographer might who also raises livestock or tends circus animals.
One day my son and I were in my truck on the highway when a tractor-trailer rig passed us carrying a shipment of steel pipe. I said, “I wish that fellow had a feather in his shorts and I had that load of pipe. We’d both be tickled.”
My son said, “What?”
“Never mind,” I said. Dad would understand.
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/carpenters-column-where-on-earth-is-hog-heaven/article_d188d088-d871-11ec-af50-23b807d4c69e.html
| 2022-05-22T16:00:30
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https://azdailysun.com/news/local/carpenters-column-where-on-earth-is-hog-heaven/article_d188d088-d871-11ec-af50-23b807d4c69e.html
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YORK COUNTY, Pa. — Police are searching for a missing 90-year-old York County man.
According to his family, Wayne Deller left his home in Windsor Township around 6:30 a.m. on May 22.
Police say Deller suffers from dementia and his family is concerned for his safety.
Deller is driving a white Chevrolet Equinox with Pennsylvania registration HNY5032.
Anyone with information that can help locate him is asked to call 911.
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/york-county/missing-man-dementia-wayne-deller/521-ea6fe1f8-960b-4a67-8ddf-bb54c91bec09
| 2022-05-22T16:04:08
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/york-county/missing-man-dementia-wayne-deller/521-ea6fe1f8-960b-4a67-8ddf-bb54c91bec09
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YORK COUNTY, Pa. — A 62-year-old man died on Saturday evening after falling from a balcony in Hopewell Township.
The York County Coroner's Office said the man was standing on a balcony power washing when he fell approximately 15-20 feet to the ground.
Deputy Coroner Carissa McLyman arrive at the scene on the 5400 block of Peach Blossom Lane and declared the man dead.
The cause of his death was blunt force head trauma, according to the coroner's release.
An autopsy will not be performed but a routine state toxicology will be done.
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/york-county/york-county-man-dies-falling-balcony/521-754f727d-83d7-4327-999f-7f3a580c6bf8
| 2022-05-22T16:04:14
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/york-county/york-county-man-dies-falling-balcony/521-754f727d-83d7-4327-999f-7f3a580c6bf8
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McLean County is home to many history makers. From the county’s earliest origins right up to today, people have been shaping and molding our history in many ways. One woman in particular, who had been largely forgotten about, dramatically improved the quality of education for local students.
Sarah Raymond Fitzwilliam impacted the lives of many young people during her long career as a progressive educator in Bloomington schools. She was a reformer, a leader in curriculum development and an example of teacher leadership and professionalism of the highest caliber. Her judgment, perseverance, strong work ethic, and dedication to her craft gained her the approval and respect of her pupils, parents, and school officials.
Raymond was born Oct. 11, 1842, in Kendall County, Illinois. Her parents, Jonathan and Catherine Raymond, came to Illinois from Worcester County, Massachusetts, in fall 1834.
Like her parents, Raymond was a staunch abolitionist. Her family home was a “stop” on the Underground Railroad in Kendall County. Later in life, she wrote that when she was a small child, she regularly saw “Black fugitives off and on at my father’s residence until Lincoln’s Proclamation” (referring to the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863).
Raymond taught school in Kendall County for several terms before enrolling in fall 1862 at Illinois State Normal University (now ISU) when she was 17 years old. She graduated in 1866 and began teaching in 1868 at Bloomington Public Schools (today's District 87).
She first taught second grade at School No. 5 located at Walnut and West (today Roosevelt Avenue) streets. Bent Elementary School is there today.
One of Bloomington’s newspapers, The Leader, noted that “this was a difficult school with its ‘wild and prankish pupils.’” However, that did not deter Raymond. She met that challenge head on and helped turn that school into “one of the brightest and best schools in all the region.”
She was made principal of that school after that first year and remained there until 1872 when she began working at the high school. She became principal there in 1873.
During her tenure at School No. 5, the issue of segregation in schools came to a head. Emancipated African Americans Henry and Martha Crow moved from Kentucky in the early 1850s. When their children were old enough for school in the 1860s, they petitioned Bloomington Public Schools to admit their children to School No. 5, which was one block from their home, instead the segregated School No. 3, which was 14 blocks from their home.
Raymond challenged the system and the courts by admitting the students to her School No. 5. In June 1871, McLean County Judge Thomas Tipton ruled that because Bloomington Public Schools had provided the necessary public buildings for schoolchildren in the city, the school board had the power to say where children should go, upholding segregation.
After serving as principal at the High School for a year, Raymond was appointed Superintendent of Bloomington Public Schools in 1874. She had an uphill battle to prove she was worthy of this position to members of the community because she was the first woman in that job.
She found herself faced with many challenges in that office including having no male teachers out of the 53 employed by the district, numerous bookkeeping errors, massive debt and a disorganized curriculum. Quite possibly the most difficult challenge she faced, however, was the fact that many members of the community felt a woman could not handle this job.
Raymond met that last challenge head on and proved all of them wrong.
During her first year as superintendent, she made a concerted effort to keep the community informed about school maintenance issues. She worked hard with teachers to standardize and organize curriculum and teaching methods.
Her Manual of Instruction (first published in 1876 and revised and republished in 1883) was highly sought by teachers in all parts of the nation. Several school boards reached out and were interested in buying copies for their entire faculty.
She and her close friend, Georgina Trotter (who was the first woman elected to the Bloomington Board of Education in 1875), worked tirelessly to improve education for the city's student. Their efforts increased the number of classrooms in schools, shortened the course of study in high school and assigned more courses to the earlier grades, and almost completely eliminated corporal punishment (a form punishment in which a rod, cane or paddle was used to hit a student).
By 1878 there had been an almost 70% reduction in school tardiness, down to 1,949 from 5,000 several years prior. The number of suspensions also was drastically reduced from 353 in 1873 to only 13 by 1892.
And by 1881, the school district’s debt was completely gone.
After 18 years of service to the community, Raymond resigned in 1892, citing the need to assist family in Boston. She did spend several years in Boston and eventually married Capt. Francis J. Fitzwilliam in 1896 (the two had met while both living in Bloomington).
The couple then settled in Chicago, and Capt. Fitzwilliam died in 1899. Sarah continued to live in Chicago until her own death on Jan. 31, 1918.
Her remains were brought back to Bloomington for burial at Evergreen Memorial Cemetery in the Trotter Family plot where her close friend Georgina was interred.
As a testament to her “sincere passion, interest, and commitment of doing the best job she could for the children of the community,” in 1887 the new schoolhouse erected in Stevensonville (the Swedish neighborhood on Bloomington’s west side) was named Raymond School in her honor.
By 1992 the school was renamed the Early Childhood Education Center, but old habits die hard, and people continued to call it Raymond School. Because of this, the school board voted to change the name to the Sarah E. Raymond School of Early Education five years later.
To this day, the school on West Olive Street remains the only school in the district to be named after a teacher/administrator.
In 2009 Monica Cousins Noraian, the acting director of the Cecilia J. Lauby Teacher Education Center at Illinois State University, published her book “Women’s Rights, Racial Integration, and Education from 1850-1920: The Case of Sarah Raymond, the First Female Superintendent.” Because of her work, much more is known about Sarah Raymond Fitzwilliam, a woman ahead of her time “who magnified her office and was unwearied in her efforts to promote the cause of higher education” in Bloomington.
Pieces From Our Past is a weekly column by the McLean County Museum of History. Candace Summers is director of community education there.
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/bloomingtons-first-female-school-superintendent-inspiration-to-others/article_f459f96c-d712-11ec-80b1-e71759442029.html
| 2022-05-22T16:24:50
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https://pantagraph.com/news/local/history/bloomingtons-first-female-school-superintendent-inspiration-to-others/article_f459f96c-d712-11ec-80b1-e71759442029.html
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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WIAT) — It’s the final weekend before Alabamians head to the polls for Tuesday’s primary election. U.S. Senate hopefuls Katie Britt, Mike Durant and Mo Brooks have been traveling the state meeting with voters in this home stretch.
Britt says her mission is to continue meeting with voters before May 24. She says she’ll bring fresh blood to Washington and shake things up in the Senate.
“We have been the grassroots candidate across this election. Nobody is working harder to earn your vote and nobody will work harder as your next U.S. Senator,” Britt said.
Mike Durant says he’d bring an outside perspective to D.C. as a combat veteran and businessowner. He said at a candidate event recently that his plan is to keep getting out and meeting with voters.
“Going to events like this and making sure we get a chance to say hello and understand what’s important to people, keep transmitting the same message. We’re not changing from day to day, I am who I am, that’s resonating with people,” Durant said.
Mo Brooks emphasizes his experience as an asset. He’s been elected to Congress six times, and before that the Madison County Commission and state legislature.
In talking with voters at campaign stops, he says he has what voters want.
“What the people want more than anything else is a U.S. Senator from Alabama who will actually fight the socialist democrats and help us prevail in order to protect our country,” Brooks said.
Political Analyst Steve Flowers says in these final few days, he expects candidates to switch to more positive messaging, to campaign in their hometowns and really utilize their ground games to get out the vote.
“Who shows up is what’s important. So you’ve got to have a ground game. That may be to the deterrence of Mike Durant who really has no ground game. He has just a TV campaign, so he has no real grassroots organization, whereas Mo Brooks has a grassroots organization and so does Katie Britt,” Flowers said.
If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, as our latest CBS42, Emerson College Polling and The Hill poll suggests, a runoff election is set for June 21.
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A man opened fire on a subway train in transit Sunday, striking a man in the chest before pulling into a Manhattan station, police said.
The shooting occurred on a Q train around 11:45 a.m. moments before the subway arrived at the Canal Street station.
Police were searching for a suspect wearing a grey Aeropostale hoodie.
The shooting disrupted service for N and Q trains, which were rerouted to the R line between Dekalb Avenue and Canal Street.
Copyright NBC New York
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Authorities in a New Jersey beach community triggered a night-time curfew Saturday after thousands of people swarmed the sand on the hottest day of the year.
Officials said the overwhelming size of the crowds that amassed by the afternoon threatened public safety at the Jersey Shore. Multiple fights reportedly broke out, triggering a "public safety emergency" and 9 p.m. curfew for Long Branch.
By the end of the night, police arrested 15 people, four minors and 11 adults, in connection to fights.
Thousands of young people traveled to the beach by train to attend a "pop-up party" advertised on social media, city officials said.
Chaos reached a peak by the evening as police officers from multiple agencies responded to the beach community and attempted to control the crowds. Officers wearing helmets and carrying shields were deployed.
Tensions escalated as police used at least one flash bang and smoke "in response to fights taking place and bottles and rocks being thrown where the crowd would not disperse," the county prosecutor said.
Not long after the 9 p.m. curfew, police had the area locked down and the majority of the crowds had left the area. Countless bottles and other trash were found scattered up and down the beach in the wake of Saturday's party.
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The county prosecutor said one police car was vandalized, but no other damage or injuries were reported.
Saturday's commotion comes on the heels of last summer's beach frenzy that forced Long Branch to postpone its 4th of July fireworks show.
The curfew was scheduled to lift at 5 a.m. Sunday.
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ALBANY -- Starting Monday, Southwest Public Health District 8-2 will have only one COVID testing site remaining at the Dougherty County Health Department, officials with the department announced.
Friday was the final day for testing at the Forestry Service site on Oakridge Drive in Albany.
Due to dwindling numbers of COVID-19 cases in Georgia and more availability of home test kits, the 14-county district has condensed testing locations.
The health district's lone remaining testing site at the Dougherty County Health Department, which utilizes drive-through testing, will be open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, at 1710 S. Slappey Blvd., in Albany. COVID-19 testing is free, and registration is not required. Results are typically available 24 to 48 hours after testing.
Tests at the site are PCR testing done by self-administered nasal swab to determine the presence of the virus that causes COVID-19. It is not an antigen or antibody test.
Public health officials continue to urge people to get tested for COVID-19, regardless of their vaccination status, if they have COVID-19 type symptoms or have been in recent close contact with a person infected with the virus.
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| 2022-05-22T17:44:32
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BOLIVAR PENINSULA, Texas — Eight people had to be airlifted to the hospital and another 30 were transported by ambulance after emergency services were strained, according to Galveston County officials.
The annual Go Topless Jeep Weekend took place Saturday at Crystal Beach on Bolivar Peninsula, which leads to big and rowdy crowds.
While the Galveston County Sheriff's Office planned for the unofficial event months in advance, even more help had to be requested.
Officials say law enforcement liaisons with area school districts were called to the peninsula after wrapping up graduation ceremonies.
Other agencies included North Montgomery County, Cy-Fair Fire and Beaumont first responders.
The extra call for help was due to the strain on emergency services, according to District Manager Doug Saunders.
"Today we've seen an increase in calls for service for EMS and fire assistance," Saunders said. "We've had limited communications due to the amount of people on the peninsula."
Saunders says the incidents they responded to were anywhere from minor emergencies to major trauma.
No details or updates were given on the 38 people hospitalized at this time.
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https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/dozens-injured-go-topless-jeep-weekend-2022/285-cfe49946-6d9e-4d64-b635-a4b9e60f429c
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100 years ago
1922: Last year, according to competent engineering authority, the draft line of Flagstaff’s water crossed the supply line. That is the technical way of putting it. In plain, everyday English, it means that our annual use of water, instead of being lower than our average annual supply, became the reverse. And now Flagstaff's annual use is 20 million gallons a year higher than its average annual supply. What is being done about it? Last year we were denied water for lawns and gardens just when it was most needed. The railroad has greatly cut down in its purchase of water. Our mills were not running most of the time and could not have run all the time if they had wanted to. There would not have been water enough. Our annual domestic use of water is increasing steadily. If our sewer ordinances are enforced, there will be a greater and faster increase in domestic use of water. We have been more fortunate than we deserve in having an unusual precipitation during the past few months. Otherwise, our mills would not run this summer, or they would have to haul the water from Lake Mary, if there was any there. If we don't get a move on and stop talking, and act, we will pay dearly before we are through.
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The annual Memorial Day services, commemorative of those gallant heroes who gave or offered to give their lives that the nation might live and that future generations might live in peace and prosper under the glorious banner of the stars and stripes, and rear their children in freedom, will be held Tuesday, May 30. The Memorial Day sermon will be delivered by reverend H. H. Gillies, at the Episcopal Church, Sunday morning, May 28, at 11:00 o'clock. Veterans of all the wars, together with the public in general, are cordially invited.
75 years ago
1947: The assembled population at Wupatki thought they had an answer to rescuing a bird last week when they watched the removal of a blackbird from the stove of the Bob Upton residence. The bird, out in time for early worms, apparently slipped while investigating the chimney, and raised a mighty outcry, threatening to shake the stovepipe down. Bob climbed to the roof and peered in, locating the bird part way down, but it defied efforts to remove it. While he went for help, the bird obeyed the force of gravity and continued into the stove, where its presence was discovered by Bea Upton. She watched her time until the arrival of the Ways and Means committee, who were persuaded to interrupt their various plans for attack and surround the stove while another person removed the bird and accumulated soot. It was taken outside and given a thorough brushing before it flew away.
Recommendations of the executive committee for Arizona State College at Flagstaff to the Board of Regents of the University and the State College will take place at the board's next meeting May 27. That will be that construction begin at once on the stadium and the physical education building planned for the Flagstaff college it was announced this morning. As for the new science building for the campus, it will be recommended by the executive committee, but will not be constructed until the spring of 1948. In the meantime, architects will be instructed to prepare final plans and specifications for this building.
50 years ago
1972: Skiers outnumbered conservatives Saturday and called for management of the lower levels of the San Francisco peaks for optimum multi-resource production in the highest levels of intensive recreation. Just over 60 citizens came forward during the five-hour-long meeting at Coconino High School as the Coconino National Forest received public comments on the draft environmental statement of the land use proposal for the Peaks. Nearly 2/3 of the speakers identified themselves as skiers, members, or representatives of ski groups, and they chose most frequently suggested Forest Service alternatives of multi-resource production below 10,000 feet and recreational use above. On the other hand, a representative of the Navajo reiterated the tribe’s opposition to development on the Peaks. The first speaker was Edward McArthur of San Francisco, representing the United States Ski Association. He said there is a critical need for more ski areas in the U.S. William Breed, chairman of the Sierra Club, called for management of the Peaks to preserve natural conditions. Several speakers and letters were introduced, and the crowd dwindled from a high of about 225 people to a handful of listeners at the conclusion.
A 31-year-old Flagstaff woman was treated at Community Hospital Sunday morning for an apparent overdose of tranquilizers, and then attempted to leave the hospital later in the day before doctors had released her. City police patrolman Bruce Warner said that he found the woman in her apartment and found notes indicating that she had deliberately taken overdoses of several different types of tranquilizers, including Valium. The tranquilizers were all issued on a prescription by a Flagstaff physician. Warner’s report indicated the woman is the mother of three small children. She was taken to the hospital for treatment and early Sunday evening was reported missing from the hospital.
25 years ago
1997: An 80-year-old Los Arcos Health Care Center patient allegedly had her finger fractured between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 6:30 a.m. Wednesday by an employee who has since been fired. A Flagstaff Police Department report states that the woman could not have accidentally injured herself in day-to-day activities. FPD is investigating the matter, but no arrests have been made. The victim also suffers from hallucinations brought on by medication, according to the report.
Gasoline prices around Arizona are $0.10 per gallon lower heading into the Memorial Day weekend than they were last year. According to a recent Arizona Automobile Association survey, the average price statewide for regular unleaded gasoline is $1.34 per gallon. Last year, the higher price was mainly because the refineries in California, from where most of Arizona's gas is piped in, we're busily making a new generation of reformulated gasoline before a state mandated July 1 deadline. The national average price at that time was $1.30. The average price of gasoline in the Flagstaff area is $1.24 per gallon.
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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BLOOMINGTON — Donya Flohr knew she wanted to volunteer eight years ago, but she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do.
Through some research, Flohr eventually “stumbled upon” the McLean County Court Appointed Special Advocate program for children living in foster care who have experienced abuse or neglect.
It fit with her schedule, her interests in the justice system and health, as well as with her professional background in public health.
Before reuniting with their children, parents whose children are in foster care usually must complete services specific to their situation, such as treatment for substance abuse, domestic violence or anger management.
The CASA program enters a court case when a judge views the case as “a more serious” one that needs “extra eyes and ears to figure out what’s going on in the case,” said Eric Hansen, McLean County CASA volunteer recruiter and trainer.
There are 31 CASA programs in Illinois covering 54 of the state’s 102 counties.
McLean County CASA had 93 volunteers in fiscal year 2021. They spent about 3,790 hours advocating for 141 children, which equals about 50% of the children in foster care throughout the county.
Currently, McLean County CASA serves about 41% of children in foster care in the county, and so Hansen and Flohr said the program needs more volunteers.
“Anybody that has the ability to (volunteer), we need them,” Hansen said.
Volunteers must be at least 23 years old and commit time for the length of a case.
“We want to make sure that there is permanency in this child’s life,” Hansen said. “When so much of a child in foster care’s life is chaotic and there’s a lot of non-consistencies, we want to make sure that there is at least one consistent, caring adult in that child’s life.”
The consistency seems to make a significant difference, Hansen said as he noted that less than 0.5% of cases with a CASA reopen, “showing that CASA helps ensure a child doesn’t languish in care, and that they truly find permanency.”
Children with a CASA also spend about six months less in foster care than children who are not paired with one, according to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Volunteers are assigned to only one case at a time, which could include one or more children. Flohr’s current case involves four kids. Her previous cases also have included three to four kids, ranging from newborn to 13 years old.
“CASAs really help bring all of the parts of the case together,” Flohr said. “’Eyes and ears of the judge’ is the catchphrase, but it’s true. Case workers have stacks and stacks of cases and are driving kids all around — I cannot imagine their jobs. The CASAs only have one case that they can really focus on and make sure it’s all coming together.”
She said the start of a case and a 30-hour training session are the longest time commitments.
After training, volunteers typically spend considerable time meeting all the people involved and understanding their case.
“They get to know the child themselves, develop a relationship with that child, but also get to know foster parents and bio parents, therapists and teachers and the caseworker,” Hansen said.
Flohr said each case and child is unique, but they are similar in that the relationships almost never start with diving right into a case.
“Depending on their age, maybe we color or we play a game, or the kids I’m currently with, we’ve gone out and shot hoops,” she said. “It’s really just kind of hanging out, making sure they’re OK, checking visibly if everything seems to be OK … and behind the scenes we’re checking in on medical records or with teachers and then we write a report, which we’re trained very well on.”
The relationships between a CASA and their assigned child naturally develops to become more consistent as time goes on. Conversation topics progressively transition to questions and updates about the child's relationship with their parents.
"It builds over time and I think each CASA varies in terms of how emotionally connected they get with the kids," Flohr said, adding that a CASA also will advocate for the parents in a case, with reunification as the end goal.
CASAs then submit a report to the court about what they have found and learned about a child’s life, their family situation and all else in the months between court hearings.
Reunification with the child’s family of origin is the starting goal for each case, Hansen and Flohr said, and it was the top permanency outcome of the roughly 2,550 cases in Illinois that closed in the last fiscal year.
“By getting to know what’s really going on in the child’s life, they’re able to report back to the court as to the best interests of the child,” Hansen said. “We always want that to be reunification, but that’s not always the case.”
Other options include adoption and remaining in the foster care system.
Hansen said he thinks the program is successful mostly because of its volunteers.
“These are the people that have the big hearts that are ready and willing to take on some emotionally difficult subjects,” Hansen said. “It does get more difficult at times, but our volunteers just always come in with this veracity, fierceness about them and passion to just give back and care for children that really need it.”
The program’s next training session is July 31 to Aug. 18 from 4 to 7 p.m. each Tuesday and Thursday.
Contact Hansen at 309-888-5855 or eric.hansen@mcleancountyil.gov for more information about volunteering.
Collection: McLean County public employee salaries
The following salary information is for District 87 employees. Total compensation includes salary, bonuses, overtime, etc.
The following salary information is for town of Normal employees. Total compensation includes salary, bonuses, overtime, etc.
Total compensation includes salary, bonuses, overtime, etc.
The following salary information is for McLean County Unit 5 employees. Total compensation includes salary, bonuses, overtime, etc.
The following salary information is for Illinois State University employees. Total compensation includes salary, bonuses, overtime, etc.
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Clinton High School CLINTON — Clinton High School graduation will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 22, in the gymnasium.
Valedictorians are Dennis Lux, Luis Mendoza Jr., Noah Stephenson and Jacob Sterr. Salutatorians are Wesley Harrold and Jessie Wertz.
Justin Akeman, Hayden Alsup, Jordan Atchison, Eli Atkins, Caleb Atten, Blaise Baker, Taylor Bane, Zoe Barnes, Ella Bateson, Jaylee Bateson, Phoenix Bieber, Cadence Bishop, Ethan Boyer, Autumn Brinkoetter, Nathan Brown, Kaitlin Burton, Joshua Carter, Kylie Chrispen, Damien Clymer, Allison Cox, Payton Cross, Steven Crutcher, Wyatt Crutcher, Emma Culbertson, Emily Cyrulik, Mallory Cyrulik, Braden Decker, Logan Deerwester, Grace Dempsey, Isaiah Dial, Tierney Dial, Christian Dimas, Stephanie Durbin, Maycie Ellis, Matthew Ernst, Jasmine Ferguson, Blake Followell, Morgan Fortune, Emily Fought, Madelyn Fought, Gavin Francis, Fuka Fujishima.
Kailea Golden, Izac Graves, Chloe Griffin, Kyler Harris, Wesley Harrold, Kayley Hart, Emma Hays, Maranda Henry, Carter Hitchings, Clare Holland, Austin Jenkins, Maxwell Johnson, Corinne Karr, Leah Klitzing, Adam Kroeger.
Zackery Lauderdale, Cheyanne Lingo, Dillon Lively, Dennis Lux, Kaitlyn Mahoney, Wyatt Martin, Zachary McGhee, Brady Mcreynolds, Madison Mearida, Luis Mendoza, Jr., Erica Mills, Drew Milton, Brady Moore, Kylee Moore, Peyton Moore, Khloe Morlock, Shelby Morris, Trinity Morris, Nathan Moyer, Jocelyn Naxi, Jose Ornelas, Cortney Osgood, Taylor Osgood, Alexander Perhay, Trista Plotke.
Lilian Queen, Fatima Ramirez, Kaitlyn Rauch, Kylie Raymer, Carly Reeder, Caiden Rich, Aiden Schlesinger, Mikayla Schultz, Halen Sexton, Aidan Shanks, Carson Shepherd, Snorre Slinning, Kaedyn Sloat-Shannon, Noah Stephenson, Jacob Sterr, Aaliyah Stinebaker, Antonio Sunkel, Dominick Thayer, Emma Thomas, Olivia Totten, Kaine Trimble, Kairi Tull, Jessie Wertz, Jessica West, Justyn West, Mathis Westbrooks, Katie Wherry, Isaiah White, Jaxson White, Trevor Willis, Emily Wilson, Sophie Young, Nathan Zenger, Nicholas Zenger and Caleb Zook.
History photos: Apple 'n Pork Festival
Stew
1983: Clarence Buck of El Paso stirs the community stew at the Apple 'n Pork Festival.
H&R file photo
Sheep wool
1986: Sally Wash says dog hair is much cleaner than sheep wool.
H&R file photo
Art show
1984: Looking at the art sh ow are Wayne Wilberg of LaPorte, Ind., and grandson Jody Gourley of Rolling Prairie, Ind.
H&R file photo
Taking a ride
1990: Bob McMath sits on an International F-12 built in 1936.
H&R file photo
Finding a spot
1991: The thousands on hand made finding a place to sit and eat difficult but visitors didn't seem to mind.
H&R file photo
Making brooms
1991: Jacob Cramer, a broom making from Virginia, Ill., demonstrated his technique at the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton.
H&R file photo
Crafty artisan
1990: Woodcarver Bob Sprengelmeyer of Bloomington practices his craft Saturday afternoon at the 22nd annual Apple 'n Pork Festival in Cilnton.
H&R file photo
Yum!
1988: Kim Harris of Decatur munches corn while waiting for apple fritters Saturday at the Apple 'n Pork Festival.
H&R file photo
Museum
1990: The Lloyd Bidner barn, a new attraction at the festival, houses antique farm equipment, including a wagon, right, built by Lawrence Weaver Sr. of Decatur in 1907.
H&R file photo
Carousel crafting
1990: John Sutton of Lincoln continues his latest restoration project under the watchful eyes of visitors to the 22nd annual Apple 'n Pork Festival in Clinton. Sutton restores antique horses from carousels dating back to the early 1900s.
H&R file photo
Food tents
1979: Lines stream from food tents at the center of Apple and Pork Festival activities.
H&R file photo
Apple butter
1981: Ellis Seaton of clinton stirs apple butter.
H&R file photo
Corn-on-the-cob
1984: Judy Martin and Jeanne McLaren, both of Bloomington, sample corn-on-the-cob.
H&R file photo
Thousands of visitors
1978: Thousands made their annual pilgrimage to Clinton for the food and fun festival.
H&R file photo
Bird's eye view
1977: The barn loft gives a bird's eye view of the Clinton Apple and Pork Festival.
H&R file photo
Weaving skills
1982: As he did at last year's Apple 'n Pork Festival, Joseph Kafka of Mount Pulaski will again display the craft of basket-making.
H&R file photo
Serving apple cider
1984: whether it's hot and sunny or cool and rainy, visitors to the annual Apple and Pork Festival welcome a chance to refresh themselves. And, the many food and drink vendors on the grounds are more than happy to help out. At last year's festival these unidentified costumed young women were among the servers.
H&R file photo
Eating an ear of corn
1991: There was plenty of food available at the opening of the two-day event. At right, Bob Shaffer of Decatur and his wife Sue, shared an ear of corn as they waited in the long line for ham sandwiches.
H&R file photo
Farming legends
1992: David Laesch and son Russ, 15, of Mount Pulaski, wander among the farming legends Saturday morning at the Apple and Pork Festival in Clinton.
H&R fil ephoto
Fun at the festival
1986: A pair of life-sized stuffed dolls drew the attention of this woman and child ruding the 18th annual Apple 'n Pork Festival.
H&R fil ephoto
19th Century setting
1984: Radio in the foreground serves as reminder of modern times in 19th Century setting.
H&R file photo
Juicy bite
1987: Nine-month-old David Enger savors a crispy, chewy and juicy caramel apple on Saturday during the annual Apple 'N Pork Festival in Clinton.
H&R file photo
Bargain hunters
1987: A crowd gathers around the flea market at Clinton's Apple 'N Pork Festival.
H&R file photo
Dulcimer
1986: Bob Ryburn of Ellsworth shows Jeanne Capranica of Springfield how to play the dulcimer.
H&R file photo
Enjoying an apple
1987: David Enger enjoys a caramel apple at the Apple 'N Pork Festival.
H&R file photo
Admiring pottery
1985: Victoria Baker, Oakwood, and Lillian Bobrosky, Danville, admire pottery at the flea market.
H&R file photo
Militiamen
1984: Militiamen Chuck Franklin, left, of Bloomington and Robert Burns of Decatur fire.
H&R file photo
The Y Players
1984: The Y Players presented hourly patriotic revues both days.
H&R file photo
Chess players
1980: Winfield Scott checkmates Steve Barbas of Bloomington, one of several simultaneous opponents.
H&R file photo
Woodworking
1981: Davie Griffith learned woodworking in an adult education class.
H&R file photo
Hnters and traders
1986: Tom Addison points out to two boys what hunters and traders used in the 1700s.
H&R file photo
Parking
1986: The Snelsons of clinton charged $2 for parking on their yard.
H&R file photo
Listening to jazz
1987: Dick Butrum of Clinton and Thelma Berry of Decatur listen to jazz at the festival.
H&R file photo
Shaving
1985: Dealer Ken Seibel, Chicago, shaves with antique mirror - and McDonald's cup.
H&R file photo
Art exhibit
1984: The art exhibit at last year's festival received scrutiny from these two visitors.
H&R file photo
Painting pumpkins
1986: Amanda Bruce of Clinton is developing a serious craft painting cartoonlike faces on pumpkins.
H&R file photo
1930 log cutter
1984: don Campbell, Clinton, demonstrates the operation of a 1930 log cutter.
H&R file photo
Suit of armor
1985: Dave Granto f Bloomington admires a suit of armor.
H&R file photo
Ham and beans
1988: The nip of fall and a touch of rain were in the air, but they just added flavor to the abundance of fine foods and Clinton's 20th annual Apple 'n Pork Festival. Chick Rogers, left, of Maroa and Red Lamb of Bloomington warm up with bowls of ham and beans.
H&R file photo
Apple 'n Pork fun
1982: Just one of the many tasty foods available are "river rat potatoes" being prepared by Robert Laramee of Clinton.
H&R file photo
Funnel cakes
1977: Kappa Delta Phi sorority worked over hot stoves all day preparing funnel cakes.
H&R file photo
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NAPLES, Fla. — Despite threats and safety concerns, dozens of LGBTQ teens gathered at a Naples church Saturday morning.
City police were on hand to keep the kids safe during a youth pride conference sponsored by GLSEN which sparked controversy after advertising a drag show.
Numerous police vehicles surrounded the outside of the Naples United Church of Christ because of an LGBTQ event expected to attract 50 young people in attendance. There were about 35 protesters who showed up outside and surrounded the church campus.
Protestors shouted for kids and parents to repent as they arrived for the 9 a.m. event.
Others shouted that the students weren’t born gay.
Members of the Proud Boys also attended and most kept their faces covered.
One of the men protesting described himself as a former fornicator who chased women and used drugs and alcohol.
All of the kids attending the event inside needed parental consent.
Among the protestors was Michael Kenipp who described himself as “ex-homosexual”.
“It’s a death sentence. Not just a physical death sentence but a spiritual death sentence,” Kenipp said.
Jennifer Martinez showed up to support the LGBTQ kids who she said are having a tough enough time trying to deal with the hate she said the kids were met with when they arrived for the event.
“It’s all a fear tactic. It’s all intimidation. That’s how they do it. They spread their hate through intimidating people,” Martinez said about the protestors.
Some protestors said they were most upset that a family friendly drag show was included.
Hornet Bosa, who was among the young people attending, dismissed the concern.
“It’s just fear I guess. People are afraid of the unknown,” Bosa responded.
Daniel Shaw who organized the event as part of GLSEN Collier said the kids could care less about the protestors who greeted them with signs and shouts.
“We have way more support in this community than we do naysayers,” Shaw concluded.
Some protestors had to be removed from the property however there was no violence reported.
Shaw confirmed he plans to hold an even bigger event next year for LGBTQ teens.
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https://nbc-2.com/news/local/2022/05/22/lgbtq-teens-participate-in-naples-youth-pride-event-amid-protests/
| 2022-05-22T18:08:24
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Bishop Alfred Schlert of the Diocese of Allentown announced new assignments for diocesan priests on Sunday.
“Every year the Bishop works with the Priest Personnel Board, an advisory body made up of experienced priests who are representative of the Diocese and its many regions and ministries, to make decisions on new assignments,” the diocese said in a news release. “New assignments are designed to meet the needs of the faithful in the Diocese’s 80 parishes, as well as fulfilling pastoral needs at college campuses, at hospitals, at diocesan high schools, and at prisons and nursing homes.”
Priests are reassigned for a number of reasons, the diocese said, including openings due to retirements, requests from clergy members, professional development of priests, and the need for a specific skill or talent that is a good match for a certain ministry.
The following assignments are effective June 21, 2022, unless otherwise noted.
Pastors Emeriti
Pastor Emeritus is an honorary title granted by the Bishop to a Pastor for exemplary service to the local Church.
Rev. William T. Campion, Pastor, Sacred Heart Parish, Palmerton to Pastor Emeritus, Sacred Heart Parish, Palmerton.
Rev. Robert J. Potts, Pastor, Saint Ursula Parish, Fountain Hill to Pastor Emeritus, Saint Ursula Parish, Fountain Hill.
Pastors
Rev. Frans J. Berkhout, Parochial Administrator, Sacred Heart Parish, Bethlehem to Pastor, Sacred Heart Parish, Bethlehem.
Rev. Kevin J. Bobbin, Parochial Administrator, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Pottsville to Pastor, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Pottsville.
Rev. Monsignor Edward R. Domin, Pastor, Saint Catharine of Siena Parish, Reading to Pastor, Saint Benedict Parish, Mohnton.
Rev. Andrew N. Gehringer, Pastor, Holy Infancy Parish, Bethlehem also to Pastor, Incarnation of Our Lord Parish, Bethlehem.
Rev. David J. Kozak, Pastor, Incarnation of Our Lord Parish, Bethlehem and Pastor, Holy Ghost Parish, Bethlehem to Pastor, Saint Ursula Parish, Fountain Hill; while remaining Pastor, Holy Ghost Parish, Bethlehem.
Rev. John C. Maria, Parochial Administrator, Saint Mary Parish, Kutztown to Pastor, Saint Mary Parish, Kutztown.
Rev. Brian M. Miller, Pastor, Saint Charles Borromeo Parish, Ashland; Pastor, Saint Joseph the Worker Parish, Frackville; and Chaplain, Marian High School, Tamaqua to Pastor, Saint Catharine of Siena Parish, Reading.
Rev. Eric N. Tolentino, Parochial Administrator, Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Catasauqua to Pastor, Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, Catasauqua.
Parochial Administrator
Diocesan policy states that a priest being entrusted with the pastoral care of a parish for the first time be appointed a parochial administrator for at least one year.
Rev. Giuseppe C. Esposito, Parochial Vicar, Saint Thomas More Parish, Allentown and Chaplain, Allentown Central Catholic High School, Allentown to Parochial Administrator, Saint Charles Borromeo Parish, Ashland and Parochial Administrator, Saint Joseph the Worker Parish, Frackville.
Parochial Vicars
A Parochial Vicar assists the pastor in the entire parochial ministry. A Parochial Vicar is commonly referred to as an Assistant Pastor.
Rev. Stephan A. Isaac, Parochial Vicar, Saint Catharine of Siena Parish, Reading and Chaplain, Berks Catholic High School, Reading to Parochial Vicar, Cathedral of Saint Catharine of Siena Parish, Allentown and Chaplain, Allentown Central Catholic High School, Allentown.
Rev. Brendon M. Laroche, Parochial Vicar, Cathedral of Saint Catharine of Siena Parish, Allentown and Catholic Chaplain, Newman Center, Muhlenberg College, Allentown to Parochial Vicar, Saint Thomas More Parish, Allentown.
Specialized Ministry
A priest in Specialized Ministry has entrusted to him in a stable manner the pastoral care, at least in part, of some community or particular group of the Christian faithful.
Rev. George Ababio, Parochial Vicar, Holy Guardian Angels Parish, Reading also to Chaplain, Penn State Health – Saint Joseph Medical Center, Reading.
Rev. Christopher S. Butera, Pastor, Sacred Heart Parish, Bath also to Chaplain, Kolbe Academy, Bath; effective 1 July 2022.
Rev. Bernard J. Ezaki, Chaplain, Kolbe Academy, Bethlehem to Chaplain, Bethlehem Catholic High School, Bethlehem; while remaining Parochial Vicar, Notre Dame of Bethlehem Parish; effective 1 July 2022.
Rev. John A. Frink, Pastor, Saint Benedict Parish, Mohnton to Specialized Diocesan Spiritual Ministry and Catholic Chaplain, Newman Center, Muhlenberg College, Allentown.
Rev. Robert J. George, Pastor, Saint Joseph Parish, Summit Hill also to Chaplain, Marian High School, Tamaqua.
First Call
Rev. Kevin M. Gualano, Sacramental and Pastoral Ministry, Schuylkill Deanery with Residence, Saint Clare of Assisi Rectory, Saint Clair to Chaplain, Holy Family Manor, Bethlehem.
Rev. Gregory R. Karpyn, Senior Priest, Diocese of Allentown with Residence, Holy Family Villa, Bethlehem to Sacramental and Pastoral Ministry, Schuylkill Deanery with Residence, Saint Patrick Rectory, Pottsville.
Rev. Simon Kimaryo, A.J., Chaplain, Holy Family Manor, Bethlehem to Chaplain, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, Allentown.
Rev. Odemary Bahati Kisaka, A.J., Chaplain, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, Allentown to service within his religious community.
Rev. Daniel E. Kravatz, Chaplain, Bethlehem Catholic High School, Bethlehem to Graduate Studies in Canon Law, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada (distance learning) while remaining Chaplain, Notre Dame High School, Easton; Sacramental Ministry, Newman Center, Lafayette College, Easton, and remaining Resident, Saint Anne Rectory, Bethlehem.
Medical Leave of Absence
Rev. John A. Hutta, Parochial Vicar, Saint Joseph Parish, Reading; Parochial Vicar, Saint Paul Parish, Reading, and Chaplain, Penn State Health-Saint Joseph Medical Center, Reading to medical leave of absence.
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-alklentown-diocese-priest-assignments-20220522-rymnxbuwarfx3lnyfixzmlwuti-story.html
| 2022-05-22T18:26:07
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https://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-nws-alklentown-diocese-priest-assignments-20220522-rymnxbuwarfx3lnyfixzmlwuti-story.html
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PORTLAND, Ore. (PORTLAND TRIBUNE) — The statewide shortage of qualified public defenders — and a compounding backlog of criminal cases — hasn’t hit Washington County quite as hard as other parts of the state, but the court system in Oregon’s second-largest county is by no means immune to the ripple effects.
Attorneys say that defendants are sitting in jail waiting for representation so they can be arraigned on charges. Even with specialty arraignment blocks set up to process alleged offenders more quickly, there are still hundreds of cases pending in Washington County Circuit Court.
Legal experts are sounding the alarm. Some are calling the shortage a “constitutional crisis,” since all criminal offenders are guaranteed representation by the state if they can’t afford an attorney of their own. They’re also guaranteed the right to a speedy trial. Those rights are enshrined in the Sixth Amendment.
Both of these rights are threatened by the current shortage. While there are many contributing factors, experts say the crisis is straining the criminal justice system to its breaking point.
“I think that the people who choose this profession are people who want to help people,” said Mary Brewington, director of the Washington County branch of Metropolitan Public Defenders. “We’ve been fighting for increased funding for years … and when you ask for something over and over again and don’t get it, you either move on or try to do the best with what you have.”
While some of the current problems can be tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials say, others have been building for decades.
The first is what public defenders described as a chronically underfunded public defender system in Oregon.
While the Office of Public Defense Services (OPDS) oversees the public defenders who operate in every county, it doesn’t set its own budget. Instead, the Oregon Legislature chooses how much to budget for public defenders, leaving the agency struggling to compete with all the other things that demand taxpayer dollars every biennium.
As Brewington put it, “They distribute the money but don’t determine the size of the pot.”
But now, Oregon is seeing the effects of what has become a pronounced pattern of underfunding.
Just last week, four Oregonians facing criminal charges filed a class-action lawsuit in Multnomah County against the state for failing to provide them with public defenders.
Even privately practicing defense attorneys are seeing the impacts of a strained state system.
“These folks are just sitting there with no representation and no ability to get in front of a judge,” said Jacob Braunstein, a lawyer with Alexzander C.J. Adams in Beaverton. “It’s definitely raising constitutional issues with the right to a speedy trial and to the right to have an attorney.”
Compounding crises
While the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated a backlog of criminal cases, due to closed courts and added safety precautions, it is by no means the main cause of the public defender shortage. Attorneys say the backlog has strained a public defender system that was already at a breaking point due to lawyers working too many cases.
“I do think the other factor is just straight burnout … even though people went into public defense, and they knew they weren’t going to get rich off of this kind of work, they were eager to get into that public service,” said Autumn Shreve, government relations manager for OPDS. “The backlog was really the thing that really put this all over the edge.”
The other factor is that, for decades, Oregon’s policies have rewarded public defenders for working more cases — an effort to stretch the small number of public defenders further.
But a 2019 analysis by the Sixth Amendment Center found that Oregon’s case credits system was ineffective, both because it incentivized quantity over quality in representation, and because it failed to account for the complexities of certain cases.
“The ‘case credits’ system ultimately pays most contractors a fixed fee per case without regard to how much or how little time the case requires of the attorney,” the report states. “This compensation plan creates an incentive for most contractors and their constituents attorneys to handle as many cases as possible and to do so as quickly as possible, rather than focusing on their ethical duty of achieving the client’s case-related goals.”
While Oregon has since come up with new caseload limits for public defenders, as well as new oversight for the OPDS, lawyers say there are still larger issues to address.
A study by the American Bar Association released in January found that Oregon has less than a third of the needed public defenders to adequately represent poor Oregonians. In Multnomah County, the shortage has even led to low-level cases being thrown out.
While the problem hasn’t risen to that level in Washington County, the system is still strained. Public defenders have left their professions or left the area because of these factors.
“I can tell you that over the last several months, we’ve had four people leave,” said Brewington. “It’s not a single reason every time, but the issue we’re talking about is a big factor.”
Effects of the shortage
Those who work in the field are clear: It’s more than just the pandemic that’s to blame. While they are thankful that this issue is getting renewed attention, it’s also not like this problem manifested overnight.
“Problems that are neglected over time usually become bigger problems,” said Brewington. “It’s the longstanding, chronic under-resourcing of the public defender system that was already in existence and just exacerbated during the pandemic.”
While the entire criminal justice system is threatened, Braunstein says that he notices the impact on low-income defendants most of all.
“The lower-economic-status individuals are the ones whose families are calling us more and more often,” he said.
He often hears from clients who are struggling to cobble together the money to get their loved ones an attorney, just so they can get arraigned and get out of jail, because the court-appointed system is too slow.
Although they find themselves on opposite sides in court, even prosecutors’ offices are having to find ways to address the shortage and process the backlog. Prosecutors agree that the problem is impacting their cases.
“Ensuring defendants have proper legal representation is a fundamental aspect of the American judicial system,” said Stephen Mayer, spokesperson for the Washington County District Attorney’s Office.
He said no cases have been dismissed in Washington County like they have in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Doing so, he said, doesn’t really address the root problem.
“We oppose dismissing cases because it presents a risk to public safety and violates the rights of crime victims,” Mayer said. “Additionally, dismissal fails to address the root cause of this issue — the failure by the state to ensure (the) indigent defense system functions.”
However, as of April 1 — the most recent tally available at the time of this report — there were at least 12 known defendants in Washington County who were awaiting public defenders to be assigned to them.
What’s being done
The critical lack of funding has been temporarily and partially addressed by the Legislature through a $13 million patch-over approved earlier this year. But experts say it’s still not enough, and it will take more drastic measures to solve the problem.
“I think that you want to have a consistent approach to the way that cases are handled, but when you have a crisis as significant as the pandemic, I think there’s a call for temporary measures,” said Brewington. “And some of the ones we needed were done, and some weren’t.”
Addressing the backlog is one area where solutions came. Experts say the backlog existed prior to the pandemic but was exacerbated by court closures.
In Washington County, the DA’s Office hopes that its auxiliary court at the Westside Commons — formerly the Washington County Fair Complex —has helped to address the backlog.
“We stood up a ‘Wingspan’ remote court in the fall 2020 where we processed over 1,200 lower-level cases and were able to resolve approximately 3/4 of the cases where defendants appeared,” said Mayer.
At the height of pandemic restrictions, the remote court served as a fast track for relatively quick court procedures like plea hearings, sentencing and more.
Mayer said the use of the Wingspan court — so-called because it was set up at the Wingspan Event & Conference Center in Hillsboro — helped lessen the impact of the backlog today. But with some 800 backlogged cases that have accumulated since then, he said, the DA’s Office is working to set up another version of the procedural court.
But on the defense side, experts say these measures are just one part of what needs to be a broader approach to make sure cases don’t just keep piling up.
“It has the potential to help resolve a part of the backlog,” said Brewington. “It’s an incomplete answer but it is something.”
She thinks, however, that with crime rising and modern criminal justice reform sorely needed to prevent such a crisis from mounting again, prosecutors really need to rethink their approach to charges.
“There are probably a lot of those cases that maybe shouldn’t have been charged in the first case or been prosecuted,” Brewington said. “Some of those lower-level cases where someone is clearly mentally ill, I question some of those charging decisions.”
People on both sides of case resolution equation all agreed that this problem is multifaceted and will require a lot more than just county-level solutions to address.
“I’ve always worked under the assumption that our court-appointed colleagues are vastly overworked and underpaid for what they do in our system,” said Braunstein, the privately practicing defender. “I think it’s pretty clear right now that crime in general is up. And I’ve seen that just in these last five or so months, I would see far more calls in two weeks than I would normally see in a month in prior years.”
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https://www.koin.com/local/washington-county/public-defender-shortage-spreads-through-portland-region/
| 2022-05-22T18:28:27
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| 2022-05-22T18:37:37
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SAN ANTONIO — Authorities said the search for a suspect has ended. He is accused of claiming to be a San Antonio police officer, forcing his way into a home.
Previously, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said on May 21, Salvatore Alfieri IV was wearing police insignia and carrying a handgun. He went up to a home and told the people inside he was an SAPD officer.
Alfieri reportedly demanded he enter the home, saying he worked for "probation" and needed to search the premise for “contraband.”
The suspect forced the victims to comply with his demands and took their cellphones. He left the home in a Ford Escape which was later identified through images obtained from various security cameras.
Here are the photos BCSO shared:
"We urge the public to be vigilant and report any suspicious activity," BCSO said.
See BCSO's Facebook post here.
The following are the charges and warrants filed against the suspect:
- Unlawful restraint
- Interference with emergency telephone call
- Impersonating public servant
- Burg hab-intent commit felony
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https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/man-accused-pretending-san-antonio-police-officer-forces-way-into-home-bexar-county-sheriffs-office-searching-suspect/273-4c1e8f3f-8f68-4f1c-97a0-64e052244c5a
| 2022-05-22T18:41:07
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| 2022-05-22T18:41:56
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BOISE, Idaho —
This story originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
An effort by a slate of far-right candidates to take over Republican-held offices in Idaho largely failed at the state level in last week’s primary election, but results were more mixed in legislative races, and the Idaho Legislature will see significant change next year.
Already, due to redistricting, retirements, lawmakers running for higher offices and primary election results, there will be nearly 50 new faces in legislative chambers — 18 in the 35-member Senate and 31 in the 70-member House – and that’s not counting any additional changes as a result of the general election in November.
And while some of the loudest far-right voices in the House will be gone – including Reps. Ron Nate, R-Rexburg, the de facto leader of the “liberty” legislators, Chad Christensen, R-Iona, and Karey Hanks, R-St. Anthony – the Senate likely will have far more members from that wing of the Idaho GOP. That includes some moving over from the House, some who defeated high-ranking Senate committee chairs, and some making unexpected comebacks, like tax-protesting former North Idaho Rep. Phil Hart.
“The House becomes less radical, the Senate becomes more radical,” said former longtime GOP Secretary of State Ben Ysursa. “Who’s the backstop?”
House Assistant Minority Leader Lauren Necochea, D-Boise, who also is chair of the Idaho Democratic Party, said, “Everyone is really talking about the changes to the Senate. … If all of the far-right Senate candidates who came out of the primary prevail in the general election, we’re going to see a very different Senate with a far-right turn in Senate leadership.”
Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, R-Boise, noted that due to primary election defeats, the Senate is losing key committee chairs and longtime senators. Those include Senate Education Chairman Steven Thayn of Emmett; Tax Chair Jim Rice of Caldwell; Commerce Chair Jim Patrick of Twin Falls; Health and Welfare Chair Fred Martin of Boise; and Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee Co-Chair Jeff Agenbroad of Nampa.
“That’s a huge loss,” Winder said. “He did such a great job this year stepping in as co-chair.” And with that budget-writing panel’s Senate vice-chair, Carl Crabtree, R-Grangeville, also falling to a challenge from the right in the primary, “It’s going to leave a big hole there.”
Also defeated in the primary were JFAC member Sen. Jim Woodward, R-Sagle, who fell to Idaho Freedom PAC-endorsed candidate Scott Herndon in the primary; and Sen. Peter Riggs, R-Coeur d’Alene, who lost to the PAC’s pick, Carl Bjerke. In addition, JFAC member Sen. Mark Nye, D-Pocatello, retired.
The morning after the election, Winder said, “I’ve had several members call me already and ask me what I was going to do. I need to think about it. We lost a lot of seniority out of the group.”
The House side of the joint committee already was losing its House co-chair, Rep. Rick Youngblood, R-Nampa, and vice-chair, Rep. Caroline Nilsson Troy, R-Genesee, to retirement. In addition, there are four more House departures, three who lost in the GOP primary and a fourth, Rep. Priscilla Giddings, R-White Bird, who stepped down to run unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor.
All told, that’s 11 members of the key 20-member panel who won’t be back next year, and that’s before any November election changes.
But the changes in the Senate may have even more impact. “The House has passed a slew of extreme bills that then died in the Senate,” Necochea said, “and this is their strategy to take away the Senate’s ability to stop those harmful things.”
She cited House-passed bills to criminalize librarians if minors check out “harmful” materials; to impose felony penalties on doctors and parents if minors receive gender-affirming medical care; and far-reaching changes to Idaho election laws that she said “would have made it absurdly difficult to vote in Idaho.”
“Idahoans were protected from the grim reality of these bills actually being enacted by a Senate where cooler heads sometimes prevailed,” Necochea said. “I predict broad consolidating around Democratic candidates for the Senate in key races, because I hear from so many longtime Republicans that they don’t recognize their party any more.”
Winder doesn’t think the Senate changes go that far. He noted that the Senate also gained some more moderate Republicans in the primary, including former Rep. Linda Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, who faces only a Constitution Party challenger in November.
“When you look at the core of the caucus, it’s still the same,” Winder said. “We lost some up north, we gained some. … All of our leadership team stayed together. So all in all, I have great hope for the new members coming in and for the ability of the existing members to work with the new members coming in. We’ll maintain the civility and collegiality and thoughtfulness of the Senate.”
Two of the Senate’s most outspoken conservatives, Sens. Christy Zito, R-Hammett, and Regina Bayer, R-Meridian, retired; former Mountain Home city councilman Geoff Schroeder and Meridian City Council President Treg Bernt, both of whom were recommended by the anti-extremism Idaho 97 Project, won the GOP primaries for those two seats.
Meanwhile, seven current House members won primary races for Senate seats, including two endorsed by the Idaho Freedom PAC, Doug Okunewicz of Hayden and Tammy Nichols of Middleton; two other conservatives, Ben Adams of Nampa and Codi Galloway of Boise; two more mainstream Republicans, Hartgen and Laurie Lickley of Jerome; and one Democrat, James Ruchti of Pocatello, who is seeking Nye’s seat.
Ysursa said he hopes Winder’s right. “I’m optimistic that cooler heads will prevail,” he said, but added, “I might be naïve.”
North Idaho saw the most far-right wins in the GOP primary, with every seat in District 4 in Coeur d’Alene, for example, claimed by Idaho Freedom PAC-endorsed newcomers. But eastern Idaho saw more mainstream Republicans prevail, with Hanks losing to former Rep. Jerald Raymond; Nate losing to former Rep. Britt Raybould of Rexburg, and Christensen losing to Josh Wheeler of Ammon.
Results were more mixed in the Treasure Valley, where GOP primary losses include Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt, R-Eagle, the lead sponsor of the librarian bill; and Rep. Greg Chaney, R-Caldwell, the outspoken critic of the Idaho Freedom Foundation whose bid for an open Senate seat lost out to Idaho Freedom PAC-endorsed candidate Chris Trakel.
Tom Luna, Idaho Republican Party chair, said he believes Democrats are gearing up to turn Idaho blue the way the party successfully shifted political winds in Colorado and Nevada.
“They see opportunity because we are a fast-growing state,” Luna told a GOP unity rally at the state Capitol on Wednesday. “It’s a fascinating story about how the Democrats flipped a very solid red state in Colorado to a blue state, and then decided, huh, I wonder if this will work in Arizona, I wonder if it would work in New Mexico, I wonder if it would work in Nevada, and it did – and now they’re here. We’re in their crosshairs. So we don’t take anything for granted.”
Necochea confirmed that Idaho Democrats have seen upticks in fundraising, both from the national party and from in-state sources; by July, she expects the party to have 16 staffers. “We are ramping up,” she said. “Our party is stronger than it’s been in a long time.”
“Idaho continues to get national attention, national press for our extremist politicians,” Necochea said, “and many Idahoans are weary of that and want to be part of turning the tide.”
Betsy Z. Russell is the Boise bureau chief and state capitol reporter for the Idaho Press and Adams Publishing Group. Follow her on Twitter at @BetsyZRussell.
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/may-primary-sets-stage-for-a-different-idaho-senate/277-24bd805e-1de9-4c29-9874-1a73d7c64b4e
| 2022-05-22T18:58:32
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-press/may-primary-sets-stage-for-a-different-idaho-senate/277-24bd805e-1de9-4c29-9874-1a73d7c64b4e
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BOISE, Idaho — Idaho State Police troopers are investigating a car crash that occurred in Elmore County on Saturday night at 5:18.
Police say a 36-year-old male from Mountain Home, was driving a 2007 Pontiac G6 southbound on State Highway 51. A juvenile from Mountain Home, driving a 2000 Honda Accord eastbound on Old Grandview Highway, failed to yield at a stop sign and was struck by the Pontiac.
Neither driver was wearing their seatbelts and both were taken to a local hospital by ground ambulance.
Traffic was blocked for nearly three hours on SH51 while emergency responders worked to clear the accident and help those involved.
Idaho State Police have opened an investigation into the accident.
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-state-police-investigating-car-collision-in-elmore-county/277-20206b33-3bc6-446b-a877-7c182421db9d
| 2022-05-22T18:58:38
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https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/idaho-state-police-investigating-car-collision-in-elmore-county/277-20206b33-3bc6-446b-a877-7c182421db9d
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Man dies after being found with apparent gunshot wound near Bell Road and 32nd Street
Angela Cordoba Perez
Arizona Republic
A man died after being shot Saturday night near Bell Road and 32nd Street, according to Phoenix police.
Officers responded to a shooting call in the area around 11 p.m. and found Timothy Eubanks, 38, with an apparent gunshot wound, police said. He was hospitalized and later pronounced dead.
It is unclear what led to the shooting.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Phoenix Police Department or Silent Witness at at 480-WITNESS (480-948-6377) or 480-TESTIGO (480-837-8446) for Spanish.
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/phoenix-breaking/2022/05/22/man-dies-after-being-shot-near-bell-road-and-32nd-street/9884730002/
| 2022-05-22T19:07:10
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-breaking/2022/05/22/man-dies-after-being-shot-near-bell-road-and-32nd-street/9884730002/
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1 dead, 2 injured after collision near Bell Road and Tatum Boulevard
Angela Cordoba Perez
Arizona Republic
A man died after he crashed into another car Saturday night near Bell Road and Tatum Boulevard.
Around 10:30 p.m. the man was driving when he collided with a car that was stopped in traffic, according to Phoenix police. He was hospitalized and later pronounced dead.
Two women who were in the other car only had minor injuries, according to police.
Impairment or speed are not suspected factors in the collision.
Reach breaking news reporter Angela Cordoba Perez at Angela.CordobaPerez@Gannett.com or on Twitter @AngelaCordobaP.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2022/05/22/1-dead-2-injured-after-collision-near-bell-road-and-tatum-boulevard/9884526002/
| 2022-05-22T19:07:16
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2022/05/22/1-dead-2-injured-after-collision-near-bell-road-and-tatum-boulevard/9884526002/
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Phoenix police: Man struck, killed after crossing mid-block near 12th Street and Camelback Road
Angela Cordoba Perez
Arizona Republic
A man who was crossing a road mid-block was struck and killed by a car Saturday night near 12th Street and Camelback Road.
Around 8 p.m. officers responded to the area and learned the man was crossing the road when a car traveling westbound on Camelback Road hit him, according to Phoenix police. The man, later identified as 53-year-old Steven Groseclose, was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Two men who were in the car were uninjured. Police said there were no signs that the driver was impaired.
Reach breaking news reporter Angela Cordoba Perez at Angela.CordobaPerez@Gannett.com or on Twitter @AngelaCordobaP.
Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix-traffic/2022/05/22/phoenix-police-man-struck-killed-near-camelback-road-and-12-th-street/9884942002/
| 2022-05-22T19:07:22
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PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Crisis negotiators and a Special Emergency Reaction Team have responded to an area in Southeast Portland where authorities say a man has apparently barricaded himself in his car and is believed to be armed.
The Portland Police Bureau says officers responded to an accident between two drivers around 9 a.m. near the corner of SE 129th Avenue and SE Division Street. One driver called 911 and told police the other had a gun and was sitting inside of his car.
Police say they learned the suspect pointed the gun at the driver and then aimed it at his own head. Negotiators and SERT were called to the scene because he refused to get out of his car.
A KOIN 6 News Crew is at the scene.
Authorities have taped off the area and SE Division is closed between SE 125th and 136th.
Police are speaking with the man, but details on the situation are limited.
This is a developing story.
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https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/heavy-police-presence-near-powellhurst-gilbert-neighborhood/
| 2022-05-22T19:12:12
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https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/heavy-police-presence-near-powellhurst-gilbert-neighborhood/
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LANCASTER, Pa. — Editor's note: The above video is from May 16.
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, the Democratic nominee in the state’s high-profile U.S. Senate contest, has been released from the hospital after a stay of more than a week following a stroke, his wife and his campaign said Sunday.
“João is headed home — time to rest and recover (and annoy me)!" his wife, Gisele Fetterman, tweeted. “I’m so grateful for the amazing staff at Lancaster General for taking such good care of him from start to finish."
Fetterman said in a statement that he was headed home to Braddock and “could not be happier to finally be heading home to be with my family."
“I am feeling great, but per my doctor’s orders, and Gisele’s orders, I am going to continue to rest and recover," he said. “Later this week I will have a follow-up visit with my doctors at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital. I am going to take the time I need now to rest and get to 100% so I can go full speed soon and flip this seat blue.”
Fetterman, 52, had been at Lancaster General Hospital since May 13. He had been scheduled to appear at a campaign event at Millersville University, but his wife “noticed that John was not himself, and shortly after he started slurring his speech,” a campaign spokesperson said.
Fetterman said in a written statement that he had a stroke “that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long,” but that doctors were able to remove the clot “reversing the stroke,” and got his heart under control. Doctors told him that he “didn’t suffer any cognitive damage,” he said.
Fetterman won the Democratic nomination while in the hospital, easily beating U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb.
The Republican race remains too close to call and is likely headed for a statewide recount to decide the winner of the contest between heart surgeon-turned-TV celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO David McCormick. The incumbent, Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, is retiring after serving two terms.
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/john-fetterman-released-from-hospital-after-stroke-us-senate-elections/521-a71c3c57-d311-47aa-ac3e-733daf4b2099
| 2022-05-22T19:17:04
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https://www.fox43.com/article/news/local/john-fetterman-released-from-hospital-after-stroke-us-senate-elections/521-a71c3c57-d311-47aa-ac3e-733daf4b2099
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Golden Triangle RC&D Executive Director Rhonda Gordon, left, and Golden Triangle President Doug Wilson, right, receive the National RC&D Council of the Year award from National Association of RC&D Council President William Hodge.
DAWSON -- The Golden Triangle Resource Conservation and Development Council has been named “2022 Outstanding Council of the Year” by the National Association of RC&D Councils.
The national association recognized Golden Triangle RC&D for "the hard work that Golden Triangle RC&D has done throughout the year" and celebrated the council's FY 2019, 2020 and 2021 accomplishments.
"Golden Triangle RC&D has committed and strong leadership and a talented, dedicated, and hard-working staff," National Council officials noted when making the award. "The team is flexible and can put boots on the ground … quickly. They forge new partnerships while maintaining current ones and are constantly seeking out new opportunities to learn and grow.
"The organization is willing to work and think creatively, inspire others, and continuously listen and make improvements."
Golden Triangle officials credited the RC&D council's staff, board, representatives and partners in accepting the award.
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https://www.albanyherald.com/local/golden-triangle-research-conservation-council-wins-national-award/article_976fb3d8-d9f4-11ec-8aa5-23722e09c4ad.html
| 2022-05-22T19:18:48
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https://www.albanyherald.com/local/golden-triangle-research-conservation-council-wins-national-award/article_976fb3d8-d9f4-11ec-8aa5-23722e09c4ad.html
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A glance at "current petitions in circulation for the 2022 election" listed on the secretary of state's website provides a startling look at the political pot that is bubbling now.
It's all part of the fallout from a still-contested presidential election, a violent, insurrectionary march on the nation's Capitol, battles over gun rights and a number of newly manufactured issues, ruptures in national unity, along with the ongoing slaughter on our streets and in our grocery stores.
Petitions point to some of the divisions and the distrust. And some of them would concentrate power in an elected leader, in this case the governor.
But it also needs to be noted up front that most of these proposals appear to have been generated by a small number of Nebraskans.
One would create an election integrity judicial panel appointed by the governor with power to rule on "election irregularities," another would replace the Nebraska Department of Education with gubernatorial and legislative authority, and a third would give the governor authority to overrule laws and regulations adopted by political subdivisions.
People are also reading…
Another would create a "reserve militia" in addition to the Nebraska National Guard.
And another proposes a "medical freedom" constitutional amendment to combat "forced medical mandates."
Other proposals on the unusually long list look more familiar: medical marijuana, legalization of marijuana, a voter ID constitutional amendment, gun rights, minimum wage, motorcycle helmets.
In the end, no more than two or perhaps three of these are likely to qualify for inclusion on the ballot.
It's not easy to gather sufficient signatures on petitions that need to be spread statewide -- even when you have an organized and well-funded effort.
* * *
Big fund-raising event for Rep. Adrian Smith in Omaha next month.
And look who's coming to help him.
Smith, the 3rd District Republican congressman who will be seeking the chairmanship of the mighty House Ways and Means Committee if Republicans gain control of the House in November as widely expected, will host Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the ranking Republican member of the committee who has decided not to seek reelection to Congress.
Brady will be helping Smith raise money at a June 20 pre-game event in Omaha during the College World Series.
The fund-raiser at the Old Mattress Factory features sponsorship levels ranging from $250 to $5,800.
If Republicans regain control of the House, Smith will be matched against Rep. Vern Buchanan of Florida and Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri who are also seeking the coveted Ways and Means chairmanship.
Both Buchanan and Jason Smith have raised more than a million dollars for the National Republican Congressional Committee as part of their campaigns to win the committee chairmanship.
Money talks.
* * *
Redistricting has added a couple of rural Republican voices to Lincoln's legislative delegation.
Both Sen. Myron Dorn of Adams and Sen. Robert Clements of Elmwood, who now have Lincoln constituents, are members of the Appropriations Committee, which is the dominant voice in determining funding allocations for state government which, of course, is a key economic driver and employer in Lincoln.
Sen. Anna Wishart of Lincoln is also a member of the committee.
Both Dorn and Clements have been participating in Lincoln-based legislative forums, which is a healthy sign for the city.
Last week, they joined four of their Lincoln counterparts, all Democrats, in discussing state issues with the engaged citizens who participate in OLLI -- Osher Lifelong Learning Institute -- events over coffee and pie at Stauffer's Cafe.
Abortion, taxes, the distribution of federal COVID recovery funds, water development projects, prison and sentencing reform, retainment and attraction of young people to Nebraska and the accompanying development of a future workforce were all on the table.
* * *
Finishing up:
* Sen. Clements scored highest in this past week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) ranking of Nebraska state senators based on their conservative 2021 voting records with a 96% mark. The lowest score went to Sen. Megan Hunt of Omaha at 26%.
* In an interesting choice of guests, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was the most recent participant on Gov. Pete Ricketts' ongoing series of online podcasts. Pompeo said President Biden was "slow, late and small" in reacting to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
* When 1st Congressional District voters choose either Patty Pansing Brooks or Mike Flood to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, the winner will be only the third person to hold that House seat in the last 43 years.
* With elected state officials already poised to tee up another round of state tax cuts following on the heels of a package of record tax reductions enacted during the 2022 legislative session, Open Sky Policy Institute argues that "it would be fiscally prudent to hold off on pursuing any new tax or spending measures" at a volatile time when economists suggest that the risks of recession and stagflation may be very high.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7248 or dwalton@journalstar.com.
On Twitter @LJSdon
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/ballot-petition-list-demonstrates-current-political-rumbling/article_17b0d5a0-0d28-525d-a3f6-e872afa7bed8.html
| 2022-05-22T19:29:58
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https://journalstar.com/news/local/ballot-petition-list-demonstrates-current-political-rumbling/article_17b0d5a0-0d28-525d-a3f6-e872afa7bed8.html
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